The Seven Streets of Liverpool

by Maureen Lee

  He went in the back way. To his surprise, Jess was sitting in front of the fire with a sleeping Penny on her knee.

  ‘Don’t come near,’ she warned him. ‘She’s caught something, her temperature’s very high. The doctor will be here soon.’

  ‘I’ll go now.’

  He turned to leave, but she said, ‘Don’t go, Jack. I need to talk to you.’

  He sat at the table rather than in the chair in front of the fire. ‘I suppose it’s all over. It’s time, isn’t it, Jess?’

  ‘For us to be over?’ She smiled sadly. ‘Yes, it is.’ Her hair hadn’t been combed, and it lay in untidy waves and curls around her face. For once, she hadn’t used any lipstick or the stuff she put on her eyes or her cheeks. She looked pale and tired and also, for the first time, as if she were getting on a bit. But in his eyes she had never been more beautiful or desirable.

  ‘Are you … ?’ He couldn’t think of the right word. ‘Pregnant’ sounded a bit raw, a bit too obvious. But she said it for him.

  ‘Pregnant? No, Jack. It’s a bit too soon to know, but I very much doubt it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He felt quite forlorn. This was what he’d wanted, but it had happened too suddenly. He needed time to get used to the idea of Jess disappearing out of his life.

  ‘Oh, Jack, don’t be sorry.’ Her green eyes twinkled. ‘I know you did your best.’

  ‘I did my utmost,’ he was saying when the front door opened, and the doctor came in. Jack departed in a hurry and went straight to the King’s Arms, where he didn’t enjoy himself nearly as much as he’d expected. He left early, and when he’d gone, his mates remarked to each other that it was obvious that Jack Doyle was still in a mood.

  Just as Jack’s affair came to a sad, though inevitable end, his son-in-law, Nick Stephens, found himself involved with a woman for the first time since he had left London.

  He was still living on the Norfolk coast with Clarence Baines and his daughter Mary. He was still enjoying the peace and tranquillity of his new life. Planes occasionally flew over the area, both British and American, but apart from that, there was no sign of the war. At night, he was able to draw back the curtains and stare out at the dense blackness of the sky, or watch the moon shine down on the inky water or slip in and out of the clouds, creating perfect examples of a silver lining. The view at all times was spectacular.

  He was lying in bed one night in the run-up to Christmas, imagining what the day would be like here, knowing it would be different to every other Christmas he had ever known. After breakfast, unless it was too stormy, he would walk on the beach. Clarence or Mary, or both, might come with him. Mary had been promised a chicken – the family were friendly with local farmers, and eggs or small cuts of meat were often available without the need for ration books.

  He was thinking that this would be the strangest Christmas he had ever known when he heard the click of the bedroom door opening, followed by soft footsteps on the wooden floor, and suddenly Mary Baines was in the bed with him.

  At first, he was too astonished to respond or say a word. He had never felt attracted to her, but when she touched him, he was unable to resist. He lay there while she virtually took him, roughly, so that it hurt, but it was a new and titillating experience for him, deeply thrilling.

  When it was over, she got out of bed and returned to her own room. She hadn’t uttered a single word. The next day, she acted as if nothing had happened and was her same rather withdrawn self. Nick wondered if she remembered the night before, or whether it was some strange form of sleepwalking, but the same thing happened that night, and the night after. It would seem that Nick had ended up in some sort of earthly paradise.

  Sheila Reilly never felt there was anything extraordinary about having seven children. In years gone by, it was customary for women to have as many as a dozen kids, even more, so seven didn’t seem all that many in comparison. The only time it felt like a trial was at Christmas; obtaining seven decent presents wasn’t easy when there was a war on.

  It was a relief when, ten days before Christmas, she managed to buy a rusty Meccano set from Mike Harris’s second-hand shop in Strand Road, thus completing the presents for the boys, then a pretty little lace shawl that Caitlin would love that only needed a bit of a soak in Lux soap flakes to get the dirt out.

  She was about to leave the shop when Mike called her back.

  ‘Mrs Reilly, aren’t you the one who asked if I’d keep me eye out for a pair of skates, like?’

