A Billy or a Dan, or an Old Tin Can

by Paul Kelly

  Mary filled the kettle and put it on the gas.

  “Tom, I do have a lot of feelings for you. You must know that. Don’t think I am without love, but I could never forget my first husband, no matter how much I tried. Why every time I look at the children, they remind me of him especially our Willie. Willie is the image of his dad. You see, I am reminded of my first husband wherever I go and whatever I do.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to block out all your memories, Mary. I’m sure they are mostly happy ones, but your husband is no longer here and you should be happy again. He would want that, I’m sure. Look, Mary, I always wanted children and I was never blessed that way, but I LOVE the company of your children, each and every one of them. I look forward to the times when I can be with you all, here. I feel so much at home and these are my precious moments. The happiest of my life ...”

  Mary reflected long and hard on what Tom had said. She liked him ... Of course, she did and she knew that, but did she love him? That was the question she was asking herself as she poured the boiling water into the tea pot.

  “Tom, you do realise that I could never give you children. Not now. Not at my time of life.”

  “I know that Mary. I don’t expect that. I just want to look after you and share a few of the good things in life that we’ve both missed out on. You shouldn’t need to be cooking every day sewing endlessly and ironing until late in the evenings. You’ll get so tired out and life goes on It doesn’t WAIT for any of us, does it? Mary, we are adults. We’re not children in the first flush of love. We could enjoy life together. We could eat out regularly and you could cook WHENEVER YOU WANTED but you shouldn’t ever need to think that you HAVE TO DO IT.” Mary was wide eyed at the tremendous prospects that were put before her as Tom continued. “You could have a washing machine ... and not that old mangle where you have to sweat every time you dry a sheet. Why Mary, you haven’t even got a telephone and to have a few of these little niceties would not be wrong, surely. God would not begrudge you that.”

  Mary composed herself.

  “Tom, you are right. You are right in everything you say, but I would be happier if you would spend your money and your affections on someone younger and more caring. Don’t waste your time on me.”

  “But Mary, I ... I LOVE ... you and that makes all the difference. I don’t want anyone else. No-one else could make me happy and happiness the kind of happiness that I have shared with you and your family over the past few months is something that money cannot buy. Money is made to be used Mary; to be spent and to give pleasure and I have more than enough for the two of us, to be happy in each other’s company. Mary, I’m talking LOVE and not money. Please think about what I am saying. I’m serious. I’ve thought this out well. I love you, Mary Blair. I love everything about you. I love your children and I would be proud to have you as my wife.”

  Mary smiled and turned to him.

  “Will you stay for dinner, Mr. Carey,” she asked

  “Whatever will the neighbours think, Mrs. Blair?” he asked

  “Oh! Mr. Carey, Sir ... You haven’t brought all the neighbours with you, have you?” she giggled and they sat down happily together and laughed together as Tom took her in his arms.

  “I wish I’d met you years and years ago, my Love,” he said.

  ***

  Mary and Tom were married in June 1942. Two weeks after Willie had left school. It was a quiet wedding with only the family there and a few of the neighbours.

  ***

  Tom put the surprise to Mary just one month after the wedding. He had bought a house outside Glasgow in Rouken Glen; a house that had five bedrooms to accommodate his new family and it also had a large garden. There were two bathrooms, a large fitted kitchen with all mod. cons. and to put the icing on the cake, Mary had a little room of her own, where she could do all the things she had always wanted to do, like sewing, embroidery, reading, etc., and she felt like a queen.

  “I thought it was time the children now they are growing up, should have a bit of space to themselves,” was all that Tom would say.

  ***

  Sadie went into hospital to have her baby. Her health was fine by that time and she didn’t anticipate any worries. Mary was overjoyed and anxiously awaiting the new arrival at their new home and Tom was like an excited schoolboy. Anyone would have thought he was about to be the biological grand father. Had Sadie been his own daughter, he could not have been happier. Mary sat by the new topaz coloured telephone, dusting it from time to time, just to ensure that the sound would come through clearly of course.

