The Silent War Read online

  Ernie was now standing so close to Sunday that she could smell the beer on his breath. ‘We ought to get to the shelter, Ernie,’ she said. ‘It’s not safe out here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t go out there just yet,’ said Ernie immediately. ‘If them guns open up again, there’ll be shrapnel comin’ down all over the place.’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ insisted Sunday, easing her way past him, ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  As she spoke, the Finsbury Park guns fired a deafening salvo of shells up into the sky. Sunday literally fell back against the church door as the building vibrated from top to bottom.

  Ernie immediately grabbed his opportunity and leapt forward to protect Sunday with his own body, pinning her back against the church door. ‘See wot I mean!’ he yelled, above the cacophony of gunfire. And leaning his body as close as he could against hers, his head buried into her shoulder, he croaked breathlessly, ‘Nuffin’ ter worry about, Sun. You’re safe wiv me. I won’t let no ’arm come to yer. Not now. Not never.’

  With pieces of shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells now scattering down on to the road outside and the gravestones in the churchyard, and Ernie pinning her against the church door, Sunday felt trapped. By now she could feel that Ernie was aroused. The thin cotton trousers he was wearing were bursting at his flies, and she now realised that if she didn’t get out of there fast it would be too late. And yet, although she didn’t quite know why, something inside told her that she didn’t particularly want to get out of there. Maybe it had something to do with the danger she was in, danger from the air-raid, danger from Ernie Mancroft. The dilemma she was facing was exciting her, and as she felt Ernie’s body pressing hard against her own, and his hands starting to explore her breasts, she felt an urge to go along with whatever he wanted to do. For some reason she wasn’t frightened by the prospect. But then, why should she be? After all she’d done it before with a couple of other blokes, so why not Ernie? After all, he was a bloke, and young blokes were hard to find during wartime.

  At that moment, another gigantic salvo lit up the sky, and in that split second, Sunday not only felt this boy’s body pressing hard against her, but she could also see him. Suddenly reality took over from fantasy. ‘No, Ernie,’ she said, trying to push him away. ‘No more. I want to get home.’

  ‘Wot’s the rush?’ Ernie asked, as he held her tight and refused to let her go. ‘You’re safe I tell yer. Come on, Sun. Yer know ’ow I feel about yer. Yer know yer want me – really.’

  ‘No, Ernie! Get away from me!’ Sunday was now struggling, but Ernie was very muscular, and much too strong for her.

  He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away. He pulled her face back again, and when he did press his lips against hers, she pushed him off, and wiped her own lips with the back of her hand. Then she felt his hands clawing at her dress, trying to pull it up to her waist.

  ‘No, Ernie!’ she snapped. ‘If you don’t cut it out, I’ll yell the place down.’

  Ernie was now tugging at her panties. ‘Stop ’avin’ me on, Sun! You’re always ’avin’ me on. You’re mine, Sun. Yor’ll always be mine!’

  Sunday was so shocked to hear Ernie talk like this, that when the next salvo of shells burst with a deafening crack overhead, she somehow found the strength to push him off and make a quick dash for the road.

  To her surprise, Sunday found that she was able to outpace Ernie, for once she was in the Caledonian Road, a quick glance over her shoulder showed that he had turned back towards the church portico.

  The Caledonian Road itself was completely deserted, for the audience had left the nearby Mayfair Cinema over an hour before, and clearly no one was taking the chance of being caught out in the first air-raid for months.

  Once she was certain that she was no longer being followed, Sunday made her way straight towards one of the small public shelters on the road itself. Although the two intruder aircraft had now passed over, the ack-ack barrage was still in full swing, and pieces of jagged shrapnel were tinkling down on to the rooftops all around her. As she hurried along, she had to cover her ears against the deafening gunfire, which seemed so different to the claps of thunder that so excited her whenever there was a thunderstorm.

  Sunday finally managed to reach the public shelter unharmed. She had always thought these brick and concrete constructions to be nothing more than a sitting target should they receive a direct hit, but at least she would be protected from the falling shrapnel, and there would be people there with whom she could slog it out.

  ‘Come on in gel – quick as yer can!’

