A Ration Book Christmas

by Jean Fullerton

  She pointed at Mattie and the colour drained from her sister’s face.

  Queenie grabbed Jo, her fingers biting into her bicep. ‘That’s enough.’

  Jo snatched back her arm and rounded on her father. ‘I don’t hear you telling Mattie how she’s thrown her life away by getting herself in the family way by a bloody Nazi.’

  Mattie let out a little cry and covered her mouth with her hands.

  ‘Who told you such a thing?’ demanded Jerimiah as he stood rooted to the spot.

  ‘Cathy,’ Jo replied, looking defiantly back at him. ‘She told me that it was Mattie’s never-seen never-heard-from husband who got Stan put away and so it’s as clear as the nose on your face that the reason no one mentions him is because he’s in prison too. I suppose that’s why his aunt has to write or perhaps he can’t because he’s got his just deserts on the gallows.’

  Her father and gran stared at her in horror.

  There was a moment of utter stillness then, with tears shimmering in her eyes, Mattie hauled herself up from the chair.

  ‘They’ll be setting up for the party soon so I’d better get these around to the Post,’ she said, grabbing the cardboard box full of newspaper parcels from the floor.

  Knocking into the arm of the chair and nearly stumbling over the pouffe, she hurried from the room.

  ‘Mattie!’ Queenie shouted, dashing after her granddaughter but the back door slammed before she’d got halfway across the room.

  The old woman stood there for a moment, then she turned and smiled sweetly at Jo.

  ‘I suppose you’re proud of yourself,’ she said, in a soft lilting voice. ‘I mean, for working out all that Nazi stuff about your sister and her husband.’

  ‘I just put two and two together,’ Jo replied.

  Quick as lightning, Queenie’s right hand swiped Jo around the head.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Now that one was for arguing with your father like a gob of shite and this one’ – she whacked Jo again – ‘is for upsetting your poor sister who’s had enough worry on her mind to last her a hundred lifetimes.’

  ‘Now, Ma,’ said Jerimiah, trying to pull his mother off. ‘Don’t get yourself all riled up, you know what the doc said about your blood pressure.’

  ‘Feck me blood pressure and feck the doctor,’ Queenie replied.

  Ripping the coral rosary hanging from the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood on their mantelshelf, and making the figurine shake precariously in the process, she thrust it in Jo’s face.

  ‘This,’ she said, her face screwed up like a gargoyle, ‘was my great-grandma’s. Her pa brought it all the way back from Rome where the Pope himself blessed it. Now I want you to swear that you’ll repeat nothing of what we’ll be telling you.’

  ‘I swear,’ said Jo, rubbing her head.

  ‘Kiss it!’

  Jo did, feeling the beads smooth against her lips.

  ‘Right, me girl,’ said Queenie, her furious expression abating slightly. ‘Now you know the Almighty is looking down on you and will judge you wanting if you breathe a word. You remember Father McCree?’

  ‘The priest who came to help Father Mahon last year and then joined the army?’ said Jo, thinking about the tall athletic young man who sent female parishioners’ hearts a-fluttering.

  ‘Well, he wasn’t a priest. He was an agent from MI5 sent here to track down Nazi spies,’ her father said. ‘The Hitlerloving snake he was after was that Christopher Joliffe, that smarmy bank manager chap Mattie was knocking about with for a time. Cathy’s Stan was part of the gang, organised by Joliffe, to land SS commanders in London Dock. They were caught red-handed by Father McCree with Mattie’s help and she had to give evidence at their trial.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand about Mattie’s husband?’ said Jo.

  ‘Father McCree’s real name is Daniel McCarthy,’ said her father.

  Jo’s eyes widened with surprise.

  ‘Your sister’s husband, the father of her child, was working undercover with the resistance in occupied France.’ Queenie gave them both an exasperated look. ‘I say was, because not half an hour before you two burst in here like a couple of warring banshees, Daniel’s commanding officer came and broke the news to poor Mattie that her husband of six months is missing, presumed dead.’ Her sharp black eyes fixed on Jo.

  Ice seemed to replace the blood in Jo’s veins. Dumbly her mouth opened and closed a couple of times then she found her words.

