by Maureen Lee
Shepherd’s Bush was only a few stops on the Underground from Bond Street, where Maggie got off each morning and walked through the Mayfair streets to Berkeley Square. Lunchtimes she sat on a bench in Green Park or wandered along to Piccadilly Circus and joined the tourists who were beginning to return to London now the war was over. As in Liverpool, the boarded-up bomb sites were an ugly reminder of the Blitz that had so recently been the curse of British cities.
Although she enjoyed working at Thomas Cook’s, there were no women of her own age in her part of the office, and Maggie badly wanted to make friends. In July, it was her birthday and she turned twenty-two. Almost that many cards fell through the letter box downstairs, but not a single one bore a London postmark.
She had never known what it was like to be friendless, had never thought that one day she would discover how it felt to be lonely. In the army, she’d been one of the most popular girls in the camp with both men and women. Until now, never in her entire life had she gone to the pictures or a dance on her own. In her darkest moments, she imagined collapsing in the street and being taken to hospital in an ambulance, and being unable to give the name of a single friend or relative who could be contacted.
Sundays were the worst days. An elderly foreign couple lived in one of the ground-floor rooms. Every weekend, dozens of relatives would turn up armed with food: casserole dishes, tureens of soup, and large tins of other food. They would spend the afternoon there, and their busy conversation and laughter could be heard four floors up. It used to be rather like that in the O’Neills’ house in Bootle. Not quite so many people, not nearly so much food – Sheila O’Neill would have been outraged had people brought their own – but all sorts of friends and Irish cousins who spent the rest of the day there, staying for tea and supper too.
That was what Maggie missed most of all, the sense of belonging and being surrounded by family, in particular Mam, something she hadn’t appreciated when she’d had it. She continued to cry at odd moments thinking about her mother, wondering if it would ever stop.
As she sat contemplating the hundreds of roofs and thousands of windows visible from the attic room that, as yet, showed little sign of anyone living there, she was conscious of the odd tear slowly trickling down her face. She would angrily brush it away before settling down to write a letter to someone, usually her father, telling him that she felt absolutely fine.
There are so many things to do in London, she would write, and I am making loads of friends . . .
Nearly every day Nell and Iris made yet another list of the refreshments to be served at Adele and Cyril’s ruby wedding celebration. It was now nearing the end of August and the party was three weeks away. Iris had made a list of twenty names to be invited, a list that was quickly doubled when Adele got her hands on it. It turned out she had tracked down a number of guests who had been at the original wedding forty years ago, and Cyril wished to invite some of the members of his golf club.
‘Forty!’ Nell was stunned. ‘How on earth can we make enough food for forty people in a single day?’
‘For goodness’ sake, Nell, in the army you catered for a hundred, maybe two hundred hungry people. Have you forgotten how efficient you were?’ Nell was a lovely person, Iris thought, but she was inclined to dither.
‘You must think me dead stupid,’ she said. ‘It’s just that it didn’t seem to matter in the army as much as it does now.’
‘Well, that doesn’t say much for your comrades in arms.’ Iris briskly clapped her hands. ‘Look, let’s start with things like potato cakes that will keep for a while in the larder. Do you know, in America they have things called refrigerators or ice boxes where food can be kept for weeks, even months?’
Nell looked impressed and sighed longingly.
‘We can make big cakes too,’ Iris continued. ‘How about that nice moist apple cake you made once, and the eggless ginger cake? We could make little trifles the day before – I managed to get a tin of peaches in the Co-op the other day, did I tell you?’
‘No, but that’s the gear, isn’t it? We can cut the peaches up in bits to go in the jelly. Have you ordered the invitations yet?’
‘Yes, I ordered fifty, just in case Adele came up with more names. Are we inviting Maggie?’ The invitations were costing more than Iris had expected. She would have asked Nell’s father if he could obtain them cheaper, but he might expect to be invited.
‘Shall I draw up another list of what food to make and when we should make it?’
‘That would be very helpful, Nell.’ They both loved making lists and the house was littered with them. ‘Do you think Maggie will come to the party? After all, it’s a long way from London, and there’s the train fare.’
