by Annie Murray
Trouble was, when it came to writing to her, he couldn’t begin to tell her what he was feeling so his letters ended up rather short, just telling her snippets about his training.
‘You should’ve seen us first time on parade – the sarnt said we was like lambs to the slaughter!’ – ‘Got our uniforms at last – now we feel like proper soldier boys . . .’
He always told her how Johnny was, asked about Susan and for Mercy to look out for his mom – he said this twice in the letter after Frank was killed. At the very end he’d tried to think how to say what he felt, something soft for his girl. In the third letter he found courage and wrote, ‘. . . thinking of you always, night and day. Love Tom.’
Mercy read these letters with a complete sense of wonder. She’d never received a letter before.
‘Who’s it from?’ Susan wheeled herself over eagerly when the first one arrived.
‘’Er – Tom,’ Mercy muttered, pushing it into the pocket of her dress.
‘Well let’s see then!’
‘Later – I’m in a rush.’
‘Well why can’t you leave it?’
‘It’s addressed to me, that’s why.’
She read the letter on the bus to work, so absorbed that she almost missed the stop.
‘Got summat worth ’aving there, ’ave yer?’ a woman teased as she rushed to leap off at the last moment, holding her hat on against the breeze outside.
The letter was strange, she thought. She had no clue what to expect from a letter. Was this a love letter, this little note telling her about a makeshift army training camp? The one spare word ‘love’ at the end. Was that it? Yet she was stirred up by it, by its very existence. Her man was writing to her. Her Tom! She was learning to think of him differently, not just as a playmate and the lad next door. And while she was a bit ashamed of wanting to keep her feelings secret, she couldn’t share this with Susan. This was hers and hers alone. She wrote him brief, affectionate notes in reply.
The day she knew the twins were coming home she could think of nothing but Tom.
‘You with us today, Mercy?’ one of the other girls in the factory teased her over the racket of the machines. ‘I’ve asked yer twice already!’
Mercy blushed and there were some ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from round her.
‘What’s on ’er mind, I wonder!’
‘Nowt any of your business,’ Mercy replied with a mysterious smile which only brought on more catcalls and speculation. She took it all good-naturedly and sank back into her day-dreams. What else was there to think of standing in a factory day after day?
She didn’t see him waiting as she walked up the entry in the drizzle, her boots rapping a smart clip-clip on the damp pavement. She was dressed in a calf-length grey coat, the collar turned up, and a navy hat with a narrow brim under which her hair was just visible. Her cheeks were pink from the cold.
She caught sight of him and her step faltered. He was there, waiting! He looked broader, more of a man than before. He smiled, with warmth, but shyly. This was all new. They were no longer just childhood friends. Her heart was beating fast. Suddenly she was all nerves.
‘Tom,’ she said softly. In those seconds, like Elsie she saw Frank’s face in Tom’s, felt how terrible this war was. But mixed with this, the delicious, warming sense of knowing he had waited for her, had special feelings just for her.
He walked the last few steps to meet her and they stood in the entry, both with a silver veil of water droplets on their clothes.
‘How are you?’ she said. Seeing his nervous, solemn face, and out of her own giddiness she started laughing. ‘Blimey, you’re about twice the size you were three months ago!’
Tom laughed as well and the ice was broken, but Mercy felt she was seeing him for the first time, as if through a new, clear lens: everything about him, his brown eyes, shorn brown hair, the shape of his neck, his jaw.
‘You look different too,’ he said. ‘More grown up.’
‘Where’s Johnny?’ She was about to step into the yard when he caught her arm.
‘Mercy – can we spend a bit of time on our own like, this week, without Johnny and—?’ He nodded his head towards Mabel’s house.
‘Susan?’ Mercy looked guiltily at him. Susan hadn’t seen his letters, was prickly about Mercy’s secrecy. But Mercy suddenly, desperately didn’t want to spend her life feeling guilty because Susan couldn’t walk. She wanted to get out, to get some life of her own.
‘Come to the pictures – tomorrow?’
