War Widow

by June Francis

  The early hours brought the van but Flora did not need its tooting to wake her. She had lain unsleeping the whole night. Her head ached as she went out into the cool morning, and she realised that her situation was now worse than it had been before she had wished for someone she could leave the children with, and to talk to. Having your wishes come true was not all that it was cracked up to be, she decided, climbing into the van with a heavy heart.

  A couple of days after Hilda had left, Flora came back from her father’s to find George playing hopscotch on the pavement in front of the house with a group of kids that included Kathleen Murphy. ‘Me mam said could yeh give ’er a knock ’cos she’s got summat to tell yeh.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ murmured Flora, hoping that it was not something about George and Kathleen. The girl seemed to have taken a shine to her son and haunted their front step.

  She went into the house first to leave her shopping, and discovered that her sister had been there. All her clothes were gone and so was her savings book from the sideboard. There was no note mentioning Vivien, and Flora was furious to think of her sister coming and taking but not sparing a word for her own daughter. Bursting to talk to someone, she went to Carmel Murphy’s.

  The older woman took one look at her face and placed the yard brush she was wielding in the lobby. ‘Come in, Flo girl. I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Flora, tight-lipped, following her in.

  She had never been invited inside the Murphys’ home before but was not surprised to see that it was as untidy and poorly furnished as one could expect of a bombed out household that contained six kids. She experienced a stirring of compassion for the other woman that blotted out the depression she had felt since parting with Mike and her anger over the argument with her sister.

  Perching herself on a rickety dining chair, she smiled down at the youngest of the Murphys. One-year-old Bernadette was playing on the oilcloth with a battered black pan and a clump of plaster. She was clad in a mucky blue frock that was too large for her, and little else, but her toothy smile was a delight.

  ‘You’ll perhaps know that your Hilda’s been,’ said Mrs Murphy, pouring tea from a chipped brown pot into two odd cups, one flowered, one plain white.

  ‘Yes,’ said Flora as calmly as she could, her feet shifting restlessly on the torn oilcloth. ‘You saw her, I take it?’

  Mrs Murphy nodded. ‘On your step. Arguing she was, with that nice Yank you’ve been seeing. Slapped his face!’

  Flora’s head shot up. ‘She hit Mike!’

  ‘Going at it hell for leather she was – shouting at him fit for the whole street to hear. That was, until he walked away.’ She spooned sugar into the flowered cup and handed it to Flora. ‘He stopped to talk to me in that nice accent he has. And smiled luv’ly – and sez to tell you that he’s after leavin’ Liverpool in the morning and that he’ll never forget you.’

  Flora put a hand to her mouth and her eyes glistened. ‘Oh, hell,’ she cried in a muffled voice, and her shoulders shook with the effort of trying to hold back the tears. Some of the tea spilt over and almost scalded her knee.

  ‘There now, girlie,’ said Mrs Murphy in a comforting voice, leaning forward to wipe up the tea with the edge of her pinafore. Bernadette looked at Flora curiously as she banged a chunk of plaster against the pan and sent a small puff of pinkish dust over the floor.

  She swallowed the enormous lump in her throat. ‘I’m okay,’ she said painfully. ‘It’s not that I really loved him. But he was so kind and nice, and –’

  ‘– he took yer out of yerself.’ Mrs Murphy’s voice contained a wistful note.

  ‘Yes.’ Flora forced a smile and there was a friendly silence while both sipped their tea. Then she said, ‘My sister – did she say anything to you?’

  Mrs Murphy shook her head. ‘As fidgety as a flea on a cat by the fire while he talks to me. And then has a face as hard as sandstone, and just as pink, when she comes out of your house with bags of stuff and marches past me.’

  Flora pulled a face. ‘Ah, well, that’s that!’ She squared her shoulders. ‘But I’m going to have to find myself another job. Now the girls are at school, I’ve been meaning to, anyway.’

  ‘What was yer job before you were married?’ Mrs Murphy glanced up briefly as she managed to squeeze another cup each out of the pot.

