The Girl From Penny Lane (18 page)

‘Call me Alan, please. I’ve every intention of calling you Lilac; it’s such a beautiful name, so appropriate – your colouring is as fresh and striking as a lilac bloom in spring! I wasn’t going anywhere in particular so I can accompany you on a walk, or a ride, or for a meal. Oh, I’m delighted to have found you again, I never thought I would!’

‘If you’d written . . .’ Lilac said, but she sounded indulgent rather than angry, even to her own ears. ‘Why didn’t you write, Alan?’

‘My dearest girl, I did! I wrote from New York, as soon as we arrived, then again a couple of days later. When we docked here I went straight round to 39 Penny Lane and a woman I’d never seen before answered the door!’

‘Oh dear, you can’t trust anyone! She promised faithfully to forward any letters,’ mourned Lilac. ‘What did your letter say, Alan?’

‘Well, I described the voyage and New York, then I suggested we meet at the pierhead at three on Saturday afternoon – a week ago yesterday, that was. So when I saw you strolling along I thought maybe you’d mistaken the day and the date; my handwriting leaves a lot to be desired but you didn’t look as though you expected to meet anyone . . .’ He put his arm round her waist and gave her a squeeze. Lilac drew back, but not very far. It was so good to be admired by someone, especially someone as nice-looking as Alan, and what was more he had a successful career, a big house, rich relatives . . .

‘So what would you like to do, Lilac? Let’s celebrate our meeting up like this – was it entirely by chance?’

‘It was,’ Lilac admitted. ‘I won’t say I’d forgotten you entirely, but you most certainly weren’t on my mind. In fact, I was thinking about someone else altogether.’

He nodded, then took her hand and tucked it into his arm.

‘Naturally, a beautiful girl like you has a great many admirers, but I’m out to prove . . . well, let’s say I’m out to prove that we can enjoy one another’s company. I’ll hire a cab and we’ll go off into the country, to a nice little village I know. There’s a woman who does splendid cream teas in her cottage garden; it runs down to the river, and after we’ve eaten we could hire a boat and go for a row, or walk in the woods, or just stroll through the village, watching the sun set over the hills. What do you say?’

Lilac pretended to consider, but there was no competition, not really. She could go back to her room, boil an egg in her kettle to make herself a meal and cup of tea at the same time, read her copy of
Woman Magazine
which she already knew from cover to cover, mend a hole in her stocking, and go to bed early.

Or she could get into a cab and go off to the country with a handsome young man who was jingling money in his pocket, and have a high old time!

‘Come on, Lilac, take pity on me! It’s a lovely sunny afternoon, but I’ve no one to share it with unless you come out to tea with me. Is there anywhere you’d prefer? I only suggested the country and a cream tea because it’s such a lovely afternoon.’

‘Well, I’ve some mending to do, and a friend will be coming in later . . . oh, all right, I’ll come,’ Lilac said, having quite a job even to imitate reluctance. ‘But I start work at seven tomorrow morning so I’ve got to be in by ten.’

‘Trust me, Cinderella! Hey, cabbie!’

‘Well? Whaddya think?’

Kitty looked at herself in the lid of the biscuit tin which Johnny had produced from somewhere and a slow smile spread across her face. She looked . . . well, different. Respectable. Pretty, even. Her cotton dress was neat and clean and Johnny had found a white belt and a pair of almost white plimsolls, much better than the boots which had been so heavy she’d developed painful blisters.

The previous day he had borrowed some garden shears from a man cutting a hedge. He had told her to keep very still – she hadn’t screamed, even when she felt the metal against the nape of her neck – and he had scrunched cleanly through her curls, chopping away with the shears and a look of great concentration on his face until, apparently satisfied, he stood back.

‘There y’are!’ he had said triumphantly. ‘Lorra girls ’ud give their eye-teeth to ’ave this new-fangled bobbed ’air, you’ve got it for nowt. What d’you think?’

She had felt cautiously up her neck . . . up and up . . . to the ends of her hair which now felt like a prickly garden hedge. Her hands came round to the front.

‘Me lug’oles show,’ she remarked, not sure whether she was voicing a complaint or making a comment.

‘Tha’s right. You’ve gorra wash ’em now, queen.’

‘Ye-es . . .’ She felt across her forehead. ‘Ooh, it’s all bristly, like a bloody sweep’s brush!’

‘It sticks out a bit, ’cos it’s new-cut,’ Johnny said quickly. ‘It’ll soften down after a few washes. Jest you see.’

A few washes? Kitty was about to exclaim that she couldn’t wait years for soft hair when it occurred to her to wonder if Johnny meant she would be washing her hair regular, like say once a month. She opened her mouth to ask him, then closed it again. No point in courting trouble, better to demand a mirror.

