The Heart of the Family

Just as she would never forgive herself if anything happened to Luke or to Grace or to Sam himself, and she couldn’t get to them.

It was a situation that thousands of families all over the country were facing, especially those living in the cities that Hitler was targeting. And what about the men fighting abroad – how must their mothers and wives feel?

Jean squared her shoulders. ‘It won’t be as bad as you think,’ she told the twins.

‘No, it will be much worse,’ Lou muttered gloomily under her breath.

Wallasey and Auntie Vi’s.

Lou flung herself down on her bed with a grimace of disbelief. ‘I never thought Mum would make us go there.’

‘She’s going as well,’ Sasha reminded her. ‘And I’ll bet it’s Dad who has said we have to go. Did you see how red his ears went when Mum was telling us, and how he wouldn’t look at us?’

‘Well, what about Katie?’ Lou demanded. ‘I’ll bet she doesn’t really want to go and see her parents. She loves our Luke.’

‘She was saying the other day that she felt she should go and see them,’ Sasha felt bound to point out, adding firmly, ‘Look, Lou, we aren’t children any more, are we, and after what happened on Saturday, well, I just think that we shouldn’t make things hard for Mum, that’s all.’

Sasha almost sounded as though she disapproved of what Lou had said. But that was impossible. Hadn’t they reassured one another that their closeness, their twinship, was more important than anything else? Once Lou would have known exactly what Sasha was feeling about anything, just as Sasha would have done her, and this feeling that she did not know what her twin was thinking was unfamiliar territory.

‘Sash?’

Sasha looked at her twin.

‘It’s all right with me and you, isn’t it? I mean, I know there was … Well, I just want you to know that I don’t mind if you do still … Well, it was you Kieran liked best really, anyway.’

Sasha jumped off her own bed and went to stand next to Lou’s, her hands on her hips, her round face flushed with angry colour.

‘How dare you say that, Louise Campion? We both said, didn’t we, that we were going to stick together from now on?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘So why are you keeping going on about a certain person who we agreed we’d never talk about again?’

‘There’s no need to get your hair off with me, Sasha. I was just meaning that if you did think about him, then I’d understand and you can say so.’

Lou didn’t know how to say that she was afraid of losing her twin, and afraid too of the way things seemed to be changing, and not just things but they themselves.

‘I’d hate it if you and me was to end up like Mum and Auntie Vi,’ was all she could manage to say.

The anger died out of Sasha’s face. Although traditionally it was always Lou, the younger of the two, who had taken the lead, just lately Sasha had started to feel older than her twin and as though it was up to her to take charge. Somehow, without knowing how, Sasha had started to recognise that for all her bravado Lou was more vulnerable than she was herself.

She sat down next to Lou and told her firmly, ‘That will never happen to us, unless of course you keep going on about Kieran.’

‘But he liked you.’

‘No he didn’t, he just pretended he did so that we’d earn money for him with our dancing.’

‘But if he did really like you …’ Lou persisted.

‘Oh, stop it, Lou. I just want to forget about the whole thing.’ Sasha gave a fierce shudder, reminding Lou of exactly what her twin had been through when she had become trapped and they had both thought that she might die before help arrived.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ Sasha accepted her apology, before telling her, ‘I don’t want to go to Auntie Vi’s either, you know, but we have to think of Mum, Lou. Just think how awful it must be for her.’

‘What, you mean because she and Vi don’t get on?’

‘No, silly, because Luke and Grace and our dad will still be here.’

Nearly midnight. The rhythmic tick of the kitchen clock made Jean’s heart thud with anxiety. When would they come tonight? Sam hadn’t been pleased when she had refused to leave for Wallasey this evening. But like she had told him, she and the twins could hardly descend on Vi without any warning.

‘Why not?’ he had wanted to know. ‘I’m sure she’d rather be a bit put out and see you safe than find out summat’s happened.’

