A Ration Book Childhood

by Jean Fullerton

  ‘Who wouldn’t be?’ Daniel replied in the same hushed tone. ‘But I have to say I’m very surprised at your dad.’

  ‘Me too, and if it wasn’t for the fact Ellen’s dying we would never have known.’

  ‘I suppose you have to give her credit for that,’ said Daniel. ‘After all, rather than causing trouble when she found out she was pregnant, she moved away.’

  Mattie frowned. ‘I suppose, and I can’t really blame her for coming back now. I know how I’d feel if I were dying and had to leave Alicia, but I also know how I’d feel if I found out you’d had a child by someone else.’

  Daniel’s arm tightened around her and he tucked her into his strong body.

  ‘You don’t ever have to worry about that, my darling.’ He kissed her.

  Another bomb shook the ground as they exchanged a fond look.

  ‘It’s Jo I feel sorry for,’ Mattie continued, when the shock-wave had settled. ‘She’s the one living there with all this going on.’

  ‘Well, it might work in her and Tommy’s favour and persuade your dad to let them get married,’ he said. ‘And it’s not as if this Michael will be the first cuckoo in the Brogan family.’

  Mattie shifted towards him more and gave him a querying look. ‘What do you mean not the first cuckoo?’

  Her husband gave a low laugh. ‘Really, Mattie, haven’t you ever noticed how much your dad looks like Father Mahon?’

  ‘Father Mahon and Gran!’ said Mattie, looking incredulously at her husband. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Scoff if you like but I’m just saying there’s a very strong resemblance, that’s all.’ Daniel pressed his lips on her forehead.

  Alicia cried out and her parents lay still.

  ‘I wish I’d got home before she went to bed,’ Daniel whispered as his daughter’s breathing returned to its normal rhythm.

  ‘It can’t be helped,’ Mattie whispered back.

  ‘I know, but I miss seeing her.’ He kissed Mattie again, his lips lingering a little longer. ‘And you.’

  ‘And I miss you, too,’ she replied softly as another bomb crashed to the ground. She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Well, at least you’re here with me and Alicia.’

  In the half-light, an emotion she couldn’t interpret flitted across the strong angles of her husband’s face and then he smiled. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, snuggling her closer, ‘Lennox owes me a few days off so why don’t we ask Jo to babysit so you and me can get ourselves togged up in our glad rags and go dancing up West?’

  Mattie’s eyes flew open. ‘Goodness, we haven’t been dancing since August,’ she said, already running through the dresses in her wardrobe.

  ‘I know, that’s why I suggested it,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Oh, Daniel.’ She kissed him hard on the lips. ‘I’d love to. We might even get a chance to talk properly, too, without the telephone and a one-year-old interrupting.’

  That odd emotion crossed his face again but then he smiled and as his arm tightened around her, he rolled her on to her back.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered, gazing down at her.

  Reaching up, Mattie ran her hand over his face, enjoying the feel of her husband’s rough night-time bristles under her fingers.

  ‘And I love you,’ she whispered back.

  They lost themselves in each other’s eyes for a moment then Daniel’s mouth captured her with a kiss that didn’t need explaining.

  As his hands slid over her body, Mattie closed her eyes and sighed. Yes, an evening up West dancing would be absolutely wonderful, but what would be even more wonderful would be the look of sheer delight in her husband’s eyes when she told him he was going to be a father again.

  Chapter Twelve

  ON THE CORNER of Juniper Street, Ida stopped, glanced in the window of Woodman’s, and adjusted her green felt WVS hat.

  Satisfied it sat at the right angle, she took a firmer grip on the bulging shopping bag she was carrying and set off down the road. There were two women in aprons and curlers loitering outside number 7 and as Ida approached they looked around.

  ‘Yes,’ said the older woman, giving Ida the once-over.

  ‘I’m looking for Mrs Gilbert,’ said Ida.

  ‘Upstairs at the front.’ The woman flicked her ash on the pavement and turned back to her conversation. ‘It’s on the latch.’

  Breathing through her mouth to reduce the odour of boiled cabbage and cat, Ida pushed open the front door and walked in. She held her coat so it didn’t brush against the grubby walls, climbed to the first-floor landing and walked the few steps to the front-room door.

