Now the War Is Over (8 page)

‘They found his wife under the floorboards!’ she said, scraping Melly so hard with the comb that it brought tears to her eyes. ‘Ooh – and those other women hidden in the
kitchen. Just think of it – getting invited inside for a cup of tea, not knowing that you’re never going to come out again!’

Just as Melly was shuddering at the thought of this, there came a loud throttling roar and the motorbike erupted into life, accompanied by loud cheers. Mo Morrison shot out of number one and
across the yard, waving his arms.

‘You’ve never got it going! God Almighty – I never thought you two prats’d do it in a month of Sundays!’

‘See, Dad –’ Wally, just turned twenty, stood proud, hands on his hips, yelling over the roaring engine. ‘You owe me that pint!’

Reggie was grinning. Melly was filled with a helpless, melting feeling at the sight of him. She got up and inched closer, pretending to be interested in the bike. A second later the thing
backfired like a gun going off. Everyone jumped and a terrible yell came from Mr Gittins. He leapt to his feet, his arms crossed over his chest as if he was collapsing in on himself. He crumpled
forwards from the waist, howling.

‘Oh, Lor’.’ Mo went towards him. ‘Eh – Stanley . . . It’s all right, pal . . . It’s just the bike . . .’

But Stanley straightened up and fled into the house.

‘Oh, dear,’ Wally said. ‘Poor old fella.’

This put the dampers on the boys’ triumph. Melly went up to Reggie, wanting to make it better.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said. ‘It looks ever so fast – and you’ve made it go . . .’

Reggie gave her a fleeting smile, which she folded into her heart, precious as a jewel. He would be gone again soon but at least she had this to hold on to.

‘Yeah,’ he said. He moved away immediately. ‘C’mon, Wal – let’s try her out!’

Rachel lay beside Danny in their attic room. Threads of moonlight seeped in through the cracks between the slates. Things scuttled about. It was a stifling night and in this
room with its ceiling so low that they had to be careful not to bash their heads on the beam and with its tiny window, it was impossible to get any sort of breeze passing through. From across the
yard, she could hear the grating cry of the sickly Davies baby.

Soon after the Suttons vanished, the Davies family moved in – or what remained of it. Mary Davies’s husband, a foreman in a foundry, had taken his own life, leaving her with no
income and three children, one of them very young.

‘It did for him, that foundry,’ Mary told her new neighbours in her plaintive whine. ‘It ground him right down, my Bert. Sensitive sort of man, he was.’

Mary Davies was not a young woman: this had been her second marriage. Somewhere there were grown-up children. Her belly sagged and her teeth were as black-and-white as a crossword puzzle. Rachel
struggled to recall the names of her children. Frankie – was it? – the eldest, was eight. There was a solid, silent girl called Carol, of about five. The babby, another boy a year or so
old, seemed to do nothing but blart and Mrs Davies did a lot of shrieking.

They all felt sorry for her, but it was just that Mary Davies herself seemed enough to grind anybody down.

‘That babby again,’ she murmured to Danny. ‘What is it about that flaming house? Why can’t we get someone decent in there?’

Or better still, she thought, get out ourselves and find somewhere better than this.

Danny shifted beside her and flopped over on to his back.

‘That place is in a worse state than all the others,’ he said. ‘You gotta be desperate to move in there.’

‘There’s plenty desperate,’ Rachel said. She nearly added,
I’m
desperate. She longed with a passion to get out of here now, away from this stinking yard and
cramped little house. None of it had mattered when the war was on, when she was young and in love. When she and Danny first had this room in the attic they had rejoiced to have a place and bed of
their own. They hadn’t cared then about the leaking roof or the mildew which crept along the walls, however many times they added coats of distemper, or the bugs and silverfish scuttling
along the floor. None of that was important. They were together – and after Danny went away to war, she was too busy struggling to get by with Melly as a baby.

