The Mersey Daughter Read online

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2017

  Copyright © Annie Groves 2017

  Cover layout design © Annie Groves 2017

  Cover photography © Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2017

  Cover photographs © Rajkumar Singh / plainpicture (woman), Simon Baylis / Shutterstock.com (street scene).

  Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780007550845

  Ebook Edition © February 2017 ISBN: 9780007550852

  Version: 2017-03-14

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  Also by Annie Groves

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Spring 1941

  Kitty Callaghan drew her coat more tightly around her and wondered if she’d done the right thing.

  It was an old coat, but then nobody could get anything new nowadays. She’d never had much new to begin with, so at least everyone was in the same boat, now that war had been raging for over eighteen months. The material was worn and bobbled where her bag usually rubbed against it. It wasn’t much protection against the cold or the biting winds that blew in off the Atlantic. Well, she told herself, that wouldn’t matter now. She would soon be far away from Liverpool and everything she was familiar with, all she had ever known for every one of her twenty-two years.

  She caught sight of herself in the dirt-smeared train window. A pair of dark eyes stared back at her, set beneath waves of dark hair, which she had tried to control with a few precious grips. Her face was white. That would be the light making her look like that. It was nothing to do with the fact that she was full of trepidation at what she had done.

  Kitty had been lucky to get a corner seat. She knew that it was going to be a long journey – nobody could say quite how long, as the tracks were always getting damaged and then the race would be on to repair them. Her fellow passengers were in every sort of uniform. Soon she would be in uniform too.

  Her decision to join the WRNS – the Women’s Royal Naval Service, known as the Wrens – had been a sudden one, and had come about partly thanks to a chance encounter at the New Year dance at the Town Hall. Kitty had been doing her bit for the war effort already, managing the local Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (or NAAFI) canteen on the dock road near her home in Bootle to the north of the city. At first she had enjoyed it, finding it a challenge, and was satisfied that she was helping out, even if in a small way. But, having seen the devastation caused by the bombs dropped on the docks and all around, she knew she needed to do more. Her home city had suffered terribly from attacks by the German air force, the Luftwaffe. Family and friends had been hurt, and forced to make heartbreaking decisions, such as whether to evacuate their children away from the most dangerous areas. Yet everyone had been buoyed by the bravery of the pilots in the Battle of Britain back in the summer and, once it became clear that the war was not going to be over any time soon, people had begun to dig deep and find reserves of courage. So when Kitty had bumped into a recruitment officer at the dance, she had decided to pursue the enthusiastic young woman’s suggestion that she consider joining up.

  ‘Penny for ’em!’ One of the young lads, in an army greatcoat that was far too big for him, leaned across from the seat opposite and grinned at her. ‘What are you doing, then? Going to see your boyfriend?’

  Kitty was no stranger to dealing with such comments – you couldn’t afford to be standoffish in the NAAFI canteen. She had learned to give as good as she got. Fortunately, having three brothers at home, she had already had plenty of practice. But she also knew not to indulge in idle conversation when she couldn’t be certain who might be listening, so she shook her head gently. ‘Careless talk costs lives,’ she said lightly.

  The young man’s face fell. ‘Go on, a pretty girl like you must have a boyfriend,’ he persisted. He looked about seventeen with his baby face without a trace of stubble.

  ‘Don’t pester the lady – she’s right,’ said one of his companions, whose own uniform showed he was a corporal, not just a private. ‘You don’t know if there’s spies out there in the corridor or not. Sorry, miss, he don’t mean nothing by it. No offence, like.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Kitty. She was going to have to spend many hours with these people and there was no sense in making a scene. Equally, though, she didn’t want them larking about and chatting her up. She had some serious thinking to do.

  Her own big brother had signed up almost as soon as war broke out. Jack was a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm and had already had a narrow escape when his ship went down after being attacked by the enemy. He’d been wounded by a bullet in the shoulder, but insisted he was better, and had returned to active service as quickly as they’d let him.

  Danny, the brother who was just over a year younger than her, was in a reserved occupation on the docks, although at the moment he was recovering from an accident. It had nearly killed him, and could have taken scores of others with him. Kitty shut her eyes briefly at the memory. Danny had been the hero of the moment, taking the place of a fire-fighter who’d collapsed when trying to save a burning cargo ship. What Danny hadn’t told anyone was that he’d been turned down by every one of the Forces because he had an enlarged heart, the result of rheumatic fever as a child. So when he himself collapsed soon after the exertion, Kitty
and the rest of the family had had to cope with the shock of the accident and the additional news that Danny had a serious condition that would restrict him for the rest of his life. She shook her head a little. It was no good worrying. Danny was old enough to look after himself; and besides, he could talk his way out of just about anything.

