That Liverpool Girl (31 page)

A nurse with a badly affected house told tales of women giving birth while buildings collapsed all round them, of people so badly injured that only morphine would do, of the packing of open wounds, of death and tears and fury. She had a fair share of funny stories as well. A man who lost a leg in the Great War lost it all over again. ‘Not a mark on him, but his house was flattened, and he ordered his rescuers to get back in there and find his missing limb. Needless to say, they didn’t.’

If it hadn’t been real before, if the red skies at midnight had not managed to convey the message, news from living, breathing people brought it home. One woman could never stay long, because she had to keep a close eye on her husband, who was yet another victim. ‘Pulling dead children out of debris is one thing, Miss Morrison. But pulling out a piece of a child finished him.’ The poor man had lost his mind. So keen had he been to find the rest of the infant that he had dug himself into a pile of smouldering debris which had almost become his grave. There was a possibility that he might never regain his senses.

The knitting began then. When it came to knitting, Miss Frances Morrison displayed all the dexterity of a small iceberg approaching a miniature
Titanic
. But Eileen encouraged her before retrieving socks clearly made for giants, dwarfs, or people with deformed feet. Eileen unravelled the disasters, washed the wool to remove the kinks, knitted it again and passed usable items back to the WVS. Convinced that she was contributing to the war effort, the old woman continued with her labours. She was doing no good, but she was occupied, and she did no harm.

Christmas approached. The pregnant Mrs Greenhalgh could only watch and wait while the house was restored to some semblance of order. She had never spent Christmas away from her mother and the boys, and she became anxious.

Keith also watched and hoped. He rolled up his sleeves and worked alongside plumbers and builders, did some carpentry and rubbish-shifting, cooked, made endless cups of tea. But he wanted to send his wife home. He wanted her safe and unafraid, but she flatly refused to travel without him. ‘When I go, I go with you. And when Mam comes here after Christmas, I want this place straight. She’s not young.’

Another fly committed suicide in the ointment. The WVS member who had promised to stay with Miss Morrison over Christmas suddenly left the area. A single woman, she moved to the other side of Liverpool to be with her sister, and Eileen refused to countenance the abandonment of her landlady. ‘Yes, the neighbours would see to her, but I’m not leaving things casual. She’s good to us, and she needs watching.’

‘We can take her with us, love.’

‘No.’ That chin came up. Like her daughter, Eileen had a determined little chin. ‘She’s unfit to travel. We’ll have to stay for Christmas. So will Mel.’

‘But your mother—’

‘Is tougher and younger than Miss Morrison.’ Eileen folded her arms. ‘It can’t be helped. We’ll take their presents over in the New Year.’

But Hitler had other ideas. In December 1940, his Luftwaffe delivered gifts aplenty to the city of Liverpool. And there was no gathering in the city centre at New Year.

Weather and more urgent commitments slowed the work on St Michael’s Road. Most small builders spent time after a raid shoring up the salvageable, demolishing the dangerous, boarding up broken windows with sheets of wood, and dealing with immediate daily emergencies first. Frances Morrison was lucky, since Keith had managed to replace the kitchen glazing, but other work remained unfinished, and it was now December. Frost was not the builders’ friend, so the chances of replacing wall ties and completing work on foundations, gables and rainwater goods were remote. Stability had been achieved by shoring up houses with struts, but such measures were supposedly temporary.

Miss Morrison found the whole business rather exciting. ‘It’s like being down the mines,’ she commented on one of her rare expeditions into the garden. ‘They’re all props and struts, you know. What an adventure.’ For a woman with a weak heart, Frances Morrison certainly took war with Germany in her stride. Keith had built a sturdy shelter around the old woman’s bed, and she lived happily in her cage, deliberately oblivious of danger, because she had her heart’s desire. She loved people, her house was full of them, and she growled amiably through the bars at anyone who approached her territory.

While Miss Morrison took her afternoon nap, Eileen’s beloved and mischievous mother was shouting down the telephone. She was in a state. Mam in a state was not to be taken lightly, but at least she wasn’t here in person. Nellie Kennedy’s voice grated at the best of times and now, magnified by microphone, it was enough to shift paint off the walls. ‘I should be with me daughter at Christmas. It’s not right for us to be separated like this when we’ve always been—’

‘Mam?’

