The Seven Streets of Liverpool (6 page)

Chapter 6

Summer had arrived. On a warm and sunny Sunday early in July, Jack Doyle was thrilled to see that the lettuces he had planted earlier in the year in Eileen’s garden in Melling had grown at least another inch and would soon be ready to be eaten. As someone whose lettuces in the past had always originated from the greengrocer’s, growing them himself was something akin to a miracle.

Tiny apples and pears had appeared on the fruit trees and gooseberries on the bushes. There was even a handful of strawberries, strictly meted out one at a time to Sheila and Brenda’s children, and of course Eileen’s son Nicky. Eventually, blackberries would appear on the prickly bushes at the bottom of the garden.

It had been a hard sacrifice to make, but Jack no longer took sugar in his tea, giving it instead to Eileen to make jams and pies. The pastry was rather hard because it didn’t have enough lard in it, but Jack loved to see Eileen lift a sweet-smelling crusty fruit pie out of the oven, or witness the jars of delicious home-made jam, of which he was always the first recipient.

It cheered him up tremendously, feeling that no matter what Hitler did, the British people would make the best of things. The men would fight their hardest and the women would keep the home fires burning, as the song said.

It worried him that Nick wasn’t home so often nowadays. He wasn’t sure what his son-in-law did down in London; something highly confidential and very important, he imagined. Perhaps it was connected with the recent invasion by the Allies of Sicily, the final step before reaching Italy and mainland Europe.

Jack knew he wasn’t the only one to wish with every fibre of his being that this bloody war would soon be over. It was a wish shared by every single person in the country.

Eileen watched from the kitchen window as her father, brow furrowed, stood beside the lettuces, lost in thought. One of the few good things that had come out of the war was her marrying Nick and moving into his cottage, thereby letting her dad loose on the large amount of land that went with it.

She wondered if, having lived his entire life in small terraced houses with only a tiny scrap of back yard, he’d always missed having a garden. He’d taken to it as if it was something he was born to, growing vegetables like an expert. The fruit bushes and some of the flowers – the hydrangeas, carnations, delphiniums and poppies – came up year after year and might have been there for ever, for all she knew. Perennials, Dad called them. Their scent was heady and overpowering, as if she had entered a different land. On summer mornings, when she drew back the kitchen curtains and heard the birds already chirping madly in the trees, Eileen quite expected to see elves and fairies playing in the wisps of mist on the patch of lawn outside.

Mostly the vegetables her father grew were given away – virtually every house in Pearl Street had benefited from the produce Jack Doyle had grown on his daughter’s land.

Directly outside the window, Nicky was playing in his sandpit. The sand had come from the beach at Formby; a friend of Nick’s had brought it before he’d had to give up his car when petrol became restricted to vitally important people like doctors. It was about time they acquired more sand and she reckoned that was Nick’s job, not hers.
She
didn’t know anyone with a car. But it was Sunday, and yet again he wasn’t coming home.

Eileen sniffed and blinked in an attempt to prevent herself from bursting into tears. Something was wrong, it must be. It wasn’t just that nowadays he only came home to Melling once a month when it used to be once a week, but once here, it was obvious he’d come to see his son and not his wife.

Could he have met someone else? Did he have another woman down in London? It was impossible to believe. Just thinking about it made her catch her breath, almost choke with disbelief. Not Nick, not the man to whom she had given herself for ever, in sickness and in health, in every single conceivable way. She had imagined them together in the cottage; extending it when they had more children, growing old here.

She watched through the window as Nicky left the sandpit and made his steady way down the garden, calling, ‘Gwandad!’ He was having trouble with his r’s.

Her father pushed the spade into the earth so that it stood on its own and held out his arms as the little boy approached.

‘You’re a great little lad, Nicky Stephens,’ she heard him say. He picked up his grandson, threw him over his shoulder and came marching up the garden towards her, Nicky squealing with delight.

They arrived at the open kitchen door. ‘Where’s that bloody husband of yours?’ demanded Jack, making Eileen want to cry again, though her father would cringe with embarrassment if she did.

