That Liverpool Girl (46 page)

Elsie was expected for afternoon tea, as were Freda Pilkington and her offspring, but the lunch guests would have left by then. As she combed her hair, Hilda Pickavance found herself smiling at the ageing figure in the glass. She was no longer lonely; she had a family at last.

‘Well, this is a good start, I must say.’ Keith joined the weeping Mel on the sofa. ‘Happy Christmas. It’s all going very well so far. Your mother’s in the bath, says she’s staying there till New Year because I bought her some bubbles. Miss Morrison’s had her breakfast courtesy of me, but she said her toast was overdone, and now you’re carrying on all sad. Come on. Tell your stepdad what’s up.’

Mel pushed documents into his hand. ‘It’s too much,’ she wailed.

Keith looked at the bank book and covering letter, explaining that too much was fine in his opinion. ‘Your mam and I got you clothes – good ones, but second-hand. So this too-much present evens things out a bit.’

‘I could buy three houses with that, Dad.’

‘I wouldn’t bother, love. Some soft bugger keeps knocking them down or setting light to them.’ Dad. This gorgeous girl was his daughter. ‘Miss Pickavance loves you, baby. That money will see you through university, because brains are all very well, but they need food, shelter and transport. You’re safe now.’

She grinned. ‘Unless I get bombed.’

Like her mother, Mel was a rainbow when she cried and smiled simultaneously. ‘Get a crowbar, sweetheart, and prise your mam out of that bathroom.’

But no such measure was required, because chaos erupted. Not one but two spoodles shot through the room like bullets from a gun. ‘Did I imagine that?’ Mel asked. ‘Two nutters merged into one?’

He nodded. ‘A ball with eight legs. It rolled that-a-way.’

They sat and listened as the two pups bounded upstairs. They could go up, but they couldn’t come down. ‘That’ll shift your mam,’ predicted Keith as Gloria walked in.

‘Happy Christmas,’ the visitor said grimly. ‘My dad wants a divorce from Pandora, says two daft women in the house are enough, and he and Peter are now outnumbered. They’re crying.’

‘Tom and Peter?’ Keith asked innocently.

‘Spoodle and Pandora.’ Mel dried her eyes. ‘They can’t get down,’ she advised her best friend.

‘We know,’ was Gloria’s reply. ‘We found that out at three o’clock this morning. She’s eaten a doormat and a draught excluder. Yours has started on a leg of the kitchen table.’

‘We know,’ they chorused.

‘You little buggers,’ came a voice from on high. ‘Keith? They’ve got my towel.’

‘You know what?’ Keith rose to his feet. ‘I’m beginning to sympathize with that poodle woman. We are paying for the spaniel’s bad behaviour.’

All three walked upstairs. Eileen, stark naked and laughing, was pulling a large towel to which were attached two pups. She looked at the three new arrivals. ‘You took your time.’

Dumbstruck, Keith noticed the swelling. That was his and hers, a daughter or son in a beautiful container. While the girls retrieved the towel, he simply gazed into his wife’s eyes. He could not remember happiness as intense as this.

Eileen covered herself. ‘Drown them,’ she ordered before retreating to her bedroom. Keith followed, locking the door behind him. She was seated on the bed, a huge pair of scissors in one hand. ‘Why do you have a murder weapon in your bedside cupboard?’ she asked.

‘To cut through all the red tape,’ he answered.

‘What?’

‘Your tarpaulin.’

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Happy Christmas.’ He gave her a white silk gown with matching nightdress. ‘Used to be a German parachute, so if you ever need to jump, you just pull the cord and—’

It was her turn to cut off his words with a kiss. She dragged him back into bed and encouraged nature to take its course. Sometimes, a woman needed to dictate the pace.

Frances Morrison was waiting for them. ‘Thank you for the lovely bedjacket. And the girls asked me to tell you that they’ve taken the spoodles to torment Dr Bingley. Oh, will you make me some toast, Eileen? Your husband should work at a crematorium.’

When they were alone, she patted her bed, and he sat next to her. ‘Does she know, Keith?’

He nodded. ‘Big-Mouth Bingley told her. She was shocked, but you know how she is. Whatever happens, she puts everything to one side and gets on with what needs doing.’

‘I just wanted her to have something of her own – a house, a place.’

‘Yes.’

‘Make her take it when I’m gone. No selling up and giving the money to charity. She’s a lovely woman.’

‘I know.’

She gripped his hand with more power than should have been allotted to a woman so advanced in years. ‘Look after them all, or I shall haunt you.’

They gave her the new toast and another cup of milky tea. Then they left her. ‘It’s time to prepare Christmas dinner,’ Eileen told her.

Alone in her room, content in a house filled with love, Frances drifted on a bright, white cloud of memories. A school bell, the sounds of girls at play, a handsome, vulgar man in a cellar, sweet temptation, one stolen kiss in an office populated by filing cabinets, desks and daffodils. He knew she loved spring flowers. She could not marry a janitor; she should have married him.

Never mind. Onward, onward. Forty-three of her girls had gone on via Merchants to Oxbridge. Educate a boy, and you educate one man; educate a girl, and you enlighten generations. Too tired to call for company, Miss Frances Morrison took a road along which we are all destined to tread. Her last thought was for Spoodle. He could have two bedjackets now.

