Queen of the Mersey (28 page)

When Queenie came home from Freddy’s on the Monday after the party, Laura told her that Mr Iles had been to say a flat had fallen vacant over a baker’s shop in Pacific Road.

‘The old tenants did a moonlight flit, owing a month’s rent. Mr Iles said it’s been left in a bit of a state, but he’s having it cleaned up. After tea, we can go round and have a look, see if you think Jimmy will like it. I’ve got a key.

You have to go in through the back yard.’

‘Jimmy’s sure to like anything so long as it’s got a roof. You should have seen the place he lived in on the Dock Road. It was horrible.’

The flat was tiny and very dirty, the furniture cracked and chipped, showing its age. The front bedroom had been turned into a living room with an elderly gas fire in the tiny grate and a meter in the corner to put pennies in. The smallest room had become the kitchen where an outside door had been installed opening on to a set of iron stairs leading to the yard and the outside lavatory. There was a double bed in the remaining room.

‘It’ll be a bit of a squeeze,’ Laura said doubtfully. ‘Jimmy and Pete can share the bedroom. Tess will have to sleep on a camp bed in the front.’

‘She won’t like that,’ Queenie said ominously. ‘Even so, I think we should take it. Jimmy’ll be back on Saturday. He’ll be thrilled to have a place of his own.

When you consider the shortage of accommodation, he’s very lucky.’

‘I’ll tell Mr Iles tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ll take down those filthy curtains and give them a wash.’

Laura and Vera raided their linen cupboards and enough old bedding was unearthed to do the Nicholls until they could buy their own. The same with dishes and a couple of dented saucepans. Vera would let them have a camp bed, but it was only on loan.

On Friday night, Queenie went round to the flat in Pacific Road with a bunch of daffodils she’d bought off a stall in St John’s Market. Laura let her have a vase, though she wanted it back. The flowers were merely hard green heads with only a glimpse of yellow petals showing, but she’d been told to put them in slightly warm water and they might be recognisably daffodils by tomorrow. She heated the water in the freshly scrubbed, if extremely shabby kitchen, and put the vase in the middle of the round table in the front room. Everywhere had been thoroughly cleaned, the lino polished, and the double bed made. The windows shone and the curtains had been washed, ironed, and re-hung. It looked cosy and welcoming. The folded camp bed was on the settee, waiting to be set up for Tess.

Queenie sat down beside it. Now that Jimmy was due home in a matter of hours, she longed to see him. She knew that she would always be safe with Jimmy Nicholls, that he would look after her and love her dearly till the day she died – or he died, she thought with a sigh.

Next morning, it seemed as if every person in Liverpool had decided to buy a book and the first place they thought of was Freddy’s. Queenie was run off her feet. Perhaps it was the extra work that made Steven disappear even more frequently than usual for a ciggie in the Gents.

‘What happens if you become an actor and you’re in a play?’ Queenie snapped when he returned after about the sixth time. ‘Are you going to flit off the stage every five minutes for a smoke? I’ve had queues a mile long and you’ve been no help.’

Steven grinned. ‘You’ve no right to tell me off, Miss Tate. I’m the boss’s son.

I might report you to Dad.’

‘What for? Working too hard?’

‘Working too hard’s a sin in my book.’

‘Working at all is a sin as far as you’re concerned.’ Queenie burst out laughing. Steven was irrepressible. It was impossible to stay angry with him for long, but she doubted if old Rollinson had felt the same.

‘Could you possibly look after things for five minutes while I make a note of the books I’ve sold?’ she asked caustically. A record had to be made in a ledger of all sales, so replacements could be ordered. It was sensible to write down the names immediately, but Steven’s absence had made it impossible.

‘I’ll do my best, Miss,’ he lisped.

She was dredging her memory for titles, when a voice said, ‘Hello, Queenie, girl,’ and when she looked up Jimmy was smiling down at her. He wore a blue-striped, ill-fitting demob suit and clutched a grey trilby hat to his chest. At his feet, stood a cardboard suitcase with all its corners badly squashed. The stitching was coming out of the handle.

‘Jimmy!’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Jimmy!’ She wanted to run round the counter and give him a hug, kiss his lovely, innocent, shining face, but the shop was crowded –

it wouldn’t have been the proper thing to do even if it were not. She recalled the first morning in Caerdovey, on the shore, when he’d spoken her name, just as he’d done now.

