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‘No, no, love. Belgium. They’re the ones. They invaded there, so ol’ squiffy told ’em where to go.’
‘Belgium invaded Germany?’
‘No. The other way round!’
She didn’t appear to be listening and smiled conspiratorially in her husband’s direction, before collecting up more plates.
Joe stared across the room at the news their father had brought with him, wringing his hands in front of his face. Joe was older than George, but in this moment he looked even older, worry lining his face. His hair threatened to grow too long on his head and his feeble attempts to grow a beard in patches on his chin was a constant source of ridicule. The object of Joe’s gaze was a faded photograph of their dad dressed in his uniform, beaming with pride at the South Africa medal pinned to his breast. He still often wore his medal, stroking the silver disc absent-mindedly. Father turned to Joe, putting the paper down.
‘D’you know what this means, son?’ Joe didn’t respond and their father looked around the room, at the rest of them, testing everyone’s reaction. ‘The papers say they’re going to issue a call. They’re gonna need more men.’
George carried on playing with his oats, knowing that this was between Joe and their dad. Joe looked into the middle distance, the edges of his mouth moving as if about to form words but thinking better of it.
After a tense pause, Joe spoke. ‘I won’t do it,’ he muttered under his breath, so quietly that George almost didn’t hear.
Their father banged a fist on the table, and cutlery jingled as it was disturbed.
‘What do you mean you won’t do it?’ he shouted at Joe. He kept his fist firmly on the table, flexing his fingers, but managing to keep it balled. His other hand gripped the arm of his chair and George could see the blood draining away as his flesh turned a pale pink. ‘Every generation of this family has served. As far back as I know, the Abbotts have fought for our country. What makes you so different?’
‘Dad…?’ By simply calling out to him Catherine brought him out of his tirade. His hands relaxed and the blood flowed back into them. She had a way of calming him that none of the others could manage.
The legs of Joe’s chair screeched on the tiled kitchen floor as he pushed it back and stood up. Without taking a step he turned to face their father. His voice was calm despite the speed with which he had risen.
‘I’m not different. That’s not the point. I won’t, I don’t have to, so I won’t. You know exactly what I think about war, and I mean no disrespect to you or our ancestors, but I won’t fight. Not ever.’
He rushed across the kitchen, opened the door and, without looking back, left. The door clicked shut behind him. The room was silent.
The action was completely out of character; Joe was never angry. He never had any reason to be angry, he was always quiet and kind when he needed to be.
His sisters appeared as shocked as George surely did, trying to cover it by intently focusing on their food, and stuffing their faces with whatever was left.
Their father looked over at their mother and shook his head. ‘I told you that teacher had put funny ideas in his head,’ he grumbled.
‘Eat, love.’ She pushed a plate of breakfast in front of him, stroking his shoulder before going back to the worktop.
He ate in silence, as the rest of the family finished their breakfast. He occasionally looked up at them, his eyes resting on George, before he carried on eating. When he had finished he left the room himself, hobbling in his usual manner towards the front room. George waited a few seconds for him to be gone, before getting his mother’s attention.
‘What was all that about, Ma?’ Elisabeth said, before he could phrase the question himself, her six-year-old inquisitiveness winning out.
Their mother continued her meticulous dish washing. Her voice had to compete with the scrape of crockery and the splash of water as she poured more into the sink from the jug she had got in from outside, but she knew well enough how to project. A skill that he expected came from having four children.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said quickly, but not without care.
‘But why were they arguing?’ he asked, interrupting his younger sister’s reply. He had always felt close to his mother, she cared for them all well, but she had always been honest with him and spoken to him like an equal.
Another stack of plates clattered onto the draining board. ‘They’ll be looking for young men to volunteer, I don’t doubt. Your father wants our Joe to go and give his name, join the regiment. It’s the family tradition after all.’ She paused as a blackbird flew past the window. ‘But your brother has no interest in your father’s traditions. He has other plans for his life, what with all the things that he’s learnt.’
‘I’ve never seen our dad so angry before,’ Catherine said, finally eating George’s unwanted bread and pushing the words out between mouthfuls.
