by Maureen Lee
‘That’s a horrible dress,’ Lily said the minute they were outside. ‘It’s the sort of thing they wear in the workhouse.’ Before Josie could think of an equally rude reply, Lily put her arm through Josie’s and said, ‘I see you’ve met My Vince.’
‘He’s very nice,’ Josie said defensively. She was convinced Vince would be even friendlier if it wasn’t for his wife.
‘Oh, he’s dead lovely, My Vince.’ Lily giggled. ‘Our Marigold’s madly in love with him, but me da’ said Ivy would kill her stone dead if she found out. He doesn’t like either of ’em.’
‘Your da’ doesn’t like your Marigold?’ Josie gasped.
‘No, silly. He can’t stand My Vince or your Auntie Ivy. He said she’s besotted, though I don’t know what that means, and he’s a ponce. I don’t know what that means either. Me da’ thinks he only married her ’cos she had a house. It’s usually the fella that supplies the house. And, according to me da’, your auntie’s not short of a few bob. She bought his services, he said. When I asked for an explanation, I was told to mind me own business. He wasn’t talking to me, but to me ma.
‘“Look at the clothes she’s always buying him,” he said before he realised I was listening. “He’s got four suits.” Me poor da’s only got two, one for best and one for every day. Ma says he’s jealous, because she doesn’t wait on him hand and foot, like Ivy does My Vince, and he’s not nearly so good-looking.’
They had reached Sefton Park, and Lily showed her the fairy glen, a small clearing where the surrounding trees were turning bronze, and a few leathery leaves had already fallen on to the emerald grass, dotted with buttercups and daisies. The sun shone through the trees, making yellow patterns underneath. A slight breeze shook the branches, and the patterns shivered.
Josie was instantly enraptured. They were the only ones there, and the atmosphere was magical, like something out of a book. She half expected a fairy or an elf to come dancing towards her as she wandered down the sloping bank towards a stream, where goldfish, all different sizes, swam lazily in the tinkling, silvery water. If only she could stay for ever, never see Aunt Ivy again, but hide herself in the dark, rocky place where the stream disappeared and the trees joined thickly together to make an arch.
Two ducks came paddling towards her in their ungainly way, quacking angrily. Josie backed away. Perhaps living here wasn’t such a good idea.
‘They won’t hurt you.’ Lily was standing beside her. She must have sensed that Josie was awesomely impressed by the fairy glen. Her expression was smug, as if she owned the place, had planted the trees herself and had supplied the fish and the ducks and the frog that suddenly leapt from the water on to the bank.
‘Have you seen trees before?’ she asked patronisingly.
‘’Course I have,’ Josie snapped. ‘Mam used to take me to Princes Park.’
‘What was your mam like?’
‘Beautiful.’
‘I bet she wasn’t as beautiful as mine.’
It seemed a futile argument. Josie didn’t bother to reply. She watched the frog, which kept leaping and pausing, leaping and pausing, until it disappeared from sight.
There was silence, which she already realised was unusual when in the company of Lily Kavanagh. Then Lily said in a careful voice, ‘Do you like me?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Josie said honestly.
‘I’d like you to like me.’
‘We’ll just have to see.’
‘You can come to the pics with us tonight,’ Lily said in a coaxing voice, as if this might help Josie make up her mind.
‘The pics?’
‘The pictures, to see a film. Me ma’s taking me and our Ben to see Deanna Durbin in Spring Parade. Have you never been to the pictures, Josie?’
‘No. But me Auntie Ivy mightn’t let me.’
‘She will if I ask. She’ll do anything to keep in with the Kavanaghs.’ Lily puffed out her chest conceitedly. ‘We’re the most important family in the street. Me da’s a councillor on the corpy, as well as chairman of the Conservative Party, and me ma runs the Townswomen’s Guild. Our Stanley and Marigold are the Amateur Junior Waltz Champions of the North East of England.’
Lily hesitated and looked less sure of herself. ‘Or it might be the North West. They don’t do it so much nowadays. They used to go with a crowd in a big charabanc to places like Manchester and Blackpool, but now there isn’t the petrol. You can come with us to the Grafton ballroom next time there’s an exhibition. Our Stanley’s got an evening suit, a proper one, and Marigold’s got seven spangly frocks me ma made. You should be dead pleased that I like you and want you for a friend.’
