Dream On (2 page)

‘Why not?'

A sob shuddered through her body. ‘It's Ted. He's not been home.'

‘He's
what
?' Dilys sprang up from the bed and stuck her fists into her waist. ‘The rotten, stinking, swivel-eyed, no-good cowson of a . . .' Her fury got the better of her tongue and Dilys ran out of insults.

Ginny covered her face with her hands. ‘Don't say them things, Dil. Like I said, it's my fault. No one else's. I must have upset him somehow. But I've been sitting here racking me brains—'

‘I'll kill him,' Dilys fumed. ‘I'll bloody well kill him.'

Ginny dropped her hands and looked up at her friend. ‘You're a good mate, but it's down to me to sort it out.'

She turned her head away again and said in a voice so small that Dilys could only just make out the words: ‘You and your mum are really important to me, Dilys, you know that, but since losing my own mum and dad . . .' Her shoulders shook as she rubbed the tears roughly from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘. . . Ted and Nellie are all the family I've got. And I just don't know what I'd do if Ted left me. I do try to make him happy, but sometimes I just seem to get on his nerves. He gets so wild with me. Now he's started staying out all night. What am I gonna do?'

‘That's it. I've heard enough.' Dilys took Ginny firmly by the arm and pulled her over to the polished walnut dressing-table, which took up almost the whole wall beneath the window of the cramped front bedroom in the little terraced house.

‘Now you listen to me, Ginny Martin. You sit yourself down on that stool. Go on. Do as you're told. And you get your war-paint on. You're going to this sodding party whether you want to or not. We'll show bloody Ted Martin that he can't get away with this; he'd better start watching his step or he's gonna be in for a nasty surprise, a very nasty surprise indeed. 'Cos if he ain't careful, the bastard's gonna have me to deal with.'

As Ginny reluctantly stepped out of number 18, with the help of a push from Nellie and a shove from Dilys, she actually found herself smiling – she would have had a hard heart not to – because, just like every other ordinary little turning in the East End, Bailey Street in Bow had resolved to put on its finest for its VE-Day party. And, in the watery afternoon sunshine, despite the debris left from the bomb damage where the rocket had fallen in nearby Grove Road, and the houses that were boarded up, and the tarpaulin-covered roofs, Ginny saw a street where the residents had done themselves proud.

Each one of the remaining terraced houses was festooned in every conceivable shade of red, white and blue. They were draped with swags of home-made bunting; handwritten banners declaring Britain's greatness and the East End's allegiance to the King; and strung up high, right across the street, on cords stretched between upstairs windows, were tattered but loyal Union Jacks, flapping in the still damp, but now warmer, afternoon breeze.

Along the middle of the road stood a line of ill-matched kitchen tables, transformed by a covering of assorted patched and darned bedsheets into a single long dining-table. Although letting your neighbours have a close-up look at your repaired sheets certainly wasn't what most people in Bailey Street would have considered proper behaviour, it didn't matter today, because it was a day unlike any other. All that was important was the mountain of food piled on top of them; food which despite the rationing had been victoriously, if rather mysteriously, procured for the great event.

There were plates of sandwiches – none, it had been agreed by common consent, made with the usually unavoidable tinned pilchards – trays of pies and tarts, bowls of trifle, dishes of jellied eels, mounds of winkles and cockles, jugs of orange and lemon squash and, stacked next to a gleaming urn that someone had managed to ‘borrow' from the church hall, tottering stacks of cups and saucers.

As if all that wasn't enough, outside the Prince Albert, the pub on the corner of the street, there was a row of beer barrels, topped with a double layer of crates of light and brown ale, ready and waiting for the festivities to begin. And there was certainly plenty to feel festive about.

There would be no more bombs and no more rockets; dragging yourself out of bed and down to the shelter was a thing of the past; and, with a bit of luck, rationing would soon be nothing but another bad memory – just like the Blitz and Utility underwear. The East End was ready to celebrate all right and no one would be able to accuse the families who lived in Bailey Street of not doing their best to show everyone how it should be done.

‘Over here!' Pearl Chivers shouted from across the street, waving both arms at Nellie, Ginny and Dilys.

