Lights Out Liverpool (55 page)

She recovered enough to make her way to Lyons. As she drank the tea, Olivia realised with a sinking heart that there was only one way out of her predicament. She would have to ask her parents for help.

She couldn’t just turn up, not in her condition. Mr and Mrs Daffydd Jones could never hold up their heads in public again if it got out that their unmarried daughter was having a baby. Her father was a town councillor, her mother given to good works which she carried out with a stern, disapproving expression on her cold features. Olivia, an only child, was already in disgrace. There’d been a row when she gave up her job in the local library to take up nursing in Cardiff, and an even bigger one when she announced her decision to nurse in France. She daren’t go near the place where she was born, let alone the house in which she’d lived.

A letter would have to be sent, throwing herself on their
mercy
, and it would have to be sent today, so there would be time for a reply before Saturday when she left the hotel.

The tea finished, she searched the side streets for a shop that sold inexpensive stationery, then went to the Post Office and wrote to her mother and father, explaining her plight. She didn’t plead or try to invoke their sympathy. She knew her parents well. They would either help, or they wouldn’t, no matter how the letter was framed.

The reply came on Friday morning. She recognised her father’s writing on the envelope. Although he wrote neatly, he had managed to make the ‘Miss’ look as if it might be ‘Mrs’ – or the other way round. The proprietor didn’t look impressed when she handed the letter over. It crossed Olivia’s mind that she could have bought a brass wedding ring and signed the register as Mrs O’Hagan, claiming to be a widow if anyone asked, but she’d been so confused it hadn’t crossed her mind. Still, all it would have avoided was the indignity of, in effect, being thrown out. She would have had to leave in another few days when she came to the end of her savings.

The envelope contained a rail ticket and a curt note.

‘Catch the 6.30 train from Paddington Station to Bristol on Saturday night. I will meet you. Father.’

Bristol wasn’t far from where she’d lived in Wales. Relief was mixed with a sense of sadness as she re-read her father’s note. No ‘Dear Olivia.’ He hadn’t signed ‘Love, Father’.

At least now she was leaving she could treat herself to a decent meal with what was left of the money.

Her father was waiting under the clock at Temple Meads station, legs apart, hands clasped behind his back, glowering. He was rocking back and forth on his heels, a big, broad-shouldered man, in an ankle-length tweed overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat that made him look rather
louche
, though he would have been horrified had he realised. His coat hung open, revealing a pinstriped waistcoat and a gold watch and chain.

There was something forbidding about the way he waited, as if his thoughts were very dark. Olivia had always been frightened of him, although he’d never laid a hand on her, either in anger or affection.

He nodded grimly at her approach and had the grace to take her suitcase. He made no attempt to kiss the daughter he hadn’t seen for two and a half years. Even if she hadn’t been returning home under a cloud, Olivia wouldn’t have found this surprising.

She followed him outside and he stowed the case in the boot of the little Ford Eight car that was the only thing she’d known him show fondness for. He would pat it lovingly when it had completed a journey and murmur, ‘Clever little thing!’

‘Where’s Mother?’ Olivia asked as they drove out of the station.

‘Home,’ he said brusquely.

There was a long silence. The gaslit streets of Bristol were mainly deserted at such a late hour. They passed a few pubs that had recently emptied and where customers still hung noisily around outside.

‘Where are we going?’ Olivia asked when the silence began to grate. She wondered if she was being taken to a home for fallen women. It would be horrid, but she’d put herself in a position where she had no choice.

‘A Mrs Cookson, who lives near the docks, will look after you until … until your time comes.’ His voice was grudging. ‘It’s most unlikely anyone we know will visit the area, but I would be obliged if you would stay indoors during daylight hours in case you’re recognised. Mrs Cookson has been given money to buy you the appropriate garments. You’ll be comfortable there. When everything is over, you will leave. I’ll make arrangements for the
child
to be taken care of, if that is your wish. If you decide to keep it, don’t expect your mother and me to help. We never want to see you again.’

