Put Out the Fires

by Maureen Lee

She could just about see his long, smooth, naked body gleaming in the dull light. “Why not?”

  “You’ll catch your death of cold. Get back into bed.”

  “Not until you’ve told me why we can’t get married.”

  She sat up and dragged the eiderdown around her shoulders. It was freezing in the unheated bedroom.

  “Nick,” she said impatiently. “I’m not in the mood for this sort of thing.”

  “Neither am I. Why can’t we get married? I thought that’s what we both wanted more than anything in the world.”

  “Get back into bed, please.” She patted the space beside her. There’d often been times when she thought of him as a little boy, not much different from Tony. “Please?”

  “Oh, all right!” he said sulkily.

  His skin was like ice and she pulled the eiderdown around him. “I’m not sure why I don’t want us to get married just yet, Nick. It’s to do with Tony, I know that much. I used to feel as if you were marrying the pair of us, not just me.”

  “I know, I know, I felt the same.”

  “It’s different now, entirely different without him. It doesn’t seem right . . . ” Eileen struggled for the words. “I mean, I can’t contemplate being happy for a long, long time, if ever.” She touched his face. “Please say you understand, darling?”

  “I think so,” he said grudgingly.

  “What are you wearing?”

  He actually managed to laugh. “That’s a bloody stupid question. Nothing!”

  “I mean, did you come in uniform or civvies?”

  “Uniform, of course. Didn’t you notice?”

  “No.” She shook him. “That’s what I’m trying to get at, don’t you see? I didn’t even take in how you were dressed.

  I’m all switched off, Nick. I don’t want to marry you feeling like a zombie. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “I don’t give a hang what’s fair. All I want is for you to be my wife. That’s all I’ve ever wanted since the day we met in Southport. You could come and live by the base in Canterbury. It would do you good to get away.”

  For a brief moment, she was tempted, but more by the thought of getting away than being married. “No, Nick,” she said firmly. “I want us to be married, but not yet.”

  “I’m beginning to think this relationship is doomed,” he said bitterly. “Every time we’re about to get together something happens to prevent it.”

  “Jaysus, Nick!” Her voice was raw and hoarse. “Tony’s dead!”

  “Aah!” He slid down the bed and buried his face in the pillow then beat the pillow with his fist. “I’m sorry! I’m so besotted with you I can’t think of anything else.”

  She lay over him, her cheek against his back. “I understand.”

  “You understand everything. You’re too good for me.”

  “Let’s go to sleep,” she said, “and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  Nick left soon after breakfast, as his leave expired at midnight. “Do you want me to write?”

  Eileen nodded. “Often, and I’ll write to you,” she promised.

  He pulled a face as they embraced for the last time. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

  “I know, and I love you.” It was just that at the moment the love was buried underneath mounds of grief.

  He hugged her so tightly she could scarcely breathe.

  “One of these days we’ll be together for always.”

  “I promise, Nick.”

  After he’d gone, she began to tidy up, feeling numb. It would be wise not to spend another night at the cottage, though she dreaded the thought of returning to Pearl Street. The house would never be the same again without Tony there.

  There was a knock on the front door. She felt convinced it must be her dad, but it was Miss Thomas who stood outside, a moth-eaten fur coat over the inevitable costume and an old-fashioned felt hat on her head.

  “Eileen!” The two women embraced briefly. “I’m so sorry, dear, though ‘sorry’ is such an inadequate word, isn’t it?”

  “Come in. I’m afraid it’s a bit cold. I’m leaving soon and I’ve let the fire die. I was just about to go home.” Eileen led the tiny woman into the living room. “How did you know where I was?”

  “I called at Pearl Street earlier and your sister told me you were here. I intended coming to Melling, anyway, as there’s some work I’d like to catch up on.”

  “Trust you to find work to do on Boxing Day!”

  “I’m going away tomorrow on a long deserved holiday, although I say so myself, and there’s something I must do before I go.” Miss Thomas perched herself on the edge of the chair like a bird. “Forgive me if it seems a silly question, but I feel bound to ask - how are you?”

