by Maureen Lee
‘It’s fine. As for Peter, he just turned up at my house one day. I’ve no idea where he got my address from. We get on well. He was there at Easter.’ She didn’t go on to explain that he had probably saved her life.
‘How strange!’ Doria stood, wobbling slightly in the shoes. ‘Do you know, I think I will go home, right this minute. Oh, Eileen’ – she turned upon the other woman, her face radiant – ‘you have no idea how happy that makes me feel, the idea that I could be back with Mummy and Daddy within the hour. I’ll go downstairs this minute and phone for a taxi.’
‘Be careful with those shoes on the carpet,’ Eileen warned. ‘Your heel might get caught in one of the holes. When I was pregnant,’ she recalled aloud, ‘I mainly wore flat shoes.’
‘Oh yes, you have a son, don’t you?’ Doria remarked. ‘What’s his name?’
Unexpected tears suddenly filled Eileen’s eyes. ‘His name’s Nicky, but I had another son, Tony, who was killed during the raids.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Impulsively Doria threw her arms around Eileen’s neck, and for a few brief seconds, the two women who loved Nick Stephens embraced.
As Eileen had no idea what time she would get back to Liverpool, Brenda had agreed to look after Nicky overnight. The taxi Doria had booked couldn’t come for an hour, so Eileen had helped her pack her clothes and write a letter to leave for Nick.
‘Do you want me to mention you?’ Doria had asked.
‘Oh no. I don’t want him thinking it’s my fault that you left. It isn’t, is it?’ she asked the other woman anxiously.
‘Well, actually, it is.’ Doria frowned slightly. ‘It was your idea that I should go back to Mummy and Daddy, but I know you were thinking of me, not yourself.’
‘I don’t want him coming back to me only because you’ve gone.’ Eileen felt a few moments of panic, praying it wouldn’t happen.
Eventually the taxi arrived, Doria left, and Eileen caught a bus to Euston station, where she got on the five o’clock train to Liverpool.
As she’d had nothing to eat since breakfast, she bought a sarnie and a cup of tea on board the train. By the time she’d finished eating, they were halfway to Liverpool, it had begun to get dark and the blinds of the half-full carriage were drawn. The lights inside were merely a dismal glow, not sufficient to read by. She glanced round the edge of the blind, but there was nothing but blackness, mile after mile of it, not a single glimmer of light to be seen anywhere.
The world felt like a nightmarish place at the moment. So nightmarish that she felt nervous about catching a bus to Melling and walking along the dark lane leading to the empty cottage, particularly after what had happened only a few days ago. On reaching Lime Street, she hurried through the blacked-out city to another station, Exchange, where she caught an electric train to Marsh Lane and then walked to her dad’s house in Garnet Street. He wasn’t long back from the King’s Arms and about to make himself a cup of cocoa.
‘What do you want?’ he asked in astonishment, though he was undoubtedly pleased to see her. ‘Is Nicky all right?’
Eileen hadn’t gone round to Brenda’s to see Nicky, but assumed that he was fine. ‘I’ve been to London,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t feel like going all the way back to Melling. Is our Sean’s old bed made up?’
‘It’s always made up ready for visitors. Mind you, you’re the first I’ve had in a while. What were you doing in London?’
After he’d made cocoa for them both, Eileen explained about Nick and Doria. He was shocked, but not quite as angry as she had expected.
‘It’s this bloody war,’ he said. ‘It’s knocking folks for six in all sorts of different ways. They’re out of alignment, as it were. Things happen to them that they wouldn’t have expected to happen in a million years. Like our Sean, for instance, him of the bright eyes and full of mischief. It’s all gone – and will it ever come back again?’
‘Let’s hope so, Dad.’
‘And Nick,’ her father went on, a catch in his deep, gruff voice, ‘he’s an honourable chap. He’d never have been unfaithful to you if he hadn’t lost his arm and his whole world was turned upside down. People can’t be judged by normal standards these days.’
Eileen confessed that she had yet to make up her mind how to deal with Nick. ‘I need to have a good long think about it.’
