Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  I stumbled on a hummock of grass. Then there was a sound. Must’ve been a twig scraping the fence but it set me thinking, and my heart was off thudding away.

  No one knew when the Germans would come. We’d expected them down the street straight away. Maybe they were here already. Was that what I’d heard, someone moving about in the garden next door? Or maybe there was someone in the Anderson . . . Someone just behind me with a gun . . .

  Panic seized me tight by the throat and I was across that scrap of lawn and struggling with the door handle so mithered I could hardly get it open. I landed panting in the kitchen.

  ‘What’s got into you?’ Mom called through. There was a laugh in her voice.

  One Sunday in the middle of September Mom was having one of her wet lettuce sessions. Lunch had been cooked by yours truly (I was getting a lot of practice). I’d done a piece of chine and Mom said, ‘This isn’t up to much, Genie. How d’you manage to make such a mess of it?’

  So I said, ‘Cook it yourself next time if you’re so fussy.’ She slapped me for that, hard, at the top of my arm. Sod you too, I thought.

  I knew what was wrong though. Partly the feeling of anticlimax.

  ‘You only have to strike a match out there at night and someone jumps on you,’ Mom moaned. ‘But there’s nothing cowing well happening, is there?’ You could tell she was under strain when her language started slipping.

  Earlier in the week Dad had come home to tell us that his short period in Hall Green was finished and that they were being transferred for training outside Birmingham. He didn’t know where. Before he went, suddenly younger-looking in his uniform, I saw Mom go to him, and they held one another. He stroked her hair and she clung to him.

  ‘I can’t stand it,’ she sobbed into his chest. ‘Can’t stand being here on my own. I won’t be able to cope.’

  ‘You’ve got Genie,’ Dad said. ‘I’m sorry, love. I hadn’t realized it would all be so soon.’

  She seemed to have more respect for him now he had an army uniform on. And I hadn’t seen Mom and Dad cuddling before, not ever. Made me cry too. And then Dad did something he’d not done since I was a tiny kid. He came and took me in his arms too and I saw there were tears in his big grey eyes.

  ‘Goodbye, Genie love. Eh, there’s a girl, don’t cry now. You’re going to help your mom out, aren’t you? I s’pect I’ll be back before we know it.’

  Len was starting to blub too, watching us all, and Dad gave his shoulder a squeeze and then he was gone. I dried my tears. Didn’t like crying in front of Mom. It didn’t feel right.

  She’d been all right up until Sunday. Even though we had a letter from Eric:

  Dear Mom,

  Ime well and I hope you are to. And Genie and Dad and Len. I was at one ladys and now Ime at annother. Shes qite nice. Shes got cats.

  Love Eric.

  It was from Maidenhead. Mom sniffled a bit when she read it – ‘Not much of a letter, is it?’ – but then carried herself along being busy and was quite cheerful. She even had a mad cleaning session and the house was spotless. But finally she fell over the edge into gloom and sitting for hours in chairs without her shoes on.

  So I left, and went to see my pal Teresa. She’d always been my best pal, ever since we were kiddies, although we were never at the same school. The Spini kids traipsed all the way over to the Catholic School in Bordesley Street. Teresa, who was always up to something the rest of the time, could dress up demure as a china doll on a Sunday with a white ribbon in her hair and go off to Mass at St Michael’s with Vera’s – Mrs Spini’s – family, who all lived in the streets of ‘Little Italy’ behind Moor Street Station. It was like stepping right into Italy down there, with them all speaking Italian and cooking with garlic. I used to go with Teresa and see her granny sometimes. Nonna Amelia was a wispy old lady with bowed legs and no teeth who always wore black and spoke hardly any English. She used to suck and suck on sugared almonds from home and spit the nuts out because she couldn’t chew them.

  They had a back-house in a yard just along from my nan’s, though not behind the shop as they’d tiled that part white like a hospital and turned it into their little ice-cream factory. The door of the house was almost always open, summer or winter, and usually there were kids spilling in and out. When I got there I could see the back of Micky, Teresa’s dad, sat at the table in his shirtsleeves. He wore belts, not braces like my dad. I could hear their voices, loud, in Italian.

  ‘Genie!’ Teresa called, spotting me. Soon as I got there they switched to talking in English.

