Memories Are Made of This (4 page)

The footsteps paused and retreated to her door. ‘There's no key in the keyhole,' whispered Hester. ‘Why has she locked you in this time?'

‘I was late getting home and she accused me of going with fellas and being drunk,' answered Jeanette.

‘The same old story,' said Hester.

‘Yes! She said I'm weak and wicked just like my mother.' Jeanette's voice quivered.

‘Ignore that! I don't remember Grace being weak or wicked. She was young and full of fun and the complete opposite to ol' misery guts. I will say, though, that you must have been really late in, because I didn't hear you and I lay awake for a while, thinking.'

Jeanette was glad that her half-sister had not lain there in a funk, listening to Ethel bullying her. ‘I hate being lied to and treated like a child. I'm nearly eighteen for goodness' sake!'

‘You've got years to go before she'll consider you're beyond her control. Look at the way the old cow treats me and I'm twenty-four.'

‘That's because you let her! You should stand up to her,' whispered Jeanette. ‘You've a responsible job in the police force and you haven't even got a regular boyfriend because she puts her spoke in whenever you let slip that you've been on a date. I don't know why you don't leave home! I could move out and live with you then.'

‘It's not that easy, and Dad wouldn't like it unless I was getting married. Anyhow, what good does standing up to her do you?' hissed Hester. ‘Did she attempt to clout you one?'

‘No, she did her poking and pushing trick and you know how that hurts.' Jeanette inspected her chest. ‘Damn, I really have got bruises!'

‘I'm sorry.' Hester sighed. ‘What did you want me to do, did you say?'

‘Get me out of here. I told you I'm thirsty as hell and I would have been starving as well if I hadn't gone into a chippy after the film.'

‘But you went straight from work, so you shouldn't have been that late,' said Hester.

‘OK, I'll tell you the truth. We stayed to watch the second feature again and then a fight broke out in the chippy,' babbled Jeanette. ‘There was this young man who came to my rescue. He was a dish. If you'd have seen him, you'd have thought so too.'

For a moment there was a breathless silence on the other side of the door, then Hester groaned. ‘I knew there must have been more to it than your being late because you'd simply been to the pictures. You and your liking for fellas! I've a good mind to leave you in there. When are you going to learn not to flirt with lads? You'll end up getting yourself into trouble.'

‘No, I won't! I know what's what,' said Jeanette indignantly. ‘You've been listening to the old witch too much. I've never even been out on a proper date with a lad yet.'

‘Humph! If you say so,' muttered Hester.

Jeanette bit back a swear word and got down on her haunches and peered through the gap under the door. She could see Hester's highly polished flat black shoes. ‘I won't be seeing him again.'

‘Why not?'

Jeanette sensed Hester's interest. ‘He had to leave to catch a ship and I have no idea where he lives or what his name is. His face was in a right mess and he was in pain. I was really worried about him. I still am, to be honest.'

‘Well, never mind him right now,' said Hester. ‘I'm going to have to go.'

Jeanette gasped. ‘Wait! If you don't want to admit to letting me out, just slide the key under the door once you get it.'

‘What d'you mean, once I get it? If you think I'm going to creep into her bedroom, you've had it,' said Hester. ‘If she caught me, there'd be hell to pay.'

‘Don't be such a coward.'

‘I'm not a coward,' replied Hester, exasperated. ‘I'm just sensible. She's going to have to let you out when Dad or Sam make an appearance. You shouldn't have got caught up in a fight and stayed out late. You know what can happen to a girl of your age and with your looks roaming the streets after the pubs let out.'

‘I wasn't in any danger. Anyway, the point is that this is my free Saturday morning and I've something terribly important to do. I have to be somewhere dead early, so you must let me out of here,' pleaded Jeanette.

‘I won't let you out until you tell me what this terribly important thing is.'

Jeanette hesitated. ‘The truth is that I'm going after a part-time job in a milk bar.'

‘Good for you! I suppose I can guess why you haven't told her.'

‘She'd have the money off me in no time. It's cash in hand so it's all mine.'

‘That's illegal!'

