When Day is Done

  He stopped and grinned. ‘‘Ark at ‘im,’ he said. ‘I sound a right prig, don’t I?’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Kate said indignantly. ‘You’ve got the right ideas, but remember, things aren’t always what they seem. A poor woman who came in to help with the spring-cleaning was shocked by things in the home. The girls are usually from decent homes and she said to me, “We do things better round by us. If a girl gets into trouble her mam usually has a big family anyway and the baby just gets tacked on and reared as one of them. The neighbours know but they don’t say nothing. They’re usually rearing girls themselves and who’s to know what’s in front of any of us. We wouldn’t dream of putting our girls out on the streets anyhow.”’

  ‘A good philosophy,’ Richard said, smiling. ‘So you think there are compensations in being poor, Aunt Kate? I’ll remember that, but don’t say anything about these ideas to Mum and Dad, will you? I’m just tossing them round in my mind.’

  Kate promised, but told him to stop worrying about his options. Sooner or later he would know what he wanted to do, and there was plenty of time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Marie’s baby had been adopted, and she was now working as a waitress and living in a bed-sitting room in a house in Queens Road. She had promised to keep in touch with Kate.

  One of the girls from the home, Wendy, had applied to the court for permission to marry, as she was only nineteen and her father had refused to allow her to wed. Her application was successful and she married the father of her child, so one story at least had a happy ending, but there were many others that Kate found harrowing.

  The ladies who ran the home were concerned for the moral and physical welfare of the girls and their babies, but they felt no compassion for the young mothers. Kate felt too much and decided it was time to leave. There was another reason now. Talking to Robert about finances had made her consider hers more closely.

  In theory, the small amount of interest on Beattie’s legacy was sufficient for most of her needs, as her board and lodging was provided, but in practice this was not the case. She needed clothes for her visits to Rose and for her yearly holiday in Ireland. There was also her fare there and gifts for all the Malloy family.

  She also bought birthday presents for Rose and her family, none of them lavish, but with her own occasional treats of cinema visits, sweets or second-hand books, Beattie’s money was dwindling alarmingly.

  She would need a paid job, she decided, but she would say nothing to Robert until she had found a post and somewhere to live. She knew that he would urge her to make her home with them, and she also knew that it would be a mistake. There was still affection between herself and Rose, but Kate knew that she could never fit in to her sister’s world.

  Although Kate spoke clearly and without an accent and dressed very carefully for her visits to the house in Sandfield Park, she had nothing in common with Rose’s friends. Their lives were filled with tennis, shopping, dinner parties and theatre visits, and Kate found conversation with them difficult on the rare occasions when they met.

  On one of these occasions she overheard a conversation between Rose and a friend on the other side of a hedge. The friend said curiously, ‘Katherine is your sister, Rose? She’s not like you, is she? Where does she live?’

  ‘Not at all like me,’ Rose replied with her tinkling laugh. ‘Far more worthy. She devotes her life to a charity she’s interested in, a home for unmarried mothers, and she actually lives there. In Bootle of all places.’

  The friend laughed too. ‘Certainly not at all like you, Rose,’ and they moved away.

  Kate was furious. So that’s how she explains me away, she thought. Well, she won’t need to from now on. A little later, when Robert and Rose were discussing a tennis party and invited Kate, she looked straight at her sister. ‘No thank you,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ve nothing in common with your friends and you must find it difficult to explain our relationship.’

  Rose blushed and looked away, but then she became angry too. ‘I know you despise me and my friends because we enjoy life, but if you don’t want to come, why don’t you just say so instead of making it my fault?’ she said hotly.

  Robert hastily intervened. ‘I take your point, Kate,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you and Rose enjoy your visits more when you’re free to talk to each other instead of having to make conversation with others. The boys will be home in two weeks’ time. Perhaps you would prefer to come then?’

