Cousins at War (2 page)

‘Oh, Joe,’ she sighed happily then remembered that their son and daughter were still in the room. ‘It’s time you two were in bed, and get that grin off your face,
Neil.’

Neil was still grinning as he went out, but when he came up from the lavatory, he heard his father saying, ‘Don’t fly off the handle at me, Gracie, but I couldn’t help noticing
the size of Olive’s breasts,’ and was so taken aback that he waited to hear what else might be said. ‘They’re bigger than yours ever were,’ his father went on,
‘even before you had the kids.’

‘You’re a dirty old man,’ his mother laughed. ‘I know mine are sagging a bit, but just you keep your eyes off hers.’

‘A man can’t keep his eyes off what’s flaunted in front of him, but that’s not what I meant. She’s too conscious of her body, and she’s going to use it to
land some man in trouble some day. Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m not roused by her, but Neil . . . ach, I’m speaking a lot of rubbish! It’s all that drink Martin forced on
me.’

‘You didn’t need much forcing.’

‘Maybe no’, maybe no’, but it’s only once a year. Still, I think we should call it a day, what d’you say?’

Hearing his parents moving, Neil scuttled into his bedroom before they caught him eavesdropping. He, too, had seen how Olive’s new dress had emphasised her breasts and had been a little
alarmed by a strange feeling every time his eyes fell on them, but his father didn’t have to worry about him. He had never liked her; she gave the impression of looking down on other people
but always gave him a come-hither look which was a complete waste of time, for he couldn’t stand girls of any kind. Boys – well, most boys – could talk about football or something
else he was interested in, but girls babbled on about trivialities, and Olive was worse than any of them. He would have to be careful not to let her get him on his own, though, for she was so
cunning that she could trap him into saying whatever she wanted him to say, even if it was the last thing on earth he’d meant to.

A few days later, almost wishing that he hadn’t given them the money to go, Joe listened with half an ear to Gracie and Patsy telling him how well the A.R. Whatmore
Players had performed
Charley’s Aunt
that afternoon, and when they ran out of things to say he observed, ‘Rationing starts on the eighth, and Jim and me are going to be tied in
knots worrying about coupons as well as serving.’

Gracie, more interested in her rare visit to His Majesty’s Theatre, brushed this triviality aside. ‘It’ll maybe not be as bad as you think,’ and Patsy added,
‘You’ve said yourself that the war’s not going to last long.’

‘It looks as if it’s going to last longer than I thought,’ he admitted, ‘and you’ll change your tune, Gracie, when you just get the bare rations.’

This put a different complexion on things. ‘You’ll surely let your wife have more?’

‘No, I’ll be in trouble if I give anybody more than their share, and I can see some of my regulars falling out with me for not letting them have as much as they want.’

His wife came dangerously near to falling out with him the following week when he brought up three pounds of sugar and informed her that it was their allowance for the week. ‘It’s
not enough!’ she exclaimed, in disgust. ‘I need five pounds, sometimes six.’

‘Three’s all you’ll be getting now.’

Gracie looked at him accusingly. ‘You take four spoons in every cup of tea and so does Neil. That’s more than a pound each in a week. What about Patsy and me? And
puddings?’

‘You’ll just have to cut down.’

The tables were turned next day when Gracie gave Joe his supper. ‘One haddock?’ he gasped. ‘That’s not enough to keep body and soul together.’

‘Fish is up in price,’ she told him, triumphant at getting her own back, ‘and I could only afford four.’

Both Neil and Patsy hooted with laughter at this, and Joe said no more.

As the weeks passed, Gracie, like all housewives in Britain, became adept at spinning out the rations. A thin scraping of butter was all she allowed on toast; the deep sugar
spoon in the bowl was replaced by a small teaspoon, and Joe and Neil were shamed into taking only three per cup, because she had stopped taking any at all. Milk puddings were never as sweet as her
menfolk liked them, but they didn’t dare to pass any comments and soon became so used to the taste that they cut themselves down to two spoons in their tea.

Neil had done a year and four months of his apprenticeship as a motor mechanic, and Patsy had started as an office girl with an insurance firm when she left school last summer, but their wages
were so small that their mother was still on a tight budget. It took all Gracie’s ingenuity to clothe and feed four on what Joe gave her, and she had to wait until he handed it over on
Saturday lunchtime before she could buy in Sunday’s dinner, but they certainly never starved.

