Her brown eyes were glistening with emotion and a small enraptured crowd had gathered round him. He felt the blood rushing to his head and pounding in his ears. ‘By heck, lad,’ a ruddy faced man in a black bowler exclaimed, ‘I was only coming tonight because the missus didn’t want me to go in the Waverley, but I’ll pay a lot more attention now.’
‘Well, let’s hope that it takes your mind off the game of crib that you think you’re missing,’ his thin-lipped, black-hatted wife observed.
Jean took hold of his hand again, squeezing it tightly. ‘Callum Murphy, that was so lovely,’ she whispered. ‘You are a man with a compassionate soul. I will carry those images all the time now, as we listen to that music. Thank you for sharing it with me.’
Chapter 7
The crazed glazing of the plate was a starkly contrasting background pattern to the precisely formed honeycomb of the square of white tripe. It gleamed wetly as Liam poured salt over its surface before dousing it with vinegar. He stared dismally at the smaller piece of yellow elder that lay alongside the tripe. ‘Bloody cow’s udder again’ he thought. He hated the elder even more than he hated the tripe. You could put the tripe on a piece of bread and almost forget that you were eating it – there was no harm in tripe, just no pleasure. But the elder was altogether different. It was almost as bad as pig’s bags. It had a smooth but firm texture that mocked your palate from the plate and a strange flavour that dwelt for a long time in your mouth.
He shifted his chair so that the corner of the rag rug, made by Bridget whilst he was away, would straighten itself over the brown linoleum in front of the hearth. The Windsor Chimer, watching imperiously from its dominant position on the wooden mantelpiece above the cast iron fireplace, ticked relentlessly; neat cuts of sound that drew a faint, responsive echo from the sparsely furnished room before the next tick occurred, a semitone apart. That was the way with Windsor Chimers; gazing down with detached disdain, untroubled by the desperate struggles of the household, unmoved by the pain, vaguely amused by the humble offerings that were placed on the table under its unblinking stare. Once a helpful friend, a symbol of respect and stability that regulated the busy schedule of his family life, the clock had become, since his return from the Army, a relentless tyrant that dispassionately recorded the hopeless hours of his struggle.
Above the fireplace, the wooden framed mirror reflected the humid canopy of the washed clothes that had been carefully hung over the slats of the drying rack above his head. The dilapidated green paintwork on the walls, long overdue for renewal, was spared from total dreariness by a shining brass cone filled with faded dried flowers and an oblong sampler embroidered with the ironic slogan ‘Home Sweet Home.’ From the street he heard the intermittent faint shouts of the children playing then, from the back, next door neighbour, Florrie Hardcastle, calling the cat for its tea. There was a metallic thud from the kitchen as his wife replaced the kettle onto the stove. On the dark oak dresser, two blue and white Wedgewood servers, given to them by Bridget’s granny, stood clean but uncalled for. Between them, an eternally grieving Madonna calmly supported a palm leaf cross.
Liam looked at the old newspapers that substituted for a tablecloth and tried to focus his mind. The Manchester Ship Canal Bill was going through Parliament. They wanted to increase the maximum charges by 75% and their counsel was a Mr Honoratus Lloyd. ‘Doesn’t sound as though he’ll be getting bloody elder for his tea every night,’ Liam muttered.
‘Who doesn’t, dear,’ Bridget asked, coming in from the kitchen with a large, brown earthenware teapot.
‘This Mr Honorbloodyatus.’
‘Liam,’ his wife scolded, covering the teapot with a knitted woollen cosy. ‘Not in the house, please.’
‘Sorry, love. It’s just that I’m a bit fed up; nothing seems to be working out these days. I mean, look at this Government notice. Defence of the Realm (Liquor Control) - regulating the supply of intoxicating liquor on Good Friday. I’ve read it three times and I still don’t understand it. What was the point of it anyway? They reckon there’s a shortage of beer because of this Defence of the Realm Act; it’s regulated too much already because the pubs keep running out of it.’
