Darkest Before Dawn (36 page)

‘
Mary Jane
! Ahoy there,
Mary Jane
!'

Evie leaned over the parapet of the Houghton Bridge and waved excitedly as the long shape of the canal boat eased over towards the bank and Hetty looked up from where she stood at the tiller. ‘You coming down for a bit, Evie?' she shouted. ‘Jimmy ain't with me; he's gone to talk to someone at the Ministry of Ag. and Fish. I dunno why, but I could do wi' a bit of extra help when it comes to loadin'.' She grinned up at Evie. ‘I see your ma hasn't managed to get rid of you yet then, despite the raids and the landmines and the firebombs an' all.'

Evie belted to the end of the bridge and slithered down on to the canal path, giving the horse's enormous rump a friendly slap as she passed. ‘You're looking well, Gemma. I suppose hay isn't rationed,' she remarked, and smiled as the horse's ears flicked back and her head turned to glance at Evie over her shoulder, though her steady pace never faltered. Evie jumped aboard the boat, answering Hetty's question as she did so. ‘No, though she tried pretty hard at first to make me go and live in the country,' she said cheerfully. ‘I love the country, but this is my war just as much as it is me mam's, and I wouldn't leave her, not for a million pounds. It's not that I don't trust Mr Wilmslow, 'cos he's nowhere near as bad as he used to be, but I'm thirteen now and really useful. Mam works like a slave in the shop and goes out with the WVS when there's a raid on, handing out tea and butties to anyone who's been bombed, or to the workers – firefighters an' that. I make her a hot meal when she gets home tired, do the housework, get the messages . . . oh, all sorts. So there's no way she's packing me off to live in the country, no fear!'

It was a fine, sunny day in early April and the feel of the deck beneath her feet – and the smell of dinner cooking in the small cabin – brought a rush of remembered happiness to Evie's mind. Oh, how she had loved living and working on the canal, and how she missed it! If only Pa hadn't decided to move into the city it would have been he who was at the tiller now, and Martha who had set the pot of what smelt like rabbit and mixed vegetables on the stove in the tiny cabin. And she would sleep at nights with her two sisters in the cabin of the butty boat, and listen when she woke to the old horse cropping the grass, to a lark rising up and up in the clean country air, to the soft lap of the water and the murmur of the wind.

But the war had changed everything for everyone. Jim and Hetty had told her of their narrow escape when the canal had been bombed last December; the bombs had burst the bank so that the poor old
Mary Jane
had been cast ashore, high and dry. It had taken Jim and Hetty a good deal of time, and money, to get her whole and back to the canal, and they had lost over fifty per cent of their cargo, which had been sugar. Fortunately, they had not had to recompense anyone for the loss, but they had had to manage with almost no personal possessions for weeks and weeks, until they had the money to replace what had been destroyed.

‘Well, chuck?' Hetty said genially, steering the boat away from the bank again. ‘It's been a while since you and me met. We've had no more damage, though one of them bleedin' incendiaries landed on the deck when we was moored up Wigan way. But Jim just kicked it into the water – I were in bed but he were still on deck – so that were all right.'

‘We're still all okay too,' Evie said. ‘There have been raids, a few, and a fair number of false alarms. I hate them worse than the raids because you have to get up and go down to the shelter and lose a night's sleep, and it's all for nothing.' She glanced around the boat. ‘Is it sugar again? That you are going to take aboard, I mean?'

‘Dunno,' Hetty said vaguely. ‘Probably. But we heard on the grapevine that the last raid destroyed tons and tons of food in the warehouses along the docks. I know the flour mills in Birkenhead were hit, for a start. So we just goes down to the quayside and gets our orders there.'

‘Oh, I see; yes, Mr Wilmslow said he didn't know what the country were going to do for food 'cos most of it had gone up in flames,' Evie said, remembering. ‘How do you manage to get your groceries and so on, Hetty? Surely you can't go to the same shop, like everyone else. There must be other rules for folks like you.'

Hetty laughed. ‘Since when has anyone ever give a moment's thought to
folks like us
?' she asked derisively. ‘We're just like the rest of you, only we have to think ahead and make sure we're in the right place at the right time. And of course, there are some perks that country folk get which we pick up on, like vegetables in season, or a few spuds from out the clamp. Folks in the villages what've known us for years are good, too. I had as nice a piece o' pork from old Mr Tomlinson's pig as I've ever tasted, a couple o' weeks back. Oh aye, some folks is real good to us. But you never said as how the girls is gettin' along. I know you'll have had letters, but have you seen 'em lately?'

