Anthony Patterson had no wish to leave the warm bed he’d fallen into just a couple of hours before. He had even less inclination to speed through the night to one of the teeming back-to-back houses. His wife, who hated that aspect of his work and was always urging him to leave the working classes to their own devices and concentrate on his richer clientele, was incensed. ‘What is it?’ she said irritably when her husband came into the room and began to dress after answering the persistent banging on the door.
‘I’ve got to go out, Susie. It’s one of the women from Aston Cross. She’s losing her baby.’
‘One of the lower classes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why make it your concern? Let her lose it. What odds will it be to them? You won’t be able to do anything.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Come on back to bed,’ Susie said seductively. ‘I know there is something you’d rather do.’
Anthony stared at his wife. For years now she’d denied him, saying she found that side of marriage distasteful, and at times, to his great humiliation, he’d had been forced to seek satisfaction elsewhere, though he’d always burned with guilt afterwards. Now, Susie, who’d been quite tipsy going to bed, a very unusual state for her, was opening her arms to him. She was still a very beautiful and sensuous woman and her luscious lips were parted slightly, invitingly, and he felt himself harden.
But he’d left the child standing in the hall, feeling it was too cold a night to let him stand outside, and he shook his head from side to side. ‘I can’t, Susie,’ he said. ‘I’ll probably not be long. Wait for me.’
‘I’ll wait for no man,’ Susie Patterson said icily. ‘I’m ready now, and if you spurn me it will be a long time before I let you near me again.’
‘I’m not spurning you. It’s just…’
‘Oh, go. Go on, run to your working classes if you care for them before me.’
‘It’s not that.’ But Anthony knew he was wasting his time. Susie was turned on her side, her back to him. Dear Lord, life was a bloody bitch, he thought as he pulled on his trousers.
He was glad of the blast of night air as he stepped into the road. He was taking the car. He never usually took it into the maze of back-to-back housing, knowing the children would be over it like flies, but tonight there would be no-one about and they’d certainly get there quicker.
Never had Jack been so excited and yet a little frightened at the same time as the car picked up speed as it hit the main road, the headlights slicing through the dark and gloom, and he sat on his hands so that the doctor wouldn’t see them shaking and felt tremors running all through his body.
Doctor Patterson was amused at the child’s so obvious delight, but hid his smile. He could easily bet that it was the first ride he’d ever had in a car and it would raise his standing amongst his peers considerably. He didn’t ask him any questions about Rosie Walsh, for he knew the boy had told him all he knew, and so the silence stretched between them, and Jack was glad of it, for he doubted he could have spoken sensibly to the doctor if he’d asked anything.
However, when the car drew to a halt at the top of the entry, Jack said, ‘D’you want me to mind it for you?’
‘No, there’s no one about,’ Doctor Patterson said, scanning the dark and empty street. ‘All partied out and asleep,’ he said. ‘And I bet you could do with your bed?’ he added as they walked down the entry.
‘Yeah, I’m whacked.’
‘Go on in,’ the doctor said as they stepped into the yard. ‘Is your mam in with Mrs Walsh?’
‘Yeah, she went in when I came for you.’
The doctor was glad. Ida had riddled the range into life and had the kettle just coming to the boil as he gave a tap on the door and walked in. She gave a sigh of relief as she saw the man standing there. ‘Thanks for coming out, Doctor. I don’t think you can do much. She’s losing blood. She’s above in the bedroom. I’ve padded the bed with towels, but it’s still coming.’
‘I’ll go straight up,’ the doctor said. ‘But first I’ll wash my hands if that water is hot.’
‘It’s boiling, Doctor.’
‘Then will you do me a favour and make me a cup of tea,’ the doctor said. ‘To tell you the truth, I have a thick head after the celebrations last night and have had little chance to sleep it off.’
‘You and me both, Doctor,’ Ida said with a smile, ‘and I think at least half of the adult population will be hung over in a couple of hours when the day really begins. I’ll make the tea directly.’
Just minutes later, the doctor, after examining Rosie, looked into her white, strained face and said, ‘You know I can’t stop this.’
Rosie knew. She’d felt the blood seeping from her, the blood that should surround and protect the baby, and no amount of clamping her legs together or trying to ignore the drawing pains attacking her body could save this child. ‘But why, Doctor?’ she cried. ‘I mean, last time I was ill and it was maybe understandable, but this time…Doctor, I’ve done nothing.’
