Rainbow's End (44 page)

‘Yes, love, I know. It’s cruel hard. But at least you’re alive, Tolly, and you’re going home. Back to Blighty, she told me.’

‘Oh yes. I’m going home,’ Tolly said gloomily. ‘But for six months or so I’ve got to find somewhere to live until my stump is ready to have the artificial leg put on. Once it’s on, I suppose I shall be able to work or do something. I don’t know.’

Ellen knelt down by the side of the bed. ‘Tolly, what are you talking about? If you’re going back to the Pool, you must go to my home. You know Mam would love to have you and the twins would help you in every way.’

Tolly smiled at her. Even the possibility of staying with the Dochertys was immensely cheering, but after a moment he said doubtfully, ‘Well, yes, but I couldn’t ask that of your mam, Ellen. It’s not as if you and I . . .’

‘No, no, I know there’s nothing like
that
between us, but we’re good friends and Mam is really fond of you, Tolly,’ Ellen said reassuringly. ‘You must . . . look, I’ll write to her today. You must go to Mere Lane. They’ll welcome you, you know they will, and they’ll look after you. When you’re fit and well with your artificial leg and some sort of job to go to, you can chose whether you stay in Mere Lane or go. You know Mam’s got room – the boys are either in the forces or away from home, there’s only Dee and Donal living there now. Tolly, I’ll write to Mam today, I promise you, and I’ll come back as soon as I can and let you know what she says. No – better than that – I’ll get her to write straight to you.’

Tolly raised his eyes to her face. ‘Are . . . are you sure, Ellen? Remember I may still be there when you come home.’

Ellen grinned. ‘Oh, I can bear you if the twins can. Look, Tolly, I haven’t got long, ’cos I’m going back with the ambulance, but I promise you I’ll be in touch in a couple of days and Mam will write as soon as she can. Now, don’t look miserable and don’t feel miserable, everything is going to be all right. ‘Bye, love.’ She bent and kissed his forehead once more, then turned and left the ward.

Tolly lay back against his pillows. Wave after wave of relief was crashing over him. He was suddenly certain that Ada Docherty and the twins would welcome him and at the very thought his worries began to fade. He’d always been a chap who could cope for himself – he’d had to – it was like that when you were orphaned. But being with the Dochertys would make all the difference. He could face whatever came with their help. He grinned at the man in the next bed who was peering curiously at him. ‘That was the nearest thing to a sister I’ve got,’ he said contentedly. ‘I’ll be all right, now.’

‘Post, Mam, and it’s a good one.’ Deidre came bouncing into the room and threw a handful of envelopes down on to the table in front of her mother, ‘There’s one from Ozzie, one from Bert and one from Ellen. How about that, eh?’ She plonked herself down on the chair next to Donal and reached for the loaf. ‘I wonder why letters always come in batches, Mam.’

She began to saw at the loaf with the breadknife and Sammy, who was sitting next to her, leaned across and picked up one of the envelopes and looked at it curiously. ‘There’s not a letter from our Dick or our Fred,’ he said disappointedly. ‘I thought you said from everyone.’

‘Dick isn’t abroad,’ Deirdre said patiently. ‘Pass us the marge and don’t grab, Sammy; if you want some bread, tell me and I’ll cut you a slice.’

‘I want some bread,’ Sammy said hopefully, ‘and some jam.’

‘Say please when you want somethin’. And there’s only a bit of jam left,’ Ada said, turning the envelopes over. ‘Which one shall I read first, eh?’ Without waiting for a reply she slit open the first envelope. ‘Bert is fine,’ she announced, ‘only his friend Chester has been wounded.’ She passed the letter to Donal who was sitting next to her and opened the next one. ‘Oz is coming home on leave in a month,’ she said. ‘That’ll be good; we haven’t seen our Ozzie for a long time.’

The letters as they were opened were handed round the table although Toby, always a silent child, sat stuffing himself with bread and jam and only gave them a cursory glance.

Ada picked up the next letter and scanned it. ‘This one’s from Ellen,’ she said, opening it. After only one glance, however, she gave a sharp exclamation. ‘Oh, my word, Tolly’s been hurt! Oh, the poor feller, hurt bad.’

‘Pass the letter round,’ said Donal. ‘Come on, Mam, gi’s a look at it.’

‘No, Mam, read it aloud,’ urged Deirdre. ‘Oh, I do love Tolly – I wondered why he’d not writ to me lately. Is he in our Ellen’s hospital?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Ada said absent-mindedly. ‘You shall have the letter in a minute; just let me finish.’

