Rosie woke to a cacophony of sound. The strident noise of the hooter, which had wakened her in the beginning, still lingered in the air. Danny slumbered on and so too did Bernadette, in a cot at the foot of the bed, while Rosie got up and stood looking out the window.
It was still early and dark outside, but in the light from the gas lamps she saw the delivery vans and carts beginning their rounds and she heard the clop of the horses’ hooves and the clatter of cartwheels over the cobblestones. Over this was the splutter and rumble of the petrol-driven vehicles, the noise of the trams from the nearby Lozells Road.
‘This is the city awakening,’ she said to herself, and then she felt Danny’s hands on her shoulders.
‘How long have you been standing here?’ he chided gently. ‘You’re frozen.’
Rosie hadn’t realised how cold she was until that moment and she snuggled against Danny, grateful for his arms around her. ‘What are you thinking?’ Danny said.
‘Nothing terribly deep,’ Rosie replied. ‘Just how different it all is. Bound to be, I suppose.’
‘Will you hate living here so much?’
Oh yes, with all my being, Rosie might have said, but instead she told Danny, ‘I’ll get used to it. It’s all strange to me at the moment. You must give me time.’
‘All the time in the world,’ Danny said. ‘I’ll make it up to you, see if I don’t.’
He wished he could turn the clock back, but if he could, what in all honesty could he have done differently? But he’d had no idea that once the insurrection was over he was still bound to the Brotherhood, nor that they’d want to start it all up again. Because he’d refused he was exiled to this Godforsaken place, his farm, his inheritance given to the boy who’d started the whole thing. Had he stayed and carried out the ambushes and assassinations they wanted eventually he would have been captured and shot, or imprisoned for life. Some bloody choice!
He felt sorry for Rosie, but he didn’t say this. Rosie didn’t need pity, and as she said, she’d get used to it. The first thing he must do was find a job.
Danny had no idea that finding work would be so hard, especially as he didn’t care what job he did, and he set out that first day full of confidence. However, he was to find the Irish people, because of their stand against conscription and their friendly relations with Germany, were not popular. There were plenty of factories, most of them war related, and he realised that although he’d not wanted to make anything for the war, it was all right to feel that way when you didn’t need the money.
As soon as Danny spoke it was obvious where he came from and that alone put many employers’ backs up. They all asked him why he wasn’t in uniform and when he explained he’d just arrived from Ireland where there was no conscription, he’d see many of them curl their lips in contempt.
‘Tell me,’ said one potential employer, ‘why I should set on someone like yourself to make things for a war you don’t agree with? Why shouldn’t I employ a woman instead, at half the pay, mind, who needs the job to provide for her family because her man is away fighting or she is widowed?’
Danny, remembering the woman cab driver, had no satisfactory answer. But he tried. ‘I need a job too, sir. I too have a wife and child to provide for.’
‘That’s your problem,’ the man said, totally unmoved. ‘You should have stayed in Ireland. You’ll get no work in my factory.’
As one day followed another, the answer seemed to be the same everywhere he tried. He became very despondent.
Rosie could sympathise for she’d had a taste of it herself. The day after they’d first arrived at the convent she’d gone to the Mass at seven o’clock and met a few other parishioners. But the following week she went to nine o’clock Mass, leaving Bernadette with her daddy who’d gone to the earlier one at seven. Mother Magdalene had recommended the parish priest, Father Barry, be told the real reason for the family fleeing Ireland, and everyone else told that Rosie was a niece belonging to the Reverend Mother, over for a wee rest.
There were few men in the congregation that Sunday, Rosie noticed, and nearly all that were there were in uniform. She couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable. Afterwards, leaving the church, one of the women said to Rosie, ‘Where’s your man then? Over for a wee rest, the Sister said. Is he on leave, like?’
‘No, he’s not in the army,’ Rosie explained. ‘We didn’t have conscription in Ireland.’
‘My husband didn’t wait to be conscripted,’ the first woman said sharply. ‘Volunteered, he did, and proud to do so.’
‘And my sons,’ another said. ‘Had one killed on the Somme and one at Gallipoli. Heroes, both of them.’
