Christmas on the Mersey

‘I love them at this age,’ Rita said, missing her own two desperately already. ‘Are you going to have him evacuated, Nancy?’

‘He’s only six months old. Children under five years old are being evacuated with their mothers.’ The question needed to be asked, especially after the latest raids, and Rita knew her mother was on pins worrying about little Georgie’s welfare; they all were.

‘It’s at their mothers’ discretion,’ Nancy added tartly.

‘You can’t be serious, Nancy!’ Rita exclaimed. She knew the port of London had ceased to be an operative channel for worldwide trade since Germany took control of the French coast. Mines had been laid by both the Allies and Axis powers, making the English Channel far too dangerous for large-scale cargo, so the Mersey docks were now handling all vital cargoes. They were an ideal target for the enemy.

‘I am not having him evacuated!’ Nancy was adamant. ‘Where I go he goes and I’m going nowhere!’ Not even back to Mrs Kerrigan’s house if she could help it. She had already wangled a few nights’ stay here, but now their Frank was home there wasn’t going to be much room for her and little Georgie so she would have to be canny.

Nancy had lost her naïve charm since the war started, Rita noticed. Since Sid had been reported missing, then found and reported as a POW, Nancy had developed a fatalistic attitude of almost selfish what-will-be-will-be.

‘We’re not going to the countryside. We’re staying here in the bosom of our family,’ Nancy said, opening the sideboard door and taking out a clean towelling napkin.

‘I should imagine they won’t have much in the way of dance halls in the countryside, either,’ Dolly remarked with her unmistakable Irish humour. Rita suspected her light-hearted banter disguised her worry about their Eddy. He had not been home for months.

After their Frank was brought home injured, Mam almost closed her mind off from the serious aspects of life, and concentrated on safer things instead. Like minding the nation’s business instead of just her family. Her WVS work kept her going, and so too did salvage collection and setting up cookery classes for young women who were going through a war for the first time – after all, Mam had already gone through one war. She was a fountain of information, even if she did get her words wrong explaining things.

‘I can see now that it was a mistake for me to bring mine home when I did. They were safer on the farm,’ Rita said, causing the women in the room to focus their attention on her now. ‘I know Michael and Megan will be safer away from the air raids, but there’s no substitute for a mother’s love.’

‘It was a bit sudden, the kids going like that,’ Nancy said, and Rita nodded, making no comment, still bristling and feeling anxious about Charlie’s motives for taking the children. As she unbuttoned little George’s romper suit her mind was in turmoil.

It must be difficult for Nancy, having no man to talk things over with. Nevertheless Rita would prefer that to having Charlie Kennedy hanging around tormenting her and ignoring her all at the same time. It was mental cruelty – that’s what it was. However, although she suspected Nancy missed Sid, Rita noticed that her sister was talking a little less of him each day.

‘Georgie Porgie, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry.’ Rita’s dum-de-dum nursery rhyme made the young baby chuckle as she rubbed her nose in time to the rhythm. ‘When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away.’

‘My little man would never run away!’ Kitty Cal­laghan popped her head around the door. She was carrying a plate covered with a clean tea towel and said, ‘I’m just on my way to the NAAFI and I thought I’d bring this apple pie over, Aunty Doll.’

‘Oh, you are a little darlin’, Kit,’ Dolly said. ‘That won’t be wasted, for sure.’ She was not Kitty’s aunty by blood but, having been a great friend of her mother who died when Kitty was just eleven years old, she was the closest woman to a mother Kitty, Danny and young Tommy had known.

Kitty was always working. Making delicious pies and cakes for the NAAFI, which were the talk of the neighbourhood, was her biggest pleasure in life. When there was a glut of apples, like now, Dolly was the lucky recipient of a plate apple pie or two. Sometimes it seemed as though rationing had not reached number two Empire Street, but nobody asked questions, realising it was better not to know. The area was poor and if people got a little extra they did not shout about it. Even if information was available there would be a rush for ears to be covered. What you didn’t know you couldn’t tell lies about – that was Dolly’s philosophy.

‘Have you seen our Tommy, Aunty Doll?’ Kitty asked after greeting the other women present.

