The Invisible Cord Read online

When the earth settled they heard the distant pop-popping of the anti-aircraft guns. They didn’t speak; their arms still about each other, they waited, and there came the second earth shudder, not so strong this time, further away. Still, they waited, not moving. Then came the third, distant this time, just like an echo.

  Into the stillness now Mary’s voice crept like that of a doddering old woman, saying, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. B…blessed art thou amongst women and b…blessed is the fruit of thy wo…womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mo…Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.’

  ‘Hail…hail Mary, full of grace, the L…Lord is with thee…’ Again the prayer was repeated. And again…and yet again.

  When Annie went to straighten up, her fingers caught in the beads dangling from her mother’s hand and she interrupted the rosary, saying, ‘Ma! Ma! Come on, get up, it’s over.’ She had to shake Mary twice before she could get her from her knees.

  When they were sitting side by side on the bunk Annie whispered, ‘I wonder who got it; I hope they’re all inside. I…I hope they reached home. I…I think I’ll just have a look outside…’

  ‘You w…won’t.’ It was as if Mary had just woken up. ‘You’ll do no such thing, you’ll st…stay where you are till your da comes.’

  ‘But, Ma, if there are places flat he’ll be at it to the middle of the night. Look…look, Ma.’ She pulled herself away from the clinging hands and stood up. ‘They’ve gone. There’s no sound, and the guns have stopped. I’ll just go in and look out of the front door…’

  ‘No! No! you’ll not. You’ll…’

  ‘Stop it, Ma; I’m going.’ When she slapped at her mother’s hands Mary stared up at her and her face quivered in a conflict of fear and anger.

  Annie quickly mounted the steps to the yard, then stopped. Fancy slapping at her ma like that. Eeh! they were all in a state. She should have said she was sorry. But her ma wouldn’t let her forget it; oh no, she could be sure of that.

  Everything was quiet. She looked upwards. The stars were shining, the rain had stopped, it was a clear night.

  Who had got it? It had been very near, that first one. She went through the house and opened the front door and, standing on the pavement, she looked up and down the street. There were no fires, no busy to-and-froing of people. Everybody here was all right. But beyond the end of the street, more towards the main road, there was a glow in the sky. When she heard footsteps approaching on the opposite side of the road she called out ‘Where is it? Who got it?’

  And the voice answered her from the dark, ‘Armada Street, Primrose Street, and around there.’

  She put her hand to her mouth. Armada Street. That, that was where Georgie lived, Armada Street. Had…had they reached home and managed to get into the shelter before it dropped? Her breath stuck in her throat. They could all be dead, all of them. Georgie…Georgie could be dead!

  The wave of relief that this possibility brought to her also swung her round and caused her to bury her head in the crook of her arm against the stanchion of the door. Oh dear God! How could she? But apparently she could, for her thoughts went on. If he was dead it would solve everything. The child would have a name; she’d still be a married woman and she would get a pension…Oh my God, she was wicked! That’s what she was, wicked. She’d have to go to confession, and she wouldn’t have to skip it, she’d have to tell Father Carey exactly what she had thought. Fancy…fancy wishing Georgie dead.

  After a moment she went into the house again, being careful to bolt the front door after her. The whole place looked chaotic. In the scullery she made a fresh pot of tea and put it on a tray with the crockery and carried it down into the shelter.

  Her mother was sitting exactly where she had left her. She looked up at her and said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Armada Street and Primrose Street and around there.’

  ‘Armada Street?’

  The hopeful tone of the voice brought Annie’s head down and she felt sick enough to vomit. ‘Don’t wish him dead, Ma!’ She was shouting at the top of her voice.

  ‘Wish him dead? What’s the matter with you, girl? Wish who dead?’

  ‘You know, you know…Armada Street. You know all right.’

  ‘You’re out of your senses, girl. Everything’s been too much for you.’ Mary sounded now as if she had completely regained her composure.

  ‘Yes, yes, it has.’ The tears were spurting from her eyes, her voice was spiralling upwards as if aiming to force its way through the stones and soil above the shelter. ‘I know, I know. Happy release it would be, wouldn’t it? Happy release.’

  ‘Take a pull at yourself, girl—’ Mary was shaking her by the shoulders—‘and stop that screeching. Sit down there.’ She pushed her onto the bunk, then busied herself with pouring out the tea. When she handed Annie the cup she said, ‘Get that down you. You’ve had too much to drink, that’s your trouble.’

