A Nest of Singing Birds

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

  How strange to think of passions like that all those years ago, Anne thought, then glanced at Gerry and wondered whether he would one day think the same about herself and John.

  Gerry grinned at her and she thought regretfully that he had not inherited his grandfather’s smile but then neither had John in spite of his resemblance to his father.

  Sarah’s smile came closest to it, although she was brown-haired and blue-eyed like her grandmother. What a strange thing heredity was, Anne mused as she rapidly peeled potatoes, and how interesting. How frightening too, as her thoughts turned to Brendan Connolly.

  No one in Liverpool had connected the gang member Leyland/Collins with Brendan. Fred had made cautious inquiries about the killing from his policeman friend without disclosing his belief that Brendan was the victim but the policeman only said, ‘Good thing, in my opinion. Let them all kill each other off and save everyone a lot of trouble.’

  Several weeks later another mutilated body was found in the Thames and identified as a member of a rival gang. Interest in Brendan’s killing was briefly revived but it was now November 1947 and the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip of Greece was the topic that filled the newspapers.

  Nothing more had been heard of Minnie and Dympna either and it was clear that they were not going to return to Liverpool.

  Eileen continued to babysit for Anne and John every Wednesday and although she never appeared very happy, she seemed to avoid controversy. Just occasionally she responded to Anne’s loving efforts to cheer her and to Gerry’s boisterous affection.

  Helen had been distressed by the rift in the family and had gone to see Theresa to try to reconcile her and Eileen.

  ‘If she was sick we’d all be trying to get her better,’ Helen pleaded. ‘This is a sort of sickness too.’

  ‘Yes, but look at all the other girls who lost their husbands in the war,’ Theresa said. ‘They don’t carry on like that.’

  ‘But you, more than anyone, should understand, Theresa,’ Helen said. ‘You know Eileen best. You know she wouldn’t let herself get involved, then when she met Whitey she let all her defences down.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Theresa admitted. ‘She really did go overboard. All the more because she’d kept her feelings under control so much before.’

  ‘And then for him to die like that, and so soon,’ Helen said. ‘You can see what a deep psychological shock it was to her. I wonder that they kept her in the Air Force.’

  ‘Eileen puts up a good front,’ Theresa said. ‘They probably thought she was all right. She did try, y’know, Helen, when she came home. Had a few dates and all that.’

  ‘I know. I thought she was very brave.’

  ‘Of course she ditched them right away. No one came up to Whitey,’ said Theresa. ‘I’m sorry we’ve fallen out with her, Helen, but she did say some awful things to Jim.’

  ‘But he’s a good fellow,’ Helen said. ‘I’m sure if you explained to him, Tess, he’d be willing to make friends. It’s upsetting your mum and dad and your Uncle Pat too.’

  ‘I know,’ Theresa said. ‘My dad’s worried about Christmas. It’d be very awkward.’ She thought for a moment then said with sudden decision, ‘I’ll talk to Jim about it.’

  ‘And you’ll make it up with Eileen?’ Helen said.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure I can talk Jim round. I’ll leave the gang with him, maybe just take Ciara to break the ice, and call in when I know Eileen’ll be in.’

  Helen bent over Ciara. ‘She’s a lovely baby, isn’t she?’ she said wistfully.

  Theresa picked up the child. ‘No sign yet for you?’ she said sympathetically.

  Helen sighed. ‘No. The doctor said it was because things were bungled so much when Moira was bom.’ She shrugged. ‘I wish I had Maureen’s faith. She’s making a novena for us and she’s sure that something will happen soon.’

  ‘Perhaps she’ll be right,’ Theresa said. ‘Perhaps now with the National Health Service you’ll be able to have something done. I wouldn’t give up hope, Helen.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ she said. ‘And anyway, we’re lucky. We’ve got Moira.’

  Theresa gave her a hug. ‘You’re a good sort, Helen,’ she said. ‘Tony’s a lucky man.’ Helen smiled and blushed.

