The Liverpool Trilogy (100 page)

Eileen woke, while the rest of the various groups stopped talking. Mary Dominic made herself decent, and all awaited the arrival of a vehicle that rumbled its way up Willows Lane. No one present
had ever before been so close to an American Jeep. Major Joseph L. Chalmers jumped out and waved his driver off to park the vehicle closer to the house. He ran to Marie, picking her up and spinning
until she was dizzy. Marie ignored his rank; he was her GI Joe.

He placed her on the grass, awarded her a huge kiss, then beamed at the pure Englishness of the scene. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. Marie steadied herself, led him round and introduced him
to those he had not already met. He spotted the Watson/Greenhalgh clan and said, ‘There’s the girl who introduced us, Marie. That Liverpool girl. My sisters will blame her when I stay
here with you and try to become the English gentleman. If your country will have me, that is.’

‘Of course they’ll have you. There she is, Joe. There’s our Mel.’

But Amelia Anne Watson was having one of her moments. She walked behind the screen provided by the largest weeping willow. With her vision of the world fractured by trailing branches, she peered
out at the people she loved, at an environment she had come to enjoy. Everything was so green and fresh, so untouched by hostility. This was how life should, could and would be. Even Peter was calm
here in the bosom of Lancashire’s rolling generosity. He had settled into his own uncertainty, had decided to wait until the light dawned and pointed out his true way home. ‘I’m
happy,’ she said to herself. ‘Everyone here is happy.’

While she watched, the tree whispered to her. Magical trees, beautiful gardens, contentment. Willows was filled with wonderful people, and she was a lucky girl. Well, she would be when the war
ended, when clothes came off ration, when Gran stopped moaning about the shortage of tea, when sweets were more plentiful, when . . . She laughed. A few flies in the ointment? No matter. The
willows were healthy, the land was fruitful, and an American Jeep was parked on the drive.

Mel stretched out in the shade, closed her eyes and dreamt of a better future. And the willow continued its whispering.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Wayne Brookes (editor) and

Ryan Child (Wayne’s assistant),

both fabulous people.

Thanks for all the help, boys.

Oh, and the laughs.

I dedicate this work to Daryl Whiting of New Gloucester, Maine, USA.

Daryl, sweetheart, never has the good fight been fought with better equilibrium, more humour, so much patience.

Readers, I beg your support for cancer research. This scourge must be eradicated.

Ruthie

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Home From Home

Through a gap in the buildings across the road, a short stretch of the Mersey was visible. On the waterfront, things were back to normal, more or less. Cranes appeared skeletal
against a sky lit by an enthusiastic full moon, their metallic limbs stilled for now, because tomorrow was the Sabbath. The repairing of docks had begun almost before end-of-war rejoicing had
ended, since the coming and going of ships kept Liverpool alive.

But up the road and further inland, areas of Bootle and the rest of the city waited to be rebuilt by a country impoverished by war. Piles of bricks and bags of sand and cement remained the
backdrop of many people’s lives. It would happen, though. Eventually, the reconstruction of the community would be complete.

The building behind Paddy still retained the old sign,
Lights of Liverpool
, since it had once housed a factory that had made electric light fittings and lamps, but it had been closed
down. Eventually, Paddy had taken it over as a place where hungry dock workers could be fed, and where Irish people could meet at the weekends. It had several nicknames including Scouse Alley and
the Blarney, but Paddy still called it Lights when it was used for a function. And today had been a function, all right.

Paddy leaned against a wall and lit a cigarette. Out of several thousand Bootle houses, only forty had remained safe and steady at the final ceasefire. Roads had been repaired, and houses had
been built, but in the year of our Lord 1958, some families remained in prefabs. ‘And the Catholics wait the longest time.’ Was this paranoia? Of course it was; some Catholics were
properly housed, others were not, and Paddy’s family happened to fall into the latter group.

Behind Paddy, the wedding ceilidh was in full swing. Irish folk music crashed out of an open front door and into nearby streets, as did the whoops and cries of five dozen guests whose behaviour
was deteriorating with every Guinness, every tot of whiskey. The fighting hadn’t started yet, but two people had disappeared off the face of the earth, and those two were bride and groom.
They couldn’t have gone far, since Reen’s shoes had four-inch heels, while the groom was no more sensibly shod in his built-up brothel creepers.

Paddy, acting as security, loitered near the front doorway and fingered a whistle. When things got totally out of hand, a football referee’s equipment was as good as anything if help was
needed. Ah. Here came young Seamus. ‘What is it now?’ Paddy asked.

The unwilling pageboy, resplendent in a food-streaked white satin suit, shoved an item into the doorkeeper’s hand. ‘Our Reen’s took her knickers off,’ the child said
gravely, his accent pure Scouse. ‘They were under the table with my stupid hat. They made me wear a stupid hat.’ He would never, ever forgive the world for that stupid hat. His sister
Reen was the chief culprit, of course, but surely some other member of the family could have saved him from such dire humiliation?

‘Yes,’ Paddy replied with sympathy. ‘But you took it off in church, so you did. And that was the most important part of today. It’s all over now, but. You need never wear
the thing again.’