‘I saw him this morning, but he’s not been in here since then.’

Kitty had hoped to catch Frank, whom she knew was home for only a short while. However, noting his chair was empty and feeling a little disappointed dip inside, she knew she must pull herself together. On such a short visit home, he would have people to see, places to be.

‘I’ll give Tommy his tea, don’t worry,’ Dolly said, noting the white turban covering Kitty’s ebony curls and the dark blue overall that covered her slim frame were spotless and ironed.

‘Is Frank not in then?’ Kitty asked, disappointed despite her resolve.

‘You just missed him,’ Dolly said. She was delighted to have him home again, even for a short while, and unable to fathom why he wanted to go back on duty. Anybody in their right mind would have got right out of the navy and away from those U-boats if they had a chance, and no one would blame him in the circumstances. Although, Dolly thought proudly, even with half a leg missing her elder son was still a catch; everybody said so.

‘I’m bringing fresh tea in now, Kit,’ Dolly called as she got up and went to the back kitchen, where she put the pie on the cold shelf and covered it with a clean tea towel of her own. Bringing Kitty’s cloth back, along with the fresh pot of tea, she asked lightly, ‘Have you got time for a cuppa before work?’

Kitty nodded. ‘Aunty Dolly, I want to ask your advice. Our Tommy’s turning into a right little tearaway lately.’ Her dark blue eyes darkened further. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with him.’

‘Oh, he’s not bad, Kitty. He’s just restless,’ Dolly said, knowing that up until recently Tommy was in here more than he was in his own house. Now he was in with some bigger boys who lived near Marsh Lane and had been seen hanging around the emergency water tank in Strand Road. ‘He’ll call in when his belly’s empty, you wait and see. I’ll save him a bit of that apple pie.’

Nancy wrinkled her nose as she picked up George’s dirty nappy and, holding it away from her, she handed her sister the tin of talcum powder with her free hand. ‘Go easy with the talc, Rita. I can’t get me hands on any more and you’re shaking it on him like you’re salting a bag of fish and chips,’ she said as her older sister expertly lifted her nephew by his ankles and liberally doused his nooks and crannies with a snowy covering of scented powder.

‘He loves it.’ Rita was holding him like a prized chicken in the butcher’s window, before expertly slipping the clean towelling nappy under him and, joining both sides together, secured it to his vest with a large pin either side.

‘How did you manage to hide these nappy pins from our Sarah?’ Rita asked, knowing their younger sister was an avid salvage collector these days.

‘She’s not getting her hands on those, even if it will help the war effort. I need them to cover my son’s modesty,’ Nancy quipped.

‘Our flying boys need all the nappy pins they can get now,’ Rita admonished. ‘Isn’t that right, Kit?’

Kitty nodded. Her brother Jack was now a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, having transferred from the RAF as his skills as a shipwright were in great demand after serving an apprenticeship at Harland and Wolff, the ship-builders in Belfast, returning as a skilled man to their foundry in Strand Road.

‘Mrs Ashby’s grandson’s joined the army,’ Dolly said when there was a lull in conversation. ‘She says he’s being shipped to the desert.’

‘I saw your Jack the other day,’ Rita couldn’t resist saying, knowing Kitty’s elder brother could not get away from the Borough quick enough. And even though he came back to Bootle, he never stayed in the house he grew up in across the street. Rita often wondered what it was that drew him back home even now; given the chance, Jack could be anything he wanted to be.

‘He had a day’s leave. He said he’ll try and get home for Christmas.’

Rita took a deep breath, staying silent. She and Jack had been in love – childhood sweethearts, some called them – but they’d been too young, and then he had gone away to Belfast for his apprenticeship. It was after he had left that things all went wrong, and she had got together with Charlie for all of the wrong reasons … But she and Jack would always remember their feelings. They may not be together now, and there was no way that they ever could be, but he was still a good friend to her and that would have to be enough, for both of them.

