The Wayward Wife (28 page)

‘He has a deep scalp wound, as you probably know, Mrs Hooper. Sixteen stitches. But the skull is intact; no fractures. He's sedated right now but he's going to have a whale of a headache for a day or two. We can give you something to ease the pain. However …'

‘However – what?'

‘He may have a touch of concussion.'

‘What's that?'

‘A little bit of brain swelling. We've some patients waiting to transfer to our place in Sussex for recuperation. I can arrange for Billy to go with them, if you like.'

‘No,' Breda said. ‘He stays with me.'

‘Do you have a place to stay?' the doctor asked.

‘Yeah,' Breda said without hesitation. ‘We can stay with my mother. Is Billy going to recover?'

‘Of course, he is,' the doctor said. ‘We'll keep him here overnight and, assuming his condition doesn't deteriorate, you can collect him tomorrow morning.'

‘What if there's another air raid?'

‘We have a basement shelter here.'

Still sucking on the wine gums, Billy closed his eyes and appeared to be drifting off to sleep.

‘All right,' Breda said. ‘I'll leave 'im with you but you gotta promise me you won't take 'im to Sussex.'

The doctor smiled. ‘No, Mrs Hooper. I promise.'

‘An' if there's another air raid …'

‘Yes, yes,' said the doctor, suddenly losing patience, ‘if there's an air raid we'll see he's safe. Now, if you've no other questions, may I suggest you say goodbye to your son and make way for the nurses get on with their jobs.'

She barely had time to thank him before he stepped across the aisle to the next bed and, stooping, peeped in under the blankets at the invisible patient.

Breda kissed Billy on the cheek and wiped a dribble of sticky saliva from his mouth with her bandaged hand.

He opened his eyes and scowled, drowsily.

‘See you tomorrow,' Breda said. ‘Be a good boy now.'

‘Yus,' Billy murmured, and closed his eyes again.

He had survived a German bomb and several hours buried underground and she would have him back with her tomorrow. She should have felt better than she did. Before she'd reached the head of the stairs, though, a million other things she had to do crowded in on her: find Nora, find Matt, find Ronnie and, first and foremost, rummage through the wreckage of No.
12
to see if she could find the cashbox.

She picked her way down the staircase, bandaged hands tucked into her armpits.

Light spilled across the floor of the reception hall like a great pool of milk. The front doors opened and closed. The shapes of the folk who milled about in the hall were like shadows against the light.

‘Breda,' said a small voice in her ear. ‘Breda, dear.'

There, standing to one side of the door, was her mother, or some remnant of her mother, stooped and shrivelled, her face drawn into a thousand folds and creases, her eyes sunk back into her head.

Behind Nora, looming, was a man in uniform, a warden, Breda thought, or a copper who, stepping forward and taking off his helmet said, ‘Mrs Hooper? Mrs Ronald Hooper?'

‘Yeah,' said Breda warily.

‘I'm afraid I have some very bad news.'

In less harried times the London Fire Service would have done a better job of honouring the three auxiliaries who were killed in the line of duty on the night of
9
September. There would have been a parade in dress uniform, a laying out of flag-draped coffins in one of the local churches and a watch, however brief, kept by four colleagues while friends, relatives and off-duty firemen filed past to pay their last respects.

Helmets, webbing and axes would have graced the tops of the coffins and wreaths the base and someone as high up as a Divisional Commander would have delivered a eulogy praising the firemen's courage and dedication before the coffins were taken off in government-subsidised vehicles for committal.

Five sporadic daylight raids followed by another savage ‘all-nighter' had wreaked too much havoc to permit the luxury of official mourning but it was lack of foresight, rather than indifference, that really put the kibosh on any sort of ceremony. No one in the Home Office or the Ministry of Defence, let alone the London Fire Service, quite knew what to do when there was nothing left to fill a coffin but a few shards of bone and scraps of flesh, not enough to gather up and carry to the mortuary for a coroner's assistant to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle.

If there had been no eye-witnesses cynical anti-war protesters might have put it about that the three auxiliaries weren't dead at all but had simply done a bunk and would pop up again, all smiles, when the war was over. Breda wasn't daft enough to subscribe to that calumny and if anyone had dared suggest it within earshot of Matt, never mind Danny, they'd have wound up on the floor with two black eyes and a bloody nose.

