by June Gadsby
She had called in at her gran’s house two doors away and found the place deserted. Fortunately, she had a key and was able to let herself in. It was then an easy business to go through to the back of the house, where she found her grandmother locked in the air-raid shelter that had been built in the yard next to the lavatory. Nothing short of Hitler’s army would have winkled the old woman out of her hiding place, even though it was freezing cold and as dark as a dungeon.
There was old Annie, muffled up to the eyeballs, sucking on a precious orange, dribbling the juice down her chin and demanding to know if the war was over yet. Poor old soul, she was as deaf as a post and so scared that she wouldn’t hear the siren wailing to forewarn her of an enemy attack, she preferred to camp out in the shelter on a permanent basis, coming out only at meal-times, when she joined the family.
‘Dear God,’ moaned Jenny. ‘It’s to be hoped the war ends soon, so your gran can get back to normal.’
‘I can’t help feeling that she’s going to have a long wait,’ Mary said, thinking of the long wait they had already had. ‘Do you think she’s all right, Mam? I mean, in the head … you know?’
Jenny gave her a scathing look. She lifted her head at the sound of a latchkey grating in the lock of the front door.
‘That’ll be your dad,’ she said.
It was indeed Frank West, back from making sure the good folk living over the old Cube Pit area of Felling were following all the rules of security. He looked almost blue with the cold, banging his hands together to get the circulation going, but he smiled broadly on seeing Mary.
‘By gum, it’s parky out there th’ night,’ he said. ‘Hullo, love. Finished early, have you?’
‘Just finished, Frank,’ Jenny answered for her. ‘That rotten boss of hers has given her the sack.’
Frank’s eyebrows shot up, then he gave a shrug.
‘Oh, aye? Well, I always said you were too good for that place. You’ll find another job without too much bother, I bet.’
‘Thanks Dad,’ Mary said and placed an affectionate kiss on his frozen cheek.
‘What did I do to deserve that, then?’
‘Nothing at all, Dad.’
He looked at her curiously for a second or two, then settled himself in front of the fire with his Evening Chronicle to wait for his tea. Jenny had a cauldron of chicken broth and dumplings bubbling merrily on top of the stove and the whole place was filled with its delicious aroma.
Another rattle at the front door announced the arrival of Helen and she appeared with the sleeping, six-month-old Carol in her arms. She looked worn out, but radiant.
‘Well, that’s that settled,’ she said, collapsing into the nearest chair as soon as her mother took charge of the infant. ‘I’ve got some good news and I can’t wait until Trevor gets back, so I’m going to blab it all out now.’
‘Oh, aye? What is it then, this news of yours?’ Jenny rocked back and forward, her granddaughter clamped tightly to her chest, kissing her until the child stirred, opened sleepy eyes and gave a whimper of complaint.
‘I’ve found us a place of our own,’ Helen said, a trifle breathlessly. ‘Well, not exactly our own. It’s just two rooms in a house at the top of Watermill Lane. Two rooms and a kitchen and we share a bathroom with the owner. She’s a widow and the place is too big for her to manage, so she agreed a low rent if I’ll help with the housework.’
‘You’re going to leave us?’ Jenny’s eyes immediately filled with tears. ‘Aw, hinny, you don’t have to do that. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’
‘I know that, Mam,’ Helen said, ‘but it’s best this way. And … I’ve found a job. The new munitions factory down on Sunderland Road. I’ll be helping to make bits for the aeroplanes. You know, the ones that’ll win the war.’
‘But you hate the very idea of work,’ Mary said, half teasingly. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘Aye, our Helen. I think you’ve got some explaining to do, young lady. And what I want to know is what’s going to happen to this bairn of yours when you’re at work in this munchings factory, or whatever it is.’
‘Munitions, Mam, and it’s very important. Don’t worry about Carol. Mrs Greaves, our landlady, loves children. She’ll be more than happy to look after her. Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Mary, positively bemused by her sister’s unprecedented behaviour.
‘Well, I don’t think it’s wonderful at all,’ Jenny muttered. ‘Did you hear that, Frank? Our Helen’s leaving us and some stranger is going to take care of Carol.’
