Love Me Tender

Didn’t Kathy know it; she couldn’t blame him, and God alone knew he needed a medal for putting up with Bridie. Barry was right, a man could be too easy-going; another man would have given Bridie many a clout for half the things Kathy had heard her say to Pat. She didn’t doubt what Barry had told her about Pat and Bridie’s sex life, for hadn’t Bridie said the same to her? But God, wasn’t she a stupid fool denying her husband, and it was a sin too. Many would have had the priest to see her by now, but Pat likely wouldn’t want to embarrass her like that. Suddenly she gave a huge sigh.

‘Come on,’ Barry said, pulling her to her feet. ‘Stop worrying about Pat. Worry about me for a change. I’ll be away in the morning, so I want something to remember in the weeks ahead.’

‘Oh, maybe I’ll say I’m not in the mood, like Bridie,’ Kathy said with a smile.

‘Try it, my girl, and I’ll have you across my shoulder and carry you to bed, where I’ll insist you carry out your wifely duty,’ Barry told her with mock severity. ‘I’m no Pat Sullivan.’

Lizzie heard them later, going laughing up the stairs. She was glad they were friends, but somehow it made her feel more lonely than ever. She knew her father would be gone in the morning and she hadn’t told him how she felt, and she’d not get the chance again.

With Maura Mahon and a couple of Lizzie’s other friends either evacuated with the school or sent away privately to relations and friends, Sheelagh was the only one near Lizzie’s age in the road, and so they were always being grouped together. Sheelagh never seemed to mind, and Lizzie thought she derived malicious pleasure from having someone to taunt and make fun of all the way to school in the morning and back in the evening. She’d go round in the playground with gangs whose aim in life was to harass Lizzie O’Malley. They thought her fair game, being a year younger, and singled her out mercilessly.

Lizzie, depressed and miserable, considered complaining to her mother, but she’d probably think she was making something out of nothing and say Sheelagh was just having a game, and it wasn’t as if they ever did anything.

Anyway, she knew that she couldn’t worry her mother, however bad it got; she already had enough on her plate, without Lizzie adding to it. Barry had asked Kathy to keep an eye on his own mother, Molly O’Malley. She was a widow with no daughters, and none of Barry’s three brothers were married, but all of them were overseas, so Kathy felt in some way responsible for her. She didn’t live far from the O’Malley home, just at the top end of Grant Street, and Kathy had no objections to looking out for her.

‘She’s bound to feel it,’ Barry had said. ‘Especially with us all gone,’ and she did, for Kathy said she was a bag of nerves worrying about them all and she made a point of going up to Grant Street a couple of times a week. Kathy’s father was fire-watching too, and that was another cause for concern, for Lizzie knew her grandad’s chest was terrible.

Then there was the black-out, which had to be fixed to every window before the gas could be lit and the ARP wardens parading outside to see it was done properly. Lizzie hated the black drapes at the living-room windows and the black shutters on the bedrooms. They made her feel closed in and uneasy, but her mammy said it had to be done.

And in addition to all this, October had been particularly cold and dismal, and after a warm September it was hard to take. Then November proved to be the same, with biting winds driving the sharp spears of rain bouncing on to the grey pavements. And in the cold and the rain the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers were part of the British Expeditionary Force that headed for France.

Then December was upon them, and there was also talk of rationing being introduced just after Christmas. Kathy was worried about how they’d cope. ‘Same as everyone else, I suppose,’ Bridie said gloomily one day, and added, ‘I suppose our soldiers will be fed all right and it won’t matter if the rest of us starve.’

‘I don’t think it will come to that,’ Kathy said. ‘And at least with rationing it will be fair; rich or poor will all have the same.’

‘Huh, we’ll see.’

Kathy couldn’t make Bridie out; she never seemed happy about anything or anyone. She decided to change the subject. ‘Have you heard from Pat at all?’ she said.

‘Aye, though he never has much to say.’

‘Their letters are censored, I suppose,’ Kathy said. ‘Though Barry is usually able to drag up something to amuse the weans.’

‘He writes to the weans?’

‘Aye, he always includes a wee note, you know. They miss him so much, especially Lizzie.’

Bridie gave a snort of disgust and said, ‘If you ask me, he spoils that girl.’

‘I didn’t ask you.’

