The Liverpool Basque (31 page)

With sorrow in his heart, Old Manuel tried to write something of the war for Lorilyn, to make her understand its personal impact, something separate from lists of battles. Just as Rosita used to do, he chewed his ballpoint pen, as he considered his healthy, lively granddaughter. She was not unlike her great-aunt Maria; she had the same dark colouring and vivacity, the same impatience with small obstacles in her life – dear Little Maria, who had had fifteen months of happy married life, before a direct hit in an air raid on Madeleine’s house, so near the target of the docks, had killed not only Madeleine herself, but also Vicente and Maria, who were expecting their first baby.

He put down his pen, in order to rub his aching arthritic fingers. Thoughts of his sisters made him feel so lonely that he wanted to weep. The loss of Maria had broken his mother’s heart, and Manuel himself had not been able to believe that someone so lively, so close to him, could possibly be dead. Francesca, too, had been stunned by it. She came down from Glasgow to comfort her mother; but wars were such that they took little note of personal grieving, and Francesca had had to return to her work, and leave Rosita and Ramon to comfort each other as best they could. That same night Manuel went back to sea – it was pure chance that he had been in dock on the night of the tragedy. There was no individual funeral because there was nothing much left to bury. A communal service was held for all the victims of the incident and the bits were buried in a communal grave.

The old man remembered all the fine women who had
filled his young life, Grandma Micaela, Rosita, Francesca and Maria, dear delicate Aunt Maria, Bridget Connolly, Peggy O’Brien, Effie Halloran, Madeleine Saitua and vague ghosts of his Bilbao cousins and his Echaniz grandmother.

With the weakness of great age, he let the tears run. Then, telling himself not to be an old fool, he took off his glasses and wiped them carefully. As he put them on again, he saw almost with shock, that he had not included Kathleen, his dear wife of many years, or Faith, who doggedly did her best for him even now, or Lorilyn, in whom he put his hopes for the future.

He sighed, as he leaned back in his swivel chair. He had loved, still loved, Kathleen, and Faith and Lorilyn, too. But they had understood little or nothing of the world from which he had come; they belonged in another place, nice, sanitized, wealthy … But often dull, he considered suddenly.

He went to have his afternoon nap. Before lying down, he stopped in the kitchen to get a glass of water and take one of his pills. It seemed to him that, lately, his damaged legs had ached a lot more than they used to, though ever since the day he had been carried into the hospital at Halifax, he had had to take an occasional pill to ease the pain. As he stood leaning against the kitchen counter, waiting for the pill to do its work, he told himself he was lucky; he could easily have had to have his legs amputated.

After his nap, he made a cup of coffee and took it to his desk. He would tell Lorilyn how he met her grandmother.

I was torpedoed off the coast of Nova Scotia, he wrote. It was the second time – the first time was near the coast of Northern Ireland; but we managed to get the lifeboats off, that night. This time, we weren’t so lucky and had to cling to a raft, with several men on it. The water was so cold, it was a miracle some of us survived – you probably
know how the icebergs drift down from the North Pole in the western Atlantic; their chill seems to permeate the water all year. Some convoys had a rescue boat, to pick up men like us, after the convoy had extricated itself from the submarine attack. Ours did not, and, of a necessity, the convoy – what was left of it – had to continue on its way to Liverpool; otherwise they might lose more ships, while searching for men in the water. The last ship in the convoy passed right by us.

By chance, Joey Connolly was an able seaman on the same ship, and he, too, was clinging to the raft. Because he was obviously weakening, two of the men tried to heave him on to it. He was far gone, however, and he slipped into the sea and we lost him, young Joey who never learned to cheat at marbles.

Some fishermen risked their own lives to rescue the three of us still alive when they spotted the raft. They took us into a Newfoundland outport. The few inhabitants opened their doors and came running; they took blankets from their beds to wrap round us. We were nearly smothered in oil, and the women washed our faces as best they could, and then spooned hastily heated canned soup into us, while we waited for transport to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It seemed like eternity, waiting for medical help.

A team of doctors and nurses was ready for us, when we did arrive, and we were stripped and washed and the damage assessed. Though the doctors had by that time had a fair amount of experience of resuscitating patients like us, one died.

