Christmas Fireside Stories

by Diane Allen, Rita Bradshaw, Margaret Dickinson, Annie Murray, Pam Weaver

  Sylvia sank down onto the stairs as her mother headed back to the kitchen. She heard Mrs Gould break into more gulping sobs. Crouching on the third step up, she gripped her hands together to try and stop them trembling. She had to remind herself to breathe. Raymond – Raymond Gould, aged twenty-one. Sweet, solemn Raymond, just a year older than herself, whom she had known for as long as she could remember. Raymond, who would now never be twenty-two, or -three or -four.

  She rested her head in her hands, staring, unseeing, at the tiled hall floor.

  Raymond was in so many of the family photographs.

  Sylvia moved restlessly around the house that afternoon. Mom was next door with Mrs Gould and her youngest son Paul. Dad and Audrey were at work and her brother Jack was at school. Sylvia worked evenings, but it was her day off. She found herself wandering into the front room. They did not light the fire in there very often and the atmosphere was rather cold and stiff compared with the back room, where they all ate every night around the table.

  There were three dark-green chairs arranged round the fire with its polished brass fender. On a side-table facing the window Mom kept her carefully dusted collection of framed photographs, arranged on a red chenille cloth. Sylvia and Audrey as little girls smiled out of the most eye-catching one. At least, Sylvia was smiling. She had been six when the picture was taken and Audrey eight. Sylvia, pink-cheeked, with her cloud of black, frizzy hair, was beaming amiably, displaying a selection of teeth and gaps. Audrey looked more solemn, unwilling to smile if she did not feel like it. She did have a full row of teeth, though.

  Sylvia always wondered why Mom had gone to the trouble of having her children’s pictures done just when they had half their teeth missing. The one of their younger brother Jack, freckly and auburn-haired like Mom, showed him grinning, with black gaps along his gums. There was Mom and Dad’s wedding photograph: Dad skinny and happy, Mom with her hair piled magnificently on her head and looking shy. And in the front row there were tiny portraits in ornate pewter frames of each of the three of them as babies, once they could sit up. As they grew older there were lots of pictures, because the two dads, Ted Whitehouse and Stanley Gould, had bought a Beau Brownie camera between them. From all of these photographs the Gould boys smiled out as well. Raymond was in so many of them, dark-eyed and serious, while Laurie was blond like his mother. Paul came along later.

  Sylvia chose a picture with all of them in, and sat down to study it. Raymond, about nine in the picture, was standing at the end of the line of children in the back garden where they’d spent so many hours playing. The picture seemed so real and close. She could hear his piping boy’s voice, before it broke into a deep, manly one; and she remembered his skinny legs in baggy shorts, tearing along the garden. Raymond bowling a tennis ball for cricket games, furious when Audrey whacked it over onto the railway line. Raymond intent on his homework, getting more and more nervy as he floundered at the grammar school into which Stanley, his father, had steamrollered him.

  She looked closely into Raymond’s eyes. He was so familiar, like a brother. She realized then, though, with a pang, that in her whole life she had scarcely ever been alone with Raymond or talked to him on her own. They had always been in a gang. He had just been one of those things she took for granted, like the furniture, or the buses in Kings Heath High Street, or the Market Hall in Birmingham. And now Raymond was gone and the Market Hall had been wrecked by a bombing raid.

  All through the long ‘phoney war’ of last winter Raymond had been on HMS Esk, a destroyer, laying mines around the coast of Norway and Holland. The ship had taken part in the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk. Sylvia knew all this must have made Stanley Gould prouder than he would ever be capable of saying. The last time Raymond came home on leave he had been just as serious, but he looked older, and strong and capable. Sylvia had wondered then whether Audrey might change her mind and love Raymond back. She knew Marjorie was hoping – and Mom. But no. Poor Raymond carried his flame for Audrey quietly and stoically. And now . . .

  ‘Oh, Raymond,’ she said, smoothing her finger over the glass. How could it be that he was dead, that they would never see him again, ever? Cradling the photograph in her arms, she rocked back and forth as if giving comfort to Raymond and to herself. Gradually the ache in her released into sobs and the tears came.

  It was all they could think about.