‘You look a proper bobby dazzler, Queenie.’

‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’ The war had done him good, physically, at least. He stood taller, erect and dignified. ‘I thought you were going straight to Laura’s to get the key for the flat?’

‘I’ve only just got off the train at Lime Street and I preferred to come and see you first, girl.’

Steven was watching them curiously. She introduced the men to each other. ‘This is Steven who I work with. Steven, this is my fiancé, Jimmy.’

‘How do you do?’ Steven courteously extended his hand. ‘I understand you were in the Army. Myself, I was in the RAF. I’m still not sure whether I’m glad to be home or not.’

‘I’m sure, and I’m glad an’ all,’ Jimmy said steadily. He glanced at Queenie.

‘If you want the truth, I couldn’t wait.’

‘Ah, well. Unlike me, you had someone to come home to.’ Steven’s face was sober for once.

‘If you can hang on for an hour, Jimmy, we can have lunch together,’ Queenie said.

‘No, ta, girl. I’ll call on Laura for the key, then I’ll collect our Tess and Pete, show them the new place. I’ll see you tonight.’

Not caring about the customers, Queenie leaned over the counter and stroked his face. ‘Tara, Jimmy.’

‘What’s happening tonight?’ asked Steven. Queenie was watching Jimmy march smartly towards the exit. He had lost his awkward, shambling gait.

‘He’s bringing Tess and Pete to Laura’s for a meal. A homecoming. Some people from across the street are coming too.’

‘Who are Tess and Pete?’

‘His younger brother and sister. Their mam and dad died in an air raid and Jimmy’s looking after them.’

‘So, you’ll be starting married life with a ready made family, eh?’

‘It looks like it,’ said Queenie.

Everyone had anticipated that Tess would hate the flat, but perhaps she was too pleased to have left the home to care that she was about to sleep in the living room on a camp bed. She was unbelievably sweet-natured throughout the meal.

Food rationing was still in force and the meal was no different to the sort they’d had in war time; scouse, followed by jelly and custard, but Jimmy declared it was the best he’d eaten in a long while.

‘It’s nice to have you back, lad,’ Albert said jovially. ‘Our own lads have been coming home in dribs and drabs. They’ll be over later, by the way, to take you for a pint.’

‘Can I go for a pint, Mum?’ asked Gus.

‘No, sweetheart. Not for another fourteen and a half years.’

‘Will you come with me?’

‘If you like. While I’m waiting, I’ll make a cup of tea.’

Mary asked Jimmy if he’d killed any Germans during the war and Jimmy said he’d sooner not talk about the war, not just now.

The meal over, he asked if anyone would mind if he took Queenie for a little walk. He promised to be back in time for a pint with the Monaghan lads.

‘Of course no one minds,’ Laura cried. ‘So far, you haven’t had a minute to be alone together.’

Queenie blushed. When Jimmy had gone away, they’d just been friends, as far as she was concerned, anyroad. Now he was back and they were an engaged couple. She wondered how she would feel if he kissed her. It was a relief when Jimmy just took her hand and tucked her arm inside his.

‘The flat looks great, girl,’ he said warmly, ‘a real home from home. You’ve done us proud.’

‘It wasn’t just me. Laura and Vera helped too.’

‘I suppose we should set a date for the wedding soon.’

‘But Jimmy,’ she said alarmed. ‘We’d need somewhere bigger to live, where there’s a room of our own.’

‘You and me can sleep in the big bed and we can get a camp bed for Pete an’ all.

He and Tess can sleep together.’

‘It would be a terrible squash. Besides, Tess will soon be thirteen. She needs her privacy. And where would we sit at night?’ They’d have to go to bed terribly early, not long after tea, if the living room was to be used as a bedroom. And what would happen if they had a baby? This was another of the thoughts Queenie had resisted. The truth was, she liked working at Freddy’s and didn’t want to leave so soon.

Jimmy, bless his heart, was nodding understandingly. ‘You’re quite right, girl.

I didn’t think. We’d be living on top of one another. No, when we get married, we’re going to live in a nice big house with a room each for our Tess and Pete.

In the meantime, I’ll get you an engagement ring out of me gratuity – they gave us twenty quid when I left the Army.’

‘I say, Queenie, Dad would like a word with you,’ Steven said when he appeared, late, on Monday morning.

‘Oh, yeah!’ It was 1 April, April Fool’s Day, and she thought he was having her on.

