The Restless Sea

Then he puts his head back and laughs again, moving away as he does.

Jack catches sight of something in the sailor’s hand, winking and blinking in the sunlight. ‘Oy!’ he says, snatching at the bracelet. ‘That’s mine.’

The sailor holds the jewel out of reach. ‘No wonder you was running,’ he says. ‘It’s a fine piece …’

Jack blushes, ashamed, but the anger is a stronger emotion, and he lunges again, grabbing the bracelet from the man’s hand and backing away.

The man grunts, as if satisfying some inner itch. ‘Perhaps it’s too late already,’ he says. ‘You’s in too deep.’

Jack doesn’t want to listen any more. He has inched far enough, and now he turns and stumbles away from the latrines, slipping back among the dock workers, those men with the same worn and weary expressions as his father. He keeps his head down, cap pulled low, occasionally throwing a glance back over his shoulder, but the gold-toothed sailor has vanished into the maelstrom of the docks.

A little further on, he finally reaches his destination. Carl nods a curt hello. He is shorter and stockier than Jack, and he keeps his hair shaved close, which makes his neck look thicker and his shoulders broader. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he says.

‘Thought I’d come and check we were all right for tomorrow.’

‘’Course,’ says Carl. He peers at Jack more closely. ‘But what’re you really doing here?’

Jack shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. ‘Fancy going to the pictures?’

But Carl knows him better than that. ‘Whatever you’ve done,’ he says, ‘you better have left it at the gates. My dad’s not going to let us work together if—’

Jack cuts him off. ‘It was nothing,’ he says. ‘Just Stoog kicking off …’

‘I thought you were putting all that behind you?’

Jack cannot meet his eye. ‘I am. I have …’

‘A new start, you said …’

‘Just drop it, will you?’

Carl doesn’t push it. He and Jack have been best friends for as long as they can remember – brought together on the docks, and in the same class since they were sent to primary. The boys watch Mr Mills work for a while. He is a deal porter: unloading and stacking the long planks that arrive on the steamers from overseas and the narrowboats from upcountry. It’s a skill that’s up there with the best on the docks, and means regular employment, a far cry from the casual labour that Jack’s dad had to rely on. But it’s still hard work. Jack can barely lift one plank; Mr Mills carries three or four at a time. He wears a leather cap with a long bit dangling down to protect his shoulders. It is like watching an acrobat, the balancing and judging where best to lay the next plank on the towering pile, the skipping from mound to mound, and all the time the planks on his shoulder tipping up and down while his legs and feet work to keep his body stable.

When he spots Jack, Mr Mills jumps down from the top of the mountain as sure-footed as a goat, his muscles bulging and flexing with effort. He is breathing heavily, his broad chest expanding and contracting against his braces. His calloused hands are full of splinters. ‘Jack,’ he says, his low voice betraying his dislike. The scar on his cheek is a pale, raised streak down his red face; Carl’s family have Jewish blood, and the mark is a souvenir from the fight against the fascists in Cable Street.

‘Mr Mills,’ says Jack, nodding back.

‘I thought you two was going to work tomorrow?’

‘We are. But since he’s here now, can we go to the pictures?’ says Carl.

Mr Mills rubs his scar and eyes Jack. ‘You’ll have to be up early …’

‘We know …’

‘I want you back by dark.’

‘Sure.’

‘Or I’ll have your mother on my case …’

‘I’ll be back.’

Mr Mills gives Jack another narrow look and then rubs Carl’s head, and Carl pushes him away, laughing, then the boys disappear once more into their city.

Jack settles the cap firmly on his head, pulling it down tight. He creeps out without waking his sister. It is easier now that she sleeps in their mother’s bed. He will pick her up later in the morning, once his mother has been at work for an hour or so. The guilt that plucks at his insides is tinged with worry: Betsy still can’t read properly, and now that the school has relocated to the countryside it looks as if she never will. He knows she will be cross when she wakes – she likes to stick as close to him as his own shadow these days – but the docks are no place for a child.

Dawn is breaking. The sky is leaden, pressing down on him with a suffocating heaviness. It is cold, and he half jogs down the high street to try to keep warm. Past the air-raid siren. Past the navy blue police box, and the sandbagged shop fronts – the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the hosiery shop, the tobacconist, the pawnbroker. The stillness is broken by an ancient fire engine and a taxi pulling a water pump that trundle past in the opposite direction. Probably a drill. Everything’s a drill these days. Sometimes he wishes the Nazis would come and drop a bloody bomb. That at least might be exciting.

