Birmingham Blitz

by Annie Murray

  She frowned then. ‘Why aren’t you opening your letters, Genie?’

  Our post came redirected now, from the old house.

  ‘Letter. There’s only been one.’

  ‘Well – one then?’

  I shrugged, looking down, pulling the old brown coat close over my knees. ‘Don’t, Lil.’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I’d thought he’d stopped writing. I was glad. It was over. But then this other one had come.

  Lil knelt down in front of me, staring up into my face. ‘You loved him, Genie. Don’t shake your head at me. It was clear as anything.’

  I stood up, pushing her away, my throat aching with tears.

  ‘I told you, I don’t want to talk about it. You don’t know what you’re on about. Just leave it.’

  I went up to bed again, swallowing hard, Mister following me, his claws loud on the wood stairs.

  We got ready for Christmas out of habit, even though there was nothing to celebrate except the lack of bombing. The night air had been a lot quieter lately. You could sleep right through if habit allowed you. Preparing for Christmas was a way of remaining steady, keeping some of the normal things going when the rest had been smashed apart.

  Nan ran the shop, accepted people’s condolences and put up with blokes coming and going to mend Morgan’s roof. Morgan was desperate to get back his access to a private place away from his elderly mom as soon as possible and he kept coming and eyeing up the work, demanding to know how many days it would take. It was a sign of how things were that Nan made not a murmur. Even the thought of Morgan creeping back and forth had suddenly become a sign of longed for normality.

  We didn’t speak about Mom or Len much. We all knew what had happened to Mom and no one wanted to bring it out in the open. It was too terrible. Nan hadn’t even been able to see her at the end. In secret shame I wondered how Mom’s life would’ve gone on if she’d lived. Would I have kept finding her eyeing up the gas oven until one day she finished it that way for good?

  Instead of talking about Len, we talked of Molly. She was heartbroken, poor thing.

  ‘We’ll have to give her any help we can,’ Nan said. ‘After all, I’m the babby’s grandmother, aren’t I?’ It was clear to see that if there was ever a little babby going to be swamped with doting nans, this would be the one.

  On Christmas Eve we sat round the fire, Nan and Lil drinking hot toddies. Cathleen, full of excitement, was allowed up late and the rest of us were doing our best for her, although I could tell Lil was low. She and Cathleen were missing the boys and it’d really hit home tonight. She’d sent parcels for them out to Leek and was toying with the idea of bringing them home.

  ‘It’s not over yet,’ Nan said, swirling her drink round to cool it. ‘Now you’ve sent them you might as well wait till it’s safe for ’em – even if it is his aunt. She’s good to them by all accounts, and you don’t want Tom all worked up again.’

  ‘So you don’t think I was all wrong sending them?’

  ‘No. Even if your reasons were dodgy at the time.’

  ‘I do hope they’re all right,’ Lil fretted.

  ‘They sound it. Sure you don’t want a drop of this, Genie?’ Nan offered.

  ‘No ta.’ I stuck to tea. Mom’d given me a horror of drink. I’d have signed the pledge the way I felt about it. And I still wasn’t well. I felt feverish again tonight, turning hot and cold, my hands shaking so I could only just control the cup.

  ‘Look at the state of her,’ Lil said. ‘You poor kid.’

  I tried to give her a smile.

  We had carol singers round, kids mostly, and stood outside the front door listening, door closed because of the blackout. Their feet crunched on the frost and I was shivering.

  ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ they sang, not quite in tune but well enough to make you fill up. Made me think of those stories of the last war – the Christmas truces, carols floating across the trenches. How blooming peculiar the world was.

  The singing brought our emotions to the surface and we couldn’t stand much of it. We gave them a couple of coppers to get rid of them. We hadn’t sung together at all. Not without Mom and Len. Back inside we were all quiet, full of that swell of emotion that Christmas brings, but for each of us this time, an unbearable amount worse. It brought us up against all we’d lost. I knew everyone was thinking of it.

  In the end Lil said, ‘You’re going to have to take her place now, Genie. Should we sing, Mom?’

  We both looked at Nan. Her jaw tensed. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t think so. Not yet.’

  We got Cathleen ready for bed, eyes still bright with excitement, like a Christmas angel herself in her little nightdress. I thought of how she used to sleep in her raggedy vest and bloomers before the war when times had been so hard for Lil.

  ‘You get off to sleep now,’ Lil and I told her. ‘Or Father Christmas won’t come.’ Lil had bought her a puzzle and a cheap little ornament, a mermaid with a shiny blue tail. She was going to love it.

