It Had To Be You (7 page)

Betty Booth was returning from visiting her friend, Irene Miller, when she spotted the postman about to go up the drive to her aunt’s front door.

‘I’ll take the post,’ she called, hurrying towards him. ‘It’ll save your legs!’

He turned and smiled at her. ‘It’s not your birthday, is it?’ he teased, handing over several envelopes.

‘No, my birthday was in November,’ she replied, flicking a ginger plait over her shoulder, wondering if there was a letter from her pen pal in Canada. Her former English teacher had come up with the idea of having a pen pal; a sort of hands-across-the-sea-reaching-out-to-the-Empire to get her pupils
practising writing about themselves in letter form and learning about other people’s lives.

There was no blue airmail envelope for her but there was a letter in her cousin Jared’s handwriting addressed to his mother. He was doing his national service with the Liverpool King’s Regiment and had recently been stationed in Berlin. All the females in the household missed him but they all knew that Uncle Teddy was glad to have him out of the way. It would have been odd if the quick-tempered old git hadn’t resented his tall, attractive nephew who had a charm that the older man would never possess. With Jared away, Teddy thought he could lord it over the females in the family and this more than irritated them all. There was something about him that gave Betty the creeps.

Suddenly she noticed an envelope addressed to herself, and squinting at the postmark she was only able to make out the Lancs part of it. She placed the envelope up the sleeve of her cardigan, thinking to read it once inside the house. Hopefully she would have it to herself for a change. She hurried up the drive, breathing in the fragrance from the wallflowers her aunt had planted last September, on the warm breeze. She stood on the doorstep and reached inside the letter box, found the key on the string and dragged it through and opened the door.

As she stepped into the lobby, all was quiet, which probably meant that Uncle Teddy was
putting in a few hours as a bookie’s runner this Saturday. Her eldest female cousin, Dorothy, was a sewing machinist and worked half-day Saturday. As for Betty’s Aunt Elsie and her younger cousin Maggie, they had gone into Liverpool. They really enjoyed roaming around the shops and Maggie always managed to wheedle something out of her mother.

Betty placed the rest of the post on the sideboard and then flopped into an armchair. She kicked off her shoes and curled her legs beneath her before tearing open the envelope. She took out two sheets of paper and flattened them on her knee, and then looked at the address written at the top right-hand side and saw that it was a place near Clitheroe, in Lancashire. She wondered who could be writing to her from there and began to read.

Betty was flabbergasted. She reread the letter and her mouth widened in a smile as she remembered a conversation with her mother years ago. She
folded the missive neatly and placed it back in its envelope and thought back to the day when she had started primary school. She had clung to her mother’s hand, begging her not to leave her. Lizzie had hugged and kissed her and told her that she had to be a brave girl. Betty had not wanted to be brave all on her own and had cried to her mother, ‘Why do I have to be an only child? Why did my daddy have to die? Why couldn’t I have had a sister?’

‘You have cousins,’ her mother had replied.

‘That’s not the same,’ Betty remembered saying.

After a moment’s hesitation her mother had said, ‘Well, you do have a sort of sister. She was your daddy’s daughter from his first marriage.’

Betty recalled her astonishment. ‘What kind of sister does that make her?’

Her mother had hesitated again before saying, ‘You could say that she’s your half-sister.’

‘How can I have just half of a sister? Does she have a mummy?’

‘Emma’s mother died and so I married her father,’ her mother had answered.

‘Does that mean she’s an orphan?’ Betty had asked.

Her mother had nodded and told her that her sister, Emma, was several years older than her and lived with her grandparents up north and that was why they had never met. It was a long way
away, and besides, Emma was all the family her grandparents had.

Betty felt tears prick the back of her eyes as they often did when she thought of her mother. They had dearly loved each other, and Betty knew she would never forget that terrible day she had come home from school to be told that her mother was dead. Aunt Elsie had done what she could to comfort her but she was grieving herself after the double blow that had struck the family in the years since the end of the war. And then she had shocked them all by inexplicably marrying Betty’s lovely Uncle Owen’s ignorant and rude-mannered younger brother. Betty gnawed on her lip. There were times when he looked at her in a way that made her shudder. If Betty had had her way, she wouldn’t have allowed him in the house. He just wasn’t good enough to fill his brother’s shoes. He didn’t have a proper job and she doubted he gave any money to Aunt Elsie towards the housekeeping. Sometimes she wondered how her aunt managed to provide for the lot of them, although her aunt and Dorothy both had jobs. No doubt Jared still helped out by sending money home to his mother.

But what was she thinking about allowing her mind to drift like this? Her half-sister wanted to meet her and Betty certainly wanted to meet Emma. But why hadn’t her aunt mentioned the letters and why hadn’t she written back to her? What could be
the harm in the pair of them meeting? It was not as if Emma was suggesting that she went and lived with her. Betty rather thought that her aunt might have liked the idea, because she got really vexed when her niece went on about being an artist like her father.

Betty had her mind set on trying to get into Liverpool’s School of Art after leaving the grammar school in Waterloo next year. Betty’s art teacher had told Aunt Elsie that she had talent, but her aunt had said that she didn’t want her niece messing around with paint but to get herself a proper job and earn some money. When Betty had argued with her, Elsie shook a finger at her and said, ‘You’re a very fortunate girl. Your mother and I never had the opportunity to go to grammar school and I’ll not have you wasting your time with arty people. You want a decent job, so you can meet decent men. You’re bound to marry because you’ve got a way with you, just like your mother.’

Betty felt a familiar anger. She had worked hard to pass the scholarship, so it wasn’t as if it had been handed to her on a plate. And how was she fortunate when she was an orphan? She was definitely in no rush to settle down, marry and have babies. She wanted to make something of herself, not be some man’s slave.

