Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  ‘Don’t know how you can go gadding about like you do with your dad missing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’ She was worried and frightened about everything I knew, but she wasn’t taking this away from me.

  ‘My mom’s not always the easiest. Specially not that time of a morning. I just thought it’d be better if I came out on my own.’

  Joe leaned up on one elbow. ‘But I must meet her properly some time. It doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘There’s plenty of time for that. Can’t we just enjoy today without bringing her into it?’

  ‘It’s just, the way I feel about you I want everything to be right – with everyone. My mom and dad are happy we’re walking out together and I’d like yours – your mom that is – to be as well. See?’

  ‘I don’t think my mom’s got much idea how to be happy about anything.’

  I must’ve said this in a bleaker voice than I intended because Joe rolled over and took me in his arms. He kissed my face then drew back, eyes searching me. ‘I wish I didn’t keep seeing you look so sad.’

  ‘But I’ve told you, I’m not sad. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my whole life before and that’s thanks to you, Joe.’

  He carried on looking at me for a time and then spoke the words his eyes were already telling me. ‘I really love you, Genie.’

  ‘And I love you more than anyone ever.’

  We held each other so close. All the love I had ready to pour out on someone had found a place to settle.

  ‘I never knew it could be anything like as nice as this,’ I said. Joe’s face looked happy. We kissed again, feeling the sun through closed eyelids.

  That day drifted past in a haze. I had no idea at any point what time it was and I couldn’t have cared less anyway.

  But we couldn’t shut everything out. Late in the afternoon we sat high on the hills looking back towards Birmingham. We had heard planes on and off that afternoon and there were ragged vapour trails across the blue. We had no idea then, but that very day as we sat there, Hitler was giving orders for the invasion of Britain. The first knocks of the Battle of Britain had already begun but it felt far away and unreal then. Gloria had given us news of dogfights over the Channel, the reporter making it all sound like an afternoon’s football match.

  ‘So don’t you know where you’re going next?’ I asked Joe. I sat with my hand on the hard muscle of his thigh. I wanted never not to be touching him.

  ‘I’m not certain. Down south I’d imagine – things are looking bad.’ He never talked very much about the RAF or what it was like. ‘I’d rather forget it all when I’m home with you,’ he said. ‘It’s all too uncertain. Your mind can’t quite take it in.’

  ‘This is the best day of my life.’

  Joe turned to me. ‘So far. Think of it that way.’

  ‘No. The very best ever.’

  ‘Teresa was here,’ Mom said when I got back late. She was drunk as a lord, only less gracious, her voice slurred.

  ‘When – this morning? What’d she want?’

  ‘I don’t know. Didn’t let her in.’

  ‘You what? Why not?’

  ‘Couldn’t face it.’

  I stared at her in disgust, hands on my hips. I could see she was barely awake now.

  ‘Didn’t feel like entertaining your friends at ten o’clock in the morning, if that’s all right with you.’

  Ten o’clock? It must’ve been something urgent for Teresa to have left the shop. I had to go to her, late as it was.

  ‘Where’s Len?’

  Mom gave a nasty laugh, slumped back in the chair, her hair hanging loose. ‘Where d’you think? Over at Molly’s getting his leg over with never a thought.’

  ‘You make me sick,’ I said, heading for the door. ‘Don’t you ever think about anyone except yourself?’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ she shrieked after me childishly. ‘Takes one to know one!’

  Despite the dark I ran most of the way to the Spinis. I felt I’d been woken up roughly from a dream, real life battering its way in at the door again. It was nearly eleven, but I had to see them and there’d be no time the next morning. I ran down the entry and saw there was still light showing downstairs in their house.

  Teresa opened the door cautiously. When she saw it was me she stepped straight out and flung her arms round me.

  ‘They’re safe!’ She was all aquiver with joy even now. Loosing me, she pulled me into the house and it was then I saw she wasn’t alone. Carlo was sitting there with her.

  ‘Mom’s asleep,’ Teresa explained. ‘It was all too much for ’er – she’s hardly had a wink since the ship went down. It all caught up with ’er tonight. Carlo’s stayed on to give me a bit of company.’

