War Widow Read online

  She went and found the brush to sweep up the mess. Rosie was kneeling up on the chair, tilting it dangerously backwards so that she could watch the cat toying with its prey behind it.

  ‘Be careful!’ exclaimed Flora, steadying the chair and glancing behind it. Why couldn’t the cat just kill the mouse? she thought savagely. One swift blow and oblivion. Or what? Was there a heaven for dead mice? She pulled a face, wondering why she should be worrying about a mouse when there was so much else to be concerned about. Tom! Money! Tom!

  On her knees, she realised that brushing was not going to work, and had to lift the heavy rag rug and take it outside to tip the mess in the bin. That was still not enough and she had to hang the rug over the line and brush it until there was a fine layer of dust adhering to her sweaty face. She had just got sorted out when George came in. There was a tear six inches long in his grey flannel shorts and several bleeding grazes down his filthy legs. She fought to control her temper, asking unsteadily: ‘What have you been up to?’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘Nothing, eh?’ Her expression hardened and she forced him to strip off and stand in the stone sink in the back kitchen. With the threat of no jam on his bread hanging over him, he submitted to having the blood and muck scrubbed off him. They were both near to tears by the time he was clean.

  While Flora mended his trousers, George sat in front of the empty fireplace with a piece of sheeting wrapped round his middle. Then a thunderous wielding of the knocker sounded on the front door. She went to answer, not really in the mood for battle.

  ‘I believe this is your George’s,’ accused Mrs Murphy, flourishing a football. She was the big Irish woman from three doors up, with a bosom like a bolster. She had six daughters and a small husband, known as Little Paddy, who had once been a jockey. They had moved into the street only a couple of years ago after being bombed out.

  ‘Yes, it’s my son’s,’ said Flora brightly, taking her by surprise by seizing it quickly and back-kicking it up the lobby. She folded her arms defensively across her breasts. ‘What’s your complaint?’

  Carmel Murphy shook her head, almost sorrowfully it seemed. ‘He’s been on me lavatory roof watching our Kat’leen and Mary treading the blankets in the bath in their knickers. Not nice at all, I say, Mrs Cooke. You never know where these things may lead.’

  Flora sighed heavily. ‘I don’t believe he thinks girls are up to much yet.’

  ‘They start young these days. It’s the war! And the bad example her next door sets. Her and her Yanks!’ She wriggled broad shoulders and leaned against the wall with all the appearance of being ready for a good gossip, but Flora was not in the mood.

  ‘I don’t think it’s got to that stage with George, surely,’ she said blandly. ‘I’ll tell him, though, that he’s not even to speak to your girls – if you’ll stop them frolicking half naked, polluting young boys’ thoughts.’

  Mrs Murphy straightened up hurriedly. ‘Now don’t be taking offence, luv. We don’t have to go as far as that. But I don’t like him seeing them in their knickers, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘All right,’ said Flora politely. ‘We won’t fall out over it. Good day to you, Mrs Murphy.’ She closed the door and marched up the lobby to confront her son.

  ‘What have you been doing, ogling young girls in baths?’

  ‘They had their knickers on.’ George rubbed his cheek on the sheeting and stared at her with Tom’s eyes. ‘They asked me to get in with them. But I heard her coming and moved quick. That’s how I ripped me kecks – clambering down her back door.’

  ‘Well, no more of it.’ The smallest of smiles lifted her mouth. ‘I don’t know what to do with you sometimes, George Cooke. If your father was here –’

  ‘But he isn’t.’ George smiled. ‘He’s killing the Jerries.’ He swept his arm round and made a noise like a machine gun. Rosie joined in, and Flora put her hands over her ears. ‘Shut up, the pair of you,’ she yelled. Last night her dream had come to her again and left her feeling uneasy. ‘I hate the noise of gunfire.’

  ‘It’s only a game, Mam.’ George got up and dragged at her arm, only to have to reach down hurriedly for the sheeting. ‘Let’s go to Grandad’s. He might have some pigeon eggs for us.’

  ‘He’ll probably make us pay for them, the way he’s been lately.’

  George grinned. ‘You should stand up to him, Mam. He treats you like a little girl.’

