Across the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  He lifted the hip flask to his mouth and then when he realised it was empty, he threw it so hard into the empty fire grate that the grate dented it.

  Two spots of angry colour started to burn on Bella’s cheeks. Not once since the night at the Tennis Club had Alan mentioned the circumstances of their engagement and subsequent marriage, and Bella had assumed that he would never do so. He had wanted to marry her really, she had told herself, and it was only that Trixie who had put last-minute doubts into his mind.

  ‘You’d as good as proposed to me. Everyone knew that.’

  ‘Proposed?’ He gave a coarse laugh. ‘That’s rich. Propositioned you, maybe, and only that because you’d been chasing after me so hard ever since we’d met.’

  ‘Me chase you! I’ll have you know there were plenty of other boys wanting to take me out.’

  ‘Yes, for the same reason as me. Because they wanted to fuck you and they reckoned it would be easy to get into your knickers,’ he told her crudely.

  Bella was genuinely shocked. Spoiled and indulged all her life by her mother, and allowed to grow up believing that whatever kind of behaviour she indulged in in order to get her own way was acceptable, she had no awareness of the interpretation others might put on that behaviour, or the boundaries she ought to have put on it herself.

  She would no more have genuinely allowed Alan or any other man the kind of sexual favours he was referring to before marriage than she would have contemplated marrying a poor man with no prospects. Physical desire, the intensity of emotional passion – these were not things she had ever experienced, nor did she have any wish to do so, nor any understanding of them. Desire, for Bella, was something she felt for a new frock or a piece of jewellery, for marriage and status.

  In the world Bella had created inside her head, a wife permitted her husband the intimacies of marriage in exchange for her wedding ring; if she thought about those intimacies at all it was simply as a duty and nothing more. She neither feared them nor anticipated them. Marriage for her was about being envied by other young women because she was the first of a group to become a wife; it was about having secured the best marriage prize available to her, having the best house, being an adored daughter and daughter-in-law, being the one that all the other women of her group envied and looked up to.

  She took off her suit jacket. Their hotel room boasted its own bathroom, a shabby cold little room with a stained bath and a sour smell, and she had already made up her mind that she intended to use it as little as possible.

  She had no idea what she could say to Alan and so she simply continued to get undressed, telling herself that he was being so vile because he had been drinking and that he would be his normal self in the morning. She had heard her mother complaining to her father when he had had a couple of G and Ts too many on a Sunday evening. Berating one’s husband for bad behaviour was simply a part of being a wife.

  She would have to use the horrid bathroom to finish getting undressed, she acknowledged.

  Alan was now lying back in the chair with his eyes closed. Her mouth pinched into a sour look very similar to her mother’s.

  When she emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later, Alan had fallen asleep and was snoring.

  Well, she certainly wasn’t going to wake him. Let him stay there and be punished for his nastiness to her when he did wake up with an aching neck.

  Of course, it was a pity that he wasn’t seeing her in her beautiful négligé, but he hadn’t been at all appreciative of her lovely suit or the trouble she had gone to to look pretty for him.

  Carefully skirting past him, Bella turned off the lights and climbed into the cold, slightly unaired bed.

  It was the sound of Alan being sick that woke her. At first she didn’t know where she was or what the disgusting noise was, but by the time she had focused on the thin light coming from beneath the bathroom door, she was fully awake.

  She watched in angry silence as Alan staggered out of the bathroom still fully dressed, and came towards the bed, swaying slightly as he stared down at her.

  ‘Bloody bitch,’ he swore at her savagely. ‘Bloody, bloody bitch. Well, I’ll show what you’re going to get for forcing me to marry you. There’s only one way to treat a bitch like you.’

  He had pulled away the bedclothes and was on top of her before she could move, his breath rank and sour, as he kneeled over her and unbuttoned his trousers.

  Bella was too furious to be afraid as she pushed him away. He had left the bathroom light on and she could see his ‘thing’. It was dark red and stiff. She looked at it dismissively.

