The Seven Streets of Liverpool

by Maureen Lee

  ‘Yes, luv, you can actually.’ Eileen gestured through the window. ‘See that girl on the bench at the bottom of the garden?’ Phyllis looked and saw a very pregnant young woman nursing her stomach, on which Napoleon was curled in a ball. She looked fed up to the teeth.

  Phyllis nodded. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her name is Doria Kneale and she’s married to a captain in the army,’ Eileen told her. ‘She’s staying with us for the time being and I’m pretty sure she’d appreciate the company of someone her own age, rather than someone like me giving her all sorts of advice she doesn’t want. Go and talk to her for a while, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind.’ Phyllis’s face sparkled with enthusiasm and willingness to help as she left the kitchen and marched purposefully down the garden.

  Eileen watched her. ‘I really like that young woman,’ she said. ‘In her own way, she’s the salt of the earth. I wish there were more like her around.’

  Brenda and Sheila murmured their agreement. ‘Though I don’t think she’ll be here for much longer,’ Brenda remarked. ‘Aggie Donovan says her mother wants to leave and move back to Yorkshire. She’s trying to find someone to swap jobs with.’

  Eileen wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ll be dead sorry to see Phyllis go.’

  ‘So will I,’ echoed Sheila. ‘I wonder who’ll move into their house?’

  ‘Since this bloody war started, people move in and out of property by the minute,’ Brenda complained. ‘I mean, Miss Brazier lived in that house from the day she was born, and only left when she joined the army, then Jessica Fleming took it over. She left when she married that Yank and moved to Burtonwood. Now Phyllis and her mam are about to move on. In the old days, people got married and lived in the same house all their lives – like me!’ She folded her arms and said indignantly, ‘I’m beginning to feel like a real stick-in-the-mud. I wouldn’t mind moving somewhere meself.’

  Doria Mallory and Phyllis became instant friends when Phyllis introduced herself that day in Eileen’s garden. There was something in their very different personalities that appealed to the other.

  Phyllis thought it most peculiar that although they were about the same age, their lives had gone so differently. ‘I’ve never even had a proper boyfriend,’ she said, ‘and you’ve got a husband in the army and are about to have a baby. It’s not that I’m envious or anything, just that I think life’s funny. It has no pattern.’

  ‘How old are you?’ Doria asked.

  ‘I’ll be eighteen in August.’

  ‘I’ll be twenty in August.’

  ‘What date?’

  ‘The fifteenth.’

  Phyllis clapped her hands delightedly. ‘I’m the fifteenth too. Isn’t that an incredible coincidence?’

  ‘Yes – but you know, Phyllis, two years makes all the difference. An awful lot can happen in that time – as it did to me.’

  ‘When I’m eighteen, I intend to join up,’ Phyllis told her. ‘I really fancy the army.’ She sat at the end of the bench and automatically picked up Doria’s feet and placed them on her knee, as if was her role in life. ‘How do you keep your slacks up?’ she enquired.

  Doria was wearing black trousers with a loose top. She lifted the top to reveal long straps that went over her shoulders. ‘I haven’t got a waist any more,’ she said sadly.

  ‘I expect they’re called maternity slacks.’

  ‘I expect they are.’ Doria’s arms went back around her stomach and Napoleon. ‘I wish I’d done something more exciting when I was eighteen,’ she said. ‘But I had an important clerical job in London by then and I don’t know if the powers-that-be would have let me leave. The girls I know who are in the forces are having a really exciting time. Wherever they might be, there’s at least twenty men for every girl. One girl I know is in the furthest reaches of Scotland, and another is in Italy.’

  Phyllis was momentarily shocked. ‘You shouldn’t be thinking like that when you’re a married woman about to have a baby.’

  ‘I know, but the thing is, I shall never have a good time again.’ Doria looked stricken, as if it had only just dawned on her that the list of things she could no longer do would lengthen immeasurably once she became a mother. ‘I shall have to be nothing but sensible from now on.’

  ‘Poor you!’ Phyllis patted one of her feet. ‘Sensible is an all right thing to be. If everyone in the world were sensible, there would never be wars. Are you up to going to the pictures in your condition?’