  She smiled. ‘I think I still am to him. He’s as bossy as ever he used to be. It’s all those years on the sailing ships. He’s had a tough life, your grandad, and he was always hellbent on making it tough for me and our Hilda when he was home. I got into the habit of saying nothing – sitting in a corner reading books that your great aunt Beattie lent me. That way he didn’t notice me as much. But our Hilda! They used to go at it hammer and tongs. But we’ll go and see him. The walk’ll tire Rosie out. Now put them on.’ She threw his pants at him.

  He was dressing when the knocker sounded again. With an exaggerated sigh she went to answer its summons.

  A telegraph boy stood before her, and immediately her heart leapt suffocatingly into her throat. He held out an envelope. ‘Here ye’rrah, missus.’ She took the flimsy offering and did not see him ride off speedily on his bicycle. Her trembling fingers tore the envelope open and her eyes fixed on the words in front of her.

  ‘We regret to inform you that soldier’ … the number blurred as she read the rest … ‘is missing presumed dead.’ An icy blast of despair seemed to deprive her of all movement. Only her brain still functioned, repeating the words frantically, hammering them into her mind. ‘It’s a mistake,’ she whispered, addressing the shining blue sky. ‘You wouldn’t let him die when I’ve prayed and prayed for him to be kept safe.’ Her voice gained strength. ‘He’s not dead,’ she yelled angrily.

  George came flying up the lobby, buttoning his pants, and the door to the next house opened slowly. ‘What’s up, Mam?’ He clutched her arm, and with his other hand plucked the telegram from her shaking fingers. He read it carefully. ‘It says me dad’s presumed dead,’ he cried in an unbelieving voice. ‘It’s written here.’

  ‘Bad news is it, luv?’ Mrs Bryce, with her jet black hair in curlers beneath a green turban, walked slowly towards her. ‘It’s hard to take these things in. A luv’ly man, yer husband. But they don’t send telegrams if they think they’re making a mistake.’ She put a hand on Flora’s shoulder, but she rounded on her neighbour angrily.

  ‘Well, this time they have. It’s a mistake, I tell you, and I’m going to make them realise it as well.’ Her eyes were sparkling with tears.

  ‘You do that, luv.’ Mrs Bryce was undeterred. ‘But I doubt it’ll change things.’ Her raddled cheeks quivered. ‘He was a one, your husband – a luv’ly man. Go inside and have a cup of sweet hot tea. That’ll make you feel better.’

  ‘I don’t want tea,’ murmured Flora through stiff lips, her face white. ‘Even if the cat hadn’t spilt all the sugar, tea wouldn’t do me any good right now!’ She turned away with a swirl of skimpy skirts. ‘I’m going to my father’s. They won’t be able to lie to him. He’ll tell them.’ The door was left wide as she marched up the lobby. George followed her, still holding the telegram.

  ‘Mam!’ His voice was uneasy. ‘What’ll I do with this?’ He waved the telegram in the air. Flora, in the process of fastening Rosie’s shoes, did not answer, and with a heavy sigh he shoved it in his pants’ pocket. Finding his plimsolls, he put them on, and followed Flora and Rosie outside.

  She barely noticed several of the neighbours standing in groups talking in low voices. Nor the familiar landmarks on the way to her father’s – the icecream parlour, the drinking fountain in the centre of the cobbled road, the church, where she had taken her first communion. She came to the street of yellow brick houses and banged her father’s heavy knocker.

  ‘It’s hard to take, girl, but you’ve got to accept it.’ Jack Preston stared at Flora from benea
th bristling greying brows as he picked up the old clay pipe from the mantelpiece. ‘A pity. He wasn’t a bad sort, your Tom, despite having some daft ideas.’

  ‘It’s a mistake, Father,’ she responded calmly enough, her eyes fixed on his lined face. ‘You’ll write to them for me and they’ll listen to you – you being a man.’ Her hands lay still in her lap, the fingers interlocked so that the knuckles gleamed white.

  ‘Don’t be daft, lass,’ he said gruffly. ‘That’d likely be a waste of time.’ He took a dead matchstick from a tin on the hob and lit it from the fire. ‘Besides it’s not me that’s had fancy book learning. You had all that from your mam’s sister.’

