Christmas Wishes (37 page)

Mrs Finnigan looked up from the bread she was buttering and grinned at Chalky. ‘Want to join us, young feller?’ she asked. ‘I’m sure I’ve done enough grub for ten, so you’re welcome to come along.’

Feeling extremely self-conscious, Chalky shook his head. ‘No can do, Mrs F, I’m off to the Isle of Man,’ he said. He turned to face Irene. ‘I mentioned to the boss that I were at a loose end and he said I might as well go along, so I’ve got a ticket for the good old
Tulip
.’

There was a sudden stillness in the kitchen. Irene, already half into a light mackintosh, stood like a statue, one arm in the coat, the other grasping the second sleeve. ‘
What
did you say?’ she said at last. ‘You don’t mean you’re coming aboard the
Tulip
with Alex and me?’

‘Well, yes,’ Chalky said diffidently. He saw Irene’s eyes widen and then narrow until she looked like an angry cat about to pounce, and broke into hurried speech. ‘It’s a free country, Irene. It were real kind of Mr Lawrence to suggest I might go along.’

Irene had been swelling with indignation, but at his words she seemed to see reason. ‘Well, I can’t stop you comin’, but just you remember, Chalky, that two’s company and three’s a crowd. You can bloody well keep clear of Alex and meself.’

‘Language, chuck,’ Fred Finnigan said reprovingly. ‘That weren’t a very nice thing to say to your old friend Chalky. Besides, the
Tulip
must hold gettin’ on for a hundred souls. Likely, young Chalky here will meet up wi’ some pals once he’s aboard and you won’t so much as spy each other until you’re disembarkin’ at the end o’ the day.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ Irene said grudgingly. She brightened. ‘We’re going to have our lunch in the
Tulip
’s dining room; a proper meal, not perishin’ sandwiches. Alex said he couldn’t be bothered to make a picnic when he’d just come off the night shift. I did offer …’ she opened the back door as she spoke, bidding her family goodbye and actually smiling at Chalky as they turned into the jigger, ‘’cos I enjoy a picnic on a lovely day like this, but I’d rather have a proper meal, especially since I’ll be sharing it with Alex.’

‘You won’t, because Mrs Clarke will probably make a picnic for all of us,’ Chalky said thoughtlessly, and could have bitten his tongue out. Once Irene realised there would be four of them, she would also realise that the tête-à-tête she had planned with Chalky’s sub-officer was unlikely to come to fruition, and react accordingly.

‘Mrs Clarke will make a picnic,’ Irene said slowly, giving undue emphasis, Chalky thought, to each word. Then she grabbed Chalky’s shoulders and swung him round to face her so that they were almost nose to nose. Chalky was tall but Irene was only a couple of inches shorter, and looking into her eyes as comprehension dawned Chalky flinched back, reading the retribution there. ‘I suppose the pair of you had it all planned,’ she said bitterly, giving him a shake. ‘I suppose Mrs Clarke is coming on the
Tulip
, and probably that horrible Dilly as well.’ She was gripping Chalky’s upper arms now so hard that his muscles squeaked and he guessed he would have bruises by morning. ‘Go on, Chalky bloody White. Mrs Clarke is to be the fourth member of our party, isn’t she? Well, I don’t mean to go on making a fool of myself chasing a feller who invites me out and then asks a stupid fireman and a silly old woman as well so that we shan’t be alone. He can stick his bloody trip where the monkey stuck its nuts, and you can tell him so from me.’

Chalky had freed himself from her grip, though not without difficulty, and now he began to expostulate, to say that it wasn’t like that at all, she had completely misread the situation. ‘And Dilly isn’t coming, honest to God she isn’t,’ he added hastily. ‘Alex thought, when he mentioned the trip to Mrs Clarke, that she does an awful lot for the Lawrence family and might appreciate—’

‘Oh, and I suppose I do nothing!’ Irene hissed. Her cheeks were flushed a deep pink and her eyes sparkled with fury, and Chalky thought he had never seen her look prettier. ‘Well, you can go and tell your beloved Alex that I’ve got better things to do than chase round after him, and next time he wants someone to take Joy shopping, or to a job interview, he can count me out.’

She turned away and Chalky, genuinely shocked, grabbed her and twisted her round to face him. ‘You nasty little bitch!’ he said violently. ‘Okay, I admit you help out with Joy from time to time, but you do no more than everyone else does, and if I were to tell Alex or any other member of the Brigade what you just said they’d not speak to you in a month of Sundays. Just you say you didn’t mean it or I’ll spread the word that you’re nothing but a selfish little cat!’

