A Liverpool Lass (29 page)

‘He built that too, I guess,’ Stuart said. ‘The hospital’s usually called the Northern, but really it’s the David Lewis Northern Hospital. Probably he built the theatre because he thought Liverpool folk needed somewhere to have a bit of fun as well as somewhere to go when they were sick.’

‘And wasn’t Auntie lucky, that they took her to the
best hospital there is!’ Lilac said. She gave Stuart the benefit of her most dazzling smile. ‘I ’spect that was your idea, Stuart. Oh well, she’ll be out before the cat can lick its ear.’

Stuart looked at her, started to speak, then seemed to change his mind. He stopped just before the great, dark entrance and checked his charges with his eye. ‘Do up your collar, Art,’ he said, speaking perfectly pleasantly but somehow managing to make it plain he expected to be instantly obeyed. ‘Lilac, don’t look so anxious, it won’t do to worry Mrs Threadwell. Come on, then! I don’t know which ward she’s on, but I’m sure there will be a receptionist who can help us.’

Inside the hospital it was quiet and yet it bustled with nurses and people going purposefully about their business. Some of the nurses smiled at the small party, others hurried past without giving them a glance. Stuart went to the desk where a middle-aged lady in a dark dress sat, writing in a big book. He cleared his throat.

‘I wonder if you could help me? We’re looking for a Mrs Ada Threadwell.’

‘Oh yes? When was she admitted, sir?’

Lilac thrilled to that ‘sir’. If Art and I had been alone no one would have called anyone sir, she thought. In fact, if I’d asked, or Art, we’d have been lucky to get an answer!

‘Yesterday afternoon; latish.’

The lady produced an enormous ledger and opened it, then ran her index finger slowly down the long line of names. The lady’s nail was the cleanest thing Lilac had ever seen, even cleaner than a teacher’s. Her hair was smooth, too, her face calm and benign. Lilac found herself relaxing in such undemanding company. She had known several nurses and associated them with red, work-worn hands and tired faces and it occurred
to her that if being a hospital receptionist meant having clean nails and sitting behind a desk reading from a big ledger, it was a job she would very much enjoy.

‘Ah, here it is. Mrs Ada Threadwell, Ward Eight.’ The receptionist looked up at Stuart and then at the two children. ‘I wonder, sir, whether it might be wiser not to go into the ward with the children? It’s an influenza ward.’

‘It’s all right, we were with the patient yesterday; this young lady is Mrs Threadwell’s niece,’ Stuart said. ‘But perhaps Art should wait outside.’

The lady gave them directions to reach Ward Eight and they set off down a long, shining corridor with narrow windows overlooking the street they had just left.

‘I
am
a-comin’ in wi’ you,’ Art muttered hoarsely as they traversed a corridor at right-angles to the main one. ‘I ain’t skeered ... two kids in our school died of it, though.’

They found Ward Eight and went in through the swing doors. A starched nurse approached them, rustling. She looked coolly at the children but her expression warmed a good deal for Stuart. I knew he was handsome, Lilac thought triumphantly. Even the nurse has noticed!

‘Good morning, sir. Can I help you?’

The ward was long and dull, the beds identical, the patients anonymous beneath the tightly tucked covers. Lilac scanned what she could see of them and could recognise no one.

‘Mrs Ada Threadwell? She’s right at the far end of the ward – she’s still very ill, sir. I doubt she’ll recognise you.’

Lilac opened her mouth to say it would be a miracle if her aunt recognised Stuart, then shut it again.
Fool that she was, if she let on that she and Art had only known Stuart a day themselves and that Auntie would not have known him from Adam, someone, some interfering busybody of a person, would whip them away from him before you could say ‘knife.’

They went over to the bed the nurse had indicated. Aunt Ada lay there, propped up by pillows. Her face was no longer waxy pale, there was a faint flush on her cheeks and her lips, which Lilac remembered fearfully as blue-tinged, were a normal colour. Her breathing was hoarse but steady and presently, her lids flickered open and she looked at them – and the shadow of a smile crossed her face.

‘Well, if it ain’t our Lilac,’ she whispered, ‘’ow are you managin’ without your Auntie?’

‘Oh fine ... Aunt Ada, guess who come callin’ when you was took bad?’ Lilac gabbled, taking her aunt’s hand and holding it firmly in hers. ‘This is Stuart, the young man our Nell talked about ... he got you into hospital and he’s taken care of us ... can you say hello to him, Auntie?’

The tired eyes found Stuart’s and held them for a moment and the slight smile warmed.

‘Thanks,’ was all she said however and Stuart, smiling too, jerked his head at Art.