  ‘Just about.’ She could still probably fit in a seat.

  ‘Then shall we go one afternoon next week? The Glass Key with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake is on in Walton Vale. We could meet about half past four after I’ve finished work. You can catch a bus straight there from Melling.’

  ‘I’d love to. Gosh, once I’ve had the baby, I won’t even be able to go to the pictures without getting someone to look after him or her.’

  Phyllis cocked her head on one side and said thoughtfully, ‘You’ll have someone to care for who is actually more important than yourself. That would be a really funny feeling. I mean, I really love my mum, but fancy loving someone even more, so that no one else really matters, not even yourself.’

  ‘I’ll never feel like that.’ Doria shuddered. Imagine not having enough to buy a new frock from Harrods, and having to spend what money you had on clothes for the baby instead.

  ‘You will, you’ll see,’ Phyllis promised, squeezing both of Doria’s feet in a comforting gesture.

  But Doria still doubted it very much.

  It had been rumoured for months that D-Day was absolutely certain to take place any day now. No one knew exactly when. Letters were received from relatives living in the Home Counties or on the south coast telling news of never-ending aeroplanes flying over, of non-stop troop movements, of seeing hundreds, perhaps thousands, possibly millions of American soldiers whichever way you looked.

  Troop carriers, lorries and vehicles of every description, all camouflaged, poured through towns and villages, where people had never seen anything like it before. All this activity was in preparation for the crossing of the Channel to France, and before you could say ‘abracadabra’, the troops would have reached Germany and the war would be over.

  Wouldn’t it?

  Hopes had been raised so many times before. It was the best part of a year since the Allies had landed in Sicily, yet they still hadn’t arrived in Rome.

  But people couldn’t help but think that the end was definitely in sight when, at half past nine on Tuesday morning, 6 June 1944, it was announced on the BBC that D-Day had arrived at last. Overnight, the first of the thousands of troops had crossed the Channel as part of the Normandy landings.

  That night, the King of England spoke to the nation on the wireless. ‘D-Day has come. Early this morning, the Allies began the assault on the north-western face of Hitler’s European fortress …’

  Well, victory must certainly be in sight if the King himself believed it.

  Leslie Taylor had found a pretty little cottage to rent in the very centre of Beverley. ‘It’s just off the main street,’ he wrote to Winifred. ‘I actually prefer it to our own house. It’s much cosier and warmer and very handy for the shops. I’m sure Phyllis will love it.’

  Phyllis had no intention of loving it, or even going to see it, at least not for a long time. She had made arrangements to move in with Lena Newton and sleep on her settee once her mother had gone.

  ‘I’ll come back to live with you and Dad one day,’ she promised, ‘but I did tell you, Mum, I mean to join the forces when I’m eighteen. And I want to be company for Doria for a while after her baby’s born.’ Doria was convinced she would be depressed.

  Her mother sighed. ‘I know, love. I just know you’re going to have a terribly important and never-endingly busy life.’ Just now, Phyllis was breaking her heart. She almost wished Leslie hadn’t put in an appearance when he did or, better still, hadn’t vanished in the first place. They’d still b
e living in Beverley, and Phyllis would be about to leave school and go to university.

  Eileen couldn’t wait for Doria to have her baby. The girl did nothing but moan about the problems she had moving, lying down, sitting up and sitting still, going to the lavatory, climbing stairs and coming down again. She was off her food one day, and couldn’t eat enough the next. Basically she had quite a sweet nature, but only when her life was going smoothly and nothing even vaguely difficult – like having a baby – was happening.

  What was worrying Eileen was how Doria would feel once the baby was born. What about if the delivery hurt? (Did a delivery ever not hurt?) Or the baby cried a lot – or even a little? Or it needed its nappy changing more than once a day?

  More importantly, how long did Doria intend to stay in the cottage with Eileen having no option but to listen to her constant complaints. Where could the girl go? Her mam and dad wouldn’t want her, not with a baby.

