Christmas on the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Dolly tried to keep her voice light.

  ‘Hello … Mrs Feeny?’ A tall, willowy young woman in a grey two-piece suit, grey knitted turban, and stout black lace-ups held out a grey gloved hand. Dolly noticed that in the other hand the woman was holding a dark brown cardboard suitcase.

  ‘Yes?’ Dolly said. If this woman was selling something, she wasn’t buying. It was coming to something now that it seemed they even had door-to-door sales ladies.

  ‘I’m Mrs Feeny, too.’

  It took a few moments for the information to sink in and, knowing that the accent was not local, Dolly was confused. She knew all of Pop’s family – or what little there was of it. He had only a widowed sister who lived in London, and she had never had any children.

  ‘What d’you mean? You’re Mrs Feeny, too?’ Dolly’s question brought a response she never thought she would ever hear.

  ‘Ay up, he’s a rum bugger, is my Eddy,’ the willowy woman rolled little eyes behind round horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘I told him – I said, “Eddy, my lad, you’d best tell your mam we’re wed. We don’t want her goin’ and having one of them there heart attacks when I turn up on her doorstep and her not having a clue who I am!” I thought he got the message an’ all, but by the look on your face, Mrs Feeny, he obviously did nowt of the sort!’

  Dolly noticed the woman did not even stop to take a breath, and seemed incapable of using one word where ten would do.

  ‘Wait till I get my hands on him. I’ll give him leave-your-mother-in-the-dark-my-lad! Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I’m Violet – Vi for short, I come from Manchester, and my mam always said there weren’t a bush big enough to hide my light under!’ She then gave an ear-piercing, high-pitched laugh that ended on a snort. Dolly felt she had been verbally battered, and did her best to ignore Vera Delaney, who was not even trying to hide the fact she was gawping all the way from her own house three doors down.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Dolly said, quickly ushering the tall woman up the narrow lobby and into the kitchen where Pop was wiping a piece of dry bread around his soup bowl. He stopped when he saw the little shake of his wife’s head.

  ‘Pop, this woman claims she is our Eddy’s wife!’

  ‘That’s raaght,’ Violet’s nasal twang echoed around the room as she stood by the sideboard waving her hand as if she was swatting a fly. ‘And you’re Mr Feeny, I tek it?’ She offered her gloved hand.

  ‘Someone get your mother a chair, quick!’ Pop ordered, jumping up from his seat and knocking the plate of unbuttered bread flying in an effort to catch Dolly just before she fell to the floor.

  ‘When did this happen?’ Pop asked after settling Dolly onto the straight-backed chair. ‘He’s been at sea for over nine months!’

  ‘Ahh, well, there’s the rub,’ said Violet almost apologetically. ‘He wasn’t at sea last August; he were in St Philomena’s church marryin’ me. It were a glorious day. We had Asti wine for the toast! Can you believe it?’ She swatted the invisible fly away again. ‘Didn’t we think we were toffs – I ask you?’

  The look on Dolly’s face was thunderous enough to darken the brightest of days, Pop thought. He had never seen her quiet for this long before. However, she rapidly became her old self again.

  ‘I don’t believe it! You are living in cloud-cuckoo-land if you think for one minute I would believe my Eddy would enter into the holy sanctity of marriage without asking his own mother to the blessed wedding. You’ve got another think coming, you upstart you!’ Pop suppressed a grin. The upstart was not the only one who could use many words – his Dolly was an expert!

  ‘Ahh, right well,’ Violet answered, as if she had already given the matter some thought, ‘it were like this, our wedding …’

  She stopped for a moment and Dolly, surmising this interloper was enjoying every single moment, said, ‘Wedding indeed!’ Their Eddy, the most reserved of all her offspring, would no more take himself off and marry a complete stranger than he would dance naked in the street with a cabbage on his head! ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, madam, and quick!’

  Violet took a deep breath and surprised everybody when she clasped her hands together and said with an air of pride, ‘He won me in a raffle!’ She nodded her head to verify her statement.

  ‘You trollop!’ Dolly spluttered. ‘I’ve never heard the like of it in my life.’ She looked quickly to Pop, who said nothing when the other woman opened her mouth and gave another of her braying donkey-laughs.

