‘Don’t you think it’s rather rude to Max to go off out on his very first evening here?’ Jess asked. ‘I don’t want him to feel that he’s not welcome as a member of the family.’
Debbie sighed but capitulated; she had guessed how it would be, for her mother was a stickler for good manners, and though she herself might not care for Max good manners decreed that she should remain at least until the washing and wiping up was done. After that, however, she saw no reason why she should not go round to Gwen’s.
In a remarkably short time, Max joined them in the kitchen once more. He had changed out of his navy blue suit and now wore an open-necked shirt and flannels, with a pair of old carpet slippers on his feet. Debbie’s heart gave a jolt of dismay as she took in the slippers, for no one donned slippers in another person’s house. They were a sign, so far as she was concerned, that the wretched man was here to stay – or thought he was. But when Mam realises how he’s changed, I’m sure she’ll ask him to move on, Debbie told herself, though with waning confidence. Think of Mr Bottomley; we got rid of him though it took some doing.
‘Here we are, here we are, here we are again,’ Max carolled, taking his place at the head of the table and thus fuelling Debbie’s resentment a little more. ‘Bring on the meat and potato pie; it’ll be the first time I’ve eaten anything cooked by me baby cousin Jessie.’
Debbie looked hopefully across at her mother. If there was one thing Jess hated, it was being called Jessie. But there was no outburst; Jess merely put a large plateful of food in front of Max and then slid a tiny piece of pie on to her daughter’s plate and another small piece on to her own. She gave Debbie a significant look which Debbie had no trouble in interpreting. It meant:
Eat slowly to keep our guest company and I’ll do the same
.
The pie was delicious and Debbie began to eat it slowly, as she had been bidden, but it turned out there was no need. Max crammed his capacious mouth so full that he was soon wiping a piece of bread round his empty plate and saying, with a satisfied sigh: ‘Well, now, that were a bit of awright, it were. Any more where that come from?’
Jess looked astonished, as well she might, Debbie considered, for, what with rationing and shortages, second helpings had become a thing of the past, but Max’s huge frame obviously needed more fuel than most and Jess dished up the last slice of pie and the last three potatoes, explaining that since there was a treacle pudding to follow she had not perhaps heaped his plate as she would otherwise have done. Max nodded, but his mouth was already too full to reply, and presently Debbie had to watch as two-thirds of the treacle pudding was placed before their guest, whilst the remainder was divided between herself and her mother. Max made short work of the pudding as well, then drank two mugs of tea whilst Jess and her daughter cleared the table, washed and wiped up the crocks, shook the tablecloth outside the back door, and started to make preparations for next day’s breakfast.
‘Debbie and myself have to be in work early – Debbie starts at eight and I have to be in the shop by half past,’ Jess explained, almost apologetically. ‘We don’t have a big breakfast during the week, just porridge and toast, and we usually save our bacon ration so that we can have egg and bacon pie as a main meal. But we keep hens, which makes things easier. If you leave the house after us – and I imagine you will since you’re in an office job – then I’m afraid neither of us will be here to cook your breakfast. But I’ll leave the porridge pan on the back of the stove and I dare say you can make yourself a cup of tea?’
‘Aye, I can manage that,’ Max said. ‘I’m usually in work by nine. But wharrabout hot water for washing?’
‘Oh, one of us will bring you up a jugful before we leave,’ Jess said at once. ‘Now, is there anything else? Only Debbie wants to nip round to her friend Gwen’s house, and we’re never late to bed on a weekday because we’re early risers. Do you fancy a stroll round the neighbourhood, Max? Oh, and I’ll be needing your ration book.’
Max immediately dug into his trouser pocket and produced the small beige book which was so important to everyone these days. ‘There you are, queen,’ he said, flinging it down on the table. ‘Aye, I’d like a stroll before I go to me bed. You can point out the best pubs and the best shops and so on; and it ’ud be useful to know where you work, just in case I need to gerrin touch with you during the day.’ He turned to Debbie. ‘Why don’t you come wi’ us, lass? I know you ain’t at school no more, but I seem to remember there were a school in these parts. You might like to point it out to me.’
