Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  ‘That’s for you, love. You deserve a little summat. And these are for the family.’

  She sent me off with a bag of fruit and a warm happiness fizzing inside me.

  That night I tucked Eric up in bed. Now I was better he was sharing my bed, which I didn’t mind at all. I quite liked it. After all, he wasn’t Lola. I sat on the bed beside him.

  ‘Look – I’ve put you this old stocking here for Daddy Christmas.’ I laid it at the foot of the bed. I was puzzled he hadn’t asked for one. Last year he’d been on about it for days. ‘You need to get to sleep quick – he won’t come if he knows you’re awake.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as Father Christmas,’ Eric retorted. ‘Mrs Spenser says. She says it’s just a story made up by grown ups and I’m too old for it now.’

  ‘Mrs Spenser’s got a lot to say for ’erself, hasn’t she?’ I snapped. Then I was sorry and patted him. ‘You just get to sleep and see what happens.’ There wasn’t much to put in it but I’d gathered up a few bits and pieces.

  As Eric dozed off to sleep I sat there feeling very low in myself. Damn you, Mrs Spenser, I thought, for nothing like the first time. Even if my childhood seemed to have long vanished, I’d still wanted to share what was left of his. To have something pretty and magical and more than real life to believe in. Reindeer on the roof and bells and a white world when it wasn’t really snowing. I still half believed in it all myself. But now even that was gone.

  Mom did us proud over Christmas. She put on such a good show that even I was lulled into forgetting what a deceiver she was. She adorned the house with a tree in the front room, mistletoe (of all things) in the doorway of the back room so Dad kept bashing his head on it, and tinsel all along the mantel, which Len loved. He kept going and stroking it.

  We had turkey and trimmings. Len and I sat and peeled spuds, scraped carrots and put criss-crosses on the stalks of sprouts. Mom took over the main cooking for once and did her best to get it all the right consistency and a colour other than black. She filled the turkey’s behind with sage and onion and the craw with a cooking apple. She was like another person, bright and chirpy and singing carols along with Gloria and the rest of us, stirring the gravy, pink-cheeked and happy looking. Dad was allowed to go in the kitchen and put his arm round her waist. I watched from the back room.

  ‘Love you, Dor. You know that, don’t you?’ This, by Dad’s standards, was an outburst fit to be put on stage.

  She said, ‘Oh Victor,’ in a half-reproachful voice but she turned and kissed him and he touched her hair.

  Before lunch Nanny Rawson and Lil brought the kids over and they all came in singing, ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’ out of time with each other and laughing, and Patsy was shouting with excitement. Tom came straight over to me. Nan had brought her accordion. She had a bad chest but was cheerful. Eric seemed happy enough to see his cousins.

  ‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself,’ Lil said to Mom, and she didn’t sound spiteful about it for once.

  Mom was feeling so well disposed to the world in general that she even invited Gladys and Molly over after dinner to listen to the concert on the wireless put on for the boys in France. They had taken their pinners off and wore flower-print dresses in the same material and had dabs of rouge on their cheeks.

  ‘This is ever so kind of you,’ they kept saying. They’d brought over cake with a scattering of dried fruit and a little packet of butterscotch.

  Molly made a beeline for Len who was sat at the table and plonked herself down right next to him, smiling away like mad. Most of the butterscotch went by Molly’s hand straight into his mouth, which was definitely the way to Len’s heart.

  It was grey and cold outside but cosy in the house. We listened to the concert, opened our few presents and drank ruby port, the scraped turkey bones still jutting up on the table. Vera’s present to me was a pretty hairslide, Mom had talc from Dad and there were chocolates. Gracie Fields was singing ‘The Biggest Aspidistra in the World’ as Gladys fell asleep in the armchair with her legs apart. Molly barely took her eyes off her until she was letting out little snores. Then she shifted her chair even closer to Len’s, giggling and peeping round into his eyes. Their two hands crept together and lay there like ham joints on the pale blue tablecloth. Mom pretended not to notice. Molly slipped the last square of butterscotch into Len’s mouth.

