Daughters of the Mersey (22 page)

‘Awful. What happened to Ralph? How is he?’

‘Is that your boyfriend?’

‘Is he all right?’

‘I understand he was admitted to Ward One. He has some broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder.’

The nurse took her blood pressure, washed her face and redressed her cuts and grazes, and all the time June tried to keep her wandering mind on how she was going to explain this to her parents.

The sister came to see her and said, ‘Your mother has just rung to ask how you are. I told her you were fully conscious again and she said she’d come in and see you later on.’

June sank back against her pillows. She wasn’t looking forward to that. What lousy luck to be found out in this way.

A
MY WORE HER NEW
boots to school and was somewhat offended when the girls laughed at them and
called them bootees. She had wanted to wear hobnailed boots to be like them but Glenys told her that hers were much nicer and she wished she could have a similar pair.

She was delighted when her mother’s letter about Milo came. She gave it to Bessie to read. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘He’s home safe and sound. He’s in hospital but they’ll get him well again. You don’t need to worry any more.’

Amy was getting used to her new school. Morning classes finished at midday, and after eating their sandwiches and soup at their desks, the children were free to go out. The other girls took her with them up into the woods that grew all round the hamlet. The trees were youngish oak trees with a lot of shrubbery-like undergrowth.

When they tired of playing hide and seek the girls would often make a den. They would collect bits of broken china from around the hamlet and lay it out in patterns on the moss round the roots of the trees. The most prized pieces were decorated with coloured patterns and gold paint and were so old that the edges no longer felt sharp. They’d make the surroundings pretty, find a log or two to sit on and sit round and talk. They
called it their ‘house’.

A bell was rung at two o’clock and woe betide anybody who was not back and ready to settle down at their desk. Afternoon school started with writing nature notes into an exercise book kept for that purpose. Amy wasn’t over her fear of Mrs Roberts and she required at least one full page to be written.

Every day they all started with the same words. The west wind blows, because usually it did. The schoolroom windows were high so there was little to be seen through them but the tops of the trees and the sky, though Amy had learned to check the wind direction by looking to see which way the leaves were blowing. Then she would say whether it was warm and sunny or wet and cold.

That got her started but then she felt she needed a real insight into nature to fill the remaining three-quarters of a page. All round her she could see the farm children scribbling hard about birds and squirrels and voles, while she was sucking the end of her pen hoping for inspiration.

She thought country people noticed much more than those brought up in towns. Uncle Jack could look at wheel marks in a muddy lane and bits of straw caught in the hedge and tell her that the next farm had bought a cartload of straw and it had just been delivered.

Amy regretted that she saw very little on the way to school, she was always in a hurry to catch the taxi. She feared that if she didn’t fill the required page she would attract Mrs Roberts’ displeasure. Every week she demonstrated her prowess with the cane, though usually a caning was given for bad behaviour not poor schoolwork.

It took Amy a little while but eventually she realised that Mrs Roberts would
not know whether her nature notes were true facts or not. Once she turned to fiction Amy could easily fill much more than one page.

She wrote about watching red squirrels collecting nuts in the cwm, rabbits eating lettuce in the garden, crows pulling worms from the soil, and even a magpie picking up a gold coloured button that had dropped from Aunt Bessie’s dress. Bessie didn’t have gold buttons on a dress but Mrs Roberts wouldn’t know that either.

She was thrilled to receive a letter from Mum saying she would come to see her again and this time she would bring Pat with her. Amy had a lovely day, walking Pat and Mum round every part of Coed Cae Bach and showing them the animals. She boasted that she could milk Sunshine and allowed Pat to do her job of collecting eggs from the nesting boxes. Pat was envious of her good fortune and wished she could be evacuated. She brought Amy a lot books that her family had finished with.

Mum brought her new clothes that she’d made for her. Amy told her she’d very much like to have a bike for Christmas so she could cycle to school instead of having to rush for the taxi every morning. A fairy cycle like Glenys had.

