Now the War Is Over Page 4

  Mom would nod in a distracted sort of way. He knew she was pleased – that it turned out he could do more things than she had feared were possible. But still.

  Another boy. When Kevin was born, just before Christmas in 1948, Tommy had seen that his father had at last got the son he really wanted. And now, here was another boy. The sort of boy they wanted – a boy not like him. His eyes filled with tears and he started to get choked up. He wiped his eyes with his right arm. He mustn’t cry – it made it so hard to breathe. He must just do what he always did – try to swallow his frustration. If he got upset, Mom and Melly were upset too.

  ‘You’re my brave boy,’ Mom said to him sometimes. ‘My brave little soldier.’

  It seemed that his job was to be braver than anyone else, however much he wanted to break down and cry at the feel of his twisted arm, the pain in his hips or his way of talking which didn’t sound like anyone else’s. Up until the other day, he had been brave. Mom had taken him out sometimes in the chair. He had put up with people staring, other children calling him or his chair rude names, and the nasty, hurtful things some of the grown-ups said about him or Mom. He tried to pretend he hadn’t heard. But there had been nothing before like those boys the other day. The horror of it rose up in him again. It had been terrifying, thinking they might tip him out of his chair, run off with him and throw him away somewhere. But the worst thing was their faces. They had looked so nasty and cruel as if they hated him for being the way he was. He was someone no one could ever accept. He never, ever wanted to see anyone look at him like that again. He wanted to stay where he felt safe, in the house, the yard. The outside world now filled him with foreboding.

  ‘Tommy!’ Melly came running downstairs. ‘Auntie’s bringing the babby down to you!’

  Tommy felt warmed again inside, just a fraction. He arranged his face into his lopsided smile as they came into the room with the little bundle wrapped in a blanket.

  II

  1953

  Five

  2 June 1953

  The Morrisons’ house was packed full to bursting.

  Everyone’s eyes were turned in one direction – towards the new rented television, in its brown Bakelite casing which Dolly had polished to a sheen.

  The children were crowded into the space in front of it, on the floor, all the kids from the yard and some others who had heard about the television’s arrival. Melly sat among them, the cold hardness of the floor seeping through her knickers. Cissy was on her left and on her other side, Tommy’s chair which Mo had kindly positioned so that he had a good view, despite Evie’s sisters, Rita and Shirley Sutton, moaning that he was in the way.

  The younger ones were wearing bonnets decorated with paper flowers, or cardboard crowns in honour of the young Queen who they could see, mistily, making her vows on the twelve-inch screen. Melly, feeling a bit silly now she was nearly twelve, had agreed to wear one too, though Cissy, who was going on fourteen, seemed happy with a white bonnet balanced on her ginger waves of hair. Cissy would always dress up, given the chance. Tommy’s crown kept slipping down over his eyes and Melly reached up to adjust it for him.

  ‘Got your bag of rocks safe, Tommy?’ she whispered. Tommy nodded happily. Now that sweet rationing was over, they were all making the most of it. Tommy had a bag of sweets and liquorice strips tucked in his pocket. Melly was licking her precious toffee apple, making it last.

  ‘Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust,’ the young Queen’s voice came to them.

  ‘She must be ever so nervous,’ Melly heard her mother say to Dolly. ‘Think of having to do all that with all those people watching. My heart’d be out through my chest. I mean, she’s younger than I am.’

  There were roars of ‘God Save the Queen!’ and soon Elizabeth Regina emerged from Westminster Abbey. Melly gasped at the sight of her in her crown and a beautiful dress with tassels hanging from the shoulders. She was met by the huge crowds, cheering and clapping. Melly heard Mom and the others murmuring to each other behind her.

  ‘Doesn’t she look lovely,’ Dolly breathed. ‘Ooh, that gown she’s wearing – that crown must weigh a bit . . . And look at all those people. Wouldn’t you’ve liked to go, Rach?’

  ‘What? Sleep out all night in the rain?’ Rachel laughed. ‘Well, maybe – if you’d gone an’ all, Dolly!’

  ‘Wouldn’t catch me sitting out in the road all night,’ Gladys remarked. ‘Even to see the Queen.’

