Nancy felt that living here was like being in a mausoleum. It was bigger than Mam’s house in Empire Street, with six empty bedrooms and dark stairs that led to echoing shadowy attics. The cellar had been reinforced to use as an air raid shelter, but it was cold and damp and full of cockroaches and mice. The place gave her the creeps – a far cry from Mam’s cheery kitchen.
Nancy sighed as dying flies buzzed nonstop about the kitchen. No matter how much she cleaned it with bleach and disinfectant, the place still smelled damp and inhospitable. Not like Mam’s happy kitchen, which always had somebody chattering away. Nancy’s heart lurched. What was it Mrs Kerrigan said about marrying in haste? Well, you’re repenting now all right, Nance.
Picking up her bag of remaining clips, Nancy put baby George into his pram, pulled a headscarf around her pin-curled hair and tied a knot under her chin. Then, sneaking her glad rags under the canopy of the pram for later, Nancy closed the front door behind her without another word.
Through the narrow entries, she pushed the pram, saying a little prayer that Mam did not repeat her stoic phrase that she had made her bed and now she must lie in it! Well, if Mam didn’t let her stay in Empire Street she was going to have to look for a room somewhere. ‘Because I just can’t take no more of that woman, little Georgie,’ Nancy said in the foggy miasma of a damp afternoon. ‘I can’t take no more.’
‘You’ll be lucky to find anything these days,’ said Sarah, who had just come into the kitchen after changing into her Red Cross uniform. ‘There are no spare places after the raids.’ She leaned over Nancy’s shoulder and picked up a couple of clips Nancy had taken from her hair.
‘Can I borrow a couple of these to keep my cap in place?’ she asked.
‘And keep those unruly curls in check,’ Nancy offered. It was a wonder their Sarah’s halo didn’t fall down and choke her. Her sixteen-year-old sister got away with everything just because she was the youngest. Rita got away with everything because she was the eldest. And I get away with bugger-all! Nancy moaned.
‘Where did you say you were going tonight?’ Dolly worried her headstrong daughter was not behaving as a young wife should.
Not long after the telegram came telling Nancy her husband had been taken prisoner, she was off dancing with Gloria or popping over to the Sailor’s Rest at the bottom of Empire Street where Gloria’s father ran the pub. Dolly liked Gloria, but she knew the young woman was a law unto herself and no one could tell her what to do. Her parents had certainly given her plenty of rope, but Dolly worried that she’d hang herself with it if she wasn’t careful. Besides, Gloria wasn’t married but Nancy was and she needed to behave herself. Not that she’d had much truck with behaving herself in the past, as Nancy was already pregnant with little Georgie when she walked down the aisle. Despite being a strong Catholic, Dolly was also pragmatic and had seen it all. At least Nancy had wanted to marry Sid. She was less sure about Rita, her eldest daughter, who had found herself in the same situation before marrying Charlie Kennedy. Dolly hated the thought that Rita was stuck with that charmless man. She knew that he and his mother looked down on the Feeny family, but they were too cowardly to say it out loud. Dolly swore she would take a brickbat to him if he ever so much as hinted at it. She and her brood were worth a hundred of the Kennedys.
Looking at Nancy, Dolly knew the old miseries said it could all end in tears, but what was a young, healthy woman to do? Just the other day she’d heard Vera Delaney saying that kind of behaviour wouldn’t be allowed in her day.
‘I don’t blame the young living life to the full – why not?’ she had replied, then reminded Vera of Mr Churchill’s speech at the end of August: ‘“… Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”’
‘I don’t think he meant your Nancy!’ Vera had sniffed as she approached her front door.
‘You could have knocked me over with a fender!’ Dolly told her daughters, accepting their sudden tight-lipped smiles. ‘I resemble that remark! It’s a good thing women are going out and enjoying themselves … What’s up with you two? Did I say something funny?’
‘It’s all right, Mam.’ Tears of laughter ran down Nancy and Sarah’s faces at their mother’s mangling of the English language. ‘It wouldn’t do for Georgie to have a miserable family.’
Dolly agreed. ‘Things are bad enough without adding long faces to the situation. There’s nothing wrong in a bit of good clean fun, I say.’
‘Did I tell you Gloria’s singing at the Adelphi tonight?’ Nancy was hopeful as she eyed her mother through the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. ‘She got me a ticket and it’s been ages since I’ve had a night out to anywhere smart.’ She put her head to one side and smiled, encouraging her mother to agree.
‘That’s nice,’ Dolly said; she knew what Nancy was up to, it was as plain as the nose on her face, but she’d let her carry on for a bit longer … She might like her daughter to keep her chin up but that didn’t mean she could take advantage.
‘Somewhere classy,’ Nancy said, ‘where I can get dressed up and have a dance … Gloria’s hoping for a regular spot,’ she said while Mam was still listening. ‘I should support her, don’t you think, Mam? After all, she’s been so good since Sid …’
Dolly had a sneaking suspicion that Nancy had come here to get ready because she didn’t want Sid’s mother to see her all dolled up in her glad rags. She wondered if her daughter intended to stay here tonight as she did sometimes when she was too late to take Georgie home after a night out. If she could, Dolly knew her daughter would stay until Sid was released. However, she also knew she would be the one left holding the baby.
‘You don’t mind if I stay the night, do you, Mam, what with that fog?’
‘It’ll be a bit cramped with you and the baby sharing with Sarah in the small back room.’
‘I could always go in Eddy’s room.’ Nancy was persuasive, that was for sure.
‘Eddy or Frank will need the room when they come home.’ Dolly knew Nancy’s game: she wanted to come back home and if she put herself in the boys’ room Dolly would never get her out again. ‘There’s no way they’re sleeping on the sofa in the parlour after giving their all for King and country!’
‘It’s just a night out, Mam.’
‘Hmm, I suppose so.’ Dolly was not sure. ‘Sarah’s on night duty.’
Sarah sighed. She would be that tired when she got in tomorrow morning she didn’t care who was in her bed – but Nancy would not be there for long, if she had anything to do with it, that’s for sure.
‘So, now that’s agreed will you mind Georgie for me? It’s been so long since I went dancing and …’
‘Yeah, since all of last week. Aye, go on then, I will,’ Dolly said, putting the flat iron back on the stove. Folding the baby’s rompers, she lovingly placed them on the pile of ironed laundry. Nancy was young, she had her whole life ahead of her to be housebound, looking after kids and doing her duty. ‘I know how much you loved to dance before …’ Life is short enough, thought Dolly, there was no point in sitting on the hob, moping.
‘Thanks, Mam.’ Nancy gave her mother a loving squeeze. ‘I managed to get a new lippy in Boots – d’you want to try it? Some woman in a feathered hat tried to snatch it out of my hands, but I clung on,’ Nancy’s blue eyes were wide with indignation. ‘I said to her, “My husband died for this country – the least you can do is let me have a lipstick!” She soon let go.’
‘You never said such a wicked thing – you’ll be tempting fate if you’re not careful!’ Dolly could not believe her own ears.
‘Don’t be silly and superstitious. It got me the lippy, didn’t it?’ Nancy said through stretched lips as she applied a generous coat of crimson lipstick, pouting in the mirror. Then she noticed that Dolly had disappeared into the back kitchen. ‘I managed to get some Amami shampoo as