Birmingham Blitz (18 page)

Course, if someone says something like that you don’t resist, do you? And it was a nice feeling, special, having someone close. His hands were warm even in the cold. The snow was thawing slowly and there was wet everywhere.

‘You’re ever so pretty, Genie.’

‘Me?’ I laughed, pleased as punch. Sometimes I just wanted to be a proper girl. ‘Go on. I’m not.’

‘You are. Your eyes are like – like – well, they’re – nice. And the way you get that dimple when you smile.’

We walked round watching the ducks on the small lake. The park stretched wide around us, sloping down to the swimming baths at the bottom, full of leaves now, and chunks of ice. It was a shock to see green again after all the days of white. There were still hard mounds of snow with grey crusts on top melting slowly down the slope.

Jimmy told me he had four sisters and a brother and his mom was deaf, had to lip read.

‘What about your dad?’

‘Oh . . .’ he said, almost as if he’d forgotten about him. ‘He’s reserved occupation – Heath’s, the foundry.’

‘Mine’s away,’ I said, suddenly proud. ‘In France.’

‘Wish mine was,’ Jimmy said with feeling. ‘He’s a bugger – pardon me.’

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. There are such a variety of ways of being a bugger and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the particulars.

And Jimmy said, ‘I don’t want to talk about ’im. What d’you like doing best?’

I had to think hard about that one. ‘I don’t seem to get the chance to do anything much these days. I like going to see my friend Teresa. When she’s got the time,’ I added gloomily.

‘I like football.’

Oh Gawd, not another one. ‘You don’t support the Villa, do you, by any chance?’

‘Nah – never. Blues.’

That was something, although whether he was going to carry on about Aston Villa or Birmingham City wouldn’t make much odds to my passing out with boredom in the long run.

When he got me up by the trees at the quiet, top end of the park, he caught hold of me and kissed me like I’d seen Len and Molly doing. I had a bit of trouble with that because I didn’t think to breathe in before he started and my nose was all stuffed up. His big slimy tongue popped into my mouth and he was sucking away at my lips and I found myself thinking Jaysus – like Lil would have said – is this right, us getting on to kissing so quick? I couldn’t do anything back except cling on to his shoulders struggling for breath as he pushed his body against me. In the end I had to pull away and take in a big gasp, which Jimmy took to mean I was so overcome with emotion I couldn’t stand any more. Which was pretty near the truth, only not quite how he thought.

When I turned round again after fixing some sort of smile on my face, he was giving me a grin brimming over with triumph. ‘You’re my girl now, Genie.’

Len was coming to Nan’s straight from work now, early evening, so I could cook for all of us with Lil, and get it all over in one go. It also meant he could have a good old listen to Gloria before we had to go home. It was much nicer this way, sharing some of the chores with Lil. She was being as nice as pie to me as I gave her so much help with the kids, dunking them in the tin bath by the fire for her once a week, clearing up the mess after and keeping them entertained. She taught me a few tricks to help the cooking go better, like taking the custard off the heat to start stirring it so it didn’t heave up into lumps like it usually did. Mom never told me anything useful like that even though she’d once worked in the Bird’s factory in Digbeth, and you’d think she’d at least have picked up how to make the stuff.

That night we had stew with loads of dumplings. Lil showed me how to make them really nice with suet. We all squeezed round the table, except for Nan who couldn’t get her leg under it. It was cosy with the fire and Gloria and the dim gaslight and we all ate hungrily.

‘Feels a bit like Christmas, doesn’t it?’ Nan said. ‘Shame Doreen’s not here as well.’

My eyes met Lil’s. We couldn’t bring ourselves to agree with Nan on that one. My feelings of fury at the way Mom was carrying on had grown worse and worse.

Len and I walked home together after, holding hands for safety: the street was so dark and it was beginning to freeze again. We had our torch but didn’t bother carrying the gas masks any more.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Len,’ I said. ‘I’d be scared stiff else.’ He was so big and slow and solid.

One hint of sound from outside our house brought Molly to her door. ‘You’re back then?’ she called across the street.

Couldn’t really disagree with her there. Sometimes it got on my nerves a bit, her pouncing on us like that. But you couldn’t dislike Molly. She was inoffensive and as generous as she could afford to be. And she made Len happy.

‘Doesn’t Gladys mind?’ I asked as she came over. I was struggling to find my key in the dark.

I just saw Molly put a finger to her lips, rather coyly. ‘She’s asleep. Didn’t see me go.’

As I went to the front door I heard a faint knocking noise from the side of the house. There was a breeze and the entry gate was unfastened. Anger twisted in me, and dread.

‘You go in,’ I said to Len and Molly, unlocking the door. ‘I’m just going to shut the side gate.’

They weren’t listening to me anyway, so wrapped up were they in each other.

I tiptoed down the little alley between our house and the next into the back garden and slid across the wet grass. I knew it. Noises from the Anderson. Even more blatant noises than before. It was horrible. Molly and Len, Jimmy, now this. Something exploded inside me.

I pelted back round and in through the front door, steaming in past Len and Molly who were in each other’s arms but still alert enough to look round in amazement at me.

‘Len!’ I commanded him from the kitchen. ‘Get in ’ere a minute.’

I had an enamel pail in the sink, the tap full on so water was rushing into it at the full strength of the old plumbing. Len stood watching. When it was three-quarters full I dumped it on the floor in front of him.

