Wives at War (41 page)

‘Archie?' Babs hissed. ‘What the heck are you doing?'

She heard Polly say, ‘What will happen to the child then?'

‘That will not be your concern.' Diplomatically Archie hesitated for just a fraction of a second before he continued. ‘As a matter of information, the child will be transported to an orphanage or council home and kept there until such time as the next of kin can be traced. That, alas, may take some weeks given the pressure that … No, Mrs Manone, I'm afraid there is no other alternative.'

Archie's brows rose once more and even through the thick lenses Babs could make out the angry glint in his eyes.

He thrust the receiver towards Babs. ‘She wants to talk to you.'

‘What?' Babs said. ‘Didn't Mr Harding make it plain enough, Polly?'

‘I – I can't do it,' Polly said, ‘not like that, not in cold blood. Won't you – won't you come over and take him from me?'

‘Me?' said Babs. ‘What could I do with the kid that you can't?'

‘You could take him in and look after him.'

‘Oh, I would,' said Babs, ‘believe me I would. But it's impossible. Surely even you can see that, Polly. I can't care for a toddler, not when I have to go out to work every day. It's difficult enough with April, God knows, but a baby, no.'

‘You did this deliberately, didn't you?' Polly said.

‘I didn't know there'd be a bloody air raid.'

‘All right,' said Polly. ‘All right.'

‘What does
that
mean?' said Babs.

‘I'll do it myself.'

‘You mean, look after him?'

‘No,' Polly said. ‘I'll take him to the police.'

‘An' just dump him?'

‘Of course,' said Polly curtly, and rang off.

*   *   *

The taxi couldn't make it to the top of the hill. Lorries blocked the street below the cul-de-sac in which Rosie lived and an odd-looking vehicle with a jib-crane on a flat-bed had been backed into the tenements and was unloading four or five huge wooden beams that, Polly supposed, would be fixed in place to support the building's sagging gables.

She paid the taxi driver, drew Ishbel's pushchair from the luggage nook and strapped the bundle of Davy's belongings on to it. She pushed the chair with one hand and held Davy against her body with the other. He'd had a good sound sleep and had eaten most of the dried-egg omelette that she'd made for him. He had even allowed her to dress him in a clean nappy and the knitted romper suit without too much fuss. It struck Polly that young Master Quinlan was well used to being looked after by strangers and handed round from pillar to post.

She ploughed on uphill, by-passing coppers and workmen.

Davy goggled at the sight of a huge beam swinging on the end of a chain and chattered incomprehensibly in Polly's ear. He was an active child, very alert for his age, though Polly had no idea what age he really was for Doreen had been evasive on that point and there had been no birth certificate among the young woman's documents.

The cul-de-sac was strewn with debris. Three men in gas board uniforms were peering into an open manhole. There were no warning signs, however, and the buildings were occupied so Polly assumed that it was safe to proceed.

In Rosie's close three women of about her age were shovelling up glass and an older woman was already scrubbing the stairs.

‘I'm looking for my sister, Mrs MacGregor,' Polly said. ‘Do you happen to know if she's at home?'

‘She is,' a dark-haired woman told her. ‘She took a knock on the head an' her hubby had her round at the doctor's for stitches. She's up upstairs now, I'm sure. You sure, Mrs Mavor?'

‘Aye, I'm sure she's at home.'

Polly thanked the women, navigated a route between the heaps of broken glass and, hoisting the pushchair into the crook of her arm, man-handled it, and Davy, up to Rosie's landing.

She pressed the big ivory-white button, waited, pressed it again, then turned the little brass knob of the door lock and gave the door a push.

It swung open.

Still carrying Davy, Polly stepped into the hall just as Rosie, blinking and rubbing her eyes, emerged from the bedroom.

‘Oh!' Rosie said in a hoarse whisper. ‘It's you, is it? I thought it might be Kuh-Kenny, or another air raid. What time is it?'

‘Just gone four,' said Polly.

Rosie looked alarmingly skinny, Polly thought, dressed in nothing but an old skirt and blouse. A pure white, unsullied bandage covered half her head and dipped across her left eye, flattening her hair. A small crisscross of pink sticking plaster adhered to her cheekbone. All in all, she gave the appearance of a doll got up to instruct an ambulance class in the basic principles of first aid.

