Daughters of Liverpool (23 page)

Fran and Lily were supposed to share a dresser, but typically Lily had appropriated Martha’s services, claiming that her ‘poorly stomach’ meant that she needed someone on hand to minister to her. Since Lily had stayed behind in Cairo comfortably ensconced in the excellent Metropolitan Hotel, which they had been booked into, Fran failed to see exactly why she should need Martha, but Lily’s temper tantrums were so well known and feared that John Woods, the ENSA officer travelling with them, had simply given in to her, begging Fran to manage without Martha.

Fran knew perfectly well that Lily wasn’t above manipulating things to ensure that she not only remained the lead singer, but also to undermine anyone else’s act if she thought they might be in competition with her. Fran wasn’t going to put herself through all the emotional drama that went with that kind of situation just for the sake of being without a dresser for a couple of shows. In fact, Fran rather thought that Lily was hoping that Fran would challenge her and provoke an outright showdown between them.

Fran had far more important things on her mind, though. Today was the anniversary of the day she had met Connor Bryant – Jack’s father – and remembering that brought the loss of Jack unbearably sharply into her thoughts.

She had been thinking about him all day: the hard labour of his birth, with its pain and her own fear, and then the tremendous sense of exhausted pride she had felt when she had given birth to him, followed by such a surge of maternal
joy and love that she could feel its echo within her now.

She had been so young – too young – and nothing had prepared her for the intensity of that love: to give birth to a child, to hold it in your arms, a new life, so filled with trust and so dependent on you that the stab of fierce protective love was forever balanced with an edge of fear.

She had sworn that she would do the best she could for him. She had made that promise – that vow – to him, but she had broken it. If only she could go back and right what she had done wrong.

If only … Fran tried to shake away her painful thoughts. She could feel the satin fabric of her frock clinging tackily to her skin. She had lost weight since she had begun this tour and the reflection she could see in the mirror was not one that pleased her. She looked thin and tired, her face slightly gaunt. She opened the flap of the tent that served as her dressing room and stepped out into the familiarity of the backstage bustle, and the velvet darkness of the desert night.

‘Ten, Fran,’ the floor manager called out, holding up ten fingers.

Nodding, Fran headed for the stage, where their compère was already announcing her.

Fran was dripping with sweat as she came offstage, her heart racing and skipping, gripped by the familiar high of knowing that she had reached out to her audience and touched their emotions.

No matter how cynical she might feel when she was not on stage, once she was, her desire to sing
to her audience, and their desire to hear her sing, worked like a special magical spell that never failed to reach deep within Fran, to release a poignancy to her singing that drew those listening to her and to call her back for encore after encore. When she was singing Fran became the song, the instrument via which its words and music flowed into the hearts of others. That was her special gift.

Now, as the night air hit her, the familiar process of her euphoria giving way to exhaustion and emptiness was already taking place.

In her ‘dressing room’ Fran started to remove her stage makeup, though her work for the evening wasn’t over yet. There was still the after-show ‘party’ to attend – a duty more than a pleasure but an important one for the morale of the serving men.

Fran had just removed the last of her makeup, but was still wearing the robe she had pulled on when she had taken off her stage dress, when she heard the major calling her name outside.

‘Yes, I’m here, Major,’ she called back.

The dressing room wasn’t very big, Fran’s precious jar of cold cream was still out on top of the makeshift ‘dressing table’ – an upturned barrel with a pillowcase over it, on which Fran had placed the photograph of Jack that travelled everywhere with her.

‘I’ve just been speaking to the camp’s commanding officer and he’s asked if you will have time to go round the san tent and have a word with the men there who weren’t well enough to see the show?’

It wasn’t an unfamiliar request and Fran responded automatically, ‘Of course.’

The major nodded and turned towards the exit to the tent, but as he did so, somehow or other he caught the edge of the photograph frame, sending it falling to the floor.

They both dived for it together, but the major got there first, apologising as he did so.

‘I’m sorry, clumsy of me.’

Fran’s heart was thudding heavily with a mixture of emotions she didn’t want to analyse, but which were dominated by her fierce need to reach out and hold Jack’s photograph protectively to her body. As she hadn’t done Jack himself. She couldn’t trust herself to speak, not even to make a polite response to the major’s comment, so instead she simply held out her hand for Jack’s photograph, gripping her bottom lip between her teeth when she saw how badly her hand was trembling.

