by Maureen Lee
But that was the future; it was the night to come that Eileen was most worried about. She wouldn’t put up with it again, she couldn’t, and she knew it was a waste of time talking to him. Anyroad, she never wanted to face Francis again. Of course, Annie would take her in, she’d offered, but she wouldn’t feel safe in Annie’s, only a few doors away. It would be the first place Francis would look if she wasn’t here when he came home, and although Francis would never make a scene in public when he was sober, she wasn’t sure how he’d behave in his drunken state. He might beat on Annie’s door and demand Eileen come back – it had happened before in Pearl Street, some man being locked out and hammering to get in, waking the whole street up – and everyone would think that brave man Francis Costello was in the right. Home on leave, about to go and fight for his country, yet his wife refused to sleep with him!
It was six o’clock and she was freezing. Outside, the dark watery sky was streaked with silver threads and it looked as if it was going to be another chilly day. The cold wet weather had come as something of a shock after such a lovely balmy September.
Eileen stood up. Her legs, her entire body, felt stiff and aching. She’d better light a fire, though Tony wouldn’t be up for a few hours yet and God knows what time Francis would show himself.
‘Oh, Jaysus,’ she whispered aloud. ‘What am I going to do?’
As if in answer to her prayer, she thought of the one person in the world she had a right to call on for protection, though he would be the person most difficult to convince she was entitled to it. She would be safe with him, there was no way Francis would create a scene with Jack Doyle.
Impulsively, Eileen snatched her coat out of the hall and went to see her dad.
It was just light enough to see as she made her way round to Garnet Street through the damp, deserted streets. A light drizzle fell and the blacked out windows shone like blind, unseeing eyes. The lampposts stood dejectedly, unused and unwanted. Eileen felt as if she was walking through an alien, scarcely recognisable world. She was glad when she reached her dad’s and, instead of drawing the key through the letter box on its string, she knocked on the door in case she startled him at this time of the morning.
He was up, which she’d expected. He had to be at work by half past seven and answered the door almost immediately.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked grumpily.
‘I just wanted to talk to you a bit, that’s all.’
‘You’d better come in, then.’
She followed him into the living room where a cheerful fire burned in the grate. The room hadn’t changed a jot since her mam had died fourteen years ago. There were the same crocheted covers on the seats and arms of the chairs where the upholstery had worn away, and a little rag rug on the hearth. The sideboard was full of framed photographs. In pride of place stood a photo of her parents’ wedding. Her mam’s sweet dimpled face smiled back at her. It could have been Sheila on her dad’s arm, slightly younger, slightly slimmer. The wireless was on, it sounded like Sandy MacPherson at the organ. He was playing The Blue Danube.
Eileen regarded the room with affection. It held nothing but pleasant memories. They’d always been poor, but mam had done wonders with the cheapest cuts of meat, so they’d never gone hungry, never gone cold, and there’d always been clothes on their backs, even if they were secondhand. Jack Doyle might be a dangerous troublemaker, but even so, he hadn’t suffered as much as other men had from the iniquitous system by which dockers were employed, standing outside the gates on a daily basis waiting to be picked for work. The employers, reckoning it would be best to have Jack where they could keep an eye on him, chose him regularly. Anyway, he was as strong as an ox and could work as hard as two ordinary men.
‘D’you want a cup of tea? I was just about to make one,’ he asked.
‘I always want a cup of tea,’ she answered, sinking into a chair, grateful for the warmth.
She watched his deliberate movements through the doorway of the scrupulously clean back kitchen; the precise way he put the cups on the saucers, poured the milk in the jug, put a clean spoon in the sugar basin. She knew he wouldn’t pour the tea out there, but fetch it in the pot covered with the cosy mam had knitted and which she felt sure he must darn regularly. He’d never asked her or Sheila to do it, that would seem maudlin and sentimental, and she could have wept, imagining big Jack Doyle sat mending the tea cosy made by the wife he adored because he couldn’t bear to throw it away.
He came in, puffing slightly, his muscled arms bulging under the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel working shirt.
