by Anne Bennett
‘Oh, yummy!’ cried Joy.
‘Goodness me,’ Lily said, with a smile at Joy’s very good figure, ‘where do you put it?’
Joy shrugged. ‘My mother always reckoned I had hollow legs,’ she said, winking at Enid as she continued. ‘But I can eat what I want here as they have it run off me.’
‘Anyway,’ Enid said, ‘we are eating this cake as it may be the last of the proper cakes if rationing comes in.’
‘Oh,’ said Lily in enquiry, looking at her sister.
‘Don’t tell her?’ pleaded Joy.
‘I’ve no intention of,’ Enid said. ‘There is something different about the cake this year, and that isn’t that it’s not iced properly because I ran out of sugar. It’s something else.’
Intrigued, Lily tried the cake a little cautiously and declared it first-rate and was very surprised when she was told about the artificial marzipan and the preponderance of carrots. The marzipan did taste strange,’ Joy said. ‘But it wasn’t unpleasant.’
‘No, and you couldn’t tell about the carrots at all,’ Meg said. ‘They were all mixed up with the other things’.
She glanced across at their ration books behind the clock on the shelf above the range. ‘Rationing is not going to affect you much, is it?’ she asked.
‘Not yet,’ Enid said. ‘It’s looks as if they’re only going to ration bacon, ham, sugar and butter in January. I am due a side of bacon when the pig is killed on the neighbour’s farm, we make our own butter, and we can use sugar beet to supplement our sugar ration. But that, I think, will be the tip of the iceberg.’
‘Yeah, but even when meat is added, like they say it will be, you can supplement that with rabbits or chicken, can’t you?’ Joy said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Enid agreed. ‘We are much better off than city folk. As long as I can get feed for the hens, we will always have eggs too, and we can always have as much milk as we want. Oh, the city folk won’t starve, and I suppose it’s fairer everyone getting the same amount, not like it was in the last war, but it isn’t going to be easy when it really starts to bite, especially for those with children to feed.’
‘Yeah,’ said Meg. ‘I bet no one in Birmingham is looking forward to it.’
Meg was wrong, however. Frank Zimmerman was looking forward to rationing coming in because he had a little black-market business going. At the moment all he had was petrol, lots of it in barrels in the spare bedroom. He didn’t ask where it had come from and probably wouldn’t have been told if he had asked. He knew only that the petrol was the extra given to certain sections of the community like doctors, farmers and government officials, and coloured pink to prevent people stealing it. But if it was filtered through bread from one barrel to another the pink staining was removed and those barrels were delivered to him.
People would come under cover of darkness with cans and if they could pay the inflated price asked they could have as much as they wanted. It was relatively safe, for the darkness in the blackout was really dense. The Government had in the end relented and allowed shielded torches to be used and shielded headlights on cars after so many people had been killed or injured, but nothing much could be seen in the fuzzy pencil of light so anyone who wanted to stay hidden had a good chance of success.
The black market and the drugs were already bringing in a lucrative living. Doris had kicked off at first when she realised Frank was keeping wooden barrels of petrol in the flat, saying it wasn’t safe.
‘’Course it is, you stupid cow,’ Frank snapped. ‘It’s safe as houses until someone sets light to it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘’Course I am,’ Frank said. ‘So shut up about it or you’ll just make me bloody angry and you’ll know what that will mean, don’t you?’
And she did, because he controlled her supply of opium that she now couldn’t do without, feeding her addiction. It meant she would do whatever he asked her to, like travelling down to China Town to get in the fresh supplies of opium, though he knew she was always nervous going there, and being extra ‘nice’ to certain people.
TWENTY-FOUR
The New Year celebrations were fairly muted on the farm; everyone believed that 1940 could only be worse than 1939. New Year’s Eve was Sunday and so Lily came home with them after Mass and stayed to see in the New Year. Coming up to midnight, they clustered around the wireless, and Will poured everyone a glass of cider, which Meg much preferred to sherry. As they took their glasses, Big Ben began to sound the witching hour.
