by Anne Bennett
‘What? What?’
‘If I told you it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?’
‘Ah, Mammy.’
‘Don’t ah Mammy, me,’ Lizzie said with a smile.
‘Will we like it?’ Niamh asked. ‘Is it a nice surprise?’
‘I think so.’
‘Will Tom like it, or will I like it more?’
‘I imagine you’ll both like it.’
‘Is it something real or not?’
‘It’s something I’m not going to say another thing about, my girl, until we get there,’ Lizzie said firmly. Johnnie crossed to the window and looked out. He knew they were passing the backs of houses. He could see the outline of them in the gloom and yet he could see no lights. As far as he could tell there was darkness. It was quite an odd feeling and one he’d never experienced before, and he pulled down the blind and fastened it at the bottom, shutting out the night.
Johnnie had never seen a railway station like New Street either, but then he had to admit he’d seen little past his own hometown. Apart from his sojourns to Sligo, and later leaving the girls at Dun Laoghaire, he’d never ventured far. He was glad Lizzie seemed to know her way around. She didn’t seem bothered at all by the throngs of people, nor the noise of panting engines clattering into the station, coming to a halt with squealing brakes and the hiss of water that sometimes dribbled onto the tracks. Niamh didn’t appear unnerved at all either, and nor did Tom, who seemed to care for nothing but holding tight to his mammy’s hand.
Lizzie pushed her way through the raucous, noisy crowds and found the porter she was searching for. He piled their luggage on his trolley and took them outside to the taxi rank. There were still shoppers on the streets; Johnnie could see them scurrying from one shop to another, but the shops were in total darkness and it seemed odd to see no lights at all, no street lamps, and the lights on the taxi barely made an impression on the intense blackness.
When they alighted in the pitch-dark street, minutes later, Johnnie was more than glad he’d brought the flashlight. ‘Where d’you live, ducks?’ the driver asked.
‘Down the yard,’ Lizzie answered, jerking her head towards an entry.
‘Right, guv’nor,’ the driver said to Johnnie, ‘I’ll take the trunk if you have the cases. And you,’ he said to Tom, ‘leave go of your ma’s hand so she can bring the bags and you cop hold of this instead.’ He handed Tom the flashlight. ‘Shine it in front so as you don’t go arse over elbow,’ he directed, and Tom walked importantly in front of them all.
Celia opened the door to them. ‘This is a friend of mine, Celia,’ Lizzie said. ‘Say hello, children.’
But Tom’s eyes were disappointed. ‘Is that the surprise?’ he asked, but then a little dusky face peered around Celia as she opened the door wider for the taxi driver to pass through.
‘A baby,’ Niamh breathed, and Tom cried, ‘Oh boy, a baby. Is that the surprise, Mammy? Did Jesus send us a baby?’
The innocence of childhood, Lizzie thought. The taxi driver looked from Lizzie to Celia and then to the child and gave a shrug. It was none of his business. Lizzie left Johnnie to pay him while she was taking off the children’s coats so they could play with Georgia. However, Georgia wanted no one but the mammy she missed and was unnerved by the strangers. Her big eyes brimmed with tears and she lifted her arms. ‘Mammy, Mammy.’
‘Sit down with her,’ Celia advised. ‘It’s you she wants. I have some stew ready just to heat, but will you have a cup of tea to be going on with?’
‘Aye, that will be grand,’ Lizzie said, struggling out of her own coat to lift the child while the children plied her with questions. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll tell you all,’ she said. She’d rehearsed this many a time and she told them, ‘I’m minding the baby. Her name is Georgia.’
‘She called you Mammy,’ Niamh said.
Lizzie had forgotten the child could talk. ‘She probably thinks I am, for she has no mother,’ she told Niamh. ‘Poor Shirley was killed in one of the air raids.’
‘Ah, that’s sad.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Lizzie said. ‘And her daddy is American and in the army and overseas at the moment.’
Georgia was regarding the two children solemnly and Niamh said, ‘Isn’t she brown, Mammy?’
‘Aye,’ Lizzie said. ‘That’s because her daddy is black.’
