Queen of the Mersey (22 page)

‘I’m sorry.’ He sounded it. ‘I should have known you’d never do such a thing.’

‘To be frank,’ Laura said. ‘I’d sooner Hester didn’t know the truth until absolutely necessary, even if it means waiting until after the war, whenever that is. She’s going to be terribly upset; the older she is, the better.’

‘Whatever you think best, Lo.’

‘Please don’t call me Lo!’ It was too familiar.

‘I’m sorry, it just slipped out.’ He smiled drily. ‘All I seem to do is say I’m sorry.’

‘You can say you’re sorry till the cows come home, Roddy, but it doesn’t mean a thing.’

It didn’t help that he looked so handsome; leaner, fitter, sunburnt, more sure of himself than she remembered, no longer a labourer, but a First Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, a leader of men, who carried himself proudly. She reminded herself that she’d always been proud of him, of the way he’d struggled to keep them together when he’d been no more than a boy. She remembered all sorts of things; the notes they’d left for each other in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, bringing Hester home from the nursing home and staring down in wonder at the baby they’d made. The memories always ended with the day they got married, in Freddy’s restaurant where the pianist had played ‘Here Comes The Bride’.

Everyone had clapped and Roddy had looked at her, his face brimming over with love.

But now it was all over and he loved someone else.

He left early on Wednesday. Laura wished she’d been on the morning shift, so she could have walked away from him. Instead, she was on afternoons.

‘I’m off now, Laura,’ he said, coming into the kitchen where she was staring at a pile of washing, wondering where to start. He looked very sad, close to tears.

‘Goodbye, Lo … Laura.’

‘Goodbye, Roddy.’ This was it. This was all that was left.

‘Don’t let Hester forget me.’

‘That’s up to Hester. And I meant what I said about not divorcing you, so don’t bother to try.’

‘I’d sooner we didn’t part on such a sour note.’

‘What did you expect, Roddy? For me to throw my arms around you and wish you good luck?’

‘I’d like to wish you good luck in the future.’

‘Thank you.’ She turned away and began to sort through the washing. Seconds later, the front door closed, and it was only then she was able to cry.

Queenie knew something was badly wrong. She’d never known Laura have a nightmare before. And she hadn’t just heard screams, she’d heard words, like ‘divorce’, and, ‘you told me you would love me for ever’. She was convinced it was nothing to do with the dance. Always sensitive to the slightest inflection in a voice or the expression on a face so she would know when it was time to get out of Mam’s way, she could tell it was Roddy who was at fault. He seemed as charming as ever, but he didn’t look at Laura the way he’d used to. And Laura was so tense, as if she was holding herself together by a thread. The photo of them together with Laura wearing the hat Queenie had taken to Caerdovey, had disappeared from the mantelpiece.

After Roddy had gone, Laura threw herself into preparations for Christmas, frantically roaming the shops in search of presents, jars of mincemeat, tins of fruit. ‘See what I’ve got,’ she cried gaily, waving a jar of Pomphrey’s lemon curd at Queenie when she came home from work. ‘I got some prunes too. I’m going to put them in the Christmas cake.’ She made Vera a smart frock out of two old ones, though was unable to find feathers. At her urging, Albert bought tickets for a dinner dance at the Blundellsands Hotel on New Year’s Eve.

The Tylers were invited to dinner on Christmas Day if they contributed some food. Eric said he’d ordered a chicken and had won a tin of assorted biscuits in a raffle and would Laura mind very much if Winnie came? Jimmy Nicholls was invited, but had to refuse. He was spending three days in Caerdovey with Tess and Pete, staying with his old lady.

‘You won’t go out with Brian while I’m away, will you, Queenie, girl?’ he asked anxiously, and she promised faithfully that she wouldn’t.

Laura had never smiled so brilliantly as when they sat down to dinner on Christmas Day. Queenie kept glancing at her guardedly, worried that the thread was about to break, because Laura was laughing and talking far too much – and drinking glass after glass of sherry. Ben Tyler watched her with undisguised admiration, unable to avert his eyes.

At five o’clock, Laura, Hester and Queenie went over to the Monaghans’ for tea, taking with them heaps of sandwiches made from the remnants of the chickens.

Everyone was relieved that Iris was spending the day with her sister, but sorry that she had taken the adorable Sammy with her.

The thread broke after they’d finished tea. Laura leapt to her feet. ‘Excuse me, Vera. I need to lie down a minute,’ she said in a strangled voice. She ran upstairs.

