War Babies (37 page)

The women laughed. Mrs O’Shaughnessy did not know the Morrisons but she had heard all about them.

‘Ah, but that’s all right,’ she said. ‘How many’s she got – five lads? A sixth’ll round it off nicely.’

‘It’ll look just like all the others, I expect,’ Rachel said. ‘Blonde and just like Mo. Dolly’s always saying she might just as well not have been there!’

Netta was giggling. ‘I don’t s’pose Mr Morrison’ll ever hear the end of it!’

It was good to sit in Mrs O’Shaughnessy’s little room laughing and chatting. Rachel found it a comfort and it stopped her feeling too sorry for herself – a battle she was
fighting every day.

A few days later, she was out with Tommy in the pram again. While he was very young there had been no difficulty in walking the streets with him. He was just another baby in a
pram and even people who peered under the hood to admire him hardly ever noticed anything different about him.

Now he was older, things were beginning to change. As the months passed, Rachel was gradually adapting to the idea that he would always have difficulties. Sometimes she would sink to her knees
in the house weeping. Tommy would never walk! He would never grow up and go to school normally. Would he ever be able to speak to her? He would always be stared at because he was different. And,
though she was ashamed of her feelings, she cried because she knew that her own life would now never be free. She would be tied to him forever. On these days, when she was low and angry with life,
she found herself being impatient and angry with Melly.

‘Just do what I say!’ she would shriek, like a woman beside herself.

Sometimes she saw her little girl watching her with a steady, wary expression.

‘All right, Mom,’ she’d say. ‘Don’t be cross. I’ll do it.’ Melly was due to start school in the autumn. Sometimes it felt as if she was having to grow
up very fast.

On other days, when she had more energy, she felt matter-of-fact and hopeful. Tommy was her son. He had difficulties and she would stick with him through all of them. She would guard him like a
tiger and would give him every help. They could survive anything!

This afternoon she was walking through Aston, cutting along a side street to get home. The street was drab and dirty, lined by factory walls and entries into back courts of houses. It was a hot,
hazy day and she had pushed the hood of the pram back to let Tommy feel the light on his face. He had slumped to one side and she stopped to hoist him up and make him comfortable. After a moment
she sensed that someone was watching her. Turning, she saw a thin, haggard woman standing close by at the end of one of the entries, her body half-hidden in the shade. Faded, straggly hair hung
round her thin cheeks. She was staring hard at the pram, and at Tommy.

Rachel was just about to move on when the woman stepped forward, slopping along in old down-at-heel shoes. A frock with faded red-and-white patterns hung on her skeletal frame.

‘That boy of yours . . .’ She had a soft voice, despite her rough appearance. Sad, grey eyes looked into Rachel’s face. Up closer, Rachel saw that the woman was not as old as
she had first supposed. There was an intense feel to her, to the way she was looking at Tommy. ‘Why’s he still in a pram at his age? What’s wrong with him?’

Rachel was taken aback, for a moment thinking the stranger was criticizing her. But she quickly realized that this was not so. The woman came closer and her lined face lifted into a smile at
Tommy. Why was she asking these questions, Rachel wondered? She also realized she still hardly knew how to answer, to say what was wrong.

The woman was looking at her with some sort of need in her eyes.

‘He’s a . . . His legs aren’t . . .’ She stopped and tried again. ‘He can’t walk. Not yet anyway.’

‘My boy’s never walked.’ Words rushed from the woman’s mouth. ‘My Frankie.’ She laid a cold, veiny hand on Rachel’s arm. ‘Come and see him. No one
ever comes to see us.’

Rachel wanted to resist this odd request. The woman was gesturing towards the entry.

‘The pram,’ Rachel protested.

‘Bring it. Bring it with you.’ She was eager now, ushering Rachel along.

Rachel might have refused, but she could feel that the woman was kindly and that she was desperate for something – company, or perhaps just a kind word. They went along the entry into a
yard not unlike the one where Rachel lived, except it was narrower and there was no works at the end, only houses and a blank wall along one side. There was a bleak feel to the place. They went to
number four, at the other side of the yard.

‘You can leave him by the door here for a moment,’ the woman said.

A strange noise came from inside, a kind of howl. For a moment Rachel thought it was a dog.

