by Anne Bennett
‘I know,’ Bill said. ‘And I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then, if you’re sorry,’ Marion said bitterly. ‘That will make a lot of bloody difference.’
The very fact that she had used an expletive at all, showed Bill the level of her distress. He tried to put his arms around her but she fought him off, for she heard the children coming in.
The following day Bill walked to the foundry with Richard to tell his gaffer what had transpired and to collect his wages, for they operated a week-inhand system, and also draw out any holiday money due to him. But he also wanted to snatch a private word with his son.
‘You’ll be the man of the house when I’m gone.’
‘I know, Dad,’ Richard said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘It’s up to you to look after your mother,’ Bill went on. ‘Sarah will help you. She’s a good girl that way. And for God’s sake keep a weather eye on young Tony. There’s no real harm in him, but I know he’d go to hell and back to get into Jack’s good books.’
Richard knew that only too well. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. ‘But I’m at work all day.’
‘I know. And if he was at school all day I wouldn’t worry so much, but your mother says most of the teachers have gone with the evacuated children, so there will be no school until they have sorted something else for those left behind. And,’ Bill added with a wry smile, ‘idleness and therefore boredom can lead to all sorts of mischief.’
Richard nodded. ‘I know. And like I told you before, I’ll do my level best to help out.’
Bill felt much relieved because he knew that Richard could be trusted. They parted at the gates and Bill went to the wages office to get what was due to him, which amounted to nearly ten pounds. Which he gave straight to Marion.
‘Go easy with this,’ he warned her. ‘I don’t know how long it will take them to sort out your allowance. Once I’ve had the medical, providing that is all clear and everything, I’m not to report until Friday, and they might not put things in motion until it is sort of official.’
‘And what if they do take weeks to sort it out?’
‘They’d hardly do that,’ Bill said. ‘They’ll know you’ve all got to live. God knows, they are giving you little enough as it is.’
Marion gave a sigh. ‘Remember, I have tasted extreme poverty before and, I’d rather cut off my right arm than let my children suffer as I did throughout my childhood.’
Bill didn’t want that either, but he was utterly helpless to ease the predicament that he had put them in by enlisting. Pat didn’t seem to feel the gut-wrenching guilt Bill did, and Bill wished he could view life the same way, but he was made in a different mould entirely from Pat.
As Marion expected, Bill was passed as A1, fit to serve overseas. He was issued with a uniform and a kitbag, and had to report to Thorpe Street Barracks at seven o’clock on Friday morning.
She was surprised when he said that Pat had failed the medical. ‘Why?’ Marion said. ‘He looks all right to me.’
Bill shrugged. ‘I didn’t get to see him after,’ he said. ‘Folk that did said he was gutted.’
‘I wish it was you,’ Marion said.
‘God, don’t say that,’ Bill cried. ‘The man could have anything wrong with him.’
‘Huh, not Pat Reilly. The man is too pickled from alcohol for germs to live long on him. And now he’s somehow managed to wriggle out of the army. Well, I’m away to our Polly’s to find what that lying hypochondriac told them on the Medical Board so that they sent him home.’
The whole family got up to see Bill off that Friday. When he descended the stairs, dressed in his uniform, his wife and children assembled below thought they had never seen him look so smart. But, as Magda said to Missie later, ‘It didn’t look like our dad, though, did it?’
‘No, dain’t smell like him, either.’
‘Yeah, it was like kissing a stranger,’ Magda said.
For all that, they both cried bitterly when they did kiss Bill goodbye, though he kept assuring them that he’d be home again in a few weeks’ time.
Eventually they were calmer and when Magda said, ‘Are you calling for Uncle Pat?’ they were all surprised when he told them that their uncle had failed the medical.
‘Why?’ Tony asked. ‘Jack never said owt.’
‘Maybe he didn’t want to say,’ Bill said. ‘Maybe he didn’t know himself.’
‘But why did he fail, anyroad?’ Magda asked.
‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies,’ Marion said.
