War Babies

by Annie Murray

  Over Lil Gittins’s shoulder, Rachel peered at Mo’s copy of the Daily Mirror. Within three frames, their cartoon character Jane had been comprehensively demobbed out of her uniform and into her birthday suit, her modesty preserved only by a strip of Union Jack.

  ‘Ooh – look at her, the cheeky strumpet!’ Lil cackled.

  Rachel giggled at the sight of it.

  ‘Oh, Mo!’ Dolly grabbed the paper and started hitting him about the head with it. Everyone else was laughing.

  ‘Get off me, woman!’ He grabbed the paper from Dolly, fending her off with one hand and rubbing his chest contentedly with the other. ‘Now that’s what I call good news.’

  ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to do the same, Mo Morrison!’ Dolly called, going off to the house again in a pretend huff.

  Mo gave a mock-desperate sigh. ‘A man can dream, can’t ’e?’ he said, winking at Rachel. ‘Now – them kids.’ Kindly, he said to her, ‘How’s the lad?’ He was always very nice to her and to Tommy.

  ‘He’s all right,’ she said, ‘Ta.’

  ‘Course ’e is.’ He patted her on the back. ‘He’s got a fine mother. Now – I’d better go and give that lot out there a ride. There’ll be no peace in our time ’til I do!’

  Fondly, Rachel watched his stocky figure take off across the yard in his baggy trousers, his voice booming, ‘Right – a few laps for victory round the block. And then who’s coming down to the old Salutation with me to get cracking?’

  Thirty-Seven

  August 1945

  ‘Come in and have a cuppa with us, will you, if your mom’s not in a hurry for them?’ Rachel said, nodding at the bag of vegetables dangling from Netta’s arm. It was a Saturday afternoon and she had run into Netta on the way back from the shops.

  Netta was carrying little Patrick on her hip and looked on the point of dropping him. Her cheeks were pink from the exertion of lugging both him and her shopping about on this warm day. But she also looked quite a different young woman from the sad, frightened person Rachel had first met. She looked healthy and much brighter, a ribbon in her hair and laughter coming easily to her. Having little Patsy as they called him, had been the making of her.

  ‘Oh, there’s no rush – I’d love a cuppa,’ Netta panted. ‘His Majesty here decided he couldn’t be walking any further. Didn’t you?’ She looked adoringly at the little lad, then at Rachel again. ‘But no – that’s silly. We’re nearer to mine. You come and have a cuppa with me and Mom – she loves a house full of babbies!’

  As usual, Mrs O’Shaughnessy gave them a warm welcome and made a fuss of Melanie and Tommy. Rachel ached with wishing her own mother was a tenth as kind as Netta’s mom.

  ‘Bring the pram inside,’ Mrs O’Shaughnessy said. ‘He’ll not want to be left outside and we can squeeze it in. Will you be getting him out?’

  ‘No – he’s all right,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve got him fixed in there with the shopping and he likes watching the others.’

  She could see Mrs O’Shaughnessy thinking, What a shame as she looked at Tommy, the way so many people looked. But she did not say it. Rachel was very grateful to Netta and her mother. Ever since their sons were born the two girls had grown closer and been company for each other.

  Melly settled down and played with Patsy, making him chuckle. This made Tommy laugh as well. Melly liked being the older sister and looking after the little ones. The women settled at the table and Mrs O’Shaughnessy moved back and forth to the little stove like a sparrow in her old brown dress, her faded hair twisted into a little bun, making ‘tay’ as she called it in her Limerick accent. They laughed at the children’s laughter.

  ‘He loves other kids,’ Rachel said, smiling at the sound of Tommy’s gurgles. She felt a strong twinge of love for her sweet-natured little boy.

  As usual they discussed the children. Netta was full of Patsy’s doings. He was the very centre of her life, so much so that Rachel could not help wondering quite what was going to happen when Francis came back. Netta slept with Patsy in her bed every night and lived and breathed nothing else.

  ‘Is your auntie at the market today?’ Netta asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel said. ‘Dolly’s gone with her – Mo said he’d take the lads fishing. Heaven help him, with all that lot!’