‘Oh the Irish would rather side with a Hun,’ an older man said. ‘Colluded with them they did. Probably been doing it for years.’
The faces around Rosie looked angry and hostile and Rosie thought back to the friendly people she’d seen every Sunday after Mass in Blessington. ‘I don’t know anything about all this,’ she told them helplessly. ‘We’re just trying to get by, like everyone else.’
‘Aye, well some of us have to get by without our menfolk and some don’t have anyone belonging to them to come back either.’
‘Yeah, and some like me have to work their fingers to the bone to put food on the table,’ another put in.
Rosie had had enough. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, pushing past and through the crowds, and they’d all stood and watched her leave. She didn’t tell Danny, there was no point, but she knew what he was going through in his search for work. Two days after the encounter after Mass, a letter came for Danny one morning after he’d left, and when he returned and opened it a white feather fluttered to the floor. Both knew what it meant, the sign of cowardice, and Danny felt sick as he picked it up and ran his fingers along it.
‘Who would do this?’ he asked Rosie in puzzlement. She remembered the antagonistic people after Mass and knew it could have been any one of them.
She told Connie none of this when she wrote to her later that day. She’d put off the letter, hoping that Danny would have got a job and she’d have good news to tell them, but she knew she could delay no longer. She didn’t mention Danny’s lack of success in seeking employment or that their little store of money was disappearing at an alarming rate.
She concentrated instead on the positive aspects of where she was living:
It is well served by shops, so many around us you wouldn’t believe it. I go out every morning to do the shopping for the convent and I take Bernadette in the large and commodious pram one of the Sisters got for me. Bernadette loves it and she gets what fresh air there is here and I can pack so much around her.
Milk is delivered to the door and so is bread, and the convent uses a lot because of the school they have for the poor children of the area behind the convent who often come with no dinner. They run a nursery for mothers working in war-related jobs too, and so when the milk cart brings the churn to the door it’s not uncommon to have three or four large jugs for him to ladle into each day.
It’s odd to have shop bread all the time. I mind the time I could knock up a loaf of soda bread in minutes and now there are perhaps four or five loaves delivered here. Most of the other food stuff needed I am able to fetch for them. They are grateful to me for doing that, for what with the school, nursery, and visiting the sick and needy, they haven’t much time at all.
The convent itself is in a pleasant position, for it is opposite a small grassed area called Spring Garden and I often take Bernadette there in the afternoon. It’s nice for us both to feel grass beneath our feet and the flowers are pretty, and though Handsworth Park is beautiful it’s a tidy walk.
I hope everything is fine with you and everyone is well. I’d value a letter. I miss you all so much. For safety’s sake, can you address your letter to the Reverend Mother, Mother Magdalene, and though I’m including a letter for my parents, the girls and Dermot, please don’t tell them where we are, it’s best that as few as possible know.
Please God, Rosie thought, next time I write I’ll be able to tell them Danny has a job.
Rosie only went once to the Bull Ring, the massive open market that the nuns had told her about and insisted she visit, and they minded Bernadette for her one day while she spent precious money on a tram to the city centre. Once alighted from it, she had stood by a enormous store called Lewis’s that seemed to be on both sides of a very small road.
She was quite mesmerised by the amount of traffic, and more people than she’d ever seen in her life, and far more shops. The nuns had written down explicit directions as to how she would get to the Bull Ring and she followed them until she stood at the top of the High Street, looking down the hill to the market below, bustling with people and alive with noise.
On one side of the hill there were shops and Rosie noted them as she passed. Shops selling sweets, shoes and newspapers were side by side, and next to them a tailor’s advertising suits for thirty bob. Then there was a café, and a pet shop with kittens in the window and a large parrot in the doorway, and another tailor’s where, with their thirty-bob suits, a free waistcoat was included.
Rosie was quite dazzled by it all. And then she was at the bottom of the hill and the noise and press of bodies was almost indescribable. Either side of a large statue on a podium with a wall around it were barrows, many with canvas awnings, piled high with produce or articles of every kind. Around the statue were women selling flowers and the different fragrances wafted before her nose as she was pressed to buy. The statue, she noted as she passed it, was of Lord Nelson. She recalled the pillar in Dublin, dedicated to the same man, that she’d seen in her quest to find news of Danny. It had been one of the buildings in that area left undamaged and she remembered it had stood straight and tall amongst the sea of rubble, like a beacon of defiance.
