War Babies

by Annie Murray

  They were both coming up the stairs. Light appeared on the landing.

  ‘What’s all the banging, lad?’ Fred demanded. Evidently Sidney had not run away upstairs. ‘It sounds as if someone’s trying to knock the house down.’

  Peggy came straight along and tried to get into Rachel’s room. She was met with the same obstacle.

  ‘Rachel? What’s this blocking your door?’

  In the background, as she climbed weakly out of bed, Rachel heard Sidney making excuses about ‘the kid having a nightmare’ and him trying to get in.

  ‘Rachel?’ Peggy’s voice was high with annoyance.

  Rachel pulled on the chest of drawers with her whole weight, shifting it enough to get out through the door. Her mother leaned in, switched on the light and looked around.

  ‘The chest of drawers – what’s it doing there?’

  ‘I moved it.’ Rachel felt very small with the three of them staring at her. She tried to control her shivering. Looking at Sidney she said, ‘He tries to get in.’

  Sidney let out a guffaw of laughter. ‘I was trying to get in because she was yelling,’ he said.

  ‘Was it a bad dream?’ Fred said in a sugary voice.

  ‘No,’ Rachel said mutinously. ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘You can’t keep shifting the furniture about like that,’ Peggy admonished her. ‘What if there was a fire? Come on now – we’ll move that back to where it belongs and you get into bed again.’

  The men drifted away. Peggy shifted the chest of drawers back and Rachel got into bed. Peggy stood looking at her, arms folded. ‘This has got to stop,’ she said sternly.

  ‘But Mom . . .’ Her voice was high and desperate.

  ‘No more silliness and making up stories, all right? It’s not nice.’ She was turning away.

  Rachel looked up at her, silenced. She knew that whatever she said, Peggy was not going to believe her. In that moment the wedge that was beginning to force itself down between her and her mother slammed in deep. Peggy would hear what she wanted to hear.

  Rachel lay down and closed her eyes, feeling as if her chest might burst with hurt and anger.

  ‘Now you get to sleep – no more nonsense.’

  As soon as Peggy had gone, she leapt up and with all her force, moved the chest back against the door. She couldn’t rely on Mom. She was on her own.

  The next day when Sidney came home, Rachel was in the kitchen, standing around as her mother cooked, hoping to catch her attention. Peggy had got rid of the maid, saying that she ate money and her cooking was terrible. Dealing with her, Peggy had said, was more trouble than it was worth. She would do the cooking herself.

  Rachel saw Sidney outside and she fled out of the kitchen and up the stairs. But he had seen her.

  As she reached the top few steps he was up, taking them two and three at a time.

  ‘Oi, you – where d’yer think you’re off to? Running away from me, are yer?’

  She was forced against the banister, the rail hard against her back. They were both standing on the top steps of the staircase. Rachel started to feel that her legs would not hold her much longer. But her hatred of him put steel inside her for just long enough. Her face contorting with loathing, she said, ‘You’re bad you are. I’ll tell them.’ Even as she said it she knew it was hopeless.

  Sidney stood back, giving an exaggerated shrug and laughing as if she was the village idiot. ‘Tell them? Tell ’em what? Eh? They’re not going to believe a little babby like you, are they?’ He moved his face close again, the way he liked to bully her. ‘Dain’t believe yer last night, did they?’

  Shrinking inside, she knew he was right. Mom hadn’t believed her. She made herself look back at him. She couldn’t think of anything else to say and Sidney stared her out until she was forced to look down.

  ‘Huh.’ He made a contemptuous sound and she thought he was going to move away upstairs. But as she looked up again, he was up close, a mocking expression on his face. He reached out and rubbed one hand across her chest, her flat, undeveloped breasts, then drew his hand back with a gesture of disgust.

  ‘Wasting my time there,’ he said scornfully. ‘Flat as cowing pancakes, yer little runt.’

  He strode off then and she heard him whistling as he went along the landing.

  Every night after that she moved the chest of drawers against the door. But he didn’t try to get in again.

