Daughters of the Mersey

by Anne Baker

  Ancient varnished beams ran across the ceiling, from which were suspended a whole flitch of bacon and two large hams. Half a dozen pots of geraniums were in flower on the wide windowsill. It was nothing like the home Amy had come from and she didn’t know quite what to make of it.

  Auntie Bessie took her and her haversack upstairs. They crossed one bedroom to reach the other that was to be hers. It was a modern bedroom suite and had a double bed just for her. Her haversack was tossed on to the gold eiderdown and she was asked to open it up. On top were the self-addressed envelopes Mum had given her.

  She was reminded of her promise. ‘Mum wants me to let her know where I am as soon as I can,’ she told Auntie Bessie.

  ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow,’ she replied, slipping one of the envelopes into her apron pocket, ‘so we’ll be going to town. We’ll write the letter later and you can post it then.’

  She helped Amy lay out her nightdress and slippers. Amy could see the big wardrobe was already full of Bessie and Jack’s best clothes, but space was made to hang up her best frock and a drawer in a chest was emptied for her other things.

  On a tiled washstand, she could see a large pottery jug standing in a washbowl, both decorated with purple flowers, and under the bed was a large matching pot. Amy felt much too grown up to use that sort of thing, but feeling an urgent need she asked for the bathroom.

  ‘The bathroom? We don’t have one here, bach.’

  Amy was surprised to be led back downstairs and taken outside. ‘There’s the tŷ bach,’ Bessie said, pointing out a stone structure half hidden amongst the fruit trees of the orchard. ‘That means little house,’ she added and left her.

  Amy half slid down the steep path to open the door. The stench made her take a step back. She felt she needed to close the door for privacy and though a line of Vs had been cut into the wood along the top of the door, it was dark but not so dark that she couldn’t see the spiders and the webs they’d spun across the corners. She hated it but she had to use it. She made all haste to get out.

  Amy wasn’t at all sure she liked her new home, it didn’t feel safe, quite the opposite. She didn’t know these people and though they were trying to be kind, she didn’t know what to expect or what they expected of her. She wanted June and she wanted her mum, she wanted to be in her old familiar home with her real family.

  But back in the house a cup of tea was put in her hand and she was told to sit by the fire on one of the stools. She found Auntie Bessie and Jack turning out the contents of the carrier bag.

  Amy saw a collection of food, mostly tinned, given by the government to help feed an unexpected addition to the household during the first days of their stay. Tins of corned beef, luncheon meat and fruit were approved of, but a tin of evaporated milk caused considerable surprise and laughter. They spoke Welsh together but changed to English when they turned to her.

  ‘Is this the sort of milk you drink back in the town you’ve come from?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Amy said. ‘We have it on tinned fruit. It’s like cream.’ There was more laughter. It seemed they had plenty of fresh milk and real cream. ‘Sometimes my mother makes rice pudding with it,’ she added. ‘Mum thinks it’s good for that.’

  ‘Rice pudding?’ Auntie Bessie beamed at her. ‘Good, I can use it that way.’

  Amy was pleased she knew something that they did not. Perhaps in time, it would all make sense to her.

  ‘I have to go round the hens and shut them in for the night, so the foxes don’t get them,’ Jack said. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  She felt tired but she wanted to see more of this farm so she followed him out. He explained he had three henhouses and each held a flock of hens. The first was in the farmyard and alongside an open barn that was stacked full of hay.

  She could see several rows of birds perched on rails three feet off the floor. They jostled and cackled in alarm and edged further away as they entered.

  ‘Won’t they fall off when they go to sleep?’ Amy asked.

  ‘No, perches are like beds to them.’ Jack was checking the nesting boxes and gave her an egg to hold. He carefully closed not only the big door through which they’d entered but dropped the trapdoor over the hole which the hens used.

  The dog came out again as far as his chain would let him, wagging his tail. Amy could see he was attached to a kennel pushed under the tightly planted fir trees in the plantation that served as a windbreak for the house.

