Put Out the Fires

by Maureen Lee

  “It fits perfect,” she breathed. “Oh, Sean, I’m sorry. I never thought I’d have an engagement ring, least of all one as nice as this! It was just when I thought of all the washing I’d have to do for four pound ten.”

  “I know, luv.” Sean put his arms around her and she nestled close. He hadn’t felt all that perturbed by the outburst. The Alice Scully who’d just recently dominated the tea table, was nothing like his Alice, who wrote him long tender letters every week; letters in which she seemed able to put down all the things she found hard to say in person as she struggled daily to keep the family together, to ensure they were clean and fed, and, her most ardent wish, that they grew up “respectable”, as she put it. She told him how scared she was for their future, that she was terrified her mam would die, or the war would continue long enough for Tommy to be called up. And she told Sean how much she loved him, and that never, in a million years, had she thought someone like him would fall in love -with her. It might not seem so to Eileen and Sheila, but the Scully family were bound together by a bond invisible to outsiders. The younger children might well be frightened of their older sister’s sharp tongue and heavy hand, but Alice had to keep up a front and appear to be strong, and they knew, in their heart of hearts, that the blows meant nothing. They cared for Alice every bit as much as she cared for them.

  He kissed her ear. “You know what I think, Alice?”

  “What, luv?”

  “I think we should get married straight away.”

  “But where will we live? I mean, there’s no room here.”

  “We can put a mattress on the floor in this room,” Sean said carelessly. “We’ll think of something, don’t worry.”

  Alice said cautiously, “Don’t you think we should wait till we’re a bit older?”

  “If I’m old enough to fight for me country,” Sean said bluntly, “then I’m old enough to get married. Anyroad, the other day I discovered that married men’s wives get an allowance - twenty-five bob a week, along with another seven off my pay. That means you’d get thirty-two bob all to yourself. Fact, looked at a certain way, luv, they’d actually be paying us to get married.”

  “Never!” Thirty-two bob sounded a small fortune to Alice.

  “It means you can give up doing other people’s washing.”

  It bothered him when he was away, thinking of her trailing up to Merton Road and back with loads of laundry, and he’d never forget the weight of the iron! To some, it might not seem a very romantic reason for getting married, but to Sean, it was the best reason on earth.

  Late that same night, Jack Doyle came bursting into Number 16, where both his daughters were listening to the wireless. The children were fast asleep in bed.

  “What’s Churchill done now?” Eileen grinned when she saw his angry red face.

  “It’s nowt to do with Churchill. It’s our Sean. He’s just come home and told me he and Alice Scully are getting wed.”

  “Oh, no!’Sheila wailed.

  “My feelings exactly,” Jack snapped. “What did you think of her?” he asked Eileen.

  “She seemed all right to me,” Eileen said calmly. “In fact, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Alice is a bit short tempered—well, more than a bit,” she conceded when Sheila gave a contemptuous snort, “but who can blame her when you consider what she has to put up with? Most girls would have put those little ones in an orphanage a long time ago.”

  “Mebbe, but that doesn’t make her a good wife for our Sean,’Jack argued.

  “It doesn’t make her a bad one, either.”

  “What did you say to Sean?” Sheila asked.

  “I managed to persuade him to put if off till Christmas, when he’ll be nineteen. After all, he’s only known the girl a few months. In the meantime, I’ll look round for a better house just in case.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s much harm in that,” Eileen said.

  “I might pop round and see Alice tomorrer. I suppose it’s time I got to know her proper.” It wasn’t that she loved Sean any less than her dad and Sheila, but neither seemed aware of how shallow he was and entirely lacking in character, taking up with girls and dropping them without the least concern for their feelings. There’d been times when she envisaged him becoming another George Ransome: a lonely middle-aged man, the permanent bachelor, unable to sustain a relationship and making a fool of himself with a long succession of different women. She felt convinced that someone as strong as Alice Scully, together with all the responsibilities that came with her, would be the making of Sean Doyle.

  Chapter 21

  Matt Smith dropped down onto the grass beside Eileen.

  “Isn’t it a glorious day?”