‘Oh, I am,’ Josie said sarcastically. Privately, she was impressed, particularly with the waltzing bit. The sarcasm was wasted on Lily, who greeted the reply with a complacent smile.
‘Anyroad,’ she said, ‘your auntie will be pleased if you go out tonight. Sat’days, her and My Vince go to the pics in town. She wears her fur coat, and he gets dolled up to the nines. Me da’ ses he looks like one of them dummies in Burton’s shop window.’
St Joseph’s was already three days into the autumn term when Josie started on Monday. She noticed she was taller than all the girls in class I and most of the boys. When the teacher, Miss Simms, called the register, she answered clearly in a loud voice. Not normally given to pushing herself forward, she showed off outrageously, putting up her hand at every opportunity when the class was asked a question. At break time, Miss Simms asked her to remain behind.
‘Would you like to read this page for me, Josie?’
The page was composed of short sentences of mostly three-letter words. The cat sat on the mat. The man had a gun. The dog lay by the log.
Josie read the entire page without a pause. Miss Simms was impressed. ‘Who taught you to read, dear?’
‘Me mam,’ Josie said in a rush. After all, Aunt Ivy considered it all right to tell lies. ‘She taught me to do sums, an’ all. I can do add up and take away. And I’ve learnt some of the Catechism. I know the Pope cannot err, but I don’t know what err means. Do you, miss?’
Miss Simms laughed. ‘It means he can’t make a mistake, and it’s clever of you to ask. But I think I might be erring if I kept you in this class. I’d better have a word with Mr Leonard, the headmaster.’
On Tuesday morning she was moved up to class 2, which had been her objective all along. It was annoying when Mr Leonard took her into the new classroom, and Lily Kavanagh leapt to her feet and screeched, ‘Can she sit beside me, sir? I’m the only friend she has in the world.’
Josie was woken at half past eleven that night by Aunt Ivy shaking her arm. ‘The siren’s gone. Come on, miss, stir yourself. My Vince is working. He’s on nights.’
‘Where are we going?’ Josie stumbled out of bed, half-asleep.
‘The shelter, of course. Get a move on.’
The air-raid shelter was small, with a narrow bunk each side. Aunt Ivy lit a portable fire, and the shelter immediately stank of burning oil. The light from the fire revealed a dead spider suspended from a single thread. Josie lay on a bunk, and the dead spider sprang to life, raced up the thread and disappeared behind one of the wooden struts supporting the roof. She kept her eyes firmly on the spot where it had disappeared, knowing she’d never sleep a wink while it was there. The bombs didn’t bother her. She didn’t care if she was killed.
A thought occurred to her. She was reluctant to speak to her aunt unless she absolutely had to, but this seemed one of those times. ‘Where will I sleep if there’s a raid when Uncle Vince is home?’
Aunt Ivy was adjusting a thick, flesh-coloured net over her metal curlers. She tied the net under her chin. Her head was curiously at odds with the rest of her, as she wore a glamorous black satin dressing-gown and lace nightie. She only wore the curlers when Vince was at work. Other times, she waved her hair with metal tongues which she heated on the fire. She plumped the pillow. ‘I suppose you’ll have to curl up with me.’
Never
! Never in a million years.
Two days later, when the siren went, Josie clung to the headboard and refused to get up. ‘I’m not scared, I’d sooner stay.’
‘But you can’t!’ Aunt Ivy raged. ‘It’s dangerous. You might be killed.’
‘I’m not going,’ Josie said flatly. ‘You’ll have to drag me there.’
The buzz of planes could be heard, getting closer. For a few seconds, Aunt Ivy glanced wildly from her niece to the door, before giving up. ‘On your own head be it, miss,’ she said in clipped tones, and closed the bedroom door.
As the weeks went by the raids got worse, but the worse they got, the closer Josie felt to Mam. She could almost feel Mam’s warm body in the bed with her as the bombs screamed to earth and exploded with deafening thuds. The house would rock.
After a while, she decided she didn’t want to die after all. She would never stop missing her mother, but even though Mam was dead, incredibly, it seemed possible to be happy, at least for some of the time.
