ANNE BENNETT
A LITTLE LEARNING

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work

of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers

The News Building1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Anne Bennett 1999

First published in 1999 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING

Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Source ISBN: 9780007547821

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780007547838

Version: 2017-07-11

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to my editor

Kate Bradley and my agent Judith Murdoch for being major

components in my security blanket. Thank you both.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Notes

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

Author’s Notes

This book, A Little Learning, is where my writing life began, for this is the first book I ever had published, originally for Headline Publishers but later bought and re-issued by HarperCollins. At the time, I was living in beautiful North Wales, moving from Birmingham after I had been invalided out of teaching because a spinal injury left me unable to walk and in a wheelchair.

As I had time on my hands – a luxury I hadn’t had before – I decided to take to writing seriously. I had been dabbling from when I was a child though I never dreamt I would ever make my living this way. I initially researched and wrote about the origin of nursery rhymes, something that has always intrigued me, and then books for the children I had taught, which were never published and are still in manuscript form. I then wrote short stories for Writing Magazine which I received every month though never submitted to them until 1995 when I wrote a spoof romance for a writing competition centred around Valentine’s Day and won second prize which was a year’s subscription to the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA).

Although I didn’t want to write straight romance I joined and found they ran a critique service called the New Writers’ Scheme (NWS) and as they would consider all stories with an emotional content, I sent my first submission in September of that year. My reader said it was good, but not good enough for publication and explained why it wasn’t. So, armed with that assessment, I wrote my second novel in 1996 making sure I didn’t make the same mistakes again. This time a different reader said it was too wordy and suggested losing 30,000 words. It meant a rewrite which I completed in four months before sending it to Headline Publishers.

The editor at Headline liked it but also suggested changes and corrections which I took on board and eventually that book became this one which they published in the spring of 1998 after offering me a two-book contract. Altogether I had four books initially published by Headline before we parted company in 2001 and I joined HarperCollins. I found Harper Collins an amazing publishing house to work for and have sixteen books published by them in addition to the Headline ones.

I have now been in the writing business for twenty-one mainly happy years and I am busier than ever and consider myself a very fortunate person doing a job I love.

ONE

‘Do you really want to sit the exams for grammar school?’ Duncan asked his sister, hardly able to believe she did.

Janet spun round in excitement. ‘More than anything,’ she said.

Duncan stared at his sister in astonishment. He couldn’t understand her, and that bothered him, because he and Janet had always been very close, at least till this business. He couldn’t deny she was excited, it shone out of her. He’d never thought of Janet as pretty. He was the good-looking one, with his blond curls and brilliant blue eyes. When he was younger, people were always saying he was too pretty to be a boy and what a shame his sister was so plain. He’d never looked at Janet much, she was just his sister, but he looked at her now. He noted that the mousy hair, that Mom made her keep short because of the risk of nits, seemed to have more body and was somehow fluffed out around her face. Even her eyes, usually a nondescript sort of deep grey, sparkled with excitement and transformed her whole face. Her skin had lost its sallowness and her mouth didn’t seem so large, caught up as it was in a beam of happiness.

Duncan couldn’t help grinning back at his sister. Janet’s delight was infectious. He shook his head as he said, ‘Well, I can see you’re pleased, Jan, but I don’t see what you’ve got to be pleased about.’

‘Oh, Duncan, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of.’

‘Well,’ Duncan said, ‘if it means that much to you I hope you pass, but I still think you need your head testing.’

Janet watched Duncan kicking a ball up the garden for his young twin brothers to run after, but didn’t run after them. They’d all been sent to the garden because their parents wanted to talk, and Janet knew what about. Though her father had come round a bit about the exams, in the beginning he was all for not letting Janet take them at all. She knew he was worried about the expense of it all, like keeping her at school all those extra years and buying her uniform. Her mother said she’d just fix it and Janet would like to believe her, but how would she find money they hadn’t got? She chewed at her thumb nail and wished she could hear what was being said inside.

‘Well, say our Janet passes this bloody exam you talked me into letting her sit,’ Bert said glumly, ‘how the hell are we going to afford the uniform? This bloke at work told me it costs a bleeding fortune.’

Betty knew only too well that it did – she’d checked it herself – but if Janet passed, then somehow the money for the uniform had to be found.

‘We’ll afford it, don’t you worry,’ she said fiercely.

‘Look, old girl,’ Bert said, ‘I don’t want to put a damper on the whole thing, but exactly how are we to pay for it all?’

‘I’ll get a Co-op cheque out,’ Betty promised. ‘That will do for the uniform at least, and paid in weekly, it won’t be so bad.’

‘And how will you pay for that?’ Bert persisted. ‘A five-pound cheque won’t cover this.’

‘I know,’ Betty said impatiently. ‘I suppose I could go back on the twilight shift at the sauce factory. Our Breda could put a word in, and they always said I could go back.’

‘I know that’s what they said, but I don’t think it’s right, you working nights like that just to send our girl to grammar school,’ Bert said.

‘Don’t you see!’ Betty cried. ‘I’m going to work so she won’t have to work like me. I’m going, to give her a chance.’

‘You said all this before,’ grumbled Bert, ‘when you and that Miss Wentworth talked me round for her to put in for the bloody exam in the first place.’

‘Yes,’ Betty said, ‘and that’s because you said at first that education was wasted on girls.’

‘And so it is.’

Betty stood up in front of Bert and banged her fist on the kitchen table. ‘Listen, you blooming numbskull,’ she said angrily. ‘All my life I’ve worked. From the age of fourteen I was serving in the tobacconist’s shop at the corner of Corporation Street, often for twelve hours a day. Then we wed, and when Duncan was small and Janet a wee baby, I was office cleaning from five in the morning till eight, and then again at night in the chip shop to make ends meet. Then after the war our Breda got me set in the HP Sauce factory at Aston Cross. So don’t you tell me about education being a waste.’

‘I know you’ve worked, love,’ Bert said soothingly. ‘You’re one of the best, none better.’

‘Well, I want better, better for my daughter,’ Betty cried. ‘I don’t want her working like I had to, like most women have to.’

‘Yes, but when a woman’s married …’ Bert began, but Betty leapt at him again.

‘Her life stops, is that it?’

‘Not at all,’ Bert declared stoutly. ‘Some say it begins.’

‘Oh yes it does,’ Betty said. ‘You’ve a house, a husband, children, less money than you’ve ever had in your life and more to do with it.’

Bert had his set face on, so Betty tried again. ‘Look, Bert, I’m not blaming you. It’s just the way it is. But the world’s changing now. When you and all the other men were charging around Europe killing Germans, the women were holding the fort over here. They were doing jobs women had never done before!’

‘I know that.’

‘But you must see that that sort of experience would change a woman’s outlook on things.’

‘Till the men came back.’