  Dad was due to leave in the New Year. It’d been a happy week, the happiest I could remember in a long time, since way before the war ever started. Lots of singing and talking and people being nice to each other. I kept trying to forget it was a lie. That the glow on Mom’s face was put there by a stocky copper called Bob several years younger than both her and my dad.

  On New Year’s Eve we joined in ‘Auld Lang Syne’ along with the people singing on Gloria. We listened to the King’s stumbling voice: ‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”’

  We looked over the year’s dark rim into the unknown of 1940.

  January 1940

  Once Christmas was over we came down to earth with a crash. Dad had to go and so, apparently, did Eric.

  ‘D’you want to go back to Mrs Spenser?’ I asked him.

  Mom was watching us like a hawk. ‘He’s got to go, there’s no two ways about it. “Leave the children where they are.” That’s what they’re saying.’ For a moment she squatted down next to Eric and looked into his face. ‘You do understand, don’t you love? It’s for your own safety. It’s not ’cause we don’t want you. I wish you could stay.’

  Fortunately I had the wisdom to keep my mouth shut about the Spinis. ‘But d’you want to go?’ I asked again.

  Eric shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Oh Eric, spit it out!’ I nudged his arm impatiently. ‘You must know whether you want to or not.’

  ‘Don’t mind going,’ Eric said. ‘Mrs Spenser’s all right.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ Mom snapped, straightening up again. ‘He’s going.’

  Ten whole days of Bob deprivation had left her nerves properly frayed. The sugary act she’d managed for Dad was beginning to wear off too and she was being short and snidy with him again. Now Christmas was over there was nothing to look forward to but being back where we were with more work, more blackout, more drudgery. Mom at least had a grand reunion with Bob to look forward to, so she was better off than the rest of us.

  Dad knew he was bound for France and he was a bit emotional. I didn’t see Mom shed any tears for him, although she was smoking her fags end to end the morning he went. He set off very early so he could take Eric on the way and meet the dreaded Mrs Spenser. So the two of them got togged up, Dad in his uniform, which suddenly made him stand up straighter, his kitbag over one shoulder, and Eric as before with the gaberdine, little case and gas mask. Mom and I weren’t yet dressed.

  Dad came and gave me a big tender hug and I felt like bawling and saying, don’t go because everything’s going to be terrible once you’ve gone. But I didn’t, I just hugged him back and swallowed on the lump in my throat as I felt his newly shaven cheek against mine. He stroked my head like I’d seen him do Mom’s. ‘Tara, Genie,’ he said, looking into my eyes, and I saw his were watery. Then he hugged me again. ‘Be a good girl now.’

  All I managed to get out was, ‘Bye Dad.’

  Eric clung to me and I tried to talk in a normal voice, still sounding as if I had a bad cold. ‘Be a good boy for Mrs Spenser, won’t you? I s’pect you’ll be ’ome again in no time.’

  Len gave Eric a bear-hug and Mom, Len and I stood out the front as the two of them walked off down the street into the pale dawn, hand in hand, Eric swinging the gas mask from its string. At the corner they turned and waved a last time.

  Mom let out a big breath, said, ‘So . . .’ and went indoors.

  Th
at very evening Bob was round again. Must’ve been psychic. Later on in the night I had a dream about the pie factory and the bloke with the leaking nose. In my dream, Bob had fallen into a gigantic mincing machine and scraps of blue uniform kept turning up, pressed tightly into the pies. I woke feeling quite happy the next morning.

  Teresa managed to tear herself away from Jack long enough to come with me into town one Saturday. Big of her.

  ‘It’s blooming freezing, isn’t it?’ she said as we cut down Bradford Street to the Bull Ring. She pulled the collar of her old blue coat close round her. Our cheeks were pink and raw.

  ‘S’going to snow. Gloria said.’

  The sky looked grey and full.

  ‘Jack said too.’

  ‘Oh well – must be true then.’

  ‘Cheeky cow.’ She decided not to take offence, which made a welcome change. ‘Here, what you going to get? I’m going to Woollies to buy a lipstick.’

  ‘Lipstick?’ I’d had in mind some new knickers from off a stall in the Bull Ring. ‘You can’t wear that!’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘You’ll look like a tart. What’ll your mom say?’