‘That’s Frankie,’ the woman said, pulling on Rachel’s arm again. ‘He’ll be pleased to see you. You’re about his age.’

Inside, as Rachel’s eyes adjusted, her nostrils were seized by a strong, unpleasant mixture of smells which came close to making her gag. There were a lot of flies moving around the room
as if half-drugged. The woman did not seem to notice these things.

‘Frankie, love,’ she said in a caressing tone. ‘There’s a nice lady come to see you.’

To the left of the fireplace, in a strange, sloping chair with footrests, Rachel saw a young man. His body was contorted, his arms clenched up close to him, the hands flopping at the wrists and
his twisted face turned to one side, looking to his right, as if he could not turn it to face the front. Hearing his mother’s voice, he made sounds which sent his tongue out of his mouth but
it was not speech that Rachel could understand. Near the chair stood a bucket with a cloth draped over the top. Rachel realized that the worst of the stench must be coming from there.

‘This is . . . What’s your name, dear?’ the woman said.

Rachel was so horrified by the sight of the man and even more repelled by the stench in this poor, bare room that she wanted to run out and get as far away from the place as possible. But she
could not bear to behave in such a hurtful way to him, or his poor mother.

‘Rachel,’ she said. Then she added, ‘Hello, Frankie.’

‘He had his twenty-first birthday last month,’ his mother said. She spoke factually, without pride or resentment.

‘I’ve just turned twenty – a few days ago,’ Rachel said, for something to say.

‘Twenty-one years,’ the woman went on. ‘Him and me – for nineteen of them anyway. His father soon took off. Couldn’t face it. No one can. I never take him out. He
sits in the yard sometimes, just by the door, but I never let him out in the street. I used to take him out, at first. Children threw stones at him and after that I thought, never again.’
Rachel heard the passion in her voice. ‘I wasn’t having that, not for my boy. He never went to school – no one said anything. I think everyone just forgot about him. My little
Frankie –’ Her voice was a mix of fondness and utter despair. ‘The invisible boy.’ She looked at Rachel then with her sad, washed-out eyes. ‘No one wants them, you
know, cripples. They just want them to disappear.’

Rachel felt that if she did not get out of that house she was going to break open with grief and revulsion. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, turning to the door. ‘Sorry. My
auntie’s waiting for me.’

Abruptly, with no goodbye – which afterwards she felt desperately ashamed about – she hurried out of the house, away from Frankie’s formless sounds, from the smell, from all
the things that the poor mother was trying to tell her.

‘What’s up with you?’ Gladys asked when she got home.

‘Oh, Auntie – a lady made me go into her house . . .’ She broke down, relating the story. ‘She only lives up the road and I’ve never seen her before and her
son’s in that house and never goes out and . . . I don’t want to be like that!’ she cried. ‘And I don’t want Tommy to be like that! She’s shut him away as if he
doesn’t exist.’ She looked up at Gladys, her cheeks streaming. ‘I don’t want to have to be ashamed of my little boy! I’m not going to let people make him feel as if
he’s all wrong. Why are people so cruel?’

Gladys looked down at her, her face full of pity. Something in her expression shifted suddenly, as if she had realized something.

‘You know, you’ve turned out a strong sort of wench, you have. Staunch. You stand up to things. It’s true, I’ve known other children hidden away, not let out with the
others, as if they’ve done summat wrong.’

‘I’m not going to let them be horrible to Tommy,’ Rachel vowed fiercely. In those seconds she saw how much she had changed during the months of her son’s life. Her own
future had become welded to his. ‘I’m going to make sure he joins in and does things and . . . and if anyone’s nasty they’ll have me to answer to – and that goes for
my mother, along with all the rest of them!’

February 1946

Rachel stared at the telegram, hardly able to make sense of the words while Gladys stood nearby, looking ready to snatch it out of her hand.

‘They’re at Southampton. He’ll be back today!’ Rachel held the telegram out to her, her face lit with wonder.

Gladys sat down on a kitchen chair as if her legs had given way and stared at the telegram. ‘Oh, thank the Lord.’

Rachel stood by the table, trying to let the news sink in. Danny had been in the army now for four years so he was one of the earlier ones to be sent home. Four years – twice as long as
they had had together before he left. After all these months and years of waiting, of longing for him, of feeling he had become a stranger to her – now, today most likely, he would really be
here. And after all this time, he would meet the son he had never seen.

