Anyway, they finally left and before they went, one of them said to me, ‘Wherever your traitorous, lily-livered son is, tell him to stay there if he knows what’s good for him.’ You needn’t worry for a minute that I would tell a soul where you are. Your parents have asked and your sisters and Dermot have hardly stopped begging for your address or some clue where you’ve gone, but I never said a word, nor won’t I either for it wouldn’t be safe…

  ‘We can’t go home until this madness is over,’ Danny said.

  ‘That’s like saying when the war’s over,’ Rosie said. ‘And that’s limped along for three years and shows no sign of stopping.’

  ‘America will be in soon, you’ll see, then there’ll be a turning point.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Well, no country can stand its ships being sunk and its people drowned when they haven’t even begun hostilities,’ Danny said.

  Rosie hoped Danny was right and that America’s intervention would bring a speedy end to the war, that had and still was claiming so many young lives. She was beginning to dread the sight of the telegraph boy, knowing soon another family would be in mourning for a husband, brother, son, favoured uncle, for every soldier belonged to someone.

  But another worry was pressing on Rosie, and that was the lack of money if they had to stay in Birmingham for any length of time. They could pay for their keep for just one more week when she asked to speak to the Reverend Mother.

  ‘What is it, my dear?’ Mother Magdalene asked gently, knowing there had been something on Rosie’s mind for a day or two.

  ‘It’s money, Mother Magdalene.’ The words burst from Rosie’s lips. ‘We haven’t savings enough to keep us longer than next week.’

  The Reverend Mother bit her lip. She longed to tell Rosie she could stay and was welcome for as long as she liked, but she had many demands on her purse and anyway she knew a little of Rosie now and knew she wouldn’t accept what she considered charity. ‘What do you intend to do, Rosie?’ she asked.

  ‘One of us must work, Mother Magdalene,’ she said. ‘Danny is unable to gain employment, so I think it’s down to me.’

  ‘He won’t like that.’

  ‘He’ll like going hungry even less,’ Rosie replied sharply. ‘And I’ll not do that to our child. I’ve seen enough of them half-starved around here to last me a lifetime.’ The favour I must ask of you concerns Bernadette,’ Rosie said. ‘Could she have a place in your nursery?’

  ‘Well, it is essentially for mothers working for the war effort,’ Mother Magdalene said. ‘What line of work would you be looking for?’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Rosie said. ‘I don’t mind what I do as long as it pays enough for us to live decently. I wondered if you knew anything of wages?’

  ‘I know a little,’ Reverend Mother said. ‘But Sister Ambrose would know more as she’s in charge of the nursery.’

  ‘War-related work pays the most,’ Sister Ambrose said later when Rosie asked her what she could expect to earn. ‘Dunlop’s pays well. The factory is almost all moved up the Tyburn Road now, right out in the countryside, but they keep a factory in Rocky Lane, Aston.’

  She didn’t tell Rosie the smell of carbon and rubber constantly emanating from the two women working at the factory who had children at the nursery would nearly choke you when they came to pick them up. Nor did she tell her of the carbon dust engrained in their hands and faces and even their hair; that it was little better in the mornings they’d told her they would go each Sunday to the baths in Victoria Road to have a good soak: it was the only time they could get really clean.

  ‘Then there’s the ammunitions works at Kynoch’s in Witton that pays well,’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘There’s quite a few go there and there’s a tram. I could ask someone to speak for you.’

  Rosie thought about the women she’d seen about with yellow faces, who were called the Canary Girls as one of the shopkeepers told her. The discolouring was caused by the sulphur in munitions work. ‘Is there nothing else?’

  ‘Aye,’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘There’s shop work and work at HP and Ansells and numerous other factories, not to mention work in the Jewellery Quarter, but they won’t pay nearly as much.’

  ‘Right,’ Rosie said, her decision made. ‘As I don’t fancy Dunlop’s, Kynoch’s it will have to be. That’s where Rita Shaw works, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Ambrose said, ‘she does, and a decent and respectable woman she is. Her husband Harry is overseas and she has little Georgie to provide for. We’ve looked after the child for well over a year now, and she has a house in Aston, which isn’t so far away. How well do you know her?’