‘Shove off, our Ben,’ Lily said cruelly when her brother tried to sit by them in the school canteen. They were just finishing their dinner.
‘Don’t speak to him like that,’ Josie admonished when a downcast Ben loped away, shoulders hunched. With his thin face, big, brown eyes and shaggy blond hair, he reminded her of a defenceless puppy. She felt sorry for him, and was fed up with the way he was treated by his sister. Most people quickly got fed up with Lily and her bossy ways. It seemed to Josie that she was the only friend Lily had in the world, not the other way round.
‘He’s a drip,’ Lily sneered as they wandered into the playground.
‘No, he’s not. Cissie O’Neill said the other day he’s very clever. He’s expected to pass the scholarship when he’s ten, and go to grammar school.’
Lily’s eyes narrowed. ‘Since when have you been friends with Cissie O’Neill?’
‘I’m not, we were just talking. Though I wouldn’t mind us being friends, she’s very nice.’
‘Hmm.’ Lily considered this seriously and must have decided it wasn’t a line of conversation she wished to continue because she said, ‘Only drips pass scholarships.’
‘Only thickos fail them,’ Josie replied smartly. Perhaps the reason she didn’t mind Lily so much was because she gave as good as she got. She wasn’t prepared be told what to do, or what not to do, by someone who was shorter than she was and only a month older, not that Lily knew that.
Lily took offence at this, and marched off with her little nose in the air, but quickly returned when she could find no one else to play with. She took Josie’s arm, and they smiled warmly at each other.
‘Josie.’
Josie turned, and saw Ben Kavanagh galloping towards her on his long, thin legs. She was on her way home from school, by herself for a change because Lily was off with a cold and driving her mother to distraction with her non-stop demands.
Ben blushed scarlet, and mumbled something which at first she didn’t catch. He licked his lips nervously and repeated the words. ‘Can I carry your satchel?’
‘If you like.’ She gave it to him, and thought he looked a bit daft with a satchel on each arm.
‘Are you coming to ours for tea?’
‘Well, yes.’ It was a silly question, but she reckoned he was embarrassed. She had tea with the Kavanaghs every day. ‘But I’ve got to call home first for a pound of self-raising flour.’ Last week it had been margarine, and the week before a tin of cocoa, because Aunt Ivy insisted on providing rations to make up for what Josie ate.
Ben seemed useless at conversation. His Adam’s apple kept wobbling as he cleared his throat to speak, but nothing came. Josie felt desperately sorry for him, and searched her mind for something to say, but Ben’s awkward silence seemed to have affected her too. ‘It’s a nice warm day for December,’ was all she could manage.
‘Yes,’ Ben croaked. After an awkward pause, he went on, ‘They say it will stay warm over Christmas. Not like last year. Remember last year, Josie?’
She nodded. Last year it had snowed and snowed, and the whole world had been muffled in white. The attic had felt particularly warm and cosy. Her face grew sad at the memory.
‘You’re very brave,’ Ben said boldly.
‘Brave?’ Josie stared at him. He was still very pink.
He cleared his throat again. ‘Ma told us about your mam and dad, both dying, like. Your face is often sad, like it was just now, but you never cry.’
‘Oh!’ She felt touched. He was much more perceptive than his sister. She said impulsively, ‘But I do cry, Ben. I cry every night with me head under the bedclothes so no one’ll hear.’
Ben’s face crumpled, as if he was about to cry himself. ‘That’s awful,’ he gulped.
Josie smiled cheerfully. ‘I’ll just have to get along with it, won’t I? Promise you won’t tell your Lily about me crying. She’d never understand.’
He looked chuffed at the idea of them sharing a secret. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t say a word.’
There were times when Josie felt very odd, like two completely different little girls living in two completely different worlds. In one world, the outside one, lived the Josie who liked school, Lily’s best friend. In the other, darker world, a silent, surly Josie lived with Aunt Ivy, and cried for her mam every night.
She never told anyone how horrid it was at home because she didn’t want them feeling sorry for her, particularly Lily.
Aunt Ivy was impossible to please. If Josie put something down, it should have been put somewhere else, and she would be told so in an awful sneering voice, as if she were dead stupid. To be the object of such derision made her feel less than human.
