The Seven Streets of Liverpool (24 page)

It was a relief when, ten days before Christmas, she managed to buy a rusty Meccano set from Mike Harris’s second-hand shop in Strand Road, thus completing the presents for the boys, then a pretty little lace shawl that Caitlin would love that only needed a bit of a soak in Lux soap flakes to get the dirt out.

She was about to leave the shop when Mike called her back.

‘Mrs Reilly, aren’t you the one who asked if I’d keep me eye out for a pair of skates, like?’

Sheila’s heart performed a somersault. ‘I did, yes,’ she said in an awed voice. This couldn’t be happening.

‘Well, I’ve got them in the back of the shop, luv. They’re in good nick, so I suggest five bob for the pair.’

A whole pair! As Sheila said to Brenda later, ‘Putting aside the day I married our Calum and when I had each one of me kids, I’ve never known a day as beautiful as this one.’

‘Beautiful!’ Brenda pulled a face. ‘It’s only a pair of skates, Sheil.’

‘I know, but you don’t know what they mean to me.’ She would have to draw up a chart giving the boys turns of half an hour each. Of course, the girls might insist on having a go too, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

The following day, she heard from Cal that he’d be home for a whole week at Christmas. For Sheila, life couldn’t have been more perfect.

It was impossible for most people to be miserable now that Christmas was so close. The children’s excitement was like a tonic for their parents, cheering them up no end.

As far as the hateful war went, there was a terrific battle going on in Belgium, the Battle of the Bulge, it was called. Some people referred to it as Hitler’s Last Stand. Others wondered why there was fighting in Belgium when it was more than six months since the Allies had landed in France. Germany must be much further away than they’d thought.

At home, the air raids weren’t over, not for the people of London, who were now on the receiving end of the murderous V-2 rockets that had replaced the doodlebugs.

At Dunnings factory in Melling, since there was no longer an urgent need for parts for Spitfires and Lancasters and other wartime aircraft, a staff party was held on Christmas Eve and Eileen Stephens was an honoured guest.

‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ she cried, hugging and kissing the women she’d worked with during the first year of the war, who had become as close as sisters: tall, willowy Pauline; Doris, who still wore too much orange make-up and was waving a diamond engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand; Carmel, well over sixty and, as ever, without a full set of teeth. A few had left; one, Theresa, had died in an air raid while Eileen had been working there. And she’d been at Dunnings when she’d met Nick. The girls had all come to her wedding.

‘Oh, he’s fine,’ she told them when she was asked, over and over, how he was. ‘He works in London and he comes home most weekends.’ She didn’t want them knowing that the wonderful romance they had all been so envious of was over, and she wasn’t sure if she would ever see him again.

She arrived home to find Jessica and Penny at the cottage with Lena Newton, who had Christmas Eve off and had stayed the night in order to look after Nicky and Theo that morning. Eileen and the children were expected at Jessica’s house in Pearl Street the next day for Christmas dinner. As a little pre-Christmas treat, Jess had brought half a dozen iced cup cakes that she’d bought from the American shop in the camp at Burtonwood that morning.

‘Did you know,’ Eileen informed her, ‘that it’s against the law to ice a cake in this country while there’s a war on, because icing uses up too much sugar?’

‘So we are, in effect, breaking the law by eating these cakes?’ Jessica put the colourfully iced cakes on the table in a row while Penny, Nicky and Napoleon watched with interest. ‘Even the children?’

‘And the cat,’ Eileen told her. ‘Nevertheless, I think I shall eat that pink and white one with the cherry on top and hope I don’t end up in jail. Lena, are you willing to risk it?’

‘I am.’ Lena remembered Phyllis Taylor saying that she would quite like to go to jail, ‘just to see what it’s like’. She missed Phyllis like nobody’s business, and always would.

‘I think I’ll risk it too.’ Jessica laughed. ‘Penny, Nicky, what colour would you like? Oh, and Eileen, I’ve brought tea bags with me, save using your own tea.’

