Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  ‘He didn’t lay a hand on me either,’ Polly said. ‘For all Mammy wanted him to, he said there had been enough of that already and he went straight round to the Reillys. Pat always said he was tickled pink, learning that he was going to be a father.’

  Pity he didn’t try harder to provide for him then. The words were on the tip of Marion’s tongue, but she bit them back as she remembered the shabby wedding hastily arranged at their parish church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, on nearby Witton Road. The only people there were Pat’s loud and rumbustious family, who didn’t seem to see any shame in what the young people had done at all. Polly had worn an ordinary dress of tent-like proportions to try to hide her swollen stomach.

  Polly was remembering that wedding too. ‘Remember Father McIntyre, with his nose stuck in the air like me and Pat smelled bad or summat?’

  ‘I remember,’ Marion said. ‘I suppose he was showing his disapproval. After all, he has known you all your life.’

  ‘He’s known Pat all his life too,’ Polly said, ‘but it didn’t give him any sort of right to behave like that. And then Mammy wouldn’t have any sort of celebration.’ She looked at Marion with a great smile on her face. ‘Pat’s family couldn’t believe it. All the way home they were complaining about it and in the end they went to the Outdoor and got some carry-out and we had our own celebration.’

  Marion knew that the Reillys had been astounded because she had heard more than one complain, ‘Not even a drink? Mean buggers!’

  However, Clara had thought there was nothing to celebrate. In her opinion, though marriage ? any sort of marriage ? brought partial respectability, the stupidest person in the world was able to count to nine when it mattered. Polly had behaved shame-lessly and that would reflect on her, as Polly’s mother, and no way did she feel like celebrating that fact.

  Marion thought, though, that Polly had paid a heavy price for marrying Pat Reilly. That vision she had seen of Polly’s life the day she admitted her pregnancy had come true with a vengeance, for the babies came thick and fast. Polly’s first son, Chris, arrived when Marion had been married just two weeks and he was followed by Colm, Mary Ellen, Siobhan, Orla and Jack. When Jack was born something went wrong and Polly was told that she would be unlikely to conceive ever again. Marion comforted her sister, who was distressed at the news, but really she was glad that there were to be no more children as they couldn’t afford to keep the ones they had and over the years she’d had to help her sister out financially many a time.

  Later that night she told Bill the news about the boys’ jobs and he too was glad that life might get a bit easier for them.

  ‘I’m sure Pat could have done more, and sooner than this,’ Marion said. ‘Course, if I say anything to our Polly she defends him to the hilt and claims he is trying to get work.’

  ‘Well, he may be,’ Bill said. ‘This is a major slump, you know. Jobs aren’t that easy to come by. Pat Reilly isn’t the only one unemployed today.’

  ‘He’s the only one married to my sister,’ Marion snapped. ‘Anyroad, when they haven’t food to put on the table you will see the man in the pub. You told me that yourself.’

  Bill had indeed told her that, as he’d also said that Pat would often make a half-pint last all evening, but she chose not to remember that. In her eyes he was the man that had taken her young sister down and Bill doubted that she would ever really forgive Pat for it.

  In bed that night, after listening to a broadcast that said if war was declared there would undoubtedly be raids from the air, Marion hoped that war would somehow be averted. It had been German planes that had bombed the Spanish town of Guernica two years before, in support of the dictator Franco, and many seemed to think then that Germany was showing the world what they could do.

  Marion, remembering the newspaper pictures of the devastation, the town nearly razed to the ground, and knowing the numbers killed and badly injured, knew full well that what had been done in Spain could be done in Birmingham and other towns and cities if Britain were to declare war. She knew she would be worried chiefly for her family, but she didn’t want anything to happen to her home either. It wasn’t just bricks and mortar, it was where Bill had taken her after their marriage and she had taken pleasure in raising her children. All her dearest memories were wrapped up in that house, and these memories now crowded into her brain, driving away sleep.

