That Liverpool Girl (55 page)

‘No buts. You are now in theatre. Mr Barr has allowed you in. I, however, would never have let you through the outer doors. Now listen to me. When I wedge open the inner doors, which are transparent, by the way, you will hear and see all you need to hear and see. Now shut up before I find sutures and sew up your speaking equipment good and proper, but. I’ll be with you in a tick. Do not follow me. I have a black belt in liturgy.’

He couldn’t see a thing. He could hear them all greeting his wife, but his view was a cream-painted wall with a crucifix on it. ‘I’ll be waiting, Eileen,’ he shouted. ‘I love you.’

She had been whisked away, but her guard returned and sat next to Keith. ‘There we go now, son. Even this difficult bit isn’t difficult, as it lasts just a few minutes. Will we have a bet? I say two girls. If I lose, you may keep my medal. If you lose, I’ll take from you a pound for Africa.’

‘I thought Africa would cost more than a quid; a fiver, at least.’

‘Very funny. The money’s for starving babies.’

‘Right.’

She laughed. ‘Now shut your mouth and open your ears. The second she goes under, the babies will be out. We don’t want the anaesthetic getting to them. So. What are they? Come on with you, get the bet placed before the race begins.’

‘One of each,’ he replied.

She prayed.

Within two or three minutes, the first cry arrived. ‘Thanks be to God,’ Mary Dominic muttered.

A second pair of lungs proclaimed loudly that they’d been all right in there, and why had they been disturbed? ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless this earthly family and stop the tears of the blithering idiot next to me.’ She turned to him. ‘You haven’t even seen them yet. What use are you going to be if you can’t turn the tap off?’

‘Will they bring them to me?’

‘And give the poor little souls another shock at the sight of you? Pull your mask up. I shall bring them in a few minutes. They need to be with Mammy for a while after they’re weighed, measured and tested, then I’ll get them for you. Straighten your face, you’ve a forehead like a ploughed field.’

‘Will Eileen be all right?’

‘She’ll be grand. Irish, strong as a horse, stubborn as a mule and fast as a flea. She told me earlier about the draining board for when she’s naughty. You’ve a great way of dealing with the besom, so. Ah, you’ll all be lovely, and that’s for certain sure.’

After what seemed like hours, Mary Dominic went and fetched the babies. ‘Keep your medal,’ were her first words. ‘One of each, you lucky boy. I’ll still take the pound for black babies, but.’

‘They’re the same size,’ Keith managed finally.

The nun nodded. ‘He’s cunning. He hid bits of himself all over the show; I think he must have had a cupboard. Six pounds, he is. The little girl is over seven, but it’s not as much difference as we suspected. Aren’t they beautiful? Caesars often are, you know, because they’re lifted from one bed to another, no struggle to be endured. Will you stop weeping. See? You have me at it now.’ She sniffed and dried her eyes on a handkerchief.

Keith couldn’t take his eyes off his children. Perfect features in miniature, downy blond hair, five delightful little toes on one kicked-free foot. ‘The day I married your mam was the best of my life so far. Till now. Hello, Francesca Helen. Hello, Francis Keith. We’d a few discussions about your names, but you’re Helen and Frankie. I’m your dad. Your mam’s unconscious, probably been on the Guinness again, the dirty stop-out, and this little lady is a nun. She’s a bride of Christ, and she nags. Like your gran.’

Mary Dominic sniffed. ‘Are you Catholic?’

‘No. But I married one, so I go to church with her most Sundays when she’s not confined to barracks, walk her to the altar, take a blessing instead of Communion bread. She has her doubts, but she hangs in there. A priest’s been bringing Communion to the house.’

Mary Dominic aired the opinion that a person without doubts was a person without a brain. ‘You are with God, Mr Greenhalgh. You’ll be a wonderful father. And they’ve the first of May for a birthday, which is the start of the month of Mary, who is fastened to your clothing. I want a pound for Africa.’

‘I’ll give you two.’

‘Good lad.’

Keith carried on weeping when his children were moved to the nursery. Mr Barr emerged, congratulated the tear-stained new father and told him that Eileen would sleep for a while. ‘She did well to go those extra weeks, Mr Greenhalgh. Oh, and the sisterhood’s had a little meeting. They’re putting a camp bed in your wife’s room, because they know you won’t go home. And you’re to get to the office and phone Eileen’s mother and her daughter, put them out of their misery.’

Keith shook the great man’s hand. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

Nellie, Elsie and Mel had a party courtesy of Crawford’s Cream Crackers, some mousetrap cheese, and two bottles of sparkling wine left by Miss Morrison. ‘She would have loved this day,’ said Mel, who was inebriated for the first time in her life. ‘She always said the house needed children. I miss her. I miss my mam. I miss my Keith-dad. I even miss my brothers. It’s coming to something when you miss your brothers,’ she told Elsie.

