by Nancy Carson
‘But you don’t have to go, Ben. You can still be here with me and the children, while you’re doing your bit for the country making pig-iron. Why d’you want to go? I don’t understand you. Let the single men go.’
‘You don’t understand what it means to me, my flower.’
‘And you don’t understand what you mean to me, Ben. I’ll never understand why you want to go and leave us.’
‘Oh, please don’t cry, Lizzie. Here, let me dry your tears.’
‘Leave me be, I can dry my own tears.’ It was hopeless. Why was he so stupid, so inconsiderate? Why did he want to make a hero of himself? She did not want a hero for a husband. She just wanted him safe, with her. She began thumping his chest in frustration. ‘I love you with all my heart, you big soft fool,’ she blubbered. ‘The children love you, you must know that. What about if you do get killed? I couldn’t live without you, Ben … I’d die without you. Oh, Ben! How can you leave your kids, knowing you might never come back?’
Eve looked on and tears welled up in her eyes too, though she tried to suppress them. She eased herself onto her feet and hobbled over to Ben, the child in her arms.
‘What’s up? Have you joined up, or something?’ Both Ben and Lizzie looked up at her, and Ben nodded solemnly. ‘I thought as much. You won’t be the last to go, either, I don’t suppose. God be with you, my son.’
*
Little Henzey, two and a half years old, saw her mother weeping at the dinner table. Her father, looking aggrieved, said little, and the lack of conversation induced deep anxiety in her. She did not understand the sudden, silent drama being enacted before her, but her alert mind perceived that all was not well. Her limited experience suggested that only little girls and little boys cried. To see her mother crying was perturbing.
Ben put the two children to bed in the box room where they slept a little earlier than usual that night. First, he tucked in Herbert and kissed him on his forehead.
‘Goodnight, my son,’ he whispered, and touched the top of his head lovingly.
‘Why’s Mommy crying?’ Henzey asked as she snuggled down in the same bed and tugged the blankets up around her neck.
Her hair cascaded onto the pillow like ten thousand strands of dark brown silk. Ben sat on the bed beside her and leaned over her. Tears stung in his eyes as he looked at her pretty face, but he fought them back. God alone knew how much he would miss his children. God alone knew how long it would be before he saw them again – if he ever did. It grieved him to think he might miss the best years of their growing up if this war was prolonged. He began to feel guilty.
‘Mommy was crying because Daddy’s got to go away for a long time, my little precious, and Mommy doesn’t want Daddy to go.’
‘Oh. Am you goin’ to join the army?’
He nodded, smiling into her trusting, blue eyes.
‘Shall y’ave a gun?’
‘Yes, I’ll have a big gun. And I’ll shoot all the Germans.’
Henzey grinned. ‘Will it be a pop-gun?’
‘No, my flower, it won’t be a pop-gun. It’ll be a real gun. Now listen, sweetheart – when I’m gone I want you to be a big girl and look after your Mommy for me. Will you do that? I want you to promise me that you’ll be good and help her all you can looking after Herbert and little Alice … Promise?’ She nodded. It was a solemn, binding pledge. ‘When you wake up in the morning I’ll already be gone.’
He pressed his cheek against hers and she felt the hard stubble of his face. Then she felt his lips, soft and warm, brush her cheek and linger for a second as he kissed her. The contrasting textures of his face seemed to amplify the two sides of him that she already took for granted: his roughness and his gentleness, though she instinctively preferred the gentler side. She wrapped her little arms around his head and felt a tear from his eye smudge across her cheek. Her anxiety returned. She had no comprehension of why her father had to go, but she accepted it with trust enough. It was not so easy for her mother to accept, that was obvious. Ben turned and blew her a kiss as he lingered for a second by the door. Then he pulled it to, and she heard him trudge downstairs.
Next morning, Lizzie got up with Ben at half past five, full of foreboding. It was still dark. He lit the gaslight and raked out the fire that had been left in overnight. Flames danced into life, and she cooked bacon and eggs in the Dutch oven that sat on the strides in front of the fire. Ben boiled up the kettle, brewed a pot of tea, and shaved in the mirror over the mantelpiece. That done, he cleaned his teeth and swilled his face. At twenty five minutes past six Lizzie was holding him in her arms on the back doorstep. They had said most of what they wanted to say as they lay in bed last night. Lizzie wanted those precious moments to last forever, even though she silently cried the whole time they were making love. It might have been the very last time they made love. She would have given anything for time to have stood still, before it could finally rob her of the husband she loved so much. A shiver ran cold down her spine. Now it was time to say their last good-byes for heaven knew how long.