‘That Scotsman from Cass Street seems to be able to get plenty of it. He was singing his head off going home again last night when some of us were trying to get some sleep.’
‘Well would you believe that? Listen to this advert. It’s got a heading The Return of Bovril. It says, Bovril Ltd apologise for the absence of Bovril during the epidemic periods, and wish to express their regret to all those who were deprived of Bovril at so critical a time. That’s why you couldn’t get any. We should have had flu.’
‘Perhaps I can get a jar in now,’ Bridget said, pouring out the hot tea. ‘Bovril sandwiches are quite nice at dinnertime.’
‘They’d be quite nice at teatime with a plate of chips,’ Liam grumbled.
‘We’ll have to see if we can run to some chips at weekend.’
‘Listen to this. This is nice of them – The available supplies were rationed as carefully as possible and a word of appreciation is due to those who did without Bovril themselves in order that the invalids might obtain it. They make it sound as though we have made a noble sacrifice to save the sick. We couldn’t have afforded it anyway, even if there had been some.’
Bridget poured the tea into a china cup for herself and then, as it became stronger, into Liam’s chipped pint pot. ‘Well, I suppose that we did make a sacrifice even if we didn’t appear to have had a choice.’
‘Why did they not produce extra? There surely couldn’t have been a shortage of it, judging from all the corned beef that we had in the army. Where’s Declan, anyway?’
‘He’s been playing with Ben. Laura said she will give him a bite to eat.’
Liam picked up the bottle of milk from the centre of the table and added some to his tea before adding four heaped spoonfuls of sugar. ‘You’ll have to cut down on that, love, if we don’t get some money coming in soon,’ his wife cautioned.
‘I’m trying, Brig, I’m really trying,’ Liam said despairingly, his elbows resting on the table as he ran his fingers through his dark, wavy hair in which strands of grey were beginning to appear. ‘I’ve walked all round Ordsall and Hulme today and there’s nothing going. The lads who came back first filled what jobs were available.’
Bridget leaned across and put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, Li. Please God, something will turn up for us soon. I know it will.’
They heard the front door burst open and footsteps coming up the hall. ‘That will be our Billy, back from the football,’ Bridget said. ‘We can start when he’s washed his hands.’
Their dishevelled teenage son, his forehead and the front of his brown hair thick with mud, the sleeves of his outsize shirt hanging below his hands, emerged into the room.
‘Come on, Billy,’ his mother said. ‘Go in the kitchen and get yourself cleaned up then we can start.’
Billy looked at the table and his face contorted into a grimace. ‘Not tripe again. I’m sick of tripe. We have it every night.’
‘You’ve got a bit of elder with it tonight,’ his mother pointed out.
‘Who wants that slimy elder. Why can’t we have meat or sausages sometimes like the other lads do?’
‘Billy, that’s enough,’ Bridget scolded. ‘We have got to watch things until your dad can find some work.’ Liam shuffled his knife and fork around uncomfortably, staring down at the miserably inadequate offering basking in a pool of vinegar on his plate.
‘Sid Benson has belly pork every Thursday and Ted Craigie is having mutton tonight with potatoes and cabbage,’ Billy complained, scowling at the sad square of tripe on his plate.
‘Ted Craigie’s dad is lucky. He has just started work again,’ Bridget said stiffly.
‘Well, he had hot pot last week and…’
‘Young Ted Craigie has had a part time job as a grocer’s boy for the last four years,’ Liam inter
rupted his son angrily. ‘Why don’t you try doing something to help before you come in complaining about everything?’
‘Because there’s no jobs going for lads and, anyway, I’m leaving school this year,’ Billy shouted back.
‘And what do you think that you’re going to do then? Walk straight into a job as boss of Westinghouse. You’ve got another think coming, my lad.’ Liam’s knuckles were glowing white, the muscles in his neck taut as steel cables as he stood up and rounded on his eldest son. ‘You come in and out of here whenever you feel like, don’t do a stroke of work and expect to be waited on hand and foot. You’re a lazy, hard-faced little sod.’
