Birmingham Blitz (34 page)

‘Why is it all right for me?’ I didn’t dare touch her and I didn’t get any answer. She just mewled and sobbed.

‘Wasser matter with ’er, Genie?’ Len said.

‘Lenny—’ I spoke as calmly as I could manage. ‘Go and get our Lil, will you?’

It was late, and I knew as Len plodded off that Lil was going to be anything but pleased, but I was scared of Mom. I couldn’t cope with all this on my own.

‘Mom—’ I sat down by her when he’d gone. ‘Look, why don’t you ask to give up work? You’re getting too tired all the time.’

‘Oh yes,’ she snapped at me, voice thick with drink. ‘Then what’ll I do? Sit here all day?’

‘There’s loads to do here. If there was someone at home it’d make things a lot easier. There’s the house, and I’ve no time to shop. The off-ration stuff is all queues and Saturdays’re terrible for that now. It’d be a help to all of us – we mightn’t all be so tired all the time.’

‘Huh,’ was all she said, but I did at least feel she was listening. There was a lull, before she started getting all in a state again.

‘Where’s your dad? I want him. When’re we ever going to know if he’s coming home or not? You tell me that. I can’t go on like this . . .’

Wearily I went and set a kettle to boil in the kitchen, partly to get out of her way. When Lil arrived she wasn’t nearly as mardy about it as I’d expected, and she was all dolled up.

‘S’all right,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’d only just got in anyhow.’

‘Where’ve you been then?’

Lil took me by surprise by giving me a wink and putting a finger to her lips. ‘That’d be telling. Anyhow, sssh for now.’ She went to Mom. ‘Oh Dor – you can’t go on getting yourself all in a state like this. It’s no good for you or for the babby.’

Mom cried exhaustedly. ‘I can’t go on,’ she murmured into Lil’s shoulder. ‘I just can’t.’

Lil looked at me over her head, her eyes troubled. Len stood by the door.

‘Ta, Lenny,’ I said. ‘Tell you what, you could take Gloria into the front for a bit, how about that?’

Relieved, and hugging his beloved wireless to his chest, he escaped, and we heard music drifting through from the other room.

Lil prised Mom off her and tried to look into her face, though her head was lolling.

‘Look, Dor.’ Her voice was sharp now. ‘You’ve got to pull yourself together. You can’t go on like this. You’re making yourself ill.’

‘I can’t,’ Mom groaned. ‘Just can’t.’

‘You’ve got to. You don’t have a choice. What about the babby? And Genie here?’

‘But what about me?’ Mom was wailing.

‘You’re supposed to be their mom. And there’s Len’s wedding. You can’t just cave in now!’

The kettle was gushing steam. By the time I’d made tea things’d gone quiet and I went back in to find my mom falling asleep across Lil’s lap, her breath jerky as a sobbing child’s.

Molly and Len’s wedding arrangements were causing quite a kerfuffle. This was partly because Gladys Bender was making sure they did, quite apart from everything having to be done at such short notice because of it being a wedding with a shotgun pointing at its head.

Gladys pestered us from morning till night, whenever anyone was in. She’d never in her dreams expected her enormous, not quite all there daughter to find a mate, and now she’d got the chance, Molly was going to be MARRIED, and married with bells on.

‘Oh-oh, here she comes again,’ we’d say, seeing Gladys steaming across in her slippers. A door slamming somewhere across the street was enough to send us scuttling to the window to see if we were about to have another lethal dose of her.

Then she’d be hammering at the door as if we were all deaf, and when we let her in, would often be as red in the face and beady with perspiration as if she’d run a couple of miles to get there. In she’d come, us grimacing at the smells of sweat and disinfectant. We put up with her self-righteous tyranny day after day because we had to: we were Len’s family and he’d got Molly into trouble.

‘I thought it’d be right for you to see to all the food afterwards,’ she announced. This was half past seven one morning. ‘Since I’ve got my hands full and there are more of you with a wage coming in like. And I’ve got all the trouble of the dress and Molly to look after in her condition . . .’

‘Well, she is your daughter,’ Mom snapped. ‘And it takes two, doesn’t it?’

