by Annie Groves
‘Did you wallop him?’ Danny’s words bounced off the sports page, reduced because of paper shortages. He knew there was not much football to study either these days. Most fixtures were cancelled as attention turned to the war effort, although local league competitions were set up and a few, such as the Northern League, did manage to complete the last season. It cut Danny to think more than half of the footballers were unable to fulfil all their fixtures because they had been called up. Teams were dwindling, although when possible guest players would be fielded instead. He sighed; even the footy players were doing their bit.
So far he had been able to dodge Kitty’s questions. At first, before he got this new job, it was natural she should be curious as to why he had not been called up like the other blokes from around here. When he first found out he could not serve his country because of an enlarged heart he had thought of telling his sister he was a conscientious objector, but he knew she would never believe that. The only thing Danny had ever wanted to do was to join the Forces and Kitty knew it.
‘You haven’t listened to a word I said, Danny Callaghan!’ Kitty wondered why she bothered even trying to keep Tommy out of trouble. Danger was like a magnet to the curious boy. ‘He can’t just roam the streets and I’ve got to go back to work again. There’s a Forces dance tonight and I’ve got to do an added shift! I won’t be home until eleven.’
‘I can only mind him until nine,’ Danny said, raising his head now. ‘I’ve got to make a delivery.’ Danny, having been exempted from military duty, was now in a reserved occupation on the docks and earning a regular wage. The reserved occupation conveniently answered the question as to why he hadn’t been called up. Not that Kitty would ever judge him – or anybody else for that matter. She had a heart of gold.
However, Danny had no intention of telling her he had a dicky ticker. He didn’t want to worry her any more than he had to when she was constantly anxious about Tommy’s fragile health and about Jack.
It seemed to Danny that one worry replaced another for everybody. Their fortunes might have taken a turn for the better with regular work for both Danny and Kitty, but there was little to spend the money on. The Government was requisitioning even the most basic things for the war effort, and there was a lack of everything – unless you knew the right people.
‘I don’t like to ask Aunty Doll.’ Kitty looked thoughtful, not always a good sign, thought Danny. ‘She goes to bed around ten if there’s no sign of a raid.’
‘I’m sure she won’t mind this once – shall I go over and ask?’ Danny hardly took his eyes off the paper.
‘I’ll go for a tanner, if you like?’ Tommy said, hoping to get out of his sister’s iron grip. ‘It’s no bother.’
‘I bet it’s not, you little twerp,’ Danny said, getting up from the chair and folding his paper. Tucking it under his arm, he took his cap from the shelf in the alcove near the window and, placing it on his head, he sauntered down the long narrow lobby whistling ‘Underneath the Arches’, his favourite Flanagan and Allen tune.
He had already reached the ever-open front door when Tommy called mischievously, ‘By the way, Sarah’s not in. I saw her going out earlier.’ He grinned when he heard Danny’s footsteps returning up the clean but faded linoleum.
‘And what makes you think that bothers me?’ Danny asked, pushing his flat cap to the back of his thick, black wavy hair, his easy smile showing white straight teeth.
‘I know you’ve got your eye on her. I’ve seen you looking every time she walks up the street.’ Tommy’s mischievous grin lit up his blue eyes. ‘That’s why you call into Aunty Doll’s every chance you get.’
‘You might just land yourself in trouble, spreading tales like that.’ Danny was hoping to catch sight of Sarah before she started her Voluntary Aid Detachment work at the Royal Infirmary. She wasn’t around so much as he would have liked. And, even though he threatened Tommy on a daily basis, his younger brother knew Danny would never lay a finger on him.
‘What’s it worth to keep me trap shut?’ Tommy asked. Like his older brother, he was always on the lookout to earn a few coppers and had no intention of letting this prized opportunity go. ‘If you give me a tanner I won’t tell.’
‘A tanner!’ Danny’s eyes widened. ‘Do you know how long I’ve got to work to earn sixpence?’ He was proud of the fact he had spare coppers to give Tommy in the middle of the week. It hadn’t always been this way, especially when Dad was alive. Memories of the hungry thirties were still fresh in his mind. Danny rattled the change in his pockets, tormenting his younger brother. The war did have some good points. An eternal optimist, Danny always tried to see some good, no matter how bad the situation. He had taken a knock to his confidence when he had been refused for the Forces, but he had bounced back. Worse things happened at sea, he reasoned.
