Irene Milligan was just Bernard’s sort: young, lively and impressionable. Her father was off fighting in the desert and there had been rumours about Mrs Milligan and Mr Grainger; nothing definite, nothing you could really put your finger on. Lizzie hated herself for heeding such gossip but she couldn’t help but wonder if the neighbours were gossiping about Bernard too and if anyone else had noticed how Irene looked at him and blushed when he spoke to her. She wondered what they would say about Rosie if they knew the truth – miscarriages were always news – and if they would blame her for not telling her daughter all about the dangers that faced a new young wife.
‘Night-night, Mrs Peabody,’ said Irene, and with a final coy glance in Bernard’s direction, sauntered out into the street.
As soon as the room had cleared, Bernard came over to Lizzie and put a hand on her shoulder. She was taking off her hat, sliding out the pin, and flinched when he touched her. A whole day in the flat in Cowcaddens listening to her daughter belittle Kenny, her husband, had strained even Lizzie’s patience. She had sympathy for Rosie but had fallen out of the habit of donating her love without question and had more than a little sympathy for Kenny too.
‘How is she?’
‘She’ll be all right,’ Lizzie said.
‘Is Kenny back?’
‘He came in about seven. I made him his dinner.’
‘Is Rosie laid up – in bed, I mean?’
Bernard’s concern was genuine. When he had married Lizzie Conway he had taken on her girls without a qualm. But Babs and Polly were grown up, or nearly so, by that time and it was poor deaf Rosie who needed him most. He still thought of her as his poor deaf Rosie but Lizzie was beginning to realise that Rosie was not so poor as all that. She had a good regular income and a kind, caring husband to whom she must give some kindness and consideration in return, even at a sad and difficult time like this.
‘No, she’s not in bed,’ Lizzie said. ‘She’s up and about. She says she’s goin’ back to work tomorrow.’
‘It’s too soon, isn’t it?’
‘I talked to the lady doctor last night at the hospital.’
‘And?’
‘Rosie can still have babies.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Bernard said.
‘I know what you meant,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t know whether it’s too soon or not. Maybe goin’ back to work will take her mind off things.’
‘Is she brooding?’
‘Aye, but not about the baby.’
‘What, about the war?’
‘She’s not happy,’ Lizzie said. ‘She talked nineteen t’ the dozen all blessed day, trailin’ me about the flat like a puppy, never lettin’ me out o’ her sight – an’ I still don’t know what really ails her. It’s more than just losin’ the baby.’
‘It’s the uncertainty principle.’
‘You’ve a pat explanation for everythin’, Bernard, haven’t you?’
‘Well, it is.’ He began to set the table for supper. ‘I’ve a shepherd’s pie in the oven an’ stewed prunes for afters. Will that do you?’
‘That’ll do me fine,’ said Lizzie.
She seated herself by the fire. There were rolls of bandage on the mantelpiece and on the rug a big wooden box filled with splints and dressings. Bernard’s toys, Bernard’s weapons; he loved all the paraphernalia and the status that went with it. He, like Kenny, had a lot of ‘pull’ because of his job, and a lot of responsibility too. He even had the use of a Breslin Council motorcar, though he never brought the vehicle home.
‘I’ll have to have a talk with her,’ Bernard said.
‘She’s not in the mood for talkin’,’ Lizzie said.
‘I thought you said—’
‘Not in the mood for listenin’ is what I mean.’
‘Oh, she’ll listen to me,’ said Bernard. ‘She always listens to me.’
Lizzie didn’t have the heart to contradict him.
She nodded wearily and while her husband made ready to serve the supper, closed her eyes and snatched forty dreamless winks in her battered old armchair by the fire.
6
Christmas seemed a long way off. Babs had bought a little box of cards and two or three trinkets to put in the children’s stockings, but with Jackie away she could work up little enthusiasm for the festive season.
