Chapter 14

It was the house being so quiet that Stella found the most difficult. Matt had his job at Cunard’s and, when she wasn’t bickering with Cliff about him leaving the docks and signing up for ENSA, every night whilst he was at the pub she would sit alone at the kitchen table with a glass of cheap gin cradled in her hands. She talked to no one, apart from Matt and Annie and her mother, if she could help it. The constant bombing, the running back and forth to the shelters, meant she went to bed exhausted, and woke up exhausted. Some days she just wandered about in a negligee that gaped at the neck all day, and Annie had to tell her to stop making a dreadful show of herself, especially in front of visitors.

Then one morning, Annie came in and announced, ‘I’ve decided, Stella. You’re going to Freshdale to see the children. It will do you good. You can take the kids out for the day. You promised you’d go and visit them, they must be missing you,’ she said. ‘Besides, you need to get out of this city. Seaside will put a bit of colour in your cheeks. No more moping around the place. It’ll do you good. Do you hear me, Stella?’

‘I don’t know. The seaside?’ asked Stella. ‘It’s not exactly the seaside, is it? And it’s hardly the weather for buckets and spades. It’s October!’

‘Why not?’ Annie said with a sigh.

‘Well, for a start, the beach is so bleak. The tide never comes in and you have to walk miles just to dip your toe in the water. Either that or there’s a good chance you’ll drown when you get stranded on those shifting sandbanks. Not what you’d call a day out, is it?’

‘It’s not about a day out. You just need to see those kiddies. Nothing’s stopping you from going to see them. They’ll be missing you. Little Deirdre especially. You’ll have a lovely time. Small children don’t notice the weather. They’ll just love running about in the dunes and having a paddle. They don’t feel the cold. It’s all been arranged,’ she said as she fussed around the kitchen. ‘I’ll go and find the kiddies’ costumes.’ And then, without waiting for a reply, she went upstairs to look for them.

‘Swimming costumes!’ cried Stella, shaking her head as she thought back to Ivy spending hours unravelling old jumpers and knitting Bobby a pair of trunks from a pattern until her fingers were sore. Stella suspected this was more about Annie getting her out of the door, than worrying about how the kids were coping, otherwise she wouldn’t be talking such nonsense.

‘You’re going to give those kiddies a smashing treat. Perfect weather for it. Bracing. But not too cold,’ Annie said determinedly as she came back into the room.

Stella nodded vaguely, turned back to pumping the bellows of the range, and shrugged a non-committal shrug. ‘I’ll go. But I’m not taking woolly swimming costumes. Useless at the best of times,’ she muttered.

An hour later, the train Stella was on pulled into Freshdale Station. Ten minutes after that she was standing outside the huge iron gates of St Jude’s, wearing a serge puppytooth coat that looked like it could have been Matt’s and a woollen hat. She could already feel her bones aching in the damp autumn sea air. The Gothic turrets and the bars on some of the windows made her shiver. Pushing open a smaller side gate with a padlock hanging loosely on a chain that she looped over the swirling iron work, she went in. Taking a deep breath, she made her way past the flower bed and across the manicured front lawn.

She went up the steps and pushed the bell. It was Sister David who opened the door.

‘Mam!’ cried Deirdre and Bobby, appearing from behind the nun, hurtling past her and flinging themselves at their mother. Kisses and hugs exchanged, they wrapped themselves up in their mother’s skirts and clung to her legs, breathing in the scent of her. Deirdre suddenly started stamping her feet in delight, running up and down on the spot, making small thudding sounds on the wooden floor. ‘Will there be donkey rides, Mam?’ she cried.

‘It’s not that kind of seaside,’ replied Sister David, thinking of the windswept beach, the dunes with the marram grass that whipped your shins, the tide that never came in.

‘Give us a kiss, Lil,’ said Stella when Lily came along the corridor. Lily offered her cheek to her. Stella planted a warm kiss on it and Lily backed away quickly, shifting from foot to foot, a little embarrassed. She was sure she had smelled the whiff of alcohol on her mother’s breath.

‘How are you, love?’

Lily wanted to tell her about Aggie and Janet and the tragic Bridget, but now wasn’t the time or place. ‘I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Let’s give these children a smashing day out and go and make some memories,’ said Stella, squeezing her hand.

She was trying her best, Lily could see that. But she looked tense. Like she wanted to get out of the place as quickly as she could. And who could blame her?

