Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  ‘There is a great deal wrong with a man who takes a young girl down and fills her belly every year without any idea how he is going to provide for any of his kids. They have lived like paupers.’

  They had, as Marion knew only too well, so why then couldn’t she take joy in the fact that life was going to be easier for them from now on? That she couldn’t disturbed her because she realised she was not half as generous as her sister, who didn’t seem to have a resentful bone in her body.

  As one week followed another no bombs fell and the only sign that Britain was at war at all was the news of ships being sunk, and everyone trying to cope with the blackout. Those who could, stayed indoors when darkness fell because to venture out was risking life and limb in such inky blackness.

  The Government advised people to paint white lines on the kerbs outside their houses, and around any trees, pillar boxes and lampposts to try to cut down on the number of accidents.

  ‘It won’t work, of course,’ Polly said. ‘The white paint won’t show up in the pitch black any more than any other colour would.’

  ‘I know,’ Marion said. ‘It’s stupid, and so was sending the kids away when we’ve had no bombs. A lot of mothers like Phyllis Cox are bringing them back home.’

  ‘Don’t blame them.’

  ‘Nor do I. But I wish they would organise something for the children left behind. It does no good for kids to be hanging about all the time. It only leads to mischief when they have too much time on their hands.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll say so,’ Polly said. ‘Gladys Kent complained about our Jack only the other day. She has a house that opens on to the street and the little bugger tied her knocker in such a way that he could operate it from a distance. Course, when she tried to open the door she couldn’t. She said she knew it was him because she heard him killing himself laughing behind the wall.’

  ‘Was Tony involved as well?’

  ‘Think so.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come and tell me?’

  ‘It was only a prank, Marion,’ Polly said. ‘Pat gave them both a good talking to and they won’t do it again.’

  ‘I miss Bill for that,’ Marion said. ‘He was always so good with Tony over something like that. Mind, I miss Bill for more than just that, and though he includes postal orders in his letters he hasn’t much to spare either. I am so worried about money because it’s five weeks now since Bill left, with no sign of any Separation Allowance from the Government. Each morning when I wake I feel as if I’ve a lump of lead in my stomach when I think of the day ahead and trying to feed hungry children on a pittance. I mean, Bill left me ten pounds but twelve shillings a week for the rent makes a big hole in that.’

  ‘But there is no reason for you or the nippers to go without,’ Polly said. ‘I’ve told you many a time. We have the money now and, God knows, you’ve helped me and mine enough in the past. Why are you so pig-headed?’

  ‘Polly, if I had money from you, I haven’t the least idea when I would ever be able to pay you back.’

  ‘Have I ever asked for you to pay me back?’ Polly said, exasperated by her sister’s stubbornness.

  ‘I would have to pay you back,’ Marion said. ‘It’s the way I am.’

  ‘Have you managed to pay the rent?’

  ‘Marion made a face. ‘No, not for the last week I didn’t, and I can’t see it being any better this week, or next either.’

  ‘You’ll have to pay summat off soon,’ Polly warned. ‘Some of these landlords only give you three or four weeks, especially in posh houses like these.’

  ‘Polly, don’t you think that I’m not panic-stricken about just that?’ Marion snapped. ‘But I can’t magic money out of the air.’

  ‘Well,’ said Polly, ‘if you’re adamant that you won’t accept help from me, listen to this. I was talking to a woman down our yard and she said that her old man joined up in the spring because, like Pat, he hadn’t ever really had what you’d call regular work, and she told me that they dain’t get her Separation Allowance sorted out for over two months.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Marion cried. ‘If that happens to me I will be out on my ear. It would be the workhouse for the lot of us.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody soft,’ Polly said. ‘Me and Pat would never let that happen to you or the nippers. Anyroad, what I’m trying to tell you is there is somewhere you can go, some organisation that helps in situations like this. This woman was telling me all about it, ‘cos she was on her beam ends, she said, and she had to go and see them.’

