Daughters of Liverpool (9 page)

Apprehensively Emily turned round to look towards the theatre, her breath easing from her lungs in a creaking gust of relief when she saw that the building was still standing. She was just about to ask the ARP warden if he knew if anyone had been hurt, when there was a sudden whoosh of sound, followed by the loudest bang Emily had ever heard, which would have had her diving for the ground again if the warden hadn’t kept hold of her.

Another warden came racing up the street. ‘That was the chemical factory in Hanover Street,’ he told them breathlessly. ‘The Corporation’s had to send to Lancashire for reinforcements, we’ve got that many fires burning.’

Emily was properly on her feet now, and the boy with her, miraculously also unharmed.

‘You two are a lucky pair,’ the warden told her. ‘There’s a bomb dropped on Roe Street that’s left a crater the size of a house, and if you’d been a dozen or more yards down the road, you’d have had it and no mistake—’ He broke off and cursed under his breath as a fire engine came racing down Roe Street towards them, and the bomb crater.

‘No, stop!’ The warden ran towards it, waving his hands and yelling in warning, but it was too late. Right in front of her eyes Emily saw the fire engine, with its crew on board, plunge right into the crater, with a sickening sound of breaking glass and tearing metal.

‘Jeff! Pete!’ the warden was calling out, Emily and the boy forgotten as two other ARP men raced with him towards the crater, from which flames were already emerging.

Emily took the boy’s hand and turned away. There was nothing they could do, after all.

To the north, the whole of the city along the shoreline seemed to be on fire and the planes were still coming, attacking the dock area now, the night sky illuminated by the growing number of fires and the coloured arcs of the tracer bullets from the anti-aircraft batteries.

The ARP men by the crater were saying something about it looking like everyone in the fire engine had ‘bought it’.

Emily shivered and held the boy’s hand more tightly.

Later she found it hard to recall how long it had taken them to walk up Wavertree Road, scrunching over pavements strewn with broken glass, and past bombed-out burning buildings. There was no comforting stop at the chippie. Its windows were blown out and its owners in an air-raid shelter. Where they should be, Emily knew, but if she was going to die she’d prefer to die in her own bed in clean sheets, thank you
very much, not some council shelter where you’d be mixing with all sorts. The people of Wavertree Village had certain standards, make no mistake about it.

Every time she heard a plane overhead Emily clung more tightly to the boy’s hand. He had saved her life once tonight, after all.

‘Katie, is it really you?’

Katie had just reached the table closest to the band, with her candles, as they were about to take a break, and a wide smile curved her mouth as she returned the warmly enthusiastic hug of the sax player, Eric, whose family had originally come from Hungary, and who had played for a while in one of the bands conducted by her father.

‘How is your father?’ Eric asked her eagerly. ‘He is well? Safe? There have been so many bombs in London.’

‘He is very well, thank you, Eric,’ Katie answered. ‘And you?’

‘I am well too, but I hadn’t expected this. We came away from London to escape from the bombings.’

Luke’s men had done all that they could do, and now that the tarpaulins were safely in place, Luke had agreed that they could accept Mr Munro’s offer of a free drink.

‘Not too much, mind,’ he warned the men as they re-entered the candlelit ballroom. ‘It isn’t Christmas yet, lads.’

The girl, the stuck-up one, was standing over
by the alcove talking to a member of the band. They were laughing together and the man had his hand on her arm. Pretty nifty work on his part, Luke reckoned, and the girl didn’t look as if she objected to his familiarity. So, a bit free with her favours then, as well as wanting a rich husband. Not that he cared. She didn’t appeal to him one little bit.

Seeing Hatton Gardens in flames had left Luke feeling on edge and wishing that he could go across and find out what was going on. It irked him to be stuck here in a ballroom when he could be doing something far more useful, but rules were rules, and if he went off and left his men to their own devices anything could happen. Half of them would have too much to drink and the other half would be taking Dutch leave, and then there’d be hell to pay in the morning when they weren’t fit to report for duty.

No, he had to stay with them and keep an eye on them. The barman was offering him a beer, but Luke shook his head, and asked for lemonade instead.

