Rising Summer (3 page)

‘Wait a minute, you ratbag,’ said Meg, ‘there’s tomorrow, yer know, and Monday and Tuesday and so on.’

‘So there is,’ I said. Meg was an old neighbourly mate of mine and had been a real Walworth tomboy in her younger days. ‘OK, I’ll take you out tomorrow morning, we’ll go to morning church.’

‘We’ll whatter?’ asked Meg.

‘It’ll please the vicar, I’ll call for you at five to eleven.’

‘Blow that for a lark,’ said Meg, ‘I didn’t come home on leave to go on church parade, you barmy teacake.’

‘I’ll bring Aunt May as well.’

Wallop. Meg thumped me in the chest, then did her best to shut me up by trying to stuff a chair cushion into my mouth. It sat me down. The cushion began to swing, narrowly missing family ornaments on the mantelpiece as she swiped my head with it. I wondered what the war was doing to women, I didn’t think it was improving them. If they weren’t going after GIs, they were getting rid of all the virtues I held dear in them. Aunt May, of course, was an exception.

‘What’s going on in here?’ I asked.

‘Bleedin’ murder,’ said Meg.

‘What’s going on in my parlour?’ called her mum from somewhere.

‘Ruddy murder,’ called Meg.

‘Oh, all right,’ called her mum, who knew her boisterous daughter, ‘only be a bit more quiet about it, can you, love?’

Meg gave me a final swipe.

‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘let’s go out tomorrow afternoon, let’s take a bus ride to Hyde Park, like we used to when we first met.’

Meg let a little grin show. ‘You looked at my knickers when I was growing up,’ she said.

‘Couldn’t help it, could I, when you were always standing on your head,’ I said. ‘But all right, I won’t look tomorrow, not in Hyde Park, nor on the bus.’

‘Oh, that’s a promise, is it?’ she said. ‘It sounds like you’re goin’ to be a disappointment to me again.’ Meg said things like that. They were all bluff. Meg was going to keep herself to herself until she met a bloke who she recognized as just her type. Someone like a hammer-thrower. And as far as I was concerned, I didn’t go in for mucking about with young ladies. Aunt May was strictly against that kind of thing and she’d brought me up to behave myself. A girl once asked me if I’d always behaved as if I was in Sunday School. I said not half, it stopped girls’ dads coming after me with a meat axe.

‘OK, Meg,’ I said, ‘pick you up at two-thirty.’

‘Well, Tim?’ smiled Aunt May when I got back.

‘I bring good news,’ I said.

‘Not before time,’ said Aunt May. ‘You should have suitable company when you’re on leave. Meg’s a lively girl, you’ll enjoy a nice evening out with her and it doesn’t have to be serious.’ That meant Meg was suitable company, but not to be considered as a serious prospect.

‘No, Meg’s not coming,’ I said, ‘she’s going to the flicks tonight with Bob Micklewright. I’m taking you.’

‘You said good news.’ Aunt May was rolling dough on the kitchen table. ‘That’s not good news.’

‘It’s good enough for me,’ I said, ‘so you can get your best hat ready.’

Aunt May shook her head and laughed. ‘You’re a funny one, Tim,’ she said, ‘but you’ll have to get down to being serious sometime.’

‘There’s a war on, old girl, that’s serious enough at the moment. Let’s get that over with first.’

‘Yes, but I can’t help thinking about your future,’ said Aunt May, ‘I’m not going to have you turning into a stuffy bachelor.’

‘Listen, I’m only twenty-two.’

‘All the same,’ she said. I think she’d spent the last twenty years with my future in mind. But what about herself? What would her future be like if I got married? I honestly didn’t like the thought of Aunt May being alone.

‘What’re you making?’ I asked.

‘A plum pie for tomorrow’s dinner with some bottled plums.’

‘You lovely old darling,’ I said.

‘Watch your tongue, young man,’ said Aunt May, ‘you’ll be putting wrinkles on me next.’

‘Not you,’ I said. She didn’t have a single wrinkle, she looked nowhere near her age. The man who’d have married her if he hadn’t lost his life in revolutionary Russia, had missed years of lovely living with Aunt May.

We had an early tea. The fat kippers were first-class. When we left the house Aunt May looked a treat in a spring coat and her nicest hat. She knew how to wear clothes. We took a bus up West and got on the tail of the queue for the upper circle of the theatre. The West End had a colourful atmosphere because of the sunshine, the girls and the many different uniforms.

