Moonlight and Ashes Page 9

  Time seemed to stand still. They had no way of knowing how long they had been trapped in their tiny prison. All they did know was that the night seemed to last for a lifetime. Over and over again, the earth beneath them shook as an explosion ripped through the air. Apart from that, the only other sound that could be heard was the clanging bells of the fire engines and ambulances as they raced towards the fires that were springing up across the city.

  At last, the drone of the planes subsided and after a time, the all clear sounded.

  ‘Is it over?’ Maggie held her breath as she stared through the gloomy light into her mother’s face.

  ‘I think so, love. At least for now. You stay there wi’ the children while I go out an’ see what’s goin’ on.’ Rising painfully, she straightened and lumbered towards the door, half-afraid of what she might see when she opened it. The first thing that struck her was the overpowering smell of burning. Huge columns of smoke darkened the dawn sky, as if they were trying to blot out the sun that was just peeping over the horizon. She could hear doors opening and closing and people running up and down the street as they too emerged from their shelters and hurried away to check on their friends and neighbours.

  Becoming aware of Maggie, who had come to stand at her elbow, she nodded when Maggie told her, ‘I’m just going to pop over the road an’ check that Dad is all right, Mam. You wait there, I’ll be back in a tick.’

  Yanking the yard gate open, Maggie fled down the entry, breathing a sigh of relief as she saw that all the houses opposite were still standing.

  ‘Are you all all right, love?’ Mrs Massey shouted as she emerged from her front door looking tired and bleary-eyed.

  ‘Yes, thanks! I’m just going to check that me dad’s OK.’

  Maggie impatiently waited for a fire engine to speed past with its bells clanging before darting nimbly across the street. She threw her parents’ front door open and shouted, ‘Dad - it’s me! Where are you?’ After the noise and activity in the street the house felt unnaturally quiet as she waited for her father to reply. Guessing that he was probably still asleep in the cupboard under the stairs, she started towards it with a smile on her face. Her mam had always joked that Bill could sleep through anything, and it was beginning to look like he had. However, when she flung the door open, the smile slid from her face. Because the houses on the opposite side of the street to Maggie didn’t have room for an Anderson shelter in the back yard, her mam had long since cleared all the rubbish out from under the stairs and made up a bed of sorts in there. At a glance it was obvious that it hadn’t been slept in.

  Maggie frowned. Perhaps he’d decided to go to bed and to hell with it. Fear lent speed to her legs as she thumped up the stairs, but again she was presented with a tidy - and empty - bed.

  Systematically she checked every room in the house but there was no sign of her father anywhere. Unlocking the back door, she stepped into a shared yard where her mother’s neighbour was staring up at the smoke-blackened sky.

  ‘You ain’t seen me dad this morning, have you?’ she asked.

  The woman shook her head. ‘Can’t say as I have, Maggie. I heard him go out last night just before the commotion started though. I thought he were coming over to you.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Hughes.’ Maggie locked up and returned home. Her mother was still in the shelter with the children who had just woken up.

  ‘There’s no sign of him, Mam,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Mrs Hughes says she heard him go out last night but she ain’t seen him since.’

  Ellen frowned. ‘He’d probably popped up the shop for his Woodbines. But why wouldn’t he have come back?’ An edge of fear had crept into her voice and now it was Maggie’s turn to comfort her.

  ‘Try not to worry, Mam. He probably slipped into a shelter somewhere when everything kicked off. Let’s get the children inside and give them some breakfast, shall we? I shan’t be sending them to school today an’ I’m certainly not turning into work. Look, by the time we’ve sorted the kids out, Dad will have turned up like a bad penny.’

  Lifting Lucy from the bunk, she ushered the twins in front of her. Once they were all seated around the kitchen table the questions began.

  ‘Did they drop many bombs, Mam?’ The first was from Danny.

  ‘I’m not sure, love. It certainly sounded like it.’

  ‘Will they come back and drop some more today?’ The next was from Lizzie who was trembling like a jelly.

