Wartime Family (26 page)

‘Mother, you can’t stay here,’ said Lizzie, scrutinizing the dismal surroundings with a look of dismay. ‘It’s a mess!’

‘This is where I’ve been happiest,’ said her mother.

‘You didn’t tell me it was as bad as this.’

Mary Anne pretended she hadn’t heard and looked away.

She’d told her daughter that the rooms above the burned-out ruins of the pawn shop were liveable.

Lizzie eyed the smoke-damaged walls and blackened windows. Grit and broken glass crunched like ground bones beneath her feet.
This is dismal, dirty and about to fall down, hardly a happy home
, she thought. She was about to voice her opinion, but her mother got there first.

‘It’s also where I feel safest,’ she said.

Lizzie couldn’t argue with that. She wanted to hit her father, to shake him into a different man. Impossible, but anger could make you wish for the impossible when times were bad.

She followed her mother, grabbing Stanley every so often when he looked like destroying things further; ripping at ragged curtains or stomping on a piece of glass.

The two bedrooms at the back of the house were intact. The downstairs rooms, including the kitchen, were in a sorry state but the sink and water supply were still working. The most redeeming feature about the place was that it had an indoor bathroom upstairs, a luxury by anyone’s standard. The front of the building had sustained the worst damage, and nothing remained of the shop front, which was now open to the sky. The main bedroom on the upper floor no longer existed. All that remained was its door opening on to nothing but a void; quite a drop to the ground.

‘Better keep this locked,’ said Lizzie.

‘The lavatory still works,’ said Stanley after he’d used it.

‘So does the sink,’ said his mother, grabbing his shoulders and wheeling him back in the direction he’d just come from ‘Wash. You’ve got soot all over your face.’

‘I had a wash last night,’ he wailed.

‘That was yesterday. You weren’t playing with soot yesterday.’

Lizzie grinned. ‘Nothing changes.’ Her expression turned serious. ‘Look, are you sure about this, Mum?’ she said, her arms folded purposefully as she addressed her mother. ‘We can still take a room above the Lord Nelson.’

Her mother shook her head. ‘That’s hardly a home, and it’s expensive.’

Lizzie looked down at the floor. ‘I could pay.’

‘No you couldn’t.’

No. She couldn’t. But she’d had to offer.

‘I don’t want you to tell anyone where I’m living,’ said Mary Anne suddenly.

Lizzie raised her eyebrows. ‘No one?’

‘Tell only those people that need to know. No one else. And that includes our Daw. She has friends …’ She shrugged. ‘Someone’s been making things bad for me …’ Her voice trailed away. She closed her eyes and held the back of her hand against her forehead. ‘Oh God! Am I going mad?’

Lizzie fought down the sickness within. It was as if a veil had fallen from her eyes. She was still her mother, yet this woman before her had changed immeasurably since Lizzie’s childhood. She found herself dividing that change into two parts, and the first time she’d noticed change was when her mother had moved in with Michael. The years had fallen away; she’d seemed like a girl again. But this time she looked tired, thinner, haunted even. The last word was perhaps the most fitting, but also the most frightening.

Stanley swivelled from the waist like children do when they’re watching adults and feeling nervous about things they don’t quite understand.

Lizzie’s first inclination was to shout at him to go outside and play, but somehow she didn’t want to bear this alone.

She purposefully moderated her tone so as not to sound as worried as she felt. ‘Do you think Father is doing these things?’

‘I did at first, but then he was sometimes at work when they occurred.’ She swallowed and threw back her head, opening her eyes as she exposed the whiteness of her throat. ‘I think it’s Routledge. He was in the army with your father, but he was also the caretaker appointed to look after the shop just before Michael arrived.’ She was about to tell Lizzie that Michael had found Routledge entertaining a young prostitute in his uncle’s bed, but remembered that Stanley was listening. She chose her words carefully. ‘Michael caught him abusing that trust and threw him out. He swore revenge.’ She shrugged. ‘And with Michael away …’

‘Have you actually seen this man?’

‘No.’

‘What about going to the police?’

Mary Anne laughed nervously, her shoulders shuddering at the thought of it. ‘They’d probably lock me up – and I don’t mean in the cells.’ Her expression was forlorn. ‘Don’t let them do that, Lizzie. Believe me, I’m not mad. Someone really is making life difficult for me.’

