Since returning from war service she had been prickly and sour, quick to take offence and always ready with a sharp comment. The family had borne with her, partly because of her past suffering, and partly because just occasionally she was again the pleasant, helpful girl they had always known.
It was during one such spell that she had offered to babysit for Anne and John but Anne found it a mixed blessing. She had to be always alert to fend off trouble between Eileen and John but still there would be sharp exchanges between them at times.
Perhaps she’s got over all that now, Anne thought optimistically. She was really nice last night. Her hopes were dashed on the following Wednesday.
Anne had queued for liver to make Eileen’s favourite meal of liver and onions, with mashed potatoes and home-grown sprouts. Eileen had scarcely touched the meal and had refused plate tart made with precious bottled blackcurrants.
Anne was disappointed but said nothing, hoping that given time her sister would come out of her mood. She recalled an old friend of her mother’s who lived with a cantankerous aunt, who used to say, ‘I let her soak and she comes round.’
Eileen showed no sign of ‘coming round’. After the meal Gerry was running about and fell against the corner of the table. John rushed to pick him up and comfort him and Anne tried to wipe away his tears but Gerry still roared, more with shock than pain.
There was a small graze on his forehead and John said excitedly, ‘He’s bleeding, Anne. Get the First Aid box.’
Eileen lay back in her chair, smoking and watching sardonically. ‘The more you fuss, the louder he howls,’ she said. ‘Ridiculous. It’s only a little bump, for God’s sake.’
‘It’s swelling and it’s bleeding,’ John said angrily. ‘He’s not crying for nothing.’
‘You’re not doing him any favours, making a namby pamby of him,’ Eileen said. ‘He’ll be at school in a couple of years. God help him if he behaves like that.’
Anne had returned with the First Aid box and a wet cloth and as John sat down with Gerry and she bent over them, she made urgent signals to John to stay silent. He scowled but concentrated on Gerry and within minutes the child was playing happily with his toys.
Anne talked about a letter from Kathleen, then John took Gerry to bed while Anne and Eileen washed up. Anne and John prepared to go out to the cinema and Anne said as she always did, ‘You’ll be all right then, Eil? I’ve left a drink for Gerry and some rissoles for supper.’
‘Yes. If you can trust me with your precious son,’ Eileen sneered. Anne laughed, pretending that Eileen was joking, but as they walked down the road, John said, ‘I’m not so sure about leaving Gerry with her. He wouldn’t get much sympathy if he hurt himself.’
‘Oh, John, you know she idolises him,’ Anne protested. ‘I suppose we did make rather a fuss about that fall. He soon got over it.’
‘That’s because he’s a brave little lad,’ said John.
‘I got a shock when Eileen said that about Gerry and school,’ Anne said. ‘I always think of school as in the remote future for him.’
‘I don’t know why she brought school up anyway. He’s not three until January,’ John said. ‘She takes all the good out of the night out.’
Anne squeezed his arm. ‘Let’s just enjoy it,’ she said. ‘She’ll probably be all right when we get home.’
They enjoyed the film and the walk home but Eileen was still as grumpy. She had not eaten the rissoles. ‘You on hunger strike?’ John joked but she said unsmilingly, ‘No. But I please myself when I eat.’ She said the wireless programme had been rubbish and the news broadcasts had annoyed her. ‘All about India and Pakistan having Dominion status and British troops leaving Palestine. Some committee proposing partition into Arab and Jewish States. Let them do what they like, I say, as long as our soldiers are out of it.’
‘The Arabs might need some protection,’ John said. ‘They’ve been on that land for twenty centuries, as Bevan said, and they were good friends to Britain during the war.’
‘Oh, but John,’ Anne said, ‘those awful concentration camps the Jews were taken to. I couldn’t get it out of my mind after the pictures of them were on at the Gaumont.’ She glanced at Eileen and saw a half smile on her face. We’re playing into her hands, Anne thought. She wants us to argue.
Before John could speak she said quickly, ‘Didn’t you want a word with Con?’
‘Oh, yes, about tomorrow night,’ he said, going through into the back garden and calling Con.
‘Out again tomorrow night, is he?’ Eileen said but Anne only said calmly, ‘Yes. A Peace Pledge meeting. How are things at work?’
