Читать книгу Blood Line: Sometimes Tragedy Is in Your Blood - Julie Shaw, Julie Shaw - Страница 13

1940

Annie lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it as she sat down on the doorstep for a moment’s rest. It had been an exhausting morning and would be an equally exhausting afternoon, and as she watched Reggie and the boys disappear round the corner with the last of the family’s belongings, all she could think of was the mess that she’d be faced with when she got to the other end.

They were moving today, after 22 years. To the brand new estate that was currently being built in Little Horton, to provide homes for the growing population. And they’d been lucky, in a way – the Broomfields estate was going to be being demolished over the next couple of years and, as a growing family, they’d got priority for getting the first of the built homes.

‘You all set then, fanny Annie?’ Agnes Flanagan asked as she stepped out of her own door. ‘Sure, you and your tribe won’t want to know us now you’ve got yourself a three bedroomed.’

Annie blew out smoke in a thin stream and shook her head. She must be getting old. She couldn’t recall a time when she’d last felt so bone-weary. ‘I’ve nothing to brag about, Agnes,’ she said, pointing down to her pregnant belly. ‘Nine children now, one in the graveyard and this one on its way. A three bedroomed might give us a bit more room, but once this one shows up I doubt we’ll even notice.’

Annie smiled at her neighbour of over two decades. They’d rubbed along okay, all told, she and Agnes. Many didn’t. And as for the house itself, they went back even longer. She remembered back to that first night – her first as Mrs Hudson, and how she’d turned up at it without Mr Hudson even in tow. Him passed out at her mother’s, her alone in the cold bed, all teary – so frightened about what the future might hold.

The future had certainly brought plenty of children. Child after child, each leaving Annie more weathered and weary than the last. Hundreds of scraped knees to be kissed, and as many set-tos with the neighbours’ kids … And their parents, too, when fights had broken out …

She felt tearful again all of a sudden. ‘I’m going to miss this place, Agnes. I don’t know …’ She shook her head. ‘It might be grand and that up there, but I’m worried I won’t settle. I belong here. It’s all I’m used to.’

Agnes climbed over the sagging fence and joined Annie on the step. ‘Ah, go on with you, Annie. It’s no use getting all maudlin, is it? I hear Canterbury estate is fit for the toffs, and the houses have all you could wish for. Does yours have a fixed-in bath? Doris Coulson said hers had a bath. Fixed to the floor, she said, with running water. Think of it! Mind you,’ she said, after a moment’s pondering, ‘Doris Coulson also said her old man had joined the war, didn’t she? Bloody liar she is. Everyone knows he ran off with a scarlet woman!’

Annie laughed. For all their spats, Agnes could always cheer her up. All those years. All that history. She was going to miss her. ‘Yes, Agnes,’ she said, ‘we’ll be having a fixed-in bath. We have our own toilet too.’ This was a detail that did make her happy. She’d spent 22 years using a toilet in the block down the back – each block serving four of the terraced houses. To not have to trudge to it would feel like such a luxury. ‘It’s right there in our own back yard,’ she said. ‘Imagine.’ She put her cigarette out and stroked her hands over her swollen belly. ‘Particularly when you’re in my condition, eh?’ She turned to grin at Agnes. ‘I sometimes wish my Reggie would find himself a scarlet woman. Give someone else a belly full of arms and legs for a change.’

The two women laughed and spent a companionable ten minutes reminiscing. That was a safer place, Annie thought, the past. She was eight months gone and before she knew it there would be another mouth to feed. Another nipper to care for in an increasingly uncertain world.

Times were changing and Annie really didn’t like it. A lot of the local men had already been called up to fight in the war and she was afraid Charlie might be called next. He was almost 18 now, after all, so there’d be nothing to be done about it – and no chance of talking him out of it if he was called – but he was still her baby and she was frightened she might lose him.

There was danger at home too; Bradford had already seen more than one air raid; this new kind of war was being brought right to their doorsteps. Rawson Market had taken a hit, and though it hadn’t been that serious, it was enough to put the frighteners on people. And it looked like the powers that be were expecting worse. Thousands of kiddies in other cities were in the process of being evacuated to safer areas. Would that be happening in Bradford too? They kept saying not – kept saying the bombs in Bradford were just off-target, but Annie didn’t think she could bear it if they took her kids away.

But better be safe than sorry anyway. The best thing about moving to the new estate, as far as Annie was concerned, was that because they had one of the bigger houses on the end of a street they had an Anderson shelter in their garden.

‘You’ll have to come down to ours, Agnes,’ Annie said, ‘if you hear the sirens. Just come straight down to us. You’ll be safe in our bomb shelter.’

Agnes wiped her face with a corner of her pinny. Annie squeezed her arm. Were those tears in the old girl’s eyes? ‘Bless you, Annie,’ Agnes said, ‘that’s kind. But the ruddy Germans won’t have me running. If the good Lord sees fit to blow me to smithereens, then that’s what’ll happen.’

