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But then there was always Radio Normandy, which told the tale of Flossie, a naughty girl who went to Dr Whacken’s School, which made everyone laugh. The very best of all, though, was Radio Luxemburg and the Ovaltineys. Lizzie, Danny, Maura Mahon and others would settle down on Sunday evening to listen to it. Many of the children in the street joined the club, and got a badge and a rule book, and on the programme they used to give out a message in code that the children had to break. Maura and Lizzie would puzzle over it and then help Danny, who hadn’t a clue what a code was.
It became one of their favourite games, sending messages in code, and they all knew the Ovaltineys’ song and sang it together every time the programme came on.
Kathy and Barry were pleased the children enjoyed the wireless so much, but its only value to them was to find out what was happening in the world, and they really only listened to the news. Lizzie couldn’t understand it. ‘Why don’t you listen to music like Grandma?’ she said. ‘She likes the BBC Variety Orchestra and Victor Sylvester, but Carmel likes Tune In from Radio Luxemburg with Jack Payne and his band better. They’re good, Mammy.’
‘I haven’t time to listen to music,’ Kathy said dismissively.
Lizzie knew she made time to listen to the news all right and that was deadly boring. It was very puzzling altogether.
What wasn’t puzzling was when her cousin Sheelagh, catty as normal, attacked her one day as the children were playing in the street together.
‘My mammy says your daddy’s a warmonger,’ she said.
‘He is not.’ Lizzie didn’t know what a warmonger was, but it didn’t sound very nice.
‘He is. She says he likes going round scaring people.’
‘He doesn’t, and anyway he doesn’t scare people.’
‘He might, going round saying there’s going to be a war all the time,’ Sheelagh said. ‘My mammy says people like him should be locked up.’
Lizzie bounced on the pavement in temper. ‘Don’t you dare say that about my daddy.’
‘I can say what I like, it’s a free country.’
‘I hate you, Sheelagh Sullivan.’
‘I’ve always hated you, Lizzie up-the-pole O’Malley, and you’re stupid and so’s your precious daddy.’
The slap took Sheelagh by surprise, and she staggered back holding her hand to her face, where the mark of Lizzie’s fingers showed scarlet streaks on her pale cheek. ‘You! You…!’ she screamed, as angry tears spouted out of her eyes. ‘I’m telling me mammy about you.’
Aunt Bridie came round later, shouting about it. Lizzie had slunk home and was buried in a chair with a book, but was yanked out of it by her mother to stand before her furious aunt. ‘Auntie Bridie says you slapped Sheelagh across the face,’ Kathy accused her.
Lizzie was silent, and Bridie said angrily, ‘Insolent little sod. Answer when you’re spoken to.’
‘I’ll deal with this,’ Kathy snapped, tight-lipped, and then she went for Lizzie herself. ‘Well, did you, or didn’t you?’
Lizzie, knowing denial was useless, said, ‘Yes, I did, but she said—’
Her attempt at an explanation was thwarted, for Bridie leapt in. ‘There, what did I tell you? You should see the mark on my Sheelagh’s face. Child should be walloped for that.’
‘How many times have I told you not to fight with Sheelagh?’ Kathy shouted, ignoring Bridie. ‘How many times?’
Lizzie shook her head dumbly, and Kathy grasped her shoulders and shook her soundly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘maybe this will remind you.’ And she delivered two ringing slaps to the back of Lizzie’s legs. Tears sprang to Lizzie’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She looked defiantly at her Auntie Bridie, but said nothing until Kathy, terrified lest she say anything that would cause her to be punished again, grabbed her and ordered harshly, ‘Go and get into bed. Go on! Before I give you another one, and there’ll be no supper for you tonight.’
Much later, after Lizzie had cried so much her pillow was damp, her father came in with a mug of cocoa and a hunk of bread and jam. ‘I couldn’t have you hungry,’ he said, and though he must have noticed the red-rimmed eyes, he made no comment about them. ‘Want to tell me about it, pet?’
Lizzie nodded and recounted the row to her father, and at the end of it he said, ‘Well, don’t tell your mother, let it be a secret between us two, but I don’t blame you one bit.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No, but next time don’t let her get to you. What is she anyway but a bag of wind?’
‘Oh, Daddy.’ The tears were falling again, and Barry said, ‘No more of that now. Eat up your supper. Danny will be up in a wee while and I’ll tell your mammy you’re sorry, shall I?’
