Christmas on the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  ‘You’ll be putting your name down for a victory garden next spring, as well, I imagine?’ Pop said. That would stop her worrying so much about her boys.

  ‘Aye, if you like,’ Dolly sighed. ‘When our Eddy gets home there’s going to be a houseful.’ Her mind was now working overtime and her eyes gleamed with delight. ‘I’ve got it all to do now,’ she said with more than a hint of satisfaction, ‘so if you’ll all get out of my kitchen …’

  Pop also knew that preparing for Christmas with her ever-loving family was the happiest time of the year for Dolly, although recruiting women for the Voluntary Service meant less time to get her household chores done.

  ‘It’s a good thing I still have some of that dried fruit left over from last summer,’ Dolly cogitated aloud. ‘A good rinse under the cold tap and it’ll be good as new.’ It was almost impossible to get dried fruit these days, due to shortages. Shipping carried only essential supplies and fruit was a luxury. However, Dolly had been canny when it was plentiful last summer. She had dried some and bottled the rest, which was now steeping nicely in the last of the brandy that Eddy had brought home last Christmas.

  ‘I’ll make a Christmas cake for us, and one to raffle for the Spitfire Fund,’ Dolly said proudly.

  ‘Mrs Kennedy will want to do a deal so she gets a Christmas cake,’ Nancy said, knowing that rumours Winnie Kennedy was making a large profit out of the war could very well be true as the shop was very popular with women who had money to spare. It was amazing what Winnie was able to stock.

  ‘As long as she buys a ticket she has as much chance of having a nice cake on her Christmas table as anybody else. But she’s not getting one if she doesn’t win it.’ Dolly was now sorting through the cupboard, wondering if she had enough points for a jar of jam. There was word going round the street that one of the neighbours had seen a whole box of jam being delivered to the corner shop only half an hour ago.

  Dolly knew Winnie Kennedy would save the jam for her ‘select’ customers, the ones who paid on the nail and did not ask for ‘tick’. It was not right, Dolly knew, not when her boys risked their lives day in, day out. She sighed, predicting that this second Christmas of the war was going to be even grimmer than the last.

  The German blitzkrieg had overwhelmed France, Holland and Belgium. British troops had been slain or, like her son-in-law Sid, taken prisoner. With con­stant rumours of an invasion, there would not be much in the way of Christmas festivities this year. No church bells – they were only to be rung if an invasion was taking place. No Christmas lights due to the blackout. The only joy she had was making sure she had a bit of bun loaf or Christmas cake for the family, and if they were all together so much the better.

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to your kitchen duties, Doll,’ Pop said, placing his flat cap firmly on his thatch of silvering hair, glad her mind and body were both occupied now. He gave her a loving peck on the cheek as she brought out her mixing bowl, then rolled up her sleeves for action.

  The week after her discovery in the tearoom, Rita was back in Southport again. It was her day off and she was resuming her search for her children. She saw a crocodile line of schoolchildren turning into a tree-lined boulevard, obviously impoverished evacuees judging by the handed-down clothing they wore. Their jackets were either too big or too small, their short trousers held up with threadbare braces or a beloved snake-belt. The little girls among them looked slightly better, with their tightly braided hair and shiny faces. But the surprising thing was that one of the children was a Bootle boy, and he recognised Rita from her days working in the corner shop!

  ‘Hello, Mrs Kennedy,’ the young lad called. ‘’Ave you come ’ere to see your Mick and Meggie?’

  Rita suppressed the urge to correct the names; this young lad was only being friendly and he was probably glad to see an adult’s face he recognised from home. Rita confirmed that she was here to see her children but did not tell him she had no address.

  ‘I don’t see them much, though they live near me, but they don’t go to our school.’ The boy, Davey, proudly puffed out his chest as if by telling her he had achieved something wonderful.

  ‘Sandy Avenue? So, which side are you on then?’ Rita asked as nonchalantly as her thudding heart would allow. Surely, after all these weeks she must have some good luck.

