The Leaving Of Liverpool (38 page)

‘It might. That, or the thought that we’d be together one day. I won’t always be an odd job man. I read books, I know about things most people don’t, I could learn to talk proper, more like you.’

‘Oh, Harry, don’t! I love you - yes, I do.’ She nodded as if she were telling herself, not just him. ‘I love you, but it’ll never work. I’ve got four children and I have to put them first. Their lives have already been disrupted enough.’ At least Megan and Brodie’s had: Joe and Tommy had no memory of their father.

‘So, unless I turn up in a few years’ time driving a Rolls-Royce and wearing a Savile Row suit, there’s no hope for us?’ To her surprise, he managed the trace of a grin.

‘There’d be no need for posh cars and posh clothes, but there’s always hope, Harry. We’ll just have to see.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t want you to go away.’

‘There’s nothing else for it, Moll. I’ve got to.’

‘When?’

‘There’s the tickets to arrange and that sort of thing. I’ll be off as soon as I can.’

 

Perhaps she was too sensible, too set in her ways. The only risk she’d ever taken in her life was leaving Ireland with the intention of going to America - and look at the mess she’d made of
that
! However hard she looked at it, in however many ways, she couldn’t come up with a single solitary reason for marrying Harry Benedict other than they loved each other, which might have been enough for some women, but not for her.

She imagined writing to Finn and saying she was about to marry a Communist with a hopeless job - he’d been shocked enough when she told him she was marrying a policeman. As for her mother-in-law, Irene wouldn’t have stood for it, if only on religious grounds. She would be so incensed she could well throw Mollie and her children out of the house, not caring that she’d be cutting off her nose to spite her face and have to go on the parish to pay the rent and feed herself. As for Lily and Pauline, they’d never speak to Mollie again, and she wasn’t even too sure about Gladys.

 

Harry had an address in Barcelona where he would stay. He was catching a train to London, and another to Dover, then he would cross the channel and journey through France on more trains until he reached Spain. ‘Barcelona’s not far from the border,’ he told her. His gran had paid for the tickets. She’d been saving a few coppers a week out of the money he’d given her over the years for housekeeping.

‘I bet she doesn’t want you to leave,’ Mollie commented.

‘You don’t know me gran. She’s all for it. She said she’d’ve come with us if she were younger.’

Mollie had the feeling he was taking his time making the travel arrangements in the hope that she would change her mind and agree to sleep with him, or marry him. Even if she had been prepared to sleep with him, where would they go? Only a hotel, and she couldn’t think of a single reason on earth she could give for staying out all night.

She bought him a jumper and two pairs of socks. ‘Have you got a suitcase?’ she asked worriedly. She still had the old carpetbag Finn had found in the Doctor’s house for Tom when he’d returned to Liverpool, leaving his family behind in Duneathly.

‘Don’t need one, Moll. I won’t be taking all that much.’ He was in high spirits and full of himself. Perhaps he’d be glad to see the back of her. Maybe he felt trapped in a situation that couldn’t be resolved, and this was the only way out.

The tickets were bought; he was leaving on Monday on the first train out of Lime Street. In four days he would be gone out of her life, possibly for ever. Mollie wasn’t sure if she could bear it. She too was trapped, but for her there was no way out.

 

‘Irene,’ she said. ‘Agatha’s invited me to tea on Sunday. I was going to take the children, but Agatha suggested we go to the pictures afterwards to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in
Roberta
. Phil’s offered to stay and look after the children and I wondered if you’d mind looking after mine?’

‘Of course I wouldn’t luv,’ Irene said warmly. ‘It’ll make a nice change for you and Agatha to go out together.’

Mollie set off on Sunday wearing the frock she’d bought for her interview at the Rotunda. Since then, she’d always thought of it as her ‘lucky’ frock, for nothing even faintly unpleasant had happened when she wore it. There were butterflies in her stomach and her legs felt unsteady. She had never done anything like this before.

She alighted from the tram in London Road and walked quickly in the direction of Lime Street station where Harry was waiting underneath the clock as she’d asked him to. He was better dressed than she’d ever seen him in a navy-blue suit with chalk stripes, a pale-blue shirt, and a dark tie, though there was something odd about the outfit that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

‘Why couldn’t we have come together on the tram?’ he asked when she stood in front of him. His face split into the familiar grin that she loved. ‘I know, you were worried someone like your flamin’ mother-in-law would see us together, weren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Mollie conceded. ‘You look nice. Where did the suit come from?’

‘It belonged to me dad. It’s the one he wore when he married me mam. Gran kept it in the wardrobe all this time.’ That was why it looked so odd. The suit was about thirty years old, the lapels were unfashionably wide, and the waistcoat buttoned too high. The legs were an inch too short, but that was nothing to do with fashion, just that he was taller than his father had been. ‘Where are we going, Moll? I hope it’s not the pictures, because I’ve never had much time for them. They’re just a way of keeping the population pacified, like giving them sweets when they’re hungry and telling them it’s proper food.’

