Birmingham Friends

by Annie Murray

  ‘All these gas masks and shelters and everything certainly bring it home though, don’t they?’ She grew solemn again, reverting to her own frustrations. ‘Honestly Katie. The only way I can see to get out of this is to get married. And that’s not much of a motive for giving your life to someone, is it?’

  In November Granny Munro lay dying. Another stroke felled her so that she couldn’t speak and could barely move. She lay in her room, inert as lard, one side of her pallid face the only real register of her feelings.

  Angus and I were able to spend time with her together one evening. We sat leaning forward so she could see us, the room lit only by the low sidelight on her bedside table. I held hands with her, with Angus on my other side. My emotions were very mixed. Here I was with two of the people I loved best in the world, together in this strange, silent intimacy. Granny’s eyes moved over our faces. Her hair was white now and thinner. She was less considerable in size. I hadn’t seen Angus for some time and was acutely aware of the novelty of his presence beside me: the soft curve of skin I loved at the back of his neck where the hairline ended, his hand warm on mine, eyes serious and affectionate.

  Coal burned with a hiss in the grate. We talked softly from time to time, both of us telling her about our different jobs: my patients, Angus’s hours cutting sheets of metal into fine shapes with a tiny fretsaw. We knew she liked to hear. Eventually her eyes closed.

  ‘We’ll be back soon,’ I said softly. I laid her hand on the bedcovers. ‘I’ll bring you up some soup later.’

  Outside the door we stopped and put our arms round each other.

  ‘You smell of work.’

  Angus laughed. ‘Not surprising. I came straight here.’ He looked at me sadly. ‘She’s very bad, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s dying. There isn’t much can be done. We just have to keep her as comfy as we can.’

  ‘What if there’s an air raid? You can’t very easily lift her down to the cellar.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ The long looking-glass at the top of the stairs showed my face white with exhaustion. My legs felt weak and shaky. I’d just come from a long spell of duty on a women’s surgical ward. ‘We’ll have to think of something.’

  We went to join the rest of the family for dinner. It was unusual to have everyone at home. William had asked for permission to leave Oxford to see Granny. The house felt sombre with swathes of blackout material at all the windows. The panes were criss-crossed with tape to shield against blast. There was talk of food being rationed within the next couple of months: bacon, sugar, butter. Even the light in the dining room felt thinner, as if they were diluting the electricity.

  As we ate our boiled ham with carrots, potatoes and dried peas, I stopped feeling so low and tired. We sat under the high, coved ceiling with its ornate rose at the centre, all painted white, and the walls a paper pattern of buff and brown. My father was at one end of the table and William at the other, Angus and I sat opposite each other, Mummy next to Angus.

  I glanced at each of my parents as we ate. Both of them looked very tired too. Daddy was mostly silent and preoccupied. The war was constantly in our minds, yet of course at that stage no one knew exactly what it would entail. Poland was overrun, the seas had become menacing, trawled by U-boats and malevolent ships, magnetic minds floating unseen just below the surface. It was as if the world had a pall over it. And of course Daddy felt involved in every detail, as well as that of the health care of the city of Birmingham. His eyes were focused far from those around him. If he had taken the trouble to adjust them so that he could see my mother, he should have noticed the pale, pinched look on her face, her tense angry movements, evident even in the way she was eating, stabbing at the ham with her fork like a hen after corn. I watched her uneasily.

  ‘How’s Oxford?’ Angus asked William, since no one was speaking, though I felt sure he must have asked him earlier. ‘Still doing well?’

  ‘I’m enjoying it enormously,’ William said. He was looking very well, thinner and alight with the stimulation of it. ‘I’ve got an absolutely first-rate tutor this term, and the chap I’m rooming with is very decent – we fit in a lot of sport together. All in all it’s exceeded expectation. Pity about the war, though. Even if it is only “Bore” War at the moment . . .’

  Daddy cleared his throat. ‘I doubt if the Merchant Navy would see it that way.’

  William gave a nervous laugh, embarrassed at expressing any uncertain emotion in front of his father. ‘Yes, well I suppose we all really know our days are numbered now. Waiting to be called up and all that. It’s all rather disturbing.’

