by Annie Murray
‘Go on – you can tell Teresa. What’s got you worked up into this state all of a sudden?’
‘It’s Mom. None of it’s how it looks. She doesn’t really want my dad back because she’s having a babby and it’s not his.’ I told her all about it then, spilt it out, about Bob coming to our house in the winter and how he took to his heels as soon as he knew she was expecting. ‘Mom’s scared about my dad coming home and him finding out. She’s been in a state for ages . . .’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Teresa said. ‘Oh my God, Genie, that’s terrible. Your poor, poor dad.’
‘Promise you won’t say anything to anyone,’ I begged her. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you really, only I couldn’t help it. You won’t, will you?’
‘Of course not. On my life.’
She let me cry myself out and eventually we settled down to sleep, with her curled round behind my back. She felt warm and comforting and she wasn’t bossing me, wasn’t after anything like Jimmy. Lying there with her was the best, warmest feeling I’d had in a long time.
I was at work the morning Mom saw a man in army uniform move into view in front of our window, then stop, looking up at the house. Her legs turned to jelly. She was sure at once it was Dad. ‘Even though I could see it wasn’t,’ she said later. ‘I couldn’t move. I was convinced it was him. I mean who else would it be? But he was the wrong height and everything.’
Another person stepped into the picture, a neighbour, who spoke to the man, who then came to our front door. Mom opened it, shaking. She saw a face with thick black eyebrows and a grubby khaki uniform.
‘Are you Doreen Watkins?’ To her nodding he announced, ‘My name’s Dickie Carter. Army pal of your ’usband’s.’
Mom asked him in, gibbering questions. She made tea and sandwiches.
‘Didn’t know if I’d find him ’ere,’ Dickie said. ‘We promised each other, whoever got home first, we’d go and see each other’s missis and let ’em know.’ He ate the bread ravenously. ‘I ain’t got back over to my missis yet but I sent a message, and she knows I’m on my way.’
‘So – Victor’s coming home?’ Mom asked. Dickie must have seen a white, stricken face in front of him.
He nodded, chewing away. ‘Last time I saw ’im ’e was about a mile from the beach. Not far at all. But see, it was chaos at the time – pandemonium. All sorts of stuff blocking the road, lorries and that, things going off all round us . . .’ Dickie carefully didn’t give us all the details he might have done about the bodies of men and horses in the road. We heard about that later. ‘Any rate, I never saw ’im after that. Thing was though, we was so close. We ’ad to walk a couple of miles along the beach. Bloody ’ard going across that soft sand and we was all in after the miles we’d come already. There were lines of blokes everywhere so it’d have been easy to miss ’im. Somehow we never caught up with each other again. I reckon ’e’d’ve got to a boat though. Not much doubt about it. There was all sorts of stuff coming in to get us out.’
‘You haven’t see him though – over here?’
‘No, I ain’t, but that don’t mean ’e’s not ’ere. There’s blokes being sent about all over the place. I came through Reading but ’e could’ve gone anywhere else. But I reckon ’e’ll be back.’
When he’d eaten and drunk as much as was on offer, Dickie set off to go back to his missis. ‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Watkins,’ he told Mom. ‘’E’ll turn up sooner or later.’
‘I don’t understand it, Genie,’ Mom said to me. ‘If he was back over here, he’d’ve got a message to us, wouldn’t he? Or written a letter. He was always writing letters.’
She was like a Jumping Jack. The slightest sound and she was at the front door to see if it was him coming. There was nothing could be done to set her mind at rest. She didn’t turn up for work again and they were already getting browned off with her being so irregular. She was a bag of nerves. Seeing Dickie, a real live returner from Dunkirk, she was now convinced Dad must be on his way.
When I got home from Broadbent’s and heard the news I was excited. I wanted my dad home, whatever mess Mom had got herself in. I wanted him fair and square. By the time I got in she’d obviously been at the port bottle and wasn’t quite steady on her feet.
‘I can’t stand this waiting,’ she said. Her cheeks were an unnatural, shiny pink.
‘Let’s go to Nan’s.’ I couldn’t cope with her here on my own all evening.
‘What if he comes back when we’re out?’
