Cissie turned up with a large dressing on her nose. ‘It was the bloody blackout,’ she explained. ‘The bedroom curtains fell down, so I couldn’t put the light on, and it was pitch dark. I held me arms out in front of me so I wouldn’t bang into anything but I didn’t know the door was open. Me arms went one each side of it and I banged me blasted nose on the edge.’ All the women laughed as they pictured the scene and Cissie was annoyed. ‘Youse lot are as bad as Bert,’ she said. ‘Lying there laughing his leg off he was, and when I yelled at him he said, “First time I knew your bloody nose was longer than your arms.”’
Cathy smiled now when she thought of it and Josie said later that she had been the same all day. ‘It’d be worth doing the job for the laughs, even if we never got paid, wouldn’t it?’
The bitter winter was ending and everyone felt more cheerful as longer days and better weather arrived. Joe Fitzgerald came home on leave and arrived with Anne to see Sarah and her family. Cathy welcomed him warmly and congratulated him on his stripe, while Sarah, suddenly shy, went to make tea.
Her mother was eagerly questioning Joe about the war news when she came back. ‘Do you think it’s true the Germans are starving?’ she asked. ‘They did try to bump Hitler off last November, didn’t they?’
‘That was only a few top men,’ he said, ‘I think most of the Germans are behind him.’
‘I think it’ll just fizzle out,’ Anne declared, and Cathy smiled at her gratefully.
‘Mick’s going as soon as he’s finished his exams,’ she explained to Joe. ‘Unless it finishes before then.’
To Sarah it seemed that her mother monopolized the conversation, which was unlike her, and Joe scarcely had a chance to speak directly to her until Cathy went to refill the teapot.
Then he said quietly, ‘You look much better, Sarah. Terry said you did, and I agree. I saw him at the Barracks before I came home.’
‘He’s got your photo up over his bed, y’know,’ Anne said, laughing. Joe glanced at the photograph on the sideboard. ‘It’s a good likeness. Terry said some of the other men are threatening to ask you for a date. There are a few Liverpool men there.’
‘Terry saw it when he was home,’ Sarah said, blushing and speaking in a low voice. ‘Mum gave him a copy.’
Joe looked up quickly and their eyes met, but before they could speak Cathy came back and began to ask Joe about the food and conditions in the camp he had been sent to. Before long Anne stood up. ‘We’ll have to get on, Joe. Don’t forget the Connollys.’
She turned to Cathy. ‘My Aunt Minnie Connolly is my mother’s older sister and Terry didn’t go to see them. She had a right cob on, and Mum told me to make sure Joe goes there.’
‘She’s her brother’s keeper,’ he said, nodding towards Anne and smiling at Sarah, and the next moment they had gone.
‘I like that lad,’ Cathy said, and Sarah silently agreed.
Joe was only on a week’s leave and Sarah saw him again only briefly before he returned to the Battalion. His mother tried to keep him with her as much as possible, and Anne told Sarah that Mrs Fitzgerald had dreamt that Joe had been killed. ‘We haven’t told him, but that’s why she’s clinging to him so much.’
‘You don’t think she’s had a premonition?’ Sarah said fearfully.
Anne brushed the idea aside. ‘No, of course not. It’s just that her mind’s on such things now.’
‘It’s a phoney war on land anyway, everyone’s saying. All the news seems to be about shipping losses, ours and theirs. My gran has to come to our house to hear the news bulletins, because Josh gets so upset if she has them on. He’s worried about air raids.’
‘A woman at work was saying that they’ll never be able to bomb us because we’ve got the Pennines behind us, and if they tried to come round the coast they’d be shot down before they ever got here.’
‘I hope she’s right,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll have to tell Josh that or get Kate to tell him. He’ll believe her.’
Kate was very much enjoying her new job, she told her mother. She omitted to mention that what she really enjoyed was walking home through the city streets and meeting servicemen of many nationalities who were temporarily in Liverpool.
