Daughters of the Mersey

by Anne Baker

  ‘Of course,’ Leonie agreed rather reluctantly. ‘That would be the best thing for her. She’s happy there with Auntie Bessie, and there’s no sense in snatching her away when she’d have to go to a strange primary school here for a couple of months.’

  Leonie stayed with Nick that night. ‘I don’t approve of the young doing this before marriage,’ she said. ‘But we are well on in life and we’ve already had a child.’

  ‘And been parted for eleven years,’ Nick said. ‘You’re very sensible. There is no point in waiting any longer.’

  Leonie returned to the shop early on Tuesday morning feeling rested and settled in her mind. She was going to stay for a few days to wind things up and pack her personal possessions. She had a lot of preparations and arrangements to make for her wedding.

  Nick came to spend the evening with her. ‘I can’t bear us to be parted,’ he said. He, too, had been making arrangements. ‘To be married on a Saturday is the most convenient day for us all and Saturdays are pretty well booked up, but the curate of my local church has agreed to marry us at ten on a Saturday just over six weeks from now.’

  Leonie smiled. ‘Six weeks, that’s great. We can wait that long can’t we?’

  ‘Yes. We have to allow three weeks for the banns to be called first.’

  ‘Once I’m sorted here, I’ll move in with you.’

  ‘I’m going to borrow and beg petrol coupons from everybody I know so we can bring Amy home for the occasion on the Friday evening and take her back on the Sunday afternoon.’

  Leonie wrote to Auntie Bessie to let her know what she was planning and when Amy rang her at the shop a few days later she told her all about it. She was fizzing with excitement. ‘I want to be your bridesmaid and wear a long frock and flowers in my hair.’

  ‘It’s not going to be that sort of a wedding, sweetheart. I’m not going to wear a long white bridal gown.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’ve been married before and there’s a war on. It’s going to be a very quiet wedding, just the family and Nick’s family, but you can be my bridesmaid in a short dress.’

  Amy hesitated. ‘Then it’ll have to be a very special dress, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll make you a special dress,’ Leonie immediately bit her lip. Amy had been noticeably taller when she’d last seen her and she had no up-to-date measurements for her. ‘How did you get on in your exam?’

  ‘All right, I think. I’m glad it’s over and I don’t have to do homework any more.’

  Leonie was kept very busy. She’d decided to make her own dress for the wedding, and was choosing some pretty blue shantung from amongst the fabrics her business allowed her to keep in the shop when Elaine said, ‘Let me design something special for you. It’ll be my wedding present to you. And I’ll make a dress for Amy from the same material. She’d like that, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Elaine! You’ve done so much for me already.’

  ‘Nonsense, I want to. In fact, I insist.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you. Do you think this shantung would be suitable for Amy?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t real shantung is it? It should be silk and this is a mixture of cotton and rayon, a wartime copy. Pure cotton would be more suitable for a young girl.’

  ‘I thought it would be nice for her to have the same material as me but I don’t want to be married in cotton and she’s expecting a very special dress. It’ll have to be something silky.’

  ‘How about this then?’ Elaine indicated another wartime copy of shantung but a better quality. It was much the same cornflower blue but with a white pattern of leaves on it.

  Leonie fingered it. ‘Yes, I like that.’

  ‘I could make you an outfit using both plain and patterned material. Let me have a think and play around with some patterns.’

  ‘Not too fancy. We both need dresses we’ll be able to wear on more ordinary occasions.’

  ‘Leonie, you’re going to look smart on your wedding day, whether it’s wartime or not. Leave this to me.’

  She was glad to. She had more than enough to do. Nick had bought a second-hand henhouse and had it installed behind his garage in the back garden. He and Leonie built a secure outdoor run alongside it. Milo and Alison packed up the poultry at Mersey Reach and Tom collected them in his car and took them to Chester that weekend. Together they helped Leonie settle them into their new quarters.

  Nick tried to reserve a table for a restaurant lunch after the wedding but was having difficulty. The wedding venues were booked up and when he tried the local restaurants they could offer only their usual Saturday midday lunch of sausage and mash or Spam and chips. Lily Bales worked part-time for a firm of local caterers and recommended them. Nick got in touch and they agreed to come to his house and prepare and serve a celebratory lunch for twelve people. They suggested fruit salad and trifle for dessert.

  The problem for Nick now was that he would have to provide the food. He went round to his local fishmonger and asked if he could get him a whole salmon. That, with salad, would provide the main part of the menu.

  ‘Because it’s unrationed it’ll be very expensive.’ The fishmonger shook his dead doubtfully. ‘And I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to get it.’

