Daughters of Liverpool

by Annie Groves

  He’d finished his cocoa and it was time for him to leave.

  ‘Grace said to tell you that she and Seb are going to the Grafton’s New Year’s Eve dance, if you can get leave and fancy going,’ Jean told him as she and Sam accompanied him to the back door.

  Pulling on his army greatcoat, Luke laughed. ‘What, me go out with that pair of lovebirds?’

  ‘They’re an engaged couple now,’ Jean reprimanded him firmly.

  But Luke grinned at her and said teasingly, ‘That’s what I mean. Besides I won’t be getting any leave over the New Year, seeing as I’ve got some now.’

  Relieved to see Luke restored to good spirits, Jean hugged him, trying not to let him see how much she worried that every time she saw him it could be the last, given the fact that he was in the army and they were a country at war. There were those who said that the men posted to home duties had an easy time of it compared with those posted overseas, but living in Liverpool was no picnic, with Hitler’s bombs raining down on them night after night, and soldiers like her Luke having to go out and risk their lives sorting out the mess those bombs had left behind.

  ‘It’s a shame that Luke seems to have taken against Katie,’ said Jean to Sam as she picked up their cocoa cups to take through to the kitchen to wash them whilst Sam stoked up the fire.

  ‘The lad took a hard knock over that good-for-nothing piece that dropped him to take up with someone else, and besides, wartime is no time for a soldier to think of starting courting,’ Sam warned her, ‘or for his mother to get ideas about matchmaking.’

  ‘Sam Campion, what a thing to suggest,’ Jean protested. ‘I hope I’m not the kind of mother who goes about trying to choose her own daughter-in-law.’

  Sam said nothing.

  The horrid narrow single bed in the small boxroom that had originally been her youngest brother, Jack’s, was every bit as uncomfortable as Bella had known it would be. Of course Jack’s things had all been packed away after the tragedy of his death. Naturally her mother had not been able to bear to have them there to remind her of what had happened. Bella admitted that she sometimes forgot that Jack had even existed. There had been a big age gap between her and Charlie and Jack, and Jack had been one of those difficult children who always seemed to be doing the wrong thing and causing a lot of trouble.

  Thinking of people who caused a lot of trouble made Bella feel even more hard done by. It had come as an unpleasant shock to have her mother virtually ignoring her to fuss all over Charlie’s new girlfriend, who wasn’t even particularly pretty, never mind as pretty as Bella herself.

  Vi had been openly impressed when Charlie had told them all about Daphne’s parents’ detached house, immediately quizzing Daphne about her mother and how many committees she sat on, and other stupid things like that, and then practically fawning on the wretched girl as though she were Princess Elizabeth or something.

  Their father had been impressed as well. He must have been to have given Charlie the one hundred pounds Charlie has boasted to her he had been given. Now Daphne was no doubt sleeping comfortably in Bella’s old room and in her bed, whilst she was relegated to the boxroom as though she was of no account at all, her, a widow whose husband had been killed. All Daphne had lost was a brother.

  Bella turned over, hunching her shoulder petulantly. It seemed pointless to her, everyone calling Charlie a hero, when in the end Daphne’s brother had gone and drowned anyway. There had been tears in Daphne’s eyes when she had told them all how grateful her parents were to Charlie for what he had done.

  ‘My parents look upon Charles almost as an adopted son,’ Daphne had told Vi emotionally. ‘My father especially has become tremendously attached to him. Charles has been so very kind to Daddy, coming to see him when he can, and talking to him about Eustace. People don’t, you see. They think it’s better not to.’

  Now, of course, her mother was dying to show off Daphne at the Hartwells’ Boxing Day party, Bella acknowledged bitterly, whilst she no doubt would be pushed into the background. Daphne was so dull and boring, and her clothes, stuffy and not the kind of thing at all that Bella would ever wear. A horrid tartan skirt with a dreadful mustard-coloured jumper, just because they had Scottish connections, whatever that was supposed to mean.

