by Annie Murray
‘I’m glad you’re here, Len,’ I said. ‘I’d be scared stiff else.’ He was so big and slow and solid.
One hint of sound from outside our house brought Molly to her door. ‘You’re back then?’ she called across the street.
Couldn’t really disagree with her there. Sometimes it got on my nerves a bit, her pouncing on us like that. But you couldn’t dislike Molly. She was inoffensive and as generous as she could afford to be. And she made Len happy.
‘Doesn’t Gladys mind?’ I asked as she came over. I was struggling to find my key in the dark.
I just saw Molly put a finger to her lips, rather coyly. ‘She’s asleep. Didn’t see me go.’
As I went to the front door I heard a faint knocking noise from the side of the house. There was a breeze and the entry gate was unfastened. Anger twisted in me, and dread.
‘You go in,’ I said to Len and Molly, unlocking the door. ‘I’m just going to shut the side gate.’
They weren’t listening to me anyway, so wrapped up were they in each other.
I tiptoed down the little alley between our house and the next into the back garden and slid across the wet grass. I knew it. Noises from the Anderson. Even more blatant noises than before. It was horrible. Molly and Len, Jimmy, now this. Something exploded inside me.
I pelted back round and in through the front door, steaming in past Len and Molly who were in each other’s arms but still alert enough to look round in amazement at me.
‘Len!’ I commanded him from the kitchen. ‘Get in ’ere a minute.’
I had an enamel pail in the sink, the tap full on so water was rushing into it at the full strength of the old plumbing. Len stood watching. When it was three-quarters full I dumped it on the floor in front of him.
‘I want you to do a piddle in there. The biggest one you can manage.’
Nice thing about Len was, he never asked questions. Just unbuttoned his flies and obliged, with Molly watching, eyes on stalks, over his shoulder.
I flung open the back door and stomped down the garden, leaning well over to one side to balance the pail. On the way I stopped and scraped what dirt I could from the top of the flower bed, hurting my hands on the icy ground, and chucked that in too.
From inside the Anderson I could still hear loud, indecent sounds. They wouldn’t have noticed if the whole bloody Luftwaffe had come over that night.
I could barely see a thing but it was so small I couldn’t possibly have missed. I yanked the front aside and sloshed the bucket of wee-wee stew in on top of them.
‘Bob’s your sodding uncle!’ I yelled. And left them in a wet, shrieking, effing and blinding heap inside.
Mom’s rage knew no bounds. To begin with. She called me every name under the sun, once PC Bob had dripped off down the road refusing to stay another moment to be treated like this, etc. etc.
‘You stu-u-upid—’ she screeched, dragging the word out long, ‘—selfish, evil little cow!’ She was shivering in the back room, lank strips of hair hanging on her shoulders and her red dress daubed with soil, clinging to her. ‘I wish I’d never – never even seen you in my whole life. I’m cowing frozen – and Bob could catch his death . . .’
‘There was wee in there as well.’ Thought it best to tell her. Otherwise she’d never know, would she?
‘WHAT?’
She’d stormed into the house without even noticing Molly sprawled on top of Len in one of the chairs, the top buttons of her dress undone. They hadn’t wasted any time. Molly strugged to her feet like an upturned beetle and skedaddled, right quick.
‘Who in the hell d’you think you are?’ Mom ranted on. Quite a bit of pacing up and down the room went on, except being such a small room any pacing turned more into pigeon stepping. ‘Interfering. Passing judgement. What’s Bob going to think, me having a daughter like you?’ She was working herself up. ‘He might never come back and it’ll be all your fault.’
‘GOOD!’ I shouted. ‘I hope he dies. I hope he catches pneumonia or falls under a bloody bus. He shouldn’t be here at all. He’s not my dad, and you shouldn’t be carrying on behind Dad’s back. You’re a disgusting tart, that’s what you are.’
That was when she started hitting me, the bitch, stinging slaps round my face again and again until Len had the wit to grab her arms and stop her. I bit my lip until it bled. I wasn’t going to cry for her. I hated her.
