Lime Street at Two

by Helen Forrester

  Two evenings later, he came over to our bungalow, and spent the evening talking with Father and me. The old soldier and i the new one got on surprisingly well. He stayed so late that he missed the last train to Liverpool, and had to walk to the ferry.

  He continued to write to me in an ordinary, friendly way. And it seemed as if the invasion of Europe was as far away as ever.

  While Eddie's unit continued to climb up and down quarries, and I worked and sewed and danced, Alan toiled up the leg of Italy and spent the bitter winter of 1943-44 in the Apennine mountains.

  Brian was at sea, and went to the United States to be part of the crew of a minesweeper being built in Seattle. They had a rough passage bringing the little tub back to British waters, where, for a while, he swept mines.

  On 5th June, 1944, he was mine-sweeping along the coast of France, a ready target for German guns. He saw the British invasion at Arromanches, and helped to pull the dead and dying out of the water. A day or two after the landing was assured, he went ashore, found a post office still in business, and sent Mother a picture postcard.

  Mother nearly collapsed, when she saw that the card was from France, but she kept it for years.

  After seeing the hideous results of the attack on France, to send a postcard, as if on holiday, seemed to me to be the epitome of the British stiff upper lip. The sallow-skinned little boy who suffered from nightmares grew up to live them through his youth. He fought in the Atlantic and the Pacific, walked through Tokyo, after it was burned to the ground by one of the biggest fire storms ever created by man and afterwards walked through the cold ashes of Hiroshima. Later, he served in a ship cleaning out pirates from Chinese waterways. There, the starvation was so intense that the women porters, loading the ship's coal in baskets on their heads, fell in their tracksfrom hunger, and the sorely distressed British crew had to be forbidden to hand over their rations to them. He saw slain or burned servicemen and civilians under almost every possible situation, and found that, all over a desperate, ruined world, a few cigarettes from his ration would buy anything.

  Eddie was not under any illusion about his near future. He said, while on one leave, "The poor bloody infantry are going to get it, as usual."

  I felt sick. Despite his tough reputation, I could not imagine Eddie killing anybody; yet he would have to, if he was not to die himself.

  On his final leave before the invasion of France, he again missed the last train to Liverpool, so I walked down to the bus stop with him. We were just in time to see the bus vanish into the gloom.

  "Never mind," he said comfortably, "I'll walk to the ferry."

  "Then I'm going to walk some of the way with you."

  I had not anticipated going more than a mile or two, but we were so quietly companionable and the starry night was sopleasant that we swung along together, regardless of the distance.

  At the foot of Bidston Hill, Eddie paused and looked around the quiet fields and the empty road. Satisfied, he looked down at me. "Helen," he said, "I want to ask you something."

  "Yes?"

  "Helen, after the war—when I've got started again, Helen would you marry me then?" he blurted out.

  I was astonished. After all the tales I had heard, I had expected that some time or other he would proposition me. I never thought he would ask me to marry him. I stared doubtfully up at him.

  "I know I'm no catch, Helen." He sounded anxious when I still did not reply, and went on, "I can earn a living for you, though. And I want to settle down."

  No word of love?

  I took a big breath and smiled at his confusion. "I didn't think you had holy matrimony in mind," I finally responded lightly.

  "Holy or unholy, I've got it in mind." He put his arms round my shoulders andeased himself close to me. "I want to come back to you, Helen. Nobody else."

  He bent and kissed me tentatively, and such desire shot through me that the rigidly maintained self-control I had learned in my sorrow threatened to crumple. With a great effort, I drew myself back, though he still held me loosely. In the faint Ught, I could see the wicked grin on his face, and the knowledge that he would probably win. I blushed scarlet.

  It was my turn to be confused. Here was a man who would never remember birthdays, take for granted much that a wife would do for him, sire children without a thought.

  Yet, and yet, perhaps I was being too hard. When times got rough, I thought, he was not the kind to desert me, and he was a great deal more civilised than he liked to make out.

  "Yes," I said, and put my arms round his neck. He kissed me again, and, though I knew it would be different from all my young girl's hopes, I felt it would be all right.