Eileen shrugged. ‘Usual bitching and back biting,’ she said. ‘I think at least half of my section are slow-witted.’
‘You’ll have to make the bright half work harder then, won’t you?’ Anne said with a smile. She was determined to keep things light but that changed when she asked Eileen about the family.
‘Sarah and Joe drooling over the child,’ she said waspishly. ‘Maureen drooling over that drip Chris Murray. Stephen drooling over his latest little tart. Dad either in the pub or at Fred’s every night. I feel like doing myself in sometimes.’
Suddenly, overwhelmingly, Anne longed for her mother. She dashed into the kitchen and bent over the sink, gripping the edges until her knuckles were white. Hot tears spilled from her eyes and dripped into the sink as she cried soundlessly, Oh, Mum, Mum, come back. She tried to compose herself and hide her distress.
A noise at the door alerted her that John was coming through the kitchen and she hastily filled a glass with water and drank it, then splashed cold water on her face before following him into the living room.
Eileen stood. ‘What took you so long?’ she said but John just smiled. ‘We get carried away once we start. Sorry.’ He brought Eileen’s coat and Anne went to the door with them to see them off.
The Fitzgeralds always kissed on meeting or parting but when Anne kissed her sister tonight, Eileen suddenly hugged her. ‘Sorry, kid,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m the wrong side out today.’
Anne kissed her again. ‘It’ll all be better tomorrow, Eil,’ she comforted her. John had strolled on to the gate and Anne was relieved to see Eileen link arms with him when she caught him up.
‘Did she catch the tram all right?’ Anne asked when he returned. He only nodded and remarked on the smell of night-scented stock in a garden they had passed. Clearly there had been no unpleasantness.
Anne’s mind was still full of memories of her mother and she was glad to go to bed and be able to weep freely for her. John had assumed that she was asleep but a slight sound made him lean over her.
‘What’s the matter, love?’ he asked with concern. ‘What’s upset you?’
She turned into his arms. ‘Oh, John, I miss Mum,’ she wept. ‘The house – the family. We’re falling apart without her. We need her so much.’
John held her in his arms, stroking back her hair and making soothing noises, but Anne still wept.
‘You’re worried about Eileen,’ he said. ‘She’s had a bad time but she’ll get over it.’
‘No, it’s all of us,’ she murmured. ‘We were so happy. She was the heart of the house, I see that now. Oh, why did she have to go?’
‘Because she was ill and in pain. I don’t know how she hung on for our wedding. Don’t wish her back to that, love,’ he said, but his arms and his kisses comforted her more than any reasonable explanation.
Even to John, Anne was unable to repeat Eileen’s comments on the family. She decided to go to see Sarah the following day and see how true they were.
She was delighted to find Mrs Bennet sitting in Sarah’s rooms drinking tea and Mrs Bennet was equally pleased to see Anne.
She only came in twice a week now, to ‘straighten them up like’, she said, and called in to Sarah for tea before she went.
‘Mrs Bennet doesn’t think much of Stephen’s latest,’ Sarah said with a smile.
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‘I’m just saying that girl comes from a low crowd. Her grandmother was a fishwife and a moneylender and she used to make the poor people that owed her take her bad fish. We used to shout outside her house, “We don’t want yer stinking fish, we don’t want yer blarney, we don’t want yer stinking fish, dirty old Mrs M’Garney.”’ She laughed heartily at the memory.
‘Doesn’t sound a very nice family,’ Anne said. ‘What’s the girl like?’
‘We don’t care for her,’ Sarah said. ‘But Stephen’s not serious.’
‘He’s just a bad picker,’ Mrs Bennet said. ‘But don’t worry. He’ll meet a nice girl and settle down, you’ll see.’ She was putting on her coat and went to Gerry who was bending over the baby’s cot and stroking David’s face.
‘You’ll have to ask yer mam for one of them,’ she said cheerfully, taking out a penny. ‘Ee are, lad. Don’t spend it all in the one shop.’ Gerry thanked her and she said, ‘Ta ra then, girls. I’m made up you like the house, Anne.’