‘I love you, Ben. Take good care. And write every day.’
He stroked her loose hair. ‘Try not to fret, our Lizzie. I’ll be all right, I promise. Just take good care of yourself, and the kids. Give them a kiss for me every night when they go to bed, and don’t let them forget me. For Christ’s sake don’t let them forget me. And say cheerio to your mother for me.’
‘Oh, God bless you, Ben, and keep you safe.’
He hugged her a last time. ‘You look so beautiful when you cry, Lizzie,’ he said softly, and let go of her. He picked up his grubby, brown suitcase and walked down the entry.
She did not follow. She couldn’t bear to see him walk away. It might be the last time she ever caught sight of him. So she wanted this treasured memory to be of him holding her in his arms, not watching him disappear down Cromwell Street, forlorn, heedlessly walking to his death carrying a suitcase.
She turned and went indoors. In the tiny back room she poked the coals into life again and sat on the chair he always sat in. A tear rolled down her cheek and she took a handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped it away. Never before had she felt so wretched. She gazed blankly into the coals and felt an intolerable ache in her heart. Absently, she turned the wedding ring she’d worn for the last four years on her finger, and thought she was going to choke on the lump that came to her throat. Why must there be wars to create all this unbearable heartache? Another tear wet her cheek and she felt it trace its way to her chin. She whispered his name, over and over, and for every time she spoke it another tear fell. Her heart was stone cold with grief for the only man she had ever truly loved. He might as well be dead already. A whimper escaped her throat, and then tears flowed in a torrent. ‘You look so beautiful when you cry,’ he’d said. The whimpers turned to sobs, and the tiny handkerchief she held to her eyes was soon saturated. After some minutes of uncontrollable sobbing she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. Her heart thumped and she looked up, expecting him back.
‘Has he gone already?’ Eve asked.
Lizzie nodded and blew her nose, her eyes puffy from all this useless crying.
‘Come back up to bed, then, my wench. Maybe you’ll cry yourself back to sleep.’
‘I doubt if I’ll ever sleep again, Mother.’
Chapter 13
May Bishop squirmed agonisingly in her bed, her contractions more frequent now. She was wide awake and apprehensive and, to take her mind off the searing pains in her belly as her unborn child began to make its way into the world, she tried to imagine what it might look like, whether it would be a boy or a girl. Her eyes were wide, alert, but in the darkness she could see nothing. No moonlight infiltrated the room through the heavy, velvet curtains that hung at the window. Joe was beside her, his back towards her, snoring like a pig in a stupor, but through his hideous grunts she could hear the rumble of the night soil men’s wheelbarrow in the entry. Another pain gripped her. She’d better wake him before her water
broke.
‘What’s up?’ he croaked.
‘You’d better fetch Annie Soap, Joe.’
He rolled out of bed at once, stood up, and fumbled round on the mantelpiece where he knew a box of matches should be. In the charcoal dimness he found them and lit a candle. Shielding his eyes from the brightness he squinted at the clock: ten minutes past one. He’d been in bed two hours. He picked up his long johns and pulled them on, then his vest, his shirt and his trousers.
‘The night soilers have just come,’ May said. ‘Mind you don’t fall over the barrow.’
‘Mind I don’t fall in it might be better advice.’ He put on his socks and shoes, pulled his jacket from the back of a chair, donned his cap, and yawned. ‘Now you’m sure you’m well on the way? I don’t want to fetch Annie if you’ve got another day to go. She costs enough as it is.’
‘Fetch her, Joe. If I’m not ready yet she can always go back home to wait. But the pains are coming regular now. It’s a sure sign.’
‘Well at least it ain’t so far as fetching Donald Clark.’