Irene began to answer him hotly, but suddenly her resistance seemed to crumble and she began to sob in a helpless, frightened sort of way. She sounded so like the little girl Chalky remembered from when he had first joined Blue Watch that his heart melted. It wasn’t her fault that she had fallen in love with the unattainable Alex. He, Chalky, might think that it was just puppy love, but he supposed that puppy love could be just as painful as the real sort.

He took the sobbing girl into his arms and when she turned her face up to his and began to wail that her heart was broken and she would never love anyone as she loved Alex, it seemed only natural to bend his head and kiss her tear-wet eyes and cheeks, and finally to home in on her quivering mouth. In all the time that he had been taking her to the cinema and squiring her to dances he had never kissed her, because, subconsciously or not, he had considered her Alex’s property. But now she flung her arms round his neck and, still sobbing and hiccuping, began to respond.

That was why, when Mrs Clarke and Alex boarded the
Tulip
later that morning with a carry-out for four, they climbed the gangway alone.

‘I can’t imagine what must have happened. Chalky left the station with me when our shift ended at nine, and said he was going to call at the Finnigans’ as soon as he’d had his breakfast, but even if he changed his mind Irene was mad to come and I thought she wouldn’t have missed it for anything,’ Alex said as they stood by the rail, anxiously scanning the scurrying crowds below. ‘But I don’t intend to get off now we’re aboard. If they can’t manage to arrive before we sail, then it’s their own fault if they’re left behind.’

Mrs Clarke looked guilty. ‘Oh, Mr Lawrence, I’m very much afraid it may be my fault,’ she said apologetically. ‘I know how fond of you young Irene is, and how she’s been trying to get you alone now for months, if not years. The fact that you invited her to visit the Isle of Man and then added two more members to the party without so much as a word to her must have upset her. I know Irene is normally an even-tempered girl, but I’ve seen her lose control once or twice when things haven’t gone her way and she can really get quite angry.’

‘I believe you,’ Alex said fervently. He remembered an occasion when Irene had dropped a well-buttered muffin on the floor and Dilly, seizing it, had dared to growl at her when she bent to retrieve it. The little dog had sailed across the kitchen and out of the back door on the toe of Irene’s boot, and Irene had used unladylike language and slammed the door in Dilly’s face when the pug, gulping down her booty, had tried to regain her favourite place beneath the kitchen table.

Alex grinned to himself, remembering. Mrs Clarke was right: Irene could indeed lose her temper with a vengeance when things were not going her way. But he hastened to reassure his old friend. ‘Oh, nonsense, Mrs C! If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine, and I refuse to take responsibility for one rather spoilt little girl’s cutting off her nose to spite her face, because that’s what it amounts to.’ The
Tulip
hooted her siren and began to move slowly away from the quayside, and Alex put his hand under Mrs Clarke’s elbow to steer her towards the nearest companionway which, he knew, led down to the dining saloon where the staff were even now offering passengers cups of coffee or tea and some large and remarkably jammy doughnuts.

‘Shouldn’t we tell someone that we’re two passengers short?’ Mrs Clarke said uneasily as Alex settled her in a chair and prepared to join the queue for refreshments. ‘Oh, I do feel bad about it, Mr Lawrence.’

‘Nonsense,’ Alex said again, but even more briskly this time. ‘And isn’t it about time that you stopped calling me Mr Lawrence and I stopped calling you Mrs Clarke? After all, we’ve known each other for a good many years now!’

‘I don’t always remember to call you Mr Lawrence,’ his companion admitted rather shyly. ‘And you sometimes call me Auntie Clarke, as the children do. But I’d far rather you used my first name – Ada – and then I could call you Alex, as almost everyone else does.’

‘Ada and Alex; they sound rather good together,’ Alex said, and was immediately smitten with embarrassment. What on earth had possessed him to say that? But then he was asking her whether she would prefer tea or coffee, and how about a jam doughnut or a Belgian bun, all covered with thick white icing and scattered with chopped nuts? Ada – he must think of her as Ada in future, Alex reminded himself – said she would enjoy a cup of coffee but breakfast was too near a memory to allow her to eat even the tiniest doughnut, let alone the vast ones which she had seen being carried past by other voyagers.

