Put Out the Fires (3 page)

Sheila thought she should have gone and let Francis look after himself. “I would have, if it was me.” His head was heavily bandaged and he’d lost the sight of his left eye, but he could walk and talk and indeed had seemed quite cheerful when he arrived. “You owe him nothing, Eileen,”

Sheila cried. “Nothing!”

By not going, she was letting Nick and Tony down, Sheila added, working herself up into a proper lather.

Tony couldn’t wait to live in Melling in the cottage with black beams on the ceiling and roses around the door and apple trees and strawberries in the garden. He’d been looking forward to sleeping in the room with the new curtains which Mr Singerman had made on the window.

Most of all, he was looking forward to having Nick for a dad, because his real dad made him feel unhappy most of the time.

“For Jaysus sake, girl,” Sheila said scathingly, “there’s a war on. You should snatch at happiness if it chances to come your way, ‘cos by this time next week you might be dead. The most important people are the ones you love,’ which all seemed strange to Eileen, because Sheila was the religious one, not her. She couldn’t have just walked away.

She couldn’t have lived with Nick, or, more importantly, with herself, if she had. She felt split in two, utterly divided between love for one man and responsibility to another - though if she’d caught the train it might have been different. She would never know how she would have felt, once ensconced in Melling with Nick before she’d learnt Francis was home.

She imagined Nick sitting in the cottage alone. What was he thinking? How was he feeling? She’d slipped along in her dinner hour yesterday and set the table with a new white cloth and freshly polished cutlery ready for today’s tea, so the place would look homely and welcoming when they arrived for the start of their life together - not that Nick would be there for long. He had a fortnight’s leave due to a broken wrist, but once the time was up, he’d be back to the damn Spitfires he loved so much. In the meantime, there was a tin of salmon in the larder, along with a pound of home-grown tomatoes bought from a woman in the village who grew them in her own greenhouse, plus her and Tony’s entire week’s butter ration. Unlike them, Nick hadn’t been brought up on margarine, and claimed it tasted like petrol.

If only she hadn’t missed the train! The thought of what might have been “if only”, of lying in Nick’s arms that night, his lovely brown eyes smiling into hers, caused an ache so fierce she felt as if a knife had been driven through her.

She must have been walking in a dream, because she didn’t hear the music, and all of a sudden found herself in Pearl Street, when she’d meant to avoid everyone by going down the entry of the neighbouring street and entering the house by the back way.

Although Annie and Chris had left for their honeymoon hours ago, the reception was still in full swing and most people remained outside as if trying to squeeze as much enjoyment as they could out of the occasion, for Pearl Street loved nothing more than a party. The women wore their best frocks, as befitted a wedding, though the men who clustered around the King’s Arms on the corner with their pints of ale had long since loosened their stiff collars and removed their ties. Children playing tick darted in and out of the grown-ups, their voices sounding extra high and extra loud, even above the music, on the still evening air. There weren’t so many children about as usual, as quite a few had been re-evacuated to places like Wales and Southport when the air-raids had begun. Eileen noticed Tony wasn’t there. When she left he’d been in the back yard kicking a football against the wall with a monotonous regularity that would have got on her nerves had she not known the reason for it. Tony didn’t want Francis back any more than she did.

The atmosphere in the street was carefree with an undercurrent of defiant excitement, as if everyone were lying to themselves, “We know there’s a war on, but that’s not going to stop us from having a good time!”

In Number 3, the parlour window had been shoved up as high as it would go and Mr Singerman was playing Tipperary Mary on the piano. People clapped their hands in time to the music as Agnes Donovan and Ellis Evans did an improvised jig, lifting their skirts as they approached each other with a sort of wary caution, elbows jutting, feet lifting daintily on the confetti-covered cobbles. Ellis was almost twice Aggies’s size, yet she seemed the lighter as they joined arms and skipped a circle, changed arms and skipped another. The women’s frocks were as familiar to Eileen as the clothes in her own wardrobe; Ellis’s blue brocade, bought for a wedding a decade or more ago, was becoming decidedly the worse for wear, as if the creases stubbornly refused to be pressed out for the hundredth or more time. Aggie’s brown wool with the turquoise beads like birds’ eggs on the bodice, seemed to get bigger the more she wore it; either that, or her already skinny frame was shrinking further in her old age.