  ‘I worked in a printer’s.’ She sipped the strong brew thoughtfully, before saying slowly, ‘I suppose it might be worth going and asking if there’s anything doing.’

  Mrs Murphy nodded vigorously. ‘That’s the ticket, girl. Now them’s fighting words. Don’t you be letting life get yer down.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Flora drained her cup and stood up. ‘Thanks for the chat and the tea. If there’s anything I can do for you – anytime.’

  ‘I’ll remember.’ Mrs Murphy smiled, showing teeth that needed attention. ‘Just send our Kathleen back when you’ve had enough of her.’

  Flora nodded, and was escorted up the lobby and out.

  That evening she told Vivien that her mam might be gone for some time, but that she was to be a brave girl, and not to cry – they would all look after her. A few tears oozed from beneath the girl’s lids, but they soon dried after a jam buttie, a cup of milk, and a story.

  Once the children were in bed, Flora washed her hair in Amani shampoo. She had decided that in the morning she would go down to the old firm and ask Mr Martin for a job.

  The smell of ink was strong even in the small lobby, and the whole building seemed to vibrate as belts slapped and machinery clanged rhythmically. Memories flooded back, giving Flora an unexpected lift.

  On her left was a partition constructed of dark wood and leaded stained glass windows. She rang the bell there, and a few moments later a man came to the counter. ‘Good morning, Mr Foy.’ She smiled, slightly nervously at the elderly man with a pencil stuck behind his right ear.

  Johnny Foy stared at her intently over his Woolworth glasses and down along his large nose. His cheeks and throat moved, and she knew that he was struggling to gather a huge amount of tabacco juice for ejection before he spoke. He turned and spat in a corner, then scrubbed at his greying gingery moustache. ‘It’s little Flossie Preston, if I’m not mistaken,’ he commented in his rumbling voice.

  ‘Flossie Cooke now. Remember I left when I got married?’ At fourteen she had been terrified of him, but had eventually discovered that he was not the bogey man she had considered him. ‘How are you, Mr Foy?’

  ‘Well enough, lass. And yourself?’ The brown eyes were kindly as they focussed on her face.

  ‘All right.’ She cleared her throat. ‘How is everybody? The Old Man?’

  ‘Ken’s away in the Navy. Bill’s in the army, but should be out soon. One of the apprentices, young Joey, just got his call up papers. You heard about Jimmy Martin, I suppose?’ Resting dun-coloured overalled elbows on the counter, he leaned towards her. ‘He copped it at El Alamein.’

  Flora’s heart lurched uncomfortably. Another bright spark gone. She wondered if Hilda knew. They had been close once. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. The Old Man’ll be upset.’

  ‘Taken it hard. Had it all worked out that he would take over the business. Now it’s down to his brother if he can pull himself together. He’s in hospital somewhere down south been there for ages.’

  ‘Stephen has? The war was it?’ Flora and Stephen Martin had been in the same class as infants.

  ‘Shot and blown up he was – not at the same time, of course.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Nerves all to pieces, the Old Man said. To be expected really. Lost not only his brother, but his mam and sisters in the blitz as well.’

  ‘Tough,’ she murmured, feeling sorry for the absent Stephen.

  ‘Aye,’ he rasped. ‘But I’m thinking you didn’t come in here just to ask how we all are, lass. What can I do for you?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘I’m looking for a job, I’m widowed now – have kids.’

  ‘Heard about tha
t. Pity. So it’s a job you need.’ He made a clicking noise with his tongue, then he lifted the counter flap. ‘Come in, lass, and see the Old Man. Maybe he’ll be after taking you on. We’ve been short of workers because of the war, and experience counts.’

  ‘Once learnt never forgotten,’ she said brightly, quelling her apprehension as she followed him through a couple of machine rooms and up a narrow wooden staircase.

  They came to the Composing Room where she would work if she got a job. An elderly man with a composing stick in his left hand was picking up lead letters from various boxes with his right. He gave a cheery grin. ‘Hello, Flossie, long time no see.’

  ‘Yes.’ She paused and looked about her. How long ago it seemed since last she was here. Over by the window was a wooden bench cluttered with pots of glue, gauze, thread, and several piles of printed paper. Someone was in the middle of collating, although there was nobody there at the moment.

