‘What’s he doing here?’ Ena looked Bob up and down, the expression on her face looking like she had something nasty on her shoe.
‘Bob very kindly offered to walk me home, to save Lily the bother,’ Vera said, quickly, not wanting to get her friend into trouble. ‘Wasn’t that nice of him?’ She cleared her throat, worried that she could feel her voice weakening.
‘Yes, very nice,’ was Ena’s clipped response. ‘Ta very much.’ She grabbed hold of Vera’s arm to pull her indoors and with her free hand made a shooing gesture towards Bob. ‘Now be off with you,’ she shouted, ‘that’s quite enough excitement for one night. It’s time this one was off to bed.’
This last comment incensed Vera. How dare her mother humiliate her like that in front of Bob? She felt a sudden renewed burst of energy and she pulled her arm roughly out of her mother’s grip. ‘Thanks Bob, for a lovely evening,’ she called after him, and she blew him a kiss as if Ena hadn’t spoken.
Meanwhile Ena grabbed hold of Vera’s arm and spun her round to face her.
‘So Lily had other fish to fry, did she?’ She wagged her finger in Vera’s face. ‘If you’d have listened to me in the first place and gone to the pictures with Eric there’d have been no need for Lily to be put out or for this Bob character to poke his nose in at all.’
‘There’s nowt wrong with Bob!’ Vera said vehemently. ‘He’s very nice. And as a matter of fact I’m going to …’ But remembering something Lily had said, she pulled up short of making an announcement.
‘As a matter of fact … what?’ Ena imitated Vera’s voice.
‘Nothing.’ Vera sounded suddenly subdued. ‘But don’t think you can ever get me to go out with that Eric. I won’t, not ever.’ She rallied. ‘In fact, Elsie says …’ No, she shouldn’t say anything about Elsie.
There was a sudden silence. Vera could see her mother’s face twitching and she worried that she might have gone too far.
‘Elsie says what?’ Ena’s voice was menacing.
‘Nothing,’ Vera said, and fast as she could she went into the bedroom and, in a moment of pique, she dared to slam the door.
If Vera thought she was the only one suffering the anger of her mother she was wrong, for Lily fared no better when she arrived home only a few streets away from the Mission. She hadn’t expected her mother to be waiting up for her and that could only mean one thing – her father was at home and had been lashing out with his tongue.
‘What time do you call this?’ Martha Longhurst was waiting by the front door as Lily inserted her key in the lock.
‘What do you mean? I told you I was going out.’ Lily did her best to sound offhand.
‘Yes, but the pictures don’t end this late.’
Lily explained about the late start. ‘Did you not hear the siren go off?’ she asked innocently.
‘Of course we did, but that didn’t make you this late. What did Ena say when you dropped Vera off?’
That was a question Lily hadn’t anticipated and there was an awkward silence before she confessed. ‘Actually, I didn’t.’
‘What do you mean, you didn’t? Where is she?’ Momentarily, fear flashed across Martha’s face.
‘We bumped into a friend of hers.’
‘What do you mean? Vera doesn’t have any friends. Ena’s always seen to that.’
Lily didn’t respond.
‘Who is she, this friend?’
‘It’s not a she … it was a bloke she knew from work.’
Martha’s eyes opened wide. ‘Are you mad, girl? Ena will kill Vera and then she’ll be on the warpath coming after you and I won’t blame her.’ She shook her head in disbelief until the next thought struck her. ‘Who saw you home, then?’ she suddenly asked.
‘I met someone I knew as well.’ Lily felt her face redden and she had to take a deep breath.
‘Some coincidence!’ Martha’s tone was sarcastic.
‘Yes, it really was.’ It might have been true but even as she said it Lily realized how flimsy it sounded.
‘What’s his name?’ This time Martha cut to the chase.
‘Johnny,’ Lily said quietly as if that would make a difference.
‘Johnny what?’ Martha persisted.
Lily kept the fingers of both hands crossed behind her back. ‘I don’t know his second name,’ she lied.
‘You mean you let any boy you met in the street see you home? What were you thinking about?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that. I knew him from before.’
