‘It’s so good to know he’s home safe, I knew he’d make it, but he probably didn’t tell you the worst of it, and just as well,’ said Harry, hugging Annie tightly as they lay in bed together back at the flat.
‘Men see things in war that they can’t forget and don’t want to talk about.’ He rolled over to face the wall, just as he always did when he was going to go to sleep.
Annie lay there in a dark, wondering for a moment about what Harry meant, before turning to him.
‘Is that why you won’t talk about your scar?’ she whispered.
It was about the size of a florin; a raised, red reminder of the Great War, on his right side, and it had shocked her the first time they had got into bed together on their wedding night. He had a much bigger scar on his back, about the size of a fist, where the bullet had passed clean through him, narrowly missing his vital organs. He’d confessed that much, but he never wanted to talk about how he got it, only once telling her, ‘I’m lucky to be alive and that’s enough for me, Annie.’
Annie had never forced the issue; her Uncle Arthur had fought in the trenches and returned a changed man, like many around Acton. He bore no scars from fighting but the war had left its mark on him in other ways, with his incessant rubbing of his hands and his need to be alone most of the time. He used to scare the living daylights out of Annie when she was a girl because of his strange habits and silent ways but the family looked after him. He lived with one of her aunts for a long time and she took care of him. Then, shortly before the war, he married a widow from the laundries who was as quiet as a mouse, so Mum said they were both right for each other.
But Harry was different. He was the lifeblood of the union at work, always ready to offer sensible advice to anyone with a problem. He was so looking forward to the baby coming and fussed over Annie almost as much as Mum did. But he can’t have been much more than a boy when he went away to fight, Annie had worked that much out. She took a deep breath and falteringly began, ‘Do you want to talk about it, Harry? About what happened to you in the war?’
She always felt she was prying when she tried to talk to Harry about his feelings. It wasn’t like her side of the family, with Elsie and Ivy bickering, Bill grumbling and Mum making everyone cups of tea in the cramped scullery at Grove Road. He fitted in there but when anyone asked how his folks back in Newcastle were getting on, he’d fall silent.
He was such a private person, really, and he never spoke much about his mum because it upset him to talk about her; she wasn’t in the best of health and his sister, Kitty, looked after her, he’d said that much. Kitty had the poshest job Annie had ever heard of for a woman – she worked for a shipping journal in Newcastle, tapping away at a typewriter and checking all the facts and figures, helping to edit it. Harry always talked about Kitty with such pride and Annie longed to meet her, but it seemed such a long way away, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Annie had even asked him if they could go and visit, but he’d just flicked open his evening newspaper and said, ‘Oh, Annie, pet, it’s too far to go, especially now there’s a war on.’ He wrote letters, lots of them, and he got letters back too. Annie supposed they must be from Kitty and his mother, but she’d never read them. He’d read her bits of news about what was happening at the shipyards but she didn’t like to ask too much more because, well, he seemed to like a bit of privacy. He kept the letters locked away in an old tea chest and he carried the key around in his jacket pocket.
Annie reached out and stroked his back, feeling the softness of his flannel pyjamas at her fingertips, silently thanking God that his life hadn’t been claimed by a German bullet in the trenches of the First World War.
Her question hung in the air. Harry lay motionless and Annie supposed, from the sound of his deep breathing, that he was already asleep.
The next morning, Annie was on her way down to her mum’s when she caught sight of Vera walking along wearing an ARP tin hat at a jaunty angle and whistling ‘Knees Up Mother Brown’, relishing every moment of the attention she was getting from people queuing with their coupons along Churchfield Road for the butcher’s and the grocer’s.
‘Hello, hello,’ said Vera, sidling up to her friend with a wicked grin on her face. ‘Put that light out, then!’
‘Vera!’ said Annie, pointing to the hat. ‘You’ll get into trouble wearing that, it’s for official use only, you know.’
‘I am official,’ she chimed, puffing her chest out. ‘I’ve only gone and joined the air-raid wardens, haven’t I!’
Annie tried to ignore the filthy looks and tutting noises of the two old ladies outside the butcher’s as Vera said, ‘They were only too pleased to have me, an’ all. They need all the help they can get, with things being the way they are after Dunkirk. I felt it was me patriotic duty to volunteer.’
‘That’s . . . lovely,’ said Annie, struggling to imagine Vera reporting for night duty at the air-raid wardens’ HQ without taking a detour to the pub first. ‘I wanted to tell you our big news. George got home safely from Dunkirk. I need to get down to Mum’s to see him again before he goes back to barracks.’
