Under the July Sun (43 page)

Maureen sat chatting to Eileen and Cat asked Reggie if he'd open a couple of bottles of beer for himself and Michael.

‘Eileen, will ye go next door and fetch Elizabeth now please?' Cat asked ‘and Anna, will ye put Tipper outside for a run please, there's a love?'

Eileen went next door to bring Elizabeth home and Anna shut Tipper out in the back garden, then closed the door with a bang.

‘Jesus, Anna I asked ye to put the dog out, not shake the whole house down.' Cat laughed.

Anna just scowled.

Oh don't say she's going to get into a mood just because Reggie and the family are here again, Cat thought, I don't know what gets into her when they are here, and it makes me feel as though I'm walkin' on eggshells.

She felt a knot of anguish in her stomach.

‘Yoo, hoo. Came Lize's voice as she let herself in through the back door. ‘Cat I've brought you some bits and pieces from the shop and, I'd better spell it out Maureen, but I've got some s.w.e.e.t.s for the boys.'

‘Ah ye spoil them, thanks though 'tis very good of ye,' Maureen said.

Lize turned to Billy. ‘When are you off?'

‘First thing tomorrow, I can't wait.'

‘Oh don't be in too much of a rush, Billy. If it's anything like the last war, everyone thought it was something magnificent to join up to, a touch of glory for all the boys, except it wasn't so glorious for all of us left as widows.'

‘No, I don't suppose so Auntie, but I'll be fine. Just look after Mum for me will you?'

‘Of course. Don't worry.'

‘Well we're all here then, except Eileen and Elizabeth,' Cat said, taking some sandwiches for herself just as Eileen came in, minus Elizabeth.

‘Where's Elizabeth?' Cat queried

‘She doesn't want to come. She said she's playing with Carol next door.'

Furious, Cat told Eileen to go right back and fetch her and there was not to be any nonsense from her.

Eileen shrugged and left once more to get Elizabeth. When they returned Elizabeth crept in and sat on the arm of the chair next to Ellie.

‘Well, Pet,' Ellie said stroking her arm, ‘were ye havin' a nice game with Carol?'

Elizabeth nodded.

‘Well get yerself some tea now, and maybe yer mummy will let ye out again after,' Ellie said, and Elizabeth slid off the arm and approached the table.

Reggie happened to go to the table for some food at the same time and Elizabeth immediately took a sideways step away from him.

‘Elizabeth,' Cat said, ‘say hello to yer cousins.'

‘Hello,' she said without turning round.

‘Here, young lady, where's yer manners? Turn round and say it properly,' Cat said, furious that Elizabeth was displaying what she thought to be downright rudeness.

Elizabeth turned and said hello to Charlie and Louis in an unenthusiastic tone and then continued putting food on her plate.

Maureen accidentally dropped a sausage roll onto the floor and Cat then asked Elizabeth to go and fetch a dustpan and brush from the kitchen. ‘No, don't pick it up to eat it Maureen, take another one. Tipper can have that,' Cat said.

Elizabeth took the dustpan out to the kitchen and opened the back door. She stepped outside and called Tipper and was then aware that Reggie was behind her.

She ran into the middle of the garden and Tipper frolicked around her thinking it was a game. She gave him the sausage roll and then ran around the circumference of the garden, out of the side gate and through to the front garden.

Reggie stood still for a moment and then strolled back indoors.

‘Where's that child?' Cat asked him.

‘Gone off out to play again I think,' Reggie said, stuffing a sausage roll into his mouth.

‘Eileen, will ye go and get her in here this minute, I won't have her runnin' off in the middle of eatin'. We're all here to send Billy off and she's not goin' out to play with Carol while all the family are here.'

‘I'll get her, Eileen. You stay there and finish your food,' Anna offered, and Eileen, looking surprised at the offer, sat down to continue eating.

Anna went to the side of the house and through the gate to the front garden where she found Elizabeth sitting on the front step.

‘Shove over,' she said to her and Elizabeth moved over to make room for her. Anna put her arm around Elizabeth and cuddled her.

