A Daughter's Choice (28 page)

A beaded curtain parted and a little woman appeared. She had iron grey hair cut as short as a man's and a small pointed face. She smiled at him with eyes as shinily brown as Uncle Joe's mint balls. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, young man. What can I do for you?'

‘A quarter of pontefract cakes, please.'

He watched her weigh the sweets in a brass pan and wondered where the girl had gone. She must be related to Dolly surely? He waited, eyes on the measuring needle as it reached the right weight. She dropped on an extra pontefract cake and he liked her for that.

‘Anything else? Some chocolates for your girl or mother, perhaps?'

Jack did not hesitate, despite his pockets being somewhat for let. ‘My ma. A quarter of dragees, please.' He bit into a pontefract cake as he waited and looked around. ‘Nice little shop you have here.'

‘It's been in my family for years. I was born upstairs in the days when we used to make our own sweets.' She gave him a bright-eyed look.

‘What about next door? I noticed an ambulance outside.'

‘Ethel Pritchard! Now she was here before I was born and has been getting frailer and frailer by the minute. Had a break in Southport but it doesn't appear to have done her any good. Heart, my daughter reckons, but she's got a strong will. Still, none of us can live forever.'

‘Your daughter was the girl who went next door?'

‘That's right. My Vicky!' Her face shone. ‘She's a good girl, passed all her exams and works at the Royal. She's on nights so she's gone back to bed for a bit more shuteye. It was she who told Andy to dial 999.'

So she was a nurse! Jack rested his arms on the counter. ‘Is he Ethel's husband?'

‘Goodness me, no! They're brother and sister. She's a good ten years older than him and I'd say has more business sense. He made a career of the army and when he came back wanted to take over the running of everything, but her mother had left the lease to Ethel with her being an old maid. She knew she'd need to provide for herself, having no man to do it.'

‘What about him? Has he ever been married?'

Dolly pursed her lips. ‘No. And I can't see it happening now. He's over fifty is Andy, and set in his ways. Although there are women who'd find his kind of looks attractive, I suppose.'

‘What about means? Has he any that would be attractive to a nice little widow, perhaps?'

Dolly gave him a severe look and placed the paper bag of dragees on the counter. ‘You're asking a lot of questions, young man?'

‘I'm just interested in people, that's all, Dolly.' He pocketed the dragees and paid for them.

‘And what do you do?'

He hesitated before saying, ‘I'm a medical student.'

She looked at him approvingly. ‘Now there's a coincidence. Are you doing your training at the Royal?'

‘No. Edinburgh. My father's half-Scots.'

‘You should have done your learning here,' she said, leaning towards him across the counter. ‘They've got a nice new building attached to the university, opened by the Queen Mum.'

‘I've only got my year's hospital training left.'

‘The Royal then! That's where you should go, young man.'

‘Thanks for the advice!' He smiled and left, thinking he knew where he would find Mr Pritchard that evening, as well as Nurse Vicky, and it was almost on his own doorstep.

The Royal Infirmary, a Victorian redbrick building, stood in Pembroke Place and backed on to the university on Brownlow Hill. Jack telephoned the hospital asking about visiting hours and that evening set out for Pembroke Place, carrying with him the Liverpool
Echo
.

He was there on the opposite side of the road, hiding behind the newspaper, ten minutes before Andy Pritchard came marching along. Jack watched as he went inside the hospital and was halfway through perusing what was on at the cinema –
The Son of Robin Hood
and
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw
with Jayne Mansfield – when the visitors came spilling out of the hospital again.

Jack folded his
Echo
and set off in pursuit of Mr Pritchard, thinking he might lead him to Celia, only to end up outside Pritchard's Emporium once more. He did not mind that at all because he had remembered Nurse Vicky was on nights. So he waited and it was not long before his patience was rewarded by the sight of her emerging from the sweet shop, now wearing black stockings and mackintosh and nurse's cap.

