The September Girls (49 page)

‘It’s horrible for us all, and yes, I’d love some tea. Thank you, Nancy.’ Now Cara felt awful. They were just coping with the raids in a way that was far better than getting hysterical and panicking every time a bomb fell. It was how she, Nancy and Marcus had coped when he’d been alive. But now she had Kitty and found it hard to pretend the raids were something to laugh at, particularly this one.

It was a weird feeling, sitting in the kitchen full of familiar objects, talking normally, yet knowing that any second you could be dead. Two years ago, if she’d been told such a thing was going to happen, she would have refused to believe it.

Fielding got up and opened the blackout curtains a crack. ‘The world’s on fire,’ she announced, ‘and I think next door’s been hit, or it might be next door but one. The road’s full of rubble.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Nancy gasped.

‘I hope me dad’s all right,’ Cara said fearfully. ‘He’s outside in all that mayhem. And I wish I’d made up with Mam. If she’s killed, I’ll never forgive meself. She’s never even set eyes on Kitty.’ Tomorrow morning, first thing, she’d go round to Shaw Street and take Kitty with her. Mam could tear her off a dozen strips, but she didn’t care. By the time she’d finished, they’d be friends again.

Brenna had already made up her mind that tomorrow she would go and see Cara. Nowadays, life was too short and too precarious to hold grudges against people you loved as much as she loved her daughter. She felt ashamed that she hadn’t gone before, ashamed that Cara had been too scared to come home when she discovered she was having a baby, that she’d had to turn to Nancy for help.

‘I’m a terrible mother,’ she moaned, rocking back and forth on the uncomfortable bench that Colm had constructed in the cupboard under the stairs, hoping there’d soon be a lull in the bombing so she could make a cup of tea because her nerves were in tatters and she kept wanting to cry. Was Fergus safe? Tyrone? Maria and the lads? Cara and the little granddaughter she still hadn’t seen? Where was Colm? What was all that nonsense about ‘trouble at home’? Most nights when there was a raid, he’d pop in to see her, but he hadn’t been tonight when she wanted him more than at any other time.

The cupboard door opened. ‘Colm!’ she cried, but it was Tyrone, swaying on his feet, as drunk as a lord.

‘It’s murder out there,’ he said. ‘I nearly fell down a crater.’ He gazed into the cupboard, bleary-eyed. ‘Where’s Maria, Joey and Mike?’

‘Gone to the shelter, son, probably the one in Ferguson Street, it’s the nearest. There was no one in when the raid started and you know Maria doesn’t like being in the place by herself.’

‘I’ll go and look for them.’

‘But you can’t, darlin’!’ Brenna protested. ‘It’s not safe out there.’

But the words were wasted because the cupboard door had closed: a suddenly sober Tyrone had gone in search of his wife and children.

 

He should have come home hours ago, but his time in the pub had been spent in a pleasant, drunken haze, unable to imagine a bomb disrupting the peaceful scene before him - men drinking, quietly discussing football and other mundane topics, playing darts, dealing cards, as if they believed a good fairy had cast a spell over the pub and they were perfectly safe within its four walls. Perhaps the spell had touched him too, because Tyrone felt convinced he would never see the Irish men again. He might have felt cheerful at the thought, but knew that in a few hours he would be sober and remember how much he loathed being a civilian when there was a war on. His longing to be a soldier, to wear a uniform and fight for his King and country, hadn’t abated with time. It was still there, gnawing at him, every hour of every day. His brother had done it, his sister, even little Fielding, who hardly came up to his shoulder, had joined the forces and emerged minus an arm.

Tyrone was slowly coming out of his pleasant haze when he heard someone remark, ‘It’s just gone midnight,’ and he got unsteadily to his feet, surprised. This must be one of the pubs where the landlord continued serving until the all-clear went and he hadn’t realized it was so late. He would have preferred to stay, but Maria would be worried about him, not to mention Mam.

He made his way to Shaw Street, wobbling all over the place, holding on to walls, avoiding heaps of smouldering bricks, narrowly missing being mown down by a speeding ambulance. There was a shout, ‘Get indoors, you bloody idiot!’ and he wondered if they meant him. The cacophony of so many different sounds hurt his ears as he stumbled on and would have fallen head first down a crater had he not tripped over a chimney pot lying in the middle of the street.