  ‘I have to go to Mattie,’ she called behind her as she raced out of the back door after her sister.

  With a stitch slicing through her left side and remorse ripping at her heart, Jo dashed the half a mile to Post 7 in five minutes flat and burst through the ARP depot’s main door and into a festive scene.

  With the melodic sound of ‘Blue Moon’ from the old EKO radio on the window sill filling the room, a dozen or so of Jo’s fellow ARP colleagues were up ladders transforming the stark interior of the Victorian school into a fairyland grotto ready for the children’s Christmas party later that afternoon. Jo, like many of the women in the post, had spent weeks gluing colourful strips from women’s magazines into paper chains and these, along with Chinese lanterns made from painted greaseproof paper, were draped in scallops across the hall and lit from behind with the Auxiliary Fire Service’s blue, red and yellow warning lamps. Someone had even managed to get a small Christmas tree from somewhere and this, too, had been decorated with homemade baubles.

  Everyone looked around as Jo staggered to a halt by the rack of stirrup pumps. She looked over the sea of faces staring at her.

  ‘My sister,’ she gasped, holding her ribs as she caught her breath. ‘Where’s my sister?’

  The ARP warden for the St Paul’s Church area, who was standing at the top of a ladder as he pinned up some balloons, looked around.

  ‘She was here,’ he said, casting his gaze over the heads of those in the hall.

  ‘I think she’s taken the kids’ presents down into the boiler room so the children won’t see them when they arrive,’ said one of the WVS women who was attaching cotton loops to bows made from yellow cellophane.

  Taking a deep breath and ignoring the pain in her side, Jo ran between the child-size trestle tables and stacked chairs towards the stairs leading to the basement.

  Grasping the ball at the top of the banister, Jo swung around the top and clattered down the flight of stairs.

  The space below the school housed the old Edwardian boiler and all the school equipment, like PE benches, teachers’ desks and easels. It was also where the ARP stored their spare equipment such as lamps, shovels and ropes. Casting her eyes across the jumble of equipment, Jo spotted her sister over by a box of spare gas masks. As she stepped off the last step, Mattie looked around.

  In the dim light from the couple of light bulbs illuminating the space her sister looked red-eyed and drawn, anguish etched deep in her face. As the full enormity of Mattie’s situation hit Jo between the eyes, remorse and shame cut through her.

  ‘Mattie, I’m sorry,’ shouted Jo, dodging around a stack of infant chairs, desperate to get to her sister. ‘I’m so sorry. I should never have said what I did. It’s my fault I’m just a horrible—’

  A boom overhead sent the lights jiggling and then a burst of dust-filled air pulsed through the cellar, lifting Jo off her feet and throwing her against one of the upright pillars as a box of bean bags burst open beside her.

  In the intermittent beam from the now solitary light bulb swinging above, Jo saw that the stairs she’d just run down were clogged with shattered bricks and crumbled mortar. The cast-iron boiler had crumpled like a plasticine model under a slab of concrete from the floor above and the pillar opposite the one Jo had landed against had buckled, crushing an old bookcase beneath it.

  Coughing, Jo pushed herself upright and looked over to where her heavily pregnant sister had been standing just seconds before. The pale beam of light scanned over the debris in the basement once mor
e then the bulb popped and Jo was plunged into darkness.

  ‘Mattie!’ she screamed.

  Other than the pitter-patter of grit falling there was utter silence.

  ‘Mattie, for the Love of Mary, answer me!’ she yelled again, her eyes searching the pitch blackness around her.

  ‘Jo,’ her sister murmured from somewhere to Jo’s right.

  Utter relief swept over her. ‘Stay where you are, Matt, I’m coming.’

  Closing her eyes, Jo tried to visualise the layout of the room then, stretching her hands in front of her and sliding her feet along, she groped her way forward.

  ‘Matt,’ she said as she bumped into a box of something blocking her path.

  ‘Over here.’

  Jo turned in the direction of her sister’s voice and edged her way over. Skirting around what felt like a pile of floor mats she inched her way forward until her toe nudged something soft.

  ‘Jo.’ Mattie’s hand closed around Jo’s ankle.

