Put Out the Fires

by Maureen Lee

  “That’s it!” she said, when she threw the stub on the fire.

  Then Brenda put her hands on her hips, took a good look around the filthy room, and began to tidy up.

  Chapter 14

  It was a crisp, slightly blustery day with a definite touch of spring in the air. Great white clouds rolled majestically across the blue sky, obliterating the brilliant golden sun from time to time.

  Sean Doyle came whistling round the corner of Pearl Street, a swing in his step and a smile on his face. He loved the RAF, he was popular with his new mates, and even the Flight Sergeant liked him. Not only that, the uniform suited him no end, which meant girls threw themselves in his direction with even more enthusiasm than they’d done when he was in civvies. Now, thought Sean happily, he was home on leave for the first time since Christmas and everyone would make a fuss of him: his dad, his sisters and all the pals he’d left behind. He’d take one of his old girlfriends to the pictures tonight, and a different one tomorrow. He knew that any one of them would drop everything the minute he showed his face. His little world was perfect, but then it always was.

  Being only half past two, he knew his dad would be at work, so he didn’t bother going home. He fancied a bit of grub, so made straight for his sister Sheila’s house. To his disappointment, there was no-one there when he let himself in. Sheila must have taken the kids to that clinic place, or perhaps there was something going on at church.

  He closed the door and crossed over the street to Eileen’s, where he drew the key through the letter box and opened the door.

  He was taken aback when he went into the living room and found a strange young girl ironing a pillowcase on his sister’s table. There was a tall clothes maiden in front of the fire, on which more snow-white clothes were drying. The mantelpiece was crammed with statues and there was a big wooden crucifix in the middle.

  “Who are you?” the girl asked coldly, without looking the least bit put out. “Don’t you know it’s manners to knock before you come into someone’s house?”

  Sean, accustomed to being welcomed with open arms wherever he went, sat down suddenly.

  “It’s also rude to sit down before you’re asked,” the girl said even more coldly.

  “Where’s . . . where’s our Eileen?” Sean actually stammered for the first time in his life.

  She placed the pillowcase on a pile already ironed and reached for another. “D’you mean Mrs Costello?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She’s in Norfolk, isn’t she, in the Land Army. She’s been there for months.”

  “Christ, is she?” Sean never bothered to read the numerous letters his caring family wrote him. There’d been letters from Eileen, but he hadn’t even noticed the postmark.

  “Don’t swear,” the girl said brusquely. “You haven’t answered me first question. Who are you?”

  “I’m Sean Doyle, Eileen’s brother. What are you doing in her house?”

  “What are you doing in our house?” the girl countered, reaching for another pillowcase. She ironed swiftly, like a machine.

  “Looking for our Eileen.”

  “Well, you’re looking in the wrong direction, aren’t you? She’s miles and miles away. We’ve rented the house while our old one’s being put right. We were bombed out before Christmas. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

  “I’d forgotten,” Sean lied, not wanting the girl to think his family didn’t keep him informed on all matters of importance. He smiled brilliantly, rather aggrieved that the girl hadn’t immediately fallen for his obvious charm as girls usually did. He stared at her. She looked about seventeen and was rather a pale, insipid little thing with a tiny face and huge grey eyes. Her honey-coloured hair curled in wispy feathers onto her slender white neck. She was dressed very plainly, in a brown frock which was far too long, which meant he couldn’t see her legs when he peeped around the table. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing arms as thin as sticks. It was hard to believe she had the strength to pick up the big black iron she was maneuvering so briskly. He felt even more aggrieved that someone so ordinary didn’t look at all flattered at having him in her house.

  “I’m sorry I barged in like that,” he said warmly, curling the corner of his mouth upwards, something which was usually enough to knock any normal girl flat out.

  “And so you should be!”

  She remained remarkably unimpressed by the smile and the curled mouth. Sean scented a challenge. He leaned forward in the chair, caught her grey eyes, and asked, “What can I do to make amends?”

  “You can sod off, for one thing.”

