Keep the Home Fires Burning. Anne Bennett
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‘If you have any more now you will have no appetite for dinner.’
‘Yeah I will, Mom,’ Tony cried. ‘Honest. I’m starving.’
‘Starving,’ snorted Marion. ‘You don’t even know what that word means. Anyway, there is no help for it and you will just have to make do with the porridge. No one else is making such a fuss.’
Oh, but I could, Magda thought, for I bet that I’m just as hungry as Tony. There was little point in saying any of this, though, and anyroad, her twin sister, Richard and Sarah seemed satisfied, and Sarah had already started clearing up the bowls.
Sarah could have said that the porridge barely took the edge off her appetite, but she knew that that was the type of meal that they had to get used to when so little money was coming into the house.
Later, in the yard, Magda said to Missie, ‘D’you suppose we’re poor now, ‘cos Mom only gave us two farthings for the collection instead of the two pennies we usually have?’
‘I don’t know if we’re really poor,’ Missie said, ‘but Sarah did tell me that there will be less money about now that Dad has enlisted.’ ‘Oh.’
‘She even said that some weeks we may get no collection money at all.’
‘Well, I’m going round Aunt Polly’s,’ Tony declared. ‘She’ll give me a jam piece or summat when I tell her that I’m still hungry.’
‘You can’t tell Aunt Polly that,’ Missie said, clearly shocked.
‘Why not?’ Tony demanded. ‘It’s the truth.’
‘Because Mom would be hurt if you did,’ Missie explained.
‘She wouldn’t half,’ Magda agreed. ‘Hurt and angry, I’d say. Anyroad, Tony, why d’you think that you’re the only one that’s still hungry? I am as well, if you want to know, but I don’t make as much fuss as you. It’ll be dinner time soon.’
‘Not for flipping hours it won’t.’
‘Oh, stop moaning. It’ll do no good.’
‘I wish Dad was here,’ Tony said wistfully. ‘If he took us down the park or summat I’d probably forget about being hungry.’
‘We all wish Daddy was here,’ Magda said. ‘But it ain’t no good going on about it.’
Tony sighed. Maybe there wasn’t, but there was no way that he was going to stay cooped up in the garden with his kid sisters. ‘Well, I ain’t staying here, anyroad,’ he said. ‘I’m off.’
‘Don’t you dare go to Aunt Polly’s.’
‘I ain’t,’ Tony said, because he knew Magda was right, his mother would be very angry should she find out that he had gone to his aunt’s house to be fed. He had no wish to cope with his mother’s temper as well as starvation. ‘I’m going to find our Jack and have a game of summat.’
When he had gone Magda said, ‘What shall we do? Shall I get our skipping ropes out?’
Missie made a face. Tm bored of skipping.’
‘Tell you what then, let’s see if we can throw two balls at the wall like our Sarah can?’
‘She can do three,’ Missie corrected. ‘I’ve seen her. I have trouble enough doing one.’
‘And me, but Sarah says practice makes perfect.’
‘If you like then,’ Missie said. ‘I don’t care what we do really.’
Magda sighed as she looked at her twin sister. ‘This is probably what being at war’s like,’ she said, ‘and our Sarah says we have to put up with it like everyone else.’
‘I know,’ Missie replied heavily. ‘It’s just everything’s so strange, and I do miss Daddy. But go and get the balls and we’ll see what we can play.’
However, the whole flavour of the day was wrong. Eventually the girls were called in for dinner. Magda sniffed because she loved the smells that would waft through from the kitchen on Sundays: the succulent aroma of a large piece of meat roasting slowly in the oven, surrounded by golden brown potatoes, and there might be apple crumble or treacle sponge bubbling away on the shelf below.
That day, however, she was in for an unpleasant shock for there was no roasting meat and golden brown potatoes and no pudding at all.
Marion didn’t know how long it would be before she had some more money coming in and she had been horrified at the price of meat, which had rocketed up since war had been declared, though no one could give a satisfactory reason as to why this was. So she made a casserole with a small piece of beef she had diced so that it would cook quicker and filled the pot with vegetables.
Usually, while the dinner was cooking Marion would be hard at it making pastries, pies and sponge cakes for Sunday tea, and by the time the dinner was ready there would normally be some of these cooling on wire trays. But Marion knew those teas would be a thing of the past. She had explained it all to her parents, though when she told them of the pittance that she was being given to feed the family they could understand that for themselves.
Everyone was too hungry to grumble about the casserole that day, though, and so they ate it without complaint.
Later Magda said to Missie, ‘It’s great that we haven’t got Grandma Murray to put up with today, ain’t it?’ Missie agreed it was and Magda went on, ‘Maybe Grandma and Granddad will never be able to come again. That would be even better.’
‘Not half,’ Missie agreed. ‘I don’t mind Granddad, though.’
‘I don’t either,’ Magda conceded. ‘He couldn’t come on his own, though. But what’s really smashing is the thought of never having to sit on that blooming horsehair sofa ever again.’
Bill Whittaker had been gone just over a week and they had just received the first letter from him, telling them how he’d settled down in the camp, when Polly came around with news of her own. Only the twins were in the house with their mother because Sarah was shopping and Tony playing out in the street.
‘Oh, Marion, what do you think?’ Aunt Polly said as she came in, her eyes aglow. ‘Our Pat has been offered a fine job at the munitions works at Witton and the wage is six pounds a week.’
Magda, glancing at her mother, knew that she wasn’t overpleased at Pat’s good fortune because her mouth had gone all tight. She shooed the girls into the garden but they lingered in the scullery.
‘I don’t understand why Mom’s so cross about Uncle Pat getting a job,’ Magda said in a low voice. ‘I mean, for years she has been moaning about the fact he doesn’t have one.’
Missie gave a little sigh. ‘I know. I think grownups are really confusing.’
‘Six pounds a week?’ they heard their mother exclaim. ‘What in God’s name does Pat know about making explosives?’
‘Enough, seemingly,’ Polly said. ‘Oh God, Marion, what does anyone know about anything these days? When did you think that you would ever see woman drivers and conductors on the trams, or working alongside men in the factories? The world has been turned on its head and I suppose Pat will be trained like all the rest. Anyroad,’ she added with a touch of pride, ‘they must think he had something about him because he only went for a job in the factory, like, and when he said as how he failed his medical to get in the army because of his flat feet they offered him the job as foreman.’
‘Sarah was right,’ Missie whispered. ‘It was just flat feet after all.’
‘Well, I hope it stays fine for you,’ the twins heard their mother say in a sort of clipped voice. Then she added, ‘Have you time to stay for a cup of tea?’
‘I shouldn’t,’ Polly said. ‘And I can’t stay too long, but I will have a quick cup because