The Heart of the Family (19 page)

‘I might be able to help you out there. Me nan died a couple of weeks ago and so me mam and dad have a spare room. They was going to get in touch with the billeting lot, but I dare say I could have a word with them on your behalf. You’ll be expected to muck in, though, and help me mam out around the house, and that.’

Lena nodded vigorously. She could hardly believe her good luck. Here she was with a new job and the hope of somewhere to stay.

‘I’m not promising anything, mind,’ Judith warned. ‘Me mam might have found herself someone for the room already, or she might not take to you. A bit funny like that, she is, so don’t go getting your hopes up too high.’

‘There’s not been any more letters from that spy of yours then?’ Carole asked Katie chattily as they left the Littlewoods building from where the censorship service operated, at the end of their day’s work.

Katie gave a quick worried look over her shoulder. Unlike her, Carole seemed not to worry about the secrecy rules they had been warned they must never break, but then Carole seemed to take everything much more lightly than Katie ever could.

‘No, thank goodness,’ she confirmed once she had assured herself that no one was within earshot.

‘That will make your Luke happy then. Do you think you and Luke will be going to the Graffie on Saturday? Only if you are, then the four of us could pair up if you like, ’cos me and Andy are going.’

‘I don’t know if Luke will be off duty or not. Can I let you know later in the week?’ Katie hadn’t seen or heard from Luke since Sunday. Was he still cross with her about her plans to go to see her parents? She hoped not. She hated it when there was an atmosphere between them, and in fact it made her reluctant to be with him. She did love him, of course, but she just wished he was more relaxed about things, like
Grace’s Seb. It felt so disloyal just thinking that kind of thing that Katie hastily pushed the thought into that shadowy place inside her heart where she put all those things that made her feel worried and upset.

‘Of course you can,’ Carole agreed.

‘… and Seb’s going to take me to show me where he’ll be working on Saturday since we’ve both got the day off. He’s borrowing a motorcycle from someone he knows so that we won’t have to worry about getting the train.’

‘Well, I’m very pleased for you both love.’ Jean assured her daughter. ‘With Seb being made up that will give you a good start when you get married.’

‘Don’t forget he’ll need to find himself a job once this war is over,’ Sam warned. He was sitting at the kitchen table reading the
Liverpool Post
whilst Jean bustled about the kitchen preparing tea. He’d already done his bit towards their evening meal. On the draining board were some freshly washed new potatoes, along with a lettuce, and some radish from his allotment, whilst the last of the rhubarb had been stewed for a pudding, which would be sweetened with a spoonful of their precious condensed milk.

‘There’s going to be a lot of men needing to find themselves work once the war’s over, just like there was last time.’

‘Seb will be able to find work, Dad,’ Grace defended her fiancé loyally. ‘Don’t forget he’s got his training to back him up. Seb was saying, Mum,’ Grace continued turning back to her mother, ‘that we should think about staying over in this Whitchurch on Saturday night, so that we can have a proper look round.’

‘Oh, no, Grace, you can’t do that.’ The words were out before Jean could stop herself. She was glad that she was removing some scones from the oven so that Grace couldn’t see her face, which would give away what she was really thinking. She knew that Grace was a sensible girl, but Jean could see in Seb’s eyes how much he loved her daughter, and young people being what they were and having the feelings they did meant that it wasn’t a good idea for them to be alone together too much, when they were in the position that Seb and Grace were and couldn’t marry until Grace had finished her training. Staying away from home together overnight was in Jean’s maternal opinion too much of a risk. Not, of course, that she could say so to Grace. Her daughter would be mortified and embarrassed, and would no doubt accuse her mother of not trusting her. Jean felt embarrassed herself when she remembered the number of time she and Sam had nearly given in to temptation during their engagement.

‘Why ever not?’ Grace was asking her now, surprise and just a hint of wariness in her voice that warned Jean that if her daughter were to suspect her real fears, she’d get on her high horse and then things might end up being said that both of them would regret. Grace was a good girl and a wonderful daughter, but she also had her own mind and a great deal of spirit, and Jean knew that she would not like what her mother was thinking.

Quickly she told Grace, ‘Because I was counting on your help on Sunday for this picnic we’re having on the allotment. A sort of celebration because the bombing is over.’

‘You never said.’

‘Well, that’s the first I’ve heard of any picnic on my allotment.’

Grace and Sam both spoke at the same time, leaving Jean even more grateful for the excuse of the heat of the oven to cover her guiltily red face.

‘Well, I’m sure I did,’ she fibbed. ‘But never mind that now. Do you remember how much fun we used to have with those picnics we had on the allotment when the kiddies were little, Sam?’

