A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  So, when Linda came home from work with news of the concert party, she was enthusiastic. ‘They’re holding auditions,’ Linda told her. ‘I don’t suppose it will hurt to go along. And if I don’t get in, I’ve lost nothing.’

  But Jenny knew if she sang from the heart, as Francesca urged her to do, she would be taken into the concert party without a second’s thought. Linda’s shining eyes, when she came home from work the day of the auditions, told their own tale.

  They were a motley crew who called themselves, ‘The Brummagem Beauties’. There was a compere/comedian called Bill Fletcher who also owned a van with windows in the sides and seats at the back. He said he would ferry the group round, provided he got an extra petrol allowance. Then there was a pianist/singer called Flora McMillan, a man who played an accordion while three Brummie girls of Irish extraction did Irish step-dancing to the music, and a conjuror by the name of Sam Phelps, who, being a farmer, was able to claim exemption from the call up, and a small group specializing in funny acts and sketches based loosely on Army life. Linda was by far and away the youngest. They dubbed her their ‘little nightingale’.

  At first, despite her initial encouragement, Jenny was worried about Linda touring the West Midlands with people she didn’t know terribly well, and of necessity, meeting servicemen in large numbers. Her mother termed it ‘common’, when she got to hear of it. Her grandmother said she was ‘reverting to type’ and even Gran O’Leary asked Jenny if she didn’t think she was a mite young for such things.

  Jenny hated to forbid Linda to do something she looked forward to so much. But, with her full-time job, work at the warden post and the household to run, she hadn’t the time or energy to accompany Linda. However, Linda, knowing of Jenny’s concern, asked Bill Fletcher and the conjuror Sam Phelps, the two she got on best with, to meet her and reassure her she’d be safe. Bill Fletcher was a solid man in his fifties who had two daughters of his own, both grown, one married with a husband away fighting. Knowing Linda’s tender years, he’d already decided to look out for her. Linda, lacking a father’s influence, had found Bill’s paternal attitude very comforting. Sam Phelps was a younger man in his early thirties. He too was a married man with two children. Linda saw Sam like another Martin, Francis or Gerry in her life. Both men were genuinely fond of Linda and were prepared to guard her well from any unwelcome advances. After meeting them, Jenny knew any fears she had about Linda were groundless and she gladly gave her permission for Linda to go ahead.

  Linda found she loved singing to people, though she’d been very nervous at first. Because she was still self-conscious about her legs, Jenny fashioned a floor-length dress, and with her legs covered, Linda felt much more confident. She didn’t realize what an enchanting figure she made, dressed in apricot satin with her long hair decorated with a ribbon of similar hue used like an Alice band, so that her hair cascaded over her shoulders. She looked like a beautiful, slightly-built child.

  But when she opened her mouth to sing, it was a different story, and before she was very far into her first song, any shuffling, fidgeting and murmuring from the crowd would stop. By the end, a pin could be heard to drop in the halls and mess rooms they performed in, and there was always a pause before the stupendous applause.

  ‘Always guaranteed to quieten an audience, our little nightingale,’ Flora, the older singer-pianist had sneered cattily one day, as she left the stage to the shouts of ‘More … More!’ Her voice was nowhere as good as Linda’s and she knew it, and so did the audience.

  ‘Good job someone can, ducks,’ one of the Irish dancers had put in. ‘Go on, Flora, see if you can do any better.’

  And as Flora, face aflame, had strode on to the stage, the Irish dancer pressed Linda’s arm and said, ‘Don’t mind her. She’s just bloody jealous.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Linda had said, and it was true, she didn’t really care, for she knew the audiences truly liked her voice and she was experiencing the heady excitement of success, albeit in a small way. During the year, she’d also seen more of Birmingham and the West Midlands than she’d ever seen before. They’d been a lot to Castle Bromwich aerodrome, where the young trainee pilots and their instructors were based with 605 Squadron, and some of the American units were also sharing the base.

