Lights Out Liverpool (54 page)

Unless she stole something, pawned it, bought curtains with the money. She’d stolen before, her heart in her mouth, sweat trickling down the insides of her arms. The first time it was only a string of beads that looked like pearls. The price ticket said a guinea. The pawnbroker
had
offered a florin, which she’d accepted gratefully and bought four nice cups and saucers in Paddy’s Market.

One day she’d walked all the way into town and nicked a cut-glass vase from George Henry Lee’s, which she kept on the mantelpiece, though she was the only one who knew it was cut glass. Billy thought it was just a cheap old thing. The silver candlestick she’d robbed from Henderson’s had paid for a nice mat in front of the parlour fireplace. Some things she kept, some she pawned. She’d become quite skilled at shoplifting. The trick was to stay calm, not rush, smile, make your way slowly to the door. Stepping outside was the worst part. If spotted, it was the time you’d be nabbed. But she’d got away with it so far.

The woman didn’t care how she looked as long as it was respectable, or what she ate, but she liked pretty things for the house: curtains, crockery, cutlery, furniture. Furniture most of all. She’d give anything for a new three-piece: velveteen, dark green or plum-coloured. She licked her lips and thought about brocade cushions with fringes, one at each end of the settee, on each of the chairs.

Most of all, she’d like a nice big house to put the lovely things in. She was sick to death of living in a two-up, two-down in O’Connell Street. But if curtains were an impossible dream, then a big house was – well, out of the question. Being married to a no-hoper like Billy Lacey, she was just as likely to fly to the moon.

She shoved herself to a sitting position. The red light on the ceiling cast a sinister glow over the ward, over the prone bodies beneath the faded cotton counterpanes. ‘It looks like a morgue,’ she thought. Paper chains crisscrossed the room and she remembered it was Christmas Eve. ‘Everyone’s dead except me and that fat bitch in the corner snoring her head off.’

The clock over the door showed a quarter past four. A cup of tea should arrive soon. Alice, who already had three kids, all girls, and knew about such things, said the tea trolley came early, around five o’clock, which seemed an unearthly time to wake anyone up. In the meantime she’d go for a walk. If she lay in bed till kingdom come, she’d never go asleep.

The rain was lashing down, making the windows rattle in their frames. It drummed on the roof and she hoped Billy would keep an eye on the loose slates over the lavatory. She’d been at him to fix them for ages, but would probably end up fixing them herself. She fixed most things around the house. Her lips twisted bitterly when she thought about Billy. His brother, John, had stayed in the ozzie with Alice until an hour before their lad was born. He’d only left because the girls were being looked after by a neighbour who was scared of the raids. But Billy had left
her
on the steps outside the ozzie when she was about to have their first-born child. Off to the pub, as usual. He didn’t know yet if she’d had a boy or a girl.

There was a nurse in the glass cubicle at the end of the ward where a sprig of mistletoe hung over the door. She was at a desk, head bent, writing. The new mothers were expected to remain confined to their beds for seven whole days, not even allowed to go to the lavatory, but the woman slid from under the bedclothes and crept past, opening one half of the swing doors just enough to allow her through. The nurse didn’t look up.

The dimly lit corridor was empty, silent. Her bare feet made no sound on the cold floor. She crept round corners, through more doors, dodged into the lavatories when she heard footsteps coming towards her. The footsteps passed, faded, and she looked both ways before coming out, hoping it wasn’t someone on their way to
her
ward who’d notice the empty bed, though it was unlikely. The hospital was understaffed. Some nurses had joined the Forces, or gone into better-paid jobs. There were a lot of part-timers and older nurses who’d retired and come back to do their bit.

She arrived at the place that had been her destination all along: the nursery. Five rows of babies, tightly wrapped in sheets, like little mummies in their wooden cots. Most were asleep, a few grizzled, some had their eyes wide open. Like her, they couldn’t sleep.