  ‘She won’t see. I’ll put it on when I’m out. Jack can kiss it off again.’

  ‘Yeeurgh! Thought you said you got babbies if you kissed.’

  ‘Hasn’t happened so far,’ Teresa said smugly. ‘Anyhow – I’ve decided you were probably right about what really happens. Now I’ve got a bit more – experience.’ She went ever so red in the face all of a sudden.

  ‘What experience?’

  ‘Never you mind.’ Her cheeks aflame.

  ‘You haven’t, have you?’

  She was shaking her head like anything. ‘Course not. It’s just—’ She put her mouth by my ear. ‘Once when we were having a kiss and cuddle he pulled me close and I could feel it there against me. As if it was waiting.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing! What d’you take me for?’ We both got the giggles a bit then. We turned up past St Martin’s Church.

  ‘When are you going to let me meet wonder boy then?’ I practically had to shout over the din in the Bull Ring.

  ‘Oh – sometime,’ she said, casual like. ‘Don’t want him running off with you, do I? You and your big soulful eyes.’

  I was still recovering from this remark as we made our way through the bustling and pushing and shoving in Spiceal Street. There was a tight bunch of people round a bloke stood on a box who was throwing socks into the crowd.

  ‘Here y’go – three pair a shilling. I’m practically giving ’em away. Don’t for God’s sake wear ’em and then bring ’em back, will yer?’ Lots of laughter and repartee from the crowd. There was the usual collection of people hanging round the statue of Nelson and someone playing a trumpet, a melancholy sound, and all the stalls of fruit and veg and cheap clothes and crocks and some people getting a bit scratchy with the crowds round them. There were some uniforms mingling in with the rest, on their way up and down to the station, and kids crying and stallholders yelling and smoke from cigarettes curling into your face on the freezing air. The sky was so dark and heavy that some of the stalls already had naphtha flares burning on them.

  We went to Woolworth’s, catching whiffs of fish from the market next door. Teresa bought herself a sixpenny lipstick called ‘Lady Scarlet’ and put some on straight away.

  ‘It does make you look like a tart.’

  ‘Ta very much.’ She preened in front of a little round mirror in the shop. ‘I just want to grow up. I’m fed up of being treated like a kid.’

  I sighed and she looked round. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘I wish I was a kid still. A little tiny babby who doesn’t know about anything.’

  Teresa saw my downcast face. ‘D’you want to do your bit of shopping?’

  ‘Nah. Shan’t bother.’ Couldn’t face the idea of buying camiknickers now somehow.

  ‘Let’s go to the Mikado then – have ourselves a cake?’

  On the way round there we passed one of the emergency water tanks ready for all the fires this war was supposed to set off. Some clever dick had stuck signs on saying ‘no bathing no fishing’.

  The Mikado was a lovely café and was packed as usual. It was a big place with an upstairs, did lunches and teas, and the windows full of cakes invited you in. You walked into a warm, fuggy atmosphere of steam and the sweet smell of all sorts of cakes, people with bulging cheeks wiping cream from their lips with rough little paper napkins, and cups and saucers chinking.

  Teresa and I took our trays upstairs after we’d passed through the agony of choosing a cake. This was just before things were rationed and we’d come to appreciate it even more later. What to have? Chelsea buns you could unroll into a long, currant-spotted strip, flaky Eccles cakes dark inside, chocolate éclairs squirting cream at every bite? I settled for a cream doughnut and Teresa had a custard slice which erupted with yellow gooiness every time she stuck the dainty little fork into it.

  We hung our coats on a proper coatstand and took a table by the window, looking out over the Saturday bustle of Birmingham’s Martineau Street. Everywhere people were milling about with bags of shopping.

  Teresa and I grew drunk on the sweetness of the cakes and got the giggles. I tried to forget everything at home and we sat and laughed and reminisced. Teresa was her old jolly pre-Jack self, and I looked at her dancing eyes and lipsticky mouth which had faded in the onslaught of custard and thought, she really is my best pal and that’ll never change. And I was in a quite good mood until suddenly Teresa said, ‘Seen Walt?’