‘It’s not the pictures, Harry.’ She linked his arm. ‘Come with me.’

Ten minutes later, they entered the little hotel in Seymour Street where she’d booked a room the day before. The room was on the second floor. The wallpaper was patterned with purple grapes on the vine, the furniture the cheapest you could buy, but the bed looked comfortable and everywhere was scrupulously clean.

Mollie locked the door. Harry was looking at her, totally bemused. ‘What’s this all about, Moll?’

‘You’re awfully slow on the uptake, darlin’.’ She held out her arms. ‘
This
is what it’s all about.’ It wasn’t enough to prevent him from going away, but it would be something he - and she - would remember until the end of their days.

 

‘The only photo I’ve got of him is the one taken at his christening.’ Kate Benedict handed her a small, faded photo showing a young couple, the man very like Harry, and the pretty woman beside him holding a baby in her arms. The baby wore a bonnet and a long christening gown. His face couldn’t be seen. ‘It doesn’t tell you much, does it?’

‘Not really,’ Mollie agreed. ‘It’s hard to imagine Harry in a bonnet, even as a baby.’

‘He never cared a fig how he looked - and he never felt the cold. I gave up insisting he wore a scarf and gloves in winter. I wonder how he’s getting on?’ she mused.

Harry had been gone a month. By now, the children were back at school and Mollie was feeling very low. She’d called on Mrs Benedict - who insisted she call her Kate - to ask if she’d heard from her grandson, but so far a letter hadn’t arrived.

Kate Benedict was eighty, but looked much younger. There was fire in her eyes and her small, pink, surprisingly unwrinkled face was animated and full of life. She was an older, feminine version of her grandson. She took Mollie into the parlour, which was full of books. ‘I was just writing something,’ she said. There was a pen, a bottle of ink, and an exercise book on the table in front of the window.

‘Is it a letter to Harry?’ Mollie asked.

‘No, luv. I wouldn’t know where to send it, would I? He’d no intention of staying at that place in Barcelona. It’s the minutes of a meeting held last night in this very room: the Socialist Sisters of Liverpool. We meet once a fortnight. The local Labour Party meet here every month. Harry never came: he hadn’t much time for Labour. Mind you, neither have I, but the Communists are a bit too wild-eyed for me and there’s something about that Joseph Stalin I can’t abide. Would you like a cup of tea, Mollie?’

‘Yes, please.’

From then on, she called on Kate Benedict at least once a week, but, by the time Christmas came, there was still no word from Harry. She read the
Daily Herald
from cover to cover. The International Brigade was made up of thousands of Europeans as well as volunteers from Canada, America, and Australia, most of whom had never touched a rifle in their lives. They were no match for the many more thousands of experienced troops from Italy and Germany led by the Fascist General Franco. The fighting was bitter and brutal. It was a war of ideas and ideals.

In April, the small town of Guernica in northern Spain was attacked by German Heinkels, followed by the much heavier Junkers, dropping bombs a ton at a time, tearing the town apart, slaughtering its innocent people, machine-gunning those who’d managed to escape to the countryside. The onslaught continued for three hours. A full account of the dead and injured was never made, but it was in Guernica that Harry Benedict died.

Three weeks later, a letter arrived for Kate from a Liverpool man: Frank Davenport. The writing was cramped and illiterate but, when Mollie read the letter, she felt love for Frank Davenport that filled her heart. He wrote about his ‘dear friend Harry’, his ‘comrade in arms’, and how he had died a ‘hero’s death’, trying to save a child from German bombs: ‘ . . . I’m not ashamed to say it - I cried when Harry died. I still cry whenever I think of him. He talked a lot about his gran and a girl called Mollie who he loved. Yours in sorrow, Frank Davenport.’

Kate sighed now, folded the letter and returned it to the envelope. Her eyes were bright, but she hadn’t shed a tear. Her grandson had died a death to be proud of, not weep over. She handed the letter to Mollie. ‘You keep this, luv. Oh, and someone gave me a poem the other day; it was printed in the
New Statesman
. I’ll give you that an’ all.’ She slipped the cutting into the envelope with Frank Davenport’s letter.

Mollie read the poem when she got home, hardly able to see through her tears. The last line read, ‘
We will remember Guernica when black birds descending, OUR cities are on fire.
’

It was an ominous warning of what was to come should Hitler turn his evil gaze on Europe.

Chapter 13

‘Indeed it
is
my birthday,’ Annemarie said firmly. Finn said the same thing every year. ‘I’m eleven - and where’s my present from you, I’d like to know.’

‘A
ring
! I can just tell it’s a ring.’ Annemarie took the lid off the box. Inside, nestling on a lump of cotton wool, there was indeed a ring with a green stone. ‘Is that an emerald?’ she asked.