‘Well, if I can’t express an opinion…’ said Bridie, rising to her feet.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kathy. ‘I’m all on edge, worry I suppose, and with Christmas nearly on us and hardly anything in the shops it’ll be a lean one this year, and strange without Barry.’

The conversation was cut short by the children bursting through the door, Lizzie dragging Maura Mahon after her. ‘Maura,’ said Kathy, addressing the child in surprise, ‘I thought you were away?’

‘I was, Mrs O’Malley,’ Maura replied. ‘Mammy came to fetch me home. She said there was no point in it.’

‘Your mammy told me you were staying just outside Stratford.’

‘Aye, a tiny wee place called Preston upon Stour.’

‘And did you like it?’

‘No, I didn’t, no one likes it, not even the teachers,’ Maura said vehemently. ‘It was cold and damp all the time and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do.’

‘So the country isn’t nice then?’ Lizzie asked.

‘No it ain’t, it’s blooming awful,’ Maura declared. ‘Mammy says I haven’t to go back.’

Lizzie didn’t care why or how Maura had come back; she was here and that was all that mattered. Her prayers had been answered. Life was almost back to normal again and if only her daddy was home, it would be nearly perfect.

The rationing of basic foodstuffs began on Monday 8 January that year, with every person allowed four ounces each of bacon, sugar and butter per week. Kathy knew it was only the beginning, and she wondered how she would stretch it all to last. She herself was allowed extras like orange juice, cod liver oil and vitamins, because she was pregnant again. She was glad in a way because she still pined for the baby she’d lost, but her pleasure in a new life beginning inside her was tinged with trepidation. She thought back to her last pregnancy, which had been trouble free at first. There had been no reason at all for her little son Seamus to be born so prematurely. ‘Just one of those things,’ the doctors had told her, which was no help at all. She was terrified of it happening again and this time Barry wouldn’t be there beside her either. But then it was no use worrying. Weren’t they all in God’s hand at the end of all? And yet another mouth to feed on army pay would not be easy. Barry had earned good money making guns at BSA, especially with the overtime he was almost forced to work, but now, as a serving soldier, his pay was substantially reduced and Kathy was glad she’d been prudent enough to save some of his earnings in the post office. Eamonn said it was scandalous that men fighting for their country were so undervalued, but nothing could be done.

Kathy was amazed and pleased to find that both Rose and Maggie were pregnant too, all three babies due in late July. Sharing their pregnancy pulled them closer together, but Bridie, as soon as she discovered it, would be ready with the cutting remarks Kathy knew only too well. She found out one day in late January when they were all together in Mary’s house and she overheard Kathy discussing morning sickness with Rose.

‘God in heaven!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you on again?’

Kathy stared at her sister-in-law. Though she’d told Rose and Maggie and her parents, she’d dreaded telling Bridie. ‘Aye, aye I am,’ she said, almost defiantly.

‘Well, what kind of a bloody fool are you?’ Bridie burst out. ‘Christ, as if you haven’t enough on your plate.’

‘I’m only having a baby, for heaven’s sake, like plenty more.’

‘Aye, and there’s a war on, in case you haven’t noticed.’

‘Leave her be,’ Rose said. ‘Like Kathy said, she’s not the only one.’

‘Not you and all,’ Bridie exclaimed. ‘Mother of God, what’s the matter with the pair of you? And as for you,’ she said, addressing Rose directly, ‘what are you trying to do, populate the whole of the bleeding earth by yourself? I mean, Pete’s only three and Nuala just a baby herself.’ She shrugged and went on. ‘Well, if you want to go through life with a clutch of children hanging on to your skirt, that’s your look-out.’

‘That’s right, it’s our business,’ Maggie broke in. ‘You live your life and we’ll live ours. And you might as well know, I’m expecting as well, so what are you going to say to me?’

Bridie gave a mirthless laugh and said, ‘Well, all I’ll say is that your old man must have plenty of lead in his pencil.’

‘Bridie!’ Mary cried. ‘Less of that talk.’

But Bridie wasn’t finished. ‘Unless, of course, the wedding was rushed forward for a reason.’

‘You malicious cow!’ Maggie cried. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Well, let me tell you, my baby is due on the thirtieth of July. Not everyone’s the same as you, you know.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Bridie snapped.

‘Well you didn’t wait till the ring was on your finger, did you?’

