Martha's Girls

by Alrene Hughes

  *

  Oldpark Presbyterian church sat atop a slight incline, a little back from the main road, a sturdy red-brick building with a small steeple. The church, like its congregation, was not one for show.

  ‘Pat, what’s that wireless doing there?’ whispered Sheila.

  ‘It’ll be for the broadcast.’

  ‘What broadcast?’

  ‘The Prime Minister is going to tell everyone whether there’s to be a war. I never thought they’d allow a wireless in church, but if they didn’t, I suppose people would be wondering what was being said and wanting to get home to find out.’

  At eleven o’clock exactly the Reverend Lynas stepped up to the pulpit. ‘Welcome everyone, on this momentous day. A day that could see our lives changed irrevocably. Mr. Chamberlain will speak to the British nation this morning and I have taken the unprecedented step of setting up the wireless so that we can hear what he has to say. Before then we will sing hymn number ninety seven ‘Come Down, Oh Love Divine.’’

  At eleven fifteen exactly, for the first time ever, the sound of an English accent reverberated around the church as Neville Chamberlain explained that Chancellor Hitler had not responded to the ultimatum to leave Poland and ‘that consequently this country is now at war with Germany.’

  The broadcast ended … no one moved … no one spoke. Poland, Germany and indeed England seemed so far away that some wondered how any of this could touch their lives. But those, like Martha, who had lived through the Great War, knew that the tentacles of war were long and would draw in those like themselves on the very fringes before it was done. Over twenty years before, the last conflict had hung over her youth like a black cloud, draining the pleasure from every day. Now she feared this war would do the same to her girls and for a moment she cursed men for bringing war on women. She might have cursed God too had she not been in church. Instead, she joined in the prayers being said to keep them safe and for a speedy resolution to the conflict.

  Outside, people stood around talking about the announcement and Martha was listening to Betty and Jack Harper, her next-door neighbours, discussing the best way to put up blackout curtains when Ted Grimes joined them.

  ‘Good day, Martha.’ Even without his uniform Ted looked like a policeman: tall of course, but more than that, upright, shoulders back, an air of authority about him.

  ‘What do you think, Mr. Grimes,’ asked Betty. ‘Do you think there’ll be bombing?’

  He had a habit of looking into the distance when he was thinking, as though answers came to him from some unknown source. ‘Ah well, Mrs. Harper, I’m minded to think we’re just a wee bit beyond the reach of Hitler and his Luftwaffe. He’d be lucky to get to Liverpool and back without running out of fuel, but across the Irish Sea as well? I doubt it meself.’ Martha noticed how Betty and Jack held on to his every word as though it was he and not the British Prime Minister who had his finger on the pulse and knew the full implications of today’s events.

  ‘Mind you,’ he lowered his voice, ‘we mustn’t forget the unknown factor in all of this.’ He paused, while Betty and Jack considered what that might be, then looked over their heads to where the answer lay. ‘The Republic,’ he said simply. ‘Which way will they line up? With the goose-stepping Germans or behind those of us they share this island with? Oh yes,’ he added, ‘if you’re an Ulsterman, keep your eyes on the Irish, not the Germans.’ Martha registered the look of shock on the faces of her elderly neighbours and caught the wink aimed at her. With that, he raised his hat and wished them good morning.

  Sheila, sitting alone on the church wall waiting for her family to stop socialising, also saw the wink and she didn’t like it, not one little bit. Mr Grimes had called at the house a few times since her father had died. Mrs Grimes hadn’t been with him. In fact she was rarely seen outside, she never came to church and although she was a family friend she never came to visit. Sheila knew she wasn’t well; something to do with her nerves. Lately, Mr Grimes had taken to dropping in when he was either going on or off shift. Last week, when she’d come in from school, his gun and peaked cap with the Irish harp badge were on the kitchen table. She’d gone through to the front room and there he was, bold as brass, drinking tea. He stood up to go when she came in. ‘Now, don’t you forget, Martha, I’m here if you need anything doing. Anything at all,’ he said as he passed Sheila on his way to the kitchen, presumably to retrieve his cap and gun.