Annie believed her, too. She was going to miss her old friend.

Annie had just hauled herself back up onto her feet when a sound from down the road heralded the arrival of a cart.

She waved. Reggie, Charlie and young Reggie were back from having taken round the last cartload of possessions, dragging the now empty cart behind them. They all looked hot and sweaty in the late August sun. Agnes stood up too. ‘Will I get you some water, lads?’ she called. ‘I’ll go tell Stan that you’re back with the cart.’

The cart had been a gift for the house move. Without it, the two-mile trips back and forth would have been interminable. Stan had made it himself, toiling away for long hours the previous year. It had been part of a plan he’d formed with a friend called Tinker Mick, who lived in a gypsy wagon on some spare land by Peel Park. Being a Romany, he also had a horse – a big black mare called Ebony, who’d seen better days. But she was still a strong working horse, even so. So the two of them had decided to pool their resources and see if they could get into the coal business.

But that was before the war. Everything, coal included, was in very short supply now, so though the horse still had her uses the cart had been made redundant. Handy, though, Annie thought, for the business of moving house, as long as you had men strong enough to drag it about.

The cart parked up, Reggie leaned against the wall to get his breath back. He was still as fit as a butcher’s dog, and still had the same twinkle in his eye, but it had been a hard job hauling so much stuff all that way, and Annie could see he was knackered.

‘Been better if the lazy bum had seen fit to give us a hand,’ he grumbled, as he and Annie stepped back inside for a last look around. She couldn’t quite believe the whole street was being demolished, but that was all it was probably fit for, even so.

‘You about ready to make a move, woman of mine?’ Reggie asked Annie.

‘I am that,’ Annie said, taking a last lingering look. Seeing it empty now seemed to bring about a change in her. No sense in looking back, she thought, the empty room already closing in on her – she had to look forwards. And the thought of that fixed-in bath dragged her out of her melancholy. ‘Yes,’ she said, meaning it. ‘Yes, I’m good and ready. Can’t wait to get out of this place, truth be told.’

Back out front, Agnes had returned with jam jars full of water for the lads, and Annie looked on proudly as Charlie took one from her and downed it in one. He was a fine lad, was her Charlie. He’d be a fine man as well.

‘Thanks, auntie Aggie,’ he said, winking. ‘I’ll miss you when we’re gone.’

Agnes blushed. She was soft on him. Always had been. Always would be. The son she’d never had, perhaps? Though she’d never let on. ‘Ah, go on, lad,’ she said, ‘an’ you be sure to watch over them young ’uns for your ma, hear me?’ She gestured towards Annie’s belly. ‘Specially when she’s pushing that latest one out.’

Young Reggie winced, which made Annie smile. He was at that age when anything to do with women having babies made him do that. Not so slow when it came to girls, though, she thought, smiling to herself.

‘Come on, then,’ his father ordered – now he’d been that age for ever. ‘Let’s be off, then. We’ve still a day’s work to do down at the other place.’

In half a day, Annie thought, gathering her bag and a stray baby’s rattle she’d retrieved from the hedge earlier. Then she took Charlie’s arm and they set off in the warm August sunshine, the thought of that bath, and having a soak in it, making the walk just that little easier.

But today? Yes, she thought to herself, already knowing the answer. And some say pigs fly, Annie Hudson.

Charlie was glad to get to the new place and to know his day was over. He’d been hard at it since early morning, and as far as he was concerned had done his bit. He had somewhere to be now – a meet with old Mr Cappovanni. To discuss a boxing match he was taking part in the following month.

Mr Cappovanni was more of his manager now, whenever the opportunity arose – something that tickled Charlie no end. It made him feel like more of a professional, and had changed the dynamic between them. He even fought under the new name of Tucker Hudson. He had no idea why, but that was the name his grandfather had been known by and, according to Mr Cappovanni, it was a proper boxer’s name.

And Charlie, more than anything, wanted to be a proper boxer. And he’d made a good start as well; though he’d not yet had many serious fights, he’d won every one that he’d had.

Which was good, but, from the financial point of view, it wasn’t that good, because it didn’t really leave much of an opportunity for the bookies taking bets on an outcome. Charlie wondered what Mr Cappovanni might have in mind for his next fight. For him to throw it? It was possible. He’d already talked about it. The question was, was it something Charlie should agree to? He’d have to see. Money was always in such chronically short supply. He decided he might consider it – for a price.

Right now, though, standing in the doorway of one of the three upstairs bedrooms, Charlie’s thoughts were on more workaday things – such as the mess in the bedroom before him. It felt strange having a new house – everything gleaming and perfect – and then filling it with all their grimy, battered possessions. But it could have been worse. They at least had a bit of space now. And having three bedrooms made one extremely important difference. It meant that, at long last, the children could be separated into the sexes. Charlie, Reggie, Ronnie, Brian and little Keith would go into the bigger room – the one he was standing in, and Margaret, Eunice, Annie and June would share the one opposite. And the boys had done better in the bed stakes as well. While the girls had to use the filthy smelly mattress they’d brought with them, Annie had managed to beg a new one from the church for the boys. Well, not exactly new – it had apparently belonged to another parishioner, who’d died. But not while actually on it, Annie had quickly reassured them.

