The September Girls Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1 - September 1920

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6 - 1927

  Part Two

  Chapter 7 - 1939

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9 - Malta 1940

  Chapter 10 - June 1940

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14 - 1942

  Chapter 15 - July, 1942

  Chapter 16 - May 1943

  Chapter 17 - Wednesday, 8 May 1945 VE Day

  Maureen Lee’s award-winning novels have earned her many fans. Her recent novel, The Leaving of

  Liverpool, was a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller. Maureen was born in Bootle and now lives in Colchester.

  Find out more at: www.maureenlee.co.uk.

  The September Girls

  MAUREEN LEE

  Orion

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  AN ORION EBOOK

  First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Orion Books.

  This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books.

  Copyright © Maureen Lee 2005

  The right of Maureen Lee to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted

  in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise

  circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar

  condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 1 4091 3232 5

  This ebook produced by Jouve, France

  Orion Books

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House

  5 Upper St Martin’s Lane

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  An Hachette UK Company

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  For Charlotte and Patrick with love

  Norman Longmate’s book How We Lived Then, describing in detail how civilians coped during the Second World War, proved extremely helpful while writing The September Girls.

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  September 1920

  It was raining. It had been raining when they left Ireland that morning, had rained on the boat and still rained now that they were in Liverpool waiting for Paddy to arrive and take them to the place where they were to live.

  Brenna moved impatiently from one foot to the other. Before the night was out, the Caffreys would have a proper house of their own where water would come out of a tap instead of a communal pump outside. And they’d have a lavatory to themselves where all you had to do was pull a chain and everything disappeared - no more emptying buckets in the cart that came around once a week and smelled to high heaven.

  Where was Paddy? she fretted. He was desperately late. He’d promised to meet them at Princes Dock. The sky, already full of black clouds, was getting darker and, although it was only September, it was unseasonably cold. The big hand on the clock of the gracious building across the way had moved around twice: two hours. They’d been waiting two hours.

  ‘I’m tired, Mammy.’ Fergus pulled at her skirt.

  ‘Your uncle will be here soon, darlin’.’ At first, Fergus, six, and Tyrone, two years younger, had been enthralled by the startling sight of the never-ending stream of tramcars that came hurtling around the corner, sparks exploding from the overhead lines, headlights reflected blurrily in the wet road. But now they were bored. Brenna had been impressed enough herself, not just with the tramcars, but the buildings, bigger than any she’d ever seen, bigger even than Our Lady of Lourdes where they’d gone to Mass on Sundays.

  And so many people! Hundreds and hundreds of them scurrying about underneath their black umbrellas, but getting fewer now as they climbed on to the trams and were whisked away to God knows where. More people had poured down the big tunnels leading to the ferries that took them to the other side of the River Mersey.

  Liverpool must surely be a grand, rich place, she thought, because everybody was terribly well dressed: the men in suits, the women in ankle-length skirts, tailored jackets and big felt hats. One woman wore an astrakhan hat and a matching muff. Like quite a few others, the woman had given Brenna a very odd look. She must look a desperate sight in her black shawl and long skirt spread tight over her swollen belly, Colm’s old socks and leaking boots on her aching feet, the toes stuffed with rags. She was worried she’d be told to leave her place at the very end of the tunnel where she and Fergus sheltered from the driving rain. She had a sharp reply ready just in case but, so far, no one had spoken.

  According to Colm, the place where they were waiting was called the Pier Head. Every now and then he went for a wander round in case Paddy was standing somewhere else. He returned for the third time.

  ‘Not even a sign of him,’ he muttered. He looked worried, as well he might. Paddy had been sent the ten pounds that Colm had won on a sweepstake. It had been a miraculous piece of good fortune. He’d gone into Kildare with the horse and cart carrying vegetables for the market and an American, ‘stewed to his eyeballs’ according to Colm, had handed him a slip of paper.

  ‘Take this, young feller,’ the man had drawled. ‘I’ll be back in the good old US of A by the time the race is run.’

  ‘What race?’ Brenna asked when Colm came back, full of himself, and showed her the paper. He confessed he didn’t know.

  ‘What’s that written on it?’ Brenna could read very little and write even less, but Colm had been taught by the Jesuits in the village where he’d used to live.

  ‘Spion Kop. And at the top it’s got the name of the hotel where the American must have been staying: the Green Man.’

  None of it made sense, but it turned out that Spion Kop was the name of a horse running in England in the Epsom Derby. The race had been over three days before Colm discovered that Spion Kop had won.

  On his next trek to Kildare, he presented himself at the Green Man and produced the slip of paper. The guests had arranged a sweepstake between them, he was told, and according to the list the winner was Mr Thomas Doughty, a rich American, not a common Irish labourer like himself who had no right setting foot inside the door of such a respectable establishment.

  After a great deal of argument, and with the aid of a friendly guest who put himself on Colm’s side, saying possession was nine-tenths of the law, Colm collected his winnings.

