September Starlings

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘They’re … coming,’ she managed.

  ‘What? Who’s coming?’

  She pointed towards the door. ‘Jimmy’s took the kids somewhere safe. It’s the gangs, the ones we used to have trouble with. There’s … oh, God …’ Her breathing quickened. ‘Fighting. They say I killed her. Me being a Catholic killed her. Then the Catholics say I’m … With not being married, with him being a Proddy. All drunk, Laura. Followed me here. Mind that baby.’

  She ran out of the house, yelled at the top of her voice. ‘Come on, you bastards. Here I am. Come on, catch me if you can.’

  My brain engaged a higher gear, crashed into motion, sent me up the stairs. I woke the boys, grabbed Jodie from her bed. ‘Coats,’ I said. ‘Get out into the back yard and stay quiet.’

  Jodie rubbed her eyes. ‘Why did—’

  ‘No questions,’ I snapped. ‘Outside. Now.’

  We huddled together in the lavatory shed, the baby plastered against my chest, the other youngsters clinging to each other, teeth chattering with cold, their breathing fast and shallow. We heard glass breaking, listened to the whoops of revellers on the warpath. So many battles had been fought in the name of Christianity, I thought. Was there any real good? Was there any perfection on earth, beyond earth?

  ‘Why?’ whispered my daughter.

  ‘Drunk,’ I answered. ‘Drunk and very silly.’ Little Liddy had drawn their fire to save her baby. And I was shut out of my house because the invaders had no doubt marked the spot where Liddy had reappeared. I prayed, hoped that Confetti was praying too. If there was good somewhere, we needed to access it quickly.

  Eventually, we went back inside, made cups of cocoa, piled coal on the fire. The children were subdued, seemed to understand that questions would be useless, unanswerable. I tucked them into their beds, came down, nursed the whimpering Daisy.

  At ten past three in the morning, Jimmy and Liddy returned. He wore a bandage over one eye, had needed treatment at the hospital. Liddy’s banter had taken a holiday. Dishevelled and mournful, she took Daisy from me, wept silent tears into the downy hair.

  ‘Are the kids all right?’ I asked Jimmy.

  He nodded. ‘I got them to a mate, then ran down here to find Liddy. We’ve been across Liverpool that many times, I could write a blinking guide book. Anyway, there’s a load of them banged away in the bridewell, and we’re all up in court tomorrow. Disturbing the peace if we’re lucky, causing an affray if we’re not.’

  I stared at Liddy. ‘What was it all about?’

  She lifted her head. ‘It’s about Jesus when you boil it down. Yes, that’s it. We were fighting about a good man and it makes no bloody sense at all.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Jimmy moved in next door and I tried to feel safe, but the man’s working day was long and, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could not become yet another of Jimmy Hurst’s many responsibilities. And it was plain that the Mansell/Hurst clan would be relocated soon, as the housing people had visited several times in order to assess the level of overcrowding. With two children sleeping downstairs, three in the back bedroom and a baby with the parents, they were definitely bursting out of the small terrace. Liddy and I spent a few days looking at what was available, always coming back in time for me to pick up my three from school. I was developing eyes in the back of my head, had grown invisible antennae that could pick up the scent of a stranger from a distance of a hundred paces.

  She didn’t like any of the houses. ‘Them walls is cardboard, never mind hardboard,’ she kept saying. ‘And there’s too many kids messing about in the streets. I’ve a job keeping them in as it is, so I don’t want them flying round a bloody ghetto. We’ll stop here till they fetch the army.’

  I stirred my tea, glanced at the pile of proofs that had arrived from the publisher. Oh God, I would have to read through my own stuff yet again. Reading my work was boring and repetitive. Bits that had started out quite well began to look trite after several perusals. Perhaps I should go back to baking, get some scones going, try to sell them to the local shops …

  ‘What are you thinking about this time, Laura?’ asked Liddy.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ I replied. ‘They won’t allow it. Some of those newer houses have four bedrooms and downstairs toilets too. Just imagine having a bathroom. They’re going to close the public baths, you know, because they’re making no money. Last time we went, we were the only ones there.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with an all-over wash.’ She snapped a ginger biscuit, dunked it in the cup.

