War Babies

by Annie Murray

  ‘Rach?’ He came closer to her.

  ‘So –’ She put on a stern voice. ‘You’re back, are you?’ She nodded towards the dog. ‘Well, if that’s Patch – are you Jack now then?’

  A vulnerable, sorry look came over Danny’s face. He looked down, then back at her and said, ‘I dunno, Rach. But I hope so – I really do.’ He held out the white froth of blossom to her – lilac, in perfect bloom. ‘Here – I picked these for you.’

  Rachel took them, smelling their strong perfume, and cradled them against her. She went to their door. ‘Auntie,’ she called. ‘You’d better come out.’

  Gladys appeared at the door. She took one look at Danny, who stood shamefaced before her, folded her arms and in a tone of enraged affection, said, ‘And where the hell d’you think you’ve been?’

  Forty-Nine

  It was quite late by the time Rachel and Danny managed to talk properly. Cissy, on seeing the puppy, declared that she was not going home, that she was in fact never going home again and Rachel had to march her, glowering, to the tram stop. Melanie did not beg to come – she was full of the novelty of her father and the puppy.

  When they got to the Hortons’, it was Peggy who answered the door.

  ‘I don’t want to come home,’ Cissy fumed, still full of outrage. ‘Melly’s got a puppy and I want to live there forever.’

  Peggy pursed her lips disapprovingly, but before she could say anything, Rachel said, ‘Danny’s home. He’s just come back.’

  ‘Oh, really – and for how long, I wonder?’ Peggy said contemptuously. She took Cissy’s hand and began to drag her away along the hall. ‘Go on – upstairs, Cissy, and stop your blarting.’ As Cissy thundered off upstairs, Peggy came back to the door. As usual, she was smartly dressed, in a black, swinging skirt and cream blouse. ‘Well,’ she declared, ‘if he takes off again, don’t come running to me for help.’

  ‘Running to you?’ Rachel flared at her. She felt stronger suddenly, knowing Danny had come home. ‘Why would I come running to you, Mother? When have you ever offered any help – to me or to anyone?’

  Peggy drew herself up, stung. ‘I don’t think there’s any call to talk to me like that,’ she said. ‘When I’ve strained every sinew in my body to be a mother to you.’

  Cissy’s voice bawled suddenly from the top of the stairs: ‘I don’t want to live here. I want to go and live with Rach and Melly and Tommy!’

  Rachel glared at her mother in triumph and started to turn away.

  ‘You ungrateful hussy!’ Peggy called after her. ‘You’ve never known what it is to struggle, that’s your trouble.’

  Rachel did not bother either to turn round or to reply.

  She found everyone gathered around the fire at home. The little dog, having long been the centre of attention, was fast asleep on the rug. Just opening the door, seeing Danny there, she had to stop for a second and take it in, to remind herself that this was real – he actually was here.

  ‘There’s tea in the pot,’ Gladys said. She seemed to have recovered her temper. ‘Now – Melly. Up the wooden hill with you. And you, young man,’ she said to Tommy.

  ‘I’ll help –’ Danny sprang up.

  Rachel looked at him in amazement. He seemed like a different person.

  ‘I want to,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I want to make things better.’

  Tears came to her eyes. She was still smarting from her mother’s self-obsessed fury. ‘You can make things better, Danny,’ she said humbly. ‘Every other day, from now on. But maybe not tonight. Let me just get them off, shall I?’

  He nodded. It would be smoother for now if the children did things in a familiar way.

  ‘Can Patch sleep with me and Tommy?’ Melanie asked, gazing at the puppy with whom she was obviously already head over heels in love.

  ‘No, not ’til he’s a lot older,’ Rachel said.

  ‘He’ll be up in the night,’ Danny told her. ‘And you don’t want him cocking his leg on your bed, do you?’

  ‘Ugh, no!’ Melly giggled. ‘Will he sleep by the fire?’

  ‘He can sleep just where he is now,’ Gladys said. ‘Now go on, off you go – he’ll still be here in the morning.’

  Rachel lifted Tommy out of his chair. He already looked sleepy. Having a lot of people about delighted him, but also exhausted him.

