The September Girls (13 page)

When did I ever have a good time like Lily Mayer? she asked herself as she watched the boys disappear into the Gentlemen’s toilet. During the few months when she and Geoffrey were courting, that’s all. They’d met in this very restaurant where he’d been lunching with his mother. The friend Eleanor was with knew him slightly as he went to football matches with her brother and it seemed only natural for all four to sit together. She was introduced to Geoffrey, barely eighteen years old, as she was herself. It was love at first sight and the time that followed was magic and all too short. Within six months the war had started and Geoffrey was dead.

Since then, the restaurant in Frederick & Hughes had become her favourite place in the world, although if she came alone she found it hard to suppress the tears when she thought about the way things might have been and the way they actually were.

 

‘I thought I might take Anthony out today,’ Daniel Vaizey said on Monday morning. ‘There’s an art exhibition over Crumbs in Bold Street: you know, the shop where they sell artists’ materials? I thought he would find it interesting. I went on Saturday and some of the work isn’t nearly as good as his.’

‘I’d love to come with you,’ Eleanor said impulsively and immediately blushed, regretting the words. They sounded terribly forward.

‘Well, in that case, we can all go together.’ Daniel appeared not to notice her blush. Either that, or he was just being his courteous self. Like Anthony, his younger sister had been born deaf and he’d taught himself sign language so they could converse. When Marcus had decided that his son must have his own tutor, Daniel had been the only person to reply to the advert in the
Echo
. Teaching wasn’t his profession, he explained, but a way of supporting himself while he studied languages, his ambition being to travel extensively abroad. ‘But not as a tourist, I couldn’t afford to. I shall have to find work.’

He and Eleanor got on well. He was a tall, athletically built young man, strong-featured with a lovely smile. She wished she hadn’t blushed earlier when she’d said she’d love to go to the art exhibition because she found him enormously attractive and it was something she’d sooner he didn’t know.

The jelly hadn’t set! Brenna had put it on the back step the night before, but next morning when she looked it was hardly any thicker. She made a face at it.

‘What’s the matter?’ Colm came into the kitchen, struggling into his flannel shirt.

‘The jelly for Cara’s tea hasn’t set - I left it on the step all night long.’

‘Well, it’s too warm, isn’t it? It’d have been better to put the bowl in cold water in the sink. And the sun’s shining directly on the step - see!’ He pointed outside, to where the small yard was filled with sunshine. It was a lovely day for Cara’s first birthday. ‘It might even have set a bit and now it’s melted again.’

‘P’raps I should’ve asked you to make it,’ she said sarcastically.

‘I’m only pointing out the obvious, Brenna.’

‘Ta.’ She turned her back on him, cut two thick slices of bread and took them into the living room to toast by the fire. On the same day last year, the day they had arrived in Liverpool, the weather had been unseasonably cold. This year, they were experiencing a beautiful Indian summer and it was unseasonably warm.

‘Is there any tea going?’ Colm called from the kitchen where he was having a shave.

‘It’s on the hob.’

‘Bring us a cup, there’s a good girl.’

‘I’m making the toast,’ she snapped. ‘I can’t do two things at once.’

Colm poked his head around the door, his chin fluffy with shaving soap. ‘Have you got a cob on?’

‘No, I’m just pointing out the obvious.’

He shrugged. ‘Trouble with you, Brenna, is that you can’t stand being told you’re in the wrong.’

‘Trouble with you, Colm,’ she snapped, ‘is that these days, I’m in the wrong all the bloody time.’ The other night, he’d been on at her for not being able to read properly, forgetting entirely that she’d left school at twelve and hadn’t been there half the time any road, but at home helping to raise her two little sisters because her da was dead and Ma couldn’t cope. Since then, Ma had died and she’d lost touch with Sheila and Colette.

