What Was Promised Read online

  Neville has a fine voice, even with the chest: a singer’s voice, rich and tender. He used to sing plenty back home. He led the morning hymn each day at Elementary School, where he was Principal and Sir, even to Bernadette Jarrett and to his own little brother. He sang at St Andrew’s Methodist, where he was churchwarden. He was singing there the Sunday morning Bernadette saw Clarence again, for the first time since childhood: Clarence Malcolm, grown into a man, sixteen years old and nightwatchman at the Frome sugar factory. She was fifteen that summer. Mama had allowed her home from boarding in Green Island. It was Clarence who turned her head, but it was Neville’s voice that others turned to, then. Neville’s voice was the kind the old parishioners would call The Backbone of the Congregation.

  He has no congregation now. Bernadette has tried with him, found him a chapel close by, but Neville ducks her questions. Bad enough that Clarence has to work Sundays to make ends meet, but Clarence says his brother won’t even step inside a church. And Neville never sings.

  Make do and mend, people say. But what if some things can’t be mended? What when they are too far gone?

  It’s not far. She knows that. How can she say Camden is far, when they’ve come – all four of them – five thousand miles, hometown to mother country? This Sunday visit, this isn’t far, for family. Neville is never better than when he’s with her boy.

  ‘Ah, she’s a handsome craft, she is, the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars –’

  There is a drumming: Neville pecking the chair-arm with his fingers.

  ‘– And swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness. There, John would add, You can’t touch pitch and not be mucked.’

  ‘Pitch?’ she hears her boy say. ‘Like black?’

  Neville laughs. ‘No! Not like that.’

  ‘It don’t make sense,’ Jem says, and his uncle coughs, once, twice.

  ‘Doesn’t make sense,’ Bernadette calls. ‘Boy, I don’t know what they teach you in that school.’

  ‘Doesn’t,’ Jem says, dutifully, and – just as good – the hammering stops. It’s giving her a headache.

  Clarence comes into the kitchen. He’s trying to tread quietly, to soothe her with his quietness.

  As if there’s an ounce of quiet in him! The man doesn’t know himself. It’s as if he’s never seen the faces when he walks into a room – in London, England or Glasgow, Jamaica or anywhere in between. It’s as if he doesn’t understand the way he fills the little kitchen, six foot six of displaced air and manpower.

  ‘I hear you,’ Bernadette says. ‘Creeping.’

  ‘Who’s creeping?’ Clarence says. ‘I heard some rumour about food in here. I’m working up a hunger.’

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to work it up some more.’

  ‘What is it, ackee and saltfish?’

  ‘No ackee,’ says Bernadette. ‘As if you didn’t know already.’

  ‘Saltfish without ackee. Like fish and chips without the chips,’ he says, and puts his arms round her.

  Bernadette feels herself lean back into his strength. She can’t stop herself. The movement is like gravity. ‘It’s your fault,’ she says.

  ‘My fault? How is it my fault?’

  ‘If you want ackee,’ Bernadette says, ‘you should be the Ackee King.’

  That makes him laugh, and she laughs too. Clarence’s laughter is like that, you can’t hear it and not join in.

  Bernadette unwinds his arms. ‘Have you fixed that window?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Now! Can’t you see I’m busy?’

  ‘Ackee King,’ he says, and goes.

  She can joke about it now, his work. That’s a good thing, she supposes. Not that their life is all laughs, now. Sometimes her man might as well be the Ackee King, when he goes down to meet the train and there are no bananas to be had, nothing to buy, nothing to sell for all the money or coupons in London.

  Still: when they arrived, in Neville’s wake – cabin class; they are decent folk – and found Neville the way he is (no help in finding Clarence a job, and a job to look after, himself??), well, that was a harder time. Clarence is a proud man. To fight for King and Empire, and then to come and ask for a living, and to have to live on your wits alone – to have to make work for yourself, and to make nothing that will earn, until you make yourself into the Banana King . . . to take your blessed strength and height and put a crown of fruit on them, on the body you sent to war – like you were a clown, or a joke, or a fool – like you were a blasphemy –

  Bernadette was angry for him. She was ashamed for him. But Clarence was never those things, and his feelings, like his laughter, are infectious.

