September Starlings

by Ruth Hamilton

  Someone knocked at the door. I pushed the fringe from my eyes, answered the persistent caller. It was a tall woman with stringy hair and pale eyes. I recognized her face, but could not place her accurately. ‘Are you Mrs Thompson?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She thrust an envelope under my nose. ‘We live further up, in one of the new houses. I think 22 Wordsworth Street used to be up there, before they pulled the terrace down, like. Well, the woman in the greengrocer’s said your name was Thompson, so I’ve called on the off-chance. I think they must have meant number 2. Anyway, if it’s not for you, you can always shove it back in the box, put “not at this address” on the envelope.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I turned the cheap buff envelope between my fingers, not understanding why I felt so disturbed. I was definitely number 2, the first house on Wordsworth Street. And I was definitely Mrs Thompson. I looked into the colourless eyes. ‘I’ll open it later.’ When she had walked away, I stood on the doorstep for several seconds. I didn’t want to look at this letter. It wasn’t a bill or a note from my newly acquired agent, wasn’t from Confetti or Anne. Mr Thompson, then? If so, why so?

  We went to the public baths, came home shiny and clean, ate our supper of pie and vegetables. The letter stood on the mantelpiece, propped up behind one of a pair of candlesticks from a second-hand shop in Waterloo. It was a smallish envelope, yet it seemed to grow as it sat there, seemed to swell up until it filled my mind and the small sitting room.

  When they were all in bed, I took it down, placed it on the tablecloth. My name and the wrong address were printed in block capitals, rather square ones, and the pen had been a cheap ballpoint, because bits of ink had made a blob here and there. I weighed it in my hand, assessed that it contained just one sheet of paper or perhaps two thin pieces.

  The same instinct that had stirred on the doorstep forced me into the kitchen. I filled the kettle, set it to boil, almost hopping from foot to foot as I waited for some steam. But I missed my chance, because Liddy’s voice came screaming over the back yard wall. ‘Laura! Get out here, I’ve bloody started.’ I turned everything off, thrust the letter into a drawer, fled through the house and into number 4.

  Jimmy was there looking huge and useless, his hands dangling by his sides. ‘What do I do?’ he asked me.

  ‘Shift,’ I answered. ‘Get this lot upstairs and play cards or something.’ Liddy, whose dislike of hospitals was almost paranoid, had fought to have this seventh child at home. I wondered fleetingly what its name would be, as the rest, with the exception of Mary, answered to nicknames most of the time. Bonzo, really Mark, chased Short’ouse, really Paul, up the stairs while Jimmy continued riveted to the spot. The expression on his face might have framed the word ‘gormless’, had it not already been invented. ‘Go,’ I told him.

  He went, feet dragging, his face turning towards the woman he loved. ‘Will she be all right?’ he threw over his shoulder.

  ‘Out,’ I said again.

  Liddy rallied. ‘Look, Jimmy, I know some of these modern folk want their men there when the baby comes. But you’re not standing near me and staring at me private parts, it’s not nice. And you’d only faint over.’ She gritted her teeth against one of those fierce and unproductive early pains. ‘He’s bloody thick,’ she announced to me when Jimmy had dragged himself away. ‘I’ve done this six times without him, so he can sod off.’ She sat on the sofa, then eased herself onto the floor. ‘Now, I’ll be all right. Just open out this here sofa-bed, then get down to Milton Terrace for that midwife, her with a face like a tinned prune. Gladys, she’s called. Gladys Roberts. She’s Welsh, but that can’t be helped.’

  As I unfolded the bed, I wondered what Liddy had against Welsh people. Liddy plainly read my thoughts. ‘She doesn’t talk, she warbles, goes up and down all the while. It’s a nice enough voice till you’re in labour, but all that “Ooh, there’s lovely you are” gets you down after an hour or two. You’ll find the linen clean and ready in the bottom drawer.’ She pointed to the dresser, a treasured heirloom that dominated the room. ‘And if this one’s not a girl, you can stuff it back in, ’cos I’ve knitted in pink, bought a job lot on Paddy’s Market.’

