‘The what?’
‘Ignore. It’s a joke between me and Mam. If we told anyone we have feelings for each other, we’d be laughed out of court. My mother would throw an apoplectic fit, and yours would need morphine. Keith and your dad might well be pistols at dawn on the beach or in Sniggery Woods, and the war would become a side issue. Even Gloria doesn’t know how I feel about you. I wasn’t sure myself until recently, because you got on my nerves something shocking till I stopped being thirteen.’
Peter swallowed painfully. It was an audible gulp, and he wished he could bite it back, because it imitated some dire digestive ailment, and he needed to be perfect. ‘Can’t we be together sometimes?’ he managed. He had to know, had to find out about . . . And he loved her – he did!
Mel grinned. ‘Of course we can; there’s a war on, so there’s rationing enough without cutting out all the fun. As a racy girl in the sixth form told me, we can have the overture, two movements and an interval, but no intercourse.’ She was being a clever clogs again, but that was fine, since she was talking to another clever clogs. ‘And no telling Gloria, or I shall remove all privileges with a very sharp knife.’
She was just like her mother, unusual, funny, occasionally inscrutable and chilly, always beautiful. She was so . . . so adult, so clever. He didn’t know what to say to her. Just now, he was a small boy aching into the soft comfort of a female form. Top of the class at school, he was retarded while on the stairs with a princess who had half promised to become his companion in naughtiness and joy. ‘Thanks,’ he achieved finally.
‘What for?’
‘For being you, Mel.’
Eileen found them like that. ‘Has he stopped trembling?’
‘Yes.’ Mel ruffled his hair and sat him up. ‘My hero,’ she said. ‘Covered in dust, but still a hero.’
The three went downstairs. One thing was clear to Eileen; she and Keith could not go back to Willows Edge until the kitchen had been made safe for Miss Morrison and her carers. Help was promised already. A local builder, who had arrived to check damage in several houses, intended to return and pump concrete under the floor. The gas supply was intact, as were water pipes and drains. Miss Morrison had her cup of tea, so all was well with the world for now.
No. All was nearly well. Eileen studied her daughter. Something was going on between her and Peter Bingley. Could Nellie manage this? Mel was clever, the lad was clever, and they were both fourteen. Gifted kids matured early and got into all kinds of scrapes. Mel must remain untouched, because she had a dream that could not include children, not for some considerable time.
The all-clear sounded, and the Bingleys set off for home. Eileen dragged her daughter into the hallway. ‘No,’ she said, a finger wagging an inch from Mel’s nose. ‘Don’t start. Not with him, not with anybody. With a promising future, you don’t want to be throwing yourself away, do you? You could have a baby.’ Eileen remembered her own youth. Raging hormones plagued everyone, not just this younger and slightly more outspoken generation. And Mel, like Eileen, was bold and direct.
‘Not if I don’t get pregnant. Actually, fifteen or sixteen is the ideal age from a physical point of view. Society made it wrong, so too many of us have trouble delivering later in life. But I shall not let you down.’
‘Promise me, sweetheart.’
‘Honestly, I won’t let you down. More to the point, I’ve no intention of letting me down.’ She chuckled. ‘He is delicious, though, isn’t he?’
‘Mel, I—’
‘You’re the motherly one, come in number five. Gloria and Peter are going through a terrible time, because their parents have revived their relationship. They’re living in a den of iniquity. We’ve all heard of Jack the Ripper, now we’ve got Keith the Kisser. Three impressionable young people living in unwholesome atmospheres.’ Mel giggled.
Eileen smiled in spite of herself. ‘There’s nothing unwholesome as long as there’s a marriage certificate and a wedding ring.’
‘And you’ve never been tempted?’
In her head, Eileen heard the voice of Tom Bingley. Even if it ends, it will never be over. And I’ll lick the butter from your fingers. ‘Yes, I’ve been tempted. I always swore I’d tell all of you the truth unless a lie might do some good.’ But the whole truth in this instance? Could she speak about Peter’s father? No. ‘Yes,’ she repeated slowly. ‘I’ve carried the devil with me, and listened to Satan’s whispered promises. But I never gave in.’