  Maggie gulped as she stirred milk into a large pan of porridge. ‘I hope not, sweetheart. But let’s try not to worry about it for now. We’ll have some breakfast and then I’m sure we’ll all feel much better.’

  Her mother had wandered off into the front room and was peering up and down the street for a sign of her husband. After a few minutes she rejoined Maggie in the kitchen. ‘There’s no sign of yer dad, but Sam’s lumberin’ down the street like he’s got the weight o’ the world on his shoulders.’

  Maggie supposed that she should feel a measure of relief, but there was nothing but resentment. Once again when she and the children had needed him, he had let them down. She listened to his heavy tread in the entry and the sound of the back gate opening, and then he was there in the doorway, looking, as her mother put it, like death warmed up.

  He flung his cap onto the chair, unable to meet their eyes as the two women stared at him. After a time he muttered, ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Could yer both come into the front room away from little ears?’

  Maggie hastily filled the children’s bowls then on leaden feet she followed her mother and her husband into the immaculate little front parlour that was only used on high days and holidays.

  Once out of earshot of the children, both women looked at him expectantly and, unsure of where to begin, Sam shuffled from foot to foot.

  ‘Thing is, I were in the Three Shuttles when the air-raid siren sounded, so me an’ all the other customers went down an’ spent the night in the cellar there. When we come out this mornin’ I bumped into Jack Morris who used to work wi’ yer dad, an’ it were him that told me . . .’

  When his voice trailed away, Maggie shook his arm. ‘Told you what?’

  He looked from one to the other before gulping deep in his throat and continuing. ‘Seems they had a hit down by the Swanswell pool. Yer dad were just comin’ out o’ the shop nearby an’ . . .’

  ‘He’s dead, ain’t he?’ Ellen’s voice was empty of any feeling whatsoever.

  Sam nodded miserably, and as his words sank in, Maggie began to quietly sob. They stood for some minutes until Ellen turned and made towards the door. ‘I’d best get off then. Do you know where they’ve taken him?’

  ‘Jack thinks they took the bodies to the morgue at the Coventry and Warwick Hospital. They’re asking for the next-of-kin to go and identify the bodies.’

  ‘I’ll go, Mam, if you don’t feel up to it,’ Maggie offered tearfully.

  ‘No, it’s all right, love. It should be me that goes.’

  ‘It er . . . might not be a very pretty sight,’ Sam warned her quietly.

  Ellen drew herself up to her full height. ‘It would take more than a bloody bomb to stop me recognisin’ my man. After bein’ wed fer over thirty-five years I know every inch of his body like the back of me hand.’

  Turning about, she quietly slipped away. Maggie knew that she should be going after her, but her feet felt as if they’d been glued to the floor and the pain in her heart was so intense that for some minutes she couldn’t even speak.

  It took a while for her to realise that Sam was speaking again, and a great effort to concentrate on what he was saying.

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve gone an’ done it.’ His voice seemed to be coming from a long way away.

  ‘Done what?’ Maggie asked distractedly.

  His hands balled into fists of frustration. ‘Ain’t you heard a single bloody word I’ve been saying? I’ve been tryin’ to tell yer. I went an’ had a few pints yesterday dinner. I know, before
yer start yer naggin’, that I shouldn’t have, but the thing is, I got into a bit of a barney wi’ an Army chap on leave in there. Right toffee-nosed little bastard he were, an’ all. Told me I should be ashamed o’ meself fer doin’ nothin’ when there’s a war on. So I . . .’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I er . . . I went an’ signed up.’

  This shock, on top of the news about her father, was too much for Maggie to take in and her legs buckled beneath her. ‘You did what?’ she gasped incredulously.

  Suddenly tears spurted from his eyes as he held his hands out to her beseechingly. ‘I never meant to, Maggie. Within an hour I realised what I’d done an’ I went back an’ told ’em I’d changed me mind - but they were havin’ none of it. They told me to stop bein’ so spineless an’ to behave like a man. All very well fer them to say, ain’t it? Sittin’ there behind their neat little desks. But I could be on the front line. Oh Maggie, what am I goin’ to do?’

