Crooked Heart (10 page)

The door closed, and before Noel could reach for another bell, Vee grabbed his wrist.

‘Not yet,' she hissed. ‘We have to talk.'

She looked over her shoulder, but no one was watching. ‘Over here,' she said, and led him to the cluster of salvage bins on the corner. Out of interest, she lifted the lid of one of them and a cloud of flies sizzled through the gap. She dropped it hastily.

‘What's the matter?' asked Noel.

‘We're telling people you're my boy and then you're using words like . . . like “original” and “hence”. No one from St Albans ever says “hence”. And you should say “my mum” not “my mother” and anyway you just don't sound right. You sound as if you come from somewhere posh and I sound—'

‘Common,' said Noel.

Vee coloured. ‘You don't say things like that about people,' she said. She fiddled with her hat. She thought she'd been looking smart and now she felt like a greasy rag. ‘You don't know anything about me,' she said. ‘I was at school till I was fifteen, I was clever. I wanted to be a teacher.'

Noel looked back at her. The expression on his wide, plain face wasn't cheeky or defiant, but baffled. It occurred to her that he hadn't used the word ‘common' as an insult, merely a description. Which in some ways was
worse
.

‘But I had to say something,' said Noel. ‘You got it all wrong when he asked about my school timetable.'

‘Yes, but that's another thing that people'd think is strange. Children oughtn't to talk back and say when their mums are wrong about things. I hope you don't speak like that when your . . . your . . .'

Her mind was a blank. Who was it that he lived with?

‘Anyone would think
you
were the grown-up,' she amended.

Noel looked down at the pavement, so that she could see the wandering pink of his parting. His hair was full of summer dust.
It needed a wash and a trim, she realized; she'd almost for gotten that she was supposed to be looking after him.

‘Do you?' she asked.

‘What?'

‘Talk like that at home?'

‘Yes,' he said, fiercely. There was nothing he hadn't been able to say to Mattie. He turned and walked away along the street, through a blizzard of returning flies, and Vee hurried after him.

‘Don't you see, we can't both do the talking,' she said. ‘We don't match and people will think it's strange and if they think it's strange then they might start asking around and before long we'll be up to our neck in it, won't we? Or I will, anyhow. It might only be a bit of fun for you, but for me it'd be trouble. Worse than trouble.'

‘But what if someone asks me a question?'

‘Just nod or shake your head.'

‘And what if they ask me a question which requires some kind of
answer
?'

There was contempt in his voice; she could almost have struck him again, if it hadn't been a public place.

‘Look,' she said, thrusting her face into his, ‘we can't be
noticed
. You said that – hiding in daylight.'

‘Plain sight.'

‘Yes, well then, you're a clever boy, aren't you? It's obvious, I was all wrong about you at the start. But you've got to practise what you preach.'

He carried on walking, but more slowly.

‘What do you mean, you were wrong about me?'

‘Well, I . . .' Vee huffed a bit, searching for an answer. ‘. . . I didn't think you were all there,' she said, finally.

He turned and stared at her. ‘You thought I was
feebleminded
?'

‘You had a bit of a blank look, that's all. And you didn't say much, did you? And you packed a fur coat. In June.'

‘Not for wearing,' he said. ‘It's a memento.'

‘And the rock?'

‘A memento mori.'

‘And there you go!' she said triumphantly. ‘That's why you can't do the talking. Every time you open your mouth, out comes Latin.'

Along the road, a front door smacked shut. The pregnant woman, a shopping bag over one arm, clipped briskly towards them.

‘Oops-a-daisy,' said Vee, loudly, crouching down. ‘Let's do this up, otherwise you'll come a cropper, won't you, my little lad?' She undid his sandal strap and then fastened it again on exactly the same hole.

The woman walked past, scarcely glancing at them.

Vee straightened up. ‘Hiding in plain sight,' she said.

‘Yes, if I were
three
,' said Noel. ‘Ten-year-olds don't get their shoes fastened by their mothers.'

‘Some might.'

‘Only if they're—'

‘What?'

Noel paused. ‘Feeble-minded,' he said. ‘Ask me a question,' he added.

‘What?'

