The Burning Summer Page 4

  Ruthie nodded, carefully not looking at the liquorice with its red sweet in the middle. There was something called asking with your eyes, and that was as bad as asking properly, so she didn’t look, watching her mother’s face all the time.

  Mrs Salmon, already sitting in a chair by the table in the back room called out, “So what’s the matter with you Mrs Lee? A bit of liquorice to hurt the child? Let her have it!”

  “All right—all right,” Ruthie’s mother said. “What do you say, Ruthie?”

  “Thank you very much,” Ruthie said, and took the liquorice to hold it flat between her two hands so that only the edges showed round her fingers.

  “Give me that boychick of yours, Bessie.” Black Sophie put her arms out, and Leon looked at her for a minute, peering over his shoulder before putting his head in his mother’s neck.

  Black Sophie laughed delightedly. “Look at him, the lobbus! Flirting with me yet! Come to Sophie, then, come to Sophie.” And she took Leon and he laughed and dribbled at her while she threw him up and down in the air.

  “Not too much, Sophie,” Ruthie’s mother said. “He’ll be sick on you.”

  So Sophie put him down on the floor by the door to the yard, and gave him her big bunch of keys to play with, and Leon put them in his mouth and sat and laughed at the women sitting round.

  There were a lot of them this afternoon, Mrs Salmon, and Mrs Coram, and Mrs Marks and Mrs Kaye, whose Rachel was a bit slow, and Mrs Fleischer whose son was going to be a doctor. Mrs Fleischer lived next door to Ruthie, and was always talking about her Lenny who was at the hospital and would be a doctor one day soon. Ruthie liked Lenny a lot. He was a nice man, and whenever she saw him, he tickled her, and called her his best girl, and Ruthie would bend double to get away from his tickling fingers, and think he was wonderful to be going to be a doctor.

  “So you goin’ out to play, Ruthie?” Mrs Salmon asked. “My Esther she’s up the street with the others. You goin’ to play with them?”

  Ruthie shook her head. “No, thank you, Mrs Salmon. I’ll stay here and eat my liquorice.”

  Mrs Salmon was always telling Ruthie to go and play with her Esther and her friends, but if she ever did, they sent her away because she was too little for their games. They used to play doctors a lot, and being ill, and lie down to be examined, and Ruthie was too young for that, they said, giggling and looking at each other and pushing each other about.

  So Ruthie went and sat under the table instead. It was very nice under the table. There was a little hassock that Black Sophie put her feet on when she sat by the table herself, and Ruthie could use it for a table, putting her gas mask on it, and the things she liked to play with on different days. Today it was pencil and a little red book, with a cover that had wriggly shiny patterns on it, and pages with lines on them inside. She arranged these on the hassock, and crossed her legs, and started to unwind the liquorice till the sweet in the middle came out, and the liquorice was a long smooth strap. Then she put the sweet in the middle of a page of her notebook, and drew all round it to make a circle. Then she made another circle, and put lines under them so that they turned into balloons on strings, and then she drew a big fish shape, and put a big tail on it, and put strings under that, so that it was a picture of a barrage balloon.

  Barrage balloons were very beautiful and Ruthie wished she had coloured pencils to make the colours that shone all round the outside of barrage balloons on sunny days like today. But she only had her ordinary pencil, and that wouldn’t make the colours, so she drew lines on her picture of a barrage balloon instead.

  Above her, the voices of the women made a comfortable sound, all talking together, so that what they said got mixed up with each other. Mrs Fleischer was talking about her Lenny, and how he had been working in the hospital in the last big raid, and seen—and then Mrs Salmon said something about her Esther, and it made it sound as though it had been Esther working in the hospital who had seen terrible things, and that made Ruthie laugh softly under the table.

  She could see Mrs Salmon’s legs right in front of her, the fringe on the edge of Black Sophie’s red tablecloth all stringly over her fat knees. Mrs Salmon’s legs had big bandages on them, under her thick brown stockings, and the edges of the bandages made a path that went round and round the legs, and she had a hole in the side of one of her blue slippers. Ruthie very carefully put the point of her pencil into the hole, and Mrs Salmon pulled her foot away, but she didn’t stop talking, and Ruthie had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing. Mrs Salmon didn’t know Ruthie was there, right in front of her feet, and that was very funny.

