A Ration Book Childhood

by Jean Fullerton

  Billy raised his hands and then as his mouth formed soundless words he closed each grubby finger over in turn.

  ‘So, if I put a tanner on Mason Melody I’d get half a crown back,’ said Billy.

  ‘You could,’ said Queenie.

  Billy’s eyes lit up. ‘I could buy that Airfix model of a Lancaster bomber that’s hanging in Feldman’s window instead of having to save for it, and I could get four ounces of sherbet lemons, too.’

  ‘That you could,’ said Queenie. ‘So hand over your money.’

  ‘I’ve spent my pocket money already, but I have sixpence left from my Saturday fire money.’ Delving into his pocket Billy fished out two threepenny bits and handed them over.

  Queenie’s hand closed around the coins. ‘Now, let me tell you, the nag you’ve put your money on ran in the one o’clock today and was grand until the last furlong when he lost his stride and came in fourth.’ She slipped his money in her pocket. ‘And now the bookmaker’s got your money and you’ve got to get up in the cold on Saturday morning and light another dozen fires to earn some more.’

  Billy’s face collapsed. ‘But that’s not fair.’

  ‘No, that’s the sheer foolishness of putting your hard-earned money on a horse.’ Grasping his soft childish hand, she shook it. ‘And I’ll tell you this, lad, and tell you no more: betting is a mug’s game. Now eat your sandwich and then if you tidy your room as your mother’s been asking you to for a week or more, I’ll let you have your money back.’

  Billy’s scowled and jammed his sandwich in his mouth.

  The handle rattled as the back door opened.

  ‘Only me.’

  A pushchair containing an infant bundled to the ears in blankets bounced over the threshold as Cathy, Queenie’s middle granddaughter, manoeuvred it through the blackout curtain and into the room.

  Like her sisters, Cathy was slim and of middling height, although since having her son Peter eighteen months ago, her girlish figure had changed to more womanly curves. However, whereas Mattie, Jo and their older brother Charlie had the dark colouring of Queenie’s side of the family, Cathy was fair like Ida’s side of the family and had the sweet face of Ida’s mother but thankfully not her sour disposition.

  She too was wrapped up against the cold in her everyday green coat with chequered scarf tucked around her neck and a knitted beret over her honey-blonde curls.

  ‘Well, this is a nice surprise,’ said Queenie, standing up. ‘Let me make you a cuppa.’

  As always when she walked through her parents’ back door into the familiar kitchen, Cathy felt the cloud of despondency that was her constant companion lift a little.

  Gran was in the kitchen, there was the comforting smell of supper cooking in the oven and there were peeled spuds and chopped cabbage in saucepans on the rings above. Even the faint smell of bleach from the bucket under the sink, which was brimming with the family’s smalls, somehow made her feel better.

  She was ashamed that she had once thought her parents’ house shabby but having left as a bride just two short years ago, she would now give almost anything to return.

  Forcing her sad thoughts away, Cathy closed the back door with her foot.

  ‘Hello, Gran,’ she said. ‘And yes, please, I could murder for one.’

  ‘I’ll not be asking for that,’ her grandmother replied. ‘Just a wee cuddle from this little darling.’

  She held out her thin arms towards Peter who, seeing a bit of fuss coming his way, started wriggling about. Unwrapping her son from the layers of blankets and his coat, Cathy handed him to her gran who tucked him on to her hip.

  ‘Hello, Billy,’ Cathy said, unbuttoning her own coat. ‘Good day at school?’

  He shrugged and carried on munching at his sandwich.

  Queenie’s arm shot out and gave him a clip around the ear.

  ‘Ow,’ he said, putting his hand to his head.

  ‘Your sister said hello,’ she snapped.

  ‘Hello,’ he mumbled through the last mouthful of sandwich. ‘And school’s all right.’

  ‘That’s better,’ said Queenie. ‘Now, about your business.’

  Billy stood up and, dragging his feet as he went, left the kitchen.

  ‘I hope you haven’t been teaching Billy about the horses, Gran?’ said Cathy, as the old woman folded away the newspaper.

  ‘Just what he needs to know,’ said Queenie.

