by Rosie Harris
‘I’d given up working at the Angel by then and when he asked after me they couldn’t even tell him where I lived.’
‘And you met by chance, as if fate had decreed it,’ Lynn breathed rapturously. ‘It’s so romantic!’
‘I was walking down Lord Street,’ her mother went on, ‘and there he was coming the other way. We just stopped and stared at each other. We couldn’t believe our eyes, either of us. Then we were hugging and kissing each other and before I knew what was happening he’d asked me to marry him.’
‘Exactly like a fairy tale,’ Lynn said with a sigh.
‘Yes, it was,’ agreed her mother. ‘I’d never thought to see him again, I can tell you.’
‘Had you thought about him a lot?’ Lynn pressed.
‘I certainly had … night and day,’ her mother assured her.
‘Fancy loving someone that much,’ murmured Lynn dreamily.
‘He was never out of my mind,’ repeated her mother with a deep sigh.
‘You should have waited and not had a baby right away.’ Lynn frowned. ‘Then I might have been the eldest or perhaps your only daughter,’ she added mischievously.
Kathy was not to be drawn.
From that point it was a closed book. No matter how skilfully she framed her questions, Lynn never managed to find out anything at all about the early days of her parents’ marriage. Kathy always changed the subject.
Now that they were back in Liverpool, Kathy would often point out places she had known as a girl, or the changes that had taken place in the city centre since those days.
The shops, though, Kathy was the first to admit, were the biggest attraction for her. There were so many new ones and she was never happier than when they were going round them. C&A in Church Street was her favourite.
Lynn preferred Woollies or one of the markets, because the clothes they sold were so cheap compared to Hendersons or Lewis’s. Even so, she would have spent a fortune in them if she’d had it.
As it was, she usually managed to wheedle money out of her mother to buy something new, as long as she promised not to let her father or Megan know. When they reached home she would hide away whatever she had bought, ready to wear the next time she went to the Stork Club.
Lynn loved the atmosphere there. Unlike Megan she felt carried away by the jazz beat and then everything else was obliterated from her mind.
No two visits were ever the same. She reached dizzy heights of happiness on the occasions when Flash was there. Her heart would thunder crazily and she’d be as talkative and exhilarated as if the air was filled with contagious excitement.
Kathy felt vaguely uneasy when Lynn talked incessantly about Flash, remembering what had happened to her when she’d been not much older than Lynn.
‘Watch your step with this boy,’ she warned. ‘You are still at school and we don’t want any problems.’
‘I only go dancing with him,’ Lynn protested hotly. ‘You can’t get into much trouble doing that in the Stork Club because it’s far too crowded!’ she added with a cheeky grin.
‘You’d like him, Mam, you really would!’ Lynn told her enthusiastically. ‘He’s absolutely great!’ she added dreamily. ‘He’s ever so good-looking. Tall, with black wavy hair and blue eyes and he dresses really smart …’
‘You’d better not let your father hear you going on like you do about this boy,’ interrupted her mother. ‘He’s already said you’re not to go to the Stork Club and if he found out you were defying him by nipping in there in your lunch hour then he might very well put his foot down and stop you going out of the house altogether.’
‘Oh Mam, he wouldn’t!’
The dismay in Lynn’s wide grey eyes brought a reassuring smile from her mother. ‘Then watch your step. You are a bit young to be going out with boys, you know,’ she reminded her.
Lynn scowled. ‘He doesn’t say anything about our Megan going out with fellas, though, does he! He even let her go to that New Year’s Eve dance at the Tower Ballroom with Robert Field. Yet he wouldn’t allow me out of the house at all that night!’
‘Megan is two years older than you, Lynn.’
‘Yeah, and she’s sensible and wouldn’t do anything stupid. I know! I bet she’s never even kissed Robert. He’s crazy about her, too. I wish he’d take me out.’
‘Lynn! He’s much too old for you. In my opinion he’s too old for Megan,’ she added sharply.
‘I don’t get it! Dad’s older than you are!’