  Their house was much like any other in area inside, with a couple of small differences. Near the door was a black and white engraving (‘my photograph’ as Vera called it) of Jesus, and over the mantel hung a tile, in a thin wooden frame. On its deep blue glaze was a handpainted figure of the Madonna and child, and beneath, the words AVE MARIA. I’d asked Teresa about it once, years ago.

  ‘My nan in Italy gave it to Dad before he came here,’ she said. ‘She didn’t want him to go, and she gave it to him as she kissed him goodbye. She said “If your own mother can’t watch over you, remember that the mother of God is always near to catch you when you fall.”’ Micky had never seen his mother again after walking out with that lovingly wrapped tile at the age of twenty.

  ‘Anyway,’ Teresa’d said. ‘He met Mom his second day in Birmingham, so someone was looking out for him.’

  Teresa pulled a chair out for me at the table between her and Micky.

  ‘’Bout time,’ she said. ‘We haven’t seen you in ages.’

  ‘Some of us work for a living you know.’ Now I was at the pawn shop I worked most Saturdays. ‘No time for gadding into town to try on hats in C&A. Come to think of it that might be a good reason for moving on!’ I glanced nervously at Micky. You never quite knew what mood he was going to be in.

  He frowned. ‘I thought you were at that pie factory?’

  ‘I was – for a week. There was this bloke opposite me with a great long dewdrop in ’is nose. I reckon there was more snot than meat in some of them pies. One week of that and I was off.’

  The others groaned and laughed, even Stevie, Teresa’s older brother who was usually either in a daydream about shiny new Lagondas or being a self-righteous pain in the neck. I saw Teresa looking nervously at her father for his reaction and I wondered if I’d walked into the middle of something. ‘You wouldn’t want your seat getting too warm anywhere, would you?’

  ‘I have to be kept busy.’

  ‘You’ve practically done the lot already!’ Teresa said. She sounded envious, and her eyes strayed once more over to Micky. He was holding a hunk of bread in his strong hands, pulling off pellets and half throwing them into his mouth.

  I looked round the table. ‘It’s quiet, isn’t it?’ And then wished I hadn’t said the one thing they were all most likely trying not to think about. Vera’s eyes turned to pools of misery.

  But God, it was quiet. Normally when I went in there eight pairs of dark brown eyes turned to look at me, but now the four younger ones were missing and I felt the loss almost as if they were my own brothers and sisters. In terms of noise you barely noticed Eric being gone because he was such a mouse most of the time. Micky and Stevie weren’t all that vocal, but those Spini women were LOUD. Even Giovanna at seven had a voice on her like a foghorn, and Teresa was about the noisiest of the lot. Great blast of a voice and sandpaper-rough as if she’d smoked forty a day since birth.

  ‘I can hardly look at Teresa in that dress for wondering how they are and what they’re doing.’ Vera’s homely face was crumpling.

  The dress was crimson with a white lace collar and Vera had made three to match, so other Sundays Francesca and Giovanna had been turned out in theirs too, matching and all lovely with their dark hair, Teresa’s long and loosely tied back, Francesca with plaits and Giovanna’s in a pert, swinging ponytail.

  ‘Will they be able to go to Mass where they’ve gone?’ I asked.

  Tears
started running down Vera’s cheeks. She shook her head and shrugged. ‘Don’t know, love. I told Francesca to ask, but with them down Wales . . . Don’t know that they’re all that keen on Catholics down there. I can’t stand thinking about it. At least they’ve been kept in twos – Francesca’s got Luki, and Tony and Giovanna are together. I s’pose I should be thankful for that.’

  ‘They’ll be all right, Mom,’ Teresa said, putting her hand on her mother’s plump arm. She was such a happy woman usually. You’d see her in the shop even in the depths of winter, blowing on her hands to keep warm, songs billowing white out of her mouth. And she hugged and kissed those kids like no one had ever done to me in my life.

  ‘I don’t know why I sent them,’ she went on. ‘Nothing’s happening. Only I kept on thinking about what they did bombing Spain and I thought it’d be the same here. Every day I have to stop myself going to fetch them back.’

  ‘No good thinking like that,’ Micky said more gently. ‘The war’s only just started and we don’t know what’s coming. Francesca’ll see they’re all right. She’s nearly grown up now.’

