The Mersey Daughter (Empire Street #3)(59)

Nancy perked up at once. America was officially neutral but, thanks to the Lend Lease Agreement, under which the United States had promised to supply the Allies with equipment and other help, more and more service personnel were arriving in Britain. Some people complained about them, saying they were too loud and brash, but Nancy intended to give them the benefit of the doubt.

‘Hello,’ she said, her eyes gleaming. ‘Now, how exactly can I help you?’ She peeped up at them from under her hair in its victory roll and her voice was anything but motherly. From the reactions she could observe, she immediately knew she’d made the right decision in coming here.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


Rita hurried along what had once been a bustling shopping street at the heart of Bootle, although it was barely recognisable after the bombings of earlier in the year. She couldn’t imagine that it would ever thrive again. So many of the landmarks of her childhood had gone or been severely damaged: churches, the street market, the Town Hall, the theatre, the boys’ school. Once this war is over, she thought, where are people going to earn their keep? There’s no more dye works and the Bryant and May match factory has taken a pasting. Not that she would have chosen to take a job there. She wouldn’t want to be around the sulphur all day. She remembered all too well being frightened as a child when she’d seen women with phossy jaw caused by the white phosphorus used to make the matches, whose victims had to have their jawbones removed; even though times had changed, it still sent a shiver through her.

Rita loved nursing, and on a day like today she thanked her lucky stars she could do the job she felt she was born for and serve her country while doing so. She was good at it, she knew. Her patients responded to her and her colleagues valued her highly. It wasn’t being big-headed to recognise this. She hummed to herself. Now that things had calmed down and the pace of work was steadier, she was back to being happy at the hospital. She’d even found time to speak to Dr Fitzgerald, who she knew had seen a lot of Kitty over the summer. He had talked of her friend with such animation that she could tell he was deeply smitten. Rita was pleased for Kitty. She’d made her break and it was working out well for her.

Rita knew she had other reasons to be happy too. Only yesterday, when she’d popped round to Danny’s to check if he needed anything from his ration book in case his shifts prevented him from going to the shop, he’d passed her a new letter from Jack. Rita glowed at the thought. Jack had written that he hoped his promised leave would be soon. ‘With luck it’ll be for a decent amount of time,’ he’d said. ‘You know I can’t tell you precisely when it’ll be, as we don’t know from one day to the next when and where we’ll be needed, but I’m hanging on for the day when I can see you again. You are the most important person in my life and I can hardly wait to be there with you.’

Rita was grateful to him for not repeating his idea that she should divorce Charlie. She allowed that he had been right to raise it as a possibility, and that plenty of women in her situation would have agreed to take that step, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. Not only would it be deeply shocking to her family and friends, it went against her most profound beliefs. It tore her apart, but not even with the promise of Jack’s love and his strong comforting arms around her would she cross that line. It would bring her what she longed for most in the world, and yet she would be betraying herself in doing so. It would taint their future. She hoped he would not mention it again when he came home. She screwed up her eyes for a moment. She didn’t know how she could bear the waiting, the intense craving to see him again.

The upside was that she wouldn’t have to worry about his offer to lend her money now. It was hard to credit it, and yet the spring in her step was partly due to what had happened when she’d come off shift that afternoon. She’d arranged to meet her main supplier for the shop and, as his office was closer to the hospital than to Empire Street, she had gone to see him there. She had been armed with a fresh set of figures that Ruby had compiled. The young woman hadn’t been wrong – she really did have a talent for spotting patterns in the complex columns of income and expenditure that Rita so dreaded. There was no way on this earth that Ruby would have met the supplier in person, but her suggestions had done the trick. She’d come up with an amount that Rita could afford to pay and that the supplier was able to accept. After all, Rita reasoned, it wasn’t in his interests for her to go out of business; this way they both benefited. Ruby had proved herself, and Rita could rest easy for once, on this score at least. She wondered if she could buy Ruby something special to celebrate. She had had so few treats in her young life, and she surely deserved a little present. What a shame the main shopping street was in such a state, even after the salvage teams’ efforts to clear it.

Maybe she could ask Nancy to find something in the city centre. Her sister would like nothing more than a reason to go bargain hunting, Rita was pretty certain of that. Or perhaps she would offer to take Ruby to the farm to visit the children? Ruby often spoke about them, and Rita made sure she shared Michael and Megan’s letters with her. Yes, that would be perfect. She would speak to Pop about it. In fact, thought Rita, she could do that now, as he wouldn’t be on ARP duty for a few hours yet. Rounding the corner near her parents’ house, she thought she could hear the sound of him practising his accordion.

She tried to remember the last time she’d heard him play. Before the war, he’d loved to keep them entertained at home, or to join in if anyone was on the piano down at the Sailor’s Rest. Recently he’d been so busy with his ARP work that he’d scarcely had a moment to go back to his favourite old hobby. She hoped he’d decided to take it up again – she loved to listen to him and sing along to the choruses of the songs they all knew.