Kitabı oku: «Christmas on the Mersey»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Keep Reading: CHILD OF THE MERSEY

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Annie Groves

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE
October 1940

‘The patients who are too ill to be moved will have to go under the beds!’ Sister Rita Kennedy said as she hurried down the long ward, clearing it of patients who could be moved to the basement. The Germans had been dropping bombs almost every night since August. Now they were targeting the docks, so close to the hospital that Sister Kennedy imagined the pilots could probably smell the antiseptic they cleaned the floors with.

Many of the patients had been moved to hospitals in safer locations months ago. This hospital, close to the vital supply line, was a prime target. Everybody around here knew that to put the docks out of oper­ation would be seen as a major coup for Germany. These remaining patients were emergency cases, brought in for assessment or emergency surgery before being sent elsewhere. The ward was busy every day, but since the raid started, only moments ago, it was like Lime Street Station at rush hour.

‘Johnny the porter said an enemy plane has been shot down over Gladstone Dock!’ Sister Kennedy did not have to listen too carefully to hear the probationer nurse’s excited words. ‘He said the pilot has landed in the Mersey.’ Sister Kennedy, like everybody else in this hospital, had friends and family who were serving, but this was neither the time nor the place to gloat.

‘They say he’s still alive and they’ve sent a crew to seize him!’

‘Do you think they’ll bring him here?’ another nurse enquired as they helped an old woman from her bed. The sound of anti-aircraft fire almost drowned out her question.

‘There’s no time for idle gossip, just get on with making the patients as safe as you can, please.’ Twenty-five-year-old Rita’s nerves were raw; her own children, just a few minutes’ walk away from the dockside hospital, had been brought back from the farm to which they were once evacuated. They were so happy there, Rita knew, but now they were in as much danger as everybody else.

‘Let’s not frighten the patients with supposition, Nurse,’ Rita whispered, and the young nurse nodded.

Promoted to ward sister just last week, Rita had no intention of voicing or showing her fears to the junior nurses. Panic could spread, she knew, and keeping a cool head was vital. Hitler’s Luftwaffe had so far failed to invade Britain by defeating the RAF in the skies over the South-East, but there was no let-up in their attempts, and they were now attacking the industrial cities and ports across the country. Rita pushed down on her growing anxiety. Why had she insisted on bringing the children home from the safety of their countryside billet near Southport?

There were so many of her family to worry about, too. Rita said a quick, silent prayer for her brother Eddy. He was sailing with the convoys in the North Atlantic, bringing back vital food and supplies. He told her, when he was home last time, that the wild, impetuous ocean could be a terrifying place for the most experienced sailor, and that was without tor­pedoes firing at them. Now Rita thought she knew a little of what he was going through.

‘That’s enough chattering.’ Rita, impatient now, worried that the two young nurses, still speculating about the shot-down German bomber, were not moving fast enough. ‘You know what they say about loose lips!’ This hospital would be the first place to bring the injured aviator – even if he was an enemy pilot. However, they were not here to judge but to ease the suffering of every patient brought through the double doors of the hospital, no matter what his nationality. ‘Go to it!’

‘Yes, Sister,’ the junior nurses chorused and resumed their duties. Rita kept half an ear on the drone of enemy aircraft as she made her patients safe, her practised demeanour professional and efficient. Internally, however, her terrified thoughts were with her children, Michael and Megan.

Please, Lord, make them safe, she prayed silently. Don’t let anything happen to my babies.

Michael and Megan would now be huddled in the corner of the cellar beneath the shop where Rita lived with her husband, Charlie, and his poisonous mother, Winnie Kennedy, who owned and ran the corner store. The cellar was where she stored her stock and they should be safe down there. Rita wished that she were there with them, but when the country was crying out for nurses, how could she duck her duty, especially after the fall of France last June? The enemy was only just across the Channel.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ Nurse Maeve Kerrigan said. ‘Sounds like all hell is breaking loose out there.’ Rita and Maeve had been firm friends since they started work at Bootle Infirmary on the same day. Maeve had been a cheeky upstart but her sense of humour and ability to keep everyone’s spirits up had built bridges with Matron, and the patients all adored her. Maeve quickly took in Rita’s furrowed brow.

‘I can imagine what’s going through your head. But the ould battle-axe will manage your two young snappers,’ she said quietly, so as no one would overhear. ‘She might be a witch, but she’s still their granny.’

‘But she’s not their mother.’ Rita knew her friend was trying to calm her as they eased a post-operative patient into a wheelchair. ‘I’ll never forgive myself if anything—’

‘Enough of that,’ Maeve whispered. ‘You’ll drive yourself demented if you carry on thinking that way.’

Rita nodded, turning to help another patient into his dressing gown. It was impossible not to be burdened with maternal guilt. If one hair on either of their heads was hurt …

‘Anyway, if the Germans did land, you could hand her over first. They’d swim back over the Channel faster than you can say “Jack Robinson” once they got an earful of her bile. She’d make up a whole new front!’ Maeve added in that crisp Irish tone that could change from angelic to raucous in the blink of an eye.

‘Come on, let’s get the patients out of here.’ Rita pulled herself together and took a deep breath to calm her racing heart; there were thousands of mothers going through the same thing all over England. She had her patients to think about now.

The almost deafening sound of an explosion close by made the medical staff move even faster.

Michael and Megan would be terrified. The thought made Rita blanch. Her skin was now clammy. It would be her fault if anything happened to her children. She was the one who had persuaded Charlie to let her bring them home from the farm when there were no signs of air raids or invasion, something the news­papers called ‘the phoney war’. Charlie had said Michael and Megan were safer in the countryside, but after Rita’s repeated begging, he had reluctantly agreed to let them come home. However, now Rita was certain she had done the wrong thing – Empire Street, right by the docks, was one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Please Lord, Rita sent another silent prayer to heaven as she moved the patients, please keep my children safe.

