Now the War Is Over (16 page)

Gladys was going to the cemetery with the family.

‘We’ll go home, Auntie,’ Danny said. ‘Take the kids. You gonna be all right?’

Gladys squared her shoulders in her black coat. Her face, too, seemed to have sunk in on itself in the last terrible days. ‘Course. See you later.’ She turned and walked towards
Dolly and her sisters, who stood in a close huddle, their arms about each other. Mo, pushing Reggie’s chair, was with his brother and sons, a cluster of dark suits.

From a distance, Melly saw Reggie’s fair hair, his head lolling just above the seat of the wheelchair. His right leg was outstretched and braced straight. There were dressings on his face.
She thought he looked very uncomfortable but knew this must be nothing compared to his pain inside. People were going up to him, bending to say something to him. She saw her father talking to
Reggie, gentle-faced, laying a hand on his shoulder for a moment. She couldn’t go to him, just couldn’t. She looked away, unable to bear it.

She saw Gladys go up to Mo, and hold out her hand to him. But Mo threw wide his arms, drawing Gladys into them and clutching her close, his face contorted in agony.

Rachel slipped out of the overall which protected her clothes, shouldered her coat on and stepped out through the front door of Carlson House, Tommy’s school. Inside, the
children were having a sing-song to end the day and she knew she was not needed for the last twenty minutes or so.

It was an iron-hard winter day, the sky low and ash coloured. But it was dry and Rachel was glad of a break. Hugging her coat round her, she lit a cigarette. These days she found cigarettes more
and more of a comfort. She leaned against the front wall, luxuriating in the few moments of quiet, smoke unfurling in front of her. She had had her hair cut into a sleek bob, parted on the right,
the hair on the left pinned back, the way some of the teachers at the school wore theirs. The brown skirt and cream blouse she was wearing felt smart and she knew fitted well on her slim figure.
For the first time in years she felt more like a young, slender and attractive woman with a thread of life going on.

Getting out to the school one day a week had changed her life. It was so good to escape from the same four walls of the house, the grimy old yard, always in some grubby and tattered frock, with
Gladys bossing her to do the same round of chores. Coming over to Harborne had changed her view of things. It was an escape.

Everything in Alma Street now was tainted with grief. These days, Mo and Dolly were not the people they had been before. Sometimes it felt as if grief was sucking them down into a deep, dark
place that they could not get out of. Both of them looked older, more faded. Everyone missed Mo’s sunniness and jokes. He tried to keep cheerful but even if he was trying to smile and be his
usual old self, sadness weighed down every line of him.

Rachel ached with pity for them, and for their other boys. Jonny had taken refuge in his lessons and hardly raised his head out of a book. But he was also waiting to see when they would call him
up for National Service. While he had been dreading it before, Rachel realized he might now be glad to get away. Freddie had become solemn and quiet. Cissy couldn’t get anywhere with him any
more and their friendship had cooled.

Gladys was also more tired, bitter and short-tempered. And Rachel, with the children getting older, the constant worry that she might have another one, the endless work and demands, increasingly
felt bone tired. The yard in Alma Street which had once been a refuge from her mother, a place where she and Danny could make a home, now filled her with desperation. It was true that Danny had
finally bought a car – a rather battered old black Standard – which eased things a bit. But it made no difference to where they lived. Her friend Netta and family had recently managed
to move a bit further out of town, into a house that was still very scruffy, but was at least bigger. Seeing it when she went to visit had brought home how everything in Alma Street was old and
filthy and rotten. All she could see was the bug-ridden griminess of those leaking little houses, the slimy floor and mould in the brew house. If only they could get out, to somewhere new. She
dreamt constantly of a place of their own, a nicer, cleaner house with more space. If Netta and Francis had managed it, why could they not find somewhere else as well?

From inside the school she could just hear music, some of the children banging cymbals and drums. This place was a constant source of amazement to her. From having thought her son would have to
fester at home all his life, with no help or chance of doing anything, now Tommy was doing well. The teachers were saying that one day he might even be able to get a job!

