Lily’s War (2 page)

‘She said that she’s going to have to give up the chauffeur,’ he said with plums in his mouth. ‘Doesn’t know how she’ll manage!’

Lily grinned. ‘Something must have sure gone wrong with their marriage, just like Mrs Simpson’s former two.’ Lily sat on a three-legged stool. Her strong fingers gently massaged and warmed the teats to ‘let down’ the milk. ‘I remember reading about her first husband. He was a naval officer called Spencer. He said that their marriage failed because he was away at sea and she got lonely.’ She frowned. ‘Half the women in Liverpool could say the same thing but you don’t see them rushing to the divorce courts.’

‘Anyway there’s the coronation of George and Lizzie to look forward to in a couple of months,’ said Ben.

‘Should be fun.’

‘As long as Dad doesn’t get too drunk.’

They exchanged grimaces. ‘He was in late last night,’ said Lily. ‘I gave up waiting and went to bed.’

For a while there was just the noise of milk squirting against metal and the shifting and gentle breathing of the cows. In the entry the other side of the wall the sound of booted feet drawing near caused brother and sister to glance at each other. Through slats in the wall, the cows could gaze out on the outside world. ‘If that paperboy dares,’ whispered Lily, ‘I’ll have him.’ She glanced at the cane which rested against the wall, but the footsteps did not pause. ‘It’s good job for him he didn’t try it again.’

‘He’s only a kid,’ said Ben, grinning.

‘It’s not funny for the cows having peas shot up their noses and in their ears!’ A dusky curl escaped from Lily’s cap, brushing the Friesian’s flank as she checked the milk in the pail. She rose from the stool. ‘This cow’s almost dry.’

‘I’ll tell Uncle William,’ responded Ben. After their grandfather had died, their uncle inherited the family farm out Knowsley way on the outskirts of Liverpool and provided the cows for their dairy in the middle of a street of terraced houses not far from Tuebrook.

Lily got up and went into the adjoining cool room and poured milk into the container on top of the chiller. She did it automatically. It was part of her daily routine. As soon as the milking was over she would start breakfast for the family.

‘Any more bacon, Lil?’ said Daisy.

Lily glanced across the table, conscious of her own untidiness. Her sister Daisy’s brown hair was Eugene permed, which cost a fortune but considered worth the money, although at the moment she might as well not have bothered because it was hidden beneath a white turban. ‘I’m saving the last slice for Dad,’ murmured Lily, ‘but I’ll be going to the farm tomorrow so you could have some the day after. I need more provisions for the shop.’

‘I fancy it now. Dad mightn’t be up to eating. Let me have it, Lil.’ Her sister’s voice was persuasive. ‘You can give him porridge or toast.’

‘He needs meat. You know how thin he’s gone.’

Daisy’s blue eyes widened. ‘It doesn’t stop him drinking our money away! Why should I have to do without? I’m the one making sweets in Barker’s most of the hours God sends!’

‘Try and be a little more understanding,’ said Lily coaxingly. ‘I know he drives us mad but he has only got one leg.’

Daisy muttered, ‘And he never lets us forget how he lost it.’

‘The Great War was no joke!’

‘OK! OK! Save the lecture,’ groaned Daisy. ‘I’m sorry I spoke.’

A bell jangled and Lily hurried down the lobby into the shop. On the other side of the wooden counter stood little Mrs Draper holding a jug with a beaded muslin cloth over it. ‘Good morning, dear!’ She beamed at Lily. ‘Are you well?’

‘Very well, thank you.’ She dipped the measure into the churn standing on a marble slab and steadily poured milk into the jug.

‘And your dear father?’

Lily had known Mrs Draper all her life and knew that her sympathetic manner was genuine. ‘Just the same. How about you?’

‘Mustn’t grumble, dear. There’s always someone worse off.’ She leaned across the counter. ‘We’ve got a visiting missionary. A really unusual young man with a voice like an angel.’ Her bright eyes twinkled. ‘Not that I’ve ever heard an angel but you know what I mean. He’s showing slides of India at the mission hall. Perhaps you can bring the children along?’

Lily hesitated, not wanting to hurt the old woman’s feelings. ‘It depends on how Dad is. You know what he’s like.’

Mrs Draper patted her hand. ‘Of course I do, dear. But do try. You need to get out of this place and have some life of your own now and then.’