  She wanted to stroke him but Jack was shaking his head. ‘Go to bed, Fly,’ he ordered and the dog slunk into his kennel. ‘Goodnight,’ Jack added.

  The other two henhouses were purpose-built and out in the fields some distance away so the birds could forage for most of their food. Jack went through the same routine and found more eggs which he put in his pocket. Daylight was fading and the evening air was cool and fresh. Amy put her hand in Jack’s; it felt rough and calloused but made her feel safe.

  It was getting dark in the kitchen. Bessie was spreading a white cloth on a small table for supper. Jack lit the oil lamp and the light sparkled on a silver tea service inside a display cabinet sitting on top of a sort of sideboard.

  Amy watched mesmerised as one of the tins of luncheon meat was opened and shared between three plates. It was eaten with bread and butter and a selection of pickles and chutneys. She wasn’t hungry.

  ‘Eat your best,’ Aunt Bessie kept saying, but she couldn’t. Her eyes were closing in the heat of the fire.

  ‘She needs her bed.’ Uncle Jack forked luncheon meat from her plate to his. ‘She’s had a long day.’

  Bed was what Amy wanted. A candle was lit for her. Going to bed at home meant a routine visit to the bathroom first, but the thought of visiting the tŷ bach now it was dark made her quake.

  ‘No need.’ Auntie Bessie led the way up to her bedroom and yanked the pot from under the bed. ‘You use the piss pot during the night,’ she said.

  Amy was shocked. She wouldn’t have dared say the word piss at home. That was considered rude. Milo got into trouble when he said rude words.

  ‘Goodnight, sleep tight,’ Bessie said to her. Amy got undressed and put on her nightdress. There was no water in the big jug so it seemed she was excused teeth-cleaning and washing here.

  She opened the window and the room filled with the soft fresh air and the strange noises of the night. The bed seemed very high, she had to climb up into it and felt herself sink into the thick overlay of goose feathers. It was supremely comfortable.

  Leonie went straight from Amy’s school to her shop, her mind racing with worries. She wasn’t sure now that she’d done the right thing. Amy’s face had told her what she felt about being sent off into the unknown. Leonie already felt lost without her and weighed down with guilt.

  She was a little late opening up and she had a customer waiting for her. She snatched up the two letters that had been delivered and slid them on the part of the shop counter she used as a desk. As soon as that little flurry of activity was over she sat down at her sewing machine but she couldn’t get Amy out of her mind and for once her work brought no feeling of contentment. She couldn’t settle to sew, couldn’t settle to anything.

  It was mid-morning before she noticed her unopened letters and attended to them. The first was a bill for threads and buttons but the second made her draw in her breath as she recognised Nick’s handwriting.

  The last letter she’d received from him had been after Amy’s ninth birthday. He’d thanked her for news of her progress. The only time he’d ever written to her had been to thank her for news of Amy.

  Now she sat down at her machine and ripped open the envelope, full of eager anticipation.

  ‘I’ve missed you very much over the years,’ Nicholas had written, ‘but now I’ve found someone else who is free to marry me and after a lot of thought and deliberation I’ve decided to go ahead.’

  Leonie leapt to her feet, she couldn’t read any more. Nick wanted to marry someone else! She felt tears start
to her eyes. She pushed the letter into her pocket and set her machine to run furiously up the long seams of a princess-style dress. Ida arrived for work and chatted about her dog being unwell. It was a distraction but Leonie kept touching the letter and telling herself she mustn’t let it upset her.

  Nick had a right to all the happiness he could get; she couldn’t expect lifelong devotion from him when she could give him nothing. She had to admit they were not as close as they had been. How could they be after all this time? But nevertheless she felt he was deserting her.

  She went up to the flat to make some tea and read more of his letter. He said that his bride knew about Amy and he hoped Leonie wouldn’t stop sending him letters about her progress.

  When Elaine came that afternoon, Leonie forced herself to talk about Nick. If she didn’t, it would mean she was very upset at his news.

  Elaine seemed pleased. ‘I didn’t know he was planning to marry,’ she said. ‘He’s told you first.’

