Megan of Merseyside

by Rosie Harris

  Angrily, he had struggled into his jacket, searching in the pocket for the car keys. Wheels spinning, he had zoomed out onto the main road. When they had parted he had not even said goodnight. And, although her throat had ached with bottled-up tears, Megan had refused to let him see how desperately hurt and unhappy she was.

  At the time she’d felt she was right to refuse him. Now, after weeks and weeks of silent separation, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps Lynn was right and she was fuddy-duddy in her outlook. Miles had certainly seemed to think so. A night out with Lynn and her friends might help to put the incident in its right perspective, she thought wryly.

  Lynn was right. It was a gala occasion. New Brighton was packed. Extra ferry boats had been organised to bring the hundreds of fans over from Liverpool.

  ‘Why don’t you leave your car in Robert’s drive?’ Lynn suggested. ‘It would be much safer there.’

  ‘That would be an open invitation for him to come along with us,’ Megan replied with a grimace as she parked in a side road.

  ‘It might be a chance for him to let his hair down. You might learn to like him if he wasn’t quite so stuffy,’ teased Lynn mischievously.

  ‘Don’t start,’ warned Megan. ‘I want to enjoy myself tonight.’

  ‘Does that mean you are going to come backstage with me at the interval?’ Lynn asked, raising her carefully pencilled brows.

  Megan hesitated for a fraction before agreeing. ‘Of course. That’s what is going to make the evening special, isn’t it,’ she said lightly. ‘Maybe I’ll meet this Flash character you are always going on about.’

  Lynn pulled a face. ‘Flash won’t be there, worse luck. He’s working away and only gets home every other weekend.’

  ‘They’re a great crowd, aren’t they,’ Lynn commented triumphantly on the way home.

  ‘Playing the same tunes night after night seems an odd way to earn a living,’ opined Megan.

  ‘What an existence, though! It seems they never know where they’ll be appearing next. London, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, you name it and they’ve played there.’

  ‘Someone said they’re planning to make some more records.’

  ‘I told you, they’re a winning band. Sometimes the whole group are in the Copper Kettle, huddled in a corner, plotting and planning their next tour. That’s when they’re not getting high!’

  ‘High?’

  ‘Oh, Megan, you are dumb!’ Lynn rolled her eyes in feigned despair.

  ‘You mean they’re using drugs!’

  ‘Well,’ Lynn pulled a face, ‘I suppose you could say that, but only in a mild way. Flash says they could get equally pepped up on champagne.’

  ‘Flash seems to know an awful lot about it,’ Megan said suspiciously. ‘Is he into drugs?’

  Lynn shrugged. ‘Possibly,’ she said evasively.

  ‘I hope you’re not indulging!’

  The alarm in Megan’s tone brought a flush of anger to Lynn’s cheeks.

  ‘Of course I’m not! Do you think I’m daft?’ she exploded.

  ‘Well, you seem to know a lot about it,’ argued Megan stubbornly.

  ‘I told you, they all come into the Copper Kettle and talk about these things.’

  ‘It’s a good thing you didn’t tell me all this before we went to The Tower,’ Megan said crossly. ‘If you had, then I certainly wouldn’t have gone with you.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Megan, stop being such a back number.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, listen to you. You sound about ninety. We’re living in the 1920s, everything’s changing! You’ve got to move with the times. Drugs are part of it!’

  ‘So you are dabbling in drugs,’ censured Megan.

  ‘I never said so …’

  ‘Then why are you acting so guilty?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ retorted Lynn huffily, turning away and staring out of the window into the darkness.

  ‘Oh, yes you do. There’s something going on,’ persisted Megan.

  Lynn refused to reply. As they turned into Belgrave Street and pulled into their own driveway Lynn made to get out of the car but Megan stopped her.

  ‘You’re not … not sleeping with Flash, are you?’ she asked worriedly.

  ‘What’s it to do with you if I am?’ Lynn retorted with a toss of her head.