  Eileen shrugged. “Bearing up,” she lied.

  “Everybody bears up remarkably well considering.

  Virtually every single worker turned up for both shifts on Monday, yet some of them had been through hell over the weekend.”

  “I forgot all about work. Anyroad, it was the funeral.”

  “I know, dear. I was there, along with Carmel representing the girls.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Eileen said awkwardly. “I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”

  “I would have been surprised if you had.” Miss Thomas smiled warmly. “I’ve come to offer my condolences and say that I completely understand if you don’t want to return to work for some time. If you need a week or two off, then take it.”

  “A week or two?”

  “Oh, my dear!” the woman said hastily. “I’m not suggesting you’ll get over it that quickly, not for a moment!”

  “I know.” Eileen played with the material covering the arm of the settee, plucking at the threads where it was bare. “I’m not sure if I want to go back to Dunnings,” she said hesitantly. “I’m not sure if I want to do anything I was doing before. I definitely don’t want to return to me old house. Yesterday, Nick turned up and I didn’t want to marry him and I always thought that’s what I wanted more than anything in the world.”

  “What do you want to do then? Have you any idea?”

  “No.” Eileen shook her head. “I thought a bit about joining up, y’know the WRENs or the ATS or something, but I imagine the girls all being a bit like Doris, man-mad and only interested in having a good time. I’d probably feel a bit old and out of things.”

  “You may be right. I’ve no idea.” Miss Thomas frowned, having immediately assumed Eileen’s problem was her own. “Why don’t you come away with me?” she suggested eagerly as if this was a solution. “I’ll be gone a fortnight. It’ll be a break and might help you make up your mind what you want to do with your life.”

  Eileen looked at her in astonishment. “Where to?”

  “Norfolk. I’ve friends there. It’s very bleak and lonely, but I love it. You can go for long walks all by yourself, if that’s what you want.”

  “But what about your friends, won’t they mind?” Eileen found the idea of long lonely walks in strange countryside rather appealing.

  “Of course not. They have this massive house and half the time they don’t know who’s staying. You have to see to yourself for most meals—get your own breakfast, at least. Why not come with me, Eileen,” Miss Thomas said persuasively. “I hate the thought of leaving you like this.”

  Eileen managed to smile. “But I’m no longer your responsibility, am I?”

  Miss Thomas smiled back. “I’m asking because we’re friends. You’re the only person I’ve told about my husband. Anyway, it’s partly selfishness on my part. I hate driving long distances alone.”

  At that point Eileen nearly refused. Miss Thomas was an appalling driver and her nerves had been in tatters on the one occasion she’d been given a lift in her little battered car. But what did that matter, she thought bleakly? It was like waiting for a bomb to come bursting through the ceiling. It didn’t matter at all.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll come.”

  Chapter 1
0

  It wasn’t fair, Ruth thought passionately, it just wasn’t fair. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with other people.

  She hadn’t wanted involvement in any lives other than her own, yet here she was heartbroken and stricken with guilt because a little boy she scarcely knew had died, worried about her father, about Eileen, about Dilys. She’d thought, she’d hoped, she was beyond compassion.

  Although Jacob was well enough to get up, his mind still seemed hazy. “Where’s Tony?” he kept asking.

  “You know where, Dad,” Ruth would answer patiently.

  “He’s in the kitchen, I can hear him.”

  The white kitten came wandering in. Eileen had asked Ruth to look after him whilst she was away. It jumped on Jacob’s knee and he smiled and began to stroke its arched back. “Hallo, Tony,” he murmured. Ruth sighed despairingly.

  It was too much!

  She was also worried about leaving her father -whilst she was at work. It was then she began to appreciate the neighbours.

  “I’ll pop in and keep an eye on ould Jacob,” Aggie Donovan offered eagerly. “Y’know, we moved into the street the same month, and my ould man popped his clogs not long after your mam popped hers.”

