The Staircase Girls Read online

  ‘OK, Nance,’ Bet rose from her chair, ‘you stick with the stew and we’ll clean upstairs, get their rooms ready for them.’

  An hour later three tiny figures stood in the door cut from the double gates, staring inside. Iris, Tony and Derek Lashmar from Poplar had no suitcases or bags. The oversized clothes that they wore were the ones they had arrived in weeks previously. Grace ushered them in. ‘It’s alright, they won’t bite,’ she snapped.

  ‘Come on,’ Ann beckoned to them. ‘We’ve got some gooseberries we picked yesterday, and I’m going to make us a crumble later, but you can have some now.’

  She held out a large bowl of gooseberries and the children walked towards her smiling. They took as many as they could fit into their tiny hands and munched happily. Hearing their mother’s voice, Bet, Rene and Derek came down the staircase furthest from the kitchen and trundled across to the new arrivals, who shrank back against the table and put all the gooseberries they had left into their mouths.

  ‘Coo blimey, you wouldn’t find me stuffing that much in me mouth,’ Derek pointed at the Lashmars, ‘or any at all, I only like gooseberries in crumbles!’

  It took less than five minutes for Derek to have Tony and Del (‘You can be Derek,’ the evacuee told the older boy, ‘I’m Del’) running around the staircases shooting at each other. Iris sat at the kitchen table watching Ann making the crumble. This will work, she thought to herself.

  The following morning, though, Grace came blowing into Ann and Bet’s room and shouted at her eldest daughter, ‘Just bloody marvellous! Those gooseberries you fed the little ones have given them the runs.’

  Although there was plenty of room at the house of brushes, it was never cosy or even really comfortable, and so when one day Jack shouted to the family scattered around the ground floor, ‘We’re going to move house!’ there was a general feeling of happy expectation. In recent weeks the kids had heard their parents and Uncle Bill talking about how he and Edie were about to move from their Histon Road house to Albert Street, and that the Pilchers were taking over their old place. ‘It’s a lot smaller than Brush House, but we’ll manage,’ Jack had told Grace, forcing an air of optimism. He was too aware that the seven children would be crammed into a three-bedroom house. Plus, in a few months’ time, another Pilcher would be joining them.

  Ann didn’t know what to feel when she overheard Grace telling Aunty Edie that she was pregnant. Ann was sitting quietly reading a book under the kitchen table when her mum and sister came in through the back door. ‘I thought that you had gone through the change,’ said Edie.

  ‘So did I,’ her mum had replied, ‘I’m forty-three and too old for another one. I jump out of my skin every time I hear a bang or even thunder. I’m a nervous wreck and can’t bear the idea of a baby screaming all night.’

  Edie’s voice was sympathetic. ‘Oh Grace, you’ll manage, you always do,’ she told her. ‘Me and Bill will help as much as we can. He’s sorted it with the council for you to have our place, so that’s a new start. There’s been no bombs dropping over our way.’

  Ann almost stopped breathing, not daring to make a sound in case her mum noticed her and told her off. Grace changed the subject anyway, and she and Edie soon moved into another part of the house, allowing Ann to breathe out and think about there being another baby in the family. She hoped that it would be alright, and promised herself to take extra special care of it. No matter what her mum said, she wouldn’t let her give this new little sister or brother away.

  On the Saturday after the council had agreed for them to take over the tenancy, Jack, with Rene and Derek and the evacuee children, began decorating the Histon Road house. But as they tore down the old wallpaper, bugs ran all over the walls, floors and ceilings. ‘Disgusting!’ Rene shouted. Jack shooed the children out and the whole house had to be fumigated before they could decorate, let alone move in. However, a few weeks later they were back and stripping paper in rooms that smelled like a hospital due to the distemper. It didn’t take long to clean up, paper and paint the three bedrooms, front room, living room and kitchen, and soon enough the younger children were settling in.

  Ann tried not to think about the impending arrival of a new Pilcher, but Grace’s stomach grew, her moods worsened and she constantly referred to the ‘terrible burden’ she was carrying, which made it impossible to ignore. Grace’s morning sickness became all-day and often night sickness, and she grumbled, moaned and snapped at everyone in the family over the first six months of living on Histon Road.