As she continued walking through the Bull Ring, she caught a whiff of fish as she passed one road leading off to the right and then she was amongst the barrows. She was astounded to see that those with bread, cakes, sweets, fruit and veg, poultry, rabbits and fish were side by side with those selling crockery, material or junk, and the amalgamated smells filled the air.
Her attention was taken by a man selling spinning tops. ‘On the table, on the chair, little devils go everywhere,’ he chorused, seeing Rosie’s interest. ‘You want one, lady? Only a tanner.’ Rosie would have loved to buy one of those brightly coloured tops and she knew Bernadette would be delighted with it. But sixpence was sixpence and she shook her head regretfully and turned away.
At the next barrow a hawker was plying his trade to a crowd of women in front of him. ‘Come on, ladies, who’d like a pound of tomatoes for just fourpence. Now I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’ and then leaning closer to one woman he went on, ‘And for Gawd’s sake don’t tell your old man. I’m only letting them go dirt cheap because I like the look of you. Any of you lovely beauties want the same?’
The woman surged forward and Rosie walked on, smiling at the man’s banter. It was all so different from Ireland, she thought.
Amongst all the noise and laughter and the hawkers and costers advertising their wares, there was one strident voice calling out incessantly, but Rosie couldn’t catch the words. But then as she came out nearer the church she had seen in the distance, she saw the caller was a lady standing outside a shop called Woolworths and she was selling carrier bags. And that was what she was shouting about: ‘Carriers, handy carriers,’ over and over.
Before the church, Rosie saw, was a fringe of trees all in blossom in front of which trams and dray horses were pulling their heavy loads before disappearing down a side street.
The nuns were right, she thought, it was the most fascinating place. And then she saw the Market Hall. It was an imposing building. Arched windows were either side of the stone steps supported by Gothic pillars, but Rosie didn’t only see the grandeur of the place, she saw the men there selling razor blades and bootlaces and even wind-up toys from trays around their necks. One had just one leg, another only one arm, and another had a placard around his neck saying he was blind. Rosie knew without being told who these men were. They were the flotsam of a war that the Government had led them into and then cast aside once they’d served their purpose.
The joy of the day had gone for Rosie after that. She visited Woolworths and Peacocks and looked in the windows of the Hobbies shop; she even passed the men on the steps to go into the Market Hall, but neither the wonderful array of goods there, nor the fabulous clock the nuns had told her about, nor even the playful animals in Pimms pet store, could totally shake off the despondency the sight of those poor, maimed men had evoked in her.
She bought the vegetables and the rabbit meat the nuns had asked her to fetch back and was glad to leave the Bull Ring behind and make her way home again.
There was no need anyway to visit the Bull Ring, for the area where they were was, as she’d told Connie, well served for shops and she liked her little jaunt out every day, especially now the weather was a little warmer. It was nice to see the shopkeepers’ pleasant faces and hear the polite way they spoke to her. They knew nothing of Danny here and only knew what she’d told them; that she was a niece belonging to the Reverend Mother over from Ireland for a wee rest because she’d been ill.
No one doubted her, why should they, and the consensus was she was a pleasant little body and doing the right thing by coming to the Sisters, for by God they’d put her right if anyone could. And that baby of hers! God, she’d melt many a heart, that one, with her blonde curls and brilliant and unusual violet eyes and beautiful smile. She looked like an angel so she did.
It made a sharp contrast to the people who went to the convent chapel where her and Danny were now virtually shunned by those attending Mass. Mother Magdalene was aware of it, but she hadn’t a clue how to help the situation. She had a great regard and respect for the women of Birmingham anyway who’d set to with a will to run the country in the absence of their men and endeavoured to bring their children up decently.
There were many now, both in the Catholic church and out of it, wearing the black bonnets denoting widowhood. Small wonder they had little patience with a fit and healthy man like Danny, living off the nuns and seemingly too scared to fight. Even had she told them the truth she doubted they’d feel differently, and she could hardly blame them. Not, of course, that she could tell anyone why Danny and Rosie were there. It would be far too dangerous.
