He agreed. ‘God has a sense of humour, you see. He put all primary sexual organs in the same area as the unpleasant end of our digestive tract. Then some silly ass came down a mountain with rules carved in stone, which were also designed to make us uncomfortable. Popes scream to this day about chastity, yet half the priests are indulging in some sort of activity.’ He paused. ‘Could you consider trying again if I promise to stop when you say so?’
‘It would always be stop.’ Her spine was rigid. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it would always be stop, Tom. It’s something I was born without, I think.’
No one was born without needs and desires. ‘You must have been born with the need for a partner and for children. Even nuns have it, though they dedicate themselves to denying that area of their lives. This Norman – you are fond of him, I can see that. Is it because you think he will never touch you? Do you desire him?’
With excruciating slowness, she turned to look at him. ‘He’s kind to me, Tom. I have been as dutiful as I could manage. I’ve been tolerant, useful, kind, and a fairly good mother. But I shall no longer do as I am told. Once upon a time, I did as I was ordered. Yes, Norman is a comfort. But nothing will come of it, because I know I’m frigid.’
‘You did as you were told when you were a child?’
‘Yes.’
Tom sat as still as stone. ‘Did anything happen to you when you were little?’
‘Can’t remember.’ She began to weep noiselessly.
Gently, he laid her on the bed and placed himself beside her. For the first time in many weeks, they were together. Tom and Marie Bingley, fully clothed and on a narrow bed, clung to one another and cried themselves to sleep.
Freda Pilkington, now the proud owner of two decent pillows and Nellie Kennedy’s best frying pan, was pleased to allow Nellie to use her house. She went out for a stroll with her children and her husband, who was due to report to training camp in a few days. Freda and her toddlers had been allocated the Willows cottage that should have gone to Kitty Maguire. Since poor Kitty and her children were to be buried on the coming Tuesday, Freda had moved up the list.
Next week, a charabanc would pick up and carry to Willows several children from the Scotland Road area. They would travel by train to Trinity Street station in Bolton, then would be collected in the coach and allocated to farmers and villagers for the duration. But two who had already been taken into the safer zone had absented themselves, and Nellie, Eileen and Keith were on the case. Nellie fastened herself to Freda’s window and waited. They would turn up in this, their own street, sooner or later.
Poor Mel had taken a precious day off school in order to mind Miss Morrison, and these two boys were in a chasm of trouble. No longer fearful for their safety, Nellie felt only anger. She looked across at the house in which she had lived with her daughter and grandchildren, then moved her eyes until they rested on Kitty’s place. Behind dirty windows, it awaited fumigation, after which all trace of Kitty and the children would disappear from the planet. Those panes were reminiscent of blind eyes, because Kitty no longer stood there and watched the small slice of life with which she had been familiar.
Among all this sadness and in spite of the dread of war, Nellie’s two older grandsons had taken off without a word to anyone. They seemed to care for no living soul, and they needed a firm hand. Yes, they had run wild since the death of their dad, but Nellie had worked five mornings and three evenings each week, while her daughter’s jobs had spanned four full days, because rent and bills had to be paid, food and clothes cost money, and both women were widows. But this time there was a plan. Thanks to Miss Morrison, the pair of ruffians would soon be too scared to breathe normally. ‘You’ll get your comeuppance,’ Nellie muttered. ‘Then I’ll nail both pairs of bloody feet to the floor.’
The door crashed inward, and Phil was thrown into the house. Behind him, a furious Keith entered. ‘Don’t you ever speak to your mother like that.’
Rob, his head bowed, followed Keith.
‘Where’s Eileen?’ Nellie asked.
‘She’s giving the bikes to kids who’ll appreciate them.’ He picked up the older boy, stood him against a wall and pushed his face to within an inch of Phil’s. ‘In fact, don’t talk to anyone until you’ve rinsed your mouth. What did Eileen do to deserve an odious little toad like you? You are grounded, boy. One wrong word, one dirty look out of you, and I’m the one you answer to. What you want doesn’t matter. Your unhappiness is nothing, because you’re just a small speck at the front of a big painting, and that painting’s a world war. You got taken up yonder so that you won’t get killed by a bomb. You get given a bike, and you run away on it. I can see Rob’s heart wasn’t in all this, so I am holding you fully responsible for the pain your mam and your gran have gone through. Nasty piece of work. Your father would be ashamed.’
