The Liverpool Basque (22 page)

‘He was so good to me, Father,’ she told him brokenly, as she wept. And the old priest thought that he had not heard that kind of praise very frequently from bereaved wives in a parish which was both poor and harsh.

When finally he left to confer with his fellow priests about a Mass for the souls of all the men lost, the family was still weeping, but he had exorcized the hysteria. It was as if he had taken away with him some of the agony of mind and now carried it himself.

Old Manuel remembered sadly that, on that day, he would have sworn that he could eat nothing; but he had
been a healthy growing lad, and he ate everything Madeleine prepared for tea, and this encouraged a tear-stained Frannie and Little Maria to eat, too. Micaela sipped tea, but refused anything to eat. His mother had been taken back up to her bed, and, with Bridget on one side of the bed and silent Effie on the other, had drunk a cup of tea as black as shoe polish with a good dash of rum in it. Mr Halloran had come in in the middle of the uproar, had gone upstairs to fetch his small hoard of spirits, and handed it to his wife. He then sat down in his room to wait, with what patience he could muster, for his wife to come up and make his tea. He was not alone in the parish; quite a number of husbands had similar waits, while their wives went to help their friends.

A couple of nights later, after the girls had been put to bed and the dishes washed up, Rosita sat down at the kitchen table to write to Pedro’s mother and father on their faraway farm in the Pyrenees, while Manuel tried manfully to concentrate on his homework at the other end of the table; Arnador had not come down to their home since the bad news; he said to Manuel that he would not intrude at such a time.

Manuel wished that Francesca was still up and doing her homework, but Francesca, terribly distressed and frantic that her mother would also be lost if she left her, had not been to school, nor had her bewildered little sister. Finally, tonight, Bridget had popped in with a pill which she carefully split into two. She made each child swallow half, and had then taken them both up to bed, telling them that they would be fine in the morning and looking forward to going to school. The exhausted girls dropped off to sleep almost immediately, and, when she came downstairs, she kissed Rosita and said the sedative was a mild one, and to send them to school in the morning.

Now, Rosita sat staring at a piece of lined notepaper. How do you tell parents that they have lost their son? She chewed her wooden penholder till its tip began to disintegrate.

Manuel’s own misery and his mother’s fidgeting troubled him so much that he finally suggested softly to her, ‘You could simply say that you are sorry to have to tell them that …’

Thankful to be given an opening, Rosita wrote as he
directed. Micaela, lying on the sofa with her eyes closed, listened to the scratching pen, and, when the sound was replaced by that of Rosita folding up the letter, she said, ‘Have you given them my love and say how I grieve for them, too? Poor souls, they have only one son left, now.’

‘No.’ Rosita unfolded the letter and put the message in at the bottom of the page, and added ‘With love’ before her own signature, crossed it out and put, ‘With all our love.’ The old couple had always been very kind to her.

‘Now write to my brother-in-law in Bilbao. He should hear it from us – that his niece is a widow.’

At this reminder of her solitary state, Rosita broke down and cried again. Both Manuel and Micaela immediately got up to comfort her.

It was a while before her sobbing ceased and she could write to her uncle and his two elderly daughters, all of them trying to scrape a living and with worries of their own.

As she finally licked the envelopes closed, Manuel said, ‘I think you should write to Uncle Leo.’

Back on the horsehair sofa, Micaela sighed. She said despondently, ‘I wrote several times in the war, and when I wrote for Christmas, 1918, the letter came back marked
Gone away
. I’d hoped that, perhaps, another clerk might make an effort to forward it – seeing that it was Christmas.’ She had felt intensely her lack of letters from her emigrant son; though he had difficulty, he knew how to read and write, she thought with resentment. Unless, of course, he had been killed in the war, which was a fear which haunted her.

Now, she said to Rosita, ‘You must be tired, dear. You could write to Agustin tomorrow.’

Rosita was finding it almost impossible to concentrate, so she agreed. ‘One more day is not going to make any difference,’ she said with a sigh.

