A Ration Book Childhood

by Jean Fullerton

  Cathy had just got to the end of her row when a bomb landing somewhere south of them shook the corrugated iron arching over her.

  ‘God preserve us,’ warbled her mother-in-law, Violet Wheeler, drawing the blanket covering her even tighter to her whiskery chin.

  Swapping her needles into the other hand, Cathy started her next row without bothering to glance her mother-inlaw’s way.

  According to the alarm clock hooked on a nail over the door it was half past nine. She and her mother-in-law were where they had been every night for almost a year and a half, tucked up in the cramped Anderson shelter at the bottom of their garden while the Luftwaffe rained down death from the sky above.

  The siren had gone off two hours before, just as they were bedding down for the night. Although she hadn’t gone potty like some people who’d hung curtains around a painting of a window, complete with views of pastoral scenes, Cathy had tried to make their nightly abode as homely as possible. She’d put up a few photos and books on the shelves that Stan had fixed next to the low entrance. There was a crate of tinned food for emergencies and she’d even managed to squeeze in a small table on which were placed a teapot and mugs.

  She and Stan had got married the day before war broke out. Her new husband had spent their first weekend as a married couple digging out the ground and setting up their Anderson shelter, swearing all the time that they wouldn’t need it. Well, he was wrong about that and lots of other things, too.

  Cathy laid her knitting aside and swung her feet off the narrow bunk where she’d been sitting. ‘I’m making a cuppa; do you want one?’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said Violet, giving her a sour look from under her helmet of curlers and a thick hairnet. ‘I could die of thirst waiting for you.’

  From your lips to God’s ears, thought Cathy.

  Another blast shook the earth, showering them with grit from the cracks between the corrugated sheets overhead.

  Violet shrieked again. Thankfully, in his cot at the foot of her bunk, Peter continued to sleep peacefully, like the baby he was.

  Without bothering to look at the old woman, Cathy poured the boiling water from the Thermos flask into the pot.

  ‘You know I like mine in a cup,’ said Violet, her gnarled, blue-veined hands closing around the china mug.

  Placing her mug of tea on the floor, Cathy climbed back on the bunk bed and picked up her needles and wool again.

  ‘I don’t know how you can sit there knitting when any moment we could be blown to kingdom come,’ said Violet.

  Humming quietly to herself, Cathy looped the wool around the needle and slipped the stitch. Her mother-inlaw’s eyes flickered on to the knitting in Cathy’s hand.

  ‘That’s Stan’s jumper, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘It was,’ said Cathy. ‘It’ll be a pair of socks for Billy’s Christmas box soon.’

  ‘You can’t do that; Stan might need it,’ said Violet.

  ‘Not at the moment, he—’ Cathy bit back the words but it was too late.

  ‘No, he won’t, will he?’ spat Violet, giving her another hateful look. ‘No, because my poor Stan is locked up in prison thanks to that bloody sister of yours. If she’d had any kind of family loyalty she would have given Stan the nod.’

  ‘Perhaps if he hadn’t got himself mixed up with a bunch of Nazis in the first place he wouldn’t have needed anyone to give him “a nod”,’ Cathy snapped back.

  The ack-ack guns fired off another round, shaking the sides of the shelter again.

  ‘He was only trying to save us going to war with Germany,’ Violet shouted over the booming guns.

  ‘Yes,’ Cathy yelled back, ‘by helping a dozen German spies to land in Wapping.’

  A bomb found its target nearby and the hurricane lamp swung back and forth, casting angular shadows on the rippled wall of the shelter.

  ‘It’s your fault my Stan’s locked up like some common criminal.’ Violet jabbed a bony finger at Cathy. ‘I told him not to marry you. “Your father was head porter at Spitalfields,” I said, “and what’s hers? An Irish tinker, that’s what. You’re too good for the likes of her and her kind.”’ Stan’s mother warmed to her theme.

  Cathy swapped her knitting needles across and wound the wool around her finger.

  ‘“She’s only marrying you so she’s got a meal ticket,” I told him,’ Violet went on.

  ‘But would he listen?’ whispered Cathy.

  ‘But would he listen?’ snapped Violet.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t,’ Cathy muttered.