She uncurled her body that showed all the signs of burgeoning womanhood and got to her feet.
She was hungry. Pocketing the letter, she hurried into the kitchen and checked to see whether there was a loaf in the bread bin. She cut a slice of bread and spread it with shop-bought plum jam. If Aunt Elsie had been there she wouldn’t have been allowed to eat between meals. Her aunt just didn’t take into consideration how hungry a growing girl could be.

Suddenly she caught the sound of the key being scrabbled up the door, clinking as it went through the letter box. Swiftly she swallowed the last of the jam bread and wiped the corners of her mouth and poured herself a cup of water. She was calmly drinking it when her aunt and younger cousin entered the kitchen, carrying several shopping bags.

‘What have you been up to?’ asked Elsie sharply, dumping two bags on the table and staring at her niece.

Betty’s eyes widened. ‘Whatever do you mean, Aunt Elsie? I haven’t been up to anything. I’m standing here, minding my own business, drinking a cup of water. What’s the harm in that?’

‘Don’t give me cheek! You’ve got that look on your face. It’s the same one our Lizzie used to wear when she’d been doing something she shouldn’t.’

Betty was astounded at this mention of her mother. She found it difficult to believe that Lizzie had ever done anything wrong. Her mother had been one of the most sensible and kindest people
she had ever known. She thought bleakly, why did God have to take the good ones like her mother and Uncle Owen? Why couldn’t he have taken Uncle Teddy or her Aunt Elsie, instead? She was always up in the air about something. It showed in her restless movements and her twitching face. No wonder she looked older than her age: crow’s feet at the corner of her hazel eyes and grooves going from her nose to her chin. Her hair was no longer the natural gingery red that ran in her side of the family but was going grey. She was busty and had legs straight like tree trunks and they were mottled with sitting too close to the fire during winter. She wasn’t at all like Betty’s mother.

‘Well, are you going to tell me what you’ve been up to?’ demanded Elsie.

‘I’ve been round at Irene Miller’s house, listening to records,’ said Betty. ‘Her brother, Jimmy, who’s in the merchant navy, has just brought her the latest Johnnie Ray from America. It’s called “All of Me”.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t waste time with her,’ said Elsie, frowning. ‘And why listen to that caterwauling rubbish? He wails “cry-i-ing over you”,’ she sang in quite a decent voice. ‘Mario Lanza! He’s the one you should be listening to.’

‘You like “Because You’re Mine” don’t you, Mum?’ said Maggie.

‘That’s right, love,’ said Elsie, giving her younger
daughter a look of approval. ‘You know a good singer when you hear one.’

‘I think he’s great,’ said Maggie, heaving a sigh. ‘I like Danny Thomas, too. Remember him in that film last year with Doris Day?’

‘
I’ll See You in My Dreams,
’ said Betty. ‘He sang “It Had to Be You”.’

‘That was a lovely song,’ said Maggie.

Betty leant her back against the table and folded her arms across her bosom and smiled. ‘You’re a romantic. There are plenty of singers with voices just as good as them. Frankie Laine, for instance.’ She began to sing ‘Mule Train’.

‘I can do without you belting that out,’ said Elsie, emptying potatoes onto the table. ‘You can start peeling these, Betty.’

‘OK,’ she said, opening a drawer and taking out the potato knife. ‘But what about his version of “Jealousy” and that one he sang with Jo Stafford, “Hey, Good Lookin”?’

‘Enough!’ cried Elsie, putting her hands to her ears. ‘I’ve a blinding headache coming on. Maggie, you fry the sausages. I’m going to take some Aspro and have a lie-down.’

‘There’s a letter for you from Jared on the sideboard,’ said Betty.

Her aunt’s expression altered. ‘Why didn’t you say so straight away?’ She hurried out of the kitchen, picked up her son’s letter and went upstairs.

‘I’m going to have to put everything away, as well as cook the sausages now she’s gone,’ complained Maggie. ‘She should have come home from town when I suggested. She got all hot and bothered and I thought she was going to faint.’

‘I heard her talking about hot flushes to next door the other day and something about “the change”,’ said Betty.

‘What’s that?’ asked Maggie.

‘Something women go through when they reach her age. I think it means they can no longer have babies.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Maggie. ‘Why should she go all faint because she can’t have babies anymore?’

‘Don’t ask me!’ said Betty. ‘Your mother never tells us girls anything. It was your Dorothy who had to tell me about periods when I started with them.’ She changed the subject. ‘Did your mother buy you anything new?’

‘Only white gloves. I lost one of the pair she bought me at Christmas. She was a bit narked about it to be honest. I felt guilty because she said she didn’t want to be spending money out on gloves for me again,’ said Maggie gloomily.

‘If she’s so short of money, she should make you do without,’ said Betty firmly.

Maggie looked annoyed. ‘I have to have a pair of gloves to go to church.’ She placed several packets on a shelf in the larder. ‘Remember Dad?
Until he got ill, he was really generous when it came to finding ways to provide us with pocket money.’

Betty recalled how they’d had to earn their shilling by making him a cup of tea or going to the shops for his cigarettes or evening
Echo
. Fortunately, since her mother’s death, she had found herself a little job doing messages for an elderly widow down the road. This she kept quiet about because she was convinced her aunt would take the money from her if she knew about it. As it was, Betty had managed to save her shillings and had them hidden away in an old sock beneath her mattress.

Fortunately, her aunt didn’t set foot in Betty’s bedroom as she was expected to keep it clean and change the bedding herself. As soon as their evening meal was over, she planned on going up to her room and writing a reply to Emma’s letter. She decided not to mention it to Maggie, just in case she went and told her mother. This would be Betty’s secret.