Although she’d had no wish to see them, either, the bluntness of his words upset her. They made her feel dirty. She opened her mouth to tell him about Tom, but before she could say a word, her father said tonelessly, ‘You’re disgusting.’

She didn’t speak to him again, nor he to her. Shortly afterwards, he turned into a little street of terraced houses, and stopped outside the end one. He got out, leaving the engine running, and knocked on the door.

It was opened by a gaunt woman in her fifties with hennaed hair and a vivid crimson mouth. She had on a scarlet satin dress and a black stole. Long jet earrings dangled on to her shoulders and she wore a three-strand necklace to match. Her long fingers were full of rings – if the stones were real, she must be worth a fortune, Olivia thought.

Her father grunted an introduction, almost threw his daughter’s suitcase into the hall, and left. The Ford was already in motion by the time Mrs Cookson closed the door. She folded her arms and looked Olivia up and down.

‘Well, who’s been a naughty girl?’ she said archly.

Olivia couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled. She’d been expecting to be treated like a wanton woman over the next few months and, although Mrs Cookson wasn’t quite her cup of tea, it was a pleasant surprise to be greeted with a joke.

‘Come along, dearie,’ the woman seized her arm, winking lewdly. ‘Come and tell us all about it. Would you like a cuppa? Or something stronger? I’ve got some nice cherry wine. I’m about to have a bottle of milk stout, myself. Oh, and by the way, call me Madge.’

Maureen Lee’s award-winning novels have earned her many fans. Her recent novel,
The Leaving of Liverpool
, was a
Sunday Times
top 10 bestseller. Maureen was born in Bootle and now lives in Colchester. Find out more at:
www.maureenlee.co.uk
.

MAUREEN LEE IS ONE OF THE BEST-LOVED SAGA WRITERS AROUND. All her novels are set in Liverpool and the world she evokes is always peopled with characters you’ll never forget. Her familiarity with Liverpool and its people brings the terraced streets and tight-knit communities vividly to life in her books. Maureen is a born storyteller and her many fans love her for her powerful tales of love and life, tragedy and joy in Liverpool.

Born into a working-class family in Bootle, Liverpool, Maureen Lee spent her early years in a terraced house near the docks – an area that was relentlessly bombed during the Second World War. As a child she was bombed out of the house in Bootle and the family were forced to move.

Maureen left her convent school at 15 and wanted to become an actress. However, her shocked mother, who said that it was ‘as bad as selling your body on the streets’, put her foot down and Maureen had to give up her dreams and go to secretarial college instead.

As a child, Maureen was bombed out of her terraced house in Bootle

A regular theme in her books is the fact that apparently happy homes often conceal pain and resentment and she sometimes draws on her own early life for inspiration. ‘My mother
always
seemed to disapprove of me – she never said “well done” to me. My brother was the favourite,’ Maureen says.

I know she would never have approved of my books

As she and her brother grew up they grew apart. ‘We just see things differently in every way,’ says Maureen. This, and a falling out during the difficult time when her mother was dying, led to an estrangement that has lasted 24 years. ‘Despite the fact that I didn’t see eye-to-eye with my mum, I loved her very much. I deserted my family and lived in her flat in Liverpool after she went into hospital for the final time. My brother, who she thought the world of, never went near. Towards the end when she was fading she kept asking where he was. To comfort her, I had to pretend that he’d been to see her the day before, which was awful. I found it hard to get past that.’

Maureen is well known for writing with realism about subjects like motherhood: ‘I had a painful time giving birth to my children – the middle one was born in the back of a two-door car. So I know things don’t always go as planned.’

My middle son was born in the back of a car

The twists and turns of Maureen’s life have been as interesting as the plots of her books. When she met her husband, Richard, he was getting divorced, and despite falling instantly in love and getting engaged after only two weeks, the pair couldn’t marry. Keen that Maureen should escape her strict family home, they moved to London and lived together before marrying. ‘Had she known, my mother would never have forgiven me. She never knew that Richard had been married before.’ The Lees had to pretend they were married even to their landlord. Of course, they did marry as soon as possible and have had a very happy family life.