  ‘We’re in seventeen and Mick is in thirteen, of course!’ He looked at Rita as if she had gone doolally. Rita smiled. She could have hugged him. But she resisted.

  ‘Of course! Yours is the one with the—’

  ‘Apple tree!’ he interrupted, obviously assuming she had been before. ‘Yes, that’s ours.’ His eyes danced with excitement and Rita opened her bag.

  ‘I’ll tell your mam I saw you,’ she said. ‘Is there any message?’ She opened her concertina purse and took out a silver shilling.

  ‘Yes, ask her if we can have an apple tree when I get home.’ Davey laughed and Rita wondered if he was missing home half as much as his mother was missing him. She slipped the bob in his hand and his eyes lit up. Immediately he turned to show all his pals.

  ‘Thanks very much, Mrs Kennedy!’ he gasped, and seemed to grow a little taller as he proudly flipped the money into the air. ‘I’m gonna save this to buy me mam a Christmas present.’ Rita’s heart swelled with admiration for the boy.

  Rita hurried towards Sandy Avenue now she knew it was indeed where her children were. Her heart was beating so strongly she could hardly catch her breath. She was going to see her kids at last! And when she got there she was going to wipe the floor with Charlie Kennedy. How dare he do this to her? She was their mother. She had a right to see her children. This would be the last time he ever got away with something like this.

  Rita approached the house. Outside there was a board in the window that announced ‘NO VACAN­CIES’. The windows were closed. Taking a deep breath and steeling herself for the inevitable con­flict, she rapped loudly with the door knocker. For a few moments she waited, but there was no answer so she knocked again, more persistent this time. She was damned if Charlie was going to elude her. Rita put her ear to the door but could hear nothing, so she bent down and pushed the letterbox open so that she could peer inside. In the gloom, Rita could see the staircase banister and a little of the way down the dark hallway. There were no lights on and she got the unmistakable sense that the house was completely empty.

  Rita thought she would wait on the wall for them to come home. She looked at her watch: it was a little after noon. Well, she’d wait all day if she had to.

  As she sat there, someone approached the house next door from the street, a refined woman in a tailored coat with a fox fur around the neck. Now she was closing her hip-high gate after pulling in a wicker basket on wheels. It seemed well stocked, Rita noted, although the little Yorkshire terrier that popped its head out of the top of the basket may have made it look full.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the woman enquired suspiciously of Rita.

  Rita wasn’t sure how to answer. Given the situation, she thought it would be best to play her cards close to her chest for now. Who knew what Charlie had told the neighbours?

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Kennedy,’ she answered.

  ‘Mr Kennedy is away for a few days, I’m afraid.’ The woman rummaged around in her shopping trolley and the little dog shifted reluctantly as she delved underneath his little body, eventually retrieving her door keys. Rita noted that they didn’t seem to be in the habit of leaving their front doors unlocked in this part of the world, unlike in Empire Street.

  ‘Oh.’ Rita’s heart sank. She was so tantalisingly close to her children but now there was another stumbling block.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman continued. ‘He and his wife and their children.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Rita thought she had definitely heard the woman say Mr Kennedy and his wife, but she was utterly flummoxed. The older woman repeated what she had said. Rita was shocked but tried to hide it. So, Charlie had shacked up with some woman, and was masquerading
as her husband? Presumably the woman was this Elsie Lowe person. It defied belief.

  ‘And who might you be?’ the neighbour asked.

  ‘Can you tell me when they will be back?’ Rita’s agony at this latest setback threatened to overwhelm her, but she fought back her emotions. It wouldn’t do to attract attention for the wrong reasons. She must try and find out what she could.

  ‘Not until you tell me who you are – you could be anybody. There have been a few strange faces around the place lately …’

  She was too late. Perhaps he had somehow got wind of the fact she was looking for him and done a flit. The other woman looked dubious and Rita quickly explained that she was Mr Kennedy’s sister.

