Although it was spring, it was freezing cold sitting on the stone steps leading up to our flat. It had been raining overnight and the steps were damp, moisture was seeping through my thin dress and the wind whistling along the landing chilled my bones. It felt like we’d been sitting there for hours. Mrs Ryan had shooed us out of the flat and there was nowhere else to go.
My little sister Olive was huddled against me. I could feel her shivering, so I lifted her onto my lap. The poor thing had a cold and her nose was red and sore from wiping it on the sleeve of her cardigan.
‘Is someone hurtin my mummy, Nell?’ she said, looking up at me with her beautiful brown eyes.
‘Course not,’ I said.
‘Why’s she screamin then?’
‘Cos she’s happy.’
‘She don’t sound happy.’
‘Remember when you had to have that rotten tooth out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did it hurt when they were pulling it out?’
‘It nearly bloody killed me!’
‘But once it was out you felt better, didn’t you? Cos the toothache had gone away.’
‘Is Mummy havin her tooth out then?’
‘No, Olive, she’s havin a baby. Mummy explained it all to you.’
‘Nell?’
‘Yes, Olive?’
‘Where does the baby come out?’
This was getting complicated.
‘Ask Mummy,’ I said.
‘Alright, Nell.’
She put her arms around my neck. I could feel her hot breath on my cheek.
‘I want to go indoors, Nell, I want to be with my mummy.’
‘You’ll see her soon, love,’ I said.
My brother Tony, who was kicking a stone around the yard, looked back at us.
‘I ain’t goin in there, not while she’s screamin her head off.’
‘Listen, you ungrateful little git, you’d be screamin an all if you had to push a baby out of you!’
Tony was glaring at me. ‘Why is she havin it? There ain’t enough food for us three without havin to feed another one.’
‘The baby won’t cost nothin, Mum’ll feed it from her titty, just like she fed you.’
At this Tony’s face had gone all red and he kicked the stone hard against the wall.
‘Look, Tony,’ I said gently. ‘It’s not Mum’s fault.’
‘Whose fault is it then?’ he said angrily.
‘It’s to do with bein married,’ I said. ‘If you sleeps in the same bed, you has a baby.’
I had a feeling there was more to it than that but I didn’t want to think about it cos it made me feel funny inside.
Olive gave a big sniff. ‘Do you think it will be a boy or a girl, Nell?’ she said.
‘That’s up to God to decide, Olive. God counts up all the people in the world and if the world’s short on boys, he sends a boy and if it’s short on girls, he sends a girl.’ I smoothed her hair back from her hot little forehead. She was burning up – she should be in bed, not out here in the cold. I was just about to take my coat off and wrap it around her when our neighbour, Mrs Baxter, came running down the steps.
‘Any news yet, Mrs Baxter?’ I asked, lifting Olive off my lap and standing up.
‘Not yet, ducks, but she’s doing all right. Mrs Ryan’s with her and she’s delivered nearly all the babies in the flats, so your mum’s in good hands and thank God that there’s been no air raids.’
‘Olive’s not well, Mrs Baxter, she should be in bed.’
‘Bring her into my flat, Nell, it looks like you could all do with warming up.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Baxter,’ I said gratefully. ‘Come on, Tony.’
But Tony hung back.
‘We’ll just go in for a minute to warm up.’
‘I ain’t cold,’ he said, staring at the ground.
For all his temper, Tony was the sensitive one. He was eleven, two years younger than me and the closest to Mum. I knew that his anger came from worrying about her.
Mrs Baxter ushered Olive into her flat and I walked across to Tony. I put my arm around him; I could feel the bones of his shoulder blades jutting out from under the thin jumper.
‘She’s going to be all right, Tony,’ I said gently. ‘Our mum’s as strong as an ox.’
‘I know she is, Nell,’ he said. ‘but I hate this.’
‘So do I, but it’ll be all over soon and then she’ll be right as rain.’
‘I’d rather stay here where I can hear her.’
‘I know you would, but stayin here listening to her screamin ain’t gonna help Mum or you, is it?’
‘I’m afraid somethin’s gonna go wrong, I’m afraid she’s gonna die, Nell.’
There were tears running down his face; he immediately brushed them away.
‘It’s okay to cry, Tony,’ I said, more gently now.
‘I ain’t cryin,’ he said angrily. ‘It’s just the wind.’
‘Women have babies every day, Tony. Mrs O’Malley pops em out like peas and she ain’t dead, is she?’
‘Dad should be here,’ he said. ‘He should be here, lookin after her.’
‘He would if he could, you know he would, but he has to fight in the war. It’s not his fault.’
