Love Me Tender

‘Here, here, you’re not crying, are you?’

‘No,’ Lizzie said untruthfully, scrubbing at her eyes.

‘I should think not,’ Barry said in mock severity, and then his voice dropped and with a sad expression on his face he said, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t get out to get you a present.’

‘I don’t care, Daddy. I just want you better.’

‘Mind you,’ Barry said with a wink at Kathy, who was in on the joke, ‘I might have some old thing lying around.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Daddy.’

‘No, no, let me see now,’ Barry said, and reaching over to his locker he withdrew a rag doll so beautiful that Lizzie’s eyes nearly popped out. She had golden plaits sewn to the top of her head, her eyes were the most brilliant blue and her mouth was rosy red, with two crimson cheeks as well. She wore a dress of plum velvet trimmed with lace at the cuffs and the hem, which nearly reached the top of her soft black leather boots.

‘Oh, Daddy, oh, she’s beautiful, thank you, thank you.’

‘It’s OK, princess, cheap at the price,’ Barry said, winking at Kathy again. ‘Three packets of fags and half a pound of bull’s-eyes.’

Kathy had been told about the present in a letter Barry had sent her just after her visit to Plymouth, in which he explained about the dolls made by a relative of Sister Hopkins. ‘Where does she get the clothes from, and the material?’ Kathy asked, fingering the plush velvet.

‘Odds and ends, I think,’ Barry said. ‘I know she buys very little, and she sends the fags and sweets overseas to men who have no doting wives to make their lives more bearable.’

‘Some odds and ends,’ said Kathy incredulously. ‘She must have rich connections.’

‘Anyway, it’s for you now, Lizzie,’ Barry said. ‘Something to remember your daddy by when you go off to the country.’

Lizzie stared at her father, not sure if she’d heard right. She remembered the children going to the country nine months ago, and nothing had happened. No bombs had fallen, and all the children who’d been evacuated had come back. Most of them had been glad to return. Lizzie didn’t want to go to any country, it sounded awful. Maura had said as much.

Beside her, she knew her mother was angry, bristling with it. She saw her open her mouth to speak, but Barry forestalled her by adding, ‘Surely your mammy has told you about it?’

Before Lizzie had time to speak, Kathy burst out, ‘Stop it, Barry, you have no right.’

‘No right,’ Barry exploded. ‘She’s my bloody child too, her and Danny, and I want them safe. Is that so wrong? I think I have a perfect right.’

‘Not to spring it on us, on Lizzie, like this.’

‘You told Chris Barraclough?’

‘I told him I’d think about it.’

‘Well?’

‘I’m still thinking about it.’

‘Well, I hope you’re still able to think when you’re buried under a landmine,’ Barry snapped.

‘Barry!’ Kathy was shocked, and Barry, catching sight of the faces of his wife and daughter, was ashamed of his outburst. ‘You’re upsetting the child,’ Kathy said, and Barry could not deny it, because tears were squeezing out of Lizzie’s eyes and dribbling down her cheeks. But she wasn’t upset about what her daddy had said about bombs; it was her mammy and daddy arguing that she didn’t like.

‘I’m sorry,’ Barry said. ‘Don’t mind me, Lizzie. I get fed up waiting around for my head and stomach to heal, so I can get out of here.’

Kathy, glad to change the subject, said, ‘Have they given you any idea?’

‘Next couple of days they said last time I asked,’ Barry said. ‘I’ll have to go back in for physio on the arm, but I’ll be home for a while.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Kathy said. ‘It would be great, so it would.’

‘Then I’ll have to see what I can do,’ Barry said with a smile. ‘Now, about that other business…’

‘Leave it till you get home,’ Kathy said. ‘Then we’ll talk, promise.’ She kissed him on the cheek and added, ‘We’d better be on our way and let the other hooligans in before they wreck the hospital.’

Barry knew she was anxious to get away and was sorry he’d soured Lizzie’s visit, but he said nothing. He’d be home soon, and then he’d make Kathy see sense.

On 22 June, France finally surrendered. The so-called impregnable Maginot Line had provided little opposition to the seemingly unstoppable German army. People were only too well aware that just a small stretch of water separated Britain from the Nazi-dominated Europe. Defeat seemed probable, invasion imminent. The government realised the seriousness of the situation and mustered the Home Guard, and an information sheet went out to all householders entitled ‘If the Invader Comes’. People were encouraged to disable cars not in use, and hide maps and so on to confuse enemy spies, who many were sure were behind every lamp post.

Barry was due home the next day, and he was still there two days later when the first bombs fell in West Bromwich. ‘You see,’ he cried to Kathy as they clustered around the wireless. ‘That will happen here.’

‘No,’ Kathy snapped back. ‘It might not, but what will happen is invasion, everyone says so, and if we’re going to be invaded, my children stay here with me.’

