Daughters of the Mersey

by Anne Baker

  ‘Have you been sleeping with her?’

  He looked ashamed. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way. As I said, we want to get married.’

  Leonie stood up so suddenly the chair crashed back behind her. She stormed out of the ward, almost bumping into a nurse. She fumed at the bus stop, unable to keep still, unable to think clearly. What should she do about this? She was angry with June and absolutely furious with Ralph Harvey. She wanted to tell Steve but she ought to check on the shop first. She virtually had to pass it to go home.

  Ida was pulling on her coat and told her what she’d done and who had come in during the morning. ‘I’ve got to rush,’ she said. ‘The kids are coming home from school for their dinner today.’

  To be back in familiar surroundings cleared Leonie’s head. She was reaching for the phone to talk to Steve when she realised it was lunchtime and she could go home and see him. The sooner she brought him up to date the better because he’d be worried about June.

  Mrs Killen was just leaving as she went in. ‘Is June all right? I hear she’s been in a car crash.’

  ‘Yes, last night. She’s not all right, she hasn’t regained consciousness yet.’

  ‘Poor June, but she’ll be getting the right treatment in hospital, they’ll bring her round, won’t they?’ Mrs Killen said. ‘I’m glad you’ve come home, Mrs Dransfield, I wanted a word with you. I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to do more to help the war effort. The munitions factory is working full out and is always advertising for more workers.’

  Leonie felt her spirits plummet. ‘You’re not thinking of leaving me?’

  ‘I don’t like doing this, you’ve been very kind to me but they pay more money.’

  Leonie sighed. ‘And there is a war on. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.’

  ‘Well, you don’t need me to look after Amy in her school holidays now, so I’d like to give you a week’s notice.’

  ‘Oh dear, I’ll be very sorry to see you go.’

  ‘Mr Dransfield’s just starting his lunch. I made a pan of vegetable broth this morning, there’s plenty left if you want some.’

  ‘Thanks, I will.’ Leonie took off her coat, feeling very down. Mrs Killen was a good worker. She kept the house clean and tidy, laid the fire every morning and even did a bit of washing. Without her, she’d have a lot more to do.

  She knew she’d find Steve tucking into his broth sitting in solitary splendour at the dining table. He wouldn’t eat anywhere else. ‘How is June?’ he asked.

  ‘The sister says she has concussion but she doesn’t seem to have broken any bones.’ Leonie pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with him. ‘She’s still unconscious so I couldn’t talk to her.’

  ‘But how did she come to be out in a car in that storm last night?’

  ‘She’s got a boyfriend, Steve, a long-term boyfriend.’

  His soup spoon clanked back in the bowl. ‘I can’t believe that, she’s never mentioned a boyfriend to me! What d’you mean, long term?’

  ‘I went up to the male ward and asked to see the man she was with.’

  ‘Good for you, I hope he’s in a worse state than she is.’

  ‘He had a dislocated shoulder, four broken ribs and he’s cricked his ankle, but he’s sitting up and looking in better shape. They’ve been seeing each other regularly for two years.’

  ‘Seeing each other? You mean he’s been taking her to the pictures?’

  ‘He’s been taking her to bars and restaurants while she’s been telling us she’s going to the pictures with her girlfriends.’ Leonie felt hurt that her own daughter wasn’t able to tell her the truth.

  ‘She’s been telling lies? June wouldn’t, not to me.’

  ‘He’s got a flat close to the hospital. She goes there to spend time with him. I’ve been wondering if that was why she wanted to train there.’

  Leonie saw the tide of anger rush up his cheeks. ‘Good God! Are you saying they’ve been having sex? For the last two years?’

  ‘I understand so. He says he wants to marry her.’

  ‘A fine husband he’d make. It would be over my dead body.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I told him.’

  ‘He’s violated our daughter. This isn’t a man, it’s an animal. Did you get his name?’

  ‘Ralph Harvey, he’s Elaine’s younger brother.’

  ‘For God’s sake, I never did like that woman. You’ve spent far too much time with her. I knew no good would come of it.’ Steve was furious.

  ‘It’s no good going on about Elaine. This has nothing to do with her.’

  ‘But it has, they must have met at her house. You must have taken her there.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘How else could she have met him?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  He was outraged. ‘Then you should have. You’re her mother. You’ve let her run wild.’

  ‘How many times have you said, “Leave June to me, I’ll look after her?” You’re her father and you’re here all day. You said she was your favourite and you saw more of her than I did.’

  His expression changed. ‘You know I’m ill. I give all I can. I do my best but you expect too much from me.’

  Leonie saw red. ‘Believe you me I don’t expect anything from you because time and time again you fail to give it. I’m sick of the way you keep playing the wounded soldier, pretending to feel too ill to do anything.’ She leapt to her feet. ‘I just wish you’d accept some responsibility and help me when we have a problem.’ She was heaving with fury as she went to the kitchen to get herself some soup, but it was the worry about June that was making them both jittery. Really, she was in no position to judge June. After all, she had done much the same thing with Nick. Falling in love could drive all reason from the mind.