‘No, but they're coming home in a couple of weeks,' Evie said exultantly. ‘It'll be grand to see them again, just grand. And they'll be back for a whole week. Mam thought that if the weather stayed beautiful, we might have a day or two out in the country. You can't go to the seaside any more, not round here, at any rate. It's not allowed, but the country's okay.'

‘Did you say they were both coming back?' Hetty asked, rather incredulously. ‘Even Fee? Don't she want to see that new young husband of hers? He's still in England, ain't he?'

‘Oh aye, but he's on a course,' Evie said quickly. ‘Fee's going across to Lincoln to see him the last weekend, though. I say, that rabbit stew smells good!'

‘You can have a plateful as soon as we dock,' Hetty said at once. ‘And tell your mam she and the girls is welcome to join us aboard the old
Mary Jane
for a trip on the canal, if they fancy a change of scene. I know we've often talked of it but we'd be real glad to see you all, would Jim and me.'

Evie said she would pass on Hetty's invitation to her mother and then began to tell her friend all about school and how she helped Mr Wilmslow to make up people's rations, but the mention of Seraphina and Roger had brought a nagging worry back into her mind. Something was the matter with Fee, she was sure, though no one else seemed to have noticed anything. She had not liked to question Seraphina and had tried to accept her mother's explanation, but she still thought that something was not right with her eldest sister. Never mind; this time I'll ask Seraphina outright, whilst she's on leave, she decided. After all, if I don't know what's the matter I can't help, and I honestly think Fee really does want help, even if she won't ask for it.

Chapter Eleven

May 1941

The girls returned to Liverpool on a Saturday, at the beginning of May and, by a happy coincidence, met on Crewe station coming from opposite directions, and so were able to travel together for the last part of their journey. They managed to get two seats together on the crowded Liverpool train so that they were able to converse in low tones, despite the proximity of other passengers.

They both knew that the city had been bombed the previous night and hoped to encourage their mother to take herself and Evie out of danger, for it was pretty clear that the port would be a constant challenge to the Luftwaffe and Scotland Road was too close to the docks for comfort, they thought.

‘Someone told me that a bomb had landed on Lime Street station so we may find ourselves having to get a bus in for the last few stops,' Angela said, but was immediately reassured.

‘No, it's all right. A fellow who'd come from Liverpool and was waiting for his connection on Crewe station started chatting to me.' Seraphina grinned at her sister. ‘He was trying to pick me up – one of the disadvantages of being a blonde, as I'm sure you've found – but when I told him I was going to Liverpool and wondered whether I'd get there without being diverted, he said I'd be okay. There was a bomb, but since his train had got out he was pretty sure mine would get in.'

‘Good,' Angela said. ‘That's one worry less. Mam rang my camp, by the way, and actually got through to me to reassure me that she and Evie were all right. She said it might be sensible if we spent our leave somewhere else, but when I suggested that she and Evie should meet us somewhere, like Chester, and we'd have a week together in lodgings, she said that was impossible. Saturday is the busiest day in the shop and she's determined not to leave Mr Wilmslow in the lurch. I take it she rang you as well?'

‘She did, but she had to leave a message because I was working,' Seraphina explained. ‘I wonder what sort of a week's leave it's going to be, though, if the Luftwaffe are going to concentrate on the docks.'

‘From the sound of it, there won't be much left for them to concentrate on,' Angela said gloomily. ‘Still, Ma is really sensible. Of course, when she's on duty with the WVS she has to go to whichever distribution point she's given, but she always makes sure that Evie's as safe as can be before she does so.'

‘The worst part of it is that you and I are comparatively safe, you in your camp on Dartmoor, and me in my airfield,' Seraphina said. ‘But when I pointed that out to Ma, she reminded me that WAAFs crossing from one side of the airfield to another, or just walking along country lanes, have been strafed and dive-bombed, and I'm sure your camp has been attacked once or twice. Anyway, there's no arguing with her; she just lets such remarks roll off her back like water off a duck.'