  ‘Not that well,’ Rosie said. ‘We’ve just exchanged a few words now and then. But I’m sure she’d put a word in if I asked her.’

  ‘No doubt of it.’

  ‘Well I shan’t say anything just yet,’ Rosie said. ‘I must talk Danny round first.’

  ‘Rosie.’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but most of the married women have men overseas. Have you thought what you’d do if you found you were expecting?’

  Rosie shook her head. Whether it was depression through not having a job, or the proximity of the nuns, Danny had not once touched her intimately, never mind going further than that, since they arrived in Birmingham and this was another reason why she was anxious for them to get their own place.

  ‘I wouldn’t find myself expecting at the moment,’ she told Sister Ambrose. ‘There is no question of it just now.’

  Their eyes held for a moment and Sister Ambrose understood how it was. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You best talk to your man.’

  The man in question shouted and roared. He forbade Rosie to go to such a place. He said she was deliberately shaming him.

  Rosie let Danny’s anger and scorn wash over her. She refused to be upset, whatever he said, for she knew that her taking a job could be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Danny. His rage was against the unfairness of life.

  For two days he was out from dawn to dusk, tramping the streets, asking every factory he passed if they had work. The answer was always the same. His despondency turned to despair and the second day he faced Rosie across their room. ‘How much money have we left?’

  ‘Five shillings,’ Rosie said. ‘And I must give that to the nuns this week for our keep. After that, there isn’t a penny.’

  Danny sighed and Rosie felt sorry for him. He gazed down at Bernadette asleep in her cot, her thumb in her mouth, and said dejectedly, ‘I’m a failure to you, Rosie. The promises that I’d make it all up to you, I have broken.’

  ‘You’re no failure in my eyes, Danny.’

  ‘I know what I know,’ Danny said bitterly. ‘But, for Bernadette’s sake, I can sit on my pride no longer. Do whatever the hell you like.’

  The next morning Rosie collared Rita. She’d liked her from the first, sensing in the no-nonsense Rita a person like herself. Rita’s face was yellow and there was a coppery tinge to the long brown hair she wore coiled up but her dark brown eyes were full of life and determination, despite the fact they were often red-rimmed. Rita knew little of Danny and Rosie didn’t mention him now. She just said she needed a job and did she think there would be a vacancy at the place she worked.

  ‘I’ll ask for you,’ Rita said. ‘But I’d say you have a good chance of being set on, they’re always wanting people. I’ll ask them today and when I come to fetch Georgie tonight, I’ll give you the answer. All right?’

  It was more than all right and when Rita came that night and told Rosie that she was to go up the next day and see a Mr Witchell, who was boss of the place, Rosie could hardly contain her delight.

  Next morning, Rosie went through what she had to say to the boss of the munitions works in the short tram journey, for she’d decided a modicum of the truth was needed. So she told him that they’d left Ireland, for it wasn’t a safe place to be at the moment, and that she’d been ill so they’d come to the convent as one of the nuns was an aunt of hers. ‘Danny, my husband, had hoped to get work of some sort,’ she said, ‘but so far he’s been unsuccessful.’

  ‘So you decided to take up a job instead,’ Mr Witchell said. ‘How did he take to that?’

  Rosie, remembering Danny’s rage at her suggestion, said, ‘Not very well at first, but he came round in the end.’

  ‘So he’s not likely to come storming up here lambasting everyone and drag you home by the hair?’ Mr Witchell asked with a twinkle in his eye, and the mental picture was so alien to anything Danny would do that Rosie smiled properly and felt her nerves flutter away. ‘No,’ she answered, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And have you done any work like this before?’ Mr Witchell said and shook his head. ‘I’m supposed to ask that question, but, to be honest, few people have experience making guns and bullets.’

  ‘I haven’t either, sir,’ Rosie said. ‘But I’m willing to learn.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, and I’m willing to try you out,’ Mr Witchell said. ‘You can start next Monday morning at seven-thirty sharp. Wages start at two pounds and ten shillings. So how does that suit?’

