‘Na, Corporation flats is all filled up. All the court houses is being cleared, as you well know.’
He stirred uneasily. ‘I heard some more today, though. They’re going to build air-raid shelters outside in the street all along here, right across the pavement from the front entry.’
‘Holy Mary! What for?’
‘They reckon there’s going to be a war. And what’s more, they’re going to pull down the wall of our court, so we’re open to the street.’
‘Humph, and where are they going to put the rubbish bins? They’re fixed in the wall.’
‘Don’t ask me. Maybe the council will give us a bin or two. They must reckon that if there’s no wall, we can run into the shelter real quick.’
It did not strike either of them that the Public Health Department had viewed the statistics of the recent influenza epidemic with anxiety. Unable to bulldoze the remaining unhealthy courts until more City housing was built, they were using a cheap remedy, the removal of the enclosing wall, to get some cleaner air to circulate in the crowded court.
Martha gave a little laugh of relief as her fear of being moved receded. ‘They must be expecting that this court won’t be moved for a while, if they’re building us a shelter.’ She chuckled. ‘We’d have a right job all of us getting through the entry at the same time, that’s for sure – Alice Flynn upstairs is that fat she has to edge through it sideways already. Why aren’t they moving us to Norris Green?’
‘Dunno. I suppose they haven’t built the houses yet.’
‘It’s real funny that they’ve found a way to make room for an air-raid shelter, but they can’t build new houses for us right here.’
‘Maybe they’ve stopped building houses everywhere and are doing air-raid shelters instead?’ suggested Patrick.
Martha leaned forward to put her empty mug on top of the oven. ‘Is there really going to be a war, Pat?’
‘Oh, aye. I believe so.’
‘But Thomas said as Mr Chamberlain was talking with Adolf Hitler, and thought Germany was being reasonable.’
Patrick shrugged, and then said shrewdly, ‘Na. All he’s doing is get us a bit of time to build tanks and guns. He’ll sell the Czechs down the river to do it, you’ll see.’
‘Will you have to go for a soldier, Pat?’
Pat laughed. ‘Me? Na, I’m too old.’
‘Well, praise all the saints for that. And our Brian is too young?’
‘Oh, aye.’ He glanced round the dark room. ‘Where is the lad?’
‘He’s working late – it’s Thursday. And Tommy’s gone down to see his pal. They’ll be back just now.’
Their father heaved himself up from the chair. ‘Well, I’m going to turn in. I’ll be working tomorrow.’
He knelt down and moved little Joseph further across the mattress. He winced as he laid himself down, turned on his side and closed his eyes. He was asleep in seconds.
Martha sighed, got up, took an old coat from a hook on the front door and laid it over him. She then rearranged Number Nine’s blanket to cover his sister Ellie as well. She would not lie down herself until she had decided what to do about breakfast – she would have to go out again into the cold, that was for sure.
She stood uncertainly, her toothless mouth tightly clenched as she looked down on the sleeping children and her snoring husband. She had not a crumb left to give them for breakfast, and, as she had sat patiently waiting for Patrick, this fact had been gnawing at her, almost outweighing her fear of being whisked off to Norris Green.
After the children’s fighting that afternoon she had not wanted to leave home until Patrick returned. She reckoned that Mary Margaret alone could not reasonably be expected to watch them all tonight; she really was not well, and this knowledge added to the painful ache of Martha’s own hunger and to her other worries – Kathleen, for example. She’d have to give the girl a good talking to: she must be taught to take care of the kids better.
She turned, and quietly padded up the stairs and through Sheila and Phoebe’s room to reach Mary Margaret.
Her friend was asleep on her narrow camp bed in the far corner, her head pillowed on a roll of rags, her shawl wrapped tightly round her.
By the light of a candle, the girls were playing very quietly close to the entrance to Sheila and Phoebe’s empty room. Martha hissed at her daughters to come down and settle for the night.
In chorus, they hissed back that they weren’t making any trouble and why couldn’t they play longer.
‘Because your dad’s home, and he wants you downstairs and sleeping – now! Meself, I got to go down to the corner shop for a few minutes. You come on right now – or do I have to get your father to you?’
At this awful threat to tell Mr Connolly, Dollie Flanagan picked up the grubby cards and shuffled them neatly together. If Mr Connolly was home, probably her father soon would be from the pub. He could deliver a slap a good deal harder than the one Mrs Connolly had given her – and suppose Mrs C told her father about her behaviour that afternoon?
‘You’d better get going,’ she told her guests with a sigh, and got up off the floor.
With Martha’s brood safely wrapped in bits of blanket, they were each allotted in irritable whispers a piece of floor on which to sleep.
Finally, Martha warned, ‘Now, our Kathleen, you’re in charge, remember? Brian and Tommy will be in just now.’
‘Oh, Mam!’ protested Kathleen, as she reluctantly spread herself as close to the fireplace as she could get without her mother noticing that she was hogging most of the heat.
‘Shut up and go to sleep. You’re the eldest. And mind you don’t wake your father.’
Martha picked up her shawl from the back of the chair and wrapped it tightly round her. When she opened the outer door, she flinched at the cold. Her long walk up to the Lee Jones had tired her, but desperation drove her out again.
She quickly shut the door behind her and looked up at the tiny patch of sky visible between the enclosing court housetops. It had stopped sleeting, and, far above her between dark shadows of cloud, she glimpsed a single star.
Despite her despair, she thought, ‘Perhaps it’s my lucky star. At least They won’t turn us out come tomorrow.’
‘Old Folk’s Home? Feels More Like a Bleeding Gaol’
1965
‘You know, Angie, when I had to go down to the corner shop that night, I was more worried than I’d been in years.’
Angie acknowledged the remark with an absent-minded nod. She was attending to Pat, the comatose patient in the next bed who had to be turned every two hours. She impatiently whipped back the curtain drawn round her and pulled the bedclothes off her.
Martha was sitting up in her bed watching her, while she gratefully sipped the illicit mug of tea which Angie had brought up for her. Nowadays, every time the grossly overworked nursing aide came into the bedroom, which held five invalids, Martha would remorselessly continue the story of her life: it was as if, by doing so, she gave some meaning to her current existence.
Today was no different.
‘For one thing, Angie, I was real worried about Them pulling down the wall between us and the main road. It meant that any stranger could walk