‘No,’ Betty cried. ‘Six years is a long time. Women won’t just give up and go back to the kitchen sink. Things will have to change. Miss Wentworth was even telling me that married women will soon be officially allowed to teach. I mean, they did in the war, because they had to, and then they expected them to go back to their husbands. Only some didn’t want to, and some of the poor souls didn’t have husbands any more, but they still had a family to bring up.’

‘It’s this Miss Wentworth who’s filled your head with such nonsense,’ Bert said stubbornly.

Betty knew he had a point, for she had listened to the teacher and to her vision of the new, emerging Britain, where women could take their rightful place alongside men.

‘Women like your Janet, Mrs Travers,’ she said. ‘Intelligent women. The time will come when men and women will work side by side, and that will include married women. Even when they have children, they will be going back to work. It will eventually change the face of the world.’

Betty had kept quiet. She didn’t say that women had been working for years and working bloody hard and yet it had changed nothing. Sarah McClusky, her own mother, had worked from dawn till dusk and for a pittance. They’d lived in Summer Lane then, the bottom end of Edgbaston. The houses were back to back with dilapidated roofs and walls, crowded around a central courtyard which housed the shared lavatory and brew’us, where the washing was done, and where the tap was that served the whole yard. Betty remembered the stench from the small industries and workshops that abounded in the area that made the atmosphere smoky and gloomy and dirty as it discharged its gases into the air to mix with the smoke from thousands of back to back house chimneys.

Betty looked at Claire Wentworth and realised she didn’t know the half of it, not her Janet either; she hoped her children would never know poverty like there was then. It was the threat of that that made her mother trudge across to the other side of Edgbaston to clean the homes of the gentry. Winter or summer, and often the only thing to protect her from the elements was a shawl, and the well cobbled boots on her feet might have cardboard inside them to try to keep the wet out of the soles worn through.

All day she would clean and return home weary and bone tired to a meal Betty would have to have made after her day at school. It was her job, as the elder girl, to clean and cook as best she could and, with her elder brother Conner, give an eye to the little’uns Brendan, Breda and Noel. Twice a week Sarah would bring home a large laundry basket covered with a sheet, and Betty would know her mother would be in the brew’us all the rest of the next day washing for her employers.

It was no mean feat to wash clothes then, even for a family, and yet Sarah wasn’t the only woman to take on extra. She would creep from her bed at five the next morning and poke Betty awake as she slept in the attic in the bed with her younger sister. Bleary eyed, Betty would stumble after her mother in clothes hastily fastened around her and her feet in the boots given free to the poor children by the Daily Mail. In her hand she would carry a bucket of slack to light the copper, and inside the brew’us her mother would be filling it up bucket by bucket from a tap in the yard. Betty would begin to maid, or pound, the clothes in a dolly tub and then scrub at the offending stains. At some point her mother would take over and Betty would return to the house to wake and feed her brothers and sisters and her father too.

In the brew’us, Sarah would boil all the washing in the copper and then swill the whites in a bucket tinged with Reckett’s Blue before starching. When the children returned at dinnertime, to bread and dripping they made themselves, Sarah would be mangling the clothes, and if the day had been fine and dry, by hometime she was ironing the lot with a flat iron heated in the fire, for the clothes would have dried on the lines that criss-crossed the yard. If however it was wet, the clothes would be strung above the fire and around the hearth, and the house would be cold and smell of damp washing.

But no one complained, for the washing Sarah took in to supplement her cleaning paid the rent and put food in hungry children’s bellies. Even Sean who was often unable to provide for his family said little, and in actual fact, Sarah’s job didn’t disturb him much at all and as long as his own laundry was always done, his dinner always on the table, the fire kept up and the children seen to, he didn’t moan much. The house might have got a lick and a promise rather than a good going-over, the stove might not have been blackleaded every week, nor the brass polished, nor the step scrubbed, but those were things the men didn’t notice.

Until the slump, Sean McClusky had been employed at Henry Wiggins and Co in Wiggin Street which produced nickel and steel plate, but as the depression bit deeper, he was just put on short time and then out of work altogether; it was her mother who then put food on the table, Betty remembered. Yet her father would never do a hand’s turn in the house and it hadn’t seemed strange. Without work, he would loll on street corners with mates in the same situation, or sit listlessly in front of the fire for which his wife’s money had bought the coal.

Miss Wentworth painted a view of life Betty didn’t understand, or quite believe in. Her own jobs, like her mother’s, had been chosen to fit in with Bert and the children.

In time life had become easier for the McClusky family. Betty married Bert which was no surprise to anyone, and the family moved from Summer Lane to the new sprawling council estate of Pype Hayes, north of the city, where Betty in time was also given a house. Money was easier as the younger McCluskys were all at work, and Sean got a job making tyres at Fort Dunlop in 1937. Then war was declared. Bert Travers was called up, along with his brothers-in-law Conner and Brendan, while Noel volunteered and Breda went to work in the munitions.

‘Come on, our Bet, the money is desperate, so it is,’ she’d urged her sister, but Betty had shaken her head.

The years had been hard on her parents and she thought she couldn’t leave them in charge of Duncan and Janet all day, whatever the lure of the money. Breda soon sported the uniform turban like all the rest of the factory girls, wore scarlet lipstick and smoked strong-smelling cigarettes. Her language, Betty noticed, was pretty strong too. She’d have had her lugs scalped if she’d tried such talk, she told her sister.

‘Da says that and worse,’ Breda had protested.

‘That’s different, he’s a man.’

Then Breda had laughed. ‘I think you can give yourself a pat on the back for noticing that, Bet, for I’d never have worked it out on my own.’

But Betty’s attitude changed when her youngest brother, Noel, was killed in the first year of the war. He was just eighteen years old. Betty thought she’d never get over it, and yet she had to cope because her parents were bowed down with grief. Eventually, anger at the waste of Noel’s life replaced the sadness, and this anger was further fuelled by the blitz of Birmingham that began on 25 August 1940.

When Tyburn Road was targeted the following evening, it was dangerously close to her Pype Hayes home, threatening her family. She decided that knitting balaclavas and cowering at home was no longer good enough for her. ‘I need to do something, Mammy,’ she appealed to her mother, ‘or I’ll feel Noel has died in vain. But I can’t do it without your help.’

Sarah McClusky had no wish to see another of her children exposed to danger, but she knew it was Betty’s way of dealing with her brother’s death. She took a deep breath to steady her own fear and said firmly, ‘The weans will be as right as rain with us. Dad has the shelter that cosy, with bunks fixed to the sides and the oil heater to take the chill off, and they’ll be as safe as houses.’

Betty was grateful, for she knew what it had cost her mother to react the way she did. The following day she joined up as an ARP warden.

It soon became apparent that Birmingham was ill equipped to deal with the casualties of the bombing raids, which were intensifying throughout the city. The job of the wardens included trying to arrange temporary accommodation of some sort for the homeless, plus clothes, bedding and food.

People taking shelter where they could often did not get any aid for hours, and there were some disorderly scenes among the desperate and often destitute people. In an effort to help the situation, mobile canteens were set up, and Betty elected to serve in one of these, together with her fellow ARP warden and friend Cynthia, who was the driver.

