Authors: Eileen Haworth
He adored babies and had played a big part in his daughters’ early years, but in spite of all his good intentions on the night Billy was born, Joe remained eaten up with doubt and jealousy and could not take the same interest in the boy. From time to time when no one was around, he would lift the baby and dandle him on his knee and stare into his face hoping to see something of himself there.
The eyes were definitely Florrie’s, though not as green yet, and a bit more crinkly when he smiled The cheeks were milky-white with an almost invisible blush, just like his daughters. There was a fluff of tight curls, not platinum blonde like his other babies or black like his own, but a pale ginger, sandy almost. Now where did that come from?
He tormented himself, thinking of the men Florrie had known. She always reckoned he didn’t know the fella she’d gone with, so perhaps he was wasting his time racking his brains like this, but just supposing one of them fellas had red hair? He’d once met a cousin on his mother’s side and been struck by her thick, auburn hair. Aye, that must be where the lad had got it, it must be a throwback from another generation. For the time being he was reassured.
*
Deeply depressed by the loss of Frank, Florrie fought to make sense of their short-lived affair. She had to admit that their love, powerful and tender as it was, could have had no future even without death putting a spoke in the wheel.
What was it Frank said to her…
If I come home
,
my life is with Janie,
yours is with Joe.
He was right of course, her topsy-turvy and chaotic life was with Joe and never could have been that perfect life she’d imagined with Frank.
That was all it was, imagination. With Frank it had never been real, they were just two people who would never have met had they not been tossed together by the war. What
was
real was her and Joe with all their ups and downs, for better and for worse.
She ran her fingers over her baby’s sandy curls and thought of Frank with his hair the colour of burnished chestnuts. Could little Billy be the son he had yearned for? Part of her hoped he
was,
a lasting legacy of a brave man who had died for his country.
She caught her breath as reality set in. Good God, what if
Joe
looked at Billy’s colouring just as she was doing, and put two and two together? He’d always had Frank on a pedestal, Frank was the last person he would think would betray him, if he ever found out about Frank it would finish him.
*
Joe’s father, whose only grandson bore his name, knew the child for barely a year. The life of the valiant veteran of two wars ended one ordinary Sunday afternoon outside a back-street pub where he had been enjoying a quiet drink. As a rule he had no time for small talk but he'd responded politely to the loud-mouth sitting next to him until the man became more intoxicated and more belligerent.
‘Both
my
lads are away fighting Jerry,’ he slurred, ‘volunteered right at the start, they did, and bloody proud of ‘em I am too.’
Bill Pomfret nodded his approval while concentrating on the thick white froth floating on top of his glass of Guinness.
‘I hear
your
lad’s still at home with his family, lucky sod,’ the drunk continued, ‘how did he wangle
that
then?’
‘He never
wangled
‘owt, he’s doing his bit for us lot at home… driving for Taylors… it’s a Protected Industry.’
‘Oh aye, I’ve heard that one afore. I’ve heard about them as doesn’t want to fight for their country. Protected bloody Industry? What an excuse,’ the man sneered, ‘I thought they locked cowards up, I never knew they let ‘em drive up and down in lorries while there's a war going on.’
Bill jumped to his feet, raised his fist and settled it on his tormentor’s upturned jaw. The pair fell to the floor, their bar stools tumbling beside them entangled and inseparable, mimicking their former occupants.
The landlord who was watching the developing situation ran from behind the bar and with the help of two brawny customers dragged the brawlers apart and threw them out on to the street.
Bill first, who cracked his head on the kerb, then his luckier opponent who had a soft landing on top of him. Struggling to his feet and shouting obscenities over his shoulder in the direction of the pub, the drunk with the big mouth shuffled off towards the main road.
Bill lay unconscious and by the time a doctor arrived it was too late to save the old soldier. On hearing about the altercation Joe ran half a mile to the scene, fighting his way through the growing crowd and pushing the doctor aside. Sinking to his knees in the gutter he gathered the slight, limp figure into his arms.
‘Dada, Dada don’t leave us,’ he rocked him back and forth, his tears running on to father’s wispy grey curls. ‘We need ya, Dada, don’t die Dada.’
He plonked the familiar old flat cap back on his father’s head as if by doing so everything would return to normal. But the gallant little soldier who had come face to face with death on many a foreign battlefield, had fought and lost his final battle in a gutter near his own backyard and would never know how much he meant to his wayward son.
For a long time Joe was eaten up with bitterness, especially when he learned how his father’s spirited defence of him had led to what could only be seen as cold-blooded murder. To compound his anger, nobody was brought to justice. The verdict of a hurriedly arranged inquest was, “Cerebral Haemorrhage Following An Accident”.
Joe threatened suicide, then threatened to join the army, but those who knew him took neither threat seriously. All his life he had used dramatic tactics to cope with his distress and so his family weathered his mood-swings just as they had always done.
*
Florrie had worked at The Royal Ordnance Factory since Billy was six weeks old. It was repetitive and boring but at least she was helping the war effort, and it paid more than weaving especially after a few months when women's wages were increased to match the same rate as men.
Working a 48-hour-week left little time for shopping and if women like herself didn't take time off to join the queues as soon as unrationed foods came in the shops they would be sold out by the time they finished their shift.
With her mother adding a few extra rations to the family larder and Joe bringing home the bacon they wouldn’t starve; little did she know the regular bacon supplies were about to dry up.
To the surprise of his mother-in-law who was waiting to have a go at him Joe was home early and sober that Saturday.
‘I’ve got the sack Florrie… lost me job.’
‘You’ve what?’ said Florrie.
‘Uh, I’m not surprised,’ snorted her mother before he could answer, ‘Fine time to be out of a job, I might have known it would come to this.’