  Eight

  November 1938

  Whenever she could, Rachel escaped to the Davieses’. They lived in a small two-up two-down terrace and it was the loveliest house she had ever seen. The Davieses did not have much money, but they knew how to make a home. Mr Davies had a job in a factory. Mrs Davies had lost one husband and had lived in a run-down house on a yard before. She knew when she was well off.

  ‘This is my little piece of heaven,’ she’d say. ‘Me and Bill have been given another chance. Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am.’

  Mrs Davies, slender and energetic, kept her newly acquired corner of heaven immaculately clean and was forever scrubbing, dusting and polishing the furniture and the little knick-knacks she liked to collect. One day there might be a new china bird on the mantelpiece in the front room, some paper flowers or a picture of somewhere deep in the countryside, with streams, meadows or bluebell woods. Bill, unlike the men who had gone to war in France and returned – if they returned, changed and ruined – had been in the factory throughout. He was small, birdlike and jovial, who always came in with a chirpy greeting – ‘All right, wenches – noses still on yer faces, are they?’ – which never seemed to require any answer but a smile. He would go and pick up little Bobby and fling him about as he gurgled. He was a man who had also been widowed young and like his new wife knew he was in luck.

  Mrs Davies still cooked on a range in the back kitchen. She was not in favour of ‘those new-fangled gas contraptions’. The room was always very hot and usually smelt of something cooking. When the girls came back there after school she would get out the toasting fork and hold wedges of white bread in front of the fire until they were amber coloured and crisp; then she scraped butter onto them and held out a plateful. Rachel could always feel a pool of saliva collecting in her mouth as the smell drifted towards her from the fire. Occasionally Mrs Davies bought crumpets and they were the most delicious of all.

  Mrs Davies never asked Rachel anything directly about her home life but she seemed to sense that there were things amiss, that Rachel needed a bolt-hole, and she was happy to embrace this sweet-looking, rather solemn child who was a friend of Lilian’s.

  One day, looking at one of the newest of Mrs Davies’s ornaments – a china Alsatian dog, lying down with its tongue hanging out – Rachel asked her where she had bought it.

  ‘Off the market, of course,’ Mrs Davies enthused.

  ‘’Er likes a good bargain, that one,’ Mr Davies commented, passing through the back room where they were sitting, with his boots in his hand. He rolled his eyes in affectionate despair. ‘There’s no stopping ’er.’

  ‘Ooh, I like a good mooch around the market, I do,’ Mrs Davies said with relish. ‘Most Sat’d’ys we go, don’t we, Lilian?’

  The market! Since they left the Rag Market, Peggy had never been back. She did her shopping locally and never felt the need to go into town. It was months since they had set foot in the place and now Rachel realized how much she missed it: the bustle and chatter, the sights and smells.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, hardly thinking. ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘Can she, Mom?’ Lilian cried.

  ‘Doesn’t your mother ever go round the market?’ Mrs Davies said incredulously. Rachel didn’t answer. She knew Peggy didn’t like people knowing she’d been a market trader. ‘Well, of course you can, bab. Bring a penny for the trolleybus and we’ll have a little outing. How’s that?’

  Peggy handed over sixpence, only too glad to have someone else take her child off her hands for a Saturday afternoon.

&nbs
p; Rachel stood on the packed trolleybus beside Lilian and her mother as they trundled along the Coventry Road, through Small Heath and onwards into Birmingham. She kept slipping her hand into the pocket of her coat to feel for the sixpence and polishing it against the soft inside of the pocket. She imagined that the dull, tarnished thing might come out looking new minted if she polished it enough. Mrs Davies had paid for her ticket, saying she could pay her back later.

  She could see nothing outside. The bus was stuffy, smelly with hot bodies and old clothes. Her face was up close against the back of a woman in a black and white dog-tooth coat and it kept tickling her nose. She wrinkled her face up at Lilian, who giggled. There were murmurs of conversation around her, about shopping and day-to-day things, about somewhere called Czechoslovakia and how Chamberlain and that fiddling little bit of paper weren’t going to stop Hitler. A woman just behind Rachel said, ‘I can’t stand the sound of them rattle things. Makes my blood run cold, that noise.’

  ‘Better than being gassed,’ another offered, close to Rachel’s right ear.