Mother finished her washing up and returned to the table, taking a look at the sisters then at George where her gaze lingered for a moment.
‘You’re too young, George, or your father would be having the same conversation with you too, love,’ she said as she took a dishcloth to his cheek to wipe away whatever leftover food was lodged there. That would explain why his father had kept looking at him.
‘Now get on with you and get yourselves ready. I need to go speak to your father and try to calm him down. Up the stairs now.’ She ushered the family out of the kitchen with a wet dishcloth, and a smile.
*
Upstairs, the house was a cramped affair, with the rooms close together, leading off from a shared landing. Four children was common for a family around Liverpool, and they all had to fit into what space their parents could afford. George and Joe brought what money they could into the house, but they still slept in a shared bedroom.
George walked into the room that had been his and Joe’s for as long as he could remember, to find his clothes for work. There were three other rooms leading from the landing: their parents’, their sisters’, and a small room that they used for cleaning and getting changed. Having one changing room between six people was never easy, but they made do. There was a kind of unspoken agreement about the order of who got to go in first. Their mother was always first. Their father would shout at them and push them away if they tried to get in before her. The rest was a hierarchy of age within the family. Catherine would usually have to go downstairs and boil a tub of water then bring it up for cleaning. They would often share the same water and rub as much soap as they could afford on their bodies. They had a tin bath that they kept next to the outhouse, but that was only for special occasions.
He sat down on the thin mattress of his wire bed to wait, and the frame creaked as it took his weight. Across from him was Joe’s side of the room. Both sides were marked out as separate, and neither of them ventured to the other’s. He couldn’t help but think just how different Joe’s personal space was compared to his own. Though only a couple of feet apart, an outside observer could easily see the two different personalities in the room.
Above his bed, Joe had a couple of cluttered shelves, so full that often things fell off whenever someone opened or shut the door to their room. He had put them up himself, forever keen on being self-reliant, even when George had offered to help. The bottom shelf contained a number of books, a few were great dusty tomes. Every time George looked he suspected there were more books. Joe would smuggle them in from somewhere, George didn’t know where.
Sometimes, in the evenings he often caught Joe pulling them off the shelf one at a time and running a finger along the words while softly mumbling to himself. He thought that George didn’t notice, but he did. He often wondered what Joe was thinking, while he read the words under his breath. He seemed so separate, so distant, as if he were born to another family and had been given to the wrong parents at the hospital. There were times when George was about to ask him what he was reading, but then Joe would start another book or go to sleep.
To say he wasn’t interested in things would be untrue. However, when it came to Joe’s interests George just didn’t understand. There was a difference between them that was more than age. Unlike a lot of his peers George could read, but he found more fun in other things.
He looked back over his own bed and at his own possessions. In pride of place was his favourite landscape, and various other pictures. They were all prints that he had managed to find for very little expense or trade for with what little he had. Some were cutouts from newspapers or magazines, of particularly interesting scenes. Some were postcards. Some were larger copies of paintings of places that he had no hope of visiting. Underneath them, if you looked carefully, were some of his own sketches. They were poor in comparison, but he practised whenever he could snatch a moment. With work at the dock, time was scarce.
The changing room door opened and Catherine walked back out. She smiled at George. ‘Your turn,’ she said, shutting the door behind her. George didn’t follow into the now empty room, there was no point in him washing when he was due to go to work, he would only end up dirty again in a matter of minutes. The dirt didn’t bother him, he was used to it, but the sweat always wound him up, as it ran down his temples and pooled on his chin. Instead, he got ready for work, throwing on a pair of overalls and making sure that his boots were securely tied to his feet. A loose lace could cause a serious injury in a hurry.
*
Less than half an hour later, he was out of the front door and facing down the road. Egerton Street was a quiet street hidden just off the main road. Terraced, brick houses lined the road without break, built for the workers in the city. The Abbotts weren’t completely poor, but they weren’t wealthy either. The army gave their father a meagre pension and he had found work at the docks bookkeeping, thanks to a friend. The others brought in what they could.
Most of the houses that George could see were occupied by the families of other dockworkers. The red brick buildings trailed off down the hill, meeting at a point in the direction of the Mersey which was still covered in a grey sea-mist at this time of day.
