That Liverpool Girl (17 page)

‘The one with a perforated tympanic membrane. That’s spelt with a Y or an I, by the way.’

‘Thanks for improving my education. Now, bugger off.’

He chuckled softly. ‘She made it up, didn’t she? That Dockers’ Word business is a figment of your ma’s fevered imagination. Though I have to say she probably picked up her colourful language on the waterfront. Your mother has a mouth like a sewer.’

Eileen crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘She may be a lot of things, but Nellie Kennedy’s no liar. I’ve known her all my life, and she never lies, never steals. My mother is an honest woman. You’re going to need eyes in the back of your head. Oh, and if you want to mend your ear drum, you can borrow our Mel’s puncture kit.’

His eyes narrowed. This one was a bright little bugger, and she wanted taming. ‘You enjoyed what I did to you, what we did together,’ he said.

‘Like everybody else, I have animal instincts,’ she replied. ‘The difference between you and me is that I can control mine.’

He nodded very slowly. ‘Can you? Can you really?’ He left the room.

Eileen sank slowly onto the lavatory seat. She couldn’t control her limbs, let alone the sensations that rippled through her body whenever he was near. There was a sixth sense, and she was its victim. That extra faculty was nothing to do with looking into the future or talking to spirits. It was a two-way traveller, and very difficult to ignore. He was suffering, too, because his extra sense had met hers halfway across the space that separated them. There were better men than him; there was Keith, for a start. She hadn’t spent enough time with him yet, but he was definitely interesting, because even his letters made her innards melt. ‘Why do I suddenly need a blasted bloke anyway?’ she asked the door.

Tom was telling Miss Morrison that Eileen hadn’t quite finished her work, and that he had more patients to see. For the sick and elderly, he used a different tone, but it was genuine. Tom Bingley was perhaps oversexed, but he actually cared about his patients. Miss Morrison thought the world of him, and he came and went as he chose in this house.

‘He’s not a completely bad man,’ Eileen whispered to herself. ‘But Mel matters a damned sight more than he does.’ There was no turning back now; she and Mel had to move from Rachel Street. Rumours of dogfights over Hastings and other southern towns were rife. She couldn’t give back word to the lady downstairs, couldn’t stay in her own house, was going to be living within reach of Tom for as long as the war lasted. He had in his possession a potion that could guarantee her freedom from pregnancy. It had come from abroad, and very few knew of its existence. Oh, God. She should not be thinking like this.

Having regained the ability to walk properly, she finished her work and went downstairs. A neighbour would come in later to heat thoroughly the meal she had prepared for her precious old lady. Frances Morrison was sweet, partially deaf, and as bright as a new button. She was looking forward to having Mel in her house, as she approved strongly of the public school system. She was a member of the Conservative Party, an ex-headmistress of a small and very exclusive primary school, and she had objected strongly when advised to lower the union flag from its post in her garden.

‘Are you going, dear?’

‘Yes. We’ll move in at the weekend if that’s all right with you.’

‘Good, good. I shall get the chance to converse in French.’

Eileen laughed. In her day, Frances Morrison must have been the subject of gossip, as her bible held a commandment stating that all children should begin a second language by the age of nine. The pupils of Abbeyfield School had entered secondary education with a smattering of French, and they usually outstripped all others in that subject, a fact that was much mentioned in this house.

Eileen bent and left a kiss on a soft, papery cheek. ‘The minute this war’s over, I’ll run your flag up myself. God bless.’

‘And may He bless you, my dear.’

Tom was outside, car parked at the pavement’s edge, his person propped casually against a garden wall. He couldn’t have done a better job had he actually set out to advertise his intentions. ‘Get in,’ he ordered.

‘No.’ Her heart was doing about ninety miles an hour in a built-up area, and there was a war on. Fuel, she told herself irrelevantly, should be saved.

‘Get in, or I shall kiss you now in full view of the inhabitants of St Michael’s Road. My wife will be told, and you will be co-respondent in the ensuing divorce. Come along, hurry before a docker spots me.’

