‘Any other man would put that useless slut out on the street and her brats with her. Think yourself lucky that I let you stay, and that idiot brother of yours,’ Pa had sneered when Nancy protested at his behaviour the previous night.
‘Terry isn’t an idiot.’ Nancy defended her brother fiercely. ‘He might be a bit odd sometimes, but he can’t help that …’
Pa leaned in close so that she caught the stink of beer on his breath. ‘You listen to me, and listen good, girl. Breathe a word of what goes on to anyone outside this house and I’ll have him put away somewhere he’ll never see the light of day again.’
His threats terrified Nancy, because she knew he didn’t care for any of them, not even his wife. She glanced across the kitchen to where her mother sat nursing a bottle of beer, clutching it to her as if it was her very existence, her lifeless hair hanging about her face in greasy strands and her eyes dead as they stared into nothingness. She’d been like this since the night of that terrible raid when the Blitz was at its height during December 1940 – the night they’d lost all their family and friends.
Nancy shivered as she recalled how they’d hurried through the dark streets, the sound of the sirens already loud, fleeing for the shelter. The drone of the planes heading up the river was terrifyingly near. Ma was carrying Terry, who was not yet four, and Nancy was running to keep up with her, Bear clutched to her chest and a bag with a flask and sandwiches over her shoulder.
‘Hurry up, Nance. If they start droppin’ them bloody bombs we’ll be caught like rats in a trap.’
Nancy had run and run until her chest hurt, hurtling into the shelter after all the other frightened people, and almost tumbling down the last of the steep stone steps. She and Ma had huddled together as the raid went on for what seemed like hours, Terry whimpering and grizzling, even though she’d remembered to bring Bear, the much-loved teddy that had once been hers. She’d given him a drop of sweet tea in his bottle and he’d quietened, holding his chubby arms out to her.
‘Nance cuddle,’ he’d said, and she’d taken him in her arms, crooning a nursery rhyme softly against his ear as she waited for the all clear.
It had been morning before they were finally allowed to go home … and when they did everything had changed. The sound of fire engines and ambulances screaming through the streets assaulted their ears, and the sky was red, flames still shooting skyward. When they approached their home, where two rows of terraced houses had stood facing each other across a narrow lane, only one row still remained intact. All the others had been damaged in some way or other, and the three opposite that had housed Gran and Grandda, Auntie Freda and Uncle Jim and their two young sons, and Auntie Molly were gone, nothing left but a pile of rubble. Smoke was still drifting from the blackened heap into the sky, though the firemen had put out the flames.
Ma had run at one of the men pulling at bits of wood and bricks in a fruitless attempt to discover anyone under the rubble, hitting at him in her terror, her eyes wild with fear and grief.
‘Where are they? Where did they take them? I begged them to come to the shelter but they wouldn’t listen …’
He shook his head sadly. ‘If they were in the house when the bomb dropped they’ve had it, love. No one could survive under this lot. They took a couple of direct hits – the bloody Boche bastards! Why can’t they drop ’em on the Docks or the factories and leave the poor bloody people alone for a while?’
Ma had staggered away, her face ashen. She stood staring at the piles of rubble that had housed her parents, her sister’s family and her best friend, Molly, as if she couldn’t take it in. Feeling cold and wanting her breakfast, Nancy pulled at her mother’s arm.
‘Come away in, Ma. If they find them they will tell us …’
‘Get in yourself and look after your brother …’ Ma said furiously. ‘Leave me be, can’t you?’
Nancy had never known her mother like this before. She’d always been cheerful, out in the street as soon as her chores were done, chatting to her friends with her hair in wire curlers and a headscarf. Now she looked like a wild creature, blonde hair flying in the breeze, her children forgotten as she mourned all those she’d lost. It was to be the first of many changes.
‘Ma, hadn’t you better get the tea on?’ Nancy said now, trying to rouse her mother from her brown study. It didn’t do to dwell on the past, even though she missed her gran and her aunts, particularly Aunt Molly, who hadn’t truly been an aunt. If Molly Briggs had been alive Nancy could have talked to her about what was happening. She would have given Ma a good shake and told her to pull herself together.
‘You’ve still got your children and a home, Sheila Johnson, so think yerself lucky!’ Nancy could hear Molly’s voice challenging her mother but it was only in her head, because Molly had died in the rubble of her home.
Ma was still sitting there, just nursing what was probably an empty beer bottle. Nancy took the wet sheets out to the yard at the back and threw them over the line. She just hoped her father wouldn’t notice when he came back for his tea.
When Nancy got back to the kitchen she discovered that Terry was home from school, or wherever he’d been – more likely down the Docks, helping out with casual jobs. He’d cut a doorstep of bread himself and was getting dripping all over his chin and down his jacket, which was second-hand off the market but the best Nancy could get for the money her mother gave her from her meagre housekeeping.
‘Ma!’ Nancy shook her shoulder. ‘You need to get Pa’s supper on or he’ll be angry when he gets back. I’ve got all this ironing to do and the bedrooms need a turn-out.’
Ma lifted hopeless eyes to hers. ‘You can do the bedrooms tomorrow, Nance. Get your pa’s tea like a good girl. The chops are in the pantry and there’s some cabbage and cold taties you can fry together. I don’t feel well … I think I’ll go up and lie down.’
‘I’ve got lots to do tomorrow,’ Nancy said as her mother left the room but Ma didn’t answer.
What about me? Nancy wanted to shout and scream after her. Every day she had to look after her brother, get the shopping, go to school and clean the house and her mother did nothing but sit around all day in a daze. Pa would be furious if the house looked dirty or if his tea wasn’t to his liking, and the thought of her father in a temper made Nancy shake with fear. Terry would get a thrashing, and Ma would get a black eye … and she would be made to suffer his hateful touch again and again. Even the thought of it made her want to vomit.
It had started when Pa came back from the war with a wound to his leg that left him with a limp and in a permanent state of anger. Before that he’d been a bit rough sometimes, but he had never hit any of them that Nancy could recall. When he returned and found the way Ma had changed he started to lose his temper with her and then with Terry. He’d not taken much notice of Nancy at first, but then, when she was nearly eleven, just a couple of days before her birthday, he’d entered her bedroom and found her standing there with nothing on in front of the mirror.
Nancy had wanted to see if she had breasts yet. Her friend Janice was only three months older and she’d started to have breasts, but Nancy could see only a slight rounding and she was staring at herself in disappointment when Pa walked in.
‘What are you doing, girl?’
‘I was just going to have a wash.’ Nancy grabbed a towel and covered herself, not liking the way Pa was staring at her. ‘Go away and let me get dressed, Pa.’
‘No need for silliness, girlie,’ he said, a little smile curving