About the Book
The people of Lancashire called him Billy London, although that wasn’t his real name. But he came from London’s East End and settled in the north, a mean, dark, secretive man who was interested only in lining his pockets at the expense of those around him – most especially his wife and daughters.
Ellen, his wife, bore with him for years, until she found her children threatened. Then she was prepared to fight like a tigress to protect the four girls, give them a chance of a new and better life, a chance to escape from the evil and oppressive legacy of Billy London.
There was Abigail, clever, ambitious, and with an outer shell of steel that life had taught her was necessary if she was to survive. Tishy, overwhelmingly lovely, who lived in a world all her own. Marie, brisk, capable, and nearly strong enough to defy her father on her own. And Theresa, more wounded, more vulnerable, more damaged by Billy than any of them.
As the sirens of 1939 heralded the advent of war, so Billy London’s girls began their own battle for new, triumphant, and fulfilling lives.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One: December, 1941
Chapter Two: Ellen and Lilian
Chapter Three: Homecoming
Chapter Four: Coming to Terms
Chapter Five: Cissie and Vera
Chapter Six: Abigail
Chapter Seven: Marie
Chapter Eight: Theresa
Chapter Nine: Visits
Chapter Ten: Standing Together
Chapter Eleven: Ellen
Chapter Twelve: Tishy
Chapter Thirteen: Tears
Chapter Fourteen: Confessions
Chapter Fifteen: London’s Burning
Chapter Sixteen: The Wedding Party
Chapter Seventeen: Bolton Evening News
Chapter Eighteen: Questions
Chapter Nineteen: Permission Granted
Chapter Twenty: Peacetime
About the Author
Also by Ruth Hamilton
Copyright
For the people of Bolton.
Especially for Tishy Cowlam, née Letticia Bell,
who lent me her wonderful name for this book, and
who told me all about her mother’s shop.
Thanks to:
Eddie Evans
(Dr) Sonia Goldrein
Sylvia Hughes
(Dr) Richard Leech
Diane Pearson
Margaret Smerdon
(Dr) Tony Smerdon
David Thornber
Michael Thornber
Margaret Vincent
3 September, 1939
A BIRD SANG. It perched on top of a lamp post and sent its carefree anthem to the heavens as Chamberlain’s weak monotone marked this as no ordinary Sunday. The Prime Minister’s voice echoed and died away, leaving in its wake a feeling of unreality, as if those who had heard it had been listening to a play on the Home Service. There were only two wirelesses at this end of Noble Street. Windows and doors were thrown open to allow the sombre news to spread and, as the bulletin ended, the whole area was still and quiet except for the brave starling.
The woman stopped running and fixed her gaze on the bird. A warm sun glinted on his oily plumage, making him exotic, rare and colourful. Part of her mind studied him and wondered at his beauty, but the urge to escape was still undeniable. On legs that threatened to buckle, she made her way to the main road and turned left for the town. Behind her, the starling began a fair imitation of a blackbird. They were like that, starlings. They could be anything they wanted to be, go anywhere they wanted to go.
She stumbled into the recessed doorway of Benson’s Butchers, flattening herself against a corner where cool ceramic tile met wooden frame. War. There was going to be another war. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she felt concern for her countrymen. But a state of war implied that there had been peace, and she had not enjoyed it, could not remember freedom from fear.
I am feeling sorry for myself, that’s all. That bird will fly off in a minute, I wish I could. At least the girls were out this time, I hope they enjoy their picnic. The flashing round Dr Harrison’s chimney looks loose, I must tell him when I see him, it might let the rain in.
When she stepped out into the sun, the bird – or one very like him – was pecking avidly at some titbit squashed between tramlines. If a tram came, if danger threatened, he would no doubt take wing again. She touched her injured shoulder. Tomorrow, it would be as black and blue as the feathers on her busy friend, her friend who could soar and swoop and taste freedom between iron tracks.
An unexpected smile flickered at the corners of her mouth as she remembered Dad’s pigeons. Bluey and Firecrest and Chu-Chin-Chow, the latter so named because her father had insisted that this prize bird had been bred in China. He’d been a warrior, her dad, a mountainous man with a total disregard for the law of the land and for those who attempted to enforce it. His face had been made raw in childhood by the fierce winds of Western Ireland, while the fight-flattened nose had seemed to spread and grow redder with every pint of stout, and there had been many such pints. Yet although his hands had resembled a pair of shovels, they had been tender at times. Calloused fingers stroking home a stray feather, touching the face of his only daughter with love and pride. ‘None shall hurt ye, me darlin’, not while I live.’ Pearls, those words had been, precious jewels sliding in warm Irish brogue from between blackened and broken stumps of teeth.
No Dad now. She had stood with him hour after hour in the back yard waiting for the pigeons to return from France or Belgium or Holland. Yes, she had stared into many a sky like this one. An old sock had hung on top of the lavatory shed to indicate wind direction, and Dad had always carried a battered stopwatch to time the arrivals from foreign parts. She had missed her father before, but not as achingly as she did today. It was all getting too much. She was reaching the end of her rope, and there was a war coming …
Chamberlain has given up at last. He always had about as much chance as King Canute any road. Borders will start closing now. Only birds will cross between countries. This starling has more freedom than all the people in England. France will go down. Stuck in an awkward place, is poor France, forever pig in the middle. I wonder if he’s asleep yet? He usually falls asleep after … after the Sunday beating. It’s always worse on Sundays. Bad enough the rest of the week, but there’s not much to occupy him on a Sunday.
