When Summer is Gone: The Likes of Us, #2

Part One

Chapter One

A Trip to the Moon in a Hot-air Balloon

Wednesday, 23 July 1913

CUBITT TOWN ON the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London was never quiet, but what peace there was that afternoon was shattered by Alice Atwood’s anguished cries, echoing across the alleys and yards as she endured a long and painful labour. Alice’s neighbours, Elsie and Pearl, sat outside their front doors, their faces grim. They’d fetched clean towels, boiled water, made tea for the anxious father-to-be and for Mrs Charles, who served as midwife to all the local women. There was nothing more to be done.

Oh, Elsie! It’s been nigh on five hours now, said Pearl, as though her friend could end their neighbour’s suffering.

I know, duck. I’ve been sitting here right next to you the whole time.

Elsie Jarvis was a short, stout woman in a pink-and-blue floral apron that fitted snugly around her plump figure. In contrast, Pearl Rogers was tall and thin; her apron could easily have been wrapped twice around her skinny frame. She picked up the broom leaning against her windowsill and restlessly swept some dust from the pavement into the gutter. After a few desultory thrusts of the brush she paused, leaning on it.

You never know, Else, maybe this time…

Elsie shook her head gravely. Oh, I wouldn’t have thought so, my duck. I pray so, but there’s no sense in us getting our hopes up. If three of ’em have died already, stands to reason there must be summink very wrong, mustn’t there?

Pearl nodded sadly. Yes. Well, whatever ’appens, I ’ope to Gawd it ’appens soon.

I know. My Bert will be home from work shortly and he’ll be banging on the wall with his slipper if she’s still making this racket. He’s got no compassion in him at all. Elsie’s round face expressed contempt, for Bert and for all men.

They looked anxiously up at the Atwoods’ bedroom window as the screams reached a new peak and, after a short, tense silence, were replaced by the thin piercing cry of a newborn.

Aw! the friends cooed in unison. They couldn’t help themselves. The gloom was magically dispersed, as though the infant had come into the world waving a wand.

As the crying grew stronger, Pearl said, Well, it don’t sound like this one’s gonna snuff it any time soon, Else, and she threw her skinny arms about her plump neighbour in celebration.

*

THE BEDROOM WAS flooded with sunlight, the nets dancing softly in the breeze. Bill Atwood wouldn’t tell his wife that she looked radiant—they were past that now. Her hair was matted with sweat, her face pinched with premature grief, and no trite compliment would lift her spirits.

The yellow wooden cradle he had fashioned with pride for their firstborn stood at the foot of the bed. He had come to hate the sight of it, as though it were an open grave. If this went like the other times, he vowed he would burn it. He approached tentatively, fearing that what he’d see would break his heart. In the cradle lay a tiny scrap of a baby, barely asleep, for although his eyes were closed his limbs were restless. Bill was glad because it meant he was alive. He lifted out the little body which began to scream in protest, using lungs so small that Horatio, the Jarvis’s cat, basking on the scullery roof, didn’t even cast a languid glance upwards to see what all the fuss was about.

In Bill’s strong arms the baby relaxed; his blue eyes looked up towards his father for the first time and Bill could not at first speak for love. His voice cracked as he spoke. ’Ello, mate. ’Ello. My little boy. My son.

He kissed the infant’s forehead and moved over to the side of the bed where Alice had turned her face towards the wall and was crying bitterly.

I don’t wanna see ’im, Bill. Take ’im away.

But Alice, he’s all right and he’s beautiful.

I can’t. If I look at ’im I’m gonna love ’im, and he’ll just be taken like the others. It’s no use. I can’t go through that again.

Alice. I understand, darlin’. But he’s perfectly healthy.

’Ow d’you know? She was tortured by the suggestion of hope.

Well, Mrs Charles said…

She said that about the others, she howled.

It might be different this time, love.

It won’t be! I know it won’t! It isn’t meant to be.

It might be. His voice became less gentle. And even if it ain’t, if this little boy only has one hour on this earth, don’t you think he deserves an hour’s love?

Yes. Even if it broke her heart. If it was the only thing that she could ever do for him then she had no choice. She turned towards her husband who placed the tiny bundle tenderly in her arms. If this little boy’s heart were to stop beating, then so would hers.

