War Babies

by Annie Murray

  Moved by his words, she cried even harder. When she could speak again she said, ‘Oh, Danny – I’m so scared. But you’re all I want as well. We’ll be together, won’t we?’ She let go of him and wiped her eyes, feeling stunned suddenly with exhaustion. ‘I just don’t know what Mom’s going to say.’

  They walked slowly along the road, Danny’s arm around her. After a moment’s thought, he said, ‘I’ll come home with you now. We’ll tell her – tonight.’

  ‘Now?’ she gasped. ‘But Danny . . .’

  ‘Come on.’ He grasped her hand. ‘Now. The two of us together. I’m not leaving you to do it on your own.’

  ‘This is how people must feel before they go in front of a firing squad,’ Rachel said as they made their way along the blackness of the Coventry Road. The night was clear and cold. White pinpricks of stars and the occasional shaded lamps of a bus were the only light. She let out a giggle. Now they were on their way to tell her mother she felt a relieved, devil-may-care lightness coming over her. She kept wanting to laugh hysterically one moment and burst into tears the next.

  ‘We’d better go and get it over with,’ she said.

  Danny was solemn and determined. ‘Any problems with your old man and I’ll sock him one,’ he promised.

  ‘He’s not my old man. He’s nothing to me,’ she said. ‘What’s it got to do with him?’ But her light-hearted bravery seeped away as they neared the house. Fred Horton would damn well think it was his business as the man of the house, even if he took very little notice of her the rest of the time.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. Standing outside the blacked-out windows of the shop she seemed to feel the cold, smoky night air weigh down on her. She clung to Danny’s arm. ‘Let’s not do it now – let’s leave it ’til I’m showing, and then we’ll have to . . .’

  ‘No.’ Danny seemed to be puffed up with all the determination that had deserted her. ‘Let’s tell them. We’ll tell ’em we’re getting married.’

  ‘Are we allowed to get married?’ she said, suddenly appalled by her lack of knowledge about this, or anything.

  ‘Auntie says you have to have permission if you’re not twenty-one.’ Before she could say that Peggy would never give permission in a month of Sundays, he said, ‘Got your key?’

  Inside, she could hardly get up the dark stairs, her legs were trembling so much. It was still only about eight o’clock, though so dark and wintry that it felt like the middle of the night. The passage smelt unpleasantly of boiled fish. Everything was quiet. Cissy must already be asleep.

  ‘Is that you, Rachel?’ she heard her mother’s voice come sleepily from the sitting room upstairs. Mom thought she had been to the pictures with Lilian, who in fact she only snatched quick chats with at Bird’s in their breaks. She had not seen her in the evening for weeks.

  ‘Yes.’ She forced her voice to sound normal.

  They stood on the landing together in confusion. Danny indicated that they should go in. Rachel shook her head desperately. She was so shaky and terrified she could hardly stand. He took her hand.

  ‘Go on.’

  They stepped into the room. Fred was asleep in the armchair near the glowing embers of the fire, feet splayed apart on the rug. He had loosened his shirt collar and fly buttons and his mouth was slightly open. Peggy was bent over a piece of hand stitching, squinting in the poor light.

  ‘Mom.’

  Peggy looked up. It took her a second to register that someone else was there and she sat up straighter in indignation. Her crinkly hair was still fastened tightly back and she looked hard faced and forbidding.

  ‘Who’s this? Rachel – what’re you thinking of, bringing some strange person into the house at this time of night. Fred – Fred, wake up!’

  Fred Horton righted himself with a snort, said, ‘Uh – what’s the matter? Who’s this?’ A second’s realization later he hastily buttoned up. ‘What’s going on? A man can’t sit in his own house . . .’

  ‘Mother – this is Danny,’ Rachel said as they stood before her. She deliberately did not speak to Fred.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Horton,’ Danny said stiffly.

  ‘Rachel, what’s going on?’ Peggy said with growing annoyance. ‘How dare you bring some stranger in here at this time of night. You – go on with you. Out you go.’

  This was not a good start. Danny stood calmly, upright and dignified. ‘I’ll go in a minute,’ he said. ‘But I’ve summat to say to you, Mrs Horton.’

