Tin Hats and Gas Masks

by Joan Moules

‘Never. You did this thing without the blessing of marriage – why bother now? I’m going to my room to lie down. When I come out I want you gone; do you understand?’

  ‘Only too well. But first I shall tell you something. This baby, our baby, Johnny’s and mine,’ she saw the shiver pass across her mother’s features as she said the words, ‘will be born into a loving environment whatever material benefits are missing. I want Johnny’s baby. I’m sorry it’s like this – we should have waited, but that too was mostly my fault….’

  Mrs Evesham clapped her hands over her ears. ‘I won’t listen to any more. You’ve broken my heart and I don’t wish to know the sordid details. One other thing, Anita. Keep away from your father. It will kill him to know what sort of girl you really are. I’ll …’ For the first time she faltered. ‘I’ll think of something to explain your absence. I’ve never lied to him in all our married life, but because of you I shall do so now. I’ll – think of something,’ she said again, ‘because he’ll be coming home soon.’ Turning away abruptly she left the room and Annie heard her slowly walking upstairs.

  CHAPTER 16

  1945

  Annie heard her mother’s bedroom door close, then she went upstairs herself. Taking her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe she methodically emptied the chest of drawers, then moved on to the wardrobe itself. She wondered for how long these clothes would fit, but she would need them after the baby was born.

  Last of all she came to the dressing-table with its three mirrors. As she waggled the side ones to look at the back of her hair it released the memory of when her parents had bought the dressing-table for her. She had loved this one as soon as she saw it in the furniture store but her mother thought it too big.

  ‘Whatever do you need three mirrors for? Ridiculous.’ She had wandered across to a tiny dressing-table, ‘This is nice,’ she said, ‘and perfectly adequate. After all you’ll only be using it during the school holidays.’

  She was eight at the time and had been at the boarding-school for a year. Standing perfectly still before the three-mirrored one now she recalled her childish voice saying petulantly, ‘I don’t like that one, I’d rather go without.’

  ‘Nonsense, child.’ Her mother took her arm and turned her away from the one she wanted to the small one. ‘This will go very well in your room.’ Her father had inclined his head slightly as she went to protest again and then he said, ‘Why don’t you have a wander round and see what else they have, Anita, while your mother and I discuss the matter.’ She knew then that there was just a chance that she might be able to have the one she had set her heart on. Her father didn’t often interfere but when he did it was usually on her behalf. She never knew how he did it but when he came and fetched her and they walked through the maze of other furniture to where her mother was waiting for them, he said quietly, ‘Remember to thank your mother properly and keep the dressing-table in good order, Anita.’ She always had.

  She wanted to jump up and kiss him but she knew that that might lose her the precious dressing-table if her mother saw the gesture. She remembered how she had squeezed his hand hard and said squeakily, ‘I’m so excited, Daddy. It’s beautiful.’

  Looking at it again now with that memory so close in her heart the tears cascaded down her cheeks. She laid her hand on the wood and gently stroked it and when she looked up she saw, through her tears, three blurred images in the triple mirrors.

  Out of nowhere it seemed another childhood memory surfaced. She was very small, possibly no more than three or four, and she had had earache for most of the day. She woke in the night, screaming with pain, and her mother made up a hot-water bottle and laid it on her pillow to warm it for her. She had cuddled her for a while until the pain eased a bit, before letting the warm pillow send her to sleep. It was the only comfort memory she had of her mother and she clung to it now to stop her hating the woman who had just ordered her out of the house.

  At the bedroom door she gave a last look round, then, gently touching Johnny’s ring which hung on its chain round her neck permanently now because her fingers had long since grown too big for it, she picked up her suitcase in one hand, her handbag in the other, and walked slowly down the carpeted stairs. There was no sound from her mother’s bedroom.

  That evening after work she told Mrs B she had left home for good and would like to meet Aunt Bessie at the weekend. Johnny announced that he had two jobs, his daytime one and working in a café at night. ‘Tried for a job behind the bar down the road, but my age was against me. But this’ll do for a start and you can come in some nights and sit over a cuppa, Annie. That way we’ll still see each other.’

