‘What the hell—’ he attempted to begin.
‘Hell is the right word. You’re hopeless. Now, sleeping arrangements aside, life continues the same. When Gloria and Peter leave, I leave. My father has willed his house to me, so I shall not be homeless in the long term. He will take me in if he’s still alive, and when he dies everything comes to me, so I am safe. Meanwhile, we keep things on an even keel for the children, and for the sake of local society.’
Tom stared at her. In fourteen years of marriage, she had never strung so many words together in one speech. Life had wobbled on its fulcrum, had shifted because of a force he had never before recognized. As a result, he suddenly felt insecure, undermined and slightly afraid. She was his wife, but she was a creature far stronger than the dull, quiet woman with whom he had lived for all this time. ‘I have rights,’ he said.
‘So do I. What happens in our bed isn’t love, isn’t even sex. It’s rape. You come upstairs with your hormones rampaging for Mel Watson. You give me no consideration – not even a kiss, and scarcely a word. I just lie there in pain while you make noises like a sick gorilla. Not one recognizable syllable do you utter. You were never much of a lover, but you have become a bloody rapist. So bugger off and leave me be.’
The door slammed in her wake. She never swore. She always did exactly what was asked or expected of her. The door opened for a split second. ‘Oh, and the girl plays you like a fish on her hook. Stick to the mother, or you’ll be in jail. I’ll put you there myself.’ The door crashed home for a second time.
Tom dropped into his favourite wing chair. What was it his father had said? Something about allowing a woman to win, and about allowing her to know she had won? All the time, Marie had realized that he needed sex whenever stimulated by someone other than her. Well, what did she expect? There was nothing desirable about her. She was frumpy, asexual and boring. Yet he was suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. Was he useless in bed? Certainly not. He was an attractive man who needed a beautiful woman. Marie was not beautiful, but Eileen Watson certainly was.
The evening meal was even quieter than normal that night. Marie topped up her wine glass three times, leaving too little for her husband, who had to make do with water when his own glass ran dry. He chewed his way through lamb cutlets with mint sauce, carrots and sauté potatoes, and waited for his wife to clear away in preparation for a pudding. But she announced that there would be none tonight, and they had better get used to that, as there was a war on. She would be joining the Women’s Voluntary Service, so people in this house had better buck up, clear up and wash up. After this undecorated announcement, she left the room and went upstairs.
‘Is there something wrong?’ Gloria asked.
Tom had his answer prepared. ‘Your mother hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s going to try the spare room.’
‘But Mel might need that, Daddy.’
‘No. She’ll be staying elsewhere.’
Peter was audibly disappointed. ‘She’s fun,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ll be stuck here with Gloria in excelsis. I was looking forward to having a bit of life in the house for a change.’
Tom studied his children, realizing that he seldom looked closely at them. Gloria, like her mother, promised to be a brownish person with a dumpy, clumsy frame and no outstanding features. Had there been no money in the family, she could never have gone to Merchants Girls, because she would not have gained the marks required in order for one of the few bequeathed bursaries to be awarded to her. The only person in whose company Gloria became animated was Mel Watson, who owned life and brains sufficient for several. Unselfish for a second or two, Tom felt sorry for his daughter. She might have come out of herself had Mel been stationed here for the duration of war.
Peter was a different kettle of fish. He had inherited his father’s brown eyes, yet his hair remained fair. The boy had a well-developed body, clear skin, a handsome face and, like Mel, managed to shine at school. Academically sound and with a good memory for detail, Peter also did well in a variety of sports. This was definitely Tom’s son. Unsure thus far of his goal, the older twin swung between medicine and a fierce desire to play cricket for Lancashire. Tom had explained that the two were not mutually exclusive, so Peter could well do either or both.
It was as if Marie had given birth to one carbon copy of Tom, and one of herself. There was no malice in Gloria, just as there had been none in her mother until today. He shifted in his seat. Had that been malice, or had it been natural anger? He didn’t wish her any harm, but he could no longer manage to want her. Like many of her sex, she was wise and intuitive, and she had worked out that whenever he engaged with her she was just the nearest piece of equipment designed to receive him.