  As they went towards the Guillotine Room where the paper was cut, a woman in her fifties came through the doorway carrying a tray of steaming cups. They narrowly missed a collision.

  ‘Hell’s bells!’ exclaimed Molly, her bushy dark brows coming together. ‘It’s you, Flossie. A little thinner but definitely you. What are you after?’

  ‘A job,’ replied Flora with a wry smile.

  ‘Well, I hope you remember that it’s slave labour.’ She smiled and went in the direction of the stairs, while Flora followed Mr Foy into the Old Man’s presence.

  He put his cup on a crowded table and stared intently at . her. ‘Good morning, Flora,’ he said in his quiet voice, ‘I believe you’re in need of a job.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Martin.’ She stood straight-backed, her hands by her side, a sad smile barely lifting her mouth as she remembered the past. He was not really an old man, but had turned prematurely grey after his wife had been killed in a tram crash. They had no children, and he had never quite recovered from his loss.

  ‘You think that you can cope with it? I believe you have a couple of youngsters.’

  ‘A boy and a girl, but they’re both at school,’ she informed him quickly.

  He nodded. ‘You’re a widow.’ His voice was calm enough but his eyes were bleak. ‘The war’s been unkind to us both, Flora. But I think I can take you on. Start on Monday. We’ll be having a big job coming in next week and will be glad of your help. It’s the wood catalogue – you must remember it, so you know that there’s a lot of competition in these matters, and speed is of the essence.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Martin.’ She did not betray by a flicker of an eyelash her apprehension. Speed took practice and she was out of that.

  ‘See you Monday then.’

  Flora thanked him and left with a feeling of exhilaration mingled with trepidation. Would she be able to do it? Of course she could! It would help her to stop missing Mike and constantly dwelling on what her sister had said about Tom.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I must say, Flossie, that it’s nice seeing an old face,’ said Molly, collating pages of the wood catalogue with a swiftness that was difficult to keep up with. The book had a hundred pages so that meant twenty-five piles of sheets to gather up and staple on the treadle machine. ‘So many have gone and not come back. When I think of our poor Jimmy and Mabel and the girls, I could weep still.’ The lines of her plump face drooped. ‘Still there’s Stephen, although he’s not Jimmy. Sam had it all planned for him to run the business. He would have brought it out of the doldrums.’

  ‘Business been bad then?’ Flora lined up pages and knocked them up.

  Molly pursed her lips. ‘Chronic at times.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But then, what can you expect when all the able-bodied men went off to fight, leaving you with old men, boys and a cripple?’

  ‘That’s hardly fair,’ protested Flora. ‘They all seem to work hard to me.’

  ‘They could work harder if our Sam would push them,’ said Molly in a brisk voice.

  ‘But Stephen will be returning.’ Flora glanced at her taut expression. ‘He was a good worker.’

  The older woman nodded. ‘Aye. He was always reliable and steady was Stephen. Although all he does at the moment is stare at the wall in that place down south.’

  ‘He’s been through a lot, by the sound of it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Molly grudgingly. ‘But we’ve all had a hard war, and it’s time he snapped out of it.’ She banged the sheets of paper on the bench. ‘Our Sam needs him.’ She changed the subject abruptly. ‘D’you want to have a go at stapling now – to give us a bit more room on the bench?’

  Flora nodded, showing no sign of her nervousness. She messed up the first few and her hands grew sweaty. Then suddenly the staples started going in the right places. Her anxiety subsided as her hands and mind co-ordinated, and she wondered why she had been so bothered. Even so she was glad when the job was finished and packed, and one of the apprentices took it away for delivery.

  She soon settled into a routine of packing leaflets, billheads, and rounding the corners of invitation cards for weddings or birthdays. There were church magazines, booklets and ledgers. Some of these had to be sewn, bound up in sections before being glued. Ledgers were bound in cloth with a leather spine, or were all leather. She began to take a pride in turning out a good job. But she was no match for the expert bookbinders next door.