Sometimes when I looked at my brother it was like looking at Daddy. He had the same blue eyes and fiery red hair. Since Daddy had gone away to fight I knew that Tony was carrying a lot on his thin shoulders. He was a young boy trying to be a man. For all his bravado he cared deeply for his family and I loved him for it.
‘I’ll tell ya what, let’s just have a bit of a warm, then we’ll come out again.’
He nodded and together we went into Mrs Baxter’s flat. Mr and Mrs Baxter made an odd-looking couple. Mrs Baxter was tiny. Mum said she reminded her of a little bird, always flitting here and there, running up and down the steps of Rannly Court like a young girl and lending a helping hand wherever she could. She knew everything that went on in the flats and she was everyone’s friend. Mr Baxter, on the other hand, was as wide as he was tall. He only had one leg because he’d lost the last one fighting for king and country, so he didn’t run anywhere, but he always had a smile on his face and he’d give you his last penny. Mum said it was a marriage made in heaven.
There was a fire burning in the grate and Olive was kneeling in front of it with her hands spread out towards the flames. Mr Baxter was asleep, his mouth was open and he was making little squeaking noises like a kitten. Tony poked me and I grinned when I saw Mr Baxter’s wooden leg propped up against his chair.
Mrs Baxter nudged him and he opened one eye.
‘It’s Mrs Patterson’s kids, Reg,’ she said. ‘They were sittin on the steps, freezin their little arses off.’
Mr Baxter rubbed his eyes. ‘Get yourselves warm then, kids,’ he said, pulling himself up in the chair and smiling at us. He picked up a poker and rattled the coals, causing warm air to waft into the room. It was lovely. ‘How about some bread and scrape, they look as if they need feedin up.’
‘Good idea, love,’ said Mrs Baxter, bustling into the kitchen.
Olive started coughing. ‘She’s not well, Mr Baxter,’ I said. ‘She’s burnin up.’
‘The missus will see to her when she comes back with the bread and scrape,’ he said
I looked at Olive’s little red face and hoped she didn’t have something real bad wrong with her. Little Betty Ormerod in the flat below ours had died of scarlet fever only a couple of months ago.
‘You don’t think she’s got the scarlet fever, do you, Mr Baxter?’
‘The missus will know, best ask the missus.’
The three of us crouched down in front of the fire and tried to get some warmth back into our bodies. Olive leaned against me and I put my arm around her. I could feel her body shaking.
‘I’m cold, Nell.’
Mrs Baxter came into the room carrying a tray. ‘Bread and scrape?’ she said, putting it down on the table.
Me and Tony took a slice of the bread but Olive shook her head.
‘I’m worried about Olive, Mrs Baxter. You don’t think she’s got the scarlet fever, do you?’
‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘Or we’re all for it.’
‘What does scarlet fever look like?’ I said.
‘I think you get a red rash – has Olive got a rash?’
I lifted up Olive’s cardigan. Her back was hot and clammy to the touch but she didn’t have a rash.
‘She ain’t got no rash, Mrs Baxter.’
Olive started to cough again. ‘I don’t feel so good, Nell.’
‘It’s just a cold, love, it ain’t the scarlet fever. You’ll soon feel better.’
She yawned and I could see that she was finding it hard to keep her eyes open.
Mrs Baxter picked her up and put her in the armchair, then she took the blanket off Mr Baxter’s lap and wrapped it round Olive, who went to sleep right away.
‘Thanks, Mrs Baxter.’
‘Best if she sleeps it off, Nell.’
I leaned against the chair and watched my sister as she slept, her dark lashes resting on her pale cheeks.
Everyone said that Olive was beautiful. Her hair was a dark auburn, which made her skin seem even paler, and her eyes were a soft brown, like melted chocolate. I brushed the hair away from her eyes and she stirred. I was glad that she didn’t have the scarlet fever but I was still worried about her. Mr Hicks, the tallyman, said that Olive was too beautiful for this world and that frightened me. I couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t say the same about me.
I’d been described as a ‘rasher of bacon’, long and thin and wiry, with old eyes, whatever that meant. Mum said I’d grow into myself, which didn’t make me feel any happier as I would much rather grow into someone else, someone beautiful. To top it off, my hair was a mass of unruly curls that were the bane of my mother’s life. Old Mrs Banks from the flat above ours said that it dwarfed my face. So that was me: long and thin, old eyes and hair that dwarfed my face. Bloody perfect.
‘Your day will come, my Nell,’ said Mum.
Well, I wish it would hurry up, I thought.
I could see Tony getting restless – he wanted to go back outside and listen for Mum.
