by Maureen Lee
‘There’s one thing I haven’t touched on,’ Jack Doyle continued, ‘but I reckon I should, an’ that’s this Non-Aggression Pact Russia’s signed with Germany. It stinks, friends. It stinks bad. I’ve never actually been a Communist, I’ve allus stuck with Labour, but I never thought our Soviet comrades would betray us like that. After all …’
Suddenly, the night air was rent with a shrill scream. Jack Doyle paused and looked up at the open window of Number 21 where the sound had come from. ‘That’s our Sheila!’
Eileen jumped to her feet and raced into her sister’s house and up the stairs. Sheila was lying on the double bed in the front bedroom doubled up in agony. The red eiderdown beneath her was stained and wet. Eileen paused in the doorway, horrified, thinking the stain was blood.
Sheila laughed hysterically. ‘Me water’s broke, Sis. The baby’s on its way, no mistaking it.’
‘Jesus, Sis, we’ll never get the midwife here in time!’ Sheila always had her babies quick.
Half a dozen women had followed and were standing on the landing or the stairs demanding to know what was going on.
‘Someone send for Mollie Keaney, quick. The baby’s coming.’ Eileen was even more hysterical than her sister. ‘Put the kettle on for hot water. Christ Almighty, is there anyone here knows how to deliver a baby?’
‘Get out’a the way, girl. You’re bloody useless, you young uns. Nobody had a midwife in our day.’
Eileen was roughly shoved aside by two of the older women. She went downstairs, legs shaking, and found her dad waiting outside on the pavement, smoking a cigarette.
‘It’s the baby,’ she explained and he nodded, no longer concerned.
‘It’ll be all right,’ he said complacently. ‘Our Sheila has babbies easier than peas pop out of a pod.’
They stood there, listening to the sounds coming out of the open window above their heads. Between the agonising screams of labour, Sheila laughed, then cried, then laughed again. The women’s voices could be heard, gruffly telling her when to push and when to hold back.
The men, uninterested – after all, it was only another woman having another baby – had started to fold the tables up. Joey Flaherty was tipping the barrel to drain the last few drops of ale, and most of the women had gone inside to make a cup of tea, though a few still waited, eager to know what Sheila Reilly would have this time.
Jack Doyle said to his daughter, ‘It’s about time you had another babby or two, Eileen.’
Eileen didn’t answer. Her dad went on, ‘A fine man like Francis deserves a big family. And after all, you’re getting on.’
‘I’m only twenty-six,’ Eileen said stiffly.
He’d used the same words, ‘You’re getting on,’ when she was twenty and he’d urged her to marry Francis Costello. And she’d done it, married him to please her dad, though she could never understand the awe in which this totally decent man held her husband. Francis had charmed him, the way he charmed everybody.
The sound of a new baby’s piercing, almost inhuman wail came from the upstairs window and Jack Doyle and his eldest daughter smiled at each other, sharing a rare moment of intimacy.
Agnes Donovan shouted, ‘It’s a bonny girl. Reckon she’s a good seven and a half pounds,’ and a cheer went up from those who waited.
Most of the men, including Francis, had disappeared, having gone to the Holy Rosary to return the tables. One by one, the front doors began to close as people went into their houses for the night.
Eileen’s father said, ‘Well, I’m off to wet the babby’s head in the King’s Arms. I’ll see our Sheila later.’
He left, and suddenly, almost incredibly, Pearl Street was empty for the moment, except for Eileen Costello standing alone outside her sister’s house.
She shivered, struck by the desolation compared to the scene that morning; the blank front doors, the empty pavements. There was something almost sinister about the way in which a single paper streamer rolled silently across the cobbles, and for a dreadful moment Eileen felt as if the entire day had been a dream and she was the only person left in the world. Then a burst of raucous laughter came from the King’s Arms and inside Sheila’s a woman yelled, ‘D’you wanna cuppa tea, Eileen?’ Tony appeared with his cousin, Dominic, each carrying a bag of chips. Eileen smiled, relieved.
‘We met Mr Singerman,’ Tony said. ‘And he gave us a penny each. He said Dominic’s got a new sister.’
