The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  I could see myself settling in a little house like this, after the war, where everything was open and simple and spoken out loud. Me, Elizabeth and our son. So it was with a glad heart that I joined them at the small table squeezed in between the gas stove and the kitchen cupboard and tucked in to jam sandwiches.

  “How about going to the pictures tonight?” I said to Elizabeth, when John had gone upstairs to find his homework books. It occurred to me that she and I had never been out together as a couple. Indeed, we’d never done any of the normal things that young couples in love did. We’d had sex, but in those days that wasn’t as normal out of wedlock as it is now. The fear of pregnancy was far too great. But we hadn’t been to parties or pictures, or even walked in a park, just holding hands.

  She looked doubtful. “What if there’s bombing again?”

  “I’m sure they won’t come tonight,” I said confidently, “they’ve been over three times lately. It’s someone else’s turn.” I took her in my arms and nuzzled my lips into her neck. “What about it? There’ll be something on in town,” I urged, “let’s go.”

  She grinned. The old Elizabeth was back, relaxed and happy. “Yes,” she said, “I’d really like that.”

  John came into the kitchen. “I’ve got arithmetic and geography tonight,” he groaned, “it’ll take me ages and Grandfather said he would take me to the ceilidh at the Irish Club. Colin and his mother are going too. You could come, Uncle Richard, you and Mummy.”

  “Uncle Richard and I are going to the pictures tonight, love, but tomorrow, I’m going to make a picnic and we’re all going to the seaside for the day. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  “Yes!” he yelled and I joined him in his little war dance of joy, up and down the narrow hallway.

  “Now,” I said, “let’s have a look at that homework. See if I can help you a bit.”

  Mr Nugent came home half an hour later, with two oranges and half a pound of sugar in a blue paper bag. Nobody asked where these rations came from, but Elizabeth gave him a little kiss as she took them from his hands and put them safely away in the cupboard. I wondered about Mr Nugent. He seemed to be a gentle old man and was obviously a doting grandfather, but from the little I knew about Elizabeth’s childhood, there had been a time when he had been a drunken and neglectful parent. Something had changed him.

  “Come on, young feller me lad,” he said after John had put away his books, homework all neatly written out, “go and get your coat. ’Tis time for the ceilidh.” He looked back at us as he went through the door. “Don’t you two be worrying now; I’ll bring the boy home by ten o’clock and make sure he goes to bed. You have a nice night out.”

  “Goodbye, Mummy,” called John, chasing after the old man who was striding out with his slightly rolling gate, down the road towards the docks. “Goodbye, Uncle Richard.”

  It was a fine Spring evening with the sun low in a pale sky as Elizabeth and I walked hand in hand through the damaged streets up into the centre of town. Liverpool had been bombed regularly in the last few months, the docks catching the bulk of it though a few stray bombs had done damage further into town. But if you didn’t see the collapsed buildings or catch the whiff of acrid smoke which hung around the dockside, you would never guess that this was a city in fear of its life. The people were as cheerful and funny as ever, couples like us, arm in arm, racing up the streets so that they could be in time for the start of the picture show.

  Elizabeth was as girlish and relaxed as I’d ever seen her. She wore a dark green coat over a white blouse and checked green and red skirt. Her hair was caught back in two combs and bounced freely on her shoulders, like it used to in the old days. In later years when I have seen things about the war on the telly, it always appears in black and white, and I think that how most young people think of it. But it was brightly coloured, maybe more than the years just before. I felt proud and happy at the same time. Here I was, a strapping young sergeant with flashes on my uniform drawing respectful glances from other servicemen and on my arm was the prettiest woman in town. I couldn’t have been happier.

  “Let’s see this one,” said Elizabeth looking at the poster outside the cinema. “The girls at the hospital have seen it. They say it’s wonderful.”

  We went in and I can remember that film now. It was The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It was on television only a few weeks ago and I started to watch it, but after ten minutes, I turned the set off. It brought so much to the front of my mind. Things that I wasn’t prepared to think about and such overwhelming sadness and despair.

  The cinema was full and at the interval, after the news and cartoon, the lights came on. Elizabeth and I held hands like youngsters, foolish I suppose, but our love life up to now had been difficult and constantly separated. Was it surprising that we couldn’t behave like sensible thirty-year-olds? I longed to lean over and kiss her, but she would have been embarrassed in front of all these people. Instead, she talked about her child, our child, who was always to the forefront of her mind.

  “I hope John enjoys the ceilidh.”

  “Your father will make sure of that,” I replied absently, examining her fingers one by one, admiring the oval of her nails and after a swift look round, drew her hand to my mouth for a kiss.

  She giggled and snuggled up to me. “Dada loves him. I think he feels that he didn’t give my poor brother enough time and is making up for it. You knew I had a brother, didn’t you?”

  Did I? Maybe. I couldn’t remember. Selfishly, at this moment, I didn’t care.

  “My little brother, Ulick. I looked after him when Mammy left. He died of diphtheria,” she said. “He was only six, I was ten and Dada was out drinking. There was nobody to help me, no neighbours that I knew. No doctor.” The fingers in mine squeezed tight. “It was horrible watching him, Richard, he was clawing for breath and I couldn’t help him because I didn’t know what to do. He choked to death.”