  ‘No, Johnny, I shall carry on with my job for as long as I can and maybe get an evening job myself. That way we shall be able to afford to rent a place of our own, even a small flat.’

  Johnny kissed her. ‘No, sweetheart. Not an evening job. Carry on with the daytime one a bit longer if you’re sure you feel up to it, but no more than that. We’ll get by and some day you’ll have a house and garden that’s worthy of you. We’ll be poor for a while, I daresay, but not for ever, Annie, not for ever.’

  They were sitting in the cosy room in Johnny’s home, his parents having gone for a drink after telling Annie she must stay at least until the weekend and the visit to Aunt Bessie. ‘We can take the bedchair up to Johnny’s room,’ Mrs B said guilelessly. ‘I think there’s room, then at least you’ll be together.’

  Johnny was working over the weekend so Mrs Bookman and Annie went together to see Aunt Bessie. They took the train from Victoria to Brighton and the bus from outside the station to Aunt Bessie’s village.

  Annie thought Aunt Bessie was like a softer version of Johnny’s mum. She hugged her and said how much she hoped she would come and stay.

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Annie said.

  ‘It will be lovely for me to have company for a while, too.’ Aunt Bessie had a wonderfully wide smile and Annie felt at ease immediately. After a meal the three of them took a stroll round the village, and when they returned Johnny’s mum brought up the subject of a wedding-ring.

  Annie took a deep breath. ‘Mum,’ she said, almost shyly, because only during this last weekend had Mrs Bookman suggested that she began using the word. ‘Mum, please don’t think I am ungrateful, but Johnny and I have discussed this and we would prefer to wait until I can wear a ring legally. We – we don’t want to embarrass you though, but we …’ she paused aware of both women’s eyes intently on her, ’we feel this is best for us.’

  ‘And for the baby?’ Mrs Bookman’s voice was gentle and questioning.

  ‘We don’t know. But if it is necessary we can do it later and in any case we shall marry as soon as ever we can.’ Annie reached up and fingered the ring round her neck. ‘We love each other, we are committed to each other and a ring won’t make any difference to that.’

  ‘That’s fair. No, Annie, my love, if you can do it that way I won’t interfere.’

  It wasn’t easy to adjust to living with Johnny’s family. They treated her as one of them and couldn’t have been kinder or more helpful. She loved them all dearly now but it was so different from living at home, or even with the Dovers in Winchurch.

  ‘You’re lucky not having morning sickness,’ Mrs Bookman said one day when she and Annie were together in the kitchen. ‘Had it with the three of mine – still, it’s a small price to pay for a new little life.’

  Johnny’s mother behaved so naturally with her that sometimes it made her want to cry. This is how life should be, she thought. Maggie Bookman never condemned, never said having Annie in the house made more work and caused inconvenience. She did mention becoming a grandmother one day, though.

  ‘Didn’t ever think young Johnny would be the first to make us grandparents,’ she said. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you, not when you have two older sons?’

  The whole family rallied round, even Charlie Bookman, after his initial outburst to his son, had been totally accepting of the si
tuation.

  It was Charlie who eventually found them somewhere to live. ‘It’s two rooms in a semi-basement,’ he said, ‘but there’s an indoor lavatory down there, which is more than Maggie and I had when we got wed. Could do with a lick of paint and a bit of tarting up, but I’ll see to that for you. That’s why the rent’s cheap. It’s in Lamont Street, over the back there.’

  They went to look at the rooms that evening before Johnny went to work. Annie, now five and a half months’ pregnant went carefully down the steep steps, behind Johnny, and with his father behind her.

  ‘No chance of you stumbling then, sandwiched between us,’ Charlie Bookham said.

  He inserted the key and the rusty door creaked as he pushed hard to open it.

  ‘I’ll stay out here and have a fag,’ he said, getting out his rizlas and tobacco, ‘while you two look round.’

  ‘What d’you think, Annie?’ Johnny’s hand slid into hers.

  Annie looked at the two tiny rooms where the hearts-and-flowers patterned paper was peeling from the walls and the ceiling was the colour of sour milk.

