Now the War Is Over

by Annie Murray

  ‘I just . . .’ Tears started to run down Melly’s cheeks. Her voice went high and childish. ‘I wanted to buy a present and I’ve . . . I’ve . . . You can’t buy anything nice for one and eight.’

  ‘One and eight?’ Rachel quizzed her. ‘Where did you get one and eight from?’

  ‘I saved it – I dain’t buy any rocks,’ Melly sniffed, wiping her eyes. ‘Not for ages.’

  Rachel looked at her, astonished. Not buying sweets when every child in the neighbourhood was filling their face at every possible opportunity!

  ‘But – why? What d’you mean a present – who for?’

  Melly hung her head. Her coat was too short, making her legs look long and gawky. How had she suddenly grown so tall? Rachel wondered. Melly would be starting her monthly soon, she realized, her heart softening at the thought.

  ‘F-for Reggie,’ Melly admitted.

  ‘Reggie. Reggie who?’ Rachel said, bewildered. ‘What – you mean Mo and Dolly’s Reggie?’ Her mind struggled to put these things together. ‘You mean . . . ?’

  But Melly could not say what she meant. She was too covered in blushes.

  ‘What’re you on about, Melly?’ Rachel said. Without thinking, she burst out laughing. ‘Reggie Morrison?’ Reggie was nice enough, but he was a grown-up man now. He’d even been in the army. ‘You haven’t got a flame lit for Reggie? Oh, bab – he’s almost old enough to be your father. I don’t s’pose he’s got eyes for you – in fact, I saw him with a girl the other day. You’re going to have to get over that one, kid.’

  As soon as she’d said it, Rachel regretted it. Reggie wasn’t that old, only a few years older, in fact. But that wasn’t the point. She saw Melly’s mortified expression, her painful girlish embarrassment. And she remembered Peggy, her own mother, the caustic burn of Peggy’s views about Danny when the two of them were first together.

  Melly turned her head away, fighting back tears. Rachel could have bitten her tongue out. She was filled with weariness. Why did she say that? Now she was going to have to deal with tears and tantrums and there was so much to get done this morning.

  ‘Oh, come on, Melly,’ she said, trying to jolly her along. They started walking again, slowly. ‘Don’t get upset. You’re only young and there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Let’s get on with it, shall we?’

  Melly kept her head down. Rachel found impatience rising in her. All this fuss – the girl was barely more than a child; not old enough for this. She took a deep breath.

  ‘So,’ she said carefully. ‘You want to buy Reggie a present? Any special reason?’

  There was no reply. Again she looked at Melly in her short coat and ankle socks, with her thin, little-girl legs.

  ‘Melanie.’ She stopped and made herself speak more gently. ‘I didn’t mean to laugh. I just thought . . . Look, just say what you’ve got to say.’

  Melly raised her head, the drizzle moistening her already damp face. Tears were welling in her eyes, which held all her sweet, girlish longing. ‘I just like him,’ she said before looking down again, the tears spilling. ‘But everything for one and eight is all just tat and rubbish.’

  ‘I tell you what,’ Rachel said. ‘We’ve got to go to the Bull Ring. Let’s see if we can find anything there, shall we?’

  Melly looked up at her. Rachel saw the trust and hope return to her daughter’s eyes and her heart was warmed.

  ‘All right,’ Melly said. She pushed her hands down into her pockets. As they walked down towards St Martin’s and the Bull Ring, she said quietly, ‘Mom – you won’t say anything, will you? Not to Reggie, and not Cissy or Dolly or anyone?’

  Rachel reached for her arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘I won’t, kid. I promise.’ She found she had a lump in her own throat.

  Fifteen

  ‘Wakey-wakey, Melly – set the table for me, will you?’

  Melly felt her mouth fill with saliva as she came into the steam-filled little room, so warm and cosy, and decked with paper streamers that she had made with Kev and Ricky.

  Mom had been cooking the Christmas dinner while Melly went to church with Gladys. The smell of beef and potatoes in hot oil was mouth-watering even out in the yard and the delicious aromas filled the little room.