‘Mam will show you everything,’ Debbie said immediately. She unslung her mother’s coat from the kitchen door and helped the older woman into it. Then the three of them made for the back door and Debbie, hurrying across the yard, called over her shoulder: ‘Enjoy your walk!’ feeling like an escaping prisoner as she did so.
Gwen greeted Debbie eagerly when she came to the door. ‘Has he come?’ she demanded. ‘What’s he look like? He’s your mam’s cousin, ain’t he? My mam says some o’ that family had bright ginger hair, but she couldn’t remember whether Max did.’
‘No, it’s light brown with a bit of grey at the temples,’ Debbie said. ‘I won’t describe him because you’re bound to meet him soon enough. Come to that, you can’t miss him; he’s the size of a perishin’ house and he makes so much noise that you can’t think straight while he’s talking.’ She peered past her friend and saw that the kitchen was, as usual, crowded with the younger members of the family, all of whom had been evacuated the previous September but, in the absence of bombings of major cities, invasions of paratroopers dressed as nuns, or battles on the beaches, had returned in time for Christmas. Hastily, she jerked her head towards the back gate. ‘We can’t talk in there. You know what kids is like for repeating your every word just when it does most harm,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go for a walk; if we go down by the docks, we ain’t likely to run into Mam and Max.’
‘No, we could go on the overhead railway, then we can take a look at the shipping as we’re going past,’ Gwen said. ‘It’s always really interesting to see what’s come in. We can get off at the Pier Head and take a look at the ferries before coming back home.’
Debbie agreed enthusiastically, for she had always enjoyed a trip on the overhead railway. It was not expensive and it was interesting. ‘Good idea,’ she said approvingly. ‘And we aren’t likely to meet Mam and Max down there; he wants to be shown the best pubs and shops and that.’
They had crossed the yard and were walking along the jigger towards Commercial Road, but at these words Gwen stopped short, her eyes rounding. ‘But how would your mam know anything about the pubs?’ she asked. ‘I don’t reckon she’s so much as stepped inside one, lerralone had a drink.’
‘No; well, but men – most men – go to the pub of an evening,’ Debbie said fair-mindedly. She had heard her mother complaining that it was the drink that filled Casualty on a Saturday night, but she did not want Gwen thinking that her relative was a hard drinking man. Indeed, she had no reason to suspect that he was. Men who worked in hush-hush jobs, jobs which paid excellent money, were scarcely likely to be heavy drinkers.
The two girls crossed Commercial Road and headed for Huskisson Dock station, threading through the narrow streets until they reached their destination. Debbie gave her friend a blow by blow account of Max’s arrival and consequent behaviour, but Gwen refused to believe that Jess could like someone who sounded so unpleasant.
‘Mebbe he’s just shy so he talks loud to pretend he’s at his ease,’ she said, as they climbed aboard the train and settled themselves on the comfortable leatherette seats, realising that they had entered a first class carriage by mistake, but deciding to remain there until they were turfed out, for the train was half empty. If it had been the rush hour it might have been different, but with so few passengers Debbie thought the guard was unlikely to come along checking tickets, so she and Gwen sank back in their seats to enjoy both the view and a good gossip.
At the Pier Head, the girls descended from the train and went and had a cup of tea at a nearby refreshment room, and Gwen gave her friend what was probably excellent advice. ‘You took agin that Max of yours because he gave your mother a great big hug and a kiss, and because he shouted a bit, but you didn’t take into account the fact that he were probably shy and a bit ill at ease,’ she observed. ‘You don’t want to make quick decisions about folk, queen, because it’s always a mistake. Remember how you hated Mr Gladstone when you were first moved up into his class? But after a few weeks, he were pretty well your favourite teacher. You’ve gorra give this Max a chance for your mam’s sake, because it sounds to me as though she’s mortal fond of him.’ She gazed, shrewdly, at her friend. ‘Suppose your mam married again? Cousins can marry, you know, and you say she always liked him. If you’ve decided to hate him, it ’ud be a poor outlook for you.’
‘
Marry?