Amy learned that June had been in a car accident driven by a friend but she was getting better and it was nothing to worry about. Milo was getting better too and would soon be brought by ambulance to a hospital nearer home so that Mum and Pa could visit him.

Steve hated the days when Leonie went to visit Amy in Wales. Sunday was the best day of the week when Leonie was home with him
all day. He felt lonely all on his own and it was no good going to the pub because at the weekends Alfred Williams and Walter Duggan were at home with their families.

‘Come with me,’ Leonie had urged. ‘It’ll do you good to have a change of scene and they’ll welcome you there.’

But Steve couldn’t bring himself to go. Amy was another man’s love child and though he’d grown attached in one way, he didn’t feel the same about her as he did about Miles and June. He’d tried hard to treat her as he did the others, he could see she was a beguiling little girl, but there was some knot inside him he couldn’t undo.

And he was worried about the other two. June had seemed to be avoiding him and Miles . . . It had really shocked him to hear Miles had an abdominal injury very similar to what he’d suffered. It had depressed him. He’d not always seen eye to eye with Miles but he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.

These days the doctors explained everything more explicitly and Leonie had passed on what they’d told her. Miles had had a piece of shrapnel embedded in his abdomen that had caused considerable trauma. They’d been able to repair small internal wounds to other organs but they’d had to cut a length of some eighteen inches from his small intestine because it was too damaged to repair. They’d joined the ends up again and told him it might cause some constriction but they were hopeful it would not affect him unduly.

Steve mused that these days they could do so much more. Surgery had been in its infancy in his day, but as he saw it, Leonie would have two invalids to take care of in future. At least Miles still had two legs and looked whole.

Leonie felt exhausted. She’d enjoyed
her visit to Amy, she wanted to see for herself how she was getting on, but it meant she missed a more restful Sunday at home and it took extra time and effort to keep up with the chores she’d have done then.

It was a cruel turn of events that all her children had left home and she only had Steve left. She was desperately worried about Milo. It seemed like history repeating itself that he was going to be sent to a hospital near Chester.

But Steve had been in a convalescent home – just a big country house temporarily taken over for that purpose, and he’d been nursed by VADs who were volunteers. Leonie told herself a hundred times that Milo would be in a proper military hospital and today’s nurses were properly trained. There had been huge medical advances in the last twenty years and much more could be done for the injured.

She was also worried about June. She was afraid that if she married Ralph, it would not turn out well. He had one broken marriage behind him and although Elaine was being determinedly optimistic about their future, earlier she’d talked about him as if she thought he’d always be off chasing another young girl.

Leonie was afraid he wouldn’t make June happy and she knew only too well what a burden an unhappy marriage could be. She visited June several times in hospital and found she was reluctant to talk about Ralph.

‘Please, Mum,’ she said with the same pained attitude her father used, ‘I don’t feel well enough to talk about Ralph and it won’t help anyway.’

When Leonie recounted that to Steve, he said, ‘I wouldn’t put up with
that. Next time, I’ll come with you, she’ll talk to me.’

They went the following day. Elaine had bought some grapes for her on the black market and they took them in. June smiled. ‘That’s very kind of her. They look lovely. Thank her, Mum, when you see her and tell her I’m very grateful.’

‘June,’ Steve began. ‘You must stop seeing this fellow. You know without being told that he isn’t the sort of person you should get involved with. No respectable man would carry on with a sixteen-year-old child and encourage her to hide it from her parents.’

Leonie saw the pink flush run up June’s cheeks. She said with some dignity, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him but I knew you and Mum wouldn’t understand.’

‘We understand only too well, my girl. You’ve been telling lies to me and your mother for the last two years. That is not acceptable behaviour. In future, you’ll do what you are told.’

‘Steve,’ Leonie protested, ‘we need to—’

‘You’ll not find happiness with him. I insist you send him packing.’

June was holding up her hands as though to fend him off. ‘I love him, Pa,’ she choked out. ‘I don’t like going against your wishes but I’m sorry, I’m not going to give him up. I want to marry him.’

‘Marry him? The man’s a bounder. Don’t expect me to give my blessing for that.’

