Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  I was taken on in the warehouse at the back as a checker. It was a wide, not very well lit area with rows of women working at long tables. Doris slotted me into a work place at the end of a table and showed me how to look over the parts, searching them for mistakes or rough bits.

  ‘See this one—’ She showed me the inside of a petrol cap. ‘The thread’s not taken properly. You’d never be able to screw that up.’

  After checking, we had to wrap the parts in tissue paper and a layer of brown paper and string and pack them in tea chests to go to other factories needing the parts.

  It kept me busy enough, that did. We were all working flat out and quite honestly it was nice to get away from my family for a bit. I began to see Teresa’s point. Out in the warehouse I was almost the babby of the place. There was just one other girl anywhere near my age, a year older, very pert, called Nancy. She had little freckles on her nose and auburn eyebrows plucked to a thin line. The other women were mom’s age and older. They treated me very well and looked after me in a motherly way. In between chat about the job I learned about their families, those with good husbands and bad, those with none at all, who was in a reserved occupation, who’d signed up, and about their children, mothers-in-law, landlords. And about the Broadbent family who owned the factory. Everyone seemed agreed that Lewis Broadbent was second only to God, that his wife Betty was a scheming hypochondriac, his two daughters no better than they ought to be and his son, who was in the RAF, had the sun shining out of various bits of his anatomy. Nancy went silly at the very mention of Joe Broadbent’s name.

  ‘’E’s all set to take over the factory when this lot’s over,’ one of the women said, waving her hand over the petrol caps as if they were the war itself.

  ‘’E’s got no airs and graces though, Joe, has ’e? Comes in and knuckles down to any job ’e’s given. Knows how the place works backwards.’

  ‘You’d hardly believe ’e was related to the two sisters, would you?’ Nancy said bitchily.

  ‘Ooh, she’s got her eye on ’im all right,’ someone teased and Nancy looked round coyly.

  ‘Just hope they look after ’im in the airforce . . .’

  The talk turned, and then one of them said to me, ‘You got yourself a nice fella, ’ave you, Genie?’

  I shook my head, not looking up.

  ‘Go on – why not?’

  ‘Don’t tease her – she’s only young yet,’ a voice said.

  I thought with a pang of Jimmy, and of Walt. I’d messed up my chances good and proper with both of them. Oh well, I thought, giving a shrug inside myself. So what. Who cared anyway?

  When it came to Dunkirk it was everyone’s news, everyone’s war suddenly, and for those last days of May no one could talk or think of anything else. Gloria was on for every news bulletin whenever anyone was in. Mom, still sick, was in a shocking state.

  One evening when it was all going on, Auntie Lil turned up. She came to bury the hatchet and not, for once, in the back of Mom’s head.

  ‘You still bad, Dor?’ she asked, sweet as jam.

  Mom was sitting writing to Eric, and Lil’s sympathy sent her all weepy. ‘I’ve not been into work I feel that terrible.’ Her appearance had gone all to pieces. She was gaunt, her skin the colour of porridge.

  ‘Come on now,’ Lil said. ‘Genie and I’ll help you, won’t we love?’ She pushed Mom back down into a chair. ‘You need some company – get Stella over for a chat.’

  ‘She don’t care. Never seen her for dust – some friend that one,’ Mom said despondently.

  ‘Never mind. You just stay there and we’ll see to everything.’

  ‘I thought you hated me!’ Mom sobbed.

  ‘What’s done can’t be undone,’ Lil said. ‘Here – I brought you a bottle of stout for later. Buck you up.’

  Lil was a busy sort. Spun round the place doing housework as if it was a race. She’d always been like that. Patsy and Tom, who’d come down with her, were out in the garden playing in the evening sun. Before I could blink hardly, Lil had brewed up tea, dusted and tidied downstairs, rinsed and hung out a bucket full of washing and was all for setting in on the cooking.

  I watched her as I worked on carrots and parsnips for our tea, her sleek body bending and straightening in the garden as she pegged out, shouting to the boys now and then. Her life had been the same for so long, I thought, and wondered if it’d ever be any different for her, for any of us.

  ‘How is Eric?’ she called to Mom as she came in with the empty washpail.