‘I remember when Grace here went and took a bite out of every single one of me ripening strawberries, taking the covers off them so that she could do it and then leaving them all fit for nothing.’

‘Oh, Dad, don’t remind me,’ Grace protested, looking mortified, and then laughing.

‘She was only four, Sam,’ Jean defended their daughter, even though Sam was grinning as well, showing that he had only resurrected the memory in order to tease their daughter. ‘Grace had seen that the strawberries had started to go red and, bless her, she didn’t know that they hadn’t ripened all through so she kept on tasting them, not realising what she was doing.’

Sam shook his head. ‘And then there was that time the twins dug up all the young lettuce so that they could stick the leaves on their mud pies to make patterns.’

Jean laughed herself now, and pointed out, ‘Well, they won’t be doing that this time.’

‘When will they hear from the Exchange, Mum, about those interviews they went for?’ Grace asked.

‘Not for a day or two yet. Sasha’s really keen to go there, but I’m not so sure about Lou.’ A small frown wrinkled Jean’s forehead. She was worried
about the twins, and not for the reasons she usually worried about them. Something had changed between them that night when Sasha had nearly lost her life. The last thing Jean wanted was for her daughters to end up like her and her own twin – estranged and only able to make polite conversation with one another. On the other hand, neither did Jean want them to be so close that when the time came they weren’t able to go off and have lives of their own with families of their own. They had very different personalities from her and Vi’s, had Lou and Sasha, and they were very different from one another in that way as well, for all that on the outside they were as alike as two peas in a pod, as the saying went. Sasha, the elder, was quieter and shyer, whilst Lou was the one who instigated the mischief in which Sasha had always enthusiastically joined her. Now, though, Lou seemed to have lost the exuberance that had so often made Jean shake her head in despair whilst Sasha seemed to be putting herself forward a bit more and taking the lead in their relationship. Jean admitted to herself that she had never thought she’d see the day when she was actually worried about Lou becoming quieter. Perhaps it was the shock of almost losing her twin that had brought about the change, she decided.

‘Well, if you’re dead set on this picnic then, Mum, I suppose I’ll have to tell Seb that we’ll need to get back.’ Grace knew that Seb would be as disappointed as she was, but what else could she do? It would only make her mother suspicious if she told her that they couldn’t change their plans, and the last thing Grace wanted was her mother treating her as though she was still the same age as the twins and giving
her a warning lecture about the dangers of allowing Seb too much intimacy. The relationship she and Seb shared was a proper grown-up one, not some girl-and-boy thing. They were engaged, after all, but Grace knew her mother, so she stifled her disappointment and tried to put a brave face on the need for her and Seb to change their plans. At least she knew that Seb would understand and that he wouldn’t kick up a fuss. And that, of course, was because he truly loved her and wanted her to be happy. She was lucky, Grace acknowledged, her heart overflowing with love for her fiancé.

‘Knowing your mother, she’s probably invited half the next street as well as our own,’ said Sam, ‘so you’d better get here bright and early otherwise no one will get anything to eat. In fact, it might be a good idea if Seb dropped you off here on Saturday so that you can stay the night – I dare say Katie won’t mind sharing with you. That way you’ll be ready for an early start.’

Jean gave her husband a surprised look behind Grace’s back and then went pink when Sam winked at her. He
knew
she had made it up about the picnic, and she suspected he knew why she had done it as well. Jean felt guilty all over again, but relieved at the same time that Sam understood and approved of what she had done.

‘I thought that Katie was going to see her parents next weekend?’ Grace said.

‘She was, but she’s decided to wait until Luke can go with her. Oh, here’s Katie now,’ Jean announced, as the sound of the back door opening had her turning towards it with a warm smile to welcome Katie home from work.

The Campion kitchen had a lovely feeling to it, Katie thought as she and Grace exchanged affectionate hugs. She knew too that the warmth it possessed was down to Jean and her love for her family. The Campion family was the kind that secretly Katie had always longed to be part of when she had been growing up. Now that Katie was Luke’s girl, Jean, with her motherly generosity and love, had made her feel as though she was part of the family. That acceptance and sense of belonging was very important to Katie. She didn’t think she could marry a man whose family did not accept her, and nor, if she was honest, would she really want to marry a man who came from a background like her own. It wasn’t just Luke whom she loved, it was his family as well, and if the two of them were to fall out and go their separate ways it wouldn’t just be a future husband she would lose, it would be the family as well, and Katie didn’t think she could bear that. But she wasn’t going to have to bear it, was she? Luke loved her, she knew that, and she loved him.