  Sheila’s heart performed a somersault. ‘I did, yes,’ she said in an awed voice. This couldn’t be happening.

  ‘Well, I’ve got them in the back of the shop, luv. They’re in good nick, so I suggest five bob for the pair.’

  A whole pair! As Sheila said to Brenda later, ‘Putting aside the day I married our Calum and when I had each one of me kids, I’ve never known a day as beautiful as this one.’

  ‘Beautiful!’ Brenda pulled a face. ‘It’s only a pair of skates, Sheil.’

  ‘I know, but you don’t know what they mean to me.’ She would have to draw up a chart giving the boys turns of half an hour each. Of course, the girls might insist on having a go too, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  The following day, she heard from Cal that he’d be home for a whole week at Christmas. For Sheila, life couldn’t have been more perfect.

  It was impossible for most people to be miserable now that Christmas was so close. The children’s excitement was like a tonic for their parents, cheering them up no end.

  As far as the hateful war went, there was a terrific battle going on in Belgium, the Battle of the Bulge, it was called. Some people referred to it as Hitler’s Last Stand. Others wondered why there was fighting in Belgium when it was more than six months since the Allies had landed in France. Germany must be much further away than they’d thought.

  At home, the air raids weren’t over, not for the people of London, who were now on the receiving end of the murderous V-2 rockets that had replaced the doodlebugs.

  At Dunnings factory in Melling, since there was no longer an urgent need for parts for Spitfires and Lancasters and other wartime aircraft, a staff party was held on Christmas Eve and Eileen Stephens was an honoured guest.

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ she cried, hugging and kissing the women she’d worked with during the first year of the war, who had become as close as sisters: tall, willowy Pauline; Doris, who still wore too much orange make-up and was waving a diamond engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand; Carmel, well over sixty and, as ever, without a full set of teeth. A few had left; one, Theresa, had died in an air raid while Eileen had been working there. And she’d been at Dunnings when she’d met Nick. The girls had all come to her wedding.

  ‘Oh, he’s fine,’ she told them when she was asked, over and over, how he was. ‘He works in London and he comes home most weekends.’ She didn’t want them knowing that the wonderful romance they had all been so envious of was over, and she wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again.

  She arrived home to find Jessica and Penny at the cottage with Lena Newton, who had Christmas Eve off and had stayed the night in order to look after Nicky and Theo that morning. Eileen and the children were expected at Jessica’s house in Pearl Street the next day for Christmas dinner. As a little pre-Christmas treat, Jess had brought half a dozen iced cup cakes that she’d bought from the American shop in the camp at Burtonwood that morning.

  ‘Did you know,’ Eileen informed her, ‘that it’s against the law to ice a cake in this country while there’s a war on, because icing uses up too much sugar?’

  ‘So we are, in effect, breaking the law by eating these cakes?’ Jessica put the colourfully iced cakes on the table in a row while Penny, Nicky and Napoleon watched with interest. ‘Even the children?’

  ‘And the cat,’ Eileen told her. ‘Nevertheless, I think I shall eat that pink and white one with the cherry on top and hope I don’t end up in jail. Lena, are yo
u willing to risk it?’

  ‘I am.’ Lena remembered Phyllis Taylor saying that she would quite like to go to jail, ‘just to see what it’s like’. She missed Phyllis like nobody’s business, and always would.

  ‘I think I’ll risk it too.’ Jessica laughed. ‘Penny, Nicky, what colour would you like? Oh, and Eileen, I’ve brought tea bags with me, save using your own tea.’

  ‘Tea bags?’ Eileen and Lena said together.

  Jessica held up a little square bag for them to scrutinise. ‘They’re extremely convenient,’ she said. ‘They were invented in New York, not far from where we will live.’

  Lena went home at four o’clock, refusing to stay to tea. ‘I’m worried about Godfrey,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t home by the time I left to come and see you.’

  ‘Who is Godfrey?’ Jessica asked after the woman had gone. She didn’t know Lena all that well.

