Across the Mersey

by Annie Groves

  ‘You’re not thinking of sending him back?’ Jean protested.

  ‘It’s not safe for him here. You know that. Wallasey’s already been bombed once, and four killed. There’s hardly two nights together now when we don’t have the air-raid sirens going on.’

  None of them could dispute the truth of Vi’s words.

  ‘Come along, Jack,’ she insisted sharply. ‘Your father’s been put to enough trouble already having to leave his work and then wait around for your aunt Francine to bring you back, after she’d taken you out without a by-your-leave, or telling anyone where she was going.’

  Jack was leaning back into her, and now, as Francine put her hand on his shoulder, he looked up at her.

  Jean looked helplessly at Sam.

  Francine’s eyes were swimming with tears, and Jack looked so helpless and afraid, whilst Vi was clearly furious. Any minute now something would be said or done that would cause the kind of family trouble that could never be put right, thought Jean worriedly.

  ‘Why don’t you leave him here with us for a few days, Vi, whilst you sort out what you’re going to do?’ Sam suggested.

  ‘No. He’s coming back with us now, and as for sorting something out, we’ve done that already. First thing tomorrow Edwin is taking him back to Wales. We’ve found another family that’s willing to take him. Very highly recommended, they are as well, by a fellow member of my WVS committee. Come along, Jack.’

  Francine dropped on her haunches and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him fiercely and giving him a kiss.

  She hoped he’d remember about the little card she’d given him with the address of the theatre on it, and that he’d be able to keep it hidden from Vi. She told him he could write to her any time he wanted to, and that he must if he wasn’t happy. It wasn’t what she wanted but what else could she do?

  It was Jean’s turn to hug him now, and then Sam was leading him over to Vi, who frowned and grumbled over a mark on his shirt and said that his hair was untidy and needed cutting.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ said Francine to Jean after they had gone. ‘I really can’t.’

  ‘You must,’ Jean responded. ‘Because there’s nothing else you can do.’

  Grace had just come off duty and was halfway across the yard on her way to see Teddy when it happened. Teddy was standing outside his ambulance, watching the crew of another ambulance help an elderly man to walk towards the hospital, and smoking a cigarette. He saw Grace and waved to her. Then out of nowhere a young boy came running past, whilst from the hospital entrance one of the porters was calling out, ‘Stop him. He’s just nicked my watch.’

  Immediately Teddy dropped his cigarette and set off in pursuit of the thief, but he had only run a few yards when he stopped, and doubled over, clutching his chest and then collapsed onto the ground.

  Grace couldn’t remember moving but somehow she was there, alongside his colleagues, who had also seen what had happened, kneeling down beside him whilst over her head anxious voices issued curt instructions.

  His face was deathly pale, his lips almost blue, and beneath her searching fingers his pulse was so frail and thready it might almost not have been there.

  The other ambulance men were attempting to lift him onto a stretcher. Grace reached for his hand. His eyes opened and he looked at her. Grace’s heart did a slow sickening dive that dizzied her.

  ‘Don’t move him,’ someone was instructing. ‘Doc’s on his way.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ another responded in a shocked voice. ‘It looks like the poor lad’s a goner.’

  ‘Teddy. Teddy …’ But Grace knew it was no use. She could see it in his face, and in his eyes was a look that told her that he knew it too.

  She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed them against it. Don’t die, Teddy, please don’t die.

  As though he had heard the words beating inside her head he gave her a crooked smile. He was trying to say something and she had to lean even closer to him to hear it.

  ‘Don’t you go forgetting what I said to you about you having to do the living for both of us.’ His voice was like the dry rustle of dead leaves swept aside by the wind. ‘And think on what you do ’cos I’ll be watching you from up there.’

  ‘Teddy. Teddy … No.’

  But Grace knew even as she said his name that it was too late and he had gone.

  * * *

  They let her go with his body into the hospital but later she was glad that they had refused to allow her to help lay him out. Somehow it wouldn’t have been proper really, her seeing him in such a personal way when they hadn’t been like that with one another.

