‘This is only the beginning,’ one man said, ‘stands to reason Bootle and Liverpool are going to get it. Look at the stuff we ship in and out,’ and men at other tables agreed with him.
Although Tom worried about his mother and family and friends if this was true, he also worried about his manuscript. Nellie had put the parcel into a tin box when it came back but now Tom thought that he would send it off again.
It was as likely to be buried in rubble in London as in Bootle but at least, he thought, another publisher would have looked at it.
Tom had visited Jean and Bob and David in their new house and Winnie and Cathy in their flat and they all assured him that his mother was quite happy.
‘We won’t let her be lonely,’ Jean said, but she was pleased that Nellie had met her old neighbours again and she liked Katy when she met her.
‘I might be lonely myself soon,’ Jean said with a sigh. ‘Bob’s applied for the Air Force. Ground crew.’
Although Bob was now prematurely grey he was only thirty-four and would be liable for conscription and Tom thought he was wise to plan head.
The three boys were clamouring to talk to him and Tom laughed at Jean. ‘Lonely! With this crew?’ he said.
‘D’you know Tucker who brings the bread?’ Jean’s son Leslie demanded. ‘Do you know what he said to my dad? He said are they taking grandfathers now? Just because my dad’s hair is grey.’
‘I hope your dad gave him a flea in his ear,’ Tom said but his eyes met Jean’s and they smiled at each other at the boy’s unselfconscious use of the word dad.
This is one marriage that’s working out very well, Tom thought, and I’m made up. Jean told him that the cafe was still busy but not as much as it had been.
‘It’s not that we haven’t got the customers,’ she said, ‘it’s the supplies.’
‘I suppose that stuff that was stocked up was a help,’ Tom said but Jean said it had been used very quickly.
‘Mind you, it’s not only the supplies,’ Jean said. ‘We can’t get the help so easily now. The Meccano and Crawford’s, places like that, they’re all on war work and paying good money. You can’t blame the women going there.’
‘It’s a good thing you still help there and the “mice” are there,’ Tom said but Jean blushed and looked away.
‘I don’t know what’ll happen about that, Tom,’ she said. ‘You see I’m almost sure I’m expecting a baby.’
Tom kissed her impulsively. ‘That’s super, Jean,’ he exclaimed. ‘Congratulations to both of you.’
Jean smiled. ‘I’m sort of ninety-nine per cent sure but so far only Bob and I and your mum know about it.’
‘I won’t say anything except to Mum,’ Tom assured her.
His mother told him that she had wanted to tell him but thought it was Jean’s privilege to do so but she was delighted with the news.
Tom went back off leave feeling that although he had not succeeded in tracing his father, it had been a successful leave. He felt much happier about his mother. Although he could still detect sadness in her eyes, there had been a new serenity about her in the past few years and now she would be happy to be reconciled with her old friends.
It was true that Nellie was no longer beset by the doubts and fears that had haunted her for so long. All her instincts told her that Tom was Sam’s child and now she trusted those instincts and regretted that she had ever allowed herself to doubt his parentage. Leadbetter was now only a hazy memory of an evil man.
Nellie always felt a pang when she looked at her son and thought how proud Sam would have been of the fine man that Tom had become.
She had allowed Tom to go back believing that she was surrounded by friends and would never be lonely but it was not the whole truth. Katy, Jean, Winnie and Cathy, Bob and David, they were all considerate and loving towards her but they had their own lives to live.
Katy had Peter and her family, Jean and Bob and the boys had each other. Winnie and Cathy would inevitably go, first to war work then perhaps to families of their own. Even Tom she hoped would marry one day.
Sam was the only person in the world who could cure the aching loneliness inside her and he was never far from her thoughts. She had believed that what she felt for Sam was affection and gratitude but long ago she had realised that the bitter pain and sense of loss that she felt like an open wound inside her was caused by her deep love and longing for Sam.
If only she could see him even once, she often thought, just to tell him how deeply she loved him and had always loved him, but it seemed he was lost to her for ever.