‘Ask me a question. Anything. Ask me how old I am. Go on.'

Vee shook her head, helplessly. ‘Why?'

‘Just ask me.'

‘All right. How old are you?'

Instead of answering, Noel stared past her along the road, his face empty.

‘Oh, I follow you,' said Vee. ‘And why aren't you at school?' There was no change in his expression, and it struck her that he looked not so much soft in the head, as shocked sideways, as if someone had fetched him a whack with a sandbag.

She put a hand on his shoulder. It was like squeezing a
bicycle brake, all wire and tension. ‘This is my lad,' she said, experimentally. ‘He's not said a word since we lost his dad. He comes with me everywhere.'

She rattled the box.

‘All right,' said Noel. ‘Now I'll pretend to ask you something. So, what happened to his father?'

Vee opened her mouth. She had a dozen answers straight off; she could have been a story-writer, she thought, if she'd had the chance and the education, it came so easily to her.
He was on the last boat back from Dunkirk, and then we heard from his sergeant that he'd dived into the water to rescue a pal. He was the last one out of their billet, they left him with a Gatling. He was last seen on the road to the French coast, trying to help a little boy and his granny
. . . She could see herself talking, enjoying the tale; she could see herself spinning a long yarn, one that would trail behind them as they went from doorstep to doorstep – and snag, and knot, and loop dangerously around their ankles.

‘So what happened to his father?' repeated Noel.

Vee sighed.

‘I don't like to talk about it,' she said. ‘Not in front of the boy.'

‘And why isn't he at school?'

Vee let go of his shoulder, and took his hand instead. ‘He stays home with me. The doctor said it was best for a while.'

‘All right,' said Noel. He detached his hand from hers. ‘Let's give it another go.'

 

1st September 1940

Dear Mr Churchill I expect you've been very busy so won't write a long letter, just a few thoughts I've been saving up.

We have moved to new accommodation so please note different postal address.

         
 

       
1. There is still a lot of crime about. There was another smashand-grab raid at the jeweller's in Victoria Street last week the second in two months, and also a burglar broke into the house of a friend in my congregation on Tuesday and stole a carriage clock and six bananas (her son is in the merchant navy). There are not enough police about. The one who came round after the burglary didn't even look for clues, and my friend said he was out of breath just bicycling from the station. Also, the flat we are in now only came empty because the woman who lived here before was claiming the allowance for five evacuees who'd all gone back to London and she did a flit before they could arrest her, so there's another example. No one said what happened to all the extra rations she claimed either, there was nothing in the cupboards when we moved in. We need more Police on the Streets, not sitting eating plates of tinned peaches and custard sauce from a brand-new jar in the back basement of St Albans Police Station, which is something a friend of mine saw through the window one evening.

         
 

       
2. We keep getting sirens but they're all false alarms here. The man in the shop underneath our flat lets us use his basement shelter but it's too much for me to get all the way down there and then back up when it's just a practice. What such as me need is something in our very own living room like an iron box or a cage big enough for 2 or 3 people to sit in, here's a little sketch:

       
3. I don't know if you know this, but when Alvar Liddell on the wireless says Nazi on the news broadcast he says it in a different way to the way you say Nazi, you say it Narzee and he says it Nartsi. People have noticed this, and when I met my cousin Harold at the Abbey Tea Rooms last week he told me that he's even heard jokes about it. I thought you ought to know. Alvar sounds a foreign name to me.

         
 

       
4. I have been listening to ‘Beat the Band' on the wireless and when I wrote the answers down last week I noticed something very strange. The first letters of each of the songs if you wrote them in a row spelled OFF TMW. Now there were no raids on the British coast reported on Thursday (the next day), so you can see how I'm putting two and two together (OFF TOMORROW). A spy in the BBC could be signalling, I think checks should be made. I am going to keep a list for you.

         
 

Well I think that's all for now. I saw your picture in the paper last week and I hope you don't mind me saying that I wonder if you're getting enough fresh air.

Yours faithfully,

Flora Sedge

B
efore leaving Croxton's Scrap Metal for the last time, Vee had gutted a couple of sprats and dropped the flaccid insides down the back of the gas-fire.

