A Mother's Duty

by June Francis

  ‘What about the boys before they went away and Jeannie—?’ she began.

  He shook his head. ‘I doubt it. Have you ever heard Celia coughing?’ Kitty shook her head. ‘There you are then! Quickest way to catch it but she hasn’t been coughing over anyone.’

  Kitty’s mind was relieved somewhat but she knew she would not know real peace until the doctor gave them the all clear.

  Within twenty-four hours Celia’s mother was moved to the Consumption Hospital on Mount Pleasant where she died within a few days. To Kitty’s horror Celia proved to have the disease but John reassured her that it would probably not be fatal as it was in its early stages. Celia was found a place in Cheshire, where the patients were kept in isolation in little wooden cabins where fresh air and good food was the main form of treatment.

  Two more letters came from Teddy for Kitty and Jeannie. In Kitty’s he asked whether Jeannie had received his first letter and this time he enclosed an address where she could get in touch with him. Kitty had to write back and tell him that Jeannie had left.

  Life went on with Kitty missing her boys and the two girls. She was certain that John felt the same but he never mentioned them. Still the air raids did not materialise during those early months of 1940. The expected rationing was also delayed. It did mean that people from out of town began to make appearances and so did several theatricals and newly married couples on one-night honeymoons, but the Grand National was scrapped and its supporters from the Republic of Ireland were greatly missed.

  Kitty decided to open her dining room to the general public. John did her a couple of boards which she displayed in a front window and outside, offering substantial but plain meals such as shepherd’s pie and carrots for eight pence and fruit tart for threppence. It was slow at first but business gradually built up.

  Germany began its Blitzkrieg across Europe, forcing the British Expeditionary Forces to retreat to the sea. It was a worrying time for everyone, even Kitty because although neither of her sons were in the army she knew that they could still be caught up in Dunkirk somewhere. There was no news from either of them afterwards but Jeannie telephoned wanting to speak to John.

  Kitty watched his face as he held the receiver, trying to make something of the conversation from his monosyllabic answers, waiting for him to mention Teddy’s letters, but he replaced the receiver without saying a word. Immediately Kitty jumped on him, ‘Why didn’t you tell her about Teddy’s letter?’ Her tone was accusing.

  ‘It wasn’t the right time,’ he said shortly. ‘She’s upset. I didn’t want to upset her further.’

  ‘It mightn’t have upset her. It might have been just what she needed!’

  John looked at Kitty but she could tell he was not seeing her. ‘She’s been training as a nurse down in Oxfordshire,’ he murmured, ‘and has just had to cope with some of the wounded from Dunkirk. She thought I would understand how she was feeling because of my experiences from the first war. Men with their limbs blown off and the like. It’s really distressed her.’

  It’d distress anyone, thought Kitty, feeling sad, but still uppermost in her thoughts was Teddy. She touched John’s arm. ‘Did you get her address?’

  This time he looked at Kitty as if he was really seeing her. ‘No. I didn’t think,’ he said simply. ‘Besides she said she’d ring again.’

  ‘Oh John!’ Kitty shook her head at him. ‘What if she doesn’t? What about Teddy? There’s a war on. What if he never gets the chance to sort this out? You should have thought!’

  His face altered, hardened. ‘Well, I didn’t. And that’s all there is to it. I had more on my mind than your son with his cushy little number with the air force. She’s seen men dying! Who’s to say they both won’t have changed and see nothing they want from each other if they ever meet again?’ And he walked away.

  Kitty felt as if he had slapped her in the face. Love, John! she wanted to shout after him. Love doesn’t change. Give them their chance. So it’s young love but that can be true! But then she wondered whether there was some deeper meaning behind his words and he was referring to him and her. But had they changed so much from the people they had been when they first met? It was something she did not have the time to think about and, besides, she was unsure how profitable it would be if she did start analysing her feelings and looking back over the last eight years. So it was something else that was pushed to the back of her mind.

