JOE AND NELLY A World War Two ghost story

‘I’m so sorry, Joe,’ Grandad was saying. ‘Your mum didn’t even have time to grab some clothes.’

Joe felt dizzy from the thundering in his ears. He tried to speak but it came out as a stammer. The hot, dry words clogged his mouth. ‘How long ago did it happen?’

‘It was during the Blitz,’ Granddad replied.

‘But that was almost four years ago. Why did no one write and tell me?’

‘I’m sure your mum wrote to Mrs Williams. We thought it might be better if she told you face to face, rather than reading it in a letter,’ replied Granddad.

Joe stared at Granddad. ‘But she didn’t say anything. Why didn’t she tell me? It was my home. I lived there. All our things were there’

Granddad put both hands on Joe’s shoulders. They felt heavy, as if Granddad was holding him down.

‘Perhaps the letter got lost. Lots of letters get lost these days. It’s the war, Joe. People and things get lost.’

Joe shrugged off Granddad and stepped back. He couldn’t stop the tears from spilling over. He glanced back at the blurry bus stop and then at Granddad. His couldn’t untwist his face - it was so tight and hot.

‘But I don’t want to live in your house - I want to go home!’

Then he tore off down the street, to his house, where he belonged. Behind him he could just catch Granddad muttering, ‘I suppose you have to see for yourself.’

Joe stood in front of a huge crater where his house used to be. There were bits of the foundations and jagged lumps of walls, strips of wallpaper still hanging from them. Joe wanted to pull them off and tear them up. Glass from shattered windows glinted in the afternoon sunlight. Where a pair of houses once stood was the rotten hollow of a solitary giant tooth. Only a stump remained: the flight of stone steps that once led up to a shiny, black front door with the brass knocker Mum polished every day. Joe sniffed and wrinkled his nose. What was that? Dust and something else – something like rotten eggs. He pressed his lips together and swallowed a mouthful of bile. It burned his throat.

Holding his hand over his nose and mouth, Joe leaned over the edge of the crater. He spotted a single splintered chair leg in amongst the masonry. Was it one of theirs? It was so thick with dust, he wasn’t sure. It could have been from any of the houses. Huge haphazard piles of shattered furniture covered in glass and brick dust leaned towards the sky like mountains of Welsh slate - little pieces of his life were hidden underneath. It could have been Mum under there. His breath caught in his throat. A warm tear trickled down his face and dripped off his chin. What must it have been like, to run out of the house with just the clothes she was wearing, while bombs fell all around her?

And then he noticed a shadow. Somebody was hiding behind a pile of bricks that was topped by a broken chimney pot. He placed his foot on a wobbly piece of wood to get a better look but a cloud moved across the sun and the figure disappeared. Joe felt a chill on the back of his neck but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the place where the shadow had been.

His shoulder jerked as he felt someone put their arm around him. It was Granddad.

‘Come along home with me, son.’

Granddad’s massive hand, rough with calluses, swallowed Joe’s and tugged him back up the street to where Nan was waiting at their front door, wearing the same green checked apron she’d had on the day he was evacuated, the one that she’d sewn on her old Singer machine from left-over curtain fabric. Joe could see her tape measure poking out of the big pocket on the front. Peeping out next to it was something bright green. A chubby budgie fluttered out of the pocket and flew onto her shoulder. Any other budgie would have been off.

‘I’d forgotten about Monty,’ Joe said as Nan took a clean hanky from the depths of her apron, moistened it with spit and dabbed at the dusty tear stains on Joe’s cheeks.

‘Who’s a pretty boy?’ asked Monty in a voice just like Nan’s.

Joe couldn’t help giggling as he followed Nan into the dark hallway. They shuffled together towards the kitchen, her arm tight around him, pulling him closer.

Nan lifted her finger for Monty to hop on and put him into his cage, just inside the parlour door. While they waited for the kettle to boil, they sat in front of the fireplace, even though there was no fire at that time of year; this was where they always sat. Nan made a pot of tea, brought three cups and saucers, and they sat in silence for a while, sipping the bitter brew. Joe balanced on the hard edge of his chair, waiting for someone to say something.

Nan broke the silence. ‘In your letters you told us you were living on a farm. It must have been very different to London.’

Joe blew on his steaming tea and then gulped down a mouthful. ‘It was only a small farm, but...’ He stopped and looked around. After so much time, everything was unfamiliar. He didn’t remember Nan’s kitchen being so small.

‘...the kitchen was huge,’ he continued. ‘Mrs Williams had a big black range. The bedroom I shared with Peter was over the kitchen so in the winter it was lovely and warm. But if Mrs Williams was baking in the summer, we had to stay outdoors.’

‘Of course,’ said Nan. ‘But don’t they have an electric stove?’

