Queen of the Mersey (19 page)

‘I somehow doubt it,’ Laura said drily, glancing at her friend’s half-exposed bosom, visible under the jacket, despite it being December and terribly cold outside. Winnie had natural blonde hair, very long, and combed over one eye like Veronica Lake. Her curvaceous figure and long tanned legs – the tan came out of a bottle – were the target of many a lascivious glance from the men at the factory where they both worked. Even in her overalls, her lovely hair hidden under a scarf tied with a jaunty knot, Winnie could attract a chorus of wolf whistles. Had she been regarded in the same way, Laura would have died a thousand deaths, but Winnie adored every minute.

Both women were twenty-three and their men were away at war, but there the similarity ended. Winnie was determined to enjoy her husband’s absence to the full.

‘I married Joe when I was eighteen,’ she’d told Laura when they’d first got to know each other. ‘I should have realised someone who was still an altar boy in his twenties wasn’t exactly normal. Joe’s got this thing about sex. He thinks it’s sinful, whereas I quite liked it, even with Joe, who went at it dead halfhearted.’ She sniffed contemptuously. ‘I used to wonder what it’d be like with someone else and the war gave me the perfect opportunity to find out.’

Laura often wondered how she could make a friend out of someone so lacking in morals, who was unfaithful to her husband on a regular basis, drank too much, smoked like a chimney, and whose language was outrageously coarse. She had never discovered an answer, only that she liked Winnie Corcoran very much, despite her numerous faults. Usually, they went to the pictures together, but Winnie had persuaded her to go dancing again, claiming she felt lonely on her own.

‘You won’t be lonely for long,’ Laura had pointed out. ‘Last time, you found someone you liked after the second dance. From then on, I felt in the way.’

‘You had a nice time, though, didn’t you, Laura?’

‘I suppose,’ Laura said grudgingly. It had been quite flattering, as well as a new experience, to be asked for every dance and turn down repeated requests for dates and pleas to take her home. She had missed that particular part of growing up, not that she minded, she hastily told herself. Life with Roddy had been tough at times, but she wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

‘You know what I’d like?’ Winnie said now, sitting beside her on the bed.

‘How could I? I’m not a mindreader.’

‘What I’d like,’ Winnie continued, ignoring the remark, ‘is a regular feller, someone I really got on with. I’m sick of copping off with different blokes all the time when most turn out dead hopeless. I’d only want him for the duration, like. Once Joe’s home, I’ll just have to teach him a few of the tricks I’ve learnt.’

‘What sort of tricks?’ Laura enquired, interested.

Winnie winked lewdly. ‘You won’t have heard of ’em. Christ knows what you and your Roddy got up to in bed. I’m amazed you managed to produce a child.’

Laura hadn’t the faintest notion what she was talking about. What else was there to do in bed other than make love, and there was only one way of doing it.

‘I’m ready,’ she said. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea before we go? And I want to call on Vera on the way.’

‘Ready! But you haven’t got any lippy on.’ Winnie was aghast. ‘You look as if you’re off to milk a bloody cow, not go dancing.’

‘You know I never wear make-up.’

‘Well, it’s about time you did. Would you like to borrow me lippy?’

‘Not if it’s the one you’re wearing. I thought lips were supposed to be red, not purple.’

‘Oh, well, please yourself,’ Winnie said with a heavy sigh. ‘Let’s forget the tea and go now.’

‘It’s only seven o’clock. Won’t we be too early?’

‘I thought we could go for a drink first, a proper one. Get ourselves in the mood, like.’

Laura glared at her with exasperation. ‘You know I’m not prepared to go into a pub with you again.’ She didn’t mind with a crowd, but the time she’d gone with Winnie every man in the place had tried to pick them up.

Winnie groaned. ‘In that case, you can make us that tea. I’m bloody parched. I like it strong with loads of sugar.’

‘In your dreams, Winnie Corcoran.’

It was the stupidest party Mary had ever been to. It had all been Iris’s idea.

Iris was Dick’s wife, who had come to live with them just after Dick went missing and Sammy was born. Dick had almost certainly been lost at sea, but Iris refused to believe it. He was probably stranded somewhere on a desert island, she claimed, or floating around in a lifeboat, eking out the food so it would last until he sighted land.