On the night of 19 November 1940, the sirens had not even died away when the first thuds were heard. Sarah McClusky felt her stomach tighten in fear as she watched her daughter struggle into her coat. She knew Betty had to go, and hoped the raid would be over soon, but she had to look after Duncan and Janet, so she began hurriedly to pack a bag to take down to the shelter. ‘Take care, lass,’ she said to Betty as she was about to leave.

‘I will, Mammy,’ Betty said. There was a sudden explosion very close and she went on quickly, ‘Don’t worry about me, Mammy, I’ll be fine, but get the children and yourselves down to the shelter quick.’ She gave her mother and children a kiss. ‘See you in the morning.’

It was a long raid and a bad one. The ack-ack guns were at work as she made her way to the ARP post in Erdington, and the searchlights were raking the skies. She sent up a prayer that her family would be safe when she returned – the children, her parents and Breda on her night shift.

Hours later, as the mobile canteen drove towards Birmingham city centre, which seemed to be ablaze, Cynthia was cut badly about the face by shards of glass from the windscreen, which had been shattered by a bomb blast. One of the ambulancemen who took the unconscious and bleeding Cynthia to hospital turned to Betty and said, ‘Have to leave the van where it is, love, and hope it isn’t blown to kingdom come.’

Until then, Betty had given no thought to the van, but she knew they were needed – indeed, they were a lifeline for many families, and for the rescue workers digging people out, often near dead on their feet with exhaustion themselves.

‘No bloody Hitler’s getting my van,’ she said, climbing into Cynthia’s seat. She didn’t know how to drive, but she’d seen Cynthia do it often enough. She turned the key and the throbbing engine came to life. Slowly and carefully she put it into gear and touched her foot on the accelerator. She was slow and a bit jerky, but she was driving, and a thrill of exhilaration ran through her. She negotiated potholes and piles of debris blown into the road by the falling bombs. The wind buffeted her through the gaping hole in the windscreen, and all around her was constant noise.

Black arrows of death were tumbling from the droning planes above, the never-ending rattle of the guns seeming to make no impression on them. She heard cries and terrified screams, and saw walls crumple with shuddering thuds before her eyes, exploding in clouds of dust. The sirens of fire engines and ambulances screamed through the night. She saw the city skyline lit up with a strange orange glow, and the acrid smell of smoke was in her mouth and nose.

And she drove through it all, like a scythe cutting a swath through corn, too excited to be scared. A little while later, she was dishing out tea and sandwiches to people in an emergency rescue centre, and being described as ‘an angel’.

She told no one about her driving. She told her mother as little as possible anyway. Sarah McClusky understood Betty’s need to be doing something and looked after Duncan and Janet with no complaint. However, if she’d had her way, she’d have had her Betty tucked up in the shelter with the children.

Sarah was confused by the way of the world. By working her fingers to the bone, she’d been able to put shoes on her children’s feet and food in their stomachs when times were bad. She’d kept them safe and healthy, she’d nursed them through childish ailments, they were well nourished enough to fight. She was proud of her fine family. But she’d already lost one son to the war, with the other two risking their lives daily, and a daughter to the munitions, for she knew that Breda – never as easy or compliant as her sister – would go her own way after this.

Then there was Betty. With her husband away fighting, she doled out nourishment, hope and sympathy to the homeless and rescuers alike in the city centre where the raids were heaviest. Betty told her mother that they took shelter when the raids were bad, but Sarah wasn’t sure she’d been telling the truth. She had the idea she wasn’t told about a lot of things.

‘You dark horse,’ Cynthia said when Betty visited her in the General Hospital later. She was swathed in bandages and looked a little pale, but she smiled bravely as she asked: ‘Why did you never say you could drive before?’

‘Oh, you know,’ Betty said, busying herself with an imaginary stain on her skirt so that Cynthia wouldn’t see the telltale flush flooding her face. ‘It’s a long time ago. I wasn’t sure I still had the knack.’

‘I think it’s like riding a bike,’ Cynthia said. ‘You know, you never really forget.’

‘Yes,’ said Betty, anxious to get off the subject. She looked out of the window at the steel-grey skies and the people hurrying below huddled in thick coats, scarves and hats. ‘It’s bitter out there, Cynth, you’re in the best place for the moment.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Cynthia said. ‘D’you know what they do when there’s a raid? They stick us underneath the beds. Some chance if the hospital gets a direct hit, eh? I’d descend to the ground floor mighty quick, if you ask me, under tons of masonry, crushed flat by my own iron bed. No, I’d rather take my chance out on the street, where you can see the buggers coming.’

‘Oh, Cynthia,’ Betty said with a chuckle, ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Well, you’ll have to go on missing me,’ Cynthia said, ‘because even when I’m out of here, you’ll probably get a different crew now. I don’t think they’ve got enough drivers to put two together.’

‘Oh, no … I mean, yes … of course, you’re right.’ That hadn’t occurred to Betty, but she enjoyed driving so much, she didn’t want to give it up. She kept the truth from her mother and her husband who might have spilled the beans that she’d never had a driving lesson in the whole of her life. No one asked, and as drivers were in short supply, she was in great demand.

The war went on relentlessly. The raids eased a little, but the battle for the housewife was coping with shortages and rationing. Making do and mending was all very well, Betty thought wryly, if you had something to make do with in the first place.

Then, just before the spring of 1944, Bert came home for pre-embarkation leave.

‘I think this is it, my old duck,’ he told Betty, ‘the big push, the beginning of the end, old girl.’

And what if, when the end finally comes, I have no husband? thought Betty, and she cried into Bert’s shoulder and wouldn’t tell him why. The ARP post had to do without her for two nights while she lay in Bert’s arms, and their lovemaking was frantic as they realised that their time together was short. By the time Bert was treading the beaches of Normandy, Betty was getting used to the idea of another little Travers to join Duncan and Janet. She cut down on her war work as her pregnancy advanced, and gave it up entirely just before Christmas of that year.

The second telegram arrived the day the Christmas cards were due to come down. Sarah opened it with trembling fingers, and when she read that Conner, her eldest son, was to lie beside his brother in foreign soil, she fell down in a faint. Sean McClusky envied his wife her unconsciousness, and wished he didn’t have to deal with the knowledge that two of his children were dead and gone. He put his head in his hands and wept.

Betty’s grief was deep and profound for the big brother she’d always looked up to. Noel’s death had acted as a catalyst, urging her to take a more active part in the war that had stolen her brother. This time there was nothing she could do to lessen the hurt, for hostilities were nearly at an end and the tide of war was turning.

However, she wasn’t allowed to grieve for long, for just days after they received the news about Conner, her pains began. Her labour was long and difficult and the midwife sent for the doctor. He was mystified as to why Betty should be having such a difficult time, until it was established that there were two babies, not one as originally thought. Betty couldn’t believe her ears and redoubled her efforts, and on a raw January day gave birth to twin boys, both healthy, lusty and a good size.