  ‘It suits very well, sir,’ Rosie said, and she ran her right hand surreptitiously down the side of her dress before she shook hands for it was clammy with sweat. Two pounds and ten shillings was a good wage for anyone and a fortune for a woman. It would secure their future for the time being at least. As she left the office she had the urge to skip along the road like a lunatic, but somehow managed to control it.

  She was up bright and early the following Monday morning and waiting for Rita at the door of the nursery. ‘Your wee daughter is gorgeous,’ Rita said as the pair scurried up Hunter’s Road. ‘She’s like an angel and her smile would melt a heart of stone.’

  ‘And she knows it,’ Rosie said. ‘The nuns would have her ruined altogether if I allowed it.’

  Rita laughed. ‘I can well believe it. She’s the sort of child you’d love to spoil.’

  Before Rosie was able to reply they’d turned from Hunter’s Road into Lozells Road and saw the tram lumbering towards the stop and had to put a spurt on in order to catch it.

  Once on the tram, Rosie was anxious to talk about the job, because her stomach had being doing somersaults all night at the thought of it.

  ‘The supervisor on our section is Miss Morris,’ Rita told Rosie. ‘She’s a decent sort on the whole, as long as you don’t take advantage like. She can’t abide that. You have to wear these bloody awful, dark green overalls, nearly down to the floor they are, and a hat that every vestige of hair has to be tucked under. Mind, you’ll be glad of them, for the yellow dust swirls about in the air and gets everywhere.’

  ‘Don’t you mind about your face turning a yellow colour?’

  ‘I care more about paying the rent, putting food on the table so me and Georgie can eat decently and I can dress him in respectable clothes and put a bit of money in the Post Office for when my Harry comes back,’ Rita stated emphatically. ‘That’s all I care about.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘I agree with you. That’s all most of us want.’

  ‘Come on,’ Rita said suddenly, ‘the next stop’s ours. I’ll take you in to Miss Morris and she’ll sort you out.’

  They went in through the huge metal gates and down a side alley to a squat brick building, and once inside, Rita pointed out the clock where a queue of girls waited. ‘You’ll be given a card today,’ she said, ‘and the first thing you do is punch it in there. If you’re late they dock your pay, and if you’re persistently late they take off an hour for every minute or sack you altogether, so be careful.’

  Suddenly Miss Morris was in front of them and she shepherded Rosie along with the others to don the uniform, which was just as hideous as Rita had described.

  She hadn’t been exaggerating about the dust either, for it did seem to get everywhere, and the stink of it went up Rosie’s nose and to the back of her throat as soon as she entered the factory floor, making her cough. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Miss Morris said. ‘I was the same at first – sometimes my eyes would itch and burn, but they’re all right now.’

  Rosie wiped her own streaming eyes and looked around and thought it must be the most unwelcoming place in the world. She was suddenly very nervous. What did she know about making things for a war? What if she made a mess of it? She might last no longer than a day. And then what would you live on, she told herself sharply – fresh air? – and surely all the women had to start somewhere.

  She mentally straightened her shoulders and told herself firmly to stop being so stupid. She gazed around the long room. It was very dimly lit except at the tables where the girls sat, where a naked bulb sent a pool of light over everything. ‘You’ll be making detonators,’ Miss Morris said. ‘I’m setting you up beside Betty, who’ll soon put you right over this and that.’

  ‘I will too,’ Betty said, moving her chair over to make more space and smiling at Rosie. ‘Come on up beside me and I’ll show you what’s what.’

  Betty was much older than her and Rita and her yellow face was so lined that Rosie could see the dust settling in the folds of her skin by the end of each day. Her grey eyes were kindly, though, and the little tufts of hair that Rosie could see at the sides were grey. Altogether, Betty was plump and comfortable looking and Rosie was glad she was the one to show her what to do. She knew if she didn’t pick it up straight away, Betty wasn’t the sort to lose patience with her. Some of her nervousness melted away and she smiled back at the older woman.