  The baby was due in less than a month when Grace, standing at the sink, gave a loud cry, grabbed the stone sink and doubled over. Gasping, she shouted as loudly as she could, ‘Get someone, Nance! The baby’s coming.’

  Rene, who was still at the table, jumped from her seat as Derek sat, frozen and staring at his mum reaching backwards for something to steady herself against. After pushing a chair towards Grace, Rene ran up the stairs shouting, ‘Nance, Nance, Nance, the baby!’

  Ann ran to the corner of the next street and the telephone box, covered in posters asking if she really had to make this call and to remember that loose talk costs lives. ‘Blimey,’ she thought, trying to get her penny into the slot, ‘you’d think making a public phone call was an offence.’

  Less than an hour later the ambulance arrived, but as they were about to carry Grace into it on the stretcher, the driver said, ‘Sounds like she’s too far gone. She’s going to have to stay here I’m afraid. We won’t get her there in time.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Derek asked Ann.

  ‘It’s OK, Mum’s going to have the baby here,’ interrupted Mrs Sumpton, a neighbour who had taken charge of the front room, where Grace lay in labour. ‘We’ll let you come and see her later, but for now go back upstairs,’ she told the younger Pilchers and the evacuees, and ordered Nance and Bet to get some hot towels.

  ‘Where’s the black bag, Nance?’ Rene asked from halfway up the stairs, as the older Pilchers carried the baby bathtub laden with hot towels through to the front room.

  Ann said, ‘It’s in there with Mum, now off you go and look after Derek.’

  Standing by with the towels, Ann turned to Bet and said, ‘Something’s not right.’

  Bet looked worried. ‘You mean about us using the best room? Mum said it was only for best and this ain’t “best”, is it?’

  Ann shook her head. ‘No, I mean with the baby.’ Grace was moaning louder and for longer each time when she was told to ‘breathe’ and ‘push’ by the ambulance man and Mrs Sumpton. Ann and Bet could barely watch, fascinated by what was happening but repelled at the same time.

  When the baby’s head crowned, Bet had to sit down and hold a fresh towel in front of her face, peeking at the bloody scene in front of her when she dared. As the baby emerged, Bet buried her face in the towel. Ann continued to watch, and was horror-struck by the sight. Something was certainly wrong, the baby’s head looked the wrong shape and it wasn’t making much noise.

  Outside the room, Derek and Rene sat on the stairs, listening through the bannisters as their mum screamed. After a couple of minutes of silence, Mrs Sumpton left the front room briefly to fetch some clean rags, and they saw their mum laying on the floor with the good rug underneath her, crying. At her feet was a tiny little baby, looking as if its brain was oozing out of its head. Ann stared, transfixed, until one of the ambulance man said, ‘We’ll get them to the hospital now. They’ll be fine.’ But it was clear, even to the children, from his tone of voice that all was not fine, and from what she had seen, it certainly didn’t look fine.

  Jack had been working late at the gasworks that night when Uncle Bill came to take him to Mill Road hospital, where he stayed until well past midnight. When he got home he found a large piece of paper with the words, ‘Mum at hospital with baby’ on the table. Ann had scribbled it down before she went to bed, unaware that he had already been told. Jack sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, and wept silently.

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sp; The next morning, the children found Jack cleaning the front room. ‘I need all of you to meet me in the kitchen with pencils and paper.’ They quietly obeyed their father, and within a couple of minutes were all sitting at the kitchen table, looking at him. Jack held his shoulders back and announced proudly, ‘We’ve called him Johnny. He’s a strong fella and handsome like me and you, Derek.’ He paused for what seemed hours before continuing. ‘But he’s got something wrong with his brain . . . some of it’s missing, there’s like a hole in the front of his skull. I’ve got it writ down what they called it.’ He took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Ann. The word ‘Encephalocele’ was typed on it.

  Answering the querying looks, he told them, ‘They’re going to take him down to London to Great Ormond Street for more tests and treatments. They’re going to have to operate. Your mum will have to go with him.’

