Winter on the Mersey(17)
‘No trouble, ma’am.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘You take care, now. Tell you what, I’ll walk you back along the road. Have you got any friends waiting for you?’
Nancy wondered what had become of the man she had been intending to meet. It hadn’t been a date exactly, but he’d promised to be there at the dance and had suggested they might go on somewhere afterwards. He’d been very persuasive and insistent a few days ago, and she’d been flattered and intrigued. Then again, she’d only seen him around a few times at the WVS canteen and didn’t really know if he was the type to keep his promise. He hadn’t shown up tonight. He might have said the same thing to a dozen young women across the city. Or he might have been shipped out at the last minute – you never knew. More fool her to be mooning around wondering if he’d turn up, and making herself seem vulnerable. She was getting careless.
‘I’m going back to the friends who are looking after my son,’ she said, as that made her seem respectable, and not the sort of woman who let herself be picked up by random strangers outside a dance hall. Besides, it was true. She needed to go to the Parkers’ and they wouldn’t wait up all night.
‘May I walk you to the bus stop then, ma’am?’
Nancy decided that was a harmless enough request, and they would be back on the busy street so he was hardly likely to try anything. He didn’t look the type anyway. He seemed a real gentleman. He had the look of a man who’d trained hard and carried himself easily, a very attractive combination.
‘Well, thank you very much,’ she breathed. ‘Please don’t feel obliged, if it’s taking you out of your way …’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ he said. ‘It will be my pleasure. Staff Sergeant Gary Trenton at your service, ma’am.’ His eyes twinkled at her in the moonlight.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Trenton, and I’m very grateful,’ said Nancy, wondering at the change of luck in her evening as she counted the chevrons on his jacket. ‘Nancy Kerrigan.’ She held out her hand, they shook, and he gently took her arm as he shepherded her towards the bus stop.
CHAPTER SIX
The southerly wind bore the sharp smell of the nearby sea. Kitty lifted her head automatically to catch it, as she used to do so many times when back home the westerlies would carry the scent of the River Mersey to her front door. It took her back to her childhood, to when her mother was still alive and before she had had to take on the care of the household. She’d played in the street, looking up to Rita back in those days, chasing Nancy and borrowing her skipping rope, watching Sarah learn to walk and talk. Even though times had been tough, she hadn’t known any better and had just accepted how things were. Sometimes they’d hear Pop Feeny play his accordion and they would all sing along to songs from the music hall, or ones that Pop and Dolly knew from their own childhoods over in Ireland. Kitty could just about remember her mother joining in. She’d had a fine voice. It might not have been up to Gloria Arden’s standard, but they’d all gathered round on the rare occasions Ellen Callaghan stopped her never-ending housework and started a song.
Kitty smiled to herself. Now there was another little Ellen Callaghan on Empire Street and Rita had written to say she also had a voice – a loud one, which she’d given vent to every night of her short life so far. Rita hadn’t sounded cross, simply delighted that her small daughter had such a healthy pair of lungs. She’d mentioned a date for the baby’s christening but Kitty had hardly registered it, as it was so very unlikely that she’d be able to go. Father Harding was going to do it; he’d been slightly put out that Rita and Jack hadn’t married in his church, although he’d understood that, given Jack’s brief and often unpredictable shore leaves, they hadn’t been able to arrange a ceremony in time. So they’d had a civil ceremony. But Father Harding had known both families for years and wasn’t going to turn down the chance to welcome the youngest member into his fold, Rita had written with relief.
Kitty reached the square brick building that had been requisitioned for their office, quickly checking her watch to see if she was on time. She was very rarely late and only ever because of something out of her control, such as damage to the road forcing a detour. Even that was uncommon in this small town, whereas it had been an everyday occurrence when she’d lived in north London, and you just got used to it. She took off her light scarf and tucked it into her favourite handbag, now showing a depressing amount of wear and tear.
‘Miss Callaghan, you’re wanted in the boss’s office,’ said a young clerk, hurrying towards her.
‘Oh.’ Kitty refastened her bag to buy herself a moment. She couldn’t imagine what it might be about, and racked her brains to see if she’d done anything wrong. Surely it couldn’t be about that lapse of concentration a few mornings ago? Only Lizzie had noticed it, and she wouldn’t have reported it – unless Kitty had read the girl wrong for all this time. It wasn’t as if any calls had been missed or wrongly connected. ‘Do you know what it is about?’ she asked, keeping the uncertainty out of her voice, even as she realised it would be highly unlikely a junior member of staff like the clerk would be told anything serious.
‘No, ma’am. I mean miss. I mean, Leading Wren Callaghan.’ The clerk shuffled nervously, holding a manila folder to her chest for protection, overawed at being asked a question by one of the senior Wrens she looked up to so much. She wanted to please and impress her but didn’t know how.