‘Hmm,’ Doctor Patterson said, drawing up a chair beside the bed. ‘I could say it’s just one of those things, but I’m following a pet theory of my own here. You worked in a munitions factory, didn’t you?’
‘Aye, but not for long,’ Rosie said. ‘I mean, I got a cough that turned to bronchitis, you remember, and that put paid to it. My face didn’t even get a chance to go yellow.’
‘Even so,’ the doctor said. ‘You were in contact with the sulphur. Inhaling the sulphur dust was what, I should imagine, gave you the initial cough.’
‘Maybe, but what’s that to do with losing a child?’
‘Sulphur is poisonous, Mrs Walsh,’ the doctor said. ‘I am conducting a private survey of my own on the number of miscarriages or still births amongst the women who worked in the munitions factories. There are others who seem fine and healthy, their husbands the same, who can’t seem to get pregnant. I want to see if there is a connection.’
Dr Patterson knew the authorities were refusing to acknowledge this, but there were too many for it to be a coincidence and he wanted to force the Government to face up to this.
But he saw that this second tragedy was badly affecting Rosie. She’d answered his questions about the munitions works reasonably enough, but when he went on to voice his concerns her mouth had dropped open and she stared at him, her eyes wide and full of pain and the colour drained from her face.
The thoughts pounded in her head. It’s my fault. I can’t have any more children for they are poisoned by me in the body that should protect them. She wetted her lips and faced the doctor. She had to hear the words from the man’s own lips. ‘D’you mean to say the child I lost and this one I am losing could be due to the work I did in the munitions factory? That I brought it on myself?’
The doctor bitterly regretted telling Rosie straight out that she might have poisoned her child and might continue to poison subsequent children. What had he been thinking of? He knew had he been in his right mind and not so befuddled, he would never have done such a thing. But the damage was done now and the words could not be unsaid, and he saw the guilt that she’d been to blame stealing over Rosie’s face. ‘Mrs Walsh,’ he said. ‘None of this was your fault. You were not to know.’
‘No,’ Rosie said bitterly. ‘Well I know now, all right. You’ve been honest with me so far and so I want you to answer another question honestly. Tell me straight, will I ever manage to carry a child full-term, Doctor?’
‘I can’t possibly say.’
‘You could give me a bloody guess, for God’s sake,’ Rosie cried. ‘I mean, will this bloody sulphur ever pass through my body, or what?’
‘Mrs Walsh, this war was the first time women were exposed to dangers like this,’ the doctor said, knowing Rosie deserved as much of the truth as he knew. ‘No-one was really aware of the risks, and even if my theory is right I don’t know how it will affect people long-term.’
‘Tell me what you think, before I go mad altogether?’ Rosie yelled at the man. ‘Am I to go on and on trying to bear a child and losing them one after the other, like I’ve lost the previous two, for that I couldn’t stand, Doctor.’
Dr Patterson bent his head, for the pain in Rosie’s eyes was raw, and he castigated himself for his careless words, and yet. He knew if Rosie was to go on year after year, losing one child after another, she wouldn’t be able to cope. Indeed, few women could cope with such an ordeal. She would go under, for she was that kind of woman. Maybe, he thought, it would be kinder to be as straight as he could. ‘Mrs Walsh,’ he said. ‘As I said before, I know little of the long-term effects of sulphur, but with you losing two children like this, I would say the likelihood would be that at the present time you would not be able to carry a child full-term.’
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Rosie said, and she turned her face to the wall. Danny would never have his son, she thought, and she would never hold another baby in the arms that ached to do so. She’d never feel another child tugging at her breasts and smiling at her in that special way. She cried hot, scalding tears at the pity of it, while her stomach continued to contract and push of its own violation, and before the day was really light, Rosie had miscarried another child;
The news flew around the streets and there was a troop of people coming in to express sympathy. Rosie wrote to Danny, she felt she owed him that, and told him not only of the miscarriage but also the doctor’s prediction that she’d probably never be able to carry a child full-term because of the sulphur that had poisoned her body at the munitions works, and she received a heartbroken reply from Danny.
Rosie seemed sunk in lethargy, but it was really guilt. Both boys had died through her doing. ‘You had to go,’ Rita reminded her. ‘You needed the money.’
