A Wartime Wife

by Lizzie Lane

  Laughingly, she punched her fist against his broad chest. ‘You big softee!’

  He sort of laughed with her, but half seriously, as though she’d almost hit on the truth.

  ‘Just as long as you remember how important you are no matter what I do and where I go. I’m going to get myself my own place, Ma, a little flat somewhere along Coronation Road. I’ve also a mind to go into business for myself. Those with a way of turning a pound could make a fortune if they put their minds to it, and that’s what I intend to do. But I don’t want you to be upset when I leave. Is that clear?’

  She hid her true feelings, smiling broadly, though her eyes were misty, relieved that he hadn’t put into words what she’d thought he was going to say. Deep down the fear of no longer being wanted, which had come into existence on the day her eldest had started work, began to grow, faster now because soon they would all be gone.

  ‘What else?’ she asked, sensing he’d been about to tell her of this burden he was carrying.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Nothing much. Nothing that can’t wait.’

  She sensed there was more, but didn’t press him, leaving him to tell her in his own good time.

  He kissed her on the cheek before going back inside to get ready to go out. Later in the evening, Mary Anne watched him saunter off down the street, whistling nonchalantly, his hands tucked into the pockets of his raincoat.

  She smiled. She imagined the girls being drawn to him like a moth to a flame. How could they resist? He was her son.

  It started raining around eleven that night when Henry pushed her into their bedroom. The curtains remained open, the street light two doors down lending enough light to see each other by.

  The walls were thin. His voice was low.

  ‘Give my money away, would you? Well, don’t ask me for any more housekeeping this week. If there ain’t enough food in the ’ouse, it’s you that’s to go without, not me. Get that?’

  She didn’t answer. She wouldn’t tell him that the money was nothing to do with the meagre housekeeping he gave her, but earned from her business, her dearly beloved business that compensated in a very small way for the rest of her life. The money it earned was for her children, not for him and the landlords of the Red Cow, the White Lion, and the Admiral Nelson.

  Henry was crafty. She’d found that out years ago. He enjoyed his children’s respect. He wouldn’t want them to know how he really was. His voice would remain low. Only Mary Anne would hear his threats. Only she would feel any pain.

  Once they were in bed, he took her savagely, thrusting into her as though his penis was a knife and he was stabbing at her very soul, trying to kill the part of her she kept from him. She gritted her teeth, not daring to cry out, but praying for him to fall asleep. At last, he pushed her away from beneath him as though his need and her availability were disgusting. Within minutes of rolling onto his side, his back to her, he began to snore.

  The clock in the tower of St John’s struck midnight and a full moon threw shadows through the small washhouse window.

  After making sure she was alone, Mary Anne retrieved the brown bottle and gulped down what she considered a suitable amount. The seriousness of her predicament, the shame it would attract, caused her to pause and consider whether she’d taken enough. She thought of the forthcoming war and all the lives likely to be lost. The world was becoming crueller. That’s what she told herself before taking a second gulp, closing the cap, and putting it back in the cupboard.

  ‘Please God,’ she whispered, ‘let it work.’

  Chapter Nine

  The air inside the Ship on Redcliffe Hill was thick enough to cut with a knife. Bodies were packed tightly against each other all the way to the bar, and those seated leaned over tables in the squash of people trying to pass by and also to hear their companions’ conversation.

  Harry leaned on the bar next to the flap that opened to allow the landlord and other staff in and out to collect glasses. The brim of his hat threw a shadow over his features, and his collar stood up around his ears. He looked too poised and well turned out to be a tobacco worker and knew it.

  ‘Got a light?’

  Harry automatically offered the end of his own cigarette. His eyes slid sidelong, casing the room, searching the crowd for anyone who didn’t fit in.

  ‘How many do you want?’

  Charlie Knowles, a thief and a fence and well known in the area, kept his voice low and spoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘How many have you got?’ he asked, his hand cupped around the burning glow of Harry’s cigarette.