  ‘Oh, Lynn … Are you letting him …’ Megan’s voice trailed away as she stared in horror at her sister. ‘Oh, Lynn, you’ve not long left school …’

  ‘What difference does that make? We know what we’re doing, I’m not going to get pregnant or anything stupid like that!’

  ‘How can you be sure? Fancy trusting him.’ Megan stared at her younger sister in dismay. ‘Oh Lynn! Whatever would Mam say if she knew!’

  ‘Who is going to tell her, or Dad? No one knows except you!’

  Long after she was in bed that night, Megan lay staring into the darkness, wondering if Lynn really was telling the truth or simply boasting. She found it hard to believe that she would take such a momentous step.

  The thought troubled Megan even while she slept. She awoke late, feeling cross and disgruntled and decidedly out of sorts.

  ‘What’s got into you, girl?’ Kathy asked in surprise when Megan complained that the tea was too strong and the toast not browned enough. ‘Not like you to find fault!’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter with me.’

  ‘I’d say that late nights don’t agree with you,’ her mother told her. ‘Our Lynn’s chirpy enough, though. What’s happened, have you fallen out with your boyfriend?’

  ‘Our Meg hasn’t got a boyfriend.’ Lynn sniggered. ‘She’s too prim and proper for that sort of thing,’ she added meaningfully.

  Aware that her mother was watching her closely, Megan pushed aside her unfinished breakfast and went back up to her room before deciding to go out. A brisk walk to clear her head was what she needed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  1927 WAS THE worst winter for over a hundred years. From January until mid-March everyone shivered; even the English Channel froze over in places. Snow and ice piled up from one end of Britain to the other. As fast as the roads were cleared, fresh falls of snow created further chaos. The death from cold of many elderly people made headline news.

  The roads were so dangerous, with frozen sludge and black ice, that Megan was afraid to drive her car, so she crossed to Liverpool on the ferry each morning. Only the hardy few still took their constitutional on the top deck. The rest, Megan and Lynn among them, huddled inside the lower deck saloon, grateful for the shelter and even prepared to put up with an atmosphere that was blue and choking with tobacco smoke.

  ‘We’d be worse off if we were still living in Beddgelert,’ Lynn reminded her.

  ‘It’s said in the newspaper that most of Wales is cut off completely.’

  ‘It’s a different kind of cold there.’ Megan shivered, pulling her woollen scarf higher under her chin. ‘This wind is raw and damp because it’s coming straight off the Mersey.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lynn shuddered, ‘They were saying yesterday in the Copper Kettle that it was so cold that a lorry load of beer that was being delivered to a pub in Whitechapel exploded in its bottles!’

  For those working at the docks, it was sheer hell trying to handle crates and cargo that were slippery with ice. Freezing winds buffeted the men unrelentingly as they worked on the quayside. Their hands were cut and sore, their faces chapped and raw.

  Driving was hazardous. Each time her father and Robert Field set out Megan was on tenterhooks until she knew they were safe. They had been stranded so many times that her mother was rapidly becoming a nervous wreck with the worry of it all.

  It seemed spring would never arrive. In mid-March, fresh falls of snow and bad weather brought further appalling road conditions. Yet again unable to use her car, Megan travelled to Liverpool by ferry. Buffeted by icy winds as she struggled up the floating roadway after a rough crossing she so
metimes wished they had never moved across to Wallasey.

  It had all been pointless anyway, she thought morosely. Her hopes that, once they were living in a nice house in respectable surroundings, Miles would openly acknowledge their friendship hadn’t materialised.

  Sometimes she found the strain almost unbearable. He hadn’t been near the office, or contacted her at all, since he’d been away on his course. Yet she knew he had often come home for the weekend because she had heard Mr Walker mention the fact when he’d been talking on the phone.

  She kept meaning to ask him how Miles was, but at the last minute her courage always failed her. She became so quiet and withdrawn that even Mr Walker noticed.

  ‘Are you worrying about your father driving in this atrocious weather, Megan?’ he asked one day at the end of a dictating session. ‘You seem to be extremely preoccupied lately.’ He frowned.

  She looked at him, startled. ‘I’m sorry. Have I overlooked something?’