‘He’ll guess where we are. It’s got to be better than just sitting here.’
On the way she insisted on calling in at the Outdoor for ale. ‘Mom and Lil’d like a drink I s’pect,’ she said.
Nanny Rawson and Lil were all agog hearing about the appearance of Dickie Carter. Another Dunkirk survivor had come home to Belgrave Road, everyone crowding round to hear the tale he had to tell, and we were still waiting for our family hero. Mom had to repeat the details at least three times.
‘Is Uncle Victor coming home then?’ Tom asked.
‘We hope so,’ I said.
Mom was already the worse for drink by the time we got there and she kept on tipping it back as the evening wore on. Nanny Rawson was full of an indignant tale about an unusual customer she’d had in the shop that day. She sat with her stocky legs stretched out, leaning down to rub her injured knee as she spoke.
‘She stopped outside in a great big car. Come in ’ere with five pound wanting to buy up all the sugar. Told me she came from Henley-in-Arden if you please.’ Nan laughed. ‘Voice like a glass chandelier.’
‘D’you give it to her?’ Lil asked.
‘Hadn’t a lot to give her. But she was prepared to pay well over the odds.’ Nan shook her head, laughing suddenly. ‘She was wearing a fox fur stole. Beautiful it was. Must have wondered where the ’ell she’d found herself when she came in ’ere.’
‘The nerve though,’ Lil said. ‘They think they can just buy anything, some of ’em.’
Mom was knocking back the beer and Len was eyeing up Nanny’s little wireless set. ‘Can we ’ave it on?’ he said hopefully. It may not’ve been Gloria, but in his eyes it was better than nothing.
‘No,’ Nan said. ‘We’ll make our own music tonight. Lil and I did a spot down at the Eagle last night and it cheered us up no end. Run up and get my squeeze box, Patsy. Otherwise we’ll forget how to do it.’
Patsy clomped up the bare wood of the stairs in his heavy Mail charity boots and hairy socks to Nan’s bedroom where she kept the squeeze box. We all sat round, the house seeming almost spacious now there were no Flanagans hurtling about. Tom sat close to me on the couch, Lil next to us with Cathleen asleep across her lap, looking angelic enough now her eyes were closed. Len joined in the singing with unpredictable shouts. All Nan’s old favourites.
‘I wish you could come and live with us, Auntie Genie,’ Tom said to me. ‘Here – d’you want to see my marbles? I swapped ’em with Wilf at school.’
‘Go on then.’
Tom showed me five scratched marbles. He was pleased as anything. ‘He collects cards so I give him the ones I had off Auntie Doreen.’
Mom gave her cigarette cards to Tom now Eric wasn’t here. Mrs Spenser was paying for Eric to have piano lessons. He lived in another world.
I cuddled Tom to me as Nan’s fingers leapt across the keys of her squeeze box, oom-pa-pa, oom-pa-pa.
Mom got up, said she was going to the lav. Her face was sickly white and she couldn’t walk in a straight line. Lil was saying, ‘Steady on, Dor. How much’ve you had tonight?’
She got as far as the door and leaned up against it, faint, saying, ‘You’d better get me a bucket,’ but it was too late and she was bent over pouring her guts up into the yard, making little moaning sounds in between.
Lil and Nan got her inside and sat her on the couch with a bowl.
‘Len!’ Nanny ordered. ‘Get a bucket of water and wash down the yard.’
‘What’s the matter with Aunt
ie Doreen?’ Tom asked me, and at the same time Lil was on at me saying, ‘How much did she have before you came out?’
‘I dunno exactly,’ I said. ‘She had a bit of port I think.’
‘More than a bit by the looks of it.’ Mom was lying back on the couch now, head lolling.
‘I’ll make her a cuppa tea,’ Nan said. ‘The state she’s in I don’t know as you’ll get her home tonight.’ She went over and put the kettle on the heat. We could hear Len sloshing water about outside.
Clarys’ face appeared round the door. ‘Everything awright, is it Edith? Only I saw Doreen looking ever so poorly.’
Lil marched over to the door. ‘Everything’s tickety-boo, ta, and if it wasn’t, you poking your nose in wouldn’t make it any better, would it, so why don’t you just go in and get on with your knitting?’