Her eyes filled with tears. She didn’t know where she’d gone wrong, but her very existence seemed to annoy the man she had married, the father of her children. Should she run to one of her brothers, tell them about her plight? No, they would only take his side. They weren’t beyond lifting the strap to their own wives at times. After all, keeping a woman in line was reckoned to be part and parcel of a man’s mission in life. Should she walk to Queens Park and meet her picnicking daughters? Better not. They would realize what had gone on, it would be just another worry for them.
A gang of tattered lads in knee-length trousers and torn shirts whooped past, each brandishing a stick or a toy gun.
‘Fight, fight, fight for dear old England,
We are sure to win the war,
For we’ll get a salmon tin,
And we’ll put old Adolf in,
And he’ll never see his mammy any more,’ screamed the motley group.
The starling balanced now on an overhead cable, wings ruffled, beak wide as he squawked like an angry parrot. The war had begun. Typically, it showed in the children first. Two men scuttled along with small suitcases. One was Chippy Heyes, the local master carpenter, and he was accompanied by a senior apprentice, a lad who had almost served his time. It was plain from their snatched conversation that they had already been called in to create gas-proof centres in public buildings.
Dear God in heaven, this is really happening. It’s not just a bloke in London talking on the wireless, it’s here in Bolton, and in Manchester, Liverpool … everywhere. That Zeppelin dropped twenty-one bombs on Bolton in 1916, there were about thirteen killed in Kirk Street. It was in September too, and this is September. Will they come today, while my girls are out at the park? No, they’ll not be lined up ready yet, the bombing planes. They happen thought Chamberlain would back down at the last minute, he seems such a daft beggar. This arm feels like it’s been pulled out of its socket, I hope I can work tomorrow. I’ll sit in church for a bit. Praying never did any harm, did it?
The church of Saints Peter and Paul was a cool, calm place. Here, she had worshipped for as long as she could remember, with Mam and Dad, both dead now, with her brothers who no longer practised their faith, with school friends, neighbours and workmates from her mill days. It was her refuge, her final hiding place. She sat at the back, buttocks perched on the edge of the pew, elbows resting on the wooden shelf in front of her, head in hands. He would not come here. He had never been here, except on the day of his marriage.
The girls have just left school, haven’t they? And there’s been all this talk about call-ups at eighteen, I wonder if the bother will go on for four years? Happen they’ll get exempted anyway, with them working in food shops. There’ll be rations, and there’s a lot of houses round here, a lot of folk to feed. I can’t stand it. I can’t stand a war as well as everything else. Something is going to snap inside me. It’s like I’m on the edge of a cliff waiting for somebody to give me a shove. He’s pushed me this far, I reckon he can finish me. Unless I do for him first, and it’s not in me. Mrs Shipton’s funny, she keeps telling me to grease the stairs or put calamine lotion in his soup. That’s awful, is that. I shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts, specially in church.
The priest stood still and silent in the gloomy doorway that connected church and vestry. A terrible hatred bubbled in the region of his stomach, so he swallowed hard against the acrid taste. He would not vomit. Twice this morning he had received the Blessed Sacrament, and he didn’t want to spit the Son of God on to the flags. Loathing and holiness were not good bedfellows, and his disobedient gut simmered like some Shakespearian witches’ cauldron. The woman had been beaten again. He could tell that from the way she was sitting so unevenly, as if she depended on one arm.
He stepped back into deeper shadow. If she wanted to talk, she would come and find him. Sometimes she needed an intermediary, but often she spoke directly to her Maker. A good woman, she was, no lack of prayer in her. If only her husband would step under a tram, leave her and the girls in peace … He blinked rapidly. There should be no space in his heart for such destructive hopes. Better to pray now for the state of the world, for the enlightenment of the German people who had so foolishly allowed themselves to fall under the spell of an anti-Christ.
She eased her bruised body back until she was upright, hands plucking at the front of her bottle-green coat, the coat she’d worn to mass this morning. She should leave him. She should take the girls and find a couple of rooms in somebody’s house, go for a mill job, put her daughters to train for weaving or spinning. It was a straight enough choice – they could have hell at home or hell in their working lives. But wasn’t there an old saying about putting up with the devil you know? And one of the girls might be fit for mill work, but the other certainly wasn’t, hadn’t been completely steady on her pins since that fall down the stairs ten or more years ago. Shop work wasn’t easy, but at least you didn’t come home at the end of the day with headaches, ringing in the ears, and with your clothes sticking in the stiff, salt residue of a day’s sweat.
He’d find us anyway, find us and drag us back. Even if we moved to Bury or Blackburn, it would only be a matter of time. We couldn’t take the shame of it, any of us. Oh God, he’s so tight-fisted, and so nasty when he’s had a drink. All he cares about is making money, and he doesn’t want money for us, for his family. He wants money for money’s sake. We’re the cheapest labour he could get, me and the girls. Aye, he’d find us all right.