  Black Sophie’s feet were moving about the floor, and Ruthie listened to the swish of water as she filled the kettle, and the loud hiss and pop as she put it on the gas stove, and the clink of cups as she got them out of the dresser to make tea. And then, when the tea was made, and the women were drinking, Ruthie sat very quietly, biting little pieces off the end of her liquorice strap, listening. This was when they talked most, when the tea was made, and Ruthie liked to listen to them, talking about babies, and the people in the street, and the terrible things that happened in the raids. Today they had forgotten she was there—she could tell this, because they were all talking in English. When they knew children were there, and they wanted to say things children shouldn’t hear, they talked in Yiddish.

  They talked about babies for a while, and Ruthie’s mother was saying what happened when Leon was born, how he was so big she thought she would split from top to bottom, and the doctor had said he had never had to put in so many stitches. But Ruthie had heard all that before.

  Then Mrs Marks, who had a baby as old as Leon, and a lot of black hair she had in curls on top of her head, said what had happened when her David was born. “But, I tell you, I lie awake even when there’s no raid, worrying about what I should do if something should happen to him—after all that suffering, if something should happen to him, I want to die …”

  “So what should happen to him?” Mrs Salmon’s voice above Ruthie sounded so close that Ruthie thought if she looked up she would be able to see her right through the wood of the table. “He’s a fine big boy, and nothing bad should come to him. And if God forbid in a raid—so you’re together. Like I always say, so long as you’re together, it’s all right. He goes, you go. You don’t get left to worry about afterwards.”

  “A raid—this I know about. No—it’s the gas masks.”

  “So he’s got one—you got one, he’s got one. You put him in his gas mask and you pump.” This from Mrs Coram on the other side of the room.

  Mrs Marks’ voice was very high and whiny like an all-clear. “Sure—so I put him in and I pump the handle. Fine. So what happens if the warning comes late, like it does sometimes? You get the warning and the bombs at the same time, don’t you? You got no time to think about what you do—you get the warning, the bombs is falling, and you are running still for the shelter. So, if there is a gas raid like this, and the gas comes the same time as the warning? His mask is so big, who can carry it about with them? And even if I have it right there, tell me what I do first? So I put him in and I start to pump. Sure. So by the time he is in, and I start to pump, the gas is here, I haven’t time to put my mask on, and me—no mask on, I get the gas, who pumps for my David?”

  “So you put your mask on first,” said Mrs Salmon.

  “And by the time I have it on, what happens to my David? I should wait to put him in his mask after I put my own on? And he gets the gas …” Mrs Marks’ voice went higher and whinier than ever.

  “There won’t be no gas,” Mrs Coram said, her voice fat and comfortable. “My Harry, when I write to him about gas, he writes straight back—I shouldn’t worry—no gas. He says it can’t happen, of this he’s sure.”

  “I wish I could be so sure,” Black Sophie said. “Believe me, I wish I could be like your Harry and be so sure. How come he knows so sure? You think the Government they give us all these gas masks for a joke
? They got nothing better to do? If they give you gas masks, then you need to have them. They don’t give you for nothing so quickly.”

  “So how can the Government be sure? They give you the masks in case. They don’t know.”

  “Sure they know,” Mrs Fleischer said. “Sure they do. You know how it is? I tell you. I talk to my Lenny, and I tell him the same. The Government here, the Government in Germany, they got it all planned. The Germans want to send gas? Sure—so they tell the Government here they should be out of the way, and they send it. This way, the Government is all right, and God help us. We got our gas masks, the Government says, so all right. What they care about us?’

  Under the table, Ruthie nodded to herself. Mrs Fleischer must be right, she thought, why else is the Government in Cornwall with the other children from the street?

  “You know what I do if God forbid there should be gas and I got no gas mask?” Black Sophie said.

