A Nest of Singing Birds

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

  Anne was shy with strangers and glad to go with Mrs Rooney for her first visit but soon she made friends among the younger women who eagerly discussed their children and all that affected them.

  By the time John came home from work Anne had decided to forget the quarrel and he made no reference to it. He took Gerry to bed while Anne cleared away the meal and washed up before preparing for the confraternity meeting.

  Many of the men on the estate had swopped cuttings as plants were separated in the autumn and some more experienced gardeners had been giving advice to new gardeners. John suggested that this should be done on a more organised basis and that a gardening club should be formed.

  There was general agreement and as John had suggested the formation of the club he was elected chairman.

  That came later but on this Monday night he had called a meeting in his house of anyone who was interested. He expected at most half a dozen men and none had arrived when Anne left for church.

  When she came home she was astounded to find the house packed with men, all of whom seemed to be arguing at the tops of their voices about the Nuremberg trials of war criminals.

  They all fell silent, looking sheepish when she appeared. ‘Er, hello love,’ John said. ‘Er – there’s more interest than we expected in the gardening club.’

  ‘The gardening club?’ she said, dimples appearing in her cheeks as she laughed heartily and the men laughed too.

  ‘I know it didn’t sound like it,’ John admitted. ‘I put the wireless on for the news and there was something on about the trials.’

  One of the older men said, ‘Right then, lads. Thanks for the use of your house, Mrs. In mine next time, eh, John? A fortnight tonight?’

  He agreed and the men began to move away, but Anne whispered to John, ‘What about Gerry? We can’t both be out.’

  He clapped his hands. ‘Just a minute, fellas,’ he said. ‘Tuesday suit you, Stan?’ The older man agreed and John shouted, ‘Tuesday suit everybody?’

  ‘Yes. The missus is out on Mondays,’ another man said and the men trooped away, saying goodnight to Anne.

  ‘Should I have offered them tea?’ she said anxiously when the last man had gone. ‘There were so many and we’re right on the end of the ration.’

  ‘No, they didn’t expect it,’ he said. He was rubbing his hands and looking delighted. ‘Twenty-three, Anne. Twenty-three turned up. And yet if I hadn’t suggested a club they’d just have muddled along.’

  ‘How did they all fit?’ she said.

  ‘All right. Con Rooney went next door and brought a few chairs in. That’s what they were taking out.’

  ‘I didn’t notice, I was so bewildered,’ she said. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Only elected a chairman and secretary and committee,’ John said. ‘I’m chairman, Stan’s secretary and Con Rooney and two fellows from Brook Road committee members.’

  ‘Another committee!’ she exclaimed.

  As soon as they arrived in the parish John had enrolled in the Catholic Young Men’s Society and in the St Vincent de Paul Society, who raised funds for and visited the sick and poor of the parish. Within a very short time he had been elected to serve on the committee of both organisations.

  ‘If I’m asked I can’t refuse,’ he said smugly but Anne bit back the comment she was about to make. She hated to be out of friends with anyone, particularly with John, and preferred to shut out of her mind anything that worried her.

  She saw Mrs Rooney the following day and they laughed together about the numbers in Anne’s house the previous evening. ‘I couldn’t make out what was different when I got in from the confraternity,’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘Until our Con come walking in with the chairs.’

  ‘You should have heard the noise when I got in,’ Anne said. ‘It was like an Irish Parliament, everyone talking at once.’

  ‘You wouldn’t think they’d get that excited about gardening, would you?’ Mrs Rooney said.

  ‘It wasn’t gardening,’ Anne said. ‘They were going on about the trials – the war criminals.’

  ‘What would you do with them?’ Mrs Rooney exclaimed. ‘Fellas! Sweet God. You’d think they’d all be glad to forget about the war.’

  ‘I know I am,’ Anne said. ‘I’m just glad it’s all over.’

  ‘It wasn’t like this after the first war,’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘My fella never talked about it. None of them did. I think it was that bad they couldn’t bear to talk about it. I never heard nothing about it until this lot started and the lads wanted to join up. Eddie was trying to talk them out of it and he told them a bit about the trenches.’

  ‘They still joined though?’ Anne said.