  Flora’s eyelashes flickered, and pain flashed in her face. ‘But he might not be dead,’ she said earnestly, spreading the telegram on her lap. She read the words yet again. Missing presumed dead. Dead! Her hopes dimmed but she persisted. ‘If he’s dead, Father, why do they say presumed?’ she stammered. ‘If they can’t find his body, then –’

  Her father bit hard on his pipe and rubbed his chin. ‘Have you forgotten the May blitz, girl? And the mess a landmine caused? How many went missing in those days – some never to be found.’

  Flora moistened her dry mouth; she felt sick and cold as her father’s words conjured up pictures in her mind, so that she could almost smell brick and plaster dust, and the acrid smoke as the heart of Liverpool had collapsed and burnt. She remembered going past Mill Road Hospital with the newly born Rosie in a pram. That had been terrible – hit by a parachute mine, most of the mothers and babies in the maternity ward had been killed. Even so there had been places in the city where people had been dug out alive after being missing for several days. She sought to hold on to her previous hope. ‘But it’s still possible that he’s just missing. He might still be alive!’

  ‘It’s not impossible, I suppose,’ muttered her father grudgingly. ‘But they don’t send telegrams if there’s a good chance of someone being alive, girl. You’ve just got to accept that he’s gone, and get on with your life for the kids’ sake.You’re not the only one grieving, Flora.’

  ‘I’m not grieving at all because he might be alive, Father. He’ll come back, you’ll see.’ Her hands shook, and her thumbnails dug into her flesh. The pain was a distraction from the greater chilling dark ache that had her in its hold.

  He shook his head slowly. ‘We’ll see, girl. But I think you’d be wiser accepting these things happen.’

  Avoiding his eyes Flora rose from the straight-backed chair. ‘You won’t write then, Father?’ He shook his head. ‘Then I will,’ she murmured, squaring her shoulders. ‘I’ll go home and do it now.’

  She was halfway to the front door when her father called: ‘What about George and the little lass?’ His fierce blue eyes accused her. ‘Don’t be thinking just of yerself, girl.’

  Her cheeks flushed, she went to get her children but her mind was filled with thoughts of Tom. They came without any fuss, George clutching a couple of small eggs. Her father told him he could have them.

  They had only just got home when there was a knock on the door. George went to open it. On the doorstep stood Kathleen Murphy, skinny and dark with pinched features, who was of a similar age to him. She grinned and thrust a cup at him. ‘Me mam sent this sugar. Said yer mam’s gorra make ’erself a cuppa tea, sweet and ’ot. And if there’s anything she can do, yer mam’s only gorra ask.’

  George took the half filled cup of sugar and shifted awkwardly. ‘Thanks.’ There was a pause as they stared at each other. ‘Will you be playing out after?’

  Her smile broadened. ‘If you’re not playin’ with a ball and getting in the way of our rope, we could play duckin’ under without touchin’.’

  ‘Or stroke the bunny!’ he retorted, almost enthusiastically.

  ‘Yer’d ’ave to get some of the others to play,’ said Kathleen. She liked the hide and seek game, especially when there was the chance of ending up behind a privet hedge with George.

  ‘See you later then.’ He winked and closed the door.

  Flora was touched by the gift from Mrs Murphy, guessing that she could ill-afford it, and made them all a cup of sweet tea. Later she wrote off to the War Commissioners, pleading with them to find her husband, then she waited.

  The next few weeks passed in a haze. Flora did all the normal tasks, but it was as if she was standing outside herself, watching someone else perform them. She could not eat and slept only fitfully. Sometimes she drifted into slumber and dreamed her old dream of the house by the sea. In that period of half waking, half sleeping, she imagined that Tom was with her – that they were holding each other.

  Fully awake, it was as if she was in a glass bubble looking out on a world of people going about their everyday lives, unaware that she existed. In a way that was what she wanted. When people attempted to intrude into her bubble, its protection grew wobbly and she feared it would collapse and her with it, because she could not bear the way they all felt sorry for her. They believed Tom dead, and that made him dead. They asked if there was anything they could do, but she always refused very politely, and so the weeks went by.

  The day that the letter came telling her that no trace had been found of Tom – that he had been in an area where a shell had exploded, killing five other men and wounding two – her hopes were shattered. It was just as her father had said, and he was generally right.

  She went to church, the children sitting on either side of her, and knelt throughout the whole of a morning service. Prayer was beyond her. All that she could do was to stare fixedly at the brass eagle with its soaring wings, holding the large Bible. ‘They shall mount up like eagles – they shall run and not be weary –’ The lines from Isaiah trickled through her thoughts, and she wondered whether Tom was existing in a heaven somewhere.