  Ignoring her hammering heart, she clenched her fist and rapped on the central panel.

  ‘It’s open,’ a woman’s voice called from inside the room.

  Taking a deep breath, Ida grabbed the handle and walked in. Ignoring everything else in the decrepit room, her eyes fixed on the woman sitting with her feet up in the fireside chair.

  It was Ellen, who she’d sat on the kerb with as they played with their dolls, who she’d fought alongside against the playground bully, who she’d drunk her first gin with in the Stratford Regal and who had been there when she married Jerimiah; but this Ellen was a paler, thinner, greyer version of her life-long friend.

  Even though it had only been a little over a month since she’d seen her, it was clear that Ellen Gilbert wasn’t long for this world.

  ‘Ida, it’s you.’ Relief swept over Ellen’s weary features.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ said Ida, putting the full shopping bag on the nearest chair to ease her aching arm.

  Ellen’s eyes flickered over her. ‘I see you’ve signed up for the Civil Defence.’

  ‘Well, we all have to do our bit,’ she replied, as images of the other woman’s night of passion with her husband flashed through her mind.

  Ellen held her gaze and the clock on the sparse mantelshelf ticked off the seconds.

  ‘What am I thinking of ?’ said Ellen, gripping the arms of the chair and starting to rise. ‘Let me make you a cup of tea.’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ said Ida, adjusting the shoulder strap of her handbag. ‘I’m on duty at the clothes exchange in the Catholic Club at two.’

  The clocked ticked halfway around the dial again and Ellen spoke.

  ‘It’s so good to see you after all this time.’

  Ida gave her a chilly look. ‘I wish I could say the same.’

  Ellen sighed. ‘I understand. I know how much the discovery of what happened between me and Jerimiah years ago has upset you but—’

  ‘Upset,’ cut in Ida with a bitter laugh. ‘I’m not upset, Ellen. I’m devastated.’

  ‘I didn’t want to come between you and Jerimiah,’ said Ellen. ‘As soon as I knew I was carrying Michael I moved away because I didn’t want you to know.’

  ‘Well, I know now,’ said Ida.

  Closing her eyes, Ellen took a long deep breath and then opened them again. ‘I’m dying, Ida,’ she said, her voice tight with pain. ‘And I will rest in peace if I know Michael is with people who will love and care for him. As a mother yourself, wouldn’t you want the same?’

  ‘I would,’ said Ida with a heavy sigh. ‘Which is why I’ve agreed to take him when the time comes. We told the girls yesterday and Jerimiah will be writing to Charlie.’

  Tears welled up in Ellen’s eyes as she stared at Ida then she covered her face.

  Ida stood, with her arms at her side, watching the woman who had once been more of a sister to her than her own flesh and blood sob her heart out. A small part of her wanted to go and comfort her while the rest of her enjoyed the other woman’s pain.

  After a moment Ellen pulled herself together and looked up. Her colourless lips lifted in a weak smile. ‘Thank you, Ida,’ she whispered. ‘Thank you for doing me this last kindness.’

  ‘I’m not doing it for you,’ snapped Ellen. ‘And I’m not doing it for Jerimiah, either. I’m doing it to save a ten-yearold boy from being put
in a children’s home. Have you told him – about your condition, I mean?’

  Ellen shook her head. ‘Not yet. I was waiting until I knew if . . . if you would agree.’

  ‘Well, you’d better, and soon, by the looks of you,’ said Ida. ‘Jerimiah will be by tomorrow after school to tell Michael that he’s his father. And he better start to get to know us, too, so when the time comes . . .’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Ellen.

  She smiled warmly, inviting Ida to do the same, but instead Ida pressed her lips together and glanced at her watch.

  ‘I ought to go.’

  ‘Of course. And thank you again, Ida.’

  A feeble smile flashed across Ellen’s face briefly showing the shadow of the laughing young woman she’d once been.

  With an odd feeling of loss aching in her chest, Ida stared at her one-time friend for a moment then, as unexpected tears pinched her own eyes, she turned and fled the room.