  Bernadette remembers the first time she swallowed her shame, and went with Jem after chapel to watch his father make their livings. Clarence was so pleased to see them. He bought them tea from the market runners, then he put on his banana-hand crown as easily as a clerk puts on his collar. He seemed to wear it as if it never weighed on him at all. When people laughed, he laughed back. He never lost his smile or temper. And so he has kept his pride. Because he is a gentleman. Clarence is a gentle man.

  It has to be a good thing, for a man to keep his pride. Even if the English see nothing but the sin in it. Even if England hammers down the proud.

  Now the food is almost ready. No ackee. Bernadette misses it. It’s foolish, but some days she misses that more than anything. The taste of ackee fruit: its dirty, oily ripeness. Last summer Clarence found her some, as a treat, but the sea had got into it, it smelled of salt and engine rooms and Bernadette didn’t like to eat it. She made a show of being pleased, but the truth was it made her want to weep.

  Never mind. There are worse things than no ackee and a bit of saltfish. A bit of ackee and no saltfish – that would be worse! But saltfish isn’t hard to get just now, and Bernadette has onions and tinned tomatoes. The smells of Neville’s lodgings – the sour sweat and fear – are retreating like shadows in sunlight. The rooms are sweetening.

  It is going to be a good meal.

  *

  Midnight. In Columbia Road the flower market’s rubbish makes middens of the gutters. By the bomb site end the scraps have been swept into heaps taller than children. Big Ben tolls, miles away, across the City, along the river.

  Here are Michael Lockhart’s daughters, hiding in the willowherb. Wrapped in matching Blustons coats, cardies over bony knees, they are looking for the ghosts of airmen. This is Long Debris, their place, where by day they play Cowboys, Spacemen, Trolls, Tarzan, or build their dens, or spy on roomless lovers or beggars’ bonfires. Beyond them is the Devil’s Punchbowl left by a rocket attack. Sycamore and aspen have populated the depression, but the moon is bright tonight and everything is visible.

  Their mum has been calling for them, but now she’s gone back in. The girls are crouching side by side, snug as a pair of owls, Iris thinks. But owls eat mice, and Iris likes mice.

  She shivers.

  ‘Floss,’ she says, ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Stop talking then, it makes it worse.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  But Floss is never cold. It’s like the Banana King says: Floss is a right little trooper.

  ‘It’s midnight,’ Iris says. ‘I still don’t see anything.’

  ‘He won’t come if he hears you.’

  ‘You don’t know that, you’re just saying. You never saw a ghost.’

  ‘Shush, will you!’ Floss says, and Iris shushes.

  The mist is coming down. Way across Long Debris there are still lights on here and there, in the tops of the Columbia Buildings, and down towards the water fountain someone is out walking, whistling the gloomy hymn about those in peril on the sea. But London has finished for the night, there is no one else about, and the mist makes even the few lit windows seem desolate and remote.

  ‘Floss?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dad might be home by now.’

  ‘Fat chance. He’s s
eeing his masterman.’

  ‘Mum is, anyway.’

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘No,’ Iris says, but her voice is shivery. ‘Floss?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am scared.’

  ‘It’s alright, Iris.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘It is. I’m here, aren’t I?’ Floss says, and puts her arms around her sister. Wraps her up and kisses her.

  ‘Whisper,’ she says into Iris’s hair (which smells of biscuits, or warm milk). ‘I don’t think he’ll hear whispering.’

  ‘I’m still cold, though,’ Iris whispers. ‘Do you think he’s coming?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jem swore he saw him. It wasn’t just one of his stories,’ Floss says, though she likes Jem’s stories, if it comes to that, and half of her hopes it is.

  ‘What do we do if he does come?’

  Iris feels her sister thinking.

  ‘I think we should observe him,’ Floss says, ‘and probably make notes. Then tomorrow we’ll tell a policeman.’

  ‘Is he bad, then, the Airman?’

  ‘He might be. Anyway he’s German.’

  ‘Is he still German, if he’s dead?’

