The War Before Mine Read online

  ‘That’s beside the point.’

  He shifted her on to less contentious ground. The garden. Difficulties with gardeners. Then she asked him about Spain.

  ‘All that way,’ she said. ‘All that way. Hard to believe.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What did you think of Madrid?’

  ‘I avoided it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Rather too many people friendly to the Germans, you know.’

  ‘Oh. What a pity. I understand it’s a beautiful city.’

  At ten, his mother carried her carafe of water and glass to bed and Philip, wide awake and restless, wandered the rooms, trying to sense his father and feel the loss. He flicked on the light and saw the empty bed, the strange bottles, dishes, medicines; a gleaming bedpan.

  It was still light. Philip sat in his father’s armchair beside the open window, listening to the rustlings and tiny shrieks. Out in the garden, a more sudden kind of dying was going on. The church clock chimed the half hour. For so many years, his father had sat in this chair, reading, scribbling notes, patting the arm saying, ‘Come here for a moment, Phil. What do you think of this? Will the other children understand, do you think?’ And in this chair, springs sunk with the long weight of his father, fabric stained with his last leakages, Philip closed his eyes and talked.

  ‘Remember the time we walked to Brighstone and I hurt my foot? You had to give me a piggyback all the way home?’ He stroked the faded armrest, feeling the weft under his fingers. ‘I remembered that, in Spain. Had to piggyback a chap myself… I know you loved me, Dad. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got ill.’ After a while, the breeze from the open window became cooler and Philip, feeling the foolishness of talking to mice, took himself off to bed.

  Five days later, Philip sat in the sanctuary of the kitchen looking at the particulars of properties for sale, while the cook clattered about with her pans. ‘Do you know this place, Mrs Edwards?’

  She peered over his shoulder. ‘That’s lovely that is. Where’s my glasses? Oh yes. That might do Mrs. It’s on the road to Shalfleet, set back a bit. Plenty of room for grandchildren there, anyroad.’ She giggled. ‘I expect you have a young lady?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure.’ Mrs Edwards’s eyes, magnified by the glasses, demanded more. ‘She’s not where I left her, so to speak. Once I’ve done a bit for mother, I’m going to find her.’ Mrs Edwards nodded silently, her face flushed. Her eyes had grown big as saucers.

  ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘You mustn’t tell Mrs I told you…’ The words fell out in a rush. ‘But there was a young lady came here while you were gone.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Small she was, and dark. She said… You won’t tell Mrs will you? I’ve spoken as I shouldn’t…’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘She said…’ The voice sank to a whisper. ‘She said she’d got herself into trouble – and it was yours. Mrs didn’t believe her, though. Sent her packing.’

  ‘Did she say where she was living?’

  ‘No. She had a funny accent, though. From the north.’

  He pushed back the chair and stood up.

  ‘Oh don’t tell her. You mustn’t tell her. Sit back down and let’s talk about it. People can’t just disappear, can they? You’ll be able to find her. If you tell Mrs I said anything, I’ll be in such trouble.’ Mary Edwards’s hands twisted her apron in distress.

  The papers on the table blurred. Philip couldn’t trust himself to speak. He went upstairs, rammed his things in his rucksack. Then he walked along the narrow, tussocky path to the church. He stood for a moment in the porch, trying to master his anger, forcing himself to look around him, to calm down before he faced her. The porch was shabbier than he remembered, the paint flaking in places. Attached to the noticeboard with a rusty drawing pin, a yellowing sheet announced when services were to be held during Revd. Seymour’s indisposition. He pushed open the door.

  His mother stood by the font, holding a pair of pruning shears in one hand. ‘I’m leaving,’ he said. She looked surprised, almost vulnerable for a moment, her glasses slightly askew on her nose. Then she recovered.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d begrudge a few days spent helping your widowed mother.’

  ‘I have spent a few days with you. Now I must go.’

  ‘I don’t understand why.’

  ‘I have to find someone, someone important. A woman called Rosie Mullen. Did anyone of that name write to you, or come here, when I was gone?’

  ‘The name is not familiar.’

  ‘Did anyone come?’

