The September Girls (37 page)

She was then subjected to ten minutes of questions, far tougher than those asked of the men, and some quite rude.

‘Why aren’t you married?’ Bill Randal wanted to know.

‘Because I’ve never met a man I wanted to marry,’ she replied coolly.

‘Didn’t you want children?’ one of the women demanded.

‘As I’m not married, that question is irrelevant.’

‘Do you think it’s right that women should be in Parliament when there’s a war on?’

‘I can’t think of a single reason why not. It’s women who supply the young men who fight the wars for us and they should have a say in the matter.’

Of the thirty-one members who had come to the meeting - five of them women - only two gave Lizzie their vote. Colm was one and Charlie Pitt the other. She was too clever by half for the men and too pretty for the women. What’s more, she was unmarried and both sides reckoned there was something dangerous about a woman who had such a narrow waist and pointed breasts, who wore nail polish to match her lipstick, a smart lilac hat to match her smart lilac frock, silk stockings and the highest heels they’d ever seen.

Colm Caffrey recognized the danger most of all. It had been his intention merely to shake Lizzie Phelan’s hand, thank her for coming and wish her good luck in the future but, when the meeting was over and Bertram Gilbert had been chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the seat of Toxteth and Dingle, Colm couldn’t resist inviting her downstairs to the bar for a drink. He admired her unwillingness to compromise: her speech had expressed her own beliefs and hadn’t just told the audience what they wanted to hear. He admired the way she’d dressed as herself, with her nail polish and silk stockings, not in some drab outfit that wouldn’t have raised a single hackle.

‘You’ve hardly changed,’ he said. ‘I’d have recognized you anywhere.’ There was scarcely a line on her face and her brown eyes were as bright and vivacious as those of a young girl. She had lost none of her enthusiasm for life or her dedication to making it better, not just for herself, but for everyone.

‘And you look far too old for your years, Colm,’ she replied with her usual bluntness. ‘Why didn’t you stand for the seat? You’d have easily won.’

‘It didn’t cross me mind,’ he confessed.

‘You underestimate yourself, you always did,’ she said crossly. ‘You’re honest and truthful and would make a marvellous Member of Parliament. I’m surprised your wife didn’t try and talk you into it.’

‘Brenna doesn’t think like that.’ Brenna loved him, but she wouldn’t consider him capable of becoming a politician.

‘She doesn’t realize the sort of husband she has. It’s about time you started aiming a bit higher, Colm. You know what they say: the sky’s the limit.’

He’d only been in Lizzie’s presence five minutes and he was already thinking there was nothing he couldn’t do. She did wonders for his ego. She produced a packet of cigarettes and offered him one.

‘No, ta.’ He took the silver lighter from her hand and lit the cigarette for her, conscious of the curve of her cheeks, her long, dark lashes, the way her pink lips puckered with the first puff. ‘What’s it like living in Wallasey?’ he asked.

‘Wallasey’s fine, but my sister’s house is terribly cramped. I’m moving to Liverpool shortly. I’ve got a job as personnel officer in a munitions factory in Kirkby.’

Colm caught his breath. ‘That’s where I work.’

‘No doubt we’ll come across each other from time to time.’

‘No doubt we will,’ said Colm.

 

Back in Shaw Street, after a cup of tea and having described the events of the evening to Brenna, omitting all mention of Lizzie Phelan, Colm went upstairs and examined his full-length reflection in the mirror, something he hadn’t done in a long while. He saw a tired, round-shouldered man with blurred features, greying hair and the beginnings of a pot belly. His entire body seemed to have sagged and he looked smaller than he’d used to - no wonder Lizzie had said he looked old for his age. He threw back his shoulders, pulled in his belly and straight away looked younger and taller.

After practising a few times, he went down and said to Brenna, ‘I think I’ll buy meself a new suit, luv, before they go on coupons, like.’

‘But there’s years of wear in that one, darlin’,’ Brenna cried.

‘Yes, but it’s dead old-fashioned. The lapels are too wide and I quite fancy a single-breasted jacket. And I’ve never liked the colour. I fancy a nice, dark grey.’ He couldn’t think what had possessed him to buy brown. ‘You should have seen the one this Bertram Gilbert chap wore. It probably came from Savile Row and cost a small fortune.’