Jack has been good as his word, working the docks with Carl for the last two weeks, avoiding Stoog and the others. Today the boys are heading to the East and West India docks, Jack’s favourites, where the air smells of spices and oils, of spilt rum and sacks full of tobacco left to mature in the warehouses. Much of the work is still beyond even Carl’s ability – rolling or repairing the heavy barrels, or portering coal and grain – and they stay out of the way of the seasoned gangs with their vicious case hooks, but there is still plenty of work to be found. The boys take what they can get: an hour here or there loading and unloading the smaller carts and trolleys, separating cargo on the floors of the warehouses, jemmying open chests for the customs officials.

They cross from dock to dock, hitching a lift in a cart or a truck or a barge, or they take the train from the Royal Docks, with its vast refrigeration sheds packed with ghostly pale slabs of meat. There is cheese arriving from Europe, and fabric from India, apples and grapefruit from Australia, Palestine. Persian carpets, and silks from India pass beneath cars and buses dangling from great chains. Passenger liners deposit travellers from New Zealand, the Canaries, South Africa, Brazil. Everything is in multiples: lines of people, crates of food, stacks of timber, barrels of wine – once, even, four elephants for the circus.

Carl catches up with Jack on the bridge. The sky has lightened to a pale grey, and there is an eerie mist like a sheen on the river. They are dockside before first call-on, down where the cavernous warehouses and towering chimneys loom reddy-orange in the watery light. The familiar thud and crash of boat and barge mingles with the shouts and curses of men. Jack hears the warning to look out as an unsecured load crashes to the ground, sees the glint of metal as another worker digs his sharp case hook into a sack, savours the smell of coffee and cocoa beans on his tongue.

Today there is a shipment of bananas. Jack watches the green bunches trundle down from the ship’s holds on creaky conveyor belts. A man with a horse and cart waits patiently while the first lot of fruit is loaded on to trolleys for the waiting trains and lorries. Carl and Jack have worked with this man before. Once the bulk of the bananas have gone, they help him place the fruit into wooden crates and pack them around with straw. The conveyor belt creaks and squeaks and groans. Jack glances up to the gunwale of the ship, but the gold-toothed sailor is not there. The sailors looking back at him have skin the colour of the roasted chestnuts that he sometimes buys as a treat for Betsy in the winter, their white teeth flashing like chalk on slate.

The driver jumps on to the back of the cart and Carl and Jack hand the crates up to him. Jack’s arms ache: bananas are heavier than they look. There are other crates of fruit here already, apples and grapefruit that make the back of the cart smell like sunshine and sugar. Jack’s mouth waters.

When they have finished, the man hops down and chats to the dockers, while the boys rest their weary arms. The horse seems unfazed by the constant commotion. It stands with its head low, eyes half-closed, ears flicking one way or the other, resting each hind leg in turn. Jack runs his hand along the animal’s flank. It is soft and warm. He leans against it, sucking up the heat through his sleeves. After the hard work, his sweat is starting to cool.

‘Make the most of these,’ says one of the dockers to the cart driver, removing his flat cap and scratching his head. ‘Reckon you’ll be lucky to see any more for a while.’

‘Problems with supply?’ asks the cart driver.

The docker shakes his head. ‘Not at the other end. But these poor bastards are having a job getting through.’ He indicates another man, a sailor.

The sailor nods his head. ‘Sea’s swarming with Nazis,’ he says.

‘Going to starve us out?’

‘Don’t seem to make a difference what the cargo is. They’ll take a pop at anything. Even passenger ships.’

The men shake their heads and suck their teeth.

‘What if the country runs out of food?’

‘That’s never going to happen.’

‘Government’s talking about rationing butter and bacon in case we get short.’

‘Let’s hope it don’t come to that.’ The sailor shares cigarettes out around the group. They light them, the smoke curling in thin blue lines into the air. The smell reminds Jack of his dad.

‘You heading back out there?’

‘Got to.’

‘Got anything to protect you?’

‘’Course not. But I heard we might get a Navy escort.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

They stand in silence for a bit, pulling on their cigarettes. The tobacco burns and crumbles and turns to ash that flies away, dissolving into nothing.

