Lights Out Liverpool (46 page)

The warnings continued throughout the following week. At Dunnings, because the siren couldn’t be heard above the noise of the machinery, a klaxon had been fitted, a blaring foghorn, which was a signal for the workers to make their immediate way down to the damp, miserable basement that served as a shelter.

A rumour spread like wildfire throughout the entire country that Hitler intended to invade on 2 July, and every time Alfie or Miss Thomas appeared in the workshop the women jumped, expecting the worst.

Like millions of people everywhere, Eileen couldn’t
sleep
that night. She lay, clutching her son, praying that the church bells wouldn’t ring to signal the invasion had begun. The night was almost over by the time she dozed off, and she was still asleep when the postman delivered two letters; one from Nick, the other from Francis.

Tony, up first, found the letters on the mat and brought them to her in bed. She was glad when he disappeared, anxious to go to the lavatory, so she could read them alone.

With shaking hands, she opened the one from Francis first. It was brief and to the point. He agreed to a divorce on the grounds described by her father and would like the matter to be over and done with as soon as possible, ‘
so that I can get on with my own life
’.

Eileen sank back onto the pillow, exhilarated. Tomorrow, she would go and see the solicitor and get the proceedings under way. She was wondering what she would wear when she and Nick were married, when she remembered he’d written and opened the letter eagerly.

She blushed as she read his tender words. He missed her more than he’d ever thought possible.
You never gave me a memento. Send me something, a handkerchief sprayed with that perfume you use, which I can keep under my pillow, and a photograph, definitely a photograph, and one of Tony, too
. He’d spent only a day or so near Ipswich and was now at a base in Kent where he was being trained to fly Spitfires. Spitfires, she read, somewhat incredulously, were ‘beautiful’, almost as beautiful as she was herself, and he was a little bit in love with them. He demanded a letter ‘by return’.

As soon as Tony had left for school, Eileen rushed around to Veronica’s, because there wasn’t time to go to the Co-op, and bought a new hanky with an ‘E’
embroidered
in the corner, and soaked it liberally with the Chanel perfume which Jess had given her for Christmas. She hunted for the snap of her and Tony taken in New Brighton last summer, and finished off the long letter she’d been writing daily since Nick left. After commenting on his own letter, she added a triumphant postcript. ‘I’ve heard from Francis and he’s agreed to a divorce!’

On her way to work, she called on Sheila to tell her the news. ‘Will you come to the wedding, Sis?’

‘Of course I will! what makes you think I wouldn’t?’ Sheila looked wretched. For the first time, she was having trouble in the early stages of pregnancy; cramps and stomach ache. She wasn’t eating properly either, and instead of blooming, as she usually did, she’d lost weight and her normally rosy cheeks were drawn and waxen.

‘Well, it won’t be in a church, will it? It’ll be a registry office wedding,’ Eileen explained. She regarded Sheila worriedly.

‘You’re me sister, and I’ll come no matter where it is.’

‘It means I won’t be married in the eyes of God!’

‘Who knows what God sees,’ Sheila said enigmatically, adding anxiously, ‘You’ll keep going to church, though, won’t you, Eil?’

‘As long as they’ll let me. I’ll still be a Catholic, no matter where I get married. No-one can take me religion off me.’

‘That’s good.’ Sheila managed a tired smile.

‘Anyway, Sis, I’d better be off now, else I’ll miss the bus. Pass the news on to our dad if he calls round later. I reckon he’ll be pleased, though hell’d freeze over before he’d admit it.’

As she waited for the bus, Eileen felt guilty at leaving her
sister
. Although the neighbours helped out, it wasn’t the same as family. Perhaps it was time she left Dunnings and stayed at home to see Sheila through the next six months. And it wasn’t just Sheila she was worried about. Every time the siren went at work and they were whisked down to the basement, she thought about Tony. What if there was a proper raid? He’d want his mam, not Annie. Even worse, what if the unspeakable happened and he was killed?

She imagined arriving home after a raid, safe and sound and all in one piece, and finding Pearl Street flattened and her son dead. It didn’t bear thinking about!

On the other hand, if she left, what would she do for money? She hadn’t collected Francis’s wages from the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board since she’d begun to earn a wage herself, and under the circumstances she couldn’t very well start now! The allowance she got off the Army wasn’t nearly enough to live on, and you never know, it might be cancelled once the divorce got under way.

