Winter on the Mersey(9)
‘Come on, this is ours.’ Sylvia stepped onto the bus and Frank let her choose where to sit. Miraculously there were two seats together, but this was near the start of the route, and later on it would be standing room only. He was secretly glad – he’d of course get up and offer his place to anyone who needed it, but standing for any length of time in a moving vehicle was something he’d rather avoid. As more passengers got on he was pressed closer to Sylvia and he noticed yet again how her cleverly altered uniform jacket curved around her shapely body. No wonder the men in the bus queue had looked at him with envy.
‘What shifts are you on this weekend?’ he asked, his mouth close to her ear as yet another group of passengers squeezed inside. ‘I’m off on Sunday. Shall we make a day of it?’
Sylvia sighed and turned towards him. ‘Oh, Frank, I’d love to, but I didn’t know you’d have any free time. I’ve got both days off for once and I promised I’d go to see my parents. It’s been ages, and they worry if I don’t visit them now and again. They think I’ve wasted away or something.’
‘Ah well, never mind.’ Frank knew that was true. Sylvia came from the Lake District, and even though it was in theory in the same corner of England, the journey was often complicated and took ages. He couldn’t blame her for grabbing the chance to spend some time at home. He was lucky – he only had to travel along the Mersey to Bootle to see Dolly and Pop. He couldn’t begrudge her this opportunity to see the parents he knew she missed dearly, even if she rarely admitted it. He reached down and squeezed her hand. ‘You’ll enjoy that. Give them my best.’
‘I will.’ Sylvia had been nervous at first to introduce Frank and her parents, never fully sure how he felt about her, but after they’d officially been a couple for six months she’d taken the plunge. Of course, they had loved him, and now they never stopped asking her when he was going to pop the question, but Sylvia couldn’t answer that one. If these had been normal times, things might have been different – and yet without the war, she and Frank would never have met at all. ‘Mum will probably load me up with her home-made jam for you.’
‘I’ll use it to sweeten my landlady,’ Frank laughed. ‘It’s about the only thing that works.’ He’d chosen to live in a service billet rather than go back to the little house on Empire Street, as that was already full to bursting, but his landlady was taciturn at best and mostly plain sour. He didn’t complain – he wasn’t there for entertainment.
‘Excuse me,’ said a trembling voice from behind his shoulder, ‘I hate to ask but …’
Frank swivelled round in his seat and saw an old woman, leaning on a walking stick, making her way unsteadily along the aisle. He stood up immediately. ‘Please. My pleasure.’ He took a firm grip of the well-worn metal pole so he wouldn’t embarrass himself by falling as the bus jerked back into action along the potholed road, and the lady sagged in relief as she sat down. Sylvia shuffled along the seat a little to make room.
Frank noticed that slight movement and reminded himself how caring she was and how little fuss she made about it. Some women might have made a song and dance about having to share a seat with someone other than their boyfriend, but not Sylvia. She was simply good-natured like that. She was kind, and very attractive, and she wanted to be with him – so why was he hanging back from committing himself more fully?
‘Is she sleeping?’ Violet leant over the little cot to see Ellen’s tiny face. ‘What beautiful eyelashes she has, Rita. She’s going to be a model in a magazine when she’s grown up.’ She straightened again and tugged at the sleeves of her old cardigan. They must have shrunk again in a too-hot wash, but it was one of the very few she had left.
Rita sat up on the couch, gazing adoringly at her new daughter. ‘She’s been like that for half an hour. I managed to nod off myself, just for a quick nap. I ought to be getting ready for tea but somehow I needed the rest.’
‘Don’t you worry yourself about that,’ Violet tutted. ‘I’ll see to it. You put your feet up while you can. You’ve a lot of rest to catch up on, running round like you did practically until that child was born. Is Ruby minding the shop?’
Rita glanced towards the internal door that led to the shop. ‘Yes, she’s getting better all the time. I think it’s because beforehand she always knew that if things went wrong you or I would be there to sort it out. Now I’ve got Ellen to see to, and you’ve been over at the victory garden, it’s all been down to her. I stick my nose in now and again when you aren’t around, but she’s been forced to speak to people and she’s found they don’t bite after all.’
Violet shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s been a long time coming, that has. I’ll just put my nose round the door and see if she’s happy with Spam fritters.’ She carefully shut the door to what used to be Winnie Kennedy’s breakfast room, which Rita had turned into a cosy sitting room now her ex-husband’s mother was dead. The once stuffy, over-formal space was now warm and inviting, as Rita had collected scraps of fabric and made patchwork cushions and rag rugs, even if there was no new furniture to be had. She had stored away Winnie’s favoured dark, heavy pieces and kept only the softer, lighter ones, and had begged some tins of paint off Danny Callaghan to brighten the walls and woodwork. Danny, in his former occupation down on the docks, had been able to get hold of the most surprising items, and he still had the odd few tucked away. Usually Rita disapproved; but for this – making a home fit for her new baby – she’d made an exception. Ruby had as much of a claim to the place as she did, but hadn’t objected. Hardly anyone knew but Ruby was actually Winnie’s unacknowledged daughter, but the mean old woman had gone to her grave keeping the secret of who the father was. Charlie had never so much as indicated he’d known this was his sister, either. He’d gone to his own grave despising Ruby as much as Winnie, their mother, had.