  ‘Ay up, I’m that sorry, Mrs Feeny – I do get meself muddled sometimes. It’s nerves, you know – they send me a bit doolally!’

  ‘Do they now?’ Dolly would not be mollified; their Eddy had not even hinted that he had a wife when he wrote home. And even though his shore leave was not frequent he did write regularly and this … this … preposter was not mentioned once – she would have remembered.

  ‘What I mean is, he won a dance with me in some unexotic, far-flung NAAFI off Greatcoat Street in Manchester! Oh, he were funny!’ Violet said as Pop pulled out a chair and motioned for her to sit down while he put the kettle on again.

  ‘Ee, I do love a good laugh, me.’ She flapped her hands around her head and Dolly wondered if she had something wrong with her. ‘Well, I knew as soon as he waltzed me round the dance floor! That’s it, Vi, I said, this is the man fer me.’ She looked as if she were about to throw back her head and give that raucous laugh again, but Dolly’s steely expression may have prevented her.

  ‘He said he’d made his mind up never to marry,’ Violet continued at a more sedate pace now, ‘as no woman could compare to his lovely mam …’

  Dolly patted her hair and shifted in her chair.

  ‘He could not shake me off for love nor money, though. He said to me once, “Vi, if you don’t leave me alone you’ll have folk talking—”’

  ‘My son never uses the word “folk”,’ Dolly interrupted, giving Violet a chance to take a deep breath before diving right into her explanation again.

  ‘Well, he might not have put it quite like that, I must admit. Anyroad, we used to go for little walks around and about; he were a right nice chap, we hit it off straight away! Then after we’d been writing to each other for a few months, and went dancing a couple of times, I got one of those special licences as a surprise for his birthday …’

  ‘You got him a marriage licence as a birthday present?’ Dolly could hardly believe her ears.

  ‘He were right surprised, I can tell you!’ Violet gave a single clap of her hands, threw back her head, let out that terrible laugh again.

  ‘It’s always the quiet one’s you have to watch,’ said Sarah, keeping out of the way by helping Pop in the back kitchen. ‘Our Eddy always said he was never going to get married.’

  ‘It didn’t look like he had much choice,’ Pop whispered, ‘but your mother won’t see it like that.’

  Violet was still talking when he took the tray into the cosy kitchen and placed it on the table.

  ‘Getting married were the biggest surprise of his life – he told me!’

  ‘It must have been so quick it made his head spin!’ Dolly said acidly.

  With no time to turn and run, Pop tried to suppress a grin that his new daughter-in-law’s nervous enthusiasm encouraged. He could see she was going to be a force to be reckoned with. Dolly, on the other hand, was still looking a little shell-shocked, and, more worryingly, giving no indication of how she was ultimately going to react yet.

  ‘Well, let’s all sit down at the table and get to know each other a little bit better,’ Pop said, trying to sound as normal as possible. If Dolly’s putty-coloured face went any slacker she could be mistaken for a simpleton – and this woman, who was now his second son’s new wife, would be given the completely wrong im­pression.

  ‘He got … what?’ Nancy’s surprised voice accom­panied a gentle thud as she pushed the brake on the coach-built Silver Cross pram with her foot, parking it safely in the lobby.

 
Sarah put her finger to her lips and flapped her hand. ‘She’ll hear you!’

  ‘I’ll leave him there,’ Nancy said. This was too good to miss and so she left baby George sleeping, cocooned under myriad-coloured woollen blankets against the freezing weather.

  ‘It’d be a shame to disturb him,’ Sarah smiled as she gazed past the covers her mam had crocheted and knitted with any spare wool she could get her hands on. She did not think her mother could cope with a newly woken and therefore fractious baby and Violet all at the same time.

  Taking off her coat and hanging it on the coat hook above the pram, Nancy quickly followed her younger sister into the kitchen. She had to hear every bit of this! Their Eddy had gone and got himself wed and told nobody. The sly devil. When did that happen?

  She knew sailors were supposed to have a girl in every port, but that definitely did not apply to their Eddy.