‘I don’t know what your father’s gonna say when he finds out,’ Martha said, and she shook her head.
‘Why does he have to find out?’ Lily threw down the challenge. ‘You don’t have to tell him.’
Martha’s shoulders slumped and she suddenly looked defeated. ‘He’ll find out one way or another, you know he always does.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t you go out with Peter like you said you probably would, then none of this would have happened.’ She sounded exhausted but Lily didn’t like the way the conversation was heading and she grabbed at the chance to turn things around.
‘Honestly!’ she said in as cross a voice as she dared muster, and she suddenly stamped her foot. ‘Always throwing Peter in my face, as if he’s the best catch in the world. You’re as bad as Mrs Sharples. She expects Vera to go out with that dreadful Eric the Bogeyman chap and she won’t hear a word against him.’
‘I’m nothing like Ena Sharples and don’t you ever dare to say that I am! And I don’t know how you could compare yourself to Vera. When have we ever kept you prisoner like Ena keeps that poor girl? You have lots of freedom for someone your age. Your father’s always telling me I spoil you, letting you get up to all sorts. In fact, if he knew the half of this … It’s lucky for you he got drunk for a change and fell asleep.’
‘Well, this time he doesn’t have to know, does he? There’s certainly no reason for you to tell him.’
‘What? You think I’ll tell lies for you?’ Martha looked horrified. ‘I have no wish to become anyone’s punching bag.’
‘Then you don’t want to go upsetting him now, do you?’
Martha hesitated for a second too long and Lily grinned. ‘Thanks, Ma,’ she said, though she couldn’t help wondering how long her movements would stay a secret in that house.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.’ Martha shook her head again.
‘Nothing …’ Lily whispered the word. ‘For once, do nothing. Just don’t go telling tales about me to my dad. Then there’s really no need for either of us to get into trouble.’ And before her mother could respond, Lily ran upstairs, breathing hard at the thought of her narrow escape.
Chapter 7
Vera had never had a friend like Lily before and far from being cross with her about the incident at the cinema Vera wished she could be more like her. She would love to be so relaxed and carefree with boys as Lily appeared to be. Lily always seemed to be able to make up her own mind and to know how to behave. But mostly Vera envied the younger girl her freedom. Lily seemed to go where she wanted, whenever she wanted, without her mother constantly watching and questioning her every move. The brief moment of independence Vera had experienced with Elsie Tanner when they had gone off to the dance in the Burtonwood barracks had left her wanting more and made her determined to seek out a way to have it. It wouldn’t be easy, but there had to be a way. She clenched her fist and suddenly thumped the scratched wooden tabletop so that the plates on the dresser behind it rattled and Lily jumped.
‘I’m sorry I left you in the lurch like that,’ Lily said as if reading Vera’s mind. The two girls were sitting together in the vestry at the Mission and they could hear Ena in the background, belting out one of her favourite hymns on the piano. ‘Well, perhaps not exactly in the lurch; at least Bob saw you safely home.’
‘Yes, of course he did.’ Vera laughed.
‘Was your mother cross?’ Lily wanted to know. ‘I know mine was when I had to admit I hadn’t
seen you all the way home.’
Vera looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t care what my mother thinks!’ She suddenly raised her voice, though as she said the words she realized that she’d spoken with far more courage than she felt.
‘I presume you didn’t tell her you plan to marry Bob?’ Lily said with a laugh. ‘Do you still fancy him now that you’ve had a chance to talk to him a bit?’
Vera felt her cheeks burn. ‘Yes, of course I do.’ She paused. ‘And I fully intend to see him again soon. But somehow I’ve got to get my mother used to the idea and then she’ll realize that she can forget about anyone else she’s been trying to line up.’ Vera frowned. ‘I’m going to marry the man I want to marry and not some old rag-and-bone man that my mother has decided will do.’
‘Is she still keen on the idea of that Eric bloke?’
‘I’m afraid she is. She still throws up his name every time I mention the idea of going out. I honestly don’t know what she thinks is so special about him. To hear her talk, you’d think he was the only lad in the world.’
‘Did Bob ask you out, then?’
