Daughters of Liverpool (11 page)

‘We had to make sure that our hair was right,’ Lou told her importantly. ‘Didn’t we, Sash?’

Sasha nodded, her newly cut hair bouncing in soft curls round her face.

They had disappeared the previous Saturday, refusing to say where they were going, reappearing later in the afternoon with their plaits cut off.

They had saved the money from their shared paper round and their work for Mrs Lucas, they had told Jean, and she had to admit that the short style suited them. Sam predictably had been a bit put out to see his little girls suddenly transformed into stylish young women. The twins, though, had their own way of dealing with their dad, and of course having had two older siblings they had a much easier time of it, getting away with things that Sam would never have allowed in either Luke or Grace.

‘We won’t wait for your dad,’ Jean told the twins. ‘He’s gone down to the depot and chances are that he’ll be helping out somewhere with all the mess that will have to be cleaned up.’

‘Tell us all about the Grafton, Katie,’ Lou demanded, tucking her arm through Katie’s whilst
Sasha did the same at the other side. Somehow between them they managed to ensure that the three of them fell back slightly from Jean, who had now been joined by their next-door-but-one neighbours for the walk to church.

‘Who did you dance with? Was he handsome? Has he asked you out?’ The twins’ questions came thick and fast.

‘There was an air raid going on,’ Katie reminded them. ‘We spent more time crouching under the tables for protection than we did dancing.’ It wasn’t entirely true, of course, but the twins already had vivid enough imaginations without her encouraging them in their romantic flights of fancy.

‘But that’s when the best stuff happens,’ Sasha informed her, confirming Katie’s own private thoughts. ‘We’ve read about it in
Picture Post
, haven’t we, Lou? It’s in times of danger when a girl and a man are thrown together that “it” happens, and they fall in love.’

Sasha looked so solemn that Katie had trouble not laughing. Instead she said firmly, ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers, you know. We were far too busy keeping safe last night to think about doing anything else.’

‘You can say that but I bet you had more fun than we did down our air-raid shelter.’ Lou’s voice was gloomy. ‘It was boring, wasn’t it, Sash?’

‘Yes, except when little Davie Simmonds from number twelve said that his nan had come out without her knickers on.’

Laughter shook the twins. For all their new haircuts and the fact that officially their schooldays
were over, they were still very much ‘young girls’, Katie thought affectionately whilst trying to look severe.

‘Terrible night, wasn’t it, Jean?’ Anne Briars, a fellow member of Jean’s WVS group, said tiredly as they exchanged hellos outside the church.

St Thomas’s was a small, slightly shabby church, on the border between Edge Hill and the bottom end of Wavertree, but Jean reckoned you could feel its warmth and kindness the moment you saw it. There was something about St Thomas’s that made you think about all those who had worshipped there over the years so that you felt like you were part of one big family. The congregation wasn’t poor like some folk who lived in Liverpool were, but they weren’t well off either.

They did believe in helping one another, though.

‘My Jeff’s an ARP warden, as you know, and he was saying this morning that both Mill Road and the Royal Hospitals got hit.’ She broke off when she saw Jean’s face to apologise. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that your girl is working there. It didn’t sound too bad from what my Jeff was saying– no one hurt or anything. The West Derby Road got it bad, though. There’s no trams running, and down by the docks it’s even worse. Oh, there’s my sister, I’d better go over and join her.’

As Anne hurried off to join her sister, Jean’s heart was thudding with anxiety for Grace.

As people arrived for the morning service, dressed in their best clothes, carefully looked after to make them last as long as possible, everyone
was talking about the night’s bombing raid and the damage it had done. A dull pall of smoke hung over the centre of the city and the docks, and it was still possible to see the darker plumes of smoke rising from fires that must still be burning.

People were moving into the church. Jean looked round for the twins, and was relieved to see Sam hurrying towards her. He had obviously been home first because his hair was newly slicked down.

Jean caught hold of his arm, drawing him to one side.

‘Sam, Anne Briars has just told me that both the Royal and Mill Road Hospitals were bombed last night.’