  Floss doesn’t answer that. She’s thinking of the things Jem told her. The Airman crawling out of the pit. Wet. All wet and black. First he burned and then he drowned.

  Her teeth want to chatter but she doesn’t let them, locks them tight. Iris would feel it.

  ‘He was a bomber,’ she says. ‘Shot down on his last raid.’

  ‘Was he bombing us?’

  ‘Silly. Who else would he be doing?’

  Floss lets go of her sister, stands up and hugs herself. The mist is starting to gather over the sunken ground. There are no ruins here except one stump, a chimney-breast that uselessly withstood the blast. Beyond the stump is jungle, and the cellar of the house it once served. Over the years the pit has flooded partway. Floss can see the water through the mist, black and still.

  ‘Floss?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If he’s still German, is that what he talks?’

  When Floss sighs her teeth chit-chatter. ‘I don’t know!’ she says, too loud, disappointed at her own weakness.

  ‘I’m only asking,’ Iris says. ‘It’s only that I won’t be able to talk to him if he does. I mean I don’t know any German. Do you?’

  No answer. Moon-shadows in the mist. Then, ‘Schnell,’ Floss says, and Iris giggles, breathless with cold, fear and excitement.

  ‘Schnell, schnell!’

  ‘Gott in Himmel!’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw him Floss I saw! He’s there!’

  Iris is on her feet. She huddles into Floss, burying her face in her sister’s coat. Floss stares over her, down into the shallow crater.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ she says. Her voice is shaking, but not as much as Iris is. ‘Iris, there’s nothing there.’

  ‘There is!’ Iris says. ‘There was. I want to go home now.’

  ‘But I haven’t seen him yet –’

  Iris raises her head. Her face is serious.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she says, and takes her big sister’s hand, and goes.

  *

  Mary Lockhart waits up for her girls. Mrs Platt from next door has come in to sit with her. Just in case, as Mrs Platt says. Just to see out any trouble.

  ‘Like animals,’ Mrs Platt says, ‘and the girls go worse than the boys. It’s ever the same with the wars. No old man to whip them into line. They all get into mischief, they get away with murder, and then they’ve got the taste for it. Like beasts. Not that Alf was much for whipping. Where’s your Michael, then? Working nights?’

  ‘When he must,’ Mary says.

  ‘On a Sunday, too. Not that I’m a churchgoer.’

  ‘Won’t you have another, Mrs Platt?’ Mary asks, and the old woman puts out her cup and keeps on talking, perpetual as St Paul’s.

  ‘We had a horse when I was a girl. His name was Dusty . . . no, it was Dash, Dusty came after Dash. Mr Jones used to stable him for us, in with his dairy cows, that was how gentle a horse Dash was. Then one day Jack was out with him – this was my brother Jack, he passed in the first war – and it was getting dark, so Jack is pushing it, and isn’t there someone in the road, why there is, some old drunkard, weaving about in the dark, and Dash goes right over him. Spurns him. Head broke open. Well. The thing is, after that, Dash was never the same. Like a different animal. Bit just for the joy of it. He had the smell of blood, you see, he had a taste for it. Jones wouldn’t keep him no more because he kicked one of the cows and all the milk was off for days.’

  Mrs Platt drinks her tea. ‘And that was why we got Dusty. Any more biscuits?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Mary says, and her neighbour sighs and mutters.

  ‘Well, they was only arrowroot. What time is it? I heard midnight.’

  ‘Yes, it’s late,’ Mary says, but too quick. Mrs Platt sets her chin. She isn’t going anywhere; and just to prove it, she leans over and strokes Mary, like a cat.

  ‘I’ll stay, I will, don’t fret. At least until they’re in their beds. They’ll be back soon.’

  Mary goes to the sink and starts putting away. Where do all these chipped things go? She doesn’t care, she just needs to be doing. Mary tries with Mrs Platt, but the old woman never fails to rub her up the wrong way. Still, you have to try your best. What are neighbours for but this, for troubles? If Mary can’t bring herself to be grateful, she can still manage to be civil. Mary was brought up properly: she knows how to bite her tongue.

