The Girl From Penny Lane (22 page)

The only real problem which had arisen had been books. In towns and cities there were always shops which sold old books, and libraries which would lend, but in the heart of the country books were not available and Johnny needed books. He said he was educating himself for a fine future, but Kitty, who had the books after him, thought he read mainly for entertainment and love of reading.

Then Maldwyn wanted some cattle cake and Eifion Jones offered to take him into Corwen the next time he went. Johnny went along to give Maldwyn a hand – it was in the early days when their friend was not so well-used to his sticks – and came back positively glowing.

‘There’s a liberry, queen,’ he gasped as soon as he was over the threshold, thrusting a pile of books into her arms. ‘Maldwyn joined . . . it’s a free library . . . and said I could tek ’is share. They’ve got all sorts,
and
there’s an old bookshop. I picked up a copy of
Bleak House
for a penny; it’s got no cover, but all the words is there!’

‘Oh, Johnny!’ Kitty said, almost as excited as he. She had grown deathly afraid that Johnny might leave, just to get back to books. ‘Oh, ain’t we lucky?’

They were. She knew it. Knew it now, knew it then, knew it every time she woke up, knew it as she shovelled the steaming, stinking piles of cow dung out of the byre, as she was doing now. Lucky Kitty Drinkwater, lucky Johnny Moneymor – even lucky Maldwyn Evans, with his neglected old farmhouse and his much-loved animals.

We’re a fambly, good as, Kitty told herself as she shovelled. And presently, washing up in the sink with the delicious smell of bacon frying in the room behind her, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window pane and thought that her own mother probably wouldn’t know her. Short, richly red-brown hair curled loosely around her head, her eyes were bright, her cheeks glowed pink with health whilst her limbs were rounded and strong, her smile self-confident. The girl whose reflection looked back at her from the window pane was a far cry from the skinny waif who had so often felt the weight of Sary Drinkwater’s hand, who had stolen food just to keep alive, who had been afraid for twenty-two hours out of every twenty-four.

I’m not the same person, Kitty thought wonderingly, rubbing herself dry on the rough towel. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be hungry and scared all the time. Sary’s Kitty died the night she lost them trimmings. Johnny’s Kitty was born soon after. And I know which I’d rather be, which I’m glad I am!

A few months later, Art watched the Liver birds getting bigger and bigger as his ship steamed up the Mersey and wondered at his own lack of excitement.

It was over a year since he had sailed down the Mersey on the tide, determined that if he couldn’t settle to banking without even the prospect of winning Lilac’s love, at least he would have adventure.

But he soon discovered that an assistant purser’s life was not for him; there were pretty girls in plenty on the big passenger liner which had employed him, but he thought them affected and insincere. He hated their loud laughs, short skirts, and apparently non-existent morals. Their drawling voices and upper-class accents often defeated him – one cannot keep up a conversation in which one’s principal remark is ‘What did you say?’ – and their humour embarrassed him. But when the female passengers saw that he was young, nice-looking and single there was no stopping their pursuit. He was fair game in a world where women considerably out-numbered men and the bright young things chased him remorselessly.

There were pretty girls on the staff, of course, but an assistant purser was supposed to entertain the passengers, not the staff, which meant he must be extremely polite to the men and let them beat him at deck tennis and cards, and it was soon made plain to him that he was expected to gently flirt with any young woman who wanted to flirt with him. So Art jumped ship in New York and signed on as a deckhand on a small freighter which chugged up and down the East Coast, transporting anything which needed moving from one place to another.

He stuck it for three months, then signed off at the end of the voyage and worked in a gentleman’s outfitters for a while. He got the job because the proprietor was fascinated by his English accent and thought it lent class to his establishment. But he didn’t like the subservience of shop-work and this time he gave notice and signed on as a steward on a liner which was Liverpool bound. He was lucky to get the job; unemployment was biting as deeply in America as it was beginning to bite in Britain and Art thought gloomily that if he was going to starve anywhere, he’d as soon it was Liverpool.

And now here he was, standing at the ship’s rail, staring at the city as it gradually grew larger and larger and feeling a great lump in his throat and an unaccustomed blurring in his eyes.