Bridie was white with fury. The reason for her rushed marriage had been covered up and Maggie had only been a child then, so it must have been discussed by them all since. She glared over at Kathy and Maggie cried, ‘Don’t be blaming anyone, Bridie. No one said a word to me, but I’m not stupid. I was eleven years old and well able to count to nine, but you’d only been married six months when Sheelagh appeared. Now treat me like a bloody simpleton why don’t you, and tell me she was premature?’

‘Come on now,’ Mary said, flustered by the way the whole conversation was going. ‘Let’s not have all this snapping and snarling at one another, but save our bad temper for the enemy.’

Bridie for once had nothing to say. She threw them all a look of pure hatred and flounced out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

Later, Mary said to Kathy, ‘I wonder if she’s jealous of you all. I mean, there’s been no sign since young Matt. Maybe she wants one herself and that’s what makes her so crabby at times.’

‘I think she was just born that way, Mammy,’ Kathy said. She thought over what Barry had told her before he left and went on, ‘and I don’t think she wants any more but the two she has, not really.’

A few months later, the three expectant mothers listened, horrified, to the news that Hitler had invaded France, not through the Maginot Line that the French had thought impregnable, but through Belgium. German paratroopers had blasted their way through the Belgian defences, and the road through the country lay wide open.

It soon became clear that many soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were trapped on the shores of France, and when the news finally broke on 31 May, Operation Dynamo was revealed. Many small, privately owned boats of all shapes and sizes were pressed into service to run a shuttle service from the beaches of Dunkirk to the ships forced to lie offshore in deeper water, battling under heavy bombardment to lift as many men as possible to safety.

Kathy listened to every news report and scoured the papers, and prayed like she’d never prayed before. Her prayers were partially answered, for in early June she got a letter saying that Barry was in a military hospital on the south coast. Her relief was short-lived though, for only minutes later Bridie arrived wailing at the door, waving a telegram in her hand and crying that Pat was missing, presumed dead.

Kathy, though bitterly upset over the news about Pat, was nevertheless determined to see Barry and check he was all right. Her parents thought it was the last thing on earth she should do. ‘They’ll transfer him nearer later,’ Mary said.

‘I don’t want to wait till later. I must see him now and at least know he’s all right. Maybe he has some news of the others.’

‘Cutie, dear, think about it,’ Mary said. ‘Traipsing the country in your condition isn’t wise or sensible. God above, look what happened to wee Seamus.’

‘You’re taking a big risk, Kathy,’ Eamonn said, agreeing with his wife.

Kathy knew she was taking a big risk and her parents were justified in their concern – and she knew this headlong dash she was determined on could bring about the very thing she dreaded: a premature birth. But the urge to see Barry and reassure herself overrode her other fears. ‘I can’t just sit here fretting over him. I’ll go mad,’ she cried. ‘One way or the other, I’m going to make it to that south coast hospital as soon as is humanly possible. And what if he has news of Con, or Michael or Sean,’ she went on. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not as worried sick about them as I am?’ She looked at her parents, their faces creased and lined with anxiety and said more gently, ‘I’m going. Sensible or not, I’m going. Will you mind the weans for me?’

‘Aye, surely we will,’ Mary said. ‘You don’t have to ask, if you’re determined to go.’

‘I’m determined well enough,’ Kathy said. ‘And I’m away now to tell his mother, give her the good news that Barry is alive.’

‘Aye, poor soul,’ said Mary with feeling. ‘She’ll need something to hang on to, with the telegrams she had the other day. Lord, to hear of two sons killed in one day is hard to take.’

‘Och, woman, don’t be so daft,’ snapped Eamonn. ‘It doesn’t matter a damn when you hear it; to lose two sons would rip the heart out of you.’

The room fell silent and all had the same thought. The only one of the family they were sure about was Barry, and he was in hospital with God alone knew what injuries. Pat was missing, and of Sean, Michael or Con there was no news. They could all be casualties of this war, Kathy thought.

But Barry was alive, she told herself, and she held on to that thought. Nothing else mattered at that moment. She knew she wouldn’t rest until she saw him for herself. She needed to hold him close and tell herself that he was alive and going to stay that way.

FOUR

Long before Kathy reached her destination she was feeling hungry and exhausted. Her journey had been subject to unexplained delays and stoppages, and the carriages were full of troops. Posters demanded, Is Your Journey Really Necessary? and she thought wearily that if it wasn’t, the way her trek had gone so far, she wouldn’t have made the effort.