His mother sometimes wished that Neil had found some other kind of work, his workmates sounded such a rough bunch, and her feelings were strengthened when he came home one day in high spirits.
‘We’d all a right laugh this morning. You know I told you a new apprentice was starting? Well, he got the usual works from the boys. First of all, old Crookie . . .’

‘Crookie?’ Gracie looked puzzled. She thought she knew all the men’s names by this time.

‘Dougie Cruickshank, you’ve heard me speaking about him. He’s a grim-faced bugger . . .’

‘Neil!’ The reprimand shot out from his shocked mother. ‘I don’t allow swearing in this house, you should know that.’

‘Sorry, Mum, I forgot. As I was telling you, Crookie’s a grim-faced . . . blighter, but he’s an awful joker, and he told Harry, that’s the lad that started today, to go
and ask the storeman for a left-handed screwdriver and . . .’

‘I didn’t know there were left-handed screwdrivers.’

‘There aren’t, that’s what was so funny, and the storeman played along with Crookie. He sent Harry to ask the foreman for a long stand and promised to have the screwdriver
looked out when he came back.’

‘What do they use a long stand for?’

‘Och, Mum, you’re as ignorant as Harry. He stood for about half an hour beside the foreman before it dawned on him they were making a fool of him, but he took it in good part. All
new apprentices have to put up with things like that.’

‘I don’t think it was very nice of the men to do that.’

‘It’s just for a laugh, Mum.’

‘Taking the rise out of a young boy doesn’t sound much of a laugh to me, and I’m not sure if that’s a decent place for you to be working. I just hope the men don’t
teach you any more bad language.’

‘Ach, Mum!’

Neil’s lunch break lasting only three-quarters of an hour, he had to go back to work before Patsy and Joe came in at one, but Gracie recounted the incident to them and was quite put out
when Joe roared with laughter. Patsy, like herself, was sorry for Harry, although her father told them it was the usual practice for time-served tradesmen to play pranks on new apprentices.

‘I’ll never understand men’s mentality,’ Gracie declared, making Joe laugh even louder.

Neil was not in a good mood when he came home for lunch at twelve, two days later. Gracie took one look at his lowering brows and said, ‘What’s wrong with you? Were you at the end of
the teasing today? Now you’ll know what it feels like.’

‘It wasn’t anything like that. It’s Olive. She was waiting for me when I came out, and she was determined to walk home with me, though I told her to get lost.’

‘I told you not to be nasty to her, Neil.’

‘It didn’t bother her. I wouldn’t let her put her arm in mine though she tried to, but the lads were all laughing at me for walking up the road with a schoolgirl, and I bet
I’ll get a right earful when I go back.’

‘She’ll not bother you again if you’ve upset her.’

‘She’d better not!’ Neil said, darkly. He’d been mortified to see the bottle-green clad figure waiting for him outside the yard. ‘She looked like a top-heavy
cucumber with feet,’ he spat out in disgust.

When Patsy came in, she was so excited about her promotion from office girl to junior typist that Gracie said nothing to Joe about Neil’s upset, but she worried all afternoon in case Olive
was getting too fond of him. He wouldn’t find it easy to brush her off, and she might cause trouble.

At teatime, Neil cuffed his sister lightly on the cheek when he heard her news. ‘Good for you. You’ll soon be in charge of that office.’

Anxious to know what had transpired after the interlude at lunchtime, Gracie asked him, ‘Did anybody say anything when you went back?’

His face split into a grin. ‘Nothing I wasn’t expecting. I just laughed when they said I was cradle snatching, and they soon got tired of tormenting me.’

‘Aye,’ she agreed. ‘That was the best thing to do.’

Joe and Patsy were loud in condemnation of Olive when they learned what she had done, but Neil said, ‘I was rattled at the time, but I’ve cooled off now, and I don’t think
she’ll come back. It’s the first time she’s seen me in my dungers, and the look on her face was enough to make a cat laugh. Her nose crinkled up like she’d touched a dollop
of shit.’

Joe slapped his thigh in glee. ‘Olive’s easy scunnered if she can’t stand the smell of a wee bit grease. You should be glad she came, if it put her off you.’

‘That’s what I was thinking myself,’ Neil laughed.

‘You haven’t washed your hands yet,’ Gracie reminded him. ‘I’m not wanting oil all over the tablecloth.’ She, too, was glad that Olive had been
‘scunnered’. She had often moaned herself about having to wash Neil’s dungarees and how long they took to dry, but not any more.

