by Maureen Lee
She wished now that she’d been honest with Dale Tooley when she’d spoken to him earlier. How could she have lied to him, told him that Kitty was on the other side of the world when she was merely across the road with his baby daughter? It was up to Kitty, Dale Tooley and George Ransome to sort out their lives, not her. She might have done something truly terrible by keeping back the truth. Although she could tell Kitty tomorrow that her American had come looking for her, Phyllis could think of all sorts of reasons why it might only make things worse.
And was she being just as silly and selfish, thinking she was some sort of god, by not telling her mother that her husband was alive and well? It was up to Mum to decide if she wanted Dad back, not her, not their daughter.
Phyllis struggled to her feet and realised she had no idea where she was. Now she was lost on top of everything else. She began to cry again, and was still crying when two elderly ladies who’d been to a whist drive found her and took her home to Pearl Street.
She felt considerably better after turning on the wireless and lighting the fire. She boiled water so that she could make tea for her mum the instant she entered the house.
‘Are you all right, love?’ her mother asked later when she was sitting comfortably in her chair drinking the tea. ‘You look as if you’ve been crying.’
‘I’m fine, Mum,’ Phyllis assured her. ‘Just a bit tired, that’s all.’ By then, she was fine, almost, but she also felt a little older, a little wiser, and a little sadder than she’d been before her mother had gone to work earlier in the day.
Chapter 12
On St Patrick’s Day, Sean Doyle came home to Pearl Street. Strictly speaking, he had never lived in the street, but round the corner in Garnet Street with his father. He’d been away when Alice had acquired number 5.
Alice had always imagined him exclaiming with delight when he was shown around the wonderful house with the electric stove, seeing it for the first time. But although Sean could walk, he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t understand what people said to him, though a little part of his brain was still alive. His body told him when it was time to go to the lavatory. It told him how to use a knife and fork when he was given food or to how to hold a cup when a drink was offered.
If Edward, the son he had never seen, was placed carefully on his lap, then Sean would hold him just as carefully, but not look at him in the way a father should. His eyes were dead, without expression. They never lit up for anything. He never smiled.
Alice insisted he remain in the living room, not go to the parlour where it was quiet, which he might prefer.
‘No, I want him in here, with us,’ she said. ‘I want him getting used to us, his family.’ Alice and her brothers and sisters ate around him, laughed around him, sang to him, kissed and hugged him.
On the quiet, when only the two of them were there – oh, not counting Edward – Alice even danced for him. It was something she had done before in their old place; a crooked sort of skipping motion from one foot to the other that used to make him laugh because her left leg was shorter than the right. But even this strange exhibition did nothing to stir Sean out of his coma, or whatever it was called. Nobody, not even the doctors, knew precisely what was wrong with him.
The chair beneath the window was designated Sean’s chair, just as a different chair beneath a different window had belonged to Alice’s dad what seemed like a million years ago. After only a few days at home, Sean began to automatically sit in his chair whenever he entered the room.
Jack Doyle came every day to hold his son’s hand. His sisters visited regularly, told him jokes and reminded him of the funny things he’d done when he was a little boy.
But nothing could make Sean smile or stir him out of his trance.
Eileen had forgotten all about the Easter garden party that had been held at the cottage at Easter for the last few years. She was reminded of it late in January by Cicily Dean, who usually arranged for posters to be made and also collected the entrance money at the gate. Cicily belonged to the Women’s Voluntary Services, who used the money raised for all sorts of good purposes.
‘It had slipped my mind,’ Eileen confessed to Cicily when she called at the cottage. ‘I’m afraid I’ve had lots of things to think about.’
‘We thought something like that might have happened.’ Cicily nodded understandingly. She was a sweet-natured woman who, at only sixty-one, had recently become a great-grandmother. ‘With a war on, there’s so many things to worry about. How is your husband, by the way?’
Eileen’s husband was the thing she was most worried about. Not only had she not seen or heard from him since New Year’s Day, her letters since had gone unanswered and the last one had been returned, unopened, and with ‘Gone Away’ written on the envelope.
