A Nest of Singing Birds

by A Nest of Singing Birds (retail) (epub)

The blackout precautions were a constant worry to Julia and Eileen declared that they were an excuse for petty tyrants to enjoy themselves. Mrs Morton, who had once forbidden Anne to take her daughters on days out, was the Air Raid Warden for the street and the slightest chink of light brought her screaming and banging on the door.

  ‘She’ll give my mum a heart attack one of these nights,’ Anne said. ‘I never liked her and now I hate her.’

  ‘Little Hitler,’ Sarah said. ‘Old Ashcroft in our street is the same. Much use he’d be in an air raid anyway.’

  The doctor who attended Sarah went into the forces and the elderly man who took his place discharged her as fit for work. Sarah was delighted but others thought she was still not well enough.

  ‘Silly old fool,’ Mabel said to Anne. ‘God knows what damage she’ll do to herself coming back so soon. We’ll have to watch she doesn’t do too much.’ It was arranged that Hetty would stay on in the shop for a while and Sarah would work from ten o’clock until three for the first few weeks.

  Helen and Tony were married on the first Saturday in October. Minnie did not attend the wedding but everyone else thought that Helen was a beautiful bride. She wore a long full-skirted dress of white organdie and a headdress of artificial lilies of the valley and carried white roses and carnations.

  Anne and Eileen wore blue taffeta dresses and carried pink carnations and stephanotis and Mrs Redmond had made a suit in darker blue and a white blouse for Julia.

  Anne felt her eyes fill with tears as she looked at Helen and Tony kneeling at the altar during their Nuptial Mass: Helen so tiny and ethereal and Tony proud and protective beside her, looking at each other with love.

  Will John and I ever be like that? Anne wondered. No doubts or misunderstandings, a courting couple who can show that we love each other? It seemed unlikely. Whatever the reason for John’s shutting her out, it seemed he was not prepared to tell her about it.

  Now that Sarah was back at work Anne was not visiting the Redmond house as frequently and she missed her visits there. The more she saw of the Redmonds the more she liked them, particularly Sarah’s grandmother. Mrs Ward’s shrewd gaze missed very little and she longed to ask her why John behaved as he did. Why he seemed so determined to treat her as a friend when all her instincts told her that he was in love with her.

  The wedding of Helen and Tony was the last time all the Fitzgerald family would be together. Stephen and Tony were both in reserved occupations but Joe and Terry were called up into the Irish Guards and sent to Caterham Barracks and a week later Eileen left for the WAAFs.

  The air raids and gas attacks that everyone had feared did not take place but Anne and Sarah agreed that it was the small inconveniences of war that were hardest to bear.

  ‘I’m forever forgetting my gas mask or identity card and having to go back for them,’ Anne said. ‘And this damn blackout! I tore my stockings and cut my knee when I fell over that step, and now this.’ She had misjudged her nearness to a wall and crashed into it, scraping her cheek and bruising her face.

  ‘I know. I’m fed up too but I suppose we shouldn’t grumble,’ Sarah said and Anne agreed that other people had worse troubles. Several families they knew had sons or fathers missing or drowned at sea and men were being sent to France with the British Expeditionary Force.

  Sarah had been able to attend the caelidhes again, warned by her mother that she must not do more than two dances, but she found them greatly changed.

  Some of the men they knew had gone home to Ireland to escape being called up for the forces but many more were serving in the Army, Navy or Air Force or were at sea with the Merchant Marine.

  Letters had arrived from Joe and Terry and from Eileen who was desperately homesick, although she made a brave attempt to write cheerfully. Terry seemed to have settled in easily to army life, but although Joe made no complaints it was clear that he missed the family.

  ‘Terry’s all right,’ Anne told Sarah, ‘but I think our Joe feels being away more because he’d just got used to being at home. Poor Eileen’s terribly homesick. We’ve all written to her and sent her parcels to cheer her up.’

  ‘I’ll write to her,’ Sarah promised. ‘And send her some handcream and cigarettes. I’m sure the first few weeks will be the worst for her.’

