Blitz Next Door (7 page)

“Help you with what? Wait!” Pete called, but the door at the end of the tunnel was already shut. “And was Jamie not just a baby? How could he have helped you?
Beth
?”

Pete cocked his head to listen for movement. Nothing, although Pete could still make out his knuckles, white and alien-looking in the slip of light seeping through a crack at the bottom of the connecting door. And then the light went out.

The tunnel door wouldn’t budge no matter how hard Pete shoved against it.

“She’s gone,” he said, his voice hollow as it bounced back to him through the darkness.

Pete was busy de-cobwebbing himself as he backed out the cupboard, checking in case there were any creepy-crawly visitors up the back of his jeans. That’s why he trod on Mr Milligan’s shiny brogues without realising.

“Watch your feet there, son,” said Dad.

“Sorry.”

“No bother, sir.” Mr Milligan dismissed Pete’s apology with a flap of his hand. Dad didn’t though. He held Pete away from his boss at arm’s length.

“What on earth you been up to in there? You’re filthy!”

“Exploring.” Pete pointed into the dark space he’d just left. “It leads through to next door. There’s a tunnel…”

“Pete…” Although Dad wore a smile when he rolled his eyes at Mr Milligan, Pete could tell he was irritated. “First it’s crying through the wall, now it’s secret tunnels. Like Colditz. Be telling me there’s zombies next. Or ghosts.”

Dad was gesturing for Mr Milligan to ignore Pete and walk ahead towards the front door. “I’ve shown him the bomb site so he knows there’s nothing on the other side of the wall any more.”

“Ah, but there was a tunnel, Steve.”

Instead of joining Dad, Mr Milligan turned back to
Pete then strode into the cupboard. Stooping almost immediately, he beckoned Pete to join him. Dad too.

“No idea why it was built like this,” he called back, “but I know there’s a link door between the houses.”

When Mr Milligan dropped to his haunches, Pete heard his knees crack the same way Papa Smeaton’s did after too much weeding in his allotment.

“Never actually been through it myself, but it’s bally there.” Mr Milligan’s voice filled the cupboard. When he shuffled forwards a few steps his coat swept the floor. “Too feart,” he called back. “And now I’m too old and too big. But your explorer’s right,” he called back to Dad. “There’s a way through into next door.”

“Not any more, Jamie.” Pete could tell Dad was trying not to sound impatient. His phone was ringing. “Need to find this place a light bulb. And there’s my mother again. Three times she’s rung. Been meaning to call her back all day.”

“Always call your mother back, she’s the only one you’ve got, Steve. On you go.” Mr Milligan had to lean on Pete’s shoulder so he could turn and face Dad without losing his balance in the narrow space of the cupboard. “Pete can see me out.”

Mr Milligan waited till Dad disappeared into the kitchen with his phone.

“Have you met her?” he whispered, with a nod towards the house that couldn’t be there any more. But before Pete could answer, Mr Milligan dropped his head to his chest. “Poor, poor Beth,” he sighed.

Pete gasped. His skin was prickling.

“She was killed in the house?” His own whisper echoed back to him.

Instead of answering, Mr Milligan spread his arms until he could touch both walls and began to ease himself out into the hall.

“Let’s walk and talk where it’s cheerier,” he said, his big voice back. Outside the cupboard he wiped his hands with yet another patterned silk handkerchief as he steered Pete through his own front door.

“Beth wasn’t in the house when the bomb fell.” Mr Milligan joined his hands and raised them as if he was offering up a prayer of thanks. He must have read the relief on Pete’s face because he patted his shoulder.

“Spent the night of the Blitz in the air-raid shelter with me, my mother, all the neighbours. I don’t remember myself, thank God. Just a bairn, like Princess Chookie. But my mother’s never forgotten, so neither have I. Never will.” Mr Milligan was pointing towards the crater. “How she and Beth staggered out the shelter at dawn, me in her arms, to utter…”

Mr Milligan stared into space, shaking his head, lips pursed in a silent whistle. “My mother claims that’s why I ended up an architect. Raised hearing about so many homes coming down and lives destroyed round here I wanted to try and design buildings that would survive. Better, stronger, safer.”

