Keep the Home Fires Burning

by Anne Bennett

  Polly laughed. ‘I know. It’s the girls buy these magazines, not me. And some of the recipes are good as well as the knitting patterns. I’ll bring a few of them round and you’ll see what I mean.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  On the day of Richard’s birthday, having already told them at work what he intended, he put on his suit and went down to Thorpe Street Barracks just as his father had before him. He was told to report to the army the following Sunday evening.

  Everyone was sorry to see Richard go, but Marion held on to her tears because she knew he would be relatively safer in a training camp than helping in the air raids for the moment. The twins showed no such restraint, because since Tony’s death they had leaned on Richard more. He had been aware of it and he was very gentle as he bade them all goodbye.

  He hadn’t been left long and the family were eating Sunday tea when explosions were heard in the distance. There had been no sirens but as another blast and then another rent the air, it was obvious that a raid was taking place. Marion’s heart plummeted at the thought that it was all going to start again, but even as she hauled her shelter bag from under the stairs and began to fill it, all of them point-blank refused to go into the cellar, and instead crowded together under the kitchen table.

  The raid went on fast and furious, and though some bombs fell close, they weren’t quite close enough to do much damage.

  ‘I think Handsworth is getting the main thrust of it,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Whoever’s getting it would have been grateful for the siren’s warning, I’m sure,’ Marion said. ‘Got complacent, see, ‘cos there has been no raid for a while.’

  ‘Gone to sleep, more like,’ Violet said.

  Suddenly there was a furious hammering on the door and they all looked at each other in alarm.

  ‘Now who the hell’s that?’ Marion said. She got to her feet and went out into the corridor. She was back in minutes, followed by an ARP warden.

  ‘It’s Grandma,’ she told the children. ‘She’s had a heart attack and has been taken to the General.’

  ‘What about Granddad?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘He went in the ambulance with Grandma,’ Marion said. ‘I shall go straight away.’ She turned to the warden. ‘My sister, Polly, should know too. She will probably be sheltering in the cellar under Atkinson’s Brewery.’

  The warden nodded. ‘Your father told us that. My mate’s gone to tell her.’

  ‘Shall I come with you, Mom?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘No, love,’ Marion said. ‘I’ll go with Polly. You’ll have to go into work tomorrow and I don’t know how long I’ll be. Anyway, I need you to see to the others.’

  ‘We can see to ourselves,’ Magda said. ‘We ain’t babies.’

  ‘The best thing you can do for me is to act sensibly and do what Sarah tells you,’ Marion said crisply, and Magda said nothing more.

  Polly was actually scurrying up the road by the time Marion got to the front door, and the two women hugged each other.

  ‘Do you want us to go with you?’ the warden asked.

  Marion looked at her sister and then said. ‘No, it’s all right. You’re probably more use here as the raid is still going on. We’ll be fine.’

  The warden scanned the sky. ‘Getting away light tonight, so far, anyway,’ he said. ‘And I think the trams are still running down Lichfield Road.’

  ‘They are,’ Polly said. ‘I saw one pass as we came out of the cellar. Thank you for coming to tell us, by the way. It was good of you.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Marion said.

  Marion and Polly, arms linked, began to walk down the road, glad to have each other. It was late enough to be dark, but the arc light slicing through the blackout lit the sky with an orange glow, picking out the droning planes, releasing their screaming harbingers of death.

  ‘Some other poor bugger’s turn tonight,’ Polly said, for though they heard the thud and crash of the explosions, they were in the distance, and so were the ack-ack guns barking out their response.

  When they reached Lichfield Road, pockets of fire were visible in the distance towards the town, lighting up the skyline and showing up the tram clanking towards them. ‘Come on,’ Polly urged, ‘we’ll have a wait if we miss this one.’

  ‘Isn’t it awful that we’re not more upset about Mammy, that we aren’t crying and carrying on, though?’ Marion said, as they found seats on the tram. ‘The warden that came to tell me didn’t seem to hold out much hope for her.’

