Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Well, it isn’t terrible efficient, is it?’ Marion said. ‘After all, it’s governments start wars, not ordinary people, but we have to live with the decisions they make. The very least they can do, I would have thought, is devise a system that gives people enough warning so that they can take cover!’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Peggy and Violet said.

  But it was 23 August before the sirens were sounded in time. The eerie wail was enough to strike fear into the stoutest heart. It began just as Marion was thinking of following the children to bed and she roused them quickly. The younger children were sleepy and uncooperative. Marion soon had them bedding down on the mattress and they went to sleep again regardless of what was going on around them.

  ‘I wish I could drop off like that,’ Sarah said, enviously regarding her sleeping brother and sisters. ‘I’m tired enough. My eyes are gritty with tiredness.’

  ‘And mine,’ Peggy said. ‘But I’m afraid to close them.’

  They were immensely glad to hear the reassuring sound of the all clear belting out after only two and a half hours, rousing even the children from their slumber. The twins still rubbed their eyes sleepily.

  ‘Thank God,’ Peggy said fervently, as they made their way upstairs. ‘We might be able to grab a bit of shuteye, if we’re lucky.’

  Tony complained as he often did. ‘I’m not tired any more after that kip I had in the cellar.’

  Marion, though, was totally unsympathetic. ‘Stop moaning and get upstairs while you can,’ she said with such asperity that he and the twins knew that any further opposition was useless.

  Despite her tiredness Marion waited up for Richard, knowing that he might be hungry when he came in, but even when he had eaten and gone to bed and the house grew still and quiet, Marion found it difficult to sleep. She tossed from side to side in the bed and only fell into a fitful doze as dawn was painting the sky with a rosy hue.

  FIFTEEN

  Although it was still summer, the cellar felt really clammy and Marion had decided to buy an oil stove to warm the place up a bit. But the morning after the raid she felt like death warmed up and had no enthusiasm at all for going down the Bull Ring to look for one. She knew that she should also check on her parents but she had even less enthusiasm for that. Instead, she went round to see Polly, taking the twins with her. Tony had already set off for the allotment.

  Tiredness was also etched on Polly’s white face and her eyes had blue smudges beneath them.

  Marion said, ‘You look as tired as I feel.’

  ‘Well, them shelters under the tennis courts in Aston Park ain’t built for comfort,’ Polly said. ‘And then when we came home again, after it was all over, the night air roused me and I couldn’t seem to get off again. Do you want me to come down the Bull Ring with you today?’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t going to bother.’

  ‘Why, just ‘cos you lost a bit of beauty sleep?’ Polly said. ‘Come on, Marion. Do you want an oil stove or don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘This ain’t the time for buts,’ Polly said firmly. ‘One thing I do know is that somehow normal life has to go on, despite these raids, or Hitler will have won. And think of the good bargains we might find at the same time.’ Then she turned to the girls. ‘Bet you two would like a gander down the Bull Ring, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Not half!’ Magda exclaimed, while her sister more politely said, ‘Oh, yes please.’

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ Marion said. ‘You’ve convinced me that it is far more beneficial traipsing into town to buy an oil stove than it is to go back home and have forty winks, though that’s more appealing to me at the moment.’

  ‘Stop moaning,’ Polly said as she shrugged herself into her cardigan. ‘Get a move on. The sooner we get there the sooner we’ll be back, and then you might still have time for forty winks.’

  With the twins between them they scurried off to catch one of the trams running down the Lichfield Road.

  Marion bought an oil stove at a very reasonable price from a man in the Rag Market. Many people had had the same idea, the man told her, and he’d had a run on them since the raids began. When Marion said she lived in Aston he readily agreed to deliver it to her house that night after he had finished on his stall.

  ‘What time will that be?’ Marion asked. ‘Before the war the Saturday market could go on till quite late.’

  ‘The blackout effectively put paid to that,’ the man told her. ‘We’re far more controlled by the hours of daylight, and now the nights are really starting to draw in. Anyroad, Aston ain’t that far away. Give us your address and I can have it over to your place by about seven this evening. That do you?’

