Now the War Is Over (45 page)

But he had only just reached in his bag for his brown paper bag of sandwiches, when her voice came to him:

‘What’s the matter with you, Tommy?’

He looked up, startled.

‘I mean – sorry,’ she laughed, ‘I wondered if you had polio like me. I could walk before that. Now my legs are hopeless. Arms are all right though, luckily.’

‘No,’ he said. He liked her frankness. He hoped she wouldn’t mind the halting way he talked since she spoke normally, with the smiling speed of her mother. ‘I was –
born – like this. Cerebral – palsy. They didn’t think I’d – walk – or talk. I had – help . . .’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘D’you have a wheelchair?’

‘Some – times. I can – walk – a short – way.’

‘I was all right before I had polio. It was when I was eight – ten years ago. I went swimming one hot day and –’ She shrugged. ‘One afternoon splashing in the pool
. . . The next, months in hospital. Once they realized what it was.’

She was the same age as him, he realized.

‘That sounds – very frighten – ing,’ he said.

‘Yes, it was. But when you’re quite young you just . . .’ She thought about it. ‘I’d be more frightened now. I didn’t know what was going on then. I just knew
I felt poorly. It was worse for Mom and Dad.’

‘And me,’ Philip said. He flashed a grin at his sister. ‘No one took any notice of me – not for ages.’

‘Why would anyone take any notice of you, tadpole?’ his sister retorted.

‘Where do you live, Tommy?’ Mr Halstead said, halfway through a sausage roll.

‘Harborne,’ he said. ‘There’s a – special – school. Called – Carlson – House.’

‘Ah,’ Mr Halstead said. ‘Yes, very good, very good.’ Tommy could tell he did not know how to talk to him. He kept up a breezy tone all the time.

‘I went to a special school as well,’ Jo-Ann said. ‘They tried to get my legs working. I had physiotherapy and exercises and everything for ages.’ Her face clouded for a
second. ‘But they just wouldn’t.’

‘Are you working, lad?’ Mr Halstead said. ‘Remploy or somewhere take you on?’

‘Not Remploy,’ Tommy said. He wanted them to know he was in a place that was not for disabled people only. ‘At Lucas’s.’

‘Lucas’s? Ah – in Hockley?’ Mr Halstead sounded surprised. ‘Good firm that. What have they put
you
on then?’ Tommy didn’t miss the stress Mr
Halstead put on the word ‘you’.

He told them. He didn’t say he didn’t like it but Jo-Ann said:

‘You don’t sound very happy about it.’

‘No.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘It’s boring.’

‘I work for Dad,’ Jo-Ann said. ‘We live in Wolver-hampton – he sells furniture. Halstead’s? I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s quite a big
store.’ Tommy hadn’t. ‘So I work as his secretary. Mom helped me.’

‘I was a secretary before I married, you see,’ Mrs Halstead said.

‘Everything’s all right with my hands,’ Jo-Ann said. ‘So I learned to type and do that sort of thing in an office.’

‘That sounds – nice,’ Tommy said. ‘Not being – treated – like an – idiot.’

He saw Mr Halstead look startled at this and Mrs Halstead sad and faintly embarrassed.

Tommy decided he didn’t care.

Jo-Ann put her head on one side; her eyes were sympathetic. ‘Is it because of how you talk? I suppose it is.’

‘There’s nothing – wrong – with – my – mind,’ he said, crossly.

‘Oh, no – I can tell that. But people don’t know – think all sorts of silly things.’

He frowned. ‘I’ve – got five – O-levels. By the – way.’

Mr Halstead made a surprised noise as he bit into an apple.

‘Golly – have you? That’s more than I have. You’re a brainy one.’ Jo-Ann laughed.

Tommy looked up at her. She seemed to him like a goddess.

Melly didn’t say a word to anyone about Reggie’s proposal. But she told Reggie she could not see him the next day. She could tell he was bitterly disappointed.

‘I promised I’d help Auntie move,’ she said. And before Reggie could offer to bring his car to help as well, she added firmly, ‘Dad and me have got it all organized,
thanks.’

Gladys, having made up her mind, decreed that Danny was to drive her over to Aston to fetch as many things of hers as they could fit into the car. Reggie could have helped, of course, but Melly
knew she wanted time to think, to take in the enormity of what had happened. She sat in the car behind Gladys who was bundled up in her coat although it was a warm day.

