be better coming from you.’
Anger still stemmed her grief and, unable to bear the sight of his face, Emma left the room, slamming the door behind her as she went down to the middle landing. For a moment she paused outside Alice’s door, her temper diminishing as she wondered how to tell her brothers and sisters. Somehow she had to hold herself together for their sakes. Taking a great gulp of air, Emma went inside.
‘Has the baby been borned?’ asked Bella. ‘Is it a girl, Emma? I hope it’s a girl.’
‘What’s up, Em?’ Luke asked, eyes perceptive as he studied her face. Luke the quiet one, the intelligent one, so sensitive that their mother always said he was like a cuckoo in her nest. At that thought, a sob arose that Emma was unable to stifle and, holding her hand across her mouth, she looked wildly across the room at Alice.
‘Shall I tell them, love?’ the woman asked gently.
For a moment Emma was tempted, but then Luke was by her side, his soft eyes now wide with fear. ‘I knew when Alice came to fetch Dick that something was wrong. What is it? Is Mum all right?’
Emma could only shake her head, but Luke immediately realised the implications, his face blanching. ‘Why didn’t I see this coming?’
Unable to answer, Emma’s eyes flicked around the room at the others all looking at her worriedly. God, how was she supposed to tell them? How could she break the awful news that both their mother and the baby brother had died? Only little Archie seemed oblivious, absorbed as he gnawed on a crust of bread.
Emma crossed the room and, sitting down, she pulled James onto her lap, beckoning the others to her side. With her eyes heavenward for a moment she prayed for inspiration, but her mind remained blank.
‘Why is Luke crying?’ Susan asked.
Emma looked at Susan, poor plain Susan, who always seemed to have a runny nose and caked eyes. She was the sickly one, lacking the resilience of her siblings, and, like all of them, as thin as a rake. Susan’s bony knees showed beneath a threadbare skirt as she moved closer. Taking her hand, Emma struggled to answer her question. ‘Luke’s crying because…because…’ It was no good, the words wouldn’t come, and once again Emma’s eyes flew to Alice.
With a small, sad shake of her head, Alice took a deep breath. ‘Listen, pets, I’m afraid your mother and the new baby have gone to heaven. They’re with the angels now.’
Susan was the first to speak, her voice high. ‘You mean…you mean our mum’s dead?’
‘Yes, love, I’m afraid so,’ Alice said.
A loud cry pierced the air and, as all eyes went to Bella, Alice quickly drew the child into her arms. Susan too began to cry, and it was Luke who comforted her, whilst Emma struggled to answer Ann’s questions.
‘What does she mean, Em? What’s dead?’
‘Mummy was ill and she didn’t get better.’
‘What? Like Mrs Dunston’s dog?’
The Dunstons lived on the ground floor, the only ones to have use of a small garden at the back of the house. ‘Yes, love, that’s right.’
‘They buried him in the garden. Is that what they’ll do with our mum? I don’t want them to do that to our mum,’ she cried, tears filling her eyes.
‘They won’t, darling.’
James suddenly squirmed on her lap, and looking at everyone with obvious bewilderment, he too began to cry. ‘Want my mummy. Want Mummy.’
It was too much for Emma, her tears spurting as she pulled James close. For several minutes they remained like that, clutching each other and crying, none of them aware that little Archie was sobbing too, obviously affected by their grief.
The door opened. Dick came into the room and immediately swept the toddler up into his arms. ‘It’s all right, Archie. It’s all right,’ he consoled.
Many minutes passed, but at last their tears subsided.
They were still clinging to each other, until Alice gently pushed Bella away, patting her head as she said, ‘I’m sorry, pet, but I’d best go back upstairs. You lot stay here for a while, and if you’re hungry there’s more bread and a pot of jam in the larder.’
Food, Emma thought, feeling sick at the thought, but then James squirmed in her lap again.
‘Want jam,’ he said.
Emma wiped his snotty nose before standing up to place him in her seat. She then went to the larder, but as she cut several slices of bread, her eyes alighted on a newspaper lying on the table. Just below the banner she saw the date, 7 December 1948, and knew it would be etched on her mind for ever. It was the day their mother had died, their cornerstone was gone, their lives changed. What was going to happen to them now? The thought forced its way to the front of her mind. The task of looking after her brothers and sisters would fall to her now.
Oh Mum, how am I going to cope?
On a balmy Sunday morning in June, Alice Moon sat quietly across from her husband, the words she had rehearsed sticking in her throat. Would he agree? God, she hoped so. They had a strong marriage, and she was thankful every day that Cyril had been demobbed in 1945 without a scratch to show for the years of fighting.
Oh, it had been awful without him, and many times she had feared for her own life as bombs rained down on London. Like Myra, she had refused to leave, but felt the children should have been evacuated. Instead, when Myra moved into the attic, Alice had spent night after night helping her to get the kids up when the warning sirens pierced the air, all of them half asleep as they hurried to the nearest shelter. It sometimes felt like a miracle that they’d all survived when so many houses and factories in the area had been flattened. Alice shuddered at the memories, glad they hadn’t ever had to shelter in an underground station, as many people had during the raids. In Balham it had been dreadful, and she was still haunted by what happened in 1940. A high-explosive bomb hit Balham High Road, penetrating the booking hall at the underground station. It had ruptured a large water main, along with the sewer, causing water, mud and gravel to pour down the stairs onto the platform, where about five hundred people were sheltering. Her friend Doreen Broker had been killed, along with sixty-four other poor souls.
Who’d have thought the war would last so long? Cyril had only been on home leave twice in six years. It had been the same for Tom Chambers, but Myra had been lucky, Tom leaving her pregnant on both occasions.
Tears welled in her eyes. Lucky! How could she think that? The poor woman was dead now, and those kids left without a mother. Surreptitiously wiping her eyes on the corner of her apron, she took a deep breath, hoping against hope that she could do something for at least two of them. ‘Cyril.’
He looked up from his newspaper, expression impatient. Cyril’s time on the Sunday morning crossword was sacrosanct and she’d disrupted his concentration. ‘What?’
Now that she had his attention, Alice was determined to plough on. ‘I’m worried about poor Emma.’