‘Danny warned me,’ she said.
‘He didn’t know either,’ Betty said. ‘He just wanted you out of the place.’
‘Well he was damned right.’
‘Yeah, he was, but you can’t be held responsible.’
‘I’ve robbed him of his sons.’
‘No you haven’t.’
‘It’s how I see it,’ Rosie said implacably and nothing either of the women said could shake Rosie’s conviction that she was at fault.
‘She’ll get over it in time,’ Ida said. ‘Let’s not keep at her now.’
‘Oh yeah, you’ve got great faith in time being the great healer, ain’t you?’
‘That’s cos it is.’
‘Pity she ain’t had no letters from Ireland and that,’ Rita said. ‘They always buck her up.’
‘They won’t know, will they?’ Ida said. ‘Any letters she gets now won’t make her feel better. I mean, they’ll probably go on about the baby and all.’
‘Oh Christ, yeah.’
‘I mean, has she told you she’s written to them?’ Ida asked.
‘No, she just wrote to Danny, as far as I know.’
‘We could do it for her,’ Ida said. ‘She wouldn’t mind.’
‘She don’t seem to mind owt,’ Rita said. ‘That’s half the bloody trouble. I’d better ask her.’
But Rosie had no objection and Rita and Ida wrote the short letters to Wicklow and to the nuns in Baggot Street and those in Handsworth. And back came letters of support, just as before.
A few weeks later, and not long before Christmas. Rosie had something to think about besides herself and the loss of her baby, because Rita arrived early one morning and told her Betty was far from well and insisted on getting up and going to work, and Rosie went down with Rita to play war with her. She found Betty as ill as Rita had said and she told her she wasn’t to think of going any place except bed.
‘I’ll not be ordered about by you,’ Betty snapped. ‘A fine one you are to give medical advice, when you don’t take it yourself.’
‘All right,’ Rosie said. ‘I know I’m stubborn, but you’re not getting any younger, Betty, and, face it, you’re far from well.’
‘I’ll be worse if I starve to death.’
‘You’ll hardly do that.’
‘You can smile, girl, but all I’ve got is me savings. I get the pension in three years’ time. Fat lot of good it is, though, five bob a week when the rent’s half a crown.’
‘I know that, Betty,’ Rosie said. ‘But you must have saved a pretty penny at the munitions and your boys send you something when they can. You’ve told me that.’
‘Ah, I know I did and they do, they’re good lads, but savings don’t last forever if you have to live on them, do they?’
‘No, but…’
‘Look, Rosie, you’re a good girl and you know the same as me, jobs is like gold dust, and I need a job and before all the men start coming home from the war like, I’d only just got that job in the Sauce.’
It was true, that was the shame of it. After being off work for four weeks from Kynoch’s works after the armistice, Betty had got a job at HP Sauce and only a few days after starting it, she’d been taken ill.
‘It isn’t your fault,’ Rosie said.
‘Won’t be my fault if some other bugger has my job when I do go back, either,’ Betty said morosely. ‘And I’ve only got a bleeding cold.’
‘Well, if you have it’ll soon clear up,’ Rosie said. ‘But I don’t like the sound of your chest and going out in the cold and fog will do you no good.’
‘Oh that’s all right then, I’ll just live on fresh air, will I?’
‘I’ve never known such an aggravating patient,’ Rosie said, exasperated. ‘If you’ve got so much energy, why don’t you sit tucked up in bed and make some more of those rag dolls you’ve done since you left munitions. I told you, Cleggy down the Bull Ring nearly snapped the hands off me and Rita for the five we took down yesterday. He said they’d sell like hot cakes, especially with Christmas around the corner. You wouldn’t have to go out in all weathers then. Danny always said you could make a fortune with those dolls.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well I do. And I know something else. You’re going no place today, so forget that idea. And you can either sit and do nothing and feel sorry for yourself or get on with another doll. The choice is yours. Do you want me to get your sewing box and bag of fabrics or not?’
Betty glared at Rosie mutinously and Rosie met the stare head on, and Betty thought she’d give in, for that day at least, for she acknowledged she didn’t feel well. Not that she’d admit it openly, but her head was swimming and a throbbing ache had begun in her temple and her chest was tight and sore. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own two feet, for they didn’t feel as if they belonged to her. She’d fall and make a fool of herself.
