A Nest of Singing Birds

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

  ‘How is she? What’s wrong?’ Anne asked anxiously.

  ‘Nothing but worry over that little faggot in America,’ Sally said. ‘A good hiding is what that one needs and I told Sam so when I wrote to him.’

  ‘Is she back with her husband yet?’ Anne asked. ‘John said Sam had arranged it.’

  ‘Aye, she’s back on her own terms but how long it’ll last I don’t know,’ Sally said. ‘She’s insisted on leaving that lovely house and going to live miles away from Gene’s family, and she’s been trying to make him leave his father in the lurch in his business. The lad dug in his heels over that, anyway,’ she said with satisfaction.

  ‘But the Romeros have been so good to them,’ said Anne.

  ‘Yes, and the father relies on Gene as the only son. He’s kept that business going all through the war, waiting for Gene to come back and take the weight off his shoulders. The lad drew the short straw with that madam,’ Sally declared.

  She made milky gruel sweetened with honey for Anne and told her to take it slowly. ‘If you can keep that down, I’ll do you some fingers of toast,’ she said. She told Anne that she thought that there was more to Kate’s flight than met the eyes. ‘I think she’s been playing around,’ she said. ‘But don’t breathe a word to John in case he lets it slip to his mother.’

  As Sally had intended she left Anne with a lot to think about, apart from her own troubles, and promised to come to see her again in a few days’ time. Milly came over before she left and Sally showed her how to make the gruel and sweeten it with honey.

  ‘It’s very strengthening,’ she said. ‘And for a cough a hot lemon drink sweetened with honey is soothing.’ Milly told Anne that she would try the lemon and honey for her young daughter who had a persistent cough.

  ‘Mind you, it’s all right now when you can take the kids to the doctor without paying,’ she said. ‘But some of those old remedies are the best.’

  ‘Grandma had some marvellous ones,’ Anne said. She began to laugh as she told Milly about the jollop that Sally made for ‘women’s complaints’.

  ‘Sarah told me about it,’ she said. ‘The basis was Grandma’s homemade wine which was very potent, so the husbands started to drink the medicine. Grandma gave it free for women with growths and other painful things, but when someone told her about the men she didn’t say anything. Just told women when she gave them the medicine that it would make men impotent.’

  They both laughed heartily and Anne thought how different Milly looked when she laughed. ‘I remember the day Sarah told me and the way we laughed,’ she said. ‘After that we only had to say “women’s complaints” and we fell about.’

  ‘Things are much better now,’ Milly said seriously. ‘I remember my poor mother and what she suffered with something wrong with her insides after my youngest brother was born.’

  ‘Grandma’s jollop would have helped her,’ Anne said sympathetically.

  ‘Yes, or a doctor,’ Milly said. ‘It was all right for men. They could go to the panel doctor if they paid the stamp but women just had to get on with it and dose their children the best way they could. Life’s better for everyone now, isn’t it?’

  Anne felt very humble. Mrs Rooney had told her that Milly’s life had been tragic. She had taken her children to the shelter during an air raid and emerged from it to find her home demolished and her mother and father, two aunts and her grandmother had all been killed by a direct hit on the Anderson shelter in the back garden.

  ‘She only went to the other shelter because the baby’s crying was disturbing her grandma,’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘Then on top of that her husband died in a Jap prisoner of war camp. She’s had more than her share.’ Yet Milly could rejoice that life was better for everyone.

  Anne felt that instead of feeling hard done by when John went out she should be thanking God for her happy life.

  She hoped every day that the sickness would end but it persisted and she felt weak and drained. Before the school summer holidays started Bridie came to see her and suggested that she took Gerry and Laura to stay with her for a couple of weeks or, if Anne felt unable to part with them, that Monica came to stay with her to look after the children during the day.

  Monica was now fourteen years old, as pretty and doll-like as ever, but Anne had seen her mothering the younger children at Fred’s parties and accepted Bridie’s offer gratefully.

  ‘She wants to be a children’s nurse so it’ll be good training for her,’ Bridie said. ‘I know your neighbours are very good, Anne, but Monica won’t step on anyone’s toes.’

