The Seven Streets of Liverpool

by Maureen Lee

  A woman inside shouted, ‘Come in.’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said when Alice entered.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Alice had thought it was still only morning. She produced the letter from the hospital and said she had come to see Aircraftsman Sean Doyle. She was instructed to take a seat outside and a Dr Whelan would come and see her shortly.

  The doctor turned out to be a charming Irishman with twinkly brown eyes and a head of thick grey curls. As they climbed the stairs towards the first floor, Alice asked if her husband would be expecting her. ‘I came the minute I got the letter,’ she said.

  Dr Whelan looked at her sadly. ‘I’m afraid not, Mrs Doyle.’ He didn’t explain why, but opened a door, and there was the dearest husband in the world lying on a bed with his eyes closed, though they opened wide when Alice threw herself on top of him and showered his face with kisses.

  The doctor took her arm and pulled her gently away, and Alice was left to stare into Sean’s familiar brown eyes, which showed absolutely no acknowledgement, no familiar twinkle, no sign whatsoever that he recognised who she was.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asked in an anguished voice. She had expected to see him perhaps with his arm in a sling, his leg in plaster, a bandage on his head, but not looking perfectly whole except for his empty eyes.

  ‘He has amnesia, Mrs Doyle,’ Dr Whelan said quietly. ‘He has lost his memory. There was an incident in Malta.’

  ‘Will it ever come back?’

  ‘Hopefully; in time.’

  ‘In time,’ Alice echoed. She was regarding her husband silently, not knowing what to do or say, when a familiar voice from behind her said, ‘There you are, girl,’ and she turned to see that Jack Doyle had entered the room.

  ‘Mr Doyle!’ Alice launched herself at him and he had no alternative but to catch her in his arms. ‘He’s here, can you see him, our Sean? But he can’t see us.’

  Jack set her back on the floor. ‘He can see us, luv. He just doesn’t know who we are.’

  ‘Oh, but he will one day, won’t he?’ she said eagerly. ‘One day soon?’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘I’m Sean’s father: I rang up this morning,’ he said. Then, to Alice, ‘Sheila managed to get a message to me at work. I came straight away.’

  The doctor left, and Jack and Alice sat and talked to Sean for a good hour, though by the time they left he had shown no sign at all of recognising them.

  ‘I reckon we’d better start making tracks back to Bootle,’ Jack said eventually. ‘Have you had anything to eat today, luv?’

  Alice remembered that the letter had arrived before she’d had so much as a cup of tea. ‘No,’ she admitted.

  ‘Then we’ll go somewhere and have a drink and a sarnie, then get the train home.’

  Alice didn’t think she’d be able to eat again until Sean was better and had recovered his memory. She said so to his dad.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Jack snorted. ‘We don’t want Sean getting better while his missus steadily wastes away. It wouldn’t exactly please him, would it?’

  On Saturday, Jack and Alice, this time accompanied by Sean’s sisters, Sheila and Eileen, travelled to Blackpool together.

  The problem of the children – Sheila’s seven, along with Alice’s Edward and Eileen’s Nicky – was solved when Kate volunteered to look after all of them at the cottage in Melling, as long as a few other people were willing to give her a hand. Brenda Mahon, bringing her girls, and Lena Newton offered to help, Phyllis Taylor, when she heard, insisted on coming along too. Phyllis liked having her finger in every available pie.

  It was the first day of March, the sun was out, and spring was in the air. You could almost smell the forthcoming sunshine, the plants that were about to grow and the leaves that would soon appear on the trees.

  Kate had drawn up a timetable showing expected mealtimes and games to play and pinned it to the kitchen door. A giant pan of scouse had been simmering on the stove since early morning; a cake missing all sorts of ingredients, fortunately none of them essential, was waiting to go in the oven; lemonade and sweets had been purchased and a few small prizes were there to be won.

  The kittens, Godfrey and Tommy, had been left in the flat over the dairy as company for each other.