‘That’s right. C’mon, let’s go indoors and take a look at her.’ She ushered them inside, her spirits lifting at the thought of the new life, though in a somewhat precarious world.
All in all, she thought with satisfaction, it was impossible to imagine a more perfect end to an almost perfect day.
Chapter 2
It was Sunday, sunny and fresh, with an invigorating tang in the air. The heavy overnight rain seemed to have washed away the sultry heaviness of the previous week.
The party in Pearl Street eight days before had become no more than a pleasant memory, though throughout the dark times ahead people would look back upon the day with increasing fondness, as if it symbolised a mythical period when there were no worries to speak of and the world seemed an entirely happier place in which to live.
In Number 16, Eileen Costello had been up since well before seven o’clock. She’d woken, steeped in misery and despair, with Francis snoring volubly at her side, thinking it was still the middle of the night because the room was in total darkness. It was several seconds before she remembered the thick grey blanket pinned over the window. The blackout! It had begun two days ago, much to everyone’s irritation. ARP Wardens had already started patrolling the streets ordering people to, ‘Put that light out,’ even when the light was no more than a pinprick. Dai Evans had told the one who knocked on his door to complain about the thin streak showing between the black curtains Ellis had made for the parlour to, ‘Bugger off, you nosy bastard,’ and had been threatened with a fine.
Eileen lay there for a long time until, in the far distance, she heard the peal of the Holy Rosary church bells, which meant it was time for the first Mass, time to get up. She slid furtively out of bed so as not to disturb her husband, and felt for her dressing gown. Once downstairs, she stumbled through the darkness towards the back kitchen where she removed her nightdress and washed herself from head to toe with a face flannel, scrubbing her body with unnecessary vigour as if to rid it of something unsavoury. That done, she gave a sigh of relief and slipped back into her nightclothes. She felt better, cleansed.
It was time for some light. The sunshine outside came as a welcome surprise when she took the blankets off the windows. She waved to Phoebe Crean who was drawing back her parlour curtains at the same time. Phoebe’s windows, like most in the street, were by now crisscrossed with sticky tape to reduce the effect of shattering glass following an explosion. Eileen was determined not to tape her windows or make proper blackout curtains until the war had actually begun. To do otherwise seemed defeatist, as if admitting war was a foregone conclusion – and it wasn’t, not yet, though before today was out they’d know the worst.
As she put the kettle on for tea, she wondered if millions of people all over the country were doing the same thing at the same time, and did they have the same sickly ominous feeling in their stomachs as she had?
While the kettle boiled, she went into the living room and turned the wireless on for the seven o’clock news and was met by the sound of crackling which soon gave way to some rather gloomy music. As she stood waiting for the announcer’s voice, she was surprised to hear a soft knock on the front door and went to answer it.
Jacob Singerman was standing outside. His eighty-year-old face looked drawn and tired, though he was impeccably dressed as usual, in a frayed white shirt and his best brown suit. His shabby shoes were highly polished and his wispy grey hair still damp from his attempts to comb it flat.
‘I saw your curtains coming down, Eileen,’ he said, ‘and I wondered if I could listen to the
news on your wireless?’ His deep voice, which still held traces of a Russian accent, trembled slightly.
‘Of course you can, Mr Singerman. You must excuse me, still in me dressing gown. Come in, luv. It’s just about to begin.’
‘This is the seven o’clock news from the BBC, on Sunday, the third of September …’
The bulletin was starting as Eileen led the old man into the living room, where they sat and listened in grave silence. According to the newsreader, there’d still been no response from Hitler to the British demand that he withdraw his troops from Poland. The broadcast finished with the announcement that there would be another bulletin in an hour’s time.
Eileen switched the set off and turned to Mr Singerman. His rheumy eyes behind his half-moon glasses were moist and full of fear.
‘I’ve been awake all night,’ he whispered. ‘I prayed there’d be some good news this morning, but he won’t turn back now. We’re on the brink of catastrophe, Eileen. Any minute …’
She patted his shrivelled, parchment-coloured hand, feeling glad there was someone to comfort and take her mind off her own despair. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, luv.’