  ‘More comfy watching it here, eh?’ Dolly lit another cigarette and sat back, smiling. ‘It’s marvellous, isn’it though, Glad? Ooh and everyone together – our Wally back. If only Reggie was here . . . Bloody war goes on forever even when it’s over.’

  Melly’s ears pricked up hearing Reggie’s name. Reggie her distant hero. He had been called up last autumn for his two years of National Service. Wally, his older brother, had just finished his and come home.

  ‘Right, everyone!’ Mo announced after they had watched the procession. He had a natural authority with his burly body, pink fleshy face and cropped grey hair. Everyone liked and trusted Mo. ‘Time for a party!’

  As all the other children got up, cheering, bouncing with excitement, Melly went to Tommy. Her stomach was rumbling and they were all looking forward to the celebration food outside.

  ‘We’re going out to the party now, Tommy.’ She could see he looked worried. He had been scared for so long now, of going anywhere other than in the yard. Even though he was now nearly ten years old, he had never been to school and he scarcely ever went out, except to the doctor’s now and then. They’d given him a proper wheelchair, free on the National Health Service. Melly was his devoted teacher, trying to show him how to spell and count. His other friend and teacher was the wireless. And he stayed in the house and the yard where it felt safe.

  ‘You coming with me?’ he said. Each word cost him an effort, his muscles willing them out one by one. Tommy could make himself understood, so long as you gave him time.

  ‘Course I am,’ she said. ‘It’s just us. And there’s going to be jelly.’

  Tommy beamed with pleasure. Jelly was one of his favourite things.

  She saw her father coming over to them. ‘Come on, my lad.’ Melly could hear the forced jolliness in Danny’s tone. He tried his best with Tommy, but he just never knew what to do with him. It was so different with Kevin, who was four and a half now, and Ricky, who was two. Kevin was the real favourite, she could see. He was a real live wire and she saw her father play with him, and toss him around. When Dad got out one of his comics or did his little drawings, he tried to share it with all his sons – but Melly could see that he was always relieved if he could just play with Kev.

  She linked arms with Cissy, glad to stretch her legs after sitting on the cold floor.

  ‘Come on, Ciss – Mom’s bringing out the cake. Let’s get us a good seat.’ Melly wished Cissy could come more often. It was nice to have another girl in the family.

  Cissy liked coming over to Aston to stay with her big sister Rachel and with Melly. Even though everything here was more cramped and poorer, and Melly and Cissy had to share a bed, at least she got a warm welcome. Peggy had never been a motherly sort and now that Cissy was long past the sweet baby stage, her mother had little time for her. She’d been much the same with Rachel.

  ‘I don’t know why you want to go and stay in that slum!’ Melly and Cissy would take off Nanna Peggy in the snooty, languid voice she used these days. Their eyes would meet as they giggled over it, imitating the way Nanna crossed one slim ankle over the other as if to show off her shiny leather shoes. Rachel would say, ‘Now, now, you two.’ But she wouldn’t be able to stop laughing either. It was how they all dealt with the hurt Peggy inflicted. And it was so much more fun for Cissy over here.

  ‘We’ll sit each side of Tommy,’ Melly said, as they followed Danny who was pushing Tommy’s chair along the entry.

  Like so many other neighbourhoods, Alma Stree
t was celebrating on this special, holiday Tuesday. Even if the weather was showery and not the best, everyone was determined it was going to be a day to remember. In the street they found tables arranged end to end. Women from the surrounding yards were carrying out plates heaped with the best that rationing and scrimping and saving would allow. Their yard had joined with the one next door, every possible stick of furniture carried out into the street to sit on. A few lengths of bunting fluttered along the houses and shops close by. The kids were lined up round the table in a variety of hats and crowns, the adults standing about behind. Everyone seemed in high spirits, especially the children.

  Rachel, carrying a cake out to the feast, watched with an inner tremor, following behind the girls and Danny as he pushed Tommy’s chair along. Thank God I had Kevin, she found herself thinking for the umpteenth time. Kevin, her healthy, skinny, uproarious lad. Never had she seen Danny so happy as when Kevin rose to his feet at fourteen months and toddled energetically round the room pushing a stool. Ricky had of course done the same. But she could see that Danny felt like a proper man once he had fathered Kevin. It was as if Tommy didn’t count.