  ‘We think it must have been because of his dreadful injuries that Eustace did what he did and—’ Daphne had said when she’d been going on about her wretched brother.

  ‘I just wish that I’d seen what he was doing and been able to stop him,’ Charlie had interrupted her, ‘but I was helping to get one of the other lads onto the boat. They’d pushed him off the one he was on, said it was overloaded.’

  ‘Oh, no, it wasn’t your fault. You must never think that, and at least you saved him from that dreadful beach and being taken by the Germans. Daddy couldn’t have borne that.’ Daphne had reached for Charlie’s hand as she spoke, adding emotionally, ‘You are such a hero, Charles, and so very brave.’

  And Bella had known immediately what her mother was thinking and planning.

  And then her father had joined in, saying, ‘Well, you can tell your dad that Charlie, er, I mean Charles here has got a good job waiting for him in a good business when he comes out of the army. I shouldn’t wonder that I’ll be making him up to a full partner by the time he’s thirty. What line of business is your father in, if I may ask, Daphne?’

  ‘Oh Daddy’s a member of Lloyd’s,’ had been Daphne’s answer, which had plainly left her mother as confused as it had done Bella herself, although her father had looked both impressed and delighted. So whatever Lloyd’s was, it obviously meant that Daphne’s father had plenty of money.

  It was plain that Daphne was sweet on Charlie.

  Bella thumped her pillow again. It wasn’t possible, of course, that she could ever be supplanted in her mother’s affections, and especially not by someone like Daphne, with her big wide eyes and silly way of looking so adoringly at Charlie. Charlie, of all people. And now she had to put up with Charlie preening himself and boasting that their father was going to be like putty in his hands.

  ‘He still hasn’t forgiven you for joining up,’ Bella had reminded her brother.

  ‘Huh, that’s all you know, Miss Clever,’ Charlie had retorted. ‘Dad took me to one side after dinner and told me that he thought it could be the best thing I’ve ever done.’

  ‘That’s just because of Daphne,’ Bella had told him. ‘And once she’s not around—’

  ‘And who says she isn’t going to be around? Dad reckons that Daphne would be the right girl for me to marry, and I reckon he’s right,’ Charlie had announced, adding, ‘Of course I told Dad that I’ll have to give her a decent engagement ring, her family being what they are, and Dad agrees.’

  Bella’s chest heaved with indignation and outrage as she thought of the machinations she had had to go through to get her ring off Alan.

  Still, at least she hadn’t had to marry down, she thought cattily, which if Daphne’s parents were as posh as her parents seemed to think, was what Daphne would be doing if she married Charlie.

  Her mother certainly seemed to think she would. When she had forced Bella into the kitchen to help her with the supper ‘so that Charles and Daphne can have a bit of time together on their own’, all she had been able to talk about was weddings.

  Bella thumped her pillow again glowering into the darkness.

  EIGHT

  March 1941

  It was hard to believe she had been in Liverpool for nearly three months now, Katie acknowledged. Time had passed so quickly. Not that her new life wasn’t without its complications at times, Katie admitted as she left the Littlewoods building, her work finished for the day. Now that she knew who the Campions’ son was, Katie made sure that she was away from the house whenever Jean mentioned that it was likely that Luke would get leave, and so far, fortunately, she’d been able to avoid seeing him again. It was silly that she should feel so angry and yet so hurt as well, because a man she didn’t reall
y know had misjudged her so unkindly, but she did.

  Katie had decided that it was because she liked the rest of the Campion family so much that she was disappointed that one member of it should let the family down so badly with his unkindness, nothing more than that. Luke Campion might be good-looking but that didn’t mean anything to her. She wasn’t about to get her heart broken by any chap, but most especially one who scowled and glared at her in the way that Luke Campion did.

  The cloudy winter skies had meant that Hitler’s bombers had kept away from Liverpool through all of January and February, and now they were into March. Thankfully her parents had been lucky so far in escaping the worst of the London bombing.