  ‘Have you now?’ Peggy said in a tone of heavy sarcasm. ‘I’ve got something to say to you too – what d’you think you’re doing here with my daughter? Rachel – who is this . . . This . . .’ She waved her arm, not seeming to be able to find the right word.

  ‘I’ve come to ask you,’ Danny said carefully. He struggled to find the right words as well and when they came out, even Rachel could hear how rough and awkward he sounded. ‘Thing is, Rachel and me . . .’ He was clumsy now. ‘We want to get wed.’

  Peggy gaped at him. Rachel saw Danny through her Peggy’s judging eyes, his workaday clothes, his skinny body and unrefined voice. She could see the snooty contempt growing on her mother’s face. Finally Peggy burst out laughing. ‘Oh – you want to “get wed”,’ she mocked. ‘The pair of you no more than children and I’ve never even set eyes on you before, whoever you are. I don’t know you from Adam and you’re certainly not having anything more to do with my daughter, who, when she gets married, will be finding a professional person to marry – someone with a lot more prospects than you, I can tell you! Rachel, I don’t know what you’re thinking of but please get rid of this person.’ Her anger was growing now. ‘I take it you’ve been telling untruths about where you’ve been, you deceitful little hussy . . .’ She looked to her husband. ‘Fred – make this . . . this little guttersnipe leave our house, will you?’

  ‘Right –’ Fred was pushing himself up out of his chair. ‘Now you – get on your way . . .’

  ‘No!’ Rachel cried. ‘Mom – you’ve got to listen!’

  Fred subsided, temporarily.

  ‘Mom, this is Danny. I’ve known him for ages – he used to be on the market with Gladys Poulter – d’you remember? Ages ago. And we’re friends – well, more than . . . And . . .’ She started to grow tearful again. ‘We want to get married.’

  ‘Oh, you want to get married!’ Peggy’s mockery flared into anger. ‘I don’t care what you want!’ She laughed again, in an outraged way. ‘Have you gone out of your mind? You walk in here with some factory Jack I’ve never seen before . . .’

  ‘But Mom, I told you—’

  ‘When you’re barely old enough to boil an egg by yourself, and you expect me to agree to . . .’

  ‘Time to go, lad.’ Fred got up again, attempting to exert some sort of authority. He went to lay a hand on Danny’s shoulder, but Danny shrugged away from his reach.

  ‘Mom,’ Rachel burst out. ‘You’ve got to listen! I’m in the family way. I’m having a baby – and it’s Danny’s.’

  The air froze into silence. After an endless, thunderstruck pause, Peggy hissed, ‘You’d better be having me on, Rachel.’

  ‘No, Mother.’ She shook her head, defiant now. ‘I’m not.’

  Peggy looked from one to the other of them, seeing the seriousness of their announcement. She got to her feet in a terrible, threatening way, her eyes never leaving Rachel’s face. Rachel took a step back. Danny reached for her hand. Fred Horton stood quite still, without any apparent clue what to do.

  ‘Is this true?’ Peggy asked hoarsely.

  Rachel nodded. She looked down then at the rug under her feet, her cheeks burning.

  ‘Get out.’ Her mother’s voice lashed her. ‘You filthy, dirty girl. Get out of my house and don’t you ever come round here again. You’re no daughter of mine. And you, you little –’ She could not seem to bring to mind a bad enough word. ‘You’ve corrupted her – sullied her. Well, on your head be it. Don’t involve me in your disgusting carry-on. She’s yours now!’
She looked at Danny as if she was about to slap him. ‘Both of you. You’ve made your own foul bed – you can lie on it. Now get out!’

  Twenty

  Rachel was dry eyed now and explosive with rage as they waited for the bus on the Coventry Road. She could not even look at Danny, even though her fury was not directed at him. Her feelings were too confused. She hugged her arms around herself, looking away along the dark street.

  ‘Rach?’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Come on – don’t be like this.’ He sounded wretched and tried to take her in his arms but she thrust him away. She wanted his comfort but could not accept it, not then.