  ‘Well, it’d be terrible if anything happened to disturb your little life, wouldn’t it?’ I said. I saw Angus look at me in surprise.

  ‘Kate, how can you say that?’ Mummy snapped. ‘Heaven only knows what your poor brother might have to go through. And Angus too, for that matter.’

  ‘D’you think it hasn’t crossed my mind?’

  The terrible thought of Angus going away: it was like a hand closing tight around my heart, making my breathing go shallow. Our generation was brought up on images of the Great War. The trenches were woven in to every family history.

  ‘If it comes to it, Angus,’ William said, ‘who are you going to join up with?’

  My father’s voice sliced unexpectedly across the table. ‘You take it for granted I suppose that you have to follow the herd, like thousands in the last war who thought it was a heroic and glamorous thing to do. Have you not considered that there might be other alternatives?’

  ‘But you weren’t a conshie in the last war,’ William protested, his face as usual turning red easily. ‘And if you had been they’d have given you a pretty thin time of it.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t a conscientious objector then.’ His voice had dropped but it was clipped and precise, his accent coming out more strongly than usual. ‘I was a medical student. I chose to direct my energy to the preservation of life instead of its annihilation.’

  The four of us sat watching him awkwardly. He discussed his thoughts so rarely that we felt at a loss as to how to communicate with him. His fervour usually expressed itself quietly, in his writing.

  ‘But Father, this Adolf Hitler fellow is a raving lunatic. You can’t just let him march across Europe taking away people’s liberty and get away with it. Where’s the justice in that?’ William had assumed his debating chamber tone. ‘We have to fight. Doesn’t it bother you, the thought of other people doing all your fighting for you?’

  ‘Bother me?’ Daddy’s pale blue eyes swept round the table coldly. ‘Does it bother me? William, it appals me. But I can’t believe there’s any such thing as justice in a war. There’s nothing just about it. And I have to stand against it with every fibre of my being. Can you understand that?’

  William stared at him, then said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t agree. When the time comes I shall offer myself to the army. I can’t do anything mechanical of course, but they might find me something clerical or educational. I’m sorry I can’t share your ideals, Father, but that’s just the way it is. What about you, Angus?’ He spoke with a note of appeal, needing Angus to support his point of view, but there was a challenge in his voice as well, the old competitiveness. I watched Angus anxiously.

  ‘I shall volunteer for the RAF. I’m going to offer to train as a pilot.’ As he spoke, his eyes met mine, but I could hear a certain kind of assertion in his voice and knew it was directed at William.

  ‘Mummy, what’s the matter?’

  I’d taken the presumptuous step of following her upstairs after the meal and knocking on her bedroom door. There was no reply but I opened it and stood in the doorway. ‘May I come in?’

  ‘You already are in.’ She had her back to me.

  Timidly I walked towards her. ‘You seem very upset about everything. Is it William – having to leave Oxford when they call him up?’

  She went to her dressing table with an agitated pretence of sorting through one of the drawe
rs, though I could see she was achieving nothing. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to speak. Her thin, deft hands folded handkerchiefs, tinkered with the contents of a sandalwood box, jewellery she almost never wore.

  ‘Mummy?’ I forced myself to move closer. My experience in nursing had at least made me more at ease in approaching people.

  ‘You know I’m no good at talking about things,’ she said. ‘Never have been. You just have to get on with life, not keep blathering about it all the time.’

  I felt encouraged. Even this much expression of her inner feelings represented progress.

  ‘You must feel very hard-pressed now you’ve taken on so much more in the garden – and Granny. You’re doing such a good job with her. It must be jolly tough. You two never exactly got on well, did you?’

  Mummy ceased her activity suddenly and stood still. Her shoulders began to shake and I could see from her twisting lips that she was trying to ram her feelings back down inside herself.

  Look, you were a nurse,’ I said gently. ‘You know you’re doing the best job you possibly can.’

