A Liverpool Legacy

by Anne Baker

  They spent that night sheltering in a warehouse, kept awake by gunfire and the ever present fear that the enemy would burst in and capture them. At two in the morning the door creaked open. They were wide awake in a moment but able to breathe again when Andrew recognised the newcomer as Sergeant Willis, a military policeman who had worked with him once or twice on crowd control for the social events he’d organised.

  Andrew had found him a likeable fellow. He was a few years older, and a professional soldier who had seen more of the world. He discovered Willis spoke a little of the local Malay language. He had been a reassuring presence, and had become a good friend. Andrew pulled a ledger towards him and sighed. He needed to get on with the job instead of day-dreaming about the past.

  Millie craved normal routine and a quiet life. She wanted to see her children happy and everyone pulling their weight in the business so that it grew in profitability.

  Things were quieter because Simon and Kenny had gone back to school for the autumn term. Marcus and Nigel seemed to be keeping out of her way, for which she was grateful, and although James’s official retirement date wasn’t until the end of December, he only came to the office for a few hours once in a while.

  Sylvie was not rushing to the lab to see her quite so often, which Millie thought was a sign she didn’t need as much support. Until Sylvie said, ‘I don’t like the way Denis hangs around when I come to talk to you. It’s as though he’s waiting to hear more gossip he can pass on to his friends.’

  ‘Sylvie! Denis isn’t like that. I thought you liked him.’

  ‘But he does spread what he hears in the lab. How else would my life story have got round the factory? Besides, he gives me funny looks.’

  Millie tried to smile. ‘I think you’re imagining that.’

  ‘I’m not, Mum.’

  At least Sylvie said she was pleased with her promotion and liked working for Andrew Worthington. She seemed happier now she’d moved out of the typing pool and into a room with three other secretaries. Things were settling down, and routine was more like it had been in Pete’s time. He had always held a party on Guy Fawkes’ night.

  ‘Can we do it this year,’ Kenny asked, ‘and ask all our friends round?’

  Because they went to boarding school, the boys didn’t have many local friends. Kenny meant the family and all their friends, including many who worked for the firm. They’d always built a big bonfire in the garden and baked potatoes in their jackets in the embers. Millie wanted to keep up Pete’s traditions but couldn’t make up her mind whether it was a good idea or not. They’d had fireworks last year but Pete would not be here to let them off.

  Nevertheless Simon and Kenny began collecting firewood and constructing a guy in the garden shed.

  ‘I’d like to ask Connie and Louise,’ Sylvie said. ‘They don’t have bonfires at home.’

  Millie had heard that Louise’s brother was engaged to a girl working in sales, and had given up hope that Sylvie’s friendship with him would strengthen. She wanted her daughter to have more of a social life and that made her agree to have a little party, but she’d not intended to have all the staff until Albert Lancaster, who treated her more like a daughter than an employer, came to the lab one morning and said, ‘I’m making some fireworks, are you going to have the usual bash? If you are, I’ll bring them round and let them off in your place.’

  ‘You’ll have to take charge of any display of that sort,’ Millie said.

  ‘I know.’ He patted her shoulder. She felt inveigled into inviting much the same crowd as Pete had last year.

  They’d only started having fireworks again to celebrate the return of peace. It would not have been wise to cause even minor explosions in wartime. Fireworks were virtually unobtainable in the shops, so they had to make their own, but Pete and other members of the staff were either chemists or saw themselves as amateur chemists. Their home-made fireworks tended to be more blast than visual display but were part of the present make-do-and-mend culture, and were better than nothing on bonfire night.

  Millie worried for a long time about whether she would invite Marcus and his side of the family but felt compelled to, as they’d no doubt hear of the party in the office. James said he didn’t think he was well enough to stand about in the cold, but Marcus and Nigel accepted. Nigel said he would bring his wife.

  ‘I’m glad Nigel and Marcus are coming,’ Helen said. ‘They used to be good company. We had marvellous holidays with them at Hafod when we were young.’

