Читать книгу When the Lights Go On Again - Annie Groves, Annie Groves - Страница 8

The first thing Lou noticed after she had stepped out of Liverpool’s Lime Street Station, packed with travellers, most of them in uniform, was how grey and grimy Liverpool looked after the pretty English countryside she had been living in. Quickly she pushed away her disloyal judgement on the city. Liverpool was her home, it was the place where she had grown, and most of all it held the people she loved.

She was wearing her uniform, more for her parents’ benefit than her own. Her father was a traditionalist and a bit old-fashioned, and Lou suspected that he wouldn’t understand or indeed approve of the way things worked in ATA. Not that she minded wearing her smart tailored navy-blue skirt with its matching jacket worn over a lighter blue blouse. Unlike the well-to-do pilots, who all had their uniforms tailored for them at a store in London called Austin Reed, Lou had been perfectly happy with the neat fit of her regulationsized clothes. Rammed down onto her curls was the peaked forage cap that none of the girls really ever wore, her golden wings stitched proudly to her jacket denoting that she was now a Third Class ATA pilot.

After the sleepy green peacefulness of the narrow country lanes around their base, connecting small rural villages and towns, the busyness of Liverpool’s streets, teeming with traffic and people, came as something of a shock. Her strongest memories of her home city were those of the dreadful days of Hitler’s blitz at the start of May 1941 and the terrible time after that when her sister had nearly lost her life in the bomb-damaged streets. Then the city had been silent, mourning its dead, and filled with grief, its people weighed down with the enormity of the task that lay in front of them.

Now all that had gone and in its place was a sense of expectation and energy, brought about, Lou suspected, by the country’s growing hope that Hitler was going to be defeated.

The city centre was busy and bustling with men and women in every kind of uniform: British Army, Royal Navy, and the RAF; American infantry and airmen, Poles, Canadians New Zealanders and Aussies.

As she passed the street that led to the Royal Court Theatre, Lou felt her heart give a flurry of angry thuds. It was there that she and Sasha had first met Kieran Mallory, the nephew of its manager, Con Bryant. They had gone there naïvely hoping to be taken on as dancers. Instead of sending them on their way, Kieran and his uncle Con had deliberately encouraged them to believe that they had a stage future ahead of them. And by playing each of them off against the other, pretending to each behind the other’s back that he liked her the best, Kieran had cleverly come between them, fostering a mistrust and jealousy that had ultimately almost led to a terrible tragedy.

That was all in the past now, Lou reminded herself. Sasha was happily engaged to the young bomb disposal sapper who had saved her life, and Lou herself had achieved her ambition of becoming a pilot.

But the division between them was still there.

Not because of Kieran Mallory, Lou assured herself. He meant nothing to either of them now and she certainly wasn’t going to give him an importance in her life that he didn’t deserve.

Her nose, accustomed now to the smell of aviation fuel, hot engines, and Naafi food, set against a countryside background, was now beginning to recognise the smells of home: sea salt-sprayed air mixed with smoke and dust; the smell of vinegar, fish and chips wafting out of a chippy as she made her way up through the city streets toward Edge Hill; the scent of steam and coal from the trains in the Edge Hill freight yard, those smells gradually fading as she walked further up Edge Hill Road, leaving the city centre behind her, so that by the time she was turning into Ash Grove, Lou could have sworn she could smell the newly turned earth from the row of neat allotments that ran behind the houses and down to the railway embankment, one of which belonged to her own father. Her heart lifted, and just as though she were still a little girl, she suddenly wanted to run the last few yards, just as she and Sasha had done as children, racing one another to see who could reach the back door first, and somehow always getting there together, falling into the kitchen in gales of giggles. It had always been Sasha, though, who had still looked neat and tidy, whilst Lou had always been the one with a ribbon missing from one of her plaits and her ankle socks falling down.

In those days, when they had got home from school they had measured the days from the way the kitchen smelled. Mondays, the smell would be of lye soap and laundry, because Monday was wash day, just as on Fridays the smell would be of fish. They were not a Catholic family but their mother had still followed the traditional habit of serving fish on Fridays. Thursday’s smell had always been Lou’s favourite because Thursday was baking day, and they would return home from school to find the kitchen wonderfully scented with the aroma of cakes or scones, or whatever it was their mother had been baking.