Home! He’d been away for nearly twelve months – he had left in December and it was now November of the following year – and in that time he’d grown up a lot. He didn’t see himself going back to the bank, he thought he’d go mad with the boredom of it, but he knew for certain that he wanted to be based in the Pool, even if he was never ashore for very long.

He would go to sea; he knew that now. He’d work his way up, take examinations, slog at it, and eventually he would get his ticket. He didn’t fancy a liner, though. He rather thought he’d like a coaster or a trawler rather than a passenger ship. He wanted the sea, hard work, and a degree of forgetfulness. He had noticed that when he was working really hard, slogging as he called it, he didn’t think of Lilac from one hour to the next, and that was what he wanted – to reach a point when he simply never thought of her. Then and only then, Art thought, would he be free, able to concentrate on his own life.

I want a home and a family, Art dreamed as his ship steamed slowly and cautiously into her berth. I’m an ordinary bloke with ordinary hopes and desires; a girl who loves me, a couple of kids, a neat little house like Nellie and Stuart’s place in a nice little suburban road like Penny Lane . . . that would make me happy.

Once, he had truly believed that the only thing which would make him happy would be marriage to Lilac, but now, after more than a year of wandering, he knew better. Happiness did not have to depend on only the other person; if you changed your outlook and attitude, turned your life upside-down and lived very intensely, then suddenly you realised that there was more to life than winning the love of one particular person, even if she was someone who had meant a lot to you.

Accept that she will never be yours and look for second best, Art had advised himself grimly at some stage during the past twelve months. And without even realising it, he had taken his own advice. His broken heart, if you could call it that, was on the mend. Returning to Liverpool meant that he could face seeing Lilac with someone else and still go ahead with his own life.

But as the city got closer, so close that he could hear the street-cries of the vendors on the waterfront, he did feel a little pang. If things had been different, if he’d had a girl –
the
girl – waiting for him, standing on the quayside waving to his ship, jumping up and down with excitement because any moment now they would be in each other’s arms, how happy he would be!

Give yourself a chance, O’Brien, Art ordered himself as, bag in hand, he went down the gangplank after the ship had docked. You’ll find the right girl for you, even if her name isn’t Lilac Larkin. And you’ll live happily ever after, see if you don’t!

‘I’m worried about Li, that’s the truth, Stu. In this past year she’s had more young men than I’ve had hot dinners and she hasn’t settled with any of them. If you ask me, it was always Art, it’s just taken her a long time to see it. And now she knows she wants him, he’s gone, and that means she can’t settle to anyone else.’

‘He’ll come back, sweetheart,’ Stuart said comfortably, pulling the blankets over his shoulders. He was always first in bed because his preparations consisted simply of a quick wash, an incredibly quick shedding of all his clothes and a dive between the sheets. ‘Come to bed, leave your hair straight for once.’

‘I shan’t be long; five minutes,’ Nellie said with considerable optimism. She sat down before the dressing-table; Stuart could see her reflection, the troubled expression on her small, much-loved face, her long white cotton nightgown with the frill round the neck which made her look like a choirboy – or a leg of pork. Stuart had teased her about it several times and now he snorted softly,
oink, oink!
, and saw her smile before reaching for her night-cream.

Stuart loved watching his Nell prepare for the night ahead with as much serious attention as though she would fall to pieces if she didn’t follow her familiar routine. Smiling to himself, he watched as Nellie did all the daft, lovable things which women apparently thought necessary before succumbing to the lure of the sheets. She tied her smooth shining hair up in curl papers so that the ends would turn under when she undid them in the morning. She had had her hair cut fashionably short a year ago, much to Stuart’s sorrow, and now had to curl it, whereas when it had been long she had just fixed it in various pretty, feminine styles – a knot on top of her head, a bun at the back, a long roll – which had caused her far less trouble.

After she had done her hair she spread some sort of cream stuff all over her face, then wiped it carefully off again with a piece of cotton wool. Then she sluiced her face with clear, cool water and patted it dry. She rubbed cream into her hands and then pressed her cuticles back with an orange stick and filed her nails into smooth curves with an emery board.

