by Nancy Revell
‘And did you see the look on the vicar’s face?’ Dorothy chuckled. ‘Bet you he won’t forget Hope’s christening for a long while!’
‘I’m still a little confused.’ Hannah tried to raise her voice so she could be heard over the excited screams and shouts of the neighbourhood’s children out playing, glad to be free after the storm had forced them to stay indoors for an entire morning. ‘Do you think Jack has got his memory back?’
‘He looked like he knew Hope,’ Martha said, equally puzzled.
‘Which is odd,’ Hannah said, looking up at Martha, who was towering above her, ‘because he’s never seen Hope before today.’
‘I know,’ Dorothy agreed. ‘I think he only knew who we were from when he was in the yard the other week. I don’t think he remembers us from before he went to America.’
As they passed St Ignatius Church, where they had just been a few hours previously, the crowds started to thin out a little.
‘Heavens knows what’s going to happen now with Gloria and Jack – and, more worryingly, with Miriam and Vinnie.’ Dorothy’s voice dropped at the mention of the man they all detested.
‘Yeh,’ Angie agreed. ‘Really worrying.’ She’d seen the mess he’d made of Gloria’s face earlier on in the year.
When she’d finally chucked Vinnie out, there’d been a collective sigh of relief, although they all knew she had done it because she was worried about the safety of her unborn child, and not for her own wellbeing.
As the four women started walking up Villette Road, Hannah suggested going somewhere for a cup of tea.
‘I’d invite you all to mine, but it’s the Sabbath and my aunty Rina won’t even be able to put the kettle on, never mind make us a cuppa.’ Hannah was a Jewish immigrant whose parents had sent her to stay with her aunt before Hitler claimed their beautiful city of Prague as his own.
‘Eee, listen to Hannah here, “cuppa” now, is it? You’ll be speaking like Angie if you’re not careful,’ Dorothy joked.
‘There’s nowt wrong with how I speak,’ Angie said, putting on an even stronger north-east accent than the one she already had.
‘Not much right with it either,’ Dorothy said, purposely speaking in her best King’s English.
‘The café on Villette Road then?’ Hannah interrupted.
The women all murmured their agreement but when they reached the little tea shop sandwiched between the butcher’s and a hardware shop, they could see through the taped-up windows that it was full to bursting with customers.
‘Come to mine!’ Martha perked up. ‘My mam and dad have been dying to meet you all properly for ages.’
‘Are ya sure that’s a good idea?’ Angie said dramatically. ‘They might meet us and decide we’re not suitable company for their “little” girl … Or that we don’t speak proper.’ She cast a dark look across to Dorothy.
Martha chuckled and gave Angie what she considered to be a playful shove, but nearly ended up pushing her over.
‘Eee, Ange.’ Dorothy gave her friend a mock scowl. ‘You’ve got a right low opinion of yourself. And us.’
Within a few minutes the four had turned into Cairo Street, which was made up of a long row of terraced cottages.
‘Here we are!’ Martha said as they approached a little single-storey red-brick house that had a knee-high stone wall at the front and the remains of a hinge where there used to be an iron gate.
The front door, like many on the street, was wide open. Martha led the way, stepping over the brass doorstep and announcing, ‘Mam … Dad … I’m home! And I’ve brought Dorothy, Angie and Hannah with me.’
Within seconds a tall, skinny woman with short, dark brown hair came hurrying from the back kitchen and into the hallway. She was drying her hands on the floral pinny she had tied around her waist.
‘Oh my!’ she exclaimed. A big smile spread across her face, showing teeth that looked too perfect to be real and Dorothy guessed they must be false.
‘William!’ she shouted back over her shoulder. ‘Martha’s back and she’s brought her friends with her.’ Martha’s mother was clearly over the moon at her unexpected company.
‘At long last,’ she said, stretching out a long, very slender arm to shake hands with Dorothy, who had been first through the door after Martha.
‘Hello, Mrs Perkins,’ Dorothy said, ‘it’s lovely to meet you!’
