Liz, watching while he delivered this paean of praise, saw him cock one dark eyebrow. ‘Oh, and by the way, Father - and I know this won’t matter to you at all - her parents are Irish and she’s a Roman Catholic.’
Liz felt her stomach lurch. ‘And he’ll say?’ she invited.
‘Son, if she’s the girl you’ve chosen, that’s fine by me.’
‘I wish I could believe that, Eddie.’ Liz shook her head. ‘I really wish I could.’
‘You don’t think it might be different once he’d met her?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps if I introduced her to Ma first?’
‘Ma would love her.’ That wasn’t in any doubt. Liz knew that while their mother might well be concerned about the religious difference, seeing how happy Helen and Eddie were together would be enough to overcome her misgivings. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Sadie’s reaction that mattered.
‘How could anybody not love her?’ asked Eddie in accents of amazement. ‘Surely, Liz, when he sees how beautiful she is? Inside and out?’
‘Eddie,’ Liz said urgently, sitting up straighter in bed. ‘He won’t see any of that. All he’ll see is that she’s a Roman Catholic. You know that as well as I do.’
He’d caught something in her voice. His look became quizzical.
‘Mario Rossi asked me out today,’ she told him. ‘And I said yes. We’re going to the pictures on Thursday night.’ Despite her concerns about their father, Liz smiled.
‘So Father’s got two shocks coming up? If you and Mario get serious about each other too?’
‘It’s only a first date, Eddie,’ Liz mumbled - but she was still smiling.
Twenty-three
She walked beside Mario in miserable silence. Their first date. Their last one too, by the looks of it - and it was all her own stupid fault. It wasn’t as if he’d tried to do anything so awful. He hadn’t jumped on her - nothing remotely like that. There had been no undignified tussle in the back row.
He’d been the perfect gentleman, paying her in, buying her chocolates and letting her decide where they sat. She’d even sensed some amusement when she’d declined the double seats in the back row which were specifically designed for courting couples. The usherette had indicated them with her torch, but Liz had led the way to two separate seats a few rows further forward.
They’d laughed together at the trailers and at the plummy tones of the newsreel announcer, opened the sweets and settled down to watch Flash Gordon save the Earth from the Martian invaders.
Mario had tried to hold her hand a couple of times. That was all. Once he had slipped his arm about her shoulders. On each occasion Liz had shrunk away from him like a terrified rabbit.
She knew he was puzzled. He had a right to be. And it didn’t help to be surrounded not by wee horrors, but by couples who seemed to have cast most of their inhibitions aside in the face of impending doom. Adolf Hitler had a lot to answer for.
When they came out of the picture house he said only one thing. ‘Come on then, I’ll walk you to your tram.’
They passed the café. Liz had thought they might have gone there after the picture, but Mario kept on walking. She couldn’t blame him.
Until this evening, she hadn’t realized quite how much Eric Mitchell’s unwelcome attentions had affected her. The memory of how she had felt when he had touched her breast and pulled her against him had stayed with her. It had fluttered up into full-blown panic tonight.
Yet she’d been wondering for weeks how it would feel to have her fingers intertwined with Mario’s, what it would be like to be kissed by him ... and to kiss him back.
She stole a sideways glance at him, walking gentleman-like on the outside of the pavement between her and the road. Should she tell him about Eric Mitchell? Try to explain her complicated feelings? Ask him to be patient?
Helen was the only other person who knew. Another girl could understand how it felt, that even though you hadn’t invited it in any way, you were still expected to shoulder some of the blame.
You must have led him on. No smoke without fire
. All those horrible things people said. They reached the Botanic Gardens.
‘This looks like a Clydebank tram coming now.’
Liz looked up at him. She should thank him for treating her, but she was tongue-tied with misery. She’d made a real mess of things tonight.
Mario gave an odd little laugh. ‘You’re very young, aren’t you?’
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that either.
‘Here’s your tram.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it. Well, that was how it had started. It seemed miserably appropriate that it should finish that way too.
A short, wiry man was making a beeline for Liz. He had a girl of about twelve with him, her blonde hair tied up in two neat braids. The yellow ribbons which secured them matched the gingham frock she wore under a lacy white cardigan. When they reached Liz he propelled his reluctant daughter in from of him, work-gnarled hands resting lightly on her shoulders.
‘This is Susan,’ he announced. ‘You’ll look after her for her mother and me, won’t you, Nurse?’
No point in telling him she wasn’t a real nurse. Unkind, too. Despite Liz’s youth, her uniform seemed to confer an authority on her which people found comforting. Susan’s father’s voice might sound firm. That didn’t fool Liz for one minute.
‘Of course we’ll look after her,’ she replied, instinctively adopting a brisk, no-nonsense tone of voice. The girl was upset, but she looked clever and bright. She did her best to respond to Liz’s friendly smile, but her chin was wobbling furiously. She needed something to hang on to, some sort of a job to do. Liz had a brainwave.
‘In fact, Susan... I wonder if you might be able to help us out with something.’ Half turning, Liz indicated the crowded platform. All the children wore luggage labels around their necks, identifying who they were. Quite a few folk had been having nightmares about children getting lost in transit like so many unclaimed parcels.