Those had been such happy days. She had never dreamed then of what might lie ahead of them, never imagined that there would ever be a time when she and Sasha would not do everything together. Then such a thing had been unthinkable. Then…

The back door was half open. A pang of unexpected happiness, tinged with uncertainty, made Lou hesitate, suddenly conscious, now that she was here, how very much she wanted to make things right with her twin and for them to be close again.

She pushed open the door.

‘Lou!’

Jean stared in delight at her daughter, taking in her air of calm confidence and the smartness of her appearance.

‘Mum.’ Lou’s voice thickened with emotion as she was enveloped in her mother’s loving embrace.

‘You’ve grown,’ Jean told her. ‘A least an inch.’

‘It’s this cap,’ Lou laughed. ‘It makes me look taller. Oh, Mum, it’s lovely to be home. I do miss you all, especially Sash.’

The once bright yellow paint on the kitchen walls might look a little faded and war-weary now, but the love that filled the small room hadn’t changed, and nor had her mother.

‘Tell me all about everyone,’ Lou begged her mother. ‘I get letters, but it isn’t the same as seeing people. How’s Grace liking Whitchurch? And what about Auntie Fran? And Sasha, Mum, how is she?’

Jean sighed and shook her head slightly.

‘I’m worried about her,’ she admitted. Normally she would not have dreamed of discussing one of the twins with the other, but Lou had such an air of quiet competence about her now that unexpectedly Jean discovered that it was actually a relief to be able to voice her concerns about Sasha to someone who knew and understood her so well.

‘There’s nothing wrong between her and Bobby, is there?’ Lou asked anxiously.

‘I don’t think so, Lou. I just don’t know what’s wrong with her, except that nothing seems to please her these days.’

Outside the back door Sasha stiffened, anger and resentment filling her. So that’s what she got for using some of her precious time off to come home early to welcome her twin – overhearing Lou and their mother talking about her behind her back.

Sasha pushed open the door and marched into the kitchen, her unexpected appearance forcing an uncomfortable silence on the room.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ she told her mother and sister. ‘I’ll go up to my room so that you can go on talking about me behind my back.’

‘Oh, Sasha, love, don’t be like that,’ Jean pleaded.

She was upsetting her mother, Sasha could see, and immediately her anger turned to guilt and misery. She knew that her mother was anxious about her, but how could she tell her about the shameful secret that was eating into her? How could she tell her what a coward she was, especially now with Lou standing there in her smart uniform. Lou, her twin, whose letters home were full of the exciting and dangerous things she was doing.

Wanting to change the subject and lighten the mood in the kitchen, Lou announced, ‘I wish so much you’d been with me last night, Sash. A group of us went to this dance and there was this dreadful show-off American girl pilot who was trying to prove that us British girls couldn’t jitterbug, so I had to show her that she was wrong. I did pretty well but it would have been so much better if you’d been there.’

Was that a hint of a smile relaxing Sasha’s frown?

‘Oh, and I’ve got to tell you this. You’ll never guess who was there,’ Lou continued. ‘Kieran Mallory, and—’

Immediately Sasha’s smile disappeared. ‘Kieran Mallory? Why have you got to tell me about him? Do you think I actually need reminding about what he did, or how keen you were to get in his good books? I thought we’d agreed that we’d never talk about him again.’

Lou didn’t know what to say.

‘It was thanks to you and him that I nearly got myself killed,’ Sasha threw at her, red flags of emotion burning in her cheeks. ‘I would have been killed an’ all if it hadn’t been for my Bobby, saving me like he did by taking my place in that bomb shaft.’

Guilt filled Lou. ‘Sash, you know how dreadful I feel about that.’ Remorsefully she reached out her hand to her twin, but Sasha stepped back from her.

‘It’s easy enough for you to say that, but it doesn’t seem to have stopped you taking up with Kieran again.’