  Lost in her own thoughts, it took her a moment to realize that Lil Gittins was walking just behind her. Lil and Stanley lived at number five in their yard, in the end house, abutting the metal spinning works. Rachel turned to smile at her.

  ‘All right, Lil? How is he today?’

  The very look of Lil was heartbreaking. When Rachel first moved to the yard, Lil’s husband Stanley, a strong man and lively as a cricket, who had worked as a carter for the railways, had just gone off to war. Lil always used to wear her honey-blonde hair piled majestically on her head, and be made up with bright lipstick, full of fun and kindness. These days she was so thin that the bones in her face seemed overly large and her eyes were sunken. Her hair, still piled on her head, was now almost white, even though she was only in her late forties.

  ‘Oh, he said he’ll stop in today,’ Lil said, trying to sound cheerful. As if Stanley stopping in wasn’t what he did every day of the year. As if she didn’t mind doing everything alone, trying to manage, as if her husband wasn’t a member of the living dead.

  Rachel could hear the tears building in her voice, but Lil stemmed them and raised her chin.

  ‘Just the way it is, I s’pose. Make the best of it.’ She shrugged and tried to smile, but she could not shift the desolate look in her eyes. Rachel reached out and squeezed her arm.

  Stanley, who had been a radio operator on RAF fighters, had been shot down over the Mediterranean at night and floated in the black water for twelve hours before he was rescued. Within months, the plane he was in was hit a second time and he bailed out, on fire, again landing in the sea. By some miracle he was picked up once more by a British naval vessel, but was badly scarred all down his left side. His mental scars, though, were as bad, if not worse. Sometimes at night you could hear his screams across the yard. Quietly, the neighbours would say it was a pity he survived, that Lil would have to have him put away. But Lil could not bear to do it.

  ‘He’s my Stanley,’ she would say quietly. ‘For better or worse, I’ll look after him. Anyway, our Marie’s made her life in Liverpool now – what else’ve I got?’

  Rachel carried the sponge she had made out to the table and placed it alongside the fish-paste sandwiches and jellies and dry cakes. She slipped past Ethel Jackman, who was hardly ever known to say an agreeable word, least of all to her own husband, and followed Danny who steered Tommy over to the corner of a table, where Gladys and Dolly were standing. Gladys was wearing her usual dark clothes, though she had added a touch of colour with a vivid red scarf at her neck. Set against her dark chestnut hair streaked now with threads of white, pinned up in a thick, coiled plait, and her blue eyes, she looked very striking. She had been organizing everyone in the yard for weeks before the celebration, collecting money, making sure things got done. Dolly, beside her, was wearing a dress of green-and-red flower patterns. The two friends made an exotic pair.

  Dolly was standing behind Donna, seven now, in a little crimson dress and looking as ever, utterly beautiful. The youngest Morrison boy, Freddie, was beside her. The others were far too grown up to be sitting with the children. The eldest, Eric, was on the point of getting married. Reggie was away and Wally and Jonny were standing about with some of their mates, all with hands in pockets, a distance back from the table as if they were holding themselves aloof from all this carry-on.

  ‘That’s it, good lad, Tommy,’ Dolly said kindly, as he arrived. She saw Melly hovering about, waiting to look after Tommy. ‘You and Cissy squeeze along there next to Donna, bab, and Tommy can come up next to you.’

  Cissy and Melly immediately got on either side of Tommy. Rachel gave her daughter a fond glance. You could always rely on Melly. She felt a swell of pride when she compared Melly to those Sutton girls, Rita and Shirley, who were sitting opposite her, skinny little things with their long ratty hair and mean-looking faces. Rita was a bit older than Melly and Shirley a bit younger so Melly was stuck with them as they were the only girls her age in the yard. But they were right two-faced little sods. Nice as pie one minute when they wanted something; the next, she knew, they’d turn on Melly or whoever they were playing with and yank their hair or dig their nails into another kid’s arm ’til they drew blood. And if anyone had anything – like that doll of Melly’s that Gladys got her one Christmas, Irene Sutton would go and get something bigger and better. God knows how she affords it, the state they live in, Rachel thought. She’d had to go and get a doll – a big, hard plastic thing with blonde hair and eyes which opened and shut. Once they had something new they’d be all snooty and wouldn’t want to know the other children. And they never, ever shared it with Evie. Evie was left out of everything. Rachel swelled inside with fury every time she saw the way Irene treated Evie, poor little mite. Even now, she was stuck on the end and they were all ignoring her. Irene stood behind her daughters, resplendent in a scarlet frock, her hair newly bleached and curled at the ends. Rachel looked at her, thinking, yes, not a thought for anyone else, but you can dress yourself up like a film star as usual, you selfish cow.