Adam Buchanan and Jim Barclay passed, ushering a group of children along and calling out, ‘This way for the pleasure trip special!’ Liz couldn’t see Mario, but she’d better put him out of her mind anyway. She had work to do.
Susan was still tearful, but her face had grown more alert.
‘We’ve got so many people to look after, and there’s a wee girl I can think of who could do with a bit of cheering up,’ said Liz. ‘She’s a bit younger than you and she’s all on her own. I wonder if you might be able to look after her for us, Susan?’
The girl’s chin stopped wobbling.
‘I’ll take her, MacMillan,’ came a voice. It was Cordelia Maclntyre, back from settling the little girl Liz had been talking about into her seat on the train. ‘So,’ she said cheerfully to Susan, ‘we’re going to recruit you as one of our helpers for the day?’
Susan’s father followed his daughter with his eyes. When she climbed aboard the train after Cordelia, he put out his hand and shook Liz’s.
‘Thanks, hen. You’re brand new - and that posh lassie too.’ He had tears in his eyes. ‘That was a great idea. Giving her some responsibility, like. Her maw couldnae face saying cheerio to her. Didnae want to see the train pull out, she said. Now I can tell her Susie went off happy.’
‘You’ll stay?’ Liz asked him. ‘To wave her off?’
‘Well...’
‘It would help all the children.’
He squared his shoulders. ‘All right, hen - I mean Nurse. If it’s for the sake of the weans. I’ll let you get on wi’ your work.’
Watching him as he moved to the back of the platform, Liz thought that maybe it helped everybody cope if they felt they had a useful job to do. Herself included.
Stop it, MacMillan, you’ve already decided you’re not going to think about him today.
Another family was hurrying along the platform to her. Liz put on the professional smile. The only way for any of them to get through today was to remain stubbornly cheerful.
It was Friday 1 September 1939 and Britain was sending its children to the safety of the countryside. The evacuation wasn’t compulsory, but the government had recommended it strenuously to parents in the affected areas.
Those were the cities and towns huddled along the banks of the great shipbuilding rivers, the seaports, the great industrial conurbations of the Midlands and the north of England, London of course, Glasgow and Clydebank, Edinburgh and Dundee - all the places thought to be at imminent risk of German air attack.
The newspapers and the wireless and the press continued to repeat the official line.
The evacuation of our children does not mean that war is inevitable
. And the band played believe it if you like. Or so Eddie had sung at breakfast this morning.
‘Well, Elizabeth?’ boomed Adam’s mother as she came sweeping towards her, another woman walking by her side. ‘How are we doing?’
‘Fine, Mrs Buchanan. Although I don’t think the train’s going to be full. A lot of folk seem to have changed their minds at the last minute.’
‘Honestly, these people! When others have gone to so much effort for them. What can they be thinking of?’
The cut-glass accent, and the sentiments expressed in it, raised Liz’s hackles immediately. She gave Mrs Buchanan’s companion a level look.
‘I expect they can’t bear to be separated from their children,’ she said. Amelia Buchanan threw her a curious glance and made the introductions. The disdainful lady was Lady Lydia Maclntyre - Cordelia’s mother. She might have guessed. Liz wondered if she was supposed to curtsey.
‘Can’t bear to be separated from their children? How extraordinary! I had Cordelia packed off to boarding school when she was seven.’
Liz wondered fleetingly if the seven-year-old Cordelia had felt as nervous as young Susan when she had left home for the first time. She must have been homesick: as many of these children were soon going to be.
At least they weren’t going to be subjected to her ladyship. Cordelia’s mother wasn’t coming with them on the journey. She’d just come down to wave them off. That was big of her.
Five minutes before the train was due to depart, a woman came rushing along the platform, four children trailing in her wake. Skidding to a halt in front of Liz and the two older women, she wheeled round to her offspring and grabbed the tallest of them by the elbow, thrusting him in front of her.
“This is Charlie,’ she announced. ‘He’s in charge o’ the others. I’ve tellt him they’ve no’ to be separated.’
‘We’ll do our best, Mrs... ?’ murmured Amelia Buchanan.
‘Your best is no’ good enough,’ said the woman, thrusting out her hand. Liz recognized the crumpled letter she held in it for one of the circulars about the evacuation arrangements which had gone out via the schools before the summer holidays. ‘It says here that the children of one family are to be sent to the same place.’
‘That’s the problem with teaching the working classes to read,’ came a soft murmur. Liz spun round and saw Cordelia.
‘Sorry, MacMillan,’ she muttered. ‘Only trying to lighten the atmosphere.’
‘They’ve no’ to be separated,’ Charlie’s mother repeated. ‘And that’s final!’ Liz recognized the belligerence for what it really was. The fierce Mrs Thomson was terrified at the prospect of sending her bairns off into the unknown but equally as scared of the dangers they might have to face if they stayed in the city.
Liz went forward and crouched down to say hello to the children. Besides Charlie, who looked to be about ten, there were twin boys and a wee sister, clutching a ragdoll as though her life depended on it. She was a pretty child, but the laddies were an unprepossessing lot, their clothes threadbare, their faces none too clean. Liz had a horrible feeling she could see something moving in their hair...
Something else was moving - under Charlie’s nose. As Liz watched, he drew his sleeve across his upper lip - not entirely successfully. His mother turned to her firstborn, wagging her finger at him.