Thinking about it, Manuel mentally doffed his beret to the Halifax doctors and nurses. Thanks to them, he still had a pair of legs.

In the night, when the sedation was wearing off, I must have made some sort of a noise, because the night nurse left her desk and came to my bedside. Fair, brisk and capable, she arranged pillows round me to ease the weight on
tender parts, and she sat a few minutes with me until I must have dozed off.

And that’s how I met Grandma Kathleen. I fell in love at first sight – not that I expected to live to do anything about it – I was sure I was a goner – I hurt everywhere!

He did not write that he had cried that night for Joey and for Auntie Bridget Connolly, whose heart would be broken when she got the news.

It was several months before he was passed as fit, plenty of time in which to woo his night nurse. It was with reluctance that he joined a British ship sailing from Halifax, in convoy, to Liverpool. As before, the convoy was attacked by German submarines. Two ships were lost, and one damaged, but he himself was lucky this time.

When he walked up the tree-lined street to his home, he found Uncle Leo sitting on the doorstep in the spring sunshine, reading the single sheet evening newspaper.

Manuel dropped the small suitcase given him in Halifax with a few clothing basics and some toiletries, and grasped his uncle’s hand. They hugged each other until every distressed muscle and joint in Manuel’s body began to ache all over again. Both of them had been under the same intolerable stress for months and months and did not need to say much to each other to understand. Leo had not actually lost a ship under him, but he had had a number of uncomfortable encounters with subs.

‘We’d no means of knowing when you’d dock. There’s never a word of shipping news in the paper. Come in, lad. I docked yesterday – real lucky to see you.’

As he took off his jacket, Manuel asked after the family and was assured that everyone was well, and that Arnador had left a telephone number with Rosita for him. ‘He’s gone to Manchester to be some sort of a back-room boy for the Government,’ Leo explained.

‘Any air raids?’

‘Oh, aye. But not much up this end – the north end’s taken a beating, though.’

After a long, Basque-speaking evening with the family, where he seemed to have held Rosita’s hand for hours to reassure her that he was, indeed, there and was well again, Manuel said he thought he should go out to Norris Green, the next day, to see Bridget and Pat Connolly about the loss of Joey.

‘Yes, you must go. She came to me when Maria and Vicente …’ Words failed her, and she clutched Manuel’s hand even harder. ‘She’s taking Joey’s death very hard. She’d love to see you.’

The next morning, with a heavy heart, he made the long tram journey out to Norris Green, and did his best in a hopeless situation.

That afternoon, Ramon played truant from school to be with Manuel. They went down to the Mercantile Marine office, where he had to arrange for a new discharge book, and to inquire for a ship to Halifax, sailing fairly soon. He was told that it would be some days before he got his new book, and the clerk promised to bear him in mind for a likely ship.

Afterwards, they walked along the landing stage to look at the river, crowded with shipping, and to catch up on their news.

Kathleen was constantly at the forefront of Manuel’s mind, and one problem in regard to her was troubling him; she was a Protestant and he was a Roman Catholic, a very serious matter in Liverpool.

After he had heard about Ramon’s prowess in the school football team and how many pieces of shrapnel had just missed hitting him during the air raids, he asked the boy, ‘Do the kids get at you for being Catholic or speaking Basque?’

Ramon laughed. ‘I never tell them – they don’t ask
anyway. If the class goes into church for something special, I go along. What does it matter?’

‘I’m glad for you. Do you think you’ll get a scholarship to the Institute? Mam said she thought it was possible.’

‘I dunno. I’ll try. Uncle Arnie says he’ll coach me when I’m old enough.’

That evening, Manuel asked Rosita what the feeling was about Catholics in the city. She thought it was an odd question, but she answered, ‘Well, for sure, you can get a job in a Prottie business now – and that wasn’t always easy. They’ll take anybody now. Remember when they used to ask what your religion was when you applied for a job? Well, not any more.’

She smiled up at him impishly, and added, ‘When the bombs are dropping on you, Catholic and Prottie alike, you just think to comfort each other – you don’t think, “Is she a good Catholic?”’