Rosie wiped her good eye with the ball of her thumb.

‘And who's this?' she said.

‘His name's Davy.'

‘Hullo, Davy,' Rosie said, and grinned.

*   *   *

Polly had drawn the blackout curtains early, pinching the ragged ends together with safety pins and tacking them snugly to the window frame.

She was ravenously hungry now and watched a tin of macaroni-and-cheese knock and bobble in warming water in a blackened pot. In a second saucepan a tin of rhubarb pudding drummed an accompaniment.

On the lid of the piano were plates and spoons, bottles of Chianti, gin and whisky and a large jug filled to the brim with water from the tap in the ground-floor lavatory.

Polly kneeled on the carpet before the blaze, smoking a cigarette and feeling uncommonly pleased with herself. Dominic's house might be wrecked but with a fire roaring in the grate and candles lighted, she had made a cosy refuge for herself. She was tired but it was a satisfied tiredness and she was certain that when the siren sounded and she was obliged to seek refuge in the larder she would sleep like a babe in arms.

She didn't know when Christy would bring her motorcar back. She didn't care. She didn't need it now. She had everything she needed right here.

She sat on her heels and watched varnish blister on the chair leg she'd chopped up with one of Fin's hammers. A supply of wood was stacked against the sofa, pieces of the dresser, broken chairs, even fragments of window frame that she had lugged upstairs. She had, however, filled a bucket with earth from the flowerbed in the garden for she was not so far gone into Never-Never land that she would ignore the basic rules of safety and leave a blazing fire alight if and when the bombers came again.

She didn't hear the motorcar pull into the drive.

The first indication she had that Christy had returned was when he flung open the door of the parlour and called out, ‘Polly, what's burning? What the hell is burning now?'

‘Supper,' she said. ‘You're just in time for supper.'

She knew how attractive she looked, kneeling in the glow of the firelight in a tweed skirt and cashmere two-piece, all groomed and made up.

‘Are you nuts?' he said. ‘You can't stay here.'

‘Why ever not?'

‘The building isn't safe.'

‘Nonsense. It's as safe as it ever was, or ever will be.'

He looked even more dishevelled than usual. Smears of soot, like tribal marks, highlighted his cheekbones. He eased the canvas bag from his shoulder and placed it on the carpet.

Polly said, ‘Did you take lots of lovely pictures, darling?'

‘I wouldn't call them lovely,' Christy said.

‘A document,' said Polly. ‘You made a document of destruction.'

‘What the hell is wrong with you?'

‘Absolutely not a thing.' Polly peered into the pot and watched the label separate itself from the can. ‘Heinz' best,' she said. ‘A feast fit for a king. It's amazing what you can find when you really try. Aren't I clever?'

‘Yeah,' Christy said. ‘Very clever.'

He went to the piano, found a teacup and poured himself whisky. He held the cup in both hands and drank. Whatever he had been up to that day, where ever he had been, whatever sights he had seen had shaken him badly.

‘You look quite done in, darling,' Polly said. ‘Come, rest your weary old bones while I fish for our supper with a can opener.'

He drifted to the sofa, which was still padded with pillows.

‘Where's the kid?'

‘Oh, the kid,' Polly said. ‘I got rid of him.'

‘Rid of him? How?'

‘Babs told me to ask a policeman, so that's what I did.'

‘Have you been drinking?'

‘Not a drop, I swear, not one single drop.'

‘Where is he? What have you done with him?'

‘I went one better than asking a policeman,' Polly said. ‘I took him to a policeman or, to be precise, to a policeman's wife. Fortunately my sister was at home today, nursing six stitches in her forehead and, I might add, feeling terribly sorry for herself.'

‘You took him to Rosie's?'

‘Of course.'

‘Why?'

‘Because if I'm going to Lisbon with you I can't keep him here.'

‘Poor little bastard.'

‘On the contrary,' Polly said. ‘It might be the best thing that ever happened to Master Davy Quinlan. Rosie will take very good care of him.'