  She couldn’t possibly mean it! “Would you like to come to the pictures tonight?” he said coaxingly. “I’ve got forty eight hours’ leave.”

  “No, ta. I’ve too much to do.”

  Sean blinked, flabbergasted. It was the first time in his life a girl had turned him down. She picked up a sheet and began to fold it ready for ironing. “Here, let me give you a hand.” The sheet was about ten times bigger than she was.

  He jumped up and took two corners. “Which way do you want it?”

  “In a square, ta. Y’can make yourself useful and fetch in the fresh iron off the stove. Put this one in its place.”

  Anxious to help for some strange reason he couldn’t quite identify, Sean went into the kitchen with the iron and brought the hot one back. The girl spat on it with gusto and began to iron the sheet.

  “What’s your name?” Sean asked. It was a new experience to talk to a girl who wasn’t fawning all over him and he felt intrigued. Another thing, the more he stared at her, the more appealing she became in his eyes. She was almost ethereal, like a pretty moth which would crumble to pieces if touched. Yet despite the fact there was scarcely anything of her, she was getting through the ironing with the strength and determination of a woman twice her size.

  “I don’t see as how it’s any of your business, but as you don’t seem to have any intention of sodding off as I suggested, I’ll tell you. It’s Alice Scully.”

  “D’you belong to a big family, Alice?” He reckoned she must, considering all the bedding around.

  Alice tossed her tiny delicate head, and the gesture made Sean catch his breath. “You’re not half nosy, Sean Doyle,” she said haughtily, “but since you’ve asked, I do. There’s me mam - she’s upstairs in bed, she’s not been at all well in a long while. Then there’s our Tommy, he’s training to be a plumber.” She paused and looked at Sean expectantly, and he realised he was supposed to look impressed.

  “That’s a fine trade to have,” Sean said heartily, impressed out of all proportion.

  “It is that,” she said proudly. The other four brothers and sisters are still at school.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He died a long time ago,” she said flatly. “He was killed on the docks, God bless him.” She crossed herself.

  The dad works on the docks.” Sean hoped this might be a good mark in his favour and apparently it was.

  “I know.” She nodded. “Jack Doyle fought long and hard to get compensation for me dad. He got us twenty-five pounds in the end, which was a blessing, ‘cos me mam had already taken to her bed by then and I was still at school.’

  “Is there anything else I can to do help?” Sean asked eagerly, keen to follow in his dad’s footsteps and get in Alice’s good books.

  “No, ta. Oh, I don’t know.” She paused, placed the iron on an upturned plate and put a finger on her tiny, pointed chin. “Perhaps y’could help bring the washing in from the bathroom. I leave the stained stuff soaking in the bath, and it’s a bit heavy to carry into the back kitchen for the boiler.

  Y’can give me a hand with that, if you like.”

  “Anything,” vowed Sean. He noticed she scarcely came up to his shoulder as he followed her through the back kitchen, where more washing was drying on a rack, and out into the bathroom Francis had installed not long before he died. He also noticed she was limping badly, and when he loo
ked down, he saw she wore boots, and the sole and heel of one was at least three inches thicker than the other.

  He hadn’t realised she was a cripple. Instead of being repelled, as he might have been less than an hour ago, he felt his heart contract, not with pity, but something else, a sort of gnawing ache, a feeling he’d never experienced before.

  “It’s like a palace this house, compared with our place in Miller’s Bridge, what with the bathroom and a proper stove and all,” Alice said in an awed voice. “I hate the idea of having to move back.”

  “Perhaps our Eileen will stay in Norfolk,” Sean suggested. He rather liked the idea of Alice living so close to home.

  “No.” Alice shook her head. “She’ll want to come back once she’s got over losing her husband and her little boy.

  Now, if you wouldn’t mind lifting that thick coverlet into this bowl and fetching it into the house? Though you’d better take your coat off, else you’ll get the sleeves of your nice smart uniform all wet.”

