by Robin Jarvis
‘Oh, I'll have a go, but I'm not promising nothing.’
The couple kissed once more and, feeling as buoyant as a cloud, Frank ambled down the street after his buddy, whilst the high-pitched yapping of Mrs Meacham's dachshund greeted Kath as she let herself in.
So wrapped up were they in their separate thoughts, no one noticed how cold and dark the night had become. Within the dense blackout, an ancient horror was prowling and already the first chill tendrils of its sinister power were threading through the gloom.
The next morning dawned bright and surprisingly warm for so early in the year. A straggling line of bleary-eyed people slowly poured out of the Bethnal Green shelter, squinting under the white glare of the sky as they wound their way home and to work.
In one of the streets that ran off Barker's Row, Reginald Gimble and the Fletcher brothers—Johnny and Dennis—were giggling and snorting raucously.
‘Howzat—yer bleedin’ Nazi!’ Reg crowed, releasing the elastic of his catapult.
Whizzing through the air, a sharp stone zinged into the derelict garden of a burnt-out house.
‘Missed it!’ Dennis squawled, stooping to pick up a larger rock and hurling it with all his might. ‘Good riddance to the Jerry dog!’ he yelled.
‘If Hider were here now,’ Johnny fiercely chirped, ‘I'd do this!’ and he threw a charred plank into the garden, his face twisted with malicious glee.
‘Yeah!’ shrieked Dennis madly. ‘Let's kill Adolf. Kill him! Kill him!’
Chanting bloody slogans and war cries, the three boys threw a hail of stones and bricks at their target. Shaking with hatred, and sweating ferociously, they seemed possessed by some feverish, evil deity, their harsh calls echoed through the empty streets, and out over the desolation of the great graveyard of the bomb site.
Abruptly, Reg gave the others a warning shove and pointed to the end of the road. All three dropped whatever was in their hands and ran in different directions, laughing shrilly, in the diabolic influence that afflicted them.
Sniffling into the back of her hand, Mrs Meacham came tripping into the road. Immeasurable concern was ingrained on her face and her bottom lip quivered piteously. The normally well-dressed and superior neighbour of the Stokes family was usually impeccably dressed in public and never so much as answered the door if she still had her curlers in her hair. But today, Doris Meacham had blundered from her front gate still in her slippers and wearing her housecoat.
In a puling, fragile voice, she called aloud, craning her spoon-shaped head over garden walls and hedges.
Tommy!’ she whined. ‘Here, darling, where are you, poppet? Mummy's here—Tommy!’
Clutching a gatepost for support, she stared wildly around. Her little dog had never roamed off on his own before and she couldn't begin to think how he could have escaped from her back garden.
‘Oh, where are you?’ she snivelled. What did Mummy do to make you run away? I'm sorry, dear!’
Stumbling onward, she glanced left and right, despair rising in her palpitating bosom.
And then she saw it.
A grotesque gargle constricted her throat and for Doris Meacham the bright sunshine perished.
Lying in the weed-choked garden was the limp body of her beloved pet and companion. The devoted friend in times of empty dismay—gentle comforter and silent champion of the last seven years—was lying in a pathetic, broken heap on the bare ground.
The dachshund's head was battered and grazed from countless cruel blows. His silky tan-and-black fur was now matted with blood and both back legs had been crushed beneath a slab of stone that Dennis had dashed against him.
But Tommy was not quite dead. A heart-wrenching whimper squealed from his mouth as the tongue he had bitten in his terror dabbed and licked his scarlet gums that were now bereft of teeth.
Doris Meacham balked in anguish and dropped to her knees before him.
Shivering with agony, the dachshund gazed mournfully up at her with his remaining eye and gave a fretful bleat.
‘No-o-o!’ the woman howled, gingerly reaching out to calm him.
The moment she touched the dog's fur, he let out a hideous scream and twitched uncontrollably.
Doris fell back, but her tears did not blind her to the pink froth that foamed from the dachshund's mouth. The dog's tormented suffering was awful to witness but she could do nothing to end it.
Like one demented, she staggered from the derelict garden, screaming until her lungs ached, her housecoat smeared with Tommy's blood.