  They arrived at the cottage like a youthful army, marching in pairs. The older ones played hide and seek, first in the house, then in the garden when a pale sun appeared mid-morning. Afterwards, they picked daisies and made chains. Dominic Reilly, Sheila’s eldest boy, who was nearly twelve, became aware that Monica Mahon, Brenda’s elder girl, who was approaching eleven, was outstandingly pretty, with her chestnut-brown ringlets and wide-apart grey eyes. He had known her his entire life, but had never really noticed her before.

  When they gathered round the big table in the cottage for their dinner, he held out the chair next to his for her to sit on.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, blushing slightly. She thought what a nice lad he was, if a bit loud and extremely naughty a lot of the time, though not now.

  After the meal was over, the four youngest were put to sleep in Eileen’s double bed, where Lena Newton watched over them, wishing that at least one of them belonged to her. Maurice had been transferred to a ship whose job it was to take supplies to Russia, so she didn’t see as much of him as she used to. She knew she should have been sorry and was ashamed that she felt glad, even though it meant there was less chance of her having a baby than there’d been before.

  Dinner over, the older children went outside again. On the list that Kate had made, they were due to play rounders. Instead, they went mad, climbing trees, doing cartwheels, and running around with their arms spread wide like aeroplanes while making the appropriate noises and pretending to shoot each other down.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Peter Mallory turned up. He was disappointed that Eileen wasn’t there, but was willing to organise a game of cricket, ‘If there’s a bat around anywhere.’

  Brenda said she thought there was one in the garden shed, while Kate wondered who on earth he was.

  ‘He’s a friend of Eileen’s,’ said Lena, who’d met Peter before. ‘But I could have sworn his name was Wood, not Mallory.’

  Kate didn’t care what his name was; she was just thankful that a man had turned up to keep the older boys in hand, though Dominic, who she’d thought at first was the naughtiest of the boys, showed no interest in cricket and seemed happy to share the swing with one of Brenda’s daughters. Kate considered it rather touching, though by now she was longing for the mothers to come back and reclaim their various children.

  They arrived, Eileen, Sheila and Alice, just after six o’clock, when the children were exhausted and had collapsed in odd places all over the house, from where they were collected and counted.

  ‘How was Sean?’ Kate asked, concerned at the sight of their miserable faces.

  ‘Not so hot,’ Sheila said with a sigh. She clapped her hands and her oldest children pretended to stand to attention. Two of them saluted. ‘There’s nothing funny about anything,’ Sheila snapped. ‘Your uncle Sean’s not at all well. Fetch your coats and we’ll go home.’

  ‘He’s lost his memory,’ Eileen explained to everyone. ‘But they’re letting him out in a fortnight, see how he gets on with his family all around him.’

  ‘He’s going to get better,’ Alice said fiercely. ‘I’ll make him better if it kills me.’

  It was dark by the time everyone arrived back in Pearl Street. The children, young and old, were quite agreeable to going to bed early. Even Phyllis Taylor felt tired after spending an entire day chasing after eleven children, not that she hadn’t enjoyed herself tremendously. Her mother worked disgracefully long hours and wouldn’t be home until ten. Phyllis decided to listen to some music while reading a book, two of her favourite occupations.

  She had turned on the gas fire and Radio Luxembourg was on the wireless, with Bing Crosby singing a collection of songs from Broadway
shows, when there was a knock on the door. It couldn’t be anybody local, or they would have just pulled the key through the letter box and let themselves in. Always interested in anything even faintly out of the ordinary, Phyllis leapt to her feet and went to answer the door.

  A young, truly gorgeous American soldier was standing on the pavement outside, a jeep parked in the street behind him. He looked disappointed when Phyllis appeared and she wondered who he had expected to see.

  ‘The lady who used to live here, she had red hair,’ he said haltingly. ‘Is she in?’

  ‘You mean Mrs Fleming – Jessica? She’s Mrs Henningsen now.’ Phyllis had never met Jessica, but had heard all sorts of interesting things about her, including the fact that she had the most amazing red hair.

  He nodded eagerly. ‘That’s right, Jessica.’

