by Anne Bennett
‘I’ll stand, if you don’t mind, Mother,’ Paul said. ‘This won’t take long.’
‘That sounds rather ominous.’
‘That depends how you view it,’ Paul said. ‘The fact is, I have enlisted.’
It was the last thing Emma expected him to say. Now she understood the proud stance. Her dreams came crashing down around her head and her heart was pierced with the thought that her son was going to be in the carnage that everyone knew was coming. She was filled with sudden fear for him. She bent her head so that he couldn’t see the anguish in her eyes as she reminded herself that once more he had shamed her. He was a doctor and didn’t need to go anywhere. People said there would be air raids, planes dropping things from the sky, people hurt, maimed and killed, so why had he to go and enlist like some common nobody?
So the look she turned on Paul was as cold as ice, her eyes like pieces of granite in a face screwed up with anger and disappointment.
‘Why should I wish to know what you do?’ she snapped. ‘You threw away the values of this home long ago and then compounded the error by marrying that common little guttersnipe. From that moment you ceased to be a son of mine.’
Common little guttersnipe. The words burned in Paul’s mind. ‘How dare you call Carmel such names? What gives you that right? Do you know, I am glad that I am no longer a son of yours for I am ashamed that you were ever my mother.’
‘There is nothing further I wish to say to you,’ Emma said bitterly and added sneeringly, ‘Go back to the vulgar strumpet you married and the slum you call home. You deserve them both.’
Paul held his mother’s vindictive eyes. He had the urge to put his hands around her neck and squeeze tight. In fact, the urge to hurt the woman he now hated was so strong that he knew he had to get away quickly and stay away. He turned from her without a word.
Only when she heard the front door slam behind Paul did Emma allow herself to weep.
Paul gave Carmel an edited version of how his mother had received the news of his enlisting, but he told his father the lot later that same evening at the party.
‘I wanted to hurt her,’ he said. ‘That’s what I can’t get over. I’ve never wanted to hurt another human being in my life and she is my mother.’
‘I’m as easygoing a man as you are likely to get,’ Jeff said, ‘and the damned woman gets me the same way. Why d’you think I spend all my leisure hours in the club and make sure I don’t return home still she’s in the Land of Nod and all I am good for is falling into my bed? Take my advice, son, drink enough tonight to forget your mother and enjoy the party.’
Paul took his father’s words to heart and when Carmel noticed him knocking back the booze she wasn’t all that concerned, knowing it might be all the alcohol he would get for a long time. The house was packed with friends from both hospitals and their partners if they had any, like Jane’s fiancé, Peter Meadows, and Dan Smiley, his best friend, with whom Sylvia was going steady. Even Matthew had brought a girl with him, Carmel was glad to see. Then there were Jeff and James, and the Hancocks from next door, and Chris’s parents, whom Carmel hadn’t seen since the wedding.
It was a wonderful party but at the back of everyone’s mind was the reason for it and all were determined to make it a memorable one for Paul and Chris. Carmel knew that Paul was looking for another memory to take with him, for she had seen it lurking in his eyes for the last hour or so and it had set the excitement mounting in her too.
Barely had the door closed on the last guest than Paul was tugging at her.
‘Leave all the clearing up till tomorrow,’ he said urgently. ‘Let’s go up.’
Paul was so drunk he had trouble mounting the stairs and Carmel found she was none too steady either. She was a very moderate drinker, as a rule, but had drunk far more than was customary that night.
Lois had told her not to worry. ‘What can happen to you?’ she asked. ‘You are in your own house so no harm can come to you and there is no work to get up for. Sometimes, Carmel, it does you good to let your hair down.’
And so Carmel had let it down good and proper, and was more than happy to fall on the bed beside Paul. Neither of them had any desire to sleep, though, and Paul’s hands were all over her body, tearing at her clothes. Carmel helped him, knowing she was almost fully aroused already and wouldn’t be able to wait long.
It was when they were both naked and Carmel was writhing and moaning on the bed that Paul remembered the johnnies and realised he hadn’t any. He had intended going to the chemist on his way from his mother’s house, but he had been so shaken by what he had wanted to do to her, that the trip to the chemist had gone out of his head.
‘Carmel,’ he said, his voice husky with desire, ‘I haven’t got anything. Know what I mean?’
Carmel was too far gone to care and so was Paul really. ‘Come on?’ Carmel pleaded. ‘I need you now, quickly.’
Paul could no more have stopped then than he could have stopped the sun from shining. He had the vague idea he would pull out at the last minute, but that went by the board and sex that night was the best ever. It went on and on as Carmel had one orgasm after the other, until she felt she was drowning in rapture. Much, much later they fell asleep with their arms wrapped around one another.
Wakening next morning, hung over and feeling none too well, Carmel faced the fact of what they had done the night before. The thought of what might happen because of it forced her to heave herself out of bed, wash, get dressed and set off for nine o’clock Mass. She knew that she looked like death warmed up and some even asked if she was feeling all right. She wasn’t, but she knew she had to be there and on her knees, pleading with the Almighty to let there be no repercussions from the previous torrid night. After Mass she lit a candle for good measure.
