Through the Storm (37 page)

‘Have I changed the course of my life for the better?’ she asked herself in a whisper. She sat in front of the cold grate for nearly an hour, but was unable to provide herself with an answer. She longed for Penny to hug and kiss, but Penny was spending the night at Sheila’s, and Jessica eventually went to bed alone.

The bloke came in after the pub had opened its doors at half past ten one morning just after Easter. He wore a bowler hat, a pinstriped suit and carried a brolly over his arm. It was rare that the King’s Arms had such a distinguished-looking customer, particularly one who talked dead posh, as if he had a plum in his gob. For a while, he was the only customer there.

He seemed very friendly. ‘Have one yourself,’ he said to Mack, the landlord, when he ordered himself a whisky and soda. He removed his bowler hat and placed it on the bar.

‘Ta, mate, you’re a king,’ said Mack, helping himself to a pint of ale. ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’

‘No, but I happened to be in the vicinity and I thought I’d look up an old friend, James Quigley. Do you know him?’

‘Jimmy, sure I do, along the street, number twenty.’

‘And how’s Jimmy keeping?’ the chap asked conversationally. ‘It’s ages since I last saw him.’

‘Well, very well.’ Mack grinned. ‘In fact, he’s just got married again to a girl young enough to be his daughter.’

The posh bloke grinned back. ‘He always was a lad, was Jimmy.’

‘Where do you know him from, like?’ asked Mack. He didn’t look the sort to have been a friend of Jimmy’s.

‘We were in the Merchant Navy together.’

‘Ah!’ That explained it. All classes of men joined the
Merchant
Navy as a youthful fling. ‘You didn’t stick it out, then?’

‘No, after a couple of voyages I decided it wasn’t the life for me and I pursued a different career.’ The man ordered a second whisky and told Mack to have another beer on him. ‘I left at the same time as Jimmy. If I remember rightly, his wife died and he went to work on the docks. The last I heard, he’d just had some sort of accident. After that, we seemed to lose touch.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I hope the accident wasn’t a bad one.’

‘Nah,’ said Mack. ‘Well, perhaps it was at first. He was housebound for a long time and his daughter, Kitty, looked after him, though we always thought that a bit of a joke. Since Kitty started work, Jimmy’s been prancing round like a two-year-old.’

‘That’s good news, I must say.’ The man looked dead pleased. ‘Would you like another beer?’

‘Wouldn’t say no. More whisky?’

Paddy O’Hara and Rover came in through the swing doors. ‘This chap’s been asking about Jimmy Quigley, Paddy,’ said Mack. ‘He’s an ould mate from the Navy.’

‘Can I buy you a drink, Paddy?’ Jimmy’s ould mate enquired.

‘I’ll have a Guinness, ta.’ Paddy tapped his way towards his favourite seat beneath the black-painted window.

‘And what else has Jimmy been up to, apart from getting married, that is? He used to play football, didn’t he?’

‘That’s right,’ Mack regaled the stranger with the story of the Merseyside Junior Football Cup and how Jimmy had trained the winning team. ‘He’s lost none of his old …’ He paused. From across the room, Paddy O’Hara was shaking his head and mouthing, ‘
No! No! No!
’ Mack had an urgent desire to cut off his own tongue.

‘None of his old what?’ the bloke asked courteously.

‘I can’t remember,’ Mack mumbled. ‘You’ll have to ask Jimmy that for yourself. Number twenty, just along the street, like I said.’

‘You know,’ said the stranger, ‘I’ve spent so long enjoying myself in your fine establishment, that I don’t think I’ve the time to squeeze in a social call, after all. I’ll just have to send Jimmy a letter instead.’ With that, he plonked his bowler hat on his head, swung his brolly over his shoulder like a rifle, and, with a cheery wave, was gone.

With the aid of several pints of Guinness, Mack managed to persuade Paddy O’Hara to promise, on Rover’s life, that he’d never mention the visitor to a soul. ‘I don’t know what the hell he was after, but if Jimmy finds out it was me who clatted on him, he’ll have me guts for garters.’

The letter landed on Jimmy’s doormat three days later. When he opened the envelope, he recognised the headed notepaper straight away as that of the solicitors who had acted for the Dock Board at the time of his accident.