Clarys retreated in a huff.
‘No call to be so rude,’ Nan said, spooning tea. ‘We’ve still got to live with her tomorrow.’
‘Nosy bitch,’ Lil was muttering.
Len came back in and switched the wireless on as if to say he deserved it after that charming job. Music streamed out. Glenn Miller, ‘In the Mood’. Mom was asleep, snoring. I was ashamed of her.
‘She been bad again this week?’ Nanny asked me.
I nodded.
‘She’s bound to be, what with the babby and the worry,’ Lil said. ‘And if Victor’s coming home any minute . . .’
‘She’s not going to be able to keep it in the family much longer,’ Nan said, advancing on Mom with a cup of black tea. ‘She always shows early.’
‘Let her sleep it off,’ Lil suggested. ‘She can stay here.’
‘She needs summat on her stomach.’
I felt frightened watching my nan sit Mom up, saw her flop as if she was dead, head rolling forwards, unable to open her eyes.
‘Give us a hand.’
Lil went over as well. Patsy, Tom and I stood watching, the other side of the table. Lil held Mom’s head as Nanny tried to force some of the tea down her. She spluttered and dribbled and murmured, ‘Hot.’ Eventually, after tipping tea into the saucer and back a few times, they got her to drink some before she subsided back on to the couch. She looked terrible. I felt tears come into my eyes. My life felt like a mirror that had been shattered. I just wanted my dad to come back and make everything all right.
No sign of him. It was a terrible week. The women at Broadbent’s tutted round me, and about me.
No one spoke the worst but I knew they were thinking it. If he’s not home by now he must be dead. Surely. It couldn’t have taken this long?
At home the strain of living with Mom took its toll. She was falling to pieces and I wasn’t far from it myself.
‘It’s not knowing,’ she sobbed one evening. ‘I just can’t stand not knowing whether he’s alive or dead. I just want to get it over with one way or the other. But they’d tell me if he was dead, wouldn’t they? There’d be a letter or a telegraph.’
I still clung to my hope that he was alive, maybe in hospital.
She couldn’t get through the days without drinking. She still managed to get to work – slept it off in the morning. But as soon as she was home she’d go straight to it. She started on what she had in the house – that bottle of port. But it wasn’t long before that was gone and she had to buy more, gin this time, downing it quick, with tears, not pleasure. But at least she was still drinking it nicely then, out of a glass. She’d say, ‘Oh – that’s better,’ and plonk herself down, half gone with drink and tiredness, and just sit there until it was time for bed.
It was a lonely life, even with the kindness of the women at work, of the Spinis. Len was barely ever in in the evenings now, either because of work or Molly. He’d slope in and have his meal, and on these warm, sultry evenings he and Molly took off until after dark. Never said where. They must have gone and walked in the parks, gas masks and all. I found myself missing Len’s presence even though it was a relief not having him and Molly in the house together.
I was left with Gloria for company. Hi Gang! Garrison Theatre, Band Waggon. Without them I might have gone off my head in those days when part of my mind was always listening for a bang at the front door, for Dad’s voice in the hall.
But it didn’t come. Still didn’t come.
A few little notices started to appear in the Birmingham Mail. They tore at your heart. Did anyone have information about . . . ? Know the whereabouts of . . . ? People’s sons, brothers, husbands, who had not, as hoped, walked in off a train from the coast and Dunkirk. Mom put one in. It was peculiar seeing his name, Victor James Watkins, in the paper like that. As if he was just another name, nothing to do with us.
While we were waiting, a whole new lot of trouble broke out. On 10 June, Italy declared war on Hitler’s side and suddenly no one was supposed to like Italians any more. The papers had already stirred that one up, as Micky had shown me. Now the headlines were screaming, ‘INTERN THE LOT!’
I went straight to see them that evening. The house was full of people, the older ones sitting on the available chairs, the others all standing round. Vera’s family, except for her mom, two other elderly men, a woman with thick black hair swept back in a bun, her arm round Vera’s shoulder, and some younger men including Fausto Pirelli. All the talk was in Italian. Bottles of Micky’s wine and tumblers stood on the table.
‘You all right, Genie?’ Teresa asked.