  She recalled that she had been in a fever of impatience to see where they would be living and so Bill had brought her here a week before the wedding. She knew the house was on Albert Road and that ran from the entrance to Aston Park to Witton Road, near to the vast array of shops on the Lichfield Road. It was wide enough for trams to run down the centre of it, and smallish factories and shops were mixed among the housing: a wholesale grocers, Marion noticed as she’d walked down the road arm in arm with Bill that first day, a clinic, a small factory and, across the road, a garage and repair shop and a sizeable office block.

  The house itself was red brick, two-storeyed, with wide bay windows to the front, set back a little from the road behind a low grey stone wall. An entry ran down the side, which Bill told her was shared between their house and the one next door, and which led to the back gardens. Marion had loved it at first sight.

  Bill had led her over the blue-brick yard to the white front door with an arch above it and a brass knocker and letterbox. She noticed the step needed a good scrubbing. Inside, the hall was decorated with black and white tiles. Stairs led off the right and there was a door to the left. When Bill told her that was the parlour she couldn’t believe it. A parlour! And she opened the door to have a look and gave a sigh of contentment. Of course it would only be used on high days and holidays. But just to own a parlour raised a person’s status.

  A short corridor led to the back of the house. The room at the end was where Bill said they would spend most of their time, though Marion was surprised when Bill told her that she wouldn’t be cooking on the range set into the fireplace, but on a brand-new gas cooker in the kitchen. Marion remembered how nervous she had been. She had never had a gas cooker before and wasn’t at all sure that it was safe, but Bill assured her that it was, that it was the latest thing, and she had found it so easy to use after a very little while.

  Bill had also opened the door to the cellar as they went towards the kitchen and Marion had thought that that would be where the coalman would tip his load because she had seen the grating just to the side of the bay window. But Bill had ordered a shed to be erected in the back garden for the coal: he didn’t think it healthy to have all that coal dust swirling in the air inside the house. Marion thought he was being overcautious until she remembered both Bill’s parents had died from lung disease. Then she could more understand his concern.

  Marion enthused over the house to her parents: ‘A sizeable kitchen and a scullery and a yard, and a lovely little garden at the back, and upstairs three large bedrooms and a bathroom, no less, and even hot water from this geyser on the wall you light when you want a bath or owt, and electric lights all over the house …’

  She knew her parents would be glad at least one daughter was being looked after properly by her husband.

  A week later Marion married Bill Whittaker, a man her parents approved of, who she had been courting for six months, and who was in full employment in a brass foundry. Her wedding day was a sharp contrast to her sister’s. She had worn a white dress that she was entitled to wear, which finished daringly halfway down her calf, and a veil fastened to her hair with a halo of rosebuds. The reception was well attended with family, friends and neighbours to toast the bride and groom’s health.

  Polly hadn’t been allowed to go because she was too near her time and, Clara said, not fit to be seen. She thought it scandalous that Polly would go about without a coat to cover herself up, but Marion knew that she probably hadn’t the money to buy a coat that would fit her swollen body.

  When Polly moved into Upper Thomas Street, just a few months later, the dissim
ilarity in the two sister’s lives was even more obvious. Marion had indeed fallen on her feet and anyone but Polly might have been envious, but she had never shown that.

  As Marion drifted to sleep she wondered if she’d have been so generous that if the positions had been reversed.

  Despite the war talk around them, Magda and Missie were very excited as June approached. Their seventh birthdays were in the first week and then just two weeks later they were going to make their First Holy Communion. The whole class at school had been preparing for it for months.

  One of the things they had to know was their catechism, and Magda and Missie had tried really hard to learn it because sometimes the classroom door would open suddenly and Father McIntyre would be there to test everyone.