  From where she sat, Sheila watched those who lingered chatting in the sunshine and was surprised to see Reverend Lynas deep in conversation with Irene. It wasn’t like her to get drawn into a religious discussion, yet there she was listening attentively, giggling occasionally in the way she always did when she talked to a man, no matter what his age and the minister was positively ancient. She was nodding, as though agreeing to something. She’d ask her about that when they got home.

  *

  ‘But it can’t be right!’ shouted Peggy. She had stopped sewing and pushed the heavy black curtain away from her. ‘You must be entitled to more than that.’

  Martha didn’t look up, but continued making neat hemming stitches. ‘Oh it’s right, all right,’ she said, passing the needle through a loop of thread and drawing it tight to finish off the hem. ‘I told you, the manager explained it all to me, I’m to get ten shillings a week pension. It would have been different if he’d died in an accident, but a burst appendix is like an act of God, no one’s fault.’ She drew the hem up to her mouth and bit off the thread. ‘He said our family was grown up and earning, except for Sheila, and she’d be fourteen soon enough and able to bring home a wage.’

  ‘I’m going to go and see that manager and I’ll tell him it’s wrong. He’ll listen to me or he’ll get what’s coming to him,’ said Peggy.

  ‘I don’t think you giving him a piece of your mind will get another farthing out of him, Peggy. Rules are rules and we’ll just have to lump it,’ said Pat.

  ‘The McCrackens must have plenty of money,’ suggested Irene. ‘Maybe they’d lend us some.’

  ‘I can’t just ask them for money,’ Martha was appalled at the suggestion.

  ‘Why not? They’re your cousins and they must have plenty of money if they own a shop.’

  ‘Even if they lent us money for the rent this week, where would we get it for next week or the week after? Answer me that!’ Martha looked round the table. No answer.

  Pat fetched a jotter and pencil and began scribbling. After a few minutes she circled a figure. ‘I’ve calculated all our income and outgoings and what we need is another wage like Irene’s and mine. Now in three months they might let Sheila start work in the mill and we could just about manage.’

  ‘In three months! We’ll be out on the street in three weeks, if we can’t pay the rent,’ said Martha.

  ‘And if we pay the rent, we’ll starve within a month,’ added Peggy.

  ‘Don’t exaggerate. We could live on bread and dripping,’ said Irene, ‘and we’ll walk to work and back.’

  ‘I think you’re all forgetting something. I don’t want to go to work yet; I’m staying at school.’ Sheila turned to her mother. ‘Mammy, that’s right isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know, love, we’ll have to see.’

  ‘I’m not going to work in a mill!’

  ‘Maybe something’ll turn up. It always does and there’s time yet to decide,’ said Martha.

  ‘So, you’d better make the most of it.’ Peggy chipped in.

  ‘And you’d better mind your own business,’ screamed Sheila.

  ‘It’s time you started pulling your weight around here,’ Peggy said bluntly. ‘You’ve always had it easy. We’ve had to help round the house since we were tall enough to set a table or reach the sink. But you—’

  This could go on all night, thought Irene, time to change the subject. She’d been saving her news to talk about at teatime, but it was just the diversion needed.

  ‘Let’s worry about all that later. Do you want to hear some good news?
’ She secured her needle in the hem. ‘The Reverend Lynas wants to know if we would sing at a concert he’s organising. It’s for the Red Cross to raise money for medical supplies and the best bit is … ’ She paused for effect. ‘It’s in the Grosvenor Hall!’

  ‘The Grosvenor Hall!’ gasped Pat. ‘But that’s one of the biggest halls in Belfast; nearly as big as the Opera House.’

  ‘Sure it holds nearly two thousand people,’ said Irene her voice rising. ‘Can you imagine singing on that stage?’

  ‘When’s this concert happening?’ asked Martha, trying to suppress her excitement.

  ‘A week on Saturday. We can sing three songs and I’m to let the Reverend Lynas know which ones by Wednesday night so they can be printed in the programme.’