  Marion thought that would do very well.

  After they left the Rag Market, Polly said, ‘There, that was easy enough. Now we can have a dekko round the stalls.’

  The Bull Ring was a sad place in wartime. Many of the stalls were gone and those selling produce had little of it as so much was either on ration or unavailable. Marion would have loved to get hold of sausages. All the family loved them, but they hadn’t tasted one since the start of the war. Sausages were not rationed, but the merest rumour that one of the butchers had anything like that would result in queues that snaked around other stalls. The couple of times Marion had joined such a queue the sausages had run out long before she’d reached the counter.

  There was no hint of sausages that day, though, and looking around, Polly felt strangely dispirited. ‘The buzz and clamour of the place ain’t the same, is it?’ she said.

  Marion shook her head sadly. ‘The flower sellers are gone as well. I used to love to see them grouped round Nelson’s Statue or in front of St Martin’s. Do you remember them, girls?’

  Magda and Missie nodded eagerly and Magda said, ‘I loved all the colours of the flowers in their baskets.’

  ‘And the smells when you passed them,’ Missie said. ‘Why aren’t they here no more?’

  ‘I suppose because people can’t eat flowers,’ Marion said. ‘Likely the gardens where they used to grow flowers have had to start growing vegetables.’

  Magda gave a sudden sigh and burst out, ‘Oh, isn’t war horrible? It spoils just about everything.’

  ‘Nowt stops her, though,’ Polly said, jerking her head in the direction of Woolworths. And there in front of the store was the blind old lady selling carrier bags. They had never been to the Bull Ring and not seen her there. Her thin slightly nasal voice rang out over everything, adding to the general cacophony as she chanted continuously, ‘Carriers. Handy Carriers.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marion agreed in admiration. ‘She’s here every day regardless.’

  ‘Maybe we should all try to be the same,’ Polly said. ‘Let’s take a leaf out of her book, shall we, and cheer up a bit? Come on, I know what will put a smile on your faces, anyroad, girls. Let’s go into the Market Hall and look at the animals.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Missie, who would have loved a pet of her own.

  ‘Can we wait till the clock chimes as well?’ Magda asked.

  ‘Well,’ said Polly, glancing at her watch, ‘if we put our skates on we should be in time to hear it now because it’s very nearly ten o’clock.’

  The girls glanced at one another. They needed no further bidding and they were off speeding across the cobblestones, dodging the barrow boys and the busy shoppers and galloping up the steps of the Market Hall. They gave only a cursory glance to the old lags lining them, who their father had told them were flotsam from the Great War. They held trays around their necks that sold razor blades, shoelaces and the like, and Magda had always felt so sorry for them, but there was no time to spare that morning, and the two of them burst through the doors of the old Market Hall side by side. When they skidded to a stop beneath the magnificent clock they saw that they just had one minute to spare.

  It seemed like everyone, even the adults, had stopped what they were doing and were waiting and a hush seemed to fall over the whole place. The twi
ns looked up at the massive and elaborate construction, which was carved out of solid oak, the chimes sounded by the figures of three knights and a dame striking three brass bells. Suddenly the clock ticked forward and the tunes heralding the hour began, just as Marion and Polly caught up with the girls and smiled to one another at the rapt attention on their faces as the ten chimes began.

  When it was finished and the babble of voices rose again in the Market Hall, Polly said, ‘Come on then, let’s be away to Pimm’s pet stall,’ and Magda and Missie followed her eagerly.

  They left the girls there playing with the pretty kittens, boisterous puppies and cuddly rabbits, and trying to teach the budgies to talk, while they searched for bargains. There was horse meat for sale and they both bought some, though Marion complained to Polly that it was daylight robbery at two and six a pound. It was off ration, however, and so was offal, and so she added liver and a few kidneys to her purchases, because with them all working so hard she liked to give the older children and the lodgers something nourishing in the evening. She bought a variety of vegetables and some fruit as well, all at bargain prices.