Mel sat on the bottom stair. ‘You should write, Mam. While you’re pregnant, do some writing.’
Eileen shrugged. Writing? ‘How can I write when I’m worried about everything and everybody?’
‘Write about being worried about everything and everybody. After the war, as long as we win, people will want to know about what it all meant to real folk. There’ll be medals and speeches, fireworks and flag-waving, pompous figures strutting up and down the Mall. What about cooking for your children, clothing families when everything’s rationed, watching your city burn? What about Kitty? And our two loonies making a break for Liverpool? Mam? Why are you smiling?’
‘Not sure.’ But she was sure. That nice little woman from St Andrew’s Road had her husband back. Dr Tom Bingley had finally learned to count his blessings. The smile faded. ‘Mel, you’re so young. I need to lay this on with a trowel. Stay safe.’
‘I shall. Get back to Keith the Cuddle before he fades away for lack of nourishment.’
Head shaking, Eileen walked out of the hall. Her firstborn had spoken in short sentences before walking properly, had fed herself early, had raced through junior school like the Flying Scotsman, and now seemed to have fitted herself with a forty-horsepower engine. Mel was speeding through life at a terrifying rate, and nothing could be done to halt her, nor would she be slowed. There was always a price to pay when a special child was involved.
Keith found her. ‘Are you all right, darling? Miss Morrison’s on her second cup of tea, this time topped up with a dash of Scotch.’
Eileen sat down on the living room sofa. ‘Mel’s fourteen going on forty, Keith. The trouble with having a daughter like my Amelia Anne is that she leaves you behind. Don’t get me wrong, babe, because I had sexual urges at her age, but I wasn’t so old in the head. She’s after Tom Bingley’s son.’
‘Tonight’s brown-eyed blond?’
‘That’s the chap. They were sitting on the stairs together and . . . oh, God.’
‘Don’t cry, love.’
Eileen dashed the wetness from her cheeks. ‘This is going to sound so daft you’ll want me locked up.’
‘Only if I have visiting privileges.’
She pondered for a while, took time to shunt her thoughts into some kind of order. After that, she needed to find the words. ‘A premonition,’ she said finally. ‘It’s daft, I know. But I looked at them; she had an arm round him and his face was on her chest. They were both covered in muck, but so very beautiful. It was like something done by Michelangelo. And while the sensible side of my mind was horrified, some part of me felt not happy, but all right. As if I could see them sitting like that forever, as if they belong together.’
‘You’re right, you need to see a doctor. Did you have your cod liver oil and malt?’
Eileen tutted. The trouble with men was that they had the imagination of dead reptiles. A woman looked at the sky and saw eternity; a man saw blue and wondered where the nearest pub might be. ‘Vive la bloody difference,’ she muttered.
‘Eh?’
‘Nothing. Just a saying of our Mel’s. Drink your tea, we’ve things to do.’
There was more wrong with Frances Morrison’s house than had met the eye of a builder speculating in the dark after the bombing was over. Several homes had been disturbed, while the old couple in the bungalow had both perished. Work continued during daylight hours, and all available men toiled to stabilize the buildings. Liverpool already had many homeless families, so labourers battled to hang on to as many homes as possible.
A system developed almost of its own accord. While fuel lines and water pipes were checked and restored where necessary, neighbours who were unaffected did the cooking. It finally reached the stage where no one knew whose crockery was whose, so items were piled up until someone ran out of plates or cups and came to reclaim her property. The someone would arrive, find her displaced items, and stop for a chat.
All of this suited Frances Morrison down to the ground. Eileen became make-up artist, dresser and manicurist, while the old woman bucked up no end during this supposedly dark time. She had visitors almost daily. Some had exciting tales to tell, and she lapped them up like a thirsty cat with a bowl of milk. One neighbour spoke about her son who, at sixteen, was already a volunteer fire-fighter. The rules regarding age had been bent, and that young man was happy to stand with two others and hold on to a massive hose through which many pounds of pressure flowed. ‘If they let go, it would kill their comrades.’