  ‘No,’ said her mother-in-law. ‘No, he wouldn’t.’

  ‘Common,’ said Cathy under her breath.

  ‘Common,’ echoed Violet. ‘That’s what you and your tinker family are, as common as muck.’

  The ack-ack guns half a mile away in Shadwell Park let off an earth-shaking round. Cathy’s ear drums vibrated as her mother-in-law let out a piercing shriek. In his cot at the foot of her bunk, Peter jolted awake and joined in.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ snapped Cathy. ‘You’ve woken Peter with all your bloody caterwauling.’

  Putting aside her knitting, she got up and went to her son. He was all flushed faced and bright eyed, having been abruptly woken from a deep slumber.

  ‘It’s not my fault I suffer with my nerves,’ whined Violet.

  Cathy ignored her.

  ‘Stan would understand. He was always considerate of my nerves,’ continued her mother-in-law. ‘Not like some I could mention.’

  Bending into the cot, Cathy picked up her son and his blanket, then scrambled back on to the bed. Wrapping the baby-blue cover her mother had crocheted around him, Cathy settled her son in her embrace.

  Another bomb landed close by and the shelter shook again. Peter, whose eyelids had just started to flutter down, jumped in Cathy’s arms and started crying again.

  ‘For God’s sake, can’t you shut that child up?’ snivelled Violet, clasping her hands together on her chest as the ackack guns pounded again.

  Ignoring her mother-in-law, Cathy started humming ‘Hush-a-bye Baby’ while rocking Peter gently in her arms.

  A series of bombs thumped to the ground but further away this time, judging by the rumble. Peter stuck his thumb in his mouth and his eyes closed as he drifted back to sleep.

  ‘Stan will have a few things to say to you when he gets home about the way you treat me,’ moaned Violet. ‘I wish you and him had never got married.’

  As the Shadwell ack-ack guns let off another round, Cathy pressed her lips to her son’s downy head and heartily agreed.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘SO, GIRLS,’ SAID Ida, with a heavy sigh, ‘now you know everything.’

  It was Sunday afternoon and three days since she’d told Jerimiah she would take Michael after Ellen passed on. As usual on a Sunday afternoon, Ida was sitting in the back parlour. The best crockery was out on the sideboard next to plates of sandwiches, with either spam or pilchard fillings, and an eggless cake was displayed on the stand.

  Jerimiah was sitting next to her on the sofa, Billy had been sent around to his friends for the afternoon and Queenie had tactfully withdrawn to her room for an afternoon nap. However, rather than listening to the Sunday after-dinner play and knitting while Jerimiah dozed in one of the fireside chairs, as was her usual Sunday-afternoon custom, Ida had spent the last thirty minutes, give or take, explaining the situation involving Michael to their three daughters.

  Well, explaining wasn’t really the right word. Scandalising them was more like it, for the three sisters had sat open-mouthed and wide-eyed as she and Jerimiah told them everything.

  ‘I know it’s a bit of a shock,’ said Ida in conclusion. ‘But there it is.’

  Two pairs of brown eyes and one pair of blue shifted from her face and bore into their father sitting beside her. For all she told herself it was his own fault he found himself having to confess his transgression, as he sat under the blistering scorn of his daughters’ gazes for t
he past half an hour Ida found pity for his plight tugging at her heart.

  ‘Shock?’ Jo gave a hard laugh. ‘I should say. Yesterday I had two brothers and today I have three. I’d call that a bit more than a blooming shock, wouldn’t you, Mum?’

  Ida’s youngest daughter was sitting on the footstool between her two sisters on the other side of the fire. She’d come straight from her morning shift at the ambulance depot and was still in her uniform.

  ‘How could you, Dad?’ asked Cathy. ‘And with Mum’s best friend.’

  She was sitting to the left of Jo, in Ida’s easy chair, while Peter, bless him, played on the rag rug by her feet with a handful of wooden bricks.

  ‘And after the way you went on about separate rooms when I go and see Tommy.’ Jo gave him a mocking look. ‘Talk about people in glass houses.’

  ‘Don’t talk to your father like that, Jo,’ snapped Ida. ‘Your dad made a mistake.’

