by Annie Murray
Workers were needed from any possible source, and Rose found herself working among a wider mix of people than she’d ever been with in her life before. Alongside her stood a girl called Maureen from Londonderry. They worked just far enough apart for there to be little opportunity to chat, but the two of them often sat together in the canteen at break times and became quite friendly. Maureen came from the Catholic side of Derry, and like Rose was from a large family.
‘I’d most likely have come to England anyways, even without the war,’ Maureen told her. ‘But now they’re giving out jobs like First Communion cards, I thought I’d take the chance while it was offered.’
Maureen was a thin, anaemic-looking girl with terrible spots. She was kind and soft-spoken and Rose found her easy enough company. She was also very homesick, and spoke with special affection for the baby of the family, her four-year-old sister Josie.
‘It’s not the same without little ones about,’ Maureen said. ‘I’d give anything to see her.’
One day when she was sitting under the bright lights of the canteen with Maureen, Rose noticed the man with one arm.
‘Hang on a tick,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have a word with him.’
The man was older than many of the employees, and when she got up close to him, Rose saw that on one side of his face the skin was shiny and puckered up as if from a severe burn.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I hope you won’t think me rude for asking . . .’
The man turned and smiled with the half of his face that worked. He had one vivacious blue eye; the other was missing. The injured side of his face remained still, as if dead.
‘What’s up love?’ he asked.
‘It’s just when I saw you I thought of my dad. He’s without one arm and a leg from the last war and he hasn’t been in work for years.’
‘Well now’s his chance,’ the man said chirpily. ‘Doesn’t he know they’ll take anyone on nowadays? They’ve found me a little job I can do with one arm – with the petrol tanks. If your dad asks, you can bet they’ll find him something – even if they turn him upside down and sweep the floor with his head!’ He gave a long chesty laugh and Rose couldn’t help joining in.
Within a week Sid was taken on by the Birmingham Small Arms Company, which in peacetime manufactured bicycles and motorcycles. It had reverted to turning out bombs, rockets and guns and all the ammunition needed to feed them. They found him a job packing bullets.
The day he left the house in dungarees to catch a bus to a proper job for the first time in over twenty years, Dora watched him as he pulled himself on his crutch out of Court 11. She reflected with some pride and more bitterness on the irony that her husband, who had been so shattered by the last war, might only begin to feel useful to anyone again now there was a second one in progress.
At the end of May, France fell to the Germans, and a huge flotilla of British boats evacuated all the troops they could transport from the French coast at Dunkerque.
On 2 July, Hitler ordered the invasion of Britain.
‘The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin,’ Churchill told the House of Commons. ‘The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.’
And the country waited, as if holding its breath for a long descent into deep, dark water.
One night, at the beginning of August, the first bombs to fall on Birmingham dropped on Erdington, in the streets around Albert and Jean’s house.
When she came in from work the next morning, Rose found Jean in a proper state. She was sitting on the old sofa in her dressing gown, with a tearstained face, and clutching Amy and Mary close to her as if she’d never let them go.
‘Thank God you’re all right,’ Rose said, putting her bag down and running to her sister-in-law. ‘You poor things, you must have had an awful night. We heard them come down. We were all in the shelters as well.’
Jean sat and sobbed helplessly. The Anderson shelter down the garden had a puddle right along the middle and it had grown even damper with the condensation from their breath. It had been horrible sitting there all night, cold and scared stiff.
‘I wish Albert was here,’ she cried. ‘He’d know what to do. I hate being here without him. I can’t stand it. And he might never come back!’
‘Look,’ Rose said firmly, wishing Albert had married someone with a bit more to her. ‘You should try and keep things normal for the kids’ sake. Get them dressed and send them out to play.’
‘No!’ Jean protested. ‘I’m not letting them out of my sight – either of them. Them planes could come back any time!’ Her face was getting puffed up with tears.