  ‘Well, after marrying Captain Henningsen, she went to live near Warrington. He’s an American, like you.’

  The soldier shifted from foot to foot. ‘I’m going about this all the wrong way, miss. It’s not Jessica – Mrs Henningsen – I wanted to see; it’s the girl who lived here with her: Kitty Quigley.’

  ‘Ah! Kitty, well she …’ Phyllis paused and a whole chain of thoughts chased each other through her head. She reckoned this must be the soldier that Kitty had fallen madly in love with and who had made her pregnant. But Kitty was living directly across the street, happily married to George Ransome and now expecting his baby. On the other hand, she had only married George while on the rebound from the exceptionally attractive specimen of manhood staring at Phyllis at this very moment, waiting for her to reply. The man was married, but perhaps his wife had died or divorced him. Would Kitty be able to resist him if it turned out he was now available? Phyllis had noticed that some people didn’t think twice about dispensing with honour and integrity when there was a war on. Look at her own father! All in all, in the long run it would be better if Kitty wasn’t told that her old lover had come in search of her, whether he was still married or not.

  She smiled warmly at the soldier. ‘Would you like to come in for a minute?’

  He stepped inside. ‘Why, thank you, miss. I’m Dale Tooley, by the way – Sergeant. I haven’t been this way, Lancashire, for a long time. I’m normally based in Kent.’

  ‘I’m normally based in Beverley, near Hull, and my name is Phyllis Taylor.’

  She directed him into the sitting room, where she turned off the wireless and sat at the table, indicating to him to sit opposite so she could admire him – he wouldn’t be there for much longer. He had lovely brown hair, slightly curly, and brown eyes with enviably long lashes.

  ‘My mum and I have lived here for about eighteen months,’ she told him. ‘We rented the house off Jessica – Mrs Henningsen. I’ve been told that Kitty was a nurse …’

  ‘That’s right, she was a nurse,’ he interrupted.

  ‘It seems she joined up and went away on a hospital ship. It sailed somewhere, I think it was Australia, where she met a doctor and they got married.’

  ‘Did she!’ His face fell, and Phyllis went off him quite a bit, despite him being utterly gorgeous. Did he think he could just break Kitty’s heart and leave her pregnant with his child, then turn up and expect her to fall into his arms? ‘Is that where she lives – Australia?’ he asked shakily.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure of it – in Melbourne, as a matter of fact. She has two children, a boy and a girl,’ Phyllis told him, rubbing it in. ‘Twins,’ she added, in case there hadn’t been time for Kitty to have married and become pregnant twice. ‘Apparently she’s extremely happy.’

  ‘Is she really?’ His shoulders hunched and he stood to leave. ‘Well, thank you, Miss Taylor. It’s kind of you to pass on this information. I’ll leave you in peace now.’

  Phyllis showed him out, wishing she’d kept him for a bit longer – offered him a cup of tea, perhaps. She heard the jeep start up and drive away and was about to switch the wireless back on again and pick up her book when there was another knock at the door, much louder than the first.

  Phyllis rolled her eyes in mock exasperation: she was rather enjoying the drama of having two callers on a Saturday night.

  ‘Who is it this time?’ she asked herself out loud.

  She opened the door and her father burst into the house. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing entertaining a bloody Yank at this time of night?’ he shouted.

  Phyllis put on a bored look and glanced at her watch. ‘It’s only half past eight,’ she said. ‘And I wasn’t entertaining him. He just came to ask a question.’

  ‘What sort of question?’ her father asked suspiciously.

  She thought of saying something outrageous, but he looked too mad to take a joke. She strolled back into the living room and he followed. ‘He was looking for a woman who used to live here.’

  ‘How long was he here?’ He still looked suspicious. ‘And where’s your mother?’

  Phyllis lost her temper. ‘He was here about ten minutes,’ she shouted. ‘And she’s where she is most of the time: at work. She works all the hours God sends these days. Why aren’t you at work, Dad? It’s Saturday; isn’t that when pubs are at their busiest?’