Even Mary could see both ideas were daft, particularly the second one. They made Mam all confused and upset. ‘Iris is stopping her from grieving,’ Dad said, annoyed. The Monaghans had always thought Dick’s wife a little bit touched and since she’d come to live there, she’d proved it. She was often to be found kneeling on the mat in front of the fire, her eyes fixed on the crucifix on the mantelpiece, praying aloud that Dick was still alive. All the Monaghans prayed for the same thing, but more privately, before they went to bed, though there was a feeling of hopelessness about it. They also prayed that their Billy would return, unharmed, from the prisoner of war camp, and the other lads, George, Frank and Victor, would be kept safe.

In January, Charlie was due to turn eighteen and his call-up papers would arrive. Mary would only have two brothers left – one, if the war lasted another two years and Tommy was called up, and none at all if it went on for another four and it would be Caradoc’s turn to go. It was such an awful thought that a sob formed in her throat. She swallowed it quickly before it turned into a sound.

She tried to concentrate on the jigsaw she was doing with Hester. It was the first time she’d done a jigsaw at a birthday party. People usually played statues or musical chairs or pinning the tail on the donkey, which she was particularly good at. But you couldn’t play those sort of games when there were only the two of you.

Seven of them had sat down to tea, not counting Sammy, but Dad had done a bunk as soon as he’d finished eating the triangular-shaped sarnies and the burnt blancmange. He’d wanted to check his football coupon, he said, which apparently demanded total privacy. That was ages ago and he still hadn’t come back. Then Tommy and Caradoc had made excuses and left. Charlie was out with his girlfriend and had refused to come at all.

The trouble was no one could stand Iris, apart from little Sammy, and even he seemed to prefer his grandma.

‘I can’t find the woman’s head,’ Hester complained, sorting through the pieces of jigsaw.

Mary had the woman’s head in her left hand. They were having a race. She’d bet Hester she would finish the man before Hester finished the woman and was making sure she won. She fitted a piece of the man’s check waistcoat, found one of his shoes, quickly found the other, put the woman’s head on the table when Hester wasn’t looking, and declared herself the winner.

‘I can’t be bothered doing any more,’ she announced.

‘Oh, there’s the head, right by you.’ The head was clicked into place and Hester said she couldn’t be bothered doing any more either. ‘What shall we do instead?’

‘Dunno. It’s too cold to go upstairs. Shall we go over to yours?’

‘Everyone’s going out.’

‘Including Queenie?’

‘She’s going to the pictures with Brian and Jimmy.’

‘Lucky beggar.’

‘Mary!’ her mother said sharply. Iris rolled her eyes.

‘I said beggar, Mam, not … not the other word.’

‘I should hope not. Put the kettle on, there’s a good girl, and I’ll make us all a cup of tea.’

It was strange, Mary thought, running water into the kettle, but when she’d first met Hester, the house over the road had seemed dead miserable. Aggie Tate had lived upstairs and Hester’s mam and dad were always looking worried about something. In contrast, her own house had been very different; her eight big brothers making loads of noise, the wireless on most of the time, Mam and Dad always laughing and joking with each other.

But now she’d sooner be in Hester’s house than anywhere. The Tylers were dead funny and she had a bit of a crush on Brian, even if he never noticed she was there. Since clothing coupons were brought in last June, Laura and Queenie, stretching ingenuity to its limit, had been making loads of things, like dirndl skirts out of blackout with a band of flowered curtain material or rick-rack braid around the hem, coats from old blankets, skirts from old coats, dissolving into helpless giggles when sometimes things went hopelessly wrong, like the time Laura had tried to bleach a length of blackout and it had turned out all mottled. Afterwards, she’d sewn pieces of patchwork over it and had made Mary a frock, which looked fine.

Back at her own house, Mam hardly laughed these days, and Dad hadn’t cracked a joke in ages, what with Dick missing and Billy being in the prisoner of war camp. Iris didn’t help. She suffered from terrible headaches and everyone had to creep around like mice. The least noise, and she would groan and cast an accusing glance at whoever had coughed too loudly, or returned their cup to the saucer with rather more force than necessary. She winced when the lads ran upstairs, their boots thumping on each step. Mam would shout at them to shush and Iris would wince again.

‘Can’t they take their boots off in the house, Vera?’ she would complain. ‘I’ve got one of me heads.’ She complained all the time about more or less everything.

The tea was too hot or too cold, too weak or too strong. The pastry was too soft or too hard. Mam had put too much salt in the spuds. The meat was underdone or overdone. She felt cold in bed, but when Mam gave her an extra blanket, she felt too hot.