However, by the time Carmel, Lois, the Hancocks and various other neighbours were clustered around the wireless on Sunday, 3 September at 11.15 a.m. to hear that Britain was at war with Germany, Carmel knew without a shadow of doubt that she was pregnant. She knew it was the fault of both her and Paul the night of the party and she couldn’t feel the slightest bit of excitement about it—more resentment that it should have happened at all.
Paul, when she wrote and told him, was at first frantic with worry. It was the very worst thing that could have happened, to leave his wife pregnant at the start of a war with him not even being there to give her support.
Others, however, did not feel the same. Lois asked her what she was worrying about and reminded her that she would be on hand and more use to her than any man. Her mother and Sister Frances, who had both been dropping hints about babies, were relieved.
‘It mightn’t be the best timing in the world right enough,’ Eve conceded in the letter she wrote in response to Carmel’s news, ‘but babies have a habit of coming when they choose, and you will cope because you will have to. And thank God that you have good friends around you.’
Jeff was tickled pink, James a little jealous and Ruby Hancock had already started knitting. Jane and Sylvia, even knowing Carmel’s views on having a family of her own, thought it the sweetest news in the world and they were both sure that she would love the baby to distraction when he or she was born.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Birmingham at war was a totally different place, Carmel was finding, than Birmingham at peace. First there were the blackout curtains to fix in place each evening at the windows, which were already crisscrossed with tape as the government suggested, to protect against flying glass in the event of a raid. The curtains had been made up by Ruby on her treadle sewing machine with the material Carmel and Lois had lugged home from the Bull Ring way back in August. Not one chink of light could show around these curtains or an ARP warden would be knocking on the door and if you refused to comply, the fine was two hundred pounds.
With the blackout, and while any moon or stars not covered by clouds were often obscured by smog, once darkness fell, it was like a wall of black so dense you almost felt that it cou
ld be touched. Nobody could see a hand in front of them, and travelling any distance was a hazardous business. Everywhere you went you had to carry a gas mask. Carmel and Lois were so glad they lived just a few steps from the tram that dropped them right outside the General Hospital, but even so, Lois was worried that Carmel might slip and fall and so kept tight hold of her.
Women and sometimes children had painted white lines along the kerbs, and around trees and lampposts. Some had painted them on the running boards of the few cars still left on the roads. They made not a scrap of difference. Each evening there were more reports of people injured or even killed in the blackout, until people began to wonder who the enemy was for there hadn’t been the sniff of a raid. In fact, so uneventful was it that people were calling it ‘the Bore War’.
It wasn’t so quiet at sea. It depressed Carmel when she read of the ships sunk, often with vital foodstuffs on board, and sailors’ lives lost.
There were fewer men about generally, and this was affecting everything. Jeff, on a visit to see if Carmel was all right, said that women had applied for some of the places at the factory vacated by the men, and he had asked men coming up to retirement if they could stay on a few more years. The same thing had happened to George Hancock, who worked on the railway.
‘Should have retired next year,’ Ruby said. ‘Management asked him straight out if he’d stay put a bit. Point is, you’ve got to do it, haven’t you? Everyone has to do their bit.’
There was less food in the shops too and if you complained you were reminded that there was a war on, as if you had dropped in from another planet and were taken unawares.
‘People say there will be rationing introduced in the new year,’ Ruby said. ‘Fairer that way. In the last war, those who could afford it, the rich, like, would stockpile everything, even taking the carriages into the poorer areas and getting their coachmen to go and get the things, so there was little left in the shops for the ordinary people.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me in the least,’ Carmel said, thinking that was the sort of stunt Emma would pull.
And then suddenly all the restriction and limitations of the war didn’t matter, for Chris and Paul both wrote that they had leave and would be home on 4 October until the 7th. It was embarkation leave and heaven alone knew when they would be home again.
When Paul actually saw the slight swell of Carmel’s stomach, he was overawed by the fact that inside Carmel was a part of him and a part of her and that between them they would produce another human being.
Carmel watched his face and knew how he felt, though he said nothing. She felt torn, for though she was glad she had pleased him, in another way she was irritated that her life was going to change so drastically and so abruptly.
‘I’m only sad that you feel so upset about this,’ he said at last.
‘Well, I don’t understand you totally,’ Carmel said. ‘You always said you weren’t bothered about kids.’
‘I know, but it has happened now,’ Paul said. ‘And I don’t just want to accept our child as if it were some sort of duty. Whether it is a boy or girl I want it loved and cherished.’
‘You have the luxury to think this way, darling, because your life will not change in any way,’ Carmel said. ‘I am now twenty-one weeks pregnant and Matron says I must leave at twenty-four weeks. So in three weeks’ time it will be goodbye to the dream I have carried for years and God only knows if I will ever go back to it. I mean, you are expecting me to get excited over something that was an utter shock to me. But never fear, I will look after this child well enough because it will be part of you and I might even feel differently once it is born. Everyone assures me I will. But let’s not spoil one minute of this very precious leave on talking about a situation we are unable to change.’
