War Babies (27 page)

Irene stared back, apparently unimpressed by this information. ‘That’s Rita and Shirley.’ She nodded at the girls now. ‘Shirl!’ she bawled suddenly.
‘Don’t yow go getting wet – get her out of there, Rita!’

Rita dragged Shirley away from the puddle so roughly that Shirley started to grizzle. Melanie stood quietly taking all this in.

‘Yow can pack that in or yow’ll get a threaping – the pair of you!’

Melanie pulled away from Rachel’s hand and went to the other two who seemed interested in her presence. Shirley stopped crying and the three headed off to squat by the wall of the metal
spinning works. Rachel kept an eye out but they seemed happy enough.

‘Where’ve you moved from?’ she asked.

‘Oh – over from Long Acre way,’ Irene said. She appeared to relax a bit and stood upright, folding her arms over her belly. ‘My Ray’s at Kynoch’s, on the
guns.’ Here she goes again, Rachel thought. The way she said
my Ray
was as if to say,
I’ve got the best-looking man around and don’t you forget it! He’s a cut
above anyone else!
She tried to imagine saying
my Danny
like that. Even though she loved Danny and missed him with an endless ache, she just could not imagine talking about him like
that. It made her want to laugh.

‘Oh, I’ve heard them,’ Rachel said. You could hear the bangs in the park, the guns being tested. ‘My feller’s in the army.’ She heard the pride flower in her
own voice. ‘He’s just gone out east.’

‘Oh, I’m glad my Ray’s reserved,’ Irene said with a smugness that rankled. ‘I wouldn’t want him going off. Keep ’em close, I say.’

All very well, Rachel thought to herself. Not as if I had a choice. But she didn’t want to get into a quarrel.

‘How long’ve you got to go?’ She nodded at Irene’s belly. ‘Mine’s due September.’

‘Yeah. Mine too. It’d better be a lad this time. I’ve had enough of wenches. Blokes always want a lad, don’t they?’ The way she said it was ‘blowkes’.
‘Best thing you can give ’em.’

‘I s’pose,’ Rachel agreed. In fact Danny said he was quite happy with girls. He was used to having sisters about. He said he’d be happy with anything, they were all
family, and she loved him for it. It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it!

She left Irene to her washing, keeping an eye on the girls. She hadn’t warmed to Irene much at all. She seemed rough and big for her boots and not very friendly.

Danny had come home for the first time once his basic training was over, after Easter in 1942. Though it had only been a few weeks, it felt an eternity to Rachel. When she
heard he was coming she could hardly keep still for excitement.

‘Your dadda’s coming home today!’ she kept telling Melanie, who was full of smiles, seeing her mother’s happiness.

Just as they were sitting down to tea, they heard a shout along the entry. ‘Hello! Anyone in then?’

‘He’s here!’ Rachel shrieked and tore outside. Coming round the corner was a strong, fit-looking young man with cropped hair, in khaki uniform. His blue eyes blazed with
excitement as he saw her and he tore off his cap and ran to her.

‘Danny! Oh, Danny!’ She seized hold of him, laughing and crying at the same time.

He pressed her tight to him. ‘Hello, my wench.’

‘Danny – you’re all muscles!’ She squeezed him. He did look the very picture of health.

Melanie was shy of Danny at first, but she soon came round once he had swooped her up onto his knee.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said. ‘Ooh – you’re getting heavy, Melly!’ He bounded her up and down. ‘Here – horsey-horsey . . .’ Melanie
looked round at him, unsure at first, then started to cackle with laughter.

Tea consisted of pease pudding, cabbage and a crumb of cheese.

‘I s’pose you’re getting better grub in the army?’ Gladys said. She too looked delighted to see him. He was her son, Rachel thought, looking at her happy face. Near as,
anyway.

‘Nothing’s as good as yours, Auntie,’ Danny said, grinning at her.

‘Oh, go on with you.’ She cuffed his head. ‘By the look of you they’re feeding you like a turkey cock.’

As they ate, they heard all about Danny’s new life. He described the tent he had been living in and the square-bashing, the other lads and some of the pranks they got up to. Rachel
realized, with a sinking feeling that she tried not to show, that he seemed to be enjoying it.

When they went up to bed, alone at last after settling Melanie, they were in a fever for each other.

‘God, girl,’ Danny said, steering her to the bed. ‘Get those clothes off – I can’t wait any longer for you.’

He was on her immediately, hungry for all he had missed. They made love quickly, she excited by his urgent need of her. It was only afterwards, as they lay cooling down side by side, that they
could talk.