‘If you’re so determined to fuss and keep me in bed unnecessarily, you might as well fetch my things,’ she said grudgingly and with a sigh, but Rosie allowed herself a secret smile of triumph.
Later, she discussed Betty with Ida and Rita, who also agreed to help care for her. ‘I’m worried to death about her,’ she said. ‘She’s a funny colour and her eyes are heavy. I just know it’s something. She says it’s a cold, but…’
‘You don’t think it’s bloody flu?’
‘I hope not.’ All three women gazed at the ceiling where Bernadette, Georgie and Ida’s three, now home for the Christmas holidays, were playing. This flu affected the young and old, wiped them off the face of the earth, and sometimes within a few short weeks. What if Betty had the flu and Rosie brought it back home to Bernadette, or indeed any of the youngsters. ‘We’ll have to be very careful,’ she said, ‘in case Betty has caught the flu, not to spread the infection.’
‘I’ve heard you soak a sheet in disinfectant and hang it over the door opening,’ Ida said.
‘I’ve heard that too,’ Rosie said. ‘And we must wash our hands when we leave the sick room with warm water and carbolic soap. We must have plenty of water in so that we can heat it and hope to God the tap doesn’t freeze over.’
‘D’you think we should contact her sons at all?’ Ida asked.
‘You don’t think we’re overreacting?’
‘Maybe, but if we don’t…’
‘I know,’ Rosie said. ‘I’ll tell you what, if she doesn’t rally in the next few days, we’ll call the doctor and go on what he says.’
‘I shouldn’t think it would be easy to come home from America anyway,’ Rita said. ‘Not just after a war.’
‘No, maybe not, but if Betty doesn’t get better they ought to be told,’ Rosie said. ‘We owe that much to her.’
Betty didn’t rally and by Christmas Eve, when she’d been ill for a week, Doctor Patterson was called in.
‘Has she the flu, Doctor?’ Rosie asked as he came down the stairs and entered the room where she was waiting.
‘Yes, I think so,’ the doctor said gravely. ‘You’re not related to her, are you?’
‘No, Doctor,’ Rosie said with a smile, ‘just a neighbour. There’s three of us seeing to her.’
‘You know it’s very infectious,’ the doctor said.
Rosie lifted her head. ‘I know that, Doctor, but Betty is my friend,’ she said simply. ‘And as I explained, I am not the only one that sees to her. We’ve tried to minimise the risk, pinning the sheet doused in disinfectant across the doorway, and we wash with warm water and carbolic soap when we come out of the room.’
‘Both good measures,’ the doctor said. ‘But there is still a risk for there’s no cure.’
‘I know that. Isn’t it down to your constitution?’
‘It is,’ the doctor said, writing on a prescription pad. ‘Get this from the chemist, they’ll make it up. The quinine will stabilise the temperature and the medicine may help the cough, and keep on with the warmed camphorated oil on the chest. She probably won’t eat much, try coddled egg, chicken soup and beef tea, and give her all the drinks she wants.’
‘Doctor,’ Rosie said suddenly. ‘Betty has two sons in America. Shall we send for them?’
There was a few seconds’ silence before the doctor nodded his head briefly. ‘That would be wise, I feel,’ he said, and Rosie promised to see to it.
Christmas passed in a blur. As there was no sign of Rosie’s Danny coming home, and no word from America, the women and five children celebrated at Rita’s because it was the nearest to Betty’s, and they took turns to seeing to her over the holiday.
The doctor’s medicine did little good and the women tried to bring Betty’s temperature down by bathing her with tepid water, but it gave only limited relief and even that didn’t last. They encouraged her to drink as the doctor had suggested and spent hours making appetising soups she would only sip at.
On New Year’s Eve, when Rita went in to check on Betty in the morning, she found the pillow and bed soaked with blood, a scarlet stream of it still pouring from Betty’s nose. It was the first of many bleeds that day and the following one, and even when the doctor was called in he was little help. ‘Nosebleeds are one of the symptoms,’ he said. ‘Sit her upright and hold the nose until it stops. It’s the only solution, dropping keys down the back is no good at all. I’m worried about her temperature. Can someone come to the surgery, I’ll make up a stronger mixture that may help.’
