The Seven Streets of Liverpool (16 page)

These depressing thoughts were interrupted by a creaking sound. She half sat up, but realised that it was probably Peter coming up the stairs to use the lavatory. In the corner of the room, Nicky was fast asleep in his cot, breathing steadily, without a care in the world. These days, he didn’t often mention his dad.

The creaking sound continued until it stopped and the handle of the bedroom door was slowly turned. The hairs on Eileen’s neck stiffened and she sat up properly. ‘Who is it?’ she demanded in the firmest voice she could manage under the circumstances. Not Peter, surely!

In answer to her query, the door was flung open and a dark figure threw itself on top of her, seizing her by the throat and squeezing hard.

Eileen screamed; Nicky woke up and started to cry. Eileen screamed again, weaker than before. She choked for breath and tried to push the attacker away, but his hands were like an iron band around her throat.

There were footsteps, grunts and groans, a loud roar, and the person on top of Eileen was pulled away with force. When the electric light was switched on, it revealed a man lying on his back on the floor, with Peter Mallory standing over him, one foot on his chest.

By now, Nicky was terrified and crying pitifully. Eileen scrambled across the bed and lifted him up. She swallowed hard, her throat hurting, and said to Peter, ‘Who is he?’

The man on the floor was dark-haired and wild-eyed, with a thin moustache. She had never seen him before.

‘I have no idea,’ Peter said. ‘Go downstairs and ring the police.’

‘No,’ the man shouted, flailing his arms. ‘No, don’t do that. I thought you were someone else.’

Peter pressed on his chest harder with his foot. ‘Eileen, take no notice. Ring the police –
now
!’

Eileen wouldn’t have dreamt of not taking any notice. She stumbled downstairs, clutching Nicky, and grabbed the telephone. Her father had written a list of important numbers on a postcard tacked to the wall, including the nearest police station. As she dialled the number with shaking fingers, she remembered calling him an old fusspot when he showed her what he’d done.

She returned upstairs with Nicky and stood outside the bedroom. ‘The police are on their way,’ she called. ‘They’ll be about ten or fifteen minutes.’

‘I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep this bastard down for that long,’ Peter gasped. ‘He’s bigger and stronger than me.’

‘Let him go, then. He can’t get far. Whoever he is, the police will find him.’

‘Then get out of the way before I lift my foot.’

Eileen slipped into Kate’s room. She heard what sounded like a brief struggle, then footsteps on the landing and down the stairs. The front door slammed, and Peter Mallory opened the door of Kate’s bedroom.

‘Oh God!’ Eileen leant against him and he took both her and Nicky in his arms. ‘Who on earth was it?’

‘I don’t know. But he’s left his wallet on your bed, not deliberately I presume. Let’s go and have a look, shall we?’

As the three of them went into the main bedroom, they heard the sound of a car starting up and driving away. Eileen watched as Peter picked up the wallet and opened it. It contained an identity card, other papers, a thick wad of pound notes and a silver propelling pencil. Peter removed the card. ‘His name’s Roger Thomas,’ he said.

‘Kate’s husband,’ Eileen wheezed. Her voice seemed to have gone altogether. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, he thought he was killing Kate.’

She explained that Kate’s husband, a highly respected lawyer, had been so violent that Kate had been forced to leave home. ‘She reported him to the police, but they wouldn’t believe a word said against him. After she left, he told their daughters all sorts of horrible things about their mother. It’s only recently that they’ve started seeing each other again.’ She made a horrified face. ‘He must have decided to kill her!’

Quarter of an hour later, two policemen arrived, a sergeant and a young constable. Peter made a pot of tea, and Nicky slept in his mother’s arms while she described what had happened.

‘He must have climbed through the living room window,’ the sergeant said. Peter winced, realising that he’d been asleep in the room at the time and not heard a thing. ‘I was sleeping the sleep of the dead,’ he explained, and wasn’t too pleased when the constable remarked that he could well have ended up sleeping the sleep of the dead for real.

It was almost four o’clock by the time the police left an exhausted Eileen and a triumphant Peter – he considered that he had saved her from being brutally murdered – to go to bed for a second time. Eileen and Nicky returned to their own beds, but in an act of extraordinary gallantry, Peter laid his sleeping bag outside her door, where he scarcely slept a wink.

Next morning, Jack Doyle arrived on his bike at the same time as two more policemen drove up in a car. Eileen had been hoping to leave her father ignorant of the night’s events – he genuinely was an old fusspot – but it turned out to be impossible. As expected, he carried on about how dangerous it was for her and Nicky to be living alone in such an isolated place, and threatened to cycle there every night after he’d finished work in order to protect her.

‘But Kate’s usually here,’ she protested.