  ‘Hmm – I s’pose . . . But the stink of those respirators. I can’t stand the smell of rubber, makes me gag . . .’

  ‘My brother Sid was gassed during the last lot. Only lasted a year after the war . . . That one was s’posed to have put a stop to all this. You can’t believe anything they say, can yer?’

  There was going to be another war. It looked more and more like it. All around, people seemed to be saying so these days. They had all been allocated their black, rubbery gas masks. Fred and Peggy had cleared out the cellar, in case there were bombs, they said. Rachel took no notice. And now all she could think of was going back to the market. She realized how much she missed it and some of the people who worked there.

  Most of all she missed Gladys Poulter, Danny’s aunt. Even when Danny left and never came back and Gladys was quieter, sadder than before, she was good to Rachel. She always had a kind word and offered her something from her inexhaustible supply of sweets. After that afternoon when the man dragged him away, it had changed her view of Danny. His father looked so rough and cruel. But she had not been able to take in that Danny would not be back. Week after week she went in with Peggy to set up, thinking that one day, there he would be, beside Gladys Poulter with his box of comics, swaggering along, crying out across the market in his strong voice. But he never was. Eventually she plucked up courage to ask, approaching Gladys timidly one day during a quiet moment. Gladys was folding up items in her clothing pile.

  ‘Mrs Poulter?’ she said. ‘Is Danny ever coming back again?’

  To her surprise, Gladys Poulter’s face quivered and her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away almost angrily.

  ‘I wish I knew, bab.’ She finished folding a pale yellow blouse with expert fingers, seemingly trying to decide whether to say any more. Then she looked round at Rachel. ‘I was trying to look out for him, and his sisters. But Wilf – Danny’s Dad – he’s taken the four of them and . . .’ She looked down for a moment, then up at Rachel again with tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to have to say this because it shames me, but I don’t know where they are – none of them, including him, their father.’

  Tears rose in Rachel’s eyes as well. She could see how upset Gladys Poulter was. Seeing Danny’s father had given her no confidence that whatever had happened to his children would be kind or good.

  ‘I don’t know where to start even,’ Gladys went on in a desolate voice. ‘I don’t know if ’e’s gone off with ’em to Australia or summat or if they’re still here in Birmingham.’ Rachel could see she was suffering over it every hour of the day. She reached out and patted Rachel’s head. ‘But one day I swear I’m going to find out – somehow.’

  This news sat inside Rachel like lead, the memory of Danny and all his liveliness so fresh in her mind. But weeks passed, months, and still there was no sign of him. Now and then she asked Gladys Poulter again, but all she got was a shaken head in reply and she stopped asking. She had stopped expecting ever to see him.

  The bus lumbered up Digbeth to the Bullring and they all streamed off to join the crowds already milling around the fruit and veg and flowers in Spiceal Street.

  ‘We’ll go to the Rag Market first,’ Mrs Davies said, to Rachel’s joy, as they struggled down past St Martin’s Church, towards Jamaica Row. ‘We’ll come back to the Market Hall for veg – I don’t want to cart them around and we might get some bargains if we go later.’

  ‘Ooh look, it’s just the same!’ Rachel exclaimed as they passed through the tall gates into the Rag Market among the crowds. She breathed in the smells. Cigarette smoke made her nostrils tingle. And she could not resist adding, ‘Mom and me used to work here!’

  ‘Did you?’ Mrs Davies’s head whipped round. ‘You never mentioned that before.’

  ‘You lucky thing,’ Lilian said. She coughed again. Now winter was back she had a bad chest, as usual. ‘I’d love to work here.’

  ‘Come on,’ Mrs Davies said gamely. ‘Let’s see what they’ve got for us. Hold hands, you two, and don’t get lost. I don’t want you running off – specially you, Rachel. What would your mother say?’

  Rachel had a feeling her mother would not say much, that it often felt, in fact, as if Peggy rather wished she might disappear. But she smiled vaguely back into Mrs Davies’s kindly face.

