Across the Mersey Read online

  ‘Well, you are going,’ Susan told her, ‘and what’s more you’re going to put that cousin of yours well and truly in her place when she sees you in this.’

  Grace’s eyes rounded in disbelief when Susan rummaged in the large bag she was carrying and produced a paper bag, which she opened to show Grace the green silk dress that was inside it.

  ‘Here, go on, take it,’ she commanded, pushing the bag towards Grace.

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t, Susan.’

  ‘Of course you can, and you’d ruddy well better an’ all after all the trouble I’ve bin to to get it for you. You’ll look a real treat in it and no mistake. I just wish I could be there to see the face on that snotty cousin of yours when she sees you in it.’

  Susan had really taken a dislike to Bella, Grace acknowledged.

  ‘You can get changed into it in the ladies in Lyons. I’ll come with you and give you a hand.’

  ‘No, Susan, I can’t, honestly.’

  ‘Come on,’ Susan ignored her protests as she took hold of Grace’s hand and virtually dragged her along the road and into Lyons.

  Half an hour later Grace was staring at her reflection in the mirror, feeling horribly guilty and ungrateful, whilst Susan puffed out her cheeks and demanded, ‘Now aren’t you pleased I got it for you?’

  Susan was so pleased with herself, and Grace knew that she had wanted to be kind. It seemed mean not to thank her.

  ‘It is a lovely dress,’ she agreed. ‘But taking it from the Gown Salon—’

  ‘Oh, give over, do. Like I told you, everyone does it, even Mrs James, I reckon.’

  ‘She never!’ Grace protested, diverted.

  ‘Come on, you’d better get a move on, otherwise you’re going to be late.’

  With her own dress packed away along with her work clothes, Grace hugged Susan and then picked up her now quite heavy bag.

  It was good job that her stole and her evening bag were both white and didn’t clash with the silk gown, she decided, feeling very self-conscious as she waved goodbye to Susan and set off for the ferry terminal.

  ‘Just you remember what we agreed,’ Bella told Charlie as she came downstairs, giving him a warning look before opening the lounge door and stepping inside.

  ‘What do you think, Mummy?’ she asked, doing a small pirouette in the new ice-blue gown she had persuaded her mother to buy her for the dance, whilst Charlie grimaced.

  ‘You look beautiful, darling. What time is Alan picking you up? I thought that Daddy and I would ask him in for a drink before you go. We really ought to have his parents round for a bit of supper soon.’

  ‘He should be here soon, but he’ll have that wretched cousin of his with him, don’t forget.’ Bella pulled a face. ‘Seb and Grace will have to go to the Club with Charlie. There won’t be room in Alan’s car.’

  ‘There won’t be room in mine either,’ Charlie protested, but neither his mother nor his sister was listening to him.

  ‘There’s the doorbell now,’ Vi announced.

  ‘There’s no car outside, though. I expect it will only be Grace,’ Bella said carelessly. ‘You’d better go and let her in, Charlie.’

  If Grace hadn’t already been feeling self-conscious and guilty because of the attention her frock had attracted during her journey to her aunt’s, the look on Charlie’s face when he opened the door to her would have certainly made her feel both those things.

  ‘I say …’ he told her, giving a long appreciative whistle. ‘Bags I the first dance with you, cos.’

  ‘Charlie, hurry up and close the door. I don’t want you standing there when Alan arrives. It looks awfully common.’

  ‘Hark at her ladyship,’ Charlie grinned, cocking his head in the direction of the lounge door. ‘Gawd knows what she’s going to be like once she gets Alan’s ring on her finger.’

  ‘Come on, we’d better do as she says.’

  Grace always felt a bit uncomfortable around her aunt and uncle, and now she really was wishing she hadn’t agreed to come, what with the dress and everything. She’d been tempted to change out of it at the landing stage, but there’d been a queue for the ladies and another one at the other end, so she’d pushed her guilt to one side and got on the bus instead.

  Now, though, as she stepped into the lounge and its two occupants went completely silent as they stared at her, Grace wished that she had managed to get changed.

  ‘Where did you get that dress from?’ Bella demanded without bothering to welcome her.