  Being present while Liddy gave birth was a great privilege and an experience that I would never forget. She told the midwife to sit in a corner and keep quiet, then my stolid little neighbour ran through every song she knew, some of them highly unsuitable for such a serious occasion. Halfway through ‘The Foggy, Foggy Dew’, the waters broke. ‘Not so much dew as a bloody torrent,’ declared Liddy. ‘Is that plastic sheet saving the sofa? And put apples on my shopping list, Laura, red delicious and Granny Smiths. Then get that kettle on, me throat’s like a birdcage bottom.’

  Gladys stirred. ‘It would be best if you didn’t drink tea, Mrs Mansell. You see, if there are complications, you might need an ambulance and an anaesthetic—’

  ‘Belt up.’ Liddy was clearly approaching the highlight of her one-woman show. ‘If I need you, I’ll send you a sodding telegram. Laura, two sugars and a drop of brandy.’

  I concurred, but went easy on the brandy. A drunken mother-to-be would not have gone down well in most operating theatres. I stood in Liddy’s kitchen, tried not to laugh out loud as the good woman worked her way through an infamous version of ‘Colonel Bogey’.

  When I returned, the midwife had been allowed to approach the sofa. ‘Push now,’ she said gently.

  ‘What the sodding hell do you think I’m doing? Writing me bloody memoirs? And do something about your hands, missus, they’re like ice cubes.’

  I placed the mug of tea on the table, mopped Liddy’s brow with a damp flannel. ‘Be nice,’ I mouthed.

  She winked at me. ‘I’m always nice.’

  A pink baby girl arrived before midnight, her face screwed up against the brightness of an overhead light. She howled, coughed when the midwife tried to clear her throat, screamed all through her first bathtime. Liddy, radiant enough to deserve a halo, took the tiny creature and placed her at the breast. ‘Oh no,’ she muttered. ‘Not again.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ lilted the midwife.

  ‘Teeth,’ groaned Liddy. ‘That’s three of them born with their bloody front teeth.’ She cuddled the newborn, lifted her head. ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘What?’ The voice was very near.

  ‘Never mind standing all breathless on them bloody stairs, I’m the one what’s doing all the work. It’s a girl with teeth. Now get down to Openshaw’s chemist and knock him up. He’ll be drunk, so make sure he does the order right. You want Cow and Gate – the weak stuff – teats, bottles and one of them sterilizers. The sterilizing stuff’s called Milton. And you can drop in at the offy, get me a pint of stout and some toffees for the kids.

  ‘Mrs Mansell,’ began the midwife.

  ‘Miss,’ snapped Liddy. ‘I’ll get that soft beggar to marry me when his mother’s shuffled off. But for now, I’m miss. That’s M-I-S-S.’

  Gladys raised her eyes to heaven. She’d been through all this with Liddy before, so she wasn’t particularly bothered by the antics. ‘Miss Mansell, you shouldn’t be needing anything from the off-licence. There’s a lovely cup of tea here and—’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Liddy. ‘I’m celebrating. If this had been a lad, he’d have turned out a right fairy-cake. I’ve been worried ever since I bought that pink wool.’ She eyed Jimmy. ‘Are you still here?’

  The large man blushed, wiped his cheek with a handkerchief. ‘You’re a queen, you are, Liddy.’

  ‘And a nice bottle of rum.’ She glared at the bewildered Gladys. ‘As a present for the midwife.’

  ‘There’s no need …’ Gladys picked up her bowls and went into the kitchen.

  ‘I’m calling her Daisy.’ Liddy looked at my bewilderment, realized that my attention had followed the midwife. ‘Not her, you pie-can. This one. I’m calling her Daisy.’ She impaled Jimmy on her gimlet stare, pushed him out of the house with the sheer power of her will. ‘Soft,’ she said
again to herself. ‘That’s your dad, Daisy, and he’s as daft as they come.’

  I examined the child, found her very fair-haired and pretty. ‘That’s a lovely name. Shall I fetch the kids down?’

  Liddy shook her head. ‘No, you’d best get back to your own. And thanks, love.’

  I smiled at my exhausted friend. ‘Thanks to you too, Liddy. There was no midwife for Jodie, was there?’

  The small face pulled itself into a comical shape. ‘We don’t need them, Laura. Good night.’

  I was so tired that I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. At some ungodly hour of the morning, I was wakened by the persistent cry of a healthy newborn. As I lay listening to the latest arrival, I thought about the letter. But it was cold and dark, and I’d been allowing my imagination to run away with me. It would be a circular, a piece of nonsense. I lifted my head, saw the dim outline of the other bed, heard Jodie’s gentle breathing, decided that all was well with the world. There was no need to be frightened, no need at all.

