Across the Mersey Read online

‘Teatime, you two. And you’d better make sure you eat it otherwise you’ll get me into trouble,’ Grace warned her siblings, ‘and then I won’t bring you any more biscuits.’

  ‘Aww, Grace.’ Sasha pulled a face whilst Lou giggled and demanded, ‘Look at this, Grace,’ and then licked one of the iced gems and stuck it on her face. ‘If I go to school like this do you think Miss Richards will send me home sick?’

  ‘More like she’ll keep you behind and have you writing out lines,’ Grace warned her, grimacing when Louise removed the biscuit and sucked the icing off before eating the biscuit base.

  ‘Come on, and don’t forget to wash your hands.’

  ‘What’s this about you telling folk we’re on the breadline?’

  Jean frowned at the grim note in Sam’s voice. It was rare for him to get angry with his children, especially Grace, who had always been such an eager-to-please girl, but Jean could see that he was angry now.

  Grace put down her knife and fork, her stomach tensing. ‘I never said that, Dad.’

  Ignoring her, Sam continued, ‘Captain Allen came to see me today. He said as how Sister Harris had told him she’d recommended that you should train as a nurse but that you’d said that your dad was too poor to pay for your training.’

  Jean looked anxiously from her husband’s face to her daughter’s.

  Grace flushed and bit her lip, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Dad; I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, but—’

  ‘Well, you can go back and tell her that I’ve said you’d no business talking to her about our private family business.’

  ‘I’m sure Grace didn’t mean any harm, Sam,’ Jean tried to intercede.

  ‘Mebbe not, but she’s caused plenty.’

  Pushing back her chair, Grace stood up, demanding shakily, ‘Well, what was I supposed to say? You’ve always told us we’ve got to tell the truth and with Sister Harris saying that she was going to put me forward for training …’

  Unable to finish her sentence, Grace turned and ran out of the room and up the stairs in tears.

  Everyone round the table had gone silent.

  Sam pushed away his plate. ‘I’m going to the allotment.’

  ‘All right, you two, no leaving this table until you’ve finished your teas,’ Jean told the twins, smiling gratefully at Luke as he continued to eat.

  She had to wait until Luke had gone out to his ARP meeting and the twins were back outside in the garden before she could go up to Grace.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ Grace apologised tearfully, ‘but I was that taken by surprise when Sister Harris said about me training as a nurse.’

  ‘I understand, love, and so I’m sure does your dad really, but men have their pride, you know, especially your dad.’

  ‘I was going to tell you about it before tea … I wish that I had now,’ Grace admitted.

  ‘Well, then, in future you’ll know better, won’t you? Now dry your eyes and come downstairs and do the washing up for me, will you? I’ve got to go out.’

  Grace tried not to look surprised. Her mother never went out in the evening unless it was to pop round to see a neighbour.

  Jean stood watching Sam for a few seconds. He had his back to her, bending over his spade as he turned over the soil, his movements sure and steady.

  On the raspberry canes at the far end of the neat allotment the fruit was beginning to ripen. In front of the raspberries, cloches covered a neat line of cucumbers. In the small greenhouse were the tomatoes that were Sam’s pride and joy, and alongside the greenhouse the immaculately tended beds filled with lettuce, radish and the like.

  Nearly half the allotment was given over to Sam’s potatoes, and the green tufts of the carrots marked the place where the summer crop finished and the autumn veggies began.

  Sam had taken on a second allotment with three other men on which they were planning to keep chickens under the small orchard of fruit trees they had planted there.

  The evening air was full of the scent of the nightstock that had seeded itself in the small bed next to his rose-covered tool shed where Sam germinated the flowers that Jean loved.

  Jean opened the gate to the allotments and walked down the neat path that divided Sam’s. He must have heard her coming because he stopped work and turned round, shading his eyes from the evening sun.

  ‘I’ve brought you a ham sandwich,’ she told him. ‘You can’t go working like that without something to give you a bit of energy.’