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.

It could certainly do with brightening up, he thought, and perhaps they could even get a new wireless and a carpet square eventually. ‘All right, love,’ he said. ‘You keep your job. As long as you can manage, I’ll say nothing about it.’

Things rubbed along nicely for over a year. Brendan got married to Patsy Brennan, a local girl from an Irish family, and Breda had a baby girl, Linda, but continued working afterwards. Duncan started at Paget Road Secondary Modern, and Janet began her last year at Paget Road Primary.

The autumn term was into its fourth week. Betty had been delighted when school started again. She’d been tired out coping with the demands of four children all day and working in the evening, but she’d never complained to Bert.

Bert was recounting some tale from the factory around the tea table, and Duncan was listening avidly. He was fascinated by anything to do with the world he would soon be joining. Betty was keeping a watchful eye on the twins, who were making a mess of feeding themselves but screamed if she tried to help them. She was just thankful it was Friday and she didn’t have to go to work. Janet had kept her head down all through tea, and catching sight of her now, Betty realised that she’d been quiet all evening. She hoped Janet wasn’t sickening for something.

There was a small silence after Bert had finished, broken only by the twins banging their spoons on their high-chair tables. Suddenly Janet said: ‘Mom, Miss Wentworth would like a word with you.’

There was a hoot of laughter from Duncan. ‘Why, what you done?’ he said, and added in disbelief, ‘Goody-goody Janet’s in trouble.’

‘I’m not, I’m not,’ Janet declared hotly.

‘That will do, Duncan,’ Betty said. She turned her gaze to her daughter and said: ‘D’you know what it’s about?’

All eyes were on Janet now, and she stammered: ‘I … I think it’s … it’s about the exam.’

‘The exam?’ Bert said. ‘What’s this?’

‘The eleven-plus, she means,’ Duncan said.

‘Oh,’ said Bert airily. ‘No need to worry your head about that, pet, you don’t need to do no eleven-plus.’

Janet’s face flushed crimson. Betty took pity on her and said, ‘Do you want to do it, love?’

‘Oh, yes.’

There was a shocked silence. Even the twins were staring at her. Bert put down his knife and fork and asked in genuine puzzlement, ‘Why do you want to take the eleven-plus?’

‘Miss Wentworth says I have a good chance of passing,’ Janet burst out. ‘She says I have a good brain and …’

‘This Miss Wentworth has been talking a lot of nonsense,’ Bert said, ‘and filling your head with rubbish. You’ve no need for a grammar school education and you can tell her that from me.’

Betty looked at her daughter’s stricken face and said, ‘It will do no harm to listen to what the woman has to say.’

‘Do no bloody good either.’

‘Bert,’ Betty admonished, with a nod towards the twins, who were reaching the age when they liked to latch on to unusual words and repeat them.

‘They’ll hear worse before they’re much older,’ Bert said, ruffling the heads of his small sons fondly. ‘Proper little buggers they’re growing up to be.’

Betty gave up. He’d never be any different. He stood up, scraping his chair back. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m away for a wash.’

‘You going to the club?’

‘I always go to the club on Friday.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Betty began collecting the plates, then said, almost casually, though she knew her daughter would be holding her breath for Bert’s reply, ‘I think I’ll pop along to the school and have a chat with our Janet’s teacher anyway, all right?’

‘Yes, if you want,’ Bert said. ‘Do as you like but it won’t make any bloody difference.’ He chucked Janet under the chin as he went out. ‘Cheer up, ducky,’ he said. ‘Why the long face? You’re much too pretty to worry yourself over any silly exams.’

Janet didn’t answer. She watched him lift the kettle from the gas and take it to the bathroom that opened off the kitchen, and a little later she heard him whistling as he had a shave.

TWO

Betty went to see Miss Wentworth the following Monday lunchtime. ‘You really think our Janet has a chance of passing the eleven-plus?’ she asked, gazing at the teacher in amazement.

‘Indeed I do,’ Claire Wentworth said with an emphatic nod of her head. ‘Janet has an exceptional brain. She seems to soak up knowledge.’

Does she? Betty thought. Miss Wentworth went on to describe a child Betty did not recognise as her daughter. ‘She’s one of the brightest I have ever taught,’ she said at last.

‘But she’s always so quiet at home, our Janet,’ Betty said.

‘Assimilating all the knowledge gained, I suppose.’

‘Pardon?’ said Betty, not quite understanding the words the teacher was using.

‘Taking it all in, you know,’ said Claire. ‘She’s probably got too much going on in her head for chattering a lot.’

‘Maybe,’ Betty said. ‘She often looks as though she’s in a dream. She must be thinking.’ She smiled and added, ‘It’s not something the rest of us do a lot of.’

Claire studied the woman before her. Betty Travers wasn’t at all how she’d expected her to be. She was younger, for a start, and prettier, very like Janet, with the same reflective eyes and wide mouth. Her hair was the same colour as Janet’s but slightly longer, and judging by the straggly curls, it had once been permed.

She looked open and approachable and did not appear hostile to her daughter taking the exam. A lot of parents were against their children bettering themselves, especially the girls.

Yet there was some obstacle, because when Claire had asked Janet that morning if she’d broached the subject at home, her eyes had had a hopeless look in them, and there’d been a dejected droop to her mouth. She’d said she’d told her mother, and that she was coming in to discuss it, and now here was the mother and proving very amenable too.

‘You are agreeable to allowing Janet to enter then, Mrs Travers?’

Betty didn’t answer immediately. She twisted her handbag strap round and round in her fingers. Eventually she said:

‘Well … the thing is, my husband … he … well, he … he doesn’t see the point.’

It was nearly always the fathers, Claire thought angrily. ‘You mean her father is refusing to let her take the examination?’ she snapped.

It came out sharper than she had intended and it put Betty’s back up. Janet’s teacher had no right to talk that way about Bert.

‘He’s a good man,’ she said stiffly. ‘It isn’t that he doesn’t want the best for Janet, but he sees this eleven-plus as a waste of time.’

‘It’s not!’ Claire cried. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity for her. You must see that.’

Betty stared at Claire Wentworth, but she wasn’t seeing her. The word ‘opportunity’ had stirred her memories. The war had given Betty the opportunity to be something other than a wife and mother. It had given her an independent life that she seldom spoke of, even to Bert, sensing his disapproval. Now an opportunity of a different kind was being offered to her daughter, and she was rejecting it on Janet’s behalf.

Have I any right to do that? she thought. Will she resent me and her dad for not letting her try? She knew Bert would be furious, but she felt she couldn’t deny her daughter this chance.

‘When is the examination, Miss Wentworth?’ she asked.

Claire smiled. ‘The examination is in three parts,’ she said. ‘There is a maths paper, an English paper and a paper to test intelligence. She must pass all three, and the first set is held in November.’

‘That’s not far away, it’s October already.’

‘Yes, I must enter Janet’s name by the end of the week. And she will need extra tuition.’

