There is a Season

by There is a Season (retail) (epu

  ‘She goes to bed at eight o’clock at night to get her night prayers finished by ten,’ Terry said.

  Another brother, Stephen, said teasingly, ‘Our Maureen’s understudying her. She falls asleep on her knees saying her prayers.’

  ‘Once,’ Maureen cried indignantly. ‘That’s you, Anne, telling tales.’ She turned to Sarah. ‘I wanted to finish a novena but I was very tired. I knelt by my bed and fell asleep, that’s all that happened.’

  ‘She gained Grace with her Novena,’ Anne laughed, ‘and made me commit a sin. I said some bad words, believe me, when I had to get out of my warm bed and wake her up.’

  Maureen smiled then said thoughtfully, ‘I’m not criticizing your Gran’s view, Sarah, but surely you can’t divide girls into those who have babies because they’re innocent, and those who are crafty enough to know how to prevent them. What about all the girls like us where the question doesn’t arise?’

  ‘We were talking about a specific case we’d heard of,’ Sarah said, her face pink. ‘This girl works in a clothing factory and she’d been sacked in case she – she sort of contaminated the other girls. That’s what it seemed like anyway, and someone said the other girls were immoral but too crafty to have babies.’

  ‘The ones who were being protected from the first girl?’ Terry said. ‘That’s a damn’ disgrace, all the same. Hypocritical.’

  ‘That’s what Grandma said,’ Sarah said eagerly. ‘She meant that the girl I know is a good girl really.’

  ‘Yes, I know anyone can make a mistake,’ Maureen said. ‘But my point is, just because you don’t have a child before marriage, it doesn’t mean you’re just crafty. Most girls I know – well, I can’t speak for other people, but I wouldn’t allow anything to happen before I was married, and I think that goes for many others too.’

  ‘It’s a question of self-respect. I’d feel cheap if I did,’ said Anne.

  ‘The same goes for a fellow,’ Terry said. ‘You want to respect the girl you marry.’

  Eileen Fitzgerald was lying on the rug reading. Now she lifted her head. ‘It’s a sin anyway, and you’d have to tell it in Confession. That’s enough to put you off.’

  They all laughed but Sarah said quietly, ‘I think respect is what matters. I wouldn’t respect a fellow who suggested it, knowing the risk to the girl.’

  ‘He couldn’t really love her,’ said Anne.

  The eldest brother lay in an armchair with his long legs stretched out and his eyes closed. Now he opened them and said, ‘I agree with you about respect. I wouldn’t respect a girl who gave in to me if I did ask her, and certainly I wouldn’t want to marry her. The point is, if a girl gave in to me, she’d probably done the same with other fellows she’d been out with.’

  Mrs Fitzgerald looked into the room. ‘There’s a tray ready if any of you drones would like to get it,’ she said cheerfully.

  ‘OK, Ma,’ said Anne, jumping to her feet, and the talk turned to other matters during supper.

  Later when Sarah went home, with Anne walking part of the way with her, she said dreamily, ‘I think I’ll have six or seven children when I’m married. I think big families are fun.’

  ‘But you’ve got brothers and a sister,’ Anne said.

  ‘I know, but we’re more spaced out. I love the discussions in your house. We all get on well, but we don’t have talks like you do, Anne. Kate’s too young and the boys are too single-minded.’

  ‘John with his politics, you mean.’

  ‘Yes, and Mick with his aviation. He thinks of nothing else now. Always hanging round Speke Aerodrome and talking to the Dutch pilots, and his side of the bedroom has the wall covered with pictures of aeroplanes and Jim Mollison and Colonel Lindbergh.’

  ‘Is he still step dancing?’ Anne asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, and playing cricket and running. I don’t know how he finds time to study.’

  ‘I bet that’ll be my claim to fame in years to come, that I knew your Mick,’ Anne said with a laugh. ‘I’m sure he’ll be really famous one day. He’s so clever.’

  ‘He’s always top of the class,’ Sarah said, ‘and good at sport too, and the annoying thing is it’s all so easy for him. He never worries about a thing and yet everything turns out right for him.’

