Читать книгу Daughters of Liverpool - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 13

FIVE

It was half-past five in the morning and the all clear had finally sounded. Wearily, Jean woke the twins whilst Sam gathered up their things. Around them in the air-raid shelter their neighbours were also stirring and throwing off the dark fear and dread of the night. They had survived, although just how much of their city had also managed to survive after the pasting it had had from the Luftwaffe remained to be seen, Sam told Jean as they walked tiredly home.

The kitchen felt warm and comforting after the chill of the shelter. Jean had just finished washing up from their tea when the air-raid siren had gone off, and the dishes were still on the draining board.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she told Sam as she stifled a weary yawn.

‘You look done in, love. Why don’t you go up and have an hour in bed?’ Sam suggested.

‘I can never sleep in the shelter. It doesn’t seem proper somehow, sleeping when you’re with all them other people, even if there is a war on and they are our neighbours.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Sam agreed. ‘It will be all hands to the pumps for us today, clearing up the mess Hitler’s left us with. I’ll go up and have a bit of a wash and then I’d better get down to the yard. We won’t be able to see how much damage has been done until it’s properly light, of course.’

‘I just hope that Katie’s all right.’

‘She’ll be safe in one of the shelters, love.’

The kettle had boiled. Jean reached for it, warming the pot and then sparingly spooning some fresh tea leaves into it before adding some of the tea leaves she had kept from the previous day, to give it a bit more strength.

The resultant brew wasn’t the cup of tea she longed for but it was better than nothing and, more important, it was all that they could have. Not that Jean intended to complain. What did she have to complain about, after all, when both her son and her daughter were alive and well and living close enough to home for her to be able to see them regularly? Others were not so fortunate. There was more than one family in their road now that had lost someone. One of the other women in Jean’s WVS group had arrived at their weekly meeting earlier in the week with red-rimmed eyes, explaining that her son, who was fighting in the desert, had been reported as missing in action. It made Jean’s heart contract just to think of what she was going through.

The all clear had sounded. The two hundred or so dancers who had braved the Luftwaffe to dance the night away together, and in doing so had formed a bond in the way that young people do, began to shake hands if they were male, and exchange hugs if they were female, relieved that they were now free to leave and yet at the same time unwilling to part from one another.

A standing ovation had been given to the band for keeping them dancing, and Mr Munro had stood up and thanked both the band and the dancers.

‘He’s got another saxophone player coming to audition tomorrow,’ Eric told Katie as he packed away his instrument. She’d gone over to say goodbye to him and she didn’t want to seem rude by rushing off when he plainly wanted to chat.

Katie smiled and nodded.

Luke scowled as he watched her smiling at the musician. She was pretty pally with him on the strength of one night’s acquaintanceship, but then her sort were like that, as he well knew from Lillian. They excelled at making a chap believe they thought he was the best thing out and then making him look a fool. Well, that was never going to happen to him again.

As they left the Grafton in the chilly darkness of the December morning, coats over their dance dresses, groups of girls huddled together shivering and looking down at the glass-strewn pavement and road in distress.

‘There’s no way any buses are going to be coming down here,’ Carole told Katie unnecessarily. ‘We’ll have to walk.’ She looked dismayed. ‘And me wearing me only pair of dancing shoes. They’ll be cut to ribbons.’

‘We’ll just have to be very careful,’ Katie tried to comfort her.

The fair-haired private who had been dancing with Carole called out to his friends, ‘Come on, lads. Let’s see these girls safely on their way. They’ll never be able to walk over this lot. Allow me to offer you some transport, modom,’ he joked, putting on a fake ‘posh’ accent as he and another private made a seat with their crossed and joined hands, indicating that they would carry Carole over the worst of the broken glass.

She was giggling now, her dismay giving way to a dimpled smile as she settled herself into her ‘transport’.

Luke came out of the Grafton just in time to see what was going on and hear Carole’s giggles as his men carried her down the street.

Impatiently he strode after them, watched by Katie, who had held back from accepting an offer of her own transport, being naturally more self-conscious than her more exuberant and boisterous friend.

‘You’re in the British Army, you two, not the Christmas panto,’ Luke barked at the two young men, causing them to put Carole down and hang their heads.

‘We was only helping the girls across the worst of the broken glass, Corp,’ Andy defended his actions. ‘With them thin shoes they’re wearing their feet would be cut to ribbons.’

It was cold and Katie was tired and unwilling to hang around outside the Grafton any longer under the disapproving gaze of the corporal, whom she was quite sure now had taken a dislike to her.

With so many torches switched on it was easy enough for her to see the ground and pick her way carefully through the glass, or at least it would have been, if she hadn’t suddenly put her foot on such a smooth piece of glass that she was slipping on it.