‘You can tell her,’ Lizzie said flatly. ‘But I’m not really.’
Barry winked and said, ‘We’ll keep that a secret too, I think.’
Lizzie wished the priests were like her father, for she imagined that when she told it in confession – because she knew she’d have to tell – they’d take a very dim view of it altogether.
Downstairs, Barry explained to Kathy what the row had been about.
‘Oh, how I hated to smack her,’ Kathy said, ‘and in front of that woman too, but I had to do something. Lizzie admitted hitting the child. If it had been anyone else it wouldn’t have mattered so much.’
‘It wouldn’t happen to anyone else. No one gets our Lizzie going like Sheelagh,’ Barry said. ‘And the child’s got a tongue on her like her mother, but our Lizzie’s sorry now.’
A little later, when Kathy took Danny to bed, she said to Lizzie, ‘Daddy’s told me all about it and we’ll say no more. I’m pleased you’re sorry for what you did. I want you to try not to be such a bold girl in future, will you do that?’
‘Yes, Mammy,’ Lizzie said, and was glad of the dimness of the room that hid her smile.
Czechoslovakia was suddenly the name on everyone’s lips, and some of the family and neighbours came round to the O’Malley house each evening now to listen to the news. Even easy-going Pat and his father, Eamonn, had begun to realise there was reason for concern, as had Michael, now a good friend of Barry’s. Sean was the last of the men in the family to become aware that things were serious, but then his energies and worries were with his wife, Rose, who’d given birth to a little girl in mid-August but hadn’t seemed to pick up as she should have done.
The children were back at school when the news came through about Hitler demanding control of the Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia. He claimed that three and half million German-speaking people there were being discriminated against by the Czech government. Kathy and Barry were by themselves early one evening, and Barry read the news out of the paper as Kathy sat knitting for the new baby, due in November.
‘He might be satisfied with that, then?’ Kathy asked hopefully, but she sensed Barry’s unease.
He gave a grunt of disgust. ‘Satisfied?’ he repeated. ‘He’ll not be happy till he has the whole of Europe. I don’t believe a thing the bugger says, Kathy, and neither should anyone with any sense.’
Chamberlain didn’t share Barry’s views and prevailed on the Czech government to make concessions to prevent a German invasion. When Chamberlain and the French prime minister, Daladier, met with Hitler in Munich on 29 September 1938, they agreed to Germany occupying the Sudetenland after guaranteeing the rest of Czechoslovakia safe from attack.
As Chamberlain arrived back waving his piece of paper and declaring, ‘I believe it is peace for our time,’ many were lulled into a false sense of security that war had been averted. Barry was not one of them.
However, he hadn’t time to worry about it much, for in October, six weeks early, Kathy gave birth to a little boy. He was baptised Seamus and lived only for four days. Kathy was inconsolable for some time and her mother took over caring for her and Barry, as well as the children.
Mary, worried as she was about Kathy, was worried still further by Sean and Rose and their wee girl, Nuala. Then there was Maggie, who, seeing the advantage of her mother’s time and energy being diverted elsewhere, was out till all hours and probably up to God alone knows what mischief with Con Murray.
Only Bridie seemed unaffected by anything. ‘You’d think she’d help a bit,’ Mary complained angrily to Eamonn one night. ‘After all, the weans are off her hands at school all day, and yet never a hand’s turn does she do for anybody.’
‘Ah well, sure, that’s Bridie for you.’
And that was Bridie, that was the trouble, concerned only for her own welfare and that of her children. She was jealous of Kathy and Barry and always had been, and it was all because of their house. Pat and Bridie lived in a communal courtyard, criss-crossed with washing lines. The yard also housed the dustbins, shared toilets and the brew or wash house. Kathy and Barry’s house, on the other hand, opened on to the street, and had two doors, the second one on to the entry that led to the yard Bridie lived in. It had a large cellar lit with gas mantles and a huge white sink underneath a grating with a cold water tap. That tap meant Kathy could do her own washing in her own house. She even had a gas boiler beside the sink to boil the whites, and there was still plenty of room to get the bath down from the hook on the back of the door and fill it up for the children’s weekly bath.