  Matron was very kind to her, telling her she was sending her home in the care of a senior nurse Grace didn’t know but whose family apparently lived a couple of streets away from her own.

  It was a beautiful evening with a clear sky and a perfect sunset, the air balmy with summer, and the evidence of living things at their fullest flowering was all around her in gardens and on allotments. Teddy should have lived to experience that fullness of life instead of being denied it.

  Elspeth, the other nurse, let her walk down her own street on her own, and to Grace’s relief she managed to control herself until she was inside, but the moment she saw her mother she threw herself into her arms and cried her eyes out.

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘The bloody Luftwaffe were at it again last night. They got the dockers’ umbrella this time and the docks,’ Mr Whitehead told Grace gloomily as she did the morning locker round.

  The dockers’ umbrella was the local name for the overhead railway that ran the length of the docks and under which dockers often sheltered when it came on to rain.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Grace agreed calmly. ‘My dad’s with the Salvage Corps and they were called out, but seemingly the damage wasn’t too bad.’

  ‘They’ve bin bombing the south-east coast and Dover, an’ all,’ Mr Whitehead continued, determined to look on the black side. ‘Hitler wants to destroy our RAF so that he can invade us unchallenged.’

  ‘Hellfire Corner, the papers are calling Dover now, but the RAF will soon see them off,’ the cheerful young sergeant in the next bed, who was now recovering from his injuries, told him.

  ‘Them German Stukas are no match for our Spitfires.’

  Grace dutifully tried to concentrate on the newspaper report they were both discussing, which explained how the German Stukas protected by Messerschmitt fighters had roared in over the Channel coast in bomber formation to attack harbours, naval bases and airfields, whilst the Spitfires protected by the Hurricanes of Bomber Command had carefully fed into the battle to take a terrible toll of the Germans who had lost 31 planes to the RAF’s 17.

  ‘It says here,’ the young sergeant read, having got out of bed against regulations and picked up Mr Whitehead’s paper: ‘“Among the most successful of the RAF pilots are the Poles, who have fought the Germans in their own skies, over France and now over Britain. They burn with hatred for the Nazis and roar into battle with reckless courage.”’

  The other men in the ward all burst spontaneously into applause when the sergeant had finished reading.

  As pleased as Grace was by the news, poor Teddy’s death was still very raw with her.

  They had buried him yesterday, and for the first time she had met his family. Grace’s mother hadn’t really wanted her to attend the funeral, worrying that she might not be up to it, but Grace had insisted that she must pay her last respects, so Jean had gone with her.

  Grace had been surprised to learn from Teddy’s mother just how much he had talked about her at home and even more surprised when it had turned out that her own mother and Teddy’s had gone to the same school.

  There had been a good deal of talk from Teddy’s family about how he would never listen to reason about not overdoing things and Grace had thought of the rueful ‘I told you so’ smile he would have given her had he been there to hear them.

  The other girls in her set ha
d all been sympathetic, even Lillian, although Grace had suspected that her outward show of sympathy was just that – a show put on because it was what she thought she should do.

  Grace still couldn’t quite believe that it had actually happened somehow, and, this morning, once she got into the sluice room she discovered to her dismay that she was crying.

  This wouldn’t do, it would not do at all, and it was the last thing that Teddy would want, but still she leaned her head against the wall and gave way to her tears.

  The sluice-room door opened and Grace tensed with shock when Seb walked in.

  ‘You can’t come in here,’ she told him. ‘Sister will have a fit.’

  ‘I heard about your friend. And I just wanted to say how sorry I was.’

  Grace could feel fresh tears filling her eyes. ‘He knew it was going to happen. He’d told me. But I never thought … I’d warned him that he was doing too much. He must have known when he ran after that lad.’

  Seb pushed a clean handkerchief into her hand.