Rita could recall with clarity the look on Charlie’s face seven and a half years ago when he held Michael for the first time. Sometimes, Rita could still feel the crippling remorse that she experienced then, but now it was for a different reason. Now her remorse was for the choices she had made and for the life she would never have. Any guilt she had left was for her children and her inability to give them a happy home life and an adoring father. Her husband had proved himself to be a liar, a cheat and a brute.

However, this was not the time for thinking such things, she acknowledged as another barrage of anti-aircraft fire stalled further thoughts. Right now her priority was the safety of her patients.

The blast from nearby incendiaries shuddered through the building and Rita fought the urge to duck under the nearest bed, instead calling for the nurses to remain calm and go about their work as quickly as they could. She thought she had moved all the patients from along the far wall where splintered glass from a whole row of shattered windows jettisoned onto the ward, causing the blinds to flap like startled blackbirds in the chilly, damp night air. To her horror, however, Rita could now see that Albert Scott, a kindly old man who had taken a nasty fall during one of the recent raids and had broken his hip, was still in his bed near the window and urgently needed moving into the middle of the ward.

‘Don’t worry, Bert, I’m on my way,’ she called as she ran across, careful to sidestep the broken glass that littered the whole floor. The deafening roar of exploding bombs and anti-aircraft fire coming through the windows was disconcerting, but Rita could see that the ward was a sitting duck for the bombers with the blown-out windows and blackout curtains torn to shreds.

‘Turn those lights off!’ she yelled, and the room switched to sudden blackness, lit only by the fires that blazed outside and the searchlights directing the ack-ack gunfire.

‘Are you all right, Bert?’ she asked, taking the old man’s hand.

He gripped hers tightly, but his voice, though weak, was determined. ‘Don’t you be worrying about me, love. I saw worse than this in the trenches. Jerry didn’t get me then, and he won’t get me now.’

‘You tell ’em, Bert.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Now bear with me while I just try and get you a bit more comfortable. Maeve, come here and give me a hand with this.’

Rita shook broken glass from the blankets, then asked Maeve to help her manoeuvre a heavy mattress from one of the empty beds over Bert, who could not move from his own. But the mattress was covered with shards of broken glass and Rita had underestimated the weight of it. It took the combined strength of both women to lift it off. As they did, there was another ear-splitting scream overhead and then another blast shook the building, loosening more glass from the damaged windows.

‘For God’s sake, get down!’ Rita screamed, and Maeve fell to the floor and crawled beneath one of the beds, while Rita desperately tried to cushion herself and Bert with the mattress. The bombardment continued for several more minutes though it seemed to Rita to last for hours.

Once the planes had dropped their deadly load and passed over, Rita lifted her head and saw to her horror that it was too late. She had managed to shield Bert from the worst of the falling glass and masonry, but it had all been too much for him and she thought that his heart had given out. He lay still, his eyes glassy and empty. ‘He’s dead. The bastards!’ Maeve swore to the sky. Rita did not admonish Maeve – she felt exactly the same way – but she urged Maeve to keep her voice down so as not to scare the other patients.

‘Oh, Bert,’ Rita whispered, looking sadly down at the dead man. Gently she touched his pale and wrinkled hand. ‘He’d already been through so much.’

Rita felt the sting of tears behind her eyes but she knew there was no time for indulging her emotions. The all clear was sounding and she had to organise the clear-up.

‘Right, everyone, we need to get the ARP to help us board up these windows and get all of this glass up. Don’t be tempted to clean it up yourselves; you’re likely to be cut to shreds.’

Over the next few hours, Rita even had the staff singing to keep up morale as they moved the patients back to bed and continued the clean-up. Eventually, the glass was cleared and they were busy boarding up the windows.

After welcome cups of cocoa and slices of freshly made toast were given to the shaken-up patients, the nurses themselves were able to take a breather and headed for their own cups of cocoa in the small kitchen at the end of the ward. It is a wonder no other patients were harmed tonight, Rita thought. The dead man was taken to the morgue while she said a silent prayer of thanks that everybody else had come through the awful barrage unscathed.

Tired but keen to get home at the end of her shift, she hurried down the long corridor. The cabbage-green tiled walls felt as if they were closing in on her now. She was desperate to get home to see her children.

Picking up a daily newspaper on her way home, Rita was eager for any news of the war at sea. She was the eldest of Pop and Dolly Kennedy’s five children. Frank, a petty officer in the Royal Navy, had frightened the living daylights out of everyone when he had lost a leg after his ship was torpedoed. He was making a good recovery but Rita knew that the scars ran deep. Her younger brother, Eddy, the merchant seaman, was in great danger of falling victim to German U-boats in the North Atlantic convoys. Front-line warriors, Pop called them, although it was the air battles that still seemed to dominate the news. Not surprising after the Royal Air Force had successfully defended the skies of the South-East in the conflict Mr Churchill called the Battle of Britain. Rita’s younger sister, Sarah, was also doing her bit by training to be a Red Cross nurse.

Reading between the lines of the news reports, it was hard to get a handle on the real story. The paper was full of the victories of Fighter Command, but Pop said that the papers weren’t allowed to be honest about the real losses as it would be bad for morale. But there was no doubt that the RAF had carried out a heroic defence of the country and that ordinary people had so much to be thankful for. It was far from over, however. Day after day, the Luftwaffe continued their deadly assaults on the larger cities all over the country. There was no hiding the reality of the destructive power of the German air raids. Fighter Command were under extreme pressure, the newspaper said.

‘Don’t we know it,’ Rita said aloud, aware that people in this part of the country were as much in the front line as the soldiers and the fighter pilots. It was not just the men like Eddy that risked their lives, but also those who loaded and unloaded the ships that ferried the necessities of war and civilian life. They too were the target of the Luftwaffe.