  To Sunday’s great relief, an air-raid warden was waiting at the door to let her in, and as she entered, she was met by a thick pall of fag smoke. The place was jam-packed, mainly with young people from the dance hall. Needless to say, none of the boys offered to give her their seat, so an old bloke who was smoking a pipe of stale baccy immediately got up and gave her his. Sunday was about to take up his offer when she heard someone calling to her.

  ‘Sunday! Over ’ere – Sun!’

  It was Pearl, at the far end of the shelter. Lennie Jackson was with her, but he had his back turned towards Sunday, and she could only just see Pearl’s face peering out over his shoulder. They were clearly snogging against the back wall in full view of everyone.

  A cold chill went up Sunday’s spine, and she suddenly decided not to sit down.

  ‘Sunday! Wot yer doin’? Come over ’ere! There’s room!’

  Lennie turned only reluctantly to look across at Sunday. Then after a smile that was more a smirk, he turned back to Pearl again, and smooched her on the neck.

  Sunday felt quite sick. All she could do was to turn, make her way back to the entrance again, and leave.

  The old bloke who had offered her his seat shook his head in bewilderment. Then he sat down again, and continued to puff away at his pipe.

  Once in the street outside, Sunday started to run. She was only a short distance from ‘the Buildings’, and despite the tinkling of shrapnel which now sounded to her like a mad song being played on a strange musical instrument, she was more prepared to take her chances in the street than sit in a stuffy old air-raid shelter with Pearl and Lennie.

  Pearl may have been her best friend, but tonight she could have bloody well strangled her.

  Chapter 3

  Louie Clipstone hated men. Well, that’s what most people assumed, for every time a member of the opposite sex was mentioned in her presence, her chiselled features swelled up in indignation, and her dark grey eyes turned bloodshot. No one could ever make out why she felt the way she did, for she always refused to discuss the matter. To avoid embarrassment, her younger sister Madge usually excused Louie’s odd behaviour by telling how the poor woman had once had an ‘unfortunate association’ with a gentleman friend – when she was much younger, of course. The strange thing was, to most of her neighbours in ‘the Buildings’, Louie herself looked more like a man than a seventy-four-year-old woman. With her short, cropped hair, bullish neck, and baggy trousers, her very appearance seemed intimidating, and she gave the impression that she could be a match for the World Champion himself, Joe Louis, in the boxing ring.

  Unlike Sunday’s mum, who not only kept the flat clean and tidy, but also did the cooking, ironing, and washing-up, Aunt Louie never seemed to do a stroke of work, but spent most days studying the racing papers. She had no income, for in the early part of her life she had been in and out of jobs like a dose of salts. That’s why, when Madge’s husband Reg died of cancer when Sunday was only three years old, Louie had moved in with her. It meant a roof over her head, food in her stomach, and a life of Riley.

  That Sunday morning, Sunday had a bit of a lie-in. The night before had been quite an experience, what with dancing the jitterbug with an RAF Lance-Corporal, and nearly being raped by Ernie Mancroft in a church portico. It was amazing that she had survived to tell the tale, if she ever decided to do such a thing. Luckily, the surprise air-raid had passed over in a ve
ry short time, and Sunday had been able to get home without being hit by any pieces of shrapnel. She woke up at about nine o’clock, and for about half an hour just lay there gazing aimlessly around the walls at the cut-out magazine photos of some of her favourite crooners, like Bing Crosby and Sam Browne, and bandleaders such as Joe Loss, and her number-one favourite, Glenn Miller. In fact, there were so many photos plastered all over the walls of the tiny room that it was difficult to see what remained of the faded flower-patterned wallpaper.

  When Sunday eventually surfaced, the first thing that hit her was the smell of Aunt Louie’s hand-rolled fags. She recognised it at once for it was a sour, pungent smell, which totally obliterated the fresh odour of Madge Collins’s carbolic. Sunday had often seen her aunt buying her usual two ounces of cheap tobacco. Usually she went to the kiosk at Holloway Road Tube Station for there she could argue with the assistant that she was being overcharged by a penny for the tobacco, and that if she didn’t get it at the proper retail price, she’d write a letter of complaint to the tobacco company. Aunt Louie always won. In fact, she always won at everything she did.

