Orphan of Angel Street

by Annie Murray

  ‘Cor!’ Johnny was ahop with excitement. ‘That’s bostin’! I wish I could go!’

  ‘You’re too young, and it’ll all be over before you get a chance,’ Bummy said from the sofa. But there was a wistful note in his voice and Mercy sensed he was envious of Frank too in his way. It was the thing to do nowadays, to prove your manhood.

  Mary Jones said, ‘Well I hope Stan’s joining up and they finish ’im off for us.’

  She was battling with financial hardship on top of the daily grind of bringing up four young kids on her own: Lisa eight, Molly seven, Percy four and Paul one. Battling, though not sunk. The Peppers were helping her out with the rent and Elsie, who had no real need to take in laundry any more, passed on her dwindling number of customers. The War was biting people in the purse already. So it was Mary toiling in the brewhouse at all hours now, with the dolly, maiding tub and mangle, little Paul round her legs.

  Mary seemed to have found in herself a defiant strength, a kind of exhilaration in ‘getting by’. She moved more briskly, face tighter, more alert.

  ‘After all, ’e never raised a finger to do nowt when ’e was ’ere,’ she said to Elsie. ‘So it don’t make much odds ’im going. It’s thanks to you we’re surviving though. I won’t forget yer kindness, Elsie. If there’s ever anything I can do in return . . .’

  She’d jumped at the chance of helping with Josephine’s wedding in May. When they’d begun to despair of ever getting her married off, Josephine had met Fred Larkin, a widower and publican with two kids. They had a white wedding along at St Joseph’s. She was now happily queening it in the Eagle in Balsall Heath and talking babies.

  Food prices were shooting up. The price of sugar doubled. People were forever moaning about the cost of bread in Wrigley’s.

  ‘Anyone’d think it was my fault there’s a war on,’ Mercy complained to Susan some evenings. ‘They come in all in a panic and buy it all up and then everyone else is left to moan.’

  Motley dressed groups of men could be seen drilling in the parks, Belgian flags rippled in the breeze outside houses in Birmingham which had become homes for refugees, and newspapers were producing the casualty lists. Yet the names of the battles – Mons, Tannenberg, the Marne, Ypres – were all strange, foreign, the War far away.

  Until one morning Tom Pepper went to work as usual, to find Stern’s shop had been set on fire and was a charred, still-smoking husk, many of the silver items lying black among the ash and broken glass where they had fallen.

  Tom stood there in shock, cap in his hand, as the fire brigade finished dousing the damaged adjoining buildings.

  ‘What happened to ’im?’ Tom asked one of them, jerking his head towards the ruined flat above the shop.

  The fireman shook his head. ‘Died in their beds – the smoke, see. They’ve been brought out already.’

  Tom nodded, sick at heart. He tried to imagine Mr Stern lying next to his enormous wife, the smoke furling round them.

  Passers-by stared, some silent, perhaps not knowing the shop. But Tom heard one say, ‘That’ll teach ’em. Hun bastards.’

  Tom turned away. This wasn’t right, none of it. Mr Stern wasn’t his enemy!

  Putting his cap back on he trudged off along the road. He’d have to spend the day looking for more work. But after, he wanted to talk to someone, to share his sense of outrage. His mom, of course. But as he turned towards the Jewellery Quarter, he knew the person he wanted to see most was Mercy.

  He appeared at their door that evening, white-faced and dejected. Mercy wiped her hands on her apron. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘’Course.’ She was baffled. ‘I’m brewing a pot now – sit down – you look bad.’

  Tom took a chair by the table. There was a smell of stew in the room. Mercy lifted the kettle and mashed the tea. She had no idea how her presence had begun to affect Tom, how a look from her grey eyes made his stomach plunge with excitement. It had made him more shy of her and he stumbled over his words as he told them about the Sterns.

  ‘I know they was Germans like,’ Tom said. ‘But they’ve been ’ere years and ’e was ever so good to me. Wouldn’t’ve hurt a fly.’

  Susan wheeled herself closer. ‘What about the business?’

  ‘Well, it’s wrecked of course,’ Tom said with some impatience. ‘Nothing left to speak of.’

