“What’s the matter, Sheil?” asked Brenda.
“What d’you think? I can’t get our Eileen out of me mind.”
“Oh, she’ll get over it,” Carrie said offhandedly. “People get over everything in time.”
Sheila dried her eyes on the curtain but didn’t answer.
She detested Carrie Banks with her couldn’t-careless attitude to everything. The woman was a bad influence on Brenda, for one thing. The two of them were standing in front of the mirror, giggling together, as Carrie showed Brenda how to apply eyeshadow and mascara. They were going to a dance on New Year’s Eve. The pair were smoking and flicking ash all over the polished floor.
Despite the fact Brenda had given up dressmaking, she’d managed to make them a frock each for the dance, though she looked ridiculous in the creation she’d run up for herself, a bright green crepe de Chine affair which was too tight, too short and too low in the neck. Brenda was dead plain and she’d never look anything else, no matter what finery she got decked up in.
“Would you like a drink, Sheila?” Carrie asked, waving a bottle of gin in her direction.
“No, ta, though I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.”
Neither woman made any attempt to go into the back kitchen, so Sheila went herself to put the kettle on. As far as she could make out, no-one would have eaten for three days if it had been up to Brenda and Carrie. Sheila had done all the cooking, and the cleaning, too.
Sheila sighed as she waited for the kettle to boil. She’d drink the tea out here, just to get a bit of peace away from the giggling which got on her nerves. She crept upstairs to make sure her children were safe and sound. They were still there, tucked together like sardines in the double bed.
There’d been a terrible row each night whilst they arranged their legs around each other and adjusted their arms. Now they looked like little angels, all six of them.
Six children, she thought breathlessly, all hers!
She went down, made the tea and drank it leaning against the sink. Outside, the wind was howling through the tall trees that bordered the large garden. Sheila opened the door to watch and listen. The sound was strange and rather eerie to someone who came from a town where there were few trees about, and those mainly in the park. She wondered how on earth her sister could have visualised living in such an isolated place, miles away from her family.
The bare trees were waving madly, like devils against the pink sky. Sheila quickly shut the door. It was frightening.
On the other hand, she thought sadly, if Francis hadn’t come home and Eileen had been living here, Tony would still be alive.
On Christmas Eve the women went back to Bootle. The previous night Liverpool had been let off relatively lightly and it had been the turn of Manchester to endure the main brunt of the heavy raid.
Sheila would have returned, raids or no raids, because Francis and Tony Costello were being buried that day.
What a terrible day for a funeral, Sheila thought; Christmas Eve and the sky overcast and grey and the wind whipping like razor blades through the wide open space of Ford Cemetery. She stood holding the arm of her white faced sister, her dad on the other side, with Sean behind like a guardian angel, looking grown up and important in his blue-grey uniform. He’d only been in the RAF a fortnight and had been allowed twenty-four hours’ compassionate leave.
The neighbours were all there, every single one, except Jacob Singerman who was too ill. George Ransome stood on the far side of the open grave, as stooped and grey-faced as an old man. He was weeping openly, as were Aggie Donovan and Ellis Evans and many of the other women.
Paddy O’Hara’s eyes wavered sightlessly over the crowd.
Even Rover seemed aware there was something unusual happening. He lay with his nose on his paws, whimpering softly every now and then.
Tony’s little coffin looked so pathetic when it was laid on top of the bigger one of his dad. Sheila took a long shuddering breath, determined not to cry because Eileen wasn’t crying. Her sister’s face was frozen, completely expressionless, as if she were beyond grief, and when it was time for her to throw a handful of soil into the grave, she put her hand in her pocket and threw something else in at the same time, Tony’s wire-rimmed spectacles.
“Someone found them,” Eileen said in a strange husky voice. “You never know, Tony might need his glasses wherever he might be.”
People couldn’t possibly have been more kind and sympathetic, but it was her son who’d been killed, not theirs. You couldn’t expect them to grieve as she was doing, not over Christmas, and she couldn’t stand the sight of women coming happily home laden with last-minute shopping, particularly the toys, nor the sound of carols and hoots of laughter coming from the King’s Arms. It would be even worse on Christmas morning when the kids played out in the street with their presents, particularly with Sheila living with her whilst her own house was being repaired.
