by Maureen Lee
In fact Doris, overcome, joined in the weeping. ‘It’s so romantic,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t wait to fall in love.’
‘I queue jumped,’ Pauline said, returning with a mug of tea. ‘I told them it was an emergency.’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without youse lot,’ sniffed Eileen. No-one at home knew Nick had gone. Annie was on tenterhooks, expecting the boys to leave any minute, and how could she go crying to Sheila, who bore Cal’s absence with such quiet fortitude?
After they’d eaten their meal, the women went outside to enjoy the sunshine, sitting in a row on the edge of the stream where Eileen had first seen Nick. Doris rolled up her overalls and began to apply leg tan with a piece of cotton wool, to a chorus of wolf whistles from the men sitting on the bridge.
‘What does it look like?’ she asked when she’d finished and her legs were as unnaturally orange as her hair.
‘Well,’ Lil said dubiously. ‘You look like you’ve got yellow jaundice.’
‘Yeh, but does it look all right?’ insisted Doris.
Eileen returned to work when the break was over, feeling much better. As someone said, you couldn’t cry forever. In no time, the women, who had the knack of turning their own personal misfortunes into jokes against themselves, began to suggest what Eileen could do in her dinner hour, seeing as Nick was no longer there. Most of the suggestions were so outrageous that she got a stitch in her side from laughing. She was glad when Alfie arrived and attention was deflected from her for a while.
Eileen actually felt quite happy when she walked home down Marsh Lane later. The girls had cheered her up no end. Somehow, they’d managed to convince her that Nick would come home, safe and sound. Tonight, she’d begin writing him a letter, though she couldn’t post it until he sent a definite address.
She turned into Pearl Street, where four women were standing outside Aggie Donovan’s, gossiping, and she waved hello as she crossed over to her side.
‘Been having it off with your fancy man, have you, Eileen?’ Aggie shouted.
Eileen stopped dead, wondering if she’d heard right. Her heart began to race, as she stammered back, ‘I’ve been to work.’
‘Aye, but there’s work and work. From what we’ve heard, they serve a particularly tasty dinner over at Dunnings.’
The women laughed, and Eileen stared at them across the little street, feeling her face grow bright red. Everything that had gone on between her and Nick seemed suddenly sordid. Two of the women weren’t from Pearl Street, she only vaguely recognised them, but Ellis Evans was one. Their faces were vivid with excitement, as if they were really enjoying themselves.
‘You always thought you were a cut above us, didn’t you, Eileen?’ Ellis shouted in the lovely Welsh sing-song voice that Eileen had always so admired. ‘But you’re no better than the rest of us at heart.’
‘I never thought I was better than anyone,’ Eileen mumbled, though doubted if her tormentors heard.
‘She’s worse! There’s no way a decent woman’d go behind her husband’s back when he’s away fighting for his country,’ one of the other women yelled scornfully.
Eileen felt rooted to the spot, unable to move, wanting to die, as the women shook their fists and continued to scream insults. They hated her!
Then Jess appeared out of Number 5, heavy and cumbersome with child. She’d been treating herself to an afternoon nap of late and the noise had woken her. Looking through the window, she saw Eileen Costello with her back against the wall like a hunted animal, and immediately came to the rescue.
‘What’s going on?’ she called as she made her awkward way towards the stricken Eileen. Sometimes she wondered if, the rate her belly was swelling, she was expecting half a dozen babies, not just one.
‘It’s nowt to do with you,’ Aggie Donovan said rudely.
‘Isn’t it, now? I’ll decide what’s to do with me.’ Jess’s temper was beginning to rise. She put her arm around Eileen and, as if the touch had brought her back to life, Eileen burst into tears for the second time that day.
‘Go indoors, love,’ Jess urged. ‘Put the kettle on and I’ll join you in a minute.’
After helping the distraught Eileen with her key, Jess turned on the women, green eyes blazing, ‘Are you happy now?’ she screamed. ‘You’ve reduced her to tears. Is that what you wanted?’ The thirty years away from Pearl Street might never have happened, she thought ruefully. Underneath, she was no different from the rest.