‘Oh, Nick’s fine,’ she told Cicily Dean.
The garden party went ahead on Easter Saturday, though Eileen didn’t play much part in it. The hoop-la had been unearthed from someone’s shed, and the shove ha’penny table from somewhere else. Pasting tables were set up and were laden with White Elephant items, or badly knitted garments that people might well buy to undo and knit up again. Cakes and prizes appeared from nowhere – the first prize in the raffle was a tiny wicker basket containing four bars of soap shaped like fruit.
The kitchen in the cottage was used to make drinks; Eileen’s sisters and friends came from Bootle to lend a hand and her dad arrived to protect the back garden from strangers who might trample on his precious vegetable plants.
Kate wasn’t there; she was spending the day in Liverpool with her daughters, the first time all four of them had been together in at least ten years.
Peter Mallory came up from London. He hadn’t seen Eileen since Christmas. The last time he’d come was the day she’d gone to Blackpool to see her brother and they’d missed each other – or at least he had missed her; he doubted she had given him a second thought.
He was surprised she seemed so pleased to see him at Easter until she said, ‘Peter! I need to talk to you about Nick.’ She hadn’t wanted to see him for himself, but to ask about her husband.
Had the bastard told her he’d moved house? he wondered. Nick and Doria had been living in Fulham for months now. Well, he wasn’t going to lie to her. As soon as he had the opportunity, he’d tell her the truth.
It seemed she wanted the opportunity to be now, straight away. And who could blame her?
She took him to the bottom of the garden, where, amidst the vegetables, there was an old wooden bench. Her father was standing not far away, but fortunately out of earshot, looking as if he was on guard for some reason. The big cat, Napoleon, was perched on his favourite tree, glaring at the visitors.
‘The last time I saw Nick was on New Year’s Day,’ she told him in a thin, shaky voice when they were seated. ‘Since then I’ve had a letter returned marked “Gone Away”. Have you any idea where he is?’
Peter took a deep breath. His feelings were mixed. He didn’t like giving her bad news, but at the same time he knew he had acquired a faintly holier-than-thou attitude when telling her about Nick’s appalling behaviour.
‘Nick and Doria have moved to Fulham,’ he said. He was about to add, ‘and are living as man and wife’, but couldn’t bring himself to hurt her so cruelly. ‘They need a bigger place for the baby.’
She seemed to wilt beside him. ‘He didn’t bother to tell me,’ she whispered.
‘I think he’s bitten off more than he can chew,’ Peter said. The last time he’d seen Nick, he’d looked vaguely frantic. ‘He’d expected to just go on having a damned good time, not move to a dingy flat miles away from the West End.’
Eileen didn’t speak. Peter reckoned she couldn’t think of anything to say. After a while she muttered, ‘What on earth am I going to do?’
He realised she wasn’t expecting him to come up with a solution, but was asking the question of herself. ‘Why don’t you go to London?’ he suggested.
She looked surprised at this.
‘And what would I do there?’
‘Talk to Nick?’
‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’ She shrugged doubtfully. ‘All I’d do is shout and yell. It wouldn’t get us anywhere. It definitely wouldn’t fix our marriage.’ She must have forgotten until now that he and Doria were related, for she suddenly asked, ‘How is your sister taking things?’
‘She’s six months pregnant and feeling lousy about it. She was nineteen a few weeks ago,’ he added.
‘So young,’ Eileen breathed. ‘So young to be in such a mess. Oh, Nick!’ she cried passionately. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re up to?’
‘Are you all right, luv?’ her father called.
‘I’m fine, Dad.’ She turned to Peter and said quietly, ‘Me dad admired Nick no end. He’s been calling him names for not coming to see me and Nicky. If he knew what he was really up to, he’d do his nut. What do your parents think about the situation your sister is in?’
Peter recalled how things had been hunky-dory at Christmas. Lately, though, his folks had started to complain. Doria clearly wasn’t happy. They wanted her to come home and live with them, at least until she’d had the baby. They were losing confidence in Nick Stephens.
