The Longest Fight (19 page)

‘I’ve been chatting with Georgie.’ Pearl raised her eyebrows. He recognised that half-smile; she knew she had him hooked now.

‘Where’s she been all this time, then?’ He made a show of looking over at Newton’s chessboard.

‘Ask her yourself.’

Georgie carried a brown crate in from the corridor. Cousin Alf struggled to fit the Courage brass back into place on the tap. She squeezed around him, put down the bottles and carried the waiting pint to Jack.

‘Back, then, I see.’

‘My landlady kicked me out. I’ve been staying with my sister.’ She twisted the copper bangles around her wrist.

Pearl spun back to face the bar, took a deep breath. ‘Georgie needs a place to rent. I said she could share my room.’

Jack blew beer across the bar.

‘I think that’s a no, Pearl.’ Georgie slapped a cloth down in front of him.

He wasn’t sure why he did it; since the night at the club he’d felt as though he had been trapped in one of those ice cubes. Now here Georgie was: the sweetness of her perfume, the way it grew stronger as her breasts moved; the curl that always bounced out from behind her ear. Jack tried to concentrate on the brown cloth. ‘What do you want me to do with that stinking thing?’ He couldn’t bring himself to look up and show them the smile tingling at his lips.

‘Clear up your own mess.’ She prodded it closer, then shook her head at Pearl. ‘He ain’t going to say sorry.’

‘He won’t, but he is.’ She touched Georgie’s fingers.

‘I am here, ladies.’

‘If he won’t say it… well, I’ve got work to do.’ Georgie straightened up, fitted her skirt into place and walked away. Jack picked up the cloth, weighed it in his hand. In one swift move he wiped the bar clean, mopping up the spilled beer, even polishing the rail.

‘You’ll have to pay your way. I’m not a bloody doss house.’ He threw the cloth; she caught it and tucked it behind the pumps.

‘Meet me at the Elephant tomorrow and help me with my bags. Oh, and Jack, if you keep me waiting like that again you won’t be so lucky.’

Georgie turned to take Newton’s empty glass. But Jack saw her glancing his way, eyes narrowing and measuring him up. She didn’t need to worry: he’d be there tomorrow. Another body to fill up that cold house, something to keep Pearl occupied. Someone to come home to. He finished his pint and banged the glass down. ‘What about another drink?’

Pearl met his eyes in the mirror. He tugged on his earlobe and wondered how long she would make him wait.

‘This squash tastes like licking a penny.’

It was enough of an invitation for Jack and he thumped his hand on the counter.

‘A bloke could die of thirst here,’ he called to Georgie.

She twisted sideways as she moved past the waiting stack of bottles. The outline of her breasts filled the narrow space. Jack wanted to dry his damp skin by slipping his hands under those layers of cotton and wool. She brushed down her apron. ‘What can I get you,
sir
?’

‘Two pints of Courage, and one for yourself. I really am celebrating tonight.’

‘Courage,’ Pearl said the word as if she was practising the sound.

Georgie smiled. ‘Now, both those pints would be for you, Jack, ain’t that right?’

‘Course. I’m one of Her Majesty’s most law-abiding subjects.’

Pearl squirmed on the stool, the magazine in her pocket pulling the cardigan from her left shoulder to uncover one white, goosepimpled arm. Jack remembered the first time he’d realised she wasn’t small enough to lift high up into the air any more.

‘Drink it all up. It’ll do you good.’ And he meant it. ‘One more fight, that’s all I need, Pearl.’

Jack reached down, straightened her cardigan, and waited for his pint. Pearl always came back. After his mum’s funeral the Winnies had whisked Pearl off to Guildford, but the very next day she was on the doorstep waiting for him, suitcase by her feet. The Winnies sent telegrams that he didn’t bother to answer, and when they finally got hold of him, on the phone at the pub, he’d told them it would be his funeral before he’d let Pearl go again. She had bobbed up, like Jack that way.

The door opened and Newton shuffled out. The rain fell in vast sheets, razing the street; scrubbing everything into silvery blackness.