Betty was startled. ‘What d’you mean? You said she had a good chance of passing, you never said a thing about her needing tuition. I can’t afford that.’

‘Mrs Travers, you don’t have to afford it. I will coach Janet. She has a chance of passing now, without extra work, but the classes are large and I have no extra time to give her. I’ve explained all this to Janet. She is prepared to work hard.’

‘You will do that for our Janet?’ Betty asked, amazed.

‘I would do it for any pupil who would benefit from it,’ Claire said. ‘Unfortunately, most children at Paget Road junior school look no further than the secondary modern. It’s what they want and what their parents want, and they see no need to take an examination.’

‘But Janet’s different?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ Claire said. ‘Now, the first set of exams will be marked by Christmas; you will probably have the results with your Christmas mail. If Janet passes, she will automatically go forward to the second set of examinations, which will be more extensive and will be held at the beginning of February. It will probably be April before you hear if she has passed or failed those.’

‘And say she gets through all this and passes,’ said Betty. ‘Where will she go then?’

‘Whytecliff School in Sutton Coldfield would be my first choice,’ Claire said. ‘It’s private but it offers scholarships to a quarter of the intake. I hear it’s a marvellous school, with wonderful facilities. I’m sure Janet would love it, and provided she passes the exam, you’d pay for nothing but the uniform.’

‘That would probably cost a pretty penny, I bet.’

Claire could not deny it, and Betty knew the money would have to be found somehow.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Put our Janet’s name down for this here exam and we’ll see what she’s made of.’

Claire was delighted, but she didn’t want to raise the child’s hopes only to have them dashed again. ‘I’d be only too happy to, Mrs Travers,’ she said, ‘but your husband …?’

‘Leave him to me,’ Betty said decisively.

She said a similar thing to her daughter that evening. Janet had had a chat with Miss Wentworth, who told her of the outcome of her mother’s visit. That afternoon, after school, she settled down in the kitchen, gazing at her mother almost shyly. Betty smiled at her.

‘Went to see your Miss Wentworth today,’ she said. ‘I expect she told you.’

‘Yes, she did.’

‘Pretty young thing, isn’t she? I thought she’d be a crabbed old maid.’

‘Oh, no,’ Janet said in the hushed tones of adoration. ‘She’s beautiful.’

She’d spent hours looking at Miss Wentworth. The teacher’s hair was so light brown as to be almost blonde, and she tied it back from her face with a black ribbon. Her eyes were the darkest brown, and she had the cutest nose and the loveliest mouth. Her whole face had a kindness about it, and her eyes often twinkled with amusement. She had the most gentle speaking voice, that she hardly ever raised in anger, but she could get the children to listen to her just the same. Janet’s dream was to look like Claire Wentworth, but her more realistic aim was to get into the grammar school, because that would please her teacher.

‘She thinks a lot of you,’ Betty said.

Janet said nothing, but her eyes shone.

‘Thinks you have a chance of the eleven-plus if you work.’

‘I know. I will if you’ll let me try.’

‘Well, I think you should have the chance,’ Betty said.

‘What about Dad?’

‘Leave your dad to me.’

Janet knew it wouldn’t be easy to change her father’s mind, and Betty didn’t try to kid her otherwise. She hadn’t time to do much then anyway, for she was rushing to make tea for everyone and get to work.

‘Now,’ she said, getting into her coat, ‘you get these dishes washed and put away before your dad comes home. Put the vegetables on at half past five for his tea, and don’t let them boil dry.’

‘I’ve done it before, Mom,’ Janet protested. ‘Anyway, isn’t Gran coming round?’

‘Yes, but she’ll have her hands full getting the twins to bed,’ Betty said. ‘I want your dad’s tea on the table when he comes in, and a tidy house. I want him in a good mood.’

‘Why?’ asked Duncan, puzzled.

‘Never you mind,’ Betty snapped. Duncan saw the glance his mother gave to Janet. He wondered why his mom was trying to sweeten his dad up, and what it had to do with his sister. He didn’t ask, for he knew his mom wouldn’t tell him, and she was agitated about being late for work anyway. Then Breda was at the door and he watched the pair of them scurry down the road.

When Bert Travers came in at six o’clock the house was spotless. Janet had dusted and polished and a hint of furniture polish still hung in the air. His dinner was ready, and he stood in the kitchen doorway watching his daughter dish up his meal and pour gravy over it. He felt a surge of pride for his family.

His son was a lad to be proud of and was preparing to follow in his dad’s footsteps when he was fourteen. A daughter was bound to be different. Janet was much quieter than Duncan, and said to be clever, but she could produce a good meal for him just the same. She’d be another like her mom. Then there were his twin boys, washed and pyjamaed for bed. They had been drinking their milk until they saw their father, and then they threw their bottles down and began clambering all over him.

Bert was inordinately proud of the twin sons and was far more easy-going with them than he had been with Duncan and Janet when they were small. Sarah McClusky, who believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, watched in disapproval as Conner and Noel leaped at and climbed up their father’s body.

‘Leave your dad be, he’s been at work all day, he’ll be tired,’ she admonished.

‘They’re all right, Ma,’ Bert said good-humouredly. ‘I see little enough of them.’

‘They were getting ready to go to bed,’ Sarah said reprovingly.

‘That’s what I mean,’ Bert said. ‘They’re always nearly ready to go to bed when I get in …’ But his dinner was waiting and he had no desire to fight over it, and certainly not with his mother-in-law. He was only too aware what they owed her, him and Betty, for if she hadn’t agreed to come and see to the kids at night, Betty couldn’t have worked, and he had to admit the money was useful.

His wages never seemed to stretch far these days, with the four children. He was constantly amazed by the way the children went through their clothes and shoes, and what they cost to replace. Then there was the amount of food consumed in one week. He was grateful for the government introducing the new family allowance, but he recognised that without the bit Betty earned, they’d often be strapped for cash. Sarah McClusky’s presence meant that his life changed very little. Betty would prepare dinner before she left for work, to be cooked by her mother or Janet ready for his arrival. After he’d eaten he could go down the club for a pint, leaving his mother-in-law to keep an eye on the children.

Anyway, Bert told himself as he ate his tea, bringing up kids is a woman’s job. He was looking forward to the time when him and his lad would be mates in the factory, going down the pub together and to Villa Park on Saturday afternoons. But up until that time, any decisions about Duncan’s upbringing, or that of the others, he would leave to Betty, or her mother if Betty wasn’t there.

Later, when he was washed and changed ready to go out, everything was much quieter. He knew his younger sons were fast asleep in their separate cots, because he’d tiptoed in to see on his way down from the bedroom. His mother-in-law was knitting placidly, while she listened to the wireless.

‘You away now?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I’ll go for a quick one.’

Sarah McClusky’s eyes betrayed nothing. She personally thought Betty wouldn’t have to go to work if Bert didn’t tip so much money down his throat, but that was their business. Betty had made that abundantly clear, the one time Sarah had mentioned it.

