Lights Out Liverpool (39 page)

Heart racing, Eileen removed her nightdress and slid underneath the clothes. She kissed his neck. He turned so quickly she was convinced he must have been awake all the time.

‘Darling!’ He took her in his arms, and they lay entwined together for a long time. Then he began to touch her tentatively. ‘Is this all right?’ he whispered. ‘Tell me the minute I do something wrong.’

He seemed to take forever, stroking, touching, kissing her trembling, responsive body.

‘Now, Nick! Now!’ she cried urgently, when she could stand his caresses no longer, and knew it was time for something more.

So
that
’s what it’s like, she thought, when it was all over, and she lay beside him, exhausted.

‘Did you like it? I didn’t hurt, did I?’ he asked anxiously.

‘No, Nick. It was wonderful.’ She sighed blissfully.
‘Absolutely
wonderful.’

‘That’s only the first of a million times,’ he whispered.

‘Mmm!’ she mumbled.

‘Are you going to sleep?’

‘You’ve worn me out.’

‘Eileen?’

She could scarcely raise the energy to answer. ‘What?’

‘Have I proved to you I’m not a little boy?’

Eileen didn’t hear. She was asleep.

When she woke, Nick’s side of the bed was empty. She stretched luxuriously, then remembered her son in the next room. He’d be worried if he woke up and she wasn’t there. She found her nightdress tangled up in the bedclothes and put it on before going next door. To her astonishment, the bed was empty and Tony’s clothes had disappeared. Perhaps he and Nick had gone down to breakfast together, she thought hopefully.

She pulled the heavy curtains back and bright sunlight flooded the room. Outside, the traffic was nose to tail and she could see the shops in Piccadilly were open and quite a few people were already up and out.

Eileen dressed quickly in the blue crepe de Chine dress with the heart-shaped neckline that had been her best until she bought the moygashel suit. She hurried downstairs, but there was no sign of Nick or Tony in the half-empty dining room. Feeling worried, she went outside and stood looking up and down the street. To her relief, after a few minutes they appeared around the corner, Tony running in front with a small aeroplane in his hand, pretending to fly it, Nick’s tall, curly-haired figure behind. His face lit up when he saw her waiting, and he began to hurry.

She’d never noticed before, but he had an odd sort of
ambling
gait, slightly lopsided. It touched her, as nothing about him had ever done before, and she knew she would never love any man as much as she loved Nick. As they approached, Eileen had the strangest feeling, ‘I’ll remember this moment when I’m an old woman, my son and my lover coming to me in the London sunshine.’

She began to run. She scooped up her son, then, when Nick reached them, flung them both against him. He embraced them, laughing.

‘I love you! I love you both so much I could die,’ she cried.

But Tony was impatient with such a show of emotion. He struggled out of her arms. ‘Look what Nick’s bought me,’ he said excitedly. ‘It’s a Spitfire. Once the war get’s going properly, he’s going to fly in one.’

Eileen groaned. ‘Men!’

‘We’ve got you a present, too, Mam. Show her, Nick. I helped pick it out.’

Nick produced a long velvet box from his pocket. ‘I got fed up with you forever asking me the time.’

The box contained a gold watch with an expanding strap and a mother of pearl face. ‘It’s lovely!’ Eileen breathed. ‘I’ve always wanted a watch.’

‘It’s real gold, Mam!’

‘Is it, luv?’ She felt close to tears.

‘Can we have breakfast now? I’m starving.’ Tony began to drag her towards the hotel. ‘Nick said we can have bacon and eggs and fried tomatoes and everything. A grilled mix.’

‘A mixed grill, though it amounts to the same thing.’ Nick ruffled Tony’s silky fair hair. ‘Come on, then. I’m starving, too.’

‘Why are you suddenly such good friends?’ Eileen whispered when they reached the dining room and Tony
darted
around choosing a table.

‘I’ve no idea. It just seemed to happen. He came into the bedroom looking for you and wasn’t at all shocked to find us together. When he saw you fast asleep, we both decided you were a lazy, idle woman and we’d go out without you. I remembered I was no longer a little boy, and behaved in a mature and fatherly fashion. In fact,’ he finished complacently, ‘I’m quite proud of myself.’

Eileen sighed rapturously as Nick helped her fasten the watch around her wrist. ‘I’m so happy. This is going to be a perfect day. Nothing can possibly spoil it.’