‘You run upstairs and get washed up, Katie,’ Jean instructed. ‘I’m just about to get tea served.’

‘Where are the twins?’ Grace asked, dipping her finger into the cooling bowl of stewed rhubarb behind her mother’s back and then grimacing at its tart taste, because of the sugar rationing.

‘Playing tennis.’

When Grace’s eyebrows rose, Jean told her, ‘They’ve joined the Tennis Club. It was Sasha’s idea.’

‘The next thing we know they’ll be off to Wallasey to invite Cousin Bella to play with them then, will
they?’ Grace joked, adding, ‘Have you heard anything from Auntie Vi yet about the wedding?’

‘I had a letter this morning. Seemingly Daphne’s parents want to keep things quiet on account of losing their lad, so there’s not going to be a big do, only immediate family.’

‘So we won’t be invited then?’ Grace guessed.

‘No. Mind you, Vi did say that they’d take our wedding presents with them to save us the cost and the trouble of taking them to the post office.’

Grace looked outraged. ‘Does she really expect us to buy them something when we haven’t even been invited to the wedding?’

‘Now, Grace love,’ Jean calmed her daughter, ‘to be honest with you neither me nor your dad fancied going all that long way in the first place, and if Daphne’s family are as full of themselves as our Vi is making out, then I wouldn’t fancy mixing with them anyway. To read Vi’s letters you’d think their Charlie was marrying a member of the Royal Family.’

‘She was just as bad when Bella was getting married,’ Grace reminded Jean. ‘Going on and on about Bella’s in-laws-to-be being so important, and look what happened there? In the end in turned out that Bella’s husband and his father had been stealing from the council.’

Jean sighed. ‘Vi always was one for being impressed by anyone who put on a bit of a show, and going on and on about them. I remember how she went on about her Edwin when she first me him. To hear her talk you’d have thought he was Rudolph Valentino. I could hardly keep my face straight the first time I met him. I remember our mum saying
that Vi must be smitten to go on about him being so good-looking when he was anything but. Now, about my picnic, Grace …’ Jean went on briskly, changing the subject.

She had got a job, and with a bit of luck, come tomorrow she could even have a billet as well. For the first time since she had realised that Charlie didn’t love her Lena felt a slight easing of the tight band of pain that had locked round her heart.

She was, though, going to have to join the trekkers again tonight, after all she’d said about not doing so. It was only for one more night, Lena comforted herself, and if Dolly’s grandson wanted to poke fun at her and have a laugh at her expense because of that then let him. It would be no skin off her nose what he said or how he looked at her, would it? Why should she care what he thought? She didn’t. She could always try to avoid Dolly and her grandson, but if she were honest Lena knew that she would feel safer with them than she would on her own.

With the relief of knowing that she had a job, the cramping tension had left her stomach and she was, she discovered, very hungry. Since the trekkers’ transport wouldn’t leave until later in the evening she had several hours to fill. She could always go to see a film – she’d have a nice comfy seat that way – but with what she’d spent on her new frock – her
tea
dress,
she corrected herself mentally, automatically mimicking inside her own head the manner and intonation of the woman in the shop – she hadn’t got very much money left, so instead she decided to find a chip shop and buy herself a nice bit of fish and some chips, and then she could start walking slowly back to the rest centre to collect a blanket and check that there wasn’t after all somewhere better for her to spend the night.

By the time Lena had found a chip shop that was open and undamaged by the previous week’s bombing the shop itself was full and there was a queue outside it. By now her stomach was gnawing at her with hunger so she joined the queue, waiting patiently with the others in it to be served whilst her stomach was tormented with the smell of fish and chips.

When Lena did reach the front of the queue there was another delay whilst a fresh batch of chips finished cooking, but eventually she was served by one of the two women working flat out behind the counter, both of them as dark-haired and Italian-looking as Lena was herself. There was a tradition amongst Liverpool’s immigrant Italian families of owning fish and chip and ice-cream businesses, although the men who had once run those businesses had now disappeared – either shipped off out of the country as aliens or because as younger generation grandsons and sons of immigrants they had taken English nationality and were now in uniform.

As soon as she was outside Lena reached hungrily into her pennyworth of chips, so hot and freshly cooked that they almost burned her fingers and her mouth.

A couple of young boys, seeing her with them, gave voice to the familiar boyish chant of, ‘Go on, give us a chip,’ but Lena shook her head. She was far too hungry to share them with anyone. She headed for the rest centre, eating her chips as she walked, her basket now an increasingly heavy weight on her arm.