‘Yes, I know, but it’s all right, our Grace is fine, and she said to tell you not to worry. The nurses’ home wasn’t touched, nor Grace’s ward, although Grace had to spend the night in the air-raid shelter and ended up helping out with the patients and then having to go on duty again this morning. Not that she minds. She said she wouldn’t feel comfortable not doing her bit when they’ve had so many casualties brought in.

‘It was a shock seeing how much damage there’s bin, I can tell you, especially round Hatton Gardens. The Law Library got a hit, and there was a fire engine went down into a crater in Roe Street, killing all seven of its crew.’ Sam shook his head. ‘They’ve had to bring in reinforcements from Lancashire, extra police and all sorts. I’ve got to get back to work meself. I’ve only come back to tell you that our Grace is all right, ’cos I knew
what you’d be thinking the minute you heard about the hospitals being bombed.’

‘What about Luke? Is there any news of the barracks?’

‘No news except that the barracks are OK and Luke should be fine. The army have been called in to help with the clearing-up operation, of course. Oh, and I nearly forgot, there’s a strange tale going round about the church of Our Lady and St Nicholas.’

‘The Catholic church?’

‘Yes, that’s the one. It got bombed last night really bad, being close to the docks, and it was pretty well completely gutted, only the walls and the tower left standing. I was speaking to Joe Fields, who’s with the fire service, and he reckons it was only the stout door to the tower that kept that from going up as well. Anyway, when the men went in as soon as it was cool enough this morning, they found two charred beams lying in the shape of a cross right where the altar had been. There’s folk saying that it didn’t happen by chance and that it’s a sign from you know who.’ Sam looked upwards as he spoke, his voice as solemn as his expression, and the fact that her normally practical and somewhat cynical husband could be so obviously moved by such an occurrence brought a lump to Jean’s throat.

As she followed Jean and Sam and the twins into the church, Katie saw how full it was and how warmly people smiled at one another.

The church was plain inside, its pews well worn and its kneeling cushions threadbare, but this
morning it was filled with an overwhelming sense of quiet purposefulness and determined reverence.

As she kneeled to pray Jean gave heartfelt thanks for the safety of her own family and said a special inward prayer for all those who this morning were mourning loved ones lost.

Luke straightened up from helping with the backbreaking work of trying to clear the streets of their covering of broken glass and other debris. It had to be all the broken glass that was causing him to think about the stuck-up girl. He had showered and changed once he had got back to the barracks after leaving the Grafton, and yet he could have sworn that he could smell that light fresh scent he had been so aware of when he had carried her over the broken glass. That, of course, was just plain daft; the whole city stank of smoke and dust from the bombing.

Luke and his men had been sent down to the docks. Gladstone, Canada, Brocklebank, Prince’s and King’s Docks, together with the adjacent warehouses, had all suffered serious fires and damage. The Pier Head church of Our Lady and St Nicholas had been burned out, and some of the law courts within St George’s Hall had been destroyed.

Whilst they worked Luke kept a weather eye out for his father, knowing that the Salvage Corps would be deployed to work on the worst of the damaged and collapsing buildings because of their great experience in this field.

A pigeon that had been watching from the top of the high wall on the opposite side of the road
from where they were working – the wall all that remained of what had been a large warehouse –suddenly flew off at speed, its departure followed by a brick falling from the top of the wall.

Immediately Luke warned his men, ‘Get back, the wall’s going to go.’

The men looked unconvinced but Luke hadn’t listened to his dad’s tales of his work in the Salvage Corps all his growing years without learning a thing or two, and he knew very well what the single falling brick might mean, even if the others didn’t.

‘Get back,’ he repeated.

‘Give over, Corp,’ Andy grinned. ‘If the Luftwaffe can’t knock it down then a ruddy pigeon …’

His words were lost in the dull rumbling sound that filled the air along with the choking mist of brick and cement dust as the wall collapsed down on top of itself.

The men were moving now, but Andy was closer to the wall than the others, and one of the falling bricks caught him squarely between the shoulder blades, sending him sprawling.

Luke could feel the bricks hitting his own body as he turned back to grab hold of Andy, and drag him clear of the collapsing wall.

Another group of men who had been working close by, and who had heard the wall collapse, came hurrying to their assistance, the sergeant with them, taking charge and doing an immediate roll call.