  ‘A friend lent it to me,’ Grace told her. She knew that her face had gone red. Bella was giving her a narrow-eyed look whilst her mother was looking very cross indeed.

  ‘Well, I must say I’m surprised that anyone would want to lend out such an expensive-looking gown,’ said Vi.

  ‘Yes, so am I,’ Bella agreed.

  ‘I’m not sure that wearing it was a wise decision, though, Grace dear,’ her aunt announced patronisingly. ‘You don’t look very comfortable in it. That’s always the trouble when a girl tries too hard and steps out of her own class. It always shows.’

  ‘Alan’s here, Mummy. Just remember,’ Bella hissed at Grace as her mother went into the hall, ‘it’s Seb you’ll be partnering, so that me and Alan can have a bit of time to ourselves, so don’t start hanging around me all night. Charlie’s going to drive you and Seb there, aren’t you, Charlie?’

  Without waiting for her brother to reply, Bella turned to check her reflection in the mirror above the new tiled fireplace, whilst her mother went to answer the door.

  Grace couldn’t help noticing the speed with which Bella’s cross expression and demanding voice changed the moment her mother called out, ‘Bella darling, Alan’s here.’ Almost miraculously a smile replaced her earlier frown, her voice as soft and sweet as fresh cream as she jerked her head warningly to Grace, mouthing, ‘Come on’ before hurrying into the hallway.

  To Grace’s surprise Alan Parker, instead of being the swooningly handsome matinée idol type she had imagined, was a rather ordinary-looking young man of around medium height and build, with a pugnacious expression, slightly protruding pale blue eyes, and brown hair.

  ‘Seb, do come inside properly and be introduced to my cousin,’ Bella instructed the young man who was half hidden by the open front door. ‘I should warn you that Grace isn’t actually a member of the Tennis Club. She works in Lewis’s,’ Bella added disparagingly. ‘I’ve told her that she’s not to disgrace you, though.’

  Grace could feel her face starting to burn with misery and humiliation, which was made even worse when her partner for the evening stepped into the hallway. Alan Parker’s cousin was everything that Bella’s boyfriend was not. He was tall, broad-shouldered and very good-looking, the uniform he was wearing making him look distinguished and smart, despite the fact that his leg was in plaster and he was having to use crutches. His hair was thick and dark and nicely barbered.

  ‘I can see that your cousin is teasing us both,’ he told Grace, offering her both his hand and the kindest smile she had ever seen. It was so warm and understanding that she could feel her earlier misery melting away. ‘And I’m going to be escorting the prettiest girl at the dance.’

  Bella flashed them an angry look. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you could see her in her Lewis’s uniform,’ she tittered angrily. ‘I really don’t know how you can work there, Grace, especially with that horrid common girl who works in the Gown Salon with you.’

  ‘Come on, Bella, otherwise we’re going to be late,’ Alan interrupted her irritably, thrusting a box containing a corsage of flowers towards her.

  ‘Oh, how lovely. Look, Mummy, my favourite flower. Alan darling, you are so thoughtful.’

  ‘Bet she ordered it herself and told him what she wanted,’ Charlie muttered irrepressibly in Grace’s ear as they all watched whilst Bella begged Alan with prettily sweet insistence to pin the corsage on for her.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ she told him once he had finished, raising herself up on her
tiptoes to kiss his cheek and then pouting when he rubbed his skin, protesting that she was covering him in lipstick.

  ‘Seb, Charlie is taking you and Grace in his car. Grace can sit in the back so you’ll have plenty of room for your crutches. Alan, come on, darling. I dare say that everyone will be waiting for us to arrive.’ She gave a tinkling little laugh. ‘It’s so embarrassing, but everyone seems to take their lead from me and Alan. I suppose it’s flattering really.’

  ‘And entirely natural,’ Grace heard her auntie Vi saying firmly.

  ‘I’m really sorry that you’ve been forced to travel with us, instead of with your cousin,’ Grace apologised to Seb.

  ‘I’m not,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘In actual fact, Alan isn’t my cousin. Our relationship is rather more tenuous than that. It’s very good of his parents to put me up, though, whilst I wait for the medics to pronounce me fit for service. With any luck I should be off their hands by this time next week and back with my unit.’