Home at last, only to find Maria had taken the lads to the public shelter. Tyrone had no idea why this should fill him with dread. She’d been to the shelter before, but then there’d never been a raid like this before.

‘I’ll go and look for them,’ he said, slamming the cupboard door on Mam.

Outside again, he became conscious of things he hadn’t noticed earlier. How red the sky was, for instance, how many fires he could see, the ominous gaps where there used to be houses in streets where he’d played as a child. Instead of a cacophony of sounds, he could distinctly hear the shriek of ambulances, the bells of fire engines, the crackle of fires, the rat-a-tat-tat of ack-ack fire, the roar of planes overhead, the whistle of the bombs as they dropped and the deadly, earth-shattering thud of the bombs exploding. And, somewhere in the middle of this grisly pandemonium, his wife and children were sheltering.

For a moment, Tyrone couldn’t remember where Ferguson Street was. The next street,
the next street
, a voice said in his ear. He began to run, sprinting over the rubble like an athlete, around one corner, around another, but stopped when he heard another voice, a real one this time.

‘Dad!’ the voice said, and Tyrone looked down and saw his son, Joey, sitting in a doorway, clutching the ancient teddy bear that had once belonged to Cara.

‘Joey!’ Tyrone lifted the child into his arms. What was he doing here? Where were the others? ‘Where’s your mam and Mike, son?’

‘They were in the shelter, but I ran out. I don’t like the shelter, Dad.’ Joey buried his head in his father’s shoulder and began to cry.

‘I know, son.’ Tyrone patted Joey’s head. ‘Never mind, I’ll go back there with you. You’ll be quite safe with your dad.’

‘We can’t, Dad,’ Joey lisped. ‘We can’t go back ’cos the shelter got all blown up.’

 

The all-clear hadn’t gone until half past four and it had taken a while before Cara could bring herself to go to bed and even longer before she nodded off. It felt as if she’d only been asleep five minutes when someone shook her shoulder and said, ‘Cara, Cara,’ in an urgent voice. She pretended not to hear in the hope the person would give up and go away.

‘Cara, Cara,’ the voice said again, and her sluggish brain recognized the voice as Nancy’s. ‘Your Tyrone’s downstairs, pet. Something terrible’s happened.’

Cara’s eyes snapped open. ‘Is it Mam?’ She struggled to sit up. After living through the night in such high spirits, Nancy looked as if all the wind had been knocked out of her.

‘No, pet, it’s Maria and little Mike. They were in the shelter in Ferguson Street when it got a direct hit. Joey’s all right, but Maria and Mike are both dead, God bless their souls.’

 

‘Hello, Cara, luv,’ Mam said quietly. She was sitting in the chair under the window, nursing a sleeping Joey in her arms and appeared to have aged ten years since Cara last saw her. ‘Has our Tyrone been round yours?’

‘Yes, Mam, Nancy and Fielding are looking after him.’ When she left, Nancy had been trying to persuade her devastated brother to swallow some whiskey. ‘I thought I’d come and see how you were. I’ve brought Kitty with me. She’s asleep at the moment.’

‘I’m all right, darlin’, although I wish it had been this house that got the direct hit, not the shelter. There were nigh on forty people in there including Maria and Mike.’ She sighed wearily. ‘I’ll put Joey to bed in a minute and take a proper look at Kitty, but the poor little heartbroken lad only went to sleep half an hour ago. What time is it?’

‘About half seven.’ She’d slept less than an hour. ‘Tyrone said some drunk came in the shelter and was sick all over the place. Joey felt frightened and ran out to look for his dad. He’d hardly been gone a minute when the shelter was hit.’ Cara eased herself on to a chair. Her head and her entire body throbbed with exhaustion and Kitty felt like a ton weight.

‘That’s right, and now Tyrone’s all for blaming himself, but if it was anyone’s fault Maria went to the shelter it was mine.’ Mam’s face crumpled, as if she was about to cry. ‘Running all over the place, I was, trying to find out about that bloody ring. I was only halfway home when the siren went: Maria had already gone when I arrived.’

