Avalanche of Daisies (36 page)

Instead she was ushered into a musty front room where nine middle-aged men sat hip to haunch around a narrow table, smoked pipes, drank tea and coughed. The chairman was a small, grey-haired man, who was called Mr Craxton and took an interminable time to say the simplest thing, and there was only one other woman, who was tall and skinny, wore her hair in a bun and was even older than Aunt Sis. All ten of them were burdened with paper and they all spoke in the same peculiar language, about ‘conference' and ‘the manifesto' and ‘motion 29' and something they referred to as a ‘possible composite'. In short they were a disappointment.

But they made her welcome and called her love and provided her with a cup of tea, and the woman, whose name was Christine, said it was nice to have someone young in the group.

‘We're choosing a parliamentary candidate for Bellington South tonight,' she confided, when they paused to refill their cups. ‘It's a safe Tory seat so the Labour
Party's a bit on the small side. There are only six people on their management committee at the moment and none of them are willing to stand, so they've asked us to help them out.'

Barbara said, ‘Oh,' which seemed to be all that was expected of her and wondered who they would choose. To her amazement, it was Mr Craxton.

‘But he's so boring,' she said to Aunt Sis as they walked home. ‘No one'll elect
him.'

‘Well not in that seat, no, they won't,' Sis agreed. ‘But this is just a run-in, to give him experience. He'll make it next time round. He's a good man.'

‘He's boring. They should have chosen you.'

Sis laughed. ‘I'm not in the running.'

‘Why not?'

‘Buggin's Law,' her aunt explained. ‘He's the chairman. It's his turn.'

‘Thass daft!' Barbara said trenchantly. ‘You'd make a much better candidate. He'll send people to sleep.'

‘He writes a good pamphlet,' Sis said. ‘Come round the flat tomorrow an' I'll show you one.'

‘Have they repaired it then?'

‘Not yet. There's still no gas but it's got windows and the light works.'

It also had new door jambs and a new door, which was a tight fit and, as such, a great improvement on the old one.

‘We'll get the fire lit,' Sis decided. ‘No point working in the cold. Is there any coal in the scuttle?'

There was. So they lit the fire, took down all the shredded curtains and began to sort through the debris on the floor. Sis was ruthless. ‘Chuck it out if it's broken,' she said, when Barbara held up a battered figurine. ‘I ain't got time to fix it. Nor the patience neither, if the truth be told.'

But she found the file she was looking for. It was full of leaflets, headed ‘Education', ‘Health', ‘Housing', ‘Nutrition' and ‘Pensions'. Most of them were crammed
with small close print but one was much simpler. ‘There you are,' she said to Barbara. ‘Read that.'

The Five Giants on the Road to Recovery: Giant Want. Giant Disease. Giant Ignorance. Giant Squalor. Giant Idleness. We must organize now to provide full employment; to rebuild a better Britain; to provide social services to secure adequate health, nutrition, and care in old age, for everybody; to provide full educational opportunities for all.

It was almost exactly what Steve had said in his letter.

‘So what d'you think?' Sis asked.

‘Sounds good,' Barbara allowed, ‘but can we do it? Thass the thing.'

‘Oh yes,' Sis told her. ‘We can do it. Providing we win the election. If the Tories get in, it'll be the mixture as before.'

‘Will they?'

Sis sat back on her heels with another tattered file in her hands. ‘Not if we can stop 'em,' she said. ‘That's what we're all working for. To be ready when the election comes and to give 'em a damn good run for their money.'

That night Barbara wrote another long letter to Steve telling him she was going to join the Party and that they were going to win the election. And he wrote back to tell her he wasn't a bit surprised, that he loved her more than ever – ‘
I can just see you waving the red flag!' –
and suggesting that she ought to read the Beveridge Report. ‘
It's on the third shelf. Write and tell me what you think of it.'

