by June Francis
A Place to Call Home
June Francis
© June Francis 2004
June Francis has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2004 by Allison & Busby Limited.
This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Part Two
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
Part One
1
Greta Peters dragged the key on the string through the letterbox with cold stiff fingers and unlocked the door. She stepped inside, glad to be out of the freezing fog. Scarcely any daylight filtered through the fanlight that was grimy with dust. Silence greeted her and she experienced a familiar sense of loss. She hated this house. Since the deaths of her younger brother and sister from measles and her mother from pneumonia, it no longer felt like home.
It was miserable coming into an empty, cold house when in the past, at the end of a school day, there were those she loved to greet her. A pan of scouse would be on the fire or a hotpot in the oven, and smiling eyes would welcome her and a loving voice would ask how her day had been.
Greta walked slowly up the lobby, hoping she would feel better once she put a match to the making of the fire her father had set before they left the house that morning. She pushed open the kitchen door and froze. The gaslight was on and there was a fire already burning in the black leaded grate. Her spirits lifted and, crazily, she thought that the past three months had been just a bad dream as she inhaled the delicious smell of fried bread and egg. Her stomach rumbled because she had eaten little that day.
‘Mam! Alf! Amy! Are you there?’ she whispered, and rushed into the back kitchen but it was empty. She dumped the shopping on the drop-leafed table and slumped over it. Her grief was like a weight in her chest and she wanted to cry but she had told herself that she had to be brave for her dad. She had sensed from the beginning that if she had given way to tears then he would have broken down, too, and neither of them could have coped with that.
Greta straightened and walked like a zombie back into the kitchen and went over to the fire. She rubbed her numb fingers and held them out to the blaze, staring hypnotically into the fire’s flaming heart. Could her dad have lit the fire? No! It was too early for him to be home yet, especially with the fog. Unless he had been allowed home early because of the weather but if that was so, then where was he? She experienced a feeling of dread. Dear God, please don’t let him have done something terrible! Fear caused her legs to lose their strength and she had to reach out and cling to the mantle-shelf. She took several deep breaths and closed her eyes and, in that moment of silence, heard footsteps overhead.
‘Dad!’
Her fear evaporated and she left the kitchen and began to climb the stairs. A sudden blood-curdling yowl caused her to stumble in the darkness and she would have fallen if she hadn’t clutched the banister rail. What the hell was that? ‘Dad! Dad, are you there?’ She rushed up the rest of the stairs and along the landing to the front bedroom.
Light showed beneath the door and filtered through the crack round its edge. The door was not quite shut and she pushed it open wider. Instantly, she saw that the curtains were drawn and that the room looked empty. Her heart was hammering from her dash upstairs and she felt dizzy. For a moment she could only wonder whether her dad, Harry Peters, had gone off his head and was playing some kind of game of hide and seek with her. But no, what was she thinking, he wouldn’t be so cruel. Then she noticed that the chocolate box, in which her mother had kept old letters, photographs and other precious knick-knacks was open and its contents spilled out on the blue and white cotton bedspread.
What was that doing there? Greta stepped towards the bed and, as she did so, out of the corner of her eye, glimpsed a youth standing behind the door. She whirled round and for one heart-stopping moment they stared at each other.
Skinny and of medium height, he wore a jacket and trousers that had seen better days. His shabby tweed cap was pushed to the back of his head, so that it rested precariously on his tousled, nut brown hair. His face seemed all bones and angles. He opened his mouth as if to speak and that blood curdling yowl she’d heard earlier was repeated. Then the light went out.
Blinded by the sudden darkness she screamed and then felt him brush past her. The bedroom door slammed and she heard his feet stumbling along the landing and then thundering down the stairs. She half-expected him to fall and thought it would blinking serve him right, frightening the life out of her like that. She heard the front door slam and breathed a sigh of relief.
Now her eyes were accustomed to the darkness, she opened the door and, feeling for the banister rails with her left hand, walked along the landing. Then out of the blue came that yowl again and all courage and common sense deserted her.
She fled down the stairs, through the kitchen and down the yard in the fog. She unbolted the door and darted down the entry to her maternal grandmother’s back yard door, but it was locked. She hammered on the wood. ‘Gran, are you there?’ she shouted, but to no avail.
Greta hesitated before trying the Millers’ place next door to her gran’s. Mrs Miller was crippled and would not be best pleased to have to come down the yard and let her in, especially in this weather. It would be OK if her daughter, Rene, was home. She had known Greta’s mother, Sally, most of her life and, until a fortnight ago, Greta and Harry had seen a fair amount of her. Then suddenly Rene had stopped coming round to their place and helping out.
Greta sighed. It looked like she was going to have to go down the entry and round to her gran’s front door and let herself into the house with the key on the string. She just hoped to God that nobody was lying in wait for her.
She jogged along the entry, her hand brushing the walls and doors on her right. Then she spotted the gas lamp on the backyard wall of the end house, signalling that she was approaching the wider, shorter entry that ran between the two streets. Here she slowed, her breath wheezing in her chest, knowing she didn’t have far to go.
