Megan of Merseyside (7 page)

Even more disconcerting was that she wouldn’t be seeing Miles. Along with Bob Donovan, the other shipping clerk, and Mr Newbold, they had been given some extra days off and so they wouldn’t be back at work until the New Year.

The only people in the general office were Mavis Parker and Olive Jervis, and after a brief, disinterested greeting they completely ignored her.

Mavis spent most of her time perched on the end of Olive’s desk, near the switchboard. The two of them were sharing details of how they had spent Christmas and what presents they had received. Whenever they heard the tap of Valerie Pearce’s heels, Mavis would scuttle back to her own desk and hammer away on the typewriter at her usual frantic speed.

Confident that she could now type reasonably well, Megan rather shyly suggested to Mavis that perhaps she could help by typing up some of the invoices.

‘What’s going on, you after my job, or something, kiddo?’ Mavis asked as she and Olive exchanged amused glances.

‘No, of course not! I haven’t any work to do and you seem to be snowed under,’ explained Megan, indicating the huge pile of work stacked up on Mavis’s desk.

‘Well, OK then. I suppose it will be all right. Have a go if you want to, but don’t go making any mistakes or messing them up, mind.’

‘Robert Field came to your place on Christmas Day, didn’t he?’ commented Mavis when Megan returned a batch of neatly typed invoices.

‘Yes, he did. My father is his co-driver, and he invited him,’ explained Megan. She felt uncomfortable and wondered how on earth they could have known about Robert spending Christmas with them.

When they’d lived in Beddgelert, it had been understandable that in such a small village everyone knew everybody else’s business, but here, in a city the size of Liverpool, it was uncanny.

‘You’ll soon learn that you can’t have any secrets in this place,’ teased Olive, leaving her desk and coming over to join them.

‘Is your dad a member of this new
Plaid Cymru
outfit that’s started up in Wales?’ probed Mavis, her green eyes hard and sharp.

‘Why do you want to know about something like that?’ Megan hedged as she saw Mavis and Olive exchange knowing glances.

‘The police were here making enquiries about him a couple of weeks back … after that fire at the Top Ten Jazz Club.’

Megan looked bemused. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

‘You must have read about the fire. It was on the front page of the
Liverpool Echo
,’ Mavis reminded her.

‘The police think it was a torch job,’ explained Olive. ‘The club only opened at the beginning of December and two weeks later it was burned to the ground.’

‘And they thought it might be
Plaid Cymru
who’d done it,’ added Mavis. ‘They’re pretty ruthless at burning places down so as to get attention, aren’t they!’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about and I don’t know what on earth it has to do with my father,’ defended Megan hotly.

‘Nothing, possibly,’ Olive shrugged. ‘The police were making enquiries, though, and Watkin Williams was one of the people they wanted to question. Didn’t he tell you?’

‘No!’

‘I thought that must be why your dad asked Robert Field to your place for Christmas, because he was grateful to him. It was Robert who spoke up and cleared his name,’ Mavis added cattily.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Robert Field told the police that your father was with him when it happened. He gave him an alibi, if you see what I mean.’

The news disturbed Megan. She could think of nothing else all morning and at lunchtime she went to see if Lynn was at the Stork Club to find out what she knew about it.

Tentatively, she explained to the doorman that she had a message for her sister and she thought she might be in there.

‘You mean you want to go in and join her?’

Megan shook her head. ‘I have to be back at work in twenty minutes,’ she explained.

‘But you wanted to have a word with her?’

‘Yes.’ Megan gave a small smile.

He frowned heavily and for a minute Megan thought he was going to turn her away.

‘You better go in and see if she’s in there, then!’

The Stork Club was packed and just as smoky and noisy as Megan remembered it from her previous visit. The only difference was that instead of the music being supplied by a live band, it was coming from gramophone records.

Megan found Lynn, with about ten other girls, moving in time to the music that was blaring out.

‘Whatever are you doing here, Megan? Have you come to spy on me?’ Lynn gasped as her sister grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to one side.

‘No! I want to ask you something.’ She paused and looked round hesitantly and then lowered her voice. ‘Did you know that Dad was questioned after the Top Ten Jazz Club burned down a couple of weeks ago?’