  ‘A person came, claiming to know you, wanting money. Obviously lying.’

  Philip fixed his attention on a long crack in the wall. ‘And that person. Did she leave an address?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If that person contacts you by letter, or comes here again, you must inform me immediately. Do you understand, mother? If you don’t do this, I won’t come back. Ever.’

  His mother’s voice quavered, ‘Why do you hate me? I only ever wanted the best for you.’ Hampered by the shears, she tried to extract a handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan.

  ‘Have you ever thought of what you mean by that? The best? You only value what most people can’t have, what they can’t afford or aspire to.’

  ‘And you value what you find in the gutter.’

  Philip turned on his heel. Stopping only to stand for a few moments beside the fresh mound of earth under which his father lay, he left the village. By the following evening, he was in Newcastle.

  Memoirs of a Child Migrant, 2006

  It was hunger that got me into Brother Macken’s office that afternoon, legged up by Frankie Evans because I was the only one of the three of us small enough to fit through the top window. Frankie and the lookout, Dan Mooney, had got me convinced Brother Macken kept a store of silver foil-wrapped chocolate biscuits in his desk. ‘Imagine putting it in your mouth, Littlun, biting through the chocolate and the biscuit to the orangey stuff…’ Brother Macken had a thick leather strap with bits of metal embedded in it. I was terrified of him, but the power of chocolate was greater.

  The office smelt of pipe tobacco. Frankie’s wet lips were pressed against the other side of the window, his fingers splayed on the glass. ‘Look in the drawers,’ he mouthed.

  My file was open on the desk. It seemed like magic to read my name on the front, to open it, and find, among the forms and letters inside, the photograph. I could still hear Daniel hissing at me, but all I could see was the woman who, in a different-coloured time, had pushed me on a swing and held my hand. I knew the soldier must be my father.

  ‘Fuck’s sake. Get out. He’s comin’.’

  I couldn’t get my leg up to the window from the inside. In a flat panic I looked round for something to stand on and saw Brother Macken’s whacking great bible. I placed it on the sill and hoisted myself up through the gap, falling head first into Daniel’s arms.

  As we ran for it I shouted, ‘I’ve got a mum and dad.’ We stopped around the corner to get our breaths back. Dan punched me, told me I was cracked and buggering useless into the bargain, and we went off to the yard behind the kitchens to see if there was anything edible in the pig bins.

  I put down what happened later to my changed status. Brother Macken made us all line up and step on a piece of paper to see whose footprint matched the one on his bible. He called out this thin boy called Colin Greenall, yanked his shorts and pants down to his ankles, doubled him over a chair and thrashed him in front of us all. I’m ashamed to say his whimpering, ‘It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me,’ and his sobs, his terrible pig-like squeals and the slobber running down his face didn’t make me feel guilty. Now, I feel it, but then, I just watched Brother Macken’s savage red face and thought, ‘He knows I’ve got a mum and dad and now he can’t touch me. Because I’ve got a mum and dad. I’ve got a mum and dad.’ And in bed in the groaning, snuffling dormitory, I squeezed my eyes shut and brought the
photo back to my mind, inventing homes and lives for the parents I thought would one day come to my rescue.

  27

  Gateshead and Newcastle June 1945

  So blackened a city should have been depressing, but in the bar of the Station Hotel, Philip felt exhilarated by Newcastle’s energy and humour.

  ‘It’s not me that’s small,’ insisted a girl about the size of Rosie. ‘It’s Americans are all giants.’

  The huge soldier looked down at her. ‘Actually, ma’am, we’re from Toronto. That’s in Canada.’

  ‘Wae it’s all the Wild West, isn’t it? What they been feeding ye on? Buffalo?’

  Every conversation seemed to bring Rosie closer and it wasn’t until the next morning, when the taxi driver asked Philip exactly what part of Gateshead he was after, that he realised it might not be easy to find her. He only had her name. No address. What was he going to look for? A house with a beautiful horse tied up outside? Trusting to fate, he stopped people on the street to ask. They assessed him with their eyes and ears, screwed up their faces, ‘Ye could try Wrekenton way. Definitely a few Mullens ower there, like.’