Magda thought that just about headed a long list of annoying things mothers said. How were you to get to know anything if you didn’t ask questions? She didn’t bother asking again, though, because her mother could get right angry sometimes when she did that sort of thing. And that day she had two spots of colour on her cheeks, and her eyes looked very bright, which were two bad signs.
It was still very early, so when they had had their breakfast of bread and dripping and had a cat lick of a wash, they went out into the yard.
‘I can’t understand why our mom won’t say what’s wrong with Uncle Pat,’ Magda said.
‘Cos she’s a grown-up, that’s why,’ Tony said darkly. ‘And that’s what they do.’
Magda knew that, but Sarah was a different kettle of fish. She was almost fourteen and not yet a real adult, so she collared her in the bedroom later and said, ‘Why didn’t Uncle Pat get into the army, Sarah?’
‘Because he has flat feet.’
Missie and Tony were still in the yard, and when Magda went out and told them what Sarah had said they both looked at her in astonishment.
‘Don’t be daft!’ Tony said,
‘I’m not,’ Magda said indignantly. ‘That’s what Sarah said.’
‘It couldn’t be just that, though.’
Magda shrugged. ‘Well, that’s all she said.’ Then suddenly she sat down on the back step, where she unlaced her shoes and peeled off her socks.
‘What you doing?’ Missie cried.
‘Looking at my feet.’ Magda wriggled her toes. ‘All feet are sort of flat, aren’t they? I mean, you don’t get round feet or square or owt.’
‘Maybe Uncle Pat’s feet are dead flat all over,’ Missie said. ‘I mean, we wouldn’t see that through his boots.’
‘They ain’t,’ Tony put in. ‘I’ve seen Uncle Pat’s feet a few times and they looked the same as everyone else’s feet to me.’
‘Don’t stop him walking, does it?’ Magda said.
‘Shouldn’t stop him marching then, should it?’ Tony said. ‘Don’t think his feet can have much to do with it. Our Sarah must have picked it up wrong.’
The two girls nodded solemnly. It was easily done to get the wrong end of the stick, especially when you shouldn’t have overheard in the first place, as Magda knew to her cost.
‘You’d better put your things back on,’ Missie said, ‘before Mom catches sight of you.’
Magda pulled her socks on and pushed her feet into her shoes, but the laces defeated her and she had to leave them dangling. Fortunately, it was Sarah who came to bring the children inside and she only grumbled good-naturedly at Magda as she fastened up the shoes.
‘And let me straighten your hair before Mom sees it,’ she said. ‘How you get it in such a tangle in minutes beats me.’
‘I don’t know how I do it either,’ Magda said. ‘It’s a mystery.’
Sarah laughed at the crestfallen look on her young sister’s face. ‘Magda Whittaker, you are one on your own,’ she said as she rebraided one of Magda’s plaits. ‘And thank God for it.’
FIVE
Now that the twins had made their First Holy Communion, all the Whittakers went to Communion every Sunday. As no one was allowed to eat or drink beforehand, when they returned from Mass they were usually more than ready for a big feed. However, the first Sunday after Bill had left for the training camp there was no big breakfast. Instead, Marion made a big saucepan full of porridge. It was
thin because it was made with water, and there was no jug of creamy milk to pour over it and just one small teaspoon of sugar each.
‘I’m still hungry,’ Tony declared as he cleared his plate.
Magda was as well, but again she had seen the two bright red spots appear in her mother’s cheeks. She was a great respecter of those spots because they would always appear before she got her legs smacked for something or other, so she waited to see what reaction Tony would get.
‘Well then,’ said Marion, ‘you will have to stay hungry until dinner time.’
‘Yeah, but—‘
‘If you have any more now you will have no appetite for dinner.’
‘Yeah I will, Mom,’ Tony cried. ‘Honest. I’m starving.’
‘Starving,’ snorted Marion. ‘You don’t even know what that word means. Anyway, there is no help for it and you will just have to make do with the porridge. No one else is making such a fuss.’
Oh, but I could, Magda thought, for I bet that I’m just as hungry as Tony. There was little point in saying any of this, though, and anyroad, her twin sister, Richard and Sarah seemed satisfied, and Sarah had already started clearing up the bowls.
