by Annie Murray
‘I’d rather stay in bed and take my chance with their bleeding bombs,’ she complained some mornings that autumn.
But soon after, something happened that made her vow never to say such a thing again.
‘Ey-up!’ one of the lads winked and called to her as she clocked in for work that morning. ‘Best bloody night’s sleep you’ve ever ’ad, I s’pose?’
Violet laughed grimly. ‘Slept like a babby, what d’you think?’
Like everyone else, she was exhausted. It was November 1940 and the city had been pounded night after night. The row of houses along from the works had been hit; they had scrambled into Vicars through the morning drizzle, over hosepipes and piles of timber and rubble and glass, and there was a stench of sewage. One end of the front of Vicars had been blasted. Some of the windows were out and Violet could hear the sound of glass being swept up. It was always especially unnerving when the destruction came so close.
‘Trying to do to us what they’ve done to Coventry,’ people were saying. ‘Bloody kraut bastards.’
Mr Riddle looked just as worn out as everyone else. Apparently he had spent the night in the cellar of the factory.
Violet went to begin work. The engines were on, the belts turning on the lathes. She looked at her machine with some affection. They were beautiful things, she thought. Today seeing the heavy iron lathe was like seeing a steady, familiar face amid all the chaos. She looked round for Josephine, and saw with a pang of disquiet that there was no one at her machine. Jo was usually in before her, full of energy as always, calling out some clever remark like, ‘Decided to have a lie-in, did you?’ because she was quicker at getting up and getting her children ready.
Violet tried to tell herself that there must be a good reason – perhaps Lizzie or little Sam was poorly, or Jo was ill herself. But when an hour had passed and other people were asking, she couldn’t stand worrying. She feared the worst, sick with dread.
She crossed the shop floor to find Mr Riddle. His face was pale and she could see the tired lines round his eyes.
‘I can’t think straight worrying about Josephine,’ she said.
‘Oh God – I know,’ Mr Riddle said wearily. The gulf between the gaffer and everyone else on the factory floor had narrowed with all the troubles. Mr Riddle was a kind, humane man who looked out for his workers. ‘It was a hell of a night last night. I’ve never known it as bad. Look, love – go and see. It’s only up the road, isn’t it?’
‘Ta ever so much,’ Violet said. She could tell Mr Riddle was worried too; he had a rather soft spot for Jo, who was one of his fastest workers and always cheerful.
Hanging up her overall, she hurriedly put on her coat and hat. It was still grey and drizzly outside. She thought she’d never seen such a dismal sight as that road, a great gap where five or six houses had been taken out. The end of a terrace had been destroyed; the bomb had smashed into the court behind, leaving what was usually an invisible yard of dwellings suddenly open to view in all its glorious squalor. At the end the three lavs were on full view, the door of one swinging open. The sight made Violet’s heart sink. She felt sick.
‘Oh God, Jo – please be all right!’ she found herself muttering desperately. ‘Why are you so late, you silly sod? Couldn’t you have just got there on time today?’
She could hardly bear to turn into the Snells’ street for fear of what she might find.
And what she saw when she did left her in no doubt. She stopped, stunned.
‘Oh God above . . .!’ Her hand went to her lips and her legs started to shake. She could hardly believe what was in front of her.
There were fire engines at the end of the road, and an ambulance. The right-hand section of the street, and the Snells’ house, number twenty-two, was gone. There was nothing but piles of rubble, smashed sections of walls with stained strips of wallpaper clinging to them and the debris of lives – a smashed pram, a kettle, a rent book, sodden among the heaps of bricks. The mess was unbelievable. Everything was wet, and stinking and so, so sad-looking.
Numbly, Violet scrambled across the mess to one of the ARP team. He was a middle-aged man, his moustache grey with dust.
‘Number twenty-two? They’re my friends . . .’
Silently he waved his hand over the wreckage.
‘Where was it?’
‘About there.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, love. This was the bit that really took it. There’s no one alive in there. No chance.’