  ‘The kids will grow, they’ll get too big for that. They won’t want to be stripping off in their teens, will they?’

  Liddy sighed, gave me a look that conveyed agreement. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t know. The task of moving on with the children was not easy to imagine or to arrange. It would involve new schools, new friends, changes that might impede development. The road in front of my three was already bumpy, as they would need to be told about Tommo. Gerald had been pensive for some time, was working up to something. Any minute now, the questioning must start and the answers must be given. At some stage, I would need to explain a few things, as I believed firmly that children’s rights should be respected. There could be no lies, yet I was grateful for having come this far without making explanations. For as long as possible, I wanted to pave the path with security, hoped to give them a stable start so that the inevitable shocks might be minimized, cushioned by the strength gained from me. Did I have enough of that strength? ‘I suppose we’ll have to go. I’m frightened to death every time there’s a knock at the door.’

  She nodded, took another biscuit. ‘Get the welfare to help you. It’s their fault, anyway. It was one of their lot what told your owld feller where to find you. Tell them you want shifting.’

  I considered the suggestion. ‘It could happen again. I want a different area, somewhere away from here. If we let one social worker have the address, it could easily be found by the Walton Witch.’ That poor woman had been given many titles, and this last one had stuck. ‘I’ve got to get up and go, Liddy.’

  She stared into my fire. ‘Are you going before Christmas?’

  ‘Probably.’ Another happy Christmas with the Mansells would have crippled me. I needed to make the decision and act on it quickly before I faltered. Leaving Seaforth was going to be difficult enough without seasoning the occasion with Yuletide tears.

  Liddy yawned, glanced inside the pram where Daisy slept. ‘It’s either her or him keeping me awake at night. A part-time bloke’s all right, ’cos you get to be yourself some days. But with him living here all the while, it’s like being a film star, always at my best.’

  I looked at her best. The hair was still rendered lifeless by regular applications of peroxide, and her teeth were in need of attention. She always wore thick make-up, the sort of panstick that might survive in a dance hall, though it looked garish and out of place in daylight. But Liddy’s charm had nothing to do with the packaging. There was life in her face, energy, movement, naughtiness. ‘He won’t mind how he sees you, Liddy. You could wear a potato sack and he’d still love you.’

  She grinned. ‘Love me? If he loves me any more, I’ll be having bloody quads. How do I put him off?’

  ‘You don’t. Just get yourself equipped and hope for the best.’

  ‘Equipped?’ The over-plucked and blackened eyebrows disappeared beneath a fringe of blond candy floss. ‘Listen, I’ve had one born clutching the flaming coil, and two that got past a Dutch cap and plenty of that suicidal jelly.’ She held up her hand. ‘I know it’s not suicidal, but I can’t think at the minute. I don’t want no more, Laura. I’m thirty-eight, I should be settling down and doing the knitting. See, I used to think I was immunized, like. We had our Mary, then no more for donkey’s years. But they suddenly started popping out regular, falling on the floor every time I stood up. So I’ve told him to get one of them operations. He s
ays he’s going to India for it, ’cos they get a free radio thrown in. Cheer up. Your gob would stop a wedding, honest.’

  ‘I’ll be all right. We’ll miss you, all of you.’

  ‘Ditto.’ The eyes shone too brightly. ‘I know, queen, I do understand.’ Her voice was suddenly soft and gentle, not her own at all. ‘But don’t tell nobody where you’re going, love. It’s too serious and dangerous for that. See, he might even be having us watched, me and Jimmy and the kids. He’s found you before and he’s not lost his nastiness, not where he is. There’s no way you can risk them kids. If he comes for Gerald, you’ll never forgive yourself.’ She stood up, angled the pram so that it might get past the furniture. ‘I’ll think about you. Every day, I’ll say a prayer.’

