by Anne Bennett
Barry said nothing until his dinner was in front of him and though he was hungry, for he had eaten nothing for hours, he felt slightly sick and he looked at Angela and said, ‘I enlisted today.’
Angela gave a small gasp and yet she asked herself why she was so surprised because she knew that that was Barry’s way. Once he’d made a decision he acted upon it. ‘Is that what kept you?’
Barry shook his head. ‘No, Mr Baxter gave me the time off for that. I thought I would enlist and be sent for the other formalities later, but they did it there and then. I think the mad dash for joining up has eased a bit though there were a fair few in front of me and as I left I saw a crowd of young fellows going in. As it was, I had my medical and everything.’
‘When do you start?’
‘I have to report on 1st February.’
‘So soon?’
‘For training just.’
‘Even so,’ Angela said, ‘where will you train?’
Barry shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ he said. ‘A couple of women on the shop floor said their chaps trained at a place called Cannock Chase. I don’t know where that is and I don’t much care, because it doesn’t really matter where you train in the end as long as the training is done properly.’
‘Oh, Barry, I am so going to miss you.’
‘I won’t be a million miles away,’ Barry said. ‘Not at first at any rate.’
‘D’you realize we have never been apart?’ Angela said. ‘Not for one single day and night since I was just over eighteen months old. You have always been there for me and I thought you always would be.’
Barry knew Angela was very near to tears and he pushed his empty plate away and gathered her up in his arms, saying as he did so, ‘Angela, I love you more than life itself, my absolute love for Connie often overwhelms me and I love Mammy too and feel responsible for her too. You are the three most important women in my life and I can’t stay with you, because I must fight for you and try and make the world a safer place.’
Angela would have much rather Barry was staying here at home and keeping her safe where his strong hands would encircle her if ever she was afraid and she would feel protected and cherished. But what was the point in saying any of this now the decision had been made and so her sigh was imperceptible as she said, ‘Is that why you didn’t come home, because you haven’t told Mammy what you’ve done?’
‘Partly,’ Barry admitted and then added, ‘I didn’t want to face you either because you don’t know everything, but I suppose it’s better to tell you together?’
‘Here’s your chance,’ Angela said. ‘I hear Mammy on the stairs. I was about to send out a search party for she’s been upstairs ages. I’ll make her a cup of tea, it’s just a pity we haven’t got a drop of something stronger. I have a feeling she might need it.’
Mary came into the room wiping her sleepy eyes with her apron. ‘What d’you think?’ she said. ‘I have just woken up. I lay on your bed beside the cot to please Connie and I don’t know whether I dropped off first or she did.’ And then she looked at Barry and said, ‘So you decided to come home in the end?’
‘Yes, Mammy, as you see.’
‘You been in some pub?’
‘No, just walking, Mammy, trying to collect my thoughts.’
‘Must have been some thoughts that took you so long.’
‘They were, Mammy, and now I want to share them with you.’ Angela gently pushed Mary down on the settee, and placed a cup of tea in her hands. ‘You may have need of this,’ she said and sat down beside her as Barry began to tell his mother what he had done and try to explain why he had done it. The tea was forgotten as Mary listened to the words spilling from her son’s mouth. She couldn’t believe she was hearing right. Stan had said he was safe and he needn’t go to war for he could claim he was in a reserved occupation even if conscription was introduced, and he had done it anyway.
Oh dear Christ, her mind was screaming, how would they manage without Barry? How could she bear to see the only son she had left march off to a war he might not come back from? When shock caused her to shake, Angela took the tea from her and put it on the table and wrapped her arms around Mary and felt the abject despair and sorrow flowing through her that caused Angela to cry too, and the two women tightly embraced as their tears mingled together. And Barry, not able to bear to see the sadness he had inflicted on these two women that he loved dearly, fell on to his knees before the settee and held them both tight, and he too shed tears of guilt and shame.
A long time later when the crying eventually eased and they were all feeling a bit light-headed, Mary pulled herself from Barry’s arms and sat up straighter in the chair and said as bravely as she could, though her voice wavered slightly, ‘Well, Barry that was a shock for me all right, but crying never did any good at all. If you have enlisted then you have and there’s nothing to be done. Angela, Connie and I will have to get along without you the best way we can, like so many more are doing.’
Barry, amazed at his mother’s stoicism, took a deep breath and deciding he’d better tell the whole of it, went on to say, ‘I haven’t told either of you one of the worst aspects of my decision to join the army.’
Angela groaned, ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Does it get worse?’
‘’Fraid so,’ Barry said. ‘I didn’t know any of this from talking to Stan. ’Course he hadn’t anyone else to consider. I know he cares about Daniel, but he hasn’t got to provide for him. I really thought though that if you were prepared to put your life on the line your family would be looked after.’
Angela knew what Barry was getting at and she said sharply, ‘Just tell me how much you will be getting,’ and when he said how much it was, her mouth dropped open in disbelief. ‘Eight and fourpence?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘What am I to do with eight and fourpence when the rent is three and six?’