Kate had inherited not only her mother’s brown eyes and dimples, but also her Aunt Mary’s straight nose and full-lipped sensual mouth, and a sidelong, provocative glance which Cathy would have remembered seeing Mary using, if Kate had not been careful to hide it from her mother.
She still belonged to the dancing school, and sometimes performed at concerts, although not at the parish rooms.
She had appeared twice in the Christmas concert there once to sing “Bless This House” and once to do a tap dancing number. For that she had worn a brief, full-skirted dress, which she had worn in the chorus line at a dancing school production. She had finished her dance with a high kick which had scandalized the members of the Women’s Confraternity sitting in the front rows.
She had not been asked to appear again but had said airily that she didn’t want to dance for those old fades anyway.
Cathy worried about her, but Greg was proud of her and insisted that she was only young and skittish and would soon grow more circumspect. Sally disapproved of Kate, Cathy knew, and she could only relieve her worries by writing to Norah.
I’m worried but I can’t say why. There’s nothing I can put my finger on, just a lot of small things that make me uneasy about her. She seems to be able to do wonders with her pocket money. Mam watches her like a hawk in case she accepts money from Josh, and says that she is sure that she doesn’t, but I don’t know how she manages to buy so much.
I found a pile of hair brightening sachets in her drawer when I was putting ironing away and they cost threepence each, but she says a girl at work had stopped using them and given them to her. I wouldn’t have let her use them, but by the time we’d argued about how she could afford them, I just couldn’t face another row and let it pass. I can see now why Mam was so strict with Mary, or tried to be, although she usually managed to get her own way in the end.
Cathy was especially thankful to have Norah’s friendship now because she felt that her own family were shutting her out. She was sure that both John and Sarah had fallen in love but neither of them confided in her and she was hurt, especially as John and Greg seemed close and Sarah still spent a great deal of time with her grandmother. Cathy thought that John probably talked things over with his father and Sarah confided in her grandmother but neither Greg nor Sally said anything to Cathy and she was too proud to ask.
The truth was that neither Sarah nor John felt that they had anything to tell their mother. Although Terry wrote fairly often to Sarah and signed the letters “Love, Terry,” they were short and flippant and not at all lover-like. Joe’s letters were brotherly in tone, and he finished them “Yours affectionately.”
John knew that he was falling more and more in love with Anne but felt it was only fair to her to keep silent. He had no regrets about fighting in Spain, but now found himself out of sympathy with the men at the Club yet still an outcast from other people he knew, especially as he had tried several times to join up and been rebuffed.
On April the ninth German troops invaded Norway and Denmark. At first people found it hard to believe the news as these were neutral countries, but suddenly it seemed the “phoney war” was over.
Terry came home on weekend leave later in the month, very excited because Irish Guards had already left, he thought for Norway.
He arrived very late on Friday night and came to see Sarah on Saturday afternoon with an invitation to tea from his mother. She got ready quickly and went back with him to his house, after first taking him over to see her grandmother.
Terry was in high spirits, describing how crates of beer were taken on the train by the other ranks and cases of champagne loaded for the officers as the Irish Guards departed for Norway.
‘They’ll be legless before they ever get there,’ Sally commented, but Terry laugh
ed heartily.
‘Not them,’ he said. ‘It takes a lot to get those fellows drunk.’
Sarah had always been made welcome in the Fitzgerald house, but there was an extra warmth in Mrs Fitzgerald’s manner as she put her arms round the girl today and kissed her. She was a gentle, pious woman, deeply loved by her family, but already showing signs of the disease which would soon claim her life.
Sarah saw Anne briefly, but she was working the two o’clock to ten o’clock shift and soon had to leave. Helen and Tony arrived for tea, and Stephen’s fiancée Claire, and afterwards Helen and Tony, Claire and Stephen, and Sarah and Terry went in a group to a ceilidhe.
Terry’s high spirits set the tone for all of them and they were a noisy merry group, dancing every dance and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Sarah was conscious of the admiring glances when she and Terry were dancing and felt proud, but still had the feeling of being swept along faster than she wished.
