Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  ‘I told him to turn her off when we heard you come in,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, there was no need.’

  PC Bob was giving a quizzical sort of frown. ‘Gloria?’

  ‘Our wireless.’ Mom tittered again. I’d never seen anything like the way she was behaving. ‘Len calls her Gloria. Go on Lenny – switch her on.’

  Len lumbered to his feet and in a second there was music, something soft, violins. Bob sat there dutifully for a few minutes, pushing the fingertips of each hand against the other.

  ‘Better be off home,’ he said. At last. He put his cup on the floor.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Mom was sparkly still. ‘Back to your little family. Never let you loose for long, do they?’

  They both went into the hall, snickering like a couple of monkeys. It went quiet for a moment. I wondered what they were doing. I thought about walking through to the front just to annoy them, but then I heard her letting him out.

  When she came back she saw me staring sullenly at her. Oblivious to this, she gave me a wide smile. ‘He’s such a nice man, isn’t he?’

  A week later when she was due home from work, I left Len shuffling a pack of cards in the back with Gloria on, and went to the front room. I left it dark, pulled back the corner of the blackout curtain and slid the window open just a crack. There were no lights in the road of course and I knew I shouldn’t be able to see them coming from far. But the room was very dark as well, and my eyes were settling to it.

  Not many minutes later I heard them. I couldn’t make out the shape of them in the sooty darkness, but I could see the burning tips of two cigarettes, and I knew Mom’s tone. Their voices were low and I couldn’t make out any words at first.

  They came and stood on the front step and I was scared stiff they’d see me or notice the open window. I felt it must be plain as daylight I was there. But even if they could have spotted anything much out in the cold damp of the evening, the only thing they were interested in seeing was each other. They came and leaned up against the window where I was sitting. Mom perched on the sill, so if I’d wanted I could have pushed my fingers through the slit and touched her coat.

  ‘Least we don’t have to worry what the neighbours are thinking in this,’ she said, giggling.

  Silence. Kissing. The blood pounded in my ears.

  ‘Bob . . .’ Her voice was wheedling now. ‘You are going to be able to sort out your shifts, aren’t you?’

  ‘For this week,’ he said, impatient. His mind was on other things. ‘What about your kid? She giving any trouble?’ His voice was a low growl. There was something hypnotic about it.

  ‘Nah – she hasn’t got a clue about anything. Anyroad – we said you’d got a family, didn’t we?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He thought that was very amusing apparently. ‘My family. My two kids! Come on Dor—’

  Mom said ‘Oooh’ and gave a little squeal. Then it went quiet and I knew they were kissing again. After a bit Bob pulled away, giving an impatient sigh. ‘I need more than this, Doreen. I can’t wait for ever, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t care what anyone thinks!’ Mom squeaked at him. ‘I know I shouldn’t, but I want it too – if only there was a way we could get on our own . . .’

  Silence.

  ‘You do love me, don’t you Bob?’

  Lord above, I didn’t want to hear any more of this. I let the curtain drop, reminding myself I’d have to come back later to shut the window.

  I was all tight and squirmy inside. As I sat with Len, waiting for her to come in, I thought of my poor old dad in a barn full of rats, of the way he looked at Mom, always wanting, always hopeful.

  Cow! I thought to myself. You horrible selfish cow. I felt like killing her.

  I didn’t say anything. I started to think I was the only sensible person left around the place, what with Mom and PC Bob and Teresa going doolally over Aston Villa Jack and telling fibs to her mom and dad.

  ‘Len,’ I said to him one evening, ‘at least I’ve got you. You’ve got more common sense than the rest of them put together.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Len swayed and grinned. ‘You and me, Genie. You and me.’

  The winter set in and our days of limbo crawled past. Work, work, work, was all life consisted of now. All day painting woodstain on the rough bunks with Jimmy the Joiner, as I called him, winking away at me across the small factory floor as he bashed the frames of the bunks together. I started smiling back. What the hell.

  Then there were the evenings of enthralling drudgery and Mom fluttering in late, her brains gone AWOL for the duration. The war was still not showing any signs of getting off the ground so far as we were concerned, but we still had to live with all the disadvantages: creeping about in the dark, staying in, and food costing a bomb.