  She felt more depressed than ever before in her life. Even with the light on, the room was in semi-darkness. She looked through the smeary window. Gazing upwards she could see ankles and feet as people walked past, while immediately outside her future father-in-law leant against the concrete wall and inhaled deeply on his cigarette.

  ‘It will be a start, Johnny,’ she said.

  ‘I know it’s not what we had in mind, Annie, but we can make it nice, I’m sure we can.’

  She returned the pressure of his squeeze on her hand and, fiercely quelling her doubts, she turned towards him and smiled into his anxious face.

  ‘Our first home, Johnny. We’ve got years ahead of us to work and save and improve our lot.’

  ‘And we will,’ he said, kissing her, ‘we will, Annie, that’s a promise.’

  There was a small grate in one room and a very old gas-stove next to the deep yellowy butler sink in the other. They settled the deal with the landlord, Charlie Bookman paying a week’s rent as a deposit to hold the rooms.

  ‘Gives me a chance to decorate,’ he said. ‘Maggie’ll help with curtains and cushions and I reckon as to how she’ll let you have a couple of chairs too – clear our place out a bit and give us more room.’

  In bed that night in Johnny’s room back in his home, Annie thought fleetingly of her old bedroom and of the one in the Dovers’ house.

  Now she was in his bed and he was in the bedchair. As she looked down on him as he lay fast asleep an overwhelming whelming rush of love shot through her whole being. ‘It won’t be for long, Johnny darling,’ she murmured. ‘Once the baby is born we’ll get on our feet and some day we’ll have that shop and our own house and garden.’ As the child kicked inside her she winced and laid her hands across her stomach.

  CHAPTER 17

  Annie and Johnny moved into Lamont Street two weeks later. True to his word Charlie Bookman had lightened the place with some cream-coloured paint he got from a friend who had had it stored since before the war. His wife had put up some net curtains at the little window that afforded the glimpses of the lower half of people walking along the pavement.

  ‘Later, I’ll dye our blackout curtains if I can,’ she said. ‘They’ll be warmer in the winter and we ought ter be able to do them bottle-green or a darkish blue if I bleach ’em first. Doubt if we’ll get em lighter than that but they’ll keep the draughts out.’

  She and her daughter-in-law, Doris, also scrubbed the floors and black-leaded the grate until it shone. They refused to let Annie do any of this. ‘You’ve got to think of the baby, and anyway we’re more used to it than you,’ Maggie said. Annie couldn’t take offence at that because she knew it was true. On her own she would not have known where to begin, but she insisted she could clean the sink and stove, and set to with a will.

  Annie was thankful she still had her job, because, apart from the money she earned, it got her out of those poky rooms for most of the day.

  In August the Allies dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski and a week later, on 14 August the war with Japan finished. The next day, 15 August, became a public holiday to be known as VJ Day (Victory in Japan).

  They both went to work as usual, only to return after a while, fighting their way home with thousands of others, who did not realize that this was to be a public holiday. It had been announced at almost midnight and again on the early-morning news, but as Annie and Johnny didn’t possess a wireless set they didn’t know. Neither had any desire to go out celebrating but later in the day they went round to Johnny’s parents for a few hours.

  ‘Doris has gone to her mum’s,’ Maggie Bookman said. ‘Now she’ll be counting the days ’til Jim gets home. It was written all over her face.’

  ‘It could be some time, duck,’ Charlie said, ‘but reckon we’ll all be glad to see ’im back.’

  About five o’clock Johnny said he was going to his evening job in the café, ‘Because this morning the boss said that so many places will be closed it’ll mean we’ll do good business. He’s promised me double pay if I work tonight until the revellers have gone home, Annie. You’ll be all right, won’t you? And we do need the money, my darling.’

  ‘Of course, Johnny. I’ll be fine. I’ve an interesting book and I’ll probably have an early night. Got your key?’

  ‘Yes. You could go round to mum and dad’s if you get lonely. Don’t think they’re going out. Mum said she’d celebrated in May, but I think Doris’s family are going to a knees-up.’ He kissed her lingeringly. ‘I’ll come in quietly, ’case you’re asleep.’