  ‘Your mother’s left you a bacon sandwich for your breakfast,’ growled Aunt Louie, as Sunday came out of her bedroom. ‘I’ve no doubt she’s given up her own week’s ration – as usual,’ she added acidly.

  Sunday refused to rise to the bait. It had already stuck in her gullet that she’d had to apologise to her aunt the previous evening for all the things she had said about her, and she knew only too well that if she started another row now, Aunt Louie would again threaten to pack her things and move out. Of course, Sunday knew that the old battle-axe would never do any such thing, despite the fact that she had made repeated threats over the years. But it was the distress those threats caused to Sunday’s mum that prevented her from telling her aunt a few home truths.

  Sunday sat opposite her aunt at the parlour table, where her mum had laid a place for her before leaving for Sunday morning church parade at the Highbury Salvation Army Mission Hall. She tucked into the bacon sandwich, then felt the teapot beneath the cosy and found that the tea was still warm, so she poured herself a cup. During all this, Aunt Louie remained hidden behind the Sunday Pictorial, which she always read starting from the sports pages at the back. Sunday herself only half-heartedly glanced at the front-page story which was being held up in front of her, with its reports of the dramatic capture by British and Polish soldiers of the First German Parachute Division’s bastion in the monastery at Cassino in Italy.

  ‘Things would be very different round here if your father was still alive.’

  Aunt Louie’s voice behind the newspaper took Sunday by surprise.

  ‘If he’d had his way, you’d have been in bed by ten o’clock every night.’ Louie suddenly peered at Sunday over the top of her newspaper. ‘And I do mean every night,’ she said, emphatically. ‘Including Saturdays.’

  Sunday ignored her aunt, and carried on eating her bacon sandwich.

  ‘Your father was a pig of a man,’ Louie said, refusing to be ignored. ‘Did you know that?’

  Sunday’s eyes flicked up momentarily. ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about Dad like that,’ she said, trying hard not to be intimidated.

  ‘Why not?’ Louie was determined to have her say. ‘What do you care? You never knew him.’

  ‘Even more reason,’ Sunday said, lowering her eyes, and eating her sandwich again.

  Aunt Louie put down her newspaper. ‘There are things I could tell you about your father that would make your hair curl.’

  It was a typically stupid remark for Louie to make, knowing full well that even without her home-made perm, Sunday had a head of naturally curly blonde hair.

  ‘He never wanted to keep you, you know. Oh no.’ Louie was determined to maintain the aggravation. ‘When your mother brought you home after finding you on that doorstep up the Salvation Army, he blew his top.’ She took hold of her fag roller, and started packing it as tight as she could with tobacco which she kept in a small, flat tin. ‘He told her that if he couldn’t have kids of his own, then he didn’t want other people’s.’ She flicked her eyes up for a brief moment, and fixed Sunday with a tiger-like glare. ‘That wasn’t the real reason, of course. Oh no.’

  Although she had no sugar in her cup, Sunday was unconsciously stirring her tea, whilst trying hard not to show that she was listening to anything Aunt Louie was saying.

  ‘He was jealous of her,’ rasped Louie, inserting the fag paper into her roller. ‘Oh it wasn’t just you. It wasn’t just a small baby no bigger than a puppy. No. He was jealous of anyone who came near her.’ She carefully lifted the ready-made fag out of the roller, licked the edges of the paper, and sealed it. ‘You know something?’ she continued, relentlessly. ‘When your mother and I were kids together back home in Edmonton, we were the best of friends. Couldn’t keep us apart.’ Having finished the completed fag, she placed it between her lips. ‘Soon as he came along, it all changed.’

  Clasping the cup of tea firmly in both hands, Sunday leaned back in her chair in an attempt to keep clear of the tobacco smoke that Aunt Louie was deliberately puffing out across the table from her newly lit fag.

  ‘And I’ll tell you something else.’

  ‘Aunt Louie, I’m not interested.’ Sunday was getting irritated.

  ‘He used to beat her.’ Louie was leaning across the table again. ‘Oh yes. He thought I didn’t know. But I did. During all the time he was alive, I never once came to this place. Oh no. But Madge came over to me. She came lots of times. And when she did, there was always a bruise on her cheek, or a cut from his wedding ring where he’d whacked her across the face with the back of his hand. She never told me – but I knew.’

