A Wartime Wife

by Lizzie Lane

‘Ruined for life,’ said the other, folding her hands one over the other and the handles of a square, no-nonsense shopping bag. ‘No one’s going to want her now. She’s soiled goods.’

  The other woman nodded dolefully. ‘You’re right there, Gladys. If only these young girls knew what they were getting themselves into they wouldn’t give in as easily as they do. But there, give it away once they’ll give it away again. Sluts, all of them. Not like in our day. In our day—’

  Face reddening, Lizzie didn’t wait to hear any more but shoved off, peddling like mad towards the pork butcher in North Street, glad of the breeze cooling her hot cheeks.

  A group of boys were playing marbles in the gutter outside the shop where fresh rabbits and chickens hung from a rack in front of the window.

  ‘Knocked your niner!’ shouted one of them.

  Lizzie wouldn’t have given them a second glance, if she hadn’t heard a thin, crackling kind of voice protest that it just wasn’t so.

  ‘You cheated. And if you don’t give me my niner back, I’m goin’ to knock your bloody block off.’

  ‘Stanley!’

  Her youngest brother spun round in boots that looked too big for his skinny legs, a look of surprise on his face.

  Swiftly leaning her bike against the drainpipe dividing the butcher’s shop window from the cobbler’s next door, she made straight for him, grabbing his arm before he could run away.

  ‘Does Ma know you’re out?’

  Stanley coughed then screwed up his face. ‘She said I could go out if I feels all right.’

  ‘But she likes to know first, and you didn’t tell her, did you?’

  He squirmed and twisted his features, but the truth was obvious by the way he jerked his jaw as though he might speak, but only if he was really forced to.

  The scruffy group of kids he was with gathered round.

  ‘She’s me sister,’ Stanley explained, wiping his snotty nose on the back of his sleeve.

  ‘Yer sister!’

  The news was passed from one boy to another. ‘She’s only his sister!’ Derisive scowls appeared on each face.

  ‘Just ’is bloody sister!’

  Lizzie gave a long drawn out sigh. ‘I take it you’re not impressed. Not that I care. He’s still got to come home.’

  ‘Leave ’im alone.’

  ‘Come on back and play marbles, Stanley.’

  ‘Tell ’er to sod off,’ said one lanky soul, his grey flannel trousers flapping around straight, spidery legs. ‘She’s only yer bloody sister. Tell ’er to sod off!’

  The others, beaming with admiration that their chum had uttered a forbidden word and got away with it, took up the anthem.

  ‘Yeah! Sod off!’

  ‘Sod off!’

  ‘Sod off!’

  Though they gathered round, threatening to push her towards the butcher’s shop, Lizzie ignored them. She wasn’t the type to be intimidated, certainly not by a group of children.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, still gripping Stanley’s arm. ‘You’re staying with me.’

  Under pressure from the chanting boys, she made for the shop door more hurriedly than usual, having to take the route immediately beneath a row of dead rabbits, ducks and hare.

  Somehow, the boys sensed her aversion to all things dead.

  ‘Look,’ said the most vocal, a boy who could have passed for fourteen, though must have been only ten if his clothes and cherubic features were anything to go by. He pointed upwards. ‘They’re all looking at you, and there’s blood dripping from their mouths.’

  ‘Ughhh! Blood.’

  ‘And brains.’

  ‘And innards.’

  Lizzie pushed Stanley through the door. ‘Don’t be so disgusting. And clear off,’ she shouted before slamming the door so hard that the CLOSED sign fell off its nail.

  Averting her gaze from the rows of glassy-eyed rabbits and chickens hanging from hooks above their heads, and after replacing the sign, Lizzie pushed her brother towards the blue and white tiled counter on which a plaster pig sat holding a sign saying:

  Pork Sosages – 3d a pound.

  Pigs Trotters – 1d each

  Pork Driping – 1d a corter

  ‘He can’t spell,’ Stanley murmured, scuffing his button-up boots on the sawdust floor.

  Lizzie nudged him. ‘Stop doing that.’

  ‘No! I like the sound it makes.’