Before she could put the pad of paper and the pen and
ink back on the dresser, Manuel interjected. ‘Mam, couldn’t I write to Uncle Leo – to save you a bit? Suppose I wrote him a letter to the only definite address we’ve ever had for him – the one in Nevada, and put it in an envelope addressed to the postmaster there, with a little note asking if he would help us to trace him, because the matter is urgent. If the postmaster knew it was urgent he might take the trouble to inquire for us. For instance, he could ask other shepherds coming in to collect their letters if they knew him and knew where he was.’

Rosita shrugged rather hopelessly. Let the boy try. She pushed the pen, ink and paper towards him. ‘All right. Thank you, luv.’

As Manuel let the letters slip into the bright red pillar box with its royal insignia of George V, on his way to school the next morning, he prayed that Uncle Leo would reply. He was a grown man and would know what the family should do.

As he trudged through the morning rush to work, he grizzled miserably, his chin tucked down into the school scarf round his neck, so that passersby would not notice that he was crying. He presumed that he would now have to leave school and go to sea, though he had, as yet, not discussed it with his mother. He thought of the wide expanse of nothing which was the ocean – and of his father drowning in it because there was no one to rescue him – and he did not feel very brave. He was thankful to see Arnador waiting for him at the school gate.

At home, there were numerous visitors. Not only Rosita’s Basque friends and other neighbours called upon her; one or two other wives of missing crew members came simply to share their common sense of despair. Among the latter was the downtrodden, woebegone slip of an Irish woman, Bridie Pilar, wife of a Filipino stoker and mother of Andrew
Pilar, who still tried, sometimes, to bully Manuel, especially when he was in his school uniform.

When Rosita opened the door to her, Bridie burst into tears and flung herself upon Rosita, her black shawl flapping round her like the wings of a bat.

It took Rosita a second or two to realize who she was, but when she did, she urged her to come in and sit by the fire.

Seated in Micaela’s rocking chair, Bridie rocked herself back and forth in desperate agitation, her face in her hands, greasy black hair falling forward in rat tails.

Micaela, who had been dozing on the sofa, woke up and asked anxiously who was there.

Rosita, standing by the weeping woman, told her. She herself was not certain of the import of the visit. Bridie was not a close neighbour – she lived in Park Lane. Micaela was also a little mystified, but she heaved herself off the sofa, and said, in a resigned voice, ‘I’ll make some tea.’ Unerringly, she reached into the hearth for the poker. With it she located the hob on which the kettle stood, and lifted the kettle to weigh whether there was any water in it. Satisfied, she pushed the hob round with the poker till it stood over the fire. The kettle began to sing.

Rosita, with her hand comfortingly on Bridie’s shoulder, watched her mother anxiously; she did not want to interfere unnecessarily, but she was always afraid that blind Micaela would get too close to the blaze and burn herself, though she had never done so.

Bridie began to shriek. ‘What am I going to do? And me with five boys to feed? It’ll be the workie for us, it will, for sure.’

At the mention of the dreaded workhouse, Rosita shivered. It was a threat of which she had been agonizingly aware ever since she had received the news of the ship’s foundering.

She said, ‘Don’t take on so, Bridie. There’ll be a compensation
award; it’ll give us a bit of time to find work.’

Micaela put the old beret which was the teacosy over the pot. ‘Have you got a dad who’d help out?’ she inquired. She was upset herself and her hands trembled, as she got down the mugs from the dresser.

‘Me dad? He’s drunk most of the time – if he’s got any money. And me mam half-starved, and afraid of being beaten if she opens her mouth. And me brothers are in a state, ’cos two of ’em died, one with the flu and one in France – and that means two widows pestering them already.’ She gave a mighty sniff and accepted a mug of tea from Micaela. ‘What am I to do?’

Rosita let her arms fall to her sides and turned to sit down herself. Through long nights she had wept herself to exhaustion; now she had to give thought to the same question. The compensation would be a small lump sum, which would not last long, and she had nearly as many mouths to feed as Bridie had. And she badly wanted to keep Manuel in school, if she could.

‘There’ll be the Burial Insurance, too.’

Micaela opened her mouth as if to say something, and then thought better of it, when Bridie said, ‘I haven’t got none.’

‘Have your lads got any work?’ Rosita asked.

‘Andy’s muckin’ out the milkman’s cowshed and washing his cans for him. The others sometimes bring in a few pence, runnin’ messages, like. But I got rent to pay, and I’m owin’ more than a week already.’