As George stepped out of the yard, closing the wooden gate behind him and making sure the steel latch stuck, a group of young children pushed past him, their leather soles clattering on the pavement as they chattered in excitement, on their way to the local school. They played soldiers running around with their arms outstretched in mockery of a rifle. One mimed shooting at him and George pretended to be hit, falling to his knees and clutching his chest. The child laughed and ran off, and George shouted a friendly warning after them as they disappeared down the road.
Mrs Adams from next door waved as she saw George on his knees in the street.
‘Mornin’, George,’ she said, smiling. ‘Get up now, you’ll get dirt all over you.’ She carried on tending to the small trough of plants she kept in her front garden, with a pair of secateurs.
‘Good morning, Mrs Adams.’ He pretended to wipe himself down. ‘D’you know where Tom is?’
‘Oh, he’s on his way to work, not long gone. You only just missed him. But knowing him, he’s probably off scrumping for apples.’ She smiled knowingly. Mrs Adams always smiled, no matter what happened. It made George feel happy to see it, knowing what she had been through. He smiled back despite the feeling of embarrassment that washed over him. The Adams’ smile was infectious.
She referred to the time that George had first met her son. Before then, they had never had so much as a conversation. After school one day, George had been walking home, and came across Tom, Harry and Patrick loitering at the end of a road. They were trying to climb over the brick wall of the corner house, to get to its orchard, but couldn’t make it over.
Being taller, George was asked to help, but there was a shout from over the other side of the road. The local copper had spotted them and was crossing towards them. They ran, the policeman giving chase. They turned a corner and hid in a hedgerow.
George’s lasting memory of that time was of laughing uncontrollably. The boys had been friends ever since.
George chuckled to himself as he carried on walking. A lady walking up the road glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and took a step around him. ‘Morning,’ he said, still smiling.
He hoped to catch up with Tom, but he had no idea how far ahead he was. He could feel the excitement of all those around him, from the running children, to the busy adults.
He crossed the tramway that ran along Catharine Street, careful not to trip on the rail that was indented into the stones of the road. He always preferred to walk to work, but Tom would most likely be waiting at the stop, hoping to jump on if George was too late.
George turned the corner and there he was, leaning against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette in his usual, cocky manner. Tom didn’t look up as George approached him. ‘Morning, George,’ he said, without looking. ‘You’re later than usual. I was just about to leave without you.’ He dropped his finished cigarette on the floor and stamped on it. ‘Lovely day for it.’ He smiled wryly, and shifted his coat, knowing that the heat would only make him sweat more. ‘Let’s be getting on.’
George carried on walking past the tram stop. Tom sighed, before rushing to catch up with him. ‘Walking it is then.’ Tom smiled wryly whenever he spoke, it was what was so endearing about him. ‘I always enjoy a good walk. Hey, perhaps there will even be some work left for us when we get there too?’ They walked on together down the hill towards the Mersey and the docks.
‘Walking is better, you know the tram takes just as long by the time it’s stopped at every station,’ George said. ‘If we’re lucky we might get there first.’
Both boys had found work down at the docks, like most young men from these parts. George had left school three years before, at the age of thirteen, and he was glad to see the back of it. The old bastard of a teacher still haunted his dreams, his idea of drill was the worst, and you would get a cane if you couldn’t stand up straight afterwards.
It was hard work, unloading ships and carrying box crates of tea, or tobacco, and bales of cotton to another part of the dock. There were hydraulic cranes, but the boys were needed to move the goods into storage, or transport, and as George was large for his age, he easily found work.
‘So, you’ve no doubt heard the news then?’ Tom said as they crossed the dock road, dodging a horse and cart that clattered along without a warning. The coachman shouted back over his shoulder, telling them to watch out. You could easily get killed by a horse and cart if you weren’t on your watch.
‘Who hasn’t?’ George replied. ‘Our dad brought the paper in this morning. It’s why I was late.’
