The Mersey Daughter (Empire Street #3)(60)
‘Rita.’ She stopped dead in her tracks, her reverie shattered. A cold shiver ran down her neck. Who was that? Did somebody whisper her name? Or had she been mistaken?
Carefully she looked round. It was still daylight but the shadows were long, casting the pavement into darkness, making it indistinct. There was nothing to be seen. The gutters were filling with the first of the falling leaves and the remains of the rubble from the houses that had taken a battering all around. She couldn’t make out any human form. Don’t be daft, she said to herself, you’ve been thinking about Jack and now you’ve gone and conjured up that noise you thought you heard in the back yard that time. There wasn’t anything there then and there’s nothing there now.
A noise came again and she swung around sharply. Was it her name, or was it a piece of scrap metal rolling over in a gust of wind? There was a slight movement towards the edge of her vision and she turned her head, but it was a rag caught on a rusty nail poking out from a gateway in the wall. Then came a shuffling, but again there was no sign of anybody.
I could kill that cat, Rita swore. That’s what it’ll be. I’ve a good mind to go down to the Sailor’s Rest, find out who actually owns it and tell them to feed it properly. It’s always hanging around this end of the street, trying to beg scraps. Well, I’m not having it.
The sound of the accordion had stopped and now the door to her parents’ house swung open and Pop stepped out, his silver hair vivid against the dark brickwork. With a huge rush of relief, Rita ran across to him, waving eagerly. ‘Pop! I was just coming to see you.’
He looked up with a big smile on his face and held out his arms. He’d never been shy of showing affection to his daughters, and Rita, with her courage and steadfastness, held a special place in his heart. ‘Coming to see your old dad, were you?’ he grinned, giving her a hug. ‘How can I help you?’ He took a closer look at her face. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, everything’s fine.’ Then she stopped herself. ‘I’m being silly and imagining things. I thought for a moment someone called my name back there, but there’s nobody about.’
Pop looked at her with affection. ‘You’re probably just tired,’ he said. ‘We all know how hard you work. You hold everything together, don’t think we can’t see what effort it all takes.’ And that feckless husband of yours hasn’t helped, he thought to himself, but didn’t say out loud. At least when the man wasn’t here, he couldn’t mistreat his beloved eldest daughter. ‘What can I do for you today, then?’
Rita could feel herself relaxing from her moment of fear. ‘I was just wondering about when I could go to the farm next …’
Pop put his strong arm around her shoulder and ushered her through the front door. Behind the opposite wall, a figure let out an exasperated breath and swore softly.
‘I call it the Curse of Cavendish.’ Laura strode angrily across the dormitory and glared out of the window at the fading skyline. ‘Do we see any enemy aircraft? No. Any ack-ack guns? No. Any burning buildings, even? No. Not a trace. And yet it’s an emergency, and yet again I am to give up my precious evening off for Captain Blooming Cavendish and his ever-insistent desire to be ferried across our capital city.’
Kitty sighed in sympathy for her friend. ‘It’s rotten luck, Laura, but you can’t do anything about it. That’s the lot of being a driver. He must rate you highly, if he asks for you specifically so often.’ Sometimes she envied Laura her job – she got to see the world outside, different things every day. But in truth she wouldn’t have swapped. She prided herself that she had got the hang of being a telephone operator now, keeping calm under pressure to connect heavy loads of calls, knowing how to prioritise the urgent ones, and always remaining cool and polite, no matter what the parties on the other end of the line demanded – and being discreet if the calls were of a confidential nature connected with important war business, which made her feel trusted and in a position of responsibility. Also, even though her shifts were long, she knew she was highly unlikely to get called back in when she’d planned an evening off – not like her friend.
Laura shook her head and her blonde hair swung about in the light from the low-watt bulb that dangled from the ceiling. ‘Can’t get anyone else fool enough to do it, more like,’ she snapped. ‘The rest must be better at avoiding the summons. It’s always me, always.’
‘You’d better pin back that blackout blind,’ Kitty pointed out. ‘Otherwise we’ll have the ARP complaining, and then it’ll be even worse for us.’
Laura muttered under her breath but tucked the harsh black fabric back into position. ‘There. I’m only doing it for you, mind, because I don’t want to get you into trouble. If I got taken away by the ARP warden, then Captain Killjoy would have to find somebody else, wouldn’t he?’
‘For me, and because you really don’t want the building to get blown up by a passing bomber,’ Kitty said cheerfully. There had been no raids for what felt like ages, and she was cautiously optimistic that this would continue. ‘Maybe he wants to go to see his girlfriend. That would count as an emergency.’
‘Girlfriend!’ Laura snorted. ‘No, because that would mean he’d have to have a heart. He hasn’t, believe me. He has no normal feelings. It’s all work, work, work, and the blessed call of duty. Don’t look at me like that, I know there’s a war on, but this man is something else. He never lets up, and doesn’t understand that not everyone else is like him.’