  Bella might not be interested in sex, but she wasn’t ignorant – her mother had seen to that – and anyway, Charlie, being what he was, had thoroughly enjoyed tormenting her when they had been much younger by showing her what boys had that girls didn’t, and showing her too what he could do with it with his hand.

  Bella had thought the whole thing totally silly and unnecessary then, and she still did now.

  Alan reached for her breast, squeezing it painfully. Irritably she pushed him away, her anger growing as he held on to her nightdress, causing the delicate lace to tear.

  ‘Now see what you’ve done,’ she demanded, trying to thrust him away from her.

  In retaliation Alan pinned her down all the harder, pushing up her nightdress and dropping down on top of her. She could feel the ‘thing’ pressing against her body.

  This was what happened when a couple got married, everyone knew that. It was what men expected and what women had to put up with.

  Bella gave an impatient sigh and turned her mental attention towards the far more pleasurable activity of planning the furnishings of her new home, leaving Alan to thrust away, making odd grunts as he did so.

  It was a pity her father had refused to buy them that new dining set she’d set her heart on, and insisted she had to make do with second-hand instead. And mahogany too. Her father had got it from some woman who was moving to the country because of the war.

  What was taking Alan so long? As a boy Charlie had got it over and done with in seconds, and had looked disgustingly pleased with himself for having done so, as he showed her how far he could make the stream of fluid go.

  She looked impatiently at Alan. His face was beaded with sweat and he had started to shake slightly. His ‘thing’ had gone soft.

  Had he done it then? If so, she hadn’t felt anything, and if he hadn’t, well, that wasn’t her fault, was it? She rolled out from under him whilst he was preoccupied with ‘it’, frowning as he looked at its flaccid paleness, and pulled down her nightdress. Let him sleep on the cold side of the bed, she certainly wasn’t going to.

  Jean couldn’t so much as swallow a crumb of toast, her throat felt so raw with pain.

  The two men she loved best, her husband and her son, sat at opposite sides of the breakfast table, ignoring one another.

  There’d been more angry words between them last night after they’d got home from the wedding, with Sam telling Luke that he’d regret joining up and Luke retaliating that he’d regret even more being a coward. Of course his words to Sam had been like a red rag to a bull, and in the end they had ended up glowering at each other, neither prepared to back down.

  Jean had longed to be able to persuade Sam to explain his true feelings to Luke but she knew that he was too proud to do so, and she knew too that Sam would never forgive her if she broke the confidence he had given her. And at the back of her mind she worried that Luke, being young and not understanding how things had been during that other war, might not truly understand how his dad felt and why. But, as everyone knew, you couldn’t put an old head on young shoulders.

  She’d been so proud of Luke at the wedding, but in some ways she had wished he had not been there so that the situation between father and son had not worsened.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Mum, otherwise I’ll miss the boat.’

  ‘Don’t forget this cake that I’ve made for you then, Luke,’ Jean told him, fussing a
round busily to hide her tears. ‘We’ll walk with you to the bus.’

  ‘No … no there’s no need, Mum. I’m meeting up with another lad that had leave; we’re travelling back together.’

  She could at least go to the door with him, hoping as she did so that Sam would see sense and come with her to see him off.

  At the front door she pulled Luke to her and hugged him tightly.

  ‘I’m sorry about your dad, Luke. He—’

  ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ Luke told her but they both knew that it wasn’t.

  She watched him until he had disappeared out of sight. He had told her that he would be given leave once his training was over.

  ‘And then they’ll be sending us off to join the BEF, so that we can help them push Hitler back into Germany, so they reckon,’ he had added almost carelessly, whilst Jean’s maternal heart had felt as though it was being squeezed dry of blood.

  The BEF, the British Expeditionary Force, had left for France and Belgium almost as soon as war had been announced, and the thought of Luke fighting with them filled her with fear.