  ‘I haven’t, I haven’t.’ She was shouting again. ‘I’ve only had a port, only one.’

  ‘Drink that tea. And you want to remember, girl, before you indulge yourself in hysterics, that your carry-on is going to affect what you’re carrying.’

  Her head moving with each sobbing intake of breath, Annie stared up at her mother. It was the first time she had referred to the child. She turned her gaze away, then raised the cup to her lips and slowly began to sip the tea.

  It was just as Mary had seated herself on the bunk again that the heavy footsteps sounded on the steps; then the door was slowly pushed open, and Dennis stood there. He looked like a man who had been loading cement, for from the top of his tin helmet to his boots he was covered in a grey dust. His face was all grey, the only spots of colour being the small round dark globs of his eyes and the red gap that appeared and disappeared as he opened his mouth a number of times to speak.

  ‘What is it? Oh my God, look at you! What’s happened, man?’ Mary was pushing him down onto the bunk.

  Staring into her face, he muttered, ‘Gi’ us a drink of tea…Have…have you any hard down here?’

  ‘Hard? No, no, we haven’t.’ The words were jerked out. Mary put her hand back towards the tray and lifted her own cup from it, saying as she did so, ‘Tell us what happened, man.’

  When he took the cup from her it wobbled in the saucer and she put out her hands to steady it. He brought the cup to his mouth and swallowed the whole of the contents; then he said, ‘Billy…Billy’s dead.’

  ‘Billy? You mean Mr McCabe?’

  ‘Aye, Billy McCabe.’ He nodded his head twice. ‘Him who was laughing fit to bust an hour or so ago, he’ll laugh no more.’ He turned his eyes to Annie who was standing close by his side now, her teeth pressed down tight on her fingernails, and he went on, ‘They were nearly home, just passing the corner of Primrose Street so they tell me, when the whole side of a house fell flat on him. He was the last one. He said he wasn’t goin’ to bloody well run for Hitler or nobody else. Georgie and his mother and the bairns were all knocked flat, must have been knocked yards but they weren’t scratched, only shaken. But—’ he now put his hands up and gripped Annie’s arm as he said, ‘that’s not all, lass. Mona, she got it an’ all. An’ the young fellow, Arthur. They…they had branched off and gone round the bottom of Armada Street, it…it caught them both.’

  ‘Oh no, Da, no! no! not…not Mona.’

  ‘It’s all right, lass, at least it isn’t as bad as it could be. They’re…they’re in hospital. But it’s the finish for him, poor lad, as far as the forces go, ’cos one of his legs was crushed to pulp. And…and Mona, poor Mona, she got it in the face.’

  She thought she was going to faint. She screwed up her face and covered it with both hands. After a moment she brought them to her throat and stood gripping it as she asked, ‘Where…where are they? Where’ve they taken them?’

  ‘Ingham. Look, lass.’ He put out his hand and grabbed her. ‘It’s no use you goin’ down there, the place is like a shambles. Wait till
the morrow. But where you can go, and where you should go now is along to see how Georgie’s gettin’ on. He had his hands full when I left him.’

  ‘No! No! The all-clear hasn’t gone yet.’ Mary thrust her hand out to stop Annie turning around, and Dennis’s voice, sharp for the first time since he had come into the shelter, snapped, ‘One of us has to go along there, and it’s her place. Get it into your head, lass, it’s her place…Go on.’ He pushed Annie and again said, ‘Go on!’

  She went scurrying up the steps and into the black backyard. In the kitchen she paused for a second and groaned aloud, ‘Oh God!’ Mr McCabe was dead. She felt as if she had picked up a gun and fired and hit the wrong one. When her stomach heaved and she went to turn towards the sink she checked herself, saying, ‘Give over. Pull yourself together.’ Then she ran upstairs and dragged on her coat.

  There was a lot of movement in the streets, people hurrying backwards and forwards, voices calling. It took her five minutes to reach the McCabes’ house. She had only been in it twice before and hadn’t been enamoured of what she saw. The furniture was a mixture of dilapidated and modern, with the modern additions more kicked about and knife-scarred than the older pieces.

  She knocked on the door. It was opened by Winnie. Winnie was crying; she was still wearing her bridesmaid’s dress which had been chosen with an eye to utility rather than to prettiness. Earlier in the day it had been a dark blue colour, now it was grey and black in parts.

