Queen of the Mersey (65 page)

Jerome Peters and Gladys Hewitt appeared in the doorway. Jerome waved a leather bag. ‘For the night-safe,’ he said tiredly. ‘We’re all done in there. I’ve sent the girls home.’

‘I think it’s time we all went.’ Roger put the paper cup on the desk. ‘You coming, Queenie?’

‘I’ll just get my handbag and coat.’

She would never unlock this door again, she thought as she entered the flat and went into the bedroom. This is the last time I will see this room. Throwing a final glance at the bed where she’d slept with Theo, she put on her coat, picked up her bag, and closed the door,

Gladys, Jerome and Roger were outside. The others had gone ahead, Roger said.

‘We’re all meeting up for a drink. Would you like to come with us, Queenie?’

Queenie didn’t answer. Her head was cocked to one side and she was frowning. ‘I can smell burning.’

Everyone sniffed and agreed they could too, but didn’t look too alarmed. ‘It’s probably just a stove been left on in the kitchen,’ Gladys said.

‘I’ll go and have a look,’ Queenie said. Until midnight, Freddy’s was still her responsibility. ‘You three stay here and wait for me.’

‘We’ll do no such thing,’ Jerome said curtly. ‘We’ll all look. Come on.’

But Roger was already at the top of the stairs. ‘No one’s going anywhere except out the back. There’s smoke coming up the lift shaft. It looks to me as if the ground floor is on fire.’

Queenie remembered the man who’d lost his pipe. She wondered if he’d found it?

Or had it been left to smoulder amongst the rubbish on the floor; the torn carrier bags, discarded boxes, a dropped scarf, the Christmas decorations?

They arrived at the front of Freddy’s at the same time as the first fire engine.

A good portion of the ground floor was alight and the fire was spreading rapidly, swallowing up whole sections in a matter of seconds. The glass had already started to crack, making sharp, snapping sounds, as if a gun was being fired. A passer-by must have noticed the flames and called the fire brigade. A small crowd had gathered and were watching, open-mouthed.

Queenie felt extraordinarily calm as she watched the flames race like wildfire through the shop. She’d been in a dream for most of the day and this was merely a continuation of the same dream. She even wondered why she felt so warm.

The windows on the first floor were already glowing a sinister orange, and the firemen’s hoses seemed to be having no effect at all. Two more fire engines arrived, sirens screaming, followed by a police car. The onlookers were ordered to stand well back, out of danger.

‘Is everyone out of the building?’ a police sergeant shouted.

‘There was only the night watchman left,’ Roger told him. ‘He’s over there.’

She wondered what Roger was doing there, and who it was linking her arm? When she looked, it was Gladys Hewitt. Gladys noticed the look. ‘You really shouldn’t be here,’ she said, giving the arm a shake. ‘All this excitement won’t do you or the baby any good, will it?’

‘No, it won’t,’ said Queenie.

‘Come on, luv, let’s go and have a cup of tea. There’ll be a few places open in Bold Street. I’ll just tell Jerome.’

Gladys led her away and she went obediently. The coffee shop they entered was dimly lit and had candles on the table. There were only two other people there.

A waitress came for their order, she looked no more than sixteen. ‘Do you know what the fire engines were for?’ she asked. ‘Listen, there’s more! It must be somewhere close.’

‘Freddy’s is on fire,’ Gladys said.

‘That big shop around the corner?’

‘Yes. Can we have a large pot of tea, please?’

‘I might go and have a look in a minute. The tea won’t be long.’

‘When’s the baby due, Queenie?’ Gladys asked.

‘I’m not sure. I’ve been having periods, only little ones, and the doctor couldn’t give an exact date.’ She wasn’t about to admit to Gladys what a fool she’d been.

‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when someone told me. It wasn’t until I saw you with me own eyes that I realised it was true. You look about four or five months’ gone to me, that’ll make it around April or May when it arrives.’

‘I suppose it will,’ Queenie said faintly.

‘Are you glad? I mean, not every woman’d be pleased to find themselves pregnant at your age.’

‘I couldn’t possibly be more pleased, Gladys.’

‘I hope your feller is too. Is it that tall, blond chap who helped out when Mr Theo died?’

‘Yes. His name’s Roddy and he’s thrilled.’

‘We thought that’s who it must be. He’s very handsome.’

The tea came and the waitress shouted, ‘I’m going to look at the fire. Won’t be a mo.’