He followed her to the bus stop but was separated from her in the queue by several people. Still, he kept his eyes open and saw her go upstairs and again he followed, only to have his chance of starting up a conversation with her thwarted by an elderly woman sitting next to her. The two women began to talk as if they had known each other for years. He took a seat behind her and watched for glimpses of her profile. Her skin was what the poets might call peaches and cream and her voice was low-pitched. He could easily imagine Nurse Vicky calming the most troublesome patient or relation. He liked her flaxen hair, too, and by the time they had reached their destination knew exactly which way every curl lay beneath her cap.

He followed her off the bus, a plan already formulated in his mind, and when he caught up with her, said, ‘Excuse me, but I think you might have dropped this on the bus.' He held out a silver cigarette case.

She gazed at him and their eyes met on a level. She was tall for a woman and long-limbed with it, but with what his mother might call a bit of meat on her. And there was a twinkle in her blue eyes. ‘No, I haven't dropped it. But have we met before?'

He looked dubiously at the cigarette case. ‘I was sitting behind you on the bus and I could have sworn –'

‘If you were sitting behind me, you'd know I didn't smoke. Nice try, though. But what would you have done if I'd laid claim to that cigarette case?'

‘Handed it over.' He grinned. ‘I've given them up. Can't afford them, really. I keep thinking of pawning it but my brother gave it to me for my twenty-first birthday.'

‘Sensible man! Any doctor would tell you they're bad for your chest.'

‘I know,' he said ruefully, ‘but good for the nerves. I'm in the profession myself.'

She looked surprised. ‘Not at the Royal?'

‘No. I've done most of my training in Edinburgh.'

‘Then you'll be doing an extra year. Isn't that the Scottish way?'

‘That's right.' They had come to the hospital entrance and both stopped. Vicky folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself. The wind had dropped in the last day or so but it was still very cold. ‘You're from Scotland then?'

‘No, I was born in Liverpool. My family are still here. I was thinking maybe of changing cities and perhaps doing my last year at the Royal.'

She glanced at the red brick building behind her. ‘Ever read
Her Benny
?'

He nodded. ‘One of my mother's favourites and written by a Victorian clergyman. The Royal Infirmary gets a mention. Heartwrenching stuff.'

They stared at each other. ‘You could do worse than work here,' she said softly.

He nodded. ‘I think so too.'

There was silence. ‘I'll have to go,' she said, holding out a hand, that twinkle still in her eyes. ‘It was nice talking to you.'

‘The name's Jack Mcleod.' He took her hand.

‘Vicky Bartholomew.'

‘Perhaps we can see each other again?'

‘I'll be catching the same bus every evening at the same time this week.' She withdrew her hand and walked away.

The following evening Jack sat next to Vicky on the bus and she told him how her father had been knocked down by a car during the blackout and how her mother had been a nurse for a short time so it had seemed natural she should follow in her footsteps.

‘What about
Dolly's Mixtures
? I would have thought she'd have wanted you to take it over.'

‘No. She was pleased when I said I wanted to be a nurse. She thinks nursing is a gift. That you're born with it.' Vicky slanted him a sidelong glance. ‘Do you think that's true? That something like nursing or being a doctor is in your blood?'

Jack would have agreed with anything she said because he was already head over heels in love. On Saturday he planned on asking her for a proper date. But it was then that Andy Pritchard spoilt his plans somewhat by not taking the bus home after visiting his sister.

He was extremely late coming out of the hospital and when he did he was looking agitated. Jack was undecided what to do but when the man quickmarched down London Road in the direction of Lime Street, he followed. His destination turned out to be the Odeon cinema and Jack watched as he stood waiting several minutes before going inside the foyer but he was soon out again. He walked round the block and only then did he catch a bus heading for Old Swan.

Jack glanced swiftly at the clock that hung on the wall outside the jeweller's in London Road and raced to the hospital. His luck was in because Vicky was hovering on the pavement outside. ‘Sorry!' he panted. ‘But I couldn't help it. Something turned up.'

‘It's OK, you're here, but I'm going to have to go in a minute,' she said, her voice tinged with regret.

He took her hand and held it tightly. ‘Listen, are you off duty tomorrow afternoon? Will you go out with me?'

