Keith came down, throwing a towel and some pyjamas at his visitor before airing his views. ‘Neil and I were both in the Lancs Fusiliers,’ he said. ‘No way will a man our age get to train as a pilot. But you might. And if it’s what you really want, go for it. She’ll calm down. They take it as personal, as if you can’t wait to get away. Gill thinks you don’t love her any more.’
‘I love the bones of that girl.’
‘I know you do. She knows you do. But she’s annoyed.’
Jay stared at his boss. ‘I’d no idea,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I thought she was playing water fights or cleaning windows. I only went out for some wood, and she locked that house down like the Tower of bloody London. If they ever need somebody to mind the Crown Jewels, she’s their man.’
‘Gill’s frightened.’
‘And I’m not? We’re all afeared, Keith. There’ll be folk called up who don’t want to go. Leading them in won’t be easy, because their hearts aren’t going to be in the job. I want to save Britain for the British, and I’ve always wanted to fly.’
‘Pilots will die like bluebottles, lad. Exactly like flies. They’ll fall to earth or into the sea as if they’ve been hit by a giant flyswatter with a machine gun as backup. As soon as you take off in a Spitfire, it’ll be nearer my God to thee in more ways than one.’
‘I know.’
‘So why?’
Jay shrugged. ‘Because I have to.’
A few seconds strolled past. ‘Then go to it. Neil knows he’s too old. He can try lying about his age, but his eyes won’t pass muster. I’ll have a word or three with him tomorrow. Now, dry off and go to bed – back room. I’ve a letter to finish.’
‘Thanks, boss.’
‘One more thing.’
‘Yes?’
Keith pondered for a while. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but get Gill to the doctor’s, will you? I know it’s not supposed to happen for her, but she’s put a bit of weight on, and there’s a little dark mark under both eyes. It may be nothing, but, before you volunteer, get a pregnancy test. Her hormones might be in a mess. I could be wrong, but better safe than sorry, eh? A woman’s body knows it’s pregnant almost from day one, a long time before the brain gets the message. You might find there were two of her chucking water.’
Jay’s jaw moved south. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘Bloody hell is right. Now, stop dripping on my rug. A friend pegged that for me years ago.’ He walked into the kitchen. A sudden desire to weep like a child was drowned by a cup of water. The tea was brewed, and he carried into the front room a pint pot filled with the steaming beverage.
Jay, pyjama-clad, was huddled over the fire. ‘If she is, what shall I do?’
‘Wait till you’ve crossed a bridge or two. If the doc says she’s having a baby, ask how she’ll be, but even a doctor can’t really predict that. If she is carrying, you might want to wait and see for yourself how she is. On the other hand, the thought of becoming a dad could make you even more determined to fight. I don’t have a magic wand, Jay. It’s your life – live it.’
Jay took his pint of tea upstairs. There would be little sleep for him tonight. For a start, the bed was lumpy, and it wasn’t his. And he remained chilled, mostly because he was used to sharing with a warm body. A baby? It was all she wanted. Her motherless state was a huge source of disappointment for Gill Collins. In her opinion, a woman without children was scarcely a woman at all. And she loved kids, was even planning to take an evacuee or two. He hoped she understood what she’d be living with, because if the women were anything to go by, Scouse kids promised to be several handfuls of mischief.
‘Three pages already,’ Keith said aloud. ‘A letter of this length when I hardly know her?’ But he did know her. She’d been in his head, his bed and his dreams for days. He hadn’t been to visit Cora, didn’t need her. There was something distasteful and impolite about using one woman while seeing the face of another. Should he throw in the job, move to Crosby and find work there? No. Because he knew how to woo her, and the key was three boys. If he could tame them and get them to behave sensibly, he might be halfway to winning her.
The chap who drove you here has just arrived wet through to the bone. He’s been half drowned and locked out by his wife, because she doesn’t want him to join the air force. It seems he got drunk with one of the farmers, so drunk that they were both ordered by the landlord not to play darts. They ended up in a shippon and decided to fly. I think they were flying already, because they couldn’t find their way home. I believe navigation will not be a strong point for either of them.