‘What?’

‘I’m in Liverpool, and you’re at Willows.’

‘I know that, you soft mare. There’s no need for you to tell me where I am. I seen meself in a mirror not five minutes back. I think it was me, anyway. Unless some bugger’s pinched me blue pinny and me best hairnet.’

‘Stop shouting, you are not in Australia.’ Eileen held the receiver away from her ear. Nellie, aware of the distance between herself and her beloved daughter, was screaming across forty miles. ‘Talk normally, Mam. There’s no need to yell, but thanks for shifting the wax in my ear. I think you’ve blown it all the way across to the other side of my head.’

Nellie lowered her tone. ‘But you have to come for your dinner, Eileen. It’s Christmas, love. Christmas has always been important.’

Eileen blinked moisture from her eyes. It was true. Poverty had never diminished Mam’s joy when the festive season arrived. But this was different. It was a new war, a war unlike its predecessor, because a thousand tons of ironmongery and explosives seemed to drop from the skies with monotonous frequency. ‘There’s a massive fight on, Mam. Very few families will be completely together for Christmas dinner. We’ve nobody at the front or on a ship or in a plane, so be grateful. I can’t just leave Miss Morrison. The neighbours are good, but there’s no one who can stay with her twenty-four hours a day. I want this place declared safe before you come.’

‘Safe? Safe? You’ve been bloody bombed.’ The tone of this statement was accusatory.

‘Yes, we have. Adolf asked for permission, and we agreed to be a target, cos he wanted the practice. I’ll phone you later.’ She turned to her husband once the connection to Nellie was severed. ‘We’re not leaving her.’ She waved a hand in the direction of Frances Morrison’s ground-floor bedroom. ‘I want this place in better shape before we do the permanent swap with Mam. And Miss Morrison can’t travel, so that’s an end to it.’

‘It is indeed. Don’t cry. You know I have to kiss you when you cry. And you know I have trouble stopping kissing when I start.’

Eileen had the same difficulty, because her husband was a fabulous kisser. But she wouldn’t tell him that, since he already knew. ‘Are you a sex maniac?’ she asked pleasantly.

‘Erm . . . not yet. I have to do the written test and a series of practicals. But I’m working my way up to it.’

She wagged a finger at him. ‘Just make sure I’m the practicals. Or you’ll wake up a little bit dead.’

Nellie placed the receiver in its cradle. Her Eileen was in trouble. She was living in a propped-up house, she was pregnant, and she was afraid. Keith was with her, thank God, but what if the Germans came back to Crosby? There was a fort nearby, and there were searchlights waiting to be bombed. ‘Bugger,’ she spat. ‘Staying in a place held together with faith, hope and putty. And pregnant on top of all that.’

‘Nellie?’

She turned. ‘Ah. Hilda. They won’t be coming for Christmas.’ Hilda Pickavance was a clever woman but, in the opinion of Nellie Kennedy, she sometimes lacked a bit of courage. ‘I’ll never understand you leaving our Phil to find his sketchbook and never saying nothing to him. This has been going on for weeks now. What are you scared of? He’s not going to bite your head off, is he?’

Hilda wasn’t scared; she was cautious. ‘He wasn’t ready,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t want to disturb him in case he stopped sketching.’ Phil was a reserved, wild thing. If anyone tried to get too close, he put up shutters and displayed a
CLOSED
sign. More important, his talent was developing at a rate that wanted neither help nor interference. ‘I am waiting for him to talk to me.’

‘And I’m waiting for me daughter, though she won’t be coming.’

Hilda, lost in her own thoughts, frowned and nodded pensively. ‘When I loosened the pages, I hoped he would believe the one I stole had fallen out accidentally, but he’s been looking for it. That sketch was the only one in ink. Fine detail is his forte.’

Nellie sat down. Hilda had taken the sketch to Bolton for framing. It was meant to be Eileen’s Christmas present, and the artist had no idea about any of it. As far as he was concerned, he had mislaid the ink drawing, and no one knew about his hobby. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.

‘Wrapped and at the back of my wardrobe,’ was Hilda’s reply.

