A Strong Hand to Hold

TWO

As Jenny was struggling with the news of her brother’s death, just a couple of streets away on Paget Road, Linda Lennox was looking at her mother Patty Prosser with concern, a frown creasing her brow. ‘Are you sure you’re well enough to get up, Mom?’

Patty looked at her daughter and smiled. She was a good kid, she thought, ‘I can’t stay in bed all my bloody life, now can I?’ she said. ‘The sooner I’m back to work and you back to school the better.’

‘Yeah, but you ain’t gotta rush it. You know what the doc said.’

‘Yeah, I know what he said, and between the two of you I’d be wrapped in cotton wool. Don’t worry, Linda – I’ll have to see how I am when I’m up, won’t I? If it’s too much I promise I’ll go back to bed, but I’m bored bloody solid, and it’s too much trouble and cost to have a fire in the living room and the bedroom.’

‘It ain’t no trouble, Mom, honest,’ Linda protested. ‘The bedroom would be like an ice box without a fire. Dr Sanders said you had to keep warm.’

‘I know, but today I’ll get up and sit by the fire downstairs for a bit, all right?’

‘OK,’ Linda conceded. ‘I’ll make us both a cuppa, eh?’

Patty’s face still looked pasty-white, Linda thought, but at least she wasn’t coughing quite so much any more. She knew what had given her the chest infection; it was that trip to the Bull Ring the previous Saturday to buy her some new shoes. Her mom had already been full of cold. Their good neighbour and friend Beattie Latimer had told her to leave it a while, for the day had been wild, squally and cold, not a day to be going anywhere, but Patty said Linda could wait no longer for shoes. And she couldn’t really. Her summer sandals hurt her toes, they were so small and her pumps didn’t keep her feet warm or dry, despite the cardboard Linda put inside them.

Still, they didn’t have to go as far as town to buy shoes and Linda guessed her mom wanted a gander at the Bull Ring after the bombing raids on it in late August. She did herself, and when Patty had told Beattie not to fuss, it was just a cold, she’d believed her.

They’d had a great day, for much as she loved her two little brothers, George and Harry, Linda enjoyed having her mother to herself at times. And Beattie, despite her disapproval, agreed to mind the two little ones so that they could go together.

They’d both been shocked by the devastation. They’d read about it, of course, and seen pictures in the Evening Mail and the Despatch, but seeing pictures and hearing about it was one thing; being there was quite another. Much of the rubble from inside the shops on the bottom end of High Street down towards the Bull Ring had been cleared over the past weeks and the empty shells of the shops leaned drunkenly one against the other.

At first, the Bull Ring itself had seemed much the same as ever. The bag lady was still there chanting, ‘’andy carriers,’ as she had for as long as Linda could remember, and opposite to her was the man selling Alcazar razor blades. There didn’t seem quite so many barrows though, and the fish stalls were severely depleted. ‘I heard tell they were going to start selling whale meat,’ Patty said. ‘But I can’t see any sign of it.’

‘Ugh,’ Linda had said in disgust. ‘Don’t you go buying any of that.’

‘Now, now. You ain’t never tasted it, so how can you say that,’ Patty had admonished. ‘Any road, you might be glad of it before we’re finished, with all this rationing.’

Linda had doubted she’d ever be that desperate, but wisely didn’t argue further.

She’d always loved the buzz and clamour of the Bull Ring, the mingled smells of the goods on offer, and the chatter and hubbub of the crowds, mixed with the cries of the vendors shouting their wares. Hawkers had been spread about Nelson’s Column, their wares laid out in suitcases with lookout boys on the corners in case any rozzers came that way. Linda knew you had to watch what you bought from hawkers. She’d heard of a woman who’d bought a watch from them for five bob. When she couldn’t get it to go, she took it to a watch repairers, who took the back off and found there was nothing inside. ‘Daft ’aporth she must have been,’ Beattie snorted when she’d told the tale. ‘I’m sure I’d make certain the bloody thing worked before I’d hand over five bob.’

Linda was sure she would too, but she had felt sorry for Thelma Grimshaw, the mother of her best friend Carole, who had once bought a pair of silk stockings at a bargain price from a hawker, only to find there was no foot in one of them! But still, that day the hawkers had been doing a brisk trade. It was mainly black-market stuff and there’d been clusters of people around them, seeing what they had to sell.

The fruit and veg stalls no longer had the array of stuff they’d had before the war. There were no bananas or oranges, just a few piles of mangy-looking apples, some rock-hard pears and small bunches of grapes. There were plenty of potatoes and onions, carrots and swedes and some tired-looking lettuces and small tomatoes, but little else.