‘I will send you more,’ Barry promised. ‘I can’t say how much because I don’t know what expenses I might have, but it will be as much as I can afford.’ And he went on to tell her how to claim the money and to do it the minute he left for training. ‘By the time they process it, I will know how much I can send you and will get it set up straight away.’
‘Barry,’ Angela said, ‘you’ll have less than six and six with the money already taken out to give to me and Connie and you must keep some money for yourself, but even if you were able to give me the whole untouched seven shillings, it’s not going to be enough.’
Barry nodded his head miserably.
‘Well, I think it’s a shabby way for a country to treat its army,’ Mary said.
‘I agree with you, Mammy.’
‘And I’m a drain on you,’ Mary said. ‘Have been for years. I mean what am I but a useless old woman?’
‘You’re not that old,’ Angela protested. ‘And you better not be useless for I’m going to rely on you.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘We don’t know how long this war is going to go on for,’ Angela said. ‘If we’re going to survive it at all, one of us needs to get a job and that’s down to me and I can’t do that without you. But,’ she added with a twinkle in her eye, ‘if you’re too old and useless we’ll have to tighten our belts and hope for the best.’
Barry marvelled at Angela’s resilience She had been overcome with sadness and shed tears, but once she knew how bad the situation was she had a plan of action and one that involved Mary too for she said to Angela, ‘You know I didn’t mean that. Looking after Connie is a pleasure not a chore.’
‘I think you’re right about getting a job,’ Barry said. ‘What sort of work are you thinking of looking for?’
‘Anything well paid,’ Angela said.
‘Not munitions,’ Barry cautioned. ‘They pay well because they are dangerous places. I don’t want you working somewhere like that.’
Angela stared at him. ‘I didn’t particularly want you rushing into war,’ she said. ‘But you’re going anyway, but you don’t want me
in any sort of danger.’
‘Is that so wrong?’
‘Well it’s only that I don’t want you in danger either. I mean when you’re in France it’s not to go to a vicar’s tea party is it?’
Barry got Angela’s point, he was leaving them in the lurch and they had to do the best they could. And so he said, ‘All right. I’m sure you’d get something suitable and I really have no right to say anything about it.’ And then he added, ‘I could probably get you set on at our place. The work is heavy, but not dangerous.’
‘I’d rather get something off my own bat,’ Angela said and suddenly gave an enormous yawn. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m too tired to think straight and I want to wake early tomorrow and make the most of the short time we’ll have together.’
Angela did fall into an exhausted sleep only to wake in the early hours, the time when everyday problems magnify, and found she was unable to sleep again as sorrow at what Barry had done that day overwhelmed her. She fought tears, as Mary had said they did not help and anyway they could disturb Barry and Connie too, but sorrow filled her brain and lodged in her heart and drove all thoughts of sleep from her.
She was almost pleased when she heard Connie begin to stir in the cot and she heaved herself out of bed and picked her up, though her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep and her whole body felt like a bit of chewed string.
However, mindful of her words the previous night, she fought her fatigue to spend most of the afternoon at Calthorpe Park though the weather was squally and cold. And that night, much to Connie’s surprise and delight it was her daddy who bathed her in the tin bath hanging from a hook on the back of the cellar door, which he filled with kettle upon kettle of water. And after he had bathed her and washed her hair, he carried her upstairs to where her Mammy had her pyjamas warming by the fire. Later it was Barry who carried her up the stairs to the cot Angela had warmed with firebricks wrapped in flannel and he tucked her up snug and warm and even read her a story before he left her to sleep. His heart ached as he descended the stairs. He had so wanted to see his child grow up and yet he knew that once his training was over and he set off for France he might not see her again for years and there was always the chance he wouldn’t return from the war he had volunteered for and that thought made him feel very sad. But he could not load this on Angela for the situation was of his own making.
At Mass the next morning, the news filtered through the congregation that Barry McClusky had enlisted, for it was hard to keep things private in the cramped houses with paper-thin walls and anyway this was hardly a private matter. They would all know anyway when he disappeared for training.
Angela, looking around for a fairly vacant pew, spotted the three spinster women who always came to Mass together and then sat towards the front of the church behind the children. The three spinsters were regarding the whole family disapprovingly. They had snubbed the McCluskys when they heard that Barry was in a reserved occupation and Angela thought they were just the type of people to send white feathers out. She was more certain of this when a woman behind them leant forward and whispered something to one of them. A lot of whispering and nudging went on and then the three women swung round and the look on all their faces could only be described as a satisfied smirk.
Angela glanced at Barry, but he was dealing with Connie and had seen nothing untoward and neither had Mary. She was glad and knew there was no point in making them aware of it and so she contented herself with a baleful look at all three of them and then took her place beside Barry as people began shuffling to their feet for the first hymn.
Afterwards so many people wanted to shake Barry’s hand and wish him ‘all the best’ that Angela, who’d had nothing to eat or drink because of taking communion, was beginning to think her throat had been cut. The priest hadn’t been aware of what Barry had done until one of the altar boys mentioned it as they were changing in the sacristy after Mass and he too hurried out as soon as he could. ‘God speed my boy,’ he said. ‘I will remember you in my prayers. Right is with you and will always prevail in the end.’
