He had attended the funerals of each of the young men who had lost their lives, and suffered the accusatory looks of their families at every one. He could have defended himself from them by pointing out that the person responsible for their deaths was not him but one of their own friends, but what was the point now with them dead and their families already burdened with the pain of their grief? He had no wish to add to it by telling them that they had brought the deaths on themselves by breaking the rules.
Far worse, though, had been Jim’s funeral. He and Jim had been friends for almost half of John’s life. It had been Jim who had tolerated his questions and curiosity when, as a young boy, he had hung around him and the other men with their flying machines, coaxing Jim to tell him everything he knew about them. Jim had been the best of men and the best of friends, and John knew he would never forgive himself for what had happened to him.
As soon as Gideon and Ellie returned from the Lakes, John intended to tell them he was leaving the area. He knew Gideon and Ellie understood why he had insisted Hettie was not to be told about what had happened, and that he had not wanted to spoil her debut with his own dreadful news. She had probably not even missed him anyway, he decided bitterly, not with all the admirers she no doubt had now, paying her compliments and wanting to walk out with her. Hettie was young. She wanted fun and laughter, and they were the last things he felt like right now.
In fact, he felt as though he had the cares of the world on his shoulders. Even if he had had the money to do so, at this moment he had neither the heart nor the stomach for starting again and building another flying school here.
He couldn’t stay here because if he did there would never be a day when he didn’t look across to the charred ruin and know that, if he hadn’t selfishly agreed to go and listen to Hettie singing, because he had been so desperate to see her, four foolish young men and his best friend would still be alive.
The blame wasn’t Hettie’s – how could it be? – but it was his for putting his desire to see her before his duty.
The letter he had just finished writing was a request to Alfred asking if the job he had mentioned to him was still open. The sooner he was away from this place and its painful memories the better.
‘Gawd, ’Ettie, yer look like you’ve been bawling yer eyes out, what’s up?’
Hettie had hoped that she would have the attic room to herself as she returned to the boarding house, but she had forgotten that Mavis had had a fall-out with the producer and was currently understudying, which meant she was refusing to go to the theatre for rehearsals.
‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbled.
‘Nothing? Give over, come on, what’s to do? Old man Buchanan hasn’t been trying it on wiv yer, has he?’
Hettie promptly burst into tears and within less than five minutes Mavis had dragged the whole sorry story out of her.
‘Ee, he’s a right nasty piece of work, doing that to yer. Only that’s the way it is in this business! But keeping yer wages back, so as to get yer to give ’im what he wants…That’s right mean, that is. Ee ’Ettie, yer didn’t let him have his way wiv yer, did yer?’
‘No.’ Hettie told her vehemently as she shuddered at the very thought of the man.
‘Well that’s all right then, lass. Now dry them tears and I’ll tell yer what yer have to do.’
Obediently Hettie did as she was instructed whilst Mavis settled herself comfortably on her bed and lit up a cigarette, in flagrant breach of one of Mrs Marshall’s most stringent rules.
‘Now listen to me, the next time he tries anyfink like that on yer, yer ’as ter to tell him that you’re going straight to Mrs B to tell ’er what he’s doing.’
Hettie gazed at her in disbelief. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Yer won’t have to,’ Mavis assured her with a grin. ‘All yer have to do is say it like yer mean it, that will put the s…the fear of God right up him,’ she amended hastily.
‘But what about my wages?’ Hettie asked her miserably.
‘Aye, well I fink yer can kiss goodbye to them, ’Ettie. His missus might call him ter order for messin’ wiv yer, but she won’t be willing to hand over yer money. Tight arsed old bat. Oh, and ’ere’s another tip for yer. Allus carry an ’at pin wiv yer…’
Hettie’s forehead crinkled in confusion.
‘Yer sticks it into any fella who gets too frisky wiv yer,’ Mavis explained patiently. ‘Works every time, especially if yer sticks it into his best friend.’