‘You’re smoking too much, Dad,’ she said sternly. ‘You’re out of breath carrying the teapot.’
‘Look who’s talking!’ He sat down at the table and poured out two cups of tea.
‘I only started proper a few weeks ago. You’ve been doing it since you was a nipper.’
‘Smoking keeps the working class and the tobacco companies happy,’ he said, grinning slightly. She knew he only said it to irk her and she rose to the bait immediately.
‘Oh, Dad! D’you have to make a political point out of everything?’
‘You’ll never learn, Eileen. Everything is political. The capitalists run this country for their own profit. The more we smoke, the more they like it.’ As if to prove his point, he lit two cigarettes and handed her one. ‘Have you heard the news this morning?’
‘No, what’s happened? Did they bomb the Germans back after that raid on Scotland?’
‘Not bloody likely!’ he said savagely. ‘They drop bombs on us, we drop paper on them. If we’re going to fight the Jerries, it’s about time we started on it. It’s about time Neville Chamberlain threw in the towel and gave way to Churchill. He’d know how to run a war, the Tory git. Look at the way he ordered the police in during the Sydney Street Siege! If he can do that to his own people, think of what he could do to the Jerries.’
‘Oh, Dad!’
‘According to Lord Haw Haw, we’re all on our knees begging to surrender.’
Lord Haw Haw was the nickname for William Joyce, a notorious traitor, who tried to undermine the British people by broadcasting terrible lies from Germany. ‘You should be ashamed of yerself, Dad,’ she chided. ‘I won’t have him on in our house. Y’know the Government said we weren’t to listen to him.’
‘I can’t think of a better reason for doing something than the Government telling me not to.’
Eileen supposed she’d asked for that.
‘Anyroad,’ he went on, ‘what do you want? I’ll be leaving for work soon. It must be something important at this time of the morning.’
‘It is.’ Now the moment had come, she couldn’t think of how to put it. She sat staring down at her hands, aware her dad was waiting impatiently. ‘Where’s our Sean? He’s not about to come down any minute, is he?’
‘The lazy bugger won’t stir till he’s had a cup of tea in bed.’
Eileen took a deep breath. ‘Dad, I want to stay here with you until Francis has gone back off leave – and bring Tony with me.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘But why?’ His mouth had fallen open and Eileen was shocked at how old he suddenly looked, as if her request and all that lay behind it had taken the wind out of him completely. Perhaps she should have led up to it a bit more tactfully. ‘Why?’ he repeated.
‘I can’t tell you, Dad. You’ll just have to believe there’s a good reason for it. This is the only place I’ll feel safe.’
‘Safe? What d’you mean, safe?’
He looked so dazed, she began to wish she hadn’t come. She should have risked it with Annie. She stood up suddenly. ‘It doesn’t matter, Dad. I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll sort it out some other way, don’t worry.’
‘Sit down!’ he barked, his old self in an instant. ‘You’re my girl, and if you’re in trouble this is the first place you should come. It’s just that, well, this has come as a bit of a bolt from the blue.
’ He poured himself another cup of tea, too distraught to offer one to her. ‘What’s he done, then?’
‘I can’t tell you, Dad, honest.’
His face reddened slightly and he began to fiddle with his cigarette. Staring at the wall somewhere above her, he said awkwardly, ‘Sometimes, women aren’t keen on a certain side of marriage, but a wife has a duty to her husband, even if …’
‘It’s not that,’ Eileen interrupted.
‘Oh!’ He looked at her sharply. ‘Has he hit you?’
‘Not exactly, Dad, but he can be cruel when he likes.’
‘Francis? Francis Costello?’
‘Yes, Francis Costello.’
He frowned, ‘Has he been cruel to Tony?’ Sheila might be his favourite daughter, but Tony was the grandchild he loved most.
Eileen nodded.
‘The bastard! I’ll bloody kill him. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a man who beats his wife and children.’ He rose, fists clenched, ready to go round that very minute and knock the living daylights out of his son-in-law.
