A Ration Book Childhood

by Jean Fullerton

  Ida frowned. ‘I don’t much like the idea of you dashing into a burning building,’ she said, pouring out his mug of tea.

  ‘’Tis no more than I do most nights helping the fellas in the heavy rescue,’ he replied. ‘Except I’ll be wearing a fireproof jacket and breathing equipment rather than a battle jacket with a neckerchief tied over my nose and mouth.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s something,’ she conceded, trying not to imagine him running into an inferno as she stirred in the milk and two sugars. ‘And if you’re part of the Fire Service you’re less likely to be called up into the army. I remember the last time, being at home with Charlie as a newborn and worrying myself witless not knowing if you were dead or alive in a trench somewhere.’

  ‘On top of which,’ continued Jerimiah, as she placed his drink in front of him, ‘I’ll get paid the standard ARP rate of three pounds ten shillings. It won’t be as much as I’ve made recently by moving folks but if I can keep the second-hand furniture going until I can hire a horse from the brewery in the next week or so, I’ll be able to pick up where I left off.’

  ‘I’ve still got over a fiver in the pot from the money you gave me a few weeks back if that would help,’ she said.

  She went to pick up the pliers again but before she could, Jerimiah stretched across and placed his hand over hers.

  ‘That’s grand but that’s yours for our family’s Christmas.’ He gave her that sideways smile of his that always set her heart dancing. ‘And don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ve been through worse and survived, haven’t we?’

  Ida smiled.

  He was right. They had survived the trials and heartache of raising a family amidst grinding poverty; in fact, it had bound them together in a way an easy life would not have done. However, although Michael was a lovable lad, now Ida knew how he came into being, would those bonds of love between her and Jerimiah stretch wide enough?

  Bending over the double bed, Ida smoothed the candlewick counterpane again despite having already done it three times and there being no crease in it.

  She glanced at the alarm clock sitting on the bedside cabinet. Jo had forgotten the clock when she’d moved out, but she expected Mattie would have a spare.

  Next to the clock stood two images: one of Michael as a baby, which Ida had first seen on Ellen’s mantelshelf, and the other of him in his school uniform with Ellen standing proudly beside him.

  It was just after two in the afternoon and a day since Jerimiah had come home and told her he was joining the Fire Service.

  She’d returned home from the shelter that morning when the dawn blackout ended at seven. Due to the fog that had come up from the river, the Germans had ceased bombing at midnight-ish so she and the rest of those sheltering in the Tilbury had had a full six hours’ sleep before the warden woke them. It was something she was heartily thankful for as she had a very busy day ahead.

  After seeing the boys off to school, Ida had had her usual hour’s forage around the market to see what was on offer. She had managed to get some flour, a quarter of suet and some raisins in Sainsbury’s plus the family’s Christmas tea ration at the Home and Colonial and a couple of oranges that had just come off the lorry in the market. With a bit of luck, with just over a week until Christmas Day, they might stay fresh enough for her to pop in the boys’ Santa stockings.

  She’d also got a decent bit of beef skirt at the butcher’s for that night’s tea, and she’d reminded him again that whatever joint he got for her for Christmas dinner, it needed to be large enough to feed eight adults and two growing lads.

  She’d returned just as the eleven o’clock pips heralded the news and after eating a pilchard sandwich and bolting down two cups of tea, she’d set to work on the bedroom that Jo had vacated. She cleaned, polished and changed the sheets then turned down the blankets and slid the invalid slipper pan and old newspapers discreetly under the bed for when they were needed.

  Glancing around the spotless room, Ida looked out of the window through the gaps in the brown paper pasted across the glass and noted that although at this time of day people were usually tucking into their midday meal, there were a great number of her neighbours smoking and chatting and loitering around their doors.

  The back door slammed but Ida kept her eyes on the top of the street.

  ‘Just meself,’ Queenie shouted from below.

  ‘I’m upstairs,’ Ida called back.

  ‘I take it they’re not here yet, then?’ her mother-in-law replied.