  ‘We don’t have to sing hymns, do we?’ asked Pat. ‘I know the Grosvenor Hall is a kind of church, but if this is a concert where people are going to pay to get in, they won’t want to listen to hymns all night, will they?’ Pat’s initial excitement was dwindling, but Irene quickly reassured her.

  ‘No. No. We’ll be able to sing something modern. Something with …’ She searched for the word. ‘Swing!’ She moved her arms from side to side as though throwing something gently over her shoulders and at the same time clicking her fingers in rhythm.

  ‘Nothing’s impossible I have found’ she sang.

  Pat sang the second line an octave higher and they turned to Peggy, expecting her to sing the next line. To their amazement she was still sewing, head bowed over the blackout curtain. The song stopped abruptly.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Pat.

  Peggy looked up, her face expressionless. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know perfectly well. Not joining in means you’ve got it on you about something.’

  ‘Why should I join in? It’s got nothing to do with me what you two sing.’ She bent again to her stitching.

  ‘Peggy, we’re going to have to decide on our three songs, so we can start rehearsing right away. Sure it’s not long ‘til a week on Saturday.’

  Peggy spoke as though she was explaining something to a five year old. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me, because I won’t be at the Grosvenor Hall a week on Saturday.’

  Her sisters looked at her in stunned incomprehension, but Martha had raised this child and recognised that ingrained tendency Peggy had to cut off her nose to spite her face. Oh aye, thought Martha, I see what you’re doing, my girl.

  ‘Peggy, you’re needed to play the accompaniment and if you don’t go, Irene and Pat can’t either.’

  Chapter 3

  Mrs McQuade arrived in her classroom at the Girls’ Model School looking flushed and carrying two large bags.

  ‘Now girls, there’s going to be so many young men joining up to fight in this terrible war, it’s up to us to do something for them in return and as young women we have the skills to give them something they will come to need desperately …’ She paused for effect, smiling broadly. Sheila could see Jeannie Cameron’s ginger pigtails shaking two rows in front as she tried to suppress her giggles, but Mrs McQuade was too wrapped up in her master plan for defeating Hitler to notice. ‘Scarves!’ she announced. ‘Each of us will send a scarf to a soldier.’ She paused again as though surprised by her impromptu slogan and then emptied both bags over the work bench covering it in a rainbow of coloured wool, to the sound of falling knitting needles.

  Sheila had been taught to knit when she was five and by the time the bell rang for the end of school, she had six inches of scarf in moss stitch and a half-formed idea that would take her on a detour on the way home. Around the school were terraced streets of kitchen houses that ran like the weft in the fabric of north Belfast, between the main roads that led out of the city. Sheila wove her way through them to the corner of Manor Street where John McCracken kept his grocers shop and lived a good Christian life with his sisters Aggie and Grace and their Aunt Hannah.

  On the pavement in front of the shop, wooden crates of vegetables were tilted against the wall below the window; the scales stood on an upturned crate and the large brass scoop, dulled by a thin covering of dust, lay on top of a sack of blue potatoes. Sheila hesitated. What had seemed like a good idea an hour before, when she cast on her stitches, now seemed like madness.

  ‘Hello, Sheila!’ Aggie McCracken swung her callipered leg out of the doorway and into the street and held fast to the doorpost as her good leg followed it. She wore a floral overall of blue and yellow and the late afternoon sun glinted on her wire-rimmed glasses. ‘What brings you down here? Did your Mammy forget something on Saturday?’

  ‘No …’ Sheila hesitated. ‘… she just asked me to call round on my way home to see if you were all right. In case maybe you were worrying about anything. You know, with the announcement of the war and all …’ Her voice trailed off; it sounded pathetic, but Aggie looked pleased.

  ‘Oh that’s grand. Come on, on in and have a wee cup a tea. We can go in the back. Sure we’ll listen out for the bell if there’s a customer.’

  ‘Is John not in?’

  ‘No, he’s had to go away down the town; didn’t say what for. He’ll be back soon but.’