  ‘Beam ends,’ Marion said, ‘I know how that feels all right. And did this place help her?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Polly said. ‘You can’t go every week or owt to top up your Separation Allowance, for all you might need it, but if they are taking their time sorting out what you are due, they’ll help you. It’s called the SSAFA, which stands for Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association and they have a big office place on Colmore Row. I’ll go with you tomorrow if you like.’

  ‘Oh, Polly, would you really?’

  ‘Course I would, you daft sod,’ Polly said cheerfully. ‘In things like this you are like a babe in arms, our Marion.’

  Polly had advised her to take her marriage lines, the kids’ birth certificates and her rent book with her. ‘They don’t know who you are, do they?’ she said. ‘I mean, you could be just someone come in off the street trying to get money they ain’t entitled to.’

  Marion knew that her sister was right. She took all the details of the Royal Warwickshires, the regiment in which Bill had enlisted, and even took the three letters that he had sent her from the training camp. A woman came out to see her where she waited on the wooden bench in the reception hall to which she had been directed, and Marion was a little unnerved by her smartness. She wore a pink, high-necked frilled blouse and navy skirt, proper silk seamed stockings and high-heeled navy shoes. She had also used cosmetics on her face and her light-coloured hair was gathered up in a very neat bun at the base of her neck. Marion followed her into a small office with some trepidation.

  However, the woman’s eyes were kind and she was very understanding when Marion explained the difficulties she was having. When she had filled in the claim form she was awarded an interim payment of fifteen shillings to tide her over to the next week.

  ‘And then what?’ Marion asked.

  ‘If your Separation Allowance is not worked out by that time, you must come back,’ the woman said. ‘We will continue to help you till the Government steps in.’

  ‘I am most grateful.’

  ‘These are hard times for everyone,’ the woman said. ‘But the one thing many of our servicemen are worried about are the families they have left behind. We try to help to relieve some of that stress for you and your children, and also for your husband.’

  ‘She’s right as well, ain’t she?’ Polly said as they made their way home and Marion told her what the woman had said. ‘I think that our soldiers and sailors and that have enough to worry about facing the enemy without worrying about how their families are faring.’

  Marion nodded. ‘And she was such a kind and sympathetic woman.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Polly said. ‘The bit I saw of her she seemed genuine enough, for all she was a bit posh, like. I think they’re all volunteers ? that’s what the woman down the yard said, anyroad. Too rich to need paying for a job like normal folk.’

  ‘I don’t care who they are,’ Marion said. ‘They have saved my bacon for this week at least, and some of this is going to pay off my rent arrears.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s sensible,’ Polly said. ‘But keep some back.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Marion said. ‘I need to buy coal – we’re nearly all out. I will give the rent man the least amount I can get away with.’

  Despite the help Marion received from the SSAFA, the rent man pressed her for more money than she wanted to pay, and with the coal bought there was very little left.

  ‘Go back,’ Polly advised, when she popped around to see Marion.
‘Tell them what you had to pay out.’

  Marion shook her head.’I couldn’t. I would be that ashamed, but I am down to my last shilling.’

  ‘Well,’ said Polly, ‘the only way to get quick cash is to pawn summat.’

  Marion felt as if a lead weight had landed in the pit of her stomach and she remembered her boast that she had never crossed the doorstep of a pawnbroker’s. She felt tears of shame and humiliation prickle the back of her eyes but she brushed them away impatiently. There was no allowing herself the luxury of tears.

  ‘And what should I pawn?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, you can start with the old man’s clothes,’ Polly said. ‘Most women in your position would have pawned his suit before he’d passed the end of the street.’

  Marion was aghast. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Course you can,’ Polly said dismissively. ‘He’ll not be wanting his stuff at the Front, will he? Anyroad, it’s his fault that you’re in this mess.’

  Marion remembered the day that Bill had bought that suit. In the Bull Ring a two-piece suit cost two guineas; a three-piece, two pounds and ten shillings.

