War Babies (40 page)

Cissy, who had been sitting quietly at the table with a picture book, came running over. Cissy spent a lot of her life being quiet. ‘Now just sit there for a bit and let me have some
peace, Cissy . . . You be quiet now, your father needs a rest . . . ’ Cissy was six now, a cheerful child with pale, carroty curls, parted on the left side and pinned back off her face. She
was obedient – Rachel could see that it had never occurred to her not to be – and had a nice nature. She absolutely adored Melanie and was always doting and sweet with Tommy. Cissy was
the main reason now that Rachel kept up any visits to her mother and Fred at all.

‘Here, Ciss –’ She held out a little bag. ‘I saved my ration of rocks for you two. Look, there’s a few Dainty Dinahs and a bit of liquorice.’

The girls took the toffees and liquorice off into the corner and were soon giggling away, sharing them out, cheeks bulging. Rachel glanced affectionately at them. They could make a game out of
nothing, those two. Tommy watched them and gurgled excitedly. Rachel was longing for a cup of tea, but she obviously wasn’t going to be offered one.

Fred made himself scarce, down to the shop, and Peggy sat back in her chair with a sigh. She was wearing her Sunday best, a brown wool suit and cream blouse, which she had made herself. Not that
she ever went to church. She was still a pretty woman, her frizzy curls of hair pinned back in a bun and arranged softly to frame her face. She’s ageing well, Rachel thought. Not like me. She
felt thin and scraggy in comparison. Not that Peggy ever asked how she was feeling.

‘Does that child really have to dribble so much?’ Peggy said, giving Tommy a look of distaste. ‘It’s really very offputting.’

‘He can’t help it – it’s his tongue,’ Rachel said, wiping Tommy’s chin with the rag she kept in her pocket. It was already soggy in her hand. Instead of the
anger she often felt, she had a shrinking, defeated feeling.

‘So – how are you?’ she asked mechanically, wondering why she ever came here or hoped for anything from Peggy.

There followed a long list of complaints about the tiresome details of Peggy’s life, the shortages of everything, rationing, how very tired she was with all the work she still had to do,
the way things seemed worse than when the war was on.

‘Mom,’ Rachel interrupted after a time. ‘Danny’s home.’

Peggy sat up straighter. ‘When? Why didn’t you say?’

‘You never asked,’ Rachel retorted. ‘He got home two weeks ago – a bit more than.’

‘Well, about time,’ Peggy said. ‘You need a man to keep you – I hope he’s got a good job. I’ve had enough of worrying about whether you and that gypsy woman
are looking after my grandchildren properly.’

Rachel almost laughed at this. When had Mom ever worried about her and the kids, or lifted a finger to help in any way? By now she was used to Mom being rude about Gladys. She ignored such
remarks.

‘He is . . . all right?’ Peggy asked.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Not – injured at all?’

‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘He’s all right.’

‘And has he got himself a job?’

‘Yes,’ Rachel said. Of course he had found a job. As soon as he’d packed in the last one, he’d been taken on by another older man, Mr Jones, whose business, making carts
and basket carriages, had also expanded to include filling accumulators for wirelesses. It was when they took Gladys’s wireless to him to be fixed that Mr Jones said he could do with a
hand.

Dolly laughed when she heard Danny had gone to work for Lofty Jones, a tall, gangling man in his fifties.

‘Old Lofty’s carried a flame for Gladys for years – no wonder he’s taken Danny on!’

This was news to Rachel. She also wondered how long that would last – Danny said the stink of acid for the accumulators was horrible and he came home smelling of it.

Cissy and Melanie came over then, still chewing, their breath full of sugar, wanting to play with Tommy. They stood each side of him, chatting to him and tickling him, and Tommy was in heaven at
all the attention. Cissy looked up, pink cheeked.

‘He’s funny,’ she said, giggling and stroking Tommy’s cheek with her finger. Rachel looked lovingly at her. Dear old Cissy! At least someone appreciated Tommy.

‘Mom –’ Peggy looked as if she was falling into a doze across the room. ‘Is there any chance of a cup of tea?’

Peggy looked at the clock. It was half past three. ‘Oh, I don’t think we need – not until Sidney gets here.’

‘I’ve got to go soon,’ Rachel said. She could see what her mother was after – that she would end up making tea for Sidney. That was going to happen over her dead body.
‘I’ll make it if you like – only it takes me a good while to get home. I could really do with it.’