‘But . . .’ She couldn’t take this in. ‘They would’ve been under the stairs – Jo, her mom, the two kiddies . . .’
‘They’ve brought them out already.’ His voice was quiet and gentle, and he was shaking his head. ‘All of ’em. I’m sorry. Poor souls.’
Violet stood in the road as he moved away, shoulders hunched. She was so much in shock that she didn’t know how long she stood there, shaking and chilled to the bone. It was only when an ambulance turned into the street and hooted at her to move that she came to again.
It hit Violet very hard.
Days went by before she could even take it in or begin to cry over it. She had been very fond of all the Snells. They had been almost family to her. And worst of all was the loss of Jo, her best friend, whom she could tell her heart to, share all the everyday happenings of life with, and the laughter. She had always loved Jo’s sunny outlook at work.
‘Smile and the world smiles with you – weep and you weep alone,’ Jo used to say.
But there’d be no more smiles now.
Once Violet’s emotion began to release itself, she only had to look at Joyce and Linda and think about Jo’s little ones and the tears would start to flow. Especially as Joyce kept asking about them.
‘Why don’t we see Lizzie? I want to go to Lizzie’s house.’
‘Lizzie doesn’t live there any more,’ Violet told her. ‘I’m sorry, bab, but we won’t be able to see Lizzie and Sam any more.’
Joyce’s little face creased with displeasure. ‘What about Auntie Jo?’
‘Not her either.’
One day she’d have to tell them that the Germans had killed Auntie Jo and Lizzie and Sam. But not today.
Violet felt terribly lonely. ‘I can’t stand being at Vicars now,’ she told Bessie. ‘Harry says I’m being silly, that I know everyone else there. But it’s not the same. It’s getting me down.’
‘Well – it’s not the only place in the world to work,’ Bessie said. ‘They’re all crying out for munitions workers – and the pay might be better than you’re getting at Vicars.’
Violet stared at her. She realized that while she had needed to have a moan she had not seriously thought about changing her job. She wasn’t good at changing things on her own, she realized. She just let things drift along and happen to her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
During that winter of the Blitz, Harry’s mom fell ill. She couldn’t swallow and the flesh was dropping off her.
Then one February night, in the small hours, when big flakes of snow were falling, one of Mrs Martin’s neighbours came to fetch Harry. Violet listened to their footsteps dying away along the street. A train whistled in the eerie quietness. She knew her mother-in-law did not have long to live.
Before things had become really bad with his mother, Harry was walking along Summer Lane one Saturday afternoon with his pal Stan ‘Goosey’ Gosling. As they crossed over Asylum Road, Harry nudged Goosey and jerked his head towards a man walking away from them along the cobbled street.
‘See that bloke? That’s my father.’
Goosey’s brow wrinkled. ‘I thought your old man’d passed on?’
‘Might as well’ve done.’
‘Well, ain’t you going to speak to him?’
‘Ain’t seen him in ten year or more. Why should I bother now?’
‘I just thought . . . ’E’s your dad, that’s all.’
‘Bugger ’im.’ Harry’s expression was mutinous.
But Harry dithered o
n the corner as his father moved away. He couldn’t seem to leave it.
‘You could follow – see where he goes. He don’t have to see you.’
With an awkward nod, half making as if to reject the idea, then changing his mind, Harry said gruffly, ‘All right. But he’d better not see.’
They dashed along Asylum Road after the man, who was almost out of sight by now. A woman pushing a pram laden with coal piled curses on them as they almost crashed into her.
‘He must’ve been away and come back,’ Harry panted. ‘He can’t’ve been round here all this time – we’d’ve seen him.’
Harry’s father turned right into Alma Street. He stopped for a moment outside the Sheep Shears Works to talk to someone and Harry and Goosey shrank back, but then he walked almost to the far end near Six Ways, crossed over the street and disappeared up an entry.
Harry stopped, only then realizing how much his heart was pounding. Suddenly he wanted, overpoweringly, to know about his father. Where had he been? Who was he living with now? Did he ever give his family, his kids, a thought?