  ‘I see the cripple’s out today,’ Irene remarked to a woman from the neighbouring yard, and not quietly either. The woman turned her head away, not knowing what to say. Rachel saw Melly’s face tighten in fury and she herself was already poised to strike.

  ‘What did you say?’ she demanded. She felt Gladys clamp a hand on her arm to stop her rushing round the table to black Irene’s eyes. It wouldn’t have been the first time and by God she didn’t half ask for it.

  ‘Don’t,’ Gladys hissed down her ear. ‘Leave it. She’s just a silly bint – trying to get a rise out of you. Like a flaming kid, that one.’

  Rachel looked daggers at Irene. She lowered her head, breathing hard, trying to control the impulse to go and tear Irene’s hair out.

  ‘In front of him,’ she whispered savagely to Gladys. ‘She cowing well said it in front of him. Just when he’s . . .’ Her eyes filled with angry tears. Tommy had come out to the street – that was progress.

  ‘Just leave it,’ Gladys said. ‘Don’t do anything – not today.’ She nodded at the table of children.

  Dolly, however, was not one for holding back. ‘You want to look after your own kids,’ she retorted across the table. ‘Instead of poking your nose in about other people’s. And where’s your old man? Down the boozer as usual, I s’pose?’

  Irene stuck her nose in the air and ignored them. Ray Sutton, dark-haired, full of charm when sober but frequently drunk and obnoxious, was nowhere to be seen.

  Melly kept sneaking looks round at Wally Morrison. He and Reggie were quite alike and as brothers they were close. Both of them worked on milling machines for GEC, in Electric Avenue in Witton. Dolly had worked there before she was married and Reggie followed Wally there. But now Reggie had gone off into this unknown world of the army and Wally had just come back from it. Mell
y kept wanting to look at him, as if seeing Wally could somehow put her in touch with Reggie. It wasn’t as if Reggie ever took any notice of her – not before and not now. But she was fascinated with him. He seemed to be everything a grown-up man should be – handsome, with a strong-boned face and thick blonde hair. He was tough and mysterious, not as talkative as Wally. The sight of Reggie always made her heart beat faster, even though she knew he had no time for her. After all, he was eighteen! For now though, all she had to look at was his older brother.

  ‘What’re you staring at?’ Rita Sutton leaned across the table, her eyes narrowed in her sly way.

  Melly whipped her head back round from another peek at Wally. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You was staring. I saw yer.’

  Melly could see the spiteful gleam in the girl’s eyes.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ she insisted.

  She turned away as if to help Tommy, fussing over him unnecessarily.

  ‘He’s like a babby,’ Melly heard Shirley Sutton remark. She kept her eyes fixed on Tommy’s. Ignore them, her eyes said. They’re just nasty like their mom.

  Her own mom and dad were just behind them so she felt safe. She heard Mom chatting to Dolly. Rachel broke away for a moment from the group to call out to a friend up the road.

  ‘All right, Netta? I thought you were going to come and watch it at Mo and Dolly’s?’

  Netta made some flustered reply and Rachel called back, ‘All right then – see you tomorrow!’

  Tommy was looking happy now and he beamed when they were presented with a bowl of orange jelly.

  ‘Here y’are,’ Melly said, reaching for a spoon to give him. Tommy could eat perfectly well with his good arm.

  ‘It’s disgusting, the way he eats,’ Rita said, her eyes gleaming nastily.

  Melly wanted to say, Well, at least he doesn’t have a face like a rat like you, but she didn’t dare. Rita was nearly fourteen and Melly was scared of her.