In an instant, Violet was across the room. ‘What’ve you done, you silly bugger?’ she said gently, looking at Lizzie’s face, devoid of colour, biting at her lip.
‘Violet!’ Now it was over she was glad to see her friend. ‘Won’t be long now, Violet. I’ve killed my baby.’
Holy Christ, she’s done this on purpose, Violet
thought, and to Lizzie she said, ‘Silly sod. You might have broken your neck.’
‘Might as well have done if I can’t get rid of this baby,’ Lizzie told her. ‘My life will be over anyway.’
‘Stop that kind of talk!’ Violet said sharply. ‘Think of your kids.’
‘Ah, yes, my kids,’ Lizzie said. ‘Like my wee daughter who wants me over for her First Communion in early July. She’s written to ask me. The letter is behind the clock, and of course I’ll be welcomed warmly with my belly full of the bastard child of a maniac. I had to bloody well do something.’
Violet’s heart constricted in pity, but she said, ‘All right. What’s done is done and there could be a reaction to this night’s work. But you can’t stay here all night. Can you get up if I help you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie said. ‘My head’s spinning because I banged it against the door.’
‘Let’s try,’ Violet suggested, putting her arm through one of Lizzie’s.
But when Lizzie tried to move she groaned with pain. ‘Hush,’ Violet cautioned. ‘You’ll have the yard in to see what’s what.’
When Lizzie was eventually hauled to her feet, the room spun around her. ‘Hold on,’ Violet said, virtually dragging her across to the armchair before the fire where she lowered her thankfully. She knew Lizzie should be in bed, but she didn’t know how that was to be achieved and so she filled a kettle and put it on the gas and then poked some life into the almost dead fire and shook more coal on. ‘I’m going upstairs for a blanket,’ she said. ‘And I’m going to make up a hot,
sweet cup of tea and put a drop of whisky in it. It’s good for shock.’
‘I’m not suffering from shock.’
‘Course you are,’ Violet stated. ‘Anyone would be who’d fallen down the stairs top to bottom. Anyway, humour me. I bet you’ve had nowt to eat either?’
Lizzie shook her head, but slowly for she still felt incredibly dizzy.
‘Well,’ Violet said. ‘When I’ve got you comfortable, I’ll slip back home and bring you a bowl of stew.’
Later, at home, she said to Barry, ‘I’ll stay with Lizzie this evening because she’s in a bad way. So if you want to slip out for a pint…’
‘How bad is she then? She only had a fall, didn’t she?’
‘Yeah,’ Violet said. ‘But she cracked her head on the door and, well, I don’t like the look of her. I’ll feel happier if I stay with her this evening at least.’
But it wasn’t the crack on the head that Violet wanted to stay for, but because she knew Lizzie would want someone with her when she began to miscarry.
Violet, in the armchair next to Lizzie, awoke with a jerk. She must have dozed off and she saw Lizzie also slept. She peered at the clock. Eleven o’clock, she thought, and Barry will be home in a minute. She couldn’t justify staying with Lizzie all night, though she’d feel happier to do so because he knew nothing about the pregnancy.
She hesitated to wake Lizzie. She looked so peaceful. In the end, she raked up the fire as quietly as she could and banked it with slack before dousing the lights and
popping back home, but she knew she’d sleep lightly and at any untoward noise from next door she would be round like a shot.
Lizzie awoke in the early hours and for a moment was disorientated. The room was in total darkness except for the tiny glow amongst the slack in the grate, and when she tried to move the pain was excruciating.
It all came back to her, the realisation that she was pregnant and the letter from Niamh that had spurred her to throw herself down the stairs, but the pains she would have welcomed, the drawing pains, had not happened yet. Surely to God they would. She closed her eyes and began to pray as earnestly as she had as a child.
The next morning, Violet came in, drew the blackout curtains, poked up the fire and surveyed Lizzie. ‘Christ, lass, I bet you’re black and blue.’
‘That wouldn’t matter a jot if it had achieved its objective,’ Lizzie said wearily.
‘No sign then?’
‘None.’
‘There is places. I mean, I know of people had babies took away, like.’