  Even Ellis Evans, who’d not spoken to Ruth since the night Dilys left home, offered to listen out for him, and May Kelly came over with half a bottle of rum when she heard he was out of sorts. Sheila Reilly suggested Dominic and Niall would love to play Monopoly, she never had the time to spare herself, but Jacob flatly refused when Ruth brought up the idea.

  On New Year’s Eve, the tea dance at Reece’s was an exceptionally merry occasion, with Ruth having to play a succession of last waltzes, finishing with Auld Lang Syne, so it was late by the time she called on Dilys on her way home.

  Dilys had sunk into the throes of a deep depression once she realised the reality of the situation she was in. “But I don’t want a baby,” she said repeatedly. “I want to be a WREN. As soon as I was sixteen, I was going to pretend I was older and join up. Some lad from the Adelphi joined the Army and gave the wrong age.”

  “Maybe you still can, Dilys,” Ruth would say, more to comfort the girl than anything. Without Eileen, she was unable to offer any sensible advice. How on earth did you go about having a baby adopted?

  “I am a sinful girl, just like me mam said,” Dilys wailed, “and I’m having a sinful baby. I don’t want a baby born out of sin.”

  “Oh, Dilys, love, that’s a silly thing to say,” Ruth remonstrated. “Babies bring their own love. Once you’ve had your baby, you won’t be able to resist him, or her.

  Women never can.”

  “That’s what worries me,” Dilys moaned in a rare moment of astuteness. “I don’t want to be stuck with a baby, whether I love him or not. I’m already fed up being tied to this room and not having any money to go out. It didn’t seem to matter while I was at work.”

  “Have you got sufficient for your board and lodging?”

  “Enough to last a few more weeks,” Dilys said sulkily.

  She’d been quite good about putting her wages away.

  “Another thing,” she continued, “Mrs Furlong keeps asking about me husband. She wants to know why he never writes. He didn’t even send a Christmas card.”

  Mrs Furlong was the landlady who, Ruth remembered, had been described as “straitlaced”. She cast wildly around for something which would put the woman off. “Say he’s thousands of miles away off the coast of . . . Russia!”

  “Where?”

  “Russia.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Thousands of miles away,” Ruth said jokingly, but the joke didn’t work as Dilys merely grimaced.

  “I’ll try and remember the name.”

  Ruth wished the girl a Happy New Year, saying, “I hope it won’t be too miserable all by yourself.”

  “The Furlongs have asked all the girls downstairs to let the New Year in.”

  Which was something, thought Ruth as she caught the tram home. At least she wouldn’t have Dilys to worry about tonight. She hurried down Pearl Street wondering what state her father would be in when she arrived.

  To her relief, the sound of male voices came from the living room when she entered the house and she recognised one voice as belonging to Eileen’s father, Jack Doyle, a man she admired because he seemed so uncomplicated and straightforward. He got on well with her father, who always perked up considerably when Jack arrived.

  Jack, unrehearsed in the niceties of what was considered polite behaviour in the circles which Ruth had not long ago inhabited, made no attempt to stand when she entered the room. He merely nodded his head and grunted, “Hello, there,” in his almost churlish way, but to her surprise another man immediately jumped to his feet. He was almost as broad as Jack and just as tall, though considerably younger, with a thatch of crisp blond hair and eyes that were a bright startling blue. His almost perfect regular features were weatherbeaten like Jack’s, as if he spent a lot of time outside. Ruth frowned. He reminded her of someone, she wasn’t sure who.

  Jack Doyle said, “This is Matt Smith, who works alongside me on the docks. He wants to meet you.”

  Why, Ruth wondered, as she held her hand out for the newcomer to shake.

  Matt Smith clicked his heels together in a military fashion and said, “Ein gluckliches neues Jahr, Frau Singer man!

  A Happy New Year, Mrs Singerman! Ruth felt herself grow hot, then cold, and her legs threatened to give way.

  She glanced at Jacob, but he was playing with the cat and had noticed nothing. To think she was hearing the dreaded language again in her own father’s house! To think that this man was clicking his heels like a member of the Gestapo whilst he shook hands! She remembered where she’d seen him before, not the man personally, but men like him; on posters and paintings and in films. He was a perfect specimen of Adolf Hitler’s German master race: a tall, blond, blue-eyed Aryan. She felt almost physically sick as she snatched her hand away and ran into the back kitchen.

