Birmingham Blitz (31 page)

‘Oooh!’ everyone responded.

Nan struck up and Lil sang the verse of ‘The Very Thought of You’, her voice rising to bring the rest of us in for the chorus, and then our voices chimed in, harmonizing, Mom quite in control tonight, her voice high and lovely.

I’d barely ever sung with them in public before, although at home we sang together in the normal course of things. We hadn’t practised, there was no time for any of that, but I found I could move easily in time to the music and the songs were so familiar it came as naturally as singing in a bath tub.

When that was finished Lil stepped forward again. ‘And now, since she’s our excuse for being here at all, we’re going to hear from the little ’un.’

With a huge jolt I realized it was me she was on about.

‘She don’t usually sing with us, this one. Says she hasn’t got a voice.’ There was a pleased laugh from in front of us, although the only face I fixed on at that point was Nancy’s and hers was full of spite.

‘We think it’s about time she joined the troupe. So, judge for yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll help her along from the back of course, but now I give you my lovely niece – we’re all very proud of her – Eugenie Watkins. Step forward, Genie!’

Heck, I hadn’t been expecting this! But I couldn’t exactly let them down now, could I? Even Mom was smiling. I moved nearer the front of the stage, my suddenly damp hands smoothing the front of my dress, but I hoped, looking more composed than I felt.

‘Let’s hear yer, Genie!’ someone shouted.

I gave a little bow and turned to Lil with a grin. ‘I’ll get you for this afterwards.’ Everyone laughed. More quietly I gave her a choice of song.

It went almost silent then, and into the quiet Nan struck up on the accordion. The sun was setting, had sunk behind the factory walls and the air was smoky. The faces in front of me had fallen into shadow.

I sang an old song, a beautiful song, ‘I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time’, and when I’d gone through a few of the lines I heard Nan, Mom and Lil join in with me and felt them hold me up, give strength to my voice, which was tuneful enough, but weaker and smaller than theirs. I’ve no idea how I sang, how it sounded, but I know I tried to do it the way Lil did, pouring everything I could into it. That song promised things would turn out happily in a time of flowers and it was something all of us ached for. Things had to get better. And while I stood out there I thought my family should spend all their time singing because the songs went through and out the far side of everything else and let everyone be happy together.

I sang the final notes of the song and bent over in a bow. When I stood up I caught Joe’s gaze fixed on me. His eyes were full of a quiet seriousness, but when he saw me looking he smiled back at me and raised his hands to show how hard he was clapping.

‘Wasn’t she lovely?’ Lil quizzed the audience, and they roared back. ‘Shouldn’t she sing with us all the time, eh?’ Another outburst of agreement. My cheeks were on fire. So was my heart, to tell the truth. ‘For anyone who doesn’t already know it, Genie’s a great kid. And I’m going to give her the choice of our last song tonight.’

‘Make it something jolly!’ someone shouted. They wanted something to jump around to. OK, we’d let them have it. ‘What about “Run Rabbit”?’

And so it was, and we went back to our places still singing. I felt proud to bursting. Joe’s obviously admiring expression had given me a rare pride in who I was and my family. We may have been a complete mess in every other way but this was something we could do. It was us at our finest and I’d been included too. As I moved to my place I saw Joe’s sister, Marjorie, lean towards her father and make some comment. Joe was still clapping.

‘That was so good,’ he said as I reached my place. This time it was he who seemed more shy of me.

Mom touched my shoulder as she passed me and found me a smile. ‘That was lovely, Genie.’

‘Have you really never sung like that before?’ Joe asked, lips close to my ear.

‘Only at home. I leave the performing to the others usually.’

‘It was tremendous – listen, you can hear everyone loved it!’ Only now were they winding down the clapping.

Joe made sure he stayed next to me this time and Mom and Lil squeezed in closer to the wall. The sun was going down fast now and very soon the coloured bulbs glowing there against the brickwork would have to be switched off.