Driving there felt, once again, like going back in time. All the streets around were almost as familiar as her own skin, but each time she went back, it seemed more cramped, shabby and poor.
And, people knew, it would only be so much longer before the bulldozers moved in. The city engineer, Herbert Manzoni, was working his way round the ‘slums’ as their neighbourhoods were
now called. Development areas being razed to build new roads and blocks of flats.

Gladys had been one of the ones trying not to face up to it. But now she had reached the end of the line.

They parked in Alma Street. As they walked along the entry, all the smells hit Melly again – the frowsty stink of the houses, the lavs at the end shared by eight families, the whiff from
the bins. The yard seemed smaller and filthier even than last time she had come. Number four, the Davies’s place, had the downstairs window boarded up. Gladys said the children there ran
wild. They must have smashed the window while they were at it, Melly thought.

A girl with straggly red hair and a mucky little frock stood near the lamp, forcing a yo-yo up and down on a frayed string. Melly had never seen her before. She looked at them warily and ran
into number five – Lil and Stanley’s old house. Lil had moved out, unable to stand the place now Stanley was gone. She had a couple of rooms in Erdington.

The child must be one of the O’Hallorans. Gladys had mentioned them taking over the house. ‘More Irish,’ was all she said. Irish to Gladys – in most cases – meant
foreign feckless Catholics breeding like rabbits. It was just another of the things changing and shifting about her ears.

When they walked into the house, Melly saw Gladys finally admit defeat. Perhaps she had hoped the place was not as bad as she remembered, but the stink of it hit them as soon as they got through
the door.

‘Look, you sit down, Auntie,’ Danny said. ‘You’re not up to this. Melly and I’ll bring out everything we can.’

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ she said stubbornly.

It felt very sad, carrying Gladys’s possessions – very few really – out of the house. None of the furniture was worth salvaging and Melly was relieved that Gladys said nothing
about it. The neighbours nosed as they took the wireless and its accumulator, her clothes and personal bits. She possessed nothing in the way of a suitcase – they had to drape everything over
their arms. There were a few items from the kitchen, trinkets from the mantelpiece above the range, her photographs and mementos. A life with very little, soon transferred.

They were finished within an hour. Melly walked back to the house with her father, after carrying the last load. Gladys was still sitting at the table as if waiting to go to a funeral.

‘You ready, Auntie?’ Danny asked. The gentleness in his voice brought tears to Melly’s eyes. They all owed Auntie everything – but Dad especially. ‘You all
right?’

‘I’ll do,’ Gladys said.

When Danny suggested she go and say her goodbyes, Gladys struggled to her feet, coughing. She had to lean on Danny to walk outside.

‘You’re feverish still!’ Danny exclaimed. ‘I’ll get you back in the car.’

‘Oh, stop keeping on,’ Gladys said. ‘Let’s get it over with. There’s only the Jackmans to see anyway.’

Mr and Mrs Jackman were the only remaining neighbours with whom Gladys had come through the war. They could not have been said to be close, but there was something precious about their
familiarity. While Gladys was saying goodbye, Melly looked out and caught a glimpse of Ethel Jackman. She was shocked at her shrunken appearance, her face small and lined. Gladys made it clear she
wasn’t bothering with the rest of the yard.

‘Right,’ she said, once that was over. She walked back to the door of the house and jerked her head at them. ‘Off you go, you two. I’ll be out in a tick.’

Melly exchanged glances with Danny. They walked towards the entry and stopped to wait for her. The redheaded girl had appeared again and was scuffing at the wall of her house, near the door,
with her rubber shoes. The sole was half hanging off one of them.

There was a long pause while Gladys took her leave of the house where she had lived for the last thirty years. Danny lit a cigarette. Melly stood with him, both of them looking round, involved
in their own memories. In her mind’s eye, Melly saw Reggie and the other Morrison lads, all tearing up and down the yard, their blonde hair shining in the sun, and her lips curved up for a
moment.

After a time, Gladys slowly came out of the house. It was hot, but as well as her coat she had on her winter boots, to save packing them. Turning, she pulled the door shut and stood, head down,
with her hand flat against it.

‘It’s a rathole, Auntie,’ Danny called to her. ‘You’re best off with us.’

