War Babies

by Annie Murray

  ‘Best comics!’ he bawled. ‘Come and get ’em – Football Favourite! Three for a halfpenny!’

  The boy’s electric energy drew Rachel in. He had a selection of comics laid out on the ground in front of him and a tobacco tin in which to keep his takings. He was a thin, wiry boy, with thick brown hair cropped very short, big blue eyes which looked out at the world very directly and a squarish face with a strong jawline.

  ‘There’s girls’ comics as well,’ he announced, pointing rather grandly, as soon as he saw she was interested. His patter did not include the girls’ comics. Tiny Tots and The Schoolgirl were clearly not names he saw fit to be broadcast by someone as manly as himself.

  ‘You’ve got a lot,’ Rachel said, impressed. She loved comics, though Peggy could never spare the money for any. There were several piles of them, some of them looking very dog-eared.

  ‘I’ve got a good supplier,’ the boy said, folding his arms.

  ‘You tell her!’ Gladys said, laughing with another woman. ‘Good supplier – what’ll he come out with next?’

  The boy was a little taller than Rachel and had on threadbare grey shorts, one of the front pockets torn, a shirt which looked several sizes too big and a green V-necked jersey with frayed cuffs. Rachel saw that he was wearing black Mail boots and that they were badly scuffed.

  ‘’E’s been off round the jumble sales,’ Gladys told her, coming round to speak to them. ‘Found himself a new line of business, ’ain’t yer, bab? Now you give ’er a good bargain mind, Danny. You’ve got to learn to keep your customers happy!’

  ‘What d’yer want?’ the boy said gruffly. His blue eyes looked very directly at her.

  Gladys Poulter cuffed his head affectionately. ‘What d’yer want? What kind of way is that to speak to your customers? You tell ’em what you’ve got, you ask if there’s anything they like the look of – and then whether there is or not, you show ’em summat they can’t resist . . .’

  The boy had such a compelling gaze that Rachel knew she could not just walk away. But she had only come to have a nose – she had not intended to buy anything.

  ‘I’ve got a farthing,’ she admitted.

  ‘Well – tell yer what,’ the boy said, folding his arms and considering carefully. ‘I’ll give you a special deal. Two for a farthing. How’s that?’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ Gladys chuckled.

  Rachel felt herself become daring. At school she found boys were easier if you stood up to them. ‘Three.’ Eyes full of mischief she looked up at him. ‘Make it three.’

  She heard Gladys let out a hoot of laughter. ‘What’s ’er saying? You driving a hard bargain, miss, are yer?’ She bent over and Rachel saw her dark lashes and the rough ruddiness of her cheeks. ‘What’s your name, bab?’

  ‘Rachel Mills,’ she said. ‘My mother’s over there.’ She pointed in Peggy’s general direction. She saw Gladys Poulter sizing up her mother.

  ‘Oh ar – that new one,’ she said. ‘I’ve not seen much of ’er. Come on then, Danny. What’s it to be?’

  Danny looked pained. ‘I’m crippling myself,’ he said. ‘I can’t go lower than a halfpenny.’

  ‘You’re a one, Danny!’ Gladys laughed. ‘You got the whole box for tuppence!’

  ‘I’ve only got a farthing,’ Rachel repeated.

  Danny let out a theatrical sigh and shifted his weight onto one leg as if in resignation.

  ‘All right. Pick three. Girls’ ones. And don’t go spreading it around or everyone’ll want the same.’

  Rachel squatted down and went solemnly through the pile of comics. But she was more interested in Danny. She thought he was funny.

  ‘How old’re you?’ she asked.

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘I’m nearly eight,’ she told him, even though he showed no real desire to know. In fact she was not due to be eight for months yet.

  ‘You’re seven then,’ he said with some scorn.

  ‘I’ll have these.’ She held out the comics, their paper feeling fragile between her fingers as if they had been read countless times already. She handed over the farthing.

  ‘Don’t you go selling them on now,’ Danny warned sternly.