  ‘Her cat.’ Eileen wrinkled her nose. ‘Poor soul, she has a terrible inferiority complex. What’s more, her husband has done a disappearing act, same as Nick. Luckily, she doesn’t mind. It wasn’t a very happy marriage, but she’s been left without a relative in the world.’

  ‘Well, much as I feel sorry for her, I’m glad she’s gone. I’ve something to tell you. But before I do, will you please tell me what a film star is doing sweeping up your garden?’

  Eileen glanced through the window. ‘That’s Vincenzo, he’s Italian and comes once a week to tidy up. Me dad’s been neglecting things a bit lately. Have you seen much of him since you came back, Jess?’

  ‘Not much, no,’ Jess said casually. ‘Can I tell you my news now?’

  Such was the expression on her friend’s face – a mixture of joy and mischief, achievement and surprise – that Eileen was able to guess what the something was.

  ‘You’re pregnant!’ she said in astonishment. She frowned. ‘I’m about to do my Aggie Donovan impersonation – how have you managed that without the presence of your husband?’

  ‘Gus left for France three months ago, in September, only days before I came back to Bootle. It is now December, and I’ve just discovered I’m pregnant. It’s all perfectly legitimate, Aggie.’

  ‘Whew!’ Eileen made a pretence of looking relieved. ‘In that case, congratulations, Jessica. I bet you’re thrilled to bits.’

  ‘I’m over the moon.’

  Christmas Day turned out to be very ordinary, neither sunny nor dull, warm nor cold, just a little bit wet, but mostly dry. It was more or less the same throughout the British Isles.

  Surely, the pessimists complained, surely this had to be the last Christmas of this flaming war. If it wasn’t, then by this time next year there’d be nothing left to eat, no presents left to buy, no clothes left to wear. Curtains would fall to bits, furniture would rot, houses would decay for want of maintenance.

  Don’t be such a miserable shower of gits, the optimists would cry. We’re not going to let them Jerries get us down. The country had kept going for more than five tortuous years and would keep going for another five, another fifty if necessary. After all, as the song said, ‘There’ll always be an England …’

  Dominic was more inclined to let his mates have a go on the skates than his brothers. On Christmas morning, a small war broke out outside the Reillys’ house, though so far there hadn’t been any casualties.

  Calum kept control until Jack Doyle called for him on his way to the King’s Arms. There being no conceivable way in which Calum would miss downing a few pints in his favourite pub on Christmas morning, Sheila was left to control the children herself. She managed this by deliberately bursting into tears and claiming she was at the end of her tether, whereupon Dominic burst into tears himself, handed the skates to Niall, and promptly began to set the table.

  Godfrey still hadn’t returned home. Lena had bought two ounces of ham for his Christmas dinner. She had hers with Brenda and her girls, where Tommy, Godfrey’s brother, was fast asleep beneath the home-made tree.

  ‘Oh, he’ll come back,’ Brenda assured her. ‘He’s just finding his feet, sowing his oats, that sort of thing. Probably got a lady cat tucked away somewhere. You should have got him neutered, Lena, if you didn’t want him going out on the town, as it were.’

  ‘Neutered?’ Lena had never heard of the word.

  Brenda looked at her girls, who were busy eating, and mouthed ‘castrated’ at the other woman.

  ‘Oh!’ Lena swallowed hard. ‘Is it too late to have it done now?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You could talk it over with the vet. It would mean poor Godfrey would be forever denied the joys off …’ She mouthed the word ‘sex’.

  ‘Oh dearie me!’ Lena was horrified. ‘Would it hurt?’ she asked.

  Brenda looked at her with amusement. ‘Think about it, Lena,’ she snorted. ‘Just imagine if you had balls and someone cut them off with a knife. Of course it would hurt, daft girl.’

  Across the street at Jessica’s house, she and Eileen were having a good laugh. Nicky and Penny were playing in the street with Sheila’s children. Eileen was wondering why she was enjoying herself so much when this was the first Christmas she’d spent since the war had begun without there being any chance of seeing Nick. Even last year, he’d managed to come home for a few days, despite the fact that he was in the throes of his affair with Doria. She was sorry now, though it was much too late to do anything about it, that she hadn’t had it out with him, had a really furious row, got things off her chest. Sometimes I am much too nice, she told herself.