The twins left the room, abandoning their father to sit among the debris of the last supper. He named the event thus because everything would be different from now on. Marie would provide for her family, of that he was in no doubt. But he imagined her in the WVS and knew that she would make a good member of such an organization. Determinedly English, and quietly furious with Germany, she would invest her all in any job required of her. As wife of a well-known doctor, she enjoyed the respect of local people.
He stood up and walked to the window. Again, he wished that he might join up and serve in some field hospital, but that privilege would be denied him, as he had two small afflictions: his feet needed supports under their arches, and he had a perforated left eardrum. A thought occurred. Peter was thirteen; if this show continued for five years, the boy would be conscripted. He had not inherited his father’s flat feet, but his twin sister had. Peter was fit. Peter was going nowhere, Tom decided as he cleared the table. His wife seemed to be on strike.
The kitchen bore a strong relationship to a battle zone. Remnants of high tea shared with Mel Watson and her mother lingered on the drop-down middle section of one of a pair of green cupboards known as kitchenettes. Saucepans, abandoned on the hob of the gas cooker, had traces of the last supper encrusted on their interiors. A grill pan contained congealed lamb fat, while peelings from carrots and potatoes occupied a colander in the sink. This was what she faced each day, and more than once. Marie was a bloody good mother who always gave one hundred per cent of herself.
Tom rolled up his sleeves and set to. He did everything properly, dealing first with glassware and cutlery, changing water for crockery, soaking pans, wiping surfaces.
‘Thank you, Tom.’
He turned. ‘Marie.’ He was a bad man, and she deserved better. ‘Men don’t realize what women cope with until they’re stuck with it,’ he said.
‘I wouldn’t have left the washing up.’
He looked at her; she looked at him. After shifting her clothes from the marital wardrobe and into the spare room, she was hot and sticky and her hair was corkscrewed. Tom, in a flowery apron and damp shirt, brought to mind some henpecked character from a Charlie Chaplin film. They burst out laughing simultaneously. He remembered the girl he had married; she thought about the laughter that had accompanied their courtship. ‘I don’t hate you,’ she said quietly.
‘Same here.’
‘We’ll just have to muddle through, Tom.’
‘Yes. You, me and the armed forces. Life’s rich tapestry, what?’
She nodded and began to dry dishes.
Eileen opened the door. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ she mouthed.
‘Hardly,’ said the policeman who held one struggling boy in each hand.
‘Philip, Rob and Bertie,’ said the second, who was holding on to Rob. ‘Jesus and his mam and dad never turned up, said they were busy. But these three were there. I believe you are the owner of these fine young criminals?’
Eileen stepped aside to allow the representatives of the law into her parlour. There was scarcely room for family in the tiny front room, so by the time the three offenders were lined up in front of the fireplace she and her mother were forced to stand with their backs to the opposite wall, the one to which Mel’s bike was affixed, whil
e the constables had to occupy the window area.
‘What now?’ Nellie asked resignedly. ‘Have they burned down the Liver Buildings, sunk the Isle of Man ferry, or is it something serious like high treason?’
‘There’s a special school opening,’ said one of the men. ‘It’s for young delinquents, and it’s in the middle of Derbyshire. We can kill two – or three – birds with one stone, because it counts as evacuation as well. They won’t be bombed, but they’ll be knocked into shape. God knows they need it.’
‘What have they done now?’ Nellie repeated.
One of the pair delivered the opinion that what these three hadn’t done would make a shorter list. The other attempted a reply. ‘They’ve been running bets for Nobby Costigan, pinching fruit from the Jubilee Stores, and when we finally caught up with them they were trying to work out how to free a barrage balloon from its moorings with a penknife and an axe. The axe is being kept as evidence, but the penknife broke and one of these heroes chucked it in the river.’
‘Why?’ Eileen asked.
Philip answered. ‘Because it was a no-good knife. Couldn’t cut butter.’