‘I think we should start sleeping in her room,’ Rosie said. ‘She might need us in the night. If one of you will have Bernadette, I’ll take my turn.’
‘I don’t mind watching Bernadette,’ Rita said. ‘And I don’t suppose Ida does, either, but do you think it’s necessary?’
‘Yes,’ said Rosie, ‘I do. She can’t lift herself if she coughs and the nosebleeds must be terrifying.’
‘I just wonder if we’re taking too many risks,’ Ida said. ‘I mean, the women up the yard and in the streets are already treating us like bleeding lepers. They ask how Betty is, all right, but they shout it out from the bloody doorstep. They never come near.’
Ida was right. The other women from the yard were only too keen to help, they’d do any shopping needed and even wash the bedding to help a little, but they wouldn’t go into the house any further than the threshold. They couldn’t be blamed, the speed this flu spread was frightening and the death rate, if you caught it, was also rising at an alarming level.
Everyone knew of someone who’d caught it and everyone could talk of tragedies, children orphaned with the father killed in the war and their mother dying with the flu, or whole families wiped out. It was indiscriminate too, because your survival was determined by your ability to fight it and that alone. No money in the world was any good to you, but when Rosie said that, Ida put in, ‘Yeah, but the rich have better food than the rest of us in the war, like. Stockpiling it they was, before rationing, and even then they could go out for dinner and things like that. All I’m saying is that they would be better nourished and that probably means better able to fight off the flu or any other damned thing.’
Rosie had to admit Ida had a point, for many around them were ill-nourished and inadequately clad for the elements. What chance would they have against a killer disease? She, like many mothers, would go without to make sure Bernadette hardly ever went hungry or cold, but mothers with more mouths to feed would be hard-pressed.
‘I’m wondering whether we should ask the doctor about sending Betty to the hospital.’
Rosie stared at her friend, appalled. ‘You know what manner of hospital the likes of us go into,’ she said. ‘And what care would she get there that we can’t provide?’
Rita couldn’t answer that, and they shelved the hospital idea. That night, despite her fears, Ida was glad to be there when Betty began being sick, for she was too weak and too disorientated to lift herself up. ‘Leave me.’ she cried when the spasm was over and Ida was gently wiping her face. ‘You have a family to see to. Get away.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Ida said. ‘Come on now, let’s get you cleaned up first and then I’ll see to the bed.’
And that night set the pattern of the next few days and nights. The nosebleeds continued and so did the vomiting, over and over again, even when there was nothing to bring up. The women were constantly changing and washing sheets and nightdresses, which were often damp with sweat, and the bedding was draped about the houses, for the January weather was not conducive to drying anything.
As well as this, there was their own work to do, their own washing and shopping and cooking for the family, despite help from the women around them.
It wasn’t surprising that Rosie’s head was often pounding so much that she felt sick, and she put it down to overtiredness. She also felt guilty about the little time she spent with Bernadette and the way she seemed to keep her at arm’s-length. She seldom picked her up or tucked her in bed or sat down in a chair with her for a story. This was partly lack of time and also because she was afraid of infecting her with this killer flu. Danny, still nowhere near demob from the army, sent a censorious letter telling Rosie to take more care of herself and Bernadette. He liked Betty but didn’t really want Rosie anywhere near her, risking all he held dear.
Rosie’s reply was swift. Wouldn’t he have put himself at risk for a comrade, injured or in trouble? she’d asked. What was the good of God giving us compassion and kindness if we turn our backs on our fellow human beings because of fear for ourselves?
Scared though he was for Rosie’s well-being, Danny had to admit that she was right. He’d lost count of the times he’d dragged an injured man to the relative safety of the dugout. Then there was the time he’d freed his commanding officer from the barbed wire. Danny remembered he’d been so intent on his task he’d been almost unaware of the bombs and shells falling all around him, for the officer had already had his leg blown off and his lifeblood was seeping into the muddy field. Danny knew his only chance of survival was getting him to a field hospital and fast, but he couldn’t have got himself free of the barbed wire without help.
Was that any different from what Rosie was doing? Weren’t things done in the heat of the battle that you’d never attempt if you had time to think about it in peacetime?