  Teresa laid a letter in front of me. ‘Look – from Dad. They’ve been in Sutton Coldfield all this time if you please!’ She laughed and I could hear a touch of hysteria in her voice, the days of pent-up tension only releasing themselves now.

  Micky’s letter was short. It said he and Stevie were in a transit camp which was ‘not very comfortable’ and that he’d been ‘a bit unwell’, whatever that meant. Uncle Matt had been moved on somewhere else a couple of days ago but Micky and Stevie were still waiting. Micky made a joke about holiday camps and sent his love. I felt my eyes prickle with tears when at the end of this short letter, after messages of love to his family, he’d written, ‘and to little Genie’.

  I looked up at Teresa. ‘Oh, thank God.’

  I went to the station with Joe on the Wednesday night, holding tight to every last second with him. Walking tall in his uniform, kitbags on his shoulders, he looked older, and I suddenly felt shy. In such a public spot for farewells as New Street Station it was still possible to find privacy because the place was so crowded, so full of traffic and clamour that it made you feel alone. Service people and their loved ones, people just travelling in civvy street, all of them were wrapped up in their own rush for a train or struggle with an awkward piece of luggage, with their goodbyes.

  Holding Joe’s arm, I passed through the crowds with him, banging against bags and haversacks, arms and shoulders clad in blues and khaki, through the cigarette smoke and shouting, the Tannoyed announcements and the hissing and chunking of other trains moving out, until we found Joe’s. We’d cut it rather fine and Joe looked relieved he hadn’t missed it.

  Saying goodbye was awful. I couldn’t stand it, felt I had to pull back, close in everything I was feeling, not let it wash over me so that it didn’t hurt so much. I found suddenly I had nothing to say, and stood there next to Joe as minutes tore past, desperate for him to stay but incapable of even speaking to him.

  Joe put his bags down and took me by the shoulders. At first I couldn’t look at him.

  ‘Genie – tell me you’ll wait for me? You’ll be here?’

  I shrugged. ‘Course I will. Don’t be so daft.’ I was awkward, angry almost, fighting back tears. All I really cared about would get on that train any minute and disappear to God knows where.

  Poor Joe tried again. ‘I love you, Genie. You do know that, don’t you?’

  I glanced into his eyes, then down at his boots, nodding. The whistle shrieked along the platform.

  ‘This is it then.’ He couldn’t seem to let go of me. ‘I’ll have to get on . . .’

  He bent to pick up his bags and move off. Turning, he said, ‘See you then.’

  The hurt in his eyes sliced through me but I couldn’t seem to move. People were pushing past, scrambling for the carriages, shouting, snatching hurried kisses.

  Joe was throwing his bags through the door, leaving them to the risk of being trampled on by all the boots clattering up and down.

  Straightening up, he turned and his eyes found me again, me standing there all knotted up inside with my arms crossed tightly over my chest.

  ‘Genie!’

  He was going, really going. Another whistle cut the air like a scream.

  ‘Joe. Joe!’

  I tore t
o him, shoving and fighting past people, not caring, and pulled him into my arms, covering his face with kisses, frantic to tell him, to show him. ‘I love you, I love you – I don’t want you to go . . .’

  Joe gave a shuddering laugh of relief, holding me so tight, kissing me back. ‘Thank goodness. My love,’ he called me. His love.

  As the train moved off, I, like lots of other people, ran a few yards with it, kissing his hand through the window, hearing his laughter. My last sights of him were his dark eyes meeting mine, lips blowing a kiss, then his arm with all the other arms like bristles waving out along the train, until I wasn’t sure any more which one was his.

  August 1940

  Joe, my Joe as I thought of him now, was posted up north, while every day the news from Gloria was full of the Battle of Britain. But at the moment, Joe was safe. And as the days went by I discovered he was a letter writer, and he wrote to me as often as he could, every two or three days.