‘Black?’
Neither child had ever seen a black man, Lizzie realised; nor Johnnie either, of course.
Johnnie was quiet for he was looking about the room in amazement. He never imagined his sister living in such an awful place, yet the children accepted it as a matter of course, had chosen to come back to it. And he had to admit it was clean and tidy, apart from the toys on the floor, and quite cosy with the fire roaring up the chimney and the spluttering gas lamps lit. He resolved to hide his shock and make this Christmas one to remember.
A parcel with American stamps on it had come for Lizzie while she’d been away, and she opened it immediately for the children were dying to see what was in it. From the box she lifted the most exquisite doll she’d ever seen. Its hands were china and the eyes opened and shut, and her tummy was soft but when pressed the doll said ‘Mama’. It was wearing a red jumper and blue skirt beneath a navy coat and matching hat, and on its feet were leather boots and knitted socks. Lizzie could quite understand the exclamation of delight from Niamh and Celia. She had seen nothing like it.
‘Who’s it from?’ Niamh said.
‘There’s a letter,’ Celia commented, handing it to Lizzie. As she opened it, dollar bills fluttered to the floor, and Johnnie collected them up as Lizzie scanned the letter.
‘It’s from Georgia’s grandmother in America,’ she told the children truthfully, ‘and as Scott—that’s the name of Georgia’s daddy—has told her I have two other children she has sent the money for the rest of us.’
‘It’s fifty dollars,’ Johnnie said. ‘But I bet that doll cost a pretty penny.’
‘Aye,’ Lizzie replied, ‘and though I will, of course, write and thank her, how can I give it to a child of thirteen months—she’d have it destroyed before the day is out. I’ll have to put it away till she is a good bit older.’
‘She can have Maisie if she likes,’ Niamh said.
‘Ah, Niamh, that’s kind of you, but…’
‘And my teddy,’ Tom said. ‘She can have my teddy.’
Lizzie was overwhelmed by the children’s generosity and their acceptance of Georgia, and she was so very glad she’d brought them home. It was where they belonged.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The children settled back to life in the inner ring of Birmingham as if they’d never been away, but Lizzie didn’t know how far Johnnie had progressed along the line with Celia. She’d given them as much time alone as she could, without it seeming obvious, and once suggested a wee walk in the evening.
‘What’s the fun of walking in the blackout?’ Celia said.
‘Okay, what about the pictures then?’
‘What about them?’
‘Come on, Celia. You never go over the doorstep except to go to work.’
‘Neither do you.’
‘I’m a married woman with responsibilities.’
‘You’re a widow.’
‘I still have the responsibilities.’
‘You’re not reneging on them if you take a few hours off to see a film.’
‘Celia, stop being aggravating. Johnnie has never seen a film in his life and neither have you. How Green Was My Valley is on at the Broadway and The Maltese Falcon at the ABC on Bristol Road.’
In the end Celia went to both, and raved on so much about How Green Was My Valley that Lizzie and Violet went to see it, leaving Johnnie and Celia listening out for the children.
‘How’s the romance going?’ Violet said as they set off down the road.
‘Search me,’ Lizzie answered with a shrug.
Celia could have told her that she liked Johnnie a lot, although she didn�
�t know whether she was attracted to him sexually, for she kept those feelings firmly under lock and key. Johnnie had confessed he loved her, had always loved her, but she wasn’t ready for such a declaration.
‘I’m not ready to settle down, Johnnie,’ she told him. ‘Not with you or anyone else, and I’ll never leave Lizzie as long as she still needs me.’
‘She’d not want you to feel this way.’
‘How the hell do you know how she wants me to feel?’ Celia snapped. ‘Oh aye, she’s selfless enough to tell me to go out and get a life for myself, but I’ll not do that. As long as she needs me, I will stay with her.’
‘That could be years and years, your whole lifetime.’
Celia shrugged. ‘If it is, it is.’
‘You’re wasting your life.’
‘I don’t see it that way.’
‘Is there any point in hoping?’
‘No, not really,’ Celia told him.
‘I can still write to you, can’t I?’ Johnnie asked dolefully.