  TEN

  December

  It was over, the most exhausting and testing three months of their lives, they all agreed, followed by the longest and most fear-inducing three days when they had sat their exams, and now, after lunch, they would be summoned individually to see Matron to get their results.

  A pass meant going on to the wards to continue training; a fail meant handing in the uniform and going home.

  ‘I had to do a many-tailed bandage for an abdomen wound,’ Hannah groaned. ‘I’m sure I got it wrong. Remember when Sister Tutor was showing us how she said my bandaging looked like a badly made birds’ nest and yours showed a sense of balance and order, Grace.’

  ‘I remember how I burned the consommé we had to make for sippy two diets,’ Grace shuddered. ‘I was dreading having to do one for my practical.’

  ‘What did you have to do, Grace?’

  Grace grimaced and said succinctly, ‘Trays and Trolleys.’

  During their three-month training they had had to learn by heart how to set up seventy-two different trays and trolleys in their individual specific order.

  ‘First she asked me to make up a tray for passing the flatus tube, then a trolley for a patient’s bath, then she asked me to bandage the left eye. I’m never going to pass.’

  They only had fifteen minutes in which to do the practical side of their exams and every part was timed to ensure that they could complete the set tasks in the allotted time.

  ‘I was so nervous by the time I did the bandaging that I nearly dropped the bandage, and I’m sure I took longer than I should have done,’ Jennifer chimed in, her Yorkshire accent even stronger than normal with nerves.

  They were all in the dining room, letting off steam and commiserating with one another after the ordeal. Of the girls who had started out at the same time as Grace, three had dropped out within the first week and another three at the end of the first month.

  She just knew she wouldn’t pass, Grace decided. She had done so many things wrong. The other girls were all saying the same thing as they exchanged stories and comforted one another.

  ‘I know how a condemned man must feel now when he eats his last meal,’ Iris announced theatrically, tucking into her lunch. Most of the girls, including Grace, were too on edge to want to eat, even though their set were all sitting down together at the table.

  Jennifer shuddered as she looked down at Iris’s plate of rissoles and cabbage.

  ‘I don’t know how you can eat anything, Iris, never mind Cook’s rissoles. I swear she puts in the gristly bits on purpose.’

  Grace felt slightly sick in a way that had nothing to do with their lunch menu. Her heart was thudding with nervous anxiety.

  ‘How’s that good-looking ambulance driver that’s taken such a fancy to you, Grace?’ Lillian asked teasingly.

  Grace had learned how to stop herself from blushing whenever Teddy’s name was mentioned. They weren’t exactly an item, but Teddy did seem to manage to be ‘around’ rather a lot, teasing her and complimenting her and making it plain that he enjoyed her company.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know now what you mean,’ Grace responded with dignity, and then started to giggle as she admitted, ‘He’s asked me out to see a matinée tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Well, you tell him there’s to be no sitting in the back row and no trying to persuade you to give him the kiss of life neither,’ Doreen joked.

  This time Grace did blush. Whilst it was true that things hadn’t got anywhere near as far as that between them, there was no denying that she had wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Teddy and she had decided that she would rather like to find out, she admitted.

  They had been told that with Christmas only a week away, and the phoney war, as it was now referred to in the papers, making it seem as though they weren’t really at war at all – despite the sandbags, blackout, ARP wardens and other paraphernalia of civil defence – those who passed their exams would be allowed a week off to be with their families before their on-the-ward training began. But of course she wasn’t going to pass, Grace reminded herself woefully, not with the mess she had made of that eye bandage.

  ‘Home Sister’s just come in,’ Hannah hissed warningly.

  They all looked towards the door where Home Sister was standing, her hands folded in front of her whilst she surveyed the dining room.

  A sharp clap of her hands brought instant silence to the room, and then automatically the trainees pushed back their chairs and stood up facing the doorway. If there was one thing they had all learned, Grace reflected, it was that it was wise to accord immediate obedience to any of Sister’s commands.

