The Past and Other Lies (32 page)

‘They’re having an interval,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Looks set to go on for a while yet so I said I would escort you home then get back for the second half.’

‘If you like,’ she replied, making it clear these domestic arrangements were all very dull. She held out her arm and he took it quickly, as though embarrassed not to have offered her his arm first, and they set off towards High Street.

Despite the threat of roaming gangs, the streets were all but deserted now and their footsteps echoed in unison as they walked along the pavement. Her brother-in-law was, Jemima noted, much taller and broader than Ronnie, his voice deeper, his face clean-shaven and not in need of the drooping moustache that Ronnie sported.

‘You are very brave, volunteering on the buses, Matthew,’ she observed suddenly, surprising them both. She felt him stand up taller, his head go back.

‘Oh well. I should hope we all know our duty in difficult times.’

‘Bertha supports the strikers, you know.’ She felt him stiffen.

‘Ah now, there I think you are mistaken. She understands the importance of maintaining discipline and order.’

‘Did she come and see you off when you enrolled and set off on your first shift?’ Jemima inquired, knowing full well that Bertha had been waving to the Acton Labour Club marchers at about that time.

‘It’s hardly a woman’s place,’ he answered stiffly.

‘I would have come and waved you off,’ said Jemima softly.

There was a silence.

‘Do you think they will take on women bus conductors?’ she mused. ‘And drivers? After all, women drove buses and ambulances in the War.’

‘I don’t think it will come to that.’

‘I’d volunteer if they did. Perhaps they would put me on your bus? Wouldn’t that be funny? I could navigate you to Putney and I wouldn’t be scared of any stone-throwing gangs either.’

‘I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ repeated Matthew doggedly.

‘Would you like to have me on your bus?’

It was easy, it was so, so easy in the dark, walking side by side, hand on arm, feet marching in unison, staring straight ahead, not a soul around. No one to hear you, no one to see your expression. Just words uttered in the darkness. Words you would never dare to utter in daylight, with other people around.

‘I—Of course I would not doubt your capabilities—or your courage!—but I would be concerned for your safety...’

‘Would you? How sweet.’ She moved a little closer to him, for protection.

They had turned into High Street and Jemima glanced up at the flat. It was dark, no lights on. Ronnie not back then? Maybe he’d been arrested. Maybe Dad had arrested him.

‘Looks like no one’s home. You will come up, won’t you, to see me safely in?’

‘Yes, of course. Mr Booth...?’

‘Oh, he’s off playing strikers somewhere.’

‘But the baby?’

‘Oh, Baby’s alright. Mrs Avery next door’s minding.’ At least she hoped Baby was alright, realising she had left Baby with Mrs Avery for five minutes five hours ago.

They reached the butcher’s and Jemima led the way down the dingy side passage to her porch, then up the unlit stairs to the landing, where she unlocked the door and let them in.

Matthew remained determinedly silent as he stood politely to one side to allow her to pass and she realised he had never been to the flat before. She experienced a moment of shame at this, her home, a poky flat above a foul-smelling butcher’s shop. Ronnie’s work clothes lay in piles, Baby’s nappies hung all over the place and yesterday’s tea and today’s breakfast things were still piled up in the kitchen sink. But what did it matter? At least she wasn’t still living with Mum and Dad.

‘Come on,’ she said, leading the way into the small lounge. She brushed Ronnie’s papers and journals off the armchair and pushed Baby’s clothes out of the way with her foot. Matthew stood in the centre of the room looking too big, his hands hanging awkwardly at his side.

‘Ronnie’s out. Those union demonstrations go on all night sometimes. Often it’s just Baby and me here on our own.’

‘Really?’ said Matthew, clearing his throat. ‘That’s not, well... Can’t be very pleasant for you.’

‘Oh, it’s not. Not at all. It’s not what a woman expects from a marriage.’ Jemima sighed.

‘No, I’m sure. It can’t be.’ He frowned.