‘You’re a ruddy hero, that’s what you are, mate,’ Andy told Luke emotionally. ‘I’d have bin a gonner then if you hadn’t turned back to help me.’

Luke brushed his gratitude aside, but much to his embarrassment the sergeant insisted on being told exactly what had happened.

‘I owe you one, mate,’ Andy thanked him gratefully.

‘Then another time when I say jump, make sure you jump,’ Luke told him grimly, ‘because next time you might not get so lucky.’

‘What do you mean, he’s your second cousin from off the West Derby Road’s boy? I’ve never heard you mention any second cousin from off the West Derby Road.’

Very little natural daylight managed to work its way into any of the rooms of number eleven Walsingham Close, but especially the downstairs best parlour, with its carefully polished aspidistra, its sombre dark brown furniture and its heavy dull red velvet curtains, all of which belonged to the late Victorian age and had been passed down from Emily’s father’s parents to Emily’s father, and from him to Emily herself. In fact, nothing inside the house had been altered or moved in any way since Emily’s own childhood.

The Turkey carpets bought by her grandparents still covered the floors in the best and second-best parlours, a matching stair runner still covered the flight of stairs leading from the hall to the first floor, turned regularly by Emily and the cleaner to make sure that no one part of it wore more than any other, whilst a plainer more serviceable runner covered the landing and the stairs up to the second floor.

In the best parlour, silver-framed photographs of Emily’s parents and their parents still took pride of place on the carefully polished mahogany sideboard, whilst the dull green wallpaper had been put up when her proud grandparents had moved into their new smart villa in the exclusive enclave of Wavertree Village.

Wavertree Village was still considered exclusive– or at least the part of it where Emily lived – and the people who lived there did not mingle with those who lived in less favoured streets – or even with their own neighbours. Mingling was simply something that was not ‘done’ in Walsingham Close.

However, Emily could still see Con’s expression despite the dull thin December light. It was a mixture of truculence, anger and disbelief, but Emily ignored it. Rather surprisingly, she was, she discovered, actually enjoying lying to him and then acting as though he was the one who was in the wrong. Of course, it helped that he hadn’t returned home until almost lunchtime and still smelling of drink and cheap perfume. That had definitely given her the upper hand when it had come to informing him that from now on the boy would be living with them.

The boy himself was upstairs in his bedroom where Emily had told him to stay, until she came up for him. She had made the room as comfortable as possible for him, lighting a fire in the grate and leaving him a bacon sandwich. She had used the bacon she had bought on the black market, and which she had been saving for Con’s Sunday
morning breakfast treat. A husband who stayed out all night even if he ‘explained’ that he had had no choice because of the air raid, did not deserve what amounted to a family of four’s whole ration of rashers for a week, along with a nice bit of sausage and a couple of eggs, all supplied via the friend of a friend of the man who delivered their coal, and at an extortionate cost.

The kitchen was really Emily’s favourite room in the house. She had happy memories of the hours she had spent there watching Mrs Evans, who had come in daily as a housekeeper to her father, cooking and baking, and then when she was older learning from her and being allowed to ‘help’.

Mrs Evans had died four years ago, but right up until her death Emily had visited her twice a week in her little house close to the Edge Hill railway goods yard, taking her little treats and making sure that she was all right, even though Con had complained about her spending money on a ‘servant’. Mrs Evans had been more to her than that. And besides, Emily’s father had been very stern about their duty to treat those they employed ‘well’.

One of the aspidistra’s leaves wasn’t quite straight. Automatically Emily removed a clean duster from the pocket of her apron and went to straighten and wipe it, ignoring Con’s irritation.

Whilst she wiped the leaf, Emily rather marvelled at her own inventive ability and the way she had conjured up out of nowhere her younger, much younger, cousin twice removed, who had disgraced herself by marrying a merchant seaman against
her family’s wishes. At a single stroke and without a twinge of guilt, Emily had between one breath and the next removed from the world of the living both of ‘cousin Jenny’s parents’, her father via an accident involving the blackout and a tram, shortly after Jenny’s undesirable marriage, and her mother from the shock of losing her husband.