Nellie guessed that this was probably the longest speech the quiet man had ever made. For Eileen, he would do anything, or so it would appear.
He spoke to Rob. ‘When I first went up to Willows Edge, I hated it. Like you, I came from an overcrowded street where everyone was poor. It grows on you, Rob. Give it time, son.’ He turned and winked at Nellie. They both knew that Rob would settle, because he liked growing his own food. Rob might become a happy soul, but Phil was more rigid. Phil had suffered when his father died, and it was showing now.
Eileen entered the scene. She stood with her back to the door, arms folded, lips tightened in her pale, tired face. ‘Get the car, Keith,’ she said. ‘I’ll stand guard.’ She moved to allow Keith to leave.
Phil stayed where he had been put, arms folded, face expressionless. For the rest of their short stay in Freda’s house, not a word was spoken. During this weighty, uncomfortable pause, the lad began to understand the enormity of what he had done. According to Keith, three police forces were out searching for the Watson boys. Bolton, Manchester and Liverpool were paying men to search not only for them, but also for other evacuees who had decided that the move from home didn’t suit them. He was eleven. He should have known better. Fear of leaving home was for little boys, not for the likes of him.
Eileen and her mother sat and allowed the quiet to continue. Let him have the chance to reflect on his actions, because the day would get worse for him before it got better.
It got worse.
Phil, the bigger sinner, was locked in Miss Morrison’s old bedroom, which contained one chair and a blanket. Rob, in his mother’s room, found himself well furnished but lonely. Both boys, isolated completely, were given hours during which to contemplate what they had done. Mam and Gran were trying to save them, and the two ingrates had thrown everything back in the faces of those they loved.
A silent, grim-faced Keith served meals on trays, returning only to remove debris before locking doors in his wake. No one spoke to them. In two separate rooms, clouds of foreboding gathered and hung in the air like the threat of thunder. Something was happening downstairs. They heard little, saw nothing, sensed disaster. Rob, flat out under his mother’s eiderdown, rested bones still weary from the endless ride; Phil wondered how old he needed to be to join the army and whether he would get his bicycle back.
The policeman came for them at about six o’clock. He had stripes on his arm, a face like a train crash, and very big feet in very shiny shoes. In the hall, he explained that courts were busy, so juvenile sessions were being convened out of hours in schools, other civic buildings, and occasionally the house of a magistrate. ‘Be truthful, polite and brief,’ the man advised. ‘Your future hangs in the balance. Miss Morrison is a magistrate of long standing.’
Three justices sat at the kitchen table. The one in the middle introduced herself as Miss Morrison, owner of the house in which Philip and Rob had been incarcerated. A public gallery, consisting of Mam, Gran and Keith, was wedged just inside the back door. The witness box, a metal walking frame belonging to Miss Morrison, was situated between a gas cooker and the kitchen sink.
When the two offenders had been
sworn in, a list of crimes was read out by the police sergeant. It seemed that Philip and Robin Watson were responsible for all the ills in the world, with the possible exception of diphtheria and a couple of wars. In a moment of reckless clarity, Phil demanded a lawyer. ‘Silence,’ called the magistrate in the middle. ‘These are uncertain times, you are children, and your behaviour is beyond the pale.’
Phil wondered what a pail had to do with anything; it was just a posh bucket when all was said and done. They were now talking about suitable placement, and Derbyshire was mentioned again. Not only was the school for bad boys far away from family, it was far away from anything. He listened while the place was described. The words frying pan and fire paid a brief visit to his consciousness, because life in the Peaks sounded a sight worse than life in the house named Willows.