  ‘I’m sick,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t look sick.’ He had shaved off his beard and looked better without it. She’d always been proud of having such a youthfully handsome father. ‘And what are you doing in our street?’ she demanded.

  ‘I just happened to be walking past the house.’

  ‘It’s a cul-de-sac,’ Phyllis pointed out.

  He scowled and looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh, all right, I’ve been keeping an eye on you and your mother. I was worried about you.’

  ‘Huh!’ Phyllis said scornfully. ‘It’s a bit late in the day, isn’t it?’

  He sat down in the chair the American had just vacated. ‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘I know I’ve been a bastard, but what’s happened is Mick O’Brien has been called up and I don’t know what to do about it.’

  ‘Who’s Mick O’Brien?’

  ‘It’s who I’m supposed to be, isn’t it? I told you when we met at Christmas. Mick walked out on Dawn, so I moved in and took over his identity. We were about the same age. It all seemed a bit of a joke at the time. But now they’ve started calling up chaps in their forties. I don’t mind doing my bit, but doing it using Mick’s name is taking things a bit too far.’

  ‘You could get into serious trouble,’ his daughter warned him.

  ‘There’s no need to tell me that, Phyllis. I already know.’ He scratched his neck and looked helpless. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Are you still in love with Dawn?’ Phyllis asked.

  He thought a bit, looked dubious, wrinkled his nose, then said, ‘Nah! I don’t think I ever was. Not really.’ He reached across the table and seized her arm. ‘You had to be here to experience those air raids, Phyll. It was like hell on earth. Every night you feared for your life. You’d come out of the shelter next morning and there’d be houses right in front of you reduced to rubble. The world was a different place from when you went in. It made you wonder what you’d been put on earth for.’

  ‘To be unfaithful to your wife and desert your one and only child?’ Phyllis suggested sarcastically, wanting to rile him, but he merely shook his head and looked sad.

  ‘Your mother always claimed I’d never properly grew up,’ he said. ‘That I was a sort of Peter Pan. I suppose I got ideas about being young again, squeezing more out of life than I already had; that sort of thing. Then when I heard at Christmas that you and your mum had been looking for me, I felt awful about it. Now with this Mick O’Brien business, I realise what a clot I’ve been.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I dunno. Have you got any suggestions?’ He regarded her hopefully.

  ‘Not at the moment.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll think about it, but I think you should leave. I’m not expecting Mum until after ten, but very occasionally she comes home early. The
last thing we want is for her to find you here.’

  ‘I’ll be off then.’

  Before leaving, he had the nerve to kiss her on the cheek.

  Phyllis waited to give him time to leave the street before putting on her coat and going for a walk. She felt like getting out of the house for a while.

  Men, she thought as she walked along the dark streets. What babies they were, what fools. What was the point of them?

  Gosh, it was dark! There was no moon, and the clouds were great mountains of black with angry streaks of orange here and there, as if there was a fire burning behind them. Phyllis stopped walking and stared at the sky, both impressed and terrified at how vast it was, and how incredibly ugly. It made her, made the whole world, feel very small and unimportant. There must be more to it, more to something that she couldn’t think of the word for, than just this single planet.

  And why had God let there be a war like this one, with ordinary human beings helpless against hundreds and thousands of bombs dropped from aeroplanes way up in the sky? Was that why aeroplanes had been invented? To kill people, rather than fly them to other countries to see what the rest of what should have been a wonderful world was like?

  Phyllis began to cry. She leant against the wall and slid down until she was crouched on the pavement. It was someone’s house, the wireless was on, and she could hear Judy Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’.

  She had gone to see The Wizard of Oz with her mum and dad in Hull as soon as it came out. She’d been thirteen. Oh, how she’d loved that song! It had seemed to express all the good things she wanted to do with her life, the marvellous adventures she would have, the places she would go. But the war had spoilt it, not just for her but for everyone, young and old alike.

  Things would be no better on the other side of the rainbow than they were on this side, of that she was sure.