A Nest of Singing Birds

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

  She peeped into the hall and drew back in shock. The front door and the vestibule door had been blown off and the heavy mahogany coat stand lay across the foot of the stairs.

  Anne went through to the yard. The heavy drone of the bombers still filled the air as they came in wave after wave, but the searchlights which criss-crossed the sky were almost lost against the fierce orange glow as Liverpool burned.

  There was an ominous whooshing sound and a loud crash nearby and Anne hastily dashed back to the scullery. She was able to light the gas and make tea in the big brown family teapot. The tea was much appreciated but everyone urged her not to leave the cellar again.

  It was the longest night she had ever known. Her mind was divided between fear for her mother and worry about her father and Maureen and Tony and she was immensely grateful that Helen was with her.

  When at last the All Clear sounded her mother was undisturbed by it and so were the two little girls asleep on a bunk bed. Helen advised the women to leave the children asleep while they checked on their houses and Jinny Bennet offered to stay with them and bring them home when they woke.

  ‘I hope they’ve still got a home,’ Helen whispered. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I was walking here, Anne. The damage all the way. London Road, Shaw Street, Westboume Street. I couldn’t even get up Plumpton Street so I came up Fitzclarence but there were fires and damage there too.’

  Mrs Bennet had hurried away to check on her house but was soon back. ‘My place isn’t bad,’ she said. ‘Bit knocked about like but the end of our street on the other side is flat, God help them. I didn’t wait to find out about them. I’ve come back to get your ma’s room straight so she can come upstairs.’

  Anne found a bottle of sherry in the cupboard and poured a glassful for each of them. It seemed to revive them and Helen carried a glassful down to the cellar for Jinny then stayed sitting beside Julia at Anne’s insistence.

  Anne and Mrs Bennet quickly cleared the thick layer of gritty dust which lay over everything in Julia’s room and remade her bed. The shutters had been closed so there was little damage.

  Just as they finished Tony appeared. His red-rimmed eyes peered from his grimy face anxiously and Anne said swiftly, ‘It’s all right, Tony. Helen’s sitting with Mum and they’re safe.’

  ‘Thank God!’ he said. ‘You’d think there’d be no one left when you look at the city. The end of our place has gone, the canteen and the office part luckily. About twenty injured but no one killed and the main works aren’t damaged.’

  Shortly afterwards Maureen arrived, but only to check the family was safe. Her mother was still sleeping and Maureen hastily drank a cup of tea then returned to her ambulance.

  She looked exhausted and Anne said anxiously, ‘Oh, Maureen, haven’t you done enough?’

  Maureen turned on her. ‘Done enough?’ she snarled. ‘Do you know what it’s like out there? Mill Road has got it again. Most of the hospital wrecked and ambulances on fire. More than a dozen of our drivers killed and more injured, the same for the staff and patients.’

  Anne stood in stunned silence as tears filled Maureen’s eyes and she dashed them away. ‘We’ve been moving patients to other hospitals. I’ll have to go.’ She ran down the steps but turned back for a moment to say, ‘Uncle Fred’s injured but he’ll be all right. I saw him lying in a hospital corridor.’

  The next moment she was gone and when Anne learnt of the devastation of the city she could understand Maureen’s rage at her innocent question.

  The whole line of docks seemed to be ablaze and ships in the river, shops, offices, streets of terraced houses and mansions, as well as beautiful and historic buildings like the Walker Art Gallery, the Museum and Central Library, had all suffered as high explosive bombs, landmines and incendiary bombs had rained down upon the city from hundreds of aircraft.

  Anne and Mrs Bennet did what they could to clear up the house. The damage seemed to be mostly at the back. The blast which had flung down the doors at the front had strangely left the windows intact but when Pat arrived home it was decided that it would be better to leave Julia in the bed in the cellar.

  ‘Those bastards’ll be back,’ he said. ‘They use the fires from the night before as markers for their bombs. Blackout is no good while fires are still burning to show them the way, the bloody swines.

  Anne had never heard her father swear before. It seemed to be part of this dreadful time, with the responsibility for her mother like a crushing weight on her. Julia’s pain seemed to have left her, and she lay seeming to drift in and out of sleep or unconsciousness, Anne could never be sure which, as she sat beside her, wiping her face, or tried to feed her with beef tea from a feeding cup.