However the sight of the Market Hall had taken Linda’s breath away for a moment or two. Open to the sky, it was still a fine old building, and the old lags were still there on the steps with their trays of bootlaces and matches and hair grips. Linda and Patty went up the steps to gaze at it and saw that the people had begun returning. They’d been sheltered from the elements by canvas awnings, the Market Hall had been cleaned up and was now back in business.

Linda remembered Beattie telling them all about it just after the bombs had landed. ‘Bleeding animals running all over the place,’ she had said. ‘God it must have been a sight.’

Linda had felt sorry for the frightened creatures. A visit to Pimm’s Pet Shop was always one of the highlights of any trip to the Bull Ring when she’d been younger. The shop had a wide variety of animals – hamsters, guinea pigs and rabbits, together with adorable kittens or boisterous puppies that nipped playfully with their sharp little teeth. Then there were the birds; she used to spend ages standing in front of the budgies trying to get them to talk. The canaries, she recalled, always sang so beautifully, and occasionally there’d even be a parrot or a mynah bird.

There were no pets now, and the clock the children and many adults had been fascinated by was also gone. There were fewer flower-sellers than before the war, Linda noticed. This came as no surprise. Everyone was digging up their lawns and gardens now to grow vegetables. They had been urged to ‘Dig for Victory’.

She herself couldn’t ever remember having flowers in the house, or growing in the garden. Patty had told her that her father had tended the garden nicely before he got too sick, they’d had vegetables in the back and flowers in the front, and he’d often cut a bunch and bring them into the house for his wife. But eventually he’d grown too ill to see to the garden and Bert Latimer came to mow the lawns. The vegetables and flowers went to seed and died; Ted Prosser, her second husband, never had any interest in it. Linda remembered Patty’s sad face as she’d said that, and she thought if ever she had any spare money, she’d buy a bunch of flowers to cheer her up.

As she followed behind Patty, she saw Jimmy Jesus taking his place by St Martin’s Church. ‘Look, Mom!’

‘He’s early today,’ Patty remarked. ‘Must have plenty to say.’

They’d stood a minute to listen to the old down-and-out with the long white hair and beard that had given him his name. ‘Though your souls be as black as pitch, if you repent of your sinful ways, your soul can be washed cleaner than the whitest snow by the blood of the lamb,’ Jimmy began.

A few hecklers shouted at him from the crowd, but Jimmy Jesus took no notice and opened up his Bible. ‘Oh, Gawd blimey, come on, chuck,’ Patty had urged. ‘I ain’t in the mood for a bloody sermon today.’

Linda followed her mother as she made her way towards the Rag Market, but sneaked a look back at Jimmy Jesus as she went. He’d always fascinated her; though she couldn’t understand all he said, she liked the sound of his voice which was surprisingly gentle and without an accent of any kind.

The Rag Market was used as a fish market through the week and the reek of fish was still there; Linda wrinkled her nose at the smell, but she knew as well as anyone that this was where the bargains were to be found. Sure enough, after a little bit of haggling, Patty had got a pair of stout shoes for Linda costing three bob, as well as plenty of cheap vegetables, a few apples and some fresh fish at a very reasonable price. Patty was pleased with herself and it wasn’t until they were on their way home on the rickety, smoky tram that she’d begun to cough; the next morning, Sunday, Linda phoned for the doctor from the phone box on the corner.

She didn’t mind sending for Dr Sanders now. He’d become a good friend to them all. She remembered the first time she’d gone to see him early in August. Patty had collapsed five days earlier.

Linda told the doctor it was the telegram that had brought it on, but she knew it wasn’t, not really. Linda guessed that her mother was secretly glad when she got the telegram to tell her that her second husband, Edward Prosser, would not be coming home from Dunkirk. He’d been a bully and Linda knew he used to hit her mom. She’d hated Ted Prosser for what he did to Patty and because he was horrible to the boys. There was another reason for hating him too, but she had never breathed a word to her mom about it – wouldn’t ever have to now, ’cos that pig was dead and gone and couldn’t hurt them any more.

However, when Patty had read the letter that came later, she had dropped like a stone to the floor in a dead faint. Dr Sanders had put her condition down to delayed shock and depression, and he prescribed tablets. He hadn’t informed the Welfare Authorities about the family though he knew he should have done. Instead, he’d arranged for a district nurse to call daily until Patty was on her feet. He’d said it was too much for any twelve-year-old, coping with a sick mother as well as the housework and cooking and looking after her two little brothers aged three years and just twelve months, even with the quite considerable help she got from the next-door neighbour.

When Patty recovered, he’d got her a job in Armstrong’s on the Lichfield Road making cartridge cases; he also used his influence to get a place for George and little Harry at the day nursery across the road.

