Lily’s War (28 page)

He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

She felt a familiar rage and sadness, believing the worst. ‘I’ll run a bath and then I’ll make you all something to eat.’

He shook his head. ‘Food first, please, Lil, and a cup of tea. We’re starving, aren’t we, kids?’

They nodded dumbly, their eyes blank.

Lily made porridge despite the time, thinking they might not be able to manage heavier food. She wondered about their family as she half listened to Matt talking quietly. He would make a good father, she thought, as she poured cream over the porridge and spooned a dollop of Aunt Dora’s home-made raspberry jam into each bowl.

‘Now eat it all up,’ she said, setting it on the table in front of them.

The children looked at each other as if for reassurance and sank their spoons into the porridge, forcing it into their mouths. A sob burst from the boy and he gagged on the food.

Lily moved quickly. ‘Hush, hush now.’ She put an arm round him.

‘Mam used to say “Eat it all up”,’ stuttered the little girl, ‘and we can’t!’

‘You must try because your mam would want you to,’ she said gently. She glanced across the table at her husband. ‘Speak to them, Matt. Take their minds off things.’

He stared at her from beneath drooping eyelids. ‘I doubt if anything can do that. Their names are Joe and Josie, by the way.’

She smiled. ‘Try, while I find them clean clothes.’

He nodded and covered her hand with his own a moment. Tears pricked her eyelids.

She left him with the children and went over to a cupboard where she kept clothing purchased at jumble sales for such moments. As she rummaged through it, she half listened to Matt’s voice. There was something about the way he spoke of angels and heaven which was infinitely reassuring but she wondered if he still believed in what he said after the horrors seen in the aftermath of the raids.

Despite it being afternoon Lily decided a few hours’ rest would do them all good so she found clean pyjamas and put hot water bottles in beds. After the children had managed to eat most of the porridge she dumped them in the bath together and anointed their scratches and cuts before dressing them in pyjamas slightly too large for them. Then she tucked them up in her father’s old bed. She handed them a comic each and told them she’d be back soon.

After putting their clothes to soak in the sink, Lily went in search of Matt. He had bathed and was in bed, his hair curling damply on the pillow. ‘That’s probably the first sensible thing you’ve done in days,’ she murmured, starting to undress.

‘What are you doing?’ Suddenly he looked less weary as he watched her strip in the darkened room.

‘I thought you might need warming up and I want a cuddle and to talk.’ She lifted the covers and her naked hip slid against his. He pulled her close and ran a finger slowly down her spine. ‘I didn’t find Aunt Jane.’

‘You think she’s dead?’

His brows drew together and his expression was pained as if to think hurt. ‘I thought everything was all right because I could still see that toffee works chimney rearing up against the sky but nearly the whole of her street’s gone and part of those next to it. It’s a mess! I spoke to several people but nobody knew her. One ARP told me that whole areas of Bootle were evacuated weeks ago because of unexploded bombs but they were vague about exactly where which families have gone. Aunt Jane could have gone into Lancashire or she could be among the dead.’

Lily pressed against him, holding him tightly. Jane was his only blood relative and Lily could guess what the loss of her meant to him. They were silent, just comforting each other. Eventually Lily said, ‘Where did you find the children?’

He sighed heavily and rubbed his face against her shoulder. ‘They were sitting on the corner of a street just across from the toffee works with their sister. She’d been injured in the blast that killed their mother. The sister told me she went back for her handbag. Apparently she shielded them from the worst when they followed her and a landmine went off right in front of the house.’ He paused, frowning. ‘They’d been told by a policeman to stay where they were, that someone would come for them. I think they’d been forgotten. Perhaps he was killed. The sister isn’t badly hurt. A slight concussion and superficial injuries. She’s in hospital and I promised I’d look after the kids until she gets out. Their father was killed at sea last June.’

‘Poor loves,’ said Lily, forcing down the lump in her throat. ‘We’ll have to do something for them. Although …’ she hesitated. ‘I don’t know how much I’ll be able to do, Matt. I’m having a baby!’ she blurted out, without meaning to do so in that manner.

He stared at her and she wondered whether he had taken in what she had said because he looked stunned more than delighted.

‘You’re not pleased,’ she murmured, pulling away from him.