  Ted Whitehouse, Sylvia’s dad, was a foreman at the Rover in Acocks Green. It was one of Herbert Austin’s shadow factories, set up before the war to disguise the whereabouts of armaments production by removing some of it from well-known factory sites. The works were making parts for Bristol Hercules engines.

  Since the bombing started Ted had to take his turn at the works, on fire-watch, but it was not his shift tonight. He was able to go round and commiserate with Stanley. Ted, a tall, slender man with dark hair and eyes, looked pale and strained after this experience. He sat down in the kitchen to unlace his boots. Sylvia and Jack, who was twelve, were in there with Pauline already. Pauline had broken the news to Jack when he came in from school. He went up to his room for a bit and now he was silent and withdrawn.

  ‘This is when you really know you’re at war,’ Ted said, pushing each boot off with the other foot.

  ‘Oh, I think we all know that, love,’ his wife said. They had got used to so many things already in this war: gas masks, the shortages, the dark streets and blacked-out houses, the terrible news as the Germans invaded one country after another. But this was the worst so far. This brought the war right up close, into their homes and hearts. Pauline’s eyes were red. ‘How’s Stanley?’ she asked.

  Ted shook his head, laying the black boots side-by-side. ‘As you’d expect.’

  They heard the front door open as Audrey came in and they all exchanged looks.

  Ted got up. ‘You tell her,’ he said quietly, moving out of the kitchen, boots in hand. ‘I’ve had all I can stand.’

  They heard him say, ‘All right, love?’ quietly as he passed Audrey. She came into the kitchen in her office clothes: a dark-blue skirt and white blouse. She worked, without enthusiasm, as a shorthand typist for an insurance company. Crossing the kitchen, she flung herself into the chair next to the range in which Marjorie Gould had howled out her grief earlier.

  Audrey was tall and slender, very much like her father with her brown eyes, dark lashes and long, sleek hair, which was pinned back in a fashionable style for work. Though less obviously pretty and pink-cheeked than Sylvia, she had a striking, strong-featured face and a large, well-defined nose. She gave off a fiery kind of energy, which attracted people to her. Among the three children in the family, she was definitely always the boss.

  She slid her black court shoes off, crossed one leg over, twitching her foot impatiently up and down. She looked round at everyone.

  ‘What’s the matter with you lot?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got faces as long as Livery Street.’

  In the silence that followed she uncrossed her legs and sat up, really taking in that something was amiss.

  ‘Why are you all in here?’ It was rare for Jack to be in the kitchen at this time, as the grammar school gave him so much homework.

  Sylvia and her mother looked at each other.

  ‘Audrey, love,’ Pauline said, slowly, as if she didn’t want to bring the words out. ‘There’s been some terrible news today.’

  Jack made a small sound, as if stifling a sob, and covered his face with his hands. Sylvia felt her chest tighten so that she could hardly breathe.

  Audrey’s eyes searched their mother’s face. ‘News? How d’you mean?’

  Pauline explained. Sylvia watched Audrey’s face as she tried to make sense of what her mother was saying. Her eyes widened. She curled forward, arms crossed, hugging herself.

  ‘Could he be alive?’ She just managed to keep her voice steady. ‘He could be . . . I mean, he can swim, can’t he?’

  ‘I think it’s over,’ Pauline said gently. ‘There was a telegram from
the Navy.’

  ‘Marjorie came in earlier,’ Sylvia said. ‘She was in a very bad state.’

  Pauline went to Audrey to put her arm round her. ‘Audrey, bab . . . ?’ But at the first touch on her shoulder, Audrey threw her mother off and got up.

  ‘That’s terrible news,’ she said. ‘Poor Mr and Mrs Gould.’ She wasn’t meeting any of their eyes. ‘I can’t really take it in. I’m going up to take my things off.’

  She walked out of the kitchen, leaving them all watching the space she had left. Her shoes were discarded at untidy angles next to the range.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Pauline said. She sank down on one of the chairs, looking completely exhausted.

  Two

  The Whitehouses and the Goulds had lived side by side in Kings Heath in their quiet, terraced neighbourhood for years. First Pauline and Ted moved into their house, with Audrey as a baby. When the house next door came up for rent a few months later, the Goulds moved in when they had just had Raymond.

