Birmingham Blitz (43 page)

And then it stopped. After two weeks of raids every night, suddenly there were days of no siren, no Mister howling, no shelter. It felt really peculiar. The bombing had so quickly become a way of life. But all the same you couldn’t relax because there was no guarantee it was over. They might go and bomb somewhere else but they’d be back, and we never knew when. The siren could go off any time. So throughout those days there was still the same fluttering heart and acid stomach. A couple of times during the raids I’d been woken suddenly from a quick snatch of sleep and been sick, such was the shock to my system. Even on those nights of quiet I kept waking, blood rushing, ears straining, not being used to a full sleep.

One morning Mom came down, grey faced with tiredness and nerves. ‘I’ve decided. I’m never going out in that shelter again.’

I gave a sarky laugh, readying myself for work. ‘Not till the next time.’

‘No. Never.’

‘Mom?’ I walked round and peered into her face but she was looking out somewhere way beyond me, one hand absent-mindedly stroking her big belly as if it was too tight and she needed to ease it. ‘You all right?’

There was a long silence and I nearly asked again. But then, more firmly than I’d expected, she said, ‘I’ll be all right.’

Something about her bothered me, though I couldn’t say what. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to her being lost to me, depressed or drunk, but she was stone cold sober this morning and she frightened me, nearly as much as she did when I’d found her standing out in the garden holding out her arms to embrace the bombs.

I put tea in her hands. ‘Why don’t you go over to Nan’s today? Have a bit of company.’

‘Don’t fuss, Genie.’ She spoke dreamily. ‘Just get off to work.’

To start with she was on my mind that day. I couldn’t get Mrs Deakin out of my head either, the horrible thing that had happened to her. I tried to think, Mom’ll be better once the babby’s over with and born. Give her something else to fix her mind on. I was beginning to look forward to that, a babby in the house, whoever its father was.

It was a busy day at the factory with all the work and talk and the women asking me if I’d heard from Joe. Yesterday’s letter from him, safe for the moment with his squadron, was folded close to me in my pocket. I thought of us making love and blushed, blushed even more when they noticed and teased me. It had brought us even closer. I had no shame, no sense of wrong. Not with Joe. And not now during this war when you couldn’t take anything for granted. You took what you could and were grateful.

I wanted to go round to Nan’s at the end of the day and look in on Tom, talk more to Lil about him. But by the time work finished I felt I ought to get home to Mom. Some instinct I had, that made me run half the way there in a cold sweat, not stopping to queue for any food. I don’t know what I was afraid of. I suppose I expected her to get drunk and have an accident one day. Fall when there was no one in.

When I clattered in through the front door, Mister came at me like a cannon ball, yapping and jumping round my legs in ecstasy, licking whatever bits of me he could reach.

‘Mom, where are you?’ I needed to hear her voice.

There was no answer, but then she hardly ever did bother to answer when I called.

To my surprise she was in the kitchen standing by the stove. Cooking of all things. And the place looked as if she’d had a tidy up too.

‘Thought it was high time I did a meal,’ she said.

I was all smiles of relief. ‘You feeling better?’

‘I’ll be OK.’

I picked up Mister who was still frantic for attention beside me. ‘D’you go to Nan’s today?’

‘I popped over. Picked up a few things on the way back.’ She was stirring the pot, looking so frail standing there in the gaslight, pregnant, her hair loose, seeming younger than her years.

‘We’ll wait for Len,’ she said. ‘He can eat with us tonight, not at Molly’s.’

She’d done stew and spuds, even a kind of egg custard for pudding, and the three of us sat together round the table, Gloria playing to us. Mom didn’t drink. Not a drop all evening.

‘Quiet without Jerry, isn’t it?’ I said. We were still waiting, could hardly believe it was another night free.

‘When all this is over,’ Mom said to Len all of a sudden, ‘you and Molly’ll have to get yourselves a little house somewhere.’

‘If there’s any left standing,’ I joked.

She looked solemnly at me. ‘And you and Joe. He’s a very nice boy, Genie. The sort who’ll really look after you.’