Pearl, Dilys's mum, was standing outside her house, number 11, supervising her husband, George, and her two teenaged sons, Sid and Micky, as they battled with her beloved piano, trying to manoeuvre it out of the house, over the doorstep and into the street without damaging it.

‘Come and help me organise this idle mob, will you? Just look at 'em.'

She turned to point at the impromptu removal crew. ‘Oi! Watch my walls, you dozy lot. That passage was only decorated last year.'

‘I know, sweetheart. Sorry,' replied George good-naturedly. He knew better than to try and argue with his wife. He loved Pearl with all his heart, and everyone knew she was a genuinely good woman – as Ginny would have been the first to testify – but she was also the possessor of what George described as a ‘strong type of personality' and had more energy than a dozen normal people. Like her daughter, Dilys, Pearl Chivers wasn't one to be messed around with.

‘I was the one what painted and papered the flaming thing,' George added under his breath.

‘Oi! I heard that!' Pearl grinned. ‘Tell you what, girls, let's leave the fellers to it and go and help with the food instead. By the looks of it, they need some sorting out up there or it'll never get finished. Just look at 'em. You'd think they was doing it for a guv'nor instead of for 'emselves.'

She turned back to her husband and sons. ‘And no slacking, you three, I've got eyes in the back of this head of mine, remember.'

‘As if we could forget,' Sid muttered.

‘And I've got ears like a bat.' She chuckled, nudging her son in the side. ‘So you wanna watch it, my lad. You might be nearly six foot in your stockinged feet, but you're still not too big for a wallop with the copper stick.'

Pearl didn't wait for Sid to reply, she just linked arms with Nellie and guided Dilys and Ginny forward in front of them towards the knot of women milling about at the business end of the tables, where yet more sandwiches were being made.

When he judged the women, or more specifically Pearl, to be out of earshot, George gave up the unequal contest and surrendered to the piano, leaving it perched on the street doorstep, hanging half in and half out of number 11 like an indecisive visitor.

Nodding for his sons to do likewise, George relaxed back against the door jamb, took a packet of Capstan Full Strength from his waistcoat pocket and offered them to the boys.

‘And for Gawd's sake don't let your mother see,' he said, striking a match for them.

Micky inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowing against the smoke. ‘Sixteen years old and she still treats me like I was a little kid,' he complained.

‘Less of the “she”, thank you, Micky.'

‘Sorry, Dad.'

‘You can talk,' sneered Sid. ‘How d'you think I feel? If this war hadn't have ended just before I was old enough to bloody join up, she'd have
had
to have started treating me like an adult.'

‘Pipe down, will you? I'm sick of the pair of you sulking and moping about. You don't know you're sodding born, either of you. You should have had the life I had, when I was your age.'

George took a long drag on his cigarette, then lifted his chin towards Ginny. She was standing to one side of the other women with a sad, far-away look in her eyes.

‘Or the worries that poor little cow's got; then you'd know what trouble was all about. Look at her. Left all alone with Nellie again while he's out and about, and up to Gawd alone knows what.'

Sid shook his head in wonder. ‘Honest, Dad, I reckon Ted Martin's gotta be off his head. I mean, you'd have to be mad wouldn't you, leaving a lovely bit of stuff like Ginny at a loose end?'

Micky snorted, his youthful imagination painting glorious visions of Ginny in his mind. ‘I wouldn't leave her at any sort of end. I'd—'

Sid punched his younger brother in the shoulder. ‘Shut up you, you little squirt.' He rolled his eyes at his dad in a gesture of mature male solidarity, to demonstrate that he was obviously above such smut. ‘Typical of him though. I reckon he gets away with murder, that Ted Martin.'

‘You're right there,' agreed George with a sigh. ‘Must be one of the fittest young fellers in the street. And what is he, twenty-five, twenty-six? But did he do the decent thing and join up? Do me a favour. Bad chest, he reckoned. I've never heard so much old fanny. If he's got a bad chest, then I'm—'

‘Here we go,' murmured Micky.

Sid punched him in the arm again. ‘Shut up, mouthy.'