  I expected him to whoop his satisfactionto the shivering trees in the churchyard nearby. But he kissed me long and soberly and then let me go. "I'll take you home to see my mother next time I'm on leave. And we can buy a ring, if you'd like one."

  Slowly we turned and walked on until the wind rose and it became cold. He insisted that I turn back, so we kissed again, and I watched him jog steadily down the long straight road until he was out of sight. He did not look back.

  With a heavy heart, I began the long walk home. I feared to lose what I had just gained.

  I never saw him again. His next leave was cancelled, as everyone was confined to barracks or to training grounds, preparatory to the invasion of France. Letters there were, oddly loving and funny. "We'll get married next leave. Be ready."

  He survived the invasion itself. I got letters scribbled in haste, so funny it was hard to believe that they were written on the battlefield. Then a very sad one telling me how one of his old friends had been hit by a sniper's bullet and had died in his arms. Fortunately for his mother, Eddie's brother was still in England.Life at home went on as usual, but we all waited for the BBC's Nine o'clock News every night, with nervous intensity. The news reader reported the give-and-take of the invasion battles as if it had nothing to do with killing or dying. Not a hint was there of the further horrifying suffering inflicted on both German and Allied troops, all men of my generation, who died slowly, went mad under misdirected shelhng or bombing, or to this day lie in hospital beds or are confined to wheelchairs. Not a word of those unseasoned conscripts who faced battle for the first time, civilians who had never killed before.

  In July, British and Canadian troops bled the Germans, by drawing their reserves into the battles of Falaise and Caen. This enabled the Americans to sweep through the Germans' weakened defences, into the heart of France.

  The British then got bogged down.

  There were only four bridges across the River Orne on which Caen stood, and there is a limit, even under the best of circumstances, to the amount of traffic which can pass over a bridge in a given

  Jtime, a point which was apparently mislaid in the group military mind. When the bridges became choked, the Germans saw their chance amid the all-enveloping dust and mix-up of vehicles. Many, many British and Canadians died in the resultant chaos before the city of Caen fell to the Allies.

  After the war, I saw the city before it had been rebuilt. It must have been a dreadful battle. Looking out over the rubble, from the top of a hill, stood, almost undamaged, the twin churches built by William the Conqueror and Matilda, his wife, in gratitude for his winning the Battle of Hastings and for the subsequent conquest of Britain. The British, I thought forlornly, had paid a terrible price to liberate the Conqueror's city.

  I had caught, at the time of the invasion, a bad dose of flu and was subsequently confined to bed. An infection in my throat and ears followed and, without the help of sulfa drugs, took a long time to get better. It left me with more rheumatism in my legs. The doctor ordered a slow convalescence, while I gained strength.I had got to the point where I was taking Uttle walks up and down the road and then getting into bed immediately after tea, when, one evening, Father kindly brought the Liverpool Echo in to me, to read. He then retired to the sitting-room, which he regarded as his own particular room.

&n
bsp; It was quite late and I first lit my bedside candle, then leisurely turned the pages of the paper.

  Finally, I came to the section referred to by Liverpudhans as the Hatches, Matches and Dispatches. The Dispatches section was frighteningly long. Almost without thinking, I ran my finger down the names.

  And there it was.

  "No," I whispered. "No! Not him!"

  Mother must have heard my cry, because she came running from the kitchen, her hands dripping.

  "What is it?"

  I lifted the paper towards her. "It's Eddie."

  Then I turned my head into the pillow, so full of anguish that I could not speak, could not cry. I just wanted to die myself.

  Mother was incredibly kind. She hadnever held me in her hfe and she did not now, but she stroked my head and whispered, rather helplessly, that everything would be all right after a little while.

  In such a situation, words have no meaning, but one sometimes remembers them later on and is grateful for them. I was vaguely aware of other members of the family milling around the bedroom. But it was Mother who was left with the task of helping me.

  With frantic, unleashed energy, I began to thrash around in the bed, like a butterfly skewered on a pin. Finally, I sat up, and said, "I have to get up."

  I stumbled into my clothes, vests, pullovers, cardigan, the layers with which people in those days sustained themselves m icy homes.

