Child of the Mersey

by Annie Groves

‘Come on, Kitty,’ said Frank, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. ‘Let’s ditch the shackles of domesticity and go and join the dancing.’

  ‘This must be the hottest summer for years,’ Sarah said, fanning her face with a white cotton napkin, pressed to perfection in the shape of a fan. She, too, had had enough of the stuffy, smoke-filled front room where the alcohol was loosening tongues and making some of the assembled guests maudlin, turning the conversation to war talk. She was now sitting outside on the low wall at the front of the house. ‘There’s thunder in the air, I’m sure of it.’ She looked up at the cloudless sky.

  ‘You’re imagining things, Sarah,’ said Danny Callaghan, appearing beside her seemingly out of nowhere.

  ‘Here, where have you been?’ She looked up at him. ‘You’ve missed the wedding and the spread.’

  Danny avoided her eyes. ‘Not far,’ he answered nonchanantly. ‘Weddings aren’t my cup of tea. All those maiden aunts and women getting daft on sherry. You look nice,’ he added for the want of something to say, even though he thought the dress was hideous. Flicking the napkin at a passing fly, Sarah realised that for as much as she had looked forward to this day for months, she was not in the humour for it now.

  ‘This dress is a monstrosity and the heat’s giving me a headache, I wish it would rain,’ she said, watching heat waves quiver above the pavement.

  ‘Frank and Eddy look smart,’ Danny said, his voice laced with envy as he watched the two men stand by the front door smoking and chatting with Alfie Delaney. How much would he give to be in their position now? Bloody heart trouble. There was nothing wrong with it. He hadn’t had any pains or anything. How could they say he had a bad heart?

  ‘They could be called back any minute,’ Sarah answered with a dramatic air. She and Danny had been friends since they were young. ‘Thick as thieves’ was how Dolly affectionately described them. Sarah thought Danny was misunderstood. She could not see any harm in him whatsoever.

  ‘So what? Bloody war, a lot of flippin’ nonsense, if you ask me.’

  Sarah looked at Danny quizzically. ‘What’s the matter, Danny?’ she asked. Sarah could tell he was out of sorts and that something was bothering him.

  ‘Sorry, Sarah, your mam must be worried, what with the news and everything …’ His voice sounded strangled and Danny cursed himself again for his stupid weak heart.

  ‘Come on, Danny. I know you too well to be fobbed off. Something’s got to you. Come on – spit it out.’ Sarah could be quite tenacious when she put her mind to it. But Danny couldn’t bring himself to speak.

  ‘Just leave me alone, Sarah! It’s nothing. Nothing, I tell you,’ he blurted out. Danny was surprised by the force of his words and he could tell that Sarah was shocked and hurt too. He’d never spoken to her like that. She was his best friend.

  ‘Well, if that’s how you’re going to be, then you’re on your own, Danny Callaghan.’ Sarah stood up and was about to make her way back into the house, her shoulders thrown back and her head in the air.

  Danny regretted his outburst and put his hand on her arm to stop her. Sarah turned to look at Danny but was taken aback to see hot tears welling in his eyes.

  ‘Danny, what on earth …?

  Danny sat down on the wall and put his head in his hands. Sarah, momentarily speechless, sat down next to him and rested her hand on his. She looked at his ashen face. What could be wrong?

  ‘I’m not fit for the war, Sarah. They’ve said I’ve got a weak heart and can’t go into service. I’ve got to sit the war out.’ He looked down at his feet, unable to meet her eyes.

  ‘Oh, Danny.’ Sarah knew what a disappointment this would be for him. Danny had done nothing for months but talk about what he was going to do to get that ruddy Hitler. Sarah didn’t try to offer him platitudes. She knew this was a bitter blow.

  ‘There’s other things you can do. You’re clever. Can’t they put that brain of yours to good use?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Sarah. There’s all those clever clogs out there that went to posh schools and the like. The likes of us lot from Empire Street won’t get a look in. Besides, I should be fighting, like a real man.’ His face was full of anguish. ‘Anyway, no point crying over spilled milk.’