  ‘I know, Bridie,’ she said. ‘I’ll be able to rest easy though if I know the children are with Monica. Any news about Danny?’

  He had been called for National Service and when the American troops were landed in South Korea Bridie feared that Danny might be sent there. Now she shook her head. ‘They said on the news that General McArthur was Commander in Chief of all UN Forces Korea, though,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t sound too good, does it?’

  ‘Perhaps it will all be over before our lads have to go,’ Anne said. ‘Makes a change for us not to be the first anyway.’

  Bridie had brought some books for Anne from the second-hand bookshop and now she rose. ‘I’ll leave you to read now,’ she said, ‘but keep your spirits up. It’ll soon be all over. I’ll bring Monica next week.’

  John was vigorously refusing to allow Bridie to take the children before Anne had finished telling him what she had proposed. ‘Don’t shout,’ Anne said wearily. ‘Let me finish.’ Then she told him about Bridie’s offer to send Monica. ‘Sorry I went off half cocked,’ he said contritely. ‘But I wasn’t shouting.’

  ‘You were,’ Anne began but John said quickly, ‘Never mind. Forget it. I don’t want to discuss it.’ Anne felt a familiar irritation and frustration but was too weary to care and simply turned her head away.

  Monica was a great success with the children and Anne foresaw trouble with Gerry when she went home. Anne enjoyed Monica’s company too and John seemed to think that her presence freed him to go out whenever he wished.

  He had found work on the production line very hard after his years of sitting at a desk but he was earning much more money and was determined to show that he had made the right decision about his job.

  Often he seemed exhausted when he returned home but after a quick bath and a meal he was ready to dash out for his meetings and other activities.

  The Labour Party had been returned with a narrow majority at the General Election but John had now parted from the local party after a furious row.

  The British Peace Committee had collected a million signatures to the Stockholm Peace Campaign against the atomic bomb, but it had been backed by the communist-led World Peace Conference so the Labour Party had repudiated it.

  They had also put the World Peace Conference on a list of proscribed organisations and John had sent off furious letters to London then had an angry confrontation at the Labour Club at which he had torn up his membership card and stormed out.

  ‘John’s always falling out, though, isn’t he?’ Monica said calmly to Anne. ‘Mum says he’s always out of step with everyone else.’

  ‘Sometimes he’s right,’ Anne said indignantly. ‘His grandma says his grandfather was out of step too but he was proved right in the end.’

  ‘Was that Lawrie Ward?’ Monica asked.

  Anne was amazed. ‘Yes, but how do you know about him?’

  ‘My mum told me about him, and my dad knew him too and Mrs Meadows often talks about him,’ Monica said. ‘But I don’t think he fell out with people.’

  ‘Of course, I forgot, you live in their old home in Egremont Street, don’t you, Monnie?’

  ‘Not in the Wards’ house,’ Monica said. ‘Our house used to belong to the Redmonds, Sarah’s family. The Wards’ house used to be over the road from us but it was bombed and knocked down and the kids play where it used to be. We call it the debbry.’

  ‘The debris!’ Anne said. ‘D
on’t ever say that in front of Mrs Ward, Monica. She often talks to me about when she lived in that house. She was happy there.’

  ‘Do you know Ethel Nickson? Her auntie has the corner shop,’ Monica asked. And when Anne shook her head she said, ‘She’s bald. No hair at all, and she always used to wear a knitted hat when she was out, but she didn’t go out much. Now she’s got a wig through the National Health and she goes everywhere, even dancing. Mrs Meadows said to my mum that Lawrie Ward would have been made up about it.’

  ‘I’m sure he would. The Welfare State was always his dream, John says,’ said Anne. ‘I must tell him that the old neighbours remember his grandad.’

  Monica laughed. ‘Yes, if you can catch him before he rushes off somewhere to have an argument,’ she said. ‘Still, he doesn’t argue with you, does he?’