‘Sure she will,' Christy said.

‘And I, in turn, will take very good care of you.' She tugged at his sleeve and drew him down on to the sofa, kissing him on the brow. ‘How much petrol did you use?'

‘What?'

‘Petrol, in the car.'

‘Some, not much. I drove down to Renfrew and crossed to Clydebank.' He shrugged, and drank from the cup. ‘It's bad, Polly, very bad.'

‘Did it remind you of Warsaw?'

‘Pretty much,' Christy said, then shook his head. ‘No, it's not as bad as Warsaw because you don't have the Germans crouched on your doorstep. What will your sister do with the kid?'

‘Keep him,' Polly said.

‘And what will Inspector Kenny have to say about that?'

‘Inspector Kenny,' Polly said, ‘will do exactly as he's told.'

*   *   *

Word had come through the Air Defence unit that the Third German bomber fleet had left its base in Western France and appeared to be heading for Clydeside.

Every officer in St Andrew's Street had been mustered for rescue service, including CID detectives and SPU interrogators most of whom, like Kenny, had been on their feet for thirty-six hours. The raiders were expected to arrive just after nine o'clock and at half-past six Kenny left headquarters on a strict one-hour stand-down.

It was still broad daylight and traffic was heavy in those parts of the city that hadn't been sealed off. Down by the docks the riverside warehouses were still burning and a tarnished haze masked the sky to the west. Kenny hit the pavement at a dead run and sprinted to the station at St Enoch in the hope that underground trains would be operating which, fortunately, they were. Twenty minutes later he arrived at the door of his flat and let himself in with his key.

He peeped into the kitchen which, to his surprise, had been swept and scrubbed and made almost habitable.

On the table were milk bottles, saucepans and a bowl containing the remnants of a gooey substance that he couldn't identify. Hanging from the rope of the pulley, high against the cracked ceiling, were eight or ten small towels, an under vest that would have fitted a doll and – Kenny frowned – what looked like a miniature suit of armour knitted out of blue wool.

Kenny took off his hat, fanned his sweaty brow and stared, mystified, at the objects on the pulley rope.

‘Rosie?' he said, pointlessly.

He crossed the hall and went into the bedroom.

She was lying on top of the bed, covered by a light blanket. Her eyes were open and she was turned on her side, looking not at the door but at a baby nestled in the crook of her arm.

Kenny tiptoed to the bed.

Rosie swivelled her head a little and glanced up at him.

The baby was dark-haired, broad-browed and sturdy-looking, not really a baby at all, Kenny realised, but a toddler of fourteen or fifteen months. He was fast asleep and snoring.

‘Rosie,' Kenny said, stooping close and speaking softly, ‘what's that?'

‘What duh-does it look like? It's a baby.'

‘Yes, but whose baby is it?'

And Rosie answered fiercely,
‘Mine.'

17

The centre of the city was more bruised than battered that Monday morning. Much of the bomb damage had been cleared from the streets, riverside fires extinguished, bridges reopened and trams and buses were running almost normally. Two nights of heavy bombing had dented the Clydeside's defences but not the pride of its people. What had been strengthened by the severity of the mid-March raids was communal unity; what had been lost was the illusion of invulnerability, the vague, swaggering Glaswegian belief that pugnaciousness and hard-nosed stoicism would keep old Adolf at bay.

Polly and Christy travelled into town by tram.

Polly was down to her last four gallons of black market petrol and couldn't count on Fin to supply more now that she had given him the heave-ho. Kenny's warning had come in the nick of time; not only had she allowed herself to become dependent on Fin Hughes she had also become complaisant. She had always known that the relationship had been skewed, a cold-hearted affair entered into without love, and that she had betrayed not only her husband but her own vestigial integrity by sleeping with a man who was even more self-centred than she was.

Fin was waiting in the office, not a hair out of place, not a crumb of brick dust or a fleck of mud on his polished shoes, as if he had travelled to the Baltic Chambers in a bubble, immune to all damage and disruption.

‘I wasn't sure you would come, Polly,' he began. ‘Why didn't you telephone me?'

‘Because,' Polly answered, ‘I knew you'd be here.'