  ‘Two hundred.’

  ‘Packets of ten?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What you asking?’

  ‘Sixpence a packet.’

  Charlie made a tutting sound. ‘That’s a bit pricey, ain’t it? You ought to be hung.’

  ‘There’s a war on. Think how much you’re likely to make once the rationing starts. Tobacco comes from America and suchlike, remember?’

  After delving into his inside pocket, a crisp fiver was handed over, peeled from a wedge that looked to be at least an inch thick. Harry took it and tucked it inside the grey suit jacket he wore beneath his raincoat.

  ‘Better do the deed outside,’ said Charlie. ‘Too many tea leaves in ’ere.’

  Harry grinned at the comment. Wasn’t Charlie one himself? He followed him outside, glad to escape the stink of bodies, booze, cigarettes and cheap face powder.

  The lane at the side of the pub led around the back of the building and into an area where empty bottles clinked together in wooden crates.

  A woman of robust proportions, her head wreathed in cigarette smoke, stepped out from the shadows.

  Harry winced at the sight of her. She might have been reasonably good-looking at one time, but at some point she’d fallen foul of someone with a very bad temper and a knife with a serrated blade, judging by the cuts on her face.

  Harry wondered at the shadowy world she inhabited, a world he was entering at his own volition because he wanted the good things in life, and also because using his mind to combat danger excited him.

  ‘Gladys will take them,’ said Charlie.

  The named woman grinned, revealing a gap in her teeth that did nothing to complement her features. Her hair was greasy and clung in thin tendrils around her face. She had big breasts, but from there down her body seemed to fall away, making her seem cone-shaped, not normal womanly at all.

  Harry began unloading the cigarettes from his person and into a pouch Gladys had sewn into her skirt.

  Harry congratulated himself. It was so easy: an oversize raincoat lined with pockets could take as many as two hundred and fifty packets of Woodbines. Charging sixpence for ten brought in five pounds. Wills, the tobacco giant he worked for, wouldn’t notice a few packets going amiss. After all, he thought to himself, they could afford it.

  ‘You know where to take them,’ Charlie said to Gladys once the transfer was done.

  She nodded. ‘All right, Charlie.’

  Looking as though she were pregnant with twins rather than with two hundred packets of Woodbines, she trundled off, her body tilted backwards, her belly thrust forwards.

  Charlie stubbed out his cigarette, grinding it into the dirt. ‘Fancy a pint?’

  ‘You buying?’

  Charlie clenched his chin and gave Harry a warning look. ‘You’re a cocky little sod, Harry. Could get you in trouble one day.’

  Harry smiled. ‘No offence intended, Mr Knowles.’

  It didn’t do to push the likes of Charlie Knowles, a right bad, mad case if ever there was one.

  It took a split second for his face to change. His smile was as crooked as his reputation. ‘None taken. And call me Charlie. You strikes me as a bright boy, Harry Randall.’

  ‘I try to be.’

  Once back at the bar, two pints of bitter in front of them, their conversation turned naturally enough to the war.

  Charlie was squinting. Anyone who knew him
well, including his family, knew he was doing some serious thinking if he was squinting.

  He addressed Harry. ‘You remember I said a bloke with a bit of savvy about him could make a few bob from this war?’

  Harry nodded. ‘Just a few bob? I was hoping to make a few quid, and I don’t mean just from cigarettes.’

  Charlie shook his head and waved one hand as though dismissing Harry from his vicinity. ‘You’re a greedy little bastard, Harry, and you ain’t thinking straight. You’re only just starting out on your chosen career, and I ain’t referring to making the bloody stuff you sell. But you still got a lot to learn, and everybody got to do an apprenticeship, don’t they?’

  ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Not when you’re working for me you ain’t. I like things done properly so I believes in training my people to do a good job.’

  ‘So what would I be training for?’