‘Can’t you bring yourself to look a bit smarter?’ he’d had the nerve to ask yesterday, as if they were made of money and all she had to do was take herself to some posh shop and buy an entire new outfit, including shoes with pompoms on the toes like Lizzie Phelan. Either that or pay through the nose and get something off the tallyman who’d come knocking on the door once a week until every penny was paid back with a huge borrowing fee on top. When it came to clothes, the children’s needs came first, then Colm’s and Brenna’s last. She’d got a few things from Paddy’s Market: flat, lace-up shoes, already well worn, but very comfortable, that had only cost a penny-ha’penny - it was with a feeling of jubilation that she chucked Colm’s old boots in the bin - and two frocks for a tanner each, neither exactly the latest fashion. She’d considered taking up the hems, making them calf-length like those Eleanor Allardyce wore, but the skirts were full and would probably look ridiculous - they’d look even more ridiculous with the shoes. She still hadn’t been able to afford a coat and was stuck with her shawl. As most women in the area wore shawls, she hadn’t seen anything wrong with them until Colm suggested she smarten herself up.

‘You’re a daft lad, Colm Caffrey,’ she muttered, turning the toast over when one side was done -
too
well, she noticed with a grimace. She’d been so wrapped up in angry thoughts that she’d let it burn.

‘What did you just say?’ Colm appeared again, clean-shaven, mopping his chin with a ragged towel - she needed new towels more than new clothes.

‘I was talking to meself.’

‘You’ve let the toast burn.’

‘I’ll scrape it off in a minute, when I’ve done the other side.’

‘You said I was a daft lad,’ he said indignantly. ‘I heard you quite clearly.’

‘Well, if the cap fits, wear it.’ She scraped the burnt side of the toast into the fire, put it on a plate and spread the margarine - the other side was hardly done. ‘Are you ready for your tea now?’

‘Yes.’ He sat down and frowned at her. ‘So, why am I daft?’

Brenna took a deep breath. She’d been wanting this conversation for a long time. ‘For expecting me to dress like Lizzie Phelan, think the way she does, know the things she knows. You married an ignorant Irishwoman, Colm, not a smart young lady who went to some posh school and passed examinations in things I’ve never heard of.’

‘Lizzie passed the scholarship and went to secondary school. Anyone can do that.’

‘
I
couldn’t. I was working when I was twelve.’

His brow darkened. ‘What’s Lizzie Phelan got to do with things, any road?’

‘You’re always on about “Lizzie said this” and “Lizzie said that”. She’s filling your thick head with all sorts of mad ideas. For instance, since when have you cared about Irish politics?’ He’d been lecturing the lads on something or other when she’d last done the ironing and she’d been too tired to take it in.

‘For a long time,’ he said hotly. ‘We used to talk about it in the pub in Lahmera, but I never saw much point in discussing it with you. You just said yourself you’re ignorant.’

‘I might be ignorant, but I’m not stupid,’ Brenna reasoned. ‘There’s been nothing stopping you from
talking
about things like politics.’ She didn’t believe for a moment it had been discussed in the Shamrock, where the sound of drunken singing and raucous laughter could be heard until closing time when Bernie Murphy, the landlord, threw the lot of them out.

‘Did you know that Lloyd George has brought in the Home Rule Bill and it looks like Ireland will be partitioned and never united again: there’ll be two separate parliaments, one for the north and one for the south.’ While he spoke, Colm’s face had got redder and redder and his voice angrier.

‘No, I didn’t know,’ Brenna confessed, ‘but now I do and I think it’s a desperately bad idea.’

‘Do you?’ He looked surprised.

‘Indeed I do. Did you think I was without a brain in me head, Colm?’

‘Of course not.’

They sat in cold silence for a while. Colm finished the toast, washed it down with tea then said, ‘It’s your own fault I go on about Lizzie. You’ve got a bee in your bonnet and you ask about her the minute I get in from work. What am I supposed to do, refuse to answer?’

‘Oh, so you’d prefer to have kept her a secret?’ If she hadn’t seen Lizzie that day, he’d probably have never mentioned her.

‘Who’s being daft now, Brenna?’

The conversation might have continued if Tyrone hadn’t come down demanding his breakfast. Brenna told him sternly to wait until Fergus appeared and she’d brought Cara down so she could make porridge for them all rather than in dribs and drabs. ‘You can make yourself a piece of toast if you’re hungry,’ she offered generously, ‘but stay well back from the fire.’

‘Why do we have always have a fire when it’s so hot, Ma?’ Tyrone enquired.

‘Because it’s the only way we have to heat the water, darlin’. And make toast.’

‘I’m off now, Bren,’ Colm called, and the front door slammed without him waiting for a reply - or a goodbye kiss.

