Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  ‘I hope they get you—’ Through my tears I screamed at the sky. ‘Come on you stupid Jerry bastards – come and get this one!’

  They were overhead, the planes, but I just kept running. This area was a favourite of theirs of course. They thought a lot of the factories were here instead of on ‘shadow’ sites like Castle Bromwich. They were after the BSA – Birmingham Small Arms – the big munitions factory which made motorbikes in peacetime. They’d already hit it but they were back for more. Looking up through my tears, I saw planes pass black in front of the moon. That wave of bombs fell over to my left, further north. It sounded as if there were a lot of them out tonight.

  I tore along Brunswick Road. Thank God for Shirl, I thought again. If she’d not been there I’d have been too late. I dragged my hands impatiently across my wet eyes. There was no more time for emotion.

  The house was dark of course, like all the others. There was no point in banging on the door so I ran to the side gate, struggling with the latch, caught my sleeve on the fence and then stumbled down the garden. There were more planes and the whistle and crunching boom of the explosions. Even before I got to the shelter one came down very near and I threw myself down, curled up. The ground snatched under me and the sky lit up. I heard glass breaking.

  ‘Shirl. Shirl!’ I yelled. ‘Get the door open for me!’

  She couldn’t hear me over the racket. They’d be worried about me. Head down I covered the last few yards, pulled the front off the Anderson and flung myself in. To find it empty and dark.

  There should have been matches but nothing was there. I felt around every inch of the floor but couldn’t find them. It was pitch black.

  ‘Damn! Damn you, Shirl. Where are you? Why aren’t you all out here?’

  I felt my way up on to one of the seats and perched on the edge, once more boiling over with anger and frustration. Did I have to do everything? And I wanted Mister, the distraction of comforting him in my lap and being able to think about him and Mom instead of my own skin.

  The shelter seemed to close in round me. I had a picture of it in my mind as a flimsy bubble, thin enough to give off rainbows in the sun, out here under all the bombs. I didn’t like being alone in the dark. I pulled my legs up, resting my heels on the edge of the berth and curled tight, hugging my knees.

  When it lets up a bit I’m going in, I thought. Couldn’t do it now, it’d take too long to move Mom. She couldn’t just run down the garden like the rest of us. I wondered where Len was. Maybe he was at Molly’s and Shirl hadn’t been able to manage on her own?

  I lost track of time. I wasn’t sure exactly when I’d left Nan’s – I guessed it had been about half six – or how long I’d been in the shelter. Seemed like hours. I couldn’t keep my mind on anything but how scared I was, because it was all too much, much worse on your own. My mind did something it’d done before during the worst raids, it sort of closed down until I was repeating just one word: Please, please, please . . .

  One came down very near. The ground shook and I pulled my head tight on to my knees, hearing myself moan with fright. Clifton Road at the back, it sounded like, though the noise could mislead you. I was thinking who did we know, did we know anyone in Clifton . . .?

  I didn’t hear it coming, not that one. Just knew one minute I was sat there, the next I was choking, buried, my mouth and nose full of soil, earth over me, terrible the close fit of it, buried alive. Every muscle of my body was clenched in a mad, fighting panic, wrenching and twisting, spitting, coughing, savage with desperation for a clear unclogged breath. In a second I found I could move, so it wasn’t a deep cover. Clawing with my hands, I felt air above and I fought my way out, hawking and spitting, feeling the soil crunch between my teeth, the horrible thick plugs of it in my nose and its tightness on my face, weighing down my lashes.

  The door of the shelter had been blown right inside and was jammed in at a tilt, so I had to crawl past it to get out, forcing my shoulders out into the garden.

  The next thing I remember was running up and down the street under an orange sky, not knowing what I was doing. A warden loomed from the shadows yelling at me, ‘Get under cover! For God’s sake get in!’

  ‘Our house—’ I stood pointing, lost. It only took one look from him. He steered me to a doorway. ‘You can’t hang about. Got anywhere to go?’

  And then I was tearing along the Moseley Road again, a road that had seen so many ordinary days, ducking in and out of doorways as the sky seemed to tear apart above me.