J
ackie doesn’t notice the blackouts any more; he hasn’t the energy to look up. He drops off the kerb and crosses the road, turning the corner to the pub – too dark to see down the cellar. But it is there. A voice sings inside: Newton raising another glass to dull the pain. Jackie knows how he feels. Newton lost his toe, then the sickness ate up his whole leg and it was lopped off above the knee. Nobody knows what is missing from Jackie, but without Rosie there is no balance. The slit headlamps of a car stop suddenly as he steps out in front of it. Jackie had spent months clinging to walls, to lamp-posts, or he would crash to the ground. He presses his hand to the hot bonnet, pushes himself on. Sometimes he still feels that black water sloshing inside him. He makes it out on to Camberwell Road, past the darkened fish and chip shop, steam clouds stockpiled around the doorway.

He turns off Wyndham Road into the yards. Nineteen years old, and he is still stuck in stinking Camberwell. The doctors sent him back to the factory so he signed up for ARP – they don’t care about his flat feet. He has come straight from work, no point going back to the house. Pearl keeps him awake with her chattering, and he doesn’t have any use for daylight now. The metal gates glint, mirroring the moon. The building supplier’s yard is closed, planks of wood and bricks piled up as if it has already taken a direct hit. The shed off to one side is Control Point. Jackie lifts the horsehair blanket to get inside. An old bloke stares at him through watery eyes; lined face and white hair. Jackie shouldn’t be here: he should be lying sunk in the mud at the bottom of Albany Basin, or
rotting under some foreign soil. He kicks a stone; it skids across the floor and ricochets off a tin bucket of sand.

The red-faced bloke checks his list. ‘What’s your name, son?’

‘Jackie.’ He lines up another stone under his toe.

‘We had an old timer here by name of Jackie. He got burned up last week. You’ll have to be Jack. Good, solid name for a young bloke like yourself.’ The man sits hunched like a toad.

‘Jack it is, then.’ He gives a shrug and sits down on a stool: there is no Rosie and no Jackie. He is just glad the man didn’t question his surname. Jack isn’t sure he could put up with the old git saying he remembered his dad and what a good sort he was, how sorry he was his brothers bought it in France.

‘Name’s Eric. Kettle’s on, so make yourself useful. The others’ll be back shortly.’

‘I ain’t come here to make tea every night.’

Jack warms his hands on the thin flame coming from the primus stove. Eric uses a stick to knock a jar from the shelf into his lap.

‘Just as well. We ran out of leaves last week. How did you get yourself assigned?’

‘Flat feet. Bloody doctor wouldn’t keep his mouth shut, marked my slip.’

The walls run wet with condensation, tilting towards the flame as if they might collapse at any moment. Eric rocks forward on his stool and mixes up the Camp coffee, wraps his hands around the battered red enamel.

‘Don’t suppose you brought your own mug with you? Well, you can use mine after I’m done.’

‘Don’t worry, I ain’t going to be here long. I don’t need no mug.’

‘Got plans, have you? Think the Army’ll be begging you to hit the front?’ He lets out a low laugh and rubs his balding head. ‘I was out there, back in the Great War. Give me a warm hut any day.’

‘I’ll likely be under a pile of bricks by week’s end, my insides burned up by smoke.’

‘Be lucky, Jack. Maybe you’ll be pulling someone else out the rubble, or saving some poor sod’s house. Here.’ He thrusts a tin hat and armband at Jack. ‘What you’ve got on will serve as uniform. Keep it clean and tidy. You’re with me now. And, so you know, smoke don’t burn. It chokes like some fat fucker kneeling on your windpipe.’

His white wisps of hair wilt under the steam from the mug. Jack licks his lips; his mouth is dry and cold. Eric buffs the mug clean on his trousers then pours more for Jack.

‘Drink up. It’s going to be brass monkeys.’

‘Cheers.’

Lumps bob on the surface but Jack doesn’t care. He places one finger at a time around the sides. The bed of his missing thumbnail turns from ice-white to live pink; feeling spreads slowly up his arms and back into his hands. He has been numb since the night at the Basin. He still can’t bear to look at Pearl, but the weight of her is drowning him all over again. His mum is all smiles and sloppy kisses for the girl – even hung a bigger picture of his dad over the mantel and held her up to see him. Jackie didn’t care enough to make it stop, but Jack is different. He isn’t a boy in short trousers any more. Heat slides down his throat, smooth and heavy as a pebble. He finishes it without looking up then puts the mug down on the floor. Eric is watching him, scratching at the fat purple veins on his nose.

‘I’ve seen you at some fights, I’m sure I have done. Used to belong to the gym over by the canal, didn’t you? You were quick on your feet.’

