Wartime Family (3 page)

Mary Anne closed her eyes. She wasn’t one for church and praying, but war makes people dig deep. She offered up a silent prayer.
Please keep my family safe. If you take anyone, take me. Please take me.

The sound of crashing buildings and the rumbling and shifting around them gradually ebbed away.

‘They’re going over,’ someone said.

Someone broke into loud sobs. Others murmured prayers of thanks. A hushed sigh seemed to drift like the dust across the huddled humanity. Because someone else had died, because the chance of a bomb falling on them had passed and fallen elsewhere, a sense of contemplative silence descended. Those that had rushed for the stairs now pressed themselves against walls, their eyes staring as though seeing what might have been. Medical people in an assortment of uniforms tended those who’d been injured in the crush.

Two hours later, when the all-clear sounded, Stanley brought his head out from beneath his mother’s arm. Daw lifted her gaze and looked around her with staring, scared eyes.

Fearing her daughter was on the verge of hysteria, Mary Anne gathered up all her courage and helped Daw to her feet. ‘Come on.’

Even though the air outside was thick with dust, it was easier to breathe than in the shelter. Daw looked for the baby’s pushchair.

‘Where’s my pram?’

Mary Anne looked beyond her to where rescue workers clambered over a pile of rubble. The neighbouring air-raid shelter had indeed taken a direct hit.

‘Those poor people,’ she muttered.

‘Are they blown to bits?’ Stanley asked, his eyes wide with ghoulish interest and just a hint of fear.

Mary Anne didn’t reply. ‘Don’t forget the bag.’

‘Got it,’ he said, raising it so she could see he wasn’t lying.

Ambulance bells clanged and people shouted. A hose was being unwound from a fire engine. She failed to see a fire, but smelled the smoke. Somewhere, amongst all this dust, were buildings, people and her road back to the pawn shop. Mary Anne suddenly thought of the thermos flasks of tea they’d taken into the shelter. They’d been scared too rigid to drink it.

‘We could have that tea now. It’ll still be warm.’

Daw shook her head as she strapped Mathilda into her dusty and slightly bent pushchair.

‘Not me, Mother. I’m off home.’

Home for Daw was above the corner shop owned by her husband’s uncle and aunt. It was at the end of the street Mary Anne had once lived in with her family. Their home at number ten Kent Street was gone now, destroyed in a previous raid. Henry had been moved out to Aiken Street in Barton Hill on the other side of the river. Stanley had moved in with her at the pawn shop, though he did visit his father every so often, especially on Friday nights – not so much out of love, but more because of the fish and chips bought from the shop at the bottom of Avonvale Road.

There was no arguing with Daw. Mary Anne had decided years ago not to try. It was Daw’s way. She was selfish, though she’d never admit to it. She was conservative and she refused to accept that Mary Anne’s living with Michael would be for ever. She wanted things to be as they once were. Through her eyes they had been a cosy, loving family. The truth had been so different, but Daw would never see that,

Leaning heavily into the pushchair, Daw scuttled off, the slightly wobbly wheels squeaking as she trundled the pushchair over the rubble.

A well of emotion tugged at Mary Anne’s heart as she watched the head of little Mathilda bob to one side, peering past her mother so she could see her grandmother.

‘When will I see you again?’ Mary Anne shouted after her.

Daw gave her a cursory wave over her shoulder, but no response. Mary Anne brushed a tear from the corner of her eye. Just dust, she told herself, but she knew it wasn’t true. She loved little Mathilda, her first grandchild, and couldn’t bear the thought of her growing up without recognizing who she was. Curtailing access to Mathilda was Daw’s way of exacting punishment on her mother for splitting up with her father. It was never said in so many words, only hinted at, but Mary Anne knew.

Stanley tugged at the sleeve of her coat. ‘You alright, Ma?’

‘Just thinking,’ she said.

It wasn’t far to the pawn shop. Normally it would have taken only minutes, but today the world had turned upside down. There was rubble everywhere, and fire engines, ambulances and people in various uniforms were all rushing around.

Picking her way through the broken bricks and the twisted gas mains, she came to the alley that led out into East Street. The bag containing the Christmas things bumped against her legs. Stanley was carrying his in front, both arms wrapped around it. Despite the dust and rubble, a single tram had wound its way through East Street but had been stopped by the police.