  While Mother watched me anxiously, I looked wildly round the confining room. "I think I must go out. Mum—into the fresh air."

  I'll come, too."

  No, Mummy," I told her gently, between gasps for air. "I need to be by myself—very badly. I'll be all right."

  Mother did not try to deter me, thoughthe rain was lashing the bedroom window panes, bubbUng from the downspouts, flooding our waterlogged district.

  More clothes were pressed upon me, a second cardigan, a mackintosh, rubber boots, gloves, an umbrella.

  "Don't worry. Mum. I'll just walk for a Uttle while. I'll be home soon."

  Putting up the umbrella, I dived out of the house, with no idea where I was going, only the desperate need to run away from my pain.

  Despite the torrent of rain, it was better outside. Like an Indian about to die, I wanted to lie on the ground, to gain comfort from the feel of earth and grass. But deep puddles already glistened on our little lawn, and I sloshed down to the gate, pulled it open and went out.

  Though weak from illness, the same weird energy carried me mile upon frantic mile. Through dear, familiar Meols, Hoylake and West Kirby, I strode without meeting a single other pedestrian—only a couple of shadowy vehicles with shaded lights.

  "Eddie," I cried, to the slashing, unheeding rain, "Eddie, darling."At Caldy Hill, I faltered, and then slowly began to climb. At the top, there is a sandstone pillar, a marker for sailors using the Dee Estuary. Panting, I leaned on a wall nearby, to look out at an invisible sea. Any tiny glowing of the coming summer dawn was masked by the weeping clouds.

  What was I going to do? How was I to assuage the tearing grief inside me? With one arm clutched across my stomach, the other holding the dripping umbrella, it was as if I had stumbled into a torturing, wet hell.

  What instinct turned me homeward, I do not know, but back I went, some mechanical ability keeping me from tripping over the usual pedestrian hazards, as I stumbled through the dark.

  As I entered the unlocked back door into the kitchen, Mother in her dressing-gown rose from her chair by the kitchen fire, which she had kept unusually high for my return. She looked old and haggard.

  "You poor girl," she said, and took the sheathed umbrella from me and put it to drip in the sink. I took off my mackintosh, shook it in the lean-to shed which layagainst the back door and then hung it, mechanically, over the door to dry. I was wet to the skin, like a bedraggled dog.

  "Take your shoes off," Mother ordered.

  I did as I was told.

  She helped me undress in front of the blazing fire and put on my nightgown. "Now," she said, "I'm going to make you a really strong cup of tea and give you three aspirins, and you'll feel a httle better in the morning."

  I could not speak. I felt that if I once opened my mouth, I would have hysterics. But it was as if she truly understood what was happening to me. This strange, bitter, violent woman was, for the first time in my memory, mothering me. Of course, I did not consider this at the time—I was immersed in shock. But I remembered it afterwards and forgave her much, in consequence of it.

  Three cups of tea and three aspirins later, warmed by the fire, I said to Mother, "I'll go to work tomorrow. Perhaps they'll have more news of him."

  She accepted this decision with a quiet nod, and drained the contents of the teapot into her cup.Except for my dry sobs, we sat silently together, looking into the hot coals in the fire-grate.

  Mother cleared her throat, and began to speak, at first hesitatingly, and then, when she saw she had caught my interest, with more confidence.

  "You know, before the war, long before I met your father, I was engaged. He was the youngest of seven sons of a widowed lady, who had been left a cotton mill by her husband. In the first two years of the war, she lost all her sons in battle, except him. He was allowed to stay at home and run the business. His mother was an Indian lady, whom his father had met in India and brought home with him, so you can imagine he was very handsome. I loved him very much.

  "One day, he was walking through the mill, when the floor above him collapsed under the weight of the machinery—and he was crushed to death."

  For a moment I was shaken out of my own suffering. "Oh, Mum," I cried in horror. "How dreadful! How awful for you. And his poor mother?"

  "She lived out the rest of her lifein complete seclusion—cut herself off completely, except for a couple of old servants."

  "Oh, God!"

  On Mother's face I glimpsed a dreadful look of abject despair, and then it was gone.

