Read the book: «Keep the Home Fires Burning»

ONE

‘I was speaking to Fred Shipley after Mass this morning, Bill Whittaker said as the family sat around the table that early April morning, eating their large breakfast. ‘You know, from a few doors up?’

His wife, Marion, nodded. ‘I know him. Ada’s husband. They have a son in the navy.’

‘So he was saying. He claims they’re getting all the ships into tiptop condition and more are being commissioned. Not that they tell the men much, but apparently they’re recruiting nineteen to the dozen, only it’s all hush-hush at the moment.’

‘Why?’

‘At a guess I’d say that they don’t want to start a national panic. Now, you’re not to fret about this, though maybe it is better to be semi-prepared, but I am beginning to wonder if Chamberlain was wilier than we gave him credit for when he came back from Munich waving that piece of paper last September, declaring that there’d be “Peace for our time”.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, I’m wondering if all that talk of appeasement was just a ploy so that we could get ourselves on a war footing should the need arise. I mean, can you see a man like Hitler being satisfied with just Austria and Czechoslovakia? And just at the moment he has plenty on his side, with the Fascist Franco winning the war in Spain, and Mussolini in charge in Italy. And Stalin seems to be another brutal dictator.’

Marion let her eyes settle on her family grouped around the table listening to her husband. Her elder three children looked very like her, with their hazel eyes and light brown hair, her handsome elder son, Richard, tall for fifteen. He had been apprenticed in the brass foundry, where his father worked, for almost a year now, Sarah, her beautiful eldest daughter, would be fifteen in October, and her mischievous second son, Tony, was just turned nine and sometimes one body’s work to watch. The identical twins, Miriam, who was known as Missie, and Magda, looked the spit of their father with their dark eyes and dark hair, and would be seven in June.

Suddenly Bill’s words seemed to threaten all Marion held dear, and she shuddered as she said, ‘Europe doesn’t seem to be a very safe place at the moment.’

‘It isn’t,’ Bill answered grimly.

‘But, Bill,’ Marion’s eyes looked large in her pale face, ‘surely no one wants war, certainly not after the last lot.’

‘No sane person wants war at any time,’ Bill said. ‘But Hitler isn’t sane, is he? You remember that rampage against the Jews that we heard about on the wireless last November? Would any sane man authorise that?’

‘Oh, I remember it well.’ And without thinking of the children listening, Marion went on, ‘The night we heard about it was a filthy one too, cold and windy with rain lashing down, and I thought, what if it had been us thrown out on a night like that, like those poor Jews were?’

Magda’s eyes were like saucers. ‘So why was Jews thrown out then?’ she asked.

Tony suppressed a sigh, but he could cheerfully have murdered Magda. She never would learn that once adults realised you were taking an interest in what they are saying, they either shut up or send you away.

Marion bit her lip and looked straight across at Bill. He mopped the last of the egg yolk up with his bread before he shrugged and said, ‘These are strange times. Maybe it is better that they know what happened.’

Marion really thought Tony and the twins too young to know the full horrors of that night, yet they looked the most interested, but it was Sarah who said, ‘Please tell us the rest? You can’t leave it there.’

‘All right,’ Marion said. ‘The people attacked and thrown out of their homes that night were Jews in cities and towns all over Germany. Even the broadcaster on the BBC was shocked at the level and scale of violence. Storm troopers, members of the SS, and Hitler Youth beat and murdered even women and children.’

‘Yes,’ said Bill, accepting another cup of tea from Marion. ‘It went on for three days in some places. One observer claimed the sky had turned red with the number of synagogues that were alight, in case the persecuted Jews tried to take refuge there, and the Germans called it “The Night of Broken Glass”.’

‘But why?’ Richard asked.

Bill sighed. ‘Many German Jews had been rounded up and dumped on the Polish border, each with all they could carry in one suitcase. One young Jewish boy living in Paris heard that his own family had been evicted in that way and he bought a gun and killed a German Embassy official. This was the German response.’

‘Gosh,’ Richard said. ‘I don’t suppose he ever thought the Germans would react like they did.’

‘No,’ Bill agreed, ‘I don’t suppose he did.’

‘What happened to the Jewish people when it was all over?’ Sarah asked.

Bill shrugged. ‘Many died, some were arrested, others just disappeared, and it was said that a lot committed suicide ? in despair, I would imagine ? and who in God’s name could blame them?’

‘Did anything happen to Germany for doing such awful things?’

‘Most of the other countries said it was dreadful and barbaric, and America did recall their ambassador, but that was all.’

‘It was a terrible thing to do,’ Sarah said.