“But none of Beth’s family was hurt when the house came down, were they?” Pete double-checked.

Mr Milligan started to say something, but checked himself. He walked to his car, shaking his head, his mouth a grim line. Pete was sure he spotted tears glinting in the old man’s eyes.

“I didn’t help her.” Mr Milligan turned his gaze towards the ruin of the Winters’ old house.

“She told me,” Pete said.

“Too feart.” Mr Milligan shrugged.

“She said that too.”

“Well, I was only about five the first time I remember her calling…” Mr Milligan held his fingers up in front of his mouth as if he was playing a recorder. “That bally ‘Skye Boat Song’. Not long moved into that room you’re in now. Slept in the one next to my mother’s before that…”

“Jenny’s room now.”

“…though to be honest I spent most nights cooried in with my mother. Tumshy mammy’s boy, so I was,” Mr Milligan boomed in a very un-tumshy voice. “Still am. Aye…” Mr Milligan was gazing into space again, then he flapped his hand in front of his face, raked through his quiff with his fingers. “Anyway, ended up flitting back into the room next to my mother’s, because I was hearing Beth so much.”

“What did your mum say?” Pete asked.

“‘Poor wee Beth, she’s a lost sowl.’ Then she’d get upset.” Mr Milligan shrugged. “So I stopped telling her I was hearing anything. Stopped hanging about down in the shelter too. Beth was appearing in there sometimes, long after the war. I’d be down there having a…” Mr Milligan puffed on an imaginary cigarette. “Silly boy that I was.” He shook his head, then switched it in the best version Pete had seen yet of Beth’s plait flick. “And she’d brush past me with a right dirty look. And then,” Mr Milligan held his hands to his ears as though he wanted Pete to hear something, “all Beth’s visits and concerts and shuffling about stopped. By this time it was the fifties and I…”

Mr Milligan curled his lip. He twisted the front of his hair into a lick and tugged it down his forehead. “I was far too busy to care about hearing anything but Elvis and Buddy and Little Richard.” Mr Milligan shook his head at Pete. “You probably don’t even know who I’m bally talking about.”

“
Elvis
? Everyone knows Elvis. Well
I
do. He’s great.” Pete was nodding so hard at Mr Milligan his neck muscles hurt.

“No, Pete.” Mr Milligan pursed at Pete. “He isn’t great. He
is
the greatest. Is. And always will be: The King.” Mr Milligan grinned. “When I was sixteen I’d two delivery jobs to pay for all the records I used to order from the States. Was I popular?”

“You’ve still got them?” For a moment, Pete forgot all about Beth Winters.

Mr Milligan quirked his eyebrows at Pete and puffed as if the question was pointless. “Maybe let you see them some time, but right now,” he was beeping open his car, “my mother’s visiting hour’s started and my life won’t be worth living if I’m late. She might be the height of nothing but she’s a holy terror.”

“Wait!” Pete was running alongside Mr Milligan’s car as it pulled away. “What happened to Beth? And her mum and dad?”

Pete didn’t think Mr Milligan had heard him. He was staring ahead, eyes on the road. Then his driver’s window zipped down halfway. “You need to talk to my mother. On one of her good days,” said Mr Milligan, purring off with a wave.

Pete reverse jogged along the road in the middle of his cul-de-sac, something he’d never have been able
to do where he lived in London. When he reached his house, he turned, and in the space where Mr Milligan’s sleek saloon had parked, there she stood.

The old lady. Staring after the departing car, she didn’t even seem aware of Pete until he almost ran into her. For a second Pete wondered if this woman could be Mr Milligan’s mother. She was certainly old – her face lined, her body stooped – though maybe not old enough; Pete was rubbish at guessing grown-ups’ ages. However, one thing was sure: she looked bewildered enough to need taken care of.

So Pete ran straight past her without stopping. “Wait there…” He took the three steps up to his porch in one leap. “I’m just going to get my…” he turned to call.

But he was talking to himself.

If Pete had gone back into the house he knew he would have told Mum or Dad about the old lady, and this time, he knew they would have called the police. He didn’t want that to happen.
She’s harmless
, he was thinking. This was as he skittered down one side, ran across, then sprinted up the far side of the bomb crater to reach the garden.