So the weeks passed and although the family were still grieving, and Steve didn't manage to get any leave, Barbara's immediate sorrow began to ease. She still missed Betty terribly, especially on the days when they
would have gone to the pictures or the Palais, and her nightmares continued as terrifyingly as ever, but now she woke herself up, switched on the bedside lamp without disturbing Sis and read the report to take her mind from the horrors. Which, for most of the time, it did, for it outlined the possibility of a new way of life which was exactly to her taste; work for everybody, free education for every child up to the age of fifteen, free health care paid for by a national insurance, a pension when you retire. What a weight of worry would be lifted from everybody's shoulders if they could make that happen.

She and Steve wrote to one another whenever they could, she every evening, he duties permitting, long detailed letters, discussing the report section by section and looking forward to the future they would build together ‘
when this lot is over
'. The buzzbombs and rockets went on, there was never a day without a difficulty of one kind or another and the weather grew worse and worse, with frozen pipes and icy roads at home and thick fog in Holland and Germany, but they had their dream to keep them going, and writing about it made them feel they would both survive. Even when the war suddenly took a turn in the wrong direction and the papers headlined the news that the Germans had thrust fifteen miles into liberated territory, they were undeterred.

‘
It is a set-back
,' Steve admitted, ‘
but it won't last. We shall soon have them on the run again. They wouldn't have got away with it, if it hadn't been for the fog keeping the RAF grounded. Real Hitler weather.'

‘
The papers say they're trying to retake Antwerp,'
Barbara wrote back, ‘
and split the British and American armies in two. That says this morning there is a twenty-five mile gap in the Allied line.'

But Steve's confidence was justified. The campaign, which came to be called the Battle of the Bulge, was long and bitter but the Germans
were
driven back.

In the second week in December Sis had a letter to tell her that her flat was fully repaired and ready for occupation. She packed her ‘bits and bobs' that evening, as soon as she got in from work, asking Barbara casually, when they were alone together in the bedroom, ‘You coming back with me then, kid, or are you stayin' here?'

‘I think I shall stay here,' Barbara decided. ‘Thass all right, hain't it?'

‘Looks all right to me,' Sis said. ‘See you at the meeting Thursday then.'

So Barbara stayed in Childeric Road, where she helped with the housework and shared the queuing and felt she was almost one of the family again. And although the peace between her and her mother-in-law was fragile, it was at least a peace.

Bob was delighted to have her back and said so happily, and even Heather approved, especially now she'd become a fully paid-up member of the Labour Party and spent so much time with Sis.

‘It's not
me
that's different,' she said, when Bob teased her about her change of heart. ‘You've only got to look at her to see how she's altered. Look how sensible she's being. Oh no, there's a lot a' good in her now. She was ever so good writing to Steve like that when we was all in a state. An' we don't see anything of that Norfolk feller anymore, I hope you notice. We got that fly right out the ointment.'

‘What've we got?' Victor said. The Skibbereen's limousine had just pulled up alongside his Humber and as he and Phossie had been waiting at their appointed rendezvous for more than half an hour, he was impatient to get started.

‘Cloth,' the Skibbereen told him as he and Phossie stepped out of the car. ‘Just arrived. Eight rolls. Marked with a black star.'

His driver, who doubled as look-out, was already in position at the corner of the street and the others were arriving now. Mog and Tiffany had parked on the other side of the road and were running across to join them. ‘You'll have to cut the wire to get in,' the Skibbereen said. ‘Cutters in the boot, Mog!'

Mog flicked his dog-end into the rubble of the nearby bomb-site and groaned. ‘Not wire again, Skibbers,' he complained. ‘That's death to a good suit, is that.'

‘Give 'em here,' Vic said, taking the cutters. ‘I'll do it.' It wasn't a job he particularly enjoyed but at least if he did it himself, he would make the hole big enough to get through in a hurry – and
he'd
got enough sense not to wear his good clothes.

It was a very cold night and a surprisingly quiet one. There'd been no rockets for nearly twelve hours and all they could hear were late-night trams buzzing in the distance and the occasional splash of a passing tug on the river below them. The warehouses were dark and unguarded, the streets completely empty and there was no traffic in the docks at all, but that was to be expected at this state of the tide and this time of the night.