Brenna laughed. ‘You just stick to Burtons, the fifty-shilling tailors. I don’t know where this Savile Row place is, darlin’, but it’s not for the likes of you and me.’

Which, Colm thought, most unfairly, was just like Brenna. She didn’t aim high enough.

 

Eleanor’s eyes popped when she opened the door and saw him outside, as well they might, Marcus thought, as he’d never visited the house in Tigh Street before. She looked very pretty in a blue blouse and white skirt, her sunburnt legs bare. He found it hard to believe that this smiling, carefree woman was the little mouse he’d married.

‘Good morning.’ He tipped his hat. ‘I’d like us to have a little talk, if you don’t mind.’

‘Of course, Marcus.’ She graciously stood aside to let him in and he removed his hat and entered an attractive hallway with white woodwork and flowered paper on the walls. ‘It’s the door at the end,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry it’s in a mess, but I’m in the middle of making a patchwork quilt.’

A treadle sewing machine stood in the corner of the sun-filled room, a colourful quilt flowing from it on to the floor, and squares of brightly patterned material were spread on the table. The French windows were open and he glimpsed a small garden with neat rows of vegetables and a greenhouse packed with climbing plants, reminding him of a jungle. He sat in a small armchair covered in flowered cretonne.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Eleanor asked. ‘There’s tea, some rather bitter coffee or lemonade.’

‘Nothing, thank you. I was sorry to hear about Jonathan,’ he said when she sat opposite in a matching chair.

She waved a dismissive hand. ‘I was terribly upset at first, but I’m used to the idea by now. Jonathan can’t wait, he’s leaving on Saturday. I’m dreading it, but it would be pointless to make a fuss. I shall just have to grin and bear it the way Brenna did when her children left - and now Fergus has come back a hero.’ She folded her hands on her knee and looked at him expectantly. ‘What did you want us to have a little talk about?’

He coughed awkwardly. ‘I was thinking of making a will . . .’

‘You’re not ill, are you?’ she asked quickly, interrupting.

‘No, but they say the air raids could start any minute and the odds against being killed have shortened rather for us all. The other day, I remembered that half the house in Parliament Terrace is yours—’

She interrupted again. ‘It’s taken a long time for you to remember that, Marcus, almost twenty years.’

‘I know, and I’m sorry,’ he said humbly. ‘It didn’t cross my mind until I began to think about a will, and I realized I couldn’t leave the house to Sybil because I only owned half of it.’

‘You can have my half with pleasure,’ Eleanor cried. ‘I shall never, never live in that house again.
This
is my home now, and I shall stay here until I die. Sybil can have it with my compliments, although I can’t see her living in it. She’ll probably sell it and buy something a bit more modern.’

As he would be dead if that happened, he didn’t care what Sybil did with the house. ‘If I give you the address of my solicitor, would you mind writing him a letter to that effect?’

‘Of course not, I’ll do it today,’ she said cheerfully. ‘But what about Anthony? Shouldn’t he and Sybil share the house? In fact, surely there’s no need to make a will if I write the letter? As we are no longer man and wife, everything will automatically go to the children.’

‘It’s for precisely that reason I wanted to make it. We haven’t heard from Anthony in years - at least
I
haven’t. Have you?’

‘Not since he was eighteen, no. Since then, I’ve written to him loads of times, but he didn’t reply.’ She didn’t look even faintly upset about it. Jonathan had filled her life to the exclusion of her other children. Although she claimed to love Sybil, he suspected it was more from a sense of duty on her part that she kept the relationship going.

‘That’s six years ago,’ he said sternly. ‘The last letter I sent him was returned unopened and marked “No longer at this address”. He doesn’t deserve anything. If I should die, I don’t want him coming back to claim his share of the house, wanting to sell it or wanting to keep it, when Sybil would sooner do the opposite. They never got on and things could get very unpleasant.’ There were two things that could set a family at each other’s throats: money and property.

Eleanor sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. I’m sure Anthony must be doing well in America, else we’d have heard.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Although I wonder how he
is
getting on.’