  The only thing that cheered me up in the evenings now was Gloria, and when Nanny Rawson and Lil paid us an occasional visit, usually on Mom’s day off. The kids’d erupt into our house, glad of a bit of extra space round them, and I’d always try and have something nice laid on for them – a bit of cake or some sweets, with the best one saved for my soft, brown-eyed Tom. Nan’d bring her squeeze box and we’d sit round the back room and drink endless cups of tea and talk about how much better things were ‘before the war’ – barely three months ago.

  At the end of the month they came, full of news.

  ‘Have you heard, Dor?’ our nan said, plonking the accordion down on the table. ‘There’s bombs gone off in town.’

  ‘Oh Lor,’ Mom said with the kettle in her hand. ‘Has it started? Are they over here?’

  ‘They reckon it was the IRA again,’ Nanny Rawson said. ‘Blew a couple of phone boxes to bits. No one killed I don’t think.’

  ‘That’s just what we need, isn’t it?’ Mom was climbing up on her high horse already. ‘Them coming over here making trouble.’

  Oh no, not the Irish again. That usually set Lil off and then they’d be at each other’s throats . . . But Lil wasn’t even listening. Sometimes, especially when she was feeling low, she went off into another world. She was pulling the kids’ boots off to dry by the fire. Cathleen was moaning on about something. Patsy’d brought a comic with him.

  ‘’Orrible night out,’ Lil said absent-mindedly. Her face was pale with exhaustion, the dark hair scraped back. She struggled with the knots in Tom’s laces, and I knelt down beside her and worked on the other foot.

  ‘We’re in for a hard winter I reckon,’ our nan said.

  ‘Got your torch?’ Mom stood watching in her pinner, hands on hips.

  ‘Course.’ Lil sounded impatient. ‘It’s like looking up a bear’s arse out there. And the flaming paper got wet through.’

  Torches and the batteries to go with them were like gold dust. Nowadays you could use a torch so long as the light was dulled down with a sheet of tissue paper. Lil laid the crumpled sheet of paper on the tiles by the fire to dry out.

  ‘We had about three people following us down the Moseley Road, all in a line.’ Nan laughed. ‘Just for one bleeding little torch.’ She was wiping the accordion down. ‘That won’t’ve done it much good. Still – it’s had worse in its time. Come on – let’s have a cuppa before we get started.’

  Mom beat me to the kitchen. She seemed mighty eager to please. Guilty conscience, I thought.

  She came back in again with a few Rich Tea on a plate, and offered them round, hovering round her sister like Nurse Cavell. ‘How’re you bearing up, Lil?’

  Lil looked round at Mom as if she’d just been spoken to by some barmy person. ‘Awright, ta. What’s got into you?’

  Mom couldn’t hide it, try as she might. The new look, the glow, the vivacity. She was lighter altogether. ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of whatever it is you’re on,’ Lil said wearily. ‘Patsy – leave Tom alone.’

  ‘Here.’ I pulled out a bag of aniseed balls. ‘This’ll keep you lot quiet for a bit.’ The kids’ cheeks soon had satisfying bulges.

  ‘Ta, Genie,’ Lil said, then announced out of
the blue, ‘Any rate – I’ve put my name down for a council ’ouse. I’m sick to death of living in a rabbit warren. I want the kids to breathe in some clean air for a change.’

  ‘But how’ll you cope if you get one?’ Mom asked, with a snidy edge to her voice. Glebe Farm, Turves Green, Weoley Castle . . . Was Lil going to get the little dream house Mom had always fancied? ‘You couldn’t cope last time.’

  Lil stuck her chin out. ‘I was in a state, what with Patsy’s – accident. And Cathleen was only a babby. Not long now and she’ll be at school. I’ll cope. I’ll just have to, won’t I?’

  ‘Well, that’ll remain to be seen.’

  ‘Doreen,’ Nan said, warning.

  Mom, remembering she was the perfect hostess all of a sudden, poured tea, spooned in the condensed milk and offered round biscuits which the kids had to take the aniseed balls out of their mouths to eat, the red outsides already sucked white. Len chomped away, eating two biscuits at once.

  ‘Ah – nectar!’ Nan smiled, sipping the tea. ‘That’s better. Let’s ’ave a bit of a sing-song now.’

