was the Maimed Soldier Fund, Wednesday was Trench Comfort Packets and Thursdays she alternated French Orphans with Plows for Serbia. The Blue Cross Association were anxious to capture her for their Suffering Horses and Disabled Army Dogs Committee, but Ma counseled against taking on any more.
‘You will prostrate yourself, Zillah,’ she said, ‘and however deserving the cause, you may be sure it’s not worth paying for it with your health. Besides, think of Israel. When a man comes home to an empty hearth every night …’
But Uncle Israel was busy, too, with his War Relief Clearing House and I believe he found, as I did, that my aunt was improved by war. It distracted her with practical problems and filled her address book with new acquaintances.
‘Mrs Elphick,’ she reported, ‘proposed that we add sewing machines to the list, and Mrs Bayliss seconded the proposal.’
Ma played with the fringed edge of the tablecloth and yawned.
‘And then Miss Landau suggested …’ Miss Landau now featured prominently in Aunt Fish’s conversation.
‘Such a genuine person,’ Aunt Fish would prattle. ‘Quite tireless, and so generous with her time. And helping to raise her nephews, too, since her sister was so cruelly taken. They were Philadelphia Landaus, I believe, and her sister was married to Jacoby the furrier. Only thirty-five when …’ Here Aunt Fish would lower her voice. ‘… it was an obstruction of the internal parts, and she might have been saved if only she had given in sooner to the pain.’
‘Yes,’ Ma would reply, ‘I believe you told me a dozen times already. Fatigue must be making you forgetful.’
It was the tireless and genuine Miss Landau who lured Aunt Fish through the door of something called the B’nai Brith Sisterhood, and soon afterwards, onto its war relief committee.
‘Don’t look at me that way, Dora,’ Aunt Fish said.
‘I begin to wonder,’ Ma said, ‘why you troubled arguing with Israel about names, if you’re now willing to associate so freely with racial factions.’
Uncle Israel had refused to become a Fairbanks, but my aunt had had her cards changed anyway. Harry had given her a special price.
I said, ‘Is B’nai Brith German then?’
Aunt Fish laughed. ‘No, Poppy,’ she said. ‘It’s just a silly old name.’
With Reilly dispatched to look after Sherman Ulysses every day between the hours of ten and three, Ma had taken upon herself responsibility for preparing luncheon. This led to a series of mishaps with knives, hot pans, gravy browning and corn starch and to a consequent shortage of anything edible between breakfast and dinner. I was hungry, all the time, and I had sore elbows caused, Ma decided, by immoderate knitting.
I said, ‘Perhaps now I could do something else for the war?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you could. You have really applied yourself most commendably to socks, so I believe you have earned a change.’
I was so buoyed by the prospect of being sent to France at last, to patrol my wards by lamplight, and adjust the pillows for dashing lieutenants, that I stole two slices of cake and allowed myself to be caught with the second piece jammed sideways in my mouth. Ma had in her hand the official Red Cross list of required items.
‘Hot-water bottle covers,’ she said. ‘I dare say they are quite easy to make. Or warming wristlets. And Poppy, you might bear in mind that like charity, the war effort begins at home. Reilly is with us so little now we have given her to Honey, and cake doesn’t grow on trees.’
But Reilly and Sherman Ulysses’ reign of mutual torture was almost at an end. In September Sherman announced, ‘Shernum kicked fat Yiley, ha ha’, and Reilly announced she was going to New Jersey to make hand grenades and not to bother keeping her position open.
Ma replied stiffly that she hadn’t intended to, and then went to lie down with a vinegar compress, while Reilly packed up her few poor things.
I felt something in me change. A page turned, or a cloud passed. I couldn’t quite say. But sitting alone in the parlor, waiting to hear Reilly’s footsteps on the back stairs, everything seemed to be shifting and stirring, and I liked it. I heard her door close and then the thunk of her valise on the stairs.
I stationed myself in the stairhall and smoothed down my skirt. She paused a moment when she saw me blocking her way, but then she came on down and took the hand I offered her.
I said, ‘I wish you well, Reilly. I’m proud to think you’ll be doing such important work.’
‘You get board and lodging,’ she said. ‘And a day off every week. And it’s only a bus ride into Atlantic City.’
I suppose she thought I might ask her to change her mind.
She said, ‘I can’t stay cooking for two and nursemaiding a child that’s never been corrected. There’s a war on.’
We shook hands.
I said, ‘I shall soon be doing war work myself.’
I had no idea where those words sprang from. Perhaps it was the thought of knitting wristlets.
As soon as Reilly was gone, I put on my cloth jacket and took the elevated railway all the way to Exchange Place. Uncle Israel was most surprised to see me, but not a bad kind of surprised.
‘Someone give you a bang on the head, Pops?’
Uncle Israel always deemed himself something of a humorist.
I said, ‘It’s a turban. I designed it myself. Uncle, I want to do some proper war work.’
I explained that our Irish had gone fruit-picking and Reilly was on her way to a munitions town and everyone in the world seemed to have something to do except me.
‘I guess you heard about your cousin Addie?’ he said. ‘I guess that’s what’s brought this on?’
I always loved my Uncle Israel but that day even he seemed condescending. I couldn’t endure any more. I banged my fist on his desk and he jumped a mile in the air.
‘Nothing has brought it on,’ I shouted, ‘except a war. A great big war where everyone else is doing good works and having fun but I’m not allowed. I’m a grown-up but I’m still obliged to stay home with Ma. It’s not fair!’
Simeon the secretary put his head round the door, ready to eject me I dare say or bring in a glass of restorative brandy, or place his skinny body between Uncle Israel and any physical danger. Uncle waved him away.
He was quiet for a moment, weighing up, I suppose, where his loyalties lay. I gave him a little help. I said, ‘Even Aunt Fish is doing a hundred different things so I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt for me to make myself useful.’
‘Pops,’ he said. ‘If you want to do your bit you won’t find me standing in your way. Not at all. Your Pa would have been proud.’
I said, ‘That’s what Ma said about the socks. But I’m through with knitting.’
‘Quite right,’ he said, ‘quite
