by Maureen Lee
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.
She described her job in the hospital and told him about Jimmy and Theresa. ‘One of her sons, Georgie, is making his First Holy Communion on Sunday.’
‘Gee, I remember that day only too well. I was scared I’d choke on the host and spit it out.’
‘So was I!’
The hours flashed by and they scarcely took their eyes off each other. Kitty drank in everything about him: his brown hands with their long broad fingers and the scar on the middle finger of his left hand, his wide, humorous mouth, the little mole beneath his left ear, the way he tapped his cigarette on the box before he lit it. After a while, his entire persona seemed so familiar, she experienced a sensation of déjà vu, as if she had been sitting opposite Dale Tooley in a Liverpool pub on numerous occasions before during her life.
‘It’s odd,’ he said precisely at that moment, ‘but I feel as if we’ve met before.’
They looked at each other in surprise when the barman shouted, ‘Time, ladies and gentlemen, please.’
‘This is a strange system you have,’ Dale said, amused. ‘At home, the bars don’t close till the last customer has gone.’
‘We have licensing laws over here.’
Outside the pub, he linked her arm as if they were an old married couple and said, ‘I’ll take you home.’
Kitty managed to convince him that he would miss his last train if he came all the way to Bootle. She wasn’t even sure if he should walk her as far as Exchange Station. ‘You’ll never find your way back in the blackout.’
‘Don’t worry, honey. If I get lost, I’ll ask someone the way or catch a cab. It’s not particularly dark, anyway.’
A sliver of the new moon drifted in and out of the black lacy clouds, giving just enough light to see by. They wandered towards the station, talking to each other in a desultory fashion, both knowing that this would be the first of many more nights together. In almost every doorway, couples could be dimly seen wrapped in a passionate, writhing embrace. Kitty’s heart fluttered wildly at t
he mere thought of being kissed by Dale, and wondered if he would draw her into the occasional empty doorway, though the lack of privacy was a bit off-putting. Perhaps he felt the same, because they arrived shortly at the station, where a train was waiting on the line, the doors open, and he’d still done no more than hold her hand and link her arm.
‘When can I see you again?’ he asked politely.
‘I’m free every night this week.’ Lucy would have disapproved of her making herself so easily available, but Kitty didn’t care.
He touched her lips gently with his finger, ‘Tomorrow, then. Same time, same place?’
The woman came out of the confessional and the man went in. A small queue had formed on the pews outside, though she’d been too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice them come in.
‘If I go to bed with Dale, I really should confess it!’ Her lips curved in a smile as she envisaged the Father’s shocked response.
‘A woman’s virtue is her most precious possession and should only be yielded to the man she marries in the eyes of God.’ The priest would never take account of the fact there was a war on. If the world was about to explode into smithereens tomorrow, a good Catholic girl should hold grimly onto her virtue to the bitter end. ‘I’m thoroughly ashamed of you, Kitty Quigley. I would have thought you of all people would know better.’ He’d probably give her a million Holy Rosaries as a penance.
That was another thing. Whichever priest was on duty, he’d recognise her voice. Two weeks ago, when she confessed to Father McGoughlin – without mentioning any names – that, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get on with her dad’s new wife, Father said sternly, ‘Theresa’s a good woman. Be patient, Kitty, and you’ll soon learn to love the pure gold within,’ and he’d told her to say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys.
Last Sunday, she and Dale had gone over to New Brighton on the ferry. ‘Jeez!’ he gasped, when he saw the docks, crowded to capacity with just about every type of ship there was. ‘Next time we come, I’ll bring my camera. Dad’ll be really interested to get a snapshot of that scene. He came to Liverpool as a kid when the family were on their way to America.’
Kitty had been surprised to find when they arrived in New Brighton that a few of the rides were operating on the fairground. They sampled each one, ate fish and chips in a cheap restaurant, then went to the Tower Ballroom and danced together blissfully for a few hours.
‘I love you, Kitty Quigley.’ His arms encircled her waist and hers were clasped around his neck.
‘I love you, Dale,’ she sighed and nestled her cheek against his.
‘Then why,’ he began impatiently. ‘Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter.’
She knew what he was going to say. ‘Then why won’t you let me prove how much I love you in bed?’ She also knew it mattered very much to both of them. Like all the couples she’d noticed on their first date, she and Dale had ended up in a shop doorway when they kissed goodnight. There was nowhere else to go. They’d found a doorway more private than the others, down a little cutting off North John Street, which became their own special place. The very second his lips touched hers, she felt an unbearable sweetness, a delicious giddiness that left her shaking. Then, their lips still together, he would undo her coat and slip his hands underneath her jumper and caress her breasts. With Dale’s body pressed hard against hers, Kitty’s heart would thump madly against her ribs and she would feel a strange, urgent ache between her legs, wanting him to go further, wanting him to touch her there, and wondering if she could bring herself to stop him if he tried.
But Dale never did try. Instead, he would implore her huskily, ‘Kitty, honey, I can’t stand it here. Let’s take a room in a hotel.’
‘No, Dale!’
‘Why, honey, why? You love me, don’t you?’
In the ballroom, his arms tightened round her even more. ‘You’re driving me crazy, Kitty. It’s religion, isn’t it? We Catholics are put in a moral straitjacket the day we’re born. You make me feel as if I’m committing a sin by wanting you, but making love to the girl you adore isn’t sinful, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.’
