The Liverpool Trilogy (88 page)
Read The Liverpool Trilogy Online
Authors: Ruth Hamilton
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
‘And from us is taken a pearl,’ he mouthed before descending the stairs. He lied to Mel, said they’d begged her
mother to allow her to stay with Gloria for a few hours. He carved the bird, told jokes, put food in two tiny bowls for two tiny dogs. The pups ate, looked for more, gave up and passed out near the
fire. And the parsnips were slightly underdone.
1941
The second Great Fire of London had happened just three days before New Year. There had been no festive celebrations in Liverpool, but the Luftwaffe had lit up London in the
worst way possible. Few in the north knew much about it, but, as ever, Mel Watson could be relied upon to winkle out the truth from any and every available source. As ever, she wrote down all she
had learned and posted it to Hilda Pickavance.
Published now in a Liverpool newspaper, Mel and Gloria were two of several teenage pairs across the region who contributed to a small but humorous monthly column entitled ‘A Young
Person’s Guide to Survival’. They offered advice on such subjects as the borrowing and lending of clothes, the making over of dresses, and the drawing of straight lines up the backs of
mothers’ legs in order to imitate fully fashioned stockings. Hilda chuckled as she read the latest contribution from Mel and her friend.
Keep your hand steady. Mothers are not impressed by zigzag legs, and punishments can vary from no sweets for a month to the terrible job of cleaning out the back garden
Anderson.
Mel and Gloria wrote hilarious anecdotes about their families, their friends, and Spoodle and Pandora, the Deadly Duo.
If you are afflicted by a dog, get the priest in and the house blessed. So far, we have lost items of underwear, a scarf and some Latin homework. Nobody told us that dogs
eat stair carpet and table legs. As for the homework, why did the teacher laugh? IT WAS TRUE!
Hilda put away her first Great Fire of London lesson for the second time. The first fire had been a good thing to an extent, as it had eradicated plague by cleansing the city of rats and their
disease-bearing parasites. But the present deliberate attempt to wipe out the City of London was appalling. Mel and Gloria were getting to know journalists, and journalists gossiped. Although
positive propaganda was allowed, the people of Britain were, for the most part, shielded from the absolute truth. It was about morale. No matter what, as few as possible were allowed the full
story. ‘I suppose if we do get invaded, the first we’ll know of it is the sound of jackboots pounding in our streets.’ Hilda placed Mel’s newspaper clippings in a folder and
took out the latest letter.
My dear Miss Pickavance,
I have to thank you again for my bank account. I know I keep doing it, but you are my saviour, and I can now concentrate on exams. You are wonderfully kind and generous!
The most awful thing happened in London on 29 December, and it has taken me a while to collect information. The event almost defies description, and I doubt we shall ever get the full
truth, but an American journalist who is trying to shame his country into helping us witnessed it and sent copies to newspapers everywhere, and I managed to read some of the piece.
‘You would,’ said Hilda to an empty room. Mel’s inquisitiveness would surely land her in trouble sooner or later.
Wave after wave of bombers came over, and each bomb weighed more than five hundred pounds. An incredible fifty tons hit London, and they took out the main telephone
exchange, damaged Waterloo, Cannon Street and London Bridge stations, hit shelters and people in the streets. At Moorgate, heat buckled railway lines. A breeze fanned the flames, and then the
breeze became a gale. Buildings, some of them five storeys high, crumbled and collapsed, killing fire-fighters and citizens trapped by flames, heat and falling masonry. The true target, St
Paul’s, was completely surrounded by fire. Nelson, Wellington and Christopher Wren rest in the vault. Ordinary folk turned up at the cathedral to pray and to help. The dome, which is just
lead resting on wooden joists, did catch fire, but amateur fire-fighters managed to extinguish the flames. It has been described as a firestorm, as the second Great Fire of London, and as the
hurricane from hell.
A Victorian warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of valuable books was consumed. St Bride’s, designed by Wren, is no more. Fleet Street is flattened, and many homes and places
of work are gone. There was no singing in the underground on this occasion. People prayed to die rather than to survive injured, because many are already maimed and disfigured for life as a
result of these bombardments. But this was a terrible night, the worst so far. London can’t take much more. Firefighters are dying. Our capital will die, too, if this sort of bombardment
is repeated. We have no alternative but to fight back in the same cowardly way, hit Germany and run, hit and run. Terrible.