‘Bert’s a good man, Ma, and a good provider. He always sees to us first, and what he does with the money in his pocket is his business. Anyway,’ she’d added, ‘I enjoy my job.’

So Mrs McClusky kept her own counsel now, and what she said to her son-in-law was:

‘You might tell young Duncan to come in on your way out.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Kicking a ball in the street somewhere, but the nights are drawing in now.’

‘He’ll be all right.’

‘Betty doesn’t like him out in the dark,’ Mrs McClusky said. ‘They get up to all sorts of mischief, she says.’

Bert thought of Duncan and his mates and knew that Betty had a point. ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said, and added, ‘Our Janet’s not out there too, is she?’

Sarah McClusky chuckled. ‘Not her, she’s too sensible for that gang of hooligans. She’s in the kitchen, doing homework.’

Bert frowned. He had no desire for his daughter to be running wild around the estate, especially with Duncan and his pals, but she was a little too sensible for his liking. It wasn’t normal.

‘She’s an odd kid all right,’ he said.

Sarah had a soft spot for her granddaughter, much as she loved her grandsons, especially the two rips named for her dead sons. She also loved Breda’s little girl Linda, cheeky monkey though she was, but between her and Janet there was a special bond.

It had grown with the resemblance she’d had to her mother as a small child, when Sarah had looked after the children so that Betty could do her ARP work during the war. Sarah was aware very early of Janet’s ability to listen and absorb. She’d sit for hours and listen intently to her gran recounting an incident from her own childhood, or Betty’s. Sometimes she’d interrupt with a question, but most times she’d stay still and quiet.

She’d been able to read before she went to school, because Sarah had read to her often and she’d picked up the words. They’d chosen books together from the public library in Erdington village, but though Sarah had told Betty about the trips there, she never let on that Janet could read. She told Janet to keep it to herself too, for she had an idea the teachers wouldn’t like it. She hadn’t been as surprised as her daughter when the teachers had commented on Janet’s intelligence, but she’d said nothing. She wasn’t certain now that the grammar school was the solution for Janet, and was of the opinion that men didn’t like girls who were too clever. But she wouldn’t let anyone put her granddaughter down either.

She looked at her son-in-law now over the top of the glasses she held on the tip of her nose in order to see the stitches on the needles, and said:

‘She’s all right, your Janet, a good lassie. Just because she finds no pleasure in running wild doesn’t mean she’s odd.’

‘I didn’t mean odd exactly,’ Bert said, uncomfortable under Sarah McClusky’s unfriendly scrutiny. ‘Just different.’

And she was different, he thought, as he opened the door to say good night. She was bent over her books so intently she hadn’t heard the click of the latch. Brought up as she was in a house with a brash elder brother and two younger ones prone to yelling and screaming their way through the day, she’d learnt to cut herself off from everyday noises that could distract.

So Bert had to speak before Janet jerked up from the exercise book she’d been writing in. Her eyes held a note of impatience, he noticed, and it annoyed him. But he made an attempt to try and understand this young daughter of his, who somehow held herself away from him.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘English,’ Janet answered shortly, and then, because she knew that had sounded rude, she went on, ‘We have to write an essay and then I have an exercise in maths.’

‘Why didn’t Duncan have homework like this when he was at Paget Road Primary?’ Bert asked, genuinely puzzled.

Janet shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t want homework,’ she said.

‘Want it! Do you mean you don’t have to do it?’

You do if you want to get into grammar school, Janet could have said. She could imagine the explosion that would cause. Anyway, her mother had told her she’d handle it, so she just said:

‘You can have it if you like.’

‘And you like, do you?’ Bert shook his head. He couldn’t understand an attitude like that.

‘Yes, yes, I do.’

What could he say to that? He patted his daughter’s head self-consciously. ‘Don’t work too hard then,’ he said, ‘and bed by nine.’

‘I know,’ Janet said impatiently. She didn’t understand why her dad was suddenly so interested. Her gran would tell her it was time for bed if she were to get immersed in something and forget the time. Her father was seldom at home at bedtime, but she knew if she wasn’t in bed when her mother came in, she’d catch it.

‘Well, good night then,’ Bert said uncomfortably. He was aware that his daughter was just waiting for him to go. She was regarding him as an intrusion, he thought suddenly, and had only spoken to him to be polite. All the time he’d been in the kitchen she’d remained bent over her books, with her pen poised, waiting to continue.

Bert banged the kitchen door behind him angrily. Janet had got under his skin, but there was nothing in her manner of speaking to him that he could tell her off for. It was just a feeling he had.

Mrs McClusky looked across at him and said, ‘You go slamming doors like that, I’ll have the two rapscallions awake again.’

Bert glared at her. He longed to tell her to shut her mouth, but didn’t dare. Instead he made his way out of the front door, deliberately banging it loudly behind him. He called out to Duncan to get himself indoors, in a voice that brooked no argument, then hurried through the cold, dark streets to the club, where he always found congenial company.

Janet heard her mother come in, and the murmur of voices between Mrs McClusky and her daughter. She heard her grandmother leave. In fact, so alive were her senses, she imagined she heard her mother filling the kettle, and the pop of the gas.

She lay and gazed at the ceiling in the smallest bedroom, which she had all to herself. She wondered if she would be able to work up here – that was, of course, if she was ever to get to the grammar school. She had a wardrobe and a chest of drawers in the room, and Mom had said she’d get her a mirror to sit on top of the chest so it would be like a dressing table. But really she needed a desk. She wondered if she could use it for homework if she cleared the top off. But it was rather high – at least it was for the plain wooden chair which was the only other thing in the room. Then there was no place to put her legs, they’d have to dangle to the sides. And then it could be very cold up there in the winter. She’d have to wear her overcoat to work up here. But she was seriously worried about working in the kitchen if she got into the grammar school and had the masses of homework Miss Wentworth had told her about.

Duncan came in every evening filthy dirty and starving hungry. Gran or Mom would make him wash at the sink and he’d splash water everywhere. Then he’d make great wads of bread and jam, smearing the table and leaving the sticky knife lying there. Or he’d make cocoa, stirring the sugar in so vigorously that the brown liquid slopped all over. Janet’s books had already had more than one lucky escape from Duncan’s attempts at preventing himself from starving to death.

Then there were the twins … Janet wasn’t aware how they did it, but their hands were nearly always sticky, and ranged from merely grubby to filthy. She shuddered at the thought of them handling her things. They were messier than Duncan and twice as clumsy, and what if they were to get hold of a crayon and scribble over her work? No, somehow, she decided as she closed her eyes, she had to work in her bedroom.

She was jerked suddenly awake and lay for a moment wondering what had roused her. The louder buzz of voices from the living room told her that her father was home; it was him coming in that had probably woken her. It had happened countless times before, and Janet had always turned over and gone to sleep again. She prepared to do this now. Her bed was warm and she was cosy, but she couldn’t rest.