  Lizzie saw the smirk on his face and the cheeky grin he exchanged with his friends outside, whose faces were now pressed against the window, their features distorted and their breath misting the glass.

  ‘Just wait till I get you home,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘Or I might clip your ear before then.’

  ‘I’ll tell Ma and she’ll tell you off.’

  He was right there. Mary Anne spoiled him, and that was a fact.

  ‘I don’t care. I’ll still give you a clip around the ear.’

  In response, Stanley proceeded to scuff the toes of his boots against the counter. It seemed to Lizzie that he was enjoying annoying her.

  She glanced down at him, just to make sure it was the little brother who had lain sick in the front parlour, ever since his chest infection back in January. He’d always had bad days and good days, but wasn’t normally so badly behaved in those moments when his health improved.

  ‘I don’t know what’s up with you. You never used to be so badly behaved. What’s brought this on?’

  ‘Cos I’m a man, that’s why.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Stanley continued to scuff his toes against the sawdust, piling it in small drifts against the counter.

  Lizzie sighed. Don’t let him see you’re annoyed, she said to herself, and purposely looked overhead at the hanging game rather than the boys making faces at the window.

  The sights and smells of the pies were so delicious that she soon forgot the glassy-eyed corpses hanging overhead.

  Stanley, whose appetite tended to come and go, forgot about goading his sister; his eyes opened wide at the sight of thick strings of sausages hanging from overhead hooks and draped like a cloak around a plaster pig sitting on the counter clutching the blackboard on which the price list was chalked. Crusty pies and home-cured hams sat in wooden trays on the counter, blending their fragrance with the irresistible aroma of succulent faggots, juicy pork dripping and freshly made Bath chaps.

  Lizzie eyed them too. Sampsons’ was the best butcher in Bedminster according to her mother. Judging by smell alone, Lizzie had to agree.

  The door between the shop and the area to the rear opened, and the butcher came in. Standing six feet three in his boots, Fred Sampson peered down at them, his curly black moustache quivering as he spoke.

  ‘Well now. What ’ave we got ’ere then?’ he bellowed, the timbre of his voice a direct result of being deafened in the artillery when serving on the Somme.

  Compassionate eyes peered over round cheeks and his rubbery jowls quivered with unspoken sympathy as his eyes rested on young Stanley.

  ‘And how are you, young man?’

  Stanley gazed up at him wide-eyed and muttered, ‘All right.’

  It was apparent to Lizzie that Mr Sampson must seem like a giant to him and his voice reverberated like cannon fire.

  ‘Now what you need in order to grow bigger is to eat more of yer mother’s suet puddings and boiled potatoes.’

  Stanley had a sour expression on his face. ‘I’m big enough, mister, and don’t you say any different.’

  Mr Sampson turned to Lizzie. ‘Not too well tempered is he, your little brother.’

  The look Lizzie gave her brother was just as sour as the look he was giving her.

  ‘He’s not usually like this. It’s the company he’s mixing with,’ she said, jerking her chin at the faces being pulled against the window.

  The butcher leaned over the window display towards the flattened noses and gargoyle mouths. ‘Hop it!’

  The
boys jumped back, regrouping in the gutter, their dirty knees pulled up to their chins.

  ‘Now,’ said Mr Sampson, his voice still loud but not enough to break eardrums. ‘Something for yer mother?’

  ‘No. It’s for the lady I work for. I’d like one pound of sausages, one pound of back bacon and a large pork pie. I have the money here.’

  The butcher twirled the end of his moustache with fingers the thickness of his own pork sausages.

  ‘Certainly, my dear.’

  The door that led to the living quarters of the shop and was immediately behind the counter opened suddenly. A woman with protruding eyes and fleshy jowls appeared.

  ‘Frederick! Frederick! Have you cut my chops yet?’

  The butcher half turned. He looked surprised. ‘Frederick! My word, me dear, what’s brought you on so that you’re calling me Frederick?’

  ‘As soon as you’ve finished. Will you be long?’

  ‘As long as it takes, me dear. As long as it takes.’

  The door closed. Lizzie got the impression that Mrs Sampson was loitering on the other side, waiting to pounce the moment they left.

