Voices of the Morning Read online

  Elizabeth found her voice at last. ‘I only came to see why Mrs Flynn hadn’t turned up for work this morning,’ she said with a proud tilt of her head, and as she spoke she pushed Laura behind her so that the child could not see the bed or the blood, or the dying baby, and was well out of the way of Patrick Flynn.

  ‘Well, Maggie?’ the priest pressed anxiously, interrupting strategically with an eye cocked in the direction of the clock on the mantelpiece. The clock had ticked its last tick years ago, but nobody seemed to have noticed. According to the bent hands on the fly-spotted face, it was always time for tea.

  There was a long pause then Maggie Flynn frowned deeply, took a deep, sobbing breath, and spoke.

  ‘I want to call him William,’ she said quite clearly and there were one or two indrawn breaths among the older members of the family.

  ‘You can’t call him William!’ The old woman pushed herself forward and leaned on the rumpled bed, her face close to her granddaughter’s. ‘I won’t allow that. Not William. Not that name.’

  ‘If he’s going to die, Mam, what does it matter?’ Maggie said and turned her face away from the older woman’s bitter eyes.

  ‘Oh, for Gawd’s sake, let the lass call the bairn what she wants,’ growled an old man from the back of the room. ‘He won’t be around long enough for anybody to care. Anyways, William Thomas could be a canny lad when he had a mind to be.’

  ‘He was touched in the head!’ Somebody proclaimed and there were unintelligible murmurings among the others. ‘If he hadn’t hung himself he would have ended up in the lunatic asylum.

  ‘I’m still calling the baby William, after me brother,’ Maggie was adamant. ‘None of you knew him like I did...’ At that point in time there was a subdued titter of laughter, which she ignored, if she heard it at all. He was a good man. He looked after me, and I loved him for that.’

  ‘It’ll be written on the gravestone,’ Maggie’s mother pressed on with her objection to the name. ‘I won’t have it, I tell you. Any name but William.’

  ‘The child’s got to be named.’ Father O’Rourke persisted. He was getting more and more anxious and impatient to get on with the baptism of the new infant before it breathed its last.

  ‘William,’ Maggie insisted and her husband growled disagreeably. ‘Don’t you start, Patrick Flynn!’ Maggie said, dredging up her last ounce of strength. ‘You never even met me brother, so how would you know anything?’

  Patrick blinked down at his wife, so wan and fragile among the pillows and sheets that were so much askew a tornado might have run havoc through their cramped little house. He wasn’t accustomed to having her speak to him in such a manner. She was usually acquiescent, to the point of being subservient. That was why he married her, for he was a man who liked his own way and Maggie was easy to control.

  ‘I might not have met the bugger, but I’ve heard how he used to lust after you, his own sister. And you let him have his way with you, didn’t you? Everybody in this town has. Why do you think nobody else would marry you, eh? It’s a wonder they didn’t lock the pair of you up.’

  ‘My brother was worth ten of you, Patrick,’ Maggie said, her strength ebbing away visibly. ‘I’m still calling the bairn William. You know what you can do if you don’t like it. And that goes for all of you.’

  Patrick Flynn stared at his wife in disbelief and shook his head. He raised a dirty finger and pointed it at Maggie, the same finger he used to jab her in the chest when he needed to make a point. She looked at it in disdain then he remembered the people gathered there, just waiting for him to live up to his reputation. With a sound like escaping steam, he lowered his arm.

  ‘I really think,’ said Father O’Rourke, ‘that we must be getting on…’

  So the new baby was expediently named William Flynn. A cardboard shoe box, lined with a discarded and discoloured pair of long johns, served as a miniature coffin. Women wept openly and even the normally unemotional menfolk had eyes that were moist, though none of them would have admitted they had been moved to tears.

  ‘Give him to me, Maggie,’ the exhausted woman’s mother said, holding out wrinkled hands like claws.

  ‘He’s not dead yet,’ Maggie objected sharply.

  ‘He’s too little to survive, Maggie. It’s only a matter of time.’