No one suspected that she suffered. The absence of doubt had given her a serenity and although quiet she was always capable and cheerful, with a pleasant greeting for her customers and an easy and friendly manner with her staff.
Tom sometimes looked at her anxiously but on this leave at least she had managed to convince him that she was perfectly happy.
Tom went back off leave to be moved to the service battalion.
Their first duty was guarding an airfield and they soon discovered that it was only a few miles to a small town. Transport was easily arranged and soon after they arrived they were invited to a concert in the town.
‘I’ll try anything once,’ Harry declared and he and Tom and a group of friends travelled in.
The concert was given by the usual mixture of amateur singers and comedians, a vicar who recited ‘Gunga Din’ and a once famous singer.
His career had been ruined by drink but he still had the power to touch an audience. He sang ‘Because’ and ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’, then as an encore, ‘Just A-Wearying For You’.
The audience was quiet and intent and as he sang the words, ‘Wishing for you wondering when, You’ll be coming home again,’ Tom felt a lump in his throat.
After the concert the local ladies provided tea and coffee for the service personnel and Harry and a few others began to joke and flirt with a group of WAAFs.
Tom stood aside, still affected by the sadness of the final song and disinclined to join in. He only realised that he was blocking the way to the table when he heard a quiet voice saying, ‘Excuse me.’ He turned to see a small dark girl in the uniform of a nurse trying to pass him.
‘Sorry,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’m in a dream.’
‘I hope it was a pleasant one,’ she said as he moved aside.
She was with a small group of nurses and one of them called, ‘And another coffee, Roz.’
‘How many hands do you think I’ve got?’ she called back.
Tom said quickly, ‘Can I help?’
She blushed furiously as Tom helped her to carry the coffee to a chorus of wolf-whistles from his friends.
The room was so crowded that all the groups were close together and Tom knew that the nurses were listening as Harry shouted, ‘Hey Tom, look what I’ve caught. A Liverpudlian.’ He had his arm round one of the Air Force girls, a plump girl with a loud braying laugh and an affected voice, whom Tom disliked on sight.
She was staring up boldly into his eyes and he felt obliged to speak to her.
‘Which part of Liverpool?’ he asked.
‘Scotland Road,’ Harry said before she could answer. ‘Haven’t you seen her selling mint outside St John’s Market?’
She tossed her head and wriggled away from Harry’s arm. ‘I come from Childwall, actually,’ she said, still staring boldly at Tom.
He could not resist it. ‘I come from Bootle, actually,’ he said. ‘Near the docks. You know, Bootle where the bugs wear clogs.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said flirtatiously, ‘with that accent.’
Tom noticed Harry edging away and he said quickly, ‘Yes, I’m Bootle born and bred. Harry’s more your class. Born in Woolton.’
He turned away and realised that the nurses had been listening to the conversation and were all giggling.
Tom was too hemmed in to move so he tried to carry it off. ‘Any more coffee, girls?’ he said breezily and th
ree of them asked for more. ‘Will you help me?’ he asked the girl they called Roz.
They managed to squeeze through to the table and Roz said quietly, ‘Is that true? That you come from Bootle?’ and when he said it was she told him that she had been brought up near Knowsley Road.
‘We lived near there for a while,’ Tom exclaimed, ‘we had rooms in Grey Street. Now my mother has a cafe near Worcester Road.’
‘I was brought up by my Nin,’ Roz said, but at that moment they were joined by Harry.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Whew, what a praying mantis. I’ve unloaded her on to Dick White. Is there more coffee going?’
He took one of the cups of coffee from Roz and carried this with his own back to the nurses. ‘Whose is this?’ he asked and Roz said it was for Dot, as she and Tom distributed the others.
‘Hi Dot,’ Harry said. ‘I’m Harry and I’m badly in need of a nurse. Will you cool my fevered brow?’