The kettle was boiling away in the back kitchen and the window had misted up with steam. As Eileen stirred the pot vigorously – Mr Singerman liked his tea strong – she decided Hitler must be stark raving mad. Two days ago, despite all the warnings, his troops had brazenly marched into Poland, an invading army, and seemed intent on staying there.
‘I don’t understand it,’ she said, as she returned with the tea. ‘Why do countries want to invade other countries? People should be left to get on with their own lives in their own way.’
Mr Singerman shrugged his stooped, narrow shoulders. ‘It’s something in a lot of men. It goes right back to the Romans, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, the lust for power and territory. Now they have such terrible, dangerous weapons and each war seems more unspeakable and bloody than the one before. They called the last, ‘the war to end all wars’. I should never have believed them.’ His face crumpled. ‘Oh, why did I let my Ruth go to Austria?’ he wailed.
He seemed on the verge of tears, a sad, lonely old widower whose wife had died in childbirth at the age of forty while giving birth to their only daughter, Ruth. Eileen had never known Ruth, but the neighbours had told her the whole story. ‘Oh, she was such a lovely girl, Eileen. Spoilt rotten, mind you, because Mr Singerman, he doted on her. He went without to pay for her piano lessons. Going to be a proper pianist, she was.’
For Ruth’s twenty-first birthday, her doting father’s gift was to spend his entire savings on a three-month holiday in Austria, where Ruth would stay with his brother. ‘He only wanted to show her off, like, Eileen. Let everyone see what a lovely girl he had. You never saw anything like the clothes she had to go with.’
That was nineteen years ago, and Ruth had never returned. She’d fallen in love with a dentist and got married. Mr Singerman, retired by then from his tailor’s shop due to failing eyesight, and eking out a living from the small rent he received from the former assistant who’d taken the business over, could never afford to visit her, though Ruth wrote, often, sending snapshots of the grandchildren he’d never seen, which were proudly displayed on the sideboard in his home. But for more than a year now, since Austria had been forcibly taken over by Germany, there’d been nothing. No letters, no more snapshots, just an awful silence.
‘That was a long time ago, luv,’ Eileen said softly. ‘You couldn’t possibly have known what was going to happen.’
There were rumours, terrible rumours, nothing that you read about in the papers, but Mr Singerman seemed to have heard them, about what Hitler was doing to the Jews. It wasn’t only Ruth and her family who’d disappeared. He’d spoken of camps – what were they called, Eileen racked her brains – concentration camps, where Jews were put to die, along with Communists and mentally defective people like Phoebe Crean’s two boys. Though Eileen found this difficult to believe. Nobody, not even Hitler, could be so wicked.
‘I’d better be getting back. I’m holding you up.’ He struggled to rise, but she put her hand on his sleeve, noting how thin, almost skeletal, his arm felt.
‘Don’t go, luv. Stay and have another cup of tea. I’ll be making a bite to eat soon and they said there’d be more news at eight o’clock.’
He looked grateful. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind, Eileen?’
‘I wouldn’t ask if I minded, would I?’ She managed a grin.
‘You’re very kind. This is the sort of day people shouldn’t be alone.’
‘You’ll never be alone in Pearl Street, Mr Singerman,’ Eileen chided. ‘Anyroad, I expect Paddy O’Hara’ll be along any minute wanting to know what the latest news is, along with one or two other folk who haven’t got a wireless. I’ve felt a bit like the BBC meself during the last few days.’
‘I’m surprised your Francis isn’t down yet.’ The old man had begun to look a little more cheerful.
‘He’s having a bit of a lie-in this morning,’ she explained. ‘He was out late last night with his mates.’
‘That was a fine thing he did, Eileen, joining the Territorials. He’s a fine man altogether, is Francis Costello.’
‘Everyone says that, Mr Singerman,’ Eileen said. Then she sighed. ‘I’ll just pour you another cup of tea, luv, then get dressed. There’ll be lots of visitors today, and it’s about time I made meself look respectable.’
‘You look lovely, Eileen. You always do.’
‘Why, thank you, Mr Singerman.’