  They had reached Charlie’s car, and Seb opened the door and told her cheerfully, ‘There’s no need for you to risk creasing your outfit clambering into the back. I’ll sit there.’

  ‘Oh, no, you mustn’t,’ Grace protested, but it was too late. Seb was already settling himself in the back of the car.

  ‘This is going to be such a wonderful evening,’ Bella told Alan, hanging on to his arm possessively as they walked from his car to the Tennis Club entrance. Through the open double doors it was possible to see into the square hallway, which was decorated with bunting in the Tennis Club colours and cleverly cut-out paper streamers of tennis racquets and balls. On a table underneath the central light stood an impressive floral arrangement provided by those mothers who were on the roster for the church flowers, the flowers in shades of red, white and blue, but Bella wasn’t particularly interested in the effort the Social Committee had made to strike a cheery yet patriotic note in the décor for the dance. After all, she had far more important things on her mind than a few paper streamers and some flowers.

  She breathed a deep sigh, keeping a firm hold on Alan as they went inside, whispering softly to him, ‘When we’re married and our children are growing up I shall tell them about tonight and how special it was.’

  ‘Now look here, Bella—’ Alan began grimly.

  But Bella pretended not to be aware of what he was saying, exclaiming instead, ‘Goodness, look over there at Trixie, queuing to get in. What an awful fright she looks, doesn’t she? Poor girl. I really must give her a few tips about how to make the best of herself. Not that she’s got much to make the best of, mind you. Did you tell your parents that mine want them to come over to supper tomorrow? Daddy is getting awfully father-like about young men who take liberties, and the fact that you haven’t spoken to him yet,’ she told Alan archly, ‘but there’s no need for you to worry. He’s a pussycat really. Wasn’t I clever inviting my cousin along for Seb, so that we could be on our own?’

  ‘What exactly happened to your leg, or is it something you’d rather not talk about?’ Grace asked Seb with genuine interest, as they walked towards the Tennis Club together.

  Although he had made light of it she was pretty sure that Seb had been uncomfortable in the back of the car, which was why she was deliberately walking slowly, letting others overtake them to join what was now a small queue waiting to get into the Club. Charlie, too impatient to wait for them, had gone ahead, and had already disappeared inside the building, following Bella and Alan, who had gone inside before the queue had formed.

  ‘On the contrary, I’d adore talking about it, especially to pretty girls,’ Seb grinned. ‘Or at least I would if the truth wasn’t so very dull. I broke it on a training exercise,’ he told Grace, bending down to whisper in her ear, ‘but normally I tell people that I was engaged on a highly secret mission that I’m sworn not to talk about.’

  Grace giggled. She was enjoying herself more with every minute she spent in Seb’s company. She felt as comfortable with him as though she had known him all her life but at the same time something about the way he looked at her and the sound of his voice gave her a deliciously fizzy sensation inside her stomach that made her feel giddy and heady with excitement and happiness.

  ‘What kind of break was it? I’m going to be training as a nurse soon, you see,’ she explained when he gave her a quizzical look, ‘so …’

  ‘So naturally you find my leg utterly fascinating,’ he agreed so straight-faced that it took Grace a handful of seconds to realise he was teasing her again and she burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re a dreadful tease,’ she chided him, mock severely, ‘and from now on I shan’t take a single word that you say seriously.’

  ‘Not even if I were to tell you that you are the most enchanting girl I have ever met?’

  Grace stared at him, the colour coming and going in her face, her eyes wide with shyness and confusion. She wasn’t used to men like Seb and she certainly wasn’t used to them flirting with her.

  Her parents were very careful and watchful, and normally the only boys with whom she had any social contact were those she had known since childhood. Seb wasn’t just a boy, though, was he, she acknowledged. He was all grown up and a man. Her heart gave a flurry of fast beats.

  Grace might not be very experienced but she had a good deal of common sense, so once her heart had returned to its normal beat she responded firmly, ‘Especially not if you were to tell me that. Is it the military hospital you have to go to about your leg?’

  She wasn’t aware of the rueful look Seb gave her as he looked down at the top of her head.