‘More likely to give you one,’ one of the other girls said and soon the repartee between Harry and the girls was fast and furious. Tom and Roz stood apart talking of all the places they knew in Bootle and trying to find mutual friends.
Soon one of the nurses reminded the others that they were due back at the hospital and Harry and Tom left with them. Roz told Tom that her parents were dead and she had lived with her grandmother since she was two years old.
Before they parted Tom learned that her full name was Rosalind Palmer and that she loved nursing but hated leaving her Nin.
‘She doesn’t cry but I know how upset she is and I hate leaving her. She’s always been so good to me and I’m all she’s got now,’ she said.
Harry and Dot seemed to be getting on well to judge by the laughter, Tom thought, and they all agreed to go in a foursome to the hop held on Saturday nights.
Tom went back to the camp with his head in the clouds and Harry forbore to tease him for once. What a smashing girl, Tom thought. So quiet yet so open and he liked the way she had talked about her grandmother. Although she had dark hair and eyes she reminded him of his mother. She was small like her and had the same quiet voice and gentle manner. I can’t wait to see her again, he thought.
When they all met again on Saturday Roz told him that she should have been on duty but Betty, whom he had met at the concert, had swopped with her.
‘She’s married, you see,’ she explained. ‘She enjoyed the concert but she doesn’t mind missing the dance.’
Betty, who was incurably romantic, had told Roz that she thought that Tom was her ‘Mr Right’ but she said nothing of this to Tom.
Harry and Dot danced sometimes with other people but Tom and Roz danced every dance together until the interval. After that they told their friends that they were going out for a breath of air and they walked with their arms round each other or sat on a grassy bank, talking.
Tom had said nothing about his father either in the shipping office or to his army friends but now he found himself telling Roz all about Sam and about his unsuccessful efforts to trace him.
‘He could be suffering from amnesia and if his memory comes back he will come home,’ Roz said.
Tom agreed although he knew that Roz was only trying to comfort him.
She told him that her grandmother had had a hard life. ‘She was widowed when she was thirty-five, with five children. Three of them died of diphtheria within weeks of each other then her daughter died of a twenty-four-hour fever when she was eighteen. My father was her last child and she says he died from stubbornness.’
‘Stubbornness!’ Tom exclaimed. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’
‘She said he was always talking about working-men’s wrongs, addressing meetings and that. He was speaking at a meeting in the park and there was a cloudburst. Everybody ran for cover but he was too stubborn. He’d gone to speak and he was determined to do it. He was soaked to the skin and died of pneumonia a fortnight later.’
‘And what about your mother?’ Tom asked.
‘She died of TB when I was two,’ Roz said. She smiled. ‘You know, she’d been reading a story where the heroine was called Rosalind just before I was born. That’s how I got my name.’
‘I think it’s a lovely name,’ Tom said. ‘Just right for you, somehow.’
They thought that they had spent only a few minutes outside and they were astounded to hear the band playing the national anthem. It was the same every time they met. Time flew past before they could say half of what they wanted to say to each other but dragged unbearably in between their meetings.
Tom had written at length to his mother about Roz and Roz had written to her grandmother about Tom and in April it seemed that they might have the chance to meet. Tom was due for a week’s leave and Roz would finish one part of her training then and have leave before moving on.
Tom had heard that his battalion might be moving, so he was less upset about Roz moving on but he was very anxious for his mother to meet her and Roz wanted him to meet her grandmother. They were delighted when they managed to wangle leave at the same time. They met at a local railway station and in the deserted dusty waiting room Tom held Roz in his arms.
‘Roz, I love you,’ he murmured, kissing her and holding her close. ‘Will you marry me?’
‘Of course I will,’ she said and they both laughed at her matter-of- fact tone.
‘It’s these romantic surroundings getting to you,’ Tom joked, looking round the grimy room, but then as they kissed the surroundings were forgotten and they were in a magic world of their own.
All the way to Liverpool they made plans for their future. They decided that Roz would choose an engagement ring on this leave.
