War Babies (26 page)

‘I can’t believe I’ve got this far – not after last time,’ she said, her eyes filling at the memory. She had miscarried the second baby at three months.

‘I hope to God this one’s all right,’ Rachel sometimes said to Gladys. ‘How will I face her if she loses another one?’

‘Every day I wake up and I think – oh, praise God, it’s still there,’ Netta went on, her pale eyes full of longing. ‘Oh, Rach – I don’t know what
I’ll do if . . .’ She shook her head and looked away.

‘You’re looking well, you know,’ Gladys said, glancing up from her ironing. The hot, singeing smell of it filled the room.

‘Mammy’s saving every drop of milk she can for me, heaven bless her,’ Netta smiled. ‘To make a nice strong baby.’

‘I expect you’ll be all right, Nett,’ Rachel encouraged her. ‘Third time lucky, eh?’

She had grown very fond of Netta, who was a sweet-natured, if timid, girl. Beside Netta she felt her own strength. Netta was so frail, like a little stick with her wispy brown hair and watery
blue eyes. And Francis, who she had met when he came home on leave, was not much better. Francis’s mother, like Netta’s, was Irish and a widow. He had one older sister who looked after
their frail mother, who was an invalid. Francis was a pale, solemn lad, like something grown with no light, and with an unworldly look in his eye. No wonder the army had kept him in the Pay Corps,
Rachel thought.

‘Mammy says I should give up work any day now,’ Netta said. ‘I know she’s right but we need the money and—’

She was interrupted by a great clatter of falling wood from outside, accompanied by a string of earthy, male curses.

‘Hark at that!’ Gladys said. ‘Someone needs to wash his mouth out. Still, I don’t think this one heard anything.’

She nodded at Melanie, now twenty-one months old, who was sitting on the floor playing with a tangle of bits of off-cut material, muttering to herself and in a world of her own. She was a pale,
solid little girl with soft brown hair and a steady nature.

Rachel followed Gladys to the door from where they saw a hefty, dark-haired bloke bent over three wooden chairs which he was trying, without much sign of success, to stack together. One was
upside down and resting its seat on the bottom one; the third he kept trying to balance on top of them.

‘Ow,
bugger
it,’ he stormed as the chair toppled off again to lie on the mucky bricks of the yard. It had rained overnight and the sky was only just clearing.

‘Why doesn’t he just take them one by one? They’ll be matchwood in a minute if he carries on,’ Gladys observed. She stepped outside, pulling her shawl around her. Rachel
and Netta crept to watch from the doorway.

‘Who’re you?’ Gladys demanded.

The man turned to show a strikingly handsome face with a black moustache and glossy black hair. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves rolled, and black trousers with black boots. For a few seconds
he turned an aggressive stare on Gladys, then, taking in the sight of her, seemed to think better of it. His face cleared and he gave a smile which exuded calculated charm.

‘Mornin’!’ He gestured as if raising his hat, though he was not wearing one. ‘I’m Ray Sutton – moving in at number four. My missis is following on with the
kiddies.’

Gladys nodded soberly. Rachel could sense that she was both suspicious of and charmed by this ebulliently masculine stranger.

‘Cart’s out in the road,’ he said, pointing down the entry.

‘If you knock at number one, chances are Mo’ll give yer a hand,’ Gladys told him. ‘Though come to think of it, he might be off with the Home Guard today.’

‘Ah – it’s all right,’ Ray said, turning back towards the chairs. ‘We ain’t got a lot and my brother’s with me. He’ll be along in a
tick.’

They had known someone would be coming. The Parsonses had both died at the end of the winter. First Mrs Parsons had succumbed to pneumonia and her husband had followed not long after. As Gladys
said, ‘Well, at least we kept them away from the Archway of Tears.’ Thanks to their neighbourliness, the Parsonses had never had to consider turning to the workhouse.

A moment after they had gone back inside, Dolly was round, an apron over her navy work dress and her hair tied back in a navy scarf.

‘Is that the new ones at number four?’ she asked. ‘Oh hello, Netta, bab – how’re you?’

‘I’m all right, ta,’ Netta said, smiling.

‘That’s the husband,’ Rachel said, giggling. ‘Doesn’t he look like Rhett Butler!’

‘Clark Gable, ain’t it?’ Dolly said, pulling out a packet of Craven A and lighting up. ‘He’s the actor . . .’

‘D’you think his wife’ll look like Scarlett O’Hara?’ Rachel said.