  ‘I know,’ Polly said. ‘I feel sort of hollow. I mean, she was never what you’d call a loving mother, was she?’

  ‘No,’ Marion agreed. ‘I know the pain of losing a child now, and it is without doubt the worst pain I’ve ever had to endure, but I couldn’t give in because of the others. Peggy said her mother lost two children, and it was the vicar or whatever they call him that as much as told her to pull herself together and take joy in the husband and children she did have. I fell to wishing afterwards that something similar had been said to our mother.’

  ‘Maybe it was,’ Polly replied.

  Marion shook her head. ‘No. My bet is she was so upset that everyone made many allowances for her, and in the end she thought that was the right way to behave. And she never gave a thought to the fact that you and I together were clearly told we could not make up in any way for the loss of the others. She never thought how hurtful it was.’

  ‘I never knew that you felt that bad about it.’

  ‘I did. I couldn’t help it. I thought one day I would gather up the courage to tell her, but I haven’t so far and now it might be too late.’

  ‘I know,’ Polly said. ‘And may God forgive me, but I can’t be sorry.’

  ‘Nor can I,’ Marion said in almost a whisper, as if she couldn’t bear to say the words out loud.

  Eddie was sitting just inside, in the waiting room of the General Hospital, with his head down, twisting his hat between his hands. He looked up as they went in and smiled his slow easy smile, but Marion saw the shadow behind that smile and she was across the floor in seconds. She hugged him tight before she asked, ‘Daddy, how is she?’

  ‘She’s dead, Marion,’ Eddie said. ‘When they brought her here, I knew it was no use. When tonight’s raid began there was no warning, was there – no siren? And she was giving out about that and she suddenly gave a cry, clutched her hand on her chest and fell to the floor. I hurried up the entry and saw a warden down the street and called to him. He’s a decent sort of chap, and he dispatched his mate for the doctor when I told him what had happened. While we waited for the doctor to come he worked on your mother, pushing on her chest. He called it artificial respiration and he’d learned in First Aid. Anyroad, he got her breathing again and then the doctor came and called for an ambulance. I went in with her, and the warden came to tell you, Marion, and his mate went to Atkinson’s place. I told him where you’d both be.’

  ‘But you said the warden got Mammy’s heart going again?’

  ‘He did,’ Eddie said. ‘But it stopped again in the ambulance and they couldn’t restart it this time. Neither could the doctors here, though they gave it a good try. Anyroad, when they told me she’d gone I thought she didn’t need me sitting beside her no more and I came to wait for you two. I knew you’d be along some time.’

  Marion saw the lines etched into deep furrows in her father’s forehead and down each side of his nose, his crinkled, creased cheeks and rheumy eyes, and felt sorry for him. He looked older than his sixty-five years. It was for his sake rather than her mother’s that she’d come pell-mell to the hospital that evening.

  So when her father looked up at her with a sad smile and said, ‘Do you want to see your mother?’ she was nonplussed for a moment and so, she saw, was Polly. Marion had no real desire to see her mother, but she knew, and Polly knew, it would have seemed odd if they hadn’t and so they followed reluctantly behind their father.

  Clara was laid out on the bed, still and quiet in death as she’d never b
een in life. Marion was ashamed that the only emotion she felt was relief.

  ‘She was a sad woman, your mother,’ Eddie said. ‘She never seemed to take a moment’s joy in anything.’

  ‘No,’ Marion said, ‘she didn’t.’

  ‘She was packed full of resentment and I should have been the one to have stopped her behaving the way she did, but when the news came in about Michael and she realised that his grave was the ocean, she was beside herself. I was distraught myself but I had to swallow my grief because I thought your mother was losing her mind. Afterwards the tempers she used to get into were frightening. Poor Clara,’ he said, and he stroked her cheek gently. ‘I can’t help but feel sorry for a person who knew such little happiness, even if it was her own fault.’