‘He has loads of work to do,’ she muttered. ‘He’s overwhelmed with it.’

‘You said that last time I asked – or it might have been the time before.’ He nodded towards the hall. ‘If I call him on that thing in there, will he answer?’ He meant the telephone, which he only used occasionally because it made him nervous.

‘He’s not allowed to take calls in the office,’ Eileen said.

‘Then how the hell do you speak to each other?’

‘It’s not really allowed, but he can call me when the woman on the switchboard goes for her dinner and some other woman takes over who doesn’t mind. There isn’t a phone in his digs.’

‘Has he called over the last few days?’ Jack put Nicky on the floor and the boy immediately tried to climb back up his legs.

Eileen hung her head as if she’d done something wrong at school. ‘No,’ she whispered.

‘Bastard,’ spat her dad. ‘I never thought I’d use that word about Nick Stephens.’

Eileen lost her temper. ‘And you shouldn’t now,’ she snapped. ‘Something might be wrong and he doesn’t want to worry me. And what makes you think he isn’t genuinely overwhelmed with work?’

Her father’s cheeks were red with anger. ‘Then he’s been overwhelmed a bloody long time. What’s wrong with him? Have you asked him straight? If you haven’t, then next time he deigns to show himself, I suggest you do. If you won’t, I’ll do it meself.’

‘Oh go away, Dad. Leave me alone. Anyroad, I’ve got to get ready for Mass.’ She picked up Nicky and almost ran out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.

Ten minutes later, when she and her son were ready, she returned to the kitchen intending to apologise, but her father wasn’t there, nor was there any sign of him in the garden, or of his bike.

Things couldn’t go on like this. When Nick had first started not coming home as much as he’d used to, he’d always phoned to let her know. But now he no longer bothered. Twice he had turned up unexpectedly on a Sunday afternoon, as if he’d found himself with time to spare and thought he might as well go home and see his wife and child, even if it only left him with a couple of hours in Melling before having to return to London.

Mass over and back home again, Eileen sat down and wrote him a letter. It was the only way she could be sure of getting in touch. She had no intention of begging and making herself sound pathetic. That wasn’t the sort of relationship they had. If she couldn’t talk to him –
write
to him – as if she was an equal partner in the marriage, then she wouldn’t write to him at all.

In the letter, she merely asked, calmly and politely, what was going on –
was
something going on? She didn’t ask if she had offended him, or he had gone off her – that would have been demeaning. Just a simple question: what, if anything, was wrong?

Her father had left and Sheila wouldn’t be coming over today; there was something happening at Sunday School that her children and Brenda’s girls were involved in. Eileen would have gone to Bootle to see them, but there was always a chance that Nick might turn up unannounced, as he had done before.

She had no alternative but to stay at home with her son for company. In fact, Nicky was jolly good company, but short on conversation. They went outside and sat on a bench together, and in a very short time, Nicky laid his head on her knee and fell asleep.

There was no getting away from it: despite the little paradise in which she now lived, she missed Bootle, where she had lived cheek by jowl with her neighbours, where the only thing that met her eye when she drew back the curtains was a brick wall, where everyone knew her business. Were she still living in Bootle, there were at least a dozen people she could have called on and the same number who might have called on her. Had Nick turned up when she was out, someone would know where she had gone and would tell him. Paradise could be lonely at times.

She’d get a lodger, she decided. She’d let out the second bedroom where Nicky usually slept; he could sleep with her for the time being. There was a munitions factory in the village. She had been working there herself when she’d met Nick, and it was where one of her best friends, Kate Thomas, was employed. Kate was in charge of the welfare of the female workers, who came from all over the country. She found them places to live and dealt with their various problems. She was bound to know someone who needed somewhere to live.

She felt guilty at the idea of taking in a lodger for company rather than out of compassion, but she would leave the woman, whoever she was, entirely to her own devices. It was just the idea of another person living in the house that attracted her.

Eileen had almost fallen asleep herself when she became aware that someone was knocking on the front door. She carefully removed Nicky from her knee and laid him on the bench, then went to see who was there.