‘We can’t take Olive back out in the cold,’ I said.
‘You can leave her here with me,’ said Mrs Baxter.
‘Thanks, just give me a shout when she wakes up and I’ll come and get her.’
‘Listen,’ said Mrs Baxter suddenly.
We all listened.
‘I can’t hear nothin,’ I said.
‘That’s cos there’s nothin to hear. Yer mother’s stopped screamin, girl.’
I grinned at her. ‘Do you think she’s had the baby then?’
‘I’d say so,’ she said, grinning.
Tony was out the door like a shot – I could hear him running up the stone steps.
‘Thanks for lookin after us, Mrs Baxter, and thanks for the bread and scrape.’
‘You’re welcome, love, and don’t worry about Olive, I’ll take care of her.’
I ran up the steps and into our flat. Tony was standing beside the bed, staring down at the bundle in Mum’s arms, and Mrs Ryan was over at the sink.
Mum was propped up against the pillows. She looked pale and tired, but happy.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She folded the blanket away from the baby’s face. ‘It’s a boy, Nell.’
‘Olive was hopin for a girl,’ I said, grinning.
Mum looked behind me. ‘Where is she?’
‘She’s asleep in the Baxters’ flat, she don’t feel so good. But it’s not the scarlet fever, Mum, cos she ain’t got no rash.’
Mum was staring down at the baby. ‘Isn’t he lovely, Nell?’
I stared at the wrinkled little face peering out of the blanket.
‘Yes, Mum, he’s lovely.’
‘He’s a dead ringer for Churchill,’ said Mrs Ryan, turning round. ‘All he needs is a cigar.’
‘What you gonna call him?’ I asked.
‘I thought I’d call him Freddie, after your granddad.’
‘Granddad was an old sod,’ said Tony.
‘I know he was, but it’ll please yer dad and anyway, our little Freddie won’t be an old sod, will he?’
‘I wouldn’t bank on it!’ shouted Mrs Ryan from across the room, and we all started laughing.
I was thirteen years old and I’d lived in Rannly Court all my life. It was my home. I didn’t know any different and I didn’t want anything different. The court was a tenement, four storeys high, built of brick. There was a shared staircase with rooms off it and different families lived on different floors, one family on each side of the staircase, eight altogether in our block. I knew every family that ran up and down the stone steps. I heard every burst of laughter from our neighbours and every desperate cry of sadness, every fight and every celebration, through the thin walls. Our lives were played out for everyone to hear. It wasn’t all good-natured but we looked out for one another, especially the women. The men came and went, looking for work, off to war or chasing their own dreams, but the women were always there: strong, matter-of-fact, making the most of it. Everyone was skint, but if you were in need they shared what little they had. And there was laughter, there was a lot of laughter.
The streets and alleyways around Rannly Court were my playground and the River Thames that flowed at the back of the flats my very own ocean. I knew every pawn shop and every public house, every factory and every shop. I loved watching the women coming out of the custard factory covered in yellow dust. I loved watching them take off their headscarves and shake out their hair, a tiny haze of yellow around each of their faces, and their smell of vanilla and sugar. Like the other kids, I made faces at the rent man and I smiled at the rag and bone man and his mangy old horse. It was a dear old thing – he called it Bella and it had a nosebag that hung over its head when it stopped outside the pub at lunchtime, while the rag and bone man went in for his dinner. I liked to pat Bella’s shoulders. She was warm and her coat was thick and woolly, and when I touched her, she shivered beneath my hand.
I said hello to the beautiful ladies who stood on the street corners with their red nails and lipstick, and they looked at me through their cigarette smoke and called me ‘duck’ and ‘lamb’. I hoped that one day I could look as pretty as they did. I ran errands for the old people who lived in the court but who couldn’t manage the steep steps. I literally ran, trying to break my own record for getting to the off-licence and back with a quarter of gin, or to the butcher’s for some pork scratchings. Sometimes I wheeled snotty-nosed babies round the docks. Because I had a younger brother and sister people trusted me to look after their kids. I liked taking the babies out. I talked to them, told them stories, and those big enough to sit up in the pram listened to me instead of struggling to get out. I made sure they never got cold – I fastened up their knitted bonnets, handed down through generations of babies, and I tucked in their knitted blankets.
When we reached the docks, with their smell of oily water and rotting vegetation, the seagulls screaming in the wind, we stopped to watch bare-chested men loading heavy sacks of sugar from the Tate & Lyle factory onto barges. We had to keep our distance. The dockers were hard men, everyone knew that. My daddy was a docker before the war. He was proud of his work. The dockers were a band of brothers, he said. You had to be a good grafter to get the work, because there wasn’t enough to go round and those jobs were in great demand. Daddy and his mates lived in constant fear of getting injured because if they hurt themselves and couldn’t work, then the whole family would be in trouble.