‘Have you made love to girls before?’ She felt a rush of pure jealousy at the idea of him with another woman.
He moved his head back, looked into her eyes and his mouth curled upwards in the lazy smile which always caused her tummy to do a somersault. ‘Hell, honey, I’m twenty-eight years old and a normal guy with normal appetites.’
‘Does that mean you have?’
‘I guess so,’ he said lightly. ‘But …’
‘Did you adore them?’
‘No, I didn’t as a matter of fact. And they didn’t adore me, either. Look, Kitty …’
‘So, it wasn’t the most beautiful thing in the world, not then at any rate?’
He stopped dancing, roughly gripped her arm and led her to their table at the edge of the floor. He pushed her into a chair and sat down beside her. ‘Kitty, you’re making me feel like some sort of monster,’ he said angrily. ‘I don’t normally go around seducing young women. When it happened in the past, it happened naturally. I can’t help loving you, I can’t help wanting you more than any women I’ve ever wanted before, I can’t …’ He stared at her mutely, unable to continue, then buried his head in his hands. ‘Aw, Jeez, Kitty,’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t get you out of my mind every minute of every day.’
‘I know, Dale, I feel the same,’ she said softly as she removed his hands from his distraught face.
‘I bet you’ve kissed all sorts of guys before,’ he said wildly. ‘I can’t stand the thought of some other guy touching you.’
‘Come on, let’s go.’
Darkness had descended whilst they were in the ballroom, and a ferry could be seen sailing across the moonlit waters of the Mersey on its way back to the Pier Head. It would be a while before it returned, so they walked hand in hand down to the water’s edge and watched the tide rippling onto the glistening sand.
‘Let’s find a bar,’ Dale said. ‘I need a drink.’
They were walking back when they nearly fell over a couple lying full length on the sands, then another, and another.
‘It’s like an obstacle race,’ Kitty giggled.
‘Darling, my darling, darling Kitty.’ His arms came round her from behind and he forced her onto her knees, then turned her over so she was facing him when he almost fell on top of her. She tried to push him away, but he caught her hands and pressed his mouth against hers. Kitty went limp as the old, familiar sensation swept over her.
‘I love you, I love you,’ she gasped between kisses.
‘Kitty!’ he breathed hoarsely. He frantically began to remove her coat and she helped him undo the buttons down the front of her frock. When her breasts were bare, he bent to kiss them and Kitty almost screamed when his lips touched her nipples. She felt his hand slide underneath her skirt and her body throbbed with longing. She wanted … she wanted … She had no idea what it was she wanted. He was pulling at her pants, touching her between the legs, but there were too many clothes in the way. Kitty began to wriggle her skirt upwards.
‘No!’ said Dale. He moved away and sat on the sand. She saw the flicker of a match as he lit a cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not going to be this way with us, Kitty.’
She lay there, loving him more than ever, and unsure if she was glad or sorry that he’d stopped. She began to adjust her clothes, and after she’d put her coat back on she brushed off the sand and sat beside him and saw the ferry was on its way back from Liverpool.
Kitty sighed. Her legs were hurting after so long on the wooden kneeler. She sat back, her mind made up, but it seemed disgraceful to come to such a decision in a church. If Dale hadn’t stopped, her virginity would have already gone out of the window last Sunday. She wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her!
It was a lovely spring evening outside. Dale was on duty that night and she already missed him, but they were seeing each other tomorrow
, Saturday. Next week, she would be on afternoons and there would scarcely be time to meet. He was going to do his best to change his duties so he had time off in the mornings.
As she walked along Marsh Lane, Kitty passed the chip shop where Theresa used to work. She came down to earth with a bump and remembered she hadn’t yet been home. Dad had started work on Monday, so most days Kitty had hung about the hospital talking to the afternoon staff when they came on, then dawdled her way along Liverpool Road, and finally gone to church, because she didn’t want to arrive at the house before he did. Theresa was impossible to get on with alone. ‘I can’t imagine growing to like her,’ Kitty thought. ‘No matter how hard I try, we’ll never become friends. She never even talks to me. On the odd occasions she wants to ask a question, she asks it through me dad.’
‘Will your Kitty be in for her dinner on Sunday, Jimmy?’
‘Tell Kitty not to forget to leave her ration book on the mantelpiece before she goes to work.’
And all the time, Kitty was standing there, wondering if she had become invisible and was she supposed to answer Theresa directly, or reply via Dad? If it hadn’t been for the distraction of Dale Tooley, she would have felt even more unhappy at home than she already was. She felt like an intrusive stranger, a trespasser in someone else’s house. Theresa had, naturally, taken over the only other easy chair, and when everyone was in, Kitty was forced to sit at the table like a visitor while they listened to the wireless or she read a book. She felt in the way when she did her washing – and it was difficult getting washed herself with the lads around.
She had decided that Theresa didn’t dislike her in particular, though she may have resented another woman’s presence in what was now her home. Theresa just didn’t like anyone, full stop. Even with her sons, she showed not the slightest affection, and although she never hit them, the poor lads were sent to their room, often without their tea, for the least little thing, as if she preferred them out of the way so she could get on with her endless washing, ironing and cleaning. Housework seemed to be the only thing Theresa enjoyed – apart from going to bed with Dad!