‘Ahh, go on, Dan, mug me to a tanner.’ Tommy’s wheedling nearly always got him what he wanted. Their Danny, even though he would never admit it, was a soft touch, although Tommy was wise enough not to play on it.
‘A thrupenny bit is all I’ve got – you won’t get a penny more.’ Danny brought a handful of loose coppers from the pocket of his heavy corduroy trousers and handed the little coin to his brother.
‘I suppose that’ll have to do.’ Tommy, though careful not to sound eager, was satisfied. He only wanted three pence in the first place. And even though their Danny was generous to a fault, Tommy was surprised at the ease with which he got it.
‘Here, you little Shylock.’ Danny handed Tommy a twelve-sided copper coin. ‘Here’s your pound of flesh.’ After Tommy’s hospital scare last Christmas, Danny and Kitty didn’t want him evacuated again. Not since he had walked all the way home from Southport and arrived half dead, then collapsed in the yard from diphtheria. Only the Good Lord knew how Tommy had managed the journey.
‘I’ve got enough for a Comic Cuts and a Dandy – if they’ve got any in the shop.’ Tommy laughed and ducked as Danny flicked the back of his hand towards his ear, deliberately missing; nobody ever laid a hand on Tommy in this house.
‘Who’s this Shylock, then?’ Tommy asked, leaning on the doorframe while shoving the coin down one of his grey, concertinaed socks, knowing he had holes in the pocket of his knee-length woollen trousers due to carrying all the treasures their Kitty called rubbish, like his peashooter and his catapult, and odd bits of shrapnel, which were a bit of a curse because the sharp bits ripped your pockets.
‘Shylock’s a character in some posh play called The Merchant of Venice and was written by a bloke called William Shakespeare.’ Danny spoke with some authority and Tommy was transfixed. He looked up to his older brother, who was dead clever. If Danny said something was right then Tommy believed him.
‘If you ever go back to school – when the teachers come back from evacuation – you can tell them your big brother taught you that. Oh, and by the way, Shylock was a moneylender.’ Danny looked very pleased with himself.
‘Like you, Dan?’ Tommy said innocently, knowing his brother loaned money to people in need – and he charged less interest than Mrs Kennedy. He was great, their Danny.
Kitty gave an exaggerated look of surprise that Tommy should know such things. Danny shook his head, laughing now and eager to change the subject. ‘I read that in a magazine when I went to the doctor’s about me chest.’ He did not tell them he had been for one of his regular check-ups to see the heart doctor at the Royal Infirmary in town. Kitty had enough on her plate worrying about Tommy. However, Danny did have a few worries, too. Alfie Delaney was still poking around trying to get him to take the medical examinations for ‘businessmen’ who had the wherewithal but wanted to duck out of military service. Danny did not want to go anywhere near that caper. That was fraud and it was immoral. Danny believed in fighting for your country and not trying to dodge your duty when other men were dying for what they believed in.
Tommy knew school was never high on the list of family priorities when times were hard, their Kitty had
told him often enough, not when a few earned coppers here and there were more important to their survival. Danny’s ability to make money and the money that Jack gave them had seen them all through many hard times.
‘Listen, Tom,’ Danny said, pointing his finger in the little fella’s direction, hardly able to suppress his amused grin, ‘I know a lot of stuff, and I’ll tell you this for nothing: I won’t always be poor either. People will look up to me one day.’
‘Just as long as it’s not the bottom of your feet,’ Kitty said, knowing their Danny was not averse to the odd not-strictly-legal skirmish.
‘O ye of little faith …’ Danny scoffed as he headed back towards the lobby.
‘Does she have to stare at me like I’ve grown another head?’ Charlie Kennedy sat in his usual seat at the table facing the bay window of number thirteen Sandy Avenue, so he could keep his eye on the long tree-lined thoroughfare. He didn’t trust his mother to keep his address secret. If Rita turned up here it would not be good news.