  What was she doing out here in the cold, cast out by her mother? Did Mom really mean it – didn’t she have any pity or love in her heart? But Rachel had always known that her mother did not really want her. Some of the horrible things Peggy had said to her over the years flooded into her mind. You’ve always been a millstone round my neck . . . She’s got what she wants now, Rachel thought bitterly. Me out of the way so she doesn’t have to bother with me. Just her and Fred and Cissy – a neat little family, no mess. And what about Danny? In her fragile state, even her own feelings about Danny were cast into doubt. Here she was throwing her lot in with him. How well did she really know him, when it came down to it? How did she know for sure that he would stand by her and not just take off and disappear the way his own father had done?

  Danny withdrew and stood in silent misery beside her, as if her pushing him away had forced him right back into himself. She could not see his face in the darkness, but he lowered his head, hands in his pockets. She knew this stance – how dejected he could be – but she felt so bad herself that she did not have it in her to do anything about it at that moment.

  A bicycle passed, the front lamp covered except for a tiny slit. Soon afterwards they heard the bus in the distance. They boarded in silence and sat hunched up together. It felt as if they were hundreds of miles apart.

  They had only gone a mile, to Small Heath, when the shrieking sound of the sirens rose up outside. The driver gave a shout of frustration and the bus slid to a halt.

  ‘Right – here we go again! Everybody off. Get yerselves into a shelter – there’s one not far, along there.’

  There were only a handful of people on the bus and they all climbed off into the howling racket. Danny clasped her hand. The noise battered Rachel’s ears and made every nerve in her body jangle. As they stumbled along the pavement, the white beams of searchlights prowling the sky above, they could hear a voice shouting, ‘Over here – come on, get yerselves under cover. Quick!’

  A finger of light moved towards them and they saw one of the ARP Wardens, a middle-aged man with a dark little moustache.

  ‘Down here – come on, look sharp. There’s room for a few more sardines in here.’

  There was another man behind them and the three of them stumbled their way down the brick steps into the basement under a factory, into an atmosphere already fuggy with the collective miasma of a crowd of people, some of whose faces they could just make out in the light of an oil lamp. There must have been close on a hundred people in there.

  ‘That’s it, bab,’ a lady called, ‘come on in and get the door shut. Don’t want those cowing Jerries seeing our light. Shove up, lads – look, there’s still some space near the door.’

  The woman, who had a hairnet on over a head bumpy with curlers, seemed to be in charge. Somewhere in the murky depths of the shelter a child was crying, a ragged, grating noise which quickly made Rachel want to scream herself. ‘Shh now, Terry,’ a lady kept urging. ‘That’s enough of that racket – just close yer eyes.’

  ‘Are they after Small Heath tonight? Bets on, eh?’ the older lady said.

  There were plenty of firms in Small Heath – Singer, Alldays & Onions and others. They’d already hit the BSA, where they were turning out armaments, back in November, flattening part of the factory.

  There were a few chairs and benches. Some people had brought bits of bedding for children and a few others were lying down, but most sat up. Rachel and Danny sank into a small space on a wooden bench right by the door. Next to Danny was a large man with his head back against the wall, apparently fast asleep against all the odds, with the general carry-on going on around him. He was a big fleshy fellow, with cropped brown hair, his open mouth emitting little snores. Rachel eyed him enviously. If only she could just go to sleep like that!

  The fact that they were close to the door was both good and bad. It meant more fresh air leaking around the door to combat the growing stench in there, but it was also freezing cold.

  ‘Here –’ Danny took off his jacket and covered them both with it.

  ‘But the wall’s freezing,’ she protested, seeing him sit back in only his shirt.

  ‘S’all right,’ he said. ‘Come on – just lean on me.’

  She felt suddenly utterly drained and queasy. The thought of the cold night ahead sitting in here was almost too much to bear. Dimly she heard the rumble of the planes’ engines. Later there were muffled bangs. Rachel imagined the incendiaries, falling through the darkness like candles. Everything went quiet. The child stopped crying as if someone had unplugged him. But the bangs were muted compared to the racket of some raids. When the planes had passed over, the grizzling and the buzz of conversation resumed.

  ‘Ooh – well, that wasn’t too close . . . Some other poor bugger’s getting it . . .’