‘Yes, maybe, but I don’t want either of you to get married too young. Grow up and have some fun first.’
‘That’s what I want to do but everyone is trying to stop me.’ Lynn pouted.
‘No we’re not, luv. We’re just trying to protect you. There’s some wild ones about these days and naturally I’m worried about you and this boy when he has a name like Flash. Whatever is his proper name?’
Lynn frowned. ‘I don’t know! I’ve never asked him. Everybody at the Stork Club refers to him as Flash. He’s perfectly respectable, though, Mam!’
‘Perhaps you should bring him home, then, and let me meet him and judge for myself.’
Lynn giggled. ‘He’d run a mile and probably never speak to me again if I suggested that to him. It’s not like in your day, Mam. Boys don’t expect to be taken home to meet a girl’s family until they’re going steady.’
‘Well, watch what you get up to with him, we don’t want any problems,’ warned her mother ominously.
‘You’re more likely to get those from Megan than from me,’ retorted Lynn with a mischievous grin. ‘She’s got two men on a string! Robert Field and someone called Mr Miles.’
‘Who?’ Kathy looked surprised. ‘She’s never mentioned him to me. Who is he?’
‘A chap she knows at work. I bet he’s old enough to be her dad, too!’
Kathy frowned. If this chap worked at Walker’s then perhaps Watkin knew him. She would try to remember to ask him.
She hated admitting it, even to herself, but in some ways coming back to Liverpool was proving to be a bit of a headache. It had been so much easier bringing up the girls when they’d lived in Beddgelert, she reflected. There, she had known where they were every minute of the day and the temptations they’d faced had been pretty limited.
She’d dreamed about coming back to Liverpool for far too long, she supposed, but everywhere she looked there were changes going on. The new cathedral was still being built, but there was also talk about building another one for the Catholics on the site where the workhouse stood. Plans were underway, too, for a tunnel that would take motorcars and lorries right underneath the Mersey to Wallasey and Birkenhead on the other side.
It was no longer the Liverpool that she had grown up in, she thought sadly.
Chapter Ten
‘I WONDER WHAT 1925 holds in store for us!’
The words Miles had whispered in her ear at the Tower Ballroom haunted Megan and in the days that followed she put a hundred and one interpretations on what he might have meant.
Seeing him had made it the most confused evening of her life. Being there at the same time as Miles, dancing to the same band, had made New Year’s Eve all the more memorable.
There had been times since, though, when she wondered if it had all been a dream. In bed at night she went over every tiny detail: the way the lights had been lowered on the dot of midnight, the band playing Auld Lang Syne, and the wild pandemonium as complete strangers hugged and kissed each other. Being swept away from Robert and finding herself with people she had never seen before had been scary. And then to find herself in Miles’ arms, looking up into the handsome face that was always in her thoughts, had been unreal.
Her heart had pounded wildly. She remembered closing her eyes as she felt the heat of his muscular body pressed against her. She’d felt convinced it must be a dream, and yet she’d desperately wanted to hold on to it a little longer.
It hadn’t been a dream, though. She had felt his breath warm on her cheek a
nd when she had opened her eyes he had been smiling down at her. The next thing she’d known was that his mouth was covering hers in a lingering kiss that sent her pulses racing.
And it was then he had whispered those magic words.
Before she could say a word he’d gone, swallowed up in the surging crowd. Robert was back at her side, struggling to hold on to her arm as people pumped his free hand and slapped his back, and others tried to kiss her on the cheek or pull her away from him.
She hadn’t told Robert that she had seen Miles.
She wasn’t quite sure why she didn’t mention it, except that there had been a sense of hostility between them when they had met earlier in the evening. Some inner caution warned her that to do so might spoil Robert’s enjoyment and, after all, if it hadn’t been for him she would not have been there at all.
By the time the Royal Daffodil ferry boat sailed from New Brighton pier back to Liverpool, it had been packed with revellers returning home from the Tower Ballroom. Robert had found seats for them inside and he’d taken her silence for tiredness. She hadn’t been tired at all, only lost in thought, reliving the excitement of the evening, especially meeting Miles and mulling over what he had said.