  Mrs Bennet had been into town and brought back details of the damage. Anne asked her to check on Egremont Street but before Mrs Bennet returned Sarah appeared on the cellar steps. Anne’s mother seemed asleep so Anne left her and went quickly to meet her friend.

  ‘I came to see if you were all safe,’ Sarah whispered and Anne said, ‘Yes, except Uncle Fred’s injured, I think. What about all of you?’

  ‘All safe,’ Sarah said. ‘But Grandma’s and Peggy Burns’ houses have gone.’

  ‘Gone?’ Anne echoed.

  ‘Yes, bombed,’ Sarah said. ‘A high explosive, I think, Grandma’s and Peggy’s and about four houses in the street behind. Thank God Grandma and our Kate had gone out to Huyton in the lorries and Peggy had gone to their Meg’s shelter. The major who lodged with Peggy stayed in the house and he was killed and his wife blown through the window, but she’s all right.’

  ‘I hope John doesn’t hear about the bombing, or our Eileen or Joe before we can tell them we’re all safe,’ Anne said. ‘I’ve written short notes to all of them. I hope they get through but the Post Office got it last night, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but they just work from somewhere else,’ Sarah said. The next moment Mrs Bennet arrived and Anne was glad that Sarah had come before her as Mrs Bennet gave a graphic description of the damage in Egremont Street.

  Sarah said quietly, ‘Yes, but as my mother said, Mrs Bennet, at least we’re all alive. That’s not true of a lot of people this morning.’

  ‘No, it’s not. Seventeen killed in them houses at the top of our street. You should just see the town, Anne. Lewis’s and Bladder’s burnt out and Lime Street – you can’t hardly move for the hosepipes all over the ground.’

  Anne seemed to be scarcely listening and at a sound from her mother dashed back to her side, followed by Sarah and Mrs Bennet.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Helen whispered. ‘She’s just settling down. I think she’ll sleep naturally now.’

  Jinny had taken the little girls home and Sarah and Mrs Bennet left. Soon afterwards Tony took Helen away.

  ‘I think she should be in bed,’ he said and Anne agreed. Helen, who had been so calm during the night, was now cold and shaking with delayed shock and Anne told her how glad she had been of her company.

  When Maureen and her father eventually returned they both fell into an exhausted sleep after seeing Julia resting peacefully, her breathing shallow but regular.

  When they woke Maureen told Anne that she was sorry she had snapped at her. ‘I was just worked up,’ she said. ‘A friend of mine, a fireman, had been injured and burned.’

  ‘Oh, Lord, is he bad?’ Anne exclaimed.

  ‘He’ll live,’ Maureen said, ‘but his injuries are very painful. Two of his mates were killed, though, at the same incident.’

  Anne put a cup of tea down beside her. ‘I didn’t realise all this was happening,’ she said. ‘I was so frightened about Mum. I was glad to have that black bottle.’ She put her arm round Maureen’s neck and kissed her cheek. ‘Don’t worry about your friend, Mo. At least he’s out of it for a while,’ she said, unaware of how much Chris meant to Maureen.

  There was only a large crater where the wool shop had stood so Maureen was free to stay with her mother and Anne went to work on Monday.

&nb
sp; There had been another bad raid on Sunday night but soldiers and gangs of workmen were clearing the roads of the debris from shattered buildings and fire crews from all the surrounding districts had come to help fight the numerous fires.

  Anne had to make many detours to reach the factory and felt triumphant when she arrived there but she found that most of the women had come in.

  Some, though, would never come again. Ruby, who had said that she was safe, that lightning never struck twice, had been killed with her daughter and two of her grandsons by a direct hit on their shelter.

  Doris, the girl who worked next to Anne, had been killed and her parents injured after they had been taken to a rest centre from their bombed house. Anne wept at the news.

  Doris’s husband was due home on leave. She had told Anne on Saturday that she had received her last letter before the leave.

  ‘Every leave I tie up all the letters I’ve had since Stan’s last, then start again when he goes back,’ she said. Anne remembered envying her because her husband was coming on leave just as John went back.