  It was as they set off for home that they spotted a tout opening his suitcase in a side road, out of the gaze of any passing policeman, though a scout was posted at the entry to keep a weather eye out. The touts sold black market stuff, and though it was against the law and you had to watch what you bought from them, they always had a crowd around them, listening to their patter and the banter they exchanged with the watching women.

  ‘Shall we see what they’re flogging today?’ Marion asked.

  ‘May as well now we’re here,’ Polly said.

  The two women were very pleased they did, because in the suitcase were flasks of various sizes and hot-water bottles, things that were never now seen in the shops. Marion thought how comforting it would be to have a warm cup of tea to drink in that dingy cellar, and Polly felt the same, so they bought a large flask each. Marion also bought two hot-water bottles to warm the mattress and blankets up for the children if the raids should continue into the winter.

  All in all she was very pleased with her purchases, and as they made for the tram home she thought Polly had been right to persuade her to make the effort to go down to the Bull Ring that day.

  Marion cooked the meal early that night so that everyone would be all finished by the time the man came with the oil stove. When he arrived they all trooped down to the cellar to have a look at it.

  ‘Might stink a bit,’ Peggy said. ‘Well, bound to really, but it will keep the place warmer if these raids go on into the autumn.’

  ‘Let’s hope there isn’t one tonight,’ Marion said. ‘I could do with a good sleep in my own bed.’

  Everyone agreed with that.

  The night was so still and quiet, and Marion was beginning to feel quite hopeful as she got the children ready for bed. However, because they’d eaten earlier than usual they all claimed that they were too hungry to sleep. Marion was unsure if was just a delaying tactic. It was already nearly an hour past their normal bedtime when they were at school.

  But she wasn’t up to dealing with the grumbles and complaints and so she went into the kitchen to make them some bread and dripping. When the siren blasted out Marion dropped the knife she’d been holding and then, with fingers that shook, made up drinks for the children, made tea in the new flask and threw into the bag some of the apples she had bought in the Bull Ring that morning.

  Richard slipped out of the door as the first explosions could be heard in the distance and the children, even Sarah, were urging her to hurry.

  At first, they played cards to pass the time, but Marion could see that though Magda, Missie and even Tony were dropping with tiredness, they were also very scared as the blasts and explosions were louder and closer than they had been in previous raids.

  ‘Why don’t you lie down?’ Marion suggested. ‘If you do manage to drop off you won’t hear the bangs.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll sleep much,’ Magda said. ‘And it ain’t only the bangs either. I’ll be too hungry.’

  ‘I’m too hungry too.’ Tony said. ‘My belly’s grumbling like mad.’

  ‘Well, I have nothing for you to eat but apples,’ Marion said. ‘But you’re welcome to one of them, if you like.’

  Magda didn’t want apples. If the sirens hadn’t gone off when they did, she would have had a piece of bread spread with delicious dripping, liberally sprinkled with salt. She felt the saliva fill her mouth at the thought of it. What was one mangy apple to that? But it was no good saying anything because that was all there was, and so she took the apple her mother was offering her without complaint.

  The children did fall asleep in the end and the others had a very welcome cup of tea from the flask before Sarah and Violet got in the other end of the mattress. Peggy refused to leave Marion, who wouldn’t allow herself to sleep while a raid was going on.

  ‘I know it’s silly,’ she said to Peggy, ‘But I just feel that someone should be at least semi alert in case anything should happen, though if it goes on very long then I think I will have to prop up my eyelids with matchsticks. But there’s no need for you to stop up as well. I’ll wake you if necessary.’

  Peggy shook her head. ‘I won’t leave you on your own,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing worse. It can’t be much longer now.’

  But the raid went on hour upon hour, some explosions so loud they made Marion and Peggy jump as they sat stoically on the old rickety kitchen chairs. However, when the all clear sounded Marion woke with a jerk to find she and Peggy had fallen asleep leaning against one another.

  ‘So much for staying awake while the raid was going on,’ Marion remarked ruefully. ‘And it serves me right, I know, but I’ve got a terrific crick in my neck.’