  “Glorious,” Eileen agreed lazily.

  She was leaning against the cottage wall. Her feet and long slim legs were bare, and the smooth skin gleamed softly in the sunshine. Her hands were clasped over her vastly extended stomach, as if protecting the child growing inside.

  “It’s lovely here.” Mart’s gaze swept over the large garden.

  Jack Doyle had gradually brought about a sense of order. At least half of the lawn had been turned over to vegetables, and what remained had been neatly cut with the old rusty mower Jack had discovered in the outhouse and which Matt had helped to restore to working order. The bordering shrubs and bushes were bursting with flowers. A dark shadow had appeared in the far corner, gradually extending as the late afternoon sun crept across the grass. Beyond the apple tree, already full of tiny crab-like fruit, Jack was busy turning over a patch of earth for Brussels sprouts. Now and then the spade would hit a stone with a little clanging noise and Jack would swear aloud, but apart from that, he had the look of a man entirely contented with his lot, as if he would never be happier than with his feet in the earth, his hands on a spade, and surrounded by the green shoots of the vegetables he’d already planted.

  The wireless was on inside the house, and the sound of Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow came through the open window.

  “Have you seen the picture?”

  Matt blinked. “Sorry?” Eileen was looking at him. Her eyes were sad.

  “The picture, The Wizard of Oz? We went to see it in London last year when it first came out. Tony, me little boy, was thrilled to bits. We marched all the way back to the hotel singing Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

  He shook his head. “I haven’t been to the cinema in ages.”

  “You and Ruth should go some time. I suppose she’s told you, her dad would have lived in the pictures if they’d let him. He went nearly every week.”

  “She may have mentioned it.”

  “S’funny,” Eileen mused, “the way songs remind you of people and places more than anything else. If they’re still playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow in forty or fifty years” time, I shall always think of Tony.”

  She lapsed into silence and Matt settled himself against the wall. The bricks felt hot against his back. It was strange, he thought, but summer Sundays felt exactly the same wherever you happened to be. The atmosphere was as he’d always remembered it: sounds more muted than usual, yet everything lit with brilliant clarity. He stared at the almost unbelievable perfection of the blossoms on a Pfingstrose bush nearby - he racked his brain for the English name, peony! - the dark red centres fading to the palest pink at their tips. A bird landed on the bush, opened its beak and began to sing its heart out.

  “You wouldn’t believe such a tiny thing could make such a lovely loud noise, would you? Eileen murmured.

  “Mind you, they get on our Sheila’s nerves, the birds.” “Is that why she didn’t come?” Matt asked.

  “No. Dominic and Niall aren’t feeling so well. I think they’re coming down with something.

  “Who does the place belong to?”

  “A friend,” Eileen said vaguely.

  “I’m surprised you don’t live here permanently.”

  “I nearly did once, last September, but then . . . Well, all sorts of things hap
pened.” Eileen gave a little shrug.

  “Anyroad, as soon as me baby’s born and I’m on me feet again, I’m moving into the cottage for good. Our Sheila’s taking on me house in Pearl Street, we’ve already arranged it with the landlord.”

  “I shall be sorry to see you go,” Matt said. He genuinely meant it. He’d miss her calling in on Ruth from time to time.

  “Oh, you haven’t seen the back of me, don’t worry!” she grinned. “I shall probably go home every other day. Not only that, now you’ve started giving me dad a hand in the garden, I’ll be here to make you a nice cup of tea, won’t I?”

  Matt resolved he’d come with Jack at every available opportunity once Eileen Costello was ensconced in the cottage. He bent down to hide his face, plucking at a daisy which nestled in the grass, in case he hadn’t quite hidden his feeling of pleasure at the idea of seeing more of her.

  “Being here reminds me of my childhood,” he mumbled.

  “The sounds and the smells. I was brought up on a farm.”

  “I didn’t know that! Whereabouts?” She looked at him with her big blue eyes, clearly interested.

  “Croydon,” said Matt. “Just outside Croydon.” He felt convinced that, of all the people he’d come to know since arriving in England, she would be the least shocked if he told her the truth. Perhaps, he thought, one day I will . . .