  What had happened to those carefully hoarded letters, she wondered, and who would tell Stan when he arrived? The supervisor put her hand on Anne’s shoulder. ‘Sad about poor Doris,’ she said. ‘But – life has to go on. The harder we work, the more our lads will have to throw at the bastards.’

  Sarah’s grandmother and her friend and neighbour Mrs Burns seemed to accept the loss of their homes calmly, in public at least. Sally Ward moved in to live with her daughter’s family, on the opposite side of Egremont Street, and Peggy Burns went to live with her daughter Meg and her husband.

  Anne’s mother was still free from pain but almost too weak to move. Mrs Ward came every day to help Maureen to make her mother comfortable until the doctor could arrange for nursing help.

  He appeared one morning looking haggard and after a quick examination of her mother gave Maureen a prescription for medicine for her.

  ‘This should help her but give it as sparingly as possible at first,’ he said. Maureen said that her mother seemed free of pain but he warned her it could return at any moment. ‘We don’t know why there are these remissions or why it strikes again. You’re a sensible girl. Use your own judgement.’

  Fred had been helping to rescue a family trapped in a cellar when a collapsing beam held him trapped by his left arm and leg for several hours but he made a good recovery.

  ‘I’m the most well blessed man in Liverpool,’ he joked. ‘Four different priests gave me conditional absolution before they got me out. I couldn’t tell them they weren’t the first.’

  Carrie was able to come every day to sit with Julia and Maureen was able to travel to Whiston Hospital where Chris had been taken. She told Carrie only that she was visiting a friend.

  There were still occasional air raids but none with the ferocity of the ‘May Blitz’ as it was being called and now Julia was back in her own bed in the bright and sunny back parlour.

  The doctor and the Sisters of Charity who came to help with the nursing were amazed at her tenacious hold on life but Julia had told Mrs Ward that she was determined to live until Anne’s marriage. ‘I won’t spoil the child’s wedding day,’ she whispered and although her pain had returned she held on.

  Sarah’s mother also came often to see Julia and to discuss the wedding. She suggested that the wedding reception should be held at the Redmond house, telling Julia that it would help her mother to get over the loss of her house if she could organise the wedding.

  Julia smiled and pressed her hand, recognising the tact and kindness of the suggestion. Clothes rationing had suddenly been introduced, much to Anne’s dismay. ‘If only I’d got my clothes for the wedding,’ she mourned. ‘I’m mad because I had the money for them but I just couldn’t get time to shop with the hours we’ve been working.’

  Fortunately the material for her wedding dress had already been bought. Eileen, Sarah and Kate were to be the bridesmaids and Kate produced a bolt of pale pink taffeta for their dresses telling her mother that it came from a fire damage sale.

  Sarah’s aunt who lived in America sent food parcels so Mrs Redmond also made the wedding cake and provided much of the food for the wedding breakfast.

  Julia’s bedroom was now the heart of the house with the family spending every possible moment with her, and although her face was almost fleshless she could always manage a smile to greet them.

  For Anne it was a happy time in spite of her mother’s illness. Always ready to look on the bright side she expected that the remission would last for a long time, and there was a conspiracy between Maureen and her mother to conceal Julia’s suffering from her.

  Letters came almost every day from John and although he talked about Hitler’s invasion of Russia and other war news, he always remembered to tell Anne that he loved her. Her letters to him gave news of all the preparations for the wedding but were tender and loving too.

  John’s brother Mick who was in the RAF was to be best man and had a week’s leave in September before moving to Manchester. Eileen and Joe both obtained a week’s leave for the wedding and Stephen came on a week’s holiday so all the family except Terry were together. Anne worried that Sarah would be upset but she assured her that she was perfectly happy and certainly seemed so.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The wedding day was typical September weather, with clear blue skies and mild sunshine falling through the church window to shine on Anne and John as they stood at the altar.

  Anne looked beautiful in a dress of white organdie with a wreath of orange blossom on her dark hair. She carried a large bouquet of white roses and pink carnations and her bridesmaids Eileen, Sarah and Kate, wore their pink taffeta dresses and carried white and pink chrysanthemums.