He didn’t know, but he knew of Rosie’s stubbornness and also of her loyalty, so his next letter was more understanding. Rosie had little time to peruse it, for when she woke in Betty’s room the following morning she found the woman had given up on the fight for life. She approached the bed quietly and looked down at the woman, who in such a relatively short space of time had become a staunch friend, easing her passage in the munitions factory and helping her in all ways, and she knew she would miss her greatly.
She closed Betty’s eyes gently. She’d never done the laying out of a dead person until she helped Ida with Gertie, but now she began to remove Betty’s clothes tenderly. She wished she’d had the benefit of a priest come to see her, to pray with her. The Catholic Church was comforting in that way, it somehow gave dignity to death. But Betty, like Gertie, had not been a churchgoer. She supposed she’d go back to Reverend Gilbert, he seemed a good man. God knows how they’d pay for it. Rita said Betty must have plenty stashed away in the Post Office, but none of the women had searched for the book. If they had found it they couldn’t have cashed it and wouldn’t think they had a right anyway. If only there was news from America.
The day before the funeral, arranged for the Monday 20th January, two strangers alighted from a petrol-driven taxi, an unfamiliar sight in those streets.
The men who stepped out of it were unfamiliar too. Little could be seen of their faces under the trilby hats they both wore except for the fact that one was clean-shaven and one sported a beard. Apart from that they were identical, and wore black, well-cut coats with dark grey trousers peeping beneath and shiny black shoes of the finest leather on their feet. They were dressed for the weather too, with mufflers at their neck, and everyone watching was amazed at their smart leather gloves. Gloves on a man, except for working gloves, was considered a sissy thing to wear, but these men looked anything but sissies.
The children not yet old enough for school stopped playing on the pavements and in the gutters and gawped openly at the strange men. But most of the women knew who they probably were, though they’d not seen them for many a year.
They came out onto the steps as the men disappeared down the entry.
‘Come at last, then?’
‘Too late, though. Poor old sod’s dead and gone.’
‘Proper toffs, ain’t they. Gloves and all.’
‘Looked after Betty, though. Fair’s fair,’ another put in. ‘Sent her dollars in every letter they did.’
No-one could argue with that, or with the fact you can’t come from America in five minutes. And that’s what the two men who introduced themselves as Hugh and Chris were explaining to the three women they found in their mother’s house, who were startled to see them. ‘We should have sent a telegram,’ the younger man, Chris, said. ‘But we thought it might frighten you to death.’
Rosie remembered how the sight of the telegraph boy through the war had reduced her to jelly. Even now, with the war over, telegrams seldom signalled good news. She looked at Ida and Rita and remembered the telegrams they’d both received and she shivered. ‘It probably would have done,’ she said.
‘We came as quickly as we could,’ Chris said. ‘’Course, both of us had to arrange time from work, and to tell you the truth it isn’t a good time at the moment. Jobs are hard enough to come by and with the soldiers coming back too it will be worse.’
‘I know,’ Rosie said with feeling, for she knew whenever Danny was released from the army he would have a tough job finding anything.
‘We decided to come as soon as we got the letter,’ Hugh said. ‘We knew no-one would have written that way if things hadn’t been serious and so as soon as we were assured we could have the time off and our jobs were safe, we booked a passage straight away.’
‘Aye, and we arrived too late,’ Chris said.
‘She wouldn’t have known you,’ Rosie said soothingly. ‘She knew no-one at the end and you did your best. I’m glad you’re here because there are things to sort out. We’ve arranged the funeral service to be held at St Paul’s. That’s in Park Road, but you may remember that. The vicar there is a Reverend Gilbert and he buried the old lady that lived in the house I have, and I found him very nice. We didn’t know if Betty…I mean, I hope that is all right for you.’
‘I’m sure that will be fine,’ Hugh said. ‘But may I ask how it was paid for?’
Rosie blushed. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t paid for everything. We had a whip-round and instead of buying flowers we put it to the funeral.’
‘Hadn’t our mother any money?’ Chris asked. ‘She told us she had a fair bit saved and we sent her more every week.’
‘We don’t know what she has,’ Rosie said. ‘We’ve never looked. Had we received no word after the funeral, I suppose we’d have had to go through her things. It isn’t something I was relishing.’
Hugh and Chris had noted the poverty of the area and knew many husbands were away, or dead, and that money wouldn’t be plentiful. ‘We’ll reimburse you, of course,’ Hugh said.