  Desmond and Dominic had joined the Cheshire Regiment and Shaun the Royal Air Force so the Anderson house seemed very quiet. ‘We’d hardly got used to being without Theresa in the house,’ Carrie told Julia. ‘I don’t think Carmel will be at home long either. She wants to join the WRNS.’

  Carmel had shed her puppy fat and was now very elegant. Julia smiled. ‘She’ll certainly suit the uniform,’ she said. ‘Anne and Maureen have said nothing about wanting to join anything yet. I wish Eileen had waited and they might have gone together like the lads, although God knows, Carrie, I dread the thought of any more going.’

  ‘The girls are doing their bit here and that’s just as important as going in the WAAFs or the WRNS. Maureen’s doing the Civil Defence driving and Anne helping at Atlantic House. Thank God we haven’t been bombed and Theresa hasn’t had to put that gas mask on the baby.’

  ‘A lot of people are bringing their children back home,’ said Julia. Bridie came home bringing Teddy and Danny with her as well as the twins. ‘I’ve never worked so hard in my life,’ she told Anne and Julia when she called to see them. ‘I got the rooms through the billeting officer, in a big house. The lady who owned it had a cook, a kitchen maid and two other maids.’

  ‘How did you get on with them?’ Julia asked.

  ‘I didn’t get the chance to find out,’ said Bridie. ‘The four of them left to work in a factory that opened near the village. I think my being there was a put-up job between the lady and the billeting officer. I helped her at first but it was a mistake.’

  ‘Why?’ said Anne.

  ‘Because she just took it for granted that I was there to wait on her. She expected to live her life as though she still had four maids with me doing their work.’

  ‘What cheek!’ Anne exclaimed and her mother said, ‘Did you explain that you couldn’t do it, Bridie?’

  ‘I’d have been wasting my breath, Julia. She was so arrogant, so sure that nothing must interfere with her comfort, that she wouldn’t have listened.’

  ‘Sarah’s brother says the war will level some people down and others up and things will be a lot fairer,’ Anne said. She blushed as she spoke but Bridie and Julia noticed nothing.

  ‘If I’d been there much longer she’d have been levelled down all right,’ Bridie said with a grin. ‘With a left hook.’

  The weather was still bitterly cold and snow fell on 28 December.

  The following day it froze as icy winds swept the country. ‘This wind’s coming from Finland,’ a customer told Anne. ‘It’s the coldest winter there for fifty years.’

  ‘It can’t be any colder than here,’ a woman said as the thick snow froze ever harder on the icy roads. ‘I put my washing to soak in my dolly tub and it was frozen solid this morning – in my back kitchen! What a start to 1940!’

  ‘I’m wearing as many skins as an onion and I’m still freezing,’ Anne told Sarah. ‘It must be terrible for people in the forces who haven’t got a warm house to go back to.’

  ‘And poor people who haven’t got warm clothes,’ Sarah said. ‘Mum’s routing out all our spare clothes and John’s taking them to families he knows through Grandad. I’ve got layers on in case they’ve vanished when I get home!’

  ‘There was something on the wireless about the earthquake in Turkey,’ Anne said. ‘They said it was like Dante’s Inferno. We could do with some of that heat here.’

  Later Anne thought over Sarah’s words about clothes for people who needed them and felt ashamed that she had not thought of their plight. What would John think of her? When she went home she spoke to her mother about it and she told Anne not to worry.

  ‘I’ve given all the outgrown clothes and anything spare to Mrs Bennet
. She knows people who’ll make good use of them, especially in this weather,’ she said and Anne felt even more ashamed that the thought had not occurred to her.

  Maureen, who was now the manageress of the wool shop, had warned them that wool might be in short supply so they had all bought plenty of every colour, including a lot of khaki. Anne and Maureen and their mother had all made balaclava helmets, gloves and scarves to send to Joe and Terry.

  They had also sent knitted comforts to Eileen and Anne had made a balaclava helmet for herself which she wore in bed as well as a pair of her father’s socks and a cardigan over her pyjamas. She had always shared a double bed with Eileen and now missed the warmth of her sister’s body beside her.

  One night when she was ready for bed she called Maureen in to see her preparations. ‘If I got married do you think this could be part of my trousseau, Mo?’