Sarah could have said that the porridge barely took the edge off her appetite, but she knew that that was the type of meal that they had to get used to when so little money was coming into the house.
Later, in the yard, Magda said to Missie, ‘D’you suppose we’re poor now, ‘cos Mom only gave us two farthings for the collection instead of the two pennies we usually have?’
‘I don’t know if we’re really poor,’ Missie said, ‘but Sarah did tell me that there will be less money about now that Dad has enlisted.’ ‘Oh.’
‘She even said that some weeks we may get no collection money at all.’
‘Well, I’m going round Aunt Polly’s,’ Tony declared. ‘She’ll give me a jam piece or summat when I tell her that I’m still hungry.’
‘You can’t tell Aunt Polly that,’ Missie said, clearly shocked.
‘Why not?’ Tony demanded. ‘It’s the truth.’
‘Because Mom would be hurt if you did,’ Missie explained.
‘She wouldn’t half,’ Magda agreed. ‘Hurt and angry, I’d say. Anyroad, Tony, why d’you think that you’re the only one that’s still hungry? I am as well, if you want to know, but I don’t make as much fuss as you. It’ll be dinner time soon.’
‘Not for flipping hours it won’t.’
‘Oh, stop moaning. It’ll do no good.’
‘I wish Dad was here,’ Tony said wistfully. ‘If he took us down the park or summat I’d probably forget about being hungry.’
‘We all wish Daddy was here,’ Magda said. ‘But it ain’t no good going on about it.’
Tony sighed. Maybe there wasn’t, but there was no way that he was going to stay cooped up in the garden with his kid sisters. ‘Well, I ain’t staying here, anyroad,’ he said. ‘I’m off.’
‘Don’t you dare go to Aunt Polly’s.’
‘I ain’t,’ Tony said, because he knew Magda was right, his mother would be very angry should she find out that he had gone to his aunt’s house to be fed. He had no wish to cope with his mother’s temper as well as starvation. ‘I’m going to find our Jack and have a game of summat.’
When he had gone Magda said, ‘What shall we do? Shall I get our skipping ropes out?’
Missie made a face. Tm bored of skipping.’
‘Tell you what then, let’s see if we can throw two balls at the wall like our Sarah can?’
‘She can do three,’ Missie corrected. ‘I’ve seen her. I have trouble enough doing one.’
‘And me, but Sarah says practice makes perfect.’
‘If you like then,’ Missie said. ‘I don’t care what we do really.’
Magda sighed as she looked at her twin sister. ‘This is probably what being at war’s like,’ she said, ‘and our Sarah says we have to put up with it like everyone else.’
‘I know,’ Missie replied heavily. ‘It’s just everything’s so strange, and I do miss Daddy. But go and get the balls and we’ll see what we can play.’
However, the whole flavour of the day was wrong. Eventually the girls were called in for dinner. Magda sniffed because she loved the smells that would waft through from the kitchen on Sundays: the succulent aroma of a large piece of meat roasting slowly in the oven, surrounded by golden brown potatoes, and there might be apple crumble or treacle sponge bubbling away on the shelf below.
That day, however, she was in for an unpleasant shock for there was no roasting meat and golden brown potatoes and no pudding at all.
Marion didn’t know how long it would be before she had some more money coming in and she had been horrified at the price of meat, which had rocketed up since war had been declared, though no one could give a satisfactory reason as to why this was. So she made a casserole with a small piece of beef she had diced so that it would cook quicker and filled the pot with vegetables.
Usually, while the dinner was cooking Marion would be hard at it making pastries, pies and sponge cakes for Sunday tea, and by the time the dinner was ready there would normally be some of these cooling on wire trays. But Marion knew those teas would be a thing of the past. She had explained it all to her parents, though when she told them of the pittance that she was being given to feed the family they could understand that for themselves.
Everyone was too hungry to grumble about the casserole that day, though, and so they ate it without complaint.