  By then both Rose and Kate had cooled down and both agreed eagerly to Robert’s suggestion. The incident still rankled with Kate, though, and when she visited when Richard and John were home she took a perverse pleasure in talking about the years when she and Rose had lived with their parents, and about their neighbour, Mrs Holland. She knew that Rose preferred to forget those days and talk about their grandfather and his mansion in St Anne Street, and their grandmother who was distantly related to the Marquis of Salisbury.

  John, as usual, paid little attention, as he was trying to teach the gardener’s dog new tricks, but Richard was interested and asked questions about Mrs Holland and his grandfather who had been killed in the Boer War. Rose, alarmed, turned the conversation to the safer topic of her ambitions for her sons.

  John had received a glowing end-of-term report. He had a flair for maths and any science subject and a brilliant future was forecast for him. Richard’s results in his Higher School Certificate were good enough for university entrance, and Rose returned to her wish for him to become a doctor or a lawyer.

  ‘I’m not cut out for it, Mum,’ he said. ‘And it’s not what I want. John would make a better doctor than I would.’

  ‘Yes, I think John has inherited my brains,’ Rose said, looking fondly at her younger son. ‘I should have been a doctor, shouldn’t I, Kate?’

  Kate felt that she had annoyed Rose enough, so she agreed, and John left the dog and sat down on the grass at his mother’s feet. ‘Why weren’t you then?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh John, you should know why not. I’ve often spoken about it. My headmistress told me that I had a brilliant brain and she wanted me to go on to university and qualify as a doctor. Lady doctors were very rare when we were young, weren’t they, Kate? I lived with Aunt Beattie, though, and she refused to let me go.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just go anyway?’ John said.

  Rose sighed. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew how things were then,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand because everything’s always been easy for you and Richard and you’ve had complete freedom to do what you want. My life was very different. I was dependent on Aunt Beattie. She’d adopted me to be at her beck and call, and what I wanted didn’t matter a button.’

  John knelt up and pretended to play a violin, looking soulfully into her face, and in spite of herself Rose laughed. ‘You cheeky monkey,’ she said. ‘Your patients wouldn’t get much sympathy from you.’

  Richard had finished school and was happily planning a year of freedom before university when suddenly, in September, the newspaper and wireless news was all of war. By 28 September Britain had warned Hitler of the consequences if he attacked Czechoslovakia. The fleet was mobilised, and in Liverpool everyone was talking of trenches being dug in the parks and gas masks being made at Linacre Power Station. ‘Even for babies,’ one of the girls at the home said to Kate. ‘How could anyone gas little babies?’

  On 29 September the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, who believed that Hitler’s grievances could be settled by a man-to-man talk, flew to Berchtesgaden to see him, and returned waving a piece of paper which he said meant ‘Peace in our time’.

  Everyone felt immense relief and determined to enjoy life with the threat of war removed. Christmas 1938 was an excuse for extravagant rejoicing, and the spring and summer that followed seemed to people the sunniest and happiest for years.

  Rose had considered joining the Women’s Voluntary Service but decided instead to enjoy life more than ever. Kate made up her mind to find a job an
d somewhere to live after she had spent her usual fortnight in Ireland with Josie. She was always welcomed warmly by all the Malloy family. Josie and Michael now had seven children, and they all gathered about Kate, delighted with the gifts she had brought them and telling her all about school and the various animals on the farm.

  Old Mrs Malloy worried as usual because Kate was so thin. ‘Not a pick on you, childie,’ she mourned. ‘We must get some flesh on those bones before you go home.’

  The day began early on the farm, and Kate tactfully stayed in bed each morning until everyone had been fed and dispersed. Then Mrs Malloy placed before her a huge plateful of bacon rashers, eggs, black and white puddings, sausages and fried potatoes, and a plateful of brown and white soda bread. ‘Eat up now, child,’ she urged. The food was delicious and all from the farm, but Kate was thankful that some of the younger children gathered about her. She could pass some of the food to them while their grandmother was out of the room.

  All the Malloy clan expected to see Kate and offer hospitality, and Kate told Josie she would need to fast for a month when she went home. ‘I could do with fasting myself,’ Josie said ruefully. ‘But I like my food too much.’