  By July of 1940 the British Isles had become fortress Britain and Liverpool’s Lord Mayor was asking women to sacrifice their jewellery to provide guns and aeroplanes for the country’s fighting men. Kitty fingered the locket which had been her mother’s and did not allow herself to think too much before joining a queue of women outside the town hall in Dale Street. Perhaps if she’d had a daughter to pass it on to she might have had second thoughts about sacrificing it but, of course, she didn’t.

  London began to suffer heavily from air raids and, in the Atlantic, merchant shipping was being sunk at an alarming rate. Kitty’s heart bled for all those mothers and wives who had lost sailor menfolk. Mick was seldom out of her thoughts. ‘Spanish fortune teller,’ she found herself muttering one day. ‘Is that really supposed to make me feel better?’

  ‘What are thee chunnering about? Talking to thyself is the first sign of madness,’ said Hannah, suddenly appearing in the kitchen doorway. She was getting old and bent now but Kitty did not have the heart to get rid of her.

  ‘I was thinking aloud. Do you believe people can foresee the future, Hannah?’

  ‘It says in the Good Book that there’s prophets.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s quite what I meant.’ She sighed. ‘At least I’ve still got Ben home,’ she murmured.

  ‘Thou’s worrying about them lads.’ Hannah wiped the top of the table with a dishcloth. ‘Doesn’t thou know it’s a sin to worry.’

  ‘You’ve never had children, Hannah. And war is something a bit different.’

  ‘It’s an abomination in the sight of the Lord,’ said the maid. ‘And that devil Hitler’ll pay for his lust for power and his greed.’

  ‘I should hope so!’ Kitty peeled a last potato and dropped it in a pan. The evening meal was served earlier now, just in case there should be any raids. There had been several false alarms and a couple of brief raids with little damage. Guests and passing trade continued to mingle. At the moment she had a couple of theatricals staying, two newly married couples, or not as the case might be – Kitty never asked to see their marriage lines – and four seamen from Norway and Holland. These were classed as aliens and had had to fill in a special form and report to the office at the bottom of Lord Nelson Street. She had a soft spot for them because she saw her own father in each of them.

  One afternoon towards the end of August she was in the dining room. Ruth, Hannah’s niece who had arrived a few weeks ago, was there but not Monica. Suddenly Kitty heard voices in the lobby and she stilled, recognising one of them. She fled into the lobby and froze when she saw the back view of a man in the uniform of the Royal Navy.

  ‘Mick!’ she cried.

  He turned and it was him, looking a bit older but healthy enough. His eyes creased at the corners in his well-loved smile. ‘Hello, Ma.’

  She hugged him, needing the assurance that only holding him could bring. At last she found her voice. ‘You look in the pink. What have they been feeding you on?’

  ‘Nothing as good as you could dish up,’ he said promptly.

  ‘I suppose that’s why you’ve come home,’ she said, linking her arm through his. ‘A bit of home cooking. There’s a war on, you know, so don’t be expecting cavier and peach melba.’

  He grinned. ‘One of your steak and kidney pies’ll do, Ma.’

  ‘As it happens …’ She laughed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Our ship’s in dock at Newcastle being repaired.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing much. We had a brush with a mine. No one was hurt.’ H
e glanced around. ‘Where’s Ben and the big fella? Where’s Celia? Your letters told me nothing important.’

  ‘That’s because they’re censored and we’re told careless talk costs lives. As a member of His Majesty’s forces you should know that.’

  He smiled. ‘Well? Where is everybody?’

  ‘John’s a first-aid officer. Ben’s building shelters and helping out. As for Celia she’s in an isolation place in Cheshire somewhere in Delamere Forest. She has TB, Mick.’

  ‘What!’ He leaned against the reception desk, looking flabbergasted. ‘How serious is it?’

  ‘She has a good chance of recovering because they caught it early, but you know what it’s like with that disease. We went to see her a few months ago and she looked a bit down in the dumps.’

  Mick was not surprised. He’d be more than down in the dumps if he had the disease. He found himself remembering Celia sticking by Geraldine Galloway and how she had died. He hated to think that Celia might go the same way.