‘There’s no need.’
‘There is every need,’ Chris said. ‘She was our mother, our responsibility.’
But in the end, when the two men investigated, they found Betty had an insurance policy that would more than pay the funeral expenses and a sizeable amount in the post office. ‘You must have some of this for your trouble.’
‘It was no trouble,’ Ida said. ‘Thank you, but it is just neighbourliness.’
‘Even so.’
‘We couldn’t,’ Rosie said. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
‘Yes it would,’ Hugh insisted. ‘It’s what our mother would have wanted, I’m sure.’
In the end they agreed to accept ten pounds each and then fell to discussing the funeral arrangements for the morning. ‘I can’t go to the service,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s because I am a Catholic, so I thought I would stay here and make up some sandwiches and such. I will go along to the graveside later and then we can all come back here if that’s all right. Many would like to pay their respects; Betty was well-liked.’
‘It seems perfect,’ Hugh said, peeling notes off the roll he had in his hand. ‘Lucky I changed to English money on the ship,’ he said, handing a five-pound note to Rosie. ‘Get what you need.’
‘I won’t need five pounds, nor anywhere near it,’ she protested.
‘Spoil yourselves,’ Hugh said. ‘That’s just for food, mind. We’ll get the booze in. Send my mother out with a big bash.’
‘All right,’ Rosie said. ‘I will.’
Betty’s funeral was talked about for days after, for Rosie spent the money Hugh gave her and the spread she made for the mourners was lavish, with food many of them hadn’t seen for a long time. The men dealt with buying the drinks and it took on an air of a party and reminded Rosie of the wakes she’d attended in Ireland.
The older people who’d lived in the street for some years remembered Hugh and Chris growing up before America beckoned them, and some of the younger people had been with them at school and many seemed bent on renewing their acquaintances.
Watching the cluster of people around Betty’s sons, Ida said wistfully. ‘My Herbie always wanted to go to the States. I wouldn’t go and leave our mam and dad, being the last like, and then we weren’t married five minutes and the pair of them was took off with TB. Just a year married I was.’
‘Why didn’t you go then?’
‘Oh, I dunno,’ Ida said. ‘I had their house then d’ain’t I. I mean it ain’t much, none of these houses are. Bloody awful if the truth were told, but I was brought up here like. I know all the neighbours. Betty was a sort of auntie to me when I was a nipper, she was to all the kids, and I was on with our Jack then and bloody terrified as to how I’d cope like. I didn’t want to travel halfway across the world to strangers. Herbie could see that. He weren’t a bad man and he d’ain’t press me. But I can’t help thinking, if I’d gone he’d probably be alive now.’
‘America was in the war too in the end,’ Rosie reminded Ida. ‘You can’t think that way.’
‘You can’t help it, can you. I mean, I know America came in, in the end, but my Herbie was killed at the Somme in the summer of 1916, nearly a year before the Yanks came in, and Betty’s Chris was telling me they didn’t take married men unless they had to like.’
‘That was what they said here, though, and they took them in the end, didn’t they?’
Rosie looked across the room at the ease and charm of Hugh and Chris, talking to people they hadn’t seen for years in their American drawl, recalling incidents and events from their childhood. It was as if they hadn’t a care in the world. They’d been sorry for their mother’s passing, there was no doubt, but they hadn’t seen her for so long Rosie wondered if she was like a stranger to them.
‘Why did they never come before?’ Ida said. ‘When Betty was alive and well?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rosie said sadly. ‘It’s the way of it. Everyone turns up for the funeral when the person is dead and gone. I’ll miss her like crazy. It’s hard to believe I won’t see her any more.’
‘We’ll all miss her,’ Rita said, overhearing Rosie’s comment as she passed. ‘I’ll tell you what though,’ she added, poking her in the ribs. ‘Wherever the poor old bugger is now, she’d approve of her send-off.’
Rosie, looking round at the chattering people with not a sad face amongst them, had to agree. ‘Aye, Betty liked a good party right enough. Hugh and Chris always wanted Betty to go over to America to visit them, you know?’ she went on. ‘They told me yesterday.’
‘Dad too,’ Chris had said. ‘He was alive then. And then, after he died, we redoubled our efforts, but she always refused.’
Rosie had wondered why, certainly after her husband died, she wouldn’t want to go to where two strapping sons could look after her? ‘Neither of you married?’
