by Annie Murray
Reggie’s injuries had led him to have two operations on his right leg and hip, having to convalesce from one before they began on the other. His recovery had taken several months. Dolly said he was beginning to walk now, with crutches.
‘Oh, my boy’s coming home!’ she said. ‘You should’ve seen Freddie’s face when he heard!’
Gladys went and embraced Dolly, which was an occasion in itself as Gladys usually held back from emotion. But she knew how empty the Morrison household – and the yard – had been during these months. With Eric married and gone, Wally so brutally taken from them, Reggie in hospital and now Jonny – to his enormous annoyance – waiting to be called up for National Service, suddenly it was just Freddie and Donna left. Dolly was bereft. ‘I’d have another if I wasn’t over the hill,’ she said to Gladys sometimes.
Melly felt this news of Reggie’s return go through her like a shock. She didn’t show it and made her face look pleased for Dolly. She was pleased for Dolly and Mo, but she felt terrified of facing Reggie. She had tried to shut away any feelings she had for him, telling herself it was a schoolgirl crush and that he had found it ridiculous. Now it was all the more difficult. How could you face someone who had been through such a terrible thing and lost his closest brother in the process? Dolly said he was due to be brought home sometime during the following week.
There was no one she could talk to. If things were different, if Cissy had been around more – if she was not, well, Cissy – maybe she could have confided in her like a sister. But Cissy was having a fine old time, earning her money and defying Nanna, getting up to all sorts that Peggy would have a pink fit if she heard about. She was going about with some man called Teddy. Cissy talked endlessly about him on the few occasions she had come over and bunked up for the night (only when Teddy was busy, it seemed). Teddy worked in a big firm in Coventry, doing exactly what, Cissy never seemed to know. But he had a car – a sports car!
‘It’s an Austin Healey 100!’ Cissy recited. ‘Bright red – a real hot rod and it can go ever so fast!’
‘How fast?’ Tommy asked. Cissy often conducted her secret conversations up in their bedroom in front of Tommy as she knew he wouldn’t tell on her. Kevin and Ricky weren’t at all interested in any of Cissy’s doings and would play with cars along their racetrack – the offcut of green carpet between the beds.
‘Oh – I don’t know,’ Cissy said impatiently. ‘Fast. He can goose it straight up to sixty! It makes a proper mess of my hair – Teddy says you have to cover your head.’ Cissy patted her hair to illustrate the point. ‘I feel like Grace Kelly, sitting there in a silk scarf!’
Melly was already rather tired of hearing about the wondrous Teddy. Cissy would blather on endlessly about him but if you asked her any questions, she’d put her head on one side and say scornfully, ‘Are you writing a book?’
She wouldn’t say how old Teddy was but she wasn’t even sixteen yet and it seemed funny that she knew more about his car than what he did for a living. Heaven knew what she told Nanna and how she managed to get away with it. Melly felt very annoyed with Cissy, partly because she seemed to be having such a very good time! Cissy always seemed to fall on her feet, whatever.
With her thoughts churning round, she wanted some distraction and someone who was pleased to see her. At least Lil and Stanley seemed to like her coming round. As their daughter’s so far away, Melly thought, I can go and see them instead. Lil sometimes made a plain cake or bought a bun or two for them to share, as if it was a special occasion. It made Melly feel wanted, like someone who was doing good. At least Lil talked to her.
‘Hello, bab,’ Lil said. ‘You come for your tea, have yer? Stanley – here’s our little visitor!’
The downstairs room was in its usual cramped, smelly condition, but as it was warm and Lil was keeping the door open, the room felt a bit fresher than usual and there was a sour whiff of Ajax.
‘Hello, Stanley,’ Melly said, going over to him slowly, careful never to make him jump. As ever he was in his chair.
‘All right?’ he muttered. He had grown used to her. Melly even thought he liked her coming in for tea. She was often a bit bored sitting there, truth to tell, but she liked to feel as if she was doing something useful.
‘How’re you today, Stanley?’
He gave a nod, as if to say, what do you expect? But it was friendly, not hostile.
