by Maureen Lee
She sang ‘We’ll Meet Again’, ‘I’ll be Seeing You’, ‘Yours’, several Cole Porter songs, a few Irving Berlins, including her favourite, ‘There’s a Small Hotel’. Her voice, as dazzling and pure as clear crystal, soared upwards and outwards, intoxicating an already partly intoxicated audience with its beauty. After something patriotic for the British, ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, she finished up with the American National Anthem. ‘Oh, say can’t you see, by the dawn’s early light …’ The uniformed men stood stiffly to attention, put their hands on their hearts, and joined in.
Between songs, she was cheered to the echo. When she finished, they threatened to lift the roof off with their shouts for an encore.
‘I don’t think I can manage any more,’ she said to the colonel when he came hurrying over to thank her. ‘My throat’s hurting.’
‘That’s okay, honey. They’ll soon quieten down. Come and have a drink.’ He snapped his fingers imperiously at the pianist to continue and the man began to play ‘There’ll Always be an England’ with a slightly mutinous air.
Jessica had quite a long conversation with the colonel, who was a benign, middle-aged man with a shock of prematurely white hair. He led her towards some empty chairs in the corner where they discussed the war, and he told her that folks in the States had no idea the Brits were in such a bad way.
‘This rationing, for instance, it’s appalling how little you have to eat.’
‘We have enough to keep us going,’ said Jessica, ‘and the Government is very sensible. They make sure what we eat is good for us.’
‘And the Blitz!’ He shuddered. ‘How on earth did you live through it?’
Jessica thought of Jacob Singerman and little Tony Costello. ‘Some of us didn’t,’ she said drily, and suggested that if he cared to travel as far as Exeter, York or Norwich or several other places, he could find out what the Blitz was like for himself. ‘They’ve all had air-raids recently.’
‘You’re a brave little country, that’s for sure.’
‘We’re little in size, but big in heart.’ He was beginning to sound a bit patronising, she thought.
‘You lost your big aircraft carrier, Hermes, off the coast of Ceylon last week, didn’t you?’ He shook his head ruefully, as if the ship wouldn’t have been lost if he’d been there to protect it.
‘I didn’t lose it personally, but yes, I understand it was sunk by the Japanese.’
‘Not only that, your troops are retreating on all fronts in the Far East. Never mind.’ He slapped her thigh. ‘The good ol’ US of A will turn the tide. By this time next year, it will all be over.’ He made no attempt to remove his hand. When Jessica tried to stand up, she found herself imprisoned on the chair.
‘If you wouldn’t mind!’ She raised her eyebrows and glared at the hand on her thigh. The back was covered with white hairs.
‘How’s about we two take a room upstairs?’ he whispered in her ear. He no longer seened benign.
‘How’s about we don’t!’ She tried to prise the hand away, but it felt as heavy as lead and seemed to be permanently adhered to her leg. She didn’t want to make a scene, but if he didn’t let her go soon she’d be left with no alternative but to throw her drink in his face or scream for help.
She was contemplating which of the two would cause her the least embarrassment and had decided on throwing the drink when an unexpected saviour appeared on the scene.
Major Henningsen, whom she hadn’t so far seen all night. He bent his broad, tough body over the colonel and said urgently, ‘You’re wanted in the lobby, Doug. Something important’s come up.’
The colonel blinked and looked grave. ‘I’ll be there on the double, Gus.’ He released Jessica’s thigh and marched off in the opposite direction from the lobby.
‘Is there really something important?’ Jessica tried to smooth the creases the colonel’s clammy hand had made in her frock.
‘No, but he’d had far too much liquor and he’ll have forgotten all about it if and when he finds the lobby.’ He sat down in the chair the colonel had vacated.
‘Thanks for rescuing me.’ She felt genuinely grateful, but, true to form, Major Henningsen immediately put her back up with his next words.
‘That’s okay, but what do you expect men to do when you turn up looking like that?’ he said curtly.
‘Looking like what?’ she gasped, enraged. ‘I came as a singer, not a courtesan. Are you suggesting I should have dressed as a nun?’