After a couple more numbers, both saying we were a hard act to follow, Tony played ‘God Save the King’ and everyone stood and blasted it out, loud as they could.

‘Come on you lot,’ Ray shouted. ‘Once more – and make it so that bleeder Adolf can ’ear it this time!’

When it was over everyone was suddenly milling about picking up chairs and clearing the trestle tables or trying to get to the stairs. A few were detailed to stay on and finish off after the rest had gone. The light was dying and there was a rush to get it finished, make the place dark.

Mr Broadbent and his daughter came up to us as we were shuffling towards the stairs.

‘That was a real treat,’ Mr B said kindly. He was a smaller man than his son, with his hair now steely grey but the same very dark brown eyes. His face always looked lined and tired. ‘I’m glad you could all come. I didn’t know we had such a budding little talent in the warehouse.’

‘It were a pleasure,’ Nanny Rawson said.

Even the sister smiled. She didn’t seem all that bad up close. Probably just shy. ‘It was really nice,’ she managed to say.

And then they were gone, carried along in the tide moving into the stairwell, and Joe turned to say a quick goodbye which felt snatched and unfinished. Fittingly, as they vanished, the necklace of coloured lights went off, leaving us with only a shred of moon to see by.

At the top of the stairs I felt someone push up next to me and grab my arm, pinching it. ‘Proper little bitch of a show off, aren’t you, Genie Watkins?’ Nancy dug her nails into my wrist. ‘You’ve spoilt everything, you ’ave. I ’ate you.’

‘Get off!’ I yanked my arm away. ‘You’re hurting me, you barmy cow you. Why don’t you just get home and hang up that chest of yours, Nance, before it falls out the front of your dress?’

‘What was all that about?’ Lil asked when I’d shaken Nancy off.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing that matters anyhow.’

People didn’t hang about outside. We all had homes to get to and work to do and the street was dark and deserted now except for us.

‘We’ll come down your way,’ Mom was saying to Nan. ‘It’s not the quickest, but we might as well all stick together.’

‘Coming for a cuppa?’

‘Nah – best get back to Len,’ Mom said. I guessed it wasn’t tea she was interested in either.

We’d only got to the end of the road when we heard footsteps running up behind us.

‘Someone’s in a rush,’ Nan said. We all pressed into the side.

The running slowed.

‘Hello? Is that the Watkins family?’ His voice. ‘I wanted a quick word with Genie.’

We wouldn’t be a minute, I told the others. I persuaded them I’d catch them up, and we were left alone. I could barely see his face in the moon’s tiny threads of light.

‘I couldn’t go just like that. I told them I’d left something—’ I could hear his quick breathing. He was nervous. ‘Would you think of coming out with me, Genie? Say tomorrow night?’

Mom was sitting there staring at nothing, miles away.

‘How do I look? Mom?’

‘Very nice.’ Sounded as if it was all too much effort for her to speak.

‘The dress is smashing. Thanks again for making it.’ It was the blue and white one again. I had nothing newer.

No answer.

‘Look, Mom—’ I went and squatted by her chair. ‘I’m sorry to go out and leave you tonight, but Lenny’ll be home soon. And you have said you could do with a quiet rest.’ Umpteen times in fact.

She nodded but I could tell there were tears not far away. We’d already been through how it wasn’t all bad, what good form she’d been in at the show.

‘But I’m cut off from everyone – everything,’ she moaned. ‘I feel as if I’m locked in a cage . . .’

Now she was getting worked up. ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said, jerking her head from side to side against the back of the chair in frustration. ‘It’s all bloody right for you, isn’t it? Even that fathead Len has someone . . .’

I stood up, backing away from her. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll be late. I promised . . .’

‘He won’t want you!’ she shrieked after me. ‘What would he want you for? He’ll think he’s too good for you, you wait and see!’

I started off along the Moseley Road before realizing I’d forgotten the little scarf that went with my dress, and by the time I’d torn back to get it I was in a proper lather. Joe and I had arranged to meet in Moseley Village, about midway between where we each lived, and I ended up running half the distance as I was so afraid of being late.

