The Leaving Of Liverpool (45 page)

They’d hardly gone a minute when bedlam broke out and the earth erupted, as if every plane had dropped a bomb at the very same minute. The tram swayed. ‘Looks like we’re in for a rocky ride,’ the conductor quipped. A few people laughed.

The tram continued to sway as it journeyed along Byrom Street - at least, Mollie assumed it was Byrom Street; she couldn’t see a thing through the painted windows. The conductor was calling out the names of the stops, so there was no chance she’d get off at the wrong place. She could hear the urgent clang of a fire engine as it raced by. There were explosions all around them. The tram’s brakes creaked and then it suddenly stopped. The conductor got off and went to speak to the driver. He returned within minutes.

‘Sorry, folks,’ he shouted, ‘but the lines are up ahead. I’m afraid you’ll all have to get off and walk. Either that, or stay on the tram till the all-clear goes. It’s up to you. The tram’s going nowhere, but me and Bert are off to The Grapes on the corner for a bevy.’

Mollie alighted with the other passengers, most of them grumbling about what they’d do to Hitler given half a chance. ‘Me hubby’ll moan like hell if his tea’s late,’ a woman complained.

The conductor winked. ‘Well, he knows who to blame it on, doesn’t he, missus?’ His unremitting cheerfulness was getting on Mollie’s nerves.

She stepped off the tram into a world made red by fire and bright by flares, and began to run, coming soon to the place where a bomb had fallen, leaving a crater in the middle of the road that stretched from pavement to pavement. Inside it, she could see the twisted remains of tramlines. The shops on either side had had their windows and doors blown in. She stepped over the rubble and began to run again, passing the florist’s where Megan had worked. It meant she wasn’t far away from Turnpike Street. More people were running; the raid had taken everyone by surprise. It was unusual for air raids to start so early and perhaps, like Gladys, they’d thought they’d seen the last of them. Mollie had been more hopeful than optimistic.

Turnpike Street at last! She’d actually turned into the street, was hurrying down it, breathless, when the bomb fell, the explosion threw her backwards, and she lost consciousness.

When she came to, she was lying on the ground and her eyes and nose were full of dust. She raised her head and saw that about half a dozen of the little terraced houses had been reduced to debris. One of the houses had belonged to her mother-in-law.

 

Two days later, the day before Christmas Eve, Lily and Mike saw her on to the Irish ferry. Finn met her at the other side and drove her back to Duneathly. Her head was bandaged and her arm in a sling - it was only a bad sprain and expected to get better soon.

Irene’s body had been found and her sons would see to the funeral. Mollie had wanted to stay, but they wouldn’t hear of it.

‘You’ve been through enough, luv,’ Enoch had said the day before when the three brothers had come to collect her from the hospital where she’d spent the night. ‘And you’ve done enough an’ all. You’ve looked after our mam for ten long years, and she wasn’t the easiest person to get along with, we all know that, though we loved her to bits, all three of us. You go back to your kids and be with them for Christmas.’

She’d spent the next night with Lily and Mike, an horrendous night during which she didn’t sleep a wink, not only because her head and arm were hurting, but because there was a raid that lasted ten hours and didn’t finish until gone five in the morning. It was just as bad, if not worse, than the one that had killed Irene.

Mollie was tormented by the thought that Irene had died alone yet, had the tram not stopped, had Mollie been there, she would be dead too, and her children would be motherless. As it was, she’d been left with only the clothes on her back and the coppers in her purse. She thought about the Christmas presents that had been stacked on the piano and the money in an old handbag in the sideboard that she’d been saving towards a holiday next year. But none of these things mattered when she was still alive.

It had been poignant saying goodbye to Tom’s brothers and their wives, not knowing when they would see each other again. She said she’d do her best to get to the wedding of Mike and Lily’s son in September, but couldn’t promise anything.

 

Over Christmas, Mollie wasn’t allowed to do a single thing except sit in a chair and eat - and drink the occasional sherry. They all went to early Mass on Christmas Day and since they’d returned, the house had been in chaos while the children played with their new toys. As soon as Finn had received the news from Liverpool, he’d gone to Kildare and bought extra presents for her own four, who wouldn’t let their mammy out of their sight. Megan insisted on bathing her wrist with warm water several times a day, though Mollie couldn’t imagine it doing any good. Brodie kept asking if Dandelion had gone to heaven with Grandma, and was assured, over and over, that this was certainly the case. All Joe did was sit on her knee, and Tommy couldn’t stop poking her for some reason. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure she was really there.

 

The months passed peacefully, without incident, apart from the miraculous return of Dandelion, who everyone had thought was dead. He’d been found wandering along Scotland Road six weeks after the bomb had fallen on Turnpike Street. He must have been out for an evening stroll when the siren went and had hidden in someone’s back yard, only to find his home destroyed when he returned.

Fortunately, because his name and address had been written on his collar and nearly everyone in the street had known Irene’s three sons, the cat was saved. Mike and Lily had been astounded when a strange man turned up with a tabby cat that looked very much the worse for wear. Dandelion had been despatched to Ireland in a secure cardboard box with holes so he could breathe - the same way, in fact, that he’d gone the other way a decade before except now the box was much bigger. Finn had driven to Dun Laoghaire to collect him. When he’d opened the box, back home, Dandelion had leapt straight into Brodie’s arms. At first, he and Bubbles hadn’t taken to each other, but the brothers were now on good terms.

 

Easter came and went and suddenly it was spring. Duneathly burst into life and the trees were full of buds and tiny green leaves. There was the suggestion of blossom on the apple trees in the garden.