Fuming, yet hungry for him, she placed herself in the passenger seat. He closed her door, walked round the vehicle, then sat next to her. The engine roared as he turned and drove towards the river.

‘You’re wasting petrol and your time,’ she said. ‘You’re also attracting attention with all that noise.’

He slammed on the brakes, and a shard of fear entered her chest, because they were still in a residential area.

‘Damn you.’ The words were forced between clenched teeth. ‘It’s not just about sex any more, is it? I have fallen in love with you, my little urchin. And you are a mere inch from returning the compliment. If I were free, I’d marry you tomorrow.’

‘No, you wouldn’t.’

‘I would. You know I would.’

‘Get me away from all these houses. Now!’

He carried on until he reached a quiet stretch of river before parking again.

She told him straight. ‘I have three sons who can curdle custard just by staring at it for a few seconds. Because we live in a poor area, and because they have no dad, they’re very wild. Only last week, all three were arrested, and there was talk of them going into an institute for young offenders. Instead, I’m sending them with my mother to a farm on the moors outside Bolton. Whoever marries me gets lumbered with them. All three of them. Mel’s no trouble, but Philip, Rob and Bertie are nightmares. You wouldn’t last a week.’

‘I love you, Eileen.’

‘That can soon be killed by three lads who think nothing of stealing, running bets and making enough noise to rip the skin off your rice pudding.’

‘I don’t like rice pudding. Or custard.’

‘Neither do I, but that’s not the point. You know Mel. You can see how she is: clever, polite and kind. They are the exact opposite. But they’re my lads, and they go where I go once we get Hitler sorted out.’

He stared ahead at the grey, angry water. ‘Then we’ll live in the countryside. We can move as soon as you like.’

‘I have to stay with Mel. Mel is my real bit of war work. She’s going to Cambridge if I have to drive her there with a whip, Tom. How do you think she’d cope if you and I were found out? She’d fall behind. Your daughter would lose her best friend, and I’d lose what’s left of my self-respect. Oh, and a Catholic can’t marry a divorced person. It would mean excommunication.’

She could build all the barriers she liked, but he would not give up. ‘I can’t live without you. Wouldn’t it be murder if I popped off?’

‘No. It would be suicide, and that’s a prosecutable offence. If you survived, you’d be charged.’

He laughed mirthlessly. ‘You’re a clever girl.’

‘I read a lot. I don’t resent my daughter, yet I know I would have done well if I’d had her chances. But I didn’t, and that’s that. Then there’s my mother. You’ve met her. You know how she is. As long as she’s alive, she’ll be with me. I’d have gone with her to the country except for Mel. I had to choose, and I picked my daughter, because she’s too beautiful and clever to be left to chance. You must have looked at her yourself, because she’s me all over again. And yes, I know I’m pretty, and false modesty is pointless. If and when I want a man, I’ll find one with no ties and plenty of patience, because he’ll have to put up with the boys and my mother.’

He studied her face hard. ‘And you’ve someone in mind?’

She nodded. ‘But it’s early days. He’s a good man, a hardworking man. Like me, he’s educated himself, and he will help Mam with the boys.’

‘So he’s a farmer?’

Eileen shook her head. ‘No, he isn’t a farmer. He supervises half a dozen farms and a load of houses. That’s the sort of man I’ll go for. He’s also promising to be adorable.’

Tom was angry. Why had he married Marie? Why had he married for money? ‘Then just allow me a little time before you commit to him. I’ll take care of you. Who knows who’ll come out alive when the bombing starts? Let’s grab what we can while we can. I know you want me, Eileen. I could repeat now what I did last time we were in this car, and you’d let me. In fact, you’d encourage me. Am I right?’

‘Yes, but it would be wrong. It’s the war, that’s all. This isn’t real.’

He told her that Tuesday and Thursday nights would be her time to be in Scotland Road at her post. But he had informed the ladies of the WVS that she would be caring for the sick in Crosby, so she wouldn’t be required to go. She could walk instead to the flat above his surgery on Liverpool Road. ‘I’ll be waiting,’ he threatened. ‘A nice fire, double bed, bathroom, small kitchen. We can make toast afterwards and feed each other. I’ll lick the butter from your fingers, Eileen.’