She couldn’t be sure whether Miles had intended it as a private, personal message or whether it was merely a casual comment made on the spur of the moment.
On the first day back at work in the New Year, Megan felt uneasy about what she should say to Miles.
Then, as the days went by and she didn’t see him, she even began to wonder if he was deliberately avoiding her since he hadn’t come in to the office at all.
Her world seemed flat without him. In the end, she plucked up the courage to ask Bob Donovan, the other shipping clerk, if he knew where Miles was.
‘He’s off sick. Gone down with flu. Is it anything I can handle?’ he asked.
‘No, no it’s quite all right.’ She flushed with embarrassment, wishing she hadn’t been so impatient.
Another week went by before Miles returned to work and during his absence Megan’s thoughts strayed constantly to the Walkers’ place perched high on the headland at New Brighton.
She tried to imagine what Miles’ room was like in such an enormous house. She decided it would probably be a huge room looking out over the sea.
There was bound to be a desk in there, she mused, and perhaps an armchair. On the wall would be photographs of his school group, or cricketing team. And he probably had a gramophone and perhaps even one of the new wireless sets to listen to as well.
By the time Miles did return to work they were so busy that when he breezed into the office there was no chance for them to speak to each other.
Megan began to think that his remark on New Year’s Eve had meant nothing after all. Her spirits sank and even her father commented on how listless she had become.
‘Are you finding it too much having to go to night school three times a week?’ he asked sympathetically.
‘No! If I didn’t go there then I’d just be sitting at home here every evening, wouldn’t I?’
‘Not necessarily. You could be out enjoying yourself, going to the pictures or out dancing with Robert.’ Her father smiled.
‘He certainly asks you often enough,’ her mother chipped in.
Megan coloured, knowing this was true. Ever since he had taken her to the Tower Ballroom, Robert had been trying to persuade her to go out with him again, but she always found an excuse to turn him down.
She knew her family all liked Robert and couldn’t understand her reason for doing it. Lynn was always going on about how good-looking he was with his thick fair hair and smoke-blue eyes and how she’d jump at the chance of going out with him if she’d been Megan.
What none of them knew was that when she compared him to Miles all these attributes faded into nothing. Miles was far better looking, his strong features so much more handsome. His brilliant blue eyes had such sparkle and verve that Robert’s seemed dull in comparison.
She didn’t dislike Robert, but he always took everything so seriously. He was always discussing politics with her father.
‘Our Lynn seems to enjoy herself well enough now that we’ve said she can go dancing, so why don’t you go out with her now and again?’ Kathy suggested.
‘Go with her to the Stork Club! No thanks! You can cut the atmosphere in there with a knife. It gets so crowded that you can’t breathe let alone dance.’
‘Megan’s right. I should never have let you talk me into letting Lynn go there,’ stated Watkin emphatically. ‘It’s a wonder to me that the authorities don’t close the place down.’
‘It’s not all that bad,’ retorted Kathy mildly.
‘I hear there was practically a riot in the place the other week,’ commented Watkin. ‘I would have thought Lynn could find something better to do with her time than listen to jazz bands playing and dancing around,’ he argued sourly.
‘Leave her alone, Watkin, the girl’s only having a bit of fun and it keeps her happy going there. I’d be doing the same thing if I was her age.’
‘Why don’t you let her go out with Robert?’ suggested Megan. ‘He’d take her to the Philharmonic, or somewhere like that, to hear some proper music.’
‘Lynn would go out with him like a shot if he asked her, even though he’s a lot older than her,’ retorted her mother sharply. ‘The trouble is he seems dead set on you, and most of the time you ignore him. You want to remember he owns his house in New Brighton. A far better place than what we’re living in here.’
‘That’ll do,’ growled Watkin. ‘Stop matchmaking. If Megan doesn’t want to go out with Robert then that’s her decision, though I agree with you she could do a lot worse for herself.’