‘What ring, Mam?’

‘That one o’yours, darlin’, the sapphire one.’ Mam gave her a sharp look. ‘Did you ask your dad for it back?’

Cara was glad she was able to answer, ‘No.’ Her mother seemed to be rather quietly overwrought and she had a feeling she only had to say a wrong word and all the resentment would come pouring out. ‘To tell the truth, Mam, I’d forgotten all about the ring. So far as I’m concerned, you can keep it.’

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ Mam said listlessly. ‘God knows where it’s gone.’ She waved a limp hand. ‘Have you seen the state of this place?’ There was a film of dust over everything and the fireplace was full of soot.

‘It’s the same back home. Outside, the air’s thick with it and everywhere smells of burning. Two houses in Parliament Terrace were destroyed last night. The bomb only missed us by a few yards.’

‘At least you had company. I had to sit through it all by meself until Tyrone came home with Joey in his arms and told me Maria and Mike were dead.’ There was a hint of accusation in her voice, as if to say Cara should have been with her.

Cara ignored the hint. ‘Where’s Dad?’ she asked. Perhaps he was still out there helping to rescue the people buried under the rubble.

‘He’s disappeared,’ Mam said bitterly, ‘like that bloody ring. I can’t remember when I last saw him. All me family have deserted me.’

Cara changed the subject. ‘Would you like me to make a cup of tea, Mam? I’ll put Kitty down on the settee in the front room.’

‘I would dearly, except there’s no water and no gas, and no electricity either. All the mains got damaged last night.’

‘I forgot. There’s nothing working in Parliament Terrace either, but I’m sure it’ll all be fixed soon.’ She went into the parlour and laid Kitty down any road, then returned to her mother.

It was a relief when, minutes later, the back door opened and Fergus came in. ‘I didn’t realize things were so bad until I stepped outside,’ he said soberly. ‘We . . . I mean, I slept through the whole thing.’

‘Well, it’s nice of you to show your face,’ Mam said acidly. ‘If you’re wanting your breakfast, there’s none to be had, not even a glass of water.’ Suddenly, without warning, she burst into hysterical tears. ‘This war’s really getting me down,’ she cried. ‘What sort of world is it when people can’t sleep in their own beds any more and little children are murdered? It’s evil, that’s what it is, evil. Last night, I prayed to the Blessed Virgin to keep us all safe, but she mustn’t have heard me for the bombs.’

‘Shush, Mam,’ Cara said gently. ‘You’ll wake Joey.’ Joey had started furiously to suck his thumb. ‘Fergus, will you carry Joey upstairs and put him to bed?’ She added in a whisper, ‘Maria and Mike died last night when the shelter in Ferguson Street got a direct hit.’

‘Jaysus!’ Fergus went very pale and looked as if he was about to be sick. ‘Oh, Jaysus!’ He carefully removed his little nephew from Mam’s arms and took him upstairs. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said wretchedly when he came back. ‘If I had, I’d’ve come home straight away.’

‘I know you would, Ferg.’ Cara patted his arm comfortingly.

‘Where’s our Tyrone?’

‘He’s with Nancy. What are we going to do about Mam?’ she asked quietly. ‘She really needs Dad, but he’s done a disappearing act.’ They glanced at their mother who had stopped crying and was sitting very still, eyes closed, her face creased as if she were in enormous pain. In the parlour, Kitty had woken and was making little chirruping noises.

‘I’ll stay with Mam,’ Fergus said, ‘then I’ll be here for Tyrone when he comes home, but I’d like you to do something for me - telephone Littlewoods when you get back and tell them what’s happened. Ask for Mr Worrall, he’s my boss.’

‘OK,’ Cara promised, guiltily relieved that it seemed all right for her to leave. Mam had hardly glanced at her new grandchild.

‘Your dad’s just phoned,’ Nancy said when she went in carrying a screaming Kitty who was announcing to the world that she was starving. ‘He said to phone him back straight away. I left the number on the desk in the study. I told him about Maria and Mike, by the way. He was terribly upset.’

‘I’ll phone him the minute I’ve fed this little madam. Did Dad say where he was? And where’s our Tyrone?’