Mercy hesitated. It wasn’t going to be easy. ‘What’ll you tell Johnny?’
‘I’ll just tell ’im. ’E won’t mind.’
‘OK.’ She smiled, bubbling with excitement. ‘I’d love to go.’
Tom swooped forward and kissed her cheek. ‘I’ve missed yer.’
So it was real, she thought, touching her cheek. She’d almost wondered if she’d imagined what he said the morning he left, despite the letters. Heart thudding, and with an enormous sense of wonder she said, ‘I missed you too.’
‘I’m going to the Electric Cinema with Tom,’ Mercy announced defiantly to Mabel and Susan, expecting opposition.
Mabel opened her mouth and closed it again, unable to think of a good enough objection. She knew if she just said, ‘You’re not,’ Mercy would take no notice anyway. She’d done a lot of biting her lip over the past year and it was becoming a habit. It was paying her to keep quiet. Mercy was the main wage earner after all.
Susan looked up from laying crocks for tea. ‘What?’ she faltered. ‘Just you and ’im – on your own?’
‘Well – yes.’ Mercy, seeing the hurt in Susan’s eyes, couldn’t keep up her tough act any longer and bent down so she was level with her. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Susan put a plate down, concentrating on it very hard all of a sudden. ‘No – you go and ’ave a nice time.’ She sounded very subdued, near to tears.
They ate thin stew and beans in silence. Susan kept her eyes on her food. Mercy was all knotted up inside and kept glancing across at her. She was sorry, but she wasn’t going to go back on it. She desperately wanted to be with Tom.
‘I’m going in to give Mary a hand with Percy and Paul in a bit,’ Mabel said, laying down her fork.
‘Oh.’ Susan’s voice was bleak.
‘You can come too. Paul’d like to see yer, you know that.’
*
As it turned out Mercy went out with Tom that day and almost every other of his week’s leave. Johnny, not to be outdone, was walking out with a girl called Violet up the street and one evening they all went out together.
Watching the twins, Mercy saw that they’d both changed. They were both bolder, more manly. But while with Tom this new found confidence made him less awkward but no less kind, she found her feelings for Johnny changing for the worse.
He’s getting to be a right cocky sod, she thought, watching him and Violet walking along in front of Tom. He was bossy with Violet, his arm round her, pulling her here and there as if he owned her.
‘Let’s just go on our own tomorrow,’ she murmured to Tom, and he nodded.
‘That’s OK with me.’
They saw the new Chaplin film, went to the Bull Ring and ate cockles and roasted chestnuts by the illuminated stalls, stamping their feet and cupping the hot chestnuts in their hands to keep warm. Sometimes they walked the streets between high factory walls, or the closed shops on New Street or Corporation Street, Tom shyly taking Mercy’s arm, both laughing a lot, new jokes along with shared laughter from the past.
Mercy was intoxicated with happiness.
‘You awright?’ Tom asked her. ‘You don’t want to take cold.’
‘Ooh yes! I could stay out all night, I don’t care!’ she told him. She loved the warm feeling it gave her walking out with Tom. He felt a very solid presence beside her, not wild and skittish as Johnny now seemed. She trusted Tom – more than trusted him. She knew she had learned to love him for his kindness and devoti
on.
When they’d spent two evenings together he found the courage to draw her close into his arms and slowly, tentatively at first, they kissed in the foggy darkness, conscious of nothing but each other.
‘I love you so much, Mercy. I’ve always loved you, d’you know that? Ever since you belted that girl one for talking nasty to Susan, d’you remember? You’re like a beautiful little tiger, you are.’
Mercy laughed, blushing with pleasure. ‘You want to watch it then, don’t yer?’ She joked, making growling noises.
‘D’yer love me, Mercy?’
‘’Course I do.’
He took her hand and they sauntered down the street, in no hurry to get home.
‘I’ve never had anyone before,’ Mercy said suddenly. ‘Not to call my own. You’ve made me so happy, Tom.’