He gave a shrug and said indifferently, ‘Oh well. Least we know where the silly sod is, any road.’
Two days after Mrs Martin had breathed her last on that silent, snowy night, Harry was standing alone by the entry in Alma Street only streets away from home. The road looked a mess, edged with filthy clods of frozen snow. For reasons he could not explain to himself, he had not mentioned to Tom and Marj, the brother and sister he was closest to, that he knew where their father was or that he was coming here.
‘Right, you bugger.’ His breath formed white clouds on the freezing air. Harry’s chest was so tight he could hardly breathe. Horrified, he realized he might cry, and had to walk up and down the road for a minute or two more to get himself under control. He braced himself, pulling his shoulders back, then strode along the entry. At the entrance, he stopped.
‘Christ.’
He wasn’t exactly used to living in luxury, but this place was among the most dreary and squalid he’d ever seen. It was small and dark, overshadowed by the back wall of a factory, and there were rubbish and filth all across it. In one corner lay a pool of stagnant water, half frozen today, and in a pile of muck round the bottom of the lamp he could see the remains of a sodden rag doll. Its grey face was turned sorrowfully towards him. There was a foul stench on the air, even in the cold. It must pong like hell in here when it’s hot, he thought.
He stood at a loss for a moment, then a woman came out from the house behind him. She was thin and dreary-looking, not especially young, her hair roughly scraped back, and carrying a pail of ash. She stared at him with a hostile expression, pulling her black shawl round her.
‘What d’yer want?’
‘I’m looking for . . .’ He stumbled over the words. ‘For a bloke called Josiah Martin.’
‘E’s inside,’ she said indifferently. ‘Asleep – as usual.’ And she walked away, the pail causing her to lean over to one side.
Harry walked into the house, as cold inside as out, as the fire was not lit. The stink of urine overpowered everything else. It was a stench he always associated with his father and he was overcome with shame. The stench was coming from another bucket, by the range, which was acting as a po’.
There was a ragged chair in the corner. Harry made sense of the shape sprawled in it, taking in first the feet, toes peeping through black socks like mushrooms pushing up through soil. The right big toe was showing, the nail yellow and gnarled. His eyes followed the short legs, stocky body, bloated belly covered by a stained shirt, the buttons straining. He could see dark hairs in the spaces where the shirt was forced open.
It was as if he was avoiding the face at first because he knew what he would see. He was very like his father. When he at last forced himself to focus on the jowly, unshaven face, with its drinker’s hue, the unkempt hair, once black, like his, now grizzled, it was with the horror of seeing himself as he might be twenty years on. What he might – was even destined to – become.
Memories rushed into his mind: his father when they were young, and he used to take them fishing to Edgbaston reservoir or even right out to Sutton Park. But often he’d stop, long before they wanted to leave, and go to a pub. He and Tommy and the others spent hours sitting outside pubs waiting for him to come out. There was the Christmas when Mom’d scrimped for weeks to get them all a decent meal, carried a joint of beef to the baker’s to be cooked in the oven, made everything as nice as she could – and then they couldn’t find him. He rolled in at five o’clock, long after they’d all finished eating, and Mom had sat crying over the dirty crocks. Eventually, though, she’d said, ‘Well, sod him. You kids are my family, not him.’ And for once, the only time he could ever remember, they all sat round and played cards and I-Spy and all the games they could think of that afternoon. And when Dad came home, they showed him how they were laughing and didn’t need him and Mom acted as if it didn’t matter if he was there or not. Harry was nine that year. And the memory of Mom’s face as Dad came through the door, barely able to stand, made him want to sob like a child now, standing over him. Then he wanted to take a rock and smash his head in. He looked older. So much older.
Harry took in a deep, shuddering breath. That miserable cow of a woman would be back soon. He didn’t want her around, seeing this.
‘Oi – ’ He shook his father’s shoulder and spoke very brusquely. ‘You – Josiah Martin – wake up.’