  ‘Marcus was always in trouble,’ Valerie remembered.

  ‘Pete thought he was a little wild,’ Millie said. She gave thanks that potatoes were not rationed and at this time of the year were plentiful. Valerie organised the buying of them, the scrubbing and the hour or so baking in the kitchen oven before they went out to the embers of the bonfire. Experience had told them they wouldn’t bake through unless the kitchen oven played its part. Sylvie and Helen made toppings for them, begging scarce ingredients from whoever would part with them.

  That morning, they went round the local butchers’ shops and cleared them out of unrationed sausages. Millie would have liked to make a green salad to complete the meal but the lettuce had all died in the garden after a week of frost. She made a large pan of mushy peas as she had last year.

  Sylvie was looking forward to the party though she knew her mother was on edge, afraid some disaster would occur. That afternoon she helped Simon and Kenny sweep the garden paths free of leaves and twigs, and hang the coloured Chinese lanterns that Dad had bought before the war on the trees and fences.

  The boys had been given a broken chair and they tied the guy they’d made on to it, and managed to get it to balance on top of the bonfire. Everything was ready and they were keeping their fingers crossed that it wouldn’t rain, because even a shower would mean more smoke than flames.

  That evening Valerie and Roger were the first to arrive, and carried up their sleeping twins to Millie’s bed. Sylvie had made up the old cot in the nursery for Helen’s baby and wheeled it into her mother’s room, so they’d all be together.

  Val and Helen told Millie they were taking charge of the kitchen and she needn’t worry about the food. Roger had brought the ingredients to make hot toddies and was making up two bowls of punch, mostly lemonade for the youngsters but with a little added strength for the older guests.

  They had a lovely clear night for it, the sky sparkled with stars but it was very cold. Over the last week they’d been having hard frosts at night and it looked set to continue. Millie put extra chairs in the conservatory so that those who couldn’t face the cold could see what was going on. She was dithering about when she should light the bonfire but Eric went out and did it fifteen minutes before the guests began to arrive.

  Soon they were streaming in and Millie was kept busy greeting them. Nigel and his wife swept in together with Marcus. Dando had run them down. Sylvie was introduced to Clarissa and thought she looked glamorous.

  Millie had insisted on inviting Denis, though Sylvie had asked her not to. Sylvie wanted to avoid him; he was too ready to spread gossip. She was watching for Connie and Louise, they’d promised to bring more wood from their gardens and a packing case or two, but when they arrived Denis was suddenly at her side. Connie liked him and got him to help toss their wood up on the bonfire. ‘That’s a smashing guy you’ve got on top,’ he said.

  Red embers were appearing in the fire and Eric and Roger were inserting potatoes into them with long fire tongs. One of the guests had brought some sparklers and was handing them round, and the party was beginning to hum.

  Sylvie knew Denis would have latched on to them if she’d given him the slightest encouragement, but just as Connie was going to do that anyway Millie called out to him to help her serve the hot drinks.

  There was Oxo for the kids, though Millie called it beef tea, and hot t
oddy for the adults. Sylvie collared three glasses of hot toddy for herself and her friends but after one taste, Louise said, ‘I don’t like this, it’s all nutmeg and spices, and there’s not much kick in it.’ So they ditched it in the rhododendrons and went inside to get some Oxo.

  Denis was carrying a tray of it from the kitchen to the table in the conservatory when Connie stopped him so they could take a mug each. As he turned to move on, his elbow caught Marcus’s arm, his tray tilted, the mugs slipped and beef tea splashed everywhere.

  ‘Look what you’re doing you idiot,’ Marcus barked in the same ferocious voice he used in the office. For once Sylvie felt sorry for Denis.

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Denis’s cheeks flamed.

  Millie and Valerie came rushing in with cloths to mop up. ‘Why do you have to overfill your house with this crowd?’ Marcus shouted at Millie. ‘Don’t we see enough of our employees in the office?’

