Love Me Tender. Anne Bennett

with practicalities, such as dealing with the shivering children and the restless baby, who’d begun to wail in a cross, tired voice. Kathy soothed Josie while Lizzie tucked the little ones under the eiderdown with Danny, Matt and Sheelagh and wondered why her Auntie Bridie didn’t get off her behind and give a hand.

      Lizzie marvelled that her mother seemed not even to hear the clamour around her, while Lizzie herself could hardly bear it. The German engines had a sort of intermittent burring sound that you’d hear sometimes between the almost incessant ack-ack guns peppering the night. But most terrifying of all was the shrill and whistle of the bombs, and the crash and boom of them landing that often seemed to shake the walls of the cellar.

      Rose, sitting beside Bridie on the mattress, began suddenly to cry. Kathy put a cup of tea in her hands, but they shook so much Lizzie thought most of it would be spilt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Kathy. ‘I tried to get to Mam’s, but I, I…’ She gave a shudder and said, ‘I was so scared.’

      ‘Hush,’ Kathy said, putting an arm around her. ‘You’ll wake the weans. You’re not alone; sure, we’re all bloody scared.’

      ‘Aye, but you don’t understand. I can’t do it,’ Rose cried. ‘I can’t get the three of them up and dressed and off in the middle of the night to Ma’s.’

      Kathy was smitten with guilt. Of course she couldn’t. Lizzie and Danny were of an age to see to themselves a bit, and were even a help to Kathy, but Rose’s three were still wee. Why hadn’t she thought about it? Bridie could help, but Kathy knew it was no good asking her, and Maggie had her own little one to see to. ‘You need someone with you,’ she said. ‘What about our Carmel?’

      Rose looked up with the deep-brown eyes her children had inherited, but hers seemed sunk in her head and ringed with black, and Kathy realised she was so thin her cheekbones stuck out. ‘Your ma said your Carmel’s gone a bit wild, she’s never in nights. She’d be just another to look after and worry about.’

      ‘Your sisters?’

      ‘They’re all away,’ Rose said. ‘Mammy sent them at the beginning of the holidays to our people in Ireland. There’s only Catrin, and she’s living in Lozell’s near her chap’s people.’

      ‘Mammy?’

      ‘She has enough on her plate with her worries about your da.’

      ‘What about him?’ Kathy said, alarmed.

      ‘With his chest playing up again.’

      Mary had said nothing to Kathy, and for a moment she was a little upset that she’d confided in Rose, but that wasn’t the issue at the moment. She said suddenly and decisively, ‘You must come to us.’

      ‘How can she?’ Bridie put in, the first time she’d spoken in ages. ‘We have little enough room as it is.’

      ‘Well, what we have, we’ll share,’ Kathy snapped. To Rose she said, ‘You and the weans can bed down in my attic night-times. I’ll be on hand to help you then, and you can share the cellar.’

      Rose’s eyes showed her gratitude, and yet she said, ‘I wanted to stay in my own place, you know, to have a nice home for Sean to come back to.’

      Hitler might see you have no home at all, Kathy thought, but aloud she said, ‘Sure, you’ll be in your own home in the daytime, it’s only nights you’ll be here.’

      Lizzie gave a yawn and suddenly realised how weary she was. Her eyelids felt heavy and she blinked to keep them open. Kathy and Rose were still talking softly, with a sharp rejoinder now and then from Bridie, but she was too tired to take it in. She leant sleepily against her mother, and Kathy smiled down at her. Her hands were full – one arm cradled Josie, thankfully asleep again, and the other was round the distressed Rose – but she saw the exhaustion in her daughter’s face. ‘Lie down for a wee while,’ she said. ‘You’ll be tired out tomorrow.’

      Doubting she would sleep in the noise all about them, Lizzie crawled under the eiderdowns with her brother and cousins. Danny, Matt and Pete were fast asleep already at the other end, and Sheelagh stirred as Lizzie moved in between her and Nuala, but didn’t wake. The murmur of the women’s voices was comforting amid the din coming from above the cellar, Lizzie thought as she closed her eyes.

      She slept deeply and didn’t wake, not even when the baby cried for a feed and Matt and Danny both needed the toilet and had to be stood on the draining board to wee in the big sink. Neither did a nearby explosion cause her to do little more than turn over. Kathy, lying on the other mattress, envied the slumber Lizzie was enjoying. Though her eyes felt gritty with tiredness, she knew she’d be unable to rest until the raid was over.