Kathy could never remember travelling on a train before. She knew she must have done when she left Ireland with her parents, but she’d been just a child then and she had little recollection of her life before that of the back-to-back houses of Birmingham’s inner ring.

Since then she’d never once ventured out of the city, and was totally unprepared for the clamour, noise and bustle of New Street station. The clatter of trains, slamming of doors and shrill whistles of the porters mixed with the shouts and cries of the people thronging the platform – many in khaki, Kathy noticed – made her nervous.

A train clattered to a stop behind her with a squeal of brakes and a hiss of steam that seeped along its wheels. Suddenly there was a terrifying loud shriek from a train opposite and Kathy saw billows of steam emerging from a brass funnel. She could smell soot and smoke in the air, and the place was so draughty, her teeth began to chatter.

She glanced at the large clock hung above the station platform, wondering where her train was. The clock said ten twenty, and yet the train should have left at five past. When it eventually arrived, with a deafening rumble, she was quite unnerved, but the mass of people surged forward and she was swept along in the flow.

Once inside, everyone but Kathy seemed to know what to do. She trailed up and down the corridor looking for an empty, or near-empty, compartment, but the train was cram-packed.

Eventually a young soldier, seeing her pass back along the corridor again, stepped out of a compartment and said, ‘There’s room for you in here, missus, we’ll all budge up a bit.’

Kathy knew it would have to do and sat down thankfully, but as the train hurtled south, she realised she didn’t know where she was going to get off, for all the station names had been blacked out. She found it very unnerving and worried that she wouldn’t know when they reached Plymouth.

In the event, the soldiers helped her. Despite having three brothers, she hadn’t been used to meeting strange men in such numbers, and at first she found them intimidating. However, most were kindness itself, especially when they knew the purpose of her visit. ‘I didn’t realise it was so far away or that it would take so long to get here,’ she confided to a soldier who’d told her Plymouth was the next station.

‘Every journey takes hours in this war, missus,’ the soldier said. ‘Half our lives we spend waiting.’

Kathy looked at her watch – four o’clock – and knew it was doubtful she’d get home that night. She remembered Lizzie’s anxious face pressed to the window pane, watching her walk away. She’d wanted to come and see her daddy, and any other time Kathy might have taken her, but she knew wartime was not the time to haul children about the country, so she’d explained that Lizzie had to be very adult and grown-up and not make a fuss about things. The child was disappointed, but she said not a word and instead sat with a set, worried face waiting for her mother to return and tell her how her daddy was. The stoicism of it tore at Kathy’s heart.

‘Have you any more children?’ the soldier asked. ‘I can see you’re expecting, like my own wife back home.’

‘I have two,’ Kathy said. ‘A boy and a girl. Lizzie is nearly nine and Danny is six, and this one,’ Kathy said, indicating her stomach, ‘is due in July.’

‘It’s our first, Brenda’s and mine,’ the soldier said. ‘Due any day – can’t help wondering and hoping that she’ll be all right, you know?’

‘I’m sure she will,’ Kathy assured him. ‘After all, women have been doing it for years.’

‘Yes, I know, it’s just not being there with her…I worry a bit.’

‘I bet she worries more about you,’ Kathy said with feeling. ‘Barry was hardly ever out of my thoughts for long, and when I heard he’d been injured, my heart stopped beating for a minute or two.’

‘You don’t know how bad it is?’

‘No, they didn’t say.’

‘Well, if they’ve transferred him, he can’t be that bad.’

‘You think so?’ Kathy grasped the lifeline hopefully.

‘It’s what they say.’

At that moment the train gave a sudden lurch and the soldier turned to Kathy and said, ‘We’re coming in to Plymouth now. Wait for the crush to pass and I’ll get you a taxi.’

‘Oh, I don’t think…’

‘You’ll never find it on your own.’ And Kathy knew he was right and just nodded.

‘Have you a bag?’ he asked, looking around the compartment.

‘Only my handbag,’ Kathy said.

‘But you’ll not get back tonight,’ the soldier said. ‘Have you a place to stay?’

‘No, no, I never thought.’

‘You’d be welcome at the barracks,’ the soldier said with a smile. ‘Well, at least the men would welcome you, but the sergeant might have something to say.’