  His fear was so tangible that she could almost taste it, and in that moment she saw him for the coward that he really was. Drawing herself up to her full height, she faced him squarely.

  ‘You’re going to do what you should have done long ago. You’re going to fight for your country. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m goin’ to check on me mam. As you’ve just told us, we’ve lost my dad - an’ I think that makes your dilemma, as you see it, seem rather insignificant, don’t you?’

  As she swept past him, his mouth gaped open and he knew that there was no going back.

  Chapter Ten

  The morning of 3 July 1940 dawned bright and clear, but Maggie didn’t notice the weather. Today she was going to bury her father and her heart felt as if it was breaking. All morning there was a continuous stream of neighbours tiptoeing in and out of her kitchen, bearing offerings of food for the tea that would take place after the service.

  Across the road at her parents’ home, her father was resting in his coffin in the little front parlour. All along the Lane, the curtains were drawn as a mark of respect, and everywhere was unnaturally quiet, for the mothers had kept their children in until after the funeral.

  As the morning wore on, the table bearing the food began to sag beneath the weight of pastries and pies that the neighbours had donated. There were homemade pickles and cakes, and enough sausagemeat baked into little pastry cases to feed an army, as Mrs Massey declared. Maggie looked at the vast array of food. For months they had all learned to do without as the rationing grew stricter, and yet here she was confronted with a feast that she knew she couldn’t touch. At the moment, everything she tried to eat seemed to lodge in her throat and threatened to choke her.

  Her eyes were swollen from crying and so were Sam’s, but not for the same reason. The day before, his call-up papers had dropped through the letterbox and he’d been a quivering mess ever since, not that Maggie much cared. All she could think of was saying goodbye to the father she had adored. Bill Sharp had been a kind man, greatly admired and respected by friends and family alike, as the many floral tributes that were being laid by the front door testified. Maggie had begged her mother over the last week to stay with them but Ellen had steadfastly refused whilst her father was still lying in the house.

  ‘At least I can still talk to him at the minute, even if he don’t talk back,’ was her only reply, and in the end Maggie gave up asking. If truth be told she was desperately worried about her mam. Since the night of her father’s death she hadn’t seen her shed so much as a single tear, and to her mind that wasn’t healthy.

  ‘She’s bottlin’ it all up inside,’ Mrs Massey said when Maggie expressed her concerns. ‘An’ that ain’t a good thing. It’ll have to find release somewhere, an’ the longer it stays inside the worse it will be, you just mark my words.’

  Maggie tended to agree with her. They had since learned that fifteen other souls had perished on the night of the bombings and there had been a steady stream of funerals all week.

  ‘Word has it that they have a large amount o’ cardboard coffins ready an’ waitin fer the next time,’ Mrs Massey had informed her, and Maggie had shuddered at the thought. It seemed so undignified somehow, to be buried in a cardboard coffin. At least her father was being laid to rest in a sturdy oak casket, which gave her some comfort. He had always paid into a small funeral insurance fund and thankfully, that would pay for most of the expense.

  At twelve o’clock sharp a shiny black hearse pulled up outside the house and the undertakers disappeared inside to screw down the coffin lid before reverently carrying it out to the hearse for its final journey.

  Mrs Massey, who was staying behind to look after Lucy and get the tea ready for when the mourners got back, pushed Maggie towards the door. ‘Go on, love. Go an’ say yer goodbyes. The little ’un will be fine with me.’

  Looking incredibly pretty in a little black hat and a smart two-piece suit that her mother had insisted she should have, Maggie pulled on her gloves, then, taking the twins by the hand, she marched towards the door with Sam close behind her.

  William Sharp was laid to rest following a short, dignified service in Swanshill Evangelical Baptist Church. As Maggie threw a clod of earth down onto the coffin lid she knew that a little part of her would be buried with him. Her mother stood dry-eyed at the side of the grave, and when it was over, Maggie gently took her arm and led her away to the feast that awaited them at home. Up until now, Coventry had been subjected to only one air raid, yet that one raid had changed her life forever. She wondered briefly what the next one might bring, and shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mam, please. You’ve got to eat something. You’ve lost so much weight you’ll slip down a gap in the pavement at this rate. I’ve made you a shepherd’s pie for your dinner - look.’