‘All right, if you must,’ Peggy said languidly. ‘I must say, I do feel so terribly tired today.’

In the kitchen, while she waited for the water to boil, Rachel looked out at the same old view over the yard which was hemmed in by the adjacent row of houses Nothing much had changed –
the place was as it had always been, only all the drabber from the war years. She thought back to living here with her mother and Fred and within seconds she was filled with a bursting desire to
escape.

Thank God for Danny, she thought, and for Gladys. A wave of desperate love filled her for her husband. She thought of them over in Sutton Coldfield and hoped it would help Danny feel he had come
back home. She ached for the old Danny, the boy with the dancing blue eyes, so full of life. The Danny who had come home seemed so lost and distant. She knew she must try harder to find out what
was troubling him. She could see that he had no idea what to do or how to feel. However exhausted she was herself, she knew she had to try and try or they would lose each other. As the water began
to boil for the tea, she wiped away the tears which had started running down her cheeks.

She arrived home before the others and set about feeding the children.

‘I wish Cissy lived next door,’ Melly said as she spooned up her watery mince.

‘Yes, that’d be nice,’ Rachel said, though thanking her stars she did not live next door to her mother. ‘But you’ve got Rita and Shirley to play with – and
Evie.’

‘Ye-es.’ Melly put her head on one side. ‘But Cissy’s nicer – and I don’t like those girls’ mom.’

‘Well, you don’t have to play with her, do you?’ Rachel said.

‘Poor Evie,’ Melly said suddenly.

‘What d’you mean?’ Like everyone in the yard, Rachel was uneasy about Irene’s attitude to her youngest daughter, whom she had taken against on sight.

‘Poor Evie having a mom like Mrs Sutton,’ Melanie said. ‘I’m glad you’re
my
mom.’

‘Well, that’s nice.’ Rachel thought she’d better change the subject. ‘When you and Cissy’re big girls you’ll be able to go and see each other,
won’t you?’

They were chatting about Cissy, who Melanie was in love with in the way that little girls sometimes adore each other, and she was still talking all about their games when Gladys and Danny came
in. Rachel pulled all her resolve together. She was going to be the very best she could for Danny! She
had
to make things better.

‘Oh, you’re back!’ she cried, getting up. She went and kissed Danny and said, ‘Tea’s ready – and the kettle’s on. I’ve nearly finished feeding his
nibs.’

Gladys sat down with a groan. ‘Ooh – feels a long way up there and back.’ She looked pale and exhausted.

‘Here – I’ll get you a cuppa . . . Danny, love – could you take over feeding Tommy while I make the tea?’

Danny looked panic-stricken. ‘I don’t know how.’

‘Just feed him a little bit at a time – gently. He has a job getting it down – you’ve seen me do it.’

I mustn’t stand over him – I must just let him do it, she thought. She went to mash the tea. ‘How are they all?’

‘They’re all right,’ Gladys said. ‘Jess is courting again – they say he’s a nice enough lad so we hope it’ll last this time. And Amy’s leaving
school in a few weeks.’ Her face clouded for a moment. ‘She’s an odd child. I hope she’ll be all right.’

‘What’ll she do?’ Rachel asked. She glanced over at Danny, who had so far said not a word. She saw him try to spoon food into Tommy’s mouth. Tommy writhed and spat all of
it out down his chin. She saw a look of disgust come over Danny’s face.

‘Here,’ she said gently, taking the tea to the table. ‘I’ll do it, love. I’m used to it.’

Danny nodded and got up. He said he needed the lav and went out of the house.

‘How was it really, Auntie?’ Rachel asked as soon as he was out of earshot.

Gladys shook her head sadly. ‘It was all right. Nancy and Albert were marvellous and the girls are doing all right. But they’re no more his sisters than any other wench out on the
street. None of them said a word to each other all day.’

‘Danny – are you feeling any better?’

Rachel slipped into bed beside him as he lay in a restless doze. He had barely looked at her all evening and Rachel had thought he was upset about Jess and Amy. But he did not want to eat and
eventually admitted that he didn’t feel well.

‘I’ve felt bad all day,’ he said. ‘My head’s thumping. I’ll have to go to bed.’

Rachel and Gladys exchanged glances. ‘I thought he wasn’t looking too good,’ Gladys said as Danny climbed the stairs.

