Martha's Girls

by Alrene Hughes

  ‘It means being in charge of everything you’ve just described. Think you can do it?’

  ‘Oh yes, I could manage that.’

  She left Horowitz and went in search of Pat and was surprised to find her backstage directing Sammy and William.

  ‘At this point, Sammy, you need to look really sad, because you think he’s gone forever.’ Dramatic hand-wringing and miserable weeping sounds from Sammy. ‘Then you think you hear him, but look doubtful. Suddenly, you see it is him and your expression changes to joy.’ Exaggerated excitement from Sammy. ‘But then you realise the love between you can never be and you come together to sing one last time.’ Sammy wrapped himself around William, sliding lower and lower down his leg. William tried to leave and, as he did so, dragged Sammy screeching in full falsetto across the stage.

  ‘Thanks, Pat,’ said Sammy, straightening the feather in his head-dress. ‘We’ll run through it again; see if we can get even more laughs out of it this time.’

  ‘The idea,’ said William, ‘is for us to really look like we love each other, while the audience see how ridiculous it all is. Brilliant!’

  Pat, without another word, turned and walked away.

  Sheila waited until it was the Golden Sisters’ turn to rehearse their new song and found William sitting at the back of the hall and slipped into the seat next to him.

  ‘It’s good isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s catchy. The audience’ll be clapping along.’

  ‘It gives Pat the chance to show her range too.’

  ‘Mmm …’ William was listening intently tapping out the rhythm on the back of the chair in front.

  ‘You enjoy singing with Pat, don’t you?’

  William continued to tap. ‘Mmm … yes.’

  ‘She really enjoys singing with you. She told me.’

  ‘That’s good.’ He used both hands to beat a more sophisticated rhythm.

  ‘William, do you like Pat?’

  ‘Yes, of course. She’s great.’ He slowed the rhythm.

  ‘William … are you married?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said are you married? And have you any children?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you?’ His expression changed. ‘Did Pat tell you to ask me that?’ A momentary pause. ‘No, no of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t. It’s you asking, isn’t it?’ He stood up and without a backward glance edged his way to the aisle.

  Sheila went after him. ‘Someone told her you were married and had a child.’

  He turned sharply. ‘Who told her that?’

  No denial then, thought Sheila. ‘Just someone she knows. He saw you.’

  ‘Well, that person was mistaken.’ The anger was clear in his voice. ‘And that’s what I’ll tell Pat.’

  His opportunity came towards the end of the rehearsal when he spotted her alone, going through her music at the back of the hall.

  ‘Who told you I was married?’ he demanded.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who told me. It makes no difference to me whether you’re married or not. In fact it’s not even worth discussing.’

  ‘Well just for the record, I’m telling you I’m not married.’

  ‘Just for the record, William, I don’t care.’

  ‘Pat, I’m telling you, I’m not married!’

  ‘There is no need to shout. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It matters to me!’

  ‘I’m glad it does. A wife is very significant, not to mention a child.’

  ‘But I don’t have a wife and child, that’s what I’m trying to tell you!’

  ‘And I’m trying to tell you, it doesn’t matter if you have,’ said Pat calmly.

  ‘But all of this …’ William waved his hand in the direction of the stage. ‘You and me singing together, I care about that. I don’t want us to fall out. There’s something special between us.’

  ‘Yes there is − a professional understanding, a successful act.’

  ‘Oh Pat! Face up to it we’re …’ He struggled for a form of words that wouldn’t offend her. ‘We’re attracted to each other.’

  ‘I’ve never given you the slightest reason to think that!’

  ‘You didn’t need to. It’s there for all to see. Everyone who bought a ticket for the last Barnstormer’s concert could see it!’

  ‘Well, I’ll make sure that no one at the next concert makes the same mistake!’

  Chapter 15

  ‘And have we been good girls, Aunt Martha?’ asked Alice. ‘Daddy said if we were good all week, he’d bring us each a special present from England.’

  ‘You’ve been no trouble at all,’ said Martha as she helped her down from the chair she’d been standing on to wash the dishes. The child had a tea towel around her waist, but it was likely she’d be soaked to the skin with the amount of soap suds she’d created.

  ‘I love doing the dishes,’ said Evelyn, whose turn it was to dry. ‘I’m going to ask Mummy if I can wash the dishes every day.’

  Martha could imagine Anna’s reaction on hearing her daughters had been allowed to help around the house. At the start of the week the girls had been restless, squabbling between themselves. They had a nursery full of expensive toys, including a coach-built high pram and beautiful dolls with porcelain faces and real hair, but it seemed they couldn’t settle for more than ten minutes before they came to tell her they were bored. She’d cut up some dusters and they’d gone all through the house finding surfaces to dust. They’d polished some silver, trying to outshine each other. They’d shelled peas, made shortbread and best of all, played shop.

