Daughters of Liverpool (20 page)

It must be something to do with the shock of being caught out in the open with bombs falling all around them, Katie told herself.

‘Well?’ Carole demanded impatiently. ‘Do you want to?’

Did she want to what? Oh, of course, the cinema.

‘Yes I’d love to,’ she told Carole.

It had been ever such a shock when Luke had put his arms round her like that and had held her so comfortingly. She would never, ever forget how kind he had been. And she would never forget either the awful reality of those poor people and the way they had died.

‘And guess what?’ Carole continued giggling. ‘Old Frosty’s going to get ever such a shock ’cos I’ve made up this letter making out that it’s from a spy, like, and I’m going to give it to her. She’ll think she’s the bee’s knees until she finds out it’s just a joke.’

Carole’s words brought Katie out of her sad reverie. She looked at her friend in considerable alarm.

‘Carole, you mustn’t do that,’ she protested.

‘Why not? It’s just a bit of fun.’

‘A bit of fun that could lose you your job and get you into a lot of trouble,’ Kate prophesied. ‘You can’t make jokes about spying. Someone might think that you really are.’

‘I just thought it would be a bit of fun, that’s
all. After all we’re always being told to look out for oddities, but none of us ever finds anything, and I reckon it would liven things up a bit if I pretended that I had.’

‘Well it will certainly liven things up if you were to get shot as a spy,’ Katie agreed bluntly.

She could see from Carole’s expression how much she had shocked the other girl and she was pleased. She knew that Carole didn’t mean any harm. She was just high-spirited and a bit bored, because their work wasn’t as exciting as she had thought it was going to be. But Katie knew that Carole would be in terrible trouble if she didn’t frighten her off her ‘joke’.

‘Very well then, I won’t do it,’ Carole agreed.

‘And you should have seen our Vi’s face when this neighbour of hers arrived and handed over the Garibaldis after Vi had just been sticking her nose up in the air and telling me and Grace how she felt it was her duty not to offer visitors anything,’ Jean laughed later that evening, as she related to Sam the events of her visit. They were in the back room, sharing a pot of tea whilst Jean told Sam about her day, and darned Sam’s spare pair of heavy-duty socks. ‘Our Grace could hardly keep her face straight, and no wonder when Vi had already had us trying not to laugh when she kept on calling their Charlie “Charles”. Of course, she had to make the point that Charles and Daphne wouldn’t have to wait to get married, like our Grace and her Seb … What’s wrong?’ Jean asked when she saw that Sam was frowning.

‘I was just thinking about them biscuits,’ he said grimly. ‘Black market, like as not, and you know how I feel about that, Jean.’

Jean did, of course, and she shared his feelings. Black market goods meant that racketeers were making money from other people’s misfortune.

‘One of the lads was saying whilst his mother was in the air-raid shelter just before Christmas a couple of so-and-sos went into the house and took everything they could get their hands on – all the food and the kids’ presents,’ Sam continued. ‘And she wasn’t the only one they’d done it to. It’s common knowledge that the sound of an air-raid siren going off brings out every thief in Liverpool.’

Jean sighed. ‘That’s such a nasty thing to do, Sam, especially when there’s a war on.’

‘Aye, well, there being a war on doesn’t stop some folk being rotten. In fact, it gives some of them a chance to be even more rotten than they already were, if you ask me.’

‘There’s some, though, that are worth their weight in gold,’ Jean told him softly. ‘Like Katie, for instance. I couldn’t believe it when Luke told us how she’d run back to get the tea cups.’

‘Aye. She’s a good lass,’ Sam agreed. Luke had taken Sam to one side after the all clear had gone and he’d delivered Katie safely back to Ash Grove, to tell his father about the machine-gunning of the buses and their passengers.

‘She didn’t say much but it wasn’t the kind of thing you’d want anyone to see, if you know what I mean, Dad. You might want to keep a bit of an
eye on her for a couple of days, to make sure she’s all right,’ Luke had told him gruffly.

The siren went off just as Katie had managed to close her eyes, jerking her right back into immediate wakefulness, her heart pounding and her stomach tensing.

Up above her in their own room she could hear the twins, and then Jean’s voice calling out urgently, ‘Come on, girls!’