‘You’re as bad as Mabel. She was never much of a one for housework. I bet that place you lived was filthy.’
Remembering how Mam had usually kept their attic spotless, Josie wanted to shout that this wasn’t true, but she had given up arguing. It wasn’t lack of courage, or that answering back made things worse, but her sullen silences, sullen eyes, drove her aunt wilder than words would ever do.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ she would scream hysterically, and shake her till her head was spinning.
For the slightest of reasons she would be sent to bed early, and sometimes for no reason at all, which she didn’t mind because it was better than sitting in the parlour with Aunt Ivy and My Vince, and being picked on all the time.
Not that Uncle Vince said anything nasty. When his wife wasn’t looking, he’d wink at Josie, and throw her a big smile.
And soon they were to share another secret, Josie and her Uncle Vince.
Christmas week, and the air raids were the heaviest Liverpool had known. They continued throughout the night, night after night, lasting ten hours, eleven, twelve.
The night before Christmas Eve, Josie listened to the sound of her city being blown to smithereens by Hitler’s bombs. It was like hell on earth, impossible not to be frightened. Fire engines clanged, fires crackled, glass shattered, people screamed, the earth shuddered. She put her arms around the pillow and tried to pretend it was Mam.
During a lull, her aunt came in and called upstairs for her to come to the shelter, but Josie refused. She yearned for company, but not her aunt’s. She wanted Maude, or Lily – any one of the Kavanaghs would have done. Most of all she wanted her mother. It didn’t seem fair, she thought fretfully. Cissie O’Neill sat under the stairs with her little brother when there was a raid, and their mam read stories until they went to sleep. The Kavanaghs went to Hughes’s cellar, the bakery on the corner, because their shelter wasn’t big enough for eight people, and they played I Spy and the Churchwarden’s Cat. Other children went to public shelters with flasks of tea and sandwiches, and sang ‘Bless ’Em All’ or ‘We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’.
The all clear went at a quarter past five. Her aunt and uncle came indoors, the kettle was put on, dishes rattled. After a while they came upstairs, and she could hear them talking. Even
tually, the bed creaked, as they lay down to catch a few hours’ sleep.
But Josie couldn’t sleep. She lay, tossing and turning, wondering if any other girls and boys had lost their mams during the night. War was wicked. She couldn’t understand it.
Some time later, the front door closed. Aunt Ivy had gone to work, but was finishing early, at lunchtime. My Vince must still be in bed. She almost wished it were a schoolday, that Lily would call any minute. They liked to get to school before everyone else and play ball in the empty playground.
She slid out of bed and opened the blackout curtains. A pall of black smoke hung low in the sky, which was otherwise bright and clear. The houses behind were still standing, and a woman cleaning an upstairs window gave her a little wave. Josie waved back. No matter how bad the raids, people very quickly returned to normal. She got dressed and washed her face in the bathroom. Her eyes were sticky, her knees shaky, as if they might give way any minute. She hoped they wouldn’t, because she and Lily were going to Penny Lane this avvy – if Penny Lane still existed – to buy Christmas presents for each other.
Apart from the ticking of the various clocks, the house was quiet. Josie made her bed, and a feeling of terrible loneliness swept over her. She groaned, determined not to cry.
‘Is that you, Josie? Are you all right, luv? That was a raid and a half, that was.’
Uncle Vince! ‘I’m all right, ta,’ she called.
‘Why don’t you come and say hello?’
Josie hesitated, then slowly crept along the landing. Uncle Vince was sitting up with the maroon eiderdown tucked around him. He wore blue and grey striped pyjamas buttoned to the neck and his bright golden hair was tousled. There was a tray of tea things on the bedside table. He smiled, and patted the space beside him. ‘Come on, luv. I heard that groan. Come and tell your Uncle Vince all about it. What’s up, luv?’
She sat on the bed. Uncle Vince slid an arm around her shoulders. ‘We’ve never had a little tête-à-tête before.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A little talk, a chinwag. Either you’re in, or I’m out, or Ivy’s here.’ Josie assumed from this that her aunt wouldn’t approve of the little talk. ‘I’ve wanted to ask about Mabel.’