  ‘A mistake, Mum, is putting the wrong coin in the gas meter or getting on the wrong tram not—’

  ‘So you didn’t know about Michael, Dad?’ cut in Mattie.

  She was sitting on Queenie’s rocking chair with a sleeping Alicia tucked in the crook of her arm.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ said Jerimiah, his voice rumbling over his women folk. ‘But now I do and that Auntie Ellen is dying we can’t just pretend he doesn’t exist.’

  ‘No, we can’t,’ Ida replied, hoping only she could hear the hesitation in her voice.

  Gratitude warmed Jerimiah’s eyes.

  Feeling her resolve to never forgive him waver a little she gave him a cool stare in return.

  Several seconds ticked by and then Jo spoke. ‘So when is he moving in?’

  ‘It’s difficult to say but probably after Easter sometime,’ said Ida. ‘He and Billy can bunk in together.’

  ‘Well, that explains a lot,’ said Jo. ‘I wondered why Billy’s been more lippy than usual lately.’

  ‘I’d noticed that, too, Jo,’ added Cathy. ‘He even had the blooming cheek to call me an old nag when I asked him to wipe his feet when he came in my kitchen the other day. What’s he got to say about having a new brother?’

  ‘I’d guess he won’t be too thrilled,’ added Jo. ‘After all, he’s never been much good at sharing, has he?’

  ‘Well, he’ll have to get used to it, won’t he?’ said Jerimiah. ‘And I’m sure he’ll be glad to have someone to play with.’

  The three girls didn’t look convinced, which was hardly surprising. Although she didn’t like to admit it, Ida had possibly let Billy get away with things sometimes.

  Retrieving a brick that her son had knocked out of reach, Cathy gave Mattie a sideways glance.

  ‘Considering you’re always the first to give everyone the benefit of your wisdom, I’m surprised you haven’t put in your tuppenceworth yet,’ she said, overlooking her vow never to speak to Mattie again and giving her a sharp look.

  ‘There’s nothing to say, is there?’ Mattie replied, matching her sister’s belligerent stare. ‘Whether we like it or not Michael is our half-brother and his mother is dying. And what would you have Dad do? Send him to an orphanage?’

  ‘I knew you’d take his side,’ said Cathy.

  ‘I’m not taking anyone’s side,’ Mattie replied. ‘But if Mum’s agreed to care for Michael after Auntie Ellen dies then I don’t see there’s any more to be said.’

  ‘Auntie Ellen,’ sneered Cathy. ‘I don’t know how you can call her that after what she’s done to Mum.’

  ‘The woman’s dying, Cathy!’ said Mattie, looking hard at her sister. ‘Have a bit of compassion, will you?’

  ‘What, like you did,’ countered Cathy, ‘when you stood back and let my Stan walk into a trap—’

  ‘That’s enough, all of you,’ Ida snapped. ‘Your dad made a mistake.’

  Jo opened her mouth to speak but catching the look on her mother’s face she closed it again.

  ‘None of you has had to go to school barefooted or shivering because you didn’t have a proper coat and that’s more than most children around here can say. None of you has had to go to bed hungry because we didn’t have the money for food and you haven’t had to sit in the dark for want of a copper for the meter, and you know why?’

  Ida looked from Cathy to Jo and then Mattie but none of them answered.

  ‘I’ll tell you why, shall I?’ she continued. ‘Because your dad has been out on that wagon in all weathers to keep a roof over your heads and food in your bellies and that’s because he’s the kind of man who puts his children first. Now, if I’m willing to care for Michael because of who he is then I don’t see how you three, Charlie and Billy can say otherwise. Family is family, and I’d thank you to remember that and do what we always do: stick together. Do you understand?’

  The three girls nodded.

  ‘Good.’ Fixing a smile on her face, Ida rose to her feet. ‘Now, perhaps if someone wouldn’t mind knocking on your gran’s door to let her know we’re done, I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Leaving her family chatting in the lounge, and with pain like a vice pressing against her temples, Ida went through to the kitchen. Going to the stove she lit the gas and moved the kettle she’d filled an hour before over the heat. She went to the sink. Resting her hands on the cold enamel, she stared through the strips of gummed paper criss-crossing the glass of the window. The sun had gone behind the houses to the back of them already, but the warm pink and white streaks of the frosty evening still illuminated the paved area of the backyard. As she studied the familiar space, with the zinc bath hooked on the wall and the old mangle alongside it, tears sprang into her eyes but a movement behind her made her blink them away. She looked around.