Why, Mam would never marry anyone again, no matter what,’ Debbie said, trying to sound shocked though it was her secret fear. ‘Besides, she’s not met him for years. They’re strangers, just about.’ She turned angrily on her friend. ‘Gwen Soames, you’ve – you’ve got a really horrible, evil mind; as if my mam would look twice at any man after living with me dad. You didn’t know him, but he were – oh, just wonderful! He were kind and loving and he thought Mam was the most beautiful person in the world; he would have done anything for her, I’m telling you. What’s more, his voice was soft and gentle, and though Mam said he were a wonderful driver he never boasted or told us how good he was. No, there’s lots of things I do worry about, but Mam marrying again isn’t one of them.’
‘All right, all right,’ Gwen said soothingly, clearly taken aback by her friend’s outburst. ‘I’m sure your dad were one of the best, same as my dad, and neither of our mams would dream of marrying again. But for your own sake, queen, give old Max a chance. It don’t do to make snap decisions, particularly when you’re sharin’ a house with someone. Tell you what, I’ll come round to your place tomorrow after work – get your mam to invite me for tea – then I can see for meself.’
Debbie agreed to this, and presently the two of them boarded the train whose destination board read ‘Seaforth Sands’, well content with their evening.
‘I really love the overhead railway, especially now that the docks are so crowded,’ Debbie said contentedly as they got down once more at Huskisson Dock station and headed for home. ‘It was a grand idea of yours to use the Dockers’ Umbrella, because now I’ve shared my feelings I don’t feel nearly so cross. Tell you what, why don’t we take the round trip all the way from Seaforth Sands to Dingle and back, next time we’re at a loose end? It’s only ninepence, a good deal cheaper than the flicks, and there’s such a lot to see. I’m sure we didn’t take half of it in because we were talking all the time, but if we do the round trip we’ll both bag a window seat and take a good look at all the shipping and forget our troubles.’
‘By the time we’ve saved up our pennies our troubles – or rather your troubles – may well have disappeared; you might even ask this Max to come with us,’ Gwen said with a chuckle. ‘No, don’t shake your head and scowl at me. Wait and see, that’s my motto.’
Chapter Six
Despite her hopes Debbie continued to find Max objectionable, though she seemed to be the only one. Gwen and her mother both liked the large and generally cheerful man and Jess did not seem to mind his authoritative announcements on every aspect of the war; she simply said that he was in a position to know what he was talking about whereas she and Debbie could only repeat what they had read in the papers or heard on the wireless.
In early June, when the evacuation of troops of the British Expeditionary Force, who had been fighting in France, was under way, the streets seemed to be full of gaunt, hollow-eyed young men with frightening stories to tell, though each and every one of them was pathetically grateful for the help given to them to get home, both by the little boats and by the ships of the Royal Navy. Any craft which was available to make the crossing had steamed across the Channel to ‘bring our boys back’ and along with everyone else Jess and Debbie had read of the graveyard of ships which had made it to the French coast only to be sunk by the Luftwaffe, sometimes with a full complement of rescued men, before they could even begin the voyage home.
Liverpool men had played their part in droves, many of them boys who had been at school with Debbie and Gwen. Both girls were distressed to realise that some of their old school mates had never come home again, and perhaps this made Max’s attitude to the returning forces more difficult to swallow. He seemed to regard them as having failed in some way, but Debbie thought they had been let down by their continental allies. Max said they should have been forced to fight it out; Debbie thought this downright ridiculous. She had helped the WVS distribute tea and sandwiches to the men getting off the trains at Lime Street station, and they had talked of the immeasurably strong and well-armed forces ranged against them and of the German air supremacy. ‘Retreat’s always hard but it was the only thing to do and it’s a bloody miracle so many of us got back,’ a young officer had told Debbie. ‘You see, it’s given us a chance to prove ourselves. We can re-form, re-arm and retrain, and God knows we can do with retraining and with something a bit more modern than the weapons we were issued with. Then, maybe, we’ll teach the Jerries a thing or two.’
But Uncle Max had not agreed. Despite his wish to be called ‘Max’ Debbie had decided that she would stick to ‘Uncle’ and for once her mother not only agreed with her, but had backed her up. ‘Debbie’s over thirty years younger than you, Max, and it’s disrespectful for her to use your Christian name,’ she had said gently. ‘I would much prefer that she continued to call you Uncle; it’s what I’ve always taught her to do anyway.’