‘Yes,’ Marion said heavily. Then: ‘And we could talk about it till the cows come home and it won’t change a thing. Meanwhile, if you’ve finished, Bill, I could do with clearing away because I need to get the dinner on. Sarah, will you give me a hand?’

Sarah smiled to herself as she collected plates, for it wasn’t a question. She was the eldest girl and so it was her lot to help her mother. She didn’t really mind because her mother was a very good cook and she learned a lot by watching her.

As they rose from the table Bill saw Richard’s eyes on him and knew he would have liked to talk some more. However, he knew when Clara Murray, Marion’s mother, came to tea, as she and Eddie, Marion’s father, did every Sunday. She would likely have an opinion on the world’s unrest. She did most weeks ? and her views, on any subject, were delivered in tones that would brook no argument.

Bill disliked her intensely and, he knew, so did the children, so every Sunday afternoon, just after one of Marion’s succulent dinners, unless it was teeming from the heavens, he tried to keep Tony and the twins away from their grandmother for as long as possible.

A light breeze scudded the clouds across the blue sky where a pale yellow sun was trying to shine as Bill, Tony and the twins stepped out into Albert Road that afternoon.

‘Well, where do you want to go?’ Bill asked.

The children looked at one another. They knew if they turned right and went to the bottom of the street then they would be at Aston Park, which they liked well enough, but if they turned down Sutton Street and into Rocky Lane they would come to the Cut, which was what Brummies called the canal. Their father had told them once that Birmingham had more canals that Venice, and whether it had or not, the children loved to see the brightly painted barges decorated with elephants and castles, and so they said as one, ‘The Cut.’

‘Right you are then.’ Bill strode down the road holding a twin by each hand, while Tony ran ahead like a young colt. The sun peeping out from beneath the clouds made even the water in the mud-slicked canal sparkle and the paintwork on the boats and barges gleamed. The Whittakers wandered along the towpath towards Salford Bridge. These days the barges had small motors to drive them, but Bill said when he was a boy they had been horse drawn: ‘Big solid horses with shaggy feet.’

‘Like the one the coalman has?’ Magda asked.

‘The very same. They’re called shire horses and are built for strength and stamina, not speed. Now, when they would come to a tunnel, the men and big boys would have to unshackle the horse and walk the barge through with their feet. It was called “legging it”.’

‘And I suppose the horses had to go over the top?’ said Tony.

‘That’s right. A younger boy or a woman or girl would lead it over to meet up with the barge on the other side. It was a grand sight to see, but motorised barges make life much easier for them.’

‘Faster too.’

‘I don’t know if it would be that much faster, Tony. A barge isn’t allowed to go at any great speed anyway. They’re not built for it.’

‘No,’ Tony said, ‘they’re not, but I wish I’d seen the horses pulling them, anyway.’

‘And me,’ said Missie, as she gave a sudden shiver.

‘Are you cold?’ Bill asked.

‘She can’t be cold,’ Tony declared. ‘It ain’t the slightest bit nippy and them kids don’t seem to think so either.’

He was referring to the bargee boys. They were brown-skinned, often scantily dressed and barefoot, and they didn’t seem to feel the slightest chill as they leaped with agility from boat to boat or out onto the towpath to operate the locks.

Tony watched them with envy. ‘Wouldn’t that be a grand life, Dad?’ he said. ‘Just to do that all day long. I’d never get fed up of it.’

Bill smiled as he turned back along the towpath. ‘I think you would, son,’ he said. ‘It’s not that fine a life; I think a fairly hard one, for the children at least. Many of them never have the benefit of a proper education, with them moving up and down the canal the way they do.’

Tony looked at his father in amazement. ‘I wouldn’t care a whit about that,’ he maintained. ‘A life like that would suit me down to the ground.’

Bill let out a bellow of laughter. ‘I think, Tony, that you and school are not the best of friends.’

‘No,’ Tony said. ‘I hate school, if you want to know. Everyone does, don’t they?’

‘No, they don’t,’ Magda contradicted. ‘I don’t. I like school. Don’t you, Missie?’

Missie nodded as Tony said disparagingly, ‘That’s because you’re still in the infants. You wait till you’re in the juniors in September. You do summat wrong, or don’t do your work right or quick enough, and they hit you with a big cane, or bring the ruler down on your knuckles.’

‘How many girls does that happen to?’ Bill asked with a sardonic grin.

‘Well, not that many, I suppose,’ Tony had to admit. ‘They seem to have it in for boys.’

‘That’s because boys are always playing up,’ Magda said.

‘And you don’t, Miss Goody Two-Shoes?’