‘I haven’t taken up with him,’ Lou protested. ‘I only mentioned him because I wanted to tell you that he was with this dreadful American girl!’

‘And that’s why you wanted to outdance her, isn’t it? So that you could show off to him.’

‘No,’ Lou protested. ‘It wasn’t like that at all.’

‘Then why are you so keen to tell me that you’ve met up with him again? If you’re trying to make me jealous of you, Lou, you needn’t bother. My Bobby is worth a hundred of Kieran Mallory. You’re welcome to him. Don’t bother making me any tea, Mum. I’m meeting Bobby at tea time and we’ll have something at Joe Lyons.’

Lou was too astonished and, yes, hurt as well, by Sasha’s unexpected and unjustified attack on her to say anything to defend herself. She’d only mentioned the incident because she’d wanted to take Sasha back to a time when they’d been close to one another. It had never occurred to her that Sasha would place the interpretation on her little story that she had.

Without waiting for any response Sasha pulled open the door into the hall and walked out.

Jean and Lou looked at one another in silence as they heard her feet going up the stairs.

‘It isn’t like Sasha thinks, Mum. I wasn’t telling her about Kieran for any reason. Sasha’s right, though,’ Lou continued soberly. ‘What happened to her was my fault. If we hadn’t quarrelled and she’d decided to go home without me, she’d never have gone across that bombed-out building and fallen into that bomb crater. I should have gone back with her the moment she said she didn’t want to go any further, instead of waiting like I did, thinking she’d change her mind and come running after me and Kieran.’

Lou looked so guilty and upset that Jean’s heart ached for her.

‘It was an accident, with no one to blame, Lou love, and thankfully in the end neither of you came to any harm. I can’t tell you how many years it aged me and your dad when we saw the two of you in that bomb crater, you holding on to Sasha for dear life and her half under that bomb.’

Jean exhaled and then said firmly, ‘I’m going to put the kettle on and make us all a nice cup of tea.’

She turned away from Lou to fill the kettle. ‘And as for this Kieran Mallory…’ she continued, her back to Lou as she turned on the gas and then struck a match to light the burners.

‘He doesn’t mean anything to me now, Mum,’ Lou assured her. ‘Me and Sasha were well and truly taken in by him and that uncle of his who managed the Royal Court Theatre.’

Jean was glad that she had her back to her daughter. Somehow, perhaps because at the time she had been so dreadfully anxious for Sasha and then so relieved when she was finally safe, she’d never made the connection between Kieran Mallory and Con Bryant, although Jean recognised that it must have been there for her to make. Now that she had, though, a fresh apprehension filled her. Con might be dead and buried – Jean had seen the announcement of his death in the local paper – but that did not alter the fact that he had been the cause of such dreadful misery and potential shame to the family when he seduced Francine, and left her pregnant, something which Lou and Sasha knew nothing about. And now here was his nephew, coming between her daughters, a nephew who sounded very much as though he was made in the same mould as his uncle; the kind of man no mother wanted going anywhere near her daughters.

Lou had said that he didn’t mean anything to her, and Sasha was safely engaged to Bobby so there was no real reason for her to worry, Jean tried to comfort herself.

Irritably Charlie Firth gunned the engine of the Racing Green MG and dropped it down a gear so that he could overtake the lumbering army lorries travelling in convoy ahead of him. He hadn’t been in the best of moods when he’d left his base in the South of England for the long drive home to Liverpool, and the slow crawl along roads filled with military traffic hadn’t done anything to improve that mood. Spending, or rather wasting, what could well be his last bit of decent leave before his battalion was posted overseas and into action on a visit to his mother was the last thing Charlie would have chosen to do – not when London and all it had to offer in terms of a good night out with a pretty and willing girl was so conveniently close to the base. Unfortunately, though, he’d had no choice. Thanks to his ruddy wife and her equally ruddy parents, and their insistence on Charlie doing the gentlemanly thing and giving his wife a divorce.