  ‘They’ll scare away every fish within miles,’ Netta laughed. ‘Oh, I do like Mr Morrison though – he’s a kind man, he is.’

  ‘Oh – I forgot!’ Rachel sat up straighter, laughing at the thought of her news. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened?’ Netta and her mother looked eager. ‘The other night Mo and Dolly suddenly started off, at it hammer and tongs . . .’

  ‘He’d never raise a hand to her?’ Netta said, shocked.

  ‘Oh no – just Dolly really, having a right old go. We could all hear it. She’s expecting and she’s only just realized. Well, you can imagine – Mo was really for it!’

  The women laughed. Mrs O’Shaughnessy did not know the Morrisons but she had heard all about them.

  ‘Ah, but that’s all right,’ she said. ‘How many’s she got – five lads? A sixth’ll round it off nicely.’

  ‘It’ll look just like all the others, I expect,’ Rachel said. ‘Blonde and just like Mo. Dolly’s always saying she might just as well not have been there!’

  Netta was giggling. ‘I don’t s’pose Mr Morrison’ll ever hear the end of it!’

  It was good to sit in Mrs O’Shaughnessy’s little room laughing and chatting. Rachel found it a comfort and it stopped her feeling too sorry for herself – a battle she was fighting every day.

  A few days later, she was out with Tommy in the pram again. While he was very young there had been no difficulty in walking the streets with him. He was just another baby in a pram and even people who peered under the hood to admire him hardly ever noticed anything different about him.

  Now he was older, things were beginning to change. As the months passed, Rachel was gradually adapting to the idea that he would always have difficulties. Sometimes she would sink to her knees in the house weeping. Tommy would never walk! He would never grow up and go to school normally. Would he ever be able to speak to her? He would always be stared at because he was different. And, though she was ashamed of her feelings, she cried because she knew that her own life would now never be free. She would be tied to him forever. On these days, when she was low and angry with life, she found herself being impatient and angry with Melly.

  ‘Just do what I say!’ she would shriek, like a woman beside herself.

  Sometimes she saw her little girl watching her with a steady, wary expression.

  ‘All right, Mom,’ she’d say. ‘Don’t be cross. I’ll do it.’ Melly was due to start school in the autumn. Sometimes it felt as if she was having to grow up very fast.

  On other days, when she had more energy, she felt matter-of-fact and hopeful. Tommy was her son. He had difficulties and she would stick with him through all of them. She would guard him like a tiger and would give him every help. They could survive anything!

  This afternoon she was walking through Aston, cutting along a side street to get home. The street was drab and dirty, lined by factory walls and entries into back courts of houses. It was a hot, hazy day and she had pushed the hood of the pram back to let Tommy feel the light on his face. He had slumped to one side and she stopped to hoist him up and make him comfortable. After a moment she sensed that someone was watching her. Turning, she saw a thin, haggard woman standing close by at the end of one of the entries, her body half-hidden in the shade. Faded, straggly hair hung round her thin cheeks. She was staring hard at the pram, and at Tommy.

  Rachel was just about to move on when the woman stepped forward, slopping along in old down-at-heel shoes. A frock with faded red-and-white patterns hung on her skeletal frame.

  ‘That boy of yours . . .’ She had a soft voice, despite her rough appearance. Sad, grey eyes looked into Rachel’s face. Up closer, Rachel saw that the woman was not as old as she had
first supposed. There was an intense feel to her, to the way she was looking at Tommy. ‘Why’s he still in a pram at his age? What’s wrong with him?’

  Rachel was taken aback, for a moment thinking the stranger was criticizing her. But she quickly realized that this was not so. The woman came closer and her lined face lifted into a smile at Tommy. Why was she asking these questions, Rachel wondered? She also realized she still hardly knew how to answer, to say what was wrong.

  The woman was looking at her with some sort of need in her eyes.

  ‘He’s a . . . His legs aren’t . . .’ She stopped and tried again. ‘He can’t walk. Not yet anyway.’

  ‘My boy’s never walked.’ Words rushed from the woman’s mouth. ‘My Frankie.’ She laid a cold, veiny hand on Rachel’s arm. ‘Come and see him. No one ever comes to see us.’

