by Maureen Lee
He sang the song to the lads when they came home from school, and they sang it to their mother, then gave an exhibition of Irish dancing that they’d been taught that afternoon. (The Ramseys next door now had two children of their own and had stopped complaining.)
The memory of that very ordinary Monday, the day when her husband first sang her song and her children danced for her, would remain at the forefront of Nell’s mind throughout her life. Even when she was an old, old woman, she would smile as she remembered her little boys in their jerseys and shorts dancing in unison, lifting their scarred knees, shoulders back, hands on hips, solemn expressions on their tough little faces, red hair bouncing – they took after their da in that respect – while Red played the fiddle like a madman.
When they finished, Nell was moved to tears, as if she was aware that she had just experienced a remarkable event.
Seeing the tears that they’d never known their normally happy ma shed before, the lads launched themselves upon her, stroking her cheeks, kissing her ears, patting her head.
‘Don’t cry, Ma,’ Quinn ordered.
‘We’ll kiss you better, Ma,’ Kev offered.
‘But I’m all right.’ Nell tried to laugh, but the boys were stuck to her like limpets and it only made her cry more.
‘Your ma’s okay, lads.’ Red attempted to lift the boys off, but they refused to let go until Nell promised never to cry again.
‘Not for as long as I live,’ Nell vowed, though she thought that most unlikely.
Some weeks later, ‘Ode to Nell’ reached number twenty-eight in the charts. The following week it went down and continued to do so. Red was disappointed, but Nell didn’t care. It was her song, nobody else’s, and would always be number one as far as she was concerned.
In March of 1959, Jack received an extra-thick letter from Boston in the United States. Maggie was fast asleep by the time he came to bed on the day it arrived after spending the entire evening in his study.
‘You must have read it a dozen times,’ she remarked next morning as they were having breakfast. The girls weren’t due to come down for another half-hour.
‘I think I might well have done,’ Jack said gravely.
‘Did it contain lots of new information?’
‘It did indeed.’ He nodded. ‘I might be late home tonight. I’ve arranged to see a few people at the Red Pepper.’ This was the restaurant in Soho owned by Drugi’s uncle that the Polish contingent, as Maggie thought of them, used as a meeting place.
‘What time do you think you’ll be back?’
‘I don’t know, darling.’ He looked at her absently. Maggie went cold, realising that this was the first time in their relationship that he wasn’t concentrating wholly on either her or their daughters. Right now, he had other things on his mind, and it rather upset her. He blinked, as if suddenly remembering she was there. ‘Don’t do me a meal,’ he said. ‘I’ll eat at the restaurant.’
It was ten o’clock when he arrived home. He’d brought her flowers; daffodils, that were merely hard green buds. It would be a while before the yellow petals appeared.
‘Thank you,’ she said, trying to sound grateful – she couldn’t have explained why she wasn’t. It was as if a little cloud had appeared in their lives, a ridiculous thing to think when all he’d done was get a letter from America, something that had happened loads of times before.
‘I might go away for a while,’ he said when they were in bed.
‘To America?’ she enquired.
‘Yes, Washington. I need to see people.’
‘Is it an aunt or an uncle who’s been found?’ Perhaps it was a cousin.
‘No one’s been found, not exactly. It’s more information as to where someone might be. I need to go myself to make sure.’
Maggie could tell he wouldn’t countenance taking her and the children with him. She decided not to make a fool of herself by asking.
‘Good night, darling,’ he said, turning over.
Maggie went cold again. He hadn’t kissed her good night! It wasn’t deliberate, she could tell that; it was merely because he’d forgotten, which was much, much worse. ‘Who’s the someone you’ve had information about?’ she asked in a loud voice.
But Jack didn’t reply. He was fast asleep. Or pretending to be.
A few days later, he came home and announced that he was flying to America at the weekend.
‘How long will you be away?’ Maggie asked. She did her best not to sound bad-tempered.
‘I’ve arranged with the bank to take a month’s leave, though I may not need that much.’
‘A month!’ How could he think of leaving his family for an entire month?