Charlie swore viciously as he took a sharp corner at speed and almost knocked a pair of cyclists off their bikes. He could just imagine how his mother was going to react to the news that Daphne wanted a divorce. Not that Charlie really cared how his mother felt; it was the effect the news of his divorce was likely to have on her willingness to ‘help him out’ with those useful ‘loans’ he kept tapping her up for that worried him. His mother was a snob. She had boasted to anyone who would listen that he, Charlie, was marrying a girl with a double-barrelled surname and she wasn’t going to like what Charlie had to tell her. And he did have to tell her because if he didn’t there was no guarantee that if he didn’t get his side of the story in first, his in-laws, the Wrighton-Budes, just might give her theirs.

They’d never considered him good enough for their daughter, although Charlie had only discovered that on his wedding day, when Daphne’s cousin had let slip that Daphne’s parents and, indeed, Daphne herself had been expecting a local land-owning neighbour’s son to propose to her, and when he had married someone else instead marriage to Charlie had been seen by them as a face-saving exercise.

Now, though, this neighbour’s son was a widower, thanks to the war, and free to remarry, and it seemed that the woman he wanted to marry was Charlie’s wife.

Naturally Charlie had expressed shock and anger when this news had been relayed to him by his father-in-law, but the old fart had outmanoeuvred him by announcing that he knew all about the girls Charlie saw when he was on leave in London, because he had apparently been having Charlie followed, so that evidence could be gathered to back up Daphne’s claim for a divorce. Charlie’s father-in-law had actually had the gall to add that in view of his taste for variety, Charlie might actually welcome the freedom of a divorce.

Charlie, however, wanted no such thing. Announcing that he was married, as he had discovered, was a very effective way of sorting out the girls who wanted to play the game his way and have a good time, from those who were after something more permanent. Now his father-in-law was demanding that Charlie did the decent thing, so that Daphne, her name clear of any wrongdoing, could get her divorce and be free to remarry.

No, he wasn’t looking forward to the coming weekend at all, Charlie admitted.

There’d be no point in trying to tap up Bella, his sister, for a few quid; they’d never been what one might call close, but their relationship had really deteriorated after Bella had taken in that girl who reckoned that he’d fathered her brat.

He had reached the outskirts of Liverpool now, the Mersey a grey gleam to his left, made even greyer by the hulls of the naval vessels and merchant convoys filling the docks.

Liverpool was the port used by most of the convoys crossing the Atlantic, bringing in much-needed supplies of raw materials and food. Not that the vitally important role his home city was playing in the war effort interested Charlie.

Wallasey was considered far more exclusive than Liverpool, the town holding itself apart from the city in the manner of a ‘lady’ keeping her distance from her servants, whilst being dependent on them.

The last few miles of the drive increased Charlie’s ill humour. He’d have given anything to turn the car round and drive back to London, he acknowledged as he pulled up outside his mother’s house.

In the front window a lace curtain twitched ever so slightly, but Charlie was too preoccupied with his own sense of injustice and ill-usage to notice.

‘Bella, it’s Charlie. He’s here,’ Vi Firth announced, letting the lace curtain drop and then hurrying into the hallway, patting the rigid waves of her new hairdo, before going to open the door.

Lord, but his mother looked drab and dull; no wonder his father had left her for someone younger and livelier, Charlie thought unkindly as he submitted himself to Vi’s tearful embrace.

‘Such a shame that dearest Daphne couldn’t come with you. I can see that I’m going to have to travel down to see her,’ Vi informed Charlie, before turning towards the kitchen and calling out in a far sharper voice, ‘Bella, do hurry up with that tea. Your poor brother has been driving for hours.

‘Having Bella living here with me is so difficult at times, Charles. You wouldn’t believe how selfish she can be,’ Vi confided to her son in a lower tone. ‘I blame that nursery. I never wanted her to go and work there, or marry that Pole. Of course, if your father had been here to put his foot down…’ Fresh tears welled in Vi’s eyes.

‘No one would have stopped me from marrying Jan, Mummy,’ Bella announced, appearing in the open doorway from the hall to the kitchen, obviously having overheard their mother’s comment.

‘Where is that tea, Bella?’ Vi interrupted her.

‘In the kitchen,’ Bella answered her.