  Theresa came to see the Fitzgeralds a week later, dropping in without warning with her baby. There was a tense moment when Eileen stood up as though to flee but as though there had never been a rift Theresa said cheerfully, ‘Hello, Eil. Like to hold a wet baby?’ and handed Ciara to her.

  Eileen took her. ‘She’s a good weight anyhow,’ she said. ‘And a wet nappy’s not stopping her from sleeping.’

  Theresa laughed. ‘She sleeps all right during the day,’ she said. ‘And screams all night.’

  Pat was delighted to see Theresa. He stood up and took her coat and pushed forward his chair for her.

  ‘Sit here, girl. Warm yourself,’ he said. ‘Have you been to see your mam and dad?’

  ‘Yes, I’m doing the rounds while I’m off the leash,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ve left Jim to referee the fights among the other kids and I’m making the most of my freedom.’

  Maureen was worried about the baby’s wet napkin and when Sarah came through asked if she had a spare. ‘There’s one in my bag,’ Theresa said. ‘No dusting powder though.’

  ‘I’ll take her through and change her,’ Sarah said, smiling at Eileen as she took the baby from her. Theresa jumped up. ‘Here, have your chair back, Uncle Pat,’ she said. She sat down on the sofa beside Eileen and unselfconsciously slipped her arm round her cousin’s waist.

  She began to talk about some of their exploits before the war and before long everyone was helpless with laughter, including Eileen. Maureen quickly produced a meal and afterwards Eileen walked with Theresa to the tram stop.

  The family always dated Eileen’s recovery from that day, although she still had occasional black moods. They had a happy Christmas and Fred’s party on Boxing Day was a great success. Eileen and Jim were wary with each other at first but by the end of the evening they were the best of friends again. John was on his best behaviour too and avoided any controversy, much to Anne’s relief.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  As Anne and John were now hoping to have another child it was not necessary for them to observe the ‘safe period’. They made love so frequently and so passionately that Anne was surprised and disappointed that she failed to become pregnant immediately.

  A few weeks after Gerry’s third birthday in January, however, the doctor confirmed that she was pregnant and she was booked into the local hospital. The baby was due in September and everyone was pleased at the news, especially John’s mother and grandmother.

  Since Anne and John had moved to the new house, Cathy Redmond and her mother had spent an afternoon with Anne about once a week but just after Christmas John’s grandmother slipped on an icy pavement and broke a bone in her foot.

  As they were unable to visit her Anne went instead to the Redmond house once a week and a pattern developed. She stayed for the evening meal and John came home from work with his father for it. Soon after the meal Greg Redmond, who now had a car, drove Anne and John and Gerry home in time for the child’s bedtime.

  Anne enjoyed these afternoons, sitting round the fire and talking. John’s mother and grandmother both had a fund of stories, Sally Ward of her childhood and early married life before the turn of the century and Cathy of the days when John and his brother and sisters were young.

  Sometimes Anne told them stories of her own childhood and some of the exploits of her cousins, the Anderson twins, or Cathy talked about her days as a waitress with a firm of caterers. Often Anne was sorry to hear Greg Redmond’s key in the door when he and John returned from work.

  In March Sarah had a bad bout of bronchitis and her mother went every day to look after her and baby David until Joe, who was now teaching, returned home soon after four o’clock.

  Anne still went to the Redmond hous
e and spent the afternoon with Sally. She grew even closer to the old lady whom she had always admired.

  Anne had an easy pregnancy and felt well and happy. Her neighbour Mrs Rooney had been pleased to hear about the news.

  ‘It’ll be nice to have a young baby about,’ she said. ‘When are you due, girl?’

  ‘The tenth of September, they said at the clinic,’ Anne said. ‘It’s our wedding anniversary on the eighteenth. It’d be nice if it came then, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It’ll come when it’s ready and not before,’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘It’ll be company for Gerry anyway. I’m always sorry for only children.’

  ‘Yes, they can be very lonely,’ Anne said. She suddenly thought of Helen and Tony and added hastily, ‘Sometimes it can’t be helped, of course.’

  ‘You was one of a big family, wasn’t you?’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘How many of yis was there?’

