Queen of the Mersey (20 page)

‘And she’s a miserable cow, an’ all, that Iris,’ Winnie growled. ‘She looks at me as if I were no more than a piece of dirt. I’d like to give her arse a good kicking.’

‘Yes, well …’ Laura wouldn’t have minded joining in the kicking, but was too ladylike to say so.

Perhaps it was about time she started wearing make-up, she thought, when they arrived at the Grafton and she contemplated her scrubbed, rosy face in the mirror in the crowded cloakroom.

Winnie must have read her mind and grinned at her through the mirror. ‘I told you, you should’ve brought your milking stool.’ She spat on a block of mascara and began to apply another coat, turning her already stiff lashes into a row of little black spikes. The girl on Laura’s other side was dabbing her cheeks with rouge and looked for all the world like a clown. Laura supposed there was a happy medium; a little touch of powder to take the shine off her nose wouldn’t hurt, a smear of pale pink lipstick.

And her woollen frock seemed awfully sensible compared with the other girls’ –

and she was probably the only person there in flat shoes. Still, she hadn’t come to ‘cop a feller’, and only her feelings would be hurt if no one danced with her.

To her surprise, and Winnie’s, she was asked to dance the very second they entered the ballroom where the orchestra was playing ‘Kiss The Boys Goodbye’.

Laura was a good dancer, she had been pleased to discover, and she enjoyed being swept around the floor by a young soldier called Jack who said she reminded him of his sister.

Jack asked her for the next dance and the next, until she felt obliged to bring up the subject of husbands and told him hers was in North Africa, just in case he got ideas.

Winnie was being pestered by a chap she didn’t like and suggested they move to a different part of the ballroom. ‘It’ll put him off the scent. I don’t like to turn him down, ’case he gets nasty.’

They retired to a corner, the orchestra struck up, ‘We’ll Meet Again’, one of Laura’s favourites, when a laughing voice said, ‘Can I have this dance, Winnie?’

Winnie gasped, ‘You bugger! You followed us,’ but didn’t sound as if she minded in the least, as Eric Tyler led her on to the floor.

Ben Tyler looked at Laura, clearly uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, but he insisted.

He’s got a thing about Winnie. I hope you’re not cross.’ He began to edge away.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to cramp your style. I’ll make myself scarce.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Laura spied Jack on his way towards her. He’d obviously tracked her down. ‘I’d love to have at least one dance with you. There’s a young man about to ask me who I’d sooner not dance with again.’ Jack was very nice, but she didn’t want him monopolising her all night.

‘Actually,’ she said, when she was on the floor in Ben’s arms, ‘I find dances rather difficult. You can get stuck with people and it’s hard to get rid of them without being rude. It’s all right for men, they can pick and choose. I don’t think I’ll come again. Anyway, it hardly seems fair, when I’ve no intention of acccepting a date or letting anyone take me home.’

‘Not even me?’ Ben raised his eyebrows. He was a smaller, slighter version of his brother, his hair not quite so dark, his skin a tiny bit paler, which made him look rather delicate. He had an attractive, whimsical smile.

‘Oh, you can take me home, of course. I’ll be glad of the company. Will Winnie and Eric be coming with us, too?’

‘Not if Eric’s got anything to do with it. He has plans for Winnie that involve going back to her house, not ours.’

Laura felt embarrassed. She was well aware that Winnie slept around, but there was something different, she couldn’t quite put her finger on what, about her sleeping with someone like Eric whom Laura knew well.

The music ended. Ben said, ‘Would you like a drink? But please say no if I’m being a nuisance.’

‘I’d love a glass of lemonade.’ It was getting very warm. ‘Though I don’t want to stop you from dancing with other women.’

‘To tell the truth, I don’t like dances either,’ Ben confessed. ‘I can’t remember when I last went. Asking girls to dance takes a certain sort of courage that I don’t have.’

‘I like the atmosphere,’ Laura said when they were sitting at a table on the balcony looking down on the dancers. ‘It’s very emotional and romantic, moving in a way. All these soldiers, sailors and airmen. Who knows where they’ll be this time next week?’ For some, it might be the last time they would hold a woman in their arms. She spied Winnie’s blonde head. Eric seemed to be holding her unnecessarily close as they danced to ‘Two Sleepy People’, not that Winnie appeared to mind. ‘I’d love to come with Roddy. Is there someone you’d like to come with?’ she asked curiously. He was thirty-two, very presentable, and she felt sure he must have a girlfriend back in Newcastle, though he’d never mentioned anyone.