‘If it hadn’t been for Kate, you wouldn’t have had last night’s visitor,’ he reminded her, as if it wasn’t something she didn’t already know.

Of course, when Kate arrived and discovered what had happened, she was distressed to the point of tears. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she cried. ‘I can’t apologise enough.’

‘You have no need to apologise. It wasn’t your fault,’ Eileen assured her, glancing sternly across the room at her father, who looked as if he was about to insist that it was.

Kate had been about to tell Eileen that she would soon be leaving the cottage to live with her daughter, Lily, who had acquired a job and a flat in Southport from which Kate would be able to travel daily by train to Dunnings. ‘Oh, but, Eileen, I wouldn’t dream of leaving you on your own, not after what’s happened,’ she assured her friend.

‘Well I wouldn’t dream of allowing you to stay,’ Eileen assured her back. Her voice still sounded a touch rusty, but would probably be all right by tomorrow. To everyone’s great relief, there’d been a phone call from the police to say that Roger Thomas had been apprehended on the road to Birmingham and would no longer be a danger to anyone.

Chapter 13

No work was done on the shed that day. Peter was too tired, Jack too angry, and Eileen wasn’t bothered; one of these days the shed would be put back together and she didn’t care when it happened. Nicky appeared to have forgotten the night’s events and had woken up in his usual happy mood. There was nothing to be seen of Napoleon, but Eileen said he often disappeared for a few days. ‘I reckon he’s having an affair with a lady cat.’ Peter wondered aloud if her name was Josephine, and Eileen groaned. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t a terribly funny joke.

At lunchtime, Peter offered to treat them all to lunch at the local pub. Kate refused, saying she wanted to start sorting out her clothes, but the others went and enjoyed their juicy meat pie and roast potatoes. It was actually warm enough to sit outside under the trees in the garden, an indication that summer was on its way.

The terror of the night was over; everything was back to normal again.

Except it wasn’t, not really, at least not for Eileen. Nick had still done what he’d done: moved to another part of London without telling her his new address. Under normal circumstances she would have written and told him what had happened, that Kate’s awful husband had tried to strangle her believing she was Kate. Under the same normal circumstances it would have brought him rushing home the following weekend to make sure she was all right. He would have stroked her neck and kissed it to make sure it was completely better.

But she could no longer rely on Nick – on her husband – for anything. And was she supposed to just sit in the cottage Melling and pretend it wasn’t happening?

By Tuesday, Easter was over. Peter had returned to London and her dad was back at work in Bootle. Kate was at Dunnings but would be leaving for Southport in a few days.

Eileen was standing in the kitchen, hands on hips, contemplating the pile of dirty washing in the laundry basket. Nicky was standing in the same position, waiting to see what her next move would be.

‘Sod the washing,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to Bootle and see your Auntie Brenda. I want to ask her a favour.’

‘Sod the washing,’ Nicky agreed. ‘Go see Auntie Brenda.’

Brenda’s girls were playing in the street outside, while inside Brenda was toiling away on her sewing machine, though for her, this was a pleasure.

Eileen was always fascinated by her friend’s uniquely colourful parlour.

‘What are you making now?’ she asked as a length of turquoise wool sped under the foot of the machine.

‘A dress for someone; you don’t know them,’ Brenda replied. ‘What can I do for you, Eileen?’

‘Can you look after Nicky for me tomorrer?’

Brenda stopped sewing. ‘Well …’ she said slowly, and Eileen just knew she was going to turn her down because she was doing something else. ‘Tomorrer,’ she went on, ‘it’s still the school holidays, and me and your Sheila, plus all the kids, are going to Sefton Park to have a picnic in the fairy glen. I don’t fancy taking your Nicky an’ all. There’d be too many kids to keep an eye on. I’d be worried he’d run off and get lost.’ She made a face at Nicky, who giggled. ‘You would too, wouldn’t you, you little bugger? Like an eel, he is,’ she added to Eileen, ‘when you try to pick him up.’

Eileen sighed. ‘Never mind, there’s always another time.’

‘What did you want to do, Eil?’

‘Go to London.’

Brenda eyed her keenly. ‘Well, I can imagine why you want to go. Let’s nip over the road, see what Phyllis is up to. She and Nicky got on like a house on fire that day you went to Blackpool to see Sean.’

Phyllis turned out to be a cheerfully pretty young woman with chestnut-coloured hair. ‘Hello, Nicks,’ she cried, bending down and hoisting Nicky on to her hip. He apparently remembered her well and tugged at her curls affectionately.

‘Of course I’ll look after him,’ she promised Eileen. ‘I’m really looking forward to it – the picnic too.’

‘She’s nice,’ Eileen remarked when they were back in Brenda’s parlour. She’d promised Phyllis she’d bring Nicky at half past eight the following morning. ‘How long has she lived here?’

