War Babies (2 page)

Rachel looked around her. The wide road was very quiet and clean compared with Deritend. Except for a couple of people whose steps she could hear further along the street, it was almost
deserted.

One of them, a man, was trundling along towards her, pushing a barrow. As he drew closer in his shabby clothes, she saw that he was quite an old fellow, a knife grinder with his tools on the
barrow, who must also have been working his way along the street. His head was lowered and he was mumbling to himself. He did not look up as he passed Rachel. She heard his muttering and the creak
of the barrow, caught a whiff of stale sweat and then he was gone round the corner. She thought he sounded angry but she wasn’t sure. He was another of those people Mom said she
shouldn’t talk to.

It was quiet enough to hear her mother’s footsteps moving along the side of the house towards the servants’ entrance. Don’t let her start coughing again, Rachel prayed. It
seemed wrong for a stranger to see Mom bent over, helpless like that. Rachel heard the door open and quickly hid herself again. There was a quiet exchange of women’s voices, but even so,
Rachel’s innards tightened with dread. She was not used to this yet. They had only started out selling on the Rag Market just a few weeks ago, when they could get a pitch. She always went
with Mom now, two or three days a week after school, to help carry things. They’d take the tram or a trolleybus out to one of the spacious suburbs and work their way along the streets of big
houses. Mom always put on the most genteel voice she could and spoke very politely:

‘I was wondering if you had any unwanted clothes or items to sell, madam. I’ll give you a fair price.’

Last week at a house in Moseley, a man answered the door. ‘You clear off!’ he burst out, voice full of scorn at the very sight of them. ‘I’m not having any of your sort
round my place. You go back where you belong, you filthy gyppos!’

‘Heaven damn him,’ Peggy burst out once they were along the street. In a low voice she added, ‘May they rot. Rot!’ She stopped and stared at her shaking hands as if she
did not know what to do with them. ‘Do I look like a gypsy?
Do I?
’

Of course the answer was no. She was a neat woman, quietly spoken and as well dressed as she could manage in her precarious circumstances, in a black coat belted at the waist and her dark green
hat with a peacock feather tucked in the brim. The comfortable life she thought she had been promised by her dead husband, Harold Mills, had been cruelly snatched away, both by his death and by the
hard truths she found out about him afterwards – the gambling debts, the dreams he had spun in the face of hard reality. After two years of struggling with every kind of work she could do to
stay home and out of the factory, cleaning and taking in laundry, outwork from factories like sewing pins or snap fasteners onto cards, she had hit upon an additional source of income – the
markets. After all, they only lived a stone’s throw away from them. So she had become a ‘wardrobe dealer’.

Today they had been to several houses already. Some of the ladies had dismissed her abruptly – or at least, instructed their maids to send her packing. Rachel, waiting outside, heard front
doors close with an emphatic bang and then her mother’s hurried footsteps in her black shoes with their tidy heels, their strap and button.

‘Right snooty little madam that one,’ Peggy fumed as one of them ordered her to leave. ‘Putting on airs. Anyone’d think she owned that brassy monstrosity of a house
herself when she’s nothing more than a skivvy.’

More often though, after being turned away as if she was something dirty, Mom would be silent, sprung taut as a mousetrap. Rachel could feel it in her, waiting for her to snap.

The air grew colder while she waited, hugging herself as a ghostly mist spread along the street. She hoped this would be the last one, that they could just go home and get in close to the fire .
. . She stood hopping from one foot to the other, trying to keep warm. Her stomach was gurgling with hunger. What on earth was going on? She couldn’t hear a sound. After what seemed an
endlessly long time, she heard voices again. The door closed quietly and she heard her mother hurrying back down the path.

Peggy stepped out onto the street, a parcel in her arms. Rachel could hear the faint crackle of paper. But before she could say anything, her mother turned her face to the wall, the parcel
clutched to her breast and her other hand over her eyes, and burst into tears. Her shoulders shook as the pent-up sobs forced their way out and her weeping made her cough and gulp. Rachel listened
helplessly.

‘Mom?’ she dared to say eventually. Her voice came out sounding small and scared. Had this lady been nasty like the others?