  ‘Sometimes I wish he would,’ said Anne, then added hastily, ‘Only joking.’ As she listened to Monica prattling on, artlessly revealing her mother’s opinion of the rest of the family, Anne thought that she should be careful not to say anything which might be repeated and misconstrued. As she thought over Monica’s comments about John, she realised how quickly the child had summed up the situation.

  Monica went home for the weekend but Anne had several visitors on Saturday. Eileen and Martin came and Sarah and Joe, closely followed by Uncle Fred and Aunt Carrie.

  ‘We left our children with Helen because we know you need to rest,’ Sarah said when Anne said that John had taken Gerry and Laura to the park. ‘Do you feel any better, Anne?’

  ‘I’m not sick so often now but I’ve got a pain in my back all the time. I get a lot of cramp too and headaches.’ She gave a faint smile. ‘Full of little troubles, aren’t I? I sound like Aunt Minnie.’

  ‘Never,’ Fred said heartily and Carrie said sympathetically, ‘You’re just going through a bad patch, love, but one thing about having a baby, you know there’s got to be an end to it.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Anne said. ‘And everyone’s being very good to me.’ She told them about her neighbours and about Monica. ‘She’s lovely with the children, a proper little mother,’ she said. ‘And we get on like a house on fire. Sometimes though I feel as though I’m the child and she’s the adult.’

  ‘I think Bridie talks very freely to her,’ Carrie said. ‘You know she must have been over forty when those twins were born but you see her and Monica walking round town, arm in arm, like a pair of sisters.’

  ‘And yet another time, when Monica and Michael are fighting, she sounds like a child again,’ said Sarah.

  ‘Anyway, she’s company for you, girl,’ Fred said to Anne. ‘While John’s out so much.’

  Before Anne could reply, Eileen stood up and began to adjust the pillow behind Anne. ‘He hasn’t lost his talent for putting his foot in it, has he?’ she murmured. But Joe had started to ask about Fred’s business and Anne only needed to smile.

  On Sunday Maureen drove her father up to see Anne, bringing a jar of Benger’s Food and calves’ foot jelly. ‘That was always reckoned to be good for a delicate stomach, chick,’ her father said but Anne felt that his loving concern did her more good than anything else.

  They were pleased to hear that Monica was such a help to her and Maureen told John that she could always get time off to stay with Anne if he was worried about her. ‘I know it’s not as easy for you to get time off in this new job, is it?’ she said in her gentle voice.

  John knew that there was never a hidden meaning in Maureen’s words and she was always sincere so he agreed about his job and promised to call on her for help if it was necessary.

  Monica returned on Sunday night to spend another week with them but after that she was going with her family to a caravan at Moreton for the rest of the holiday.

  Gerry was inconsolable until John promised to take him for the day to Moreton, on the other side of the River Mersey, to see Monica.

  It was a warm sunny day when John and Gerry went to Moreton and Anne sat in the garden with Laura playing happily at her feet. Presently she saw Barty Rooney sitting in a corner of their garden and called to him. ‘Thanks for the books, Barty,’ she said. ‘I enjoyed that Victor Canning. I’m trying a lot of authors I haven’t read before since you’ve been changing my books.’

  He came to the fence. ‘I’ll change it tomorrow if you’ve finished it.’

  ‘Only if you’re going to the library anyway,’ Anne said. ‘I’ve still got the Phyllis Bentley to read.’

  ‘I’ll be going,’ Barty said quietly, smiling at her.

  A few months earlier Anne had told Mrs Rooney that she was worried about her library books being overdue and Barty had immediately offered to change them for her. Since then he had changed them regularly and Anne had enjoyed talking about books to him. He was a quiet shy man, totally unlike his brother, but Anne’s friendliness had broken through his reserve.

  All was not well in the Rooney household. Mrs Rooney had been unable to rid herself of Dolores as she had hoped. ‘She’s got our Con under her thumb,’ she told Anne. ‘If she goes, he’ll go with her.’

  ‘But I thought that was what you wanted?’ Anne said.

  ‘What! And take his wages? Not likely, girl. No, it was her I wanted out but she’s as crafty as a barrowload of monkeys.’

  Tremendous rows took place, which Anne tried to avoid hearing, but Mrs Rooney told her about them anyway.