‘If you want to,’ Celia said. ‘As long it’s just as a friend.’
It wasn’t what Johnnie wanted to hear and yet Celia spoke with such determination he knew there was no point in pleading further.
The day before New Year, Niamh said, ‘Haven’t we got to go and visit Granny?’ She gave a shudder as she spoke, for the woman scared her to death. Tom, zooming his toy cars over the lino, stopped his play at Niamh’s words.
Lizzie chose hers with care. ‘Your granny’s not too well at the moment.’
‘Again?’ Niamh said. ‘Like she was before when you had to see to her?’
‘No,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s not that sort of ill. This time her mind became sick when she heard of daddy being killed. She’s in a special hospital and it’s not a place children visit.’
Tom’s sigh was audible and heartfelt. ‘Oh, that’s all right then,’ he said, and returned to his cars.
Lizzie’s amused eyes met Johnnie’s over the children’s heads, and she tried to hide her smile.
‘You shouldn’t say that, Tom,’ Niamh said primly.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, it’s like…it sounds as if you don’t care.’
‘Well I don’t,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t like her much. I don’t see how anyone can like her. She’s a bitch. I’ve heard people say so.’
‘Tom! That’s a bad word.’ Niamh was scandalised.
Lizzie thought it time to step in. ‘That’s enough from the two of you,’ she said. ‘Now it’s bedtime. Put your cars away now, Tom, there’s a good boy.’
Tom did as his mother bade him obediently enough, but as he passed his sister on his way to the stairs, he said, ‘I don’t want to visit her ever, ever, ever again, so there!’
‘Tom!’
Lizzie shooed the children up the stairs and came down to see Johnnie and Celia trying to muffle their chuckles. Lizzie too was smiling as Johnnie said, ‘I see Flo is a much-loved and valued member of your family.’
‘Oh aye, she is,’ Lizzie replied sarcastically. ‘And you can’t blame the child totally either. He’s just expressing how we all feel.’
‘I’d use more colourful language if I was asked to describe her,’ Celia said.
‘No doubt,’ Lizzie replied. ‘But I just thank God she’s in a place where she can hurt no one any more.’
‘Amen to that,’ Celia agreed with feeling.
Johnnie returned home, and before the schools opened Lizzie went up to see Father Connolly about enrolling her children at St Catherine’s. ‘I haven’t seen you at Mass recently,’ he said, regarding Lizzie across the desk.
‘No, Father,’ Lizzie replied. She offered no reason, no excuse.
‘Why is that?’
‘You know why, Father. Why ask the road you know?’
‘And yet you want your children to have a Catholic education?’
‘Of course I do, Father,’ Lizzie cried. ‘None of this is their fault.’
‘It isn’t God’s, Lizzie, and yet you choose to punish him.’
‘Not God, no,’ Lizzie said. ‘I still pray. But d’you know, Father, I no longer fear the cloth and I’m afraid I also have little respect left in me, particularly for the clergy.’
‘And yet you want the children…’
‘It is their immortal souls at stake now, Father. And for their sake I will go to church, go through the motions at Mass and endeavour to bring them up good Catholics.’
Father Connolly knew that really he could expect no more and so when Lizzie said, ‘So will you take my children into the school, Father?’ he nodded his head.
Now that Lizzie was at home every day she was grateful for the money Scott sent. There had been little in the shops to buy Niamh and Tom for Christmas, so in February she took up Violet’s offer to mind Georgia and used some of the money to buy tickets for a pantomime—a first for the children and Celia too. Lizzie remembered her first experience of this type of entertainment and wondered what the others would make of it.
It was Cinderella, and from the first moment Niamh and Celia sat transfixed with delight. They loved everything: the setting and costumes seemed almost magical and Niamh thought Cinderella so beautiful in her shimmering ball gown it almost hurt to look at her. All the risqué jokes went over the children’s heads, but they laughed uproariously at the funny parts and booed and hissed as loud as any when the baddies entered the stage.