Eileen closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Not the knife, soft lad. Why the balloon? Why did you try to free a balloon that’s there to protect our city?’
‘We wanted to see what would happen.’ Bertie swallowed hard after this admission. ‘If it got loose, like, and floated off.’ His voice died of terror.
Nellie sighed deeply and turned her head in the direction of her daughter. ‘Eileen, go and fetch Hilda. She can explain what’s going to happen to these three.’ She glared at the miscreants. They looked like gingerbread men cut from similar shapes in descending sizes. Each had brown hair, blue eyes, angelic features and a devilish attitude painted over by good looks and sweet smiles. Well, Bertie’s would be sweet once his adult front teeth grew in properly.
Their grandmother continued to stare at them while Eileen was away. The three lads were more trouble than a gang of drunken Orangemen at a St Paddy’s day party. They were wild, daft and short of several good hidings. But they weren’t going to any school for delinquents, oh no. They were bad enough already without being taught more tricks by the rest of the criminal fraternity. A couple of years in juvenile jail, and they might well return with violin cases, funny hats and Chicago accents. ‘They’re going where I take them,’ Nellie advised the constables. ‘Not to some training camp for gangsters, thanks all the same.’
The policemen removed their helmets. ‘One thing’s sure, Mrs Kennedy. When Hitler starts playing with his big fireworks, there’ll be looting. A direct hit on a row of houses, and these three would be in like Flynn. They can’t help themselves. Their dad would be ashamed.’
‘There’s nothing worth pinching,’ Nellie told them. ‘Most round here think soap’s a luxury.’
‘That’s not the point. War’s hard enough without having to keep an eye out for the Three Stooges. They need a firm hand.’
Hilda and Eileen squeezed their way into the house. ‘Good evening,’ said the former. ‘I understand that you are on the brink of arresting these three young boys.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as—’ The first policeman stopped when his mate dug him sharply in the ribs. ‘What?’ he asked, rubbing his side.
‘They and some others have to be removed.’ Policeman number two assumed charge of the situation. ‘Yes, they have to go.’
‘I see.’ Hilda folded her arms. ‘Removed? Like a growth? Or three growths? Over my dead body, young man. They are going to no commune for the unsalvageable.’
Eileen and Nellie looked at each other. As suspected, there was more to Miss Hilda Pickavance than met the immediate eye of any beholder.
‘And you’ll take responsibility?’
‘I shall. They will be in rural Lancashire, and I shall deal with their education. There will be no barrage balloons, no shops and no bookmakers for whom they might run. Their mother has told me of their behaviour. The whole family is deeply ashamed, but you have to understand that these two ladies are widows, and there is no male influence in the boys’ lives.’
‘Which is why they could do with a special school,’ said Number Two.
Number One, still busy holding his ribs, simply nodded.
‘They will be farming,’ Hilda snapped. ‘They will be providing food for the populace. Now, unless you want to place them in a cell tonight – and I advise strongly against that – I suggest you leave us to cope with this matter.’
The three boys watched in awe as the policemen left the scene. Miss Pickavance was absolutely brilliant. They grinned at each other, rejoicing in their good fortune. But their happiness was short-lived. As soon as the uniformed men had disappeared, they got both barrels. Mam would save them, wouldn’t she? For once, Eileen remained rigidly unmoved.
‘Get your night things and go to my house. There is a double bed in the front upstairs room, and you will sleep in it. Tomorrow, you’ll blacklead my grate and clean all windows before and after school. If and when I go out, you will be supervised by your mother or your grandmother. You will eat when we decide, speak when we decide, breathe when allowed. You will go to school, but if you are late coming home, appropriate punishment will ensue.’
‘En-what?’ Six-year-old Bertie was struggling to keep up with all the posh talk.
‘Follow,’ snapped their nice, quiet, well-mannered neighbour. ‘Every moment of your lives until we move to inner Lancashire will be supervised. You are not to be trusted. I am thoroughly ashamed of you.’ She turned on her heel and walked out of the house.