Paul did see that it was totally different for him and he had no desire to argue with the wife he loved, who after this spot of leave he might not see for months—even, God forbid, years. Carmel had the same thought and they made the most of every minute, though Paul did make contact with his father and brother, which Carmel fully approved of.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, a cartoon made by an American called Walt Disney, was still showing at the Odeon cinema in New Street, for all it had been released the previous year, and Chris and Paul were mad keen to see it. Neither girl was that struck on going, but found they were enchanted and enthralled by the cartoon, which they had never seen the like of before. The next day they laughed themselves silly at the antics of Max Wall, a comedian extraordinaire, who was appearing at the Hippodrome.
The nights, however, belonged to Carmel and Paul, and Carmel often wanted to stop time. She valued every second, and when Paul slept she would often lie awake and watch him, drinking in the sight and smell of him. She would feel the small mound of her stomach and regret that Paul might not see the child that she was carrying for some time. That saddened her, but there was nothing that she could do about it.
When the men returned to their unit, Lois and Carmel were glad that they had each other for company. They knew this wasn’t the time to dissolve in despair and sadness, for this war couldn’t be won if the women all went under.
Two days later, Paul and Chris were with the BEF, the British Expeditionary Force, which landed on the coast of France.
It was hard for Carmel not to feel upset on her last day at the hospital. She knew that as well as the work, which she still loved with a passion, she would miss the camaraderie of the girls, the room-mates that she had been friends with through thick and thin. She would even miss Matron, whom she had always got on well with. She faced the prospect that she was going to be downright miserable at home and this feeling was compounded by many of the patients, who said they would miss the sight of her cheerful face on the wards.
As they were due to make their way home on Carmel’s last night, Lois asked her to go into the recreation room with her because she had to see someone.
Unsuspecting, Carmel followed her friend, but as Lois opened the door she said, ‘There can be no one here, Lois. The room is in darkness.’
‘Oh, I am sure there’s someone here somewhere,’ said Lois. She flicked the light switch and Carmel stared in amazement. As many of the hospital staff that could be spared were there—nurses and probationers, doctors she had worked with and the Matron, not to mention Jane and Sylvia, who had organised the whole thing. They all began singing ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ as Carmel, with cheeks aflame with embarrassment, noted the streamers decorating the room and a small buffet set out on a table. She was almost overcome with emotion at it all.
‘You’re not crying,’ Sylvia said accusingly, a little later, seeing Carmel surreptitiously wiping her eyes.
Carmel made a valiant effort to swallow the lump in her throat and said, ‘No.’
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,’ Sylvia said. ‘You are one awful bloody liar.’ Then she looked fully at her friend and said, ‘Oh God, I am going to miss you.’
It was the sentiment expressed in so many ways by so many people that night, and Carmel wasn’t the only one to shed tears. She even had a stiff and very proper embrace from the Matron and was given many gifts for the baby. She travelled home a little happier to await the birth of her child.
‘I think that it is the lack of contact that gets to you in the end,’ Carmel said to Lois on New Year’s Eve. ‘I mean, when Paul and Chris were at the camp we would write every week and they would write straight back. We don’t even know if they received the parcels we sent them and that was ages ago.’
‘Yes,’ Lois agreed, ‘though Uncle Jeff says he thinks a lot of units are in France and things might be more difficult if they are actually on the move.’
‘I just don’t know where he gets his information from.’
‘Nor me,’ Lois agreed, ‘and he seldom will say, but it is usually right, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ Carmel conceded, ‘and they could be in France. Could be in Timbuktu even, becau
se when we do get a letter they can’t give a whisper of where they are.’
‘Tell you what, though,’ Lois said. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of this year, won’t you?’
Carmel smiled grimly. ‘In a way, but then I think 1940 might be worse and at the very least we will have to cope with rationing.’
‘Oh God, so we will.’
Rationing came into force on Monday, 8 January, and affected bacon, ham and butter, of which each person’s allowance was four ounces a week, and sugar, which was set at twelve ounces. In addition to this, Carmel, because she was pregnant, could be issued with a green ration card, which entitled the bearer to seven extra pints of milk each week, cod-liver oil and orange juice and extra eggs.
‘You have to get a certificate from the doctor,’ Lois said, reading the literature, which was issued with the ration books.
‘I know. I read it too.’
‘Well, did you get one?’
‘No, not today I didn’t.’
‘Why not?’ Lois demanded. ‘You don’t want to miss out.’
‘I just didn’t feel like it,’ Carmel snapped
It was so unlike Carmel to speak that way that Lois said, ‘You all right? Now I think about it you have been quiet all through the meal.’
‘I’m getting pains,’ Carmel admitted.
Alarmed Lois cried, ‘What sort of pains?’
‘Ruby said they are like the body practising,’ Carmel said. ‘I have had them for a few weeks now but though they are getting stronger, they usually go off after a while. Today, though, they were the most painful yet and still haven’t gone off properly. The pain in my stomach is still rumbling away and it has also shifted around to the back. My head is a bit swimmy too, but I think that was queuing for so long in the cold, because the wind was like ice and it was snowing fit to bust.’