‘I know you haven’t.’ The thought made him feel so protective. ‘We’ll be together and I’ll look after yer. I promise yer that.’
Tom and Johnny had schemed to take Elsie out and about while they were at home but the weather was so wet they were more or less stuck at home.
‘Next time we’ll go out – up the Lickeys or somewhere,’ Johnny said to her. He was full of the joys, had been out to a boxing match with his dad like two pals together.
‘I don’t mind whether we go out or not so long as you’re ’ere and I know you’re safe,’ Elsie said.
The last evening they were all there in the gaslit room, Josephine heavily pregnant and fat in the face, Cathleen much more lively than she was usually, Jack drinking in all the twins’ talk, Rosalie running from one to the other and getting playful cuffs and cuddles. And Mercy and Susan.
Mercy sat next to Tom, feeling self-conscious and trying to make sure Susan was included in everything. Bummy went down the Angel for jugs of ale and they had a very jolly evening.
Everyone tried to think of cheerful things. They reminisced, had a song or two, and Bummy asked the lads questions for the umpteenth time about the training, about soldiering.
After she’d wheeled Susan back home Mercy stepped out again to meet Tom so they could say their goodbyes in private. They stood near the brewhouse close to Elsie’s shrine to Frank. Tom was solemn suddenly, the reality of his departure the next day seeming so close now. For Mercy, the thought of being physically parted from him was unbearable.
A light rain was falling and it was so dark they could only just make out each other’s outlines. Tom put his hands on Mercy’s shoulders.
‘You know we’re going to France, don’t you?’
She nodded, then realizing he couldn’t see, whispered, ‘Yes.’ A lump ached in her throat. The War was so strange to her and far away. Now Italy had joined in well. The reality of it came to them in the form of lists. Closely printed newsheet pages of the injured, missing, dead.
‘Poor Frank,’ she said. He had died on the Somme.
For a moment Tom rested his forehead on her shoulder.
Mercy put her arms round Tom and held him close. They stood in silence until Tom said, ‘You mustn’t worry. We’ll be awright, me and Johnny.’
‘Will you go together?’
‘I s’pose so.’
She wanted to believe him, that the two of them would get through. All the life that was in both of them, the life she now held in her arms, it seemed impossible it could ever be wiped out. But the next moment the night air felt colder as Tom said, ‘Whatever happens, Mercy, my love, I’ll always be thinking of you. I’ll always love you.’
They held each other so very tight then, not wanting to let go.
Chapter Fifteen
Christmas was over, and a depressing one it had been. Smoke and fog hung over the city streets, there was a permanently damp feel to everything and nearly everyone was coughing. In Angel Street the yards were permanently mired with a slippery mix of filth and water, however hard the women in the courts worked at them with stiff brooms. Each time Elsie laid new white flowers on her little shrine to Frank they soon looked soiled and bedraggled in the dank, sooty air.
It was New Year’s Eve, and Mercy was sitting with Mabel and Susan, listening anxiously to Susan’s laboured breathing. She’d had a nasty attack of bronchitis and was still suffering a hacking cough. Her cheeks were unhealthily flushed and she sat with her head lolling back in the chair by the fire, under a colourful patchwork quilt that she’d stitched herself. It was quiet apart from Susan’s coughing, the shifting of the fire and George grinding his beak against his perch.
‘We’d better get you up to bed,’ Mercy said wearily. She was exhausted herself, and not looking forward to another sleepless night lying beside Susan’s feverish body.
‘Just a bit longer, ‘ Susan said, staring at the flames. She didn’t look round, but Mercy could sense how low she was.
‘What’s up wi’ you?’
Susan turned her head and glanced at Mabel who was asleep at one end of the settle, head resting on one hand and throaty little snores escaping from her mouth. Mabel had gained the weight she’d lost in her absence, her face had lost its look of bitter aggression, and except for some extra lines, she was ripening once more into a quite handsome woman, more at peace with herself now she’d managed to earn some respect from the neighbours and wasn’t at everyone’s throats. All the same, Susan knew there were things Mercy wouldn’t want said in front of her.