Fastening Georgie’s romper suit, she tried to push down the painful lump of melancholy that thoughts of Jack always brought. He wanted a life away from Empire Street. He wanted to see the world, conquer mountains. Lifting her nephew into the air she pushed the low point of her life from her thoughts, concentrating instead on baby George and making daft duck noises. This made George laugh, and the sight of his smiling little face raised her own spirits. ‘Just be thankful he’s not old enough to go and fight.’

‘Perish the thought,’ Dolly shuddered, refilling the tea cups.

‘My Sid always used to be up to something, his mother told me.’ All the women in the room knew that Nancy had elevated her Sid almost to the point of sainthood since he became a prisoner of war, which was strange because the two of them did nothing but bicker before his Territorial unit was called up and shipped out to France with the British Expeditionary Force. ‘Boys will be boys.’

No matter how much she tried to behave herself Nancy could not. Playing the dutiful wife did not suit her. She wanted to go out dancing with Gloria. She felt she deserved a little fun after nine months of pregnancy, much of it spent living alone at Sid’s mother’s. There was no use moping about the war, she decided. She absolutely refused to be miserable for long and drag everybody else down.

Rita was happy bouncing baby Georgie on her knee. His little gurgles of delight took her mind off her own children momentarily, especially when the infant chuckled, really chuckled, for the first time. Then he dribbled all over her, making everybody laugh. Who would think that talk of a nappy pin could bring forth such powerful emotions, she thought.

‘Drink your tea while it’s still hot, love,’ Dolly said in that gentle sensitive way that told Rita she knew exactly what she was going through. She gave her a tight, encouraging smile. ‘It doesn’t matter how old your kids are, you still miss them.’

Suddenly tearful, Rita turned her eyes away from her mother now. She did not want to share her fears with her mam about Charlie taking the kids away. Mam had enough on her plate with Frank being home.

CHAPTER FIVE (#u373bd5f6-51f8-57fa-96af-4974433170d2)

‘D’you know where I found this fella?’ Kitty, holding on to her ten-year-old brother by the collar, marched Tommy into the kitchen the following day. His grubby shirt looked especially dirty against his shiny clean face. ‘Swimming in the emergency water tank in Strand Road, that’s where he was! In this weather.’ Kitty gave Tommy a little shove to emphasise her words. ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t catch pneumonia, or drown!’

‘Getaway?’ Danny was sitting on a rickety chair near the sash window, his elbows resting on the table scrubbed clean of any varnish with age and use. He hardly lifted his eyes from the newspaper, spread out on the kitchen table so he could study the weekly football results.

‘Did you wallop him?’ Danny’s words bounced off the sports page, reduced because of paper shortages. He knew there was not much football to study either these days. Most fixtures were cancelled as attention turned to the war effort, although local league competitions were set up and a few, such as the Northern League, did manage to complete the last season. It cut Danny to think more than half of the footballers were unable to fulfil all their fixtures because they had been called up. Teams were dwindling, although when possible guest players would be fielded instead. He sighed; even the footy players were doing their bit.

So far he had been able to dodge Kitty’s questions. At first, before he got this new job, it was natural she should be curious as to why he had not been called up like the other blokes from around here. When he first found out he could not serve his country because of an enlarged heart he had thought of telling his sister he was a conscientious objector, but he knew she would never believe that. The only thing Danny had ever wanted to do was to join the Forces and Kitty knew it.

‘You haven’t listened to a word I said, Danny Callaghan!’ Kitty wondered why she bothered even trying to keep Tommy out of trouble. Danger was like a magnet to the curious boy. ‘He can’t just roam the streets and I’ve got to go back to work again. There’s a Forces dance tonight and I’ve got to do an added shift! I won’t be home until eleven.’

‘I can only mind him until nine,’ Danny said, raising his head now. ‘I’ve got to make a delivery.’ Danny, having been exempted from military duty, was now in a reserved occupation on the docks and earning a regular wage. The reserved occupation conveniently answered the question as to why he hadn’t been called up. Not that Kitty would ever judge him – or anybody else for that matter. She had a heart of gold.

However, Danny had no intention of telling her he had a dicky ticker. He didn’t want to worry her any more than he had to when she was constantly anxious about Tommy’s fragile health and about Jack.