‘Oh, likewise, my dear,’ she said. ‘And I’m guessing,’ she added, peering behind Dorothy, ‘that you are Hannah?’ She certainly could see why Hannah, who looked much younger than her nineteen years, had been given the nickname of ‘little bird’. She was quite tiny, with perfect olive skin and the most amazing dark eyes.
‘And, that must make you Angela,’ Mrs Perkins said to the pretty young girl with the shoulder-length strawberry blonde hair, who was wearing what looked like an identical dress to Dorothy’s, only in red.
Within minutes they had taken off their coats and dumped their boxed-up gas masks and bags, and were all sat round the dining-room table while Mrs Perkins poured out cups of tea and placed a plate of freshly made oatmeal biscuits in the middle.
‘Ah, at last,’ a loud, slightly gruff voice sounded out from the doorway. ‘It’s grand to meet you all properly,’ William, Martha’s father, said.
Martha’s mother and father had met the women welders very briefly one night two weeks earlier when they had turned up on the doorstep to see if Martha wanted to join the search for their friend’s mother, Pearl, who had gone missing. It had been a bitterly cold night and they had all been so well wrapped up that – coupled with the darkness of the enforced blackout – their faces had barely been visible, while the urgency of the search had prohibited any kind of formal introductions.
‘Hello, Mr Perkins!’ Dorothy’s voice sang out. As usual, Dorothy had taken it upon herself to be the group’s main spokesperson.
‘So,’ Mrs Perkins asked, ‘how was the christening? Did everything go off all right?’
The women all looked at each other, not quite sure what to say. Nor were they sure how much Martha had told her parents about the intricacies of Gloria’s complicated love life – or the truth about Hope’s paternity.
‘Well, it was certainly different,’ Hannah said, sensing that, for once, Dorothy and Angie seemed at a loss for words. ‘But then again, I wouldn’t really know what was “normal”. This was the first christening I have ever been to.’
Hannah looked at Mr and Mrs Perkins, who were listening intently, and thought they seemed like really good, honest people and that it was probably not appropriate to tell them that Gloria’s lover had suddenly turned up at the christening and met his baby daughter for the first time.
‘In my religion,’ Hannah continued, ‘we don’t have a christening but something called a “bris”, but it’s only for the boy babies.’
‘How interesting,’ Mrs Perkins said, taking a sip of her tea. ‘Tell us more.’
‘Well,’ Hannah said, ‘it’s when the baby is given his Hebrew and secular name.’ She paused for a moment, unsure whether to go into any more detail. Deciding that it was better than talking about the christening they had just been to, she continued.
‘And it’s also when the baby boy is … how do you say it in English … “circumcised”?’
The table suddenly fell quiet. Mrs Perkins blushed and Mr Perkins decided he needed to go to the ‘little boys’ room’. Dorothy squirmed uncomfortably in her chair and put her half-eaten biscuit back down on her plate. Martha and Angie, however, just looked puzzled.
‘Blimey, Hannah, for someone who could barely speak a word of English you know some pretty fancy words.’ Angie laughed.
Martha wiped some crumbs away from her mouth and agreed, ‘Yeah, you do, Hannah. What does “circum—”’
‘Circumcised,’ Hannah said the word again. ‘Well, how do I put it?’ She checked that Mr Perkins was not about to re-enter the room, then dropped her voice. ‘It’s when the baby boy is cut … you know –
’ she looked down at her lap ‘ – down there …’
‘Urgh!’ Angie couldn’t contain her shock and disgust. ‘Blimey, Hannah, that’s terrible. Why would they do something like that?’
‘I think,’ Mrs Perkins said, ‘if I’m right,’ she looked at Hannah, ‘it’s an important part of the Jewish religion. In the Old Testament it says that every male child should be circumcised.’
Hannah nodded her agreement, but Angie looked even more perplexed and was just about to ask another question when Dorothy kicked her under the table.
‘So, then,’ Mr Perkins said as he came back into the room and sat down. He looked at his daughter and the friends he had heard so much about. ‘Martha here tells me you are all working on a new ship, a screw steamer – Empire Brutus, I believe she’s called?’
