Rainbow's End (31 page)

Ellen couldn’t help smiling. The sands! And fresh air, real fresh air, instead of air that was full of city and ferry smells. ‘Oh, yes please, Tolly,’ she said fervently. ‘Let’s go!’

They walked along to the south end of Pier Head station and Tolly bought two oranges at the Cabin, and two bars of Fry’s chocolate.

‘That’ll keep the wolf from the door until we reach the sands at Seaforth,’ he said. ‘The chocolate will make us thirsty an’ the oranges will quench our thirst. Neat, eh?’

‘Wonderful,’ Ellen said dreamily. She was in a mood to find everything Tolly said wonderful. He might never love her as she loved him, she had just concluded, but there was nothing to say she couldn’t pretend and for today she intended to pretend like mad. People looked at them strolling along arm in arm and they thought them young lovers – well, they would be so to Ellen as well, just for this evening.

The train rolled in and they found an empty carriage, because the main going-home rush was over. As it started off Ellen lowered the window the better to see out. Below them, in St George’s Dock Gates, a policeman was arguing with a driver whose carthorse seemed to have designs on the policeman’s summer helmet. The horse reached curiously towards the straw hat and the policeman, quite unconscious of the interest he was arousing, began to gesture towards the pier head.

Ellen, giggling, pointed. ‘Look, Tolly, the scuffer’s wearin’ his summer helmet and the horse wants a closer look; wonder if it’s got designs on it?’

Tolly laughed too. ‘It ain’t called a donkey’s breakfast for nothin’,’ he observed as the horse craned its long neck. ‘Oh, he’s given the feller directions, now he’s walkin’ off.’

‘Poor horse,’ Ellen said as the horse watched the policeman going stolidly on his way. ‘No straw supper today, feller.’

‘That’s it; poor horse,’ Tolly agreed, but absently, as though his mind was really elsewhere. ‘Want a peppermint? We won’t start the chocolate until we reach Seaforth; that awright wi’ you?’

Ellen accepted the proffered sweet, a stripy Everton mint, and began to suck, and as the train progressed she and Tolly got considerable pleasure from looking down on the docks and guessing at the names and destinations of the many ships therein.

‘I’m goin’ on a ship one o’ these days,’ Tolly said dreamily. ‘The big liners have musicians, you know, so I could go on one of them. Or I could sign on as cabin staff, steward or something. Nursing orderlies do from time to time. An . . . an’ it’s about time I saw the world.’

‘Oh,’ Ellen said rather doubtfully. At his words her heart, which had been high with the mere pleasure of his company, dropped into her boots. ‘I never thought of you as . . . as the rovin’ kind, Tolly.’

‘No. People don’t,’ Tolly admitted. ‘That’s one of the reasons why I think . . . but we’ll talk about it when we reach the sea, shall we? Here, have another mint.’

For the rest of the journey they restricted their conversation to what they could see from the window, but Ellen knew that for her the trip was spoilt. Tolly to go to sea? She could imagine nothing less likely, yet he said that was why he wanted to go, because folk saw him as a stay-at-home. And if he did go to sea, what of her? She would leave the hospital, she already knew that. Her high hopes of becoming a useful and valued member of a nursing team had foundered on the rocks of Sister Crawford’s indifference and, to be honest, on the general attitude amongst a good few senior staff, that nurses were useless, inefficient and unintelligent. As a humble probationer she had accepted this attitude, but after more than three years of rigorous training she could see all too clearly that many of the people who criticised the nursing staff most relentlessly were in no way qualified to do so. They were the ones who were inefficient, absorbed in attention to tiny details whilst ignoring the larger issues and so hidebound that they could not see what was under their noses. And it was annoying in the extreme to be told to perform some fiddling and unimportant task whilst a patient, who needed your help, suffered without it for the sake of a bed with tightly tucked sheets or a floor so highly polished that it was a danger to the very people you were supposed to be helping.

So if Tolly leaves, so do I, Ellen concluded. But I can’t go to sea. What will I do instead? She was about to turn to Tolly and ask his opinion when she realised two things. One was that she could not possibly let him know that she had joined the nursing profession chiefly to be near him and the other that he must never know she would leave after he did either. It would embarrass him and put their friendship on a distinctly different, and difficult, footing.

Another hospital, perhaps? Would that be the answer? But she did not think so. She had toyed with the idea of going in for private nursing, or for trying for a job with the Salvation Army – they employed ex-nurses for their children’s and old people’s homes – but she hadn’t really given it much thought because she hadn’t realised that Tolly was considering leaving.

