Lily’s War (4 page)

‘I’m not telling you. If you haven’t got the sense to leave it off just a few days longer, then I’ll have to have the sense for both of us. You’ll have an accident one of these days and then you’ll be even worse off. It’s you I’m thinking of, Dad. I don’t want you suffering any more than you are already.’

Some of the anger left his face and there was a placating note in his voice when he spoke. ‘Well, where’s me crutches then? I can use them, can’t I? I promised I’d meet someone in the cocoa house in Christian Street. That’s if you can lend your old father half a crown?’

She looked at him cynically. ‘Sure you don’t want ten bob?’ His face brightened. ‘If you’ve got it, girl.’

‘I was joking, Dad.’

‘A florin then,’ he pleaded.

‘Sixpence.’

‘A shilling. You’ve got the money here.’ He clutched at the counter and reached for the small basket on the ledge under the counter but she moved swiftly and grabbed it at the same time as he did. There was a wobbly tussle.

The doorbell jangled.

‘Give it me here,’ yelled Albert.

‘Not on your life!’

‘Is this man bothering you, Miss Thorpe?’

The basket slipped from Lily’s fingers but she had no time to reply before Matthew had moved and seized hold of the back of her father’s jacket.

‘Get your bloody hands off me,’ gasped Albert, hopping around. ‘This is me daughter and I’ll thank you to mind your own bloody business!’

‘Is this true?’ Matthew stared at Lily with a rueful gleam in his eyes.

‘I’m afraid so,’ she said, wishing her father to Timbuctoo. ‘But thank you, anyway.’ She took the basket from Albert.

Matthew carefully released him. ‘I’m sorry, mate. My mistake.’

Lily said, ‘Dad, this is the preacher I told you about, so watch your language.’

‘I’ll say what I bloody like!’ Albert shook himself like a terrier that had been out in the rain. ‘He’s no better than me! A Holy Joe who knows nothing about real life and suffering. I’ve met your kind before,’ he muttered, glowering at him and rubbing his neck. ‘Live in the clouds, you lot do.’

‘Dad, shut up!’ Lily opened his hand and pressed a shilling into it. ‘Your crutches are behind the sofa. Watch you don’t break your neck,’ she whispered, opening the door to the living quarters. Albert arrowed Matthew a withering look before leaving the shop.

‘You’ll have to excuse him,’ said Lily, facing the preacher. ‘He says he doesn’t believe in God but blames Him for losing his leg.’

‘You don’t have to apologise. There’s a lot of people like that.’

Her mouth curved into a smile. ‘There’s another kind. Those who won’t have anything to do with the church but who behave as if they believe everything it stands for.’

He smiled. ‘I’m sorry I antagonised your father.’

‘Dad would be prickly with God himself. He was bad enough after the war but when Mam died that was the finish. Now he can’t settle to anything and drinks.’

‘It can’t be an easy life for you.’

‘If he could forget the war it would be easier.’

His smile faded. ‘It wrecked a lot of lives in Australia.’

Lily leaned forward over the counter. ‘I suppose you’re used to dealing with men with problems like Dad’s.’

‘Most men prefer to keep their pain inside them where I come from. They consider it more manly.’ He took an egg from the tray on the counter and rolled it between his hands. ‘My own father never spoke of his feelings after my mother died or of his pain when he was dying himself. Stiff upper lip and all that.’

She was interested in this information which stirred her compassion. ‘Any brothers and sisters?’

Matthew shook his head. ‘Mum went when I was three and Dad died a few years ago. It was when he was dying he told me more about his past than he had ever done before. He never stopped talking about Liverpool, where he was born, or India and China where he went with the British Army. He brought those places alive to me. So much so I wanted to see them for myself.’

‘Liverpool must seem strange and drab after India and Australia?’

He placed the egg back on the tray and smiled. ‘I enjoy the difference. I like the people and the bustle of the place. Besides I’m convinced it was God’s will that I came.’

‘Are you?’ Lily had never met anyone who spoke so openly about God’s will in the scheme of things. ‘How do you know?’

‘You just know,’ he drawled. ‘He won’t leave you alone.’

There was a silence and she hesitated before saying, ‘I believe you have an aunt over here? Have you found her yet?’

‘To tell you the truth I haven’t looked. Haven’t had time.’ He rested his arms on the counter and the action brought his face close to hers. ‘Is it possible you might have time to help me?’