‘You’re bigger – look at your arm,’ she said, stroking the one closest to her. ‘And your chest – look!’

Danny raised his head for a second, peering down at himself. ‘There’s all this PT and things called assault courses we have to do. They’re forever on at us. Run here, do this,
do that. Run five or six miles with a pack on – and that’s just before breakfast!’

Hearing the pride in his voice, and how much he was involved with it, somewhere else that she had never seen, Rachel rolled over and looked down into his eyes.

‘D’you miss me, Danny?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Course.’ He reached for a strand of her hair and twined it between his fingers. ‘Like anything.’

She wasn’t convinced. ‘But d’you
really
miss me? Not just – you know – doing it, but
me
? D’you miss
me
?’

‘I do . . .’ he said hesitantly.

‘You don’t sound as if you do – as if you mean it!’ she said petulantly. Her tears came so easily after all the longing and aching and missing she had done. ‘I
think about you all the time. I live for your letters – they’re what’s keeping me going. But I s’pose,’ she added pitifully, ‘you’re too busy to think of
us much.’

Danny lay back, looking up at the ceiling for a moment, almost as if he hadn’t heard her.

‘Danny!’ she wailed.

‘No, listen –’ Serious, he turned on his side to face her. ‘Thing is, Rach – I was just thinking about it, about you saying “missing you”. I mean, I do
– course. I want to see you and do this –’ he reached round to give her bottom a saucy pat – ‘all the time. But when people say they’re missing someone, like the
other lads do sometimes, the real truth is, I don’t know what they mean. I can’t honestly say I know what it feels like, missing someone. I think it’s . . .’ He looked
across the room for a minute as if trying to work it out. ‘I think it’s after being in the home. When you go in a place like that you have to stop yourself missing anyone, your mom,
your sisters or whoever you’ve got, ’cause you don’t know if you’re ever going to see them again. You just shut it all out. If you missed them all the time, it’d be
too much, sort of thing. So I s’pose I sort of forgot how to do it. But it ain’t ’cause I don’t love you, Rach.’

She wrapped her arms around him, touched by the little boy in him, and hugged him close.

‘Glad to hear it,’ she said into his neck. ‘’Cause I miss you like hell. And I love you, Danny.’

‘You, and her –’ He nodded his head to where Melly was sleeping on her mattress on the floor. ‘And Auntie – you’re everything to me.’

‘What about Jess and Amy?’

Danny hesitated. Matter-of-factly, he said, ‘It’s not as if they’re coming back, is it?’

‘Well, at least you’re here now,’ Rachel said, trying to lift his mood again.

‘I am.’ Danny moved his body against hers again. ‘Oh yes!’

‘Danny!’

‘Sit on me this time,’ he said.

‘All right, your majesty,’ she laughed. ‘Anything you say.’

Since joining up, he had been home three times. After his first leave at Easter he had managed a long weekend in the summer. His last leave had, by what seemed a miracle, been
over Christmas 1942. He arrived on Christmas Eve and all of them decorated the house with what they could manage in the way of streamers and some holly Gladys brought back from the market. She had
got a sprig of mistletoe too and Danny stood on a chair and banged a nail into the ceiling so they could hang it from a thread in the middle of the room.

‘Go on – give her a kiss!’ Gladys instructed. She was in a happy mood. Rachel and Danny cuddled under it while Gladys applauded and Melanie clapped and gurgled beside her.

That night, when they were in bed, he had laid a hand on Rachel’s belly and wriggled up closer to her, mischief on his face. ‘Let me stay in you, all the way, Rach. Come on –
let’s make another one . . .’

Her head whipped round. ‘What? A babby? Are you kidding me?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’ He turned on his front, half on top of her, and looked seriously at her. ‘Rach – there’s summat you need to know. This
leave I’m on – it’s called embarkation leave.’

Suspicious now, she pushed him off her and sat up. ‘What d’you mean?’

Danny sat up beside her, putting his arm around her with such gentle care that it made her feel even more worried. ‘We’re being sent somewhere – abroad. That’s all I know
– honest. They haven’t told us.’

Rachel fell silent. She turned her head away, feeling desolate. She thought about Netta’s Francis, with his safe job in the Pay Corps in England. Why couldn’t they have given Danny a
job like that?

‘Rach – I can’t help it. It’s where we’re ordered. The war’ll soon be over – it
will
.’

