Lights Out Liverpool (36 page)

‘Eileen shrugged. ‘Me reputation will be damaged, anyroad.’ Divorce, particularly from such a fine man as Francis Costello, wouldn’t go down well in Pearl Street, no matter what the reason. ‘But what about Tony, me
little
boy? Francis threatened to take him off me.’

Miss Thomas pulled a face. ‘I’d forgotten you had a child. If it’s the woman who’s been unfaithful, there’s always the risk the man will get custody of the children.’

On Saturday night, instead of going to the pictures, Nick took Eileen out for a meal so they could talk. She relayed the gist of her conversation with Miss Thomas.

‘It looks as though it’ll be an uphill job, but I’m going to try,’ she said determinedly. ‘In fact, Miss Thomas found a solicitor in Bootle who specialises in divorce and made an appointment for me on Monday morning.’

Nick took both her hands across the table. ‘Would you like me to come with you?’

Eileen shook her head. ‘I think it would be best if I went by meself.’

‘No matter what happens, darling, I want us to always be together. Promise me that.’ His dark eyes smiled into hers.

‘I promise,’ she whispered.

Later on, when they were finishing dessert, Nick said, ‘I was thinking of going down to London next week for Easter. Why don’t you come with me?’

‘London!’ Eileen’s first thought was for Tony, who’d been promised a visit to Pets Corner in Lewis’s. She felt as if she was being torn in two, not wanting to let Tony down, but unwilling to hurt Nick by refusing his invitation.

Sensing her hesitation, and perhaps even the reason for it, Nick said, ‘If you’re thinking of Tony, bring him too.’

‘You wouldn’t mind?’

He laughed. ‘For goodness’ sake, woman. You’ve just promised we’ll always be together. How can we be together without Tony? It’s about time he got to know
me
if I’m going to be his stepfather. I’d like a relationship better than the one I had with mine. My stepfather would have preferred I didn’t exist.’

‘Jaysus! I hadn’t thought about it that way.’ For a moment, the problems of the future seemed insuperable. She almost wished Francis were still home and she was back in her life of drudgery and unhappiness; that she’d never met Nick and nothing had changed. She shook herself. It was stupid thinking in such a negative way.

‘What’s wrong?’ Nick was always sensitive to the least alteration in her mood.

‘Nothing. Francis crossed my mind, that’s all.’

‘Tell me about him?’ Nick demanded. ‘What’s he like?’

Eileen didn’t answer immediately. How much should she tell? After a pause, she decided he had a right to know everything, apart from the dark secret only she and Francis shared.

‘He’s charming,’ she said eventually. ‘Really charming – until you get to know him properly, and not many people do that. Only me and Tony knew what Francis was really like.’ In an even voice, she told Nick how they’d met, that her dad had put pressure on her to marry him. ‘Not that I minded too much,’ she said. ‘After all, like I said, he was really charming.’ She explained how Francis had changed once they were married. ‘There’s a saying in Bootle, “outside angel, inside fiend”, and that describes him perfectly.’

Nick’s face grew dark as Eileen continued. ‘Eventually, I told me dad, because … well, I needed somewhere safe to stay when Francis was home on leave last October. In fact, it was me dad who changed the locks on the doors to keep him out. That’s one of the reasons why …’ She paused.

‘Why what?’ Nick’s eyes glittered angrily.

‘Why Francis nearly killed me when he came home at Christmas,’ Eileen finished simply.

‘Killed you!’ Nick exploded. Several people in the restaurant looked at them curiously. ‘Christ! I could murder the man with my bare hands! Come and live with me in Melling! You’ll be safe there. Francis must never come near you again.’

Eileen squeezed his hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled. ‘Francis is in Egypt. I reckon he won’t be back to Pearl Street for a long time.’

After Nick paid the bill, they wandered arm and arm through the blacked out centre of Liverpool towards the car park where his motorbike had been left.

‘Is there a particular reason you’re going to London?’ Eileen asked curiously. ‘Or is it just a holiday, like?’

‘Well, the fact is,’ Nick replied, ‘I’ve been in touch with a chap I was with at university, Ben Fulford, whose old man is a bigwig, a Wing Commander, in the RAF. I met him once and intend bearding him in his den and persuading him to use his influence to get me in.’

‘Nick!’ She stopped and stared at his blurred form, unable to believe her ears.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, surprised at her anguished tone.