  ‘What a terrible thing,’ Mercy said thoughtfully. ‘It makes all the difference knowing someone, doesn’t it? Otherwise you might just say ’e was German and it served ’im right.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve ever met a German,’ Susan said.

  ‘Well you’ve hardly met anyone, have yer?’ Mercy retorted rather sharply. ‘Not that that’s your fault,’ she added quickly. ‘So what you going to do, Tom?’

  ‘I’ve been out all day, over Hockley, trying to get another job in the same line. Either they said they had no vacancies, or when I said I’d worked at Stern’s, one of ’em turned quite nasty.’ Wearily he pushed his cowlick of brown hair back from his face. ‘In the end I gave up on smithing for now. I went over to Dingleys – got a job as a porter.’

  Dingleys was a well-to-do hotel in Moor Street.

  ‘Well, there you are then,’ Susan said, not quite taking in the disappointment in his voice.

  Mercy leant closer and looked into his eyes in a way which made Tom almost overcome with self-consciousness. He was keenly aware of her every move, her small, thin fingers on the back of the chair beside him. Mercy saw him blushing and he couldn’t hold her gaze.

  ‘D’you want to stop and have summat to eat with us? We’d be glad of the company, wouldn’t we, Susan?’

  ‘Best not.’ Tom stood up, stumbling as he tried to push the chair back. He picked up his cap. ‘Mom’ll ’ave counted me in for tea.’

  He paused. ‘You managing awright, Mercy? Anything you need you’ll come to us, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, ta,’ Mercy smiled. When he’d gone she said to Susan, ‘If that’d been Johnny ’e’d just ’ave shrugged it off and that’d be that.’

  ‘I s’pose so,’ Susan said. ‘Takes things ’eavier, Tom does.’

  That night Tom lay awake thinking of Mercy. The very sight of her set his pulse racing. But he was rather in awe of her. She seemed so grown up, so self-contained and untouchable. How could he ever dare tell her how much time he spent dreaming of her!

  The War was clearly not going to be over by Christmas. On Christmas Eve Mercy was enjoying the bustle at work, and people coming in asking for space in the bakery oven the next day for roasting their Christmas joints. The oven would be kept working, and Mrs Wrigley did her best to accommodate everyone.

  ‘She’s such a kind lady,’ Mercy said to Susan that evening. ‘Look, she sent me off with this fruit cake, even though things’re short.’

  Dorothy came briefly that afternoon. Grace longed to send her with gifts, to lavish luxuries on Mercy, but she knew it wasn’t fitting, and in any case, such undue expenses would have to be justified to Neville. She had no money of her own.

  Mercy greeted Dorothy in the rather more stiff, distant manner which had characterized their meetings ever since the row. Mercy regretted what had happened, but now she’d got a bit of freedom she certainly didn’t want anyone organizing her life like that! Dorothy stayed for a cup of tea, admiring the few decorations Mercy had put up to cheer the room. When she stood up to go she stepped forward to put her arms round Mercy, this impulse as much for herself as for Grace. After all, she had watched the child grow up. Mercy felt herself resist for a moment, then told herself she was being silly and hugged Dorothy back.

  ‘Have a Merry Christmas then – see you both soon,’ Dorothy said awkwardly.

  Mercy waved as Dorothy passed the window. She’s nervous of me, she thought. How odd, Dorothy being nervous of me.

  While they ate thin mutton stew and spuds, Mercy boiled up water in the kettle and all the pans she could fit on the range. When the plates were cleared she drag
ged the tin bath over on to the rug in front of the fire, while Susan sat under the gaslight embroidering a little lavender bag and George made whistling noises of interest from his place by the window.

  Mercy looked over at him from where she was swirling cold water in with the hot, her sleeves rolled up and steam clouding her face.

  ‘Shush you, or you’ll get a dunking in ’ere too.’

  George whistled, unrepentant.

  ‘I was thinking,’ Mercy said. ‘I ought to give this room a coat of whitewash – cover some of the cracks and brighten it up a bit.’

  ‘’Ave we got the money?’ Susan was always anxious, never confident that they could manage. ‘I’m not getting many jobs now. Everyone’s cutting back.’

  ‘Oh, I dare say we can manage. Come on then. In yer get.’