The message was short and to the point. He was advised that his invalidity pension was dependent on him being physically incapacitated and therefore unfit for work. It had come to their notice that this was no longer the case.
Under the circumstances, at the end of this month your weekly pension of twenty-five shillings will cease forthwith
. He could appeal if he wished, but should he choose to do so,
Evidence of your fitness for work can be provided
.

Jimmy sat on the stairs and read the letter again. They were taking his pension away! He would have to get a job! From now on, he would have to drag himself out of bed at some unearthly hour of the morning to be pissed around by some snotty foreman all day long. He couldn’t stand it, not after ruling the roost in his own
house
for all these years. He noticed the neat signature on the letter: N. P. Norman, the same as on other letters he’d had from the solicitors in the past. In fact, Mr Norman had come round to see him when the pension details were finalised, bringing papers with him for Jimmy to sign.

The bloke in the car!
He’d been wondering ever since where he recognised him from. Mr N. P. bloody Norman had nearly run him over last Sunday when they were on their way home from church.

‘Aw, Jaysus!’ Jimmy groaned. He felt as if he was entering a long dark tunnel which didn’t have an end. It was just his sodding luck that, of all the cars in the world to kick a tin can under, he should pick the one belonging to the solicitor who dealt with his pension.

‘Is something the matter, Jimmy?’ Theresa called.

He staggered into the living room and showed her the letter. ‘I suppose I could ask our Kitty to come up with a few more bob?’ he said, his face ashen. Added to the pittance Theresa earned in the fish and chip shop, it might, just might, be enough for three adults and two kids to live on, though he’d have to cut down on the ale and the daily paper would have to go, as well as sweets for the lads on Sundays. He remembered they were still paying the tally man for Georgie’s First Holy Communion clothes.

‘No,’ Theresa said promptly. ‘I’ve no intention of allowing me and me lads to be kept by your Kitty. Apart from which, she already gives us thirty shillings, which is more than half her wages. It wouldn’t be fair to ask for more.’ Theresa had very strict ideas on what was right and proper. ‘Anyroad, another few bob wouldn’t be enough. I’ll just have to get a full time job meself.’

‘Oh, luv, would you mind, like?’ Jimmy gasped, his heart overflowing with gratitude as a bright light gleamed at the end of the dark tunnel. Anything, anything, rather than go to work himself. ‘I’ll look after
the
kids, get them off to school, see to their meals and keep the place tidy the way you like it. You can do the main housework at the weekend same as our Kitty used to do. Of course, I’d go to work meself like a shot, but despite what the letter says, I still have terrible trouble with me legs.’ He rubbed them piteously. ‘I’ve never mentioned it before, ’cos I didn’t want to worry you.’

He was a bit peeved when Theresa didn’t look very interested. ‘I’ll pop round to the Labour Exchange once I’ve tidied up,’ was all she said.

The following Monday, Theresa started on the production line in a munitions factory in Kirkby. It was shift work and her wages were an incredible four pounds, three and sixpence a week, plus bonuses, which meant that instead of Jimmy having to cut down on the ale as he thought he might, he began to consider buying himself a new suit.

‘She loves hard work, does Theresa,’ he explained, chuckling, to Kitty and the neighbours. ‘She got bored at home without much to do.’ He didn’t add that the work was dangerous, involving as it did explosives, because it made him feel just a tiny bit ashamed.

Theresa was halfway through her first week, when the light at the end of the dark tunnel abruptly disappeared. They’d gone to bed early because she had to be up at half past five for work. To Jimmy’s pleased surprise, she lay facing him, and he immediately placed his arm around her thick waist. Her body mechanism worked as regular as clockwork. Every fourth Wednesday she’d be out of action with what she called ‘the curse’ for the next five days. During that time, she usually turned her back on him immediately she got into bed.

‘You’re late, pet,’ he said as he began to touch her big hard breasts.

‘Am I? Are y’sure? I thought it was next Wednesday.’

‘No, it’s this.’ Jimmy had the dates she would be denied him fixed firmly in his head.

She immediately removed his hand and said tonelessly, ‘I’ve only ever been late twice in me life before, and that was when it turned out I was expecting Georgie and Billy.’

