Paddy’s heart felt heavy. After a stormy crossing of the English Channel, and yet another train journey, they had reached London and she was about to say goodbye to her new-found friends.
Ella and Connie had made her feel that she belonged, and had accepted her like none of the army lot had. Discipline had come above everything else for Queen Alexandra’s nursing service, and that maxim – and the other nurses she’d worked with having come from well-to-do backgrounds – hadn’t made it easy for her to fit in. Ella and Connie had been different somehow.
‘Wouldn’t it be nice if it was that we could meet up for a proper goodbye? I’m for thinking that next week would be a good time, when it is that we will know our future. I am to have three weeks’ leave, and then it is likely I’ll be demobbed. So I’m for looking for another job and hope to secure something soon.’
‘I’m sorry, Paddy, but until I know that my sons are safe, I don’t think I can arrange anything. But if all is well with them, then Connie and I will be setting a date for our wedding. So if you all leave us your addresses, we would love to invite you all to that.’
‘That would be grand, so it would. Thank you, Alan.’
With hugs and goodbyes said, and addresses exchanged, Paddy had left them and now stood on the platform of Willesden Green Tube Station. She’d vowed never to return to Cricklewood, but the reality was that she had nowhere else to go. Picking up her rucksack, she took a deep breath and marched towards the exit.
‘Is that yourself home from the war, Bernadette? For sure, you are looking bonny.’
For all her dread at coming back, Paddy felt a warmth enter her at the sound of the Irish lilt and the familiar sight of Mrs Fitzpatrick. Familiar down to the blackened eye that the poor woman sported as she sucked on a fag, rolled so thin it drew her cheeks into the gap where her teeth used to be.
‘It is that, Mrs Fitzpatrick. It is good to see you. Though it’s evident that not much has changed. Why you put up with that husband of yours, I’ll never be for knowing.’
‘Me vows were me vows, and he ain’t for being that bad, most of the time. Did you hear that he was wounded and returned in ’16 with just the one arm?’ Mrs Fitzpatrick stood on the step of the house that she and her family shared with one other family and with Paddy and her pappy.
‘No. Me pappy wasn’t for writing much. I’ve a lot to catch up on, but I’m sorry to be hearing such news. Now, you watch that you don’t catch your death.’ Secretly Paddy had the thought that it was a pity it wasn’t both arms Brendan Fitzpatrick had lost, as then he’d not be able to beat his wife.
‘I’ll be for being right. I’m used to the cold. Your pappy’s not home, by the way. Is it that he’s expecting you? He was discharged a week ago and came back with his pockets full, so he did. Since then he’s been giving nearly every penny to Gutteridge, the landlord of the Crown Hotel.’
Paddy couldn’t find it in herself to answer this. Her disgust was so deep that she wanted to shout it out loud, and let her countrymen know what she thought of them and their ways. Not the womenfolk, for most of them struggled from one drunken beating to the next, their belly full of the next bairn, year in, year out; and in such poverty that it kept minimal flesh on their bones.
‘Aye, well, it’s of no matter, Mrs Fitzpatrick. I wouldn’t have expected anything different.’ The cry of a baby met Paddy as she passed Mrs Fitzpatrick and entered the cluttered hall. A pram and two bicycles made negotiating her way to the stairs difficult, but she was glad to see that one of the bikes – her own – looked in good condition, and rideable.
‘The wee bairn exercising his lungs is mine. I’ve been delivered of two since you left: two boys, John and Mick, they’ve just eleven months between them. It’s me eldest, Declan, who has kept your bike in order. You’ll be after remembering him? He’s been using your bike for his work. He got himself a paper round, and he helps the coalman once a week. I am sometimes at a loss to know what I would do, without what he fetches in.’
‘Well, he’s welcome, and I’m sure as we can come to an arrangement to share it. I’m glad to hear of him working, and to see me bike in one piece. Will you thank Declan for me? He’s done a fine job, so he has.’
Six Fitzpatricks! And all in the one room. Jesus, it was hell before, but with six of them, and goodness knows the increase in the O’Leary family, in the room next to ours . . . I can’t be bearing it, I can’t.
The stench of the stale air, mingled with the nappies steeping in a bucket outside Mrs Fitzpatrick’s room, and the dank odour of the dripping, mildewy walls, seemed at that moment to be worse than all the smells she’d endured in the tent hospital.
Once in her own and her dad’s room, Paddy opened the window. Shivering against the cold blast of air this let in, she crossed over to the fire and lit the kindling that her pappy had laid for his return. At least the coal scuttle that stood next to the fire was full of coal.
When the fire jumped into life and she had the kettle on, a headline in the London Evening Standard, which had been discarded on her pappy’s chair, caught Paddy’s eye: ‘Influenza sweeps Britain – Real danger that more lives will be lost than during the war.’
A shudder that was not prompted by the cold shook her whole body. She looked around the cramped room, which was shabby, but clean – her pappy always said that cleanliness was next to godliness, and that was evident in the threadbare rug placed between the two armchairs in front of the fire, which showed signs of being recently brushed, as the stiff yard broom had left trails. At the back of the room, opposite the fire, stood a table and chairs, and behind each fireside chair and against opposite walls stood the beds. Paddy smiled to see that they were both made up with clean sheets that had been ironed and looked crisp and white. Pappy must have been expecting me then.
But although her pappy had standards, not many of the others in the dwellings in the street did, and Paddy realized that the overcrowded conditions they lived in were rife for any virus to take root. The street was noted for sickness and diarrhoea outbreaks amongst the children. Any illness spread like wildfire amongst the folk of the area. There was nothing she could do about that, but she could get herself and her pappy out of here. Her pay had mounted up in the bank, and she was sure there was enough for them to rent something better.
Sipping her tea, she decided that once her pappy came home, she would discuss it with him. At that moment the sound of a series of sneezes heralded his return and instilled dread in Paddy.
‘Me little darling, news travelled to me that it was that you were home.’ Pappy stood as large as life in the doorway, his body swaying, though Paddy knew it wasn’t with the drink he’d consumed.
‘Pappy, come away in and get warm. Is something ailing you?’
‘I have a powerful feeling that it does, me darling. I’ve a banging in me head as if the little people themselves have taken residence and are holding a concert.’
‘Oh, Pappy . . . Pappy!’
Paddy’s anguish deepened as her pappy looked as though he would pass out. She ran to him and helped him to his bed.
‘How long have you felt ill, Pappy? To be sure, you should not have been going out. Not only for the sake of your own health, but also for the sake of others. I’ve a mind it is the influenza that is ailing you.’
‘Is it that I’m going to die, me Bernadette?’
‘Not if I have any say in it. Now, let me get you to bed.’
Her pappy didn’t object as she stripped him down to his long johns and vest. Although both were wet with his sweat, Paddy couldn’t bring herself to remove them. She had to let her pappy keep his dignity.
‘Have you some aspirin in the house, Pappy?’
There was no answer. It was as if the illness that had taken hold of her pappy suddenly wanted all of him. In no time it had escalated to uncontrollable shivering, as beads of sweat poured down his face.
Though Paddy did all she could, when she awoke during the night her pappy was lying lifeless, staring at the ceiling. ‘No! Oh, Pappy, I only closed my eyes for a moment. I – I didn’t say goodbye.’
Saying her goodbye to her pappy two days later, Paddy stood beside his grave and sobbed. For all that he was or wasn’t, he was her pappy, and he was all she’d had in this world.
Picking up her suitcase, Paddy walked away from the graveside. This time she was never going to return to Fenn Street. She’d booked herself into a guesthouse. Tomorrow she would go to the address that Bobby had given her.
Please God, let him be safe.