  Ida opened her mouth to shout ‘no’ when an ambulance, rolling over the cobbles at the regulation five miles an hour to avoid damaging the tyres, turned the corner.

  ‘Just arrived,’ said Ida, her heart thumping in her chest.

  Casting a final glance around the room, she went downstairs and met Queenie at the bottom.

  ‘I’ve relit the kettle,’ Queenie said.

  ‘Ta,’ Ida replied. ‘I’ll make a pot once I’ve settled her . . .’

  A lump stopped her words so instead she opened the door just as the ambulance, that’s to say a battered-looking Post Office van with a big red cross painted on the side, pulled up at the front door.

  The neighbours, who had been trying to look busy polishing door knobs and sweeping front steps, ceased their tasks and turned their attention to the vehicle parked outside Ida’s door.

  ‘Number twenty-five?’ asked the round-faced driver as he got out of the cab.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ida.

  He nodded and went around the back of the ambulance.

  Clasping her hands together and ignoring the audience on the other side of the road, Ida waited.

  After what seemed like an eternity but was in truth a moment or two, the two ambulancemen reappeared carrying a stretcher, with Ellen lying on it. Her lips were tightly drawn and she opened her eyes briefly as she was lifted down but thankfully, not long enough to see the look of shock on Ida’s face.

  It had only been a few days since Ida had last seen her but from the putty-grey skin, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, it was clear, even in the fading light, that the tumour eating away at Ellen was getting the upper hand.

  Taking a deep breath, Ida stepped forwards.

  ‘Mrs Gilbert is in the room at the top of the stairs on the right,’ she said to the driver who was holding the front of the stretcher. ‘Everything is prepared, if you’d like to take her up.’

  ‘Ta, missis,’ he replied. ‘Her bag and stuff are on the front seat.’

  With the stretcher bouncing as they walked, the two ambulancemen trudged past her and into the house. Opening the driver’s door, Ida dragged the carpet bag out and followed them in.

  Queenie, who was still standing in the hall, closed the door behind her. ‘You go and do what needs doing upstairs, Ida, and I’ll make the tea.’

  Ten minutes later, having settled Ellen in the bed, the two ambulancemen left the room and thumped back downstairs.

  ‘Well then,’ said Ida, as the front door slammed below, ‘I think that’s the last few bits from the hospital packed away. Queenie is making a cuppa. I expect you’re dying to see—’

  Ida pressed her lips together. Bugger! ‘Michael should be home from school soon,’ she added quickly. ‘I know he’s really looking forward to seeing you.’

  A hint of a smile lifted the corners of Ellen’s bloodless lips. ‘Me too,’ she whispered.

  ‘We don’t leave for the shelter until half past five, so you’ll have a good hour or more with him before we head off,’ said Ida.

  Ellen acknowledged her words but her eyes remained closed.

  There was a long pause with just the ticking of the clock breaking the silence then they heard the sound of the back door slamming, followed by footsteps running upstairs.

  The door burst open and Michael charged in. Ellen’s eyes opened.

  ‘Mum,’ he shouted, dropping his satchel and throwing himself on her.

  Pain shot across the dying woman’s face, but she didn’t cry out
, instead her arms closed around her son and she pressed her lips to his dark curls.

  ‘I’ll go and see where that tea is,’ Ida said, forcing her words over the lump that had formed in her throat.

  Ellen’s eyes fixed on her and tears shimmered in them. ‘Thank you, Ida,’ she croaked, as she clung to her son.

  Feeling tears pinching the corners of her own eyes, Ida turned and left the room. In the dim glow of the landing light’s 40-watt bulb, she grasped the banister above the stairwell. Resting her hand on the smooth wooden rail, Ida let her shoulders sag and her head fall forward. She stayed motionless for a long moment then, wiping her face with the heels of her hands, made her way downstairs.

  She met Queenie carrying a tray at the bottom of the stairs. Ida forced a smile as the old woman passed her but as Queenie put her foot on the first step she turned and gave Ida a rare look of admiration.