  ‘You’ll make something of yourself, Danny. You’ve got more heart than anyone and I know you’ll surprise us all one day. You’ll see.’ Danny looked at Sarah. In her face he saw only honesty, conviction and total faith in him. For a moment he almost believed her, but then the crashing reality came over him again.

  ‘You’re the only one that believes that. Promise you won’t tell anyone. Not a word, not even to Kitty.’

  ‘Not a word,’ Sarah promised him truthfully.

  ‘Are you coming over later?’ Sarah asked. ‘Mam’s asked everybody.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I caught me mam crying in the back kitchen when the news came on earlier.’

  They both sat quietly for a moment or two, Sarah closing her eyes against the sun. Neither of them was aware of Alfie Delaney looking intently at them before stubbing out his cigarette and making his way back into the house. Danny nudged Sarah and pointed down the street. ‘Look, somebody’s been a naughty boy.’ Sarah opened her eyes and looked up the street at an approaching police constable heading their way.

  ‘I hope this bobby isn’t coming for us. You haven’t even started singing yet!’ Danny laughed, and Sarah was pleased that his good humour was restored for now, while she confidently swung her legs off the low wall. However, they adopted serious faces when the police officer stopped in front of them.

  ‘Frank Feeny?’ he asked solemnly. Sarah looked up at Danny and her heart flipped. What did the police want with her brother?

  ‘Frank! Frank, you’re wanted out here!’ she called up the lobby, and soon well-dressed wedding guests surrounded the police officer.

  After talking to the police officer in the privacy of the hallway for a few minutes, Frank thanked him and, looking a little subdued, he gave his father a signal to go with him into the other room where it was a little quieter.

  ‘I’ve got to go back, Pop.’ Frank looked worried. ‘I’ve got orders to return on board straight away. She’s sailing on the midnight tide.’

  ‘If the authorities are sending the police to round up the troops then things must be serious,’ Pop said grimly. Something was starting to happen now. Moreover, that something, he presumed, was war.

  ‘Make us proud, our Frank. I’ll walk as far as the dock with you after you’ve said goodbye to your mother,’ Pop said quietly, and Frank nodded. Each knew what the other was thinking. This time tomorrow, they could be at war. It was anybody’s guess what would happen after that.

  ‘There’s someone else I need to speak to,’ Frank said quietly. Why had he left it so long? Why hadn’t he asked Kitty earlier?

  He looked around the home he had grown up in. He could not wait to get away at one time. See the world. Make something of himself. He could hear his mam’s unmistakable laugh in the parlour, and someone had retrieved Pop’s squeezebox from the front bedroom where he kept it by the dressing table, and was playing a lively tune. Everyone was having a good time, oblivious of the fact that this time next week, they might have to fight for the right to sing in the street. But Frank would not be here. He would be protecting this street, this country, from the tyrants who wanted to put a stop to people having a good time and a free life.

  He took a deep breath and wondered when he would see this little community again. The navy knew what to expect. They had been waiting for something to happen for months. Now it looked as if it had finally arrived.

  ‘Hey, Kit.’

  Kitty was just leaving the house. She turned, expecting to see the ready smile that usually crossed Frank’s lips, but it seemed forced now. For a moment, there was no sound between them. Then he called, ‘Do you think we could fit one more dance in now?’ Kitty stood on the step, her spine as straight as the handle on a back yard bru
sh. He had his kitbag over his shoulder.

  She had known Frank Feeny for twenty years, and for as long as she could remember she had thought of him with a pleasure so intense it would carry her through the day. She watched him when she was younger with something akin to hero worship.

  He was taller and braver than anybody she knew, except their Jack. He won medals for scoring more goals and making more runs than anybody else in the whole borough, and he had begged his proud mother to take the trophies out of the parlour window.

  Frank had taken her in his arms the day little Tommy was born and, holding her closer than she had ever been held before, he let her sob on his shoulder because her mam had died. He showed her how to fold a triangular nappy because he had done it for his own little sister, Sarah. Kitty hated goodbyes. She had not said it to anybody since her mam had died. And she was not going to say it today.

  He looked down at his Royal Navy regulation shoes, as black and shiny as beetles, while Kitty fixed her eyes on the white silk ribbon fluttering in the gentle evening breeze that wafted up from the river.