‘I ain’t been for a while.’ He can’t keep enough weight on, no matter how much sugary tea and powdered milk he drinks.

‘Not much chance of making it professional now, mind. No men left to fight. They’ve all gone and signed up.’ Eric scrapes out the dead skin from under his fingernails with his front teeth. ‘But you had a sharp eye. That’s worth something.’

‘That’s worth nothing. Since I was twelve I’ve wanted to be a fighter.’

Jack sits up a little taller. But even as he says it he knows it isn’t true. He is never going to be great, not like those big names in
The Ring
: Nipper Pat Daly, Joe Louis, Alf Mancini. Eric relights a pipe, breathes in.

‘There are shit-shovellers and there are those who know where to find shit. Money’s in finding it, not shovelling it. Think on that.’

‘What you on about?’

‘Christ, you young ones today haven’t got the brains you were born with.’ Eric shakes his head. ‘Let some other chump wear the gloves – you keep the book.’

Eric is right about one thing: Jack does have a keen eye. He isn’t going to sit out the rest of his life in this shed at the forgotten end of nowhere. Jack could be a good manager. He glances up as something smacks against the corrugated iron roof.

‘Only rain. Sounds like rats running over, don’t it? We’ve got those too. But tonight it’s the rain.’ Eric licks his tongue along the tip of the pipe.

The rain jumps and leaps, rattling above Jack’s head. But there will never be enough water to wash him back to Rosie.

Pearl is crying again. Jack dumps his helmet and gas mask in the hall, follows the sound into the front room. His jacket and trousers are damp with rain; it was a cold walk back but better that than the jumping flames reddening his skin: six houses and a pub gone. He wants to smell something clean, feel something soft in his arms. Pearl stands against the wooden bars, her mouth open in some red rage. Jack sits down beside the pen, pushes his hand through the gap. She thrusts out her bottom lip, sounding some word he doesn’t understand, but her fingers slide through the bars. She grabs him tight. It surprises him how strong she is, the way her
fist makes his finger throb as if with sheer will alone she can break him. Jack sits cross-legged in front of her and curls out his bottom lip too. For every house he is going to see burned to the ground, every heap of blackened bricks and shrapnel-carved street, there will be Pearl waiting for him when he comes home. Plump legs and arms protruding from a hand-knitted woollen dress that his mum never had time to make for the others; the shades of yellow and pink make her look like a joint of ham. Jack shakes his finger and her arm wobbles as she hangs on.

He reaches down to scoop Pearl free. She gets heavier every time. The wooden bars won’t hold her for long; he has seen her trying to climb over then dropping back on to her backside. But she is all right. Not a scratch on her; with all that surrounds her, Pearl seems to bounce through the days untouched. Even the cut from a midnight trip to the Andersen shelter has healed, and she didn’t snivel once. Jack lifts her up, high above his head, and a tuft of dark hair grazes the ceiling. A laugh rumbles up from inside the layers of wool, and he lets his arms drop suddenly until Pearl is level with his face. He hopes for her sake she is going to look like Rosie, but she is three now and still no sign. The face staring back is his: same thin tilt upwards of the eyes, thick lips and high rounded cheeks. She is a Munday. He rubs his cheek against her thin hair, remembering the small soft spot that used to move as she breathed. She smells of cold cream and soft-boiled carrots. Jack studies those pale eyes. But he can’t find what he is searching for.

‘Put her down.’ His mum’s voice stops the laughter.

She stands in the doorway, apron dusted with flour, arms tightly folded. She beckons for Pearl with her finger. ‘You don’t need to be picking her up like that.’

‘She’s my daughter.’ Jack holds on to her.

‘That’s the first time you’ve laid claim to it since that night. What happened out there? Saw some tragic scene, someone died?’

‘But Mum…’

He feels small next to her solid frame. Pearl hiccups and thrusts out her free hand towards his mum.

‘You should know better. Don’t you see what I suffer? I’ve lost my own brave sons now. Never even got their bodies back. Makes me weep to think of them buried where they fell. And it ain’t safe for the Winnies to be taking trains to come and see me. Pearl’s all I’ve got left.’

‘What about me?’

‘You know what I mean. Give me back my Pearl.’ Her lips press tight, brown eyes almost black. ‘Careful, you’ll hurt her playing around like that.’