Gladys raised her head, as if she was going to make a retort to this. But she looked back at Danny, saying nothing, her hand still on the chipped green paint.

‘Come on then,’ he said, turning away.

She didn’t move immediately. Melly waited as her father turned down the entry. Gladys slowly removed her hand; her head bowed and she came along to Melly.

‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘You lead the way, bab.’

‘Is anyone listening to me?’ Rachel stood by the table as her children all scrambled for their breakfast. ‘I feel as if I’m talking to myself in this
house,’ she grumbled, feeling her temper rising to bursting point. Everything was getting on top of her today, the racket, the mess, the endless list of things needing doing. ‘Alan
– pack that in, you’ll spill it! Come on, you lot, get moving. You’ll be late for school.’

Kev, Ricky and Sandra wrangled their way noisily out of the door to school. Alan sat dabbling in a little pool of milk spilt on the table.

‘
Alan!
’ Rachel swept down on him and smacked his hand. ‘I’ve told you – pack it in.’

Alan slithered down from the chair, bawling.

‘Oh, God Almighty,’ Rachel said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t flaming start.’

Alan bawled even harder when he found Tommy standing in the way when he wanted to get out through the door.

‘What’re you looking at, Tommy?’ Rachel demanded. What was wrong with him these days? ‘Anyone’d think there was a ghost in the hall the amount of time you spend
looking out there. Just get out of the road.’

Tommy stood back and they heard Alan go thumping up the stairs.

‘And as for you two,’ Rachel turned on her two eldest children as she gathered plates and knives from the table. ‘You’re the worst of the lot, I can’t get any
flaming sense out of anyone! Go on – out of my way.’

As they drifted from the kitchen Rachel looked at the wreckage of milk and crumbs on the table and slammed round the room clearing up.

‘No one else lifts a finger, I notice,’ she grumbled to herself, throwing cutlery into the washing-up bowl. She decided to ignore the fact that she was the one who had told them to
go away. ‘Idle bloody lot. Now I’m going to have to take
her
a cup of tea, I suppose.’

She slammed the kettle down on the gas, feeling put out but guilty that she was so resentful of Gladys being here. She knew how much she owed Danny’s auntie; they had been through such a
lot together and now it was Gladys who needed something from her. She knew that really she wanted to give it, to repay her and help. All the same, having Gladys living with them made it feel as if
everything was closing in again, hemming her in with endless work.

Back to square one, she grumbled in her mind. It was bad enough Tommy mooning around with a face like a wet Wednesday, but she already knew that he would always be here. She’d realized
that since he was very small. He wouldn’t be leaving home and getting married the way the rest of them would. That was just how it was.

But what with Melly coming back home in a state and now Gladys here needing looking after as well . . . She sank on to a chair for a moment, waiting for the kettle.

‘I could’ve done without all this,’ she complained to the empty room. ‘I really flaming well could.’

Melly walked to work in a daze. She had been in the same state more or less since Saturday night when Reggie sat across the table from her in the Indian restaurant and produced
the glittering engagement ring, an emerald in a nest of tiny diamonds.

It was so beautiful and precious – she gazed at it in astonishment. Never in her life had she thought anyone would offer her such a thing!

Reggie had leaned across the table, holding the little box with its velvet insides. Melly could not look up at him for a time. His eyes were there, waiting. All of him was waiting for her reply.
She sat, trying to remember to breathe, aware of nothing around her except the ring in its luxurious bed and what it meant. He was asking her to marry him. It was an engagement ring. She had seen a
tremor in the hand that held the little box.

‘Melly?’

She dragged her eyes up to meet his. Though he was smiling, she could see how nervous he was and she was touched. Reggie put the ring down on the table, beside the brass ashtray. He left the lid
open so that she could still see it.

‘I know it’s all a bit soon,’ he said quietly. ‘But I said to you, didn’t I, when you know something, when you’re so sure, there doesn’t seem any point
in waiting. I just . . .’ He sounded emotional. ‘I want us to be together – to be Mr and Mrs. I love you, Melly. Will you – say you will?’

She could feel that her face had set in a solemn expression as she looked back at him. She could not reason. There was no time to think things through. He had gone out and bought a ring –
such a beautiful ring. Looking deep into his eyes, she saw his left eyelid twitch. He looked shy as she gazed at him. His eyes pleaded with her. She believed that he loved her. And she loved him. .
.