  ‘He wanted the waistcoat so that he could wear his watch,’ Marion told Polly, laying it out on the bed.

  Polly extracted the watch from the waistcoat pocket. ‘Good watch, that.’

  ‘It’s gold,’ Marion said. ‘It was Bill’s father’s and Bill is almighty fond of it.’

  Polly shrugged. ‘Might have to go despite that,’ she said. ‘But it would be better to take that in on its own, not mixed in with a pile of clothes. That way you’ll probably get more for it. Now, what about his second-best suit that this one replaced?’

  ‘No,’ Marion said. ‘I was going to cut it down for Richard – he’s fast growing out of the one he has now – and any extra material I was going to save to patch Tony’s trousers. He goes through the seat of those more often than I have hot dinners, and I’ll not send him to school like some poor souls with their bottoms nearly exposed.’

  ‘All right, we’ll leave the second-best suit and the watch for now,’ Polly said, pulling out more of Bill’s clothes to lay on the bed.’This is a sizeable bundle anyway.’

  ‘I’m really nervous,’ Marion said.’I’ve never been in a pawnbroker’s before.’

  ‘You’re luckier than most round these doors then.’

  ‘Not these doors,’ Marion corrected.’You never see anyone here taking a bundle to be pawned on Monday morning.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe none of their husbands thought it their duty to fight for King and Country to try and protect the rest of us,’ Polly said.’And while they’re doing that the bloody Government think a few measly shillings a week is all a woman needs to feed and clothe her family and keep them warm.

  ‘Now,’ Polly said as the two women left the house, ‘I usually go to Sarah Moore, but she can be a mean bugger, so we’ll try Jones on the corners of Wheeler Street and Clifford Street. He’s a bit stern-looking ? is a retired JP, I heard – but he is fair.’

  Marion had always had an assumption that pawn shops were dark and rather seedy places but she was pleasantly surprised because Jones looked quite respectable from the outside. She had a surreptitious look round to see if anyone she knew was watching her before she went in the door, feeling sick to her soul that she had to part with Bill’s clothes in such a way in order for them all to survive.

  Despite this, though, she thought the inside of the shop had an air of respectability about it and this was compounded by the very smart and erect white-haired gentleman who came to attend to them. As Polly had said, he was rather severe-looking, but his voice and manner were pleasant enough.

  On the way down to the shop Polly had warned Marion what to expect, and Jones did just as she said and examined each article with a disparaging look on his face. Then he rubbed the material of the suit between his finger and thumb, and though he said nothing, by the look on his face Marion knew he didn’t think much of it.

  ‘I’ll give you ten shillings for the lot,’ he said eventually.

  Polly gave a toss of her head. ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ she said. ‘That bundle is well worth a pound and you know it.’

  ‘They will be left on my hands,’ Jones complained.

  ‘That’s your business,’ Polly said. ‘I don’t care whether they are left on your hands or not. You are not getting a bundle like that for ten shillings.’

  ‘Well, I will not pay as much as a pound,’ Jones said. ‘Shall we split the difference and I will give you fifteen shillings? You can’t say fairer than that.’

  ‘Yes, I can,’ Polly said. ‘Seventeen shillings and sixpence and the bundle’s yours. That’s all I will settle for.’

  Jones sighed heavily.’You will have me robbed between you all,’ he said, but he went to the till as he spoke and wrote out the pawn ticket.

  ‘It’s all a bit of a game to them,’ Polly said to Marion, as they walked away from the shop. ‘Their aim is to give you as little as they possibly can for what you are trying to pawn. Course, if you pawn your old man’s suit every Monday, like lots of women do round here, then you know what you will be offered for it, but with something like your bundle today, when he said ten shillings, I know that it was worth more than twice that amount.’

  ‘He still gave you only seventeen and six, though.’

  ‘I know,’ Polly said. ‘And I knew as well that that was as high as he was prepared to go and we’d have likely got less at Sarah Moore’s.’