  Elaine had met Heather and was able to tell Leonie she was Nick’s secretary and had been working for him for two years. She was pretty, only twenty-seven, and very good company.

  Leonie told herself she should feel happy that he’d managed to find someone else. She spent a whole afternoon trailing round the Liverpool shops seeking a wedding gift for him before she chose table linen and a card of good wishes. Elaine and Tom were invited to the wedding and Leonie had the bitter-sweet experience of hearing all about it at second hand.

  It left Leonie feeling flat. She had drifted far from Steve, it was loyalty and pity rather than love that kept her with him. Steve hadn’t got on with Milo and was largely indifferent to Amy, but June was still at home and he doted on her.

  At least Leonie’s dressmaking business was now a paying concern which she enjoyed. She had a life of her own. It wasn’t everything she’d have chosen but she had to be content with what she had.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AMY WAS WOKEN BY cockerels crowing from far and near, and her room was filled with early sun. She slid out of bed, tiptoed to the door and peeped into the adjoining bedroom. The brass bed hadn’t yet been made but Bessie and Jack had gone. Amy got dressed and went downstairs.

  The house was silent but the small table was set for breakfast and a small fire was burning in the grate, with the kettle singing on its chain. Then she noticed that the stamped addressed envelope to her mother was lying on the big table. Feeling guilty that she hadn’t done what she’d promised, she sat down to write to her now.

  As she pulled out the sheet of notepaper in the envelope, she found that Bessie had already written a note to her mother.

  Amy read it. ‘Don’t worry about Amy, she is being a very good girl and I’ll take good care of her.’ Mum would like that. Bessie had also printed the address of the farm, which was called Coed Cae Bach, in capital letters, so Mum would know where she was and could write to her.

  Amy told her it was a funny house with no bathroom, that instead there was a smelly lavatory outside that had a whole army of great big spiders inside. ‘I want to come home,’ she wrote. ‘I don’t like it here.’ Amy tucked the letters in the envelope and stuck it down so Bessie couldn’t read what she’d written.

  Then she went outside to explore. From the terrace she could look down and across the wide Severn Valley. She saw a pattern of fields and woods and farms. On the other side, the fields gave way to purplish-brown hill land dotted with sheep. She could hear Bessie milking and went to the open door of the cowshed to speak to her.

  ‘Good morning,’ Bessie said. ‘I hope you slept all right. You can have a wash in the barn next door.’

  Amy went to look. The barn was between the house and the cowshed. A large enamel bowl stood on an ancient bench, with a china soap dish beside it and a bucket of cold water stored below.

  Bessie’s voice drifted in from under the cow next door. ‘Uncle Jack has knocked in some nails for your towel and face flannel and I’ve put an enamel mug there so you can clean your teeth.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Amy said and washed her face. She unhooked her towel from the nail on the back of the cow stalls and looked through the feeding rack to where Bessie was swishing milk into her bucket. The cow stared back at her, chewing its cud.

  ‘When you’ve finished, you can throw the dirty water on to the garden,’ Bessie said.

  Amy giggled and crossed the terrace to do it. ‘Won’t the soap hurt the flowers?’

  ‘No, it’s good for them.’

  Like the cowshed, the barn had a door split like that of a caravan. The top half was left open because the window was small and there was little natural light. Amy could see now that the laundry was also done in the barn, it housed a wringer and a zinc tub where work clothes could be soaked. In addition, there was a large churn and a paraffin stove with an oven on top in which cakes and pastries could be baked. There was no upstairs here and huge cobwebs were looped high up on the inside of the roof.

  Amy heard a clatter of chains as the cows were released from their ties and the next moment they were driven out through the back door. Auntie Bessie struggled indoors with a bucket of frothy milk and took it through the kitchen to the pantry. Amy followed her.

  The house was built into the side of the hill and the pantry was a cool narrow room that was partly underground with a tiny window set so high only the sky could be seen through it. It was filled with a greenish light like the bottom of the sea.

  ‘You’ll be wanting your breakfast,’ Bessie said. ‘And you can do something for me while I make it.’ She tipped the bucket of milk into the top of a machine. ‘This is a separator. I want you to turn the handle and when you get it moving fast enough it’ll separate the milk from the cream.’