‘Not yet,’ Vera admitted. ‘But I’m sure he will.’
Lily laughed. ‘Well, if he hasn’t asked by Christmas, next year’s a leap year so you can ask him. You can even ask him to marry you if you still fancy that idea.’
‘I very much fancy that idea,’ Vera said. ‘It’s the only way I can think of to get out of this house.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Lily sighed. ‘I feel the same way. I’m tired of the constant rows and me being piggy in the middle. I want to live my own life.’
Vera stared into space, locked in her own thoughts. ‘Somehow I’ve got to get my mother to like Bob.’
Chapter 8
July 1943
Vera might have spoken bold words with a newfound confidence when she was talking to Lily, but when Ena began to give her the cold shoulder following her evening with Bob, Vera was more upset at first than she wanted to admit. She wasn’t used to Ena speaking only when it was absolutely necessary and she found herself telling Elsie Tanner about it when she happened to meet her at the corner shop.
‘What’s up with you, love? You look proper down in the dumps,’ Elsie said.
‘That’s because I am,’ Vera replied and she couldn’t stop spilling out the whole story from the night Bob had walked her home from the cinema to her mother punishing her with silence.
Elsie laughed at first at the thought of Ena having nothing to say, but that reduced Vera to tears and she quickly saw it was sympathy that was needed.
‘It must be really hard because you’re in each other’s pockets all the time,’ Elsie said, as Vera gradually calmed down. ‘Do you ever have any time to yourself?’
‘Only when I see Lily.’ Vera sniffled into her handkerchief. ‘And I don’t see so much of her now because she’s got her own …’ She stopped and put her hand to her mouth.
‘Boyfriend?’ Elsie supplied the word and she smiled broadly. ‘Good for her!’
‘Oh dear. I’m not supposed to say. Her mam doesn’t know.’ Vera wiped away the stray tears that were still on her cheeks.
‘Don’t worry. I shan’t snitch,’ Elsie said. ‘But the point is, apart from when Ena spends an hour or so in the Rovers it means that you’re with her for all the rest of the time?’
Vera nodded miserably. ‘We go to work together of a morning, work all day on the same bench, and then walk home together at the end of the day. That’s why I want to get married. So that I can get away.’
Elsie stopped for a moment to light a cigarette. They were by a wall where she cupped her hands as she struck a match, trying to find sufficient shelter from the wind. Vera looked up as they paused and noticed two posters that had recently been pasted there. They each showed a smiling young girl in uniform. One had aeroplanes flying in the background and it said they were looking for recruits for the Women’s Royal Air Force, the other was an advertisement for the WRENS and showed a girl with a packed suitcase ready to go to relieve any man who might want to join the navy and go to sea. Elsie glanced up and suddenly smiled. ‘Now, there’s another way you could leave home,’ she said. ‘Ever thought of joining up?’
‘Do you think they’d take me?’ Vera looked doubtful.
‘You never know till you try,’ Elsie said. They carried on walking, Elsie blowing smoke rings into the wind. ‘But if that’s a bit too drastic for you, then why don’t you try to avoid Ena by changing your routine?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean like change your shift or summat so that you’re not both doing everything at the same time.’
Vera stared gloomily down at the cobbles beneath her feet. ‘I suppose I could ask to work a different shift,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Or I could put in for overtime,’ she said. ‘That’s something my mam wouldn’t want to be doing, though I don’t know what she’ll say if I suggest it.’
Elsie whipped the cigarette from her mouth, removing a grain of tobacco from the tip of her tongue with her brightly painted fingernail. ‘Then don’t suggest it, just do it!’ she said triumphantly. ‘Don’t keep fighting her all the time. Tell her after you’ve done it. After all, she can hardly complain if it brings in extra money.’
‘No, she can’t.’ Vera smiled at last. ‘I’ll do that. Thank you, Elsie.’
Elsie grinned. ‘And whatever you do don’t tell Ena it was my idea.’
But Ena didn’t bother to ask whose idea it was, all she did was to pour scorn on the whole notion when Vera made her announcement.
‘You doing overtime?’ she scoffed. ‘Don’t be so daft. Do you want to kill yourself, girl? You haven’t got the stamina apart from anything else.’ And Vera felt as if she was six years old.