‘About eighteen months, I reckon. She’s here with her mam, who’s a nurse at Bootle hospital.’ Brenda explained the reason for the Taylors’ presence in Bootle.

‘I don’t like things happening in Pearl Street and me not knowing about it,’ Eileen complained. ‘Are there any more new people about?’

‘Only Tommy and Godfrey.’

‘Where do they live?’

‘Tommy lives with me and Godfrey with Lena Newton.’ Brenda laughed at Eileen’s confused face. ‘They’re kittens, five months old. I don’t let Tommy in the parlour while I’m sewing because he swings on the material. He’s in the living room. Come on, I’ll introduce you.’

Eileen could have stayed for ever playing with Tommy, a dead gorgeous tabby, and Nicky became so enamoured he had to be dragged away. Eileen wanted to call on Sheila, where Nicky was left to play with his cousins while his mother went to see Alice and Sean.

Their little boy, Edward, was seated on the mat in front of the fire playing with a wooden lorry that looked as if it weighed a ton.

‘Did me dad make that?’ Eileen asked her sister-in-law.

Alice smiled faintly. ‘Yes, it takes two people to lift it.’

Eileen transferred her gaze to her brother, who was sitting in the corner staring at nothing. Her heart ached at the sight of him. ‘Is he no better? Not even the slightest bit?’

‘No, but he will be, one day,’ Alice assured her, tightening her lips purposefully. ‘I can feel it in me bones.’

‘Oh, Sean!’ Eileen fell on her knees in front of him, wrapping her arms around his thin legs. He ate little and was becoming more skeletal by the day. As ever, his face showed no sign of emotion. She sighed and got back to her feet.

‘Are you going to Sefton Park with the others tomorrow?’ she asked Alice.

‘No, I wouldn’t dream of leaving Sean on his own for such a long time.’ Alice stroked her husband’s head affectionately. ‘Brenda comes and sits with him when I do the shopping and go to Mass, but otherwise I stay at home.’

‘But, Alice, luv, you need to get out more often than just doing the shopping,’ Eileen argued.

‘No I don’t, Eil.’ Alice gave her a dazzling smile. ‘One of these days Sean is going to get better and be his old self again. I really want to be here when it happens.’

It was early afternoon the following day, Wednesday, when Eileen reached number 8 Townsend Road in Fulham, a tall red-brick house with four floors. The bricks were crumbling here and there and the paint had almost disappeared off the windowsills, revealing big patches of bare cement.

It was all so different to the London she’d seen before, when she and dear little Tony had stayed with Nick at the posh hotel off Park Lane. It was the first time she and Nick had made love, and it had been like heaven.

Eileen climbed the five steps to the front door. On a panel outside there was a list of names. ‘STEPHENS’ was printed neatly beside the button for the second floor. Eileen’s heart twisted when she recognised Nick’s handwriting. She pressed the bell and waited. After a few minutes she heard a woman’s voice calling, ‘Who’s there?’

She opened the front door and entered a huge, dismal hallway with a cracked tile floor. There was a telephone with a box to put money in on the wall. ‘Who is it?’ the same voice asked. Looking up, Eileen saw a woman peering over the banisters on the second floor.

‘It’s Eileen Stephens,’ she said.

There was a pause, then the woman said tiredly, ‘I suppose you’d better come up.’

Eileen climbed the stairs, which were covered with a once expensive, highly patterned carpet, now dangerously frayed in places. When she reached the second floor, the woman had disappeared, but a door had been left wide open. She knocked on it loudly and went inside.

The woman half sat, half lay on a settee. She was young, heavily pregnant, and would have been pretty had she not looked so utterly wretched. She wore a smart navy-blue maternity frock with white buttons and there was a ring that looked like real gold on the third finger of her left hand. ‘If you’ve come to have a fight, then you’re wasting your time,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got the energy. You can call me all the names under the sun, but I don’t care. I probably deserve them.’

‘I don’t want a fight,’ Eileen said mildly. ‘I’m here to find out how I stand with my husband. I mean, are you two going to get married one of these days, after the war is over, say? Should I expect him to divorce me?’ There was a wooden chair against the wall right beside her and she sat down. ‘It’s Doria, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ The girl frowned. ‘How do you know? Has Nick told you about me?’

‘No, but your brother has.’

‘Peter! You know Peter? It can only be Peter; Fabian is abroad.’

‘Yes, I do know Peter. Quite well, in fact.’

The girl sighed. ‘Ah well. Nothing surprises me any more.’ She laid her head on the arm of the settee. ‘Do you mind if I go to sleep?’