  The strain of telling them became too much for Jack, who rested his head slowly on his arms folded in front of him on the table, and began to cry in huge, racking sobs.

  The children didn’t know what to do, they had never seen him cry before, he was always happy and laughing. No matter what the situation, they knew they could always rely on their dad to be positive. ‘We have to pull together,’ Ann said to her sisters and brother, who all nodded, stood, and gathered round their dad to hug him.

  Johnny was taken to London before the rest of the family could properly meet him. Grace had asked Jack to bring her a bag of clothes for the trip to Great Ormond Street, but said not to let the children visit. The operation involved doctors attempting to ease his brain tissue inside his skull, draining fluid and hoping that as little damage had been done to his neural functions as possible. Grace and the newest member of the Pilcher family were gone for two weeks, and when they returned it was not a joyous occasion.

  Grace and Johnny got to their house in the middle of the afternoon when everyone was out, at work or school. She greeted Bet and Ann as they returned from work, holding Johnny in her arms, seated at the kitchen table. ‘He’s probably going to be severely brain damaged,’ Grace said matter-of-factly. ‘And he’s deaf and completely blind, not the same as Joy.’ As if to soften the shock, she added the only positive that the doctors had been able to find. ‘But look, his skull has been closed up. They’ve had to fit a plate so they could repair the area.’ Grace turned the tiny infant so that they could see the stitches in his battered-looking and grotesquely swollen head.

  Ann was filled with pity for the child, but she was seriously concerned about her mum, who looked more worn-out and weaker than she’d ever seen her. Ann reached out and took the baby from their mum’s arms and handed him to Bet. Then she turned back to Grace and put her arms around her, gently putting her mother’s head onto her shoulder. ‘It’s going to be alright, Mum,’ she comforted her, even though she knew that it wouldn’t be, ever, for Johnny.

  While the children loved having a little baby in the house, after Joy they were prepared for the inevitable. It wasn’t long before Grace announced that Johnny would be joining Joy at the Sunshine Home, ‘in a few months’. Before then it fell to Bet and Ann to take it in turns to look after him during the night, and their ten-year-old sister Rene to look after him during the day when she returned from school. It was a job that Rene relished.

  ‘You can’t help but love him, can you?’ she would say to the others whenever she was sure that she was out of earshot of her mum. Rocking Johnny gently, she’d add, ‘He’s beautiful.’

  Ann found it heartbreaking to watch the bond form between Rene and Johnny, and tried to tell her not to get too fond of her little brother. But Ann didn’t know how to put into words the sense of loss and emptiness that she’d felt when Joy had been taken away, and which had been doubled when leaving her behind on the single, solitary visit she’d made with her mum and dad. Grace must have noticed how Rene was becoming so fond of Johnny, because when the day came for him to be taken to East Sussex, she ensured that Rene was out. No one knew the actual date of Johnny’s departure, which turned out to be the day that Rene had to take Derek to Mrs Sumpton’s house.

  When she got home, Rene was hot, tired and hungry – and immediately disturbed to discover the house cold and empty. Grace had told her that Aunty Edie was coming to help her with Johnny that day, so why was no one about?

  When Ann and Bet returned home a couple of hours later, Ann immediately realized what had happened, and had to break the awful news to Rene, who ran to her room, slammed the door and stayed there, even when Jack and Grace got back and tried to talk to her about how happy Johnny was to meet Joy.

  Rene cried all night.

  Sisters Ann, Bet and Rene, together with the evacuee Iris, shared a bedroom in Histon Road, with the older girls sleeping in the same bed. They were as close as they’d ever been, but working at the brush factory had shown Bet how much she needed to look after her older sister – Ann’s bad hearing on her right side meant that Bet had to keep both an eye and ear out for her in case any of the lorries came along on that side while her back was turned. Ann had also given money to a few of the women who’d begged off her, giving some sob story or other about needing it for their children. Bet knew what a soft touch her sister was, so she had to be harder-hearted for her.

  Not that they worked there for too long after the move, because Grace found them better paid jobs at the Star Brewery on Newmarket Road. The girls didn’t like that much, either, but had little choice other than to take it. There was a terrible stench from the fermentation section, and they were asked to shovel spent grains out of the brewery all day. It was hard, physical work that a woman wouldn’t do if there hadn’t been a war on.