It was great now, Linda thought. Money wasn’t quite so tight; they no longer had to hide from the rent man and could begin to pay the doctor’s bill, though he’d told them there was no rush. It grew better still when Beattie talked her Bert round into letting her take a job too. She’d said she was bored stiff at home with the lads fighting and her daughter married and living in Leeds, and anyway, she wanted to be doing her bit. But it meant that she’d pop in in the morning, help to get the boys ready and help Patty bring them back in the evening. Linda knew they had a lot to thank Beattie for. Even now, with Patty ill again, she’d taken the boys and left them at the nursery on the Monday and that day, Tuesday too, knowing that Linda would have her hands full as it was.

Patty watched her daughter bustling about, getting a meal for the two of them. ‘We’ll put the wireless on later, bab,’ she said. ‘Have a bit of music to cheer us all up.’

They hadn’t had the wireless very long and it was still a novelty. Patty had wanted one at home because they always had ‘Worker’s Playtime’ on at the factory and she loved to sing along to the songs. When any of the girls said how terrific her voice was, she always replied that they should hear her daughter Linda, as hers was even better, and she tried hard to remember the words of the songs to teach Linda in the evening. Then she heard of the ‘never never’ or ‘hire purchase’ scheme where you could make a down payment on a wireless, then pay so much back a week. But oh, the excitement in the house the Saturday it was delivered!

Linda had looked as if Patty had given her the Crown Jewels. ‘Can we afford it, Mom?’

‘Let me worry about that,’ Patty had said. ‘Any road, we need to hear the news, don’t we, or this flipping lot will be invading us and we’ll know nowt about it till the church bells start to ring.’

‘Oh, Mom!’

‘I’m only joking,’ Patty said. ‘But we do need to know what’s happening. If it gets too miserable we can always turn the dial to summat else, eh? They have good plays on, the girls at work were telling me.’

The thing they enjoyed the most was singing together, and they’d join in the old favourites belting out from the wireless. Beattie loved to hear them. Patty and Linda had been singing together ever since Linda was just a nipper, but it had all come to a stop when Patty married Ted Prosser. Didn’t like to hear it, Patty had said. Didn’t like much, if Beattie’s opinion had been asked. Didn’t seem to take to Linda either and resented any closeness between her and her mother. But then he didn’t go great guns for his own babbies either. Funny man altogether and Patty was better off without him, not that she went around telling her like, but she was.

Patty knew what Beattie thought, for even if she said nothing, her face spoke volumes. They’d been neighbours since she’d come on to the estate in 1930. Patty Lennox she’d been then, of course, and she thought she was in heaven getting one of the new houses on the Pype Hayes Estate, after living in one room in a rat-infested house in Aston since her marriage three years previously. She was so proud and kept the place like a new pin. She enjoyed looking after her husband and little girl, and hoped there would be more children to fill the house with their chatter.

However, when she lost her dear husband Billy to TB in 1932, Patty was glad she only had Linda to see to. It was Beattie who’d been her support then and helped her to pull herself together for the sake of her child. Later it was Beattie, too, who minded Linda when Patty did cleaning at the Norton pub. Patty also worked behind the bar a time or two to make ends meet, and that was where she met Ted Prosser. She often rued the day, for the man had hard fists, a vicious temper and a short fuse which grew shorter according to the amount he’d drunk. Added to that, he kept Patty short of money and when he did give her any, often borrowed it back to supplement his beer money.

Patty knew her daughter disliked him and there was something else, a wariness that had always come into Linda’s eyes when they spoke of him; and she never wanted to be left alone with him in the house. Patty had her suspicions, but didn’t know how to raise them with the child. What if she was wrong and put all sorts of ideas in her head? She’d thought Linda would come to her if there had been anything, but she hadn’t. That apart, Patty soon knew she’d made a grave mistake marrying Ted Prosser, one she’d pay for for the rest of her life, because she couldn’t see him agreeing to divorce. When she received word of his death, she felt little grief; her overriding concern was how she’d feed and clothe three children.

But the letter from the corporal told her of a husband she didn’t recognise. He’d given up his place in a boat leaving Dunkirk for the corporal because he’d been injured and lost his life because of it. The corporal said Ted had been a brave fine man and her loss must be a grievous one and he said also he would be recommending him for a bravery award. His description of Ted Prosser bore no resemblance to the bully he’d become to his wife, and Patty knew if she’d glimpsed that brave and selfless soldier the corporal appeared to know, she’d have considered herself proud to be married to him. The fault must have been hers, she told herself. She’d failed to recognise Ted’s good points and had annoyed and frustrated him in some way, so he’d been forced to lash out at her and go to the pub to escape. It had been those feelings that had overwhelmed her. She’d thought she was no good as a wife or a mother and everyone, including the children, would be better off without her. Now she knew that wasn’t true. It was just possible that Ted Prosser would have returned from the war a changed man, but privately she doubted it. What she didn’t doubt was the love she had for her children, and that encouraged her to get better, helped by medication from the doctor.