She poured a cup for Tony as well and took it up to him, though Francis wouldn’t approve if he knew. The room was bright with sunlight and Tony was already awake, his glasses on, reading a comic. Eileen hadn’t bothered with blackout in his room. It had been daylight when Tony had gone to bed and she’d instructed him on no account to switch the light on if he woke during the night. ‘Otherwise we’ll have one of them ARP wardens banging on the door.’
‘Has the war started yet?’
Her hand, outstretched to stroke his fine blond hair, stopped in mid-air. The question took her by surprise, the expression on his face even more so. He looked quite animated, as if he hoped her answer would be in the affirmative.
‘No, it hasn’t,’ she said sharply. Instead of stroking his head, she shook his shoulder impatiently.
‘We’re going to beat bloody hell out of them Jerries, just like we did the last time,’ he said complacently. ‘I’m keeping me gun under me piller, just in case.’ He produced a tin pistol. ‘Gosh, Mam, it’s awful exciting.’
‘Don’t swear,’ she said automatically. ‘And it isn’t exciting one bit. If it happens, it’ll be bloody terrible.’
He smiled at her cheekily. He could only be cheeky with his mam. ‘Don’t swear.’
She had to smile back. ‘Come on, you little monkey. Drink the tea and get up. Mr Singerman’s downstairs. Don’t forget to bring your best jersey and trousers down. It’s Sunday.’
‘All right, Mam.’
Eileen crept into the front bedroom. Francis was still snoring. With the door ajar, there was enough light to see the clothes she’d left on the chair the night before. She scooped them up and took them out onto the landing where she quickly got dressed. Later on, when Francis was up, she’d change into her best blue crepe de Chine. In the meantime, the white blouse and fawn cotton skirt she’d worn yesterday would have to do.
Downstairs, Mr Singerman appeared to be dozing off in the chair. Eileen made her face up in the little spotted mirror over the sink in the back kitchen – a touch of rose-pink lipstick, a quick dab of face powder – and combed her long fair hair, tying it back neatly with a white ribbon. Her cheeks looked pale and she wished she had a bit of rouge to rub on them. Later on, she might go over to Sheila’s and borrow some. She thought about her recent conversation with her son. His sudden enthusiasm for war had taken her aback. Tony was such a nervous little thing normally. Still, she supposed it was b
etter than being frightened out of his wits.
He appeared, peeping modestly around the door to see if Mr Singerman was looking. When he saw the old man was asleep, he scampered through the living room into the back kitchen in his vest and underpants, clutching his outer clothes to his chest.
‘Wash me quick, Mam, before he wakes up,’ he pleaded, and Eileen swiftly rubbed him over with a flannel. He cleaned his own teeth, something he’d been doing since he started school last Easter, and as soon as he’d finished, he shot out to the lavatory at the bottom of the yard. ‘I’m dying for a wee-wee, Mam.’
He was still there when the door to the back entry opened and the broad figure of Paddy O’Hara appeared, Spot at his heels.
Paddy O’Hara couldn’t see with his eyes, but saw more with his mind than people with the most perfect sight, and one thing he could see was that 16 Pearl Street was not a happy house and Eileen Costello was not a happy woman.
Which puzzled him somewhat. She was lovely. Even if the neighbours hadn’t confirmed it was the case, he would have known. He could tell by the swish of her long hair, the smoothness of her hands on his when she led him indoors, her soft, welcoming voice. He could sense her beauty, just as he could sense the sadness which he couldn’t understand. After all, she was married to a good, generous man, free with his money, always the first to buy a round of drinks in the pub. Everybody liked Francis Costello, who was on the Corporation and had a responsible job in the offices of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board. Not only that, Number 16 was the finest house in the street, the only one to have electricity, and Eileen had a modern gas stove to cook on, when every other woman had to use the big iron range in the living room.
Eileen had shown him the new fireplace which had been installed in place of the range. ‘What colour is it?’ he asked, running his fingers over the smooth cold tiles.
‘Dark green,’ she replied, sighing, and Paddy, trying to remember what dark green looked like and thinking of wet winter grass, wondered at the same time why she should sigh instead of being over the moon as most women would.