‘I won’t wish for a Happy New Year,’ Will said, as the booms stopped. ‘Let’s hope instead that we will survive whatever is thrown at us.’
‘Yes, with the Lord’s help,’ Enid said, raising her glass. ‘For surely we are on the side of right?’
‘And I’d like you to drink to something else,’ Lily said. ‘The day before yesterday, I received a letter I’d been more or less expecting. It was from Christine, you know, who I was looking after. She said they have decided to stay in Liverpool. Well, having those children pulled me into the war, which, despite Stephen’s call-up, I was trying to pretend had nothing to do with me. I began to realise that war today isn’t between two battling armies on a field; it affects each and every one of us, and so I have decided to join the WVS.’
‘Oh, Lily, that’s wonderful news,’ Enid cried.
‘And yet much overdue,’ Lily said. ‘I have licked my wounds for long enough. I am not the only one to taste tragedy, and there will be more of it before this war is won. Everyone can’t just go into decline as I did.’
‘You were hurting.’
‘I was selfish,’ Lily corrected. ‘I never let go of the memories. I kept revisiting them in my mind’s eye. Meg puts me to shame.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because of your stoicism,’ Lily said. ‘After losing your mother, you brought up your brothers and sisters, but the war has taken your father and the children from you, and your stepmother no longer wants you.’
‘Yes, and I have been making decisions of my own about that,’ Meg said firmly. ‘Richard Flatterly has been the bane of my life for years and, because of the emotional state I was in, what he told me in Birmingham affected me so much I couldn’t think what to do. I should have gone to the police there and then. I reckon he has more to hide than I have.’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ Will commented drily.
‘Anyway, I am fed up being frightened by him,’ Meg said determinedly. ‘I am going to see the police and report the disappearance of my brother and sisters as I should have done in the first place.’
Enid looked pointedly at Will, and Meg caught the look. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What is it? You know something?’
‘No,’ Will said. ‘Nothing like that. I only wish we did know, but I did go to see our local beat bobby because I thought all of us might get into trouble if we didn’t report the missing children.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That you were upset,’ Will said. ‘That you had only just found out they were missing and I didn’t want to raise your hopes – which was true – and could he make some discreet enquiries? He’s a good man. Known him years.’
‘And what did he find out?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ Will said softly.
‘Nothing?
‘No,’ Will said. ‘He contacted the police in Rugeley. One or two evacuees said they had seen your sisters and brother in the hall. One girl said that one minute they were there and the next they were gone.’
‘But she didn’t see anyone actually take my siblings away?’
‘No,’ Will said. ‘But she said it was hard to see anyone really because there were so many people in the hall.’
Meg’s shoulders sagged. ‘So you don’t think there’s any point in pursuing this?’
Will didn’t, but that wasn’t what Meg wanted to hear, and so he chose his words with care. ‘It’s always worth having a word with the police and maybe bringing it into their
mind again, because three children just going missing like that is worrying and should have high priority. But they seem to have had very little to go on, and Rugeley is a bit like Penkridge: most of the children will have gone back home now anyway.’
‘Yes, I’ve thought that too,’ Meg said. ‘It’s a bit of a dead loss really.’
‘We will drink to it anyway,’ Will said. ‘Toast you and Lily, because we never know what 1940 will bring us.’
Meg drank obediently but she felt very dejected. She knew with each passing day it would be harder and harder to find out what had happened to her three siblings. If she allowed herself to think about them all the time she would be no good to herself or anyone else, so for the moment she resolved to do her best to draw a line under the whole heart-breaking affair.