‘Tea
bags
?’ Eileen and Lena said together.

Jessica held up a little square bag for them to scrutinise. ‘They’re extremely convenient,’ she said. ‘They were invented in New York, not far from where we will live.’

Lena went home at four o’clock, refusing to stay to tea. ‘I’m worried about Godfrey,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t home by the time I left to come and see you.’

‘Who is Godfrey?’ Jessica asked after the woman had gone. She didn’t know Lena all that well.

‘Her cat.’ Eileen wrinkled her nose. ‘Poor soul, she has a terrible inferiority complex. What’s more, her husband has done a disappearing act, same as Nick. Luckily, she doesn’t mind. It wasn’t a very happy marriage, but she’s been left without a relative in the world.’

‘Well, much as I feel sorry for her, I’m glad she’s gone. I’ve something to tell you. But before I do, will you please tell me what a film star is doing sweeping up your garden?’

Eileen glanced through the window. ‘That’s Vincenzo, he’s Italian and comes once a week to tidy up. Me dad’s been neglecting things a bit lately. Have you seen much of him since you came back, Jess?’

‘Not much, no,’ Jess said casually. ‘Can I tell you my news now?’

Such was the expression on her friend’s face – a mixture of joy and mischief, achievement and surprise – that Eileen was able to guess what the something was.

‘You’re pregnant!’ she said in astonishment. She frowned. ‘I’m about to do my Aggie Donovan impersonation – how have you managed that without the presence of your husband?’

‘Gus left for France three months ago, in September, only days before I came back to Bootle. It is now December, and I’ve just discovered I’m pregnant. It’s all perfectly legitimate, Aggie.’

‘Whew!’ Eileen made a pretence of looking relieved. ‘In that case, congratulations, Jessica. I bet you’re thrilled to bits.’

‘I’m over the moon.’

Christmas Day turned out to be very ordinary, neither sunny nor dull, warm nor cold, just a little bit wet, but mostly dry. It was more or less the same throughout the British Isles.

Surely, the pessimists complained, surely this had to be the last Christmas of this flaming war. If it wasn’t, then by this time next year there’d be nothing left to eat, no presents left to buy, no clothes left to wear. Curtains would fall to bits, furniture would rot, houses would decay for want of maintenance.

Don’t be such a miserable shower of gits, the optimists would cry. We’re not going to let them Jerries get us down. The country had kept going for more than five tortuous years and would keep going for another five, another fifty if necessary. After all, as the song said, ‘There’ll always be an England …’

Dominic was more inclined to let his mates have a go on the skates than his brothers. On Christmas morning, a small war broke out outside the Reillys’ house, though so far there hadn’t been any casualties.

Calum kept control until Jack Doyle called for him on his way to the King’s Arms. There being no conceivable way in which Calum would miss downing a few pints in his favourite pub on Christmas morning, Sheila was left to control the children herself. She managed this by deliberately bursting into tears and claiming she was at the end of her tether, whereupon Dominic burst into tears himself, handed the skates to Niall, and promptly began to set the table.

Godfrey still hadn’t returned home. Lena had bought two ounces of ham for his Christmas dinner. She had hers with Brenda and her girls, where Tommy, Godfrey’s brother, was fast asleep beneath the home-made tree.

‘Oh, he’ll come back,’ Brenda assured her. ‘He’s just finding his feet, sowing his oats, that sort of thing. Probably got a lady cat tucked away somewhere. You should have got him neutered, Lena, if you didn’t want him going out on the town, as it were.’

‘Neutered?’ Lena had never heard of the word.

Brenda looked at her girls, who were busy eating, and mouthed ‘castrated’ at the other woman.

‘Oh!’ Lena swallowed hard. ‘Is it too late to have it done now?’

‘I don’t think so. You could talk it over with the vet. It would mean poor Godfrey would be forever denied the joys off …’ She mouthed the word ‘sex’.

‘Oh dearie me!’ Lena was horrified. ‘Would it hurt?’ she asked.