Despite leaving school at fifteen, Maureen was determined to succeed as a writer. Like Kitty in
Kitty and Her Sisters
and Millie in
Dancing in the Dark
, she went to night school and ended up getting two A levels. ‘I think it’s good to “better yourself”. It gives you confidence,’ she says. After her sons grew up she had the time to pursue her dream, but it took several years and a lot of disappointment before she was successful. ‘I was
determined
to succeed. My husband was one hundred per cent supportive. I wrote lots of articles and short stories. I also started a saga which was eventually called
Stepping Stones
. Then Orion commissioned me to finish it, it was published – and you know the rest.’

‘I think it’s good to “better yourself”. It gives you confidence’

What are your memories of your early years in Bootle?

Of being poor, but not poverty-stricken. Of women wearing shawls instead of coats. Of knowing everybody in the street. Of crowds gathering outside houses in the case of a funeral or a wedding, or if an ambulance came to collect a patient, who was carried out in a red blanket. I longed to be such a patient, but when I had diptheria and an ambulance came for me, I was too sick to be aware of the crowds. There were street parties, swings on lamp-posts, hardly any traffic, loads of children playing in the street, dogs without leads. Even though we didn’t have much money, Christmas as a child was fun. I’m sure we appreciated our few presents more than children do now.

What was it like being young in Liverpool in the 1950s?

The late fifties were a wonderful time for my friends and me. We had so many places to go: numerous dance halls, The Philharmonic Hall, The Cavern Club, theatres, including The Playhouse where you could buy tickets for ninepence. We were crushed together on
benches
at the very back. As a teenager I loved the theatre – I was in a dramatic society. I also used to make my own clothes, which meant I could have the latest fashions in just the right sizes, which I loved. Sometimes we’d go on boat trips across the water to New Brighton or on the train to Southport. We’d go for the day and visit the fairground and then go to the dance hall in the evening.

We clicked instantly and got engaged two weeks later

I met Richard at a dance when he asked my friend Margaret up. When she came back she said ‘Oh, he was nice.’ And then somebody else asked her to dance – she was very glamorous, with blonde hair – still is, as it happens. So Richard asked me to dance because she had gone! We clicked instantly and got engaged two weeks later. I’m not impulsive generally, but I just knew that he was the one.

Do you consider yourself independent and adventurous like Annemarie in
The Leaving of Liverpool
or Kitty in
Kitty and her Sisters?

In some ways. In the late fifties, when I was 16, Margaret and I hitchhiked to the Continent. It was really, really exciting. We got a lift from London to Dover on the back of a lorry. We sat on top of stacks of beer crates – we didn’t half get cold! We ended up sleeping on the side of the road in Calais because we hadn’t found a hotel. We travelled on to Switzerland and got jobs in the United Nations in Geneva as secretaries. It was a great way to see the world. I’ve no idea what inspired us to go. I think we just wanted some adventure, like lots of my heroines.

Your books often look at the difficult side of family relationships. What experiences do you draw on when you write about that?

I didn’t always find it easy to get on with my mother because she held very rigid views. She was terribly ashamed when I went to Europe. She said ‘If you leave this house you’re not coming back!’ But when we got to Switzerland we got fantastic wages at the United Nations – about four times as much as
we
got at home. When I wrote and told her she suddenly forgave me and went around telling everybody, ‘Our Maureen’s working at the United Nations in Geneva.’

‘If you leave this house you’re not coming back!’

She was very much the kind of woman who worried what the neighbours would think. When we moved to Kirby, our neighbours were a bit posher than us and at first she even hung our curtains round the wrong way, so it was the neighbours who would see the pattern and we just had the inside to look at. It seems unbelievable now, but it wasn’t unusual then – my mother-in-law was even worse. When she bought a new three-piece she covered every bit of it with odd bits of curtaining so it wouldn’t wear out – it looked horrible.