  Patsy lay by the fire with his comic and we fished out a few of my old crayons for Cathleen to scribble on some paper.

  ‘You come and sit with me, Tom,’ I said. Stuck between an elder brother and his temperamental baby sister I could see he was always hungry for affection. He came readily to sit on my knee.

  ‘That’s it – you go to Genie, she’ll look after you,’ Nanny Rawson said, sitting forward on her chair and settling the accordion on her knees. She smiled across at me as I hugged Tom tight, her dark brows lifting. ‘Hey, Genie—’ She frowned suddenly. ‘You look all in. Is she sickening for summat, Dor? She’s as thin as a stick, and ever so pale. Don’t you think she looks peaky?’

  Mom looked at me properly for the first time in weeks. Tears came into my eyes and my cheeks burned red. ‘You’re awright, aren’t you Genie?’

  I glowered back at her over Tom’s head. If I was exhausted she ought to know the reason perfectly well, the way she was carrying on.

  ‘You ought to take better care of her,’ Lil said. ‘After all, it’s not as if you’ve got any others to worry about now, is it?’ That was another of Lil’s hobby-horses – she’d got more kids, more problems. I waited for the fight to begin but, to my amazement, Mom said cheerfully. ‘Oh, she’s all right. Just needs a bit of sun on her face like the rest of us, that’s all. Come on, Lil – I feel like a real good sing tonight.’

  They sang the rest of the evening away with their strong voices. It was a miracle because we got through that night without a fight, even though the fuse was lit more than once. Cathleen fell asleep on the floor among the crayons while they were singing ‘When They Begin the Beguine’, and Tom dozed on my lap. All the old favourites which Nan could pump out with an ease that never failed to impress me, never once looking down at her fingers.

  I watched Mom as we went through ‘An Apple for the Teacher’, walking her feet on the spot in time with the music and snapping her slim fingers. Tonight she looked so vivacious, almost prettier than Lil. There was a spark in her eyes so that somehow you didn’t notice the hard angles of her face. I thought of Dad watching her with that ‘Love me – please’ look in his eyes. And I knew it was only through his going away that she’d been able to come to life again, come out from under it all, the years of wife and mother and nothing else and not really wanting it. Maybe she really couldn’t help herself. But neither could I help my deep, burning anger at seeing her so carefree, so disloyal.

  December 1939

  It was evening and I was lying talking to Teresa up in the ‘girls’’ bedroom in their house which she now had to herself. There were two beds in there and nothing else – the big one which Francesca and Giovanna shared and Teresa’s next to the wall. We had a bed each to lie across as we talked. Teresa’s hair was loose, laid out in a dark swathe one side of her head.

  ‘You shouldn’t tell fibs to your mom and dad like you do,’ I said to her. ‘They’ve always been so good to you.’ The Spinis would’ve been broken-hearted if they knew Teresa was deceiving them. Both of them looked so worn and tired at the moment.

  ‘But they’d stop me seeing Jack. Dad’s a bully. You just can’t see it.’

  ‘He’s strict all right, but . . .’

  Teresa half sat up. ‘He’s not just strict. He’s not fair. Like last week – it was Nonna Spini’s anniversary, my nan in Italy. We all had to go to Mass because that was the day she died and none of us have even met her. And he belted me one because I said I didn’t want to go. And it’s only because he feels guilty because he always said he’d go back to Italy and see her and he never did.’ She lay down again with a thump. ‘He just pushes things on us that are nothing to do with us.’

  I sighed. We’d been having a bit of a laugh until she got on to the inevitable Jack. She leaned over to me, tight-faced. ‘You’d better not tell ’em.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I won’t.’

  Teresa was changing. I felt old and disappointed, as if such childhood as I’d had was dead and buried overnight. Even though the war had barely affected us in terms of fighting, we had all changed. It was as if we’d had a layer of something scraped off us and we acted more on our impulses than we used to. I watched my mom and my friend and felt like a disapproving old spinster.

  Teresa couldn’t talk enough about Jack. She was droning on about him again, leaning up on one elbow. ‘He’s ever so good looking when you get up close – lovely eyes. And so grown up. He’s got a real cigarette lighter and he likes football. It’s a great game, you know. He said he might take me to see the Villa play one day.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Teresa, you hate football!’