‘Ellen? Come on, queen, we get off here!’

The train had stopped at Seaforth Sands station whilst she thought. Hastily, Ellen followed Tolly off the train and down on to street level once more. There, he tucked her hand into his arm and set off in a purposeful manner for the beach.

‘Come on, we’ll walk first, and talk, then we’ll get ourselves a cuppa and have a sit-down before going back to the city.’

‘Right,’ Ellen agreed. All of a sudden she could feel energy flooding through her. The challenge of walking after a long day’s work seemed worthwhile, especially if it meant that she and Tolly could talk – really talk, with no holds barred.

They walked down Crosby Road South and turned left into Shore Road. The sand stretched before them, smooth as brown sugar, and the sea was blue, the breakers foaming white.

Ellen gave a deep sigh of contentment as Tolly broke the first chocolate bar in half and handed her a piece. ‘Here we go, then,’ she said. ‘You’d better start at the beginning and tell me just what you’re going to do, Tolly.’

‘I will,’ Tolly said. He ate a piece of chocolate, then started to speak.

‘About a year ago, Ellen, I began to feel . . . oh, I don’t know . . . I suppose I began to feel that life, real life, was passing me by. We work hard on the wards, but what actual good was I doing, I asked meself. And then there was me music. I was good at what I was doing, I knew
that
; the Army teaches well and I was keen to learn. But could I make my living as a trumpet player? I doubted it, somehow. And although I went to the Citadel and joined in the services, it wasn’t everything to me. I’m a Salvationist, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t the be-all and end-all of me life. And looking round at other fellers I could see that I wasn’t the same as them. Not quite. Not completely. They had homes, you see, families . . . lady-friends, even. They enjoyed their work, but they saw a future for themselves which included a home of their own, a wife, a family. Which, I think you’ll agree, is right and proper.’

Ellen felt her heart began to beat a little faster. Tolly was getting to the point at last! ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ she said sedately, however. ‘Most fellers of your age are savin’ up to get married, or they’re already married and savin’ up to have a family . . . they’ve got plans which include a . . . well, a domestic life, I suppose you could say. Whereas you . . .’

‘Whereas I just play me music, an’ do me work,’ Tolly concluded for her. ‘Yes, and that’s me point. You see I were only three when I were put into the home for orphan boys, an’ only five when me dad died and I stopped thinkin’ – which I did at first – that I’d be took out one day, to live wi’ an ordinary family again.

‘Well, for several years it were more or less a matter of survivin’. They fed us an’ clothed us, but I always felt . . . in a kind o’ limbo. Neither fish, fowl nor good red herrin’, in fact. Most of the fellers in the orphan home had relatives of some sort, but no one ever come forward to gi’ me a day out or tek me home for the weekend. In fact, I could have been a foundling for all the relatives I had. Course, when I got bigger an’ moved around a bit more, I realised that me dad’s family hadn’t approved of him marryin’ me mam, so they’d cut him off. I don’t know whether they disinherited him, I doubt there was much to inherit, tell the truth, but they certainly made it clear they wanted nothin’ to do with either him or me mam. An’ her family were from away . . . over the water . . . so they weren’t much good.

‘So there I was, a kid o’ ten or eleven, wi’ no one of me own. And then I found the Army, or they found me, an’ I thought that if only I could play a bugle they’d let me join ’em an’ I’d be all right.’

‘And you were,’ Ellen said encouragingly, as the silence stretched. ‘You’re all right, Tolly.’

Tolly shook his head. ‘No, I’m not all right, Ellen,’ he said heavily. ‘Because one of the things we never were taught in the orphan boys’ home was how to carry on in a family. How could they tell us? They was too busy seein’ we was fed and clothed. I ain’t never seen an ordinary family, let alone been a part of one.’

‘But lots of people haven’t, Tolly,’ Ellen said eagerly. ‘You saw quite a bit of my family at one time, though, so you’ve seen us at work. And what about those people you stayed with at first? The elderly couple?’

‘They were kind, but they were an old couple,’ Tolly said. ‘It ain’t the same, Ellen! And your family . . . I weren’t inside it, see? An . . . an’ I don’t think I ever saw your dad, though you talk about him of course.’

‘Well, we hardly ever see our dad,’ Ellen admitted. ‘My dad died way back, Mick’s only me stepfather. But I don’t see . . .’