  When she entered the kitchen, her mam and Pop were sitting at the table, opposite the long sash window by the back-kitchen door, and Nancy saw the narrow and straight back of the lady dressed in battleship grey. Nancy glanced from Mam, who looked indignantly shocked and clearly agitated, picking at the chenille tablecloth, to Pop, who offered a forced, almost apologetic smile.

  ‘Hello, Nancy, love. Come and meet Violet – our Eddy’s new wife.’ Pop said it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘Eddy’s wife?’ Nancy still couldn’t take it in. Her brother had been writing as regularly as he could for months now and he had not said one word about having a girl, never mind marrying one!

  ‘Violet’s house has been damaged by incendiaries,’ Pop explained. Violet had gone into some detail about how the vicarage she had lived in all her life had been hit by incendiary bombs, killing her par­ents. She had no family left. ‘Violet’s got nowhere else to go.’

  Pop said it in a way that told Nancy not to say a word as it was obvious she was dying to say something. So Nancy kept quiet, busy thinking. There was no room in the house for any more people, let alone a total stranger! Mam and Pop had the front bedroom, she and George had the middle room and Sarah had the small room at the back of the house. If one of the brothers were home, or Tommy stayed when Kitty and Danny were both working late, then Sarah moved into the middle room. It was a bit crowded, but there was no other way.

  Nancy and Violet were now eyeing each other. Nancy didn’t at all like the way the woman was looking at her, like she was cataloguing her for one of Mam’s clothing exchanges, such as were springing up in every church hall. How did they know for sure that this woman was who she said?

  ‘She could be anybody!’ Nancy blurted suddenly. Just then Violet opened her bag and took out a long envelope, handing it to Dolly, who withdrew a document and read it quickly.

  ‘She’s right,’ Dolly sighed, handing the marriage lines to Pop to read. ‘She is married to our Eddy.’ Dolly scraped back her chair on the linoleum floor and went out to the back kitchen. Moments later, after an awkward silence, Nancy followed.

  ‘So what does that mean?’ Nancy asked, knowing exactly what it meant.

  ‘There isn’t enough room for everybody,’ Dolly said quietly, turning on the cold tap enough for the sound to mask her words. Nancy knew her mother would not see anybody on the street. ‘Violet has no home to go to, and no family to see to her. We have got to help her out … for our Eddy’s sake, if nothing else.’

  ‘Does that mean I’ve to go back to Mrs Kerrigan’s house?’ Nancy asked, though she knew the answer.

  ‘I’m sorry, love, but I can’t see any other way,’ Dolly said. ‘At least you have your own room at Mrs Kerri­gan’s and you are not cramped up like you are here.’

  ‘But, Mam, she’s worse than the Gestapo!’

  ‘How do you know what the Gestapo are like?’ Dolly asked, shaking her head, knowing their Nancy could be a trial sometimes.

  ‘Nancy …’ Pop’s voice, behind her, held a warning note. ‘You know we would never see one of our own stranded.’

  Nancy nodded and left her parents to get on with making another pot of tea, knowing they wanted to talk in private.

  ‘So, when did all this happen?’ Nancy said, not taking her eyes from her new sister-in-law. There was no hope of her being able to stay here if this upstart was going to stay. Wait until she told Gloria.

  ‘He did what?’ Gloria echoed her friend’s earlier res­ponse.

  ‘I know! I’ve got to go back to moaning Minnie Kerrigan now!’ Nancy was in no mood to be mollified by Pop. She had flounced out of the house and down the foggy street to the Sailor’s Rest, above which her friend Gloria lived. ‘I’ll be like a caged canary! Sitting in, night after night, keeping that old bat company. I’ll go doolally!’

  ‘Oh, let’s have a night out before you have to go and stay with old misery guts again – I’ve got tonight off.’

  ‘Tonight?’ Nancy wondered if she could wangle one more night in the middle bedroom, knowing it would serve Lady Muck right if she had to sleep on the couch in the parlour. She should have given them notice she was going to turn up. ‘Fancy you having a night off!’ Nancy would love a night out, it had been so long, but she wasn’t going to let Gloria know that. Besides, Nancy certainly did not intend to show gratitude because her best friend could now fit her into her busy life.

  ‘I’ve got something I want to tell you—’ Gloria began, but her words were cut short.