‘Come to what?’ Joe swung round on her. ‘What’s it got to do with you, ya nosey bugger? Mind your own bloody business and look after your own home and your own business and keep your big gob out of mine.’
‘If it weren’t for our Florrie and the kids… you ignorant bugger…’ Just then Mabel Sefton's upper denture broke free as it regularly did. She clamped her mouth shut to block its escape but the tombstone-like teeth were left, trapped on her bottom lip grinning comically. Shoving them back with her thumb to where they belonged, she tried again.
‘If it weren’t for our Florrie and the kids I’d never set foot in your bloody house again, you drunken bugger.’
‘Well, piss off then, and chuck yourself under a tram on your way home…best bloody end to you.’
Mabel straightened her hat, stuck her nose in the air and swept past him, taking care to slam the front door hard enough to rattle the windows.
‘Well? Florrie shouted, ‘Come on…what have you been up to now?’
‘I haven’t been up to nothing. Had a bit of a row with Old Taylor, that’s all. Swore at him, that’s all… and he gave me my bloody cards. So that’s that… I’ve been sacked.’
‘You daft bugger,’ Florrie blazed, ‘what are we going to do now?’
‘If you'll hold your horses a minute, I’ll tell your. I’ve just called at Baldwin’s on me way home. I went after a job, long-distance lorry driving. They said I can start on Monday. I’ll be away from home a lot but the money’ll be a damned sight better than Taylors.’
Thankful he was not going to be out of work or called up into The Forces, Florrie put his dinner in front of him and to Joe’s relief asked no more questions.
What had really happened that morning when he'd walked in the office to collect his wages had shaken him to the core. Mr Taylor had come straight to the point.
‘How long have you worked for me now, Joe?’
‘Well now, let me think. I were part-time at the mill and part-time at school afore I come here. When I first started with you Mr Taylor I must have been 14-year-old, that’s all.’
‘That’s right, it must be going on for twenty-five years you’ve been with us and I’d never have thought it would come to this.’
‘Come to what?’
‘That I’d catch you stealing.’
‘What? Joe blanched, ‘I’d…I’d never do a thing like that sir… I’ve never pinched anything in my life before. I’d never take anything belonging to the shop Mr Taylor…
never.’
‘Don’t make matters worse by denying it, I’ve had my eye on you for a long time.’ Disgust swept across the boss’s face. ‘Stealing food in times like these when we could
all
do with a bit extra is unforgivable. You’ve let me down and left me with no choice but to give you your “cards”.’
‘Give us another chance Mr Taylor sir, please. I’ve got a wife and three kids at home.’
‘I know all about
them
and if it wasn’t for your family I’d have fetched the police in long since.’ Mr Taylor shuffled papers around his desk. ‘ No, there’ll be no second chance for
you
… I don’t want to see you here on the premises after today.’
Joe grabbed his wages and his employment cards from the desk with one fist and banged his other fist down, scattering pen and ink and papers on to the floor.
‘You daft old bugger, I wouldn’t work for you now… not if you went on your bended knees so shove your job up your bloody arse. I'll get another job, ya’ll see, and it’ll be a lot better than working for a stuck-up shit-house like you… yes, that’s all y’are… a stuck-up shit-house.’
Fearful of Joe’s unpredictability, Mr Taylor recoiled in his leather chair, but Joe, although consumed with rage, still had enough respect for him not to lay a finger on him. Back in 1921 it had been Mr Taylor that had given a lad like
him,
a man’s job. Holding back stinging tears of anger he turned on his heel and walked out of Taylor’s Wholesalers for the last time.
*
Mabel daren’t show her face at their house on the following Saturday but continued her tirade against Joe when she met Florrie and the children under The Market Hall Clock.
He would be up to no good now that he was a long-distance lorry-driving and away all week. And as for him getting the sack from Taylor’s – well there was more to that than met the eye if you asked her anything, and if Florrie weren’t so bloody gullible she wouldn’t swallow everything the lying bugger told her.
Florrie bit her tongue refusing to be drawn and concentrated on her children’s antics.
‘What the hell are you two grinning at?’ She slapped her laughing daughters sharply across their heads. ‘Shuddup, and straighten your faces or I’ll straighten ‘em for you.’
The girls tried to straighten their faces and failed. Without exchanging a word, both knew exactly what had brought on the fit of giggles; Granny Sefton’s teeth were, in their father’s words, waltzing all round her gob again.
Only the night before he’d strolled into the kitchen in a disguise rendering him almost unrecognisable and given them his well-observed impersonation of her. Billy had stuck his bottom lip out, snivelled a bit and buried his face in his mother’s shoulder.
Their father looked a picture in their mother’s grey swagger-coat with his trouser-legs rolled up, his black socks rolled down showing off his hairy legs, and a coloured head-square tied turban-style over his curls. The broad stripe of Tangee lipstick across his mouth and cheekbones made him more like one of the clowns in the Tower Circus than the well turned-out woman that was Granny Sefton.
‘Now then Florrie, where’s that drunken bugger you married?' he squeaked. in Mabel’s high-pitched voice. 'Still propping the bloody bar up I bet.’
When he manoeuvred his false teeth out of his red lips and back in again, everyone burst out laughing and even Billy realised there was nothing to fear.
‘Stop it Joe, for God’s sake,’ chuckled Florrie, ‘I’m nearly wetting myself.’
‘Now Florrie love,’ there was no stopping him now, ‘you know very well you could have done a damned sight better for yourself than that Pomfret loony…you’re too good for the likes of him. You could’ve wed a Rothschild… a fella worth a bob or two…or that fella from the fillums, Clark Gable.’