‘Oh, really, Bella, I thought you’d have made more of an effort for your brother, and prepared a tea tray for the lounge. This dreadful war is causing standards to slip dreadfully,’ Vi complained to Charlie.

Charlie fought to conceal his growing irritation. A good stiff drink was what he wanted, not a cup of tea, but he judged it wiser not to say so, not with the old girl almost having turned into a bit of a lush herself after his father had left. It wouldn’t do to fall out with his mother before he’d won her round, gained her sympathy and got some money out of her, and there was no point in falling foul of Bella otherwise she’d set off giving him an ear-bashing.

An hour later, having spent most of that time forced to listen to his mother cataloguing her various grievances, Charlie was beginning to wish that he had thought to bring a bottle of army rations gin with him to calm his mother down and put her in the right mood for what he had to tell her.

‘…and I still don’t see why you couldn’t have let Charlie sleep in your bed tonight, Bella, whilst you used the spare room,’ his mother was now berating his sister. ‘He needs a decent night’s sleep after driving up here.’

Scenting an opportunity to deliver his bad news, Charlie assumed a morose, mournful expression and heaved a heavy sigh.

‘Don’t worry about me, Ma. I’ve hardly slept a wink this last week since…’

‘Since what?’ Vi demanded anxiously when Charlie deliberately did not continue.

Charlie shook his head. ‘I don’t want to burden you with my problems, Ma, especially after what you’ve been through with Dad.’ He paused and waited, and, true to form, just as he had expected she would, his mother immediately pressed him.

‘Charlie, I’m your mother; you must tell me what’s wrong.’

Charlie shook his head and then cleared his throat as though struggling with his emotions.

‘I’m not going to blame Daphne. It isn’t her fault. It’s mine. I should have realised when her cousin let the cat out of the bag about how Daphne had been involved with someone else before she met me, that she might not love me as much as I love her.’

‘So much that you got another girl pregnant whilst you were engaged to her,’ Bella cut in in a sharp voice, earning herself a look of censure from their mother and a rebuking.

‘I won’t have you bringing that up, Bella. If anyone was to blame, it was that dreadful girl.’ Turning back to Charlie, Vi told him firmly, ‘I shouldn’t let it worry you if you and dearest Daphne have had a bit of a tiff, Charlie.’

Trust his mother to be obtuse, Charlie thought impatiently. She’d always been good at not seeing what she didn’t want to see, and making a fuss over bits of something and nothing because it suited her to do so.

‘A bit of a tiff? I wish that it was just that, Ma.’ Charlie stood up and paced the kitchen floor as though in the grip of an intense emotion that was almost too much for him. ‘Like I said, though, I’m not blaming Daphne.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘No, if anyone’s to blame for her turning against me then it’s her mother. She never really liked me.’ There, that should do it, Charlie reckoned. His mother had never forgiven Daphne’s mother for the way she had behaved over the wedding, treating Vi as though she was a poor relation she’d rather not have known the mother of her daughter’s husband-to-be.

Vi’s reaction was as gratifying as it had been predictable. Her mouth pursed, her bosom swelling with righteous indignation.

‘And who is she when she’s at home, not to like you? You saved her son’s life – well, as good as. It wasn’t your fault that he went overboard again and drowned after you’d rescued him at Dunkirk. Mind you, I have to say that I never really took to her. Well, look at the way she was always interfering and stopping poor Daphne from coming up here. Selfish, that’s what I call it.

‘You must speak to Daphne, though, Charlie, and be firm with her. She’s your wife now, after all.’

Charlie shook his head. ‘It’s too late for that now.’

‘Too late? What do you mean?’ Now Vi was seriously alarmed.

‘Daphne wants a divorce. And the truth is, well, I feel honour bound to agree, especially knowing that—’

‘Knowing what?’ Bella challenged her brother. She knew Charlie far too well to be taken in by the little side show he was putting on for their mother. And besides, being honour bound to do anything simply wasn’t Charlie. If Bella had needed any confirmation of that she only had to think of the way in which Charlie had stolen her jewellery and then tried to blame the theft on Jan. And, even worse, how he had seduced poor Lena and then deserted her, leaving her pregnant.

