Everything Will Be All Right

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Everything Will Be All Right - book excerpt

Firestorm—May 1941

BELFAST NORTHERN IRELAND

The sirens woke them at one o’clock in the morning. Seventeen-year-old Robert Henderson threw the bedclothes off, trapping the sleeping cat. His father barked from the doorway, “Close them curtains.” The cat scrambled out from under and dashed between his feet.

The searchlights rotated through the window and transformed the little room where Robert had slept his entire life into an unfamiliar stage set. Briefly, the light picked out the large wall map of the North Atlantic bristling with the colored pins Robert attached following news reports of sea battles—white for Canadian, red for British, blue for American, yellow for rest of world, and black for German.

Frantically pulling the window closed and the blackout curtains to, Robert whipped around and knocked two ship models off the shelf and onto the crystal wireless set he’d just finished building. Listening to them clatter, he muttered, “Ach,” picked up his waiting pile of clothes and school bag, jammed his feet into trainers and rushed into the hall.

“Florrie!” called his father as he clumped downstairs in his untied leather-soled oxfords, the torchlight bobbing. Entangled with the panicked cat at the bottom, he shouted, “Bloody cat!”

Juggling a handbag and too many clothes, his mother shepherded Robert ahead of her to the top of the stairs.

After the bombing raid in April, the three Hendersons built tidy piles of clothes each night before bed, with shoes to be stepped into without bending and tying. Florrie’s younger sister, Meg Preston, had advised her family to form this habit, based on her Women’s Volunteer Service experience of having to leave the house at a moment’s notice.

Carrying his folded school uniform and book bag, Robert took the stairs two at a time down to his waiting father. He had taken Aunt Meg’s advice a step further and after a nightly bath, donned clean pants, vest and socks beneath a dark blue school tracksuit worn to bed each night. If the worst happened, he did not want to be found undressed in the street.

Picking her way carefully down the stairs, his mother shouted over the loud drone of airplanes, “We said we’d go down shelter last time, didn’t we? Ralph!”

Standing at the bottom of the stairs and signaling them on, his father yelled, “Too late. They’re here. Quick! Quick!” He gestured with urgency and the family ducked under the stairs and onto the mattress placed there for comfort during the raids.

His mother tossed her handbag and clothes to the back of the little space, wartime storage for their photos in albums and frames, and important documents. She squeezed in next to her seated son and her husband followed.

Robert watched the cat race from the kitchen to the parlor and back, skittering on the hardwood floor.

As fast as the drone of the planes intensified, sounding like a swarm of giant bees hovering over them, the booms and crashes of dropping bombs overwhelmed all sound. The ceilings and walls of the small house on Great Northern Street vibrated, hurting Robert’s ears. Felt through the floor and mattress, the house shook at its foundation. The hall light flickered and died.

He felt his mother’s arm go around his back and, glancing left, watched her other arm curl around her husband’s shoulders. Robert pulled away from her embrace.

At the first close blast, Robert curled forward to touch his forehead to his raised knees. Squeezing his eyes shut, he cupped his palms tightly over his ears and repeated the Lord’s Prayer—waiting and praying for the end.

His mother pulled his huddled form to her and wrapped her arms around his head.

The house stopped shaking. Robert pushed out of Florrie’s arms and sat up, listening. The crashes, booms and intense drone moved off, faded, and, finally, stopped. The rain of plaster dust lessened, becoming a thick mist swirling in the air.

Nobody spoke until the continuous all clear siren finished, a wait of two minutes, a lifetime’s wait.

Ralph crawled out first. “Stay here. I want to check the upstairs.”

“Ralph!”

“I’m all right, Florrie.” As he walked back down the hall, the light of his torch twirled, picking out items on the coat rack, and the framed and embroidered “Peace be to this house, Luke 10:5” on the wall above the umbrella stand.

Robert listened to his father’s hesitant tread moving up the stairs.

The hall light came on again just as the telephone rang. Robert and his mother looked at one another. “I’ll go,” said Robert.

She swung her arm out like a railway crossing barrier in front of his chest. “No.”

Crawling out awkwardly, her broad backside blocked his view as she struggled to get to her feet. She walked to the kitchen, one hand holding the wall. He watched her hesitate before peeking inside, then entering.