‘She’s a nice woman, isn’t she?’ Sarah said. ‘But I’m glad she’s gone. We don’t have much time for a talk now, do we?’
‘No, we don’t,’ Anne agreed. ‘But I was glad to see her. She was always so good to Mum.’
‘She still worries about the family,’ Sarah said. ‘She often calls to see them to see if they want anything special doing in the house but more to keep an eye on them.’
‘She’s like one of the family really, with all we went through together,’ Anne said.
Sarah hesitated then said quietly, ‘Do you know she’s not speaking to Eileen?’
‘No, I didn’t. Eileen never said anything.’
‘There was some sort of a row and Maureen was crying and Mrs Bennet told Eileen she had a tongue like a viper. But what really did it, she said Eileen was getting like her Aunt Minnie.’
‘Oh, lor!’ Anne said. ‘That would put the cat among the pigeons. The reason I came today, Sar, was really because of things Eileen said last night that worried me.’
‘Why, what did she say?’
‘Nasty things about Stephen’s girl and about Chris Murray. She called him a drip. And she said Dad was out every night at the pub or at Fred’s,’ Anne said. ‘Are things bad here, Sar?’
‘Only when Eileen makes them bad,’ Sarah said. ‘You heard what we said about Stephen’s girl, but he’s not a fool, and Chris Murray – it’s just that she’s taken a dislike to him. She doesn’t like the situation.’
‘But why? Nothing’s changed, has it?’ said Anne.
‘No, but I think Eileen thinks he’s not being fair to Maureen but what can he do? You know Joe went to see him once to ask him to stop seeing Mo, so she might meet someone else, but Maureen was so upset that Joe was sorry he interfered. He says you can’t tell anyone else how to live their life.’
‘I like him,’ Anne said. ‘I think he should be firmer with his wife but then it’s not my business. As long as Maureen’s happy.’
‘I think she is, in her own quiet way,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve known other couples like them, y’know, Anne. A woman who lived in Egremont Street was courting for about twenty years and they seemed happy together. It was only after she died of consumption that Mum told me that they couldn’t marry because his wife had been in a lunatic asylum since just after they were married.’
‘I suppose they think that half a loaf is better than no bread,’ Anne said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think I could do it, Sarah.’
‘Nor me,’ she agreed. ‘But Mo told me once that once she was crying and your mum said to her, “You’ve chosen a hard road, child, but never forget, God fits the back to the burden.”’
Anne’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Sarah, I can just hear her. If only she was here, everyone would be happy.’
Sarah’s eyes filled too but she brushed the tears away. ‘I mustn’t cry while I’m breastfeeding David,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised, Anne, how it affects him. Anyway, you’re doing your bit by having Eileen for tea on Wednesdays.’
‘But that’s for our own convenience.’
‘Yes, but it’s a godsend for us. Chris comes here for his tea on Wednesdays. He’s working in a pork butcher’s now and Wednesday’s his half day,’ Sarah said. She began to laugh. ‘It was funny last night. Bridie called up, then Tony, then Carrie and Fred, and of course Chris was here. Like the gathering of the clans.’
‘Just because Eileen was out?’ Anne said in dismay. ‘I didn’t realise it was as bad as that, Sarah.’
‘It isn’t, honestly,’ she said hastily. ‘It was probably just coincidence. Eileen’s all right sometimes. It’s just that we never know what mood she’ll be in and she’s great at speaking her mind.’
‘When I think how she used to be,’ Anne said sadly. ‘Always so lively, her and Theresa. The things they got up to and the dates and the laughs they had!’
‘You know she’s not speaking to Theresa now?’ Sarah said. ‘That’s probably why Carrie came last night while she was out. She’s annoyed about it.’
‘I didn’t know,’ Anne said and Sarah looked dismayed.
‘I shouldn’t be telling you all this if the family said nothing. I’m sorry.’
‘I want to know. I don’t see Maureen and the lads so much except at weekends. What happened?’
‘Eileen had a row with Jim. I don’t know what it was about but Theresa was furious,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll tell you something else then I’m not going to say any more about Eileen, Anne, because I think I’m giving the wrong impression and she’s not bad all the time. Only in fairness to Jim I’ve got to say that she picked a row with Joe one night.’