Nell shrugged and spread her hands. ‘She might, or she might not. I know she’s not happy in London.’
‘How do you know she’s not happy?’ Iris frowned. ‘In the letter she sent me, she said she was having a wonderful time.’
‘Yes, but she never mentions names, does she? She doesn’t say “I went to the pictures with so-and-so” or “I had dinner with someone else”. No, Maggie’s finding London a bit hard to take.’
Well, at least she had someone to go to the pictures with – and not on the crowded tube, either.
Mrs Ivy Morrison, who lived on the ground floor of the house in Shepherd’s Bush, arrived home in a taxi one Tuesday evening at the same time as Maggie came home from work. Maggie carried her bag of groceries into the house for the woman, who looked well into her seventies, waiting while she unlocked the door to her flat. When she had, Maggie was invited in for a cup of tea and a piece of cake.
The large room smelled delightfully of lavender and was like a Victorian museum, full of little tables laden with photos in elaborate frames, lacy cloths, velvet-upholstered furniture, home-made rugs, a piano, and a dining room suite with the curliest legs Maggie had ever seen. The walls were so covered with pictures that the wallpaper behind was hardly visible. Mrs Morrison lit a gas lamp with a heavily fringed shade, then disappeared behind a curtain at the end of the long room and emerged with two cups of tea and a cherry cake on a plate.
‘I made the cake this morning,’ she announced, ‘so it’s very fresh. I won the cherries at a whist drive.’
‘It’s the gear,’ Maggie said with her mouth full.
‘Shall we have some music while we chat?’ Without waiting for a reply, Mrs Morrison removed an embroidered cloth to reveal a Bakelite wireless underneath and switched it on; Frank Sinatra was singing ‘All or Nothing at All’.
‘I love Radio Luxembourg,’ she said. ‘I listened to it all during the war.’
‘So did I – I mean we. I was in the army,’ Maggie explained. ‘We had a wireless in our hut.’ She felt as if she was in a time warp; two different worlds, the Victorian one and the modern one, but with the same tunes.
‘The army! How exciting. Do tell me all about it. I was a nurse in the Boer War at the beginning of the century,’ Mrs Morrison said proudly.
‘That sounds dead exciting too. Perhaps you can tell me about that after I’ve told you about the army.’
‘You start, dear, and in a little while I’ll make more tea.’
On Saturday, Ivy Morrison and Maggie went by taxi to he Globe Electric Theatre in Wandsworth to see Anchors Aweigh with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. The old lady needed help going into the cinema, then with finding a seat.
Maggie fell instantly in love with Gene Kelly, who she’d never seen before. Do I love him more than I do Fred Astaire? she asked herself, but couldn’t decide. Frank Sinatra sang ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily’, and Mrs Morrison hummed it in the taxi all the way home. She invited Maggie into her flat for a glass of sherry.
All in all, it was a really enjoyable evening. Maggie promised that she would go again in a month’s time. But she still felt lonely, still wanting to make friends, preferably ones who weren’t four times her age.
The day of the party was getting closer and closer and Iris
and Nell were becoming more and more nervous. It was such an important anniversary, celebrating forty years of marriage; very happy years, Adele emphasised.
Iris had found a box of a dozen candles. On the night, she placed them strategically in glass jars in the parlour. Once lit, the perfectly ordinary room turned into one full of secrets and mystery. The music of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin was being played on the gramophone, so headily romantic that Iris felt her heart beat a little faster.
The nights were already starting to dim. When the guests first arrived, Nell handed round tiny Welsh rarebits as an aperitif. Tom was in charge of the wine. He had prepared a bowl of fruit punch for Nell, who was still unable to drink alcohol.
He had diagnosed her as suffering from something called ‘alcohol intolerance’. ‘It’s a well-known condition. Some people can’t break the stuff down in their stomach. It can cause palpitations, headaches, excessive sweating and other complications.’