  She helped Susan undress, pushed the chair right up to the bath and between them, levered her down into the water, Susan supporting herself with her arms and smiling up in triumph as she sank down into the water saying, ‘Ah – that’s lovely, that is.’

  Mercy handed her a sliver of soap, then sat down beside her as she bathed, the two of them chatting idly.

  ‘’Ere – let me do that.’ Mercy knelt up to wash Susan’s back and helped her with her long black hair, supporting her as she lay back in the water as she couldn’t steady herself with her feet. Her body, though small for her age, was growing curvaceous, like Mabel’s. Mercy watched her with a great rush of fondness as she lay, eyes closed, in the water. Susan’s extreme naý¨vete´ drove her mad at times, but that kind of innocence was what she also loved most about her.

  Soon Susan was beginning to shiver, so Mercy helped her out, drying her on an old, soft piece of sacking. She rubbed oil on her legs.

  ‘Lop a bit off of my hair, will you, after you’ve had yours?’ Susan held up a wet hank of hair. ‘It’s getting so long I can hardly manage to comb it out!’

  Dressed again she watched Mercy tip more hot into the tub and climb in, washing her slight, rosy body in a businesslike way. There was silence, except for the little popping sound of the gas mantle and the light splash of water. Normally Susan was prattling away at such a time, and Mercy looked up enquiringly at her to see her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘What’s up with you all of a sudden?’

  ‘You’ll get married one day,’ Susan said bleakly. It was always there, her morbid fear of being abandoned.

  ‘Nah.’ Mercy leant over and squeezed Susan’s wrist with her wet hand. ‘’Course I shan’t. Don’t talk barmy.’

  ‘’Ello, barmy,’ George remarked suddenly, and even Susan’s stricken face relaxed into laughter.

  ‘Ooh, you’re a so-and-so, you are!’ she told him.

  Mercy was dried and clad in the nightshirt Susan had run up for her, and standing cutting Susan’s hair when they heard footsteps outside, the door latch clicked and there was Mabel. She came in, shut the door and stood before them. She had on her old coat and a shapeless green felt hat, was thinner than when she left. She looked both nervous and defiant.

  The two girls froze.

  Mabel eyed both of them. Mercy’s hostility snaked across the room to her.

  ‘Mom,’ Susan whispered eventually. She wheeled the chair towards her and Mercy’s heart wrung at the sweet hope on her face. ‘I thought you’d left us for good.’

  Mabel put her bag down. ‘It’s Christmas,’ she said. ‘I want to come home.’

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirteen

  August 1916

  Mercy pushed past the self-important conductorette, and stepped, heavy-hearted, off the bus into the summer evening. She was dressed in her oldest work clothes, a navy dress with white polka dots, which at work was covered by an overall, her hair taken back under a snood. For she was now a munitions girl, turning out Mills grenades in a factory squeezed between Digbeth and the grey, dripping arches of the railway line.

  A few months before Mrs Wrigley had said, ‘I’m ever so sorry, Mercy, but what with all the shortages and the price of everything, we haven’t the money to keep you on.’

  They were crying out for women to go into munitions work then, and the pay! She got a pound a week! But even that didn’t go far now, though, and most days she felt she’d more than earned it, standing all those hours in a cramped room lit only by daylight through the windows, bent over a lathe, finishing the opening at the top of the grenades which were piled around her like metal pineapples. The belts on the lathes whirred and slapped round ceaselessly and she breathed in metal dust. Her body was stiff and her feet ached. Still, she told herself, she had some laughs with the other girls. But she couldn’t shake off her feelings of worry and dread.

  A week ago today it’d been: Jack Pepper rattling at the door after work. ‘Mercy – come over ours a minute, will yer?’ When she asked why he said, ‘Just come!’ and ran off.

  Mercy got up wearily. At the Peppers’ she found Johnny with a grin stretched across his face and Tom, smiling but uncertain.

  ‘We wanted to tell yer—’ Johnny was twitchy with excitement. ‘We’ve done it – we’ve joined up!’

  ‘I like the “we”,’ Elsie spoke flatly. For once she was doing nothing, just standing. ‘I don’t have to guess who talked who into it.’

  Tom looked solemn.

  ‘You mean they believed the pair of you?’ Mercy tried to hide her dismay. ‘You’re only seventeen!’