  ‘I have to be sure,’ Nick said. ‘This is not an occasion when I want to open tins of fish at the last moment.’

  He laughed. ‘I’ll do my best. How many is it to feed?’

  ‘Nine adults and three children.’

  ‘Twelve portions would be easier. I have more chance of doing that.’

  ‘Good. If not, nine of salmon and three of something else, plaice or even cod would do.’

  ‘Or if I can’t get any salmon, twelve portions of any fish that can be served cold – party style.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Nick smiled. ‘Don’t forget I’m relying on you to get something for me. This is for my wedding breakfast.’

  ‘All right,’ the fishmonger said with a smile, ‘I’ll guarantee your order of twelve portions of some luxury fish.’

  Ida was going to make the cake, but it would not be a traditional wedding cake because icing sugar and dried fruit were unobtainable. She suggested a large chocolate cake which she could make with cocoa and cover with melted chocolate bars.

  The build-up to the wedding was hectic, and the day arrived before Leonie felt ready for it. She was thrilled with her wedding outfit. It was a dress of the flowered material with a jacket of the plain material to wear over it. She bought a white hat to wear with it and Elaine fitted a matching hatband to it.

  On the Friday before, she went with Nick to collect Amy and had a lovely day out; it was much less exhausting when they went both ways by car. They had to return via Elaine’s house as Amy’s dress wasn’t quite finished. She needed to have a fitting before Elaine could be satisfied it would make Amy look her best. She would finish it off that night and bring it with her tomorrow when she came to the wedding.

  Milo and June were staying with them that night and they all got up early, collected Alison on the way and arrived on the doorstep while Nick, Leonie and Amy were having breakfast in their dressing gowns. They dropped Milo, June and Alison and went off to collect the rest of the family for the wedding.

  ‘Who are they?’ Amy wanted to know.

  ‘I was brought up by Tom’s parents so his family is also my family,’ Nick said. ‘So the twins, Dulcie and Luke, will be coming, you know them, and my Aunt Bernice and their Auntie Olive.’

  June and Alison had arrived in their wedding outfits so they washed up. Amy went out in her dressing gown to see Hetty and her chicks and returned with a brown egg from Polly.

  Nick sent Leonie off to have a bath and change into her wedding finery, and took the girls into the garden to find flowers they could cut.

  ‘We need flowers to make a posy for the bride and we all need a buttonhole,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid there aren’t many. It’s a bit early in the year for my garden.’

  ‘No,’ Alis
on said. ‘That’s a lovely rose hedge over there.’

  ‘Rambling roses,’ he said. ‘Bigger flowers with lots of petals would be more suited for a wedding, especially for the bride.’

  ‘If rambling roses are all you have, that’s what we’ll have to use.’

  ‘They’ll look very nice,’ Alison said. The rose hedge was in full flower. Alison fashioned them into a posy for Leonie and pushed the stalks though the centre of a fancy paper doily.

  ‘I want a bouquet to carry,’ Amy said, so she made a smaller version for her.

  ‘They look very professional.’ Nick was impressed. They found blooms to make buttonholes for all the adults.

  Milo was sent to collect the fish and brought back six portions of salmon and six portions of plaice and the fishmonger’s apologies, it was the best he could do. By that time the caterers had arrived. They’d given Nick a list of food he’d have to provide for them to complete the menu. He’d had to ask Lily Bales to buy salad vegetables yesterday, because he and Leonie had driven to Wales. Now he lifted the box on to the kitchen table and the caterers took over the kitchen and dining room.

  Amy was tearing round and it was June who took charge of her, running a bath for her and helping her into her new dress which fitted her perfectly. Elaine had made a little bonnet from the plain cloth and plenty of stiffening and Leonie thought she looked both sweet and smart with her hair combed out and brushed back so it hung down beneath her bonnet. Amy was absolutely thrilled with her outfit.

  They all squeezed into Nick’s car for the short drive to the church, which was very old and big. Tom and Elaine and their family were already inside waiting for the ceremony to begin. Nick peeped in from the porch and whispered that Lily Bales and her daughter were there too and one or two other people he didn’t know.

  The curate, ready robed, came to greet them and led Nick and Tom, who was acting as his best man, forward. Nick turned to drop a gentle kiss on Leonie’s forehead before leaving her. Milo led her down the aisle a minute or two later and Amy followed so closely she kept touching her.