It was she who burst into tears then, sobbing and snivelling and carrying on while Len and I just stood there staring at her. I put my hands to my smarting cheeks and my heart was completely hardened towards her.
Until suddenly she said, ‘You don’t understand, Genie.’ She looked up, sharp face all raspberry blotches, appealing to me. For the first time trying to tell me something she truly felt. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to find someone you can really love. To be lifted out of years of feeling dead and buried, and scared stiff you might lose it again. You’ve seen how he looks at me. I’ve never in my life been wanted like that before – ever.’ She was sobbing again at the thought of it.
‘Dad wants you.’
She looked down and I knew she was ashamed. ‘But I don’t want him. God knows, I’ve tried. I just don’t. He makes me feel buried up to the neck. Always has.’
I started crying then. Didn’t know where it came from, all of it. Frightened Mom a bit I think, the way I howled. Scared me too. It was like a pain pushed down so far I didn’t know it was there, all gushing out. I didn’t want to hate her. She was my mom. Your mom’s the one person you can’t hate or it eats you inside. She’s like the North Star and you always need that right direction.
And for once she forgot herself and put her arms round me, and I sobbed and bawled and couldn’t stop. Len came and hugged the both of us together like a gorilla.
‘I’m sorry, Genie,’ Mom said in the middle of it. I could feel her tears dropping on the top of my head. ‘I can’t help it. I just can’t help myself.’
March 1940
My Dear Doreen and family,
Well at least the weather’s warming up slowly and we wake with the birds now – they’ve started singing at last! We can still see clouds of our breath on the air first thing too. Roll on spring proper. So now my only complaints are that I still haven’t found a pair of boots that fit properly and that I wish I could be at home with you. We’re still here waiting to find out what proper soldiering, as the lads call it, is all about.
One new thing – they’ve issued us with special day passes to go into———. I went, Saturday, with Dickie, the pal I told you about who comes from Stechford. It was an experience. Very smart and pretty with flowers at the windows and people sit out and drink on the pavements. We tried some of the wine they sell. It’s some rough stuff – I’d rather have a pint of Ansells!
I’ve read so many books since we’ve been here. The lads pass them round. Otherwise it’s card sharping and letters. Thank Genie for the chocolate – a proper taste of home. How is Gloria doing? The wireless in our billet stops us feeling too blue. Today I heard Vera Lynn singing ‘Somewhere in France with You’ and it made me pick up my pen to tell you, my Dor, how much I miss you.
Glad to hear Edith’s knee is on the mend. I’ll write again soon. In the meantime, try and keep in good spirits, won’t you?
Your loving husband, Victor.
I liked letters from Dad, knowing he was safe and hearing about new places he’d been. Mom always read the letters of course, but she’d put them down on the table without a word. After, she’d be scratchy and short for a bit.
Bob stayed away for a week after our little set-to. Don’t know whether she told him to or whether he was in a huff or scared I might go for him with the carving knife. Whatever the reason, he kept his distance and all was rosy. We had Gloria back – Nanny Rawson and Lil had bought a little set of their own – and Mom was being extra specially nice to me. She ran me up a new dress on her machine and it actually fitted me. It was navy with white polka dots and a little ma
tching scarf to go in the neck. She visited our nan twice a week. She even did some cleaning. I found her up early one morning sweeping out the back room.
‘I know I’ve been a bit neglectful, Genie,’ she said a couple of days after our fight. ‘And your nan says you’ve been a proper treasure to her.’ She even brought me up tea in bed, which was an unheard of luxury. Suddenly I felt like someone’s daughter.
One morning she sat on the edge of my bed, her hair loose, and said with a coy little smile, ‘So who’s the lad courting you, Genie?’
Can’t say I’d thought of it as courting exactly. But Mom was trying to be my friend and I wasn’t getting much change out of Teresa nowadays.
‘His name’s Jimmy Davis. He was at the factory in Conybere Street.’
‘Nice then, is he?’
‘’E’s all right.’
‘Bring him home to meet me, Genie.’
As I nodded she put her head on one side so her hair fell in a fine, straight sheet. ‘You’re not getting up to anything you oughtn’t, are you?’
