Crooked Heart

by Lissa Evans

  ‘Who is Noel?’

  The enquiry came from Hilde.

  ‘The boy who lives here. The evacuee.’

  The girl’s face was a blank.

  ‘Noel,’ repeated Vee. ‘Donald must have told you about him.’

  ‘No. There is a child here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where will he be sleeping?’

  ‘I can make up a bed for him in the living room.’

  ‘No, the living room is where Donald sleeps.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Hilde’s face dropped in shock. ‘Did you think I was sleeping in a bed with Donald?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vee, recklessly.

  ‘You think I’m a slud? I am not a slud. Until we are married I will not be in the bedroom with him.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘We’ll be getting married,’ said Donald, ‘as soon as Hilde’s papers have been sorted out.’

  Vee groped for the cup of tea, and took a gulp.

  ‘Anything else you’ve forgotten to tell me?’ she asked, weakly. ‘Churchill hiding in the WC? New branch of Lyons opening in the parlour?’

  ‘No, I think that is all,’ said Hilde.

  She was like a little iron bar, thought Vee.

  ‘And now I must go to sleep,’ added the girl, ‘or I will not be able to help the war effort, which of course is what we all have to do. Goodnight.’ She rose abruptly and left the kitchen, and Donald rose too and began to wash the cups, which in its way was as shocking as anything else that had happened that morning, and Vee drank her tea without tasting it and found herself remembering the previous time that she’d met Hilde.

  ‘Did she get the other letter?’ she asked.

  ‘What other letter?’

  ‘When I gave her your note she was expecting another letter. From abroad.’

  ‘Oh.’ Donald turned, a tea towel in his hand. ‘She’s looking out for a letter from her family.’

  ‘They’ve not been in touch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because they got taken away and they’re all dead, most likely. She doesn’t talk about it.’

  He hung the tea towel on a hook that certainly hadn’t been there a week ago. ‘I’ve got to get off to work now,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ said Vee. ‘I won’t stop you.’

  She watched him tiptoe into Hilde’s room, and return with a tie and a jacket. Was he taller than before? Or maybe he was just standing straighter, as if braced by something. By a little iron bar, possibly, tempered in some unimaginable fire.

  She must have dozed for a while, sitting at the kitchen table, because when she next sipped her tea it was stone cold. I have twenty-eight pounds in the world, she thought. She stood, and her body felt strangely light, all ballast lost, as if a nudge from a sharp elbow might send her floating out of the window. And once out there, off she’d go again on the same old journey, bumping along with the breeze, blown from one temporary perch to another, nothing to show for the last twenty years, life slipping through her fingers like sand. VERA SEDGE, it would read on her headstone, NO LONGER AT THIS ADDRESS.

  She took a mouthful of cold tea. Noel would be back soon: she had to pull herself together and come up with a plan for tonight and another for tomorrow; dear God, she had to come up with a plan for the next few years because what on earth would happen to an evacuee with no family and nowhere permanent to live? He could end up in a children’s home: football matches and community singing and a future in the forces – round holes for the squarest possible peg. Her hands were clammy at the thought.

  She went to the bathroom and splashed her eyes, and then studied her face in the mirror. The bruise was spreading; the whole area from her half-closed eyelid to her chin was a puffy palette of sunset hues.

  You wouldn’t, she thought, look at someone with an injury like that and think ‘door’; you’d think of something huge. You’d think a house had fallen on her. You’d think she’d been dug out of the ruins, lucky to survive.

  You’d think she’d come back from the dead.

  Halfway through English dictation, Harvey Madeley passed Noel a note.

  Were have you been did you run of to give your spy riport to the Germans.

  Noel corrected the grammar and spelling, wrote None of your business, you utter ignoramus at the bottom and handed it back. At playtime, Madeley came over, gave him a Chinese burn and then punched him in the stomach.