The new flat, for which she'd paid three weeks' rent in advance (
three weeks!
) was above a bookshop. It had a proper bathroom, and its own front door. The council offices were five minutes away; Vee dropped round there one morning to pay off her rates arrears and it occurred to her, as she walked home, that for the first time in her adult life she didn't owe any money to anyone. It was odd – unbalancing – not to have that particular worry; it was as if she'd been walking round for the last twenty years with a sandbag over one shoulder.

By the end of the summer, she and Noel had rules and a routine. They took a mid-morning train outward (not too crowded, not too empty) and returned mid-afternoon. Four hours' collecting was enough; the box was usually heavy by then. They changed their destination daily, taking buses from the stations, testing and comparing areas. St John's Wood was too rich, Kilburn too Irish, Camden had too many policemen. They stuck to the north-western suburbs, to houses crammed with the respectable poor.

Noel varied the beneficiary of the collecting box, keeping careful notes of the daily totals. By mid-August, RAF Widows
and Orphans were clearly winning over those from Dunkirk.

In Kingsbury, one afternoon, they saw a dogfight, chalk lines scribbled across a wide blue board, one mark scraping diagonally downward, ending in a puff of black on the horizon. Half the street came out to watch, and there was a cheer as the Heinkel went down. People came up to Vee afterwards and stuffed money into the box. She thanked them and smiled sadly, keeping her eyes on the ground; she was learning.

On the way back, before getting the train, they'd treat themselves to a cup of tea and a bun, and Vee would talk, releasing half a day of pent-up chatter. It took Noel a while to realize that it wasn't a monologue, it was one side of a conversation, peppered with questions and hopeful gaps. When he first began to fill in the spaces, she looked startled, an odd light in her eye, like a dog brought up on bread scraps who'd been given a lump of liver for the first time.

‘I need to look for some Sanatogen for Mum.'

They were seated in Fay's Tea Room, Fortune Green. It was a Friday, the last day of the school holidays, and they'd done very well; one man had given two and six. On Monday, they'd be back on afternoons only, the bounty halved.

‘Why?' asked Noel.

‘What do you mean, why?'

‘What does your mother need Sanatogen for? What is it, exactly?'

‘It's a tonic wine. Perks you up. It's hard to find in the shops now, though.'

‘Couldn't you just get ordinary wine? Or beer?'

‘Mum doesn't drink.'

There was a pause while they thought about this. ‘There's wine and wine,' said Vee, defensively. ‘My mother drinks it for health, not for . . . for . . .'

‘Getting blotto?'

Vee let out a snort, and tried to cover it by taking a
mouthful of tea; she'd had a sudden, startling image of her mother drunk. ‘You can't say things like that,' she said.

‘Oiled?' suggested Noel. ‘Pickled. Soused. Three sheets to the wind.'

‘How do you know all those?'

‘Jingled, smashed, tanked to the wide? I was paid to learn them.'

‘
Paid?
'

‘As an aid to the expansion of both memory and vocabulary.'
Roget's Thesaurus
. Mattie had chosen a word, and then rewarded Noel a penny a synonym.

Vee shook her head. She was beginning to relish Noel's oddness; it was like talking to someone who'd been raised on the moon.

‘“Fuddled”, they say round us,' she offered. ‘Do I get tuppence?'

She felt gay and invigorated, her handbag full of money. On the way home, after they left St Albans station, she crossed the road to the Red Cross Comforts shop. ‘Won't be a moment,' she said to Noel, and opened the door.

She nearly closed it again when she saw Mrs de Souza, the shoe-shop owner's wife, a red volunteer band around her arm. She was wearing a crisp little apron and resting her ringed hands on the counter, so that everyone could see she had a diamond the size of a pea on one finger. She said nothing to Vee, only looked down her nose, but there was a woman sitting beside her, crocheting, who had a friendly sort of face, and Vee gathered herself together.

‘I've not come to buy,' she said, ‘just to make a donation.'

She unclipped her handbag and though she'd meant to give a shilling, she found herself taking out a whole half-crown instead. ‘Shall I put it in there?' she asked, making sure that both women could see the coin before it dropped into the box beside the till.