Charlie exhaled unevenly.

‘This chap – the chap who Daffers was involved with before me – is a widower now, and it seems that he…that they – well, I’m pretty sure that all Daffers intended to do was to offer him her condolences, since he’s a close neighbour, and that he’s the one to blame for things getting out of hand. She’s not the sort to deliberately…Well, like I said, I can’t and won’t blame her, but the truth is that things have gone further than they should and poor Daffers…’ Charlie paused for effect, and heaved a deep sigh.

Her brother really ought to have gone on the stage, Bella thought grimly.

‘Charles?’ Vi begged.

Charlie took another deep breath. ‘I hate to have to say this but the fact is that they were caught out in a compromising situation and now, for her sake, the sooner this chap is able to make a decent woman of Daffers, the better. Of course I could refuse to co-operate, but – well, when you love someone you want them to be happy, and if the only thing I can give her to show her how much I love her is my agreement to being named as the guilty party in our divorce, to protect her, then that is what I will do.’

There were a dozen probing questions at least that Bella wanted to ask but now wasn’t the time.

Vi, who had half made to stand up, was now sitting back in her chair, one hand placed over her heart, the other clutching the edge of the table for support.

Bella knew how much Charlie’s news would upset her mother, and what a blow it would be to her. Pity for her softened Bella’s awareness of how difficult their mother could be. Charlie’s divorce would be very hard for her to bear, and she would see it as another humiliation on top of the humiliation she had already suffered over their father leaving home to live with his assistant.

Everything that Bella was thinking was confirmed when her mother turned to Charlie and told him, ‘Daphne may have behaved very badly, Charlie, but she is your wife. I shall write to her for you and tell her that, and I shall write to her mother as well…’

The last thing Charlie wanted was his mother getting in touch with Daphne or her family and discovering the truth. Furious with his mother for making things difficult for him, he longed to be able to escape – from her and from the problems she was causing him. As always when he was confronted with an obstacle to his plans, he blamed everyone apart from himself.

‘No! You mustn’t write to Daphne or her parents,’ he began furiously.

‘Why not?’ Vi demanded.

Bella had seen and heard enough. She could tell from Charlie’s expression that things weren’t going the way he had planned and that the situation was going to get very unpleasant unless she did something to avoid that.

‘Mummy, you can’t interfere. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be dignified, or worthy of you. Charlie has just told us that he feels honour bound to let Daphne have her divorce and it is only right that you respect his decision, and be proud of his…his generous and honourable treatment of her.’

Charlie listened to Bella with relief. She certainly knew how to handle their mother.

‘That’s right, Ma,’ Charlie agreed. ‘A man’s honour is very important to him. Especially when he’s in uniform and he’s about to go into action. I’m not saying that I wasn’t tempted to plead with Daffers to change her mind, but a man’s got to be a man – and honourable, of course.’

Charlie was right, Vi acknowledged reluctantly. It was important that he did the right thing, and that he put being honourable above his own feelings. And that would certainly show that stuck-up Mrs Wrighton-Bude, Daphne’s mother, which of their two children knew the right way to behave. How ashamed she must feel having to explain to all her friends – her ‘bridge club set’ – that her daughter had behaved in such a shameful way and her with a husband who loved her, who had saved her brother’s life and who was about to be sent overseas to fight for his country. In her shoes Vi didn’t think she’d have been able to show her face anywhere. She, on the other hand, would be able to tell everyone just how well Charlie had behaved. Poor Charlie, whose heart had been broken.

‘Well, I suppose I shall have to feel sorry for Mrs Wrighton-Bude,’ Vi announced, ‘for having been so shown up by her daughter in such a dreadful way. She must feel so ashamed, because of course it will reflect on her and the way she has been brought up.’

‘I wanted to come up and tell you rather than send a letter.’ Charlie quickly picked up the ball Bella had set rolling for him, keen to get the most benefit he could from his mother’s sympathy for him. ‘Not that it was easy. All the way up here I kept on thinking that Daphne should be with me…’

‘You’re over-egging the bread,’ Bella warned him in a quiet murmur, but Charlie ignored her, going over to Vi’s chair.