Bill left her alone with the baby. He also was suspicious of the hope welling up inside, but it wasn’t to be suppressed. Tears stung his eyes, and he couldn’t help but smile as he joined his neighbours outside and lit up a Senior Service.

Aw! Congratulations, Bill. Pearl beamed. What yer gonna call ’im, d’you know?

He cleared his throat. Alfred Lansbury Atwood—Alfie, he declared with pride. Just speaking the boy’s name out loud made him feel that it was going to be all right.

Lansbury? said Pearl incredulously.

Bill shook his head. You’d better ask the missus about that.

*

Sunday, 23 May 1914

IF BILL WASN’T working, during the afternoon Alice would go to bed for a nap. Her husband cherished these times when he looked after his ten-month-old baby son on his own. He had soon become deft with a square of terry towelling and a safety pin. He would prop Alfie up on the armchair and potter about the kitchen or read the paper, chatting away to his baby son as though he understood every word.

Today he said, I do love yer mum, Alfie boy, I do honest. But it would be nice if we could turn her off and on like the gas, wouldn’t it, mate? Eh? She wears herself out and wears you an’ me out an’ all. Don’t she, Alfie? Yes, she does! Yes, she does!

The baby flapped his arms about in delight.

What you wanna do today, Alfie? Shall we go to the park? Shall we go to Buckingham Palace to see the King? Or d’you wanna go down to the river an’ watch the ships go by? Bill mimicked a ship’s horn and Alfie laughed lustily.

He kissed his son on the top of his head, cherishing the warm clean baby smell. He might as well have offered him a trip to the moon in a hot-air balloon.

Aw, poor Alfie. You ain’t going nowhere, boy. Yer mum would have me guts for garters if I took you to the end of the street, wouldn’t she?

When Alice trudged downstairs, the first thing she’d ask was whether the baby had been all right. Today he replied, Good as gold. Thrilled with everything. Every bloomin’ thing, ain’t yer, mate?

Alice smiled as her son gurgled happily and instead of picking him up for a cuddle as she usually did, she moved behind her husband’s seat at the kitchen table and embraced him instead.

Bill seized the moment. Alice, can’t I at least take him round Island Gardens or summink? He don’t hardly know there is an outside yet.

She moved away from him. He don’t ever go out, though, does he? What you don’t have, you don’t miss.

He can see out the window, though, gel. He was waving at the postman yesterday and he sits up and takes notice every time Horatio shows up. He can see a big wide world that everyone can go to, except him. It won’t be long before he starts to wonder why. Yer can’t keep him indoors until he’s twenty-one, love.

Oh, I know you’re right. It’s just…

He hugged her close. I know. Tell you what, why don’t we all go together? Our first proper family outing. Sunday afternoon in Island Gardens for Alfie to watch the ships go by?

Alfie greeted the outside world with wide-eyed astonishment. He made himself dizzy trying to look in all directions at once. There were enormous shiny omnibuses full of people. Then he saw great big horses pulling carts to and from the docks: brown ones, grey ones, black ones, white ones. And there were big white birds that could actually fly! In the sky! Best of all, a little doggie came up to them on the lush green grass of Island Gardens and he was allowed to pat it. In return it licked him and sent him into a fit of delighted squeals, the first kiss of a life-long love affair.

Tucked up in bed, tired and happy, Alfie was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Alice said, I feel so guilty for keeping him indoors all these months.

You was only doing what you thought was best for him, love. He couldn’t have a better mum.

Oh Bill, did you see him with that bloomin’ dog?

Yes, he melted, didn’t he? We could always get him one.

No, Bill. The last thing we need is another bleedin’ mouth to feed. We’ll keep taking him up the Gardens so he can play with other people’s.

Chapter Two

Under the Table

1914-1918

WHEN ALFIE WAS just a year old, someone in a fancy uniform with feathers on his hat was shot dead in a city they’d never heard of, in a country they’d never heard of. It was the sort of thing that happened in foreign parts, but this time the papers reckoned it was more serious and before they knew it, war had begun.