  Maureen laughed. ‘Why?’ she teased. ‘Have you got someone in mind?’ Anne laughed but she blushed too as her mind turned to John.

  Day after day the bitter weather continued and sliding and slipping home on the frozen snow through the blackout was a nightmare. Even when there was a full moon in the middle of January, and bright moonlight to light the way home, the cold seemed to intensify. Frost was so thick that it looked like newly fallen snow.

  Hetty had left the shop to work in an ordnance factory soon after Sarah returned, and now to add to the misery of the two girls, Mabel went to train as an auxiliary nurse and Mrs Dyson’s sister came to take charge of the shop.

  The girls had always worked quickly and willingly but nothing satisfied Miss Meers and Mrs Dyson seemed afraid to stand up to her. ‘Try not to fall out with her,’ she begged the girls. ‘Albert’s got so much on his plate with worries about supplies. I don’t want any rows to make it worse for him.’

  Anne and Sarah tried to keep the peace but Miss Meers was a slave driver, and would never allow them to stand still for a moment. She did nothing to help but constantly chivvied the girls and interfered when they were serving customers.

  Before long the woman who cleaned the shop had a row with Miss Meers and left and she refused to replace her. ‘The girls can do the cleaning,’ she told Mrs Dyson and Anne and Sarah rarely left the shop before eight o’clock at night.

  Anne was concerned about Sarah, who was not fully fit again and looked exhausted. ‘She’ll be ill again if this goes on,’ she told John when she met him as she left the house one morning. Both families advised the girls to complain to Mrs Dyson, and if she did nothing, to leave the shop. They made their complaint but when Mrs Dyson timidly approached Miss Meers she was so abusive that both girls gave in their notice to leave the following week.

  ‘We’re sorry to go like this,’ they told Mrs Dyson. ‘You’ve been good to us – you and Mr Dyson – but we can’t stand it any longer.’

  ‘Albert would soon sort her out if it wasn’t for his worries,’ Mrs Dyson said. ‘I’m sorry to see you go, both of you. You’ve been good girls and worked hard for us and I wish you luck.’

  The girls wept as they left the shop but soon they were eagerly planning to apply to one of the factories such as the Meccano which was now on war work. ‘I don’t want to go in any of the women’s services after what I’ve heard from Eileen,’ Anne said. ‘But we’d be helping the war effort just as much in a factory, wouldn’t we?’

  They both applied to the factory in Edge Lane; Anne passed the medical examination and Sarah failed it. She went to the Labour Bureau and the clerk there told her that she would be passed fit for clerical work and sent her to the Ministry of Defence Office.

  Both girls liked their new jobs, although they missed working together. Anne’s job involved shift work, six o’clock until two, two o’clock until ten, and ten o’clock until six in the morning, so she was rarely free to go out with Sarah.

  Joe and Terry had finished their training and were due to come on leave when Joe was promoted to Lance Corporal and sent on a course and Terry came home alone. He looked very smart as he walked down the street in battledress, his boots shining like glass and his shoulders back.

  All the family, and especially his mother, were very proud of him. ‘I suppose it’s the drill, son, that makes you walk so straight and hold your head back?’ she said.

  ‘No, Mum, it’s the cap,’ he said, laughing. ‘With the peak covering my eyes like this I have to hold my head back to see where I’m going or I’d break my neck.’

  ‘Mother of God!’ Julia exclaimed. ‘Could you not get one that was a better fit?’

  Terry laughed even more. ‘The peak’s cut like this deliberately,’ he said. ‘Wait till you see our Joe.’

  Maureen was upset when she heard that his leave was postponed but the rest of the family thought it better for their mother that she still had Joe’s leave to look forward to, so Maureen said nothing.

  It was easier for her to see Chris now. His wife had been admitted to hospital for observation and then evacuated to a hospital in Shropshire when war was declared.

  Chris was now an auxiliary fireman and he and Maureen could meet only when their duties permitted. For both of them, though, the marriage vow was binding, and although they had been tempted their relationship was still platonic.

  Terry was disappointed to find so many of his friends scattered and his family with so little free time to spend with him. ‘I know Tony’s got his own house now,’ he said to his mother, ‘but what’s happened to everyone else?’