Brenda looked at her with amusement. ‘Think about it, Lena,’ she snorted. ‘Just imagine if you had balls and someone cut them off with a knife. Of course it would hurt, daft girl.’

Across the street at Jessica’s house, she and Eileen were having a good laugh. Nicky and Penny were playing in the street with Sheila’s children. Eileen was wondering why she was enjoying herself so much when this was the first Christmas she’d spent since the war had begun without there being any chance of seeing Nick. Even last year, he’d managed to come home for a few days, despite the fact that he was in the throes of his affair with Doria. She was sorry now, though it was much too late to do anything about it, that she hadn’t had it out with him, had a really furious row, got things off her chest. Sometimes I am much too nice, she told herself.

What if she never saw him again? What if he was dead too? At least she was all right for money. Gosh, that was a horrible thing to think, but she had the children to care for. Both of them were Nick’s sons, and if he were dead she would be entitled to the cottage. She had a widow’s pension for her first husband and she would get one for Nick.

‘Cheers, Eileen.’ Jessica had raised her glass containing the very best sherry.

Eileen picked up her own. ‘Cheers, Jess.’

‘May all our worries be little ones.’

It’s much too late for that, Eileen thought cynically.

In the small town of Beverley, Winifred and Leslie Taylor’s house was completely devoid of decorations, and they hadn’t bothered with Christmas dinner. They’d eaten very little since they’d heard that Phyllis had died.

They sat staring into the fire, reminiscing. Leslie blamed himself for the tragedy. ‘If I hadn’t behaved so damn stupidly, you and Phyllis wouldn’t have had to go to Liverpool,’ he moaned. He said the same thing almost every day. ‘Things would have been very different.’

‘She would still have wanted to join the army,’ Winifred pointed out. Like him, she also said the same thing daily.

‘Yes, but it would have been under different circumstances. She might not have been sent to London.’

Winifred agreed. She blamed him totally for their daughter’s death, but had never said it outright. She had thought of leaving him, but wasn’t sure if she could cope on her own, not yet.

‘Shall we go and say a prayer, Win? A Christmas prayer for our little girl?’ He’d become quite soppy. If Phyllis could have heard him, she would have laughed her head off. Our little girl!

‘Yes.’ She got eagerly to her feet. They went every day to Beverley Minster, a great, glorious house of prayer more than eight hundred years old. It was the only place where they felt at peace.

Nick couldn’t recall having gone to bed before midnight on Christmas Day in his life, not even when he was a child. But go to bed he did at ten o’clock after a quiet day spent walking along the beach, where a crisp wind blew and the sky was dark and full of menacing clouds. Just before dinner, he and Clarence had visited the local pub, which looked and felt as if it had been carved out of a giant tree.

Dinner was, as expected, totally delicious. The chicken Mary had obtained had been roasted to perfection, along with the potatoes. The vegetables had been cooked so that they were neither too hard nor too soft. A memory flickered through his brain of Christmas at the cottage, when Jack Doyle had so proudly picked the Brussels sprouts a mere half-hour before they would be eaten.

Memories of the cottage and Pearl Street kept returning throughout the day, like scenes from a film. After dinner had been eaten, Clarence produced a bottle of rum and they drank half of it between them. Nick wondered if Clarence had memories of his own that he wished to remember, or preferred to forget. There were chicken sandwiches for tea, more Christmas pudding, more rum.

When Nick went to bed, he wasn’t quite sure which world he occupied, the one in Liverpool or the one in Norfolk. It wasn’t until he heard the door open and footsteps approaching his bed that he remembered it was the one in Norfolk.

When Eileen returned to the cottage the following day, she found an attractive pot on the back step containing a single plant. She wasn’t very knowledgeable about plants, but she thought it might be a hyacinth. It had a card attached; ‘Buon Natale, Vincenzo’, it read.

The handsome Italian prisoner of war had been thinking about her over Christmas.