As Sean had taken over the bedroom his sisters had shared before they’d left home to get married, Eileen went to sleep that night in the bed she’d slept in as a child and a young woman. The mattress was as springy as it had ever been and her mind felt curiously relaxed, rested and free of worry as she snuggled under the bedclothes.
She woke up to the sound of seagulls squawking on the roof, instead of the quite ordinary birdsong she’d become used to. Remembering that she was in her father’s house, she got up and drew back the blackout curtains, and was met by the sight of nothing but grey slate roofs and brick walls instead of trees and fields.
She drew in a breath of pure happiness. She was home!
She could hear that her father was already up, and had started to get dressed with the intention of going down and making his breakfast – it was a long time since he’d been waited on at home – when the front door slammed; he’d gone to work, leaving her to sleep in.
She had to prevent herself from bursting into tears – no matter what went wrong with her life, she would always have the best and dearest father in the world.
Downstairs, the kettle was still warm, so she added water and made herself tea. She drank it standing up in the kitchen, listening to the sounds that surrounded her. The people on one side were listening to the wireless. On the other side, dishes rattled and raised voices could be heard having an argument. Footsteps sounded on the pavement outside as men like her father made their way to the docks in their heavy boots. Although it wasn’t long gone half past seven, children were playing outside, laughing and shouting as they began their day with a game of football or cricket. She’d like to bet that a girl, or even a couple of girls, was already swinging from the lamp post directly outside the house. Eileen had swung on it herself enough when she was a child, as had Sheila.
Who should she go and see first? Brenda, naturally, to make sure Nicky was all right and have a little play with the kitten. Afterwards she would call on Sheila, then on that nice girl Phyllis, to thank her for looking after Nicky yesterday. There was Kitty to visit, see how she was getting on – the baby was due in a couple of months. And there were all sorts of other people she hadn’t seen in quite a while. She’d like to know how Freda Tutty was getting on, for instance.
Eileen rubbed her hands together. She was really looking forward to seeing everyone, not that she’d be able to cram all of them into a single day.
‘I know,’ she said aloud to her dad’s living room. ‘I’ll have a holiday, a holiday in Garnet Street with Dad. And I’ll stay as long as I like, until I feel like going home again.’ She’d have to go back to Melling to fetch a few things, but she could do that this afternoon.
Nicky had enjoyed the trip to the fairy glen the day before, as well as his stay at Brenda’s, where the girls had made a tremendous fuss of him. He explained earnestly to his mother that he wanted to keep Tommy the kitten, and swap him with Napoleon.
Brenda laughed and assured him that Tommy would not stay a kitten for always, but would one day be just as big as Napoleon. ‘Though perhaps not quite so bad-tempered and moody. That cat was very badly brought up.’
Eileen then had to explain that she had no idea who had brought up Napoleon. ‘It wasn’t Nick. I think the cat was one of the fittings and fixtures when he bought the cottage.’ It reminded her that she would need to make arrangements for Napoleon to be fed while she was having her little holiday.
After thanking Brenda for looking after her son, she and Nicky made their way to Sheila’s, where the children were getting up slowly because there was no need to get ready for school. Nicky disappeared into the yard, where the big boys were playi
ng football.
‘What were you doing in London yesterday?’ Sheila asked. ‘Did you have a nice day out?’
Eileen snorted. ‘No, I had a horrible day out as it happens.’ She took a deep breath and told her sister the whole sorry tale of Nick and Doria and Doria’s baby.
Sheila gasped with horror. ‘How long have you known that?’
‘Since Christmas.’
‘You can’t possibly take Nick back now,’ her sister said firmly, shaking her head. ‘Not ever.’
‘I can if I want – and if he wants to come back, like. We took each other for better and for worse, didn’t we?’ Eileen remembered having a row about the same sort of thing with Sheila years ago. In those days, their views had been the other way around, with Sheila adamant that Eileen should never leave Francis, her vicious first husband.
Her sister looked doubtful. ‘Yes, but there’s a limit.’
