That Liverpool Girl

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘You have to eat.’

  He tutted. ‘We’ve a cupboard full of National Dried. I’ll make myself some bottles.’

  ‘Bathroom?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve got nappies.’

  It was in moments like this that Eileen realized the depth of her love for her husband. A sensible, organized man, he still managed to retain a lunacy that was essential as far as she was concerned. ‘Getting a wash?’

  ‘I’ll stand naked in the rain.’

  ‘The penguins will die of shock.’

  ‘Naw. They’ll hang on to their rosaries and pray for a repeat performance.’

  ‘I love a confident man.’

  ‘And I love you.’ He proceeded to deteriorate into the gibbering idiot who spouted lovey-dovey nonsense mixed with lewd terms concerning what he would do to her once she got back to normal.

  ‘But we haven’t got a trampoline, Keith.’

  ‘I’ll make one. And a hammock. You just have to approach these matters scientifically.’

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  He awarded her one of the more dazzling of his smiles. ‘And after that, if we’re still breathing, we’ll have chips.’

  ‘Not ribbon spuds?’

  ‘God, no.’ Because of Mel’s research into ten different ways to cook potatoes, they had been plied with heaps of ribbons. The offerings would have been acceptable if the girl had heated the fat to a reasonable temperature. ‘We’ll stick to the chippy,’ he said. ‘By the way, who’s Bootle Betty and why did she wear a wig?’

  ‘You don’t want to know . . .’

  Marie was in a mood. Marie didn’t have many moods, so Tom was perturbed. When the children had left for school, he remained at the breakfast table, arms folded while he watched her. She was scurrying. She never scurried unless something had gone wrong at the WVS. And she wouldn’t look at him.

  He untangled his arms and pretended to read a very slim newspaper until she left the morning room. From the kitchen, the sound of dishes being murdered floated on air heavier than lead. He was in no hurry unless the phone rang, because he was on call this morning, with just an afternoon surgery today.

  Marie washed everything so cruelly that she thought glaze and silver plate might peel off. Men? Bloody men? She had taken enough, she was leaving him, she wanted to kill him. All that messing about for nothing in Rodney Street, all that soul-baring, had been a waste of time.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he called.

  ‘Shut up!’

  Shut up? Three words, he had spoken. Just three. She was the one making all the noise. ‘Marie?’

  She entered the arena, hands soapy, a tea towel worn casually over the left shoulder, curls tumbling into her eyes. ‘Not Marie,’ she announced before blowing upwards in an attempt to achieve clearer sight. But disobedient tendrils returned to their encampment of choice. ‘Eileen,’ she screamed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s not a what, it’s a who.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And we made love, you fell asleep, I went to the bathroom.’

  ‘I am with you so far.’

  ‘No, you’re not!’ She hit him with the tea towel. ‘I’m lying there after visiting the bathroom, feeling glad that your depression’s getting better and we’re together, then thinking about what I need to do today, and you’re talking to her in your sleep.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You love her,’ Marie accused, white-hot fire behind the words.

  Tom stared hard at her. ‘There’s a difference between love and sexual attraction. It’s window shopping. Men do it all the time.’

  ‘In bed? Talking to your urchin in your sleep? “It will never be over”? What the hell is the matter with you? She’s going into Parkside tomorrow, and I’m visiting her at home before she leaves, so—’

  ‘Don’t say anything to the poor woman, please.’

  She swiped him again with the damp towel. ‘I’m not the stupid one here. She’s pregnant, and I won’t hurt her. But you set one foot inside that hospital or in her house, and you’ll find all your belongings on the pavement outside my gate. Because it is my gate, my garden, my house. I bloody paid for it in more ways than one, you cheating bastard.’ She was proud of herself; her vocabulary was growing daily.

  ‘Be reasonable.’

  ‘I’m not the unreasonable one, either. Not stupid, not unreasonable. You’re using me and seeing her. I’m moving back into the spare room. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because you’re beautiful. A mess, but beautiful.’

  She didn’t know what to say. Furthermore, she wasn’t given the chance to organize her thoughts, because he swept her up and threw her over his shoulder. She beat him with both fists, but he carried on up the stairs and threw her onto the bed, ripping at her clothes until she was naked apart from her tea towel.