What a question. ‘No,’ I said, thinking, no more than anyone else round here anyhow. Jimmy was keen on kissing. Ever so keen.
‘What about Len and Molly?’ she asked suddenly.
‘What about them?’
‘Are they behaving themselves? I don’t want any trouble on my hands from them two.’
‘They’re all right.’ She may have been my pal all of a sudden but I wasn’t going to go and spoil things for Len. ‘They keep each other company in the evenings.’
‘So long as that’s all they’re doing.’
‘Mom?’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘Is Bob ever coming back?’
‘Genie – I’ve told you.’ She gave a big sigh. ‘I love Bob. He loves me.’
‘But what about my dad?’ My voice turned squeaky and tearful. ‘What’re you going to do?’ It felt as if the world was falling apart.
She got up and went over to the window, stood with her back to me in her white nightdress. ‘I don’t know. Can’t seem to think about it. I keep hoping it’ll just sort itself out, one way or another.’
I was crying quietly behind her. ‘But what about when Dad comes home?’
‘I’ve told you—’ She turned to me again, half angry but near tears herself. ‘I don’t know, do I? This has never happened to me before. Don’t think I don’t feel badly about your father. He’s a good man and he don’t deserve it, I know. But I can’t throw away what I’ve found. Bob’s come along and I feel as if he’s saved me – saved my life.’
‘’E hasn’t really got a wife and kiddies, has ’e?’
‘No.’ She at least looked ashamed of this lie. ‘He hasn’t.’
I pushed my face down into the prickly blanket, hugging my knees, rocking back and forth. ‘I want my dad. I want him home. I want things to be all right again.’
She sat by me, even stroked my back. ‘I’m sorry, Genie,’ she said eventually. ‘But Bob’s the man I love.’
After his short bout of quarantine, Bob was back and I was faced with an offensive of charm.
‘Hello Genie,’ he said when he first came back one Saturday morning, his tone sounding as if I, not Mom, was his long lost love. He produced a bunch of daffs from behind his back like a conjuror with a rabbit. ‘These are for you. To make friends.’ He stuck a really sick-making smile on his brawny face.
‘You’d better give them to Mom. Flowers make me sneeze.’ I flung the bright yellow blooms on the table as if they were dog muck.
Bob clenched his teeth but he didn’t say anything. He stood in the back room with his hands in his trouser pockets. I didn’t remember inviting him in but he seemed to be there anyhow.
‘All right are you, Len?’ he said in the stupid, jolly voice people seemed to think they’d got to put on with Lenny just because he was a bit simple, as if he needed humouring. Len grinned obligingly. But then Len’d have grinned at Adolf Hitler if he’d happened to pop in. He was like that. Bob turned round and about, jingled coins in the pockets of his loud checked suit. I stood watching him, po-faced.
He tried again: ‘That’s a right pretty frock you’re got on there, Genie.’ Then he coughed. ‘Very nice.’ I glowered at him. ‘Your mom knows I’m here then, does she?’
‘No.’
‘How about telling her then? There’s a good girl.’
‘Mom!’ I yelled up the stairs without shifting myself. ‘He’s here.’
She looked ever so nervous when she came down. She had her hair up and was wearing a pretty, tight dress which hugged her waist and her small bosoms. Bob’s eyes swept up and down, devouring her, dirty sod.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. Nan was expecting me.
‘We’ll all have to go out together one day, won’t we Bob?’ Mom said brightly. ‘To the pictures or something. Get to know each other better. You’d like that, wouldn’t you Genie?’
I didn’t even bother answering that one.
Teresa was rather full of herself. Working outside the family business had turned her head.
‘Don’t know what you see in it,’ I told her, since for the moment I was finding more freedom working in my family’s business than out of it. ‘Clocking on, and at someone’s beck and call every minute of the day.’
‘Yes, but it feels like a real job. And I feel as if I’ve grown up.’
‘And you get to see Jack? When am I going to meet lover boy then?’
Teresa hesitated. Even with her olive skin she blushed easily. ‘Yes – I see Jack,’ she said, very offhand.