  The children grew up together and rubbed along, as youngsters are expected to, and most of the time it was lovely. But there were always things that were not so nice, that stayed with you – like that one afternoon Sylvia would never forget.

  Mr Gould made them all play one of his games. Stanley Gould was forever thinking up pastimes designed to make his sons count or add up. Dad said that Stanley had always been ‘a clever bugger’, and he pushed his sons into anything he thought would make them grow up to be brilliant engineers. He loved anything to do with counting. One of his favourite hobbies was collecting loco numbers. They often saw him craning over the fence at the Kings and Castles and the other engines rushing along the LMS line. Just beyond the iron railings that bordered their gardens was the cutting, its vegetation scorched by fires from the scattering sparks.

  Stanley Gould was a short, restless man, his hair brushed back over his head like two tarry bird’s wings. He had a clipped black moustache and, at the left side of his mouth, a metal tooth, which glistened when he spoke. Sylvia found it fascinating. Stanley worked as pattern-maker in a firm that, for the war effort, had gone over to making parts for tanks. He was quick-minded, competent and chirpy and expected everyone else to be the same. On this particular warm summer afternoon, when the children were playing in the Goulds’ garden, he started giving orders.

  ‘Come on,’ he urged. Sylvia could sense his impatience underneath the jolly tone. Life was for getting on – it was no good idling about, wasting time! She felt a plunge of nervousness in her stomach. ‘Line up now, in age order. Raymond first.’

  Audrey was never easy to order around at the best of times. She planted herself in front of Mr Gould on her long legs, throwing her dark plait back over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m first. I’m the oldest.’

  ‘So you are!’ Mr Gould said, flustered at being found in the wrong. ‘By a whisker. Right, step up, Audrey.’

  They lined up in front of the pile of builder’s sand that they called their sandpit.

  ‘Right, give your name and age.’

  ‘Audrey – ten!’

  ‘Surname?’

  Audrey rolled her eyes. ‘Whitehouse, of course.’

  ‘Right, next. Look lively!’ Sylvia’s father sometimes said that Stanley Gould should have been in the Army, though up until now he never had been. He’d been too valuable in the factory during the Great War.

  ‘Raymond Gould.’ Raymond leapt into position, his pumps spraying gritty sand. ‘Nine – nearly ten!’

  ‘Sylvia Whitehouse – eight.’ She was always much more biddable than Audrey and plodded into the lineup, happy just to be included with the others.

  In the middle of this Marjorie Gould came outside. She stood with her arms folded over a vivid green dress, watching the military line-up of the children.

  ‘Oh, Stan, leave ’em be,’ she said in her easy voice. ‘Let them come and have some lemonade – I’ve got it all ready – and a bit of cake.’

  ‘We’re in the middle of something, Marjorie,’ Stanley said. ‘They can have a reward when they’ve done some work.’

  Marjorie went off, shaking her head. ‘Work . . . They’re only kids, Stanley!’

  ‘Now, next!’ Stanley Gould commanded.

  Raymond’s little brother looked very uncertain and they hustled him into line. Sylvia took pity on him, whispering, ‘Say your name, and how old you are.’

  ‘Laurie Gould . . .’ He looked at Sylvia with anxious grey eyes and quietly inserted his little hand into hers. ‘Seven!’

  There were only the four of them then, although Mrs Gould must have been carrying Paul at the time, but they didn’t know that. Jack’s arrival was a good way off yet.

  ‘Right,’ Mr Gould said, hands on his waist. His forearms, below the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, were covered in dark hair. ‘Now, what do I get if I add Raymond and Audrey together?’

  Sylvia tensed. Her hands started to feel clammy. This was when Mr Gould’s games stopped being fun. She had not the faintest idea what the answer was. In fact, she didn’t even realize he was talking about a number. She pictured a strange creature with four arms and four legs, with both Audrey’s and Raymond’s heads. The same cold dread filled her that she felt at school. She was about to be caught out and punished. She found she was gripping Laurie’s hand as tightly as he was hers.

  ‘You get nineteen,’ Audrey said straight away. Her handsome face looked back at Mr Gould with something like defiance.

  ‘And what if I take Laurie away from Sylvia?’

  ‘One!’ Audrey cried.