As soon as she had started at the school with Tommy, had walked into his classroom where rows of children, each with their individual difficulties, sat at little desks, each being helped and
encouraged, she had thanked God for it every day. Tommy was writing well now. So long as his paper was held still with big spring clips, into a frame to stop it slipping about, he could write as
well as anyone. He read and did sums and now they were talking about teaching him to type. They helped him with his eating and speaking and also encouraged him to walk more, using sticks. The
doctors had taken great pains with him and he was about to go into Woodlands, the orthopaedic hospital on the Bristol Road, for an operation on his left leg. She hardly knew where to begin telling
them how she felt – her gratitude for all this. But people seemed to understand.

And every Thursday she travelled across town with him and spent her time helping in the classroom and at mealtimes. She had got to know the other children, the teachers and other mothers. Some
of them said she was really good with the children. Had she ever thought about becoming a teacher?

Rachel had laughed at that. Her, a teacher! Stay on at school! Little did they know how things had been in her childhood, her father’s disgrace and death, Peggy’s struggles, falling
pregnant with Melly when she was only fifteen – these were things she would keep to herself. But she was flattered all the same. It was nice to have someone to tell her she was good at
something.

Life for her had definitely got better – at least, until last night and the conversation she had had with Danny. She had not spoken to him this morning, she was so angry with him.

It had begun with something she’d said. Her idea. She had thought it a week or two ago, when she was walking along Victoria Road in Harborne, where Tommy’s school was, past the neat
brick terraced houses lit by the morning sun.

It looks so nice, she thought. It’s even nicer than where Netta’s gone. I wish we lived in a house like that with its own garden, not on a yard. I bet they have their own bathrooms
as well. And then the thought came to her, what seemed at first an unthinkable thing: why don’t we move and rent a house over here nearer to the school? It’s not as if they
couldn’t afford it. The market made them a good living. And they had the car now to get to the market. Everyone said it was impossible to find anywhere to live these days but surely some
people must be able to find a new house?

Of course she hardly dared mention it at first. Leave Alma Street? It still seemed almost unthinkable. And what about Auntie? She found herself longing to get away from Gladys – just to be
in their own place. Would Gladys come with them? Surely not. Gladys had lived in the yard in Alma Street for more than two decades, with Mo and Dolly there, through good times and bad. They were
almost family. Gladys was stubborn and it was hard to imagine she would ever leave Alma Street. But even moving with Gladys would be better than staying stuck where they were.

She pushed the reality of the acute housing shortage out of her mind. She just thought about her dream. And the more she thought about it, the more she had a tingle of excitement inside her. She
argued it back and forth in her head all week.

Last night she had been about to broach the subject herself, when they went to bed. It was the only time they had any privacy. Though the council had finally installed electric light in the
houses a few years back, there was still no light in the attic. She lay waiting for Danny, a candle burning on a saucer on the chair by the bed.

Danny’s shadow moved huge, on the wall. He pulled off his shirt and trousers in his fast, restless way, every line of him slender and strong, Rachel’s stomach knotted with nerves.
She wanted Danny to agree with her, to long for what she longed for.

He thumped his way into bed so that the springs screeched.

‘For God’s sake,’ she hissed. ‘You’re like a flaming herd of elephants!’

Danny grinned and grabbed her, pulling her into his arms. ‘I’m the great big bull elephant, kid!’

‘Gerroff!’ She wriggled free, giggling. Normally she liked it when they were joking and teasing together but tonight she had too much on her mind. ‘Stop it, Danny –
there’s something I want to say to you.’

He looked down at her, leaning on one elbow. He looked excited. ‘There’s summat I want to say to you, missis, an’ all.’

‘What?’ she said through a yawn. She hadn’t expected it to be anything much.

‘Let’s go to Australia.’

Rachel groaned, infuriated. Just as she had been about to say what she needed to say he had to put this stupid thing of his in the way.

‘
What?
’ Her anger came through clearly. ‘You’re not still on about that, Danny?’

‘Ten pound each – that’s all. On this ship, the SS
Asturias
.’ He made a movement with his hand, from side to side, a ship’s ocean glide. ‘The kids go
free.’