  Her voice came out in a kind of screech. ‘But it’s not a job, is it? It’s an imposition. He just takes it for granted that I’m here to do it all. He always has done. And I can’t make a fuss – not with the war . . .’

  ‘But you always wanted to carry on nursing – ’

  ‘Nursing’s not the same as this though, is it?’ she cried, whirling round to face me. What I had intended as a sympathetic conversation seemed to be fast turning into a row. ‘It’s one thing to be a professional and be paid and be able to walk away from it,’ she said, slamming the drawer shut. ‘It’s quite another when it’s family and you have feelings all tied up with it and you can’t just go off duty. Oh, I can’t bear it.’

  Her whole body seemed to crumple and she sank down on the green sateen eiderdown. Cautiously I sat down as well, not daring to touch her. A tear ran down each of her pale cheeks and then there were no more.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much I loathe it, having to clean up day after day when she soils herself. The indignity of it – for her. And I can feel her eyes watching me as if she’s trying to say something and I feel it’s a reproach. We’re alone together so much, you see. Just her, quite silent, watching – and me. I try to be detached. I stand there wiping her up and think, “You’re a nurse. This is a patient.” But my patients were babies. I always loathed nursing old people. I was no good at it.’ She looked round at me suddenly with frightened grey eyes. ‘When I look at her I see myself. She reminds me this might happen to me. When you nurse people when you’re younger it’s not the same. And the worst of it is, the more time I spend with her the more I can’t help admiring her. Her stubbornness, her independence. Bull-headed as anything . . . Qualities I’ve never . . .’

  She sniffed and got up from the bed with renewed briskness. ‘I never thought I’d be saying any of this. It’s ridiculous and self-indulgent. Come along now, we must go down. The others will think we’ve deserted them. Those poor boys could be going off soon to get themselves killed.’

  Chapter 10

  Granny died shortly before Angus went away to begin his initial RAF training. He came to her funeral, of course, walking with Olivia behind William and me, when I would much rather have had him by my side. My father was silent, slightly stooped, displaying no emotion. Mummy looked haggard, exhausted from the nights of waiting while Granny had been lulled finally to death. To my surprise she wept at the sight of the coffin being lowered into the dark grave.

  ‘In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord . . .’

  I watched numbly then, wondering whether Granny would have been offended that she was being committed to the earth by this rite of the Church of England, but I decided she would have been amused by the irony of it. I found my sadness in our ring of black shoes round the grave, the wind flapping trouser legs and Mr Hughes’ alb and rich purple stole, and Mummy having to hold on to her hat, and thinking how small and defenceless we booked standing there beneath the heavy sky.

  My tears came later as I walked back between the silent stones and trees of Lodge Hill Cemetery, this time with Angus beside me. Mummy and Daddy walked slightly ahead of us, slowly, as if they had lead ingots strapped to their feet. I felt I ought to go to them, though I knew no comfort would be possible between us.

  ‘I shall miss her so much.’

  Angus put his arm strongly round my shoulders. He was wearing a black suit which made him look thin and older. ‘Your house will certainly never be the same again. Even though she didn’t get out of her room much by the end, it’s going to feel very empty.’

  ‘Not as empty as it’ll be in a couple of days,’ I said forlornly, tears running down my face. ‘Oh Angus, I can’t bear the thought of you going.’

  I was really crying now and he stopped me and took me in his arms and I could feel his heart beating against me. He held me close, his cheek against mine, arms tight around me.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He drew back and looked into my eyes with a troubled expression. ‘I wish it didn’t have to be now, so soon after this. But you’ll be busy too, won’t you, and I’ll be back on leave like a shot as soon as I get the chance. Katie, you know I love you so much?’

  ‘I know.’ Thankfully I laid my head against his shoulder. The suit smelled strange, seldom used, with a whiff of camphor. ‘I love you too. And I’m glad you were so fond of Granny as well.’ I looked up at him. ‘I suppose we all have to do our bit now.’

  Angus grinned, suddenly, eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘I couldn’t help having a little smile to myself when he read that psalm – “I will keep my mouth as with a bridle”, or however it goes. I think she would have enjoyed that, don’t you?’