  She had sat down next to Ricky, who was better at sitting still than Kev, to read James the Red Engine with him. But in between the little train’s adventures her mind was wandering as it had done all through the hour in church with the crib and the carols and the walk back through the dull, wet midday, so much so that Gladys said to her, huffily, ‘I’ve walked out with livelier dogs.’

  ‘Sorry, Auntie, I was just thinking.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t want to be doing that,’ Gladys said. Then winked at her.

  But all the time her tummy was full of wobbly feelings. Her heart was pounding. Had he got his present yet? Had he opened it? And if he had – would he come round and say thank you? She kept imagining a knock on the door and Reggie appearing, smiling. And then she realized that if he did appear it would be terrifying and she wouldn’t know what to say and everyone in the family would know she was in love and not just Mom and that would be awful. But had he got it? Did he like it?

  She and Mom had wandered round the Bull Ring looking for something for Reggie. Melly’s spirits fell lower and lower because she didn’t have any idea what to get and, as she had feared, nothing any good could be bought for one and eight.

  ‘What about some sweets?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘No.’ Melly was grumpy with disappointment. ‘He can buy them any time.’ I want it to be special, she raged inside. From me. So that he’ll think about me when he sees it . . .

  They found a toy stall and Melly was just about to snap, not toys, that’s silly, Reggie’s grown up, when Mom said, ‘Look – what about this? He’d like that – he would, you know. He’s so mad about bikes.’

  On the stall was a little cast-iron model of a motorbike and sidecar, the bike bright red and the sidecar pale blue with a little silver man sitting in it. It even had white rubber wheels.

  ‘I don’t think it’s new,’ Rachel said. ‘But it’s in good nick. Shall I ask?’

  Melly looked at it. Was that the thing? She saw that it was nice – it would have to do.

  ‘Three shillings,’ the man on the stall said from under his moustache.

  Despair coursed through her. She might have known she wouldn’t have enough.

  ‘We’ll have it,’ she heard Mom say. ‘I’ll give you the difference,’ she whispered. ‘Give us your pennies.’

  Never in her life had Melly felt such a surge of love and gratitude for her mother. Soon the little figures were in a brown paper bag, nestling in her pocket.

  ‘Thanks, Mom,’ she said, all blushes. After a moment she slipped her hand into her mother’s. Rachel looked down at her and smiled in surprise.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’d best go and meet your dad.’

  Melly had wrapped the heavy little figure in red tissue paper. Yesterday evening, Christmas Eve, she had given it to Donna who was only eight but she knew she would not make fun of her. She told her to give it to Reggie from her.

  Mom grinned knowingly as she passed her a handful of knives and forks. ‘Come on – the table won’t lay itself.’ She was in charge today, dispensing orders before Gladys had a chance to start bossing them all about.

  Melly set the places while cabbage and carrots boiled vigorously on the stove. Mom was tutting because she’d put her hair in curlers the night before to get the ‘bouffant’ effect.

  ‘It’ll be flat as a pancake again after this,’ she muttered.

  Gladys was singing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing!’ along with the wireless and soon Mom joined in and Tommy sang along as well in his chair. Then Dad and Kev came in and the room seemed fit to burst with people.

  ‘I’m starved,’ Kevin cried. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ Danny tugged on his ear. ‘It’s Christmas Day, yer prat – what th
e hell d’yer thinks for dinner?’

  All day she waited, agonizing. What had Reggie thought of her present? Had Donna even remembered to give it to him? Did he like it? Or did he think it was babyish and silly? As she ate her lunch and helped wash up afterwards with Gladys, who said it was Rachel’s turn to have a sit-down; as the adults snoozed, pink cheeked and red nosed from glasses of sherry and port wine; and Kev rushed outside to ride his new little bike; and she and Tommy did a puzzle that Gladys had bought for them, it was all she could think of.

  On another day she might have been glad that Tommy wanted to play with her. But all the time her thoughts were in the Morrisons’ house, wondering what they were doing. In her worst moments, she worried that they were all laughing at her. Nothing that day, not even the excitement of waking, knowing there were crackly little parcels at the foot of the bed from Santa – opening them to find a new jumper and some talc, a sugar lump and an orange – compared with the suspense of wondering how her gift to Reggie had been received.

  ‘Are you going to see Dolly today?’ she asked Mom later, as they all drank a cup of tea. She tried to sound casual.