‘Donald Clark. Pooh! He’s about as much use as a glass eye. He’s never sober when you want him. Anyroad, I don’t agree with having men to do a midwife’s work, doctor or no. And I didn’t agree with Lizzie having him. Still, that’s her business, not mine.’
Joe had no wish to discuss the vices and virtues of the doctor and the midwife, especially if it meant being critical of his own sister’s preferences. He was content that May wanted Annie Soap to attend her, and Annie would come gladly – she would welcome the money. So he said he wouldn’t be long, and left.
The night soil men were emptying the communal privies of Cromwell Street. They dumped the awesome contents of their wheelbarrows into six foot rings of lime, laid at the side of the road, ready to be mixed and shovelled onto the muck cart following behind. They worked quickly and quietly, their only light a lantern. Joe held his breath as he hurried past a reeking pile dumped outside Beccy Crump’s front door. A man was mixing the lime into it with his shovel to make it drier and easier to handle. Joe bid him goodnight and silently thanked God that he was a ships’ chainmaker and did not have to shovel that stuff for a living. Working in a forge was hot, noisy, and the air was laden with dust, scale, and oil fumes, but it had its compensations. He headed up Watson Street, heading for Annie Soap’s house on Cawney Hill in the black, moonless night. No gas had been laid on there, so there were no street lamps. Another night soiler was hanging on to his wheelbarrow and its unpleasant cargo as it tried to run away with him down the hill. Even the muck cart couldn’t get up there, and the stuff had to be brought down in wheelbarrows. As they passed, the two men wished each other good morning, and the man’s lantern afforded Joe light enough to see the entry he was seeking. Cautiously, he walked through it and into the back yard. Annie’s was the end house on the right. He rapped loudly on the back door. Within seconds a croaky, female voice called through an open upstairs window, and Joe identified himself. He told her that May Bishop’s time had come.
‘Babbies! Why dun they always drop when I’m tryin’ to get some shuteye?’ Annie squawked. ‘Never mind. Put plenty wairter on th’ob to bile, my mon. I shall need some twine, a pair o’ scissors, and plenty towels an’ all. I’ll be round as soon as I’ve fastened me stays.’
May had lived in the hope that she would have as easy a time of childbirth as Lizzie. But she was nervous and tense because of her previous disappointments. She did not want to lose this child. By the light of a candle Annie tried to coax her gently, kindly, to relax her, but May started yelling with pain and with fear. Never in her life before had she experienced anything so unpleasant. Then her water broke, at last. The contractions came hard and powerful. She tried to relax. She pushed. She strained. The contractions came again and she screamed, clinging to the brass bedrail so tightly in her anguish that her knuckles were white. She twisted and turned endlessly, seeking relief, her contorted face wet with perspiration. For half the night hideous pains gripped her like some wild animal with its teeth in her belly. For half the night she pushed. For half the night she sweated like a furnaceman, biting her bottom lip till it was raw. Was it hurting her child as much? But the child could not cry, stuck inside her.
Then the baby’s head appeared. Thank God it would soon be over. She couldn’t stand much more of this gruesome pain. She pushed again … And again. It was sheer bloody torture. She was so hot, so tired already, but worst of all she was making no headway. The child didn’t want to come any further. It wasn’t like this for Lizzie. She heard her own cries becoming weaker, desperate, like a cat caught in a trap. Perhaps she was going to die. It was easy now to understand how women died in childbirth.
Now Annie fretted. May emitted a series of piercing screams. Why wouldn’t the poor little soul come further? She pushed, yelled some more, but she was utterly exhausted. Annie Soap cursed like a pit bank wench as the forceps failed to urge the child out into the world.
Joe sat downstairs at the table, his head in his hands. With all the commotion he thought his wife was being murdered. Time dragged while he waited tensely for news. He started feeling faint, so sought his bottle of whisky and poured himself a large one. Long since, the night soilers had departed. At five o’ clock he’d heard the clatter of hoofs and wheels outside, as Jesse Clancey drove his cart over the cobbles on his way to the station to collect his churns of milk. With all the anxiety waiting brought, and poor May’s physical suffering, Joe made up his mind there’d definitely be no more children. He wished he could sleep, oblivious to the wailings, but he knew he could not. Each time he heard May screaming he wanted to scream himself. He parted the curtains in the scullery and saw that day was breaking. How much longer could this go on? Then, at last, he heard Annie’s cumbersome footsteps slowly trudging down the wooden stairs. He looked up apprehensively.