He gave a fleeting grin. Without his cap, she noticed that his crewcut hair wasn’t silver as she’d originally thought, but milk blond. ‘I’m not sure if that would have caused more excitement or less.’
‘Huh!’
‘I see you didn’t bring your little girl.’
‘Penny? I left her with a neighbour.’
‘Penny’s a cute name.’
‘I can’t say the same for Gus. You definitely don’t suit Augustus.’ Attila, perhaps, or Genghis Khan.
‘It’s Gustav, actually. My folks were Danish.’ He leaned back in his chair and regarded her disdainfully. ‘Where’s your husband?’
‘In the army,’ Jessica snapped.
‘What regiment?’
‘The Royal Artillery.’
‘Stationed where?’
‘I’ve no idea where he’s stationed. We’re separated.’
‘I thought as much.’ He nodded knowingly. ‘A respectable married woman would never wear a dress like that.’
Jessica made a superhuman effort to retain her temper and think of a way of riling him as much as he riled her. ‘I reckon the problem with my dress lies more with you than me.’ She patted his arm understandingly. ‘This is a perfectly normal evening dress that any woman with a decent shape and decent shoulders would wear. You may well say I’m not your type, but I reckon I’m very much so. You’re attracted to me and it scares you stiff, doesn’t it?’
He glared at her so balefully that she was worried he might strike her. Then his hard narrow lips twitched and suddenly he was laughing so much that he had to remove his glasses to wipe his eyes.
Jessica thought resentfully that as far as Major Henningsen was concerned, it was always her who ended up feeling discomfited. There was nothing more deflating than being laughed at, particularly by someone who looked as if they only laughed once a year. Perhaps, like the colonel, he was drunk.
‘It’s not fair,’ she thought. ‘I came to entertain them, not to be insulted.’ She got up abruptly to seek some food, and was captured by another major who turned out to be delightful company. He showed her pictures of his wife and children and told her she had the most glorious voice he’d ever heard. ‘Please come and sing for us again,’ he pleaded.
‘I second that,’ said a captain, overhearing. ‘I heard Helen Morgan sing once, and you were much better.’
The remark was enough to make the entire evening seem worthwhile. Helen Morgan was a famous, highly-thought-of nightclub singer in the States. Her ego had been fully restored and her stomach was pleasantly full, when she noticed it was nearly midnight and time she went home. There was no sign of the private who’d collected her, which wasn’t surprising as he wouldn’t be allowed into an officers’ party. She wondered if he was waiting in the lobby and was about to go and look, when a voice said grimly in her ear, ‘I’ve been delegated to take you home.’ She turned to find Major Gus Henningsen at her side.
‘Reluctantly delegated, I’m sure,’ she said coldly. ‘Is there no-one here who’ll take me willingly?’
‘If you would kindly collect your coat, ma’am, we’ll get going,’ he replied, ignoring her sarcasm.
They were halfway towards Bootle before he spoke. Jessica had taken a holy vow not to say a word before he did.
‘I’m sorry about my behaviour earlier,’ he said. His voice, for a change, was relatively pleasant. ‘It was rude of me to laugh the way I did.’
‘I consider you to be an utterly hateful person.’ It wasn’t just the laughin
g, but every single thing he’d done and said since they’d first met.
‘Utterly hateful?’ There was a catch in his voice, as if he might laugh again. She decided he was definitely drunk.
‘Utterly!’ Jessica said firmly. When you said the word more than once, it actually did begin to sound rather amusing.
‘Utterly!’ He whistled. ‘Phew!’
They didn’t speak again until the car drew up outside the King’s Arms and he handed her an envelope.
‘What’s this, a billet-doux?’
‘No, ma’am, it’s your fee – for singing.’
‘Thank you.’ A fee was entirely unexpected. She bade him a frosty ‘Goodnight,’ and slammed the car door before he could reply.