He was addressing Elsie Lowe, landlady of the boarding house his mother owned, though this was something Winnie chose to keep to herself.
The younger woman, Elsie’s constant companion, stared at him, her gaze steady and impenetrable. He wriggled under the doll-like stare. Charlie never used Ruby’s name and acknowledged her even less. She was nothing to him. Elsie, on the other hand, was a good sport and far more accommodating in every way than Rita had ever been.
Charlie found it hard to decide how old Ruby was. She could be anywhere between fifteen and forty years old. She said little – answering any questions with just a nod or the shake of her head – unless the children spoke to her and then she was quite chatty.
‘Ruby’s not used to you, that’s all.’ Elsie, a well-preserved and attractive woman who was cagey about her own age, gave the young woman a wide, reassuring smile. ‘She takes a while to get used to strangers. She’ll come around, you’ll see.’ Ruby was not Elsie’s daughter but the older woman had reared her from a baby.
No matter. Charlie’s only concern was Rita; he didn’t want her ever to find out this address or his whereabouts. He was doing everything he possibly could to dodge being called up for duty. He was thinking of writing to the authorities saying he was a conscientious objector and he expected to attend a tribunal or somesuch. He did not intend to be killed fighting.
If Rita knew where he was staying she would shop him as soon as possible. However, he had heard that if a woman had children under fourteen she was exempt from war work. Maybe the law was the same for the fathers. He was not going to go to the trouble of finding out. No point in stirring up questions for himself. To the neighbours he was in a reserved occupation, which could not be talked about – job done.
He had taken a transfer to the insurance office in Southport. They hadn’t asked any questions; with the war, staff were thin on the ground and the insurance business was booming.
He didn’t want Rita mooching around sticking her neb in and causing net curtains to flutter. That nosy old bat next door was always on the lookout for a bit of gossip, too. People like her looked innocent enough but who knew what they did with the information?
He did not miss Rita one bit – why should he when he had Elsie to keep his cockles warm?
The first couple of years with Rita had been good. Well, he hadn’t known her sneaky ways then, had he? But Ma saw them straight away. Watch her, she’ll take you for every penny.
He did watch her from then on and he did not like what he saw. Rita was too fond of nipping into her mother’s next door. He’d hear them laughing over the wall and his blood would boil – sure they were laughing at him. His mother had been right all along when she said Rita was no good.
The children were settling in well. Well, Michael was. Megan would take a little longer. She still cried for her mother at night but taking a tough hand was the way to go. No sense in mollycoddling the children. Rita had done too much of that already and spoiled them. He’d written to his mother and told her that he had enrolled them at the local school where there were other evacuated children and they were making friends. Perhaps he would – but not now, he didn’t want any nosey parkers prying into his private affairs.
Yes, Charlie thought. This was going to work out just fine. He went back to watching the street and tried to ignore Ruby, still directing her inscrutable gaze in his direction.
‘Roast beef?’ Winnie Kennedy gave a false laugh, her voice overloud as Sarah Feeny walked into the corner shop. ‘You’ll be lucky, Vera! Don’t you know there’s a war on? We’ve not had roast beef in here for weeks …’
Sarah did not fail to notice Mrs Kennedy thrust something that looked suspiciously like a large joint of roast beef under the counter, and it was obvious by Vera Delaney’s shifty appearance that they had been discussing something they did not want made public.
‘Oh, hello, Sarah love, how’s your mother?’
Nor did Sarah miss the warning sidelong glance Ma Kennedy gave Vera Delaney. It would be easy for Mrs Kennedy to store some choice cuts; she had a refrigerated cabinet out the back for ice cream and such – when you could buy ice cream, that was.
‘Mam’s fine, Mrs Kennedy. She’s getting stuck into her salvage work as usual, helping those less fortunate, as you do.’ Sarah gave Mrs Delaney a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. Nothing got past Vera in this street. She had her nostrils permanently flared, which gave her the disapproving appearance of a cartoon butler, and was into everybody’s business yet nobody seemed to know what was going on behind her closed front door.
‘How’s poor Frank doing?’ Mrs Kennedy’s honeyed tones did nothing to assuage Sarah’s suspicions. ‘Has he got his new leg yet?’