  Leonie was glad she could say with all honesty that she had to go back to the shop because she had two clients who were coming for fittings. But it didn’t stop her feeling weighed down by the problem.

  During the afternoon Elaine came in and Leonie could see she was embarrassed. ‘I had a phone call telling me Ralph was in hospital,’ she told Leonie. ‘And I’ve just been to see him. I don’t know what to say to you.’

  Leonie felt tears prickling her eyes. ‘I’m very worried about June. As soon as I heard about the crash, I was afraid it was something like this. She isn’t the first girl he’s been involved with, is she?’

  ‘No, I told you all about him some time ago.’

  ‘I know he’s been married and had a string of girlfriends, all very young.’ Leonie shuddered and blew her nose. ‘I haven’t told Steve about that yet and he’s already dancing with rage. He feels he was close to June but she managed to keep all this from us. She knew we wouldn’t let her go out with a man of his age. It was going on right under my eyes and it makes me feel guilty that I didn’t even know about it.’

  ‘Let’s go upstairs and I’ll make us a cup of tea. You mustn’t blame yourself, Leonie.’

  ‘But I do. So does Steve, he said this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a normal wife and stayed at home.’

  ‘I hope you told him that if he’d been a normal husband who earned the family living you wouldn’t have had to work.’

  Leonie shook her head.

  ‘No, of course you didn’t. That’s not the sort of thing you’d ever say. Don’t let this come between you and me, Leonie. If this was what Ralph and June chose to do, neither you nor I could have stopped it. June must have known you wouldn’t approve, otherwise why would she have kept it quiet?’

  ‘But she’s so young! I want her to be happy and have a better life than I’ve had but I’m afraid she’s made a mess of it already.’

  ‘That’s up to her, Leonie, it was her choice.’

  ‘But what are we going to do now? It’s a bit late in the day to forbid her to see him. And now she’s left home we’d have no control over that anyway.’

  ‘It’s still up to them wha
t they do,’ Elaine said. ‘Tom says, let them get on with it, I’m not my brother’s keeper.’

  ‘But I have a duty to care for June. She thinks she’s grown up but she’s only eighteen.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Elaine said sadly. ‘While I was at the hospital I tried to see her, but the sister gave me a list of visiting times and refused to let me in. She did say June was floating in and out of consciousness and that she needed to rest.’

  June was coming round and at first couldn’t make out where she was. She felt fuzzy and ached all over and she had a thumping headache. She remembered the crash, the sound of tearing metal and the way she’d been thrown about and realised now she was lying in a hospital bed.

  Oh God! Her family would surely have been told about the accident and that meant they must also know about Ralph. Pa would go berserk and Mum would look pained and say she was disappointed in her. She should have told her.

  June saw the bell push placed conveniently close and jabbed her finger against it. A nurse appeared immediately. ‘Oh good, you’re awake at last. How d’you feel?’

  ‘Awful. What happened to Ralph? How is he?’

  ‘Is that your boyfriend?’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘I understand he was admitted to Ward One. He has some broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder.’

  The nurse took her blood pressure, washed her face and redressed her cuts and grazes, and all the time June tried to keep her wandering mind on how she was going to explain this to her parents.

  The sister came to see her and said, ‘Your mother has just rung to ask how you are. I told her you were fully conscious again and she said she’d come in and see you later on.’

  June sank back against her pillows. She wasn’t looking forward to that. What lousy luck to be found out in this way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AMY WORE HER NEW boots to school and was somewhat offended when the girls laughed at them and called them bootees. She had wanted to wear hobnailed boots to be like them but Glenys told her that hers were much nicer and she wished she could have a similar pair.

  She was delighted when her mother’s letter about Milo came. She gave it to Bessie to read. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘He’s home safe and sound. He’s in hospital but they’ll get him well again. You don’t need to worry any more.’

  Amy was getting used to her new school. Morning classes finished at midday, and after eating their sandwiches and soup at their desks, the children were free to go out. The other girls took her with them up into the woods that grew all round the hamlet. The trees were youngish oak trees with a lot of shrubbery-like undergrowth.

  When they tired of playing hide and seek the girls would often make a den. They would collect bits of broken china from around the hamlet and lay it out in patterns on the moss round the roots of the trees. The most prized pieces were decorated with coloured patterns and gold paint and were so old that the edges no longer felt sharp. They’d make the surroundings pretty, find a log or two to sit on and sit round and talk. They called it their ‘house’.

  A bell was rung at two o’clock and woe betide anybody who was not back and ready to settle down at their desk. Afternoon school started with writing nature notes into an exercise book kept for that purpose. Amy wasn’t over her fear of Mrs Roberts and she required at least one full page to be written.

  Every day they all started with the same words. The west wind blows, because usually it did. The schoolroom windows were high so there was little to be seen through them but the tops of the trees and the sky, though Amy had learned to check the wind direction by looking to see which way the leaves were blowing. Then she would say whether it was warm and sunny or wet and cold.

  That got her started but then she felt she needed a real insight into nature to fill the remaining three-quarters of a page. All round her she could see the farm children scribbling hard about birds and squirrels and voles, while she was sucking the end of her pen hoping for inspiration.