Rosita thankfully sipped at her mug of tea. She began to resent having to comfort someone who was not a friend and whose boys were known pests. ‘Well, I’m going to let every room in this house, to start with.’

‘You’re lucky. I’ve only got two rooms, and I’ll lose them if I don’t pay up.’

When Micaela heard her daughter say that she would let rooms, she foresaw a lot of trouble. Life was difficult
enough, sharing the kitchen-living-room sink and the kitchen range with Effie Halloran; to have others also using the same facilities would be almost intolerable. The thought of the noise, the inevitable arguments, and the total lack of privacy for her family left her daunted. And yet, what else could Rosita do?

As if in answer to Micaela’s unspoken query, Rosita continued speaking to Bridie. ‘I’m going to look for work I can do at home,’ she said determinedly.

‘What work? You nor I don’t know nothing.’ Bridie leaned back in the rocking chair, small sobs intermittently escaping her. ‘He were a proper nice fella,’ she wailed.

‘Before I was married I was a seamstress. I served my time at Cripps’. I’m going to ask them.’

‘Lucky for you,’ responded Bridie tartly. ‘And you’re pretty – you could marry again. Many a man wouldn’t mind taking on a couple of little girls – and a boy ready for working.’

Rosita dismissed the suggestion with an impatient shrug. How could she face anyone but Pedro in her bed? The insensitive bitch!

Micaela swallowed. It was clear that neither woman understood exactly what her legal position was. Bridie had brought up a point which Micaela felt she should clarify. There were not too many marriageable women in the Basque community and Rosita was still young enough to have more children. She might, indeed, get an offer of marriage. It would be her best chance of a new life – when she was free to accept it.

She swung her feet to the floor and leaned towards the two widows. In her distress, she unthinkingly spoke in Basque. ‘There’s something I have to tell you about,’ she began, ‘because it seems as if you don’t know about it. Neither of you can get married again – at least, not for a long time.’

Rosita turned a startled face to her mother. She did not
want to remarry, but the remark was very unexpected. Bridie had not understood what Micaela had said, but she understood from Rosita’s reaction that it was something extraordinary.

‘What do you mean, Mam?’

‘What did she say?’ asked Bridie suspiciously.

Rosita quickly translated. ‘Why, Mam?’

‘My love, your hubbie isn’t yet dead – not in law.’

A wild irrational hope shot through Rosita, and died.

Micaela heard her quick intake of breath, and her voice broke, as she added, ‘The ship is
presumed
lost with all hands. Nobody knows for sure that it has foundered. So, unless you can produce his body, you have to wait seven years, in case Pedro or Mr Pilar turn up again. After seven years, you can apply for them to be declared dead. Now – well, you’re not a widow, you are still a wife. Which means you are in limbo.’

Bridie said anxiously, ‘Tell me what she’s saying. You look like a ghost.’

Micaela repeated her warning in English. Since she had lived in the seagoing community for over forty years, neither woman doubted what she told them.

Bridie burst into wild laughter, swinging the rocking chair madly backwards and forwards. ‘Does that mean we won’t even get the compensation? Be treated like whores living in sin? And me without even bread in the house?’

Micaela felt suddenly very old; the world was too cruel. Unwilling to leave either woman without hope, she said, ‘I think they’ll pay – because they are a good company. But they could hold off – you never know. The Prudential won’t pay the burial money either, without a body with a death certificate.’

At this added burden, Rosita closed her eyes. She wanted to go upstairs and crawl into bed and never get up. Grief overwhelmed her again, as Bridie continued to yell. She did not see Micaela hoist herself to her feet and cross the
fireplace, to administer, quite accurately, a very sharp slap across Bridie’s face.

‘Hysterics won’t do you any good,’ she told her firmly. ‘You’ve got to keep your wits about you.’

Bridie’s laughter ceased abruptly. ‘You didn’t have to do that!’ she retorted, as she rubbed her tingling cheek. ‘I’ve got a right to be upset, I have.’ Ordinary tears began to trickle forth again. ‘And no bread – not a crust in the house.’ She looked up appealingly to Micaela. ‘Could you lend me a shilling, luv? I haven’t got nothing.’