Chapter 20

1945

One Monday late in February, two unexpected visitors arrived at the cottage in Melling: Mr and Mrs Mallory, Doria’s parents. At least they thought they were unexpected, but Eileen had received a phone call earlier that morning from Peter telling her they were on their way.

‘They want to take you by surprise for some reason.’ She imagined him shrugging at the other end of the line. She was glad
he
hadn’t turned up over Christmas, and hoped their relationship from now on would just be occasional visits to see his nephew

At first Eileen had considered spending the day in Pearl Street – she was irritated that the Mallorys had taken it for granted that she would be at home – but if she did that, they might stay in Liverpool and keep on calling until they found her in. Perhaps they wanted take her unawares to ensure that she kept a clean house and that their grandson was properly clothed and fed. She hoped and prayed there would be no suggestion of them taking him back with them.

They arrived just before half past one and refused anything to eat or drink. Although they introduced themselves, they didn’t shake her hand. Eileen had expected them to be in their forties, but they looked much older; in their fifties, or even early sixties.

Theo, seven months old by now, was produced, a healthy, active baby with an adorable smile. He looked as much like his mother as he looked like Nick.

‘Would you like to hold him?’ She held the baby out to Mrs Mallory, who shook her head. Her hair was almost completely grey and she wore a beaver coney fur coat and a hat with a black veil.

‘No thank you. I just wanted to see him, that’s all.’

Eileen looked at Mr Mallory, who had not even sat down, but he also shook his head, saying, ‘We wanted to make sure he was being looked after properly.’

‘I can assure you that he is,’ Eileen said levelly.

‘Do you not feel the least resentment that he is your husband’s child by another woman?’ Mrs Mallory asked curiously.

‘How could anyone possibly feel resentment towards a baby? The circumstances of Theo’s birth are hardly his fault.’

Mr Mallory spoke. ‘Not all people think that way. Some schools, good ones, require a birth certificate; friends and neighbours ask questions. It’s easy for someone to become
persona non grata
, as it were.’

‘I see.’ She understood. Even in her own working-class world, an illegitimate baby could end up having a hard time as he or she grew up. She was absolutely certain she could protect Theo from that sort of unpleasantness, even if it meant moving house.

‘She … Doria,’ for the first time Mrs Mallory’s expressionless face bore the suggestion of a smile, ‘had a teddy bear called Theobald when she was a child. He still sits in her wardrobe to this very day.’

‘Would you mind sending him to me? At some time in the future I can tell Theo it once belonged to his mother.’

Eileen could have kicked herself when the woman looked as if she might cry. Until then, she and her husband had given the impression that they didn’t give a damn about Theo, but maybe she was wrong.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘We’ll send it.’ Mr Mallory helped his wife to her feet and she smoothed her skirt and touched her hat as if it had gone askew. ‘It’s only sitting in the wardrobe. We will also send a monthly cheque towards Theo’s care.’

‘There’s no need,’ Eileen assured him.

‘It’s what my wife and I would prefer.’

‘As you wish. Would you like me to send photographs over the years?’

‘No thank you.’

As they were walking towards the gate, Mrs Mallory turned. ‘Tell me, Mrs Stephens, where is your husband now?’

‘I have absolutely no idea. I haven’t seen him since the Christmas before last.’

‘That’s the last time we saw him too.’

Mr Mallory closed the gate behind him and Eileen shut the door. The couple had been in the house for less than half an hour. She would never see them again.

The war was undoubtedly being won. In March, the advancing Allied armies, led by General Montgomery, joined hands in Germany with the Russians coming from the east and the Americans from the west. In the Pacific, islands captured by the Japanese were slowly being liberated.

Despite this, V-2 rockets continued to fall on London, one landing in the middle of Smithfield Market killing more than a hundred souls and injuring even more.

To lift the nation’s heart a tiny bit, dim lighting was introduced, a milder form of blackout, meaning the headlights on vehicles became slightly brighter and ugly blackout curtains could be taken down, usually accompanied by clouds of dust and dead insects.