  ‘This was your cousins’ favourite game when they were your age,’ Martha told them as she emptied the larder of all the tinned and packet goods. They set up the counter using some cardboard boxes from the garage. Alice remembered she had a cash register and some cardboard money in the cupboard in the nursery.

  ‘I’m going to be a shop keeper when I grow up,’ said Evelyn.

  ‘Well, when I grow up, I’m going to be the person who shops,’ said Alice.

  They were their parents’ children, thought Martha with a wry smile; one making the money, the other spending it.

  In the evenings the girls bathed then came downstairs in their matching nightdresses and soft warm dressing gowns and Martha told them stories about their mother Anna when she was growing up.

  ‘We loved bath nights when we were young, although we didn’t have a beautiful bathroom like you.’

  ‘What was your bathroom like, Aunt Martha?’

  ‘We didn’t have one!’

  ‘If you didn’t have a bathroom then where did you take a bath?’ asked Evelyn.

  ‘In front of the fire, of course. We had a tin bath and we boiled the water on the range and filled it up. Then we took turns to get in it and wash.’

  ‘And how did the water get away? Was there a plug hole?’

  ‘We took it outside and emptied it down the drain.’

  Then Alice asked quietly, ‘And where did you go to the toilet?’

  ‘In front of the fire, of course,’ said Evelyn.

  ‘No!’ laughed Martha. ‘We went outside to a little room where there was a toilet.’

  ‘But what about in the winter?’

  ‘Just the same, except you got very cold.’

  ‘And when all this happened, you were Mummy’s big sister?’

  ‘I still am,’ said Martha. ‘I was fourteen when she was born. Old enough to finish school and help my mother take care of Baby Anna!’

  Alice and Evelyn giggled. ‘Baby Anna!’

  Baby Anna, thought Martha. Who’d have thought that little mite, so weak and sickly, would end up in this beautiful house. Now she’s away to London with her husband, staying in a fine hotel and I’m here minding her children, just like I minded her. There was no doubt Anna had been the prettiest sister, but wilful, everyone said. When she took up with Thomas Wilson a man twenty years her senior, no one was surprised and, when she married him a month l
ater, everyone wondered what took them so long.

  ‘When will Mummy and Daddy be home?’ Evelyn had asked the same question every night for a week.

  ‘They’ll be here in the morning when we get up,’ said Alice. ‘They’ll be getting on the boat tonight. That’s right isn’t it?’ Both girls looked to Martha for confirmation.

  ‘That’s right,’ and she showed them again the list of instructions and information Anna had left. ‘It says “We sail on the 8 February on the mail ship from Liverpool to Belfast. We will disembark,” that means get off the boat. “At about five and will arrive home about six.”’

  ‘Let’s go to sleep then,’ said Alice, ‘and when we wake up, they’ll be here with our presents.’

  Martha picked Evelyn up and the child wrapped her arms around her neck, then she took Alice’s hand in her own. The familiarity of it made her ache, remembering when her girls were small. Where had those little girls gone? Sometimes she felt their loss acutely. Once in a dream she had been talking to Irene, adult to adult, and a movement at her side had caused her to turn and, looking down, there was another Irene smiling up at her. How old? Maybe seven or eight … but undoubtedly Irene … exactly as she had been. She had knelt down then and hugged her little girl, knowing it was a dream, but for as long as it lasted her child was back, just the same, just the same. And she wept in her dream, but when she awoke, her heart was thankful for those moments when she held her little girl again.

  At the same time as Martha tucked the Wilson girls up in bed and promised again that their parents would be home in the morning, Sheila was organising the front of house staff in the entrance hall of the theatre of the Belfast Institute. She explained the ticket prices to the two ladies who had introduced themselves as ‘Friends of the Mater Hospital’. They quickly got their table organised with programmes and cash box.

  ‘I’ll open the doors now,’ said Sheila. ‘Don’t forget, two shillings to get in; sit where they like; including refreshments at the interval. If there’s a problem I’ll be inside making sure they all get seated quickly.’

  She turned to Esther. ‘All you have to do is to greet people at the door, smile and say, “Good Evening”, then point towards the ticket desk.’ Sheila gave a short demonstration. ‘Do you understand?’ Esther nodded enthusiastically.

  In the ladies’ dressing room things were not quite as well organised.

  ‘We have to sing the songs printed in the programme. You can’t go changing them!’ shouted Pat.

  Not this nonsense again, thought Irene.

  Peggy had been in a bad mood since they arrived. ‘I’m not playing ‘We’ll Meet Again.’ It’s turned into some sort of anthem. Everyone is singing it and, as soon as we start it, they’ll all be joining in. I’m not some sort of pub pianist accompanying the audience while they have a singalong!’

  ‘Look, Peggy,’ Irene reasoned. ‘We’ll have to sing it this time, but we’ll speak to Goldstein and ask him if we can replace it in the next concert. How’s that?’