  The door led immediately into the kitchen and there, seated round the table, were Daisy and her husband and the twins. Mollie was standing by the open fire pushing a pan from the hob into the glowing coals. She turned about and looked at Annie, and Annie walked towards her, then stopped as she almost fell over the end of the oxidized kerb.

  ‘I’m…I’m sorry. Ever so sorry.’

  ‘Aye…aye, we’re all sorry, lass.’ Mollie straightened her back. Her mouth was no longer slack and her face looked as if it had never smiled. Annie noticed with surprise that she wasn’t crying and that her eyes showed no sign of recent tears; her voice was level when she spoke, and her manner, in fact everything about her, was quite different from what she had expected. She watched her turn towards the table and sit down opposite a plastic tray decorated with cabbage roses, on which stood a brown earthenware teapot and a tin of condensed milk, and, reaching out to the nearest cup, she ladled a running spoonful of the milk into it, then filled it with the black steaming tea and handed it to her.

  Annie didn’t want any more tea, she felt she never wanted to eat or drink again. Her throat was so full that nothing would pass down it, but nevertheless, she took the cup from the proffered hand and said, ‘Ta. Ta, Mrs…Mollie.’

  ‘Sit down, sit down, lass…Move yourself over, our Archie, along the form there.’

  When Archie had shuffled along the form and pushed against Mike, Annie sat down in the place he had vacated, and Mollie, looking at her, said, ‘He had his faults but I ask you, and God, who hasn’t? But he wasn’t lazy. No, he hadn’t a lazy bone in his body. He drank. Aye, more than his share, but I’m tellin’ you this, he sweated his guts out to work for it. But afore anything else he saw that we were all fed.’ She looked around the table. ‘Aye, he did that. An’ clothed an’ all, for as he used to say, if their bellies were full they wouldn’t need so many clothes on their backs. He was one for a joke when he could think of it. He was like Georgie.’ She now stared into Annie’s face and, as if she were qualifying the statement she had just made, she added, ‘He hadn’t much up top either, but there were worse. Aye by God! there were worse. He never looked at another biddy, I’ll say that for him.’

  Annie had been shivering with the cold when she entered the house, now her body was hot all over. She wished, oh she wished Mollie, in fact everybody, would stop referring to Georgie as a nitwit. Where was he anyway? Where was Georgie? She asked the question.

  ‘Where is Georgie now?’ she said.

  ‘At the hospital, lass. Aye, I suppose you heard, your da would tell you about…about Arthur. Aye, our Georgie’s proper cut up with one thing and another, an’ he feels responsible like for bringin’ Arthur all this way. It’s his leg. He said it was in a mess when they got him out. An’ your pal, Mona; hit her in the face it did. My God, this has been a night! Marriage an’ death; only the middle has been missed out, we only wanted a birth, that’s all…Pity—’ her head nodded now—‘pity you’re not on your time, lass; you could have completed the sayin’ the night; from the church to the birth, from the birth to the burial, from the burial to hell in the mornin’. You know, it goes to the tune of John Peel.’

  Annie was gazing at Mollie with a stupefied stare. She wasn’t meaning to be funny, yet there she was sitting, sullen looking, dry-eyed, saying a thing like that, and telling you it went to the tune of John Peel. She felt she wanted to laugh, high screaming laughter. Was she going to go off her head? She looked around at the others. Nobody had spoken, not a word; they all looked half-asleep, dazed. Was she dreaming?

  The front door opening abruptly proved to her that she wasn’t dreaming. She turned with them all to watch Georgie coming in. He looked at her as he walked to the table, and when he reached her side, he said, ‘Hello,’ and she was forced to answer, ‘Hello.’

  ‘You shouldn’t’ve come out,’ he said.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she answered.

  ‘How…how did you find them?’ asked Mollie, looking up at him.

  He turned to her, saying, ‘Wouldn’t let me in; they’re not lettin’ anybody in.’

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have somethin’ to eat then?’

  ‘No, no, I want nowt to eat. What time is it, me watch has stopped?’ He looked at his wristwatch, and Mollie turned towards the mantelpiece and, after gazing at the clock for a second, she said, ‘That says ten to eleven, but it’s either fast or slow, you can never go by it.’

  There followed a silence, during which he placed his hand on Annie’s shoulder; then after a while, he said, ‘Come on, I’ll see you back home.’

  When Annie had risen to her feet he looked down at his mother and added, ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

  ‘No need, lad.’ She, too, had risen to her feet. ‘No need.’

