Anne Bennett - Keep the Home Fires Burning

As Marion expected, Bill was passed as A1, fit to serve overseas. He was issued with a uniform and a kitbag, and had to report to Thorpe Street Barracks at seven o’clock on Friday morning.

She was surprised when he said that Pat had failed the medical. ‘Why?’ Marion said. ‘He looks all right to me.’

Bill shrugged. ‘I didn’t get to see him after,’ he said. ‘Folk that did said he was gutted.’

‘I wish it was you,’ Marion said.

‘God, don’t say that,’ Bill cried. ‘The man could have anything wrong with him.’

‘Huh, not Pat Reilly. The man is too pickled from alcohol for germs to live long on him. And now he’s somehow managed to wriggle out of the army. Well, I’m away to our Polly’s to find what that lying hypochondriac told them on the Medical Board so that they sent him home.’

The whole family got up to see Bill off that Friday. When he descended the stairs, dressed in his uniform, his wife and children assembled below thought they had never seen him look so smart. But, as Magda said to Missie later, ‘It didn’t look like our dad, though, did it?’

‘No, dain’t smell like him, either.’

‘Yeah, it was like kissing a stranger,’ Magda said.

For all that, they both cried bitterly when they did kiss Bill goodbye, though he kept assuring them that he’d be home again in a few weeks’ time.

Eventually they were calmer and when Magda said, ‘Are you calling for Uncle Pat?’ they were all surprised when he told them that their uncle had failed the medical.

‘Why?’ Tony asked. ‘Jack never said owt.’

‘Maybe he didn’t want to say,’ Bill said. ‘Maybe he didn’t know himself.’

‘But why did he fail, anyroad?’ Magda asked.

‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies,’ Marion said.

Magda thought that just about headed a long list of annoying things mothers said. How were you to get to know anything if you didn’t ask questions? She didn’t bother asking again, though, because her mother could get right angry sometimes when she did that sort of thing. And that day she had two spots of colour on her cheeks, and her eyes looked very bright, which were two bad signs.

It was still very early, so when they had had their breakfast of bread and dripping and had a cat lick of a wash, they went out into the yard.

‘I can’t understand why our mom won’t say what’s wrong with Uncle Pat,’ Magda said.

‘Cos she’s a grown-up, that’s why,’ Tony said darkly. ‘And that’s what they do.’

Magda knew that, but Sarah was a different kettle of fish. She was almost fourteen and not yet a real adult, so she collared her in the bedroom later and said, ‘Why didn’t Uncle Pat get into the army, Sarah?’

‘Because he has flat feet.’

Missie and Tony were still in the yard, and when Magda went out and told them what Sarah had said they both looked at her in astonishment.

‘Don’t be daft!’ Tony said,

‘I’m not,’ Magda said indignantly. ‘That’s what Sarah said.’

‘It couldn’t be just that, though.’

Magda shrugged. ‘Well, that’s all she said.’ Then suddenly she sat down on the back step, where she unlaced her shoes and peeled off her socks.

‘What you doing?’ Missie cried.

‘Looking at my feet.’ Magda wriggled her toes. ‘All feet are sort of flat, aren’t they? I mean, you don’t get round feet or square or owt.’

‘Maybe Uncle Pat’s feet are dead flat all over,’ Missie said. ‘I mean, we wouldn’t see that through his boots.’

‘They ain’t,’ Tony put in. ‘I’ve seen Uncle Pat’s feet a few times and they looked the same as everyone else’s feet to me.’

‘Don’t stop him walking, does it?’ Magda said.

‘Shouldn’t stop him marching then, should it?’ Tony said. ‘Don’t think his feet can have much to do with it. Our Sarah must have picked it up wrong.’

The two girls nodded solemnly. It was easily done to get the wrong end of the stick, especially when you shouldn’t have overheard in the first place, as Magda knew to her cost.

‘You’d better put your things back on,’ Missie said, ‘before Mom catches sight of you.’

Magda pulled her socks on and pushed her feet into her shoes, but the laces defeated her and she had to leave them dangling. Fortunately, it was Sarah who came to bring the children inside and she only grumbled good-naturedly at Magda as she fastened up the shoes.

‘And let me straighten your hair before Mom sees it,’ she said. ‘How you get it in such a tangle in minutes beats me.’

‘I don’t know how I do it either,’ Magda said. ‘It’s a mystery.’

Sarah laughed at the crestfallen look on her young sister’s face. ‘Magda Whittaker, you are one on your own,’ she said as she rebraided one of Magda’s plaits. ‘And thank God for it.’

Now that the twins had made their First Holy Communion, all the Whittakers went to Communion every Sunday. As no one was allowed to eat or drink beforehand, when they returned from Mass they were usually more than ready for a big feed. However, the first Sunday after Bill had left for the training camp there was no big breakfast. Instead, Marion made a big saucepan full of porridge. It was thin because it was made with water, and there was no jug of creamy milk to pour over it and just one small teaspoon of sugar each.

‘I’m still hungry,’ Tony declared as he cleared his plate.

Magda was as well, but again she had seen the two bright red spots appear in her mother’s cheeks. She was a great respecter of those spots because they would always appear before she got her legs smacked for something or other, so she waited to see what reaction Tony would get.

‘Well then,’ said Marion, ‘you will have to stay hungry until dinner time.’

‘Yeah, but—‘

‘If you have any more now you will have no appetite for dinner.’

‘Yeah I will, Mom,’ Tony cried. ‘Honest. I’m starving.’

‘Starving,’ snorted Marion. ‘You don’t even know what that word means. Anyway, there is no help for it and you will just have to make do with the porridge. No one else is making such a fuss.’

Oh, but I could, Magda thought, for I bet that I’m just as hungry as Tony. There was little point in saying any of this, though, and anyroad, her twin sister, Richard and Sarah seemed satisfied, and Sarah had already started clearing up the bowls.

Sarah could have said that the porridge barely took the edge off her appetite, but she knew that that was the type of meal that they had to get used to when so little money was coming into the house.

Later, in the yard, Magda said to Missie, ‘D’you suppose we’re poor now, ‘cos Mom only gave us two farthings for the collection instead of the two pennies we usually have?’

‘I don’t know if we’re really poor,’ Missie said, ‘but Sarah did tell me that there will be less money about now that Dad has enlisted.’ ‘Oh.’

‘She even said that some weeks we may get no collection money at all.’

‘Well, I’m going round Aunt Polly’s,’ Tony declared. ‘She’ll give me a jam piece or summat when I tell her that I’m still hungry.’

‘You can’t tell Aunt Polly that,’ Missie said, clearly shocked.

‘Why not?’ Tony demanded. ‘It’s the truth.’

‘Because Mom would be hurt if you did,’ Missie explained.

‘She wouldn’t half,’ Magda agreed. ‘Hurt and angry, I’d say. Anyroad, Tony, why d’you think that you’re the only one that’s still hungry? I am as well, if you want to know, but I don’t make as much fuss as you. It’ll be dinner time soon.’

‘Not for flipping hours it won’t.’

‘Oh, stop moaning. It’ll do no good.’