Above them, someone starts to rattle the conveyor belt. The sailors are leaning over the edge. One of them whistles, a shrill note that makes the men on the ground look up. ‘That’s us, then.’ The men start to disperse. ‘See you next time.’

‘Let’s hope.’

‘Good luck.’

‘See you.’

The men tip their hats at each other. The cart driver drops his butt on the ground, grinds it out with his boot. At last he is ready to go. He jumps up on to the driver’s bench and the boys clamber up on the back of the cart. They lurch off, past queues of lorries, their goods covered in canvas, waiting to be sent to all the corners of the world. Past a warehouse full of vast tusks sorted into piles of various sizes. Past men in top hats, stroking their glossy moustaches.

Jack leans against a bouncing crate. Carl tips his cap to the back of his head and rubs at his short hair. It looks soft, like the fur of the rabbits that hang in rows outside the butchers’ shops.

Jack swings his legs, enjoying the ride. ‘You ever thought about getting work on a ship?’ he asks.

‘Funny you should say that,’ says Carl. ‘My dad’s been on at me to give it a go. Says the docks are a mug’s game. He’s not fifty yet, but his back’s done in and his shoulder’s all but seized up. Sometimes my mum has to help him get out of bed in the morning …’

‘What about them Nazis?’

‘If the war lasts, then we’ll all have to face them somewhere, I guess.’

The cart bounces and bumps as the city unfolds behind them: streets clogged with men and women and horses and carts and bicycles and buses and trucks. The shops are busy now, chalkboards propped up outside, doors swinging open and shut beneath bright hoardings advertising brown ale and Rowntree’s pastilles.

At Covent Garden, the boys help place the boxes of fruit on to wooden barrows. A man walks past with a dozen wicker baskets stacked on his head, the tower swaying like a huge snake. Broad-bosomed women sit on the kerb, flowers in their hats, deep in conversation. Men pull barrows and crates this way and that. Horses chomp at bags of hay. Vehicles come and go. You’d never believe there was a war on.

The cart driver presses a ha’penny into Jack’s hand. ‘Thanks, lads. See you again,’ he says.

Jack pockets the shiny coin, swallowing his disappointment. Three hours of honest work earns less than the brief second it takes to snatch a wallet.

They drift towards the arched entrance to the market. The air is a pandemonium of people bartering over fruit and vegetables and flowers. Beyond a clump of ragged children, Jack spots a familiar face. Vince.

Carl puts a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Leave it,’ he says. ‘You’re doing good without them.’

Jack shakes him off, pulling the ha’penny from his pocket and shoving it into Carl’s hand. ‘We can’t split this,’ he says, ‘it’s not enough.’

‘You got to stick at it.’

‘I’ve just got one more thing to offload.’

‘There’s always just one more thing …’ says Carl, but Jack is already making after Vince, who is sliding down a back alley, hugging the wall as if he wants to sink into the brickwork.

Jack blocks his path. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he says.

‘Well now you found me,’ says Vince, his eyes glittering like the sewer rat that he is.

‘I’ve got a bracelet,’ says Jack.

‘I heard you had something.’

‘It’s a proper fine one.’

Vince narrows his eyes. ‘Thing is, jewels is tricky things to get rid of,’ he says.

‘Oh, come on. It’s never stopped you in the past …’

‘Give me something to go on, then.’

Jack describes every pearl and stone in detail. He has taken the bracelet out from beneath his mattress nightly to admire its workmanship.

Vince is quiet for a moment, as if mulling over the sum in his head. ‘I’ll give you ten pound,’ he says eventually.

‘Ten pound?’ says Jack. ‘It’s worth ten times that.’

Vince shrugs. ‘Maybe through the proper channels …’

‘You mean through Stoog?’

‘That’s the way it works, my friend.’

‘I’m not your friend,’ says Jack, grabbing him by the collar.

Vince throws his hands out to the sides, twisting on the end of Jack’s fist. ‘It ain’t my fault,’ he says. Jack yanks the neck of the shirt hard before releasing his grip so that Vince yelps, then backs away, rubbing the pinched pale flesh of his neck. ‘What you do that for? You know I got to keep Stoog sweet …’

‘I’ll find someone else to take it,’ says Jack.

‘You can try. No one else is going to touch it. Stoog’s put the word out.’

‘Who does he think he is? Al fucking Capone?’