If anyone as devout as his mother could say that, Manuel decided, times were really changing. Perhaps there would no longer be bloody religious riots in Liverpool, as there had been before the war.

The whole family had a good laugh that evening, as Manuel collected every big copper penny that anybody had, so that he could telephone Arnador in Manchester and Francesca in Glasgow from the public telephone box at the end of the road.

Francesca was delighted to hear his voice, she said. She told him that, for once in her life, being trilingual was proving an asset. ‘When the nuns realized that Maria and I could both speak a little Spanish – because we’d heard it at home and in the Church, like you did – they pushed us to take it as a subject. And I thought it was such waste of time! But nobody’s interested in cosmetics at present, so it’s a lifesaver for me.’

She sounded happy, and said she was sharing a flat with a Scottish lady, who had been the governess to a rich Egyptian family and had learned good Egyptian Arabic. ‘She’s a wonderful old bird – and she works in the same building as I do. We have a good time together.’

Arnador sounded lonely in his Manchester flat. He did not say exactly what he was doing, but told Manuel that he worked long hours – and that it was just as well. He would be glad when he could go back to his own kind of work, and get a decent post.

It was not like Arnie to complain, so Manuel stayed on the phone until the very last penny had been expended and he had been cut off. It was then that he thought of writing to Arnie once a month without fail, to keep his spirits up.

Arnador responded with alacrity, and they kept up the habit for the rest of their lives. We put the world to rights – by mail, thought Old Manuel with a wicked grin. And we’re still doing it.

As he slit open Arnador’s latest epistle, he chuckled to himself. Before he went back to sea, he told his mother about Kathleen. ‘I’m going to ask her to marry me,’ he told her.

They were sitting on the cellar steps, while outside an air raid raged noisily, and Ramon snuffled softly in his bed beneath the stone steps. Leo had already sailed.

Rosita did not answer immediately. She was glad enough that the boy had found someone at last, but a sharp fear pierced her, and she asked, ‘Where will you live?’

‘Probably in Halifax,’ he replied. ‘It depends on her. I’ve been earning better since the war began – things are more expensive there – but they’ve got everything, Mam – not like us here.’

She nodded. She felt suddenly old. With Little Maria gone and Francesca in Glasgow and now Manuel, it seemed as if there would be no family any more. And for what else had she struggled and fought?

She made a tremendous effort, as, in the candlelight, Manuel turned to look at her. She patted his hand, and said, ‘She sounds a lovely girl, dear. I hope I shall be able to meet her.’

‘Of course you will, Mam. When the war’s over, you and Uncle Leo must come to stay with us. And probably I’ll be docking in Liverpool regularly – and be able to see you.’

But Kathleen had other ideas. They were married while the war still raged; and she continued to nurse. But once peace was declared, she persuaded Manuel to move to Montreal, where he could go back to college to study – this time, marine architecture – while she continued to work.

It was the autumn of 1953, when he was already in a good post as a marine architect, before Rosita was able to come to see them. In the years immediately after the war, half the world was trying to get home again, and reasonably priced passages were hard to obtain. It was a stroke of luck that Arnador managed a visit before she did. He had been to a conference in Chicago, and returned to Britain via Montreal.

Faith was six, Manuel remembered, preparing to begin school that September. He took a week off to be with his friend. To give Kathleen some relief from the child, they took her up to Mount Royal, and she played with the dog, while they lay in the summer sunshine and poured out their souls in Basque.

It was then that Arnador told him that he had always loved Francesca and that they were going to be married shortly. ‘Rosita seems very pleased,’ he said. ‘And my mother is delighted – she’s expecting a few Basque grandchildren. Neither Frannie nor I have the courage to tell her that we don’t want any children. Frannie wants to continue
with Pond’s – she loves her job – selling Hope, as she calls it, to plain women.

‘Neither of us is that young, anyway – I couldn’t ask her until I had a tenured position – something to offer her.’

‘I suspect she would have married you if you hadn’t got a bean. Frannie’s like that.’

‘Well, I can take care of her, now.’ He was sprawled on the grass, and he turned to face his friend. ‘It’ll be great being brothers-in-law!’

