by Howes, Pam
‘And the same to you, gel. Hope you don’t mind me bringing this. Winnie thought it might help the party go with a swing.’
‘Not at all. It’s very kind of her.’
‘It’s mainly Bing and Glenn Miller, mind!’ Jack handed her a carrier bag. ‘She’s put a few bits in there for the buffet too. Arnold came and got me this morning before they went out. I had a smashing surprise cooked breakfast with them and I told them I was coming to you for my tea. There are two bars of chocolate for certain young people in there as well.’
Alice shook her head. ‘Winnie is so kind. She really is. Thank her for me tomorrow, Jack.’
‘She’s a smasher; she’s the mam I wish I’d had.’
Alice rubbed his arm as her eyes filled. She blinked rapidly. Winnie mothered them both.
‘Brian, can you do coat duty, love. Just put them all on my bed. Ah, there’s the door. Hang on to save you going twice in two minutes.’
Alice let in Sadie and Gianni, along with Millie, and showed them into the front room. Brian took their coats and Alice hurried into the kitchen with the bag of food from Winnie and smiled as she spotted mince pies and more sausage rolls that were twice the size of her own. There was also a slab of fruit cake, no doubt acquired from the Yanks; her guests would be dining like royalty tonight. As she laid everything out on the table Jack appeared at her side, carrying two bottles.
‘Just rescued these from my pockets before Brian took my coat up. Beer for me and Freddie, and sherry for you ladies.’
‘Oh my goodness, Jack, thank you so much.’ Alice felt overwhelmed by all this generosity.
‘No, thank you, for inviting me. I appreciate it very much. Ah, there’s the door. Shall I get it? Oh, Brian is acting mine host, he’s beat me to it.’
‘You can see to the drinks, if you will,’ Alice said. ‘The glasses are over there on the sideboard.’
‘Consider it done.’
Alice smiled as Jack poured the drinks and asked for a tray.
‘I haven’t got one. This isn’t the Legion, you know. You’ll have to carry them through two at a time or let them help themselves.’
When everyone else had arrived and Brian had finished his coat duties, Alice announced that the buffet was ready. Freddie’s wife had baked some cheese straws, Marlene had brought a box of chocolates and Millie’s mam had sent some tomatoes, savoury biscuits and a small piece of Cheddar cheese.
‘By heck, you’ve done us proud here, Alice,’ Freddie said, his eyes widening as he took in the spread. ‘There’s enough for an army.’
‘Get stuck in, everybody,’ Alice said. ‘What doesn’t get eaten tonight will do us tomorrow. Side plates are there next to the sarnies and Jack’s doing the drinks so just help yourselves. Winnie’s kindly sent her gramophone over with Jack, so I’ll go and put a record on.’
Everybody tucked in to the sound of Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’.
‘Such an awful shame about him,’ Millie said. ‘Going to France in that plane and then it just vanishing over the Channel like that. I wonder if the Germans shot him down.’
‘Well they said on the news it was bad weather,’ Freddie said. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out the truth. He’s yet another casualty of this bloody war. Poor fella. He brought a lot of pleasure to so many with his smashing tunes.’ Freddie got to his feet. ‘Raise your glasses to Glenn Miller. May he rest in peace.’
They all drank a toast, remembering the lovely tunes they’d enjoyed and danced to throughout the war.
‘Aye, there’ll never be another Glenn Miller,’ Jack said, shaking his head sadly.
‘Well, let’s remember the good times when we danced to ’im. Glenn got us through some awful moments,’ Marlene said.
Jack got up and put another record on the gramophone.
‘Oh, Gianni, you love this one, don’t you,’ Sadie said. Her little boy’s face had lit up when the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby filled the room with ‘Swinging on a Star’.
He nodded and he and Cathy laughed at each other and got up to dance around.
‘This is lovely,’ Freddie said. ‘Surrounded by my favourite people, great food and music, and peace and quiet outside at the moment. Hard to believe there’s still a war on right now.’
‘Well, the King sounded hopeful earlier,’ Brian said.