‘No,’ Magda said. ‘I don’t like being yelled at, and really the only person who seems to do that all the time ? to me anyroad ? is Grandma Murray.’

‘Don’t take that personally,’ Bill said. ‘She seems to have it in for a lot of people.’

‘But it’s not fair,’ Magda said. ‘The one she should tell off more is Tony, but he always gets away with it, just ‘cos he’s a boy.’

‘Can’t help that, can I?’ Tony said with a cheeky grin, and Bill had to compress his lips to stop himself from smiling.

‘Come on, stop bickering,’ he said, ‘it’s time to head home. If we’re late we’ll all be in for the high jump.’

Magda gave a grimace in her sister’s direction because the twins knew exactly how it would be when they got home. As far back as they could remember, their grandparents had come to tea on Sunday. It was always served in the parlour, the room their mother set such store by, like she did about the piano. Sarah had told Magda and Missie their father thought the piano a waste of money, for no one had ever learned to play it, but their mother had wanted the piano because she said none of their neighbours had anything so fine.

‘Why does that matter?’ Magda had asked.

Sarah shrugged. ‘I don’t know why,’ she’d admitted. ‘It just does.’

It was very confusing to both girls but, as Missie said, grown-ups often did odd things, and Magda had to agree.

All the furniture in the parlour, like the piano, was big, dark and gloomy. On Sundays it all had to be moved about to accommodate everyone. Six days a week, the big mahogany table would be set in the bay window behind madras net curtains. It would be covered with a dark red chenille cloth, with an aspidistra in a decorated pot in the centre of it. Either side of the table were two straight-backed dining chairs with padded seats, and two more dining chairs stood either side of the matching sideboard.

The picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in which Jesus held one hand to his heart dripping with blood in his open chest ? a picture that always made Magda feel queasy ? hung on the wall above the fireplace. That was surrounded by marble tiles and protected by a brass fender. In front of it sat the dreaded horsehair sofa.

However, on Sunday afternoon, the aspidistra would be placed on the sideboard and the chenille cloth changed for one of Nottingham lace. In order that the table could be pulled out with the four padded chairs round it and two wooden ones brought out from the kitchen for Sarah and Richard, the horsehair sofa would be swung in front of the piano. And every Sunday the twins had to sit on it in silence and wait for the adults to finish eating before they could have anything, because their grandmother said it would put manners on them.

It was just like that when they went in that day. Marion and Sarah were carrying things to the table in the parlour where the children’s grandparents were already sitting, but Tony was nowhere to be seen. He had been with them as they walked back home and when they went in through the back gate, but between there and the back door he sort of melted away and Magda knew he had gone over the wall again. So did Bill, and he couldn’t blame the boy, nor had he any intention of going after him. As soon as he had started doing this, a year or so ago, Marion had said that he should discipline him. ‘For what?’ Bill had said angrily. ‘For refusing to sit still and silent for as long as it takes us to eat our tea on a Sunday, and all because that’s what your mother wants? It’s bad enough for the girls but Tony would never be constrained that way and you know it. It would be more trouble than it’s worth.’

Marion knew that Bill spoke the truth and she would spend the whole of the meal telling Tony off, so she had said nothing more. Every week Tony got away with it, as far as Missie and Magda were concerned.

‘No Tony again, I see,’ Grandma Murray remarked as the girls settled themselves on the sofa. ‘Ah, well, boys will be boys.’

Grandma Murray was fond of sayings. One she usually directed at Magda was, ‘Little girls should be seen and not heard.’ Magda often wondered if there had been a similar one she attached to grown men because Granddad Murray never seemed to say much more than please and thank you at the table where his wife held sway, and even her father was less talkative at Sunday tea.

‘Magda, if I have to tell you again about keeping those legs still I might be forced to administer a sharp smack across them,’ her grandmother suddenly snapped, and Magda realised that they were waggling again, just as if they had a mind of their own. She fought to gain control over her wayward legs because she had felt the power of her grandmother’s slaps before.

She heard her father’s sharp intake of breath clearly and saw his lips pursed together and knew he was vexed. If her grandmother were really to smack her then it would probably result in a row, as it had done in the past, and that was worse than any smack.

She knew her father didn’t like the fact they had to sit there every Sunday he’d said to Marion angrily and watch the adults devouring all the dainty sandwiches, crisp pastries and feather-light sponge cakes that Mommy had spent hours preparing, because she’d heard him arguing with her mother about it. ‘It’s unfair to them,’ Magda had heard him protest angrily after their grandparent had gone home. ‘They’re only children and its ridiculous to have them sitting there each Sunday like a pair of bloody bookends.’