Her own baby had been whisked away because of the emergency and she’d barely seen him. Now she did, she saw he was a pale little thing. He looked sickly, she thought. There was yellow stuff in his eyes. As she stared at her sleeping child, she felt nothing. She was twenty-seven, older than Alice, and had been married longer. But she hadn’t wanted a baby. The sponge soaked in vinegar she’d inserted every night, which Billy knew nothing about, hadn’t worked for once.

The child couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time. Just when she’d worn Billy down, ranted at him mercilessly for month after month, until he’d conceded that letting his missus get a job wasn’t a sore reflection on his masculine pride. Not with a war on and women all over the country working in ways they’d never done before. Why, there were women in the Army, on the trams, delivering the post, in factories doing men’s jobs.

It was a job in a factory on which the woman had set her eye, making munitions. You could earn as much as four quid a week, three times as much as Billy. And as she said to him, ‘Any minute now, you’ll be called up. What am I supposed to do then? Sit at home, twiddling me thumbs, living on the pittance I’ll get from the Army?’

His face had paled. He was a coward, not like his
brother
John, who’d volunteered when war broke out, but had been turned down because he was in a reserved occupation. John was a centre lathe turner, Billy a labourer. There was nothing essential about
his
menial job. John, anxious to make a contribution towards the war, had become a fire-watcher. Billy carried on as usual and haunted the pubs waiting for his call-up papers from the Army to land on the mat.

She’d only been in the munitions factory a fortnight, packing shells. It was hard work, but she liked it. If she felt tired, she thought about the pay packet she’d get on Friday, about the things she’d buy, and soon perked up. Then she discovered she was up the stick, pregnant and, stupid idiot that she was, she told the woman who worked beside her and next minute everyone knew, including the foreman, and she’d got the push.

‘This is not the sort of job suitable for a woman in the family way,’ the foreman said.

The woman glared through the glass at her baby. She hadn’t thought what to call him. She wasn’t interested. Billy wanted Maurice for some reason if they had a boy, but she had no idea if Maurice was a saint’s name. Catholics were expected to call their kids after saints. Alice’s girls had funny Irish names and she didn’t know if they were saints either. The new kid would be called Cormac. ‘No “k” at the end,’ John had said, smiling. He humoured his silly, dreamy wife something rotten.

Where was Cormac? There were cards pinned to the foot of each cot with drawing pins. ‘
LACEY
(1)’ it said on the cot directly in front of her. Her own baby was ‘
LACEY
(2)’. Alice had yet to see her little son. It had been a difficult birth and she’d been in agony the whole way through. John had been close to tears when he’d had to go home. Afterwards, with seven stitches and blind with pain, Alice had been given something to make her sleep.

Her own confinement had been painless – she wouldn’t have dreamt of making a fuss had it been otherwise. She hadn’t needed a single stitch. Her belly still felt slightly swollen and she hurt a bit between the legs, that was all.

Even though she didn’t give a damn about babies, the woman had to admit Cormac was a bonny lad. He had dark curly hair like his dad, and he wasn’t all red and shrivelled like the other babies. His big brown eyes were wide open and she could have sworn he was looking straight at her. She pressed her palms against the glass and something dead peculiar happened in her belly, a slow, curling shiver of anger. It wasn’t fair: Alice had the best Lacey, now she had the best son.

From deep within the bowels of the hospital, she heard the rattle of dishes. Tea was being made, the trolley was being set. Any minute now, someone would come.

The woman opened the door of the nursery and went in.

Olivia had only been to London once before, on her way to France, and she’d liked the busy, bustling atmosphere. But now, she hated it. She hated everyone looking happy because the war was over. Surely there must be people around who’d had relatives killed? And women who felt as empty and desolate as she did.

There might even be women, single women, single
pregnant
women, who could advise her, tell her what to do, how to cope, where to go.

Because Olivia didn’t know. She didn’t know anything except that she couldn’t look for work in her condition. She’d always planned on going straight from France to Cardiff when the fighting ended. Matron had promised to take her back at the hospital where she’d been a nurse. But she’d got off the train in London and there seemed no point in going further. Matron wouldn’t want her now. She was ashamed of feeling so helpless when, since leaving home, she’d thought of herself as strong.