He didn’t answer Eileen’s question. Instead he said, ‘I have a few days’ leave next week. You could ask someone to look after Nicky and I’ll meet you in London – take you anywhere you want to go. You can’t go on being upset like this. You need to know where you stand. Why not meet Nick and have a talk?’
‘I should do something,’ she murmured. ‘You’re right. I need to know where I am. I mean, is he ever likely to come back to us?’
She asked if he would let her have Nick’s address in Fulham before he went, then left him sitting there and went to the kitchen to help with refreshments.
Peter stayed where he was until Eileen’s father, Jack Doyle, came and sat beside him.
‘Like the countryside, do you, son?’ he asked.
‘Well, I like it round here, sir,’ Peter replied.
‘Please don’t call me “sir”, if you don’t mind,’ Jack said a trifle churlishly. ‘It implies that you think I’m better than you are.’
He was an awkward individual, Peter remembered. ‘To my mind, it implies you’re older, not better,’ he argued. ‘What would you say if I asked you not to call me “son”?’
‘I’d say that you’re someone’s son, if not mine, though perhaps I was being too familiar.’
‘I call my own father “sir”.’
Jack grinned. ‘Not very friendly, is it? Do you call your mam “madam”?’
‘No, I call her Ma – sir!’ It was Peter’s turn to grin. ‘I don’t think this conversation is getting us very far, do you?’
‘No, lad. Is it all right if I call you “lad”?’
‘It was all right when you called me “son”.’
‘Well, son,’ he pointed to a dilapidated shed hallway down the garden, ‘how long do you think it’d take to dismantle that shed and put it back together again?’
‘Would there be a point to doing that?’ Peter enquired.
‘The point would be I’ve got a few bits and pieces of sound wood, and I’d saw good bits off the new stuff and rotten bits off the old stuff, and when it was back together it’d be a decent shed again.’
‘I think it would take more than a day or two,’ Peter surmised.
Jack grunted. ‘In that case, once all these people have gone home, I’ll start taking it to pieces.’
‘Can I give you a hand?’ Peter asked eagerly.
‘Have you ever done anything like that before?’
Peter shook his head. ‘Never in all my life.’ He wasn’t really keen on manual work, but he fancied helping Jack with his shed.
‘Then you’re not likely to be much help, are you?’
‘I shall do my absolute best – sir.’
‘What about them poncey clothes you’re wearing?’
‘Oh!’ Peter looked down at his poncey clothes. He couldn’t allow them to be ruined, not during the war, when new clothes needed coupons and his mother and Doria used as many of his and his father’s as they could get their hands on.
‘Never mind, Eileen’ll let you have some of Nick’s old stuff. Nick’s her husband; he was in the RAF.’ He frowned slightly. ‘We don’t see as much of him these days as we used to.’
By just after six, everyone had gone, including most of Eileen’s friends and relatives. Only her father and Peter Mallory were left. Peter was wearing Nick’s gardening outfit and was in the process of clearing out the contents of the garden shed. Jack had already taken the door off.
Half an hour later, Eileen took them tea and biscuits and promised to have a meal ready at nine o’clock. ‘Nothing heavy because it’s a bit late. I suppose you intend sleeping here tonight, Peter?’
Peter’s heart did a cartwheel, but Jack said, ‘Where’s Kate? He can’t stay without Kate being here. Ye’ll have the neighbours talking. Mind you, you’re good at doing that. You had the neighbours talking in Pearl Street, if I remember right.’
Eileen made a face at her father. ‘Don’t worry, and don’t be such a moraliser, Dad. Kate’s going to be home late. Peter can sleep on the settee in the living room with a sleeping bag. It’s quite comfortable. Our Nicky’s already upstairs, dead to the world.’
By nine o’clock, when the meal was ready to eat, the shed had been completely demolished. The door and the window were leaning against a wall waiting to be put back when the building was reassembled. Jack had sawn off the rotten ends of the planks wherever necessary and all the pieces had been neatly stacked.