But she tried to remember what Elsie had said: ‘Don’t ask, just do it’, and she had been right. The very thought of Vera having done something off her own bat had forced Ena out of her silence, although Vera was shocked by the strength of her mother’s reaction.
‘You’ll tell them tomorrow you’ve made a mistake and you’ll be doing no such thing.’ Ena was determined to have the last word as usual, but for once Vera wouldn’t let her.
‘It’s too late for that,’ Vera said with a smile of satisfaction, ‘I’ve already signed up and I start tomorrow,’ though as she said the words she couldn’t help wondering, what if her mother was right?
The next evening as she came out of work after her extra shift, Vera recognized that Ena had definitely been right about her being exhausted at the end of the day; but one thing she hadn’t thought about was that she would be walking home on her own in the dark.
She left the building by the side entrance and was walking slowly towards the gates when she thought she recognized the figure a little way ahead of her and she hurried her steps as much as she could to catch him up.
‘Bob! Bob Lomax!’ she called into the night and she was pleased when he stopped and turned.
‘Well, if it isn’t Vera Sharples,’ he said, and Vera glowed that this time he had remembered her name.
‘I didn’t think we’d be bumping into each other this soon,’ he said.
Vera explained that she’d volunteered for overtime, and he said that he had too. ‘Does your mother not mind you walking home in the dark?’ Bob said, and Vera shrugged. ‘What would she say if I walked you home as I’m going that way?’
‘I don’t think she’d be able to say anything, do you?’ Vera giggled. ‘But I’d say that it would be very nice, thank you, Bob.’ Vera felt extremely grateful and she smiled as they fell into step.
But if Bob hoped for the same reward as last time with a kiss from Vera when they reached the Mission, he was to be disappointed, for as they approached the vestry they could see that Ena was standing on the doorstep with her chin set and her arms folded firmly across her chest.
‘Hmph!’ she grunted as she glared at Bob before turning on Vera. ‘I was wondering how you’d manage. I hope
you’ve said thank you,’ she said and she turned on her heel and went indoors.
For the next few days Vera didn’t know how long she would be able to continue working the extra hours, for by the end of each one she was exhausted and she had difficulty getting up each morning, but she was determined to continue as long as she could. And then, as Elsie had predicted, by the end of the week things had begun to change. A new routine was established. Bob walked her home every night and Ena was no longer waiting on the doorstep or shooing Bob away when they arrived.
It seemed natural, then, for Vera to accept when Bob asked her to go the cinema with him at the weekend. Ena tossed her head and made disparaging noises when Vera told her he had asked her and when Bob arrived to pick Vera up she didn’t have much to say to him but she didn’t even try to stop them going.
As they made their way to join the queue for the film This Land Is Mine, starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara, one of Vera’s favourite actresses, Vera saw Lily lining up for the more expensive seats on the other side of the box office and, as she might have expected, Lily was with Johnny.
‘Oh, Lily, it’s been ages!’ Vera said and the two girls embraced.
‘I heard you’ve been too busy working overtime to see your friends!’ Lily joked.
‘Oh, no, not too busy for you, Lily,’ Vera said seriously. ‘I have been working extra hours but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up,’ she admitted. Then she nodded towards Johnny. ‘But I can see you’ve been pretty busy too.’ The words popped out without thought. Lily blushed and linked her arm more tightly through Johnny’s but he merely grinned and patted her hand.
Without joining in the conversation, Bob pulled Vera away to join the queue for the cheaper seats, and all Vera could do was to wave. ‘Come round and see me again,’ she called and Lily called back, ‘I will, really soon. Enjoy the film.’
Vera and Bob sat as they had done before, close to the front, where the cigarette smoke didn’t seem to be quite so dense and, as the projectors began to roll with the latest newsreel footage following the progress of the war, Vera closed her eyes to avoid seeing the military action caught by the cameras. She couldn’t believe that when she opened them again the words The End were flashing on the screen and Charles Laughton’s name was heading up the cast list for the main feature.
Wartime on Coronation Street Page 6