  Pat made all the arrangements for the funeral, as he had done for Tony. The Requiem Mass and funeral were on Thursday of that week, and Marion was gratified by the numbers that turned out. She guessed they had come for her father, who was a well-liked and respected man. Although Marion and Polly had written to the men to tell them of Clara’s death, they knew they wouldn’t be able to come to the funeral, but Peggy and Violet had time off work to attend to show their support for Marion.

  Later that day, Marion broached the subject of Eddie’s long-term future. She had assumed that he would stay with them but he said he didn’t want to. He had lived in Yates Street for years and wanted to continue to live there.

  ‘But how will you manage?’

  ‘Just fine,’ Eddie said. ‘Don’t you worry about me. Anyroad, I’ll be at work all day.’

  ‘You’re not retiring then?’ Marion said. ‘You were sixty-five in March.’

  ‘Yes, but I have no intention of retiring yet. I like my job. Anyway, the Firm has asked me to stay on. I don’t do much of the heavy stuff now ? I’m more of a supervisor – but I like to feel that I’m doing my bit.’

  ‘Are you sure, Daddy?’

  ‘I’m sure, my darling girl,’ Eddie said. ‘I’ll stay until the weekend, if it’s all the same to you, and then move back into my own house ready for work on Monday.’

  ‘That’s fine by me, Daddy,’ Marion said.

  Just over a week later, on Sunday morning after Mass, Marion said to Polly, ‘Our Sarah said that Americans are all they see at the dances these days. Before they landed, there was a grave shortage of young men.’

  ‘Mine say the same,’ Polly said. ‘And they say these GIs are smarter and better paid than our soldiers.’

  ‘Yes, and talking like men the girls see on the cinema screen, and showering them with nylons and chocolate and chewing gum. You can’t blame them entirely for having their heads turned,’ Marion said. ‘Thank God our girls are levelheaded, as a rule. Yet even Sarah says it seems really funny to be called “Ma’am” or “honey”, and she tells me the American boys dance with more energy than she has ever seen. She says British boys are sort of shy of dancing.’

  ‘Oh, well, you’d hardly get a shy Yank,’ Polly laughed. ‘And our Mary Ellen said some of them are as black as the ace of spades, and they’re usually the more polite ones. Some of the white boys don’t like them much, according to what the girls say, anyroad. They can get really shirty if our girls dance with them.’

  ‘Sarah says the same. I can’t see the sense of it myself. I mean, they’re all American, aren’t they? And I would think they had their work cut out fighting the Japs, without fighting with each other as well.’

  ‘Me too,’ Polly said with feeling. ‘Still, that’s Americans for you. Now I’d better take myself home. My lot will be sitting there with their tongues hanging out because we all took Communion.’

  ‘So did we,’ Marion said. ‘But I’m lucky there. Peggy and Violet usually have porridge waiting for us when we get in.’

  ‘Huh, all right for some,’ Polly said. ‘I bet you bless the day you took those girls in.’

  ‘I do, I admit it,’ Marion said. ‘And I bless you for giving me the idea in the first place.’

  Sam Wagstaffe was a worried man. Though his feelings for Sarah had deepened in the time he had been writing to her, he had given her no indication of this, and only poured his heart out in his letters to his sister Peggy.

  She advised him to bite the bullet: ‘The only thing to do is tell Sarah how you feel and then, if she doesn’t feel the same, at least you will know where you stand.’

  Sam’s answer came by return of post.

  I have no right to do that with the war still raging. When the pilots you and Violet were keen on were killed in the Battle of Britain, you said you didn’t want to get involved with anyone until the war was over and I agreed with you. Well, I feel the same way about Sarah. At the moment I can offer her nothing but possible heartache, and I feel it would be wrong to tell her of my love for her when I’m in the throes of fighting a war. But, because I feel unable to do this I’m sure she views me only as a friend, although we have become closer since Christmas. But where once she told me all about your nights out at the pictures or the dances, now she talks constantly of the American soldiers. And yes, dear sister, I am jealous because I worry that one of these charmers will sweep her off her feet. And that does happen, even with those committed to one another ? engaged, even – because many men here have had ‘Dear John’ letters giving them the big heave-ho in favour of one of our Yankee cousins. You can’t blame me for being concerned.