Lily could not agree more but she would have preferred to do something different from listening to a missionary; she didn’t have anything against them but she preferred a more exciting prospect, not that any looked like coming her way. ‘I’ll try,’ she promised nonetheless, taking the tuppence and dropping it into a small wicker basket on a ledge under the counter.

A boy in patched short trousers and a shrunken grey jacket held the door open for Mrs Draper. One of his stockings was already creeping down his leg.

‘The usual, Johnny?’ said Lily, taking the large chipped jug he held up.

‘And Mam said, can she have two eggs?’ He stood on tiptoe to lean on the counter.

‘Your dad’s home, is he?’

‘Came back last night. He’s been to Ceylon and was telling me and me bruvvers all about it in bed. I’m goin’ ta sea when I grows up.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ said Lily, carefully wrapping the eggs in tissue paper before coming round the counter and placing one in each pocket of his jacket. She gave him his change and opened the door, thinking that May and Ronnie should be up by now if they were to get to school on time.

May was already awake, lying on her back with the patchwork quilt worked by her maternal grandmother up to her chin. Her long flaxen hair, freed from its plaits, spread like crinkled paper on the pillow. Since she was a tot she had refused to set foot in the shippon. She hated dirt and dust and the smells that issued from the bottom of the yard. ‘I don’t think I’ll go to school today,’ she declared gruffly. ‘I think I’m getting a chest.’

‘You’re going,’ said Lily determinedly.

‘But I don’t learn anything!’

‘You know it all? You know the capital of Spain and your five times table?’ Lily wrenched the quilt from her grasp and the rest of the covers followed.

‘Two fives are ten and Madrid’s the captial of Spain,’ chanted her sister, hunching her knees inside her nightie.

‘The capital of Australia?’

‘Sydney!’

‘No. Canberra.’

‘Why do I have to know?’ grumbled May. ‘I’m never going to go there. Now if you’d asked me the name of a Red Indian tribe I could have told you the Sioux. They were in a cowboy film at the matinee.’

‘Sorry, no go.’ Lily hid a smile as she dragged her struggling sister off the bed.

She left May dressing and went into the bedroom her brothers shared. The room was a mess but that was because she had been asked to leave everything where it was. Recently Ronnie had taken up whittling and was forever making whistles and selling them to anyone who had a halfpenny. He was also football mad as were most boys in Liverpool. He was up now and kicking a football around the double bed that had come from their uncle’s farm.

‘Dad’ll have you if he hears you.’ Her face softened as she watched him.

‘He won’t hear me, though, will he?’ His expression was far from childlike in his thin face. ‘He’s drunk and snoring like a pig.’

‘That’s enough of that!’ She kicked the ball from beneath his foot and under the bed. ‘I just hope he’s put his leg in a safe place.’

‘His leg was on the landing.’ Ronnie licked the palms of his hands and smoothed his hair back with them. ‘I thought he might fall over it so I hung it by its straps on the door. It’ll make a lovely noise when he opens it.’ He grinned as he bounced out of the room. ‘I’ll make me own toast,’ he shouted from halfway down the stairs.

‘Thanks a lot, and use a comb for your hair in future,’ called Lily, going along the landing to her father’s bedroom.

A pink-painted wooden leg dangled from the brass door knob. She opened the door and immediately the smell of rum mingled with the stale tang of tobacco to assail her nostrils. Her father had told her soldiers had been given rum sometimes before going over the top. She placed the heavy leg on a chair by his bed and picked up the trousers flung on the floor, glancing at the tuft of white hair showing above the old army blankets. There was no sign of him stirring. She left the room, convinced that it would be hours yet before he made an appearance downstairs.

It was three hours later that Albert Thorpe entered the kitchen. Lily was ironing and dreaming of her tall, dark and handsome hero who would take her away from it all, and didn’t really want to be disturbed, but she put down the flat iron and stared at her father. If the photograph in a drawer was anything to go by he had been handsome once. It was hard to imagine now. Only forty-seven, he looked much older. His rumpled clothes clung to his gaunt frame and his cheeks were the colour of his tobacco-tinged moustache. The pale blue eyes seemed to be saying they wished they had not bothered to open that morning.

‘I don’t know why you do it to yourself, Dad,’ she said, putting on the kettle and reaching for a packet of Golden Stream tea. ‘Where did you go this time?’

