by Annie Murray
She looked at Gladys opposite her, with her dark hair plaited and coiled round her head today, her striking blue eyes and black coat. She was so used to Gladys now that she seemed very normal, but seeing her out here, and the curious stares of some of the ladies in the carriage, she remembered that Gladys was unusual and exotic to other people.
‘Here –’ Gladys passed her a sandwich with a thin filling of cheese and raw onion. ‘Get this down you.’
‘We’ll stink if we eat that!’ she protested in a whisper. She did not want to attract attention. There was a woman in a fancy hat opposite her giving the pair of them appraising looks.
‘Well, it’s all we had,’ Gladys murmured back. ‘So take it and stink, or leave it.’
Rachel was far too hungry to leave it and they would be doing a lot of walking. Despite feeling self-conscious, she quickly ate the piece, trying not to make faces at the strong taste of the onion. As they were swallowing the last mouthfuls, the train pulled into Sutton Coldfield.
They walked out through the gracious old town in the direction of Four Oaks, stopping along the way to knock on the doors of big houses. Rachel felt her heart beat faster each time they waited for a door to open, remembering the stinging rejections her mother had sometimes suffered. Sunday afternoon was not a good time to be disturbing people, but it was the only time they had. And there was something about Gladys, her striking looks, her dignity and air of knowing what she was about that did not seem to provoke this. By the time they were getting closer to the edge of town and Gladys’s brother’s house, they had Melly sitting propped up at one end of the pram and a neat pile of garments and linen at the other.
‘I’ll have to come out here again,’ Gladys said, seeming pleased. ‘It’s worth the fare, all right. Having madam’s carriage to put it in is a help too.’
Once they had eaten the rest of the sandwiches sitting at the edge of Sutton Park, they made for Gladys’s brother’s house.
Gladys had not prepared Rachel for Albert and Nancy. The door, one in a row of country terraces strung along the road, flew open to reveal a plump, beaming man in brown trousers, shirtsleeves and stockinged feet, the socks a bilious shade of green, one hand brandishing a brown teapot.
‘I was passing the door and you knocked!’ he announced. His lips looked very pink under a rather overgrown, tobacco-coloured moustache. ‘Come in, sis – oh! Pram! Baby! Young woman! You’ve brought every possible thing of loveliness, Gladie!’
‘Hello, Albert,’ Gladys said.
‘Is that them, Albert?’ they heard from upstairs, in a slightly strained tone, as they waited in the narrow hall on grey linoleum.
‘It’s them!’ He started to disappear towards, presumably, the back kitchen, crying out, ‘I’m filling the pot!’ But he stopped and came back, still with the pot in his hand. ‘Come in. All the girls are somewhere. Well, except the one who’s a boy – but then of course, he’s not here!’ He laid a hand on his chest. Rachel heard the crackle as he breathed. Only then she remembered he suffered badly from asthma. ‘Go into the back room. Chairs. Sit . . .’ He vanished, with a mention of biscuits along the way somewhere.
Rachel left Melanie asleep in the pram, which was blocking most of the hall, and followed Gladys. The back room overlooked a long strip of garden. Gladys went to the window immediately, fastening her eyes on the sight of the two girls out on the grass. Rachel followed her gaze. The lawn near the house gave way to a long vegetable patch and at the far end was the Anderson shelter, covered in grass and weeds. It took Rachel a moment to realize that one of the girls playing there was Amy, because her dark hair had now grown long and was flowing free down her back. The other girl, also with dark, but finer hair, she had never seen before. The two of them were playing clap-hands games and in the quiet, you could just make out that one was singing the rhyme.
‘Looks all right, doesn’t she?’ Gladys said. Her breath fogged the window. There was a wistful but relieved tone to her voice.
They heard feet thudding hurriedly down the staircase and a voice saying, ‘Oh, I’m sorry to be so long and not down here when you arrived! Hello, Gladys, love – and you must be Rachel?’
Rachel turned to see a small, plump woman with a haphazard bun of black hair, bright blue eyes, pink cheeks and a snub nose. Smiling, homely, friendly, it was a face that it would be impossible not to warm to.