‘D’you know, you’re the only person in the world, just about, that I could say this to?’ Tolly said. ‘But I . . . I don’t know how to . . . to hug. Or any of that. When I try it seems as though I’m playin’ at it, not meanin’ it at all. Once, there was a girl I was keen on – that’s when we was in the Songsters together, a while back.’

Ellen’s unreliable heart did another nosedive. A girl? He wasn’t going to ask her advice on how to get alongside another girl, was he?

But Tolly was still talking. ‘I knew she wanted me to give her a kiss an’ a hug, like,’ he was saying earnestly. ‘But I found I didn’t want to; I were embarrassed by the whole idea. So then I thought perhaps I ain’t normal, Ellen. Because it ain’t normal to like a girl but not to want to kiss her. Is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ellen said honestly. ‘Perhaps it’s something boys all say they want to do, but some of them are just like you, Tolly. Look, did you . . . did you try to give that girl a kiss or a hug?’

‘No. I didn’t know how to set about it, really,’ Tolly admitted. ‘So that’s why I thought I’d go to sea. I’d get experience, like.’

‘There aren’t many women aboard ship,’ Ellen said. ‘If you’re thinkin’ of foreign ports, I don’t know as that’s a very good idea either. Why should you want to hug a Chinese girl, say, if you don’t want to hug an English one?’

‘No, it ain’t that so much as bein’ wi’ fellers what know a thing or two,’ Tolly said. His face, Ellen saw, was pink. ‘I mix wi’ other nursing orderlies in the hospital, an’ with the players in the band. They don’t say much, they sort o’ take it for granted that a feller wants a gal an’ will know what to do . . .’

‘Why not talk to my brothers?’ Ellen said quickly. ‘Dick’s been married a few years now. Or you could ask Ozzie – he’s gorra lady-friend and they’re marryin’ pretty soon. An’ the others are always on about gals. They’d be able to tell you, I reckon.’

Tolly shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t work, I don’t think,’ he said. ‘It’s something that will either come to me or it won’t. An’ if there’s somethin’ wrong wi’ me, somethin’ missin’, then I’d rather find out amongst strangers, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Yes, I can understand that,’ Ellen said slowly. ‘Tolly . . . hang on a minute.’ She caught hold of his arm and pulled him to a halt. Then she put her arms round him and pulled him as close as he would allow, which wasn’t very close since the moment her arms went round him he began to pull away. ‘Kiss me . . . go on, have a go,’ she said in a kindly, sensible sort of voice. ‘Just see whether you can . . . I mean whether you want to, with me, what you know so well.’

‘I feel a fool,’ Tolly said, scarlet now and not just pink. ‘I can’t . . . it wouldn’t be natural.’

‘Rubbish,’ Ellen said firmly. She stood on tiptoe and turned her face up to his. ‘Go on, try,’ she said.

Tolly heaved a huge sigh and very slowly he lowered his head. He put his cold lips against her warm cheek and made a sort of squeaky noise, then pulled back, rather as though he thought she might suddenly bite a lump out of him, Ellen thought resentfully.

‘How was that?’ Tolly asked breathlessly. ‘Was it all right?’

‘No. Try again,’ Ellen said. ‘Kissing’s warmer than that, I think. Try to do it on me lips.’

‘On your
lips
?’ Tolly said, sounding scandalised. ‘Oh, I don’t think . . .’

Ellen, hot all over with the forwardness of what she was doing, reached up and took Tolly’s face between her hands, then guided him into the right position and placed her mouth against his. Guiltily, she was aware of the feel, the smell, even the taste of him, though their lips were only together for perhaps a tenth of a second, and knew a tremendous happiness and a surge of desire. Oh Tolly, Tolly, if only this meant as much to you as it does to me!

‘Was that it?’ Tolly asked. ‘It . . . it’s too close, Ellen, I couldn’t do that every day with someone. Think of the germs!’

‘Didn’t it do anything to you, Tolly?’ Ellen asked shyly, staring up at him. ‘Didn’t your heart beat a bit faster? Didn’t your stomach do a sort of lurch, like when you’re in one of them flying boats on the fair an’ it goes up too fast? Wasn’t it . . . sort o’ nice?’

‘I dunno,’ Tolly said honestly. ‘Me stomach lurches when I see a bad wound, or when there’s shepherd’s pie for dinner an’ the spud’s all grey an’ slimy. D’you mean like that?’