  ‘You’ve got a grand big heart, so you have, Ida Brogan,’ she said. ‘A grand big heart.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘HELLO, ME LOVE,’ said Mo Flint, as she spotted Queenie tucked against the glass partition between the public and snug bar in the Railway Arms. ‘Me and Sam were just talking about you.’

  ‘Kindly so, I hope,’ said Queenie.

  ‘Is there any other way for such an old friend of me mother’s, God rest her soul?’ Mo replied.

  She crossed herself and Queenie did likewise.

  It was an hour after two on Thursday afternoon and two days after Ellen had arrived. Queenie was in the public house situated on the corner of Library Passage, a stone’s throw from St George’s Town Hall.

  Queenie and Mo’s mother Doreen had come from the same village and were distantly related a few generations back, a fact they’d established when Mo’s brother Brian ended up in the same class at school as Jerimiah.

  Mo and her husband Sam had been the landlady and landlord of the Railway Arms for about ten years, while Brian had gone to America.

  ‘What can I get you?’ asked Mo.

  ‘Do you need to ask?’ said Queenie, giving her a pitying look.

  The landlady laughed. ‘A small one?’

  ‘Would be grand,’ Queenie replied.

  Taking a half-pint tumbler from the rack above, Mo held it under the Guinness spout and pulled on the pump.

  She and Queenie exchanged news of who’d died and who’d survived the previous week’s bombings until there was a creamy head sitting on the top of the glass.

  ‘Also,’ said Mo, sliding it across the counter to her, ‘I heard what your Ida’s doing for that poor Gilbert woman. Pure saint she is, and everyone around here says so especially as . . . you know . . .’

  Queenie picked up her glass. ‘I have no argument with you on that score, Mo.’

  ‘How is the little lad?’ asked Mo.

  ‘Bearing up, despite having a multitude of troubles on his shoulders at such a tender age,’ Queenie replied.

  ‘Well, God bless his little heart and Ida too,’ said Mo. ‘If it had been me, I would have ripped Sam’s balls clean off.’

  Queenie opened her purse but Mo raised her hand. ‘On the house.’

  Raising her drink in thanks, Queenie took a sip of the velvety brew. She spotted a quiet table in the corner and headed in that direction. She’d no sooner set her rear in the chair than the door opened and Paddy Leary slipped into the bar.

  He too was an acquaintance from long ago but unlike Mo, who’d settled into a steady occupation, Paddy had plumped for a more precarious way of making a living. This ranged from digging roads and seasonal farm work to hooking up with travelling fairs during the summer months. He spoke to anyone, knew everyone and would sell you anything, which is why she’d sought him out.

  He glanced around and acknowledged her with a nod of his head. After ordering and receiving a drink, he came over.

  ‘How’s me darling Queenie today?’ he said, taking the seat opposite her.

  ‘Well enough,’ she replied. ‘And all the better if you have news for me about my Christmas surprise.’

  ‘That I have.’ He shifted his chair closer. ‘But you’ve no time to tarry. Red Colin said he’ll hold them until Sunday but no longer as they’re shifting north on Monday.’

  Queenie’s gnarled hand closed around his arm. ‘You’re a grand fella, Paddy, so you are.’ Grasping her glass, she finished her drink in one and stood up. ‘Now, if I’m to be there and back in a day, I’d better shift meself and be about me business. My regards to anyone you speak to who knows me and I’ll see you around.’

  Placing the glass back on the counter and giving Mo a quick wave, Queenie ambled out of the pub and into the cold crisp winter’s afternoon.

  ‘So that’s a tanner each way on Neapolitan Lad in the one thirty at Cheltenham tomorrow,’ said Queenie, her breath escaping in puffs of steam as she spoke.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jim Eccles, wearing his blood-stained butcher’s apron and with a soggy roll-up dangling from his lips. ‘And I ’ope as how I have better luck than I did last week with TomTom.’

  Queenie wrote the bet in the dog-eared notebook then, sticking the pencil back behind her ear, she took his money and slipped it into her pocket.

  He touched his forehead and then turned and walked away.