After a hurried prayer that was little more than an afterthought, the small woman left the pew, genuflected, and went out into the street. Groups of men were gathering on corners to discuss the outbreak of war, while their wives stood in doorways gazing at the sky as if they expected instant and immediate bombardment. She walked slowly into the town centre, not stopping until she reached the Town Hall steps. Here she sat and stared at the monument, her mind empty of thought, her heart devoid of feeling. The great clock above her head celebrated the time with each quarter, but she did not hear it.
Then it arrived in Bolton, the awful noise that would fill the years to come, the screaming, wailing siren that warned of enemy aircraft. Her brain crashed into gear immediately. Where were her daughters, would they find shelter? Should she stay here, should she run home? There were proper shelters where she lived, places specially built to protect the residents of Deane and Daubhill, two densely-populated areas that squatted side by side, ugly warrens into which thousands of shabby houses had been crammed. It was safer there. She didn’t know why it was safer, but it was. So many people, people she knew, folk who would help and protect each other.
And so, as the siren died away, her decision made itself. She would stay till the end of the war. Not with him, she wasn’t really staying with him. She was merely hanging on to familiar things, familiar people. She’d been born and raised in Deane and Daubhill, knew the streets as well as she knew the backs of her own hands. And the Shiptons, the Tattersalls, the Shaws – these folk were part of her pattern, they were woven into the cloth of her life. It was not the right time for a fresh start.
She trudged home to stand alongside her neighbours as they faced a long period of tense silence. Month followed empty month while the people of Britain fed their hopes on newsreel propaganda, hid their fears behind a blanket of routine and normality. When the real war eventually came, the woman worked, prayed, put up her blackouts, took the beatings, protected her daughters, prayed again. The Second World War was two years old when she finally acquired the weaponry with which she might defend herself.
By that time, her name had been Ellen Langden for over sixteen years.
CHAPTER ONE
December, 1941
THE STREETS OF Bolton were silent and dark, every house blacked out, every door firmly closed against potential chaos. On this, the 826th day of the Second World War, the British were supposed to feel a sudden burst of confidence, a boosting of morale, a lifting of spirit. America was in it. America was in it right up to her neck, for, on the previous day, Pearl Harbor in Hawaii had been bombed by the Japanese.
But life continued just as it had for the past 825 days. At ten o’clock in the evening, all was still. Many people were in the shelters; those who preferred to remain at home sat huddled in corners and stairwells, or lay on blankets spread beneath sturdy kitchen tables. Those with cellars crept below ground to spend a restless night on canvas fold-away cots, while a few rare brave souls showed their defiance of the Luftwaffe by remaining in their beds.
The man best known as Billy London was in none of these places. He stood, as usual, behind a counter in the larger of his two shops, fingers numb with cold as he counted the day’s takings. A mirthless grin stretched itself across his narrow features. Four pounds, four shillings and elevenpence. Not bad going for a little general store in the middle of a war. The Co-op down the road probably hadn’t taken as much, but then the Co-op had socialist principles. Billy himself had used to hold such ill-based maxims, way back in his youth when he’d been a dogsbody in the East End. But only a true businessman had a chance of surviving world-wide conflict. And Billy had recognized some years ago that his strength lay in the making and storing of money. He was an out and out capitalist, and he carried his status like a flag. When it came to business, William Langden was in a class of his own.
He sat back on his stool and gazed round at the shelves. The place was dimly lit by two flickering gaslights and a stub of candle on the mahogany counter, but the man could have laid his hand on anything in the shop even if he’d been blindfolded. This was his Aladdin’s cave, the showcase for his achievement. Not that all the stock was visible, oh no, he kept the better and rarer stuff in the back and stacked away in the upper storeys of the six houses he owned. In those six houses lived families he trusted, folk who, for a peppercorn rent, occupied the lower floors and kept a watch on Mr London’s assets, stuff he had started salting away as long ago as 1938. He hadn’t needed a crystal ball. Anyone with a grain of sense might have seen this war coming, yet even Chamberlain had been fooled. Not Billy London, though. As the Bolton folk often said, Billy London had his head screwed on the right way.
So by the time war had been declared in 1939, he had collected enough stock for half a dozen shops, and people came from miles around to register their ration books with him. The more they came and bought, the more ration points he accumulated, and he was able to replace much of what he sold. The black market side of the business was reserved, of course, for special and trusted customers, folk who could manage to pay over the odds for things he had carefully stockpiled. The missus didn’t approve of this seamy side of trade, though she did not air her views. She’d never have dared to open her mouth on the subject, not in his presence, but she showed her aversion by simply failing to sell from underneath the counter. To counteract her stupidity, Billy moved about between the two shops so that his illicit dealings were fairly and evenly shared between the residents of Deane and Daubhill.
The Derby Street shop served the people of Daubhill. It had three counters, which formed three sides of a square, while the fourth side contained a door and a large display window. The counter opposite the door was for groceries, the others were occupied by newspapers, sweets and tobacco on one side of the shop, then alcohol and general ironmongery on the other. He was thriving. And the Daily Express told him that he would continue to thrive.
He glanced at the front page.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT TONIGHT REPLIED TO JAPAN’S UNDECLARED WAR ON THE UNITED STATES BY DECREEING MOBILIZATION AND ORDERING THE ARMY AND THE NAVY TO PUT INTO OPERATION PLANS ALREADY PREPARED TO MEET JAPANESE ATTACK.
He was acting as Commander-in-Chief of the American armed forces. Tomorrow, a hastily convened session of Senate and Representatives will hear a message from the President asking for an immediate declaration of war against Japan.