Olive was disgruntled. Neil had made it quite clear that he wasn’t pleased to see her, and it had been a mistake to go, in more ways than one. She shouldn’t have
worn her uniform; he had been embarrassed that his workmates – horrible dirty men who had leered into her face – were seeing him with a schoolgirl; and worse, he wasn’t so
handsome when his face was all streaked with grease. She had been nauseated by his filthy overalls when she tried to slip her arm through his, and had been relieved when he shook her off. She would
have to insist that he changed his job before they were married, because she couldn’t face having a mechanic for a husband. It would be much too degrading.

The thought of him being her husband cheered her up. If he had a white collar job, it would be sheer heaven to wait for him coming home each night, to let him take her in his arms and kiss her,
to have his soft hands running over her body. Absolute bliss! And she was sure it would come to pass, some day. She would just have to figure out another way to get him on his own before she could
start working on him.

Furious at the butcher – meat rationing had been introduced on 11 March – Gracie took it out on her husband. ‘It’s all a trick, if you ask me. One and
three-quarters pounds per person per week, he said, but I need something for a dinner and a supper every day. Then he’d the cheek to say we’ll get nothing but mutton or rabbit for a wee
while.’

Neil screwed up his face. ‘Not mutton? Yeugh!’

‘Things are getting tight,’ Joe said, cautiously.

Gracie was not appeased. ‘What right have the Ministry of Food to tell folk what they can and can’t eat? How can wives feed a family on what they’re allowed? It’s like
the loaves and fishes all over again. If this war goes on much longer, we’ll all be skeletons.’

‘It’s a good way to keep slim,’ Patsy smiled, ‘and there’s always plenty of tatties.’

Gracie tutted. ‘They used to say tatties were fattening, and now they’re telling us they’re good for you. They just say what they like.’

After tidying up, Gracie vented her anger on the balaclava she was knitting for the ‘Comforts for the Troops’ campaign, her needles flashing in and out as fast as the needle of her
mother’s Jones sewing machine. It was very old, marked ‘By appointment to Her Majesty Queen Alexandra’, but still worked as good as new. She had turned a pair of sheets yesterday,
splitting them up the middle where they were worn thin and stitching the side edges together.

By May, Gracie was even more angry at the Ministry of Food. ‘It said on the wireless that the sugar ration’s to be cut, and the butter’s to be
halved.’

Joe rolled his eyes. ‘You don’t need to tell me. It’s bad enough just now having to explain to folk that money doesn’t matter these days, without the rations being cut
down. How will old wives understand they can only get half a pound of sugar and a quarter of butter, when they see I’ve got more in the shop? And it’s not just food. They’ve to
contend with other things as well. I was sorry for one poor old soul this afternoon. She must be over eighty, and she’d been caught in that crowd that wrecked Mosely’s meeting at the
Castlegate. She was in a real state, she thought the Jerries had come.’

‘That Mosely!’ Gracie exclaimed. ‘Him and his blackshirts, they’re just din-raisers.’

‘Aye, you’re right there.’ Her husband was pleased that he had taken her mind off the cut in the rations. He had to put up with his customers moaning at him all day, and he
wanted peace and quiet to read the evening paper when he came home. He lifted his head and smiled when Patsy walked in, but his peace was shattered when Neil appeared minutes later.

‘I want to join up,’ Neil told him, ‘but I’ve to get your permission, Dad.’

Joe’s eyes darkened. ‘Well, you’re not getting it.’

Gracie, halting in the act of dishing up the supper, came over to the table with the serving spoon in her hand. ‘Neil, what are you thinking about? You can’t join up. You’ve
still to finish your apprenticeship.’

‘I could finish it in the army.’

Joe thumped the table with his fist. ‘You’re not going in the army, and that’s final.’

‘I’ll be called up in a year or so, anyway,’ Neil pointed out, indignantly, ‘so what’s the difference?’

‘You’ve just said it,’ Joe thundered. ‘A year or two. The war could be over by that time and you wouldn’t need to go.’

‘I want to go!’ Neil roared.

Putting her hand on her brother’s arm, Patsy said softly, ‘Calm down, Neil. You’ll never get anywhere shouting at Dad like that. Why don’t you finish your apprenticeship
first, then see how you feel about joining up?’