  ‘It’s all right, Mattie, I’m here,’ said Jo, crouching down beside her sister who was lying on the floor. ‘Are you hurt? Can you feel your fingers and toe—’

  ‘Jo.’ Mattie’s hands gripped her upper arm painfully. ‘My waters have gone.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  WITH HIS NOSE still throbbing from Jerimiah’s fist, Tommy turned into Mafeking Terrace forty minutes after Jo had been dragged out of the police station by her father.

  Although the desk sergeant was all for booting him through the front door too, one of the auxiliary women police officers persuaded him to let her patch Tommy up before sending him on his way.

  Having held a cold flannel on his nose for twenty minutes and then cleaning away most of the blood, Tommy had strolled out of the station ten minutes ago.

  To be honest, although his battered face would probably disagree, he couldn’t altogether blame Jerimiah for his actions. He only knew the big-boned Irishman in passing but he knew enough to know that Jerimiah wasn’t a man you’d tangle with lightly. Although he had a reputation for honesty, Jerimiah Brogan had an explosive temper, which meant he was no stranger to the inside of a police cell himself. However, given that his youngest daughter had announced to the world she’d given herself out of wedlock to one of the notorious Sweete boys, it would have been more of a surprise if her father hadn’t tried to pummel him into a greasy mark on the floor. To be honest, if he’d been in Jerimiah’s place he’d probably have done the same.

  However, while he was happy enough to let her father win this round, he was determined to be the one standing at the final bell, which was why he was now about to stick his head back in the lion’s den.

  The woman scrubbing dust from her front window with a newspaper spotted him as he turned into the street. She went to the next door along and knocked. Another woman’s head poked out of a neighbouring front door and when she saw who it was, she also hurried across to knock on a front window. A door behind him opened and someone across the road lifted up their bedroom window and looked out. By the time he’d reached Jo’s door at the other end of the street, he had a small crowd bringing up the rear and a street full of spectators hanging out of their upper windows. Stopping in front of the Brogans’ shamrock-green door, Tommy pulled the front of his crumpled jacket down and grasping the knocker, struck it twice on the stud.

  There was a pause and then Jerimiah opened the door.

  His bristled jaw tightened and his eyes flashed angrily as he saw who it was standing on his threshold.

  Squaring his shoulders, Tommy looked his prospective father-in-law in the eye. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Brogan. I would like to speak with Jo.’

  Jerimiah smiled. ‘Would you now?’

  ‘Yes, I would,’ Tommy replied.

  ‘Who is it?’ shouted a woman’s voice.

  ‘No one you need to concern yourself with, Ida,’ Jo’s father called over his shoulder.

  Jo’s mother’s round face appeared at the corner of the door. Her lips pulled together in a tight bud and her red-rimmed eyes narrowed as she spotted him.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Brogan,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ve come to speak to Jo.’

  ‘Well, you can’t because, thanks to you, she and Mattie have had a blazing row and she’s gone down to Post 7 to make up,’ said Ida. ‘So you can push off. Because I’ll not have you make more trouble for this family.’

  ‘Perhaps, if I could come in and discuss—’

  ‘Discussion you’re after having, is it, boy?’ Jerimiah said, rolling up his sleeves. ‘Then I’m happy to oblige you.’

  He stepped out of the door but as his foot touched the pavement, Ida caught his arm.

  ‘Let me go, woman,’ growled Jerimiah, glaring at Tommy. ‘So I can teach this toerag a lesson he’ll never forget.’

  ‘Not in the street, Jerry.’ She cast a look at their audience. ‘What will the neighbours say?’

  ‘Whatever they have a mind to,’ Jerimiah bellowed, yanking his arm free from his wife’s grip.

  He lunged at Tommy.

  ‘No,’ screamed Ida, causing a couple of dogs sniffing around in the gutter to prick up their ears.

  Tommy sidestepped and Jerimiah’s fist swept past his right cheek.

  A cheer went up from the gathered crowd, which set the dogs barking and jumping around. Jo’s father was just about to lash out again when his mother, Queenie, shot out of the door and leapt between them, her spindly legs spread wide and her work-worn hands up ready to repulse her gigantic son.