As a docker, Bill was in a reserved occupation and wasn’t obliged to go off and fight, but the war came right to the Atwoods’ door one September night in 1915. At about eleven-thirty, the dark shadow of a German Army airship glided silently over the Isle of Dogs, its engines silenced. This fragile contraption of plywood and fabric, no more robust than a Chinese lantern, dropped bombs on London. The Atwoods had read the Air Raid Precautions leaflet pushed through their letterbox, but it hadn’t prepared them for sitting under the table listening to the explosions and wondering whether the next one would kill them or somebody they knew.

In February 1916, Alice gave birth to Kitty and once they were safely through the first few days, she began to accept that as she had two healthy children, she wasn’t cursed. But she soon had other worries. Having been handed several white feathers, and without telling her, Bill enlisted in the Poplar & Stepney Rifles Battalion. When he confessed, it was all he could do to calm her down.

Don’t take on, love. Maybe they’ll make me a cook or summink like that. Here, Alice, wouldn’t that be smashing? Me going off to war and coming back being able to cook.

Well, there’s more chance of you killing someone that way than with a bleedin’ rifle, I should think.

*

ALL ALFIE WOULD remember about the war was the wonderful game of hiding under the table during raids. He often hid under the table himself when they played hide and seek and they never, ever found him. But his little den was much more fun when he was sharing it with his mum.

Although he was only three and a half, the night of Friday, 19 January 1917 was one that he would never forget. His mother was reading him a bedtime story as he drifted towards the Land of Nod. It was cold in his little back bedroom and come morning there would have been ice on the inside of the windowpanes. They could both see their breath, and since his thin blanket and sheet weren’t enough to keep him warm, she had draped her overcoat over him. Besides being snug it smelled of her, and it would feel like she was holding him as he slept.

As she finished his story, the room flashed white and the house was shaken by an almighty crash, as though a giant had picked it up and flung it down again. Glass shattered. Alfie started awake and clung to her, too bewildered to cry. She held him tightly for a moment but knew she must go to her daughter.

She scooped him up and hurried downstairs to put him under the table. The kitchen tiles were strewn with fragments of broken glass that had been propelled through the curtain which hung in shreds, beyond repair.

Alfie, love, stay under there like a good boy. There’s glass all over the shop and I don’t want you cutting yer tootsies. I’m just gonna fetch Kitty—all right, darlin’?

She climbed the stairs two at a time. The bedroom was quiet. The silence she’d longed for earlier when Kitty wouldn’t settle now seemed a grave and final thing. Here the curtains had been torn to shreds, too. Large splinters of glass had embedded themselves into the wood of the oak wardrobe like knives in a circus act. Kitty lay perfectly still and there were shards of glass all over her woollen blanket, but there wasn’t a scratch on her. Alice carefully peeled it away and picked her daughter up, drawing grizzles which had turned into an angry roar by the time she was thrust under the table to join her brother.

Alice crawled after her and attempted to comfort the infant. Alfie rolled his eyes comically, which made his mother smile. He’d been afraid, but now it was all done with as far as he was concerned. She loved that about him, and it helped calm her.

They stayed there for what seemed like hours but there was no more noise until a knock at the door was followed by a shrill, Yoo-hoo! Are you there, Alice? Leaving her sleeping children, she clambered out to greet Elsie.

Oh, there you are, dearie, Elsie said, relieved. I thought I’d come and check on you and the kids. Are you all right?

Well yes, but me windows has all been smashed.

The whole street’s the same, Alice.

What I don’t understand is, where was the warning? We usually get at least a few minutes’ warning, don’t we?

The last raid had been before Christmas, but they were used to hearing a policeman cycling along the street frantically blowing his whistle to warn them that the Zeppelins were approaching. Today there’d been nothing.

If it weren’t for you, Elsie, I wouldn’t even have known that the raid was over, Alice said.

It weren’t an air raid, though, love—leastways, not the sort we’ve come to expect. It’s the Brunner Mond munitions factory over Silvertown way—it’s gone up. It’s taken most of Silvertown with it an’ all.

Oh, good God!