Rosie particularly liked shopping on Saturdays, for then the children would often be out with their mothers. As the weather warmed up a little she saw little girls in smart lacy pinafores over their dresses that reached almost to the top of their little button boots. Their long hair would often be loose and held off their face with a bonnet or straw hat. The boys always had caps on their heads and stiff white collars at their necks, their knickerbockers fastened just below their knees and grey socks leading to good strong boots on their feet.
These, however, were the more well-to-do children and some of them came with a nursemaid. Often other girls in service would be queuing at the shops too, many in black dresses with white aprons over them and white mob caps on their heads. They’d usually have a smart basket over their arm as they gave in their orders at the butchers for what Cook wanted and picked over the vegetables at the greengrocer’s and only bought the best.
There were, of course, other poorer mothers whose children were not half so well dressed, and Rosie often felt a pang when she saw their pinched faces and stick-thin arms and legs, and especially if their mother wore a widows’ bonnet.
When they received Connie’s reply to Rosie’s letter, they knew whatever their circumstances now, and however difficult things were, they were right to leave Ireland when they did.
Dear Rosie,
I’m so glad you arrived safe and well, and though I miss you dreadfully you did the right thing in disappearing. The IRA came for Danny. They came in the night brandishing rifles and I was feared of my life. I told them Danny had taken you all to New York, America where I had an uncle. I don’t know if they believed me. They said it was a quick decision and I said it had been planned some time, Danny was just waiting for an opening, a job offer. He wasn’t interested in farming. You’d have been proud of the tale I spun.
Anyway, they finally left and before they went, one of them said to me, ‘Wherever your traitorous, lily-livered son is, tell him to stay there if he knows what’s good for him.’ You needn’t worry for a minute that I would tell a soul where you are. Your parents have asked and your sisters and Dermot have hardly stopped begging for your address or some clue where you’ve gone, but I never said a word, nor won’t I either for it wouldn’t be safe…
‘We can’t go home until this madness is over,’ Danny said.
‘That’s like saying when the war’s over,’ Rosie said. ‘And that’s limped along for three years and shows no sign of stopping.’
‘America will be in soon, you’ll see, then there’ll be a turning point.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Well, no country can stand its ships being sunk and its people drowned when they haven’t even begun hostilities,’ Danny said.
Rosie hoped Danny was right and that America’s intervention would bring a speedy end to the war, that had and still was claiming so many young lives. She was beginning to dread the sight of the telegraph boy, knowing soon another family would be in mourning for a husband, brother, son, favoured uncle, for every soldier belonged to someone.
But another worry was pressing on Rosie, and that was the lack of money if they had to stay in Birmingham for any length of time. They could pay for their keep for just one more week when she asked to speak to the Reverend Mother.
‘What is it, my dear?’ Mother Magdalene asked gently, knowing there had been something on Rosie’s mind for a day or two.
‘It’s money, Mother Magdalene.’ The words burst from Rosie’s lips. ‘We haven’t savings enough to keep us longer than next week.’
The Reverend Mother bit her lip. She longed to tell Rosie she could stay and was welcome for as long as she liked, but she had many demands on her purse and anyway she knew a little of Rosie now and knew she wouldn’t accept what she considered charity. ‘What do you intend to do, Rosie?’ she asked.
‘One of us must work, Mother Magdalene,’ she said. ‘Danny is unable to gain employment, so I think it’s down to me.’
‘He won’t like that.’
‘He’ll like going hungry even less,’ Rosie replied sharply. ‘And I’ll not do that to our child. I’ve seen enough of them half-starved around here to last me a lifetime.’ The favour I must ask of you concerns Bernadette,’ Rosie said. ‘Could she have a place in your nursery?’
‘Well, it is essentially for mothers working for the war effort,’ Mother Magdalene said. ‘What line of work would you be looking for?’
‘That’s just it,’ Rosie said. ‘I don’t mind what I do as long as it pays enough for us to live decently. I wondered if you knew anything of wages?’
‘I know a little,’ Reverend Mother said. ‘But Sister Ambrose would know more as she’s in charge of the nursery.’