Vince shrugs. ‘Someone’s got to be in charge,’ he says, ‘or else the whole system falls apart.’

Jack feels the anger bubble up inside him. ‘I don’t need the money, anyway,’ he says. ‘I’m doing fine going straight.’

‘Looks like it,’ says Vince.

Jack glares at him for a moment and then spits his contempt on to the ground at Vince’s feet. But Vince is already sidling on down the alley, as slippery as a jellied eel.

It takes Jack some time to find a pawnbroker who will accept the bracelet and its tenuous provenance. The shops with their three gold baubles hanging above the door are easy to find, and he makes sure it is far enough north not to impact on his patch. The price is pitiful – worse, even, than what Vince offered – but Jack cannot take the risk of the bracelet hanging around the house any longer – and he does not want to have to crawl back to Stoog, cap in hand.

Carl and Jack take the day off on Sundays, even though Jack could do with the extra work. Betsy and Jack like to meet Carl down by the river at Cherry Garden Pier. It’s become a tradition. The siblings don’t even bother to say goodbye to their mother. She likes to lie in on Sundays. Dead to the world now that she’s toiling all hours. It seems wrong to Jack that his mother is working on site, building a new bridge across the river, of all things. He can’t get used to her leaving in her overalls, walking like a man in those clumpy boots, with that scarf around her head. In the evening her face is smudged with dirt, and she stinks of grease and oil. He wonders what his dad will think when he comes back. He wonders where his dad is. On the Belgium–France border, they’ve been told. But Jack’s not sure exactly where Belgium is.

Carl is waiting for them in the usual spot. The tide is out, and they roam the muddy beach, searching for treasure among the slimy pebbles and bits of smooth, gnarled wood. Sometimes there are old coins, medieval pins, Roman pottery to be found. Stoog says he once saw a severed hand, but no one believes him.

They find a place to sit on the driest bit of the shoreline furthest from the water. In the distance Tower Bridge sticks two fingers up at the sky. The river oozes towards the sea. Ships of all shapes and sizes run with it and against it. The dredgers are at work scraping their clawfuls of silt away from the banks and dumping them into the middle of the river. Jack breathes the smell of the dank shore deep into his nostrils.

Carl throws a stone as far as he can. It plops into the water. ‘My dad’s inquiring about that place at sea school,’ he says. There is an apologetic tone to his voice.

Jack’s heart sinks, but he can’t blame his friend for wanting to do something about his life.

‘You could come?’ says Carl.

‘I can’t,’ Jack says, tilting his head in Betsy’s direction. ‘You know my dad wanted me to keep an eye on the girls.’ He tries to raise a smile, but it’s impossible. He is destined to be stuck here, scraping a living while other people travel the world, or fight the Jerries. It isn’t fair.

‘Any trouble from Stoog?’ Carl asks.

‘I’m steering clear.’ Carl still does not know about the bracelet business, and Jack has managed to avoid Stoog for now. There is an uneasy truce on the streets as the city waits to see what the war has in store for it.

Carl is silent for a moment, watching Betsy sift through the rubbish on the shore. Her shoes and socks are wet, and her hands are filthy. Her long dark hair is matted like a bird’s nest. ‘Don’t give up now, Jack,’ he says. ‘You’ve worked hard at staying out of trouble.’ Jack does not tell him that he has already started to thieve again. Three wallets in almost as many days. He had forgotten what easy money it was compared to the lugging and scrimping down at the docks. Blackout has its advantages, after all.

Betsy tugs at Jack’s sleeve.

‘Look,’ she says. She holds a piece of coloured glass up to the light. Although it has been polished smooth to a hazy green on the outside, inside it there is an imperfection – a crack – that looks just like a star. ‘It’s for you.’

‘Don’t you want to keep it?’

‘Promise you won’t send me away like the other kids?’

‘I’m not planning on it.’

‘Promise.’

‘Fine! I promise.’

‘Then I want you to have this to remember your promise.’ It’s the most she’s said in weeks. Her solemn brown eyes peer out at him from under the tangle of her hair.

‘I don’t need it to remember,’ he says, grabbing hold of her and rumpling the top of her head.

‘Take it.’ She presses the glass into his hand until it hurts.

‘All right!’ he says. ‘I won’t forget. You’re not going anywhere.’ He pulls her down next to him and gives her a squeeze. They watch the sky darken and lighten as clouds shift across it, chasing each other away from the city. They are each lost in their thoughts.