  She sat down on the wooden bench he had built years ago when he had first got the allotment and she had been carrying Grace. She’d come down here many a sunny afternoon and evening then, bringing Luke in his pushchair so that she could sit and talk to Sam as he worked.

  His brusque, ‘How’s Grace?’ eased relief into Jean’s anxiety. She knew him so well and she could guess how he was feeling right now. Sam loved his children and she knew that Grace’s tears would have upset him, no matter how angry he was feeling.

  ‘She’s upset, just like you are. She got caught on the hop when Sister Harris said she wanted to put her up for proper nursing training. You know how she’s always wanted to be a nurse.’ She bent down to pull out a piece of chickweed that must have escape Sam’s normally keen eye for weeds, before admitting, ‘I blame meself really, Sam. I’m the one that’s always told her that money doesn’t grow on trees, and with the four of them to feed you can’t be expected to pay for expensive treats. She’s been a good girl, you know that, always bringing home little treats, as well as giving me a fair bit of her wages. Mind you, like I’ve told her, it was wrong of her going saying what she did without talking it over with us first.’

  ‘Wrong? Aye, it were that all right. I do me best, Jean. It’s bad enough having ruddy Edwin and that sister of yours looking down their noses at us, without me own daughter …’

  Sam turned back to his digging.

  So that was it! Jean had known that something more than Grace’s admission that she didn’t think her family could afford to pay for her training had got him all wrought-up.

  It was hard for a proud decent man like her Sam, who had grafted all his life, to see men like Edwin smirking and sneering, just because they’d done better for themselves.

  ‘Well, as to that, I wouldn’t swap my life for our Vi’s – not for anything, I wouldn’t. I reckon you’re in the right of it, love, when you say that Edwin hasn’t come by his money as honestly as he might have done.’

  Sam stopped digging and turned to look at her. ‘It gets my goat, it really does, having to listen to him boasting about what he’s done and what they’ve got,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘It makes me feel like I’ve let you and our kids down, Jean. I saw the look on our Luke’s face when young Charlie was talking about that car of his.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘All our Luke’s got is a bike.’

  ‘Sam Campion, I’m ashamed of you,’ Jean scolded him. ‘Luke’s never given that car of Charlie’s a second thought, I know that for a fact. It’s that Charlie’s joined the TA he minds. We’ve brought our four up to know better than that. Come and sit down here with me, love,’ she told him, patting the seat next to her and then reaching for his hand.

  ‘I’ll tell you straight that I couldn’t live like our Vi does – not for a minute, I couldn’t. I was only telling meself when we came back after visiting them how glad I was to get home. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m the one who’s got the better husband, and it isn’t just me that thinks so. Our Francine’s always said that. You’re a good man, Sam Campion, and I’ve never for a minute regretted saying yes when you asked me to marry you. A decent honest hard-working husband who loves his family.’

  Sam squeezed her hand and then wiped his free hand across his eyes.

  Jean gave him a minute to get himself back under control before continuing calmly, ‘I’ve bin thinking. I’ve got a bit put by out of the housekeeping you give me; especially with you giving me a bit more since you had that rise just after Christmas. I reckon we can
afford for our Grace to do her training. She was only doing her best love, not wanting this Sister Harris to go making plans and then her having to say she couldn’t do it. She’s thoughtful like that, is Grace. She’s always wanted to be a nurse – you know that – but she’s settled herself down at Lewis’s and made the best of it. I’ve been ever so proud of the way she’s set to to do her bit for the war effort and I know you are too. It’s a real compliment to her and to us that she’s been recommended for proper training, but bless her, she’s never so much as said or boasted about it.’

  A couple of sparrows were fighting over a worm Sam’s digging had unearthed.

  ‘Well, you’re right about that, love,’ Sam admitted, ‘but I felt that ashamed when Captain Allen came in and said in front of everyone how it were a crying shame that she couldn’t do her training on account of me not being able to afford to pay for it.’

  Jean’s heart swelled with wifely indignation.