‘Did ’e?’ Marlene said. ‘’E speaks them long words an’ I don’t know what they mean ’alf the time.’
‘Me neither,’ Alice admitted.
‘And I fell asleep,’ Jack confessed with a grin. ‘I heard some of it, but slept through most. Let’s hope Brian is right.’
Alice cleared away the empty plates and Jack helped her and then refilled the glasses. She smiled as she watched him chatting away to Freddie. He needed a family and in spite of him saying he didn’t like kids he seemed reasonably unperturbed by the three in the front room. Alice decided she’d make it her mission to find him a suitable girlfriend next year some time. There must be someone out there that he could get along with, surely.
After stoking up the fire and putting on another record, Alice handed around the gifts she’d put under the tree. Freddie and his wife seemed happy with the cream lace arm caps for their sofa. Gianni loved his toy plane and Sadie her green silk scarf. It had been a bargain and, carefully washed and pressed, looked brand new. Millie’s little present had been made from two old beaded necklaces that Alice had unthreaded. She’d reused the beads, alternating them to make a pretty patterned bracelet. She’d found a little white flat box that she’d painted green leaves and holly berries on using Cathy’s watercolour paints, and she’d lined the inside with a scrap of red velvet. The finished effect looked like an expensive bracelet in a posh box.
‘This is beautiful, Alice,’ Millie said, slipping the bracelet onto her wrist.
‘Thank you. All my own work.’
‘Wow! When Rootes closes you should go in for making your own jewellery. I bet you’d do really well.’
Alice laughed. ‘We’ll see. Jack, I got this for you.’ She handed him a small parcel and watched his face light up as he unwrapped a stick of Old Spice shaving soap. ‘I asked Arnold what it was that you usually smell of.’
Jack laughed. ‘Well at least he didn’t say stale fags. Thank you, gel, this is what I always use every day and I’m almost out, so spot on with the timing.’
As her guests admired their gifts Alice reflected on what a lovely day they’d had. There was a bit more hope in the air than last year. Maybe this was it, the final Christmas without Terry. Hopefully, next year and for their fifth wedding anniversary, he would be home with his family, where he belonged.
28
April 1945
Alice looked up as Freddie dashed onto the factory floor and shouted above the racket for them all to down tools and gather around him. It was late Monday morning and the last day of April.
‘Now what’s up?’ Marlene muttered and put down her riveting gun. ‘An’ let’s hope he don’t take too long. It’s nearly dinnertime; me belly thinks me throat’s bin cut an’ you’re due to go ’ome, Alice.’
Alice smiled as Freddie cleared his throat and puffed out his chest with importance.
‘News has just reached us that Hitler is dead. Details are sketchy at the moment but the word coming in from Berlin is that it appears he’s committed suicide and shot himself.’
Silence followed Freddie’s announcement, and then as realisation dawned clapping and a loud cheer came from the assembled workers.
‘Bloody ’ell!’ Marlene exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe it. So does this mean the war is definitely over?’
Freddie shrugged. ‘Let’s hope so, eh? I’ll put the wireless on now and we can keep abreast of the news as it comes through. It’s on in the canteen, so you might as well go down for dinner a few minutes early.’
The canteen was buzzing as Alice joined the others after getting changed ready to go home. She got herself a mug of tea from the counter.
> ‘I’ll have a brew with you before I go for the tram. I’m a few minutes early so I may as well as wait in here,’ she said to Marlene, who was getting stuck into a bowl of scouse. Alice sat down and took a sip of her tea. People were straining to hear what the news reporter on the wireless was saying. She didn’t let herself get too excited in case it was all a hoax and Hitler wasn’t really dead after all. But if the news was true, Terry could be home in the not-too-distant future.
Alice finished her tea and got to her feet. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said to Marlene. ‘I’ll go and pick Madam up and catch up with the news at Terry’s mam’s.’
‘Bye Alice,’ people called as she left the canteen and hurried to get on the tram.
Cathy was playing in the garden with her dolly’s pram as Alice arrived at the bungalow. Cathy waved to her mother and carried on trundling the pram up the path, talking to her babies. Alice went indoors to where her mother-in-law was in the sitting room, an anxious expression on her face and the wireless on full blast.