  ‘No,’ Rachel yawned. ‘They’ve got a houseful – her sister’s over, with her lot. I don’t know how they all fit in. Why?’

  ‘Oh – no reason . . . Come on, Tommy – we’ve nearly got all the edge bits.’

  On Boxing Day they had to go to Nanna’s. Peggy said she thought she could manage them for tea.

  ‘Mighty big of her,’ Gladys remarked. She, of course, was not invited. Despite the fact that Peggy had worked on the Rag Market for a time, she had left all that behind when she married widower Fred Horton before the war. She always liked to think she was several cuts above Gladys.

  ‘I’m surprised I’m even invited,’ Danny said. He rolled his eyes at his aunt.

  ‘It’ll give you some peace,’ Rachel said. ‘That sounds a bit of all right to me!’

  ‘Tommy and me’ll have our own party, won’t we?’ Gladys said.

  It was a long time since Peggy had seen Tommy. Rachel had made it clear to her that if she wanted to see her oldest grandson she would have to come to him. Even if Tommy had really wanted to go, it was impossible to get him there without spending the earth on a taxi. Peggy could have come quite easily. Rachel imagined her mother picking her way across the yard in Aston like Lady Muck – even though she had once lived in a worse place in Deritend herself. Not once had Peggy come over to see him.

  Peggy and Fred lived on the Coventry Road, above the business, Horton’s Drapers & Haberdashers. Fred was in his early sixties and Peggy, who was only fifty-four, had a major hand in running the business, a situation she complained about almost unceasingly, even though it was her own choice and she was in fact very good at it.

  Cissy was delighted when they turned up, having been bored rigid all day. She had brushed her ginger hair into a high topknot with a flick of a fringe, and had on a dark green satin dress, flattering to both her colouring and her increasingly curvaceous figure.

  ‘Ooh, you look nice, Ciss,’ Rachel said, kissing her.

  ‘So do you, Rach – that red suits you.’

  Melly found herself hugged by Cissy. She felt Cissy’s breasts push against her and blushed. Cissy was really growing up. Since Freddie Morrison was not about, Cissy was evidently going to bother with her company today.

  Peggy was draped back in her chair as if in a state of profound recuperation. Fred was snoozing by the fire and didn’t even hear them come in.

  ‘Ah – you’re here,’ Peggy said, like a siege victim relieved at last. ‘Help Cissy make the tea, Rachel – I’m absolutely all in. I couldn’t move if the house was on fire.’

  ‘Happy Christmas to you too, Mother,’ Rachel said between clenched teeth, heading to the kitchen. Melly and Cissy went with her, Cissy giggling at Rachel’s words.

  ‘You should’ve heard her cooking the dinner,’ she hissed. She glanced round the kitchen door to see if anyone was following, then closed it firmly and started doing imitations of their mother, an arm languidly across her forehead. ‘Oh, if only I had some proper help. Someone who’d understand. Here am I – shackled to an old man . . . Every year it’s the same – slaving away up here! No one ever invites me round or cooks for me . . .’

  ‘I’m not bloody surprised,’ Rachel interjected, slamming the lid on the kettle, but she was laughing. ‘So did she think Fred was just going to keep getting younger then or what?’

  Melly was beginning to giggle, watching the two sisters let off steam. When Cissy was a baby, Peggy had doted on her for a little while, but she soon lost patience and was just as rejecting and self-absorbed in her behaviour as she had been when Rachel was young.

  ‘I’m a martyr to this family!’ Cissy went on, with dramatic exaggeration. ‘No one knows what a struggle my life is!’

  ‘Shhhh, for God’s sake!’ Rachel was really laughing now. ‘She never said that?’

  ‘She did,’ Cissy spluttered. Soon the three of them were helpless with laughter. Melly was no more fond of her grandmother than the two sisters. She had heard Peggy say things about Tommy that made her blood boil. ‘That cripple child of yours,’ she called him.

  ‘Come on,’ Rachel said once they’d made the tea. ‘We’d better go and rescue your dad.’ She had left Danny making desperately stilted conversation with Peggy and trying to keep Kevin still. ‘I hate going to Nanna’s,’ he’d grumbled all the way over. Peggy had never approved of Danny – he wasn’t good enough – and she thought Kevin was wild and out of control, none of which was helped by the fact that as soon as he set eyes on her, he seemed to feel wild and out of control. He had brought some of his cars to play with and was down on the rug.