  She thought country people noticed much more than those brought up in towns. Uncle Jack could look at wheel marks in a muddy lane and bits of straw caught in the hedge and tell her that the next farm had bought a cartload of straw and it had just been delivered.

  Amy regretted that she saw very little on the way to school, she was always in a hurry to catch the taxi. She feared that if she didn’t fill the required page she would attract Mrs Roberts’ displeasure. Every week she demonstrated her prowess with the cane, though usually a caning was given for bad behaviour not poor schoolwork.

  It took Amy a little while but eventually she realised that Mrs Roberts would not know whether her nature notes were true facts or not. Once she turned to fiction Amy could easily fill much more than one page.

  She wrote about watching red squirrels collecting nuts in the cwm, rabbits eating lettuce in the garden, crows pulling worms from the soil, and even a magpie picking up a gold coloured button that had dropped from Aunt Bessie’s dress. Bessie didn’t have gold buttons on a dress but Mrs Roberts wouldn’t know that either.

  She was thrilled to receive a letter from Mum saying she would come to see her again and this time she would bring Pat with her. Amy had a lovely day, walking Pat and Mum round every part of Coed Cae Bach and showing them the animals. She boasted that she could milk Sunshine and allowed Pat to do her job of collecting eggs from the nesting boxes. Pat was envious of her good fortune and wished she could be evacuated. She brought Amy a lot books that her family had finished with.

  Mum brought her new clothes that she’d made for her. Amy told her she’d very much like to have a bike for Christmas so she could cycle to school instead of having to rush for the taxi every morning. A fairy cycle like Glenys had.

  Amy learned that June had been in a car accident driven by a friend but she was getting better and it was nothing to worry about. Milo was getting better too and would soon be brought by ambulance to a hospital nearer home so that Mum and Pa could visit him.

  Steve hated the days when Leonie went to visit Amy in Wales. Sunday was the best day of the week when Leonie was home with him all day. He felt lonely all on his own and it was no good going to the pub because at the weekends Alfred Williams and Walter Duggan were at home with their families.

  ‘Come with me,’ Leonie had urged. ‘It’ll do you good to have a change of scene and they’ll welcome you there.’

  But Steve couldn’t bring himself to go. Amy was another man’s love child and though he’d grown attached in one way, he didn’t feel the same about her as he did about Miles and June. He’d tried hard to treat her as he did the others, he could see she was a beguiling little girl, but there was some knot inside him he couldn’t undo.

  And he was worried about the other two. June had seemed to be avoiding him and Miles . . . It had really shocked him to hear Miles had an abdominal injury very similar to what he’d suffered. It had depressed him. He’d not always seen eye to eye with Miles but he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.

  These days the doctors explained everything more explicitly and Leonie had passed on what they’d told her. Miles had had a piece of shrapnel embedded in his abdomen that had caused considerable trauma. They’d been able to repair small internal wounds to other organs but they’d had to cut a length of some eighteen inches from his small intestine because it was too damaged to repair. They’d joined the ends up again and told him it might cause some constriction but they were hopeful it would not affect him unduly.

  Steve mused that these days they could do so much more. Surgery had been in its infancy in his day, but as he saw it, Leonie would have two invalids to take care of in future. At least Miles still had two legs and looked whole.

  Leonie felt exhausted. She’d enjoyed her visit to Amy, she wanted to see for herself how she was getting on, but it meant she missed a more restful Sunday at home and it took extra time and effort to keep up with the chores she’d have done then.

  It was a cruel turn of events that all her ch
ildren had left home and she only had Steve left. She was desperately worried about Milo. It seemed like history repeating itself that he was going to be sent to a hospital near Chester.

  But Steve had been in a convalescent home – just a big country house temporarily taken over for that purpose, and he’d been nursed by VADs who were volunteers. Leonie told herself a hundred times that Milo would be in a proper military hospital and today’s nurses were properly trained. There had been huge medical advances in the last twenty years and much more could be done for the injured.

  She was also worried about June. She was afraid that if she married Ralph, it would not turn out well. He had one broken marriage behind him and although Elaine was being determinedly optimistic about their future, earlier she’d talked about him as if she thought he’d always be off chasing another young girl.

  Leonie was afraid he wouldn’t make June happy and she knew only too well what a burden an unhappy marriage could be. She visited June several times in hospital and found she was reluctant to talk about Ralph.

  ‘Please, Mum,’ she said with the same pained attitude her father used, ‘I don’t feel well enough to talk about Ralph and it won’t help anyway.’

  When Leonie recounted that to Steve, he said, ‘I wouldn’t put up with that. Next time, I’ll come with you, she’ll talk to me.’

  They went the following day. Elaine had bought some grapes for her on the black market and they took them in. June smiled. ‘That’s very kind of her. They look lovely. Thank her, Mum, when you see her and tell her I’m very grateful.’

  ‘June,’ Steve began. ‘You must stop seeing this fellow. You know without being told that he isn’t the sort of person you should get involved with. No respectable man would carry on with a sixteen-year-old child and encourage her to hide it from her parents.’

  Leonie saw the pink flush run up June’s cheeks. She said with some dignity, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him but I knew you and Mum wouldn’t understand.’