Wartime Family (7 page)

Her response was out before she could stop it. ‘Why’s that, sir? Sorry, sir. I’ve got no business asking—’

‘They charged me for your bread and cheese.’ He dropped his eyes to his notepad. ‘Drive on.’

‘Oh!’ She paused. ‘If you’d allow me to pay you, sir.’

His head jerked up from his notes. He looked surprised. ‘No need, Randall. No need at all.’ His eyes returned to the paperwork.

Lizzie smiled. One up to her and no mention of her leave being postponed.

‘Shall I see you in the morning, sir?’

‘No,’ he said, then got out of the car, walked up the steps and disappeared behind the heavy oak door.

Only the knowledge that she wasn’t far from her bed kept her eyes open as she drove back to her cosy billet above the stables. But before she collapsed into bed she first reported to the adjutant.

‘You’re not required any more,’ Charlie Grimsby said when she looked into his office.

‘I’m not?’

‘No. You must have blotted your copy book.’

Lizzie thought of the bread and cheese and smiled. ‘I must have done.’

She left the adjutant’s office still smiling. What did she care? She was going on leave in two days and was looking forward to it.

‘Mrs Randall!’

Mary Anne was ironing and Daw was folding pillowcases when John’s uncle came hammering at the door. On opening it, she found him standing there restlessly, his eyes round with shock.

‘Your things, Mrs Randall. They are thrown all over the place.’

Mary Anne rushed down the stairs and out into the yard. Things she’d rescued from the pawn shop – sheets, clothes and shoes – were thrown haphazardly all over the place. Fingers covering her mouth, she ran over the flinty yard. Whoever had done this had not been content with just throwing her things around. Footprints blackened by coal dust had trodden some items into the puddles. Although not quite ruined, everything would need laundering, which was a tremendous task given the number of things strewn around.

‘Vandals,’ said John’s uncle, shaking his head as he patted her on the shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry. We will soon clean this up.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s my fault.’

He shrugged and spread his hands in the dramatic way he used daily. ‘How can you be? It is us this is aimed at, me and my darling Maria. We are Italians. People around here know we are Italians and despite us living in this country for years, they see us as the enemy.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

He shrugged again. ‘It is not your fault. It is I who must apologize. These are your things.’ He gestured at the ruined cottons, linens and tapestry prints.

Mary Anne began picking things up and a thought occurred to her. Only the family knew she’d rescued a little of the stock and stored it here. One thought followed another and her hands started to shake.

‘Just kids all the same,’ John’s uncle was saying.

Auntie Maria, his wife, was less forgiving. ‘Wait till I get my hands on them. I’ll give them such a wallop.’

‘Not kids.’

They both looked at her.

‘Not kids,’ she repeated, her voice trembling as much as her hands.

‘Then who …?’

‘I can guess who,’ she said, lowering her voice.

They waited for her to enlighten them, but she did not do so. In her heart she felt a bitter anger. Henry! It had to be Henry.

He’d tried soft-soaping her to get her back, telling her he was a changed man and would never hit her again. She’d rejected every plea he’d made. Michael had made her happy, and with Michael she would stay.

‘Look,’ she said, holding up a white sheet complete with a size-ten boot print. ‘Call this a child-sized foot print?’

No one met the accusation in her eyes! Even Daw, who continually fought her father’s case, did not deny the likelihood that he could be responsible for this.

‘Your father’s quite capable of something like this,’ said Mary Anne in a brief burst of accusation. White faced, Daw just shook her head.

‘Wait till I see him,’ her mother muttered into the sheet. Raising her head, her eyes blazing with anger, she repeated the same words to her daughter. ‘You tell him that,’ she said, more strident now. ‘You tell him that I’ll be round to see him. You make sure you do.’

Just then a series of firm knocks came from the shop door.

‘We’re closed,’ Auntie Maria shouted in response, but the knocking continued.

She marched off, crossing herself and asking the dear Lord why she couldn’t have some peace on her afternoon off. The knocking stopped and she wasn’t long coming back. A big smile was spread all over her face.

‘It’s your Lizzie,’ she said to Mary Anne. ‘She’d gone by the time I got there, but—’

‘Gone!’ Mary Anne dashed past her, a satin slip – slightly muddy – fluttering over her arm.