I seem to have overstayed my welcome with this letter, as it will take up your time, but it’s wonderful to be able to indulge in correspondence unconnected to business. Please don’t worry about the boys. I shall make it my goal to ensure that they are occupied and out of trouble. It will be my pleasure to bring you to Willows as often as possible. I may change horses if you have a carter, and I can pick up Nero in exchange for the borrowed horse when I return you to base. There may be a shortage of petrol, so it’ll be back to horses and carts for all of us.
He reread the whole letter, wondering whether he had gone too far in mentioning how pretty she was. It had been the same with Annie, God bless her. One encounter, and he’d been lost. And here he was, twenty years older and wiser, two decades dafter, with a fool in bed upstairs. No matter what went on around him, no matter which piece of work he was tackling, Eileen was there in his mind, right at the front where business should sit. So where was the real fool? Upstairs or here, sweating over a letter?
The answer entered the room. In striped pyjamas and work boots, Jay Collins looked as mad as a spring hare. ‘I’m just . . . er . . . the lav.’ He walked out through the kitchen.
Life, Keith told himself, was weird. One minute he felt like weeping, and the next he was practically doubled over at the sight of his handyman in boots and sleepwear. Was Keith the pregnant one? Were his hormones in turmoil? ‘Perhaps I’m having an early menopause. I must tell the quack about my poor nerves.’
Jay returned. ‘Bloody raining now,’ he muttered as he climbed the stairs.
The rain was the last straw. As mirth rose in his throat, Keith Greenhalgh damped the fire, turned off the lamps and went upstairs. It was time for bed. He had given up on today; it was a hopeless case . . .
Five
‘We could decorate a Christmas tree with that grin of yours, Eileen Watson. It’s all the letters, isn’t it? They’ve been coming through that door by the sackful. I seen you stood there yesterday with a gob on because there was no letter.’ Nellie sighed like a ham on stage. ‘Isn’t love wonderful? Ooh, I can see it now, hand in hand through buttercups and daisies, tossed over the wall by a bull, landing side by side in a cowpat. Lovely.’
Eileen shrugged and changed irons, setting the cool one to heat near the fire, picking up the hotter one and spitting on it to make sure it sizzled. ‘Stop it, Mam. You’re getting on my nerves, so give it a rest. He’s just a nice fellow, a decent man. It’s good to hear about the place where you’ll be staying with our three musketeers. I see that stain came out of our Philip’s shirt.’
‘And you’ve gone red.’
‘So? What are you, counsel for the Crown Persecution? Because that’s what this is, Mam. It’s perse-bloody-cution. Would you rather I went a nice shade of green?’
‘Well, it would suit, seeing as you’re half Irish.’ Nellie wandered off for a brief segue down a different avenue. ‘She’s give you some lovely clothes. Funny, isn’t it? When she wore them, they looked dowdy. You look like a film star in Hilda’s stuff. It’s that figure of yours. She’s straight up and down, but you’re curvy.’’
Eileen continued to iron her children’s clothes. They were lucky, because Miss Pickavance had kitted them out with decent stuff for their evacuation. They had strong boots and good trousers, and they even had pyjamas. Some kids round here slept in their school clothes for weeks on end, no vests, no unde
rpants, no breakfast. She felt guilty about those who wouldn’t get the chance of evacuation, which was why that side of things was being left firmly in Hilda’s court. And Hilda was coming out of herself while searching for candidates, so it was a good thing all round.
‘He’s handsome, I’ll give you that. One of the best-looking blokes I’ve seen in a long time. Lovely head of hair, tanned skin, laughing eyes. And he won’t get called up. About ten years older than you, I reckon, and a Woollyback, but that can’t be helped. There’s always one fly in the ointment, but, taken all round, I dare say he’ll do for you.’
‘Mother!’
Nellie chortled. When Eileen called her Mother, the water was definitely warming up a bit. If she didn’t jump soon, it could boil. Because Nellie’s Eileen had limits. This angel could become a real little virago if pushed an inch too far in the wrong direction. ‘But you like him, though, don’t you? I mean you did take a fancy, I can tell.’
The iron was slammed down onto a couple of roof slates that served to protect a table that was well past redemption. Eileen glared at her mother. ‘Listen. Sherlock. It’s elementary, and I’m Watson. He’s a penfriend. So stick that in your pan and fry it with a couple of onions.’