Not our Vi, Jean had thought. Vi didn’t like unplanned visitors, and she certainly wouldn’t put the welcome mat out for them. And besides, although she hadn’t said so to Sam, Jean wasn’t leaving Liverpool without first seeing Grace, even if she might not be able to see Luke. She could give Grace a message for him. And then there was Katie to think of. It was all very well Sam frightening her half to death by warning her about what might happen but arrangements still had to be made.

It was no good, she couldn’t sit still any longer.

‘Katie, love, I think I’ll put the kettle on.’

Jean got up. They were all ready in their shelter clothes, the twins and Katie in siren suits that Jean had made from some material that she and Katie had bought from a shop that sold off-cuts.

Jean was making do with an old pair of Sam’s pyjamas that she had cut down.

Kate wondered if she would manage to see Luke before she left. They’d sort of made plans to see one another on Saturday if Luke could snatch a couple of hours of compassionate leave. The CO at the barracks at Seacombe was good like that. Katie felt sorry for those men who did not live close enough for them to get home quickly to check that their families were safe, but Luke had told her that the commander was giving those men with the longest distances to travel twenty-four- and even sometimes forty-eight-hour passes in lieu of the unofficial couple of hours here and there those with families living closer were getting.

‘He’s a decent chap – all the lads say so – but he knows how to make everyone toe the line as well,’ Luke had told her, and Katie had known from his tone of voice that he respected his commanding officer. Luke was someone who saw things in black and white, good and bad, with no shades of grey. Sometime that worried her, especially when he was getting on his high horse about something – or someone he thought had done something wrong. He wasn’t always ready to see that there might be extenuating circumstances or to make allowances for other people’s vulnerabilities and the fact that they might not be as morally strong as he was himself.

She did love him though – so very much. Katie’s expression softened.

Jean looked at the clock. Ten past midnight. It had been gone half-past when they had come last night. They did it deliberately, she was sure, letting people think that they were safe and then coming. Sam was on fire-watch duty, of course. He’d volunteered to stand in for someone else down near the docks. Jean’s hands trembled. The docks were the worst place of all to be.

Quarter-past midnight. Luke shifted his weight against the thin hard mattress of his bed. It wasn’t comfortable at the best of times, but tonight when, like everyone else, he was straining to catch the first sound of incoming aircraft, and with his muscles aching still from earlier in the day – but no, he mustn’t think about that and the horror of removing the debris from the lorry driver’s body to find – but he wasn’t going to think about that, was he? Those ruddy Americans. Showing off like they had and then three of them puking their guts up when they had seen what was left of poor old Ronnie. Some soldiers they were, for all their fancy uniforms and boastful words.

‘I ain’t seen no one dead before,’ one of them had whimpered.

Luke swallowed the bile gathering in his throat.

He tried to think about Katie. She’d be waiting like they all were for the air-raid warning, ready to go into the shelter with his mother and the twins. Katie didn’t always understand how he felt or why he felt the way he did. She didn’t understand what being a man meant and how it was up to him to take care of her. That was a responsibility he took very seriously, just as his father did. Luke’s first thoughts as he listened to the all clear were the same as they had been every morning since the blitz had begun, and were for the safety of those he loved, his family, and Katie, his girl.

Just thinking about Katie brought him a confusing mix of emotions: fear for her safety, coupled with a fierce male urge to protect her, delight because she loved him, pride in her because of the important war work she was doing, and yet at that same time that pride was shadowed by a certain fear and hostility to that work in case it somehow took her from him.

Did Katie wish he was more like Seb, Grace’s fiancé? Seb was an easy-going sort, protective of Grace, of course, but Grace wasn’t the kind who would give a chap any cause to worry about her. Did that mean that Katie was? Luke frowned. He trusted Katie – of course he did, and he knew he could – but she didn’t always realise how she might come across to other men; how they might see her smiling at them and think that her smile meant more than it did. He’d tried to tell her about that, but he couldn’t seem to make her understand. Luke didn’t like it when things weren’t straightforward and clear cut. Life had rules and Luke preferred it when people stuck to those rules. Katie was his girl and that meant that he didn’t want to lose her to another man. He wasn’t keen on that job of hers either. Not really, although he’d tried to pretend that he didn’t mind because he’d been able to see that that was what she wanted. And he did want to please her, of course he did, but it made him feel so frustrated when she wouldn’t understand the danger she was putting herself in.