‘Let’s go and see the sea!’ said Bobby.

‘Let’s go and see the sea,’ echoed Deirdre. And they giggled and chorused their new song, feeling very pleased with themselves.

‘Give over with that racket!’ cried Stella. ‘You’re already giving me a splitting headache. Now, let’s go and see what’s what, shall we?’

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ asked Lily.

‘According to Annie, it is!’ said Stella, leading them out of the door.

When they got to the track that led to the beach, there was a car parked in the clearing, sheltered under a circle of pine trees. It was a rusting blue Morris Oxford and, as they approached, Stella shooed them on, hoping they would ignore the steamed-up windows and the blurred shapes of the couple inside.

‘What are they doing, Mam?’ asked Deirdre, turning back to look with a curious stare.

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see if the tide’s in.’

‘Courting, necking, snogging,’ whispered Bobby to Deirdre, who giggled.

‘The tide never is in, but we could go and have a look,’ said Lily, diverting their attention.

When they reached the bank of dunes with the sea just beyond, Stella’s feet were getting tired. The damp air filled her lungs. Her hair, blown by the wind, went sticky, and at the back it became glued together in a clump. They climbed over the sand hills, using their hands and feet to pull themselves up, the marram grass pricking and scratching the skin of Bobby’s calves through his trousers, and making him shriek and cry out that he was being stabbed in the leg.

When they got to the top of the dunes, Lily gasped. Along the beach were the rolls of barbed wire that everyone had talked of. Even though she was expecting it, it was startling to see it.

The children’s faces fell.

‘Does that mean we have to go back, Mam?’

Stella gathered herself. ‘It does not,’ she answered and, shading her eyes with her hand, scoured the shore. ‘There’s a gap!’ she said excitedly. Her mood was lifting. Stella had always loved a challenge. ‘Follow me!’ she cried, and marched on ahead.

‘Wait!’ Deirdre shouted as her brother, without stopping for thought, bounded on ahead.

‘Come on! The tide’s in! Come and see! The tide’s in! Isn’t it brilliant?’ he cried.

‘I’ve never seen it like that before,’ said Stella, shoving away the stray pieces of hair that were blowing in her face. Bobby jumped off the top of the sand dune and, tripping and leaping, stumbling and rolling, landed in a heap at the bottom. Stella and the others followed more slowly and then, pulling the bottom of her sleeves over her hands, Stella carefully moved the barbed wire away so that they could run onto the shore.

They raced towards the crashing waves that foamed brown surf instead of white and the sea tossed up broken bricks and pop bottles. A ship in the distance belched as it sounded its foghorn.

‘Watch this!’ Deirdre shouted and did a running handspring, falling on her bottom with a thump. Then she lay down flat and opened her legs into a V-shape and moved her arms away from the sides of her body, up above her head.

‘An angel!’ she called, standing up and pointing at the sand. ‘Come on!’ she cried, beckoning wildly to Lily. And she looked so happy. If only I could freeze this moment in time, thought Lily. ‘Come on, Mam! What are you waiting for? We’ve come all this way!’ cried Deirdre, trying to make herself heard above the roar of the waves.

Stella danced up to Bobby, hoiking her skirts up. The sea seemed to stretch away from them for miles and miles.

‘Isn’t this smashing?’ she cried. ‘Just what we all need!’ as they all took off their wellington boots and shoes and socks.

Shielding her eyes from the stinging particles of sand, Lily shrieked as the cold water dribbled between her toes and over her feet. She took Bobby’s hand and together they paddled up to their ankles. Deirdre, meanwhile had tucked her skirts into her knickers, and raced along the beach. With a stick she drew a large heart in the sand, and wrote her name in the middle of it.

Lily shivered. The corners of her mouth were caked in a salty white residue and the sand beneath her feet felt ice cold.

‘Your face is wet, Mam!’ cried Bobby.

‘It’s the spray,’ answered Stella. ‘I can’t hear you!’

Their clothes flapping against their bodies sounded like drum rolls.

‘The spray from the sea!’

Stella stood next to Lily to catch her breath, watching the children race back to the sea and shriek as they jumped over the breaking waves.

‘I’ve got some news, love. Your dad’s joining up. Been offered a job as a pianist with ENSA.’

‘That’s good,’ said Lily. She placed her toe in a pool of water and rearranged her wavering reflection. But when she saw her mother’s eyes fill with tears she said, ‘Isn’t it?’