  Rachel wanted to resist this odd request. The woman was gesturing towards the entry.

  ‘The pram,’ Rachel protested.

  ‘Bring it. Bring it with you.’ She was eager now, ushering Rachel along.

  Rachel might have refused, but she could feel that the woman was kindly and that she was desperate for something – company, or perhaps just a kind word. They went along the entry into a yard not unlike the one where Rachel lived, except it was narrower and there was no works at the end, only houses and a blank wall along one side. There was a bleak feel to the place. They went to number four, at the other side of the yard.

  ‘You can leave him by the door here for a moment,’ the woman said.

  A strange noise came from inside, a kind of howl. For a moment Rachel thought it was a dog.

  ‘That’s Frankie,’ the woman said, pulling on Rachel’s arm again. ‘He’ll be pleased to see you. You’re about his age.’

  Inside, as Rachel’s eyes adjusted, her nostrils were seized by a strong, unpleasant mixture of smells which came close to making her gag. There were a lot of flies moving around the room as if half-drugged. The woman did not seem to notice these things.

  ‘Frankie, love,’ she said in a caressing tone. ‘There’s a nice lady come to see you.’

  To the left of the fireplace, in a strange, sloping chair with footrests, Rachel saw a young man. His body was contorted, his arms clenched up close to him, the hands flopping at the wrists and his twisted face turned to one side, looking to his right, as if he could not turn it to face the front. Hearing his mother’s voice, he made sounds which sent his tongue out of his mouth but it was not speech that Rachel could understand. Near the chair stood a bucket with a cloth draped over the top. Rachel realized that the worst of the stench must be coming from there.

  ‘This is . . . What’s your name, dear?’ the woman said.

  Rachel was so horrified by the sight of the man and even more repelled by the stench in this poor, bare room that she wanted to run out and get as far away from the place as possible. But she could not bear to behave in such a hurtful way to him, or his poor mother.

  ‘Rachel,’ she said. Then she added, ‘Hello, Frankie.’

  ‘He had his twenty-first birthday last month,’ his mother said. She spoke factually, without pride or resentment.

  ‘I’ve just turned twenty – a few days ago,’ Rachel said, for something to say.

  ‘Twenty-one years,’ the woman went on. ‘Him and me – for nineteen of them anyway. His father soon took off. Couldn’t face it. No one can. I never take him out. He sits in the yard sometimes, just by the door, but I never let him out in the street. I used to take him out, at first. Children threw stones at him and after that I thought, never again.’ Rachel heard the passion in her voice. ‘I wasn’t having that, not for my boy. He never went to school – no one said anything. I think everyone just forgot about him. My little Frankie –’ Her voice was a mix of fondness and utter despair. ‘The invisible boy.’ She looked at Rachel then with her sad, washed-out eyes. ‘No one wants them, you know, cripples. They just want them to disappear.’

  Rachel felt that if she did not get out of that house she was going to break open with grief and revulsion. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, turning to the door. ‘Sorry. My auntie’s waiting for me.’

  Abruptly, with no goodbye – which afterwards she felt desperately ashamed about – she hurried out of the house, away from Frankie’s formless sounds, from the smell, from all the things that the poor mother was trying to tell her.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Gladys asked when she got home.

  ‘Oh, Auntie – a lady made me go into her house . . .’ She broke down, relating the story. ‘She only lives up the road and I’ve never seen her before and her son’s in that house and never goes out and . . . I don’t want to be like that!’ she cried. ‘And I don’t want Tommy to be like that! She’s shut him away as if he doesn’t exist.’ She looked up at Gladys, her cheeks streaming. ‘I don’t want to have to be ashamed of my little boy! I’m not going to let people make him feel as if he’s all wrong. Why are people so cruel?’

  Gladys looked down at her, her face full of pity. Something in her expression shifted suddenly, as if she had realized something.

  ‘You know, you’ve turned out a strong sort of wench, you have. Staunch. You stand up to things. It’s true, I’ve known other children hidden away, not let out with the others, as if they’ve done summat wrong.’