‘Oh, aye?’ came the reply from behind the newspaper. ‘Well, at least you’ll be able to get your front room back to normal for Christmas.’
‘Oh, men!’ Jenny shook her head and dabbed her glistening eyes with the edge of her pinny. ‘They never understand. Oh, well, at least it frees the room for you and Walter, doesn’t it, our Mary?’
Mary didn’t say anything. She curled up on the clippie mat in front of the hearth and stared into the flames that were leaping up the wide chimney. Her eyes found the hole at one side where they raked out the soot. She used to put her Christmas wishes in there when she was a little girl. It was a magic place and, she truly believed, a place where dreams came true. In her imagination, she wrote a short note now, the invisible child in her flicking it into the small aperture.
Then she sat back from the heat and laughed softly to herself. Tomorrow, or the next day, her mother would rake out the soot, not knowing that Mary’s dream was there among the powdery blackness. Dreams were for children, after all, and she was all grown up and didn’t believe in magic any more.
After a busy evening clinic, Alex Craig was sitting at one end of the dining-room table, bringing up to date the notes of the patients he had seen that day. It seemed as though the war and the gruelling harshness of the winter weather that year were taking their toll on the population. He and his uncle had handed out prescriptions as if they were on some sort of production line. There had hardly been time to write more than a few salient words as he went along.
‘Do stop doing that, Alex,’ his wife snapped out, impatient with the monotonous drumming of his fingers. ‘You’re being very irritating this evening.’
‘It’s been a long, hard day, Fiona.’ He glanced across the room to where she was sitting staring into the glowing elements of the gas fire. The book she had been reading was discarded, open and face down on her lap as if she had suddenly become bored with it. ‘Why don’t you take up something to occupy yourself with? Knitting, perhaps. Embroidery? My mother gets a lot of pleasure out of embroidery … oh, and tapestry. Now that’s something you could do, surely?’
‘I am not your mother, Alex. Please don’t patronize me with suggestions that I take up such domestic pursuits. You’ll be suggesting next that I should make cakes and jam and I can’t think of anything I would rather do less.’
‘Well, after all, you are a member of the local WI. Isn’t that what they do?’
‘Oh, that bunch of old hens. I only joined for the contacts, but apart from Penelope Beasley and, at some stretch of the imagination, the vicar’s wife, there is absolutely nobody of any note within their ranks.’
‘I hear they’re doing an awful lot towards the war effort. Why aren’t you down there now with them, helping out? You know, doing your bit.’
‘Knitting mittens and balaclavas and making bandages from old sheets? Having coffee-mornings? Really, Alex.’
‘Perhaps …’ He hesitated fractionally, unsure whether or not to broach the subject that had been uppermost in his mind for so long. ‘Perhaps things might seem better, Fiona, if we had a family.’
Then he saw it, that same outraged expression, and knew that it had been a mistake.
‘Oh, not that again, Alex! There’s plenty of time yet. Besides, I’m not even sure I want to be a mother. All that sick and dirty nappies and lost sleep. No, thank you.’
Alex fell silent. He could see that
the conversation was going nowhere. In fact, it was most likely to lead to a slanging match if he persisted. They seemed to have more and more heated exchanges these days, neither one of them able to speak without a barb attached.
What the hell had happened to their marriage, Alex wondered gloomily? It had all started out happily enough. Maybe that was the problem. Happily enough. He had never felt that great boost of excitement that went beyond the superficial realms of lust. It was Fiona who had made the running, Fiona who pushed him into marriage. Looking back now over the last five years, it was easy to see how it had all gone wrong. She had been too forceful and he had been too young and impressionable. Had love ever entered into the equation? He thought not.
And for Fiona’s part, she had quickly become bored with being his wife. She didn’t find him exciting enough. He was always working, and when he wasn’t nose to the grindstone in the hospital or, as now, in the practice, he was too tired for the kind of social life she would have preferred. He had thought, perhaps, that if they started a family, things would improve. Well, she had knocked that theory on the head more than once, much to his disappointment.