  ‘Everything I know. Ain’t got no son of me own and I’m gettin’ on. I fancies passing on me knowledge, though I have to say, I ain’t quite sure what we’re going to be dealin’ in, though I think food at first. This rationing they’re on about ain’t gonna be well received. So I’m sorting out some contacts in the food line. Then there’s all these foreigners coming in from abroad. Not all of ’em are kosher if you know what I mean and them that ain’t are going to be without passports and other important paperwork. And petrol! That’s another thing going to be rationed. So what do you want to do? Are you in, or out?’

  Harry locked eyes with a face in the crowd. The eyes were blue, the nose straight above a Cupid’s bow of a mouth.

  He dragged his attention back to Charlie. His mind was agile enough to deal with two trains of thought at once. You should have been a ballet dancer, his mother had said. This had been on the basis that a dancer counts beats while whirling across a dance floor.

  ‘It sounds interesting. Do you think it will pay well?’

  Charlie smiled. ‘Once it really gets going, we could make a real packet. Do you want to shake on it?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘No. Anyone watching will guess we’re doing a bit of business, and the Ship’s got a bit of a reputation.’

  Charlie opened his eyes wide, pulled his hat more tightly down on his head and looked around him. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘So I hear.’

  ‘By the way,’ said Harry as Charlie prepared to leave, ‘what happened to Gladys’s face?’

  Charlie turned up his coat collar and tightened his belt.

  ‘Didn’t do ’er training right. Made a stupid mistake and paid the price.’

  Harry didn’t ask who’d cut her face; he could guess. Lingering over his beer once Charlie was gone, he searched the bar for the blue eyes and Cupid’s bow lips. Just as he’d anticipated, the face he’d seen in the crowd made his way over.

  Slowly and without saying a word, they looked each other up and down.

  Harry introduced himself. ‘Harry.’

  The pink lips smiled. ‘I’m Mark. Pleased to meet you.’

  Chapter Ten

  Michael washed the pawnshop windows with warm water and a soft chamois, scrubbed the handsome black and white tiles of the porch and polished the brass door handle. Once the shutters were put away, he criss-crossed the windows with tape as advised by the War Department.

  After that he stood back and surveyed what he’d done. He was particularly proud of the tiles; they shone, a handsome welcome to potential customers, but something else. They also reminded him of the hallway of the house he’d grown up in, filling him with a nostalgic longing to turn back the years, to make things better than they had been.

  To feel such affection for a few old tiles, he thought. He shook his head and smiled at his foolishness.

  A group of boys, no more than ten years old by the look of them, came running past kicking a tin can.

  They were noisy, shouting, laughing and diving around all over the pavement. In the throes of tackling for the tin can, they danced into the doorway and over the black and white tiles leaving dirty footprints in the residual wetness.

  Preoccupied with his personal thoughts, Michael spun round on them too quickly, too angrily.

  ‘Verboten! Get out of there!’

  At first he didn’t understand why their jaws dropped and their eyes widened in surprise, until he realised that, in his haste, he had shouted at them in German!

  An icy shiver trickled down his spine. He’d warned himself to think in English so he would automatically speak in English, just as he’d done before his mother had married the pastor. The thought of what might happen could upset all his plans. He’d be interrogated, most likely flung into prison or incarcerated in one of the detention centres for enemy aliens he’d heard about.

  Inside he cringed, but common sense kicked in and he attempted to make amends.

  ‘I did not mean to shout,’ he said, attempting to smile and taking a step towards them.

  The boys eyed him warily. There were three of them and definitely not from the best side of town. Their hair was stiff with the dried remnants of carbolic soap. Their sleeveless pullovers of multicoloured Fair Isle were baggy around the bottom from constant washing and the armholes sagged as though the garment had originally been knitted for someone bigger.

  One of the boys, the eldest if his size was anything to go by, leaned across to one of his friends, whispering in his ear.

  A kind of enlightenment appeared on their faces coupled with a mischievous gleam in their eyes.