  ‘He’s all right.’ We could hear the emotion in Mom’s voice. She was never more than a breath away from tears these days. They seeped up into her eyes at the mention of all sorts of things: Dad, Eric, the babby, the war, going to work, sometimes even the thought of getting up in the morning. ‘He doesn’t write much. That Mrs Spenser’s got her claws into him – Victor said when he took Eric down there she had ever such a nice house and she nearly jumped on Eric as if he was her own.’ She gave a little wail. ‘It’s not right. I feel as if I’ve lost him.’

  Lil pulled a grim face at me and went in to her. ‘Never mind,’ she soothed. ‘You know he’s safe, and at least he’s happy where he is. You’ve no worries on that score.’

  ‘But he shouldn’t be happy – he doesn’t belong there. You wouldn’t send yours off, would you?’

  I took them another cup of tea, then retreated into the kitchen. Patsy and Tom were playing down round the Anderson which was now sprouted over with dandelions. Some had already gone to seed and the boys were blowing dandelion clocks. I had a peculiar feeling for a minute which was so strange it took me a while to work out what it was. I was happy. Just for a little flash of time. Seeing the boys there looking carefree like kids should be in the last of the sunshine on these calm, clear-cut days of spring, and Auntie Lil here and people being nice to one another.

  But then I heard Lil say, ‘What are you going to do, sis?’ and the little spark of harmony which lit those few seconds was snuffed out because Mom was crying again and trying to speak and Lil was saying, ‘Ssh . . . ssh . . . there.’

  ‘I’ve been so bad,’ Mom was pouring out to her. ‘Such a fool. But I loved him. Really loved him, and I’ve never had it before like that, you know . . . But he never loved me. Not really, properly. It was all a lie . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ Lil’s voice was desolate. She knew only too well what it was to be left alone. ‘He was using you, sis.’

  ‘I want to get back to what we had – me and Victor. I mean it wasn’t all I’ve ever wanted but it was good enough. If I lose that I’ll have nothing.’

  ‘But Doreen, the babby. It’s not just going to go away.’

  I held still in the kitchen listening.

  ‘No, but . . .’ I heard her hesitate. ‘He might be away ages and the babby’ll be born in seven months. I could hand it over. There’s people would take it off me – adopt it. And he’d never know. Nothing would have changed then, would it?’

  ‘Doreen!’ Lil was dreadfully shocked. ‘You can’t go on like that, deceiving him. He’s your husband!’

  ‘But what else can I do?’

  ‘The truth’ll find you out, Dor. The neighbours aren’t blind and deaf, are they? Some bloody busybody’s bound to say summat even if it ain’t out of spite – although the chances are it will be. What about Gladys and Molly for a start? They’ve not enough sense between them to keep their mouths shut. You’re just going to have to tell him the truth.’

  ‘No. Oh no, I couldn’t do that!’

  I pictured Dad’s face if he knew, the twisted hurt in it, and she must’ve seen it the same way.

  We heard Len at the door then and they had to stop talking.

  ‘Awright Len?’ Lil said. ‘Been at it since the crack of dawn, have you?’

  I heard Len making pleased-sounding noises. Then a click and Gloria was on. There was news due. ‘Ssssh,’ everyone said.

  The Germans had reached the Channel coast. The British Expeditionary
Force as well as Belgian and French troops were surrounded in a small pocket of ground inland from Dunkirk.

  The days as we waited were so beautiful. So lovely it hurt. It looked all wrong for disaster and dread and knowing great calamities were happening somewhere far away. By 24 May the BEF was completely cut off. Those of us who had people there could think of nothing else. What was happening to my father? Were they safe? What was going to happen next? Even for those who could look at the thing less personally, the fact was, the Germans were only twenty or so miles away from the south coast, looking at us across a tiny vein of water.

  Over that weekend, when they began the evacuation of Dunkirk, the skies were clear and lovely and people watered their vegetable patches and sunned themselves in the park, wore cotton frocks and held cricket matches. That was the oddest part of the whole thing, trying to hold together in your mind that these things were happening in the same world.

  The nights were horrible, broken, patched with bad dreams, and waking it hit you, thoughts coming in a rush – ‘Oh God, oh no!’ – like black water filling a drain.