  Leonie felt bemused, this was nothing like her very formal first wedding and unlike any she’d ever been to. The marriage service began and she handed Amy her posy of flowers. She seemed to be juggling with the two posies. Leonie turned away to listen to the time-honoured words, but she was also conscious of Nick standing tall and upright on her right side and a rather overawed Amy edging forward on her left.

  Today Leonie was wearing Steve’s wedding ring on her right hand, so that Nick’s could be slid on to her wedding finger. As she signed the register, she thought of how she’d longed for this moment when they’d first met and marvelled that Nick’s love had survived all that time.

  Elaine, Olive and Nick had brought their cameras and each had managed to hoard a little film and were prepared to use it lavishly today. They started with the traditional view of the bride and groom standing on the church steps, and had to press a member of the public into taking one or two pictures of all twelve of them together. Leonie tossed her bouquet into the air, aiming it at Alison. She caught it deftly but blushed as she realised the implication. Amy refused to part with hers.

  They piled into the two cars to go home after that and found that Lily Bales and her daughter had arrived just before them. ‘A very simple and dignified service,’ Lily whispered to Leonie as she held out a tray of drinks to welcome the bridal party home.

  Leonie relaxed and the rest of the party did too. Although Nick had initially decided a buffet would be the best he could do, the caterers had decided it would be possible to seat twelve by adding two smaller tables to the one in the dining room and covering them all with a sheet before laying two damask tablecloths cornerwise across that. The caterers had provided cutlery, china and glassware and with two small vases of rambling roses. It looked magnifient.

  Nick had failed to get champagne but he’d managed a few bottles of white wine. Leonie thought the caterers served an excellent meal with style and Ida’s cake was magnificent. She was sorry she hadn’t been able to invite Ida but Elaine needed her to open the shop. Saturday was one of their busiest days.

  Under the control of the caterers the meal proceeded effortlessly at a dignified pace, and a party atmosphere began to develop. Leonie heard Amy laugh and was thankful the child was happy. Amy and the twins had slid down from the table and were unpacking a bag of toys Elaine had brought. All the adults heard her piping voice announce that she’d got a new daddy today, and suggest that they go to see the chickens because they were more interesting than toys.

  Nick was being very attentive to his Aunt Bernice who was now approaching ninety and very frail. She seemed to be enjoying herself and her quavering voice was recounting some tale from Tom and Nick’s childhood. Leonie looked round the table at her guests and felt very fortunate to have friends and family like them.

  She felt proud of her older children. Milo had made every effort to recover as quickly as possible from his dreadful injuries and he’d not allowed his war experiences to cloud his future. He’d coped so much better than his father had, but Milo had a different personality, he was outgoing and set out to make friends wherever he could. She knew he was happy with his choice of work and she didn’t doubt that he’d continue to make a success of his life.

  June had been more changed by her experience than he had, but Leonie knew her torrents of grief over Ralph’s death were easing, though she was by no means over her loss. June was wearing the blue wool dress Leonie had made for her two years ago which at the time hadn’t seemed to please her much.

  She was now a very serious twenty-year-old, but she had other things in her life – a growing interest in nursing and new friends. The knowledge that she was doing valuable war work was giving her confidence and she was beginning to develop an aura of calm serenity.

  Leonie could hear Elaine telling Olive how thrilled she was to be running her own business at last, that it was an ambition realised after many years and that she’d learned a great deal from Leonie.

  That made Leonie smile, throughout those years Elaine had been her main support and a firm friend, and it was owing to her generosity that she’d been able to come and live with Nick with so little fuss. She loved Elaine dearly.

  Dulcie and Luke were wearing the same outfits they’d worn to June’s wedding and they still looked smart though they’d been let out and let down to fit them.

  She caught Nick’s gaze and he gave her an intimate smile as though there was no one else in the room. Leonie knew she’d never loved anyone more and she’d be very happy with him.

  It was almost four o’clock when they rose from the table and by then Aunt Bernice was tired. Tom drove her, his sister and the twins home, and he called back half an hour later to give June, Milo and Alison a lift back into Birkenhead.

  Leonie was very content to be left alone with Nick and Amy. ‘We’re a new family,’ she marvelled, ‘together at last.’

  Nick nodded. ‘Amy, we have to wait a little longer until you can live with us permanently but it’s guaranteed that you will.’

  ‘When the school holidays start,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Let’s go for a walk to stretch our legs,’ Leonie said. Amy walked between them, holding on to one hand of each.

  When, a few weeks later, Leonie heard that Amy had achieved a scholarship and would take it up at the Queen’s School, Chester, in September, and her new family would be permanently together, she felt there was nothing more she could ask of life.

 

 

 
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