Alex went below and presently came back with two cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits and the two of them settled down to their elevenses, Alex at least suddenly aware what a relief it was not to have to keep young Irene at arm’s length all the time. Furthermore, Ada Clarke was clearly enjoying herself in a gentle, unassuming way, chatting about his children, her troubles with Dilly and her intention to adopt a skinny stray cat which had taken up its abode in the piles of equipment kept in the fire station.

‘Oh, but she keeps the mice down,’ Alex objected. ‘Even rats steer clear of those sharp little claws. Find yourself another cat! We’ll hang on to ours.’

‘Oh aye? And what will she have to eat when mice and rats run out?’ Ada Clarke said with spirit. ‘Which of you will provide her with chopped liver, a nice slice of ham, or a bowl of milk? And how often does she sit on your lap and purr whilst you’re knitting?’

They both laughed, and stretched out in the warm sunshine. How nice it was to lie here with no responsibility for anything or anyone, Alex thought drowsily, and said as much to his companion. How nice, how very nice it was …

And Alex was asleep.

By the time the passengers from the
Tulip
were disembarking at the Pier Head that evening, Ada felt she was an entirely different person from the woman who had climbed the gangway, eagerly anticipating a day out with a man she had long admired.

Being both kind and polite, she had pretended disappointment when Irene and Chalky had failed to put in an appearance, but in truth she had been rather pleased, though her pleasure had been tinged with apprehension. Suppose Alex had really intended to cement a relationship with Irene by giving her a day out? Suppose it had been Chalky’s idea that she herself should come along as a sort of chaperon? And worst of all, suppose Alex had meant to take Irene to some beautiful secluded spot on the island, there to beg her to become his wife? Ada Clarke had heaved in a deep breath and scolded herself, though only in her mind. If Alex had wanted to have Irene to himself, he could easily have done so by not mentioning the voyage aboard the
Tulip
to anyone.

But Ada knew it was pointless to ask herself questions which were both irrelevant and unanswerable. Besides, she was well aware that Alex was embarrassed by Irene’s all too obvious infatuation, and when the poor chap had fallen asleep even before the
Tulip
had passed the Mersey Bar she had sat quietly beside him and simply enjoyed looking at his sleeping face. He had not slept prettily, either. The wind had tossed his dark hair into a comical quiff, his mouth had hung open and very soon loud and porcine snores had issued forth.

Ada had smiled indulgently and driven off a small boy with a tin whistle, seeing at once that the child had intended to blow a sizeable blast straight into Alex’s sleeping ear. She would have defended him against dragons or sea monsters had either threatened, and had been quite content to sit beside him and stare, in a way which would have been impossible in other circumstances, at his dear, familiar features.

When the
Tulip
had breasted the waves of Liverpool Bay, however, he had awoken, looked wildly around him, caught Ada’s eye and pulled a rueful face. ‘Sorry, my dear; how rude you must think me,’ he had said apologetically. ‘But Blue Watch was up most of the night, fighting a fire in a warehouse down by the docks.’ He had stretched and yawned cavernously, then stood up. ‘But I shan’t fall asleep again; firemen only need a catnap, not the eight hours to which ordinary folk are accustomed. Now what can I get you: tea, coffee? How about a cake this time?’

When they had reached Douglas, Alex had asked a crew member where they should make for, and received a reply so comprehensive that he had blinked, reminding the man that this was a day trip and not, unfortunately, a week’s holiday.

The man had grinned and scratched his head. ‘I’m a local, see,’ he had explained. ‘There’s no place like the island, nowhere wi’ such grand views … but since you’ve only the one day I’d advise you to tek a taxicab to one of our famous beauty spots, where you can eat your picnic and feast your eyes on the best view in the world. After that …’

And from that moment on, the day had gone like a dream, until it was time to return to the
Tulip
and prepare for the voyage back to Liverpool. Ada and Alex had settled themselves in deck chairs once more, saying little as they watched the sun descend into the sea in fiery splendour, whilst Ada told herself that it was proof of their friendship that they did not need to chatter but could remain contentedly silent.

‘Well, Ada? What did you think of the Isle of Man?’ Alex said now as the two of them descended the gangway at the Pier Head. He glanced at the clock tower, then at his watch. ‘Goodness, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun! I don’t feel inclined to go all the way back home only to find myself having to turn round and retrace my steps in order to buy fish and chips.’