  ‘I don’t. It’s just I’ve never had the chance to see it played properly – that’s what Jack says. He says—’

  ‘I couldn’t care less what he says!’ I exploded at her. ‘It’s all a bloody waste of time. Boyfriends. Getting married. All of it. It’s stupid.’ I found myself nearly in tears.

  ‘You’re just jealous.’

  I hated her. I wanted to smack her smug face. ‘Well, bugger you, Teresa. That’s all I can say.’ I climbed down from the bed. ‘I’m off.’

  I ran downstairs and shot through the room where Micky and Vera were sat by the table.

  ‘Hey!’ Micky said, as I was going to open the door. He was leaning forward on a chair pushed back from the table, cleaning his boots. Vera sat across from him with a darning mushroom pushed into a stocking, squinting in the gaslight. ‘Going already?’ he said. ‘You just got here. Stay for a cuppa tea with us, eh? Kettle’s on.’

  I shook my head, choked up inside, looking down at the floor. I couldn’t open the door and I couldn’t speak.

  Micky stood up. ‘Genie? Hey darlin’ – what you unhappy about?’ At that, I burst into tears. Micky stood there at a loss and Vera came quickly over to me, making comforting noises, and pulled me into her arms, pressing my head against her soft body.

  ‘Come on – you can tell your Auntie Vera. What’s got into you? You and Teresa had a bit of an argument?’

  I couldn’t tell them. Not about Mom and Bob or Teresa and Jack, and how I was feeling inside. I was too ashamed. And I felt so silly blarting in front of Micky. When I looked across at him though, I saw such unexpected kindness in his eyes. But I just nodded, let them think it was just over me and Teresa squabbling.

  ‘Teresa!’ Micky shouted upstairs grimly. ‘Vieni qui – subito!’ Teresa clattered down the stairs right quick. ‘What you said to Genie to make her cry like this?’ He turned to me. ‘She’s got a terrible temper on her, you know. You should take no notice.’

  I was beginning to feel really stupid about this and I didn’t want to get Teresa into trouble, but I just couldn’t stop crying now I’d started, blubbering away like a little kid. Vera looked really concerned.

  ‘You feeling all right?’ She looked down into my face with her dark eyes, which made me want to cry again
. ‘Not sickening for summat, are you?’

  Teresa was looking pretty scared. I suppose she thought I might’ve given the game away about Jack, but it soon became clear to her that I hadn’t. ‘Come on, Genie,’ she said. ‘What’s got into you? I hardly said a word,’ she told her father. ‘Honest.’

  The three of them all gathered round staring at me, so I felt obliged to cheer up and start smiling just to stop them looking so blooming worried. Vera fed me a cup of tea with a heap of sugar in it and Teresa kissed me. ‘Pals?’ she said.

  I sniffed, nodded. ‘Yep.’ And felt a bit better.

  As Christmas drew nearer I thought, at least Dad’ll be home. Maybe he’ll be able to knock some sense into Mom. Not literally of course. He was never violent. I just thought him being there might bring her to her senses. Can’t really imagine what made me think that but I had to have something to cling to.

  That day the week before Christmas had started off badly in the first place. I was already feeling run down, so much that even Mom noticed enough to say, ‘What’s up with you?’

  At work a couple of days before, a whopping splinter speared into the thumb of my left hand. I thought I’d got it out, but found my hand swelling up enormously.

  ‘That’s a full-blown whitlow,’ Mom told me. ‘Looks bad that.’ I’d made a linseed poultice to try and bring it on but my thumb was still throbbing like mad, felt about ten times bigger than it should have done and was making me turn feverish and light-headed.

  Breakfast time wasn’t improved by a letter arriving from Eric’s foster mother, Mrs Spenser. I watched Mom read it. The letter had got her out of bed unusually early.

  Behind her Gloria was pumping out Up in the Morning Early, a new exercise to music programme. Mom’s face was stony.

  ‘. . . across . . .’ the woman’s voice chirped on. ‘. . . to the side . . . the left arm . . .’

  ‘The cow!’ Mom erupted, reaching the end. ‘Who the hell does she think she is, telling me what to do about my own son? The nerve!’ I took the letter off her.