Dolly inhaled a long pull of smoke, then blew it out. ‘Like the back of a bus, more likely.’

‘Always the optimist, you,’ Gladys laughed.

They did not have to wait long to find out. Gladys was at the Rag Market later on, but Rachel had stopped going for the moment. Once Melanie started toddling, she had become a
handful to manage and now Rachel was expecting another child it was all too much.

‘I’ll stay home and do things in the house,’ she promised. She felt guilty not working and always wanted to make up for it somehow. ‘And I’ll get the
dinner.’

It was the second week of May and what Gladys called the ‘hungry gap’. The new crops of fruit and vegetables were not yet grown and last year’s stocks were dwindling. There was
not much to be had. Rachel had taken to listening to the wireless to try and learn what she might do to eke out a parsnip and a couple of spuds, or whatever they had managed to find. She was
forever hungry, especially now she was expecting. She found herself thinking even more about food than about Danny’s letters, for which she lived.

Later on, she had just finished scrubbing the floor while Melanie had a nap upstairs. Going out into the yard she tipped out the pail of dirty water into the drain and was just turning back
towards the house when she heard a booming woman’s voice coming closer along the entry: ‘Get out of the ’ass road – how many times’ve I gorra tell yer?’ The
voice drew a bit nearer. ‘Shirley, get ’ere or I’ll give yer a threapin’, that I will!’

Rachel hurried back inside and shut the door. Who on earth was this coming now – and what an accent! Tiptoeing across the wet floor, the pail still in her hand, she stood peering out
through the window. Seconds later, two little girls with scruffy brown hair ran into the yard. They were followed by a voluptuous blonde woman, who from the shape of her belly and the rocking,
leaning-back way she was walking, Rachel could see, was well on expecting a baby. Even though the woman sounded so loud and strange, Rachel was pleased by the sight of the two little girls. Up
until now there had been no girls on this yard to keep Melanie company. She saw Ray, the dark-haired man, appear at the door of number four and then they all disappeared inside.

‘So – what’re they like?’ Gladys asked, hungrily tucking into the scrag end Rachel had cooked with mashed, woody parsnip. ‘You’ve met the
wife now, have you?’

‘Oh yes, I have!’ Rachel laughed. ‘She doesn’t look like the back of a bus, that I can tell you. She’s blonde—’

‘Out of a bottle,’ Gladys interjected.

‘How d’you know that?’ Rachel asked.

‘I got a look at her too. Dark eyebrows.’

‘She’s quite nice to look at,’ Rachel said. Everyone in the yard had gone out to say hello. The woman was a looker: plump, pink skinned with a head of thick, blonde hair,
rolled into waves which, whether out of a bottle or not, made her look like a film star. Her brown eyes looked striking against the pale hair. Come to think of it though, she did have dark brown
eyebrows. She wasn’t exactly friendly but Rachel just thought she looked harassed. With two kids and another on the way she could see why.

‘Her name’s Irene and they’ve got two girls, Rita and Shirley. She doesn’t half bawl at them – proper yowm-yowm she is an’ all. That’s what Dolly said
– that Black Country talk. Not him, just her. He’s in some factory or other. The way she talks about him you can see she thinks the sun shines out of his . . .’ She eyed Gladys
who eyed her back. ‘Out of somewhere of his anyway. Ray this, Ray that.
My Ray
. . . But she said in the end, she comes from Netherton – as if you couldn’t tell.’
They all laughed, the Black Country and Birmingham seeming about as much the same country as England and Scotland. ‘And she’s expecting as well, about the same time as me and Nett, I
think – must be something in the water!’

‘You should tell her about that clinic,’ Gladys said.

Gladys, who had previously been scornful of any ‘interference’ by ‘them’ into the health of expectant mothers, had been converted in her views by talking to the midwife
and the health visitor who had come to see Rachel and Melanie. The health visitor was a friendly young woman who had explained to them all the childhood conditions and problems that could be
averted by catching them early.

‘I wish we’d had better advice back in the old days,’ Gladys said. ‘For the mothers, I mean. Ooh, I remember the babbies dying of the diarrhoea and all sorts –
terrible it was. I know some people think they’re busybodies, but she’s all right, that young woman. They’ve been very good to Dolly. You go – and take the advice they give
you. They’ve had some education about it, which is more than the rest of us ever had.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ Rachel said. ‘I’m not sure she’s the sort who’ll listen though.’