  What if she never saw him again? What if he was dead too? At least she was all right for money. Gosh, that was a horrible thing to think, but she had the children to care for. Both of them were Nick’s sons, and if he were dead she would be entitled to the cottage. She had a widow’s pension for her first husband and she would get one for Nick.

  ‘Cheers, Eileen.’ Jessica had raised her glass containing the very best sherry.

  Eileen picked up her own. ‘Cheers, Jess.’

  ‘May all our worries be little ones.’

  It’s much too late for that, Eileen thought cynically.

  In the small town of Beverley, Winifred and Leslie Taylor’s house was completely devoid of decorations, and they hadn’t bothered with Christmas dinner. They’d eaten very little since they’d heard that Phyllis had died.

  They sat staring into the fire, reminiscing. Leslie blamed himself for the tragedy. ‘If I hadn’t behaved so damn stupidly, you and Phyllis wouldn’t have had to go to Liverpool,’ he moaned. He said the same thing almost every day. ‘Things would have been very different.’

  ‘She would still have wanted to join the army,’ Winifred pointed out. Like him, she also said the same thing daily.

  ‘Yes, but it would have been under different circumstances. She might not have been sent to London.’

  Winifred agreed. She blamed him totally for their daughter’s death, but had never said it outright. She had thought of leaving him, but wasn’t sure if she could cope on her own, not yet.

  ‘Shall we go and say a prayer, Win? A Christmas prayer for our little girl?’ He’d become quite soppy. If Phyllis could have heard him, she would have laughed her head off. Our little girl!

  ‘Yes.’ She got eagerly to her feet. They went every day to Beverley Minster, a great, glorious house of prayer more than eight hundred years old. It was the only place where they felt at peace.

  Nick couldn’t recall having gone to bed before midnight on Christmas Day in his life, not even when he was a child. But go to bed he did at ten o’clock after a quiet day spent walking along the beach, where a crisp wind blew and the sky was dark and full of menacing clouds. Just before dinner, he and Clarence had visited the local pub, which looked and felt as if it had been carved out of a giant tree.

  Dinner was, as expected, totally delicious. The chicken Mary had obtained had been roasted to perfection, along with the potatoes. The vegetables had been cooked so that they were neither too hard nor too soft. A memory flickered
through his brain of Christmas at the cottage, when Jack Doyle had so proudly picked the Brussels sprouts a mere half-hour before they would be eaten.

  Memories of the cottage and Pearl Street kept returning throughout the day, like scenes from a film. After dinner had been eaten, Clarence produced a bottle of rum and they drank half of it between them. Nick wondered if Clarence had memories of his own that he wished to remember, or preferred to forget. There were chicken sandwiches for tea, more Christmas pudding, more rum.

  When Nick went to bed, he wasn’t quite sure which world he occupied, the one in Liverpool or the one in Norfolk. It wasn’t until he heard the door open and footsteps approaching his bed that he remembered it was the one in Norfolk.

  When Eileen returned to the cottage the following day, she found an attractive pot on the back step containing a single plant. She wasn’t very knowledgeable about plants, but she thought it might be a hyacinth. It had a card attached; ‘Buon Natale, Vincenzo’, it read.

  The handsome Italian prisoner of war had been thinking about her over Christmas.

  Chapter 20

  1945

  One Monday late in February, two unexpected visitors arrived at the cottage in Melling: Mr and Mrs Mallory, Doria’s parents. At least they thought they were unexpected, but Eileen had received a phone call earlier that morning from Peter telling her they were on their way.

  ‘They want to take you by surprise for some reason.’ She imagined him shrugging at the other end of the line. She was glad he hadn’t turned up over Christmas, and hoped their relationship from now on would just be occasional visits to see his nephew

  At first Eileen had considered spending the day in Pearl Street – she was irritated that the Mallorys had taken it for granted that she would be at home – but if she did that, they might stay in Liverpool and keep on calling until they found her in. Perhaps they wanted take her unawares to ensure that she kept a clean house and that their grandson was properly clothed and fed. She hoped and prayed there would be no suggestion of them taking him back with them.