  ‘They’re mine now,’ Rachel said, tucking them under her arm. ‘Mom says once you’ve bought summat it’s yours.’ She had no intention of selling them, but somehow the boy brought out a mischief in her.

  Danny looked at her and grinned suddenly. ‘Don’t go selling them on anyway,’ he said. ‘Even if they are yours.’

  ‘Want a humbug?’ Gladys called to her, holding out a little white bag.

  ‘Ooh, yes!’ Rachel squeaked, unable to believe her luck. ‘Please,’ she added. She decided she liked Gladys Poulter, even if she did look fierce. The bag, held open in Gladys’s hand, contained a sticky mass of tiny mint humbugs.

  ‘Take a couple or three,’ Gladys offered. ‘They’re not much.’

  Rachel managed to pull two mints away from the others.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said shyly. She stood, uncertain, holding the sweets between her fingers, as her mouth watered at the smell. She wanted to talk to Danny more but she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Better go,’ she said.

  ‘Bring a halfpenny next time,’ Danny advised.

  Rachel skipped back to their stall across the way, feeling as if it was her lucky day.

  Four

  All that week, Rachel kept thinking about Danny. Would he be at the market again next Saturday? And would they get a pitch themselves? She was always disappointed if they did not, but now she was praying, Please let us, and make him be there! She had friends at school but there was no one as exciting as Danny. He had a sparkiness and force of personality that drew her in. He was not like anyone she had ever met before.

  Now that Peggy was working at the market more, she was able to let up a bit on some of the other jobs she was doing. Many a night Rachel had fallen asleep knowing that her mother was still all the way round in the yard, in the brew house, the shared wash house which was usually being used by someone else in the daytime. She would be slaving over a copper of water full of dirty clothes and toiling away with the maiding tub and dolly by the light of a candle. Rachel didn’t like having to go to sleep without Mom in the house and Peggy’s hands were often red raw and itching from all the wetness and harsh soap. Now she could make better money on the market. The first things she had bought as soon as she could afford them were an old flat iron and a secondhand Singer sewing machine. She could make more money taking in sewing and mending things for the market. Now, the hot, scorching smells from the iron were from ironing her own wares, not from other people’s laundry.

  One day, after school that week, Rachel calculated that her mother’s mood seemed quite good. She was an expert now at reading Peggy.

  ‘Mom,’ she said, through a mouthful of bread and margarine, ‘can I have a halfpenny this week – just once?’ Mom sometimes allowed her a farthing, for a few sweets.

  Peggy was standing at the range in her apron, stirring a pan of soup. She frowned. ‘What’s got into you? You’re not going to spend it on those old comics again, are you?’

  Rachel gazed back at her, head on one side as she finished chewing. Mom said it was rude to talk with your mouth full. With her eyes she pleaded with her mother to agree.

  ‘It’s reading,’ she wheedled, once she had swallowed. ‘You like me reading.’

  Peggy gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘You’re a determined miss, aren’t you?’ She brought her cup of tea over and sat at the rickety table, giving a rare smile. ‘You’re a little monkey. All right – just this once. But I don’t want you coming home with those dirty old things every week.’

  She had sold the silk dress for eighteen shillings – less than she had dreamt of, but a high price for the market and eighteen shillings for nothing was a good profit. The blouse and pretty underwear had also fetched in more than she had ever taken at the market before.

  Rachel
could feel lightness and hopefulness coming from her. Though she did not know it now, these were some of the sweetest hours she would ever spend with her mother.

  ‘D’you know,’ Peggy said, holding her cup in both hands, ‘I really do believe that soon we shall be able to look for a new place to live. We can get out of this rat-hole and start again.’ She looked at Rachel, sat a little straighter, a fierce pride burning in her eyes. ‘And I’ve done that – all of it. Kept us out of the clutches of the parish and those means-test harridans. I haven’t taken a penny from anyone!’