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Of course I’m pleased you’re having our child! It’s just the timing!’

They were not the words Lily had wanted to hear but she forced herself to stay calm. ‘There’s nothing I can do about the timing, Matt!’ A nervous laugh escaped her. ‘It’s God’s!’

He sat up abruptly. ‘You’ll have to get out of Liverpool, stay at the farm.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t want to stay at the farm. I want to stay here.’

‘You’re not thinking sensibly. You’ll be safe there.’

‘Oh, yes! Bombs drop in the country, you know,’ she said pettishly, not wanting to leave him.

‘Not as often as they do in the city!’ His grey eyes hardened. ‘You’ll obey me in this, Lily. I want you and the baby out of danger. We haven’t suffered too much from the bombing around here but I’ve seen what a heavy raid can do and I don’t think they’ve finished with us yet.’

She stared at him thoughtfully. ‘You’re inconsistent, Matt. You talk of God’s will and His plan. Well, if it’s God’s will I and the baby survive then we’ll survive just as well here as at the farm.’

He was silent a moment, then reached out and placed a hand on her belly. ‘So I’m inconsistent where you and our baby are concerned,’ he said quietly. ‘Perhaps that’s a lack of trust in me, but I was thinking I was being practical.’

Her heart softened and she covered his hand with hers. ‘I want us to be with each other as much as we can, Matt. You’ll have to come to the farm too. If anything were to happen to you, I don’t know what I’d do.’

His fingers curled about hers. ‘I can’t sit on the sidelines out of danger. It’s different with women and children.’

‘Not any more, Matt,’ she said firmly. ‘What about Jane and those children in the other room? Their mother is dead! We’re all in this together, and while I’m fit I’m staying with you.’

He shook his head. ‘Lily—’

‘No, Matt! I won’t go!’

‘You will!’ His expression set mulishly. ‘Once before I let you persuade me against my will to let you do what you wanted and it was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made.’ He crushed her fingers and she winced.

‘Matt, you’re hurting me.’

He released her hand and kissed it. ‘Sorry.’ He moved away from her. ‘Now I’m going to snatch an hour’s sleep while you make up your mind you’re going to do exactly what I say.’ His expression was weary. ‘Afterwards I’ve got to work out what I’m going to say in my sermon this evening.’ He turned from her, pulling the covers over his head, effectively shutting her out.

Lily stared at the humped shape of him in the bed, feeling rejected and frustrated, struggling with the desire to continue arguing the point. Matt wasn’t thinking straight. Who would take care of him and Ronnie, and serve in the shop, look after the hens and the cows? She knew her brother could do a lot and he had less delivering to do because there was less corn coming into the port because of ships and their cargoes being lost at sea, but he was beginning to help on the farm more because of the men being called up. There was also the fact that she had worked hard at making the dairy a going concern and liked earning some money she could call her own.

She would have to leave things for now, though. Matt surely wouldn’t expect her to go to the farm immediately with Ben about to arrive. Besides there were the orphans to see to and Matt could not cope with them alone, she thought with a satisfied smile.

She found the children asleep and stayed awhile, gazing down on them, thinking of the baby inside her. Every now and again the twins’ round little faces twitched, and Joe, who had his thumb in his mouth, would suck it vigorously. Poor mites! She would get Ronnie to explain about them to Uncle William, certain that he would manage to persuade Aunt Dora that two extra small mouths to fill on Christmas Day was not beyond her capabilities.

It was as Lily had thought and Matt did not insist on her going to the farm there and then. In truth he seemed to have forgotten what he had said and she was not going to bring the subject up.

On Christmas Eve, May arrived at the dairy with money to spend. She had grown taller and prettier and at fifteen had a curvaceous figure. ‘I thought we could go shopping,’ she said cheerfully, cutting a slice off the loaf she had baked herself and brought to impress her sister.

‘That’s fine with me. Although there mightn’t be much in town after the raids,’ said Lily cheerfully. She was feeling less nauseous and a little happier because the raids the night before had been less severe. Matt had taken the twins to the infirmary in Stanley Road. Being a clergyman had its uses in opening doors that were often closed to others, he’d said, determined the twins should be reassured about their sister’s care.

