Annie Groves - Child of the Mersey

‘What money?’ Tommy asked as a thatch of dark hair, so like their mother’s, flopped down onto his forehead and into those innocent-looking, adorable blue eyes. Kitty swept the fringe from his face. He could wrap her around his little finger usually, but not today. He was getting away with far too much these days.

‘The housekeeping money I keep in the tea caddy! C’mon, spit it out before it chokes you. Who took the money out of the tin?’ He was stalling now and she knew it. Well, she had all night; she would get the truth out of him by hook or by crook.

After a long pause, during which Kitty was staring down at him as if she could read his mind, Tommy said reluctantly, ‘I didn’t see nothing … exactly.’ He paused. ‘I just saw our Danny – or was it me dad …?’ Tommy stopped talking, rolling his eyes around the room before latching on to two lines of condensation racing down the distempered wall. He suddenly found them very interesting – anything to avoid Kitty’s piercing eyes.

Kitty took a long deep breath. ‘Were they at the tin?’ she asked with all the patience she could muster. ‘Tell me the truth now, Tommy, or I’ll have to tell Jack, and you know what he said when you were throwing stones at the barrage balloons on the dock?’ Kitty always knew when Tommy was telling the truth. ‘He said he’ll have you evacuated whether there’s a war coming or not.’

‘Don’t tell our Jack, Kit! It wasn’t me, honest,’ Tommy said hurriedly. He knew that their older brother would not be best pleased that somebody had been helping himself to the housekeeping that he brought to the house every week. Jack did not see eye to eye with their father and although he didn’t live with them any more, he made sure they didn’t go short of much and helped out any way he could. He liked to be certain Dad and Danny gave Kitty their share of the housekeeping, too. Nobody back-chatted Jack.

‘I won’t bring your name into it if you tell me the truth.’

Kitty remembered the night Jack left. Even now, it made her insides shrink when she recalled her fear. He and Dad were nose to nose. Dad was drunk – as usual – and Kitty could see Jack was using every ounce of self-control to stop himself hitting his father. His huge fists, curled tightly at his side, were shaking with such rage his knuckles gleamed white.

Jack had left school at fourteen to go out to work at the local ship manufacturers, and had done the best that he could to help Kitty out since their mother had died. But year after year, watching his father sink further into a life of idleness and drink had started to wear him down. By the time that Jack was seventeen, their rows had become a regular occurrence with each one becoming worse than the last. Kitty had become fearful that something terrible would happen between them and her fears turned out to be well-founded when things finally reached a head one night. Jack had proudly put his wages on the table for Kitty, only to hear from Danny and Tommy that their father was down the local, throwing pints down his neck and drinking what little wages he had managed to earn that week. Jack, unable to contain himself any longer, had rounded on his father when he stumbled home drunk a few hours later.

‘You’re a disgrace, man. Look at you!’ Jack had stormed. ‘You haven’t seen a sober day since Mam died … and as for work … you wouldn’t know how to do a decent day’s work any more.’

‘Do not bring your mother’s name into this, you … you snot-nosed pup!’ Sonny Callaghan retaliated. Kitty, fourteen at the time, knew Jack was stronger and fitter than his father. If he had a mind, Jack could have floored him.

He was six foot tall by then, working in the local shipping manufacturers and bringing in regular money; he had no qualms about squaring up to his father, the man who had turned to drink when his wife died, leaving his family to be reared by neighbours.

Kitty would never let the two men fight. She loved them both, even if she knew her father wasn’t doing the best by them. There were many nights when Kitty had heard him stagger into the house, crying drunken tears for the wife he had lost. She saw the constant sadness lying behind his eyes and more than once, when the drink loosened his tongue, he would say to her, ‘Your mother would give me such a tongue-lashing, Kit, if she could see me now. I’ve let her down.’

But things had got out of control that night and Jack had finally said the unsayable.

‘Look at you, cock-of-the-walk Jack Callaghan, think you’re better than your own dad, don’t you? Well, you’re just a jumped-up little scrap who can’t even read nor write,’ Sonny goaded his son.

Kitty could see Jack clench his fists with the effort of not hitting Sonny, but she knew Jack would never have forgiven himself for laying a hand on his own father, no matter how much he had been pushed. Jack’s schooling had always been an erratic affair and he’d spent more time trying to help his mother out with odd jobs than he’d ever spent learning his letters.

‘If you’d been the husband to Mam that you should have been, I wouldn’t have had to come out of school to try and do the man’s job that you’re not fit for. Dad, you’re a coward and it was you that killed her, with your drinking and feckless ways. If you’d looked after her like a proper husband she’d still be here today—’

Sonny lunged towards his eldest boy. ‘Why you little guttersnipe—’

‘Stop it, both of you! Nothing could have saved her,’ interjected Kitty, throwing herself in front of her father. ‘The doctor said she had a weak heart and Mam will be turning in her grave to see you two going at it like this.’ She bundled little Tommy out of the room. ‘If you carry on I’ll go and live at Aunty Dolly’s. I will, I swear.’

Jack turned to Kitty. ‘You’ll not have to worry about going to Dolly’s, our Kit. I’ll save everyone the trouble.’

‘What do you mean, Jack? You can’t leave us – how will we manage?’

‘I’ve been meaning to tell you, but it’s never the right moment. I’ve taken a job in Belfast, training as a shipwright in the Harland and Wolff shipyard there. They’ll give me a good tuition and when I come back I reckon I’ll be able to read and write as good as anyone.’

Sonny Callaghan didn’t have the nerve to meet his own son’s eyes and Kitty knew that he was ashamed of his earlier outburst. But men had pride, didn’t they, and he would rather slit his own throat than apologise.

Kitty felt the tears well up and suddenly the thought that her beloved brother was leaving was too much to bear. She threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Jack. What will I do without you?’

‘I’ll send home every penny I earn, Kit, and in a few years I’ll be back and be able to help better by being a qualified shipwright.’ He held her to his chest and said gently, ‘You couldn’t have two men living together that don’t agree. It’s asking for trouble. But I won’t let you down, Kit, you’ll see.’

So Jack was gone for three years, but he was true to his word, his money arrived for her every week at the post office and when he came back three years later he was a changed man. Bigger, leaner, stronger, and Kitty could see her father could no longer safely poke the bars of Jack’s cage.

Jack still came for his tea now and then and he and his father had reached an uneasy truce, but it pained Kitty to know that things would never be the same between them.

Kitty tried to banish the terrible memories from her mind. ‘Look at the cut of you,’ she admonished Tommy, and her tone was more abrupt than she intended. Still gripping the back of Tommy’s collar, she pushed him towards the brown stone sink.

‘Before you sit up to your tea, you can have a good wash. You’re filthy!’ Turning on the single copper tap, Kitty let the cold water run into an enamel bowl and felt Tommy squirm. Nevertheless, she did not intend to let him get away. ‘I’m ashamed of you.’ She added hot water from the big black kettle that was always on the boil. ‘You’re a disgrace, running around like no one owns you.’ She knew she was being a little harsh but she had to keep a tight rein on Tommy, otherwise he would get out of hand. A bobby from Gladstone Dock had brought him home earlier in the week for shooting pigeons with his catapult.