‘Nice-looking boy – a relative?’ the major asked casually as he handed the photograph back to her.

All she wanted was for him to go, so that she could smooth her fingers over the frame in reassurance, the only reassurance she could give Jack – and herself – now. And yet she also felt a very different and even more desperate need, which she had to struggle to suppress.

‘Yes, he’s my …’ You’d have thought after all the years – ten of them – of saying ‘my nephew’ that the lie would slip easily off her tongue but it never did and tonight, whether through tiredness or the pain of constantly having to deny him, and her own guilt and need, Fran heard herself saying
proudly, ‘He’s my son. Or at least he was. He’s dead now. A bomb hit the farmhouse where he’d been evacuated. He was ten.’

The words, hard with pain, cut into her heart like shards of glass, the mere speaking of them emotionally lacerating her throat. It was just as well she couldn’t speak because she didn’t trust herself to say anything else, Francine admitted.

The photograph lay held between them. Tears blurred Fran’s vision.

‘It hurts like hell, doesn’t it?’ The major’s voice was unexpectedly kind and understanding.

Fran looked up at him.

‘I lost my wife and the child we were expecting in the first wave of bombs that dropped on London,’ he told her simply.

They looked at one another, and somehow Francine couldn’t – didn’t want to – look away. Like an invisible bridge stretching across a dangerous chasm the major’s gaze held her own.

A need to talk about her past, about Jack and herself and what had happened, overwhelmed her, coming out of nowhere like a fierce desert storm, unstoppable and overpowering.

Still looking at him, Francine began slowly, ‘Jack was born when I was sixteen.’

His steady regard was still fixed on her.

‘His father was a married man.’ Not a flicker of rejection or disgust. ‘Not that I knew that when I fell for him; plain daft, I was, fancying that we were meant for one another and that he loved me when all he wanted was a bit of fun.’

The bridge was holding steady and she was clinging to that calm uncritical gaze.

‘Of course, the truth came out when his wife got to know and came storming down to the theatre to warn me off. I hadn’t been the first and I won’t have been the last. Poor woman, I pity her being married to him.

‘I didn’t know then that there was to be a child, and when I realised I was that scared. My mother wasn’t well as it was, and my father was already dead. One of my sisters always reckoned that the shame and disgrace of what I’d done killed Mum.’

She was trembling inside with all the emotion, all the things she had never said and had kept inside herself for so long. It was as though once she’d started unburdening herself to him she couldn’t stop, like poison bursting from a painful wound.

She made an effort to check herself, pulling a face and saying in a shaky voice, ‘It isn’t a pretty story, is it?’

‘Life seldom is a pretty story. You paid a heavy price for being young, trusting and naïve.’

‘I dare say if Con hadn’t been married pressure would have been put on him to do the decent thing, but he was married, and when my sister Vi offered to have the baby, and bring him up as her own, it seemed the best thing to do, especially for Jack. Vi and her husband already had two children and Edwin, Vi’s husband, was doing well for himself. Vi said that she and Edwin could give Jack so much more than I could, and that if I kept him everyone would know that I wasn’t married
and that he’d suffer because of that. I hated the thought of giving Jack up but I thought I was doing the right thing – the best thing for him. I loved him so much, you see, and I wanted to make it up to him, do something right for him after all that I’d done wrong, so I agreed that Vi should have him, and then I went to America to work, to have a fresh start. But of course you can’t walk away from something like that. I’d left a part of myself behind in Liverpool, literally as well as figuratively. You don’t realise until you have a child just what it means.’

For the first time the steady gaze flickered. Remorse filled her, but she sensed that he didn’t want her to say anything, so instead of apologising to him she continued unsteadily, ‘I never stopped missing Jack or loving him, and in the end it got too much for me. I’d been working in America but when I got the chance to go home to Liverpool I did. When I found out how unhappy Jack was, and how badly he was being treated by my sister and her husband, it broke my heart. I felt so guilty. I thought I’d given Jack the best chance of a future I could give him but instead … I’ll never forgive myself for what happened to him.’

The major took the photograph from her and stood it gently on her ‘dressing table’, before placing his free hand comfortingly on her shoulder.

‘I feel the much the same about my wife.’