Billy’s grim smile grew even broader. With the Yanks and the Japanese involved, the war could go on for years yet. And during those years, a clever man might become a rich man. He licked his dry lips, as if tasting the advent of true success. There were no notices about credit up on the walls of the London Stores. Billy believed in credit. Credit meant he could charge interest or take an item of value in lieu.
His smile faded until the features of his face had rearranged themselves into their habitual non-expressive mode. Had it been in his nature to be contented, then the man everyone knew as Billy London would have been a happy one. He had a decent, if somewhat modest home, two daughters who had helped in the shop ever since becoming tall enough to reach a shelf, a compliant and docile wife, and more money than most.
But Billy was essentially morose and miserly. Had Charles Dickens been around to look for a model for his Scrooge, he would have found an ideal candidate here on Derby Street in Bolton, Lancashire. This was a slight figure, thin almost to the point of emaciation, hands as delicate as any girl’s, neck stringy and stretched across a pronounced Adam’s apple. His eyes were a cold and colourless grey, while a large nose overshadowed a mouth like a slit in brown paper. His skin was dark, always tan, even in winter.
Billy London was not like other shopkeepers. No snowy white apron would ever envelop his slender form; nor was he given to wearing a brown button-through overall. His clothes were always the same, always impeccable. Dark trousers, polished shoes, a waistcoat, a good jacket and, to top it all, a black bowler hat. Few people had ever seen Mr London’s hair. Some wondered whether he might be bald, because beyond the odd tipping of the brim, he never moved his hat. It was even rumoured that he slept in his bowler, for those who had seen him answering the door of his home in Noble Street had noticed that the hat was on his head, even at the oddest of hours.
Nobody liked him. For a start, there was the way he treated his wife and kiddies. He snapped at them, barked like an angry greyhound, and there were tales of noises and screams coming from his house on Saturday nights when he’d been at his wholesale whisky, and on Sunday afternoons when, as legend had it, he usually found an excuse to beat his little wife. Then there was his manner, sort of smarmy yet superior all at once. It was as if he considered himself to be in a higher bracket than everybody else, as if coming from London gave him an edge on ordinary northern folk. Yet you could tell he wasn’t really up to much, because posh Londoners talked like King George and Winston Churchill and the man who read the news on the wireless.
It was his East End accent that had christened him ‘Billy London’, because his real name was Langden. If anyone asked his name, he said ‘Langden’, and when questioned about where he came from, he said ‘Landan’, so the people of Bolton simply corrupted both to ‘Lundun’. He was Mr London from London, yet he was married to Mrs Langden. Everyone gave his wife her real name because she was a Bolton lass and ‘talked proper’, so she got her due while he got his. Few would ever have dared to call him Billy, not to his face. He was Mr London and he accepted this title with equanimity. Indeed, he had cashed in on it, because ‘The London Stores’ was a good name for a shop up north; it gave it a kind of metropolitan status, as if his business was a cut above the rest in the area.
The war had indeed proved a bonus for Billy. And he considered this to be his right, for hadn’t he been gassed last time round, and hadn’t he lost most of his stomach? Wasn’t he reduced to living on bread and milk, porridge and thin stews, and didn’t he need the scotch to help him digest his meagre meals? So he was only getting what life owed him.
‘Are you there, Mrs Langden?’ The voice was that of a child, a whispering child who apparently thought that the sound of her voice would bring the German planes over the houses again. ‘Mrs Langden?’
He stepped round the counter, strode across the floor and opened the door. ‘What are you doing out at this hour? And no, Mrs Langden isn’t here. She’s closing the shop on Deane Road tonight. Come in before the warden catches us showing a light.’
The pathetic girl hesitated. She was into her teens, yet she looked like an undernourished ten-year-old. ‘I wanted the missus …’
‘I bet you did. That wife of mine will have me in the poor house. And what’s your mother doing sending you out in the middle of a blackout? Shouldn’t you be down the shelter, or in your bed?’ He had learned, over the years, how to simulate concern for their welfare. Even the smallest child would grow in time, and another adult would mean another customer. But he had better watch this one – it looked as if she might be on the scrounge.
The child shook her head sadly. ‘Me mam doesn’t know I’m out. Only me dad’s dead, see. They brought a telegram today and me mam’s gone all quiet. There isn’t no food in the house. I thought Mrs Langden would …’
He dragged her into the shop and slammed home the door. ‘You thought she’d give you something. And you know I won’t. Is that it?’
She nodded mutely.
‘Have you brought anything at all? A ring, a bit of silver?’
‘No. We haven’t got no silver. And I couldn’t ask me mam to give me her wedding ring, ’cos she’s not talking and she doesn’t listen. I think she can’t hear me, Mr London. It’s like she’s gone deaf all of a sudden.’
He stared at her. In spite of the December cold, she wore a skimpy off-white dress, an awful garment made from the inferior cotton that was being spun in the mills specifically for shrouds. With a sigh of impatience, he drew the hunter from his waistcoat pocket. ‘It’s ten past ten. Time you were inside, young lady. And it’s no use begging off of me, I’m not a rich man. People think I’m made of money, but I’m struggling the same as everybody else.’