A tall, erect old man who took the entrance fee, an ex-Welsh Guardsman now a commissionaire at a cinema, made a great fuss of Terry. ‘You can’t mistake a Guardsman,’ he said when they arrived. ‘Smartest body of men in the British Army.’
‘I’ll bet you say that to all the fellows,’ Terry joked, but Mr Powell was not offended.
He came up to their group at the interval and asked Terry about his training, then as the music began again, he shook hands before leaving. ‘Look after him,’ he said to Sarah. ‘You’re a lucky girl.’
Terry put his arm round her and laughed down at her as the old man walked away. ‘D’you hear that, Sar? You’ve got to look after me.’
‘Silly old fool!’ Helen exclaimed. ‘Saying she’s a lucky girl. You’re the lucky one, Terry. Sarah would have been married long ago if she’d been able to decide between the fellows who fell for her.’
‘And after all that she’s finished up with our Terry, poor girl,’ Stephen said, laughing and thumping Terry on his back.
Sarah smiled but said nothing. She felt that she would be glad to be home to sort out her thoughts, even though she was enjoying herself so much.
Before the end of the evening Helen whispered to her that the doctor had confirmed that she was pregnant and that the baby was due in November. ‘We haven’t told anyone yet. We’ll tell Tony’s mum just after Terry goes back, to cheer her up,’ she said. ‘But even then I’d like just to keep it in the family for a while.’
They all went their separate ways after the dance. Terry walked home with Sarah, his arm about her waist. There was no moon and when they reached Egremont Street they stood in complete darkness to say goodnight, holding each other close. Terry kissed her, gently at first then more urgently. Briefly she thought of Ronald’s rubbery lips, and contrasted them with Terry’s firm kisses.
After a moment he raised his head and drew in a long breath. ‘That was great,’ he whispered. She could only dimly see his face but saw the flash of his teeth as he smiled at her. ‘Which Mass are you going to?’
‘Nine o’clock,’ she said.
‘Right. I’ll meet you there.’ Then, in a quieter tone, ‘I think I’d better go, Sar.’ He kissed her again, his lips pressing firmly on hers and his hand behind her head, then released her and walked away.
She heard a muffled curse and a laugh as he bumped into something, then his footsteps died away and she went into the house and straight up to bed.
She was glad to be alone, to think things over. Helen’s confidences and her remark about keeping the news in the family, as though Sarah already belonged to it, had jolted her. She remembered too Mrs Fitzgerald’s warm welcome, and the general assumption that she and Terry were a couple.
Is this what I want? she wondered. She liked Terry as she liked all the Fitzgerald family, but was that enough? I’d like to make my own decision but other people seem to be making it for me, she thought. And yet perhaps others could see that she and Terry were suited to each other.
They came from the same background and their families liked each other, there would be no hassle about religion and Terry was a decent lad who would always treat her with respect, she thought. Yet did she love him? She remembered standing at the gate a little earlier. Terry’s firm body when her arms were round him, and how warm and loving she had felt as his lips found hers.
But then she thought that he seemed to care nothing for books and poetry and all the things of the spirit that meant so much to her. The trouble is that I don’t really know him properly, she decided. The best thing is to let things take their course. We can be a courting couple but not engaged, and if it doesn’t work out when we know each other better, we can break it off and no harm done. With a sigh of relief she turned her pillow over and went to sleep.
He was waiting for her outside the church the following morning. His parents and Anne and Maureen had gone in, he said, but Stephen was working and had been to the seven o’clock Mass.
‘Will you sit with our family?’ he asked, and Sarah agreed without any misgivings. Anne had changed her work shift for the new week, so after Sarah had been back to the Fitzgeralds’ for lunch and Terry had made preparations to leave, the girls went out for a walk while he spent some time alone with his parents.
Later Anne came with Sarah to the station to see Terry off, but tactfully went off to the bookstall for papers for him while they said goodbye. All along the platform couples embraced tearfully. Terry and Sarah held each other closely.
