Walking Back to Happiness

‘That’s all right then,’ Hannah said with a mock sigh of relief. She was glad she’d used some of her wages to buy things for Josie for weeks now to make sure her first Christmas without her mother and family around her wouldn’t be a total disappointment. Santa Claus-believer or not, she would get a stocking to open on Christmas Day morning, before setting off for Gloria’s where it had been arranged they would spend the day.

And the day wouldn’t have been so bad at all, despite the lack of festive cheer in the Bradley household, if Arthur hadn’t seen fit to launch one of his verbal attacks on Hannah in the early hours of Christmas morning.

He’d been moody since he’d come home that afternoon and Hannah couldn’t understand why. He should have been in good spirits; they’d had a little party in the office at lunchtime, a few drinks with his colleagues and his boss, and he’d come home with a sizeable bonus, and a large box of chocolates for Hannah, the same as all the company wives had.

Hannah at least was delighted for, with the sweet ration still in place, chocolates were like gold dust, and yet nothing seemed to cheer Arthur.

Hannah wasn’t too worried. She knew her husband’s passion for hoarding money and for spending as little as possible and she thought it had probably upset him to have to increase her housekeeping in order to supply the few extras that even he saw they needed at Christmas time.

She took it as a hopeful sign that he agreed to go with her and Josie to the Abbey for Midnight Mass, certain the beautifully clear night with the stars twinkling and the moon shining down, lighting up the earlier fall of snow that crackled under people’s feet, would be enough to lift anyone’s spirits. ‘Very Christmassy, a bit of snow,’ she said, slipping her arm through Arthur’s.

He just grunted a response, but Josie squeezed Hannah’s other hand and said, ‘I love snow too.’

Neither of them knew of the long hard winter to come when they’d be heartily sick of snow, but that night, it had a sense of rightness about it. The world was a beautiful place, Hannah decided, and it was almost Christmas Day. What could be better?

She couldn’t believe it when she felt Arthur’s weight upon her later that night. She’d been almost asleep, the carols still running in her head when he launched his attack as he came in from the bathroom. She tried to twist away from his grasp and felt her nightie rip open as it was torn from her. ‘For pity’s sake, Arthur, will you leave me be?’ she cried.

But it was if she hadn’t spoken and somehow the obscene words that Arthur spat out that night seemed to defile all that had gone before.

Afterwards, aching everywhere, Hannah cried herself to sleep and was in no great humour for Arthur’s abject apology the next day. ‘Don’t say you’re sorry,’ she cried. ‘Just don’t. If you were sorry, you’d not do such things to me. Leave me be, Arthur. It’s not right the things you do. Surely you can see that?’

Arthur got to his feet, avoiding her eyes, and began to dress. ‘Look me full in the face and tell me what you do is normal behaviour,’ she demanded shrilly.

And then Arthur faced her, his own face expressionless and his voice cold. ‘If you’ve quite finished your tantrum,’ he said, ‘it’s time to get up.’ He paused at the door and said, ‘By the way, my dear – Happy Christmas.’

If Hannah had anything to hand she would have hurled it after Arthur. Instead she punched the life out of the pillow and imagined it to be his face. She knew that Arthur would never in a million years believe that he might be in the wrong. In a way, she wished that she wasn’t going to Gloria’s house that day. Gloria was too astute by half and Hannah knew that feeling and looking as she did, she’d not be able to convince her that her life was hunky-dory.

Hannah was right; Gloria was not fooled. She sensed the tension in every line of Hannah’s face and the smile that seemed to have been nailed there. Only Arthur seemed normal, for Josie was far too quiet, especially as it was Christmas Day.

I’ll pop over and see her one day soon, she promised herself, and have a chat. See what’s what. But she couldn’t, for the bad weather put paid to any plans she had.

At first, most people had been quite philosophical about the snow. After all, that’s what happened in winter and Birmingham only really got a sprinkling of it that didn’t last long. The children loved it through the Christmas holidays, making snowmen, hurling snowballs at the unsuspecting and making slides that were a danger to life and limb for the unwary.

The adults struggled to maintain some semblance of order to their lives, going to work and shopping and later, when the schools reopened, taking children to school. But gradually things slowed down and ground to a halt altogether in some cases. The snow was relentless and blown into drifts by the gusting winds. This then froze solid at night and was covered by more snow the next day. The skies were leaden grey and not a glimmer of sun penetrated them and so lights were kept on most of the day and fires stoked up.

This caused a further problem in the increase in power used and so power cuts began and coal was rationed. Trams and trains were very late, or cancelled altogether. They couldn’t run on rails filled with frozen ice, while buses and other vehicles couldn’t operate on roads cut off by snow. As fast as the emergency services cleared them, they were soon as bad as ever.

1947 was the first year Gloria had not gone to the January Sales in the city centre stores. Normally, she stocked up on things for the guesthouse, as well as finding a few choice bargains for herself.

Even collecting the weekly rations was a chore. Not indeed that there was much in the shops to be had, for many supplies were just not getting through. One woman that very day in the grocer’s had commented to anyone interested, ‘Looks like the bloke upstairs thinks Hitler d’aint kill enough of us already with his bloody bombs, he’s now trying to starve us to death.’

She wasn’t so far wrong either, Gloria remarked to Amy later. ‘I mean, I don’t say it’s got much to do with God, like, but some of the shelves are near empty. And it’s no joke with half the stuff on ration anyhow. I mean, if they haven’t got one thing in, then you’ve got hardly much choice to get anything else. Must be a nightmare for women with families to feed.’

