Orphans of War - Leah Fleming

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be good to meet Arthur’s girl.’

      ‘Arthur’s street urchin, more like. Brought up in a pub, I ask you, while they cavort themselves on a public stage. I am sick of this dratted war upsetting everything. Where’s it all going to end?’

      ‘As far as I can see the world has ended for Madeleine; bombed out, her granny dead and parents stuck halfway across the world. Just think of someone else, for a change…or would you prefer life under Herr Hitler?’

      ‘Don’t be facetious, Prunella. You forget yourself. This hostel thing has gone to your head and coarsened you. I’m too old to look after children.’ Mother looked up, her mouth pursed into a mean straight line. She was being unreasonable as usual. Time to butter her up with compliments. It always worked.

      ‘Rubbish! You’ll rise to the challenge, you always do. Look how you’ve provided a house for children already, made a home for Great-uncle Algie and Great-aunt Julia and her companion, and employed refugees. You try to set an example in the community. “By your fruits are ye known”–you keep quoting at me. We’ll manage, and I can see to Madeleine.’

      ‘But I said I’d never speak to him again.’

      ‘She’s Arthur’s child. She’s no quarrel with you. The girl never asked to be born or be part of this estrangement. Where’s your heart? Do we take in strangers but not our own just because of a silly quarrel?’ Plum lit a cigarette from her silver case, drew a deep breath as if it were an oxygen mask. Suddenly she felt so weary.

      Pleasance Belfield was the daughter of a cotton magnate who had married into another successful business family. How quickly she’d forgotten her own roots. The Belfields weren’t old money but new money made in the cotton trade in Lancashire in the last century. They only bought the manor house when the ancient Coldicote family died out. Why did Mother have to behave as if she was queen of all she surveyed?

      This poor mite might be the only grandchild she would ever have. How could she dismiss her so lightly?

      ‘Your grandchild needs a home, Mother. Think about it, at least,’ Plum pleaded.

      ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, young lady. You used to be so compliant and now you’re smoking like a chimney,’ Pleasance replied, ignoring her request, ready to criticise as usual.

      ‘I’m nearly forty years old. I’ll smoke if I like, but for your enlightenment, here are just a few reasons why I do. I wasn’t trained for anything but marriage and I have a husband who doesn’t love me. I have no children of my own to cherish. I have a brother risking his neck in the skies halfway across the world to keep us safe, so don’t call me “young lady”. I feel as old as the hills but I would never turn a child of this family from the door, so if you don’t like any of this then I’ll pack my bags and stay down in the Vic and take Madeleine with me.’

      Plum stood up to beat a retreat to her room. It was the only place in the house where she could think her own thoughts. She was in no mood for any more arguments. This rebellion had been coming for months. She was sick of pandering to Pleasance’s whims and fancies. She could go to hell!

      ‘Prunella! I suppose you’d better send a telegram at once and meet her in Leeds with the others–but I don’t like it one bit,’ Pleasance sighed with a look of martyrdom on her face.

      ‘I’m sure you don’t, but you were never one to shirk your duty. Sowerthwaite expects you to lead by example, and what better than to take in a victim of the blitz? I shall need the car to collect them all from the station.’

      Plum smiled to herself with relief. Round one to Arthur and his girl. Round one to her, for once.

       3

       Victoria Station, Manchester, September 1940

      Gloria Conley tugged her little brother along the platform, trying to keep up with her mother, who was rushing through the crowds on Victoria Station, dodging kitbags slung over shoulders. Sid kept tripping over men sitting on the platform. The place smelled of steam and smoke and smelly armpits, but it was so exciting to be up close to those big iron monsters. There’d been so much to see since they got off the Kearsley bus into town. It was the longest journey she’d ever had, but Sid was whining about his ear hurting. Where were they going? Gloria hoped it was a trip to the seaside.

      ‘Now you stay put, while I get you some sweeties,’ smiled Mam, who was all dolled up in a short jacket and summer frock with a silly little beret with a feather stuck on the side. The soldiers wolf-whistled when she passed and shouted, ‘Give us a kiss, Rita Hayworth!’ Mam wiggled her bum, enjoying every minute of the attention, for she looked so pretty with her shoulder-length red hair and kiss curls.

      Gloria was gripping Sid’s wrist for dear life in case they got swept away in the rush. As the carriage doors opened, bodies poured out with suitcases and parcels, and porters rushed around with trolleys. Gloria could hear whistles blowing and the smell of soot went up her nose.

      Mam soon came back with Fry’s chocolate bars and fizzy pop in a bottle. They were going on a journey, that’s all Gloria had been told, and they had to be good.

      Since the telegram came last week, Mam had been acting funny There’d been tears, and the usual aunties sitting round smoking and drinking stout. Something bad had happened: not the coppers banging on the door of their two up and two down in Elijah Street, looking for Uncle Sam, who had run away from the war: not the welfare man coming to see why she’d missed school again: not that nosy parker from two doors down who didn’t like the gentlemen callers banging the door at all hours. It was all to do with the ‘war on’.

      ‘His dad’s copped it good and proper this time and won’t be coming back. What’m I going to do with you two now?’ Mam sighed with a funny look in her eye while they were on the platform. ‘You’ll have to be a big girl and take charge of Sidney. I want more for you than I’ve got here, do you hear? This is no life for kiddies.’ Mam was snivelling and rabbiting on, shoving a letter in her pocket, a letter Gloria couldn’t read because she was still stuck with baby reading and had missed a lot of schooling looking after Sid while Mam slept in.

      ‘Give this to the policeman on the train, or one of them teachers down there, look…with the children. It’ll explain, but no telling fibs, Gloria. Be a good girl. Don’t lose yer gas masks. You’ll be the better without me, love. I’m doing this for your own good.’

      Mam was crying and Gloria just wanted to cling on tight to her cotton frock, suddenly afraid. Something terrible was about to happen at this station. ‘Where’re we going?’ she sobbed. For a girl of well over ten she was the size of a nine-year-old, her face framed in her pixie hood.

      ‘Now, none of that! It’s for the best. I’ve got to do right by you…I’m going to join up and do my bit.’ Mam shoved a clean hanky in her face. ‘Blow!’

      Gloria didn’t understand what she was getting at but Sid was crying and holding his ear. He always had sore ears. He was her half-brother. Not that she knew who her own dad was. His name was never mentioned. The one that got killed was Uncle Jim, Sid’s dad, but he was too young to understand. He could be a right mardy baby when he got one of his earaches.

      Mam shoved them down the platform following the party of school children with little cases and gas masks, but they went into a full carriage. The train was packed, so she hung back suddenly. ‘Damn! We’ll happen wait for the next one coming,’ she said. ‘You’d better go to the lav, Glory. No one wants a kiddie with wet knickers.’

      What was going on? Her life was full of mysteries, Gloria thought, sitting on the big wooden toilet seat in the ladies. There was the mystery of the customers who came to Elijah Street, the aunties who were always popping in, the men who went upstairs day and night to buy.

      What Mam sold was another mystery, but it meant lots of jumping up and down on the bed and sometimes the plaster

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