My Bert was working at the Albert Dock, and he was just on his way home when it happened. He was quite far away, over the East Ham side, but he could see there was a fire, because that’s all there was at first. He was passing the Victoria Dock when the munitions plant went up. Knocked him clean off his bike it did! He dusted himself down and went round to see if he could help, but—well, they wouldn’t let him anywhere near it. He could hear people crying out for help, Gawd bless ’em, but there weren’t nuffink he could do, they told him. He said that lots of other factories nearby have caught fire. The two flour mills and the grain silos in Pontoon Dock have gone up in flames. Elsie wiped away a tear. Shocking it is. Pearl and Cyril have gone over to one of the wharves to watch the fire, but it don’t seem decent to me—gawping at it as if it was a firework display when there’s poor people suffering over there.

Has anyone been killed, d’you know?

I’m afraid so, Alice, it’s that bad. Bert says there’s rows of houses just turned to dust, and the fire station was wrecked. Gawd knows how many poor souls have gone.

*

BY THE SUMMER the Zeppelin raids had stopped. The German pilots had relied on the defenders’ inability to reach them, but once they found a way, the great machines began to crash from the sky in flames, their crews suffering horrible deaths.

But the Germans hadn’t finished with London yet. On Wednesday, 13 June,1917 it was attacked in broad daylight by giant Gotha bombers. Having raided the City, fourteen of them flew over the East End and from the blue morning sky they dropped their remaining bombs indiscriminately.

The following week, the whole community watched a procession of eighteen horse-drawn hearses moving slowly down the East India Dock Road, each carrying a child, the innocent victims of an adult game. One of the bombs had ploughed through Upper North Street School in Poplar and exploded. The caretaker had carried his little boy from the rubble, gently laid his lifeless body down, and gone back into the ruin seeking others he might be able to help. Eighteen children were killed, most of them only five years old, and many more were badly injured. Alice’s fears for her children were justified.

Five months later, she was distressed to read in the local paper that the caretaker had died, although only thirty-one years old. Whatever the coroner’s verdict, she was sure that his broken heart had killed him.

*

OVER IN FRANCE, Bill had little idea of what was going on most of the time. The Army had made him a cook and he spent much of his war at a field kitchen behind the lines, peeling and boiling potatoes. He had to do his stint on the front line, where Army rations often included small tins of stew from Maconochie’s on the Isle of Dogs, which made him desperately homesick.

When the Germans launched their Spring Offensive, his regiment was involved in vicious hand-to-hand fighting as the Allies retreated village by village before making a stand at a town on a hill close to the River Somme called Villers-Bretonneux. It had once been a quaint, quiet little place, but pounding artillery had reduced it to a smoking ruin.

The German who got him had trained his rifle just as Bill pulled his own trigger and shot him dead. The falling man’s bullet hit him just above the right knee.

Many had adopted H.G. Wells’s epithet that this would be the war to end wars and Bill hoped that it was true, because then it would have been worth fighting. He didn’t want his beautiful boy to go to some hellhole and face people who were trying to kill him even though they didn’t know him. He’d seen the cold corpses lined up awaiting burial, their boots sticking out from beneath the greatcoats that were meant to keep them warm. Every single one was someone’s beautiful boy.

His wound was the perfect Blighty one and Bill was evacuated to a field hospital and thence to England. The British and the Australians held Villers-Bretonneux until it was reinforced. It was the end of the German Offensive and the beginning of the end of the war.

He’d done enough to justify being called a hero, but he brushed it aside. I made horrible stew for my country, was all he’d say. Buckets and buckets of it.

Chapter Three

Pear Drops

Sunday, 8 June 1919

ALFIE’S LIFE WAS no harder than that of any child in the neighbourhood; in fact, it was easier—charmed, one might say—for the most random and unfair of reasons. In streets full of men disfigured by war, and children by polio, rickets, or malnourishment, he grew to be a spectacularly beautiful child.

Alice had given birth again and six-year-old Alfie was overjoyed when the new baby turned out to be Robert, the brother he had longed for. The baby was a disappointment at first because he just lay there and didn’t do much, but Alice assured Alfie that once he was big enough, they’d share a room and become the best of pals.

Today, Alfie’s dad was eager for refreshment.