‘Oh, Annie,’ said Vera, flinging her arms around her friend. ‘I just knew it was going to be all right, didn’t I? Your mum must be over the moon about it. Send him my best, won’t ya? I should be getting on, I’ve got important air-raid warden business to attend to.’
Annie smiled to herself as she watched Vera strutting off down the road in her heels but just as Vera was passing a pile of sandbags by the old cemetery, Annie spotted someone else falling into step with her friend. It was Herbie, the local second-hand car dealer, who’d been keeping himself very busy of late, if rumours were to be believed.
Things had always had a strange habit of dropping off the back of lorries and into Herbie’s hands but since the war had broken out there had been a constant stream of goods going into and out of his yard down in South Acton – at least, that’s what Bessie had told her.
And the moment Hitler invaded Poland, he’d raised the wall of his front garden by a couple of feet; folks said he’d put a big metal tank in there, behind the hedge, and filled it with petrol. Anyone who needed extra coupons seemed to be able to find them thanks to Herbie and cigarettes were always in plentiful supply when he popped into the pub.
There was something greasy-looking about him, despite his neatly tailored pinstriped suit; the turn-ups on his trousers were just a bit too wide and his shoes so highly polished that they almost gleamed. Herbie wore his black hair slicked back and he had a thin, pencil moustache which twitched whenever he spoke. He carried a little notebook in his breast pocket and he was forever taking it out and noting down what people owed him. He had a silly saying he’d trot out whenever he did that: ‘It’s all a game, business, ain’t it? And it’s my game.’
‘He’s a parky little so-and-so, that Herbie,’ Bill would grumble to anyone who’d listen, after he’d put yet another packet of fags on tick. ‘Sell his own grandmother if he thought he could get a bob for her.’
Thankfully Herbie hadn’t spotted Annie because she didn’t want to be seen talking to the likes of him. But he had seen Vera all right and he popped his arm around her in the chummiest manner as they rounded the corner.
Elsie was on her hands and knees in front of the scullery cupboard, yanking pots and pans onto the red-tiled floor, making the most dreadful din.
‘For Gawd’s sake!’ cried Mum, covering her ears as she ushered Annie in to sit down and take the weight off her feet. ‘George is trying to sleep upstairs! He’ll think the Germans have landed. What on earth are you doing, girl?’
Elsie turned around, sweeping a lock of her chestnut hair from her face, which was red with exertion from pulling out every kitchen pot they owned, it seemed. ‘War effort!’ she panted. ‘It’s a scrap metal drive. They want every home to donate some saucepans so that they can melt them down and make aeroplanes. I think it’s a brilliant idea! Joan’s going to get her mum to put loads of their things in.’
‘Oh, is she now?’ Mum retorted, grabbing her favourite cast-iron stockpot before Elsie could get her hands on it. She cradled it in her arms. ‘Well, no one is touching my pans without my say-so, war or no war!’
‘Oh, Mum,’ cried Elsie, putting a few aluminium saucepans in a little heap, ‘we’ve got to give something. I just saw Esther with the Women’s Voluntary Service down on the High Street and they’ve got a lorry-load going off to that Beaverbrook fella, the Minister for Aeroplanes. I promised her we’d donate.’
Annie smiled to herself. She was desperate to see her friend Esther but they hadn’t spoken since last week; Esther had been so busy organizing the Women’s Voluntary Service war efforts there just hadn’t been time for much else. She had turned into a whirling dervish since her three kids had been evacuated to Wales and her husband, Paul, had joined the RAF. ‘It’s like being in an empty nest, Annie,’ she had told her friend the last time they’d bumped into each other at the shops. ‘I’ve got to keep myself busy, so I’m taking in a couple of Belgian refugees as well as volunteering. The poor souls have nowhere else to go.’
Esther’s eyes shone with tears as she spoke. Her family had fled persecution in Belarus before the Great War, saving money from their shoemaking business and fleeing to a new life in England, so she felt more keenly than most how terrible it must be to have to start again from scratch in a foreign land. Annie had always been struck by how kind Esther’s family were; they’d helped her out when she’d rowed with Bill and had nowhere else to turn. There would always be food on the table and a warm welcome for her.
Annie couldn’t imagine cramming refugees into her flat or her mum’s house, but Esther lived in a house on the smarter side of Acton, off Twyford Avenue, because her husband had found a job as a bank clerk and they’d gone up in the world. She never put on airs and graces like some people, though. She was still the same Esther who had washed shirts with Annie back in the laundry when they were little more than girls. She’d even promised to give Annie some of her kids’ old baby clothes, which would really help Annie out.
There was a footfall on the stairs and George ambled in, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with his hair all over the place.