Marie, in the midst of chaos, snatched at the receiver. ‘Eileen? What? When? Yes, of course I will.’ She paused, a finger pressed against the free ear. ‘Peter’s avoiding us like the plague, so don’t worry about him. Yes, yes. I am so sorry, my dear.’

Two girls and two puppies were running about. Peter was upstairs, stoic in his silence. Tom sat in his little office, an Irish coffee on the desk, an old crossword puzzle spread before him.

‘Where’s Pandora?’ Gloria shouted.

Marie shut herself in the downstairs cloakroom. What the hell did it matter if the sprouts were soggy? The old lady was dead. Were the parsnips in the oven? Did she care? The running and shouting continued. This was her life; she had to live it.

When she reached the office door again, she paused to watch her husband betraying himself. In his arms, he cradled a happy pup. The newcomer he had dismissed as unclean and germ-ridden was licking his face. ‘Who’s my beauty-girl, then?’ He used a silly, talking-to-a-baby voice. ‘Who’s had a permanent wave that went wrong? To hell with the spaniel, I’m your daddy. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.’ He looked up. ‘Marie?’

She entered and closed the door. ‘We have to ask Mel to stay for dinner, Tom. Miss Morrison died.’

He closed his eyes. That wonderful, aggressive, determined suffragette had gone. ‘She was born in 1850,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘February next, she would have hit ninety-one. Her brain was as sharp as the best carving knife, and she never missed a trick.’ But she had missed the end of this bloody war, and she hadn’t lived to see television. ‘How are Keith and Eileen?’

Marie shook her head. ‘Not good. They’re not having Christmas, so they want us to keep Mel for a few hours. Peter won’t come down if she’s here.’

He stood up. ‘Leave it with me, love. Time somebody sorted this lot out. You do your parsnips, I’ll deal with Peter.’

He paused on the landing and stood in the oriel bay. From here he could see Miss Morrison’s house – Mrs Greenhalgh’s now. All curtains were closed. Dr Ryan’s bike leaned against a gatepost, and the undertaker’s car was parked nearby. A light had gone out today. That remarkable old woman had fought for women’s franchise, and for an end to segregation in America. That hadn’t happened yet, but she’d tried, had even travelled to the southern states. The slave trade was partly Britain’s fault, and Liverpool had thrived on it. Frances Morrison had battled for a school of her own, for freedom, for the betterment of women.

‘Dad?’

‘Hello, son.’

Peter stood beside his father. ‘Why are you crying?’

‘A patient died. Miss Morrison. Mel doesn’t know, and she’s having Christmas with us, because her parents are busy.’ He dried his eyes. ‘You will go downstairs and be a man. Yes, men cry too. Go. Give your sister and her friend a decent day. Stop feeling bloody sorry for yourself.’

Tom sat in the bay window long after his son had gone downstairs. Puppies ran, two girls laughed and shouted, while the scent of food rose up the stairwell and almost made him gag. ‘Silent Night’ was playing on the wireless. Wasn’t that a German carol? Wasn’t it ‘Stille Nacht’? And did it matter? He remained where he was through ‘Silent Night’ and part of Handel’s
Messiah
.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
‘And from us is taken a pearl,’ he mouthed before descending the stairs. He lied to Mel, said they’d begged her mother to allow her to stay with Gloria for a few hours. He carved the bird, told jokes, put food in two tiny bowls for two tiny dogs. The pups ate, looked for more, gave up and passed out near the fire. And the parsnips were slightly underdone.

The second Great Fire of London had happened just three days before New Year. There had been no festive celebrations in Liverpool, but the Luftwaffe had lit up London in the worst way possible. Few in the north knew much about it, but, as ever, Mel Watson could be relied upon to winkle out the truth from any and every available source. As ever, she wrote down all she had learned and posted it to Hilda Pickavance.

Published now in a Liverpool newspaper, Mel and Gloria were two of several teenage pairs across the region who contributed to a small but humorous monthly column entitled ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Survival’. They offered advice on such subjects as the borrowing and lending of clothes, the making over of dresses, and the drawing of straight lines up the backs of mothers’ legs in order to imitate fully fashioned stockings. Hilda chuckled as she read the latest contribution from Mel and her friend.

Mel and Gloria wrote hilarious anecdotes about their families, their friends, and Spoodle and Pandora, the Deadly Duo.

Hilda put away her first Great Fire of London lesson for the second time. The first fire had been a good thing to an extent, as it had eradicated plague by cleansing the city of rats and their disease-bearing parasites. But the present deliberate attempt to wipe out the City of London was appalling. Mel and Gloria were getting to know journalists, and journalists gossiped. Although positive propaganda was allowed, the people of Britain were, for the most part, shielded from the absolute truth. It was about morale. No matter what, as few as possible were allowed the full story. ‘I suppose if we do get invaded, the first we’ll know of it is the sound of jackboots pounding in our streets.’ Hilda placed Mel’s newspaper clippings in a folder and took out the latest letter.

‘You would,’ said Hilda to an empty room. Mel’s inquisitiveness would surely land her in trouble sooner or later.