  ‘Don’t sound as though you want him to come a cropper,’ Anne teased her.

  They parted at the corner and Sarah walked on, thinking how glad she was to have Anne as her friend. They agreed about almost everything. The fact that Anne loved books and poetry as much as she herself did had attracted Sarah at first, but the more she knew of Anne the more she appreciated her goodness and generosity of spirit, and her sense of humour.

  She liked all the Fitzgerald family. She loved the discussions they often had, sometimes serious like tonight, sometimes on films or books, but always lively, everyone with an opinion and determined to express it. Anne told her that they often quarrelled but always made up quickly, and she could believe it.

  I hope Anne’s not going to fall for our John, Sarah thought. I’m sure he’s up to something, although he seems so meek and mild now.

  John would be twenty-one years old in September and Cathy had suggested a party to celebrate, but he turned down the idea. ‘But you’re only twenty-one once, son,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you want to celebrate?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mam’ John mumbled. ‘I’d just rather not have a party.’

  The truth was that John was deceiving his parents about how he spent his evenings, and knew that he must deceive them even more and cause them much pain when he was able to carry out his plans. In spite of that he was determined to go to Spain, but felt unable to let his mother arrange a party for him while he was planning to leave home.

  Cathy thought that he would find a party unbearable without his grandfather present, so she said no more about it. John realized the mistake she was making and felt mean, but told himself that the Cause was all that mattered now.

  He had copied out and hung on his wall the words written by Emiliano Zapata and quoted by Dolores Ibarruri, known as La Passionaria. “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.” He said them over to himself every night before he slept.

  At the end of October he told his mother that he was going to spend a weekend in Paris very soon. His father was out at the St John’s Ambulance Headquarters at the time, but Cathy was pleased to hear her son’s plans.

  ‘It’ll do you good,’ she said. ‘You need a break, but I hope the weather won’t turn nasty before you go.’

  ‘I’m going next weekend for that reason, Mum,’ he said glibly.

  ‘Next weekend! I’ll have to look through your clothes, get your shirts ready,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll only be taking a rucksack,’ John said. He made an excuse and escaped before he was asked any more questions.

  Greg returned some time before John, and Cathy told him excitedly about the weekend in Paris.

  ‘I’m glad he’s having a break, Greg,’ she said. ‘I was thinking – we had money put aside for his twenty-first party, but since he wouldn’t have it, how about giving him that now, to help with his holiday expenses?’

  ‘Just as you like,’ Greg said. He questioned Cathy closely about who John would be with and where he would be staying.

  She said impatiently, ‘We didn’t have time to go into all that. He had to meet someone, but I suppose he’ll be going with those lads from the office, the ones who go hiking in Germany. He said he was only taking a rucksack.’

  She had been on a catering job in the afternoon, a children’s party which had been very tiring, and now she went to bed. Greg stayed downstairs. When John arrived home, it was his father who greeted him.

  ‘I believe you plan a weekend in Paris?’

  ‘That’s right,’ John said. ‘I’ll go up, I think, I’m very tired.’

  Greg barred his way. ‘Tell me more about this weekend, John.’

  He shrugged. ‘Not much to tell,’ he
said. ‘It’s just a short holiday.’

  ‘Is it?’ Greg said. ‘I think it’s more than that. If it is, John, I want you to tell your mother the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ John exclaimed, flushing.

  ‘I think you do. I know about the recruiting office in the Old Haymarket, and the weekend trips to Paris, often by men who’ve been unemployed for years and are almost in rags.’

  ‘If you know all that, you’ll know we’re really making for Spain,’ John said. His face was flushed and his eyes bright, and he gripped the back of a chair as he spoke. ‘I’m not ashamed – I’m proud to be going to fight alongside my comrades. It’s what Grandad always dreamed of, working men of every country standing shoulder to shoulder.’

  ‘Yes, I realize you’re making for Spain,’ Greg said. ‘And I wouldn’t stop you if I could, if it’s what you believe in, but you must be honest with your mother.’