  In this northern corner of his own country Philip discovered a world he’d not known existed, where a great crush of humanity and all of its washing was squeezed into a crumbling warren of back-to-backs. He climbed steps and negotiated narrow walkways, each side of which families lived, some crammed into single rooms. It was like he’d imagined India, but without the sunshine.

  ‘Do you know anyone called Mullen? A car dealer named Mullen?’

  The thin grey girl shook her head. People looked as weak and hungry as they had in Spain. The girl carried a little withered baby, like an ancient monkey. Her face stayed with him, haunted him. Would Rosie and her baby look like that? Ragged children took to following him about, watching as he knocked on doors, calling questions. ‘What did ye do in the war, like?’ ‘Did ye kill anyone?’ ‘What’s it like, down London?’ Have ye got anything in your pockets to eat?’ At midday, Philip stopped to buy fish and chips for seven. They had to wait for the fish to be cooked. Not many could afford it, the man said. Afterwards, one of the children led the way to a place she thought belonged to a Mullen. She was mistaken, and it was outside a Mrs Mulroney’s two-room home at the top of some very rickety steps that Philip met a serious young man with glasses and a clipboard canvassing for the Labour Party, and remembered a general election had been called. The young man was struggling to link names to the confusing residential geography. Philip saw an opportunity.

  ‘Have you any Mullens on your list?’

  The canvasser followed his chewed finger down the paper and shook his head. ‘Mind you, a lot of people aren’t registered round here. A problem that must be resolved if we are ever to have true democracy.’

  ‘Very true,’ said Philip, enjoying the young man’s portentousness. ‘What’s the Labour Party plan to do about the terrible conditions people live in here?’ This prompted a discourse on the five ‘evil giants’ of want, squalor, disease, ignorance and unemployment and how Labour intended to provide welfare for the poor and nationalise the major industries. Though he found the young man pompous, Philip approved of the policies and thought it a pity Labour would not win – because of course Churchill was bound to get the votes of a country grateful for victory. Philip liked what he’d seen of Attlee on the newsreels, his lack of pretension, the humble little car he went about in. Attlee would get his vote, and most of the votes around here, but it wouldn’t win him the election. There were too many people like his mother in the country for that.

  The young man said a full electoral roll was available at Party headquarters and gave him directions. In a dusty office full of brimming ashtrays and dirty teacups, Philip copied down addresses from the list. He was just about to restart his search when a middle-aged woman in crumpled tweeds pounced on him, and after a brief but intense interrogation, told him such a nice looking young soldier could do no end of good canvassing – and he’d probably find who he was looking for into the bargain. She thrust a huge pile of leaflets in his hands and packed him off up the street, a red rosette fluttering from his lapel.

  He had to admit his search became much more interesting once he’d become a campaigner, the rosette prompting people to tell him their problems with corrupt landlords and inviting him in to inspect damp walls, blocked drains and even on a couple of occasions, sickly relatives. ‘This is wor young ’un, Peter,’ said the woman as the child lifted a transparent hand to touch Philip’s own. ‘He’s consumptive, poor lad.’

  He marvelled at how people kept their good humour amid so much deprivation. Everyone wanted to talk, from his faithful troupe of child followers to old men with stories of fighting the Boers. It was fascinating. It was shocking. He enjoyed himself immensely. But by the time evening came and he booked into a grimy-looking guest house (proprietor planning to vote for Mr Churchill) he felt no nearer finding Rosie.

  Reluctant to turn in, partly because of the look of the bed, but also because of a sense of excitement at being in a place that seemed quite as exotic as Egypt, Philip went out again into the dark. A blonde girl outside a pub beckoned him over. He gave her a light for her cigarette. ‘You might be able to help me,’ he said, ‘I’m looking for someone.’

  She slid her hands under his jacket. ‘Mebbes you just found her.’

  ‘A girl called Rosie Mullen.’

  The sliding hand stopped. ‘Rosie? Haven’t seen her for years. Went down south somewhere.’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Knew her. Used to live opposite.’

  ‘Where? What’s the address?’