A tear rolled down her cheek. It was funny, the way he spoke. When he said ‘young lady’, it came out as ‘yang lidy’. Her dad had used to call her that, but he’d said it in familiar flat Bolton tones. ‘I’ll … I’ll go home, then,’ she said listlessly.
‘Hold your horses.’ His eyebrows shot upward as if the sound of his own voice had surprised him. Yes, he was surprised. Was he going a bit soft in the head? After all, the Tattersalls weren’t the best customers. And little Linda here wasn’t a particularly endearing sight with her ragged dress and runny nose. ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ he muttered. Then, in a stronger tone he said, ‘And don’t you tell anybody, see? I can’t have them thinking I’m a soft touch. They’ll all be in here with their sob stories if they find out I’ve given you something. Understand? And anyway,’ he grunted. ‘I’m not giving you this for nothing. We’ll sort something out, you and me, a way for you to pay me back.’
She nodded and flattened herself against the door. With sad round eyes she watched as he filled a few sheets of newspaper with stale buns, a quarter of butter, some ends of bacon and a bit of tea screwed up in tissue. He coughed. ‘Wet the buns,’ he ordered brusquely. ‘Wet ’em and stick ’em in the oven for ten minutes, come up a treat, they will. Or you could have them toasted. Does your mam like Hovis, Linda?’
‘Turog,’ she managed.
‘That’s it, I remember now. Here’s a fresh Turog for her. Now. Cross your heart and hope to die if you ever tell what I just done for you. And it’s only a loan, don’t forget.’
She wet her finger and went through the motions.
He cleared his throat again. ‘Tell her … once she starts listening again … tell her I’m sorry about the old man.’ He had to say things like that. It was all part of being a shopkeeper. It stuck in his craw at times, but he had to go through the motions of being interested.
‘He was …’ She swallowed painfully. ‘He was only thirty-four, Mr London. He was younger than me mam …’
‘And how old are you?’
‘Nearly thirteen.’
He looked her up and down. ‘You know my other shop? The one on Deane Road? Well, I could do with a girl there, somebody to sweep up and mop the floors. My daughters are old enough to do the real serving now, they’ve got proper approved jobs. What do you say? Seven o’clock till school time, then after school till six. Nine-pence a day, I’ll give you.’
She nodded vigorously. ‘Ta, mister.’
‘It’s not charity!’ He was almost yelling now. ‘It’s an honest job, one I’ll pay you for. But before I pay you, I’ll take the price of what you’ve been given tonight. I don’t want none of you thinking my shops are charitable institutions. Only don’t forget to tell everybody that Mr London helped you out in your hour of need, gave you a job. Not a hand-out, mind, a job. Now, take your food and go home.’
She fled gratefully into the blackness outside.
Billy London sank on to his stool and shook his head slowly. Fancy that! Fancy him giving stuff away. He could scarcely believe what he had just done. Never in his life had he been guilty of a charitable act. Why start now? Even the stale buns would have fetched a penny or two in the morning. And tea – he’d given away precious tea and a fresh brown loaf. Well, it had only been a small loaf, hadn’t it? And he would get it all back in labour – he would make sure of that.
He blew out the candle, turned off the gas, then left the shop by the front door, carefully locking up his property with three separate keys.
He was partway down Noble Street when he heard the drone, two or three stray German bombers flying low in the inky sky. Still, they never dropped much here, did they? Whereas the poor old East End was half-flattened by now, razed to the ground night after night according to the papers. He had people there, didn’t he? People he’d better not think about …
A high-pitched sound reached his ears, a strange noise that was a mixture of scream and whistle. It was a bomb! The bleeders were dropping bombs near his home, his shops, his livelihood! His body was suddenly hurled into a doorway as a massive explosion shook the earth; he could feel the tremor in the building against which he was leaning. Orange flames darted high in the air, leaping and dancing about over the roofs at the back of Deane Road. Billy was not a fanciful chap, but he suddenly thought how strangely joyful the fire was, how odd it seemed that something pretty could be so destructive.
Then he began to sweat, awful beads of icy cold water that quickly covered his shaking body. No, it couldn’t be. He’d never had shell shock, had he? There’d been just about everything else, from a bullet in the gut to a chestful of gas, but he’d never gone to pieces in 1918, so why now? Why was his head full of weird pictures? Oh God, this wasn’t happening, couldn’t be happening! He couldn’t see! He was blind, blind! No, he wasn’t. He was in a trench. Beneath his feet he could feel the corpse of some poor Tommy who’d already copped it. But he had to stand on the body, otherwise he would sink into that sea of mud. Horses were screaming somewhere across the field, horses with their bellies ripped out and their legs shot to bits. A fool of an officer was yelling ‘fire at will’ and some daft sod was asking ‘which one of the buggers is Will?’
‘Mr London? Come in out of the road.’
His throat was dry. ‘I can’t. Peterson’s dead. Get his tin, see if there’s any tobacco left in it.’
‘Mr London? There’s been a bomb further down. You’ll have to come in our house till the all-clear goes off. Are you all right? Mam? It’s Mr London, he’s gone all funny. Mam, listen to me …’
He could hear them, but he couldn’t see them. That was the trouble with the Krauts, you never bloody saw them till they were on top of you. Thousands of them, there was, bleeding thousands of them only yards away across no man’s land. He wanted to run out and shout obscenities at them, but he had to stay where he was on top of the dead soldier. Anyway, he shouldn’t be here at all, should he? He was in charge of stores, a nice cushy little number – what the hell was he doing in a trench?
