Daughters of Liverpool (5 page)

‘I’m surprised at you, Bella,’ Vi told her daughter, ‘making a comment like that about your father. It’s only thanks to him that you’re living in that house;
those refugees seem to have taken over without you putting your foot down and stopping them.’

‘I can hardly go against the Government and turn them out,’ Bella pointed out. ‘Everyone with a spare room empty is expected to go on the register with the billeting officer, you know that, Mummy. The only reason you haven’t had to is because Daddy’s on the council, and he’s claimed that he needs the bedrooms in case he has to put up some of the men from the Ministry of Defence who come to see him because of the work he does for the navy. Not that I’ve heard of any of them staying with you, Mummy.’

‘Now that’s enough of that,’ Vi reproved her daughter crossly. ‘Your father is only doing his duty. You know that. Your auntie Jean has had to take someone in, but she’s only got the one, not two like you – some young girl, it seems, who’s working sorting letters or some such thing …What do you think about this cravat for your father, Bella? We’ve been invited round to the Hartwells’ for drinks on Boxing Day, you know. Mr Hartwell is on the council with your father. He took Alan’s father’s place.’

‘Yes, I know, Mummy. I can’t see Daddy wanting a cravat, though.’ Bella picked up a pair of leather driving gloves, wondering if they would do for her brother, Charlie, and then suddenly remembered something she had intended to mention to her mother. Putting the gloves back, she told Vi, ‘I almost forgot. Mrs Lyons from three doors down from me called round again the other day to ask if I’d thought any more about joining the WVS.’

‘Well, I suppose you should really, especially with your father being on the council. You’d be better joining my group, though.’ Still frowning over the cravat, Vi complained, ‘I do wish Charlie would let me know what he is doing for Christmas. Of course, it’s only natural that his friends want his company, what with him being a hero and everything.’

Bella’s mouth compressed. She was so used to her brother being the ‘naughty’ one, whilst she herself had always been her mother’s favourite, that it had come as an unwelcome surprise to discover that since Dunkirk her parents had taken to singing Charlie’s praises and boasting about him instead of her. And all because Charlie had rescued a fellow soldier from drowning when they had had to evacuate the beaches. Privately Bella thought that the parents were making too much of a fuss over Charlie and his ‘bravery’ but she knew she would earn herself a black mark with her mother if she said so.

‘Did I tell you that Charlie’s kept in touch with the family of the boy he saved – such a pity that he went and drowned anyway. Daddy had a lovely letter from the father – Mr Wrighton-Bude – saying how grateful he was to Charlie.’

‘Yes, Mummy, you did tell me.’ And more than once, Bella thought crossly. She’d never be able to stop her mother now that she was in full flood about Charlie’s bravery, and the last thing she wanted was her mother concentrating on Charlie just when she, Bella, wanted to gain her sympathy and persuade her to ask Bella’s father if he would increase the allowance he made her.

The discovery after Alan’s death that his father’s business had been on the point of bankruptcy, and that both Alan and his father owed money to their business associates, had come as a very unpleasant shock to Bella. She had thought that Alan’s family were very comfortably off. They had certainly behaved as though they were, especially Alan’s mother, acting like she was something special, and Bella nothing at all. Bella had thought the fact that the mother-in-law never spent any money was down to meanness, not to the fact that there wasn’t any money to spend.

Heaven knows what would have happened if Bella and Alan’s house hadn’t been bought for them by Bella’s father, who had kept the deeds in his own name.

Now Bella was dependent on her father and she really could do with a larger allowance.

Her mother, having finally exhausted the subject of Charlie’s bravery, much to Bella’s relief, changed the subject.

‘I want you to come back with me and help me decorate the Christmas tree, Bella. I’m so glad your father managed to get that new set of lights last year. You just can’t buy them now.’

‘I’ve got the tickets for us for the big Christmas Dance at the Grafton. I decided I might as well get them sooner rather than later, seeing as you’d given me your money,’ Carole told Katie.