Once home, she opened the envelope and found a cheque for fifteen pounds, which she stuck behind the clock on the mantelpiece. Instead of feeling pleased, a sensation of inexplicable sadness came over her and for some reason she thought about the flat over the museum and the desolate beauty of the view from the window. Perhaps it was because the view had always depressed her, though Arthur had loved it. If only things hadn’t turned out the way they had and she’d felt able to settle in the Lake District! Arthur was a good man, yet she’d walked away from him, changed the entire course of her life, and here she was, a middle-aged woman with hennaed hair, all dolled up in a red dress singing for American soldiers. Major Henningsen had made her feel like a tart.
‘Have I changed the course of my life for the better?’ she asked herself in a whisper. She sat in front of the cold grate for nearly an hour, but was unable to provide herself with an answer. She longed for Penny to hug and kiss, but Penny was spending the night at Sheila’s, and Jessica eventually went to bed alone.
Chapter 14
The bloke came in after the pub had opened its doors at half past ten one morning just after Easter. He wore a bowler hat, a pinstriped suit and carried a brolly over his arm. It was rare that the King’s Arms had such a distinguished-looking customer, particularly one who talked dead posh, as if he had a plum in his gob. For a while, he was the only customer there.
He seemed very friendly. ‘Have one yourself,’ he said to Mack, the landlord, when he ordered himself a whisky and soda. He removed his bowler hat and placed it on the bar.
‘Ta, mate, you’re a king,’ said Mack, helping himself to a pint of ale. ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’
‘No, but I happened to be in the vicinity and I thought I’d look up an old friend, James Quigley. Do you know him?’
‘Jimmy, sure I do, along the street, number twenty.’
‘And how’s Jimmy keeping?’ the chap asked conversationally. ‘It’s ages since I last saw him.’
‘Well, very well.’ Mack grinned. ‘In fact, he’s just got married again to a girl young enough to be his daughter.’
The posh bloke grinned back. ‘He always was a lad, was Jimmy.’
‘Where do you know him from, like?’ asked Mack. He didn’t look the sort to have been a friend of Jimmy’s.
‘We were in the Merchant Navy together.’
‘Ah!’ That explained it. All classes of men joined the Merchant Navy as a youthful fling. ‘You didn’t stick it out, then?’
‘No, after a couple of voyages I decided it wasn’t the life for me and I pursued a different career.’ The man ordered a second whisky and told Mack to have another beer on him. ‘I left at the same time as Jimmy. If I remember rightly, his wife died and he went to work on the docks. The last I heard, he’d just had some sort of accident. After that, we seemed to lose touch.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I hope the accident wasn’t a bad one.’
‘Nah,’ said Mack. ‘Well, perhaps it was at first. He was housebound for a long time and his daughter, Kitty, looked after him, though we always thought that a bit of a joke. Since Kitty started work, Jimmy’s been prancing round like a two-year-old.’
‘That’s good news, I must say.’ The man looked dead pleased. ‘Would you like another beer?’
‘Wouldn’t say no. More whisky?’
Paddy O’Hara and Rover came in through the swing doors. ‘This chap’s been asking about Jimmy Quigley, Paddy,’ said Mack. ‘He’s an ould mate from the Navy.’
‘Can I buy you a drink, Paddy?’ Jimmy’s ould mate enquired.
‘I’ll have a Guinness, ta.’ Paddy tapped his way towards his favourite seat beneath the black-painted window.
‘And what else has Jimmy been up to, apart from getting married, that is? He used to play football, didn’t he?’
‘That’s right,’ Mack regaled the stranger with the story of the Merseyside Junior Football Cup and how Jimmy had trained the winning team. ‘He’s lost none of his old …’ He paused. From across the room, Paddy O’Hara was shaking his head and mouthing, ‘No! No! No!’ Mack had an urgent desire to cut off his own tongue.
‘None of his old what?’ the bloke asked courteously.
‘I can’t remember,’ Mack mumbled. ‘You’ll have to ask Jimmy that for yourself. Number twenty, just along the street, like I said.’