Countless incendiaries were delivered so that targets would be visible, and it is rumoured that a third wave of bombers was ready to take off from France, but weather stopped it and
Hitler was furious. We have lost banks and businesses by the score. They didn’t get St Paul’s. Churchill issued a direct order that St Paul’s must be saved.
Hilda sat on her bed and wept. London belonged to everyone. Buildings designed and erected over hundreds of years had been razed to the ground in a matter of hours. Gone was Britain’s
strength as a near-impregnable island, because death arrived airborne these days. Roosevelt’s contribution had been to make both sides promise to play nicely, and not aim for people in the
streets, but this was Hitler’s way. He walked into countries after the Luftwaffe had pounded them into submission; now he was attempting the same with England. He was gunning for innocent
citizens. ‘So yes, Mel, we have to do the same,’ she whispered sadly. Heinrich and Günter, due to start working on Yorkshire farms, were proof positive that Germans were not all
bad. But bombs did not discriminate, and Churchill would be hopping mad.
To be fair, the Americans had helped financially, but oh, how Britain needed their forces now. Hitler would resort to any tactic, however cruel and wild, in his insane search for domination.
Nellie’s ‘Why?’, asked on the night when Heinrich had descended from the sky, was unanswerable, because the explanations about Poland and saving one’s country failed to
address the basic question. There could be no sensible excuse for behaviour such as this. Germany had to be stopped for the sake of its populace, since the Fatherland was in the hands of
lunatics.
Mum and Dad are almost ready to depart. It will be interesting to have Mrs Openshaw here, as she is quite a character, and she will be company for Gran. Fortunately,
there’s plenty of room in this place.
Sadness still sits in the house, because we all remember how lovely and funny Miss Morrison was. I claimed her little bell, the one she used to ring when she needed us or wanted company.
I mean to treasure it for the rest of my life, since she was so precious.
Mam owns the property now, though probate has to be settled, and she was threatening to charge Gran and Mrs Openshaw rent. It was another joke, of course, one of the many we are forced to
endure. I believe that Mrs Pilkington, originally from Rachel Street, is getting her mother over to Willows Edge to look after the children while Mrs Pilkington runs the post office for Mrs
Openshaw.
I really do miss our landlady. Mum, Dad and I cleared the room out and Dad put the bed etc. upstairs in the old lady’s original bedroom. We got some second-hand pieces and are now
the proud owners of a formal dining room, though the chairs don’t match each other. The sideboard was of poor wood and very plain, but it serves its purpose by housing Miss
Morrison’s lovely china. We have kept her easy chair by the fireplace with her favourite shawl draped over the back. Sometimes, I sit in it and talk to her in my head.
There was no Christmas. I spent the day with my friend Gloria and her family, and did not find out until I got home that Miss Morrison had died on Christ’s birthday. We console
ourselves with the knowledge that she was happy in our company and that she lived a long and useful life. My mother cried a lot. It was the first time she had helped lay someone out.
The funeral was amazing. Two of her ‘girls’ spoke at the service in St Michael’s C of E church, and it was standing room only. They weren’t girls; they were
grandmothers, and it took them the best part of half an hour to read out the accomplishments of Miss Frances Morrison. Although the church was packed, you could have heard a pin drop. My mother
spoke, too. I was very proud of her – she even made people laugh about the countless cups of milky tea, the coddled eggs and just-right toast, not too pale, not too dark. Knitting was
mentioned, as was the old lady’s tendency to be as deaf as she needed to be according to prevailing circumstances.
Right at the front, a very old man sat in a wheelchair. I spoke to him afterwards as he waited in the porch for his great-nephew to take him home. He was the famous vulgar caretaker. I
told him that she had loved him, and he fixed me with the palest blue eyes I have ever seen. In a rusty, dusty voice, he said that she had been the only one for him, but he was from the wrong
class. For once, I was lost for words. She never exactly told me that she loved him, but I could see it in her eyes every time she spoke about him. Why do people waste love, Miss
Pickavance?