  The day after, Mrs Murphy stopped her in the street. ‘And how have you bin, Mrs Cooke?’ she asked. ‘Our Kat’leen’s been telling me that George said there’s no hope of your husband being alive now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Flora in a voice that was calmer than she felt. ‘I still find it hard to believe.’

  There was compassion in the Irishwoman’s face. ‘I’ll say a prayer for you, girlie,’ she murmured. ‘And for your good man’s soul. I’m on my way to mass now.’

  Flora did not believe in praying for the dead. Salvation was in Jesus, and only His forgiveness of confessed sins could save you. Still, her grief caused her to clutch at anything more that could be done for Tom. Later that day when she passed St Michael’s, she caught a glimpse of a statue and the brightly decorated altar through the open door, and she thought of her father. He would have a fit if he ever got to know that she had had prayers said in a Catholic church. Orange was the sash her father wore, he hated papists. But for once she did not care about religious differences. Mrs Murphy had wanted to help in the way she thought best.

  Flora stared up at the sky, grey without a glimmer of sun. Where were all her dreams now? Vanished with Tom. She attempted to straighten drooping shoulders, but it was as if a weight pressed them down. Despair gripped her. How was she going to cope with life without hope of ever seeing him again?

  As Flora went about her household tasks or stood in queues she was haunted by the past. So many places shrieked: Remember! When Tom paid a whole shilling to take you to the Paramount when it first opened and you saw Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra. When he taught you to swim in the baths in Stanley Park. When he kissed you for the first time on the grass, lush green and sprinkled with daisies, and it felt like heaven.

  And although Tom had barely slept in their double bed since the war began, now it seemed over-large and terribly empty. How now was it possible to rise in the world – to have that house by the sea for her and Tom and the kids? A large house with a bathroom and a garden big enough to grow lots of flowers. Her past dreams seemed to mock her.

  Slowly all her interest in, and love of, life seeped out of her, and only caring for the children kept her going. Sleep wa
s difficult, although she always felt tired. She could not eat, having no interest in food. Her father told her that she was losing her grip on things and that she must pull herself together.

  Flora tried but one day she was so weary that she could not get out of bed. Instead she lay watching specks of dust caught in a beam of sunlight that came through the bay window. Slowly the conviction that Tom was standing at the edge of the ray’s brightness filled her being. Only Rosie wandering round and round the room, dragging a well-worn knitted bear, distracted her momentarily. Eventually the little girl managed to open the bedroom door and shut it behind her. The sun shifted round to the west and still Flora lay in bed.

  When George came home he discovered Rosie sitting on the rag rug in the kitchen, her arms wrapped tightly about the cat. She smelt. He was sick with hunger but it was obvious to him that there was no tea. ‘Where’s Mam?’ he demanded of his sister in an angry, worried voice.

  She rubbed her nose against the cat’s fur. ‘Bed,’ she muttered forlornly. ‘Hasn’t got up.’ Then she released the cat and held out her arms to him. ‘Carry, Georgie.’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ve dirtied yourself.’ Suddenly panic seized him. It wasn’t like Mam to let Rosie get in such a state. He turned and raced upstairs.

  The room was filled with the shadows of early evening and for an instant he thought Flora dead. Then her eyelids slowly lifted. ‘Tom?’ Her voice was husky as she squinted at George.

  ‘Mam, why aren’t you up?’ His voice cracked. ‘Are you ill?’ He sat nervously on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, son.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I thought I saw your dad.’

  Fear held George motionless and speechless, and his mouth went dry. He swallowed. ‘You can’t have,’ he said baldly.

  Her head shifted slowly on the pillow. ‘You’re wrong, son. He was over there in the corner. Perhaps he wants me to go with him?’

  ‘But he’s dead!’ Involuntarily his eyes searched the corners of the room and relief mingled with his panic. ‘There’s nobody there, Mam! You’re seeing things. Come on – get up. You shouldn’t be in bed at this time of day unless you’re ill. And you’re never ill.’ His hands seized the covers and he twitched them right back, revealing her body in the blue cotton frock she had worn all week. He was even more frightened then. Why hadn’t he noticed her getting thinner and thinner? She was bony, and that wasn’t his mam. What if she died?