Mum practically clucked like a mother hen as she handed him some toast, spread thickly with butter, and started to pour him a cup of tea. She handed him his army uniform trousers, which had been patched and pressed to perfection overnight, as if by a miracle.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said. He kissed Annie on the cheek and sat down at the table. ‘I’d better be off sharpish after this. I’ll be for the high jump if I stay much longer.’
‘Harry’s planning to pop in on his tea break, can’t you just wait a little longer?’ said Annie, reaching out to hold his hand. ‘He’ll be so disappointed if he misses you.’
George glanced at his sister, smiled and nodded in agreement.
Annie watched him as he ate his breakfast, trying to freeze time. She’d always looked out for him when they were growing up together but the battles that were to come in this war were his to fight. ‘You will come back to us safely, won’t you?’ she said.
He held her hands in his. ‘Of course I will,’ he replied gently. ‘You know, Annie, you mustn’t worry about me. You’ve got to think about the baby now. In fact, I’m going to write to the little one, from wherever I end up. I’ll send postcards to you, I promise. And when this war is over, we can all look through them together. How about that?’
Annie found herself fighting back tears. ‘That’s so kind, George.’
While they were chatting, Elsie was edging her way towards the door with her scrap metal contribution, but she was cut off at the pass by Mum, who made a last-ditch effort to snatch one pan back. The pair of them were still tussling when Harry appeared in the hallway and Mum relented and went back to the washing-up.
He joined them at the table but Annie watched with a growing sense of unease as Harry listened to George tell him more about his miraculous escape from Dunkirk. His jaw was rigid, and his eyes started to dart about the room. In the end, he got up and came back with a bottle of sherry from the larder and poured himself a glass.
He liked a pint did Harry, but sherry was for Christmas and celebrations, so it was strange to see him choosing a drink like that and at this time of day. Mum raised an eyebrow as he knocked it back and, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece, said, ‘Well, it’s almost time for the news.’
They switched on the wireless to listen to the BBC Home Service and the room fell silent. The announcer spoke solemnly about an important speech Prime Minister Winston Churchill had made to parliament, in the face of the German invasion of France and the fall of the Low Countries.
Churchill’s words carried across the airwaves into their little terraced home. They were all relying on him now, more than ever, to guide them through this war. ‘We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost will be.’
There was flicker of terror on Harry’s face, before he put his head in his hands for a moment. George stood up; it was time for him to go.
‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.’
The neighbours turned out to wave George off and Harry strolled along with him, to get back to work at the factory. Annie and her mum watched from the doorstep as the two men made their way down towards Acton High Street. George would need to catch the tram up to town and return to his regiment, which was stationed up North, near Leeds, where he’d be expected to explain his absence to his superiors.
Annie felt so exhausted and queasy from the emotion of saying goodbye, she went upstairs for a lie-down and the next thing she knew, it was tea time and Mum was at her side, gently shaking her awake.
She tried to sit up but had the most sudden and shocking pain, letting out a yelp. ‘Ooh,’ she said, as she curled into a ball and her stomach went rigid. ‘I think I might be better standing.’
As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, there was a sudden gush of liquid all over the bed and the floor.
‘Oh my God,’ cried Annie. ‘I didn’t mean to do that, I’ve ruined the bedspread. I’m sorry.’
‘Stop fussing,’ said Mum, rolling up her sleeves. ‘It’s just your waters breaking. I’ll get some towels. Now, just relax.’
‘But I’m supposed to go to the hospital!’ cried Annie, panic etched on her face. ‘I’m too old to have it at home. The doctor said so!’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Mum. ‘You’re as fit as a fiddle.’
Annie eased herself out of her underwear and lay on her back as the contractions started to get closer together, gasping, ‘I need to get up to the hospital!’
‘No time for that,’ said Mum matter-of-factly. ‘This baby’s got other ideas . . .’
She was such a perfect, wriggling lump of humanity, with a pink, screwed-up face, and hair as black as coal.
She’d only taken a few hours to arrive and Annie knew, as she looked down at the baby in her arms, that their world would never be the same now that she was here.
‘What shall we call her?’ said Annie, gazing up at Harry, who looked fit to burst with pride. Bill had been despatched to get him from the factory, with the news that the baby was on the way.
Harry thought for a moment and then said, ‘How about Anita? It means little Annie, and she does look just like you . . .’
As Annie lay back, exhausted, the baby wriggled again in her arms and started to cry. Annie stroked the baby’s face for a moment and felt a deep pull of love inside her, when tiny fingers clasped hers.
Harry came to Annie’s side and picked up the baby, soothing her. ‘There, there, little Annie. Everything’s going to be all right.’
She stopped crying and looked right at him.
‘My daughter, my little girl, Daddy’s here,’ he said.