  ‘Gerry!’ shouted the biggest, half turning to make good his escape.

  ‘Gerry! Gerry! Gerry!’ shouted the others, all in unison now, yelling their loudest at the same time as running backwards away from him.

  ‘I am Dutch,’ he called to them, but doubted they heard, or even if they had done, if they would understand. A foreigner was a foreigner and likely to arouse suspicion in the present climate, no matter what.

  The boys ran off towards the main road.

  Michael eyed the windows of the houses opposite with guarded apprehension, searching for the telltale sign of a twitching curtain. He knew they watched, but wondered if they had heard. Perhaps not. The day was cold and all sensible people were keeping their windows closed.

  It helped calm his nerves to do more scrubbing and cleaning: sweeping the shop floor, polishing the trembling glass of the display cabinets where gold rings and watches jostled for space alongside silver cruet sets and glass paperweights.

  At last he was satisfied, so satisfied that his slip of the tongue and the catcalls of the street kids were, at least, partially forgotten.

  Everything in the shop was ready for business, which turned out to be slow in coming.

  He didn’t know why he had expected people to come trooping in with their valuables once they saw the shutters were off and someone new was in residence. He’d even accepted that some would come in just for a glimpse of the new owner; they’d obviously seen him working. But the strange thing was no one came in to do business; everyone came in to stare.

  As it was a Wednesday, he’d done the same as he’d seen the other shops in the rank do and closed at one o’clock. He’d noticed they never opened on a Wednesday afternoon and resolved to do the same. After all, he wanted to fit in so must do as everyone else.

  Two women came in around midday, supposedly to survey what was on offer. He could see from the moment they entered that he was the object of their curiosity.

  ‘Can I help you with anything, ladies?’ he asked, the deep timbre of his melodious voice causing one of the women to raise her hand to her breast as befitted a maiden rather than a maiden aunt.

  ‘Thank you! But we’re just looking.’ She sounded breathless, even a little excited, and the way she looked him up and down was really quite shameless.

  Her friend, a wide woman with the jowls of a bloodhound, was not so taken aback. Her eyes were like black beetles burrowing into his soul.

  ‘We have to see if we can trade here. There’s a lot of fore
igners about and a war on. Who knows who’s who and what’s what? It don’t hurt to be careful.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and dropped his gaze. For a moment he was back there – the place where it was all happening.

  ‘You don’t sound from round here. Foreign are you?’ asked the first woman.

  ‘I was born here.’

  ‘Don’t sound like it.’

  ‘I’ve lived abroad for a while.’

  Beetle Eyes asked, ‘So where are you from?’

  The strident enquiry had been answered a dozen times already that morning. He gave the same answer.

  ‘I was born here but have recently lived in Holland. My parents live in Holland. My father is a minister of the church.’

  It was a lie, but a convenient one. His father was his stepfather and was a minister. Michael had despised him for it. The country was Germany not Holland. Lying gets easier and easier the more you did of it, and Michael had done a lot – a terrible amount.

  The sour-faced woman tossed her head in an exaggerated nod. He’d won her approval.

  ‘How much for this salt shaker?’

  Michael took it out from the cabinet. The shaker was an electro-plated imitation of an eighteenth-century silver original. Anyone with taste would not have bought it. He sold it to her for two shillings and sixpence. He didn’t know whether it was a fair price, it was just the first figure to come into his head.

  They left shortly after. Michael stared at the open door. They were long gone by the time he closed it. He told himself there would be busier days once he made sure they believed he was from Holland. Tomorrow would be better.

  That night he made himself a meal and listened to the fine strains coming from the wind-up gramophone. He had chosen Schubert – something soft and gentle to ease his troubled soul.

  By the end of the week, the little cash drawer behind the counter held only a little silver and about two pounds’ worth of copper coins.

  A typical customer was a man who called in wanting to retrieve a set of silver spoons given to him as a wedding present by his mother.