  ‘No, everything is fine, Megan. I am more than pleased with your work, but you do seem to be rather tense.’

  ‘I’m all right, thank you.’

  She wondered what his reaction would be if she told him that she was frantic for news of Miles. Would he understand and tell her what she longed to hear, or would he be taken aback by her audacity?

  ‘It is worrying when the weather conditions are so bad but the worst is over now,’ she said quickly as she became aware that he was waiting for her explanation.

  ‘Since it is almost April let us hope you are right.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps what you need is a holiday. You haven’t had any time off since you started working here, have you, Megan?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t due for any holidays last year.’

  ‘I shall be away myself for about a week at Easter, so you can take a couple of extra days off then, if you wish.’

  The more Megan thought about taking a holiday the more she liked the idea. It would be wonderful to visit Beddgelert and see all her old friends.

  She decided to write to Jennie and Gwyneth right away to see if she could stay with either of them for a few days.

  She pictured the look of surprise there would be on Ifan Jenkins’ face when she drove up in her own car. Jennie replied by return of post. Excitedly, Megan told her mother about what she was planning to do.

  ‘Drive all that way!’ Kathy Williams exclaimed, worriedly. ‘Do you think you should … The weather may turn bad again.’

  ‘Nonsense! After such a terrible winter we’ll probably have a run of good weather now.’

  ‘It’s such a long journey, though …’

  ‘Stop fussing, Mam! Dad goes a hundred miles some days,’ Megan interrupted.

  ‘He’s not on his own, though. If anything should go wrong then Robert is there to help sort things out.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting I should ask Robert to go with me, I hope,’ Megan shot back, pulling a long face.

  ‘I’d feel a lot happier if you did.’ Her mother smiled. ‘I still don’t know why you dislike him so much.’

  ‘I don’t dislike him, I don’t want to go out with him, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, it’s your choice, of course, but he won’t wait for ever, you know,’ she said with a sigh.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A man of his age must be keen or he would have taken up with someone else long before this. It’s you he wants. It’s written all over his face. He’s a different person when you’re around. Surely you must have noticed?’

  ‘Stop it, Mam! You’re talking a whole load of nonsense,’ Megan said crossly.

  ‘No, I’m not! He never takes his eyes off you when he’s here. And look at the way he’s always giving you presents. Hardly a week goes by without your dad bringing home something Robert has sent for you. Books, ornaments, scarves, flowers … It’s never ending.’

  ‘And I wish he would stop it.’ Megan frowned. ‘I don’t want half the stuff, anyway.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but it proves how much he thinks about you. Doesn’t that mean anything at all to you?’

  ‘Not really … I’ve never given it much thought,’ she added evasively.

  ‘Our Lynn’s right,’ said her mother. ‘You are naive! If you can’t see that he’s trying to win you over then you must be blind. You could do a lot worse, you know. He’s good-looking, has his own house and a well-paid job and he thinks the world of you.’

  Megan clamped her hands over her ears to shut out Kathy’s diatribe. She didn’t want to listen to her mother going on and on about Robert or about his feelings for her.

  Perhaps if she knew about Miles she’d understand why I’m not interested in Robert Field no matter how hard he tries, Megan thought ruefully. Yet what was the point of talking about it when there wasn’t really anything to tell.

  She’d be more than ever convinced that I was naive if I told her that there hadn’t been a single word from Miles since he’d returned from London. Or if I told her how he ignores me when he sees me at work and used to only meet me after dark in some out of the way place, Megan thought dispiritedly.

  Determinedly, she put the matter from her mind and concentrated on planning her forthcoming holiday. The more she thought about it the better she liked the idea of getting right away from Merseyside, even if it was only for a few days.

  She had so much to tell her old friends. Although they’d all promised to write to each other, they hadn’t done so, except for cards at Christmas and the one she’d sent to let them know her new address when they moved to Wallasey.

  She wouldn’t mention Miles, she decided. Not at first, anyway. She’d tell them about the problems Lynn seemed to have pinning Flash down to any commitment first and see what they said about that.