‘We’re all at sixes and sevens,’ she chattered on. ‘But then when aren’t we? Now Albert – Albert?’ she shouted. ‘Are you making that tea?’
‘Ye-es . . .’ came a doubtful reply from the invisible kitchen.
‘Well, are you or . . .?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Sorry – I’d better go and see what he’s up to. You never know with Albert. He’s likely got into the bag of seed potatoes – he was talking about them this morning . . .’
She disappeared for a time, during which there was a muffled altercation from the kitchen and then she reappeared, squeezing round the pram with a tray and cups, flustered, but beaming.
‘Lovely baby!’ she remarked. ‘Here we are – tea! Now I know you want to see the girls. I’ll call Jess down in a tick. And our John’s out, I’m afraid – off playing football with some other lads.’
‘Amy looks well,’ Gladys said.
Nancy’s face clouded slightly for the first time. ‘She is, I think,’ she said, arranging the cups, which had painted strands of ivy round them. ‘Oh, she was a sad little thing when she came – well, you know she was. At least now, she’s –’ she whispered this – ‘dry at night.’ She passed Gladys a cup of tea. ‘She and our Margaret are almost inseparable. They’re in the same form at school and . . . Well, it’s helped Amy. Sometimes I think it might be a bit much for Margaret, but she says, no, it’s all right. After all, she and John have never been close. Anyway, Jess is getting along all right. Nancy crossed the room to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Jess love!’ she called. ‘Come on down! Your auntie’s here!’
‘You’ve been a godsend,’ Gladys said. Rachel knew just how heartfelt this was and she also smiled gratefully at Nancy, as she sat down again.
‘Well, those poor little girls – and oh, I can’t tell you how much better it’s been since those London boys left. They were just children really but they were fish out of water. And some of their habits! I’ve never seen the like – ooh, I wouldn’t want to start on it, not at tea. But we do what we can and I’m ever so fond of these two – they’re like our own now. Ah – here’s Jess.’
‘Hello, Auntie,’ Jess said, smiling as she came in. ‘Hello, Rachel.’ She spoke in a soft, shy voice but seemed pleased to see them.
‘You’ve grown up again, my girl,’ Gladys said. Jess had the top portion of her honey-brown hair brushed back from her face and pinned up at the back, while the rest hung loose. She was sweet-faced and pretty. ‘Quite a young lady now, aren’t you?’
‘Ah, Miss Jess!’ Albert said, appearing at last in his quaint way. ‘What a very fair infant someone has left lying about out here!’
Rachel smiled. Suddenly she seemed to be permanently smiling. ‘If she’s still asleep, I’ll leave her there.’
Nancy went and called the other girls in and at last the two ten-year-olds appeared, Amy holding Margaret’s hand. Margaret, a dark, snub-nosed, sensible-looking girl, like her mother, said, ‘Here are your visitors, Amy.’
Amy peered out unsmiling from under her heavy fringe.
‘Hello, bab – come and see me,’ Gladys said. Amy stood her ground. It took a while, as they all drank tea, for her to sidle over and at last settle close to Gladys.
Melanie woke and Rachel brought her in, and even Amy agreed to hold her. When Melly got hold of a hank of her hair and tugged on it, Amy’s face broke into a grin at last, showing big, square teeth.
‘Stop that, Melly,’ Rachel said. ‘You’ll have her hair out by the roots!’
‘It’s all right,’ Amy said, watching as Melly sucked messily on a biscuit. She seemed fascinated by her.
The adults all talked about the war, the endless shortages and the food Albert and Nancy were growing. They wanted to know how Danny was.
‘Still doing basic training,’ Rachel said, happy to hear him talked about. ‘He might come home after that – for a bit of leave.’
‘I hope he’s writing to you,’ Nancy said.
Danny had written a couple of short letters, telling her little bits of what he had been doing. But on each, in the top corner, he had drawn a little picture of someone she recognized – Patch the dog. She noticed, after Danny left, that he had taken his notebook with him. It had lain untouched in a drawer for months, but now, it seemed, he had decided he needed it again.
They left Albert and Nancy’s house after a couple of hours and headed back towards the railway station. Rachel felt warmed by the visit to this chaotic but kindly household.