Philip, at eleven, was the oldest of the gang. ‘I’m not going to her house,’ he announced, arms folded defiantly across his chest. ‘I’m not.’
Rob, at nine, was similarly decided, but Bertie, who thought there might be cocoa across the street, ran upstairs to pick up sleepwear made by his mother out of a shirt that had belonged to his beloved father. He picked up similar items that were the property of his brothers before returning to the ground floor. ‘I’ve got your nightshirts,’ he told them.
Nellie fastened her eyes to Philip’s. After a few seconds, the sheer weight of her personality forced him to avert his gaze. She moved on to the middle brother, and he endured her glacial stare for a fraction of a second. Hilda Pickavance had begged Nellie to accompany her into the countryside because she needed help with children. But Hilda could manage better than most, and this evening had proved that. ‘Right,’ she said to the three rapscallions. ‘You can’t be trusted, so your mam and I will take you to Miss Pickavance. It’s that or the police station. Well?’
They chose that. After walking the three across the street, Nellie and Eileen waited until they heard Hilda’s key turning in the lock when the boys had entered the house. ‘Bloody hell,’ Nellie whispered. ‘Talk about hidden talents.’
Eileen waited until they were home. ‘She’s acting.’
‘I know that.’
‘She’s being Miss Millichamp.’
‘Miss Millie who?’
‘Champ. Headmistress at her school. They didn’t believe in caning young ladies, but Hilda said that sometimes she would rather have had the cane. So when you sent me to fetch her, she said she was going to do a Miss Millichamp. Miss Millichamp used to get so deeply disappointed that the girls would be in tears. Psychology, according to Hilda. See, she seems quiet and polite and all that, but underneath, she’s just like the rest of us, only cleverer.’
Mel came downstairs. ‘Armageddon again?’ she asked.
Eileen nodded. ‘Police. Something to do with a pound of apples and a barrage balloon.’
Mel decided not to ask for further clarification. ‘Where are they?’
‘With Miss Millichamp,’ Eileen replied. ‘She looks like Hilda Pickavance, but actually she’s a Miss Millichamp. The cops wanted to send the boys to some sort of special school for bad lads, but Hilda stepped in. Wiped the floor with a couple of constables, then waded in on Rob and Phi
lip. Bertie was all right, being the youngest.’
Mel grinned. ‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’
Nellie raised her head and looked into her granddaughter’s eyes. ‘For some, it’s going to be too peaceful, love. Out there, we have unborns who’ll never see the light of day, babes in prams who won’t live to learn to walk. Loads of old people won’t get the chance to die in their own beds, and every man who ships out of here will be a target.’
‘Sorry, Gran.’
‘In 1918, I never really believed it was over. I was right. They just had a long rest, that’s all. We’ve enjoyed what they call a pause in hostilities, because all our young men were dead or near-dead, so we had to grow a new lot. But as long as men are in charge, Mel, there’ll be war. There’s always some bugger trying to prove he can pee highest, run fastest and beat folk up. Like at school. Only this time, it’s a bigger playground.’ She left the room.
When Mel made to follow, Eileen stopped her. ‘Leave her, girl. She’ll be talking to your granddad. She always does when she’s frightened – she prays to him like he’s a saint.’
‘Oh, Mam.’
‘I know, love. I know.’
Four
Keith Greenhalgh was in the morning room at Willows trying to write to Miss Hilda Pickavance. He forced himself to stop chewing the pen and start shaping words. After all, he couldn’t sit here forever daydreaming about a woman who was, for the present, out of reach. How old was he? Seventeen? No, he was forty-odd and counting, so he’d best get on with things.
Dear Miss Pickavance,
The four tenant farmers have not yet been approached by evacuation authorities, and they are each willing to take two children from Liverpool, preferably older ones, as their wives will be too busy for baby-minding. I am still discussing the situation with cottagers who live in Willows Edge, but there is one house empty, and you may want to bring a family; a mother with young children, perhaps.
The Liverpool Trilogy Page 40