The country was suffering strict rationing at home and perils abroad. In 1940 and 1941 it had suffered bombs at home. London houses and buildings had been flattened and this made the old place look ruined in parts.
But
fat old Goering’s
Luftwaffe
hadn’t flattened spirits and the people themselves didn’t look ruined. The West End swarmed with pleasure-seekers, particularly Americans, who knew how to enjoy themselves. Nor did they waste time asking if there were any rules. They picked up cockney girls and suburban girls with no effort at all. They had no inhibitions when it came to making the necessary approach.

Aunt May’s spring coat, bright hat and young-looking appearance put her in the firing line. I wasn’t in the least surprised when a veteran GI, a sergeant who looked as if he might have served as a rookie doughboy in 1918, advanced on the queue with his eyes on Aunt May.

‘Pardon me, bud,’ he said, ‘you doing anything special with your sister?’

‘No, nothing specially special, just queueing,’ I said. ‘And how did you know she was my sister?’

‘Family likeness, I guess,’ he said. He was having me on, of course, and paying Aunt May a compliment. ‘I’m a loner right now. My date took one look at my best friend and pranced off with him. I guess my maturity put her off. How about asking your sister if I could borrow her for the evening? I’ve a coupla stalls’ tickets for the Strand Theatre and we could catch some eats at Romano’s joint afterwards. I’ll see her home, bud, give you my word.’

‘Well, there you are, sis,’ I said to Aunt May, who had a laugh in her eyes, of course. ‘D’you fancy the Strand Theatre with this American gent?’

‘Ask the gentleman if he’s married,’ said Aunt May as the queue began to move forward.

‘Are you married?’ I asked the mature Yank.

‘Sure am. To Alma McKinley of Chicago. Only she’s over there and I’m over here. You can see my problem.’

‘Yes, ruddy hard luck, mate,’ I said, ‘but my sister doesn’t go out with married men. And she’s shy, anyway, aren’t you, sis?’

‘I’m overcome,’ said Aunt May.

‘Hell, ain’t that a shame?’ said the sergeant. ‘All the same, nice talking to the both of you. Enjoy the show. I’ve seen it myself, it’s a hoot. So long, guys.’

‘Good luck,’ I said and off he went to search for other talent.

Aunt May was having hysterics. ‘You’ll be my death one day, Tim,’ she said, ‘all that funny talk of yours.’

The show was a riot. Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Nervo and Knox and the rest of the Crazy Gang cracked their wartime jokes, took off army generals and ATS commandants, bashed each other, tore about the stage and chucked things at the audience. The whole theatre kept erupting. Aunt May laughed until her tears ran.

When we got home we put together a pot of tea and some fried bacon sandwiches, a Walworth speciality. We listened to the Saturday night wireless programme and to the news. The news was all about how the Allies were doing. They were doing fine, apparently. Someone ought to be telling that to the Japs and Germans. It might make them give in.

When it was time for bed, Aunt May said, ‘It was a lovely evening, Tim.’

‘Can’t be bad, can it, an evening with the Crazy Gang?’

‘But take a nice girl out next time,’ she said.

‘Well, I’m making an effort with Meg tomorrow,’ I said. ‘We’re going to wander around Hyde Park. Simple and healthy stuff.’

‘Meg’s good company,’ said Aunt May.

‘So are you. Aunt May, don’t you get lonely sometimes?’

‘Now, how can anyone get lonely in Walworth?’ she said. ‘Walworth is full of neighbours and doorsteps.’

‘I wonder sometimes if you couldn’t have had a lot more than you have had,’ I said.

‘Now, how can you say that after we’ve had twenty years together?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but—’

‘They’ve all been worthwhile, love, every one.’

Meg enjoyed Hyde Park. She wasn’t a girl to get bored if she wasn’t riding the moon. Hyde Park was a green playground and the afternoon was bright. She looked swingy in her uniform and ready for fun, as long as it wasn’t the kind of fun where she had to fight her way out of it. She helped boys to sail their toy boats on the Serpentine, much to their delight. There was a regiment of smart-looking Yanks about and several arrived to give Meg and the boys some American advice on the sailing of boats. A broad-shouldered wallop of a GI began to take Meg over. He thought that as a Waaf she was cute. Meg was responsive. She liked extrovert males. This one said he was Steve Schuster from New Jersey. He and Meg seemed like kindred spirits. They exchanged stories
of
their lives and both seemed to have enjoyed tearaway years.

Steve invited both of us to a party. Some joint in Bloomsbury, he said. He’d got the address and an invitation. The party was to begin at six in the evening. How about it? Meg was all for it. I went along in case she needed help.

The party was based on gin and tonic and instant fraternization. The GIs brought the gin and bottles of tonic kept appearing like magic. I lost count of how many GIs were there. They heavily outnumbered the girls. Meg stood up to encircling tactics like a real Walworth trouper.