At the end of March, Eileen held what she fully anticipated would be the final garden party of the war. Strangely enough, she felt little enthusiasm for it. Nor, it seemed, did those who’d helped since the first party five years before. It would appear there was little left for people to get rid of. The white elephant stall was virtually empty, people having run out of rubbish to give away; no one felt like embroidering a tray cloth or making scarves or gloves for the handicraft stall, in particular Brenda Mahon, who vowed never to knit another scarf for as long as she lived. Not a single toy was contributed; only a few cakes appeared, and very little home-made jam.

People came, though. They came in their dozens to sit and drink tea and talk, comparing dates, assessing headlines, making predictions. It would be over by mid-April, by the end of April; no, it would be May. Could it possibly go on until June?

And what about the other war, the one the Brits had taken little part in, the war with Japan? When would
that
come to an end so that the brave Americans could go home to their families?

Once that had happened, the entire world would be at peace again. And afterwards, who in their right mind would ever want to start another war?

Friends and family remained at the cottage until it was almost dusk and the sky was a pink blush, gradually growing darker. Cider had been brought in jugs from a nearby pub.

Jack Doyle watched Jess, who was clearly several months pregnant. I am responsible for that, he thought proudly and with the most enormous grin. He’d best not drink any more cider, else he might be tempted to make a public announcement.

Jessica saw his glances and wished that her life had gone differently and she’d been married to Jack all this time and had half a dozen kids. But although she’d been born in Pearl Street, it had never been her destiny to stay. She needed more out of life. She needed what she was about to have, a life in New York with her American husband and all that that could offer.

Sheila Reilly kept counting her children, making sure all seven were present and safe. Calum had promised that when the war was over they would have another baby. She was a woman born to have babies; the more the merrier as far as she was concerned.

I’m drinking too much, Brenda told herself as she finished off her second glass of cider. Oh, but it’s such a lovely feeling. It makes me want to sing me head off. Next week, she would make herself a frock out of that bright red taffeta stuff she’d seen in Scottie Road market the other Saturday. And dresses for the girls out of the same stuff. They’d wear them at the street party that the women of Pearl Street had already planned to celebrate the end of the war.

Perched on a tree at the bottom of the garden, Sheila’s son and Brenda’s daughter were sitting side by side.

‘Where will we live when we’re married, Dom?’ Monica asked her future husband.

‘In Pearl Street, where else?’ Dominic said. ‘We’ll get a house next to your mam, or mine. I don’t mind.’

Brenda couldn’t resist it. She jumped to her feet and began to sing: ‘There’ll be bluebirds over …’

Everyone joined in immediately, as if they’d been waiting to do it all night, standing and singing full throttle, ‘Tomorrow, just you wait and see …’

Their voices could be heard for miles and miles, getting fainter and fainter until a point was reached where nothing could be heard at all.

It had happened!

It was over!

On 1 May, Hitler had killed himself and his girlfriend, Eva Braun.

The following day, it was announced on the BBC that the Germans still fighting in Italy had surrendered, and later that day that Berlin had fallen.

Even so, peace had not been officially declared. People who had a wireless sat crouching over it waiting for news. In shops, offices and factories, on the stroke of every hour a crowd would gather around the set, only to be disappointed when the headline was about something humdrum and without interest.

Eventually it was announced that the following day, Tuesday, would be designated as VE Day, and Wednesday 9 May would be a national holiday for the entire country to celebrate the end of the bloodiest war that Europe had ever known.

When Eileen woke up early on Wednesday morning, the sun was already shining and the telephone was ringing. She leapt out of bed and ran downstairs.

‘Hello,’ she said breathlessly. She usually gave the number, but today she couldn’t remember what it was.

‘Eileen?’

She recognised the voice immediately. After all, she’d been married to its owner for more than four years. ‘Nick?’

‘I shall be coming back sometime today, quite late, I should imagine. About seven o’clock or eight.’ He spoke pleasantly, but not fondly. He didn’t sound over the moon or as if he’d missed her terribly since they’d last met.