There’s the pot calling the kettle black, I thought. Felt like saying to Gladys, I’ve got one to look after an’ all.

Gladys folded her arms, pulling herself upright so that a good inch of greyish petticoat showed from under her stained red dress and pinner.

‘It’s snowing in France,’ Mom murmured, but this was completely lost on Gladys.

‘You saying you’re not happy with all I’m doing?’ she bawled at us. ‘D’you want to give Molly and your Len a good send off, eh? Or don’t you think they’re worth it?’

‘We can do some food, can’t we, Mom?’ I looked nervously at her. Even as I said it I already had a feeling ‘we’ was going to mean ‘me’.

Mom nodded, yawning at the same time. This was a bit early for her to start a slanging match. ‘Lil’ll give us a hand. Not as if there’ll be crowds, is it?’

‘There might be quite a number actually,’ Gladys announced, now we’d safely volunteered. ‘After all, I’m one of fifteen and there’s no one’ll want to miss seeing our Molly tie the knot.’

On the Saturday I went to Nan’s for a conflab. The kids were at the table filling their faces with liver and onions and spuds and Lil was cooking more for her and Nan. The kids were staring at her and I stared too. What’d come over her? She was by the range, stirring gravy with a metal spoon and humming, actually humming.

‘You swallowed a budgie or summat?’ I asked her.

Lil turned, laughing, and gave me another wink.

‘No, that’d be the sensible thing to do,’ Nan remarked, limping in with a bucket of slack. The coal hole was in action again since there’d been so many months of not having to shelter in it after all.

I looked from one to the other of them. Only one thing would put that glowing pink in Lil’s cheeks which had been pale and tired for so long.

‘Who is he then?’

Lil laughed like I hadn’t heard her laugh in years. ‘Can tell you’re in love all right. Takes one to know one, doesn’t it? How is Joe, Genie?’

‘All right.’ I blushed as Lil came closer to look in my eyes, teasing. ‘He’s doing fine.’

Suddenly she stooped towards me and kissed my cheek, her dark hair brushing my face. ‘I’m glad for you. Really glad. He’s very nice. I’d soon tell you if I didn’t think so.’

‘You’ve hardly met him!’

‘I met him at the show that night. His eyes hardly left your face.’

‘Who’s this feller of yours then?’

Lil went back to the gravy. ‘His name’s Frank. Met him when we were playing at the pub down Bissell Street.’

‘Proper charmer ’e is,’ Nan said drily, stoking the range. She didn’t like men to be charming. Charm to her meant snakes in the grass, blarney and insincerity.

‘He’s not!’ Lil said. ‘Well I mean, yes, he is – but not how she means.’

I was sitting by Cathleen who was idly letting me feed her little squares of liver. ‘What’s he do?’

‘He’s a mechanic. Got a garage out in Kings Heath. And he’s part-time ARP. But there’re a couple of little things he does on the side.’

‘Yes, I bet there are.’ Nanny Rawson straightened up, holding her back. ‘No one’s shoes should be as shiny as them ’e turns up in.’

Lil laughed in exasperation. ‘Oh Mom! Frank’s all right. He’s not selling anything – not as such. He’s interested in fortune telling, tarot, that sort of thing.’

I frowned. ‘I thought it’s only women do things like that?’

‘Oh, he doesn’t actually do it himself. He’s got a room – lets it to this woman. He knows all about it himself though, how it’s done—’

‘I wonder what else she’s selling while she’s at it,’ Nan retorted.

Lil started to get a bit shirty. ‘I’ve had enough of this. You’ve condemned the man when you don’t even know him. And he’s very good to me.’

‘Well, that’s all very nice,’ Nanny said. ‘But you find out what ’e’s after before you get in any deeper, because you can be sure there’ll be summat. Now that’s quite enough of this in front of the kiddies. Want some jam on that, Genie?’ she said, seeing me eating bread and scrape.

‘No ta. Let Tom have it.’

Tom gave me his handsome smile, gappy with missing teeth. There came a banging on the door of the shop. Nan’s face turned thunderous. ‘It’d better not be,’ she growled.

‘I’ll go.’