Alex collected the packets of patient-notes into a neat pile, secured them with an elastic band and popped them into his Gladstone bag. His conscience was telling him he had to do something to salvage whatever remained of a relationship that he had sworn before God to protect. He wasn’t a religious man, but he did believe in the sanctity of marriage. Even so, it did take two to make any marriage work and Fiona had long ago ceased to meet him halfway. With a sigh, he pushed himself up from the table.
‘Why don’t we go out for a drink?’ he suggested, thinking that being in a public place was preferable to an unfriendly silence here at home.
Fiona gave him a languid look and her mouth twitched in the way it did when she thought he was being stupid.
‘I’m not in the mood. Besides, we have alcohol in the sideboard. I can think of better things to do than mingle with pitmen and dockers swilling beer.’
Alex gritted his teeth. Although he was fairly new to Tyneside, he already felt a natural urge to defend the mainly working-class population. They were the salt of the earth, these big-hearted, hard-working Geordies. He had received nothing but warmth from them since he first put his foreign nose into their midst.
‘They’re good people, Fiona,’ he said, his voice tight but controlled. ‘You shouldn’t run them down. Good Lord, you don’t even know them.’
‘Oh, go out for a drink, if that’s what you want, but don’t expect me to come with you.’ Fiona’s eyes flashed angrily, then she turned her gaze back to the fire. ‘Go and get drunk, if you must. I don’t care.’
Alex said no more. He grabbed his overcoat, scarf and the mandatory gas mask, and headed for the pub. It was his uncle’s turn to be on call that night, so he didn’t worry too much about being absent.
The evening being fine, though the air was freezing and the pavements icy, Alex decided to go on foot up to Victoria Square, where there was a pub that seemed popular with the locals. He felt the need for exercise and to breathe some good, clean air. And to distance himself from the house, which had never truly felt like a home, mainly because Fiona seemed incapable of making it so.
The Jubilee public house was heaving with bodies, quite a few of them servicemen. The young, brash soldiers were intent on enjoying their freedom and filled the place with raucous laughter as they shouted out toasts bordering on the ridiculous and the vulgar, such as ‘Up yours, Adolph!’ and ‘Here’s to Adolf in Blunderland!’
One man sat alone in a corner, warding off company with aggressive arm waves. The fellow, Alex noticed, was in his fifties and stared down sullenly into his glass. Like Alex, he was drinking whisky, but was obviously a few shots ahead, for his eyes were clouded and there was a dribble of saliva coursing down his chin from his slack mouth.
‘Who’s that in the corner over there?’ Alex asked the barman as he paid for his second whisky. ‘The fellow with the glum expression and the haunted eyes.’
‘Oh, that’s Frank West,’ the barman told him and Alex wandered over to where the man was still sitting staring into space.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he asked, sitting down anyway. ‘It’s the only vacant seat.’
The man raised his eyes and swallowed hard, then shrugged his shoulders uncaringly. He ignored Alex and returned to his serious drinking, calling for another whisky as soon as he had downed the last drop of the one before him.
‘Hey, Frank, lad. I think ye’ve had enough, eh? Ye’ll nivvor get home th’ neet.’ The barman hovered by Alex’s shoulder, shaking his head. Then he bent down and shouted in Alex’s ear because it was too noisy to whisper. ‘He’s a bit upset, ye see. Got turned down by the Draft Board when he tried to join up.’
Alex looked at the lined face of the miner in amazement. The fellow was slowly sinking down as he muttered something unintelligibly, then his forehead crashed on to the table before him.
‘Where does he live?’ Alex asked.
‘Up Split Crow Road way,’ said another miner who had wandered over, clutching his thick pint glass. ‘Silly old fool. Fancy trying to join up at his age. You’d think he’d have had enough of war after the last one.’
‘Yes.’ Alex sighed, then stood up and hauled the slightly built, semiconscious man to his feet. ‘However, there’s no telling what goes on in a man’s mind at times like these. I’ll see him home.’
‘It’s a long walk, and uphill all the way.’
‘It’ll do us both good. Split Crow Road, is it?’
