Winter on the Mersey(3)
Violet longed more than anything for children of her own. Yet she and Eddy had been married for over three years and there was no sign of anything happening in that department. It wasn’t for lack of trying – Violet’s long face broke into a smile at the thought of that – but they hardly ever saw each other. His spells of leave were so rare, and so short when they did come, and then by the time he’d seen everyone he wanted to see and who wanted to see him, they had precious few moments on their own. Eddy was a quiet fellow – certainly compared to his more extrovert big brother Frank and middle sister Nancy – but he was very popular, and now he’d been doing his duty in the dangerous Western Approaches he was hailed as a hero every time he came home. Violet couldn’t argue with that – he was her hero, no doubt about it, and he’d already been a serving seaman when she’d met him, so it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known what their life together would be like. But it was so hard.
Violet knew her unofficial role was to keep everyone’s spirits up, and usually that suited her down to the ground, but today, knowing that Rita had gone into labour, she felt absolutely rotten. It wasn’t as if she didn’t get on with Rita – the two of them were thick as thieves and had worked together for years in the shop, helping the customers and putting on a brave face so that nobody around Empire Street went without. Violet didn’t like to admit it even to herself but she was filled with envy of her sister-in-law. Rita and Jack had had precious little time together either since their marriage just over two years ago, and yet here she was, about to give birth. It wasn’t fair. On top of that she had two children already. Violet knew full well that Rita had had to make an agonising decision as to whether to have Michael and Megan evacuated, and she missed them still even though they were relatively close out on a farm in Freshfield in Lancashire. Once the blitz had stopped, there had been talk about bringing them home, which Rita was desperate to do, and yet she had to acknowledge that farm life suited them both and they were flourishing in the fresh air, eating plentiful good food that they could never hope to get in war-ravaged Bootle.
Reluctantly Rita had agreed – with Jack’s backing – that the two children should stay away, at least for the time being, much to the delight of the farming couple, who had no children of their own and therefore spoilt them terribly. Michael and Megan had been promised that they could come back for a visit as soon as their new sister or brother was born. So Violet was steeling herself for the big family reunion, and while she knew it would make Rita’s joy complete, she dreaded the thought of it.
‘Violet, can you come and look at this?’ Ruby asked from behind her, and Violet jumped. How long had Ruby been speaking to her when she was lost in her agonising thoughts? She had to snap out of it, pull herself together, and not begrudge the generous Feenys their pleasure in the new arrival.
‘What’s wrong?’ Violet asked, bending her tall, willowy frame over the account books. She didn’t understand the figures; she knew Ruby was more than capable of sorting out any problem with them and was probably just asking her to make her feel wanted. That was a kind thing to do. But it didn’t come close to easing the longing that was eating away at her. ‘Oh, Eddy,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Come home soon, and let’s hope we can have the family we so badly want at last.’ But she didn’t breathe a word of this to Ruby. Instead Violet pitched up the sleeves of her moth-eaten cardigan and got back to the grind of keeping the little shop in business.
CHAPTER TWO
Kitty Callaghan pushed a dark curl out of her eyes as she squinted at the keyhole in the fading evening light. There was just enough brightness left in the sky to find it. Of course there would be no street lamps coming on as they hadn’t been permitted since the outbreak of war. In a big city Kitty would have felt happy to stay out longer, knowing that there would be other people about, even if it meant navigating the potholed pavements with a shielded torch. Yet here, in this small town on the south coast, she felt reluctant to come back after dark. She wasn’t a country girl and there was something about her billet’s isolation that made her uneasy. Not that she would admit that to anybody.
Pushing open the door with its flaking paint, she listened for any signs of the other occupants, but the place was quiet. She shared this small house with two other Wrens and their landlady, who had been only too happy to let out her spare rooms after her husband had been called up. The rooms were small but clean, with comfortable if slightly battered furnishings, and Kitty couldn’t complain. She’d had much worse. When she’d first joined up, she had had to share a big dormitory with the other trainee Wrens, sleeping on a bottom bunk and with absolutely no privacy. Then there had been the filthy fleapit she’d been allocated when she’d been transferred to Portsmouth, which she’d managed to leave by claiming it was too far from her place of work. It wasn’t as if she came from anywhere grand either. Her terraced home on Empire Street was no bigger than this and certainly hadn’t been as comfortable, although she’d done her best. But having to run the household pretty much single-handed after her mother had died so young had been a struggle. Her big brothers had tried to help but their father drank away all the money that should have gone towards the housekeeping, and so it had been a matter of survival, with nothing left over for little extras. If it hadn’t been for their kindly neighbour, Dolly Feeny, they’d never have got through.