‘But how do I know when you’ll come back?’ she said, her emotion building. This was a new blow, which felt unbearable. ‘It’s bad enough that you’re at all
these army camps here. But at least we know where you are.’

‘Soon as I get somewhere the first thing I’ll do is let you know,’ he said. ‘I’ll write to you as often as I can.’

She looked up at him in the gloom. ‘D’you
want
to go, Danny?’

‘
No
,’ he said. ‘I don’t, cross my heart. I want to be back here with you – for it to be over. That’s all I’m waiting for. But –’ he
shrugged – ‘they give us these orders. There’s nothing you can do.’

They were both silent then. Terrible thoughts came to her. What if he never came back from wherever they were taking him? She wondered if he was thinking the same, but neither of them wanted to
say anything like that. It was as if saying it might make it true.

‘Come ’ere,’ Danny said. His hand moved up and started stroking her breasts, kissing her. ‘We’re here. You and me. Now. You’re my girl, and I need
you.’

They had made love every night of his week’s leave, fully, without Danny having to pull out at the last moment, the way they had tried to avoid a baby before. They had spent every moment
together. Even when the Morrison boys begged Danny to come out and kick a ball around with them, Rachel went and watched. Once again, when he left, it was as if he was torn away from her. Later,
after they already knew he was somewhere in the east, but not exactly where, Rachel had woken one morning feeling sick in a way that was immediately familiar.

‘It’s all right for you, Danny Booker,’ she muttered, after heaving over a pail in her bedroom. ‘All you have to do is make the babbies and then clear off!’

But she smiled a little, thinking of the nights they had had together. No one could take those away. Over the next weeks, she alternated between feeling utterly browned off with Danny one minute
and aglow with happiness the next at the thought that another little result of their love was taking shape inside her. Whether she was pleased or fed up really depended on just how sick she was
feeling at the time.

June 1943

‘I’ll come with you today and give you a hand,’ Rachel said as Gladys gathered herself to head into the market on a warm Saturday morning. ‘I could
do with a change. I can keep an eye on Melly, this once, and she’s no trouble is she? She’ll like coming.’

‘All right,’ Gladys said. ‘We can give it a try.’

Rachel realized that Gladys rather liked the idea of showing off her granddaughter.

It felt very nice to be out and about, travelling into town on a fine day, and Rachel’s spirits lifted. Even all the destruction of the smashed-up city, the bomb sites and wrecked
buildings, the grey warehouse walls and grimy streets, looked less glum and depressing in the sunshine. Rachel pointed out things to Melanie as the tram rumbled along.

‘We’re going to the market,’ she said, excited. Melanie snuggled up on her lap, looking about her, wide-eyed and happy. She was wearing a little pink-and-white flowery frock
and Rachel enjoyed the warm loveliness of her. She stroked the little girl’s bare, fleshy arms.

Gladys went round and picked up the basket carriage and the stand she used to hang some of her clothes on and they set up together. The war was pinching everything tight with shortages, but
everyone struggled on the best they could with goods off the ration, and there were many people looking for a bargain in these difficult times. Rachel, now six months’ pregnant, felt well and
was full of energy. It was lovely to be back in all the hurly-burly of the Rag Market. The only thing was, she kept half-expecting to see Danny come in and head across to her with his fast-moving
stride. Each time she thought of it a pang of longing went through her. When would she ever see him here again, his eyes seeking her out?

When the big gates swung open, as usual the crowds came surging in, some of them at the front, breaking into a run. The woman who was in the lead, a large matron in a big black coat, her old
shoes forced out of shape by bunions, was cackling with laughter, she and her friend elbowing each other to get in front. Her open mouth revealed a few remaining stumps of teeth. Rachel chuckled,
loving the atmosphere and excitement of it all, and Melanie shrieked with delight as well, clapping her hands.

‘It’s nice to be back, Auntie!’ Rachel said. ‘And you,’ she addressed Melanie who was on her hip. ‘You’ve got to behave yourself, all right?’

People kept pouring into the market. In these drab, worrying times of war the market was another place to go for entertainment and to forget your troubles for a while. The place was soon heaving
with people. Between them, Rachel and Gladys looked after their pitch. There were more tables in the market now, with metal poles through them and you could hang things between them. They set
everything up together and took it in turns to mind Melanie. At times they sat her down for a bit and found her a few things to play with. Gladys had a little cotton bag with some pegs and cotton
reels and ribbons in and Melanie loved it. Later in the afternoon when she was tired, they were able to lay her down in a safe spot behind their wares for a nap.