  As Rachel trundled their basket-carriage into the market the next week, there was no sign of Danny. But while she and Peggy were setting up, she saw Gladys arrive, a powerful figure in her black dress, pushing her own carriage. Danny was striding along beside her, holding a cardboard carton in his arms. Rachel saw that his shorts were so patched and darned they looked like several garments in one. She didn’t laugh – her heart fluttered at the shame of it. Why didn’t his mom dress him a bit better when she had all those clothes to sell? They must be very poor, she thought. But Danny strutted along in his Mail boots as if he was dressed to kill.

  Once the market opened, Danny’s strong voice rang out through the high space amid the other hawkers. ‘Come and get yer comics! Nearly new comics – halfpenny for three! Get yerself a bargain!’

  After a time she could not resist going over to look. There were a couple of boys there, looking down at the comics. Rachel recognized one of them from school and shrank back. He was a bully with a face she thought looked like a pig’s. The girls always kept out of his way in the school yard and she didn’t want anything to do with him now. But the boys were taking no notice of her.

  ‘’Ow much?’ The pig-faced boy pointed at the pile of boys’ comics. His voice sounded sneering.

  ‘A farthing,’ Danny repeated. ‘Three for a halfpenny.’

  ‘They’m all mucky. Give us three and I’ll give yer a farthing.’

  Rachel listened carefully. This was the deal Danny had allowed her last week. She wanted to think she was special and that Danny wouldn’t do the same for just anyone.

  ‘Nah,’ Danny said, pushing his hands deep into his pockets and standing up very straight. Once again he reminded Rachel of a little man. A hard man at that. ‘Can’t do that. Three for a halfpenny or nowt.’

  ‘’S too much. Fight yer for it.’ The boy raised his fists.

  Rachel felt her heart thump harder. He was always fighting, this boy. It was the main thing she remembered about him. He was a strapping lad. Danny would never win a fight against this heavily built bully. She glanced at Danny’s mom for help, but Gladys was surrounded by a gaggle of customers all fudging through her piles of clothes and she was talking to them, hands on hips, watching them like a hawk. Thieving was a constant danger in the market and you had to keep alert.

  There was a silence between the two boys for a moment, their eyes locked together. Rachel stood clenching her hands. She desperately didn’t want to see Danny humiliated by this great lump of a boy.

  ‘Nah – I ain’t fighting yer,’ Danny said, casual sounding. ‘That’s the price. If you don’t like it you can clear off. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘But I said . . .’ The boy moved towards Danny.

  Rachel could stand no more. She marched up to Danny’s row of comics and said, ‘I want to buy some! I’ll have three. Look – here’s my halfpenny.’

  She didn’t look at the other boy. She acted as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘All right,’ Danny said, turning his attention to her as if to a proper customer. ‘Pick ’em then.’ To the other boy he said, over his shoulder, ‘Come back when you’ve got the right money.’

  Rachel bent over the comics, choosing the ones that had the most words in them and would last her the longest. The back of her neck tingled with the sense of pig-face boy behind her and she waited for the fight to break out over her head. But nothing happened. She was aware of Danny standing over her, his bony knees close to her. When she raised her head, the story comics clutched in her hand, the boy had gone. She stood up.

  ‘I’ll have these.’

  Danny pocketed her money. ‘Ta. So yer got the right money this time.’ He had a brisk, distant air, but she thought she saw a smile trying to escape round his lips.

  Rachel nodded. She couldn’t think what else to say. She wanted to say something, anything, to give her an excuse to stay there.

  ‘That boy’s in my form at school,’ she said. ‘He’s stupid. Thick as a brick.’ She’d heard someone say that and she thought it was funny.

  Danny didn’t smile. ‘Looks it,’ was all he said.

  ‘Eh, bab!’ Gladys called to her. Her customers had temporarily thinned out. ‘You buying our Danny out again, are yer? Want one of these?’

  She was holding out another sweetie bag. Inside this time were sherbet pips, what seemed liked hundreds of them.

  ‘Go on, take a good few – and take our Danny some while you’re at it.’

  ‘Ooh, thank you,’ Rachel said. Fists full of little sweets she went back to Danny. ‘’Ere – these are for you.’ She emptied one hand into his palm. ‘Your mom’s nice.’