Ben didn’t answer for a while and she regretted asking such a personal question.

She was about to apologise, when he spoke. His voice was strained.

‘There was. Jennifer – Jenny. We were engaged, about to be married, when she decided to give me up for someone richer and better-looking.’

‘Gosh. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It was very rude of me.’ She wished the balcony floor would swallow her up.

‘That’s OK.’ His smile was a touch bitter. ‘I’m all right now, though it took a long time to get over the feeling of betrayal.’

Laura squeezed his hand. ‘You’re bound to fall in love with someone else one day.’

Ben looked at her directly. His eyes were very bright. ‘I already have.’

‘Oh,’ she cried, delighted. ‘Is it someone I know?’

‘It’s someone you know very well.’

‘Not Winnie!’ It would cause dreadful complications as Eric already seemed badly smitten.

‘Not Winnie, no.’

‘And not Queenie. She’s far too young for you.’

‘Not Queenie either, but you’re getting close.’

He was staring at her oddly and she could feel herself going very red. She clapped her hands to her cheeks. They were burning. ‘Not me,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘Not me, surely.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Ben said calmly. ‘I won’t make a pass. I know how much you love Roddy and I’d like us to stay good friends. I shouldn’t have told you, but I suppose the romantic atmosphere got to me, loosened my tongue.’ He stood. ‘I’ll get you another lemonade and after I come back we’ll never talk about it again.’

Queenie was having trouble with her men. She hadn’t been back in Glover Street long before Brian Tyler invited her to the pictures. She went willingly because she liked him. Behind his rather haughty exterior, she sensed he was quite shy.

When he suggested Saturday night, she told him she’d already made arrangements to go out and asked if they could go Friday instead.

‘Friday it is.’ Brian looked pleased.

They went to the Palace in Marsh Lane and saw They Drive by Night, with George Raft and Ann Sheridan. Brian held her hand on the way home.

The following night, Saturday, Jimmy Nicholls arrived to take her to the pictures. They’d already been out about half a dozen times. ‘They Drive by Night’s on at the Palace,’ Jimmy said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

‘It’s all about lorries.’

‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, I’ve already seen it.’

‘Eh? Who’d you go with?’

‘Brian Tyler from upstairs.’

‘But you’re my girlfriend!’ Jimmy said indignantly.

‘No, I’m not.’ Queenie was equally indignant. ‘I’m nobody’s girlfriend.’

‘I thought, after the war, once I’d got a proper job, like, we’d get married.’

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ She was sixteen and had no intention of getting serious with anyone, though felt awful when Jimmy looked terribly hurt.

He was probably the nicest lad on earth, living in a disgusting lodging house on the Dock Road and spending most of his pitiful wages buying clothes for Tess and Pete who were still living in Caerdovey, virtually the only evacuees left. He went to see them at least once a month. Laura sometimes knitted jumpers for Pete, and Queenie had made Tess a dirndl skirt out of blackout material.

She felt so guilty, she told him she’d enjoyed They Drive by Night so much that she wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked pathetically.

‘Absolutely.’

‘Are you seeing that Brian Tyler again?’

She wasn’t prepared to lie. ‘We’re going into town on Wednesday afternoon. It’s me half day off, and he’s still on holiday from school.’ Brian was in the sixth form at Merchant Taylor’s. ‘We’re going to the matinée at the Forum.’

‘What’s on?’

‘Gone With the Wind. It’s nearly four hours long.’ Inevitably, Brian discovered she was seeing Jimmy and said he didn’t want to share her with another chap. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Queenie, but I’d like you to be just my girlfriend.’

‘I’ve no intention of being anybody’s girlfriend,’ she said huffily. ‘You’ll just have to put up with Jimmy, and he’ll have to put up with you. Either that, or we won’t go out.’ She’d be perfectly happy without both of them. She loved her job at Herriot’s, she loved living in Glover Street with Laura and Hester.

She didn’t need one boyfriend, let alone two.

‘But I like you!’ Brian wailed. He was very clever and very spoiled, used to getting his own way.

‘I like you, but I like Jimmy as well.’

Each became so jealous when she went out with the other, that she suggested they went in a threesome. It had been funny at first, both vying for her attention the way Hester and Mary had done in Wales, but they’d only been five years old, whereas Brian was seventeen, Jimmy two years younger. She told them she found them extremely childish.