Alfie! Alfie! called Bill up the stairs, causing his son to scamper down them rather more noisily than necessary.

Yes, Dad?

Put your shoes on, boy. Yer mum’s gone off to yer Grandad Wilding’s in East Ham wiv yer sister and the baby, so we’ll go down the pub, shall we?

Alfie had been perfectly happy up on the bedroom floor with his painting things spread out around him on an old newspaper: an egg box full of bright powder paints and a jam jar of water in front of him, chewing the end of his brush before deciding what to paint. He had come down reluctantly, eager to get on with his painting, and he sighed in a long-suffering way that drew a smile from his father.

What for? Alfie asked.

What for? You love the Manchester, don’t yer?

No, protested the nipper crossly.

Course you do! They’ve got them furry curtains you like stroking, and everybody’ll make a fuss of you as always. Maybe someone’ll give you some pennies, perhaps even a thrupenny bit—who knows?

The lad could go to the pub and come back richer, unlike his father. All right then, he said with the resignation of a martyr. He pulled on his shoes, struggling with the laces as Bill supervised impatiently. Alice had ordered him never to help, so that Alfie practised doing it. Her husband was anxious because it was past one and thanks to the licensing laws the pubs were only open until three.

Laces tied, Alfie bounced around his father who jammed a flat cap, a miniature version of his own, onto the boy’s head. Dad! Dad! Can I have a piggyback?

What? Oh, go on then. Up you get. You’ll be the death o’ me, yer cheeky monkey.

Bill didn’t find it easy, bending down to let Alfie clamber onto his back. His wounded knee still hurt him when he bent it. It would never be quite right again.

*

TO ALFIE, THE Manchester Arms was a palace so luxurious he could scarcely believe they were allowed to set foot in it. That was especially true of the Saloon Bar where they had to go because Bill’s sister-in-law Rose wouldn’t be seen in the Public. There were fewer people in there, which made Bill feel they were safer from the Spanish Flu that was ravaging the country.

Alfie enjoyed the grown-up smell of the place, an unsubtle blend of beer, whisky, cigarettes, and pipe tobacco. Spirals of smoke wound their way up into the haze to further yellow the elaborate plaster of the high ceiling. The richly polished mahogany bar was topped with warm shining brass and punctuated by a line of six wooden hand pumps that Alfie wasn’t allowed to pull. Behind it there were shelves, draped in maroon velvet, trimmed with tassels and bearing gleaming glasses and exotic-looking bottles. A brass cash register had prices that popped up with a ding every time the drawer opened and coins were tossed into its trays with a clatter. There was even less chance of Alfie being allowed to have a go on that, so he had to console himself by stroking the maroon velvet curtains as though they were a pet.

He wasn’t meant to be in the pub, but the landlord was happy to turn a blind eye for such a lovely kid. His Uncle Tommy’s friends would toss him around the bar like a rag doll and the only reason they’d stop was from fear he might wet himself from laughing so much. They did so now.

Aw, what they doing to you, darling? You come to your Auntie Rose. I think I might just ’ave something for you in me bag.

He ran to her. Rose always smelled lovely. She looked at home in the Saloon Bar because to him she seemed glamorous, too. Elegant as ever, with something dead draped over her shoulders, she was beautifully, if heavily, made up. Her hair was raven, darker even than Alfie’s, but maybe hers had had a little help. Her clothes were smarter than his mother’s. He never wondered why, that’s just how it was. Any gift from Auntie Rose was worth having. After scampering to her side, he watched her rummage in the dark leather bag. It smelled nice. He said so.

What’s it smell of, darling?

Lady smells. Scent and that. And sweeties.

She paused from her search to give him a quick hug. He allowed it but his eyes remained fixed on the contents of her bag.

Some lip colour, the bright crimson shade she always wore. A small rectangular mirror and an elaborate compact that pretended to be gold. A handkerchief, white linen with little blue forget-me-nots embroidered onto it. A nail file and a bottle of varnish as red as the lip colour. A champagne cork with a wax seal, from a celebratory Jeroboam opened for the King’s Coronation in 1911, and beside it, a conical white paper bag, twisted closed at the top, which she fished out.

"There we are: pear drops! And they’re all for Alfie."

