by Maureen Lee
Arthur had made a fuss when they said they were going for a walk. He was expecting an air raid any minute. ‘Don’t go far,’ he’d warned. So they hadn’t.
Ruby looked anxiously at the sky, half expecting to see an enemy plane loaded with deadly bombs, but the blue sky was clear from horizon to horizon except for the brilliant sun. ‘Martha Quinlan’s helping to organise the evacuation. Shall we call in the Malt House on the way home and arrange to go tomorrow?’ she said. ‘They’re running special coaches and trains for evacuees.’
Beth sighed. ‘OK, but let’s go on a train no matter where it takes us. It’ll be murder stuck on a coach with the children.’
‘A train it is.’
Coaches went to Wales, trains to Southport, Martha told them. They should turn up at Exchange station at ten o’clock next morning.
‘Who will we stay with?’ enquired Beth.
‘No one knows, luv. I understand it’s a bit like a meat market at the other end. You just have to stand around until you’re picked.’
As they walked back, Beth said wistfully, ‘I’d love to go and see my brothers. Ronnie’s eighteen and Dick’s twenty-one. They’re bound to have been called up.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Ruby offered.
‘No, ta, Rube. Thanks all the same, but me dad won’t consider it too late to give me a walloping. I don’t want to arrive in Southport with me arm in a sling.’
‘I’ll stay and keep the home fires burning,’ Arthur promised manfully when they left next morning with Jake in his pushchair, a few hastily packed carrier bags, and gas masks slung over their shoulders. The old man was obviously on the verge of tears. His hands were visibly shaking and he looked particularly frail today. ‘Never forget this is your home,’ he said emotionally. ‘You’re free to come and go whenever you please.’
‘Thanks, Arthur,’ Ruby said, flinging her arms around his neck. ‘It’s the first proper home I’ve ever had.’
The train was packed with excited children, weeping children, and some pale with fear. A few mothers accompanied the smaller ones. A uniformed WVS lady distributed sandwiches en route and tied name labels around wrists. Ruby pinned her label to the collar of her green frock.
In Southport, they were herded into an open space beside the station where several cars were parked. The occupants immediately got out and began to walk among the new arrivals, assessing them openly. The nicely dressed children were pounced upon and quickly whisked away.
‘Martha was right,’ Ruby said hotly. ‘I feel like a piece of meat. Any minute now someone’s going to ask how much I cost a pound.’ Nevertheless, she was glad they were all wearing their best clothes. The girls looked like the royal princesses in their frilly cotton frocks, and Jake was adorable in a blue and white sailor suit, a present from Arthur for his first birthday.
‘Would you like to come with me, dear?’ A tall, grey-haired woman with a mild good-natured face put her hand on Ruby’s arm. She wore an expensive navy-blue serge coat and matching hat.
‘Come on, Beth!’ Ruby called. ‘Greta, love, hold Heather’s hand. I’ve got these bags to carry.’
The woman shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, dear. I meant you and your little girls. I haven’t room for any more.’
‘In that case, I’ll wait for someone who has,’ Ruby said.
A WVS lady bustled up. ‘Then you’ll wait for ever, Mrs...’ she peered at the label on Ruby’s frock, ‘... O’Hagan. I doubt if anyone can accommodate two adults and three children.’
‘You go, Ruby.’ Beth gave her a little push. ‘I’ll meet you here, by the station, tomorrow. About two o’clock.’
‘But I wanted us to be together!’
‘That’s out of the question, Mrs O’Hagan. Miss Scanlon has kindly offered to take you. I’d appreciate it if you left immediately. You’re holding up the proceedings.’
Miss Scanlon led them towards a small Morris saloon. She chatted amiably throughout the journey. Ruby sat in the back, hardly answering, hugging the silent children and blinking back the tears. It was bad enough leaving Arthur; she hadn’t expected to be parted from Beth as well.
‘Here we are!’ They stopped outside a smart semi-detached house on the outskirts of the town. ‘I’ll take the bags, you look after your little girls,’ Miss Scanlon said helpfully. ‘You must all feel very strange.’