The little lad almost growled. ‘It’s on a lot of the photos. I kept taking it off, like, but people were always shoving it back on me head. Why won’t people leave people alone,
Gran? All me life, I’ll be the lad in the hat. Mam will show loads of photos round the prefabs when I’m older. I look dead soft in that white satin thing.’

‘You’ll live it down. And the prefabs will be gone once our houses are rebuilt, so no bother. Away inside and tell your mammy that your sister is now Nicholas.’

The lad scratched his head. Then the penny dropped. ‘Oh. Knickerless.’

‘That’s the chap.’

He turned to walk away, still muttering under his breath about daft hats and frilly knickers. His own blood relative had forced him to dress up like something out of a pantomime. Liking Reen
after this terrible day was going to take a degree of effort. He should have lost the blooming hat, should have put it where it might have been trampled underfoot till it fell apart. In fact, if
he’d pinched a box of matches, he could have cremated the bloody thing.

‘Seamus?’ He was a beautiful child from a beautiful family, and Paddy was prejudiced, of course. But oh, he was gorgeous, and no mistake. Blue eyes, blond hair, good Irish skin.

‘What?’

‘You’ll be grand, so. I’ll see can I arrange the wedding album with as few photos of your daft hat as I can manage. Just leave it all to me. I’ll sort it as best I can, I
promise.’

‘Thanks, Gran.’ He studied her for a few seconds. Patricia Maria Conchita Sebando Riley O’Neil owned Scouse Alley. She also appeared to own the supposedly temporary Stanley
Square and all who lived there, though some people railed against her air of authority. The green rectangle, bordered by a tarmac path and twelve prefabricated bungalows, had been organized by the
borough to house some of Bootle’s many displaced families.

‘Did I grow a second head?’ she asked. ‘You’re staring at me like I came down in one of those saucer things.’

Seamus grinned. He was proud of his grandmother. Paddy O’Neil held her drink as well as any man, and she was an excellent doorman. She could spot a gatecrasher from twenty paces, and had
been known to lift two at a time towards the exit. ‘You make everything right, Gran,’ he told her. She was his star, his saint, his everything.

Paddy placed the whistle in a pocket. After patting her grandson on his Brylcreemed head, she walked towards the storage shed. Although this structure was made of thick metal, she could hear
them, and they were at it like rabbits. ‘Maureen?’ she yelled, heavy emphasis on the second syllable. ‘Get yourself out here this minute if not sooner.’ There were two
Maureens, and this one was usually named Reen. Both Maureens were mortallious troublesome, and the younger one would know she was in the doghouse, because she’d been given her full title on
this occasion.

The sudden silence was deafening. ‘I have your knickers, madam. When the creature you married went under the top table, he was after more than the dropped spoon, so he was. You are a
disgrace to your family. No need for you to laugh at my Irish-speak, Jimmy Irons. The day I start losing my accent is the same day I’ll start being a bit dead.’ She waited.
‘Right, now. Will I blow this whistle and get you a bigger audience?’

The door opened. A dishevelled bride did her best to conceal the groom, who was having trouble with his drainpipe trousers. Paddy wondered how he might feel in years to come when children looked
at the wedding album. The photographs would be black and white, but the long-line, velvet-collared coat, the DA hair with the heavy quiff at the front, shoes with two-inch crêpe soles, black
string tie – these could all become talking points. As for Reen . . . well . . .

‘Gran?’

‘What?’

The bride swallowed. ‘Can you sneak us in the back way so we can have a bit of a wash in the toilets?’

‘A bit of a wash?’ Paddy looked her up and down. ‘Reen, it’s fumigating you need. Hair like a bird’s nest, cascara all over your face – yes, I know,
it’s mascara . . .’ The dress, which had started the day like stiffened net curtains from a hundred windows, was now limp and soiled. One bra strap had escaped its mooring rings, so
young Maureen was now one up, one down, a bit like the house in which Paddy had started life in the old country. ‘The cake’s cut, so away home, the pair of ye.’

Jimmy stepped forward. ‘We waited till we were wed, Gran.’

Gran tapped a foot. Who with any sense would get married in a bright blue suit with shocking pink socks and a quiff that tumbled further down his face with every passing hour? Paddy knew for a
fact that he used rollers and setting lotion in the front of his hair. Had Reen married a big girl’s blouse? ‘Then why didn’t you start the shenanigans on your way back down the
aisle? Or on the church steps? Once you’d signed the heathen English papers, you were married in the eyes of the state.’

She looked them up and down. ‘And what a state this is. Just look at the cut of bride and groom, like tinkers at the Appleby horse fair. Away with the both of you. I’ll tell your
mother you turned an ankle in one of those daft shoes, may God forgive my lying tongue. Go on. At least have the comfort of a bed before you start making babies.’ She sighed and shook her
head; they were young, full of hope, and had a great deal to learn while navigating the stepping stones of real life.

Jimmy glared at his grandmother-in-law. Built like a brick outhouse without being actually fat, she was unsinkable, unreasonable, unforgiving. And yet . . . and yet there was a kindness in her.
‘We don’t want no babies yet.’ His accent was treacle-thick Scouse, but at least he was Catholic. ‘We want some time to ourselves first.’

‘You’ll have what God sends to you, so be thankful and keep its arse clean and its stomach filled. Marriage is more than slapping and tickling, so think on. It’s a pledge for
life, better or worse.’