The rest of the message was amusing. Hilda found herself chuckling again, because Mel’s palette changed in the blink of an eye, and she used just primary colours when describing her nearest and dearest.
You could cut the atmosphere here with a blunt knife. They are SO in love, and they play all sorts of games. Keith pretends to be dominant, but he’s about as threatening as a high tide at Southport, which, in turn, is as rare as hen’s teeth. When he gets fed up with her misbehaviour, he sits her on the draining board and orders her to stay. They kiss all the time. She says kissing is his main hobby. He is a lovely man and I have started to call him Dad. That pleases him. He says he’s getting her a collar and lead tomorrow for Christmas, and a voucher for ten lessons at dog training school. I don’t think we’ll be having Christmas – it will be more like Kissmas.
Hilda chuckled; she’d been told about Spoodle via the telephone.
Miss Morrison does some pretend sleeping, but she’s really listening to the sounds of love’s young dream. Her level of deafness alters daily; if there’s something interesting going on, she hears it. I spend time with her every day. People her age are like living history books, so valuable. She says she’s staying alive until Hitler’s dead and disposed of and she’s seen television. Nothing would surprise me where Miss Morrison’s concerned. Sometimes I wonder what really went on with that caretaker in the cellar!
Hilda placed the pages with all the others in a drawer. It was Christmas, and there was much to do. Her protégés, spread as they were around farms and cottages, would each receive a stocking from her. This house would be packed to the gills, since Jay, Gill and Maisie were expected, as were Neil, Jean and their daughters. The Land Army girls had all managed to get home for a few days, and that was a relief, or lunchers would have spilled onto the stairs. So it was to be a meal for twelve, though Nellie insisted that she had it all in hand. Thank goodness they lived in the country and kept poultry.
Elsie was expected for afternoon tea, as were Freda Pilkington and her offspring, but the lunch guests would have left by then. As she combed her hair, Hilda Pickavance found herself smiling at the ageing figure in the glass. She was no longer lonely; she had a family at last.
‘Well, this is a good start, I must say.’ Keith joined the weeping Mel on the sofa. ‘Happy Christmas. It’s all going very well so far. Your mother’s in the bath, says she’s staying there till New Year because I bought her some bubbles. Miss Morrison’s had her breakfast courtesy of me, but she said her toast was overdone, and now you’re carrying on all sad. Come on. Tell your stepdad what’s up.’
Mel pushed documents into his hand. ‘It’s too much,’ she wailed.
Keith looked at the bank book and covering letter, explaining that too much was fine in his opinion. ‘Your mam and I got you clothes – good ones, but secondhand. So this too-much present evens things out a bit.’
‘I could buy three houses with that, Dad.’
‘I wouldn’t bother, love. Some soft bugger keeps knocking them down or setting light to them.’ Dad. This gorgeous girl was his daughter. ‘Miss Pickavance loves you, baby. That money will see you through university, because brains are all very well, but they need food, shelter and transport. You’re safe now.’
She grinned. ‘Unless I get bombed.’
Like her mother, Mel was a rainbow when she cried and smiled simultaneously. ‘Get a crowbar, sweetheart, and prise your mam out of that bathroom.’
But no such measure was required, because chaos erupted. Not one but two spoodles shot through the room like bullets from a gun. ‘Did I imagine that?’ Mel asked. ‘Two nutters merged into one?’
He nodded. ‘A ball with eight legs. It rolled that-a-way.’
They sat and listened as the two pups bounded upstairs. They could go up, but they couldn’t come down. ‘That’ll shift your mam,’ predicted Keith as Gloria walked in.
‘Happy Christmas,’ the visitor said grimly. ‘My dad wants a divorce from Pandora, says two daft women in the house are enough, and he and Peter are now outnumbered. They’re crying.’
‘Tom and Peter?’ Keith asked innocently.
‘Spoodle and Pandora.’ Mel dried her eyes. ‘They can’t get down,’ she advised her best friend.
‘We know,’ was Gloria’s reply. ‘We found that out at three o’clock this morning. She’s eaten a doormat and a draught excluder. Yours has started on a leg of the kitchen table.’