  Katie had been dreadfully worried about them when she had first seen the news in the paper that during the same night that Buckingham Palace had been struck by a stick of incendiaries, the Café de Paris, a famous night spot, had sustained a major hit from two bombs, one of them killing the whole band outright, including its leader, ‘Snakehips’ Johnston, who had been a friend of her father’s, and the second hitting the dance floor and causing dreadful casualties even though it did not explode. However, much to Katie’s relief, her father, obviously shocked by the tragedy, had written to her to tell her that they were now considering taking up their friends’ offer and moving in with them, since they lived outside the city itself.

  She had almost reached Ash Grove. She would soon be home. A pink tinge of colour flushed Katie’s face as she realised how easy it was for her to think of the Campions’ house as ‘home’.

  ‘You don’t think that someone we know will see us, do you?’ Sasha asked Lou uneasily, as they turned into the alleyway that led to the Royal Court Theatre’s stage door.

  ‘Well, they might if you don’t get a move on,’ Lou warned her twin unkindly, relenting when she saw how apprehensive Sasha was. ‘Of course they won’t, silly, and anyway even if they do, what does it matter?’

  ‘They might tell Mum.’

  ‘Then we’ll just say that we were going to see Eileen Jarvis’s sister, and that she’s working here, her being a dancing teacher. Look, Sash, do you want to do this or not? After all, it wasn’t my idea that we go in for a dancing competition, was it? It was yours.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but that was only because Evie Rigby in Haberdashery said that her cousin who lives in Blackpool had done one. I never said anything about us coming here to ask if they did any dancing competitions at the Royal Court. That was your idea.’

  ‘Well, we can’t just up and off to Blackpool looking for one, can we? Not without saying anything at home, and you know how Dad would be if we did ask. I reckon that if we can get into a competition here, and win it, then Dad won’t be able to say “no” when we say we want to enter a really big one in Blackpool,’ Lou, ever the optimist, told her twin confidently.

  ‘But wouldn’t it be better if we went to one of the dance halls like the Grafton and asked if they do dancing competitions? After all, it was at the Tower Ballroom that Evie Rigby’s cousin went in for hers.’

  ‘Dare say it would,’ Lou agreed scornfully, ‘excepting that our Grace and Luke go dancing there, and you know that Mum has said we can’t until we’re sixteen.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know that they do any here yet, do we?’ Sasha pointed out equally as scornfully.

  This was their second visit to the Royal Court Theatre in their quest for a dancing competition they could enter. They’d chosen the Royal Court because it was close to Lewis’s where they now worked, and because they knew that their auntie Fran, who was a singer and their mother’s sister, had worked there for a while when she had been in Liverpool.

  ‘That Kieran we saw the last time we were here said that he’d find out for us and that we were to come back and ask for him,’ Lou reminded her twin.

  Sasha brightened noticeably at the mention of the good-looking young man they had seen coming out through the stage door to the Royal Court on their first visit, and who they had approached to ask if he knew if the Royal Court ever held dance competitions.

  ‘Yes, he did say that, didn’t he?’ Sasha agreed. ‘And he said that his uncle was in charge of the shows, and that he’d have a word with him about having a dancing competition.’

  ‘Come on,’ Lou instructed her, lifting her hand to bang on the stage door.

  Con wasn’t in a good mood. And it was all because of that ruddy kid that Emily had gone against him and taken in. If Con had his way the kid would have been out on his ear long before now. Con had had enough of Emily fussing round him and making out like he was God’s gift. Like he’d told her this morning, the ruddy kid couldn’t even talk.

  ‘He’s not right in the head,’ had been his exact words, ‘just like you, so it’s no wonder the pair of you get on so well.’

  He’d wanted to tap Emily up for some money, and he’d gone home last night ready to fuss round her a bit to soften her up for that purpose. He’d gone straight into the kitchen and put his arm round her waist – or at least as far round it as it could reach – but instead of going like putty in his hands, like she normally did, Emily had actually had the gall to push him off.