He smiled and took her in his arms, as if the enormity of what he was doing had suddenly dawned on him. ‘I’ll miss you,’ he said, holding her close. ‘In fact, I don’t know how I’ll live without you for such a long time.’
Maggie started to cry. She couldn’t begin to explain just how distant from her he had felt recently. Those damn letters, they took him back to a time before they’d met and she’d become part of his life. She resented every minute he spent with them, dredging up old memories. She wondered how he would feel if she did the same thing. Some wives would have made a real fuss. Maggie felt the urge to do the same, but he’d always been such a good husband. ‘Until now,’ a little voice said, but she ignored it.
‘I think,’ he said tenderly, ‘that seeing as how it’s Easter next week, you should go and stay with Nell.’
She’d been looking forward to spending Easter with him. ‘It’s always so noisy at Nell’s.’ Holly was actually frightened of the Finnegan boys, though Grace got on with them like a house on fire and had once asked if they could become her brothers. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, trying to sound positive. ‘Oh!’ She remembered something. ‘If you’re not home by the twentieth of April, you’ll miss my birthday!’
‘Then I shall do my very best to be here.’ He was still holding her in his arms and began to rock to and fro. ‘If I can’t be here, then I shall send you tons and tons of flowers all the way from America.’
He left early on Monday, which meant she was unable to go to the airport with him as she had to get the girls to school. After they’d gone, the house felt extraordinarily quiet, although on a normal day Jack wouldn’t have been there. It felt even quieter during the afternoon knowing she didn’t have to make him dinner, and again when he didn’t come home in the evening. At about half past six, the telephone rang and it was Jack saying he’d just arrived in Washington and it was raining.
‘What’s the weather like there?’ he asked, and she wondered why he should care – or was he just trying to think of something to say?
She couldn’t remember. She had to look out of the window, and discovered it was sunny and had probably been sunny all day and she hadn’t noticed.
He told her that he loved her, they said goodbye, and she put down the receiver.
‘Was that Daddy?’ Ten-year-old Grace looked extremely cross. ‘I wanted to speak to him – you promised I could.’
‘I forgot, love.’
‘And I wanted to, Mummy.’ Holly came out of the living room, where she’d been watching television.
‘I’m so sorry, both of you.’ Maggie longed to burst into tears, but the children were already upset at their father going away; she didn’t want to make it worse.
And it could actually be like this for an entire month!
Jack was still away on her birthday. There were cards from friends and relatives in Liverpool and London. Auntie Kath sent a birthday cake, her father sent flowers, Nell telephoned in the afternoon and they had a long talk. Maggie promised to come and stay for the weekend. Easter had been the week before, and she would prefer to only be away for two days.
But there was nothing from Jack, not even a phone call wishing her happy birthday, let alone the tons of flowers he’d promised. For the first time ever, he had forgotten her birthday; he had forgotten
her.
The weekend in Liverpool wasn’t a success. Maggie had never thought it could happen, but she actually felt jealous of Nell. She hadn’t realised just how much Nell and Red were in love, how well they got on, what fun they had together. Until a few weeks ago, she and Jack had got on wonderfully together too. She hadn’t imagined other couples could be as happy as they were, but now she felt as if they would never be that happy again, that she and Jack were less exceptional than she’d thought. She told herself she was being foolish, exaggerating the way she always did. The tiniest bad thing could happen and she’d think it the end of the world. All marriages must have their ups and downs. They’d been married for twelve years, and this was the first of the downs.
The Finnegan lads were driving her wild. They were so noisy, uncontrolled. Grace was having a wonderful time galloping around with them, while Holly remained close to her mother’s side, terrified of going near them.
On Sunday morning, Maggie went to see Iris, taking Holly with her – Grace flatly refused to go. Iris seemed perfectly happy living without a man in the house. She saw Tom once or twice a week, and that was enough, she said with a grin. The house wasn’t exactly peaceful, the three girls arguing all the time, but Maggie was impressed with William, nearly thirteen, who was growing into a lovely young man; very gentlemanly, very handsome. Maggie found it strange that he bore no resemblance at all to Iris or Tom.