  Sunday suddenly saw red. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me all this, Aunt Louie. It’s all in the past. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

  Louie stood up from the table. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. It concerns you all right. Oh yes. It concerns you a great deal, young madam. And d’you know why?’

  This time, Sunday just had to look up at her aunt, who was standing with her two hands leaning on the table, and a fag stuck firmly between her lips.

  ‘Because if you think I’m so bad to live with, I’d like to know how you think you’ll get on with a new daddy?’

  Sunday’s eyes widened. She was too shocked to answer.

  Despite the weather forecast on the wireless that it was going to be a hot and sunny afternoon, thick grey rain-clouds were rolling past high above the Holloway Road, giving the impression that this was not a pleasant Sunday afternoon in May but a chilly, autumnal day in late October. In fact, by the time Madge and her fellow Salvation Army officers had set up their musical instruments and bandstands in the forecourt of the Marlborough Cinema, the first raindrops were already tip-tapping their way down on to the bandparts. Within just a few minutes, the pavements were shimmering with wet reflections of the sulky sky above, and a thin trickle of water gradually snaked its way along the gutters to disappear into the sewers below.

  However, the men and women of the Highbury Division Salvation Army Brass Band were made of stern stuff, and so, wrapped up in their uniforms and black and red bonnets and caps, they launched straight into their own stirring version of ‘John Brown’s Body’.

  The moment she came out of ‘the Buildings’, Sunday could hear the distant sound of tambourines clattering, the beating of the big bass drum, a trumpet blasting, cymbals clashing, and the whine of the harmonium. Huddled beneath her leaking brolly, she quickly made her way along the Holloway Road, where she soon found the Sunday afternoon band service in full swing. Much to her astonishment, there was a sizeable crowd gathered round. Some of them were regular followers, but the rest were just killing time before the doors opened at the Marlborough Cinema for the Sunday afternoon performance of The Man in Grey. But despite the driving rain, the atmosphere was joyful and exhilarating, with the worshippers singing out loud, clapping their hands and stampi
ng their feet in time to ‘Glory! Glory, Hallelujah! His soul goes marching on!’

  Madge Collins’s face lit up when she saw Sunday standing at the back of the crowd. Madge was, of course, an active member of the band, but the huge euphonium she was playing seemed to be almost as tall as herself, and as she blew through the mouthpiece, her chubby cheeks puffed out in time to the music, the effort of which had turned her face a startling blood-red.

  The rain was now a downpour, and the sound of raindrops pelting down on top of Sunday’s brolly made a curious, ethereal accompaniment to the robust chorus of human voices, tambourines, euphonium, cymbals, harmonium, and, of course, the dominant big bass drum. Even a small bunch of snotty-nosed kids were thoroughly enjoying themselves by marching up and down in the rain and mimicking the musicians. However, Sunday was only half-heartedly joining in the chorus, for her attention was focused on scanning the faces of the members of the band and their small choir of Salvationist officers grouped around them in a semicircle. Needless to say, over the years she had got to know most of them, for, each week when she was a little girl, her mum had taken her up to the Salvation Army Hall at Highbury to listen to endless band practices and Bible readings. There were so many ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ that she couldn’t keep up with them. Her particular favourite was ‘Auntie’ Elsie, who worked in Lavalls’ Sweet Shop in Seven Sisters Road, and who regularly brought her jelly babies until the war came along and they were rationed. She also quite liked ‘Auntie’ Vera, except that every time she spoke to Sunday she kept quoting bits of the Bible at her, and telling her that ‘God always looks after little children – but only if they behave themselves.’ ‘Uncle’ Sid was a funny man, for he was always telling Sunday jokes. The only trouble was, he always laughed louder than anyone else at them and never stopped poking her in the ribs as he did so. Yes, there were lots of ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’, and quite a few of them were here today. But there was one particular ‘uncle’ she was interested in. Unfortunately, she didn’t yet know which one, for Aunt Louie had refused to put a name to the ‘uncle’ who might one day become her new ‘dad’.