‘You had another letter from Tom?’ Susan kept her voice barely above a whisper.
Mercy looked down at her lap. She’d had a letter that morning and knew Susan was perfectly aware of the fact. ‘I have, yes.’ She’d slipped out to read it in the freezing privy, the only place where there was ever any privacy to be had. Tom’s letters were so sweet, gave her news of where he was – not yet in France – and always ended with great affection. But they were not so demonstrative or personal that she couldn’t have shared them with Susan. The fact was – and Mercy was ashamed of this – she just didn’t want to. She wanted something all for herself, something just between her and Tom. She kept the letters in the little chest of drawers in their bedroom with the book and handkerchief she had had from the orphanage. Dorothy had told her how it had been left with her on the steps of Hanley’s. She took it out from time to time, looking at its immaculate embroidery as if it were a puzzle, a key to who she was. She ached to know whose fingers had stitched the mauve letters of her name.
Susan’s expression had turned sulky. ‘You used to tell me everything, Mercy. You’re full of secrets now and it ain’t very kind, being as I’m just stuck ’ere.’
Mercy felt guilty but impatient. ‘I’m not. There’s nothing much to tell. ’E just said they’re doing more training and ’e doesn’t know what’s happening next.’
‘And I s’pose you’ve been grinning away like a Cheshire cat and humming to yourself just because he told you that? D’you think I’m daft or summat? I get more out of ’im—’ – she jerked her head at George who was staring gloomily across the room – than I do out of you these days.’
‘Oh, think what you like.’ Mercy was thoroughly riled by the injustice of this. She stood up. ‘I’m going to bed, so if you want to get up there now’s your chance. No point in staying up, is there? 1917’s not looking to be any different from this year.’
‘I don’t want to go to bed just on your say-so,’ Susan snapped, tearful suddenly. ‘You’re not in charge of everything around ’ere you know.’
‘Susan!’ Mercy was really hurt. ‘That’s not like you!’
Susan burst into tears which quickly broke down into coughs. ‘I feel so down and useless,’ she sobbed once she could speak. ‘You’ve got Tom, and I’ll never ’ave anything like that. And no one’s bringing me any sewing any more and that’s one thing at least I can do . . .’
‘But Dorothy was ’ere only the week before Christmas,’ Mercy protested. Dorothy’s visits had dwindled since Mabel’s return, but she always appeared sometime in a month and usually with clothes for them and a job or two for Susan which she�
�d collect later.
Susan didn’t answer, just kept crying, weak and rundown from her illness. Mercy knelt in front of her and put her arms round Susan’s waist.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to tell you. Tom and I are . . . well, we have got sort of fond of each other, but that doesn’t have to make any difference. I’m always going to be ’ere to look after you, you know that.’ She leant down, her hair brushing Susan’s fingers, and looked up into her face. Susan tried to smile.
‘Come on – I’ll take you up.’
Leaving Mabel, she helped Susan, step by step, up to the bedroom, on to the pot and finally into bed as she did every night. When she was ready for bed herself she climbed in, leant over and kissed Susan’s burning cheek before blowing out the candle.
‘Night, night. Happy New Year.’
She pretended to sleep as Susan fidgeted beside her but her mind was wide awake and active. For the first time she was finding all this care for Susan a burden. Mabel was here, she was the one really responsible for Susan yet it was Mercy doing all the work. And Mercy was restless now, increasingly so as each month passed. She wanted something else from life. But what? she asked herself. More experience, excitement? She barely knew what else there was on offer, yet sensed the close restriction of her existence. Going to work, coming home, housework – and now with the War all the extra ‘don’ts’ imposed on them. She wanted someone to say ‘do’ for a change. Do find something more to do with your life. Do get out of this place. Do find out who you really are, where you come from. But all these urgent impulses made her feel guilty too. There was a war on, all these lads getting killed. And how could she ever explain how she felt to Susan?