  ‘She ain’t my mom,’ Danny said as they both tipped the little sweets into their mouths. ‘That’s my Auntie Glad.’

  ‘Oh,’ Rachel said. ‘Well – she’s nice.’

  She never knew quite what to say to Danny. As the weeks passed and Christmas drew nearer, the market was at its busiest. School broke up and in the week before Christmas the market was open on more days. Peggy didn’t always manage to get a pitch, but she made sure her name was always on the Toby Man’s list and more and more often, she was successful.

  Whenever Peggy and Rachel walked into the market, the first thing Rachel did was look for Danny. Her heart jumped faster whenever she saw him there in his raggedy clothes and big boots. If she had any money she bought comics which she read avidly afterwards as if the comics themselves were an extension of him. And Gladys usually had her supply of sweets.

  ‘She says it’s either them or fags,’ Danny told Rachel one day. ‘And ’er likes sweets better.’

  They had brief, gruff conversations. She didn’t think Danny had much time for girls, but at the same time she had the impression he was pleased to see her, flattered perhaps by her devotion, even if he only showed it by not telling her to go away. He treated her in a lofty, amused way as if she was a faithful dog whom he could choose whether or not to pat.

  She tried asking him questions and got very short answers.

  ‘Where d’you live then?’

  ‘Down Ladywood. Summer Hill.’

  ‘Where’s your mom then?’

  He looked away, suddenly very distant, not answering.

  ‘When’s your birthday?’

  ‘It’s the day I were born.’

  She got out of him that he was about a year and a half older than her. It seemed far more. He felt aged, like a granddad.

  ‘’Ve you got any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘Three sisters.’

  ‘What – no brothers?’

  ‘No – I’d’ve said if I had, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘What about ’im?’

  It was hard work getting anything out of Danny.

  Times were very hard: the depths of a depression; three million unemployed. The government had introduced the means test the year before, shredding the already poor even poorer. No one could have public assistance before any last possession worth anything had been sold, whether it be the piano or the sewing machine.

  The well-to-do might take their children to Lewis’s department store to see the winter wonderland and Father Christmas. But in the markets, everyone could mingle among the crowds amid the festive atmosphere. Late on these cold winter afternoons the place was lit by naphtha lamps and everyone went out of their way to make it cosy and festive. Streamers hung high across the wide space; some of t
he market people had brought oil lamps and wrapped red crepe paper round them to create a warm glow; others decorated their pitches with tinsel and lametta, winding strands of it round their hair and hats. Sprigs of mistletoe made an appearance and kisses were begged and granted or laughingly refused.

  The sights, sounds and smells filled Rachel with excitement. The market seemed louder, more vibrant and busy than ever. Horses and carts were lined up outside the gates, the animals’ steaming breath swirling in the freezing air, their warm smell mingling with the smoke from all the factories, with manure and the musty smells of the old clothes. Mixed in with all these were the enticing aromas of chestnuts roasting and other whiffs of hot, delicious food. And there was all the vendors’ shouting and the chatter and bustle! It was so exciting, so much better than being at home, and Rachel could see that despite her scruples about being there, Peggy had grudgingly learned to enjoy some of it too.

  But Gladys seemed very quiet that afternoon. It was the one thing that put a dampener on the day. Every so often, she shouted, ‘Buy yerself a Christmas treat! Come on, ladies – gloves and scarves – keep the cold out!’ But compared with normal, her heart wasn’t in it. There was a visible heaviness to her, as if something was dragging at her. She seemed shut away with her own sad thoughts. Disappointed, Rachel kept out of her way.

  Peggy had a pretty array of table linen that she had bought from a widow in Handsworth.

  ‘My mother-in-law gave it to us when we were first married,’ the woman had confided in Peggy. ‘I never saw eye to eye with her at all and I hid it away in the sideboard and only used it once or twice when she came round. I’m glad to see the back of it to tell you the truth. You can have it, dear, and good luck to you.’

  Peggy was hoping someone would like it to give as a Christmas present and she had ironed it all carefully and laid it right at the front.