‘All right, we don’t want to tire Mrs Threadwell, so if you two will just wait for me in the corridor, I won’t be a moment. But we’ve some arranging to do, your aunt and I.’

Art and Lilac, without voicing any objections, scurried out of the ward. It was very odd, Lilac thought as they pushed through the swing doors and into the corridor, how nicely Stuart said things, never ordering you about yet managing to make you eager to do as he
asked, anyway. Even Art, known to be a cantankerous soul, didn’t stop to argue with Stuart.

Once in the corridor, the two children faced one another.

‘She was awful ill, wasn’t she?’ Lilac said. ‘But she’s ever so much better now, don’t you think, Art?’

‘She was ill all right,’ Art agreed. ‘But she’ll get well, she looks grand already compared to yesterday. Besides, old people don’t snuff it from flu; it’s kids what die.’

This piece of information heartened Lilac considerably, for though she had noted the improvement in her aunt’s colouring, it was a shock to see her lying quietly in bed, so weak that even a few words tired her.

‘Course, I knew that,’ she said. ‘But I daresay it’ll be a day or two before she’s out, won’t it?’

‘Oh aye. Good thing you’ve gorra pal to stand by you.’

‘Yes, Stuart’s so good,’ Lilac agreed, only to see Art turn a hurt and scowling face towards her.

‘Him! He’ll be gone soon enough. It was me I meant – and me mam and that.’

‘Yes, of course, I’m sorry,’ Lilac said. ‘But Stuart won’t leave me there alone, I’m sure.’

‘Course he won’t,’ Art said stoutly. ‘Because me mam’ll ’ave you to stay at our place when ’e goes. She said.’

‘That’s nice.’ Lilac tried not to remember the crowd of mucky little kids who were Art’s younger brothers and sisters, the dirty house, the idle way fat Mrs O’Brien behaved towards her large brood.

‘Yes, she’s awright, our mam. I say, Lilac, what’s a philan ... phinath ...’

‘Oh, you mean what Stuart said that David Lewis was? It’s a feller what builds big buildings, plans ’em
and that,’ Lilac said airily. ‘Sometimes they call ’em artitecks ... somethin’ like that, anyway.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Art said. ‘Hey-up, ’ere comes Stuart!’

Stuart visited the hospital for the last time on the day he got his sailing orders. By now, Aunt Ada was sitting up and taking notice. She was taking milky drinks, eating soft things like porridge and rice pudding, and was clearly hauling herself back to full health at a remarkable rate of knots.

‘She’s got the constitution of an ox,’ the ward sister told Stuart when he asked how long her patient would have to remain in the hospital. ‘She can stay two more days just to be on the safe side, but considering the state she was in she’s made a remarkable recovery. Because that flu kills strong men and healthy, well-nourished women who’ve never touched a drop of alcohol in their lives.’

Walking home after the visit was over, Stuart wondered aloud why the ward sister thought Aunt Ada had been in a bad state. He glanced at Lilac’s face as he spoke and thought she looked a trifle pink, but they were walking fast ...

‘Lilac dear, does Mrs Threadwell have any problems that I should know about?’

It was the nearest he felt he could come to asking a question which could be taken very much amiss. But Lilac looked up at him with those blue, brilliant eyes and answered easily, spontaneously. And why should he doubt her, after all?

‘Problems, Stuart? Well, a touch of rheumatism in her knees now and then, which is why I usually scrub the kitchen floor over, but otherwise she’s sound as a bell.’

‘Well, that’s good,’ Stuart said. ‘And she’ll be out the day after tomorrow. Can you manage until then, love? Because I’m sailing on the tide tomorrow, about eleven o’clock. In normal circumstances I’d stay until Mrs Threadwell was able to move back into the house again, but in wartime there are only a certain number of sailings and I dare not miss mine.’

‘Then you really are going?’ Lilac said wistfully. ‘Oh well, thanks ever so much for everything, Stuart. I’ll write and tell Nellie how good you’ve been ... you’ll come back?’

‘Nothing would keep me away,’ Stuart promised, thinking at once of his Nellie, her steady grey eyes, her clear, pale skin and the bell of light brown hair which framed her small face. And of the sweet way she had surrendered to him, the feel of her arms round his neck and the sudden, convulsive movements of her as her passion mounted. For she was a passionate and generous lover, despite her shyness and lack of self-confidence. She was not the first woman he had slept with but she was the only one, he thought now, that he would never forget. And it was nothing to do with their lovemaking; scarcely a day had passed since their first meeting that he had not thought of her, wanted her. ‘As soon as the war’s over and I’m in Blighty again ...’