When eventually the show drew to a close, Lizzie didn’t have to ask the children if they’d enjoyed it, for their eyes shone with excitement. ‘Oh, Mammy, that was terrific,’ Niamh said, and Tom nodded his head enthusiastically. ‘Can we come again?’
‘Maybe,’ Lizzie answered. ‘But not a pantomime necessarily. There are other things to see. Maybe now Niamh is old enough to look after you, you could go to the pictures at the Broadway on a Saturday morning.’
‘I can look after myself.’
Lizzie didn’t argue, but Niamh knew that unless she went with her brother he wouldn’t be allowed to go on his own. She didn’t mind; it was the lot of elder sisters and she’d always wanted to go to the thrupenny crush herself, for lots of her friends in the streets and school had spoken of it. So when Lizzie said, ‘What d’you say, Niamh?’ she nodded her head enthusiastically.
‘I’d love it, Mammy,’ and she added quietly, seeing Tom was discussing the merits of Cinderella with Celia, ‘I’ll keep an eye on Tom, never fear.’
‘How did you like it, Celia?’ Lizzie asked as they boarded the tram for the short ride home.
‘It was grand, wonderful,’ Celia said, and added, ‘almost as good as dancing lessons.’
Lizzie smiled. Worried about Celia and remembering her own loneliness in the city after Tressa had got married, she’d booked a set of dance lessons at a place in Digbeth and had given it to Celia for Christmas.
Celia had been almost speechless with pleasure and she had enjoyed the lessons immensely. Lizzie had come to a decision. If they were to live in Birmingham, they’d embrace city life, not hide away from it. True, there was still the blackout and rationing, men were still getting killed and cities bombed, but there were the cinemas and variety halls and dance halls that the German planes hadn’t attacked and maybe they should make use of them.
Just after the visit to the pantomime, Lizzie read in the paper that the Japanese had finally been repulsed in Guadalcanal by the Americans, who still held Henderson Airport. Lizzie wondered if that was where Scott had been sent. She couldn’t ask him directly for the censor would never pass such a letter, nor could he reply with any definite information. In the end, she wrote a letter asking if things were all right, and in the reply he said things were more peaceful.
Scott’s mother Sarah wrote too. Since the gift of the doll and the letter they’d been in regular contact, though Lizzie’s senses were alerted when Sarah asked if she had any photographs of Georgia that she could spare.
‘Why would she want photographs?’ she asked Celia. ‘Ne
xt she’ll want to see the child herself and then they’ll want to adopt her.’
‘Aren’t you jumping the gun a bit?’
‘Even so,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m giving her no snapshot, or anything else either.’
‘That’s your decision, and she’ll probably write again,’ Celia warned.
‘She can write all she wants,’ Lizzie said. ‘But no snapshots of Georgia are crossing the Atlantic.’
By the time spring was really in the air, Celia was out twice a week at dancing class, and with friends she made there she’d often go to a dance on Saturday.
‘She’s living a more normal life now,’ Lizzie said with satisfaction to Violet one evening.
‘And what about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘Life isn’t over for you, you know,’ Violet said. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t mind going to the pictures a time or two, and Barry wouldn’t mind. I mean, if he was down the boozer he’d never notice.’
And so once a week, with Celia quite willing to babysit, the two began going out, either to the Broadway or the ABC or into the city centre, a safer place now the raids were over. There had been an attack on 23rd April, but it had been just from one plane, the bomb landing in Little Bromwich, and neither Lizzie nor the others in the house had been roused and only read about it afterwards.
Lizzie was no longer self-conscious to be seen out with Georgia and this was mainly due to Niamh. Tom was always busy outside, building with the dust piles in the gutter or playing marleys up the street, or risking life or limb on the bombsites building dens and up to all kinds of devilment. Niamh, on the other hand, when she wasn’t playing hopscotch or practising her skipping, liked nothing better than pushing Georgia up and down the road, or leading her by the hand to Moorcroft’s.
There had been curiosity about this from the first, because the children outside of the court hadn’t had a really good look at Georgia until then. She was at nursery every day and seldom taken out at weekends since Scott had been sent overseas, and one day Lizzie had overheard how Niamh dealt with the other children’s questions.