It was left to Clary Knotts to seek Breda out, several days later, and answer her question: ‘Did 'e suffer?'

‘Over in a flash, Mrs Hooper,' Clary told her. ‘They never knew what 'it them. We thought it was a landmine at first. Twelve, fifteen feet long, a black tube with a fin on the end. Torpedo, they tell me, naval torpedo, first one we'd seen. If it hadn't fallen right outside the school where folk were sheltered we'd 'ave left it for the bomb squad. Ronnie wouldn't wear it, though. He sent me inside to keep folk away from the doors and windows while Jim, Eric and 'im dragged the thing away. Got it clear out the gate before it went up. Big, big explosion. Knocked over a fire tender an' two motorcars an' left a crater a mile deep. Broke all the glass in the school, every single pane, but nobody inside was killed. Ron was a hero. You should be proud of 'im, Mrs Hooper. Real proud of 'im.'

‘Oh, but I am,' said Breda. ‘Believe me, I am.'

Susan's first thought when she received the call from Breda was not that she would never see her brother again but that she didn't have a black dress to wear to the funeral.

Making the call from a public phone box, and presumably short of change, Breda had been curt to the point of rudeness. She hadn't said a word about how Ron had died or when he would be buried and seemed more concerned with extracting a promise that she would let Danny know as soon as possible.

Susan replaced the receiver of the telephone on Basil's desk and, with a little
tut
of annoyance, said, ‘I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for time off.'

‘What?' Basil said. ‘Now?'

‘Yes,' said Susan. ‘My brother's been killed, apparently.'

‘Apparently?' Basil said. ‘Has he or hasn't he?'

‘No,' Susan said, ‘I don't think there's any doubt.'

‘Good God!' said Basil, rising. ‘You poor girl.'

He came around the desk and took her, unresisting, into his arms. ‘Bomb, was it?'

‘What?' said Susan. ‘I've no idea. I think I've something at home that might do at a pinch.'

Basil pulled away. ‘Susan, take hold of yourself.'

‘What?' Susan said again. ‘You don't know what it's like with us, do you? It's important to keep up appearances. I really should have my hair done too. I don't want to turn up looking like a scarecrow.'

He moved her as if she were a puppet, jerking her towards the chair behind his desk and easing her into it. He leaned into the desk and spoke softly.

‘Who called you?'

‘Breda, Ron's wife. Why she called
me
I really can't imagine. What does she expect
me
to do? I can't bring Ronnie back. Call Danny, call Danny, that's all she could say. Does she think I'm operating a switchboard here? Still, I suppose I'd better show my face or I'll never hear the end of it.' She looked up at Basil, frowning. ‘
Can
you spare me for a couple of hours?'

‘I suspect it might take longer than a couple of hours, Susan. In any case, I can't let you go in this state.' Basil paused. ‘Will I send for Vivian to accompany you?'

‘Vivian has better things to do with her time, I'm sure.'

‘Bob, then? I'll call the Lansdowne, shall I?'

‘You're right, of course.' Susan said. ‘A couple of hours isn't going to do it. There'll be things to do, arrangements to make. They'll be running around like headless chickens without Ronnie. Ronnie always took care of things.' She looked up. ‘Bob? No, no, not Bob. That wouldn't be fair to anyone.'

‘Tell you what,' Basil said gently, ‘why don't I try to contact your husband? I'm sure our operator will have a number where, with a bit of prodding, I can reach him.'

‘Danny? Yes,' said Susan, sitting up a little, ‘why don't you phone Danny? He'll know what to do for the best.'

She arrived in Pitt Street by taxi-cab during a lull in the late afternoon sorties. All down the road people were queuing for shelters, arms full of food, rugs, babies and blankets. The mouths of the Tube stations were mobbed not with passengers coming home from work but with families seeking a safe place in which to spend the night.

There were no signs of fresh damage east of Aldgate but the cabby, a garrulous type made more talkative by nerves, informed her that a single raider had zoomed over London and dropped a few incendiaries before vanishing off to the west but that the guns had been flashing all afternoon south of the river and another big night attack was on the cards sure as eggs.