Lilac smiled and hugged his hand to her chest for a moment. Stuart tactfully withdrew from the embrace as soon as he could. The child clearly did not realise that her breasts were forming. He supposed he ought to tell her that she should not allow men to touch ... but how could he possibly do such a thing? For all her burgeoning figure she was still very much a child.

‘So you’ll be all right?’ Stuart persisted. ‘Until Mrs Threadwell actually arrives home, might it be better
if you stayed with Mrs Rafferty, next door? She’s a kind old soul ... or there’s the Briggs at No. 3, or even Art’s mam, I suppose.’

Stuart had not taken to Art’s mother. Mrs O’Brien was an idle slut who gave her kids more slaps than kisses and saw no shame in being fat when her children looked – and probably were – half-starved. What was more she had a vicious tongue and had ruined many a reputation. After the shortest of meetings, Stuart realised that Mrs O’Brien was jealous of Nellie because she had bettered herself by becoming a nurse, and thought it unfair in some way that Lilac was bright at school and bidding fair to be a beauty. If she got her hands on the child he was convinced tears would follow – and they would not be Mrs O’Brien’s tears.

‘Ye-es, only I know Art’s Mam best,’ Lilac pointed out. ‘Can’t I stay in the house, Stuart, just for one night? I’ll be all right, honest.’

But Stuart felt Lilac should be with someone else and if she insisted that she felt more at home with the O’Briens, then the O’Briens it would have to be. Besides, as she said, it would only be for one night, she could not come to much harm in that time.

Yet when they reached the court and he saw Mrs O’Brien slopping round in a worn pair of clogs which had been given to one of the kids by the local policeman, he hesitated. Perhaps the kid would be better alone ... after all, what harm could come to her in one night? And she was a pretty young girl; he had seen the look in Mrs O’Brien’s eyes when her gaze lit on Lilac and he had recognised calculation as the prevalent emotion there present. A pretty young girl would always be at risk where women like Mrs O’Brien were concerned. No, Lilac had best spend the night in her
own home ... and Mrs Threadwell would be back soon enough.

Next morning, Stuart said his goodbyes, shook Art’s hand, gave Lilac a chaste kiss on the brow and humped his kitbag and his notebooks and pencils round to the docks, comfortably aware that he had done his very best for Nellie’s Lilac.

Lilac went around in a daze for the rest of the day. What happiness was hers, for had not Stuart actually said nothing would keep him from her side? He had, she remembered it clearly.
Nothing would keep me away
, he had said, and there could be no clearer indication, surely, that he was as fond of Lilac as she was of him?

Of course, he liked Nellie – had liked Nellie – before he met Lilac. But Nellie, whilst a dear sister, was no beauty. Nellie was small and plain, Lilac reminded herself, whereas she herself was strikingly beautiful, or would be, once she was full-grown. Why, when she had taken Stuart’s hand and deliberately held it against the swell of her breast he had gone pink with pleasure ... oh, but he was the best, the handsomest ... she could hardly wait for him to return to her side once more!

And if the thought of Nellie and the pain she must feel over the loss of Stuart’s love did cross her mind, it was quickly dismissed. Nellie would meet someone else, might already have met someone else, but in any case, it was scarcely Lilac’s fault if Stuart loved her best.

After Stuart had left Lilac had a good cry, then tidied the house and folded the bedding from the couch neatly and lay it upstairs, on the bed which had once
been Bessie’s. After that she made herself a hot drink of Bovril and ate a small piece of bread with it, then went shopping for a piece of meat of some description. Stuart had given her some money and she intended to make a nourishing stew for her aunt. What was more she had gone out earlier and stopped a passing milkman, who had poured a pint of lovely, creamy milk into her tin jug. Sister Fox at the hospital said rice pudding was good, so Lilac intended to make one over the kitchen fire since she did not want to pay for the use of the baker’s oven.

Walking along Scotland Road with a sharp wind nipping her bare ankles, she decided to go to the nearest butcher first. Reggie Foulkes was a bachelor, a big fat man with round red cheeks and what Aunt had described as ‘a way with the children.’ He had always had a soft spot for Lilac, frequently saving her bones to stew up for soup or a slice of slithery, purple calves’ liver. When she first started marketing for her aunt Mr Foulkes had told her how to cook the liver, even buying her a big onion to enrich the gravy. If he had any meat to spare, for despite rationing shortages were so severe that even with coupons and money you might be unable to buy meat, Lilac knew he would sell her some. Besides, he was nice and anyway it was sensible to keep in with him by spending her money there when she had any to spend.