‘You know,’ said the stranger, ‘I’ve spent so long enjoying myself in your fine establishment, that I don’t think I’ve the time to squeeze in a social call, after all. I’ll just have to send Jimmy a letter instead.’ With that, he plonked his bowler hat on his head, swung his brolly over his shoulder like a rifle, and, with a cheery wave, was gone.
With the aid of several pints of Guinness, Mack managed to persuade Paddy O’Hara to promise, on Rover’s life, that he’d never mention the visitor to a soul. ‘I don’t know what the hell he was after, but if Jimmy finds out it was me who clatted on him, he’ll have me guts for garters.’
The letter landed on Jimmy’s doormat three days later. When he opened the envelope, he recognised the headed notepaper straight away as that of the solicitors who had acted for the Dock Board at the time of his accident.
The message was short and to the point. He was advised that his invalidity pension was dependent on him being physically incapacitated and therefore unfit for work. It had come to their notice that this was no longer the case. Under the circumstances, at the end of this month your weekly pension of twenty-five shillings will cease forthwith. He could appeal if he wished, but should he choose to do so, Evidence of your fitness for work can be provided.
Jimmy sat on the stairs and read the letter again. They were taking his pension away! He would have to get a job! From now on, he would have to drag himself out of bed at some unearthly hour of the morning to be pissed around by some snotty foreman all day long. He couldn’t stand it, not after ruling the roost in his own house for all these years. He noticed the neat signature on the letter: N. P. Norman, the same as on other letters he’d had from the solicitors in the past. In fact, Mr Norman had come round to see him when the pension details were finalised, bringing papers with him for Jimmy to sign.
The bloke in the car! He’d been wondering ever since where he recognised him from. Mr N. P. bloody Norman had nearly run him over last Sunday when they were on their way home from church.
‘Aw, Jaysus!’ Jimmy groaned. He felt as if he was entering a long dark tunnel which didn’t have an end. It was just his sodding luck that, of all the cars in the world to kick a tin can under, he should pick the one belonging to the solicitor who dealt with his pension.
‘Is something the matter, Jimmy?’ Theresa called.
He staggered into the living room and showed her the letter. ‘I suppose I could ask our Kitty to come up with a few more bob?’ he said, his face ashen. Added to the pittance Theresa earned in the fish and chip shop, it might, just might, be enough for three adults and two kids to live on, though he’d have to cut down on the ale and the daily paper would have to go, as well as sweets for the lads on Sundays. He remembered they were still paying the tally man for Georgie’s First Holy Communion clothes.
‘No,’ Theresa said promptly. ‘I’ve no intention of allowing me and me lads to be kept by your Kitty. Apar
t from which, she already gives us thirty shillings, which is more than half her wages. It wouldn’t be fair to ask for more.’ Theresa had very strict ideas on what was right and proper. ‘Anyroad, another few bob wouldn’t be enough. I’ll just have to get a full time job meself.’
‘Oh, luv, would you mind, like?’ Jimmy gasped, his heart overflowing with gratitude as a bright light gleamed at the end of the dark tunnel. Anything, anything, rather than go to work himself. ‘I’ll look after the kids, get them off to school, see to their meals and keep the place tidy the way you like it. You can do the main housework at the weekend same as our Kitty used to do. Of course, I’d go to work meself like a shot, but despite what the letter says, I still have terrible trouble with me legs.’ He rubbed them piteously. ‘I’ve never mentioned it before, ’cos I didn’t want to worry you.’
He was a bit peeved when Theresa didn’t look very interested. ‘I’ll pop round to the Labour Exchange once I’ve tidied up,’ was all she said.
The following Monday, Theresa started on the production line in a munitions factory in Kirkby. It was shift work and her wages were an incredible four pounds, three and sixpence a week, plus bonuses, which meant that instead of Jimmy having to cut down on the ale as he thought he might, he began to consider buying himself a new suit.
‘She loves hard work, does Theresa,’ he explained, chuckling, to Kitty and the neighbours. ‘She got bored at home without much to do.’ He didn’t add that the work was dangerous, involving as it did explosives, because it made him feel just a tiny bit ashamed.