  ‘Goodnight, son,’ Danny said. ‘And you, Melly – goodnight.’

  Rachel carried Tommy upstairs, her head still spinning with astonishment.

  In bed together, at last, was the first time they embraced, as if all evening something was holding them apart – a need for privacy, hesitation on his part, and hurt and anger on hers, however much she wanted them to be close.

  They did not make love – not straight away. There was too much between them for that. Danny had talked, as Rachel and Gladys sat with him by the dying fire. He had told them things – how he had done odd jobs in Birmingham for the first couple of weeks, earning enough for a cheap lodging room, how he had walked out of the city and worked on a farm, planting potatoes and cleaning out ditches.

  ‘That’s where the dog came from,’ he said. ‘They had ratting dogs and one of them was almost ready to have her pups. Mr Blunden, the farmer, said he might keep one but he’d drown the rest. When she had them, I saw the one with the patch –’ He looked down at the tiny puppy, a smile on his lips. ‘I knew he was the one and I said save that one for me – I’ll work for you for a couple more weeks ’til you wean him. And then I came back here. It was a bit soon for this little’un to part from his mom, but we’ll have to look after him . . I had to get back to you.’

  Now, as they lay in candlelight together, she on her side, facing him, he said, ‘I haven’t told Auntie – not yet. I will. But – Rach . . .’ He turned to face her and she could see the intensity in his eyes.

  ‘What?’ she said. She was not full of softness – not yet. She needed him to explain himself.

  ‘I’m sorry for leaving you. More than sorry, Rach. I hardly know how to say it – I’m ashamed. When I got back, from out East . . . It was just, everything was all the same as before, too much the same – these old streets, all cramped in, never anything changing. But it was different as well – the way you’d moved on without me, as if you were more grown up than me. And Melly – well, she was all right, but Tommy – it was a shock.’ He looked away for a moment. ‘What I said, about him not being mine – it was a terrible thing to say. I know it’s not true. I was angry. I was in a state. And I’d sort of shut myself down. That’s what you did out there, all that time, just to get through it. Trouble was I’d forgotten how to stop doing it.’

  Rachel swallowed. She didn’t speak.

  ‘I just needed some time to sort of get adjusted to it all – to come to my senses if you like. On the farm it was good – I was working outside, in the quiet. It was a bit like, sort of being on the boat home, only without all the other lads, just me and the sea. Only it was me and the rows of spuds, or digging all the muck out of a ditch and just the wind blowing. It was like travelling home – because I knew I was coming home. It just needed to be right.’

  ‘You knew you’d come back? Why didn’t you let us know where you were – or something?’ Her voice came out tearful, resentful. ‘I thought you’d gone for good, Danny. After the first week or so, it was back to me on my own again, like the war – just the kids, no father, no help or wage coming in. If it wasn’t for Auntie, all the way through, we’d have gone under, and I’m not even her flesh and blood like you are. My God, you owe her, Danny – you owe her far more than you know you do.’

  Quelled by the passion in her voice, Danny looked even more contrite. ‘I know. I know. The thing was, I—’

  ‘You were waiting for the dog?’ she said scornfully.

  ‘No. Well, yes – but that wasn’t really the reason. I could’ve gone back for him. I just needed to know something – something that made me sure about myself. The thing I haven’t got to yet is . . .’ He see
med to be struggling again, had to force the words out. ‘When I was still in Birmingham that couple of weeks, working on the buildings, I saw him.’

  ‘Who?’ she said, bewildered.

  ‘The old man. My father.’

  She raised herself up on one elbow. ‘Did you? Where? Did he know you?’

  Danny made a contemptuous sound. ‘He could barely tell his own arse from his elbow, never mind knowing me. It was in this place I’d been staying in while I was in Brum. I asked on the buildings where I could go, cheap like, and the Irish lads said to go to the workhouse. Rowton House they call it. There was a nice lad, Seamus, who was lodging there and his girl was working at the hospital – it was just ’til they could find a room.’ Danny shook his head. ‘Bloody huge place – and God, it didn’t half hum.’

  ‘The workhouse?’ Rachel breathed. The very name inspired dread. She lay down again to listen.