  Sylvie was glad to see that his smart camel overcoat had caught a goodly amount of the splash and so had the turn-ups of his trousers.

  ‘I think I’ll go,’ he said to Valerie. ‘This isn’t our sort of gathering. Come on, Nigel.’ He held the conservatory door open for him, letting in an icy November blast. ‘Are you and Clarissa coming?’

  Nigel was talking to Tom Bedford and his wife. ‘You’ll need to call a taxi, Marcus,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay a little longer. The bonfire has hardly got going.’

  Marcus’s face turned puce and without another word he went, slamming the conservatory door behind him with such force that a pane of glass fell out and splintered on the floor with a crash.

  ‘Oh heavens!’ Denis said. He apologised to Millie as Valerie rushed to get a dustpan and brush to sweep up the fragments.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Millie said. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Look after him, Connie. Get him a drink and go out and enjoy yourselves.’

  ‘Marcus acted like a pig,’ Valerie whispered. ‘I asked Nigel and his wife round for supper the other night and they were both a bit toffee-nosed. He’s changed too, no fun at all. I don’t know how much we have in common any more.’

  Connie put a full mug into Denis’s hand and led him out to the garden. ‘What a lovely smell of wood smoke,’ she said.

  The night was alive with the roar of flames and the crackle and spit of damp wood. Simon and Kenny were in charge of winding up the gramophone and putting on the records, but Millie was trying to choose the records they should play.

  ‘Don’t make the music too loud,’ she said, but Kenny turned the sound up as soon as she went back indoors.

  Roger raked the potatoes out of the fire and Helen cut them and handed out table napkins to hold them. They were so hot they still needed their gloves on, but they were soft and succulent and smelled delicious on the frosty air.

  They could hear sounds of fireworks going off nearby and glimpse occasional streaks of colour flash in the night sky. Helen, still the schoolteacher at heart, told them that they were commemorating the true story of Guy Fawkes trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Tom Bedford was getting ready to let his own fireworks off and made them all stand back.

  The bangs were enormous, ‘Like heavy guns,’ Millie said, pulling a face, but there were Catherine wheels and rockets too.

  When the display finished, the older guests crowded back into the conservatory for another hot drink because the cold was beginning to bite. Connie and Louise were taken home by a relative. In the frosty semi-dark, with the bonfire dying away, Sylvie found herself alone with Denis. He said, ‘Have I offended you? I get the feeling you’re trying to avoid me. I’d like us to be friends.’

  Offended her? He’d riled her! ‘You told everybody about me,’ she told him. ‘You started the gossip about Dad not being my real father.’

  He seemed horrified. ‘No, I didn’t!’

  She hesitated. ‘How else would everybody know? You heard what Uncle James and Marcus screamed at Mum in the lab and passed it round the whole factory.’

  ‘No, Sylvie, I’ve said nothing about that to anyone.’ He seemed hurt that she should think he had.

  ‘But you overheard Marcus having a go at Mum, didn’t you?’

  ‘He was shouting, I couldn’t help but hear.’

  ‘Yes, and afterwards everybody was talking about us. Albert Lancaster sympathised with me about it.’

  ‘Sylvie, a fight between the bosses will always cause gossip. You’re getting some of the backwash, that’s all. It’s no secret that James and his sons resent your mother and therefore you too. I understand they’re showing it all the time by trying to talk her down at staff meetings. Of course there’s gossip about it but the staff are solidly on her side.’

  ‘But all that talk about me being illegitimate was cruel.’

  ‘It was Marcus who brought that up.’

  ‘And now everybody knows.’

  ‘Everybody has known for years,’ he told her, ‘that’s not news. There are dozens of people working in the office and the factory who’ve worked there since before your mother started. When the boss took up with her it was the romance of the century, and they gossiped about every detail of it. They liked Peter Maynard, he was fair to everybody; he forgave their mistakes and looked after those in difficulties. If he wanted to marry your mother, they were all for it too.’

  ‘But it was news to you?’