‘Got somewhere safe to go, miss?' he asked.

‘Oh, yes,' said Susan brightly, and tipped him well.

The fact was that she didn't have anywhere to go, safe or otherwise. It didn't take her long to discover that No.
12
Pitt Street was no more than a pile of rubble and Stratton's Dining Rooms a shell. In an hour or so dusk would settle over London, blackout restrictions would come into force and the only people left in the streets would be fire-spotters, wardens, Civil Defence volunteers and policemen.

Loitering by the ruined front of Stratton's, she wondered not only where she might find her family but just how many of her family were left alive. Not knowing what else to do, she set off in the direction of Oxmoor Road driven by a notion that even if Ronnie wasn't there at least his body might be.

A number of men, mostly dockers, had gathered outside the Crown which, at one time, had been Ronnie's favourite pub. It was after five o'clock and habit as much as thirst had drawn them there, though the Crown's snug interior was snug no more. Evan Hobbs, the publican, was passing out bottled beer from a trestle table in the doorway while his lad washed glasses in a tub on the pavement.

Susan had been gone from Shadwell for so long that she barely recognised her old schoolmates and the brothers of girls that Ronnie had courted. She was on the point of enquiring if any of them knew what had happened to Ronnie when someone called out, ‘By gum, it's Susie 'Ooper. You're in trouble now, Matt,' and her father, clutching a stick in one hand and a beer glass in the other, hobbled out of the throng.

His trousers, jacket and shirt were filthy and he wore only one shoe. The binding on the other foot, the left, was, by contrast, brilliantly clean; a stubby, white boot that he swung inexpertly before him while trying to balance his weight on the stick and, at the same time, preserve the beer in his glass.

‘Susie,' he said, ‘what you doing 'ere?'

He doesn't know, she thought: Oh, God, he doesn't know and now I have to tell him. Then she noticed the men sidling away and heard Evan Hobbs call out, ‘Stow it, Jackie,' and someone else called out, ‘Sorry, kid. Real sorry.' She took her father's arm to steady him and at last began to cry.

It was typical of her father to finish his beer and place the glass neatly on the trestle before he gave himself up and, leaning into her, wept too. At length, she fished in her handbag, found a hanky and gave it to him. He wiped his mouth with it and then, loudly, blew his nose.

‘Best get 'im home, love,' Evan Hobbs advised.

‘Yes, thank you, I will,' she said and to save further embarrassment all round, led her father some way down the street before she put the question. ‘Where are we going, Dad?'

‘St Vee's,' he told her. ‘She said she'd be at St Vee's.'

‘Who? Breda?'

‘Nora. Breda's with 'er, I expect.'

‘What about Billy?'

‘Hospital.'

‘Hospital?'

‘He's all right. Stitches in 'is head. Gets out tomorrow.'

‘What about you?'

‘Tripped on the dock. Broke my foot.'

‘I'm surprised you managed to get this far,' Susan said.

‘Somebody 'ad to do it.'

‘Had to do what?'

‘Fetch Ron's body.'

‘Oh, Daddy,' Susan said, ‘you should have waited for me.'

‘Don't matter. There is no body. Blown to bits, our Ron. We'll need to register it, o' course, soon as the Fire Service cough up a certificate. Might be some money comin' Breda's way. You never know with them things. Nora'll say prayers for 'is soul an' light candles but that ain't the same as a decent burial, is it?' her father said and began, once more, to cry.

He had always worked best at night, pumping out his copy for the
Union Post
into the wee small hours. But Susan, the BBC and now, it seemed, the blasted Luftwaffe had so messed up his routine that he found himself cheating on the thing he did best, which was, basically, writing good, tight, punchy prose.

He hadn't realised just how sloppy his style had become until he sat down to do justice to the account of his wild ride from Dover for the
Post
and his foray into the blitzed areas of the East End for
Speaking Up
. He was, thank God, still enough of a craftsman to make the switch from print to broadcast script without too much sweat but had, none the less, been relieved when Basil had given him not one but two thumbs up and cleared fifteen minutes of the Tuesday schedule for his version, with quotes, of London under the cosh.