  The slim, light-footed girl she had been was now a very plump matron, in spite of constant hard work, but Josie still had the dark curly hair and merry brown eyes, and the same happy disposition.

  Kate felt closer to her than to anyone else, even Rose. Only to Josie could she talk about Henry, and only Josie had known Gordon and the full story of what had happened between him and Kate. She was the only one who knew that Kate eased her heartache about her baby by buying a toy on 1 January, the anniversary of his birth and death, and giving it to the first child she saw of the right age.

  It was Josie who suggested, when ten years had passed, that Kate gave the toy instead to the Children’s Hospital in Myrtle Street. ‘You might get funny looks if you gave a toy to a ten- or eleven-year-old lad,’ she said, and Kate laughed and agreed.

  Kate and Josie were out for a walk together when Kate told her how the talk of war had revived her memories of the first war, and particularly of Henry’s death.

  ‘It must have been a terrible blow,’ Josie said. ‘I know how much you thought of him, and having to keep it to yourself must have made it worse. I just wish I had been there to help you. All that wouldn’t have happened with Gordon if I had.’

  They were silent for a moment, then Josie said quietly, ‘I wonder what happened to him, Kate? Something must have done or he’d have come back to you, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’m sure he would,’ Kate agreed. ‘He wrote me such a lovely letter when I told him about the baby. I’m afraid something dreadful must have happened.’

  ‘They were dangerous times,’ said Josie. ‘Especially with the job he was doing.’

  ‘That solicitor thought that Gordon had taken advantage of me then left me – I know he did. But it wasn’t like that at all, Josie. That awful day I was like someone demented and he just tried to comfort me. I was so distraught, and he was so kind to me. I didn’t love him but I liked and respected him, and if the baby’d lived I’d have taught him to be proud of his father. I think he lost his life for his country.’

  ‘Like Henry,’ said Josie, and Kate agreed.

  ‘You know I said the talk of war reminded me of him?’ she said. ‘I was lying awake one night when I suddenly thought that Henry’s son would be old enough to fight if there was a war now. I looked at the photo of him as a baby in Henry’s arms and I couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘But there’s not going to be a war now,’ said Josie. ‘Did you never hear what happened to his family?’

  ‘I know they left the house in Rufford Road. Henry’s mother died and Agnes and her mother and the baby went away somewhere. I heard she remarried but I don’t know how true that was.’

  ‘She’d have to go a long way to find anyone as good as Henry,’ Josie declared, and Kate said quietly, ‘I just hope he was good to the child – to Charles – because Henry loved him so much.’

  ‘I wish your baby had lived, Kate,’ Josie said. ‘He’d be a comfort to you now.’

  ‘I’m all right, Josie. I don’t need comfort,’ Kate said. ‘I’ve got a lot of happy memories and good friends, especially you. It was a lucky day for me when you came to the guesthouse, and now I have Michael and all your family as well as my friends. And Rose and Robert and their boys, and Essy and Marie. I’m very lucky.’

  Josie squeezed her hand gratefully. ‘It was a good day for me too when I met you, Kate. You made all the difference to my life there. We had some good laughs, didn’t we?’

  She asked about Richard and John, and Kate told her of their plans for the future. ‘Rose wants one of them to become a doctor,’ she said and laughed. ‘You know Rose. She always felt hard done by because Aunt Beattie wouldn’t let her stay on at school as the headmistress suggested. Now she’s convinced that only Aunt Beattie stopped her from being a better doctor than Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.’

  They both laughed, and Josie said, ‘She went on a cruise instead, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but she was upset at the time,’ Kate said. ‘I shouldn’t have skitted about it. I wouldn’t criticise her to anyone but you, Josie.’ Josie had her own view of Rose, but she kept it to herself and only said, ‘Maybe she’ll realise her ambition through her sons,’ and she and Kate strolled home arm in arm in complete accord.