  Laura looked at the tiny object of their attention. The baby was no bigger than one of her dolls. And as she looked, she saw a tiny foot twitch, heard a whimper and a snuffle, making her draw in a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘He’s not dead, Mummy,’ she said and winced as Elizabeth’s fingers dug a warning into her shoulder, which she ignored. ‘Why do they want to bury him if he’s not dead?’

  She was thinking of the kitten she had been given for her fifth birthday, which had died the day after. There had been no twitching, no snuffling, no movement at all, even though she had willed the little creature with all her mite to live. This baby had the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen. They seemed to take in everything in that small, stifling room. Once, just once, they had sought her out as if they were trying to speak, plead with her to do something. But what could an eight year old do in a complicated world of grown-ups?

  Maggie Flynn hoisted the baby up onto her exposed breast, kissing its golden head and pressing its lips against her large, brown nipple. There was a tiny murmur from the infant as the pink lips moved in a sucking motion, seeking nourishment.

  ‘He’s hungry,’ Laura announced with a giggle and Elizabeth gasped to see her small daughter approach the bed without qualm.

  ‘No, Laura,’ she told her, pulling her away. ‘Keep away now.’

  ‘Let me have him, Maggie,’ the old woman insisted yet again.

  ‘No! I won’t have you put him in that box as long as he’s still breathing. And he is. Look! Look at that. He’s feeding. I can feel the suck of him.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Patrick Flynn looked about him, a wild expression in his eyes. ‘What’s the use of wasting time? Put him in the box and let’s get it over with. I’ve got to get back to work or they’ll dock half a day’s pay and I get double time at this time of year.’

  The priest seemed to be more interested in the leather binding of his Bible than what was going on around him. He had witnessed this scene more times than he cared to remember in other families in his parish and it made him sick to his heart. However, the poverty and the ignorance that abounded in the working class communities of northern England could not be fought with wise words. He decided the only recourse was to pray. These people would at least understand that. He sank to his knees and bowed his head, one hand resting on the foot rail of the bed. He made the sign of the cross and others did likewise.

  Patrick Flynn swore loudly. He reached down and plucked the child from his wife’s breast. She cried out and tried to grab the baby back from him, but he was too quick and she was too weak.

  Then the strangest thing happened. The child’s head went up and his gaze fixed on Patrick’s face. For a long moment it seemed like the newly named William recognized Patrick, and didn’t much like what he saw. He opened his mouth and let out a howl that was far bigger than his five pounds in weight.

  ‘Dear Lord, he’s a fighter, this one,’ exclaimed the priest, jumping to his feet and taking charge of the infant before it was dropped. ‘I think, Mr. Flynn, we can rule out the cardboard box - for the time being. This little man is going to live after all, if I’m not very much mistaken. The good Lord be praised.’

  Patrick turned to his wife, who was staring open-mouthed at the baby that had been pronounced on the verge of death such a short time ago.

  ‘Maybe now you’ll change his name,’ he said roughly. ‘That’s the least you can do.’

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head and sinking back exhausted among her pillows. ‘No, William it is, but I’ll call him Billy.’

  ‘Ah, God luv ‘im,’ crooned Mrs Turnbull. ‘He needs some booties for his feet. It’s devilish cold in this house.’
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br />   ‘Mam’s got a drawer of clothes ready in the dresser,’ ten-year-old Collum Flynn said. He went to the drawer and rummaged about in it. ‘They’re not new. Nobody but me big sister got to wear new clothes. They’ve all been passed down.’

  He turned and passed over a pair of knitted booties all the Flynn children had worn when they first came into the world.

  ‘Here ye are, Aunty Lizzie.’

  Lizzie Turnbull sat down with the child on her lap and pulled on the booties, inspecting them with an amused smile.

  ‘By God, them’s mighty big boots for a little scrap such as he is. I reckon he’ll be five before they fit him.’

  There was a ripple of laughter, which the not so proud father did not join in. Instead, he barged his way out of the room and they heard his feet thudding angrily down the passage and the door banging shut behind him.

  ‘Hello, Little Billy!’

  Everyone, but particularly Elizabeth Caldwell, gasped to see Laura go up to the child and kiss his cheek. The baby gurgled and latched onto one of her fingers.