‘War-related work pays the most,’ Sister Ambrose said later when Rosie asked her what she could expect to earn. ‘Dunlop’s pays well. The factory is almost all moved up the Tyburn Road now, right out in the countryside, but they keep a factory in Rocky Lane, Aston.’
She didn’t tell Rosie the smell of carbon and rubber constantly emanating from the two women working at the factory who had children at the nursery would nearly choke you when they came to pick them up. Nor did she tell her of the carbon dust engrained in their hands and faces and even their hair; that it was little better in the mornings they’d told her they would go each Sunday to the baths in Victoria Road to have a good soak: it was the only time they could get really clean.
‘Then there’s the ammunitions works at Kynoch’s in Witton that pays well,’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘There’s quite a few go there and there’s a tram. I could ask someone to speak for you.’
Rosie thought about the women she’d seen about with yellow faces, who were called the Canary Girls as one of the shopkeepers told her. The discolouring was caused by the sulphur in munitions work. ‘Is there nothing else?’
‘Aye,’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘There’s shop work and work at HP and Ansells and numerous other factories, not to mention work in the Jewellery Quarter, but they won’t pay nearly as much.’
‘Right,’ Rosie said, her decision made. ‘As I don’t fancy Dunlop’s, Kynoch’s it will have to be. That’s where Rita Shaw works, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Sister Ambrose said, ‘she does, and a decent and respectable woman she is. Her husband Harry is overseas and she has little Georgie to provide for. We’ve looked after the child for well over a year now, and she has a house in Aston, which isn’t so far away. How well do you know her?’
‘Not that well,’ Rosie said. ‘We’ve just exchanged a few words now and then. But I’m sure she’d put a word in if I asked her.’
‘No doubt of it.’
‘Well I shan’t say anything just yet,’ Rosie said. ‘I must talk Danny round first.’
‘Rosie.’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but most of the married women have men overseas. Have you thought what you’d do if you found you were expecting?’
Rosie shook her head. Whether it was depression through not having a job, or the proximity of the nuns, Danny had not once touched her intimately, never mind going further than that, since they arrived in Birmingham and this was another reason why she was anxious for them to get their own place.
‘I wouldn’t find myself expecting at the moment,’ she told Sister Ambrose. ‘There is no question of it just now.’
Their eyes held for a moment and Sister Ambrose understood how it was. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You best talk to your man.’
The man in question shouted and roared. He forbade Rosie to go to such a place. He said she was deliberately shaming him.
Rosie let Danny’s anger and scorn wash over her. She refused to be upset, whatever he said, for she knew that her taking a job could be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Danny. His rage was against the unfairness of life.
For two days he was out from dawn to dusk, tramping the streets, asking every factory he passed if they had work. The answer was always the same. His despondency turned to despair and the second day he faced Rosie across their room. ‘How much money have we left?’
‘Five shillings,’ Rosie said. ‘And I must give that to the nuns this week for our keep. After that, there isn’t a penny.’
Danny sighed and Rosie felt sorry for him. He gazed down at Bernadette asleep in her cot, her thumb in her mouth, and said dejectedly, ‘I’m a failure to you, Rosie. The promises that I’d make it all up to you, I have broken.’
‘You’re no failure in my eyes, Danny.’
‘I know what I know,’ Danny said bitterly. ‘But, for Bernadette’s sake, I can sit on my pride no longer. Do whatever the hell you like.’
The next morning Rosie collared Rita. She’d liked her from the first, sensing in the no-nonsense Rita a person like herself. Rita’s face was yellow and there was a coppery tinge to the long brown hair she wore coiled up but her dark brown eyes were full of life and determination, despite the fact they were often red-rimmed. Rita knew little of Danny and Rosie didn’t mention him now. She just said she needed a job and did she think there would be a vacancy at the place she worked.
‘I’ll ask for you,’ Rita said. ‘But I’d say you have a good chance of being set on, they’re always wanting people. I’ll ask them today and when I come to fetch Georgie tonight, I’ll give you the answer. All right?’
It was more than all right and when Rita came that night and told Rosie that she was to go up the next day and see a Mr Witchell, who was boss of the place, Rosie could hardly contain her delight.
