Page 75 of The Words Beneath the Noise

Or why.

The East Endlooked worse than I remembered.

I'd known about the bombing, of course. Everyone knew. But knowing and seeing were different things. Whole streets reduced to rubble and gap-toothed ruins, buildings standing with their insides exposed like dollhouses with the fronts ripped off. Wallpaper and fireplaces and bits of furniture visible through shattered walls, intimate details made obscene by exposure.

Our street had survived, mostly. A few houses at the far end were gone, replaced by a crater that had been half-filled with debris and marked with warning signs. But number 47 still stood, narrow and soot-stained and exactly as I remembered it.

The door opened before I could knock.

“Tom!” Rose's shriek probably woke half the street. She launched herself at me, arms wrapping around my neck, feet leaving the ground as I caught her and held on. “You bloody idiot, you didn't say you were coming! Mum's going to have a fit, we haven't got anything proper for tea, and look at the state of this place...”

“Rose.” I set her down, held her at arm's length to look at her properly. She'd lost weight since I'd last seen her. Cheekbones sharper, collarbones visible above the neckline of her worndress. But her eyes were the same. Bright and fierce and full of trouble. “You look good.”

“I look like I've been working double shifts at the factory and living on potato soup, which I have, but thank you for lying.” She grabbed my arm and dragged me inside. “Mum! Mum, come quick, you'll never guess who's turned up!”

The house smelled the same. Coal smoke and cabbage and the particular mustiness of walls that had never quite dried out. Smaller than I remembered, or maybe I'd just grown. The parlour furniture was worn but clean, antimacassars on the chairs, photographs on the mantelpiece including one of me in uniform that made me look like a stranger.

Mum appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, and stopped dead when she saw me.

“Tom.”

“Hello, Mum.”

She crossed the room in three steps and pulled me down into a hug that smelled like soap and onions and home. Her shoulders shook, and I realised she was crying, silent tears soaking into the collar of my coat.

“Sorry I didn't write ahead,” I said into her hair. “It was a bit last minute.”

“Don't you dare apologise.” She pulled back, hands on my face, studying me like she was checking for damage. “Let me look at you. You're too thin. Are they feeding you properly? Rose, put the kettle on. And see if Mrs Patterson can spare some of that cake she was bragging about.”

“Mum, you don't have to...”

“I absolutely do. My boy comes home, he gets proper tea, rationing be damned.” She was still crying, still smiling, still holding my face like she was afraid I'd disappear. “Alfie! Alfie, get down here!”

Footsteps on the stairs, and then my little brother appeared. Except he wasn't little anymore. Eighteen now, tall and gangly, with the beginnings of a moustache he was clearly proud of and I was clearly going to mock. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stared at me.

“Bloody hell,” he said.

“Language,” Mum said automatically.

“Bloody hell,” Alfie repeated, and then he was across the room and hugging me too, all elbows and enthusiasm and the fierce grip of someone who'd spent too long worrying.

We ended up in the kitchen, because that's where we always ended up. Around the table that had seen every family meal for as long as I could remember, drinking tea that was weaker than it should have been and eating slices of cake that Mrs Patterson had indeed been persuaded to spare.

Rose sat across from me, feet tucked under her chair, watching me with the particular intensity she'd had since childhood. The one that said she was cataloguing everything and would demand explanations later. Alfie was beside me, close enough that his shoulder kept bumping mine, like he needed the physical confirmation that I was really there.

Mum fussed. Refilled my cup before it was empty. Pushed more cake toward me. Asked questions about my posting that I couldn't really answer and accepted my vague responses with the understanding of someone who'd spent four years learning not to ask too much.

“It's good work,” I said, which was true. “Important. Can't say more than that.”

“As long as you're safe.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “That's all I pray for. All of you, safe.”

Dad wasn't there. Working a double shift at the docks, Mum explained, because two of the regular men had been called upand someone had to handle the cargo. He'd be gutted to have missed me, but I'd see him at supper if I was staying that long.

“Staying the night at least,” I said. “If there's room.”

“There's always room.” Mum's eyes went bright again. “Always.”

The afternoon passedin fragments of conversation and comfortable silences. Rose told me about the munitions factory where she worked, the long hours, the other girls, the supervisor who was “an absolute tyrant but fair enough, I suppose.” Alfie talked about his job at the grocer's, the customers, the constant challenge of making rations stretch.