Vera groaned. ‘Oh, Lord! I’ve been so busy, I haven’t made a single bed.’

‘I wonder if she’s all right,’ Vera said when half an hour had passed and Laura hadn’t come down. ‘I’d better go and see.’ The girls and Caradoc had gone into the parlour where, this one day of the year, a bright fire burnt, to play Monopoly, a present from the Tylers to Hester. Albert said it was about time he went for a drink. Charlie went to see his girlfriend. Tommy told Queenie about the pictures he’d been to see and she could tell he was leading up to asking her for a date. She’d refuse – she would never forget the way he’d used to make fun of her arm.

The two women were upstairs for ages. Vera came down briefly, looking very grave, and disappeared again with a glass of water and a box of Aspros.

When Vera came down for good, she was alone and so was Queenie. Tommy had gone into the parlour in a huff when she’d told him she wouldn’t go out with him.

‘She’s asleep’, Vera said. ‘I don’t think she’s slept much for quite a time.’

‘Roddy’s left her, hasn’t he? He’s not coming back to Liverpool.’

‘I promised not to say anything, but seeing as you seem to know …’ Vera sighed. ‘Yes, luv. Roddy’s met someone else and Laura’s just cried herself to a standstill. I think she’s just a little bit unhinged. You must tell her you’ve guessed so she doesn’t have to go on pretending in front of you. It’s the bloody war that’s done it. It sends everybody crackers. One of these days, he’ll regret it. If ever I saw two people so completely in love, it was Roddy and Laura Oliver.’

The Tylers threw a party on New Year’s Eve, but when the clock struck midnight, Laura was nowhere to be seen. She missed Eric’s little speech.

‘Some people said the war would be over in a few months but,’ Eric said a trifle drunkenly, while Winnie hung possessively on to his arm, ‘but here we are, two and a half years later, and there’s no sign of an end. In fact it’s got worse and we seem to be losing the battle on all fronts. Here’s hoping nineteen forty-two brings a change of fortune and we start winning for a change. Let’s drink to that; to victory. We can’t let Hitler win.’

‘To victory,’ everyone chorused.

Herriot’s was holding its annual winter sale. The shop was heavily over-stocked with women’s and children’s clothing. Coupons had been introduced suddenly, without warning, and they’d been left with loads of garments slightly out of fashion, they couldn’t sell, not because their clientele couldn’t afford them, but because they didn’t have the coupons. Prices were slashed, to half or less, in the hope of clearing old stock. But, as Mr Matthews said logically, ‘If people haven’t got the coupons, they haven’t got the coupons.’

With Laura being so clever with a needle, neither she nor Queenie had used many of their own coupons. Laura was saving hers to buy towels and replace the bedding that was coming to the end of its life, but Herriot’s hadn’t reduced their household linens nearly as much as the clothes.

‘I was thinking of buying a coat,’ Queenie said. ‘There’s this lovely one half-price, black with a little fur collar.’

‘You should snap it up before anyone else,’ Laura advised. ‘I might get Hester one of those frocks you told me about, the ones with embroidery on the bodice –

I’ll let her choose. The poor girl’s never had a frock from a shop before. Until now, they’ve all been made out of scraps or my old things. We’ll come to Herriot’s on Saturday, take a look around.’

Laura had looked surprisingly serene since the New Year had begun. When Queenie told her she knew Roddy had gone for good, she’d looked at her blankly, as if she’d never heard of Roddy Oliver. She moved about very slowly, eyes dreamy, her face calm and composed. She’d obviously got over things much sooner than everyone had expected.

Herriot’s was always extra-busy on a Saturday, but the crowds had almost doubled with the winter sale. Queenie had hardly stopped all morning. The most popular item in the children’s department was the Wolsey V-necked pullover in black or grey. It was the sort of thing that would never go out of fashion and had only been reduced by ten per cent.

Laura arrived on the second floor just before one o’clock, accompanied by Hester and Mary who screamed with excitement and made straight for the rack of girls’

frocks, all heavily reduced.

‘What time do you have lunch?’ she asked.

‘Not until two,’ Queenie replied.

‘I know you have a nice staff restaurant, but would you like me to treat you to a meal somewhere else?’

‘I’d like it very much. Thanks, Laura.’

‘Mary wanted a frock as soon as she heard Hester was getting one. Vera said I’m not to go over thirty shillings, though she’s never spent nearly that much on a frock for herself.’

