The September Girls (62 page)

‘I heard him cry during the night,’ Cara said. ‘Did he keep you awake for long?’

‘Long enough.’ Fergus grunted. ‘He’s asleep right now, so keep your voice down a bit, luv.’

‘I won’t say another word,’ Cara whispered as she tiptoed in with the tea, put the tray on top of the dressing table, and tiptoed out again. Fielding was expecting another baby in five months and she prayed Harry would be better by then and he and the new baby would be as fit and healthy as her own had always been.

All the shops in town were closed, but must have been hard at work the day before decorating the windows with photographs of the King and Queen draped in the Union Jack. There were flags everywhere and the brilliantly sunny streets were crisscrossed with red, white and blue bunting. Despite the closed shops, the city centre was crowded and there was little traffic, leaving people free to walk in the road. A long line of young women danced the conga, curling like a snake down Ranelagh Street, while an ancient gentlemen marched down the middle of Houghton Street banging a toy drum and singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ at the top of his voice. Everyone looked stupidly happy, almost dazed by the victory that, during the dark times, they’d thought would never come.

Cara was kissed and hugged, had her hand shaken over and over by complete strangers. The children were picked up and petted, and an old lady gave them sixpence each. In the end, the heady atmosphere got through to her and she began to fling her arms around people she’d never seen before in her life and would no doubt never see again.

A genuine sailor danced the hornpipe in Clayton Square, surrounded by a cheering crowd. In another part of the square, people were doing the hokey-cokey. Sean stroked a stray dog, a mangy, ugly-looking thing, and it immediately began to follow them.

‘Go away, dog!’ Cara said sternly. The dog stopped and gave her a sullen glare, but when she looked around, it was following them again and did so all the way down to the Pier Head and back to Parliament Terrace by which time Sean had fallen in love with the damn thing and the dog appeared to have fallen in love with him. It sat on the pavement outside the house with its head poking through the railings, staring longingly through the window.

‘He’s hungry,’ Sean announced. ‘Can I give him something to eat?’

‘If you feed it,’ Cara said warningly, ‘it’ll never go away.’

‘I don’t want him to go away. I want to call him Rover and keep him.’ Sean looked mutinously at his mother. ‘Why can’t I keep him, Mam?’

‘Because he probably belongs to someone else, sweetheart,’ she said, although this seemed most unlikely. The dog looked half starved, didn’t have a collar and was urgently in need of a bath. She wouldn’t mind having a dog, but preferred a puppy that would grow up to be more cuddly and attractive than the ugly beast outside. The dog was forgotten when she heard the sound of a baby crying upstairs: Harry!

Nancy had heard it too. ‘Fergus phoned the doctor earlier. He should be here in a minute. When Fielding fed the poor little mite, he brought it all up again. He’s hardly stopped crying since.’

‘I’d better go up and see them.’

Fielding was still in bed, Harry crying pitifully in her curved arm. She looked tearfully at Cara. ‘Did Nancy tell you? He’ll never put on weight if he’s sick every time I feed him. It’s actually getting worse. He should have started on solids by now, but he can’t even keep down breast milk. Fergus rang for the doctor and he’s in the parlour keeping an eye out for him.’ She looked down at the baby. ‘He sounds so weary. He’s probably more tired than we are.’

Cara sat on the bed. ‘Would you like me to take him for a minute, luv?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind, my arm is aching badly.’

The baby felt terribly hot. His tiny face was as red as a beetroot as he continued to wail. ‘If only they could find out what’s wrong with him,’ she said with a sigh.

‘I worry all the time that he’ll die,’ Fielding said in a cracked voice. ‘I long for him to stop crying, but when he does I’m terrified he’s stopped because he’s dead.’

‘Juliette!’ Fergus called. ‘The doctor’s just about to ring the bell. Least, I think he’s a doctor ’cos he’s carrying a bag, but he only looks about sixteen. He’s probably just a locum,’ he finished in a tone of faint disgust.

Cara passed the doctor as she went downstairs. He did indeed look awfully young, although much more than sixteen and refreshingly eager to help.