‘Don’t be daft, Sheil. There can’t possibly be a limit. You don’t promise to take someone for better and for worse depending on how much worse it gets.’
Eileen wasn’t in the mood to explain to her sister how she felt about Nick. After yesterday, and after what her father had said last night about the way the war had affected people, she thought it best to suspend her feelings for the time being, see how things went. She and Nick had loved each other so very much that it was nigh on impossible to believe it was all over.
She left Nicky in the yard with Dominic and Niall and called on Phyllis Taylor, who invited her inside to meet her mother, Winifred, a pleasant woman who was a senior nurse at Bootle hospital. Brenda had told her the reason why the pair had come to live in Bootle, and Eileen looked with interest at the wedding photograph on the mantelpiece.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen him around?’ Winifred asked. ‘We’ve given up looking for him, but there’s always the odd chance someone has seen him.’
‘I’m afraid not. He’s very handsome – oh, and you are too,’ Eileen stammered. ‘Not handsome, I don’t mean that, but very pretty.’
Winifred laughed. ‘I’m not the least bit pretty, but it’s nice of you to pretend I am. We think he might have lost his memory.’
‘No, Mum,’ Phyllis said impatiently. ‘You think he might have lost his memory. I can’t pretend to guess what really happened to him.’
Minutes later, Eileen was presented with her fourth cup of tea that morning, and it wasn’t yet half past nine.
Outside again, Aggie Donovan was standing in front of her house with a bucket of water, about to scrub the doorstep. Eileen realised with satisfaction that it was years since she’d scrubbed a step.
On spying her old neighbour, Aggie forgot her housework and began to relate the latest tittle-tattle, whereupon two other women emerged with buckets and joined in. Years ago, Eileen had been the subject of Aggie’s vicious gossip, and as soon as the women began tearing to pieces the reputations of some of their neighbours, she wandered away.
She went to see Kitty Quigley, now Kitty Ransome, who, like some other people in the street, she’d known her entire life. Kitty was at about the same point in her pregnancy as Doria, but so much happier.
She was sitting with her feet up in front of the fire George had made that morning before he’d gone to work, both hands resting comfortably on her stomach. Her little girl, Rosie, had been taken for a walk by the woman next door.
‘She has a boy Rosie’s age. Me, I’ve been ordered not to move a muscle until George comes home tonight,’ she said to Eileen. ‘He knows someone’ll come and make me a cuppa.’ There were sandwiches on the table beside her, an Eccles cake and a bottle of lemonade.
‘What’s in the cake?’ Eileen asked. Surely it wasn’t full of currants, as Eccles cakes were supposed to be? If so, she’d like to know where they came from so she could get some for herself.
‘Prunes,’ twinkled Kitty. ‘D’you fancy half?’
‘No, ta, Kitty. I don’t have any problems that need solving with a few prunes.’
‘I’m afraid I do at the moment.’ Kitty seized the cake and took a bite.
‘I hope whoever made it took the stones out.’
Kitty choked and began to laugh. ‘Oh, Eileen, you shouldn’t make jokes like that with a woman who’s up the stick. What are you doing here anyroad? Aren’t you supposed to be living in Melling?’
‘Yes, but right now I’m on holiday in Garnet Street, staying at me dad’s.’ She looked long and hard at her old friend. ‘Are you happy, Kit?’
‘As a lark, Eil.’
She was alone on the bus on her way back to Melling, Nicky left behind with her sister, thinking how upside down and back to front life was, the way luck could choose who it would alight upon at any particular time. The difference between Doria and Kitty was stark. Yet a year ago, it was Kitty who had been in the depths of despair, left with a child by her already married American, while Doria had not long met Nick and was madly in love.
Then there was herself, who she didn’t really want to think about. Instead, she made a mental list of things to collect from home: clothes for herself and Nicky, make-up, a hairbrush, toys, a book to read, a few things from the larder so that she could make her dad’s tea tonight. And while she was there, she would pick up the week’s rations from the little grocer’s shop.