  “RuthI” Jack Doyle had followed her. “I’m sorry, luv.

  We never dreamt . . . ”

  “What’s his name?” Ruth demanded. “His real name?”

  “Matthew Schmidt.”

  “Is he German?”

  “Yes, but . . . ”

  “I have no wish to meet Germans. I hate them all,” Ruth said angrily. “I would be glad if he would leave my father’s house.”

  “That’s not fair, luv,” Jack said reasonably. “Y’can’t tar all Germans with the same brush. Matt’s a communist.

  No-one could hate Hitler more than he does. He was a wanted man in Germany before the war because of his activities, that’s why he left, but not till after he’d lost his wife in one of them there camps. As if that wasn’t enough, the British authorities stuck him in prison when the war began for being an alien. He’s only been out a couple of months.”

  But Jack might as well have talked to himself. “I have no wish to meet Germans,” Ruth repeated stubbornly. She made no attempt to keep her voice down. A few seconds later the front door slammed as Matt Smith left.

  Jack Doyle looked at her reproachfully as the sound echoed through the house. “You’re making a big mistake, luv, if you can’t admit there might be a few good Germans about—and the good ‘uns have to be exceptionally brave.’

  He went into the other room and she heard him say, “Well, Jacob, have you made your mind up yet? A drink’ll do you good and it doesn’t look as if there’s going to be a raid tonight. We can see in the New Year in peace.”

  “Well, it’ll be a nice change,’Jacob answered, sounding more like his old self than he’d done since Tony Costello died, much to Ruth’s relief. ‘I’d just get my coat.’

  Jack reappeared in the doorway and said to Ruth, “I’d like you to keep that business about Matt to yourself, if you don’t mind. I’m the only one he’s told. He thought you and he might have something in common, that you might like to talk.”
/>   “Don’t worry,” Ruth said sarcastically. “His secret is safe with me.”

  “Y’know, luv, it’s nowt but prejudice to damn the entire German race. Isn’t that we accuse them of when it comes to the Jews?”

  Ruth tossed her head and didn’t answer.

  “Oh, well,’Jack sighed. ‘By the way, we’re all going to our Sheila’s to let the New Year in. You’re welcome to come.’

  A few minutes later, Jack Doyle and her father gone, Ruth was left to smart and gnaw her fingers alone.

  Prejudiced! Ruth Singerman, prejudiced! Perhaps if she’d had some warning she might have felt differently, but to click his heels like that, speak in German - it had come as a terrible shock. She’d begun to feel safe and protected in Pearl Street, despite the raids. It had felt as if the enemy had invaded her very home.

  She decided not to go to Sheila Reilly’s, because Matthew Schmidt—Matt Smith—might be there, and despite everything Jack Doyle had said, she had no wish to be in the same house as a German. Instead, she listened to the wireless which she’d bought Jacob for his Christmas present, opened the rum, and when clocks all over the country struck midnight, Ruth Singerman was in bed and dead to the world.

  Brenda Mahon couldn’t help but notice that, whilst Carrie was always one of the first to be asked to dance, she was one of the last. She was always asked, because there were more men than women, far more, mainly in uniform, but Brenda wondered if she’d dance at all if it were the other way round. Carrie had disappeared about half an hour ago and Brenda felt a little frightened on her own. Perhaps the dance wasn’t such a good idea—or the frock. At Carrie’s insistence she’d made the frock too tight and cut too low at the bust and it was hurtful to think that, despite showing off so much of her rather limited figure, she was still only danced with as a last resort. For the very first time she missed Xavier. They’d started courting when they were both fourteen, so she’d never been out with another man, and her plainness had never bothered her before. In fact, she’d always felt rather special being married to the best looking man in Bootle, if not the whole of Liverpool.

  Between dances she began to wonder what was going to happen in the future. She was still Xavier’s wife. Was she prepared to have him back after the terrible thing he’d done?