‘The farmhouse was supposed to be connected but the war came. They still have gas lighting...’ Joe took a deep breath. ‘I’ve just remembered, I promised to write to Peter as soon as I got home.’

Nan fetched some paper, a pencil and a stamp, and they agreed that he could write his letter when he’d finished his cup of tea.

‘So when’s Mum coming home from work?’

‘After supper,’ said Nan. ‘Why don’t we go upstairs and start unpacking your case while your tea cools down. Then I can sort out your washing.’

Nan led Joe upstairs to the room he’d be sharing with Mum: there was one big brass bed, covered with one of Nan’s patchwork quilts, made out of dresses Mum wore when she was a little girl. Next to the bed, the rest of that side of the room was taken up by a huge, dark chest of drawers with short legs and brass handles. On top was a china wash basin and jug.

‘You’ll have to use that basin to save going down to the scullery sink in the morning,’ said Nan. ‘There’s usually a queue, what with so many people squashed under one roof.’

By the window that overlooked the street was a small, blue wicker chair. The fireplace was made up with kindling and a few lumps of coal, but it hadn’t been lit in a long time. There were no pictures, no toys or books, not even a rug on the floor. Joe thought back to the little room he had before the war, with its rag rug, his toy soldiers, model planes and shelf of books. He remembered sitting on the rug at Mum’s feet while she read to him. How long would it be until she got home?

They went back downstairs and Joe sat at the table with his cup of tea, chewing the end of the pencil and staring at the clock on the mantelpiece. He couldn’t concentrate on the letter to Peter.

‘Nan,’ he called into the scullery, where she was washing up the cups and saucers. ‘When did you say Mum would be home?’

‘After supper,’ Nan called back.

‘After supper,’ twittered Monty from his cage. At least he made Joe smile.

He tried sitting at the bottom of the stairs, right by the front door, picking at a loose piece of wallpaper, waiting for the sound of his mother’s key in the door and watching for the doorknob to turn. Voices drifted from the kitchen. Nan and Granddad were talking in hushed voices but Joe could still catch most of what they were saying.

Granddad said, ‘That Mrs Williams had no right...’

‘But she’s probably old-fashioned and thinks that children don’t need to know anything. She might have decided not to tell him,’ Nan said. ‘Eileen did write her a long letter explaining that she would have liked to tell Joe herself, but she couldn’t get time off work let alone afford the train fare.’

How could they blame Mrs Williams? Joe clenched his hands into two tight fists. It was most likely the letter never arrived - or someone forgot to post it in the muddle and upheaval of the Blitz. He wanted to put them right, tell them it wasn’t her fault, but he’d only just arrived and was too tired for an argument with grown-ups. He’d never win.

There was a screech as Granddad pushed his chair back and then the sound of his footsteps coming up the passage.

‘Joe,’ said Granddad, ‘you do know that a watched pot never boils, don’t you?’

‘That’s a daft saying,’ replied Joe. As Granddad turned to go back into the parlour, Joe tore off a small piece of wallpaper, screwed it up and threw it on the floor before following Granddad down the narrow passage.

After supper he returned to the darkness of the stairs, picking at a scab on his knee and counting the flowers on the wallpaper. When the front door finally opened, he jumped up and was about to run towards her - but the paleness of Mum’s face and the tiredness in her eyes made him jolt to a stop. He bit his bottom lip to stop tears welling – and then he ran into her open arms. She held him so tightly he could hardly breathe, but he didn’t want her to let go.

‘So how’s my boy?’ whispered Mum into his hair.

‘Happy to see you, Mum. I’ve been waiting all afternoon.’

They stayed in the cool, shadowy hallway, Mum on the bottom stair and Joe on the next one up, his elbow on her lap, her arms wrapped around him.

‘Did you enjoy the train ride home?’ she asked.

‘There weren’t as many children as there were when we were evacuated,’ said Joe. ‘But they packed us all into one carriage. I was squashed between the window and a girl with prickly pigtails who took up most of my seat as well as her own. I thought you’d be at the station to meet me, Mum.’

‘I’m so sorry, Joe. I wanted to be there too. It’s impossible to get time off and I couldn’t find anyone to swap shifts. Besides, if I’d met you from the station, I would have had to work tonight. This way, we have the rest of the evening together.’

‘What’s it like working on the buses?’

‘It depends which route I’m on,’ replied Mum. ‘Mostly I see the same people - they say hello and sometimes we have a chat. But I feel sad passing bomb sites every day.’

When Nan came out to prise them apart, they were both ready for a cup of tea. In the parlour, Joe presented Mum with a jar of home-made damson jam and Nan with a brand new leather-bound Bible that Mrs Williams gave him. Nan was a Sunday school teacher and her own Bible was old and worn. This one was illustrated and it had gold edges.