What was going on here then? ‘I thought that’s just what you wanted?’
‘I did – do. Only . . .’ In her eyes I could suddenly see a funny little gleam. ‘Oh Genie – there’s the most gorgeous feller at the factory. It’s mostly girls there of course – but he brings all the supplies in and he’s forever stopping for a chat. Specially with me.’ I could well imagine. I could hear Teresa’s wonderful, life-giving laugh echoing out across the factory floor.
‘But Teresa, I thought Jack was the be all and end all, your one and only—’
‘Oh, I’m still walking out with Jack,’ she said hastily. ‘Only I can’t help liking Clem. He’s got the most beautiful green eyes.’
Oh yes, green eyes? I didn’t believe in green eyes. I mean I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say I’d ever in my life seen anyone whose eyes were truly green.
I was hanging on to what I had with Jimmy. Which wasn’t much. But I needed someone. Truth was, after his opening outburst of affection and that first breathless kiss Jimmy hadn’t poured out much in the way of feelings. In fact he never said very much at all.
A typical date with Jimmy went like this. We usually went out on a Saturday. Shirl came to be with our nan, even though Nan was better and hobbling about with a stick.
Jimmy and I would meet, him grinning away in anticipation. He’d take my hand and sometimes we’d go to a matinée at the Carlton, or if it was fine we’d walk in the park. And I’d try to get him to talk. I told him my nan was better.
‘Oh well – that’s good.’ End of that conversation.
‘I might look for another job soon.’
‘Oh ah.’
Another attempt. ‘D’you still like me, Jimmy?’
‘Course. Wouldn’t be ’ere else, would I?’
I was even forced to ask about football. Problem was, we just hadn’t got anything to say to each other. Was this something I was supposed to mind, I wondered? I thought about married people I knew. Mom and Dad had never had a lot in the way of conversation, other than what was needed to get by. Lil and Patsy had at least had a laugh together. But what I wanted to know was, was this the very best you could expect? I’d hoped for something a bit more like being friends with Teresa. Getting on, feeling the warmth and excitement of seeing her, laughing together. Was it normal to find your mind wandering when a man kissed you and to be thinking up a shopping list in your head, or
wondering why it was Jimmy’s mouth often tasted just a bit of rhubarb when it wasn’t even in season?
After he thought we’d indulged in enough pleasantries, Jimmy set to with the real business of the date so far as he was concerned. It’d be back of the cinema as the picture flickered on high above us (I’d try to twist into a position so I could at least watch it as well, over his shoulder). Or in the park, or a doorway on the Stratford Road monkey run while near us, girls snatched handkerchieves out of the boys’ breast pockets – you name it, Jimmy took his chances. Blimey, the hours I spent locked, more than half bored, in Jimmy’s grasp. Sometimes he got bold and tried to worm his fingers into my coat, inside my dress, but I wasn’t having that.
‘Oi – you can get out of there.’
He’d give me a sheepish grin and those lips would come close again. So far none of it was like Lil said. Certainly not the best, dreamiest feeling in the world. Frankly I’d rather’ve had a more tasty sort of gobstopper like a bag of Brazil nut toffees. Except that he was there and he wanted me and kept coming back for more.
Maybe I’m not normal, I thought. Teresa seemed to get a lot more of a thrill out of a man than I did. Perhaps all my housewifery and careworn life and all that was going on at home had made me old too soon?
Bob, like the proverbial rash, was back with a vengeance. Our house was nothing short of a knocking shop and it was getting me right down. First of the evening shift was Len and Molly. They didn’t seem to be pushing the boat right to its full limits with sex, but having those two snogging in front of me half the evening was a disturbing enough sight. Didn’t know where to put myself. If we’d had a proper coal shed I’d have gone and sat in it.
I did as many things to distract them as I could. I got them playing rummy, gave them things to eat, made endless cups of tea, switched Gloria on. I was cooking our meals back at our house by now, but sometimes I went out to my nan’s, prepared to brave the walk back later through the black streets rather than face the canoodlings of Len and his Moll. After all, he was thirty now. I was just in the way.