He was hoping Dunny might be about when he heard a voice singing even higher than Melody Matthews from his old school choir could. But even more out of tune: “
In the jungle the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight
… Fancy some FIFA, Nigel?”

The boys wandered towards the shelter. A wind had got up, whistling through the long grasses and weeds, whipping them against the boys’ legs and faces.

“Scotland’s colder than London.” Pete huddled into his sweatshirt.

“Mince.” Dunny wheeched his T-shirt and jumper over his head and whirled them in the air. “It’s practically taps-aff weather,” he announced, strutting in front of Pete. But by the time he reached the shelter he was dressed again. “See, if we’re playing in there, you’ll need your torch,” he chittered.

“It’s inside,” said Pete, trying to remember where he’d dropped it earlier. As the door creaked open, Pete was surprised how grey and gloomy it looked
compared to earlier in the day. He had to keep blinking till his eyes adjusted to the poor light. Then he had to peer really hard to make sure they weren’t playing tricks on him: a figure sat hunched at the back of the shelter.

The old lady
, Pete thought first, until he realised he was meeting the unblinking stare of Beth Winters. She gave no sign that she recognised Pete, though, or seemed surprised to see him so soon after their last meeting in the cupboard under the stairs. In fact, as if Pete wasn’t there, she bent over the notebook on her lap.

Pete darted backwards from the shelter.

“She’s in there. Writing. Beth,” he whispered.

“Ha, ha. Wind-up,” Dunny didn’t bother whispering back.

“See for yourself.” Pete yanked Dunny’s arm towards the shelter doorway, but Dunny stalled, digging in his heels.

“Not going in alone,” he hissed.

“Not going to
be
alone. Need to get my torch anyway.” Still holding on to Dunny, Pete had his other hand on the door, primed to push.

“Then we play FIFA back at mine?”

Without answering, Pete flung back the door. “
See
!” he hissed. Pointed. At nothing.

“Knew it was a wind-up, Nigel. You’re good.” Dunny punched the side of Pete’s arm. “There’s your torch. Let’s go.”

Dunny was already at his hedge.

“But I saw her. I did.” Keeping one foot wedged in the shelter door so it wouldn’t slam behind him, Pete
flashed the torch beam across the benches.

“She’s gone.”

“And I’m gone too,” Dunny called. “Coming, Nigel?”

“Coming.” Pete shone the torch around one more time. “But I swear she was sitting right…”

Pete had to let the shelter door swing shut to reach whatever was lying on the bench where he was still sure he’d seen Beth writing.

“Dunny!” he yelled. “
Dunny
!
”

“Dunny answered Pete’s call by shouldering through the shelter door like a supercharged superhero to the rescue. Only to find Pete turning the pages of a notebook.

“
My
notebook. Why’s it out the plastic bag?” Dunny had to stop rubbing his shoulder to snatch it back from Pete. “That Wee Stookie’s one dead brother, broken arm or not.”

“It wasn’t him,” said Pete. “Beth was writing in it when I looked in.”

“Mince and tatties, man. Fresh air up here must be going to your… Wait a minute.” Dunny was beside Pete looking over the same pages Pete was turning. He stopped Pete’s hand. Turned back a page. Another one.

“None of this writing was here before.”

This notebook belongs to:

Miss Elizabeth Julie Winters,

14 Cairns Road,

Clydebank,

Scotland,

Great Britain,

Europe,

Planet Earth,

The Galaxy,

The Universe

I solemnly swear to write this diary for the rest of my life.

“Elizabeth Winters.”
The name Dunny read in his girl voice was written in the same hand as the one Pete had seen on Wee Stookie’s plaster.

The boys were on their stomachs on the trampoline, Beth’s notebook open between them.

“Carry on.” Pete nudged Dunny. “You make a better she than me.”

“Cheers!” Dunny stayed in character, though he elbowed Pete in the ribs before he carried on reading:

“31st October 1940, Hallowe’en,

Going as a sailor to guise at Aunty Mary’s. Lucky for me Hugh was taking some girl to the Pictures so I could ‘borrow’ his uniform. Wee bit big!!! Daddy was Charlie Chaplin. As usual. Jamie was Shirley Temple. Frilly dress
.
Red
ribbons!!!!! (Mummy’s right – Aunty Mary really DID want a wee lassie!)