It was her turn to hold the bridge for him now, her gaze every bit as steady for him as his had been for her.

‘She’d wanted to leave London, but she was so
close to her time I was worried about her travelling. I begged her to wait until after the baby. They were both killed three days later when a bomb made a direct hit on the friend’s house where she was staying.’

Francine could hear the rawness in his voice and her heart ached for him.

‘Do you think it ever ends – the pain and the guilt, I mean?’ she asked him.

The major shook his head. ‘Perhaps if you want it to, but something tells me that you don’t.’

‘Do you?’ Fran challenged him.

This time he didn’t answer her.

Katie had been so worried about going dancing with Luke that it had pushed all her earlier concern about the letter right out of her thoughts.

For a start there was the problem of what she was going to wear, but Jean had obviously remembered what had happened before Christmas because she had announced at Saturday dinnertime, before Katie had had time to say anything, that she had been through her sister’s things and had put a dress on Katie’s bed that she had thought she might want to borrow for the dance.

The minute Katie had seen it she had fallen in love with it. Yellow silk and full-skirted, with a neat waist, the dress also had a matching shawl to cover the shoulders.

However, as soon as Katie had seen that the label inside the frock said Molyneux, she had guessed that the dress had come from the famous London designer of the same name and she had known that she could not possibly wear it.

‘Why on earth not?’ Jean had demanded. ‘That yellow will suit you perfectly.’

‘Your sister has some lovely clothes, but they are far too expensive for me,’ Katie had said honestly but Jean would have none of it.

‘Well, Fran left them here and said that we were to use them, and I reckon it would be a sin not to do so,’ she said firmly.

Of course, in the end Katie had given in, which was how she came to be standing beside Luke, who looked so smart and handsome in his uniform, feeling very self-conscious indeed now that she had handed her coat over to the cloakroom assistant.

‘Katie looks ever so nice, doesn’t she, Luke?’ Grace demanded.

‘Very,’ Luke agreed warmly.

‘Well, the dress really belongs to your aunt, the one that left her clothes behind when she joined ENSA. Your mother said it would be all right for me to borrow it since I haven’t got any dance frocks of my own.’

They were walking towards one of the tables now, and Luke and Katie had fallen behind Grace and Seb in the crush of people, so only Katie saw the surprised look Luke gave her in response to her comment.

‘I should have thought you would have a wardrobe full of dance dresses, with your dad being a band leader, and you working with him, as the twins told me that you did,’ Luke explained.

‘Well, yes, I did, but not front of house, as they say. Goodness, the Grafton is busy tonight, isn’t it?’

‘A bit different from the last time we were here,’ Luke agreed. ‘The Grafton holds close on a thousand couples,’ he told her, ‘and Saturday night is
always popular, especially when they’ve got a good band on, like tonight. You’ll know of them, I expect.’

One of the country’s most popular bands, the Joe Dempsey Swing Band, was playing.

‘Yes,’ Katie agreed, ‘and they are very good. They’ve played at the Savoy and the Ritz.’

There was no sign now of the damage that had been caused in the bomb blast. The roof had naturally been repaired to protect the building, but the ceiling and the floor had both also been restored to their original state, and with the lights on and the ballroom filling up it was hard to equate it with the candlelit, bomb-damaged, almost empty room in which they had all danced so determinedly at Christmas, refusing to let Hitler’s bombers destroy their evening.

‘Come on, you two.’ Grace turned round to beckon them over to the table she and Seb had secured.

‘That colour really does suit you,’ Grace complimented Katie a few minutes later when the two men had gone to the bar.

‘Your dress is lovely,’ Katie returned the compliment generously.

Grace was wearing a beautifully elegant gown in green silk.

‘There’s a real story attached to this dress,’ Grace told her. ‘One day I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘Oh, please, tell me now,’ Katie begged her.

Grace looked self-conscious and shook her head, and then said, ‘Oh, go on then. Mum will have told you that I used to work at Lewis’s, in the Gown Salon, I expect.’

‘Yes,’ Katie confirmed.

‘Well I’d been invited to a Tennis Club dance, by my cousin Bella, who’s a bit of a snob.’ Grace gave a sigh. ‘Anyway, this girl who I worked with sneaked this frock out of the salon, and persuaded me to borrow it for the dance. I knew it was wrong, but I did.