The morning after Irene and Ray Sutton moved into number four, there was an upset in the yard – raised angry voices.

‘What’s that racket?’ Gladys said, hands in a bowl of washing-up water. ‘Sounds like trouble.’

Rachel got up from the table to open the door. ‘Sounds as if it’s coming from the brew’us.’

Gladys cocked her ear. ‘That’s Ma Jackman. I’d know her screeching anywhere.’

‘I think she’s having a barney with that Irene woman,’ Rachel said.

Before she could even sit down again, Ma Jackman’s gristly figure came striding along the yard and banged on their door.

‘Glad Poulter? Come and tell ’er to get out the brew’us – it’s my turn this morning. ’Er’s gone in without a by your leave, filling the copper, no
thought of asking, and now ’er won’t shift!’

‘All right, Ethel!’ Gladys called. To Rachel she whispered, ‘Better go and sort ’em out. You never know with that one – she might clobber her.’

Gladys pushed her feet into her old black shoes and took off along the yard. Rachel heard raised voices again before they quietened. Soon after, Irene Sutton came huffily out of the brew house
and crossed back to her house, clutching a bundle of washing.

‘You’re all right, bab,’ Gladys called to her as she came back. Her tone was kind but firm. ‘You can go in later when Mrs Jackman’s finished hers.’

She came back into the house, rolling her eyes, and returned to her washing-up. She nodded her head towards number four. ‘Got some lip on her, that one.’

Rachel thought Irene Sutton looked intimidating, but at the same time she felt a bit sorry for her. It was never easy being in a new place, with new faces and new ways. And she
wanted to get along with her. It would be nice to have someone else in the yard with really young children. The little one did not look much older than Melly – they could be company for each
other.

Irene strode out of the yard tugging her two little girls along a bit later, seemingly going shopping. But later in the afternoon, Rachel saw the girls playing out, bent over a puddle of water
that had collected outside the brew house. The Morrison boys were out in the road instead of roaring about the yard so it was quite quiet. Slowly she led Melly, who was just beginning to walk, over
to the girls. Melly was clutching a little peg doll that Gladys had made for her. Sounds of sloshing water were coming from inside the brew house and Rachel caught sight of Irene’s pale hair
behind the grimy windowpane.

‘Hello,’ Rachel said to the children.

They looked up warily at her. The eldest had long, straggly brown hair and a thin, blue-eyed face. She was not a pretty child. Her eyes were narrow and close together, but she had a steady gaze.
Close up now, Rachel could see that the younger one was stockier, with a darker shade of brown hair and eyebrows. Her hair just reached her shoulders. Each of them was wearing a little dress in the
same pale yellow material, grubby and smeared with dirt.

‘’Lo,’ the older one said. She stood up and swivelled slightly from side to side, in shyness.

‘This is Melanie,’ Rachel said. She saw Melly hug the peg doll close to her chest as if afraid one of them would pinch it. ‘She’s come to play with you. What’s your
name, bab?’

It was almost the first time she had ever called anyone ‘bab’. She suddenly felt old.

‘Rita,’ the girl said.

‘That’s nice. How old’re you, Rita. D’you know?’

After more rocking, her eyes cast down, the girl whispered, ‘Three.’ When Rachel asked about her little sister she said her name was Shirley. Rachel guessed the child must be
two.

‘Who’s asking?’ a voice said from behind her. Turning, Rachel saw that the blonde woman was standing in the doorway of the brew house, leaning her left side against it, her
left knee bent, toe resting on the ground. Her belly was pushing out the front of an ugly grey frock with a bit of lace at the neck. Rachel saw that her shoes were brown, with a low heel and very
scuffed. Her manner was pugnacious and forbidding.

Seeing Rachel looking at her, she said, ‘This ain’t how I dress – I’m doing my washing.’ She pushed herself off the door frame and stood upright, a hand laid
resentfully on her belly. ‘Not that I can fit into anything decent, sticking out the front like this.’

‘I thought they might play.’ Rachel made her voice as friendly as possible, though Irene seemed hostile. ‘Nice to see some more girls – it’s all been lads in this
yard.’

‘Yeah, rowdy little sods that lot are,’ Irene remarked, nodding towards the Morrisons’ house. Rachel felt riled by this criticism of Dolly’s boys but she said:

‘Oh, that’s the Morrisons – they’re all right, they are. Very nice. They’d do anything for you.’