War Babies Page 9

  ‘Who are they?’ she asked, trying to make her voice sound normal.

  ‘Jack and Patch,’ Danny said, in a voice which made it sound as if he was talking about characters he knew well. ‘Patch is the dog,’ he added, unnecessarily.

  She could hardly find words for him. Looking up at him, she could not hide the tears in her eyes. ‘They’re lovely, Danny. Did you do them?’

  She saw him take in her reaction, a flare of feeling in his eyes as if something had kindled inside him.

  ‘Yeah. I kept them with me. If anyone’d tried to take it off me I’d’ve laid ’em out. I had to once – they left me alone after that. Look – d’you like this one?’

  He found a page where Jack and Patch were standing side by side, seen from behind, Patch’s tail tipped with black and curving over his back. All she could see beyond were squiggles.

  ‘Jack and Patch at the seaside,’ he said, his voice full of proud longing.

  ‘Oh – yes!’ she said. ‘That’s the sea, is it? Have you ever seen the sea? I’ve never.’

  ‘Mom and Dad took us once,’ he said. He closed the book again and slid it into his pocket, not removing his hand, as if he had to check constantly that it was safe. ‘It was before our Amy come along. Our mom’d had our brother, William. He died – he was only a week old. And we went on a trip – to perk her up, I think. Dad decided we would. It was the best thing he ever did. We got on a train at Snow Hill and we went all the way down south to the sea. It was magic.’ There was a smile in his voice even though it did not quite reach his face. ‘I couldn’t tell you where it was now, but it was the best thing ever. The sun was hot and Jess and Rose and me all went in the sea. And Dad was all right, that day. It made our mom smile. I never knew there were places like that.’

  He stopped suddenly as if he was embarrassed or had just run out of words. Turning towards her, for a tense second he stood looking at her. She wasn’t sure what she could see in his face, whether he was angry even. Had she said something wrong? He was breathing fast, as if full of emotion. With a force which took her by surprise, he stepped towards her and wrapped his arms roughly around her, pulling her close. Rachel hardly dared breathe. She was so taken aback she could think of nothing to do or say and she did not have time to relax in his arms or think clearly about what was happening. She was sure she could feel the violent beat of his heart, though she couldn’t be sure that it was not her own.

  Before she could return the embrace he let her go, without speaking. They walked the rest of the way to Hay Mills in a silence that was full of feeling but not uncomfortable. She felt bound to him, as if there was a cord between them.

  ‘This is where I live,’ she said at last, pointing at HORTON’S DRAPERS & HABERDASHERS. ‘Don’t come in,’ she said. ‘My stepdad’s there.’

  Danny looked up at the building as he had at the house in Floodgate Street. ‘What’s he like – your step-dad?’

  Rachel wrinkled her nose, shrugging. ‘All right. I s’pose.’

  Danny seemed to understand. ‘Can we . . .’ he began, his strong hands in front of him, moving uncertainly. ‘Can I come and meet you again?’

  She gave him a smile. ‘Yes,’ she said. Yes didn’t seem enough to say, but it was all she meant. She wondered for a second how she looked to him, standing there in her new work clothes, blue skirt, white blouse, her shoulder-length hair pinned back at one side.

  He smiled. A happy smile. ‘I’ve . . .’ He stopped. ‘Come and see me and Auntie one day? At home, like?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘If you like.’ But she was pleased, fizzing inside.

  Danny kept looking at her. He seemed to find it hard to leave, and eventually began walking backwards before he turned away. ‘All right. See yer soon.’

  She watched him walk back along the road and wondered if he would catch a bus or walk all the way. She could still feel the force of need in his arms as he held her to him, and clasped the little notebook in his pocket.

  Turning to the house, she was caught by another emotion – dread. She was so late getting home! There would be trouble. But she didn’t care in the slightest. All she cared about was Danny.

  Twelve

  September 1939

  ‘Rachel?’

  She woke, startled, from a deep sleep, hearing her stepfather’s voice through the bedroom door, quavery with panic.

  ‘Rachel – it’s your mother. The pains’ve started. I’m going for Miss Lofthus, I think her name is . . .’

