Shelter

by Sarah Franklin

  ‘Work order?’

  He glanced quickly around. Sure enough, every other man clutched a sheet of paper. He straightened up, and Joe squirmed again, squeaked softly in his sleep.

  The woman across the table sat up sharply at the noise.

  ‘Is that a baby?’

  Surely this wasn’t a question that needed an answer. He waited. But the woman waited too.

  ‘Yes.’

  Another pause.

  ‘We are not here to work.’

  ‘Well no, I’d hope not, not with a baby.’

  Seppe bridled, was about to tell her how good Joe was out felling, but now wasn’t the time. The woman looked down at her checklist with what appeared to be longing for the order it brought, then looked up again somewhat impatiently. ‘Well?’

  Seppe frowned, and she leaned forward, exasperated rather than angry. ‘If you don’t want work, what do you want? This is a construction allocation office, not a church hall.’

  He started. ‘I am looking for – for a woman.’ He pointed at Joe. ‘His mother.’

  The woman softened, smiled at Joe. ‘Daddy’s brought you to say hello to Mummy, has he?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well, tell me your wife’s name and I’ll have a look for where you can find her today.’ She looked up expectantly.

  Your wife. ‘Connie. Constance Granger.’ His skin prickled to say her name out loud to this stranger.

  ‘Granger, Granger … ah yes, here goes.’ The woman scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it over. ‘Granger. Over in Finsbury Park today – can you find that? Bus is probably easiest from here – number 19 all the way up from Piccadilly Circus.’ She smiled at Joe. ‘Won’t be long before he gets to see Mummy again.’

  Somehow Seppe managed to nod his thanks. He hoisted Joe back up, curled the parcel under the other arm and made it out onto the street. The noise and smells attacked him. His skin prickled still and his heart raced as if he’d run to London. He felt in his pocket, not for the knife this time but for the few shillings he had spare. Should he buy a cup of coffee, find a kindly café owner to warm up Joe’s bottle? He looked around, saw a brown awning across the street.

  Stop delaying. He stepped back onto the pavement, narrowly avoiding a bicycle, stubbing his toe on the kerb. Come on, Seppe. You’ve come all this way, it has to be done. The last couple of weeks, since his revelation, had been a maelstrom of covert planning. Gianni had some vague notion that it might be possible, under the terms of one treaty or another, to stay in Britain. That was enough for Gianni. In Gianni’s position, it might have been enough for Seppe, too. But it was too ephemeral to hold the weight of Joe as well. And watching Amos’s quiet, mounting joy at the prospect of Billy’s return consolidated one thing for him above all else: parents needed their children, even if they pretended not to. Joe needed to be with Connie.

  He turned around and set back off towards the bus stop.

  The bus seemed to take as long to cross London as the train had taken to cross half the country. He sat downstairs so that he wouldn’t miss their stop, had tried to ask the conductor to let him know when to alight but the conductor had just clipped his ticket without meeting his eye and Seppe’s courage had failed him. The window above him had a screw loose in the hinge; it clacked an incessant tale of indifference as they trundled up grey streets, and he itched to fix it. Is this what Livorno would look like now, the dust of a hundred bombs steeped into its people? But Livorno had sunshine, not this streaky light that left you not knowing if it was raining or the world was ending.

  In his lap, Joe stirred, and Seppe stroked his head, downy hair flattening under his palm, until the baby fell back to sleep. He didn’t know how long this bus journey would be and there was nowhere to warm a bottle; best that Joe stay asleep for now. Seppe stared at the windowpane, his view funnelled inward. In a matter of minutes he’d see Connie again. What would she think of him, showing up without warning? He’d thought about asking Joyce for her home address – they were still in touch, he was certain of it – but unless Connie had changed completely from the girl he knew, she would be softer outside, more herself. And if he needed this to work for Joe, he needed Connie to be at her most receptive.

  Looming in front of him he saw a red circle stuck through with a blue rectangle and the white words declaiming FINSBURY PARK. Seppe shot to his feet, patting frantically for the bell. Joe woke up, outraged by the sudden movement, and started to yell.

  They stepped off the bus into grey mist that seemed almost vertical, and a tidal wave of people who all knew exactly what they were doing. Seppe halted, watching the throng in front of them, Joe’s wailing adding to the hubbub.