‘Well, that's
very
generous of you, I must say,' said Crochet, ‘isn't it, Mrs de Souza?' and the frozen-faced cow had to nod, though it looked as if someone had put a hand to the back of her head and given it a push.

Vee glided out of the shop as though on a gilded barge. She couldn't remember when she'd ever felt as good, not ever.

On the Monday afternoon, they went to Hornsey. Noel got off the bus they'd taken from Kentish Town and snuffed the air. There was a breeze blowing from the south-east, and it brought with it a peculiar smell: burnt sugar, vinegar, cooking gas.

‘It couldn't be those bombs, could it?' asked Vee, doubtfully. Over the weekend, the East End of London had caught it badly – it had been on the morning news, and then again on the train, everyone talking excitedly. They said the whole sky had been black with German planes, and the water in the docks had boiled. Eight thousand dead, according to a thin-lipped man with an umbrella. ‘A number of casualties', according to the wireless. Vee had been nervous on the journey there, half-expecting to see London flattened, but it looked no different from usual: rows of bins, sandbags, balloons like a giants' birthday party above the rooftops.

Noel was studying the gazetteer. ‘Let's try the streets behind the reservoir,' he said.

‘Is it RAF today?'

‘Pilots' Benevolent Fund.' Noel took the collecting box out of his gas-mask case and dropped in the usual pennies. ‘Let's go, shall we? We can cut across here.'

They climbed a set of steps and found themselves beside a bleak, oblong pond, level with the rooftops. A woman was throwing crusts to a solitary swan.

Cast thy bread upon the waters, thought Vee. ‘Someone's got food to waste,' she said.

The swan-feeder shook her paper bag over the water, and
then carefully folded it, and started to walk along the path towards them. She cut rather an odd figure, tall, her clothes mismatched: a skirt down to the ground, a tweed jacket, a beret.

‘Good morning,' she said, smiling.

She might have been good-looking once, thought Vee – she had the kind of high-cheekboned face that keeps its shape even in age, but her complexion was the colour of cheap mince, her teeth all whistling gaps.

‘Mrs Aileen Gifford,' said the lady, extending a hand. ‘Lovely to see you again. We met at Frank's christening.'

Vee shook it, nonplussed.

‘And is this your son?'

Noel looked blankly past her, in his usual clever imitation of a half-wit.

‘Delightful,' said Mrs Gifford, resting a hand briefly on Noel's head. ‘I have always liked boys. I shall certainly contribute to your cause.' She plunged a hand into her jacket pocket, and took it out again. Her fist was closed around a mass of coins; one by one she fed them into the collecting box. ‘Delightful,' she said again, and drifted off.

‘Twelve shillings and fourpence,' said Noel, quietly.

‘
Twelve . . . !
' Vee stared after the woman. ‘Cracked.'

‘You don't know,' said Noel, fiercely. ‘She might not be, she might be ill, you can't just say things like that about people.'

He walked off, in the opposite direction to Mrs Gifford, and after a moment of surprise Vee hurried after him.

It was an average sort of take. Not counting the early windfall, they made a guinea and ninepence in two hours, calling at every other house, along one side only of selected streets, ringing no more than two bells per house; it was better to keep moving. There were no awkward questions, nothing that Vee couldn't cope with. ‘You from round here?' one woman asked.

‘Just the other side of Chalk Farm,' said Vee, vaguely. ‘Thank you kindly for your contribution.'

In any case, today when people answered their doors, their eyes slid past Noel and Vee and towards the sky.

‘They'll be after Buckingham Palace next,' said a man with scars on his knuckles. ‘Lord Haw-Haw was saying,' and he gave them threepence, and a barley sugar for Noel.

‘Shall we finish this street and call it a day?' asked Vee. She was beginning to feel nervy, as if the fear in the air were like cold germs and she was coming down with a dose.

‘We've got another quarter of an hour,' said Noel, the sweet clicking between his teeth, ‘at least.'

‘Yes, but. . .'

He was already at the next house, pressing the top bell. Vee followed him reluctantly.

‘Just one more, then,' she said.

They heard someone singing, a wordless melody coming slowly down the stairs, and then the door opened.