‘Is it all over?’
Annie shook her head. ‘Yo’d better fetch the doctor, Joe. And yo’d better be quick. The babby’s stuck. Quick as yer can. Goo on, my mon! Run … Run!’
Joe grabbed his cap and ran like a frenzied terrier to Donald Clark’s house. He didn’t understand the implications of his child being stuck, but it sounded ominous. It was light now and the early morning haze hung over the trees in Dixons Green like a fine lace mantle. Urgently, he tugged the bell-pull at Hawthorn Villa and waited for what seemed like hours. The maid appeared, still fastening her dressing gown. She adjusted her cap and said she remembered him. But this time there was no mischievous gleam in his eye. This time he had no inclination to stop and jest. Joe explained that his wife needed the doctor, quick. So the maid ran upstairs to wake Donald.
Donald came down trying to smooth his tousled hair.
‘What is it, Joe?’ he asked kindly.
‘It’s May. She’s in labour, but the babby’s stuck. Annie’s sent me to fetch you.’
‘Is it breeched?’
Joe tried to read the doctor’s concerned expression. ‘God only knows. All I know is that May’s been squealing like a scalded cat all night. Can you come?’
‘Of course. Give me a minute to get dressed.’
In ten minutes Donald Clark was at May’s bedside. He worked quickly and efficiently, reassuring May that it would soon be over. Unfortunately he was unable to prevent the very thing he dreaded most: whilst May and Joe’s daughter was alive she had been starved of oxygen for too long, and he feared she would be brain-damaged.
*
As he had promised he would, Ben Kite wrote every day to Lizzie. His letters were a joy when he told her of the amusing incidents that peppered his training. He’d ultimately been posted to France, and his tone suggested it was a relief to go. Thereafter, Lizzie deliberately avoided looking at newspapers, and tried to shut her ears to the cries of the street vendors who shouted the latest disturbing news. It was clear now that the war would be long and drawn out. David Lloyd George doubled income tax to pay for it, raising it to a shilling and sixpence in
the pound. Yet despite trying to cut herself off from the news, the hearsay, and the prophets of doom, she still heard about the German warships callously shelling north east coastal towns just a few days ago, killing hundreds of innocent citizens. She was thankful she lived where she did in the middle of England, where German shells couldn’t reach.
That December, Lizzie walked up Cromwell Street’s gentle incline holding Henzey’s hand. The thought of the roaring fire in the shiny, black grate waiting to warm her and welcome her, made her eager to get home. She’d been to the Post Office to get her allowance, and queued at Totty Marsh’s in Brown Street for Sunlight soap and Reckitt’s Blue for washing day. From the fishmonger, who came round with a cart, she bought ‘cockeyed salmon’ for tea, which was actually bream, but so called because of the pink flesh. She bought firewood and vegetables, and then called at Sammy Giles’s sweet shop in George Street, where she was paying a penny a week for the children to have some sweets at Christmas. Henzey charmed Sammy with a rendering of ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’, as she sat on the counter. Her reward was two ounces of dolly-mixtures.
They reached home and the warmth. Lizzie took off Henzey’s winter coat, then her own, and rubbed her hands together in front of the blazing fire.
‘Kettle’s just come to the boil,’ Eve said. ‘I’ll make a cup of tea. Oh, there’s a letter for you in the second post, our Lizzie.’
Lizzie took it and smiled. She read it avidly, and breathed a sigh of relief. Ben was all right.
Eve made the pot of tea, which she placed on the hob to steep. She turned to her granddaughter who’d just handed Herbert two dolly mixtures as he sat playing in a creaking wicker clothes basket with some clothes pegs.
‘Come and sit with me at the table, Henzey, and we’ll make some paper chains to hang up for Christmas,’ Eve said. The child jumped up and down excitedly and took her place at the table. Grandmother took a cracked cup from the cupboard at the side of the grate and made some paste with flour and water. Then she went into the front room and came out with some brightly coloured paper and a pencil. ‘Here. Here’s a blacklead to draw with.’