  “You got no gas mask?” Mrs Salmon asked. “Why not? You lost it? So you get another right away. You go to the centre, and you get another one …”

  “Nah—I got one. But if maybe the gas comes when I haven’t got it with me? Maybe I’m in the street, or somewhere, and I left it behind? Me—I don’t shlap it out with me all the time. I got enough to carry if I go shopping—I can’t always carry no gas mask.”

  “So what you do?”

  “I tell you.” Ruthie heard Black Sophie put her cup down on the table above her head. “I tell you. I take my handkerchief, right?”

  “So? What good is a handkerchief with gas? You think it can keep it out?”

  “So let me finish! I take my handkerchief, I fold it so it’s just big enough it covers my mouth and my nose, and then …” She paused dramatically. “Then, I pee on it, so it’s wet all over, and this I clap on my face! This makes a good gas mask you need one when you ain’t got one properly.”

  The other women began to talk, Mrs Salmon laughing loudly, calling Black Sophie a pisher, and under the table Ruthie sat very still, the end of the liquorice she had just put in her mouth held still between her teeth, feeling as though someone had suddenly thrown a bucket of cold water over her, because she couldn’t breathe properly. She sat and stared at Mrs Salmon’s bandaged legs in front of her, at the fringe of the tablecloth hanging over her knees, at the hole in Mrs Salmon’s slipper, at the pattern the sunlight from the open back door was throwing across the linoleum, making little shadows in front of the cracks and bumps in it, and felt her eyes get big and hot.

  She tried to see it. She could see Black Sophie out in the street, with people all round her putting gas masks on their faces while the sirens sounded very close, and gas came out of aeroplanes in the sky, hissing and plopping the way gas always did when you first turned the tap on the gas stove and the match blew out, and she could smell the gas coming from the aeroplanes, see the gas stoves inside the aeroplanes making the gas. She could see Mrs Marks in the middle of the street, putting her baby in his big box of a gas mask, then taking him out to put her own on, then taking hers off to put her baby in, while she cried in her high all-clear voice, “So what do I do first?” And there, on the pavement in front of her shop, Black Sophie folding her handkerchief so that it was just big enough to cover her mouth and nose, then lifting her huge black skirts, pulling her knickers down …

  But she couldn’t see the rest. How could she? It had never occurred to Ruthie that grown-ups like Black Sophie ever did what she did—ever made all that water she made herself, ever got wet as Ruthie got wet. She knew her mother went to the lavatory—of course she did—but that was only to do mysterious things with cotton wool, things to do with being grown up. She knew one day, when she was grown up, she would have to use cotton wool like her mother did, would have to burn little packets wrapped in newspaper in the fireplace like her mother did. Her mother had told her when she asked, it was to do with being grown up, and when she was a big girl she would know about it. But did her mother go to the lavatory to do wees like Ruthie did? The whole idea was impossible to Ruthie, sitting there under Black Sophie’s table.

  But she must do—if Black Sophie did, and the other women weren’t surprised that she did, it must mean that they did, too. Mrs Salmon had said Black Sophie was a pisher, but only children were pishers, dirty things who made trouble for their poor mothers, like Ruthie did because she made all that water in her bottom. Were grown-ups pishers, too? Ruthie felt crying climbing up inside her neck. Would it always be the same? She had thought that it was just something that happened now, that when she was grown up, like her mother, it would stop, she would never have to lie and hurt her toes and her lip in bed, never have to pray to God to stop her wetting her bed, never have to sit on hot kerbstones to dry her knickers again. But now she knew. It would never stop. Grown-ups weren’t special any more. They were like children, like Ruthie. They made water as well, they could get wet, too. There was nothing left to look forward to.

  The crying came to the top of her neck, up to the back of her eyes, came out of her mouth in a shrill sound, and Ruthie sat under the table, her face screwed up tight, her mouth pulled back by the tears in her neck, hearing the crying loud inside her head as well as coming out of her mouth.