  ‘I’ll be back all the same.’

  Annie made no farewells but walked towards the door, with Georgie behind her, and Mollie behind him, saying again, ‘I tell you, lad, there’s no need.’ And on this he turned on her, crying, ‘Well I’m bloody well comin’ back whether you like it or not.’

  The three were standing on the step now. Mollie pulled the door behind her to shut out the light and she asked quietly, ‘Where did they put your da?’

  ‘The mortuary.’

  ‘Think they’ll let me see him?’

  There was a pause in the darkness before he said, ‘It wouldn’t be much good.’

  There was another pause before she answered, ‘Like that, is it?’

  ‘Like that.’

  Annie heard Mollie smacking her lips as if she had just eaten something tasty; then she said, ‘Look, lad, I mean this. Frank’n Daisy are stayin’ an’ there’ll be no place for you to sleep. It’s like that, you see, so go on with Annie an’ sleep where you intended the night. Come round first thing in the mornin’ an’ we’ll talk things over. Perhaps you could ask for a bit of compassionate leave or somethin’.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll try for that…But you’re sure you’ll be all right if I …?’

  ‘I’ll be all right, lad. Though it doesn’t matter much at the moment one way or t’other.’

  There was another silence before Georgie said, ‘Ta-rah then, Ma.’

  ‘Ta-rah, lad. Ta-rah, lass. I’m sorry for all this, hinny.’

  Annie couldn’t speak for a moment; it was as if his mother was blaming herself for the raid, for the upheaval of the wedding, for the spoiling of their first night together. She said softly, ‘Ta-rah, Mollie,’ then
turned away.

  They had walked the length of three streets before Georgie spoke, and then he said, ‘I’ll never forgive meself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Arthur catchin’ it. Comin’ this way just to do me a good turn and then bloody well catching it. He’s a nice bloke.’ His head was turned towards her and she peered at him through the darkness; she wouldn’t have been surprised to know that he was crying for his voice had a cracked sound. ‘Best pal I’ve ever known, never made a pal like him. And he’s class. He is, you know, he’s class.’ His voice had risen. ‘Not like us, me, scum. His people’ve got a fine house in Hereford, ten great rooms and a bloody big garden. Near as big as a park it is, two acres. He’s got a sister married to a solicitor, and two brothers. One’s an accountant. He’s the black sheep himself he says. Hasn’t got any brains, he says, but he has more brains than the whole bloody establishment at Madley. But he plays them down. He has a kink that way makin’ on he knows nowt. His people are swell. They are, they are, Annie, swell. When he first took me to his place I was like a cat on hot bricks; you never saw such a house. And after what I come from there was all the difference atween Buckingham Palace an’ the netty. And another thing, his mother made me as welcome the second time an’ the third as she did the first. I was just meself, I’d be hard put to try an’ be anything else, an’ she nor his dad didn’t think, Aw, here’s Georgie, the bloody numskull, comin’… You know somethin’, Annie, you know somethin’?’ He was shouting now. ‘You’re just as good as you make folks think you are. That’s somethin’ I’ve learned, you’re just as good as folks think you are. Tell them you’re a numskull an’ you are a numskull. By God! I’ve learned somethin’ since I’ve been away. I could buy the lot around here at one end of the street an’ sell them at t’other, I could that. And you know somethin’ else? Arthur stayed as an A.C.1. ’cos he wanted to be along of me, along of me, mind. He could’ve been L.A.C. Bloody fool, I said he was, bloody fool, ’cos there he was, helpin’ the other bods with their papers to get through. He’s got a kink; I keep tellin’ him, he’s got a kink. He was nearly a conchie, an’ he said he would be if he was moved out of the kitchen. Ask him to kill a bloke he said an’ that’s what he would be, a conchie. And I believe him. By God, there’s not many like him. And to bring him all this bloody way to give him a packet. He was as safe as houses in Hereford. Hereford, they don’t know there’s a war on there. I’ve been there eighteen months, an’ they’ve had one bloody raid, one bloody little raid and the bastards thought it was the end of the world. The only ones that get their packets are the poor bloody goons coming down in the Black Mountains. But Arthur…but Arthur—’ his voice had dropped now to a thick murmur—‘without a leg, maybe both. And he loved to walk. Tramp the countryside he would whenever he got the chance…God Almighty! I’ll never forgive meself to me dyin’ day.’