  I laughed, tears still on my face, and hugged him again. ‘Yes, she would, and she wouldn’t like to see us being miserable either.’

  Olivia approached us, dressed to the hilt as usual. She had on a very stylish black coat and hat and vivid red lipstick. Her cheeks were pink from the cold wind.

  ‘Now now, you two,’ she said archly. ‘You’ve only just dispatched your grandmother, Katie. Surely you should save the billing and cooing for later?’

  I turned to her, stung by the insensitivity of her remark, but seeing her smile I relented. It was so hard to get cross with Livy. She took my arm and we all walked on together.

  ‘You’re off on Thursday then, Angus?’ She spoke to him in a caressing way, turning on the charm.

  ‘Yes – basic training. It’ll be a good stretch yet before I’m qualified to fly.’

  ‘Have you any idea how much I envy you?’

  ‘Really? Well, I suppose if you’re that keen you could join up yourself.’

  ‘Me?’ Olivia looked astonished. ‘What on earth would they want me for?’

  ‘They need everyone they can get, especially if you’ve got something to offer. You could go for a clerical job, couldn’t you – in one of the women’s forces? I should think you’re pretty well qualified by now.’

  ‘Angus,’ I protested. ‘Don’t give her ideas, please!’

  But Olivia had stopped, excitement lighting her face. ‘My goodness, of course! Why didn’t I think of it? It’s so obvious.’

  ‘Oh, Olivia,’ I wailed. ‘You can’t go away as well. Anyway, I’ve heard the women’s forces are full of rough types who you wouldn’t feel comfortable with at all. You know how you like your home comforts, the piano . . .’

  ‘Kate,’ Olivia said determinedly. ‘I wouldn’t care if it were full of the most uncouth Amazons to walk the earth if it means I can get away.’ She ran round in front of me and kissed Angus so extravagantly that he blushed.

  ‘Thank you, Angus. It’s been staring me in the face!’

  ‘Oh well,’ I said gloomily. ‘With any luck they won’t take you.’

  We linked arms again. The rest of our small party was standing by the iron gates of the cemetery. I felt a
great rush of affection go through me – a sense of the preciousness of people I knew so well when everything around was changing.

  ‘My best friends.’ I reached up and kissed each of them and we walked to the gate with our arms round each other’s backs. ‘At least love is something they can’t ration, even if they are taking you away from me.’

  I spent the evening before Angus left round at the Harveys’. It was a comforting household with its littered, nestlike clutter of newspapers and periodicals, books and music scores and dogs’ baskets. Two black Labradors sprawled snoozily in the hall beside a deflated football, a stack of the family’s gas masks in their boxes, a carton full of Meccano and an assortment of old shoes and galoshes. John’s clarinet lay askew across a chair. Mary was sitting at the table in the living room in a cone of light surrounded by algebra and Paradise Lost. On the mantelpiece a round-faced clock was just visible between John’s swimming cups, sheaves of paper and invitations, candlesticks, receipts, ration books and good wishes cards. Mrs Harvey, who resembled Angus facially but was much rounder and had hair several shades lighter, sailed cheerfully through the mayhem apparently oblivious to it.

  We all ate together. They were comfortable people. Being with them was like wearing a very old coat, so much so that I realized regretfully that evening how much I had taken them for granted. I had been beguiled by the Kemps for so long. My hatred for Alec Kemp seethed in me now, a revulsion born of former adoration. But it allowed me to appreciate the Harveys at last, and their home which was so familiar, into which I had run freely for so many years and always been made welcome.

  Peter Harvey was black-haired, balding, thin. He smoked and smoked cigarettes and his chest sounded as if it was full of dried peas when he coughed. He had gnarled, prematurely arthritic hands which meant that although his firm produced beautiful instruments, he could no longer play them. But he was not downcast. He had a jovial, slightly sardonic way with him. Ruth Harvey was kind and comforting, though often with a rather distracted air, as if any question you asked her cut through a train of thought which brought her back from somewhere quite different and she was uncertain for a second quite where she was.