And nothing did!

After breakfast, they wandered around the shops, where the prices were even higher than in Southport. Eileen steadfastly refused all Nick’s offers to buy more presents. If he’d had his way, she’d have needed another suitcase to take things home.

‘No,’ she said adamantly, when he tried to persuade her to accept a Chinese silk dressing gown. ‘You’ve already paid for the train and the hotel, if I let you pay for anything else, I’d feel like a kept woman.’ She glanced down at the gold watch. ‘Me watch is more than enough. Anyroad, I’d feel stupid wandering around the house in
that
!’ She nodded at the dressing gown. ‘Though it’s very nice,’ she added quickly, so as not to hurt his feelings.

She bought him a present, though; three pairs of socks because she’d noticed his current ones were thin on the heel.

‘You haven’t got a shred of romance in your body!’ he cried as she handed him the gift.

‘I didn’t want to waste me money on a tie pin or a pair of cufflinks you’d only lose,’ she said indignantly. ‘Just thank your lucky stars you didn’t get a box of hankies.’

Tony helped her choose little mementoes of London
for
her family and friends; glass paperweights which shook into a snowstorm for Annie and Mr Singerman, a statue of Pope Pius XII for Sheila, rosary beads with an ivory crucifix for Paddy O’Hara, though she’d seen little of him since he’d taken up with Miss Brazier, and, finally, a tea caddy decorated with Beefeaters for her dad, because his old one was so bent the lid wouldn’t close.

‘I’d like to get a christening spoon for me friend, Jess,’ she told Nick, so they went to Selfridges, the biggest shop Eileen had ever seen, stretching for an entire block along Oxford Street, and found a spoon on the silver counter. To Jess’s unutterable and continuing delight, the doctor had confirmed she was pregnant and the baby was expected in September, though Eileen had promised to keep the information to herself. Not even Arthur knew he was going to become a father. Apparently, Jess was waiting for the right moment to tell him. ‘It might come as a bit of a shock,’ she said.

As Tony would be six in a week’s time, she let him pick his birthday present. After a thorough search through the vast toy department, he eventually pounced on a box containing six little model aeroplanes, a hangar, and a dozen miniature figures in RAF uniform.

‘Can I have this?
Please
, Mam!’

‘If that’s what you want, luv.’

‘I’m going to join the Royal Air Force when I grow up, like Nick.’

‘You were going to be a lift engineer last night,’ she said tartly. ‘You’ll join the RAF over my dead body.’

Tony was too enraptured with his present to argue. ‘Can I carry it?’ he asked after they’d paid.

‘You can carry it, you can look at it, but open it at your peril.’ Eileen handed him the paper bag.

Nick shuddered. ‘My God, Tony! What a terrible
woman
your mam is! C’mon, son, there’s a restaurant on the top floor. Let’s have some ice cream and lemonade. I need a respite from all this relentless shopping.’

‘I’ve nearly finished,’ sang Eileen gaily. ‘All that’s left to buy is an Easter egg for Tony – and a present for meself.’

‘What’s that, Mam?’

‘A navy-blue handbag. I’m sure everyone’s looking at me using a black handbag with this coat.’

Nick and Tony looked at each other and raised their eyes to heaven. ‘Women!’ they said in unison.

After lunch, they went to the Natural History Museum. Tony regarded the rather sinister skeleton of a dinosaur with considerable nervousness. ‘Did they really exist once?’ he asked Nick.

‘They certainly did!’

‘Are they likely to come back again?’

‘No, son. They’re extinct. That means they’ve died out,’ he explained in response to the little boy’s puzzled look.

They spent nearly two hours in the museum, then strolled back to the hotel through Hyde Park, with Tony running ahead peeking in the bag from time to time at his present. The Anti-Tank Battery, complete with guns, looked out of place in its pretty green setting. Eileen shuddered at the constant reminders they were in a state of war. London seemed to be at the very hub. The sky was littered with silver barrage balloons and she noticed all the important buildings were protected by walls of sandbags. But then, she thought ruefully, if it hadn’t been for the war, she would never have met Nick. She wouldn’t be in London, strolling arm in arm through Hyde Park with this complex young man who had
transported
her to the very limits of joy the night before. She felt herself flush at the memory. She glanced up and caught his eye. Nick squeezed her arm.

‘Happy?’

‘I never thought it possible to be so happy,’ she whispered.

‘Me, neither.’