  They managed to compose themselves enough to carry in a tray of tea. Fred sat up with a start, suddenly realizing they had arrived.

  ‘Ooh – hello, girls,’ he said, rubbing his head.

  ‘Hello, Fred,’ Danny said. Fred wasn’t too bad really. And he was right under Peggy’s thumb these days. His own son, Sidney, who had lived with them when Rachel was young, never showed his face there any more.

  Rachel put the tray on the low table in the middle of the room.

  ‘There’s a fruitcake I made,’ Peggy said. ‘Fetch it, will you, Cissy – oh, and plates and . . . Oh, dear, I’m so tired I can barely even think.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mom, I expect we’ll manage,’ Rachel said. Melly knew she was always sick of her mother within minutes of arriving at her house. She came over here less and less.

  They sat round, asking the usual questions – how was the business here? How was the Rag Market? This was always asked by Peggy in a tone which implied she was picking up something dirty as she said it.

  ‘It’s good,’ Danny said. He leaned forward, the one person in the room not totally drained of energy. ‘I’m thinking I’ll buy a car soon.’

  ‘Oh – really?’ Peggy said, sounding put out. She and Fred did not have a car. ‘Seems a terrible expense.’

  ‘It’d make things a lot easier,’ Danny said. ‘We could branch out . . .’

  ‘Tommy’s doing well at school,’ Rachel said.

  Peggy rolled her eyes. ‘School!’ It was said with such contempt that Melly wanted to shout at her. ‘I suppose they have to call it that – though most of them are cabbages.’

  Melly saw her mother struggle to control herself.

  ‘Luckily,’ Rachel said, ‘thanks to Melly, Tommy could read and write when he got there. They were really taken with him. He’s doing ever so well. And he was in the nativity play – he was Joseph. We’ve got a picture.’ This photograph was in a prime spot on the mantelpiece at home, Tommy standing, solemn, in a brown robe with a cloth on his head.

  Peggy rolled her eyes again and changed the subject.

  ‘Come on,’ Cissy whispered, beckoning to Melly.

  The girls went into the bedroom and Cissy twirled round in front of her in the green dress.

 
‘Mom made it for me for Christmas. D’you think Freddie’d like me in it?’

  Oh, Melly thought. Here we go.

  It took two buses to get home. By the time they got back it was dark and foggy and everyone was frozen and all in favour of buying a car. They were also at screaming pitch after a few hours with Peggy.

  ‘I don’t know why I bother,’ Rachel ranted as they waited for the bus in town. ‘She’s so wrapped up in herself. She can never see what anyone else might have going on, or—’

  ‘She’s not gonna change, Rach,’ Danny said, putting his arm round her shoulders. Melly was warmed by the sight. How must it feel to have a man love you? she wondered, with dread and excitement bubbling in her again now they were on the way home. Suppose when she got there, there was a note waiting for her – from him? Maybe Reggie would be too shy to come himself?

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ Rachel was saying. ‘You just let it all wash over you.’

  ‘She’s still your mother,’ Danny said. His own mother had died when he was nine.

  ‘Huh,’ Rachel said. She looked cold and deflated. ‘I’m not doing this next year. She can bloody well come and see us.’

  There was no note waiting at the house. Nothing. Melly looked to see if Gladys had anything to tell her – had Reggie been round while they were out? But no. They were all tired out after the day of high emotions and more indulgent eating than usual. Melly went up to bed soon after her brothers, shivering in the freezing room. Ricky was grizzly but Kevin went out like a light, his wiry body tucked in beside Tommy.

  ‘Night, Tommy,’ Melly whispered and heard him mutter a reply in the darkness.

  She lay there, her feet icy, allowing herself to feel miserable and hurt. But she told herself that Reggie might not have wanted to come round with everyone there. Maybe he would speak to her himself, when they were on their own . . . And very soon she was asleep too.

  The next thing she heard was screaming and she leapt up in bed, thinking it was one of the boys having a nightmare. The noise was so loud she had thought it was in the room. Then she realized it was coming from outside the window.