Lynda Plante - The Talisman

‘Johnny, we gonna have kids like normal people?’

He flopped back, still desperate for an erection, and gave up.

‘Gawd ‘elp us, we only got engaged an’ you’re arranging the bleedin’ nursery... Go an’ get the baby oil, will you, and shut up?’

Johnny left the following morning, handing out instructions as he went. He had to come back as he had forgotten to kiss Dora goodbye. She started getting tearful and he gave her one of his looks that was usually followed by a slap. She forced a brave smile.

‘Thatta girl, I’m dependin’ on yer, so don’t fuck it up, all right, darlin’?’

She had only a few moments of doubt and sadness at Johnny’s departure. Returning to the satin-covered bed, the open safe, she suddenly perked up and flopped back on to the bed, laughing.

‘It’s all mine! Bloody hell, Dora Harris, you’re rich.’

The train from Yorkshire ground to a halt yet again, and Edward swore, went to the window and lowered the sash. ‘What’s the problem? What’s the delay?’

A guard, running down the track swinging his lantern, shouted something inaudible and kept on running. All the lights on the train went out, the signals, the station two miles up the track blacked out... The train remained stationary for about half an hour and was then shunted into a siding. The passengers heard the drone of planes overhead, but no bombs... the planes passed over and were gone. Looking up, they asked each other if they were ‘ours’ or ‘theirs’.

Miles away they saw the sky light up like bright red and yellow fireworks and they knew they were German planes. The train began a slow backward shunt and halted again. Crowds of soldiers began to board and filled the front carriages.

‘Got a light, mate?’ The soldier looked no older than Edward. He clocked the gold cigarette lighter and lit up a thin, hand-rolled cigarette. ‘Thanks... thanks, mate.’

The boy and four more soldiers were told by their commanding officer to get back up front. Their vacated seats were taken by officers who sat back, eyes closed. Edward put his glasses on and buried his head deeper in his jacket collar. It was the first time he had felt any form of guilt.

The young officers were all very well-spoken, their upper-crust voices loud. He listened to the conversation as one officer stared out of the window.

‘Rocket, I’d say.’

The other officer shook his head, said that the rocket sites were in Holland, too far away.

‘That was a rocket, I’ve seen them before.’

‘Wait, we’ll soon know if it was a rocket or not, only takes a few seconds...’

They were all silent, then suddenly they heard it, a huge explosion. They sat back again in their seats.

‘Told you it was a rocket, saw the flash.’

‘Our chaps are overrunning them now, don’t see many more coming. The Allied Forces are wiping them out, thank God.’

‘I knew it was a rocket, I knew it was one of those V2s. One landed near our chaps, centre of the road, smack on a junction... It was not long before ten-thirty and one pub had run out of beer so all the customers were moving on to a bar in McKenzie Road. Bloody place was jam-packed when the bloody thing came down. The bar-room floor collapsed, the poor fellahs were dropping through into the cellah, whole building came down around them... Foggy night, too, and a bloody one, we had to tunnel under the debris, poor bastards screaming... But every time we removed a part of the building the rest just crumbled on to those below. I still hear them, you know, still hear them screaming.’

The train began to move and Edward lurched in his seat, heard the soldiers in the front carriages give a cheer. The officers, all bomb-disposal experts, relaxed in their seats and slept for the rest of the journey. They were exhausted, their mouths open and snoring as the train made its slow, unsteady journey to Paddington Station. In the station buffet they heard a newscast of the latest report.

‘The Fourteenth Army is advancing through Burma, the Japanese in full retreat.’

The soldiers in the buffet let rip with a cheer, and stretched over the counter for mugs of tea and stale bread rolls. The newscaster ended his report with a rousing, ‘Let’s hope the longed-for end to these long years of war will soon be here.’

The soldiers raised their mugs of tea and cheered, and their officers barked orders for them to get themselves to platform three, they were on the move again.

Edward sipped his tea, watching the boys barging out of the doors towards the platforms. The woman behind the counter looked over the glass case. ‘Bastards hit the East End again last week, it wiped out my husband’s allotment, all his onions gone, not one left. Pulverized the whole onion bed and yer could smell it fer miles around. See, they was cookin’ in the fire, I dunno... Oh Gawd, ‘ere they come, the Yanks are back.’

The buffet filled with American soldiers joking loudly with one another, and Edward walked out to wolf whistles and lewd remarks. He picked up a taxi, it was past eleven.

‘I can only take yer as far as Hyde Park Corner, guv, they got the road up round Marble Arch, crater in the road size of this station.’

They rattled through the blacked-out streets. The cab driver was an authority on German warfare, Hitler’s strategy. ‘I’m tellin’ ya, mate, he made a mistake. See, he was so close — Jersey, you know — they was that close, yes, fella in the cab yesterday hadda get out. See, if you don’t have actual documents sayin’ you was born in Jersey then you hadda get off the island, he’d left everything he’d worked for. But they occupied the bastard, an’ I’ll tell you somethin’ else, the Americans, if they hadn’t hit Pearl Harbor they wouldn’t have backed us up... Now then, with them behind us we’ll wipe those German buggers off the face of the earth... I’ve nothin’ against ‘em, the Yanks, they may be shaftin’ all our girls, but my daughter’s got herself a lovely fella, he’s brought us the best corned beef I’ve ever tasted in me life, tins of the stuff. Works in the canteen, see...’

Edward was glad when the cab pulled over. He refused the offer of certain items that could be got for a good price, and of introductions to some good clubs, and by the time he’d paid the cab off he would have liked to throttle the driver.

Dora had spent a lot of Johnny’s money on clothes, but she told herself that that was what she should be doing, she had to look the part. She had a new platinum rinse, silvery-blonde, almost white, and her face had been made up in the beauty department at Harrods. Her eyebrows were plucked, and she wore the new, deep-red lipstick. Her hair was scooped into a roll on each side of her face, the back curled into a pageboy. The clustered pearl earrings and matching hair slides made her look very sophisticated in the little black dress with the padded shoulders. It was nipped in at the waist and tight over her little bum. She had put some sticking plaster around Johnny’s ring so it didn’t swivel around her finger, and she flashed the ring and her long, red nails. She was smoking Lucky Strikes from a gold cigarette case, and couldn’t keep her eyes off herself. She kept catching glimpses of herself in mirrors around the club and liked what she saw so much that she constantly tilted her head and touched her hair.

The club was full, and the girls were working hard at entertaining. Edward sat at the far corner table, watching Dora swanning around the club. She hadn’t seen him yet, and she disappeared through a small door marked ‘Private’.

‘You on your ownsome, darling? Would you like company? We can offer some lovely champagne, and there’s small snacks if you’re feeling peckish. You feeling peckish, lovey?’