Sirens just when we started dookin’ for apples. We’d to grab the basin and do it in the shelter. Oh, and Mummy was a witch – again. Her mask made Jamie blubber. I told her to go as someone pretty next year.”

“Who’s Shirley Temple?” Dunny asked in his normal voice.

“It’s a drink where I come from.” Pete shrugged. “Lemonade, grenadine to make it pink. Ice, cherry on top. Can have it as a float with ice cream.”

“No chance you’ll get away with that in Clydebank. Sounds like a pure lassie’s drink, man,” Dunny snorted.

“It’s not.” Pete was seeing Simon, Alfie, himself. Holding the weekly burping contest from their booth at Luigi’s cafe… Using the straw from the Shirley Temples they ordered after football practice as a pea-shooter – or a cherry-shooter. Seeing who’d be first to fire it across the table into the others’ glass, or hair or eye… No, it wasn’t a pure lassie’s drink.

“What if it is anyway?” Now Pete was thinking about Mr Milligan. His dad’s boss. In a frilly dress and ribbons. Hadn’t done
him
any harm.

This time Pete read, “
8
^th
November
,

To Glasgow to see Hugh off at Central station. Aunt Katy came all the way down from Beauly. Gave Hugh three guineas and a gold cross. Wish she was my godmother. Hugh was right quiet till his Navy pals turned up and then he was cracking jokes non-stop in a big loud voice. Two different girls arrived to wave him off. ‘Too much red lipstick for their own good,’ Mummy said. Hugh just kept talking to me till they both left. Then he left. He said, ‘Don’t bubble
,
kiddo
,’ but I couldn’t help it. Mummy and Aunt Katy looked so sad. I’ve to send him drawings.”

“Big brother?” Pete asked Dunny.

“Looks like it. Wonder what happened to him.” Dunny cleared his throat. “Just finding my lassie’s voice. “
9
^th
November
…” he piped, reading on:

“
Aunt Katy still here. Mummy and her whisper in the front room all the time. When I keek round the door they start talking about rationing. Aunt Katy brought eggs from the farm and we made mirangs. (Is that how you spell it?)
”

“No,” said Pete. “That’s wrong too:
DEEEEEEE-LISH-USSSS
.”

“So what?” said Dunny. “I can’t spell for toffee. Doesn’t make me a bad person.” He went on reading:

“
Mummy told Aunt Katy about saving those six eggs for my birthday cake and cracking the rotten one in last and spoiling the mixture. Aunt Katy said I’d be having fresh eggs coming out my ears if she’d her way. Mummy got cross and sent me to my room – What for? Unfair!!!! – but I stood outside the kitchen and heard her tell Aunt Katy she hadn’t ruled it out: ‘But Beth knows nothing about it, so keep it that way, alright, Katy?
’”

“That’s them planning Beth’s evacuation.” Pete flicked to the next entry. A month later.

“
8
^th
December 1940,”
Pete read.
“Letter from Hugh. Torpedoed last week, but he made it to the lifeboat. Won’t be home for Christmas. Hate this war!!!
”

“Me now.” Dunny read the next entry, dated a week later:

“
School panto. Choir sang flat and Mrs Banks blamed me for singing out of tune on purpose. I was not!!!! Was just singing loud because she said sing up. At least I don’t have
a
giant jelly bottom and a mustash
.”

“Is that how you spell moustache?” asked Pete, but it didn’t matter either way. Dunny wasn’t listening.

“Giant jelly bottom!” He’d flipped round to bounce in time to Beth’s insult:

Giant!

Jelly!

Bottom!

Pete gripped the notebook to stop it dancing off the trampoline.

“
18th
December
,” he read on.

“
Going to Aunt Katy’s for Christmas. Mummy says we could be doing with the fresh Highland air and I might like to stay there till the war’s over. When I said, ‘No ta,’ she said, ‘It’s not really up to you, Elizabeth
.’”