There had been talk of war for a while now, ever since that Austrian got shot. People had been talking excitedly about Britain going to war and he had felt excited with them, eager to join in. The talk was of going to show Fritz that they couldn’t do what they liked. It was hard not to join in with the sentiment, but then there was also talk of not having enough troops to deal with Germany’s warmongering. Talking about the war was fine, but George didn’t really want to talk about why he was late, nor about his brother.
‘My dad reckons they’ll be after more troops before long,’ he continued. Tom hadn’t asked.
Tom paused for a moment, then grinned again in his usual, contagious manner. ‘We should go and sign up,’ he said. ‘We’d be like our dads. Make them proud.’
Tom was always joking around.
‘Aye, it will be like South Africa.’
‘Perhaps, not as hot though. Sounds like they had a great time. It’s what our dads would want. Well, I know my dad would have encouraged me to sign up if he was still here. I bet your brother has already gone to enlist.’
George hesitated. He hadn’t really wanted to talk about it.
‘No,’ he said. ‘He stormed off at the very mention of it. He has his own ideas.’
Tom shut up and stared ahead, not saying anything for the rest of their journey.
The walk took them past the Custom House, that magnificent building glittering in the morning sun, and into the dockyard, through the wrought-iron fences. The smells of salt water and the cargo were strong. Everyone here was too busy working hard to think about any prospect of war. George waved to a few dock hands and they nodded as they carried on their jobs. For now it was time to work, the war could wait.
Chapter 2 (#ue1b537b7-a3e0-5ee3-8813-32a1ce604295)
Joe let the door click shut behind him. He wanted so much to slam it, but in the end he backed down. What point would he make if he crashed about the place like some bull? He liked peace and the quiet protest of knowing wholeheartedly that he was right, no matter what anyone else said. It kept him going.
He had known what this morning’s breakfast conversation was going to hold, he had expected it. They had been edging ever closer to war, and every day he felt nearer to the time his father would ask him what he was going to do. This morning had been the breaking point.
He took a deep breath before opening the front door and walking out of the house. It was earlier than usual to leave for work, but he could always find something to do at the newspaper. It may be early for him, but the bakers on the end of the road were just finishing their morning cycle. The smell of warm bread was somehow comforting.
A horse and flatbed cart went past carrying large steel milk churns. Its wheels rattled on the cobbled road. Workmen were on their way to the factories, wearing heavy, protective clothing.
He forced a smile to them as he passed. Some of them were people he knew well, people he had grown up with, friends and relatives. They lived in such close confines that it was impossible not to know each other.
Already, people were running about and calling to each other, with a cheer that didn’t reach Joe. He was trying to push his father’s words out of his head, but he couldn’t forget how badly the conversation had gone. He had always known that he would refuse to join the army, but that wasn’t how he had wanted it to happen.
He turned the corner away from their little street and on to the main road. Upper Parliament Street glowed in the summer morning sunshine. The further he went the easier it might be to forget. Children in scruffy brown clothes with dirty white collars ran down the road, some waving Union flags and others pretending to attack their friends. The boys ran into a couple of regulars dressed in khaki coming out of a house. One of them smiled at a child and the other grabbed one and put him on his shoulders before joining in the chase of the other boys, laughing.
It was a fine morning and the walk would do him good. The air was light and clear, feeling good in his lungs as he walked. A motorcar went past, its engine chugging out fumes, easily overtaking the lumbering horse carts. The roads rose up as they moved away from the city, giving a view of the River Mersey, houses built onto the hills to the south of the city. The Mersey reflected sunlight as the tide came in, a faint mist beginning to grow.
In the distance he could just about make out the recently opened Liver Building, its two domes each housing a stylised Liver Bird. He remembered the opening that the newspaper staff had been invited to. At the time one of the workers had told him a story about the two birds on top of the building. ‘The female bird, ya see, is looking out to sea for the returning ships, right? And the male bird is looking into the city to see, to see if the pubs are still open.’ The man’s laugh had been deep and booming, and the memory made Joe smile.
He ended up on Wood Street, one of the small roads that intersected the city centre, housing the many offices and shops. The Liverpool Daily Post building was one of the largest on the street, rising above the horizon in an edifice of brick and glass. The other buildings along the road had grown up to it, but none matched. At this time of the morning the low sun was hidden behind the building, which cast a shadow on the road. The Daily Post sign looked down on all those in the street, ready to proclaim its news.