  On the way down from saying goodnight to her I came over dizzy and had to sit down quick to stop myself falling downstairs. Lil looked at me anxiously.

  ‘You’re not right yet, are you? Nowhere near.’

  ‘No. I feel pretty bad. I’m going to turn in too.’

  I lay in the dark feeling the fever come over me in hot waves, shivering one minute, pushing the covers off the next, sea-tides of hot and cold pushing me back and to. Thoughts seemed to clang into my mind harder than usual, chopped up, distorted by fever. Thoughts of how this house felt like a home to me, always had, downstairs, Nan’s shop, how I’d once dropped a drawer full of reels of coloured cotton and they’d bounced and spun off all over the shop going ‘plok-plok’ on the floor and it seemed to take for ever to pick them up. The sound echoed loud now in my mind. Eric had been there, a babby then, crawling round the floor, and he stopped, mouth wide open, head turning this way and that and not knowing which one to watch. Everyone paraded through my mind – Dad, Len, Mom, Bob. That fantastic feel of Bob’s thumb crunching between my teeth.

  I was asleep yet not asleep. I knew Mister had jumped off my bed and pattered off downstairs. He was barking for a time. Gloria must’ve been on. Music, then voices talking on and on. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, and whether I’d slept in the middle of it.

  There was a light in the room, the unsteady glow of a candle, very vivid. Not a dream. Lil come to look in on me. Very drowsy, my eyes kept opening and closing.

  ‘Can I have some water?’ I managed to say in a hoarse whisper.

  I thought I heard her talking, low voices, and I said, ‘What?’ Then the cold cup came to my lips as I half sat up, cold suddenly, teeth knocking against it. I opened my eyes, sipped. ‘Ta.’

  Not Lil. Was this a dream? Joe sitting on my bed, face full of anxiety. I heard myself gasp.

  ‘Genie?’

  ‘Joe. Joe?’ In my weakness I lay back in the bed and found I was already crying. The wave broke over me, a great wash of tears that I couldn’t hurry or stop. I heard the forgiveness in his voice even when he’d said so little, I saw it in his face, and it began to release everything. The terrible loss, the pain and fear and guilt of these past weeks that had been locked down in me, keeping him out, punishing myself as unworthy of him.

  He knelt by the bed and took me in his arms as I sobbed hoarsely. ‘It’s all right.’ He held his cool cheek against my burning one. ‘It’s all right now, my love. Sssh, my sweet one.’

  ‘I’m s-s-sorry, Joe. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  I felt him take in a deep, shuddering breath and I clung to him, this miracle of love and forgiveness who’d appeared out of my dreams.

  ‘Mom’s dead. And Len.’

  ‘I know. Your auntie Lil told me.’

  I frowned, all muddled up. ‘When?’

  ‘Just now. I’ve just got in. From the station. I wrote and said I was coming . . . I know, y
ou’ve had a terrible time.’

  ‘Did she tell you Mom tried to gas herself?’

  His head jerked back, horrified. No, she wouldn’t have done.

  ‘I felt so bad. So ashamed. I let everyone down. I thought you were too good for me. That’s why I didn’t . . . couldn’t . . .’

  ‘Sssh, Genie. It’s OK.’ He soothed me like a little kid and that was just how I felt. I wanted someone to be my mom, my dad, my love, all in one. He sat me up and held me on his lap, stroking my hair.

  ‘I didn’t write because I thought—’ I was still sniffing and gulping. ‘I don’t know what I thought. I just hated myself and it made me think you couldn’t want to see me again.’

  ‘I was worried.’ There was a flash of hurt, of anger. ‘Your letters were what kept me going, see. But Dad said he’d been to see you and said something about your mom being bad so I thought maybe you were too busy to write.’

  I looked up into Joe’s face. Mr Broadbent hadn’t passed on my message. Not what I’d really said. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to hurt Joe. Or did he just plain not believe me?

  ‘Soon as I got here I had to come and prove to myself things hadn’t changed. And of course when I got to your house, I saw—’ I could hear tears in his voice. ‘Jesus, I thought you were dead, Genie. You were dead and that’s why I hadn’t heard anything. When I saw your house – smashed up, gone – I felt as if everything had been destroyed, everything I’d hoped for, all we talked about doing together. Torn apart. It was the worst moment I can remember, ever.’

  Wretched, I stroked his face and he took my hand and kissed it hard, a lot of times.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joe. I’m terribly sorry.’

  ‘No – I just wish I’d known. All that’s happened . . .’

  ‘D’you really love me – still, after all this?’