‘Isn’t it against the law?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Violet said. ‘They don’t advertise it, like, but people just get to know. It’s risky, I know that much. It’s not summat I could wholly recommend, like, but if you was desperate.’
‘I am desperate, Violet, but abortion…well, it’s a mortal sin.’
‘Well, what about chucking yourself down the stairs?’
‘That’s different,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s more natural somehow.’
‘Course it ain’t!’
‘To me it is.’
‘So you won’t consider an abortion then?’
‘No.’
‘Can’t say I’m sorry,’ Violet said, ‘cos I know it’s bloody dangerous.’
When Violet saw the state of Lizzie’s body as she helped her dress, she gasped in shock, for she was a mass of bruises from head to toe, back and front. ‘Got to hand it to you, girl,’ Violet said. ‘When you do a job, you do it right and proper.’
‘No I don’t,’ Lizzie said fiercely.
‘It may work yet.’
‘And it may not. Then what will I do?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll think of summat. As for your job, Christ, I can’t see you getting back to the factory till after Easter. I mean, it’s Tuesday now and Easter Sunday is this Sunday.’
‘What will you tell them at work?’
‘That you fell down the stairs. What else?’
‘Thanks, Vi.’
‘Think nothing of it, bab, and if Hitler attacks tonight let’s hope it will be light and too far away for us to worry about it.’
Lizzie hoped so too, and fervently, especially when she tried to struggle down to the lavvy. Every step was agonising to her bruised and battered body and Minnie came out to see what the matter was with her. The news quickly flew around the court that Lizzie Gillespie had had a bad fall down the stairs—poor sod.
‘Everything seems to happen to her,’ Sadie observed.
‘Aye,’ Ada agreed. ‘Ain’t Lizzie one of the unluckiest buggers you’ve ever seen?’
‘Certainly seems to get more of her fair share of trouble,’ Minnie said. ‘And that ankle was swollen up like a bloody balloon. Won’t be able to walk on that for a few days I shouldn’t think.’
‘That’s if it ain’t broken,’ Gloria said. ‘I mean, didn’t she tell you she weren’t going to no hospital for an x-ray?’
‘Yeah,’ Minnie said, but she hated hospitals herself and went on, ‘don’t blame her really. Hospitals cost money, and anyroad, she can move her toes and that. It hurts, like, but she can do it. Don’t reckon she could do that if the bloody thing was broke.’
‘She should make sure,’ Sadie insisted, ‘and you should have told her that, Minnie. We can’t all be running around after her.’
‘Never notice you do much of that anyroad,’ Minnie said. It was true, Sadie was always at the back of the queue when there was helping to be done, but she was furious at Minnie’s accusation.
‘What do you mean by that remark?’ she demanded.
‘You work it out,’ Minnie said disparagingly. ‘It ain’t hard. ‘Fraid I can’t stop and help you, cos I’m popping up to see if Lizzie wants a hand, like.’
Minnie wasn’t the only one to pop up either, though Sadie had gone into her house in offended silence and never went near. Lizzie was grateful, not only for her neighbours’ invaluable practical help, but also for their company, which prevented her thinking too long and hard. Though Violet had always been her special friend,
these people had welcomed her from the day she moved into the yard and she counted them as friends too, and by God she knew she needed friends as never before.
Violet was glad they’d all rallied round Lizzie, especially with her at work all day. She would have expected it of them all and wasn’t surprised that Sadie Miller hadn’t put in an appearance. ‘Wouldn’t give you the skin off her rice pudding that one,’ she commented to Lizzie later that evening.
She was glad to see the ghost of a smile playing about Lizzie’s face at her words. ‘But,’ she warned, ‘watch her, Lizzie, if she does come in. She’s like a snake, nice as ninepence to you one minute, and then
wallop
! She socks you one between the eyes, spewing filth out of her gob! Don’t, for God’s sake, tell her owt.’
‘I won’t. I’m not mad altogether. Only you and I know the truth.’
‘Yeah, I ain’t even told Barry. I mean, he’d feel sorry for you and all. He saw the state of you that night and he’d not say a word sober, but I always find the more pints a man drinks, the looser his tongue gets, and I’d not risk to tell him and have it all over the neighbourhood by the morning and that cow of a mother-in-law getting wind of it.’
