Child of the Mersey - Annie Groves

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too quickly even for her to cry out and for one of the neighbours in these cramped back-to-back houses to hear her. As Dolly eyed the screaming infant and the quiet, grave face of young Kitty, she reminded herself that death was no stranger to these parts. Folk were poor, and doctors and medicine were for those that could afford them, which wasn’t many in Empire Street. A mother of five children herself, Dolly took the struggling child from Frank’s nervous arms, holding the infant boy to her breast. Her ease and experience must have been felt by the child because he stilled immediately.

      ‘Poor little mite,’ she observed. ‘You couldn’t have had a worse start. But we’ll make it right, won’t we, Kitty?’ And she took Kitty’s shaking hand and led her back to the house. ‘I’ll look after them, Ellen.’ She raised her eyes to heaven and knew the time had come for her to keep the pact she and Ellen made all those years ago.

      Dolly vowed to do all she could to help Kitty and her family. It would be difficult enough for any woman in a family of men, who were not used to fending for themselves, but Kitty was only a slip of a girl, despite being mature for her years.

      The day after Ellen’s death Dolly rose early, full of resolve to help her best friend’s only daughter. She lifted the newborn from the dresser drawer that rested on two straight-backed chairs, where he had slept in blissful ignorance, waking only to be fed.

      Poor Ellen – Dolly made her usual sign of the Cross – God rest her weary soul, she would want her family kept together. However, that would not happen if it were left up to that feckless waster Sonny Callaghan …

      Dolly had no compassion for Sonny Callaghan. He had been bad for Ellen from the day he met her. He was a dreamer who made gossamer promises. Beautiful but totally insubstantial and impossible to keep. He was more likely to be found in the pub squandering what he had earned rather than looking after his family. Ellen had ended up charring and taking in washing to supplement her meagre housekeeping, which more often than not never made it back from the pub on a Friday night.

      ‘Bah,’ Dolly told the sleeping infant, whose sooty lashes rested on peachy cheeks, ‘he’s a fool and your darlin’ mam paid the biggest price for loving him.’ She walked over to her bedroom window and looked out across the street where women huddled together, talking. Most likely discussing the future of the Callaghan children, thought Dolly.

      ‘It’s little Kitty who needs my help,’ Dolly told the sleeping child in the soft soothing tones of her Celtic homeland, ‘for it’s she who has it all to do now.’ Ellen had taught the young girl everything there was to know about keeping a clean house and making good, cheap, wholesome food, but Kitty, skinny little snapper that she was, could not manage a feckless father, two growing brothers, and a newborn babe all on her own. Furthermore, there were things that men knew nothing about. Dolly took a deep breath.

      ‘But I have it all in hand, Ellen,’ she said to the cerulean sky, as white cotton wool clouds ambled by. ‘I will make sure Kitty will not have to shoulder the burden on her own. There are plenty here to help her.’ The women of Empire Street coped because they had to. Their men were seafarers, away for long stretches, and it was up to the women to keep body and soul together, and maintain hearth, home and family. These women, however, were a lot older than this poor eleven-year-old girl.

      Sonny Callaghan walked with a sombre, somewhat rolling gait to stand behind the horse-drawn hearse bearing his wife’s coffin, accompanied on either side by his young sons, Jack and Danny. Dolly suspected that Sonny Callaghan had taken more than a little Dutch courage to get him this far. Kitty followed a few steps behind, holding on to Dolly’s arm for support. Dolly handed the youngest of the Callaghan children to her daughter Rita. The small dockside street was filled with friends and neighbours, as well as a smattering of family from the little Irish village of Cashalree, ‘over the water’, where Sonny had married the beautiful and much-missed Ellen.

      As the grieving procession moved off, Rita took the baby indoors out of the way. She was going to look after him until the chief mourners returned from burying his mother at Ford Cemetery. The boy did not have a name yet.

      ‘Everyone came out to support them,’ Dolly said later when the mourners had all gone home and she was back in her own house. She sighed and looked around the table to her loving family, all seated and quiet for once.

      Pop, her husband of seventeen years, nodded in agreement. Rita, their eldest, was a good girl; unbidden she rose now and went to make a pot of tea. Then there were the two boys, fourteen-year-old Frank, handsome like Pop, and twelve-year-old Eddy – the quiet one; she did not know who he took after considering that most of the family could talk the hind legs off a donkey. The youngest were ten-year-old dance-mad Nancy, followed by Sarah, who at six had a wise head on young shoulders. Now, Dolly thought, her family would grow even bigger because of the pact she and Ellen had made all those years ago.

      ‘I’ll look out for yours if you look out for mine,’ they had promised each other, and Dolly would do it gladly; anything to stop Ellen’s family from being split up and the children put into a home. She would not let that happen for all the ships on the Mersey. Her family were the beat of her huge, generous heart. There was always room for a few more.

      ‘The whole street turned out except the widow, Mrs Delaney, I noticed,’ said Dolly, ‘and who would wonder?’ She nodded at nobody in particular. ‘Ellen’s death will surely take the shine off the professional widow now.’

      ‘Do you think so, Doll?’ Pop, always the peacemaker, smiled at his wife.

      ‘I’ve never seen a woman more eager to get into widow’s weeds – her husband’s been dead donkey’s years, and that woman is still parading around in her black. She reminds me of old Queen Victoria.’ There was a small silence, everybody still touched by the sadness of the funeral earlier. Pop thought of how he would feel if it was his own beloved Dolly that he’d had to bury that morning. He pushed the thought away, and was glad of the distraction when Rita brought in a tray of cups, saucers, a pot of tea and a huge plate of freshly made ham sandwiches.

      ‘Aunty Ellen will know she left her family in good hands with us,’ Rita said, patting her mother’s shoulder. Dolly nodded. Rita always knew the right thing to say; she was going to make a smashing nurse. ‘But,’ Rita added with a half-smile, ‘calling Mrs Delaney names won’t bring her back.’

      ‘I know, and I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that old crow didn’t come to pay her respects. Just makes me mad, that’s all.’ Dolly sniffed into her handkerchief. ‘Poor Ellen didn’t deserve to go the way she did.’ She got up from the table. ‘The one thing I can do for her now is look after her family, and I will.’

      ‘We know.’ Pop rose, too, put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and gave a sad smile.

      ‘I will make sure her little ones know they can come here anytime.’

      ‘They know that already, Mam.’ Rita passed her mother a cup of tea. ‘I’ve put a little drop of something in that to help you sleep.’

      ‘We will not be starting that caper,’ Dolly said indignantly. ‘Strong drink has never passed my lips before, except at Christmas, and it won’t do now.’ Rita took the cup from her mam while, out of Dolly’s sight, Pop passed his daughter the bottle of whiskey, surmising what the eye did not see the heart could never grieve over. Unbeknown to Dolly, she had drunk umpteen cups of tea today laced with a slosh of the old country.

      ‘Poor Kitty,’ Dolly lamented. ‘She’s tied to that house as sure as any married woman – and she’s not even old enough to leave school.’

PART ONE

       CHAPTER ONE

       August 1939

      ‘Kit, it wasn’t me! Honest to God.’ Eight-year-old Tommy Callaghan looked over

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