It was still a squash, though, and if Charlie had one wish about his mam’s pregnancy it was that whatever came out at the end of it was a girl. It was hard enough trying to sleep sharing a mattress as it was; throw in a new baby and he might as well say goodbye to sleep at all. Not the best training for a professional boxer.

It was just two weeks after the move when he had an answer to that question. It was early September now and most of the kids were back in school. Charlie and Reggie, however, too old for school these days, had been told that on no account were they to do a disappearing act, as their dad was at work and their mam was getting close now. Enjoying the peace and quiet that had been enforced on them – they were jointly in charge of minding their baby brother – they were boxing in the back garden, cheered on by little Keith, who was just three.

They heard Margaret coming out before they saw her.

‘Quick, Charlie!’ she said briskly, beckoning them to come back inside. ‘It’s time. One of you needs to go for the midwife.’

Margaret was normally at work too – she was a machinist down at Brigella Mills – but she’d decided not to go in so she could keep an eye on their mam. She’d already looked like she might be starting that morning.

‘Go on, you go, Reggie,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll stay here and mind our Keith. And if she’s not in, you know the drill, don’t you?’

Reggie nodded. He knew the drill because they all did. Emma the midwife, who lived round in Nene Street, was a familiar face around the whole of their part of Bradford, and over the years had brought most of the local kids into the world. And if she wasn’t home, she had a piece of slate propped on her doorstep, on which she’d chalk the addresses of all the women she’d planned on visiting that day. That way, if she was needed, there was always a way to find her, though, more often than not, she was usually found out and about, going from patient to patient on her shiny black tricycle.

Having delivered her orders, Margaret went back inside to look after Annie, so there was nothing for Charlie and Keith to do but wait. There was certainly no point in running down to the Punch Bowl to fetch his dad back from work; Big Reggie, as people had taken to calling him since little Reggie’d been born, had no truck with men getting involved in such things. He’d come home, there’d be another nipper, and that would be that, something Charlie didn’t really understand. Why did he keep on giving his mama all these babies if he couldn’t be bothered with them when they came?

‘You want to fight me?’ he asked Keith now. ‘Punch me lights out, little man?’

Being the baby, little Keith got lots of attention from his brothers and sisters, but by this time tomorrow, Charlie thought, that would change. Though not from him – he had a real soft spot for his little firecracker of a brother. He was scrawny as a chicken but he had a confident way about him – a certain chippiness that always made Charlie smile. Perhaps he’d make a fighter of him yet.

He lifted his fists. ‘Come on,’ he said, pretending to duck and dive and land punches in Keith’s direction. ‘Put ’em up! Go on, give it to me,’ he urged, trying to look frightened as little Keith jabbed his tiny fists at Charlie’s face.

‘Come on, Keith, faster! Pow! Pow! Oh look at you! You’re like James Cagney, you are. Come on, on me chin, lad – that’s it.’

‘Gocha, gotcha!’ little Keith shouted, squealing with delight.

It was a good half hour before there was any sign of action from the house. Being out in the back garden, they had no way of knowing whether Nurse Emma had come or not, and that suited Charlie just fine. They’d know soon enough, because Margaret would come and tell them. Tell them and start barking her usual orders. Go get this. Go do that. Definitely don’t do the other. And it would be like that for ruddy weeks, too. A new baby caused chaos and a terrible amount of noise. No, best to make the most of the peace while it lasted.

But it was Reggie who appeared out of the back door, rather than Margaret. He stood on the back step, looking ashen, and Charlie became worried.

‘Where’s nurse Emma?’ Charlie asked him. ‘Couldn’t you find her?’

Reggie nodded backwards. ‘In there. Urgh – but it’s disgusting, Charlie. Horrible. Blood ’n’ guts all over the place. Ugh!’

Charlie grinned and chucked Keith round the chin. It was his brother Reggie who needed toughening up. ‘Shurrup, you sissy,’ he said, ‘before I set our Keith on you.’

Keith didn’t need to be asked, crossing the yard and landing a punch on Reggie’s thigh. And might have landed another, were they not interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a newborn baby’s cry.

Charlie leaned in through the back door. ‘Boy or girl, Margaret?’ he shouted.

‘Boy!’ came the answer, followed by a long string of instructions.

That was that, then. A few weeks sleeping in the drawer beside his mam and dad’s bed, then the little bleeder – whatever they decided to call him – would be in with the rest of them.

Great, Charlie thought, doing a quick calculation. That would be his share reduced to just a sixth.