  We were down there as soon as the All Clear sounded, even though it was still dark, holding on to each other, Nan, Lil and me, braced for the sight.

  They were working on our house. The air was full of dust which coated the inside of your mouth and once more there was the queasy-making smell of gas, but today we noticed these things only in the very far back of our minds. Morning dawned slowly, the colour of an old net curtain, and with the light more and more people came out into the road, watching and murmuring to each other. An ambulance waited near by.

  We stood in silence. There was nothing to say. We had long ago done the things we could do: called at the Benders’ house; no, no Len. He’d stayed home. Lil, the only one of us who could function at all, ran, jumping the hoses, to one of the wardens and grabbed at his sleeve. He listened, shaking his head. Couldn’t tell her anything. Not yet.

  As we stood there with Gladys and Molly a nurse with red hair came to us from the ambulance, seeing who we must be, and spoke to us in a reverent sort of voice. ‘Maybe it’s better if you don’t watch. It can be distressing. Would you like to come and wait over here?’

  But we couldn’t move, shook our heads dumbly. Cups of tea were given us by people whose faces we didn’t even see. I didn’t remember drinking except suddenly I was holding an empty cup, until someone took it away. I heard Molly sobbing.

  It took a long, long time, eyes straining, listening to the grunts and shouts of the rescuers, feet crunching on glass and rubble, sometimes the noise of a saw or drill on the cold morning air. And we could do nothing except stand and wait.

  ‘Quiet!’ The man who seemed to be in charge of the team eventually waved his hands. ‘I need quiet. I can hear something.’ Silence came down like a chopper. We all strained our ears and heard tiny mewling noises from somewhere in the wreckage. The men looked at each other. I knew as soon as they did that that wasn’t a human sound. It was a dog – Mister, alive somewhere in all that. My spirits lifted for a second. But what about the others? What about Mom, Len, Shirl? What we all wanted to hear, what we yearned for from the depths of our being, was to hear their voices crying for help so we knew they were alive. But apart from Mister’s frantic scratching and whining, there was nothing to hear from inside, just quiet. Deathly quiet.

  They brought Shirl out first, covering her bloodied face with a sheet. We couldn’t see the rest of her. I gripped Lil’s hand. There was no need to ask if she was dead. With each body they brought out, so carefully, so painstakingly, a ripple, that low murmuring sound passed through the scattering of people, a sound of horror and sympathy, a long, wordless, human breath.

  Mom was next. It took them some time to bring her out. They did their best for us, closing ranks, their backs to us as they arranged on the stretcher the parts of her they had salvaged, shielding her, and us, before they could decently cover her. They didn’t look at us as they carried her away. Nan’s hand came up and clasped over her mouth and stayed there, her eyes fixed on the house as they carried her children out. She didn’t move. She was waiting for Len.

  They had to move more rubble from the brown, crumbling heap that was our house. Mister didn’t let up whining. Some of our things were scattered in the road, looking small, dirty and humiliating. Scattered bits of furniture, shreds of a chair cover, the mantel clock with its glass shattered rolled out into the road, pink-backed playing cards turning over in the breeze. Shirl’s black bag. Oh Shirl.

  Len’s fleshy, schoolboy body was soaked in
blood. When she saw them bring him, Molly threw herself forward, taking the rescue team by surprise, falling on him, a great howl coming from her that seemed to crack the air apart. ‘Len – Lenny – my Len – no-o-o-o-o.’ She kissed him again and again and came up with blood on her face as they prised her away, belly shaking with sobs. Gladys drew her into her arms, her child with child.

  When they brought Len to the ambulance Nan walked forwards, pulling her coat round her. Lil and I followed.

  ‘It’s better if you don’t—’ the nurse started to say.

  Nan held up a hand to stop her. ‘It’s awright, love, I’m not going to make any fuss. Just give me a minute – there’s no harm.’

  She pulled the sheet back and looked at him. Len’s eyes were half open, his face cut by glass but not disfigured.

  ‘Good lad.’ She ran her rough hand over his matted hair. ‘You’ve been a good’un, Len. A good son.’ She gave him a last, long look, then covered his face again and started walking away.