  Noel’s wrist was still hurting when school ended, and he lingered in the playground until Harvey’s fat arse disappeared round the corner. It wasn’t until he crossed the road that he saw Vee, waiting outside the Co-op. She still had his suitcase and it had been joined by a large, shabby holdall with a broken zip.

  ‘Good morning at school?’ she asked. ‘No. What’s the matter?’ She looked somehow dazed, her eyes flicking like a punch-drunk boxer’s.

  ‘I’ve had some surprises.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The flat’s a bit full now. My son’s moved his fa—’ She hesitated; never had the phrase ‘fancy woman’ seemed less applicable. ‘My son’s moved his fiancée in.’

  ‘Oh. Can’t you tell him to move her out again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s a piece of work. What’s wrong with your wrist?’

  ‘Someone gave me a Chinese burn.’

  ‘You should have clocked him one.’

  ‘He’d have beaten me senseless. Why didn’t you clock Donald’s fiancée one?’

  Vee imagined the whirl of fists, teeth, nails.

  ‘Ditto,’ she said.

  A lorry rumbled past, canvas flapping at the back to reveal a double row of soldiers, swaying in their sleep.

  ‘So do I have to go somewhere else now?’ asked Noel; there was no expression in his voice, but his face looked oddly stiff.

  ‘I told you,’ said Vee, sharply, ‘that I was going to look after you. We’re both going somewhere else.’ She saw his face relax again.

  ‘I told you,’ she repeated, more gently. ‘I wasn’t lying.’

  He nodded, diffidently. ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘How would you feel if we left St Albans?’

  ‘I’d cheer,’ he said, instantly.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’d hang bunting. I’d hire a brass band. I’d get one of those sky-writing aeroplanes to leave a message.’ He pictured the words GOODBYE AND GET STUFFED MADELEY hanging in mile-high smoke above the city. ‘I’d commission a statue of me hawking out of the train window as we left.’

  Laughter caught in Vee’s throat; it was painful, like a swallowed bone.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Noel.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, dabbing her eyes.

  ‘You can be in the statue too,’ he said.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Waving graciously with a handkerchief over your nose, like the queen when she’s driven through a slum.’

  ‘You have to listen,’ she said, trying to steady herself. ‘This is serious. I’ve had half an idea but I need your brains for the other half. We have to work out where we’re going to live and . . . and some other things as well. Complicated things.’

  Noel cocked his head, waiting.

  ‘It’s not . . .’ she picked a careful path through the words. ‘It’s not the sort of plan that you’d want to end up explaining in court.’

  Noel felt a stir of excitement. ‘You mean it’s legally wrong but morally right?’

  There was a short pause.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vee, with just a touch of uncertainty. ‘Want to hear it?’

  5th March 1941

  Dear Mr Churchill I’m sorry not to have dropped you a line since before Christmas, though you couldn’t really call it Christmas, we had mutton followed by a box of fruit jellies that my second husband went all the way to Watford to buy. He has been unwell with shingles which he caught when fire-watching at the Conserv
ative Club, so for him to go all the way from Harpenden to Watford was very kind, and it wasn’t his fault that the box was water-damaged and we couldn’t eat them.

  Our minister (Methodist) said it was a chance to return to the true meaning of Christmas, but I know for a fact that his wife won two oranges and a tinned turkey roll in a raffle.

  I won’t keep you long as I am very busy as I’m sure are you.

  1. I have been told by an old neighbour from St Albans that all those saucepans that were collected for making Spitfires last year are still in a big pile in that scrap-metal yard I told you about because they were selling stolen spoons. We’re told on the wireless to boil down pigs heads and make jam etc but how can anyone do that when the only pan left in their second husband’s kitchen is a great heavy iron pot like their own grandmother used in the days before electricity. I don’t have the strength in my arms to even lift it so will have to carry on buying jam in the shops if I can get any. And the railings are the same, my neighbour says there’s a great heap of them next to the pans. I wrote to the Ministry of Supply about it but they said anything to do with metal was the Ministry of Works so I wrote to the Ministry of Works but I had no reply which is why I’m writing to you.