‘These last few weeks have been pure hell, and to make the whole thing even worse, I’ve practically bankrupted myself driving over to see Daphne and her parents and then sorting out…well, everything that needs to be done, so that I can provide the necessary evidence that will enable Daphne to sue me for adultery.’

When Vi shuddered, Charlie assured her untruthfully, ‘It’s all right, Ma. It’s all done very neatly; the solicitor arranges it all. I just have to say that I was at such and such an hotel on such and such a night with a Miss A – even though neither of us was anywhere near the place. Our names will appear in the hotel register and that will be enough. Of course, the whole thing is damnably expensive. More so than if I had actually been guilty of adultery. My solicitor was rather shocked that Daphne’s father hadn’t offered to cover all my expenses, but, well, call it foolish pride, but I couldn’t bring myself to go cap in hand to him, to ask him to help me out, even though three hundred pounds is nothing to him.’

‘Three hundred pounds?’ Vi gasped.

‘Yes. Luckily I’d got a bit put by. I’d been saving for after the war, thinking that me and Daphne would be wanting to buy our own home then.’

Vi’s emotions overwhelmed her. ‘Oh, my poor boy, I’ll do what I can to help you, but the most I can manage is a hundred.’

He’d done it. Charlie crowed inwardly in triumph.

‘I hate taking money from you, Ma, especially after what Dad’s done. I’ll pay you back, I promise. At least now all I’ve got to worry about is doing my bit for the country, and making sure we get this war won.’

‘It’s definite that you’re going into action, then?’ Bella asked.

‘Looks like it,’ Charlie confirmed. ‘All leave’s cancelled after this weekend, and we’ve been told we’ve already got orders to ship out. No one’s saying for definite, but it’s got to be Italy, with Sicily already invaded and won, and some of our men already with the American Fifth Army at Salerno.’

Bella nodded. What Charlie was saying confirmed what everyone seemed to be expecting. She had no idea what part her own Jan would be playing in any invasion of Italy. Jan’s fighter pilot squadron based in the South of England covered the South Coast and the Channel, and as far as Bella was aware, it was the heavy bombers, both American and British, that were being used to make raids on Germany’s defences in Italy and Germany itself.

If Italy could be captured then the way would be open for the Allies to really drive back the Germans.

Italy – that willing little bed partner Bella had made all the fuss about had had an Italian look about her, Charlie reflected, well pleased now with the result of his hard work, and typically and conveniently forgetting that it had been Bella who had saved the day for him.

Life just didn’t seem fair, Vi thought bitterly.

She had been so proud when Charlie had married ‘up’ to a girl with a double-barrelled surname, and so had Edwin. But then Edwin had been tempted away from her by that dreadful scheming creature who had worked for him and with whom he was now living openly in sin, despite the fact that, technically at least, he and Vi were still man and wife. And now here was Charlie, her son, saying that his wife wanted a divorce. How could life be so cruel and unfair, especially to her? She had always lived a blameless life, selflessly devoting herself to the good of others, looking around for the right kind of husband; marrying Edwin for practical, sensible reasons, unlike her twin, Jean, who had fallen in love with the first man who had asked her out, and then marrying him without even considering what his future prospects might be.

Then she’d taken in their younger sister’s illegitimate child, who had caused her nothing but trouble, only to have Fran carry on as though she and Edwin had been cruel to the boy instead of giving him the best of everything.

She’d even insisted that Edwin buy this house here in Wallasey, for Edwin and her children’s sake rather than her own, so that Bella and Charlie could mix with a better class of people. It was because of the sacrifices she had made that Edwin had done as well as he had, and the family had risen to the position where others looked up to them and envied them.

Then the country had gone to war and everything had changed, and Vi didn’t like those changes.

But it was poor Charlie she must think of, not herself. She must make sure too that people knew how badly Charlie had been treated, and how honourably he had behaved in return. Just mentally thinking the word ‘honourably’ made Vi feel better. No one could argue against or criticise a young man who behaved honourably.