‘Yes, of course I did!’

‘And you never told me!’

‘The police came one night when you were out at night school.’

‘And you mean that none of you thought to tell me about it when I got home!’ Megan repeated in astonishment.

‘Our mam was upset and said she didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘That’s not the point! I should have been told,’ Megan fumed.

‘Don’t shout at me,’ Lynn scowled. ‘I was probably in bed when you got home.’

‘You could have told me next day.’

Lynn shrugged. ‘What are you getting so upset about? Everything was all right. The police went away when he told them that he wasn’t even near there and that Robert Field could vouch for him and prove that he had nothing at all to do with it.’

‘And no one said a word to me about what had happened! Can you imagine how I felt today when someone at work asked me about it?’

Lynn pulled a face. ‘Keep your hair on. It’s no big deal.’

‘You don’t understand, do you! I felt awful not knowing anything about it. I think they thought I was trying to cover up.’

‘So what!’ Lynn said dismissively. ‘It’s all over and forgotten now.’

‘Maybe it is, but I still want to know why the police picked on our dad,’ Megan insisted in a bewildered voice.

Lynn shrugged her shoulders. ‘That’s the way of it when you’re a stranger.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Flash did. He said that Dad’s new round here and when the police heard that he had come from Wales then it made him a number one suspect when something like that happened.’

‘Flash says?’ Megan frowned. ‘Does that mean you are still meeting him?’

‘Of course I am. I’d have a job not to since he’s a regular here.’ Colour flooded Lynn’s round cheeks and she avoided Megan’s eyes.

‘You watch your step with this chap Flash,’ Megan warned. ‘I bet he doesn’t know that you are still only a schoolgirl.’

‘I shan’t be for much longer,’ Lynn told her, tossing her head defiantly.

‘Oh yes you will be, for quite some time yet,’ Megan assured her. ‘If you pass your exams this summer then you can go on to technical college …’

‘You can forget that right away,’ her sister exploded hotly. ‘And don’t go putting any of those stupid ideas in our mam’s head either. I’m leaving school at Easter.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Oh yes I most certainly can. In fact, it might even be earlier. I’m going to ask if I can leave on my birthday.’

Long after she was back at her desk, Megan was haunted by their conversation. Although she was only two years older than Lynn, Megan had always been made to feel responsible for her younger sister and the habit was hard to break.

When Lynn had first started school, she had been expected to make sure that no one bullied her. With her fair, wavy hair, enormous grey eyes and round, pretty face there had been very little likelihood of that ever happening.

Even at five, Lynn had been gregarious. Making
the
most of her wide, cheeky grin and dare-devil nature she easily made friends.

In fact, Megan recalled, she’d been the one who had been bullied at school, often by Lynn and her playmates. And if she ever complained about it her mother refused to listen.

‘Picking on Lynn because you are jealous of her is a waste of time as far as I am concerned,’ Kathy would scold. ‘You’ll do a lot better if instead of burying your nose in a book you go out and play with your sister and her friends.’

That hadn’t been easy because Lynn and her friends didn’t want her around. Now, though, with Lynn’s birthday only six weeks away, Megan felt she ought to try to talk to her and make her see sense.

The trouble was, Lynn hated taking advice. It wouldn’t be easy convincing her that she might be ruining her future prospects if she left school too early and without any qualifications.

It was not only a matter of her leaving school, either. It worried her that Lynn was still visiting the Stork Club even though they’d both been told not to do so. Equally worrying was the fact that she was still meeting this boy called Flash.

None of them had met him, and Lynn didn’t even seem to know his proper name or where he lived. He was obviously a reckless sort of character to have earned a nickname like Flash.

She didn’t like telling tales about her sister, but she felt her mother and father ought to know in case Lynn landed herself in some sort of trouble.

Chapter Eight

WATKIN WILLIAMS WAS
extremely concerned when Megan told him that Lynn was planning to leave school as soon as she possibly could.

‘Don’t you worry about it, I’ll have a quiet word with her,’ he promised.

Lynn was almost a replica of what Kathy had been like when he had first met her and it seemed to him that history was repeating itself.