‘Gi’s me shears, den, lad, if you’ve done,’ the hedge clipper said as Johnny lowered the shears down onto the pavement. ‘Well, if I ha’ knowed why you wanted ’em . . .’

‘Yeah, but she looks awright, don’t she?’ Johnny said, handing the shears back. ‘There’s a lorra girls ’ud give their right ’ands for nice bobbed ’air, like what our Kitty’s got.’

‘Mmm,’ the man said a shade doubtfully. ‘Oh well, I ain’t never come to tairms wi’ fashions; mebbe you’re right.’

So now, staring critically into the shiny tin-lid, Kitty smiled to herself. Johnny might not be a skilled hairdresser – well, he wasn’t – but he’d done as good a job as he could. And there was no doubt about it, she looked better. Cleaner. And she did look just like the flappers who queued outside the cinemas and dance halls on a Saturday night. Last Saturday she and Johnny had been in Edge Lane, quite near the Brayton Dance Hall, and they had both remarked on the numbers of crop-headed girls in very short silky dresses hanging around outside waiting for it to open.

‘Well? Whaddya think?’ Johnny said again, though Kitty guessed that he’d have a pretty shrewd idea of her feelings just from looking at her face.

‘It’s real nice, Johnny,’ she said at last. ‘You’re right, it’s neater an’ cleaner an’ . . . an’ everything.’

‘Glad you like it,’ Johnny said. ‘Then we’ll go tomorrer. Awright wi’ you? So this arvy we’ve gorra get our stuff together.’

‘What stuff? We don’t want me old clo’es, do we?’ Kitty said. ‘But I’ve got me sack an’ me tins an’ that.’

‘Kitty, why did I decide to tek you with me, eh?’

‘I dunno, Johnny,’ Kitty said humbly. She had frequently asked herself the same question. ‘Why did you?’

‘Because you read, you like books. An’ when you’re holed up in an ’aystack an’ the rain’s comin’ down like stair-rods you need somethin’ quiet to do, which ain’t mischief. See?’

‘You mean we oughter nick some books?’ Kitty said doubtfully. She had always used the free library, but you had to take the books back regular, you couldn’t just borrow them for months on end. ‘Where’d you do that, Johnny?’

‘Nick
books
? Don’t ever let me ’ear you say that agin,’ Johnny said impressively. ‘Ain’t you never ’eard of second’and books? Old ’uns? They ain’t pricy, an’ what’s more to the point, if you looks at it right the ’ole country’s a liberry. Cos the book you buy for a penny or two in Liverpool you can swop for other books in Crosby, or Southport, or Wales, even. ‘Sides, books is . . . oh, they’s special, see? We’ll buy ’em, like toffs.’

‘Awright, Johnny,’ Kitty agreed. She, too, thought books were special but she had never queried the supply of tatty old romance and adventure tales which Johnny fished out of his old brown sack. ‘What wiv?’

‘Money, acourse. Is there anythin’ you can do to earn?’

‘Prig some flowers an’ sell ’em at street corners? Or I could carry shopping. The shawlies will be shoppin’ for Sunday up an’ down Byrom an’ the Scottie any time.’

‘Nah, you ain’t strong enough for that, yet,’ Johnny said. ‘And you’d be bound to meet one o’ your fambly. Best get some flowers, though in the country there’s flowers to pick for nothin’!’

‘You mean you don’t ’ave to nick ’em from a garden?’

‘That’s right. Still, we ain’t in the country yet. Go off, then, an’ meet me ’ere tonight with some money. We’ll get the books first thing in the mornin’, then slide off.’

Kitty nodded. They were under a quiet bridge on the canal, with the light already fading and the water the colour of pewter. It was a good tramp to the flowers she had in mind, but well worth it to buy the books Johnny talked of. She just hoped she would get a say in what they bought; Johnny’s taste ran to bloodthirsty adventure right now, though he’d read most of the children’s classics which Mrs O’Rourke had nurtured Kitty on. But Fenimore Cooper could pall when you’d read ten of them on the trot, as Kitty had.

‘Awright? See you later.’

Johnny raised a hand and was gone, swallowed up by the dusk. Kitty, with a sigh, shouldered her nicking sack, took off her plimsolls and slung them round her neck by their laces and set off too, for the long walk to Rodney Street.

Art had made all his arrangements. He’d even got himself lodgings in a pleasant suburb of Birkenhead. He’d explained to his parents that the money would be better and that, should he be unable to visit, he would send his share of family expenses home by post.

I’ll keep on helping until I have responsibilities of me own, he would have said, once. Until I’ve me own wife and kids to take care of. Once that happens, I’ll need all the money I earn for them.