‘After we’ve met each other’s family though,’ she said. ‘We should involve them.’
‘Although we’ll get engaged even if everyone’s against it,’ Tom said masterfully.
‘Do you think they will be?’ Roz exclaimed in alarm and Tom assured her that his mum and all his famly would love her.
Before the journey ended they had decided that they would marry on Tom’s next leave in three months’ time, when Roz would have finished her three-month course, and that after the war they would have a house with a garden and at least four children.
‘We’re both only children with hardly any relations. You’ve only got one uncle and I’ve got no one so our children will need company in their own generation,’ Roz said seriously.
When the train drew in to Lime Street Station Nellie and Roz’s grandmother, still unknown to each other, were among the crowd waiting behind the barrier.
‘Mum usually waits at home for me and the lads come to meet me,’ Tom said. ‘I suppose she can’t wait to see you.’
‘It’s the same with Nin,’ Roz said laughing. ‘This is the first time she’s met me off the train.’
As they hurried down the platform Roz pointed out her grandmother, and Tom his mother, and they decided that Mrs Palmer was taller than Tom expected and his mother was smaller than Roz had expected, but each privately thought they would like the relations.
The next moment Tom was hugging his mother and Roz her grandmother, then there were introductions.
‘It’s funny, I thought you might be Tom’s mother,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘I liked the look of you.’
‘I was wondering about you for the same reason,’ Nellie said in her quiet voice.
‘Should we all go over to Lewis’s for a cup of tea?’ Tom suggested, then looked at Roz and laughed.
‘I’ve told Tom you always took me to Lewis’s soda bar for my birthday,’ she said, ‘and he took his mum when he got his first job.’
‘You’d have a lot to talk about coming from the same place,’ Mrs Palmer said.
She looked approvingly at Tom and he smiled back at her. He liked what he saw.
She was a tall spare old lady, with little sign in her face of the tragedies she had suffered. Her hair, now white, was as curly as Roz’s, and she had the same dark eyes, but she was more forthright in her
manner. Tom thought that anyone who hurt her granddaughter would get short shrift.
At the same time Roz was deciding that she liked Nellie and Nellie was looking at her with relief and appreciation. Tom had been too engrossed in his writing to spend time with girls before he went in the army and she had been afraid that he might be too inexperienced to choose wisely.
From his first letter after meeting Roz it was clear to his mother that he had lost his heart completely and hoped to marry Roz. She liked what he told her of the girl but she had spent sleepless nights worrying whether Roz was right for him, and felt about him as he did about her, or whether there was unhappiness in store for her beloved son. Now she felt reassured.
Chapter Thirty-Two
They were all secretly amazed at how easy they felt in each other’s company. Even Nellie, still shy with strangers except in the cafe, chatted easily to Roz and her grandmother.
‘I love Lewis’s,’ Roz said, looking round. ‘Remember, Nin, when you used to bring me here to the Soda Fountain for my birthday? I always had a banana split.’
‘It’s only the last few years I’ve come into town regular,’ Nellie said. ‘I came with a girlfriend once or twice when I was young for a special frock or something but I always felt out of place.’
‘It was my son made me come in,’ Mrs Palmer said. ‘Rosie’s father. He was a proper firebrand. When I said I didn’t like coming here he marched me into town to C&A. He said I was as good as any of the tuppence ha’penny toffs in the shops.’
‘And so you were, Nin,’ Roz said. ‘I don’t know why you felt like that.’
‘Because some of them would look sideways at you if you wore a shawl, wouldn’t they?’ she appealed to Nellie. ‘These young ones. They don’t know what it was like. They don’t know they’re born.’
‘You’re the same, Mum,’ Tom said. ‘Even when you’re giving people business and they should be laying the red carpet for you, you behave as though they’re doing you a favour. You’ve got no confidence in yourself.’
‘Maybe I had it knocked out of me when I was a kid,’ Nellie said.
Tom smiled at her and at Roz and her grandmother.
A Wise Child Page 46