‘What's up?' she asked.

‘Nothing.'

‘Come on, Elizabeth, you seem very jumpy.'

‘No I'm
not
! I just don't want to be inside, I want to go out and play and Mum won't let me 'cos
they're
here.'

‘Well it's a send-off for Billy; can't you just stay in a bit for that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then why don't you come in now, stay for some food and then maybe Mum will let you go out again later.'

‘Anna, I don't want to come in.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know. I feel as if I'm going to choke on the food.'

‘What on earth for? Have you got a sore throat or something?'

‘No.'

‘Then what is it?'

Elizabeth began screwing the hem of her dress round and round her finger. ‘Don't tell Mum will you?'

‘Not if you don't want me to.'

‘Cross your heart and hope to die?'

‘Of course.'

‘Say it then.'

‘Look, what's this all about?' Anna sounded impatient

‘Say it or I won't tell you.'

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.'

‘I don't like Reggie.'

Anna felt a wave of fear wash over her. How could she deal with this?

Anna sat silently for a while, but eventually she thought of something to make her laugh.

‘Is it because he's got a big nose?' Elizabeth laughed.

‘No, silly.'

‘Is it because his front teeth stick out like a pantomime horse?'

Elizabeth began to laugh and just then the front door opened and Cat scolded Elizabeth for running off.

‘Now get back in here this instant young lady,' she said, ‘and ye won't be goin' out later on now.'

Elizabeth cast a sideways glance at Anna, looked down, and then stood up to follow Cat inside.

Anna remained on the step for a while and then was aware of Reggie behind her. Goose pimples stole across her flesh as he spoke to her.

‘Penny for your thoughts, Anna.'

She stood immediately feeling agitated and tried to push past him, but he just barred the way.

‘Excuse me, Reggie,' she said in a loud voice hoping everyone in the front room could hear her.

He quickly stepped aside. ‘Oh sorry, Anna,' he said in a voice that made her skin crawl.

She pushed past him and disappeared into the front room, leaving him by the open front door. She would try to speak to Elizabeth again to find out what was behind her fears, although she already had a good idea.

When Anna went inside, Cat said she wanted to say something now they were all together.

Reggie ambled in as she said she wanted them all to wish Billy God's protection as he went off to war.

‘Come home safely, Son, that's all I want,' she said, and embraced him.

‘Don't worry. I'm not going for any bravery award; I just want to stay in one piece.'

Anna glanced at Reggie and wished it was him going off to war and not Billy. She doubted she would shed any tears.

‘Quick, we've to get down the shelter,' Cat shouted to Anna, Eileen and Elizabeth.

All four of them had a rigid routine and dropped everything they were doing to scramble into the dug-out. They paddled into the water that had surfaced; the earth having reached field capacity after days of rain. It was cold, dank and petrifying. But Cat knew it was better than taking the risk of staying indoors.

The bombardment was ferocious; shaking the ground beneath them as they sat huddled together.

‘This is the worst we've had,' Cat said, shielding her ears with her hands. ‘Lord save us,' she murmured as bombs fell from the sky. ‘Billy, Billy,' she sobbed into her handkerchief, ‘Oh Lord don't let my boy be killed - or any of us.'

Elizabeth began to scream when the next explosion splintered the door to the shelter and she scrambled onto Cat's lap. Eileen and Anna drew closer, putting their arms around their mother and little sister. The four hung onto each other as the pounding continued, breaking up the world they knew forever.

All night they sat petrified awaiting the most brutal predator of all, their fellow human beings. They feared this was their last night alive.

* * *

Fatigued, yet thankful for survival, they emerged next morning from the air-raid shelter.

Anna came out first.

‘Oh my God,' she gasped. ‘There's nothing left.'

Cat, Eileen and Elizabeth followed her to find the whole landscape had gone from the end of Alwold Crescent.

Speechless, the four walked to the end of what had been their road and viewed the devastation. Cat's eye traversed the horizon and she took a sharp intake of breath.

‘What's the matter, Mummy?' Anna asked.