  ‘Mom.’ Lil took her arm. Nan’s eyes were glassy. She was in shock, we all were. ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘Home. There’s nowt to stay ’ere for, is there?’

  ‘I’ve got to stay,’ I said. ‘For the dog.’

  Mister was freed shortly after from the cupboard under the stairs and he tore out still yapping hysterically. When I called to him he rushed into my arms in convulsions of quivering, and licked my face. It was only then my own legs started trembling, and it was all I could do to stay standing.

  Later that day there was a knock at Nan’s door. It was Mr Tailor. His house was still up.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said to Lil. ‘Sorry what’s happened, and for barging in on you like this. Only they found this – under the stairs, so it’s kept safe. I thought you’d like to ’ave it before some bugger nicks it.’

  In his arms was Gloria, plus accumulator, without a scratch on her.

  ‘The King’s ’ere,’ Mr Tailor said as he went. ‘Walking round town. Come to see the damage, I s’pose.’

  We laid Gloria on the table. Nan sat by her, stroked her hand over the dusty veneer. Slowly, lovingly, she touched the knobs. Then she laid her head on her arms and wept.

  I was ill after that and the days disappeared. My throat was so painful I could hardly even stand to swallow water. It must have been all the soil and muck I’d had in my mouth, and I had a very high temperature and delirium. A lot of the time I couldn’t remember what had happened in a direct way, but all the sensations and dreams wrapped in that hot, twisting fever were threatening, sometimes shapeless, sometimes clear, always awful.

  In one of my dreams Mom was back in our house as it had been. She was speaking to me and I knew what she was saying was the last thing I’d ever hear her say, but however much she strained and forced her slack mouth to shout, she couldn’t make me hear her. I sweated with concentration trying to remember the last living thing my mother would say but I always failed.

  There was another dream. Again I was in our house. Pieces of my mother were lying in a chaotic jigsaw puzzle round the rooms and I had to put them together before – before what I didn’t know. Before it was too late – for something. I ran from room to room picking up an arm here, a hand or foot there. I had to save her. The horror of the dream was knowing all the time I wasn’t going to make it. Once when I dreamed that dream it was Joe, not my mother, whose limbs were lying scattered.

  Again and again I woke trying to scream, my throat a ring of fire, and Lil would come to me, trying to quiet me, her hand cool on my forehead. Day and night I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.

  I don’t know how my nan got through those days. I was so sick, and it was Lil who held on, who was strong for us all. She knew bereavement, perhaps knew how to survive.

  ‘It’s all right, Genie love.’ She held me all the times as I mumbled out, feverish, all the things I blamed myself for. Kept going on about Shirl, Shirl’s dad.

  ‘None of this is your fault, love. None of it. The only person to blame for all this is Adolf bloody Hitler. That’s who’s the cause of all of it. You stop blaming yourself. You’ve been a really good kid and no one could’ve done more than you. You’ve just got to get yourself better now.’

  The fever left me and I lay in bed weak and thin as tissue paper, looking round at the bare walls where Tom and Patsy slept when they were here. I barely had the strength to move and my throat still felt as if I’d been gargling with gravel.

  ‘Look.’ Lil came in one day carrying a card. ‘From Victor – from your dad.’

  She held it in front of my eyes. A card from a POW camp addressed to Mom. His health was good, it said. At the bottom he sent ‘Best regards to yourself, Genie, Eric, Len, Edith, Lil and the rest. Happy Christmas. Yours ever, Victor.’

  I looked up at Lil. ‘Of course he doesn’t know. We’ll have to tell him.’

  She looked away out of the window, her eyes very sad. ‘Yes we will. Poor old Victor.’

  Teresa came and her face in the doorway looked scooped out and deathly white.

  ‘You better, Genie?’

  ‘Think so, ta.’ I hid my trembling hands under the covers. ‘Bit wobbly still.’

  ‘Your nan says d’you want a drink?’

  ‘In a bit. What’s up?’ I pulled myself up on one elbow, disturbed by the way Teresa looked.

  She sat on my bed. ‘Stevie’s home.’ Her voice broke up and she spread her hands over her face, distraught. Only after a few moments she managed to say, ‘Dad’s dead.’