She wondered if her mom would broach the subject of the eleven-plus to her father that night. Miss Wentworth had told her that the first exam was soon, and that she needed extra tuition. She knew her mother couldn’t wait indefinitely, and she also knew that Mom tended to tackle things straight away, head on.

She’d loved to have heard what they were saying, but although she could hear the drone of voices they weren’t distinct enough to make out the actual words. She wondered if she should get out of bed. She’d never listened at doors before, but this was her future they were discussing.

The cold made her gasp as she stood on the freezing linoleum in her bedroom, and her bed looked very welcoming. She turned her back on it, slipped a jumper over her head and old shoes on her feet and tiptoed out to huddle on the stairs.

Bert and Betty were having a cup of cocoa before bed. Bert had had enough to drink to make him view the world with a rosy glow, and his earlier bad mood was forgotten.

Betty was glad that her husband had reached that mellow point, because she had to get this business of Janet and the exam cleared up. Her daughter and the teacher were keen enough, and she wanted what was best for Janet. She knew that speed was essential. It was also essential for another reason, but no one knew about that but Breda.

‘Not again!’ she’d exclaimed as Betty whispered her suspicions to her sister that evening.

‘Ssh,’ Betty cautioned. They’d been in the canteen, and Breda’s voice carried.

‘Well, I mean, Bet, really,’ Breda said, though she lowered her voice considerably. ‘What you trying to do? Populate the whole of the bleeding British Isles by yourself?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Betty said. ‘It just happened.’

‘Don’t you be daft,’ Breda retorted. ‘It doesn’t just happen. You know what causes it, for God’s sake. Didn’t he take any precautions?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, girl, you weren’t born yesterday. Don’t he wear a johnny? You know what they are.’

Betty couldn’t believe that such words were coming out of her younger sister’s mouth.

‘I … I’ve never … I couldn’t … Bert wouldn’t.’

Breda looked at her sister with pity. ‘You couldn’t even bring it up with him, could you?’

Miserably, Betty shook her head. ‘Then you have to get yourself seen to,’ Breda said. ‘As soon as this is over, I’m taking you up the clinic.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I thought you knew all about it, our Bet,’ Breda said in amazement. She shook her head sorrowfully. ‘It’s like you were born yesterday. Look,’ she went on, ‘there’s this little rubber thing that you shove up inside you and it protects you, you see.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Betty said.

‘Course you could,’ Breda retorted. ‘I do. Anyway, Bet, the choice as I see it is, either you use this cap that your old man don’t have to know anything about, or you tell him to keep his bloody hands to himself when he reaches out in the dark.’

‘He was away six years,’ Betty said, somewhat stiffly.

‘I know that. So were countless others, like my Peter. Doesn’t give him the right to try and populate the universe single-handed,’ Breda said. ‘Anyway, our Linda’s one body’s work, and I certainly don’t want no more.’

Betty stared at her sister. Breda knew as well as Betty did that it was wrong to plan one’s family. The priests were telling you that all the time.

Neither of the sisters went to church very often now, but they’d been brought up as staunch Catholics and the Church’s teaching went deep. Betty had been a regular attender when she was younger, and even when she was first married, and Duncan had been down to go to the Abbey Roman Catholic school, just outside Erdington village, and a short bus ride away. When war broke out, however, and Betty joined up as an ARP warden, Duncan was enrolled in Paget Road, just round the corner from where they lived, and Janet followed him there.

The priest had called to see Betty after her prolonged absence from church had been noted, but by that time, Mrs McClusky was beginning to curse the God who had taken her son from her, and was short with the priest. He came back later, when Betty was at home. ‘I have to send the children to school somewhere,’ she cried when the priest appeared to judge her by his very silence, ‘and it’s too much for Mom fetching them from the Abbey.’

‘I understand it’s difficult for you at the moment,’ the priest said soothingly.

‘Do you?’ Betty burst out angrily, suddenly enraged that the priest was seemingly untouched by a war that had ripped their family apart. ‘Do you really? My husband’s overseas, one brother’s dead, the other two are still fighting. My parents haven’t time to grieve, they’re too busy looking after Duncan and Janet so I can work as an ARP warden. In our own small way, we are doing our bit to win this war, and you are concerned about where my children go to school.’

The priest never came back, and Betty felt as if she’d scored a small triumph. Yes, she’d had her moment of rebellion, but a sin was still a sin.

She hesitated to broach the subject with Breda, certain that her sister would mock, but her conscience troubled her. She had to try.

‘Breda, don’t you worry about saying things like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘You know, planning your family.’

Breda stared at Betty. She couldn’t understand her sister. All that carnage of war, all those people mutilated and killed, and she still believed in God and was terrified to do what the priests said was wrong. How the hell would they know anyway? she thought.

Aloud she said, ‘Don’t tell me you believe it’s a sin, or I’ll fall about laughing.’

Betty was silent.

‘You do, don’t you?’ Breda cried. ‘How can it be anyone else’s business how many children people have?’

Betty didn’t know. She was hazy over the reasons why the Church was against birth control; she just knew they were. The hooter went before she could think of an answer. Break was over and it was back to work for the rest of the shift, her thoughts whirling in her head.

She was on the capping machine and so was working on her own, with no opportunity to talk to Breda, or anyone else either. It was as they walked home together that Breda suddenly said:

‘What did your Bert say when you told him?’

‘I haven’t told him,’ Betty said.

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve only just missed. I mean, it could all be a false alarm.’ But she knew it couldn’t be. This would be her fourth pregnancy, and the bodily changes, though minimal so far, were definite enough.

‘Is that the real reason?’

Betty hesitated, and then said, ‘Part of it. I want to keep it a secret a bit longer anyway. I mean, he’ll hardly be pleased. We have enough of a struggle to manage now, and there’s this business of our Janet wanting to sit the eleven-plus.’

Breda was impressed, but not totally surprised. ‘Mam mentioned something about it,’ she said. ‘Your Janet always was bright, though.’

‘The teacher thinks so too,’ Betty said. ‘And she thinks Janet has a good chance of getting through the exam, but …’

‘Bert’s not keen,’ Breda put in.

‘He doesn’t think it’s necessary,’ Betty said.

‘Course it isn’t necessary,’ Breda said sarcastically. ‘Not for him it’s not. As long as he has someone to cook his dinner, wash and iron his clothes, clean up after him, look after his kids and be ready to accommodate him in bed, he’s happy. He goes to work, and on Friday he tips up the amount of money he thinks you should manage on, and if you can’t it’s your fault. The rest is his, to spend at the club, or betting on a horse, or going to football, or any other bloody thing he likes.’

‘He’s not like that,’ Betty protested. ‘He’s a good man, he cares for us.’

‘He is like that,’ Breda replied, ‘but it’s not his fault. It’s been that way for years. Your Bert’s not used to any other way, and he’s better than many. But do you think Janet will be happy with a life like that?’

Betty knew she wouldn’t be. Breda didn’t need an answer; Betty’s silence spoke for her.