‘Still, I expect I’ll be alright here on my own. It seems mostly quiet now.’

‘Yes, yes it does. Erm...’ He hesitated. ‘Perhaps I ought to stay until Mr Booth returns?’

‘But sometimes he doesn’t return until morning.’ And then before he could reply, ‘Why don’t you sit down? Take your coat off. We have some brandy in the cupboard—that’ll warm us,’ and she went to the cupboard and poured a nip each into two short glasses, one of which she held out to Matthew.

‘I suppose I ought to return soon, they’ll be—Bertha will be waiting,’ he said.

‘Yes, of course,’ said Jemima, and she watched as he took the glass and drank from it.

It was day two of the strike and Things, Bertha had announced importantly, Were Escalating. The newspapers pinned up on the church noticeboard reported that yesterday two million workers had gone on strike, a figure that was set to double over the next few days. Only a handful of tube trains were running, less than a tenth of the buses and a dozen or so trams. Congestion on the main roads had doubled. People were rising at five to ride bicycles or go on foot to work. Delivery vans and carts ran the gauntlet of the strikers to bring food supplies in from the country, and fights were breaking out as workers attempted to secure a seat in any vehicles that might get them to the office.

Bertha and Janie turned up at the flat a little after eight. Janie was pushing the dribbling Herbert in his perambulator, and was full of excitement because a vanload of cabbages had been spilled all over High Street and a horse had slipped on them and broken its leg and had had to be destroyed.

Jemima listened impatiently. Ronnie, it was clear, had not gone in to work yesterday, though he had said nothing when he had come home some time after midnight, flushed and excited but uncommunicative. And what would happen if he lost his job?

She dismissed the thought irritably. There were, after all, more pressing things to think about. She reached for her hat, glancing at Bertha, but her sister was impassively dabbing a handkerchief at Herbert’s chin as though babies’ dribble was all that mattered. Then, ‘When did Ronnie get back last night?’ Bertha asked, cool as you please. ‘Is he involved in the strike?’ As though it was any of her business what her sister’s husband got up to!

‘Oh, he was back quite early,’ Jemima replied tartly, pulling on her coat and doing up the buttons despite it being a warm spring day outside. ‘Though the Lord only knows what he’d been up to. I couldn’t be bothered asking.’ That, at least, had been the truth.

‘Oh,’ was all Bertha said, but she continued to stand there and stare.

‘Well? Are we going out, or are we going to stand about here all day and miss all the fun?’ Jemima replied briskly. Quite apart from changing the subject she was anxious to get the loathsome Herbert and his incessant dribble out of her home.

‘Up we go little man!’ Janie announced, swinging the baby ceilingward so that an arc of dribble sprayed across the floor. ‘Who’s a funny little man, then?’ she added and Jemima handed her own baby to Bertha and silently held the front door open.

Outside the street had calmed after the morning rush but there was still plenty to see so they strolled along High Street with linked arms, pushing the two perambulators between them.

They came across Dad almost at once.

‘Look! There he is! Over there!’

Bertha pointed and on the far side of the road over by the railway bridge they could see Dad, proudly sporting his scarlet armband, standing amid a group of other special constables. She and Janie stood and waved and Jemima took the opportunity to park Baby’s perambulator and flop down on a low wall.

‘What’s he guarding then?’ said Janie, waving enthusiastically.

‘The Lord only knows.’

‘Perhaps they’ve had a tip-off!’

‘About what? A horse?’

‘No! A police tip-off. Extremists. You know! Planning on blowing up the bridge.’

But they could see a large tea urn beneath the archway bubbling away on a smoky brazier and it seemed more likely the special constables were there for their morning cuppa.

‘Oh,’ said Janie, disappointed. ‘Where shall we go now then?’

‘We could go to the bus garage?’ suggested Bertha. ‘Matthew drove the early shift so they ought to be getting back to the garage soon. We could watch them come in.’