  ‘Miss Prim has brought her suitcase,’ Nancy said petulantly. ‘I notice that wasn’t destroyed in the fire.’ Her nostrils flared. ‘She talks laaak thaaaa,’ she imitated Violet’s flat, nasal tone, ‘and looks like Popeye’s girlfriend, Olive Oyl! And if she looks down that long nose at me again I’ll have to say something.’

  Gloria couldn’t get a word in edgeways and decided, on past experience, that it was pointless trying to tell Nancy anything when she had a bee in her bonnet. The news would have to keep for now, because it was obvious Nancy was nowhere near finished moaning yet …

  ‘She looked at me like I was something she trod in on a pig farm!’ Nancy’s face was almost as dark as her Titian victory roll, while Gloria opened her perfectly made-up, crimson lips and howled with laughter.

  ‘Oh, I wish I’d been there,’ she said eventually, patting her platinum-blonde curls.

  ‘You can have that pleasure later,’ Nancy said. ‘I’ll ask Mam if she will mind George while we go into town.’

  Gloria put her hand up as if to stop her right there. She simply had to tell her own news.

  ‘I got a letter: Romeo Brown isn’t coming until next week.’ She sounded disappointed.

  ‘Who the heck is Romeo Brown, when he’s at home?’ Nancy asked. ‘He’d have to be able to handle himself in our street, with a name like that.’

  ‘Only one of the leading London impresarios – and he’s coming to hear me sing next week.’

  But as usual, Nancy seemed interested in only her own news. ‘Going out then will work out better for me. If this upstart thinks she’s going to pinch my bed she’s got another think coming!’

  ‘D’you think your mam will mind little Georgie next week?’

  ‘I’m sure she will, especially when I tell her I’m meeting the famous Romeo Brown.’

  ‘Oh, good show!’ Gloria imitated the crisp tones of her RAF boyfriend, Giles, whom she had not seen since the beginning of the Battle of Britain, last August.

  Nancy gave a tight smile. She wanted to be pleased for Gloria’s success – really, she did – but how could she, when Gloria rubbed her nose in it every chance she got, with her glamorous clothes and blonde hair – and that voice?

  Gloria’s mother was a failed music-hall singer who lost her singing voice before marrying Cyril Arden. When she could not make it as a singer she was determined her daughter would. Gloria had it drummed into her from an early age that she was going to be a star, whether she wanted it or not. However, Gloria did want it – she took it for granted stardom would happen one day and revelled in the
attention her mother lavished on her after a performance – which was, in fact, the only attention Gloria received from her.

  ‘It looks like I’m really going places now, Nance!’

  ‘Aye, well, just remember where you came from,’ Nancy could not stop the envious words, ‘Empire Street – the same place as the rest of us.’

  ‘I’ll never forget that, Nance,’ Gloria said. ‘This will always be my home.’

  ‘And don’t forget you’re courting either.’ Nancy could not push down the rising resentment of her friend’s success, her freedom to go out every night and dine in the best hotels, or to be chatted up by the most handsome men.

  ‘We’ll go to the pictures today, if you like – save our troubles for another day,’ Gloria said, and Nancy nodded, although she could not see what troubles her friend could possibly have.

  ‘We’ll call in at the Adelphi,’ Gloria said, the following week. Nancy felt her spirits sink, knowing that if they went there Gloria was bound to be collared by somebody who wanted to talk to a local celebrity. ‘I’ve just got to meet somebody, it won’t take long …’

  ‘You’re not taking me on a blind date, I hope!’ Nancy was peeved now, suspecting Gloria was only asking her to go for a night out because she was at a loose end. This wasn’t a bit like the old days.

  ‘No, I had a phone call from my agent.’

  Nancy silently sneered. Her agent, is it?

  ‘I’ve got this meeting with Romeo Brown – I told you about him last week. He’s a famous London impresario and he really will be there this evening. If anybody can open doors for me, he can. He can make me a star, Nance!’

  ‘Sounds phoney to me.’ Nancy thought Gloria didn’t half fancy herself these days.

  ‘Honest, Nance, he’s coming to hear me sing.’ Gloria was checking there was no lipstick on her teeth in the mirror of her gold and mother-of-pearl compact.