  ‘Me too.’ Peggy got to her feet with difficulty. ‘And it’s not surprising that we fell asleep in the end because it’s almost five o’clock,’ she said, astounded, looking blearily at her watch.

  Violet groaned as she pulled herself from under the blankets. ‘I feel as if I’ve hardly been to bed at all,’ she said. ‘Thank God it’s Sunday tomorrow.’

  ‘Today, you mean,’ Peggy corrected.

  ‘Yeah,’ Violet said. ‘Well, in my opinion there shouldn’t be a five o’clock on a Sunday morning, and if it is all the same to you, I’m going back to bed when we get in.’

  ‘I don’t mind in the least,’ Marion said. ‘It’s the most sensible thing to do, but do you want a bite to eat first?’

  Violet shook her head. ‘I must be in a bad way,’ she said, ‘because I’m far more tired than I am hungry.’

  ‘I ain’t,’ Tony burst out. ‘I’m starving, I am, and I bet that Missie and Magda are as well.’

  Magda nodded vigorously. ‘You bet I am,’ she said. ‘I was hungry even before I came down the cellar.’

  ‘All right,’ Marion said decisively ‘After a night like that no one has to go to Communion this morning, so help me fold up these blankets, and then what do you say to dripping toast all round?’

  The roar of approval was answer enough and just a little later, when Richard came in the door grey-faced with exhaustion, she insisted that he sit and eat with them. ‘Then you’re going to bed,’ she said. ‘Have you training today?’

  ‘No,’ Richard said. ‘After yesterday it was cancelled. But what about Mass?’

  ‘You leave Mass and Father McIntyre to me,’ Marion said emphatically. ‘God will understand that you need all the rest that you can get at the moment because I don’t think that Hitler has finished with us yet.’

  And that was what she told the priest that same morning when she stayed behind after the eleven o’clock Mass, after sending the others home with Sarah. The priest looked at her almost coldly and said, ‘You don’t seem to realise that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass.’

  ‘Oh, I realise that all right,’ Marion snapped. ‘What you don’t seem to realise is that there is a war on, only I don’t for the life of m
e see how that has escaped your notice.’

  Father McIntyre ignored the sarcasm. ‘War or no war—’ he began.

  But he got no further for Marion leaped in, ‘Now look here, Father, I haven’t come to bandy words with you, or ask permission or any rubbish like that. I am telling you how it is going to be and that’s that. My son is not a machine and from now on he will come to Mass as often as he is able to and that is all. And as for mortal sin? Well, we’ll both take our chances with the Almighty.’

  Father McIntyre was astounded. He could maybe understand Polly talking to him in this way, but he would never thought it of Marion, and he snapped out, ‘You are being blasphemous, Marion.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Marion retorted. ‘How can what I said be blasphemous? I mean it. God knows what we are going through, and I imagine that He will be far more sympathetic than you. Anyway,’ she went on with a toss of her head, ‘there is little more to be said.’

  ‘I advise you to think about what you’re doing.’

  ‘I have thought about it, Father,’ Marion said firmly. ‘And now I’ll bid you good day.’

  All the way home, Marion went over and over the things she had said to the priest, a little embarrassed and yet amazed at her temerity. Before the war she couldn’t have envisaged any occasion when she would have done such a thing, and yet the more she thought of it the more glad she was that she had stood up to the priest at long last.

  Many bombs had landed in Aston so that afternoon Marion went round to see if her parents were all right.

  ‘And why shouldn’t we be all right?’ Clara asked.

  ‘Well, Mammy, there were houses damaged in Aston last night,’ Marion said. ‘I just think that under the stairs is not very secure. If this house was hit—‘

  ‘No Hitler will make me leave my house and go scurrying through the night,’ Clara snapped, and Marion suppressed a sigh.

  She knew part of her mother’s problem was that she was very envious of her having a cellar that was deemed safe enough to shelter them all, so when Clara spat out, ‘And what if your house was hit and the whole thing was to collapse in on top of you all?’ she answered mildly, ‘It won’t. Bill had the cellar checked and reinforced.’