‘You’d better not be,’ a voice from the kitchen shouted back, too late. The waitress had already gone.

She returned in about ten minutes, out of breath, eyes shining. ‘It’s dead spectacular,’ she said excitedly. ‘Like a film. I’ve never seen a fire before.

The flames are coming out of the windows. There’s at least six fire engines and more on the way, and a whole crowd of people have stopped to watch. The traffic’s held up and there’s bobbies everywhere.’

It wasn’t long afterwards that Jerome and Roger came in. Jerome had deposited the money in the night safe and Roger’s eyes were as bright with excitement as the waitress’s. ‘I’ve given my wife some pretty dodgy excuses for being late, but this one takes the biscuit. She’ll never believe me until she sees it on the news. By the way, is Freddy’s still insured?’

‘Until midnight.’ Jerome looked very down. ‘I hope I never see such a terrible sight again. It was dreadful, watching a building being destroyed in front of your eyes and not just any old building, but Freddy’s, where I worked for nearly forty years.’ He sighed tragically. ‘You’d think there’d been an air raid, the sky’s turned blood red.’

‘Come on, luv.’ Gladys linked his arm. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘I think we’d all better,’ Roger agreed. ‘We’ve got people coming to dinner.

They’ll be there by now and cursing me rotten. I’ll walk you round to the Adelphi, Queenie.’

‘There’s no need. I can go by myself.’

‘I’d sooner see you safe and sound before I leave. We’ll go through Newington, avoid the fire. The crowd’s so thick, we’d have a job getting through.’

More goodbyes, more kisses, more hugs, more Happy New Years. And a promise that they would all meet again in six months’ time to see how they were getting on.

Roger left her outside the Adelphi. Another kiss, another hug. ‘And congratulations,’ he said warmly. It would seem everyone in Freddy’s had known she was pregnant except herself.

She stood on the steps of the hotel and watched Roger walk away. The familar figure eventually turned a corner and she was overwhelmed with a feeling of loneliness, so acute that she wanted to shout aloud how lonely she was. Like Roger, she wanted someone to go home to, to open a door and be met with a cry of welcome. She wished now she’d agreed to stay with Hester or Mary, even her mother, not an anonymous hotel where she didn’t know a soul.

From here, she could smell Freddy’s burning, hear the faint roar of the flames, see the sky over her shop turning redder and redder. A man came up the steps towards her. ‘Pity it wasn’t the fifth of November,’ he said. ‘That’d be a bonfire to end all bonfires.’ Queenie just nodded.

A young couple were running down Ranelagh Street, hand in hand. They didn’t want to miss anything. ‘We were there, we saw it,’ they would tell people later.

She went down the steps and began to walk in the same direction. The nearer she got, the denser the crowds became, until she encountered a wall of people. But there was no need to go any further. She could see Freddy’s quite clearly, see the flames spurting from the roof, showering sparks. Every window was ablaze.

Two firemen were bravely perched on ladders, higher then the building itself, directing their hoses downwards, though it seemed a hopeless thing to do.

Everything would have gone by now, eaten by fire, or left twisted in its wake.

She could have sworn she saw a figure in one of the windows on the top floor, a dark figure, standing completely still against a background of flickering flames. It might have been a ghost, disturbed by the fire. Freddy’s had been full of ghosts and now they’d have nowhere to go.

Someone was shouting her name. It sounded very far away, another ghost perhaps.

All of a sudden, there were arms around her, pulling her away.

‘Darling,’ Roddy cried. ‘This is no place for you to be. Come home.’

‘I haven’t got a home,’ she said simply.

‘Then come to mine.’ He tucked her arm in his. ‘Your hands are cold. I saw the flames from my window, but never dreamt they were coming from Freddy’s. Then Hester rang. She’d heard the news on the wireless and tried to contact you at the Adelphi. They said you hadn’t registered, so I came to look for you. Christ, I was worried. I thought I’d lost you.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said. She must have told people that a dozen times today.

‘You don’t look it. Your eyes are all red and you seem completely exhausted.’

She remembered the baby and the need to look after herself. ‘I’d like to sit down,’ she said.

‘Let’s go to the hotel, sit down there. Come along, darling. I was expecting to see you at Hester’s tonight. I wanted to apologise and ask if you’d have me back.’

Right then, Queenie wasn’t quite sure. ‘Not if I have to share you with another woman,’ she said.