  ‘I don’t want to upset her,’ John said, looking down at his hands.

  ‘She’ll be upset if you deceive her, John,’ said Greg. ‘Mum’s very strong, you know. Obviously she won’t want you to go into danger, and neither do I, son, but we know you’ll be doing what you believe in.’

  ‘You don’t seem surprised Dad.’

  Greg smiled sadly. ‘I’ve expected something like this for a long time. I knew a man years ago whose family had originally come from Ireland. They were always talking about Ireland’s wrongs and singing sad songs about emigration, and when the troubles started in Ireland he went there to fight and was badly wounded. He said to me, “My father dreamed the dreams, but my flesh found the reality.”’

  John looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Greg wearily. ‘All your plans are made, I take it? Can you tell me about them?’

  ‘Yes, but it must be confidential, Dad. We’ll go to Paris, and there’ll be Frenchmen there who’ll take us on to the next stage.’

  ‘You’ll be with friends, I suppose?’

  ‘We’re all brothers,’ John said grandly. ‘It’s not just men of all nationalities who’ll fight together, but men of every class too. Public school men and Varsity men and intellectuals who belong to the Left Book Club have joined working men because they see the justice of the Cause.’

  ‘Yes, and among all these presumably there are men you know personally?’ Greg said drily, but John was too excited to notice his tone.

  ‘Yes, Liverpool men. Henry Vaughan’s there already. He made his own way there, though.’

  ‘We’d better get to bed. Don’t forget, your mother must be told the truth,’ said Greg.

  As soon as John arrived home from work the following evening, he told Cathy the real reason for his trip to Paris. He explained that it must be done this way otherwise he might be prosecuted under the Foreign Enlistment Act, and that he would be travelling with friends.

  His eyes sparkled as he spoke about the arrangements although he also said that he was sorry to upset his mother. Cathy shed a few tears and held him close, then she said firmly, ‘You must do what you believe is right, John.’ As Greg had said, she could be strong when it was necessary, and she began to plan comforts that he could take with him.

  John urged the necessity of caution until he was safely away, and she said calmly, ‘I’ll tell Grandma the truth. I’ve already told her about you going to Paris for the weekend, and I know she thought it was odd.’ Later John went with his mother to see his grandmother. She sat as usual with her right thumb under her chin and her forefinger across her lips as she listened.

  ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, lad,’ she said when he finished. ‘You haven’t been right all year, I know. Maybe this will get it out of your system, but don’t take any chances, will you?’

  ‘I won’t, Grandma,’ he promised, thinking that she always knew how to cut him down to size. Get it out of his system!

  Dad surprised me, John thought. I felt closer to him last night, somehow, than I’ve ever felt before. He seemed almost like Grandad.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It seemed to Cathy that before she had time to realize what was happening, the day of John’s departure to France had arrived. He was to meet up at the London Coach Terminal in St John’s Lane where he would be given a ticket for the coach, then he and the others would be met in London and arrangements made for them to buy a ticket on the boat train to Paris.

  He took only a change of clothes in a rucksack. Cathy packed sandwiches, some chocolate and a packet of raisins for him, and also an aluminium flask of home-made lemonade. Greg and Sally both gave him money.

  ‘I’m all right, honestly, Grandma,’ he said. ‘Tickets and everything are organized for us.’

  ‘You never know. Keep it in case, lad.’

  John also protested about taking money from his father, but Greg said firmly, ‘Put it somewhere safe. If you find you’ve made a mistake, John, use it for your fare back – and don’t be too proud to admit it and come home. There’ll be no reproaches from us.’

  Cathy wept and clung to John for a moment when he was ready to leave, but she dried her eyes and tried to look cheerful as they waved him off. Sally had joined them to say goodbye as John said that he wanted the farewells at home and to go alone to the coach station. When he had turned the corner of Egremont Street, Cathy and her mother wept without restraint.

  ‘Now how about a cup of tea?’ Greg said cheerfully. ‘And then the pictures for all of us. There’s a Laurel and Hardy we haven’t seen.’