After that, the girls' conversation turned to the lives they were living in the forces, which in some ways were very alike, and in others totally different. Angela shyly admitted that she had a boyfriend who had talked of marriage, and Seraphina, discovering that he was a chaplain, said that she supposed he was a very sober and proper young man: a fitting partner for her sober and proper sister.

Angela laughed but assured Seraphina that, chaplain or no, Albert was great fun, amusing and very intelligent. ‘As for me, I might have been sober and proper once, but I'm not any longer; the war has changed all that,' she said. ‘Once, all I wanted was my own little business, my own little home and a friend – Annabel for choice – to share it with me. Now I don't care whether I never have that little business; I'd rather have Albert and a crowd of noisy, happy, dirty children. So there!' she ended defiantly. She did not add that she had wanted Toby, too; that dream, like the others, had faded as her feelings for Albert had ripened into love.

The train was about to draw into Lime Street station, and Seraphina got to her feet. She felt, obscurely, that her sister had somehow overtaken her, though she could not have said precisely why. ‘I'm sure Albert is a grand bloke,' she said, heaving her kit bag from the overhead rack. ‘I don't suppose anyone will meet us because I couldn't even guess at what time I'd arrive, but I've been sitting down most of the day, so I wouldn't mind a walk.'

Angela agreed that a walk in the fresh air would be pleasant after being stuck in stuffy trains for hours at a time, and presently they got down and looked around them. There were signs of damage if you looked hard enough, Seraphina decided, but the station was so crowed that it was difficult to pinpoint exactly where bombs had fallen. She turned to Angela to remark on the fact just as a small figure came wriggling through the crowds towards them and flung both arms round Seraphina's neck.

‘Fee, oh, Fee, it's wonderful to see you! I've been hanging around this perishin' station since midday. Mam reckoned you couldn't possibly arrive before then – unless you flew – and now here are the pair of you together!' Evie stopped hugging Seraphina and transferred herself, like a small limpet, to Angela. ‘Oh, Angie, we've missed you so much. It's grand to have you home! I just hope those bloody Jerries will go somewhere else tonight because I'm that fed up with crouching in a shelter for hours at a time. Mam won't let me join her in the WVS canteen, not until I'm fourteen, which isn't fair, because if I were a boy I could be a messenger for the Air Raid Wardens, and firewatchers, and them . . .'

‘It's lovely to see you, Evie,' Angela said gently, as her small sister stood back, beaming at them. ‘And it's most awfully good of you to meet the train, but I think we ought to get back to the flat as soon as we can. We're both starving hungry and dying for a cup of tea, so let's hurry.'

Evie took a hand of each girl and towed them through the crowd towards Lime Street itself. ‘I came here on a tram. I suppose you could try for a taxi, which could be quicker,' she said, rather doubtfully, ‘only the queue's a mile long already.'

‘We thought we'd walk,' Seraphina said. ‘It's not that far and we could do with some fresh air. Good thing it doesn't get dark until late, now that summer's nearly here.'

They emerged on to the pavement and one glance at the taxi queue was sufficient to make all three girls turn decisively in the direction of Scotland Road, though Evie said: ‘I'm afraid you won't get much fresh air; the bombs make everything dusty and the fires along the docks are still burning. Last night was awful . . . noisy, I mean . . . but maybe they'll let us alone tonight.' She glanced up at the clear blue sky ahead. ‘I just wish thick black clouds would come over,' she added wistfully. ‘If the clouds are really dark and low, it's not so easy to find us, though last time that happened poor old Birkenhead bought it.'

By the time they reached home, Seraphina felt she could have murdered for a cup of tea and it was the first thing her mother thrust into her hand as they entered the flat. Seraphina laughed and hugged her mother, holding the mug perilously out to one side, and then found that she was crying. Sniffing, sobbing and hugging, the four of them spent an emotional few moments before Martha dragged herself free of their clutching hands and bustled over to the stove. ‘Thanks to young Evie here, it's liver and onions,' she said triumphantly. ‘And thanks to Hetty, it's liver and onions and mashed potato and, of course, lots of lovely gravy and spotted dick and custard for afters.' She turned to look at her daughters with a considering eye. ‘Not that either of you look as though you've lacked a square meal since I saw you last,' she added, almost accusingly. ‘I can see the WAAF and the ATS manage to feed you pretty adequately.'