  Kitty bombarded him with questions, which he answered in monosyllables. She managed to glean out of him that his ship had helped with rescuing those from Dunkirk but more recently had been in the North Atlantic on convoy duty. ‘Any news about our Teddy’s whereabouts yet?’ he asked abruptly.

  She told him about Teddy and Jeannie and then suggested he went upstairs and had a rest. He shook his head. ‘I’ll just get a wash and brush up and then give you a hand, if you like.’

  She accepted gratefully and within the hour it appeared to Mick on the one hand that he had never been away, but on the other everything had changed. He missed his brothers and the girls and the banter between them all. Although it was Celia he could not get out of his mind. He decided if it was fine tomorrow he would get out his old pushbike and go and visit her.

  Mick had become so used to not having to answer to Kitty for his whereabouts that when she asked him where he was going he did not tell her. He felt certain she would come over all protective if he said he was going to visit Celia, so he was vague about his destination. ‘I’m just going into the country, Ma. I’ve been away from ol’ England for a while and just want to enjoy looking at trees and fields.’

  She nodded, sensing that reserve in him, and she realised that he was growing away from her. She knew she had to accept it, but still could not resist saying, ‘If it rains come home.’

  He said lightly, ‘I’ve been in a force-nine gale, Ma. A bit of rain’s not going to hurt me.’ He kissed her cheek and set off.

  Mick enjoyed the ride but especially he liked being on his own for a while after months spent on a ship in close confinement with hundreds of men. He went out Widnes way and across on the Runcorn transporter and on to Delamere where he found cabins under trees, which seemed so green after so long at sea that he felt a positive joy. He was directed to Celia’s cabin and felt his stomach tightening as he approached. How would she be? He had been imagining her thin and drained of colour. It was a pleasant shock to see her looking so well.

  It was nothing to the shock he gave her. ‘Mick! I can’t believe it!’ She rose from the chair and for a moment she swayed and he thought she would fall. He seized her arm and sat her down again, picking up the book she had dropped. ‘I thought you were at sea,’ she said.

  ‘I’m on leave. How are you?’ He reddened. ‘Daft question. You wouldn’t be here if you were OK.’

  She smiled then. ‘I’m much better. They’re saying I’ll be able to leave soon. You can’t imagine how that makes me feel, Mick. I thought I might die at one time. And now I’m feeling better I feel completely out of things here.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ said Mick, propping his bicycle against the cabin wall.

  ‘I miss the sound of the trams and the kids playing in the street. I miss the lamplighters,’ she said fervently.

  ‘You’re forgetting the blackout.’

  ‘So I am!’ She groaned. ‘See what I mean. What I don’t miss is Ma coughing! It was terrible, Mick, at the end.’ For a moment she looked like a little girl lost.

  He reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘You did your best. If she didn’t want to see a doctor you couldn’t make her.’

  There was a silence. Mick was remembering the past and how thoughtless he had been towards her. She cleared her throat. ‘We were only just scraping by, Mick. You’ve no idea of the times I couldn’t afford to put the gas on and we had to sit in the dark. Sometimes we couldn’t even afford coal and had no fire after Ma’s fancy man left.’

  ‘You should have told Ma and Pops earlier. They’d have done something and you mightn’t have had to come here.’

  ‘They’ve been kind.’ She smiled at him. ‘And now you’re here. How is everybody? How’s Nelson?’

  ‘He’s still as spoilt as ever. Not much of the guard dog,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘I wish you could have brought him with you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft! He could hardly ride on the crossbar!’ He grinned at her, thinking she was not as beautiful as Jeannie but he felt relaxed in her company and knew he did not have to put on another side. He could be himself.

  She asked him about his life at sea and he enjoyed talking about it and told her things he would not have told his mother. When it came time for him to make a move she looked so sad that he decided to stay a little longer. If it got dark he could always sleep in a hedge or a field, he decided. They talked some more and she suggested a walk.

  ‘It’s ages since we had a walk together,’ said Mick.

  ‘Ages,’ she said softly, thinking how glad she was that Jeannie had gone and that he did not seem to care. ‘Remember the old days when we first went out with each other?’