  Phyllis was an enormous help. Eileen didn’t know how she would have managed without her. She came after work every single day apart from Saturday and Sunday, when she stayed from early morning until late at night, and she also announced that she had learnt at school back in Beverley how babies were delivered.

  ‘The cookery teacher, Miss Wainwright, thought us girls should know how it was done, so she described it and made some illustrations. Oh, and she got into terrible trouble when the headmistress found out. You’d think there was something disgusting about it.’

  ‘I hope she didn’t get the sack,’ Eileen said. ‘Miss Wainwright, that is, not the headmistress.’

  ‘No, but she left to go to another school soon afterwards.’

  ‘When I was at school,’ Eileen reminisced, ‘some girl got into trouble when she asked one of nuns to explain the virgin birth.’

  ‘It’s a perfectly legitimate question,’ Phyllis said. ‘No one should get into trouble for being curious.’

  Doria’s baby arrived on a Sunday afternoon at the end of June. Eileen wasn’t present. It was Sean’s twenty-second birthday, and a party had been planned at the cottage – it would have been his first big day out since his recovery – but rain had been predicted for the whole of that weekend, and it had been pouring down non-stop since Saturday morning.

  Instead, Eileen took Nicky and the food she had prepared to Pearl Street. The party would be held at Sean and Alice’s house instead. Phyllis stayed behind in Melling to keep Doria company.

  When Eileen returned to the cottage that night, having left Nicky with his grandad, Doria wasn’t there, but Phyllis was.

  ‘It was about midday when she had her first contraction,’ Phyllis explained. ‘For a while, they were half an hour apart. I telephoned the hospital when they became more frequent’ – arrangements had been made for the baby to be born in Walton hospital – ‘and they said to keep a note of the pains and when they reached ten minutes apart to telephone again and they’d send an ambulance.’

  ‘Yes?’ Eileen said impatiently. She followed the girl into the kitchen, where she’d been told a kettle had just boiled for tea.

  ‘Well, that’s what I did. When the pains were ten minutes apart, I telephoned the hospital and an ambulance came. I went with her, the baby was born, Doria fell asleep and I came home. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as I expected,’ Phyllis said disappointedly. The kettle had boiled again and she poured the water into the teapot.

  Eileen sat down and grinned. ‘I bet you were hoping to deliver it yourself.’

  Phyllis grinned back. ‘I wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘Anyroad, you still haven’t told me whether it’s a boy or a girl.’

  ‘It’s a boy, he’s terribly pink. He weighed eight pounds five ounces, and he’s to be called Theobald.’

  ‘What?’ Eileen was horrified. ‘That’s a terrible name to give a child, particularly in Liverpool. If he’s not popular at school, they’re likely to call him Baldy.’

  ‘I think Theo’s rather nice.’ Phyllis put a cup of tea in front of Eileen and sat down at the table with her own. ‘Can I sleep in Doria’s bed tonight?’

  ‘Of course, luv.’ Eileen gave a sigh of relief. ‘Oh well, I’m glad that’s over. Has Doria said anything about what she intends to do next?’

  ‘She muttered something about joining the forces with me – I shall be eighteen in August.’

  That couldn’t possibly be right – the girl had only just had a baby – but it seemed as if Doria would be out of her hair soon in one way or another. Perhaps she hoped her mum and dad in Wimbledon wouldn’t be able to resist their first grandson once they set eyes on him, then she could join up and they wouldn’t mind.

  Winifred Taylor discovered a nurse in Hull – the city was close to Beverley – who fancied working in Liverpool, if only for the variety it offered. Her name was Barbara Wilkinson and she was ten years younger than Winifred and didn’t have children.

  ‘My husband is in the army somewhere in Italy,’ she wrote. ‘I’m sure he would like to work in Liverpool when he comes home after the war. It would be a lovely change for us both, almost an adventure.’

  Now Barbara had to be interviewed and approved by Bootle hospital, and Winifred by the one in Hull.

  ‘It shouldn’t take much longer,’ Winifred said to Phyllis. From her record, she was sure Barbara would be an ideal nurse. ‘Hopefully I will still be here for your birthday in August. Would you like a party, love?’ She was dreading the day she would be parted from her daughter, even if it meant she would be living with Leslie again.