Soon she was touching garden fences and counting steps, worried about missing her gran’s house in the fog. At last she reached it and hurried up the front step. She checked that she had the right number and only then did she wonder whether her gran would be pleased to see her. What if she had not answered the backyard door because she was in bed with her live-in fella? Should she knock first? Sometimes it was a real embarrassment having Cissie Hardcastle for a gran.
Shivering with cold, the girl lifted the knocker and banged it hard. Nothing happened. She tried again and still there was no sound of footsteps hurrying down the lobby to let her in. Perhaps her gran really wasn’t in. Greta delayed no longer. She would freeze if she didn’t get indoors soon. She fumbled through the letter box for the key on the string but it was not there! What had happened to it? Dismayed, Greta slumped against the door. Then, to her relief, she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the street and shot to her feet.
Rene Miller peered through the fog which hung, like a heavy blanket, over Liverpool that February evening in 1939, not only muffling sound but also distorting landmarks. She could hear someone calling and, despite her sore feet, she hurried, thinking something might have happened to her mother. Then she recognised the voice.
‘Is that you, Greta?’ she called.
‘Yes!’ answered the girl. ‘And I need you! I don’t want to go back into our house on my own! There was someone in there. He lit the fire and fried himself an egg … the cheeky thing! But then after I heard our front door slam, I heard him again, so either he didn’t leave or-or he-he was a g-ghost!’
‘A ghost!’ exclaimed Rene in her husky voice.
‘A ghost!’ echoed the girl, as she swam into Rene’s vision.
Greta was a slender figure in a well-worn, navy blue winter coat that had once belonged to her mother. On her head she wore a hand-knitted red hat, its plaited ties fastened in a bow beneath her chin, and two, thick, dark plaits of hair dangled down over the slight swell of her breasts. She was shivering as she stood on the foot high wall that fronted the wooden fence on which she was leaning. She gazed up at Rene from worried hazel eyes that seemed huge in her thin, sallow face.
‘I presume you didn’t get an answer at your gran’s?’ said Rene.
‘No! And I couldn’t find the key on the string either.’
‘Perhaps it broke off or she’s taken it away. There was a big argument going on in there last night and it sounded like things were getting thrown about. Eventually we heard Cecil shouting something and then the front door slammed.’
Greta’s eyes widened. ‘You think he’s left?’
‘Sounded like it. It all went quiet after that.’ Rene hoped last night’s row was the last in the string of arguments that had gone on since Christmas. Perhaps now Cecil had gone her mother, Vera, would sleep nights and not be rousing Rene from her bed to make her cup of tea or get out the po.
Greta looked relieved. ‘Mam would have been glad. Although, do you think she’ll get another? I remember hearing Mam and Dad talking, saying they hadn’t minded so much when she lived with Marty because they’d been together years but since he died she’s just gone from bad to worse.’
‘It was like a blow to her when Marty died,’ said Rene in a low voice. ‘I think she’s been lonely. Anyway, never mind your gran right now … what was it you were saying about a youth and a terrible yowling noise?’
‘Oh yes!’ Greta heaved an enormous sigh. ‘I heard this horrible yowling sound like a soul in torment! Three times I heard it … the final time after the door had slammed and I thought he’d gone … but-but perhaps that was a trick and he’s still in the house. I don’t want to be a nuisance, Rene, but I would appreciate it if you’d come back with me,’ she added earnestly.
Rene was tired after her walk from the dried goods and wine importers and distributors in the city centre where she worked as an invoice clerk. She would have a meal to make when she got in. Her mother’s rheumatism had worsened since Rene’s father had died, and if it was not for Wilf, the lodger, and the neighbours, Rene would never have managed to hold on to her full time job. Once she arrived home, her mother expected Rene to wait on her hand and foot. She would hit the roof if she knew her daughter was contemplating going round to the Peters’ house. It was Vera who was responsible for Rene no longer helping them out. She still felt angry and wretched when she thought about the vile words her mother had said about her and Harry.
Greta reached out and touched her arm. ‘I’ve been thinking and I don’t think that youth could really have been a ghost. A ghost can’t light a fire, can it? An-And it wouldn’t fry an egg either, w-would it?’
‘Probably not!’ Rene smiled, thinking about the film she and Wilf had taken her mother to see on Saturday evening. It had been a real effort to get her there but Vera loved a good horror and she had been quite pleasant afterwards, so it had been worthwhile. ‘More likely it was just your plain, common burglar. D’you know if he got away with anything?’
Greta shook her head. ‘No! But Mam’s memory box was on the bed … I saw that first … then I spotted him and he opened his mouth an-and yowled … an-and then as if by magic the light went out and he slipped out of the room.’
‘I see,’ said Rene softly, wondering if the girl was making the whole thing up to get her round to the house. She knew how badly the deaths in the family had affected Greta and Harry She had been deeply saddened herself. She had been Amy’s godmother and watched both of the children who had died grow from babies. Rene also had a strong feeling that perhaps Sally might not have succumbed to pneumonia if her younger children had survived.
‘I swear it wasn’t my imagination, although since Mam and the kids have gone, it’s really … spooky in our house and … ’ Her voice faltered.