  Pat let Irene have her say, then rounded on Peggy. ‘And don’t you dare go changing everything when we’re out there on the stage. I know you, Irene and I will be there ready to sing what’s in the programme and you’ll simply play something else and if we don’t want to look ridiculous we have to do what you want.’

  ‘That won’t happen, Pat. Peggy is a professional, she wants the show to be a success,’ said Irene. ‘That’s right isn’t it, Peggy?’

  Peggy turned to face the mirror and dusted her nose with powder. It was as though the conversation had never taken place. It wasn’t the song that was the reason for her bad temper, although she did dislike it intensely. It was the fact that Harry had failed to meet her at lunchtime as promised and that wasn’t the first time he’d let her down. Earlier in the week, she’d spent an hour waiting for him outside the Capitol picture house and in the end walked home on her own. If he didn’t turn up tonight at the concert, she would tell him she didn’t want to see him ever again. Actually, she might tell him that even if he did turn up.

  Pat, too, was in no mood to compromise. She had been deeply embarrassed by her conversation with William at the last rehearsal. The last thing she wanted tonight was to deal with Peggy and her antics. No, on reflection, the last thing she wanted was to sing with William Kennedy.

  *

  With Alice and Evelyn settled in their beds, Martha had some time to herself. Another woman given free rein in Anna’s house might have chosen to spend the evening in the drawing room with its elegant Gillow furniture imported from England. The settees were Japanese patterned yellow silk, on either side of which were Italian side tables of yew, inlaid with rose and cherry wood. On top of these were Belleek Parian table lamps with silk tasselled shades in soft blue and an oriental rug, bigger than Martha’s sitting room, lay in front of the fire. Instead, Martha preferred the modest morning room with its slate fireplace and comfortable cottage suite, besides it had a luxury the grander room lacked, a wireless. All week the news had been full of the possibility that Hitler was amassing troops on the western border of Germany and fears were growing that he meant to sweep across Europe.

  *

  At the Belfast Institute concert, the rumour that a member of the Stormont government was seated in the front stalls had an immediate effect on the opening acts. Entrances and exits were sharper and the show moved along at a good pace. Sammy knew how to impress and had the audience roaring with laughter at the suggestion that the caves on the Cave Hill had been requisitioned by the government as bomb shelters. Unfortunately, he explained, the authorities didn’t realise by the time people had climbed the hill, the all clear would have sounded! One or two in the know who looked in the direction of the government minister, were delighted to see him roar with laughter. Sammy also had a bit of fun with the sisters on stage when he introduced them:

  ‘And this is Pat?’

  ‘No, I’m Irene!’

  ‘Then you must be Peggy?’

  ‘No I’m Pat!’

  ‘So where’s Peggy?’

  ‘At the piano!’

  Sammy jumped in surprise at seeing Peggy, who had sneaked on behind him and seated herself at the piano.

  ‘Time to go, Sammy.’

  ‘Can’t I stay with you girls?’ He looked from one to the other.

  ‘No!’ they chorused and swung into ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye.’

  As they took their applause, Peggy scanned the stalls. She spotted the government minister right away, dinner suit, dickie bow, red face, but her eyes swept past him to the rear stalls and beyond, where Harry Ferguson stood.

  ‘Peggy, get a move on!’ Pat hissed. Without thinking, Peggy felt for the notes and began to play. There was a quick glance between Pat and Irene and an inward sigh of relief from both in response to the unmistakable opening bars of ‘We’ll Meet Again.’

  *

  Martha had made herself a cup of Earl Grey tea, something else she’d got used to over the last week, and sat down with a couple of pieces of shortbread to listen to the news.

  ‘Reports are coming in of the possible sinking of a ship in the Irish Sea. Enemy action is suspected. A rescue effort is underway somewhere off the coast of northern England.’

  The shortbread on its way to Martha’s lips never made it …her muscles tensed. She stood up, stared at the wireless.

  A change of tone: ‘In the House of Commons today, the Prime Minister …’ No further mention of the sinking ship. Had she heard correctly? Every nerve was telling her to move, go somewhere, do something, but what? She went into the kitchen and washed the cup, dried it and put it away. That was a start.

  She went upstairs and looked into each bedroom. Alice and Evelyn were sound asleep. She went to the bathroom, washed her hands and face in cold water and stared at the middle-aged woman under the harsh lights of the mirror.

  She should check the note Anna had left her; there was a chance … there was no point … they were making the crossing by boat
tonight. But there must be several boats crossing the Irish Sea every night … there was a chance …

  She returned to the morning room, sat in the same chair, ate the shortbread and waited for the next news bulletin.

  *

  At the interval, Goldstein found Pat. ‘I would like a private word with you, please. Your performance just now of the Mozart duet was not as good as it should have been.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The notes were the right notes, but something was missing. Last time that song was the best in the show, but tonight all the emotion was missing.’