A nurse with a badly affected house told tales of women giving birth while buildings collapsed all round them, of people so badly injured that only morphine would do, of the packing of open wounds, of death and tears and fury. She had a fair share of funny stories as well. A man who lost a leg in the Great War lost it all over again. ‘Not a mark on him, but his house was flattened, and he ordered his rescuers to get back in there and find his missing limb. Needless to say, they didn’t.’
If it hadn’t been real before, if the red skies at midnight had not managed to convey the message, news from living, breathing people brought it home. One woman could never stay long, because she had to keep a close eye on her husband, who was yet another victim. ‘Pulling dead children out of debris is one thing, Miss Morrison. But pulling out a piece of a child finished him.’ The poor man had lost his mind. So keen had he been to find the rest of the infant that he had dug himself into a pile of smouldering debris which had almost become his grave. There was a possibility that he might never regain his senses.
The knitting began then. When it came to knitting, Miss Frances Morrison displayed all the dexterity of a small iceberg approaching a miniature Titanic. But Eileen encouraged her before retrieving socks clearly made for giants, dwarfs, or people with deformed feet. Eileen unravelled the disasters, washed the wool to remove the kinks, knitted it again and passed usable items back to the WVS. Convinced that she was contributing to the war effort, the old woman continued with her labours. She was doing no good, but she was occupied, and she did no harm.
Christmas approached. The pregnant Mrs Greenhalgh could only watch and wait while the house was restored to some semblance of order. She had never spent Christmas away from her mother and the boys, and she became anxious.
Keith also watched and hoped. He rolled up his sleeves and worked alongside plumbers and builders, did some carpentry and rubbish-shifting, cooked, made endless cups of tea. But he wanted to send his wife home. He wanted her safe and unafraid, but she flatly refused to travel without him. ‘When I go, I go with you. And when Mam comes here after Christmas, I want this place straight. She’s not young.’
Another fly committed suicide in the ointment. The WVS member who had promised to stay with Miss Morrison over Christmas suddenly left the area. A single woman, she moved to the other side of Liverpool to be with her sister, and Eileen refused to countenance the abandonment of her landlady. ‘Yes, the neighbours would see to her, but I’m not leaving things casual. She’s good to us, and she needs watching.’
‘We can take her with us, love.’
‘No.’ That chin came up. Like her daughter, Eileen had a determined little chin. ‘She’s unfit to travel. We’ll have to stay for Christmas. So will Mel.’
‘But your mother—’
‘Is tougher and younger than Miss Morrison.’ Eileen folded her arms. ‘It can’t be helped. We’ll take their presents over in the New Year.’
But Hitler had other ideas. In December 1940, his Luftwaffe delivered gifts aplenty to the city of Liverpool. And there was no gathering in the city centre at New Year.
Twelve
Weather and more urgent commitments slowed the work on St Michael’s Road. Most small builders spent time after a raid shoring up the salvageable, demolishing the dangerous, boarding up broken windows with sheets of wood, and dealing with immediate daily emergencies first. Frances Morrison was lucky, since Keith had managed to replace the kitchen glazing, but other work remained unfinished, and it was now December. Frost was not the builders’ friend, so the chances of replacing wall ties and completing work on foundations, gables and rainwater goods were remote. Stability had been achieved by shoring up houses with struts, but such measures were supposedly temporary.
Miss Morrison found the whole business rather exciting. ‘It’s like being down the mines,’ she commented on one of her rare expeditions into the garden. ‘They’re all props and struts, you know. What an adventure.’ For a woman with a weak heart, Frances Morrison certainly took war with Germany in her stride. Keith had built a sturdy shelter around the old woman’s bed, and she lived happily in her cage, deliberately oblivious of danger, because she had her heart’s desire. She loved people, her house was full of them, and she growled amiably through the bars at anyone who approached her territory.
While Miss Morrison took her afternoon nap, Eileen’s beloved and mischievous mother was shouting down the telephone. She was in a state. Mam in a state was not to be taken lightly, but at least she wasn’t here in person. Nellie Kennedy’s voice grated at the best of times and now, magnified by microphone, it was enough to shift paint off the walls. ‘I should be with me daughter at Christmas. It’s not right for us to be separated like this when we’ve always been—’
‘Mam?’