  ‘Yes. You’ll find that out with your own kids, girl, Nobody never takes no notice. They’ve got to find it out for themselves. Eddie told them, “I’ll fight a German that comes to my door, to protect me own. But I’d never go to another country to fight to save the nobs’ investments.” He was a clever man, my Eddie,’ Mrs Rooney said with a sigh.

  Anne looked sympathetic. She knew that Mrs Rooney’s husband had died in 1942. The two sons now at home had been away in the army, two older sons were working in the Midlands and her only daughter, once a stewardess on the Transatiantic run, was now married and living in America.

  Their father had died too suddenly for them to see him before his death but the four sons had come home for the funeral.

  ‘I see your Con’s on the committee,’ Anne said, to change the subject. ‘And John’s the chairman. That’s three committees he’s on, the SVP, the CYMS and now this.’

  ‘He won’t have time to do no gardening,’ Mrs Rooney chuckled.

  ‘I’d hate to be on a committee,’ Anne said. ‘But John enjoys it. I’m happy to be an Injun but I think he was born to be a Chief.’ They both laughed and Mrs Rooney said comfortably, ‘Well, I suppose we need Chiefs and Injuns. It’s a good job people like John take these jobs on.’

  Although the weather became cold and wet Anne was still very happy in her new house. She felt that she and John were settling easily into the community and she liked her neighbours. A few of them were the original tenants who had been re-housed there after the slum clearance in the early thirties but the majority were younger people who had moved into the houses immediately before or during the war.

  With her talent for friendship Anne soon knew and became friends with most of her neighbours. ‘It’s because of Gerry,’ she said to John. ‘He breaks the ice because people stop me to ask how old he is or something like that and he shouts hello to everyone.’ They both looked fondly at the child and he jumped up and down in his playpen shouting, ‘Hello, hello, hello.’

  The women of the parish took turns at cleaning the church and Anne was on the rota and made friends among the church congregation too.

  Anne was sorry to miss the Christmas Day services in their own parish but the arrangements for Christmas had been made long before. She and John would take Gerry to Mass with her family and spend Christmas morning with them, then go to John’s family for Christmas dinner and for the rest of the day.

  Gerry was well behaved during the Mass, then pleased all the family with the delight he showed at presents from his grandfather, Maureen, Eileen, Stephen and Sarah and Joe. He kissed each of them and Pat said, ‘He’s not like Theresa’s lads. They’d do anything before they’d give you a kiss. Think it makes them look like sissies, I suppose.’

  ‘Bridie’s lads were the same,’ Maureen said. ‘And probably Gerry’ll change when he’s older. Not too much though, I hope,’ she added, hugging the child.

  ‘I don’t like taking him away,’ Anne whispered to Sarah, ‘but we’ve promised to go to your mum’s and it’s only fair to go to each family in turn for Christmas dinner.’

  ‘Never mind. Next year, please God, you’ll be able to stay here and I’ll take my baby to Mum’s or vice versa,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s lucky we’re related to both families, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and I warn you, you
’ll have everyone coming in the bedroom on Christmas Day to see your baby with its stocking,’ Anne said, laughing. ‘That’s if you’re still here in these rooms.’

  ‘We will be,’ Sarah said. ‘We’re happy here and we won’t be able to afford a house until Joe qualifies.’

  Joe was now training as a teacher. There was an acute shortage due to retirement of older men and the demands of the 1944 Education Act. A shortened course had been devised for teacher training which Joe was taking and the ‘dilutees’ as they were known were usually excellent teachers. Joe decided that it was what he had always wanted to do, without realising it.

  ‘Your baby’ll have a warm welcome here, anyway,’ Anne told Sarah. ‘Everyone’s dying for it.’ She gave her an affectionate hug.

  Tony and Helen arrived with Moira but only for a brief visit as Helen’s mother was due to spend Christmas Day with them. Gerry and Moira greeted one another with cries of delight and Tony said quietly to Anne, ‘She’d love a little brother or sister.’

  ‘Plenty of time yet,’ Anne said cheerfully. ‘Uncle Fred reckons we’ll all have full quivers as he calls it.’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s right,’ Tony said, looking happier.