Joe walked in and nodded to the clerk at the front desk. Stephen nodded back and carried on with whatever he was reading. It was a ritual, but today Stephen paused, putting his magazine down, and looked on the verge of saying something. Joe climbed up the wrought iron stairs that turned back on themselves, avoiding the conversation, and into the main offices on the first floor.
He hooked his hat on the hat stand that always stood by the door. The large post room had rows of metal desks across the middle, machine-built in a large quantity by the same smith that had built the press. It always made him proud to see the amount of work they put into the newspaper, and proud to be involved.
The journalists and copywriters hadn’t all arrived yet. Those that were already in the building were looking through the other morning papers, the Manchester Guardian, and The Times all the way up from London on the morning train. They were too busy pretending to work and talking amongst themselves. They didn’t look up as he sat down at his desk.
Two other workers came into the room at that moment and called to the ones that had already arrived whilst putting their hats and coats on the stand at the doorway.
‘Good morning!’ they both shouted, almost in harmony.
‘I guess you’ve heard the news then, Frank?’ Charlie called back.
‘Stop shouting, Ed will hear you, and you know what he’s like about noise,’ Frank said as he walked past the desk, giving Joe a quick wink.
He could still hear the conversation once they had passed; despite telling each other to be quiet they were talking in loud voices as they sat together, any pretence of work forgotten. The customary snap of a match signalled that they were smoking, before the smoke filled the room.
‘…Not before time,’ one said in the kind of voice that suggested he thought he knew everything there was to know about everything. ‘Them Austro-Hungarians were just spoiling for a fight. Can’t have ’em taking over Europe.’
Even though Joe couldn’t see the speaker from where he was, he knew Charlie would be looking smug with himself, whilst trying to pretend he wasn’t. He could hear it in his overconfident voice.
‘Ahh whaddya know, Charlie Mason? You’d make an awful soldier. Look at you.’
‘What rot, I’d be great. Just you wait and see.’
There was an almighty laugh as the other men had fun at Charlie’s expense.
The boisterous camaraderie of the office and the type room was not for Joe. Idly, he pulled a sheaf of papers towards him and took out a fountain pen from its slot in the desk. He couldn’t concentrate and instead sat, holding the pen, and looking out over the office, staring blankly at the opposite wall.
‘Abbott.’
The hard, croaky voice of Edward Harlow made Joe look up at the slightly fat man, whose bald head shined in the electric lights of the office. The editor let a puff of smoke drift around Joe as he stood above him. He was always smoking; it was as if he had decided that it was something that an editor should do. As a result, it made his voice somewhat distinctive, along with the heavy breathing that accompanied his walking. It sounded like he was trying to talk through the reed of a woodwind instrument. It was a sound that the other men in the office had found especially useful when trying to avoid working. They always knew when he was coming, even if they didn’t smell his cigar first.
‘Good morning, Mr Harlow. How do you do?’ Joe made the pleasantry without wanting an answer. It was just what one did.
‘I take it you’ve heard the news then? You can hardly avoid it round here, what with all the noise and excitement.’ With that he looked over at the other men and then at the still empty desks of the office. They were once again pretending to read the newspapers. Research, they would call it, if pressed.
Joe nodded, not knowing what to say. The news had been coming, but he wasn’t a war reporter, so it wasn’t his responsibility.
‘I’m sorry, Abbott,’ Mr Harlow coughed. ‘The news came through last night, almost immediately after you left. I had to give the article an edit myself when it came through. Priority you see, when it comes to declarations of war. We had to get it ready for this morning, see. The typesetters were about ready to go. “You know how much it costs to stop once we’ve started,” they said, but I had to. If it didn’t go out this morning, the owner would have my neck.’ The apology was unnecessary, given Joe’s position, but characteristic of the man. He wanted to be every one’s best friend.
‘But forget that. It’s happened now, and no doubt we’ll pay the price for it sooner or later.’ Mr Harlow wagged a finger at Joe as if telling him off then paused, thinking about his own words and taking a puff of his cigar.