‘Stop it.’

‘Your daughter need never find out.’

But Eileen didn’t believe him. If Mam could notice a glow on her daughter’s skin after a quick fumble in a car, surely Mel would catch a glimpse of the same? ‘It shows,’ she told him. ‘In my face.’

‘You miss lovemaking.’ It was not a question.

‘Of course I do.’ But she’d learned to cope, had never met a man who lit her up quite as readily this one did. ‘We had a good life, Laz and me. We weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but he always worked, didn’t drink, and we were very close. Lovemaking was something we learned together, and it was private and special. That was real love, you see. This isn’t, and it never could be, because I think you’re greedy and . . . unwholesome, I believe the word is. You’ll become a dirty old man who pays for sex.’

He could manage no reply. She was insulting him, yet he could not for one moment doubt her honesty. Eileen said what she felt, and delivered her opinion unadorned by dressing. It was this earthiness that made her so appealing, because her raw, almost visible sexuality was rooted in directness and lack of inhibition.

‘Take me to the tram stop,’ she said now. ‘And my war work will be of my choosing, not yours. I’ll be on my feet, not on my back in your double bed dripping with butter.’

‘Eileen—’

‘No. If you play on my baser side and get me to do what you want, I’ll never forgive you or myself afterwards. Mel comes first. She leaves the rest of her class standing for brains and for beauty, and you know it. Do you really think you’ve a claim on me while she’s parked in the way? Do you?’

Tom lowered his head. To get the better of Eileen, he would need to dispose of Marie, Mel, three boys and Eileen’s mother. Since mass murder was not in his nature, he seemed to have come up against six insurmountable barriers. He took her to the tram stop.

Just weeks earlier, everything Mel and Eileen owned would have fitted into a couple of medium-sized boxes. Now, with clothes, shoes and bags kindly donated by Hilda, the carter would be needed to take their possessions to St Michael’s Road. Eileen, the proud owner of a Singer sewing machine, property of the deceased Mrs Pickavance, planned to make over some items for Mel, who was growing at a rate of knots she described as ghastly. ‘Nothing fits,’ she pretended to complain. ‘And I need a brassiere, Mam. Can you adapt one of yours?’

‘I’ll try when we’ve moved,’ Eileen promised. ‘Go and help your brothers with their homework. It might be half-term before you see them again.’

‘And that is not ghastly.’

‘Mel!’

‘I know, they’re my flesh and blood, and the priests say I have to put up with them. It’s all right for priests in their nice, quiet presbyteries. They don’t have to live with three monsters and half a police force, do they?’

‘Your gran and Hilda will straighten them out.’

‘And your penfriend?’

‘Stop being ghastly, Mel.’

The girl laughed. ‘Gh
aaah
stly, Mother. You have to get the ah into it.’

‘So it’s not just my Ps and Qs, then? I have to get my Rs right, too?’

‘That sounds rude.’

‘Good. Go and help the poor woman who’s lumbered with the junior branch of the Al Capone fan club.’ Eileen paused. ‘I’ll miss round here, you know. People think Scottie Road’s all bad news, but it’s not. We’ll not find a community like this ever again.’

‘Oh, you will. Just do a burglary and you’ll meet half of this lot in jail.’ Mel left the house before her mother could reply.

Eileen sat for a while waiting for Nellie, who was next door trying to comfort Kitty. Kitty Maguire had decided to panic again about moving, and Nellie was trying to calm her down. The calming down involved tea, brandy and many words of wisdom, and the ensuing period of peace seldom lasted long.

Alone, Eileen looked round the front room of number two. She knew every crack in the plaster, every mark on the walls. Her children had been measured near the outer door, four sets of lines with names near the floor. There they were, step by step, all four of them caught, held still, a pencil drawing a line level with their heads. Two and a half was the significant one, because when doubled, it gave the approximate height of the end product, the adult. Her boys were all going to top six feet, while Mel promised five feet and eight inches, which would be tall for a girl.