  ‘She’s always wanted a baby brother,’ she said, flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘Ah, bless her!’ somebody said.

  ‘Don’t hurt him, Laura,’ Elizabeth instructed, her voice and heart full of anxiety, but not really understanding her emotions. ‘He’s only little, you know, and he’s sickly.’

  ‘Poor little Billy Big Boots,’ Laura said, smiling as the tiny, baby fingers curled around hers.

  And that’s how William Flynn got the name by which he was to be known for the rest of his life. And although he was never to be a big man, he soon outgrew the cardboard box his family had been so ready to lay him in the day he was born.

  Chapter Two

  ‘…and there’s this little baby that they said was dead, but I touched him and he’s alive and...and...’ Laura halted her storytelling to gasp for breath. ‘He’s called Billy Big Boots because he’s so small and they said his baby boots wouldn’t fit him until he was five and...’

  Laura always sensed when she had overstepped the mark. Her enthusiastic flow dried to a vague trickle. With an anxious glance at her mother, she bit hard on her lips. And waited for the telling off she was sure would come;

  ‘Laura!’ Elizabeth shot apologetic glances all round and placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. ‘Such tales you do tell! I swear I don’t know where she gets it. With an imagination like that she should be writing fairy tales.’

  Laura’s grandmother squared her narrow shoulders and looked prim, as only she knew how. Her fingers tapped an impatient rhythm on the table, making small indentations in the highly starched cloth. Elizabeth gave a self-conscious laugh, and turned to the large, but sad- looking pork joint gracing the centre of the table. It had been goose for Christmas and, as always, pork for New Year’s Day, though it would have been a sight better had Maggie Flynn been there to do the cooking.

  ‘But it’s true, Mummy,’ Laura cried out, mortified at being made out to be a liar, especially by her own mother. ‘You saw him. He was like the baby Jesus born in the stable. Only it wasn’t the Virgin Mary. It was Mrs Flynn.’ She pushed out a brief sigh of indignation. ‘And it wasn’t Christmas either, but it was...it was...’

  ‘All in her head! Take no notice of my fanciful daughter.’

  Elizabeth laughed again, then frowned heavily at her husband, John Caldwell, who was reaching for the bowl of roast potatoes, but not quite making it from the low position of his wheelchair. He strained clumsily forward, succeeding only in upsetting the gravy boat on the pristine Irish linen tablecloth.

  ‘Oh, John, really!’ Elizabeth complained, unable to suppress her irritation at what she saw as his ineptitude, which she felt could be avoided, but he did it anyway just to make her feel guilty.

  ‘Leave the lad alone, Elizabeth.’ Her father got up and filled his son-in-law’s plate with food that was beginning to cool. ‘There ye are, lad. You eat that up. God bless.’

  Elizabeth and her mother exchanged glances. Each of them was thinking how humiliating it was to be married to someone who did not quite come up to the mark physically or socially. Her father, Albert Robinson, had at least started at the bottom, working on the docks at the age of thirteen. He now owned the biggest ship chandler’s shop in County Durham. Albert was thought of highly, even though he didn’t have a posh twang and, to this day, mingled with common dockers and miners, much to his wife’s indignation.

  John, on the other hand, had been a lowly clerk in Palmer’s, the big northeast shipyard, before the war. He had never shown any inclination to rise to higher things. He was still a clerk when he married Elizabeth, but it wasn’t long before his father-in-law took him on as Assistant Manager of the first chandlers shop, and then transferred him to the second in a growing chain of shops as Manager. His rise to such exalted heights was the cause of much criticism and snide remarks about how useful it was to marry the boss’s daughter. John Caldwell considered himself to be lucky. Elizabeth was, to all outward appearances, quite a catch as a wife. However, she wasn’t the warmest person on God’s earth. She was too much like her mother, steeped in Victorian, straight-laced propriety. John’s bed had already been cooling down long before the debilitating paralysis had struck him down.