Now Danny stirred and turned over to face her in bed.

‘I’m all right,’ he said. But it was obvious that he was not. He was shivering and boiling hot at the same time.

‘I brought you some water,’ she said.

‘Ta.’ Sitting up seemed a huge effort. He took a few sips and slumped down again. She could feel him waiting, though, as if for her to say something.

‘Was it nice to see them?’ she said, turning to embrace him. ‘Danny – you’re shaking!’

‘Yeah –’ His teeth were chattering. ‘Got a fever coming. I feel bad. Had it before. My head – it’s bad . . .’ Suddenly he clung to her and she held him,
soothing him as his body shuddered.

‘I love you, Danny,’ she said, desperate to leap over the gulf between them.

‘Love you, girl,’ he said between chattering teeth. He sounded very drowsy and ill. He turned away from her and seemed to fall asleep, though he kept twitching and muttering.

Although she was exhausted, Rachel felt too pent-up to sleep. She lay with her eyes open in the dark. Tonight she would have welcomed Tommy waking so that she could go and comfort him. She felt
very alone. Tears seeped from her eyes into her hair. Talk to me, Danny, she wanted to cry to him. But he was sick and in no fit state. With her new intentions of that day, to get close to Danny
again, to find the boy she loved inside this troubled man, she had thought they would lie and talk for hours, that she would gradually draw him back to her with all the love she could pour over
him.

So far, he had talked very little about the war. He said it was so vile and tedious that all he wanted was to forget it.

‘Four years down the toilet, that’s what it was,’ was mainly all she had got out of him. He didn’t seem to have much more to say about it. ‘All I ever wanted was to
come home to you.’

Every so often, when she had the energy, Rachel persevered and asked about India. And didn’t he say he had been in Burma? Some of the stories which were coming out about what the Japanese
had done were so extreme that she was almost afraid to ask. Was there some terrible secret he was hiding?

But Gladys asked sometimes as well. One evening, once the children were in bed, he had talked a little bit.

‘We were only in Burma a couple of weeks.’ Danny picked up the poker as he spoke, prodding at the floor with it, as if avoiding looking at them. It was this not looking that made
Rachel feel worst. Where had he gone to, her Danny? Who was this Danny who could no longer meet her eye?

‘They signed us up with one of the Indian divisions and sent us in when everyone else was coming back the other way.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t that long after I got
out there. We had a bit of jungle training – huh, so much for that! May forty-three they sent us into Burma and told us to hold this pass called the Ng . . . Ngakeydauk . . . summat like
that. The Okeydokey, we called it. It was so all the rest of them could clear out – the Japs flushing all our army back into India. Six days . . .’ He jabbed at the floor and shook his
head with a cynical smile. ‘Jungle training . . . As if you could train for that hellhole. We weren’t in all that much fighting, not as such. But it felt as if they were there, all over
the jungle, creeping up on you, every minute of the day and night. It was enough to send you round the bend. And the lads were dropping – sick as dogs. We got the hell out of there after
that, those little yellow bastards chasing the lot of us out.’ He looked up at Gladys. ‘So yeah – Burma. Then it was back to Bihar and more bloody Indians.’

She could not imagine India or Burma, or how it must have been. And it really did not seem as if Danny had much more to say about it. And yet, it was as if between the time she last saw him, in
December 1942, and his homecoming, the real Danny had been stolen and replaced by someone else. His light-heartedness, his electric energy, all seemed to have vanished.

Reaching out in the bed she laid her hand on his hot back. Eventually, she slept.

She was woken by him vomiting over the side of the bed.

‘Danny!’ She leapt up. ‘Oh, no – I’ll get the bucket!’

She stumbled downstairs, barefoot, returning with one of the buckets and a cloth. Upstairs again, she lit a candle and sat beside him, wiping his forehead as he strained and retched. He was
shivering even more violently while he remained alarmingly hot at the same time. At last when he had finished he lay back, limp and feverish. Rachel wiped up the floor and crept down to empty out
the bucket and rinse it with water from the pot on the stove. Then she took the bucket back up.

As she reached the top of the attic stairs she saw that Danny was getting up.

‘I’ve got to go . . .’ He stumbled across the room. ‘The lav . . .’

‘But . . .’ It seemed such a long way.

‘S’all right . . . Used to it . . .’ he murmured.