Robert clambered out and was on his feet in the one smooth motion of youth. He walked into the kitchen and glanced at the old pendulum clock ticking on the fireplace mantel. It was not even half one in the morning.

Holding the heavy Bakelite receiver, Florrie said, “Aye, we’re fine, I think, thank God. Ralph’s checking the house now. Bout ye? Oh, aye? They were above us? How do you know? What? Have you heard from Meg or David? Hello? Lizzie, are you there? Hello? Hello? Lizzie? Operator?” After listening for a moment, then pushing at the handset cradle buttons impatiently, she said, “The line’s gone dead—Lizzie and Tom are worried about their boys.” Looking down quickly, she tightened the belt of her pink chenille bathrobe.

Ralph came into the room. “Upstairs looks all right, but we’ll have to check the outside in the daylight. The searchlights are still going. I thought I heard the ack-acks.” He sat down at the table.

“At least we had searchlights and ack-acks this time,” said Florrie. She turned, filled the kettle at the old Belfast sink and placed it on the hob. “Lizzie thinks the RAF were here this time. She and Tom worried their sons were flying overhead in their Hurricanes, fighting the Germans.”

“I thought Aunt Lizzie didn’t know where they were stationed even,” said Robert.

Florrie shrugged. “I don’t know, but it must be very worrying for your aunt and uncle having their sons up in airplanes.” Pointing at him, she said, “Don’t you think of joining the RAF!”

The cat jumped onto Robert’s lap, startling him. She settled and began purring. “Beatrice! Poor wee thing.” Her claws began to knead gently into his tracksuit.

“Oh, aye? She nearly broke my neck for me.” Ralph leaned over and petted her tortoiseshell head, gently stroking down the fur that stood up. “There, there, wee puss.”

Florrie began to wipe the table clean. “Ach. There’s this muck over everything again to clean.” She threw the cloth down and sat down, her hand balled in a fist and held to her mouth. Tears ran down her face, making rivulets in the patina of dust on her cheeks.

“Me eyes burn, this grit’s everywhere and it smells awful, like, like rotten eggs. I can’t stand any more of this, I really can’t.” She gave over to crying into her open hands.

“I’ll help c-clean, Mum, don’t c-cry.”

She pulled her hands away to say, “What if next time they drop a bomb on us? We’re not safe here!”

His mother sobbed. Standing, Ralph bent down, put his arms around her and kissed her dust-covered hair, plaited down her back for bed. “Aye, that’s right, lass, you have a good cry. But the Germans are interested in the dockyards and the ships, not us. Don’t worry, love. And we’ll work together like last time. We’ll start upstairs. I’ll mop the ceilings and walls, you dust the furniture and Robert will Hoover behind us, then we’ll come downstairs and do the same. We’ll wash all the bedding as a right little team. It’ll take no time. Now, I’ll make sandwiches and the tea. You rest yourself, love.” Opening the cupboard, he took out a bottle of whiskey and poured three small glasses. Without comment, he placed one in front of his wife and one at his son’s place. “First, get that into you and don’t argue.”

“He’s too young to drink this.”

“He’s not. Sip it now, Robert—don’t gulp it. It’s what needed. I’m shaking like a leaf—I don’t know about you two.” Contrary to his own advice, Ralph downed his whiskey, poured another, and took the loaf out of the breadbox.

Wiping her eyes with a handkerchief, Florrie said, “How many more times before we’re all killed? We had them fellas with their wee bombs in the ‘20s, but they never bothered us here. But now we’ve got the Luftwaffe over our heads…what’s to become of us, Ralph? Should we leave the city?”

A chill rippled along Robert’s spine. He took a sip and felt warmth and calm spread into his chest as he watched his father slice bread. From the shiny top of his bald head to the tips of his highly polished brown oxfords, Ralph Henderson was a beacon of calm and safety when something threatened his family.

“Ach, we’ll be fine. The RAF will sort them, you’ll see. Don’t fret, lass.”

The cat’s purr grew louder as the house settled into quiet.

“It’s amazing the electrics are back on,” Robert said, “but I’ll sort lamps and candles, in case.”

Looking at him, Ralph said, “Go on, then. Good lad.”