In fact, for all intents and purposes, she was virtually a single woman, with a son to support and a house to keep up. In other words, there was no way she could leave Dunnings. It was another aspect of the war; the worry, the agonising worry of being separated from your loved ones, whether it be a few miles or a few hundred miles and she’d just have to stop moaning, if only to herself, and put up with it!

As for Sheila, perhaps on Saturday they could all go to Melling and spend the day at Nick’s house. A day in the country might be just what she needed.

So far, the summer had been as splendid as the winter had been bleak. Day after never-ending day, the sun shone down relentlessly out of a clear blue sky with an inevitability people began to take for granted.

It was scorching again on Saturday when Eileen took her sister and the children to Melling for the day. Annie, whose sons had gone back the day before, came with them.

The children ran wild once they were released in Nick’s big, untidy garden, as if they felt liberated without the confining walls of Pearl Street. They kicked balls, picked what flowers they could find, made daisy chains and did cartwheels on the rough grass. Mary, the baby, sat watching, waving her arms and crowing in delight.

At noon, they picnicked on the lawn where, by now, the grass had become dry and prickly with the heat. Each woman had made an entire loaf of sandwiches to bring, and Annie had baked one of her famous bunloaves.

‘It’s lovely here,’ said Sheila, who’d been put firmly in a deckchair and ordered not to move all day. ‘And it all belongs to Nick?’

‘It’s where we’re going to live,’ Eileen said shyly. ‘You can come every weekend if you like.’

‘You won’t be able to keep me away,’ Sheila warned. ‘Least, not in the summer. That sun’s a real tonic. It seems bigger than at home and I feel better already. The horrible pain has disappeared from me gut.’

Siobhan came running up with a crown of daisies for her mam. Not to be outdone, Tony brought Eileen an overblown rose, which she threaded through the buttonhole of her blouse.

‘Take Annie a rose, too,’ she whispered, ‘so’s she won’t feel left out – and mind you don’t prick your fingers!’

‘Who wants more tea?’ Annie shouted from the kitchen. ‘Make the most of it while you can, tea’s going on rations on Monday.’

‘We both do,’ Eileen shouted back, then added to Sheila, ‘I don’t know how they expect us to win the war on two ounces of tea a week!’

‘I wouldn’t care if I never drank another cup,’ Sheila said. ‘Not when the Merchant Navy have to risk their lives to fetch it.’

‘I never thought about it that way before!’ The toll of lives lost at sea had reached an all-time high in June.

‘People don’t,’ Sheila said dryly. ‘If it weren’t for the likes of Cal, the country’d starve to death.’

‘Does he know you haven’t been so well, luv?’

‘Of course not! I only write him cheerful letters, else he’d worry. He’ll be home next weekend, and if today’s anything to go by, I’ll be completely better by then. I feel on top of the world at the moment.’

Annie brought the tea in three cracked cups, the rose tucked behind her ear. With her dark hair and bright red blouse, the yellow flower gave her an exotic look.

‘Your Nick doesn’t possess a decent piece of crockery,’ she said scathingly, ‘and his knives and forks need to be seen to be believed. I’ll give them a good clean before I go.’ Annie had vowed not to mope, but keep a cheerful face on things. She hadn’t stopped working since she arrived.

‘I don’t think he ate much except butties,’ Eileen explained. ‘I used to let him have me butter ration.’

They all agreed that men were hopeless without women.

‘On the other hand,’ Annie said thoughtfully, ‘women are hopeless without men – men or kids. Women have got to have someone to look after. That’s what I miss most, doing me lads’ washing and cooking for them. I feel as if I’m a waste of time altogether, having only meself to take care off.’

‘Annie! What a terrible thing to say,’ cried Eileen. ‘What would we do without you?’

Annie decided to prove her usefulness there and then by offering to fetch a jug of lemonade from the pub. ‘We should have brought some with us. The kids looked a bit put out when we only gave them water, and I wouldn’t mind a glass meself. I’m parched.’

Eileen walked with her to the gate. ‘I’d come with you, but I don’t like to leave our Sheila on her own in case the kids get out of hand. The pub’s only just down the lane and around the corner.’

Annie departed in the shimmering haze, carrying a big earthenware jug in the crook of her arm and with the yellow flower still in her hair, and Eileen returned to the garden.

‘Look!’ Sheila cried in delight. ‘Our Mary’s crawling!’