‘She’s only down the road,’ Auntie Maria called after her. ‘She wanted to see the place where the old house used to be.’

Mary Anne heard. Although December had gripped the air with icy fingers, she felt warm. Lizzie was home. She could see her standing on the pavement, studying the bombed-out ruins of what had once been their home. Six houses had been hit that day, and theirs was one. Biddy Young’s was another. Luckily no one had been in either of the houses. Only Mr and Mrs Crawford in number fifteen had refused to go to the shelter. They’d both been in their eighties; one bedridden and one hard of hearing. ‘If Hitler wants me, he’ll have to come and get me. I won’t be up for any fighting, that’s for sure,’ old Mr Crawford had said.

Seeing Lizzie was like seeing a mirror image of herself, but younger, her slim body enveloped in an ill-fitting uniform. Mary Anne’s heart skipped a beat. Her little girl had become a young woman and liable to make the same mistakes she had. She remembered Peter Selwyn Kendall, son of Lizzie’s former employer, and prayed it would not be so.

‘Lizzie!’

Lizzie turned round. ‘Mum!’

They threw their arms around each other. Their affection was and always had been totally spontaneous. They had the same elegance, the same hair colouring – although Mary Anne’s was a little faded with the years.

For a moment they stood silently looking at the bombed-out ruins.

Lizzie spoke first. ‘It seems an age since we lived here.’

‘I take it you went to the pawn shop first?’ Mary Anne said wryly. She’d written to Lizzie telling her what had happened.

Lizzie nodded. ‘The bus stopped there. It made me cry to see it. An incendiary, I suppose.’

‘Apparently not, according to the fireman. He reckoned there were none dropped that night and put the blame on looters.’

Lizzie frowned. ‘You mean they start fires deliberately?’

‘I suppose so.’

She didn’t mention what the policeman had said about Lizzie’s brother, Harry. They both knew he had shady friends and moved in dangerous circles, but blaming those with no connection to their family lay easier on her conscience.

Lizzie looked into her mother’s face. ‘Have you told Michael?’

‘Yes. He was very upset and is due leave, but says he’s too busy to come right now. He’s left me to do what I think best.’

‘I see.’ And Lizzie
did
see. She could see the barely concealed disappointment lurking in her mother’s eyes. She had fallen passionately in love with Michael, enough to make her leave her husband for good. There was about a fifteen-year age gap between them, and Lizzie had always thought they’d surmounted that particular obstacle with ease. But had they? Was her mother worrying that Michael might never come back? That he’d found somebody else, perhaps someone younger? She decided it would be unwise to broach the subject. Let it be for now. Let everyone be happy. Smiling, she hugged her mother’s arm close to her side. ‘Well, go on, Mother. Tell me all the gossip.’ Together they began to walk back to the shop.

‘There’s not much to tell – at least, not from around here.’

Lizzie detected the sudden nervous dip in her mother’s voice. ‘Has our Daw been on at you?’

Mary Anne shook her head. Her eyes met those of her favourite daughter. It was wrong to have favourites. She’d told herself that a hundred times. But it couldn’t be helped. She and Lizzie were chalk and chalk. She and Daw were definitely chalk and cheese.

Lizzie’s smile stayed in place, but lessened. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’

‘Well, she wants me out before John comes home on leave at Christmas. Only natural of course … And then there’s our Stanley. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.’

‘Oh, Mum! You’re not thinking of going back to Dad, are you?’

Mary Anne looked down at the ground.

Lizzie was flabbergasted. ‘You’re not!’

It was never easy to share inner thoughts and secrets, and very difficult when there were so few people to share them with. One thing they all knew and accepted was that her family came first.

She slipped back into the old habit of making excuses. ‘I suppose I’m feeling a little down. Nothing seems to be going right just lately. I was brought up in a time when a wife was expected to stay with her husband no matter what.’

‘Times have moved on,’ said Lizzie, stressing each word like a school teacher determined to steer her pupil through the test. ‘We’re living in troubled times. People are grabbing happiness where they can, despite the consequences. You Shouldn’t be feeling guilty. Not now.’

Mary Anne studied her daughter, the steadfast eyes, the confident chin.
Who is this woman?
she thought. A fire burned in her daughter’s eyes. Had it been there before and she merely hadn’t seen it? Or was it new?