Morgan. As I slipped into the shop I could see him through the glass, and the outline of the girl with him. When I opened up the door I saw she was a lot older than she appeared from inside, in her little girly clothes, and she looked browned off with the whole set up before she’d even started.

‘Forgot my key,’ Morgan said in his castor-oil voice. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

‘Not half as much as you’ll disturb us in a few minutes no doubt,’ I said, standing well back as they went in as if they were a passing stink bomb. They disappeared quickly up the stairs.

‘Was that that bastard Morgan?’ Cathleen lisped in an interested sort of way when I went back to them.

‘Cathleen!’ Lil exploded, although neither of us could help a smile.

Nan leaned over to her. ‘It’ll be mustard on your tongue next time if I ’ear any more language like that. Now off to bed with you all if you’re finished.’

Nan had made sure, since Lil came back, that the kids slept in the back bedroom away from the dividing wall with Morgan’s part of the house at the front. They were such tiny houses and the noises travelled with barely an obstacle through the walls and floors.

Cathleen was still up in the attic in a cot with Lil.

I changed her – the kids had nightclothes now Lil was earning better – and took her down for a drop of milk which she sat on my lap to drink, next to the range, quiet now with heavy eyes and suddenly sweeter. I kissed her soft cheek and stroked the fine blond curls. ‘You sleep now, Cathleen. You’re a tired little girl, aren’t you?’

Once I’d carried her up to bed I went to see the boys, and read from an old book of ghost stories, Tom’s hand resting on my arm.

‘Now I’ve scared you witless you can get some sleep,’ I said when I’d finished. The springs creaked loudly as they climbed into bed. ‘Night night.’

Downstairs, before the kids had even settled, we were soon aware of another set of bedsprings under strain on the floor above.

‘How many’s up there?’ Lil hissed to me while Nan was upstairs. She didn’t like any mention of them up there, any admission they existed.

‘Only one.’

‘Makes a change. Usually takes two to get him going nowadays.’

We heard Nan’s slow tread at the top of the stairs and Lil made a face. ‘You coming singing with us now you’ve got the courage? You enjoyed it, didn’t you?’

‘I can’t leave Mom.’

‘You’ve left her tonight. Anyroad, you don’t need to leave her, she can come.’

‘She won’t though. And I haven’t left her at home. She’s at work.’

‘Genie – look, Dor’s in trouble, there’s no doubt, and we’re all sorry for her, the babby and that. But if your dad’s not coming back she’s just going to have to knuckle down and get on with it. It’s terrible – I know ’cause I’ve done it. But she can’t expect you to take over the running of her life for her. Because if you’ll do it, she’ll let you. That’s what she’s like, always has been. One for sitting back and letting everyone else do it all. But you’ve got your life to lead as well, so don’t let her take it away from you. She’s already wrecked Len’s—’ She stopped abruptly as Nanny Rawson walked in.

‘But I still don’t think I should leave her. Not when she keeps getting in such a state.’

‘She may be in a state,’ Lil said drily, ‘but she’s just going to have to get out of it.’

Nan was dishing up liver and spuds for us. ‘Let’s get going on Len’s wedding,’ she said. ‘After all it’s not just Molly’s wedding, it’s his too, and he deserves the very best we can give him.’ I saw her eyes meet Lil’s, and there was a hard look in them I didn’t understand. ‘He’s owed that much.’

So, with years of practice, we ignored the thumps and squeaks from upstairs. The wedding was booked for a Monday, ten days away, and everyone was arranging the day off. Gladys had said, ‘Molly can’t possibly be showing if we do it that soon.’

Lil had snorted at this. ‘She’s such a size she could get to nine months without anyone being the wiser.’

Although Lil had pledged to do anything she could to help, she was full of doubts about this marriage. First of all was the fact that Len and Molly were, for the time being, going to carry on living where they were, in their separate homes.

‘Don’t seem right,’ she said.

‘Lenny seemed well put out at the idea of moving in with Molly somewhere,’ I told her. ‘Don’t think it’d crossed his mind that anything might actually change. He wants to stop at home with us.’

‘There’s no houses to be had,’ Nan said.

‘What’s Dor got to say about it?’ Lil asked, grimacing at the colour of the tea. ‘Proper maid’s water this is.’