In the little adjoining room baby Elizabeth slept. They had both checked that she was asleep, hanging over the cot and exchanging proud glances at the beauty of their sleeping daughter. She had Stuart’s dark hair and eyes and Nellie’s fair skin and sweet smile, and something else entirely her own, an innocent mischief which made both her parents her adoring slaves.

Now, having finished her preparations, Nellie stood up. She walked towards the bed, then hesitated as she always did.

‘Was that the baby? I’ll just make sure she’s all right.’

‘She’s fine; fast asleep,’ Stuart said to his wife’s back. She did this every night as well. He supposed that she would still do it when Elizabeth was a woman, if she was living under their roof.

Nellie pushed the intervening door open with infinite care. Though they both agreed that Elizabeth was an angel, she could scream and yell like the devil incarnate when woken from a sound sleep. Nellie moved out of sight for a second, then returned, smiling.

‘Sleeping like a baby,’ she whispered, closing the door gently behind her. She hopped neatly into bed beside Stuart, leaned back on her pillows and reached for her book. Usually they both read for a while before turning the light out, but tonight Stuart did not even bother to take his own book off the bedside table; he guessed that Nellie wanted to talk.

Nellie opened her book. She glanced at the page, then put a finger in it to keep her place and turned to him. ‘Stuart, there must be some way of getting in touch with Art! I mean, surely he wouldn’t have signed on with a foreign ship? And anyway, ships dock sometimes . . . he must be in England occasionally. I wrote to my friend Beryl and she went round to the Corry and talked to Art’s sister Etty, but they’ve none of ’em heard a word from Art since he left the bank. You don’t think something awful’s happened to him, do you?’

‘No, of course not. But according to Lilac, sweetheart, he did have cause to believe she simply wasn’t interested. She said Art proposed marriage and she sent him off with a flea in his ear. She admits she was pretty horrid, and to a man deep in love such behaviour is worse than just horrid. If you’d done something like that . . . deep despair takes some getting over, believe me.’

‘I know,’ Nellie said feelingly. ‘When I thought you’d forgotten all about me . . .’

Stuart leaned over and kissed her smooth, faintly scented cheek.

‘Silly puss, as if I could! But anyway, Art will get over it and come back here. Give him time.’

‘But suppose Lilac goes and marries the wrong man?’ Nellie wailed softly. ‘I didn’t care for that fellow she was going round with last Christmas, and the new one . . . well Polly says she seems to go for the type of men other women avoid, the dangerous ones who just want a good time.’

Stuart sighed. He was extremely fond of Lilac, he hated seeing her becoming hard-faced, chucking young men over on a whim, seeming more interested in their ability to pay for her fun than in any intrinsic worthiness of character.

‘All right. We’ll go up to Liverpool for a weekend soon,’ he said comfortingly. ‘You’ll only be happy when you can talk to Lilac face to face; I do understand that. Shall we say the end of the month?’

‘Oh Stu, you are kind to me,’ Nellie said ecstatically. ‘I’ll feel so much happier if I can talk to our girl meself, instead of writing letters or trying to make sense over the telephone. Can we go Friday and come back Monday, mek a long weekend of it?’

‘I’m sure we can manage that,’ Stuart said. He took Nellie’s book out of her hand and lay it down on the bedside table. ‘Now you’ll want to thank me properly, so we might as well turn out the lamp.’

Nellie doused the lamp and in the warm darkness turned to him. Stuart felt her soft arms entwine him, her soft lips seeking for his across his cheek. His heart began to beat faster and he untied the neck-string of the demure nightdress with fingers that trembled, and pulled it down over his wife’s creamy shoulders.

‘Nellie, Nellie, Nellie,’ he murmured as she pressed close. ‘Oh, what a lucky devil I am!’

Lilac got the letter saying that Nellie and Stuart were coming to the city for a long weekend just before she left for work one morning. She was delighted, excited, even a little apprehensive, for much though she longed to see them she knew she would have to come clean about a number of things which she hadn’t fully explained in letters or over the telephone.