The Mistletoe Bride(52)
When I turned to go up Harting Hill, a mist descended. I allowed myself to become completely spooked and started to worry what I’d do if the car broke down and I was stuck there on my own. This was 1981 and there were no mobile phones.
The car didn’t break down. The mist lifted. Nothing happened. But I’ve never forgotten that journey and the illogical sense of threat in the darkness.
THE PRINCESS ALICE
Deptford, south-east London
September 1998
The Princess Alice
The bosun pipes the watch below,
Yeo ho! lads! ho!
Then here’s a health afore we go
A long, long life to my sweet wife an’ mates at sea;
And keep our bones from Davy Jones, where’er we be
from the ballad ‘Nancy Lee’ performed
aboard the Princess Alice, September 1878
The girl was crying again. A desolate sound of great grief, devoid of any hope, a child abandoned.
I sat up in bed, trying to identify where it was coming from. Somewhere nearby. I couldn’t bear to hear it and do nothing.
I leant over and shook my husband’s shoulder.
‘There,’ I whispered, ‘she’s here again. Can’t you hear her? The same as before.’
He stirred. We listened. But now, though I could hear the traffic on the Broadway and two lads shouting about a taxi, I could no longer hear the weeping of a child.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Someone in the street, that’s all. Don’t let it bother you.’
Rob rolled over and went back to sleep, leaving me sitting in the dark, knees drawn up, wondering if I was going bonkers. It was the third time in a week I’d been woken by the desperate sobbing. I glanced at the clock: five minutes past one in the morning, just like before.
This was our first flat and we loved it. A one-bedroom in a modern block conversion in Glaisher Street overlooking the Thames, good value for money, excellent transport links to the City for Rob’s work and cycling distance to the University of Greenwich campus where I was due to take up a new teaching job in a couple of weeks’ time. We’d only moved in at the end of August, but I’d met all of the neighbours already. Like us, they were mostly in their twenties and concentrating on their careers. None of them had children.
I leaned back against the wall. So why could I hear a little girl crying? Who was she?
Rob didn’t mention it in the morning and neither did I.
We went through the usual morning rituals – shower and shaving, a shared pot of coffee, a peck on the cheek and a smell of aftershave.
‘I’ll be back by six,’ he said. ‘Seven tops. Fancy Chinese?’
I smiled. ‘I thought we might go out. Find somewhere nice by the river. See what there is.’
‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Let’s play it by ear. I’ll call.’
I nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Have a good day.’
Since it wasn’t raining, I went out for a walk. I wanted to get to know our new neighbourhood before the demands of timetables, students, marking, colleagues took over. Once term started, I knew I’d have no time to explore. To get under the skin of the place.
I headed towards Lewisham first, following the Ravensbourne, one of London’s old forgotten rivers, then doubled back parallel to Brookmill Road. A smell of stale beer seeped out of the pub at the bottom of St John’s Vale. In the morning sunshine, a cellar man clanked and rolled his empty barrels into the waiting lorry, a cigarette balanced on his lower lip. Along Cranbrook Road and over Friendly Street, through the white clapboard estate towards Tanner’s Hill and Wellbeloved the Butcher, then on to Deptford Broadway.
Deptford Church Street was shut for the weekly market, so the traffic was heavy. All the lorries on their way to Dover, the salesmen in their clean company cars, jackets hanging from the hooks in the back, tapping their fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.
I held my breath, trying not to inhale the diesel and petrol fumes.
For a fraction of a second, nobody moved, then the lights turned green and the front runners surged out of the gates, up the hill towards Blackheath.
As the whine of the engines grew fainter, I found myself wondering if any of the drivers had even noticed the tiny streets through which they were driving. Did they see the stories beneath the cobbles and all the wharf buildings, the distinctive character of this corner of south-east London? Or did they only notice the booze shops hidden behind metal grilles, the burger joint and 24-hour supermarket where the drunks congregated, trying to make friends with anyone foolish enough to make eye contact.
A piece of urban art – what town planners and the Daily Mail call a ‘feature’ – sat at the top of Deptford Church Street. A large wrought-iron anchor set in stone, reminding shoppers of the district’s maritime past. Two boys and a girl were clambering all over it, hooking their legs over the arms, hanging upside down like monkeys. The hoods of their coats flopped over their faces and muffled their childish giggles.