Lil made tea and Melly sat on the wooden chair beside Stanley. Sounds came through the door, Ricky chattering to himself across the yard and Mrs Davies’s whining voice, ‘Frankie – get in ’ere, now!’
She didn’t know what to say to Stanley – what, in the life of a thirteen-year-old girl, could be interesting to a man like him? The news that was burning inside her – Reggie was coming home! – was not something she wanted to talk about.
But Lil, after announcing across the room, ‘I’ve bought a couple of Chelsea buns,’ said, ‘I hear Dolly’s lad’s coming home at last.’
‘Oh –’ Melly’s heart set off like a piston. Her cheeks flamed. What was the matter with her? She had got over Reggie – hadn’t she? ‘Is he?’
‘The poor lad,’ Lil said. ‘I hear it’s touch and go if he’ll be able to walk.’
‘I think he can,’ Melly said, lowering her face to hide her blushes. ‘With crutches, Dolly said.’
‘Well, let’s hope so, for all their sakes,’ Lil said. ‘He’ll need a job. A young man needs a job, doesn’t he?’
They drank their tea and shared the sugary coils of bun. Lil kept up a bright conversation, asking about the markets and how Tommy was doing. Soon after he had finished his tea, Stanley seemed to have fallen into a doze, his hands slack in his lap.
‘Poor old thing,’ Lil said softly. ‘Look at him. He’s bad at night, that’s why he’s so sleepy in the day.’
‘Doesn’t he ever go out?’ Melly asked. She had not seen Stanley outside the house for a long time now. She could hardly imagine being forever inside this room, with barely space to move. ‘Couldn’t he go and see somebody – go to the pub?’
‘The pub – hah!’ Stanley erupted, so furiously that both of them jumped. They had thought he was asleep. ‘You won’t catch me setting foot in a pub. Drink myself to death like my old man!’ He subsided, shutting his eyes again.
‘Stanley’s father . . .’ Lil hesitated, unsure how to say it to a young girl. ‘Well, when he came home from the first war, he wasn’t himself, was he, Stanley?’
Stanley made an angry sound, a hissing through his teeth, eyes still closed.
‘The thing is –’ Lil leaned forwards, taking a drag on her Woodbine which hollowed her cheeks for a moment. She puffed the smoke towards the sagging ceiling. ‘You’re too young to remember, bab, but after the first war – oh, the men who came back! The state of them. They couldn’t say what they’d seen, most of ’em. They were either wild as horses or limp as rags. Stanley’s father was hardly sober from the day he got back. It did for him, before long.’ As she finished, her eyes settled on her husband and Melly saw a well of sadness in them. ‘Oh, well . . .’ She petered out. ‘Anyway, Stanley likes to stay in the house. I get out a little bit – shopping and that.’
She smiled, the weary lines of her face lifting. ‘You don’t want to hear about us old things.’
Melly felt so sad for Lil and Stanley, especially when Mom told her what they used to be like. But she didn’t know what to say. She nodded at the teapot. ‘D’you want me to top you up, Mrs Gittins?’
Lil nodded. ‘Thanks, bab. It’s good of yer to come and sit with us. We don’t have much young life around us now. Stan – you’ll have another drop, won’t you?’
A bit later she got up to turn on the wireless.
‘He likes his match results,’ Lil said. ‘It’s getting on for the end of the season now – it’s not the same in the summer without the football. He don’t care much what the Australians do with theirs.’
She switched on the wireless. A voice droned out the scores. The light beg
an to fade outside and Melly, bored with the football, washed and dried the cups and put them away.
‘I’d best be off,’ she was saying to Lil, when they all heard the voice bellowing out in the yard.
‘I’ve done it! I’ve bloomin’ well gone and done it! Ye-e-e-es!’
They looked at each other; even Stanley opened his eyes again.
‘That’s Mo,’ Lil said, and she and Melly rushed to the door.
Outside, Mo was lumbering up and down like a dancing bear in shirtsleeves, boots slapping on the bricks and waving a piece of paper in one hand. Years seemed to have lifted off him. Everyone came to their doors, Ethel Jackman with her stringy arms folded as if resenting anyone else having good news.
‘What’s bitten you, Mo?’ Lil called to him, laughter in her voice.