‘Ooh, look,’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘Our Eileen’s come over all Mae West in a mood.’ She was talking to nobody, as the children were at school, and she and her daughter were the only people in the house. ‘You’ve had a letter today, though. I can tell you’ve had a letter today, because it’s wrote all over your face.’
‘Written.’
‘Eh?’
‘Written all over my face. And it was on paper, actually.’
‘Was it? Actually?’
‘Yes.’ The ironing continued. Today’s was a brilliant one. He’d told her about his childhood down in Bolton, his mam and dad, brothers and sisters, little Annie Metcalfe from Bromley Cross, dead for over twenty years. And he’d sent a parcel this time. Thank God Mam had been out cleaning the Throstle’s Nest, because she would have made a symphony out of it rather than a mere song and dance. Mam was a caution. Mam was happy, because her Eileen might have found a good man. Might have. It was early days.
‘Eileen?’
‘What now?’
‘I know we hardly met him, but he’s lovely.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll take it slow, though?’
‘Course I will. He’s got to meet my boys yet. We could have five farms ruined by Christmas with no help at all from Hitler. Our Bertie can start a war in a shoe box.’ She sniffed. ‘I’ll miss you, though.’
‘Same here, queen. It’ll be like ripping one of me arms off, only this can’t be helped. You have to stay with her. My granddaughter’s special, and I don’t want nobody wiping their feet on her front doormat.’
‘You being vulgar again, Mam?’
‘I am. Anyway, I’m going next door to see Kitty. Charlie went out for a packet of cigs last Friday, and she’s seen neither hide nor hair since. I know she’s used to it, but she’s gone worser with her nerves this last month. Ever since Chamberlain come on the wireless, she’s been like a cat on hot bricks.’
Alone, Eileen dug out her parcel from behind the upended mattress on which she and Mam slept. There was the letter, a photograph of Willows, and a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He was making love to her. From a distance not far short of forty miles, he was caressing her soul. Inside the book, tissue thin enough to be transparent held dried flowers between a dozen or more pages. All her life, Eileen had waited, however unconsciously, for a relationship like this. It was a fairy tale, and she was Cinderella. There was no carriage, no glass slipper, no midnight deadline, but the hero had a gentle heart, humour, and a good brain. It was all too quick, too quick because war loomed.
At the age of thirty-three, this mother of four children had been washed ashore on an island named Hope. Her Lazzer had been a wonderful man, and she was not betraying him. Keith had a memory of a girl he had loved, so they were equal on that score. For the first time, she smiled while thinking of Laz. After baptizing him Lawrence, his family had shortened that to Lawrie, which sounded a bit like the name of a large vehicle, so Eileen and he had made up Lazzer. They’d been happy. To this day, Eileen missed the weight of a man, the power, the loving and whispering. But she’d pledged herself to her children, and three of those children were . . . on the wild side. Keith would straighten them out. It was silly, placing faith in a bloke she hardly knew, and yet . . . He could do it. He would do it. ‘Slow down,’ she muttered.
The scream came at that moment. Eileen shoved her treasures out of sight and ran into the street. Kitty Maguire was lying face down on the pavement, balled fists battering the flags, a blood-curdling sound escaping from her throat. Over her stood Nellie Kennedy and two policemen. Other neighbours came out of their houses, mostly mothers with children too young for school. Eileen interpreted word-shapes on her mother’s lips. Charlie Maguire was dead. A constable advised Eileen that the body had been washed up on Ainsdale beach, just another piece of flotsam tossed about by the Mersey’s unpredictable rips. ‘She’s taken it bad,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Mind you, he was never sober, so we’re not surprised he’s come to grief. Poor woman.’ He shook his head sadly.
Days later, Eileen remembered how she had thought of herself coming ashore on an island named Hope. While she had been pondering that, Kitty’s husband had been thrown up by the tide, and a whole family had been stranded on a shore entitled Despair. Life took, and life gave. Because on that first day, Hilda Pickavance rode in on her white horse and promised Kitty a cottage in Willows Edge. The true hero of the piece was a quiet woman with a spine of steel, a person who, when blessed with good fortune, insisted on sharing it. Charlie was dead, but his wife and children would be safe.