She said with dignity, ‘If you won’t give me your permission to marry then we’ll have to wait until I’m twenty-one.’

‘Grow up, can’t you?’ His face flushed with anger. ‘You’ll have changed your mind about him long before then, my girl.’

Leonie could
see tears welling in June’s eyes. She was about to suggest that Steve go because he was causing her distress but she didn’t need to. He gave a gasp of irritation and stood up. ‘I’m not staying to listen to this nonsense. I’m your father and I only want what is best for you. If you want to come back to my house, you’ll do what I say.’ The door of the side ward slammed behind him and June dissolved in tears.

Leonie put her arms round her daughter and did her best to comfort her. Although she had the same opinion about Ralph, she thought Steve had been unnecessarily heavy-handed with her. She stayed for another hour, but June hadn’t recovered even then.

At eight o’clock every evening, the ward sisters and the day staff went off duty to be replaced by the night sister in charge of the hospital, and a nurse in her third year of training in charge of each ward. The formality of hospital life relaxed a little.

That evening, shortly after eight, June was delighted to see Ralph creep into her side ward and close the door quietly behind him.

When he turned to look at her, he said, ‘Darling! What have I done to you? You’re all grazes and bandages. I am sorry, love. How d’you feel?’

‘Awful. In despair that we’ve been found out like this. Pa came in and gave me a very hard time.’

‘He brought you grapes though.’ The last few were on a plate on her locker.

‘No he didn’t. They were a gift from Elaine.’

‘She didn’t bring me any grapes.’ He kissed her cheek and pulled up a chair near her bed.

‘You’ve come
off worse than me, you’re all cuts and bruises.’

‘They’ll heal.’

‘They won’t leave scars I hope.’

‘I have no cuts on my face, thank goodness. The worst thing is they’ve shaved half my head and put seventeen stitches in my scalp. I’m going to look awful for months until it grows. It could be years before my hair is all this length again.’

‘You’ll always look beautiful to me. Does your head hurt?’

‘Yes, I can’t rest it on the pillow on that side. The stitches are like wire and dig in to me. How are you?’

‘I was lucky, only a dislocated shoulder which they put right straight away, and apart from that I’ve got a few cracked ribs that hurt when I laugh or yawn, and a sprained ankle. But I’ve got some bad news. I had a visit this morning from a friend who has rooms upstairs in the same house. He brought in my post. I’ve got my call-up papers. They want to put me in uniform in ten days’ time.’

‘Oh no!’ June sank back against her pillows; this was the news she’d been dreading. ‘I hate the thought of you leaving me. On top of all this trouble too. What are we going to do?’

Ralph was biting his lip. ‘I spent this afternoon composing a letter to the War Office. I’ve told them that at the moment I’m in hospital recovering from a car crash and I made out my injuries were worse than they are. I understand it’s likely they’ll change the date on which I’m expected to report in.’

‘Yes, but only to give you time to recover. In a week or so you’ll still have to go. What good will that do?’

‘It will give us time.’ He felt for her hand. ‘I’m as brassed off about this as you are. Now it’s all out in the open, why don’t we try to get married? It’s what we always planned, isn’t it? And you’d feel better
about me going if you were my next of kin – my wife – wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course I would, but my family are dead against it. Pa ordered me to ditch you this afternoon. He thinks you’re a rotter.’

‘But you don’t.’

‘No.’ It was a cry from her heart.

‘I know I’ve made mistakes in the past but I promise you, June, come what may, I won’t let you down. I’m older and wiser now. What I want is to make you happy and I believe I can. Maybe I won’t be the best husband in the world but—’

‘You will. Nobody else will do for me. I love you. You know I want to marry you more than anything else.’

She felt him try to gather her up in his arms to kiss her, but the pain made her cry out.

‘Darling, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. What a mess I’ve made of everything.’

June shook her head. ‘I’m all right.’ She gave him a quavering smile. ‘Just not well enough to be kissed yet.’

Ralph sighed. ‘I think we should aim to get married before I have to go. I’d feel I had something to look forward to if I knew you were waiting here for me.’