‘I’m serious. He wants you in his office straight away.’

‘What have I done wrong?’ she cried, panicking. ‘I hope he’s not going to give me the sack.’

‘Dad never gives staff the sack. That’s Miss James’s job. He wants to talk to you about your friend, Laura. Go in the big lift, you’ll find his office easier that way.’

Queenie’s heart continued to race as she stood in the lift taking her to the sixth floor where Mr Theo’s office was situated, along with a big apartment where, according to Steven, he often stayed, sometimes for weeks on end, if things were particularly bad at home.

‘Which they usually are,’ he’d added gloomily.

The lift stopped and she stepped out on to a thick brown carpet in a corridor where the walls were covered with brown and gold mottled paper, almost as thick.

‘That’s it, the door at the end,’ said Eustace, the lift man. He was a veteran of the First World War and his green uniform trousers hid a wooden leg.

The door had a little brass plate indicating the office was occupied by Theodore Vandos. She knocked nervously and a quiet voice said, ‘Come in.’

Mr Theo was sitting behind a huge desk. Figures that looked very much like the twelve apostles were carved on the front. The maroon leather top had a fancy gold border and held a sheet of virgin white blotting paper in a matching leather holder. A fat diary bore the figures ‘1946’ in gold and there was a sparkling glass inkwell with a silver lid. The room was large, at least thirty feet square, filled with equally large furniture, all as elaborately carved as the desk; cupboards, bookcases, a massive table full of papers and magazines.

She noticed Vogue was one. In the white marble fireplace, which resembled a miniature Greek temple, a warm fire burned, emitting waves of heat. Nothing could be seen through the arch-shaped windows except a watery grey sky. None of the adjacent buildings were as tall as Freddy’s.

‘Good morning,’ Queenie whispered, then wondered if she should have waited for him to speak first.

‘Good morning, Miss Tate. Sit down.’ He indicated the chair in front of his desk, which squeaked when she sat on it. There was a long silence while they just stared at each other, Mr Theo with his great, dark, brooding eyes, Queenie unsure whether it was her turn to say something. ‘You wanted to see me,’ she said at last.

‘Ah, yes.’ He looked slightly startled, as if he’d forgotten he’d asked and she was there of her own accord. ‘Steven told me about your friend, Laura. I remember the occasion distinctly. They’d just got married. The young man – what is his name?’

‘Roddy.’

‘He sent a note, asking if the pianist would play ‘Here Comes the Bride’. The waitress told me and I asked her to present them with a bottle of wine. Laura smiled at me. She looked a delightful young woman, starry-eyed, the way a bride should look on the day of her wedding,’ he said eloquently.

‘Oh, but they couldn’t have …’ They couldn’t have just got married, Queenie was about to say. By then, Hester was five and she’d always assumed Laura and Roddy had married years before. But perhaps not. Perhaps there were secrets Laura wasn’t prepared to tell anyone, not even her.

‘Couldn’t have what?’ Mr Theo asked in his gentle voice.

‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter. I was just a bit confused about something.’

‘I would very much like to offer them another meal, meet them personally this time. I take it Roddy survived the war?’

‘Oh, he survived all right,’ Queenie tried not to sound bitter, ‘but he’s left Laura for another woman. She hasn’t seen him in years.’

‘But they looked so happy.’ He appeared distressed by the news. ‘I couldn’t see the young man, he had his back to me, but I could tell by the way he was bending towards her that he had eyes only for his new wife.’

‘They were madly in love. I’ll never understand how Roddy could fall for someone else.’ It seemed a strange conversation to be having with the owner of Freddy’s, but by now she’d concluded that Mr Theo was a strange man altogether. She liked him the first time they’d met and now she liked him even more.

‘Can we ever trust people when they say they love us, Miss Tate?’ he said despairingly.

Queenie didn’t answer. It had sounded like a cry from the heart and she had no idea what to say.

Mr Theo gave himself a little shake and said in a more normal tone, ‘How are you getting on in Books?’

‘I love it,’ she cried. ‘I learn something new every day and I’ve been reading like mad. I finished Pride and Prejudice last night. It’s just like a Mills &

Boon, though better written.’

‘I’m glad you think so.’ He smiled. It was the first time she’d ever seen him smile and she thought it very sweet, if a little sad, like his eyes. ‘Miss James tells me that there’s often quite a big queue. She doesn’t think you’re managing all that well.’