‘We know,’ they chorused.
‘You little buggers,’ came a voice from on high. ‘Keith? They’ve got my towel.’
‘You know what?’ Keith rose to his feet. ‘I’m beginning to sympathize with that poodle woman. We are paying for the spaniel’s bad behaviour.’
All three walked upstairs. Eileen, stark naked and laughing, was pulling a large towel to which were attached two pups. She looked at the three new arrivals. ‘You took your time.’
Dumbstruck, Keith noticed the swelling. That was his and hers, a daughter or son in a beautiful container. While the girls retrieved the towel, he simply gazed into his wife’s eyes. He could not remember happiness as intense as this.
Eileen covered herself. ‘Drown them,’ she ordered before retreating to her bedroom. Keith followed, locking the door behind him. She was seated on the bed, a huge pair of scissors in one hand. ‘Why do you have a murder weapon in your bedside cupboard?’ she asked.
‘To cut through all the red tape,’ he answered.
‘What?’
‘Your tarpaulin.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Happy Christmas.’ He gave her a white silk gown with matching nightdress. ‘Used to be a German parachute, so if you ever need to jump, you just pull the cord and—’
It was her turn to cut off his words with a kiss. She dragged him back into bed and encouraged nature to take its course. Sometimes, a woman needed to dictate the pace.
Frances Morrison was waiting for them. ‘Thank you for the lovely bedjacket. And the girls asked me to tell you that they’ve taken the spoodles to torment Dr Bingley. Oh, will you make me some toast, Eileen? Your husband should work at a crematorium.’
When they were alone, she patted her bed, and he sat next to her. ‘Does she know, Keith?’
He nodded. ‘Big-Mouth Bingley told her. She was shocked, but you know how she is. Whatever happens, she puts everything to one side and gets on with what needs doing.’
‘I just wanted her to have something of her own – a house, a place.’
‘Yes.’
‘Make her take it when I’m gone. No selling up and giving the money to charity. She’s a lovely woman.’
‘I know.’
She gripped his hand with more power than should have been allotted to a woman so advanced in years. ‘Look after them all, or I shall haunt you.’
They gave her the new toast and another cup of milky tea. Then they left her. ‘It’s time to prepare Christmas dinner,’ Eileen told her.
Alone in her room, content in a house filled with love, Frances drifted on a bright, white cloud of memories. A school bell, the sounds of girls at play, a handsome, vulgar man in a cellar, sweet temptation, one stolen kiss in an office populated by filing cabinets, desks and daffodils. He knew she loved spring flowers. She could not marry a janitor; she should have married him.
Never mind. Onward, onward. Forty-three of her girls had gone on via Merchants to Oxbridge. Educate a boy, and you educate one man; educate a girl, and you enlighten generations. Too tired to call for company, Miss Frances Morrison took a road along which we are all destined to tread. Her last thought was for Spoodle. He could have two bedjackets now.
Marie, in the midst of chaos, snatched at the receiver. ‘Eileen? What? When? Yes, of course I will.’ She paused, a finger pressed against the free ear. ‘Peter’s avoiding us like the plague, so don’t worry about him. Yes, yes. I am so sorry, my dear.’
Two girls and two puppies were running about. Peter was upstairs, stoic in his silence. To
m sat in his little office, an Irish coffee on the desk, an old crossword puzzle spread before him.
‘Where’s Pandora?’ Gloria shouted.
Marie shut herself in the downstairs cloakroom. What the hell did it matter if the sprouts were soggy? The old lady was dead. Were the parsnips in the oven? Did she care? The running and shouting continued. This was her life; she had to live it.
When she reached the office door again, she paused to watch her husband betraying himself. In his arms, he cradled a happy pup. The newcomer he had dismissed as unclean and germ-ridden was licking his face. ‘Who’s my beauty-girl, then?’ He used a silly, talking-to-a-baby voice. ‘Who’s had a permanent wave that went wrong? To hell with the spaniel, I’m your daddy. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.’ He looked up. ‘Marie?’
She entered and closed the door. ‘We have to ask Mel to stay for dinner, Tom. Miss Morrison died.’
