Winter on the Mersey(63)
CHAPTER TWENTY
Nancy had arrived back later than she’d planned, having stayed longer at the Parkers’ house than usual. Georgie was quiet, too cold to talk for once. Nancy had some thinking to do. Maggie Parker, as was, had always been kind and accommodating, but she’d pointed out they couldn’t go on minding Georgie as often any more. Nancy had agreed because she’d had no choice. She didn’t want them thinking she was taking advantage of their goodness, though in some ways she knew she was.
‘He’s spending almost as much time here as he is at his own house,’ Maggie had said forthrightly. ‘He’s a lovely little soul, don’t get me wrong, but it’s getting to the stage where I can’t go out when I need to because he’s here again. We’ll have to get him his own ration book soon.’
‘I’m sorry, I hadn’t realised,’ Nancy had murmured, deeply embarrassed. She knew she’d have to think again about how she would manage things.
She considered her other options. Violet was growing bigger and bigger, her own baby nearly due, and so her mother’s house revolved around getting everything done before the child arrived. Any spare time was taken up with looking after Ellen, now crawling and getting in the way of everyone. On top of that Dolly sometimes saw to Tommy’s evening meal as well, if Kitty was on lates. Nancy tapped her front teeth with one of her elegant nails. Tommy liked Georgie. Maybe he would like to mind him when he finished work? She could pay him a few pennies, make it worth his while. She’d think about it.
‘Is that you?’ called the hated voice of her mother-in-law.
‘Here, Georgie, let me have your coat,’ Nancy said, bending to help unbutton the toggles on the duffel coat that her son was fast outgrowing. ‘Of course it is,’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘Who else would it bloody be?’ she muttered under her breath. It wasn’t as if the woman had any close friends who might come round. Her general air of spite and misery had made sure of that.
The Parkers had fed Georgie, and so Nancy took him up to bed, tucking him in, pulling the curtains against the bright moonlight. She looked at his pinched face as it turned on his threadbare pillow. He looked like his father, which sometimes gave her a jolt. The child had never even met him. Nancy gave a little shiver. She tried not to think about Sid if she could help it. There was nothing she could do about his situation anyway. She ran her hand over her son’s brow, and murmured to him to sleep tight. Then she slipped quietly from the room and down to the front parlour, which was hers alone.
Lighting the mean amount of kindling in the grate, she pulled a chair close to it and drew out her precious letter. There was just enough light to reread it by. She savoured its short message.
Gary would be home for Christmas. He’d finally found time to write to her properly and he said he’d been thinking of her all the while, as his unit fought its way across France, liberating the people and advancing the Allied cause. The knowledge that she was there back in England waiting for him had driven him onward, giving him a reason to survive. ‘I hope you’ll be giving me a warm welcome,’ he’d said, and a little tremble of anticipation shot through her. It wasn’t exactly a passionate letter on the face of it, but she could read between the lines. Gary was clever – he’d know that the censor would read it first and would have no wish to embarrass her by being any more graphic. But she could tell what he meant all right. Well, far be it from her to deny a fighting hero his comforts when he made it back.
Carefully she refolded the letter and tucked it inside a book on the shelves beside the mantelpiece. The Encyclopaedia Britannica – it wasn’t very likely that her mother-in-law would look in there. She barely lifted the newspaper, even though her usually absent husband worked on the Liverpool Post on permanent night shift. Nancy nodded in satisfaction. It might be pie in the sky, but she had begun to dream that Gary would somehow get her out of this cold, loveless place, rescue her from Mrs Kerrigan’s meanness and the soulless existence she’d got used to. Who knew what might happen once he came home?
Kitty hated it when she got back so late that she didn’t have time to make a meal for Tommy. If she knew she would be working well past when he usually ate, she cooked the night before and left a pot of stew on the cold shelf in the larder, along with a note on the kitchen table to remind him to heat it up. The problem came when she was asked to stay on at the end of a normal day shift, which wasn’t uncommon. She could hardly say no. It was never for a trivial reason and she knew it was her duty to agree.
Tommy wouldn’t be going hungry; Dolly would see that he ate something hot, or if she was busy then someone else would step in. Kitty wasn’t worried that her little brother would starve. It was more that cooking for them both and then eating together gave her a chance to talk to him, to find out how his work was going, to see if there had been any difficult deliveries in the day, and to check that there had been no repeat of the episode Sarah had told her about.
Kitty had felt a wave of panic when she’d heard. How dared Alfie take Tommy out and get him drunk? Anything might have happened to him. What if Sarah hadn’t chanced to be there when he’d made it home? What if he hadn’t made it home at all? Just walking along the street was dangerous, with all the potholes and debris, especially in the dark. Trying to do so when affected by drink would have been far worse. Kitty had never been drunk herself, but she’d seen her father staggering around often enough to know what it did to your sense of balance and direction. She was filled with a confusing mixture of emotions: disgust at Alfie taking blatant advantage of someone too young to know better; frustration that Tommy hadn’t simply said no; and almost overwhelming anxiety that she hadn’t been able to keep him safe. Now that Danny was away it fell to her alone, and sometimes she felt that she wasn’t up to the task. She was also alarmed when she took a moment to imagine what Alfie’s deeper motives might be. She didn’t want him anywhere near her house or family. He made her flesh creep. There was something not right about him – more than his reputation as a spivvy black marketeer warranted. If only Danny could come back soon.