Next morning, Rosie went through what she had to say to the boss of the munitions works in the short tram journey, for she’d decided a modicum of the truth was needed. So she told him that they’d left Ireland, for it wasn’t a safe place to be at the moment, and that she’d been ill so they’d come to the convent as one of the nuns was an aunt of hers. ‘Danny, my husband, had hoped to get work of some sort,’ she said, ‘but so far he’s been unsuccessful.’
‘So you decided to take up a job instead,’ Mr Witchell said. ‘How did he take to that?’
Rosie, remembering Danny’s rage at her suggestion, said, ‘Not very well at first, but he came round in the end.’
‘So he’s not likely to come storming up here lambasting everyone and drag you home by the hair?’ Mr Witchell asked with a twinkle in his eye, and the mental picture was so alien to anything Danny would do that Rosie smiled properly and felt her nerves flutter away. ‘No,’ she answered, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘And have you done any work like this before?’ Mr Witchell said and shook his head. ‘I’m supposed to ask that question, but, to be honest, few people have experience making guns and bullets.’
‘I haven’t either, sir,’ Rosie said. ‘But I’m willing to learn.’
‘I’m sure you are, and I’m willing to try you out,’ Mr Witchell said. ‘You can start next Monday morning at seven-thirty sharp. Wages start at two pounds and ten shillings. So how does that suit?’
‘It suits very well, sir,’ Rosie said, and she ran her right hand surreptitiously down the side of her dress before she shook hands for it was clammy with sweat. Two pounds and ten shillings was a good wage for anyone and a fortune for a woman. It would secure their future for the time being at least. As she left the office she had the urge to skip along the road like a lunatic, but somehow managed to control it.
She was up bright and early the following Monday morning and waiting for Rita at the door of the nursery. ‘Your wee daughter is gorgeous,’ Rita said as the pair scurried up Hunter’s Road. ‘She’s like an angel and her smile would melt a heart of stone.’
‘And she knows it,’ Rosie said. ‘The nuns would have her ruined altogether if I allowed it.’
Rita laughed. ‘I can well believe it. She’s the sort of child you’d love to spoil.’
Before Rosie was able to reply they’d turned from Hunter’s Road into Lozells Road and saw the tram lumbering towards the stop and had to put a spurt on in order to catch it.
Once on the tram, Rosie was anxious to talk about the job, because her stomach had being doing somersaults all night at the thought of it.
‘The supervisor on our section is Miss Morris,’ Rita told Rosie. ‘She’s a decent sort on the whole, as long as you don’t take advantage like. She can’t abide that. You have to wear these bloody awful, dark green overalls, nearly down to the floor they are, and a hat that every vestige of hair has to be tucked under. Mind, you’ll be glad of them, for the yellow dust swirls about in the air and gets everywhere.’
‘Don’t you mind about your face turning a yellow colour?’
‘I care more about paying the rent, putting food on the table so me and Georgie can eat decently and I can dress him in respectable clothes and put a bit of money in the Post Office for when my Harry comes back,’ Rita stated emphatically. ‘That’s all I care about.’
‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘I agree with you. That’s all most of us want.’
‘Come on,’ Rita said suddenly, ‘the next stop’s ours. I’ll take you in to Miss Morris and she’ll sort you out.’
They went in through the huge metal gates and down a side alley to a squat brick building, and once inside, Rita pointed out the clock where a queue of girls waited. ‘You’ll be given a card today,’ she said, ‘and the first thing you do is punch it in there. If you’re late they dock your pay, and if you’re persistently late they take off an hour for every minute or sack you altogether, so be careful.’
Suddenly Miss Morris was in front of them and she shepherded Rosie along with the others to don the uniform, which was just as hideous as Rita had described.
She hadn’t been exaggerating about the dust either, for it did seem to get everywhere, and the stink of it went up Rosie’s nose and to the back of her throat as soon as she entered the factory floor, making her cough. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Miss Morris said. ‘I was the same at first – sometimes my eyes would itch and burn, but they’re all right now.’