If they were to get engaged then maybe he’d be able to have more say in what she did. He’d certainly not have her working doing what she did once they were married.

Come on if you’re coming, Lena thought irritably, as she scratched absently at a flea bite on her ankle and waited for the sound of the air-raid siren to start up. She didn’t own a watch and there was no clock in the room she shared with Doris. Doris wasn’t here tonight, though. She’d gone out to her boyfriend’s for tea, and his mother had apparently invited her to stay over in case there was an attack.

Lena laughed to herself. What a lie that was. Lena knew for a fact that Doris’s fella’s mother would be spending the evening in the pub where she worked and that she’d use the pub shelter if the siren went off, and Lena knew that because she’d been in the salon in the morning getting her hair done and she’d said so.

No, Lena reckoned, Doris knew perfectly well that she and Brian would have the house to themselves and Lena thought too that Doris wanted to make the most of the opportunity to tie Brian to her. Well, good luck to the pair of them.

When was that siren going to go off? She heard a sound from the room next door – her uncle breaking wind. He didn’t half make a noise when he farted and he was a stinker with it, an’ all.

Bodily functions and the earthy humour surrounding them were part and parcel of life in the city’s slums. How could they not be with several families sharing the same outside lav, and everyone knowing everyone else’s business, right down to when a person opened their bowels?

Lena had been shocked at first to see half a dozen lads peering over the half-door of one of the lavvies whilst, she learned soon after, the girl inside delicately removed her knickers and then bent over to show them her bare bum, but then she hadn’t been able to help laughing when the girl had insisted that all the boys were to pay her a halfpenny each for the treat.

Of course, Doris denied that she had ever done such a thing. Lena knew that she never could have done. Oh, she hid how she felt from everyone because she knew it would make her a target to be tormented and bullied, but she had been brought up better than that, and when her Charlie came for her he’d take her away somewhere decent; somewhere in Wallasey. Her heart began to beat faster. Should she write to him at his barracks and surprise him? She wanted to, but was held back by a memory of her mother telling her that decent girls didn’t go running after boys. Anyway, she didn’t need to write to him. When she’d put her arms round him and asked him when she’d see him again, he’d said, ‘Soon as I can.’

If she closed her eyes she could picture him now. She could always go over to Wallasey, of course, and introduce herself to his family. She’d got their address, after all. She could say something about him leaving his papers with her and her wanting to get them back to him. Her heart jumped a couple of beats. What were they like, his man and dad? Had he got brothers and sisters at home? Well, she’d have to wait and see, wouldn’t she, because she wasn’t going to go pushing herself in on his family until he was there to introduce her to them proper like, as his girl.

How proud she’d be when he took her home on his arm to meet them. Lena gave a blissful sigh, ignoring the hungry rumble of her stomach. Her auntie had been in one of her bad moods and had hardly spoken to her when Lena had come in for her tea. She’d not given Lena much to eat either, claiming that she couldn’t afford to, even though she’d made Lena hand over her ration book – well, not hand it over exactly. She’d taken it from Lena’s drawer when Lena was out at work, as well as making her tip up most of the money she earned to go into the family pot.

Lena had managed to keep her tips back for herself, though. She’d even opened a Post Office account to pay them into. Simone had shown her how, and Lena kept the book hidden in her handbag. Twenty pounds ten shillings she’d saved in it now, Lena thought with pride.

One o’clock. Seb frowned. They were normally here by now. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. What kind of cat-and-mouse game was Hitler playing with Liverpool now? He’d all but destroyed the city. Another heavy raid, certainly two, would be the fatal blow that would mean that Liverpool was done for. The port would no longer be a safe haven for the Atlantic convoys, bringing in desperately needed food and raw materials, as well as equipment under the recently signed Lend Lease agreement with America, which meant that the neutral Americans, not in the war, could provide much-needed military equipment to the financially hard-pressed Allies, with payment being deferred until a later date. The agreement was very complicated, with many of its terms still kept from the general public in the interests of national security. Its existence, though, had had to be acknowledged to account for the sudden influx to the country of American personnel and equipment to help with the war effort.