‘Dad! Dad! I never said he beat us! It’s something different altogether, but I can’t tell you what. You’ll just have to believe me. You know I’d never lie to you.’
‘Christ!’ He sat down again and put his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his rough working hands. For an awful moment, Eileen thought he was about to cry. Then, in a curiously childish gesture, he rubbed his eyes with his fists, looked up and nodded. ‘I know, girl. You’ve always been straight with me. If you say he’s a wrong ’un, then I believe you. All right then, luv, stay here till he’s gone back. I’ve got to go to work now, but tonight I’d like a few words with Francis Costello!’
‘No, Dad,’ she pleaded. ‘Just leave him be. It’ll only upset you.’
‘It’ll upset him the most. He was counting on me to get him the nomination when Albert Findlay retires.’ Albert Findlay was the Labour Member of Parliament for Bootle. Now old and in failing health, he was expected to give up the seat before the next election. This was what Francis had been working so assiduously towards, inheriting the seat with the help of Jack Doyle who was a powerful force in the local Labour Party. ‘Francis was like a son to me,’ he said querulously.
‘You’ve already got a son, Dad,’ Eileen said in a hard voice. ‘And our Sean’s worth ten Francis Costellos, just take my word for it.’
The sound of snoring came from the front bedroom when Eileen went home to collect Tony. He looked surprised at being woken and told to get dressed at such an early hour, but said nothing. He’d heard his mam cry during the night and knew it was something his dad must have done, because it was the first time she’d cried for weeks. ‘We’re going to your grandad’s for a day or so,’ she told him, which he didn’t mind a bit. He loved his grandad much more than he loved his dad.
‘What happens when Dominic or Niall call for me for school?’
‘You’ll just have to call for them first, won’t you.’
Jack Doyle had left for work by the time Eileen got back to the house in Garnet Street. Sean was down, gloomily eating a bowl of cornflakes.
‘You’re a lazy sod, our Sean, having me dad take you a cup of tea up every morning,’ she said crossly. ‘It’s you who should be taking one to him.’
‘I was late to bed last night,’ he muttered.
‘You’re never anything else. I suppose you were out with your latest girlfriend.’ Sean seemed to have a new girlfriend every week.
Sean ignored the gibe. ‘I’ve joined the Civil Defence Messenger Service,’ he announced grandly.
‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’ Eileen asked sharply.
‘It means I have to deliver messages on me bike during air raids and they’re gonna train me in fire-fighting and first aid.’
‘Will they train me, too?’ Tony asked excitedly.
Sean gave him a supercilious glance. ‘Not likely. First of all, you haven’t got a bike, and second, you’re too young by a mile.’
Eileen laughed at her son’s crestfallen face. ‘Let’s hope there won’t be any air raids,’ she said, forgetting, for the moment, there’d already been one the night before.
After Sean and Tony had left, she pottered around the house, though there was little to do. Dad kept the place like a palace. She began to prepare a stew with dumplings for tea, when she heard the key being drawn through the letter box and the front door opened. She should have removed the key! It might be Francis, though she doubted he’d have the gall to come round and make a fuss in Jack Doyle’s house. She went into the hall, but it was only her sister, who jumped when she saw Eileen.
‘You gave me the fright of me life. I thought the house’d be empty.’ Sheila put a paper bag on the table. ‘I’ve just brought round a few scones I made this morning for me dad,’ she explained. ‘What the hell are you doing here? I’ve been over looking for you twice this morning and Francis said you were out shopping each time. He wants his uniform pressing. It don’t half look in a state. God knows what he’s been up to in it.’
‘We’ve had a row,’ Eileen lied. ‘Don’t ask questions, Sis, please. And don’t tell anybody, neither, particularly not Francis, but I’m staying with me dad till he goes back.’
‘Okay, luv, if that’s the way you want it,’ Sheila said, laughing, though, to her, the idea of not spending every conceivable moment with your husband when he was home on leave seemed incomprehensible. But then, not everyone was married to a man like Calum Reilly.