Her smile dazzled him. ‘I thought you were never going to ask. Of course I'll go out with you. Where will we meet? And don't say here!'

‘Lewis's corner!' He planted an exuberant kiss on her mouth and thought if he never had anything else to thank Katherine for all the rest of his life, he had something to thank her for now.

Andy Pritchard had not turned up and Celia could have wept as she caught the bus home. She had waited over an hour but in the end had to accept that he was not coming. Perhaps he had never meant to come? Perhaps there had been something in her behaviour that had made him suspect she was not all she claimed to be? Yet he had seemed so keen on New Year's Day and she was sure she had not put a foot wrong, even explaining why he could not call for her by inventing a domineering mother who hated men.

Mrs Evans … What was she going to say to her when she arrived home far earlier than expected? Knowing the old woman, Celia expected the third degree as soon as she got upstairs. Perhaps she should walk round for a bit? But then, she was not wearing the right kind of shoes. The pictures! She glanced at her watch and thought she might just catch the big film.

There was a crowd coming out of the Royal cinema and immediately she saw Donny and his grandfather. The boy's face lit up when he caught sight of her and without looking he ran across the road towards her. She let out a scream as a car came towards him but it swerved and missed him by inches. She caught hold of him as he reached her side of the road and shook him. ‘That was silly, Donny! You could have been killed!'

‘I wasn't, though.' He grinned up at her. ‘Are yer going to the pictures all dollied up? Yer've missed the black and white film and it was a detective one and real good.'

‘Never mind that,' she said severely. ‘You must look both ways when crossing the road.'

‘He can't be told,' said Mr Jones, reaching them. ‘I've tried to drum it into him, like, but it goes in one ear and out the other.'

Celia looked at him and saw a man at least fifteen years her senior with a prominent nose and deep-set eyes hooded by thick eyebrows. He was only a couple of inches taller than herself but had a thick head of hair and was much more smartly dressed than when she had last seen him.

He smiled and said, ‘You look really nice.'

Her cheeks flushed. ‘I was meeting a friend in town but they didn't turn up and I thought it was too early to go home.'

‘All dressed up and nowhere to go, like?'

She nodded and gave an involuntary sigh.

Donny tugged on his grandfather's hand. ‘She could come and have supper with us, couldn't she, Granddad?'

‘She could,' he said gravely. ‘But she mightn't want to. Ours is a bachelor household and not what she's used to.'

‘Ours is a place!' said Donny scornfully. ‘Yer should have seen owd Mrs Evans's place before Mrs Mcdonald and Katherine got to work on it.' He slipped his free hand into Celia's. ‘We've got chocolate biscuits. Yer'd like them.'

The feel of the boy's hand in hers made Celia's sore heart feel a little better. ‘Me favourites,' she said.

‘Let's go then!' He swung on her hand as he beamed up at her, so she went.

The Joneses lived in an area known as the Lake District. There was a Windermere, Rydal, Ullswater, Coniston and Grasmere Street, but a district less like that northern countryside could not be imagined despite most of the terraced houses being looked after with housewifely pride. Celia knew from having walked the streets during the day that most had their brassware gleaming, steps scrubbed and sandstoned, and upstairs and downstairs curtains matching beautifully.

She was ushered into the front parlour. Two glass-fronted bookcases filled the alcoves to either side of a tiled fireplace where a single-bar electric fire stood. There was a painting of a bluebell wood on the wall above. Flowers and ornaments were conspicuous by their absence. The floor was covered in green and brown linoleum and a multi-coloured rag rug lay between hearth and brown leatherette sofa.

‘Me owd lady made the rug,' said Mr Jones, switching on the fire. ‘She and the daughter. I sorta hang on to it even though the room would probably look better with a carpet square from Sidney's.'

‘It looks nice,' said Celia reassuringly. ‘I remember making one just like it. We couldn't afford oilcloth in the old days, never mind carpets!' It was a confession she would never have made to Andy Pritchard. Her heart seemed to skip a beat just thinking about him and then plummeted again.