  It was from Tommo. A sickness rose in my gorge, threatened to hinder my breathing. He knew where we were. There might have been a digit added to the house number, but he was on our trail. I shuddered, made sure that the envelope was intact, tried to praise myself for managing to steam it open.

  Well, I had got through the night without reading the thing, had even lasted for most of today, but I had finally allowed curiosity to be my master. It was from him. Part of me had felt it, had sensed the venom sealed inside the folds.

  I read it again. A social worker called Mrs Melia had tracked us down, had made sure that prisoner 458917 made contact with his son. With good behaviour, he would be out in a couple of years. Meanwhile, a friend of Tommo’s would be visiting, would be keeping an eye on us. A friend. A criminal, an ex-prisoner, no doubt.

  With fingers that refused to obey, I tried and failed to refold the page into its original shape. Where could we go? Where could we hide and from whom were we hiding? Life was going to be unbearable. Every strange man in the street would be a suspect, every knock at the door would drive me nearer to insanity. I didn’t want insanity. That was something I’d encountered before, and I didn’t need to pay a second visit. What? Where? When? Every hair on my body seemed to stand on end as the pores opened in reaction to my terror. Yet again, I was a hunted animal.

  At last, I had the letter sealed, though I had to put a little fresh glue on the flap. When my hands were calmer, I took a pen and printed NOT AT THIS ADDRESS, RETURN TO SENDER. If the Post Office had any sense, the sorters would realize that a communication from a prisoner was not acceptable. Dead-end letters were opened in the sorting office and returned to source. I stared at the envelope for a long time, knew that Tommo was far too clever to be distracted by my feeble ploy. We would have to move again. I was tired of chopping my existence into separate sections, sick of being on the run all the time.

  I sat in Liddy’s house for a while, watched fondly while she tended the new baby. She was going to have Jimmy doctored, she said. It was only a small operation, just a couple of quick cuts with the bacon scissors. ‘What’s happened?’ asked my too-astute neighbour.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Have you had one of them ejections again?’

  ‘No, they’ve accepted the book. I’m lucky, I’ve only been rejected once.’

  ‘Then why the gob?’

  I shrugged, tried to make light of the situation. ‘A letter, that’s all. Just a few words from someone I never wanted to hear from again.’

  She whistled. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Walton.’

  ‘Oh God.’ She shifted the child, placed the little body against a shoulder and patted the tiny back. ‘He’s only round the bloody corner.’

  ‘I know.’

  Liddy’s face screwed itself up as she went into one of her ‘thinks’. ‘Jimmy’ll know somebody. There’s always half a dozen dockers inside waiting to be proved innocent. Jimmy can get him sorted.’

  That wasn’t an option. ‘No. I’ve returned the letter, sealed it up again. There are no Thompsons on Wordsworth Street. Except … the electoral register. My name will be on that. A social worker found us for him.’

  She snorted in disgust. ‘We were a lot better off before they invented them rotten social workers. They do nothing but damage. There’s kids out there being beaten to death, but where’s the cavalry? In Walton giving out names and addresses. We had a social worker, though, and she was nice. Stuck up for me in court, she did, said I was a good mother. But most of them are rubbish, bits of girls with bits of qualifications, or middle-aged women with lives that are so bad, they have to go and poke their noses in other folks’ muck. Takes their minds off their own mess, like. What are you going to do? When’s he coming out?’

  ‘I don’t know the answers to those two questions, Liddy.’ Though I did know that I’d be leaving Seaforth, leaving Liddy and Jimmy and all those rumbustious kids with silly names and bright, hopeful smiles.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’ This phrase didn’t sound like blasphemy, was not uttered in Liddy’s usually strident tones. The girl was actually praying, had closed her eyes and woven her fingers together behind Daisy’s little head. ‘He’s sick,’ she said softly. ‘Clever-sick, the sort of ill what never gets diagnosed. With people like him, you don’t know what’ll happen.’

