do often, especially when her mam and dad started up the way they had. Charlie felt happier now. Tomorrow, like he’d promised, he’d treat them – make them all cones out of some folded-up bits of newspaper, share the spoils and watch them lick their fingers in and dip to their hearts’ content.
Then tonight, just like always, would be forgotten.
1940
Annie lit a cigarette and drew deeply on it as she sat down on the doorstep for a moment’s rest. It had been an exhausting morning and would be an equally exhausting afternoon, and as she watched Reggie and the boys disappear round the corner with the last of the family’s belongings, all she could think of was the mess that she’d be faced with when she got to the other end.
They were moving today, after 22 years. To the brand new estate that was currently being built in Little Horton, to provide homes for the growing population. And they’d been lucky, in a way – the Broomfields estate was going to be being demolished over the next couple of years and, as a growing family, they’d got priority for getting the first of the built homes.
‘You all set then, fanny Annie?’ Agnes Flanagan asked as she stepped out of her own door. ‘Sure, you and your tribe won’t want to know us now you’ve got yourself a three bedroomed.’
Annie blew out smoke in a thin stream and shook her head. She must be getting old. She couldn’t recall a time when she’d last felt so bone-weary. ‘I’ve nothing to brag about, Agnes,’ she said, pointing down to her pregnant belly. ‘Nine children now, one in the graveyard and this one on its way. A three bedroomed might give us a bit more room, but once this one shows up I doubt we’ll even notice.’
Annie smiled at her neighbour of over two decades. They’d rubbed along okay, all told, she and Agnes. Many didn’t. And as for the house itself, they went back even longer. She remembered back to that first night – her first as Mrs Hudson, and how she’d turned up at it without Mr Hudson even in tow. Him passed out at her mother’s, her alone in the cold bed, all teary – so frightened about what the future might hold.
The future had certainly brought plenty of children. Child after child, each leaving Annie more weathered and weary than the last. Hundreds of scraped knees to be kissed, and as many set-tos with the neighbours’ kids … And their parents, too, when fights had broken out …
She felt tearful again all of a sudden. ‘I’m going to miss this place, Agnes. I don’t know …’ She shook her head. ‘It might be grand and that up there, but I’m worried I won’t settle. I belong here. It’s all I’m used to.’
Agnes climbed over the sagging fence and joined Annie on the step. ‘Ah, go on with you, Annie. It’s no use getting all maudlin, is it? I hear Canterbury estate is fit for the toffs, and the houses have all you could wish for. Does yours have a fixed-in bath? Doris Coulson said hers had a bath. Fixed to the floor, she said, with running water. Think of it! Mind you,’ she said, after a moment’s pondering, ‘Doris Coulson also said her old man had joined the war, didn’t she? Bloody liar she is. Everyone knows he ran off with a scarlet woman!’
Annie laughed. For all their spats, Agnes could always cheer her up. All those years. All that history. She was going to miss her. ‘Yes, Agnes,’ she said, ‘we’ll be having a fixed-in bath. We have our own toilet too.’ This was a detail that did make her happy. She’d spent 22 years using a toilet in the block down the back – each block serving four of the terraced houses. To not have to trudge to it would feel like such a luxury. ‘It’s right there in our own back yard,’ she said. ‘Imagine.’ She put her cigarette out and stroked her hands over her swollen belly. ‘Particularly when you’re in my condition, eh?’ She turned to grin at Agnes. ‘I sometimes wish my Reggie would find himself a scarlet woman. Give someone else a belly full of arms and legs for a change.’
The two women laughed and spent a companionable ten minutes reminiscing. That was a safer place, Annie thought, the past. She was eight months gone and before she knew it there would be another mouth to feed. Another nipper to care for in an increasingly uncertain world.
Times were changing and Annie really didn’t like it. A lot of the local men had already been called up to fight in the war and she was afraid Charlie might be called next. He was almost 18 now, after all, so there’d be nothing to be done about it – and no chance of talking him out of it if he was called – but he was still her baby and she was frightened she might lose him.
There was danger at home too; Bradford had already seen more than one air raid; this new kind of war was being brought right to their doorsteps. Rawson Market had taken a hit, and though it hadn’t been that serious, it was enough to put the frighteners on people. And it looked like the powers that be were expecting worse. Thousands of kiddies in other cities were in the process of being evacuated to safer areas. Would that be happening in Bradford too? They kept saying not – kept saying the bombs in Bradford were just off-target, but Annie didn’t think she could bear it if they took her kids away.
But better be safe than sorry anyway. The best thing about moving to the new estate, as far as Annie was concerned, was that because they had one of the bigger houses on the end of a street they had an Anderson shelter in their garden.
‘You’ll have to come down to ours, Agnes,’ Annie said, ‘if you hear the sirens. Just come straight down to us. You’ll be safe in our bomb shelter.’
Agnes wiped her face with a corner of her pinny. Annie squeezed her arm. Were those tears in the old girl’s eyes? ‘Bless you, Annie,’ Agnes said, ‘that’s kind. But the ruddy Germans won’t have me running. If the good Lord sees fit to blow me to smithereens, then that’s what’ll happen.’
Annie believed her, too. She was going to miss her old friend.
Annie had just hauled herself back up onto her feet when a sound from down the road heralded the arrival of a cart.
She waved. Reggie, Charlie and young Reggie were back from having taken round the last cartload of possessions, dragging the now empty cart behind them. They all looked hot and sweaty in the late August sun. Agnes stood up too. ‘Will I get you some water, lads?’ she called. ‘I’ll go tell Stan that you’re back with the cart.’
The cart had been a gift for the house move. Without it, the two-mile trips back and forth would have been interminable. Stan had made it himself, toiling away for long hours the previous year. It had been part of a plan he’d formed with a friend called Tinker Mick, who lived in a gypsy wagon on some spare land by Peel Park. Being a Romany, he also had a horse – a big black mare called Ebony, who’d seen better days. But she was still a strong working horse, even so. So the two of them had decided to pool their resources and see if they could get into the coal business.
But that was before the war. Everything, coal included, was in very short supply now, so though the horse still had her uses the cart had been made redundant. Handy, though, Annie thought, for the business of moving house, as long as you had men strong enough to drag it about.
The cart parked up, Reggie leaned against the wall to get his breath back. He was still as fit as a butcher’s dog, and still had the same twinkle in his eye, but it had been a hard job hauling so much stuff all that way, and Annie could see he was knackered.
‘Been better if the lazy bum had seen fit to give us a hand,’ he grumbled, as he and Annie stepped back inside for a last look around. She couldn’t quite believe the whole street was being demolished, but that was all it was probably fit for, even so.
‘You about ready to make a move, woman of mine?’ Reggie asked Annie.
‘I am that,’ Annie said, taking a last lingering look. Seeing it empty now seemed to bring about a change in her. No sense in looking back, she thought, the empty room already closing in on her – she had to look forwards. And the thought of that fixed-in bath dragged her out of her melancholy. ‘Yes,’ she said, meaning it. ‘Yes,