‘That’s all over, I promise,’ he said quickly. ‘It took a while, but I remembered the things you’d said and realised I was being a fool. The past is the past. I did some pretty awful things that I’ll never forget, but I’m not a saint and never have been. Once I’d accepted that fact, I found myself able to face the future – with you, Queenie, if you’ll have me. We could still get married on Saturday, it’s not too late to get a licence.’

They had reached the hotel. She took a last look at the red sky over Freddy’s, turned to Roddy and said, ‘I’d like that, Roddy, but first of all, I’ve got something to tell you.’

MAUREEN

LEE

MAUREEN LEE IS ONE OF THE BEST-LOVED SAGA WRITERS AROUND. All her novels are set in Liverpool and the world she evokes is always peopled with characters you’ll never forget. Her familiarity with Liverpool and its people brings the terraced streets and tight-knit communities vividly to life in her books.

Maureen is a born storyteller and her many fans love her for her powerful tales of love and life, tragedy and joy in Liverpool.

The Girl from Bootle

Born into a working-class family in Bootle, Liverpool, Maureen Lee spent her early years in a terraced house near the docks – an area that was relentlessly bombed during the Second World War. As a child she was bombed out of the house in Bootle and the family were forced to move.

Maureen left her convent school at 15 and wanted to become an actress.

However, her shocked mother, who said that it was ‘as bad as selling your body on the streets’, put her foot down and Maureen had to give up her dreams and go to secretarial college instead.

As a child, Maureen

was bombed out of

her terraced house

in Bootle

Family Life

A regular theme in her books is the fact that apparently happy homes often conceal pain and resentment and she sometimes draws on her own early life for inspiration. ‘My mother always seemed to disapprove of me – she never said “well done” to me. My brother was the favourite,’ Maureen says.

I know she would

never have approved

of my books

As she and her brother grew up they grew apart. ‘We just see things differently in every way,’ says Maureen. This, and a falling out during the difficult time when her mother was dying, led to an estrangement that has lasted 24 years. ‘Despite the fact that I didn’t see eyeto-eye with my mum, I loved her very much. I deserted my family and lived in her flat in Liverpool after she went into hospital for the final time. My brother, who she thought the world of, never went near. Towards the end when she was fading she kept asking where he was. To comfort her, I had to pretend that he’d been to see her the day before, which was awful. I found it hard to get past that.’

Freedom – Moving on to a Family of Her Own Maureen is well known for writing with realism about subjects like motherhood: ‘I had a painful time giving birth to my children – the middle one was born in the back of a two-door car. So I know things don’t always go as planned.’

My middle son was

born in the back of

a car

The twists and turns of Maureen’s life have been as interesting as the plots of her books. When she met her husband, Richard, he was getting divorced, and despite falling instantly in love and getting engaged after only two weeks, the pair couldn’t marry. Keen that Maureen should escape her strict family home, they moved to London and lived together before marrying. ‘Had she known, my mother would never have forgiven me. She never knew that Richard had been married before.’ The Lees had to pretend they were married even to their landlord. Of course, they did marry as soon as possible and have had a very happy family life.

Success at Last

Despite leaving school at fifteen, Maureen was determined to succeed as a writer. Like Kitty in Kitty and Her Sisters and Millie in Dancing in the Dark, she went to night school and ended up getting two A levels. ‘I think it’s good to “better yourself”. It gives you confidence,’ she says. After her sons grew up she had the time to pursue her dream, but it took several years and a lot of disappointment before she was successful. ‘I was determined to succeed. My husband was one hundred per cent supportive. I wrote lots of articles and short stories. I also started a saga which was eventually called Stepping Stones. Then Orion commissioned me to finish it, it was published – and you know the rest.’

‘I think it’s good to

“better yourself”. It

gives you confidence’

What are your memories of your early years in Bootle?

Of being poor, but not poverty-stricken. Of women wearing shawls instead of coats. Of knowing everybody in the street. Of crowds gathering outside houses in the case of a funeral or a wedding, or if an ambulance came to collect a patient, who was carried out in a red blanket. I longed to be such a patient, but when I had diptheria and an ambulance came for me, I was too sick to be aware of the crowds. There were street parties, swings on lampposts, hardly any traffic, loads of children playing in the street, dogs without leads. Even though we didn’t have much money, Christmas as a child was fun. I’m sure we appreciated our few presents more than children do now.