Out of the surrounding houses the neighbours hurried to see what was the matter.
‘Help him!’ Doris shrieked. ‘Help Tommy! Oh dear God! Please—someone put him out of...’
From the direction of Barker's Row a young woman came running.
‘Mrs Meacham!’ Kathleen Hewett cried. ‘What is it? What are you doing out here?’
She halted when she saw the red streaks across her landlady's front and looked questioningly round at the concerned neighbours.
“What happened?’ she asked them.
‘I don't know,’ one of them answered, ‘I think she found summat in there.’
Mrs Meacham nodded, but was too distraught to speak.
Warily, Kath stepped into the garden and covered her mouth when she saw the mutilated dog twitching and whimpering on the ground.
‘H—h-help him!’ Doris finally blurted through her choking sobs.
By now the neighbours had flocked behind Kath and uttered loud tuts of sympathy.
‘Only one thing you can do for the poor love,’ one of them told the girl, ‘I'll go an’ get my Ernie.’
At Kath's feet Tommy flinched and his streaming, bewildered eye stared imploringly up at her.
‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘I’ll do it.’
Grimly, she picked up a large chunk of cement and, looking directly into the dog's trusting face, raised it high over her head.
Doris Meacham's scream drowned out any other sound and she fled from the scene with her hands over her face.
In Barker's Row, Neil and Mrs Stokes were just returning from the tube station, when they saw the distressed woman gallop round the corner and go wailing into her house.
A sly, secretive smile crept over Ma Stokes’ callous face, delighted that her little suggestions had been acted upon, but as yet unaware of the drastic and extreme lengths the Fletcher boys had been driven to.
‘Make do and mend that!’ she spat malignantly.
Neil spent the rest of the day outside and as soon as he left the house, Mrs Stokes lumbered upstairs and snatched a surprised Ted off the bed.
Down to the front room she tramped, and threw the bear at little Daniel with the words, “Ere, play with that one for a change and make sure you're rough with it. That's all we'll be getting out of that scrounging little devil.’
To Ted's dismay, he endured a whole day of mauling and chewing from the two-year-old, who dribbled on him and pummelled his belly until he was squished out of shape. Yet there was nothing the bear could do to escape, for not once did Ma Stokes leave the room—engrossed as she was in cutting up an old curtain and cackling contentedly to herself.
‘Well,’ she sniggered to herself, ‘that's the last we've seen of that uppety Meacham—at the classes at any rate. Bossin’ folk round—thinkin’ she's better at everything. “Don't feed the squander bug, my dear”—pah! That mangy cur got all it deserved and good riddance, I says. Least it won't be yap, yap, yappin’ at all hours—ugly, deformed Krautish mutt.’
After wandering around for a little while, Neil found that his footsteps were leading him to the park and, wrapped in a cloud of despondency, he strolled inside.
‘You're that mystery lad, aren't you?’ called a voice directly behind him.
Neil turned and sitting upon a bicycle, with one foot on the ground and the other poised on a pedal, was a round-faced and eager-looking teenager. His mousy hair was shaved close to his head and a square of gauze and cotton wool was fixed to
his temple with a wide band of pink sticking plaster.
‘My dad told me about you,’ the lad rattled on, ‘he said you don't know who you are. I read about this man who had the back of his head blowed off by some shrapnel, who could only make noises like a startled chicken and ate luncheon meat straight from the tin for five years, until he was bashed on the head by a cricket ball. He was right as rain then, well, for about half a day, ‘cos he dropped dead soon after. Do you collect shrapnel? I got a lovely collection, found some beauties yesterday after the raid.’
‘Hang on,’ Neil said, ‘who are you?’
‘Michael, but I get called Mickey. My dad's Joe Harmon the baker—he does ARP with Mr Stokes. Is it true then, have you lost your memory or are you pulling a fast one? I wouldn't peach on you if you were, I'm only askin’ ‘cos I like to know what's goin’ on, not to tell no one else. I know lots of things. I know how much water the landlord of the pub puts in his beer. ‘Ere, don't you tell that I said that. Mind you, no one'd believe you anyway, if you are a genuine headcase.’