  Anne and John arrived at his mother’s house for dinner at two o’clock and found a magnificent turkey in the centre of the table.

  ‘Isn’t it a beauty?’ Cathy Redmond said. ‘It was a gift from Greg’s boss, Stan Johnson.’

  ‘His boss!’ John exclaimed. ‘I thought Dad was a partner.’

  ‘My senior partner then,’ Greg said with a hint of impatience. ‘A very generous gift anyway.’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Anne. ‘I don’t know how you got it in the oven.’

  Sally Ward laughed. ‘That reminds of the year we had a big goose for Christmas. You and Mary were only young, Cathy, but your dad brought in this big goose. He stood in front of it on Christmas Day, with the knife in his hand. “I don’t know whether to carve it or fight it,” he said.’

  As always when his grandfather’s name was mentioned, John’s expression softened. ‘Trust Grandad,’ he said fondly. ‘He had a joke for everything.’

  After dinner they sat round a blazing fire and Anne said anxiously to Sally, ‘I hope you haven’t left yourselves short of coal with sending that to us?’

  The weather was bitter and coal in short supply but John’s grandmother had sent two hundredweight of coal to them by a man who was passing near their house on a wagon.

  ‘Not at all, girl,’ Sally said. ‘We’re well stocked. When my house went the coalhouse roof fell in but the coal was safe underneath. The lads who cleared up were very good. They shifted nearly all the coal to Cathy’s backyard.’

  ‘They couldn’t put it in our coalplace because it was full,’ John’s mother said with a smile. ‘I was well trained by you, wasn’t I, Mam?’

  ‘Aye, well, I learnt in a hard school,’ Sally said. ‘When Lawrie was out of work and my poor father was lying ill, we hadn’t got two ha’pennies to knock together and I was out of my mind sometimes trying to find money for coal for cooking and drying washing, apart from the warmth. As soon as we got on our feet I swore that I’d never see the back of my coalplace again.’

  ‘And we never did,’ Cathy said. ‘Winter and summer the coalplace was always full.’

  ‘But are you sure you’ve got plenty here in this house?’ Anne said.

  ‘Plenty, girl,’ Sally told her. ‘We left some for Bridie but we could still fill this coalshed, couldn’t we, Cath? And we don’t have to rely on it for cooking now, with the gas stove.’

  ‘Bridie’s made up with your house,’ Anne said. ‘They were very cramped in that two-bedroom house now the children are growing up.’

  ‘It was lucky we both had the same landlord,’ Cathy agreed. ‘Houses are so short ours would have been snatched up only the landlord agreed to let Bridie have Egremont Street and leave hers empty for him. He said he’d have been lynched otherwise, with so many people after a house.’

  They all laughed and Anne said, ‘I’ll see Bridie tomorrow. You know we’re all going to Fred and Carrie’s. Carmel and Shaun and his wife are home for Christmas and Theresa will bring her tribe.’

  ‘How are the twins settling down?’ Cathy asked.

  ‘Des seems all right. He’s back working for Uncle Fred and he’s clever with the leather but Dom has a new job every couple of weeks. They’re as mad as ever in some ways.’

  ‘Won’t be easy for them to settle down after being in the commandos,’ Greg said and John said immediately, ‘You could say that about anyone who’s been in the forces.’

  ‘No doubt,’ his father said, seeming intent on lighting his pipe.

  ‘You should see Carmel,’ Anne said quickly. ‘She was always so fat and her skin was bad but now! She’s working on that fashion magazine in London and looks like someone out of Vogue, doesn’t she, John?’

  ‘Very sophisticated,’ he agreed.

  ‘I saw her when she was in the WRNS,’ Cathy said. ‘She suited the uniform.’

  ‘Yes. That’s when the ugly duckling became a swan,’ Anne said, laughing.

  Mick was home for Christmas and as Christmas Day 1946 was on Wednesday, arranged to stay until the following Sunday. All the family had been invited to Carrie’s house on Boxing Day and Cathy arranged a small party of old friends for Mick on Saturday night.

  ‘Are you sure we won’t be too much of a crowd tomorrow?’ Cathy said now to Anne but she assured her that there was nothing her uncle and aunt liked better than a crowd.