‘Liam, please,’ Bridget pleaded. ‘Shouting like that isn’t going to solve anything.’
‘What did you come back for?’ Billy yelled. ‘We ate alright when you were away. And we didn’t have any rows.’
‘Billy, that’s quite enough,’ Bridget admonished. ‘I will not have you speaking to your father like that.’
‘Well why don’t we have proper food like other people do? I don’t want your rotten tripe. I’m going out and I’m going to stay out,’ he raged as he ran down the hall and slammed the door behind him.
Liam’s head drooped as he supported himself on the back of the chair. ‘I’m sorry, love. I made a mess of that.’
‘It’s alright, Li. He shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.’
‘No, he’s right. I should be providing for my family. That’s what I’m here for. Cow’s belly is not proper food for anyone – especially growing lads. He’ll be earning a wage himself before I am.’
‘Love, don’t let it get to you. You’ll find something soon then everything will be ok.’
‘It’s hopeless, Brig. Every day there are hundreds of us walking round to see if any vacancies have come up. There are more being laid off than taken on.’
‘Lloyd George said that they will sweep away the slums and build a lot more houses. Perhaps you will have a chance there.’
‘Aye. A land fit for heroes, he said. It’s not even fit for bloody dogs.’ He returned to his chair and leant his elbows glumly on the table, staring angrily into his pot of tea.
‘Liam, please.’ Bridget gently stroked the back of his head. ‘Just give it time.’
‘It’s not time that’s needed, Brig. It’s me. Billy’s right; I shouldn’t have come back,’ he said despairingly.
‘Liam, don’t talk like that. You’re just feeling a bit down. Things will soon be different.’
‘No it won’t, love. It will never go away. I’m not the person that left you in ‘14. You don’t know what went on out there. Once it kicked off it was mayhem, Brig. You can’t imagine it. The noise would blow your mind; the whine of the shells and the massive explosions. Men screaming and crying for their mothers. You could feel the ground shaking under your feet. There was gas and smoke and the smell of guts spewing out.’ Bridget looked helplessly at her husband whose hands were now twitching wildly whilst his agitated body could barely stay seated. ‘You tried to run and you were slipping in mud and blood and your mate that you played crib with was lying there with half his head blown away. It was the noise, Brig, the noise and the flashing light; they wouldn’t stop, they wouldn’t go away; it went on and on and on and…’
A huge sob erupted in his throat and he wiped his nose on the cuff of his shirt. She stood up, put her arm round his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. ‘I know, sweetheart. I’ve been listening to your nightmares for the last two months.’
As she held him, the shaking in his body gradually subsided and he rubbed his eyes with the base of his palms. ‘You shouldn’t touch me, Brig, you shouldn’t come near me; you will be contaminated by my evil,’ he sniffled.
‘You are not evil, Liam Murphy. Just put that thought out of your head,’ she said soothingly.
‘We killed other men, Brig, fathers and uncles like us, and we killed boys that were not much older than our Billy. Kids with blue eyes and bumfluff on their chins who had been ordered to kill us. They were screaming and shouting like savages but you could see in their eyes that they were scared. We tried to just injure them if we could. Give them a chance, but then sometimes the little bastards would shoot you in the back.’ He was pressing his clenched fists into the sides of his head. ‘I’ve been degraded, Brig; I’m dirty. I don’t deserve to be here at the side of you. It would have been better if Eddie hadn’t pulled me out after I’d been shot. I’m being punished now. I’m useless, Brig, worthless. I’m not a husband; not even a father. My son can’t give me the time of day and, when little Lizzie died, where was I? Scriking in the middle of the desert. I hardly knew her and she was dead. Now I can’t even put meat on your table – just sodding tripe and elder.’