  “That’s a nice watch,” she said suddenly. “Is it a new one?

  Me dad said you lost your watch in the raids.”

  Matt bit his lip as he looked down at the watch on his wrist. It had a mother-of-pearl face and a leather strap. “It’s second-hand. Factories have more to do than turn out new watches when there’s a war on. Ruth bought it for me.” He wasn’t sure which emotion raged uppermost, anger or pity, when she had given him the watch; there was anger that she was trying to take the place of Maria, and pity because Ruth didn’t deserve to be reduced to such a pathetic gesture.

  “I suppose I’d better go back and give Jack a hand.” Matt got to his feet. “I had to stop for a while. I got cramp in the back of me leg.”

  “Would you like me to rub it for you?” she offered.

  He glanced down at her quickly, but the expression on her fresh open face was entirely devoid of guile. With a pang, he realised she didn’t look upon him sexually, as a man, but as another woman’s husband. “No, thanks,” he said. “It’s gone now.”

  She giggled. “Do you know what you just said?

  Matt frowned, mystified. “No. What did I just say?”

  “You said you had cramp in the back of me leg, not my leg. You’re becoming a real scouse, Matt. No-one will recognise you when you go back to Croydon.”

  “There’s no reason for me ever to go back. I think I’d like to stay in Liverpool for the rest of my life—me life!” he corrected himself, and Eileen burst out laughing. She extended her arms towards him.

  “Give us a hand, will you? I’ll be stuck here forever if I have to get up by meself.”

  He took her hands, which felt soft within his own, and pulled her upwards. Once upright, still laughing, she stumbled against him, and he grasped her shoulders to prevent her from falling.

  “Ta.”

  Their glances met, and, to Mart’s dismay, perhaps she sensed the turmoil raging within him at the feel of her warm body beneath his hands because she flushed and looked away.

  Ruth came out of the cottage at that moment and began to peg nappies on the line. She glanced at Eileen and Matt standing close together on the grass. “I thought it best to wash them now,” she called. “They’ll dry much better here.”

  After Ruth had gone inside, Eileen began to walk down the garden to where her father was working. “Have you got any further with the adoption?” she asked Matt.

  He wondered if she’d deliberately changed the subject to something which was personal to him and Ruth. He shook his head and tried to keep his voice steady as he replied, “Hardly. We’ve applied to the County Court and they’ve appointed someone called a Guardian adlitem, but nothing further can be done without the mother’s consent and there’s no trace of Dilys Evans anywhere. Ruth has written to every conceivable body she can think of, but all we get is a negative reply or no reply at all. She seems to have disappeared into thin air.” He couldn’t wait for it all to be sorted out so he could escape. The longer he stayed, the more he became a part of Ruth’s fantasy family.

  “It’s a dead shame,” Eileen said sympathetically. “Our Sheila was only saying the other day, Michael is the spitting image of you. You’d never guess you weren’t his real dad, not in a million years.”

  “I know,” said Matt. “Ruth says the same thing all the time.”

  Jack Doyle shoved his spade in the soil and leant on the handle when they reached him. “I was just wondering how that pair of buggers were getting on in the North Atlantic?”

  “Which pair of buggers is that, Dad?”

  “Churchill and Roosevelt, a’course. They’re having a conference in the middle of the ocean. Didn’t you hear the announcement on the BBC the other day? It was Clement Attlee himself who made it,” he said proudly. “I reckon America will come in with us any minute now.”

  “I only came to ask if you’d like a cup of tea, Dad, that’s all,” Eileen said patiently. “It’s too nice a day to start talking about the war.”

  “Huh! That’s women all over,” Jack snorted amiably.

  “The sun only has to come out and they forget there’s a war on.”

  “Maybe so, but if it were up to women, there wouldn’t be a war to talk about, would there!”

  The dad and Matt would like a cup of tea. How about you, luv?”

  Eileen poked her head into the living room where Ruth was sitting on the settee, apparently staring into space.