The whole house took on a special quality, as if it was alive and responsive to the people enjoying themselves within its walls. They danced in the candlelit parlour, held long, highly intellectual conversations in the dining room, ate in the kitchen and on the stairs, were sick – just one or two – in the bathroom.
Other than that, it was a very decorous party when compared to the ones Iris had known in the camp at Plymouth, where the men in particular partied as if it might possibly be the last one they would go to – which sometimes it was.
Frank, Tom’s brother, was keeping a close eye on Nell, who looked exceptionally attractive in her red dress, waiting for her to finish serving the food so he could ask her to dance. In turn, Iris was keeping a close eye on Frank, who she didn’t trust further than she could throw him. Nell was too young and vulnerable where men like Frank were concerned.
Kathleen Curran was a popular guest. Few people there other than Nell and Iris had voted for her in the recent by-election, but she was a woman with such an effervescent personality that she was hard to dislike. Her loud, distinctive voice with its broad Irish accent could be heard echoing through the house offering quite shocking opinions on some of the things people held most dear, such as the royal family, the Church of England and the great Winston Churchill himself. She had brought Paddy O’Neill, Maggie’s father, with her. Paddy had given in his notice at his old job and would soon be the agent in charge of the Labour Party office in Bootle.
‘The food’s gorgeous,’ Adele said happily. ‘Everybody loves it. I shall mention who is responsible for it when Cyril and I thank everyone later for our presents. Nell will be inundated with people wanting her to prepare the food for their parties. Where is Nell?’ she asked, looking around.
Iris shrugged and said, ‘Somewhere.’ It wasn’t for another half-hour that she discovered Nell was nowhere to be seen. Worried, she looked in the waiting room, Tom’s surgery, the bedrooms. She eventually found her in the spare bedroom fast asleep on the bed, her breathing raw and uneven. Her face was almost as red as her dress, and when Iris touched her forehead it was burning. She fetched Tom immediately.
‘The punch has been spiked,’ he said angrily. ‘Cyril’s just told me. I’ve poured it down the sink.’ He bent over Nell. ‘She’s got a temperature. It can only be that bloody stuff. I saw her drink some.’
‘What shall we do? Does she need to go to hospital?’ Iris felt the urge to panic.
‘No. It’s best for her to be left to sleep it off.’ Gently he pulled the eiderdown over the girl. ‘She’s going to be all right. We’ll look in on her from time to time and I’ll put a glass of cold water and some aspirin by the bed ready for when she wakes.’
‘But we can’t just continue with the party!’
‘Yes we can, darling.’ He led her from the room. ‘Nell’s in the best place. I don’t want to spoil Mum and Dad’s night. They’ll never have another fortieth wedding anniversary, will they?’
‘No,’ Iris said miserably. ‘Should I sit with Nell, do you think?’
‘There’s no need.’ He closed the bedroom door quietly behind them. ‘You might disturb her. Go and make yourself some tea. It’s not far off midnight and people will start going home soon.’
‘Oh, all right.’ She still felt unhappy about things. As she was going downstairs, there was a knock on the door and she opened it to Ryan O’Neill, who she had met just once, at his mother’s funeral.
‘Hello, Iris.’ He smiled. ‘I promised me Auntie Kath I’d come and help fetch me da home, on the assumption he might not be up to it himself.’
‘Your father’s upstairs.’ He was in the room with the candles. As far as she knew, he hadn’t moved out of his chair. She had no idea how much he’d had to drink.
‘You’d better go upstairs and look for him,’ she said. ‘Oh, and help yourself to a drink while you’re at it.’
‘Ta. Is Nell here? I thought she might like to come with us.’
‘She’s lying down with a headache.’ Nell had told her father she might not be home until morning.
Ryan bounded up the stairs and Iris thought what a remarkably handsome young man he was.
It turned out that Paddy O’Neill had spent the evening getting quietly drunk. It wasn’t until an hour later that Ryan helped his father out of the house with his Auntie Kath supporting his other side and singing ‘The Red Flag’ in a loud voice.