  ‘If you ask me it’s that captain who should be feeling ashamed, speaking out in public like that without him knowing the full story, about how our Grace had got it wrong and had not wanted to put her dad to any extra expense, not knowing that he’d already got something put aside just in case. Of course, not all parents are like us and try to bring up their children to respect money and to understand that it doesn’t grow on trees, and I shall say as much too when I see Elsie Norris tomorrow up at the shops.’

  ‘That old gossip?’

  Ignoring him, Jean continued determinedly, ‘In fact if I was you, Sam, I’d say the same to a couple of them as you work with, and them that’s in the ARP with you as well. No need to say too much, mind. Just a bit of a casual mention.’

  Sam shook his head, but he was smiling as well. ‘I can see you’ve got it all worked out. I’ve allus said that you’ve got a clever head on your shoulders, Jean.’

  ‘Well, I was clever enough to marry you,’ she agreed, ‘but any woman would want to do her best for her family. That’s only natural. Grace is ever so upset, love,’ she added quietly. ‘Cried her eyes out, she has. She thinks the world of you, you know that.’

  ‘Perhaps I was a bit hard on her, but she should have said summat to us first instead of going and doing what she did.’

  Jean knew when to let things rest. Sam had his sticking points and what man had ever liked admitting he was wrong?

  ‘She’s learned her lesson, love, and, like I said, she didn’t mean any harm. You know what I think?’

  Sam was looking at her with a twinkle in his eyes now. ‘No, but I reckon you’re about to tell me.’

  ‘I reckon it would be a very good thing indeed if you went along with Grace to the next meeting and had a word with this Sister Harris yourself. Explained to her, like, that Grace had got it wrong, and told her how proud you are to have Grace being offered such a chance.’

  The last rays of sunshine were warming the greenhouse roof.

  ‘That way you’d be able to ask her a few questions as well, and find out exactly what’s going to be involved. Grace said something about her having to live in, and if that’s the case then we’ll have a spare room to let out.’

  Sam was grinning now. ‘You think of everything,’ he told her admiringly.

  ‘Well,’ Jean told him practically, ‘it would be daft to have a room standing empty when it could be being used. I’ve said as much to Grace and told her as well that if she’d come to us first, we could have discussed everything properly and without all this upset.’

  It would help to soothe Sam’s sore pride if he thought that she held Grace more to blame than him. Poor Sam. Jean could well understand how having to listen to Edwin’s boasting had upset him.

  Luke aimed a morose kick at the pebble in the middle of the pavement. It was just so ruddy unfair. Why couldn’t he make his dad understand how he felt? All the lads he knew, the ones he’d gone through Scouts and then the Boys’ Brigade Band with, were in uniform now, all grinning broadly as they talked excitedly about doing their bit, whilst everyone clustered round them, especially the girls, especially Pam Harrison. Luke’s scowl deepened. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched along the road.

  He’d seen the looks they were giving him, looks that said he hadn’t got the guts to join up. Even ruddy Charlie was in uniform, although from what he said, he’d no intention of doing any fighting.

  ‘Fool’s game, that is, mate,’ he’d told Luke cheerfully.

  There was no point in talking to his mum either. Normally he could rely on her to intercede for him with his dad, but everyone knew how mums were about this war. He’d already heard more tales than he wanted to remember from those who had joined up, talking about their mothers’ tears and protests.

  ‘Like I told me mam,’ Pete Riley, one of the other apprentices, had boasted only yesterday, after announcing he was joining the RAF, ‘I’m a man now, leastways that’s what the Government says. Mind you, I’m not saying there aren’t some advantages …’ He had grinned and winked before continuing, ‘That little redhead I’ve been running around after for the last six months is all over me like a rash now. Course, if me mam knew that she’d be making even more of a fuss.’

  It was all very well for his father to talk about the importance of him getting into the Salvage Corps and saying that even if there was a war it wouldn’t last for ever, and he didn’t want to be in the same position as them what had come back from the last time with no job to go to.