‘Lovely to see you again,' said Mrs Aileen Gifford, extending a hand. ‘We met at Jenny Allstrop's wedding.'

She was now wearing a tea-gown with, on one shoulder, a corsage of limp felt roses and on the other, a silver medal on a striped ribbon.

‘We're collecting for the Pilots' Benevolent Fund,' said Vee, ‘but you already gave us—'

‘Do come in, I'd be delighted to help such a very worthy cause.'

Mrs Gifford drifted away along the hall.

‘
Should we?
' mouthed Vee to Noel, but he was already following the woman.

There were three doors off the hall, and as they passed the third, it opened and a man in a warden's boiler suit came out, carrying his helmet. He glanced up the stairs after Mrs Gifford, and then gave Vee and Noel a grin. He had a pitted face, and eyes as mild and brown as a heifer's.

‘There goes the living story-book,' he said, ‘new tale every minute, none of them true. It's years of –' he mimed lifting a bottle to his mouth ‘– sent her right round the bend. Came from gentry, too.' He winked at Vee, and she smiled primly and put a hand on Noel's shoulder. The man lingered.

‘Invited you in, has she?'

‘That's right. She wants to give us a contribution.'

‘I wouldn't go if I was you.'

‘Why ever not?'

‘Not a good example for the lad, is it?'

Vee could see Mrs Gifford's ankles, unstockinged and scaly, disappearing round the corner.

‘Thank you, but I'm sure we'll be all right.'

She could feel him still watching as they climbed the stairs.

‘I was just about to run a duster around when I had a visitor from Venezuela,' Vee followed the voice up another half-flight.

‘It was the sister of my piano tutor, she couldn't stay long, she left her coat and one or two other items that I haven't had time to tidy away. And here we are,' said Mrs Gifford, opening a door. ‘Do come in.'

Vee hesitated, but Noel stepped forward with apparent eagerness. The room was in shadow, the blackouts fully drawn and only a dim central bulb supplying any light. ‘Lemon wafer?' asked Mrs Gifford, bending over and moving something that clinked emptily. ‘Or perhaps a macaroon? I'm sure I have some left over from the garden party.'

‘I won't, thanks ever so,' said Vee. She couldn't work out what she was looking at. There didn't, at first sight, appear to be any furniture; rather, the room was filled by a low-level mountain range, a series of gentle foothills surrounding a flat-topped central peak. It was the penetrating smell of mothballs that made her realize they were actually mounds of clothing arranged around a bed.

‘Do take a seat,' said Mrs Gifford, waving a gracious hand as if indicating a choice of chaises longues.

‘I won't, thanks ever so,' said Vee again, just as Noel said, ‘Thank you.' He plumped himself down on a pyramid of coats and gave Vee what appeared, in the gloom, to be a reproving look.

She gave the box a rattle, and spoke rather too loudly. ‘We're only here to do some collecting. We can't stay.'

‘And I'll have a macaroon,' said Noel. ‘That would be very nice.'

‘
We should go
,' she hissed at him.

He ignored her.

There weren't any macaroons, of course. Mrs Gifford, talking gracious nonsense, burrowed around in the room as urinous smells billowed up beneath the camphor, and Noel sat as rigidly as if he were attending a tea party at Kensington Palace.

‘We'll be missing our train,' said Vee, trying again. She gave the box another rattle.

‘
Train train go away
,' recited Mrs Gifford with a light laugh, crouching beside the window. ‘And here it is!' There was a click and then a prolonged rustling sound, as if she were rifling through autumn leaves. She straightened up with a crumpled piece of paper in her hand, which she passed to Noel. ‘How you've grown – as tall as a Scots pine! It must be all the swimming. I expect you'll need to stock up on tuck when you get back after Michaelmas, won't you?'

‘I expect so,' he said, huskily.

‘All boys like cake, don't they? And I've been saving this one for a very special occasion.' She slid a hand under the bedclothes and brought out an object swaddled in grey flannel. As she began unwinding, it became clear that the wrapping was actually a suit of long winter underwear, liberally stained. ‘And
voila!
' she said, brandishing the very small Dundee cake at its centre. ‘A slice for all?'