‘Mam – I can’t get Mr London to move. He keeps saying funny things about Krauts and fire at will. Mam, can you come and get him in?’
Yes, there was a few of them who’d had cushy little numbers, but it was every man for himself now. They’d all been brought into the fighting, all the desk wallahs and training sergeants, all the clerks and medics and storesmen. There was no escape. Everybody was dying. There was blood all over the place, blood and bodies and parts of bodies …
Someone was shaking his arm. He turned to look at the corporal next to him, and a puzzled expression came over his face. Where was he? It was dark, very dark. In the dim doorway stood Mrs Tattersall with little Linda in that skimpy white frock. ‘What happened?’ he asked quietly.
‘A bomb,’ said the grief-stricken woman. ‘They killed my Harry, now they’re trying to get me kids as well.’
He moved his feet. There was no dead soldier underneath his shoes. And yes, they were shoes, proper shoes, not worn-out and ill-fitting army boots. ‘A bomb, you say? Gawd, for a minute then I thought I was … somewhere else. I’d better get home.’
‘It’s all right, Mr London,’ said Linda. ‘They got the back of Deane Road. It won’t be your house. Come in and have a cup of tea.’
Mrs Tattersall stared vacantly ahead. It was obvious that she had retreated back into the shock from which the explosion had temporarily released her.
He backed away and touched the brim of his hat. Yes, he knew about shock. It could do some funny things to a person, could shock. ‘Mrs Tattersall?’
‘Eh?’ She stared at him as if he were a stranger.
‘I sent some bits with your girl. Get yourself a bacon sandwich.’
‘You what?’
‘I’m sorry about your husband. Get inside, try to stay warm.’ Yes, it was necessary to go through the motions even now. Better to pretend concern, because concern showed in the takings.
The sweat was beginning to dry, but he still shook like a leaf. It was as if he had just been on a journey in some impossible time machine, a machine that had transported him back some twenty-three years. But he was all right. Yes, he was going to be all right. This was 1941, the year of the bombing war. No horses, no cavalrymen, no trenches, not for him. The war was in the sky this time, leaving every civilian open to its tactics. He thanked God that he had left London, though. Here, a bomb was a rarity, a topic for conversation. In the East End, such devices were an everyday occurrence, a matter of fact and a fact of life.
The thin, starved-looking girl touched his arm tentatively. ‘Ta for the stuff, Mr London. I’m going to try and get Mam down the shelter now. Will there be any more bombs? Will there?’
‘I doubt it. There’s not much worth bombing round here.’ He studied the pinched features, wondering whether the girl would be strong enough to hump bags of potatoes. ‘And don’t forget, you’re working for me now, right?’ He was feeling better, almost normal by this time. ‘I’ll be off, then.’
Linda half closed the door and watched him walk away. If her dad hadn’t died, and if there hadn’t been a bomb, she would have been giggling, because she always laughed when Mr London said ‘be awf wiv yer’. He was funny, was Mr London, he couldn’t say ‘off’ properly. She sighed, closed the door, then set about the business of preparing her mother for the shelter. It was like dressing a stiff china doll, all spiky fingers and unbending arms. ‘Mam! Come on, put your coat on.’
‘Eh? Where’s Harry? Has he had his tea? I bet he’s up the Albert playing darts and sinking pints. Where are we going? Stop pulling at me, will you? What’s the rush, and where’s your brother?’
The youngster bit back her tears. ‘Our Tony’s in the shelter. And that’s where we’re making for. We have to go in the shelter, same as everybody else.’
‘What for?’ The eyes were wide, like those of a small child.
‘To hide from the bombs.’
‘What bombs? Why is there no fire? Didn’t I get two hundredweight put under the stairs? That oven’ll be cold. I’ve done tatie pie too for our suppers …’
Linda, who was stronger than she looked, pulled on a tattered cardigan before dragging her dazed mother out of the house and into the communal shelter in the back street. The building was full, as always, and as soon as they were inside, Linda and her mother bumped into Mrs Langden who was standing in the doorway. ‘Have you seen him? Have you seen my husband?’ asked Mrs Langden. It was plain from her twisting hands that she was in a state of agitation. ‘We’ve got to find him before anything happens.’
Cissie Tattersall began to giggle uncontrollably.
‘Sorry,’ explained Linda, who was still fighting the tears of bereavement and shock. ‘Me dad’s dead and me mam’s took it bad. I can’t get through to her at all. She’s been like this since they fetched the telegram.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry, Mrs Tattersall.’
‘And we’ve seen Mr London,’ Linda went on. ‘He was on his way through to Deane Road, likely looking to see if the other shop’s all right.’
‘Dear Lord!’ Mrs Langden pulled a shawl over her coat. ‘They’ll get him.’
‘No, they won’t, Mrs Langden. He said there wouldn’t be no more bombs. I asked him, and he said there wouldn’t be owt else tonight.’
‘It’s not bombs I’m worried over. It’s … it’s summat else altogether.’
Linda pushed her mother on to a bench, then turned to face the other woman. ‘Don’t go out, Mrs Langden. There’s fires out there, fires and dead bodies. You can’t do nothing. Stop in here where you’ll be safe.’ Gently, she eased the shopkeeper’s wife into a corner next to a warden. ‘Stay there,’ she admonished with a maturity that denied her age. ‘There’s none of us going out till the all-clear. We have to stop here, it’s the rule.’