  ‘You’ll be doing your bit, don’t you worry about that, son,’ he had told Luke. But to Luke the thought of working on dull salvage operations when all his friends were going to be heroes in smart uniforms, was one that only made him feel more desperate to join them.

  He was beginning to suspect that even his boss thought he was a coward. There, he’d said it, the word that no one was saying but that he knew everyone was thinking. He could see it in their eyes when they refused to look at him properly and the way conversation stopped whenever he walked in on the lads he had grown up with.

  ‘You want me to what?’

  Bella looked at her brother. They were sitting in his car outside their parents’ house, Charlie having brought Bella back from the Tennis Club.

  ‘You heard me, Charlie.’

  He shook his head. ‘If you want to try and force Alan’s hand then you go ahead, but don’t involve me in it.’

  Bella looked at her brother with irritation. Did he really think that she’d have bothered involving him if she didn’t have to?

  She had been furious when Alan had refused to come in with her after bringing her home, and even more furious when he had told her casually that he couldn’t stay because his parents were entertaining Trixie’s mother and father and that he was expected to be there.

  She had every right to expect him to marry her, and somehow she’d find a way of making sure that he did.

  It hadn’t taken her long to come up with a plan, but in order for it to work she needed Charlie’s help and now he was being difficult. Well, she had the answer to that.

  ‘Of course I’ve got to involve you in it; otherwise it isn’t going to work, is it? How can you make a big fuss about Alan having to do the decent thing by me ’cos you’ve caught him out doing what he shouldn’t with me, if you aren’t involved?’

  ‘I still say it won’t work.’

  A familiar stubborn look had tensed Charlie’s face and an equally familiar truculent note had entered his voice, but Bella was determined to get her own way.

  ‘Yes it will,’ she overruled him. ‘Look, all you have to do is come outside and find us, like I’ve just told you. And don’t forget, make sure you bring someone with you, like Mr Baxter.’

  Charlie forgot about being stubborn, and twisted uncomfortably in his seat instead. ‘He’s the President of the Tennis Club,’ he protested.

  ‘I know that. And he’s a neighbour of Alan’s parents, as well,’ said Bella smugly, before returning to her plan. ‘I’ll be there crying, telling A
lan to stop, and you can make a big fuss,’ she informed her brother. ‘Then I’ll say that Alan and I are engaged, and that he forgot himself a bit in the excitement of me saying yes.’

  ‘I’m not doing it.’ Charlie was determined and adamant but he was no match for Bella.

  ‘Yes, you are, Charlie,’ she told him sweetly, ‘because if you don’t then I’ll tell Dad about that little bit of business you’ve been doing without him knowing anything about it, and you pocketing the money.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ Charlie cursed as he saw the look of triumph on her face.

  Bella had always been a sly cat, and never more so than when she wanted something. He pitied Alan Parker if he did end up married to her. Bella had got him well and truly trapped now and no mistake. He’d have to go along with her stupid plan because if he didn’t he knew she would make good her threat.

  Sisters! He’d just as soon not have had one.

  FOUR

  ‘Phew, I was beginning to think we were never going to get finished,’ Grace sighed in relief as she and Susan hurried down the staff staircase of Lewis’s and out into the early evening sunshine.

  A last-minute message from Bella had meant that instead of getting changed at her Auntie Vi’s, Grace had had to change into her cotton frock in the cloakroom at Lewis’s, whilst Susan eyed her critically and gave her advice on her hair and makeup.

  ‘Are you sure I’m not wearing too much lipstick,’ she asked her uncertainly, ‘only—’

  ‘Of course you aren’t. You wait until some chap starts trying to kiss you, you’ll be glad you’ve put a bit extra on then,’ Susan assured her without explaining the logic of her statement.

  ‘Real mean of that cousin of yours, it was, to say you had to go ready-dressed, especially when she’d said first off you was to change at her place. I wouldn’t stand for it meself.’

  ‘I am beginning to wish that I hadn’t said I’d go,’ Grace admitted. All she could really think of at the moment was the excitement of knowing that she was going to train to be a proper nurse.