Mam was employing one of her hard stares, so both boys pleaded guilty. They were taken by the policeman into the hall while their future was decided. Phil, seated on the fourth stair, decided that he didn’t want to go to Derbyshire. Being locked in here had been bad enough; the thought of real captivity was terrifying. ‘We have to go back, Rob, and do as we’re told. Otherwise, we’ll finish up with a load of fifteen-year-olds who’ll beat the you-know-what out of us.’ He glanced at their minder. ‘Glad you think it’s funny. Hey! Put me down, put me down.’
‘There you go.’ The man deposited Phil near the front door. ‘Ever had a hiding from a cop, lad?’
In the kitchen, Frances Morrison was managing to keep a straight face, though the mother and grandmother of the accused had taken a break from the strain of this, their acting debut. The policeman and two magistrates had been borrowed from St Helen’s church drama group, while everyone’s scripts had been provided by Keith, who was also remaining stony-faced. The pair of malcontents would be placed under his charge in more than one way, as he would be their stepfather as well as their warden, and he intended to play both roles with more dignity than was currently being displayed by his future wife and mother-in-law. ‘Stop it,’ he whispered.
Eileen grabbed his hand. How could she have imagined feelings for anyone other than him? ‘We’ll be all right in a minute. It’s Mam. She can sense one of her turns coming on.’
‘Turns? What turns?’
‘Well, if she needs to laugh and can’t, she gets hiccups.’
‘Oh, bugger. Nellie?’
‘What?’ The first hiccup exploded.
‘Go in the shed. Go on. This is too important for you and your turns. They’ll know you’re trying not to laugh. Get out now. Take Miss Morrison’s shawl – try next door. Run any-bloody-where, but no hiccups in here, love.’
Nellie snorted, hiccuped and left.
Eileen’s grip on his hand tightened. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. It was the truth. He was magnificent, and getting to know him would be great.
‘You’d better. I’m taking on the Third Reich single-handed here. In recompense, I may decide to expect your hand, plus the rest of you, in marriage. Eventually. No, forget that. Bugger eventually, I’d rather have soon.’
The court reconvened with the policeman standing between the two accused.
A sentence of two years in a secure juvenile unit was handed down before the magistrates indulged in a whispering session. When all the muttering was over, the boys’ sentences were suspended for eighteen months. Rob didn’t fancy getting suspended, because it sounded rather like Kitty-next-door, but he became reassured when suspension was explained. If he or Philip put one foot wrong within the next year and a half, they would be thrown to the wolves for two whole years.
They were sent to share a single bed in the smallest of the bedrooms while Mr Greenhalgh slept on a downstairs sofa. One of the few good things about being poor was that folk got used to being squashed at night. Their door was not locked, because this was the first test; if they didn’t run, they had a chance of staying out of jail.
Morning found them sitting side by side on the edge of the narrow bed. ‘What we need is something to be interested in,’ Rob declared. ‘I think I like digging things up.’
‘Tell the vicar in Egerton,’ snapped Philip. ‘He’ll take you on in the graveyard.’
Rob drew himself to full seated height. ‘That’s not digging up,’ he said. ‘It’s planting. Soon, I’ll be setting spuds and carrots. Bertie has his pony and the rest of the horses, but what have you got?’
‘Paint,’ came the reply.
‘What?’
‘You heard. Don’t go deaf as well as daft. They said I have to get attached to Mr Collins. He does all the painting and mending, and he’s got something called sugar. That means he falls off ladders. I have to learn painting, mending, and picking him up off the floor. It’s an important position, being deputy handyman. Gardening, too.’ He sighed heavily. He had no experience of paint, mending, gardening or sugar. Unless the odd handful of stolen molasses counted as experience in sugar.
Mel entered the room. ‘Breakfast is served,’ she announced. Fully aware of the previous evening’s charade, she asked about their sentence.
‘We’re suspended for two years,’ Philip replied dolefully. ‘Mr Greenhalgh is in charge of us. And we have a book each. We have to write in it every night about what we’ve done during the day.’ He shrugged. ‘I hope we get a place in that school, wherever it is. School’s going to be a rest.’
Mel went downstairs to report to the chief magistrate. Miss Morrison had been a magistrate in real life, so she was the only kosher member of the previous evening’s shenanigans. ‘They’re terrified,’ Mel announced.