‘Everyone will get wind of it unless I do something and soon.’
‘I know, bab, I am working on it,’ Violet said. ‘Give me time, I’ll think of summat.’
However, before Lizzie was able to think of anything, the sirens blasted out. ‘Oh bloody hell,’ Violet burst out. She read the fear in Lizzie’s eyes and knew
she’d never make it to any shelter and she said, ‘We won’t go yet, it might be miles away. Our Barry’s down at the warden post tonight, so I hope it is, and I’ll make us a cup of tea. Puts new heart in a body, tea!’
It was soon apparent that something more than tea was needed as the crumps and crashes got uncomfortably close. ‘Come on, girl. Let’s be having you,’ Violet cried, slinging her shelter bag and Lizzie’s over her shoulder to help Lizzie to her feet. ‘We’ll shelter on the stairs, like. It’ll be better than nothing,’ and she helped Lizzie over to the bottom of the stairs she’d flung herself from not that long ago. Then, taking some cushions from the chairs, they tried to make themselves as comfortable as they could, for no-one knew how long it would last.
The purpose-built shelters muffled noise more than the staircase and Lizzie heard the clamour all around them, the crashes and blasts of explosives and the answering sound of the ack-ack guns barking into the night. Smoke swirled in the air and seemed to lodge in her nose and the back of her throat and every bone in her body ached.
The German planes had a distinctive and intermittent engine noise, and each time Lizzie heard a number of them approaching and knew bombs would soon be hurtling down indiscriminately from the belly of those planes to land, her stomach would tighten in fear. She knew every minute could be her last and it could be Violet’s too, that staunch friend who, without a murmur of complaint, shared the same danger.
The resultant crash of the explosives near at hand made both her and Violet jump and give little cries of
terror, and sometimes clutch each other, especially if it was close enough to shake the walls. The ack-ack guns would send up a volley and the planes would go away, but another wave would soon be overhead again, and another and another.
In the end you began to think you’d always been there. Lizzie felt as if her nerve-endings were jangling and exposed for all to see, for she was experiencing fear like the November and December raid had induced in her.
‘Gets to you after a while, don’t it?’ Violet said suddenly. ‘God, I feel as if my insides have gone to water.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘I feel the same. Only a fool would say they wasn’t scared. Oh God Almighty, here they come again!’
Lizzie wasn’t sure at what point in that terror-ridden night she’d thought it would be better if she didn’t survive. Wouldn’t it solve all her problems? The children would miss her, certainly, but they were happily settled with their grandparents now. And they still had their father, didn’t they, and whatever his faults as a husband, he loved his son and daughter and they loved him. Everyone would be better off if she didn’t survive this, she thought, as the reassuring ‘All Clear’ blared across the city.
Lizzie and Violet emerged from their makeshift shelter surprised they’d escaped unscathed and Violet crossed to the door and opened it.
Outside, dust and smoke was thick and stinking, but in the sky over Birmingham there was an orange glow and flames licked into the night sky. ‘Dear Christ, there will be nothing left.’
‘You’re right there,’ Ada said as she passed on her way from the shelter. ‘One of the wardens was saying the city was ablaze from High Street and along New Street to the Midland Arcades.’
‘God Almighty! Where’s it all going to end?’ Violet cried, but there was no answer to that.
The next day, Violet was back in Lizzie’s house before half past nine, as the factory had been destroyed in the raid of the previous night, as well as much of the area surrounding it and a good proportion of the city centre.
‘Well, what are they going to do? What are you going to do?’ Lizzie asked, shocked.
‘Well, I suppose they’ll start again,’ Violet said. ‘I mean, what we did, well, it was important to the war effort, weren’t it? But just now I don’t know where they’ll find new premises, cos there were so many places hit again last night and there won’t be nowt till after Easter anyroad. But I did get a bit of news you might be interested in from Nancy. Remember, she was the one who put you wise about being up the spout in the first place?’
Lizzie gave a shudder. ‘I’ll never forget that moment, or that day,’ she said.