‘You needn’t wait for men to change things and fight for an independent life for women. It’s women have got to do it for each other, or condemn our daughters to looking no further than the kitchen sink and having a baby every year.’

‘It’s down to me, then, to fight for our Janet?’ Betty said.

‘Too right,’ Breda replied. ‘But don’t waste your ammunition. Don’t fire till you see the whites of his eyes.’

‘You are a fool, Breda,’ Betty said, but even in the dark, Breda could tell she’d made her sister smile, and she was glad. She was sorry Betty was pregnant again. She really had enough to do now. The birth of the twins had really dragged her down. She’d not been the same since. She should have put her foot down long ago, as Breda had done with Peter.

Peter hadn’t believed his luck when Breda agreed to marry him after the war. He’d adored her before he went, but she’d kept him at a distance and he hadn’t even felt able to ask her to write to him. On the rare occasions he was home on leave, Breda always seemed involved with another man. But when he was demobbed, he came home to find her still single. He couldn’t understand why no one had snapped her up. She even seemed pleased to see him, and told him how glad she was he’d survived the war.

In Peter’s opinion, she was the most stunning-looking woman for miles, with her mane of auburn curls cascading down her back and her flashing green eyes. When she insisted that he tip his wages up every Friday and they’d work out a budget for everything – personal pocket money for each of them and a bit saved – it seemed sensible. When Linda was born and Breda said that one was enough, Peter agreed that since she’d carried the baby and given birth to it, and had the major job of bringing it up, it had to be her decision. He wasn’t keen on taking precautions himself, but was quite prepared for Breda to go and get something. He also appreciated the fact that she left his dinner ready, just to heat over a pan, when he came home from work. First, though, he fetched Linda from the neighbour who looked after her for them, and put her to bed. He always had the tea mashed and a snack meal in the making for Breda when she got in. He said it was only fair.

Breda knew that Betty had a different life, because she’d seen Bert’s chauvinistic attitudes. He was typical; it was Peter who was different. Breda knew it would be the next generation of women who could change things for the majority.

‘When are you going to tell Bert then?’ she asked Betty.

‘I’m trying to keep it till the exams are over,’ Betty said.

‘When’s that?’

‘The first is in November, the second in early February.’

‘You’ll never keep it till then,’ Breda said. ‘Not February you won’t. Christ, Betty, you swelled up like a bleeding elephant last time.’

‘I was having twins then,’ Betty reminded her sister. ‘You’d hardly remember how I was with the other two.’

‘Maybe it’s twins again,’ Breda said cheerfully.

‘Don’t. I’d go mad if I had two more like Conner and Noel,’ Betty said. ‘I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they have me run off my feet.’

‘Don’t tell me, it’s bad enough with one.’

‘Anyway,’ Betty said, ‘if I can get Bert to change his mind about the first exam, before he knows about the baby and the additional expense that’ll mean, it’ll be something. If she passes, she automatically goes through, and if she fails, well, that’s that, isn’t it?’

‘She won’t fail,’ Breda said. ‘I know she won’t. I’ve got faith in that girl.’

Betty kept that in mind as she faced Bert. She was unaware of her daughter trembling on the stairs; unaware that her words sent a shiver of icy fear down Janet’s spine.

‘I went to see our Janet’s teacher today,’ Betty said. ‘That Miss Wentworth.’

‘Oh, aye.’ Fuddled by beer, Bert wasn’t even on his guard.

‘Thinks our Janet has a good chance of getting this eleven-plus.’

Bert pulled himself up in the chair. ‘You told her, though,’ he said, ‘you told her we don’t want her taking no exams?’

‘No,’ Betty said, ‘I didn’t say that, because it wouldn’t have been true. I said you weren’t keen but that I was agreeable if that’s what Janet wanted.’

Bert was astounded. His wife had never gone against him before. ‘You said that,’ he said indignantly, ‘after I made myself clear the other evening?’

‘Yes, yes, I did.’

‘Am I not master in my own house now?’

‘This is about Janet and her life, not yours.’

‘I’m her father,’ Bert thundered. ‘I say what goes in this family.’

His mellowness and good humour, restored at the pub, had left him. His wife and daughter ganging up on him. He wouldn’t stand for it.

‘How long has this been going on?’ he demanded.

‘How long has what been going on?’

‘This conniving between you.’

‘Oh, Bert, don’t be stupid.’

‘Oh, it’s stupid I am now?’

‘Look, Bert, I’m sick of this,’ Betty said. On the stairs Janet sat hugging her knees, rocking slightly as sobs shook her body. Her parents didn’t hear her; they were too busy shouting at one another.

‘We’re talking about giving our daughter a choice in her life,’ Betty cried. ‘Why are you going on as if it’s a bloody crime?’

‘I’m not.’

‘You bloody well are. Duncan had the choice, why not Janet?’

‘Duncan was different.’

‘Why, because he made a choice you approved of?’ Betty asked. ‘Or is it more than that?’

‘And what do you mean by that remark?’

‘Are you cross because your daughter has the chance Duncan didn’t have the ability to take up, even if he’d wanted to? Do you think daughters are of no account and anything will do to occupy them until they marry and become a slave to some man?’

There was some truth in Betty’s accusations, and Bert was quite ashamed of his feelings put into words like that, but he wasn’t going to admit it.

‘That isn’t what I think,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it, Bert Travers?’ Betty said quietly, and it was Bert who looked away first.

‘Let her try, Bert,’ Betty pleaded. ‘The first exam is in November. Miss Wentworth says that even with her being bright she’ll need extra coaching. If she doesn’t get in, that will be the end of it. We’ll know by Christmas.’

Bert still didn’t speak, but Betty knew him well enough to know he was wavering. She went on while he was in this muddle of indecision. ‘The factory is probably the right place for our Duncan, he’ll likely be happier there than at school at any rate, but our Janet is not Duncan. You’ll have to give her this opportunity to do something better, or … or she might hold it against us for the rest of her life.’

Bert looked at his wife, but he wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing his daughter before he’d left that evening, resenting his intrusion into her life. Was that because she imagined him to be the stumbling block in her wish to go to the grammar school? And if he stood alongside his principles and refused to let her take the exam, would she get over it eventually, or would she always hate him?

He wouldn’t, couldn’t take that chance. He sighed. ‘All right,’ he said slowly, as if the words were being pulled out of him. ‘Let her take the bloody exam and we’ll see how clever she is.’

Janet allowed a long, shuddering sigh to escape from her body. She felt as if she’d been holding her breath for hours. No one heard her creep back to bed, although her limbs were so stiff with cold she stumbled a few times before she reached her bedroom.

No one heard because Betty and Bert were entwined with one another. ‘You won’t be sorry, Bert,’ Betty said. ‘You’ll see.’

‘You could reward me for being the understanding sort tonight if you’d have a mind,’ Bert said with an ogling leer.

And Betty smiled as she said, ‘Maybe.’

After all, she said to herself later that night, it’s a bit bloody late to make a stand now.

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