‘Aye, that’s right. George Street. On the right, just past the allotments.’
Alex’s eyes narrowed slightly. He couldn’t be sure, but the man he was now supporting, and who was almost comatose, was very likely Mary West’s father.
It was going to be quite a challenge, getting the drunken man home, but in the square they came upon a horse and cart going in the right direction. The man driving it was Tommy Dobson, the patient who had created such a fuss at being signed off that morning.
‘Hold on there,’ Alex called out as he saw that Tommy was about to pass them by. ‘Can you give us a lift up Split Crow Road as far as George Street?’
The man glowered at him beneath his flat cap and tried to disappear into his coat collar.
‘Aye, put him on the back,’ he said eventually, his voice muffled. ‘I’ll see he gets there safely enough.’
‘No, I’ll go with him, just to make sure.’
‘Ye divvint trust us, eh?’
‘Tommy Dobson, I know it’s you, so there’s no use pretending you’re somebody different. Now will you give us a lift or not?’
‘What’s in it for me, eh? Ye ganna give us another sick note?’
‘What’s in it for you, my man, is my silence if you go back to work and stop all your shenanigans.’
There was a brief hesitation, then Tommy whipped off his cap and scratched fiercely at his greasy head.
‘Aye, gan on then. Hop aboard.’
It took them ten minutes. The horse was old and kept stopping to pant and cough, filling the air with steam from its nostrils and a fouler stench from its rear. But at least it seemed to know its way, even in the pitch-black night. The cartwheels mounted the kerb only once.
When Alex jumped down at the end of George Street and pulled Mr West after him, he could see Tommy Dobson hovering expectantly.
‘Don’t push your luck, laddie,’ he said and received a grimace in return. ‘My gratitude is all you’re getting. Consider this as part of your donation towards the war effort. And get yourself back to work by Monday morning, or I’ll want to know why not.’
Without a further word, Dobson clicked his tongue and the horse moved on. Alex looked about him, recognizing the area, even in the dark. That patient he had visited this afternoon – Miss Croft – she lived two streets further up.
‘Come on, Mr West,’ he said, tightening his grip about the man’s waist
so that they were almost joined at the hip. ‘Let’s get you to your bed.’
‘Ye’re a good lad,’ Frank West muttered and patted Alex’s shoulder. ‘I bet they wouldn’t turn you down, eh?’
Frank managed to stay awake long enough to indicate which house he lived in. As Alex rapped on the door with the heavy iron knocker, he saw a flicker of light through a chink in the fanlight black-out curtain. After a few seconds he heard feet coming down the stairs at a run.
‘Mrs West?’ he spoke out as soon as the door began to open. ‘It’s Dr Craig. I’ve got your husband here. He’s a bit under the weather, I’m afraid.’
But the person who stood there, her face illuminated by a sudden beam of light as the moon appeared from behind a bank of cloud, was none other than Mary West.
‘Dr Craig? Oh, goodness, Dad! What’s happened? Mam, come quick!’
‘It’s all right,’ Alex said, stepping over the threshold with his burden. ‘He’s not hurt. Just the worse for too much drink.’
‘He’s drunk? But Dad never touches alcohol.’
‘Well, he did tonight. Better get him up the stairs and pour him into bed. He’ll have a beauty of a hangover in the morning.’
‘I just don’t believe that your dad would do such a thing,’ Jenny West sat with her head in her hands, which is how she had been since Dr Craig left. ‘And just fancy, that doctor bringing him all the way home. What must he think of us, eh?’
‘I don’t know, Mam,’ Mary said, putting a cup of strong, sweet tea in front of her mother. ‘But it was very kind of him to do that. Otherwise, Dad might have ended up sleeping in the gutter tonight and they’d have found him all frozen to death in the morning.’
‘Oh, but the shame of it!’ Jenny moaned. ‘What on earth possessed him?’
Mary knew there was no point in struggling with the whys and the wherefores. Her father kept his feelings very much to himself, and although he never spoke of it, he was proud to have served his king and country in the Great War. No doubt he felt that Britain and King George needed him again.