***

Belfast still smelled of the burning fires when the wind blew from the east and north, but the yellow miasma smelling and tasting of rotten eggs had dissipated. Robert ran home from the tram call on the Lisburn Road, a few blocks from the house. He wished it could have been a longer run, one without flapping bags to carry—a loose, free, long-distance run. He loved that sort of run along the Lagan River or along the Cave Hill ridge down into the city, the runs he took with the cross-country team at school. Shutting the front door, he stood in the hall catching his breath and listening to the sound of women speaking quietly. Mum. Aunt Lizzie. Aunt Meg. He hung his book and gym bags over the bannister and walked into the kitchen.

His mother and two aunts sat around the table, the tea things crowding the middle. Meg, the palest and thinnest sister even in normal times, looked drawn and tired, the purple circles under her eyes prominent. His mother was flushed, her dark hair tied up and covered in the wrap she wore when cleaning. Even though he saw Lizzie nearly every day, she looked older and thinner, a shrunken version of his buxom mother.

“Hiya.”

Meg looked up at him and smiled. “Hiya, Curly. Grand to see you. I think you’ve grown since we last met—have you?”

“Here, have some tea, love,” said his mother, pouring a cup, “and some sandwiches. Lizzie brought cake.”

He sat down, used to the fuss made over him.

“Don’t get your hopes up, mind. Not much of a cake with no butter and a thimble of sugar. I was saying I think wee Tom and Will flew Hurricanes over us the other night, protecting us from a worse bombing,” said Lizzie, smiling and nodding.

“Hmmm?” he answered, pulling the knot in his striped tie loose.

Florrie said, “He has grown, just recently. Boys don’t stop for years, do they? But Ralph is tall, and I am, so…would you just look at the jacket sleeves crawling up his arms?”

Flushing under the women’s scrutiny, he pulled his arms off the table.

His mother looked at him a moment longer before continuing, “You were very late getting home. Is term over?”

Robert cursed himself for blushing. Ignoring her first comment, he answered, “I sat my last maths exam, my last exam period. At morning chapel they told us the summer term would continue, but by the end of the day, they called us back and cancelled the rest of term for the upper sixth. They’ll post a letter to you and Da.” He blew on his tea before sipping. “I’m lucky I could sit my last exam. I cleared out my cupboard, so I’m graduated.”

His mother reached out to touch him, but he shied away a half-inch, enough that she noticed. She continued to look at him, her eyes narrowed.

“S-sorry I was late, Mum.” His color deepened thinking about why he was late. After school was dismissed, he’d gone to the Royal Navy recruiting office in Belfast City Hall. After briefly waiting on a line consisting of two other bombing-inspired enlistees, he’d spoken to a recruiter who’d assured him he would be eligible to enlist with proof that he was seventeen years old with a passing school certificate.

The recruiter had lit a cigarette and said, “With no conscription in Northern Ireland and most men in this bloody country standing around with their hands in their pockets, even after these raids, we need every man we can find to protect King and country.”

Robert had left the office realizing that when his school certificate arrived, he really could enlist, an action he’d spent many hours thinking about. As though in a trance, he’d walked out through the portico of the massive Victorian building to brilliant green grounds.

To reach his tram call across the square, he had to pass through a gauntlet of boys his age, lounging on the lawn and hurling vulgar epithets at the passersby. Turning their attention to Robert, several made kissing noises, while another offered to share a part of his anatomy, and the rest laughed. He’d hurried away, face burning.

Meg’s hearty “Congratulations!” brought him back to the present.

“Our wee Tom and Will took the A levels in maths and physics, and passed the RAF exams,” said Lizzie, chin up.

“And what is it you think he’s done? He’s only just taken A levels in maths and physics, and he’s taken his general exams in history and Latin, too,” said his mother too loudly, her flush deepening. “He’s too young to join up and I hope he never does!”

Feeling a drop of his mother’s rage, Robert watched Lizzie and thought, Whenever I was forced to spend time in my aunt and uncle’s house,weefeckin’Tom and Will pinched and punched me, sat on me till I couldn’t breathe, and like those ones today, called me a faggot. Only, they made fun of my stutter while they were at it. “R-r-robert’s a f-f-faggot!” I’d stagger out of their lair after those sessions like a tormented animal, but I never complained. RAF heroes are they now? I just may show them, alright.