  It was much the same situation, she thought unhappily. She had lost count of the number of times Lynn had asked her to go to the Stork Club or the Copper Kettle to meet Flash, and each time it had been a wasted journey.

  ‘You shouldn’t tell him I’m coming to meet him. He’s probably shy.’

  ‘Tell him he’s going to meet you, you must be kidding. That’s the last thing I’d do! He doesn’t even know I’ve got a sister. I don’t intend to let on who you are. I’ll just say you’re a friend.’

  ‘Why?’ laughed Megan. ‘Are you ashamed of me or something?’

  Lynn shook her head. ‘He’ll probably think you’re quite la-di-da when he hears you talk. He’s posh himself in a way, mind, but it might put him off, though, if he knew we were related.’

  ‘Or he might be afraid you are getting too serious.’

  Lynn shrugged and pulled a face and Megan suspected that she’d caught her sister on a raw spot.

  ‘What does he do for a living?’ she asked casually.

  ‘I don’t know, he never talks about it. Something down at the docks, I think. His time seems to be his own, I never know when he’s going to pop into the café. Lately it’s mostly been at the weekends.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘That’s half the excitement … Seeing him when I least expect to do so.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring him home and let us all meet him?’

  ‘Megan! He’s not the type to sit around drinking tea and making polite conversation. He’s a bundle of laughs, always doing outrageous things.’

  ‘You mean when he’s high! I thought you promised me you would keep away from drugs,’ scolded Megan sternly.

  ‘I’m not the one on them, idiot,’ snapped Lynn angrily. ‘The only trips I take are carrying trays backwards and forwards. I don’t need pepping up.’ She grinned, her grey eyes flashing. ‘I get all the excitement I can take from the people I meet at work every day.’

  ‘I wish I could believe you,’ Megan muttered. ‘It’s dangerous, Lynn. Once you get hooked you can’t break the habit and you need more and more and more of it.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  Their arguments always stopped at this point because Lynn would change the subject.

  We’re a funny family
, Megan thought ruefully. Dad and his concern over work, Mam with her shopping trips, and Lynn with her crush on Flash.

  There would certainly be plenty to tell Gwyneth and Jennie! She could imagine their faces when she told them about what went on at the Copper Kettle and the Stork Club and that she’d been to dances at the Tower Ballroom. The three of them would probably sit up half the night talking.

  As she tidied her desk before leaving for the night she found herself thinking that the visit to Beddgelert in a few days’ time could be a turning point for her. It would clear the cobwebs from her mind. When she came back it would be like starting afresh.

  I might even change my job, she told herself, and look for something more challenging since there are plenty of opportunities in Liverpool.

  Her reverie was disrupted by sounds from the general office. Her heart beat faster as she recognised Miles’ voice. Emotions she had almost convinced herself were dead came bubbling back to life.

  Desperately, she tried to ignore them, but the familiar voice and deep laugh stirred too many memories for her to do so.

  Instinctively, she smoothed her hair into place. On the one hand she wanted to escape before there was any chance of them meeting. On the other she was delighting in the fact that she was wearing a smart red suit and a crisp white blouse.

  As the door opened and Miles came through into her office her breath caught in her throat. It was months since she had seen him and he seemed to be even more attractive than she had remembered.

  Dressed in grey trousers, a tweed jacket and a blue shirt that matched the intense blue of his eyes, his masculine appeal was devastating. His wide smile and casual greeting, as though they had only seen each other a day or so ago, left her speechless.

  ‘I hear you’re off to North Wales for Easter.’ He grinned, his blue gaze hypnotising her. ‘We’re going to our place in Mostyn over the holiday,’ he told her. He lowered his voice. ‘That’s only about twenty miles from Beddgelert so why don’t we meet up?’

  ‘See each other …’ She stared at him, bemused, colour staining her cheeks.

  The desperate hours of heartache; the sleepless, tearful nights; the harrowing doubts; the hopes that had buoyed up her spirits and the misery of rejection that had so often sent them crashing, churned inside her.