‘Have you heard?’ Granny Lomax began.
Alice nodded. ‘It is true then?’
‘Well, according to the news, yes. He’s committed suicide along with that woman he married only yesterday, that Eva Braun one. Good riddance to the pair of them, I say.’
‘Do you think this is it then? The war is nearly over?’
Granny Lomax puffed out her cheeks. ‘I blooming well hope so. The government needs to get its act together now and bring our boys home. We’re all waiting for Mr Churchill to make a statement later today.’
A few weeks after the official announcement of Hitler’s death, Alice looked up as Brian spoke. He’d had his head buried in the newspaper since he’d rushed out to the newsagent’s for it earlier. She felt a rush of love for him; his serious expression reminded her of their late dad when he’d been engrossed in the Echo – except Brian had come back with The Times. There were no Echos left, he’d told her. Hardly surprising – everyone would want to know what was going on now the war was supposed to be definitely over.
‘What did you say?’ she asked, folding the sheets she’d brought indoors from the washing line.
Brian puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. ‘Just reading in here that there were more than eighty-five million fatalities in total with the war. That’s including the Holocaust and the massacres. How awful to think that one evil mind and a handful of his cronies were behind all those deaths. What sort of a monster was he? Such a pity he committed suicide: the coward. They should have captured him and thrown him to our soldiers, they’d have soon made mincemeat of him. Anyway, Alice, they were saying in the newsagent’s shop that people are gathering in Sefton Park to celebrate later. VE Day, they say today is called. Can we all go? It sounds like fun and I think we are all due some of that right now. When do you think they’ll let our Terry home? I’m dying for a go on his motorbike.’
Alice grimaced. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that, Brian. You know I hate motorbikes. Terry’s last letter didn’t give me a firm date as to when to expect him. But it can’t be much longer; they said on the news it will be any time after June. At least I know he’s safe now. I was hoping he’d be back in time for Cathy’s fourth birthday in August, but we’ll have to wait and see. And yes, of course we can go to the park. It’s a lovely day so I’ll pack us up a picnic. Run round to Millie’s for me and see if she’s home yet. She wrote to let me know the band’s not playing this week or next due to everything being up in the air with the troops and demobilisation taking place, so she’s coming back to Liverpool for a while. Ask her if she’ll join us if she’s in. And nip to Sadie’s to see if she and Gianni want to come as well. Might as well make a party of it, if everyone else is doing that.’
‘What about Granny Lomax?’
‘Er, okay, if you want to.’ Alice sighed and turned back to her sheet-folding. Although her mother-in-law continued to look after Cathy for her while she worked, and she came round a bit more often than she had done at first, things weren’t quite the same as they used to be. Alice did her best to include her as much as she could, but invitations were turned down as often as they were accepted.
Brian reached for his blazer and dashed away. Alice called Cathy in from the garden and told her what they were planning to do. Her daughter was growing up fast and her dark hair hung down her back in fat plaits.
She smiled and clapped her hands. ‘Gianni coming too?’
‘Yes, I think he is.’ They hadn’t seen as much of the little boy since he’d started school last year and Alice knew her daughter was missing her best pal. But she’d be starting school herself next January, so they’d be seeing even less of him. Hopefully she’d soon make other little friends, though. ‘Go upstairs and put your best dress on so that you look pretty for the party,’ she told her.
Cathy beamed at the thought of Gianni coming along to play and ran off to get changed. Alice wondered how she would take to Terry when he arrived back. Cathy didn’t have much experience with men, apart from Freddie, who she loved like a grandpa figure; she’d shied away from Jack when he’d popped his head around the door and said ‘Boo!’ to her recently. Mind you, Jack wasn’t very good with kids anyway so that wasn’t anything to go by. Hopefully blood would be thicker than water and she’d take to her father quite naturally.