‘And we’ll look after you too, Mom. Don’t you worry. And little’un in there.’

She just gave a bit of a smile at that, as if to say it wasn’t her that mattered. She was so calm. Perhaps I should have seen that as odd but I was just glad. Things felt normal, whatever that was nowadays.

We sat listening to Gloria and then Mom took herself off to bed. As she passed by my chair she rested her hand on top of my head. ‘Goodnight, Genie.’

I was the last up. I switched the lights off and left Mister snoozing by the remains of the fire.

The high wailing sound woke me and I was out of bed, completely awake, pulling on the coat I’d left at the foot of my bed. It stopped. Started again. It was only then I realized it wasn’t the siren but the other noise we normally heard along with it. Mister was howling, somewhere outside. I went and opened my window over the garden.

It was very dark and I could only hear, not see him, howling and whimpering under my window.

‘Mister? How d’you get out there, boy?’

There were more yowls as he heard my voice and the rasp of his claws scratching against the back door.

‘OK. I’m coming.’

Going to the door, I wondered whether I’d dreamed him being by the fire when I came up, or whether Mom’d been down, put him out and forgotten him. But as soon as I was on the landing I smelt it, that stink of the mornings after the raids, the mean, seeping smell of gas. I tore down the dark stairs.

When I opened the kitchen door the rush of it set me coughing and gasping. I could hear it hissing in the dark and the thoughts going round in my head were, who the hell, who’d been so stupid as to come down and leave the gas on in the middle of the night? I groped towards the back door and heard my feet knock into glass, bottles crashing together. Then I tripped over her legs and fell across the floor, banging my head and side. I got up and struggled with the back door key knowing now, knowing what was happening, taking gasps of air as I got the door open, sick with the gas. Mister tore inside and disappeared somewhere into the front of the house yelping and howling.

Everything was automatic now, with a kind of perfection born of instinct. My steps across the kitchen, one hand over my nose and mouth, the other going to exactly the right dial on the cooker to shut it off.

The hissing stopped. With more strength than I knew I had, I bent and pulled out the dead weight of my mother’s body from where she was lying, head resting on her crossed arms in the greasy base of the oven.

Mr Tailor was the one I went to for help, after I’d knelt in the black kitchen, feeling along her wrist. My fingertips found the veins slanting across her bones and a tiny pulse like a bird’s.

I was retching from the gas and sobbing out all sorts of stuff to her. ‘Don’t die. Don’t do this . . . Don’t you bloody well go and die on me . . .’

The smell was still awful in there – there wasn’t much of a breeze coming in – so I lifted her under her flopping arms, her feet bumping down the step into the garden and the cold air. I found the crocheted blanket and laid it over her. Mister was running in circles in the garden, barking.

I went and picked him up, so glad he was there. ‘We’ve got to get help, boy.’ I ran down the road with his soft head pressed to my face.

Mr Tailor was marvellous. Didn’t make a fuss. He found a working phone box and dealt with the ambulance, while Mrs Tailor was kindness itself in the face of my shaking. She made me sweet tea. I clung to my little dog and couldn’t stop my teeth chattering. They asked no questions. Most likely guessed most of it in any case. They took me to my nan’s, said they’d go round to Len first thing. It was three in the morning and I had to tell Nan what had happened. Nan sat down and stared ahead of her. It was Lil who did the crying for all of us.

She was a long time in hospital. At first I was just scared she’d die, and she came very close. Death’s door, that’s what they say, and she was on the step, hand raised, knocking. She lost the babby. The labour came on with the shock and was born dead, much too small for this world. They said it was another little girl, although she’d thought it was a boy. She haemorrhaged badly and had to have a blood transfusion. For days she lay barely conscious and we’d sit with her in that ward at the Queen Elizabeth. Dots of light flashed round my eyes from exhaustion and I couldn’t keep my food down. They were bombing every night again now and we crouched in Nan’s house thinking ‘What if they hit the hospital?’