  Several of the family spent the evening at the hospital with Sadie until the nurse ushered them out before the great arrival and at 12.35 in the morning of August 12th. 1942, little Fiona was born. She weighed six lb., five ounces. She was a pretty baby with a shock of dark hair and large brown eyes and there wasn’t a hungrier baby in the whole hospital, than Baby Blair. Willie could not take his eyes from her as she gurgled through her feeds and Charlie shyly stroked her tiny face, afraid that he might hurt her with his large, weather-beaten hands. Everyone took a turn at holding Fiona and Meggie who was allowed a special leave from her Unit for the birth, was ‘christened’ as she held her on her lap. Mary Blair was the proudest woman on earth as she looked from the baby to Sadie and from Sadie to Tom and then at all the family in turn, trying to capture forever in her mind, the joy on the faces of her loved ones. Tom had truly been accepted into the family and he basked in the pleasure this enrolment had afforded him

  Willie took careful note of the young nurse who was looking after his sister. She was fair and tall, with a clear complexion which was enhanced by her uniform as she glided gracefully through the wards. She had noticed Willie too.

  “Is that your brother, Sadie?”

  “Yes, I have two brothers ...which one do you mean?”

  “That dark haired boy with the gorgeous eyes,” Lindsey Peters struggled to prevent her blushes becoming obvious.

  “Would you like me to introduce you, Nurse?” Sadie asked just at the moment when Willie came striding into the ward, with a bunch of roses in his hand. “Willie This is Nurse Peters ... Lindsey ... I think that is your name, isn’t it?”

  Lindsey Peters shook Willie’s trembling hand and he knew his blushes were as obvious as those of the young nurse. They talked together for a short time and then the Sister called her to do something at the other end of the ward.

  “Sorry, I have to go Willie Bye.”

  “Can I see you again Lindsey?”

  “If you like ...”

  “When are you off duty, then?”

  “Six-thirty this evening, I’m free. I’ll be at the Nurses Home.”

  “Fine .... I’ll see you there then ... “

  “Bye, Willie.”

  “See you soon Lindsey.”

  Sadie looked on as the conversation came to an end and Willie sighed.

  “Are those flowers for me,” she asked.

  “Oh! Sorry Sadie Yes, of course they’re for you ...Who else?”

  Sadie smiled.

  “I was beginning to wonder, that’s all ... “

  She moved in her bed to make herself more comfortable and the baby lay in a little cot by her side.

  “Isn’t she just lovely Willie?”

  Willie looked to the other end of the ward, when he should have been looking at the cot.

  “Yes ... she’s a smasher,” he replied

  “I meant the baby, silly boy.”

  “What? Oh! Sorry, Sadie Yes, of course, she’s lovely. What else should she be? I’m her uncle aren’t I? What did Lindsey say her other name was Peters?”

  “No, Minnie Mouse.”

  “Ha! Ha! Feed your baby and pass me some of those grapes, will ye?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Willie got a job,
working with his brother, Charlie on the building site, shortly after he left school. The work was hard, but he was happy and he had dreams of becoming like Charlie, at least with his gorgeous and admirable tan, which he had envied for quite some time. He couldn’t wait to get up that scaffold and get his clothes off ... What would Lindsey Peters think of him then, he thought, with a roguish smile, but if his dreams were super-abounding, the weather was most unsympathetic. It rained hard for the first few weeks of his employment as an apprentice bricklayer and being a ‘Brickie’ didn’t have the same allure somehow, but there was always the consolation that when he returned home in the evenings after a hard days work, he had a bed to himself ... at last. He was a man now; a working man and that was his due, wasn’t it? He would curl up and stretch across the bed in every possible way, claiming every inch of that slumber mattress as his very own. It was sheer joy to have such privacy and yet ... he missed Charlie’s ragging and the fun they used to have together.