  Peggy knew just what her brother meant and felt sorry for him, but still she wrote and said that Sarah was doing no harm: ‘She’s just having fun and she’s entitled to do that because until you admit how you feel, she is a completely free agent.’

  They were all free agents and they thoroughly enjoyed having the Americans at the dance halls. They were very glamorous in their blue uniforms. They had the jaunty American caps on their heads, under their jackets they wore shirts and ties, and they had proper tailored trousers. Most strange of all, many wore white shoes. No one in Britain had ever seen a man in white shoes. In fact, no coloured shoes at all except black or brown.

  ‘But they’re not army issue,’ Mary Ellen said as the girls made their way home the first night they had spotted this.

  The others giggled. ‘I’d say not,’ Sarah said. ‘One of them was telling me that they have brown shoes issued, but these are their dancing shoes.’

  ‘Well they put them to good use,’ said Peggy. ‘Have you seen how they dance?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Siobhan said. ‘Terrific, ain’t they?’

  And they were. They jitterbugged in a wild, unrestrained way that had never been taught in Madame Amie’s Dance Academy, and the music made everyone want to dance, for the American soldiers were not yet war weary. They were free and easy in their ways, and seemed hellbent on enjoying themselves. It was easy to be affected by this, to forget the raids and privations of war in Britain and have a bit of fun. Sarah, like most young girls, thought they were great.

  Glenn Miller’s dance tunes were the favourite of many and so that’s what the band played most of the time. Sarah liked all Miller’s songs, but she liked ‘In the Mood’ the most, and she couldn’t seem to stop her feet from tapping whenever she heard it played.

  She remembered the first time she had ever danced with one of the GIs, whom she found out later was called Chuck. It was to that tune and he had swept her to her feet. When in the middle of the dance he suddenly shot her between his legs she had been shocked, especially as this was followed by him lifting her above his head. And then she gave herself up to the rhythm and pulsating beat of the dance, and could usually anticipate what Chuck wanted her to do, so she thoroughly enjoyed herself.

  Chuck was impressed. When the band finished he threw his arms around her and said that she was ‘one mean dancer’. After that, though, Sarah danced with others and showed them the elements of the waltz, the quickstep, and the foxtrot for the slower numbers. But she danced a lot with Chuck because, apart from liking him, they did seem to fit together on the dance floor.

  ‘Me a
nd you could win jitterbugging competitions in the States,’ he said one evening. ‘Would you consider coming to the States when the war is over?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘At the moment that’s like saying “when the sky falls down”. Let’s get this war won before we make any long-term plans.’

  ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ Sarah commanded. ‘Come on, “Chattanooga Choo Choo” is playing. Let’s dance.’

  Much as she liked Chuck, Sarah was aware that the American soldiers would not be there for ever. These men hadn’t been drafted into the army to sit out the war in Britain ? one day they would leave ? and so she kept her friendship with Chuck and the others light. Some things they said and the compliments they threw she took with a pinch of salt. But however keen they were on the GIs ? and they all had their favourites ? neither Sarah, her cousins, Peggy nor Violet would even consider stepping outside with any of them because they saw the dishevelled appearance of those that did. Fun and dancing were all very well, but that was as far as they went.

  Peggy, however, knew that if Sam had any idea of the way Sarah danced, particularly with Chuck, he would be more worried than ever.

  Sam was not the only one irritated by the GIs’ presence in Britain. Richard felt the same. In October he came home for few days’ leave. He was barely recognisable from the boy who had strode away in July. Peggy told Sarah that they had all seen Sam’s transformation too after a few weeks in the army. Violet told him how handsome he looked, and there was certainly nothing of the gawky and unsure boy about Richard Whittaker the soldier.

  The second day of his leave was a Saturday and he was looking forward to going to the weekly hop with the girls, remembering that he had been in great demand before he enlisted. He imagined that in his uniform he would be even more popular.