Mr Singerman increased the tempo and Eileen imagined his gnarled old yellow fingers skipping over the equally yellow keys of the upright piano with the painted flowers on the front. The pace was too much for Ellis whose face was already bright red, and she collapsed, panting, in an open doorway. Aggie, thirty years older, finished the jig by herself to a burst of applause.

Phoebe Crean’s two mongol lads, Harry and Owen, were dancing with each other, their faces the picture of utter happiness as they did a clumsy sort of waltz, whilst Phoebe watched over them, her own face bursting with a mixture of pride and love.

By now, the sun which had reappeared earlier was slithering out of sight for good, so that the chimneys of the fifteen houses on one side of the street were silhouetted blackly against its dark gold radiance and the slate roofs of those opposite had the appearance of melting lead. Eileen tried to slink along to Number 16 unnoticed, but she’d already been spotted. The neighbours crowded round solicitously and several grabbed her sleeve. Pearl Street had already lost two of its own to the conflict. Now another had arrived home with his head wreathed in bandages, and they were full of sympathy for his poor wife.

“Hello, luv. How’s Francis?”

“It’s a terrible thing for such a handsome chap to be disfigured like that.”

Mr Singerman must have noticed her arrival through the window, and came hurrying out to ask after Francis in the deep, strangely youthful voice which had never lost its Russian accent, despite the fact he’d lived in England for three-quarters of his long life.

“He seems fine,” Eileen assured them. “He’s taken it very well.” Very well indeed, she thought wryly. He’d been quite the proud hero when he first arrived, as if he’d gained a medal, not lost an eye. “He was about to have a bit of a lie down when I left.”

“Is that Eileen? Is that Eileen Costello?” Paddy O’Hara came towards her, his white stick tapping on the cobbles.

“Here I am, Paddy.” Eileen touched his cheek briefly and he clasped her hand.

“It’s a shame, a dead shame,” he said dolefully. “After all, he didn’t have to join up, did he? A man of his age wouldn’t be anywhere near to getting his call-up papers yet. He’s a fine, brave man altogether, is Francis Costello.”

People always said that about Francis. People had actually wondered how she’d manage without him when he first went away. If they lived with him a little while, Eileen thought bitterly, if the women spent just one night in the same bed and put up with his disgusting behaviour, they’d soon change their minds.

Agnes Donovan squeezed Eileen’s arm hard with her bony fingers. “Now you mustn’t think of giving up that important job of yours. We’ll keep a lookout for Francis, and for Tony, too, while you’re at work.” She turned to the other women. “Won’t we, girls?”

There was a chorus of agreement and Eileen said, touched, “I don’t know what I’d do without yis all, though I don’t think it’ll be necessary as far as Francis is concerned.

He’s already talking about going back to work as soon as he gets his discharge from the army.”

They were the best neighbours in the world, though she was well aware that Agnes Donovan’s motives weren’t solely altruistic. Aggie liked nothing better than to manoeuvre herself into another woman’s house and poke around. Soon, rumours would circulate that soandso’s bedding wasn’t changed as often as it should be or their sink could be a mite cleaner. Eileen reminded herself that Aggie frequently let Sheila have her meat coupons. Deep down at heart, she was kind.

“Anyroad,” said Brenda Mahon, who was Sheila’s best friend, “once Francis is back on his feet, you can still move to Melling. It’s a shame you had to put it off.”

“I don’t think so,” Eileen said quickly. They knew nothing about Nick, although there’d been rumours she was having an affair. “I’d better be getting indoors,” she said. “Else they’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.”

There was no sign of Francis inside. Her dad and sister were sitting in the living room looking glum.

“Where is he?” Eileen asked.

“Still having a kip.’Jack Doyle regarded his eldest girl keenly. She seemed slightly less upset than when she’d left, more grim than unhappy. He was worried sick about her. It had been obvious that she was head over heels in love with this Nick chap. Nick seemed a decent bloke, if a bit poncey, when Jack first met him. At the “time, he’d thought, “Well, what else can you expect from someone who’s been to Cambridge University?” But since then, Nick had become a Flying Officer in the RAF, a Battle of Britain pilot, one of a generation of young men willing to forfeit their lives to prevent the Luftwaffe claiming mastery of the skies over Britain. Anyroad, he was Eileen’s choice and that was all that mattered. Jack knew what it was like to lose the person you loved. He still grieved for his dear, dead Mollie, despite the fact she’d been gone for more than fifteen years.