  ‘He’d be that cross if he could see me now. He told me that he didn’t want me crying over him, and that was why we could only be friends and not anything else. He said he didn’t want me feeling guilty like I would do if we’d been a proper couple. But I do feel guilty,’ Grace said wretchedly. ‘Teddy wanted so much to live and I can’t stop meself from thinking that if I had been his girl, you know, properly, then he’d have known what that was like instead of dying without knowing.’

  The words were tumbling out on top of one another, things she would never normally have dreamed of saying, but instinctively Grace sensed that Seb would understand what she was feeling and what she was trying to say.

  He did. And he understood too that his own feelings for Grace had become far more personal than he had realised until now.

  ‘You’ve nothing to feel guilty about, Grace,’ he reassured her, ‘except that you’re upsetting yourself when Teddy didn’t want you to, and over something he wouldn’t have wanted you to be upset over.’

  ‘How do you know that? You didn’t even know him.’

  ‘No. But just from what you’ve said about him now I can tell that he was a man of honour and decency,’ Seb insisted truthfully. ‘Maybe he did want what you’ve just said, but I reckon that what he wanted more was what he’d already said he wanted for you. You should respect that and respect him for it, because I certainly do. He sounds a fine man and I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet him.’

  ‘He was a fine man,’ said Grace, her tears subsiding, and then starting up again as she wept, ‘It’s so unfair, Seb.’

  He crossed the small distance separating them and took her in his arms, holding her comfortingly.

  ‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘Bloody unfair. But that’s life, Grace. You know that. It is unfair. And if you want to be fair to him, then the best thing you can do is to remember him as he wanted you to.’

  Grace raised her head to look at him, her eyes widening slightly as her body registered the fact that she was in his arms.

  ‘Grace.’

  He hadn’t intended to kiss her. He hadn’t even thought of doing so, not for one minute, Sebastion assured himself. He had seen her rush into the sluice room, had guessed she was upset and had simply followed her to offer his sympathy.

  But now that he was kissing her, Seb realised, he didn’t ever want to stop.

  A sound outside the door brought them both back to reality. Seb released her and Grace stepped back from him. They were both breathing unsteadily and Grace knew that her heart was racing – not with shock but with excitement.

  ‘We shouldn’t have done that,’ she told Seb weakly.

  ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m glad that we did.’ Her mother had been in such a bad mood since Jack had run away and they had to collect him from Aunt Jean’s and then take him back to Wales, that Bella just didn’t feel like going round to see her.

  Bettina and her mother were carrying on as if the Poles were the saviours of the nation, ever since it had been in the papers about them being such daring fighter pilots, and Bella was sick of listening to them.

  Now just because the post hadn’t brought a letter from Jan this morning they were acting like the world had ended and had rushed off to see what they could find out, fearing the worst and that Jan might have been shot down in one of the now almost daily air battles between the Luftwaffe and the RAF. Well, good riddance if he had, Bella thought nastily.

  She wished they weren’t having such a hot August. It was really draining her, what with the heat and the air-raid sirens going off night after night, and her having to get out of bed and go down to the shelter until the all clear came. At least today, though, she didn’t have to worry about having to put up with Alan’s temper, seeing as he was playing golf with his father. And yet even though she resented Bettina and her mother, the house felt empty without them there to complain to about how miserable she felt.

  It was definitely too hot outside. She might as well go upstairs and lie down comfortably on her bed, as stay out here in the garden, thought Bella.

  Less than an hour later Alan woke her up when he came storming upstairs, obviously drunk and in a furious temper.

  ‘What are you doing back?’ she asked him irritably. ‘I thought you were playing golf.’

  ‘Trixie’s father was at the golf club, and do you know what?’

  Bella gave an exaggerated sigh and got up off the bed. ‘No, and I don’t want to know either,’ she told him as she walked past him.

  He caught up with her on the landing, grabbing hold of her arm and pushing her back against the banister rail so hard that it hurt her back.