  ‘I know they will,’ she says. ‘They’re sensible girls.’

  ‘Of course they are. Well, the little one is. Not like that Irish lot upstairs. Six girls – they sleep them in the parlour. The fellow beats them raw and it makes no odds to them. You can hear them all the time, in Irish, but you know they’re talking back. The mouths on them, cheeky little chits! I don’t know one from the other and I don’t want to. It’s a pity the way things have gone. When I was a girl we used to play out all hours, we used to know everyone by name. Now it’s all bomb sites and strangers everywhere, everyone’s cut loose and floating around where they don’t belong. Not you, dear, I don’t mean you, I mean at least you’re English, ain’t you? It’s the foreigners and tinkers. You heard about the man they found? The foreigner with all the cuts?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mary says, ‘I heard.’

  ‘Cuts all over. Bacon Street. Not far,’ Mrs Platt says, and she gets to her feet. ‘I’ve just got to go in the corner. Where is it? Oh, don’t worry yourself. Same as ours, isn’t it?’

  With her neighbour gone Mary leans on the board. She pictures Mrs Platt, in the dark, taking a wrong turn, hitching up her skirts and pissing over Michael’s bed. Well, then she’d get what she deserves. She’s like the horse she talks about. Hungry for disaster.

  He had the smell of blood, you see, he had a taste for it.

  She pours herself more tea and sits. She’s calm. She’s not frightened, whatever Annie Platt would like. Worried? Yes. She heard about the man with the cuts – found by the dustmen in Bacon Street, half dead and too drunk to know it – but the gossip is that the man might have been living rough. That would be less worrying. The troubles of beggars are not those of other people.

  In any case, her girls won’t have gone as far as Bacon Street. They’ll stay in sight of home, Mary’s sure. The adventure will be Flossie’s idea, and Floss might find trouble, but Iris is sensible.

  Iris is Mary’s girl. Floss is her father, to the bone.

  Mary looks up and sees there’s a new crack in the ceiling. It makes her stomach turn. In the pantry, yesterday, she caught weeds growing in. She pulled them through by their green hair and found they had even put on flowers. Little strings of violet stars, trailing out into the sun. Pretty things, doing their best; but Mary doesn’t lack for flowers, and she felt sick at the sight of those.

  The Columbia
Buildings are falling down. Mary wonders if they’ll have to leave. It’s one bomb did the grave damage, a big one, early in the war. It came right down the air shaft of the shelter, the official one that lay under the old market square. There were forty died down there, though others were pulled out alive. Mrs Platt was one of them.

  Of course she was, Mary thinks. Mrs Platt would find a way out of an atom bomb.

  A blessing, Michael calls it. Mary wishes he wouldn’t say it so plain, but it’s true for them. Where would they be, if not for that bomb? Michael saw their chance and got them in quick. They’re the lucky ones to have a roof at all. Where would they live, if not here? They might be as wretched as that man in Bacon Street. They might still live apart, Michael in his Old Street lodgings, her and the girls still cheek by jowl with her Aunt Kate in Birmingham, living off sour charity. Waiting for Michael to make their fortunes, to find the gold in London’s streets . . . though gold’s only in stories: Mary’s streets are Michael’s, and those are only paved with flowers.

  Or silver. Mary has seen the silver, and other things. But she doesn’t ask.

  The latch clicks and she jumps up. She’s quick into the hall, but Mrs Platt is there before her, wiping her hands on her skirts.

  ‘There you are! Your mother’s been so worried. I don’t know what you two were thinking of!’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Platt,’ Mary says, and the girls troop past in general silence, Floss head up, Iris head down.

  Mary has them all back in the kitchen, is doing her best to be stern while the girls clean their hands and faces, when she sees that Iris has been crying.

  ‘Dirty as a coal miner,’ Mrs Platt says, and Floss looks up, wet and feral.

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Mrs Platt,’ Mary says, ‘you’ve been a help.’

  ‘I’ll be going then,’ the old woman says, grudgingly; but she does. Alone with her children, Mary touches Iris’s blotched face.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘She saw a ghost!’ Floss says, but Iris shakes her head.