For once there was silence round the table as she read. Even Sammy stopped chewing and Toby stared at his mother, round-eyed. At last, however, Ada put the letter down on the table and turned towards Deirdre.

‘What is it? What?’ Deirdre said agitatedly. ‘What’s happened, Mam? Oh, he’s not – he can’t be . . .’

‘No, no, but he’s been badly injured. He’s had his foot blown off and the doctors had to tek the leg off below the knee. Poor old feller.’

‘I remember Tolly,’ piped up Sammy. ‘Ah, poor old Tolly!’

‘Gosh! To lose a leg – is that a Blighty one, Mam?’ said Donal. Everyone knew the meaning of such expressions by now. ‘Poor ole Tolly! What’ll he do?’

‘Course it is,’ Ada said impatiently. ‘Ellen’s writ to ask if we’ll have him here. Poor feller, he’s always so cheerful I forgit he’s a norphan wi’ no folks of his own. He’ll need friends till he picks himself up again.’

‘Oh, Mam, we will have him, won’t we?’ Deirdre said eagerly. I’m ever so fond of Tolly.’

‘Yes, of course he can come to us,’ Ada said, still holding on to the letter. ‘I wish Ellen could come home an’ all. She’s been out there long enough. It’s time she took a break. Still the papers say the tide’s turnin’ at last, so mebbe it’ll be over soon. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Donal said. ‘I’d like to see our Ellen again an’ all. But we’ll definitely be seein’ Tolly soon, won’t we, Mam?’

‘Looks like it. Ellen says I’m to write direct to him,’ cos she’s fifty miles away, so I’ll do that when breakfast is over. Let me see now, he can have the boys’ room, give him some space for once. They’re forty to a ward, Ellen says. They’ll have to let his wound heal afore he can be shipped home, but wi’ luck he’ll be in Blighty in a month or so. They’re going to try an’ git him into a Liverpool hospital if they can, just till his stump is healed up, then he’ll come to us,’ Ada said, smiling at the twins and handing them the letter. ‘You’ve bin ever so good, writin’ to your brothers, an’ Ellen, an’ Tolly as well. I know you’ll give a hand once he’s here.’

When breakfast was finished Sammy and Toby helped to clear the table and the twins set off up Mere Lane towards Heyworth Street. The war had done one good thing as far as they were concerned: both Deirdre and Donal now had a job. Not full-time jobs, of course, because they were still in school, but jobs which kept them busy after school and on Saturdays.

Deirdre was still working in her aunt’s shop but she didn’t go in after school often because there was insufficient business what with rationing and shortages, and Donal was a delivery boy for one of the local butchers, working for them in the holidays and in the evenings after school, and he had a paper round in the mornings.

Both twins appreciated the extra money which their efforts brought in, although naturally they gave most of their earnings to their mother, but it seriously curtailed their time together. During the week Donal had an early breakfast and went straight to school after his paper round, then directly to the butcher’s shop afterwards. On a Saturday, however, he always walked to work with his sister and usually met her outside the shop at the end of the day so they could come home together.

Sundays were of course a free day which they could have spent in each other’s company but at the age of thirteen they both enjoyed the companionship of their own friends, so they made the most of the Saturday walks to and from work.

Since today was Saturday, Donal had already done his paper round and wasn’t going in to the butchers until eleven, when the orders would be made up, but Deirdre would be expected in by eight-thirty so when they reached Heyworth Street they both turned left along it. Today Donal would walk his sister to work, then go and pick up one of his friends who lived conveniently close by in Waterhouse Street and they would pass the time together until he was due at his job.

‘It’s good about Tolly coming back, isn’t it, Dee,’ Donal said presently as they walked along. ‘I reckon we can get all sorts of extras for him, don’t you?’

‘Aye,’ Deidre admitted. ‘But it isn’t that, Don. It’s having him back – it’ll be great, won’t it? Do you remember when he used to play with the band in the park? We’d follow him for miles, wi’ Sammy yellin’ from the pram.’

‘He won’t be playin’ in the park for a bit,’ Donal observed, ‘not with one leg missin’. An’ he’ll need both his hands for his crutches – he won’t be able to play an instrument at all for a bit, will he, Dee?’

‘Well, he could if you or I was to trot along beside him carrying his trumpet until he had to play; and then he could, like, prop himself up on his crutches, leavin’ his hands free. Haven’t you seen that chap on Everton Road, the one with a cap?’

‘Oh aye,’ Donal said, ‘But Tolly isn’t like that. He wouldn’t feel right being stared at.’