There had been so much Lizzie had been going to tell her mother, but not now, not after seeing her and hearing all this. It would be too much to bear. ‘You’re right about this place,’ she said, forcing herself to sound bright and breezy even if she didn’t feel it. ‘This is your place. Yours and Michael’s place.’

From then on the mood brightened. There was much to do, but both women, and even young Stanley, went light-heartedly about their work.

‘We’d better get a meal on the go now I’ve found these,’ said Mary Anne, sighing with satisfaction on finding a set of willow-patterned china in a cardboard box at the bottom of a cupboard.

She also found a black and white gingham oilcloth to set over the table. A quick wipe and the table was ready for laying. But cooking a meal wouldn’t be quite as easy, as Lizzie was quick to point out.

‘The gas pipe is probably fractured so we can’t use the stove.’

‘What’s for dinner?’ asked Stanley, wiping his wet hands down his shirt. ‘I’ve washed,’ he said to his mother before she had a chance to ask him. ‘Even behind me ears.’ Obligingly, he bent his head, tugging each ear forward in turn.

‘Hmm,’ said Mary Anne after close scrutiny. ‘They look clean enough. If you want dinner I need you to gather some wood and some coal from the coal house out back. The gas supply’s been cut off. We’ll have to use the range and the range needs wood and coal.’

Stanley did as he was told, the prospect of getting dirty all over again incredibly appealing.

‘There’s plenty of wood to burn,’ she said to Lizzie. ‘There’s bits of our best furniture, some of it over a hundred years old, all half burned already. Seems a shame to chop it up, but there …’ She shrugged.

Lizzie found an undamaged saucepan, filled it with water and began helping her mother chop vegetables and the bit of scrag end ready for the pot. As they chopped out of Stanley’s ear shot, Mary Anne told her daughter about her father getting back on the beer and threatening to thrash Stanley.

‘Daw wouldn’t have believed me and I didn’t want to go back to Harry’s place.’ She also told her about Gertrude and the letter she’d received about she and Michael not being married. ‘So there was nothing else for it,’ she explained. ‘It was here or nowhere.’

Soon the fire was glowing and an earnest joviality accompanied their endeavours, both women making an effort to rise above their own personal worries – Mary Anne’s that Michael would never come back, and Lizzie’s that Guy would not keep his word to divorce his wife.

‘I have to keep my spirits up for Stanley’s sake,’ said Mary Anne.

‘Me too,’ said Lizzie, ‘but also for you.’

It was easy to lie, far easier than Lizzie had supposed. She couldn’t – she wouldn’t – burden her mother with her own problems. Sadness and admiration jockeyed for position as she watched her mother making do, pretending that the happiest place she’d ever known was unchanged. It took great courage to do that, she decided, but breaking point could never be that far away. She would not say anything about Guy, his wife and their relationship. She would not tell her about the latest development and ask for her advice. Her mother had enough to cope with.

‘Just look at our hands,’ said Mary Anne, holding her hands palms outwards.

‘I like black hands,’ said Stanley. ‘You can belong to the Black Hand Gang if you’ve got black hands.’

Mother and daughter laughed. ‘Is that all we need to belong to a gang?’ said Lizzie.

Stanley scowled. ‘No, stupid.’

They all had black hands. Lizzie dotted a blob of dirt on her brother’s nose. Stanley laughed at first, but then had second thoughts and swiped at it with the back of his hand.

‘I’m not washing again,’ he exclaimed. ‘Not until tomorrow. Can I go out to play now?’

His mother answered. ‘Yes, but be back by dark. And come in the back way. I don’t want anyone to know we’re here. Alright?’

‘I’ll be quiet as a mouse.’ Glass scrunched beneath Stanley’s feet as he ran out the back door.

‘Quiet, my foot!’ Mary Anne exclaimed.

She watched her youngest son scramble over the rubble out in the back yard. The walls surrounding the yard were still standing. So was the back gate. She was thankful for that. It gave them some privacy and the fact that there was a sign outside saying ‘Dangerous Building’ would keep nosey parkers at bay.

Her gaze returned to the single sapling that had withstood the blast of the bombing, the fire and the freezing temperatures of the last winter. Spring buds were blossoming into summer. It made her feel better.

‘Yes, I think we’ll be safe here,’ she said, mostly to herself though, of course, Lizzie was within hearing distance.