Seb stretched again and tried to suppress a yawn.

Grace would be lying in her bed in the nurses’ home waiting for the sound of the siren. Seb knew how much nursing meant to her, but increasingly he worried about her safety. The hospital had already been bombed once, and some of the medical staff killed.

He’d sensed her growing fear and desperation when he’d walked her back to the nurses’ home on Sunday. When he’d taken advantage of the privacy afforded by a shadowy doorway, she’d clung to him and kissed him, trembling so much in his arms with her passion that he had started to tremble himself.

If they’d been anywhere half decently suitable, he’d have been tempted to answer the need he had seen in her eyes and truly make her his, whilst they were still both alive to share that special loving intimacy.

It had been Grace who had insisted that she wanted to finish her training and that meant that they couldn’t marry until she had, but he had respected that decision. These last few days, though, with the knowledge that each bombing raid could take Grace from him, Seb had burned with a fierce urge to make her truly his and to know that they had shared something that could never be taken from them. And Grace had wanted that too – he had sensed it in her even before she had told him so, clinging to him, her eyes wet with her tears as she told him how afraid she was of dying without knowing his love.

Bella couldn’t sleep. They’d been promised twenty cot mattresses, and only ten had been delivered. The driver had feigned ignorance but Bella knew she was right to suspect that the other ten would end up on the black market. She moved restlessly beneath her immaculately ironed sheets. Laura had simply shrugged and looked impatient when Bella had complained to her.

‘What do you expect with all this rationing?’ she had demanded sharply. ‘After all, those doing the black market selling aren’t the only ones making money from this war, are they?’

Bella had known that Laura was referring to Bella’s own father whose business supplying and fitting pipes to merchant and naval vessels had become so profitable thanks to the war that Edwin had had to treble his work force. Her father liked a gin and tonic, and after the third glass was inclined to start bragging about the fortune he was making. Not that he shared it with his family, Bella thought sourly, or at least not with her. He was showering money on Charlie, buying him a new car, because his small sports car had been stolen, giving him a job, and her house.

She looked at her alarm clock.

Two o’clock. The bombers were normally here by now, dropping their bombs over Liverpool. Bella moved irritably, frowning as she remembered the knowing look Ralph Fleming had given her when he’d come to collect his children from the crèche earlier in the day, her face starting to burn with angry pride. Did he really think that she would be interested in him now that she knew he was married man, and that he’d lied to her?

What kind of girl did he think she was? Her heart started to thump angrily. Well, she wasn’t that sort, no matter what he might think. Why were people so horrid and mean to her? Especially men. Bella thought of her father, with his impatience and irritable manner; her husband, who had never loved her as surely she deserved to be loved; Jan Polanski, whose mother and sister were her billetees, and who was getting married in two weeks’ time, making out that she had wanted him to kiss her just because he was good-looking, when she hadn’t at all; and now Ralph Fleming, pretending he was free to ask her out and then actually having the cheek to laugh at her and look at her as though he knew something about her that meant she didn’t care that he was married. Well, she did. She cared a lot. She was tired of other people – other women – treating her the way they did. It wasn’t fair that other girls like her cousin Grace ended up with good-looking men and had lots of friends, whilst she, who surely deserved better, was treated so unkindly.

Tears of self-pity welled in Bella’s eyes.

It just wasn’t fair.

That surely couldn’t be dawn, could it, edging slowly and warily up under the darkness, hesitating as though fearing what it might reveal?

Sam rubbed his eyes in case he had got it wrong and he was imagining things. He was tired from being on fire-watch duty. Even though tonight there were no new fires, the acrid smell of smoke still hung in the air and stung the eyes, but no, that was definitely dawn lightening the sky on the horizon.

As he watched, the band of light grew wider, revealing the tired buildings that still remained standing sharply etched against the skyline, black against the dawn sky.

