Chapter 20 Blitz Spirit
Ned stared at the familiar door, still painted black, and raised his left hand just above the plain brass knocker.
With more of a steadying breath than he should require, Ned put his hand to the knocker.
Almost immediately the door swung open. “As I live and breathe, Ned Pinsent?! What a sight for sore eyes.” Ned barely had time to register Betty before she pulled him into a tight hug. She was softer than the last time he had seen her, but there was no doubt that motherhood and marriage suited her.
Ned awkwardly returned Betty’s embrace. “My apologies for running a bit late, my dear, but duty called. I hope this will make up for it.” He extracted a box of chocolates from his coat.
“Unnecessary, but we won’t say no.” There was movement in the hall and Betty called out, “Ellie dear, come meet your father’s friend.”
The gangly twelve-year-old waved shyly to him; her features were Betty’s, but her chestnut hair and the smattering of freckles on her pale skin were all Charlie.
Apparently the Villierses had had enough of being separated from their daughter.
Ned personally thought it was perhaps a touch too optimistic to assume the recent pause in bombings meant it was safe to bring children back to London, but what did he know? He’d grown up in boarding schools.
Ned managed not to trip over mechanical bits and pieces as they made their way through the shopfront.
Ellie led him into what had been the large workroom.
Gone were the long tables, stools, and bins overflowing with fabrics.
They were replaced with a dining table and chairs, a chesterfield, and a kitchen in the corner.
A solid and practical space, but there were winks of whimsy—bright cushions, a set of birds painted on the wall by the stairs—which Ned couldn’t help but suspect were Charlie’s additions to the room.
Charlie and his son were busy laying the cutlery around the table. The two were almost carbon copies of one another, same stocky silhouettes, same curly brown hair.
A broad grin spread across Charlie’s face at Ned’s appearance, and he pulled him into a hug. “Finally here at last!”
The warmth from Charlie sunk into all of Ned’s nooks and crannies that never seemed to get warm.
God, when had he started to find hugs overwhelming?
But Charlie had already stepped back and gestured for his son. “Frank, you remember me speaking of Ned Pinsent. Best man I served with in the trenches.”
Frank shook his hand with the awkwardness only an adolescent can truly manage.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Betty asked, her smile warm and welcoming. “Dinner will be ready soon enough.”
Betty, the children, even this goddamn room, it was all so wonderfully domestic and respectable. Exactly what Charlie deserved. What Ned could never have given him.
Ned tried to relax into the chesterfield. “I feel like a horrible imposition to come for dinner in the current circumstances.”
“My wife views rationing as a challenge to be overcome.” Charlie reached into a sideboard. “No burgundy to offer, but how about some gin?”
Had Charlie just made a reference to their past, and the intimacies exchanged over good wine? Or was Ned reading into things? Ned’s mind was flying to pieces, and Charlie was politely smiling at him, gin bottle in hand.
“A gin would be lovely,” he croaked out.
Ellie plunked herself down on the other end of the chesterfield, eyes wide as if he was a foreign creature. “Dad says you know the Prime Minister.”
Ned considered bragging about one’s position unconscionably uncouth, but faced with the piercing eyes of bright adolescence, he took his victories where he found them. “I saw him today, in fact.”
“What’s Mr Churchill like?” For an instant, Ned thought Charlie had spoken rather than Frank. The boy’s voice had settled into the same rough, deep timbre as his father’s.
“Don’t ask Ned for gossip,” Charlie sharply cut across from where he was pouring drinks.
Before Frank could come back with a retort, Ned jumped in. “I’ve met him before, of course. But this time he was in bed.”
The startled look on everyone’s faces gave Ned the opening he was looking for, and he launched into an extended story regarding the Prime Minister railing at his generals while in his pyjamas and smoking his famous cigar.
“…and then he shouted, ‘I’m going back to bed! The reports better have improved before I wake…’” A screeching siren cut Ned off, louder than the laughter of the Villierses.
Ned’s heart rate instantly raced, unable to resist the fear of an air raid alarm.
“Fuck,” Charlie muttered as he threw back the last of his gin. Betty was already at the closet grabbing coats, while Frank shoved a few mouthfuls of the nearly cooked stew into his mouth.