Mary thought them lucky to have the house, but she imagined they’d more than earned it. After their marriage they had lodged there with Barry’s gran, who was the tenant. No sooner were they in than the old lady, seeing someone there to fetch and carry for her, took to her bed, and Kathy had a time of it, especially when she was expecting Lizzie.
Then the old lady became senile and began accusing Kathy of trying to poison her, and yet Kathy didn’t lose patience, telling Mary she was just an old lady terrified of being put in the workhouse. When they got the house afterwards, Mary was pleased for them and Kathy said that in many ways she missed the old lady. Bridie, though, could never be happy for someone else’s good fortune.
Mary sighed. Pat really deserved a medal for putting up with it all the way he did, but just now her energies had to go to Kathy, for the baby’s death had knocked her badly and it was beginning to affect the whole family.
Kathy wouldn’t even go to the bonfire down the yard on Guy Fawkes night, but sat huddled over the fire as if she were cold. She said she didn’t feel up to it. In the end Eamonn went out and bought fireworks for the weans and Mary cooked the sausages to share, as was the custom, and Barry went down to keep an eye on the weans and let off the fireworks.
When they returned, they were sticky, smoke-grimed and tired, but happier than they’d been since their little brother had died. Mary, who’d been keeping Kathy company, decided the time had come for a straight talk with her daughter. When the weans were tucked in bed and Barry dispatched to the pub with the men, she began. ‘Kathy, you can’t grieve forever, love. God knows it’s hard, pet, but you have two other weans to see to.’
‘Lord, don’t I know it!’ Kathy cried. ‘But Mammy, I can’t.’
‘You can and you must,’ Mary said firmly. ‘The weans miss you.’
‘Sure, they have me.’ But they hadn’t, and Kathy knew that as well as her mother. They had a shadow of their old mammy, one with no substance and no life. And as for Barry, as far as Kathy was concerned, he might as well not have existed.
Kathy did try, but it was not until after the start of 1939 that she began to feel anything like herself. Even then she avoided Rose, as looking at the chubby, smiling Nuala was like a dagger in her heart. Danny began school in January, although he wasn’t five until March. She’d hadn’t even to leave him at the school, or collect him. ‘Lizzie’s well able to take him,’ Mary said firmly, and she was right. Lizzie, now turned seven and a half, was proud to take her young brother along Bristol Street and into Bow Street, where the school was.
While the O’Malleys were coming to terms with the loss of their child, the Czechs were just beginning to realise that in agreeing to Hitler’s demands, they had lost seventy per cent of their heavy industry. Slovakia, feeling let down by their government, demanded semi-independence. Fearing a revolt, and with the country in total disarray, President Hacha requested Germany’s help ‘to restore order’. German troops took possession of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Britain and France complained, but did nothing; Hitler claimed he’d not invaded but been invited in, and turned his attention to Poland and, in particular, the city of Danzig.
Every night Barry would listen to the news reports, usually with Pat, often with young Michael and occasionally with Sean too. For a long time they’d discuss the news items together before dispersing.
No one now tried to convince themselves that the world wasn’t at crisis point. Barry and Michael had been making anti-tank rifles, and now they’d been put on to making Browning 303 machine guns. No one objected to the long hours put in; everyone seemed to realise it was a race against time, and there was a sense of inevitability during the spring and summer of that year.
The summer holidays dawned wet, miserable and dull, but when July gave way to August there was a heat wave and the temperatures were sometimes the highest they’d been for thirty years. ‘I wish we could go to the seaside,’ Lizzie complained one day to Carmel, who agreed. They’d never been but had heard it was grand.
The pavements seemed to radiate the heat, so that it shimmered above them and they were dustier than ever. Lizzie sat on the step and watched three little boys building dust castles, which they then destroyed with their toy cars, making a great deal of noise about it. Others huddled in groups over piles of marbles. One little girl, younger than Lizzie, pushed a pram with a fractious baby inside, while a bit further down the street, two older girls wielded a long, heavy rope while another girl skipped inside the loop. Lizzie wondered how they could be so energetic. She was so hot, her clothes were sticking to her body. ‘If we went to Cannon Hill Park, we could paddle at the sides of the lake,’ she suggested. ‘If Mammy would let us.’
‘We’d have to take Sheelagh and Matt too, at least,’ Carmel said.
‘Couldn’t we go on our own just once?’