The house was pleasant inside. The furniture was light oak. Patterned rugs were scattered over the polished floors and there were numerous bowls of roses: red roses, yellow, and a lovely peachy colour. Their heady perfume filled the house. Yet Ruby experienced the same sinking sensation she’d had on first entering Foster Court, when she went into the place where they were now to live.
Greta started to cry.
‘Don’t like here, Mammy,’ Heather whispered.
‘Shush, both of you.’
They were shown upstairs. ‘I decided to let the evacuees have the big room, it accommodates more beds. I’ve moved into the back.’ Miss Scanlon waved her arm at the double bed with its flowered eiderdown. Two campbeds were made up with blankets.
‘It’s kind of you to put us up,’ Ruby muttered.
‘I’m only too pleased to do my bit, Mrs O’Hagan.’
The bed was comfortable, they all slept well on their first night, the food was well cooked and plentiful. Miss Scanlon was doing her best to be friendly and make them feel at home.
But it wasn’t home. Greta and Heather didn’t know where to play and Ruby didn’t know where to put herself. The parlour seemed out of bounds, the living room had Miss Scanlon in it most of the time and they felt in the way. The garden contained only rose bushes and a vegetable patch. It was impossible to run around – Heather tried and badly scratched her arm. The bedroom was the only place where they could be alone, yet it felt rude to shut themselves away for long periods.
It was a relief, after dinner, to catch a bus to the town centre to meet Beth.
The bus dropped them off in Lord Street, a lovely wide boulevard with trees down the centre, where Ruby used to go shopping with Emily. The weather was as lovely as the day before. ‘We’ll go to the sands later,’ Ruby promised. ‘After we’ve met Beth and Jake and had a cup of tea.’
‘When we see Arfur?’ Greta asked in a quivery voice.
‘I’m not sure, love, soon.’
The small face crumpled. ‘Wanna go home to Arfur.’
‘We will, eventually.’
Beth was late. Ruby’s nerves were already on edge, Greta made no secret of how miserable she felt, and Heather quickly got bored while they sat on a bench outside the station, complaining about her scratched arm.
Two hours later, when Beth and Jake still hadn’t arrived Ruby, deeply concerned, gave up. By now, Greta was sobbing helplessly, demanding they go home to Arthur, and Heather was in a filthy temper. She took them for the promised cup of tea and a brief play on the sands, then caught the bus back to Miss Scanlon’s.
‘Have you got the telephone number of anyone in the WVS?’ she asked the woman anxiously.
‘I’m afraid not, dear. Is something wrong?’
‘I’ve lost my friend. She didn’t turn up and I’ve no idea where she is.’
‘She can’t have gone far, Mrs O’Hagan. I shouldn’t let it worry you.’
It worried Ruby all night long. When Beth didn’t turn up at the station the following day, it worried her even more. She called the Malt House from a telephone box and asked Martha Quinlan if she knew where Beth and Jake might be. Martha had no idea, but promised to try and find out.
‘If you speak to her, tell her I’ll be at the station at two o’clock every day until she comes.’
Two more days were to pass before a perspiring Beth bearing a carrier bag and a grizzling Jake turned up at Southport station. ‘I think he’s cutting a tooth.’ Beth’s pretty face collapsed and she burst into tears. ‘Oh, Rube! We’re living in this horrible place, miles from anywhere. This woman, Mrs Dobbs, she’s got five children, and
considers me a maid-of-all-work. I couldn’t get away, there’s no buses, and one of the kids broke the pushchair. I share a campbed with Jake and we’ve hardly slept at all.’
‘Sit down, love,’ Ruby said angrily. ‘Here, give me Jake.’
‘I’m not going back, Rube,’ Beth sobbed. ‘I’ve brought our things. I don’t care about the pushchair. I walked for ages until I came to a bus stop. I’ve never prayed so much that you’d be here.’
‘Of course you’re not going back. Somehow or other, we’ll find a WVS woman and she can get you somewhere else to stay.’
‘No, she won’t, Ruby. The other night, the day we came, we waited till it was dark, but no one wanted Jake and me. There was just us left and the woman in charge had to take us back to her house. Next day, she drove us into the depths of the countryside and dumped us on Mrs Dobbs.’
‘But you and Jake looked dead respectable compared to most of the others. I thought you’d be taken straight after us.’