  They worked their way round all the pitches, the little tables or old prams with knick-knacks crammed on them, crocks and toys and shoes, the piles of old clothes and hats, the dresses and men’s old jackets. There was a smell of musty cloth and mothballs tinged with sweat, all so familiar that Rachel lapped it up, happy with the memory of it all. And on the cold air, once again she sniffed the smell of hot potatoes and chestnuts and her mouth started to water.

  ‘Smell that!’ Lilian said, poking her in the ribs. Lilian always seemed to be hungry. ‘Shall us get some? You’ve got some money.’

  ‘You’ve only just had yer dinner!’ Mrs Davies argued. ‘Wait for later and then we’ll see.’

  It didn’t take Rachel long to spot Gladys Poulter’s strong features across the market, standing tall and proud, inviting people with her eyes and every now and again with her deep, carrying voice.

  ‘Best quality – get your bedding here, sheets and towels!’

  Gladys’s voice seemed to vibrate through Rachel. She moved towards her immediately, pulling Lilian along.

  ‘Let’s go here,’ she ordered.

  ‘But Mom said . . .’ Mrs Davies was drifting in the opposite direction. Lilian dragged reluctantly behind her.

  ‘Quick – we’ll go back to your mom in a tick –’ Having to hurry made Rachel bolder. Suddenly nothing mattered except reaching Gladys. Drawing nearer to her pitch she stood on tiptoe, trying to see if Danny was there. She couldn’t hear him. There was no sign of him.

  Lilian was getting cross.

  ‘Rach – come on. Mom told us not to go off –’ She broke away. ‘I’m going back to her. Come with me or you’ll get lost.’

  Lilian folded herself back into the crowd, but Rachel ploughed on. When she reached the Poulters’ pitch, Gladys showed no sign of recognition at first. Speaking quickly, before the woman sizing up a black dress could get there first, Rachel said, ‘Mrs Poulter?’

  Gladys looked at her, and a smile spread over her face.

  ‘I’m Rachel – Peggy’s daughter,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Course you are. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you – you’ve grown up a bit, ain’t you, eh?’ Although it was only a few months since they had stopped working on the market and gone to Fred Horton’s house, it felt like a lifetime to Rachel. ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘She’s all right,’ Rachel said. Gladys and Peggy had never really got on. Rachel knew that her mother looked down on Gladys. And she didn’t want to talk about Mom – there was something far more important to ask. ‘Did Danny ever come back?’

  ‘Our Danny? Oh – there’s a tale.’ There was angry gr
it in her voice. ‘He did, bab – two months ago. He’s working with me now, Sat’d’ys, taking on more of the gents’ clothes . . . Look, there ’e is – just coming over.’

  Heart racing with excitement, Rachel looked round, seeking out the bold little lad she remembered. Gradually, a tall, thin, wiry figure jostled towards them through the crowd, carrying a bundle of dark clothing. She realized with a lurch inside her that this must be him. She was thirteen, so Danny must be getting on for fifteen now. His face was no longer round and cheeky-looking but gaunt, so that his eyes seemed bigger than she remembered. While he looked pale and stretched tall now, there was still something of the sparking energy about him that she remembered. But as he came closer, she could see that there was something very different about him, a hard, closed-off look. She felt immediately both excited and very shy.

  ‘Eh, Danny,’ Gladys Poulter said. ‘This is little Rachel – d’you remember her? Used to come and buy your comics off of you.’

  Rachel felt Danny’s big blue eyes fasten on her, blankly at first, then with a slight sense of recognition. He gave the faintest nod and started to turn away again, completely aloof from her.

  ‘D’you remember?’ Gladys asked. ‘You and your comics?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Danny nodded. He obviously didn’t want to speak to her.

  ‘He’s not much of a talker these days, our Danny,’ Gladys joked, but there was a sadness in the way she said it. ‘We’re trying to teach him how to do it again!’

  ‘I’d better go,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Come and see us again when you’re about,’ Gladys said. ‘We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Danny?’

  He was facing the other way, undoing the bundle. He made no response.

  ‘’Ere – have one of these.’ Rachel found a little bag of red cough candy held under her nose. She reached for one of the pungent sweets. ‘Take one for your little pal as well.’ She nodded at Lilian who had turned back to find her. She was waiting, looking bewildered.