But these days she was tired of living under Gladys’s thumb all the time on this mouldering old yard – in an ever worse state now with all the neglect of years. At least when the war
was on, the right thing to do was to keep hanging on, hoping – but now what were they waiting for? Even rationing had finally ended, after they’d endured fourteen years of it, but
somehow Rachel felt as though she was still waiting. She was exhausted and worn down with it all – struggling with the family, the shortages all these years. And she wanted her own house. But
plenty of families were crammed in together the way they were – and worse. Two families to a back house like this sometimes, or with lodgers squeezed in. There was scarcely a place to be had
anywhere, especially from the council. Bloody Hitler had seen to that.

‘God, it’s hot,’ she said. She felt dragged down and out of sorts. She blamed it on the muggy heat.

‘It’s warm, all right.’ But it didn’t seem to bother Danny. He’d had far worse in India. He reached over and she felt his hand on her breast, like a warm coal. He
began fondling her nipple under her light cotton shift.

‘Danny!’ She wriggled. ‘It’s too flaming hot for all that!’

His face loomed over her. ‘Too hot? You always moan enough when it’s cold. Come on, wench . . .’

‘
Danny
.’ She grabbed his wrist. ‘When’re we going to try and get out of here? I’m sick of it. We’re like wasps in a bottle . . .’

‘We’re all right.’ His eyes were half closed. He was beginning to get lost in his arousal. ‘There’s plenty worse. Tell you what though . . .’ His eyes snapped
open. ‘You know what we ought to do? Go to Australia. I met a bloke today, says he’s going – ten quid a ticket!’

‘Australia?’ Rachel laughed. ‘What the hell’re you on about? I bet you don’t even know where Australia is!’

‘I know where you are though, gorgeous . . .’ He ran his hand up her body. Rachel gave a low giggle, relenting. These were the times that made life worth living, she and Danny,
close, in bed. Especially now Ricky was sleeping down with the others and they had the room to themselves again. She often heard other women muttering about men and their demands and what a
dreadful thing it was, but she liked being with Danny like this, always had. Except that it led to babies and more babies . . .

Danny lifted her nightdress and started to reach between her legs. He shifted himself up and kissed her lips, starting to move himself on top of her.

‘Danny –’ she said, moving her mouth away. ‘You’d better pull out this time. Don’t you dare do what you did last time . . .’ She was worried, always.
Not another one – please God.

‘Yeah, all right,’ he murmured, reluctant.

Despite the fact that she was the one who had to carry the babies, she felt guilty making Danny pull away at the last minute. He was young and vigorous. And she wanted it too. She felt so tense
tonight, so in need of something – closeness, comfort – that she wanted to feel something lovely. To reach the peak of lovemaking, not just to walk beside him as a spectator.

He kissed her ear. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured, close to her. ‘I just want yer, that’s all.’

‘I know, but . . .’ She felt tears rising in her, trapped between the opposing needs of lovemaking and avoiding another baby. It was so easy to give Danny what he wanted. To satisfy
his desires in bed. To make sure she took on all the really difficult things: looking after Tommy, always here, doing the worrying, feeling the sadness of it. Danny worked hard, of course he did,
and he clowned about with Kev and Ricky, did his cartoons, played football, took Melly to the market and all that. But when it came to his eldest son, however much Danny pretended, she knew he
still could not really accept him the way he was. When it came down to it, she was on her own with Tommy.

She tried not to think about where this would all end. She was the one tied to Tommy, trapped inside this jerry-built little house. Sometimes it felt as though the walls were reaching in and
swallowing her up. All her young life was tied to Tommy, who despite everything she loved with a burning fierceness. But some days, when she thought about her eldest son’s future, she saw him
only ever here with her. What would happen if she wasn’t here?

If she allowed herself to think about what else her own life might have held, she just wanted to break down and weep in the sheer despair and exhaustion of it all. She tried so hard not to feel
sorry for herself. She knew there were people worse off. Look at Lil Gittins with Stanley. At least she, Rachel, had a healthy, able-bodied husband. But sometimes it all welled up and got on top of
her. Danny never seemed troubled by any of it. He avoided the things he did not want to do or feel. But she wanted him to care about keeping her happy too, not just to keep taking from her like
another child.

As Danny kissed her more slowly, taking his time at last, she began to feel the tingle of arousal. She stopped hearing the yowl of the baby across the yard and became lost in her own
feelings.