He closed his eyes. That wonderful, aggressive, determined suffragette had gone. ‘She was born in 1850,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘February next, she would have hit ninety-one. Her brain was as sharp as the best carving knife, and she never missed a trick.’ But she had missed the end of this bloody war, and she hadn’t lived to see television. ‘How are Keith and Eileen?’
Marie shook her head. ‘Not good. They’re not having Christmas, so they want us to keep Mel for a few hours. Peter won’t come down if she’s here.’
He stood up. ‘Leave it with me, love. Time somebody sorted this lot out. You do your parsnips, I’ll deal with Peter.’
He paused on the landing and stood in the oriel bay. From here he could see Miss Morrison’s house – Mrs Greenhalgh’s now. All curtains were closed. Dr Ryan’s bike leaned against a gatepost, and the undertaker’s car was parked nearby. A light had gone out today. That remarkable old woman had fought for women’s franchise, and for an end to segregation in America. That hadn’t happened yet, but she’d tried, had even travelled to the southern states. The slave trade was partly Britain’s fault, and Liverpool had thrived on it. Frances Morrison had battled for a school of her own, for freedom, for the betterment of women.
‘Dad?’
‘Hello, son.’
Peter stood beside his father. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘A patient died. Miss Morrison. Mel doesn’t know, and she’s having Christmas with us, because her parents are busy.’ He dried his eyes. ‘You will go downstairs and be a man. Yes, men cry too. Go. Give your sister and her friend a decent day. Stop feeling bloody sorry for yourself.’
Tom sat in the bay window long after his son had gone downstairs. Puppies ran, two girls laughed and shouted, while the scent of food rose up the stairwell and almost made him gag. ‘Silent Night’ was playing on the wireless. Wasn’t that a German carol? Wasn’t it ‘Stille Nacht’? And did it matter? He remained where he was through ‘Silent Night’ and part of Handel’s Messiah.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. ‘And from us is taken a pearl,’ he mouthed before descending the stairs. He lied to Mel, said they’d begged her mother to allow her to stay with Gloria for a few hours. He carved the bird, told jokes, put food in two tiny bowls for two tiny dogs. The pups ate, looked for more, gave up and passed out near the fire. And the parsnips were slightly underdone.
PART THREE
1941
Seventeen
The second Great Fire of London had happened just three days before New Year. There had been no festive celebrations in Liverpool, but the Luftwaffe had lit up London in the worst way possible. Few in the north knew much about it, but, as ever, Mel Watson could be relied upon to winkle out the truth from any and every available source. As ever, she wrote down all she had learned and posted it to Hilda Pickavance.
Published now in a Liverpool newspaper, Mel and Gloria were two of several teenage pairs across the region who contributed to a small but humorous monthly column entitled ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Survival’. They offered advice on such subjects as the borrowing and lending of clothes, the making over of dresses, and the drawing of straight lines up the backs of mothers’ legs in order to imitate fully fashioned stockings. Hilda chuckled as she read the latest contribution from Mel and her friend.
Keep your hand steady. Mothers are not impressed by zigzag legs, and punishments can vary from no sweets for a month to the terrible job of cleaning out the back garden Anderson.
Mel and Gloria wrote hilarious anecdotes about their families, their friends, and Spoodle and Pandora, the Deadly Duo.
If you are afflicted by a dog, get the priest in and the house blessed. So far, we have lost items of underwear, a scarf and some Latin homework. Nobody told us that dogs eat stair carpet and table legs. As for the homework, why did the teacher laugh? IT WAS TRUE!
Hilda put away her first Great Fire of London lesson for the second time. The first fire had been a good thing to an extent, as it had eradicated plague by cleansing the city of rats and their disease-bearing parasites. But the present deliberate attempt to wipe out the City of London was appalling. Mel and Gloria were getting to know journalists, and journalists gossiped. Although positive propaganda was allowed, the people of Britain were, for the most part, shielded from the absolute truth. It was about morale. No matter what, as few as possible were allowed the full story. ‘I suppose if we do get invaded, the first we’ll know of it is the sound of jackboots pounding in our streets.’ Hilda placed Mel’s newspaper clippings in a folder and took out the latest letter.
