Read Online All Fall Down by Jenny Oldfield - Free Book Online Page A

cluttered desk. ‘Bleeding mad.’
    He sat shrouded by smoke, cigarette dangling from his mouth as he took down details of the job. By the time he’d finished, Walter had buttoned up his heavy jacket and was gone.
    Walter didn’t like any aspect of the current search for Richie Palmer any better than Rob. He had plenty of time to think of it as he paced the dark streets, finding his way by the white bands painted around the tree trunks at the edge of Nelson Gardens. For a kick-off, he didn’t like to think of Sadie and Meggie out by themselves on these dark nights. After five months of waiting on tenterhooks for the German threat to materialize – for the gas rattles to sound, the fire bombs to land – it wasn’t so much that he thought any longer that they’d get caught in an air raid. By now everyone was jaded, irritable, even let-down, but certainly not afraid that Jerry would suddenly arrive out of the sky in a storm of gas clouds and a burst of flames.
    No, it was the blackout and what went on under cover of darkness. There were areas where it wasn’t safe to walk, yet Meggie insisted that Soho was the area to search. She’d got it into her head that her father had moved on from the East End, north of the river to the richer pickings of the theatre and club area. Reluctantly, after much soul-searching, Sadie had agreed they should look together.
    â€˜What if she’s right?’ Walter had wanted to know. ‘What if Richie does turn up?’
    Sadie had stared back at him from hollow eyes, red-rimmed withsleeplessness. ‘He won’t,’ she assured him. ‘You know Richie; when he wants to vanish he does it good and proper.’
    â€˜Well then?’ He wanted to hold her close so as not to see her fears.
    â€˜Well then, let her look, get it out of her system. Where’s the harm in that? But I’d rather she had me with her, and I’m glad we know what she’s up to, at any rate.’
    â€˜Righto, and what if Richie don’t turn up, like you say?’
    â€˜Then at least she tried. And she won’t be so hard on herself after.’
    â€˜Meggie? What’s she got to feel bad about?’
    Sadie had sighed and turned over in bed, her face away from him. Now Walter shone his torch over the wall of sandbags at the shelter entrance. He heard her reply loud and clear as if she stood next to him.
    â€˜Meggie’s got it into her head that it was her fault Richie ran off in the first place. No, it ain’t sensible, I know, but that’s what she thinks; that there was something the matter with her that made her pa leave us in the lurch.’
    His duty done, Walter switched off his torch and headed for home. Absent-mindedly he checked the blackout as he went along Union Street and on to Duke Street. The odd car crept by, headlights hooded and dimmed. Gas mask posters hung in tatters from an old billboard, some wag had scratched a Hitler moustache onto the face of the blonde socialite beauty who bore the message, ‘Keep Mum, She’s Not So Dumb’. The Duke was already closed up for the night, Paradise Court was silent and empty.
    At Number 32 he turned the key and opened the door into the dark, cold house. Sadie and Meggie weren’t back, though it was half past eleven, on the mantelpiece clock. He turned on the radio. ‘Jairmany calling, Jairmany calling.’ The jackass tones of Lord Haw-Haw droned over the airwaves as Walter went through to the kitchen to boil the kettle and wait.
    â€˜You ain’t carrying your gas mask.’ Edie looked up from her desk.Tommy was setting off for the bank to fetch the wages. She tut-tutted in a maternal fashion.
    He hitched up his jacket collar. ‘It ain’t me you’re worried about, Edie Morell, it’s your blessed pay packet.’ Teasing her was one of life’s few remaining pleasures.
    â€˜How did you guess?’
    â€˜ ’Cos I know you