  As for Tommy … Kitty couldn’t contain a sigh at the thought of her youngest brother, just eleven years old. As their mother had died giving birth to him, and their father while alive had been a feckless drunkard, she had raised him almost as her own. He’d also had a rough time of it over the past year and a half since the war had broken out, but he’d finally agreed to be evacuated. Kitty had no concerns on that score; he’d gone to a farm in Lancashire where their neighbour Rita’s children had been made more than welcome. He would be fussed over and pampered by the farmers Joan and Seth, safe from the attentions of the Luftwaffe that had made life in Empire Street so perilous. While she knew in her heart of hearts he had wanted to stay at home for the excitement of collecting shrapnel and being in the thick of things, it was for the best. Little Michael and Megan from across the road were there to play with, and he’d be better fed than the rest of the family put together.

  So why was she so full of doubt? Kitty mentally gave herself a shake. She should be grateful. She’d survived the bombings where so many hadn’t. She’d been lucky to meet the kindest man in the midst of all the chaos at Linacre Lane hospital, where Danny and Tommy had been treated. Dr Elliott Fitzgerald was so far above her in social station that she sometimes had to pinch herself that he’d even talked to her, let alone taken her to a posh dance at the Town Hall and seen her whenever his rare time off from the wards coincided with her being off shift from the canteen. He’d been immediately encouraging about her joining the Wrens. Plenty of men would want the woman with whom they were developing a relationship to stay close at hand, but not Elliott. He believed she could do it, and be a success. He’d held her hand, looked into her face with his beautiful blue eyes, and said that she would be wonderful and exactly what the country needed. Just having him next to her made her feel more confident, more assured.

  So why wasn’t that enough?

  Because, said a little voice in her head, he isn’t Frank Feeny.

  Suddenly the train jolted to a halt. Shaken, Kitty peered out of the window, but of course all the signs at the station they’d just drawn into had been removed, for security. She’d never been this far from home before and didn’t recognise anything.

  ‘It’s Crewe,’ said the baby-faced private, but the corporal dug him in the ribs.

  ‘Shut up, Parker. You know you’re not meant to say that.’

  ‘Only trying to be helpful,’ said Parker, rubbing his side. ‘That hurt, that did.’

  ‘I’ll give you more than that to complain about if you don’t watch your mouth,’ warned the corporal.

  Just when Kitty thought it could be getting nasty, the door to the compartment opened and a young woman stuck her head through the gap. ‘I say, could you shove up? Thanks ever so.’ Without waiting for a reply she swung herself in and hoisted a very elegant case on to the overhead rack. Kitty only had sight of it for a moment, but that was all it took for her to recognise its quality, so very unlike her own shabby one beside it.

  ‘I’m so glad to have a seat,’ the woman went on, giving the occupants of the carriage a dazzling smile. ‘I simply dreaded standing all the way to London. Now let me make amends for disturbing you by offering you some gingerbread. Mummy asked Cook to bake extra for this very reason.’

  The soldiers immediately broke off from their quarrel and looked brighter. Kitty masked a grin. Maybe this journey wouldn’t be so bad after all. It was a sign, she told herself. Push all thoughts of Frank Feeny firmly away – he thought of her as a pesky little sister, that was all. She was better off in so many ways now that Elliott had come into her life. And, while she was nervous about what the coming weeks of training would bring, there was something else too. Excitement. Ambition. This was the start of something completely new, and she owed it to her family, her friends, but most of all herself, to make the very best of it.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘So why aren’t you out helping Mam down the WVS?’ Rita Kennedy, née Feeny, demanded of her younger sister Nancy. They were in the kitchen of the family home, even though neither of them lived there any more since their marriages. Then again, both marriages had turned out very differently to how they’d expected, and they both preferred the comfort of their mother’s warm and welcoming kitchen to just about anywhere else on earth.

  Nancy planted her elbows firmly on the old chenille tablecloth and sipped from her cup of tea. ‘Because I’m minding Georgie. He’s still having a rotten time with his teething. The last thing they’ll want is a howling baby shouting the place down.’