  When she had left, it was as if I had already lost her. Just as I’d lost other friends like Ernie and Ida Bowen from Horsa Street, Hetty Hawkesworth from that hamlet near St Helens, Frank … Oh, Frank. More than a friend, so much more. He would have loved Liddy, would probably have likened her to a small bird, perhaps a canary or a yellow budgie. And we would have laughed, not unkindly, might have invented a new language for her, something like Liddy-speak or Liddy-propisms. Sometimes, I ached for Frank, felt like an empty vessel, a small thing that was being tossed about on the tide of life. He had been my stability, my anchor. And Tommo had taken him away, had removed him and all my friends except for Anne and Auntie Maisie.

  I brought the children home, went through the usual routine, cook, feed, clear up, wash the dishes. We practised the three-times table for Jodie, drew a map of Britain for Edward, left poor Gerald to his own devices. He sat on the sofa, head in a book, his brain geared towards solving mathematical problems that were a mystery to me. They had told me at the school that he was talented, that his teacher was having to set special work for him. My Gerald was going to be a high-flier, something in the city, no doubt. My Gerald was going to ask questions. Now. Tonight. In one sense, there’s a lot to be said for single parenthood, because the lone mother or father is tuned in all the time, doesn’t get the chance to off-load difficult tasks. It was down to me, and I had to cope.

  When the younger two were in bed, he dawdled at my elbow, watched as I dragged a ruler down my proofs. ‘Why are you doing that?’

  ‘I’m looking for mistakes.’

  ‘Do you make mistakes?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. So do typesetters and copy-editors and professional proof-readers. Everyone makes mistakes.’

  ‘I don’t.’ This wasn’t pride – he merely stated a fact. ‘But numbers are kind of absolute, I suppose. Easier, you know.’ Absolute. He knew words like absolute, could connect with all kinds of concepts, was capable of analysing language and number, of understanding even the subtler aspects of a word.

  ‘Yes. For you, but not for me.’ For me, few things were absolute. But I knew that this boy was going to question me tonight, had felt his nervousness for days. Yes, it would happen now. Absolutely.

  He showed no inclination to go upstairs, so I sat back. This older boy of mine did not indulge in conversations that were unnecessary. I waited, watched his deliberately calm face, knew that it masked a thousand questions, a million emotions. ‘What is it, son?’

  ‘What happened to Frank?’

  My heart missed a beat. I hadn’t thought that Frank would be remembered. Clearly, Gerald was aware that Frank was not his father.

  ‘He … he died,’ I mumbled. ‘He bumped his head and fell into a river.’

  Gerald nodded. ‘And he wasn’t my dad.’

  ‘No.’

  He sat down opposite me, looked me full in the face. ‘Have I got a dad?’

  ‘Everyone has.’

  ‘Alive?’

  Here came the crunch, then. Was he old enough – was I old enough to manage this terrible business? I took a deep breath, longed for a glass of whisky, brandy, anything that might fuel my brain and take away the anxiety. ‘He’s alive. He’s … er …’ I moved my eyes, could not bear to meet that penetrating gaze. This was an exceptional boy, one who could not be fooled, not easily, anyway. ‘He’s in prison.’

  My son nodded gravely. ‘I’ve been in that box under your bed, Mam. It was a week ago. I’m sorry. I was looking for things, just looking …’

  He had been searching for himself, had been wondering who he was, where he had come from. ‘It’s all right, Gerald.’

  ‘Photos,’ he said. ‘Of you and Frank, of me when I was a baby. Some with Edward too.’ He paused. ‘Is Frank Edward’s dad? Because Frank lived with us then, when Edward came.’

  ‘Yes.’ My voice was squeaky, so I cleared my throat. ‘Frank was Edward’s dad.’

  ‘Jodie?’ he asked seriously.

  ‘She and you are Bernard Thompson’s children.’

  He was ten years old, and his face was suddenly lined like that of an old man. Gerald was a boy with great dignity and self-control, yet his forehead showed the depth of his misery as he homed in on the final chapter. ‘My father killed Edward’s father. It’s in that newspaper with the photos. And that’s why he’s in prison. And he hit Auntie Anne too.’

  I longed to reach out and hold him, but this was not a child who wanted to be pitied. Soon, he would work out that he and Edward were cousins as well as brothers, at which point he could well suffer a crisis of identity. Or would he? Sometimes, I wished I’d had an education, but nothing in the world of academia seemed to offer the training I needed. To be a mother, a person required no certificate to prove competence. The hardest and most important job in the world was being done by amateurs who groped in the dark …

  He clasped his hands on the table, looked like a priest at prayer. ‘That was a mistake, Mam. Marrying Bernard Thompson, I mean.’