Never before had she had to think about money or somewhere to live or where the next meal would come from. The small amount of money she’d earned was more than enough to buy occasional clothes and over the years she’d managed to save a few pounds. Now, the savings had almost gone on accommodation in a small hotel in Islington. She was eking it out, eating only breakfast which, as a nurse, she knew wasn’t enough for a pregnant woman.

Despite this, she felt well and had never had a moment’s sickness. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t suspected she was pregnant when she missed her August period. She’d thought it was because she was upset over Tom. It could happen to women; their periods ceased when they were faced with tragedy. For the same reason, she wasn’t bothered when there was still no period in September, but by October, she had started to feel thick around the waist, and the terrifying realisation dawned that she was expecting a child. At that point, her brain seemed to freeze. She became incapable of thought.

With November came the Armistice. Olivia was glad, of course, but instead of rejoicing, she felt only despair.

She still despaired, weeks later. New clothes were needed because she could hardly fasten the ones she had. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to go out, and the proprietor of the hotel, a woman, was looking at her oddly because she was in her fifth month and seemed to be growing bigger by the day.

It was strange, but she rarely thought about Tom. If it hadn’t been for the baby squirming lazily in her womb, she wondered if she would have thought of him at all. The ring he’d given her that had belonged to his grandfather was in her suitcase. It wasn’t that the memory of him hurt, but it was impossible to believe the night had actually happened. It seemed more like a dream. She couldn’t remember what he looked like or the words he’d said or the things they’d done.

Mrs Thomas O’Hagan! She recalled whispering the words to herself the day he’d left.

‘What was that?’

Olivia was eating breakfast in the dingy dining room of the hotel. She looked up to find the proprietor glaring down at her. ‘Sorry, I must have been talking to myself.’

‘I’ve been meaning to have a word with you, Miss Jones,’ the woman said officiously. ‘I’ll be needing your
room
from Saturday on. I’ve got regulars coming, salesmen.’

‘I see. Thank you for telling me. I’ll find somewhere else.’

‘Not in a respectable place you won’t,’ the woman sniffed as she went away.

It had been bound to happen; either she’d run out of money or be asked to leave. Olivia’s thoughts were like a knot in her head as she walked towards the city centre. She preferred the noise of the traffic to the quiet streets, even if the West End clatter was horrendous. There were homes for women in her condition. They were terrible places, so she’d heard, but better than wandering the streets, penniless. But how did you find where they were? Who did you ask?

If only she didn’t feel so cold! Specks of ice were being blown crazily about by the bitter wind. She turned up the collar of her thin coat, pulled her felt hat further down on her head, but felt no warmer.

On Oxford Street, one of Selfridge’s windows had a display of warm, tweed coats, very smart. Olivia stopped and eyed them longingly. Even if she’d been working, they would have been way beyond her means, but she hadn’t enough to buy a coat for a quarter of the price from a cheaper shop.

She could, however, afford a cup of tea. She made her way towards Lyons’ Corner House, noting all the shops were decorated for Christmas – only a few weeks away – and trying not to think where she would be when it came.

A large black car driven by a man in uniform drew alongside the pavement in front of her. Two young women got out the back, wrapped in furs, silk stockings gleaming. Their matching handbags, gloves and shoes were black suede. They swept across the pavement into a jeweller’s shop in a cloud of fragrant scent.

Olivia had always been perfectly content to be a nurse,
earning
a pittance. She’d never envied other women their clothes or their position in life. But now, standing shivering outside the jeweller’s, watching the two expensively-dressed women seat themselves in front of a counter, the assistant bow obsequiously, a feeling of hot, raw jealousy seared through her body. At the same moment, the baby inside her decided to deliver its first lusty kick.

‘Are you all right, darlin’?’

A man had stopped and was looking at her with concern as she bent double clutching her stomach with both arms.

‘I’m all right, thanks.’ She forced herself upright.

He nodded at her bulging stomach. ‘You’d be best at home in a nice warm bed.’

‘You’re right.’ She appreciated his kindness. Perhaps he wouldn’t be so kind if he knew that beneath her summer gloves she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.