At first, she didn’t recognise the young man standing outside, though his blond hair looked familiar.

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she stammered, ‘but …’

‘It’s Peter Wood,’ he said helpfully. ‘I was at your garden party.’

‘Oh, I remember, yes.’ She stood aside to let him in. ‘Have you come to Melling to see your uncle again – is he at home this time?’

‘Yes, but he’s got friends there, so I thought I’d come and see you – and your sister with all the children – how many is it?’

‘Seven. She has about one a year. But she wasn’t able to come today. Look, would you like to go into the back garden? Nicky’s out there, asleep. If he wakes up, he’s likely to fall off the bench.’

She led him through the house, putting the kettle on to boil on the way. Peter Wood might prefer a cold drink, but she was more than ready for a cup of tea.

‘Do you have just the one child?’ he enquired.

‘Now I do, yes. I had another son, Tony, but he was killed in an air raid when he was six, along with my first husband.’ It upset her and probably embarrassed people when she said that, but she wasn’t going to deny Tony’s existence for anyone’s sake.

‘I’m so sorry.’ He sounded as if he really meant it.

Peter disliked using an alias, deceiving her. He tried to remember why he wasn’t able to use his real name and recalled that it was in case she mentioned to her despicable husband that a Peter Mallory had been to the house; the husband would put two and two together straight away. Today, Stephens and Doria had gone to a party somewhere in the wilds of Suffolk, so Peter had known he wouldn’t be coming to see his wife and son.

His relationship with Eileen was starting off with serious complications. Lord knew how it would end. But even if he had to remain Peter Wood for the rest of his life, he was determined to make the beautiful Mrs Stephens his wife at some time in the future. He decided not to think too closely about what he would say to his parents and the rest of his family when that happened, for how could he possibly tell Eileen the truth?

An hour later, Eileen had another visitor. Having learnt that Sheila didn’t intend going to see her sister today, Lena Newton had summoned up the courage to go to Melling herself. She had checked with Sheila that there was no likelihood of Eileen’s husband being there. ‘I wouldn’t want to be in the way,’ she said.

‘You wouldn’t be, because he’s not going to be there. He’s
overwhelmed
with work,’ Sheila snorted. ‘Personally, I think he’s up to something, but I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that to our Eileen. She’ll be dead pleased if you go and see her, Lena. I worry about her feeling lonely, stuck out there all on her own, I really do.’

Lena was able to buy Nicky a little present, a tiny teddy bear only five inches tall that was for sale in a sweet shop for just sixpence.

She was mortified when she arrived to find that Eileen already had a visitor – the handsome young man who’d been at the garden party – but there was no denying that Eileen was glad to see her. ‘I’m finding it difficult to entertain him,’ she whispered when she let her in.

The conversation was much easier with three people, and just after half past two, a third caller arrived. Jack Doyle, feeling guilty for having left the cottage earlier in a huff, had returned to make things up with his daughter. He had spent the intervening hours in the King’s Arms and wobbled his way to Melling on his bike.

The two men argued fiercely over the war and the way it was being conducted. Jack thought it would all be over in a year, whereas Peter considered it would take at least another three. Eileen and Lena made faces at each other and smiled. Politics aside, the men seemed to be getting on famously.

It turned out to be an exceptionally pleasant afternoon. The sun got no warmer and was ideal to sit under on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Although Eileen loved her sister visiting, her seven children plus Brenda’s two could often be overwhelming – just like Nick’s work, she thought ironically.

While Jack was showing Peter around the garden, she and Lena went into the kitchen to make sandwiches and were at last able to have a conversation. Lena turned out to be a big fan of the pictures and had seen all the latest films.

Eileen confessed she hadn’t been for ages. ‘In fact the last time I went was to see
Gone With the Wind
.’

‘I’ve seen that twice,’ Lena said. ‘I could easily sit through it again.’

‘Well I’ve only seen it the once, and even then I didn’t manage to get to the end. I went with two of me friends and one only decided to have a baby right in the middle.’