  There were plenty of other service bases in or around the confines of Birmingham, where the group had always been made more than welcome – like the Aston Barracks that housed the Paras, and the Royal Engineers who were based at Smethwick, Cannock and Tunstall in Staffordshire. St George’s Barracks in Sutton Coldfield was the home of the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers, and Whittington Barracks was the base for the Royal Staffordshire Regiment.

  Whittington Barracks was used as a training barracks for newly arrived American servicemen. Many of the young GIs were homesick, and the concert party was in great demand to entertain them.

  That particular night, Linda was more nervous than ever, because Jenny was coming to see her for a change, and Martin and Francis had demanded they be allowed to go too. ‘There’d be no room in the van,’ Linda had protested when Jenny had suggested it that morning. ‘We’ll squeeze one in at a pinch, but never another two as well.’

  ‘You needn’t worry your head,’ Jenny said. ‘Peter Sanders has offered to take us all.’

  ‘Peter Sanders! God, is he coming too?’

  Jenny smiled. ‘It would seem so, my girl. Your fame has gone before you.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Jen.’

  ‘Linda, what are you worried about?’ Jenny put her arm around the other girl’s shoulders. ‘Look pet, I wrote and told the boys what you were doing and obviously they’re curious and anxious to see you perform. As for Peter Sanders, you know what an interest he’s always taken in you, and it won’t be the first time he’s heard you sing. Remember that Christmas Eve in the hospital?’

  ‘This will be totally different.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Then you were just an untrained child,’ Jenny said. ‘Cheer up, love. I can’t get to many of these things, and I’m really looking forward to it.’

  So there it was, and now in a couple of hours’ time, Linda would be standing up before rows and rows of servicemen, knowing that some of her new family would be watching her, along with her good friend the doctor. Her stomach tied itself in knots at the thought.

  But then she was plunged back to the present again, for Jenny was at the kitchen door, telling Linda of her trip to the Bull Ring and emptying her bag on the table, displaying the goodies as she did so, and Linda felt a rush of love for her. She wished she could put her arms around her and say so, but she’d be embarrassed and Jenny might think her proper daft. But then Jenny turned to look at her and said, ‘You’re a grand girl to have the meal ready for us all, Linda. I don’t know what I’d do without you, and I often bless the day you came to live with us.’

  The words brought a lump to Linda’s throat. For Jenny, Linda would gladly have stood on a bed of nails. After that, singing a few songs to please her was nothing at all. She busied herself at the stove to hide the emotion Jenny had stirred up within her. When she had full control of herself again, she said with mock severity, ‘And if this meal isn’t to be spoilt, we should eat it quick,’ and she lifted the pie from the oven as she spoke.

  Jenny opened the door for her to put it on the living-room table. ‘You’re a right bossy-boots when you want to be, aren’t you?’

  Linda answered pertly, ‘It takes one to know one, they say,’ and she passed into the living room with a flourish as Jenny followed behind her laughing.

  FIFTEEN

  Bill Fletcher looked across at Linda, and quietly, so the others in the van shouldn’t hear, he said, ‘OK, ducks? You seem all at sixes and sevens tonight.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Linda said. What else could she say? How could she explain to Bill about the full-scale tantrum Norah O’Leary had thrown that evening, when she’d found out that her two sons home for the weekend only, were spending Saturday evening watching ‘
that wretched girl making a disgusting exhibition of herself’.

  She’d sat at the table that night in honour of her sons being home, instead of having her tea on a tray by the fire. She’d risen to her feet as she’d yelled at Linda, and stood surprisingly steady for one claiming to be crippled with arthritis.

  Her lips had been drawn back as if she was in contact with something distasteful as she’d screamed at her: ‘You’re nothing but filthy scum, gutter trash, and you’ve succeeded in breaking this family apart! I’ll never forgive you. Do you hear?’

  The shocked ‘Mother!’ was said by the three young people in unison, but ignoring the censure, Norah had spat at Jenny, ‘And you’ve encouraged her.’

  ‘Mother, that’s enough!’ Martin was on his feet and so was his brother. ‘That was unforgivable.’

  Jenny groaned silently. If her mother wanted further proof that Linda had taken the boys away from her, then Martin had just given it to her.