Barry slammed out of the house angrily. There was no budging Kathy. He’d been working on her ever since he came out of the hospital, but she wouldn’t agree to the children being evacuated. He might have stood a chance if the children had been for it, but they weren’t. Lizzie, in particular, was dead against going anywhere in the country.

Barry was an impatient man anyway; his arm wasn’t healing as quickly as he’d hoped and he was missing his mates. Only the other day, Kathy, hurt by his attitude, had cried, ‘You can’t wait to get back, can you?’

And he’d replied, ‘No, I can’t, out of the bleeding road. You live your life quite well without me.’

The point was, Kathy had lived her life without Barry because she’d had to do it, and she had responsibilities to the family she couldn’t just drop. Much worse for Barry was Bridie, who never seemed to be away from the house for five minutes, and who went on and on about Pat and how she missed him, as if Barry didn’t feel bad enough already. He was uncomfortably aware that had he and Pat stayed where they were and surrendered, they might both have survived. As it was, he was alive and Pat wasn’t, and even the fact that Con had told him he’d heard the SS had taken few prisoners but gunned down many who’d surrendered only made him feel moderately better – and guilt made him lash out, even at the children.

Also, Kathy was easily tired and heavily pregnant, and though she lay beside him in bed every night, he could hardly take her in his arms and love her as he wanted – he wasn’t that selfish. But God, it didn’t help his frustration. He knew that Kathy was worried he would want to make love, so she was nervous even as she enjoyed his kisses and closeness, and that made him crosser than ever with her. Did she think he was some sort of animal with no self-control? All in all, the visit was not the happy time Kathy, Barry and the children had expected it to be.

At his mother’s he was hailed as a conquering hero. She was coming to terms with the death of her two sons and was aware that Hitler had still to be beaten or they would have died in vain. But for now Barry, her eldest and favourite son, was home, and it was a pleasure to fuss over him. Barry enjoyed the spoiling and cosseting and couldn’t help comparing it with Kathy’s attitude. She had always to give Rose a hand, or mind her weans, or sit with Bridie a while, or pop to her mother’s. Everyone had a higher priority in Kathy’s life than her husband, Barry thought, and he was bloody sick and tired of it.

Kathy herself was often bone weary, and yet she tried to help her family as she’d always done and keep a demanding husband happy. It was exhausting for her, and an additional worry was Barry’s appetite. It had always been healthy, but now boredom and inactivity – which had never sat easily on Barry’s shoulders – caused him to eat more. Meat rationing had been introduced in March, and early July found tea rationed to two ounces per person. The allowance of fats had changed too, and now each person was allowed two ounces of cooking fat and four of margarine but only two butter. Barry, being a serving soldier, had had none of these restrictions on his food and found it irksome when he couldn’t have a cup of tea whenever he wanted. Even the foods not yet rationed, like eggs and cheese, were in short supply, and luxury foods like biscuits and cakes were very hard to get hold of at all. Barry refused to acknowledge how difficult it was for Kathy to prepare nourishing meals every day. He accused her of moaning and complaining all the rime, and Lizzie and Danny often heard their parents arguing.

Eventually Barry talked the doctor into signing him off before he was fully fit. Kathy watched him go with a mixture of feelings, including relief, because although she would worry about him away fighting, he’d been difficult to live with, like a bear with a sore head, and she knew life would be more peaceful once he was gone.

As for Lizzie, though she was sorry to see her daddy leave again, she hadn’t understood what had made him so cross and scratchy, even with her and Danny. She was almost ashamed that she felt relief to match her mother’s as she watched him walk away, his kit bag on his shoulder.

But she was glad, after Barry left, that she had the doll, the last present her daddy had bought her. She called her Daisy, not for any reason she could think of except that she looked like a Daisy. Every night she cuddled her tight and told her all her worries and fears, and imagined she was talking to her daddy about it all.

She had a big problem of her own at this time, for her mammy had told her to be nice to Sheelagh. ‘She’s lost her daddy,’ Mammy had said. ‘He isn’t ever coming back. She’ll never see him again; think how awful that would be if it was your daddy.’

Lizzie did, but not for long; it was too terrible a thought to hold in her mind. Sheelagh was hard to be nice to, but she told herself she’d try.

The Saturday after Barry left, Bridie and Kathy sent the two girls outside out of the way, while they talked. Lizzie sat down on the step beside her cousin and watched Danny and Matt, who were playing marbles with a crowd of other young boys further up the street. It was hot and dusty, and Lizzie felt sticky with it, and though both girls had their skipping ropes with them, it was far too warm to skip. Lizzie felt uncomfortable with her cousin because she’d said nothing to her yet about Uncle Pat’s death, and so eventually she said, ‘I’m sorry about your daddy.’

‘No you ain’t.’

Whatever Lizzie had expected Sheelagh to say, it wasn’t those words that she spat out so bitterly. ‘Course I am,’ she said. ‘Everyone is.’

‘No you ain’t. No one cares, and my mammy knows it.’