  I stopped kissing her fingers and looked at her face. It was troubled, but still lovely. My Elizabeth was always the loveliest woman in any room and even when we had stood in the lobby of the cinema, waiting to buy our tickets, some men had turned to look at her. I don’t think she’d noticed. That was the thing about her. She wasn’t aware of anyone outside her immediate circle of interest. I was lucky; she loved me so my interests had now become hers. Maybe this was the time for our chat about home, and I practised a few sentences in my head, as I decided how to broach the subject. But it was no good, she was still thinking about her childhood

  “I vowed then that I would never allow myself to be poor like that again.” She gave a short laugh. “And I haven’t been poor, have I? Not in money. Just, well… you know.”

  I did know, but here I was planning to send her back to where she would be miserable. My words were pap, but the best I could do. “You’ve got me, sweetheart,” I said, “for the rest of our lives.”

  We were quiet then, sitting together in that crowded theatre as the lights went down and the curtains swished open.

  The funny thing was that I didn’t really watch the film. My eyes were on the screen, but of course my mind was elsewhere, planning how to tell her that she must go back to the farm and take John with her. They must be safe at all costs. With the two Land Girls and Mother about the place all the time, our Billy wouldn’t dare touch her. Perhaps her father would like to go with them. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about him either. Yes, that was it. That was what I was going to suggest. After the film was over, we would go for a supper at the Kardoma Café and I would explain what I had arranged at the farm and that she had to go. It was relief in a way, to have thought it all out and I sat back then to try and catch up with unfolding story in front of me.

  But I was too late. Suddenly, a message was flashed across the screen and the lights went up. An air raid warning was sounding outside and we were instructed to get up calmly and walk outside to the nearest shelter.

  “Oh,” whispered Elizab
eth and when I looked down at her, I saw that the colour had drained from her face and that her lips were beginning to wobble. “John,” she murmured, “I must get home.”

  There wasn’t time. The sirens were wailing as we left the cinema and the ARP wardens were insistent in their directing us to the shelters. We had no choice but to join the throng hurrying down into a damp and smelly underground place of safety. What a dreadful place it was too. For Elizabeth’s sake, I kept my feelings of disgust to myself. This was my first experience of being in an air raid shelter and I fervently hoped it would be my last and hers too. We could hear the sickening crump of bombs falling so close by that plaster and brick dust was shaken loose from the ceiling and showered down on our heads.

  I put my arm round Elizabeth’s shoulder and muttered some words that I hoped would comfort her as we sat huddled together on the slatted bench. She was white with anxiety and flinched each time the distant thud of an explosion echoed through the cavern. “Will they be all right, Richard?” she kept saying, and then, “we should never have left them.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said trying to keep my voice as light and cheerful as possible, “your father will look after John. They’ll be fine.”

  She nodded, but I could see that my words had not reassured her.

  It was nearly two hours later when we were able to leave the shelter and climb nervously up the steps and out into a dusty night. The city was a horrible sight, bleak and dark around us, with people scurrying away, shouting desperate goodbyes to each other as they hurried home. To the south, down by the river, the sky was lit up by huge fires stretching like burning fingers into the sky and the air was full of acrid smoke.

  “Quick!” said Elizabeth, tugging at my hand. Her eyes were wild as she looked towards the dock area.

  The closer we got to the docks, the brighter the night became. A red glow suffused the sky, and it seemed that everything in front of us was part of a great inferno. The noise was tremendous, with further explosions and the sound of collapsing buildings and above all the banging and crashing, the incessant ringing of ambulance and fire engine bells told a frightening story. These appliances kept passing us, backwards and forwards, swerving round corners in their terrible haste and each time an ambulance screamed past, Elizabeth would whimper in terror and increase her headlong dash to the little terrace house that she had made her own.

  “Get your breath,” I said, taking her arm in an attempt to halt her reckless flight, but she shook me off as though I was nothing but an unnecessary hindrance.

  “I have to get to John,” she gasped. “Don’t try to stop me.”

  I wasn’t, but it would have been useless in trying to point that out so I hurried along beside her, jostling now and then with other frightened people who were running in the same direction. I knew that they were the same people we had seen, laughing and joking on their way into town only a few hours earlier. Then they had been enjoying the peace of a Spring evening and now they were grim-faced and terrified. The fate of their loved ones was all that concerned them.

  We came to the top of the street where Elizabeth lived and to my relief, I saw that the houses were standing. There was damage. Most of the windows were out and the road was littered with bricks and slates from the roofs, but you could see that none of these houses had taken a hit.

  “It’s all right,” I said, as we looked towards Elizabeth’s house. “It hasn’t been touched. You can stop worrying.”

  “Thank God,” she whispered and took my hand again while we walked, slower now, towards the little red brick terraced dwelling.

  It was all agog in the street. People were out, standing back to look up at their houses, pointing out broken windows and chimneys to their neighbours. Relief was almost tangible and within minutes, you could hear the shouted jokes and good humour returning to these brave men and women. But my heart sank when I looked towards the bottom of the street where a huge fire was burning. It would seem that a docked ship had taken a direct hit and even as we reached Elizabeth’s front door, an ambulance, bell clanging dementedly, rattled past us up the hill.