Rita now knew the truth of the rumour that a young German pilot had been brought in injured. She pushed down the hope that he was suffering as much as Frank, whose leg had had to be amputated below the knee after infection had set in. She also tried to rid her mind of the fact that the German may know others who would try to blow up the supply ship on which Eddy served, and which had to run the gauntlet of torpedoes and mines every single day. Yes, she was ashamed of feeling that way; it was unchristian as well as cruel. But when she thought again of Bert’s lifeless body, she couldn’t help herself.

‘Mammy!’ Michael and Megan shot up from the breakfast table to greet their mother, and Rita’s heart sang with joy and relief.

‘Oh, thank God you are safe!’ She scooped her children into her arms, thankful beyond words that they were unharmed.

‘Mammy, we could hear the German planes dropping their bombs. It was so exciting – can I go out and look at the flattened houses?’ Rita looked in amazement at Michael. His eyes were shining with excitement and for a moment she could almost feel what it must be like to be a seven-year-old boy living through these interesting times. But then her anxiety kicked in again and she prayed that she would not have to go through another night of worry as she had last night, knowing there was little she could do about it now the hospital needed her. But her children needed her too. How many other women were feeling like she did this morning, she wondered, torn between her nursing duty and a mother’s fear? Rita felt absolutely wretched at the thought of another night away from them.

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she admonished gently, ruffling her son’s hair as he chattered away nineteen to the dozen. Rita felt a little hand squeeze her own and looked down to see the pale face of Megan. Unlike Michael, she was quiet and clingy. Rita hugged Megan to her and felt her heart wrench at how frightened the little girl must have been without her.

‘Small thanks to you, they are fine.’

Charlie’s barbed words caused that familiar feeling of guilt to rise up in Rita’s heart as he entered the small breakfast room, his mother – making a great play of her bad leg – following behind. Rita looked at him. He was lean and once upon a time she had thought him handsome, but now his hair was thinning and his face always bore a sneer, or his words a put-down. Sometimes she could barely bring herself to look at him. Now his icy glare seized her and held her in its grasp. Rita knew that trouble had been brewing and she steeled herself for his onslaught.

‘What kind of a mother leaves her children during an air raid?’ Charlie’s voice was laced with malice as he addressed his mother, who nodded in agreement.

Ma Kennedy had assumed her usual seat by the window. She was wearing her housecoat and had her hair in curlers, covered by a headscarf. Her face wore the sour look of disapproval that Rita had come to know so well.

‘I know Charles, it is unforgivable! You have an obligation to your family, Rita!’ Mrs Kennedy’s mouth puckered and her condescending expression told Rita she thought she wasn’t much of a mother if she could not be here for her own children during an air raid.

Rita felt that she had little room for manoeuvre when they ganged up on her like this. These days she usually put up a strong resistance, but her own guilt and anxiety were threatening to gang up on her too. She felt weak, tired and unable to defend herself. She should have been here. Of course, she should.

‘You both know that hospitals all over the land are in dire need of trained staff. People like me are in short supply,’ she countered weakly.

‘People like you?’ Charlie sneered. ‘Listen to Rita, Mother! Looks like she’s going to save the country single-handed. Shame she doesn’t feel as strongly about her own kids.’

Rita felt her stomach dip.

‘You’ll have to tell her, Charles.’ His mother was standing now, poker stiff at the side of the table while Rita, feeling as bad as it was possible for a mother to feel, none the less did not fail to notice the sidelong, warning glance Charlie gave his mother.

‘Mind your own business, can’t you?’ His tone now turned to impatience as he barked at the children, ‘Michael, take Megan through next door to the lounge and put the wireless on.’

The children both looked at Rita uncertainly, but she nodded for them to go. It wouldn’t do for them to get caught up in a row.

‘Tell me what?’ Rita’s throat tightened and she found it difficult to swallow, her mouth now paper dry with trepidation.

‘The children are being evacuated today – this morning,’ Charlie said without preamble. ‘It’s all arranged – and don’t even think about trying to stop it.’ He did not hang around long enough for Rita to answer but stalked from the room. She could hear him taking the stairs two at a time.

Rita was confused. What did he mean, they were going to be evacuated today? Where to? They’d been back home for only a few months. She scraped back the chair and stood up, but before she left the room she laid her hands flat upon the table and leaned towards Mrs Kennedy.

‘Did you know about this?’ She knew her husband couldn’t organise the children’s evacuation on his own. He would not have the foggiest idea where to start.

Ma Kennedy folded her arms and looked away. ‘I’m saying nothing,’ was all she offered.

Rita pushed down her anger at her mother-in-law and headed for the stairs at a run. She opened Megan’s bedroom door to find Charlie there, and her heart lurched. There were two suitcases on the bed, one for each of her children, and he was folding Megan’s clothes into hers.

‘Are you sending them back to Freshfield Farm?’ It had been so harrowing when they were evacuated last time, billeted on a farm way outside the city. The people that had looked after the children were decent folk and the children were happy. Rita knew that they had been well looked after. If they had to go away again, it would break her heart, but she also knew that the children were no longer safe. Charlie was right.

‘No. I’ve made other arrangements.’

Cold fear ran through Rita’s veins as she heard these words and her voice shook. ‘What other arrangements? What do you mean? Tell me!’

‘Get a grip of yourself, woman.’ Charlie’s voice was full of scorn. ‘I’ve got a place lined up …’

‘Where?’ Rita asked.

At first he said nothing, ignoring her as he put a few more items into Megan’s suitcase, which had been neatly packed. Charlie never lifted a finger around the house and would have as much idea about packing a suitcase as flying a Spitfire. His mother must have helped him. He stopped what he was doing and straightened up, his expression full of contempt for her.

‘I know of a little boarding house in Southport.’

‘How?’ Rita asked. ‘We don’t have any family there.’

‘It’s run by an old lady Mother knows, Elsie Lowe …’ Charlie looked away again and shut the lid of Michael’s suitcase.

‘Is this your mother’s doing? She’s never liked the children being here. This would be her way of getting them out from under her feet …’

‘You were the one who said they should come back here to the Luftwaffe’s playground,’ Charlie said, his unwavering stare boring into her. ‘It was you who put them in danger, remember that.’