Mary Anne headed in the direction from which it had come, craning her neck in an effort to see through the devastation and down the side street to the pawn shop.

A great cloud of black smoke blanketed the street exactly where the pawn shop was situated. With her heart in her mouth, she quickened her pace. Flames were licking upwards through the smoke.
No! Not the shop!

She ordered Stanley to stay put.

‘I’ll go and look,’ she said, piling her bundles against his dusty legs.

She ran towards the shop front.

‘Oi! Where do you think you’re going?’ A policeman grabbed her arm. ‘You can’t go in there, love.’

‘That’s my shop!’

Round-eyed she stared to where Michael’s business had been. The whole frontage was ablaze.

‘What will he say?’ she wailed, her hand over her mouth. ‘What will he say?’

The shop was all they had and it meant a lot to him. Michael had inherited it from an uncle, who had inherited it from his father, who in turn had inherited it from his father. And now?

Men with dirt-streaked faces fought the flames. Steam mixed with smoke, its hissing sound obliterated by that of falling masonry. A brick chimney stack groaned and began to topple. Warnings were shouted. The policeman holding Mary Anne pushed her behind the waiting tram. More dust, black and acrid, joined the fetid air.

Another man wearing the uniform of an auxiliary fireman joined them. His face was soaked with sweat and grime. His nose was bleeding. He swiped at it with his sleeve.

‘I’d like to get my hands on the bugger that did that,’ he said grimly.

‘You’d better hitch a ride on a Lancaster bomber then,’ said the policeman.

The fireman shook his head. ‘No incendiaries were dropped. It might have scored a hit, but I was hereabouts and didn’t see or hear it explode.’

The policeman pulled a face. ‘Could have been looters who started it. They can be mean like that. Light it up for the sake of it. Just arsonists at heart.’

Mary Anne looked disbelievingly from one man to the other.

The policeman met her look and shook his head. ‘Not everyone supports the war effort. Some only support themselves.’

The fireman produced an incredibly clean handkerchief from his pocket, folded it in four and dabbed it at his nose. ‘In these times you can never be too sure, but it’s a possibility.’

Mary Anne closed her eyes and turned her face to the sky. Ash fluttered down, speckling her face. ‘Now what do I do?’

‘It’s your place, is it, love?’ said the fireman.

She nodded.

The policeman shook his head and tutted. ‘Well it looks as though only the front of the old place has had it, but you can’t go back in there, not for a good while anyway. Have you got any friends or relatives you can stay with?’

She shook her head. Her gaze drifted back to the smoking ruin that had been her home.

‘The Sally Army is down there.’ He pointed to a mobile trolley from which jolly-faced people were handing out tea and sympathy. ‘They might be able to find you a bed. And just beyond them is the Red Cross and the WRVS or whatever. You could ask them.’

Numbly she gathered up Stanley and her things. In her mind she searched for solutions to her immediate problems. Immediate problems were all that she could attend to at this moment in time. Her first priority was to find somewhere to stay. Daw, her closest relative, lived on the corner of the old street above the corner shop. But she only had two rooms, hardly room to swing a cat. Overnight maybe? No longer than that. It wouldn’t work, but for now it would have to do.

Henry also had a place. Stanley would have to go there, but Mary Anne couldn’t. She just couldn’t. The thought of living under the same roof as Henry, her husband, filled her with dread. The old memories resurfaced and wouldn’t go away. Yes, she’d been told he never entered a pub nowadays; that he was a changed man. But still, deep down inside, she knew she could never trust him to stay that way.

‘Come back when it’s cooled down,’ the policeman called after her as she walked away. ‘There might be something you can save.’

She thanked him again.

‘Before you go,’ he said, lowering his voice and glancing in the direction of the fireman with the bloody nose. He beckoned her closer. ‘Are you Harry Randall’s mother?’

‘Yes.’ She was nervous about what he was about to say.

His voice dropped to just above a whisper. ‘Well I didn’t like to say in company, but could he ’ave done anything to upset certain people? You know, some of the dodgy types he got ’imself involved with?’

Admitting to herself that Harry was no angel had never been easy, and she certainly didn’t comment on it to complete strangers. Nowadays she contented herself with the knowledge that he was serving his country. In her books that made up for his past delinquency. That was why her response now was curt and noncommittal.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

The policeman winked. ‘No. Of course you don’t.’