She could hardly believe he was asking her but did not hesitate. ‘I can make time. Have you an address?’

Matt took a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it over. ‘I know I could get a street map but it’s more fun having someone explaining what’s which.’

Lily looked at the address and said ruefully, ‘I don’t know it. I can tell you Seiont is the name of a Welsh river. A lot of the housing in Liverpool was built by Welshmen. Any clues to its whereabouts from your father?’

‘He said Steble Street public baths was not far away.’

Lily was surprised. ‘It’s Toxteth way – not far from Park Road if I remember. My brother delivers in that area. There’s several streets not far away named after characters out of Dickens’s novels.’

He smiled, showing white teeth. ‘I remember Dad read Dickens, Kipling and the Bible. He believed the British Army and the Church of England would stand for ever. The house is three storeys high and there were no windows at the back.’

‘It must be from the times when the government levied a tax on windows,’ she said thoughtfully, folding the paper between her fingers. ‘Shall we go and find it?’ She whipped off her apron. ‘I’ll have to be back for the second milking about threeish. If you don’t mind waiting while I get a coat?’

‘Of course not.’

Lily left him to run a comb swiftly through her hair. She pressed the back of her hands to hot cheeks and wondered how he had known where to find her. He must have asked, which meant he was interested. Which was all to the good because she was more than just interested in him! She found her best hat and turned the shop sign to closed.

They caught a tram in West Derby Road and she pointed out the tobacco factory, the ice-cream parlour, the cinema and the home-made sweet shop. ‘Terrible for the teeth but fascinating watching them being made.’

He looked amused. ‘Dad mentioned Everton toffee.’

‘Striped sugar coating with toffee inside. Daisy, my sister, helps to make them. They originated in a little toffee shop in Everton which used to be a township all of its own over a hundred years ago. Liverpool grew and gobbled it up.’ She waved her right arm as they passed the Hippodrome theatre and cinema. ‘It’s thataway! You get a marvellous view of the river and the Wirral peninsula from up on the Brow. If you’d like to see it, I could show you one day.’

‘I’d like that.’ They were silent a moment, then he murmured, ‘Dad mentioned a Princes Road. Said he remembered wealthy merchants riding in their carriages. It was tree-lined and more like one of those boulevards in Paris.’

She smiled. ‘It’s still there but past its heyday. There’s not so many wealthy merchants these days. More Irish, I’d say. They flooded in after the potato famine in the last century. Liverpool was first port of call for those who couldn’t afford America or Australia.’

‘Bishop Dr David says there’s a quarter of a million Irish living in the city right now.’

‘I’m not surprised. Some would send them all back to Ireland now they want to be a real republic but most of us just accept them as part of the scenery. Anyway I’ve no call to speak against them. My grandparents were not native Liverpudlians.’ She paused, suddenly aware of his clear steady gaze and she blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m babbling on. I enjoyed your talk and the slides the other evening. I’ve always wanted to travel.’

‘Where would you go, Miss Thorpe?’

‘Where else but those far flung corners of the British Empire?’ she said with enthusiasm. ‘Those pink bits sprinkled all over the map of the world.’

‘Not for much longer. The world’s changing.’ He looked grim for a moment.

‘You’re talking about India?’ she said tentatively.

‘Not just India. Germany is rearming and Japan is touchy about what’s happening in China. They say they won’t stand for communism.’

She was interested. ‘I hardly know anything about Japan.’

‘It probably doesn’t seem a threat to Britain, that’s why, but it could be to those far-flung corners of the Empire.’

It was as if a shadow crossed the sun and she said slowly, ‘You make it sound as if what Japan does is serious?’

He hesitated. ‘Forget I said it. Tell me about yourself, Miss Thorpe.’

‘I’d rather you told me more about the places you’ve been,’ she responded. ‘And my friends call me Lily.’

He smiled. ‘I’d rather hear about you, Lily.’

‘Please! I’ve talked enough. You’ll be sick of my voice.’

‘Never,’ he said softly. ‘But we’ll take turns or you’ll be sick of mine.’

She could barely believe he had paid her such a nice compliment, and after that it was only by the sheerest fluke Lily noticed they had reached Lord Street because the conversation was so interesting. They shot off the tram just in time to change on to the next at the Victoria monument and headed in the direction of the Custom’s House and then Park Road. It was not long before they were in Seiont Terrace.