She hadn’t yet decided if she would take April over to the farm for the holidays or bring the other three home. Boxing Day, Thursday, she would have to be back in the office. Polly might look after them, or Christy, but she had a feeling that Polly and Christy would have other fish to fry. Lying in the cold bedroom in the bungalow in Raines Drive, she worried more about Christmas than the progress of the war.
She had been in bed for less than an hour when the air-raid siren wailed. She barely had time to sit up before the bedroom door flew open and Christy appeared with April, wrapped in a quilt, in his arms.
‘Grab what you can,’ he said, ‘and let’s get out of here.’
‘Why, what’s wrong, what is it?’
‘Air raid,’ he said. ‘A real one this time.’
‘Wait, I need to—’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Now.’
Babs heard the drone of aeroplanes and the crump of bombs in the distance. There had been two brief incendiary raids back in September but she hadn’t heard bombs before.
Christy steered her through the kitchen into the back garden. She stared at the sky over Glasgow, saw the shapes of aeroplanes in the searchlights across the river and the hills bleached by fire glow. Carrying April, Christy dived down the steps into the Anderson shelter.
Jackie had been gone before the shelter had been delivered. Bernard had come over from Knightswood one Sunday and dug out the pit and bolted the pieces together. Next afternoon Babs had covered the plates with earth and had installed two rough wooden benches and an old cot from the attic.
The tetchy old warden who had come along to inspect her handiwork had warned her that the shelter would flood unless she dug drains, but Babs had ignored his advice. She had done nothing to make the Anderson more habitable except stick in a smoke vent and an ancient iron stove.
Christy stepped into three or four inches of muddy water.
‘For Chrissake!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s a goddamned swamp down here.’
‘Sorry,’ Babs said. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’
From the hills west of Raines Drive ack-ack guns were pounding away. Puffs of white smoke, like artificial snow, powdered the skyline. She heard whistling, felt the sudden blast of an explosion from the direction of Holloway Road and, reaching for Christy’s hand, slithered down the steps into the icy water. He had already put April into the high-sided cot. He pushed Babs to one side, hauled on the rope that served as a handle and closed the door only seconds before a great trembling blast shook the earth around them.
‘Jesus, that was too close for comfort,’ Christy said.
He switched on a pocket torch.
April kneeled on the damp mattress inside the cot, the quilt cowled over her head. Babs paddled towards her. ‘Darlin’, oh darlin’, are you okay?’
‘More bombs,’ April said. ‘Daddy’s fightin’ again.’
‘So he is, so he is,’ said Babs, laughing and shaking. ‘Daddy’ll see them off. You wait, honey, we’ll be back in our own beds before you know it.’
‘Not tonight we won’t,’ said Christy, quietly.
* * *
The flashing red bulb in the bedroom had failed to waken her and, burrowed deep in bedclothes, she didn’t sense the frantic activity in the street.
Unknown to Rosie, Kenny had given Mr McVicar a door key and the warden had no hesitation in using it to let himself into MacGregor’s flat. He had already supervised the removal of eighty-six-year-old Mrs Jackson from the top floor and allayed the panic that had taken possession of Mrs Lottman, who had three children under five and a husband at sea. He had personally ferried her tiny, toddling brood out of the close and across to the bri
ck air-raid shelter at the corner of Cowcaddens Arch and St Mungo’s Lane. Only then had he gone back into the tenement to fetch out the policeman’s wife.
He navigated his way into the bedroom by the light of the warning bulb. Kenny’s young wife was so slight that she made hardly a bump under the bedclothes. The room smelled stale, like a sick bay. He wondered what the fastidious Fiona MacGregor would have to say about that when she got home.
He tapped the bump with his torch.
‘Rosie, Mrs MacGregor,’ he shouted, ‘wake up, please.’
She stirred, moaned, dug deeper into the bedclothes.
Mr McVicar peeled back the quilt and blankets. Rosie sat up. The buttons of her pyjamas were undone. The warden caught a glimpse of small, up-tilted breasts and a flat bare stomach, and looked quickly away.
‘Whuh…?’
A skirt and sweater, vest and knickers had been tossed across the foot of the bed. He lifted the bundle and handed it to her.