  ‘Unforgivable, you say,’ Norah had screamed at her sons. Both of them were staring at her with shocked faces. ‘She wheedled her way in here with the help of that one there,’ and at this she jabbed a finger at Jenny, ‘another conniving ungrateful little slut. There’s a pair of them I have to put up with.’

  ‘Stop it, Mother! What’s got into you?’ Francis cried, while Martin came round the table and put one hand on his mother’s arm and the other arm around her shoulders. ‘Sit down, Mother,’ he said, though he was as confused as his younger brother by Norah’s actions. ‘You’ll be ill if you go on like this.’

  Norah shook off his restraining hands. ‘Ill, you say? They’ve made me ill – the pair of them – your sister and the fawning sly creature she brought in here.’

  Linda’s head shot up. She’d lowered it only so Norah wouldn’t see the tears that threatened to brim over her eyelids, but Norah’s last words made her angry, too angry to cry. She stared at Jenny’s mother scornfully. Eileen saw the defiance in the young girl’s look and snapped, ‘Have you no shame, girl? Don’t you see what you have done?’

  ‘No,’ Linda snapped back. ‘No, I bloody well don’t. I’ve done nothing to either of you.’

  ‘Don’t you dare bring your gutter language here, girl,’ Eileen said disgustedly, and Linda saw red.

  ‘I will if I want, because what you two say is worse. You use posh words, but they’re just as horrible.’

  Eileen’s chest heaved. Norah leaned across the table and jabbed Linda in the chest with each word. ‘You broke up a happy home.’

  Jenny was staring at her mother as if she was crazy. Leaning her hands on the table she pulled herself to her feet and cried, ‘Don’t make me laugh. Happy? When was I ever happy?’

  ‘This is what I say, she’s an ungrateful slut,’ Norah said, appealing to her sons. ‘This is what I must put up with every day.’

  ‘Can’t we all sit down and talk about this reasonably?’ Francis put in.

  ‘No, we can’t!’ Linda had had enough and she was too angry to be cautious. ‘I’m fed up being reasonable and biting my tongue when I’m called names and accused of things.’ She looked at Norah with hate-filled eyes and saw a woman out of control, her hair awry, her eyes wild, her whole face contorted with loathing and anger, and spittle forming at the corners of her mouth. ‘D’you know what I think?’ she said coolly. ‘You don’t really care what I think, but I’ll tell you anyway. I think both of you are clean barmy.’

  With a shriek and a roar, Norah lunged across the table and actually had her hands around Linda’s throat, before Martin, Jenny and Francis were able to pull her off. ‘Go upstairs,’ Jenny said to the shaking girl. ‘Go and get changed.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘We’ll be better without you,’ Jenny assured. ‘Go on.’

  Linda went, leaving Norah, seated at last, sobbing long tearing sobs and being comforted by her sons and her mother. Jenny went into the kitchen to make tea. She’d have put a drop of brandy in her mother’s, if she had any, hers too, for she was shaking like a leaf. For this to happen on her brothers’ short leave saddened her. She’d been on the receiving end of these tantrums before, but her brothers had never seen them. However, it was the thought that Martin and Francis preferred to go and see Linda’s performance than sit with her that had brought things to a head with Norah, because her unreasonable hatred of Linda went deep.

  Upstairs, Linda sat on the bed she shared with Jenny and shook with delayed reaction. The tears came at last. It wasn’t fair, the things that old bugger downstairs had called her, nor had she done anything. They just loathed her she knew and showed it plainly. Well, she loathed them too, so that was all right and she wouldn’t say she was sorry, even if Jenny asked her to.

  She couldn’t tell any of this to Bill, nor how Jenny came in and chivvied her to get ready. She hadn’t felt like it at all. In fact, she was so worn out by everything, she had the urge to crawl into bed and sleep. But she thought of letting down all the young servicemen and allowed Jenny to help her dress and brush her hair.

  She thought she’d stopped her shivering and was in control of herself when she climbed into the van, and yet Bill had noticed she was agitated about something. She wondered if Francis and Martin would turn up to the concert now and thought probably not. Jenny might not even come. Such was human nature that although before she thought she’d be too nervous to perform well if they came, now, when she thought they might not, she knew she’d be disappointed.