Despite looking tired out, Mum hadn’t really changed: her hair was still curly and blonde, her hands soft, the nails painted sea-shell pink, and underneath her clippie’s uniform she was wearing a soft pink sweater. After a cup of tea and some broken custard creams, they went up to their room, piled up the pillows against the brass railings on the bed and sat side by side.

‘I kept all your letters, Joe.’ Mum pulled a crumpled wad of envelopes out of her handbag, unfolded one of the letters and read it aloud:

’When we got to the farmhouse, I found out that she had also picked a littler younger boy than me, Peter, and a bigger an older girl, Janet. Shes like a big sister. She loves reading. At her school in London she won books as prises and even tho she was only aloud to bring one, she brawt brought them all with her and reads us a story every night.’

‘Oh, Mum,’ said Joe, ‘I missed you so much and couldn’t wait to get home. Janet and Peter had to stay in Wales. I wonder when they’ll see their families again.’

‘I hope it won’t be too long.’

‘Do you know when Dad’s coming home?’

‘I haven’t heard from him in ages,’ Mum said. ‘His last letter was in April, but he didn’t know when his next leave would be.’

Joe wanted to tell her that Dad would be home soon, but he stuttered and choked on the words. Would they ever see him again? Mum took from her pocket a black and white photograph of Dad in his uniform, which she placed on the mantelpiece so they could see it from the bed. The man in the picture smiled out at Joe with warm, twinkling eyes. He always had that twinkle, as well as a joke or a song that he would sing to him. Joe’s favourite was ‘On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep’ and he knew the words off by heart:

On Mother Kelly’s doorstep,

Down Paradise Row,

Where little girl Nelly

Used to sit along with Joe.

Joe wondered if Nelly, the girl who lived next door, was still around or if her family had moved away after their house was destroyed.

They went back downstairs to say hello to the rest of the gang: Granddad’s brother Tom and his wife, and Mr and Mrs Davies, friends of his grandparents who used to live a few doors down from Joe. He knew them quite well but wasn’t used to having them all in one place, and he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to see them every day. He would prefer to visit them in their own houses. Mum disappeared for a while and then came back down in her nightie and a blue dressing gown. She stood in the parlour door.

‘Come on, Joe. It’s time we went to bed. If you get ready now, we can read a book before the blackout.’

This was what Joe had been waiting for. He kissed Nan and Granddad and said goodnight to everyone, including Monty, sitting in his cage under the cloth Nan put on each evening. He washed his face and cleaned his teeth in the scullery, and then ran upstairs, where Mum was sitting on the edge of the bed. It didn’t take long to pull off his clothes, fold them and put them on the chair by the window. He stood there in his vest and underpants.

‘Where are your pyjamas?’ Mum asked.

Joe dived under the bed and dragged out the suitcase. ‘Here they are. I left them in the case because Nan wanted to wash all my clothes and Mrs Williams put these in fresh off the line. I only have two pairs.’

‘Did they look after you, Joe? Were you happy in Wales?’

Joe wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want his mum to worry but he didn’t want to lie to her either. ‘I had to work hard on the farm... but I had great fun with Janet and Peter.’

‘Janet seems like a nice girl.’

‘Yes. She’s fourteen now and really clever.’

Joe climbed up onto the bed as high as Mount Snowdon and wriggled under the quilt.

‘See this patch, Joe, with the red, yellow and blue boats. It’s from a dress Nan made for me one summer when I was about your age. She sewed it especially for a day trip in a charabanc they hired at the factory – the one she worked in. Everyone went to Littlehampton, including the children. I thought I was the bee’s knees in that dress.’

‘Did you know Dad then?’ Joe asked.

‘Not then. We met some years later, when I first left school. Now, what book have you got for me to read?’

‘I don’t have any,’ he said. ’I gave Swallows and Amazons to Janet before I got on the train this morning.’

‘Well then, it’ll have to be a song.’

Joe loved it when Mum sang to him. She knew all the best songs and never forgot the words.

‘Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed, droops on his little hands little gold head.’

Joe joined in with: ‘Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.’

They got to ‘God bless Daddy’ and Mum stopped singing. On the back of the door was the blue dressing gown. It was Nan’s old one; she must have lent it to Mum. Joe carried on singing: ’It’s a beautiful blue, but it hasn’t a hood. Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good. Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed, and pull the hood right over my head. I shut my eyes, and I curl up small, and nobody knows that I’m there at all. Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day. And what was the other I had to say? I said ‘Bless Daddy,’ so what can it be? Oh! Now I remember it. God bless me.’

Before he closed his eyes, Joe asked Mum, ‘What happened to the aeroplane Dad made for me?’

‘I suppose it must be somewhere in the rubble, Joe.’

He lay awake for what seemed like hours, wondering why Mum had stopped singing.