Anne Bennett - A Strong Hand to Hold

Dermot had become a driver in the armament factory his uncle worked in, and had taken on any number of contracts to earn the money he needed. Maureen told Jenny that once he’d left the house, he might not come back into it for a week. That was how it came about that Norah and her mother, Eileen Gillespie, had the rearing and ruination of Jenny’s older brothers and sister.

However, it was all water under the bridge, now. Her brothers and sister were grown up and could make their own decisions – yet they never went to see their gran though she lived but two streets away, in Westmead Crescent.

That afternoon, Maureen O’Leary took one look at the anguished eyes of her granddaughter and drew her into her arms. She wept as Jenny gave her the news. She cursed Hitler and the whole German army and the German nation, and Jenny lay against her and wondered why she still couldn’t cry.

Even her gran’s lodger Peggy McAllister was upset when she heard of Anthony’s death. The McAllisters were friends of her gran who lived in Ward End and when the family had been bombed out in August, Maureen offered their eldest girl Peggy a temporary home with her. Since then Peggy had become friendly with Jenny, and she had even met Anthony when he’d visited his gran on his short leave in late September.

‘It could have been our Mick,’ she said to Jenny. ‘He’s desperate to join the RAF and he’s eighteen just after Christmas. It’ll break Mammy’s heart if anything happens to him.’

‘It isn’t only the servicemen though, is it?’ Maureen said, dabbing her eyes. ‘I mean, your whole family could have been killed in the raid that blew up your house. Those poor Londoners are getting it every night, and hundreds killed there.’

‘It’s happening all over the country,’ Jenny said. ‘And the Coventry raid five days ago that killed over fifteen hundred people and injured many more will at least put paid to the stupid people who think being two hundred miles from the coast is some sort of deterrent. I think, and so do many more, that we will be next. All our defences have been stepped up. I’m on duty tonight, as it happens.’

‘Och, girl, they’ll understand if you go down and explain,’ Maureen said tearfully. ‘They’d not expect you in tonight if you tell them about Anthony.’

Jenny shook her head. ‘I’d rather not just sit and think,’ she said. ‘God knows, there’ll be time enough for that – and Anthony wouldn’t want me to stay away, especially if there should be a heavy raid tonight.’

Maureen didn’t press her granddaughter further, but Jenny knew it wouldn’t be so easy for her to convince the ones at home. ‘I’ll have to be going anyway,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘They’ll all be sitting there waiting for me to make their tea.’

‘I must be away too,’ Peggy said, ‘or they’ll be handing me my cards.’

Peggy worked the night shift at BSA – Birmingham Small Arms – in Armoury Road, making Browning guns for Spitfires, and it was one hell of a trek from Pype Hayes out there every evening. Maureen secretly thought the reason she stayed on with them and didn’t look for something nearer, was because she was sweet on her son Gerry, and Gerry certainly more than liked her. In fact, Maureen thought, Peggy would be hard to dislike as she was lovely to look at with her thick hair so dark it was nearly black, and eyes to match, and her full mouth in her heart-shaped face. But best of all was her kindly nature and sense of humour. Maureen would welcome the girl as a daughter-in-law, for Gerry was thirty-three and a fine age to marry, but he was too shy to speak his mind to the girl. Maureen thought him a fool and hoped he wouldn’t dally too long, or someone else would snap the girl up.

Jenny knew what was in her gran’s mind, but her own was still full of her brother, and as she made her way back to the house, she wondered why she didn’t look in the least bit like him. Like his three brothers and Geraldine too, Anthony had had deep brown eyes and hair, a nice-shaped nose and mouth, and flawless skin. The boys were all acknowledged as handsome and Geraldine known as a stunner.

Jenny’s face was longer than theirs and went to a point at her chin, and though her eyes were brown, they were much lighter than the other O’Learys’. Her nose had no shape to it at all and was powdered with hideous freckles, and her mouth was too big and her lips too thick. But worst of all was the mop of auburn curls that refused to lie flat, or be tamed in any way. She was plain if not downright ugly – and if she’d had any doubts about it, Norah O’Leary would have dispelled them, for all the years of her growing up, she’d told her how ugly she was.

Not, in fact, that she’d grown up very much, for while the boys all touched on six foot and Geraldine was a willowy five foot six like her mother and other grandmother, Jenny was just five foot. She’d grown till she was about twelve, then stopped, and she had few womanly curves and little bust. In fact, she looked more like a young boy than a young woman, especially when she wore the trousers that women were finding so comfortable and practical these days.

Even her sister had said she’d be left on the shelf if she didn’t make the most of the few attributes she had – and indeed, there had never been anyone killed in the rush to take Jenny O’Leary out.

Now though, Norah was pleased that Jenny had turned out plain. As the only unmarried daughter, she’d spend her lifetime looking after her; it wasn’t as if she’d ever have a better offer. Norah considered she’d had a miserable life since she consented to marry that oaf Dermot O’Leary, but she’d made him pay for it. Now it was Jenny’s turn. She’d always championed him anyway, and even looked like him and all his common relations. Norah knew she would never feel the same about Jenny as she did about her beautiful daughter Geraldine, who’d never argued with her in the whole of her life. There had been just one distressing incident in her teens when she’d been all for marrying someone unsuitable. But Norah had soon put a stop to that. Jenny was a different kettle of fish altogether.

When Jenny returned from her gran’s, it was to hear the priest had already paid the two women a visit. Norah immediately demanded to know where Jenny had been for such a long time; she was furious when she found out. Didn’t Jenny have any thought for her feelings? Surely she knew that Maureen O’Leary was the last person on God’s earth she’d have wanted her to see. ‘Why,’ she asked plaintively, ‘do you take such pleasure in upsetting me and today of all days when I’m trying to come to terms with the death of my son?’

Jenny couldn’t understand her mother. Did she honestly think Gran O’Leary should have been kept in the dark? Anthony was her grandson too, and she had loved him dearly. Surely she had a right to know!

But in this sort of mood, there was no reasoning with Norah, as Jenny knew from bitter experience. She gave a sigh and, deciding she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, told her mother she was on warden duty that night and had no intention of asking to be excused. At first Jenny thought her mother was going to have a fit; naturally, everyone blamed Jenny for the upset. ‘You are unnatural,’ Norah declared, and Jenny could see that the others agreed with her. No one could understand her attitude. Geraldine was still at the house but she couldn’t stay late for she had the children to get to bed. She said she assumed that Jenny would be there that evening to offer their mother some measure of comfort. Jenny gave a grim smile, knowing her mother would never take comfort from her . She was just used as the whipping boy.

It had been Anthony’s idea that she work as an ARP warden or at least that she do something for the war effort. He’d told her about the women working on the shopfloor of factories doing jobs that had once been traditionally male, and of those driving buses and trucks and ambulances, and how proud he was of them all setting to and running the country in the absence of the men. His words had inspired Jenny and, having some knowledge of First Aid, she offered herself as an ARP warden and now reported for duty two evenings a week at the warden post in Tyburn Road.