“Where are we: Downton Abbey? ‘
It’s not really up to you, Elizabeth!
’” Dunny bounced.

“Looks like it was.” Pete had turned to the next entry. “She’s back at her school in this one.”

“15
^th
February 1941
,

Someone sent me A VALENTINE. Yukky. See if it’s Mickey Kelly I will DIE. Anna says he’s always making googly eyes at me and staring with his mouth dreeped open. His breath stinks of rotten kippers. Boys make me boke
.

Ps – Valentine from Hugh…
”

“…covered in rosebuds,” Dunny simpered before Pete had read the words out. “I’m sorry, but that is sick in a sick way, man. Vally from your
brother
?”

Pete said nothing. He could see why
he
might send Jenny a card. Why not? Also, he was thinking of those faded scraps of flowery pink wallpaper on the ruined walls of Beth’s old house. How sad it made him feel.
But if he’d spoken up, his voice would have come out all chopped up and distorted like a Doctor Who baddy because Dunny was bouncing rings round him, reading the next entry.

“
10
^th
March 1941
,

I’ve to write out a hundred times: ‘I must remember my gas mask every day for it could save my life.’ Stupid old Jelly Bum Banks.
”

Dunny flopped down next to Pete. Both boys were laughing at Dunny’s breathless piping voice. On a roll, he sucked in his cheeks, cleared his throat and went on:

“
11
^th
March 1941,

Was in the shelter nearly all last night. Bombings and raids for hours and hours and hours. Terrified. Mummy stayed with me and I fell asleep for a while. Jamie was sick in the toilet bucket and
—”

“Hang on,” Dunny broke off. “Never read this before.” He flicked over the page. “Or this:
I’m leaving in two days, the 13
^th
.” He said in his own voice, “The night of the 13
^th
was the Clydebank Blitz.” He pushed the notebook towards Pete. “Don’t want to read on.”

So Pete took over:

“
Mummy said last night was the last straw. She’s sent Aunt Katy a telegram to meet me off the train at Inverness. Last night the streets where Mickey Kelly and Francis McGraw live copped it. I don’t know if they’re alright because Mummy’s keeping me off school till I leave. I’ll need to start a new one in Beauly. I won’t know anyone and worse than that, Hugh won’t know I’ve gone away. I’m taking his Valentine, and Mickey’s. When I think about leaving Mummy I just want to cry. So why am I so horrible when she talks to me and tells me to pack?
Speaking
of which
…”

There was nothing else written. Dunny rolled on to his back and Pete did the same, hugging Beth’s notebook to his chest. Neither of them spoke as they stared up at the cloudy sky. A plane crossed overhead, low enough for Pete to see its orange livery.

Dunny scissored his legs at it.

“Beth wouldn’t have been able to do that,” said Pete. “All those German planes swooping down.”

“Must have been kinda exciting sometimes.” Dunny was pretending to shoot a machine gun at the sky. “Teaching the enemy a lesson.”

“But you and me wouldn’t’ve been soldiers.” Pete raised Beth’s notebook above his head. “We’d be like Beth. Refugees, or evacuees.”
Or casualties
. “Sitting targets on this trampoline.”

Pete closed his eyes. He couldn’t stop thinking about Beth. In that shelter. A sky full of hostile Luftwaffe droning overhead.

“Nyaaaach-ch-ch-ch.” Dunny’s fingertips dive-bombed Pete’s stomach.

“Oi.” Pete rolled away to dodge the next attack.

“Nyeaw! Nyeaw! Nyeaw!” Dunny was on his feet, bouncing, air-shooting. “Just think: sky glowing, shells exploding like giant fireworks, sirens screaming. Sick, man.”

“So long as you didn’t get killed or bombed.” Pete was easing himself off the trampoline, cradling Beth’s notebook.

“BOOM! SPLAT!” Dunny flung himself high, throwing star jumps.

“You seasick, Nigel?” he called down to Pete.

Pete didn’t admit to Dunny how he was really feeling: disturbed, fascinated, sad… All because of a girl. A girl from… A girl who was probably…

“Better check in,” he said.

“See you, then.” Dunny was back-flipping. “Borrow the notebook, s’long as I get it back. I’ll come round for you later, yeah?”