It was on the tip of Jemima’s tongue to point out that if the number 17C had followed a similar route to yesterday it could be some considerable time before it arrived back at the garage. But instead she said, ‘Yes alright,’ in a bored voice and off they set.

They had got as far as the Red Lion when the number 184 London Bridge bus, barbed wire fastened to both flanks, came careering out of the garage surrounded by a loud and angry mob of strikers. As the bus turned into High Street it swerved, mounting the pavement ahead of them.

All three jumped back in alarm, Janie swinging her perambulator in such an arc it reared up on two wheels and all but tipped over. Janie shrieked and tried to regain control of the wayward perambulator, Bertha made a lunge at the screaming Herbert and Jemima leapt out of the way of the oncoming bus.

She had a confused view of the horrified face of the young man who was gripping its steering wheel, of the bus regaining the road and the word
General
, written in large letters on the side of the bus, flashing before her. The conductor was crouched on the step inside the bus, a passenger on the top deck clutched a bloodied handkerchief to his face, and a running, placard-waving, shouting crowd of young men banged on the bus’s side as it swept onwards.

The last thing she saw was Ronnie—her husband—emerging from the throng running alongside the bus to hurl a brick that dented the red paintwork and spun off to land on the pavement about a yard from Baby’s perambulator.

In another moment the bus had gone and the crowd had fizzled out. A trail of bricks, broken placards and a single shoe was all that remained of the affray.

There was no sign of Ronnie.

‘Alright, Herbie, alright little man, it’s all over now. The horrible men have gone,’ crooned Janie, soothing the hysterical Herbert. Her own baby, Jemima noted, had slept through the whole thing.

‘I think he’s alright, no harm done,’ said Bertha. She turned her attention to Janie’s perambulator, straightening its wheels and making sure all was in working order. ‘No damage done. Looks good as new,’ she said, experimentally pushing it back and forth a few times. Then she turned to Jemima as though she had just that moment noticed her sister had said nothing.

‘Did you see, Jem? That man on the bus was injured. Those men must have caught him with a stone or something. Did you see?’

Jemima
had
seen and she had seen a great deal more than that too, but perhaps, she decided, looking from Bertha to Janie, they had not seen as much as she.

Ronnie
. Her own
husband
. In a mob of screaming, stone-throwing men. This was his precious league? This was his glorious revolution? All that talk of solidarity, of the workers’ rights, of human endeavour! What it really came down to was one man throwing a brick at a bus in High Street and another man holding a bloodied handkerchief to his face. Pathetic. It was pathetic.
He
was pathetic.

‘Let’s go in. Let’s wait inside the bus garage,’ she said suddenly and, not waiting for the other two, set off towards the gates of the garage pushing Baby before her.

There were two special constables on duty outside the garage who wouldn’t let them pass so they stood outside and waited. Janie walked Herbert up and down, singing to him in a low murmur.

Bertha asked the special constables whether the 17C had come in yet but they didn’t seem to know what had come in or what had gone out. But at that moment the number 17C itself swung around the corner and shot through the garage gates almost before the special constables could open them.

‘Hurrah!’ someone inside the bus called and a flag waved triumphantly from an upstairs window. Cheers from inside the garage accompanied the 17C’s return and, as the bus ground to a gear-crunching halt, the door opened and a rather green-looking conductor reeled out, followed a moment later by Matthew.

‘Matthew!’ called Bertha, pushing past the constables and in through the gates, waving madly at him.

‘The hero returns,’ muttered Jemima, but she found herself following closely at Bertha’s heels and it was clear, as they approached the bus, that it had weathered a skirmish or two. Most of the windows were broken, a large part of the paintwork was damaged, the windscreen was entirely gone and the streaked remains of a half-dozen eggs were hardening on the upper deck.

‘Matthew! Are you alright?’ gasped Bertha, taking his arm and looking up into his face.

He nodded and smiled and there was almost a glint in his eye. ‘Of course! I’m perfectly fine, my dear. The rabble did their best but we were equal to the task, eh, Bridges?’