  He’d told her meaningfully that he fancied an early night, whilst eyeballing the kid, who had been sitting at the table eating his tea, but instead of welcoming this husbandly message of intent, Emily had looked at him like he was a bit of muck under her shoe and told him that he could have as many early nights as he liked, but they’d be in his own room and his own bed. Then she’d turned her back on him and asked the kid if he’d like a bit of rice pudding.

  Con hadn’t given up, though. He’d needed the money too badly for that. He’d forced himself to smile, cracking a few jokes for the kid, who looked at him without a flicker of interest, and then telling Emily that it was the marital bed he wanted to sleep in – with her, his wife.

  Time had been when him saying something like that would have been enough to have her going bright red and rushing upstairs as quick as you like on the promise of a bit of how’s-your-father.

  Con knew his own worth. Why shouldn’t he? He’d had the prettiest girls in Liverpool queuing up for his attentions since he’d turned fifteen. So now to have his overweight pudding of a wife turning him down felt a bit like being slapped in the face with a wet kipper, as the saying went. Con had spent his whole life in ‘the business’ and so tended to think in the phrases that were common currency in music hall and variety. It was a world in which sex was a commodity to be traded for profit, and whether that meant selling the punter a quick flash of a chorus girl’s legs, or coaxing his wife to hand over fifty quid didn’t matter to Con. Not so long as he reaped the reward and the bonuses in the shape of his pick of the bunch.

  He’d already had his bank manager on the telephone, going on about ‘the small matter of your overdraft’ and something had told Con that this time sending round the prettiest of the chorus girls with some free tickets for one of the best boxes in the house wasn’t going to work.

  ‘’Ere, Con, there’s a couple of kids just come in asking for your Kieran,’ Harriet Smith, his secretary told him.

  Harriet was fifty if she was a day, and in reality she was the one who ran things. She’d been with the Royal for years, and Con had heard from one of his uncles that the reason she was so devoted to him was because she’d had a bit of a thing for Con’s late father.

  ‘What do you mean a couple of kids?’ he asked uneasily.

  ‘Well, they ain’t calling you their dad, if that’s what’s worrying you,’ Harriet told him frankly. ‘Said something about wanting to enter some dancing competition your Kieran told them about.’

  Con’s expression hardened. His nephew had caused him nothing but trouble since his sister had foisted Kieran off on him with some daft claim that he had flat feet and couldn’t join up. If he wasn’t chasing after a bit of skirt he was doing some deal to fill his pockets, Con thought bitterly, conveniently ignoring the fact that Kieran was following in his own
footsteps.

  ‘Tell them to hoof it,’ he told Harriet.

  ‘I already did, but they won’t. Not until they’ve seen Kieran.’

  Con filled his chest and bellowed, ‘Kieran, get your arse into my office double quick.’

  Kieran Mallory had inherited his uncle’s good looks along with his nature, and he knew better than to let Con get the upper hand, so instead of appearing ‘at the double’, he sauntered into the dark cubbyhole, tucked into a corner up a short flight of stairs in the warren of passages, dressing rooms and costume cupboards that existed behind the stage of the theatre, which Con referred to as his office.

  There was barely enough space in the small room for the large mahogany partners’ desk, which had originally belonged to Emily’s father, and which Con had decided would suit his office very nicely indeed, specifically because of its two concealed ‘secret’ drawers in which he could safely tuck away the ‘girlie’ magazines a friend of a friend who knew a sailor brought back from America. Con read these from inside what looked like a leather-bound play script, ogling the impossibly long legs of the ‘models’.

  On the wall opposite the door and behind the desk stood a set of rackety bookshelves, which ran the entire length of the wall. On here play scripts, copies of the Stage, playbills, the detritus not just of his own years as producer, but also those of the men who had gone before him, filled half a dozen or so battered cardboard boxes, sitting haphazardly on the shelves alongside account books and bills. Spilling from the top of one of them was an unsavoury collection of pieces of false hair, false noses and the like, found abandoned, brought to the producer’s office to be rehomed, and left to grow dusty with age.

  The room itself smelled strongly of Con’s cigars and the hair pomade he used, their smell not quite masking the odour of old paper, old building and a lack of fresh air.