‘Oh, shut up, Hester,' hissed Jeanette. ‘I'm talking about just a few bob for brushing up and clearing tables.'

Hester nibbled on her lip. ‘I don't think I should encourage you to break the law.'

Jeanette swore beneath her breath. ‘If that's the way you feel, and you want Dad getting all upset when he discovers the old witch has locked me in again, then go off to work and forget about me. You know how he worries about me.'

‘I know he'd go off his nut if you ended up in the clink.'

Jeanette felt like banging her head against the door. ‘Why should that happen to me? My mother was never in prison – was she?'

‘It's just the way Aunt Ethel talked about your mother. I know I shouldn't have listened, but I did wonder when I was a kid if she had ever been in serious trouble. You know how soft-hearted Dad is and he's a great believer in giving people second chances. It's not as if we knew Grace before he brought her home. She was a lot younger than him, too. After my mother died I think he thought we needed a replacement.'

‘But would he want someone who had broken the law? Unless she'd been wrongly accused,' said Jeanette brightly. ‘The film I saw yesterday evening was about a girl who was unjustly condemned to prison. It was called
The Weak and the Wicked
.'

‘The old witch wants to go and see it,' murmured Hester. ‘Suggested that I go with her this evening.'

‘It's worth seeing, but not with her,' whispered Jeanette. ‘Now get the key and let me out of here before I die of thirst.'

‘Don't exaggerate,' said Hester. ‘But I'll have a go at getting the bloody key.'

A relieved Jeanette scrambled to her feet. She stood a moment, listening to Hester's retreating footsteps and imagining Ethel hitting the roof on discovering she had disappeared from her bedroom. If only she could get her hands on the post office savings book her father had put money in for her over the years, but the old woman looked after it.

The next moment she heard a noise outside on the landing and a key appeared her side of the door. ‘You can let yourself out, so I don't have to lie about having done it,' came Hester's voice, ‘and you have to put the key back before you go out. Anyway, where is this milk bar you mentioned?'

‘Leece Street. And thanks,' said Jeanette, relishing as little as Hester the idea of creeping into Ethel's bedroom to replace the key. ‘Could you lend me a tanner as well?'

She heard Hester mutter under her breath and then two thrupenny bits were pushed under the door. ‘Thanks, Hester,' she whispered.

Jeanette dressed and waited another few minutes before opening the door. She walked softly along the landing to Ethel's bedroom at the far end. She tried the knob cautiously, her hand pressed against the panel of the door as she felt it yield. Then she slipped inside like a shadow, glad that the curtains were dark ones so that it was almost pitch black in the room. She could hear Ethel snoring and wasted no time replacing the key. Then she paused in the middle of the room. It would have been a perfect opportunity to look for her savings book if it had not been so dark. She knew that Ethel had a tin box in which she kept such items.

Suddenly there came a break in the old woman's breathing and, like a bullet from a gun, Jeanette was out of there. She collected her outdoor clothes and handbag from her bedroom, made her way to the bathroom and locked herself in. Twenty minutes later she was in the kitchen, making herself a couple of jam butties and a cup of tea. She devoured her breakfast with pleasure and left the house, not knowing whether her father or Sam had come in during the night. They had been very quiet if they had done so. She was going to be early at the milk bar, but that was better than risk facing her great-aunt, and having to scrub floors, by hanging around the house. At least she'd have time to think up an answer when the old witch asked how she had managed to get out of her bedroom, so that Hester would not get into trouble.

As Hester rode up Dale Street on her bicycle she was wondering about the young man whom Jeanette had called a dish. What kind of dish was he? Tasty or poisonous? Her half-sister was far too young to make a proper judgement when it came to the opposite sex. She turned into the yard belonging to Liverpool police divisional headquarters, thinking: fair-haired, dark or ginger? Jeanette had not said and neither had she voiced whether he was British or not.