‘I look forward to seeing you,’ Eileen said in a similar tone; not cold, but not exactly warm, either.

‘See you later, then. Cheerio.’

‘Ta-ra, Nick.’ But he had rung off and didn’t hear her response.

Eileen stared at the receiver in her hand and wondered what on earth had got into her once loving husband.

As he came out of the telephone box on Norwich station, Nick Stephens wondered the same thing. That had been a bit abrupt on his part, hadn’t it? He would apologise to Eileen when they met.

For the past year, he’d scarcely been part of the human race, had hardly spoken to anyone other than Clarence and Mary Baines. He’d actually lost the art of conversation. Even the pub where he and Clarence occasionally went was full of grumpy old men whose main interest seemed to be smoking their evil-smelling pipes.

He was finding it hard to connect with the atmosphere of gaiety and even merriment present in the other would-be travellers on the station and, he discovered, on the train to London after he’d boarded and it was on its way.

Instead of the carriage being full of people apparently determined not to speak to anyone else, as was usually the way with the English, these passengers seemed unable to stop talking to each other, describing exactly where they’d been and what they’d been doing when they’d heard the news that the war was over at last, followed by their reaction to it. Nor were they dressed in the manner of the normal London-bound commuter, but wore sports jackets, flannels and check shirts.

Nick remembered that today was a national holiday, and it turned out that his fellow travellers were on their way to share the day with their brother in Ipswich or their friends in Colchester, or going all the way to London to see their ‘jolly old mum and dad’, as one man put it.

‘And where were you, young man, when you heard that the whole ghastly business had finally been done with?’ he was asked by a chap sitting opposite, a florid individual in a green tweed suit.

‘About to have a bath,’ Nick said abruptly, which caused some merriment, though he couldn’t think why. At Windward Ho, Clarence had worn down the batteries on the wireless for days, listening to every word.

Just now, Nick was feeling rather uncomfortable with himself. He’d always been a sociable man, with plenty of friends. He supposed a person was bound to change if they cut themselves off from the world as he had done. And he would become even more unsociable once he returned to Windward Ho and married Mary. There would be no need to mix with anyone except Clarence and his daughter, which would suit him fine. He had proposed to Mary the other night while they were making love with the sound of the rippling tide in the background, anticipating a future of unalloyed tranquillity.

But first he had to see Eileen, ask for a divorce and tell her that the cottage would always belong to her. Oh, and say goodbye to Nicky. Doria would have given birth to his other child months ago – he didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl – and would be in Wimbledon with her parents, but he wouldn’t bother going there. A letter would do.

In Pearl Street, the children’s party was already half over by mid-afternoon. The rows of tables on each side of the street were full of crumbs and spilt lemonade. The cakes were yet to come. The mothers couldn’t help but compare today with the last time they had thrown such a big, lavish party in the street.

‘It was when Mary and Joey Flaherty were leaving for Canada,’ Brenda said. ‘Our Monica and Muriel were only half the size they are now.’ She and her girls wore identical scarlet taffeta frocks with loads of frills that she’d made herself. They looked too old for the girls and too young for their mother, but nobody cared. It was too wonderful a day to mind about piffling little things like clothes.

Gladys Tutty remembered the other party well – Eileen Costello, as she was then, had knocked on her door and invited Freda and Dicky to the party. She cringed, recalling the state the house and her kids had been in those days. Everything and everyone dead filthy, and she’d probably been as drunk as a lord on top.

There was no denying that as far as the Tuttys were concerned, the war had turned out to be a good thing. The kids had been evacuated to some dead posh house in Southport and it had been an entirely different Freda who’d come back, determined to change their lives.

And there she was, her Freda, across the street, talking to some new woman who’d just moved in. Nearly seventeen and as pretty as a picture. When she left Seafield Convent next year, she was going – Gladys could hardly believe it was true – to Cambridge University to study English! Her heart began to pound so loud and fast at the sheer enormity of it that she feared she might faint.