Cor, thanks! he said.

It’s my pleasure, sweetheart. And this is for you, too. She pressed a silver thrupenny bit into his small hand. She hugged him again, this time more fiercely, and kissed him on the nose and cheek, leaving red lip marks, accidentally on purpose. He giggled, struggled from her embrace, and brushed ineffectually at the red marks. He peered into the bag at the boiled sweets, half red, half yellow, and all coated in sugar. Oh, the acid smell of them! He popped two into his mouth and soon had the sugar sucked off.

Is that nice, darling? Yer daddy’s little soldier, ain’t yer?

Don’t call him that, Rose, Bill said gruffly. There’ll be no soldiering for him if I have anything to do with it.

Chapter Four

White Towers

Saturday, 28 April 1923

COR, LOOK AT that one, Dad! That one wiv the hammer! It’s massive! I ain’t never seen one as big as that before, have you, Dad? I’ve never seen so many people, have you, Dad? Will this be the biggest football crowd ever, Dad? Dad! Dad! Look at that lady’s hat, Dad! She looks funny, don’t she?

As a special treat, Bill was taking Alfie to the brand-new Empire Stadium to see West Ham play Bolton Wanderers in the FA Cup Final. From Wembley station they had joined the chattering throng walking up the High Road where giant replica hammers, deafening wooden rattles, rosettes, and home-made paper hats prompted Alfie to give a running commentary on everything he saw, tugging on his father’s sleeve and pointing this way and that.

The ground was as rough as you’d find on any building site, but the huge stadium rose majestically from it like something grand that had been magicked there. Its pair of brilliant-white domed towers gave it the look of a pristine wedding cake and the sight of them silenced Alfie’s feverish prattle. Built for the Great Exhibition due the following year, this was the largest football ground in the world.

Bill bought him a programme and a claret-and-blue rosette. Close to the stadium the crowd got thicker, and they linked arms so that they weren’t separated. It was three hours before kick-off, but it took them an hour and fifteen minutes to reach a turnstile. Bill paid them in—two bob each with no concessions. The turnstiles closed only thirty minutes after they’d come through, but still supporters kept arriving. Outside there were scenes resembling a medieval siege, with thousands clambering over the walls.

The stadium interior took their breath away. There were two covered sides, their roofs supported by enormous pillars. One of them backed onto the shining white towers, each with its Union Jack billowing in the breeze. The ends were open to the elements, but the steepness and the scale of the terracing was astonishing.

As they stood on the terrace, the high spirits of the crowd were overtaken by frustration and concern. They were packed in like sardines and people were spilling onto the pitch to escape the crush. When they’d arrived, the lush green grass had made a great impression on them but now it resembled the Mudchute allotments in places.

’Ow are they gonna play a football match with it like this? asked one spectator. It’s bloomin’ ridiculous. The ’Ammers and Bolton between ’em don’t have this number of followers, I’m sure.

It’s the ground, another said wisely. A lot of bloomin’ tourists ’ave come to see the ground.

Pity they couldn’t wait for the bleedin’ Exhibition then, innit?

Soon, the spectators could hardly see the playing surface for people.

They’re gonna call it off, ain’t they? There’ll be no shifting this lot. It ain’t safe.

Even if they can clear the pitch it ain’t even fit for rugger now! You could grow spuds on it.

There were constant desperate and increasingly ineffectual announcements over the public address system. But people did take notice when a different voice, slow and deliberate, boomed out asking them to leave the playing area.

Oy, son, d’you know who that is?

Who?

That’s the King, boy!

The man next to them was unimpressed. "He’s wasting ’is bleedin’ breath if you ask me,’ he snorted. ‘There ain’t no room in the stands. It don’t matter whether it’s a steward, a copper, or a king what’s telling yer to move—no room is no bloomin’ room!"

The crowds were gradually moving away from the pitch, but it wasn’t because of His Majesty. A troop of mounted policemen had been deployed. The horses were large and muscular, and if one of them was towering over you, you were inclined to shift.

When the field was clear it still wasn’t ideal. People stood and squatted along each touchline as though it were a school playing field, and there were bodies even more densely packed behind each