‘Unless he writes and tells us, we shall never know.’

A black cat came wandering through the window and jumped on her knee. She stroked it and it began to purr loudly. ‘This is Tosca,’ she said. ‘She’s a stray. Oliver christened her Tosca because she miaows like an opera singer he once heard.’

Marcus smiled thinly. He hated cats.

‘There’s just one thing, Marcus,’ she went on. ‘My father had an emerald tiepin and a ring to match. Mummy bought them for him when they got married. I’d like to have them, please. I don’t understand legal things, but perhaps you could leave them to me in this famous will of yours?’

‘I shall bring them round tomorrow,’ he said promptly, ‘and anything else you might like to have.’

‘Just the ring and the tiepin, they’re all I want.’ She smiled at him sweetly. ‘Oh, Marcus! If only you’d always been so kind. There’d never have been any need for me to leave. We could have been happily married all this time.’

They shook hands politely and he left for the factory, although he would quite liked to have stayed in the sunny room with the half-made quilt and the black cat - and Eleanor. He had never loved her and never would, although they could perhaps be friends. But it was probably too late, as it was too late for so many other things.

 

The house wasn’t the only thing that belonged to them both, Eleanor remembered when Marcus had gone and she sat down again at the sewing machine: her father had also left them half the company each, something he had conveniently forgotten. When she’d first left home - been
thrown out
of her home - she’d been too scared to approach him and demand her share of the profits. But in no time at all she was taking in lodgers and managing perfectly well on her own. She’d felt so proud and had wanted Marcus to know that she didn’t need him or the money that legitimately belonged to her. Tomorrow when he came, she’d remind him about the company. It would be something for Jonathan to inherit. Marcus was right: if the raids started, she was as likely to die as anyone and perhaps it would be wise if she also made a will.

She abandoned the quilt, wrote the promised letter to Marcus’s solicitor and decided to take a trip into town and deliver it by hand. While there, she would arrange an appointment to make a will of her own. She also wanted to buy some remnants of material for the quilt as she didn’t have enough and had used up all the odds and ends of stuff she could find in the house.

With Jonathan’s imminent departure put firmly to the back of her mind, she quite enjoyed the day. Perhaps it was Marcus’s visit, reminding her of the old days, that made her savour the freedom she now had to do as she pleased. She had coffee in Frederick & Hughes, bought two Revlon lipsticks, both the same shade - it was rumoured that cosmetics, like so many other things, would soon be in short supply - a detective magazine for Fergus who, Brenna reported, was bored out of his skull stuck in the house, some colourful remnants and four yards of crêpe de chine to make a frock: it had been a surprise to discover she was handy with a sewing machine.

On the way home, she called on Nancy and found her in the middle of making an eggless sponge cake, eggs having virtually disappeared from the shops.

‘How do they turn out?’ Eleanor enquired curiously. As more and more food was being rationed, she was finding it difficult to feed her lodgers.

‘A bit like two pancakes stuck together with jam, but his lordship seems to like them. Do you realize tea will be on ration as from the first of July? It’s only a few days away.’

Eleanor shuddered. ‘How on earth will we manage with only two ounces a week?’

‘All we can do is try.’

‘You’re right.’ Very soon, she’d have to manage without Jonathan. Compared to that, tea was a very minor sacrifice.

 

‘He’s out,’ Brenna announced when Eleanor called in Shaw Street with the magazine for Fergus. ‘An ambulance came for him this avvy to take him to a military hospital over the water for an assessment or something. Would you like a cup of tea? Oh, and as from next week, you can bring your own. I’m not prepared to give away a leaf of me precious two ounces, not even to me best friend in the world.’ No one knew about the secret store that she was keeping for emergencies.

 

Jonathan had changed out of his school uniform and was in the kitchen wearing old flannel trousers and a short-sleeved shirt when Eleanor arrived home.

‘Hello, Mummy.’ He lifted his face for a kiss and she complied with pleasure.

‘Hello, darling. We’re having corned beef salad for tea. Everything’s ready and we’ll eat as soon as Oliver and Lewis come.’

‘They’re already here. They’re upstairs having a fight.’

‘A fight!’

‘Well, a very heated argument.’