‘Seb was to be my escort for the evening. We hadn’t met until then. He was sort of related to Bella’s late husband.

‘There was a bit of an accident when Bella stood on my dress, and it got badly torn. I was so upset that I let on to Seb what had happened and how the dress wasn’t really mine. Then, of course, when I got home I had to own up to Mum as well. That was the worst bit. I’d just been offered the chance to train as a nurse, you see, and she’d been so proud of me, and now here I was as good as admitting to have pinched a frock from work. I thought I’d have to stay on at Lewis’s to pay for it, and it would have served me right if I had, but Seb only went and bought the dress to save me.’ Grace’s whole face lit up with love and pride. ‘Wasn’t that a wonderful thing to do?’

‘Yes, it was,’ Katie agreed fervently.

‘Anyway, that’s enough about me,’ Grace told her with a smile. ‘How are you enjoying working at the censorship place?’

‘I like working with the other girls, and the work is important, of course, but sometimes it makes you feel uncomfortable reading other people’s private letters, you know. Some of them have such sad things in them, like when a girl’s
writing to say that she’s found someone else. When I’m reading that kind I always wish that I didn’t have to send them on.’

‘What are you two looking so glum about?’ Seb asked as the men came back with the drinks – beer for themselves and shandy for the girls – and sat down.

‘Katie was just saying that it upsets her when she reads Dear John letters,’ Grace explained to her fiancé.

‘The worst are when it’s a letter telling someone that there’s been a death at home – you know, from the bombs.’

‘You haven’t found any in secret spy code then yet?’ Luke teased Katie.

She had hesitated just that bit too long, Katie recognised, as she saw the way that they were all looking at her.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘Nothing like that.’

She was feeling a bit uncomfortable when Seb gave a brisk approving nod of his head as though in response to her lack of response, followed by a small smile.

Had he guessed from the way she’d hesitated what had happened? Katie worried guiltily.

‘It’s much the same for us in the “Y” Section,’ Seb was saying, as though he wanted to reassure her. ‘We have to listen in to things we’d rather not, at times, but it is for the good of the country, and ultimately it can save lives.’

Grace was smiling at her and so too was Luke, Katie realised, suddenly feeling her heart lift and a rush of happiness spread through her. It felt as
though she had suddenly been accepted into some special and very private club.

After that the evening went from good to even better, and just when Katie thought that it could not possibly be improved on, at the end of a particularly energetic swing dance number – during which she and Luke had ended up with the floor to themselves and being applauded by the other dancers – as Luke guided her back to their table, his hand still holding hers, he told her with a grin, ‘Mum was right: you are a terrific dancer.’

‘You’re good too,’ Katie returned the compliment.

‘The twins taught me and Grace.’

‘My mother taught me.’

‘I dare say you must find my parents a bit dull after your own.’

They had almost reached the table. Katie stopped and turned to him, saying quietly and truthfully, ‘I love living with your parents and the twins. It’s what I’ve always longed for, to be part of a proper family. My parents’ lives may seem glamorous but they aren’t. My father works most evenings and practises during the day. My mother is proud of his success, of course, but at the same time she misses the stage herself and wishes she was still there. I love my parents very much, but so often when I was growing up I longed for them to be like other people’s mothers and fathers. I know that must sound awful. It doesn’t mean that I don’t love them, because I do, but I still can’t help envying people like you and Grace.’

‘It doesn’t sound awful at all. It sounds honest.’

Katie discovered that she was looking at the
neat fastening of Luke’s tie against the khaki of his shirt, unable to lift her gaze to his face because she knew his compliment had made her blush.

‘Friends?’ Luke asked her softly.

Now Katie did look at him and what she saw in his eyes made her own sting slightly with tears. Unable to speak, she merely nodded.

Luke squeezed her hand gently.

‘Come on, you two.’ Grace’s demand broke into the silence between them, causing them to hurry back to the table.

Nothing particular had been said but things had definitely changed between her and Luke, Katie knew. Now when he looked at her, he smiled, and his smile was slow and warm and very special, as though it was for her alone and as though they shared a secret that belonged to them alone.

They danced some numbers that were so fast that they were left breathless and laughing, but the slow numbers they sat out, leaving them to couples like Grace and Seb, who took advantage of the dimmed lights and slow beat to snuggle up close to one another.