‘What a remarkable woman,’ Cyril said as he watched her leave. ‘If I’d been in her company for much longer, I might well have joined the Labour Party. I think quite a few people would agree with me. Mind you, there’s also a few who wanted to strangle her.’
It was quarter past two and everyone had gone. Iris found Nell sitting up drinking the water Tom had put on the bedside table. ‘How are you feeling, love?’
‘All right.’ The girl smiled sleepily. ‘Something dead funny happened – though I might have dreamt it.’
‘What was this dead-funny thing?’
‘I’ll tell you some other time.’
Iris forgot to ask again, and it was months before she discovered what the funny thing was. When she did, it was to change her life and the lives of others in the years to come.
Chapter 7
Maggie went home for Christmas. It had always been her mother’s favourite time of year, and this, the first Christmas without her, was particularly hard on the family she had left behind. But Rosie – Maggie was beginning to genuinely love her sister-in-law – had made great efforts with the food and decorations, even checking that her new family hadn’t forgotten to buy each other presents, so that the gap left by Sheila O’Neill was at least partially filled.
On Boxing Day, Maggie had tea with Nell and Iris. Not for the first time, she marvelled at what close friends they had become. For herself, she knew it would be a wrench to return to London, though by now she had got to know a few people.
Philip Morrison was Ivy Morrison’s youngest son – she called him her baby. At thirty-five, he was considerably older than Maggie, but they enjoyed each other’s company. He had lost his fiancée during the war, he told her on their first date.
‘Oh dear, I’m dead sorry,’ Maggie exclaimed. ‘Was it the Blitz?’
Philip had given a wry smile. ‘No, I lost her to a first lieutenant in the navy. Silly of me, I know, but I’ve not been able to trust a woman again – present company excepted,’ he said with a smile.
‘I expect it was the uniform.’ People were dazzled by uniforms. In the army, men had far preferred girls wearing their horrible khaki ATS outfits, including thick unflattering stockings and flat lace-up shoes, than the most glamorous dresses. She explained this to Philip, who said he could well believe it.
‘I’d like to think I am better-looking than the chap Margery went off with,’ he said gloomily. ‘He was a most unattractive individual, with a face like a pig. If it was the uniform she was impressed by, I feel sorry for her when he gets demobbed and is back to wearing ordinary clothes.’ He had spent the war as a statistician working
for the government, and had worn an ordinary suit.
Maggie assured him he was extremely handsome. The Morrisons had Welsh blood, and Philip was dark-haired with smoky grey eyes. If he hadn’t been so ancient and, let’s face it, a trifle old-womanish, Maggie might have been smitten.
She described him to Nell on Boxing Day evening when they went to a dance at the Grafton. ‘We’ve been to the theatre together a few times. We saw The Winslow Boy with Emlyn Williams. Remember him in Hatter’s Castle, except this time he was in the flesh. Oh, and we saw Vivien Leigh in a play called By the Skin of our Teeth. You know, the actress who played Scarlett O’Hara?’
‘Of course I know who Vivien Leigh is,’ Nell said. ‘This is Liverpool, Maggie, a big city, not the back of beyond. You might have noticed we have theatres here, if not as many as in London.’
‘I’m sorry, Nell.’ Maggie hugged her friend. ‘In London, it’s like living at the hub of the universe.’ She was exaggerating a bit. She regarded Nell critically. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Nell assured her. ‘What makes you think I’m not?’
‘You look different somehow. Your cheeks aren’t usually so rosy and you look incredibly happy.’
Nell laughed. ‘So you think there’s something wrong because I look happy and have rosy cheeks?’
‘The cheeks could mean you have a temperature. Are you in love?’
‘No, I’m not. But I am happy; happy with my life.’
‘That’s good.’ Maggie had been hoping that Nell might change her mind about London after hearing what a wonderful place it was, but it seemed it was not to be. Nell was perfectly contented with her lot in Liverpool, which was a shame.
They were on the balcony in the Grafton – sitting on the same seats they’d been when Chris Conway had approached them all those months ago. Neither girl had mentioned Chris.
