Keep the Home Fires Burning

‘How many girls does that happen to?’ Bill asked with a sardonic grin.

‘Well, not that many, I suppose,’ Tony had to admit. ‘They seem to have it in for boys.’

‘That’s because boys are always playing up,’ Magda said.

‘And you don’t, Miss Goody Two-Shoes?’

‘No,’ Magda said. ‘I don’t like being yelled at, and really the only person who seems to do that all the time ? to me anyroad ? is Grandma Murray.’

‘Don’t take that personally,’ Bill said. ‘She seems to have it in for a lot of people.’

‘But it’s not fair,’ Magda said. ‘The one she should tell off more is Tony, but he always gets away with it, just ‘cos he’s a boy.’

‘Can’t help that, can I?’ Tony said with a cheeky grin, and Bill had to compress his lips to stop himself from smiling.

‘Come on, stop bickering,’ he said, ‘it’s time to head home. If we’re late we’ll all be in for the high jump.’

Magda gave a grimace in her sister’s direction because the twins knew exactly how it would be when they got home. As far back as they could remember, their grandparents had come to tea on Sunday. It was always served in the parlour, the room their mother set such store by, like she did about the piano. Sarah had told Magda and Missie their father thought the piano a waste of money, for no one had ever learned to play it, but their mother had wanted the piano because she said none of their neighbours had anything so fine.

‘Why does that matter?’ Magda had asked.

Sarah shrugged. ‘I don’t know why,’ she’d admitted. ‘It just does.’

It was very confusing to both girls but, as Missie said, grown-ups often did odd things, and Magda had to agree.

All the furniture in the parlour, like the piano, was big, dark and gloomy. On Sundays it all had to be moved about to accommodate everyone. Six days a week, the big mahogany table would be set in the bay window behind madras net curtains. It would be covered with a dark red chenille cloth, with an aspidistra in a decorated pot in the centre of it. Either side of the table were two straight-backed dining chairs with padded seats, and two more dining chairs stood either side of the matching sideboard.

The picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in which Jesus held one hand to his heart dripping with blood in his open chest ? a picture that always made Magda feel queasy ? hung on the wall above the fireplace. That was surrounded by marble tiles and protected by a brass fender. In front of it sat the dreaded horsehair sofa.

However, on Sunday afternoon, the aspidistra would be placed on the sideboard and the chenille cloth changed for one of Nottingham lace. In order that the table could be pulled out with the four padded chairs round it and two wooden ones brought out from the kitchen for Sarah and Richard, the horsehair sofa would be swung in front of the piano. And every Sunday the twins had to sit on it in silence and wait for the adults to finish eating before they could have anything, because their grandmother said it would put manners on them.

It was just like that when they went in that day. Marion and Sarah were carrying things to the table in the parlour where the children’s grandparents were already sitting, but Tony was nowhere to be seen. He had been with them as they walked back home and when they went in through the back gate, but between there and the back door he sort of melted away and Magda knew he had gone over the wall again. So did Bill, and he couldn’t blame the boy, nor had he any intention of going after him. As soon as he had started doing this, a year or so ago, Marion had said that he should discipline him. ‘For what?’ Bill had said angrily. ‘For refusing to sit still and silent for as long as it takes us to eat our tea on a Sunday, and all because that’s what your mother wants? It’s bad enough for the girls but Tony would never be constrained that way and you know it. It would be more trouble than it’s worth.’

Marion knew that Bill spoke the truth and she would spend the whole of the meal telling Tony off, so she had said nothing more. Every week Tony got away with it, as far as Missie and Magda were concerned.

‘No Tony again, I see,’ Grandma Murray remarked as the girls settled themselves on the sofa. ‘Ah, well, boys will be boys.’

Grandma Murray was fond of sayings. One she usually directed at Magda was, ‘Little girls should be seen and not heard.’ Magda often wondered if there had been a similar one she attached to grown men because Granddad Murray never seemed to say much more than please and thank you at the table where his wife held sway, and even her father was less talkative at Sunday tea.

‘Magda, if I have to tell you again about keeping those legs still I might be forced to administer a sharp smack across them,’ her grandmother suddenly snapped, and Magda realised that they were waggling again, just as if they had a mind of their own. She fought to gain control over her wayward legs because she had felt the power of her grandmother’s slaps before.

She heard her father’s sharp intake of breath clearly and saw his lips pursed together and knew he was vexed. If her grandmother were really to smack her then it would probably result in a row, as it had done in the past, and that was worse than any smack.

She knew her father didn’t like the fact they had to sit there every Sunday he’d said to Marion angrily and watch the adults devouring all the dainty sandwiches, crisp pastries and feather-light sponge cakes that Mommy had spent hours preparing, because she’d heard him arguing with her mother about it. ‘It’s unfair to them,’ Magda had heard him protest angrily after their grandparent had gone home. ‘They’re only children and its ridiculous to have them sitting there each Sunday like a pair of bloody bookends.’

Bill Whittaker, however, knew only the half of it because, as the adults ate, the horsehair pushed through the fabric of that sofa and through the twins’ clothes to attack their legs and buttocks like thousands of sharp needles. That was why Magda swung her legs and shuffled about, to try to ease the torment that Missie seemed better able to bear.