  ‘. . . there was a bloody great crater full of water, right outside the shelter,’ Rachel heard, as she tried to doze. Another voice said, ‘We know, Dor, we was there as well, remember?’

  ‘. . . and I said to ’im, I ain’t standing ’ere on these bunions for nothing but a half-pound of tripe – I’ve been shopping with ’im for the past thirty years . . .’

  ‘. . . and that barrage balloon come down and the cables dug up all my leeks, right along the row . . .’

  ‘Anyone want a biscuit? I’ve got a flask of tea but it won’t go far . . .’

  At some stage as she dozed against Danny’s warm chest, there was an outbreak of singing: ‘We’ll Meet Again . . .’ and ‘Daisy, Daisy . . .’ Danny put his arms round her and rested his chin on her head. For a while, both of them slept.

  She woke in the dim light. Her back was very stiff and she moved to ease it. All was quieter, except for snores and the odd moan as someone shifted position. She listened. Surely the all-clear hadn’t sounded, had it? That would have woken her, she was sure.

  ‘Rach?’ Danny woke as she shifted to sit up. Her feet were so utterly frozen in her black work shoes that they were aching and she felt stiff as a rusty bicycle. But she did not, to her surprise, feel sick, despite the smell in there. She was clearer in her head.

  ‘Just need to sit up,’ she whispered. They rearranged themselves side by side with the jacket over them, their heads close together.

  ‘Rach?’ In the gloom she could see his breath on the freezing air. ‘You angry with me?’

  She felt different now. Sleep had changed things. She laid her hand on his chest under the jacket, feeling the bony warmth of him. ‘No. I was angry with Mom. Am angry. And I’m scared, Danny. I don’t know what it’s like having a baby and what will everyone say and I’ll lose my job and how are we going to live?’ She started feeling overwhelmed again at all these thoughts, but she was determined not to cry.

  He clasped her hand. ‘I’ll look after you. I will. I can work and Auntie’ll let us live with her, at least to start.’

  ‘Has she said so?’

  ‘No. Not as such. She’s asked me what I think I should do and I just say we should do the right thing and get married. Beyond that . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I dunno. But Rach –’ He turned to face her and she could see the gleam of his eyes. ‘I don’t mind. I know we’re starting young, but family’s everything – we’ll be family. Auntie says –’ He hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She says I’ll have to make a
man of myself. I want to be a man – proper like. Not like my father. Not just give up on everyone. Whoever’s in there . . .’ He stroked her belly. He seemed more able to believe in the baby than she did. ‘That’s family.’

  ‘Oh God, Danny – I feel too young.’

  He nodded. ‘I know. But what’s to do?’

  ‘If it’s a girl, d’you want to call her Rose, after your sister?’

  ‘No. That’d be sad. Let’s call her summat . . . modern.’ He thought. ‘Melanie.’

  ‘Melanie? Like in Gone With the Wind?’

  ‘I s’pose so. It’s pretty – I think anyway.’

  ‘What if he’s a boy?’

  Danny chuckled. ‘Tommy. Like Tommy Trinder – he’s funny he is.’

  ‘Not Jack?’ She thought of the sweet, happy boy in his sketches.

  Danny thought for a moment, then said quietly, ‘No, not Jack.’

  ‘Melanie or Tommy.’ Just for a second she was caught by excitement.

  It was possible for a while to forget how cold it was. They sat holding hands under the jacket. The big man beside Danny stirred, opened his eyes and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. ‘All right?’ he said blearily, nodding at Danny as he lit up. Danny nodded back. The man said nothing else.

  ‘Danny?’ Rachel whispered. ‘We’re going to have to get married, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t even know what to do. Mom’ll have to agree to it.’

  ‘I have to ask you, don’t I?’ Moving closer to her ear, Danny whispered, ‘Rachel Horton, will you marry me?’

  She looked into his face, their noses almost touching. She knew she was where she wanted to be, whatever else. Her home was with Danny. ‘I will,’ she said. ‘I love you, Danny. I just want to be with you. I want us to have a nice little house with running water and a bathroom and a garden for the children . . .’

  ‘And you’ll be Mrs Booker,’ he said. ‘Like our mom was.’