He would never forget the first time he had met Kathy. It had been a bitterly cold, wet November night. The crowd of sailors he had come ashore with had decided to go into a pub called the Angel. Kathy’s smile had been so warm and friendly when she came over to take their order that he had fallen for her on the spot.

When the others decided to leave, he had stayed on, smoking a cigarette, waiting for her to come and clear the table so that he could talk to her.

By the time the Angel closed he had won her interest and knew he was madly in love with her. The thought of sailing on the morning’s tide, and perhaps never seeing her again, filled him with despair.

He had taken her to the State Restaurant for a meal, the only place that was still open. When that closed, they sheltered against a corner of the
building
, his greatcoat shielding her from the cold drizzle as they made love.

His ship had sailed before dawn but, when he returned to Liverpool six months later, the moment they disembarked he’d gone straight to the Angel to look her up.

A hatchet-faced woman behind the tea urn had laughed at him when he’d asked for Kathy Miller. ‘Some sod put her in the club the end of last year and then sailed off. Don’t know where she is now.’

All the time he had been away at sea he’d thought constantly about the pretty fair-haired girl who’d won his heart. He’d been strictly brought up and now he was aghast at what had resulted from his unforgivable, rash action.

Anxious to make amends, he was determined to find her. He’d asked around for several days and then, surprisingly, he had bumped into her in the busy shopping centre. The fair, wavy hair, the deep-set grey eyes, the round, pretty face were just as he remembered them. Instead of looking slim with delicate curves, however, she was now heavily pregnant.

She recognised him immediately and he thought she was going to faint she went so white as she murmured his name. They were married as soon as he could get a licence. Ten weeks later Megan had been born.

He’d been bewitched from the moment he set eyes on the baby. Megan had his dark hair, and dark eyes. As she grew older they shared so many similar interests that it was like reliving his own childhood all over again.

Lynn, who had been born two years later, took after Kathy, something that became even more apparent as Lynn grew older. They were like two peas from the same pod. As well as looks, she had her mother’s impulsive nature, love of noise and crowds, and her habit of sulking if she couldn’t have her own way. Like her mother, she was also prone to inconsequential chatter, a habit that irritated both him and Megan.

Neither Kathy nor Lynn had been really settled in Beddgelert. He’d persuaded Kathy that they should go to live there with his mother after the war had started in 1914, but right from the start she’d been alienated by what she called the desolation and wildness.

It bewildered him when she claimed that the towering mountains were overpowering and threatening. Whenever he scaled their rugged sides, and rested in one of the shadowy groves, he found the utter silence peaceful and soothing.

To him the mountains were like sentinels guarding his home. Earth mothers, holding the sheep safe in their green, velvet-soft aprons.

Kathy hated the sheep. She complained that their plaintive bleating made her feel so irritable that she wanted to scream. She refused to walk where they were grazing in case they butted her.

In winter, when the narrow roads around Beddgelert were icy or blocked by snow, she stayed indoors, huddled over the fire, and he and the girls had to do all the shopping.

Only in summer, when the sun was shining and it was hot enough to lie on the sands at
Porthmadog
, did Kathy seem in the least bit happy. Then she was never at home. She would pack up a picnic and take Megan and Lynn to the beach, arriving back only minutes before he got home from work.

He never complained. It was enough for him that Kathy was happy.

Now, when Megan told him about Lynn’s friendship with a boy called Flash, all this came rushing back and all his old anxieties surfaced. He tackled Lynn about it in front of Kathy, hoping she would add her weight to his rebukes.

Lynn stared at him insolently, tossing back her mane of fair hair. ‘Our Megan’s been tittle-tattling about me again.’ She pouted, her big grey eyes filling with tears as she looked at her mother for support.

‘She didn’t need to, I’ve got eyes in my head,’ her father told her sharply. ‘I’ve noticed the change in you since we’ve been in Liverpool. You even dress differently. You go to extremes and wear your skirts inches above your knees trying to look like these young flappers. It’s a wonder you don’t find yourself mistaken for a “totty”. You mend your ways, girl. I shan’t tell you again,’ he threatened.