  She tickled Peter under the chin making him giggle and the little boy tucked his head into her shoulder. She gave him a noisy kiss on the cheek and then stood him on the floor. Peter looked around solemnly for a moment and then sat on the lino.

  ‘Mum in?’ asked Cathy, as she gave her son a rattle and his pram reins to play with.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Queenie, taking the tea cosy off the pot. ‘She’s gone to help out at the rest centre and if you’re after Jo, she’s had to do a double shift as she’s got half the ambulance station off with flu. How’s that misery of a mother-in-law of yours?’

  ‘Just the same,’ said Cathy, battling to keep the cloud of despondency from settling back on her shoulders.

  Stan’s mother Violet Wheeler was only just fifty but as she wore widow’s grey and an expression like she were wearing wire-wool drawers, you’d be forgiven for thinking she was Gran’s age.

  As her gran poured the tea, Cathy made herself comfortable on the chair Billy had just vacated and watched her infant son playing contentedly at her feet.

  ‘Your mother’s taken it upon herself to save all our sugar rations for Christmas, so you’ll have to have it without,’ said Queenie, putting a mug of tea in front of her.

  ‘That’s all right, Gran. I’m doing the same myself and, to be honest, it’s been so long since I had a cuppa with sugar in it, I don’t know I could drink tea with it in now.’

  ‘But I do have a little treat for you,’ Queenie said, picking up the biscuit barrel shaped like Big Ben that was sitting on the table and popping the lid open.

  Cathy’s eyes lit up. ‘Custard creams!’ she said, hardly believing her eyes. ‘I haven’t had one of those for months. Where on earth did you get them?’

  Her gran winked. ‘That’s for me to know and you to wonder.’

  Putting her tea on the table and sitting down opposite Cathy, Queenie scooped up her great-grandson and settled him on her knee. Taking one of the biscuits from the tin, her gran handed it to the toddler on her lap and his cheeks dimpled into a smile.

  Cathy glimpsed a reflection of his father’s handsome face in her son’s innocent one and unhappiness pressed down again.

  ‘Have you heard from Stan?’ asked her gran, as if she could read her thoughts.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ said Cathy. ‘The prison governor has granted me a Christmas visitor’s pass.’

  ‘Are you taking Peter?’ asked Gran.

  ‘Stan’s mother moans to high heaven if I ask her to watch him while I pop to the shops, so she’d never have him all day, so he’ll have to come with me,’ said Cathy.

  ‘I’m sure your mother would be pleased to mind the lad while you’re away visiting,’ said Queenie, pulling a happy face at the baby who laughed.

  Cathy pressed her lips together. It was tempting, especially after the way Stan had been the last time she went to see him, and Peter would be happier with her mum than being strapped in his pushchair and lumped on and off trains all day, but . . .

  ‘Stan hasn’t seen him for almost six months,’ said Cathy, ‘so I’d better take h—’

  The handles rattled as someone else opened the door. The blackout curtain billowed and Mattie stepped into the room. She was muffled to the chin in a long berry-red coat with a fur collar and cuffs and a perky little black felt hat to finish off the ensemble. She held a bag of shopping over one arm and balanced her daughter Alicia, also bundled up against the elements, in the other.

  ‘Hello, Gr—’ She spotted Cathy and stopped in her tracks.

  ‘Mattie, it’s grand to see you,’ their gran said,
as Cathy regarded her sister coolly across the family kitchen.

  ‘Hello, Cathy,’ Mattie said, giving her a warm smile. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Cathy, half turning from her and taking a sip of tea.

  There was long empty moment as Cathy felt her sister’s eyes bore into the back of her head then Mattie spoke again.

  ‘Look, Alicia,’ she said, walking over to Queenie. ‘Your cousin Peter’s here, too. Isn’t he getting big?’

  Cathy studied the bottom of her mug and didn’t reply.

  ‘And how’s my best girl,’ said Gran, taking Alicia’s hand.

  The baby, who had Mattie’s dark colouring, kicked her legs and wriggled in her mother’s arms in response.

  ‘Teething again,’ Mattie replied.