My dear Miss Pickavance,
I have to thank you again for my bank account. I know I keep doing it, but you are my saviour, and I can now concentrate on exams. You are wonderfully kind and generous!
The most awful thing happened in London on 29 December, and it has taken me a while to collect information. The event almost defies description, and I doubt we shall ever get the full truth, but an American journalist who is trying to shame his country into helping us witnessed it and sent copies to newspapers everywhere, and I managed to read some of the piece.
‘You would,’ said Hilda to an empty room. Mel’s inquisitiveness would surely land her in trouble sooner or later.
Wave after wave of bombers came over, and each bomb weighed more than five hundred pounds. An incredible fifty tons hit London, and they took out the main telephone exchange, damaged Waterloo, Cannon Street and London Bridge stations, hit shelters and people in the streets. At Moorgate, heat buckled railway lines. A breeze fanned the flames, and then the breeze became a gale. Buildings, some of them five storeys high, crumbled and collapsed, killing fire-fighters and citizens trapped by flames, heat and falling masonry. The true target, St Paul’s, was completely surrounded by fire. Nelson, Wellington and Christopher Wren rest in the vault. Ordinary folk turned up at the cathedral to pray and to help. The dome, which is just lead resting on wooden joists, did catch fire, but amateur fire-fighters managed to extinguish the flames. It has been described as a firestorm, as the second Great Fire of London, and as the hurricane from hell.
A Victorian warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of valuable books was consumed. St Bride’s, designed by Wren, is no more. Fleet Street is flattened, and many homes and places of work are gone. There was no singing in the underground on this occasion. People prayed to die rather than to survive injured, because many are already maimed and disfigured for life as a result of these bombardments. But this was a terrible night, the worst so far. London can’t take much more. Firefighters are dying. Our capital will die, too, if this sort of bombardment is repeated. We have no alternative but to fight back in the same cowardly way, hit Germany and run, hit and run. Terrible.
Countless incendiaries were delivered so that targets would be visible, and it is rumoured that a third wave of bombers was ready to take off from France, but weather stopped it and Hitler was furious. We have lost banks and businesses by the score. They didn’t get St Paul’s. Churchill issued a direct order that St Paul’s must be saved.
Hilda sat on her bed an
d wept. London belonged to everyone. Buildings designed and erected over hundreds of years had been razed to the ground in a matter of hours. Gone was Britain’s strength as a near-impregnable island, because death arrived airborne these days. Roosevelt’s contribution had been to make both sides promise to play nicely, and not aim for people in the streets, but this was Hitler’s way. He walked into countries after the Luftwaffe had pounded them into submission; now he was attempting the same with England. He was gunning for innocent citizens. ‘So yes, Mel, we have to do the same,’ she whispered sadly. Heinrich and Günter, due to start working on Yorkshire farms, were proof positive that Germans were not all bad. But bombs did not discriminate, and Churchill would be hopping mad.
To be fair, the Americans had helped financially, but oh, how Britain needed their forces now. Hitler would resort to any tactic, however cruel and wild, in his insane search for domination. Nellie’s ‘Why?’, asked on the night when Heinrich had descended from the sky, was unanswerable, because the explanations about Poland and saving one’s country failed to address the basic question. There could be no sensible excuse for behaviour such as this. Germany had to be stopped for the sake of its populace, since the Fatherland was in the hands of lunatics.
Mum and Dad are almost ready to depart. It will be interesting to have Mrs Openshaw here, as she is quite a character, and she will be company for Gran. Fortunately, there’s plenty of room in this place.
Sadness still sits in the house, because we all remember how lovely and funny Miss Morrison was. I claimed her little bell, the one she used to ring when she needed us or wanted company. I mean to treasure it for the rest of my life, since she was so precious.
Mam owns the property now, though probate has to be settled, and she was threatening to charge Gran and Mrs Openshaw rent. It was another joke, of course, one of the many we are forced to endure. I believe that Mrs Pilkington, originally from Rachel Street, is getting her mother over to Willows Edge to look after the children while Mrs Pilkington runs the post office for Mrs Openshaw.
The Liverpool Trilogy Page 69