Sefton Park was crowded with people greeting each other. Children were running around happily, shrieking with delight as they discovered old pals they’d been separated from, their parents having brought many of their evacuated offspring home now things were settling down a bit. It was lovely to be outside on a warm sunny day with no fear of an air raid to threaten their pleasure.
Millie held on to Cathy’s hand on one side and Gianni’s on the other. They were both peeping shyly at each other and having little fits of the giggles. Alice carried the picnic basket and Brian carried a couple of old blankets to put down on the grass to sit on. Granny Lomax had declined his invitation, telling him that she was just leaving Aigburth to visit a friend in Chester for a day or two. The friend was news to Alice as Granny had never mentioned anyone in Chester in all the time she’d known her, but maybe it was an old friend and she’d got reacquainted with them recently. Alice felt sad that she was pulling away from them all, apart from Cathy who she doted on still. But once Terry arrived home it might bridge the gap a bit.
Cathy squealed and let go of Millie’s hand and shot across the grass towards the bandstand. Freddie heard his name being called and spun around. He caught his little god-daughter and swung her up into the air, spinning her around until she wriggled to be put down.
‘Is your dad playing this afternoon, Millie?’ Alice asked as a brass band tuned up in readiness for a session.
‘Yes he is. Mam should be here with him. Ah, there she is, under that straw hat with the pink bow! Flamboyant as always.’ Millie laughed and waved as her mam caught her eye and waved back.
Alice sighed. ‘My mam would have loved this. Everybody coming together to celebrate the end of the war. If only we’d known there was something wrong with her brain function instead of just thinking it was her nerves, we might have been able to help her earlier, but even our doctor didn’t recognise it as early senility. I just hope and pray it’s not hereditary.’
‘Oh, don’t even go there,’ Millie said with a shudder. ‘Let’s just remember her in happier times and enjoy this day of freedom from that tyrant who nearly finished us all off.’
They stood in front of the bandstand and listened to Millie’s dad’s brass band playing some jolly tunes. The little ones in the crowd began to dance and people were singing, spirits rising by the minute. Alice was swaying her hips from side to side and tapping her foot in time to the music when an arm snaked around her waist, squeezing her tight and making her jump. She spun around in shock to find Jack smiling lopsidedly at her.
‘Oh, Jack. You frightened the life out of me,’ she said as he grinned. She could smell whisky on his breat
h, as usual. ‘Been drowning your sorrows – again?’ It was out before she could stop herself, and she was taken aback by his sudden dark scowl.
‘I’ve had a couple, yeah, but hasn’t half the country today?’ he slurred. ‘You need to loosen up a bit, Alice love. Get a drink down you. Bet your Terry’s had more than his fair share to celebrate these last few days.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Alice apologised. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ he said, still scowling slightly. ‘Supposed to be a happy day today. Isn’t that what this is all about?’
‘Yes, yes of course it is. Listen, why don’t you join us? We’ve brought a picnic and Millie’s home for a few days; it’ll be nice for her to catch up with you as well.’
‘Thank you,’ Jack said, his expression softening a little. ‘I’d like that. After all, I don’t have anyone else to celebrate freedom with, do I?’
Alice sighed. He didn’t and she’d had no luck in finding him a girlfriend either. He didn’t seem to have any friends other than her and Millie. Once the troops were home he may well reacquaint with his old pals, she thought.
On a mid-June afternoon Alice, Granny Lomax and Cathy stood anxiously on Lime Street station with what seemed like hundreds of other women and children, some carrying small paper Union Jack flags to wave, all waiting to greet husbands, boyfriends, brothers, sons, fathers and uncles. Brian was at school and would join them later at the bungalow, where Granny had insisted they all congregate for tea. Alice would have preferred to go to their own home, but this time she allowed Granny to indulge herself by hosting her son’s demob party. The troops were all being sent home, several thousand at a time on trains, boats and planes. Terry had written to say he would be on a train to Lime Street today, although the exact time he was due to arrive wasn’t known; just some time mid-afternoon.
Granny Lomax had brought a flask of tea with her, two cups and some orange juice for Cathy. They sat down quickly on a bench as a family party vacated it and she dished out the drinks.