do know, that I love travel, and the idea of travel, and you might work it out if you knew, as you do know, that we only have tomorrow at our disposal, but—”
“I’m lost,” I said. “Put me out of my misery.”
“I enjoyed the play this evening, very much, but I know Stratford all too well. Since you ask, I’d like to spend tomorrow in Birmingham.”
I was a bit flummoxed. I was very flummoxed. Who ever heard of anyone wanting to go to Birmingham as a tourist? But Sam explained: “I’ve never been, we can do it easily in a day without exhausting Will, it’s a big city, with hundreds of small firms, many helping the war effort, and it’s industrial. I’ve been living in rural peace and seclusion since before the war started and I want to see the grime and the soot, the overcrowding and the slums, the endless factory buildings and the acres of concrete without any trees, and the forest of chimneys spewing black smoke. That’s what’s fighting this war for us. In some ways, it’s as foreign as the Orinoco.”
So I agreed. We finished our coffees, went upstairs, and, since it was so late, I walked Blanche back to her lodgings. When I returned to the Crown and knocked on the door to Sam and Will’s room, she appeared in her nightdress. It was very thin.
She held her finger to her lips. “Will’s asleep.” Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed me lightly on the mouth. “What a lovely night, Hal. I love it how I can talk to you, about anything. Even … you know.”
I left it there, and turned in.
The Birmingham trip was a surprise, for me at least, and far more interesting than I could have imagined. We couldn’t do too much because we had Will with us, and since neither of us knew the city, I negotiated with a taxi driver at Snow Hill station for him to drive us around for half a day. He thought it was pretty odd that we didn’t want to go to any of the great hotels, or the theater district, or the cathedral, or the museum, or any of the better neighborhoods, but sought out Wilmot and Breedon’s wire factory in Balsall Heath and the British Small Arms depot in Aston. But, once he realized we weren’t joking, he entered into the spirit of things. And, like a true taxi driver, he certainly knew his own city.
We began at the inland port just off the Bristol Road, where several canals conjoined in a large basin and where there could be found several ship’s chandlers, selling everything from carved tillers, to brass propellers, to ropes of all lengths and thicknesses, to waterproof paint, to paraffin lamps. Will loved all the strange shapes and colors and smells.
We visited metal foundries in Longbridge, paint factories in Neachells, panel beaters in Acocks Green, the new RAF factory in Castle Bromwich, Saltley Dock, the James Motorcycle works in Harborne, the Waterloo coach works in Selly Oak, and the psychiatric hospital in Rubery.
We got back to Snow Hill station around midafternoon and found we had to wait about an hour for a train to Stratford, where we would make our connection for Middle Hill. It was going to be a long day, especially for Will, who was already fast asleep.
There was a barrel-vaulted roof over the station, made of fancy wrought iron and glass, and next to the main platform a restaurant with a chrome contraption that made tea. There were soldiers everywhere. We bought our teas and found a table. Sam stirred sugar into her cup and put her other hand on mine. “What do you think? Do you see now why I wanted to come?”
“I can see that it’s prosperous—despite the slums and the grime. That it’s full of life, activity, full of things, many of them new things. I would never call it beautiful and I wouldn’t want to live here.”
She squeezed my hand. “Someone has to live here. Someone has to make the things we live by, fight by.”
“I know that, Sam. What’s your point?”
She sipped her tea. “I’m one of four sisters. One is in the theater, one is a gardener, I’m a schoolteacher—only Ruth is involved with the war. Is that right? Seeing everyone here, making guns, ammunition, boots, wire and screws and paint that go into weapons—is teaching enough, close enough, involved enough?”
“You sound like my sister. Is that why you wanted to