That Liverpool Girl (27 page)

Mam was employing one of her hard stares, so both boys pleaded guilty. They were taken by the policeman into the hall while their future was decided. Phil, seated on the fourth stair, decided that he didn’t want to go to Derbyshire. Being locked in here had been bad enough; the thought of real captivity was terrifying. ‘We have to go back, Rob, and do as we’re told. Otherwise, we’ll finish up with a load of fifteen-year-olds who’ll beat the you-know-what out of us.’ He glanced at their minder. ‘Glad you think it’s funny. Hey! Put me down, put me down.’

‘There you go.’ The man deposited Phil near the front door. ‘Ever had a hiding from a cop, lad?’

In the kitchen, Frances Morrison was managing to keep a straight face, though the mother and grandmother of the accused had taken a break from the strain of this, their acting debut. The policeman and two magistrates had been borrowed from St Helen’s church drama group, while everyone’s scripts had been provided by Keith, who was also remaining stony-faced. The pair of malcontents would be placed under his charge in more than one way, as he would be their stepfather as well as their warden, and he intended to play both roles with more dignity than was currently being displayed by his future wife and mother-in-law. ‘Stop it,’ he whispered.

Eileen grabbed his hand. How could she have imagined feelings for anyone other than him? ‘We’ll be all right in a minute. It’s Mam. She can sense one of her turns coming on.’

‘Turns? What turns?’

‘Well, if she needs to laugh and can’t, she gets hiccups.’

‘Oh, bugger. Nellie?’

‘What?’ The first hiccup exploded.

‘Go in the shed. Go on. This is too important for you and your turns. They’ll know you’re trying not to laugh. Get out now. Take Miss Morrison’s shawl – try next door. Run any-bloody-where, but no hiccups in here, love.’

Nellie snorted, hiccuped and left.

Eileen’s grip on his hand tightened. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. It was the truth. He was magnificent, and getting to know him would be great.

‘You’d better. I’m taking on the Third Reich single-handed here. In recompense, I may decide to expect your hand, plus the rest of you, in marriage. Eventually. No, forget that. Bugger eventually, I’d rather have soon.’

The court reconvened with the policeman standing between the two accused.

A sentence of two years in a secure juvenile unit was handed down before the magistrates indulged in a whispering session. When all the muttering was over, the boys’ sentences were suspended for eighteen months. Rob didn’t fancy getting suspended, because it sounded rather like Kitty-next-door, but he became reassured when suspension was explained. If he or Philip put one foot wrong within the next year and a half, they would be thrown to the wolves for two whole years.

They were sent to share a single bed in the smallest of the bedrooms while Mr Greenhalgh slept on a downstairs sofa. One of the few good things about being poor was that folk got used to being squashed at night. Their door was not locked, because this was the first test; if they didn’t run, they had a chance of staying out of jail.

Morning found them sitting side by side on the edge of the narrow bed. ‘What we need is something to be interested in,’ Rob declared. ‘I think I like digging things up.’

‘Tell the vicar in Egerton,’ snapped Philip. ‘He’ll take you on in the graveyard.’

Rob drew himself to full seated height. ‘That’s not digging up,’ he said. ‘It’s planting. Soon, I’ll be setting spuds and carrots. Bertie has his pony and the rest of the horses, but what have you got?’

‘Paint,’ came the reply.

‘What?’

‘You heard. Don’t go deaf as well as daft. They said I have to get attached to Mr Collins. He does all the painting and mending, and he’s got something called sugar. That means he falls off ladders. I have to learn painting, mending, and picking him up off the floor. It’s an important position, being deputy handyman. Gardening, too.’ He sighed heavily. He had no experience of paint, mending, gardening or sugar. Unless the odd handful of stolen molasses counted as experience in sugar.

Mel entered the room. ‘Breakfast is served,’ she announced. Fully aware of the previous evening’s charade, she asked about their sentence.

‘We’re suspended for two years,’ Philip replied dolefully. ‘Mr Greenhalgh is in charge of us. And we have a book each. We have to write in it every night about what we’ve done during the day.’ He shrugged. ‘I hope we get a place in that school, wherever it is. School’s going to be a rest.’