If Iris hadn’t been Dick’s wife, mother of Dick’s son and the Monaghans’ first grandchild, she would have been given her marching orders a long while ago, but Sammy was the most beautiful, intelligent, captivating baby in the world and the entire family would have been prepared to put up with ten Irises to keep him.

When Mary had returned from being evacuated and discovered she was no longer the centre of attention, she didn’t mind having her nose knocked out of joint by little Sammy.

The kettle boiled. Mam was nursing the adorable Sammy and made to hand him back to his mother while she made the tea, but Iris irritably waved him away. ‘Oh, lie him on the floor, Vera. I’ve got one of me awful heads.’

Hester immediately knelt on one side of the baby and Mary the other. Sammy gurgled and waved his arms and legs, his sparkling eyes shifting from one to the other.

‘Who’s lovely?’ Hester poked his fat tummy.

‘I am, I am,’ Sammy’s delighted expression seemed to say.

‘He knows I’m his auntie. He always recognises me straight away, don’t you, Sammykins.’ Mary was excessively proud of being an aunt at only seven.

They continued to play with the baby, until Mam came in with the tea and insisted on picking him up. ‘There’s draughts on the floor,’ she said, glancing at Iris, who didn’t apparently care.

‘I think he needs a new nappy, Mam. He smells a bit.’ The nappies were airing over the fire guard.

‘I’ll change him in a minute,’ Mam said with another glance at Iris who never felt well enough to do much for her son, or give a hand with the laundry, the cooking, washing the dishes, or going anywhere near a mop and bucket.

The girls returned to the table where Hester stuck another piece in the jigsaw.

‘Perhaps we should finish it,’ she said in a desultory tone.

‘It’s boring around the edges, nearly all the same colour. I only like doing the man and the woman. I think,’ Mary said in a whisper, ‘we should go to your house, even if there’s no one in. We can listen to the wireless and play cards or something. Even hide and seek.’ Needless to say, Iris couldn’t stand the wireless. There was nothing on but rubbish and it gave her a bad head. Everyone was dreading Christmas when she would be given a golden opportunity to have a monumental moan.

‘Mummy’s coming in a minute to say goodbye before she goes to the dance.’

‘OK, we’ll go after then.’

‘Let’s say we’re going to fetch something, and then just not come back.

Otherwise, it’ll look rude.’

Mary nodded. Mam wouldn’t be too pleased about being left alone with Iris.

‘What are you two whispering about?’ Vera enquired.

‘It’s rude to whisper in front of people,’ Iris said tartly.

‘We weren’t whispering,’ Mary said loudly, causing Iris to wince. ‘We were just talking quietly, wondering whether to finish the jigsaw or not.’

‘I hope you both have a nice time,’ Vera said wistfully. ‘I can’t remember the last time I went dancing. I had this black frock trimmed with feathers. It looked dead glamorous.’

‘Why don’t you and Albert go to a dinner dance at Christmas? It’s only a few weeks off,’ Laura said.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ Vera looked doubtful. ‘We’re a bit old for that sort of thing.’

Iris sniffed disdainfully, as if she’d never heard such a daft suggestion.

‘There’s no age limit at dinner dances. I’ll make you a new frock for a Christmas present,’ Laura said encouragingly. ‘Or at least I’ll turn one of your old ones into something more fashionable. But I’ll have to do it soon, there isn’t much time. I’ll even see if I can find some feathers.’ Vera wasn’t exactly a shadow of her former self, but she’d lost three stone over the last few years.

Food rationing was doing wonders for people’s figures.

‘You can’t turn down an offer like that, Vera,’ Winnie said chirpily.

‘She can if she wants.’ Iris looked even more disdainful.

‘We’ll just have to see,’ Vera said, clearly not entirely opposed to the idea.

‘I’ll have a quiet word with Albert,’ Laura said as she and Winnie walked down Glover Street. The crater had been filled in, but Laura still felt nervous walking over it. ‘It’s about time Vera had a treat. At least her job got her out of the house, took her mind off the boys, but she gave it up when Iris landed on them and she had to look after Sammy.’

‘Why can’t Iris look after Sammy herself?’

‘She’s in poor health, or so she claims. Personally, I think she’s just pretending, taking advantage of Vera’s kind heart – and you couldn’t find a kinder heart than Vera’s.’