Barry wasn’t so sure of that, but he wasn’t going to argue with the priest at this juncture. Anyway now he had a hot line to God and he thought it good to have him on his side when he would be risking his life on a daily basis. As they walked home a little later he reflected that life was a funny thing. People who had snubbed him openly, even crossing the street to avoid meeting him, were breaking their neck to shake him by the hand that morning because he had done what they considered right and he wished he was so absolutely sure.
Many times that week, Angela wished she could stop time just there but never more poignantly than that last day. The following morning he would report to Thorp Street Barracks and life would never be the same again. So though it wasn’t really the weather for it, after Mass they took the little steam train to Sutton Park from New Street Station. They left the pram behind and Barry lifted his small daughter onto his shoulders. She squealed with excitement swinging her little legs and beating Barry about the head with her podgy little hands as they walked into the town.
At New Street, Connie was fascinated by the noisy, bustling station where there was a sour smell and steam mixed with the coal dust wafting in the air. Sat atop her daddy’s shoulders she wasn’t afraid of the roaring monsters that seemed to hurl themselves into the station to stop with a clatter of wheels and hiss of steam. She didn’t mind the man feeding the firebox at the front of the train with the orange and yellow flames licking around the coal he was shovelling. Sweat ran down the man’s shining face, while smoke billowed out of the funnel above him into the already grey and sooty air.
A sudden shriek from another waiting train did make Connie jump, but before she could give voice to protest about it, Barry lifted her from his shoulders and put her in the train and got in beside her and so did her Mammy. Connie was so excited her tears were stopped before they’d properly begun. A train journey was a novel experience for Angela too, so she could perfectly understand why Connie was fizzing with the thrill of it all.
Industry, factories, houses and shops soon gave way to fields as they left the town behind. And this stirred a distant memory of a train journey undertaken through a similar landscape when Angela had travelled from Ireland to England years before.
There were fields of cows, some looking over five-barred gates to see the train pass with no sign of alarm and all chewing as if their lives depended upon it. Barry told the wide-eyed Connie that the creatures were called cows and the milk that she liked to drink came from a cow. Connie said nothing but she looked at her father rather oddly, not able to understand what those peculiar animals had in common with the man who ladled their milk into the milk pan they took out to him.
Angela laughed at the expression on her young daughter’s face because she knew what she was thinking. ‘You’ll know what these are in the next field,’ she said confidently.
‘Hoss.’
‘Horse, that’s right,’ Angela said.
She knew Connie would recognise horses, which were a common sight in Birmingham for many wagons were horse-drawn and not all omnibuses were petrol-driven either. Their own coalman used a horse to pull his cart and in the Bull Ring there were many horses carrying all sorts of things and the ones pulling the barrels of beer were usually the smartest and some had their manes and tails plaited and their coats were always shiny and smooth.
Some of the fields were cultivated and Angela remembered the little tufts of green that had been on top of many furrows when she had travelled from Ireland, but now the only thing on the top of these furrows was a dusting of frost. Angela pointed to another field further off, full of sheep relentlessly tugging at the grass.
‘See their woolly coats, Connie,’ she said. ‘They’re called fleeces and that’s what many of your warm jumpers are made from.’
Connie looked suitably impressed by that and the train began slowing down to pull to a halt at a small station and Barry sudde
nly said, ‘We’ve arrived.’
They stepped out onto the wooden platform and Barry said, ‘This is it, the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield.’
‘Royal Town?’
‘Yes, Henry the Eighth I think had something to do with the royal bit,’ Barry said. ‘He used to hunt here, it was all natural then, and he sort of bequeathed the park to the town, or that’s what Stan said. He also said the people of Sutton are very proud of the royal title and the park and unless you live in Sutton Coldfield you have to pay to go in it.’
Angela shook her head, ‘Surely not, Barry,’ she said. ‘Anyway how would you know such a thing because you told me you’ve never been here before?’
‘Stan told me all about it,’ Barry said as he put Connie back on his shoulders and led the way out of the small country station. ‘He said he knew every inch of it because Kate’s family lived in Erdington and he did all his courting in Sutton Park. They had to have Betty along as chaperone. She was quite a lot older than Kate and cross that her young sister had a boyfriend before she had and so she wasn’t up to taking herself a little way off so they could have some privacy, or turning the other way so they could steal a kiss.’
‘Be fair,’ Angela said with a little laugh. ‘If Betty was the eldest her parents would expect her to look after her sister. They didn’t want their daughter ravished by some lusty young man if Betty took her eyes off her for a moment. Anyway, Betty has her own man now and Stan didn’t have his beloved very long all told.’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Barry agreed. ‘And I think I can safely say that with Betty in charge there was precious little ravishing went on either.’
‘Barry McClusky, you say that as if it’s a bad thing,’ Angela said. ‘And you don’t even know Betty.’
‘I know of her,’ Barry said as they left the station and set off down the slight incline and Angela realized that Barry must have taken great notice of what Stan told him because he seemed to know just where he was going.