Mrs Langden began to rock back and forth. ‘They’ll get him,’ she said so quietly that Linda could scarcely hear over the buzz of chatter in the crowded area. ‘They’ll go over him good and proper. Gone too far, he has. Too far this time …’ Yes, and he had taken her with him. She was over the edge of the cliff, falling, falling … With her head in her hands, she wept. Her daughters would be here in a minute, so she had better get the weeping over and done with.
Billy walked quickly down Noble Street, passed his own home without pausing to check on the safety of his family, glanced across at his six intact houses, then almost trotted round the corner on to Deane Road. The fire fighters were wetting some of the buildings in case the fire behind might spread, but his shop was safely out of range of the flames. He heaved a sigh of relief and turned to go back home. There was no point in hanging around if his shop was safe.
As he passed the bottom end of a back alley, he saw dark figures outlined against leaping flames, tall men with bundles in their arms. The bundles were being laid out in rows on the cobblestones. He remembered other rows of bodies from a different war, so he simply turned his head away and marched on smartly. No way would he allow any of his memories back. He wanted to forget all of it – London, the First War – everything. The future was what mattered, prosperity was the main thing. He didn’t want any repeat performances of tonight’s little episode, no more flashbacks into the past. A shiver travelled the length of his straight spine. How real it had been! How near had he come to teetering on the brink of insanity? Perhaps a man could have shell shock for years without ever knowing it. No more, though. He raised his chin defiantly and strode towards his own house.
Then, just as he reached a gap between the terraces, an arm reached out and grabbed him by the throat. ‘Is it him?’ whispered a familiar voice. ‘Shine the bloody torch, lad, we don’t want to waste our time on t’ wrong bloke.’
A weak light flashed in Billy’s eyes. ‘Aye. It’s him all reet, ugly bugger, he is. I’d know that face anywhere, it looks like t’worst end of a bad accident.’
He was dragged into the narrow passage, his damaged lungs struggling for air as the hand tightened round his neck. There were three of them. Yes, she had three brothers, and they were all present and accounted for. Though he couldn’t imagine why they had lain in wait for him on this particular occasion.
The grip on his neck slackened just as he thought he was losing consciousness. ‘Well?’ asked Jack O’Hara, the eldest of the three. ‘What’s tha got to say for thissen? Has t’ bloody cat got tha tongue? Or has tha sold it? You’d sell owt, you would.’
‘I … I don’t know what you mean.’
Jack laughed mirthlessly. ‘Did tha hear that, our Terry? Have I got this right, our Joe? He doesn’t know what he’s done! He doesn’t know what he’s done to our sister.’
‘It was nothing,’ mumbled the cowering man. ‘Just a bit of a row, that’s all it was. I’d had a few and the girls were messing about. I told her to keep them quiet. I didn’t hit her hard, honest.’ This was unbelievable. Her brothers had never taken him to task before, not for keeping order in his own house.
Jack, whose accent was thicker than most, carried on doing the talking. ‘This isn’t about a bit of a bashing. Tha knows we wouldn’t tek t’ time of day or night over a clout or two. Oh no, this is summat else altogether, summat you’ve known about for years, Billy London. You’ve brought our sister down, you have. You’ve tret her worse than any man we’ve ever known. What did tha leave behind thee in London, eh? What sort of a game do you call this? Bloody criminal, it is.’
‘I … I don’t—’
‘He don’t know what we mean, Jack,’ interrupted Terry. ‘Big mister businessman doesn’t know what we’re on about. He could happen do with a bit o’ learning.’
Joe, the youngest and biggest, stepped forward with his hooded torch. ‘Trouble, that’s what we mean, Billy. Big trouble. And it’s followed you all the way to Bolton, caught up with you at last, it has. And so have we.’
Billy swallowed audibly. These men might be Boltonians, but they still carried their Irish father’s temper, a vicious temper that had landed the senior Mr O’Hara in prison on more than one occasion. ‘There ain’t any trouble. I came up here in good faith for a fresh start, didn’t I? There’s no law to say a man can’t move about in his own country.’
‘Aye,’ growled Jack. ‘You set off up here in the middle of a depression, when every other bugger was making for London in the hope of work. Always puzzled me, did that, why a man should come to Bolton when there was no work. Still, you fetched plenty of money with you, eh? Whose bloody money was it? Where did you get that lot from, Billy-boy?’
‘It was mine! I’d worked for it …’
‘That’s not what we heard. We heard plenty tonight, see. Enough to put you behind bars for a good long stretch. But the main thing is what you’ve done to our girl. Only girl we had in our family, and we promised our mam we’d see to her, look after her, like. And we’re going to start by beating the living daylights out of you, you bad devil.’
‘Where will that get you?’ He tried to keep his voice steady. ‘What can you gain by knocking me senseless?’
‘A lot of satisfaction,’ said Joe. ‘You can’t treat an O’Hara bad ways and get away with it, London-lad. Her’s had the shock of her life today, the shock of her bloody life. How do you think she felt when she opened her door and found that mess you’d left in Bow, eh? What sort of a woman do you think she is? Our Ellen’s no cheap tramp, tha knows.’