By this time, Mollie had found herself a job, spurred on by the fact she hadn’t a penny to her name and hardly any clothes. Lily, Pauline, and Gladys, aware of her predicament, had bought her underwear for Christmas, and Hazel and Finn’s present was to ask Sinead Larkin to make her a frock. But Mollie had turned down Finn’s offer of a weekly allowance; it would have been too much like charity. As it was, Finn bought all her children’s needs.

As there wasn’t a job of any sort to be had in Duneathly, she travelled to and from Kildare on the bus to work in a bank, adding up figures and preparing statements for someone else to type. It was as boring as a job could be and she hated every minute. The time crawled by, but at least she was paying her way and in a position to buy things for her family and herself.

Gladys and Enoch had a telephone, and Mollie called regularly to ask how everyone was. In May, there’d been a week of air raids that made them wonder if the world had come to an end. ‘Parts of town have completely disappeared, Moll,’ Gladys said soberly. Almost two thousand people have been killed and no one knew how many were seriously injured. Of all the famous buildings that had been destroyed, Mollie was most upset to learn that the Rotunda had burnt to the ground.

She couldn’t quite understand why this news made her feel restless. The very last thing she wanted to experience was another air raid but, at the same time, she felt she was missing out on something.

One morning, a letter arrived from Agatha. Mollie felt more and more guilty as she read it. It appeared her friend had thought she was dead.

‘
I didn’t know Turnpike Street had been bombed until days afterwards
,’ she wrote:

Mollie immediately wrote back. She said she truly had intended writing to say where she was, but had kept forgetting. ‘Everything’s been so upside-down for the last six months,’ she explained, but didn’t say that she’d been resentful of her friend having a husband, a nice house, and being able to afford holidays in Blackpool. How small-minded could a person be? She recalled she’d even felt envious of Agatha’s new tablecloth!

Agatha’s letter had made her feel even more restless. This time she told her sister-in-law how she felt. The women were in the kitchen where Hazel was kneading bread and Mollie rolling out pastry for steak and kidney pies. The kitchen was the place were all their serious conversations were held.

‘What do you mean, “restless”?’ Hazel asked.

‘I really don’t know,’ Mollie confessed. ‘I think I want to do something towards the war.’

‘Well, you can’t do that in Duneathly.’

‘I know that, Hazel, and it’s probably why I feel restless.’

‘Now we’re back where we started. The only way you can do something towards the war is to go back across the water and get a job like Agatha’s.’

‘But what about the children?’

‘I’ll look after them, you know I will. I love them and they love me - not as much as they do their mammy,’ she added hastily. ‘But you left them once before and they managed to get used to it. They’ll get used to it again.’ She kissed Mollie on the cheek. ‘You’ve been a mother since you were seventeen, Moll. Now you’re nearly thirty-three. It’s about time you did something for yourself. Before you know it, you’ll be too old. You’ll be sitting doing your knitting and wondering where the years have gone.’

Mollie furiously attacked the pastry while she considered Hazel’s words. Eventually, she laid down the rolling pin. ‘I’ll ask the children,’ she said, ‘and see what they have to say about it. If they don’t want me to go, then I won’t.’

 

The following night, she took the children into the parlour and told them she wanted to ask their advice. Megan, now fifteen, nodded wisely, as if it were only natural for their mother to seek their guidance from time to time: Brodie appeared surprised; Joe looked worried, and Tommy as if he couldn’t care less about anything.

Mollie cleared her throat. ‘I want to know if you’d mind if I went to work in Liverpool for a while - I’m not sure for how long. The truth is, I’d like to do war work of some sort. It probably sounds silly, but I actually miss the war. I could come and see you regularly, at least once a month, but more often if you wanted. I’m leaving it to you to decide. If you’d sooner I stayed, then that’s what I’ll do. The last thing I want is for any of you to be unhappy.’

‘But you might get killed like grandma!’ Joe burst out.

‘The raids have all but stopped, darlin’. There’s only been a handful since May and then only little ones.’

‘I think we should be left to discuss the matter between ourselves, Mammy,’ Megan said importantly. ‘Come back in half an hour and we’ll let you know our decision.’

‘All right,’ Mollie said meekly.

She went in the kitchen. ‘Irene was right,’ she said. ‘That Megan is a snooty little so-and-so.’ She sat chewing her nails while Hazel made a pot of extra-strong tea to calm her nerves. After half an hour had passed, she returned to the parlour.

Megan had clearly taken charge of the meeting. She coughed importantly and suggested Mollie sit down. ‘We think you should go to Liverpool,’ she said. ‘We all understand that you miss the war, because we miss it a bit, too. Duneathly is nice, but not very exciting. We know you don’t like your job in the bank and we want you to have a more interesting one. We’d also like it if you came and saw us once a month, but you must promise to come home for Christmas and write to us every week.’

Mollie nodded. ‘I promise faithfully I’ll do both.’ She looked at her other children. ‘Do you all feel the same as Megan?’

‘Yes, Mammy,’ they chorused. She studied their faces one by one and was quite happy with what she saw. They would miss her, she could tell, but they wanted her to be happy because they loved her. She kissed them and hugged them, then went upstairs to have a good cry.

Two weeks later she set sail for Liverpool.

Chapter 15

Liverpool was where she had spent the best and the worst times of her life.
This
was home, not Duneathly. She caught her breath at the sight of the three buildings that stood like sentinels looking out over the River Mersey in the dusk of a beautiful September day. Two had been damaged in the horrendous May air raids, but still stood, proud and welcoming. The first time she’d seen them had been from the deck of the
Queen Maia
.

She caught a tram to Agatha and Phil’s house in West Derby Road where she had arranged to live. Her sisters-in-law had each generously offered a room when they knew she was coming, but Mollie reckoned she was bound to offend the two whose offers she rejected. Staying with Agatha meant there’d be no hurt feelings. Besides, she’d already hurt Agatha’s feelings, so it was a way of making up to her for not having written to say she was in Ireland.