Rose sighed. ‘Look. Get the kids dressed. Then you give me the ration books and I’ll take them down the shops. That’ll give you a bit of time to pull yourself together and get some things done, won’t it?’
On the streets and in the shops everyone was saying ‘Wasn’t it awful?’
‘We’re not going to stand for that,’ Rose heard a woman say as they queued in the butcher’s. ‘Coming over here and knocking people’s houses down. Who does he think he is?’
They were comments that would recur many times as the bombing intensified. The raids became so much heavier and more frequent that the journey to work in the evening was often hazardous. And then in the morning Rose travelled home, her stomach churning with worry that Jean’s house might not be still standing, and wondering about Dora and the others in Catherine Street.
Every time she got the chance, Rose caught a bus over there. One afternoon in late August Dora’s first words were, ‘Have you heard – the Market Hall’s gone up?’
‘What?’ Rose said, stunned. It seemed impossible that a building she’d known and loved all her life should have been hit.
‘The middle of town’s a right mess,’ Dora said, brewing up tea for Rose. She was delighted to see her, though less likely to show it. ‘Didn’t you see it when you came across? I took the kids in this morning. The Market Hall’s a shell. The roof’s gone – the lot. And what a stink! All burnt and musty. And there was flaming rabbits and guinea pigs running about all over the place.’ She sat down, laughing slightly hysterically. ‘I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I saw this great fat bloke chasing his rabbits all round the churchyard . . .’ She sobered up suddenly. ‘And there was Union Jacks all stuck in the mess – that’s the British for you.’
Rose could see Dora was in a state and trying not to show it. ‘How’s everyone?’
‘All right.’
Rose looked at the worn face in front of her. Dora didn’t look well. She had never really thrown off her cough from last winter and the strain showed in every line of her face.
‘I hope you’re looking after yourself,’ Rose said.
‘I’ll do.’ There was a pause. ‘Could do without spending the night in this thing though.’ She patted the Morrison shelter.
‘What about Dad?’
‘Oh, he’s all right. Better than the rest of us as a matter of fact. He’s palled up with some bloke from the BSA who’s got an allotment over that way. Your dad helps out how he can. Digging for Victory and that.’ Dora smiled, reluctantly. ‘Gives me a bit of peace anyroad. I even heard him whistling the other evening. No, he’s not the problem . . .’
Rose saw her mother’s face cloud over again. ‘George?’
‘He’s started thieving. I found him with a clock this morning and he wouldn’t say where he got it. Next thing is he’s sold it and put the money in his pocket. I reckon it came from one of the houses that got it last night. I’m ashamed of him – I really am. But it don’t seem no good saying anything.’
‘I wish I could do more to help,’ Rose said.
‘You’re doing what you can. And it can’t be a picnic for Jean over there either.’
As autumn came, Dora was taken ill again. Grace gave up work to be with her and take care of the family. The bombing began in real earnest in November. On the fourteenth the cent
re of Coventry was burned to the ground, and it seemed only a matter of time before the attention of the German Luftwaffe would be turned more fully on Birmingham.
A few days later it began. Night after night the waves of bombers came over, dark, malevolent shadows in the sky. All night searchlights criss-crossed the darkened buildings and the ack-ack guns rattled out their fire.
Across the city fires burned and the water supply was disrupted. In the quiet mornings, after the all clear had sounded, exhausted people emerged blinking and sick with nerves out of the shelters or from under their staircases to the smell of damp, charred masonry, wet plaster and the sour smell of the incendiaries.
One morning, after another heavy raid, Grace arrived just as Rose was about to go to bed.
‘What’s happened?’ Rose shouted down the stairs, seeing Jean letting Grace in. She was down in an instant. ‘What’re you doing here? What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Mom,’ Grace said. She looked pale and exhausted. ‘She’s been taken very bad. We had to get the doctor in after the all clear. He says it’s pneumonia.’