They were in the cloakroom at Littlewoods, getting ready to go home, having finished work for the day. Katie pulled on her beret but didn’t
speak. She might have been working with her new friend for only a few days but it had been long enough for her to learn that Carole was a chatterbox who steamrollered over anyone’s attempt to get a word in edgeways once she was in full flood.

‘You’ll need to get a bit dressed up. Proper smart, the Grafton is. And everyone will be wanting to look their best, seeing as it’s Christmas. I’m going to wear me pink. Had it for me cousin’s wedding the summer before last. It’s got a net petticoat and there’s little silver stars embroidered on the skirt when I was her bridesmaid. It’s my favourite colour, is pink. What will you be wearing?’

‘I don’t know,’ Katie told her truthfully.

‘Well, you must have summat a bit fancy, seeing as you was always going out to them posh places with your dad.’

Katie had been obliged by Carole’s persistent questions to tell the other girl at least something about her family, but now, just like the Campion twins, Carole seemed to think that Katie had lived a far more glamorous life than she had, despite all Katie’s attempts to explain to her that her life had not been glamorous at all.

Mentally Katie reviewed the contents of her wardrobe. When accompanying her father she had worn either a plain black dress or a black skirt with a white blouse – very dull indeed. Her mother had kept all the stage costumes she had ever worn, and had a wardrobe full of the kind of clothes that Katie suspected Carole would expect her to wear, but Katie wasn’t the sort who had
ever wanted to wear sparkly sequined things, or in fact any kind of clothes that made her stand out in a crowd. She had grown up dreading standing out because it normally was as a result of some kind of embarrassing behaviour on the part of her parents. Being a little stoic with two artistic parents hadn’t always been easy. Katie could laugh at herself, of course. She had grown up to feel fiercely protective of her parents and yet at the same time she was rather relieved finally to be able to ‘be herself’ and be judged accordingly. She couldn’t, for instance, imagine anyone as down-to-earth as Jean Campion having a cosy chat with her dramatic mother.

Katie liked Jean. There was a warmth about her that made Katie feel happy to be going ‘home’ to the Campions after work.

She missed her parents, though, and she was looking forward to returning home for Christmas, even if she would have only a couple of days with them. Not that she wasn’t enjoying her work or happy in Liverpool. The girls were a good crowd who had made her welcome, and Anne’s calm manner brought a steadying presence to their ‘table’. So far there had been nothing remotely suspicious in any of the letters Katie had read, and Anne had informed her that this was the case with most of the letters.

‘But we still have to be vigilant,’ she had warned Katie, ‘because you never know, and we don’t want any spies sending letters that might get our lads killed or help Hitler to drop bombs on us, do we?’

‘There you are, Katie; I was just beginning to worry about you,’ Jean greeted Katie when she knocked briefly on the back door and then stepped into the kitchen. Jean had told Katie that she must treat the house as her home and that there was no need for her to knock, but Katie still felt that she should.

‘I’m sorry I’m late, only I saw people queuing, and someone said it was oranges so I joined the queue thinking that you might like them for the twins for Christmas. They’d almost gone by the time I was served, but the grocer let me have four.’

‘Oh, Katie, bless you. You are thoughtful. Did you hear that, Sam?’ Jean called out. ‘Katie’s gone and managed to get some oranges for the twins.’

Sam was more reserved than his wife, but he was a kind man and he gave Katie a warm smile.

‘There’s a letter arrived for you, Katie. Looks like your dad’s handwriting.’

Thanking Jean, Katie took the letter from her. It was indeed from her father. A familiar mix of happiness and apprehension tightened her stomach as Katie opened it. So far her father’s letters had contained nothing but complaints about how hard his life was without her, and how surprised he was that she had not thought of this before taking on her war work.

This time, though, her father’s mood was more positive. He had, he wrote, bumped into an old friend – a musician who had done well for himself, who lived in Hampstead and who had invited Katie’s parents to spend Christmas with him and his wife.

   ‘Katie, are you all right? It’s not bad news, is it?’ Jean’s concerned voice made Katie look up from her letter.

‘No. Not at all. My parents have been invited to spend Christmas with some old friends and so my father has written to tell me not to bother travelling all the way back to London to see them.’