She had seen the posters too, advertising this offer of a passage to the other side of the world. But that didn’t seem real either. She stared at him. He was joking, he must be? No . . .
He wasn’t.

‘Are you mad?’ She sat up, annoyance rising in her at all this, at being thwarted in what she wanted to suggest. ‘What’re you saying? We can’t go to Australia.
It’s . . . It’s the other side of the world. It’s . . .’ She could barely find the words. It was all so beyond her. ‘What about Gladys? And what about Tommy, for that
matter? His operations and all the other things?’

‘Kids go free. Tommy could have what he has here . . . And the rest of us – think of it, Rach. There’s loads of jobs, open space, warm weather. I could trade there –
there’s always that . . . I mean –’ He made an impatient gesture with his hand. ‘What’ve we got here? They kept saying everything’d be better after the war and
look at it – still the same old bloody thing. Stuck in these jerry-built ratholes. I want more for us, Rach – I dain’t go all through the war to come back here and rot
away.’

She saw, appalled, that he had been thinking, dreaming of it. But he hadn’t thought – not really.

‘Danny – no.
No!
Don’t be stupid – you’re not rotting away. You always say business is going well. And you’ve got the car. We don’t know if
Tommy could go to school there, even if we got him over there. This is the only school in
this
country, never mind Australia.’

Danny shrugged. ‘Well, he could stop at home again. He’d be all right. He’s had a bit of schooling.’

She stared at him. She could have killed him for that shrug, those words. For the way he dismissed everything that was so precious to her, dismissed his son and his chance of a life, dismissed
the prospect of anything but her being locked at home with Tommy again. It was a betrayal that felt like a physical blow. Was he hankering after Australia because he had once clung to the dream
that his father had gone there? Longed for him to have made good and summoned his children to join him? That empty old dream?

‘But we can’t leave Gladys,’ she managed at last. If Danny didn’t care about Tommy, surely he’d mind about his aunt? ‘She’s lost everyone, Jess and Amy
– then you . . .’

‘She could come too,’ Danny said breezily. ‘Why not? Fresh start in the sun.’

‘Oh, you’ve thought it all through, haven’t you?’ She pushed the bedclothes away as if wanting to escape from him. ‘Even if you don’t count Tommy as a person
– because you never have, have you, Danny?’ Tears came suddenly, running down her cheeks. ‘What about Melly and the boys? What about asking the rest of us? Me, for a start?
D’you think I want to go and live all the way over there, away from everyone I know?’

Danny stared at her. ‘Well, don’t you? It’s nice over there. You can make money – and have a much bigger house.’

Rachel seized his hand, speaking urgently. ‘Danny – I’ve been thinking. Don’t keep on about Australia – for God’s sake, just stop it. I’m not going to
Australia and nor are our kids and that’s that. I’ve got a much better idea. Why don’t we move to Harborne? I know it’s difficult to get a house. We might have to wait. But
if we look out – there might be a private landlord, and we could put our name on the list as well . . .’

‘Harborne?’ This idea seemed beyond Danny’s comprehension. ‘We can’t go to Harborne!’

Rachel sat back, laughing. ‘Why not? It’s not the other end of the earth, Danny – it’s just across town. I go there every week.’

‘Oh, we can’t do that,’ he said. ‘I mean, what about Auntie? She’d never leave here.’

‘Danny,’ she said, exasperated. ‘You’re on about going to the other side of the world but you won’t even think about moving just a few miles away. We can hardly
swing a cat in this place. And anyway, the way things’re going, we’ll all have to move in the end. All these neighbourhoods – they’re taking it all down, bit by bit. Look
what they’ve done in Ladywood. And those blocks they’ve put up over at Nechells Green – they’re knocking it flat and putting new roads and such in. We’ll be next.
It’s in the plan – get rid of all the slum housing. We live in a
slum
, Danny – it says so in the paper.’

‘Yeah – well, like I say, let’s get out of here and go to Australia. If we’re all gonna be like rats from a sinking ship, we might as well get out early before it
starts.’