  ‘I can’t believe she’ll be a year soon,’ said Gran. ‘I’ve just made a pot so can I get you a cuppa?’

  ‘No thanks, Gran, I’m on my way to see Francesca. I only popped in to drop this off for Mum.’ She plonked the shopping bag on the table. ‘Lipton had just had a delivery when I got there earlier so I managed to get a couple of tins of pink salmon for her Christmas stash. Tell her I’ll pop in later on in the week.’

  ‘Well, I’ll no doubt see you then too. Say goodbye, Peter,’ said Gran, waving the baby’s hand for him.

  ‘Bye-bye,’ Mattie replied, doing the same with Alicia’s chubby fist. She turned. ‘Bye, Cathy. Nice to see you and Peter again.’

  Cathy studied a spot on the wall behind her sister and didn’t reply. Mattie stood there a moment then left.

  As the door slammed, Queenie’s sharp eyes fixed on Cathy. ‘Don’t you think this quarrel you have with Mattie has gone on long enough?’

  ‘I said I’d never speak to her again and I won’t.’

  ‘For the love of Mary, Cathy. She’s your sister.’

  A pang of loss started in Cathy’s chest as memories of Mattie, plaiting her hair and helping her buckle her shoes for school, flashed through her mind. It was swiftly followed by the memory of snuggling into her older sister in the old double bed they had shared as children.

  Shoving the thoughts aside, Cathy forced herself to hold her grandmother’s gaze. ‘And if she’d remembered that I was her sister, my Stan wouldn’t be rotting in prison.’

  Half an hour after leaving her mother’s house Mattie was having a coffee with her long-standing friend Francesca Fabrino in Alf ’s café, while Alicia slept in the pram next to the table.

  The café was now owned by Francesca’s father Enrico, who had taken it over in April. It had previously been a pie and mash shop so had the typical black-and-white tiled walls of the traditional East End eating house, but Enrico had added a touch of his native Italy by suspending a selection of battered copper pans from the ceiling behind the counter and hanging ornamental plates on the walls. There was also a painting of Ponte Vecchio in Florence, where the Fabrino family came from, on the wall at the far end. It was one of three Florentine scenes painted by Francesca’s older brother Giovanni.

  On the night Italy had entered the war, Francesca’s family had been the victims of a rampaging mob who burnt down their fish and chip bar on Commercial Road; the painting was the only one they were able to salvage.

  She and Francesca first met when they were four and a half and had sat next to each other in Miss Gordan’s class at Shadwell Mixed Infants School.

  Topping Mattie by an inch or two, Francesca had clear olive skin, almond-shaped ebony eyes and straight black hair so long she could sit on it, but today, as she’d only just returned from her job as a sales assistant, it was still pinned up into a tight bun.

  They were sitting at one of the corner tables in the café, which was situated half a dozen doors down from the underground station on Whitechapel Road, opposite the London Hospital.

  It was about four now and the shop’s blackout blinds were already down, the curtain pulled across the door. With just a handful of low-wattage bulbs lighting the interior, the eating house was more like a Chicago speak-easy than a friendly family café. They were in the lull before the evening rush and so, apart from a handful of customers dotted around the tables, she and Francesca more or less had the place to themselves.

  ‘Honestly, Mattie,’ said Francesca, looking across at her friend, ‘I really thought Cathy would be speaking to you again by now.’

  ‘So did I, Fran,’ Mattie replied, feeling a weight pressing down on her heart. ‘But she still blames me for Stan being sent to prison.’

  Francesca raised an eyebrow. ‘I don’t see why. It wasn’t you who made him get him involved with those Nazi traitors. And she wants to be thankful he’s behind bars and not dangling from a rope.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Mattie. ‘But what with us still at odds and Mum not talking to Dad, I’m beginning to dread Christmas.’

  Her friend looked amazed. ‘They’re still not talking?’

  Mattie shook her head.

  ‘But it’s been ages. I’m surprised your dad’s not sweet talked her around by now,’ said Francesca, looking astonished, as well she might because Mattie was equally puzzled by her parents’ ongoing quarrel.

  She sighed.

  Reaching across, Francesca placed her hand over Mattie’s. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I’m sure they’ll work it out soon.’