I liked watching the men at their labour and looking at the barges and wondering what it would be like to go out on one, down the river. I imagined everywhere was exactly like Bermondsey – I didn’t know any different. Bermondsey had everything it needed so why shouldn’t everywhere else be exactly the same?
Me and Olive would take bread and dripping down to Daddy at lunchtime. He’d come to see us, away from the work and the other men. We’d sit next to him on the quayside, our legs dangling over the side, and we’d watch the barges and boats floating by on the black water, wide as a mile and deeper than we could imagine. Daddy would point out the big boats that came down the river from far-away places like Australia and New Zealand, and he’d do his best to bring those places to life for us, even though he had never been there. In my mind, all of them looked like Bermondsey, only with sunshine and kangaroos.
My brother Tony loved the river and he was often in trouble for skipping school and spending the day there. He’d trawl the mudbanks looking for treasure; pieces of coal and wood, and sometimes he’d find a bone that he’d bring home and give to one of the neighbours’ dogs, or even a coin or two stuck into the thick grey-brown mud. He’d come back with his legs a dusty grey up to the knees where the mud had dried onto his skin, and Mum would send him out to wipe it off in the street because she didn’t want the mud in the flats.
Mum worried about Tony spending so much time by the river. She knew that sometimes he’d wade into it and drag out larger bits of wood to bring home for the fire. We needed the wood but she was worried about him getting washed off his feet by the wake of a passing boat, or being swept out into the river and drowning. If he was late back, she feared he might have got stuck in the mud or found something valuable and been beaten up and robbed by the professional mudlarks – the adults who made a living from hunting treasure at the side of the river. Sometimes they found bodies: people who’d fallen from boats or jumped off bridges or been murdered. Mum was terrified that Tony might find a body. Tony wasn’t scared, though. He loved the river. He wasn’t afraid of it, no matter how much Mum tried to warn him away from it. The docks were where he wanted to work when he was old enough: he wanted to be like Daddy.
We were lucky because we had the best daddy in the whole of Bermondsey, in the whole of London even. A big man with bright ginger hair and a thick ginger beard, he had bright blue eyes and a smile that lit up our world. He didn’t get roaring drunk like most of the men in the flats and he never laid a finger on any of us in anger. Mum said she knew a good’n when she’d met him at the local dance and she’d been proved right. As soon as war was declared, he was the first down the town hall to join up.
I worried about him all the time, but Mum said he would be safe because there weren’t many ginger men in Bermondsey so God needed him here to make up the numbers. I wasn’t sure that I believed her but I clung to the hope that she was right. She didn’t say out loud that she was worried about Daddy in the same way she was always worrying out loud about Tony. This should have been reassuring but I was already old enough to have noticed that Mum talked about stuff that didn’t matter much more than she talked about the things that did. I didn’t know what we would do if anything happened to our daddy. I just couldn’t imagine it and so I tried my best not to think about it.
The River Thames flowed past the back of the flats and once the war really got going, the docks were being bombed almost every day. The council supplied Rannly Court with Morrison shelters – strong metal cages that could also be used as tables. We put ours in the hallway under the stairwell where the building was strongest and, when the warning alarm came, we’d all squash under it and Mum would sing to us in her beautiful pure voice until the all-clear went. The bombs were scary but the bombsites were the best playgrounds we’d ever had. Every day after school, kids, mostly boys, swarmed over the rubble playing war games and cowboys and Indians. The girls played mums and dads and shops in the ruins of the bombed-out houses. At the end of the day the boys came home with scraped knees and torn trousers, without a care in the world.
If there was ever any kind of trouble in the Rannly Court flats the men would deal with it. One night Mr Brown, who was always five sheets to the wind, beat his family so badly he almost killed them. No ambulance was called and no one sent for the cops. The women took care of the family and the men took care of Mr Brown – in fact, he was never seen again. Mrs Brown became happy and plump and took up with the milkman, who was missing an earlobe but was kind and took care of Mrs Brown and the kids. That’s the way it was. Bermondsey took care of its own and Mum said that was the way it had always been.
This was my little corner of the East End and I loved it. At night I lay in bed and listened to the sound of men staggering out of the Spread Eagle and Crown, singing at the tops of their voices, songs like ‘Nellie Dean’ and ‘Roll Out the Barrel’. These were the lullabies of the East End that sent me to sleep.