  2. My second husband says well done about Abyssinia, but he says you need to pull your socks up about Greece. He was in Greece in the last war and he says you should know that they’re a tricky bunch with no loyalty, and also malaria.

  That’s all for now, except I think the lack of pans is bad for morale and since it is against the law to Undermine Morale I think it could be a police matter. Speaking of which, my daughter Vera has not been seen or heard of since November and neither has her evacuee. The constable at the station said there is no evidence of a crime so won’t do anything about it which is just typical.

  Yours faithfully

  Flora Brunton (note married name)

  20

  During raids, they sat in the cellar, wrapped in blankets, and the war was reduced to the odd muffled thump. By the light of a hurricane lamp, Noel read aloud from a succession of Agatha Christie novels and Vee pictured every scene as happening in their current house, guests dropping dead in the bamboo-papered drawing room, Hercule Poirot picking his way down the lane, spats dusted with sand.

  The house was dreadfully cold. They carried a Chinese screen down from the first-floor back bathroom and curled it around the kitchen hearth. During the day, Noel sat as close to the grate as possible and worked at his lessons. He had refused to go to school, even if they could find one still open.

  ‘How will you learn if you don’t go to school?’

  ‘You can set me essays and areas of study the way that Mattie used to. I can get books out of the library.’

  ‘What sort of essays?’

  ‘Ones with a question mark in the title. Like “What is Freedom?” or “Is the Child the Father of the Man?” Discuss.’

  ‘Discuss?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what you have to do in essays.’

  ‘And how do I mark something like that?’

  ‘Mattie didn’t give marks, she just wrote comments.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ Vee tried to think of another argument, but the truth was that she didn’t mind having him around during the day. She was still trying to get used to being Margery Overs; it was like wearing an old-fashioned jacket tailored for someone of an entirely different shape.

  ‘I can’t be noticeable,’ she said. ‘I have to look like your guardian.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I can’t risk anyone asking questions. I have to be—’

  ‘Unobtrusive.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It meant not arguing in shops, it meant walking at a measured pace instead of hurtling from one task to another, it meant not fidgeting in queues, or jumping into others’ conversation or letting out long, irritated sighs, or barking with fury when the greengrocer leaned on the scales so that she ended up paying for a pound and a half of carrots and part of his elbow. It meant keeping her voice low and reasonable. By the time she got home, she had indigestion from all the unsaid remarks.

  ‘Try this for an essay title,’ she said to Noel. ‘“Who Profits Most from the War? Nazis or Shopkeepers?” Discuss.’

  They’d been there a month when there was a rap at the door.

  ‘Only a man selling firewood,’ said Vee, returning to the kitchen. ‘It gave me a fright, hearing the knocker. Thought it was our marching orders.’

  Noel looked up, eyes vague, mind still on the page. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We can’t stay for ever, can we? It was a good idea to start off here, but people are getting bombed out, the landlord could cram this place with lodgers; he’s bound to turn up sooner or later.’

  ‘But there isn’t a landlord,’ said Noel, as if stating the obvious. ‘It belonged to Mattie.’

  ‘You mean she owned it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What, all of it?’

  ‘Yes. How could she only have owned some of it?’

  ‘If she had a mortgage, Mr Knife.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t have a mortgage. She bought it for sixteen hundred pounds in 1922.’

  ‘So who does it belong to now?’

  Noel boggled at her as if she’d just asked him how to spell the word ‘bun’.

  ‘It belongs to me, of course.’

  ‘You?’

  He nodded. ‘I’m the sole beneficiary. I actually went along with Mattie when she signed her will. The solicitor’s quite a nice man, he looks rather the way that I imagine Mr Wemmick would look. You know – Jaggers’ clerk,’ he added, when Vee stayed silent. ‘In Great Expectations.’

