The Twisted Way Read online

  ‘Wot good will trying to pay ’em back do you son? Fink about it,’ she said, knowing that he was too young to understand. She found the whole thing bewildering and a five-year-old, well, what hope did he have? She understood that bitterness would not solve the problems of the world or control the ambitions of wicked men. Man was evil enough without her encouraging her child to become antagonistic towards others; in any case revenge and violence only produced the same response.

  Ruth’s parents had died after contracting tuberculosis at a time when the disease claimed the lives of many young people. Pasteurised milk was not always available and it was often slopped with a ladle into a customer’s own jug by a milkman with a lack of personal hygiene who used a horse and cart full of grubby churns. The father she had never got to know was the first to became infected, then her mother. There were no modern wonder drugs or sanatoriums in Switzerland for them. Ruth had been told that she was lucky to be healthy and strong. She did not think that living in a council care home constituted good luck but a natural wit and more intelligence than she gave herself credit for, together with strong memories of a kind mother, ensured that she emerged almost unscathed.

  When Ruth left the care home she was just fourteen and shared a miserable one-bedroom flat above a fish and chip shop with another girl she had met in the home. The smell of fish and chips frying in the evening assailed their nostrils and clung to their hair but the rent was low and they were in no position to complain. Ruth felt that she had been lucky to get a poorly paid job in a nearby sweet shop so that she could afford to pay for her share of the food and rent. She served the rich and prosperous members of the local community with boxes of delicious chocolates; the taste of such delicacies she could only dream about. If she was lucky the manager would, when in a generous mood, which was not often, give her a few broken sweets or pieces of chocolate. She had accepted her lot then without resentment, indeed she had known no other way of life, but the wartime restrictions now imposed on her, just when things had seemed so much better, made her angry and frustrated with an almost unbearable depth of feeling.

  She met Robert Hands when she was sixteen and they married a year later. Robert, also orphaned, had been luckier than Ruth. He had been brought up by a couple of aunts who adopted him when he was twelve and later apprenticed him to a local baker. Ruth hoped and prayed that Tom, who was born a year after they married and christened Robert Thomas, but called Tom to distinguish him from his father, would never suffer the loneliness and deprivation she had endured as a child. She did not want to leave him as her parents had left her, but that possibility was becoming too real for peace of mind and that terrified her.

  The playing field that used to be behind their backyard, where the local boys had enjoyed their Saturday game of football, was now filled with ugly hastily erected factory buildings composed of plain grey concrete block walls and slate-coloured roofs, in order to make shell cases. The poor but proud housewives who had considered it necessary to scrub and whiten their front steps and keep their homes shipshape, no longer cared. There were bigger issues to consider.

  A lorry arrived one morning with workmen who removed the ornamental black iron railings from the front of Tom’s house.

  ‘They’re needed for the war effort,’ was the vague explanation. ‘They’ll soon be melted down to make munitions.’

  Uneven stumps of metal were left and with no railings to support it the yellow privet hedge fell forwards onto the crooked paving stones of the path in front of the house.

  ‘What’s going to happen to the railings?’ Tom asked his mother.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘They’ll probably be made into guns. I’ll ’ave to clip that damned hedge now,’ she spat out irritably. ‘What an ’orrible mess.’

  Tom liked the idea that his railings would soon be turned into guns and hoped that they would used against those Jerries. Bang, he thought, another one dead!

  At the end of their road there was a small park owned by the local council with lawns and neatly planted ornamental cherry trees whose branches became laden with pink and white blossom in the spring and harboured chirping fat brown sparrows. Tom thought the birds were beautiful. The park was a green oasis in the middle of the dirty dusty streets although a large grey barrage balloon was now positioned on a stretch of grass in the centre. A small tarmac area contained swings and a slide for the children, and beyond that, edging a busy road, several grim-looking factories had been built, their dirty tall chimneys puffing evil smells and smoke over the local neighbourhood, day and night. A sauce factory emitted strong interesting fruity smells that blew into nearby houses, depending on the direction of the wind, and another factory next to it housed printing machinery. Empty barrels that had once contained coloured inks were stacked outside and the hum from the presses could be heard several streets away. Behind the factories there were narrow roads containing small mean terraced houses, labelled ‘slums’ by Tom’s mother, where the factory workers lived.

  ‘They’re a ruff ol’ crowd, those factory workers,’ she used to say in a loud voice before the war started and hurried past them, eyes lowered, as though they were not good enough to mix with her and Tom. ‘Ragamuffins, huh, that’s what they are. Keep clear of that lot, boy. I’m a housewife and proud to be one. Only the riff-raff work in dirty ol’ factories. Scruffy beggars some of ’em are.’ Now she was a factory worker herself, having been drafted to the local munitions factory by the local labour exchange, although she called herself a wartime worker. Tom was sure she was enjoying the company of her co-workers, despite her protestations.

  ‘They’re a nice crowd I work wiv,’ she assured Tom. Tom was confused but thought it best if he did not comment and preferred to play with his tin soldiers.