Linda was relieved that Sunday when the doctor said her mother would soon be up and about again. He said chest infections were rife in the winter and it was nothing to worry about, and she’d soon be back at work. Linda was glad she’d be leaving school herself in a couple of years, for then the money problems would be easier and her Mom might not have to work so hard. One thing she did know was that they didn’t need a man to look after them.

Just once her mother had said, ‘Well, I’ve had two husbands and that’s one too many, but without Ted there would be no George or Harry, and I wouldn’t want to be without them, would you?’

Linda would not. To be without her brothers was unthinkable, but she remembered the times Ted had come home drunk from the pub and the sounds of slaps and punches and the screams of her mother. The next day Patty would host a black eye, split lip, or bruises on her cheek and Linda thought it was a bloody high price to pay.

If her mother stayed up that evening, maybe she could get her to tell her about her real father again, she thought. They’d take the photographs out of the shoebox in the glass-fronted cupboard in the alcove and Linda would study her mother in her wedding dress and the father she could scarcely remember, stiff but smart in a suit anyone could see he was unaccustomed to wearing. There were others – one of him cuddling her in his arms as a baby, and one of him holding her hand in the wilderness of a garden he had eventually tamed, according to her Mom. There were more of them both in the tended garden, pushing her on the swing he’d built for her and another helping to blow out the three candles on the day of her third birthday party. After that she knew he became sick, but when her mother spoke about how much he’d loved Linda and how happy they were together, it often brought a lump to the young girl’s throat. Patty had told Linda how much she missed Billy when he died, and Linda supposed that was why she’d married Ted Prosser. She didn’t ask her, though; she never mentioned the man’s name if she could help it.

She glanced out of the window. Although it wasn’t yet half past two, the dark autumn day had turned dusky and Linda knew she would soon have to attend to the blackout. She loved the cosiness of their house in the winter’s evenings. Once the supper things had been washed and put away and the little ones were in bed, the thick red curtains would be drawn across the bay window cutting off the hated blackout curtains. Then Linda and Patty would sit in front of the fire; Patty could now afford plenty of coal. They’d talk, or listen to the wireless, or play cards, or knit socks and balaclavas for the troops. Tonight, Beattie would be with them as her Bert was on nights at the Dunlop, but Linda didn’t mind that; she liked Beattie.

Suddenly there was a pounding on the door, and Linda opened it to see Beattie herself outside, standing with Harry in the pushchair and George holding on to the handle. ‘Beattie,’ she said in surprise.

‘Let me in, girl, this cold goes through you like a bleeding knife.’

Linda stood aside and Beattie marched into the living room, surprised to see Patty sitting by the fire. ‘What are you doing up?’ she asked.

Patty’s mouth had dropped agape. ‘Never mind me,’ she said. What are you doing home at this time of day?’

Beattie began unstrapping Harry as she explained. ‘Got a call about my sister Vera from the hospital. Silly bugger’s fell down the stairs and broke her leg bad. They’re keeping her in so it mustn’t be straightforward. She’s in the General. She wants me to go and see to their Vicky and her husband Lennie.’

‘Doesn’t she live in Sutton Coldfield?’

‘Yeah,’ Beattie said and added, ‘I hate the bloody place – all kippers, curtains and no drawers. Too bleeding posh for any air raids. And Vicky’s well able to look after herself and see to her dad – she’s a year older than Linda who could do it with her eyes shut. Any road, the doctor said she was getting upset and agitated, so I said to tell her I’ll go. I might then get to see our Vera herself at visiting time this evening.’

‘What a shame,’ Patty said sympathetically.

‘Ah well. My old man will have to look after himself and all,’ Beattie said. ‘I’ll go round and see him in a bit, before he goes down for the night shift.’

‘D’you want a cup of tea, Mrs Latimer?’ Linda asked as she unzipped a squirming Harry from his siren suit and put him down on the floor.

‘Thought you’d never ask, girl,’ Beattie said, pushing the pram out of the way into the hall. ‘Me tongue’s hanging out. And what’s your Ma doing up out of bed?’

‘You’d better ask her,’ Linda said, making for the kitchen with George behind her, his teddy bear, Tolly, trailing after him. He’d had Tolly since he was a baby and though he knew he couldn’t take the toy to the nursery, it went everywhere else and it was the first thing he made for when he came home in the evening.

Inside the living room, Beattie looked across at Patty and thought her rather pale. ‘You’re not overdoing it, I hope?’

‘With our Linda in charge?’ Patty said. ‘You must be joking.’

‘You gave her a right bloody turn, I’ll tell you,’ Beattie said. ‘Bloody great fool you were to go out with that cold on you.’