As no man worth his salt could possibly permit his pregnant wife to risk her life working with explosives, added to which, his name would be permanently mud if the neighbours found out, Jimmy had no alternative but to insist manfully that Theresa leave her job at the end of the week. Within the space of a fortnight, his entire world had turned completely upside down, and so it was that very early on the last Monday in April, with the sun rising like a blurred jewel in the dusky sky and the birds singing sweetly from the rooftops, Jimmy Quigley slammed the door of number 20 Pearl Street, and made his way towards Gladstone Docks to start work again. It was ten and a half years since the crate had fallen on his legs.

To make matters worse, Theresa declared that, seeing as how she was pregnant, she wanted nothing to do with Jimmy in
that
way till after the baby was born. And, as if that wasn’t enough to send a man mad with the injustice of it all, his daughter Kitty decided to leave home.

Kitty knelt, head bowed, in the back pew of the almost deserted church. There were just two other people, a man and a woman, waiting to go to confession. The curtain of the confessional was drawn back and a young girl emerged and began to say her penance. The woman rose, went into the small cubicle and drew the curtain across, just as Father Keogh emerged from the sacristy, quickly genuflected in front of the altar and came hurrying down the nave, glancing briefly at Kitty as he passed.

The door swung closed, and the church returned to its state of utter silence. The scent of incense hung in the air, along with melted wax and flowers.

‘Should I or shouldn’t I?’ prayed Kitty, though it was useless and possibly sinful to ask such a question of God.

Should she go to bed with Dale Tooley, or should she continue to refuse? She’d known him barely a month, yet they’d seen each other every single time they were both free. He loved her. He’d told her so with mounting passion every time they met. And she loved him, there was not a shred of doubt about that in her mind. Not only that, these weren’t normal times when women clung tightly to their virtue. There was a war on. The times were special and not lightly wasted on long courtships and engagements. In a few months, Dale would be sent to another part of the country, or even to another country altogether, and Lord knew when she’d ever see him again. He belonged to the 8th Army Air Corps Maintenance Division, and as soon as the airstrip and support buildings were finalised in Burtonwood he’d be off to do the same thing elsewhere.

Kitty clutched her hands together tightly and bent her head until her lips were resting on her thumbs.

‘Hi, Kitty.’

‘Hi, Dale.’ Her mind wandered back to the night they met. The Andrews Sisters were singing ‘I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time’ when he’d taken her in his arms and her body began to tingle all over, as if she’d suddenly woken up from a long peaceful sleep. So, it was as simple as that, falling in love.

‘Can I see you again?’ he asked when the music finished. His bright blue eyes with their long thick lashes stared down into hers in the dusk of Pearl Street. He had short hair, like all the Americans, brown with the suggestion of a curl, and wide, sensual lips which curled upwards in a lazy grin.

‘If you like,’ she replied, which was a bit of an
understatement
considering the way she felt. His arm was still around her waist, he was still holding her hand. People pushed against them, a football rolled into her leg, someone said, ‘Kitty, have you …’ Kitty didn’t hear the rest.

‘I do like. When?’

She tried to recall what day it was. The Americans had come to tea, so it must be Sunday. What shift was she on? Mornings, she remembered after a while. ‘One night next week?’

‘How about tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrer’s fine.’

She couldn’t get him out of her mind all next day. It was hard to concentrate on her work, to carry out the tasks she was given with appropriate care and attention. Lucy was seeing Wayne that night and was in an equal tizzy of anticipation, though Kitty kept her own date to herself. She couldn’t even bear to share his name with someone else, not yet.

He was coming by train and they met under the clock outside Owen Owen’s. Kitty was there first and she felt her heart turn over when she saw his tall, lithe figure cross the road towards her.

‘Hi,’ he said. He lifted his arms, about to give her an impulsive hug, but changed his mind and dropped them as if worried she might think he was rushing things too quickly.

‘Hello,’ Kitty said shyly.

It was strange, but there was something extraordinarily special about just walking alongside someone you were in love with. Their arms brushed together from time to time, and, after a few minutes, he took hold of her hand. ‘Where shall we go?’

‘The pictures?’

‘I’d prefer a drink, so we can talk.’

They went into the nearest pub. In fact, they didn’t talk much, content to stare into each other’s eyes and
marvel
over what had happened. He was from Boston, Kitty established that much. He was twenty-eight, had a college education, and was, like her, a Catholic.