Wartime Family (23 page)

‘How about I write to our Lizzie and get her to visit?’

‘You would do that?’ Michael sounded surprised.

‘Why not? She can only say no, and I doubt she’d do that. She likes you. We both like you.’ Harry leaned forward. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to my mother. I don’t care about the details, only that she’s happy.’

Michael managed a weak smile. ‘Thank you.’

Harry and his mother understood each other better than most. Neither condemned the other for the way they were. Only his father had done that, but Michael was something different. Harry liked the man and could understand why his mother had fallen for him and left his father. His father was a different matter. There was no love lost between father and son and never would be.

Harry had a feeling he knew what was coming.

‘If I can’t get leave and Lizzie won’t go to see her, I’m going AWOL.’

Harry shook his head. ‘No. You’ll be in deep trouble.’

‘I have to do something.’

‘Look,’ said Harry, raising one hand in a halting gesture, ‘leave it to me. I’ve had letters too. There’s been some trouble at my place, but I can get things sorted out.’

He didn’t impart to Michael just how worried he was. Edgar had written explaining things. Harry was surprised. He hadn’t expected any disagreement from those he used to do business with. If he got a chance to go home, he’d sort out the lot of them – and not with kid gloves either. Hard fists were all the toe rags understood.

He frowned as he walked back to the hut where he broke codes down into their intrinsic parts and built them back up again. Just as he got back to his desk, someone came to him saying he had a telephone call. He frowned. He didn’t know that many people with a telephone. He followed the young woman who had called him. She was engaged in similar work to himself.

‘In here,’ she said curtly. ‘And don’t be long.’

He cradled the receiver until she’d closed the door. As he raised the phone to his ear, his gaze settled on a wall chart spotted with pin heads and pencilled lines.

‘Hello?’

‘Harry! It’s me!’

It was Edgar and he sounded not so much excited as pleased with himself.

‘I’ve had a phone put in, Harry. I’ve missed you.’

The advantage of being able to contact home much more quickly than by mail was not lost on Harry, but there were drawbacks.

‘Edgar, you can’t phone me here. They don’t like it, old son.’

‘I had to phone you, Harry. So many things have been happening, I thought you should know.’

‘So Ma told me in her letter.’

‘Someone’s out to get us.’

Harry didn’t disagree with his statement, but he wouldn’t run scared. He was Harry Randall and had a reputation to maintain.

‘Put Mum on,’ he said.

‘She’s not here.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Gone!’

Gone! He guessed where she’d gone but had to hear it said, just in case he was only surmising, just in case he told Michael the wrong news.

‘She was worried about the boy. She didn’t want him getting hurt,’ he explained.

Feeling sick inside, Harry returned the receiver to its cradle. It was now imperative that someone go home to see what was going on, and if he couldn’t get Lizzie to go, then he’d have to go himself – with or without permission.

He put in a request for compassionate leave, but to no avail.

‘No one can be spared,’ said the same gingery-haired major who hated Michael’s guts.

Sensing there was menace behind the Signal Corps uniform, he was less aggressive with Harry, but he was also turned down.

Sending letters was strictly controlled when there was a big job on. Permission had to be sought, so Harry did just that.

‘I need to send a letter or two. Do I have your permission for that?’

The major paled before the insistence in Harry’s tone. He didn’t dare refuse him. ‘I should think so,’ he said.

That night Harry wrote to Lizzie, stressing his concern about their mother. As an afterthought he also wrote to Patrick. One of them would go. He was sure of it.

‘Here. Have another.’

Henry Randall eyed the old clock ticking away on the wall behind the bar. He licked his lips, tasting the residue of the last pint on his tongue. He’d had three pints already – or was it four?

‘I should be gettin’ on ’ome,’ he said, not too convincingly.

The tall young chap beside him prodded the brim of his trilby with two fingers, sending it sitting further back on his head.

Henry rubbed at his bleary eyes. Where had he seen this bloke before?

‘You’re too late, Henry. It’s already being poured.’

Henry eyed the mahogany-brown beer dribbling like treacle from a polished brass spout. He licked his lips again. How long had it been since he’d drunk beer as only real men can drink; pint after pint after pint? He answered his own question. Since
she
had gone away to live with that German bloke.