Nellie entered. ‘Right, that’s all at Willows informed.’ She glared at Mel. ‘How many glasses of that have you had, madam? Because you’re drunk. Your eyes are all over the place like glass marbles.’

‘One glass,’ replied Mel. ‘Only one.’

‘Two, she’s had.’ Elsie apologized to Mel. ‘Sorry, love, but you don’t want to be ill.’

They stayed up late mostly because of Nellie’s excitement, partly because she wanted to keep an eye on her oldest grandchild, who might be sick in her bed after taking drink, who might die as a result of inhalation, who was already fast asleep in an armchair.

The doors to hell opened fractionally at about eleven o’clock. Sirens screamed. People in the city sighed, put their kettles on, made tea, lifted children from their beds, carried them and tea-filled billy-cans to shelters before yet another raid. In Crosby and Blundellsands, few people bothered to move. It was just one more night, just a gesture so that folk would remember that Hitler and his forces were keeping an eye on the city and its environs. But doctors, nurses, firemen and ambulance drivers left the cosiness of bed or armchair and began the drive from outer to inner Liverpool. Nellie, Elsie and Mel went into Eileen’s cage. But they heard and felt the assault, and were still awake when the all-clear sounded at one in the morning. ‘My God,’ Nellie sighed. ‘That felt like they meant it.’

In Parkside, which was nearer by three miles to Liverpool, a new mother was disobeying the nuns. With a pillow under each arm, she supported her babies, cupped their heads and put them to her breasts.

‘You’ll have pain. You’ve been cut,’ declared Mary Dominic.

‘She’s made her mind up,’ Keith said.

‘I’ve made my mind up,’ came the echo.

‘The feeding of a child pulls at the womb,’ insisted the tiny Irishwoman. ‘You’ve been cut.’

Eileen raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Saints preserve me,’ she muttered. ‘I know I’ve been cut, Sister Mary Dominic. My belly probably looks as if it’s been thrown together by a blind tailor – I don’t know, because I can’t see it. This milk is my children’s birthright. It’s the best thing on God’s earth for them, it’s free, and I am full of vitamins. Even a couple of weeks at the breast will help them.’

A siren sounded. The nun took a whistle from her pocket and blew hard.

Eileen smiled. Her twins were clearly not of a nervous disposition, since they simply lifted up their arms in response to the blast. ‘They’re not deaf,’ she said as they continued to suckle. Mary Dominic apologized. She was in charge of blackouts, and the whistle served as warning to all the other sisters.

Keith went outside for a few minutes. He heard them long before he saw them, and he knew immediately that this show was not the same as previous incursions. Antiaircraft fire was deafening; those three miles nearer to town made a lot of difference. Incendiaries floated down in their hundreds, the resulting fires acting as beacons for the pilots above. Bombs vomiting from underbellies of Heinkels exploded all over the city; there must have been fifty or more planes. Then God’s heavens opened, and the Germans eased off. In spite of the rain, Liverpool burned.

Inside again when the planes had gone, Keith eavesdropped at Mother Superior’s door. She was whispering to her sisters. There had been a hundred or more incidents in the city, none in Bootle, some on the Wirral. He heard the words Cazneau Street, North Market, Batty’s dairy, and the names of many other shops in the city. ‘But, as far as I can tell, we are receiving no casualties here tonight, thanks be to God,’ was Mother Benedict’s final statement. Keith’s flesh crawled. This was the start of something new.

He cuddled his son while Eileen cooed over Helen. ‘That was noisy,’ she said, stroking her daughter’s cap of silky hair.

‘We’re nearer,’ Keith said.

‘I know we’re nearer, love. It felt different. There were a lot of them, too.’

Each bomb they dropped was estimated to weigh an enormous amount, but Keith wasn’t going to tell his wife that, not when she’d just had surgery, not while she had six children to worry about.

‘Take us home,’ she ordered.

‘Don’t talk daft, sweetheart.’

‘And when they come back and kill us all? We’re only about four miles from the edge of Liverpool.’

‘And you’ve got stitches, and you were in theatre just a few hours ago having two babies removed.’

‘We’ll have more than bloody stitches if we get a direct hit. Mr Barr can see me at home, and Dr Ryan will look after me.’

‘No.’

She tilted her head to one side. ‘That sounded very firm and decided.’

‘Because it was,’ he said. ‘Look, I know they’re fine, but they’re still slightly premature. They’ve to go back to the nursery in a minute, because they’re due for being stared at. That Sister Agatha never sleeps, or so I’m told. I hear she doesn’t even blink in case she misses something. You’ve done right by the twins so far. Just a few more days, darling. Please.’

Eileen sniffed. He knew she melted when he used that word. Nobody in Scotland Road ever said it; darling was for film stars. And for her, of course. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But don’t go blaming me if we’re all killed.’

‘I won’t.’ He returned to the task of examining his son’s hands. They had dimples instead of knuckles, but Frankie had a hell of a grip for a newborn. ‘He’ll be good for the tug of war team.’

Eileen snorted. She had married a madman.