  Mattie forced a smile. ‘I blooming well hope so.’

  The two friends exchanged a fond look, Francesca squeezing her hand before releasing it.

  ‘Well, do you want to hear my news?’ she said.

  ‘Tyrone Power came into Boardman’s today and when you served him he fell madly in love with you,’ said Mattie.

  Francesca laughed. ‘Oddly enough, no.’

  ‘Well, what?’

  ‘I handed in my notice because,’ picking up her handbag from the floor Francesca rummaged around for a second then produced a manila letter with ‘His Majesty’s Government’ stamped in bold letters across the top, ‘I’ve signed up for war work.’

  It was now Mattie’s turn to look surprised. ‘But I thought your dad wants you to work in the café.’

  ‘He might but I don’t,’ said Francesca. ‘Other women are doing their bit to beat Hitler, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘But how on earth did you persuade him?’ said Mattie.

  Lovely though he was, Francesca’s father had a somewhat traditional view of how young and unmarried Italian women should spend their time. It was in the home, cooking and cleaning for their menfolk until they found a suitable – preferably Italian – husband.

  ‘Easy,’ her friend replied. ‘I told him if I didn’t sign up voluntarily for war work now, when the new National Service Act comes in next month I could be drafted into the army and stationed goodness knows where, with hundreds of lonely soldiers.’

  Mattie laughed. ‘So what have you signed up for, the ATS or the Land Army?’

  ‘Factory,’ said Francesca. ‘Much as I don’t want to serve coffee in the shop, I can’t desert Dad altogether, not after all he went through last year.’

  Her friend’s gaze flickered across the room to where her father was serving late-afternoon coffees and teas behind the counter.

  He and his son, like thousands of other men of Italian descent, had been interned for several months but were released just after last Christmas. Giovanni had immediately signed up and there was a picture of him, all chiselled chin and liquid eyes, sitting next to the till at the end of the counter. However, Enrico Fabrino, after spending the best part of last winter in an aliens’ internment camp and who had never been hale and hearty, now looked ten years older that his forty-five years.

  ‘Besides,’ Francesca gave a light laugh, ‘I’d miss you and your family too much if I got posted somewhere up north or abroad.’ She took a slow sip of her coffee. ‘Talking of abroad, have you heard from Charlie?’

  Mattie gave her friend a soft smile. ‘I had a letter from him the day before yesterday.’

 
; ‘How is he?’

  ‘Hot and bored but other than that he seems well enough,’ Mattie replied. ‘Although, he was in an accident a few weeks back when the ack-ack gun he was towing skidded off a sand dune and nearly took the lorry with it.’

  Alarm flashed across her friend’s pretty face. ‘Is he all right? I mean, he’s not hurt or in hospital, is he?’

  ‘No, other than having to wait in the sweltering desert heat for a recovery truck, he’s fine,’ said Mattie. ‘He also asked me if I’d seen Stella.’

  ‘And have you?’

  ‘Not recently,’ said Mattie.

  She hadn’t but unfortunately lots of other people had: dancing with a sailor, dressed to the nines and getting off the night bus. She’d even heard a whisper that her wayward sister-in-law had been to visit Old Mother Connery in Ensign Street to get her out of a bit of trouble.

  ‘Is she still working nights in that dining club up West?’ asked Francesca.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mattie. ‘So at least I see Patrick from time to time as Mum and Gran look after him until Stella collects him.’ A smile lifted the corners of her lips. ‘He’s such a cheeky little chap.’

  ‘And with those dark curls and big brown eyes he looks just like Charlie.’ A forlorn expression flitted across Francesca’s face and she buried her nose in her coffee cup.

  Mattie studied her friend’s downturned face as the clock on the wall behind the counter ticked off the seconds.

  ‘You would think I’d have got over it by now, wouldn’t you?’ said Francesca, raising her eyes after a few moments. ‘After all, they’ve been married for almost a year.’

  ‘It takes time,’ said Mattie. ‘And I know it’s hard, Fran, but you have to find someone else.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Francesca blinked away the moisture gathering along her lower eyelids. ‘After all, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.’