  ‘I near but died,’ Colm confessed when he got home, ‘when they gave me ten whole pounds.’ He spread the notes on the table and he and Brenna stared at them, unable to believe their luck. ‘Indeed, that Blessed Virgin o’ yours must’ve been smiling down on me the day I met Mr Thomas Doughty,’ Colm said, glowing.

  Brenna agreed. She had absolute faith in the Blessed Virgin.

  Colm wanted the whole world to know about his good fortune. He wrote and told Paddy in Liverpool, announced it in the pub, boasted about it in the street, until the whole of Lahmera was aware the Caffreys had had a windfall. They’d been deluged with hard luck stories and people wanting to borrow a few bob. Brenna had been terrified, worried someone would break in and steal their precious money while she sat and thought of a million ways of spending it.

  Then Colm’s brother, Paddy, had written back suggesting he find them a splendid house close to his own in Toxteth. ‘Send the whole ten pounds,’ Paddy’s letter said grandly. ‘The landlord will want a deposit and I’ll buy beds, chairs and a table so everything will be ready and waiting when you arrive.’ In other words, they would buy a new life with their windfall and leave the row of two-roomed, single-storey cottages, more like cattle sheds, for a fine place in Toxteth.

  Weeks passed before Paddy wrote and said to come quickly, he had a big surprise waiting. They took for granted the big surprise was a house and left straight away, wanting the new baby to be born in their new home.

  Earlier, when Brenna had watched Colm slide the ten notes into an envelope then address it laboriously, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth, she’d said, ‘D’you not think we should keep a pound back and buy ourselves new clothes for Liverpool?’

  ‘The time to buy clothes is when we’re settled. I’ll get a good job, like Paddy’s, and by Christmas you’ll have a fur coat better than Miss Francesca O’Reilly’s.’ Colm was the most optimistic of men.

  Only then, as Brenna sheltered from the pouring rain, did she remember that she’d never truly believed that Paddy had quite as good a job as he claimed. Somehow, she’d never been able to see Paddy Caffrey as a customs officer. He was a bigger braggart than Colm would ever be. Their mother, Magdalena, had been just the same when she was alive, insisting the Caffreys were related to some famous Irish poet that Brenna had never heard of.

  Fergus and Brenna had been sick on the boat, and Brenna still hadn’t recovered. Her legs felt like jelly and her heart was beating madly in her chest while the baby thumped out a tattoo in her belly. And now there w
as the missing Paddy and their ten pounds to worry about, making her feel even worse.

  The rain streamed off Tyrone’s woollen cap. ‘We couldn’t find Uncle Paddy anywheres, Ma,’ he said chirpily.

  Fergus began to cry. ‘I’m cold, Mammy, and I’m tired.’

  Brenna looked at her husband. ‘How long are we going to wait, Colm?’

  Colm shrugged. ‘Let’s give it till nine o’clock. If our Paddy hasn’t come by then, we’ll just have to make our own way to Toxteth. It’s on the far side o’ where they’re building the great Protestant cathedral, so Paddy told me.’

  ‘Did he send the address of our new house?’

  ‘No, Bren. He was going to meet us with the key.’

  Brenna bit her lip. ‘Then do we know where Paddy lives?’

  ‘I’ve got his letters in me pocket. It’s Stanhope Street, number fourteen.’

  ‘Why d’you think he hasn’t come, Colm?’

  He didn’t meet her eyes. ‘P’raps he got the day mixed up, or the time. P’raps he’s come down with something.’

  ‘Or p’raps he’s drinking himself to death in some pub or other - on our money - or he’s gambled it all away and there isn’t a house for us to move into,’ Brenna said bitterly. Paddy was a gambler to his bones. The thought that he could have been so traitorous caused a wave of dizziness to pass over her and she felt even sicker and longed to sit down - a cup of hot tea would have been more than welcome. They’d had nothing to eat and drink since early that morning. She hated feeling weak when she was usually so strong.

  ‘He’d never do that, not our Paddy,’ Colm said, not very convincingly.

  ‘We were too trusting, Colm. We should’ve brought the ten pounds with us and found our own place to live.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Bren, it scares me. Ten pounds. Ten pounds!’ His voice was horrified. Never, in all their lives, had they expected to have so much money. ‘Our Paddy still might come.’

  But by the time nine o’clock came, Paddy hadn’t appeared. Colm asked a man in what direction Toxteth lay and he gave them some instructions. ‘But you can catch a tram, mate,’ he said. ‘The number one.’

  Colm thanked him, heaved the sack containing all their worldly possessions on to his back, and they set off. Despite the cold, the rain and Brenna’s condition, there was no question of spending a penny on tram fares when they had four pairs of perfectly good legs between them.

  The rain was lighter now, but just as steady, penetrating their thin, already saturated clothes. A whimpering, snuffling Fergus held his mother’s hand, his body limp, so she had to drag him along when she could barely drag herself. There was a terrible ache in the pit of her stomach and her back hurt. Everything hurt, but most of all the strong suspicion - more a feeling of certainty by now - that Paddy Caffrey had betrayed them and the new life would turn out to be worse than the old.