‘Well,’ Violet told her. ‘Nancy was telling me of a neighbour of hers wanted rid of a baby she was carrying. Course, I got my ear holes pinned back, like, and she said she used castor oil.’
‘Castor oil?’
‘Nancy says this woman swears by it. Shifts anything and everything out. She said this woman mixed castor oil with orange juice, like, to make it more—well it’s bloody awful, ain’t it, and you gotta have a fair bit.’
‘How much is a fair bit?’
‘Well, two bottles should do you, well, according to her, anyroad.’
‘But Violet,’ Lizzie protested, ‘where am I going to find orange juice? I mean, when was the last time you saw orange juice? Unless you have a special ration book to get it from the Welfare for babies.’
‘I dunno,’ Violet had to admit. ‘You’d have to have it neat, but anyroad, I thought it was a better plan than throwing yourself off the landing.’
‘Maybe, but God, castor oil, Violet! And neat! Nothing to even try and mask the taste?’
‘I know, but if it helps, like.’
Lizzie didn’t have to think for long. She just had to consider the alternative and that was enough. She turned to Violet and said, ‘You know I would walk across hot coals to rid myself of this child. Castor oil will be nothing.’
‘We’ll be best leaving it till after Easter, till you are fully fit and before we go back to work. That’s if there is any work to go back to of course.’
‘How will we know?’
‘The bosses said they’ll put a notice in all the Birmingham papers and for us to keep an eye out.’
‘Might as well do it Monday then,’ Lizzie said resignedly. ‘Get it over with.’
‘Yeah, that’s a good day for me,’ Violet said. ‘Barry goes to see the Blues play on Monday afternoon, so he needn’t know anything about it. See you later then, bab,’ she went on, her voice sympathetic at Lizzie’s woebegone face. ‘Keep your pecker up.’
Barely had the door shut on Violet before it was opened again, and Lizzie had to suppress a sigh when she saw her mother-in-law on the doorstep. ‘Am I to be told nothing?’ Flo snapped, going straight into the attack. ‘To be of no account? Nearly all the neighbours heard of the fall you had down the stairs, but I wasn’t told.’
‘It wasn’t serious. I mean, I haven’t even had the doctor in,’ Lizzie protested. ‘I just had bruises, that’s all.’
Flo scanned the room, looking, thought Lizzie, for something else to criticise, and eventually said, ‘Your step needs a good going over with a donkey stone. I noticed it on the way in, and have you seen the dust on that mantelshelf, and the state of the fireplace is a disgrace.’
‘I have been at work, Flo.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t be. As a wife and mother, your place is in the home.’ Lizzie knew Flo’s views, for she’d expressed them often enough. As far as Flo was concerned, Lizzie was a married woman and a mother, and whether her children were with her or not, that meant she should be at home through the day and content to sit by her own fireside in the evening.
But this war could not be won on those terms. ‘Flo,’ Lizzie replied, ‘we’re at war. Our men, husbands, fathers and sons cannot fight without equipment. If women
don’t make them, who will? Yes, I admit the money is useful, but so is doing my bit. Steve’s doing his and I’m doing mine, and he approves of what I do.’
Flo couldn’t argue with this and she didn’t try. Instead, she said, though grudgingly, ‘I’ll get your rations in before I go if you like,’ and Lizzie nodded. It would be helpful because it did hurt to walk far, and it would also get the woman out of her hair for a bit.
Later, when her mother-in-law had gone home, she said to Violet, ‘She’s the most aggravating woman. Even when she’s supposed to be helping me, she’s critical of everything…even when there is nothing to be critical of. God, what would she do to me if she knew what I’m carrying in my belly?’
‘She’s not going to know a damn thing about it,’ Violet said vehemently. ‘After Monday afternoon it will just be a bad memory.’
‘Violet, I just can’t swallow any more, I’ll be sick.’
‘No you won’t,’ Violet said, tipping the castor-oil bottle up. ‘Look, you’ve nearly finished this bottle. Take a drink of water.’
‘That doesn’t help.’
‘Take it anyway.’
Lizzie took a long drink from the cup beside her. ‘Two more dessert spoons should do it,’ Violet said cheerfully, ‘and that’s one bottle out of the way.’