She turned away, not wanting to face the fact that Lizzie was very much following her own dictates. She wondered if there was another man.

‘You’re probably right,’ she said, glad of the chill air on her face.

‘Something will turn up – and anyway, will you really miss our Daw that much?’

‘She’s not the easiest person to live with.’ It was a sad thing to admit to, but Daw could be a bit overpowering at times. ‘I’ll miss Mathilda though.’

‘Of course you will.’

Mary Anne bit her lip. The thought of not seeing her granddaughter so often was the hardest thing to bear. She’d got used to doing things for and with her. The child was a joy, far more amiable than her mother had been at the same age.

Lizzie noticed. ‘What else, Mother? You look worried.’

Arm in arm now, they stood before the house, sometimes looking at the tumbled bricks, and sometimes looking at each other.

‘I’m not getting daft in my dotage – in fact I don’t think I’m quite in my dotage yet – but the other day I took Mathilda out in the pushchair and I lost her. I left her outside the Red Cross shop whilst I popped in with some items they could make use of, and when I got back outside, she was gone. I found her, of course – or at least the ladies from the Red Cross found her. And then today …’

She went on to tell Lizzie about the shed being broken into and about the things she’d saved from the stock being found scattered and dirty all over the yard. Not to mention the shop being damaged beyond repair.

‘And you think Dad did it?’

‘Who else?’ Mary Anne’s expression darkened. ‘I’m going round there to tackle him about it. I can get a tram to the centre and then another to Barton Hill.’

‘There you are then. Fancy even considering going back with him!’

Girls turning a skipping rope parted as the two women passed by. The breeze blew colder, blowing Mary Anne’s hair across her face. Her hand shook as she pushed it back behind her ear. Lizzie noticed it.

‘Mum …’

‘No comments about my nerves, please. Yes, things are getting to me. But I’ll get through it. You just see if I don’t.’

Lizzie withheld what she was going to say about her mother visiting a doctor or taking some rest. She certainly wouldn’t get much rest living with Daw, that was for sure.

‘What about moving in with Biddy? Doesn’t she have a house to herself?’

Mary Anne shook her head. ‘She did have. Apparently she had to move out to make way for a family that got bombed out at the beginning of December. They’re asking a lot of people to double up and take people in. Biddy didn’t want to stay there, so got moved into the ground floor rooms in the same house as your father. He’s got the upper floor.’

Lizzie looked shocked. ‘I bet me dad wasn’t too pleased about that!’

‘I doubt it too. I saw her the other day. She was visiting her sister down in the Chessels. She was telling me that she’s got the downstairs rooms, and he’s upstairs. She made a point of telling me that there was no funny business going on, mind you.’

Lizzie grimaced. ‘Did she now! I wouldn’t put it past her. I know she’s your friend, but you know what a trollop she can be. Goodness. I wonder how long they’ll be living there.’

Mary Anne shook her head. ‘Who knows? Everyone has to make do with what they can get and crowd in where they can. Stanley’s there too.’

She looked back along the street to the corner shop. Its windows were half covered with adverts for Fry’s Cocoa, Cherry Blossom boot polish, and Colman’s mustard. A mist was rising from The Cut and drifting inland along with its nefarious smell of stale mud and old drains.

‘So you have to find somewhere else to live,’ said Lizzie, following the direction of her gaze. ‘What about Harry’s flat?’

‘Edgar’s there.’

‘Oh!’

The two women fell to silence. Both knew how it was with Harry, but it wasn’t a subject they felt comfortable discussing – even with each other. Two men living with each other as brothers was one thing, but Harry and Edgar were closer than that, closer than friends.

Mary Anne turned to her daughter as a sudden thought occurred to her. ‘Where are you staying, Lizzie?’

When Lizzie smiled, deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. ‘Above the Lord Nelson in East Street.’

‘That’s opposite the Red Cross shop.’

‘Is it? I suppose it is. I suppose you could come there with me. We’d have to share a bed of course, but it’s better than nothing.’

‘I’m going to have to do something – at least for the short term. Daw wants John and her to have their place to themselves. I can’t say I blame her. We all need a place of our own. And then there’s our Stanley to consider.’