Eventually, to her relief, somewhat grudgingly, they began to get on. Both avid football fans, they went to see Liverpool or Everton play on Saturday afternoons when Queenie was at work. By the time December came, they had become good friends.

They took turns choosing what to see. Jimmy liked cowboy pictures best, Brian thrillers, and Queenie anything that made her laugh or cry. Tonight had been Jimmy’s turn and they’d seen Destry Rides Again with James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.

‘See what the boys in the back room will have,’ they sang on the way home, linking arms, Queenie in the middle.

Halfway down Marsh Lane, Brian who, unlike Jimmy, was inclined towards introspection, stopped. It was a lovely moonlit night and they could see as clear as day.

‘I wonder where the people are who used to live there?’ Brian nodded towards a row of half-demolished houses. The moon peered through the spaces where windows had once been, through rafters that had once supported a roof. ‘They look like corpses. The flesh has been removed and only the bones are left. It’s strange how we get used to things,’ he said in an awed voice. ‘This time last year, they were perfectly ordinary houses, now they’re wrecks. Half of Bootle has been obliterated, yet we’ve stopped noticing. We can actually walk along the road and sing. I’m surprised anybody, me included, is able to enjoy themselves after everything that’s gone on.’

‘I’ve not stopped thinking about me mam and dad,’ Jimmy growled, ‘but as me old lady said in a letter, “Life goes on”.’

‘I suppose that’s it,’ Brian said thoughtfully. ‘Life goes on. Either you go on, or you go under.’ He began to walk again, more slowly now. ‘You know, I’ll never forget this, being with you two, living in Glover Street, the war, the raids.

Everything. It’s been the high point of my life. I can’t imagine things ever being real again.’

‘You mustn’t think like that.’ Queenie felt quite shocked. ‘It’s as if you don’t expect anything exciting will ever happen again.’

‘Maybe it won’t,’ Brian said in a flat voice.

‘Things’ll seem real to me when I get a car,’ Jimmy said.

‘Oh, come on, both of you.’ Queenie forged ahead, dragging them with her. She was glad to be alive, to be who she was, where she was, and wasn’t prepared to listen to such talk. Laura had said there was enough tea to make a pot when they got back, ‘But only have a cup each. There isn’t much milk left.’ Everyone was out, so they could sit around talking till they came home, listen to Radio Luxembourg, which played all the latest songs. Jimmy wouldn’t go home until Brian went upstairs, and Brian wouldn’t go upstairs until Jimmy had gone, and she’d have to pretend to go to bed to get rid of them.

She was surprised to hear voices when she opened the front door, and found Hester and Mary in the living room lying on the mat in front of the fire reading a book together, Vera relaxing in an armchair, and Sammy, like a little angel, fast asleep on the sofa. The wireless was on and Anne Shelton was singing ‘Night and Day’.

‘I thought there’d be no one in,’ she exclaimed.

Vera groaned and stretched her legs. ‘Iris went to bed, so me and Sammy followed the girls over here. It’s nice, sitting in someone else’s house for a change and listening to music. I didn’t think Laura would mind. I’m sick to death of our place. If I so much as breathe, it gives Iris a headache. What was the picture like?’

‘Much better than most cowboy pictures,’ Brian said.

‘It was the gear, Mrs Monaghan,’ Jimmy enthused. ‘Can I pick Sammy up? I used to nurse our Pete when he was little.’

‘Go ahead, luv. Shall I make everyone a cup of tea? I brought some with me, as well as some cheese scones.’

‘You stay there, Vera. I’ll make it.’

Queenie was setting out the cups and saucers, singing, when there was a knock on the door. ‘Who can that be?’ she asked herself.

She switched off the kitchen light so it wouldn’t show when she opened the door.

A man in khaki wearing a peaked cap was standing outside, clearly visible in the light of the brilliant moon.

‘Good evening.’ He courteously touched his cap. ‘I seem to have mislaid my key.

I’m Roddy Oliver, Laura’s husband. Can I please come in?’

Chapter 7

‘Roddy!’ she cried. ‘It’s me, Queenie. Oh, come in, come in. Laura’s out, but she’ll be back soon.’

He removed his cap and stepped inside. She closed the door and turned on the light. He was every bit as handsome as she remembered, though older, thinner, very sunburnt, extremely weary, but nevertheless he managed a smile that made her heart turn over.