  I looked at Micky timidly. He was a moody so-and-so – tough as anything on his kids, though he’d barely ever said a harsh word to me. ‘How’s the Fire Service, Mr Spini?’ I asked.

  ‘Dad ’ad a bit of a shock this week, didn’t you?’ Teresa said cautiously.

  We waited for a split second to see the reaction. And Micky’s face broke into a grin, as did Stevie’s. ‘Oh God yes, the jump!’ He blew smoke at the ceiling, smoothed a hand over his wiry black curls. He’d done his first two weeks in the Auxiliary Fire Service. ‘They got us doing sheet jumps. That means you ’ave to go up the drill tower in the station. Everyone else is standing at the bottom holding out a sheet to catch you. If you’re holding it you have to brace yourself to take the weight.’ He clenched his fists, the hairy backs of his hands turned towards the floor. ‘So you’re up the top of the tower, sitting on this window-sill and the instructor’s told you “Don’t jump off, just step off.” You’re thinking Christ Almighty—’

  ‘Micky!’ Vera interrupted, eyes fierce.

  ‘Sorry. But I was, I can tell you. I was thinking to myself, that’s not a sheet down there, it’s a pocket handkerchief.’

  ‘So you jumped?’

  ‘Didn’t have no choice. My insides followed me down about five minutes later!’

  ‘You should just thank your stars you don’t have to jump out of aeroplanes!’ Vera said.

  ‘Well at least they have a parachute!’ We all laughed at his head-shaking indignation.

  Vera got up, clearing dishes already wiped clean with bread, scraping bones and wrinkles of fish skin on to the top one. She was not a tall woman, but rounded and comfortable, and Teresa looked very like her, although Vera Spini’s long hair was blond – out of a bottle Mom said – but it suited her, even though her eyebrows were jet black.

  Already it was half way through the afternoon. They could make meals last an age, the Spinis. Eating was a pastime as well as a necessity. Sometimes, Sundays, they were all still sitting round the table at four o’clock, spinning the meal on into cups of tea.

  ‘Who wants ice cream?’ Vera called from the scullery.

  ‘Oooh!’ I said. ‘Yes please!’

  ‘I didn’t need to ask you, did I?’ She smiled, bringing the basin of homemade ice cream to the table. ‘You’d eat it until it came out of your ears.’ She leaned forward and pulled my cheek affectionately between her finger and thumb.

  ‘Only my ice cream,’ Micky teased.

  Vera faced him indignantly, hands on her shapely hips. ‘My ice cream? Listen to him. Who makes all the ice cream around here Micky, eh? Whose family has been making ice cream for three generations?’

  ‘Yours, my darlin’.’ Micky looked mock humble.

  ‘I should think so.’ Vera dug in the spoon. ‘We had a few punnets of strawberries over so I put them in too.’

  That set my mouth watering. Vera’s mom and dad, the Scattolis, were part of the community from Sora in the middle of Italy, one of the ice-cream families, and you came across Scattoli ice-cream cycles all over town. When Vera married Micky, a newcomer and a southerner, the family accepted him and helped set them up in their own shop. Old Poppa Scattoli gave his blessing not only on the marriage, but also on their using the family’s ice-cream recipe for another string to the Spinis’ business bow – provided they used the Scattoli name.

  The ice cream was delicious. I was just sitting there relaxing, thinking how nice it was to be eating food that might’ve been made by angels, in a proper family with a mom and dad there and no rows, when Teresa had to go and say, ‘I wish I could get a job.’

  Micky’s eyes swivelled round to her angrily and Vera and Stevie sighed. Teresa always had a way of offering the red rag straight to the bull. You didn’t argue with Micky – except Teresa did – and the Spinis’ ding-dongs had a way of blowing up on you sudden and harsh as a summer storm.

  ‘We need you here,’ Micky decreed, jabbing a stubby finger towards her. ‘And first you got to learn ’ow to behave yourself before you go anywhere out of my sight on your own.’