‘Hands off, mate, I’m in uniform,’ she said.

‘Sure fancy you out of it, honey,’ said one hopeful GI.

‘You’ll be lucky,’ said Meg.

Girls yelled and rushed about, upstairs and downstairs. Whose house it was, nobody seemed to know, or if there were actually a host and hostess. The GIs kept asking where the ice was.

‘It’s not where you’re looking right now,’ said a young lady from Penge, smacking the hand of an investigative bloke from Virginia.

A charming lady in maroon silk with no shoulders to the dress floated around with a cigarette holder between her teeth, asking if anyone had brought cheroots. A GI said sure, he’d brought cheroots. Thank you, darling, said the charming lady. This way, he said. Which way? Follow me, lady, he said. She floated out in his wake. I think her addiction to cheroots cost her dear, because she never reappeared.

Meg sorted me out at nine o’clock. ‘Where’ve you been, you carrot?’ she asked.

‘Just standing here and talking. I’ve been invited to Oklahoma after the war.’

‘Bloody marvellous, I don’t think,’ said Meg. ‘I’ve just escaped a fate worse than a messy death while you’ve been standin’ and talkin’. What kind of a soldier friend are you?’

‘Good question, that, Meg, ask me another.’

‘I’ll break your leg in a minute,’ said Meg. The party was getting chaotic. ‘Let’s go home. Whose bottle of gin is that on that chair?’

‘No idea,’ I said.

‘Pinch it,’ said Meg. ‘Me mum an’ dad can have it.’

‘Where’s Steve, your new friend?’

‘Upstairs. He can’t come down, not yet, I’ve just done the bugger an injury.’ Meg liked a lark, even a wrestle, but in common with most Walworth girls she wasn’t prepared to be on the losing end of any wrestle.

We took the bottle of gin as perks for her mum and dad and had a talkative bus ride home. Meg came in to share a pot of tea and some slices of Sunday cake with Aunt May and myself. She described what the party had been like and what Steve Schuster from New Jersey had been like. Aunt May smiled a bit and gave me a look or two.

‘Didn’t you look after Meg?’ she asked.

‘I played gooseberry,’ I said.

‘Oh, I didn’t need Tim,’ said Meg, ‘I took care of my uniform all by meself, I just ’anded out a few wallops.’

‘Some kinds of behaviour leave a lot to be desired in
wartime,’
said Aunt May, ‘and I don’t know if there are any winners. But I do know the losers are always women.’

‘Not this time,’ said Meg. ‘This time Steve from New Jersey was a loser. He’ll ’urt from ’ere to Christmas.’

‘Oh, dear, poor man,’ said Aunt May, but she looked quite cheerful about it.

I had a restful leave on the whole. I went to the pub a few times and met friends and acquaintances there, including Nell Saunders, the bus clippie. I took Meg with me a couple of times. She liked a shandy and the kind of boisterous company that was always prevalent in Walworth pubs. I also took her to the pictures. We were mates, no doubt about it.

‘D’you feel you’d like me as a brother?’ I asked her.

‘Try me,’ she said. So I kissed her.

‘How was that?’ I asked.

‘Champion,’ said Meg. ‘No, I don’t want you as a brother.’

‘Bosom chum?’ I suggested.

‘Sounds a lot better,’ said Meg, ‘but don’t go mad, it might knock a ruddy great ’ole in our chummy friendship.’

Meg was a joker. I left it at that. It suited me.

‘I’m off, Aunt May,’ I said. My leave was up and I had a train to catch.

‘Well, it’s been lovely having you home,’ she said.

‘Twice over for me,’ I said. ‘God bless yer, old girl, ta for everything. Look after yourself. Keep your head
down,
put the milk bottles out at night, don’t let Mrs Marsh’s cats in, they wee on the passage floor, and order your coal early for the winter. Oh, I’ve oiled your sewing-machine by the way.’

‘Anything else?’ smiled Aunt May.

‘Yes, you’re my best girl,’ I said.

She laughed and sent me off with a warm kiss and a warm cuddle.

BACK AT BATTERY
Headquarters I was having an ordinary day in my life as an ack-ack gunner, temporarily desk-bound. I’d been transferred from a gun site ten months ago to fill a gap in the orderly room. The site commander, Lieutenant Rogers, told me BHQ wanted a clerk and that I would do.

‘Here, give over, sir, I’m not—’

‘All right, we know you’re not a genius, but you can read and write, can’t you? Yes, of course you can. Get your kit and push off. The ration lorry’s here. You can go in that. Enjoy yourself.’