  ‘Anne is on this shift work now and Dad and Maureen have their duties with Civil Defence. With Dad’s being a builder he’s showing fellows how to get people out if a house is demolished.’ She crossed herself. ‘God between us and all harm, Terry, I hope it’ll never be needed but they have to be prepared.’

  ‘I hope he’s not overdoing it, all that after a day’s work,’ Terry said. ‘Although Maureen seems to be kept busy driving after work and I think she looks better than she has for ages.’

  ‘She does, thank God,’ his mother said quietly. ‘It’s a pity that Stephen has met this girl who seems to want his every free minute or he’d be company for you.’

  ‘It sounds as though you don’t like Claire, Mum?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t the fondness for her I have for Helen,’ Julia said diplomatically.

  ‘It must be lonely for you with everyone out so much,’ he said, looking at her searchingly. ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘I do very well,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Carrie is often here, and Bridie, and Sarah often comes to see me. She works ordinary hours so Anne’s not often free to go out with her now.’

  ‘I think I’ll go down to see her tonight,’ Terry said. ‘Perhaps we could go to the pictures or something?’

  ‘Yes, do that, son,’ said Julia. ‘That’s a good idea. She’s a lovely girl and good company for all she’s so quiet.’

  Terry went to the cinema with Sarah, and to the caelidhe with her and Anne when his sister was free to go, but he found the dance very changed with so many men away from home.

  The Fitzgeralds had never known their neighbours very well, partly because Magdalen Street was wide, with houses set back behind small gardens and with steps to the front door, and partly because their big family made them self-sufficient.

  Now he found a young man from a few doors away was home on leave from the Royal Engineers and spent some of his leave with him and some visiting relations, as men on leave were expected to do.

  Soon it was time for him to return and it was arranged that Anne and Sarah who were both free would see him off at the station. He walked down to the Redmond house with Anne to collect Sarah and to say goodbye to the Redmonds.

  A framed photograph of Sarah, taken on her eighteenth birthday, was on the sideboard. Terry admired it and asked Sarah if she had another copy and she said casually, ‘Yes. I got three.’

  Her mother took a folder from the drawer of the dresser and Terry took out one of the photographs. ‘Can I have this?’ he asked. ‘
I’d put it up above my bed.’

  ‘In the gallery?’ Sarah said sarcastically, but he dropped on one knee and put his hand on his heart.

  ‘Ah, no, alannah, the one and only,’ he said soulfully.

  Mrs Redmond laughed but Sarah said, ‘I believe you but thousands wouldn’t!’

  And Anne said scornfully, ‘Get up, you fool.’

  ‘“He that calls his brother a fool shall be damned”,’ Terry said and laughing and teasing they left the house and took a tramcar to Lime Street Station.

  At the station he kissed each of the girls in turn, lifting them off their feet and swinging them round, cheered by a couple of other soldiers. ‘Don’t be greedy, Mick,’ one of them shouted but Terry put an arm round each of the girls and kissed them again.

  When the train had gone and they left the station Sarah seemed quiet and thoughtful and Anne thought that she was more upset by Terry’s leaving than she had shown while he was there.

  She slipped her arm through Sarah’s. ‘We’ll be able to go out a bit while I’m on this early shift,’ she said consolingly. ‘It’ll be like old times, won’t it?’ Sarah looked startled but agreed.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Anne enjoyed her work in the factory. It was light and clean, and although the parts she was working on were tiny, Anne was neat and dextrous and found the tasks easy.

  A cross section of women were employed. Some were girls like Anne, former shop workers or clerks, and many had worked in other factories. The woman on Anne’s left at the bench, Ruby, had worked in a factory making doll’s eyes and the girl on Anne’s right had never worked before.

  She was the indulged only child of wealthy parents and had spent her days playing golf or tennis or riding and her evenings at various social functions. Her name was Penelope but she quickly became Penny in the factory.

  ‘Mummy didn’t want me to come here,’ she told Anne in what Anne thought of as a ‘far back’ voice, ‘but I didn’t want to arse around playing Lady Bountiful. I wanted to do real war work. Daddy has gone in the army and I can handle Mummy so here I am.’