Ever Dundas - Goblin

‘I sure missed you,’ I said, falling asleep to the sound of her rough tongue on my hair and skin.

I slept through the week, only getting out of bed to feed Groo, Corporal Pig and the chickens. I’d let CP out to rummage for insects in the garden, then I’d climb right back into bed and disappear into darkness, ignoring the air raids.

When I emerged at the end of the week I bathed myself and bathed CP and I ate a feast and was almost sick. I played David’s records and I tidied our room, scooping out the shits CP had done on my bed and the floor, scrubbing everything clean.

‘CP, I’ll need to make you a home outside. You’ll be happier in the garden and I won’t have to smell your stink anymore.’

I sent a postcard to Angel – it was a picture of Trafalgar Square and I’d drawn CP, Angel and I swimming in one of the fountains.

‘My beautiful Angel,’ I wrote, ‘I made it home, CP and I all skinny from weary walking. We have a cat called Groo, and chickens – Billy Bones and Dr Kemp. They were our neighbour’s family, but he’s been bombed out so I took them in. How are things? I hope you’re happy and the Idiot isn’t being a shit. I’m glad you broke his nose. I miss you and I miss swimming in the sea. Love forever, your Goblin xxxx.’

I didn’t bother telling Angel about da being dead, and David being missing and ma being ma. I only wanted to write about happy things so she wouldn’t worry about me. And mostly things were happy anyway, especially when ma wasn’t around and she hardly ever was – she worked at the factory and went out at night, drinking. She’d come home and sob and fall asleep on the floor. I’d wake her up with tea and a cigarette and she’d sit up, her make-up all run down her cheeks, snot all crusted on her lips, and she’d drink her tea and smoke her cigarettes and I’d watch her wash off all the grime and put a new face on.

‘Ma,’ I said, ‘Where’s David?’

‘I told you. He’s gone.’

‘Where?’

‘It’s your da’s fault.’

‘Da? Did he make him go to war?’

She shook her head. ‘He pushed David too hard and now he’s gone.’

‘Gone where, ma?’

‘Just gone.’

I went through some family photos and found one of David, taken almost three years before when ma and da took us to get proper photographs of us all. There was one of the family together, one of me and David and photos of each of us on our own. I took out the one of me and David and put it on our bedroom wall. I shoved the one of him in my pocket. Everywhere I went I brought it out, ‘Have you seen this boy? I think he went to the sea, but maybe he’s still here. Have you seen him? He’ll be older now, older than this, but he’ll look much the same. Have you seen this boy?’

I got a reply from Angel saying she was glad I had a family of animals and even though she’s sad I left she’s glad for the family I’m looking after. She said she’s doing fine, that Ann and Bill are good new parents and they took her to the beach for a picnic at the weekend which was nice but she felt a bit sad because she missed me.

I wrote back and said maybe her and Bill and Ann could come to London for a holiday one day and she wrote that Bill and Ann said they’d come visit after the war so I prayed like mad to the lizards below that the war would end that very day but it didn’t.

I settled into a routine at home. Ma didn’t bother me. I was free to do as I pleased and she didn’t even notice CP snuffling in the garden, she didn’t even notice the brand new palace I made him out of scraps of wood I’d found. She didn’t notice anything. Until one day she did, and I came home from scootering around the city with Monsta and found her slitting Corporal Pig’s throat, but the knife was blunt and she was drunk and CP was too strong. She only managed a few small cuts, but from then on I made sure CP was with me when I knew she’d be home. I would stay in and keep an eye on them both, or I’d put a lead on him and keep him close, growling at anyone who came near.

Ma worked all hours at the factory and had no time to queue for food, so I took the ration books and spent hours getting food in. I didn’t mind so much. I had Corporal Pig and I’d put together a show. Some people even gave us money, but you had to watch out for people who wanted to steal CP for their stew, so when I was sure ma wasn’t home I’d leave him behind where he’d be safe.

I had to drag ma into the Andersen shelter when the siren went. She’d yell at me, but usually she’d come. There were nights she didn’t, when she’d just sit and rock and sob, and she wouldn’t come at all, so I left her. I left her to get bombed, but she never did.

Then one day she never came home. Sometimes she came home late in the night, but this night she didn’t come. I waited, but she didn’t return, not for days or weeks. I asked some of the neighbours, but they hadn’t seen her and I soon stopped asking when they started snooping on me – ‘You on your own, Goblin?’ I lied and said David had come back. I said everything was fine.

I thought she might have died in a bombing. Or maybe she’d found a brand new family and gone to live with them because she had nothing here. I didn’t care much at all, except I was worried about the rent. I went to old Martha to pay her what I could out of the tin in the kitchen where ma and da kept money for food, but old Martha and her house were gone.

‘Bombed,’ said her neighbour. ‘A few weeks ago.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘Up there, boy. Or more likely down there, to be truthful.’

‘She died?’

He nodded. ‘Remains sent down south to her son. He got special leave on account of her death. I suppose he’ll be up to deal with her affairs at some point. What you want her for anyhow?’

‘Nuthin’,’ I said, ‘She was just a friend of my ma.’

‘Well, if you ask me, it’s no big loss,’ he said, staring at the rubble. Then he looked at me and said, ‘Condolences to your ma, though.’

‘Right, thanks.’

There was a spring in my step as I headed back home, feeling as rich as can be with all the tin money in my pocket, and pleased that old Martha was dead and gone. I just had to hope her son was too busy being a soldier to bother with Martha’s affairs as I had to keep a roof over the head of my ever-growing family.

There was CP, and Mr Fenwick’s Groo, and his chickens, Billy Bones and Dr Kemp (I asked around the neighbourhood about Mr Fenwick, but no one knew where he’d gone). I sometimes looked after Betty, an old dog belonging to my neighbour, Miss Campbell. She asked me to take her out for walks, as she was working long hours, doing her bit for the war effort, and poor Betty was lonely. I wasn’t too happy about it at first because I thought she’d remind me of Devil and I didn’t want to think of Devil anymore, but I felt bad for Betty and she wasn’t like Devil at all and I was glad for that. She was old and slow and liked to sleep a lot. She got on well with CP, but she didn’t like the chickens. She didn’t much like Captain Flint either. I found Captain Flint, a baby raven, after a bombing. I’d taken him to the vet who said Flint was just stunned and the vet gave me advice on how to feed him until he was old enough to make his own way. I’d collected them all and taken them in and it was so much trouble to get them in the shelter when the siren went that I eventually stopped going. We all stayed. ‘If you lot die,’ I said, ‘I may as well too.’

They mostly didn’t bother at the sound of the siren or the sound of bombs exploding nearby, but Captain Flint would sometimes get all het up and flap about making a hideous noise, which made Groo shake with nerves and caused Billy Bones to join in with the flapping and skittering. CP would just sit and snore, adjusting to the war noise better than any of the city animals.