‘How can you possibly think of leaving me?’

‘My darling Eileen,’ he said incredulously. ‘There’s a war on.’

‘But you might be killed!’

‘I might be killed anyway; two people have already died in explosions where I work.’

‘That’s different. Oh, how can you not see?’ She could have cried with frustration. She thought, with everything that had happened between them over the last few days, he would have changed his mind about joining up. Men!
what
was wrong with them? Why did they have this uncontrollable urge to fight? Even Tony, only five years old, strutted around with his gun in his shorts, ready to kill Germans on sight. ‘Can’t you ask to be transferred to something more, more …’

‘Humane?’ Nick suggested lightly.

‘Well, yes.’

‘Because it still wouldn’t be what I want. I’ve told you, Eileen, I hate war as much as you do, but it’s a matter of pride, pride in myself and pride in my country. Battle has been joined, as they say. That being the case, I want to be in the thick of things.’

‘I don’t understand,’ groaned Eileen. ‘I’ll never understand.’ He was prepared to risk his life, when he could stay safely at home in a reserved occupation. How could he possibly love her as he claimed?

Suddenly, Nick pushed her against the wall. He leaned against her, his hands on the bricks above her head. ‘Don’t you see, my dearest girl,’ he whispered, ‘that I want you to spend your life with the
real
me, not some silly boffin making boobytraps to blow up unsuspecting civilians? The real me wants to fight, wants you to be proud I’m playing my part. Don’t you see, Eileen?’

She knew it was no use discussing the matter further. His mind was made up.

‘I see,’ she said shakily. But she didn’t see at all. Instead, she prayed the RAF bigwig would refuse to help. Perhaps it was selfish, she didn’t care, but she wanted Nick safe and sound in England.

The solicitor was a handsome middle-aged man with a wild shock of prematurely white hair. Head bent and cupped in his left hand, he made notes with a gold fountain pen as Eileen explained her case. She felt
nervous
and kept losing the thread of her tale, though he remained courteous throughout and corrected her with a smile when she contradicted herself from time to time.

‘In what way was your husband violent?’ he asked in his light, pleasant voice.

‘He used to squeeze my arm or my shoulder really hard,’ Eileen explained.

‘Did he bruise the flesh?’

‘No, but it went red.’

‘And why did he squeeze your arm or your shoulder?’ He smiled encouragingly.

‘If he felt I hadn’t dusted properly, or made him a dinner he didn’t like – that sort of thing,’ Eileen replied, wishing her voice would stop shaking.

‘And did you? Not dust properly? Make him a dinner he didn’t like?’

‘Not deliberately. I can’t remember,’ she stammered.

‘No matter.’ He made a note. ‘Now, about this incident at Christmas. You say the locks had been changed on the doors and he couldn’t use his key?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Had you apprised your husband of this fact beforehand?’

‘No,’ she replied, flustered. ‘Perhaps I should’ve done. It didn’t cross me mind.’ She should have told him when she wrote that angry letter after he’d threatened to take Tony away, but was the solicitor hinting this omission excused Francis’s behaviour? ‘He nearly killed me,’ she said. ‘If me sister hadn’t come in …’

The solicitor didn’t wait for her to finish. ‘Don’t you think, Mrs Costello, that a soldier coming home on leave might be entitled to feel aggrieved when he finds his own house out of bounds?’

‘Perhaps,’ she conceded weakly, ‘but he had no call to try and strangle me.’ She realised with a shock that the man was definitely not on her side.

‘I might be inclined to lose my own temper, if I came home and found my wife had unexpectedly changed the locks,’ he went on.

‘Only if there was no reason for it,’ Eileen argued. ‘With Francis, there was a good reason.’

‘That’s right. He’d squeezed your arm and your shoulder and made them red.’ He made another note on his pad. ‘Sexual relations? What were they like?’

Eileen blushed. ‘Not very nice.’

‘Not … very … nice.’ He wrote the words down slowly. ‘In what way were they not very nice?’

‘He hurt me.’

‘Every night?’

She looked down at her shoes, embarrassed. ‘No. He … we only did it on Saturdays when he was drunk.’

‘Did you ever refuse his attentions?’