  Richard made good use of his year of freedom by working in the French vineyards and walking in Austria and the Black Forest. Everything that he saw and heard convinced him that war was inevitable, and although he applied for university he had little hope that he would be able to go there.

  When he returned home, Robert told him that an engineering works which was part of his business had been earmarked for war work, and neither of them was surprised when war was declared on 3 September. German troops had invaded Poland two days earlier, and Britain and France had issued an ultimatum to Germany to withdraw her troops or face war with them.

  Rain fell all day on Saturday 2 September, a grey day in tune with the general mood. There was none of the hope of the previous year, only a sad acceptance, and as the hours ticked away on that sunny Sunday morning everyone knew that war was inevitable. At 11 a.m. the ultimatum expired, and at 11.15 Mr Chamberlain announced on the wireless that Britain was now at war with Germany.

  ‘That’s that then,’ Richard said. ‘I’ll apply for the RAF.’

  ‘Oh Richard, must you?’ Rose said. ‘Surely university students won’t have to go.’

  Richard laughed. ‘There’s conscription for all men aged between eighteen and forty-one,’ he said. ‘Unless on essential war work.’

  ‘Your works will be essential war work, Robert,’ Rose said eagerly. ‘You can find a job there for Richard.’

  ‘No he can’t,’ Richard said loudly and angrily before his father could speak. ‘I’m joining the Air Force.’ He stormed out of the room and Robert went to console Rose.

  Kate had kept in touch with Marie, and when she left the home she had taken a bed-sitting room in the house in Queens Road where Marie lived. She had thought of applying for a job as a cook in a restaurant or a large hotel, but Marie told her she would be horrified by the kitchens. ‘If people saw the state of them they’d never eat in a restaurant again,’ she said. ‘The working conditions are unbelievable too.’

  She suggested that Kate applied for a position as an assistant in a large shop. ‘You look and speak well, and that’s what they want,’ she said.

  Kate was unwilling to tell her that she was afraid she might be seen by one of Rose’s friends, and when she heard of a job in a grocer’s in Brunswick Road she applied and was taken on. She had expected Rose and possibly Robert too to be annoyed by her decision, but on her next visit they were too concerned with other matters to ask many questions.

  Richard had been accepted for the RAF and John had told them that he intended to join the Cheshire Regime
nt as soon as he was eighteen. The brother of a schoolfriend was in the Cheshires, and was now in France with the British Expeditionary Force.

  Rose and two of her friends had joined the Women’s Voluntary Service, and Robert was working long hours. His small engineering works had not only expanded but was now kept going continuously, day and night. He looked exhausted, and Kate left feeling more concerned about him than about Richard and John.

  Nothing much seemed to be happening during the first few months of the war. Everyone had expected bombing and gas attacks to start immediately, but when they did not, children who had been evacuated began to drift home and everyone grumbled about the blackout and having to carry their gas masks everywhere.

  ‘They frightened the life outa us for nothing,’ a stout customer in Kate’s shop declared, and another customer agreed. ‘My feller says we’re safe in Liverpool. They can’t get at us ‘cos we’re so near the sea and the Pennines are behind us.’

  People were more concerned about the bitter weather. Snow fell after Christmas and quickly froze as icy winds swept the country, making walking in the blackout even more hazardous. ‘I thought war would be exciting,’ the shop boy grumbled to Kate. ‘It’s only boring and uncomfortable.’

  People began to talk of a phony war and hope that it was stalemate and the troops on both sides would be sent home. But in April all that changed when Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark. Newspapers gave several different versions of events, and accounts of angry scenes in the House of Commons only confused and angered people.

  ‘They must know something what we don’t know,’ a customer said to Kate. ‘My lad’s out there in France and we’ve gotta right to know more than what they have, but we don’t get told nothing.’

  Matters came to a head when a member of his own party stood up and said to the Prime Minister, ‘Depart I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God go.’

  Kate grieved for Mr Chamberlain, and even more when he died six months later. ‘I think he died of a broken heart,’ she said to Essy when she visited her. ‘Poor old man. At least he got us a year to get ready.’