‘I know,’ said Rene, squeezing Greta’s hand. ‘I’ll come with you and we’ll get this sorted out.’
Rene gripped her handbag tightly in her other hand, thinking she could use it as a weapon if she had to. If there really had been a youth in the house that was worrying. Since the Depression there were thousands of desperate people out there.
They hurried down the street and turned into the entry. Almost immediately Rene’s foot slipped on the wet cobbles. ‘Be careful here,’ she warned.
‘I hate the fog,’ said Greta, clutching at Rene. ‘It makes things even more scary.’
Rene did not argue with that and understood when Greta kept giving her hand little squeezes. It was somehow comforting. As they came to the next entry, Rene said, ‘You said … your mother’s memory box. Was there anything of value in there?’
‘Nothing worth money,’ replied Greta. ‘I mean if there was, I’m sure Mam would have hocked it when Dad was out of work a few winters ago. Although, she did hang on to a couple of things against … a-a real … rainy day.’ Greta swallowed noisily.
Rene hugged the girl against her, remembering so many difficult times, not only for the Peters, but also for herself and her mother. The year Harry Peters had been out of work, her father had died after years of suffering from the wounds he had received in the Great War. The burden of keeping the household going had fallen completely on Rene’s shoulders and life would have been even more difficult if Wilf Murphy, retired seaman, had not turned up on their doorstep looking for rooms. He had lodged with them ever since.
They came to the Peters’ door, which stood ajar. Greta bit her lip. ‘I must have forgotten to shut it in the rush to get away.’
‘It doesn’t matter now,’ said Rene, and urged the girl inside the yard.
They hurried past the outside lavatory and the small lean-to where in happier days Harry had spent time making toys for his children for Christmas. A lump rose in Rene’s throat but she forced it down and pushed open the back kitchen door. Immediately the smell of fried bread and egg filled her nostrils and she realised how hungry she was, but food was going to have to wait. She stood a moment listening, but could only hear the sound of their breathing, so she led the way through into the kitchen.
Except for the glow of the fire, the room was still in darkness. ‘Let’s have a light on things,’ said Rene. ‘Where are the matches?’
‘On the shelf next to the fireplace but we need a penny for the meter and I’m all out of pennies,’ said Greta.
‘I think I can spare you a penny,’ said Rene with a smile.
‘Thanks! I’m sure the light will chase the ghosts away,’ said Greta brightly.
There are ghosts here, thought Rene, but they don’t go bump in the night in the accepted sense. Even so they needed to be laid to rest, but that was easier said than done. Her heart ached as she remembered the love and laughter that had once filled this house. She removed her gloves and rammed them into her coat pockets. Then she reached for her handbag and rummaged for her purse. She took out a penny, and after dropping her handbag on a chair, she headed for the parlour. Greta was close on her heels.
Despite the darkness, Rene found the meter cupboard with no trouble. She crouched in front of it and discovered the door was ajar. Had the youth broken into the meter? Any sympathy she might have felt for him disappeared but then a growl from the depths of the cupboard caused her to rethink that idea and she fell back on her
haunches, her pulses racing.
‘What is it?’ demanded Greta, kneeling beside her.
Rene gave no answer but leaned forward and cautiously reached into the cupboard again. A hiss, a meow, and a stinging pain as claws raked the back of her hand. ‘Hell, and blooming hell!’ she exclaimed, clutching her hand and bringing it up to her mouth to lick where it hurt. ‘I think this is your ghost! There’s a cat in here!’
Greta was silent a moment before saying slowly, ‘I wonder if it’s that moggy that’s been hanging round our back door! Dad told me I wasn’t to encourage it because you know what he’s like when he’s round cats. What’s it doing in the gas cupboard?’
‘Whatever it’s doing, it can’t stay here,’ said Rene, taking a handkerchief from her pocket and wrapping it round her injured hand. Then in a soothing voice, she said, ‘Come on, Mog, behave yourself, so we can have a light on things.’ She hummed Rock-a-bye-baby, on the treetops as her fingers edged towards the meter slot. A rumbling growl accompanied her movements, but it was not until the coin dropped into the metal box inside the meter, that the cat lashed out again and this time Rene was too swift for it and escaped injury.
She got to her feet and hurried out of the parlour and into the kitchen. As she lit the gaslight, she thought a shadowy figure flittered across the far wall and could have sworn that she heard the gentle whisper of voices. She shuddered. Dear God! No wonder Greta had the spooks!
She replaced the matches on the shelf, then took the shovel from the bucket of coal next to the fireplace and heaped coal onto the fire. How could Harry stand this place? It wasn’t a home anymore, just somewhere for him and his daughter to rest at the end of the day. If only her mother was less dependent and possessive, in time she could have helped make this a home once more. What must Harry have thought when she had stopped coming round without a word of explanation? Not that he had said a word to encourage her to defy her mother, not one word that might have hinted that he needed her. Yet before then, despite the bleakness of his expression, she had sensed that he found some comfort in her presence in the house as she had helped Greta with the washing and ironing and preparation of meals.