‘There were no raids when they came home!’ Rita tried to remain calm, but was finding it difficult. What was Charlie up to? She knew Michael and Megan should be somewhere safer but why wasn’t he taking them back to the farm?

‘If anything had happened to them last night, it would have been your fault, Rita. Yours! Nobody else’s.’ He was quiet for a moment. ‘What kind of mother puts strangers before her own kids?’

‘It is my duty as a trained nurse to serve,’ Rita answered, knowing he had made no great shakes to oblige his country in any capacity yet, and by the look of it he had no intention of doing so now.

‘It’s also your duty to look after your children. But you can’t do that with your precious work so I will be going with them.’

Rita tried a different tactic; if she fought him he would become even more determined. ‘Of course you are right, as always.’ His shoulders relaxed just a little. ‘But, as you know, when people started calling it “the phoney war” it seemed ridiculous to keep the kids away from home.’

‘Well, it’s not so phoney now, is it, Rita?’ His shoulders stiffened again, indicating his mind was made up.

Rita told herself any mother would have brought her children home when there was no threat – and a lot of children had come home, like Tommy, Kitty Callaghan’s little brother just up the street. Rita had begged and begged for her children to be allowed to come back, but Charlie refused her pleas until it suited him. Until then, Rita had had to make do with monthly visits; it was all her shifts at the hospital could accommodate.

Rita was starting to lose control of her emotions. The words came out like gunfire.

‘You’ve never cared about the children. The only reason you brought them back was because you wanted to get me back into the marital bed again. You don’t give a damn for their wellbeing – all you care about is yourself!’

Rita tried not to think about the terrible events following Sonny Callaghan’s funeral. Charlie had found her with Jack Callaghan and, though they had done nothing wrong, he had viciously attacked and forced himself on her, though Rita knew her marriage was in tatters before then. Charlie’s squandering of their life savings had seen to that, but this had been an unspeakable act. Rita had sworn that she would never let him near her again, but the high price for getting her children home was moving back into the marital bed. After he and Rita had married, Charlie had ceased to show any interest in her sexually and Rita knew this wasn’t normal. But since Charlie had attacked her that time, he got a perverse pleasure from his cruelty and bedtimes were something that she now dreaded.

‘On the contrary, Rita, everyone thinks that it’s you that doesn’t give a damn for your children, so maybe you should have thought harder before you went off to play Florence Nightingale!’

Rita had lost the battle to stop the panic rising in her voice. ‘There’s no way I’m letting you take my kids away to God knows where with God knows who. I’ll give my notice at the hospital and I’ll go with them.’ Rita knew she was clutching at straws.

‘You have work to do here. Remember?’

‘I can get a transfer; they need nurses in other hospitals too.’

‘We are moving somewhere safer; to a better-class neighbourhood.’ Charlie’s voice dripped scorn and Rita knew that he’d made his mind up. There was something dangerous about his mood, too – she’d seen him like this before. When he behaved this way he could turn and either lose all control or terrorise her in that low, underhand way. His cold eyes were a familiar indication of the depraved depths to which Rita knew her husband could sink.

Charlie, menacing now, edged forward. ‘Poor Rita. Going to miss your children, are you? Or is it really me that you’re going to miss?’ Rita felt her parched tongue slide over the roof of her mouth, now paper dry with fear. He was between her and the door. She would not get out this time without a struggle.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her voice was low now, sticking in her throat. Don’t show him you’re scared, Rita, that’s what he wants.

‘I know how you really like it, Rita, just like at the beginning, flaunting yourself like the slut you are.’ He gave a small contemptible laugh. ‘You never thought I’d cotton on, did you … you tricked me into marrying you and caught me good and proper …’ His face twisted into something ugly now. ‘Take me, Charlie … I need you, Charlie … we are good together, Charlie!’ he jeered.

‘I did not say those things!’ Outrage replaced Rita’s fear.

‘You threw yourself at me,’ Charlie spat accusingly, ‘just to get a husband …’

Rita remembered only too well what had happened between her and Charlie. It was seared indelibly on her mind. Even when his hands were all over her she knew it was wrong … The eau-de-Cologne scent of gin still made her retch even now. Charlie was right, she had tricked him. But not for the reasons he thought. Charlie never allowed her to forget she let him ‘have her’ before marriage. Once – just once – but it was enough and she had paid for it every day since. If Charlie ever found out why she’d allowed it … the thought of it alone made her feel sick.

‘I could have been out of this lousy street long before now.’ Charlie made a sudden movement with his hand, making her flinch. She could see her nervousness amused him by the way his lazy grin made his thin yard-brush moustache bristle. Any fond feelings she had had for him at the beginning of their marriage were now dead. He’d seen to that. Rita thought she could change him into a more caring person when they were married. She had been a fool.

‘I didn’t marry you because I loved you … I married you to stop you marrying Jack Callaghan.’ His callous words were snarled low, for her hearing alone. ‘The great Jack Callaghan, the pride of Merseyside. The love of your life.’ Charlie looked at her with something akin to hate now when he said, ‘Don’t think I didn’t see the way he looked at you, or the way you looked at him when you thought nobody could see. Well, I saw! I saw plenty. But I’ll tell you this for nowt – you’re mine now … remember that!’

With mention of Jack Callaghan, Rita had a sudden vision of him, his kind eyes and strong face looking into her own. I’ve always loved you, Rita. You know that, don’t you? If only Jack were here now. He’d never let Charlie treat her this way. But she had married Charlie instead of Jack. She had been a deceiver and this was the price she was paying. All the same, the thought of Jack and his words gave her strength.

‘I know you, Charlie Kennedy, you’re up to something.’ Even in her anxious state, something was niggling away at her.