  I knew what was going to happen, all right. I was about to perform one of my famous disappearing acts, would melt away like boiling water on snow, leaving nothing but a muddy pool. This little woman’s tears would make that puddle. ‘I’m scared, Liddy. He’s … he’s fixed on me, has had me in his sights since we were both children. I’m like a deer caught in somebody’s headlights, turned to stone because I don’t know which way to run. He’s having us watched, I think. Someone who’s just been released is going to keep an eye on us. How the hell will we recognize him?’

  She looked hard at me. ‘You’ll be buggering off, then.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  The small nose wriggled then sniffed. ‘I’ll not sleep. I’ll not be able to sleep without the noise of that bloody typewriter. And where will you go?’

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Liddy. Liddy was one of those people who could be trusted completely, yet my destination would need to remain a secret. If she talked to Jimmy, if the children overheard, if some man in the street offered them sweets and money for Auntie Laura’s address … ‘I’m sorry, Liddy.’

  ‘So am I.’ She lay down, placed the baby on her chest, wiped a tear from the corner of an eye. ‘We’ve been good mates, Laura.’

  ‘We have, Liddy. We have indeed.’

  When Daisy was three days old, her grandmother died. Jimmy went into overdrive, kept turning up at Liddy’s with a sad face, feet so itchy that he couldn’t sit still for five minutes at a time, and carrying items of sombre clothing for his children. They were to attend the funeral of a woman who had refused to recognize their mother. Liddy announced that she would not go. ‘She’d not want me, Jimmy. She never wanted me in life, so she’d not look kindly on me if I followed her coffin. It’d be like I was gloating.’

  ‘You’re coming,’ he insisted. ‘Laura can hang on to our Daisy.’

  I kept out of the argument, continued to glance at the clock to see if the time to pick up my children had arrived. They had always brought themselves home from school, were not pleased about my clucky behaviour. Earlier in the day, my five-year-old had faced me across the table, arms akimbo, an expression of anger ageing her features. ‘It’s only across the park. You’ll be showing me up. Nobody except a baby gets brung home. They’ll be calling me names if you come.’

  ‘I don’t care. There are some funny people about, Jodie. It’s better to be safe than sorry.’

  My daughter was far from pleased. Gerald, who had long since risen above matters mundane, had no opinion in the matter. But Edward felt moved to cast his vote. ‘I can look after Jodie.’ He failed to acknowledge the fact that
Jodie was the one who took care of him. ‘I’m eight,’ he said importantly. ‘And I’ll make sure nobody talks to us.’

  My temper was fraying. So far, I’d seen three new males in our street. One had turned out to be a health inspector who was chasing rats, and two others were selling something or other, but I couldn’t settle, didn’t dare to call Tommo’s bluff. Perhaps it hadn’t been bluff. For all I knew, he might have made several friends inside, and one or even half a dozen could be watching me and my children.

  ‘Laura?’

  I jumped, looked from Jimmy to Liddy, returned to the present with a jerk that almost sent me reeling. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Look at her,’ said Liddy. ‘Like a cat on hot bricks. There’s nobody out there, queen. And Jimmy’ll be moving in after the funeral, so he’ll make sure no harm comes to you.’

  Jimmy touched my arm. ‘You can’t go on like this, love.’

  ‘I know.’

  Jimmy explained what was going to happen, told me that he, Liddy and the children would be going to the church in Halewood, then to the cemetery. I was to take care of the baby until they returned.

  The next day, I wheeled Daisy to the school, watched my children as they leapt away from me in an effort to be absorbed as quickly as possible into the playground throng. Gerald was the last to disappear. He stood with his back to the building, watched me warily until I pushed the pram towards the park. My heart lurched as I registered the knowledge that he might be the target. I could imagine Tommo arranging the kidnap, pleading with some old lag, imploring a felon to come and reclaim his son. In such moments, I realized that I did love my children. I was not the best of mothers, but my instincts were in the right place.

  The day passed uneventfully. I fed Daisy, dangled her on my knee, enjoyed that warm, powdery smell that always accompanies a clean baby. When my own three were safely delivered from whatever demons awaited them, I sat in my white room, put Daisy in her pram, wrote a few pages of my latest True Hearts romance.

  It was about nine o’clock when Liddy rushed in. She was drained white beneath the make-up, was trying to speak in a voice that seemed to be strangled at birth. I thought she was drunk, got up from the table and guided her into the room. ‘Liddy? What on earth have you been up to?’