  ‘That’s the one. Rowton House. Some of them were young’uns like us, good lads. They’d come back of a night, get scrubbed up and go out to enjoy themselves. But there were these old men, broken-down old fellers, hardly knew where they were, stinking of piss and drink. A lot of them were Paddies, but not all. I passed him when I was going up to the room. My old man – looked just like all the other old wrecks in there.’

  ‘Are you sure it was him?’

  ‘I’m sure, all right. He’s my dad. I’d know him anywhere.’ There was a silence. When he spoke again, there were tears in his voice. ‘I never knew if he’d gone to Australia – that’s what he was always on about. I’d never set eyes on him from the day he dumped me in the home. And that was the worst thing. I used to think that p’r’aps he’d gone over there, right to the other side of the world, and maybe he was rich now and he’d made a good life in the sun with a big house and fields around and was thinking about sending for us all. I wouldn’t’ve gone to him,’ he added quickly. ‘But it was summat to dream about. That it had all turned out good and he might want to do summat for us all in the end, me and the girls. And there he was, still in Brum all the time – and in the workhouse, a broken-down old drunk. I took a good look at him – he was so kalied he couldn’t see straight and he took no notice of me. And I thought . . .’ Danny’s voice cracked now. ‘That’s going to be me. I’ve gone and done just what he’s done – I’ve run off and left my missis and my children – and it’ll damn well serve me right. And if I go on like this, I’ll be in the cowing workhouse all my life, just like being back in the home where I started – only worse, ’cause it’s the end of the line in there.’ In the quiet that followed she felt him sobbing, and she gently curved an arm around him as he wept.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard, muffled by the pillow. ‘I’m sorry, Rach . . .’ She held him, waiting.

  When he could speak again, he said, ‘The thing was, as I say, I knew I’d come back to you. I just had to get away and think – see everything different. I needed to sort of make the journey home again, only longer, slower, knowing what I was coming to. And wanting to be here.’

  ‘You’d better want to, Danny,’ she said bitterly. ‘For all of us – not just for you. Because if you don’t, I’d rather you went, right now. I need a husband, a man who can be a proper father to his kids. I can’t dance round you forever – life’s hard and it’s even harder with that kind of dancing to do. I haven’t the strength and I don’t want to have to try and find it.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. He wiped his eyes with his arm. ‘But it will all be different now, Rach. That’s what I found out – that you’re my life. Not just you – everyone. You, the kids, Auntie. And Tommy – I keep telling myself, what does it matter if he’s a bit different? If it’s a struggle . . . How he is . . . I’ve had to get it straight in my mind, Rach – that he’s not going to be a man. But I’ve been the biggest kind of stupid fool there is. I’ve lost all my other family – Mom, my sisters – and here I was throwing away everything else. Tommy’s our lad and this is home. I want to be the best for you, girl – you’re everything. You’re my love, and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Promise?’ she said, still wary of giving in to the hope he was offering.

  ‘I do promise. With all my heart, Rach. I can’t promise I’ll know what to do and that – but I just want us to be together. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘I’ve always loved you, you know,’ she said, still rather crossly.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I reckon I’ve always loved you, too – from the day you came and bossed me into giving you a bargain on those comics.’

  Laughing, crying too, at last she allowed him to take her in his arms, and she embraced his strong, thin body. They clung together, loving, hoping, into a fresh beginning.

  VII

  Fifty

  One week later

  Rachel walked along Alma Street early on a sunny Saturday morning, a bag of shopping in each hand. Melanie walked to one side of her, Danny the other, pushing Tommy’s chair. Danny paused, as he had a number of times on the walk, when the wheels snagged on something on the road.

  Danny still could not come to terms with the idea that Rachel refused to have Tommy hidden away. ‘You’re not taking him out, are you?’ he’d said, before they set out that morning. ‘Not in that? Not right out – in the street?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel said firmly. ‘Now and then. It’s hard work, with that chair. But I don’t want him stuck at home like a prisoner, Danny. Why shouldn’t he get out and see things?’