  "I'm so sorry. Mum. I had no idea."

  She smiled slightly, and got up and collected the teacups and put them in the washing up bowl, for attention in the morning.

  After a couple of hours of deep sleep and an inadequate toilet, I was running along the cinder track beside the railway. Though it had stopped raining, my leg makeup and shoes were mired as I ran through the puddles, past the abandoned quarry and the market gardens. On the station, I piled into a crowded carriage with my girl friend, who had arrived earlier.

  "Are you feeling quite well again?" she asked.

  I jumped. Had she read the Echo, too? Then I reaUsed that she was referring to my influenza bout, and that I would have to tell her about Eddie.But not today, I thought, not today. I repHed simply, "Yes, thanks."

  "You look awful."

  "I feel weak."

  I hung on to a strap and swayed with other standing passengers, and let her talk, while I looked in my mind at the shattered pieces of my hopes. And, ever burning in the forefront of my mind, was the prayer that Eddie had died instantly.

  37

  THAT morning, I wept openly in the office, when Eddie's name was sadly mentioned. And, later, when I was seated in the steamy canteen with two of my colleagues, and faced a lunch I was sure would choke me, I asked my companions bitterly, "Why did it have to be him? He was so bright and intelligent. Why didn't God take a fool like me, instead?"

  In the ensuing silence, I played around with my meal. Then one of the men, a Methodist, said cautiously, "Perhaps God has something special for you to do yet."

  It pulled me up short. I never forgot it. If I believed in Almighty God, then I must accept that He knew when my use in this world was ended, and would take me then, not before.

  I held the speaker in great affection, and through sleepless, tossing nights and long, dreary days, his remark stayed with me. He also mentioned that he had been to see Eddie's mother.

  Eddie's mother? She probably did not even know I existed.

  What should I do? What could I do?

 
; For some days the matter was settled for me. My throat flared up with a new infection, and I took once more to my bed. A week later, however, though still weak, I returned to work and to the problem of Eddie's mother.

  My mother had, seeing my grief, drawn up a truce regarding Eddie's character, but it was her opinion, she said, that Eddie's mother was probably not a very refined woman. I should stay away from her.

  Refined or not, she was probably going through hell. So, armed with a bouquet of summer flowers begged from a neighbour's garden, I set out for the north end of Liverpool.

  Eddie's home was much bigger than I had expected, a fine Victorian house set back from a quiet road. I walked up and down the pavement several times, before working up enough courage to open the handsome cast-iron gate, go slowly up the path, and ring the old-fashioned bell.A tall, slender, elderly lady answered the door. Her face was pink-flushed as Eddie's had been, and Eddie's eyes stared down at me. She wore a black dress and a fine necklace of grey, natural pearls.

  "I'm Eddie's girl friend," I said, in a trembling voice. Suppose he had had other girl friends beside the one he had asked to marry him.

  She put out a welcoming hand. "Oh, my dear," she exclaimed. "I'm so glad you've come. Come in." She opened the door wide, and I stepped into a house not unlike the home I had left so precipitately when Father had gone bankrupt.

  Wordlessly, I handed her the bouquet, and she buried her nose in it. When she looked up, there were tears running down her face.

  I was led into a large drawing-room, furnished in good Edwardian taste, with Japanese flower-patterned wallpaper, unchanged, I guessed since Mrs. Parry had first moved into the house. Everything was extraordinarily well kept.

  I must not cry, I warned myself. I have come to help.

  Mrs. Parry bent down to plug in an elec-trie fire, though the day was far from cold. "I'm so glad you've come," she repeated. "We didn't know how to find you, you know. Fred—that's Eddie's elder brother —told me about you, and we were nearly frantic with worry. You see, Eddie's things haven't been sent home yet, so we had no address." Her voice broke, and for a moment she remained bent over the glowing electric fire. Then she laughed softly, "Officially, I didn't know anything, of course, but I guessed from odd things Eddie let slip before he went back last time, that something was in the wind. All Fred knew was that he had a girl he was very keen on, living in the Wirral." She smiled up at me, and then straightened herself, and took a hanky from the sleeve of her dress and wiped away her tears.