  Wide awake now, she almost fell out of bed. Opening the bedroom door, she heard a muffled groan from the other end of the house. It was disturbing – she did not know anything much about babies being born.

  ‘You stay with her,’ Fred instructed. There was no arguing, though the idea of being left on her own with these strange sounds made her legs turn to jelly.

  He was off down the stairs. Rachel crept along the landing and stood outside her mother and Fred’s bedroom door. She heard nothing for a few moments, then there was a low whimper and she heard her mother say, ‘Oh dear God.’

  Trembling, she tapped on the door and went in. A dim light glowed on the bedside table. All she could see in the bed was a humped shape under the bedclothes. As she went close she saw that Peggy was facing down onto the mattress, on all fours in the bed. This was even more disconcerting.

  ‘Mom? You all right?’

  Peggy turned her head. Her hair was hanging loose, unbrushed in a wild, frizzy mass. There was a tense expression on her face as if she was listening to some other sound that Rachel could not hear. ‘Yes . . . I’ll be . . . Oh!’ she cried. As the wave of pain began to sweep across her she gasped, ‘Go down and put the kettle on – and a pan of water . . .’

  Rachel dashed out to obey as the unnerving groaning sounds began to take over, relieved to be out of the fuggy bedroom and down in the back kitchen out of earshot. She filled the kettle and the biggest pan she could find, lit the gas under them and stood, her heart pounding, willing Fred to come back.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Sidney’s voice startled her horribly. He was at the kitchen door, bare from the waist up, his hair rumpled. She shrank away from his fishy white body with the shadow of thick hair on his chest, not even looking at him properly.

  ‘It’s my mother. She’s having the baby.’

  Sidney grunted. ‘Oh Christ . . .’ He slouched off upstairs again.

  Rachel listened to the kettle’s whisper, wondering what was supposed to happen next. The last thing she wanted was to go upstairs herself.

  Eventually she heard the front door open, and the sound of voices. As Fred Horton led Mrs Lofthus up the stairs, she heard the woman say, rather grumpily, ‘Let’s hope it’ll be on its way very soon. It’s not as if it’s her first, is it?’

  It was only then that Rachel fully took in that a new person was about to arrive in the house.

  It felt like an endless night. Contrary to what Mrs Lofthus had predicted, the baby was not in a hurry to be born. Fred Horton spent the night in the parlour, alternately smoking and snoozing and demanding cups of tea. Rachel stayed almost all the time in the back kitchen. Her job became that of supplying tea to Fred and Mrs Lofthus, a heavy woman with thick chins and swollen ankles who stayed on the chair by the bed, mostly dozing with her head on her chest despite the groans of pain from beside her.

  The first time Rachel crept upstairs and into the bedroom carrying a cup and saucer, she found Mrs Lofthus swigging out of a little brown bottle which she hurriedly corked and slipped into the pocket of her vast, grubby-looking apron. Over the bodily smells in the room was a heady reek of spirits.

  ‘Oh!’ Mrs Lofthus exclaimed. ‘You startled me, you did.’ She narrowed her eyes under their bushy brows. ‘What’s that you got?’

  ‘A cup of tea for you,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Ah – well, I could do with that,’ Mrs Lofthus said, pulling herself more upright. ‘Got plenty of sugar in, has it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rache
l fibbed. She’d put half a spoon in.

  ‘Anything to eat? I could do with a bite to eat, bab,’ she wheedled. ‘Sitting up all night like this.’

  ‘I’ll look,’ Rachel said. Peggy started to stir then, as if another of the pains was beginning, and Rachel hurried away out of the room. As she did so, she heard Mrs Lofthus say, ‘That’s it – come on, hurry along now will yer, madam. Push the thing out and let’s get it over with.’

  By the time a thin dawn light appeared there was still no sign of the baby. On and on it went as the sun rose and the day grew warm and fine. Fred moved restlessly in and out of the shop, even though it was a Sunday.

  ‘I can’t stand all this waiting,’ he said to Rachel as their paths crossed. ‘When’s it going to end? Alice didn’t take long.’ He was biting at his fingers and smoking one cigarette after another. ‘Oh my word, I do hope she’s going to be all right.’