  During the evening she heard and saw the revellers along the street, and memories of VE night when she and Johnny went up to Trafalgar Square returned. Sighing deeply she patted her stomach and thought, I want this baby, more than anything I want Johnny’s child, but I wish we had waited. That it didn’t have to be like this, with no money, a tumbledown place in a poor area to live, and no prospects for the immediate future.

  She wouldn’t burden Johnny with these sombre thoughts, but she privately faced the knowledge that life was going to be a struggle for a long, long time.

  All was quiet outside when she went to bed. Obviously most of the revellers had gone up West, and with a deep sigh she pulled the thin sheet over herself and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine what it would be like and how she would manage when she had a baby to put in the basket crib Maggie Bookman had lovingly restored and given to her.

  A noise woke her sometime around midnight and she became aware that there were people in the basement area outside. They were obviously drunk, and were singing and shouting obscenities. Lying very still she wished Johnny were home with her. Although perhaps not, she thought, for he would surely want to go out and tackle them. One thing; it was a sturdy door and it was locked so they couldn’t get in unless they broke a window. The laughter and loud voices continued for a while, and she thought she heard the flap on the letter-box slap into place. Suddenly there was more shouting and what sounded like a stampede up the area steps. She held her breath and an enormous bang made her clutch her stomach as she rolled out of bed and found herself doubled up on the floor. Her last thought as she lost consciousness was that it was a bomb and she was buried beneath the debris of the café near the Palladium and she couldn’t find Johnny or his mum.

  When Annie came to she was cradled in Johnny’s arms in an unfamiliar room.

  ‘Johnny, what happened? Was it – was it a bomb. Is the war not over after all?’

  ‘It’s all right, Annie. You’re fine, you weren’t injured, thank God. No, not a bomb, a bloody firework some idiots pushed through the letterbox.’

  ‘Here’s Edie,’ someone said, ‘good as a doctor is Edie. She knows what it’s all about. Let her have a look at you, duck. You’ve ’ad a bit of a shock.’

  Edie felt her all over, looked at her tongue and deeply into her eyes, asked if she felt any pai
ns, then declared her to be ‘None the worse for it all,’ patted her hand and left.

  ‘She’s a good ’un, is Edie,’ someone said. ‘Now, ’ave you two youngsters got anywhere ter go ternight, ’cos that place ain’t ’abitable now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Johnny said quickly, ‘we can go to my mum’s. It’s not far. Come on, Annie, reckon you can manage?’

  He helped her to her feet. ‘Thanks,’ he said to the neighbours in whose house they were.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Annie said, ‘we’re very grateful.’ She saw the strange looks they gave her as she and Johnny walked towards the door.

  The Bookmans took it all in their stride when they were woken in the early hours of the morning by Johnny and Annie, and at three a.m. they were sitting drinking tea and listening to how Johnny arrived home from work to see half a dozen drunken lads coming up the area steps from his house.

  ‘Within seconds there was this explosion,’ he said, ‘I pushed me elbow through the window and climbed in to find Annie in a heap on the floor and the place on fire.

  ‘It’s in a bit of a mess,’ he said. ‘Everyone sloshing water all over the place, but it put the fire out and I’ll go round tomorrer and sort it out.’

  ‘The baby’s still kicking though,’ Annie said.

  ‘Thank God. You take it easy now, Annie, and let us take care of you for a while,’ Mrs Bookman said. Suddenly she noticed Johnny’s arm.

  ‘You’re hurt, son,’ she said. ‘Here, let me look.’ It was quite a deep cut he had sustained when he took more glass out to get Annie through the window.

  ‘Couldn’t get out the door,’ he said, ‘it was on fire. Don’t fuss Mum, it’s nothing much – I wrapped me hankie round it when I went back to help them. Dipped it in the water and tied it up. That soon stopped the bleeding.’

  Mrs Bookman cleaned the wound and Annie felt guilty that while everyone was making sure she and the baby were not injured Johnny had been and she hadn’t even noticed. They slept in each other’s arms in Johnny’s bed for what was left of the night.