Ma worked all hours at the factory and had no time to queue for food, so I took the ration books and spent hours getting food in. I didn’t mind so much. I had Corporal Pig and I’d put together a show. Some people even gave us money, but you had to watch out for people who wanted to steal CP for their stew, so when I was sure ma wasn’t home I’d leave him behind where he’d be safe.
I had to drag ma into the Andersen shelter when the siren went. She’d yell at me, but usually she’d come. There were nights she didn’t, when she’d just sit and rock and sob, and she wouldn’t come at all, so I left her. I left her to get bombed, but she never did.
Then one day she never came home. Sometimes she came home late in the night, but this night she didn’t come. I waited, but she didn’t return, not for days or weeks. I asked some of the neighbours, but they hadn’t seen her and I soon stopped asking when they started snooping on me – ‘You on your own, Goblin?’ I lied and said David had come back. I said everything was fine.
I thought she might have died in a bombing. Or maybe she’d found a brand new family and gone to live with them because she had nothing here. I didn’t care much at all, except I was worried about the rent. I went to old Martha to pay her what I could out of the tin in the kitchen where ma and da kept money for food, but old Martha and her house were gone.
‘Bombed,’ said her neighbour. ‘A few weeks ago.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Up there, boy. Or more likely down there, to be truthful.’
‘She died?’
He nodded. ‘Remains sent down south to her son. He got special leave on account of her death. I suppose he’ll be up to deal with her affairs at some point. What you want her for anyhow?’
‘Nuthin’,’ I said, ‘She was just a friend of my ma.’
‘Well, if you ask me, it’s no big loss,’ he said, staring at the rubble. Then he looked at me and said, ‘Condolences to your ma, though.’
‘Right, thanks.’
There was a spring in my step as I headed back home, feeling as rich as can be with all the tin money in my pocket, and pleased that old Martha was dead and gone. I just had to hope her son was too busy being a soldier to bother with Martha’s affairs as I had to keep a roof over the head of my ever-growing family.
There was CP, and Mr Fenwick’s Groo, and his chickens, Billy Bones and Dr Kemp (I asked around the neighbourhood about Mr Fenwick, but no one knew where he’d gone). I sometimes looked after Betty, an old dog belonging to my neighbour, Miss Campbell. She asked me to take her out for walks, as she was working long hours, doing her bit for the war effort, and poor Betty was lonely. I wasn’t too happy about it at first because I thought she’d remind me of Devil and I didn’t want to think of Devil anymore, but I felt bad for Betty and she wasn’t like Devil at all and I was glad for that. She was old and slow and liked to sleep a lot. She got on well with CP, but she didn’t like the chickens. She didn’t much like Captain Flint either. I found Captain Flint, a baby raven, after a bombing. I’d taken him to the vet who said Flint was just stunned and the vet gave me advice on how to feed him until he was old enough to make his own way. I’d collected them all and taken them in and it was so much trouble to get them in the shelter when the siren went that I eventually stopped going. We all stayed. ‘If you lot die,’ I said, ‘I may as well too.’
They mostly didn’t bother at the sound of the siren or the sound of bombs exploding nearby, but Captain Flint would sometimes get all het up and flap about making a hideous noise, which made Groo shake with nerves and caused Billy Bones to join in with the flapping and skittering. CP would just sit and snore, adjusting to the war noise better than any of the city animals.
I wrote to Angel and told her about Captain Flint and Miss Campbell’s Betty, but I didn’t tell her I didn’t go to the shelter anymore – I pretended they were good and obedient. She replied saying she looked forward to meeting them one day and told me she was happy because Ann and Bill were going to adopt her. That made me feel sad, even though I should have been happy for her, so I didn’t write to her for a few days.
I just got on with looking after my family. Groo became attached to CP. She’d groom him like she used to do with Devil, except CP didn’t mind at all. She’d follow him around and soon she was riding on his back, lying stretched out, like she was trying to get her legs all the way round him in a big hug. I saw her riding backwards once; she watched CP’s curly tail jiggling and swiped at it.
‘Claws in!’ I warned her, but I didn’t need to. If she hurt CP at all, he’d snort and roll over and she’d leap off before he crushed her. She’d meow at me, all put out, when it was her own stupid fault.
Sometimes the chickens ran through the house, shitting everywhere, and I’d chase after them and curse them and tell them, ‘Do your pooping outside, ya vagrants! This is a respectable household! Here I am looking after the house all alone, and there you are pooping on the upholstery.’ That’s what I said to those chickens, and I’d chase them and they’d flap and cluck and not give a care. Groo would ignore the chickens, turn her back on them like they weren’t even there, like they were beneath her. She only had eyes for CP.
Then CP went and vanished. Now ma was gone I thought it was safe to leave CP in the garden, snuffling and rolling in the mud, but he went and vanished. My comrade, my friend for life, he was gone, throat slit for sure, bubbling away in someone’s stew, in someone’s bloated belly.
‘I tried to look after him, mister,’ I said, thinking of our kindly stranger who liked pigs. ‘I tried. But there’s a war on, and people get nasty in a war, mister. They steal your best friend and boil them in a pot. That’s the war for you, mister sir. That’s the bleedin’ war for you.’
We held a ceremony in memory of Corporal Pig, Comrade in Weary Walking, Friend for Life. Queen Isabella, Amelia and Scholler came along, and I could tell they could tell I was really grieving for that old CP so they didn’t give me any trouble. Queen Isabella said, ‘We’re sorry about your hideous beast,’ and I know she was trying her best so I just nodded and let them stay. I gave a speech and put a stake in the ground, tying a plaque to it that read ‘Here does not lieth Comrade in Weary Walking, Corporal Pig, Friend in the Highest Esteem, for he lieth in the belly of a bloated son of a whore. A salute to Corporal Pig, the finest friend for life, may the lizards below keep thee and curse the bloated belly of the murderous bastard. Salute!’
Groo wailed and wailed after CP vanished, and I cried with her and I said, ‘I’m sorry, Groo, I’m sorry I didn’t look after your comrade. And I’m sorry I let Devil die. I’m sorry,’ and she wailed and wailed and started chewing on my hair again.
From then on I looked at my neighbours with suspicion, checking their bellies, looking to see if they’d gotten suddenly fatter. ‘Good morning, Goblin!’ they’d say. ‘What’s good about it?’ I’d say and walk on, eyeing their bellies.
From then on the chickens were only allowed out when I was there. All the animals lived in the house with me and they pooped wherever they pleased.
I wanted to ask Angel to come, but I didn’t. I wanted to tell her about CP, but I didn’t because she’d only worry, so I wrote to her and said everyone was happy and everything was fine.
London, April 1941
Trundling and bumping and falling at times, Monsta and I.
I’d made a scooter from wood, scraps here and there, and it was rickety and squint. Still early, still quiet, people stooped and tired, bending to the rubble, searching and searching and finding crushed food and clothes and toys and photos and bodies and parts of bodies and burnt up bodies that didn’t look like anything at all. We flew through the streets, turning and feinting, once here, once there, avoiding rubble and people and holes but a brick we hit and over we go, Monsta and I, head over heels in the air. Oi kid! Stop messing and help, don’t you know there’s a war on? Let the kid play leave him be, it’s good to see them play. Bleedin’ kids think it’s all a game, eh?