  ‘I am behaving myself.’ Teresa was on the boil already, voice booming. ‘He was a customer. I was only talking to him. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Talking to him!’ Micky’s voice was mocking. He sat back, waving one thick, hairy arm, his Brummie accent laid over his Italian one. ‘You think you’re just talking but I can see what he’s doing with his eyes. And what you’re doing with yours too. You make yourself cheap, girl, behaving like that. You give him ideas about yourself. If I see you doing that again . . .’

  He stopped because for once he couldn’t think of anything to say and Teresa stared back brazenly. She never went out anywhere, except to Mass, and she knew she was an asset in the shop. The customers loved her, listening to their moans, her big laugh ringing down the road behind them.

  ‘Don’t keep on, Micky,’ Vera interrupted. ‘You’ve said enough already.’

  ‘But she don’t take any bloody notice!’ Micky roared. ‘What do you want – eh? You got no respect!’

  ‘You got my respect,’ Teresa bawled. ‘But how come it’s always me?’ She pointed at Stevie, who was watching her across the table with his heavy-lidded eyes. ‘You don’t say anything when he’s going about with that lunatic Fausto. Or is it awright now to invite a mad man into the family and one who still thinks he’s a Blackshirt as well – eh?’

  ‘You’ve got Fausto wrong,’ Stevie said with contempt.

  Micky waved the air dismissively. ‘The boy’s a hothead, a fool . . .’

  ‘It’s not fair!’

  ‘Teresa!’ It was Vera’s turn to try and calm her down.

  ‘But I’m sick of it! The men in this family do just what they like and expect us to stay at home and wait on them hand and foot.’ She pushed her chair back and marched off outside, saying, ‘It’s like a prison here . . .’

  Micky slammed his spoon down and left as well. I thought he was going after her but we saw him move past the window and head for the street.

  Vera sighed. ‘When will Teresa ever learn to keep her mouth shut?’

  Teresa and I sat out on the back step, frocks over our knees.

  ‘I s’pect Dad’s gone over Park Street to the pub. I really hate him sometimes.’ She squinted up at the sky. ‘Wish they’d come if they’re coming. We could do with a bit of action round here.’

  ‘You’re awful,’ I said. ‘Any rate, I didn’t think that was the kind of action you were interested in nowadays.’

  She stuck her tongue out at me as far as it would go.

  ‘Come on then, tell us. Who is ’e?’

  Teresa stuck a finger urgently against her lips and peeped round the door. Vera was washing up, had said Stevie should help so he was wiping, with his altar boy face on.

  ‘Come over here.’ Teresa pulled me to my feet and over towards the brewhouse and we stood
with our faces to the wall. Her whisper tickled my ear.

  ‘He keeps coming in the shop – from that sheet metal place opposite Frank Street. I’m sure he’s taken a fancy to me.’ Even at this distance she kept looking back nervously at the house. Micky and Vera thought Teresa was far too young to be thinking about boys.

  Although we’d left school we were still treated as kids, weren’t allowed out dancing, nothing like that. Teresa was barely allowed to set foot outside by herself. But the boys went for her. It wasn’t that she was pretty exactly. She was shorter than me, small and round, whereas I was bony and boyish; she had Vera’s looks, a snub nose, and her complexion wasn’t all that marvellous. But what she had was a lot of life and a lot of laughs in her. And what’s more she was ripe and ready to be swept off her feet, even though she was innocent as a day-old child, and looked it in that Sunday dress.

  ‘He keeps coming in – I’ve never known anyone buy so many apples – ’cept he comes and gets them one by one!’ She burst into her infectious giggle. ‘Ooh, sometimes I feel like taking off just anywhere, just for a bit of excitement!’

  ‘So he’s Prince Charming then, is he?’ I couldn’t help sounding sarky.

  ‘He’s all right. Nice enough. Bit skinny. I like ’em with a bit more brawn on them than that!’

  ‘Brawn or brains – make your choice.’

  ‘And he’s got this great big Adam’s apple – wobbles around when he’s talking as if he’s got a plum stuck down his throat . . .’ The giggle turned into her loud, exuberant laugh. ‘No, I’m being unkind. He’s got a nice way with him. Oi – what’s up with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Don’t just say nothing—’ She elbowed me but I pulled away, staring stubbornly across the yard. From the top-floor windows the Spinis’ bedding was hanging out to air as usual, an Italian habit the neighbours still weren’t sure about.

  ‘B for Boys. B for Boring.’