The Leaving Of Liverpool

by Maureen Lee

  ‘Going away?’ It was the only part of the diatribe that she understood. ‘Going away where?’

  ‘Spain. I’m going to join the International Brigade and fight the Fascists, who are trying to overthrow the legally elected Socialist government. We got a letter asking for volunteers.’ His face changed, became softer. ‘Mollie, luv, I’ve always wanted to do something like this: fight for what’s right, really fight, not just attend meetings, sign petitions, and go on marches, but meet the enemy face to face, deal with them at first-hand.’

  ‘You mean kill them before they kill you?’ She was horrified. She didn’t want him to go away and risk his life, however worthy the cause. ‘What about us?’ she asked in a small voice.

  ‘Us?’ He was angry again. ‘There is no “us”. We both know I’m not good enough for you, that there’ll never be an “us”. That’s another reason I’m going. I love you, Moll, but we’re going nowhere.’ He picked up the tea that Issy must have brought without her noticing, took a sip, and returned the cup to the table with a bang. ‘No bloody where at all.’

  ‘But, Harry,’ she said meekly, ‘there’s nowhere for us to go.’

  ‘We could get married.’ He looked at her challengingly and the expression on his face, so full of love and longing, made her want to weep.

  ‘Oh, Harry, you know we can’t.’ She was almost weeping now. ‘There’s so many things against us: religion, for one.’

  ‘Religion! Huh! I’ve no time for religion; lighting candles, saying prayers to statues, listening to a priest drone on in Latin, which no one understands.’ The table was banged again, this time with his fist. ‘Marx said religion is the opium of the people and he was right. Me, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in anything except meself and the goodness in people’s hearts, if only they were allowed to get on with their lives without interference from the capitalists and the politicians - and the bloody priests.’

  She wanted to argue that he was wrong, that most people weren’t as good as he thought, that he was looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles. He was prepared to die for a cause he believed in, but not many men, or women, would do that.

  ‘It’s not just religion, Harry,’ she whispered. ‘Say if we got married and I had more children and had to give up my job. What would we live on? Tell me, how much do you earn a week?’

  ‘Twenty-five bob,’ he muttered. ‘We could move into the country, and I could get a job on a farm - though a farm worker’s wages are disgraceful.’ His shoulders drooped as the sense of what she had just said sank in. ‘It’s hopeless, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, love.’ She stroked his hand.

  ‘I want you,’ he said. ‘I want you so much that I’d go back on the docks if they’d take me, and keep me big mouth shut this time. I wish you weren’t so prim and proper, Moll,’ he said childishly, ‘and more like other girls.’

  ‘In what way, Harry?’ She had no idea what he meant.

  ‘You know what way.’ He refused to meet her eyes.

  The penny dropped. ‘You mean make love with you?’ She felt herself blush, but pressed on. ‘Where? In the back entry of Turnpike Street? In my mother-in-law’s house while she and the children are asleep? Would that keep you here, Harry, if we were able to make love?’

  ‘It might. That, or the thought that we’d be together one day. I won’t always be an odd job man. I read books, I know about things most people don’t, I could learn to talk proper, more like you.’

  ‘Oh, Harry, don’t! I love you - yes, I do.’ She nodded as if she were telling herself, not just him. ‘I love you, but it’ll never work. I’ve got four children and I have to put them first. Their lives have already been disrupted enough.’ At least Megan and Brodie’s had: Joe and Tommy had no memory of their father.

  ‘So, unless I turn up in a few years’ time driving a Rolls-Royce and wearing a Savile Row suit, there’s no hope for us?’ To her surprise, he managed the trace of a grin.

  ‘There’d be no need for posh cars and posh clothes, but there’s always hope, Harry. We’ll just have to see.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t want you to go away.’

  ‘There’s nothing else for it, Moll. I’ve got to.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘There’s the tickets to arrange and that sort of thing. I’ll be off as soon as I can.’

  Perhaps she was too sensible, too set in her ways. The only risk she’d ever taken in her life was leaving Ireland with the intention of going to America - and look at the mess she’d made of that! However hard she looked at it, in however many ways, she couldn’t come up with a single solitary reason for marrying Harry Benedict other than they loved each other, which might have been enough for some women, but not for her.