Charlie was still managing to evade conscription but that wouldn’t last for ever. Men were being called up all over Liverpool and Charlie’s turn would come. Was leaving with the kids some way of avoiding his duty? He couldn’t look at the children most days, let alone show them affection. Were the children to be solely in his hands, she feared for their welfare. And what about his job? How could he look after Michael and Megan when he was working all day? Questions tumbled inside her head.

‘The appeal of marriage soon wore off when you got the gold ring on your finger … Prim and proper on the outside, but I know different,’ Charlie continued.

Rita bit back a retort, knowing it was wise not to antagonise him. What choice did she have? Her husband’s put-downs, while making her feel stupid, were a small reminder of the wrong she had done. To add to the misery, his mother expected her to carry the burden of running the corner shop and raising two children virtually alone. Was it any wonder she went back to nursing with her arms wide open as soon as the children were evacuated?

While accepting this was her lot in life, Rita adored her beloved children above all else.

You play with the hand you’re dealt, Rita. Her mind echoed Charlie’s sentiments now and Rita felt she was getting no more than she deserved. Like most women round here, she had made her bed and now she must lie in it. Being Catholic, she would never contemplate divorce – the idea was ludicrous in a place like Empire Street, where women married for life but not always for love. For women like her, happiness was a bonus, not an expectation.

‘I don’t understand why they can’t just go back to Freshfield,’ she said again.

‘Those people tried turning my children against me.’ Charlie went back to the suitcase and Rita wondered what excuse he would make next. ‘They hid behind the old woman’s skirts like I was the bogeyman.’

‘You hadn’t been to see them for months,’ Rita explained. ‘They thought they had done something wrong when you attacked the farmer!’

‘He tried to stop me taking them home.’

‘He’d never seen you before.’ Rita knew that Charlie was lucky he had not been threatened with a shotgun – ‘Uncle Seth’, as the children called the farmer, was very protective of Michael and Megan and a very good shot.

‘Michael took his time confirming I was, in fact, his father,’ Charlie straightened himself to his full six foot, ‘which just goes to show they were in need of a firm hand!’

Rita gasped at his delusions of civil paternity … Charlie had no patience with his children or, indeed, anyone else.

‘I can take them to the farm myself,’ Rita said. ‘Joan would be thrilled to have them back. I got a letter from her yesterday. She asked if …’

Charlie’s head was still bent as he raised his eyes. They cut her with a warning glare that told her to be quiet or else; to say no more. It told her that she was making things worse for herself.

‘Go down. You’re wasting precious time with your beloved children,’ he said. ‘You’ve shown where your priorities lie, even when it is obvious your own flesh and blood need you more.’

‘Charlie, there is a war on. People are dying and the hospitals need all the nurses they can get.’

‘Of course.’ His eyes were full of scorn. ‘That is why I am releasing you of the burden of your own children.’

‘They have never been a burden! You must tell me where you are taking them!’ Rita’s voice was rising, becoming shrill with anxiety. She must remain calm. Think straight. He would want her to dissolve into hysterics. That way he was in control. His lips parted into a disparaging grin as he mimicked her words in better times.

‘I love my children more than life itself!’ He threw his head back and gave a laugh that was far from humorous. ‘You should be on the stage at the Metropole, Rita.’

There was a cold gleam in his eyes and Charlie’s words were low when he said, ‘All in good time, Rita. You know, you can be very entertaining when you’re riled.’

Horrified, she watched Charlie stop packing the little suitcase. His eyes were now taking in every inch of her body, pausing on the parts he would claim without consent, given the chance. Rita froze, aware now what he had in mind. He was going to put her in her place. This was the real reason he had agreed to bringing the children back from evacuation. His violent attentions – she could never call it lovemaking – were so painful they reduced her to tears. She prayed for him to stop, unable to cry out for fear the children would hear. It was her duty to preserve her children’s innocence.

Her eyes never left him as he edged towards her. Bitter bile was searing her throat. How far was she from the closed bedroom door? She would never get past him from this distance.

Rita felt the blood run like cold water through her veins. It was broad daylight. Her children were downstairs having breakfast. She could hear them chatting away. He wouldn’t … Not now …

Charlie moved inch … by inch … enjoying her torment.

Please Lord, don’t let him do this to me again …

CHAPTER TWO

‘Mrs Kerrigan, have you seen the rest of my Lady Jane’s?’ Nancy Kerrigan, twenty-year-old wife of Corporal Sid Kerrigan, POW, of the Cheshire Regi­ment, had wound half of her shoulder-length, Titian-coloured hair into little Catherine-wheel twists before securing them with silver clips. If she’s given them to the salvage men, Nancy thought, she’ll get the sharp edge of my tongue!

‘You left them in the parlour,’ Mrs Kerrigan said, bringing a paper bag into the back kitchen, where Nancy was standing on the tips of her toes looking into the oval mirror hanging from the nail above the deep stone sink. Nancy let out an impatient sigh; her mother-in-law was always snooping in her private things. She didn’t know what the old woman expected to find but she was going to be disappointed.

‘What did you want in the parlour?’ Nancy asked, her suspicions aroused when Mrs Kerrigan put the paper bag containing the rest of her clips onto the wet draining board, so that the paper became all soggy. ‘You had no right going into my private sitting room.’ She paid Sid’s mother good rent out of Sid’s army allowance money every week. ‘There’s no privacy in this house.’

Through the looking-glass, she could see the older woman’s glare of disapproval, looking down her pointed nose and flaring her thin nostrils, though she did not answer.

‘Off out again, are we?’ Mrs Kerrigan asked instead, in that pained voice that grated on Nancy’s nerves. Nancy knew if her husband were here the old bag would not speak to her like that. She would make sure she told him next time she wrote. He would soon put his mother straight on a few things, including how to treat his wife and mother of his son.

‘Yes, with my friend Gloria – you know Gloria, don’t you?’ Nancy said innocently, winding a section of hair around her index finger, placing it in a way she had done hundreds of times before against her scalp and pinning it in place with another clip. Nancy was pleased with the way she looked. Eyeing herself in the glass she wondered if she was a bit thinner these last few months. Everyone was going without and there was seemingly nothing that wasn’t either rationed or in short supply. Her Sid preferred her with a few curves, but Nancy quite liked the new sharpness to her cheekbones.