  They passed through a heavy chenille curtain and into the back room which served as both kitchen and sitting room. There was a small iron fireplace with tiled sides and a low fire, more ash than flame, burned in the grate. The smell of baking filled the room and Sheila saw on the table the two matching halves of a sponge cake and beside them a jar of raspberry jam with a knife sticking out of the top. Aggie filled the kettle and put it on the gas stove, then brought out china cups, saucers and piece plates, white with gold rims. The McCrackens could afford to have such things for everyday use.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing, right enough, this war.’ Aggie began. ‘Never thought it would come to this.’ She shook her head and began spreading the raspberry jam thickly on one of the sponge halves. ‘Thought our prayers had been answered when Mr Chamberlain came back from Munich…’ She sandwiched the two halves together. ‘… picture of him on the front of the Belfast Telegraph with that piece of paper. Useless it was.’ She limped across to the larder and came back with a tall sweetie jar filled with caster sugar. She unscrewed the lid and, in one quick movement, dipped her hand inside and scattered a handful of sugar over the top of the sandwich. ‘Peace in our time. Aye, well it wasn’t to be, was it?’ She sighed and cut two generous wedges of sponge, put each on a piece plate and handed one to Sheila.

  ‘What do you think’ll happen to us?’ asked Sheila as she took a bite of the cake. ‘Will we be bombed, do you think?’

  ‘Well now, John seems worried. Sat there last night, read out a bit from the paper about air raid patrols they’re getting up. Then Grace pipes in with the talk from Robb’s, about how the manager says they’re to have fire buckets in each department filled with water. In the end John got out the good book and read the story of David and Goliath to cheer us all up.’ At that moment there was a loud banging from above. ‘Bless us! She’ll have the ceiling in, that one.’

  ‘Is Aunt Hannah not so good today?’

  ‘Oh she’s up an’ down. You wet the tea, there’s a good girl,’ said Aggie, ‘and I’ll see to her.’

  Sheila had no sooner made the tea, when the shop bell rang. She’d watched John many a time serve customers and over the next twenty minutes she sold bread, potatoes, sweets and cigarettes as if she’d been doing it all her life. By the time Aggie popped her head through the chenille curtain she was really beginning to enjoy herself. I could easily do this, she thought.

  ‘Wee bit of a rush was there?’ asked Aggie. ‘That’ll be the four o’clock shift from the mill. Good job you were here.’

  It’s now or never, thought Sheila. ‘Aunt Aggie, do you think, there’s any chance—’ The shop bell rang behind her and moments later John McCracken, a tall man, with a bony face and thinning hair entered. He looks different, thought Sheila. Then she realised it was because she was used to s
eeing him in the brown cotton coat he always wore when he worked in the shop and here he was in the suit he usually wore to church.

  ‘Hello, Sheila. How’s your mother keeping?’ He had an odd way of smiling, so fleeting that Sheila wondered whether she had actually seen a smile, or simply a stretching of his lips that caused his teeth to show for a moment.

  ‘Not too bad, Uncle John.’

  ‘There’s tea on,’ said Aggie.

  In the back kitchen, John took off his suit jacket and hung it carefully on a wooden hanger behind the back door. He put on the brown coat, deep in thought as he buttoned it up. Once or twice he looked about to speak, then seemed to think better of it. He settled himself in the wing-backed chair next to the fire and took a drink from his tea.

  ‘I did a lot of thinking last night, thinking and praying.’ He nodded to himself and went on. ‘God is on our side in this war. He’ll defeat the Nazis all right. But to my way o’ thinking, he won’t do it on his own. No, he’ll do it through good Christian people, people who hear his call. So, I took myself down town to see about this here ARP work. There’s an office in the City Hall where they tell you all about it, the fire-watching and checking folk are keeping to the blackout …’ His voice trailed off. He took a long drink of his tea and stood to place the cup and saucer on the table. Then as though addressing a public meeting, he straightened himself up, lifted his chin and spoke to the mirror over the fire. ‘And the upshot of it is, I’ve signed up for an ARP warden and I’m to report for training Saturday afternoon.’