  ‘Shall we?’ Frank asked, and he edged towards her, unsure. A feeling of euphoria rocketed through Kitty’s chest, straight to her heart. This was going to be the most exquisite pain she would ever endure. To feel the closeness of Frank’s strong, muscular arms holding her for only a short time. She wanted more … much more.

  ‘You’ve got to go right now?’ Kitty tried to suppress the sob in her voice and Frank nodded, obviously unable to speak. He looked at her for a long time and she silently gazed back at him, her eyes taking in the contours of his handsome face, his dark blue, wide-awake eyes, the small scar on his left cheek where he’d once fallen from the railway wall after a dare, just to prove how brave he was. Kitty knew how brave he was and longed to tell him but words seemed to have deserted her. Only their eyes spoke now. Hers were begging him to come home safe, while his were saying a reluctant goodbye.

  ‘Come on, Kit, just one dance,’ Frank whispered at last. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be passing this way again.’ His heart was breaking at the thought of Kitty left here with Alfie Delaney. There was a sad ghost of a smile on his lips and Kitty suddenly longed to feel the gentle pressure of those lips on hers.

  ‘Hopefully soon,’ she whispered.

  ‘I promise I won’t trip you up.’ Frank scooped her into his arms in full view of their neighbours, who had come out to say goodbye. He held her close, hardly moving as the sound of Gloria’s melodious tones sailed through the open door of the Sailor’s Rest down the street. The thought of them both making a spectacle of themselves in the street did not enter Kitty’s head. She and Frank were the only two people in the world. Kitty never wanted this dance to end.

  ‘Will you write to me, Kit?’ His gentle plea was whispered through her hair. They had stopped dancing now. Each was locked in the other’s gaze … the other’s heart. Frank was still holding her.

  ‘Of course I will, Frank.’

  ‘Come on, lad.’ Pop’s reluctant words shattered the moment. ‘It’s time to go.’ The air was heavy now, and a single rumble of thunder rolled across the sky as if heralding the war to come.

  ‘Don’t come with me, Pop, I’d rather go alone. Stay here with Mam and Nancy …’ Frank’s smile was forced when he threw his kitbag back over his shoulder. ‘Take care, Kit. I’ll see you soon. Promise you’ll save a dance for me.’ He leaned down and placed a single, gentle kiss on her lips …

  Kitty’s heart was too full for her to be able to say anything. Along with everybody else, she watched Frank walking away down the street towards the dock. His back was straight and his head held high. His distinctive whistle filled the evening air. Reaching the bottom of the street, he waved without turning back. Then he was gone.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER TEN

  September 1939

  ‘C’mon, son, it’s time …’ Rita’s voice echoed in the quiet void between night and day, knowing it was far too early to rouse a child from slumber. She turned fleetingly and took in the black fingers on the round-faced alarm clock. It was almost five thirty, an ungodly hour to wake up a child, her mother had said yesterday. It must be done, though, Rita answered. Her heart was silently breaking but she had to be strong. She could not let Megan and Michael see that she did not want them to go. If they got so much as the merest hint she could refuse to let them go they would beg, plead, and finally wear her down. Then, if the city were bombed, as it was expected to be any day now, and something happened to her babies, she would not be able to live with herself.

  Signing the form allowing the authorities to drag her children from the bosom of a family who desperately loved them was the hardest thing she had had to do so far. The Good Lord Himself only knew how she was going to summon the courage to say goodbye.

  Standing beside six-year-old Michael’s bed, Rita caught sight of the unruly mop of flame-red hair atop a reluctantly stirring little body that had been curled around the tangled counterpane and crumpled, clean white sheets. It might be a long time before she was fortunate enough to wake her boy in the morning again. How would she live without them? Her children were her reason to keep going each day.

  ‘Come on, Michael …’ Rita’s hesitant tone was barely above a whisper. She did not want to waken him, but she must. Rita knew Michael, a sensitive lad, was frightened, although he had hidden it well before last night’s stomach cramps made him cry.

