JOE AND NELLY A World War Two ghost story
CHAPTER 8

When the rest of the grown-ups got home from work, they hugged each other over and over again and then gathered around the table to eat the rabbit pie Nan had heated up for supper – she was a dab hand at pastry and she even managed to get some Bisto on ration. Joe grabbed the gravy boat and covered his slice of pie with the thick, meaty sauce.

Over supper, Granddad explained that he didn’t get the chance to speak to his ARP chum, so there was nothing they could do for the time being. Although it was bright outside, inside the house everyone was still gloomy from the morning raid. They sat and listened to the news in silence and then Uncle Tom suggested a game of cards. Although Uncle Tom was older than Granddad, they were more like twins; they looked alike, enjoyed the same music, loved going to the pictures and knew how to play any card game you could think of. The only games Joe knew how to play were Beggar my Neighbour, Snap and Happy Families. They agreed on Happy Families and Nan produced a well-worn pack with pictures of Mr and Mrs Plod and all the other couples and their children. There was even a Mrs Bun holding up a huge pie, just like Nan, with her apron on. Granddad and Uncle Tom laughed at the funny pictures, brightly coloured cartoons, but Joe thought they were for babies.

Mum had one of her headaches and went up for a nap. Mrs Davies stood in front fireplace, peering into the mirror as she applied some red lipstick, picked up the cardigan of her twinset and draped it over her arm, and then she and Mr Davies nipped out to the pub, leaving Nan, Uncle Tom, Aunty Margaret, Granddad and Joe sitting around the table. Joe just couldn’t get used to so many grown-ups all together every evening but he wished Dad was there too, so they could have a game of draughts. Dad had taught him to play with the set he bought him as a present one Christmas and, just before he was called up, they’d spent most evenings playing game after game. Joe could never beat his father but it didn’t matter, as long as they were hunched together, just the two of them, over the black and white pieces on the checkered board. That was another precious thing lost in the blast – if only he’d had enough space in his suitcase for the draughts set, he could have taught Janet and Peter to play. Joe wondered if he and Nelly would replace any of the pieces in the crater. Dad was disappearing from his memory and he wanted to replace as much as possible of the life they once had together so as not to lose him completely.

Joe picked up the cards Granddad dealt him and looked at the stupid grinning face of Mr Chip the Carpenter, hammer in hand. He wondered why there wasn’t a soldier and his family in this pack. All of a sudden, he found himself chucking his cards against the parlour wall.

‘Bugger happy families!’ he shouted and four shocked faces gaped at him. Even Monty stayed silent.

‘I won’t have you swearing in this house,’ said Nan in a stern voice. ‘Go to bed and don’t disturb your mum.’

Joe did as he was told. It took ages to fall asleep and when he did he dreamed of Mr and Mrs Bun dancing the foxtrot in a shower of tears.

The next morning, Granddad left the house early to catch his friend on his way to work. Joe didn’t have to wait long for him to return.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t got much to go on yet, Joe,’ Granddad said. ‘According to my chum, Nelly’s body was never found, only her parents’ remains were buried. They searched the area and found nothing, not even in the back yard, so what Nelly told you must be right – she couldn’t get back into the house.’

‘We know that already. She said she couldn’t open the back door, so it must have been locked. But that doesn’t make any difference to replaceing her. There must be something else we can do.’

Granddad gazed out of the window at a sparrow that had just landed on the washing line, which bounced and swayed with its weight. He sighed. ‘Last year I heard somebody at the pub talking about bombs that throw bodies onto roofs and into other people’s gardens, where they lie for weeks before anyone replaces them.’

‘You mean nobody bothers to look for them!’

‘This has been a terrible and difficult war, Joe, and there isn’t always time to help the dead when there are living, injured people to take care of. I promise I’ll keep asking questions and work out a way of helping your young girlfriend.’

Joe didn’t know whether to smile or protest. His face was hot and flushed, and he was glad when Nan asked what he’d like for dinner as a special treat – she must have forgiven his outburst. He didn’t need to think about it. ‘Corned beef and tomato pie, please!’

Nan checked the larder but the last tin of Fray Bentos was gone. She sent Granddad down to the corner shop but they were all out of corned beef too.

‘Sorry Joe,’ she said. ‘It looks like you’ll have to wait for your pie.’

Granddad went to the pub at lunchtime. He returned empty-handed and smelling of ale, but with the promise of some corned beef from a local spiv.

‘What’s a spiv?’ Joe asked.

‘Someone who sells things on the black market – the sorts of things that are scarce because of rationing. This chap comes to the pub once a week with food, cigarettes and nylons. Nobody asks any questions and nobody gets into trouble.’

The following day, Granddad produced from under his jacket two large tins of corned beef.

‘What about the tomatoes?’ Joe asked.