  “Why are you doing washing today, anyroad?” Sean asked as he took off his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his blue shirt, and began to struggle with the coverlet, which weighed a ton.

  She was watching him worriedly, as if scared he’d tear something. “What’s wrong with today?”

  “Well, it’s not Monday, is it? I thought people only did their washing on a Monday.”

  “I do washing every day.” She laughed for the first time and her little face lit up like a star. “This lot’s not ours!

  None of our sheets are as fine as this. I take washing in.”

  “You mean you have to go through this procedure every day?” Sean was shocked.

  “Except Sundays. I never work on the Sabbath Day, it’s not right.”

  “But that’s not fair!” Sean burst out.

  “I don’t see anything unfair about it,” Alice said reasonably.

  “We’ve got to eat, and I can’t go out to work and leave me mam upstairs by herself all day, can I?”

  “I don’t suppose so.” But it still seemed unfair, Sean thought resentfully. It wasn’t right, a little thing like her having to lug loads of washing round the house every single day except Sundays. “Where does it all come from?” he asked.

  “There’s these posh ladies up on Merton Road who haven’t got the time or the inclination to keep their bedclothes clean on their own, so they pay someone else to do it, in other words, me. I go up that way with a freshly laundered load every morning, and collect another load off one of me other ladies.”

  “How much do they pay you?” Sean’s heart contracted again as he imagined the tiny form staggering all the way to Merton Road with piles of washing.

  “You’re a nosy bugger, Sean Doyle,” she sniffed. He recalled she’d told him off for swearing. “If you must know, I get twopence for a sheet, three farthings for a bolster case and a ha’penny for a pillowcase. I’ll charge threepence for that coverlet, it’s dead heavy.”

  “Jaysus!” gasped Sean. “That’s daylight robbery.” Slave labour, his dad would have called it.

  “Mebbe,” Alice said complacently, “but it keeps our bellies full. Which reminds me, there’s some blind scouse cooking in the oven. I’d better turn it down, else it might get dry by the time the kids get home. We’ve always run out of meat by Thursday,” she explained as she turned the gas down on the oven. “Our Colette buys the rations on a Saturday when she’s home from school.”

  Sean was struggling to get the coverlet into Eileen’s boiler. He managed to squeeze it in and Alice covered it with water and lit the gas jet underneath. “It’s dead nice working with modern equipment,” she murmured. “The boiler in our old house came out of the ark.” She put her hands on her narrow hips. “That’s a great help, ta. Now, I suppose I’d better get on with the ironing.”

  “Don’t you ever stop for a cup of tea?” asked Sean. His sisters seemed to stop work for a cuppa at least once an hour.

  “I haven’t got time. I want to get this lot done and have the table cleared ready for when the kids arrive home.” .

  “I’ll do the ironing, while you make the tea,” Sean offered impulsively. “Seems to me you’re entitled to a rest.”

  Alice looked amused. “Have you ever done any ironing before? You don’t exactly look the type who looks after himself

  “I have, as a matter of fact,” Sean said, hurt. It had come as a bit of a shock to find he was supposed to do his own washing and ironing in the RAF, though there was quite a lot of stuff in his kitbag which he’d brought home for one of his sisters to do.

  She didn’t look particularly grateful for the offer. “In that case,” she said, “I’ll take the opportunity to put me feet up for five minutes. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  “Have you got enough milk and tea, like? If not, I’ll get some from our Sheila’s.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Alice said in high dudgeon. “I can look after me own visitors, thank you very much.”

  “I didn’t want to make you short, that’s all.”

  “That’s why I take in washing, isn’t it, so we don’t go short. Do you take sugar?”

  “No,” said Sean, who normally took two heaped spoons, three if he could get away with it.

  A few minutes later, Alice appeared with a cup of tea which she took upstairs. He heard the murmur of voices, then she reappeared. The mam’s dead pleased you’re here,” she said. “She thinks the world of Jack Doyle after he fought so hard for compensation for me dad.”

  The dad’s always doing things like that,” said Sean, though it was something he’d scarcely thought about before.