  In front of her swimming eyes, the tablecloth moved, the fringe came away from Mrs Salmon’s bandaged legs, and Mrs Salmon’s face appeared above her fat knees, peering down at Ruthie sitting cross-legged in front of the hassock, the liquorice strap in her hand, her mouth blackened with it, as she howled.

  “Oy, nebbish!” Mrs Salmon cried. “What happened? What you doing there?”

  She pulled on Ruthie’s arm, hauled her out, while still Ruthie cried, tears dripping off the end of her nose.

  “What’s the matter, dolly? What happened? You bite your tongue?”

  All Ruthie could say was, “Gas,” the word coming mixed up with her crying and her mother came and picked her up, and held her close.

  “I forgot she was there,” she said above Ruthie’s head, pressing it down onto her shoulder, rocking her in her arms. “God forgive me, I forgot she was there. To talk of such things in front of a child—she’s frightened of the gas—to talk of such things before a child.”

  The other women got up from their chairs, coming round to pat Ruthie where she clung howling to her mother, and even above her tears, she could hear them crying themselves.

  “Nebbish, nebbish,” Mrs Salmon was saying, her voice all thick. “Poor baby—such times to live in for her. Poor baby—to be so frightened.”

  “Listen, dolly, we was only joking—only joking. There won’t be no gas raids—we forgot you was there—we make jokes—there won’t be no gas,” Black Sophie said loudly, sniffing as she spoke.

  But Ruthie only clung to her mother hopelessly and cried. It didn’t help, clinging to her mother. Not a bit. How could it? Her mother, all the others, all the grown ups in the world, they were pishers like Ruthie. They were no more than children like herself, only big children. To be grown up was nothing any more. She could never trust them again, none of them. The world was a horrible place with nothing but wetness to think of for ever and ever.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RUTHIE woke quite suddenly.

  The light was on, and across the room her mother was bundling Leon into a blanket, her yellow hair flopping untidily round her face as she moved. Above the sound of the siren, the very close one they always got up for, she could hear the more distant whine of the other sirens, and the big thumping sounds from far away that made her shiver, because the thumps made the house shake very slightly, made Ruthie’s feet tickle with the wobble of the house. She knew it wasn’t very late, because her mother still had on the dress she had worn all day, with a cardigan over it now, and anyway, she could feel that it was still not the part of the night that was nearly morning. It smelled different when it was nearly morning, like tomorrow, but now it still smelled like today, with the liver that had been fried for supper still in the air.

  H
er mother went down the stairs first, holding Leon high on one shoulder, peering round him as she picked her way over the cracked lino that covered the steps. The front door was open, and outside, Ruthie could see Mr Levine on the doorstep in his slippers and with his braces hanging down over his trousers. He was standing with his head thrown back, staring up at the sky, and his hair stood out black against the brightness of a search light that filled the blackness above the roofs of the houses on the other side of the street. Which was funny, because Mr Levine’s hair was white, really.

  Ruthie only ever saw Mr and Mrs Levine when there was a raid. Mr Levine went every day to his workshop, where he was a presser, and Mrs Levine went to the workshop too where she was a felling hand, and they never came home at night till Ruthie was in bed.

  “Alf!” Mrs Levine came waddling along the passage towards the front door, her big shopping bag, the plaited straw one, in her hand, a big fur coat on, and her hair pulled back under a big black hat with flowers on it. “Alf! What’s a matter with you? You want you should be blown to pieces? Come on.”

  Mr Levine came in, and shut the front door, so that the only light came from the Levines’ open kitchen door, at the end of the passage, behind the brown plush curtain that half shut off their end of the hallway. He locked the door carefully, muttering under his breath, while Mrs Levine stood behind him pulling at his shirt sleeve.

  “So come on, Alf! The box is all ready, and the gas is turned off—hello, Mrs Lee!” She nodded absently at Ruthie and her mother standing waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “I tell him, all the time I tell him. This is no time to stand admiring the view. But always he looks, always he looks and takes such chances. He wants we should all be blown up? I ask him, but what can you do? Does he listen to me?”

  “So I’m coming! I want to see, is that so wrong? They’re over the docks. You could go to bed again, believe me, tonight it’s the docks …”