Lights Out Liverpool Read Online Free Page B

feet and raced into her sister’s house and up the stairs. Sheila was lying on the double bed in the front bedroom doubled up in agony. The red eiderdown beneath her was stained and wet. Eileen paused in the doorway, horrified, thinking the stain was blood.
    Sheila laughed hysterically. ‘Me water’s broke, Sis. The baby’s on its way, no mistaking it.’
    ‘Jesus, Sis, we’ll never get the midwife here in time!’ Sheila always had her babies quick.
    Half a dozen women had followed and were standing on the landing or the stairs demanding to know what was going on.
    ‘Someone send for Mollie Keaney, quick. The baby’s coming.’ Eileen was even more hysterical than her sister. ‘Put the kettle on for hot water. Christ Almighty, is there anyone here knows how to deliver a baby?’
    ‘Get out’a the way, girl. You’re bloody useless, you young uns. Nobody had a midwife in our day.’
    Eileen was roughly shoved aside by two of the older women. She went downstairs, legs shaking, and found her dad waiting outside on the pavement, smoking a cigarette.
    ‘It’s the baby,’ she explained and he nodded, no longer concerned.
    ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said complacently. ‘Our Sheila has babbies easier than peas pop out of a pod.’
    They stood there, listening to the sounds coming out of the open window above their heads. Between the agonising screams of labour, Sheila laughed, then cried, then laughed again. The women’s voices could be heard, gruffly telling her when to push and when to hold back.
    The men, uninterested – after all, it was only another woman having another baby – had started to fold the tables up. Joey Flaherty was tipping the barrel to drain the last few drops of ale, and most of the women had gone inside to make a cup of tea, though a few still waited, eager to know what Sheila Reilly would have this time.
    Jack Doyle said to his daughter, ‘It’s about time you had another babby or two, Eileen.’
    Eileen didn’t answer. Her dad went on, ‘A fine man like Francis deserves a big family. And after all, you’re getting on.’
    ‘I’m only twenty-six,’ Eileen said stiffly.
    He’d used the same words, ‘You’re getting on,’ when she was twenty and he’d urged her to marry Francis Costello. And she’d done it, married him to please her dad, though she could never understand the awe in which this totally decent man held her husband. Francis had charmed him, the way he charmed everybody.
    The sound of a new baby’s piercing, almost inhuman wail came from the upstairs window and Jack Doyle and his eldest daughter smiled at each other, sharing a rare moment of intimacy.
    Agnes Donovan shouted, ‘It’s a bonny girl. Reckon she’s a good seven and a half pounds,’ and a cheer went up from those who waited.
    Most of the men, including Francis, had disappeared, having gone to the Holy Rosary to return the tables. One by one, the front doors began to close as people went into their houses for the night.
    Eileen’s father said, ‘Well, I’m off to wet the babby’s head in the King’s Arms. I’ll see our Sheila later.’
    He left, and suddenly, almost incredibly, Pearl Street was empty for the moment, except for Eileen Costello standing alone outside her sister’s house.
    She shivered, struck by the desolation compared to the scene that morning; the blank front doors, the empty pavements. There was something almost sinister about the way in which a single paper streamer rolled silently across the cobbles, and for a dreadful moment Eileen felt as if the entire day had been a dream and she was the only person left in the world. Then a burst of raucous laughter came from the King’s Arms and inside Sheila’s a woman yelled, ‘D’you wanna cuppa tea, Eileen?’ Tony appeared with his cousin, Dominic, each carrying a bag of chips. Eileen smiled, relieved.
    ‘We met Mr Singerman,’ Tony said. ‘And he gave us a penny each. He said Dominic’s got a new sister.’
    ‘That’s