‘I tried to, but he didn’t take any notice.’ By now, Eileen knew she was wasting her time and wished she had the nerve to get up and leave. The solictor’s response was almost predictable. He seemed to see things from Francis’s side, not hers.

‘In other words,’ he said pleasantly, ‘although you and your husband had sexual relations just once a week, you would have denied him the privilege completely if you could?’

‘Only because he hurt me,’ she said defensively.

‘I see.’ He smiled again. ‘There is a saying, isn’t there? “If rape is inevitable, just lie back and enjoy it.” I think it’s a matter of relaxation.’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, praying the interview
or
the consultation, whatever it was, would soon be over and she could escape. But it seemed there were still more questions to be asked.

‘Did your husband keep you short of money?’

‘Oh, no, he was generous with money, except that …’ she paused.

‘Except that what?’

‘He insisted on choosing everything himself; the furniture, even my clothes. He always came with me and told me what to buy.’

‘I always accompany my wife when she goes shopping for dresses,’ the man said pleasantly.

‘Do you always tell her what to buy?’

‘Of course not, but she relies on my advice.’

Eileen didn’t bother to respond. The solicitor picked up his notes, swung round in his swivel chair and began to study them, whilst she glanced about the office, for the first time taking in the faded carpet, the vast wooden desk with its leather top, the shelves and shelves of dusty leather-bound books.

Eventually, the man finished reading. He laid down the notes, leaned on the desk and looked directly at Eileen. The expression on his face told her all she needed to know. His words, when they came, were almost predictable.

‘From what I have heard,’ he said, in a voice that was no longer pleasant, ‘I find no good reason why you should divorce your husband on the grounds of cruelty. What is more, I have a son in the Royal Tank Regiment, presently, like Mr Costello, in Egypt. There is no conceivable way in which I, or any member of this firm, would serve divorce papers on a man risking his life on foreign soil for his country.’ He stood, saying dismissively, ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Costello, that I can be of no
assistance
to you at this time. Or any other time, come to that.’

As Eileen went wordlessly towards the door, he said coldly, ‘That will be one guinea. Pay my clerk if you wish. Otherwise, a bill will be sent.’

Eileen virtually ran home. The way he’d spoken to her! She felt like an insect that had crawled from beneath a stone. She blamed herself for not explaining things more clearly. On the other hand, the solicitor seemed determined not to see things her way. He made her feel a fool. She burst into her sister’s house, close to tears.

There was a three-sided clothes maiden in front of the fireplace, full of nappies and bedding. It was Monday, washing day, and Sheila was in the kitchen dressed in a wrap-round pinny, her brown hair hidden underneath a scarf, rolling more sopping nappies through the mangle. The rack was half down, already packed with children’s clothes, and the house was clouded with steam and smelt of soap and bleach and boiling washing. Siobhan had started school in January and Caitlin was playing with Ryan underneath the table. There was no sign of Mary, who was presumably asleep upstairs.

‘Jaysus, Eil! What’s the matter?’ gasped Sheila when she saw her sister’s face.

‘That solicitor! He made me feel
this
big!’ Eileen held her thumb and a finger an inch apart.

‘It’s no good then?’

‘No bloody good at all. I’ll tell you all about it in a minute when I’ve calmed down. Fancy stopping for a cuppa?’

‘If you make it.’

As Eileen began to fill the kettle, Sheila said, ‘You’ll
never
guess what happened this morning. Aggie Donovan came round and gave me most of her meat coupons.’ Meat had been rationed the previous month.

‘She never!’

‘She said the kids needed meat more than she did.’

‘Most people are nice, deep down,’ said Eileen. ‘Rosie Gregson always gets pushed to the front of the queue as soon as they see she’s in the club.’

‘I don’t know what to do with these!’ Sheila stared down at the bowl full of washing. ‘The rack’s full, the maiden’s full. Where am I going to dry them?’

‘I’ll put them on my rack for you,’ Eileen offered.

‘Will you? Ta, Sis.’

‘Though it’s your own fault for having so many children. You need a private laundry all to yourself.’

‘Well, actually …’ Sheila stopped and looked at her sister, half smiling.

‘Oh, Sheil! You’re not up the stick again?’

‘I’m a few days late.’

‘For Chrissakes, girl! If you go on at this rate, you’ll have twenty kids by the time you’re forty.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Sheila said serenely, ‘and neither would Cal. He’ll be tickled pink when he finds out.’