Dolly appeared outside then and Donna, both looking excited and bewildered at the same time.
‘Mo reckons he’s had a win,’ Dolly said, hurrying over to Lil. ‘He was sat there watching the teleprinter thing on the television and he says – well, it looks as if . . . It’s the group of them, at the Salutation . . . God, Lil, I feel all shook up – look at my hands – I’m shaking like a leaf!’
Everyone crowded round, close to Lil and Stanley’s door. Melly stood aside so that Stanley could see out.
‘Eight score draws!’ Mo cried. His face was pink and beaded with perspiration. ‘I can’t believe it – I was sat there in front of the television and the first two come in . . . Then it went on and there was nothing, a long gap and I thought that’s it then – then there was another and another and then another. I said to Doll, look, I’ve got five and she said – well, she weren’t even listening really, were you?’
‘I was doing the ironing,’ Dolly giggled.
‘And it went on and I thought, well, that’s good – but that’s it. And they got to Scotland and there was three more – all in a row! And we got ’em all!’
Just then, Gladys, Mom and Dad appeared along the entry. The three of them stopped on seeing the little crowd at the end of the yard.
‘What’s going on?’ Gladys called out, putting her bags down.
‘It’s Mo –’ Dolly dashed over to her. ‘Mo and the others! Look – come and see. They’ve picked eight score draws and they’ve all come out!’
‘Blimey, Mo,’ Danny said. ‘That must mean . . .’
‘What did it say?’ Rachel asked. ‘Afterwards, I mean?’
‘It said, “Telegram applications only”,’ Dolly said.
They all looked at each other, trying to make sense of things.
‘Well,’ Gladys said. ‘I s’pose that means . . . God, Mo – you lot must’ve won a packet!’
Twenty-One
Rachel had gone to the Rag Market on her way back across town, late that afternoon. First, she called in to the Bull Ring for some knock-down fruit and veg. When she turned up in the Rag Market to help Gladys and Danny pack up their stalls, she wanted it to look as if she had come into town to go shopping. She found herself enjoying the deception, angry and excited, like a child playing with fire.
She had come from Harborne. Michael Livingstone had asked her to visit for a cup of tea with him and Ellen. She had found him waiting outside the school a few days ago. ‘You and Tommy,’ he had said. But she couldn’t take Tommy across town without the taxi. And there was always Melly to look after him. For once she could go on her own.
Michael and Ellen lived in War Lane. She had the journey across town, first one bus, then another, to ask herself what the hell she was doing, sneaking off to see this man, without Tommy, without an excuse. She and Danny had had another row that morning in furious whispers. It was the same old thing.
‘You go then – just bugger off and leave us all if that’s what you want. Go to the other side of the world if you think it’s so flaming marvellous. But don’t ask me to come – I don’t want to and that’s that.’
‘Oh, come on, Rach!’ Danny calmed down and tried to plead with her. ‘Give something a chance for once!’
‘Give something a chance!’ she raged back at him. ‘How about carrying your child when I wasn’t even sixteen, how about leaving my family and moving across town? I’ve done enough giving it a chance. I want a nice life and a better life than in this hovel – but not in cowing Australia!’
They hadn’t made it up. Early in the afternoon, Rachel had slipped out, telling Melly she was going shopping. She took two cloth carriers with her. Buying from the Bull Ring on the way back was also a way of settling her conscience.
Once she got off the bus in War Lane, walking in the thin spring sunshine, there was no more time to think about Danny or to tell herself that all she was doing was going to drink a cup of tea with someone. Someone who happened to be a man, who made no mention of a wife. She was being drawn along, despite herself.
When she saw him, Michael Livingstone seemed both taller and more hesitant than she had remembered. For a second she almost turned and fled. What was she doing, walking into a strange man’s home? How had this happened?
‘Hello,’ he said, opening the door of his terraced house. ‘It’s nice of you to come. Especially all this way. Come in.’
‘It’s all right, it didn’t take long,’ Rachel said, stepping past him. The hall was narrow and she was conscious of having to walk close to him, to his slender body in a green-and-white checked shirt, the fawn trousers.