He pushed his plate away and turned to look at his wife. She shuddered as she saw the pain in his grey eyes. Holding his face tightly between her hands as if trying to will some of her strength into his tormented mind she kissed him on the forehead. ‘You’re a good man, Liam Murphy, and you have been through hell for us in the last four years. There wasn’t a day went by in that time that I didn’t get down on my knees and pray for Him to bring you back safely. When you didn’t come back, I thought that you were dead but I still prayed every day. I wouldn’t let go of that one shred of hope until somebody could tell me that they had seen your dead body. What matters is that I have got you back now and between us we’ll get by. We’re not the only ones who are finding it tough but we’ll cope somehow.’ She kissed his eyes and pressed her face against his.
Liam leant his forehead against his wife’s. ‘Thanks, love, but it’s hopeless. A lot of the firms have kept on the women that they employed during the War; they’re cheaper than the men. I can’t blame the women. A lot of them are widows or have injured men at home.’
‘Well, their needs are no greater than ours. With two growing lads and another on the way, we need the money as well.’
‘I’ll just keep trying, love. Something will turn up.’ He grimaced. That was becoming an almost forlorn hope. With industry contracting so rapidly after the war, jobs were scarce. The men who had come back early had taken up the few that were available. For those like himself, who had been required to stay in France and Germany to help sort out the post-war chaos, there was nothing left.
Her words had percolated, but only slowly, into his flustered mind. ‘Another on the way? Do you mean, you know, another baby?’
‘Yes, sweetheart, I do,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe God will bless us with another little girl in place of Lizzie but, if it’s a boy, he’ll maybe finish up down the road at United.’
‘Oh, Jesus, Brig,’ he beamed. ‘Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Why didn’t you say?’ He jumped out of his chair. ‘And I’m having you worry about me. Here, sit there, love. Put your feet up and rest.’
‘Liam, calm down. I have carried three with no problem so I’m not going to fall apart carrying another. I didn’t say before because I wasn’t sure but now I am fairly certain. It will probably be early February next year.’
Liam slumped back into his chair. ‘Bloody wars, Brig, what have I done now? How are we going to feed another mouth? We might not even have a house by then. We can’t bring another child into the world when we might be out on the streets. How can we pay for the midwife? Where will I get the money from for a doctor if something goes wrong?’
‘Liam, stop getting so mithered about things. We have been blessed with a new life and God will guide us through. We are not on our own, either. There are lots of women who are carrying now since their husbands came back. We’ll manage one way or the other. I have still got some of Lizzie’s things and a baby doesn’t cost much to feed. If things don’t pick up soon, I will go to the Guardians.’
‘Brig, I’m not going begging,’ Liam said, angrily thumping the arm of the chair. ‘I fought for this country for over four years and I’m not going cap-in-hand now begging for handouts.’
Chapter 8
Thinking car
efully about which was the correct way to sit in the hard wooden chair that he had been directed to, Chopper Hennessy opted for keeping his legs together, his arms folded. He would have preferred to rest his right ankle on his left knee as it was aching after the long walk up to Prestwich, but knees aligned seemed to be the more correct way. He hooked his cap over his right knee, felt it slipping and gripped it tightly under his armpit instead.
A grandfather clock, standing at the end of the longest row of book shelves that he had ever seen, ticked loudly. Keeping his head fixed firmly to the front, he swivelled his eyes around to survey the room. The walls were decorated with a dark green flock paper, richly redolent of late-Victorian affluence, whilst the deeply patterned plaster architrave and the plain ceiling were a rather tired white. A long, wooden framed photograph of a battalion of soldiers sitting in front of a wide, flat roofed building hung over the ornate alabaster fireplace. Two heavy, high-backed leather chairs were placed with precise symmetry on either side of a Persian rug in front of the fireplace. A minutely carved Indian chest, a neatly folded copy of The Times on top, was centred between them. From his right he could hear the interminable scratching squeak of the General’s pen, accompanied by an occasional derisory snort.
Rags, Bones and Donkey Stones (Sequel) Page 5