  When he had been informed by Bella that her cousin would be his date for the evening, he had assumed she would be a young woman very much in Bella’s own mould and had resigned himself to an evening of boredom, fending off the unwanted overcoy approaches of the kind of girl he most disliked.

  Grace, though, was the complete antithesis of her manipulative little baggage of a cousin, and Seb recognised that she had no idea just how enchanting she was or how very sweet he found her. Which was just as well, and the way it must stay. It would be all too easy to enjoy the sympathy of a girl as sweet as this one, and they had all been warned about the dangers of doing that.

  In fact, there were an awful lot of things he and the young men who had been recruited with him had been warned against saying and doing, Seb reflected as he drew Grace gently to one side and reached into his pocket, saying ruefully, ‘What an idiot I am. I nearly forgot this,’ as he produced a delicate cream-flowered corsage. ‘Shall I pin it on for you?’

  Grace struggled between the warnings her mother had given her about not allowing young men to adopt overfamiliar behaviour towards her because of what it might ultimately lead to, and her own confusing sweet thrill of pleasure at the thought of accepting Seb’s offer, before saying recklessly, ‘Yes, please, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  Seb, who thought she had the sweetest and most expressive face he had ever seen, guessed what she had been thinking, especially when she had turned her head to look towards the cloakroom. When they had been told during their training that they needed to make the most of whatever opportunities came their way to facilitate their mission, he doubted that putting that training to use in this sort of fashion was what the RAF had had in mind, he acknowledged, as he stepped forward, his body screening Grace from everyone else in the entrance to the Tennis Club.

  As he leaned forward to pin the corsage on the front of her frock he heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble slightly. His own hands trembled a bit themselves. She was just so irresistibly sweet, and it would have been the most natural thing in the world to take her in his arms and drop a light kiss on that pretty little nose of hers. But of course he must do no such thing. One of the requirements of his acceptance for his training had been that he should not be married or thinking of getting married. As they had all been warned, the chances of them surviving a war, given the secret nature of their work, were very slim indeed.
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  Bella and Alan had already found a table when Grace and Seb joined them.

  Charlie had been to the bar and he winked at Alan as the waitress brought over their drinks, telling him, ‘Got you a double G and T, seeing as Bella reckons you need a bit of Dutch courage to come up to the mark.’

  Bella gave her brother an angry look. She could do without that kind of comment, thank you very much.

  ‘Trixie’s just come in.’ Alan finished his drink, and started to stand up. ‘She’s on her own, so I’ll go and tell her to come and join us.’

  Immediately Bella made a grab for his jacket, hissing furiously, ‘You’ll do no such thing. What will people think? You’re with me. Let her go and find her own partner. Anyway,’ she told him, ‘I want to dance.’

  ‘Well, I want another drink. It’s your turn to get the drinks in, Seb. I’ll have another double.’

  ‘What would you like to drink, Grace?’ Seb asked her, smiling.

  ‘Oh, a lemonade please.’

  ‘A lemonade,’ Bella mimicked unkindly. ‘What a baby you are, Grace. I’ll have a G and T, Seb.’

  Grace tried not to look as shocked as she felt. Neither of her parents ever drank spirits, her mother only having the occasional port and lemon or a sherry at Christmas-time and her father sticking to beer.

  ‘You really don’t look at all comfortable in that dress, Grace,’ Bella told. ‘It doesn’t suit you at all.’

  ‘Stop being such a cat,’ Charlie told his sister, unexpectedly coming to Grace’s rescue. ‘You’re just jealous because Grace’s dress looks better than yours.’

  Grace could have sunk through the floor when she saw the look of fury on Bella’s face, especially when Charlie’s comment made Alan look more closely at her, and announce in a slightly slurred voice, ‘Charlie’s right, Bella.’

  Grace didn’t like her cousin’s boyfriend, and even though she felt that Bella was behaving very badly, she still felt sorry for her.

  ‘So you’re going to train as a nurse, then?’

  Grace nodded.

  They had just finished eating their buffet meal, and she and Seb were alone at the table, Charlie having gone to join some friends at the bar whilst Bella and Alan were dancing.