‘We have to get it to Crosby.’

Hilda tutted. ‘How? We’ve no car. Keith and Eileen have it.’

‘I don’t know how, do I? Borrow a couple of bloody donkeys or some roller skates. We’ve still got trains and buses.’

‘They don’t always run to timetable.’

‘Hilda, for God’s sake—’

‘No!’ shouted the usually soft-spoken woman. ‘For Eileen’s sake, we must stay away. Hasn’t she enough trouble without worrying about her mother turning up out of the blue? And Phil needs to be told before we start to give away his work.’

‘That was supposed to be your job. When it comes to painters and the like, I don’t know me
Laughing Cavalier
from me
Whistler’s Mother
. Find our Phil, Hilda. Find him now. He has to be told that we’ve had his drawing framed. Go on. I’m off out for an hour. See you later.’ Nellie leapt to her feet, pulled on a coat and rammed a woollen hat almost all the way down to her eyebrows. Hilda Pickavance could manage on her own. Hilda Pickavance should have managed on her own weeks ago, and Nellie was off to visit her friend.

Carrying a small torch, Nellie made her way down Willows Lane until she reached the Edge. Her decision to make an ally of Elsie Openshaw had been made some months earlier. It had been a case of irresistible force and immovable object; as a team, they were monumental. Elsie was happiest when Nellie was at Willows, and she was currently sad because Eileen was due to return soon with Keith, while Nellie would be needed in Crosby.

‘Open up, queen – it’s only me.’ The door was pulled inward by Elsie. ‘I think God forgot to light the fire tonight,’ Nellie continued. ‘I’m froze right through to the bone. He might be having a few days off with it being near Christmas.’

Elsie opened the door to her pristine shop and greatly improved living quarters. ‘Whatever are you doing out and about at this time? Get yoursen up to my fire. I’ll make you a cuppa and get you a slice of parkin.’

Nellie removed her outer garments and watched the large woman as she bustled about. Elsie was clumsy and prone to accidents, but she was cleaner, and she had new teeth that actually fitted. Some people imagined that she had suffered a 180-point turn in the personality department, but the truth was simpler. She smiled because she had comfortable teeth. A sliver of pain pierced Nellie’s heart.
Oh, Kitty, we could have done so much for you and the babies.
Like Kitty, Elsie smiled in a bid to display new mouth furniture. And in order to match the smiles she needed to be pleasant, so she was pleasant. Well, for most of the time.

‘There you go, Nellie. Cup of tea and a nice chunk of cake. Right. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, missus?’

Nellie shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’ She knew the secret now, understood how to keep Elsie onside. The woman was a gossip, so no one ever confided in her. Little by little, Elsie Openshaw had become Nellie Kennedy’s confidante. While helping the woman to clean up house and shop, the visitor had let drop small, unimportant pieces of information about herself, her family and the new owner of the Willows estate. ‘Don’t say a word,’ had always been the final request and, true to her one and only friend, Elsie had kept her mouth shut.

‘You’ve not walked all the way down from yon for nothing in pitch black, Nellie Kennedy. I can tell with your face, any road. With a frown as deep as that, you favour the Town Hall clock just before it strikes midnight.’

‘You’ll miss me,’ Nellie said. ‘When I go back to look after Miss Morrison, I mean.’

‘Course I’ll miss you. I missed bloody toothache when I had them all pulled.’

Nellie chewed thoughtfully. Elsie’s baking was rather hit and miss; the parkin was a definite miss. ‘I could ask Miss Morrison,’ she said. ‘We’d both be working, because, on paper, we could each be responsible for her twelve hours a day.’

‘You what?’

‘After Christmas, come with me to Crosby. I reckon our Eileen’ll be stopping here with Keith and the lads, so I’ll be in Liverpool for the duration.’

‘What about me house and me post office?’

‘Somebody will see to all that.’

Elsie considered her options. She could stay here and be safe, but lonely. Or she might be able to spend a few months or years in Nellie’s company. Yet Liverpool was a mess. The chances of being bombed here, in Willows Edge, were negligible, while the house in which Nellie and her granddaughter would be living had already been shaken right down to its footings. ‘Eh, I don’t know what to say, lass.’