Unable to stand the sight of her brothers and sisters having such a good time without her, the nine-month-old baby, wearing only a white cotton bonnet, was making her way towards them on all fours. The children stopped playing and watched the little figure approaching purposefully and Niall kicked the ball gently in her direction. Mary sat up and clutched the ball and tried to throw it back. Although it landed only
inches
away, the children applauded.

‘My, she’s clever,’ marvelled Eileen.

‘Isn’t she?’ Sheila was close to tears. ‘Jaysus, I love my kids, Eil.’

‘I know you do, luv.’ Eileen felt as if she could cry herself, the sight of Mary making her first independent way in the world had been really touching. ‘Nick and I are going to have lots of babies.’

‘Does Nick know?’

‘Not yet,’ Eileen said fiercely. ‘We’ve got to get through all this haven’t we, before we can decide those sort of things? Me and Nick, you and Cal, Annie and her lads.’

‘I wonder if we will?’ Sheila said in a tight voice. ‘I never let meself think the worst, but sometimes, it doesn’t seem possible that every single person we know and love will still be alive when it all ends. After all, we’ve already lost Charlie Gregson and Mary Flaherty.’

As if to remind them that war wasn’t very far away, two planes seemed to appear out of nowhere and roared low over the house. The windows of the cottage shook.

The older boys watched intently as the planes zoomed out of sight. ‘Did you see them, Mam?’ Dominic shouted. ‘They were Spitfires.’

‘They were Hurricanes,’ Tony argued.

‘Spitfires!’

‘Hurricanes!’

The two boys flung themselves at each other and began to wrestle on the grass.

‘I’ll see to them.’ Eileen laid her hand on Sheila’s arm. ‘Is it any wonder there’s wars, eh? Perhaps it’s about time us women got a chance to run the world, then anybody who even mentioned the word “war” would be shot!’

Just then, a flushed and bright-eyed Annie came back,
accompanied
by a strange man carrying the earthenware jug.

‘This is Chris Parker,’ Annie announced in a funny, high-pitched voice. ‘The jug turned out to be a bit heavy and he offered to carry it for me. His lad’s in the Royal Warwickshires, the same as our Terry and Joe.’

‘Did he come through Dunkirk?’ Eileen asked as Chris shook hands.

‘He did that. Like Annie’s lads, he only went back yesterday, so’s I understand how she feels right now,’ Chris replied in a strong Lancashire accent. He was a comfortable-looking man of about forty-five with a pleasant, open face and thick wavy brown hair. He smiled as he shook hands with the women, showing even white teeth which contrasted sharply with his sunburnt skin.

‘Would you like some lemonade while you’re here, as a reward, like, for carrying it?’ Annie looked very girlish and coy.

‘I wouldn’t mind a glass, thanks very much.’

‘I don’t know about a glass,’ Annie said darkly. ‘It might have to be a cup, and a cracked one to boot. The house belongs to Eileen’s feller and the contents of his kitchen would make any decent housewife weep.’ With a swing of her narrow hips, she disappeared inside.

It was obvious Annie was rather taken with the visitor. In which case, Eileen had no intention of letting her bury herself in the kitchen. She insisted Chris take a deckchair. ‘Our Sheila will keep you amused, while I give Annie a hand.’ Having spied the arrival of the drink, the children were clamouring for their share.

Annie was rooting through the kitchen cupboards. ‘I’m looking for glasses.’

‘He’s a bit of all right, isn’t he?’ Eileen said. ‘What does he do?’

‘He’s not bad,’ Annie replied with a too obvious pretence at indifference. ‘He’s a fireman, and did you notice his teeth? They’re all his own.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I asked him, of course.’ Annie slammed the cupboard door and opened another. ‘Some of this stuff must have come out of the Ark.’

‘That’s not very romantic! Where’s his wife?’

‘I couldn’t very well ask him
that
, could I?’ Annie snorted. ‘Well, bugger me if your Nick hasn’t got a whole set of tankards in here.’

‘I dunno. It seems a bit less nosy than asking if he had false teeth.’ Eileen loved the way Annie kept saying, ‘your Nick’.

‘I’ll just give these a rinse and you can take him his drink.’ Annie began to run the glasses under the tap.

‘
I’m
not taking it! He’d prefer it from you, and you can ask him if he wears a wig at the same time.’