Jean’s maternal heart filled with indignation. That poor girl. Fancy her parents doing that to her. It was obvious to Jean how upset she was. She was only a girl still, for all that she behaved in such a sensible grown-up way.

‘Well, never mind, love,’ Jean told her sympathetically. ‘You’re welcome to spend your Christmas here with us. In fact I don’t mind admitting that I’ll be glad of an extra pair of hands, especially with our Grace going down to spend Christmas with her in-laws-to-be, and me having invited a couple of elderly neighbours who’ll be on their own to have their dinner with us. Mind you, I dare say the twins will plague you to death, especially when they find out that their brother has gone and bought them both some new records. I’m hoping that he’ll be home for his Christmas dinner as well – our Luke.’

As yet Katie hadn’t met the Campions’ son, or
their eldest daughter, Grace, and her fiancé, Seb, but she was looking forward to doing so, given how kind Jean herself was.

‘Now come and sit down and have your tea, Katie love, before it gets cold.’

As Jean said to Sam later in the evening when Katie had gone upstairs at the twins’ request to tell them more about the famous dance bands her father had conducted, ‘I felt that sorry for her, Sam. Her face was a picture although she didn’t so much as say a word against her parents. If you ask me that girl hasn’t had an easy time of it at all, for all that the twins keep on about how lucky she is.’

‘Well, she’s lucky enough now, having you to take her under your wing, Jean,’ Sam told his wife lovingly.

‘Oh, go on with you, Sam. She’s no trouble to have around at all, kind and thoughtful as she is. I admit I was a bit worried at first when she started saying how her mother had been on the stage and her father conducted dance bands, knowing what the twins are like, but I reckon it’s doing them good having her here to tell them what it’s really like, and not all glamour and excitement, like they seemed to think.’

‘Well, you’ve got your Fran to thank for them thinking that,’ Sam reminded her.

Jean sighed. ‘All this business of them wanting to sing and dance is just a bit of a phase, I reckon. Once we’re into the new year and they’re both working at Lewis’s they’ll forget all about wanting to be on the stage.’

‘Well, whether they forget it or not they are not going on it. I’ll not have it. I’ve nothing against your Fran, Jean, you know that, but her kind of life isn’t what I want for our girls.’

‘No,’ Jean agreed.

‘Tell us again about the Orpheans, Katie,’ Lou begged.

The three of them were in the twins’ top-floor bedroom, the music from the gramophone for once turned down so that the girls could question Katie about the exciting life she had lived with her parents.

‘There isn’t anything to tell that I haven’t already told you,’ Katie answered her prosaically.

‘Imagine going out every night and dancing. What did you wear, Katie? If it had been us then we would have had the same frocks made, but mine would have been in black and Sasha’s would have been in white – like mirror images, you know, and then when we do our dance we do it like there is a mirror and it’s just one of us. Shall we show you?’

They were on their feet, finding their current favourite dance tune, and buzzing with excitement before Katie could say a word.

They were talented, no one could deny them that, but Katie knew what the reality of making a living was for girls like them, and she had seen the anxiety in Jean’s eyes when she had watched her daughters.

‘You are very good,’ Katie told them when they had finished their routine and had turned, slightly
breathless, to face her, ‘but being on the stage isn’t what you think it is. All that glitter is just a few sequins stuck onto cheap cloth that’s darned all over the place, cheap lodgings where you don’t get enough to eat, damp bedding and bedbugs, and cheap …’

‘Values’, Katie had been about to say but they were too young for her to talk to them about that kind of thing, she decided, watching them grimace over the bedbugs and giggle that she was teasing them.

‘We can’t understand how you can leave something so glamorous to come here and sit all day reading letters,’ Lou told her.

‘No, if it was us you’d never get us doing what you’re doing,’ Sasha agreed.

‘That’s because you don’t know what it’s really like, and that means that you are very lucky,’ Katie told them firmly.

‘Well, we still want to be on the stage, don’t we, Sasha?’ Lou asked her twin.

‘Yes, we do,’ Sasha confirmed, ‘and we’re going to be, as well.’