  Queenie was standing in her usual place on Thursday afternoon in the narrow alleyway that ran behind the Angel and Trumpet and had been for the past half an hour. The old Victorian pub was situated at the bottom of Durham Row, which ran alongside St Dunstan’s graveyard.

  Although it was a forty-five-minute walk from the Railway Arms, it was worth suffering her corns pinching as the public house was just round the corner from Stepney High Street shops and, with only a week until Christmas, everyone was out looking for bargains, and then for a way to pay for them. In addition to her usual punters, Queenie had had a number of women carrying on the local tradition of placing a bob or two on one of the Boxing Day meetings.

  Queenie stamped her feet to get a bit of blood in them. She gave a small prayer of thanks that it wasn’t raining and that she’d put on two pairs of socks that morning.

  ‘Queenie Brogan?’

  Queenie turned to find two young men she’d never seen before standing in the shadows behind her.

  They were in their late twenties, above average height and clean shaven. Both were wearing civilian suits, gabardine macs, with the collars turned up, and their fedoras pulled down.

  ‘Well now, that depends,’ she replied.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Who’s asking and what you might want with her.’ Queenie gave them the once-over. ‘You’re a bit old for your mother to dress you the same, aren’t you?’

  The man on the right, with black eyebrows and hair, glanced at his mate. ‘We ain’t twins.’

  ‘Well, there’s a thing,’ said Queenie, giving them a mocking look.

  Irritation flitted across the other man’s ice-blue eyes for a second but then he gave her a friendly smile.

  ‘These utility suits are all the blooming same,’ he laughed, inviting her to join him.

  She didn’t.

  ‘Perhaps a couple of handsome young men like yourselves should have stayed in your uniforms,’ she said.

  ‘We ain’t in the army,’ said the dark, low-browed individual.

  ‘We’re gas fitters: reserved occupation.’ The blond’s gaze flickered on to the book in her hand. ‘And we’re after a little flutter.’

  ‘On a horse that is,’ said the other, his voice booming between the closely spaced houses surrounding them.

  Queenie glanced in both directions along the alleyway but, thankfully, could see no sign of PC White, the beat officer. Chalky was one of the old sort of coppers who didn’t leave the station if it was wet, and he could smell a cup of tea brewing a mile off. That said, there was a new Superintendent at Arbour Square Police Station who’d been cracking down on folks making a bob or two by their wits so you couldn’t be too careful.

&
nbsp; ‘Keep your voices down,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Or are you after having every magistrate in London hear what you’re about, you eejit.’

  A flush burst across the dark-haired man’s face and he looked as if he was about to reply but a glance from his chum silenced him.

  ‘We heard you were the person to see for the best odds,’ said the blond.

  Queenie returned her attention to him. ‘Now where would you hear such a thing?’

  ‘From John.’

  ‘Which John?’

  ‘John Burton from the Red Lion,’ he replied. ‘We’re staying in digs opposite. He said Queenie Brogan gave the best odds in the area, so we thought we’d search her out.’

  ‘We were in there last night,’ added his darker, and denser, companion.

  ‘How’s his wife?’ asked Queenie. ‘Have they sent her home yet?’

  ‘I hope not,’ said the sharper blond. ‘The last I heard, she was in West Ham cemetery. Now do you want to take our money or not?’

  Casting her eyes over them again, Queenie chewed her lips for a moment and then spoke again.

  ‘What’s taken your fancy then, lads?’ she asked.

  ‘Wayward Fellow,’ said the fair-haired chap. ‘Running in the twelve thirty tomorrow at Newmarket. Red Mick down the Waste is offering evens. What odds are you giving?’

  Taking her pencil from behind her ear, Queenie opened her book. ‘Six to four,’ she said, skimming her eyes across the line of figures and symbols next to the horse’s name.

  ‘Is that your best?’

  ‘It is.’ Looking at them expectantly, she dabbed the end of her pencil on her tongue. ‘So what do you want to place on it? A shilling? Or perhaps two? At those odds you might even consider half a crown both ways to cover your stake.’

  The two men glanced at each other and the blond gave a curt nod.