‘All ready for tomorrer,’ he said comfortably.
After the meal had been eaten – stew with mincemeat, loads of vegetables and a dumpling each – Jack climbed on to his bike and headed for Bootle.
‘Is the bike light bright enough?’ Peter asked Eileen worriedly. He’d become rather fond of Jack and would hate him to have an accident.
‘There isn’t much traffic about and he always gets out the way if he hears a car coming behind.’
‘He’s a grand old fellow, isn’t he?’
Eileen laughed. ‘Yes, but never let him hear you call him that. He doesn’t consider himself to be either old or grand.’
Peter believed it. He was beside himself with joy. He was about to spend the night under the same roof as Eileen Stephens! He didn’t expect anything to happen other than that they would both sleep soundly, but it would do for now.
Eileen had found Peter a sleeping bag and a pillow, plumped up the cushions on the settee, given him a pair of Nick’s pyjamas and made him a cup of cocoa.
‘I don’t know about you,’ she said, ‘but I’m dead tired. I bet you’re even more so. You worked really hard helping take down that flippin’ shed.’
‘I enjoyed it,’ Peter assured her. ‘I’m looking forward to putting it back together.’
‘As soon as Kate comes back, we can go to bed.’
The telephone rang, making them both jump. Eileen answered it.
‘Oh, all right then,’ she said after a while. ‘I hope you sleep well in that posh hotel.’ She put down the receiver and turned to Peter. ‘That was Kate. She’s staying overnight at the Adelphi with her girls. She might bring them to see us tomorrow.’ She gave a satisfied little sigh and moved towards the stairs. ‘It means we can go to bed straight away. Good night, Peter.’
‘Good night.’ Peter changed into the hated Nick’s pyjamas and was fast asleep within minutes.
Eileen wasn’t surprised to find she was unable to sleep, despite it having been such a demanding day. It was almost impossible to believe that Nick had changed his address in London yet had not bothered to tell her. It meant that their relationship had broken down to the point that she and Nicky no longer existed for him. Did he so much as think about them these days? The hurt she felt was physical, as if a dagger had been thrust into her side.
Yet deep down, deeper than
the hurt, she felt desperately sorry for Nick. He wouldn’t have behaved like this had he not been so hurt himself. It wasn’t just his arm that had been lost when his plane had crashed, but something else. Like her brother Sean, he had been badly damaged. Neither Nick nor Sean were the men they used to be. They were still alive, but part of them had been killed in the war, and the chances were that they would never be the same men again.
These depressing thoughts were interrupted by a creaking sound. She half sat up, but realised that it was probably Peter coming up the stairs to use the lavatory. In the corner of the room, Nicky was fast asleep in his cot, breathing steadily, without a care in the world. These days, he didn’t often mention his dad.
The creaking sound continued until it stopped and the handle of the bedroom door was slowly turned. The hairs on Eileen’s neck stiffened and she sat up properly. ‘Who is it?’ she demanded in the firmest voice she could manage under the circumstances. Not Peter, surely!
In answer to her query, the door was flung open and a dark figure threw itself on top of her, seizing her by the throat and squeezing hard.
Eileen screamed; Nicky woke up and started to cry. Eileen screamed again, weaker than before. She choked for breath and tried to push the attacker away, but his hands were like an iron band around her throat.
There were footsteps, grunts and groans, a loud roar, and the person on top of Eileen was pulled away with force. When the electric light was switched on, it revealed a man lying on his back on the floor, with Peter Mallory standing over him, one foot on his chest.
By now, Nicky was terrified and crying pitifully. Eileen scrambled across the bed and lifted him up. She swallowed hard, her throat hurting, and said to Peter, ‘Who is he?’
The man on the floor was dark-haired and wild-eyed, with a thin moustache. She had never seen him before.
‘I have no idea,’ Peter said. ‘Go downstairs and ring the police.’
‘No,’ the man shouted, flailing his arms. ‘No, don’t do that. I thought you were someone else.’