Luke swung round as he heard Katie cry out, sprinting the few yards that separated them and reaching her just in time to catch her as she fell. Katie gasped as she was swung off her feet with so much force and speed that she fell against her rescuer’s chest and was obliged to lie there, winded, with her feet dangling above the ground.

He smelled of khaki and soap and clean male sweat. A funny unfamiliar sensation seemed to pierce her body, leaving her even more breathless than his forceful rescue.

Her ‘thank you’ was muffled and made uncomfortable by both her awareness of how much she wished it had been any soldier but this one who had saved her, and how much he himself must dislike having had to do so.

‘You can put me down now,’ she told him. She dare not move. He was of necessity holding her very tightly. He had no option, having rushed to save her, of course, but it was still a very intimate hold, given that they were strangers, and she was now clasped so tightly to his body that she could actually feel the hard muscles in his thighs against her own legs. Katie was glad that it was dark, because she knew that she was blushing. Which was so silly, given the situation. He already despised her enough without her making things even worse by behaving like a silly overly dramatic type of girl who had to make a fuss about something that wasn’t really anything at all. Even so, she would be very glad to be standing on her own feet and not held so close to him. He must have very strong arms to hold her like that. She was panting and had to struggle slightly for breath, but he was not breathing fast at all. Well, not very much. She could feel his heart thudding quite heavily, though. And he still hadn’t put her down. In fact …

Katie gasped as she felt him starting to walk, still carrying her.

‘Put me down,’ she repeated.

‘Keep still,’ he warned her, ignoring her demand and carrying her across the worst of the broken glass to where Carole was standing watching.

How embarrassing. Katie felt so flushed and self-conscious. She had to thank him again, of course, after he had placed her on her feet, and she certainly didn’t welcome Carole’s giggled, ‘It looked ever so romantic, him carrying you like that. Just like something from Gone With the Wind,’ once they had left the men behind and were picking their way carefully through the mess.

It was nearly seven o’clock before Katie finally made it back to the Campions’. Jean welcomed her with open relief, clucking over her like a mother hen, as Katie explained what had happened.

‘We were safe enough but there’s been some dreadful damage, according to what I heard from the bus driver on my way back. There’s been fires at Hatton Gardens and St John’s Market, and there’s been a church really badly burned.’

‘Did you hear that, Sam?’ Jean called out to her husband as he came into the kitchen to catch the tail end of Katie’s comment. ‘Katie says there’s been a fire in Hatton Gardens.’

Hatton Gardens being the headquarters of the Salvage Corps, Sam was naturally concerned to learn more.

‘I don’t have any details,’ Katie apologised. ‘It’s just what I heard. The law courts caught it as well.’

She had also heard that both Mill Road Hospital and the Royal had been hit, but she didn’t want to say so, knowing how anxious it would make Jean on her daughter Grace’s behalf, since Grace had probably been on duty.

‘If they were going for the docks, let’s hope that Derby House wasn’t hit. That’s where Grace’s Seb works,’ Jean told Katie. ‘You look fit to drop, love,’ she added. ‘I’m going to have an hour in bed myself before church so why don’t you go up and get some sleep too?’

‘I think I will,’ Katie agreed.

‘Liverpool was bombed so badly last night I feel we ought to offer our services to those WVS groups in the city who might need some extra pairs of hands.’

Bella yawned, and then shivered. It was cold standing here outside the church, even though she was wearing her new winter coat, with its fur collar, and a matching fur hat. The coat was honey-coloured, with a nipped-in waist and a flared panelled skirt, and Bella knew that it suited her. The congregation at St Mark’s always dressed smartly, with the ladies discreetly vying with one another when it came to elegance and new hats. But then, as Bella’s mother was fond of saying, the congregation of St Mark’s did come from the best addresses in the area, and St Mark’s itself was very definitely High Church, with a locally renowned choir and a long waiting list of ladies willing to ‘do the church flowers’.

Bella would have avoided being collared by the leader of her mother’s WVS group, and slipped inside the church with her father before the woman had spotted them, but her mother had had other ideas.

Bella watched as members of the congregation continued to arrive: families with children dressed in Harris tweed coats and highly polished shoes, the girls’ hair in plaits and the boys’ slicked back, the mothers in good but sensible rather than stylish coats, and the fathers hurrying to catch up, having had to park their cars.

Bored and irritated, Bella yawned again. For one thing she had hardly had any sleep at all last night because of having to go into her dreary neighbour’s air-raid shelter, and for another, her mother had told her that her father had refused to increase her allowance.

How on earth was she supposed to manage? Her clothes were virtually in rags – not that there was much to buy anyway, but she couldn’t appear at any of the Tennis Club’s dances in last year’s frock. She had a certain position to maintain, after all.

She had told her mother this, of course, but instead of being sympathetic, her mother had actually asked her if she thought it was a good idea to go dancing when she was so very newly widowed.