  I smiled reassuringly. ‘Oh no, Gerald. If there’d been no Tommo, there’d be no you and no Jodie.’

  His knuckles were white. ‘So you don’t mind me being here, then?’

  My hands grasped his, felt the tension that ran through the body of this little boy. ‘I love you,’ I said. ‘I love all three of you. But you’re very special, because you’re the first. There was a time when I had just you, and that was a lot of fun. You didn’t speak much, but you watched me all the time, wanted to learn things. Gerald, never apologize for being born. I don’t hit children, but I’d probably lose my temper good and proper if you thought I didn’t love you. We’d be like Liddy and Short’ouse, you running and me chasing you with the yard brush.’

  A corner of his mouth twitched. ‘I still don’t talk much, do I?’

  ‘No. But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel things. Often, those who say the least think the most. I’ve done my best some of the time, son. But there’s only me between the three of you, so you may not get the attention you need.’

  His eyes seemed to darken to a smokier grey. ‘You’re a good mother,’ he said brusquely. ‘I wouldn’t swap.’

  I laughed softly. ‘Gerald, I should go to the top of the class and give out the pencils.’

  ‘Why?’

  I got up, pulled the child into my arms. He was brave and brainy, too clever for anything less than the truth. I decided there and then that I would always tell them the truth, even when it was difficult, even when a lie might be an easy option. But for now, I insisted on congratulating myself. ‘Gerald,’ I said, ‘I think I’ve just passed my exams.’

  * * *

  Finding somewhere was hard. I got Liddy to pick up the children, made her promise that they would not have to risk the short journey from school without some adult vigilance. The Liverpool Echo travelled with me, rolled up under my arm, circles drawn round sections of the ‘To Let’ section. I wanted private sector, needed to get my name out of the council lists.

  Because of the existence of seven Georgina Dawn novelettes, I had managed to save a few hundred pounds, so there was no problem when it came to what the locals called key money. I would manage the deposit and the advance rent, but I was desperate in my quest for something that wou
ld please my kids. After all, they would be leaving so much, would be experiencing so many changes and losses that I needed to compensate them.

  There were houses with gardens, bathrooms and no school within walking distance. I found a good flat near enough to schools, but this accommodation allowed no children or pets. Each time, there was something missing, a reason why I decided to reject the place. After three consecutive days of searching, I came back to Seaforth through chill November rain, sat dejectedly in my little house, feet in a bowl of hot water, hands wrapped round a glass of cheap brandy.

  ‘No luck?’ asked Gerald.

  ‘Not yet. We’ll find somewhere, don’t worry.’

  He was worried. There was change coming, and my oldest child hated change. ‘A bathroom would be nice,’ he conceded. ‘But make sure there’s a good school nearby. I’ll be moving into the seniors soon.’

  ‘Gerald, we’ll all be together. Where we live doesn’t really matter, as long as we stick by one another. As for school – you’ll do well just about anywhere. Talent will out, remember that.’

  He apportioned me a tight smile, followed his brother and sister to bed. Gerald was a good kid. Jodie, too, was coming on a treat. If only Edward would shape a bit, if only he would stop wingeing and whining. Life was strange. I had two children from a monster, one from a wonderful man. Tommo’s were turning out great, while Frank’s had a chip on his shoulder the size of a canal barge. But it was no use sitting here indulging my ideas about Mother Nature and genes that were once-removed.

  I slopped about the room, feet dripping as I searched for a magazine. There was an article somewhere, a piece about middle children. The theory that middle children miss out on things had been expounded by an agony aunt, a kindly female with four chins and strong opinions. I might even find an answer, or some guidance about how to cope with a boy like Edward. After years of stomach aches, I had run out of patience, was sending him to school whatever his complaint. Because of my determination, he had been brought home with measles and chicken pox, but fortunately, the teachers understood my mistrust of Edward’s illnesses. The poor lad was looking for something, possibly love, attention, affection …