He was quite surprised how easy the man was to rouse, when you considered how deep his drunken slumber could be.
‘Wha – ?’ He woke abruptly, the eyes snapping open, yawning and scratching at the salt and pepper stubble on his cheek. Sitting up, he gave a loud, rasping belch. He stared round, not seeming to make sense of anything.
‘D’you know who I am?’ Harry said. He could feel aggression rising in him. You’re my bloody father! he wanted to shout. You’d better know who I am or else! Where’ve you been all these years, you drunken bastard?
Josiah’s bloodshot eyes turned on him. Harry could see he was having trouble focusing. His hands were shaking and his whole body seemed to quiver. His breathing, through his nose, was very loud. Narrowing his eyes, he said, ‘Tommy?’
‘Guess again, Dad.’ He’d at least realized it was one of his sons. He and Tommy were also alike. Harry’s hands, in his jacket pockets, were clenched into fists.
Josiah stared at him, at a loss.
‘You one of my sons? Can’t remember yer name.’
‘Harry. It’s Harry.’
‘Oh ar. Harry.’ He considered this, staring into the dead fireplace. ‘Why’re you ’ere?’
‘Mom died. Two nights ago.’
His head tilted round. ‘Elsie?’
‘You can remember her name then.’
The savagery in his tone seemed to cut the air.
Josiah was about to speak when the woman with the ash pail came back in. Harry loathed her on sight. She walked smartly to the fireplace and slammed the pail down.
‘Who’s this then? What’s going on?’
‘I’m his son,’ Harry said. ‘And it’s none of your cowing business what’s going on.’
She was about to have a go, Harry could see, her face puckering up hatefully. He strode out of there before he punched the miserable bint in the face.
‘Funeral’s Friday,’ he said on the way out. ‘Eleven o’clock. St Mary’s.’
The day of the funeral he still felt all the time as if he was going to explode. It was freezing, and wet. Couldn’t have been a nastier day if it tried. The snow was all gone but there was a mizzling cold rain and the wind was bitter. He felt everything was against him.
‘Put that fag out,’ he snarled at Violet as they reached the church.
Smoke, smoke – all she ever bloody did these days. Like a cowing chimney.
‘All right,’ Violet said carefully. She dropped the stub and ground it out with her heel. His feelings softened for a moment. She w
as a looker all right when she took the trouble. Her hair was shoulder-length and she’d curled the ends today. He could see glimpses of its gold against the black hat and coat. Her blue eyes, deep as pools, contained the sad, yearning look which had always made him feel protective towards her. She was even thinner now of course – tired-looking. Jo Snell going like that had knocked her, he knew. The sight of her moved him. He knew he loved her and wanted things to be right, but all he could feel was this tight rage and grief which blocked out everything else.
She was being gentle with him, he knew. Sorry for him because of his mom, even though he knew she could never stand the woman. She had Joycie and Linda hanging on to her skirts, all in their best clothes and bewildered by the solemn carry-on of a funeral. Little Linda looked up at him with those dark, inscrutable eyes, as if waiting for something.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, turning away.
He was a bearer. He had to carry his mom’s coffin into the church. No good thinking about anything else. Nudging the edges of his mind all the time was the question: would Dad come? Did he care whether he did or not?
Twenty years Mom and Dad were married, he calculated as they sat in a row in the pews. The rain was still on his coat. He felt out of place in a church. It was cold and the pews were hard.
The coffin was in front of them in the aisle. He found it hard to take in that Mom was in there, that he’d never see her again. For a moment the tight feeling in him increased so that it was almost unbearable. It frightened him, the way he felt. He couldn’t make sense of it. As if his whole body was about to break open.
‘We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we will carry nothing out . . .’
The vicar’s words passed by him, barely heard. Suddenly, though, Linda, who was standing beside him, reached up and with her little hand caught hold of the ends of his fingers. Harry looked down. The child was gazing up at him with such naked trust that he suddenly wanted to weep. He took her hand properly and squeezed it.