‘There’s plenty for thirty shillings, some only a pound.’

Together, they went over to the rail. Mary had been drawn to a bright red velvet creation with a ruched bodice and a white lace collar, but Hester couldn’t see anything she liked. ‘They’re all too fancy,’ she claimed, and eventually settled on a brown jumper and a fawn pleated skirt.

Laura was slightly shocked. ‘I wonder if she’s never liked the pretty things I’ve always made her?’ she said to Queenie.

‘Maybe she just wants a plain outfit for a change.’

‘I suppose I was really making them for myself.’ She made a face. ‘I enjoyed sewing on the lace, adding bows and embroidery, the smocking. Poor Hester ended up looking like a Christmas tree. Can we go into a cubicle and try everything on?’

‘Only if you join the queue.’ There were at least a dozen mothers with children waiting to use the cubicles.

‘I don’t mind, I’m used to queues. After this, we’re going down to the first floor to look at Ladies’ Fashions.’ Laura gave her a little shove. ‘You’ve got a customer waiting, Queenie – no, two. I’ll get out of your way. See you later.’

Queenie had on her hat and smart new coat and was ready to leave promptly at two o’clock. She went down to Ladies’ Fashions on the first floor and found the girls admiring the ball gowns, also going cheap in the sale. Laura emerged from a cubicle, somewhat breathless, a strawberry pink garment over her arm.

‘I thought, if I’m going to look like an elephant, I may as well look like a pink elephant,’ she said gaily, then laughed at Queenie’s look of incomprehension. ‘Oh, Queenie, love. I’m having a baby. Roddy and I …’ She paused and went as pink as the frock. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Grown-ups can be very complicated – you’ll find that out for yourself one day.’

‘How can you be so sure you’re pregnant?’ It was only just over three weeks since Roddy had been home.

‘I was due a period on Boxing Day, ten days ago, but it didn’t happen. I’m always as regular as clockwork. I’ve only been late once before, when I was having Hester. And it’s not just that,’ she went on, starry-eyed, ‘I just know, know in my heart that I’m pregnant.’

‘Congratulations.’ Queenie threw her arms around Laura’s neck and kissed her.

‘I’m dead pleased. Oh, it’s going to be lovely, you having a baby.’ She contemplated the fact that she had carried a baby for two whole months, but hadn’t known a thing about it. For the first time ever, she wondered what it would have looked like, had it been a boy or a girl? ‘You’ll leave the factory, won’t you?’ she said worriedly. ‘You don’t want to risk having an accident.’

‘Oh, yes. Anyway, I doubt very much if they’d want a pregnant riveter. But I’ll get another job, a sitting down one. I don’t want to hang around the house, getting bigger and bigger, and bored out of my mind.’

Roddy had got out of North Africa just in time. In January, it appeared that nothing could stop the German advance under General Rommell. Even worse, the next month saw more than 60,000 Allied troops in Singapore surrender to the seemingly all-conquering Japanese, who were bombing Australia and had Borneo next in their sights.

‘Will we ever win anything?’ Laura wailed.

It didn’t do to dwell on the things that were happening overseas. There was nothing anyone in Glover Street could do about it, other than to send its young men in the hope they would help to save their country.

That year, two more left with that object in mind, though in most people’s minds, they were little more than children. First, Charlie Monaghan became a private in the Army then, in June, Brian Tyler turned eighteen and joined the RAF. He asked Queenie, very soberly, for a photo, ‘To keep next to my heart.’

Queenie had two copies made of the photograph taken at Herriot’s Christmas party, cutting off the other women who’d been sitting at her table. The second copy was for Jimmy Nicholls, just in case the war lasted another horrific two years and he was called up too.

Brian had only been gone a week when Winnie Corcoran moved in upstairs. ‘Eric didn’t like to ask while Brian was there,’ Ben told Laura. ‘The thing is, they’re in love. Madly in love. I dread what’s going to happen when Winnie’s husband comes home.’

Laura missed the camaraderie of the factory and rather liked the idea of having Winnie live upstairs. She was now employed in the laundry department of Bootle Hospital: repairing sheets, re-hemming frayed towels, patching the hospital-issue nightclothes, using an elderly sewing machine in a little room all on her own. It was even more boring than being at home, but at least it meant she was still doing her bit and earning money at the same time. Not that she would be exactly hard up when she was no longer working. She’d saved up quite a bit over the last few years and would still get an allowance from the Army for being Roddy’s wife.