  Drawing a deep breath of warm air, Rita suspected the pain was really in Michael’s heart and not his tummy. He must be ever so scared, she thought. They all were. However, she had to be resilient. She was their mother, the one person in the world they could trust unconditionally. So why did she feel as if she was betraying them? She took a deep breath. She must not buckle. She must show the children how to be brave. She must hold her head high and encourage them to do the same.

  ‘Come on, Michael … I have to wake Megan now.’ Trying to make her voice sound bright, Rita’s heart broke into a million pieces as she silently pleaded to her boy, Please, do not make this any harder . . .

  ‘You don’t want to be the last one on the charabanc, do you?’

  Michael did not answer though she knew he had heard.

  ‘It’ll be like goin’ on holiday. Remember when we went to the Isle of Man on the ferry? We stayed in that guesthouse … You loved it.’

  ‘I don’t wanna go on a charabanc, Mam.’ There was a sob in Michael’s voice even though he was trying hard not cry. Rita could hear it though it was muffled beneath the sheet he had pulled over his head, and her throat tightened as she watched his little body curled into a ball. ‘Now come on, Michael, be a good boy for me today.’ Going against every instinct she had, Rita hardened her tone to a warning note. ‘I’ve boiled your egg just the way you like it.’ If she let her emotions take over now she would never let him go. She headed towards the bedroom door. ‘You’ve got two minutes to get out of that bed and into your trousers. So move it!’ Outside on the landing she had to put her fist in her mouth to stop the sob escaping from her lips.

  ‘Kitty, I’ve got a sore throat!’ Tommy still sounded like a bullfrog, even though Kitty had given him the last of the medicine Alfie Delaney had brought over before Nancy’s wedding last week. If Tommy’s throat did not get any better, Kitty knew she would not let him be evacuated. How could she? What if he got worse? What if his new foster parents thought he had been neglected? They could report her for cruelty even though she had always tried to do her best for Tommy.

  ‘Maybe you should stay at home until you are better,’ Kitty said. ‘I’ll go and fetch the doctor.’ In accepting that Tommy was not going with the rest of the school, another worry formed in Kitty’s head. What if they were invaded by the Germans? The people of Empire Street were a close-knit community and would lend you their last penny if they thought it would help you out but what were these daily kindnesses when they would have to fight against bombs and bullets? How could she look after Tommy i
f war came to the city? What would she do if she had to get a job in a munitions factory and he would be hanging around the streets because the authorities had requisitioned the schools? Kitty’s mind was in turmoil, hopping from one worry to another.

  She passed the school on her way to the doctor’s. The kids were all gathered, the older ones obviously enjoying the big adventure they were about to embark on, anxious to get away from doting mothers.

  Younger ones, like Rita’s, were hugging the hems of their mothers’ coats and trying not to cry. The strained look on the faces of the silent mothers was enough to tell Kitty she had done the right thing. Tommy was staying put!

  Standing at the back of a group of mothers, Rita waited while the children lined up to get onto the charabanc. They just looked like a group of children leaving for a school outing until you saw their respirators hanging around their necks in the stout, brown cardboard boxes, and the way they were clinging to their little suitcases or haversacks, filled with their personal necessities. Some even carried their belongings in white pillowcases.

  Rita saw Megan and Michael listening intently to their teacher, who told them to wave when they were about to move off. Rita took a deep breath through her nose, trying to suppress the painful sob that threatened to make a show of her. Her children were bound for who knew where, and she could do nothing to stop that now.

  One little girl was carrying a gaily coloured respirator box, which was being delightedly admired by the other children. Rita read the child’s name on the identity label pinned to the lapel of her good-quality woollen coat, and was not surprised to see she was the daughter of a local bookie.

  Children of all ages had been scrubbed and polished and were being told not to worry, everything would be fine … ‘Stay with your brother.’ ‘Don’t let them separate you.’ ‘I’ll be there as soon as you send me your address.’ ‘Make sure you wash your neck.’ ‘Don’t you dare make a show of me!’ ‘Hey, we’ve got chocolate!’ A whoop of delight delayed the inevitable tears. A teacher began to sing ‘Wish Me Luck as You Wave Me Goodbye’ as the crocodile line of children inched their way onto the charabanc.