A Whisper to the Living (2 page)

‘Come on now, Annie, take off your clogs.’ For answer I kicked out at her, narrowly missing a lisle-stockinged leg.

At that moment the door was thrown open and there stood Sister Agatha, headmistress, despot, monarch of all she surveyed. From her right hand there dangled a short leather whip which she was tapping gently against her thigh through the thick folds of her voluminous habit.

‘What have we here?’ Her Irish voice held none of the pleasant lilt common to most of my own immigrant uncles.

Miss Best all but curtseyed. ‘Oh . . . Sister . . . it’s just that little Annie doesn’t like to lie down in the afternoon.’

After a bone-chilling silence, the nun spoke, her voice cracking with anger. ‘Doesn’t like? Doesn’t like, is it? Well, we’ll just have to see about that now, won’t we? Get into that cot now, this instant, you bold girl.’ I said nothing, but some devil in me made me drag my eyes from the whip, forced me to stare up at her, straight into those icy eyes.

‘Did you hear what I said? You’re not deaf as well as stupid, are you? Did you hear me, girl?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, what?’

Miss Best put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Yes, Sister. You must say yes, Sister.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ I muttered through clenched teeth.

Sister Agatha drew Miss Best aside. Although my heart was pounding in my ears, I caught snatches of their whispered conversation.

‘. . . very advanced, Sister . . . more like a six year old . . . doesn’t need the sleep . . .’

‘They must conform, Miss Best . . . grow up delinquent . . . mother lapsed . . . child too big for her boots . . .’

It looked to me as if Miss Best was getting into trouble and it was all my fault. Quietly, I slipped off my clogs and lay flat on the cot, pulling the blanket high over my head. The two women stopped talking. I knew they were staring at me, for I could feel the chill of the nun’s eyes as they swept over my body.

This was my first remembered encounter with compromise. Many more were to follow, but this became, for me, a point of reference. For a long time afterwards, whenever I had to relinquish my principles in order to keep the peace, I would say I was ‘doing my Best’, for Miss Best was the one who taught me to make room for people, to consider others as well as myself.

Fortunately, I knew nothing of what lay in store for me. I would be ‘doing my Best’ for many years to come.

We war babies grew up quickly. Each day, we set off for school, gas masks swinging from our shoulders, stopping off at Connie’s corner for a ha’porth of cocoa and sugar, scurrying into the playground to stand in regimented rows beneath the eagle eye of Sister Agatha, then lining up once more for our daily dose of cod liver oil and orange juice.

I became outwardly docile, realizing quickly that I must have no opinion, voice no objection, because if I did, I would invoke the wrath of my elders and invite the alienation of my peers. Nevertheless, I established myself as pack leader, organizing playtimes, inventing games of dragons, of princes and princesses in which I always played the chief role.

Just after my fourth birthday, I was moved into the infants’ class because of my ability to read and write. I was heartbroken, not so much because I had been placed with a nun, for Sister Immaculata was near-human, the exception that proved the rule, but because I had to leave behind my beloved Miss Best. However, I settled quickly into the new routine, enjoying the challenge of learning, soaking up like a sponge everything that was on offer.

The sirens often sounded as we left our school. They were part of our lives and we never hurried when they began their raucous wailing. Even at three and four years of age we were responsible for ourselves, negotiating main roads, scurrying across trolley and tram tracks, making our own way home through mazes of terraced streets and cobbled entries.

I never went straight home, but stayed with Mrs Hyatt till my mother came back from the mill. But one afternoon, as I passed my own house on my way to Mrs Hyatt’s, I noticed that our front door was open. I heard voices and muffled crying coming from within, so I sat on the step and listened. It had been my experience thus far that anything worth hearing would never be spoken in front of me.

So it happened that I learned of my father’s death as I sat on a cold doorstep with nobody to comfort me. It was a chilly September afternoon in 1944. I stared up our sloping street towards Derby Road, remembering the times I’d watched my father running down faster and faster towards me, how, when he had reached me, he would pick me up high in the air, tossing me about, making me squeal and giggle. I recalled the smell of him, tobacco and beer, sometimes whisky.

I had always snatched the Glengarry from his head, cramming it down onto my own yellow curls as he sang ‘A Gordon for Me’. He would never come again. Never. My Daddy was dead. My Daddy who always took me to the lions in the middle of Town, under the big clock.

No, he couldn’t be dead, not my Daddy. He’d be there with the lions. It was a mistake. Grown-ups were always making mistakes.