To her surprise Lizzie made no comment. It wasn’t like her second-oldest daughter to be so quiet for so long. Instinctively, she presumed something was wrong. She turned away from the window. Lizzie didn’t meet her enquiring eyes that were as thoughtful and as beautiful as her own. Arms folded in the defensive way she’d adopted of late, she was plucking at her bottom lip, head bowed, brow furrowed in thought.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

Lizzie’s head jerked up. ‘Of course I did.’

‘There’s no need to snap.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Lizzie sighed deeply. She went to her handbag and got out a cigarette.

‘Since when have you smoked?’ her mother asked.

‘It’s the war. It’s making me a bag of nerves,’ said Lizzie, slipping the cigarette between her lips while she rummaged in her bag for her lighter. The lighter was sleek and silver, shaped something like a bullet. A Streamliner, Guy had called it when he’d given it to her. It flashed brazenly and had an air of ostentation about it, even of guilt – just like her really. Mary Anne pretended that the fire needed stoking. ‘I don’t think you should smoke,’ she said, bending before the range to prod the coals with the poker.

‘I’ll do as I please.’

The retort was hasty and unexpected, and the second within a few minutes.

Mary Anne straightened and looked at her. There was a certain tension in her daughter’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. It worried her, but for the moment she’d hold her tongue. If Lizzie had something to tell her, she would get round to it in her own good time.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lizzie, her expression full of remorse. She rubbed at her forehead and closed her eyes. ‘I’m tired. It was a long journey and the train was slow. I didn’t mean to snap.’

Mary Anne said nothing, but buttoned her cardigan and hid her glorious hair beneath a turban tied at the front. Her hair had been a dark honey-blonde in her youth. It still held most of that colour although it was less vibrant than it used to be.

‘I’m going across to the Red Cross shop. I used their address when I was last there. I think they’ll agree to let me use it again for my letters. It’s just a precaution,’ she added.

Lizzie nodded but still seemed distracted.

‘Why don’t you go and lie down?’ said Mary Anne.

‘Yes. I might do that.’

It was good to get out into the fresh air. Despite the bomb damage, the lack of colour and the shabbiness of people making do, the atmosphere was uplifting, because it was May and the sky was blue.

Mary Anne cut through the alley into East Street. Butterflies were doing cartwheels in her stomach at the thought of entering the shop again, but it had to be done.
Asking Gertrude Palmer a favour has to be more frightening than going to meet the King
, she thought to herself.
But she can’t refuse me this
, she decided as she approached the art deco frontage of the Red Cross shop. The doorbell tinkled an unidentifiable tune as she entered. The butterflies perched with folded wings the moment she saw Edith behind the counter. Not much more than five feet tall, the poor woman was almost buried behind a pile of donated clothes; everything from fox furs to gentlemen’s combinations. Edith’s deepset hazel eyes lit up at the sight of her.

‘Mary Anne!’

She came out from behind the counter, clasping her close with bent, arthritic fingers as though she were her long-lost daughter, even though they were roughly the same age. ‘I’m so pleased to see you.’

With a jerk of her chin, Mary Anne indicated the mountain of clothes. ‘It seems you’re in danger of being buried alive.’

Edith made a face. ‘We’re short on seamstresses willing to carry out alterations for nothing. They’d sooner get a job sewing uniforms or in a munitions factory and get paid for their war work. I told Her Majesty that when she insisted you leave the flat. I told her she’d regret it, but …’ She waved her arms like a courtier about to take a bow. ‘You know how it is. A queen expects to be obeyed.’

‘I must admit, I did enjoy the work,’ said Mary Anne.

Hope widened Edith’s eyes. ‘Are you available?’

Mary Anne thought quickly. ‘Yes, I am as a matter of fact.’ Gertrude would not refuse her help, would she?

‘Gertrude will be relieved,’ said Edith as if reading her thoughts. ‘Especially if I make it sound as though it’s all her idea. I wouldn’t dream of telling her I told you so.’ She winked like a young man would, saucily as though they were sharing a naughty secret. ‘But you know, and I know.’

Mary Anne felt as though a ton weight had fallen from her shoulders. She’d been worried about asking if she could use the shop for her mail. Now the way was open, so she went ahead and asked.

‘Of course you can,’ said Edith. ‘There’s a few people round here do that for one reason or another. Some of them have been bombed out like you and haven’t yet found anywhere suitable to live. Some of them …’ She paused and lowered her voice, her eyes fluttering sidelong as though not wanting to be overheard. ‘Someone has letters sent here that don’t come from her husband.’ She winked. ‘If you know what I mean.’