‘Ellen’s in the front,’ he said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ He spoke hurriedly, obviously nervous, but Rachel liked his quiet, gentle manner and agreed that she would. In fact she had begun to feel a bit sick again and was not sure if it was the baby or her nerves. She hoped a cup of tea would settle it.
‘Ellen –’ He stood at the door of the back room. ‘Here’s our friend Rachel to see us – Tommy’s mother.’ Rachel liked the way he said ‘our friend’. It sounded both warm and innocent at once. And it is innocent, she thought defiantly.
Rachel entered a cosy little room with a table and chairs in the back corner and two armchairs at the front, near the window. Ellen was sitting in one, holding a skein of white knitting, her hair falling forward until she raised her head and smiled in the direction of the door.
‘All right, Ellen?’ Rachel said, relieved that the girl was there. It made her visit seem safe and legitimate.
‘Have a seat,’ Michael said. ‘I’ve boiled the kettle – I’ll just get the tea ready.’
Rachel obeyed, and chatted to Ellen.
‘That’s nice – your knitting, I mean. Can I have a look?’
Ellen held it out. Rachel was impressed to see that the girl was making almost no mistakes.
‘They taught us at school,’ she said. ‘Once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s something you can do by feel. I can’t use a pattern yet, though – I’m only knitting easy things.’
‘No socks for sailors yet,’ Michael joked, carrying in a tray of cups and a plate of biscuits.
Rachel smiled up at him. ‘Socks are difficult. You need more needles – for the heels.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never knitted anything in my life!’
Michael went out again and Rachel looked approvingly round the room. How lovely to have a front room and back room – this was just the sort of house she longed to live in!
The chairs they were sitting in were of well-worn brown leather. The floor was covered by two sections of green patterned carpet. On the table were a blue-and-white striped jug containing dried flowers, a pile of books and a camera. For a moment she thought of Coronation Cameras where Danny had worked for a short time. But her attention was drawn to the lead fireplace and the shelf above it, on which were two framed photographs.
She heard Michael’s footsteps returning from the kitchen again as she gazed hungrily at the wedding photograph – a young, slim man who must have been Michael, arm in arm with a woman whose features Rachel could hardly make out under a gauzy veil. Where was this woman? It already felt as if she
was not here – otherwise why would he have invited her?
The other picture was of Ellen, a smiling infant propped on a white blanket, though there was already an unseeing blankness to her eyes. And then she had to stop looking because Michael appeared with the teapot.
As he poured, she examined him. It seemed so strange to be close to another man when she was used to Danny’s broad, freckly face, his bright blue eyes like Gladys’s which had reproduced themselves in Melly and Kev, his wiry, muscular body. Michael seemed a calmer person altogether, brown hair falling across his forehead, thinning a little on top, she noticed as he bent to pour the tea, and eyes of a colour she could not quite pin down – greenish, hazel – she was not sure. There was a gentle grace to him, as well as the upstanding bearing of someone who, she guessed, had been in the forces.
‘How’s Tommy getting along?’ he asked, bringing a chair over from the table and arranging it between the armchairs for himself.
‘He’s doing all right,’ Rachel said. ‘They’re ever so good. We never thought he’d walk at all when he was little but he can manage a bit with a stick when he needs to. He finds it ever so tiring but it means he’s not always in the chair. He’s doing well at the school too. They say he’s clever.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Michael agreed, stirring his tea. ‘And Ellen . . .’
‘Oh, she’s clever, all right,’ Rachel said. ‘Her knitting’s better than mine for a start!’
They all laughed.
‘I made so many mistakes when I started,’ Ellen said. Rachel wondered if her mother had the same pale hair. There was still no mention of her.
‘It’s marvellous what they can do in those schools,’ Michael said. ‘I can hardly bear to think where we’d be without them.’
‘I know,’ Rachel said. ‘In fact, that’s where we were before we found out about this place. A lady came and told us about the school. We were . . . Well, I couldn’t believe it at first. Tommy had never been to school before.’
‘Good gracious!’ Michael said.
They talked for a long time about their children. She realized that it was a relief for him to have someone to talk to who knew what it was like to have a child who was different, whose life was such a struggle.