‘That’s what we’re doing this afternoon!’ Granddad announced with a grin. ‘We’re going to see an old army friend of mine down in Surrey. His name is Jack Kemsley and his garden is choc-a-bloc with fruit, veg and salad, which he’s happy to share - and we’re due a visit. We can trade one of the tins of corned beef. Get yourself ready, Joe, or we’ll miss the bus.’

In the middle of all the excitement of preparing for a day out, there was a sudden loud rap on the front door. Nan jumped like she always did, expecting bad news. Joe was so close behind Granddad, he trod on the back of one of his slippers. Granddad opened the front door to a dapper-looking man dressed in army uniform. He had dark hair, slick with Brylcreem, a Clark Gable moustache and a cheeky grin just like Granddad’s and Uncle Tom’s. Granddad embraced the man, clapping him hard on the shoulder, and called out to Nan with a chuckle, ‘I think you’d better put the kettle on!’

It was Granddad’s younger brother, Bill, on leave from France, wanting to billet up with them for a few days. Joe wondered how Nan could cope with another mouth to feed and where he’d be sleeping. But his worries vanished when Uncle Bill pulled out a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum and offered him a stick.

‘I’ve got plenty more where that came from,’ he said and winked. ‘My Yank friends give it to me all the time, so fill your boots, young Joe.’

He took a brand new pencil from his pocket and performed a magic trick with it: he turned it into rubber.

‘May I have a go, please?’ Joe asked.

He took the pencil and waved it up and down. It stayed rigid.

‘Let it bounce on your fingers, Joe.’

Joe tried again and again, determined to master the trick so he could show Nelly as soon as he got back from the unexpected outing.

Apart from magic tricks, the best thing about Uncle Bill was the Morris Eight Series 1 four-door saloon that was parked outside the house. He’d borrowed it from a soldier friend of his with no leave. Bill had cadged a lift from another soldier and collected it from a garage in Tottenham. It was a beauty, with a sunshine roof, leather seats, a speedometer and an electric windscreen wiper. Nan loved the colours: a red body with a black roof. Granddad sat in passenger seat, up front with his brother, and Joe was quashed onto the back seat with Nan, who had brought two large shopping bags, a colander and a bucket. He was so busy looking at the passing scenery, he didn’t care about the metal bucket bumping against his shin or his bare legs sticking to the leather upholstery. A ride in a motor car was a rare treat and it was over too quickly.

They spent a warm, bright afternoon in a small back garden packed with rows of runner beans and tomatoes, as well as lettuces and other veg. They munched on peas that popped out of the pod and tasted as green and fresh as the garden smelled – not like their street, where everything was covered in dust and rubble, and smelled of burning, mould and sewers. There were even raspberries, sweet and earthy on the tongue. Nan and Joe picked while Granddad and Uncle Bill dug up potatoes and onions. Granddad’s friend had been badly injured in the Great War and had trouble bending. But it didn’t stop him from gardening.

‘This reminds me of hop picking in Kent,’ said Nan as Jack took her to the front garden to choose flowers to brighten up her parlour.

While Joe picked peas and beans, his mind wandered back to Ffairfach and Mrs Williams’s farm. He had never seen anything so green or hills so high, or clearer, sparkling streams. In the winter everything was covered in snow and the rivers froze. In the spring there were kids, lambs and calves pretty much everywhere. He fell asleep to the sound of owls screeching and hooting at each other across the valley and woke up to a dawn chorus of birds with names that he had never heard of. He only knew pigeons and sparrows in London.

Mrs Williams didn’t fret about rationing: she made her own butter and cheese, grew plenty of fruit and veg, and was an expert at plucking chickens. When they finished their chores, Joe, Janet and Peter chased across the fields and played with other children who had been evacuated not only to Ffairfach but also nearby Llandeilo.

One Monday morning, when Mrs Williams was laid up with a head cold, Joe went down to the village. There was quite a crowd at the pump. He soon found out why. The women of Ffairfach were the greatest gossips and they had something new to chinwag about. A group of about two hundred evacuees had arrived in Llandeilo from Croydon – from a Roman Catholic school. Everyone in Ffairfach was chapel and they were all worked up about it – how could the minister allow it? It didn’t matter to Joe. He looked forward to new faces but was disappointed when he found out that they were all much older girls and very stuck up.

He was so lost in his memories of Ffairfach that he jumped when Nan patted him on the arm and said, ‘You can stop picking now, Joe. You’ve enough peas and beans for the whole of Bermondsey!’ She had to drag him back to the car.

As soon as they arrived home, Joe ran down the street to tell Nelly all about it. He’d eaten so many peas and raspberries, he didn’t have any room for supper. She gazed down at him as he sprang up the steps.

She giggled at the trick with the pencil; he had to repeat it over and over until he got it right and it finally looked like it was made of rubber. When he told her about his afternoon in the garden, her mouth turned into an ‘O’ of surprise. She’d never seen a house with a front and back garden, and she’d never seen vegetables growing. All she knew was the stamp-sized back yard of a terraced house that was now part of a massive bomb site.