‘She’s … she’s well looked after,’ muttered Billy, his tone high-pitched as it emerged from a throat as dry as sandpaper. ‘And so’s the girls. They want for nothing, do they? Good food, nice clothes, a warm house …’ His voice trailed away as they closed in on him.
They beat him viciously yet carefully, obviously making sure that he would be hurt but not killed. Over and over they kicked him and punched him, flinging him about until he resembled a battered rag doll. ‘Tha’ll never forget this day, Billy London,’ whispered Jack breathlessly. ‘It’s Monday December the eighth 1941. Remember it. Remember it as the day thy past caught up with thee.’
It occurred to Billy that they were strong, these men who had been judged too old for war. But they were foundry workers, every one of them with muscles bulging from the wielding of hammers and the lifting of heavy crucibles. It hurt like hell. He could not remember pain like this; not even in the field hospital tent had he suffered so badly.
At last they were gone, melted noiselessly into a night where pandemonium reigned just yards away; yet the activity was not near enough for Billy London, who could not even crawl or shout for help. A cruel December ice bit into his wounds until he was a solid, frozen bundle of suffering. One arm lay crushed beneath him. He could not move it, and he knew that it was broken. He was unsure about his legs; they were so chilled and bruised that he would not have dared to attempt to stand. His mouth hung open to allow a flow of blood which congealed quickly in the freezing air, and his swollen tongue rested against cracked teeth. There was no help for him; every able-bodied man was involved in rescuing victims of the bomb.
The certainty that he was dying filled his numbing mind. It did not worry him, for death would mean a blessed release from unbearable anguish, yet he forced himself to remain conscious for as long as possible. Why had they done it? Why had her brothers attacked him? The answer hovered somewhere above his head, in a place that was just out of reach. And it didn’t matter anyway. Nothing mattered now. There was only the pain …
He was found at about two o’clock in the morning. His rescuers, believing that he had been caught in the blast, chattered to one another about how Billy must have crawled away from the bomb site, about the fact that his good clothing had kept him alive, about how lucky he was to have been discovered at all in such a dark place. Billy London heard none of this; he had been unconscious for several hours.
They took him to the infirmary where he woke after two days, his arm in plaster, his head heavily bandaged and most of his teeth gone for ever. A doctor leaned over him. ‘Fortunate man,’ he proclaimed. ‘That bomb took fourteen lives – you were lucky to be blown away from it. We’ve set your arm and strapped your ribs. Oh, and I had to take away your teeth, so we’ll get some dentures fitted when the swelling reduces.’
Billy tried to speak, but his tongue still filled his mouth.
The doctor smiled reassuringly. ‘You’re in shock, of course. Your wife came down and gave us your name, but she wouldn’t stay. I think she realizes that you need the rest.’ That wasn’t what she’d said, not exactly. But it wasn’t a doctor’s place to tell a sick man that his wife didn’t care if she never saw him again …
When the doctor moved on to the next bed, Billy lay staring at the ceiling. His head felt as if it were being rebuilt, as if an army of bricklayers were tapping away with trowels and buckets of cement. And he couldn’t even ask for an Aspro, because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. Dear God, what had happened to him? Where was he? He tried to straighten his mind, but the hammering was too loud. Were they guns he could hear, was that the sound of cannon? No! Years had elapsed since that particular episode; this was a different era altogether! He wasn’t in London any more, he wasn’t at the German front, wasn’t in danger. But London had come to him – wasn’t that what they had said? What who had said …? Her brothers, yes, her brothers. He must concentrate, must think hard. He had two shops, he was a man of substance. This wasn’t his war, it wasn’t!
For several more days, Billy London hovered in a place that didn’t really exist, a strange place halfway between now and then, an area of nightmare and sweat and rough handling. Every time the nurses cleaned and changed him, he went through excruciating pain, but at least the pain was real, it was in the present tense. Left to himself, he relived times past, actually saw the blood, the gore, the horrors of his own life. There were times when he watched the gas coming, when he struggled for his mask, when he tasted it, smelled it, choked on thick clouds of yellow mustard.
His body healed. After a time, they fed him on gruels and soups, then a dentist came in and took impressions for false teeth. The pain in his head subsided, the bruising yellowed, his arm felt better. But he was a broken man; something inside had snapped and he couldn’t get his mind in order. And, as if to underline his reduced circumstances, the teeth, when they arrived, didn’t fit properly.
The nurses sat him in a chair, padded him out with pillows and cushions, made him as comfortable as possible. With his intact arm, he struggled to turn the pages of the newspaper. The United States had declared war on Italy and Germany. Forty million Americans were armed and ready to step into the European war. Hong Kong was fighting to the death with swarms of invading Japanese. He understood all that, knew all that. Yet every time he returned to his bed, he was back in that trench with the dead soldier under his boots. The shakes were terrible during the nights.
At last, the visionary young doctor diagnosed shell shock, and Billy was moved to a convalescent home in Blackpool. He knew with an unwavering certainty that he would never be the same man as he had been. He needed only to look into a mirror to see the visible changes, shrunken features, ill-fitting teeth, rounded shoulders, dark-rimmed eyes. But it was the change in his head that was the most shattering. He couldn’t arrange his thoughts properly during the days because his nights were so terrifying, so haunted. And large chunks of his past were missing, as if some giant hand had taken an india-rubber and erased half of his life.
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