  ***

  Meggie was home on her ‘Embarkation Leave’, but she had no idea where she was going. She was told it was ‘ somewhere in the Middle East’ and that was all. For security reasons, any further information was withheld as it announced in large print all over the train platforms and on stiff placards. ‘THE WALLS HAVE EARS ...’

  Meggie and Sadie took the baby for a walk in the park and sat down under an oak tree with some stale bread to feed the birds. Sadie threw the bread clumsily as she rocked little Fiona in her arms.

  “Let me have her for a wee while, Sadie?”

  Sadie passed Fiona to her sister and they talked together as they continued to feed the hungry gulls.

  “Good afternoon, ladies.”

  The girls looked up to see Ross Schofield smiling down at them. It was Meggie who took the initiative.

  “Good afternoon,” she said very breezily, but Sadie scowled and stood up as she dusted her skirt and was about to leave the place where they had been sitting, taking the baby hurriedly from her sister’s arms.

  “I have often wondered how you are,” he said, “I mean your family and ... how is your mother ... and how are you Sadie?” He asked as he studied the baby in her arms and began to play with the little tot’s fingers.

  Meggie was surprised at his question and more particularly at the fuss he made over Fiona.

  She looked from Ross to Sadie and back again in confusion. There was an intimacy between the two of them that she did not understand, even if the atmosphere did have a hostile undercurrent and a few trivialities were exchanged, but very coldly on Sadie’s part.

  “Can we go home now Meggie. I think Fiona has been out long enough and there’s a wind starting to blow up.”

  As they made their way across to the park main entrance, Ross called out after them.

  “Good-bye Sadie Meggie. I hope I shall see you again soon.”

  Meggie answered politely but curtly and with a tone of finality in her voice.

  “Good-bye Ross,” she said and lowered her eyes as she walked away.

  Sadie said nothing, but Meggie saw the look on her face as they walked home slowly together, hardly speaking a word as they went.

  “Are you alright, Sadie?”

  “Yes,” ...

  “I don’t suppose he knows I’m in the W.R.N.S. with me not wearing my uniform, eh?”

  Meggie tried to make conversation, but Sadie still remained silent. Fiona cried and Sadie hugged her closer to her breast.

  “There, there my Love ...Don’t cry. Mummy will soon have you home and you can have a nice dinner,” she said, but she still ignored her sister as they walked.

  “Can I give you two ladies a lift?” Someone shouted.

  Sadie stood in horror when she heard the voice but she gave a sigh of relief when she turned round and Tom Carey appeared from nowhere in the new car, he had only recently bought. It gleamed as he drove up slowly towards the girls and they wasted no time in scrambling in as Tom drove them swiftly home.

  ***

  Tom cleaned the car as he waited for Aggie to cook the lunch. She was chief cook for the day, in fact, she had given up her job at the fish factory to look after the family, now that Mary had got married. It was Aggie’s idea, to give her mother more time with her new husband and as all the family agreed, she needed a well earned rest. A honeymoon had been planned for later on in the year, but that too, was to be a big surprise. In fact, life was full of surprises for Mary and she began to look younger as the days went by. There was happiness in the air that was new to the Blair family, or to the new Mrs. Carey, as was now the case.

  ***

  Meggie never mentioned Ross Schofield’s name to Sadie, but she was anxious to know why he should have taken such an interest in them and especially in Fiona. She asked herself many questions, but the answers did not sum up and anyway, she was due to return to her unit on Friday and she only wanted to enjoy the holiday with the family to the fullest extent. Besides, she herself had a very specific reason to be so joyful about her return to her unit and it was personified in the young Medical Officer she had met a few weeks before and with whom she had quite a few happy evenings out and enjoyed the occasional romantic dinner. Lieutenant George Ambrose R.A.M.C. was beginning to feature as someone quite special in her life.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Are you sure you know what to do now?” Sam Harris enquired as he helped to put the tallit over Nathan’s young shoulders. The day of the Barmitzvah had at last arrived ...

