gave her this house.’
‘Nothing was said, Nell. After all, Blundell is a fairly common name around these parts. There’s Ince Blundell and Blundellsands, the posh areas. And I don’t look anything like Ma did. Why should Mrs John get suspicious?’
‘OK, then – why should she?’ Nell shrugged, and wondered instead about the flush to Meg’s cheeks and the brightness of her eyes.
‘Is there a son?’ she asked bluntly.
‘I believe so. He’s a soldier and Polly is engaged to his best friend. Want mustard on yours, Nell?’
Although they had talked late into the night, Meg awoke early, lying very still for a little while to hug her joy to her.
There was much to do today. She must take her ration book to the Ministry of Food office, get a temporary card for two weeks; and she must draw out the money from Ma’s bankbook and write to Kip and make arrangements for Tommy and Nell to take in her coal ration when it came, and for them both to keep an eye on number 1 for a couple of weeks, after which she would be back. Back to visit, she hoped, on her first day off, though there was no need to say that, yet.
‘I did hear the buses are gettin’ through again to Skelhorne Street,’ Nell said. ‘You’ll be able to get a bus from Lime Street through to Ormskirk tomorrow, no messin’.’
‘Yes, and maybe catch the eleven o’clock bus to Nether Barton.’ Allowing for the walk, carrying her case, she could be ringing that bell tomorrow by one o’clock. ‘You’re not mad at me, Nell?’
‘No. More mad at myself at realizing I’m goin’ to miss you! But Doll would want you to give it a try, and if heaven gets to be too much for you, girl, there’s always Tippet’s Yard to come home to! Reckon I’d do the same if I was your age!’
The post office in Scotland Road was open again for business, its windows boarded up, the inside gloomy. There was a queue in front of Meg and a longer one behind her.
‘Gotyeridentitycard?’ The lady behind the counter was too busy to go into minute details over a few pounds. Meg handed over the withdrawal form and her mother’s identity card.
‘Four pounds, ten shillings you want?’
‘Yes, please. Leave the eight and six in, will you?’
Meg signed D. Blundell with the exaggerated looped D and a rounded B. It might, she thought, have been her mother’s own signature, so well had she done it.
‘Next, please!
The clerk pushed the book, in which she had folded three pound notes, three ten-shilling notes and the identity card, under the grille.
Meg walked out into the road, relief shuddering through her. Though why she should feel like this she didn’t know, because it was her money, left to her in Ma’s will, and if she had signed – or was it forged? – Ma’s name, she hadn’t done anything illegal; not really illegal!
The branch office of the Ministry of Food, next door but one, which had been damaged by the same bomb that had closed the post office, was now open too.
‘Gotyeridentitycard?’
If there was a phrase that would go down in history when this war was over, Meg decided, it was the time-after-time requests for identity cards!
Meg offered her ration book and watched as two weeks’ food was obliterated by a purple stamp and two one-week emergency cards filled in with her name and identity number.
Now there was only a letter to write to Kip, the floors at number 1 to be swept and mopped, and the last of the bomb dust shifted from the furniture. Then she would pack enough for two weeks, collect Ma’s case from Nell, and all would be ready for an early start in the morning.
She wouldn’t sleep tonight, but who cared?
Meg was surprised and pleased to find Polly Kenworthy waiting at the bus stop.
‘How did you know when I’d be getting here?’ she beamed.
‘I didn’t. I was posting a parcel to Davie and Mrs Potter asked me if the young lady had managed to find Candlefold – about the job, she meant – and I told her you had. And that you’d be coming today. The bus was about due, so I hung around just in case.’
‘Did you think I wouldn’t come?’
‘I hoped you would. My bike is outside the post office. We can put your case on the seat – save you carrying it.’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ Meg said slowly, remembering how her mother had spoken, feeling that now was her chance to knock the edges off her Liverpool accent; talk proper, like Ma had done.
‘So how often do you write to your young man,’ Meg asked as they walked.
‘Every day. Sometimes more than that – even if it’s only I love you and miss you – oh, you know what it’s like when you’d give anything to be with them for just a couple of minutes.’
‘No. I don’t. There’s someone I write to; he’s in the Merchant Navy. He’d like us to go steady – even said he’d buy me a ring in Sydney, but I hope he won’t. I – I’m not ready to be in love with anybody yet.’
‘Not ready, Meg? But falling in love just happens, whether you’re ready for it or not! You see a man and that’s it! The minute I laid eyes on Davie everything went boing! inside me. He’s in Mark’s regiment – Mark is my brother, did I tell you? – and he got a crafty thirty-six-hour pass and brought Davie along. They were walking across the courtyard, Mark said something, and Davie threw back his head and laughed. That was the exact moment I fell in love with him. I didn’t know who he was and it never occurred to me to wonder if he had a girl or might even be married. He was the man I wanted; simple as that! And don’t tell me I’m too young to know my own mind, that I haven’t been around enough. I met Davie, so I don’t want to gad around now. I just want us to be married.’
‘And will you be, or must you wait till you’re twenty-one?’
‘Mummy would like me to wait. She agreed to our being engaged but she wants us to give it time, so we’re both sure. Mind, if Davie gets posted overseas she might let us get married on his embarkation leave, which wouldn’t be very satisfactory, really.’
‘See what you mean. It would be lovely bein’ married, but it might only be for a week.’
‘Yes. I’d be a lonely young wife for the rest of the war, probably. I wish I were twenty-one.’
‘How old are you, Polly?’
‘Twenty, almost.’
‘Ar. You’ll have to register when you’re twenty, for war work.’
‘Don’t I know it! If Davie and me were married, They couldn’t send me into the armed forces – only make me find a job. I’d like to stay at Candlefold.