‘Isn’t one bottle enough?’
‘Maybe, but are you prepared to risk it? Nancy said two.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can. What’s up with you? You once told me you’d walk over hot coals.’
‘I’d rather.’
‘Yeah? Well all you’d get then is scorched feet. This way there’s a chance you’ll get rid of that babby you’re carrying. Now open your mouth, for God’s sake. Let’s get it over with.’
They got it over with, though Lizzie gagged more than a few times, and afterwards she lay back in the chair and closed her eyes. ‘D’you want to lie down a bit?’
‘Aye, I’d love to, but I know if I move I’ll throw up,’ Lizzie said wearily. ‘My head feels as if it doesn’t belong to me and my stomach is churning.’
Lizzie was concentrating on trying to stop herself from being sick, but knew she was losing the battle when the nausea continued to rise in her throat. ‘Bowl, please, Violet,’ she cried, and Violet ran for it and held her head while she vomited over and over. Fat lot of good that did, she thought. I bet if I vomited back all I took it will do no good at all.
Just a little later, Lizzie made one of her many trips to the lavatory, glad her bruises had begun to heal and her leg was less painful, for some of the calls were of the urgent type. Violet stayed with her. At one point she’d gone home to see to and serve Barry’s tea, but she’d come back again, using the truthful excuse that Lizzie was far from well.
‘Maybe it will happen tonight,’ Violet said consolingly. ‘Bang the wall if you need me. I’d stay with you, but I don’t want Barry to get suspicious.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Lizzie said. She felt far from fine, but
thought her friend had done enough. ‘Really, you go now.’
‘Try and eat something,’ Violet advised. ‘It might settle your stomach a bit.’
‘I’ll choke if I try to, Violet.’
‘Ah, well, maybe you know best. Get some sleep if you can.’
But there was no sleep for Lizzie. She sat on the toilet nearly all evening and on into the night, often holding the bowl in front of her as the castor oil was expelling everything from both ends. She felt by eleven o’clock that she had nothing left inside her. Her throat was sore from retching and so was her stomach, and a throbbing had begun in her head; but there was no sign of miscarriage, no blood on her pants, no rush of water, no plug of mucus.
Next morning, Violet noted the blue smudging under Lizzie’s red-rimmed eyes set in a face the colour of lint. ‘Still nowt?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘My head’s swimming and my stomach’s aching, but not the way I’d like it to be,’ she said.
‘Could you eat a wee bit of toast or porridge?’ Violet asked.
‘Toast, maybe,’ Lizzie said. ‘But there’s no reason to wait on me. I’m not an invalid.’
However, she found that the slice of toast she ate went straight through her, the same as the bowl of broth she attempted at dinner time. ‘Surely to God no baby can go through this and still hang on,’ she said, coming back into the house after yet another sojourn down the yard.
‘Maybe it hasn’t,’ Violet said. ‘I mean, maybe it is all over and you d’ain’t seen owt. There’s not much light in them lavvys and the shaded torches are worse than useless. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the castor oil has done its duty and skited the whole lot out of you.’
‘I’ll tell you what it has done,’ Lizzie said. ‘And that’s got rid of the metallic taste, but I don’t know if the cure isn’t worse than the disease.’
‘Christ, some people are never satisfied,’ Violet said, and just then Ada gave the door a cursory knock and popped her head around it. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, I met your mother-in-law on Bristol Street and she said she was coming this way’
Lizzie put her head in her hands and groaned. ‘Oh God.’
‘Quick,’ Violet said. ‘You get into bed. You’re not up to dealing with that uppity bitch. I’ll tell her you’re sleeping, and if I can’t keep her out of the bedroom keep your bloody eyes tight shut.’
Lizzie was glad to do that, but she felt Flo’s eyes bore into her as she stood in the bedroom doorway complaining of the mess it was in and of the clothes littering the floor. Violet knew the haste and panic Lizzie would have been in to get into bed and could quite understand why her clothes were scattered, but that wasn’t something she could share with Flo Gillespie.