‘You know full well we couldn’t.’ Carmel was older and wiser than her niece. ‘Sure, Bridie would play war if she found out.’
Suddenly Lizzie wasn’t sure if she wanted to go, and have Sheelagh goading and sneering at her. She wasn’t sure whether it wasn’t a better prospect to stay in the hot street and swelter. But in the end she went, and her mammy and Auntie Rose went too.
Kathy was also feeling restless and unsettled and a day out with the children was maybe just what she needed. Also she thought she’d ignored Rose’s baby daughter long enough; sure, it wasn’t Rose or Sean’s fault her baby had died.
They sat on a grassy incline overlooking the lake and watched the ducks and swans swimming between the circling rowing boats. The children had stripped to the bare minimum, as had many others, and were squealing and giggling as they played together. Nuala was practising the new art of walking and now and again would tumble over and chuckle to herself.
‘It’s hard to believe dreadful things are going on in other parts of the world on a day like this,’ Kathy remarked.
‘I know Sean’s really worried. Is Barry?’
‘Everyone’s worried. God, Rose, what if war comes and our husbands are called up and there are enemy planes in the sky?’
‘You don’t think it can be averted?’
‘Not now, it’s too late,’ Kathy said. ‘We heard it on the news, Hitler wants the town of Danzig, and if it’s given up to German control he has a corridor straight through to Prussia, cutting off Poland’s access to the sea. I don’t see them agreeing to it, do you?’
Rose shook her head sadly. She looked at her little boy Pete, now a sturdy three-year-old, and Nuala still a baby, and shivered, and yet she believed her sister-in-law. Sean said Barry had a better grasp of the world situation than many of the politicians, which came from all the reading he’d done while he was on the dole.
It was as the women and children made their way home that they came upon men digging trenches. ‘What are they doing?’ Danny asked.
Rose and Kathy exchanged glances. Everyone was aware of the policy of digging trenches in parks and other open spaces; it had been on the news, but to actually see it being done was dreadful.
‘What will they have us do? Cower in the mud like rats?’ Bridie had said scathingly.
‘Well, it will surely be better than nothing if you’re caught in a raid,’ Pat had retorted.
Kathy knew her brother was right and, as war was inevitable, and everyone knew that this time civilians everywhere would be targeted too, she should have felt reassured seeing the trenches being dug. Instead it filled her with dread. But she had to answer her small son. ‘They’re just digging,’ she said shortly.
Danny walked to the rim of the trench to look in. The two men digging were stripped to the waist, their backs gleaming with sweat. One of them grinned up at him and all the children began edging forward to see.
‘Come on now,’ Kathy snapped.
The children, even wee Pete, took no notice and edged closer to look in.
‘Pete,’ Rose called warningly. ‘Come on.’
Pete turned and looked but didn’t move, and when Carmel attempted to pull him towards his mother, he began to shout and struggle.
‘Come away out of that, the lot of you,’ Kathy yelled impatiently, and the children came reluctantly, all except Danny. He continued to stare at one of the men, who suddenly rubbed his dirty hand across his brow. Danny was very envious. He thought it would be great to do work like that – fancy being able to dig all day long!
‘Danny!’
Danny ignored his mother and rubbed his hand across his brow, imitating the man, who leant on his shovel and gave a bellow of laughter.
‘Just a minute, Mammy.’
‘I will not “just a minute”, my lad,’ Kathy said, marching over and grabbing her son by the arm. ‘For once in your life you’ll do as you’re bloody well told.’
‘Ah, missus,’ said the man in the trench, understanding Kathy’s mood far better than Danny did. ‘Let’s hope they’re not needed.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Kathy, dragging her protesting son away. She couldn’t wait to get them home.
‘Mr Brady came from the school,’ Bridie told Kathy later that night. ‘While you were away at the park.’
‘They’re on holiday, what did he want anyway?’ she asked, surprised. The headmaster had called round: he’d never done such a thing before.
‘He was talking about the evacuation programme.’
‘They’re not being evacuated,’ Kathy said firmly. ‘I talked it over with Barry. I’ve got the cellar and I’m not sending my weans to live with strangers.’
‘Me neither. I told him I’d come into your cellar if there were air raids.’
Kathy knew she would, and however she felt about her sister-in-law, she couldn’t deny her shelter if the bombs came. ‘What did he say?’ she asked.