  Mr Sampson, perhaps noticing the look of curiosity on her face, began to explain even though she hadn’t queried Mrs Sampson’s interruption.

  ‘My Beatrice is a little worried. Every bit of news about the war, and she’s reporting it to me word for word, terrified that I’m going to get called up. As if,’ he said, pointing at his ears. ‘The sergeant major would ’ave to use sign language to get me marching. But still she comes out ’ere to tell me snippets of news, but if there’s customers ’ere, makes the excuse she wants some chops for our tea.’

  After wrapping the bundle again in newspaper, Lizzie paid him.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Hang on there. Yer mother wanted a pig’s cheek. Can you manage to carry all of it ’ome with you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got my bike – and Stanley,’ she added as an afterthought, throwing her brother a warning grimace in case he dared dash off once her arms were full.

  ‘Good.’

  He disappeared into his storeroom and came back in with a pig’s head, chopped it in half then chopped each cheek again before this too was wrapped in the same way and slammed onto the counter.

  ‘There you are, me dears, and tell your mother I’ve left the eyes in. They’ll see her through the week.’ He snorted then burst into loud chuckles at his own joke.

  Lizzie managed a smile. He always said the same thing to anyone who wanted a pig’s head, and always laughed loudly at his oft-repeated joke.

  ‘Tell ’er she’ll make a good bit of brawn from that one. No one can say that I don’t breed the best pigs in North Somerset, and, ’angs ’em proper before I cuts them up. Now. Can you manage? Right! That’ll be ten pence, please.’

  Following a quick glance at the coins, he took them to his little wooden drawer that passed as a cash register and counted out the change into Lizzie’s outstretched hand.

  ‘And take this,’ he added. ‘A piece for you and a piece for his lordship, ’ere. A ham bone – cut in half.’

  Another parcel, smaller this time, was placed on the counter.

  ‘And if that lady you works for wants to open an account, you let me know.’

  ‘I’ll ask Mrs Selwyn tomorrow morning.’

  He turned swiftly at the mention of her name, a serious look firming up his broad face and layers of chin.

  ‘Mrs Selwyn? ’Er that lives in Ashton? Opposite the park? Used to know ’er ’usband, I did. Officer and a gent, if ever there was. Died a few years back … left a son, if I remember rightly. Bit of a lad about town. Want to watch him, my girl. He’s the sort that would lead any respectable girl astray, from what I hear.’

  ‘I’d better be going.’ Lizzie sucked in her breath and felt her cheeks reddening. She didn’t want to hear this, and she certainly didn’t want the butcher to read the obvious into her blushing cheeks. Would he guess what she’d done that afternoon? Plucking absentmindedly at imagined grass stalks stuck to her clothes, she made for the door, sausages, pies and pig’s cheek tucked beneath her arm, and one hand gripping Stanley’s shoulder.

  She needn’t have worried. Stanley’s attention was fixed on the juicy ham bone.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sampson.’

  The hand he waved at them was patterned with patches of dried blood. Lizzie grimaced.

  It was going to be difficult holding on to Stanley and pushing her bike because the little monster was squirming like a tadpole. His mates were standing at a distance making faces and taunting him with cries of ‘sissy, sissy, sister,’ urging him to join them.

  ‘They murders people in that shop and minces ’em into faggots,’ shouted one of them.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Lizzie.

  Stanley grinned and his eyes shone up at Lizzie with such enthusiasm for the idea that she shivered.

  ‘And in pies,’ he added, gloating when Lizzie visibly paled.

  ‘Come on. Home,’ she said, pushing him in front of her having given up trying to hold on to him while pushing the bike. ‘You just stay where I can see you …’

  The moment her hand left Stanley’s shoulder, he was off, his friends crowing in delight as he joined them, whooping like a group of Indians surrounding a wagon train.

  Before she had chance to park the bike and grab him, they were gone.

  ‘Little sod!’

  She wasn’t usually easily angered and rarely swore, but today could have progressed more smoothly. Recalling the events of the afternoon soon drove her anger away, though she did have some misgivings. Even though he’d declared his love for her – or it had seemed that way – Peter’s attitude seemed frankly casual. If it had been the first time for him as it had for her, why hadn’t he reacted in a similar way?