There wouldn’t be any Luke tonight to tell her off for going back for his mother’s tea cups and then holding her so protectively, shielding her from that ghastly sight of those poor people.

Quickly Katie pushed him out of her thoughts, and pulled on her ‘siren suit’, as the warm all-in-one dungaree suits were called. For those fortunate enough to have them they were ideal for keeping you warm when you had to spend the night in a chilly and often damp air-raid shelter. It was said that Winston Churchill himself wore one given to him by his wife.

Katie could hear the twins coming down the stairs, banging on her door, and urging her to hurry, as they went past.

Jean and Sam were waiting for them in the kitchen, Jean telling Katie firmly but affectionately, raising her voice to make herself heard above the noise of the siren, ‘And there’ll be no coming back for any tea cups tonight, I’ll have you know.’

‘Come on.’ Sam was shepherding them all towards the door.

Once outside Katie could see everyone else from
the street hurrying out of their front doors to make their way down to the shelter.

Lou pulled a face and complained, ‘Oh, no, look. Mr Simmonds’s got his accordion. That means that we’re going to have to listen to him playing all night.’

‘That’s enough, you two,’ Jean checked them. ‘He keeps all the older ones’ spirits up, even if you don’t appreciate his playing.’

Tonight they were safely inside the shelter well before Katie heard the first drone of the bombers’ engines.

‘They’re heading for the docks and Birkenhead again,’ Sam announced, shaking his head as one of the men asked him if he wanted to join the card game being set up in one corner of the shelter.

Jean got her knitting out, and, as Lou had predicted, Dan Simmonds was playing his accordion, whilst the mothers with young children were tucking them into the bunks and telling them to go to sleep, before sitting down themselves on the lower bunks to exchange news.

It was an almost homely atmosphere, Katie recognised, especially when flasks and sandwiches started coming out of baskets.

Whilst Jean was discussing the problems of knitting with wool unwound from old clothes with a neighbour, Sasha edged along the bunk they were sitting on to get closer to Katie, leaning towards her to whisper, ‘Katie, when you went out with your dad did you ever go to any dance competitions?’

‘Dance competitions?’ Katie queried. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, the kind you can put your name down for and enter, and if you win you get a prize,’ Lou explained.

‘No. Never,’ Katie told them. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, no reason,’ Lou answered airily. ‘We just wondered, that was all.’

Whilst Katie was engaged in conversation with their mother, Lou dug Sasha in the ribs and reminded her, ‘We said that we wouldn’t talk about the competition to anyone.’

‘Well, I wasn’t talking about it, I was just asking,’ Sasha hissed back indignantly, before adding, ‘Oh, I do hope that we’ll win. Kieran says that he reckons we will.’

Kieran and his opinions had become a frequent topic for discussion between them, even more frequent, in fact, than their illicit visits to the theatre to practise their special dance routine in front of Con’s sternly critical eye. It wasn’t that they wanted to deceive their parents, and especially their mother, Lou had told Sasha earnestly, it was just that for the moment it was better not to worry her.

‘Once we’ve been in the competition it will be different,’ she had assured Sasha optimistically, ‘especially if we win.’

‘I don’t think Dad will let us go on the stage, even if we do,’ Sasha had predicted.

‘It’s a pity that Auntie Fran isn’t here. She’d be on our side,’ Lou told her twin now.

They’d chosen the Royal Court Theatre as a starting point for asking about dance competitions because it was where their aunt had sung when
she had first started out, which reminded Lou of something.

She gave Sasha another dig in the ribs and hissed, ‘You nearly let the cat out of the bag when we were at the Royal Court, didn’t you, when you started to tell Kieran that we had an aunt who’d sung there, after we’d given him made-up names so that no one would know who we are. Just as well I managed to pretend to have that coughing fit.’

‘You know when we do that bit when you dance and then I copy you?’ Sasha began, changing the subject.

Lou nodded and soon the girls were deep in conversation about their dancing, and oblivious to the noise outside the air-raid shelter.

‘Things have changed a bit whilst you’ve been away.’

Bella and her billetees were in the kitchen when she made her announcement, Maria and Bettina Polanski having just returned from a visit to see some other Polish refugees with whom they were friends.