  She imagined writing to Finn and saying she was about to marry a Communist with a hopeless job - he’d been shocked enough when she told him she was marrying a policeman. As for her mother-in-law, Irene wouldn’t have stood for it, if only on religious grounds. She would be so incensed she could well throw Mollie and her children out of the house, not caring that she’d be cutting off her nose to spite her face and have to go on the parish to pay the rent and feed herself. As for Lily and Pauline, they’d never speak to Mollie again, and she wasn’t even too sure about Gladys.

  Harry had an address in Barcelona where he would stay. He was catching a train to London, and another to Dover, then he would cross the channel and journey through France on more trains until he reached Spain. ‘Barcelona’s not far from the border,’ he told her. His gran had paid for the tickets. She’d been saving a few coppers a week out of the money he’d given her over the years for housekeeping.

  ‘I bet she doesn’t want you to leave,’ Mollie commented.

  ‘You don’t know me gran. She’s all for it. She said she’d’ve come with us if she were younger.’

  Mollie had the feeling he was taking his time making the travel arrangements in the hope that she would change her mind and agree to sleep with him, or marry him. Even if she had been prepared to sleep with him, where would they go? Only a hotel, and she couldn’t think of a single reason on earth she could give for staying out all night.

  She bought him a jumper and two pairs of socks. ‘Have you got a suitcase?’ she asked worriedly. She still had the old carpetbag Finn had found in the Doctor’s house for Tom when he’d returned to Liverpool, leaving his family behind in Duneathly.

  ‘Don’t need one, Moll. I won’t be taking all that much.’ He was in high spirits and full of himself. Perhaps he’d be glad to see the back of her. Maybe he felt trapped in a situation that couldn’t be resolved, and this was the only way out.

  The tickets were bought; he was leaving on Monday on the first train out of Lime Street. In four days he would be gone out of her life, possibly for ever. Mollie wasn’t sure if she could bear it. She too was trapped, but for her there was no way out.

  ‘Irene,’ she said. ‘Agatha’s invited me to tea on Sunday. I was going to take the children, but Agatha suggested we go to the pictures afterwards to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Roberta. Phil’s offered to stay and look after the children and I wondered if you’d mind looking after mine?’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t luv,’ Irene said warmly. ‘It’ll make a nice change for you and Agatha to go out together.’

  Mollie set off on Sunday wearing the frock she’d bought for her interview at the Rotunda. Since then, she’d always thought of it as her ‘lucky’ frock, for nothing even faintly unpleasant had happened when she wore it. There were butterflies in her stomach and her legs felt unsteady. She had never done anything like this before.

  She alighted from the tram in London Road and walked quickly in the direction of Lime Street station where Harry was waiting underneath the clock as she’d asked him to. He was better dressed than she’d ever seen him in a navy-blue suit with chalk stripes, a pale-blue shirt, and a dark tie, though there was something odd about the outfit that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
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br />   ‘Why couldn’t we have come together on the tram?’ he asked when she stood in front of him. His face split into the familiar grin that she loved. ‘I know, you were worried someone like your flamin’ mother-in-law would see us together, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mollie conceded. ‘You look nice. Where did the suit come from?’

  ‘It belonged to me dad. It’s the one he wore when he married me mam. Gran kept it in the wardrobe all this time.’ That was why it looked so odd. The suit was about thirty years old, the lapels were unfashionably wide, and the waistcoat buttoned too high. The legs were an inch too short, but that was nothing to do with fashion, just that he was taller than his father had been. ‘Where are we going, Moll? I hope it’s not the pictures, because I’ve never had much time for them. They’re just a way of keeping the population pacified, like giving them sweets when they’re hungry and telling them it’s proper food.’

  ‘It’s not the pictures, Harry.’ She linked his arm. ‘Come with me.’

  Ten minutes later, they entered the little hotel in Seymour Street where she’d booked a room the day before. The room was on the second floor. The wallpaper was patterned with purple grapes on the vine, the furniture the cheapest you could buy, but the bed looked comfortable and everywhere was scrupulously clean.