  ‘No.’ I couldn’t help sounding sulky. ‘Why would I have done? You’re the one whose brother’s pally with him, not me.’ I slammed my fork down too hard on the tea-plate and a lady stared at me.

  ‘Come on, Genie. You know you like Walt. You’re your own worst enemy, you are. You’re not going to like this but I’m going to say it—’

  ‘He’s walking out with another girl. I know, ta.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Seen ’em.’ I kept my eyes fixed on my plate.

  ‘Oh Genie.’ Teresa was all sympathetic in a superior ‘I’m so lucky to have gorgeous Jack but poor old you’ sort of way which got right under my skin. She leaned forward. ‘She’s not reliable that one. I’ve heard things about her.’

  ‘So what, anyhow,’ I said savagely.

  ‘He does like you, you know he does.’ Teresa was grinding on at me. ‘If you didn’t do everything you could to put him off. Why can’t you be nice to him instead of eating him alive every time he speaks to you?’

  ‘I don’t like him now anyway. He’s a pig.’

  ‘How come then?’

  I wasn’t going to tell her about him making a fool of me. Twice.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Lisa.’

  ‘Bully for her.’

  ‘Well you asked.’

  I didn’t want to know any more. Didn’t want to think about it any more either. The afternoon was spoilt.

  ‘Fancy going to C&A?’ Teresa said when she’d drained her teacup.

  I shook my head, staring at the endless movement of people outside. As my eyes focused on the faces, I noticed one shambling along who was nearly a head taller than everyone else, gangly, head aflame with red curly hair.

  ‘Isn’t that . . .’ I said, before I had time to think.

  ‘Who?’ Teresa craned her neck, following the direction where I’d been looking. I saw her eyes widen. ‘It is,’ she said. I could hear the hurt in her voice. ‘It’s Jack.’ Her cheeks went red, clashing with the fading lipstick. ‘He told me he had to work this afternoon. Was doing an extra shift. That’s why I came . . .’

  ‘With me?’ I finished for her, pushing back my chair. ‘Well thanks a lot, Teresa. It’s always nice to feel second best to some carrot-top who doesn’t give a monkey’s about you in any case.’

  She was peering round the window-frame, following him as he d
isappeared. ‘Was he with anyone? Did you see?’

  ‘No, I didn’t as a matter of fact. But it proves one thing. You can trust your beloved Jack about as far as you can spit.’

  ‘It’s just a misunderstanding,’ Teresa said, lower lip trembling. ‘Course it is. He wouldn’t lie to me. Not Jack.’

  But I couldn’t help a guilty feeling of triumph at the sight of Teresa’s crumpling face.

  Next time I saw her of course, Jack had wormed his way out of it. Fibs? Him? Downright porky-pies? No – it had slipped his mind, he wasn’t working after all, and being a model son he had to run some urgent errands for his mom.

  His devoted, starry-eyed girl told me this in all seriousness, face ashine. ‘I knew it’d all be all right! He’s explained everything.’

  ‘Teresa,’ I said, ‘if you’ll believe that, you’ll believe anything.’

  The thing I hadn’t told Teresa was that I did have an admirer in Jimmy the Joiner.

  I paid him a bit more attention. Smiled sometimes. After all, I wanted someone to want me. In fact I pretty desperately wanted someone to want me. Number one on the list would have been my own mother. But I wasn’t going to show it or go begging for it from anyone. I managed, me. I could cope. Didn’t need anyone. That’s what I wanted to say to everyone. Scared the life out of me, all that wobbliness every time I saw Walt. And the terrible stabbing jealousy when I saw him with Lisa or whatever the hell her name was. I didn’t dare think what would happen if I gave in to feelings like that. But Jimmy was different. Apart from the fact he wasn’t unpleasant as such, I had nothing in the way of actual attraction towards him at all. Except for being a bit flattered. It gave me a warm, stroked sensation that anyone was taking an interest.

  Since I didn’t feel anything except a helping of curiosity, I wasn’t worried enough to be nasty to him. In fact I started to get a thrill saying ‘Hello Jimmy’ when I came into work and seeing I had the power to make a red flush spread over his pale, underfed-looking face.