The man standing beside him noted his grimace and inwardly smiled. He had a lot in common with Henry Randall. Here was a man who found it difficult to forgive anyone anything – a bit like himself. He just needed a bit of coaxing to bring the violence to the surface.

George Ford was good at altering his appearance – not with false beards or moustaches, just subtle differences like the addition of spectacles, the shaving of eyebrows and the application of chalk to add pallor to his complexion. With growing satisfaction, he watched as Henry reached a shaky hand across the bar. The hand faltered.

‘I shouldn’t,’ said Henry, folding his fingers back into his palm.

‘Of course you should!’ The man in the trench coat gave him a slap on the back. ‘Haven’t you been working hard all day? A working man deserves to enjoy himself once in a while. Anyone who says he shouldn’t deserves a good beating.’ In order to emphasize the point, he slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. ‘A quick jab in the ribs wouldn’t come amiss. Women should know their place. That’s what I say.’

‘Aye,’ said Henry, his face darkening as his mind recounted all the slights he’d endured. ‘You’re right. You’re too bloody right!’

Henry had been taken aback the day Mary Anne had appeared on the doorstep with a few belongings and Stanley at her side. They’d stared at each other for what seemed like minutes but must have only been seconds before one of them spoke.

Taking a deep breath, Mary Anne had asked if she could come in. ‘But only if you want me to,’ she’d said. ‘Your son and I have nowhere else to go.’

Henry’s legs had turned to jelly. This was the day he had dreamed about, and here she was, standing on the doorstep asking to come back.

Biddy was out. He’d had the house to himself and suggested they go upstairs into his own rooms. One room was set out like a parlour, and he used the biggest of the other rooms to sleep in, with the box room for storage – not that he had that much to store.

Stanley shuffled his feet impatiently, his eyes darting back to the front door and the street beyond. Boys were playing marbles and swinging from rope tied to the crossbar of a lamp post. Others were playing cricket and all of them were having fun. His face was a picture of happiness when his mother told him to go outside and play.

‘Your father and I have things to discuss.’

Their discussion had been stilted but it was agreed that they would try again. He’d asked her whether she’d told the pawnbroker – Michael, she corrected him – that she was going back to her husband. She’d nodded. He’d wanted to reach out and smooth away the tightness of her jaw, but he stopped himself. He’d not wanted to appear too affectionate, too willing to let bygones be bygones. And why should he? Wasn’t he the innocent party, the legal spouse left in the lurch?

Their first few days together had proved just as stilted as their conversation. He’d been disappointed. He’d wanted it to be so much more; he’d especially wanted them to sleep together again, but she’d refused.

‘Not yet,’ she’d said in that soft voice of hers. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa for now.’

‘Not yet,’ he muttered in the pub now as his glass was refilled. ‘Not yet, she says! But a man has needs. A man has rights. She’s me wife after all. She’s me wife,’ he repeated.

The man at his side expressed sympathy. ‘Quite right, Henry. Love, honour and obey; that’s what a woman’s supposed to do. And if she doesn’t obey, you have to deal with it. It’s hard, but it’s the truth. It has to be done.’

‘That bike’s too big fer you,’ shouted one of the gang of boys who hung around the bottom of Aiken Street. ‘And it’s a
girl’s
bike!’

‘Better than none at all,’ Stanley shouted back at them.

Wobbling but cycling gamely onwards, Stanley headed for number seventeen feeling excited, confused, but also a little nervous. His mother would want to know what was in the carrier bag dangling from the handlebars. That in turn would lead to questions about where he’d been and who he’d been with.

‘Just say I’m a friend,’ said the man with the khaki eyes. ‘And call me Joe. Now remember our plan.’

Stanley’s blood surged with excitement. Of course he’d remember the plan. He couldn’t join the local gang if she discovered what Joe had given him.

Mary Anne wiped her hands on her apron and narrowed her eyes. The brown paper carrier bag hanging from the handlebars was making Stanley wobble more than usual. There was something disconcerting about his demeanour, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. She’d start with the carrier bag.

‘What’s that?’ she asked as he came to a rubber-scorching halt.