‘What?’
‘I’m in Liverpool, and you’re at Willows.’
‘I know that, you soft mare. There’s no need for you to tell me where I am. I seen meself in a mirror not five minutes back. I think it was me, anyway. Unless some bugger’s pinched me blue pinny and me best hairnet.’
‘Stop shouting, you are not in Australia.’ Eileen held the receiver away from her ear. Nellie, aware of the distance between herself and her beloved daughter, was screaming across forty miles. ‘Talk normally, Mam. There’s no need to yell, but thanks for shifting the wax in my ear. I think you’ve blown it all the way across to the other side of my head.’
Nellie lowered her tone. ‘But you have to come for your dinner, Eileen. It’s Christmas, love. Christmas has always been important.’
Eileen blinked moisture from her eyes. It was true. Poverty had never diminished Mam’s joy when the festive season arrived. But this was different. It was a new war, a war unlike its predecessor, because a thousand tons of ironmongery and explosives seemed to drop from the skies with monotonous frequency. ‘There’s a massive fight on, Mam. Very few families will be completely together for Christmas dinner. We’ve nobody at the front or on a ship or in a plane, so be grateful. I can’t just leave Miss Morrison. The neighbours are good, but there’s no one who can stay with her twenty-four hours a day. I want this place declared safe before you come.’
‘Safe? Safe? You’ve been bloody bombed.’ The tone of this statement was accusatory.
‘Yes, we have. Adolf asked for permission, and we agreed to be a target, cos he wanted the practice. I’ll phone you later.’ She turned to her husband once the connection to Nellie was severed. ‘We’re not leaving her.’ She waved a hand in the direction of Frances Morrison’s ground-floor bedroom. ‘I want this place in better shape before we do the permanent swap with Mam. And Miss Morrison can’t travel, so that’s an end to it.’
‘It is indeed. Don’t cry. You know I have to kiss you when you cry. And you know I have trouble stopping kissing when I start.’
Eileen had the same difficulty, because her husband was a fabulous kisser. But she wouldn’t tell him that, since he already knew. ‘Are you a sex maniac?’ she asked pleasantly.
‘Erm . . . not yet. I have to
do the written test and a series of practicals. But I’m working my way up to it.’
She wagged a finger at him. ‘Just make sure I’m the practicals. Or you’ll wake up a little bit dead.’
Nellie placed the receiver in its cradle. Her Eileen was in trouble. She was living in a propped-up house, she was pregnant, and she was afraid. Keith was with her, thank God, but what if the Germans came back to Crosby? There was a fort nearby, and there were searchlights waiting to be bombed. ‘Bugger,’ she spat. ‘Staying in a place held together with faith, hope and putty. And pregnant on top of all that.’
‘Nellie?’
She turned. ‘Ah. Hilda. They won’t be coming for Christmas.’ Hilda Pickavance was a clever woman but, in the opinion of Nellie Kennedy, she sometimes lacked a bit of courage. ‘I’ll never understand you leaving our Phil to find his sketchbook and never saying nothing to him. This has been going on for weeks now. What are you scared of? He’s not going to bite your head off, is he?’
Hilda wasn’t scared; she was cautious. ‘He wasn’t ready,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t want to disturb him in case he stopped sketching.’ Phil was a reserved, wild thing. If anyone tried to get too close, he put up shutters and displayed a CLOSED sign. More important, his talent was developing at a rate that wanted neither help nor interference. ‘I am waiting for him to talk to me.’
‘And I’m waiting for me daughter, though she won’t be coming.’
Hilda, lost in her own thoughts, frowned and nodded pensively. ‘When I loosened the pages, I hoped he would believe the one I stole had fallen out accidentally, but he’s been looking for it. That sketch was the only one in ink. Fine detail is his forte.’
Nellie sat down. Hilda had taken the sketch to Bolton for framing. It was meant to be Eileen’s Christmas present, and the artist had no idea about any of it. As far as he was concerned, he had mislaid the ink drawing, and no one knew about his hobby. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.
That Liverpool Girl Page 23