‘Oh my God,’ Rose said. She just stared at Grace, stupid with tiredness.
‘I can look after her,’ Grace assured her hurriedly. ‘Only she’s fretting about the kids. It was so bad last night she wants Harry and the twins over at Edna’s till it’s all over. She’s sure Edna’ll have them.’
Rose felt a momentary pang at the thought of Billy and Susan being sent away, but she knew it was for the best. ‘What about George?’
Grace gave her a look which implied how stupid the question was. ‘I need you to come and stay over a night at Mom’s while I take them over. It’ll be too much to do it in a day.’
Rose thought for a second. ‘I can get Maureen to swap with me for tomorrow. She’ll do anything for kids. I’ll get over early. Do me a favour and don’t go till I’ve had a chance to see them.’
Grace nodded, knowing Rose felt they were almost her own. ‘Make sure you’re over sharpish though.’
*
As Rose made her way home the next day she was horrified at the extent of the damage wreaked on the city. She sat in her old grey coat, looking out of the window of the bus. Some of the solid edges that had outlined her existence were gone. It was shocking, impossible, as if the very foundations of life were shuddering underneath her.
Two of the houses at the end of Catherine Street were down. The house next to them had been shattered in half, some of it still intact, with a chest of drawers with clothes spilling out and a picture still untouched on the inside wall. It seemed indecent: the details of the private parts of people’s lives hanging there on display.
Grace hadn’t told her how bad it was. She must have wanted to avoid worrying her any more.
She gave the little ones as cheerful a send-off as she could. Dora was upstairs in bed and had already said her goodbyes.
‘Why do we have to go?’ Susan raised her dark eyes to Rose with a puzzled frown.
‘Well, it’s because of all the big bangs you keep hearing in the night,’ Rose told her.
‘We don’t like the bangs,’ Billy whispered.
‘No. Well, it’ll be quieter at Auntie Edna’s. And there’s a lot more space to run about. And Harry’ll look after you – won’t you?’
Harry nodded, holding on to a very old rag doll that had been Violet’s.
‘I tell you what,’ Rose said. ‘I’ve got something for you two to look after for me.’
She ran upstairs, and when she came down after a few minutes she put into Susan’s hand a small wooden elephant and into Billy’s the roughly carved little wooden horse. Both of them beamed with delight.
‘I’ll put him in bed when we get there, ’cos he’ll be tired,’ Susan said solemnly.
‘That’s right. You look after them for me until I see you – all right?’
Rose found Dora in a bad state. She was very weak and her breathing through her one good lung was laboured and noisy. She had a high fever and was drifting in and out of consciousness. Rose sat beside her most of the day, offering her sips of water, bathing the hot, sallow skin of her face and rubbing camphorated oil on her chest. When Rose became so tired she could no longer stay upright, she lay and slept beside her.
In the early evening, when Dora opened her eyes and seemed fully conscious for the first time, Rose said, ‘They’ve gone off all right.’
Her mother nodded and whispered, ‘Best out of it.’ Then she said, ‘Grace is a good girl.’
Rose smiled.
‘And so are you,’ Dora went on in her rasping voice.
‘Don’t talk if it hurts, Mom.’
‘No – I wanted to say—’ Dora went on, and then started coughing, her body curling in pain as she held her side tightly. It was some time before she had enough breath to speak again.
‘You’ve had some bad things happen to you – before you should have—’
‘Don’t, Mom—’
‘No . . .’ She stopped to get her breath. ‘It’s as rough as it gets losing a babby. And your friend – Diana . . .’ She saw Rose look at the floor. It was the first time anyone else had mentioned Diana, and hearing her name suddenly was more painful than she expected. ‘All I was going to say was – I’m proud of you – how you’ve come through it. Alfie’ll make you a good husband. And you can have some more of your own kiddies then.’
For a moment Rose couldn’t think of anything to say, she was so moved by the fact that her mother understood how bad she still felt about Diana. And at the same time she realized with a wave of guilt how seldom she worried about Alfie.