  “Well, come on,” she said sharply. “Get on with that ironing, else it won’t be done in time. You’ll have to drink your tea standing up, won’t you?”

  “Yes, Alice,” Sean said meekly. She sat down with a deep sigh. “Oh, this is grand, I feel like one of me ladies up on Merton Road.”

  “This iron’s dead heavy,” Sean complained after a while.

  His arm was already aching and he’d only been working a few minutes.

  “Y’need a heavy iron to get the creases out. Press really hard.”

  “I am, I am.” He grinned to himself as he imagined what his mates back at camp would think if they could see him.

  He’d told them he was going to dig up a few old girlfriends and take them out on the town. Instead, he was doing ironing for this little pale butterfly of a girl who didn’t seem the least bit grateful.

  “What are you smiling about?” asked Alice.

  “I didn’t realise I was.”

  There was silence for a while and Sean’s arm began to throb quite painfully. How on earth did she keep it up, hour after hour, day after day? He tried to iron with his left hand for a change, but couldn’t manage it and almost scorched a sheet in the process. He glanced quickly at Alice to see if she’d noticed - but Alice had fallen asleep.

  She was sitting in the armchair, looking tiny and very vulnerable, with her chin resting on her shoulder and a half-full mug of tea clutched precariously to her chest.

  Sean put the iron down and gently removed the mug. He stood there for a moment, hovering protectively and wishing there was something else he could do. It was the oddest sensation, this feeling of almost painful anxiety for another person. Until that point in his life, Sean was used to being the object of other people’s concern. As there seemed to be nothing more he could do, he took the cup into the kitchen, lifted the lid of the boiler and gave the coverlet a stir. It had started to boil nicely, so he went back to his ironing.

  He’d just finished, when he heard the latch go on the back door and four children came in. Alice woke up.

  “Have I been asleep?” She stood up, flustered and slightly flushed. “I’ve never done that during the day before.”

  The children regarded Sean curiously. Two boys and two girls, as thin and undernourished as their elder sister, the youngest of whom seemed to be about eight. They were neatly dressed
in clothes that had been patched and darned in numerous places.

  “Don’t stand there gawping,” Alice said sharply. “This is Sean, and he’s been helping with the washing. Now, wash your hands the lot o’yis, ready for your tea.”

  “Are you in the RAF?” one of the boys asked in awe.

  “I am that,” Sean announced proudly. “I’ve nearly finished me training, then I’ll be an airframe fitter and work on them big aeroplanes, Lancasters and Wellingtons, when they come back from dropping bombs on Germany.” He said this more to impress Alice, who hadn’t asked a single question about himself since he arrived.

  “That sounds very responsible,” Alice said, much to his satisfaction.

  “Oh, it is, dead responsible.” Sean looked grim. “They’ll be sending me to Lincolnshire soon.”

  “Lincolnshire! Where’s that?”

  “I dunno,” Sean said vaguely. “Somewhere in England.”

  Alice began to bustle around setting the table. “D’you want some scouse?” she asked. “There’s enough to go round.”

  “No, ta, me sister’ll have a meal ready for me.” In fact, no-one was expecting him and his belly had already begun to think his throat was cut, but there was no way Sean was prepared to take food out of the mouths of the Scully family. “D’you want me to fetch the rest of the sheets in out of the bath? And that coverlet should be done by now.”

  “If you don’t mind, but don’t you think you’d better be getting back to your sister? She’ll be wondering where on earth you’ve got to.”

  “She won’t mind.”

  It was well past seven o’clock when Sean reeled, exhausted, over to Sheila’s, by which time, he’d put the coverlet through the mangle several times, spread it over the rack in the back kitchen, and also ironed a few more sheets. Somehow, he wasn’t quite sure what came over him, he promised to help Alice take the finished washing along to Merton Road the following morning, and collect another load from somewhere else.

  Alice seemed amused when he offered. “I leave early, seven at the latest,” she said. “I need to be back to get the kids off to school.”