Meg was finding that a winter in the countryside is very different from winter in a town. Everything took three times as long, for a start. When the snow tumbled from the thick grey clouds, after milking the cows had to be moved into the low lean-to holding shed off the cowshed. They disliked being kept in there, but there was nothing else to do. Each one was then led into a stall and the manger filled with hay; Meg knew that they would need mucking out before the evening milking and if the lane was blocked with snow, that had to be cleared before Dobbin set off with the milk churns, lest he slip.
The yard also had to be kept clear so that the hens could peck amongst the cobbles for their corn, because if they didn’t eat enough grit with their food, their shells were too soft. That caused a problem if it iced over in the night, because the cobbles were like a skating rink the next day and had to be liberally sprinkled with rock salt.
The pigs couldn’t be moved to their enclosure either, which again necessitated more cleaning out. In fact, the only ones who seemed delighted with the snow were the dogs, who burst from the barn with wag-tailed eagerness for what the day might bring, and then cavorted in the snow-covered fields with such wild enthusiasm they made Meg smile.
Still, most of the dank days were bitingly cold or were battered with wind-driven snow, or icy, sleety rain, and Meg was soon heartily sick of the winter. Easter was early too; 7 February was Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, when they had all decided to give up taking sugar in their tea, a logical choice because it was now being rationed. Eventually, as one day folded into another, the snow ceased to fall, the ground became less rock solid, the cows were able to return to the fields and the pigs to their enclosure, and life got a little easier. By Mothering Sunday, 3 March, everyone could feel the days loosening their icy grip.
Traditionally, Mothering Sunday – about halfway through Lent – was the day when the girls ‘in service’ would return home so that they could see their mothers and visit their mother church, and they would usually come with a simnel cake as the restrictions of Lent were relaxed for that day. So, as a surprise, Enid had also made a simnel cake, which she said was made possible by the saving of the sugar ration. After tasting the cake, they all agreed that sacrificing the sugar in their cuppas had been worth it.
‘I think even when Lent is over we should take less sugar,’ Will said. ‘It will do us no harm to be a bit more careful.’
‘And it won’t just be with sugar,’ Enid said. ‘Tea is supposed to be being rationed by the summer.’
‘Tea?’ Will cried in anguish.
‘Yes, Will, tea,’ Enid repeated. ‘Each person will be getting just two ounces – it said on the wireless.’
‘Two ounces?’ Will said. ‘That’s beyond the pale, that is.’
‘It’s another way of saving our ships,’ Enid told him. ‘’Cos the man on the wireless said most of our tea comes from Ceylon. Anyway, if that’s the ration then that’s the ration, and there’s nothing we can do to increase that. We will have to suffer it like everyone else.’
Will was still flabbergasted but said nothing further, though the disgruntled look on his face made the girls smile.
‘He’s not used to rationing affecting his life in any way,’ Joy said as they got ready for bed that night.
‘Well, to be fair, none of us is.’
‘I know, and I think it will be an eye opener for many of us – and not a pleasant one at that. But the rationing restrictions in January didn’t make even a dent in Will and Enid’s lives, did it?’
‘No,’ said Meg smiling. ‘But I do see what he means in a way, because there is nothing like a reviving cup of tea when you’re tired or cold – or just about any time, really.’
‘You’ll have to drink milk,’ said Joy. ‘Enid said that as long as they do their quota, they can have as much of the milk as they want for their own use.’
‘It’s not quite the same.’
‘Better than nothing, though,’ Joy said. ‘I reckon we’ll do a lot of making do in this war before we are finished.’
Just days after this conversation they started the spring planting, and were again out from dawn to dusk.
‘What’s your cousin at these days?’ Will asked, when they had been at it a week. ‘We could do with another pair of hands.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you’ll get Nicholas back here, for all he enjoyed himself so much,’ Meg said. ‘He thinks he’s far more use in Birmingham – just for now, anyway.’
‘Why? What’s he doing?’
‘Anything that needs doing, I think,’ Meg said. ‘Apparently he’s with a working party sort of preparing for war. They’ve dug more trenches and sawed the railings down from everywhere. You were right, Will – everyone seems to want scrap metal.’