‘Well, he wasn’t pleased. He said the government wanted to empty the cities of children, but it had to be our decision.’
‘I wonder how many will go,’ Kathy said. ‘I mean, I wonder if they’ll close the school.’
‘Surely to God they can’t do that, they can’t leave our children running mad through the streets.’
‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Kathy said.
It was Lizzie who brought it up next. ‘Mammy, Maura’s going to the country.’
‘I know.’
‘Can I go?’
‘No you can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because, that’s why,’ Kathy snapped.
‘That’s not a proper answer, Mammy.’
‘Lizzie, do you want a slap?’
Lizzie looked at her mother reproachfully and Kathy reddened. She’d overreacted, surely. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I don’t want you away with strangers. You’re only eight, and Danny’s just five.’
Lizzie looked at her mother and saw her fear, but didn’t fully understand it. She didn’t know what the country was, she’d never been, but Maura had made it sound fun, and she said that if Lizzie stayed at home, she’d be blown up. Lizzie wouldn’t have minded going away for a while – well, as long as it wasn’t for too long and she could look after Danny.
Suddenly she remembered her little brother Seamus; how her mammy had lost him and how ill she’d been over it, and she thought that must be it – she and Danny couldn’t leave their mammy because their baby brother had died. She was even more convinced of it when her mammy put an arm around her and said, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without the pair of you, and that’s God’s truth, especially if your daddy gets called up.’
Then Lizzie knew she had to stay with her mother, and she’d explain it to Danny, and if they were blown up at least they’d be blown up together.
The priest thought that was the reason too. Father Cunningham had been a regular visitor after Seamus died and had eventually encouraged Kathy back to mass. Father Flaherty was a different kind of man altogether, and he sat in the easy chair as if he owned the place, while Kathy ran round feeding him tea and biscuits.
‘I’m glad to see you’re over that other business at last,’ he said.
That other business! He was my son, Kathy thought, but the years of having manners drummed into her held firm, so she said nothing.
‘Now,’ Father Flaherty went on, ‘you must protect the children you have.’
‘I intend to, Father.’
‘Oh, then you’ve changed your mind about evacuation? I was talking to Mr Brady, and he…’
‘No, Father, no I haven’t,’ Kathy said. ‘But you see, I don’t understand how sending them off to live with strangers is any way to be looking after them.’
‘And if the bombs come, what then?’
‘At least we’ll be together, Father, and my weans will have their mammy beside them, not some stranger, however safe the place.’
‘They won’t be alone. Many have chosen to send their children away.’
‘That’s their choice, Father. This is mine and Barry’s.’
‘It’s because of the wee one you lost,’ Father Flaherty said with authority. ‘You’re overprotective of the two you have left. It’s understandable, but you must think of the children, not of yourselves.’
Kathy’s eyes flashed. ‘Father, it really is our business, and why I don’t want them to go is just between me and Barry.’
‘That’s your final word?’
‘It is.’
When the priest had gone, Kathy had set down on a chair, her legs trembling, for she’d never stood up to the man before. She knew he was a priest, but God forgive her, she couldn’t like him, there was something about him that made her skin crawl.
Almost a week later, the lovely weather broke in Birmingham. Thick black clouds had rolled in and the air was heavy. ‘Going to be a storm,’ people said. ‘We need one to clear the air.’ Kathy looked at the purple-tinged sky and agreed. Her head felt muzzy and she knew she’d probably end up with a headache.
But when the storm came, the ferocity and intensity of it shocked everyone. For three hours the lightning flashed and the thunder roared and rumbled. Rain hammered and bounced on the dusty pavements till they gleamed and streamed with water. The newscaster said Staffordshire had had the worst of it, and Kathy looked out at the depth of water outside, far too much for the gurgling gutters to cope with, and felt sorry for those worse off.
The news that night, though, wiped out worries about the weather, for there had been heavy troop movement from Austria to Slovakia and fanning out along the Polish border. Seventy Polish Jewish children arrived in Britain, where they would stay with foster parents until they were eighteen.
‘Poor little devils,’ Kathy said. ‘They’re coming to strange people, strange language and strange ways. It must have been a wrench for the parents, for they might never see them again.’
‘At least this way they’ve got a chance,’ Barry said. ‘Hitler’s record with Jewish people is not good. Oh, and thinking about children reminds me, have you picked up the gas masks yet?’