  ‘I didn’t know he had two sisters,’ the older woman said. Rita’s brows pleated in confusion, but the woman didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Young Ruby, your sister, is such a sweet thing, such a shame, a bit touched in the head, isn’t she? But she gets along marvellously with Mr Kennedy’s two – I sometimes see them playing in the Anderson shelter in the back garden.’ She leaned forward. ‘Suffice to say your brother has his work cut out with that wife of his – mouth like a fishwife, if you’ll excuse me saying so. But as a widower, I suppose he has other considerations. Men don’t like to be alone, do they?’

  A widower? As if taking her children away wasn’t bad enough, he’d obviously written her out of this new life of his and pretended she was dead. Were there no depths to which he wouldn’t sink? God only knew what the children must be thinking.

  ‘Well, I’m not very familiar with his wife – Elsie, isn’t it?’ Rita said, trying to glean as much information as possible.

  ‘That’s right. Elsie Lowe, as she previously was. A different class altogether, my dear.’ She repositioned the fox fur. ‘I mean, one can tell, can’t one?’

  ‘Most certainly,’ Rita replied as a fresh westerly wind whipped along the avenue. This woman seemed to enjoy a good old gossip and it was working in Rita’s favour.

  ‘They’ve gone to her relations in Crosby, apparently.’ The woman leaned forward again. ‘They won’t be back for a couple of weeks, maybe not until after Christmas, the child told me.’

  ‘How are the children?’ Rita smiled, though her insides were twisting at the thought that she now had no idea where they could be.

  ‘You hardly ever hear those kiddies; even when they play in the back garden they play in whispers. They never mix with other children in the avenue. Such a pity, they seem like lovely children.’

  ‘They are.’ Rita was angry now. Charlie had lied to his mother about sending them to school, too. Or maybe Winnie Kennedy had lied to her as well? Charlie was probably desperate to keep his rotten little lies as secret as he could so keeping the children out of school would make sense. No chance then of their letting the real story slip out to a teacher or another parent. Horrified, she thought of her children cooped up all day. At home they were allowed to run in the street – let off steam, play with the other kids. Charlie was treating them like pet rabbits in a hutch.

  ‘It’s such a pity you missed them. They only went yesterday.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rita could barely get the words out she was so choked up.

  ‘Good day. Shall I tell them you called in?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll track them down, you can be sure of that.’

  As Rita set off towards the train station, the tears fell freely down her face. Passers-by stared at her and some even made to touch her arm and ask her if she was all right. But Rita wasn’t all right. Nothing would ever be all right again until she had her children back, safe in her own arms.

  That night, on her way home, Rita passed by Kitty’s house. A cold chill crept up her spine as she found Kitty on her own, holding the letter from the War Office and weeping over the cold grate.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rita, but I can’t stop crying.’

  Rita’s heart hammered in her chest as Kitty told her about the telegram. ‘Danny said that it was the Distinguished that was sunk. They’ve all been talking about it at the docks. That was the ship that Jack was on.’

  They weren’t supposed to know where their men were stationed, but Distinguished had sailed from Gladstone Dock a few months ago. All the nurses had gone down to wave it off in a show of patriotic fervour and support. Jack Callaghan had been aboard. He had waved from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier.

  It took every ounce of Rita’s determination not to buckle under. She needed to be strong for Kitty. Was he …? He can’t be dead, she told herself firmly. I won’t believe it.

  She held Kitty and soothed her. Danny had a shift on the dock and Tommy was already over at Mam and Pop’s. Brooking no argument, Rita scooped Kitty up and took her back to the Feeny household, where the warmth of the house and of its inhabitants wrapped them in a cocoon of security.

  That night Rita had a dream. In it, water closed over her face and she began to struggle. Everything was black. She could not breathe. Her lungs would not take in air. Desperately she fought with everything she had to pull herself up to the light. If she got to the light she would be able to breathe. Fighting. Fighting. Struggling some more. If she could just …

  ‘Jack, no!’ Crying out, Rita awoke to find herself in her bed. Struggling to adjust, she switched on the little bedside lamp. The yellow light illuminated the shabby furniture and dingy curtains, all of which had seen better days. Rita felt desolate. How had she ended up here? No children, a marriage that was in tatters and now Jack, the love of her life, was missing. How could life be so cruel?