Phossie held the torch and Vic started work on the
wire fence, his breath streaming before him like white smoke. It was exciting to be breaking in like this but the quicker it was done, the less the risk.

It was a doddle. One of the easiest jobs they'd ever tackled. No guard dog, no police, rolls at the end of the line, clearly marked. They were in and out and the cars were being loaded in less than three minutes. But as he picked up the last roll, Vic saw a possible extra.

‘There's two bales of stuff over there on the floor,' he whispered to Phossie. ‘Looks as if they've fallen off the shelves. What say we roll them too?'

‘What are they?' Phossie whispered back. ‘No good nicking stuff you can't shift.' They'd had a hard time with the last lot Vic had stolen on spec because it was army surplus and badly stained.

But this, as Vic discovered when he tore away the wrapping, was silk. ‘That'll sell like the proverbial hot-cakes,' he said. ‘Wait till the others have gone an' we'll come back for it. Go an' keep cavey. I'll wait here.'

Luck was still going their way. ‘They're packing,' Phossie reported from the doorway. ‘Mog's off. The Skibbereen's getting into his car.'

Vic could hear the cars being driven away. ‘Right!' he said, picking up the first roll. ‘Cop hold! Now run for it!'

It isn't easy to run when you are carrying a full roll of cloth between you but they went as fast as they could and reached the wire, where Phossie stood the roll on end and balanced it while Vic climbed through.

Then and without any warning at all, everything changed. The look-out hooted a warning, a police whistle shrilled, somebody was running, and the Skibbereen emerged from the shadows like a bad dream, took the silk and was gone without a word.

‘Christ!' Phossie said.

But Vic was running towards their car, hissing at him to follow, ‘Scarpa! For Chrissake!'

Seconds of panic and frantic activity, struggling to
scramble into the car, driving off with the door open and swinging, a vague impression of struggling figures at the corner of the street, one helmeted, no sign of the Skibbereen or any of the others, and then they were round the corner and heading for home along a blessedly empty street. Vic was aware that the sweat was running into his eyes, that his heart was beating in an odd lop-sided way, and that he was flooded with exhilaration and triumph. ‘Anyone after us?'

Phossie checked. But there wasn't. They'd escaped. They'd got away. ‘We made it!' Vic yelled. ‘We made it!'

‘Only just,' Phossie warned. ‘An' we're not out the wood yet.'

‘Then I tell you what,' Vic said, slowing down. ‘We'll drive like good citizens from now on,' he said. ‘No point speedin'. That'ud only draw attention to ourselves.' He was thrilled to realise how competently he was handling this situation. ‘Oh there's no flies on me, bor.'

But when they reached the house, the Skibbereen's limousine was waiting by the kerb and the boss himself rose out of the driving seat and stood on the pavement, massively, barring their way.

They followed him meekly into the house, senses prickling, closed the door behind him, stood in front of the empty hearth and waited for retribution. It came at once.

‘Don't you never do that to me again,' the Skibbereen warned. ‘Not if you want to stay healthy.'

Vic tried to brazen it out. ‘Do what? We only took an extra roll. I mean, it was lying on the floor, asking to be nicked. You'd have said so yourself if you'd been …'

The Skibbereen pushed his face so close to Vic's that they were almost nose to nose. ‘You do
not
', he snarled, ‘nick nothing on your own account. You take what I tell you. Understand? No more no less. Just what I tell you. Is that clear?'

They agreed that it was, Phossie fearfully, Vic defiantly bold. ‘'Course.'

‘You damn nearly fucked everything up,' the Skibbereen said. ‘My driver's been nicked because of you, I hope you realise.'

‘He won't grass,' Phossie tried to reassure. ‘Not him.'

‘No, 'course he won't. That ain't the point. The point is I got to get another driver. You've broke up my team.'

Victor thought of a solution at once, a chance to make amends and earn a bit of extra cash at the same time. ‘I can drive,' he offered.

‘You', the Skibbereen said scornfully, ‘can keep your trap shut and do as you're told for a change. I've had a damn sight too much of you.'