As fast as my legs would carry me, I was up and away to the top of Ensign Street, down Derby Road towards the town. The sirens were screaming again, but I never heeded them, so intent was I on reaching my goal. Blindly I ran past the deserted market place and through Moor Lane, stopping only to catch my breath as I reached the Civic Buildings.

The Crescent was empty of people; no vehicle moved and though dusk had begun its descent, not a single lamp was lit as I climbed the Town Hall steps towards the lions. I sat, shivering on the stone slabs waiting for my father. Opposite, I could see the memorial to those who had lost their lives in the previous war, the war during which my parents had been born.

Somewhere, bombs were falling, but I was used to that; I had never lived in a world at peace. When the bombers had finished vomiting their contents onto Manchester, a thin, cold drizzle began to fall, wetting me through to the skin within minutes. A warden found me there sometime during that night, but I was not grateful to him, for even in my weakened state I fought to maintain my vigil.

‘I’m waiting for my Dad,’ I insisted.

‘Nay, lass. Tha can’t stop ’ere. Jerry’ll be back, more than likely.’ He picked me up and I hit him full in the face with a clenched fist. ‘I’m stopping. I’m waiting for my Dad. They said he’s dead, but he’s not . . . he’s not. He always comes to the lions. Please let me stay, Mister . . .’ But the man was already carrying me down the steps to a waiting policeman who shone a dimmed torch into our faces.

‘I reckon she’s bloodied tha nose, then, ’Arry.’

‘Aye, she ’as that. But she’s in a fair state, wet through an’ all. Tha’ll ’ave to tek ’er ’ome.’

‘Where dost live, lass?’ the policeman asked.

‘I’m not telling you.’

‘Oh, well then.’ The policeman removed his helmet and scratched his head. ‘Well, in that case, we’ll ’ave to tek thee to t’ Cottage ’Omes.’

The Cottage Homes? That was for children that nobody wanted, that had no mams and dads. Still, if I hadn’t got a dad, I might as well go and live at the Cottage Homes. But then, if I did, I might never see my Mam again. And I did have a Dad. I did.

‘Number 20, Ensign Street,’ I muttered.

‘And what’s yer name?’

‘Annie Byrne.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Four and a half and a bit.’

‘By. Tha’s a clever lass for four and a half and a bit. What are you doing stuck out ’ere with old ’Arry an’ a couple o’ pot lions?’

‘I’ve told you once. I’m waiting for my Dad.’

‘Right. Well where’s yer dad comin’ from?’

I thought hard before answering, ‘Italy, I think.’ The two men looked at one another over my head before Harry handed me to the policeman, whispering as he did so, ‘They’ve told ’er ’e’s dead.’

I stiffened in the policeman’s arms. ‘They haven’t told me nothing. They never tell me nothing. But I heard them saying it.’

There was a lot of rain by this time and the policeman’s muslin-draped torch gave little light, so I wasn’t sure that I saw tears running down his face. He raised his head, craning his neck towards the sky. ‘Sod you,’ he shouted and his voice was high and strange. ‘Sod you bloody bastards.’

Normally, I would have been fascinated by such interesting language, but by this time I was too tired, wet and worried to wonder anew about the anomalies of grown-ups and their rules, one law for them and another for me.

When we finally reached home, my mother was in a state of total hysteria, laughing and crying at the same time, clutching at my hands, slapping me for my naughtiness, then hugging me in her relief. I was shocked to the core when Mrs Hyatt got up from her chair, crossed the room with her waddling gait and hit my mother very hard across the face. I could not understand this at all.

But I was given little time to wonder, for they stripped me off and wrapped me in a warm blanket, then we sat, my mother and I, the policeman and Mrs Hyatt in the four chairs that surrounded the kitchen table.

My mother, after drawing several shuddering breaths, said, ‘Annie, your Dad’s not coming home any more.’ The gaslight flickered and I stared at the spluttering mantle, trying to fix my attention on something – anything other than what was being said to me.

The policeman took my hand in his. ‘Tha’rt a big, fine lass, Annie. Yer dad ’as died for ’is country. When yer older, you’ll be proud of ’im.’

‘Who killed him?’ I asked, of nobody in particular.

‘Why, the Nazis, luv – the Germans,’ answered the bobby.

‘The ones that dropped the bomb on Emmanuel Street and killed Rosie Turner?’

‘Aye, lass.’

‘The ones that dropped the bombs tonight?’