The worst thing, though, Jack thought guiltily, was that it was all his fault. Eileen, as soft as a kitten and anxious to please, had only married the bastard upstairs to please her dad. He’d liked the idea of having Francis Costello for a son-in-law, the two were hand in glove when it came to politics; “He’s a good catch, luv, and he really fancies you.” Not only that, she’d put up with him all that time without saying a word.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” she said, “but I met Donnie Kennedy. You’ll never believe it, but he’s in the Royal Navy.”

“Weren’t he in our Sean’s class at school?” You could scarcely see Sheila’s plump comely body for children. She was nursing the youngest, Mary, in one arm, and Ryan, nearly two, in the other. The older girls, Caitlin and Siobhan, were draped somewhat uncomfortably over her knees, both half asleep and sucking their thumbs audibly.

“Aye, that’s right,” confirmed Eileen. It didn’t seem possible that her sunny, goodnatured little brother was nearly old enough to fight.

“Someone said the other day the war’d be over by Christmas,” Sheila said hopefully.

Eileen laughed sardonically. “That’s what they said this time last year, and I reckon they’ll be saying the same thing next September.”

“However long it takes, however many lives, it’s a war that’s got to be fought right through to the end,” Jack Doyle said in a tight voice. “If I were a young man, I’d have joined up like a shot. That Hitler’s got to be stopped. As for our Sean, he couldn’t be in much more danger than he is now, working for the Civil Defence Messenger Service.”

As soon as the air-raid siren sounded, Sean went off on his bike to the nearest ARP Depot, ready to deliver messages if communications broke down. Jack knew if he lost his only son it would break his heart, but so be it, it was a sacrifice worth making. He’d always hated Fascists and everything they stood for. The idea of his country being overrun by Germans with their monstrous creed, of his good friend Jacob Singerman from across the road being carted off to a concentration camp for being a Jew, was an abomination that tilled him with horror. He would not just have willingly laid down his own life and that of his only son, but the lives of his entire family, to prevent it.

“Where’s our Tony gone?” Eileen asked, conscious that the thumping of the football in the yard had ceased.

“I sent him with our Dominic and Niall for some fish and chips,” said Sheila. “The poor kids haven’t had a bite to eat since the reception, what with all the upset. Now you’re back, I’ll feed this lot and get them to bed. Give us a hand, the pair o’yis.”

Eileen took Mary, whilst her dad eased his massive frame out of the chair and reached for Ryan. The little girls groaned and rubbed their eyes sleepily -when they were dislodged from their mam’s knee. “It’s like having a whole bloody school of grandchildren,’Jack grumbled.

“Well, you won’t have any more for the time being, Dad,” Sheila said firmly, “least not off me. Cal’s put his foot down; no more kids till there’s no more war. He said six kids and a wife is already enough to worry about whilst he’s away at sea.”

They carried the children across the street to Number 21. “Send the boys home if they come back to yours, sis,”

Sheila said to Eileen as she was leaving, adding in a whisper, “Don’t forget, there’s always room on the sofa In the parlour for you and Tony if there’s trouble from you-know- who.”

“Ta, Sheil, but I don’t think that’s likely.” What was it Francis had whispered as soon as he’d come home? “I’m sorry about the way things have gone in the past, particularly last Christmas. But I promise I’ll be a good husband from now on. You have my word on that, luv.”

As soon as she was back in her own house, Eileen put the kettle on. “Would you like a cuppa, Dad?” she called when he came in.

“No, ta, I’m parched for a pint. I’ll be off in a minute.

Will you be all right, like?” He nodded upstairs. He was never quite sure what Francis had done to his girl, but it must have been something pretty bad to make her want to leave him, not to have him back. It were nowt to do with Nick at the start. Nick had turned up once the decision had been made. He shuffled his size-twelve boots awkwardly on the shiny oilcloth. “Y’know, luv, you can still see him.”

She knew straight away he meant Nick, and shook her head emphatically. “No, I can’t, Dad.”