  She pushed Mr Sampson’s comments that hinted at Peter being a bit of a playboy to the back of her mind. In time they’d marry, she told herself; she had no doubt about that. It was the thing to do, and they would do it.

  Dusk was deepening into darkness. Squares of bright amber fell from shop windows onto damp pavements.

  Trams and trolley buses trundled past bringing the workers home from the tobacco factory. The factory was in East Street, the building red-brick mock Gothic; pretty little arches above square, blank windows. Behind those windows, a vast array of production machines clanked and jangled, men and women labouring like workers in a hive. At the end of the week, they’d be delving in their wage packets, spending and puffing on the products they spent all day making.

  Brewery drays thundered in and around the trams, the great shires snorting steamy breath as they made their way with their lightened load back to George’s Brewery, a warm stable and fresh hay.

  Lizzie surveyed the scene through screwed-up eyes, her nose wrinkling at the dusty air. Sometimes she saw a car and immediately thought of Peter. It was the first time she’d been in love and she was sure no one or nothing could ever equal what she was feeling right now.

  At last she turned into Kent Street.

  ‘Lizzie!’

  Wearing trousers that he’d long grown out of, his jacket so big that the cuffs covered his hands, Patrick Kelly leaned against the corner shop window. He had square shoulders and long legs, his hair the colour of corn and his eyes as blue as the trees on willow pattern china.

  Lizzie pulled the bike to a standstill. Tilting her chin upwards, she smiled directly into his eyes and his naturally wary expression melted.

  ‘No work today?’

  ‘Mr Shellard ain’t well.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Been on the scrumpy again,’ Patrick explained on seeing the knowing look on Lizzie’s face.

  Patrick’s mother had a bad name and he had no father, a fact that had puzzled Lizzie when she’d been younger. Her curiosity aroused, she had questioned her Sunday school teacher why that was so. Miss Pamplew, a spinster of sixty with the physique of a malnourished sparrow, had assured her that everyone did
indeed have a father. The birdlike face had puckered up with Christian kindness when she’d asked why she wanted to know. Lizzie had explained to her about Patrick Kelly.

  ‘He’s got a lot of uncles and a mother, but no father. I heard someone call him a bastard. Is that the name for people with no father?’

  Miss Pamplew, a born nun if ever there was, had coloured up and dragged her to the tap in the outside yard where she’d pushed a piece of soap between her teeth, held her mouth open beneath the water pump and told her never to utter such a wicked word again.

  ‘I’m going to join the army. I’m going away from here,’ Patrick blurted.

  Lizzie’s face froze as she took in the news, and then she laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. You’re too young.’

  ‘I’m eighteen … and a half,’ he said, sloping his shoulders back as though he were already wearing a uniform and required to stand to attention. ‘Every able-bodied man is being called up, but some of us are off to the recruiting centre soon as we can.’

  Lizzie eyed his lean frame sceptically. ‘You need feeding up if you’re going to do that,’ she said, and immediately delved into the parcels loaded into the pannier at the front of her bike. She got out the pie she’d bought for Mrs Selwyn and thrust the package into his hands. ‘It’s a pie. I’ve heard an army marches on its stomach. You’ll need it more than me or my family.’ Or Mrs Selwyn for that matter.

  It was a well-known fact that Patrick fended for himself. His mother never cooked. Half his life he’d lived on charity. His fingers curled over the small package and his jaw moved as though he were already savouring the taste of it. Pride stopped him from licking his lips but his voice broke with emotion.

  ‘At least the army will feed me.’

  It started to rain. Lizzie brushed at the fine drops speckling her hair. ‘It’ll seem funny … you not being here any more.’

  His face cracked into a smile. ‘Better get used to it. There’s going to be a lot of us. Most of us will be going to France according to the newspaper, and some to Belgium, p’raps even Turkey like men did in the first lot.’

  ‘Such faraway places.’ She thought of all the boys and young men in the street not being there any more, all off to fight a war. She’d been at school with a lot of them.