  Sylvia was beginning to feel thoroughly fed up with Audrey, though at least it meant Mr Gould might not ask her his horrible questions. Although they weren’t at school now, and no one would stripe her hand with a ruler until it smarted, like Miss Patchett did, she was already feeling churned up with nerves. Fortunately Audrey had also had enough of Mr Gould and his numbers.

  ‘Can we have some lemonade now?’ she asked.

  Stanley looked disappointed at their lack of stamina. ‘I think you mean: please may we . . . Go on then,’ he said. ‘Boys, we’ll carry on with this later.’

  No wonder Raymond and Laurie had both won places at the grammar school. When Paul was born, they were told he was a ‘mongol’. It was some time before Sylvia had any idea what that meant. When they were at last allowed to see baby Paul – she and Audrey vying to be the first to look into the pram – she could see that his eyes were a bit different, that was all. It didn’t seem to be so bad, she thought. But Stanley Gould knew what it meant and saw it as a curse – probably from God, because it was hard to know who else to blame. He seemed to believe that God might be as spiteful as that, and didn’t know what to do with a child who wasn’t clever. It had taken years for him even to begin to come to terms with it. For a long time he didn’t even like Marjorie to take Paul out of the house, which of course upset her.

  As she grew up, Sylvia often wondered why Dad and Stanley were friends. They were forever arguing. For a start, Stanley was a staunch member of the Church of England, while Ted said he wasn’t having ‘any of that old claptrap’. And that was before you got to their views on politics, the education of girls (which Stanley Gould thought was basically a waste of everybody’s time) or the best way to grow carrots. But the two of them drank together, went for long bike rides, played the odd game of cribbage and chewed the fat contentiously over the garden wall while their wives rolled their eyes. Sylvia realized, eventually, that they thrived on their arguments. Maybe that’s how she and Audrey had learned to fall out all the time.

  Despite pressurizing his sons, Mr Gould had a kindly side to him and could be a tease. It was he who had nicknamed Sylvia ‘Wizzy’ because of her dark, flyaway curls. The name stuck and her own family started calling her ‘Wizz’ sometimes as well.

  But that afternoon stayed painfully pressed into Sylvia’s memory and one reason was that Raymond, who was usually quite kind, had been unkind. Audrey had manag
ed to stop Mr Gould’s number games, but Raymond wanted to carry on after the lemonade and cake.

  ‘What are nine nines?’ he demanded. He was good at tables, and so was Audrey.

  ‘Eighty-one,’ Audrey answered smartly. She and Sylvia were kneeling, tunnelling their hands into the pile of reddish sand. They gave each other a shove every so often, if one felt the other was too close. ‘Get off, that’s my bit!’ ‘No – you get off.’

  Sylvia loved playing with the sand and resented Raymond carrying on like this. She kept her head down.

  ‘What about six sevens, Sylvia?’ he demanded.

  Sylvia pretended she didn’t hear him.

  ‘Come on,’ Raymond said, standing over her. ‘It’s easy!’

  ‘Sylvia can’t do numbers and things,’ Audrey said in her superior voice. ‘She can’t even read.’

  Sylvia hid further under her cloud of hair to hide the red heat seeping through her cheeks. She squeezed handfuls of the coarse sand, longing to hit Audrey over the head with something. They knew she was bad at letters and numbers! They were so mean. None of them knew what it was like to see a mass of letters merge into a swimming chaos in front of her eyes until she was in such a panic she couldn’t think at all. With all her being she hated Raymond at that moment – and Audrey even more. But she felt too small and shamed to fight back.

  ‘Six sevens are forty-two,’ Audrey said airily. ‘It’s no good asking Wizz.’

  ‘Sylvia’s stupid,’ Raymond said. He stood rocking from foot to foot, chorusing, ‘Stupid-stupid Sylvia! Sylvia’s a du-unce!’

  Then Audrey joined in the chant, hopping from foot to foot in time with the words. ‘Stupid-stupid Sylvia! Sylvia’s a du-unce!’

  She thought she even heard Laurie join in, until she was surrounded by their jeering voices. Of course they teased each other often, but not like this. Not with this mean, humiliating nastiness. The words echoed in her head, filling her as if she would never be able to get rid of them.