  Mick took her hand. ‘Bela Lugosi carrying his coffin around and you being scared stiff. It’s not that long ago.’

  She smiled. ‘It was a different world.’

  ‘I was hurt you preferring to look after Geraldine Galloway to being with me. Now I realise how noble you were and what a selfish little sod I was.’

  ‘I’d rather have been with you,’ she murmured. ‘But you just didn’t understand.’

  ‘I was only a kid.’

  She nodded and they walked on in silence through the thinning trees.

  They came out onto a field of wheat which had been newly cut and continued to walk along the edge of it, watching the sun sinking towards the horizon. It was quiet except for the sound of birdsong. Neither of them wanted to disturb the peace of the moment. It was not until they reached the end of the field that they heard the aeroplane.

  They stilled and looked at each other. Celia went to speak but Mick shushed her. Is it one of theirs or one of ours! he thought, listening intently. Then he grabbed her hand as the heavy sound of its engine translated into the word Dornier and ran with her towards the woods, keeping in the shadow of the hedge bordering the field. When the bomb exploded they were caught on the edge of the blast and flung through the air to land face down in the shorn field.

  Mick picked himself up and spat out bits of stalk and soil. He looked round for Celia and saw her a few yards away. For a moment he thought the shock of the blast had killed her. ‘Cessy!’ he croaked.

  She moved and he felt an enormous relief and began to make his way towards her. By the time he reached her she was sitting up. Her hair was standing on end and her face was covered in soil and bits of plant. ‘Bloody hell, Mick!’ she gasped, holding out a hand to him. ‘They nearly got us.’

  ‘Bloody hell’s right,’ he panted, and abruptly his legs gave way and he fell onto the ground beside her. ‘Bloody, bloody hell!’ He rolled over to lie fiat on his back despite the prickly stalks. He closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘I can’t believe we’re still alive.’

  ‘Why pick on us?’ she cried, lying flat beside him.

  ‘Target practice and they bloody missed!’ He began to laugh.

  ‘Swines,’ said Celia with feeling.

  ‘Bloody swines!’ he spluttered.

  She giggled.
‘It’s not funny.’

  He shook his head and put his arm around her. ‘No, but you can’t help laughing, can you?’

  She giggled and suddenly they were both laughing. They laughed and laughed until it hurt. ‘Stop it,’ wailed Celia, clutching at him. ‘I’ve got a pain! Stop it!’

  ‘I can’t! I need a shock! That’s what I need, a shock! Like you give people with hiccups.’ The tears were streaming down his cheeks. He gazed at her, attempting to get control of himself and suddenly found himself kissing her even as the laughter still bubbled in his throat. They were alive, alive!

  Her hands were suddenly on his chest attempting to push him away. ‘What the matter? Don’t you want me to kiss you?’

  ‘Germs!’ she cried, looking worried. ‘Germs. Have you forgotten I’m here because I’ve had TB?’

  He had. He’d clean forgotten but as he looked at her he could not believe she still had the disease. ‘What the hell?’ he said in a hard voice. ‘Bloody hell, Cessy! We’ve both just nearly been killed. There’s a war on, yer know! A war!’

  ‘Oh God!’ she whispered. ‘You’re a sailor. You could be killed tomorrow.’

  ‘Not tomorrow,’ he said unsteadily, still feeling slightly hysterical. ‘And not right now.’ He kissed her again and kissed and kissed and his passion rose until it was a raging urgency inside him. She muttered words in her throat, that he could not catch but felt sure she was telling him she loved him. He told her that he loved her and he did in that moment. She was warm and her body yielded against his in a way that said, ‘Take me!’ His fingers found the buttons on her dress and he undid them rapidly. He was not surprised to find that she had little underwear on beneath. His mouth found her breast as the lower part of her body bucked beneath him. He removed her knickers and pulled down his pants. Then he was easing himself inside her and they were both gasping and thrusting. He could scarcely believe in the glory of the moment because she was his first, but it was all over too quickly.