‘Uh! Uh! Is it … uh…?’
He flapped an arm, stirring an invisible pot, to indicate that haste was essential. There were no sounds of falling bombs yet but he could make out the clang of fire engines and ambulances, and the siren continued to wail.
He glanced round. She was naked, skinny naked, thinner than most of the half-starved children he’d encountered when he’d worked as a porter in the Royal Infirmary. She fumbled, still half asleep, with her clothes.
He went out into the hall and, a minute later, she joined him.
‘HOW BUH-BAD?’
‘Bad enough,’ he shouted, facing her.
‘WHUH-WHERE’S KENNETH?’
‘I don’t know.’
She uttered an angry little tut and followed the warden out of the flat and down the dark stairs to the street.
* * *
The communal shelter nestled against the wall of a railway cutting. Rosie looked up at the tenements that towered above her and saw a scud of cloud lit by a searchlight. She was awake now, wide awake. She could tell by Mr McVicar’s attitude that this was the real thing and that somewhere not far off bombs were falling from the sky.
She felt weak but not unwell. She was, in fact, hungry, which was an odd and inconvenient thing to be right now. She had snatched up her purse but there was nothing to eat in it, not even a toffee or a mint. She had absolutely no idea what time it was. She walked to the door of the shelter and went in. It stank of damp brick, distemper and disinfectant. There were no stoves or heating pipes to warm the dank atmosphere and only three dim blue electric bulbs locked in wire cages against the ceiling gave light.
Rosie peered into the gloom. Benches lined the walls, benches crowded with widows and couples, wives without husbands, a soldier or two, three or four young girls, and a surprising number of young children.
She looked for somewhere to sit and found herself squeezed up against a gaunt, dark-haired woman with two toddlers and a baby clinging to her like monkeys. The children were clad in an assortment of knitted garments, and whined and pawed fractiously at their mother as if they were afraid that she would abandon them in this unwholesome place.
Rosie stared down at her scuffed shoes and wrinkled stockings and endeavoured not to meet the woman’s eye.
In the unnatural light everyone seemed inordinately calm.
They dug into pockets and bags, produced buns and apples and tubes of wine gums, lit cigarettes, drank bottled beer or soda pop.
The woman fumbled by her feet, hoisted up a shopping bag and fished from it a feeding bottle and a packet of sandwiches.
Rosie eyed the sandwiches hungrily while the children clawed and clamoured for bread and jam and the baby screeched for milk. How lucky she was, Rosie thought, not to have children.
Then everyone looked up.
A girl screamed.
The dark-haired woman covered the children with her long, ungainly arms. She, like Rosie, wore an old trench coat. She, like Rosie, had wrinkled stockings and scuffed shoes. Unlike Rosie, she was terrified.
The blast shook the shelter and delivered a series of small aftershocks.
Rosie felt them in her stomach and chest and, looking up, watched a trickle of blue-grey dust sift down from the ceiling.
Mute with fear, the dark-haired woman wept helplessly.
Rosie shifted her position.
‘Huh-here,’ she shouted. ‘Give me the damned thuh-thing.’
Then detaching the child from the woman’s grasp and prising the bottle from her fist, she stuffed the baby into the crook of her arm, squeezed the teat between its lips and, grimly, let it feed.
* * *
After the first wave of enemy bombers passed, April lay down and fell asleep.
Babs worried about her daughter sleeping on a damp mattress, especially after Christy told her it was her fault for not being prepared. He read her the riot act about the realities of warfare for ten or fifteen minutes, then he tugged open the wooden door and stuck his head out.
‘Is that the all clear?’ Babs asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘Maybe we can go indoors, though? What d’ you think?’
‘It’s a lull, is all.’ Christy answered and, to Babs’s dismay, pulled himself up the ladder and vanished into the night.
Shaking like a leaf and cold beyond belief, she sat cross-legged on the bunk and peered at the rectangle of not quite darkness.