  At this time of night, the centre of Liverpool was almost deserted, not that Brenna noticed. She walked with her eyes fixed on the ground, only looking up now and then to make sure Colm was still in sight, striding confidently along, Tyrone running at his heels. She didn’t notice the grand office buildings that they passed, the big shops, the rowdy pubs, and was only vaguely conscious of a slight hissing noise coming from the gas lamps, which gave off a dim, yellowish glow.

  Suddenly, Colm stopped and waited for her to catch up. ‘I’ve lost me way, Bren, but I think we’re nearly there. I’ll have to ask someone if they know where Stanhope Street is.’

  A few doors ahead, a man had come out of a jeweller’s shop and was in the course of locking the door. Colm approached and spoke to him. A minute later, he returned.

  ‘Is it far?’ Brenna asked hopefully.

  ‘I dunno. He told me to get back to Ireland and take me filthy family with me.’ Colm grinned, but his eyes were hurt. ‘Ah, I’ll ask this chap on the bike.’ He flagged the man down and the bike wobbled precariously as it came to a halt.

  ‘Brakes don’t work,’ the man announced cheerfully. ‘Stanhope Street?’ he said in response to Colm’s query. ‘Cut through Parliament Terrace right behind you, and you’ll come to Upper Parliament Street. Turn left, and you’ll see Windsor Street on your right. Stanhope Street is the second turning on the left-hand side.’

  ‘Ta, mate. C’mon, Bren.’ He and Tyrone went down the passage the man had indicated and disappeared.

  The short wait had done Brenna no good at all. Sheer willpower had been keeping her going and she found it nigh-on impossible to get started again. She gritted her teeth and forced her legs to move, but the pain in her gut was sharper now, piercing.

  ‘Mammy,’ Fergus whimpered pitifully. ‘I can’t walk no more.’

  ‘You’ll have to, son. Hold on to me hand.’ She turned the corner, bent like an old woman, staggering slightly, her breath hoarse in her throat. Colm was standing some distance ahead, the sack on the ground and Tyrone perched on his shoulders. They were in front of a row of magnificent houses set on a slight curve, wide steps leading up to the immense front doors guarded by two white columns.

  ‘Come and see this, girl,’ he shouted. ‘It’s quite a sight.’ He hadn’t the faintest notion how badly she felt. Somehow, somehow, she managed to catch up.

  ‘There’s a party, Ma,’ Tyrone giggled. ‘A party. See!’

  Through blurred eyes, she saw an opulently furnished room with a sparkling chandelier suspended from the fancy ceiling, mirrors and pictures all over the place, and twenty or thirty people, as richly dressed as the room itself, standing around with drinks in their hands, laughing and talking animatedly.

  Her tired gaze fell on to the room below: a basement, reached from the road by steep, concrete steps behind black iron railings, in which three women were loading trays with refreshments. Two of the women, dressed in black with frilly white caps and aprons, departed with a tray each.

  ‘I’m hungry, Mammy,’ Fergus whispered. He must have noticed the food.

  Brenna didn’t answer. Never before had she questioned her position in life. She was poor, had always been poor, and almost every person she knew was poor. There were a few well-off folk in Lahmera, the village in which she’d been born and bred: the farmer that Colm had worked for, the doctor, the bank manager, the solicitor and Francesca O’Reilly, who lived in a big house on its own at the edge of the village. Miss O’Reilly had been an actress in her younger days and Brenna had cleaned for her from the age of twelve until the day before she married Colm, but not even her house was half as grand as this one.

  She looked again at the big room where the party was being held. Two women about her age were standing by the window laughing gaily over something. Their frocks, what she could see of them, were made of lace and trimmed with beads. One had a black plume in her hair, a silver necklace around her white, slender neck with earrings to match that shimmered and shone and danced madly when she moved her head.

  It didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair that she should be standing outside in the wet, a new baby lying in her belly, her children starving, their clothes soaked, while these women, so handsomely dressed, fed off the fat of the land. A wave of bitter envy swept over her, so strong that she gasped, clutched the railings and stared at the women, wondering why it was that fate had treated them so differently. Then one, the one with the glittering earrings, noticed her staring and closed the curtains, a look of disgust on her lovely face.

  ‘C’mon, Brenna.’ Colm picked up the sack and began to stride away. Tyrone trotted after him.

  ‘I can’t.’ The railings were supporting her. If she let go, she would collapse. The pain in her stomach had become unbearable and, with a feeling of horror, she realized the baby was on its way. ‘Colm,’ she called weakly.

  He turned, saw her agonized face and came hurrying back. ‘What’s the matter, Bren?’ His own face collapsed. ‘Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! It’s not the snapper, is it?’ Brenna nodded. ‘What the hell do we do now?’ he asked wildly.