  It was a Service wedding, with John and Joe in khaki battledress and Mick in Air Force uniform. Maureen had borrowed a wheelchair for her mother and wheeled her close to the altar to see Anne and John married, then drove her home until the Nuptial Mass was over.

  Later she took Julia to the Redmond house where the wedding reception was taking place. She could only stay a short time but long enough to hear John thank her for the gift of her daughter. Anne and John came to kiss her and she blessed them. ‘I’m so glad to have you as a son, John. I know you’ll both be happy. God bless you.’

  The effort exhausted her and Pat wrapped her in a blanket and carried her to Maureen’s car. Sarah had come to the car with them and Julia asked Pat to go back to the reception. ‘Sarah will come with us, won’t you, love?’ she said in her weak voice and Sarah gladly agreed.

  ‘Aye, not much fun for you, love, with our Terry away,’ Pat said. ‘But your turn will come, pet.’ She mumbled something and blushed as she hastily climbed into the car.

  When Sarah had helped Maureen to put her mother to bed, the sick woman took Sarah’s hand. ‘I won’t be here for your wedding, love,’ she whispered. ‘Whichever one you marry.’

  Sarah’s eyes opened wide in surprise and Julia smiled weakly at her. ‘I know, love. I saw the way you and Joe – but don’t hurt Terry.’

  Sarah bent close to her. ‘We won’t, I promise. We’ll wait until he comes home and sort it out,’ she said quietly.

  ‘That’s good children,’ Julia whispered. ‘Terry’ll be all right, but look after Joe. Don’t make a mistake.’ She closed her eyes for a moment then said faintly, ‘Marriage is for life, love.’

  Tears were running down Sarah’s face and Julia lifted her hand to touch her cheek, then her hand fell back. ‘Be happy. You and Maureen help each other,’ she said.

  Maureen bent and kissed her. ‘Rest now, Mum,’ she said gently.

  She poured out a dose of medicine for her mother and soon she fell asleep.

  Like Anne, Maureen had often felt uneasy about Sarah’s relationship with Terry and thought that she seemed to regard him more as a brother than a lover. Partly because of her own dilemma, and partly because she was so close to Joe, Maureen had gradual
ly realised that Sarah and he were in love.

  ‘Did you know?’ Sarah asked her. ‘About me and Joe?’

  ‘I guessed,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t know that Mum had guessed too. I’m sure no one else has and Mum won’t have said anything about it, even to Dad. What will you do, Sar?’

  ‘What can we do?’ Sarah said. ‘Only try to hide how we feel and wait until Terry comes home to sort it out. I couldn’t tell him while he’s there. My dad guessed too but no one else knows.’

  In turn Maureen confided her hopeless love for Chris. ‘That’s why Mum said we can help each other,’ she said. ‘Just to be able to talk to someone means so much. I can talk to Joe but there’s no one else. Nine years and two months I’ve been in love with Chris.’

  Later Joe came to see his mother and they were able to tell him that his and Sarah’s secret was known to them. Julia was awake and Joe and Maureen tenderly lifted her higher on her pillows. She took Sarah’s and Joe’s hands in hers. ‘God bless you both,’ she whispered.

  Maureen stayed with her mother but Sarah and Joe walked back to the Redmond house together. Sarah told Joe what his mother had said and they spoke about Chris and Maureen.

  At the reception numerous people said to Sarah, ‘Never mind. Your turn next,’ and she said to Mick, ‘I wish they wouldn’t. I’m not jealous of Anne or in any hurry to get married. I feel a hypocrite.’

  ‘You and me both,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’ve only had twelve hours’ flying instruction and flown one solo – never even frightened a German – but people keep telling me I’ve saved Britain. They think I’m a fighter pilot.’

  ‘It’s the uniform,’ Sarah said. ‘And Churchill’s speech.’

  ‘I know. I tried to tell them at first but now I just smile and say nuffin’, like Brer Rabbit.’

  Anne changed into a wine-coloured suit made by Mrs Redmond to go away.

  She and John went first to see her mother, then to a hotel in Chester overnight and then to spend a week in North Wales. For Anne it was a magical time. The war seemed remote as she and John wandered through woods, scuffling their feet through crisp fallen leaves, or lay in the deep feather bed in the farmhouse bedroom.