  Ruth had not realized how lonely she had become. It was easy to live in London and not know one’s next-door neighbours. She chatted to a few of the other mothers at Tom’s school gates but did not have many real friends in their immediate neighbourhood having been born and brought up in the East End. East Enders in her view were great people, salt of the earth, despite the slums. A number of them had been immigrants who could not do much to improve their living conditions during the nineteen thirties. The pearly king and queen embodied a culture of which Ruth was proud. ‘It’s part of our ’istory,’ she never tired of telling Tom, who loved to hear stories about the pearly kings and queens.

  ‘Are they related to King George VI?’ he asked. ‘Good enough to be,’ his mother responded with pride. ‘It must have taken a long time to stitch those ol’ buttons on,’ he said with avid interest. In his bedroom he had a tatty old picture, brown and curling at the edges, of a pearly king and queen and he never tired of looking at it.

  Tom’s primary school was designated to be evacuated to Russetshire which was assumed to be a safe area for the children and not a target for bombs.

  ‘Tom,’ his mother said, after much heartache and worry about whether she was doing the right thing, ‘I’m gonna let you go away for a while, to the country, with your school. You’ll be going to Russetshire, a country place where there’s fields with sheep and cows. You’re bound to love it ducks. You’ll have your school friends to keep you company, a comfy bed to sleep in and no bloomin’ air raids.’ At least she hoped not. The shelter was not healthy and she prayed that he would find a billet where he was welcome and could sleep in safety, although nothing was certain. They could be invaded. That did not bear thinking about.

  ‘Mum,’ the boy protested, ‘I want to be here wiv you.’ This was home and he had never heard of Russetshire. What did he want with silly cows and sheep? He had seen pictures of them in a book and that was enough. ‘I don’t wanna go Mum,’ he insisted and his young mother despaired.

  Ruth wavered for a while but deep down she knew that to send her son to Russetshire was the right thing to do and Tom was evacuated to the small village of Enderly in Russetshire, a county in the south Midlands. The parting was
tearful. The mothers waved a frantic goodbye at the local station. Ruth’s hazel eyes looked sunken in their sockets where dark smudges had formed underneath them through lack of sleep. With her head covered in the drab cotton turban most of the factory workers had donned like a proud uniform, she looked much older than someone in her twenties. Tom looked a pathetic little boy; his spindly legs protruded from short grey flannel trousers and knee-high woollen grey socks with a blue stripe round the tops that wrinkled and formed several odd bracelets. The bizarre outfit was topped by a shabby navy-blue serge school coat with shiny worn lapels, purchased in a local second-hand shop. A grey school cap, which was two sizes too large, completed his outfit and the peak protruded half way down his forehead in a way that resembled a bird’s beak. A gas mask in a cardboard box was slung across his shoulders and he clutched a small leather case containing a change of clothes, a few small toys and some sandwiches wrapped in crinkled greaseproof paper.

  ‘I’ll write, Mum’, he said. ‘I’ll write too,’ his mother replied, choked and uncertain. ‘I’ll send you some pocket money each week, sixpence if I can. Be careful how you spend it.’

  ‘Sixpence Mum, cor … that ain’t ’arf good.’ He would be rich. He cheered up.

  Tom was learning to read; he was quite advanced for his age, a clever boy who could write his name and understood the meaning of many written words before he went to school, but his mother knew that a long letter from him would be out of the question. Most of the young teachers had joined the forces or were employed in some other war work so there were only retired and elderly teachers in the party to look after the children. It was a motley collection of human beings that left the small London suburb station that day in an old smoke-caked steam train commissioned for the purpose. The dingy black engine puffed into the station billowing a filthy cloud of smoke that swirled around the sad group on the platform as though to envelop them and protect them from what was to come.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Tom’s mother said, in unison with the other parents, tears brimming in her eyes, as she watched the train crammed with children chug its way out of the station. Small hands, some clutching Union Jacks, were waved out of the windows which were closed by the carers as soon as possible to avoid accidents and to prevent eyes filling with smuts. Mothers and some of the fathers in reserved occupations, including a few firemen and policemen, grouped disconsolately together on the platform and waved back. Some, like Tom’s mother, had tears in their eyes whilst others displayed little outward emotion but their faces were, with a few exceptions, stricken and anxious.

  Some of the children thought that it was an adventure but homesickness would catch up with them later. Many of them chattered and laughed as the train clattered along although few had been away from home before.

  ‘What fun!’ one or two of the bolder children chorused as the more timid shrank back into their seats and tried not to cry. The more fortunate opened their packets of sandwiches and shared them with unaccustomed generosity with those who were not so lucky. Tom carefully unwrapped his. Hmm … jam without butter. His mother had said that it was extravagant to have both. He entered into the contagious benevolence and shared his small packet with the other children. Nobody noticed the lack of butter. It was wartime and hunger soon overcame any inhibitions as the group merged together. Middle class, lower class and slum dwellers became for a short time homogeneous.

  Chapter 2

  The Evacuee

  Tom arrived at Everton railway station in the Midlands county of Russetshire with forty other children aged between five and eleven. They were herded onto a rattling old bus and taken to Enderly where they were to be allocated billets with local families. The children sang lustily as they were driven to the village hall which was a small dilapidated building that had been erected in the centre of the village shortly after the First World War. ‘Run rabbit run’ and ‘Hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line’ and other popular wartime songs recently learned permeated the air and lifted their flagging spirits, although several of the younger children had begun to cry.