Bill Whittaker, however, knew only the half of it because, as the adults ate, the horsehair pushed through the fabric of that sofa and through the twins’ clothes to attack their legs and buttocks like thousands of sharp needles. That was why Magda swung her legs and shuffled about, to try to ease the torment that Missie seemed better able to bear.

Missie was always neater and tidier than Magda was as well, as her mother and grandmother were always reminding her. She stole a look at her twin sister. There she was, sitting as if she were made of stone, with her pristine Sunday clothes still neat and tidy, and her dark ringlets shining in the sunlight.

Magda knew her hair wouldn’t look like Missie’s. Each weekday, the two of them had their hair in plaits because of the risk of nits at school, and Magda would marvel that Missie’s plaits never came unravelled and she never lost her hair ribbons. Magda’s kirbi grips, too, seemed to develop a life of their own and would fling themselves recklessly from her tangled locks, to be trodden underfoot and lost for ever.

On Saturday night, however, after their bath, their newly washed and still damp hair was twisted into rags so that they would have ringlets for Mass on Sunday morning. This worked with Missie, but sometimes Magda’s hair wouldn’t co-operate. Her mother was always saying that she couldn’t understand it. Magda couldn’t understand it either, but she knew it was no use saying so.

Marion hoped that war talk wouldn’t dominate the tea table but, surprisingly, it was her father who said in a break in the conversation, ‘They’ve recalled the Territorial Army from overseas. A bloke at work told me that his son was in France and had to come home.’

‘You never told me this,’ Clara complained.

‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’ Eddie said mildly. ‘Tell you summat else as well. They’ve begun a call up of men aged twenty and twenty-one.’

‘Christ! That’s it then.’

‘Good,’ Richard said. He looked at his parents as he went on, ‘What you told us this morning about The Night of Broken Glass made me feel sick. It’s hard to believe that people could be so cruel and heartless, and Hitler’s long been picking on the Jews. One of the Jewish apprentices told me that they hadn’t been able to go to school for ages before they came here.’

‘That would suit Tony then,’ Bill said.

‘Don’t think much of what they tell me would suit anyone, Dad,’ Richard said. ‘You wouldn’t credit some of the things they say happen. I thought that maybe they were exaggerating a bit. Now I’m pretty certain they’re not. They had to leave their parents behind and haven’t heard a word from them since.’

Clara had been astounded at Richard speaking so forcibly, but she recovered herself enough to say, ‘We are talking about Jews. They are little better than heathens ? and don’t forget they killed Jesus Christ.’

‘Not these particular Jews,’ Richard said with a pitying glance at his grandmother. ‘That happened nearly two thousand years ago, and they worship the same God as you. But, just as important as all that, they are people, the same as us, who feel the same hurt and pain. Someone must stop Hitler.’

‘It very much looks as if we’re getting ready to do just that,’ Bill said.

His words hung in the air and there was nothing anyone could say for a minute or two, the atmosphere was so highly charged.

In the end Marion said, ‘If we have finished shall we go into the other room and let the children sit down? I’m sure they’re more than ready for it, and we can have another cup of tea in there if you’d like one.’

Clara got up from the table, grumbling about being shooed away before she was ready, and glared so malevolently at the twins that Magda said afterwards it was as if she was begrudging them every mouthful.

Tony came sidling in as the adults were leaving the room. Magda could never understand how he timed it that well. She was so mad at the unfairness of it all and her brother’s smugness that she gave him a hefty kick under the table with her stout shoes and heard his yelp of pain. She thought it worth the reprimand because it managed to wipe the smirk off his face for once.

Despite the lovely food they had on Sunday, Magda often felt that it was the very worst day of the week, not only because of her grandmother’s visit, but also because of the clothes she had to wear for Mass. Marion often despaired of getting Magda to behave in a more ladylike way and the difference between the twins was more marked on Sunday, when they dressed in their best clothes, than on school days when they wore more serviceable clothes in navy or grey. Today they wore matching lace-trimmed dresses decorated with swirly patterns in pastel colours, with lace peeping out from the hem, and Magda knew that when they undressed for bed that night, Missie’s would be little different from when she had first put it on, while her own would resembled a limp rag.

‘It’s just as if, as soon as she’s dressed in her good clothes, muck in all its various forms flings itself onto her,’ Marion said to Bill later that same evening after the twins had gone to bed. ‘And she is so clumsy on Sundays. She seems to drop or spill nearly everything given to her and so that ends up on her dress as well. My mother always has something to say.’

‘Huh,’ Bill said. ‘That’s no surprise. She never has a good word to say about Magda anyway.’

‘She does seem to have it in for her all right,’ Marion conceded.