‘No, I’m sorry, mothers with young children take priority.’

Lena nodded as she listened to the now familiar chant, letting the queue take her towards the tea urn as she accepted the blanket she was handed.

At least she’d be able to use the facilities here to have a wash and a brush-up, before she left to join the trekkers, and then tomorrow she would have a proper room again, Lena comforted herself, as she gulped thirstily at the tea she had been given.

The rest centre had a shower block and lockers but the lockers were all taken so Lena had to put her basket on one of the slatted wooden seats outside the showers, where she could keep it within view whilst she stood beneath a trickle of water that was barely warm, before wrapping herself in the clean, dry but very thin and old towel she had been able to ‘buy to use’ for one penny.

Once she was dry and dressed in her own clothes, the silk tea dress carefully and lovingly folded and then wrapped up in the horrid skirt to protect it before being put in her basket, Lena plaited her still wet hair, to keep it tidy.

She had been on her feet virtually all day and now they were beginning to ache so she put on her secondhand pumps.

It was time for her to leave if she didn’t want to miss the trekker transport. She just hoped that her new employer would keep her word and that her parents would agree to take her in.

She didn’t want to have to show herself up by looking for Dolly and her grandson, but the proximity of a group of rough-looking men, one of whom kept on looking at her, was making her feel uncomfortable. Her discomfort increased when he said something to the others and they all burst out laughing. The crowd of waiting trekkers was growing, and Lena tried to wriggle deeper into it, but the woman she was trying to squeeze past rounded on her and told her, ‘Here, watch what you’re doing with them elbows, will yer?’ turning back to the man she was with to say so loudly that Lena knew she was intended to hear, ‘The cheek of it, her elbowing an adult out of the way when she’s only a bit of a kid. Time was when kids her age knew how to treat their elders and betters.’

A bit of a kid? She certainly wasn’t that, Lena thought indignantly, her attention distracted when a fight broke out amongst the group of men she had wanted to avoid. Very quickly a crowd gathered round them, jeering and cheering as they egged them on.

Lena shrank back as far as she could into the crowd and looked away. She didn’t like seeing physical violence; it made her feel sick and all trembly inside. Her mum and her auntie had laughed at her for it, but she’d always been that way. Her mother had reckoned her reaction had come from watching her dad taking part in a boxing match when she’d been very young.

‘Cried your eyes, you did, when your dad was knocked out in the first round,’ her mother had told her.

Street fighting was a fact of life in the poorer areas of the city, and there was a proud history of the Italian boxing clubs producing some world-famous boxers, but Lena just couldn’t bear the thought of men beating one another up with their fists, never mind the sight of them doing it.

The transport was arriving. She tried frantically to remember exactly where it was she had seen Dolly the previous evening. They had gone on one of the coaches, she knew that, so it made sense to go and stand by them.

‘On your own, are you, sweetheart? Why don’t you come along with us? I might even let you sit on me knee.’

The man who had been watching her earlier had managed to sneak up on her without her realising it.

Lena tried to walk past him and then froze as he curled his hand round the handles of her basket, and told her with a leer, ‘Why don’t you let me carry that for you?’

‘Thank you but I’m meeting some friends,’ Lena told him firmly.

‘You and me could be good friends. How old are you, sweetheart, thirteen? You’ve got a nice pair of tits for your age – but then I bet all the men tell you that, don’t they? Let anyone have a feel of them yet, have you? I bet you’ve all them boys at school chasing after you like you was a little film star.’

He was pulling on her basket now, trying to force her to go with him. Panic flooded through her.

‘Let go of the basket.’

The male voice was icy cold – and familiar. Lena obeyed it automatically, reacting to its command before her brain was able to assimilate what was happening rationally, and it was only when the command was repeated that she realised that it wasn’t meant for her but for the man who had grabbed hold of it, and who now was glowering at her as he too let go of it, spilling the contents as he himself disappeared into the crowd.

‘My golly, Lena, it was lucky that my Gavin saw what was going on.’

Dolly and her grandson. Lena’s face burned as she kneeled down to pick up her things and push them back into the basket. Grateful as she was to have been rescued, she couldn’t help wishing that it had been anyone but Gavin who had driven off the man and his unwanted attentions.

Now her things were all over everywhere, and Gavin had hunkered down besides her, helping her to pick them up. Her face went an even brighter red as she saw that the hideous pink brassiere was lying right by his feet. She tried to snatch it up before he could see it but she was too late and she was left having to stammer her thanks as he picked it up and gravely handed it to her.

‘You didn’t get a billet then?’ Dolly asked cheerfully once everything had been put back in the basket and Lena was standing up.