Brenna’s lips tightened as she sat and watched Tyrone hold the bread in front of the fire, his face all screwed up as if it were a terrible effort. It was nice to have bread to spare and a warm fire - not that one was needed today. She was enjoying getting things for the house: the occasional picture for the walls, pretty lace curtains in the parlour, new dishes -
really
new, with only the tiniest of cracks and chips; they were called ‘seconds’. Every day, she walked for miles with Cara in the pram, searching the second-hand shops for bargains like the lovely lacquered tea caddy she’d got for a penny with a teaspoon inside that was a ‘Gift from Morecambe’, or so it said on the handle; patchwork quilts for the lads’ beds; a statue of a lady in a frilly frock with a parasol over her shoulder that stood in pride of place on the mantelpiece in the parlour; a mirror with a brass frame that she could never quite get clean. She’d never imagined one day having a house of their own and wanted to make it comfortable and welcoming for Colm and the children.

But Colm no longer seemed interested in her acquisitions. He was too taken up with Lizzie Phelan who came to the builders’ yard every day in her dinner hour to visit her ma, although Mrs Phelan had long ago recovered from the operation to remove her gallstones. Brenna knew because, most days, she made a point of being in the vicinity of the yard when Lizzie arrived, lurking around a corner where she couldn’t be seen. Soon afterwards, Colm would disappear into the house. What Cyril Phelan and his missus thought of this, Brenna had no idea, but
their
daughter was after
her
husband, of that she was convinced. If what Nancy had to say about Miss Elizabeth Phelan were true, she wouldn’t care if he were married or not.

 

Colm was halfway to work before he remembered he hadn’t given Brenna a kiss. Still, she probably hadn’t noticed, and if she had, she probably wouldn’t care. He loved his wife with all his heart, but lately he’d become aware of her limitations. Brenna didn’t
think
, least not about anything important. She wasn’t interested in anything that didn’t concern him, the children, or the house. He was fed up with discussing what sort of wallpaper they’d have in the parlour - when they could afford it, that is - admiring the tea cosy she was knitting, not just once, but every day after she’d knitted another inch. There were so many more important things than tea cosies to think about, and he couldn’t see Lizzie Phelan giving a fig about an unset jelly.

She was trying to persuade him to join the Labour Party and he was giving the idea serious consideration. ‘The country badly needs a government that will look after the poor,’ she cried, her brown eyes glowing with passion. ‘Labour will get rid of poverty and there’ll be jobs for everyone who wants one, women as well as men. The Tories and Liberals only represent the rich.’

She was the cleverest person he’d ever met, despite only being a woman. Talking to her, he would become fired up with enthusiasm or anger. Every day, she read a newspaper -
The Times
- from cover to cover and seemed to know everything there was to know about every subject under the sun, whether it be the revolution in Russia - ‘The best thing ever to have happened in that benighted country,’ she said joyfully when Lenin recently announced a new economic policy - or the national miners’ strike in Britain earlier in the year, which she’d supported fully. ‘The miners work under the most appalling conditions,’ she claimed, her shapely little body quivering with indignation. ‘Their pay is atrocious.’ She’d actually been in tears when the strikers were forced to return to work for reduced wages after a few months. ‘It’s so humiliating,’ she wept. Colm had patted her shoulder awkwardly and she’d turned to him, saying, ‘Oh, I’m so glad to have you to talk to, Colm. You’re one of the few people who under
stands
. Most don’t give a damn what goes on in the rest of the world, no matter how dreadful it might be, so long as it doesn’t concern
them
.’

‘That doesn’t bode well for the future, Colm,’ she said when the Fascists won thirty-five seats in the Italian government. ‘There’s this chap, Adolf Hitler, another damn Fascist, who’s just become president of the National Socialist Party in Germany and is stirring things up over there.’

He was flattered that Lizzie spoke to him as if he were an equal, was actually interested in his opinion. She made him feel very important. When he compared her with his wife, Brenna definitely came off the worse.

 

The lads had gone to school and Brenna was teaching Cara to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. She could already say Mammy and Daddy, Ty for Tyrone, but hadn’t yet managed Fergus. Although Nancy hadn’t said anything, Brenna got the distinct impression that she was more advanced than Eleanor’s Sybil, whose first birthday was also today. The girls had been born within minutes of each other and even Nancy wasn’t sure who’d arrived first. The September Girls, she’d called them.