So we approach March, and Mam is more than six months pregnant. My stepfather’s war work in Crosby has been with builders, and he has come to love our city while trying to keep it
safe. Our house here is finally stable and free of what Miss Morrison termed pit props. I think Dad pulled a few strings.
Mam and he need to get away. I pray nothing else will happen to keep them here; I also pray for a sister. Can you imagine how life would be if we got yet another boy? Dad is diplomatic,
says I’ll need a bridesmaid in a few years, so he wants a girl. I know what he really wants – he wants the birth to be easy and his beloved wife safe and well. The sex of the child
is not significant, because he loves Mam so much. So there are one-woman men. One is married to my mother, and another sat in a wheelchair in a church porch in freezing cold. Wasted love? How
cruel life is sometimes.
Please, I beg you, look after my mother when she comes back to Willows. She has been well through the pregnancy, and I know Dad loves her to bits, but Gran has always been with her for
births in the past, and she will be here looking after me. I begin to feel quite a nuisance. This will be our fifth baby, and I want her and my mother to be safe.
Thank you yet again, Miss Pickavance.
Hoping to see you soon.
Mel x
There were snowdrops outside, and they were fading fast. Hilda counted twenty-seven under her window, and she could see clumps of grey-white, drooping flowers spread round the edges of the lawn.
Even in wartime, these preludes to spring caused hope to burgeon in the saddest of hearts. Here and there, premature green swords thrust their first inch above soil. These gladiatorial
announcements were a proud statement from daffodils, narcissi and cheerfulness. ‘We’re coming,’ they said. Jay had planted them just about everywhere, including under the grass,
so the first mowing could not take place until spring flowers had died off completely.
The boys were safe and behaving well. Rob, buried in his Christmas books about farming, muttered from time to time about turnips not being as easy as people thought, about the impossibility of
resting land while there was a flipping war on, about spuds being good for the soil. He had gathered enemies and friends in the animal kingdom, and Bertie was his close ally when it came to
ploughing. Those horses were brilliant when tractor fuel ran low. Bertie, too, was amazing, because he talked to the beasts and managed to urge them on till a job was done. But beetles, mice and
crows were the enemy, and Rob fought them like a trooper.
Ah, here he came. After tapping on the door, he pushed his smiling face into Hilda’s room. ‘Well, I worked it out,’ he announced. ‘It was simple, really. The animals have
to be closer to the farmhouse because they need tending. I’d never looked at it that way. Crops have to be further away.’
‘So will you be arable or mixed, young man?’
‘Mixed. I’m getting used to the animals. Bertie helps. He’s turned out to be a good lad, has our Bertie.’
‘You all have. So has he given up the idea of being a vet?’
‘Too much blood. Me and Bertie want to stay together and rent a farm. He can run a livery while I do the rest. Anyway, Gran says are you coming down, because the food’s going
cold.’
‘I’m coming.’ So was Phil. He was walking across the lawn with Mr Marchant, his teacher. Mr Marchant had been known to say that Phil should be the teacher, so great was his
talent. Snowdrops were not the only good news. Three boys who had led the wild life were gaining sense and knowledge. As for Mel, the world was her lobster, as Nellie often said with that cynical
gleam in her eyes. Nellie was a walking dictionary. She knew all the right words, but preferred her own, and the gleam was the challenge.
‘You coming, then?’ Rob asked.
‘Soon, yes.’
He left the room, muttering this time about soil suitable for carrots, the differences between early and main crop, and the difficulties attached to thin planting.
‘I’ll miss you, Nellie,’ Hilda whispered. That lovely, voluntary Mrs Malaprop would return to Liverpool, and thereby leave a large hole in Hilda’s life. Nellie Kennedy
was a one-off, a light in the darkness, a true friend. But life, as people often said these days, had to go on . . .
Women would trek miles in search of supplies. A whiff of orange peel, a glimpse of a banana, a rumour regarding tinned salmon, and they were off like the proverbial bats out of
hell. A treasure-huntress was easy to spot; the head was always down, the march brisk, the owner-occupier of the body totally out of reach when it came to conversation or even a brief greeting.