‘I think they’re all right, don’t you?’ Gladys said as they walked through the falling dusk, Rachel pushing the pram. ‘I fear for Amy – she’s an odd child. But she did seem a bit better.’
‘Yes – it’s lovely for them here, Auntie,’ Rachel said. ‘And Nancy’s so kind. But you did your best while they were with us.’
‘Yes,’ Gladys said. After a moment she added, ‘Bit different here though, ain’t it?’ And in her voice, Rachel could hear an ache of longing for the life and family her brother and his wife had, out here in this green, spacious place.
V
Twenty-Six
May 1943
The morning the new neighbours moved in, Netta Fitzpatrick was round at the house. She and Rachel saw quite a lot of each other, and especially now because, within a week or so of each other, they had found out that they were each expecting a baby again and both babies were due in September.
Netta sat with her hand constantly pressed to her five-month swell of belly as if she could protect its fortunes by thinking about it at every moment of the day. All through the pregnancy so far she had been alternately tearful with dread and excited.
‘I can’t believe I’ve got this far – not after last time,’ she said, her eyes filling at the memory. She had miscarried the second baby at three months.
‘I hope to God this one’s all right,’ Rachel sometimes said to Gladys. ‘How will I face her if she loses another one?’
‘Every day I wake up and I think – oh, praise God, it’s still there,’ Netta went on, her pale eyes full of longing. ‘Oh, Rach – I don’t know what I’ll do if . . .’ She shook her head and looked away.
‘You’re looking well, you know,’ Gladys said, glancing up from her ironing. The hot, singeing smell of it filled the room.
‘Mammy’s saving every drop of milk she can for me, heaven bless her,’ Netta smiled. ‘To make a nice strong baby.’
‘I expect you’ll be all right, Nett,’ Rachel encouraged her. ‘Third time lucky, eh?’
She had grown very fond of Netta, who was a sweet-natured, if timid, girl. Beside Netta she felt her own strength. Netta was so frail, like a little stick with her wispy brown hair and watery blue eyes. And Francis, who she had met when he came home on leave, was not much better. Francis’s mother, like Netta’s, was Irish and a widow. He had one older sister who looked after their frail mother, who was an invalid. Francis was a pale, solemn lad, like something grown with no light, and with an unworldly look in his eye. No wonder the army had kept him in the Pay Corps, Rachel thought.
‘Mammy says I should give up work any day now,’ Netta said. ‘I know she’s right but we need the money and—’
She was interrupted by a great clatter of falling wood from outside, accompanied by a string of earthy, male curses.
‘Hark at that!’ Gladys said. ‘Someone needs to wash his mouth out. Still, I don’t think this one heard anything.’
She nodded at Melanie, now twenty-one months old, who was sitting on the floor playing with a tangle of bits of off-cut material, muttering to herself and in a world of her own. She was a pale, solid little girl with soft brown hair and a steady nature.
Rachel followed Gladys to the door from where they saw a hefty, dark-haired bloke bent over three wooden chairs which he was trying, without much sign of success, to stack together. One was upside down and resting its seat on the bottom one; the third he kept trying to balance on top of them.
‘Ow, bugger it,’ he stormed as the chair toppled off again to lie on the mucky bricks of the yard. It had rained overnight and the sky was only just clearing.
‘Why doesn’t he just take them one by one? They’ll be matchwood in a minute if he carries on,’ Gladys observed. She stepped outside, pulling her shawl around her. Rachel and Netta crept to watch from the doorway.
‘Who’re you?’ Gladys demanded.
The man turned to show a strikingly handsome face with a black moustache and glossy black hair. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled, and black trousers with black boots. For a few seconds he turned an aggressive stare on Gladys, then, taking in the sight of her, seemed to think better of it. His face cleared and he gave a smile which exuded calculated charm.
‘Mornin’!’ He gestured as if raising his hat, though he was not wearing one. ‘I’m Ray Sutton – moving in at number four. My missis is following on with the kiddies.’
Gladys nodded soberly. Rachel could sense that she was both suspicious of and charmed by this ebulliently masculine stranger.
‘Cart’s out in the road,’ he said, pointing down the entry.