Gloria was glad she had Amy to talk to, glad their back doors were not that far away and that Tom always cleared the path so they could pop into one another’s houses. She often thought she’d have gone mad in that big rambling house without Amy. Of course, normally she would have been kept busy. She was usually quieter through December, but once the New Year was over, the commercial travellers were on the road again, trying to make up the money spent out in the festive season.

But not this year. In a way, she was pleased she didn’t have to heat the whole place as well as finding coal for the residents’ dining room and lounge for there was a desperate shortage of it. As it was, she’d shut off all the house, but her own rooms, and even then she often went to bed early to save fuel.

She wasn’t in trouble yet with money. She was canny with it and had plenty saved and yet she knew she couldn’t go on with the situation indefinitely without any income.

She wasn’t the only one. Many people either couldn’t get to work, or got there and found there was no heating and often no light either. She’d seen pictures in the Evening Mail of people in shops wearing overcoats and trying to serve customers by candlelight.

But thinking of families brought Hannah to mind and how odd she’d been at Christmas. If she’d have been able to see her since, she’d have felt better. Amy knew what her friend was fretting over.

‘You can’t do anything about Hannah,’ she said. ‘She’s a married woman now.’

‘I know that, Amy, but you must admit she was peculiar over Christmas, they all were.’

Amy knew they were. She and Tom had come over in the evening for a bit of tea and you could have cut the atmosphere between Hannah and Arthur with a knife. But it wouldn’t help Gloria to tell her that. She was a proper old worryguts about the girl as it was, but she was no fool either. ‘Maybe she was a bit strained,’ she admitted. ‘They’d probably had a tiff.’

‘Do you think that’s all it was, a bit of a row?’ Gloria asked anxiously.

‘Bound to be,’ Amy said confidently. ‘Newlywed, see. Still getting to know one another.’

‘If only I could see her, check that everything is all right.’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ Amy said. ‘She’s better off than us, only yards from the High Street in Erdington and Tom says they try and keep that clear. Doesn’t always work of course, but I bet Hannah can get out to shop and get coal delivered.’

‘You’re right there,’ Gloria said. ‘I thought that last coal lorry was going to overturn.’

‘Or go ploughing through someone’s garden and into their front rooms,’ Amy said with a grim smile, remembering the coal man’s valiant efforts to control his lorry that had skidded the last time he’d tried to deliver coal to them. ‘Tom says this road’s a bugger,’ Amy went on. ‘You should see him slithering and sliding over it to reach the main drag. Mind you, the kids make it worse. Them and their flipping slides. Something should be done about it before someone breaks their neck.’

‘They’re bored with the schools all closed,’ Gloria said wearily. ‘We’ll just have to put up with it. God knows, it can’t go on forever.’ She gave a sigh and said, ‘Put a few pieces of coal on that fire, Amy, before it dies out altogether and I’ll make us some tea.’

Chapter Six (#ulink_aae3229f-54ac-579b-9142-75b696bc9573)

‘What’s happened?’ Gloria asked, staring at Hannah in shock. Even in the gloomy half-light of Hannah’s breakfast room, for the February day was dark and overcast, she could see the blue-black bruise on her left cheek and the split lip on the same side. The rest of Hannah’s face was bleached white and her hair, once her crowning glory, was lank and tied back from her face with an elastic band. ‘I walked into a door,’ Hannah replied.

Even Josie, sitting on the chair in the room watching silently, couldn’t have stilled the retort from Gloria’s lips. ‘Walked into a door, my Aunt Fanny. This is me you’re talking to and I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what manner of door it was.’

Gloria glanced at the child. There was nowhere else she could go, for the rest of the house was like an icebox and Gloria supposed Hannah could only get coal enough to heat one room. In front of Josie she could take this no further. But she’d not let it rest there. No, by God, she wouldn’t. She’d encouraged Hannah to marry Arthur, she felt responsible. She never thought he’d be the kind to hit her, to hit anyone in fact.

But this would never do – this uncomfortable ominous silence. She must find something to break it. ‘Did you have a nice birthday?’ she asked Josie, knowing it had been two days before. ‘I sent a card, did you get it?’

To her surprise, a shudder passed through Josie’s slight frame before she said, almost expressionless, ‘Yes, yes thank you, Mrs Emmerson.’

Gloria felt decidedly uncomfortable, but she soldiered on. ‘I couldn’t get out to the shops to buy you anything with the weather you know, but I found this in my jewellery box and thought you might like it,’ and handed Josie a tissue-wrapped little parcel.

‘Oh,’ Josie cried, pushing the tissue paper aside and taking the delicate silver chain with its sparkling sapphire pendant from the velvet box. It was the loveliest thing she’d ever owned and she was almost overcome with pleasure. ‘Oh, it’s beautiful.’

Hannah came forward to examine the necklace. ‘Gloria,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely, but isn’t it a little valuable to give to a child?’

‘Not at all,’ Gloria said. ‘Josie is ten now, a fine age. Double figures at last and I know she’ll look after the necklace. I haven’t worn it for years. It’ll do it good to be worn by someone who values it.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Hannah said and she smiled at Josie. ‘Take it up to your room, pet, and put it safe,’ she said gently.

There was a look exchanged between them, but Josie left the room without another word. Barely had the door closed when Gloria asked, ‘Hannah, what is it?’

Hannah sighed, a resigned and weary sigh. ‘It’s many things,’ she said. ‘Too much to tell. Josie will be back in a minute, the upstairs is no place to linger. The whole house is freezing apart from this room.’