‘You’re my girl now, aren’t you, Sarah?’ he said, kissing her gently. ‘I’ll be going over there soon – I don’t think I’ll get home again before then, but we’ll write often, won’t we?’
Sarah kissed him and nodded, her eyes filling with tears. He wiped them away. ‘Don’t cry, sweetheart,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll see you again soon.’
How often in the years to come did she think of those words and what had gone before them! But now the station was filling with steam from the engine and Anne was back with newspapers and chocolate for Terry. She kissed him goodbye with none of the exuberance of their last leave taking, and walked away, saying, ‘I’ll wait at the entrance, Sar.’
‘All aboard,’ the Guard shouted. Terry stepped into a carriage but leaned from the window and kissed Sarah again as the train began to move. ‘I like it,’ he shouted. She carried away a memory of his laughing face and was smiling as she joined Anne.
Her spirits soon sank as the news from Norway began to trickle through. There seemed to be a great deal of confusion. Even the Prime Minister insisted that Narvik had not been taken by the Germans but another less important place, Larvic, but then the fall of Narvik was confirmed.
‘If he doesn’t know what’s happening, there’s not much chance for us to find out,’ John said.
Sarah defended Mr Chamberlain indignantly. ‘He did his best and saved us from war for a year, don’t forget, and he’s still working hard although he’s a sick man. He suffers from gout, they said on the wireless.’
She was even more angry when on May the seventh a member of Parliament, one of Chamberlain’s own party, stood up in the House of Commons and pointed at the Prime Minister, saying, ‘In the name of God, go.’
Sarah was furious. ‘Who does he think he is?’ she demanded, ‘Leo Amery. Who’s ever heard of him? And people all over the world respect Chamberlain.’
Nevertheless, he resigned and a coalition party was formed, with Churchill as Prime Minister, but for a long time Sarah disliked him because he had taken Chamberlain’s place. A few days later news came that Hitler had invaded Belgium and Holland.
Terry had written to Sarah as soon as he returned to Barracks and she had replied, but they had exchanged only a few letters when late in May another was delivered just before she left for work.
It contained only one sheet of paper.
Darling Sarah,
This is it, love. We’re off to France. Time to see if all that training was any good. Look after yourself and remember me in your prayers.
See you soo
n,
Your loving Terry.
She stood with the letter in her hand, her face pale and her fingers pressed to her lips.
‘What is it?’ Cathy exclaimed in alarm.
‘Terry’s gone to France.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Cathy cried, then said quickly, ‘he’ll be all right, love. Hitler’s bitten off more that he can chew there.’
Sarah glanced at the clock. ‘I’ll have to go, Mum,’ she said, but Cathy put her arm round her and kissed her before she left.
A letter card came from France, and Sarah wrote two letters to the address on it. The news from the Continent was confused. An announcement was made that the French were withdrawing to a prepared position to lure the Germans into a trap, but it soon became clear that the German Army was sweeping all before it. The Dutch had flooded large areas but they could do little against the large and well-equipped German Army and Air Force.
Everyone seemed quiet and subdued. ‘If only we knew what was happening,’ was the general feeling, and those with men in the British Expeditionary Force listened anxiously to every news bulletin though there was nothing to cheer them.
Rotterdam had been blitzed and the Dutch had surrendered, while the roads of Northern France were thronged with refugees, who were being machine gunned by German airmen.
Gradually the news began to seep through of the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, but there was no news of Terry although a few men who had been in France began to arrive home on leave.
‘We lost everything,’ one of them told Greg, ‘I was just glad to get home alive. They just kitted us out and sent us home out of the way, I reckon, while they sorted things out.’
On June the tenth Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, but most people were more concerned with other matters. The news item remained in Sarah’s mind only because it was linked with another event. She heard it on someone’s wireless set as she turned into Egremont Street. A few minutes later, as she reached Josie’s house, she saw a policeman being admitted and heard loud screaming.
There is a Season Page 46