  On the Monday the Belgians capitulated. They were bringing troops out of France by the thousand every day. Mom was in such a state of agitation she scarcely knew where to put herself. She managed to carry on working most days, which helped keep her mind occupied. But at home she paced the floor, couldn’t keep still.

  ‘I feel as if I’m going mad,’ she cried. ‘I wish they’d get it all over with. This waiting’s worse than anything.’

  She’d got all the options worked out by now with the clear-cut selfishness of a true survivor.

  ‘If he gets killed I’m going to be a widow on my own. And if he comes back he’s going to find out about the babby and everything’ll be ruined anyway. He can’t come home now. He just can’t!’

  June 1940

  There was no other conversation in those days. Nothing else on anyone’s lips. Walking home from work I’d hear the muffled sounds of wireless sets through open windows. The women at the factory were marvellous to me. ‘Any news, Genie?’ every day. Ever so kind. ‘’Ow’s your mother?’ People who saw Mom thought she was jumpy with sleeplessness on Dad’s behalf, desperate for him back. I couldn’t tell them it wasn’t quite like that.

  I loved being at work, away from her. She wasn’t feeling well still, wasn’t sleeping. ‘What if Victor comes back? What if he doesn’t?’ I found it a strain being with her when I was in a state of nervous exhaustion myself. I felt sick almost all the time.

  We all sweated it out. The weather was boiling. Every day Mom shrunk a bit thinner. She carried on confiding in Lil and I’d never seen them so close. As for Len, we barely saw him. When he wasn’t at the Austin he was off somewhere with Molly. Nanny Rawson was a pillar of strength as ever.

  ‘Come over to ours and have a sing-song,’ she insisted to Mom. ‘Take your mind off it.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Mom said. ‘Not singing. Not now.’

  ‘You should,’ Nan said. ‘Works wonders for you.’ She and Lil still played in some of the pubs round and about.

  I went anyway, and sat singing with Nan and Lil on an evening that felt like the middle of summer with the door open so some of the neighbours stood round in the yard and chimed in with us. And Nanny was right, a bit of ‘Knees up Mother Brown’ and other old favourites did take your mind elsewhere for a bit.

  But we were still being swept along with the fleets of Dunkirk. All the little vessels, fishing smacks, tramps, paddle steamers, shrimpers and tugs that had gone to support the naval ships and channel steamers to get the boys home. It made you nearly boil with pride inside. Made defeat seem like victory, although really now we were right up against it and we knew it clear as anything. But all I wanted to know then was, are they bringing my dad? I was praying all the time, ‘Please God, please . . .’

  They started trickling home. Gloria told us how in the Kent gardens along the railway, people stood waving them back. By 4 June the evacuation was over. They’d done all they could and the Germans were getting too close. No more ships were going.

  When the men started coming in from the coast, there were heroic stories about their welcome, the programmes of washing and feeding and entertaining them all. We heard of arrivals in Birmingham. We waited and waited, Mom like someone preparing to be fired from a cannon.

  ‘Mom asked if there’s anything you need?’ Teresa said when she appeared on our doorstep.

  It was my mom’s day off from work and she was slouched in an old dress with a pinner over the top and her hair all over the place. Teresa looked really taken aback at the sight of her, and seeing Teresa, Mom straightened up and tried to pull herself together. ‘Nothing you can do,’ she said. ‘Waiting’s the only thing – ta.’

  Teresa, in contrast to Mom, was looking lovely. The sun had only to come out for her skin to light up brown and the days had been tropical. She had on a bright yellow dress with big orange flowers dotted across it and her black hair was hanging loose.

  ‘You look nice,’ Mom told her. ‘Haven’t seen you in ages.’ She had to pretend with Teresa. It seemed to do her good, having to act like the pining, faithful wife. ‘Sorry I’m such a mess. Got other things on my mind.’

  ‘You must be ever so worried, Mrs Watkins,’ Teresa said, sitting down opposite her, dark eyes full of concern.

  ‘Oh I am,’ Mom was saying demurely. ‘But we’re still hoping. There’s more coming back all the time.’