‘Yes, well, I would say a great deal of metal is used to fight a war.’
‘Nicholas says they have taken iron railings from the edges of parks, private houses, and even surrounding ornamental gardens and fountains. He says wrought-iron gates are a thing of the past. At the moment, though, he’s busy erecting Anderson shelters for people who can’t do it for themselves. A hundred thousand were delivered to houses in Birmingham before Christmas. They’re for people who have gardens so it was no good for our lot. But he said you have to dig a pit and then put the erected shelter into it and pack earth and sandbags all around it and on top, so it’s sort of buried, and he said – especially now with the men away – lots of households need help.’
‘Oh, I can see that,’ Will said. ‘That’s valuable work all right,’
On the farm, though, little was happening to show there was a war on, Meg thought, and with the long hours spent working at the planting, and with the rest of the farm work to be done too, while she hadn’t forgotten about the war it wasn’t at the forefront of her mind every day. This changed one Tuesday evening in early April as they returned to the house to find Enid standing stock-still in front of the wireless.
‘What is it?’ Will asked.
‘It’s just come through,’ Enid said. ‘Hitler and his bloody armies have occupied Denmark and now Norway, and seemingly with minimal resistance, for even the commentator said neither country appeared to have put up much of a fight.’
Later, more details emerged. ‘The Royal Navy were there ready to go to Norway’s aid,’ Will said. ‘But they never asked for help and didn’t even bother to mine the fjords. I mean, how stupid can you get? Might as well have lined up on the shore and shook the invading Germans by the hand.’
Enid nodded in agreement. ‘People say he will go for Belgium and Holland next.’
‘I think he will, too, but things will not go all his own way there.’
‘Why not?’ Meg asked.
‘Well, Belgium and Holland are protected by the fortress that they say is impregnable and it guards three strategic bridges. If they were to fall into German hands, then those countries would be wide open.’
‘But this fortress will stop that happening?’
Will nodded. ‘That’s what they say.’
‘What about France?’ Joy asked.
‘They have got something called the Maginot Line, which was built to protect France after the Great War.’
> ‘What is it?’
‘A line of heavily manned forts that run from the Swiss border to the Ardennes forest,’ Will said. ‘And they stopped there because they say the forest is impassable.’
‘So we’re more or less safe then?’
‘As safe as anyone can be in a war of this magnitude,’ Will said. ‘And you are safer here than in Birmingham, so that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.’
Although Meg was concerned about her father and now Stephen, and Joy about her brother, they had been somewhat reassured by Will’s words. So when Meg turned seventeen just a few days later, they felt justified in having a little party tea for her. She was delighted by the bottle of California Poppy perfume that Joy gave her, and the silk stockings from Enid and Will, and she put both her presents away in the drawer to be used when she went to Mass. She also had cards, not only from those on the farm, but also from her aunts Rosie and Susan and Nicholas, and even Terry. She also got a beautiful one with a red silk heart on the front from Stephen. Enid lined all the cards up on the mantelpiece and the letters Meg put away for reading later.
The days grew warmer as April gave way to May. Meg often thought it was hard to think of fierce battles being enacted not far away and the only real concern for them was the lack of letters. Stephen used to write as regular as clockwork every week, and Meg’s father nearly as often but day after day slipped by with no letters. There had been nothing from Joy’s brother either, for her mother wrote that she had heard nothing for nearly three weeks and he had never gone so long without writing.
‘Maybe it’s just that it’s difficult for them to send letters where they are,’ Meg said.
‘Aye, that must be it,’ Enid said, but she went on with a sigh, ‘and they say no news is good news.’
‘Yes,’ said Meg. ‘So shall we try not to worry until we have something to worry about?’
‘We’ll do our best, young Meg,’ Enid said. ‘But worry is the one thing that’s very difficult to get rid of.’