  She would have been surprised if she’d heard the conversation going on between the two brothers a little time after she’d left the house. Jenny was washing the dishes, a job Linda usually helped her with, and they’d gone upstairs to change. ‘I suppose we’d better knock this business of going to see Linda perform tonight on the head?’ Francis said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Come on, Martin. You know why.’

  ‘Because our mother would blow a fuse?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘You can do what you like, little brother,’ Martin said, ‘but I’m damned if I’ll be held to ransom in this way. Can’t you see what she’s doing? She wants us tied to her apron strings, but I’m afraid she’ll never have me like that.’

  Francis sucked in his lower lip and thought about what Martin had said. He knew he was right, and yet he’d never been as brave as his brother and hated unpleasantness and rows. He was a bit like Seamus, who’d always given in for a quiet life. But this was a bit different. A stand had to be made, both for his own self-respect and for the sake of the young girl taken into their household, and for his sister Jenny. He’d seen his mother in rages before, though seldom directed at him or his brothers, or even Geraldine. Guiltily, he remembered it had always been Jenny who’d received the tongue-lashing, as well as his father before he’d died. He’d never questioned it then nor thought it odd. He’d grown up that way and that’s how his family was. It had been moving away that had changed him and opened his eyes to the fact that other families didn’t behave like his.

  ‘Our dear mother is a conniving and domineering bitch of a woman,’ Martin told his younger brother. ‘She gave Father hell for years. You remember how she’d talk to him at times, and for no reason at all?’

  Francis nodded. ‘She talks to Jenny and Linda like that now,’ he said. ‘I’ve noticed that.’

  ‘She’s always used Jenny as the whipping boy. It was so much part of our lives and Jenny so much younger, we probably weren’t aware of it. At least I wasn’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware of it,’ Francis admitted. ‘I was a lot younger than you, remember? I just thought it was normal behaviour. Mother was always telling us how naughty Jenny was.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Martin said. ‘Makes you wonder now, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not going to let Linda down. Mother will have won then. You do what you want, Francis, but I’m going out tonight with Jenny in this doctor fellow’s car.’

  Francis thought for a moment and said, ‘By God, you’re right Martin.�
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  Jenny, drying the dishes in the kitchen, didn’t know of her brothers’ decision, but she hoped that they wouldn’t let Linda down. Though she had to admit it had been a classic performance on her mother’s part. Oh God, sometimes she hated that woman! The boys had certainly seen a new side of Norah tonight and they’d been profoundly shocked. However, she’d seen a change in both boys since they’d been away anyway, Martin more than Francis, but then as the second eldest, he was thirty-four now, not a boy any longer and had never been as compliant as Francis or Seamus. Anthony hadn’t been compliant at all: he’d give the impression of heeding his mother’s every word and then would go his own way.

  Oh, how Jenny wished he was still alive, that he’d walk through the door one day, with his kit bag on his shoulder and the smile he reserved only for her. He would talk to her about this evening and assure her it would blow over, her mother would forgive and forget. And Jenny would believe him, even while she knew it wasn’t true. Norah O’Leary never forgot or forgave; it wasn’t in her nature to do so.

  But it wasn’t just this night she was worried about, for whatever Francis and Martin decided to do, they’d be away and out of it in another twenty-four hours. It was the nights and the days after, and how they’d all live together again that worried Jenny. They might have stood a chance if Linda hadn’t retaliated, but then the girl was almost sixteen and Jenny couldn’t blame her. She’d taken more insults and vindictive rudeness than many as she grew; she couldn’t be expected to just sit and take it all the time.

  Oh, what was the use of worrying, she asked herself crossly. Did it help, and did wishing Anthony hadn’t died bring him back to life? She resolved to take each day as it came and the first thing to find out was how many people were going to the concert with her and Peter Sanders. She packed the crockery and cutlery away neatly and stacked the pans on the rack. She then crossed the living room without a word to her mother or grandmother, who were sitting either side of the fireplace in silence, and went upstairs to see her brothers.