  ‘Seven. Well, eight really,’ Anne said. ‘My eldest brother Patrick died when he was six. We were never short of company to go out anywhere and we had a good time at home too. That’s why I’d like a big family myself.’

  ‘Aye, you wouldn’t need no friends,’ Mrs Rooney said.

  Anne looked surprised. ‘I didn’t mean that. We always had friends, all of us. Sarah who comes here with little David was my best friend.’ She laughed. ‘Then I married her brother and she married mine.’

  ‘She looks a nice girl,’ Mrs Rooney said.

  ‘She is. We all used to go out cycling together, my brothers and sisters and Sarah and friends of the others sometimes. Sarah and I went out dancing or to the pictures nearly every night but sometimes, especially on Sunday nights, we’d all stay in and our friends’d come round.’

  ‘Your mam didn’t mind a houseful then?’

  ‘No. Sometimes we’d have a sing-song and sometimes just talk and I enjoyed that just as much. The things we discussed!’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘Anything and everything. Sarah used to enjoy the discussions.’

  ‘What about John?’ Mrs Rooney asked.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know him then.’

  Mrs Rooney laughed. ‘Good job. No one would’ve been able to get a word in edgeways.’ Before Anne could decide whether or not to be affronted, Mrs Rooney added, ‘He’s like our Con. Talk the hind leg off a donkey, the pair of them.’

  Anne continued to go to the women’s confraternity every Monday, to Benediction followed by a social evening, and to the cinema with John on Wednesdays. Occasionally Eileen had a date, or an outing had been arranged from the office for Wednesday, and on these occasions Maureen came instead to babysit.

  Sometimes one of Maureen’s friends came with her to keep her company, either Annie Keegan or Mona Dunne, and Anne was pleased to see that her sister was not devoting all her time to Chris.

  Anne was happy too that Eileen was taking up the threads of her life again and coming out of the dark depression which had engulfed her.

  Anne and John had many visitors, either friends made locally or family and friends who took the tram out from Liverpool to visit them. ‘People like coming here,’ Maureen told her. ‘It’s such a happy house.’

  The summer months passed pleasantly for Anne but some humid days at the end of August made her long for the baby to be born. She began to feel large and unwieldy. The Berlin airlift had started to take food to the British and French zones and film of the wide aircraft used was shown on the cinema newsreels.

  ‘I look like them,’ Anne whispered to John one night but he told her that she looked fine. ‘It won’t be long now, love,’ he comforted her. ‘Perhaps it’ll be born on my birthday.’

  His birthday was 22 September and Anne exclaimed in dismay, ‘I hope not. I was hoping for it to come on our wedding anniversary but now I don’t care if it comes tomorrow.’

  Anne’s family were unaware how often she was alone during the evening because of John’s various commitments but his family knew and worried about her.

  Greg Redmond offered to pay for the telephone to be installed but John brusquely refused.

  ‘Mick paid for ours and it’s been very useful,’ Greg protested. ‘Grandma enjoys a chat with Anne and she could have it without either of them leaving the house.’ But John was adamant.

  ‘Thanks all the same, Dad,’ he said, ‘I’ll apply for one and pay for it myself.’

  ‘You should have told him we were worried about Anne,’ Cathy said and Greg said grimly, ‘Yes, and I can imagine his reaction to that.’

  On 1 September 1948 Anne turned out the bedrooms then cleaned through the rooms downstairs. She felt well and energetic but was tired when she finished, with a niggling pain in her back, so she went early to bed.

  The following morning the pain had gone. John was going straight from work to a meeting but told her that he would be home by ten o’clock. Shortly before six in the evening Anne went to Mrs Rooney. ‘I’ve had a show,’ she said. ‘When that happened with Gerry it was eight hours before he was born but now I’m getting regular pains.’

  ‘How often?’ Mrs Rooney asked, and when Anne told her fifteen minutes, said immediately, ‘You’d better get to the hospital, girl.’

  Con was at the same meeting as John but Mrs Rooney sent her other son, Barty, to the public telephone to call an ambulance. She came back with Anne and helped her to get Gerry ready for bed. Anne’s case was already packed and when Barty returned he was accompanied by a neighbour, a young widow whose husband had died in a Japanese prison camp.

