Birmingham Blitz by Annie Murray Read Free Book Online Page B

here earlier in a state. Called ’im up straight away.’
    Lil stared back at her. ‘Bejaysus.’ She often said that. It was one of Patsy’s sayings and she clung to it. ‘I didn’t think it’d be so soon. They haven’t said there’s going to be a war yet. Not for sure.’
    ‘Looks mighty like it though.’
    ‘Poland,’ Lil said with scorn. She lit a fag and sat back. ‘Where the hell is Poland anyhow?’
    Nan sat on the edge of her chair, sipping tea. ‘I’ve cleared out the cellar.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘What d’you think for? I’m not going out in those public shelters with just anyone. There’s not much space down there but we can fit and it’ll have to do. I’ve given it a scrub.’
    ‘Charming. Reducing us to sitting in the cellar.’
    ‘Want some bread and scrape, Genie?’ Nan said.
    ‘No, I’m all right, ta. Nan?’
    ‘What, love?’
    I told her about Mrs Wiles.
    ‘Well, what a thing,’ she said. ‘I thought you was looking a bit shook up. Poor old dear.’
    ‘Shame.’ Lil took a drag on her cigarette. ‘Be much nicer to die in Lewis’s, wouldn’t it?’
    ‘Better not tell Doreen,’ Nan said. ‘She’ll only say that’s what you get for working in a pawn shop up ’ere.’ Mom put on a show of thinking people in Highgate were common, which was rich considering she grew up there herself. When I got the job I didn’t tell her for days.
    ‘You’d better be moving on,’ Nan said to me. ‘Got to see to this blackout palaver tonight. Your mother never got it done for the practice, did she? She won’t want all that on ’er own.’
    ‘She’s all right – it’s light yet,’ Lil said. She seemed to be coming round a bit now she’d got some tea inside her. ‘Eric get off all right, did he?’
    I nodded, miserable at the thought. Lil sat forward, her old sweet self for a moment. ‘You’ll miss him, won’t you Genie love? But he’ll be all right. He’s a good boy.’ She smiled at me prettily. ‘You’ll have to come round and see my lot when you want some company.’
    I found Mom in tears of course, with Len taking not the blindest bit of notice. It wasn’t that he lacked sensitivity. He’d most likely just given up by now. Soon as he got in from work he usually sat down by Gloria without even washing his hands unless we nagged him, and that was that.
    ‘My boy!’ Mom was carrying on behind her hanky. There was no sign of tea on the go. ‘My poor little Eric. How will we ever know if they’re looking after him properly?’
    I felt impatient, although all day I’d had nothing but the same thought in my mind. ‘Oh, I expect he’ll have a grand time,’ I said bitterly. ‘Forget we exist.’
    ‘But that’s what I’m worried about!’ Mom wailed. She flung herself up out of her chair, dabbing at her red eyes. ‘First I’ve got no son, and now I haven’t even got a husband!’ She clicked the stair door open and disappeared upstairs, slamming it behind her.
    ‘She’s crying,’ Len remarked.
    ‘You don’t say, Lenny.’
    I was really fed up with her. Sometimes I’d have liked to be the one who could flounce about and cry and behave like a child. I got sick of being a mother to my own mom. I wanted someone to sit down and put their arm round me while I cried because my dad and my brother had gone away.
    ‘I s’pose this means I’m cooking tea, does it?’ I snapped at Len, since he was the only person left to snap at, though I got no answer anyway.
    There was liver in the kitchen. I started chopping onions. Len fiddled with Gloria until music came streaming from her. I felt a bit better. Len beamed. ‘S’nice this, Genie, in’t it?’
    There was a voice kept coming on as I was cooking, saying we had to retune the wireless. Len was taking no notice, didn’t understand.
    I wiped my hands and went over. ‘Len, the man says we’ve got to turn the knob to a different number.’ Len stared blankly at me. I went and fiddled with Gloria’s dial and Len got