It starts to drizzle, blobs of cold on their skin. Jack stands, yanking Betsy up too. ‘Come on,’ he says. The three of them make their way towards the embankment. The rain trickles down their backs and over their gas mask boxes, softening the cardboard and making the doodles on Betsy’s blur at the edges.

The boys start to run, but Betsy can’t keep up. Carl grabs her and hoists her over his shoulder as if she weighs nothing more than a coat. She hangs there giggling as he trots up the beach and the uneven stone steps towards the road. Jack laughs too: he had forgotten what Betsy’s happiness sounded like. It rolls and falls from her mouth like a song in time with Carl’s strides, and her long hair flies out behind them like seaweed.

CHAPTER 2

Sunday, a year later, and they no longer meet at Cherry Garden Pier. In fact, Jack has not seen Carl for weeks. The Nazis have started to fly their bombs across the Channel, and Mr Mills keeps an even tighter rein on his son.

With fewer and fewer ships making it through, there is hardly any work at the docks. The men clamour for jobs; the gangers struggle to keep them under control. There is nothing for Jack. He is bottom of the heap. It is no longer a question of whether he stays straight. He does what he can to survive.

Betsy and Jack wander the streets and parks, making the most of what little daylight there is and enjoying the break from the daily drudgery of their lives. It has been raining heavily, and there are dirty puddles on the road. The pavement is dark and shiny. The wheels of the traffic splosh through the water and spray them with mud. They wander past their old school. It has been taken over by the air-raid wardens, and doubles as a first-aid post. The playground where they used to play hopscotch and marbles and kick-the-can is empty now, apart from sandbags and a big board with a clock face on it, telling them what time blackout is tonight. An ARP warden has just finished moving the hands. It’s the same warden who patrols their street, shouting through the letterbox if he thinks there’s any light showing at night.

They are at the edge of the park when Betsy tugs on Jack’s sleeve. ‘Look!’ she says. It is the first time he has seen her smile for weeks. The cumulative effect of fear, poverty and boredom has ground them both into near silence; his face is as pinched and drawn as hers.

Carl is waving at them across the grass. The boys greet each other warmly, and Betsy lets Carl hug her. He lifts her clean off her feet. She looks pitifully scrawny dangling there against his stocky frame. The three of them linger in the park, relaxing in each other’s company, catching up on all those weeks missed.

‘I’m going at the end of the month,’ says Carl.

‘Going?’

‘Don’t you remember? Sea school.’

‘So it’s actually happening? You’re leaving me for dust.’

‘It’s not too late, Jack. You could still come. There’s space …’

‘You know I can’t …’

Carl shrugs. There is no point pressing on. ‘How you been keeping anyway?’

‘I get by.’

Carl frowns, but there is no time to expand, because at that moment they see more familiar figures approaching: Tommy and Vince are swaggering along the path. Beside them is Stoog, carrying a football and walking with jerky movements, as if at every step he expects trouble.

Jack can sense Carl’s irritation. ‘Come on,’ he says, ‘they’re not that bad. Have a game? It’ll be like the old days.’

‘I thought you two had fallen out?’

‘We fell back in again.’ It is true that they have buried the hatchet for now, but there is always a simmering tension where Stoog is involved, and Jack knows that he has not forgiven him. But Jack needs Stoog again, as he needed Carl before. Stoog can get him work. On the street they’re brothers of a kind.

‘You know you can’t trust him …’

‘I have to trust him. I’ve got no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice.’

‘Please?’ Jack puts a brotherly arm around Carl, and Carl rolls his eyes, but nods.

The incomers are upon them. ‘Up for a game?’ says Jack.

Stoog shoots Carl one of his looks. They have never got on. The other boys watch in silence. Stoog puffs out his chest, enjoying being the one on whom the decision rests. He nods slowly. The boys grin.

They call to a couple of the other boys who are scattered across the park. Jack recognises Eddy, who used to be in Betsy’s class, one of the many kids who trickled back to the city after the first round of evacuations to the country. ‘Why don’t you two go and look for conkers?’ says Jack.

Betsy nods at Eddy shyly and they wander off towards the large horse chestnut tree on the edge of the path. Eddy swings his gas mask up into the tree. Betsy giggles and does the same. They run to where the green balls are knocked down on to the wet grass, cracking them open to see if any are worth keeping.