‘No,’ Hugh said. ‘First we were too busy working our way up and then, when we’d made it, there were no decent women left.’
‘I don’t believe that. In the whole of America?’
‘I must confess I didn’t search the entire continent,’ Chris said with a grin.
‘You weren’t worried about being conscripted into the army as single men and all?’ Rosie asked.
‘Well, no,’ Chris said. ‘We were almost at the cut-off point due to our ages. Anyway, we manage quite a large engineering plant that made a lot for the war. We could have claimed exemption, but it never came to that.’
No wonder they looked so hale and hearty, Rosie thought.
‘I bet Betty would have given her eye teeth just to cast her eyes on her sons, even if it was just the once,’ Rita said, bringing Rosie’s thoughts back to the present. ‘I’d hate Georgie to go so far and me never to see him again.’
‘Come on,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s years before you have that to think of and worry about.’
It was almost four o’clock and the light was nearly gone from the day and Rosie had had enough. ‘Come on, Bernadette,’ she said, holding her hand out to her daughter. ‘I’ll not be long after you in bed tonight.’
‘Why, aren’t you feeling well?’
‘I’m just tired,’ Rosie said, and she was deathly tired. She also had a sore throat and it hurt to swallow, but she didn’t say any of that.
Hugh and Chris, seeing the three women about to leave, came over to them. ‘I’ve just come over to thank you again for looking after our mother so well, and at great risk to yourselves,’ Hugh said.
‘Yeah, and don’t go all modest on us and say it was nothing,’ Chris added. ‘Because we heard how it was from the neighbours.’
Rosie was as embarrassed as the other two, but she recovered enough to say, ‘We were glad to do it. We were truly fond of your mother and will miss her greatly. The women all helped, they did their bit too, for your mother was a favourite with many. You only have to see how many that came to the house.’
‘You took the brunt of it,’ Hugh insisted, ‘and don’t worry about the house, we’re seeing the landlord tomorrow and taking the money out of the post office. I’ll bring your share around in the morning, if that’s all right?’
‘It seems awful to be paid for what we’d do naturally for one of our own,’ Ida said. ‘But the children never seem to stop growing and I must confess I will be glad of it.’
‘We know it’s what our mother would have wanted,’ Hugh said. ‘Her letters to us used to bring the courts and the streets alive for us, and we’d often cast our minds back, and although the occasion is sad it’s been a pleasure to meet with many friends we remembered. But there was always a reference to the three of you and what worthy friends to her you’ve all turned out to be.’
‘Ooh, be quiet,’ Rosie said. ‘Enough’s enough.’
‘Are you all right?’ Chris asked. ‘You’re very flushed.’
‘Can you wonder at it?’ Rosie said. ‘With your brother embarrassing the life out of us.’
But she felt it was more than that for heat was spreading through her body and her head spun so that she staggered and it was Hugh’s arm which steadied her. ‘It’s the unaccustomed drink,’ Rosie said with a smile, though she’d drunk little. ‘I must take more water with it.’
‘You’ve done too much,’ Rita admonished. ‘I said you would. Bed’s the best place for you. You go on now, I’ll mind Bernadette and pop in and see you when I bring her back.’
Rosie wanted to argue, to say she felt fine, but she felt decidedly weak and knew if she didn’t soon lie down she’d fall down and so she nodded her head and said thanks to Rita.
Outside Betty’s and in the courtyard once more, Ida tucked her arm inside Rosie’s. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We’ll go across the yard together. These cobbles are ice-rimed and the last thing you want is a fall just now.’
But Rita knew it wasn’t the ice that was giving Rosie that unsteady gait as she leaned heavily against her own doorway and watched the two women. Rita never went to church and had only a vague belief in some benevolent person in the sky somewhere, but she well knew Rosie firmly believed in God, so she silently prayed to that God there in the darkening yard. ‘Please, please let this just be a bout of tiredness. Don’t do anything to harm Rosie.’
‘Mammy, what are you doing?’ Georgie whined, pulling at her hand. ‘I’m freezing and I bet Bernadette is too.’
‘Sorry you two, I was day-dreaming,’ Rita said. ‘Let’s go in and give the fire a good old poke to get the blaze going.’ And with a child either side of her, she led the way inside.