Hettie’s confusion deepened. ‘But why would sticking it into his friend help if he’s the one…’
When Mavis burst into raucous laughter, Hettie gave her a pink-cheeked look of enquiry.
‘Oh, ’Ettie. Gawd but yer wet behind the ears, aren’t yer. A man’s best friend is his old man.’
When Hettie still looked confused, Mavis heaved a large sigh and said, ‘’Ettie, afore you came here how much exactly did yer ma tell yer about the birds and the bees?’
Hettie’s face grew even hotter. ‘I know where babies come from, if that’s what you mean,’ she said quellingly.
But if she had expected to stop Mavis from laughing she was disappointed because instead Mavis laughed even harder, pausing eventually to wipe the tears of mirth from her eyes and to splutter, ‘Aye, but do yer know how they gets there in the first place?’
When Hettie continued to blush Mavis told her in a more kindly voice, ‘Well, his best friend, or his old man, is what a chap puts into yer…well, yer privates. It’s down there his privates are, like. He’s got his old man and his balls, and we’ve got our privates and they fit together like they was made for one another. Which they was, of course,’ she announced matter of factly.
‘First time he does it, he teks yer virginity,’ she continued, ‘and that can ’urt a fair bit if he’s a bit rough, like, but after that it can feel good like as well,’ Mavis revealed fairly. ‘Specially if yer sweet on him, like. Anyway, it’s his old man that gives yer what babies come from. So that’s why if yer lets one of ’em have his way with yer, yer have to be careful to mek sure he doesn’t leave it inside yer.’
Hettie had been nodding her head vigorously throughout this explanation but the truth was that she wasn’t very much the wiser. What she did know, however, was that the thought of any man, but most of all Mr Buchanan, attempting to put his ‘best friend’ into her ‘privates’ was one she found thoroughly disgusting.
Later on, when the other girls had returned, Mavis insisted on telling them all what had befallen Hettie.
‘Poor little kid,’ Lizzie sympathised with her. ‘He wants it chopping off, he does. So what are yer going to do if they don’t give yer yer wages, then, ’Ettie?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hettie admitted.
She had had time now to rethink her first frightened impulse to tell her mother what had happened. She knew that Ellie’s reaction would be to insist she came home, and that wasn’t really what she wanted to do. Besides, the other girls had laughed her out of her fear now and made the whole situation somehow seem so much less frightening. And, of course, she felt so very grown up having been admitted to that world where she knew all about the kind of things that young girls did not know about.
‘Well, if you do want to earn a bit extra money, Hettie, Jack at the chop house was saying that he was desperate for someone to help clear the tables and wash up,’ Babs told her. ‘I’all have a word with him for you, if you like. It won’t be much money and it will be hard work, mind,’ she cautioned as Hettie’s face immediately lit up.
‘I don’t mind that,’ Hettie assured her. In fact, she wouldn’t mind anything so long as it helped to made up her lost wages and meant that she didn’t have to worry about the prospect of Mr Buchanan pushing his ‘best friend’ into her.
‘I’ll have a word with him for you, then,’ Babs promised her, adding quietly so that only Hettie could hear, ‘And as for what Mavis has been telling you, later on when it’s a bit quieter, you and me are going t
o have a proper talk about that, Hettie.’
‘So you’re definitely going to take this job, then, John?’ Gideon asked quietly as Ellie poured her younger brother a fresh cup of tea.
John had arrived unannounced at the house Gideon owned in the Lake District just over half an hour ago to tell them that he had been to see Alfred, and it had now been agreed that he would take over his new duties as the chief flying instructor at the club in just over a month’s time.
‘Yes,’ John confirmed tersely before adding, ‘I know you don’t want to sell the land we bought, Gideon.’
‘There’s no need for you to worry about that, John. I dare say we can lease it to a farmer for the time being.’
‘I’d like to have some kind of memorial plaque put on it once all the mess has been cleared away. It’s the least I can do for Jim. He didn’t deserve to die like that, and it’s my fault that he did.’