‘You don’t understand, do you, Ruby?’ Beth stopped crying and managed to smile ruefully at her friend.
‘What’s there to understand?’
‘We’re coloured, me and Jake,’ she said in a matter-of fact voice.
‘I know you’re coloured,’ Ruby said impatiently, ‘a very nice colour as it happens. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Not everyone’s as tolerant as you. It’s all right round Toxteth and Dingle where there’s lots of black people, but there’s parts of Liverpool where we wouldn’t exactly be welcome.’
Ruby wiped Jake’s tearful face with her hanky. He was a lovely baby with a lovely nature. It was beyond her comprehension how anyone could be prejudiced towards an innocent one-year-old child because he wasn’t white. ‘What’s going to happen now?’ she asked Beth.
‘I’m going home, that’s what, back to Arthur.’
‘Come back with us,’ Ruby said tersely. ‘Miss Scanlon won’t mind if I explain what’s happened. There’s plenty of room. I can sleep in the big bed with the girls and you and Jake can have a camp bed each.’
Miss Scanlon listened, her mild face expressionless, while Ruby explained the reason for Beth and Jake’s presence, finishing with, ‘You don’t mind if they stay, do you?’
‘Show your friend where’s she’s to sleep, then I’d like a word with you in private, Mrs O’Hagan.’ Her voice was as expressionless as her face.
Ruby returned downstairs alone when the sleeping arrangements had been sorted out. She found Miss Scanlon in the kitchen. ‘You wanted to speak to me?’ she said with a smile, grateful that the woman had been so willing to help.
Miss Scanlon turned and Ruby felt her blood turn to ice when she saw the look of hatred in her eyes, her ugly twisted lips. ‘I don’t appreciate having niggers brought into my home,’ she spat. ‘I’d have turned her and her nigger baby out on the spot if it hadn’t been for the fact I’ve got a weak heart and I couldn’t have stood a scene. But I want them out tomorrow, first thing. After they’ve gone, you can wash the things they’ve used; the dishes, the cutlery, the bedding. I’m not touching them.’
It took several seconds for the odious words to sink in, and when they did Ruby could hardly speak for the ball of anger in her throat. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said in a voice she hardly recognised as her own, ‘they won’t use any of your precious things, because they’re going home, Beth and Jake. And me and my children are going with them.’
The woman must have realised she had gone too far. She immediately changed her tune. ‘But there’s no need for you to go, Mrs O’Hagan,’ she cried. ‘You and me, we’ll get along fine. You talk nice, your children have lovely manners. Lord knows who I’ll get landed with if you leave.’
‘You don’t talk nice, Miss Scanlon. Oh, your accent’s posh enough, but what you say is filthy. I don’t want someone like you anywhere near my girls. You’re worse than Hitler with your views. Oh, and I hope tomorrow you get landed with a family of gorillas. At least they’ll have better manners than you.’
‘I don’t know why we had to up and leave so suddenly,’ Beth said on the train back to Liverpool. ‘That woman seemed OK to me. I was looking forward a nice long kip.’
‘Has there been the faintest sign of an air raid since we left?’
‘No, but...’
‘Well, that’s why we went away in the first place, isn’t it?’ Ruby raised her eyebrows, daring Beth to argue. ‘To escape the raids. It seemed daft to stay. None of us were happy there. Were we, girls?’ Greta and Heather emphatically shook their heads. ‘Even Jake has bucked up since we got on the train.’ Jake was gurgling happily at everyone. Ruby sighed blissfully. ‘Another few stops and we’ll be home.’
To their surprise, when the small company entered the coal yard, the door to Arthur’s house was open and there was a strange young man standing in the hall.
‘Who are you?’ Ruby demanded.
‘I’m Doctor Brooker,’ the man said crisply. ‘Who are you?’
‘Ruby O’Hagan and I live here. All of us do.’
‘You’re acquainted with Mr Arthur Cummings?’
‘I must be, mustn’t I, if I live here? What does Arthur want with a doctor?’
‘Would you mind coming inside, please?’
‘Where’s Arthur?’
‘I’ll tell you inside.’
‘What’s the matter, Rube?’ Beth asked shakily.
‘I don’t know. Let’s go in and find out.’