  At first they demurred, but, first Cathy because she thought it might cheer up her mother, and then Sally because she thought it would help Cathy, both agreed.

  Sarah was staying in to wash her hair, so it was arranged that she would put Kate to bed while Mick went with his parents and grandmother to the cinema.

  He began to laugh as soon as the film started, and laughed louder and louder as it progressed until he was almost falling from his seat in paroxysms.

  Cathy, Sally and Greg laughed too, as much at Mick as at the film, and people sitting nearby turned to laugh with him. ‘He’s like the Laughing Policeman outside the fun fair at Blackpool,’ Greg whispered to Cathy.

  She nodded. Thank God for Mick, she thought. She would never have to worry about him going off to fight. He was too busy enjoying life to care about Causes.

  When they reached home, Mick was still laughing about the film and told Sarah about it.

  ‘I’m glad I wasn’t with you,’ she exclaimed. ‘I remember going to see a Charlie Chaplin film with you and you made a show of me. Everyone in the pictures was turning round to look at you.’

  But Mick disregarded her. ‘Remember that last bit?’ he said to his father. ‘Where Hardy got squashed little and fat in the press in the dungeons and Stan Laurel was stretched out long and thin on the rack?’ He went up to bed still laughing and they soon followed him.

  Greg thought that the cinema visit had taken Cathy’s mind from her worry about John, but as he kissed her goodnight he found her cheeks were wet with tears, and put his arms around her and held her close.

  ‘Oh, Greg, he looked so young and so happy,’ she sobbed. ‘What if something happens to him?’

  ‘It won’t,’ he said confidently. ‘I don’t think this will last long, it might even be over before he arrives in Spain, or where the fighting is, anyway.’

  ‘They’ll win, you mean? His side,’ Cathy said.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Greg said. ‘I’ve heard that Hitler and Mussolini are helping General Franco, and the peasants who are fighting for the government are poorly equipped.’

  ‘I don’t understand it at all,’ Cathy said with a sigh. ‘Mussolini is a bad man – he did awful things in Abyssinia – and Herr Hitler doesn’t seem much better, does he? So why are they helping General Franco?’

  ‘Because the three of them are birds of a feather,’ Greg said. ‘They’re all tarred with the same brush – dictators.’

/>   ‘But the church is on Franco’s side,’ Cathy said. ‘He was prayed for in church last week.’

  ‘That’s because the Spanish Government is anti-clerical.’

  ‘I don’t understand and don’t care which one’s right, as long as John comes home safely,’ said Cathy.

  Greg kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, John can take care of himself. He’s a big strong lad, remember?’

  Cathy fell asleep, comforted by his words.

  She tried to avoid Josie for a few days as John had warned them to give no details of his destination to anyone until he was safely away.

  The weekend was easy as they were busy with their families and Monday was washing day for both of them, but on Tuesday morning Josie called in to see Cathy.

  A card had come for a catering job, and also a plain postcard from John, saying that he was well and happy and enjoying sightseeing in Paris. He sent love to all the family.

  ‘Did you get a card for a job tomorrow?’ Josie asked. The card was on the sideboard with the card from John, and Josie glanced at them. ‘I see you did, and you’ve had a card from your John too. Is he home?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Cathy said evasively. ‘It’s a reunion dinner tomorrow, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, at Mount Hall. It’s a good place, kitchens handy for the dining,’ Josie said. ‘Your John isn’t home then? I thought he only went for the weekend.’

  ‘No, he’s staying on for a while,’ Cathy said, but she knew that she was blushing.

  ‘He doesn’t get holidays with pay, does he?’

  ‘No, only the people who’ve worked there for a long time, twenty years I think it is, get a week’s paid holiday.’

  She looked at Josie who was obviously about to ask more questions and thought suddenly, it’s no use. I’m no good at telling lies. I’ll have to tell her, and he’s in Paris now, anyway.

  ‘Our John won’t be back for a while, Josie,’ she said. ‘He’s going on to fight in Spain.’

  ‘Good God, what put that in his head?’ Josie exclaimed.