‘Tommy –’ She went over to her little boy who was sitting up in his special chair. ‘Your dada’s coming home.’ She tickled his tummy and Tommy squirmed and
chortled. ‘You’re going to see your dada today.’

Tommy made one of his sounds which they knew, now, meant, ‘Melly!’ Melly, his adored elder sister.

‘Yes, Melly’s going to see Dada too.’

Tommy was two and a half, no longer a baby, and now his difficulties were far more obvious. Rachel had kept up massaging him and Tommy seemed to enjoy it. He often chuckled while they were up on
the bed and Rachel was rubbing his arms and legs, trying at least to make him more comfortable. And it was good to hear his gurgling laugh. Melly sometimes came and helped. But for all
Rachel’s efforts, his little body could not hold itself upright unsupported and he had to be strapped into his chair. His left arm moved as if it had a mind of its own, while his legs were
very rigid and he could not walk. The doctor had given him some leg braces to wear at night to try and keep his legs straight. Because his tongue would push out of his mouth, beyond his control,
his speech was distorted and eating was a messy, trying business. He still had to wear napkins. However lovely he was – and he was a truly sweet-natured child – however much he was her
boy, for whom she would battle and strive and fight off anyone else’s pitying glances or rude remarks, there had been many bitter days when Rachel came close to despair. Each dawn she faced
the inevitable round of feeding, washing and changing, of sliding his stiff legs in and out of the splints and his clothing, of lifting and pushing him about, of trying to keep him entertained.
Once all that was done and she fell into bed, she had to get up and begin the whole thing all over again. Whereas most boys his age wore you out because they were running about with more mobility
than sense, Tommy was tiring because he was not. He could not be left. Other than care for him and Melly, in an endless round, Rachel felt she had no life left.

The only real friend she saw was Netta, who to her joy had safely had another baby, a little girl called Clare. Rachel could not work on the market, or anywhere else. Though she could leave
Tommy with Gladys for short amounts of time, she knew she was tied to him like a horse to a post. And though she loved him with a passion, what dragged her down the most was that there was no end
in sight. This was her life now and this is how it would always be. Sometimes she went up to her room, just for a few minutes, and let herself have a cry, the sobs rising up from the depths of her,
before she had to get up, a little relieved for the moment, and soldier on again.

As that day passed she could not settle to anything. She could think of nothing else but Danny. He was on his way home! Was he on a train now, moving closer and closer? Her whole being was
aflutter with nerves and anticipation. At long, long last, he was coming. He’d be home. They could be a family again and at last Danny would be here to help.

Everyone in the yard knew he was coming, thanks to Dolly.

‘Oh, Danny boy!’ she sang, after popping into their house and being shown the telegram. ‘The pipes, the pipes are ca-a-lling!’

Dolly was more than six months pregnant now and more happily resigned to the fact than she let Mo believe. Any excuse and she was taking the rise out of him, and Mo, in his big-hearted way,
seemed to enjoy his wife berating him. ‘He’s pleased as punch with himself,’ Dolly complained fondly to Gladys. ‘Makes him feel proud of his manhood.’

‘I hear your old man’s coming back,’ Irene said to Rachel as they passed outside in the drizzle. ‘I hope he don’t leave you, once ’e’s seen the way that
lad of yours is – some men’re like that, you know.’

‘You mean
your
bloke’s like that – not mine!’ Rachel fumed back at her. ‘You silly sod,’ she added under her breath. God, Irene was the pits –
what a thing to say! Her Danny wasn’t like that, like that sleazy Ray Sutton. He went sloping off having his way wherever he liked and Irene always took him back, even though she lived in a
brooding storm of resentment.

But what really caught Rachel on the raw was that, deep down, she was afraid that what Irene said might come true.

When the time came, he paused at the threshold as if afraid to come in. It was already dark outside and no one had seen him come into the yard. As the door opened, Rachel and
Gladys were with the children at the table, about to have tea. For a couple of seconds they all stopped as if turned to stone. In the doorway stood a very thin man in a brown suit, double-breasted
with wide lapels, a bag slung over one shoulder. His cropped hair, his gaunt, tanned face and that suit all made him a stranger.