But Mom didn’t know about these worries. I’d sit watching her white, sunken face, wondering what I was going to say to her when we could talk again. Nan kept bringing in things for her to eat, bits of fruit, little custards or junket she’d made. But she never even had a response from Mom, let alone got her to eat anything. I’d grip her hand but got no squeeze from her in return. Only later we found out why. As she regained consciousness the doctors said she’d lost the use of the right side of her body – the right arm completely, the leg showing little flickers of life.

The first time she came round while I was there, her eyelids seemed so heavy she could barely prise them open as she bubbled slowly back up to us. Her right eye wouldn’t open.

‘Mom.’ She croaked the word, coughed, tried again. Only half her mouth was working. ‘Oh, God, Mom – Genie—’ She couldn’t say any more. Tears seeped down her face.

‘Mom, oh Mom . . .’ I could only bow my head, resting it on her, and cry too, overcome by her misery and my own shame.

There was Mom and there were the raids. That was what made up our lives. Nan and I went to the hospital every day, Lil when she could. I told Mr Broadbent my mother was ill. He told me to have days off, take my time. ‘The others’ll rally round,’ he said.

I was staying at Nan’s and Len was at Molly’s. All other aspects of life faded into the background. Something happened to me during those days. Everything had changed from my life before, like a coin flipping over. The thought of seeing Joe appalled me, revolted me even. No, never again. Such things were not meant for me. This was family, and only family. And not even my family knew the depth of pain I was carrying in me over what had happened.

I couldn’t look my nan in the eye. I’d let her down. Let us all down. I hadn’t looked after Mom properly. That had always been my job. I was the one who saw her out there, arms out, calling to the bombs, and I should have known how near the edge she was. I should have been able to save her.

Nan did what had to be done, though she’d aged in a week. I thought she was angry with me. I couldn’t stomach food, kept being sick at odd times. I wished I could be like Lil and let it all out. Lil could say all the things she needed to say, ‘Poor, poor Doreen – fancy us not knowing she was that bad. Was she bad, Genie? And the poor little babby . . .’

But it was my nan I couldn’t stand to be near. I couldn’t bear the grief pushed down in her as she ran the shop still, day after day, in her pinner, her jawline held proud, listening to the grievances of her customers. She didn’t let on about her own.

By the early evening the sirens were screaming and it was a terrible rush to get some food, get organized. The minute it started Mister was howling and Tom would be curled up under the table quivering and refusing to move.

‘I ain’t going in that coal ’ole – I’m never going down there again!’

The poor kid. When he was awake he was terrified and when he was asleep he was thrashing about screaming with nightmares and wetting the bed. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the slightest sound.

So we arranged it that I’d stay up with Mister and Tom under the table. I was happier up there in any case, what with my sudden bouts of sickness, and because I was happier away from Nan, couldn’t face her. I also wanted to do the best I could for Tom. I told him stories and we both looked after Mister, who was just as scared as he was, or we lay curled up together, the darkness in the house made even thicker by the heavy table above our heads, while the sky was set on fire outside.

This particular night as we lay there I said to him, ‘D’you know what day it is today, Tom? It’s fireworks night!’

We both managed a bit of a laugh at that. ‘Don’t exactly need to bother with it this year, do we?’

Tom clung to me, shaking, as the noise escalated outside.

‘I wish it’d stop,’ he said. ‘Stop and never come back.’

‘So do I.’ All the time I was thinking about the hospital, what a big target it was. At least Nan’s house was small.

When the All Clear went, some time late in the night, my muddled brain didn’t know how much time had passed. Tom had finally fallen asleep, his arm across me, and I lay there listening to his breathing, his restless muttering. Poor kid.

There was light moving in the room and I heard Lil taking Patsy and Cathleen up to bed. It went dark again. After a time Nan’s slow tread came up the steps and through from the scullery. She went to the range and struck a match to light a candle. Her shadow moved nearer the table and I shut my eyes, sensing her bending to look under at us, taking it that we were both asleep. After a moment I heard a spoon chink against a cup and knew she was taking Turley’s Saline to settle her stomach. I waited for her to move the candle and find her own way to bed, but instead of that she went and opened the door. Picking up a chair she carried it outside, came back in to put her coat on and blow out the candle, then disappeared again, quietly latching the door.