‘Good.’ The old woman attacked her coddled egg. She felt almost healthy, because life had become entertaining at last. There was a great deal to be said for distractions, as they took one’s mind away from one’s ailments. One’s ailments would be set aside for the foreseeable future, because Scotland Road had arrived on the cusp between Crosby and Blundellsands, and Scotland Road was interesting.
‘Do you need anything else, Miss Morrison?’
The woman in the bed grinned. ‘Not immediately, dear. But make sure they visit me before they go. Did I tell you about the time when I was trapped in the cellar with a vulgar caretaker?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it’s been rather like that all over again. Did they really put someone’s undergarment up a flagpole?’
‘Yes.’
‘And a carthorse in the yard?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘The stolen police dog?’
‘It was nearly a police dog; it was still in training. I don’t know whether it passed its test after being exposed to the company of my family.’
Miss Morrison stared hard at Mel. ‘You know, my dear, you should write all of it in a journal. I have some nice hard-backed notebooks left over from my school. One day, this should be published. Like all good comedies, it sits against a background of great tragedy and deprivation.’
Mel chuckled. ‘It was never a tragedy, Miss Morrison. It was loud, colourful and sometimes hungry, but there’s nothing tragic about the Scottie Roaders. Outside the undertaker’s, there’s a coffin with Hitler’s name on it. The barber’s thinking of changing the name of his shop to It’ll Be All Right When It’s Washed, because that’s what mothers say to their sons when they get a haircut. They’re clever. One day, they’ll be remembered for what they really are.’
‘Which is?’
‘People, Miss Morrison. Special, but just people.’
PART TWO
1940
Eleven
Keith was a hungry man. Tender though never timid, he appeared to be making up for two loveless decades, since he seldom left his wife’s side for weeks following the wedding. After promoting Jay Collins to deputy steward and land agent over the whole Willows estate, he docked his own wages and followed wherever Eileen led. Miss Frances Morrison now had a beautiful house, as he had painted every room. Her old first-floor bedroom belonged to Mr and Mrs Keith Greenhalgh, who took great car
e of their generous landlady.
Eileen’s second husband was also very funny. Unlike Liverpudlians, he delivered few quick answers, preferring instead to simmer for a while before offering up a killer reply, usually after the subject under discussion had been long abandoned. Stony-faced and quiet-voiced, he could reduce a room to hysteria in seconds. He adored his Eileen, grew fond of Frances Morrison, and spent many hours in battle with Mel over a chessboard.
But his favourite pastime seemed to be kissing. When questioned about the frequency of the attacks, his stock reply was that every man needed a hobby, and it was her fault anyway, since she was far too beautiful for her own good. On one occasion, he wore a sticking plaster over his mouth, though it didn’t last, because Eileen’s giggling became contagious, and he laughed the plaster free. He submitted a written complaint to management, and her reply, delivered on the banks of her beloved river, was verbal. ‘Does all this kissing not make you want the rest of it?’
‘Yes.’
‘So?’ Eyebrows raised and hands on hips, she waited for his answer.
‘I’m good at procrastination.’
‘And I’m not.’
‘I know that.’ He gazed out over the river. ‘Ever had a bank account?’ he enquired.
‘No. The few times I’ve been in a bank, it’s been for Miss Morrison.’
‘The kissing is my deposit. I collect my interest at bedtime.’
A few beats of time slipped by while Eileen contained her laughter and made her face stern. ‘You are one devious and cruel swine, Keith Greenhalgh.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘True. Delicious though, isn’t it?’
‘I’m like a bloody pan left on a low light. Or a slow rice pudding in a lukewarm oven, do not disturb till Christmas.’
Keith awarded her his full attention. ‘You’re no pudding. You’re a diamond-studded rainbow with a pot of gold at each end.’
She wagged a finger. ‘Don’t be coming over all poetry, Keith. I can’t be poetical in the fresh air. Not here. Please don’t start kissing in public places.’
That Liverpool Girl Page 20