‘D’you want a cup of tea?’ asked Eileen.
‘No, ta. I’ve got four of the kids with me. I’m going to the clinic for their orange juice and cod liver oil and to get our Mary weighed. If I leave them outside much longer, there’ll be a riot.’
Eileen went with her to the door. The four youngest children had somehow been squeezed into the big black Marmet pram that had been secondhand when Sheila bought it for Dominic six years before. Caitlin and Siobhan’s legs were hanging over the side.
‘You’re a hero, Sis, wheeling all that lot round to Strand Road. D’you want me to come with you?’
‘No, it’s all right. I can manage fine once I get going.’ Sheila took a deep breath and began to push the pram away. ‘I’ll call in on me way back for that cuppa.’
When her dad came home from work on Thursday night, he and Eileen went round to Pearl Street together to make sure Francis had gone. The house was dark and empty. Her dad went upstairs to double check, and came down again, his face dark with anger.
‘Does he always leave the bedroom in that state? It needs fumigating.’
‘I’ll clean it later,’ she said easily, glad he’d seen it. ‘Anyway, thanks, Dad, for everything. You can send our Tony back when you get home.’
‘There’s something I want to do before I go.’ He went into the back kitchen.
‘What’s that?’
‘I’m going to change the locks on both the doors.’
‘But you can’t do that!’ she said, scandalised. ‘It’s Francis’s house. The rent book’s in his name.’
‘I can and I will,’ he said curtly. ‘No man’s going to lay his hands on my daughter. In the meantime, you’ve got to live somewhere, and I’m not having you coming round mine every time the bastard comes home. You get on me nerves. You’re too intelligent for a woman. You think too much, not like our Sheila. She never bothers her head with politics. You must be the only woman in Bootle with a Daily Express war map on the wall.’ Rarely for him, he was smiling broadly. He seemed to have got over the shock of discovering the sun didn’t rise and set according to Francis Costello, and Eileen felt she’d grown closer to him over the last couple of days than she’d ever been before.
‘I got the map for Tony,’ she explained, though it was a fact that she pored over it daily, following Hitler’s movements in Europe.
‘Anyroad,’ her dad said ruefully, ‘I’ve got to make up to you a bit, haven’t I? I know you only married him to please me
. I’m sorry, luv, but he seemed too good a catch to miss at the time. Don’t worry, though, I’ll straighten him out for you. If he lays a finger on you again, it’ll be over my dead body.’
‘Oh, get away with you, Dad,’ she said, embarrassed, and quite sure she didn’t want Francis straightening out. She would prefer it if she never set eyes on him again. ‘You only had me best interests at heart.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t, luv. I fancied having an MP for a son-in-law. I fancied going to Westminster with him now’n again and having a good old barney with that lot down there.’
It was Saturday night, almost eleven, and Mack, the landlord of the King’s Arms, was wearily washing the last of the glasses. There were still the tables to wipe down, the floor to sweep, and a layer of fresh sawdust to sprinkle ready for the morning. Only then would he allow himself to retire to his warm bed, which always seemed more welcome at the weekend. Usually the barmaid, Marie, helped clear up, but since the blackout, Mack sent her home with one of the customers to make sure she got home safely. There’d been a couple of lunatics taking advantage of the dark to attack women out late on their own.
Mack turned the wireless on for company. Although he was glad to see the back of everyone, nowadays, the bar seemed uncannily quiet when it was empty, what with the windows painted black and no lamp outside shining through as it used to.
When the war started seven weeks ago, the pubs had been ordered to close, but there’d been such a clamour from the drinking public, indignantly demanding to know how being denied a pint would help bring about victory, that the authorities had allowed them to re-open, though closing time had been changed to nine instead of the normal ten. Some pubs, and the King’s Arms was one, took no notice of the earlier closing. It was easy, with windows and doors blacked out, to drop the catch and carry on drinking with the regulars. They left by the back way and Mack felt it was his contribution towards the war effort, keeping his hard-working – and non-working – customers happy and contented.