Kathy smiled. ‘I think I’ll pass on that,’ she said.

‘Maybe the taxi driver knows of somewhere. I should check it out before you get to the hospital.’

Kathy thanked him, but once in the taxi she knew she had to see Barry right away. The problem of where she was to spend the night could wait. She’d passed through the countryside in the train without really taking it in, but in the taxi she was surprised by the sea, calm and sparkling in the mid-June afternoon. There were many couples strolling arm-in-arm as if they hadn’t a care in the world, and yet the men, almost without exception, were in uniform, and Kathy knew the reality was quite different.

She lost no time when the taxi stopped outside the hospital, but hurried inside to find someone who could tell her where Barry was and when she could see him. Shortly after she entered the building she was confronted by a nurse whose name tag identified her as Sister Hopkins. ‘Mrs O’Malley?’ she said, when Kathy had introduced herself.

‘Yes, I’m Barry’s wife,’ Kathy said, nervous before the stern-faced woman and almost frightened now she’d got this far. ‘Can, can I see him?’

‘Well, it’s most irregular.’

‘Oh, please,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ve come all the way from Birmingham. My family are desperate for news of him and I’ve left behind two very worried weans.’

Sister Hopkins stared at the woman in front of her. She was startling to look at, with her raven-black hair and deep-brown eyes, but her face was pasty white and there were black rings circling the eyes. She was far advanced in pregnancy and yet had come halfway across the country to see her man. ‘Maybe you can see him for a little while,’ she said.

‘Is…is he badly injured?’

‘No, not really,’ the nurse said. ‘He has shrapnel wounds to his head and abdomen and his left arm is badly lacerated – we thought at one point he might lose it, but the doctor has managed to save it, at least so far. We have to keep an eye on it in case of infection, and of course only time will tell if he’ll ever regain full use of it.’ She looked at Kathy’s startled face and said, ‘Believe me, Mrs O’Malley, your husband was one of the lucky ones.’

Kathy stared open-mouthed, amazed that someone could talk with so little emotion of removing a limb. Sister Hopkins caught her look and said, ‘You should see some of the poor beggars lifted from the beaches of Dunkirk.’

Not to mention those left behind. Neither woman said it, but both thought it.

Barry lay staring at the ceiling, a bandage swathed about his head and his face as white as the pillow he lay on. Kathy said nothing till she stood beside the bed and then she whispered, ‘Barry.’

He turned his head, and though Kathy could tell that he was pleased to see her, his enthusiasm was slightly forced. There was something lurking behind his eyes. ‘Kath!’ he cried. ‘God, when did you…how did you?’

‘We were informed you were here,’ Kathy said. ‘I had to come and see you, the weans were asking for you.’ She spread her empty hands and said, ‘I couldn’t stop to buy anything, not indeed that there’s much in the shops.’

‘No, no, it’s all right,’ Barry quickly reassured her. ‘To see you is enough.’ He passed his unbandaged hand across his eyes and said, ‘You’ve heard about Pat, I suppose?’

‘Just before I left, yes,’ Kathy said. ‘“Missing presumed dead”, the telegram said.’

‘Oh, he’s dead all right,’ Barry said, almost harshly, and then, catching sight of Kathy’s stricken face, went on, ‘I’m sorry, that was bloody clumsy.’ He took Kathy’s hand and said, ‘I know you loved him, and I did too, funny that coming from a bloke, but he was the best mate I ever had. I’d known him from the day we started school together and that was that really, it was always us together against the world. I met you through knowing your Pat, and even after our marriages we were mates. God!’ he cried. ‘What a bloody waste.’

‘What happened?’ Kathy said. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Oh, aye, I’ll talk about it. Like lambs to the bleeding slaughter we were,’ Barry said bitterly. ‘It was bedlam, the Jerries advancing and we had orders to retreat to the beaches. We got separated from our company, Pat and I, as he copped it early on.’

‘Copped it?’

‘Bullets,’ Barry said. ‘One shattered his knee and the other was in his chest. By the time I’d strapped him up and turned round, the rest had gone on and it was just the two of us. We met up with others on the way, stragglers like us who’d got separated from their units for one reason or another. I half carried Pat to the beach where I thought we might have a chance, not much of a bloody chance, but the only chance we had.