Keep the Home Fires Burning Read Free Page B

Everything is long and pointed, like her bony fingers and her nose, and she’s got no proper teeth, just brown stumps.’
    ‘And she always wears black as well,’ Missie put in.
    ‘That’s because she lost all the babies and that,’ Sarah said as she took the grips out of the bun holding her hair in place. Her hair cascaded down her back and she brushed it out with the big wide brush. ‘Mom told me and Richard ages ago.’
    ‘Tell us then.’
    ‘It’s time for you to go to sleep.’
    ‘Oh, go on, Sarah,’ said both girls together.
    ‘All right,’ Sarah said, winding her hair into one plait with a speed that the twins always envied. She secured her hair with a band and padded across the room, saying as she did so, ‘But budge over then. I need to get into bed first.’
    The twins moved across to make room for their sister and she turned off the light and got into bedbetween them. With the three of them all tucked in together and the darkness settling around them, Sarah said, ‘Mom said Grandma Murray had ten children altogether and one by one most of them died.’
    ‘What of?’
    ‘Some from diphtheria, Mom said, and others from TB.’
    ‘And was they all babies?’
    ‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘Mom said they were mostly children, only there was a baby who died in her cot when she was only little and they never found out why. Anyroad, in the end, there was only four left, Mom, Aunt Polly and the two eldest, Michael and Owen. Then Owen and Michael decided to try their luck in America, only Michael didn’t make it and when Owen wrote and told them of his death Grandma Murray pledged that she would wear black until the day she died. Mom always said that his death had affected her most, for he had been her first-born and the seventh child of hers to die, and then his body had been tipped into the Atlantic so she didn’t even have a grave to visit.’ Sarah let the twins reflect on this for a moment or two and then she said, ‘Now you’ve got to admit that that’s really sad.’
    ‘It is,’ Missie agreed slowly and then added, ‘And with anyone else I would feel very sorry for them, but Grandma’s hard to feel sorry for, and she can be so nasty at times.’
    ‘Mom always says that we have to makeallowances,’ Sarah said. ‘Point is, though, I don’t see how shouting and going on like she does can help anyone cope better.’
    ‘Nor me,’ Magda said. ‘And I still don’t like her much.’
    Missie shivered. ‘Nor me, and she scares me as well.’
    ‘She don’t scare me,’ Magda declared stoutly. ‘I won’t let her scare me.’ But she said it as though she were trying to convince herself.
    ‘Well, whatever you think about her, let’s stop talking about her now and go to sleep,’ Sarah advised. ‘Or Mom will be up to see what we are gassing about, and I’m bushed and don’t want to talk any more.’
    Neither did Magda, who was suddenly feeling very sleepy, and beside her she heard Missie give a yawn and the three girls snuggled down together and were soon all fast asleep.

TWO
    Afterwards, Marion thought it was from that weekend that the mood of the country changed subtly, as most people realised that the war no one really wanted was moving closer. Bill told her of the shadow factories springing up alongside legitimate ones, making military equipment and vehicles. In Birmingham the gun trade was booming. These sorts of things weren’t reported but, as Bill said, you can’t stop people talking, and word got around.
    ‘Personally I find it reassuring,’ he said. ‘If we do eventually go to war, then I’d like to know that the Government has been making plans for it.’
    Only a week or so later Marion’s sister, Polly, popped round to announce that her two elder boys, Chris and Colm, had got jobs in Ansell’s Brewery on nearby Lichfield Road, taking the place of two boys just a little older, who had been conscripted. Polly’s sons were sixteen and fifteen, and had not had jobs since