Once in the cottage, she packed the necessary items and gave Napoleon something to eat. She remembered that her father would be there regularly now that it was spring, to attend to the garden. He could put out an extra food for the cat each time he came.
While she was upstairs, she looked in to Kate’s room and saw that all her belongings had gone. She had a feeling that that particular friendship had come to an end. Poor Kate had been so shocked and embarrassed at her husband’s behaviour that, although she couldn’t be held responsible for it, she felt unable to be Eileen’s friend any more. They would probably merely exchange Christmas cards with each other from now.
She was about to leave when she noticed an envelope that hadn’t quite been pushed through and was hanging from the inside of the letter box. It was from Nick. Without a second’s thought, she put it in the drawer of the little telephone table. Now wasn’t the time to read it. She’d do that when she came back from holiday.
Chapter 14
A few days later, Eileen and Nicky caught the ferry to New Brighton. The fairground had just opened for the summer season and they went on the waltzer and the terrifying bumper cars – at least Eileen thought they were terrifying, and considered herself extremely brave for going on them twice because Nicky enjoyed them so much. He was delirious with joy, going by himself on the helter-skelter, waving madly to his mother before he slid down.
The nights were gradually getting lighter, and they sailed back to Liverpool with the setting sun reflecting a blurred image of the city skyline in the dusky water.
The following day, she took her sister’s lads and Nicky to Southport, where they played football on the miles of flat golden sand before going to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a picture house on Lord Street, probably the most elegant street in the land.
Perhaps because she didn’t live permanently in the area, while she was in Bootle Eileen was told things privately that people wouldn’t have told someone they saw every day.
Lena Newton, for instance, confided how desperately lonely she was and that she didn’t love her husband, Maurice, not the least little bit. ‘I only married him because I was scared of being left on the shelf. I wonder why women do that?’ She cocked her head sideways. ‘On reflection, I’d sooner be single any day. Although,’ she continued in a questioning voice, ‘perhaps I wouldn’t mind being married to him if we had children.’
‘You won’t believe this, Lena,’ Eileen said gently, ‘but I more or less did the same thing. Me dad didn’t exactly insist, but he made it clear that he wanted me to marry Francis Costello, who turned out to be a monster. He was dead cruel, not just to me, but to our little boy, Tony.’
‘Does
that mean we should never try to please the people we love?’ Lena wondered aloud. She was nursing Godfrey, her handsome black and white kitten, as if he were a baby.
‘But your mother didn’t want you to marry Maurice,’ Eileen pointed out. Lena’s reasoning was becoming rather tortuous.
She invited her to come and spend a weekend at the cottage as soon as she returned to Melling. ‘I’ve got a bedroom going spare at the moment.’
One night, her dad was at the pub, Nicky was in bed and Eileen was reading the Daily Herald when Phyllis Taylor knocked on the door.
‘I’ve done something terrible,’ Phyllis confessed when she was seated in front of the empty fireplace – the weather was getting warmer and there was no need for a fire most days.
She had such a nice, honest fact that Eileen couldn’t imagine her having ever done anything remotely terrible.
‘Yes?’ she said encouragingly.
‘Your friend Kitty – I understand she used to live in the house where me and Mum live now.’
‘That’s right,’ Eileen confirmed.
‘Well, an American serviceman called a few weeks ago and asked for Kitty. I told him she living somewhere else …’
She paused, and Eileen said, ‘Well, you were right. She lives just across the road.’
‘I know that, but I told him she was married and was living in Australia with her husband and two children.’
‘Why on earth did you tell a lie like that?’ Eileen asked sharply.
‘Oh dear.’ Phyllis dropped her head into her hands and began to cry. ‘You disapprove! I just knew I’d done something terrible.’
‘Yes, but why did you do it?’ Eileen demanded.
‘Kitty seems so happy,’ Phyllis wept. ‘I didn’t want it to be spoilt by the American – he was truly gorgeous, by the way. I imagined her leaving George for him – Dale, his name was – and being made unhappy again when it was time for him to go back to America.’