‘Only Bootle.’ He sat at the table and wiped his hands over his face. ‘Fred would have been forty-four. Sometimes I see him dying over and over in my mind.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I spoke to his widow. Nice woman.’

Lily shook her head. ‘You can’t go on torturing yourself for ever.’

‘Lest we forget, girl.’

She experienced a mixture of irritation and pity. ‘Why can’t you remember the good things?’ She picked up a loaf and pot of home-made rhubarb and ginger jam; the bacon had vanished and she guessed where. Still, her mother had always said when someone was low give them something sweet to eat. She placed a steaming mug of tea and a plate of bread and jam in front of him and considered how best to cheer him up.

‘Nothing to eat, girl.’ Albert cradled the hot mug in his hands.

‘Tell me what it was like when you met Mam,’ said Lily, hoping to change the direction of his thoughts. She sat opposite him and reached for a slice of bread and jam.

‘What’s the point in remembering? It just makes me sad thinking of the way she went.’ His tone was glum.

Lily persisted. ‘It was at a fair, wasn’t it?’

He groaned and put a hand to his head. ‘Aye! But it was a long time ago now.’

‘So was the war but you haven’t forgotten that! Don’t you think you owe it to Mam to keep her memory alive as much as that of those soldier friends of yours?’

He made no reply and she felt angry and irritated. She stood and placed the flat iron on the fire. She felt like a bottle of fizzy pop about to explode. He would mope around the house all day. There would be no escaping him. She needed something different and suddenly remembered Mrs Draper’s words about the missionary and India. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad? She was interested in India. It was better than nothing and cheaper than going to the pictures.

May wriggled free of Lily’s hold and unbuttoned the top of her coat. ‘That’s too tight and you scratched me!’

‘If you’d kept still I wouldn’t have,’ she retorted, glancing at her own reflection in the lobby mirror as she dragged on gloves. The dark curly hair which she considered her best feature was crammed beneath a snappily brimmed blue velour hat trimmed with a feather. Her eyebrows were sooty arches. She raised them and smiled, wishing she had Carole Lombard’s looks for her own mouth was too large – and as for her chin! It was much too determined-looking in shape to be thought delicately pretty. She pulled a face and caught sight of Ronnie in the mirror. ‘Don’t forget your balaclava. You don’t want Jack Frost freezing your ears. And, May, wear your bonnet.’

‘I will! I like this bonnet,’ said her sister, fastening the pink plaited ties. ‘It’s better than Betty West’s new one.’

‘I’m glad something pleases you.’ Lily gave her reflection one last scrutiny before hurrying the children out of the house.

She ran them down the street until they came to one of the wide entries that divided the long rows of terraced houses into three blocks, enabling them to take a short cut into the next street. Lights blazed from the begrimed red-bricked mission hall squeezed between houses which had been built during the last century like so many others in the city.

Inside all was bustle and the rows of folding wooden chairs divided by an aisle up the middle were filling quickly. On stage a large screen had been set up. Centre back there was a table on which stood a lantern slide machine, near which several men were grouped in discussion.

As Lily brushed past them, holding the children’s hands, one of them looked up. She did not immediately recognise him until their eyes met and held. Then she tore her gaze away and passed swiftly by despite the fluttering somewhere beneath her ribs. She led the children to seats next to the inner aisle and sat between them.

‘I’d like to sit at the front,’ said May, getting up almost as soon as she sat down.

‘You can’t.’

‘I’m not going to see anything here.’

‘Sit down, May, or I’ll take you home again,’ said Lily.

May sat but in such a way that the seat tipped up and her behind got wedged in the space at the back. ‘Help!’ she yelled.

‘Trust her,’ groaned Ronnie, ducking his head and glancing about furtively. ‘Always having to make people notice us.’

‘I’ve a good mind to leave you there, causing trouble when we’ve only been here two minutes,’ hissed Lily, standing up.

‘Need a hand?’

She would have recognised the voice anywhere and felt the colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Thanks a lot.’

They tugged and May was free. She looked mournfully up at her rescuer and said, ‘I didn’t mean to do it. It really was an accident.’

He raised one eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’

She gave him a puzzled look. ‘I’ve seen you before.’

‘That’s right.’ His gaze shifted to Lily’s face and he held out a hand. ‘I’m Brother Matthew of the brotherhood of St Barnabas. I’m an Anglican priest.’ There was laughter in his eyes. ‘I know for sure we’ve met before! Something to do with a kipper.’