  The whole class would be on edge – even the teacher looked all tense and stern, Magda noticed ? as Father McIntyre would point at the children at random and fire questions from the catechism at them. Magda would feel as if she was sitting on hot pins because she was pretty sure that if the priest pointed at her and barked out a question, her mind would go blank. So she avoided his eye at all costs and was mightily glad he never chose her. He seemed more interested in the boys, who often gave wrong answers and didn’t seem to care. She knew, though, they would get it in the neck from the teacher later.

  There was another trial to go through first before Communion and that was confession. The twins were familiar with the little wooden box in the church where the priest went in one side and they would have to go in the other and tell the priest all the bold things they had done.

  ‘It won’t be so bad when we’re going every week or so,’ Missie said as they made their way to school the morning that they were going to confession for the first time. ‘I don’t know that I can remember what I have done wrong over the past seven years.’

  ‘Not a lot, I wouldn’t have said,’ Sarah told her. ‘You never seem to get into trouble.’

  ‘Not like me,’ Magda said gloomily. ‘Grandma Murray called me a limb of Satan last Sunday.’

  Sarah laughed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t take that to heart, if I were you. But then,’ she went on with a wry smile, ‘she might be a help to you if you can’t remember what you’ve done wrong over the years. If you call and see her she could probably supply you with a list.’

  ‘And if you told the priest all that Grandma told you to say you would spend ages on your knees doing the penance he gave you,’ Missie said, smiling at the vision that conjured up.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere near Grandma Murray,’ Magda said with a slight shudder. ‘I will just tell the priest what I remember and that will be that.’

  ‘Are you nervous?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘A bit,’ Magda admitted.

  ‘It’s just strange, that’s all,’ Sarah said. ‘You get used to it and, remember, he can’t say anything you tell him to anyone else.’

  ‘I know that, but he’ll know, won’t he?’

  ‘Well, of course. But won’t it be worth all this nervousness to wear that beautiful white dress and veil?’

  ‘Ooh, yes,’ Magda said, and Missie nodded emphatically. Just to think about her Communion dress sent tingles of excitement all though Magda, which began in her toes and spread all over her body. Marion had taken the girls to the Bull Ring to buy them both snow-white dresses decorated with beautiful sparkling seed pearls and lace and pretty pale blue rosebuds. The veils were fastened to their hair with white satin bands also decorated with the pale blue rosebuds, and they had new white socks and sandals. When they got home they tried their outfits on for their father to see and he’d said they looked like a couple of princesses. When he kissed them both Magda was very surprised to see tears in his eyes.

  ‘I had a dress like that once,’ Sarah said, remembering her First Communion day.

  ‘I know,’ Magda said. ‘Mom told me. She said she gave it to Aunt Polly after.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sarah said. ‘Poor Mary Ellen had to have a dress loaned from the school, but my dress came in for Siobhan and Orla.’

  ‘I would have hated to have a First Communion dress loaned that way,’ Missie said. ‘Wouldn’t you, Magda?’

  Magda nodded and Sarah said, ‘You thank your lucky stars that you didn’t have to, but there are far worst things about being poor than a secondhand Communion dress.’

  ‘I’d hate to be poor as well.’

  ‘Be glad that you’re not then,’ Sarah said. ‘There are a great many poor these days. We are luckier than a lot of families, and don’t you ever forget that.’

  The twins knew all about the poor. Uncle Pat and Auntie Polly were poor, and their children wore boots and clothes donated by the Evening Mail Christmas Tree Fund. They knew that despite the help their mother gave Polly, without the Christmas Tree Fund their cousins would probably have had to go barefoot to school a lot of the time, and been without warm, adequate clothing through the winter. Sarah was right, they were luckier than many families. But the twins didn’t feel lucky when they filed into church that Friday afternoon for their confession.

  When it was Magda’s turn she slid from her pew, aware her legs were all of a dither, and went into the little box. It was quite dim with the door shut, and when she kneeled down beside the grille she could just about see the outline of Father McIntyre on the other side and she whispered the words they had been practising at school: ‘Bless me, Father for I have sinned. This is my first confession.’