‘I want you to do a piddle in there. The biggest one you can manage.’

Nice thing about Len was, he never asked questions. Just unbuttoned his flies and obliged, with Molly watching, eyes on stalks, over his shoulder.

I flung open the back door and stomped down the garden, leaning well over to one side to balance the pail. On the way I stopped and scraped what dirt I could from the top of the flower bed, hurting my hands on the icy ground, and chucked that in too.

From inside the Anderson I could still hear loud, indecent sounds. They wouldn’t have noticed if the whole bloody Luftwaffe had come over that night.

I could barely see a thing but it was so small I couldn’t possibly have missed. I yanked the front aside and sloshed the bucket of wee-wee stew in on top of them.

‘Bob’s your sodding uncle!’ I yelled. And left them in a wet, shrieking, effing and blinding heap inside.

Mom’s rage knew no bounds. To begin with. She called me every name under the sun, once PC Bob had dripped off down the road refusing to stay another moment to be treated like this, etc. etc.

‘You
stu-u-upid
—’ she screeched, dragging the word out long, ‘—selfish, evil little cow!’ She was shivering in the back room, lank strips of hair hanging on her shoulders and her red dress daubed with soil, clinging to her. ‘I wish I’d never – never even
seen
you in my whole life. I’m cowing frozen – and Bob could catch his death . . .’

‘There was wee in there as well.’ Thought it best to tell her. Otherwise she’d never know, would she?

‘WHAT?’

She’d stormed into the house without even noticing Molly sprawled on top of Len in one of the chairs, the top buttons of her dress undone. They hadn’t wasted any time. Molly strugged to her feet like an upturned beetle and skedaddled, right quick.

‘Who in the hell d’you think you are?’ Mom ranted on. Quite a bit of pacing up and down the room went on, except being such a small room any pacing turned more into pigeon stepping. ‘Interfering. Passing judgement. What’s Bob going to think, me having a daughter like you?’ She was working herself up. ‘He might never come back and it’ll be all your fault.’

‘GOOD!’ I shouted. ‘I hope he dies. I hope he catches pneumonia or falls under a bloody bus. He shouldn’t be here at all. He’s not my dad, and you shouldn’t be carrying on behind Dad’s back. You’re a disgusting tart, that’s what you are.’

That was when she started hitting me, the bitch, stinging slaps round my face again and again until Len had the wit to grab her arms and stop her. I bit my lip until it bled. I wasn’t going to cry for her. I hated her.

It was she who burst into tears then, sobbing and snivelling and carrying on while Len and I just stood there staring at her. I put my hands to my smarting cheeks and my heart was completely hardened towards her.

Until suddenly she said, ‘You don’t understand, Genie.’ She looked up, sharp face all raspberry blotches, appealing to me. For the first time trying to tell me something she truly felt. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to find someone you can really love. To be lifted out of years of feeling dead and buried, and scared stiff you might lose it again. You’ve seen how he looks at me. I’ve never in my life been wanted like that before – ever.’ She was sobbing again at the thought of it.

‘Dad wants you.’

She looked down and I knew she was ashamed. ‘But I don’t want him. God knows, I’ve tried. I just don’t. He makes me feel buried up to the neck. Always has.’

I started crying then. Didn’t know where it came from, all of it. Frightened Mom a bit I think, the way I howled. Scared me too. It was like a pain pushed down so far I didn’t know it was there, all gushing out. I didn’t want to hate her. She was my mom. Your mom’s the one person you can’t hate or it eats you inside. She’s like the North Star and you always need that right direction.

And for once she forgot herself and put her arms round me, and I sobbed and bawled and couldn’t stop. Len came and hugged the both of us together like a gorilla.

‘I’m sorry, Genie,’ Mom said in the middle of it. I could feel her tears dropping on the top of my head. ‘I can’t help it. I just can’t help myself.’

I liked letters from Dad, knowing he was safe and hearing about new places he’d been. Mom always read the letters of course, but she’d put them down on the table without a word. After, she’d be scratchy and short for a bit.

Bob stayed away for a week after our little set-to. Don’t know whether she told him to or whether he was in a huff or scared I might go for him with the carving knife. Whatever the reason, he kept his distance and all was rosy. We had Gloria back – Nanny Rawson and Lil had bought a little set of their own – and Mom was being extra specially nice to me. She ran me up a new dress on her machine and it actually fitted me. It was navy with white polka dots and a little matching scarf to go in the neck. She visited our nan twice a week. She even did some cleaning. I found her up early one morning sweeping out the back room.

‘I know I’ve been a bit neglectful, Genie,’ she said a couple of days after our fight. ‘And your nan says you’ve been a proper treasure to her.’ She even brought me up tea in bed, which was an unheard of luxury. Suddenly I felt like someone’s daughter.

One morning she sat on the edge of my bed, her hair loose, and said with a coy little smile, ‘So who’s the lad courting you, Genie?’

Can’t say I’d thought of it as courting exactly. But Mom was trying to be my friend and I wasn’t getting much change out of Teresa nowadays.

‘His name’s Jimmy Davis. He was at the factory in Conybere Street.’

‘Nice then, is he?’

‘’E’s all right.’

‘Bring him home to meet me, Genie.’

As I nodded she put her head on one side so her hair fell in a fine, straight sheet. ‘You’re not getting up to anything you oughtn’t, are you?’