Neil looked quickly at the talkative lad's forehead and wondered if he had suffered a blow to the brain as well as the man who ate luncheon meat.
Mickey saw what he was looking at and patted it cautiously. ‘Not fallin’ off, is it? Good. I got this firewatchin’ the other night, got too close to an incendiary. It only frazzled my hair and scorched me skin a bit but my mum's makin’ me wear this. Do you think I should say it's a war wound? I got it on active duty so to speak, so it's the same thing. I'll be able to join up in two months, anyway. I like firewatchin’, I got a whole street to look after and when Albert Fletcher can't manage, I ride round an’ keep an eye on yours, too.’
‘Oh,’ was all Neil could find to say, flabbergasted by the adolescent's constant jabbering.
‘I know what your name is,’ Mickey babbled, ‘my dad told me. If you really can't remember anything, apart from your name of course, what does it feel like? Is it like havin’ a piece of bread with no jam on it but you know there's jam in the house somewhere only you can't lay your hands on it? Or it could be drippin’.’
‘Er... no,’ Neil chuckled, amused by Mickey's idiotic chatter and trying to keep up with his lightning flashes of thought, ‘none of those—more like a bun without a hot dog in it, and no relish neither.’
‘I've never had a hot dog. You going anywhere special?’
‘What, now? Not really, why?’
‘I’m just a bit bored that's all, Mum said I shouldn't do the deliveries today ‘cos of my head but there's nothing else to do. There's no one my age left round here.’
‘You can't even watch the telly,’ added Neil.
Mickey's eyes blazed excitedly and he pushed the bicycle forward to draw alongside his new friend.
‘Did you have a television set then? You must've been rich, I'd love to see what one's like, but they stopped transmitting when the war started. Is it like having the Gaumont in your own front room? Cor, unbelievable. Hey, you just remembered something, didn't you! Is there anything else? What was the house like—were it a big'un?’
Neil hastily shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that's all there is.’
It's a good sign though, ain't it?’ Mickey cried. ‘Maybe it'll all fall into place and you'll wake up one day and know exactly who you are!’
‘Can't wait. Fancy a walk? I'd probably get lost on my own, being such a headcase.’
“Course!’ the other replied with gusto. ‘Did you see what happened before with that dog? Weren't it ‘orrible? Them Fletcher lads are downright nasty, Albert's not so bad but his brothers stink. My dad says they did that and worse in Germany, he's glad he got out when he did. I ain't never seen them Fletchers do anything so completely awful before though—dunno what got into them.’
‘Your father's German?’
‘Yes, but he hates the Nazis and he'd been here five years before I was born. He thought our government were gonna intern him when it all started, but he was one of the category Cs they left alone and my mum's English so it were all right, they've started letting most of them out now anyway, he says. We was all worried at the time though, an’ my dad said it was getting like Germany, although don't tell anyone I said that, either. I don't know what he meant by it actually, but he isn't half frettin’ about the family he's still got over there. I can't wait to get stuck in and fight the Nazis. I was real envious when Billy Stokes went—until he died, o’ course.’
‘What else do you know about the people round here?’
And so, talking at a rate of knots, Mickey regaled him with one doubtful story after another and together they passed out of the park, dawdling through the streets beyond.
When nearly an hour had gone by, the lad on the bicycle was still nattering merrily.
‘You seen that Dorkins girl yet?’ he asked. ‘Blimey, but she's a funny ‘un. That's why the Fletchers and Reg Gimble hang round the streets now. Those kids're too scared to go into the bomb sites like they used to—not that they'd admit to it, mind.’
‘Why, what's so frightening about her? I heard Mr Stokes say she's only eight.’
‘Oh she is, but she's stark raving mad an’ all! Used to be such a quiet little thing—always hangin’ on to her big sister's sleeve and not sayin’ boo to a goose. But that were before her house was bombed. Four days Edie was trapped down there, four whole days and nights—they hadn't gone into the Anderson, see, and were all in the parlour when it happened. Imagine, all that time trapped in the dark, buried alive. The rescue workers had given up hope of findin’ anyone breathin’—it took ‘em so long to dig their way through the rubble. But when they did, she was lying squashed under her mother's body, not able to move and her big sister's dead hand was restin’ on her face—just her hand, the rest of her had been blown by the stairs.’