  Flora enjoyed going in there, and often paused to look about her when on some errand. The place was a shambles with shelves and tables crammed with materials – gauze, linen, cloth, and leather. Books were hand-backed, so there was a laying press, wooden backing boards and the roundfaced bookbinders’ hammer which battered the books into shape in sections – that had to be done carefully or the paper could be badly creased.

  She loved the smell of the leather, calf and sheepskin as she handled the books with care. She had always loved books and reading but now there was little time for that or for dwelling on the past or the future. There was much to do in a day and time passed swifter that way, with little time to brood.

  It was the evening before Victory Day which was also Flora’s birthday, and a street party was being planned to celebrate not only the victory but the homecoming of so many husbands and sweethearts. She was making raspberry jelly when there was a hammering on her door.

  She opened it to find a large man with a shock of ginger hair and an irritated expression on his red freckled face. He wore a pin-striped demob suit. With a sinking heart she recognised him immediately and held out a hand. ‘Mr Bryce! It’s – lovely to see you home.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He squeezed her fingers briefly. ‘D’you know where Lena and the kids are?’

  ‘No.’ She did not like telling a lie but could hardly say that Lena had gone down the entry with a Yank, while the kids had gone up the entry an hour earlier. ‘Can’t you get in?’

  He did not give her a straight answer. ‘I thought I’d surprise her,’ he muttered, ‘and she’s not in. Have you any idea where she’s gone?’

  ‘You could try the top pictures – the Royal,’ she said weakly, not wanting to be the one to tell him the truth.

  His face brightened. ‘Thanks.’ He half-lifted a hand and then legged it up the street.

  Flora was just about to go in when her name was called. Mrs Jones was putting the finishing touches to the decoration round the photograph of the King and Queen in her fanlight. She got off her chair and waved to Flora. There was supressed excitement in her voice when she shouted: ‘I bet there’ll be high jinks tonight once he finds out what she’s been up to. You’ll have a front row seat!’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ yelled back Flora.

  ‘She deserves everything she gets, bringing down the tone of the neighbourhood with her comings and goings,’ said Mrs Jones, sticking her nose in the air. ‘At least you only had the one. She’s no better than a whore.’

  Flora did not want to get involved in slagging her neighbour off, so she made her jellymaking a quick excuse to get inside the house. Once there she
finished the job off but could not settle to anything else because Mrs Jones had reminded her of Mike. The children had gone to the park with a gang of other kids to play rounders, so she decided to walk that way to meet them.

  It was when they were returning that they met Mr Bryce and his children. They looked like they had been crying and his face was set. He walked past them without saying a word. But Mavis, his daughter, called, ‘It’s me dad and he’s takin’ us to me gran’s, and we didn’t even see the end of the picture!’

  ‘Shut up!’ growled her father, clouting her over the ear. She howled and he hit her again, dragging her along behind him.

  George exchanged a quick glance with Flora, devilish glee in his face. ‘There’s going to be a fight next door tonight, isn’t there, Mam?’

  ‘I hope there’s going to be nothing of the sort,’ she said tartly. ‘You and the girls’ll be in bed anyway. You’ll have a late night tomorrow.’

  George said nothing. He was certain that being in bed, wouldn’t stop them from listening to the goings on next door.

  All their near neighbours seemed to be of the opinion that there was going to be something worth watching later that evening. An awful lot of steps were getting swept and scrubbed. Privets at the bottom of tiny gardens received a late trim. Some washed windows with a leisurely sweep of cloths. Even the priest who had been visiting the Murphys stood on their step, lingering. The less daring sat in their front parlours, peering round the curtains.

  Only a few knew the moment when Mrs Bryce, slightly aglow with drink, went up the back entry with her Yank. But the news was soon passed on. Flora wondered whether she should knock and warn her, but was only thinking about it as she sat in the dark in the front parlour when she heard Mr Bryce’s light tread on the front step. Instinctively she ducked her head as he glanced in the direction of her house, and the next moment she heard a key in next door’s lock and realised that he must have got it from the kids. There was going to be no escape for the couple in bed.