In the kitchen, the door was wide open, there was a tin bath at the foot of the steps, and Rover was in the course of being bathed by Nancy and Sean. Both were getting very wet in the process. The dog stood quite placidly, allowing himself to be scrubbed.

She told Nancy sharply to sit down, she’d take over. ‘Today, you’re supposed to just sit and watch.’

‘We’ve nearly finished, pet. He just wants lifting out and wrapping in this old towel. There’s a nice meal waiting for him when we’re done.’

Perhaps Rover had understood. He leapt out of the bath and raced around the kitchen, shaking himself and spraying everyone in sight. Kitty screamed and ran upstairs. Sean laughed and clapped his hands. Nancy managed to catch the dog in the towel and began to rub him vigorously. Cara grumbled it was a waste of time insisting that she rest.

Her mother arrived with Joey and Bernard in tow. ‘What on earth’s going on?’ she asked, stepping over the bath.

‘It seems we’ve got a dog, Mam.’

‘His name’s Rover,’ Sean supplied.

‘He’s quite a nice-looking creature,’ Mam said, and Cara was forced to agree that Rover looked more curly than mangy since he’d been washed. ‘Where did you get those hats, boys?’ Joey and Bernard wore red, white and blue knitted bobble hats.

‘Grannie made them for us,’ Joey said proudly - Bernard was too interested in watching Rover gulp down the food. ‘She’s made ones for Kitty and Sean too.’

‘I’ve been knitting all week. I managed to sew the bobbles on last night,’ Mam said breathlessly. ‘How’s Harry today?’

‘Not so well. The doctor’s with him right now. You’re not to go up there, Mam, until he’s gone.’ Cara barred the exit from the kitchen when her mother made for the stairs. She was likely to give the doctor an earful, angrily demanding that they find out what was wrong with her grandson.

A few minutes later, the front door closed and Fergus came in, a baby’s bottle in his hand. ‘Is there any boiled water in the kettle, Nancy?’ he asked.

‘Yes, pet. Would you like me to heat it up again?’

‘No, ta.’ He half-filled the bottle with water from the kettle, then lit the gas underneath. ‘I just want a little bit of hot to melt the sugar.’

‘What’s all this about, lad?’ Mam demanded with a frown.

‘The doctor thinks Harry might be allergic to something or he’s got a blockage somewhere. We’ve got to give him nothing but sugared water for a few days. He’s coming back to see us the day after tomorrow.’

‘What on this earth does “allergic” mean?’ Mam’s frown deepened. She nursed a deep distrust of doctors. ‘I’ve never heard of the word before.’

‘It means that something doesn’t agree with you, Mam, probably the milk.’ Fergus rolled his eyes at Cara in expectation of their mother’s reaction.

‘Since when did milk disagree with anyone?’ Mam snorted. ‘It’s what makes babies thrive. That doctor needs his bumps feeling.’

‘Well, Harry isn’t thriving, is he? And Doctor Bennett’s the first to suggest something positive, rather than just say he hasn’t a clue what’s wrong. If this works, we can try Harry with the orange juice Juliette gets from the clinic and a baby tonic.’

‘Well, if you’re sure, darlin’,’ Mam said doubtfully.

‘I’m not sure, Mam. I’m not sure about anything, but Harry’s really sick and me and Juliette are willing to try anything if it’ll make him better.’ Fergus left the kitchen on the verge of tears.

‘Poor lad,’ Mam sniffed, close to tears herself. ‘I hope that doctor knows what he’s up to. Not many of ’em do.’

 

The street party was due to begin at two o’clock. A row of tables of slightly different heights and a variety of widths wobbled precariously on the cobbles in the middle of the street. About twenty children ranging from aged two to thirteen were already seated on chairs as they waited, tongues hanging out, for the women to serve the food. It was Cara’s job to supervise and make sure everyone got their fair share - Kitty would make a grab at everything in sight, whereas Sean would hang back and not eat a mouthful if he wasn’t encouraged.