  Jerimiah was standing in the doorway, looking at her with such longing in his eyes it squeezed her heart.

  ‘You all right, luv?’ he said softly, crossing the space between them in two strides.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied.

  ‘Thank you again, Ida.’

  She shrugged. ‘As I said before, I’m not doing it for you. Now go and join the girls and I’ll be in with the tea in a moment.’

  His dark eyes searched her face for a second or two then a heart-rending smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

  Ida forced herself not to smile back.

  They stared at each other for a couple of heartbeats then Jerimiah turned and went back into the parlour. Ida resumed her contemplation of the yard. Her eyes skimmed over the four chickens picking in the dirt, safe in their coop made from old doors and a bent Morrison shelter that Jerimiah had picked up somewhere on his travels. Like everyone else with a square of earth in their backyard, he had already started to prepare the troughs ready for planting up spring greens and onions. She’d watched him as, wrapped in his sheepskin jerkin and bent low, he’d sifted the soil then filled the variety of troughs and barrels dotted around the wall.

  She’d been washing up at the sink when he came in and he’d put his cold hands on her neck, making her giggle and squirm. He’d told her he knew a way she could warm him up. She’d refused at first, citing potatoes to peel, but as the house was empty . . .

  She recalled how the hair of his chest had tickled her nose as he arched over her and her fingers dug into the corded muscles of his upper arms. Was that only eight or nine short weeks ago? Although she should say a thousand Hail Marys for even thinking it, she wished Michael had never been born. But soon he would be sitting across the breakfast table from her, the living proof of Jerimiah’s betrayal.

  With the rumble of a bomb landing on the dock half a mile south of her, Mattie lay staring up at the steel sheet of metal above.

  Her husband Daniel lay beside her, his head crammed against the mesh at the top of their Morrison shelter while his feet rested upright on the bottom.

  Their daughter Alicia, with her teddy Mr Blue, was tucked into the cot her father had made for her on Mattie’s side of the metal cage. This meant she had to lie at an angle with her
feet wedged between the side of the cot and her husband’s muscular calves. However, it was neither her awkward position nor the Luftwaffe that had driven sleep from her mind.

  It was probably close to two in the morning and although she’d been dog tired when she’d returned home from Sunday tea with her family, the moment her head had hit the pillow, sleep had fled.

  The ack-ack gun on the Isle of Dogs sent the ground trembling as they let off another round skyward. Mattie sighed and rolled on to her side. In the mute glow of Alicia’s Noddy night-light she gazed through the wire lattice at the twelve-by-twelve basement space that was the McCarthys’ nightly shelter.

  Following the instructions in the government leaflet on setting up a refuge room, Mattie had set buckets with sand by the door to deal with incendiary bombs, added a first-aid kit to deal with any casualties and found two enamel jugs, which she filled with fresh water each night in case they were trapped. There was even a bucket in the far corner hidden by a curtain that served as a toilet. Although the shelter took up most of the available space, Mattie had tried to make the subterranean room as comfortable as possible. There were a couple of old easy chairs either side of the paraffin heater, a coffee table plus a primus stove for boiling a kettle, a selection of books and a wireless, so once she settled Alicia to sleep Mattie could have a bit of company.

  The ack-ack gun pulsated again. Taking the blankets with her, Mattie shifted back into her original position then rolled towards her husband to see that he too was awake.

  ‘You too?’ whispered Mattie, looking at her husband in the dim light.

  ‘Been trying to get to sleep for hours,’ he whispered, the whites of his eyes highlighted in the low light.

  She gave him a sympathetic smile. ‘Problems in France?’

  He nodded. ‘Isn’t it always? But there’re no prizes for guessing what’s keeping you awake.’

  ‘I keep thinking about poor Mum,’ said Mattie quietly. ‘I know she put a brave face on it, but I could see she was holding back the tears. She must be heartbroken.’