  ‘Sit down, Albert,’ Mrs Robinson said, her jaw set firm. ‘You’re making the place look untidy.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Albert gave his wife a cursory glance, smiling vaguely. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to serve you too, eh?’

  ‘Just cut a few more slices off that joint and be done with it.’

  There was silence as they watched with rapt attention while Albert carefully but swiftly cut through the pale joint to its pink centre. The chiming clock on the mantelshelf above the open coal fire was the only thing to have a say in things. Unlike the clock in the Flynn household, this one still kept good time. The heavy brass pendulum swung to and fro and, on the chimes of the midday hour, it was everybody for themselves, but strictly under the critical eye of the matriarch of the family.

  ‘Not too many potatoes, Oliver,’ Harriet was quick to say when her portly, unmarried son took more than two. ‘And don’t give the child too much meat...no, Laura, you may not have onion stuffing...’

  Eight-year-old Laura was the only one around the table who showed any spontaneous animation, and that was constantly squashed flat by the adults, who were of the opinion that children should be seen and not heard, if they were to be part of the proceedings at all.

  ‘Do you think Little Billy Big Boots’s family will be having pork for dinner?’ Laura wanted to know as she stuffed her mouth full of meat and the gravy ran freely down her chin.

  ‘It’s not dinner, Laura,’ her mother corrected her quickly. ‘That’s what the common people call it. We’re eating luncheon.’

  ‘Eeh, lass,’ Albert gave his head a little shake. ‘Where did you get that highfalutin’ manner of yours from? The midday meal has always been dinner in my family as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Albert, eat your dinner...lunch,’ his wife instructed him with a hot spot of humiliation appearing on each cheek at her blunder. ‘Elizabeth is just trying to better herself and teaching her child to be the same.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll grant you that,’ Albert said, sucking at his teeth and feeling in his top pocket for a spent matchstick that would serve as a toothpick. ‘But there’s no sense in going overboard, either. It’s not as if she’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, or anything like that. We’re just ordinary folk, Elizabeth. No need to put on airs and graces.’

  ‘Oh, Father!’ Elizabeth gave him a sickening look, and then turned to her daughter, who was tugging at her sleeve. ‘Stop that, Laura, there’s a good girl?’

  ‘Mummy, how can you be born with a silver spoon in your mouth?’ Laura’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

  ‘It’s not quite what you think, Laura. Just eat your food and stop asking questions.’

  ‘Billy Big Boots did
n’t have no spoon in his mouth. I saw right down his throat when he gave that big yell. There wasn’t no spoon.’

  ‘There wasn’t any spoon, Laura,’ Elizabeth took her napkin and wiped the gravy off the little girl’s chin.

  ‘Is that because they’re poor?’

  ‘Who the devil is this Billy character anyway?’ Oliver demanded, ignoring the grease that had dribbled down his own chin and onto his tie. ‘Sounds like a blithering circus act.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I really don’t want to talk about it right now,’ Elizabeth pleaded, her mind already re-playing the scene that had taken place before her horrified gaze in that dirty, mouse-infested house. It had been quite sickening. Just remembering the smell that had emanated all around her that morning made her decidedly queasy. ‘Laura, please, just eat your lunch and be quiet, there’s a good girl.’

  ‘This pork is undercooked,’ her mother announced loudly, pushing her plate away from her. ‘Where is that woman who works for you, Elizabeth? This is not up to her usual standard. You need to have words with her.’

  Elizabeth bit down hard on her lip. ‘I’m afraid that Mrs Flynn couldn’t be with us today,’ she said quickly. ‘I had to do the cooking myself.’

  ‘Good Lord, well, that explains it.’ Her brother dabbed at his mouth and threw down his napkin. ‘The woman hasn’t left for good, has she? I hope not. Good cooks are hard to find at the best of times.’

  ‘No, I don’t think she’s left,’ Elizabeth assured him. ‘She’s just had a baby – today, actually.’

  ‘Jolly good cook, that woman,’ Oliver Caldwell said, nodding reflectively as he sucked on a piece of pork crackling. ‘This could be better, our Elizabeth, but it’s not a total disaster. I seem to remember when you couldn’t boil water without burning it.’