  Mollie locked the door. Harry was looking at her, totally bemused. ‘What’s this all about, Moll?’

  ‘You’re awfully slow on the uptake, darlin’.’ She held out her arms. ‘This is what it’s all about.’ It wasn’t enough to prevent him from going away, but it would be something he - and she - would remember until the end of their days.

  ‘The only photo I’ve got of him is the one taken at his christening.’ Kate Benedict handed her a small, faded photo showing a young couple, the man very like Harry, and the pretty woman beside him holding a baby in her arms. The baby wore a bonnet and a long christening gown. His face couldn’t be seen. ‘It doesn’t tell you much, does it?’

  ‘Not really,’ Mollie agreed. ‘It’s hard to imagine Harry in a bonnet, even as a baby.’

  ‘He never cared a fig how he looked - and he never felt the cold. I gave up insisting he wore a scarf and gloves in winter. I wonder how he’s getting on?’ she mused.

  Harry had been gone a month. By now, the children were back at school and Mollie was feeling very low. She’d called on Mrs Benedict - who insisted she call her Kate - to ask if she’d heard from her grandson, but so far a letter hadn’t arrived.

  Kate Benedict was eighty, but looked much younger. There was fire in her eyes and her small, pink, surprisingly unwrinkled face was animated and full of life. She was an older, feminine version of her grandson. She took Mollie into the parlour, which was full of books. ‘I was just writing something,’ she said. There was a pen, a bottle of ink, and an exercise book on the table in front of the window.

  ‘Is it a letter to Harry?’ Mollie asked.

  ‘No, luv. I wouldn’t know where to send it, would I? He’d no intention of staying at that place in Barcelona. It’s the minutes of a meeting held last night in this very room: the Socialist Sisters of Liverpool. We meet once a fortnight. The local Labour Party meet here every month. Harry never came: he hadn’t much time for Labour. Mind you, neither have I, but the Communists are a bit too wild-eyed for me and there’s something about that Joseph Stalin I can’t abide. Would you like a cup of tea, Mollie?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  From then on, she called on Kate Benedict at least once a week, but, by the time Christmas came, there was still no word from Harry. She read the Daily Herald from cover to cover. The International Brigade was made up of thousands of Europeans as well as volunteers from Canada, America, and Australia, most of whom had never touched a rifle in their lives. They were no match for the many more thousands of experienced troops from Italy and Germany led by the Fascist General Franco. The fighting was bitter and brutal. It was a war of ideas and ideals.

  In April, the small town of Guernica in northern Spain was attacked by German Heinkels, followed by the much heavier Junkers, dropping bombs a ton at a time, tearing the town apart, slaughtering its innocent people, machine-gunning those who’d managed to escape to the countryside. The onslaught continued for three hours. A full account of the dead and injured was never made, but it was in Guernica that Harry Benedict died.

  Three weeks later, a letter arrived for Kate from a Liverpool man: Frank Davenport. The writing was cramped and illiterate but, when Mollie read the letter, she felt love for Frank Davenport that filled her heart. He wrote about his ‘dear friend Harry’, his ‘comrade in arms’, and how he had died a ‘hero’s death’, trying to save a child from German bombs: ‘ . . . I’m not ashamed to say it - I cried when Harry died. I still cry whenever I think of him. He talked a lot about his gran and a girl called Mollie who he loved. Yours in sorrow, Frank Davenport.’

  Kate sighed now, folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. Her eyes were bright, but she hadn’t shed a tear. Her grandson had died a death to be proud of, not weep over. She handed the letter to Mollie. ‘You keep this, luv. Oh, and someone gave me a poem the other day; it was printed in the New Statesman. I’ll give you that an’ all.’ She slipped the cutting into the envelope with Frank Davenport’s letter.

  Mollie read the poem when she got home, hardly able to see through her tears. The last line read, ‘We will remember Guernica when black birds descending, OUR cities are on fire.’

  It was an ominous warning of what was to come should Hitler turn his evil gaze on Europe.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Happy birthday,’ Mollie cried when Annemarie went into the kitchen. ‘Your present’s on the table; it’s a blouse. Sinead Connolly made it and I embroidered the flowers down the front.’