  ‘I could never not love you.’

  I held on to him so tight. ‘I thought I’d lost everything. Almost everything. And then suddenly, oh Joe, you’re here.’

  We kissed, his lips pouring new life into me. We sat there quietly in each other’s arms. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so happy while I was so sad.

  ‘You’re very hot,’ Joe said, feeling my head and neck. ‘Your nan said you’ve been really bad. She’s been worried about you.’

  ‘She must be,’ I said, cuddling against him in a haze of joy. ‘Otherwise she’d never’ve told a bloke to come up into my bedroom!’

  After a time Joe tucked me back in bed and kissed me. I put my arms round his neck. ‘Don’t go,’ I said sleepily. ‘I might wake and find I dreamed you.’

  ‘You didn’t dream me. I’ll be back, love, every minute I can be.’ He watched my face. ‘I can’t believe my luck. Now we’ve just got to get you better.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be better now. I’ll be better tomorrow!’

  My eyes followed him to the door, candle in his hand. He turned, his lovely smile across the room more powerful than any medicine. ‘See you tomorrow. Goodnight, sweetheart.’

  On 1 January 1941 the BBC launched a new programme called Any Questions which became very popular and was later renamed The Brains Trust. That day, I spent in my nan’s house, my home for now, with Nan, Lil and Cathleen, and Joe on the sofa by my side, my bony hand held in his. Gloria sat, newly polished and shiny on the table, the voices pouring out through her sunburst. Mister was on my lap, a fire in the grate, tea in our cups.

  Joe’s eyes met mine as we first heard the posh, chattering voices and we laughed. I leaned into his arms and felt his kiss on the top of my head.

  ‘Hor hor hor’ laughed the chappies on the wireless. Lil’s eyes filled, although she was smiling. She looked round at us all. ‘Wouldn’t Len have loved this?’

  Birmingham Blitz

  ANNIE MURRAY was born in Berkshire and read English at St John’s College, Oxford. Her first Birmingham novel, Birmingham Rose, hit The Times bestseller list when it was published in 1995. She has subsequently written thirteen other successful novels, including, most recently, A Hopscotch Summer and Soldier Girl. Annie Murray has four children and lives in Reading.

  ALSO BY ANNIE MURRAY

  Birmingham Rose

  Birmingham Friends

  Orphan of Angel Street

  Poppy Day

  The Narrowboat Girl

  Chocolate Girls

  Water Gypsies

  Miss Purdy’s Class

  Family of Women

  Where Earth Meets Sky

  The Bells of Bournville Green

  A Hopscotch Summer

  Soldier Girl

  NOTE TO THE READER

  This story was originally conceived round the concept of the new and powerful influence of radio during the Second World War. Each chapter was prefaced by part of a contemporary song which in some way reflected its contents. Regrettably, because of the extremely high copyright costs of reproducing quotations from songs, these have had to be omitted from the finished book. However, readers who are familiar with the lyrics of the time might like to supply a suitable song for themselves as they go along.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Special thanks are due to the Birmingham people who generously gave their time to talk to me about ‘their war’: Elsie Ashmore and Nancy Holmes for their hospitality and frankness, Doris Burke who was a star and prepared to answer any number of daft questions, Rose and Jack Hall with whom I spent a great afternoon (Jack makes the best chips in Birmingham, if not the world), and Eric Langston for his welcome and his memories. A particular thank you also to Joe Mattiello who made himself available at unexpected moments and was a rich vein of information, and to my parents, George and Jackie Summers, who have frequently cast their minds back fifty or more years at a few seconds’ notice.

  Thanks also to Martin Parsons at Reading University, to Dr Rob Perks, Oral History Curator at the National Sound Archive, to Tony Doe and Concept Creative Productions.

  There are a great many excellent books available about the Home Front during World War II and I drew on a variety of them, but none deserves mention more than Angus Calder’s comprehensive and humane book The People’s War. Thanks also go to Birmingham’s Tindal Memory Writing Group which convened to produce Writing It Down Before It’s All Gone, edited by Alan Mahar, which is a repeated source of inspiration.

  First published 1998 by Pan Books

  This edition published 2010 by Pan Books

  This electronic edition published 2011 Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-447-20464-0 EPUB

  Copyright © Annie Murray 1998

  The right of Annie Murray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  Table of Contents

  August 1939

  September 1939

  October 1939

  November 1939

  December 1939

  January 1940

  February 1940

  March 1940

  April 1940


  May 1940

  June 1940

  July 1940

  August 1940

  September 1940

  October 1940

  November 1940

  December 1940