‘Oh, yes, I know Gloria, a good-time girl if ever there was one.’ There was no mistaking the contempt in Mrs Kerrigan’s voice. ‘Half the foreign fleet know Gloria.’

Nancy could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. She yearned to tell the po-faced woman what she thought of her pious ways; spending as much time polishing the altar rails with her prayers as she did calling her neighbours fit to burn in hell. How could Sid’s mam be so religious when she was so nasty?

‘Only half of them?’ Nancy could not contain herself. ‘My word, she is slipping!’ She took a sideways glance at the older woman, who banged a cast-iron pan on the stove to show how angry she was. Nancy returned to the mirror, now applying her new bright red lipstick. When she and Gloria had last been to the Adelphi, one of the RAF servicemen had complimented her, telling her that she looked a bit like Rita Hayworth, which she’d always secretly thought herself. Nancy almost smiled at the recollection but the presence of her harping mother-in-law was enough to sour the memory. She’d had enough of her sniping, but she’d been brought up not to cheek her elders, no matter how much she was provoked. Also, she had Sid to think about.

‘It’s not like this is a regular thing.’ She had to be careful now, knowing Mrs Kerrigan kept nothing from Sid. ‘I went out twice last week. I treated Mam to a George Formby film, because she looked after little Georgie while I went to Mass.’ Because you would never dream of offering.

‘Which film was it?’ Mrs Kerrigan was also very suspicious. ‘I’ve seen all of George Formby’s.’

‘Let George Do It. Mam loves him playing his ukulele.’ She breathed a sigh of relief when Mrs Kerrigan seemed satisfied. Nancy had overheard two women in the corner shop regaling the merits of the film yesterday, and if Mrs Kerrigan found out Nancy had been drinking in the parlour of the Sailor’s Rest with Gloria, she knew she would never hear the end of it.

‘What about Sunday?’

‘Me and Gloria went to see that Margaret Lockwood film about a girl who went to a concentration camp and befriended a man who turns out to be a Nazi spy. We don’t go out as often as we used to, you know.’

‘I should think not! My Sid would be ever so upset. What woman wants to see her brave son’s wife behaving like a tuppenny trollop? I can’t turn a blind eye. People will talk.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Nancy could not believe her ears. ‘Are you saying I’m up to no good?’ She put her hands on her hips. Mrs Kerrigan was the limit! Nancy certainly got lots of attention from men when they were out. Gloria was something of a local celebrity and they were never short of company, but Nancy was well aware that she was a married woman and didn’t need reminding by busybodies like Mrs Kerrigan.

‘Well, you must admit, there aren’t many other girls gallivanting around like you are while their husbands are off fighting.’

This said much for Mrs Kerrigan’s sheltered life because Nancy knew that there were other girls who were far from squeaky clean. You would have to have your head in the sand not to be aware of some of the things that were going on. The city was now flooded with servicemen, not just from other parts of the country but from all around the world. Many women who were without their husbands and fiancés were taking up offers of a night out from the Canadian and Polish servicemen, and didn’t they all know that while the cat’s away the mice will have their little bit of fun? Why shouldn’t they? thought Nancy. Who knew what tomorrow might bring? Her Sid might be killed and where would she and little Georgie be left then? She looked over at her son, sitting happily in his playpen playing with his pull-along dog. He looked just like his dad. For a moment, Nancy had an uncomfortable vision of Sid, somewhere in Europe, held prisoner God only knew where. Was he thinking of them now? She pushed the thought away. No, it wouldn’t do to dwell.

‘I’m thinking of getting a job in one of those munitions factories, if you must know!’ Nancy did not know where the idea came from but thinking on it now, it was clear that all the women she knew who had gone back to work were having a ball. Nancy missed her job at the George Henry Lee department store. She loved the gossip and the camaraderie as well as all that extra money in her purse. Not that there would be much to buy soon if this rationing lark continued.

‘And who’s going to look after little Georgie, might I ask?’ Mrs Kerrigan said with a look that suggested there was a bad smell under her pointed nose.

‘Mam said she’d do it.’ Nancy’s fingers were crossed behind her back. She would have to ask her mother, but she was confident Mam would not let her down.

The look on Mrs Kerrigan’s face was priceless. ‘In my day it was unheard of for a married woman to go out to work – unless she was very poor or widowed.’

‘Well, now they’re in uniform and doing jobs deemed fit only for men just a couple of years ago!’ Nancy answered, knowing she would have enjoyed going into the Forces. All those strong, virile men … However, her mother-in-law’s stern expression did not encourage frivolity, so she said with every ounce of patriotic fervour she could muster, ‘While our men are in the Armed Forces, us women have got to keep the country going.’

‘Heaven help us if they’re all like you!’ Mrs Kerrigan muttered under her breath, though loud enough for Nancy to hear, and made the sign of the cross on her chest. Nancy decided to ignore the slight and taking a deep breath she tried to remain dignified like Mam said she should – turn the other cheek and all that.

‘Mr Churchill said everyone’s home is on the “front line”, so we have to be vigilant.’

‘Did he now?’ Mrs Kerrigan’s ever-flaring nostrils were dancing now, while Nancy, with a lot of effort, remained serene on the outside.

‘If women work like men, then I believe they have the right to relax any way they choose,’ Nancy said. ‘Women are coping very well without the help of their husbands.’

‘Oh, I know you are,’ Mrs Kerrigan pointed out. ‘But you and your kind would never have behaved in such a carefree way in my day. It wouldn’t have been allowed.’

‘Just as well I wasn’t around in your day then,’ Nancy smiled, but inside she was fuming. Who died and left you a day? Her own mother would not have said such things. She’d had enough. Why the hell shouldn’t she have the odd night out? She didn’t care if Mrs Kerrigan told Sid or not!