  ‘But what do people say? And what about other kids? They can be wicked like that, kids can – one or two of them in the home, their lives were hardly worth living.’

  ‘I know.’ She stood in the doorway, and looked sadly at him. As if she needed telling. ‘And some of them think you’re deaf and can’t hear what they’re saying. But at least round here people can get used to him. Dolly and Mo’s lads are golden – they’ll always stick up for him. But as he gets older – we’ll have to see, won’t we?’

  ‘We’ve got to get him summat better than this,’ he said rather crossly, as the chair wheels stalled again. ‘It’s hopeless, going along.’

  ‘I know,’ Rachel said. ‘But I don’t think Mo thought I’d ever take it this far – it was just for round the house.’

  ‘It were nice of him – it’s good in its way,’ Danny agreed. ‘But he ought to have a proper pushchair or summat, not this flaming thing – especially now he’s getting big.’

  They had gone out early to get the shopping, to be in time for Danny to get to the Rag Market with Gladys. Melly was going with them as well.

  ‘Proper little market kid your nanna says you are,’ Danny said. He gave Melly a wink and she looked delighted. ‘Just like we were, Rach. Auntie says she can haggle with the best of them.’

  Rachel walked on with them, the sun on her face, with a feeling of miraculous happiness. There might have been difficulties, things to get used to, but it felt so much better now. The Camera works had taken Danny back for the time being, though he was not keen to stick there. And best of all, he was really home, not just in body, but with them, unlike the absent figure who had first appeared.

  One evening last week, when she felt the time was right, Gladys had sat Danny down and told him, as she had told the others, about her little Alfie and all that had happened. Almost all. When she was alone upstairs with him later, Rachel told him about ‘Polly’. She saw the shock register on Danny’s face.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Not Auntie. No – she’d never do that.’

  ‘You mean you won’t believe it,’ Rachel said, suddenly furiously angry. ‘You don’t know what a woman will do for her children to keep them from going hungry. Why wouldn’t she do it? I would.’

  Danny looked at her, startled. ‘Would you?’

  ‘If that’s what it took, yes. So don’t you go judging her!’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘Yes, you are – I can see.’

  Danny blushed. ‘It�
��s just – Auntie’s always been so . . . You know, sort of religious and upright.’

  ‘Don’t go saying anything to her.’ Rachel found a grin spreading in spite of herself. ‘She evidently wasn’t upright all the time!’

  ‘Rach!’ But they lay helpless with laughter for a while – the thought was so outrageous.

  ‘I wouldn’t say a word,’ Danny said, once he could speak again. ‘Wouldn’t dare.’

  But she noticed that for a while afterwards he was especially tender with his aunt.

  Walking towards the entry to their yard with their shopping, Tommy’s chair rumbling along the pavement, they saw that there was a horse and cart pulled up at the side of the road. The cart, a flat, open thing, was empty and the horse stood with its nose down, dozing in the warmth. A blond-headed boy was standing near it, holding a galvanized bucket and staring intently at the horse’s rear end. As they approached, the boy slipped his hand in his pocket and went to the horse’s head, offering it something to eat. The horse suddenly revived and started munching.

  Danny chuckled. ‘Eh, Jonny! What’re you feeding him – laxatives?’

  Jonny, Dolly and Mo’s fourth boy, now eleven, looked round guiltily. ‘No – I weren’t, honest. It were just a bit of carrot!’

  Danny peered into Jonny’s empty bucket. ‘You’ve got a way to go there, son. Still, I s’pose it’s the time of year for gardening—’

  ‘Jonny! Quick!’ Reggie, the next Morrison boy up from Jonny, came tearing along the entry, his face full of urgency. ‘She’s had it! Our mom’s had it!’

  Rachel felt excitement leap in her. ‘What – Dolly? Has she had the babby – already?’ It was news to them that Dolly had even gone into labour.

  ‘She’s had it real quick!’ Reggie gabbled. ‘Our dad’d only just got the midwife. And it’s a girl!’

  ‘A girl!’ Melly jumped up and down, clapping. ‘A girl, a girl!’

  ‘Oh, Dolly’ll be so pleased to have a girl to dress,’ Rachel laughed.