‘Yak! You're a bit bloodthirsty—that's gross!’
‘Eh? Well, as soon as they lift the girl's mum off her, she leaps up and legs it deeper into the bomb site, after all that time trapped an’ all. That's why some don't reckon it was her. They say that she was really blown to bits in the explosion, I seen that happen too—there was this bloke, there one minute and just his guts hangin’ off the telegraph wires the next. They never found the rest of him.’
Mickey looked disconcerted for a moment as the gist of what he had been saying eluded him.
‘The girl in the rubble,’ Neil prompted.
‘Oh, yeah, well some say, an’ I know for a fact that it was Reg Gimble said this, that what sprang from the rubble was really Edie's ghost.’
‘You don't believe that rubbish do you?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ he blustered. ‘But I was on firewatch last week, an’ cycling round on my bike just about here, when I saw her. Runnin’ like a scared rabbit over the road—I reckon she'd been pilferin’ from someone's house.’
‘Well that proves she's no ghost, I bet. . .’ but whatever Neil was about to say was lost on his lips, for at that moment he suddenly realised exactly where they had wandered to.
There were the bollards at the entrance to the narrow alleyway and rising to the left was the great, squat, pinnacle-spiked fastness of the Wyrd Museum.
Spluttering in disbelief, he rushed into the alley, crying. “Why didn't I think of it before? Of course it’d be here.’
Astonished at his new friend's inexplicable behaviour, Michael Harmon rode after him.
Neil was staring at the entrance and breathing hard.
The ornately sculpted figures that stood either side of the door were hidden and enclosed within a sturdy, wooden framework to protect them from flying shrapnel and the entrance itself had been boarded over.
Excitedly, Neil charged up the steps and pulled on the wood.
‘Need a crowbar to get in there,’ he muttered in disappointment.
‘What you interested in that place for?’ Mickey called.
Neil whirled around. ‘Do you know anything about the three sisters?’ he asked. They'd
be in their thirties or forties now.’
'Three sisters?’ Mickey repeated. ‘No, but my dad has a chum who lives in the Seven Sisters.’
‘This is serious!’ Neil insisted.
“You remembered something then?’
‘What?’
‘About where you come from?’
Neil laughed wearily. ‘Something like that, I—I think I lived here once.’
Mickey's eyes rolled in their sockets and he giggled helplessly. Then you really are a headcase!’ he hooted. That place used to be an infirmary for the loonies, no wonder Edie Dorkins is attracted to it—being so barmy.’
‘It's a museum,’ Neil retaliated, ‘I know it is.’
‘Lunatic asylum,’ came the blunt correction, ‘least it was before they closed it down.’
Neil gazed back at the boarded entrance and kicked it bitterly. 'This isn't funny!’ he roared at the building. ‘I know the answer is in there—it has to be!’
‘Calm down!’ Mickey cried. ‘It's only an empty old place. They should open it up again if you ask me, ‘stead of its lyin’ idle. Could make a useful warehouse or summat. Come on, let's go—you'll get the coppers on you if you keep kickin’ that door. They might think you're a looter.’
Neil gave the entrance one final disgusted shove, then trudged down the steps. Holding his head back he stared up at the Georgian windows covered with crossed tape and he let out a rebellious shout.
Before Mickey could stop him, Neil grabbed a stone from the ground and flung it upwards.
A ponderous crash echoed over the alleyway as one of the mullioned panes shivered into a hundred pieces.
‘Oi!’ Mickey yelled. ‘Pack it in or I'll go an’ tell the law. You'll be locked up if you carry on like that!’
Unable to take his eyes from the windows in case he caught a furtive movement, Neil murmured, ‘I've got to get inside that place. I'm positive that's it.’
Mickey shook him gruffly. ‘You better go back to the Stokes's,’ he suggested, ‘I think you need a lie down.’
‘Mmm,’ the mesmerised boy answered, ‘I think you're right. I want to have a word with my teddy bear.’
Together they walked back down Well Lane and the dark, tape-crossed windows of the Wyrd Museum watched them disappear into the distance.