  She stopped then, not sure what to say because whatever her grandmother said, Magda thought she hadn’t sinned much. She was never cheeky or disobedient to her parents, grandparents or teachers or any other grown-up, because she would have had the legs smacked off her if she had been, and the same thing would happen if she was found to be telling lies. She’d never dream of taking something that didn’t belong to her and had never even put half her collection money in her shoe as she had seen Tony do sometimes.

  Then she remembered how lax she was about prayers and how she was often in bed before she thought of them, but she always told her mother that she had said them when she came to tuck the twins in, so that was adding lying to it as well and so she told the priest that. She didn’t mention the fact that she sometimes hated Tony, and her grandmother too, and she supposed that was a sin, though not, she thought, the sort of thing she could admit to a priest. She had to say three Hail Marys and a Glory Be as a penance. Missie and most of their classmates had been given the same.

  ‘We must make sure that we don’t do something really dreadful tomorrow,’ Missie warned as she and Magda walked home together afterwards. ‘The teacher said that our souls must be as white as snow to receive Holy Communion.’

  ‘We never get the chance to do something really dreadful,’ Magda said, but she made a mental note that she would make sure she didn’t forget her prayers that night, or Saturday either, to make sure she’d have no stain on her soul when she went to the rails.

  That Sunday morning all the girls were to the left of the aisle and Magda sneaked a look at the boys on the other side. Many had smart new white shirts, and the richer amongst them also had black shiny shoes and new grey trousers, and socks that probably stayed up better than the ones many wore to school, which resided in concertina rolls around their ankles unless they were held up by garters. But all in all the boys’ clothes were very commonplace when compared to the girls’ finery. In fact, the only thing that marked this day as a special one for the boys was the satin sash they each had around their shoulders, which lay across the body and fastened at the hip.

  The strains of the organ brought people to their feet. Marion watched all the children looking so angelic on this very special day. They were quieter than she had ever known them. The sense of occasion had got into even the most mischievous, and there was no fidgeting or whispering, and no one dropped their pennies for the collection. As they left their seats to go up to the rails a little later, she felt tears stinging her eyes as she wondered what was in store for these
young children if their country went to war.

  THREE

  Everywhere that sultry summer there was evidence of things to come. Big trenches were dug in Aston Park, swathes of brown where once there had been green grass, and the following week all the railings were hacked down. By early August, strange windowless buildings appeared everywhere and the older children were drafted in to fill sacks with sand.

  By mid-August they heard about the blackout that would come into force on 1 September. Every householder was told to black out the windows, streetlights would be turned off, no cars would be allowed lights, and even torches would be forbidden.

  ‘So you are right as usual, Bill,’ Marion said. ‘They must expect attacks from the air or they wouldn’t be going to so much trouble. And there’s a fine of two hundred pounds if there is a chink of light showing. I’d better go down the Bull Ring Saturday and see what I can get.’ She sighed as she went on, ‘It will cost something, too, to recurtain the whole house. Thank God Polly’s two lads are working now. She will probably have the money to buy the material. Mammy has an old treadle she won’t mind us using, especially if we offer to make hers up as well.’

  But before Marion got to go down to the Bull Ring, an education officer called round with the headmaster of the school to talk about evacuation of the children. Though Marion was worried about them, and how they would cope in the event of war, she thought it a monstrous plan to send her children to some strangers in what the Government deemed ‘a place of safety’. She rejected the idea quite definitely, and Polly, she found, had done the same.

  ‘Whatever we face, we face together. That’s how I see it,’ Polly said to Marion. ‘I mean, they could end up going to anyone.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Marion said. ‘The twins are just seven and Tony was only nine in April. They’re far too young to be sent away from home, and Sarah said she wanted to go nowhere either. It would feel like running away, she said, and anyway, she’s looking forward to leaving school and earning some money.’