  She was being a model Person Taking It Well. ‘How’s your job?’ she asked Teresa.

  ‘Boring. Wouldn’t mind a change to tell you the truth. Stevie says it serves me right.’

  Stevie would, I thought.

  Teresa told us about some of the antics they got up to to liven the place up. Her voice rang round our house. Must’ve shocked the walls. They weren’t used to happy sounds.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind me having a laugh, Mrs Watkins,’ Teresa said.

  ‘No, you go on,’ Mom urged. ‘Good for us to hear you.’

  When Len came back he joined in at the sound of her. Said that after tea he was going out with Molly.

  Teresa being there kept Mom together all evening. We ate boiled beef and spring cabbage – ‘Hope you don’t mind our sort of cooking,’ Mom said – listened to Gloria’s music and news bulletins and talked and joked. Teresa even made Mom laugh with her infectious energy. After dark, Len came in looking pleased with himself. Mom gave me a look full of meaning and I tried to ignore her.

  ‘Where’ve you been, Lenny?’ she asked him.

  ‘Out,’ was all she got in reply, while he twiddled Gloria’s knobs as he had no doubt just been twiddling Molly’s.

  Teresa ended up staying over. ‘Mom’ll know where I am.’ It was like the old days, before Lola, when she used to come and sleep the night, weekends sometimes, when there was no school the next morning. The more we’d been together that night the more I felt we could be close again. She hadn’t even mentioned blokes all evening. But there was this great lie and pretence going on in front of her and it made me really uncomfortable.

  She bunked up with me on the bed in my room. It took her ages to get ready. I lay down in my thin white nightdress, watching her. She peeled off the sunny yellow dress and laid it over the chair. Underneath she had on a cotton petticoat, old but still surprisingly white, or it seemed so in the candlelight, and her skin looked dark against it. She stood facing me, using my hairbursh to brush her hair forward, first over one shoulder, then the other, then holding it up luxuriously with two hands and letting it fall down her back, bosoms lifting as she raised her arms. Her body tapered down to narrow hips. She smiled at me, eyes dotted with little candles, and laughed her chesty laugh. She’s beautiful, I thought. Not pretty, but beautiful.

  ‘Haven’t done this for a long time, have we?’

  I shook my head, shy of her suddenly. She looked so grown up.

  ‘Hope I’ll fit in.’

  ‘You will. You’r
e nothing like the size of Lola. Here—’ I pulled the covers back.

  She half lay in bed, leaning over on one elbow to blow out the candle on the chair beside her, hair falling forward. It was very dark then, with the windows blacked out. I couldn’t even see her outline, only feel the warmth of her next to me. I smiled in the dark.

  ‘I feel like a little kid again,’ she said.

  ‘Just what I was thinking.’

  I wouldn’t want to be though, would you? A kid I mean. Not for anything.’

  I was still wondering about this when she said, ‘Sorry I behaved like such an idiot over Jack.’

  ‘And Clem.’

  ‘All right. And Clem then.’

  ‘S’all right.’

  ‘Genie? What about Walt – d’you still like him?’

  ‘Haven’t seen him.’

  ‘But if you did?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never mind, there’ll be someone.’

  I thought about Jimmy, his body pushing down on mine. The tea hadn’t all come out of my dress and Mom had been livid.

  ‘I don’t think I care all that much.’

  ‘We just haven’t met anyone good enough for us.’

  ‘That must be it. Anyway, there’s always us. Pals?’

  ‘Pals.’ After a moment she said, ‘Your mom’s being ever so brave. If it was my dad away I can’t imagine how Mom’d cope. Or me.’

  ‘It’s a case of having to.’

  ‘Course. All the same, I think you lot are tougher than us. All too emotional, Italians.’

  I couldn’t lie to her any more, not being there so close to her. And I wanted to stop feeling so alone. But my heart was pounding so hard at the thought of bringing it all out that I couldn’t speak and I was shaking.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Teresa said.

  ‘I want to tell you summat . . .’ Then I was crying so much I couldn’t get it out.

  Teresa turned on her side and wrapped her arms round me and I hugged her back, feeling her full chest against my skinny body. She felt lovely. She kissed my cheek and I kissed her too.