  Annemarie took her seat at the table and opened the parcel. ‘Oh, Mollie, it’s desperately pretty. I wish I could embroider like this.’ She touched the little pink rosebuds, so neat and perfect.

  ‘You’re too impatient, sweetheart,’ Mammy said. ‘You sew as if you’re racing against time. If I were you, I’d stick to drawing.’ Mammy was expecting a baby and her stomach was like a little mountain. If it was a boy she was going to call it Aidan, and Calla if it were a girl. She looked tired and Annemarie impulsively reached across and stroked the black, curly hair that was so much like her own. Mammy caught her hand and squeezed it. ‘Happy birthday, darlin’,’ she whispered.

  ‘April Fool!’ Finn shouted gleefully. ‘It’s not your birthday after all.’

  ‘Indeed it is my birthday,’ Annemarie said firmly. Finn said the same thing every year. ‘I’m eleven - and where’s my present from you, I’d like to know.’

  ‘I haven’t got you anything. I forgot.’ Finn said that every year, too. ‘Oh, all right.’ He took a tiny box out of his trouser pocket. ‘Here it is.’

  ‘A ring! I can just tell it’s a ring.’ Annemarie took the lid off the box. Inside, nestling on a lump of cotton wool, there was indeed a ring with a green stone. ‘Is that an emerald?’ she asked.

  ‘Not likely, sis. I’m not made of money. It’s jade.’

  ‘Jade’s unlucky,’ Nanny said in doom-laden voice. ‘That ring will bring the girl nothing but grief.’

  ‘Please don’t say things like that, Nanny,’ Mammy said sharply. ‘It’s a really pretty ring and I think it’s opal that’s unlucky, not jade. Put it on, sweetheart, let’s see what it looks like.’

  Annemarie slipped the ring on to the middle finger of her right hand, half expecting the ceiling to fall in while she did so. Fortunately, nothing happened. She spread her hand and showed it to Mammy and Finn. Mollie, who was making toast so Mammy could rest, came over to have a look, and they all remarked how lovely it was. Nanny, who was busy stirring the porridge and seemed determined to spoil things, said Finn should have bought a ring with an amethyst stone, ‘to go with her eyes’, but Annemarie said she’d much prefer green.

  ‘The porridge is ready,’ Nanny said in th
e same doom-laden voice, as if the porridge was heavily laced with poison and everyone was about to die.

  ‘Where’s Thaddy?’ Mammy enquired. ‘Didn’t I wake the lad half an hour ago? I reckon he’s gone back to sleep.’

  Mollie put a plate piled high with buttered toast on the table, along with a bowl of damson jam that Nanny had made the year before. ‘I’ll fetch him,’ she said, but there was no need, for three-year-old Thaddy came staggering in carrying a giant cardboard structure that turned out to be a fort. He had built it for Annemarie on her birthday.

  ‘Thank you, Thaddy darlin’.’ She kissed him warmly on both cheeks. ‘It’s lovely. Just what I wanted.’

  ‘I nearly fell downstairs and spoiled it.’ His eyes shone with love for his sister and made her want to cry.

  Instead of crying, she kissed him again. ‘That would have been desperately awful,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it up to my bedroom in a minute and play with it when Mollie and me come back from Kildare.’

  It was going to be a wonderful day, her birthday. They were on holiday from school for Easter, and Mammy and her da had given her a whole five shillings. Very soon she and Mollie would catch the bus to Kildare to spend it, along with Finn who worked there. They would meet Finn for lunch and he would put them on the bus home.

  ‘Is the Doctor not joining us for breakfast this morning?’ Nanny enquired.

  ‘He’s in the surgery with a patient,’ Mammy replied. ‘Didn’t one of Mr MacDonald’s farm workers go and nearly cut off his foot with a scythe? He’s sewing the poor man back together again. He’ll be a while yet.’

  Annemarie was glad - not because the poor farm worker had nearly cut off his foot, but because her da wouldn’t be joining them for breakfast. His presence would cast a shadow over the room. She always sensed it, though Mollie said this only proved how daft she was. She sensed nothing at all.