‘He takes after Tom’s side of the family,’ Iris explained when Maggie remarked on this. ‘Tom has a cousin, Robin, and William is the spitting image of him.’
William pushed Holly gently on the swing and she looked at him adoringly. They’d often met before, but this time Maggie reckoned her daughter was getting her first big crush. As long as it wasn’t one of the Finnegans, she quite liked the idea of Holly finding out what it was like to be in love. She’d felt the same about some lad in Pearl Street when she’d been eleven; she couldn’t remember his name.
She and Holly were glad to be home again. Grace was angry. Where Holly would cry, Grace became cross. She missed the Finnegans. ‘Why don’t we live in a noisy house?’ she asked. ‘And where’s Daddy? He’s been away years.’
‘It’s only three weeks, luv.’ It seemed like years to Maggie, too.
After taking the girls to school, she made coffee and sat slumped over the table in the kitchen, thinking how miserable she was. After a while she started to feel ashamed that she’d allowed herself to get into such a wretched state just because her husband had gone away for a few weeks. What if Jack’s plane crashed on the way home and he was killed? It had happened to loads of women during the war and they’d survived. And she would survive too – she would have to for the sake of the children, and she would certainly survive one more week before Jack came home. She recalled that she and Jack had only met that New Year’s Eve because she was upset at being by herself. It really was time she got over it.
Maggie jumped to her feet. She’d go shopping, buy something new from the big C&A Modes in Oxford Street where she’d gone with Nell when she’d come to stay in London. She could afford to go somewhere posher, but she was fond of C&A; ‘Coats an’ ’Ats’, as the bus conductors used to say in Liverpool when the bus stopped outside. She’d buy something for the girls, too. Cheer them all up.
Jack returned home on Monday, four weeks to the day that he’d left. He’d rung the day before, so Maggie was expecting him.
She and the girls were waiting in the parlour window, all wearing their pretty new frocks, when Drugi’s car drew up outside and he and Jack got out. The girls rushed out screaming, ‘Daddy!’ Even Grace allowed herself to be picked up.
Inside, Jack slowly let them slide to the floor before kissing Maggie warmly on the lips. She touched his cheek in response, unable for some reason to throw her arms around his neck as she would normally have done – perhaps because Drugi was still there. Jack looked rather thin and hollow-eyed, as if he hadn’t eaten or slept much while he was away.
Drugi stayed for tea. Holly and Grace had known him all their lives and loved him. They called him ‘Uncle Drugi’, and he made faces at them and told them silly stories. Jack described some of the interesting people he had met in Boston and New York.
‘New York!’ Maggie exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know you’d been to New York.’
‘My last week, that’s all. I spent the first three weeks in Boston.’
Well, you might have told me, Maggie thought. ‘I see,’ was all she said.
‘Sorry, darling, I forgot.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘Oh, and I also forgot your birthday, didn’t I? But not to worry, I’ve bought you something nice to make up for it.’
‘I’m dying to see it,’ she lied. No matter how nice it was, she would have preferred tons of flowers.
Drugi left, the girls went to bed, Holly nursing the doll and Grace the American football that Daddy had bought them.
‘This is for you, darling.’ Jack sat beside Maggie on the settee and handed her a velvet box. She opened it and stared at little chunky diamond earrings that must have cost a bomb. ‘Do you like them?’ he asked eagerly.
‘They’re lovely,’ she said dutifully, not adding that the earrings were for pierced ears and she wore the sort with clips. One day soon she would quietly have her ears pierced, wear the jewels, and Jack would never know. ‘Thank you,’ she said, kissing his chin. ‘Thank you very much.’ There was a short silence, which Maggie broke. ‘Was your trip successful?’ she asked. ‘Did you find who you wanted to find?’
‘Yes, I did,’ he replied after another pause. ‘I found my wife.’
Afterwards, Maggie thought she might have fainted when she heard Jack’s words, because when she came to, he was in the middle of explaining exactly why he had a wife, but she couldn’t remember what he had said when he started.
She gathered that someone in Washington knew someone who had seen her, the wife, in a hospital in New York, and told someone else in Washington who told someone else. The final someone else knew that Jacek Kaminski lived somewhere in London, and got his address off one of the other someone elses and wrote to him.