The houses were tall and narrow, as he’d said, with steps leading up to the front door. Matthew knocked and a few moments later the door opened. An old woman with pipecleaners in her white hair, a clay pipe in her mouth and a pair of men’s boots on her feet stood before them. She had both hands tucked into the massive bosom of her flowered pinny.

Lily glanced at Matthew’s face but could not read his expression. Could this really be his aunt?

‘Mrs Rowlands?’ he enquired.

She removed the pipe and poked him with it. ‘Yer aren’t from roundabouts here, are yer, lad?’

He smiled. ‘Australia! I wrote to you.’

‘Can’t read. Yer shouldn’t be writing letters to them’s can’t read.’

‘I didn’t know you couldn’t read.’

‘Well, I can’t. So what are you going to do about it?’ The pipe came into play again.

‘He could always read them to you,’ interposed Lily, who was struggling not to laugh.

Bright brown eyes inspected her. ‘He could. Will I like what’s in them, though? Because if it’s bad news I don’t want to know.’

Matthew looked at Lily, who said in a quivering voice, ‘You’ll have to tell her.’

He nodded. ‘Davy’s dead. I’m sorry, Aunt Jane, but he’s been gone years.’

‘That’s a shame. Nice funeral, was it?’ She placed the pipe back in her mouth and sucked on it.

At that moment a voice called from inside, ‘Who is it, Mam?’

The pipe was removed and she called, ‘It’s a man from some place or other and Davy’s dead.’

There was silence before a woman of fortyish came into view. ‘Who’s Davy?’ She stared at Matt and Lily. ‘And who are you two? We don’t know any Davys.’

Lily couldn’t control herself any longer and shot down the steps and round the corner into the next street. Matthew joined her a few minutes later where she was laughing helplessly.

He stared at her with mock severity. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, laughing at the poor old woman.’

‘She’s not your aunt then?’ Lily’s voice wobbled as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘No.’ He grinned. ‘She’s moved to some place called Bootle by a toffee works. Can’t get away from sweets today.’

Lily gazed at him and thought, he’s much nicer-looking than nice and he’s got a sense of humour and he doesn’t preach all the time. I could really get to like him … ‘What do you want to do?’ she said. ‘Bootle’s the other side of Liverpool and I don’t know how long it’d take us to get there. I’m presuming you managed to get an address?’

‘The daughter gave me it and she had the letters I’d written, having meant to take them to Aunt Jane when she got round to it.’ He hesitated. ‘As much as I’d like your company, you’ve got the milking to do. I think we’d best separate after you’ve pointed me in the direction of the right tram.’

‘You should get one at the Pierhead. You will let me know if you find her?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll call later and tell you how I got on, if you don’t mind? I’d like to meet Ben. If he knows Liverpool as well as you say he does, maybe he wouldn’t mind taking me on his rounds? I’m thinking of doing for Liverpool in Australia what I did for India here. Hands across the oceans and all that.’

‘Come to tea,’ she said rashly, hoping for once her father would stay out late.

When Lily arrived back at the dairy there was no sign of Albert. She looked inside the larder and took out cocoa, flour, sugar and butter. She switched on the wireless and a failing voice came over the air, signalling that the accumulator needed changing. It would have to wait until tomorrow. There was no time if she was to bake a cake. She sang as she worked.

Ben came in smelling strongly of horses and sunflower seed cattlecake, which caused Lily to wrinkle her nose. ‘You’ve been to the docks. We’ll have to get on with the milking and then you can get washed and changed.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I always do.’

‘You’ll have to do it quicker this time. We’ve got a visitor coming.’

‘Not Aunt Dora?’ he groaned, washing his hands.

‘Don’t be daft! You know she swore never to set foot inside this house until Dad’s off the drink.’

‘He should never have told her she looked like a crow.’

‘It’s a bit late now. Where’s my apron?’

‘Where you always put it.’ He lifted it from its hook. ‘What’s up with you?’

Lily’s eyes sparkled as she tied her apron. ‘I don’t want you making any smart remarks, little brother. It’s the preacher, and he’s coming to tea.’

‘Thanks a lot!’ He looked disgrunted. ‘I like to relax when I come home. What’ll we talk about?’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘He’ll go on about God and I’ll have to watch what I say.’