‘She deserves more than tears,’ Aggie screamed back. ‘She deserves horse-whipping. Mrs Casey here’s got a cousin at Dunnings, and the whole factory knows what Eileen Costello’s been up to.’
The woman beside Aggie nodded virtuously. This, presumed Jess, was the said Mrs Casey. The woman had a thick pink hairnet over her metal curlers and was wielding a yardbrush like Boadicea. ‘It’s a scandal,’ she said disgustedly. ‘An absolute scandal.’
‘Whatever she’s been up to, it’s none of your bleeding business,’ countered Jess, who was beginning to feel slightly dizzy. She must have got up too quickly. She clutched the door frame for support, adding weakly, ‘I’m surprised the factory hasn’t got more important things to do.’
‘You never knew her husband,’ Ellis Evans yelled. ‘Francis Costello’s a fine chap altogether, a councillor, who deserves better than a bitch who goes with another man the minute his back’s turned.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Jess managed to sneer. ‘I’ve met Francis Costello, and he didn’t seem much of a fine chap to me, considering he’d just finished trying to strangle Eileen to death …’
She felt too dizzy to continue and with some difficulty, managed to lower herself until she was sitting in Eileen’s doorway.
The faces of the watching women displayed a quick changing range of emotions; from contempt for Eileen Costello, to shock at Jess Fleming’s surprising announcement, then concern as the realisation dawned that this was a pregnant woman they were fighting with, a none-too-young pregnant woman having her first child, a woman who should be treated with kid gloves.
Aggie Donovan darted across the street, ‘’Ere, are you all right, luv?’ she cried solicitously.
‘Come on, Mrs Fleming, let’s get you inside.’ Ellis Evans helped Jess to her feet.
In Number 16, Eileen Costello blinked in astonishment as Jess was helped into the house by two of the women who’d just been shouting abuse from across the street.
‘Fetch a wet cloth,’ ordered Aggie, ‘and lay it over her forehead. Is the kettle boiled yet? What she really needs is a cup of tea.’
Somehow, Eileen wasn’t quite sure how it happened, a few minutes later, all four were sitting in the living room drinking tea and chatting amicably as if the last fifteen minutes had never occurred. Aggie deftly brought the subject round to violent husbands and Ellis confided she and Dai had had a ‘right old barney,’ the night before, but it had been Dai who’d ended up the worse for wear.
Then Aggie turned her eager gaze on Eileen, who realised Jess must have revealed something outside and it was now her turn to bare her soul. She resisted, easily, as she had no intention of discussing her private affairs with Agnes Donovan, because they’d be public before the day was out, though she was glad in a way that a chink had been made in Francis Costello’s armour. It might prove useful in time to come.
That same week, just after midnight, the menacing wail of an air raid siren was heard for the first time in Liverpool.
Eileen, fast asleep, was awoken by the almost unearthly shrieking noise and felt herself break out in goose pimples as she lay waiting for the sound of enemy aircraft overhead. After a while, the siren faded and there was an ominous, dead silence. She slipped out of bed carefully, so as not to wake Tony who’d kick himself tomorrow when he found out what he’d missed, put on her dressing gown and went out into the street.
There were already several people there, staring upwards. The sharp yellow beams of searchlights crisscrossed the black sky.
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br /> ‘Can you hear anything?’ Jacob Singerman came up. ‘My ears aren’t what they used to be.’
There was a repeated popping sound in the distance, like fireworks going off. ‘Yes, I can hear something,’ Eileen said, wondering if she should take Tony to the public shelter, or at least bring him down and put him under the stairs. She also felt worried for Sheila, who wasn’t at all well and had six little ones to get to safety.
‘That’s anti-aircraft guns,’ Mr Harrison declared. ‘I’d better see to Nelson. He doesn’t like strange noises.’
Not long afterwards the All Clear sounded, a long high-pitched drone.
‘It must have been a false alarm,’ someone suggested, and they all went back indoors.
But it wasn’t a false alarm when the siren sounded again the following two nights and the drone of aircraft could be heard in the distance. Each time bombs were dropped, and although they landed harmlessly in fields on the outskirts of the city, the raids seemed like a portent of terrible things to come.
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.
Chapter 15
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 yo
u 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.’