‘The big fat letter that came six or seven weeks ago,’ Jack explained.
Maggie discovered she was leaning against him on the settee and he had his arm around her shoulders. She wanted to move away as much as she wanted to stay.
He’d thought she was dead, his wife, Jack said; was absolutely convinced. And she’d thought the same about him. ‘I left Poland for England to join the Royal Air Force, and about a year later she was told I’d been killed in a raid over Berlin. I was informed she’d been sent to a labour camp in Germany and had died there.’
‘Aren’t there such things as death certificates?’ Maggie asked.
‘Not always in wartime. The circumstances were often chaotic and confused.’ He shook his head and she felt his chin rub against her scalp. He needed a shave. ‘And Aniela had always been very frail. I couldn’t imagine her lasting long in a labour camp, but it turns out she was there for five whole years. I’d always been absolutely convinced that she was dead.’
Aniela! It was a pretty name. ‘She must have been tougher than you thought.’
‘Oh, she has always been tough.’ It was like a criticism, as if Maggie had spoken unkindly of his wife.
‘What was she doing in hospital in New York?’ she asked.
His face became grim. ‘She has TB, tuberculosis, and is likely to die very soon. Maggie, darling,’ he cupped her face with his free hand, ‘would you mind if I went back to New York to be with her at the end? It would mean to much to her. She has no one over there, not even a friend. She was in some terrible charity hospital, but I had her moved to a much better place.’
‘Of course I don’t mind.’ She minded terribly, so much that she wanted to scream the house down, curse him for going to America and finding his bloody wife.
Wife! She sat up sharply and his arm fell from her shoulders. ‘It means we’re not married.’ She gas
ped in horror. ‘We aren’t man and wife.’ She turned on him angrily. ‘What’s going to happen to me – to us? And why didn’t you tell me you’d been married before?’ She began to hit him with her fists. ‘I hate you.’ She burst into tears and he pulled her into his arms, but she pushed him away. ‘Don’t touch me! I don’t want you any more. I don’t love you. In fact, I hate you, Jack.’
She got up, but had no idea where to go, what to do. This was all too much. She had no idea how to deal with it.
‘Aniela is dying, Maggie,’ he said gently. ‘She has only a few more weeks to live, possibly days. I found her just in time. Is it too much to ask that I sit with her during her dying days?’
‘Yes,’ Maggie insisted. ‘Yes, it is too much.’ She began to cry again. ‘No, of course it isn’t. Someone should be with her. I’m glad you found her in time. But it’s so unfair, Jack, springing something like this on me without warning. I’d sooner you hadn’t said anything, that you had made some excuse for going back to America again. I’d sooner have never known about your wife.’ She left the room, saying, ‘I’m going to make coffee.’
She returned minutes later with two cups and put his on the hearth near where he was sitting. ‘It wouldn’t have been such a shock,’ she said, ‘if you’d told me right from the start that you’d been married before.’
He smiled a trifle coldly. ‘You came into our marriage with secrets of your own, my dear. I could tell the first night we slept together.’
She looked at him just as coldly. He’d never called her ‘my dear’ in such a way before. ‘I had an affair,’ she conceded. ‘One affair. It’s hardly the same as being married.’ Though she’d very nearly got married; she remembered the day quite vividly. She’d nearly married a bigamist; this time she actually had. ‘You could have had dozens of affairs and I wouldn’t have cared. It was me you wanted to marry.’
He collapsed back on the settee looking stricken. ‘What a fool I’ve been! You’re right, Maggie. I should have told you straight away that I’d been married before. And I should have told you it was Aniela I was going to the States to look for. I shouldn’t have sprung this on you the way I did.’ He reached for her hand and pulled her down beside him. ‘I’m sorry. Dead sorry, as you would say. You know what it means, don’t you? We’re going to have to get married again,’ he put a finger to his lips, ‘but let’s not tell anyone. We’ll have a second honeymoon, and this time we’ve got the whole wide world to choose from. Let’s ask someone to look after Holly and Grace and we’ll go, just the two of us, to any place you want.’