  At first, Amy found the handle hard to turn and the machine buzzed noisily but it was satisfying to see the skimmed milk running into an enamel pail on one side and the thick yellow cream coming out into a bowl on the other. It made her feel quite grown up to be doing useful work.

  When she’d finished, a boiled egg with bread and butter was waiting on the little table for her breakfast. Bessie joined her on the settle to have tea and a slice of bread and butter.

  ‘Don’t you like eggs?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Yes, but this is my bait, just a snack to keep me going,’ she said. Even when speaking English she used words that were strange to Amy. ‘I had my breakfast with Uncle Jack. He’s gone to work now.’

  ‘Doesn’t he work here on the farm?’

  ‘No, bach, this is a smallholding of seventeen acres. He works full time for the Forestry Commission planting trees. Saturday is his half day but it’s market day in town, and the day I do my shopping. I’ll take you with me.’

  Auntie Bessie never stopped working and didn’t stop explaining things to Amy as she did so. As well as the housework, she had to take the separator apart and scald all its parts to prevent the next milk she put into it turning sour.

  Bessie had ready a large basket of butter and eggs to take to her customers and told Amy the wet battery needed to be taken in to be recharged and asked her if she’d carry it.

  ‘It’s for the wireless,’ Bessie told her. ‘Because we don’t have electricity we have to run it on batteries. It needs that dry battery too.’ She pointed it out. It was the size of two house bricks.

  The first thing Bessie did in town was deliver the fresh butter and eggs to her customers. Amy trailed behind her carrying the heavy wet battery. It had a carrying handle on top and was made mainly of glass and filled with acid. They went up the street to a shop selling electrical goods where the wet battery was handed in and exchanged for one that had been recharged.

  Bessie seemed to know everybody and stopped to talk, sometimes even in English. It was always about the coming war. There was just as much dread of it here although it was said to be a safe place.

  In the newsagent’s, Bessie bought the Radio Times and a local paper. Before Amy had left home, Pa had bought her a copy of the Children’
s Newspaper and told her he’d give her three pence a week to buy it so she could keep up to date with the war news, but Amy thought it pretty much like the newspapers grown-ups bought for themselves. Instead, she bought a copy of Enid Blyton’s Sunny Stories and spent the penny change on sweets.

  Amy had often been taken shopping for food by her mother and sometimes by June and she didn’t like it much. Here a shopping trip was a social occasion as well as a necessity. People were isolated in their farms so the weekly visit to the town meant they greeted each other with enthusiasm and torrents of Welsh. Amy was introduced each time and asked about the evacuation but as soon as she’d posted her letter she’d had enough of town.

  There was no bus to take them home but Bessie came from a large family and late in the afternoon her sister and brother-in-law gave them a lift to the bottom of the cwm in their Austin Seven. Uncle Jack was at home and had been watching for the car below and came down to meet them to help carry up the week’s shopping. It had started to drizzle so he’d brought Bessie an umbrella.

  She pulled Amy close. ‘Cuddle up to me,’ she ordered, ‘we mustn’t let your nice coat get wet.’

  Uncle Jack was a gentle, mild-mannered man, only an inch or so taller than Bessie, but while Bessie was well-padded, he hadn’t an ounce of spare flesh on his frame. He wore an old flat cap and a khaki drill milking coat with buttons missing and a torn pocket. His ancient trousers were tied with string at the ankles over his heavy steel-studded boots. He relieved Amy of the wet battery and Bessie of several shopping bags.

  The cows were grazing on the sideland. ‘Hobe hobe,’ he shouted at them. They knew what that meant even if Amy didn’t and turned reluctantly for home.

  ‘Time for milking,’ he explained to her and drove them on. If they moved too slowly for Jack he encouraged them up the steep slope with more hobe hobes.

  ‘Don’t get too near them,’ he advised, and a moment later Amy could see why. Each in turn lifted its tail and huge plop-plops of khaki manure splashed down as they walked.