  Everyone at the Harris home was jubilant; all except Nathan, who had a fit of nerves and was worried that he would forget his lines from the Torah .but he need not have been concerned. The Synagogue was decked out for the occasion and the menorah with its six candles blazed without flicker, a signal token of the sobriety and responsibility the young Yiddisher boy was about to undertake. The ceremony was a proud moment for Sam and indeed for Miriam, but Sam proclaimed, that as he was the ‘head of the household’, the day was primarily HIS.

  “Straighten your kippot, Nathan,” he admonished like a mother hen and Nathan pulled the gold embroidered cap down to his ears and let it spring up again.

  “There ... That’s bound to be straight now,” he said and his voice was light and high pitched. He coughed and started to speak again, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “That’s alright, Nathan, just concentrate on what you have to do and you’ll be fine.”

  Nathan blushed as he read his lines, but his voice became more resonant and mature as he read on. The intonations of his voice were lipped by Sam as he spoke and sang the words in unison with his one and only son.

  The festivities that followed were a contradiction to the rationing and the merriment and gaiety went on into the small hours, as young and old and very old clapped their hands and stamped their feet in wondrous praise of the heritage that was theirs and which they now shared with their newly inaugurated bearer of the noble Star of David. A coming of age; a novice to the glories of Sion.

  ***

  Sam received the telegram with surprise and he opened the envelope nervously. It read, Major S.E. Harris, Number 7045 .... Royal Corps of Signals, STOP ... You are requested to return to your Unit by 08.00 hours on July 18th 1942. STOP. Further information on your arrival, STOP.

  Sam looked at Miriam with confusion in his eyes. He had been allowed three months leave due to a prolonged period of service abroad in the Persian Gulf and his leave period had not yet expired..

  “What shall I do Sam?” Miriam enquired, “Shall I come with you?” She handed the telegram back to her husband.

  “No Better stay here with the children, until I contact you.”

  Miriam was worried. It was unusual to receive a telegram from the army, unless there was some urgency and she had fears in her heart of which she could not speak. The feeling of unknowing tormented her and stayed
with her for the rest of the day as Sam prepared himself for the overnight journey, but it was well into the evening before he told Rachael and Nathan that he had to go. Everyone had a feeling of foreboding and wished the war would come to an end and Sam kissed Miriam tenderly as his train was about to leave the platform before he turned to Nathan.

  “Look after your mother, Nathan. You’re a MAN now ...”

  Nathan Harris may have regarded himself as a man, but he kissed his father good-bye with a heavy heart and dried his eyes as he looked away, hoping that no-one had noticed his tears.

  “Good-bye Dad. Take care and come back again soon please ...”

  The protracted courtesy made it seem that his father was in control of his movements, which all of them knew was just a phantasy. When the Army said ‘Move’ ...you moved and there was no question asked. The war demanded ... It never asked and men moved to command and without question.

  “Good-bye Princess. I love you ... but you already know that, don’t you?”

  Rachael could not look at her father. It hurt and she bit her lip and looked away until Sam touched her hand.

  “Oh! Daddy... Daddy darling ...I love you so. Why does this have to be? Why can’t you just stay with us? Is that too much to ask? Damn this war.” She threw her arms around Sam and then pulled her mother into the embrace. “We are a family,” she sobbed, “We should always be together.”

  The train pulled away from the platform at exactly eleven thirty-five. Twenty five minutes before midnight on the seventeenth of July. People stood all around waving and crying as it left the station and slowly disappeared from view and Miriam’s heart was heavy. She wanted to scream, “Come back ... Come back”... but she knew that destiny would follow its own course as she left the station with sadness and with a slow pace as she hailed a taxi to take them home.

  Nanna Harris sat still and lifeless as they entered the room. Her tears had long since dried on her cheeks but her eyes remained red and strained. She looked at the sad trio as they came towards her and her heart held a mystery of which she was not proud. He whole being knew a sorrow that she could not share. She had cried so much, that there were no more tears, but as she put her feeble arms around Miriam and the children, the whole truth unfolded before her .She would never see Sam again.