On Christmas Eve, after the funeral had taken place, Eileen knew she had to get away, and there was only one place to escape to, and that was the cottage. She yearned for its peace and quiet.
“But you can’t go there!” said Sheila, horrified, when Eileen told her of her intention. “It’s so lonely.”
“That’s why I want to go,” Eileen said simply. Her dad and Sheila had been towers of strength, as had Sean for the short time he’d been home, but that was only another reason to leave her family behind. Like everyone, they’d had a tough time lately and she didn’t want to spoil their holiday merely by being there. They’d have to tread round on tiptoe, terrified of saying the wrong thing and hurting her feelings.
Ruth Singerman was the only person who seemed to understand, though even she wasn’t quite sure if it was the right thing to do. “I know it must get you down, the constant distractions when all you want is to be alone with your grief, but perhaps it’s not such a bad thing to have people around.”
Eileen shook her head stubbornly. “I can always come back if I need company, can’t I?”
“As long as you do,” warned Ruth. “Is your dad any better?”
Ruth shook her head worriedly. “He would have been upset anyway, because he loved Tony, but he regards himself as entirely responsible. If we hadn’t gone to the theatre, none of this would have happened.”
“That’s stupid!” He was such a dear silly old man, Jacob Singerman.
“It may be stupid, but it’s true,” Ruth said flatly. “To tell you the truth, I feel terrible myself. It was my idea to buy the tickets, not his.” She searched Eileen’s drawn face for absolution. The sensible part of her head told her it was indeed stupid to feel guilty over such an innocent act, but another part insisted she was far more responsible than her father. She felt even more guilty about laying all this on Eileen at such a moment, wanting her forgiveness when the poor woman was already totally distraught.
Forgiveness was instantly forthcoming. “I don’t blame anyone except the Germans,” Eileen said firmly, “not even Francis.” It would have been easy to blame Francis for taking Tony with him, too easy, but he’d only been doing his duty as a father. In fact, she blamed herself for not realising how badly he’d caught the gambling bug, for having gone to work at Dunnings in the first place. She sighed. “If you don’t mind, Ruth, I’d like to get away soon.”
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“Positive.”
Positive! Positive she’d be all right! How strange that you could talk so coherently and sensibly when you were tearing apart inside. She couldn’t imagine that she’d ever be all right again. Part of her had died along with Tony, and each night since she’d lain on the bed, and although she wished no harm to fall on the neighbours, she’d prayed one of the bombs screeching downwards would come through the ceiling and blow her to pieces as another bomb had done her little son. But the weapons had chosen other victims, other mothers, other sons.
There was a couple with two children on the Melling bus, taking presents to their grandma.
“Will she have mince pies?” the little girl asked.
“Aye, and crackers,” said the father.
“The sort you pull?”
“That’s right, luv, the sort you pull.”
“Merry Christmas!” the children called as Eileen got off at the Post Office. The driver and conductor shouted the same thing.
“And the same to you,” she said.
She walked down the silent, unlit lane which led to the cottage. The sky was black for a change; no moon, no searchlights, no red clouds. In fact, it was so dark she missed the gate, and walked right past before she realised she’d gone too far.
Sheila had told her the house had been left in a state. “I’m sorry, luv, but Brenda and that Carrie didn’t lift a finger. I did me best to clear it up before we left, but as fast as I did it got messed up again.”
Eileen swept the floor, made the beds and washed the dishes. It seemed important to have the place looking as she’d left it weeks ago. She lit the fire with rolled-up newspaper and one of the firelighters she’d bought when she thought she was moving in, gradually adding a few of the logs which were neatly stacked in the garden shed, until there was a roaring blaze. Then she made a cup of tea and switched on the wireless.
She sat there, warm and comfortable in the soft chair, with music swelling throughout the black-beamed, low-ceilinged room. The fire crackled and popped in a friendly fashion.