After they’d had tea, they went to see
The Wizard of Oz
. Eileen would have preferred
Gone With the Wind
, but Tony couldn’t be expected to sit through a three-and-a-half-hour epic. They emerged, blinking, into the blacked out streets and sang
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
and
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
all the way down Piccadilly to the hotel.

Tony fell asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. Eileen changed into her new suit and went down to meet Nick in the bar. This was to be their last night in London. Tomorrow, Sunday, they were going home. Nick had to work on Monday night and she was on the early shift the following day. The trains couldn’t be trusted to get them home in a reasonable time if they left their return till Monday.

Someone was playing a piano downstairs, not in the crowded bar, as Eileen expected, but in the small dining room, where the tables had been pushed against the walls and the carpet rolled up. There were already several couples dancing. The only illumination came from the candles flickering on the tables and on the piano.

She found Nick had saved her a stool by the bar. ‘There’s no tables left,’ he said. ‘Shall we dance later?’

‘I’d love to.’ It would be a glorious end to a glorious day. She noticed the bar was full of servicemen and women again. Nick was glancing at them enviously. He couldn’t wait to get in uniform, she thought painfully.
How
could he think of leaving her so easily? She tried not to think what it would be like, on constant tenterhooks in case he was killed. Sheila already knew the feeling, and Annie, and thousands, if not millions of other wives and girlfriends and mothers. And fathers, too. Mr Singerman still grieved for his vanished Ruth.

‘Penny for them!’ Nick said.

‘Oh, Nick!’ They’d been his first words the day they’d met in Southport. She remembered how coldly she’d answered, trying to put him off. She’d thought him so young, yet now!

The pianist was playing
Beautiful Dreamer
, and Nick said, ‘Dance with me.’

No-one was bothering to dance properly on the little patch of floor. The couples already there scarcely moved from the spot as they turned slowly in each other’s arms. ‘Come here!’ Nick said gently, pulling Eileen towards him. She nestled her head in the space between his shoulder and his ear, which seemed to have been made especially for her. ‘I love you more than life itself,’ he whispered, his voice choking with emotion. ‘When I die, your face will be the last thing my eyes will see, even if you’re not there with me.’

‘Don’t talk about dying,’ she whispered back. ‘I can’t bear it.’

The pianist finished
Beautiful Dreamer
with a flourish and began
We’ll Meet Again
.

‘I love this,’ Eileen murmured. ‘You should hear Jess sing it. It makes you want to weep.’ She sang the words under her breath, ‘
We’ll meet again
…’

Nick joined in in a rather tuneless baritone and suddenly everyone was singing: the dancers, the drinkers in the bar.

Nick grasped Eileen by the waist. She clung to his neck
as
he began to whirl her around and around in the middle of the floor and she felt as if she might spin into oblivion, disappear altogether in a puff of smoke, then wake up and find herself in Pearl Street. This couldn’t be happening. It was too unreal. No-one had a right to so much happiness.

When the last verse was reached, the tempo slowed slightly, the pianist put his foot on the loud pedal, voices rose, and it sounded as if the entire population of London had joined in.
WE’LL MEET AGAIN
…

There was a burst of laughter and applause when the song finished. Eileen and Nick skidded to a dizzy halt. The pianist said, Whew!’ in a loud voice and reached for his drink off the piano top. The dancers returned to their tables.

‘Let’s go to bed,’ said Nick.

‘Yes, let’s,’ Eileen answered.

On Sunday morning, after they’d been to Mass at Westminster Cathedral, accompanied by Nick, a lapsed Catholic, they made their way to Euston Station.

‘Let’s hope going home is as easy as coming down,’ said Nick. ‘Though I think we were lucky.’

But there was to be no repeat of the fairly rapid, uninterrupted journey to London. Since the onset of the war, trains had become notoriously unpredictable and were usually packed to capacity, mainly with servicemen, either going home or coming back off leave, or being transported to barracks en masse. The train they caught was already crowded. Eileen found a single seat and sat with Tony on her knee, their feet on their luggage, whilst Nick stood in the corridor making faces. They stopped and started all the way to Rugby, where everyone was told to change; their train had been
commandeered
by the army to take troops to Edinburgh. They hung around on Rugby Station for several hours, until another packed train took them as far as Crewe, where they changed again. It was almost midnight when they arrived, tired and hungry, at Lime Street Station, Liverpool.