‘That’s it, Annie, they’re the ones.’

A terrible anger rose in me, heaving in my throat like vomit. I fought for breath, pushing away the hands that reached for me. Something in my chest swelled and swelled until I felt I would burst. I had to do something bad, something really bad to let the anger out. Jumping up from the table so quickly that my chair fell away, I flew to the window and threw back the blackout.

Staring up into the rain-filled night sky, I screamed at the top of my voice, ‘Sod you bloody bastards.’ And my mother, who would normally have berated me for such gross misconduct, pulled me into her arms, pressing her tear-soaked face against mine.

‘That’s right, lass,’ she sobbed. ‘You tell ’em.’

Apart from the war ending, two things of note happened during the sixth year of my life. Firstly, old Mr Higson from the end house, number 30, died on the outside lavatory. We children received this news with a mixture of sadness and revulsion, the former because he had been kind to us and the latter because we didn’t think anyone should die with his trousers down.

The second event, which was not completely unconnected with the first, was that my mother started courting.

Mr Higson’s youngest son, Eddie, who had been a prisoner of war for several years, was allowed out of the Infirmary to attend the funeral. Thin almost to the point of emaciation, he went with his older brothers to thank the neighbours for their kind thoughts and floral tributes. His appearance appalled and fascinated me. A cadaverous head was not improved by flesh of a yellowish shade which seemed to be stretched like parchment over forehead and chin, only to darken in great shrivelled hollows where cheeks should have been. His eyes were sunken too, small navy-blue dots set well back in circular craters of bone. The nose was prominent, wide-nostrilled and with a gristly bump near the top, while his lips were thin almost to the point of total absence, giving the mouth the appearance of a slit in the fold of some ageing newspaper. This whole death’s head was crowned by an incongruously vigorous mop of crinkly dark hair, all flattened and shiny with grease.

Eddie Higson had never been married. My mother immediately pitied him for his poor condition and took to visiting him at the hospital to which he had had to return immediately after the burial of his father.

During these visits, for which my mother prettied herself up with powder and rouge, I was left with Mrs Hyatt who voiced her disapproval of the affair regularly – not to me, but to her two sons. Freddie, the elder by ten minutes or so, made little response to his mother’s mutterings, while Tom, who always seemed to feel a degree of responsibility towards me, would whisper, ‘Hush, Mam. Not in front of the lass.’

I was fond of Tom. He always brought me sticks of barley sugar on a Friday when he got his wages and sometimes, when I was daydreaming, I imagined that Tom might be my uncle. Not my Dad, nobody could replace my Dad, but Tom was the best uncle anybody might wish for.

I sat in Mrs Hyatt’s rocker by the fire, sucking my stick of barley sugar. Mrs Hyatt took a rice pudding from the range oven and banged it down onto the table between the two men.

‘’E’s got sly eyes. I never did like ’im. When yer dad were alive, ’e never liked ’im neither.’

‘Listen, Ma,’ drawled Freddie. ‘Me Dad never liked nobody, specially when he got near the end. People with cancer isn’t noted for their sense of humour.’

Mrs Hyatt clipped Freddie round the ear with the oven cloth. ‘Bit of respect when you talk about yer dad. And it were nowt to do wi’ cancer. It were to do with . . . well . . . with other things.’ She cast a furtive glance in my direction, then mouthed a few silent words at Freddie and Tom.

‘That was all just talk, Mam. Nothing was ever proved,’ said Tom. ‘And mind what you say. Little pigs have big ears.’

I reacted not at all, pretending to concentrate on the sticky sweet as I stared into the fire. Tom went on, his voice almost a whisper, ‘Nancy Byrne has her own life to lead now. You can’t go telling her who she must go out with and who she mustn’t. And she knows nothing about . . . all that, I’m sure she doesn’t. What’s more, that tongue of yours will get you into trouble one of these days, mark my words. What you’re saying about Ed . . . about you-know-who is nothing short of slander. Aye, you’ll choke on that tongue, you will.’

Mrs Hyatt bristled visibly, her back straightening, her head moving slightly from side to side as she spoke. ‘Slander, you say? Slander? Why do you think he joined up so bloody quick, eh? ’E’s no flaming ’ero, I can tell you. And who’s to speak up now? Aye, answer me that one – if you can. With ’alf Emmanuel Street flattened and them as was involved cold in their graves? Oh aye, it’s all forgotten now, isn’t it? But I’ve not forgot, the dirty evil bast . . .’