  Tom was kinder to his own garments. Every time she tried to escape, he pushed her back where she belonged. If Keith Greenhalgh could manage this, so could he. ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he ordered. When he joined her on the bed, the fighting continued. Between blows, he managed to whisper in her ear.

  ‘Filthy words,’ she answered, slapping his face.

  ‘Have a few more.’ He started to whisper again.

  It happened. While he tortured her tiring body, Marie lost all her anger, only to replace it with impatience. ‘Please,’ she moaned.

  ‘Please what? According to you, I please only myself.’

  ‘Stop tormenting me.’

  ‘Ah. I see. Which is the greater torment? This, or this?’

  She grabbed his wandering hand. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Say the word, the one you didn’t like when I used it.’

  She whimpered. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Then I’m going downstairs.’

  So she said it. Loudly.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said gravely. ‘The neighbours will hear, and they’ll start forming a queue.’ At last, he had defeated the lady in her. He was sorry, desperately sorry, that he couldn’t control his dreams. The depression was lifting, and he would soon be back at the surgery full time, so everything was in order, except for Eileen bloody Greenhalgh. Tom immediately devoted himself to making life happier for his wife, and perhaps made rather too good a job of it, because she was saying the forbidden word. Repeatedly.

  He collapsed on her and regained the ability to breathe sensibly. ‘That was good,’ came his understatement.

  ‘We must fight more often, Tom.’

  ‘Marie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Will you clean the blood off my back?’

  ‘But I didn’t scratch you . . . did I?’

  He nodded. ‘We finally found the tigress in you. Once or twice in your life, you have an experience so intense that you fight back. The divide between pleasure and pain is very fine, isn’t it?’

  ‘I thought I was going to die,’ she admitted.

  While she went to the first aid box, he turned and stared at the wall. Loving two women wasn’t easy. Loving Eileen was impossible, because he hadn’t seen her for weeks, wasn’t allowed to see her. Loving Marie was a gentler business altogether, though the past half-hour had been lively.

  She returned, still naked, lint, cotton wool and ointment wrapped in her now notorious tea towel. ‘Perhaps I should thank Eileen,’ she said wrily.

  ‘Don’t bother. She’ll be gone soon, and she’s only in my subconscious. You’re my wife.’

  ‘God help me.’ She cleaned his back.

  The news travelled up-country to the very few, those top brasses unacquainted with anyone working in the media, anyone with a second cousin twice removed who had a friend in the media, anyone descended from a long-dead ancestor who had ever written for a newspaper. It was top secret, though the news leaked here and there. Hitler, whose camp housed a few spies for England, was to change his prime target. Poor old London might get a bit of a rest, since the city of Liverpool was now top of the list on der Führer’s a
genda.

  The common people got no warning, because little could be done at such short notice, and it was possibly only another rumour anyway. A few more big guns arrived at the docks, barrage balloons were made secure, and members of the Home Guard marched up and down the beaches for an hour or so every morning.

  Elsie and Nellie were not best pleased, since Spoodle and Pandora had a marked tendency to become involved with feet, and they were kicked aside more than once. Nellie wasn’t having that. She dressed down the whole parade, praying loudly that England would never need to depend for survival on fools, geriatrics, and people who kick puppies. ‘You’ll have to stop now, anyway,’ she roared. ‘You’ve two at the back what need crutches, and that one on his own a mile behind wants a wheelchair.’

  Elsie dug her friend in her ribs. ‘Give over, Nell. It’s not their fault.’

  Nellie was uneasy. Something was changing, and she couldn’t work it out. It was a bit like the night when Heinrich had dropped out of the heavens at Willows. ‘The sky was the wrong colour,’ she whispered to herself.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ This day was the wrong shade of grey. Under a flawless blue sky, Nellie Kennedy saw only the dull monotony of gun metal. She shivered.

  ‘Are you getting a chill, Nell?’

  ‘No.’ She wasn’t cold at all. But somebody somewhere had just walked over a million graves.