‘Lemonade, Corp? That’s a girl’s drink,’ Andy grinned.

‘Well, one of us has got to keep a sober head on his shoulders and since I
am
your corporal it had better be me,’ he told them.

‘You know what,’ one of the other men announced, eyeing the dance floor, ‘I reckon this dancing by candelight could be a pretty good thing. You can get a girl close and do a bit of smooching.’

‘That’s enough of that,’ Luke warned him, but
he could see that the men were looking hopefully towards those tables occupied solely by girls.

The band was ready to start playing again. Katie had been introduced to Mrs Hamer and the other members of the band now, all of whom had heard of her father.

‘What was all that about?’ Carole hissed when Katie returned to their table.

‘Eric knows my father and he was asking after him.’

‘Them army lads have come back from fixing the roof,’ Carole told her, ‘and that fair-haired one’s been looking over here ever such a lot. I reckon he’ll be asking me to dance before the night’s out.’

‘He certainly will if you keep on making sheep’s eyes at him,’ Katie agreed.

Carole pulled a face and protested mock innocently, ‘What a thing to say. I can’t think what you mean,’ and then started to giggle, nudging Katie as she said, ‘He’s got ever such a nice smile, though, hasn’t he?’

Katie’s expression softened. She could never behave like Carole, but she still couldn’t help feeling her own mood lightened by the other girl’s bubbly manner. Perhaps her mother had been right to tell her that she was too serious, but if that was how she was, she couldn’t change her nature, could she?

Mr Munro had gone over to Mrs Hamer and was saying something to her, and then he turned round and announced, ‘Let’s hear a cheer for our army lads, and if any single young lady here has
anything about her I reckon she’ll be the first on her feet to ask one of them to dance when the band starts playing, because the next dance will be a ladies’ excuse me in their honour.’

There was a cheer from the occupants of the tables, and then a lot of laughter, as the men were herded onto the floor, looking bashful, and three or four daring girls got to their feet and went over to them to claim their partners.

Carole needed no further encouragement or excuse. She was on her feet, dragging Katie up with her.

‘Come on,’ she demanded, ignoring Katie’s objections. ‘I’m not letting some other girl walk off with that lad I’ve got me own eye on.’

It was only innocent fun, and sanctioned by the Grafton’s manager – a nice way for them all to show their appreciation for what the men had done, Katie knew – but still she felt very self-conscious about it all, even though they were far from the first or the fastest of the girls to approach the soldiers.

In fact, since Katie had hung back, by the time she actually reached the dance floor and the soldiers, to her relief all the men seemed to be partnered.

She was just about to turn round and go and sit down again when Mr Munro himself appeared at her side, announcing, ‘Here you are, Corporal. Here’s a partner for you. Now don’t say “no”. I’m well aware that you’re the one who ensured that your men did such a good job, and I’m sure this charming young lady here is as keen to show her appreciation as I am to show mine.’

It was
her
, the stuck-up one. Luke’s heart sank. He didn’t want to dance with anyone but least of all with her. The last time he had danced here it had been with Lillian, just before he had left with the BEF for France. Last Christmas, in fact.

He didn’t want to dance with her, Katie could tell. Well, she didn’t want to dance with him either, and she held herself stiffly away from him to let him know it.

She was dancing with him as though he was a bad smell under her nose, Luke thought angrily.

The band swung into a pacey swing number, designed to get things moving, and allow those who had the skills to show off their best steps.

Katie might not be able to sing but she was a very good dancer, something that had been an additional source of discord between her parents when she had been growing up, as her mother claimed that Katie’s ability to dance had been passed on to her daughter by her, whilst her father had retaliated by saying that he did not want a daughter who thought that prancing around on a stage meant that she had ‘talent’.

Whilst the other couples, taking advantage of Mr Munro’s invitation to the girls to choose their own partners, were eager to take advantage of the mood of the moment – a potent mix of male bravery and heroism, and female bravado, spiced with the kind of music that allowed the more adventurous men to take a firm hold of their partners and draw them closer – Luke and Katie were determinedly keeping one another at a rigid arm’s length, both making it plain that they were
more than delighted when the music finally stopped.