The carpet of rainwater had turned inky black and she would swear she heard wavelets lapping against the bottom of the bunk. She knew she’d been a fool and deserved a telling-off. She should have paid more attention to the warden’s instructions, should have read the civil defence pamphlets that had popped through the door. She had been busy, though, so busy trying to manage the war on her own account that she’d ignored all advice. She’d never forgive herself if April fell sick because of her carelessness.
Five minutes passed, then Christy came skulking back, carrying blankets, pillows and clothing. He waded into the water, passed the bundle to Babs and went off again. Three minutes later he returned toting two bolster cases. He slid ankle-deep into the water, dumped the bolster cases on top of the stove and carefully sealed the door again. He flicked on the torch, opened one of the bolster cases and brought out candles and a couple of her best china saucers. He softened the bottom of two candles with his lighter, stuck them firmly on to the saucers and passed them to Babs.
She took one in each hand and held them out over the muddy water while Christy lit a fire in the stove with kindling he’d brought from the coalhole in the bungalow. Babs began to feel better. Hunkered at the stove, his bum hovering just above the waterline, he looked broad and strong in the crouching shadows, his hair glistening in the candlelight; Babs felt like a goddess of sorts, squatting on the bunk in her nightie with a candle in each hand.
‘I doubt if they’ve given up,’ Christy said. ‘If they’ve earmarked targets down river they’ll send through a second wave.’ The lighter flame bloomed. Babs heard the crackle of sticks and smelled paper burning. ‘This is nothing. If you’d been in Warsaw during the siege you’d know what it was like to be scared. There was no place to hide to escape the destruction.’
‘You escaped, though,’ Babs said.
‘I did, yeah.’
‘But not Ewa?’
He didn’t turn round. Babs could see his hands, small square hands with bitten fingernails, dirty with coal dust, clasp the rim of the Tortoise stove.
He rested his brow on his knuckles.
‘I saw the letter,’ Babs said. ‘Did Ewa survive?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You left her there, didn’t you?’
‘I had no choice.’
‘Really, no choice?’
‘It’s none of your friggin’ business, Babs.’ He scooped a handful of coal nuts from the bolster case and hurled it into the stove. ‘You shouldn’t have gone nosing through my stuff. If you wanna know more about me, ask.’
‘I’m askin’ you now,’
Babs said.
He swivelled round and glared at her.
Candle flames wavered in the draft from the door. Babs couldn’t stop shaking. She put the saucers one on each side of her, and leaned forward.
‘Polly’s kids,’ she said. ‘I saw the photograph of Polly’s kids too.’
‘So friggin’ what!’
‘Is that your brother? The guy in uniform?’
His shoulder lifted in a massive sigh. ‘Yeah. Jamie.’
‘You told me you’d never met Dominic.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Then who took the photograph?’
‘God knows. I didn’t. Jamie gave me the photograph.’
‘Does Polly know all about you? Have you told her all the things you haven’t told me?’
‘I told her what I had to, no more.’
‘You’re lyin’ again, Christy, aren’t you?’
He slammed the little iron door of the stove, lifted himself from the floor, planted his hands on the bunk and looked her straight in the eye.
‘I was sent here by the US Government to make a deal with your sister,’ he said. ‘That’s all you need know.’
‘It has to do with Dominic, though, hasn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Is Dominic spying for the Germans?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘He always was a shifty bugger. You never knew what he was up to.’
A flickering glow showed in the tiny glass panels of the stove and a gout of smoke broke from the seam of the metal vent and crawled across the roof.
Christy said, ‘We don’t know what he’s up to either.’
‘Oh, I get it now,’ Babs said. ‘You think we’re in it with him. You think we’re part of Dominic Manone’s mob. Well, we’re not. I’m not.’
He put an arm round her and pulled her away from the wall. She let herself go, yielding to him. Her breasts were visible under the damp nightie, her nipples stiff with cold. She could feel his fingers against her spine, strong and hard, and longed for him to kiss her. Instead, he took a bottle from his pocket, uncorked it and swallowed a mouthful of whisky.
Wives at War Page 10