Stanley did not welcome the news that he’d have to stay at his father’s more or less permanently.

‘It won’t be for long,’ she told him.

‘He’ll get drunk,’ he said. His sour expression left her in no doubt as to how he felt about moving back in.

‘No he won’t, Stanley. Our Daw reckons he doesn’t drink now. You heard her.’ He shook his head, his eyes big and round as they looked up at her. His mother did her best to reassure him. ‘It’s true. Didn’t you hear our Daw say so?’

‘That don’t mean it’s true!’

‘Just for a while, Stanley. Just until I can find us somewhere,’ she said, walking on but not daring to look into his face and see his uncertainty.

The boy fell silent, dragging the carrier bag behind him now.

Mary Anne made an effort to be cheerful. ‘At least we’ve still got the Christmas cake,’ she said brightly. ‘We’ll all have a piece on Christmas Day.’

Stanley was unmoved.

Wishing the war was over, wishing the shop hadn’t caught fire, she took Stanley around to his father’s and then headed for Daw’s.

If only Lizzie was here
, she thought. But Lizzie, her second daughter, had left to join the Royal Army Service Corps. Somehow Mary Anne would let her daughter know what had happened. Somehow.

Lizzie held up a large pair of khaki-coloured bloomers in disgust. ‘I knew I should have joined the Wrens. Surely their knickers can’t be anything like these! Just look at them. They’re big enough to fit Nellie the elephant!’

Her friend Margot, an ebony cigarette holder delicately balanced between rich red lips, gave the offending articles a quick glance.

‘Darling girl, you’ll appreciate those bloomers in the depth of winter. Cut some arms just below the elastic and you can wear them over your vest.’

The suggestion wasn’t without merit. Lizzie nodded approvingly. ‘You’ve got a point.’

Folding the bloomers, she turned her attention to the other items, extras to those issued when she’d first joined up. Supply of army-issue female items was spasmodic to say the least. When a rumour did the rounds that extras had arrived, the girls swooped on the quartermaster’s stores like a flock of hungry starlings.

‘Any suggestions as to what I can do with these?’ said Lizzie, her eyes popping at the stiffly starched canvas brassiere she held stretched between both hands.

Margot looked aghast and almost spat her cigarette from her mouth. ‘My goodness! There are limits, my darling girl.’

Lizzie paddled one hand in a massive cup. ‘Emergency shopping bags?’

‘They’d make a pretty good horse blanket,’ said Margot in her off-hand fashion. She immediately dropped her eyes back to the magazine she had spread on the bed in front of her. ‘Big enough to fit this one here,’ she said. ‘Listen to this. Irish Hunter, seventeen hands. Suit experienced rider.’

Bessie Fitzpatrick, a red-headed girl from Tottenham in London, peered over her shoulder and shook her head. ‘Nah! I got the experience, but he ain’t my type. And seventeen ’ands? I get enough trouble with Irish blokes with two ’ands, let alone seventeen!’

It was obvious that Bessie was having a go at Margot, not that Margot appeared to notice or care. Lizzie had liked Margot straightaway, even though Bessie had called her stuck up.

‘I thought you’d be friends, seeing as you both come from London,’ Lizzie had said to Bessie when they’d first met.

Bessie had jerked her chin and tossed her head. ‘Blimey, no! She’s from Chelsea. That ain’t London. Not real London. It’s full of toffs. Just like ’er in fact.’

Lizzie had shrugged. ‘I’m from Bristol. I wouldn’t know about that, though we do have something like Chelsea. It’s called Clifton and it’s perched high above the Avon Gorge looking down on the city.’

‘Nob Hill,’ sniffed Bessie.

Bessie had been referring to a film of that name where the rich lived on the hill and the poor in the valley. She’d never viewed Bristol quite like that before, and despite Bessie she regarded Margot as a friend. Her accent and where she came from didn’t matter. They got on well together.

The first thing they’d done when arriving at their training camp ‘somewhere near Ipswich’ was marching. Marching, marching and more marching – but that was after being issued with their initial items of ill-fitting uniforms. The girls did their best with what they were given, sorting things out among themselves. Big skirts were swapped for smaller ones, sleeves were altered and seams let out. Shoes were a problem; everyone acquired blistered feet.