  Twenty

  THURSDAY

  ‘So this is it, then.’ A terrified Keith held on to his wife’s hand while Sister Mary Dominic hung on to him. This was definitely it. Eileen was going to disappear behind a screen with Mr Barr, an anaesthetist, and several Augustinian penguins. ‘Are you feeling all right? Are you ready for it, sweetheart?’ he asked, panic trimming the words. She was on a trolley. She was wearing a stupid gown that was open all down her back. And apart from the enormous bump, his Eileen looked like a frightened little girl about to have her tonsils out.

  ‘Let me go now, sweetheart,’ Eileen begged quietly. ‘This is the theatre door.’ He was going to start. In her very bones, she knew he was going to kick off and score an own goal. ‘Don’t you be making a show of me,’ she warned. ‘Make a show of me, and I’ll suspend your membership. And no, I’m not talking about a hammock. So think on and pull yourself together. Sister? Tell him. Tell him I’ve got no choice, because he sure as eggs won’t listen to me.’

  Mary Dominic, all four feet and ten Irish inches of her, tore Keith’s hand from Eileen’s. She glared at him while pinning a small, silver-coloured medal to his shirt. ‘That is the Immaculate Conception,’ she advised him sternly, ‘to whom I shall be praying. However, my prayers to Our Lady will be delivered via St Jude, as I shall pray also to him. He’s the patron saint of hopeless cases. And I have never, in all my born days, seen a case more hopeless than you.’

  Keith fixed the tiny nun with steely eyes. ‘This woman is my life.’

  ‘This woman is a crowd. There are three of her. We need to read the Riot Act in order to achieve dispersal.’ She pushed the trolley through the first set of doors. ‘There’s your chair, Mr Greenhalgh. Use it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. You are now in theatre. Mr Barr has allowed you in. I, however, would never have let you through the outer doors. Now listen to me. When I wedge open the inner doors, which are transparent, by the way, you will hear and see all you need to hear and see. Now shut up before I find sutures and sew up your speaking equipment good and proper, but. I’ll be with you in a tick. Do not follow me. I have a black belt in liturgy.’

  He couldn’t see a thing. He could hear them all greeting his wife, but his view was a cream-painted wall with a crucifix on it. ‘I’ll be waiting, Eileen,’ he shouted. ‘I love you.’

  She had been whisked away, but her guard returned and sat next to Keith. ‘There we go now, son. Even this difficult bit isn’t difficult, as it lasts just a few minutes. Will we have a bet? I say two girls. If I lose, you may keep my medal. If you lose, I’ll take from you a pound for Africa.’

  ‘I thought Africa would cost more than a quid; a fiver, at least.’

  ‘Very funny. The money’s for starving babies.’

  ‘Right.’

  She laughed. ‘Now shut your mouth and open your ears. The second she goes under, the babies will be out. We don’t want the anaesthetic getting to them. So. What are they? Come on with you, get the bet placed before the race begins.’

  ‘One of each,’ he replied.

  She prayed.

  Within two or three minutes, the first cry arrived. ‘Thanks be to God,’ Mary Dominic muttered.

  A second pair of lungs proclaimed loudly that they’d been all right in there, and why had they been disturbed? ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless this earthly family and stop the tears of the blithering idiot next to me.’ She turned to him. ‘You haven’t even seen them yet. What use are you going to be if you can’t turn the tap off?’

  ‘Will they bring them to me?’

  ‘And give the poor little souls another shock at the sight of you? Pull your mask up. I shall bring them in a few minutes. They need to be with Mammy for a while after they’re weighed, measured and tested, then I’ll get them for you. Straighten your face, you’ve a forehead like a ploughed field.’

  ‘Will Eileen be all right?’

  ‘She’ll be grand. Irish, strong as a horse, stubborn as a mule and fast as a flea. She told me earlier about the draining board for when she’s naughty. You’ve a great way of dealing with the besom, so. Ah, you’ll all be lovely, and that’s for certain sure.’

  After what seemed like hours, Mary Dominic went and fetched the babies. ‘Keep your medal,’ were her first words. ‘One of each, you lucky boy. I’ll still take the pound for black babies, but.’