‘Oh!’ Peggy managed, trying to control her tears and her coughing. And ‘O-oh!’ again, a long, distressed sound which twisted Rachel inside. She never knew what to do for
Mom but she felt she must do something, because who else was there? It felt as if there was no one but her and Mom in the world. She clutched the long ends of her sleeves tightly in her hands,
tears of helplessness rising in her own eyes.

But Peggy turned to her, tugging the backs of her wrists across her eyes, trying to stifle her crying.

‘So kind!’ she said, her voice still wavering like a child’s. ‘She was so kind. It was the mistress of the house herself came and spoke to me. Look –’

She hurried towards a street lamp a few yards away. Rachel picked up their bundle and scampered after her.

‘Such lovely things – look.’ In the circle of light Peggy was unfolding the paper from around the treasure inside. ‘So pretty . . .’

Rachel saw a folded cream blouse with a collar of intricate lace and little pearl buttons. It was such a delicate, beautiful thing that she did not dare reach out and touch.

‘And look –’ There were several pairs of lacy bloomers in a peach colour. ‘They’re new – brand new! And this –’

At the bottom of the little pile of clothes was a silk garment, also in a blushing peach shade. Rachel did not know what it was, but it looked very pretty and Mom seemed so pleased that she said
‘Ooh’ and ‘Oh!’, infected by her mother’s excitement.

Peggy turned her pale face towards her. There were dark rings under her eyes which gazed at Rachel so intensely that she had to look away at the pretty armful of clothes with their indications
of a soft, feminine life.

‘She didn’t take anything for them – not even a farthing!’ Peggy laughed suddenly, a strange, overwrought sound. ‘She said she didn’t want money for them, she
just wanted rid of them. These bloomers are brand new!’

Rachel smiled up at her, the tide of dread receding slowly. Mom was happy – oh, for once, Mom was in a good temper! Her mother’s mood brought light into the world – or
darkness, depending. What her father had done was beyond her understanding. But it was Mom who was always there, was here now.

‘Come on. Bring the other stuff.’ Peggy started to walk off rapidly along the street. ‘We’ll go down to the Bristol Road and get the tram. And once we get to town
we’re going to buy a tanner’s worth of chips to warm us up, that we are.’

Rachel skipped along beside her. Never, in all the days since her father died, had things felt as good as this. It felt like the grandest celebration in all the world!

Mom insisted that they take the chips home. ‘I’m not eating in the street,’ she said. ‘It’s not ladylike.’ Even though the smell of them
through the newspaper, hot and tangy with vinegar, was making them both drool.

Peggy built up the fire with the last bit of kindling and slack and put the kettle on for tea. Both of them drew up as close as they could and Rachel turned this way and that, toasting first her
front, then her back as she devoured her salty chips with what was left of the bread.

It was a front house that they lived in – one of two dwellings under one roof, backing onto one another and consisting of merely one room downstairs with a tiny scullery and the two
upstairs bedrooms. The house backing theirs opened onto a small yard, reached by a narrow entry between the houses. The shared toilets were in the yard, as were the shared tap and the dustbins. At
the back of the yard, in a low cutting, the River Rea flowed almost unseen through the heart of the city, bringing added damp to the houses and sometimes bursting its banks. At the front was the
constant shadow of the viaduct. Bit by bit, over the months, Peggy had done what everyone in these jerry-built houses had to do – make the best of it. She scrubbed and cleaned, fixed up what
she could, stitched curtains and acquired a few sticks of furniture. But it was still a poor, damp, tatty place, prone to infestations of bedbugs and silverfish which had to be stoved with a
sulphur candle. And the family who lived in the back house, facing the yard, were noisy and quarrelsome and only added to Peggy’s rage and bitterness over her blighted life. But her anger did
give her energy – the raging energy of one who wants, desperately, to get up and out of there.

Peggy coughed, groaning as the fit passed. But she seemed a little brighter now, thanks to the warm food and tea and the small victory of the afternoon. She sat with her hands warming around her
cup. Rachel sat on the peg rug at her feet and stared into the fire. It was quiet for a few moments, with only the hiss of the flames which were quickly dying back for want of fuel. Just for a
moment things felt good. Then there came a bang and shouts of raucous male voices from the house behind, the thud of boots on the wooden stairs.

‘Dear God –’ Peggy closed her eyes for a moment, waiting for the racket to die down.