‘Come on.' George flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the gutter and straightened his cap. ‘You've had your break. Let's get this finished before the foreman catches us.'

‘Least the weather's cleared up, eh, Ginny love,' Pearl said gently. ‘You know, I was surprised our bedroom ceiling never come down on top of us when that thunderbolt dropped last night. Right overhead it was. I thought we was back in the Blitz for a minute.'

She put down her butter-knife and smiled at Ginny, trying to encourage her to join in. Pearl knew it was no use leaving it to Nellie to look after the poor little thing, it wouldn't even occur to her. She might, on a very rare occasion, consider her son, Ted, whom, Pearl was sure, Nellie loved in her own peculiar way; but it would be very seldom that she would put even his needs before her own. And apart from that, well, she had no mind for anyone but herself; even on that terrible night in 1941, which Pearl supposed the inconsiderate old trout probably wouldn't even remember.

But Pearl would never forget that night.

Ted and Ginny had been together, on and off, for almost two years by then; far more off than on, as anyone but the starry-eyed Ginny would have admitted, but a kid as innocent and trusting as her had stood no chance against the smooth ways of a handsome charmer like Ted Martin. After spotting the newly blossoming, pretty little blonde going into number 11 to see Dilys, Ted had homed in on her like a rocket launcher.

The night that stuck in Pearl's mind was one of the occasions when Ted had actually turned up to take Ginny out as he had promised, and after an evening spent up West, he was taking her back to her house in Antill Road.

They were later than they'd said they'd be and Ginny was expecting a right rucking, but, instead of finding her mum and dad sitting up waiting for them in the back kitchen, all they had found was a pile of bombed-out rubble.

It was strange, the sort of thing that made the hairs stand up on the back of Pearl's neck just to think about it, but Ginny had said afterwards that before she and Ted had even turned out of Grove Road and into her street, she had known there was something wrong. She could feel it somewhere deep inside, as surely as if someone was speaking to her.

Ginny had let go of Ted's arm and stumbled along in the black-out, tripping and sliding on the debris and the sand spilling from the ripped and shredded sacking bags, ignoring the firemen, policemen and wardens who tried to stop her. She cared nothing for their shouts and warnings, nothing for her own safety, all she wanted to do was reach her house and her family. She had to get to them.

As she finally skidded to halt on the pavement, her heart was racing and her blood pounding in her ears.

But she was too late.

Her mum, her dad, and her five little brothers and sisters – all seven members of her family – were dead. Gone together in a single hit.

Ted had held her to him, stroking her back and rocking her as if she were a child with a grazed knee that he could make better with a kiss. He'd breathed into her hair, telling her not to cry, soothing her. But there was no need. Ginny couldn't cry, she was too numb; tears had no purpose or meaning.

Ted had walked her back to his house in Bailey Street, whispering gently to her that everything would be all right; she would stay with him and his mum for the night, and he would sort everything out in the morning.

But when they reached his house, they couldn't get in. Nellie had locked up the place hours ago, having cleared off to the shelter in the cellar of the Drum and Monkey, a pub on the corner of nearby Damfield Street. She had paused, it had to be said, for a brief moment to think about her son as she had locked the door against potential looters; but had then blithely presumed that, being like her – a twenty-four-carat survivor – her boy Ted would have made his own arrangements and had proceeded to untie the key from its string behind the letter-box and pop it into her pocket.

And so it was, with the flash and the flare of bombs and shells lighting up the black, moonless sky, and with the stink of fires and explosives souring the night air, that Pearl had taken the pair of them into her home.

They were lucky to have found her in. Pearl and her husband had intended taking the children down to the underground station at Mile End to shelter, but at the last minute their plans had changed. George had been asked to cover a fire-watching shift for a sick mate and Pearl hadn't fancied packing up all the gear and organising the kids by herself – the boys were at the age when they would start a row if one of them even thought that his brother was looking at him a bit sideways – so she'd decided to stay home instead.

She and the children had spent an uncomfortable and chilly night crammed under the kitchen table; not that a few inches of scrubbed deal would have made any difference if a bomb had fallen on them, but Pearl was a home-loving woman and her kitchen, and its table, made her feel safe.