  ‘Can we take a few bottles home to our dad?’ Bet asked Walter Locker, the foreman, on their first day.

  ‘No you bloody can’t,’ he half-joked. ‘Cheeky blighter. It’s alright for you to taste a few brews, mind, but you’re not to take any out!’ The girls found shovelling thirsty work, and when they learned that they had to do the same thing every day, Bet soon got to like the taste.

  A couple of weeks into the new job, Ann noticed some crates of beers stacked up high that had the coat of arms of one the colleges stamped on them. She figured that they must be waiting for collection or delivery, and went into a daydream about her future husband being served the beer with the other fellows and dons at what Uncle Jake had called high table. They would be talking about politics and important issues, she daydreamed.

  But before the first course was finished, she was brought back to the real world by Bet shouting at her, ‘Here, old Locker said we can try some of the new brew! Come and have a tipple and a smoke with me, Nance!’

  Sitting in the yard with her sister, Ann used her firmest voice, and sounded as if she was talking to a child as she told Bet, ‘I don’t really like beer, Bet, and I am never going to try smoking again no matter how much you try and persuade me. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘Give over, Nance, it’s lovely,’ Bet said, lighting up another one. ‘Look at me, see how sophisticated I am,’ she said, swigging the beer and taking a long drag on her Rothmans cigarette. She started to cough.

  ‘Mum won’t like you spending money on them.’

  ‘I’ll buy Woodbines then, they’re a lot cheaper,’ Bet stuck her tongue out at her sister. ‘She’s got to let me have some luxury for Pete’s sake. I can’t wait to get out of there, Nance. Hey, let’s go dancing this weekend. We can go to the Beaconsfield! Please say you’ll come.’

  Ann hesitated. She didn’t like going to the dances, it cost a shilling to get in and a tuppence for the cloakroom, and she was trying to save for her future. Ann had opened a National Savings account as soon as she started working at the brush factory and put away all the money she had left over after she had given her mum her keep.

  She also found it too difficult to hear anyone who talked to her in the ballroom, what with the band playing and the chatter going on all around her. Ann was embarrassed abo
ut her dancing, too, because ever since her operations her balance and co-ordination had been affected. She offered a different excuse, though. ‘I don’t want to spend hours ironing my hair,’ she told Bet, ‘and I haven’t got nothing to wear any more. Those damn moths have eaten all my clothes.’

  Bet countered with, ‘Nance, listen, don’t worry, if you keep your new jacket on you’ll look lovely.’

  Ann had been given a stylish bolero jacket by her Aunt Win for her birthday, and felt like royalty when she put it on. She had to agree that it was the perfect opportunity to wear it.

  Bet knew she wouldn’t be able to go without Ann as her chaperone. ‘You can only go if our Nance goes with you,’ Jack told her every time she asked. ‘You’re not old enough really, Bet.’ Neither girl wanted to upset Jack, and so when they had gone out the first half-dozen times, they made sure that they were home before his bedtime. But still he would walk towards the dance halls a full five minutes before they were due home, in order to meet them. Every time they burst out of the dance hall they’d see him standing there, hands in his pockets with the same phrase ready, ‘Better not have danced with any Yanks, you two!’

  Although there were a fair number of Americans in Cambridge by the end of 1943, neither Bet nor Ann had spoken to any, let alone danced with them: their mum and dad were forever warning them about the ‘Yanks’ and their wicked ways with women. ‘Nice girls don’t date Yanks!’ Grace was forever yelling as they left the house for an evening out. And anyway, Bet, who loved dancing, had taken a liking to a cheeky local boy nicknamed Barrel who was no slouch on the dance floor. They first met when he was on leave from the navy and planned to meet this weekend when, Ann knew, they’d spend the whole of their evening together jiving and doing the foxtrot.

  The chance to show off her jacket was too tempting, and Ann liked seeing everyone dressed up and dancing, even if she didn’t like joining in herself, so she said yes, even though she was unconvinced about what else to wear that night.