For several nights, Eileen and Nellie took turns to sit up with Kitty. Weeping continued till the early hours of every morning, after which whoever was on duty dozed fitfully in an uncomfortable chair. Poor old Charlie had been doomed anyway. According to the doctor, his life sentence was always going to be commuted to early release, since his liver was fit only for saddlery and boot-soling, not for cleansing blood. He had been a long way past retrieval, and his illness showed in every corner of the disgusting house he had inhabited. From where she sat, Eileen could hear wildlife in the kitchen. She recalled one of the babies, now grown, being taken to the hospital after eating ‘currants’ from the kitchen floor. That dried fruit had been produced by rodents, and the child had suffered the consequences. The smell in here was almost unbearable.
Cockroaches scuttered about. These creatures, along with mice and silverfish, were frequent visitors in Nellie and Eileen’s house, but Nellie kept on top of them and was merciless when it came to methods of dispatch. Mel had once termed her gran a murderer of mice, but the job had to be done. Poor Kitty had lost hope and energy; perhaps both might be reborn once the funeral was consigned to the pages of recent history.
Eileen closed her eyes. By now, Mam had discovered the letter, the book, the photo and the dried flowers. It didn’t matter. If Mel should ever be on the receiving end of a man’s dedicated attention, Eileen would want to know. Age scarcely came into it, because Eileen was Nellie’s child, just as Mel was Eileen’s.
Kitty woke again. ‘Will I like it up there, Eileen? Do you think we’ll be all right out in the wilds?’
‘I hope so, love. There’ll be fresh air and probably no bombs, so it has to be an improvement.’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Yes. So am I.’ Kitty was better off, though she didn’t know it yet. Her husband had been difficult, and occasionally violent, a fact that accounted for several of Kitty’s absent teeth. He had failed to provide, so his young had scarcely thrived, and he would not have been fit for any kind of war service. By falling into the Mersey when drunk as a lord, he had done his wife and children a favour, since they could now be rescued. Hilda Pickavance would not have allowed Charlie into one of her c
ottages, and Kitty would have continued down the slippery slope for many years to come.
‘I know what you’re thinking. He was no good, and I’m better off.’
Eileen shook her head. ‘He’s better off, Kitty. He suffered. You know he suffered, because you told us about the bleeding. Remember? That was real pain, you see. And when he turned on you or the kids, it was the booze, not him. Part of him was screaming to get well, while the rest of him knew it was too late. Even so, whatever Charlie was, he was yours and you’ll miss him. But my mam will be with you over at Willows. My mam will look after you.’
Kitty stared into a feeble fire. ‘Know what I’m looking forward to, Eileen?’
‘No, what?’
‘Teeth. For the funeral. Proper teeth fitted by Mushy Goldberg. He does a good pair, tops and bottoms, for a couple of quid. People have been so kind.’
Eileen smiled to herself. The locals had gone without their pies and their pints so that Kitty’s blackened stumps could be removed. The gums were currently being given a few days to heal in order to be replaced by some Mushy Goldberg specials in time for Charlie’s big send-off. ‘Try to have a little doze,’ was all she said for the time being.
Morning struggled to be born some time after six. This was going to be the end of Kitty’s first full week as a widow, and Eileen knew from personal experience how hard that would be. She couldn’t eat or prepare food in here, so she crept next door to make tea and toast. Mam was asleep on the parlour floor mattress, the book of sonnets in one hand. She was struggling a bit in coming to terms with Shakespeare, but she had brains enough to give the bard a chance. ‘I’ve been lucky,’ Eileen whispered. ‘We’ve made it this far, you and me, Mam. Yes, I’ve been a lucky girl.’
A sort of polite friendship had developed between Tom and Marie Bingley. She, more relaxed now that she had her own bedroom, threw herself head first into the development from scratch of a local WVS and, when she wasn’t reading government literature and attending meetings, she was knitting khaki socks and telephoning headquarters about bandage sizes and food parcels. She continued to nurture and provide for her family, but cooking and shopping had ceased to be the focus of her life. Marie was needed by the community, and her war work became the core of her existence.
That Liverpool Girl Page 8