  ‘Your dad – dead?’

  She lowered her hands despairingly. ‘They didn’t even bother to let us know. Probably didn’t think a wop traitor was worth it.’ I’d never heard such hate in her voice before. ‘They just sent Stevie out to do it for them.’

  ‘When, Teresa? What happened?’

  ‘Stevie says a fortnight ago. He caught pneumonia. No one’d do anything, although Stevie went on and on at them – said Dad’s lungs were already bad and he needed attention. They didn’t get him to hospital until it was already too late.’ She thumped her fist on the bed, her face twisted with anger. ‘No one was there when he died. None of us. Not even Stevie.’

  ‘Oh God, Teresa. I’m so sorry.’ I thought of Nonna Amelia’s death, all the family waiting to hand her gently into it. And Micky so much younger, shouldn’t have died at all. Micky who was told the Mother of God would catch him when he fell.

  Teresa wiped her red eyes. ‘I’ve been to see you before but you was too poorly. You looked really bad.’

  ‘Felt it.’

  ‘I’m sorry – your mom, Lenny . . . It’s terrible, Genie.’

  I nodded. ‘Your dad, Teresa – he was good to me.’

  ‘I know. I knew when he’d gone – what I’d missed. And then when I got to know Carlo properly I started wanting to know all about his life over there, Dad’s childhood, his mom and that. I used to get fed up with him trying to tell me – I was so arrogant. I thought, when he gets back I’ll be able to ask him . . .’ She trailed off, wiping her eyes. ‘Oh, what’s the use?’

  She shifted closer and we put our arms round each other.

  ‘God, Genie, you’re skinny!’

  ‘I can feel your bones too.’

  We rested our cheeks together.

  ‘When Carlo and I get married, will you be my bridesmaid?’

  I squeezed her. ‘Course I will.’

  I stayed in just about all the time, mostly up in my room, often lying on the lumpy bed but not asleep, not exactly awake, but in a weak, dreamlike state brought on by my illness. When I thought about moving I had to concentrate hard to make an arm move or a leg. Mister often came and lay on my bed to keep me company and I liked his warm weight by my feet.

  Now and then I found the strength to go down, even outside. But people stared, and once I had Clarys bitching at me in the yard. ‘I hope you ’aven’t brought your bombs with you.’ People believed that, that the bombs followed you. Not that we
were having much in the way of bombing at the moment anyhow. But I stayed in. It was freezing out. Now and then I sat down by the fire, Mister at my feet. I switched Gloria on, stroked her sometimes. She was all that was left of home as it had been.

  Lil and Nan were just getting on with it. Keeping going. The shop opened, the jobs got done, Nan’s hair was suddenly almost white, the skin looser on her face. Lil too looked very haggard, but everyone was gentle. We knew we were all we had.

  Now I’d surfaced I started to remember other things. That it was nearly Christmas for one. And that Lil had lost Frank. She never mentioned him, just came and went, looking after me and Cathleen like an angel. She even tried to decorate the house up a bit for the season.

  ‘What’re you going to do, Lil?’ I asked her, watching her hang snippets of holly on the mantel. I was huddled in my nightdress and a coat by the fire. ‘You going back to the factory?’

  She stood back to eye up her decoration. ‘No.’ I saw her chin come out, determined. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I may not be able to have Frank, but one thing I’ve got out of all this is that shop. I was doing well at it – got a bit of a flair for it.’

  ‘But Lil, is it real? It looked like a big con, that lady thinking the egg-holders were the Alps and that?’

  ‘Depends on your attitude,’ Lil said seriously. ‘Course you can trick people. Tell ’em any old rot. But there’s a skill to the cards and the palm reading and the rest. You can use your instinct. Really try and feel your way into a person, who they are. I can do it – I know I can. People trust me. Sort of open up to me. I’m going to keep the lease and make a go of it. Make it nice inside with a little grotto for the crystal ball and the palm readings. I’ve coped on my own before and I can do it again.’ She grinned at me suddenly. ‘Not as if Frank’s the only bloke in the world, is it?’