That mile and a half or so was torture for me. I was already in a state of nerves and Mom’s kind sentiments ringing after me pulled me right down. At the concert everything had felt right and full of promise. Joe’s smile, his eyes so obviously finding me, those short hours of forgetting all the grief happening to us. A dream world. Now all I could think of were bad things. Mistakes and hurts like Walt and Jimmy. The way they’d taken my hope and need and crushed them without a thought. Maybe I was all wrong again, clutching the end of a rainbow which would melt in my hand? There were all these differences between us: Joe was a grammar-school boy, older, his mom and dad had a nice house in Hall Green, and I was just a very junior pair of hands in his dad’s factory.

But I had enough hope left to keep my feet, in their white buttoned shoes, trotting up the hill into Moseley, panting.

I’ll know this time, I thought. When I see him again I’ll be able to tell whether I’ve got this all wrong.

After all my running and fussing I got there early. It wasn’t yet six. But when I turned up towards the gates of the church I saw Joe was already waiting for me. He’d come. That at least. He had his hands in his jacket pocket and was leaning against the wall, but when he saw me coming he straightened up and freed his hands quickly in a way that made me see he was just as nervous as I was and it gave me courage.

He smiled. ‘Began to think you weren’t coming.’

‘But I’m early,’ I protested, pointing up at the hands of the clock. ‘Look, it’s only five to!’

‘I suppose I just hoped you wouldn’t stand me up.’

‘Not if I said I’d come.’

‘You sound out of breath.’

I joked. ‘Didn’t dare be late, did I?’

We were at a loss then and stood looking at each other, and it seemed Joe’s eyes penetrated deeper than the surface of my face. It was like someone stroking me, trying to know me. The feel of someone looking at me like that suddenly made me want to cry.

So’s not to, I grinned at him and said, ‘So – we going to stand ’ere all night then or what?’

Joe looked at me steadily. ‘We could go to the pictures if you like. Or as it’s a nice night, how about a walk?’

‘Oh yes, a walk.’ After all, what was the point in sitting staring at a silver screen? That was for escape from life, and now we had life spread in front of us to move about in.

‘There’s a private park.’ Joe pointed across the Moseley Road. ‘My mom knows someone down there’d lend us a key.’

‘Is there? I never knew.’

We borrowed a key from a thin, weary-looking woman called Mrs Munro who lived at one of the grand houses in Chantry Road, promising to drop it in on the way back, and she let us walk through a well-organized looking garden. At the bottom was a little wooden gate, and then the sloping edge of the park.

‘Isn’t it lovely?’ I said as we walked down together under the trees. ‘Fancy this being here all the time and me not knowing.’

‘It’s certainly tucked away,’ Joe agreed. ‘Seems a shame it’s private really, but then that’s why it’s so quiet. It’s not all that big though. We could go on somewhere else if you like.’

In the dip at the bottom was a little lake. There were trails of white, cottony seeds on the grass and birds chattered loudly in the trees around us.

‘Loud, aren’t they?’ I laughed. ‘Sound like my nan’s neighbours gossiping.’

‘Jackdaws I expect.’

‘They the ones that pinch things?’

Joe laughed. ‘They’re the ones.’

At the bottom a path ran round the water and in the middle of it was a tree, its roots forming a tiny island. Water birds bobbed and skimmed around it.

‘Those are ducks,’ I pointed. That was about the limit of my knowledge. ‘What about them then?’

‘Moorhens.’ Joe squatted down near the edge, watching another group of nervous brown birds. ‘Nice little things them. Always look a bit worried. Specially when they’re out of the water walking about.’ He watched them for a few moments, smiling, then straightened up. ‘Shall we go round?’

The path followed the curves of the lake, shady with trees on one side, more open the other. At the top of the hill you could see the enormous, elegant houses, with their balconies and fancy woodwork and ornate trees growing around them. I wondered what they did with all the space they had in there.