  Marion sighed. ‘It seems a terrible way to have to go on.’

  Polly, catching sight of her sister’s face and hearing the despondency in her voice, knew just how bad she was feeling, and she said gently, ‘What you did today, Marion, some women have been doing for years because it’s the only way of surviving.’

  ‘I know,’ Marion cried. ‘I really do understand that. It’s just …’

  Polly laid a hand on her arm. ‘Let’s see what bargains are going in the Bull Ring, shall we? At least you have money enough for now.’

  Marion managed to buy two bowls of faggots and peas to share between them all, which cost her a shilling, spent another sixpence on potatoes to go with them, nine pence on a loaf for the morning, and still had money left for the rest of the week. She’d also be able to pay more off the rent arrears and she felt light-hearted with relief as she and Polly made their way home.

  Later, sitting in Marion’s kitchen with a cup of tea, Polly said, ‘When Pat got that job in the munitions I was that proud. When he couldn’t even get into the army he took it bad. Now he’s doing a job that is well paid and he feels he’s doing his bit as well.’

  ‘Is that important to him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course, it’s a novelty to have money in my purse and I’d be lying if I said the money didn’t matter, but for Pat it means more than that. He said to me that he feels proud to earn the wage that he picks up at the end of the week. It’s what he has wanted to do for years.’

  Marion remembered laughing with her mother about Pat getting the job in the first place and saying he would drink himself to death with the extra money he would have in his pocket, but there had been no evidence of that, and she felt guilty that she made fun of him over the years. If she was honest, even though she helped Polly out financially, in a way she did it as a kind of looking down on her and Pat, and that was why she balked at the suggestion of accepting money from them. Whatever reason she gave Polly, the real one was because the tables would be turned completely and she couldn’t really have borne that.

  ‘You never understood Pat,’ Polly went on, adding sadly, ‘and you never really gave him a chance. It was true that he couldn’t provide for me, but then neither could many other men.’

  ‘It was that he used to drink. Even when you had no money he would drink,’ Marion said. ‘I could never understand that.’

  ‘When you think what some of the poor sods have to come home to, it’s no wonder they linger in the pub,’ Polly said.
‘But then you see the other side of the coin – what some of the wives and children have to put up with … Don’t glare at me like that, our Marion, because Pat was never like that. Yes, he would go to the pub, but only once a week, and all he had in his pocket was just enough money for one pint of ale.’

  Marion felt a little chastened by Polly’s words and she remembered that Bill had always said something similar about Pat. But however she felt about him, it would do no good running him down in front of her sister.

  ‘Pat tried so hard to get work that he used to wear his boots down to the uppers. I had to insist that he took a couple of pennies for himself, and he never would have more than that. He gave up the cigarettes years ago. He ain’t a bad man, Marion, though he may sometimes be foolish, but then, God knows, few of us can put up our hands and say we are always so wise and sensible.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Polly, and you’re right,’ Marion said contritely. ‘I didn’t fully understand your situation and I have never really let myself get to know Pat. My view of him was coloured by that day that you came to seek me out to tell me you were expecting.’

  Polly was never one to bear a grudge, and she said, ‘In a way I can understand it. You were my big sister and you used to look out for me. A forced marriage to one of the infamous Reillys was not what you wanted for me.’

  ‘No,’ Marion admitted, ‘but Bill once said to me that Pat made you happy and that is what I wanted for you so I should have been a lot more understanding.’

  She knew that Pat Reilly and his lax attitudes might still irritate her at times but he had been kindness itself since Bill enlisted. She vowed she would try harder to be more tolerant and certainly not carry tales back to her mother.

  ‘The point is,’ said Polly, ‘when the boot was on the other foot and you had the money, you were always very good with me – with all of us ? but now you’re too stiff-necked to let me help you.’

  ‘You are helping me,’ said Marion with a wry smile. ‘On my own I would never have got seventeen and sixpence for that bundle of clothes,’ and the two women burst out laughing.