‘I’m not
him.
’ He breathes out the words so quietly he isn’t sure his mum hears.

Pearl gives another hiccup and wobbles in his arms. But he can’t ever be sure that he isn’t like that face staring down at them from the picture above the fire: maybe Jack will throw his dinner against the wall because someone chews too loudly; maybe he will give gifts then smash them up when the thanks don’t sound grateful enough.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, son. She’s big enough to walk on her own now.’

He pushes Pearl outwards at arm’s length. Her body slippery in his hands like cooked tripe. ‘Take her, then, see if you can’t keep her quiet. I need some kip.’

She disappears into the folds of his mum’s housecoat, lost against the rolls of her body. His mum winces slightly as she takes the full weight of a toddler. Five children, three left, have made her limbs thick with age, and she creaks like an old bed when she moves too quickly.

‘There’s some of last night’s supper on the stove if you want.’

‘I ain’t hungry.’ Jack moves to the doorway.

His mum’s hand is firmly placed on Pearl’s back, holding on with her big open palm as if she can keep away everything that has happened before.

‘Let’s button you up, Pearl, keep the cold out. She’s not as quiet as you were.’

‘We weren’t allowed to cry.’ Jack picks at a graze on his knuckle.

‘She’s got a set of lungs on her.’

‘Too right she has – that kid is all I bloody hear.’

‘It’s the tone of your voice. You’ve got a man’s voice now.’

Pearl isn’t used to a man’s voice because there aren’t any men left: his dad is long dead and his brothers are buried in French sand. He is the only one left to look after the damp, rotting house. Last night, as he sat at his post, watching the sky and the passing dark aircraft-shaped clouds, he considered if the weight that crushed his chest would be lifted if he came back to find the house was nothing but a black pit of rubble and ashes.

‘I’m done for.’

Jack climbs the stairs. He drops his jacket to the floor, gets into bed with his shirt and trousers still on; too tired and too cold to change. Getting between the chilled sheets is like slipping underwater – icy and slimy. But he can’t sleep, not yet. He takes out Rosie’s picture from its hiding place at the back of the drawer; his mum has got rid of everything else. Jack brings it closer to his face until it is pressed to the skin between his eyes. But the air raid siren starts to scream. Who will carry Pearl down the shelter? Who will dig her out if they take a hit? He buries his head, photograph wedged in place, drags the clumpy sides of the pillow over his ears to block out the screeching world. He shuts his eyes, concentrates on the moving darkness and the cold paper. Nothing. He holds his breath and tries again. It isn’t working: he can’t see Rosie’s face. What if she isn’t waiting for him? What if he can never picture her again?
You had your chance to be a man and you were too much of a coward to take it.
His dad’s voice cuts through the siren.

Jack throws back the blankets, slides the photograph into his top pocket and skids down the stairs, swinging into the
hallway from the bottom newel post. He catches up with his mum at the back door and snatches Pearl out of her arms. He herds them both into the yard, cracking his big toe against the piled-up earth as they descend into the shelter. Pearl clings to the front of his shirt, squeezes it up around his neck, and even when he sinks down on the bench she doesn’t let go. She wheezes against his ear. He turns on the torch: two benches, and one large patchwork lump at the back of the shelter; Mr and Mrs Bell sleep down there most nights.

He focuses the light on Pearl. ‘She’s breathing funny.’ Jack tilts back her head with his thumb. ‘You’ve buttoned her up too tight.’

He loosens the lace around her neck, wide enough for his finger to fit between her skin and the white material. His mum pulls a cardigan tight across her chest and spreads a blanket over her knees. ‘She’d soon let me know if something was up. She can speak, you know. Keep your voice down and hand her over.’ She pats her lap.

Pearl’s face is luminous in the torchlight. A bright white line stands out against her pink skin like a rope-burn around her neck. Her fist is clenched about his shirt but her head begins to nod, her eyes fluttering closed. Snoring comes from the back of the shelter; one of the Bells’ farts gurgles up through the thick blankets. Jack doesn’t answer his mum. He folds his arms under Pearl’s backside, supports her weight as he leans against the corrugated iron. He closes his eyes, feels the hem of that blue flowered dress rippling between his fingers, hears the rumble of Rosie’s laughter: the sparkle of the gold ring brightened by the flame of the match, warm yellow baby blanket tucked under her arm. The all-clear siren rings out, another false alarm; and Rosie is gone again.