With great determination she said not a word to Flo in Lizzie’s defence, feeling it to be the safest option, but thought to herself that if Flo wasn’t throttled by someone, and before too long, there was no justice in the world.
‘What’s the matter with her, anyroad?’ Flo asked, looking at the waxen pallor of Lizzie’s skin as she lay back on the pillows.
‘She has diarrhoea and sickness,’ Violet said. ‘Summat she ate, probably.’
‘Food poisoning,’ Flo declared. ‘Not cooking the food properly. Good job Steve isn’t here. He doesn’t think much of her cooking anyway, not a patch on his mom’s, he’s always saying, but he’d never expect it to actually make him ill.’
How does Lizzie keep her hands down by her sides and not put them round the scrawny woman’s neck, Violet thought, or at least order her from the house.
‘God, if it isn’t one thing with that girl, it’s summat else,’ Flo went on. ‘Christ, I’ve seen nothing like it. First she gets herself stabbed, and then, not content with that, she falls down the bloody stairs—and now this!’
Violet, anxious to get Flo out of the house, said, ‘Look. There’s no love lost between the two of us and I’ll not pretend there is. But Lizzie could have an infection and there’s no point in us both running the risk of catching it, is there? I mean, I live next door and it’ll be easier for me to see to Lizzie.’
Flo could well see the woman’s point, though it would probably be the first time. She had no wish to have that awful sickness and diarrhoea, not that she’d admit it. ‘What about you—aren’t you worried you’ll catch it?’
Violet gave a shrug. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘If I do, I do. There’s no work for either of us just yet anyway because the factory was hit the other night, so if me
and Lizzie is going to be ill, this is the week to do it.’
‘Well,’ Flo said with a disdainful sniff, ‘there seems little I can do here. I’ll pop in tomorrow and see how she is.’
Violet came back up to the bedroom when she’d finally got rid of Flo and Lizzie heaved herself out of bed and began to dress. ‘It isn’t going to work, is it?’ she said to Violet.
‘Don’t look like it,’ Violet had to admit.
‘All that castor oil,’ Lizzie groaned. ‘Oh God, Violet, I feel so bloody ill, and I wouldn’t care, wouldn’t care about any of it if the damned stuff had just worked.’
‘I know, bab, I know,’ Violet said, putting her arms around her weeping friend.
By Monday, 21
st
April, the munitions factory had found a new site to accommodate the workers. It was on the Tyburn Road, not far from Fort Dunlop, and because Lizzie didn’t know what else to do, she went with Violet to catch the tram outside Lewis’s department store. They travelled up Lichfield Road, past the fire station and through Aston, passing the big green clock at Aston Cross and Ansell’s Brewery, then on to Salford Bridge, over the network of canals that met there, before turning right into Tyburn Rd.
This road had once been full of little workshops backing on to the canal, but from the tram they could see the gaping holes and piles of rubble and knew that this area too had seen plenty of enemy action. But then, haven’t we all? Lizzie thought, for though the raids hadn’t been as ferocious as the one on the 9
th
April, they were still raids most nights and it still
played havoc with your sleep patterns. She was feeling decidedly jaded.
It was good, though, to see most of the women had also come to the new place when they turned in the gates, and they greeted each other warmly. But although Lizzie tried to act as naturally as possible, she knew she was on borrowed time. Eventually a decision would have to be made and all she was doing was postponing it. The worry of it pressed each day on her mind and heart, occupied each waking minute and many of those spent sleeping, where it portrayed itself in nightmares.
Each morning when the alarm would ring, Lizzie would heave herself from the bed and onto her knees where she’d plead and beg the Almighty to deliver her from this shame; and it was what she asked for too before she slept. She began a novena and had a Mass said. Steve’s family and even the priest thought it was for Steve, but Lizzie had done a deal with God. Whatever the priest thought, or even what he said, didn’t matter: God knew what she was about.
She seldom talked to Violet about it, for what could Violet do? And of course, she could talk to no one else, and so she coped alone and remained terribly frightened, taking each day at a time.
And then one balmy evening in mid-May, when Lizzie was writing a letter to Niamh to go with the card for her birthday, Violet came in the door to say, ‘Lizzie, I have heard of summat else.’