Rosie wiped her own streaming eyes and looked around and thought it must be the most unwelcoming place in the world. She was suddenly very nervous. What did she know about making things for a war? What if she made a mess of it? She might last no longer than a day. And then what would you live on, she told herself sharply – fresh air? – and surely all the women had to start somewhere.
She mentally straightened her shoulders and told herself firmly to stop being so stupid. She gazed around the long room. It was very dimly lit except at the tables where the girls sat, where a naked bulb sent a pool of light over everything. ‘You’ll be making detonators,’ Miss Morris said. ‘I’m setting you up beside Betty, who’ll soon put you right over this and that.’
‘I will too,’ Betty said, moving her chair over to make more space and smiling at Rosie. ‘Come on up beside me and I’ll show you what’s what.’
Betty was much older than her and Rita and her yellow face was so lined that Rosie could see the dust settling in the folds of her skin by the end of each day. Her grey eyes were kindly, though, and the little tufts of hair that Rosie could see at the sides were grey. Altogether, Betty was plump and comfortable looking and Rosie was glad she was the one to show her what to do. She knew if she didn’t pick it up straight away, Betty wasn’t the sort to lose patience with her. Some of her nervousness melted away and she smiled back at the older woman.
She found out all about Betty Martins that day. ‘I’ve been a widow more years than I care to remember,’ she told Rosie, ‘I’m a Brummie, though, through and through, and proud of it. I live in the same courtyard as Rita in Aston.’
‘My two sons had itchy feet and both sailed to America years ago when my Alf was still alive. They’ve lived there ever since and send money home regular. They’ve been on at me for years to go over there, but Brum is where I’ll live until I go out in a box and I’ve told them straight. This is home to me.’
Betty’s steady chatter and store of jokes helped the day pass more quickly, though by the time the last hooter sounded and Rita and Rosie were walking to the tram stop, Rosie confessed to feeling very tired. She told Rita about Danny and his fruitless search for work. ‘So I’ll not mention being tired to him,’ she went on, ‘or he might nag at me to give it up. One of us must work and if he can’t find employment and I can, then I must be the one. He doesn’t see it quite that way, of course.’
‘Pride, see,’ Rita said. ‘Terrible thing, a man’s pride. Still, at least you got yours to go home to. My hubby’s “somewhere in France”.’
Rosie sighed. ‘I know. Danny has been having a hard time because he’s not in khaki.’ She lowered her voice and went on, ‘Someone even sent him a white feather.’
‘No!’
‘Aye, it’s a fact.’ Rosie said. ‘If you’ve lost someone, then…Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’d feel the same.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Rita stated firmly. ‘I mean, I worry about my old man every minute of the bleeding day, but I don’t think I’d feel any better if some other bugger was dragged into it as well.’
Rosie was glad Rita felt that way, but Rita didn’t ask why Danny wasn’t in uniform and Rosie didn’t enlighten her, for Rita had presumed that he’d been proved unfit at the medical.
Danny saw the tiredness etched on Rosie’s face when she got in that night. He saw she tried to hide it and it hurt him down to the pit of his stomach that Rosie was forced to go out to work. But he said nothing about it. What was there to say?
Bernadette at least had enjoyed her day at the nursery. Her shining eyes said it all, though she was tired when Rosie picked her up and had no qualms that night at least about going to bed. Danny asked Rosie little about her day and the job she did, but the nuns were full of questions.
Rosie answered them all despite her weariness and then said, ‘We can start looking around now for a place of our own. You’ve been more than kind, but I know you didn’t intend to put us up for so long.’
‘There was no time limit specified,’ one of the nuns pointed out, and Rosie knew that, but also knew the convent hadn’t facilities to put people up for long periods of time. She would also feel better with her own place, her own front door to shut. It might make it better for Danny too. She was well aware how he hated his jobless state paraded before the nuns daily, and the attitude of the people at the chapel hardly raised his self-esteem in any shape or form.
She felt emotionally and physically drained, and soon after the meal she made her excuses and went to bed. She stirred when Danny slid in beside her some hours later, but made no sign of being awake.
Perversely, as Danny’s even breathing filled the room, she lay beside him wide awake. Tears of tiredness and disappointment smarted behind her eyes and she brushed them away angrily, for she knew the time for tears was well past.