  She had to drink half a cup of tea before she could speak again, although what she really wanted was a large gin.

  ‘I suppose there’ll be papers and things to sort out,’ she said, more to herself than to Noel. ‘No hurry, though.’

  After the war would do, she thought. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. And the good.

  While Noel worked at his books, she cleaned the house, room by room, taking her time about it. What she couldn’t get over was the number of cherishable objects: china eggs that a damp cloth restored to brilliance; antique mirrors that reflected a softened, grey-green world; paintings – actual paintings, not prints. Every room contained something that she wanted to stroke, or hold.

  That’s what money got you, she thought: things that you wanted to touch.

  The kitchen was less cherishable, the stove a dangerous antique, the larder full of mould and mouse droppings.

  ‘What?’ asked Noel, when she screamed.

  ‘A dead mouse, I think.’ She’d reached into a bread-crock right at the back of the larder and her fingertips had touched something soft. She brought the crock out into the light and tipped it on to a newspaper. A heavy cloth-wrapped bundle dropped out.

  ‘Oh,’ said Noel, standing up so fast that his pen bounced across the room. ‘I know what that is. I’d forgotten about it.’

  She let him open it. The cloth was a silk scarf, patterned with peacock feathers; inside was a tangle of jewellery, brooch pins protruding like booby-traps, a long rope of seed pearls binding the whole clump immovably together. It took the rest of the afternoon to untangle; Noel gave up after half an hour and slid back to his books but Vee sat on beside the window, gently teasing the elements apart. There were handfuls of rings, a garnet choker, a jet mourning brooch, a necklace that glittered coldly and shouted money. And then there was a medal, the ribbon a twist of green and purple, the silver disc bearing two illegible words. She scratched at the tarnish with a thumbnail and read:

  MATILDA SIMPKIN

  ‘Your godmother’s,’ she said, holding it up for Noel to see. ‘And there’s one of those Holloway brooches as well, with the portcullis. And the safety pin with the chip of stone.’

  She stood up to get the pleats out of her back, and then went to fill the kettle. When she re
turned, Noel had laid the suffragette medals out next to each other on the window seat, like a display in a museum case.

  ‘They’re all blackened,’ he said.

  ‘We can polish them with lemon juice. If we can get some.’

  ‘Mattie was very proud of them.’

  ‘I’m sure she was,’ said Vee.

  He waited for the barb that came stitched to every comment that Vee made about Mattie, and when it didn’t come he felt a curious sensation, like a key turning in his chest. It was almost like happiness, and so unexpected that he wanted, in some obscure way, to thank her.

  ‘I know that Mattie didn’t ever have to worry about working, or being able to pay for things,’ he offered, awkwardly.

  ‘Even so,’ said Vee, ‘I couldn’t have done what she did. Do you know, I’ve just remembered that vinegar’s good for cleaning silver, and we’ve got some of that.’

  The pins came up nicely.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I had fish and chips,’ said Vee.

  ‘I found out where Mrs Gifford is,’ said Noel. ‘When you were in the hospital, I copied out a list of asylums at the library, and I went to a telephone box and rang every number until I found her.’

  She’d long since ceased to be surprised at his competence. ‘So where is she?’

  ‘Doulton Grange.’

  ‘Near Hatton in Hertfordshire?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know it?’

  She nodded. Oh yes, she knew it: Samuel Sedge lying mute on a bed while she sat beside him, chattering with bright desperation.

  ‘Could we go there?’ asked Noel.

  ‘It wouldn’t be very nice. They’re not nice places.’

  ‘I’d like to go.’

  ‘She might not even be talking. I don’t suppose she’ll recognize you.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘And it’s not as if we ever got her pins back for her, is it?’

  ‘No, I know. But now I could give her these instead.’

  ‘These? But don’t you want to keep them?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but I’d rather give them to Mrs Gifford.’