‘With Joe?’ Anne exclaimed. ‘What about?’
‘I don’t know. He went in the kitchen and she said something to him. He was as white as a sheet with temper when he came back but he wouldn’t say what she’d said. Just that she’d never say it again.’
‘So she’s not speaking to Joe?’ Anne said.
‘Oh, yes, they made it up. But we’re all right. We can keep out of the way in here.’
Anne glanced at the clock. ‘I’ll have to go soon,’ she said, ‘but I’m glad I came so I know how things are here. I can’t help thinking poor Eileen, though. She’s her own worst enemy.’
‘Yes, and it’s the tragedy that made her like this. It takes everyone differently,’ Sarah said. ‘She’ll get over it in time, I suppose.’
Anne felt sad as she travelled home but her spirits rose as she stepped off the tramcar. The sun was shining and all the little gardens were bright with flowers. She was greeted by several people she knew and Gerry ran ahead of her shouting jubilantly, ‘Home, home.’
The house looked bright and welcoming with vases of fresh flowers Anne had cut that morning and, as she looked out over the sunny back garden while she filled the kettle, she thought that surely this weather must make Eileen feel better.
The previous day had been dull and it was a well-known fact that the number of suicides rose in bad weather. She decided to say nothing to John about her talk about Eileen and only said that she had been to see Sarah.
‘I told her about the way Gerry roared when he fell,’ she said, ‘and she said your Mick was the same. You could hear him in the next street.’
‘That’s true,’ John said. ‘Grandma used to say: “Nothing wrong with his lungs.” I saw Dad today and he said he’ll come on Saturday to help me lay the lino in Gerry’s room.’
On Saturday they went to the local chandler’s to choose the linoleum for Gerry’s room and John carried it home on his shoulder. His father came later to help him. Gerry loved his grandfather and willingly sang songs for him: ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’, ‘Little Boy Blue’ and then an Irish air, ‘Eileen Aroon’.
‘I taught him to sing that for Eileen when she comes to babysit,’ Anne said, laughing.
‘Perhaps he’ll be musical like your family,’ Greg Redmond said.
‘We all like singing. The first thing I ever r
emember is hearing Mum. She was too shy to sing in company but she was always singing round the house. We often had parties too, either in our house or Aunt Carrie’s, and nearly everyone sang or played.’
‘Eileen’s a good pianist, isn’t she?’ John said. ‘And your Joe can play the violin. We must send Gerry for lessons as soon as he’s old enough.’
‘If he shows any interest,’ Anne said. ‘Terry and I went for lessons too but we were never any good and we soon gave up. We just weren’t interested.’
‘The voice is an instrument that you always carry with you,’ John’s father said, lifting Gerry to ride on his foot.
Anne smiled. ‘Someone once said we were like a nest of singing birds.’
‘Did they?’ said Greg Redmond. ‘Do you know who said that first, Anne? The great Doctor Johnson.’
‘Doctor Samuel Johnson?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Boswell recorded it in his Life of Doctor Johnson. When Samuel Johnson was at Pembroke College, Oxford, someone remarked on the number of poets there and Johnson said, “Sir, we are a nest of singing birds.”’
Anne was intrigued, both at the explanation and at the fact that Greg Redmond knew of it. She had never realised that he was a book lover but then he was so quiet and self-effacing that she had not learnt to know him as she had John’s mother and grandmother.
John had been out for his toolbox and as he sat beside his father showing him various tools Anne studied them. At first glance they were very alike. Both had thin faces, with grey eyes and a deep cleft in the chin and dark hair falling across their forehead, yet there was a difference.
There was nothing weak about Greg’s face but John looked – what? Anne searched for the right word. Tougher – aggressive – belligerent? He looks as though he’s always ready for a fight, she thought, then smiled as she remembered Mick’s words about John tilting at windmills.
John selected his tools and went upstairs and his father gave Gerry a final ride on his foot before following John.
He turned and smiled at Anne before he went and she thought, heavens, that smile! He must have been a charmer when he was young. A memory stirred. Had it been Sarah or her grandmother who had hinted that Mary in America had also been in love with Greg but he had always loved only Cathy, his wife?
A Nest of Singing Birds Page 42