The Mersey Daughter (Empire Street #3)(57)



‘Frank!’ Danny grinned and then forced his face to be more solemn. ‘Sir!’ He saluted his old mate with a cheeky smile. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages. Do you have a minute, or are you on your way somewhere important?’

‘Midshipman Callaghan.’ Frank attempted to be formal, and knew he should go straight back to his desk, but couldn’t resist sharing his news. After all, if he couldn’t tell Danny, then who could he tell? And who else would be in a better position to appreciate it? He hurried to describe what had just happened.

‘Blimey! Sublieutenant Feeny!’ Danny teased. ‘Seriously, mate, that is good news. An officer from Empire Street – that’ll show ’em.’ He shook his friend’s hand. ‘It’s not a secret, is it? I can write and tell our Jack and our Kitty? They’ll be made up.’

‘No, it’s not a secret. It’ll be public any day now – certainly before any letters reach them.’ Frank’s heart beat painfully in his chest at the thought of Kitty getting the news. In different circumstances he would have loved to have rushed to tell her himself, to share the joy of well-earned promotion with such a special girl. But that was not to be. ‘How are they doing?’ he forced himself to ask.

If Danny noticed any awkwardness in the question, he didn’t acknowledge it. ‘Jack was back earlier in the summer, of course, but we don’t know where he is now, although from his last letter he seems to be fine. He’s hoping for a spot more leave soon. Kitty’s doing well, living it up in London.’

‘Is she still friends with that doctor?’ Frank asked, his cheeks flaming, certain that Danny would know he was forcing himself to sound casual.

Danny nodded. ‘Yes, it’s Elliott this and Elliott that these days. He goes down to see her whenever he can, apparently. She says she hopes to meet his parents soon, as they don’t live that far away from her billet.’

‘And she never comes home to visit?’ Frank asked. ‘Not even to see Dr Elliott?’ He tried not to sound too obviously jealous.

Danny gave his friend a careful look but didn’t ask any questions. It was none of his business. ‘No, not since she left in March,’ he said. ‘She never gets much leave and I reckon they are working them hard down there. You know how it is, it’s the same here, the women are doing men’s jobs and have to make sure they are as good as or better than the men they are replacing. From her letters I don’t think she has a lot of spare time, and I don’t blame her for spending it getting to know London. Good for her. Shall I say you were asking after her?’

Frank swallowed. ‘Yes, do give her my best.’ Inwardly he blanched. He knew that sounded stuffy and formal, but what could he say? Kitty was clearly getting on with her own life. ‘Well, I must be going, Danny – or should I say Midshipman Callaghan? See you around.’

Danny saluted again with a broad grin. ‘See you then, Sublieutenant Feeny-to-be.’

Frank grinned back, and then ploughed on down the corridor, as always making the extra effort not to limp. He couldn’t bear anyone to glance at him with pity. Pulling back his shoulders, he told himself not to let the encounter ruin the enormity of what had happened in the commander’s office. He was to be promoted; his efforts had been recognised – he should be on top of the world. And yet, it would have been so much sweeter if he had had someone special to share it with – and in his heart that someone special was always Kitty. He recalled the way her hair curled, the spark in her bright eyes, the way she had always teased him as they grew up together, and then how he had realised his feelings for her were changing, growing into something more profound, more tender. That was before he’d lost his leg. Now she could not be expected to be interested in him – or not in that way, not romantically, not physically. He simply was not the man he used to be. He should feel glad she had found happiness with this doctor fellow. He should be man enough to wish them good luck and all the best, for heaven only knew it was tough going to find time for love in the middle of a devastating war. Nonetheless, he had to acknowledge that what he actually felt towards Elliott was bitter jealousy, for winning the heart of the woman he ached to confess that he loved.

‘So you see, Mrs Kerrigan, we always keep the urn topped up, and then you can fill the kettles from here.’ Mrs Delia Moyes, veteran of the WVS, demonstrated how the system worked, eyeing her latest recruit with some apprehension. Young Mrs Kerrigan didn’t somehow seem the type to be able to lift large amounts of boiling water around in a confined space. Still, she would be a tonic for the exhausted men in uniform, and that was a fact. Her hair was swept up in the latest style, she wore peep-toe sandals even though there was an autumnal chill in the air, and from her nipped-in waist it was scarcely believable that she was mother to a little boy. Her presence would brighten the utilitarian canteen, sandwiched as it was between bomb-damaged buildings right in the centre of Liverpool. Despite the salvage teams’ best efforts, the place often filled with dust. Nancy Kerrigan would help to ensure the hard-working servicemen’s rare moments of leisure were as pleasant as possible. What the equally exhausted servicewomen would make of her was another matter entirely, but Mrs Moyes reckoned you couldn’t please everyone at once, and it was best to concentrate on one thing at a time. ‘Do you think you have got the hang of it, Mrs Kerrigan?’

Nancy nodded vigorously, even though she was by no means sure. She hadn’t joined the volunteer staff here to heft around heavy equipment; she could have done that back in Bootle, but that would have meant working under the sharp eyes of her mother and sister-in-law. Pushing back a stray strand of her vivid Titian-red hair, she told herself that if she had dealt with tricky customers at George Henry Lee, the big department store where she’d worked before she’d had Georgie, then she could easily manage this.

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