Something – relief, disbelief, gratitude, Sam couldn’t pin down exactly what it was – dampened his eyes and made him want to shout his discovery from the rooftops.

The German bombers hadn’t come. Incredibly, unbelievably, the final death blow had not been delivered.

On other buildings Sam could see other fire watchers now. Like him they were stretching, and looking around, shedding the burden of the night watch, straightening up and standing tall, and it seemed to Sam that the city itself was doing the same thing, that he could feel in the air its pride in its survival through a night when everyone had thought that all must be lost.

It was a miracle, that’s what it was, Harry Fitch, who had shared the watch with Sam, announced, and Sam didn’t argue.

SIX

It was a mistake – everyone was agreed on that – a breathing space, that was all. The bombers were bound to return, and yet there was a lightness of heart as people went about their business, a sense of reprieve even if it was generally acknowledged that it wouldn’t last.

But it did, and finally, by Sunday morning, after three full nights without a raid, even Sam was cautiously agreeing that maybe there had indeed been a miracle and what was left of the city was safe.

‘Mind you, I still think it’s a rum business that Hitler didn’t send the Luftwaffe in to finish us off,’ he told Jean as the family set out for church.

For once the whole family was together, Luke, like the other soldiers who lived locally, having been given compassionate leave, and Grace being off duty.

In with her other prayers this morning there would definitely be one thanking God for saving her from having to go begging Vi for a favour, Jean decided fervently, as she paused to check that her family were looking their best.

The twins must still be growing, she thought, switching her attention from the outer world to her own small family. Their frocks certainly needed letting down. At their age they really shouldn’t be showing quite so much leg, Jean decided with maternal concern, even if their legs were very well shaped. Thank goodness she had asked Mrs Nellis, who had run up their red and white gingham frocks on her machine for them, to put on good hems, disguised with white rickrack braid.

‘Lou, that isn’t a dirty mark on the sleeve of your cardigan, is it?’ she demanded, sighing as she saw that it was. ‘Just keep your arm by your side, then,’ she instructed.

‘I don’t know if I agree with Mrs Braddock saying that the cinemas should open on a Sunday,’ she told Sam.

Bessie Braddock, a local councillor, had been quoted in the papers saying that people needed to be able to celebrate and enjoy themselves, and for that reason the cinemas should be allowed to open on Sundays.

‘Well, to be fair, she did say that them as don’t approve don’t have to go, and there’s plenty who will want to have a bit of a fun after what’s bin happening,’ Sam responded so tolerantly that even if she hadn’t already done so Jean would have known how much these three nights without bombs had lifted his spirits. Even so, as a mother of daughters still at an impressionable age, Jean felt it necessary to protest.

‘Fun on a Sunday?’

‘But remember, Mum,’ Luke and Grace chanted together, laughing, ‘there’s a war on.’

‘Oh, give over, you two, as if I didn’t know that.’

It was hard to remain stern, though, when the sun was shining and everyone was in such good spirits and with such good reason.

No wonder it felt as though the whole city, or those who were left in it, were turning out to give thanks for being spared.

Grace hung back from the rest of her family deliberately, slipping her arm through Seb’s.

‘We are so lucky. I was so afraid, Seb, afraid that something would happen and that you and I would never … But here we are, both still safe and well …’

‘And we still haven’t …’ Seb began teasingly, but Grace blushed and laughed and shook her head at him.

‘None of that kind of talk now. You know what we agreed.’

He should have seized his chance whilst he had the opportunity, Seb thought ruefully, but on the other hand Grace was well worth waiting for, even if her passionate response to him earlier in the week had had him lying awake every night since imagining how things might be.

Good girls didn’t ‘do it’ before marriage, supposedly, only of course sometimes they did, and it was such a long time to wait before Grace would have finished her training and they could get married. And now there was that other matter as well.

Seb frowned. He had been taken completely by surprise when his commanding officer had sent for him and told him that he was going to be transferred to a new Y Section that was being set up in Whitchurch.