  She found out all about Betty Martins that day. ‘I’ve been a widow more years than I care to remember,’ she told Rosie, ‘I’m a Brummie, though, through and through, and proud of it. I live in the same courtyard as Rita in Aston.’

  ‘My two sons had itchy feet and both sailed to America years ago when my Alf was still alive. They’ve lived there ever since and send money home regular. They’ve been on at me for years to go over there, but Brum is where I’ll live until I go out in a box and I’ve told them straight. This is home to me.’

  Betty’s steady chatter and store of jokes helped the day pass more quickly, though by the time the last hooter sounded and Rita and Rosie were walking to the tram stop, Rosie confessed to feeling very tired. She told Rita about Danny and his fruitless search for work. ‘So I’ll not mention being tired to him,’ she went on, ‘or he might nag at me to give it up. One of us must work and if he can’t find employment and I can, then I must be the one. He doesn’t see it quite that way, of course.’

  ‘Pride, see,’ Rita said. ‘Terrible thing, a man’s pride. Still, at least you got yours to go home to. My hubby’s “somewhere in France”.’

  Rosie sighed. ‘I know. Danny has been having a hard time because he’s not in khaki.’ She lowered her voice and went on, ‘Someone even sent him a white feather.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Aye, it’s a fact.’ Rosie said. ‘If you’ve lost someone, then…Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’d feel the same.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ Rita stated firmly. ‘I mean, I worry about my old man every minute of the bleeding day, but I don’t think I’d feel any better if some other bugger was dragged into it as well.’

  Rosie was glad Rita felt that way, but Rita didn’t ask why Danny wasn’t in uniform and Rosie didn’t enlighten her, for Rita had presumed that he’d been proved unfit at the medical.

  Danny saw the tiredness etched on Rosie’s face when she got in that night. He saw she tried to hide it and it hurt him down to the pit of his stomach that Rosie was forced to go out to work. But he said nothing about it. What was there to say?

  Bernadette at least had enjoyed her day at the nursery. Her shining eyes said it all, though she was tired when Rosie picked her up and had no qualms that night at least about going to bed. Danny asked Rosie little about her day and the job she did, but the nuns were full of questions.

  Rosie answered them all despite her weariness and then said, ‘We can start looking around now for a place of our own. You’ve been more than kind, but I know you didn’t intend to put us up for so long.’

  ‘There was no time limit specified,’ one of the nuns pointed out, and Rosie knew that, but also knew the convent hadn’t facilities to put people up for long periods of time. She would also feel better with her own place, her own front door to shut. It might make it better for Danny too. She was well aware how he hated his jobless state paraded before the nuns daily, and the attitude of the people at the chapel hardly raised his self-esteem in any shape or form.

  She felt emotionally and physically drained, and soon after the meal she made her excuses and went to bed. She stirred when Danny slid in beside her some hours later, but made no sign of being awake.

  Perversely, as Danny’s even breathing filled the room, she lay beside him wide awake. Tears of tiredness and disappointment smarted behind her eyes and she brushed them away angrily, for she knew the time for tears was well past.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Walshes were to discover that finding a place to live was not easy, and four weeks after Rosie began at Kynock’s, by the end of June, they were still at the convent.

  Rosie was finding the work tedious and unpleasant, the conditions bad and some of the women coarse, both in language and behaviour, but she liked the money. She was able to put some of it away in the Post Office as Rita advised and she knew she’d need every penny when they did eventually get a place of their own.

  She got on well with Rita, whom she travelled to and from the convent with each day, and Betty too. It was Betty who told her of the old woman called Gertie who lived down her yard. ‘Poor old sod,’ Betty said. ‘Won’t be with us long, I’m thinking. She has no family, so the neighbours see to her in the day, like, but it’s the night-time. She could do with someone with her, but with an old codger like that you got to be careful, ain’t you. I mean, anyone that moves in has got to be honest and respectable, so I thought of you. It will be a start, like, and then, when Gertie does pop her clogs, the house will be yours. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, or so folks say.’