  ‘Shh, shh, little one.’ The people jostling past didn’t seem to notice or care. He was struck again by the comparison with Livorno, a city where it was impossible to cross the road without someone knowing about it and telling others. This was a relief.

  Joe flailed, his distress building, and caught Seppe in the cheek. He captured the little balled fist, swung it gently, considering. He couldn’t return Joe to Connie like this, scrunched up and bawling. He stood in the street, parcel hooked around one arm, jiggling Joe, but it was fruitless. Joe’s face was red, tears bouncing off rounded cheeks, and he beat his fists without looking, implacable.

  ‘You know what, baby? I think now we will buy that coffee.’ Thank heavens for Gianni and his insistence that Seppe be paid in English money, not camp tokens, for the pipes he carved for the guards.

  There was another brown-awninged shop down the street from them. Was this standard for all English cafés? He’d never been to one in the Forest. Perhaps it was yet another unbelonging thing he hadn’t learned.

  The café owner glanced up from the newspaper but didn’t get off his stool. Seppe rummaged in his coat pocket and found the bottle, miraculously still upright. ‘Can you please help me and warm this up? For –’ He gestured at the baby, as if that wasn’t obvious. Seppe straightened up again. So far London had involved a lot of demonstrating he was respectable. The café owner shrugged. ‘Fair enough. And what’ll it be for you? Tea?’

  He nodded. It was easier.

  Joe settled down after the bottle. Seppe risked the ire of the proprietor and took the baby to the lavatory to change him. He knelt down on barely clean tiles, Joe balanced on the toilet seat. What should he do with the dirty napkin? He could hardly greet Connie with her son and a napkin full of faeces. In the end, he stuffed it deep into the parcel. He would remove it when he handed everything else over to Connie, take it home and wash it. No – he would dispose of it – they wouldn’t have Joe at home any more, wouldn’t need it. Joyce’s voice played in his head: waste not, want not, Seppe lad. But what would it matter? They wouldn’t have the baby, and he was going to need to find a new life. His shoulders sagged again. He couldn’t think of that, wouldn’t let himself go near it, until he knew Joe was all right. Until he’d seen Connie again, and coped.

  On the way out of the bathroom he caught sight of himself and Joe in the mirror. The baby was perfect again now, rosy-cheeked, giggling up at Seppe with Connie’s eyes. Who would be able to resist him? Seppe glanced down at his own best trousers, last worn at Christmas, the day he’d – well … The trousers were pressed and clean, but still bobbled and frayed. Shame fretted him like a saw.

  He stepped back out into the noise and grime and turned down the first street he came to. Devastation covered every spare inch. The sky, the ground – everything was grey, thick with dust and dirt. Seppe pulled his coat jacket over Joe’s mouth and held it firm despite Joe’s protestations.

  He walked slowly down the middle of the street. The bombs had had no mercy. Entire houses had been ripped apart, unrooted. Wallpaper hung from jagged edges, greens and yellows shrieking against the uniform grey of destruction. Is this what Livorno looked like now? Is this what had happened to his family’s home? In Africa, war hadn’t looked like this. War had been sandstorms and burning heat, and endless, sightless swath
es of desert. War hadn’t been a street of rubble, homes abandoned. All those people with nowhere to go, nowhere to sleep; all those letters which would come back undelivered, meals which could never again be cooked on the stove. How could he have wished this for his own city? What would there be to go back to, even if he had wanted to?

  Seppe turned left again, on to the next street, paused on the corner to hike up the parcel more securely.

  As he did, he heard her.

  His head shot up and he peered down the street. There she was, at the top of a pile of rubble, an enormous joist balanced on one shoulder, shouting instructions to whoever was at the other end of it. That should be me there with her. She shouted again, confident, in charge, and Seppe’s hands started to sweat. How badly he wanted her back, wanted those easy times back. But they were gone.

  ‘OK, Joe, let’s go and see Mamma.’ He took a few steps towards Connie. He was almost lightheaded with the shock of seeing her, even though this had of course – of course – been the point of the trip. He bent his head towards Joe’s, his cheek against the softness of Joe’s hair. If Joe went back to Connie now, he wouldn’t remember these last few months, would only remember having a mother. This would be better for him, and better for Connie too. Seppe only needed to persuade her. But Seppe would miss Joe more than he could bear, would miss his giggles, his shrieks of laughter when Seppe held his hand with an extended forefinger and helped him to walk from one tree to another.