The feet descended the stairs again. The voices carried on, but quiet. A woman had joined in. Peggy opened her eyes

‘We’ll go from this place,’ she murmured.

Rachel did not know if she was talking to her. She kept very still. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go somewhere else. There were things she didn’t like about living here. She often
saw rats in the yard at the back, where they had to use the lavatories. Every time she went, she was in fear of meeting one of the rats with their horrible fleshy tails. But from her point of view
not everything was bad. She went to the little school along the road and played out with some of the children. She had become an adaptable child, tougher than she might have been had things been
different.

‘I’ll not punish myself with this place much longer.’ There was a silence, then in a voice full of venom, Peggy hissed, ‘His fault.
His
. His vile
habits.’

Rachel squirmed a little. By now she understood that her father, a vaguely kind, male shape, had piled up debts. He had a business as a portrait photographer which seemed to be prospering. But
the gains from the business were nothing compared to the losses from his habit.

‘Betting,’ Peggy had told her. ‘On horses. By God, he was good at picking losers!’ Peggy had not known a thing about it until afterwards. ‘Up to his neck,’
she said. A debt so big it must have overwhelmed him. Everything they owned had gone towards paying it off. Any thought of her past marriage was stalked by betrayal.

Rachel was getting sleepy. She felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, bony but warm now.

‘We’ll be out of here soon. I vow we shall.’

Peggy’s voice was gentler now, not blaming Rachel for all her burdens. The young girl looked up and saw her mother’s intent face, her eyes reflecting little orange furnaces of fire.
She didn’t mind where they lived, not really. She just wanted Mom to be well, not to be sick and angry and struggling, forever exhausted taking in washing and cleaning other people’s
houses until her hands were red raw. Perhaps now they were on the market everything would be all right. She closed her eyes and leaned against her mother’s leg. And on that happy, memorable
night, Peggy stroked her hair until she was almost asleep, then she took her hand and led her up to bed.

It was the Saturday after that, at the Rag Market, that Rachel saw Danny Booker for the first time.

Market day was Saturday. By midday the fruit and veg traders who had set up early in the morning had cleared away. The place was swept up and it was time for the Rag Market to move in. The gates
were closed while they set up, to keep the crowds out. Not everyone got a pitch. Some had permanent pitches in the market, but the ‘casuals’ had to queue up to see if there would be a
pitch for them. It was a nerve-wracking business when you were desperate for the trade. For Peggy to line up amid the other jostling casuals, some of whom she was afraid of – sometimes fights
broke out – only to be turned away was a huge disappointment and meant she would have to find other bits of work to get by for the week. Peggy was especially irritable with nerves on a
Saturday morning and nagged Rachel for them to get out as early as possible. But she seemed to have endless energy, as if driven by rage and by her determination that she was owed a better life.
She was getting quicker at reaching the front of the queue. If they did not get a pitch they waited, and sometimes managed to scramble into one if someone else sold out early and went home.

Every time Rachel passed through the immense iron gates decorated with the city’s crest – an arm bringing down a heavy hammer, and the exhortation ‘forward!’ – she
brimmed over with excitement. Peggy felt that market trading was something she had had to stoop to, but Rachel loved everything about the markets.

Her first job was to go round to the stables at the back of a pub in Bromsgrove Street where for a couple of bob a week, the landlord allowed market traders to store their carriages with
whatever leftover goods would fit in them. The ‘carriage’ was a big wicker basket on wheels. Rachel always felt very important, fetching it out of the dark stable building, and wheeling
it round into all the bustle of the streets.

As she pushed the carriage over the cobbles and along Jamaica Row – Smithfield, the huge wholesale market on one side and the meat markets on the other – and into the Rag Market, all
around her was the raucous, busy bustle of lorries and carts and banter of the trade. The air was full of voices calling out, the low rumble of the carriage wheels, the smells of roasting chestnuts
and potatoes, of tobacco smoke on the winter air. And all around, amid the legs, skirts, bundles, carts, trestle tables, prams and hat stands, grew up piles of second-hand clothing for sale, rolls
of cloth, ribbons and bows, hats and coats, all in a host of shapes and rainbows of colour. And other wares were laid out – crocks and glass, zips and buttons, cutlery, scent, food, sheets,
toys, table linen . . .