Danny moved off her for a moment. ‘Take it off.’ He nodded at her shift and she sat up and lifted it over her head. In the dim light they could just see each other.

‘That’s my girl. You’re a cracker, you are.’ His voice was warm and fond.

She was touched at him trying to woo her.

‘Come ’ere,’ she said and took him in her arms. Both of them were slender, but not skeleton thin the way they had been at the end of the war. When Danny had come home, he had
been gaunt and sick from India and she had been a skinny shadow of herself from a life lived on low rations and nerves. Sometimes they joked that they could hold each other now without cutting
themselves.

Danny stroked her back, kissing her deeply on the mouth, and gradually laid her down again, no longer able to wait, pushing deep into her.

‘Shhh,’ she giggled, putting a hand over his mouth as he thrust into her. Gladys and the kids were just below them. But she wanted him, pressed her hands against his strong back, the
powerful spine, his flesh slick with sweat, her own pleasure eventually breaking over her so that they were both clinging and gasping together. She wept a little, released by the force of it.

In the silence, Danny licked a tear from her cheek. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘Why’re you crying?’

‘I’m not,’ she whispered. ‘Not really crying. It just happened, that’s all.’

‘Love yer, girl.’

More tears ran from her eyes. ‘Love you too, you daft bugger.’
Oh, God, I didn’t make him pull out. What if . . . ? What’re we going to do?
She did want to weep
then
.
But so many times over the years she had wanted to wail this question and she knew there was no answer. She didn’t want to spoil this moment now.

Danny slid off her, both of them slippery wet. The air cooled her skin. He settled himself beside her.

‘God, it’s warm,’ he muttered, as if he had just noticed. And she could already hear the sleep in his voice. ‘Australia – that’s where we should go . . .
Start again . . .’

Rachel rolled her eyes in the dark. Danny was asleep.

Rachel stood sorting through a pile of clothes on the table, ready for washing. She had lit the copper in the brew house, the steam curling out into the chilly autumn air. It
was an ordinary morning, Kev and Melly at school, Tommy at home, Ricky playing out in the yard, Gladys out at the shops. Music streamed from the wireless.

‘
That’s amore . . .
’ she sang, reaching over to stroke Tommy’s head. He looked up from his comic and smiled at her. They found ways to keep him occupied. After
his dinner he would go to Dolly’s. He was too old for
Watch with Mother
really but it passed the time.

Rachel liked it when Gladys went out. Gladys had been good to them, there was no denying it. But as she got older and complained of rheumatism and her bunion on her foot she had become sharper,
bossier. Rachel was fed up with living under her thumb. Gladys reckoned to be in charge of everyone – the household, the yard. Rachel tried to remain cheerful in front of Tommy, but she
sighed as she bundled up the washing and her eyes filled.

She faced a morning of toil, turning the skein of sheets and clothing in the hot water of the copper, lifting it into the dolly tub to be pounded with the wooden dolly, rinsing it, mangling it,
hanging it out. Her shoulders already ached and she had a dull pain in her lower back. On and on it went, the daily round, every week the same . . .

‘Eat up, Tommy,’ she said, more sharply than she meant to. She wiped her eyes and nose on the end of the sheet she was taking to wash. ‘I need to get on.’

She didn’t like to leave him while he was eating in case he choked. She thought, with longing, if only Tommy had been like Kev. Kev had done his first year at school already. The teachers
said he was a bright little boy, if he’d only sit still long enough. Kev found his adventures with other lads on the bomb pecks of the surrounding streets far preferable to the classroom: the
houses wrecked by bombing, the jungles of brick and plaster and weeds, the games and hunts for shrapnel. Kevin, energetic and restless, spent most of his time rushing about out there with them,
even though he was one of the youngest. For a moment she imagined Tommy, whole-bodied, running about and a tear escaped down her cheek which she turned away from him to hide.

There was a knock on the door, an insistent rap.

‘Bugger it.’ Rachel shoved the pile of dirty washing under the table. ‘Who the hell’s that?’

She wondered if it was the welfare about Mary Davies’s baby again. He’d been poorly on and off for weeks and they were keeping an eye on him. But they must surely know by now that he
lived at number four?