‘And have you thought that Magda might soil her clothes more because she is trying too hard? Her nervousness makes her more clumsy, especially with your mother around.’

‘I never thought of it like that before.’

‘Well, I’ve just been up to them,’ Bill said, ‘and their dresses are hung on the chair by the bed, so how about saying nothing more to Magda tonight, especially as your mother gave her a real roasting about the state of her clothes already?’

Marion knew that Bill had a point, so when she went to say good night to the girls she took the dresses without a word, though she knew she would have her work cut out getting Magda’s dress respectable enough to wear the following week. Magda, expecting some reprimand, was surprised when none came.

‘Have you both said your prayers?’ their mother asked, and the twins nodded solemnly.

‘We said them with Daddy,’ Missie said.

‘Well now, don’t you be talking half the night either,’ Marion said as she tucked them both in, gave them each a kiss and turned out the light but left the landing one on so that there would be a dim light for Sarah to get undressed by. ‘Remember you have school in the morning.’

Magda couldn’t believe she had got away so lightly and neither could Missie. ‘Maybe it was because Grandma told you off so much?’ Missie suggested.

‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Magda said. ‘She has told me off lots of times. Maybe Mommy just thinks I’m a hopeless case.’

‘Well, Grandma might too eventually.’

‘She won’t,’ Magda said. ‘I heard Daddy say that she’ll still be giving out when they nail her coffin down.’

Missie giggled.

‘I don’t think I was supposed to hear,’ Magda said, ‘but he really doesn’t like Grandma any more than we do.’

‘Does anyone?’ Missie answered. ‘Cept Granddad and Mommy, I suppose.’

‘Well, I don’t blame anyone for not liking her,’ Magda said.

‘Nor me,’ Missie agreed, and the two girls fell to discussing just how horrid their grandma was, so that when Sarah came to bed the two girls were wide awake.

‘You two should be asleep by now,’ she chided.

‘We were talking about Grandma Murray,’ Magda explained. ‘I think she’s a witch. She looks like a witch. Everything is long and pointed, like her bony fingers and her nose, and she’s got no proper teeth, just brown stumps.’

‘And she always wears black as well,’ Missie put in.

‘That’s because she lost all the babies and that,’ Sarah said as she took the grips out of the bun holding her hair in place. Her hair cascaded down her back and she brushed it out with the big wide brush. ‘Mom told me and Richard ages ago.’

‘Tell us then.’

‘It’s time for you to go to sleep.’

‘Oh, go on, Sarah,’ said both girls together.

‘All right,’ Sarah said, winding her hair into one plait with a speed that the twins always envied. She secured her hair with a band and padded across the room, saying as she did so, ‘But budge over then. I need to get into bed first.’

The twins moved across to make room for their sister and she turned off the light and got into bed between them. With the three of them all tucked in together and the darkness settling around them, Sarah said, ‘Mom said Grandma Murray had ten children altogether and one by one most of them died.’

‘What of?’

‘Some from diphtheria, Mom said, and others from TB.’

‘And was they all babies?’

‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘Mom said they were mostly children, only there was a baby who died in her cot when she was only little and they never found out why. Anyroad, in the end, there was only four left, Mom, Aunt Polly and the two eldest, Michael and Owen. Then Owen and Michael decided to try their luck in America, only Michael didn’t make it and when Owen wrote and told them of his death Grandma Murray pledged that she would wear black until the day she died. Mom always said that his death had affected her most, for he had been her first-born and the seventh child of hers to die, and then his body had been tipped into the Atlantic so she didn’t even have a grave to visit.’ Sarah let the twins reflect on this for a moment or two and then she said, ‘Now you’ve got to admit that that’s really sad.’

‘It is,’ Missie agreed slowly and then added, ‘And with anyone else I would feel very sorry for them, but Grandma’s hard to feel sorry for, and she can be so nasty at times.’

‘Mom always says that we have to make allowances,’ Sarah said. ‘Point is, though, I don’t see how shouting and going on like she does can help anyone cope better.’

‘Nor me,’ Magda said. ‘And I still don’t like her much.’

Missie shivered. ‘Nor me, and she scares me as well.’

‘She don’t scare me,’ Magda declared stoutly. ‘I won’t let her scare me.’ But she said it as though she were trying to convince herself.

‘Well, whatever you think about her, let’s stop talking about her now and go to sleep,’ Sarah advised. ‘Or Mom will be up to see what we are gassing about, and I’m bushed and don’t want to talk any more.’

Neither did Magda, who was suddenly feeling very sleepy, and beside her she heard Missie give a yawn and the three girls snuggled down together and were soon all fast asleep.