Sarah could feel the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Her older brother would go mad if he heard anybody, especially Mrs Kennedy, referring to him as ‘poor Frank’! Mrs Kennedy was one of the few people Sarah genuinely did not like, not because she had more faces than the town hall clock, but because she gave her older sister Rita a dog’s life, and would no longer let her take advantage since Charlie took the kids to live in Southport.
‘Any news of the kids?’ Sarah asked boldly. ‘Only, Mam was asking.’ After all, they were Dolly’s grandchildren too.
‘Charlie wrote saying that the kids are doing just fine, thank you very much.’ Winnie Kennedy thought that Sarah Feeny was too cheeky for her own good. She had a defiant streak in her and the two of them had locked horns more than once. That Dolly Feeny would do well to keep more of an eye on her children, she thought. They were all a bit wild.
‘So, Frank’s home again, is he? Have they managed to find him a desk job somewhere, then?’ Vera asked. Sarah knew she was not one for small talk – if Vera wanted to know something she just came right out and asked. However, Sarah was doing as the posters said and keeping her opinions to herself. Careless talk cost lives, and all that. She did not intend to put either of her brothers’ lives in jeopardy for the sake of corner shop tittle-tattle.
‘Frank wants to know if you’ve got any cigarettes in yet,’ Sarah said, ignoring Vera’s nosy questions, ‘but I’ll wait my turn. Mrs Delaney had not been served yet.’ Sarah watched Vera’s face flush with guilty colour, which undoubtedly confirmed her suspicions that she had walked in on an under-the-counter transaction. She wouldn’t put anything past these two.
‘Oh, I don’t mind waiting.’ Vera moved out of the way, allowing Sarah to get closer to the counter. ‘You go ahead, love; anything for our brave fighters.’ Then, lowering her voice, she said, ‘Not like that Danny Callaghan over there.’ She screwed her face in disgust as her eyes locked onto the chipped paint of the Callaghans’ front door. ‘You won’t find him fighting for his country in a hurry.’
‘And how’s your Alfie, Mrs Delaney? Still doing his bit on the dock?’ Sarah asked sarcastically, knowing that Alfie was as likely to sign up for duty as Hitler was to decide to give all this war lark in and keep pigeons instead. She wasn’t
having this old bat slagging off Danny Callaghan.
‘He is doing a job as valuable as any in the Forces,’ said Vera with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders.
‘Danny works alongside, doesn’t he?’ Sarah said pointedly. ‘So he’s also doing a valuable job too, I would say. Didn’t your husband get out of going to France in the last war?’ Sarah knew Mam would skin her alive for talking to a neighbour like this, but she couldn’t resist. Mrs Delaney was far too free with her opinions of others when she ignored her own family’s shortcomings altogether.
‘Mr Delaney died during the last war!’
Kicked by a dray horse when he was coming home drunk, I heard. Sarah did not voice her thoughts, knowing her mother would not stand for any of her offspring giving cheek to anyone.
‘I’m sure he did his best,’ she said. She did not know much about the Great War as Pop hardly mentioned it. However, she did know Danny had done everything in his power to enlist, but his enlarged heart meant he failed every time. He had exemption slips from every military office in Great Britain. Nobody would take him. He had no choice but to take a reserved occupation on the docks.
Sometimes she worried that the work was too strenuous for him, but she would never dare voice her concerns, knowing how proud Danny was. Like most men around here, being tough was a way of life, and to show weakness of any kind was unheard of.
Danny had sworn Sarah to secrecy so she kept quiet, no matter how much she wanted to tell the po-faced woman that Danny was worth ten of her son, a charge hand on the same dock. Sarah recalled the time Alfie Delaney told her he would turn conchie rather than fight. He would rather serve a prison sentence than risk his life for King and country. How Sarah despised Mrs Delaney’s cowardly upstart of a son.
‘Tell Frank,’ Mrs Kennedy’s voice was low as she beckoned Sarah to come closer and, leaning across the counter, she winked her eye conspiratorially, ‘I am taking delivery of Craven “A” cigarettes after the shop has shut. I’ll pass a packet into him – personally.’