  ‘My dear sweet Genie . . .’ He’d tell me a bit about the routine of the squadron – what he was allowed to tell without too much of the censor’s blue pencil butting in. All day-to-day things. But by the end he always found something else to say – something specially for me. Things he might have been too shy to say to my face. And those bits I’d read again and again until I could remember every word. I’d recite them to myself in my head in the factory or in bed at night, trying to remember his face properly, the feel of him close.

  ‘I never knew what it was to be truly happy until I met you . . . Every day I think of that night I heard you sing . . . I’ll be home to you on the first train when they’ll let me . . . You have taken a piece of my heart from me . . .’

  And I wrote back and found it easier to say on paper what you really think because you don’t feel such a tit doing it. It was just hard to find words for it all, when I wanted to fill the letters with ‘I love you. I love you. Thank you for loving me . . .’

  ‘When I used to work at the pawn shop,’ I wrote to him once, ‘this lady came in one day and passed away in the shop, right in front of me. And there’ve been all the other bad things that’ve happened, like Big Patsy taking his own life, my Dad going missing and my Mom never being happy. And now I’ve got you. I can’t explain this properly – it’ll come out all wrong. But things feel different. It’s not that everything’s all right suddenly of course. But it’s as if before, there were all these bits hanging off. Like a tatty old mop. But now I’ve found the bit that holds them all together, the handle, sort of thing. Are you laughing reading this? I’m just trying to tell you that knowing you’re there makes everything feel hundreds, thousands of times better than all my favourite dreams.’

  Most of the news I told him would be about the factory because they were the people he knew. ‘Nancy knows about us,’ I wrote soon after he’d gone. ‘She’s really got it in for me, but I don’t care.’

  That’s how it was then. Nothing seemed to get through to me, yet at the same time I could afford to be kinder somehow. Which was a good job, because if I hadn’t had the protection of Joe’s love my poor mom would’ve driven me completely round the bend.

  Her emotions were like a big dipper ride, only the dips were a hell of a lot longer and wider than the heights. She was drinking of course. The first drink mellowed her and she could be almost pleasant. Then the slide began. Mainly she was sorry for herself. And angry – with anyone and everyone. Everyone’s life looked rosier than hers.

  One day the post brought a letter from Joe for me that set me singing inside (I didn’t dare sing out loud in front of Mom) and one of the much rarer ones we had from Eric.

  Dear Mom,

  I hope this letter finds you well? I am in good health thank you. I am doing well at school and making progress on the piano. Mrs Spenser says I may be able to start on the violin. Her cat Lucy has had kittens and one is going to be mine.

  Are you and Dad and Genie and Len all keeping well?

  With regards from Eric.

  This made her cry like anything. ‘He didn’t write that himself. She’s just told him what to say – to his own mom! “Regards” – to us! He’s not my little Eric any more. He doesn’t even know about his own dad, but what use is it me telling him anyway?’

  Eric did seem such a long way off, and not just in miles. Mrs Spenser had no kids of her own and was lavishing what she had in the way of middle-class comfort and opportunity on this kid she’d had foisted on her. I suppose we should’ve felt grateful really. But it was nearly a year now, a long time in a lad’s life, and he seemed like a stranger to us.

  But it was Joe’s letters, the smiles they brought to my face, that Mom could stand least of all. She was used to me courting her, needing her to love me and hungering after it, and now I’d turned to someone else.

  That night her despair was terrible. Len sat watching her, his big eyes frightened as Mom got more and more drunk and her tears drew lines of black mascara down her face, which she smudged with her fists. She sat on the edge of her chair, hands clenching and unclenching, crying, sometimes flinging herself back in the chair, jerking about like a child in a tantrum, only much more pitiful for the age of her. I just didn’t know what to do.

  ‘It’s all right for you!’ she yelled at me. She kept saying that, accusing me.

  ‘Why is it all right for me?’ I didn’t dare touch her and I didn’t get any answer. She just mewled and sobbed.

  ‘Wasser matter with ’er, Genie?’ Len said.

  ‘Lenny—’ I spoke as calmly as I could manage. ‘Go and get our Lil, will you?’