‘Rubbish,’ Deirdre said briskly, ‘Tolly wouldn’t mind, but anyhow people won’t stare, particularly once he’s got his artificial leg. Oh, he’ll be all right – just you wait and see. I do like Tolly.’

‘Aye, I know you do,’ Donal said. ‘And so does our Ellen, eh?’

‘If it weren’t for our Ellen, I’d like Tolly for my sweetheart,’ Deirdre confided. ‘Still, there you are – they was always ever so fond, I bet they’ll marry, don’t you, when our Ellen gets back?’

‘Yes, bound to, an’ even if they don’t, Tolly won’t want a kid like you!’ Donal said. Marriage seemed to him to be an infinitely boring subject. ‘I wonder if he’ll let me have a go on his crutches?’

Deirdre aimed a swipe at him. ‘I won’t be a kid for ever and as for the crutches, that’s all you boys think about,’ she said. ‘
Will he lend me his crutches
? He’ll need them himself, you fool.’

‘Not all the time, he won’t,’ Donal objected. ‘He’s not going to use them when he’s sittin’ in a chair. He might let me have a go on them then.’

‘Yes, well, don’t you pester him,’ Deirdre said darkly. ‘If you pester Tolly I’ll chop
your
bleedin’ leg off for you, so help me.’

‘Shut your face, our Dee,’ Donal said, grinning. ‘You’ll be as keen yourself to have a go on the crutches, you know you will.’ They stopped outside the bakery shop. ‘Well, you’d best be off in. I’m goin’ to see whether Fred’s up yet.’

Going into the shop, Deirdre greeted the other assistants busy behind the counter and went and hung her coat up in the back. In another year she’d be working full time, but it jolly well wouldn’t be in her aunt’s shop if she could possibly help it. She’d go to the munitions factory if the war was still on because the money was good, but whilst you were still in school you had to take what you were offered and the work in the shop, though arduous in some ways, wasn’t particularly unpleasant.

‘Deirdre, get a basket an’ fetch them loaves in from the bake’ouse,’ shouted one of the older women. ‘There’ll be a queue outside ’ere afore you know where we are.’

Deirdre, obeying, continued to think about Tolly. She did like him so much! She thought Ellen was the luckiest girl in the world to have won his affection. If it wasn’t for Ellen, she thought to herself, I’d set me cap at him, even if I am a bit young. Still it was no good thinking like that: she remembered the night on the sands when she and Donal had sat in their tent and watched Ellen and Tolly kissing. You didn’t kiss someone like that if you weren’t going to get wed and that had been ages ago; by now they’d be real fond. Of course, Ellen never said much about Tolly in her letters, except in the most casual way, but Ellen had never worn her heart on her sleeve – not in front of her younger brothers and sister, anyway. Deirdre picked up another loaf and jammed it into the big basket, sighing deeply. Ever since she’d been small she’d dreamed of marrying Tolly one day, but even if she couldn’t have him for herself she’d have him for a brother-in-law and that would be pretty good.

‘Come on, Dee, there’s a queue forming. Get a move on, queen!’

Deirdre crammed another couple of loaves into her basket and set off for the front of the shop. At least Tolly would be home soon, even if he would never have any feeling for her apart from brotherly affection.

‘Right. Thanks, Dee,’ the older woman said, as Deirdre staggered into the shop. She took the basket from her. ‘Now you go on back into the bake’ouse and make us some sangwidges – they’ll be wantin’ them almost as soon as the bleedin’ doors open.’

Deirdre obeyed with alacrity – she liked making sandwiches. It could be difficult in the bakery shop with people queuing for bread and rations and moaning about the dullness of the cakes on sale, but if you were in the back, making sandwiches, you had time to think and to chat, even if you had to work pretty fast. Besides, Nellie was in the back. Nellie was a little older than her – just a couple of years – and the two girls got on well, so as soon as she was able to do so Deirdre told Nellie that Tolly was coming to stay with them.

‘You’ve always been sweet on him, our Dee,’ Nellie remarked, spreading margarine on slices of bread, ‘We’ll never hear the last of this, eh?’

‘He’s sweet on my sister,’ Deirdre said gruffly. ‘Anyway, he’s only got one leg so. Donal reckons we’ll get loads of extras because Tolly’s a wounded soldier.’

‘Well you might, at that,’ Nellie agreed. ‘But you never know, you said Tolly’d lost a leg – might that mek a difference to your sister?’

Deirdre sniffed scornfully. ‘Our Ellen’s a nurse, Nellie. She won’t think like that. ‘Sides that’d be a terrible thing, wouldn’t it, to leave off lovin’ somone just ’cos they’d lost their leg?’