  Jerimiah loomed over his elf-like mother. ‘Stand aside, Mother.’

  ‘I will not,’ she replied, matching her son’s belligerent stance. ‘Not until you stop lashing at the poor fella and—’

  Jo’s father shifted his weight onto his right foot but as his mother moved to block him he sidestepped her and lunged at Tommy.

  There was a cheer from the spectators and a couple of wolf-whistles, which set the dogs yelping again as they dashed amongst the crowd.

  Anticipating the blow, Tommy stepped back and caught Jerimiah’s fist as it passed him then, pivoting on the balls of his feet, he twisted the older man’s arm up his back.

  Ida screamed as Tommy spun around and clasped his free arm across Jerimiah’s shoulders.

  ‘I had hoped,’ Tommy shouted, as he held his future father-in-law in an armlock, ‘that we could have had this conversation over a pint, but no matter. I would like to ask you, Mr Brogan, if I have your permission to marry your daughter Jo.’ Jerimiah started to struggle again so Tommy shoved his arm further up his back. ‘But I have to tell you that whether you say yay or nay, the day after she turns twenty-one we’re getting—’

  ‘Mum! Dad!’

  Tommy looked around to see Jo’s younger brother Billy racing towards them.

  ‘A UXB just flattened Shadwell School,’ he yelled, skidding to a stop in front of them. ‘People are saying that Mattie and Jo were in there when it went off but no one’s seen ’em since.’

  ‘I’ve found a torch, Matt,’ said Jo, flicking it on and shining the pale beam on her sister.

  Jo let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she saw that her dust-encrusted sister had landed on a pile of cardboard boxes, which had cushioned her fall.

  Mattie had managed to prop herself against one of the cast-iron pillars. To her right was a vaulting horse, which had plywood stage scenery laying against it. Above her, although most of the plaster had fallen from the ceiling, the Victorian support beam looked sturdy enough, as did the wall to her left with the coal-hole door in it.

  Jo crouched down next to her sister but as she did Mattie pressed her lips hard together and, cradling her stomach, started to breathe heavily. Propping the torch on a nearby box, Jo took her sister’s hand until she finally relaxed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Jo.

  Mattie let out a long breath and nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Jo. ‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’ />
  ‘My right foot,’ said Mattie.

  Kneeling down, Jo moved her fingers down her sister’s shin bone. Gripping her leg just above her ankle with one hand and her foot with the other, she moved it slightly.

  Mattie winced and gripped Jo’s arm.

  Jo lowered it back on the floor.

  ‘Is it broken?’ asked Mattie.

  Jo shook her head. ‘But I think you’ve torn every ligament in your ankle.’

  Her sister screwed up her face again and Jo took her hand, feeling her bones cracking as Mattie clung to her. After a long moment, she rested her head back. A tear escaped and rolled down her cheek and her chin started to wobble.

  ‘I can’t lose Daniel’s baby,’ she whispered. ‘I just can’t.’

  Jo gripped Mattie’s upper arms and she opened her eyes.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Mattie,’ she said, holding her sister’s gaze. ‘You, me and your baby are going to get out of this, do you hear?’

  Although another tear tracked down the dirt on her face, Mattie nodded.

  ‘I know all the chaps on the heavy crews will be up there now, digging like fury to get us out,’ continued Jo in the same robust tone. ‘But until they do we’ll just have to make the best of it and keep our chins up. Yes?’

  Mattie nodded and brushed away her tears, leaving streaks across her cheeks.

  She forced a laugh. ‘I bet they had to fetch Wilf and Pete from Red crew out of the Bunch of Grapes as usual.’

  ‘I bet they did,’ laughed Jo. ‘And that Doris Bigly is already brewing a cuppa for everyone.’

  Mattie nodded. ‘And women are in labour for hours before the baby’s delivered.’

  ‘Days, more like,’ agreed Jo. ‘Isn’t Mum forever telling us how she was three days birthing Charlie? So don’t worry, we’ll be out of here long before that baby of yours puts in an appea—’

  Mattie gasped and clutched her bump again. Jo put her arm around her shoulders and held her until the contraction dissipated and she relaxed back.