Vanessa de Haan - The Restless Sea

It has turned into a breezy day, and the ground has dried a little but it is still slippery. Jack soon warms up. It is good to be doing something physical, to be chasing his friends and to feel his heart pumping and to be thinking of nothing else but the ball. Soon they are caked in mud. Stoog forgets his attitude, and Carl belongs for a moment. They point and laugh at each other, and their cheeks glow as steam rises from their skin and dissipates into the cool afternoon air.

But their fun is short-lived. A man in a tin hat is making his way across the grass towards them. ‘Come on, lads,’ he shouts. ‘Time to get home now.’

It’s the ARP warden. The boys roll their eyes at each other.

‘Just a bit longer …’ says Tommy.

‘No,’ says the warden. ‘The dark’s coming in fast tonight and we’re expecting trouble.’

The other boys moan too, and then Stoog picks up the ball and flings it at Jack, who flings it at Tommy, who pretends to fling it at the man. The man reacts instinctively to catch it, but there’s nothing to catch. The boys laugh, and Tommy drops the ball on to the ground as if to start the game again.

‘Come along, now.’ The man’s cheeks have turned scarlet. ‘It’s time to be going home.’

‘All right, all right. Keep your hair on, old man,’ says Stoog.

‘Watch your mouth, sonny.’

‘Who’re you telling to watch their mouth?’

‘Who do you think?’ says the man, squaring up to the boy. The rest of the boys form a ring around them. Betsy and Eddy stop looking at conkers. The tension vibrates in the cool air.

Carl steps in. ‘Let’s leave it there. He’s only trying to help.’

‘Never thought a Jew boy would be on the same side as a fascist,’ says Stoog, spitting the words as he cranes his neck around Carl, trying to push him out of the way. The ground is soggy beneath their feet. The sky is darkening.

‘Don’t you call me a fascist,’ says the warden.

‘Why? What you going to do about it?’

‘Yeah. What you going to do?’ Vince says, the excitement high in his voice.

Stoog and the man circle each other like tomcats.

‘Jack?’ says Carl. ‘Don’t let this happen …’

Jack is torn between backing both boys. ‘Maybe we should go,’ he says. ‘It’s almost too dark to play anyway …’

Stoog snaps around, shoving his face close to Jack’s and saying, ‘That’d be just like you. Running away …’

And the warden says, ‘Now, now. I don’t want any trouble …’ But Stoog is already turning on him and he pulls his arm back and thumps the man in the side of the head with his bony fist, knocking his helmet on to the ground. There is a cracking sound and blood but Jack isn’t sure whether it’s from the warden’s ear or Stoog’s knuckle.

And Carl is yelling, ‘Stop it,’ but Stoog is already swinging again, and this time he is aiming at Jack and hissing under his breath, ‘This one’s for the docks,’ and he lands a punch right in Jack’s eye, and there’s a stinging pain and a mist descends and all Jack can think of is whacking him back.

Carl is still shouting at them to stop, but Jack doesn’t care. Stoog may be skinny, but he’s fast and he’s accurate. Tommy steps in to help Jack, and then Vince thwacks him in the mouth, and all of a sudden the game has turned into a brawl of fists and teeth and pulled hair and ripped clothes and no one is really sure who is hitting who but all Jack knows is he’s furious – furious at Stoog for hitting him, furious with curfew and blackout, furious with feeling hungry all the time, furious with his dad and his brother for going away, with Carl for getting out and doing something with his life, furious with the whole bloody lot of it. And he’s thumping and smashing and he can taste the blood in his mouth and hear the crunch of bone and the thud of flesh and it feels good to be in the moment, not to worry about where it’s all heading.

It is Carl who manages to stop him. He grabs Jack with the grip of a deal porter’s son, pulling him out of the fray.

‘Let me go,’ says Jack, twisting away from Carl, trying to scratch at his face, kick his shins, anything to release the hold. But it takes more than that to bring Carl down. ‘Let me go,’ says Jack again.

But Carl is furious. There is a vein throbbing in his neck and he is panting. ‘What’s bloody wrong with you all?’ he says as the other boys draw back sheepishly, spitting the blood from their mouths. No one has seen Carl lose his temper before. ‘Take a look at yourselves!’ He points at the warden. ‘He could be your father. Your granddad.’ And now he turns on Jack. ‘And you,’ he says, ‘you’re the worst of all. You had a chance to do something different, but you’re going to end up just like them. Well, I wash my hands of it. You go ahead and kill yourself. I’m out of here.’

He has finally released Jack. They stand chest to chest, eye to eye. Jack clenches his fists, the rage still pumping around his system. He hears a whimper, and a small, cold hand closes around his wrist. He glances down. Betsy. He looks at the warden, a grey-haired old man who is picking his helmet up with trembling hands. He takes a step backwards. The boys and the warden wait for the explosion. He takes another step backwards, and grabs hold of Betsy’s hand. ‘Fuck you, Carl,’ he says. ‘And fuck you, Stoog. Fuck the lot of you.’ And he turns and staggers away, dragging his sister with him across the muddy grass.

The other boys begin to disperse, and the warden doesn’t leave until the last boy fades into the twilight.

A month later, and the raids have grown steadily worse. London has now had nineteen consecutive days and nights of relentless bombardment, of noise and smoke, flame and dust. The docks have been obliterated, the mighty cranes are twisted and contorted into strange shapes, the warehouses flattened, the barges charred embers. Barrels of alcohol explode like gunpowder; paint melts and pours into the Thames, turning it into a river of fire. The deal porters’ timber went up on the first night of the raids. The firemen couldn’t get close enough to quench the inferno. It still burns, lighting the way for the next bombs.

The money from the bracelet is long gone. The only good that came of it was the sewing machine that Jack’s mother uses to make new clothes out of the old. But clothes don’t put food in their stomachs, so Jack has found new ways of getting by that inevitably involve Stoog.

He pulls a package wrapped in paper from his bag and offers it to his mother. Six fat sausages peep out. ‘Mostly gristle,’ he says. His mother takes the parcel. She’s given up asking where he gets these things. She places it on the side in the kitchen. She cannot bring herself to look at him.

Later, Jack lies on his back and stares up into the darkness, listening to his mother’s dry cough, the wail of next-door’s baby, the hollow thud of an air raid in the distance. They have moved their mattresses into the small front room. They sleep in their clothes. The shelter Jack so proudly built with his brother and father is useless. It is cramped and smelly, and most of the time inches deep in fetid water.

In the distance the sky is bright with flames. There is the whine of sirens. Probably another attack on the docks. He is so used to it, he feels himself begin to drift off. A floorboard creaks and a ghostly shadow moves from his mother’s mattress towards him. A small voice says, ‘Jack? You awake, Jack?’ Betsy climbs in next to him. She is so slight that she easily fits on to the single mattress.

‘Come here,’ he says, hugging her trembling body tightly. As he smooths her dark curls, Betsy’s breaths begin to lengthen. She scratches at her head. Lice. They’ve all got them.