  ‘Barty says your husband’s not home from work yet,’ she said. Would you like me to come to the hospital with you?’

  ‘That’s a good idea, Milly,’ Mrs Rooney said before Anne could speak. ‘I’ll stay here with Gerry until John gets in from work but you can see her in and bring her clothes home.’

  ‘But what about your children?’ Anne said, then suddenly clutched the fireguard as pain hit her.

  ‘My eldest is twelve,’ Milly said when the spasm had passed. ‘Old enough to look after the others. I think that’s the ambulance now.’

  ‘God, I hope so,’ Mrs Rooney muttered and the next moment the ambulancemen were in the house.‘I’m coming with her,’ Milly said to them. ‘Her husband’s working till ten.’

  ‘Never mind, you’ll have a nice little baby to show him when he comes,’ the older man said soothingly.

  ‘Don’t worry now, girl. I’ll fetch Gerry in and put him to bed when you’ve gone,’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘You’ll soon have it all over.’

  Only ten minutes after Anne reached the labour ward her daughter was born, a small baby with a fluff of dark hair and neat features.

  Anne was delighted with her but felt tearful and found that she was trembling. She knew that she was upset that John had not been there when she needed him, but as she shed a few tears she told herself that she was weeping because she was touched by the kindness of her neighbours.

  The labour ward sister appeared beside her. ‘What’s this? Tears! Your baby’s quite perfect, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ Anne said. ‘It’s just – I can’t stop trembling. It was so quick and the panic to get here.’

  The next moment the sister was replaced by a young doctor who gave Anne an injection and she drifted off to sleep and woke in the post-natal ward. The ward sister looked into the cot.

  ‘Look at that determined little mouth,’ she said. ‘This one will know her own mind and do what she wants to do.’

  Anne watched the clock anxiously, longing yet dreading to see John, and still uncertain how to greet him or even how she really felt about being left alone. The baby could have been born while he was at work, she thought one minute, but the next was angry again that he had gone to the meeting when he should have been with her.

  There was a sudden panic about a baby who was sick just before visiting and John was beside Anne’s bed before she realised and bending to kiss her.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he whispered. ‘You must hate me.’

  ‘No. I was all right,�
�� Anne stammered and he said again, ‘I’m so sorry, Anne. I thought it would be another couple of weeks.’

  ‘Mrs Rooney was smashing and Barty and Milly from across the road. Was Gerry all right?’

  ‘Yes, fast asleep when I got home. I tell you, Anne, I felt about an inch high when Mrs Rooney told me. I came up here, you know, but the porter couldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘But she was born soon after I got here,’ Anne exclaimed. John was amazed. ‘I thought she was born this morning. The porter told me to ring after seven and they said then you’d had a daughter, 7lb 4oz.’

  ‘You haven’t looked at her,’ Anne said reproachfully and John looked in the cot. ‘Very small, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘What was Gerry like?’

  Anne’s expression softened. ‘I forgot you didn’t see him,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t much bigger than her, but very blond. Blue eyes. Long limbs.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘He was a lovely baby but he cried a lot in the hospital. He was fine when we came home though.’

  The hospital had less rigid rules on visiting than the one where Gerry was born and the next night Cathy came with John and the following night Maureen came. Anne quickly realised that, although her mother-in-law knew that John had been out when Anne was admitted, Maureen and presumably the rest of her family knew nothing about it.

  ‘John asked Dad if he’d like to come,’ Maureen said. ‘You know he’s dying to see you and the baby, Anne, but he’d feel out of place here among all these women.’

  Anne laughed. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’ll see him soon anyway. I’ll be in for ten days.’

  Maureen went to the foot of the bed to look in the cot and Anne whispered, ‘She doesn’t know you were out, does she?’ John shook his head and Anne said urgently, ‘Don’t say anything then.’

  Maureen left the ward before the end of visiting time, to give Anne and John time alone, and he said in an aggrieved voice, ‘Mum was tearing a strip off me all the way home last night about going to the meeting. The baby shouldn’t have been born for weeks yet, should it?’