Ellie made a small sound of distress and put her hand on his arm. ‘John, you must not say that. There was nothing you could have done. The other students all confirmed that Alan Simms was a very headstrong and reckless young man who had made it plain that nothing was going to stop him from taking up a flying machine and making good his boast that he already knew everything there was to know about flying and didn’t need to listen to either you or Jim. Didn’t they? You said so yourself.’
‘But don’t you see? If I’d been there, Alan wouldn’t have been able to take the machine in the first place because I would have been using it for a lesson,’ John protested in an anguished voice.
‘On that occasion maybe,’ Gideon intervened firmly. ‘But by all accounts he was the kind of young fool who would have kept on until he got what he wanted. The pity of it is that he managed to persuade three other young idiots to go with him and, even worse, that the machine crashed onto the hangar and killed poor Jim. But none of that is your fault, John, and if you take my advice you must accept that.’
‘Hettie was very distressed that you weren’t there at her debut as she had hoped,’ Ellie told him.
‘You didn’t tell her…what happened, or about Jim?’ John immediately asked anxiously. ‘I know how much this singing business means to her and I didn’t want to spoil it for her with bad news.’
‘No. We did as you had begged us to, John, and said nothing,’ Gideon assured him.
‘There is a letter here for you from Hettie,’ Ellie told him quietly.
Reluctantly John took the envelope she was holding out to him, and then opened it. Although the notepaper wasn’t scented it seemed to John that somehow it carried a soft sweet fragrance that was in some way the essence of Hettie herself.
‘Dear John,’ she had written. ‘I was very sorry that you could not come to hear me sing at the Adelphi. Mam and Da and Connie had all said that you would be there but then you didn’t come. I hope that you are not still cross with me because of my frock and because I want to sing. Most sincerely, Hettie.’
‘She was very disappointed that you weren’t there,’ Ellie repeated as John folded up the letter and tucked it back in its envelope.
‘She is so very young,’ John answered her seriously. ‘A child still in many ways, Ellie.’ His own problems and feeling of guilt were weighing very heavily on his shoulders, and the laughter he had once shared with Hettie now seemed to belong to another life and another person.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Ellie meaningfully. He didn’t want to cause his sister anxiety when she was in a delicate condition. That would be even more guilt than he could bear.
She gave him an affectionate smile and assured him, ‘I am fine. Gideon fusses over me so much you’d think this was to be our first child and not our third. I am hoping that Iris will be able to attend me during the confinement. She has promised that she will, but I know how busy the clinic is keeping her. But tell us some more about your friend Alfred and his flying club, John. I feel I hardly know anything about it,’ Ellie pressed him.
‘The flying club does not belong to Alfred as such, but he has given the club the land. It is very well organised,’ he explained ‘and they are soon to take delivery of two new machines. I am to live in an apartment, as they call it, in a building adjoining the flying club. I have half of the whole of the upper floor, and down below me is an office and the clubroom, over the flying club. The chap who does most of the bookwork has the other half, whilst the engineers and maintenance crew work in shifts and do not live on site so that there is always a maintenance crew there. It has all been very well thought out and organised,’ John reiterated.
‘This is a new start for you, John,’ Ellie told him lovingly. ‘I pray that you will be happy.’
He smiled weakly at her but inside he felt despair. He had no right to look for happiness. Not when five men were dead because of him. He had no right to want happiness, and no right either to yearn for the sound of Hettie’s laughter.
ELEVEN
Hettie hummed happily to herself as she washed the dishes piled up to one side of the sink.
Thanks to Babs she now not only properly understood the confusing facts Mavis had given her, she also had a job working in the kitchen of the chop house, where Sarah Baker, the wife of its owner, Jack, and mother of her youthful admirer, insisted on Hettie eating with them before the evening rush of customers began. She’d never devoured so much food in her life as these past few days!
‘We’re lucky to be so close to the theatre, otherwise we’d probably be suffering too, what with so many men being out of work,’ Sarah confided to Hettie as they shared the unending task of washing up.