Jumping at the chance to steer the topic of conversation towards something more suitable for tea and biscuits with your friend’s parents, Dorothy leapt in with enthusiasm and regaled her workmate’s father with how they were indeed working on a cargo vessel called Brutus and that she was the latest commission from the Ministry of War Transport.
‘The launch date’s still a way off, but when she’s finished she’s going to be over four hundred and twenty foot long, and over thirty-five foot from keel to bridge!’ Dorothy boasted proudly.
Mrs Perkins had to suppress a smile as the women all joined in telling her husband about the problems they’d had and how the future of shipbuilding was welding and not riveting. She marvelled at how the lives of women in general had changed these past few years since war had been declared.
Above all else, though, she felt such a huge relief that their daughter – their very special girl – had found not only a job that it was obvious she had been born to do, but these young women who had also become her friends.
It was no coincidence that Martha’s sociability and her speech had come on in leaps and bounds since she had started at Thompson’s. She and William had been loath to admit it, but for Martha the war had actually been a blessing in disguise. The work she was doing as part of the war effort, as well as the voluntary work she was doing on an evening for the town’s civil defence service, had really brought her out of her shell.
It had been a joy to see for them both.
Half an hour later, after the biscuits had all been devoured, and Dorothy, Angie and Hannah had thanked Mr and Mrs Perkins profusely for their hospitality, they bade their farewells, shouting back at Martha as they left the house that they’d see her on Monday.
As the women headed back along Cairo Street and then on to Villette Road to the home Hannah shared with her aunty Rina, Angie turned to their little bird.
‘Eee, Hannah, I don’t know about this religion of yours.’ The perplexed look Angie had worn earlier on at the table had returned. ‘I really can’t get me head around what you said your lot did to little boys’ you-know-whats.’
As she spoke, a couple of elderly Jews, with long beards and curls of silver grey hair, passed them on the street; not an unusual sight as they were now in the centre of the town’s Jewish community.
Angie shook her head in continued disbelief.
‘I will never be able to look at a Jewish man in the same way ever again.’
Hannah smiled but she seemed distracted. Dorothy looked at their little friend with her black hair, cut into a short bob, and thought the dark circles around her almond-shaped brown eyes seemed more noticeable than normal.
‘Everything all right with you?’ Dorothy asked.
‘Olly hasn’t said or done anything to upset you, has he?’ Angie asked, cottoning on to Dorothy’s concern.
After being transferred to the drawing office, Hannah had become friendly with a young lad called Oliver. ‘Young Olly’, as he was known by the women welders, had started to accompany Hannah to events outside of work, and had been to the christening with them in the morning.
‘No!’ Hannah said, defensively. ‘Olly would not do anything to hurt me.’
‘Well,’ Dorothy said, ‘I’m no mind reader, but I can tell something’s bothering you.’
Hannah let out a long sigh. ‘I didn’t want to say anything, you know, with today being the christening and everything. It’s meant to be a happy day, isn’t it? Celebratory. And I feel so glad for Gloria that Jack was able to be there too …’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Spit it out, Hannah!’ Angie commanded.
‘Well,’ Hannah began, ‘my aunty Rina heard last night that there was the possibility that my mother and father may have been put into the Theresienstadt ghetto.’
Now it wasn’t just Angie who looked puzzled, but Dorothy as well.
‘You’ll have to explain what this whatever-you-call-it ghetto is,’ Dorothy cajoled Hannah, as gently as she could. Hannah wasn’t like the rest of them. She was so fragile, both physically and mentally. She hadn’t talked about her parents, who she knew were still stuck over in what was now Nazi-occupied territory, and no one had wanted to ask her if there had been any kind of an update as she seemed so happy since starting her apprenticeship as a draughtsman.
‘Well,’ Hannah took a slightly shuddering breath in and tears started to pool in her eyes, ‘from what my aunty has heard from our local rabbi, the Germans have been herding all the Jews into an area of the city which has been … how do you say it … seg … segregated … made into a kind of huge, walled prison. It’s meant to be terrible there. People are dying of disease and starving to death … The Germans are trying to make out it is a nice place to be, but they are lying.’