She just said, ‘Thanks Mom. Shall I get you some camomile tea now?’
As she was preparing the hot drink, George came back into the house carrying a bag of trinkets which he’d rifled out of another of the houses bombed the night before. He laid them out quite brazenly on top of the shelter.
‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ Rose said.
‘Oh yeah? How’s that?’ he said, insolently. His little pinched face was hard and bitter.
‘Look,‘ Rose said, infuriated, her hands on her hips. Small as she was, she looked forbidding in her anger, her slim curving figure outlined by the red dress. ‘I know you think you’re a special case and everyone’s got to apologize to you for the rest of your life. But you’re not. Mom sent you away because she wanted the best for you, and there’s no excuse for you acting like a thieving litle urchin and taking advantage of other people.’
‘Aw, sod off,’ George said.
Rose marched up to him and gave his face a sharp slap. She turned, shaking with anger, to begin preparing their rations of food for the evening meal.
‘You’re a selfish little bugger,’ she shouted after him as he went out of the door.
He left the door swinging open so that the forbidden light streamed into the yard. Rose went and slammed it shut.
‘We’ll have the ARP lot round carrying on next,’ she muttered to herself. Despite her anger she saw in her mind George as a tiny child forever running to her to be picked up. She felt sorry for being so hard on him. But all their nerves were on edge and he’d become so distant and infuriating.
Soon Sid came in with a cabbage and a handful of carrots in a bag dangling from his crutch. ‘You can throw these in the pot,’ he said proudly. ‘How’s your mother?’
‘She’s just had some tea,’ Rose told him. ‘She’s about the same, I think.’ She took the cabbage and started to clean it up. ‘How’s it at the BSA?’
‘Hell of a mess up there,’ Sid said, easing his coat off. ‘The whole of the new building went up. Awful lot of blokes went with it. We’re carrying on the best we can.’
While she finished preparing the meal, Sid went round the house and checked it was properly blacked out. She heard his voice upstairs as he said a few words to her mother. It was odd getting used to seeing him differently. Now he was someone with things to do, with a role. Like a proper dad, she thought.
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br /> When he came down, she said, ‘How do we get Mom into the shelter?’
‘She won’t come,’ Sid said flatly.
‘Is that what she said?’
‘She didn’t need to say. She hasn’t been in there since she was taken bad.’
Rose gaped at him. ‘You mean . . . ? Well, who’s looked after her?’
‘Our Grace has stayed up with her. Your mother told her to go down and leave her, but Grace wouldn’t hear of it.’
‘Grace? You mean all these nights they’ve been bombing the guts out of us those two have both been . . .’ She pointed towards the ceiling. Sid nodded. ‘Why didn’t you make them come down?’
‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ His voice was loud with guilt and worry. ‘She just won’t hear of it.’
‘Good God,’ Rose said. ‘Our Grace is tougher than you’d think. Well’ – she looked defiantly at Sid – ‘if she can put up with it, so can I.’
Sid shook his head. ‘I thought you might’ve been the one that’d talk her down. I just wish there was something I—’
‘It’s all right. Save your breath,’ Rose said irritably, and then added more gently, ‘It only takes one to see to her, doesn’t it?’
Her father sat down, quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘Grace is very like your mother used to be. She was always one for looking after people.’
‘Good job really, wasn’t it?’ Rose retorted. She was finding being alone with her father for the first time in years strange and uncomfortable. She suddenly realized that Dora had always stood between them so they had seldom talked to one another without someone else to mediate.
‘You can be a hard bitch, you can,’ Sid said matter-of-factly. He stared at the plates Rose was laying on top of the shelter as he spoke. ‘Whatever you think, I do love that woman up there.’
Rose turned away, knowing that whatever tender feelings she’d ever had towards her father, or might have now, she was damned if she’d ever be able to show him.