  On arrival they were given a glass of lemonade and a plain rich tea biscuit. Official-looking local ladies adorned in obligatory 1930s felt hats sat at a long trestle table with a list of names in front of them and did their best to pair the children up with suitable hosts.

  Tom wondered for a few moments if he had been delivered to a cattle market. He had heard somewhere that cattle were sold or chosen by local farmers in such places, though he was not sure what the procedure was. The cold atmosphere increased his discomfort, fingers and feet merging on numbness, and a sad sinking feeling settling like a lump of lead in the pit of his stomach. The rain rattled on the thin corrugated roof of the hall and the rough painted concrete floor was unpleasant underfoot. He thought of his mother and longed to be home once again, to feel her warm young arms around him and toast his feet by the old black range. He was directed, along with several of the other children, to sit on one of the low wooden benches that had been placed round the edge of the main room of the hall. The majority of the evacuees soon became decidedly restless. There was a small kitchen at the back where a young girl of about fourteen was washing up the lemonade glasses in soapy water before wiping them with a scruffy tea towel and placing them in a shabby wooden cupboard above the sink. Tom could just see her and watched her work. Hunger clawed at his insides but apart from the small glass of home-made over-sweet lemonade and broken rich tea biscuit it seemed nothing more was to be offered to the children. At least he could not see any food. His stomach rumbled, his eyes felt heavy and his mind drifted for a while as he waited.

  ‘I want a little girl,’ he heard one woman say in a strident tone. He woke up from his reverie with a start. ‘I want one who will be company for my Lizzie,’ she continued. Nobody it seemed wanted a small timid boy.

  Tom sighed. He had started to wet himself, not much but it was getting difficult to hang on. His bladder ached but fear stopped him from asking for a toilet and he pressed himself further into the shadows in one corner of the room.

  ‘Oh, Mum – come and fetch me home,’ he mumbled under his breath. ‘Perhaps they’ll forget all about me. I might escape and catch a train home ... oh Mum.’

  Mrs Alicia Merryweather looked with interest at the sad little boy. She had come to help with the refreshments and had decided not, after all, to take in an evacuee because her husband was far from well, although she had earlier arranged to have one when the possibility of having evacuees in the village had first been put forward. One look at Tom’s forlorn face convinced her that she would take one after all.

  ‘I’ll take that little chap, Madge,’ she said to her friend who was officially in charge. Madge was relieved. It looked as though they were going to be short of people to take in all these children. Her head was beginning to spin and ache. She hadn’t realised that the villagers would pick and choose and squabble with such ferocity about which children they would allow to share their homes. Poor kids, they were all needy in her opinion.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ she said. ‘The whole thing is getting me down. I need a couple of aspirin.’

  Some of the girls who had still not been allocated billets were crying, their sobs getting louder by the minute, whilst several bold and cheeky older boys ran round the room playing tag until they were cautioned by the village vicar who had arrived with obvious reluctance and fingered his dog collar with nervous jabs for a few moments before attempting to make himself useful.

  ‘Can I help?’ his deep voice boomed out after he had composed himself. He was not anxious to become involved but had been coerced into helping by his wife. ‘We must do our bit, set an example in the village,’ she had insisted but did not herself offer to take in any of the London ragamuffins, as she had labelled them.

  ‘Some of those have dirty habits,’ she said with disdain. ‘What a scruffy looking lot I saw arriving. They probably never change their underwear or clean their teeth. Ugh, they ar
e not for me. Just say, dear, that we do not have a spare bedroom.’ The vicar thought with sadness and shame about the latter remark. The vicarage boasted five bedrooms, all quite well furnished as most of the villagers knew. His two sons had joined the forces. At least they were doing their bit and that salved his conscience. He sighed. His wife was a stubborn self-opinionated woman who made his efforts to follow his vocation very difficult.

  Tom put his small cold hand into Alicia’s with relief. She gave it a reassuring squeeze and spoke gently.

  ‘Don’t worry dear. I’ve nearly finished here and we can go home, get you a proper meal. The toilet is over there if you want it.’ She pointed to a wooden door in the corner of the room and patted his hair, looking with undisguised and sincere interest at his earnest thin little face with the deeply dimpled chin. What a dear little boy. She smiled at him, her warm generous face lighting up, and he began to relax.

  Thus began Tom’s stay with the Merryweather family, first with Alicia and Will in Honeysuckle Cottage and five years later, when they were no longer able to take care of him, with their daughter Janet and her husband James Anderson in Primrose House on the edge of the village.

  Tom’s mother was not able to write to him as planned. Before she made her way to the Anderson shelter that evening a bomb hit the house. She lay crushed and mutilated beneath the rubble, covered by the home that she had loved and imagined invincible. Her brief funeral in a local churchyard was attended by Tom’s father and his two aunts who were of the opinion that the service would not be suitable for a child. There was too much sadness in London and he would only fret.