  ‘Did you hear what she called me last night? A bloody old bloodsucker! And our Con turned round and said all I cared about was money,’ Mrs Rooney said. ‘Barty told him not to speak to me like that.’

  ‘It’s a shame if he gets drawn in,’ Anne said indignantly. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Barty.’

  ‘That’s what our Con said and Barty told him he didn’t like two on to one.’

  They were in Anne’s kitchen and she saw Barty, who was on shift work, walk down the garden. ‘You’d never think they were brothers, would you?’ Anne said, looking at Barty’s thin face and body and brown wavy hair. She thought that Con looked very flashy with his black hair sleeked back and his pencil moustache but Mrs Rooney said, ‘No, our Con’s so smart and Barty goes round in a dream half the time. That one wouldn’t have bothered to get her claws into him.’

  Anne’s sickness had stopped at last but she found the hot weather very trying. She felt that her pregnancy had lasted forever, but there were still two months to be endured before the baby was due to arrive in early October.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  John seemed unable to talk of anything but the campaign against the A-bomb. Anne sometimes closed her ears deliberately to his conversation. She thought resentfully that he should be trying to avoid talking on subjects that worried and depressed her, instead of harping on the awful prospects for the future of mankind.

  Bishop Barnes of Birmingham had demanded that Britain should not follow the example of America, in making a still more powerful bomb, and John talked at length about him, and about one hundred Cambridge scientists who had petitioned the government on the same grounds.

  ‘These are clever men, Anne,’ he said. ‘Men who know what they’re talking about and they are absolutely against it.’

  ‘Then why don’t you leave it to people like that?’ she said wearily. ‘Surely the government will take more notice of men like them?’

  ‘But we have to back them up,’ he said. ‘Votes are what count with politicians and the three million signatures on the Stockholm Peace Appeal will have made them realise how many people are against the bomb.’

  ‘What does Con think?’ Anne said. Not that I really care anyway, she thought, but I wish he’d go and talk to Con.

  ‘Oh, Con!’ John said in a disgusted tone. ‘He was so keen, and I thought Dolores was too, but I think it was only a means to an end with her and she wears the trousers there. Do you know they’re planning to leave next door on Friday? Dolores has found a flat.’

  ‘Does Mrs Rooney know?’ Anne exclaimed.

  ‘I
think they’re telling her tonight.’

  ‘The mean things! They should have given her more warning,’ Anne said indignantly but John said nothing. He stood up and wandered about the room, fiddling with ornaments and taking books from the bookshelves and putting them back again.

  Finally he said suddenly, ‘Listen, Anne. I’ve been asked to go to London on a demonstration march. Would you mind?’

  ‘When is it?’ she asked.

  ‘August Bank Holiday weekend. It’s the anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped and this is a Hiroshima Day commemoration in Trafalgar Square. You’re not so bad now the sickness has stopped, are you? And your Maureen would probably stay with you, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, thinking that he had made all his plans before he asked her. ‘Is Con going?’

  ‘No. Dolores has other plans for him but never mind. We expect to have thousands there anyway.’

  ‘Thousands?’ Anne said in amazement.

  ‘Yes. From various groups, religious and pacifist and others. I’m fighting for a future for Gerry and other children, Anne. There’ll be none for them if atomic warfare starts – for anyone. Only a horrible death.’

  Her face became even more pale. ‘Oh, God, John,’ she gasped. ‘Surely it can’t happen? No one would be so mad.’

  She put her hand to her side, her face twisting with pain, and John fell on his knees beside her and put his arms round her, looking remorseful.

  ‘No, it won’t, love,’ he soothed her. ‘We won’t let it. That’s what these protests are for, to make sure that the men in power get the message. Do you feel bad?’

  ‘No, I’m all right. It was just the baby moving,’ she said. She thought John might change his mind about going to London but he went ahead with his preparations and asked Maureen if she would stay overnight with Anne.

  Maureen agreed, although Anne thought she looked surprised by John’s request. She said nothing, however, except that she would arrange for her father to have his meals at Aunt Carrie’s house.