A Little Learning

When Sarah McClusky was told the news she dropped to her knees. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ she said. Betty agreed with her mother’s sentiments, and the two boys were christened Conner and Noel. Sarah often looked for signs of her dead sons in the twins.

‘I think Conner has his uncle’s nose,’ she’d say, or ‘Noel is the image of his namesake. Even their eyes are the same shape.’

Betty didn’t agree because in her opinion both boys looked like Bert. In their identical faces she could see Bert’s hazel eyes, and his large nose. Even the shape of their faces was the same – round, with ruddy cheeks – and eventually, Betty guessed, their chins would turn craggy like Bert’s. Only their wide mouths and the colour of their hair was the same as hers and Janet’s. It was Duncan who resembled his dead uncles, in both colouring and build.

‘Ma can’t see it,’ Betty said to Breda. ‘Duncan is the spit of our Noel at the same age. I remember him well. I can’t remember Conner as a child, because he was older than me, but I’ve seen photographs.’

‘She doesn’t want to see it,’ Breda said. ‘Not in Duncan. She wants the twins to look like their dead uncles because in her mind they’ve replaced them.’ She struggled and went on, ‘It helps her cope.’ Betty said she supposed it did, she had neither the time nor the inclination to argue further; she was too busy dealing with the family to do any further war work, and she was just glad that things were winding down at last.

The VE celebrations and street parties were tinged with sadness for many who had loved ones not returning after the war. Betty and her parents felt sad that Conner and Noel had not lived to celebrate the day, but the twins’ birth helped them all to cope. Betty knew she had much to be thankful for. Her husband and one brother were safe, and her sister, and she had her fine family, Duncan, Janet and the twins.

She was immersed in domesticity now, but busy as she was, she often found the days tedious. Driving around the ravaged city dealing with the destitute and the desperate had seemed important work. She had dealt with the bereaved and the sick and those in shock, and had felt useful and needed. It wasn’t that she didn’t consider her family important; it was the boredom of doing the same thing day after day she found hard to take. She also seemed to lack any identity now – just wife and mother, where once she’d been someone in her own right.

She knew that when Bert returned she would tell him little of the work she’d done in the war. He’d never have recognised the organised person driving the mobile canteen through the streets of Birmingham as his Betty anyway. Betty herself found it hard to remember what she’d been like then, and now the family claimed all her attention.

Duncan could have taken the eleven-plus that year, but he didn’t want to and the teachers told Betty there was little point.

‘An apprenticeship would be ideal, Mrs Travers,’ the headmaster said. ‘Or something in that line. He’s not a stupid boy and he’s good with his hands, but not grammar school potential. Now if it were Janet …’

The words were left hanging in the air. Betty pondered on them, but said nothing to anyone.

Duncan didn’t care. ‘I don’t want to go to no soppy grammar school, Ma. I want to go to Paget Road Secondary with my mates.’

Janet had wished she’d had the opportunity to sit the exam, and wondered if she’d ever be allowed to. She knew Duncan didn’t want to go to grammar school, he’d told her often enough. He disliked school and thought it a waste of time, but realised he had to be there for a while and went without too much fuss. He was determined to leave at the first opportunity.

‘But what will you do?’ Janet asked.

‘I reckon our dad can get me set on at Fishers with him.’

‘Is that what you want?’ Janet persisted. ‘Make car bodies all day?’

Duncan stared at her. He’d never considered what he actually wanted to do. You went to school, left, got a job and had money in your pocket to spend. That was life.

‘Course it’s what I want,’ he snapped. ‘It’s what everyone wants, ain’t it?’

Janet didn’t answer. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it wouldn’t help to say so.

Bert was delighted with Duncan’s decision. ‘Chip off the old block, eh, son?’ he said, clapping him on the shoulder. He had a vision of him and his son in a few years’ time, walking side by side through the factory gates.

Betty was glad that Bert was pleased, because she knew the war had robbed him of his youth. The man who returned to her had grey streaks in his dark hair, and Betty noticed that he was going thin on top. She said nothing, just being glad he’d returned safely. She didn’t comment either on the haunted look that was often in Bert’s eyes as he seemed to stare vacantly into space, or the times he cried out in his sleep. She could only imagine the horrors he’d witnessed in the war and doubted that many of the returning heroes were untouched by their experiences.

Bert had also begun to get interested in politics again, as he had before he’d joined up. The first election of peacetime was held on 5 July 1945, but as most of the armed forces had not demobbed by then, the result could not be calculated until 26 July when all the postal votes were in and counted.

Bert was home in time to hear that Labour had been elected to government by a resounding majority, and he was cock-a-hoop with excitement. ‘This will make a difference, you’ll see,’ he said to Betty. ‘Transport and some industries will be nationalised, so the State will own them and everyone will benefit.’