Hannah and Dorothy had slowed their pace and were concentrating hard on what Hannah was telling them. As they took in her words, they exchanged a look of outrage and anger.
‘Bloody hell!’ Angie couldn’t stop herself. ‘How can they get away with doing something like that? What have your people done to deserve that?’
‘Nic!’ Hannah said, reverting to her native tongue. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing! It is simply because they are Jews.’
Dorothy had to bite her lip to stop herself letting rip. She had been brought up living alongside the town’s Jewish population. To her, seeing a man with a skullcap or with a prayer book in his hand had been no different than seeing some bloke wearing a flat cap and smoking a pipe. She knew that they were by no means an evil race. On the contrary, they always came across as very calm, very polite people.
Dorothy, Angie and Hannah slowed down and stopped as they reached the corner of Manila Street opposite the Barley Mow Park, which had recently been divided up into allotments. There was now fruit and veg where there had once been pretty flower beds and a bowling green.
Dorothy gave Hannah a big hug, followed by Angie.
‘Try not to worry, Hannah,’ Dorothy said, giving her friend a reassuring smile.
‘Yeah,’ Angie added, ‘we’ll beat the bastards and before you know it yer mam and dad will be out of that ghetto place.’
‘Yes,’ Hannah said, her spirits lifting a fraction at her friends’ hopeful words and determination, ‘and what is more is that we will help “beat the bastards”,’ she said quoting Angie. ‘We will make the ships “to beat the bastards”.’
Angie and Dorothy chuckled at Hannah’s repeated use of a swear word.
‘We will, Hannah!’ Angie and Dorothy said, glad not to leave their friend in total despondency.
‘You’ll design the ships and we’ll build the buggers!’ Angie shouted as they left.
‘Poor Hannah,’ Dorothy said as they hurried across Ryhope Road and into the wide, tree-lined residential road known as The Cedars where most of the town’s affluent families lived.
‘I know,’ Angie agreed, staring at the row of huge houses. It never failed to amaze her how magnificent these homes were.
‘You know, Dor, I really just can’t understand it. I don’t even know why Hitler hates the Jews so much? My dad says it’s because he’s a nutter and thinks everyone should have blond hair and blue eyes.’
Dorothy looked at her friend in her red dress with her light blonde hair and blue eyes.
‘You’d be all right then,’ she said, ‘but I’d be for the chopper.’
Angie looked at her friend’s thick, raven-coloured hair and dark eyes.
‘You know, you look a bit Jewish,’ she said, as if seeing her friend for the first time. ‘What was yer da like? Yer proper da, I mean.’ Angie knew Dorothy’s mother and father were divorced, but it was not something her friend liked to broadcast.
‘I’ll show you a photo when we get home. I’ve just got the one picture of him. He was dark, but I reckon he looks more Italian than Jewish.’
By now the women had almost reached Dorothy’s home, a large Victorian house that looked out on to the massive natural arboretum known as Backhouse Park.
‘Martha’s mam’s really dark as well, isn’t she?’ Angie’s head was now swimming with all the happenings of the day.
Dorothy laughed.
‘Honestly, not everyone with black hair and dark eyes has Jewish heritage, Ange!’
They walked up the long crunching gravel driveway that led to a large white front door.
‘They both seem really nice though, don’t they?’ Angie added, looking at her friend.
Dorothy knew Angie would have been happy to stay at Martha’s all afternoon, chatting away and eating Mrs Perkins’s warm biscuits. She certainly couldn’t see Angie’s mother and father making polite conversation over a cup of tea. The few times Dorothy had been at her friend’s it’d been pandemonium. There were kids of every age running around, either fighting with each other or screaming with excitement. Her mam always looked run ragged and rarely even acknowledged either of them. And just one look at Angie’s father, sitting there in his armchair next to the fire, in just his trousers and vest, still covered in coal and dirt from the colliery, had you inching towards the front door.
‘Yes, Martha’s mum and dad seem really nice. She’s lucky,’ Dorothy agreed, thinking of her own mother and stepfather and how they would have barely batted an eyelid if Dorothy had turned up with her friends out of the blue.