‘Just so you know,’ Nancy said in a tone sweet enough to encourage diabetes, ‘I’m going to see Gloria, who’s singing in the Adelphi again tonight. I don’t know how she manages to entertain such big audiences after working all day in munitions – twice since last Friday, in fact – while some people just sit at home criticising and leaving others to do all the hard work!’

Mrs Kerrigan’s voice was now a pathetic whine. ‘Last night’s raid frightened the life out of me. I thought my end had come! While you’re out the Nazis could make their way over here and carry me off.’

‘They might take you, but they’d soon bring you back,’ Nancy muttered under her breath, then said out loud, the clips still between her teeth, ‘I was only next door in the parlour last night, Mrs Kerrigan, and I won’t be long tonight.’ The Allies could use her as an early warning signal, she thought: she screams before the enemy planes have turned on their engines.

There was a moment’s silence and Nancy imagined Mrs Kerrigan was looking for something else to carp about. It didn’t take her long to find it.

‘My poor Sid – how can you bear to go out and enjoy yourself, knowing that poor Sidney is suffering? He could be ill or injured and you don’t seem to care.’

‘Of course I care about Sid too! Just because you’re crying into the bottom of your teacup all of the time, doesn’t give you the moral high ground, you know,’ Nancy answered, knowing if Mrs Kerrigan couldn’t get her one way she would get her another. If Sid was ill the Red Cross would tell them, wouldn’t they? Nancy put the hot prickle at the back of her neck down to annoyance rather than the guilt she knew she should be feeling for not missing Sid like she should. It was Mrs Kerrigan’s fault she felt that way – emotional blackmail was her mother-in-law’s speciality. It’s what kept Sid tied to her apron strings for so long. No wonder Mr Kerrigan, her husband, worked nights on The Liverpool Post and no one ever saw him. He was probably desperate to get away from her.

‘He could have had anybody he wanted.’ Sid’s mother brought the brown earthenware teapot from the range in the kitchen and poured herself a cup of stewed black tea, not offering any to Nancy. Not that Nancy was in the least bit bothered; her mother-in-law’s tea, left to steep, would strip the taste buds from your tongue, it was that strong.

‘When he gets home he will have eyes for nobody except me!’ Nancy’s honeyed words had the desired effect and Sid’s mother flounced out of the back kitchen.

‘Well, just you think on, lady – I tell him everything in my letters,’ Mrs Kerrigan shouted from the kitchen.

I bet you do, you nosy old bag. And what you don’t know you’ll make up.

Nancy secured the last clip and looked at herself in the mirror. She was pleased with the reflection that stared back at her. How could Mrs Kerrigan expect her to stay in night after night, keeping her company? Nancy might be married but she wasn’t dead!

‘Tell him I’m keeping my pecker up – for little Georgie’s sake! We’ve all got to do our bit for the war effort. Mr Churchill said so.’

‘I don’t think he meant entertaining the foreign troops,’ Mrs Kerrigan reminded her.

Looking around at the drab distempered walls and heavy black furniture Nancy felt that living here was like being in a mausoleum. It was bigger than Mam’s house in Empire Street, with six empty bedrooms and dark stairs that led to echoing shadowy attics. The cellar had been reinforced to use as an air raid shelter, but it was cold and damp and full of cockroaches and mice. The place gave her the creeps – a far cry from Mam’s cheery kitchen.

Nancy sighed as dying flies buzzed nonstop about the kitchen. No matter how much she cleaned it with bleach and disinfectant, the place still smelled damp and inhospitable. Not like Mam’s happy kitchen, which always had somebody chattering away. Nancy’s heart lurched. What was it Mrs Kerrigan said about marrying in haste? Well, you’re repenting now all right, Nance.

Picking up her bag of remaining clips, Nancy put baby George into his pram, pulled a headscarf around her pin-curled hair and tied a knot under her chin. Then, sneaking her glad rags under the canopy of the pram for later, Nancy closed the front door behind her without another word.

Through the narrow entries, she pushed the pram, saying a little prayer that Mam did not repeat her stoic phrase that she had made her bed and now she must lie in it! Well, if Mam didn’t let her stay in Empire Street she was going to have to look for a room somewhere. ‘Because I just can’t take no more of that woman, little Georgie,’ Nancy said in the foggy miasma of a damp afternoon. ‘I can’t take no more.’

‘You’ll be lucky to find anything these days,’ said Sarah, who had just come into the kitchen after changing into her Red Cross uniform. ‘There are no spare places after the raids.’ She leaned over Nancy’s shoulder and picked up a couple of clips Nancy had taken from her hair.

‘Can I borrow a couple of these to keep my cap in place?’ she asked.

‘And keep those unruly curls in check,’ Nancy offered. It was a wonder their Sarah’s halo didn’t fall down and choke her. Her sixteen-year-old sister got away with everything just because she was the youngest. Rita got away with everything because she was the eldest. And I get away with bugger-all! Nancy moaned.

‘Where did you say you were going tonight?’ Dolly worried her headstrong daughter was not behaving as a young wife should.

Not long after the telegram came telling Nancy her husband had been taken prisoner, she was off dancing with Gloria or popping over to the Sailor’s Rest at the bottom of Empire Street where Gloria’s father ran the pub. Dolly liked Gloria, but she knew the young woman was a law unto herself and no one could tell her what to do. Her parents had certainly given her plenty of rope, but Dolly worried that she’d hang herself with it if she wasn’t careful. Besides, Gloria wasn’t married but Nancy was and she needed to behave herself. Not that she’d had much truck with behaving herself in the past, as Nancy was already pregnant with little Georgie when she walked down the aisle. Despite being a strong Catholic, Dolly was also pragmatic and had seen it all. At least Nancy had wanted to marry Sid. She was less sure about Rita, her eldest daughter, who had found herself in the same situation before marrying Charlie Kennedy. Dolly hated the thought that Rita was stuck with that charmless man. She knew that he and his mother looked down on the Feeny family, but they were too cowardly to say it out loud. Dolly swore she would take a brickbat to him if he ever so much as hinted at it. She and her brood were worth a hundred of the Kennedys.