  It was late, and I knew as Len plodded off that Lil was going to be anything but pleased, but I was scared of Mom. I couldn’t cope with all this on my own.

  ‘Mom—’ I sat down by her when he’d gone. ‘Look, why don’t you ask to give up work? You’re getting too tired all the time.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she snapped at me, voice thick with drink. ‘Then what’ll I do? Sit here all day?’

  ‘There’s loads to do here. If there was someone at home it’d make things a lot easier. There’s the house, and I’ve no time to shop. The off-ration stuff is all queues and Saturdays’re terrible for that now. It’d be a help to all of us – we mightn’t all be so tired all the time.’

  ‘Huh,’ was all she said, but I did at least feel she was listening. There was a lull, before she started getting all in a state again.

  ‘Where’s your dad? I want him. When’re we ever going to know if he’s coming home or not? You tell me that. I can’t go on like this . . .’

  Wearily I went and set a kettle to boil in the kitchen, partly to get out of her way. When Lil arrived she wasn’t nearly as mardy about it as I’d expected, and she was all dolled up.

  ‘S’all right,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’d only just got in anyhow.’

  ‘Where’ve you been then?’

  Lil took me by surprise by giving me a wink and putting a finger to her lips. ‘That’d be telling. Anyhow, sssh for now.’ She went to Mom. ‘Oh Dor – you can’t go on getting yourself all in a state like this. It’s no good for you or for the babby.’

  Mom cried exhaustedly. ‘I can’t go on,’ she murmured into Lil’s shoulder. ‘I just can’t.’

  Lil looked at me over her head, her eyes troubled. Len stood by the door.

  ‘Ta, Lenny,’ I said. ‘Tell you what, you could take Gloria into the front for a bit, how about that?’

  Relieved, and hugging his beloved wireless to his chest, he escaped, and we heard music drifting through from the other room.

  Lil prised Mom off her and tried to look into her face, though her head was lolling.

  ‘Look, Dor.’ Her voice was sharp now. ‘You’ve got to pull yourself together. You can’t go on like this. You’re making yourself ill.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Mom groaned. ‘Just can’t.’

  ‘You’ve got to. You don’t have a choice. What about the babby? And Genie here?’

  ‘But what about me?’ Mom was wa
iling.

  ‘You’re supposed to be their mom. And there’s Len’s wedding. You can’t just cave in now!’

  The kettle was gushing steam. By the time I’d made tea things’d gone quiet and I went back in to find my mom falling asleep across Lil’s lap, her breath jerky as a sobbing child’s.

  Molly and Len’s wedding arrangements were causing quite a kerfuffle. This was partly because Gladys Bender was making sure they did, quite apart from everything having to be done at such short notice because of it being a wedding with a shotgun pointing at its head.

  Gladys pestered us from morning till night, whenever anyone was in. She’d never in her dreams expected her enormous, not quite all there daughter to find a mate, and now she’d got the chance, Molly was going to be MARRIED, and married with bells on.

  ‘Oh-oh, here she comes again,’ we’d say, seeing Gladys steaming across in her slippers. A door slamming somewhere across the street was enough to send us scuttling to the window to see if we were about to have another lethal dose of her.

  Then she’d be hammering at the door as if we were all deaf, and when we let her in, would often be as red in the face and beady with perspiration as if she’d run a couple of miles to get there. In she’d come, us grimacing at the smells of sweat and disinfectant. We put up with her self-righteous tyranny day after day because we had to: we were Len’s family and he’d got Molly into trouble.

  ‘I thought it’d be right for you to see to all the food afterwards,’ she announced. This was half past seven one morning. ‘Since I’ve got my hands full and there are more of you with a wage coming in like. And I’ve got all the trouble of the dress and Molly to look after in her condition . . .’

  ‘Well, she is your daughter,’ Mom snapped. ‘And it takes two, doesn’t it?’

  There’s the pot calling the kettle black, I thought. Felt like saying to Gladys, I’ve got one to look after an’ all.