Mel went downstairs to report to the chief magistrate. Miss Morrison had been a magistrate in real life, so she was the only kosher member of the previous evening’s shenanigans. ‘They’re terrified,’ Mel announced.

‘Good.’ The old woman attacked her coddled egg. She felt almost healthy, because life had become entertaining at last. There was a great deal to be said for distractions, as they took one’s mind away from one’s ailments. One’s ailments would be set aside for the foreseeable future, because Scotland Road had arrived on the cusp between Crosby and Blundellsands, and Scotland Road was interesting.

‘Do you need anything else, Miss Morrison?’

The woman in the bed grinned. ‘Not immediately, dear. But make sure they visit me before they go. Did I tell you about the time when I was trapped in the cellar with a vulgar caretaker?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it’s been rather like that all over again. Did they really put someone’s undergarment up a flagpole?’

‘Yes.’

‘And a carthorse in the yard?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘The stolen police dog?’

‘It was nearly a police dog; it was still in training. I don’t know whether it passed its test after being exposed to the company of my family.’

Miss Morrison stared hard at Mel. ‘You know, my dear, you should write all of it in a journal. I have some nice hard-backed notebooks left over from my school. One day, this should be published. Like all good comedies, it sits against a background of great tragedy and deprivation.’

Mel chuckled. ‘It was never a tragedy, Miss Morrison. It was loud, colourful and sometimes hungry, but there’s nothing tragic about the Scottie Roaders. Outside the undertaker’s, there’s a coffin with Hitler’s name on it. The barber’s thinking of changing the name of his shop to It’ll Be All Right When It’s Washed, because that’s what mothers say to their sons when they get a haircut. They’re clever. One day, they’ll be remembered for what they really are.’

‘Which is?’

‘People, Miss Morrison. Special, but just people.’

Keith was a hungry man. Tender though never timid, he appeared to be making up for two loveless decades, since he seldom left his wife’s side for weeks following the wedding. After promoting Jay Collins to deputy steward and land agent over the whole Willows estate, he docked his own wages and followed wherever Eileen led. Miss Frances Morrison now had a beautiful house, as he had painted every room. Her old first-floor bedroom belonged to Mr and Mrs Keith Greenhalgh, who took great care of their generous landlady.

Eileen’s second husband was also very funny. Unlike Liverpudlians, he delivered few quick answers, preferring instead to simmer for a while before offering up a killer reply, usually after the subject under discussion had been long abandoned. Stony-faced and quiet-voiced, he could reduce a room to hysteria in seconds. He adored his Eileen, grew fond of Frances Morrison, and spent many hours in battle with Mel over a chessboard.

But his favourite pastime seemed to be kissing. When questioned about the frequency of the attacks, his stock reply was that every man needed a hobby, and it was her fault anyway, since she was far too beautiful for her own good. On one occasion, he wore a sticking plaster over his mouth, though it didn’t last, because Eileen’s giggling became contagious, and he laughed the plaster free. He submitted a written complaint to management, and her reply, delivered on the banks of her beloved river, was verbal. ‘Does all this kissing not make you want the rest of it?’

‘Yes.’

‘So?’ Eyebrows raised and hands on hips, she waited for his answer.

‘I’m good at procrastination.’

‘And I’m not.’

‘I know that.’ He gazed out over the river. ‘Ever had a bank account?’ he enquired.

‘No. The few times I’ve been in a bank, it’s been for Miss Morrison.’

‘The kissing is my deposit. I collect my interest at bedtime.’

A few beats of time slipped by while Eileen contained her laughter and made her face stern. ‘You are one devious and cruel swine, Keith Greenhalgh.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘True. Delicious though, isn’t it?’

‘I’m like a bloody pan left on a low light. Or a slow rice pudding in a lukewarm oven, do not disturb till Christmas.’

Keith awarded her his full attention. ‘You’re no pudding. You’re a diamond-studded rainbow with a pot of gold at each end.’