  ‘Slow down. I’ll tell ye later. Gi’ us a kiss.’

  ‘Look, no.’ Philip pushed her hands down. ‘I’ll pay you for the address. I don’t want the other bit.’

  She laughed. ‘Wae you certainly knaa how to flatter a girl.’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean… You’re very pretty.’ He handed her a pen and paper and she scribbled something down. ‘Bit late to go calling now, isn’t it? Ye’d best wait until tomorrow. Tek us for a drink instead. Gan on. Ye’ve got what ye want.’

  Over a beer in the pub, he watched old men playing shove ha’penny. In the harsh indoor light the girl, whose name was Martha, turned into a woman in her thirties. Philip questioned her eagerly, but she claimed to know very little of Rosie or her family. ‘Keep theirselves private, like. I just know she went off, must have been about four year ago. What do you want with her, anyway? Too posh for her, aren’t ye?’ After a couple of beers Martha grew confiding and tearful. She’d been let down by an airman. She’d lost her kids. ‘Sent them on the ’vacuation. Don’t want me now. I went to get them and they says they’d rather stay where they were. I’ve got naebody.’ Philip bought her another drink, gave her a pound and left.

  As early as he dared the next morning, he knocked on the door. A boy of about seventeen, dark hair flopping over Rosie’s blue eyes, answered. They stared at each other for a moment while Philip struggled to come up with a name. ‘John?’

  ‘Who’s asking, like?’

  ‘I’m a friend of Rosie’s.’

  ‘Me sister Rosie? Where is she?’

  ‘You don’t know? I’m trying to find her.’

  ‘I’d best take ye to see me Da. He’s at the auction.’ John led the way down the hill to a patch of waste ground on the banks of the river, where an assortment of cars, vans and trucks were parked in rows, numbers pasted to their windscreens. Men wandered, alone or in groups, examining them. To one side, employees in white coats were setting up an area for the cars to be driven through, and an auctioneer wearing a tweed cap waited to climb on to a platform and start taking bids. John pointed to a little cluster of dark haired men. ‘That’s me Da, over there. Wi’ the red scarf. I’ll wait here.’

  Philip walked towards the group. Rosie’s father was a small, powerful-looking man, who evidently took care over his appearance. The blue eyes, now directed with an exp
ression of some contempt at the soldier walking towards him, were Rosie’s.

  ‘Mr Mullen? Can I have a word?’

  ‘No point. I never vote. None of us do. Save yer breath.’ Philip followed Mullen’s glance to the rosette he’d forgotten was still pinned to his jacket.

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m looking for Rosie.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Mullen stared and waited, silent, while Philip floundered through his narrative – how he and Rosie had met, how he’d been stranded in France, how the house in Falmouth had been destroyed. He didn’t mention pregnancy.

  Mullen jerked his head for Philip to follow and they walked away from the group to the river’s edge. Close to, Philip towered over the older man.

  ‘I haven’t seen my daughter for four year. She could be dead for all I know.’ The greasy water swirled below their feet. Mullen rubbed a hand across his mouth. ‘But I divvent think she is.’ He flicked his eyes over Philip again, assessing him with a critical intensity he might use in looking over a horse. Philip almost expected him demand a look in his mouth. ‘I’m thinking it’s to do with ye she disappeared. Cost me a packet, her going off. She was supposed to send money home, support her family.’ Another pause opened up between them. Then Philip, realising what was required, took out his wallet.

  ‘She wrote to our Jean –’ Mullen said, folding the five pound note and tucking it deep into the breast pocket of his tweed jacket, ‘me second daughter – a while ago. Not that Jean tells me anythin’. Ye can find her in Fenwicks. Hairdresser she is.’

  The voice of the auctioneer started, speeded up, became demented. ‘There’s a car coming up now I want to bid on.’ Dismissed, Philip turned to go but Mullen added. ‘If you find her, tell her… Tell her we’d like to see her.’ He walked away. ‘No doubt she’ll do what she likes. She always did.’

  Outside the auction John fell into step beside him. ‘All right?’

  ‘Your father suggested I talk to Jean.’