‘If you knock at number one, chances are Mo’ll give yer a hand,’ Gladys told him. ‘Though come to think of it, he might be off with the Home Guard today.’
‘Ah – it’s all right,’ Ray said, turning back towards the chairs. ‘We ain’t got a lot and my brother’s with me. He’ll be along in a tick.’
They had known someone would be coming. The Parsonses had both died at the end of the winter. First Mrs Parsons had succumbed to pneumonia and her husband had followed not long after. As Gladys said, ‘Well, at least we kept them away from the Archway of Tears.’ Thanks to their neighbourliness, the Parsonses had never had to consider turning to the workhouse.
A moment after they had gone back inside, Dolly was round, an apron over her navy work dress and her hair tied back in a navy scarf.
‘Is that the new ones at number four?’ she asked. ‘Oh hello, Netta, bab – how’re you?’
‘I’m all right, ta,’ Netta said, smiling.
‘That’s the husband,’ Rachel said, giggling. ‘Doesn’t he look like Rhett Butler!’
‘Clark Gable, ain’t it?’ Dolly said, pulling out a packet of Craven A and lighting up. ‘He’s the actor . . .’
‘D’you think his wife’ll look like Scarlett O’Hara?’ Rachel said.
Dolly inhaled a long pull of smoke, then blew it out. ‘Like the back of a bus, more likely.’
‘Always the optimist, you,’ Gladys laughed.
They did not have to wait long to find out. Gladys was at the Rag Market later on, but Rachel had stopped going for the moment. Once Melanie started toddling, she had become a handful to manage and now Rachel was expecting another child it was all too much.
‘I’ll stay home and do things in the house,’ she promised. She felt guilty not working and always wanted to make up for it somehow. ‘And I’ll get the dinner.’
It was the second week of May and what Gladys called the ‘hungry gap’. The new crops of fruit and vegetables were not yet grown and last year’s stocks were dwindling. There was not much to be had. Rachel had taken to listening to the wireless to try and learn what she might do to eke out a parsnip and a couple of spuds, or whatever they had managed to find. She was forever hungry, especially now she was expecting. She found herself thinking even more about food than about Danny’s letters, for which she lived.
Later on, she had just finished scrubbing the floor while Melanie had a nap upstairs. Going out into the yard she tipped out the pail of dirty water into the drain and was just turning back towards the house w
hen she heard a booming woman’s voice coming closer along the entry: ‘Get out of the ’ass road – how many times’ve I gorra tell yer?’ The voice drew a bit nearer. ‘Shirley, get ’ere or I’ll give yer a threapin’, that I will!’
Rachel hurried back inside and shut the door. Who on earth was this coming now – and what an accent! Tiptoeing across the wet floor, the pail still in her hand, she stood peering out through the window. Seconds later, two little girls with scruffy brown hair ran into the yard. They were followed by a voluptuous blonde woman, who from the shape of her belly and the rocking, leaning-back way she was walking, Rachel could see, was well on expecting a baby. Even though the woman sounded so loud and strange, Rachel was pleased by the sight of the two little girls. Up until now there had been no girls on this yard to keep Melanie company. She saw Ray, the dark-haired man, appear at the door of number four and then they all disappeared inside.
‘So – what’re they like?’ Gladys asked, hungrily tucking into the scrag end Rachel had cooked with mashed, woody parsnip. ‘You’ve met the wife now, have you?’
‘Oh yes, I have!’ Rachel laughed. ‘She doesn’t look like the back of a bus, that I can tell you. She’s blonde—’
‘Out of a bottle,’ Gladys interjected.
‘How d’you know that?’ Rachel asked.
‘I got a look at her too. Dark eyebrows.’
‘She’s quite nice to look at,’ Rachel said. Everyone in the yard had gone out to say hello. The woman was a looker: plump, pink skinned with a head of thick, blonde hair, rolled into waves which, whether out of a bottle or not, made her look like a film star. Her brown eyes looked striking against the pale hair. Come to think of it though, she did have dark brown eyebrows. She wasn’t exactly friendly but Rachel just thought she looked harassed. With two kids and another on the way she could see why.