  She’d turned the wireless off and Michael was lying beside her, clutching his feet with his hands. He turned his head at the sound of the strange voice and began to gurgle a welcome.

  With some difficulty, Eileen knelt on the floor and rubbed her cheek against his chubby one. “Aren’t you the cleverest baby in the whole wide world?” she cooed.

  Michael gurgled agreement and pulled Eileen’s nose. “I wonder why people always speak to babies in such a stupid way?” she said.

  “What were you and Matt talking about?”

  The question took Eileen by surprise. Although Ruth’s tone was pleasant, it seemed a strange thing to ask. “This and that,” she replied. “Nothing important. Why?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  Eileen sat on her heels and regarded the woman. Ruth appeared terribly strained. There was a pinched expression between her eyes and deep, drawn lines around her mouth. She’d also lost weight lately, and it didn’t help that she’d started to use quite a lot of make-up: carmine lipstick which only exaggerated the downward curve of her lips and rouge which made clownish patches on her white face.

  As soon as Brenda Mahon had started sewing again, Ruth had ordered three frocks. She had one on today, a turquoise crepe-de-chine with little white flowers, yet it seemed to do nothing for her. In fact, the pretty colour only made her look sallow.

  “Are you all right, luv?” Eileen asked, concerned.

  “Just worried,” Ruth made a sweeping gesture with her hands, “about everything.”

  “Never mind. Dilys is bound to turn up some time.”

  “I suppose so,” Ruth said dully.

  Eileen went out to make the tea, feeling guilty that she’d been outside virtually the entire day, leaving Ruth, who didn’t like the sun, indoors alone. The truth was, once Sheila had decided to give the cottage a miss, Eileen had been quite looking forward to a few hours of quiet contemplation, about Nick, her baby, the future. It was difficult to hear yourself think at home since the Reillys had moved in.

  At first, it had just been Matt coming to help Dad with the garden, but then, at the last minute, Ruth had decided to come too . . .

  Why, wondered Eileen, when she di
dn’t like the sun, and never seemed particularly happy in the cottage? Now she thought about it, Ruth and Matt had scarcely exchanged two words all day, so she clearly hadn’t come to keep him company.

  As she set the cups out in a row and began to pour the milk, the baby turned a cartwheel in her stomach, and she winced, “Ow!” It had become increasingly active lately, particularly when she was in bed at night. She remembered Matt preferred his tea without milk, so drank it herself, patted her stomach and murmured, “That’s for you!”

  Matt! She could have sworn there was a look in his eyes when he helped her up, the same look she saw in Nick’s eyes, a look that definitely shouldn’t be there.

  Jaysus! She liked Matt, though it was difficult to do otherwise because there was little to dislike. Despite his pleasant manner, he seemed empty of emotion and real feeling, but if she hadn’t imagined the look, then she’d been wrong in her assessment.

  Yet Ruth and Matt had only been married just over three months!

  With concern mounting, she wondered if Ruth had noticed anything. Perhaps that was another reason why her nerves looked on the point of cracking, she was suspicious of Matt. She’d come into the garden, Eileen remembered, just as he was hauling her to her feet.

  “Is the tea ready?” Ruth appeared, Michael on one arm.

  “I was just about to pour it.”

  “I’ll take Mart’s out to him.”

  Ruth remained tightlipped and silent on the journey home. When they entered the house, Matt immediately went upstairs without a word and shut himself in his bedroom. He had no idea why Ruth was in such a bad mood, but sensed it was to do with him, that he’d done something wrong. He threw himself on the bed. The situation was becoming impossible.

  Downstairs, Ruth was thinking exactly the same as she laid Michael in his basket. If things didn’t sort themselves out soon, if she didn’t hear from Dilys, if Matt didn’t stop behaving as if she were invisible, she felt as if she could quite easily go mad.

  She’d noticed the way Matt looked at Eileen Costello. In fact, she’d been aware for weeks of how well they got on.

  Matt never talked to her as he did to Eileen, and it was difficult to miss how his face lit up on the few occasions he’d come home and found her there. It was why she’d decided to go to Melling that day, as soon as she realised there would only be the three of them there.