  ‘I shall call out your names in alphabetical order and when you hear your name you will present yourself without delay to Matron MacDonald in my office.’

  Grace felt as though her legs had turned to jelly and her stomach to liquid dread. At least she wasn’t too far down the alphabet. She dreaded to think what state she could be in had she been a Wilson or a Wood.

  ‘Campion, Matron.’

  ‘Thank you, Sister.’

  Grace was sure that Matron must be able to hear her knees knocking together as she stood nervously in front of her, whilst one of the sister tutors stood discreetly to one side of her.

  Grace had only seen Matron once before, the day after the trainees had first arrived, when she had given them a warning speech about how hard they would have to work and how high the hospital’s standards were. She had warned them then that many of them would not be able to meet those high standards, and now here she was, having failed them, Grace thought miserably, as she saw how Matron frowned as she looked down at the papers on her desk.

  Abruptly she lifted her head and looked at Grace, subjecting her to gimlet-eyed scrutiny, before saying crisply, ‘Passed.’

  Passed? She had passed? Grace didn’t know what to say or do. She heard Sister Tutor clearing her throat warningly and just about managed to gather her wits together sufficiently to stammer, ‘Thank you, Matron,’ before backing out of the door that Sister Tutor was now holding open for her.

  She had passed. She was going to be a nurse; a proper nurse. Grace felt like turning cartwheels and whooping with joy, just like the twins did when they were excited. Giggles bubbled up inside her at the thought of Sister Tutor’s reaction if she were actually to do so. She would probably be dismissed on the spot, or put in a strait-jacket.

  All the girls, they discovered later, on being given their results, had been instructed either to return to their individual rooms to pack their things prior to leaving the hospital, or to go and be measured for their new uniforms. The dining room that evening positively hummed with the sound of young female voices forced down to the low tone they had been instructed to use as trainee nurses, as they exchanged results.

  Grace’s group were thrilled that all six of them had passed. They congratulated one anothe
r happily and exchanged horror stories of just what they had done wrong in their exams.

  ‘Have you been told yet what ward you’re going to be on?’ Hannah asked Grace.

  ‘Yes. Men’s surgical. What about you?’

  ‘Theatre,’ Hannah told her, pulling a face. ‘I’m pleased in a way, but I hope I don’t disgrace myself by fainting the first time I have to help scrub up for an operation. I’ve heard that some of the housemen take bets on how quickly new nurses faint their first time in theatre.’

  ‘You won’t faint,’ Grace told her firmly.

  ‘I hope I don’t. Did they tell you you had to be on the ward at seven thirty a.m?’

  ‘Yes,’ Grace confirmed, as the others chimed in with details of the wards they were to be in.

  ‘I was told we’d have to move our things out of our rooms and that we’d be given new rooms in the nurses’ home when we report for duty on the Monday evening,’ Iris offered. ‘I’ve heard it’s like a prison over there with all the rules they’ve got.’

  ‘All I want to think about right now is having a week off,’ said Lillian.

  ‘Did you see the queue to use the telephone?’ Jennifer groaned. ‘I’m not bothering. I’m going to wait until I get home to tell everyone.’

  Grace had come to the same decision. She still couldn’t quite believe that she had actually passed, and she couldn’t stop smiling either.

  ‘What do you mean, there’s no supper?’

  Bella tossed her head and glared at Alan as he stormed into the kitchen. She was very proud of her kitchen. Everything in it was brand-new, including her Cannon gas cooker, in the very latest design. Its cream enamel was matched by the set of pans and oven dishes they had received as a wedding present. Not that she planned to use her cooker very much.

  Her mother had had the white curtains, with the red cherry design on them, and the frill across the top of the window made for her. They had chosen the fabric together in Lewis’s. A matching gathered skirt on elastic discreetly covered the space beneath the draining board and under the sink. A new gas water heater has been installed to one side of the kitchen window, and the smart linoleum on the floor made the rag rugs that Alan’s mother had on her kitchen floor look very shabby indeed in comparison.