But he didn’t bother to so much as mention it, since he knew, now, that he wouldn’t be marrying. Not now, not ever. He’d known some decent girls in his time, some beautiful, some plain, some full of bounce and go. But he’d only ever been in love with one of them and that was Lilac Larkin. He’d loved her since he was seven, when she’d come to Charlie’s wedding in Coronation Court in her pink silk dress with its matching ribbon.

She’d been full of courage, even then. He’d teased her and she’d thumped him, kicked his shins with her little black boots, sworn at him . . . he chuckled at the memory. A right tartar, young Lilac. Oh God, what had happened to her to change her so completely? She had become a single-minded little snob, so eager to climb the ladder of social success that old friendships meant nothing to her. Yet how would he go on, without even the hope that one day she’d turn to him?

He was walking down Scotland Road, trying to convince himself that he was making the right move. He and Lilac had had their row weeks ago and she’d not contacted him, given no sign. If only Nellie and Stuart had still been in Penny Lane he could have engineered an accidental-on-purpose meeting but as it was he only knew she was working in Bridgewater Street, at the bag and sack factory. He’d considered hanging about there, but she’d know. He couldn’t bear her to know how he ached for her, how he longed to creep round there and beg her to remain his friend for old time’s sake, even if she couldn’t abide the thought of a closer relationship.

He reached Miss Harriet Young’s ill-fated Dining Room. If only he hadn’t been such a fool as to put into words what his heart had been saying for the last year at least! Stuart had warned him, but he’d taken not a bit of notice.

‘Our Lilac’s young and getting her independence for the first time,’ Stuart had cautioned. ‘Don’t try to tie her down before she’s ready. If you wait, Art old friend, she’ll turn to you. But let her sow a few wild oats first, eh?’

‘I thought it was fellers who sowed wild oats,’ Art had protested. ‘Young ladies aren’t like that!’

Stuart chuckled.

‘Who said our Lilac was a young lady? She’s a modern Miss, a flapper, an ambitious kid . . . call her what you like, she isn’t going to fit into that old out-dated mould! Take my advice – which you asked for, remember – and let her have her fling.’

But he hadn’t, because the job in Birkenhead had seemed such an ideal opportunity, and he was
sure
she’d come down the Scottie hunting for him, sure she’d wanted to see him. And then they’d fought, hurt each other, parted. And she’d not sought him out nor he her, because damn it, even a feller fathoms deep in love has some pride. And now he was leaving, walking up and down the Scottie saying goodbye to the old places, the old ways – his old life, really. And hoping, really hoping, that presently he’d see a red-gold head weaving its way through the crowd ahead of him, or feel a soft little hand catch at his arm, hear her voice with the liquid bubble of laughter in it which he loved so well.

Art walked on. I’ll give it five more minutes . . . ten . . .

Chapter Seven

It must have been the cock crowing in the farmyard which woke Kitty. At any rate, something had. But she was wise to country ways now and did not pop her head out of the cosy nest she and Johnny had made last night in the farmer’s haystack. Instead, like a dormouse, she curled neatly round, taking care not to knock against Johnny, and began, very, very carefully, to shift the loose hay which they had pulled in after themselves when they went to bed . . . not much, just enough to see through.

They had chosen their stack and made their nest in darkness, which was probably why they hadn’t realised quite how near the farmhouse was. Now, through the screen of stalks, Kitty could see the low, grey house, the outbuildings with lichen patching their roofs, the cushions of moss and stonecrop where the slates were cracked and broken. An old farm, she saw approvingly, but inhabited. A cock had crowed, it was clearing its throat for another burst, and she could see a kennel, the black and white sheepdog within raising a head for a moment to listen, before settling down once more, chin on paws.

Kitty, with infinite caution, cleared a slightly better window for herself and gently insinuated her head into the hole she had made. Looking sideways this time, she could see the beautiful countryside, spread out before her like a living map. There was something different about this scene though, something unexpected. Living rough, on the road, she had already learned a lot, and one thing which was important was to know as much as possible about the countryside through which you were passing. Such knowledge, Johnny had impressed upon her, would never be wasted; not in the long run it wouldn’t. Accordingly, Kitty looked round her carefully. Above the farmhouse were the humped shoulders of the Berwyn Hills, and below the farmhouse was a fertile valley. Sheep grazed there, and cattle. The road which snaked along at the foot of the hills was, according to Johnny, the road to London – imagine that! The hedges, which yesterday had been bright with autumn’s passing, looked colder this morning, as though the first breath of winter had touched them . . . of course! What was different was the frost! Sparkling white in the first rays of the sun, already disappearing from the tops of the wind-bent trees, crisping the last of their burden of brilliant leaves, the first frost of winter had painted the valley, touched even the mighty hills with its crystal breath.