  ‘I’m not going to let them be horrible to Tommy,’ Rachel vowed fiercely. In those seconds she saw how much she had changed during the months of her son’s life. Her own future had become welded to his. ‘I’m going to make sure he joins in and does things and . . . and if anyone’s nasty they’ll have me to answer to – and that goes for my mother, along with all the rest of them!’

  VI

  Thirty-Eight

  February 1946

  Rachel stared at the telegram, hardly able to make sense of the words while Gladys stood nearby, looking ready to snatch it out of her hand.

  ‘They’re at Southampton. He’ll be back today!’ Rachel held the telegram out to her, her face lit with wonder.

  Gladys sat down on a kitchen chair as if her legs had given way and stared at the telegram. ‘Oh, thank the Lord.’

  Rachel stood by the table, trying to let the news sink in. Danny had been in the army now for four years so he was one of the earlier ones to be sent home. Four years – twice as long as they had had together before he left. After all these months and years of waiting, of longing for him, of feeling he had become a stranger to her – now, today most likely, he would really be here. And after all this time, he would meet the son he had never seen.

  ‘Tommy –’ She went over to her little boy who was sitting up in his special chair. ‘Your dada’s coming home.’ She tickled his tummy and Tommy squirmed and chortled. ‘You’re going to see your dada today.’

  Tommy made one of his sounds which they knew, now, meant, ‘Melly!’ Melly, his adored elder sister.

  ‘Yes, Melly’s going to see Dada too.’

  Tommy was two and a half, no longer a baby, and now his difficulties were far more obvious. Rachel had kept up massaging him and Tommy seemed to enjoy it. He often chuckled while they were up on the bed and Rachel was rubbing his arms and legs, trying at least to make him more comfortable. And it was good to hear his gurgling laugh. Melly sometimes came and helped. But for all Rachel’s efforts, his little body could not hold itself upright unsupported and he had to be strapped into his chair. His left arm moved as if it had a mind of its own, while his legs were very rigid and he could not walk. The doctor had given him some leg braces to wear at night to try and keep his legs straight. Because his tongue would push out of his mouth, beyond his control, his speech was distorted and eating was a messy, trying business. He still had to wear napkins. However lovely he was – and he was a truly sweet-natured child – however much he was her boy, for whom she would battle and strive and fight off anyone else’s pitying glances or rude remarks, there had been many bitter days when Rachel came close to despair. Each dawn she faced the inevitable round of
feeding, washing and changing, of sliding his stiff legs in and out of the splints and his clothing, of lifting and pushing him about, of trying to keep him entertained. Once all that was done and she fell into bed, she had to get up and begin the whole thing all over again. Whereas most boys his age wore you out because they were running about with more mobility than sense, Tommy was tiring because he was not. He could not be left. Other than care for him and Melly, in an endless round, Rachel felt she had no life left.

  The only real friend she saw was Netta, who to her joy had safely had another baby, a little girl called Clare. Rachel could not work on the market, or anywhere else. Though she could leave Tommy with Gladys for short amounts of time, she knew she was tied to him like a horse to a post. And though she loved him with a passion, what dragged her down the most was that there was no end in sight. This was her life now and this is how it would always be. Sometimes she went up to her room, just for a few minutes, and let herself have a cry, the sobs rising up from the depths of her, before she had to get up, a little relieved for the moment, and soldier on again.

  As that day passed she could not settle to anything. She could think of nothing else but Danny. He was on his way home! Was he on a train now, moving closer and closer? Her whole being was aflutter with nerves and anticipation. At long, long last, he was coming. He’d be home. They could be a family again and at last Danny would be here to help.

  Everyone in the yard knew he was coming, thanks to Dolly.

  ‘Oh, Danny boy!’ she sang, after popping into their house and being shown the telegram. ‘The pipes, the pipes are ca-a-lling!’

  Dolly was more than six months pregnant now and more happily resigned to the fact than she let Mo believe. Any excuse and she was taking the rise out of him, and Mo, in his big-hearted way, seemed to enjoy his wife berating him. ‘He’s pleased as punch with himself,’ Dolly complained fondly to Gladys. ‘Makes him feel proud of his manhood.’