  The air raid increased to a terrifying ferocity, a waking nightmare for everybody as the blazing timber yards and warehouses that lined the dock road lit up the port, making it possible for the bombers to pick out their targets with deadly accuracy. Danny thought last night’s raid had been bad but this was even worse. Bridges, railway sidings and goods yards were being destroyed more quickly now, as the enemy were dropping wave after wave of high explosives. Parachute mines were bursting on impact and causing damage over the vast region of docks and surrounding community.

  Last night’s raid, as this one, started at tea time and if yesterday’s was anything to go by, Danny thought, then it was going to be nigh on dawn before it ended.

  Please keep Sarah and my family safe, Lord!

  Danny headed through the dock gate, giving a perfunctory nod to the dock gateman who would be there right until the end of the raid whether his shift had ended or not – it was all hands to the job now.

  Just on midnight, while the raid was at its height, the decision was taken to abandon trying to unload the ships they were working on, as the fires raged all around. Men were ordered to join the fire crews in the hope of stemming the path of destruction.

  ‘The railway’s been hit,’ one of the firemen said as he ran past. ‘If it carries on like this there’ll be nothing left in the morning.’

  ‘Look at that!’ One of the dockers pointed to a merchant ship next to the one they had been unloading earlier, now belching smoke. Danny knew the cargo was highly flammable and that if the fire took hold it would not only explode and cause devastating damage, but would likely burn for days, making the dock a Luftwaffe free-for-all.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid, Danny,’ Alfie Delaney said as Danny headed towards the ship. ‘Danny, leave it! You’ll get killed!’ he shouted above the roaring flames and crash of the splintering wood of the timber yards and warehouses already hit.

  ‘If it goes up it’ll take half the dock with it,’ Danny answered, getting his handkerchief out of his pocket to tie around his nose and mouth to try and lessen the effects of the thick black smoke that now filled the dock.

  Men were fighting to put out the ship fire, knowing the five hundred acres of docks and twenty-nine miles of quays on this side of the river were busy with military and merchant ships. Anchored side-by-side, they were carrying munitions as well as much-needed supplies.

  Even though Danny could not ac
tively serve his country, he kept up with what was going on around the world. Quiet conversations with Allied sailors in darkened corners of dock road alehouses were much more informative than anything he read in the newspapers or heard on the wireless. Newscasters were apt to give out the jolly old Britain-can-take-it attitude for the sake of American aid, but the men on the docks knew the real story. The one they daren’t tell the rest of the country.

  ‘You won’t catch me being no hero!’ Delaney called as Danny headed towards the stricken ship. Two hundred Allied ships had already been sunk by U-boats, and if it carried on like this Britain would be starved into submission. The likes of Alfie Delaney and Harry Calendar were doing a roaring trade with knocked-off imports and contraband, and even though Danny didn’t mind the odd tin of unlabelled luxury, or bag of sugar to grace his table, he certainly didn’t hold with the racket that Calendar and Delaney were running. But this was no time to stand around occupying the moral high ground, thought Danny. He had to get stuck in and help as best he could.

  As he neared the ship he noticed an unconscious fireman being carried to an ambulance. Danny knew the oil drums on board the stricken ship were stored quite low in the hold and the fire was in the stern between the bulkheads. Upright walls within the hull separated the different sections of the ship and the oil drums. Even though the bulkheads were sealed to prevent fires spreading, Danny could feel the intense heat and suspected the drums were in danger of exploding because of the high temperature alone. He did not want to be here when they did.

  Managing to haul the fire-fighting apparatus that had been discarded by the injured fireman towards the flames, Danny paused for just a moment to catch his breath. The heat was intense now as he clambered way down into the hatch, only to find the water supply had failed and he was driven back by the blistering heat, aware of the risk that the oil drums could explode any minute.