She wagged a finger. ‘Don’t be coming over all poetry, Keith. I can’t be poetical in the fresh air. Not here. Please don’t start kissing in public places.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ He looked at a beach donated to Crosby and Blundellsands by the Irish Sea, aided and abetted by the Mersey. This was a place where children played each summer, where families sat and watched ships lazing their way towards busy little tugs. ‘I see no ships today,’ he said. Hospital vessels were a too-familiar sight these days, sad, grey things marked with a red cross. ‘Hell will be packed with Germans, so we’d better put our names down for the other place,’ he quipped.

‘It won’t be packed with Germans at all. Just Nazis, and some of them are English.’ She pointed at the mix of sand and mud below. ‘Used to come here with Mam and some of my friends when I was a kid. Stripped down to our knickers, we were all the same. Rich, poor, or in the middle, we all played together. Look at it, Keith. What a bloody mess. They won’t land here. There’s been nobody invading Liverpool since the Vikings, because they’ve all learned the hard way that the natives are fierce.’

Five barrage balloons loitered idly in still air, while on the beach rolls of barbed wire kept company with dragons’ teeth: pyramids of concrete dug in to prevent any vessel from coming ashore. This was Liverpool, and Liverpool was Hitler’s second target, so it had to be guarded. The BBC Home Service mentioned from time to time a raid on a ‘northern port’, and everyone knew that all weaponry and ammunition passed through these docks, that citizens were living in mortal danger, that they would endure till the last brick had fallen and the last man was dead. But for the sake of security, Liverpool was given no identity in bulletins. According to statements from the War Office, spies were everywhere. A person could become paranoid with very little effort.

‘Keith?’

‘What?’

She swallowed. ‘We have to go home.’

He looked at his father’s watch, a battered piece that lived in a jacket pocket. ‘She’ll be all right for a few more minutes. Eh? What’s up with you?’

‘Home, Keith. Your home, so my home, too. Willows Edge, my love.’

‘Erm . . . why?’

‘Don’t kiss me.’

‘I won’t kiss you.’ ‘Promise you won’t kiss me.’ ‘I promise I won’t kiss you.’ ‘You’re going to be a daddy.’ He kissed her.

Hilda Pickavance, owner and mistress of the Willows estate, was a political animal with an inquisitive mind and a tendency to be inwardly critical of all who walked the corridors of power. Far from evangelical and allied to no party, she watched and made written comment on the performances of representatives local and national. In quieter moments, which were relatively few, she looked at her older writings while adding what she could manage about events of the day. Most of her recent essays were on the subject of Eileen’s boys, all three of whom had improved considerably during their year in the wilds.

Everything had changed, and not just because of the war. Down the road, amid the dark, satanic mills, poverty ruled. But the south had basked in glorious affluence until last year; it had hardly been fair.

The decade of duality was finally over. The 1930s, ten years during which Britain had prospered in the south and decayed in the north, had survived Wall Street because of one man, and that man was Neville Chamberlain. Swept aside to make room for Churchill, he was now a creature people remembered as naive. In the minds of the populace, he carried in his hand a crumpled paper signed by a liar, a monster, a nutcase. ‘There was more to Chamberlain than that,’ Hilda muttered to herself. ‘Perhaps he ignored the north, but he saved the Exchequer.’ He had built a wall around the islands, had traded carefully and wisely, had kept the country away from the brink of total perdition. ‘The good is oft interred with their bones,’ she quoted. Shakespeare was usually acutely and painfully correct, even in this day and age.

Jarrow had been horrible, but the fact remained that Victorian factories were already in decline, and manufactured goods were purchasable at lower prices from worldwide sources. A swathe of dire and infected deprivation had spread itself across northern counties, and life had been hell on earth. So they had marched and shown themselves, down at heel, clothes torn and tattered, heads high. ‘We are the same as you,’ that march had screamed. ‘And you are taking not just the cream, but the whole pie. While you eat, our children perish.’ Had anyone listened? Did anyone ever listen?