  ‘They’re the same size,’ Keith managed finally.

  The nun nodded. ‘He’s cunning. He hid bits of himself all over the show; I think he must have had a cupboard. Six pounds, he is. The little girl is over seven, but it’s not as much difference as we suspected. Aren’t they beautiful? Caesars often are, you know, because they’re lifted from one bed to another, no struggle to be endured. Will you stop weeping. See? You have me at it now.’ She sniffed and dried her eyes on a handkerchief.

  Keith couldn’t take his eyes off his children. Perfect features in miniature, downy blond hair, five delightful little toes on one kicked-free foot. ‘The day I married your mam was the best of my life so far. Till now. Hello, Francesca Helen. Hello, Francis Keith. We’d a few discussions about your names, but you’re Helen and Frankie. I’m your dad. Your mam’s unconscious, probably been on the Guinness again, the dirty stop-out, and this little lady is a nun. She’s a bride of Christ, and she nags. Like your gran.’

  Mary Dominic sniffed. ‘Are you Catholic?’

  ‘No. But I married one, so I go to church with her most Sundays when she’s not confined to barracks, walk her to the altar, take a blessing instead of Communion bread. She has her doubts, but she hangs in there. A priest’s been bringing Communion to the house.’

  Mary Dominic aired the opinion that a person without doubts was a person without a brain. ‘You are with God, Mr Greenhalgh. You’ll be a wonderful father. And they’ve the first of May for a birthday, which is the start of the month of Mary, who is fastened to your clothing. I want a pound for Africa.’

  ‘I’ll give you two.’

  ‘Good lad.’

  Keith carried on weeping when his children were moved to the nursery. Mr Barr emerged, congratulated the tear-stained new father and told him that Eileen would sleep for a while. ‘She did well to go those extra weeks, Mr Greenhalgh. Oh, and the sisterhood’s had a little meeting. They’re putting a camp bed in your wife’s room, because they know you won’t go home. And you’re to get to the office and phone Eileen’s mother and her daughter, put them out of their misery.’

  Keith shook the great man’s hand. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  Nellie, Elsie an
d Mel had a party courtesy of Crawford’s Cream Crackers, some mousetrap cheese, and two bottles of sparkling wine left by Miss Morrison. ‘She would have loved this day,’ said Mel, who was inebriated for the first time in her life. ‘She always said the house needed children. I miss her. I miss my mam. I miss my Keith-dad. I even miss my brothers. It’s coming to something when you miss your brothers,’ she told Elsie.

  Nellie entered. ‘Right, that’s all at Willows informed.’ She glared at Mel. ‘How many glasses of that have you had, madam? Because you’re drunk. Your eyes are all over the place like glass marbles.’

  ‘One glass,’ replied Mel. ‘Only one.’

  ‘Two, she’s had.’ Elsie apologized to Mel. ‘Sorry, love, but you don’t want to be ill.’

  They stayed up late mostly because of Nellie’s excitement, partly because she wanted to keep an eye on her oldest grandchild, who might be sick in her bed after taking drink, who might die as a result of inhalation, who was already fast asleep in an armchair.

  The doors to hell opened fractionally at about eleven o’clock. Sirens screamed. People in the city sighed, put their kettles on, made tea, lifted children from their beds, carried them and tea-filled billy-cans to shelters before yet another raid. In Crosby and Blundellsands, few people bothered to move. It was just one more night, just a gesture so that folk would remember that Hitler and his forces were keeping an eye on the city and its environs. But doctors, nurses, firemen and ambulance drivers left the cosiness of bed or armchair and began the drive from outer to inner Liverpool. Nellie, Elsie and Mel went into Eileen’s cage. But they heard and felt the assault, and were still awake when the all-clear sounded at one in the morning. ‘My God,’ Nellie sighed. ‘That felt like they meant it.’

  In Parkside, which was nearer by three miles to Liverpool, a new mother was disobeying the nuns. With a pillow under each arm, she supported her babies, cupped their heads and put them to her breasts.

  ‘You’ll have pain. You’ve been cut,’ declared Mary Dominic.

  ‘She’s made her mind up,’ Keith said.