‘Jesus, I hope I'm wrong.'

‘Wrong about what?' Eileen queried.

‘I don't want to say it, I just need for us to go and find out.'

Puzzled, Eileen looked at Anna, raised her eyebrows and shrugged indicating that she didn't know what their mother was on about.

‘Quick girls, we have to go to the High Street,' Cat said and started to hurry off in that direction.

Along the way they crossed rubble that was once the main road and then took the direction of Crookston Road.

Once they arrived at what Cat thought must be roughly where they used to live, she had difficulty in orienting herself. The whole area had suffered a direct hit and had been flattened by the worst bombardment they had experienced. But Cat was driven towards finding exactly where they had once lived.

She scrambled relentlessly over rubble, craters and debris; the girls following in her wake, until they reached the corner of the road that Lize's shop was in.

Nothing was left to identify the shop and Cat couldn't even begin to imagine where it had been as the whole area was flattened into a mass of smoking rubble.

Firemen were working relentlessly to quench fires and free trapped people. Cat saw that the WRVS was there handing out cups of tea.

Frantically she clawed her way over bricks and piles of concrete attempting to locate the shop; desperate to find Lize and her mother-in-law.

She asked various people if there were any survivors from where she estimated the shop would have been. But all she could discern from the ARPs was that nobody had survived between this point and that. The points described included Lize's shop.

Cat stood, running her fingers through her hair and turned to look at the girls who were desperately trying to keep up with her.

‘Wait a minute Mummy,' Anna pleaded, ‘we can't get over this stuff, it's too hard.'

Then Cat arrived at the point she knew, absolutely, must have been where the gate to the shop had been. There was just a massive hole in the earth with tons of concrete, splintered and charred wood sticking up at all angles. She then knew in her heart it was pointless looking for them. They must have all died.

She turned to the girls.

‘I'm sure the shop was here.'

Cat looked at their faces, pinched and white from lack of sleep. ‘Oh Lord…Auntie Lize and Granny,' was all she could whisper.

They stood among the rubble staring in disbelief at the devastation, embracing each other, unable to fathom the enormity of events.

‘We should go and see if Reggie, Maureen and the boys are alright,' Cat said wearily.

Gingerly they picked their way across lumps of concrete that once marked the roads they knew to make their way towards the High Street.

As they turned the corner into the High Street, they all realized that Reggie's shop had gone too.

‘Maureen!' Cat cried out running towards the place where the shop and flat had once been. But all that remained was a yawning cavity in the ground.

‘Oh my God.
Oh my God
. '

Cat ran back and forth, trying in her mind to shift the location of the shop to further along the road where some buildings had remained intact.

‘No. No, it couldn't be here. It
couldn't
be.'

She fell onto her knees trying to throw aside pieces of broken concrete, gashing the skin on her arms and legs.

Anna reached out to her mother. ‘Mummy,
stop
now,' she pleaded.

‘But I have to find them,' Cat cried clawing at the rubble.

‘Mummy,
stop
!' Anna yelled.

‘Ye don't understand. I have to find them. I have to tell Reggie and Maureen about Lize and Granny–'

‘Mummy, it's all over. They're gone,' Anna said. She tried pulling on Cat's arm, forcing her to leave her desperate rummaging.

Elizabeth drew closer to Anna and clutched her hand. ‘Are Charlie and Louis dead, Anna?'

‘Yes, I think so. Nobody could have survived this,' she said looking desolately across the devastation.

Cat stood up amongst the ruins, dazed.

‘Dear God,' she murmured, ‘they're all gone.'

They stood in bewildered silence staring at the heaps of wood and bricks that were once the butcher's shop and flat knowing that under it, somewhere, were Reggie, Maureen and the boys.

ARP wardens were rushing around trying to dig out people calling for help. Some, able to walk, emerged from the rubble covered in dust with trails of blood trickling down their whitened bodies, were wrapped in blankets and led away. The men continued working frantically pulling aside planks of wood and bricks searching for survivors.

Cat began to shake and Anna took off her cardigan to wrap around her shoulders.