Ten minutes later, having politely refused an invitation to dance from a smartly uniformed RAF officer, who in Katie’s opinion had thought rather too much of himself, Katie had the galling experience of sitting at their table and watching as the angry, good-looking corporal danced expertly past with another girl. Katie rarely got the chance to dance and when she did it was even rarer for her to have the kind of partner who danced well. Musicians did not in general have much spare time to learn to dance. And now here was this soldier who had danced with her as woodenly as though he were a puppet on strings, dancing with another girl so well that it was no wonder she looked as though she was in seventh heaven.

‘Phew,’ Carole announced breathlessly, sinking down into her chair as her partner returned her to their table, ‘that was fun. You’ll never guess what,’ she added after she had finished fanning herself energetically with her hand, ‘Andy’s only asked me if I’ll go to the pictures with him the next time he gets a pass out. The boys are based only down the road at Seacombe.’ She gave Katie an arch look. ‘I saw you dancing with that corporal; he’s ever so good-looking, isn’t he?’

‘Is he? I hadn’t noticed,’ Katie lied.

Carole laughed and shook her head in a way that implied that she didn’t believe Katie for one minute.

Whilst the band was playing it was relatively easy to forget what was happening outside, but
whenever the music stopped the sound of German planes dropping bombs was a stark reminder of the reality of the situation.

Whilst Katie and Carole were in the ladies, two other girls were discussing the bombing, one of them complaining to the other, ‘I told you we shouldn’t have come out tonight after the bombing last night. If we’d done as I said then we’d be safe in a proper air-raid shelter now.’

Her friend tossed her brown curls and argued firmly, ‘Well, I’d rather be bombed here, whilst I’m enjoying meself, than stuck in some air-raid shelter, and besides, they aren’t always safe. There was that one at the Durning Road Technical School where all those poor folk were killed in November, and I’ve heard of others as well. If a bomb drops on a shelter, then you could end up being buried alive. At least if we bought it here, I’d have had some fun.’

‘Fun. That’s all you think about, Marianne Dunkin. I’m more interested in staying alive,’ her friend retorted tearfully, ‘and if you think I’m letting you persuade me to come dancing again whilst this war’s on then you’ve got another think coming.’

They were still arguing as they left the cloakroom, the door swinging closed after them.

Carole, who had gone unusually quiet and rather pale, shivered and asked Katie anxiously, ‘You don’t think we’ll get bombed again, do you?’

‘Of course not. No one ever gets bombed twice in the same night,’ Katie reassured her with a conviction she was far from feeling.

The toffee-nosed girl seemed to be enjoying herself dancing with the young Canadian airman who was partnering her now, Luke recognised as he watched Katie dance past. The Canadian looked pretty smitten with her. Well, more fool him, since he was only a lowly private.

Luke was itching to leave the Grafton and set to with the work he knew would be going on, to do what could be done to counter the effects of the bombing, but his first duty was to his men. He had sneaked outside a couple of times to look with despair at the destruction that the bombs had caused. The electric tram wires were down along the West Derby Road, outside the Grafton, and broken glass from blown-out windows covered the road. Instead of the Christmas skies being filled with Santa’s sledge piled high with the presents of children’s fairy tales, the skies over Liverpool were filled with the Luftwaffe, bringing death and destruction as Christmas ‘gifts’ to the people of the city.

They had made it. Emily leaned gratefully on the inside of the front door as she stood in the dark hallway of her home, the boy at her side.

There had been plenty of moments when she had feared that they wouldn’t make it, but they had.

Wave after wave of planes had come in over their heads, heading for the docks, where they dropped their deadly cargo. The north side of the city seemed to be ringed with fires lighting up the night sky.

The worst moment was when they had walked past a newly bombed house and Emily had seen the tears sliding down the faces of the children standing outside it, making oily tracks through the soot from what had once been their chimney. They had been inside when the bomb had hit, Emily had heard one of the children telling their rescuers, taking refuge under the table they had put under the stairs, just like the local ARP man had told them, and now their granddad was dead and their mam taken off to hospital.