Looking at Nancy, Dolly knew the old miseries said it could all end in tears, but what was a young, healthy woman to do? Just the other day she’d heard Vera Delaney saying that kind of behaviour wouldn’t be allowed in her day.

‘I don’t blame the young living life to the full – why not?’ she had replied, then reminded Vera of Mr Churchill’s speech at the end of August: ‘“… Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”’

‘I don’t think he meant your Nancy!’ Vera had sniffed as she approached her front door.

‘You could have knocked me over with a fender!’ Dolly told her daughters, accepting their sudden tight-lipped smiles. ‘I resemble that remark! It’s a good thing women are going out and enjoying themselves … What’s up with you two? Did I say something funny?’

‘It’s all right, Mam.’ Tears of laughter ran down Nancy and Sarah’s faces at their mother’s mangling of the English language. ‘It wouldn’t do for Georgie to have a miserable family.’

Dolly agreed. ‘Things are bad enough without adding long faces to the situation. There’s nothing wrong in a bit of good clean fun, I say.’

‘Did I tell you Gloria’s singing at the Adelphi tonight?’ Nancy was hopeful as she eyed her mother through the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. ‘She got me a ticket and it’s been ages since I’ve had a night out to anywhere smart.’ She put her head to one side and smiled, encouraging her mother to agree.

‘That’s nice,’ Dolly said; she knew what Nancy was up to, it was as plain as the nose on her face, but she’d let her carry on for a bit longer … She might like her daughter to keep her chin up but that didn’t mean she could take advantage.

‘Somewhere classy,’ Nancy said, ‘where I can get dressed up and have a dance … Gloria’s hoping for a regular spot,’ she said while Mam was still listening. ‘I should support her, don’t you think, Mam? After all, she’s been so good since Sid …’

Dolly had a sneaking suspicion that Nancy had come here to get ready because she didn’t want Sid’s mother to see her all dolled up in her glad rags. She wondered if her daughter intended to stay here tonight as she did sometimes when she was too late to take Georgie home after a night out. If she could, Dolly knew her daughter would stay until Sid was released. However, she also knew she would be the one left holding the baby.

‘You don’t mind if I stay the night, do you, Mam, what with that fog?’

‘It’ll be a bit cramped with you and the baby sharing with Sarah in the small back room.’

‘I could always go in Eddy’s room.’ Nancy was persuasive, that was for sure.

‘Eddy or Frank will need the room when they come home.’ Dolly knew Nancy’s game: she wanted to come back home and if she put herself in the boys’ room Dolly would never get her out again. ‘There’s no way they’re sleeping on the sofa in the parlour after giving their all for King and country!’

‘It’s just a night out, Mam.’

‘Hmm, I suppose so.’ Dolly was not sure. ‘Sarah’s on night duty.’

Sarah sighed. She would be that tired when she got in tomorrow morning she didn’t care who was in her bed – but Nancy would not be there for long, if she had anything to do with it, that’s for sure.

‘So, now that’s agreed will you mind Georgie for me? It’s been so long since I went dancing and …’

‘Yeah, since all of last week. Aye, go on then, I will,’ Dolly said, putting the flat iron back on the stove. Folding the baby’s rompers, she lovingly placed them on the pile of ironed laundry. Nancy was young, she had her whole life ahead of her to be housebound, looking after kids and doing her duty. ‘I know how much you loved to dance before …’ Life is short enough, thought Dolly, there was no point in sitting on the hob, moping.

‘Thanks, Mam.’ Nancy gave her mother a loving squeeze. ‘I managed to get a new lippy in Boots – d’you want to try it? Some woman in a feathered hat tried to snatch it out of my hands, but I clung on,’ Nancy’s blue eyes were wide with indignation. ‘I said to her, “My husband died for this country – the least you can do is let me have a lipstick!” She soon let go.’

‘You never said such a wicked thing – you’ll be tempting fate if you’re not careful!’ Dolly could not believe her own ears.

‘Don’t be silly and superstitious. It got me the lippy, didn’t it?’ Nancy said through stretched lips as she applied a generous coat of crimson lipstick, pouting in the mirror. Then she noticed that Dolly had dis­­appeared into the back kitchen. ‘I managed to get some Amami shampoo as well!’ Nancy called after her excitedly. ‘Shall I wash your hair later?’

‘And what did you have to say to get that, I wonder.’ Dolly sounded a bit put out.

Nancy followed her into the back kitchen. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but she was on her last knockings! She must have been at least forty,’ she said with a nod of her pin-curled head.

‘That doesn’t say much for your ancient babysitter, Nance,’ Dolly answered, putting some thinly peeled potatoes into just enough water to cover them. On top of them, in place of a steamer, she put her colander containing diced carrots and peas and covered the whole lot with a tin lid. ‘I just hope that you know what you’re doing, that’s all.’ She would not want to see Nancy getting herself into any kind of trouble.

‘Did you know that the dull surface of a pan absorbs heat more rapidly than a shiny one?’ Dolly asked, changing the subject.

Nancy did not look interested one way or the other. ‘Have you been reading those leaflets you deliver again, Mam?’ she laughed, knowing women of the Home Front, as it was now being called, were being advised on all things domesticated to eke out the rations and save waste.

‘Gert and Daisy mentioned it on the wireless this morning.’

‘I learned everything I know from you, Mam; you could teach the Ministry of Food a thing or two.’

‘We mustn’t waste fuel that is needed for the war industry.’

Dolly knew when she was being soft-soaped. Nancy was always free with the charm and the compliments when she wanted her own way and Dolly knew Nancy could wind her old mother round her little finger. ‘I’m going to start a make-do-and-mend club with Mrs Ashby. Come on now, get out from under my feet. If you’re going out then get going, before I change my mind.’