  ‘No it wasn’t. My mother was Arthur Knowles’s daughter. He ran the lab for years.’

  ‘My mother told me about him.’

  ‘Grandpa helped bring me up. My father was killed in a road accident when I was small and when my grandmother died a few years later, it made sense that we move into Grandpa’s house.’

  ‘Mum says he taught her most of what she knows.’

  ‘When I was still at school I remember my grandfather holding forth about it, about how happy their marriage turned out to be. Everybody talked about your mum and dad.’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t know he wasn’t my real father.’

  ‘He treated you as though you were. Perhaps he wanted you to think he was.’

  ‘It came as a shock to me.’

  ‘I know it did, and it must be a shock to find out that the rest of us have always known.’

  Sylvie felt somewhat comforted that he understood.

  ‘It’s all ancient history, nobody’s thought of it for years, but yes, we knew the full story. Had Peter not died so suddenly, he would have told you in his own time and his own way, and you’d have accepted it and felt fine about it.’

  Sylvie was heartened. That’s exactly what Mum had said.

  ‘Come on, we’d better go in,’ Denis said. ‘I think the party is over.’

  Sylvie was sorry to hear the guests thanking her mum and taking their leave. She didn’t want the party to end. Denis had been good company after all. ‘Don’t you go.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘Mum will want you to stay and have supper with the family.’

  The dining table had been extended to its limit and those remaining sat round to eat sausages and mushy peas with more baked potatoes. Sylvie was surprised to find Andrew Worthington was among those invited to stay.

  When the party was finally over and the sleeping babies were being brought downstairs, Millie arranged a lift home for Denis with Helen and Eric as he lived in the same direction.

  When Sylvie was seeing them off, Denis said to her, ‘Will you come out with me on Saturday night, to the pictures or something?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to.’ Sylvie felt a warm glow. Mum was right about him. Denis wasn’t a bad sort.

  It was late when the family went to bed that night and Sylvie couldn’t sleep. Denis had stirred up deep memories of the man she’d thought was her father. She’d loved Peter Maynard, but it seemed everybody who knew him had loved him too. Denis had said he’
d forgiven his employees their mistakes, so he’d surely forgive her for persuading him to put to sea in that storm.

  They had to get up for an early breakfast the next morning because Millie had to take the boys to school on the way to work. They were in a rush and she was irritable.

  ‘It was a good party,’ Simon told her. Kenny chorused his approval.

  ‘Marcus caused a bit of a scene,’ Sylvie pointed out. ‘There was a deathly silence for a few moments. All the chatter ceased.’

  She could see her mother was frowning. ‘It was the first party I’ve given since your dad died,’ she said, clutching the steering wheel and staring straight ahead.

  ‘It was a success,’ Sylvie assured her. ‘Lots of people said they enjoyed it. Nigel was being nice to us all.’

  She saw her mother pull a face and knew she was upset. ‘Nigel gave me a bit of a jolt too.’

  ‘Was he nasty?’

  ‘No, really he was trying rather too hard to be pleasant, but I went upstairs to the bathroom and found him and his wife in your bedroom, Kenny. He was showing her round the house and said, “I hope you don’t mind, Millie, Clarissa wanted to see where my forebears used to live.” Clarissa was all sweetness and light, and said, “His grandfather designed it and had it built, didn’t he? It’s part of Maynard history.”’

  ‘I hope he didn’t touch my things.’ Kenny was indignant.

  ‘It won’t be your toys they’re after. Clarissa was admiring our house and leaking envy through every pore. I think she fancies it.’

  ‘What a cheek they have,’ Kenny and Simon chorused.

  ‘What could be more normal than that Dad should will all his worldly goods to the family he loved?’ Sylvie demanded. ‘He’d want to know we had a house and enough to live on. It’s what everybody does, isn’t it?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  For Millie it was a quiet and restful morning and she was enjoying doing some of the routine work in the laboratory. But at eleven o’clock Billy Sankey, their buyer, came tearing angrily into the lab to see her.