She mused on the little information Jeanette had told her about being involved in a fight and thought about Grace. If Jeanette's mother had ever appeared in court and gone to prison, then she and George had done an excellent job of keeping it from his children. Hester and Sam had welcomed her with open arms after six months of Ethel's depressingly strict regime. Both of them had seen the interior of the coal cellar more times than either of them cared to remember. It had been a terrifying place of dark, solitary confinement. Thank God all that had ended when George had married Grace. Grace had been as eager for affection as they had. She would play games with them indoors and out, and was always willing to take them and other children from the street to Princes Park nearby.

Although Hester had missed her own mother, Marjorie Walker had been sickly for a long time. She had willingly surrendered the care of her children to Ethel when she came to stay, not even bothering to argue with her over bedtimes and the buying of their clothes. Grace, on the other hand, had been an excellent seamstress and had consulted Hester on design and fabrics when it came to her having a new frock for Easter, Whit and Christmas – and she had defended Hester's taste against the criticism of her great-aunt.

When war came and Hester had been evacuated, she had left Liverpool with mixed feelings. Yet those months in Whalley in the Lancashire countryside had been some of the happiest of her life due to the affection she had received from the childless couple who had taken her in.

A sigh escaped her. It was thirteen years since she had seen the Joneses and at first she had missed them terribly. Yet she guessed life back in Liverpool would have been acceptable if Grace had been there to welcome her home. What had happened to her? Ethel might go on about her walking out on them and having a fancy man, but Hester found that difficult to believe. Grace must be dead. Which meant that Hester had had to cope with life as it was and make do with memories of happier times.

It was a while since she had dated a bloke. The last had been a sailor whose hands wandered far too much. She had put a stop to that pretty damn quick before he received the impression that she was an easy touch and not just desperate for affection. But it was not only due to dating the wrong blokes or her great-aunt making a fuss about her going out with men that caused Hester not to bother much with the opposite sex. It was the job. Working shifts and being called on unexpectedly often meant the hours she was available were unsociable. She enjoyed her work, but she would have enjoyed sharing a meal with an attractive man who had a sense of humour, good manners and a brain in his head.

She placed her bicycle in a stand and chained it up; one couldn't be too careful, even here in police headquarters. After checking the seams of her black stockings were straight and smoothing down her navy-blue skirt, she entered the building. The WPCs' rooms were situated on the top floor, and on entering their domain she discovered a couple of her colleagues were already there, reading the chief constable's orders and the crime reports.

She exchanged greetings and sat down next to her friend, Wendy. They had started their careers in the force together at the Bruche training camp outside Warrington, living in Nissen huts that had once belonged to the RAF. Hester had enjoyed her time there. She remembered the feeling of having a load lifted from her shoulders because she was away from Ethel's domination. Again she found herself thinking of her time as an evacuee in the village near Clitheroe, and of Myra Jones who had shown her such affection.

At first Hester had kept in touch with Myra after her return to Liverpool, but then the older woman's letters had stopped and Hester could only believe that she had decided the relationship was not worth keeping up. She had been miserable at first about that, but her brother had told her to get over it.

Hester smiled at the thought of Sam, who was seven years her senior. She loved him dearly, despite his having a biting tongue on him sometimes. When they were children, he'd had the courage to defy the old woman. Ethel had taken the cane to him time after time, but he had never whimpered or complained to their father. ‘One day,' he had said to Hester, whilst lying on his front on his bed, ‘I'll get back at her.'

Thank God the days when the old witch had punished him so cruelly were long gone. Sam's spurt of growth in adolescence had changed everything, and she remembered him snapping the cane in half and flicking both halves under the old witch's nose. Both of them would still like to see her punished, but they had yet to determine how that could come about. She was an old woman and their father's only link to a shared past with his mother, and she played both these cards for all they were worth.

Sam had joined the police force as soon as he could, and three years ago he had encouraged Hester to do the same. She would always be grateful to him. She had loved every minute of those early days of her training and had studied law and police procedure. She and the other women had been drilled by an ex-guardsman, and instructed in self-defence and ju-jitsu by an ex-Army PE Instructor. There had been so much to learn and lots of exams to take, but she had enjoyed the challenge. Gosh, those men had been tough, but they had not had her quaking in her shoes as much as her great-aunt did. Odd that she still had that effect on her despite all that Hester had learnt and knew of self-defence.