  ‘We said we was eighteen,’ Johnny bragged. ‘No one asked us any different. Any rate, not long now and we will be eighteen!’

  Mercy stared silently at them both. Two years ago she’d have been excited for them, proud, but now . . . Week after week the toll had mounted: Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, Loos, Gallipolli, Verdun . . .

  ‘’Aven’t you seen the death lists?’ Now Frank was at the Front Elsie was never quiet, couldn’t sleep of a night.

  They were so young, all that energy waiting to be spent. Johnny, tall, wiry with boxer’s muscles and impish cheek written in every line of his face. And Tom, darkeyed, pale, serious. Mercy felt his eyes on her, but saw the longing in them as anxiety about what lay in front of them.

  ‘You think you can just go off and leave me, do you?’ Mercy said softly, trying to joke.

  ‘I thought you might talk sense into ’em better than me,’ Elsie said wearily. ‘But in any case, it’s too late now. I s’pose I should be proud.’

  ‘We’ll be back, don’t you bother yourselves. Bad pennies us, eh?’ Johnny punched Tom’s shoulder. At his age he knew he was indestructible. He could hardly wait to get into uniform.

  ‘You just as keen to go, Tom?’ Mercy asked.

  Tom spoke, looking at the floor. ‘I thought I would be. Me and Johnny’ll look out for each other.’

  Mercy swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘You’d flaming well better.’

  They left a couple of days later, very early, but most of the yard was up to see them go. Elsie was fighting tears, something Mercy had almost never seen her do before and she was frightened suddenly in a way she couldn’t have put into words. The tentacles of events in the outside world, bigger and crueller than any of them could have imagined, reached into Angel Street that morning.

  Johnny said his goodbyes to her and Susan with a peck on the cheek. ‘Ta-ra, Mercy. Take care of yourself, and look out for our mom, won’t yer?’

  Tom came to her, obviously full of nerves. He tried to kiss her as Johnny had done, but he knocked his nose accidentally hard against her cheek.

  ‘Ooh, Tom!’ Mercy half laughed, half yelped, rubbing her face.

  ‘Sorry – sorry, Mercy.’ He couldn’t look at her for a moment, and stared at the ground, lick of hair falling forward. But then, forced by the urgency of the occasion he looked up and saw the tears in her eyes.

  ‘Oh Lor’ – this is terrible – I’ve got to say it. If I don’t tell you now I might never, and I’ve waited such a long time . . .’ Mercy watched as the young man in front of her almost physically screwed up h
is courage, and amid the general hubbub of the yard, said, cheeks aflame, ‘If I’ve got to die for anyone, I’ll do it for you, Mercy!’

  ‘Oh Tom!’ She was very moved by his outburst, by his passion and tenderness. ‘Would you really? I didn’t know . . .’

  He’d always been kind and considerate to her, especially as they’d grown older, but she hadn’t seen that his friendliness had developed into something far stronger.

  ‘I’ve got to tell you, Mercy, the feelings I’ve got for yer – just in case I . . .’ He stepped closer to her, his brown eyes looking close into hers, and took her hands in his. She felt him trembling. She was beginning to shake a little as well. ‘You’re so lovely, Mercy. I love you. I’ve wanted to tell you for ages but, I dunno . . . we was just kids and I thought you’d – I’ve never had the courage . . .’

  Mercy was so astonished, touched, grateful, bewildered all at once that she couldn’t speak. Johnny, heading down the entry with Elsie and a cluster of others was shouting, ‘Come on, Tom!’

  ‘Could you say it to me, to take with me? Whether you feel . . .?’

  Mercy looked into his sweet, imploring face and was overcome by fondness for him. Her emotions were a storm of confusion, but somewhere in the middle of it all her heart was singing.

  ‘Of course I love you, Tom!’

  In a second his arms were round her, pulling her to him.

  ‘I had to do this – just once, before I go, my . . . love.’ He pressed his cheek against hers, then quickly kissed her lips. He looked full into her eyes, then pulled away. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll write . . .’

  She followed him down the entry to where Johnny was waiting. Everyone stood on the street, waving them off. Tom’s eyes met hers. Mercy smiled, going to stand by Elsie, her heart full to bursting.

  ‘Come back to us, you two, won’t yer? For God’s sake!’ Elsie called to them.