‘I’m afraid there’s bad news,’ Dr Brooker said gravely when the women were seated. By now they had realised that must be the case, but weren’t prepared for how bad the news actually was. ‘I’m sorry to say that last night Arthur Cummings died peacefully in his sleep. He suffered no pain. Indeed, there was a smile on his face when he passed away. He was eighty-one years old. I pray I live so long myself and die so happily.’ He spoke gently. ‘Are you relatives?’
‘No, friends,’ Ruby whispered. Beth began to cry. The little girls caught her mood and cried with her, little hacking sobs, as it dawned on them that their dear Arthur was dead.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Dr Brooker murmured.
‘Is he still here? I’d like to say goodbye – we all would.’
‘He was taken to the morgue only minutes before you arrived. It’s not long since his body was found. The young man, Herbie, was worried there was no sign of life when he returned this evening with the cart. Apparently, Mr Cummings always came out to greet him.’
‘He’d still be alive if we hadn’t gone away,’ Ruby said, her voice suddenly harsh. ‘It was us going that finished him off. Five days, the war only started five days ago, and already we’ve lost someone we love.’
It was the saddest night they’d ever known. The children were worn out and went to bed willingly. Greta and Heather were upset about Arthur, but not old enough to mourn. Ruby and Beth stayed up until the early hours, talking about their old friend, reminiscing, crying sporadically, taking turns to comfort each other. They blamed themselves for deserting him.
When Beth began to fall asleep in front of her eyes, Ruby made her go upstairs, then stayed in the chair, staring at the empty fireplace, while other thoughts flitted in and out of her mind. The scene with Miss Scanlon had brought home to her an aspect of life she hadn’t known existed; colour prejudice. She would never repeat to Beth the terrible things that Miss Scanlon had said, but the words would forever stay seared on her soul.
Her thoughts turned to Jim Quinlan, as they often did when she was alone. They’d only met a few times since the party in the Malt House. Looking into his warm eyes, she’d hoped to see something more than the friendly interest he took in everybody’s affairs, but had looked in vain. Ruby sighed. Even if he considered her the most desirable woman in the world, she couldn’t imagine Jim Quinlan allowing himself to show a scrap of interest when he thought she was married.
Next morning, there were practical issues to consider. Would the landlord let them have the house? Beth wondered
aloud.
‘Not unless we take over the yard as well. They both go together. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy running a coal business.’
‘I didn’t think of that. Which reminds me, I’ll just have a word with Clifford. Just because he’s a horse, it doesn’t mean he won’t be as upset as anyone that Arthur’s gone.’
Herbie arrived soon afterwards, wanting to know if he should deliver the coal as usual and who would pay him if he did. ‘And there’s more needs ordering. We’re running low.’
‘I think you should nip round the landlord’s first, tell him about Arthur,’ Ruby advised. ‘Things need sorting out.’
‘Would he let our dad take over the place, d’you think?’ Herbie asked, his young face bright with hope. ‘He lost his leg on the docks a few years back, our dad, then our mam did a bunk and we lost the house an’ all. Me and him and our Mary have been living in rooms ever since. We could run the place together. Mary could do the paperwork, she’s good at sums. We talked about it last night.’
‘All you can do is ask, Herbie. If you move in, I won’t have to worry about Clifford being looked after.’
Beth came up and overheard the last remark. ‘No, but you can start worrying about something else, Ruby – where are we going to live?’
‘I know exactly where we’re going to live,’ Ruby sang. ‘In a nice, detached, five-bedroomed house overlooking Princes Park.’
‘What if she comes back, this Mrs Hart?’ Beth asked next day as they toured the house, upstairs and down. The girls ran ahead, gleefully exploring, Arthur forgotten. Jake tottered along on his chubby legs, clutching his mother’s hand.
‘She went to America to escape the war. She’s not likely to come back now it’s started, is she?’
‘I’ll be worried all the same.’
‘So will I, a bit, but I’d sooner be worried than live somewhere like Foster Court. I’d write and ask Mrs Hart if it’d be all right if we stayed, but her sister’s address turned out to be a laundry list when I opened the envelope with the keys. She was always a bit of a scatterbrain. Isn’t everywhere lovely and big!’