That was, until the last dance of the evening. Then, as the lights dimmed and couples took to the floor, Luke stood up and held his hand out to her, and somehow Katie discovered that she was on her feet, and then they were on the dance floor and Luke was holding her close. So close that it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her head to rest on his shoulder when the music slowed even more, and his arms closed round her. The dance floor was packed with only enough
room for couples to sway together, but no one was complaining; certainly not Katie.

‘I just hope there isn’t an air raid tonight,’ Katie murmured, thinking of the number of people packed into the ballroom.

‘Me too,’ Luke agreed. ‘At least not before I get to do this,’ he added huskily, and then before Katie could say or do anything he was brushing her lips very, very gently with his own.

A quiver of sweet delight ran through her. She had never expected when they had come out tonight that she would end the evening being held tight in Luke’s arms, never mind being kissed by him. But deep down inside herself and in secret, she
had
thought about Luke holding her and kissing her, hadn’t she, Katie made herself admit.

The last dance and the evening were over. Silent, her eyes brilliant with emotion, Katie queued for her coat wrapped in a cocoon of happiness.

It was only when they were all leaving the dance hall that Seb made another reference to Katie’s work, catching up with her on the stairs whilst Luke and Grace stopped to speak to someone they knew.

Putting his hand under her arm, Seb drew her to one side, saying approvingly, ‘You handled things very well earlier.’

Katie blushed. ‘Oh, thank you. I mean, I know that Luke was only teasing me.’

‘It’s only human nature to want to reply honestly and openly when someone close asks questions. Not that Luke is the sort that would
ever want you to do the wrong thing, mind, but it’s easy to let something slip without meaning to, and you never know just who might be listening. It isn’t easy doing our sort of job – that’s why I feel I’m so lucky with Grace. She understands that sometimes things are going on at work that I can’t discuss with her. It’s all about trust in the end, you see, Katie: the Government’s trust in us and our trust in those we love and theirs in us. People in our line of business know how important that trust is.

‘If you have any problems at work then the proper person to discuss them with is your superior, of course, but if ever anyone outside your work starts to make you feel uncomfortable or ask you questions and you want to talk about that to someone, then I’m always here.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Katie thanked him shyly.

Luke had no idea how things had moved so far so fast. One minute, or so it seemed now, he had been thinking how wrong he had been about Katie, and then the next she had felt so sweet and soft in his arms that he had just not been able to resist kissing her. But then he had been thinking about what it would be like to kiss Katie for what felt like a very long time, hadn’t he? Right from the first time he had seen her, in fact.

They were in the middle of a war, Luke reminded himself, and he was in uniform. Falling head over heels in love with a girl and hoping that she would fall head over heels back just wasn’t a responsible thing to do.

The chivalrous instincts Luke had inherited from his father were a very strong part of his personality. They warned him now that Katie was a sweet girl, a girl whom he needed to protect from the heartache that came with falling in love and then being separated in wartime – or worse. She had been so darling and sweetly responsive when he had kissed her. So much so that he desperately wanted to do so again.

Just before they left the Grafton, Grace tapped Luke on the shoulder, saying quietly to him, ‘I take it that you’re over Lillian then, now?’

‘Lillian?’ Luke pretended to look blank. ‘Who’s she?’

Grace was delighted that her brother was finally over the heartbreak caused by Lillian Green, the nurse who had started her training with Grace, and who had made it clear that she was only interested in finding herself a rich husband – but only after she had stolen Luke’s heart. But even so …

‘Katie isn’t like Lillian, Luke,’ she warned her brother. ‘I don’t think she’s so much as been out with a boy, never mind been—’

‘Katie’s safe with me, Grace, so you don’t need to go giving me any warnings,’ Luke stopped his sister firmly. ‘I’ll be looking out for her just as much as I’d be looking out for one of my own sisters.’

‘You weren’t looking very brotherly towards her when I saw you smooching her during the last dance,’ Grace felt bound to point out.

‘That’s mine and Katie’s business; just as you
and Seb smooching is yours,’ Luke informed his sister.

Grace was tempted to point out that she and Seb were engaged, but remembering what her mother had said to her about her hopes with regard to Katie and Luke, Grace recognised that it would probably be better to say nothing.