  “Poor souls, whoever they are,” said Elizabeth, sympathetically her eyes following the white vehicle as she opened her front door. She paused and turned back to me. “I think I’d better go into the hospital. I expect I’ll be wanted.”

  “Yes.” She was right, I suppose. In war we all had to do our bit, but I had hoped to spend the night in her arms and I was bitterly disappointed.

  “John, Dada,” she called as we went into the hall. The house was dark, the electricity had gone from the whole street and a keen draught was coming in through the smashed front windows.

  “John, we’re home. Where are you?”

  I could hear the wind getting up and the crackling of wood in the distance. Flecks of soot danced in through the windows, bringing a sour hot smell of burning paint. I could imagine the mess down at the docks, see the mangled iron work and smashed buildings. I could even picture grey paint curling and squirming into vapour as it burnt off the hulls of docked ships. But that was down there. Here, the house was not that badly damaged and could be repaired quickly. The only thing was that it was empty. We received no reply to Elizabeth’s call and I think I knew then. The silent house presaged the silent years to come.

  “John!” Elizabeth’s voice was getting more hysterical and I could only stand back helplessly as she tore up the steep narrow staircase and then down again and into the little back kitchen.

  “They’re not here,” she wailed and ran out of the house into the street.

  “John,” she called again, looking up and down, searching the faces of the people who were standing around, for the two she wanted to see. “Dada,” she screamed and her voice grew more and more desperate.

  I took her arm. “Stop it,” I said. “Pull yourself together.”

  She had started to cry and I reached for and took her into my arms, but it was no good. She didn’t want me. She wanted her son.

  “They’ll be at club,” I said. “I expect they went into the shelter when the warning came and then continued the dance when the all clear sounded. Look,” I pointed to my watch, “it isn’t even ten o’clock yet.”

  “Oh, d’you think so?” Her face relaxed and she clung to my hand. “That’ll be it, won’t it?”

  I nodded, but truth to tell, even then I was doubtful. The docks had taken a fearful hammering and the Irish Club was right there, beside the shipping offices.

  “You stay here,” I said. “I’ll go down and find them and bring them home. I’ll give your father what for, for frightening you so.”

  She wouldn’t have it of course, determined to accompany me down the street until we came to the T-junction and broad road that bordered the dock. It was a dreadful sight down there. Burning ships and buildings crackled and split in the ferocious heat and people running about like demented animals. It’s hard to be brave when your fellow man is suffering and you can’t do anything about it.

  We were stopped about a hundred yards along the road by an ARP warden and a policeman.

  “You can’t go any further, Sergeant,” said the warden, putting up his hand to stop us. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Elizabeth spread her arms in a pleading gesture. “Please,” she said, “please. My son and my father came down here tonight. To the Irish Club. It’s just over there. I want to see if they’re all right.”

  I caught the look that passed between the two men and my heart turned to ice. The place she had indicated was a smouldering ruin of broken bricks and roof tiles.

  “Best not,” said the policeman looking meaningfully at me. “I think you should take the lady into the church there,” he pointed towards a wretched little chapel that stood at right angles to the road and bore a large sign, which read “Accounting Station.” “There’ll be people in there who can help you.”

  “Oh, God,” said Elizabeth brokenly and I took her arm and half carried her into the church.

&n
bsp; Inside, it was very quiet. Two or three stunned-looking women sat on the pews and, towards the back, where the font should be, a couple of men sat at a table and stared fixedly at a list of names. I sat Elizabeth in the nearest pew and went to the table.

  “I’m looking for John Wilde, a young lad and his grandfather, Ulick Nugent,” I said. “They came down here this evening.”

  “Where they in the Irish Club?” said the older man. I noticed he wore a dog collar and that the cuffs of his jacket were worn and dirty. A smear of soot painted one eyelid and cheek and his white hair was full of dark specks.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.” He had an educated voice that sounded strange here, but it was full of compassion. “It took a direct hit. No survivors.”

  I wanted to vomit. My stomach lurched and heaved like the worst case of seasickness and when I turned to look at Elizabeth, it felt as though the world had suddenly turned into slow motion and that every sound was coming to me from a long way off.

  “No!” she was shouting, “no!” and she was getting up from the pew and racing towards the church door.

  With legs like lead I followed her, my steps seemingly huge but somehow not covering the ground and I feared I would never catch her. To my relief, the man sitting beside the minister, jumped from his chair, took her in his arms and brought her to a halt.

  “Steady, Missus,” he breathed. “There’s nowt you can do out there.”

  She started screaming then and, coming to my senses, I took over from the young man and held her in my arms, shushing her cries and stroking her hair until the screaming stopped and she was still.

  After a minute she whispered with renewed confidence and determination, “it isn’t true, Richard. They must have already left and had gone into town to find us.”

  What could I say? Only that it was possible and that we would go back to the house and find them there waiting. But I knew that it would be a lie, so I put my arms around her again and pressed my face into her hair.