Lily’s mood soon changed on overhearing a conversation on the tram into town. Manchester had been heavily bombed and the centre was still burning with the Exchange and all Piccadilly down. It seemed that the Luftwaffe had only gone elsewhere for a night out. When would it all end? She felt a sudden fierce protectiveness towards her unborn child and decided Matt could be talking sense and perhaps she should stay at the farm for the sake of the baby. She felt better having made the decision.

Neither of the sisters had seen before the damage to Philip, Son and Nephew’s bookshop or Russell’s store on the corner of School Lane and Church Street. Its clock tower and the figures that used to come out when it chimed were gone for ever.

‘It’s horrible,’ said May, her mouth drooping. ‘It doesn’t feel like Christmas with some of the buildings all blackened and broken down. It makes me realise you were right making me stay on the farm. Besides I’m getting to like it, although Aunt Dora has me working like a skivvy.’ Her lovely eyes gleamed. ‘She’s teaching me to cook … says I’ve got a nice light touch with pastry.’

‘Matt wants me to go and stay at the farm,’ said Lily.

May looked startled. ‘But you’re not going to, are you? I thought you said nothing would ever separate you from him again.’

A shadow darkened Lily’s eyes. ‘I’m having a baby and that’s a big something. Don’t tell the others. I want to do that myself.’

Her sister was delighted. ‘No wonder he wants you out of it! When’s it due?’

‘May. It’s a long way off yet and I’m not going to be worrying about it.’ She smiled and hugged her sister’s arm. ‘Now it’s Christmas and ol’ Hitler’s not going to stop us enjoying it, so let’s get spending.’ She pushed open the door to Woolworth’s and they went inside.

Matt had told Lily to buy something for the twins, saying it was important they had something to open on Christmas morning. She bought some wooden blocks for Joe. Josie was having one of Mrs Draper’s dolls, which she knitted and sold for the Seamen’s Fund. Lily bought a couple of picture books and sweets and chocolate, and on the second-hand bookstall behind St John’s Market in Williamson’s Square she found several books which she thought her menfolk would enjoy.

Ben was not expected until evening because there were always delays when travelling these days so Lily told May not to wait around in case there was a raid.

Matt had found some coloured paper from somewhere and he and the children had made paper chains and were putting them up in the kitchen as Lily prepared an enormous pan of scouse. He told her about the twins’ sister. ‘She’s all right – was able to talk to them and that’s done them good. The nursing staff said if she had somewhere to go, someone to look after her, they’d let her out for Christmas.’ He bit into a carrot, chewing absently. ‘I’m going to have to try and find them somewhere they can be together.’

Lily’s heart sank. ‘Why you, Matt? We never seem to have a minute to ourselves. Surely someone else can do it?’

‘Dealing with people’s problems is what my job’s about,’ he said quietly. ‘I was thinking—’

‘No, Matt.’ She just knew what he was thinking. ‘She can come for Christmas but they can’t stay indefinitely.’

He eyed her mournfully with the tiniest smile curling the corners of his mouth. She found herself weakening. ‘You’re not going to tell me how there was no room at the inn, are you?’ she said with a laugh. ‘Because honestly, Matt, if it isn’t safe for me and the baby here, how can it be for those children and their sister?’

He hesitated. ‘You’re right. But what about the farm? There’s a room above the stables not being used and space in the house. It’s sinful when people are getting bombed out and are homeless. It won’t be long before the authorities realise the space Dora’s got and she gets landed with someone she’ll fight with cat and dog.’

Lily laughed. ‘You’ll never persuade Aunt Dora,’ she said positively. ‘She’ll hold out as long as she can. I’ve got to ask her about my staying there yet so don’t upset her, Matt.’

His eyes brightened and he pulled her against him. ‘So you’re doing as you’re told, woman?’

‘Yes, man.’ She rested her head against his shoulder. ‘But only if the raids continue.’

‘Agreed.’

‘And I’ll come here every day.’

‘I should hope so! I’ll need someone to wash my socks.’

‘Is that all I’m good for?’

‘You know you’re good for lots more.’ He nibbled her ear.

She pushed him away but her cheeks were pink and her expression warm. ‘Not in front of the children. Now scoot! I want to make some mince pies before Ben arrives.’

Her brother turned up half an hour later. Lily flung her arms around him. ‘I thought you’d never get here. I was worried.’