‘He could be gone for months, years, even. The job is in some godforsaken place in Egypt, can you believe it?’

Lily frowned. She thought of Vince.

‘Let him go, Mam,’ she said.

Stella shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t think I can stop him, even if I wanted to.’

‘Then let him go, Mam.’

She felt a tug on her sleeve suddenly. It was a shivering Bobby, panting, exhilarated and exhausted, pulling her towards the foot of the dunes. ‘Let’s sit here,’ he said, collapsing and catching his breath, when they reached a place where the sand had piled up on one side creating a kind of windbreak. ‘It’s quiet here.’ He cupped his hands around his mouth and called over to Deirdre who was cantering along the beach pretending to be a horse, shouting, ‘Giddyup!’

She joined them in a jumble of limbs and shivering curls and giggles, and here, out of the wind, the foot of the dunes felt like a gentle place, a secretive, quiet place. They all stared out to the horizon, knees drawn up to their chests and shoved up their jumpers, happy, tired, and contemplative. ‘There’s an old shipwreck out there, half sunken into a mudflat, and sometimes you can see its mast poking out. And that’s Blackpool Tower, round that corner bit. Look at the horizon, now look there … follow my arm … Can you see …? Put your head behind my shoulder and look down my arm …’ said Stella.

Both younger children close now, Stella turned and, smiling, looked over her shoulder at Lily. ‘It’s lovely here, isn’t it?’ She picked up a handful of sand and let the grains trickle through her fingers.

‘Mam, are you crying?’ asked Bobby. He touched his mother’s cheek.

‘Must be the sea,’ she answered, wiping away the moisture. ‘All this fresh air.’

The disused tramlines, the blinking lights of the docks, the container ships and cranes, swung away into the distance. They could just about make out the barrage balloons bobbing about like strange, alien creatures. Lily looked up into the sky and Bobby pulled his sleeves over his fingers and stuffed his hands into his armpits.

Meanwhile, Lily unwrapped the jam sandwiches Annie had made and they all felt granules of sand as they bit into the butties and the sandwiches crunched, and they wondered how that had happened as they had all wiped their hands thoroughly, just like Stella had told them to.

Stella stood, brushed the sand off her skirts, then stood back and looked at Lily. ‘You look bonny,’ she said. ‘The fresh air has brought some colour into your cheeks. And those nuns are certainly feeding you well,’ she said, pushing a strand of hair off Lily’s face. It was about to rain, and it was time to go home. ‘Let’s go. Kiddies are dead on their feet.’

‘Just one more paddle,’ Lily said. And this time she tucked her skirts up into her knickers. ‘Here, take my cardigan, I don’t want to get it wet,’ she said, peeling it off and flinging it at her.

Stella couldn’t help looking her daughter up and down, marvelling at her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her graceful limbs and plump lips, taking some pride in Lily as she did so. But when a sudden gust of wind whipped Lily’s skirts causing them to cling to every contour of her body, Stella frowned.

‘Your bosoms!’ she said. ‘Mind you, I’m not surprised you’re putting on a bit of weight. You wolfed down those sarnies!’

Lily cast her eyes down at her body, and shrugged. She didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘I’m a little fatter. It’s all the bread-and-butter pudding, Mam, and the nuns feeding me their horrible sweet porridge.’ It was the first time she had thought about her thickening waist, her brassiere that was pinching under her arms, tighter now, but …? No! What on earth was her mother suggesting?

Stella rattled on. ‘Well, thank God for that, Lil. For a moment – for a moment, I thought … oh, dear me, thank goodness …’

Lily didn’t say anything but worry took hold of her. Stella’s words had planted a seed of anxiety in her head and as she looked out to the sea, she mentally counted on her fingers the days and weeks since she had had the curse, only for the thoughts to become a muddle inside her head.

But, ever optimistic, she pushed it aside with a shiver, shrugging away the idea, reassuring herself that this war had meant everything was behaving differently to how it usually did. Nothing arrived on time – trains, trams, buses, food deliveries, even cinema and theatre shows, couldn’t be relied on any more, stopping halfway through, starting again only when the bombing finished or the sirens stopped. Maybe, just maybe, the upheaval of war was what was causing chaos inside her body as well as inside her head. Yes, that was it. Of course, that was it. The other would be just too terrible to contemplate.