She shook her head but then added proudly, ‘But I have got a job and a promise of somewhere to sleep from tomorrow.’

‘Come on, let’s get the pair of you on the bus.’ For some reason the thought of her and Dolly being referred to as a pair made Lena want to giggle, and
she found that once she had started to do so, she couldn’t stop, so that by the time Gavin had found her and Dolly seats, she was out of breath from laughing.

‘Oh, now I’ve gone and given myself a stitch,’ she complained.

Gavin didn’t comment. He was not surprised she was a bit hysterical. The chap he’d seen off had plainly meant business, and she had just as plainly been shocked and frightened by him. He had seen that in her face when he’d first caught sight of her and she hadn’t realised he and Dolly were there. He wouldn’t have known her if it hadn’t been for her dress, not with those pumps on and her hair in that plait. Last night she’d looked like a regular vamp but now she looked more like a kid. His mouth hardened with angry disgust as he remembered the way the other man had been leering at her.

‘Yes, you had a lucky escape and no mistake, thanks to my Gavin,’ Dolly continued proudly as the bus lurched into movement. ‘’Oo was he, anyway – someone you know?’

‘No. I’ve never seen him before.’ And then still a little in shock from what had happened she added shakily, ‘He thought I was thirteen.’

‘Well, you do look a lot younger with your hair in that plait,’ Dolly agreed, plainly as naïvely unaware of the loathsomeness of the man’s comment as Lena was herself, Gavin recognised.

He flexed the muscles in his back. He’d be glad to return to the comfort of his bed, in his billet with the pilot and his wife, but he couldn’t let his gran go off on her own without someone to keep an eye on her. His gran and the girl both needed someone
to keep an eye on them – although for different reasons, Gavin decided grimly as he listened with half an ear to Dolly telling Lena all about her childhood and her Romany grandparents. Gran didn’t half like egging the bread when she told her tales, and with Lena she’d got a captive audience. The words ‘Lena’ and ‘captive’ passing through his head at virtually the same time aroused both his anger and his protective instinct.

‘So what’s this job you’ve got then?’ he asked her.

Lena was tempted to tell him that it was none of his business. She was still mortified over what had happened and the horrible pink brassiere. On the other hand, he had rescued her from that dreadful man, she acknowledged fair-mindedly.

‘Coiffeuse,’ she told him, and then when he looked mystified relented enough to explain, ‘Hairdresser. It was a hairdresser I was working for before me auntie …’ she stopped and then continued firmly, ‘before. But I wanted to better meself a bit, so I’ve got a new job now at a better salon where they do all the stars that are on at the Royal Court Theatre. I’m to start there tomorrow and the owner says she thinks that she can find me a billet with her mum and dad.’

Gavin frowned. ‘It’s the billeting officer that says where folk are to go,’ he reminded Lena. It wasn’t really any of his business if she got taken advantage of but somehow he still couldn’t help worrying about her, envisaging the ‘parents’ as another man in the mould of the one from whom he had just rescued her.

Unaware of what Gavin was thinking, Lena tossed her head and told him triumphantly, ‘I know that,
but this room’s only come free on account of my new boss’s nan having died and her mum hasn’t had time yet to tell the council. Judith says that with me working for her and not having anywhere to sleep that makes me a priority case, ’cos she can’t have someone who looks like she’s spent the night in a haystack working in her salon. I have to wear a special overall – lilac, it is, with the name of the salon embroidered on it in grey. Judith has them specially brought over from New York by a friend of hers who is in the Merchant Navy,’ Lena told them importantly.

Listening to her, Gavin grimaced a little to himself. Perhaps it was unfair of him, given the danger they endured, but he didn’t entirely approve of the fact that some merchant seamen brought back goods with them from America, and not just for their own families. Some of them earned themselves a very nice extra income supplying the black marketeers with rationed goods.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious when she realised that whilst he was listening intently to her, Gavin had not contributed anything further to the conversation, Lena stopped talking. The motion of the bus was making her feel slightly queasy and before too long she had to smother first one and then another yawn, placing her hand in front of her mouth just as her mother had taught her.

Watching her, Dolly gave a belly laugh and nudged Lena in the ribs, telling her admiringly, ‘Well, I never. You’ve got ever such fancy manners, haven’t you? Proper posh.’

‘My mum was in service,’ Lena told her, ‘and she was always going on about the right way to do things.’

Dolly nodded approvingly. ‘Took me for ever such
a nice meal tonight, our Gavin did, in a proper hotel. Treats his gran like a queen, he does.’