  ‘Anything else, luv?’ asked Ruby, who was standing on the other side of the counter.

  Ida shook her head. ‘Just a tea, thanks.’

  Grasping the metal teapot in both hands, the owner of Kate’s Café on the Highway poured her a cup.

  ‘There you are,’ she said, placing it in front of Ida. ‘One cup of rosy lee. Sugar’s on the table.’

  With the one o’clock hooter calling factory workers back to their benches there were plenty of empty tables so, taking her tea, Ida made her way over to a seat in the window.

  Sitting with her back to the other customers, she cradled her cup in her hands and stared across at the charred remains of St George’s Church, gutted by an incendiary bomb six months before.

  Thankfully, she had an hour to kill before she needed to be at the Catholic Club. Time enough, she hoped, to get the chaotic thoughts in her head in to some sort of order.

  Yes, Michael was coming to live with them and no doubt in time the children, even Billy, would come to terms with it and accept Michael as their own. But what about her and Jerimiah? What about their life?

  It was a stupid question really because they were married. Married until death parted them. But she could think of dozens of women who loathed the men they were married to. Was that her fate now?

  Closing her eyes, Ida sent a silent prayer heavenward then opening them again took a gulp of tea.

  Gazing out of the café window her attention was drawn to the front window of Fontaine’s, the hairdresser’s on the other side of the road.

  Manny Fontaine, who had been perming and tinting the locks of his many clients for as long as Ida could remember, had met his maker three months before when the pub where he was having a quiet drink suffered a direct hit. The salon had been taken over by a nice young woman called Maria and her husband, who already owned two salons: one in Roman Road and the other in Mare Street. Now, instead of the black-and-white photos of flat-eyed, cherry-lipped society women with tightly crimped curls, there were colour photos of smiling women with their hair tumbling over their shoulders or sporting bouncy bobs.

  Ida adjusted her focus and looked at her reflection in the café window. She turned her head and studied the tightly pinned bun squashed under the brim of her hat for a second then, swallowing the rest of her tea, she stood up and strode out of the café.

  Having delivered four crates of corned beef, six of haricot beans and the same of dried milk to a grocer in Roman Road and lifted twice his body weight in second-hand furniture, by the time Jerimiah walked through his back door just before five he was all in. It didn’t help that he’d been on patrol until midnight the night before and, even though he had been totally exhausted by the time he’d tumbled into his cold bed at one, he’d been unable to sleep, instead he’d stared at the ceiling thinking about Ida, and calling himself all the cussed bastards under the sun.

  Pulling the blackout curtain aside he stepped into the kitchen. His mother was stirring the pots on the stove.

  ‘How’s you, Ma?’ he asked, shoving his cap in his pocket and unwinding his scarf.

  ‘Not so bad, boy,’ she replied. ‘Can I get you a brew?’

  ‘I’d murder for one,’ he said, hanging his overcoat behind the door. ‘Isn’t Ida back yet?’

  Pouring his tea, his mother shook her head. ‘No, and it’s as well I’m still in command of me faculties or you’d have no supper either.’

  She placed his drink on the table and Jerimiah sat down. Closing his cold hands around the warm cup, Jerimiah listened to the BBC telling the country that the army were just ten miles from Tobruk and that the Germans were attacking Moscow. As the weather forecast started, Jerimiah glanced up at the clock again.

  ‘I wonder what’s keeping her?’ he asked.

  As if to answer his question the back door opened and the blackout curtain billowed as Ida stepped out from behind it.

  Well, that’s to say it was Ida but looking very different from the woman he had last seen. Ida had always had naturally curly hair so she’d never needed to perm it and although there were a few grey hairs at the temples, for the most part her hair was the same rich brown colour as when he’d first set eyes on her across the dance floor. Even now the thought of its softness under his lips sent a thrill through him.

  However, with a house to run and a family to care for, she had taken to wearing her hair in a tightly pinned bun at the nape of her neck. But now, in its place, was a mass of bouncy shoulder-length curls swept back Rita Hayworth style and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb above each ear.

  If this wasn’t enough to hold his attention, she was also wearing lipstick, and a bright red one at that.