Ned pushed himself back from the chair, mentally spinning through his own options. Probably best to head to the local Tube, which meant hours underground cramped with strangers with nothing to eat and sleeping standing up. He turned to Charlie. “Shall we head to Baker Street Station?”
“Betty and the children will go to Baker Street, I’ll stay here,” Charlie answered, wiping his hands.
“You can’t be serious?”
“Not many bombers have made it that far west, but the looters have.”
The public had been horrified by the reports of scoundrels taking advantage of the chaos of nighttime bombing to rob stores and shops. Ned hadn’t; he’d seen worse in Flanders.
At this point, the responsible, respected man that Ned was should have bid Charlie good night and gone to the closest shelter.
Except there was no way Ned would leave Charlie to fend off looters on his own. “I’ll stay with you then.”
There was a glance between husband and wife that Ned didn’t fully understand, and then Betty leaned up to kiss Charlie’s cheek. “We’ll see you soon. Don’t be stupid. That goes for you too, Ned.”
Only after Charlie had firmly bolted and braced the shop door behind his family did a tendril of suspicion begin to sprout in Ned’s mind. “Why are you so sure the looters will come tonight?” The sirens had temporarily paused, but the instinct to shout remained.
Charlie was already rummaging behind the shop counter. “Sons of bitches have been running a protection racket for when the sirens go off,” he answered, pulling out a wooden bat.
“And you said no, I assume?”
Charlie gave him a disgusted look. “I punched two of them.”
“Excellent,” Ned replied sarcastically. “So, we’re not standing watch on the off chance looters stroll by, we’re preparing for a siege.”
“Betty took the cash from the register, and we stored the valuables elsewhere a while ago. But we can’t hide all of the stock.
” Ned knew enough about wartime purchasing to appreciate that Charlie’s tools and parts were becoming harder and harder to come by.
If the looters carried off stock and tools, it didn’t matter how well the Villierses were insured, they wouldn’t be able to get replacements.
Charlie peered out the window. “I’m right pleased that you offered to stay.” The compliment made Ned happier than it should have.
“You know, I’ve been in exactly two fistfights in my life, and you have been standing beside me for both of them.
One begins to wonder if there is a pattern.
” Ned removed his restrictive jacket, mapping out variations of different attacks in his mind.
“We won’t be able to keep them out of the shop. ”
Charlie’s answer was a quirked eyebrow, and Ned expanded on his point. “Too many ways inside, especially if they break the windows. But once they are inside,” Ned gestured around to the crowded space of shelves, counters, and engine parts, “there’s hardly anywhere to move.”
“Tactical retreat, Pinsent?”
“Lure them into the trap, let them think they are alone. With surprise we could give ourselves an advantage.”
Charlie immediately nodded and gestured for them to go into the back room, snapping off the lights. Ned was taken aback by how readily Charlie followed his direction. His trust, after all these years, staggered him.
It was slightly surreal to be going through Betty’s meticulously organised sideboard looking for a knife. When they heard the first sound of breaking glass, Ned had to grip Charlie’s shoulder to prevent him from charging into the shop. “We need them to come in,” he hissed into the other man’s ear.
Ned peeked around the corner, barely able to make out four—no, six—shapes shuffling and bumping into each other in the dark. Criminal masterminds they were not, but what they lacked in mental capacity they made up for in sheer size.
The men were laughing, joking. Good, let them get comfortable.
When the conversation relaxed to the point that they were arguing about how to divide up the spoils, Ned locked eyes with Charlie and nodded.
In one single movement, they pushed through the door to the shop, slamming on the electric lights as they did so.
The blaze of light combined with the racket from Charlie and Ned had the desired effect. Two of the looters turned and fled without bothering to find out the details of what they might be up against.
That still left four who clearly had no intention of backing down.
“Get out of my shop, you fuckers!” Charlie shouted.
“You think you can hold us off, old man?” spat a tall brute with greasy hair and a five-day beard. He also sported a black eye that looked suspiciously like the remnants of the type of punch that Charlie had once been known for.
Charlie turned to Ned and mouthed ‘old man’?
There were times in life for subtlety and cunning, and then there were times in life to make one’s point in a more physical manner.
With a nod to one another, this was exactly what Charlie and Ned set about doing.
If the looters had been startled to find they were not alone in the shop, they were even more shocked to learn that the two ‘old men’ had weapons and knew what to do with them.