Missie was always neater and tidier than Magda was as well, as her mother and grandmother were always reminding her. She stole a look at her twin sister. There she was, sitting as if she were made of stone, with her pristine Sunday clothes still neat and tidy, and her dark ringlets shining in the sunlight.

Magda knew her hair wouldn’t look like Missie’s. Each weekday, the two of them had their hair in plaits because of the risk of nits at school, and Magda would marvel that Missie’s plaits never came unravelled and she never lost her hair ribbons. Magda’s kirbi grips, too, seemed to develop a life of their own and would fling themselves recklessly from her tangled locks, to be trodden underfoot and lost for ever.

On Saturday night, however, after their bath, their newly washed and still damp hair was twisted into rags so that they would have ringlets for Mass on Sunday morning. This worked with Missie, but sometimes Magda’s hair wouldn’t co-operate. Her mother was always saying that she couldn’t understand it. Magda couldn’t understand it either, but she knew it was no use saying so.

Marion hoped that war talk wouldn’t dominate the tea table but, surprisingly, it was her father who said in a break in the conversation, ‘They’ve recalled the Territorial Army from overseas. A bloke at work told me that his son was in France and had to come home.’

‘You never told me this,’ Clara complained.

‘I’m telling you now, aren’t I?’ Eddie said mildly. ‘Tell you summat else as well. They’ve begun a call up of men aged twenty and twenty-one.’

‘Christ! That’s it then.’

‘Good,’ Richard said. He looked at his parents as he went on, ‘What you told us this morning about The Night of Broken Glass made me feel sick. It’s hard to believe that people could be so cruel and heartless, and Hitler’s long been picking on the Jews. One of the Jewish apprentices told me that they hadn’t been able to go to school for ages before they came here.’

‘That would suit Tony then,’ Bill said.

‘Don’t think much of what they tell me would suit anyone, Dad,’ Richard said. ‘You wouldn’t credit some of the things they say happen. I thought that maybe they were exaggerating a bit. Now I’m pretty certain they’re not. They had to leave their parents behind and haven’t heard a word from them since.’

Clara had been astounded at Richard speaking so forcibly, but she recovered herself enough to say, ‘We are talking about Jews. They are little better than heathens ? and don’t forget they killed Jesus Christ.’

‘Not these particular Jews,’ Richard said with a pitying glance at his grandmother. ‘That happened nearly two thousand years ago, and they worship the same God as you. But, just as important as all that, they are people, the same as us, who feel the same hurt and pain. Someone must stop Hitler.’

‘It very much looks as if we’re getting ready to do just that,’ Bill said.

His words hung in the air and there was nothing anyone could say for a minute or two, the atmosphere was so highly charged.

In the end Marion said, ‘If we have finished shall we go into the other room and let the children sit down? I’m sure they’re more than ready for it, and we can have another cup of tea in there if you’d like one.’

Clara got up from the table, grumbling about being shooed away before she was ready, and glared so malevolently at the twins that Magda said afterwards it was as if she was begrudging them every mouthful.

Tony came sidling in as the adults were leaving the room. Magda could never understand how he timed it that well. She was so mad at the unfairness of it all and her brother’s smugness that she gave him a hefty kick under the table with her stout shoes and heard his yelp of pain. She thought it worth the reprimand because it managed to wipe the smirk off his face for once.

Despite the lovely food they had on Sunday, Magda often felt that it was the very worst day of the week, not only because of her grandmother’s visit, but also because of the clothes she had to wear for Mass. Marion often despaired of getting Magda to behave in a more ladylike way and the difference between the twins was more marked on Sunday, when they dressed in their best clothes, than on school days when they wore more serviceable clothes in navy or grey. Today they wore matching lace-trimmed dresses decorated with swirly patterns in pastel colours, with lace peeping out from the hem, and Magda knew that when they undressed for bed that night, Missie’s would be little different from when she had first put it on, while her own would resembled a limp rag.

‘It’s just as if, as soon as she’s dressed in her good clothes, muck in all its various forms flings itself onto her,’ Marion said to Bill later that same evening after the twins had gone to bed. ‘And she is so clumsy on Sundays. She seems to drop or spill nearly everything given to her and so that ends up on her dress as well. My mother always has something to say.’

‘Huh,’ Bill said. ‘That’s no surprise. She never has a good word to say about Magda anyway.’

‘She does seem to have it in for her all right,’ Marion conceded.

‘And have you thought that Magda might soil her clothes more because she is trying too hard? Her nervousness makes her more clumsy, especially with your mother around.’

‘I never thought of it like that before.’

‘Well, I’ve just been up to them,’ Bill said, ‘and their dresses are hung on the chair by the bed, so how about saying nothing more to Magda tonight, especially as your mother gave her a real roasting about the state of her clothes already?’

Marion knew that Bill had a point, so when she went to say good night to the girls she took the dresses without a word, though she knew she would have her work cut out getting Magda’s dress respectable enough to wear the following week. Magda, expecting some reprimand, was surprised when none came.

‘Have you both said your prayers?’ their mother asked, and the twins nodded solemnly.