  Ahead of him, Connie laughed as if at the thought of it, an enormous belly laugh that even from here looked like it might send the whole pile tumbling. She was relaxed, that much was clear from her stance. She looked happy. She was in her element.

  Seppe stood stock-still and looked around. Jagged pipes stuck out from heaps of rock; shards of glass were embedded into filthy puddles of rainwater collected in the dimples of bricks. What had he been thinking? This wasn’t a place Connie could bring Joe to work. This wasn’t like felling work, where the baby was safe on the forest floor; here there would be every danger of him climbing onto one of those piles and setting off a landslide. Connie would need to stop working and look after Joe – and then how would she manage? In crept the secret thought. She will need me again. But Seppe’s shoulders straightened before he’d finished the thought. He wouldn’t do that again, wouldn’t accept Connie’s best try because she saw him as a way of making things stable for Joe. She needed to want him. If she didn’t want him, then just needing him could no longer be enough.

  Connie perched on the end of the joist to drink from a flask, her head tilted back, confident. Seppe moved back to the shadowed corner where she wouldn’t see him. He felt sick; his hands had started to shake. He jammed them in his jacket pockets. If he took Joe to Connie, he would wreck everything for her. She was happy, anyone could see that. She had left, and he needed to accept it. And she’d left Joe behind. It didn’t matter if family was best: if your family didn’t want you, you needed to find another one.

  Seppe turned back towards the bus stop, determined now. Joe needed to stay in the forest – of course he did. That was his home. And what Seppe had learned from today was that it was his home, too.

  He had to find a way to stay.

  Seppe risked one last glance at the woman on the rubble, allowed the secret admission momentary life. He’d needed to see Connie again, needed to see her to know if there was still a chance. It had been selfish, and to pretend even to himself that this trip had only been about Joe was wrong.

  He knew now. Better to remember Connie happy than to compromise her life again, or impel her to compromise Joe’s. He sighed, and turned back down the street.

  Fifty-One

  IT WAS GETTING DARK now, you could only see as far as the first apple trees. Joe hadn’t been brought home for his tea. Amos would have put two bob on them being back for feeding time. He’d left the food there, a chop for Seppe since it didn’t sound like meat was making its way into that camp yet, and a plate of mash for Joe with some bits of Amos’s chop beside it. And carrots, for that babba loved carrots. But here it was, almost time for the owl in the far oak to greet the night, and no sign of them yet. Amos paced beside the window, willing them to show up. Where could they have gone?

  Footsteps came round the side of the house and his shoulders dropped. Here they were. Thank heavens for that.

  ‘No sign, Amos?’

  ‘Joyce. No. Thought you were them, actually.’

  Joyce came in, went over to the range. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Didn’t say where he was going?’

  Joyce wasn’t going to start chattering on, was she? Amos shook his head and went back over to the window. If he’d wanted a cup of tea, he’d have made one. Couldn’t be having a drink at this time of night, not at his age.

  More footsteps. Busier than Coleford on market day, this was getting. He didn’t move this time – bound to be Frank.

  But it wasn’t. It was Seppe, looking for all the world like he’d seen a ghost – and Joe. Joe was back. Amos took two strides forward, beat Joyce to the babba for once. Joe’s eyes opened, just a fraction, and he smiled up at Amos. Amos smiled back – not something you could help, not with this one – and aimed his words at Seppe.

  ‘Where the heck have you been?’ All the worry had balled up, was bulleting out.

  The lad didn’t answer, wouldn’t look up. Joe wasn’t going back to sleep neither, by the looks of him. Those blue eyes were wide open, staring up with all the answers, if he could only spit ’em out.

  ‘Here we are, then.’ Joyce bustled two mugs of tea on the table. ‘You eaten, Seppe?’

  ‘No.’

  Oh, so the cat hadn’t got his tongue then, not when it came to food. He’d be better off telling them where he’d been, gallivanting off with the baby.

  ‘I’ll just heat this up.’ Amos could hear Joyce flitting around at the range but he couldn’t take his eyes off Joe.