  Rachel tidied the kitchen, trying to keep busy and fill her mind with something other than her mother’s struggles. She thought about Danny, about the drawings in the notebook. She felt the emotional tug of them again as if they were the key to understanding Danny. The boy in the drawings, Jack, had looked solitary but happy. She wondered why Danny had drawn him wearing a straw hat.

  As the morning progressed the sounds from upstairs became more intense. By midday, sitting at the kitchen table muzzy-headed with exhaustion, Rachel heard a sound which made her heart crash in her chest: the cracked, outraged cry of a newborn baby. She sat up straight with astonishment. The next moment she heard Fred’s feet pounding up the stairs, but she waited for a little while before following him.

  Knocking on the door, she walked in to find Fred perched on the side of the bed, his eyes looking wet and adoring as Peggy lay back, utterly spent, with the little wrapped bundle in her arms. Rachel stalled at the door, immediately feeling as if she was intruding.

  ‘A little wench,’ Miss Lofthus said, seeing her. Her voice sounded distinctly slurred. ‘All well with her – though she took her time, that one did.’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ Fred was saying. ‘My poor little pigeon –’ He laid his arm protectively round Peggy’s head, with her damp hair plastered down on it.

  ‘Go and see yer sister then,’ Miss Lofthus said to Rachel, since no one else took any notice. ‘And then, bab, I’ll need more water. There’s a bit to do yet. And another cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss.’

  Rachel went and peered at the tiny pink face of the baby. She was lying with her eyes closed, and very still.

  ‘Say hello to your little sister,’ Fred said. ‘This is Cynthia. A proper little princess, that’s what she is.’

  Rachel thought she looked more like a broiled rabbit. Her mother half-opened her eyes for a moment and murmured something before closing them again.

  Rachel slipped away. At the door she looked back at the three of them: Fred, her mother and this new being who had arrived. Fred Horton had his own daughter now. There they were, all together in a perfect triangle. Feeling cold and tired she went downstairs to boil yet more water.

  It felt as if she had been imprisoned in the house for days. She stepped out into the scrubby backyard and immediately heard voices, a gaggle of the neighbours over the wall, all talking excitedly. The air smelled mouth-wateringly of Sunday dinners roasting.

  The woman next door leaned over the wall and called to her, ‘How’s your mother, Rachel – did I hear summat from in there?’

  ‘She’s all right, ta, Mrs Hodge,’ Rachel said, squinting in the sudden light. Shyly she added, ‘She’s had the babby – a little girl.’

  ‘Ooh, has she?’ Mrs Hodge, a lean, handsome, copper-haired woman, called over her shoulder to the others, ‘Hear that? A new babby next door – a girl!’

  Everyone made noises of approval. There was talk of wetting babies’ heads.

  ‘What a day to arrive!’ Mr Hodge said, appearing beside his wife, blonde and pink skinned. Rachel never thought they looked well suited: what with her hair, they clashed, colour-wise.

  ‘How d’you mean?’ Rachel asked. She felt stupid with tiredness, as if nothing quite made sense. She had been in another world.

  ‘Have you not heard, bab?’ Mrs Hodge said. ‘Oh my word, I s’pose you’ll’ve missed it. We’re at war! Eleven o’clock – on the wireless – our Mr Chamberlain. He said if the Germans dain’t clear out of Poland we’d be at war and they ain’t – so we’re at war.’

  Rachel ran back inside and up the stairs.

  ‘We’re at war!’ she cried into the thick air of the bedroom. ‘They said next door. The war’s started – Mr Chamberlain said!’

  Miss Lofthus was wringing out a cloth over a bowl. Peggy raised her head from the pillow for a second.

  ‘Oh, Lord above,’ she said.

  ‘Rach – hang on, wait for me!’

  Lilian came charging along as Rachel set out for work a few days later on a cool, misty morning. Her cardigan was flying open and her hair already working its way out of the coil of a bun she had attempted to pin it back into. Rachel smiled, seeing her skinny friend tearing along. Lilian grabbed Rachel’s arm and clung onto her.