  Rita raised her eyebrows, knowing full well that Nancy would do anything to get out of hard graft. While their mother was a mainstay of the Women’s Voluntary Service, as well as organising salvage collections, cookery classes, make-do-and-mend classes and being the auxiliary fire warden for Empire Street, Nancy rarely lifted a finger if she could help it. She was perfectly happy to let somebody else mind her young son – usually their sister-in-law Violet, who, having no children of her own yet, liked nothing better than entertaining young George, who was not quite a year old. That suited Nancy down to the ground. Now she pouted at her big sister – a look she’d practised for many a year.

  ‘You needn’t be like that about it.’

  ‘I didn’t say a thing,’ Rita pointed out, pulling out a wooden chair and sinking gratefully on to it. She’d been on her feet all day.

  ‘You didn’t have to,’ Nancy complained. ‘Your sour look gave it away. Someone’s got to look after Georgie, and now Violet’s thrown herself into the WVS as well, it’ll have to be me.’

  ‘What about Sid’s mam?’ Rita asked innocently, waiting for the firestorm that would follow. She wasn’t disappointed.

  ‘That old witch! I wouldn’t trust her with a baby.’ Nancy was incensed. ‘It’s bad enough having to live under her roof – we don’t want to spend any more time with her than we have to. I don’t know how she does it, but she manages to be a proper busybody and a big streak of misery at the same time. I mean, Sid’s been a POW since Dunkirk, but every day she goes on and on about it like it’s only just happened. It’s as if nobody else has lost anyone in this blessed war. It’s all about her, what a martyr she is, how it’s destroying her health. It’s enough to get your goat.’

  Rita couldn’t argue with that; Mrs Kerrigan always had been one of their nosiest neighbours, and she’d taken to the role of grieving mother as if she’d been born for it. Rita smiled to herself. Whatever disapproval anybody had for Nancy’s ways was like water off a duck’s back; she didn’t seem to give a hoot about other people’s opinions. Still, her sister could be remarkably callous about her missing husband, and Rita knew she was sailing a bit close to the wind these days. ‘You’re going to have to keep on the right side of her, though, for when Sid gets back,’ she said. ‘He’ll have been through enough without coming home to find his wife and mother at daggers drawn.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to dwell on it.’ Nancy tossed her head, making her red hair swing about her shoulders. ‘We none of us know when he’ll be back. It’s too depressing to think about.’

  More like Nancy didn’t want Sid back to cramp her style, Rita thought, but decided to keep her thoughts to herself. It couldn’t be easy for Nancy, rattling round in that gloomy big house with a mother-in-law who made no secret of disliking her. As for Mr Kerrigan, nobody ever saw him. He worked nights on the Liverpool Post and kept totally different hours to the rest of his family, which Nancy figured was to stay out of the way of his disagreeable wife. Nancy spent as much of her time as she could in her mother’s house, and had even come back to live there for a while, before Violet had arrived and it had simply become too crowded to contain them all
. Reluctantly she’d taken little George back to his other granny.

  Rita sighed. She was hardly so squeaky clean herself. She pushed thoughts of the circumstances of her marriage to her husband Charlie out of her mind, feeling too exhausted to think about it now. She loved her work as a nurse, but ever since the local infirmary had been bomb-damaged, she had been working at the hospital on Linacre Lane, a much longer walk away. She didn’t mind the walk itself – especially now that the buses were so unreliable – but the journey there and back combined with long shifts and the weight of responsibility of being a nursing sister wore her out. She reached for the teapot before Nancy could help herself to a refill. Guiltily she realised she was drinking her mother’s tea ration, though Dolly Feeny wouldn’t have begrudged her eldest girl a cup. The whole family were proud of Rita, who’d kept at her post while the docks were bearing the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s devastating raids.

  Warming her hands on the cup, Rita leant back. ‘That’s better.’ It was amazing what a drop of tea could do to restore your spirits. ‘Have you heard Mam’s latest?’

  Nancy glanced up. ‘No, what?’

  ‘She’s gone and put her name down for a victory garden. She was talking about it at Christmas and I thought she’d given up the idea, but no. Now the days are getting longer it’ll soon be time to start planting seeds and I don’t know how she’ll manage.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we could all do with more fresh fruit and veg,’ said Nancy eagerly. Her mouth watered at the thought of strawberries in the summer. Even if there was no cream or sugar to go on them, they could always use evaporated milk.