  ‘You going to tell us where you’ve been?’ He hadn’t been able to settle to anything, not once he arrived home and discovered no Joe. All that pacing was coming out in his words now. He could never make words do what he needed them to do.

  Joyce reappeared at the table, setting down the plate and pulling out the chair for Seppe. She sat down beside him. Make yourself at home in my house, why don’t you? Amos moved over to the chair beside his fire, settled himself in with Joe still cradled on his lap. Bess, half-asleep herself at the hearth, shuffled over to nose at the baby on his knees and Joe giggled, pushed stubby hands through the dog’s fur. Amos stared into the fire.

  Behind him, a fork was scraping on the plate – Seppe must have been proper hungry.

  ‘I went to find Connie.’

  It was so quiet Amos thought he’d made it up. He sat upright in the wing chair, his head titled towards the kitchen table.

  ‘Aye, lad, I wondered if it was something like that.’ Joyce’s voice was lamb-soothing quiet, leaving the gaps for Seppe to fill. You had to admire the way she had of getting people to tell her things. Why couldn’t Amos do it like that?

  ‘But I came back.’

  ‘We can see that.’ Another pause. Joe gurgled at the dog and it took all Amos had not to shush him.

  ‘I thought – I thought – I thought, with Billy back and the camp emptying I had better find Joe his mother, his proper family.’

  It was as if someone had slogged Amos right in the gut. How were they not Joe’s proper family, him and Seppe and Joyce? Give the babba back to Connie, who could barely look after herself, never mind a baby?

  ‘What do you mean, his proper family?’ Joyce was as shocked as Amos, then. That was something.

  ‘This – this is all nice but I know now it cannot last. You have all been kind, so kind, but now the camp is closing and the forest will go back to being just you, being empty of us incomers.’ Amos had given up any pretence now, was earwigging good and proper. ‘And I –’ Seppe raised his chest ‘– I cannot wait until you tell me it is time to go. You
have been too good to me; I will not be impolite and outstay this welcome. But before I go, I must find Connie for Joe, so that Billy’s room is Billy’s room again and things can go back to how they were.’

  Oh, that was it. His blood roaring, Amos spun round. ‘You telling me I haven’t got it in me to take care of this one and our Billy?’

  Seppe’s head came up. Was the lad going to contradict him?

  ‘Of course you can manage. But Billy is your flesh, he was born here. He needs this space now.’

  Amos snorted. ‘Space? Take a look around you, lad. Thass something we’ve got plenty of here in the forest, is space. Our Joe’s a Forest kid through and through; take him anywhere else and that’s when he becomes the outsider, you ask me.’ How could Seppe not see this? Amos felt it through his blood, rushing like the brook in springtime. He didn’t have the fancy words but he couldn’t go losing the babba. Nor the lad. He looked at Joyce, helpless. Now he knew how them ewes of his felt when he came across them caught up in a bit of bramble, waiting on him to sort their way out of the mess.

  Joyce had her hand on Seppe’s arm now, gentle-like. ‘And what’s this about you leaving? I thought you were staying on with Frank as and when this blessed war ends – heaven knows he’s still got the quotas pouring in.’

  ‘That was before Billy was coming back. An English soldier won’t want the enemy living at the bottom of the garden.’

  Amos had all but forgotten that Seppe had never met Billy; in his head they were almost brothers. He came over to the table, stood off to the side beside Joyce. ‘Our Billy ain’t going to see you like the enemy. He’s not like that, you’ll see. Knowing Billy he’ll probably start agitating to build a hut like yours beside it; I’d watch out, if I were you.’

  Joyce patted Seppe’s arm. ‘Amos is right. Our Billy coming back don’t change anything. The thought hadn’t even entered my head – nor Frank’s nor Amos’s, I’d wager. We need you here, son – Frank for the trees and Amos to have a hand with Joe. You might be an incomer, but you’re dug in now, part of the soil.’ She paused, but this time it was just to catch breath. ‘Look. I don’t know what went on up there with Connie, and to be honest, I don’t want to know. That’s between you and her. But you’re back now, and so’s our Joe. Back where you belong. You stay here, and we stick together and sort it out. Lord knows the Forest’s suffered enough losses in the name of this war; you and that babby are two of the rare bits of good to come from it, and your home’s here. We don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense, do you hear me? Ain’t that right, Amos?’