‘Yes, I do, actually,’ Eileen said sternly. ‘I’ve come all the way from Liverpool to have a talk. It’s my intention to go back home again tonight. As I said, I’d like to know where I stand.’

‘I suppose you’d like to scratch my eyes out.’ Doria sat up straight and put both feet on the floor.

Eileen ignored the comment. ‘I must say, for a woman having a passionate affair – I take it for granted it’s passionate – you don’t seem very happy. When I was having an affair with Nick, I was over the moon. Every minute we were together was wonderful.’

Doria’s head fell as if she no longer had the energy to hold it up. ‘It used to be like that for us, but then I became pregnant, which was absolutely the last thing either of us wanted. We had to move house and this was all we could get in a hurry – Nick was being chucked out of his old place.’ She waved her arm around the drab room with its much-too-high ceiling and old furniture. The walls had been distempered a curious pink, but maybe it only looked curious because it was fading. ‘I
hate
it,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘I had to leave work and I have absolutely nothing to do all day. There’s nowhere to go except some awful market full of second-hand stuff. The other night, there was an air raid close by; one of those V-l things. And you know what?’ She leant forward.

‘What?’

‘Nick’s started arriving home really late, ten o’clock or later. His breath smells of drink, which means he’s calling in at some bar or other after work, probably Charlie’s, where we met – or I should say, where I picked him up. He’s stopped coming straight home.’ She began to cry. ‘I’m stuck here for thirteen or fourteen hours a day all on my own, wondering if he’s got himself another woman, one who isn’t in the club. Mind you, it’s my own fault. It was me that seduced him, not the other way around.’

‘Oh dear.’ Eileen crossed the room and sat on the settee beside the girl. ‘Can’t you go back home?’

Doria looked astonished. ‘And leave Nick?’

‘It hardly seems fair that you’re on your own for so much of the day, particularly with you being pregnant.’ Anyroad, hadn’t Peter said the family only lived in a different part of London; she couldn’t remember what it was called. Nick wouldn’t be totally deserted; Doria would be within reach – if he was still interested, that was.

‘Is this just a way for you to get him back?’ The girl’s eyes narrowed. ‘To make sure I’m out of the way, as it were?’

Eileen thought before she answered. ‘I’m not sure how much I want him back,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I certainly don’t want him now, at the moment, on the rebound because you’ve left him. He’s treated you terribly, but that’s not the Nick I know, who I fell in love with years ago. I think – hope – that that Nick is still there, and I love him with all my heart.’ If he
was
there, she’d have him back like a shot. Well, maybe.

Doria turned and looked her full in the face. ‘He doesn’t deserve you,’ she said.

‘He doesn’t deserve
you
.’

For some reason, despite the drama of the situation, both women were aware that there was humour in it too, if somewhat black. They both burst out laughing, and Doria laughed so much that she began to cry again.

Eileen said, ‘I understand that your parents know you’re having a baby.’

‘Yes, they’re all right about it. Least they were; they’ve both gone off Nick more than a bit. They can see how unhappy he’s making me.’

‘Wouldn’t you feel happier if you were living with them? Do they live very far away?’

‘They live in London, in Wimbledon.’ Doria’s eyes lit up, making her look quite transformed. Eileen wasn’t surprised that Nick had been attracted to her, particularly if she had made a play for him. ‘It would be marvellous living with them, with Mummy there to care for me.’ She clapped her hands. ‘She’d even look after the baby for me after it was born and I could go back to work. I worked in the same office as Nick, you know.’

‘Yes, Peter told me.’

Doria was in the process of forcing her feet into a pair of high-heeled navy-blue shoes. ‘How do you know my brother so well, Eileen? Is it all right if I call you that?’

‘It’s fine. As for Peter, he just turned up at my house one day. I’ve no idea where he got my address from. We get on well. He was there at Easter.’ She didn’t go on to explain that he had probably saved her life.

‘How strange!’ Doria stood, wobbling slightly in the shoes. ‘Do you know, I think I will go home, right this minute. Oh, Eileen’ – she turned upon the other woman, her face radiant – ‘you have no idea how happy that makes me feel, the idea that I could be back with Mummy and Daddy within the hour. I’ll go downstairs this minute and phone for a taxi.’

‘Be careful with those shoes on the carpet,’ Eileen warned. ‘Your heel might get caught in one of the holes. When I was pregnant,’ she recalled aloud, ‘I mainly wore flat shoes.’

‘Oh yes, you have a son, don’t you?’ Doria remarked. ‘What’s his name?’

Unexpected tears suddenly filled Eileen’s eyes. ‘His name’s Nicky, but I had another son, Tony, who was killed during the raids.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ Impulsively Doria threw her arms around Eileen’s neck, and for a few brief seconds, the two women who loved Nick Stephens embraced.