  Ellen Sharp continued to polish the long mahogany sideboard in her front room as she smiled at her daughter over her shoulder. ‘I’ll have it later, love. Just leave it in the kitchen, would yer?’

  Maggie sighed. It was now over a week since they’d buried her father and it seemed that ever since, her mother had spent her hours cleaning everything in sight. It was as if something were possessing her and she couldn’t sit still for more than two minutes at a time.

  ‘Mam. I defy anyone to find so much as a single scrap of dust in this whole house. You were even outside washing the dustbin earlier on, an’ don’t bother to deny it ’cos Mrs Hughes saw you doing it. Now please come an’ sit down an’ talk to me, eh? The twins were askin’ after you earlier on. They wonder when you’ll be comin’ to see them. We only live across the road, you know.’

  When she snatched the duster from her mother’s hand, Ellen sighed before following her into the kitchen. But even then she didn’t sit down but began to smooth out an imaginary crease in the fringed chenille tablecloth.

  Maggie sighed as she filled the kettle at the spotlessly clean stone sink. She’d been wondering if she should go back to work, but while her mother was behaving like this she was afraid to leave her on her own. It was as she was straining the tea into pretty china cups that an idea occurred to her. Perhaps going back to work wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

  ‘Mam,’ she said cautiously as she placed the teapot on the table, ‘I was wondering - do you think you might be able to start looking after the children again for me soon? The thing is, money’s a bit tight and it’ll be down to me once Sam has gone off to camp. Not that he’s bringing anything in at the minute. We’re getting by on a wing and a prayer at present but I can’t go back until you feel up to babysitting again.’

  A host of emotions flitted across Ellen’s face. Since losing Bill she had barely ventured out of the house. She felt closer to him there, yet she didn’t like to think of Maggie struggling.

  ‘When were yer thinkin’ o’ going back?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Well, Sam’s going next week so the sooner the better, really. If you think you’re up to it, that is.’

  A picture of the twins and Lucy
flashed before Ellen’s eyes. She knew that she’d neglected them all shamefully since the funeral. Perhaps it was time to try and get back to some sort of normality?

  ‘All right then. But couldn’t you just go part-time for a while? Just till I get properly back on me feet again?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. The way things are at the minute, they’re glad of any hours people can do at the munitions factory,’ Maggie replied. ‘Things are getting worse, if the wireless and the newspapers are anything to go by. They reckon the Royal Navy destroyed a large part of the French fleet while it lay at anchor in Algeria this week, to stop it falling into enemy hands. Problem was, they killed a thousand French sailors in the process. Winston Churchill says he deeply regretted the action but felt he was left with no choice. I ask you - where is it all going to end?’

  ‘It already has ended for me. Or it might as well have done. I just wish me an’ your dad could have gone together.’

  ‘Oh, Mam! Don’t talk like that. Dad would turn in his grave if he could hear you. An’ what about me an’ the children? You’ve still got us, and what would we do without you, eh?’

  Sipping at her tea, Ellen raised a sad smile. ‘Go on, love, you get yerself off home now. The little ’uns will be screamin’ fer their tea by now, if I know ’em.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Maggie’s voice was heavy with concern as she slowly drained her cup and rose from the table.

  ‘Right as ninepence.’

  After planting a kiss on her mother’s pale cheek, Maggie made her way back across the road. She found Sam in the kitchen with his head in his hands, and inexplicably, she felt a pang of sympathy for him. It was more than obvious that he deeply regretted signing up, and it was also obvious that the thought of going to war terrified him. But what could she do about it? The answer came back to her: absolutely nothing! He had made his bed, and to use her mother’s term, now he would have to lie on it.

  Keeping her voice gentle, she asked, ‘Would you like me to get you anything?’