I nodded.
Vera took my hand for a moment and squeezed it. Her face looked strained. ‘Any news?’
The other woman was watching me, her dark face serious. ‘Her father’s missing in France,’ Vera told her.
The woman tutted, shaking her head. ‘A terrible thing – I ’ope you have better news soon, darlin’. Don’t lose ’ope. You must always have ’ope.’
It was hot and airless in the room. Normally they’d have kept the door open but that night it was closed, maybe because they felt safer that way. The air was full of cigarette smoke and loud talk. Stevie was over by Micky looking solemn and grown up. Teresa and I stood by the door.
‘Should I go?’ I whispered to her.
‘No, course not. You’re all right.’ She put her mouth closer to my ear. ‘They’re worried. They think people will be arrested.’
‘But there’s no one here who’d do any harm, surely?’
She shrugged. ‘Even today at work someone made a nasty remark about my name. I suppose I’m Italian now whether I like it or not.’ She sounded bewildered more than upset.
Suddenly Fausto leaned over the table, raising one of the thick glasses half full of red wine. His sharp-featured face looked quite bonkers, I thought, eyes blazing with fanaticism and the effects of the drink. The men round him, Micky included, all started shouting at him at once, telling him, so far as I could make out, to shut up.
But Fausto wasn’t going to shut up. He lifted the glass even higher, slopping some of the wine on the head of a bloke sitting next to him. ‘Viva l’Italia!’ he shouted. ‘Viva il Duce!’
Two of the younger men, one an uncle of Teresa’s, moved in and took Fausto by the shoulders, forcing him towards the door.
‘What did he say?’ I hissed at Teresa.
‘Long live Mussolini,’ she said without turning her head, too busy watching what was going on. ‘Dad’s not going to have that. Fausto’s such a bloody idiot. Doesn’t spare a thought for anyone else.’
Micky pushed his chair back and stood up. He talked so well with his hands that I didn’t need to understand the rest. Get him out of my house. Out. Now. D’you want to get us all arrested?
Fausto was led out of the house by two of the men. As they stumbled past the window we could see his mouth was still going.
That night, Teresa told me, there was a loud hammering on the Spinis’ door. Micky went down, pulling on his trousers. The rest of them listened, frightened, at the top of the stairs.
‘Micky?’ It was a neighbour. ‘’Fraid you got some trouble
out the front, mate. Someone’s broke your windows.’
They all went out, except Giovanna and Luke who stayed asleep, and stood in the street in their night-clothes staring at the shattered front window of the shop, the big hole in the glass with jagged splinters round it. Stevie was cursing, Francesca crying. Vera stood with her hands on Tony’s shoulders in silence.
‘We should have stayed in the Quarter,’ she said, shaking. ‘Then at least we’d all have been together.’
Micky didn’t say much, just kept running his hand through his hair.
‘It might have been someone trying to break in?’ Teresa suggested. ‘Or kids?’
‘No. We know why it is.’ Micky’s voice was quiet, but angry. ‘I don’t know what to think. I suppose we get it glazed again tomorrow. But maybe now this is going to happen every night? We’re in the wrong camp, even if we have spent most of our lives here. We’re the enemy all of a sudden.’
There were to be no more church bells. No more of the usual pattern of chimes across the Sunday city. Only if we were invaded. That was to be the warning.
The Germans were closing in round Paris. It was over a week now since the evacuation of Dunkirk ended and we hadn’t heard anything. Our newspaper clipping about Dad was starting to go yellow at the edges.
Mom was having to wear her loosest clothes already, though she could still easily get by as not being pregnant. But being a skinny woman she did show early. She put her hand to her stomach a lot. Her face was permanently sullen and sulky as if life had cheated her. Of everything.
The day after Italy declared war, she went out into the garden in the evening. She’d only had one glass of port so far. That performance at Nanny Rawson’s had brought her up a bit sharp. ‘I’ll have to watch myself.’ I went out and found Mom staring at the sky, the last bronze light on ‘our’ barrage balloon. From inside we could hear Gloria playing ‘When You Wish upon a Star’. Mom was standing sideways on to me and I thought I could see the little bulge of the baby growing inside her.