  They spent a happy day, with Gerry the focus of attention but still behaving well. ‘I’m proud of him,’ John said, as they sat on the tram on their way home, Gerry asleep on his knee, on Christmas Night.

  ‘Yes, even when he was tired he was good,’ Anne said, looking fondly at the sleeping child. ‘Sarah says she hopes her baby will be as good.’

  ‘It’ll be spoiled if they stay there.’

  ‘Why? Gerry wasn’t,’ Anne said but for once John failed to respond to the challenge.

  * * *

  Anne had collected several Christmas cards which had been sent to the Fitzgerald house for them. ‘People who don’t know you’ve moved or don’t know your new address,’ Maureen said as she handed them to Anne.

  She forgot about them until she reached home late on Christmas Night. The first one she took out had a name on the back, Mrs A. Kilmartin and an address in Wiltshire. There was a card inside signed Kathleen and Arthur and a letter.

  Anne glanced at the card looking puzzled and began to read the letter. ‘Oh, John, it’s Kathleen O’Neill. Remember her?’

  ‘Vaguely,’ he said, losing interest but she was rapidly reading the letter.

  ‘John, I feel awful,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wish I’d kept in touch. She had a nervous breakdown. She says that when I last saw her in Winwick Hospital she was on the borderline mentally, although they were treating her for physical injuries.’ Anne began to read aloud.

  ‘“Cormac’s suicide and my mother’s collapse pushed me over the edge mentally, I see now, although at the time I tied it in to something else. I had a sort of fixation on one of the doctors and when he left to marry and work in Leeds I completely collapsed…

  ‘“It was a long dark night, Anne, a legacy of my childhood, and for a long time I couldn’t bear to think of my past. I was moved from one hospital to another and finally to a hospital nine miles from here where I had wonderful treatment and was helped to confront my past. I remembered all the tensions but also your friendship and what it meant to me.”

  ‘Oh, John, I feel ashamed,’ Anne said. ‘I should have kept in touch.’

  ‘So she’s cured. Is that why she’s written now?’

  ‘Hang on. She says, “Arthur was a conscientious objector during the war and was sent to work on a farm near here. He visited the hospital and that’s how we met. When I was cured we married and live here as he is still working on the farm. His parents are
teachers in Newcastle who have been very kind to me.

  ‘“I’m writing this more in hope than expectation that you will receive it, Anne. I hear that there is little left of Everton as I remember it, but perhaps there will be someone left who knows you and can forward this to you. I would so like to see you again, Anne, and for you to meet my wonderful husband.”

  ‘Oh, dear. I should have gone to see her again but it was such a bad time, the bombing and Mum so ill and then someone said she’d been moved from Winwick.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to blame you at all,’ he said. ‘Will you write to her?’

  ‘Of course. Right away,’ Anne said.

  ‘Right away?’ he said meaningfully and Anne blushed.

  ‘Not right away,’ she said. She put the letter and cards away and they quickly locked up the house and went to bed.

  They had decided that they needed some time before they had another baby, while they settled into the new house and saved a little money, but as Catholics the only method of birth control they could use was the rhythm method. This meant abstaining from intercourse except during a certain safe period each month and the safe period had occurred over Christmas time this month.

  John was a tender and passionate lover and in his arms Anne could forget all her doubts. Love for him overwhelmed her and she felt that she could never be thankful enough that he was her loving husband and the father of her child.

  The Boxing Day party was a big success. Fred went about rubbing his hands and exclaiming, ‘The more the merrier’ as more and more people arrived for it.

  Bridie and Jack arrived early with Bridie’s two tall stepsons and her twin boy and girl. Monica and Michael were ten years old now and Michael was a tall, thin boy very like his stepbrother, Teddy. Monica was small and dainty, with flaxen hair and pale blue eyes.

  ‘Looks as though butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, doesn’t she?’ Bridie said to Anne. ‘But if there’s any mischief going, milady’s the one who’s started it. She wraps the lads round her little finger.’

  ‘No wonder you needed a bigger house, Bridie,’ Anne said. ‘The way the lads have grown.’