Later Magda said to Missie, ‘It’s great that we haven’t got Grandma Murray to put up with today, ain’t it?’ Missie agreed it was and Magda went on, ‘Maybe Grandma and Granddad will never be able to come again. That would be even better.’
‘Not half,’ Missie agreed. ‘I don’t mind Granddad, though.’
‘I don’t either,’ Magda conceded. ‘He couldn’t come on his own, though. But what’s really smashing is the thought of never having to sit on that blooming horsehair sofa ever again.’
Bill Whittaker had been gone just over a week and they had just received the first letter from him, telling them how he’d settled down in the camp, when Polly came around with news of her own. Only the twins were in the house with their mother because Sarah was shopping and Tony playing out in the street.
‘Oh, Marion, what do you think?’ Aunt Polly said as she came in, her eyes aglow. ‘Our Pat has been offered a fine job at the munitions works at Witton and the wage is six pounds a week.’
Magda, glancing at her mother, knew that she wasn’t overpleased at Pat’s good fortune because her mouth had gone all tight. She shooed the girls into the garden but they lingered in the scullery.
‘I don’t understand why Mom’s so cross about Uncle Pat getting a job,’ Magda said in a low voice. ‘I mean, for years she has been moaning about the fact he doesn’t have one.’
Missie gave a little sigh. ‘I know. I think grownups are really confusing.’
‘Six pounds a week?’ they heard their mother exclaim. ‘What in God’s name does Pat know about making explosives?’
‘Enough, seemingly,’ Polly said. ‘Oh God, Marion, what does anyone know about anything these days? When did you think that you would ever see woman drivers and conductors on the trams, or working alongside men in the factories? The world has been turned on its head and I suppose Pat will be trained like all the rest. Anyroad,’ she added with a touch of pride, ‘they must think he had something about him because he only went for a job in the factory, like, and when he said as how he failed his medical to get in the army because of his flat feet they offered him the job as foreman.’
‘Sarah was right,’ Missie whispered. ‘It was just flat feet after all.’
‘Well, I hope it stays fine for you,’ the twins heard their mother say in a sort of clipped voice. Then she added, ‘Have you time to stay for a cup of tea?’
‘I shouldn’t,’ Polly said. ‘And I can’t stay too long, but I will have a quick cup beca
use we haven’t had a good old natter for ages.’
‘Out, quick,’ Magda said, pushing Missie in front of her, and they escaped to the garden before their mother would catch them eavesdropping.
Later that night, when the house was still, Marion admitted to herself that she couldn’t be really happy for her sister’s good fortune, just incredibly envious. Polly had been poor all her married life and now she would have plenty of money, at least as long as the war lasted, while she, Marion, would have to scrimp and scrape. It was her husband who was putting his life on the line, not Polly’s. She found it very hard not to feel resentful.
Clara quite understood how Marion felt when she next came round.
‘It hardly seems fair that my Bill will soon be risking his life daily for a pittance,’ Marion said to her mother, ‘and because Pat Reilly is not fit for that, he’s sitting pretty and earning a wage many would give their eyeteeth for.’
‘I know,’ Clara said. ‘And all this came about because they said he had flat feet. I ask you! If they had refused him because he had chronic liver failure, I could have understood it more. Anyroad, Marion, just imagine how bad the others after jobs were for Pat Reilly to be the best of them.’
Marion gave a grim smile. ‘I thought that too.’
‘And, of course, Pat’s fine wages will do them no good at all,’ Clara said. ‘It will just dribble through Polly’s fingers.’
Marion thought that a little unfair, for Polly was always very good with money, but she didn’t say anything because for once her mother seemed to understand how aggrieved she had felt at her sister’s good fortune. ‘And just think, with extra money at his disposal, Pat Reilly could easily drink himself into an early grave. Mind you, in his case that could be a blessing.’
‘Oh, Mam!’ Marion said, shocked.
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same, for I’ll not believe it.’
A crimson flush flooded Marion’s face because her mother was right, though she felt so ashamed of it. ‘Bill always said there wasn’t that much wrong with Pat,’ she ventured.