  ‘My God, it’s good to see you!’ she cried.

  Rachel smiled, surprised. ‘What’s up with you?’ she said as they walked up the Coventry Road amid the other hurrying morning workers.

  ‘Hey –’ Lilian didn’t answer the question straight away. ‘Has your mom had the babby yet? She must’ve by now?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Well, you don’t sound very excited. When Bobby was born I thought he was the best thing ever! What is it then?’

  ‘It’s a baby,’ Rachel said flatly.

  ‘Rach!’ Lilian tugged on her arm.

  ‘All right – it’s a girl. Cissy. Well, Cynthia but they call her Cissy all the time. She’s little, she’s got two arms and two legs and two of everything else except a head –’

  ‘What about nose?’

  ‘One nose. And one hell of a gob – she never stops blarting. Wah wah wah all flaming day – and night.’

  These days Rachel felt even more pushed away by her mother, who existed walled in by napkins and the baby sucking away at her, and Cissy’s yowling.

  ‘Oh, Rach, you’re awful – I bet she’s lovely.’

  ‘She’s all right,’ Rachel conceded. ‘When she’s asleep.’ She did stand sometimes and marvel at the little girl’s flickering eyelids and her little sucking mouth. She’d nothing against Cissy. She was a sweet little thing. But what she couldn’t stand was the way Fred slobbered over the baby. ‘Ooh, look at my little princess – the most beautiful thing in the world – ooh what a little darling.’ It was enough to make you sick.

  ‘Rach,’ Lilian was saying, still clinging urgently to her arm. ‘I’ve got to get out of this job. It’s going to drive me out of my wits I’m so bored. What can I do?’

  ‘I thought you said they were nice?’

  ‘They are, but I don’t know why I went to do it – I never liked arithmetic or numbers or anything when we were at school. And there’s only so much you want to know about cricket bats. The firm’s all right, it’s the job – it’d be the same wherever I was. And now with the war and everything . . .’

  There were signs of it everywhere, the changes that had come one by one. There were sandbags stacked up all over the place which all the dogs seemed to enjoy cocking their legs against, silvery barrage balloons tugging on their cables above the city and white-painted edges along the pavements to make it safer in the dark. Fred was doing a roaring trade in blackout material and it took them ages every evening, blacking out the house so that not a crack of light showed from any window. Posters were appearing with urgent messages on them: ‘FREEDOM IS IN PERIL, DEFEND IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT!’

  ‘Well, there’re jobs going,’ Rachel said. ‘What with the lads joining up. Why don’t you come and work at Bird’s?’

  ‘Could I, d’you think? Oh, Rach, I’d work anywhere almost, ex
cept doing this.’

  ‘I’ll ask for you. You’d be in the factory, I expect – we’re ever so busy,’ she added importantly.

  Within a fortnight, Lilian was established in the basement of the Devonshire Works where the packing was done. She was happy enough.

  ‘They keep telling me the custard’s made up at the top,’ she told Rachel at the end of the first day. ‘You know, the powder and that. And it comes down to us. I keep thinking there’s this big river of custard pouring down the stairs!’

  Rachel laughed. ‘Think of it – all bright yellow!’

  ‘Oh, it’s so much better here,’ Lilian said, ‘instead of being in that poky little office where I was. Even if everything is covered in yellow dust! We can have a chat and a laugh here. And the wages aren’t much different anyway.’

  Rachel was very happy to have Lilian around. But there was one problem. Lilian expected that every day the two of them would meet after work and go home together, if their shift patterns allowed it. But some days, every now and then, Rachel came out of work to find Danny waiting for her.

  ‘The thing is, Lily, he waits for me to walk me home when he can,’ she explained to her friend.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Lilian said rather huffily. ‘So you’re going to ditch me again for some boy . . . It’s that market boy, isn’t it? The one with the eyes.’

  Rachel blushed. ‘I like him, Lily. There’s summat about him.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to play gooseberry,’ Lilian said. ‘If he turns up I’ll clear off and leave you to it.’