It looks pretty, she thought idly, so pretty. It would have been a nice place to live, particularly with Dunnings just along the road. Miss Thomas had said it would be all right to disappear about half past eight in the morning and make sure Tony was up, give him his breakfast and take him to school. He’d been really looking forward to playing football in the garden. Eileen stared deeply into the fire and tried to cry, because she hadn’t cried once since she learnt he was dead. Someone had said you felt better once you’d cried. But no matter how hard she concentrated, the tears wouldn’t come. Anyroad, there was no way she’d ever feel better. Her life was over, no longer worth living without her son. All that was left was an empty, aching shell of the person who’d once been Eileen Costello.
At a quarter to twelve, she put her coat on and went to Midnight Mass in St Kentigern’s, the little church in the High Street. By the time Mass began the church was crowded and the aisles were packed with worshippers forced to stand. The priest reminded them in his sermon that hundreds of people had died in Liverpool over the last few days and offered up prayers for them and their relatives.
Eileen told herself that she was not the only bereaved parent in the country, that there were others who’d also lost sons and daughters, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. The gnawing ache persisted and grew like an enormous lump of grief inside her.
She returned home and lay on the settee, watching the fire as one by one the logs collapsed, showering sparks, into a heap of glowing ash which slowly turned grey and then there was nothing. She began to shiver, not just because she was cold, although she was freezing, but because she suddenly had no control over her body. The shivering became violent and she could hear a woman screaming and realised it was herself.
“I want to die! Please let me die!” she pleaded.
At some time during the night, she fell into a fitful wretched sleep, but was woken by a car driving down the lane, its engine roaring. Dawn was just breaking and a slit of grey light showed through the curtains. It was Christmas Day and Tony would have found his presents by now; the jigsaw of a Spitfire, the Enid Blyton book, the box of soldiers. The nagging ache inside her hurt so fiercely she felt as if she might burst. She jumped up quickly and went out into the garden where she plunged into the ankle-high wet grass and began to run, waving her arms like a madwoman.
“Please let me die!” she screamed.
“Eileen!” a voice called loudly and urgently, but she ignored it because it could only be part of her nightmare, but the voice called again, even more loudly, “Eileen!”
She stopped running and looked back at the house. Nick was standing in the kitchen doorway looking at her in astonishment. “Have you gone mad?”
Eileen walked towards him. Nick! What on earth was he doing here? She was conscious of the fact that she felt nothing, absolutely nothing, yet this was Nick, the man she’d thought she’d love forever.
“You’ve got no shoes on!” he said irritably when she came near. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”
Eileen looked down at her stockinged feet. They were soaking. “I didn’t realise,” she said vaguely.
“There’s no fire lit inside, it’s freezing.” He frowned.
“What the hell’s going on? Where’s Tony?”
Eileen pushed past him into the kitchen. “Tony’s dead,” she said.
Nick’s frown disappeared. His face seemed to collapse in front of her eyes. “Jesus Christ!” he groaned. “Oh, no!”
He turned away as if he were about to cry, then turned back just as quickly. “My dearest girl, no wonder you wanted to die,” he cried hoarsely. “Come here.”
He picked her up bodily in his arms and carried her into the front room and laid her on the settee, where he removed her wet stockings and fetched an eiderdown from upstairs and tucked it around her.
“There!” he said gently. “There!”
He cleared the grate, relit the fire and made a cup of tea.
Whilst she drank it, he knelt on the floor and stroked her hair. “When did it happen?” he whispered.
“Friday night during the raid.”
His brown eyes glistened with emotion. “I loved Tony as a son,” he said softly.
“I know you did.”
“What on earth are you doing here all by yourself?” he demanded. His face twisted in alarm. “Please God, don’t tell me your family have come to any harm?”
“I just wanted to be alone, that’s all,” she assured him. The family are fine.”
“Including Francis?”
She shook her head. There were times when she completely forgot about Francis. He was dead, unmourned by his wife, but not by the neighbours, who thought the world had lost a great man.
“I can’t say I’m sorry,” Nick muttered.
“He didn’t turn out too bad in the end,” she said, feeling Francis should get the credit he deserved. “He was quite a good husband over the last few months. He never did either me or Tony any harm.”