Mother and daughter both had the same high cheekbones and dark hair, but while Bettina’s hair curled thickly round her face, her mother’s was drawn back into a neat chignon, and marked by silvery streaks.

All three of the Polanskis were tall and lean, with olive skin and dark eyes, but brother and sister were far more outspoken than their gentle mother.

Bella had been so proud of her kitchen when she had first moved into the house as a bride. She’d plagued her father for her Cannon gas cooker, with its cream enamel and its matching set of pans and oven dishes, insisting that she had to have it although it was Maria who used it more than Bella. The yellow distemper on the kitchen walls gave the room a sunny air to it, although, of course, like most kitchens, it faced north to keep the food in it as cool and fresh as possible.

The red cherry design on her white curtains, and the gathered skirt covering the space under her draining board and sink still looked as stylish as it had done when she had first chosen the fabric in Lewis’s.

The kitchen was large enough for a table and chairs, and for the cream dresser Bella had insisted on having, with its shelves at the top and cupboards beneath it, whilst the linoleum on the floor shone, thanks to Maria, who kept the whole house spotless.

Bella didn’t even try to keep the smug note from her voice as she continued, ‘You’ll have to fend for yourselves a lot more from now on because I’m going to be working,’ she told them, not in the least bit self-conscious about the fact that thus far during the Polanskis’ stay, fending for themselves had been the order of the day rather than an exception, and that in fact, after her miscarriage, it had been Maria Polanski who had cooked for Bella, caring for her as tenderly as though she had been her own daughter. However, now in the excitement of her new official position, and the authority
she felt it gave her, Bella was conveniently ‘forgetting’ all those things that might not reflect well on her in her role as Assistant Crèche Supervisor.

Bettina, though, looked meaningfully at her mother before asking Bella with some disbelief, ‘You’re going to be working?’

‘Every young woman of twenty and twenty-one will soon have to register for work,’ Bella pointed out, adding loftily, ‘I’m surprised that you aren’t aware of that yourself, Bettina, although of course with you being older and a refugee …’

Bettina’s finely arched dark eyebrows snapped together, her brown eyes registering her anger. ‘I already work,’ she reminded Bella coolly.

‘Well, I suppose you could call helping out with other refugees every now and again a sort of work, but I’m talking about a proper job,’ Bella informed her. ‘There’s a crèche going to be opened in the church school for people who have been bombed and for mothers who are doing their bit by going out to work, and I’ve been appointed the Assistant Manager.’

‘You mean that you are going to be working with babies and small children?’

Someone thinner-skinned and with less self-confidence than Bella might have been daunted by the incredulity in Bettina’s voice, but Bella merely nodded her head, before adding sharply, ‘So you see, you’ll have to fend for yourselves from now on, as I shall be far too busy for any domestic work, especially with all the bombing we’ve had here in Wallasey. In fact, that’s why I’m going out now to the crèche, although officially we won’t be
opening until the beginning of April. As I said to Laura, who works with me, when I rang her this morning, heaven knows how many children we may have to deal with with all this bombing that’s going on.’

It had in fact been Laura who had rung Bella to warn her of this concern, but of course there was no need for the Polanskis to know that, Bella decided as she put on her coat and gloves and picked up her handbag.

The house that had belonged to her in-laws and in which they and their son, Bella’s husband, had died the night in November when it had been hit by a bomb, had been demolished now, leaving a raw gap in the avenue of immaculate red-roofed detached houses, with their garages and neat front gardens, but Bella barely gave the house or those who had died in it a second thought as she walked past it on her way to the school.

Whilst her own avenue remained unscathed, beyond it the devastation was obvious, with Lancaster Avenue reduced to untidy heaps of rubble amongst which men were working tirelessly to make things as safe as they could, whilst here and there families were poking disconsolately around in the remains of what had been their homes, looking for anything they could salvage.

The sight of one man leaning on his shovel to wipe the sweat from his eyes made Bella pause in recognition. Sam, her auntie Jean’s husband. She wasn’t going to acknowledge him, of course. Someone might see her. She had her position to
maintain now and it wouldn’t be the thing at all for her to be seen talking to a common workman.