  ‘Jesus, Joseph and Mary,’ said Queenie, looking Ida slowly up and down. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

  Ignoring her mother-in-law, Ida looked at Jerimiah.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, taking off her coat. ‘I was late getting to the relief centre so I stayed on to help sort things out.’

  ‘That’s all right, me darling,’ he said, gazing in amazement at his transformed, and very attractive, wife.

  ‘It is no such thing, Ida Brogan,’ contradicted his mother. ‘A man should have his dinner on the table ready for him when he walks in the door.’

  ‘Ida’s entitled to have her hair done if she’s a fancy to, Mother,’ said Jerimiah. ‘And I think you look grand, Ida, so you do.’

  ‘I just fancied a bit of a change, that’s all,’ she said, shaking her head slightly and setting her curls bouncing.

  A faint flush coloured Ida’s cheeks and she gave him a shy look.

  ‘Grand, is it?’ said Queenie. ‘More like mutton dressed up as—’

  ‘Didn’t you say you were after giving Prince Albert’s cage a bit of a clean, Ma?’ cut in Jerimiah, giving his mother a pointed look.

  Giving him the look that as a child would have been swiftly followed by a clip around the ear, Queenie’s toothless mouth clamped shut and she stomped out of the room. Leaving his tea untouched on the table, Jerimiah stood up. ‘Can I pour you a cuppa, Ida?’

  She looked astonished for a moment but then took the seat opposite him. ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  Taking the pot his mother had just made Jerimiah poured his wife a cup of tea.

  ‘Truth be told, I’ve not been in long myself,’ he said, placing her drink in front of her and resuming his seat. ‘I’ve been hard at it all day but I’ve been well compensated for my aching back.’

  Sliding his hand into his pockets he took out a handful of green and brown banknotes plus some silver and placed it on the table between them.

  Ida’s eyes opened in amazement.

  ‘And that’s just this afternoon’s,’ he added. ‘Take it.’

  ‘What, all of it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s yours as much as mine,’ he said. ‘And with this new points system coming in soon you might pick up a few treats to add to your Christmas stash.’

  ‘Well, it would help,’ said Ida, scooping it up.

  �
�Also,’ Jerimiah continued, ‘honest to God, Ida, what with moving people, local deliveries and the second-hand furniture, I’ve got so much work I can’t keep up with it so I was wondering if you could give your notice at the solicitors and help me run the business. In fact, I’m going to put in for a telephone after Christmas. I can’t keep giving out Mattie’s number and expecting her to run around every five minutes with messages.’

  ‘All right,’ said Ida. ‘I can’t say I’ll be sorry not to have to get up at the crack of dawn to spend hours on my knees scrubbing floors. Besides, I’ll have my work cut out here when . . .’

  Lowering her eyes, she took a sip of her tea then looked back at him. ‘I went to see Ellen today and told her we’d take Michael when, you know . . .’

  Letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding Jerimiah’s shoulders relaxed.

  ‘Thank you, Ida.’

  Pain flitted across her face and she gave him a sharp look. ‘And I told her you’d be round tomorrow afternoon to tell him who his . . .’ Ida couldn’t bring herself to say more. They stared at each other for a moment then the compère on the wireless announced Can I Help You.

  Ida finished the last of her tea. ‘I’ve to collect Patrick at six so I ought to be getting ready for the shelter. Is Billy back yet?’

  Jerimiah shook his head and Ida pursed her lips.

  ‘That’s twice this week I’ve told him to be back by four and he hasn’t been,’ said Ida.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be back any moment,’ said Jerimiah.

  ‘Well, he’d better be here soon if he knows what’s good for him,’ she said, ‘or he’ll get the rough edge of my tongue.’ Her eyes flickered over him. ‘And shouldn’t you be making tracks, too?’

  ‘You’re right; I should be getting my uniform on, but,’ reaching across the table Jerimiah closed his hand over hers, ‘before we part I want to tell you again, me darling, what a rare beauty you are in all ways,’ he said, hoping she could see the love and gratitude reflected in his eyes.

  The colour returned to Ida’s cheeks. She removed her hand from under his and stood up, staring down at him for a moment or two with chilly indifference but then her eyes warmed a fraction.