It was true that Liverpool was becoming an increasingly subdued city as the lack of work bit deeper into the soul of its menfolk. Connie and Harry talked worriedly about it whenever Hettie visited, fearing that the situation was going to grow even worse, and Sarah Baker kept a big basket into which she and Hettie put whatever leftovers could be salvaged, to be handed out to those poor souls who could not afford to buy food. It was her way of doing her bit, she explained to Hettie.
Hettie thought back to her enlightening talk with Babs. It was true that at first she had been shocked when Babs had matter of factly explained the mystery of the intimacies of married life to her, and the manner in which babies were conceived; and she had been very apprehensive going to her first practice after Mr Buchanan had tried to touch her. But as soon as he had put his hand on her arm she had done as the girls had told her and warned him that she would tell Mrs Buchanan of his behaviour.
Her threat had worked like a magic charm, and he had not tried to touch her since, much to her relief.
Of all the girls, Babs was her favourite and the one to whom she felt the closest, with Lizzie now a close second. Lizzie tended to mother her these days, and in return Hettie was happy to listen to Lizzie’s anxieties about her own mother and the sister who would never, as Lizzie put it, ‘grow up proper, like’.
‘Ever so loving she is, Hettie, but she’s that big now and she doesn’t know her own strength. When she squeezes your hand it doesn’t half hurt, but she doesn’t mean any harm.’
Whenever she could, Lizzie went home, and when one day Hettie had returned from her singing practice to see Lizzie sitting on her bed, clutching a letter whilst tears rolled down her face, Hettie asked her immediately, ‘Oh Lizzie, what’s wrong? Is it your sister?’
‘Yes, she’s had a fall and she’s been taken to hospital. She’s been crying and asking for me. Mam wants to know if I can go and see her, but I haven’t got any time off due to me. Three of the girls are off sick and we’re that busy with rehearsals I daren’t just go, even though it would only mean me missing the one day.’
‘You could go if I stood in for you,’ Hettie told her. ‘It’s my Saturday off this weekend, but I can’t go home because my Mam and Da are up at the Lakes still, and that’s too far to go.’
‘What? No, you couldn’t do that. You’re not tall enough for one thing,’ Lizzie protested, but Hettie could see that she
was tempted by the idea.
Lizzie had been kind to her and, to Hettie, this was an opportunity to repay her kindness. When the others came in, she told them what had happened and what she had offered to do.
‘You? Stand in for Lizzie?’ Mavis laughed. ‘You aren’t tall enough!’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Lizzie agreed.
‘Well, I reckon it’s a good idea and that we could get away with it if one of us came forward and we put her at the back,’ Babs argued. ‘We could always do sommat to make her taller. Give her a headdress, put some blocks on her shoes or sommat.’
‘Oh yes, and how the ’ell is she going to do her high kicks wearing shoes wiv blocks on them?’ Mavis demanded.
‘Course she can,’ one of the twins joined in.
‘Yes, but what about Lizzie’s solo?’
‘What about it? We can learn her the song easy enough, and if she gets it wrong then we’all just have to sing louder to drown her out. She’ll be okay with the dancing, she knows most of the routines already from watching us. ’Ere, Hettie, come over here and watch this,’ Sukey ordered, immediately striking a pose before launching into a song that had Hettie’s toes tapping, even if some of the words seemed a little risqué.
‘Well, it’s easy enough to see why you’ll never make it out of the chorus, Sukey,’ Mavis commented witheringly. ‘Call that singing? Sounds more like two tom cats having a fight.’
‘That’s cos I’m a bleeding contralto and not a ruddy soprano like Lizzie here,’ Sukey defended herself, clearly miffed.
Hettie could see that Lizzie’s resolve was weakening.
‘I won’t let you down,’ she promised her fervently.
Lizzie shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t be agreeing to this and I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the fact that Mam says our Rosie’s that desperate to see me.’
Hettie of Hope Street Page 9