Most of the kids round here had been evacuated at the start of the war. They had gone in groups, parading through the streets behind their schoolteachers, who held up banners with the name of the school. Not all of us, though. Some of us had stayed behind for whatever reason. And some had gone but then returned, making their way back home, unable to settle in the country. Bermondsey ran through them like the words in a stick of rock and the countryside was alien to them. It wasn’t always the happy place they’d imagined. The evacuation had been organised so quickly and haphazardly that not all the children ended up where they should have done. Their homecoming wasn’t always what they had hoped for either, and sometimes the poor little mites found themselves loaded onto the next available train by less-than-sympathetic parents.
I know that Mum worried about our safety every day, but while she was pregnant with Freddie, she had needed us nearby. She’d been ill this time, too ill to get out of bed; her ankles had swollen right up and she’d had terrible headaches. Somebody had to look after her, make her cups of tea and do her washing, and with Dad gone that only left me and Tony. Olive wasn’t exactly much help, but she refused to be evacuated on her own. Now, however, with Freddie born and the bombardment of the docks getting worse, Mum desperately wanted us to leave London and go somewhere safer. She said worrying about us kept her awake at night and she couldn’t be doing with missing any more sleep because she was already missing so much with Freddie. It was true that she was tired all the time. Sometimes I’d look at her when she didn’t realise I was looking and I’d see her eyelids closing, coming together. Once I saw her almost fall asleep standing up, stirring a pot on the stove. I hadn’t known, until then, that human beings could fall asleep standing up.
I loved my mum and it was obvious that she couldn’t go on being this tired and worried. I was old enough to understand that it would be easier for her to cope with the baby and the war and everything else if she knew us three older kids were somewhere safe.
So we had to go, but I had an idea.
‘Why can’t you come with us, Mum?’ I’d asked.
She’d shaken her head. ‘Not yet – Freddie is too small and I’m…’
‘What?’
‘I’m just too tired, Nell.’
She’d looked down at the baby in her arms. Freddie had grown into his face a bit. He didn’t look so much like a grumpy old man now; he was actually quite sweet. He gazed up at Mum all squinty-eyed and moved his lips. She put the tip of her little finger into his mouth. ‘I’ll try to join you later when Freddie’s a bit older.’
‘How will you know where to find us?’
‘You’ll write to me when you’re settled and then I’ll know where you are.’
‘If there’s no room, you can share my bed,’ I’d said.
‘Thank you, Nell.’
‘Or I’ll go in with Olive.’
‘Right.’
‘So you promise you’ll come?’
‘I promise.’ She smiled. ‘This won’t be forever, my love.’
None of us wanted to leave Mum but Tony, especially, was adamant that he wasn’t going anywhere. He considered himself the man of the house while Dad was away and he felt responsible for Mum.
‘What if she gets ill again while we’re away?’ he asked.
‘She’s got the neighbours, Tony.’
‘That’s not the same! They’re not going to come and stay all night with her, are they?’
‘I’m sure they would if it was important.’
Tony scowled. ‘What’s the point of us going away, anyway? It’s a stupid waste of time. How can anyone be sure that the bloody countryside ain’t gonna be bombed?’
‘I don’t suppose they can,’ I said. ‘But the Germans aren’t interested in farms and villages, are they? They want to drop their bombs on cities and railways and the docks. Why would they waste their bombs on a load of cows and sheep?’
‘Well, I ain’t goin and no one’s gonna make me.’
‘You’re a selfish little bugger, Tony Patterson! This isn’t all about you, you know. Think of Olive, she’s only five and she’s terrified of the bombs, she’s a bag of nerves.’
‘Well, let Olive go then. You go with her! I’m not stoppin her or you, am I? You two go and then Mum won’t have to worry about you and I can look after her.’
‘Look, Tony,’ I said gently. ‘I don’t wanna go either but if it’s what Mum wants, then I need you to come with us, I need you to help me. You’re the man of the house now and I know that this is what Daddy would want you to do.’
‘Bloody stinking rotten war!’ he yelled.
‘Think about it, Tone, for Olive’s sake. Just think about it.’
He nodded and stood up, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched. He kicked a pebble and walked away down the street, the toes of his boots slapping on the pavement. There were holes in the elbows of his jumper. I hoped that he would think about it. I didn’t want him being difficult, making things worse for all of us, especially Mum.
The day after this conversation, me and my best friend, Angela Townsend, were sitting in the upstairs bedroom of 59 Edison Terrace. The back wall had been blown out but an old iron bed was still all in one piece. Scraps of flowery wallpaper hung in strips and blew around in the breeze and bits of brown lino stil. . .
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