Love Me Tender. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ go home. ‘How’s your aunt, dear?’ Mrs Morcroft asked, and Lizzie realised with a jolt she hadn’t thought about Auntie Rose and the reason for her jaunt to the Bull Ring all day. She wasn’t terribly worried – after all, women had babies all the time, and even though her gran said she’d had to have the doctor, it didn’t really mean she was deadly sick – so she said quite cheerfully, ‘All right, I suppose, Mrs Morcroft, but I don’t know, we’ve been out all day.’

      She was more concerned when she got to Rose’s house and found no one in. She left the children in the pram outside and pounded upstairs. The bed was stripped and had a big stain across it, and there was bed linen soiled with blood thrown into a corner. Alarmed, Lizzie ran downstairs and pushed the pram across the road to her own house, but that was also empty, so then she ran, pushing the pram before her, past Pickering’s to her grandma’s.

      She lifted Pete down and hauled Nuala from her straps, suddenly aware that not only was the little girl sopping wet, but that something was seeping from her nappy on to Lizzie’s dress as she balanced Nuala on her hip to open the entry door.

      They were all there, Kathy, Maggie and Carmel, and they all turned at her entrance. ‘Where in the name of God have you been?’ Kathy demanded.

      ‘D-down the Bull Ring. Grandma told me to take the weans.’

      ‘She meant you to take them all,’ Kathy said. ‘Dear God, girl, you’re not stupid, and I’d keep out of Bridie’s way if I were you. She’s been spitting feathers all day, and Sheelagh’s done nothing but moan.’

      ‘Aye, as if we hadn’t enough on our plate,’ Maggie said bitterly. ‘It wouldn’t have hurt Bridie to look to her own weans the once, for she was worse than useless here, and Lizzie at least kept the wee ones away for the day.’

      ‘What d’you mean?’ Lizzie cried, suddenly frightened. ‘What’s happened?’

      Kathy glanced at her sisters and then at her daughter, and said, ‘Rose has been sent to the hospital, the doctor thought it best.’

      ‘Will she…she will be all right, won’t she?’

      ‘Course she will,’ Kathy said, but she didn’t meet Lizzie’s eyes as she said it.

      Lizzie knew her mother was worried and wasn’t sure if Rose was going to be all right at all, and she hoped Peter and Nuala weren’t aware of it. But both had picked up on the tension, and Nuala said, ‘Mammy, want Mammy,’ and began to wail.

      ‘Och, there’s no need to cry,’ Kathy said, lifting Nuala into her arms. ‘Your mammy will be as right as rain, you’ll see. Grandma Sullivan has gone with her, so there’s no need to fret at all, and you’re both to come home with me tonight.’

      She set Nuala on her feet again, wiped her hand down her apron and asked Lizzie, ‘Hasn’t that child been changed all day?’

      ‘No,’ Lizzie said. ‘I didn’t come back for a change for her.’

      ‘You didn’t come back because you didn’t want Sheelagh with you, if we’re telling the truth,’ Kathy said.

      ‘You can’t blame her,’ Maggie said.

      ‘Maybe you can’t, but I can,’ Kathy snapped. ‘She knows she has to be understanding to Sheelagh just at the minute.’

      ‘It’s like being understanding to a rattlesnake.’ Carmel said it under her breath so Kathy didn’t hear, but Lizzie did, and grinned at her young aunt.

      ‘And you can take that silly smile off your face,’ Kathy said. ‘I’m sure I never said anything to laugh at. You can come across to Rose’s with me to get a few things for the weans for tonight and tomorrow. Bring Nuala and you can change her and make her more comfortable.’

      ‘We’ll rustle up something to eat,’ Maggie said. ‘We might as well eat together tonight, and Daddy will be in any minute.’

      ‘Aye,’ Kathy said. ‘Life goes on, and Lord knows when we’ll see Mammy.’

      Bridie went for Lizzie that night as she’d known she would, and she stood and took it without a word, feeling it was just punishment, for she felt guilty to be out enjoying herself while her Aunt Rose lay so ill. ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Bridie,’ she said, when eventually the tirade had stopped.

      Bridie looked at Lizzie through narrowed eyes, not at all sure that she wasn’t being sarcastic, but she thought she looked suitably chastened. ‘Yes, well,’ she said, ‘I mean, being sorry is all very well, but it was a terrible thing to do. Poor wee Sheelagh cried her eyes out and then—’

      Kathy cut in then, deciding enough was enough. ‘The child has said sorry, Bridie,’ she said. ‘Let that be the end of it now. What do you want her to do? Grovel on the floor?’

      Lizzie looked at her mother in amazement and Bridie snapped, ‘You just encourage her with that attitude.’

      ‘Encourage her?’ Kathy exclaimed. ‘It was hardly the crime of the century, Bridie. She went for a wee jaunt to the Bull Ring with a friend, that’s all.’

      ‘She was supposed to come back for Sheelagh.’

      ‘There was nothing to stop Sheelagh going along to the Bull Ring on her own,’ Kathy said sharply. ‘She said Lizzie had told her where they were going. Anyway she’s sorry now.’ She looked across to Lizzie and said, ‘You won’t do it again, sure you won’t?’

      And Lizzie was certain sure her mammy gave her a huge wink. ‘No, Mammy,’ she said.

      Bridie glared at the two of them, but no one cared for that and when she left just afterwards, Lizzie felt she could breathe more easily. Kathy gave a smile and said, ‘Phew! I’m glad that’s over with. Now don’t be forgetting Aunt Rose in your prayers tonight.’

      ‘I won’t,’ Lizzie promised but she smiled because she knew her mammy wasn’t cross with her any more and she disliked Bridie and her way of going on as much as she did herself.

      Rose didn’t die, as had been feared, and neither did her tiny baby girl, whom she called Josephine after her mother, but the pair of them were very ill and were still in hospital a week later when Maggie and Kathy both gave birth to baby boys on 30 July. Kathy called her son Padraic, after her beloved brother Pat, and Maggie named her baby Tim, and by the middle of August Lizzie had forgotten there was such a thing as a holiday, for she was run off her feet.

      Eventually Kathy and Maggie were both up and about again. Their two boys were placid and good sleepers. In contrast, little Josie, tinier by far than her plump, healthy-looking cousins, still cried often, wouldn’t settle and refused to suckle. She had to be put on the bottle, which made Rose feel a failure on top of everything else. She was very weak herself, and often tired, and a demanding baby as well as the other two little ones made things harder for her.

      Kathy was unable to do much for Rose, for she had her own family to see to, Bridie never off the doorstep and Barry’s mother Molly to visit, but Maggie and Mary both tried to help. All the family were worried about Rose and wee Josie and took Pete and Nuala off her hands as often as they could.

      The first bombs fell in Birmingham on the night of 8 August, leaving one person dead and five injured. Many thought the lone German bomber was actually looking for Fort Dunlop, but was unable to find СКАЧАТЬ