Usually he would have grinned and opened the bag, keen to share his good fortune, but he was strangely reticent. ‘Nothing for you,’ he said, far too cheekily for Mary Anne’s liking. She grabbed his shoulder as he attempted to push past her.

‘Not so fast, young man.’

‘Let me go.’ He wriggled and screwed up his face.

‘Stanley, you are not going inside this door until you show me.’

The ill-tempered frown remained as he begrudgingly took the carrier bag from the handlebars and opened it.

Mary Anne peered inside. She didn’t know what she’d expected to be in the bag but it certainly wasn’t a pair of roller skates. The sight of them confused her. ‘They look like yours.’

Stanley sniffed. ‘They are mine. This bloke found them.’

Mary Anne frowned. ‘A man? What man?’

Stanley looked away from her and shrugged. ‘Just someone.’

Rarely did Mary Anne consider her children were lying, but Stanley was. She was certain of it.

‘So where did he find them?’

Stanley continued with his evasive manner. ‘I don’t know, but he said there’s loads of criminals back round where we were living. He said—’ He stopped suddenly.

Mary Anne frowned. ‘Go on, Stanley. What else did this man say?’

Her youngest son stood like a block of wood, his eyes carefully averted from his mother’s face, and Mary Anne didn’t like it, she didn’t like it at all. Stanley’s attitude, on top of everything she’d been through these past few months, suddenly became too much to bear. Grabbing his shoulders, she brought her face down to his level and gave him a good shake.

‘Don’t you dare keep secrets from me, Stanley! Don’t you dare! Now tell me. What did he say to you?’

Her eyes were blazing and her loud voice took Stanley by surprise. The bike went crashing against the wall. Wide-eyed, Stanley stood with his fists clenched at his side and whispered so quietly that she didn’t catch what he said. She asked him to repeat it. ‘Now,’ she said, just when it looked as though he might change his mind.

‘He said that it was your fault we were living in a place like that. He said women couldn’t be trusted to do things right without a proper man around!’

Mary Anne stared at him. All the hurt, all the anger of most of her married life erupted in one swift slap. Stanley’s face reddened. He looked shocked, but he didn’t cry and didn’t answer back.

‘Now pick up that bike and get inside,’ she shouted.

Stanley’s eyes went to the brown carrier bag. ‘My skates …’

Mary Anne pointed to the dark passageway inside the front door. ‘Inside!’

Tears stinging his eyes, Stanley did as ordered, leaving the bicycle leaning against the wall just before the stairs.

‘Now go and wash your face and hands,’ ordered Mary Anne, though not so stridently. She regretted raising her voice the moment Biddy Young’s parlour door opened and her fleshy face peered out.

‘Your Stanley up to no good then, Mary Anne?’ She said it with a knowing smile. Her youngsters had made a career out of being no good. The youngest had only just started work and had already been sacked for thieving.

Mary Anne was in no mood to take any criticism, except perhaps from herself.

‘No fancy man tonight then, Biddy?’ she asked, glancing beyond Biddy to the scruffy room.

Biddy’s pleasure at hearing Mary Anne lose her temper was soon wiped from her face. ‘I haven’t got one – not one you’d call a fancy man as such. He just pops in when he’s passing by. I expect he’s busy at the moment.’ Her features sagged as though she were storing lead in the corners of her mouth.

Mary Anne didn’t need Biddy to tell her that the ‘fancy man’ hadn’t called for quite a while, that perhaps he’d tired of Biddy’s blowsy company.

Sensing Biddy needed to unburden her woes, Mary Anne relented and offered what any friend would. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’

Biddy wiped her fingers across her nose. ‘Not really.’

‘I’ve got biscuits.’

Biddy brightened immediately. ‘Lucky sod! Where did you get them then?’

Mary Anne smiled and tapped the side of her nose. ‘That’s for me to know and you to guess at.’

They settled into the kitchen at the back of the house. Mary Anne noticed that Stanley’s tea – bread, margarine and a scrape of plum jam – lay untouched on the table.

Biddy noticed it too. ‘Don’t your Stanley want his tea then?’ The legs of the chair closest to the plate scraped noisily along the floor. Food was Biddy’s big passion, a far bigger passion than men. Wartime rationing was sheer torture, though you wouldn’t think she went without much judging by the rolls of fat resting on her thighs.