Manuel laughed. ‘For sure. We’re as good as brothers, anyway.’

After he sailed, Manuel missed him badly.

Kathleen looked forward to Rosita’s visit with no little trepidation. She could not visualize what Rosita would be like.

She kept Faith with her in the car, while Manuel went down to the dock to meet his mother, having thought mother and son might appreciate being together for a few minutes.

When Manuel saw Rosita coming down the gangway of the liner, he had been shocked. Dressed in dead black, she looked like a small dark wraith. She looked elegant, as always, but under her hat, her pageboy hairstyle was snow white, and she peered at him through plastic-rimmed spectacles, her face wizened like a walnut shell.

‘Mannie!’ she exclaimed softly, and he took her in his arms. For a moment she murmured endearments in his ear in tremulous Basque, and then she asked, ‘Where’s Kathleen – and little Faith?’

‘In the car,’ he said. ‘She was afraid of Faith getting knocked about in the rush to meet the boat.’

Though Rosita looked frail, she was very alert. When first meeting Kathleen she was kind but wary, concentrating on Faith, who, at first, clung to her mother; this
grandma was not at all like the brightly clad grandma who came on the train from Vancouver.

Once they reached their apartment and she had carefully hung up her best black coat and hat and had drunk a dreadfully weak cup of tea with no milk in it, Rosita looked around the living-room. She was generous in her praise, as if no one else in the world had managed to produce such a pretty child or so cleverly arranged such a nice apartment. She finally succeeded in persuading Faith on to her knee, and slowly produced a whole family of tiny golliwogs out of her skirt pocket. They were beautifully made and just the right size to inhabit Faith’s new doll’s house. From the very bottom of the pocket she drew out an old-fashioned paper poke of dolly mixtures and handed them to the child. Together they spread out the tiny coloured sweets on the coffee table to be admired and tasted.

At the sight of the little bag of sweets, Manuel’s throat contracted. He remembered two other little girls, long ago, kneeling on a rag rug and, regardless of dust, spreading out halfpennyworths of the same sweets, each trying to be first to claim the heart-shaped ones.

On the whole, the visit went very well. Kathleen learned to cook some good Basque dishes, and Rosita revelled in the plenitude of food in the shops.

At the end of a month, they saw Rosita on to her ship, promising to visit England soon, but Kathleen never did; she always seemed to have some good reason why she should not. So Manuel went over, shortly after Rosita’s visit, to attend Arnador’s and Frannie’s wedding, and to be the best man.

A few months later, he went for his mother’s funeral, five days in a ship, which seemed to crawl.

Ramon was in his last year at the Liverpool Institute. He had said firmly that he did not want to go to university,
and, although Arnador thought he could do it if he wanted to, the boy said firmly that he would rather go to work.

One icy February day, in 1954, he came home from school, to find Rosita apparently asleep in Grandma Micaela’s rocking chair. She had sewing resting on her lap, and the needle was dangling. Thinking that the needle might fall to the floor and that someone might tread on it, he went quietly towards her with the intention of pinning it back into the doll’s dress she had been sewing. It was then that he discovered that she was not breathing.

He was a sensible youth, but he had never seen anyone dead before and he was afraid. Behind his first primeval fear was another terror – that of being alone, bereft.

He backed away, trying not to panic.

Francesca, that was it! He ran into the kitchen, and found Rosita’s change purse in its usual place in the kitchen drawer. He took out all the pennies it contained, ran out of the house, forgetting to shut the front door, and went to the public phone box to call Francesca.

Because she was in town arranging a special promotion for her company, in Lewis’s Store, there was no reply.

Ramon put down the phone and stood shivering. Then he picked up the battered telephone book and found the university number. He asked the telephonist who replied to his call if she could trace Dr Arnador Ganivet, Demography.

Mercifully, Arnador was not lecturing, so he came immediately, tearing down the street on his old bicycle, known to the family as the Flying Bedstead.

While Ramon dithered behind him, he checked that Rosita was indeed dead. Then he sent the lad with a written message to the doctor on Parliament Street with whom, Ramon said, Rosita was registered for health care. ‘Not that we’ve ever had to call him,’ Ramon assured Arnador.