Or a lot better, mused Megan as she remained silent, thinking of Miles. She was relieved that her father had brought the discussion to an end. She’d been afraid her mother might pursue the matter and want to know why she didn’t like Robert Field. How could she explain that, although he was pleasant enough as a friend, he had none of the dashing qualities she admired in Miles? It was like comparing a block of unpolished wood with a shining veneered surface.
Robert was kindly and capable but he couldn’t begin to compete with Miles. Miles intrigued her. He was a challenge. She was well aware that he could break her heart if she wasn’t careful, but she was attracted to him like a cat to cream. She knew he could be quick-tempered and off-hand, but one flash of his winning smile could start her heart thumping and her spirits soaring. Robert’s slow smile, on the other hand, was reassuring; rather like being wrapped in a soft blanket.
Next day, her reticence was rewarded.
It was bitterly cold, the sky grey and leaden. The tall buildings leading up from the Pier Head formed a wind tunnel, trapping the intermittent gusts that came straight off the Mersey, turning them into a full-scale gale.
Nevertheless, her need to be out of doors was overpowering. In her lunch break Megan tied on a headscarf, determined to take a walk down to the waterfront.
As she turned into Chapel Street, head down as she battled against the buffeting wind, she bumped into someone hurrying in the opposite direction. When she looked up, an apology on her lips, she was stunned to find it was Miles.
‘Where are you dashing off too like a headless chicken?’ he asked in surprise.
‘To the Pier Head for a breath of fresh air,’ she mumbled, colouring up.
‘You’ll find plenty of that down there,’ he laughed. ‘It’s blowing a gale. Why don’t you change your mind and walk up to Exchange Station with me?’
Her pleasure at being asked was so great that she could only nod her agreement. As they walked back up Chapel Street she let Miles do most of the talking.
‘I’m on my way to Manchester,’ he told her. ‘One of the boats that should have come into Princess Dock has berthed there by mistake and they started unloading before they realised that the consignment was intended for Liverpool.’
‘So that m
eans you’ll be working very late tonight?’
‘It certainly does! You people in the office don’t know how lucky you are finishing work promptly at half-past five every afternoon. What do you do with yourself for the rest of the evening?’
‘I go to night school three times a week,’ Megan reminded him.
‘Don’t you ever go to the pictures with your boyfriend?’
‘I haven’t got a boyfriend.’ She flushed uncomfortably as he raised his eyebrows questioningly. ‘Sometimes I go out with my younger sister,’ she added quickly.
‘You were dancing with that chap Robert Field on New Year’s Eve. I thought he was your boyfriend.’
‘No!’ Megan shook her head emphatically. ‘He’s a friend of my father’s … that’s how I came to be there with him.’
‘Really!’ His blue eyes twinkled wickedly. ‘So he’s not your choice. In fact, you are heart whole and fancy free with nothing to do in the evenings.’
‘I told you, I’ve got night school and then I have my homework to do.’
‘And Friday night you stay in to wash your hair.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a pity because I would still like to take you out, but it looks as if you’re too busy to spare the time.’
Megan bit her lip, aware that he was teasing her.
‘What about it then? Shall we say next Tuesday night?’
‘I’d love to, but it’s one of the evenings I go to night school,’ Megan told him, her voice heavy with disappointment. ‘I haven’t any classes on Monday …’
‘Right, let’s make it Monday, then.’ He took a quick look at his watch. ‘I must dash or I shall miss my train. Next Monday, then. Seven o’clock.’
It wasn’t until after Miles had vanished into the Exchange Station that Megan realised he hadn’t said where they were to meet. Even that didn’t matter. Her head was in the clouds as she made her way back to the office. She was going out with Miles Walker. Her dreams were coming true at least. 1925 was going to be special.
Megan hugged her secret to herself for the rest of the week, counting not only the days until she would meet Miles but even the hours. She planned every item of what she would wear, then changed her mind and started all over again.