  ‘No thanks, Mum, but I’d like a big do on my twenty-first. By then the war will be long over and I will have loads of new friends.’ Though Doria would remain her best friend for ever and ever.

  Doria’s baby was a tough little thing. He looked more like an Albert or a Tommy than a Theo; Eileen refused to say the name in full. He didn’t cry much, but used his fists and feet a lot, forever punching and kicking the air as if he was having a battle with it. His tight little face bore a permanent scowl, but she knew that very soon he would smile. Doria expressed the opinion that he was ugly.

  ‘And I didn’t think about it before,’ she said, ‘but I would have much preferred a girl, so I could dress her in pretty clothes. I might even have been able to make her a frock, but I can’t manage little boys’ clothes.’

  Eileen wished with all her heart that Doria would soon go and take her baby with her. She was gradually falling in love with Theo, and Nicky was becoming fond of him too.

  ‘Is he my brother, Mum?’ he enquired.

  ‘No, love.’ Eileen felt forced to deny it, even though in reality Theo and Nicky were half-brothers. She wondered if Nick would be in contact with Doria to enquire about the baby he had fathered, but of course he had no idea where she was living. Eileen had telephoned Peter, in Wimbledon, to tell him he had a nephew, and he had promised to let her know should Nick try to get in touch with Doria there.

  ‘I miss you,’ he’d said. ‘It’s ages since we’ve seen each other. I don’t fancy coming while Doria’s there.’

  She wanted to see him too. She hadn’t forgotten how handsome he was, and rather fancied a bit of romance in her life, even if it wasn’t the passionate, breathless sort she had known with Nick. It would be a change to have someone tell her she looked pretty, someone who wasn’t Brenda or Sheila; someone who admired her dress or the way she’d done her hair.

  As the days and weeks passed, she continued to pray that Doria would soon disappear from her life, yet all the time she became fonder of Theo. She loved the way he snuggled his little head against her neck, just below her ear, and she could feel his baby heart beating near her own.

  If only life would stop being so confusing!

  It was August, and Phyllis had already received a Government Works Order requiring her to present herself at the Labour Exchange in Renshaw Street the week before her birthday. She arrived promptly for her appointment at 2 p.m., and announced that it was her wish to join the forces.
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br />   ‘The army is my favourite,’ she emphasised to the fifty-ish woman behind the counter. ‘I’d love to be posted to Normandy.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s nothing to do with me, Miss Taylor,’ the woman informed her. ‘But wherever it is, and whatever you end up doing, it’s bound to be interesting. I wish I were young enough to join up,’ she said longingly. ‘I wouldn’t care where I was sent.’

  ‘Well neither do I, not really,’ Phyllis said. ‘Anywhere will do.’ She signed the appropriate forms and was told she’d hear back within a fortnight.

  She was leaving the Labour Exchange when she came face to face with Doria, who was coming in. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she gasped.

  ‘I have an appointment. I’m joining the army, like you.’ Doria grabbed her shoulders, twisted her around and they did a little jig. ‘I told you ages ago, didn’t I, that that was what I intended doing. When you told me you’d made an appointment, I telephoned and made the one after yours.’

  ‘But I never dreamt you meant it. What about Theo?’

  ‘Eileen has agreed to look after him – we had a long discussion the other day. It’s only until the war is over, then I’ll come straight home, collect Theo, and we’ll go and live somewhere in London; it’s my favourite place.’

  ‘And Eileen doesn’t mind?’

  ‘No, she adores Theo. Have you seen the look on her face when she nurses him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Phyllis thought it very sad. She wasn’t surprised that Eileen had agreed to have Theo, even if it would only be for a matter of months. But she would find it even more difficult to part with him then than she would now. For all Phyllis considered Doria to be her best and closest friend, she thought she was being opportunistic, taking advantage of the woman who had offered her sanctuary in the last weeks of her pregnancy.

  ‘Shall I wait for you here?’ she asked outside the Labour Exchange.

  ‘Yes please,’ Doria said eagerly. ‘Then we can go somewhere and have a coffee.’