Nearly everyone had been putting little treats aside for this extraspecial day: tins of Spam, biscuits and fruit, and evaporated milk to pour over jellies, jam, sweets and chocolate. Precious eggs had been used to make fairy and sponge cakes, used in turn to make trifles. There were jugs of custard, mountains of sandwiches and cream crackers spread with meat paste and Heinz sandwich spread.

Nancy had surprised everyone by producing a catering-sized tin of peaches that the Americans had brought years before. ‘I’ll write and tell Dexter we ate it on VE Day,’ she’d said. ‘He’ll be thrilled.’

Dexter and Nelson were in Berlin with the triumphant American Army, but Eddie, brown-eyed, brown-haired Eddie with his bashful smile, had been killed within hours of the troops landing on French soil. Brenna had had a Mass said on his birthday ever since. Cara hadn’t set eyes on Jack McGarry since the day Fielding and Fergus had got married.

The women emerged from their houses with the sandwiches and crackers, and the children fell upon them. Cara followed with a tray of lemonade in the cardboard cups that Eleanor had found in the attic when she was clearing out the house in Tigh Street. She and Hector were moving to a bungalow in Formby that overlooked the Mersey and also had a big garage where Hector would have more space to do his sculpture.

A group of men, fathers and elder brothers, lounged against the walls, supping beer from the Baker’s Arms just around the corner and discussing the finer points of the war, winning it all over again, while the sun beat down, blessing their small part of the earth with its warmth and beauty, making the salty air tingle.

The sandwiches and crackers gone, bowls of trifle appeared, carefully shared out. Cara eyed it wistfully, hoping there’d be some left over, but doubting it very much.

Eleanor arrived. ‘I didn’t want to miss anything,’ she said to Cara. ‘It seemed wrong to do housework on VE Day, anyway. Hector’s started a new sculpture - he’s going to call it
Victory
- but he’ll be along later. Where’s your mother? D’you think she’d like a glass of wine? I’ve brought a couple of bottles with me.’

‘Well,
I
would, and I’m sure Mam would, too. She’s in the house.’ As Eleanor was about to go inside, Cara called, ‘Tell her if she can grab me some trifle, it’d be much appreciated.’

It was time for the cakes, which disappeared in a jiffy. Cara distributed more lemonade and told everyone they’d behaved very well. ‘Now there’s going to be games,’ she said. The older children, teenagers enjoying a day off work, were organizing the games and, apart from helping to take the tables and chairs back to where they belonged, her own tasks were over and she could go indoors for a well-earned rest. When she did, all the trifle had gone.

 

Four o’clock and by now the sun had passed over the houses and half the street was in shadow. Some of the beer drinkers had fallen asleep where they lay, others still supped their pints for, against all the laws of licensing, the Baker’s Arms had stayed open, reckoning that not many bobbies would be around to check on such a momentous day.

‘After all, what the bloody hell did we fight for,’ one man, who’d never been near a battlefield, asked loudly, ‘if it weren’t for the right to drink when and where we liked?’

Sean and Bernard were asleep on their grandmother’s bed, while Kitty, who had the stamina of an ox, played football with Joey and a gang of lads twice her size.

At half past four, Tyrone Caffrey appeared, a fine figure of a man in his Merchant Navy uniform. His boat had docked at Harwich the day before and he’d hitchhiked home. ‘I was determined to reach Liverpool if I possibly could,’ he told his delighted mother. ‘There’s nowhere else on earth I’d sooner be today.’

After Brenna had finished kissing and petting her son, Eleanor jumped up and did the same, only slightly less effusively. Another wedding was on the cards and as soon as Sybil was demobbed and came home from India, she and Tyrone were getting married. They would live in Eleanor’s house in Tigh Street.

Mam had given in to the inevitable, having learned from experience that it was no use trying to stop her children from doing what they wanted. If Tyrone were intent on marrying Sybil, then he would go ahead, no matter how much she protested.

It might have been Hector who had convinced Eleanor that wild young men didn’t necessarily stay that way for ever, that with the years they could become quite tame. After all, Hector’s face bore a scar that could only have been inflicted by a razor. Cara suspected he hadn’t exactly been an angel in his youth spent in Glasgow.