  ‘Well, you’re going to know. He said that Trixie’s getting engaged,’ said Alan bitterly. ‘That’s thanks to you, you bitch,’ he raged. ‘It’s because of you that I’ve lost the girl I love. The only girl I’ll ever love.’ He was sobbing now, drunken tears streaming down his face. ‘It’s all your fault. Everything. You’ve ruined my life.’

  She’d ruined his life! Her back really hurt and so did her arm where he was still holding it in a painful grip. Bella gave him a baleful look and demanded crossly, ‘Let go of me, Alan. You’re hurting me.’

  ‘Am I? So what? It’s what you deserve. In fact …’ He was looking at her now in a way that sent an atavistic prickle of warning up under Bella’s skin, lifting the hairs at the back of her neck.

  As though in the very second that it flashed through her mind that being trapped between Alan and the banister rail meant she was in a perilous position, the same thought seemed to occur to him, so that when she tried to twist her body round to escape from any danger he slammed her back against the banister. The force he used sent the breath gasping from her lungs. Instinctively Bella reached out with her free hand to try to drag Alan’s fingers from round her wrist. She was panting now, her ears filled with the sound of Alan’s drunken jeering laughter. He was gripping her wrist so hard she thought it might actually break.

  Panic filled her. She clawed wildly at his face, but he still didn’t let her go. Instead he grabbed hold of her by the hair with his free hand, banging her head against the wall.

  Her ears ringing with pain and nausea, Bella sobbed in panic, begging him, ‘Stop it, Alan, please stop it.’ She was crying and too frightened to conceal her terror as Alan dragged her towards the top of the stairs.

  ‘One push and that would be it,’ he told her. ‘You and that brat you’re carrying would be dead and I’d be free. Trixie wants me really, I know she does. She’s always loved me and she always will. She said so. She’s only got engaged to this other chap because of you.’

  He had pushed her back against the banister and was leaning in to her. Bella could hear the wood creaking and moving beneath their combined weight.

  Abruptly he swung her round, and away from the banister, so that she had her back to the stairs.

  Bella hiccuped in sick relief. Thank God he had come to his senses. He was still holding
on to her wrists, manacling both of them now.

  She tried to pull them free and then screamed in sick terror as Alan jerked her backwards, causing her to fall off the top step, suspended for a nauseating heartbeat of time in nothing other than the air before he yanked her back to the safety of the stair.

  ‘That’s it, you go ahead and make me let you go, and then it will be your own fault. I’ll tell them that I tried to calm you down and stop you, but you just went ahead and fell all by yourself.’

  He was grinning at her now, a maniacal drunken grin, his eyes savage with his hatred of her.

  He was going to do it. He was going to let go of her wrists and push her down the stairs. Bella could see it in his eyes. Sobbing in terror, she was trembling violently. She was going to die. Alan was going to kill her. She felt him release her right wrist. She reached out frantically towards the banister.

  Suddenly there were feet on the stairs; an RAF uniform; Jan, his body supporting hers as he punched Alan once and so hard that he collapsed onto the landing like a deflated puppet.

  Bella sagged against Jan, too shocked and weak to do anything other than let him take charge. She was trembling so much she could hardly stand, never mind walk, and she had to lean heavily on him. She could smell the scent of his skin and his hair.

  He took her into the kitchen and sat her down on a chair.

  ‘I’ll call your doctor.’

  ‘No,’ Bella protested. ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘He would have killed you if I hadn’t come in.’

  ‘No,’ Bella denied, but she knew that it was true and that in his drunken fury Alan had intended to do just that. Bella, though, had been brought up by a mother who had taught her that appearances were everything, and Bella couldn’t endure the shame of other people knowing what Alan had tried to do.

  Now that she was out of danger, all she wanted to do was to pretend that it had never happened. The last thing she wanted was everyone knowing what kind of husband Alan was, and even worse, that he loved someone else and had wanted to leave her.

  Alan! She could hear him lurching down the stairs and she looked anxiously towards the door but to her relief he didn’t come into the kitchen, and within a few seconds she heard the front door being slammed behind him as he left.