‘You mean like with communism?’

‘Communism be damned, woman, this is socialism I’m talking about,’ Bert said furiously. ‘And that’s not all. They’ve committed to taking on the Beveridge Report; that means family allowances and setting up a health service at the very least.’

‘Well you seem pleased, at any rate,’ Betty said. ‘And if I get family allowances to help feed and clothe the children and don’t have to pay every time I go to the doctor’s I’ll be thankful enough.’

Bert went one step further and without further delay he joined the Labour Party, and went on to run for shop steward in Fisher and Ludlow’s factory where he made car bodies. All in all, Bert was well satisfied with his life and relieved that none of his family had been hurt in the war. And though he was sorry about his brothers-in-law Noel and Conner, he couldn’t help feeling pleased that his wife and children were safe, and a credit to Betty who’d had most of the rearing of them while he’d been away.

Bert found little to say to his quiet, studious daughter, but he was bowled over by the twins, who looked so like him, and whose early months he’d missed. They were turned six months now, and they chuckled as Bert tossed them in the air and put them astride his bouncing foot to play ‘horsy’.

He was less pleased with the job Betty had got, doing the evening shift at the sauce factory with her sister. Breda had had a good war. Despite rationing and restrictions, she had a wardrobe bursting with clothes, money in the bank and many memories, some happy, some sad. For a time it had seemed she might marry a GI and go to live in the States after the war. Mr and Mrs McClusky, in an agony of worry, had appealed to Betty, who tackled her sister.

‘I’m having a good time, that’s all,’ Breda had snapped. ‘I’m not looking for a husband. Rick’s never mentioned marriage, and even if he did it’s not a foregone conclusion I’d take him on.’

It was hardly satisfactory, but it had to do. Betty told her parents that Breda and her Yank were just good friends. Then there were the two dashing airmen who were both killed in action. Breda had arrived at Betty’s home in tears after she’d heard about the second one.

‘You see,’ she’d wept, ‘how can we talk about the future with this godawful war? Who’s going to be left alive at the end of it all?’

Betty had hugged her, rocking her almost without being aware of it. She knew what Breda meant. Each evening when she reported for duty, she viewed the desolation around her and was amazed that anyone could still be alive, or that people struggled to gain some sort of normality in it.

‘I know, love,’ she told Breda. ‘All we can do is keep going.’

There were no attachments for Breda after that. Though she went out with many men, she never kept them for long, and never allowed herself to get involved. Betty was concerned that she might make a name for herself, but said nothing and kept her worries to herself.

Then, at the end of the war, Breda had taken up with Peter Bradshaw, a lad she’d gone out with a few times before war broke out and who now returned, one of the conquering heroes.

‘Do you love him, Breda?’ Betty asked.

‘I’m marrying him,’ Breda said, and added, ‘What’s love anyway, Bet? I’ve loved and lost enough in the last few years to last a lifetime, and I suppose me and Pete will rub along well enough.’

The munitions factory was closed and the staff dispersed, and Breda lost no time in getting herself a job in the HP Sauce factory, which was taking on a twilight shift.

‘Come on, Bet, it’s four nights a week, half five to half nine,’ she said.

‘I don’t know …’

‘Course you know. You can cope with your brood all day, give them their tea, and I’m sure our mam will do the honours till you come home.’

All of a sudden it seemed an attractive prospect to go out in the evening and talk to adults about adult things. She was restless at home and missed the camaraderie of the war years. ‘If Mammy agrees to see to them, I will,’ she said.

She enjoyed her job, repetitive though it was. She loved the bald, raw humour of the married women, most like herself with children and waiting for their husbands’ demob. She wondered, though, how Bert would view the idea of her working when he came home. The other women also worried about their husbands’ reactions, though none wanted to give up their jobs.

Betty banked her money and had a little nest egg to show Bert when he expressed doubts about her ability to cope.

‘After all,’ he said, ‘the factory has kept my job open.’

‘I know,’ Betty said, ‘but the children are always needing things, and with Conner and Noel it’s two of everything and that’s extra expense. And then of course there’s the house.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’ After years of army barracks, his home looked very comfortable to him.

‘It’s shabby,’ Betty declared. ‘There was nothing to buy during the war, but soon there will be things in the shops and new colours in paint and wallpaper, and we can do the place up a bit.’

Bert surveyed his living room. Its familiarity had given him comfort when he arrived home: the sofa with the broken springs, and the faded lino on the floor. Now he saw it through Betty’s eyes and realised how dingy and patchy the wallpaper was and how dull the brown paintwork.