suit!
Meg stripped her bed of sheets and pillowcases, folding them neatly, ready to be taken to the wash house for Mrs Seed, who always came Thursdays. Before her marriage she had worked at Candlefold as a housemaid and now came each week to see to the laundry and, on Friday mornings, to do the ironing. It seemed to Meg that Mrs Seed was another who had come under the spell of this house, and still looked on it as a part of her way of life.
Mr Potter – you always called him Mister – was exactly the same, caring for the garden as if it were his own, he having arrived there as an apprentice thirty years ago and not inclined to go elsewhere, in spite of tempting offers. Ma had been the same, loyal to it in memory, a place never to be forgotten. And now her daughter was equally besotted. Even to think of visiting Tippet’s Yard did not please her as it should, for wasn’t Candleford to be her home now? But she was looking forward to seeing Nell and Tommy again; telling them about her new life and what it was really like living deep in the countryside. If she missed anything about Liverpool, she admitted, it was the two people who shared the shut-away little yard with her.
But first to catch the Preston bus. A good three hours it would take her with all the chopping and changing, and each mile taking her back to a place she would really rather not be. Yet Nell and Tommy deserved to be told about her good fortune, because up until now they had shared her troubles – them, and Kip.
Kip Lewis. She wished she could love him as Polly loved Davie, but she wanted to be really in love – which girl didn’t? – wanted to know the highs and lows of it and the needing and the giving. She would accept, even, the absolute misery when a letter did not arrive and the brief hours spent together to balance out weeks of separation. If she loved as Polly loved, that was. If it happened to her as suddenly and completely as it had happened to Polly, and her stomach went boing! as Polly’s had done, then she would be glad to be in love for ever.
And until it happened she must wait, because couldn’t she next month, next week, tomorrow even, turn a corner and see him there and know he was the one? She thought again of Kip, and sadness took her.
‘I’m sorry, Kip, that it can’t be you …’
At Preston station she was able to buy a return ticket to Liverpool, which meant that at least the trains were back on the lines. But Liverpool, when she arrived there, seemed still to be reeling from the vicious bombing. The stink of blitzkrieg still hung on the air, a dusty, musty smell mingling with the acrid odour of burned timber and the stench of escaped sewage.
Yet she saw no danger signs as the bus made towards Scotland Road; at least ruptured gas and water mains seemed to have been taken care of, and bombs that had lain there unexploded and dangerous. Gangs still shifted rubble, though, and shovelled and heaved the heart of what had once been a proud seaport onto the backs of lorries.
Where would they take all the debris? Would it be dumped in bomb craters or tipped into the Mersey? Did anyone give a damn? Meg thought dully, because inside her she had the grace to care; not because it was Liverpool and people’s homes and jobs and way of life, but because there were places, not so very far away, that knew nothing of destruction and death; places surrounded by fields and trees and flowers, and where old, old stones stood untouched by time or destruction, would go on for six hundred years more. Could she ever, during those terror-filled nights, have thought such peace existed? And wasn’t she the lucky one to have left the nightmare behind her?
She gazed fixedly at her hands because she did not want to look out on the destruction either side of her and because she felt guilty it was no longer her concern. She lived in the country now; must learn to forget Scotland Road and Lyra Street and Tippet’s Yard!
Yet despite her resolve, the feeling of unease was still with her when she walked beneath the low alleyway and stood to gaze into the airless little court, taking in the wash house, the lavatories and three little houses packed together as if clinging for support. Nor did the feeling leave her when her eyes lit on her neighbour, sitting on a wooden chair, arms folded, eyes closed, outside number 2.
‘Hi there, Nell!’
The head jerked up and, all at once wide-eyed, Nell Shaw straightened her shoulders and ran her tongue round her lips.
‘Well, if it isn’t Meg Blundell, come home from the wilds and the kettle not on! Come here, girl, and let’s be lookin’ at you. My, but you look as if you’ve been on yer ’olidays!’
Her cheeks had filled out and pinked, Nell thought; her eyes shone, her hair too. Real bonny, she looked. No, by the heck, two weeks in the country had turned her into a little beauty.
‘I have been – leastways, it seems like it. Compared to this place, it’s another world. You wouldn’t believe it!’
‘So come inside and try tellin’ me whilst I’m brewing up.’
‘These are for you.’ Meg laid the carefully carried sheaf of flowers on the kitchen table.
‘Lord help us, you shouldn’t have! What did they cost you, and how many vases do you think I’ve got, girl?’
‘They cost nuthink. I got them from the garden of the brick house. But you’ll never guess what I’ve got in me bag. Eggs! Fresh, an’ all. Two each for you and Tommy. Polly sent them and, oh, there’s so much to tell you, Nell!’
‘So first things first. Are you stoppin’?’
‘At Tippet’s? No. I’m going back on Saturday. Just came to see you both and sort out a few things, then I’m off back. Mrs John wants me to stop and I want to, Nell. ’Fraid I haven’t brought any food with me, but I’ll nip out and buy a loaf, and there’s jam in the cupboard. And tonight I’ll go to the chippy and treat us all to a fish supper.’
‘Then you’ll have to be in the queue good and early, girl – half an hour before they open. But let’s have your news, though I’m sorry you are off back there. Me an’ Tommy have missed you. Met a young man, have you?’
‘Heck, no! There’s only Mr Potter, who’s the gardener, and Mr Armitage at Home Farm, and they’re old. Polly is engaged, though – to Davie, who’s in the Service Corps – lorries and transports and things – and Polly’s brother is in the same regiment. And, would you believe it, Polly is adopted and it doesn’t bother her one bit! But I’ll tell you all about it right from the start, eh?’ She plopped a saccharin tablet into her cup and watched it rise fizzing to the top of her tea.
‘By the way, you didn’t stop your milk, so I took it. That all right, Meg? I paid for it.’
‘Then don’t cancel it. No need for the milkie to know I’m away. They’ve got their own cow at Candlefold, so they don’t need my milk coupons. You’re welcome to my ration, Nell. An’ I hope you took my coal, an’ all – get a bit stocked up for the winter.’
And Nell said of course she had, since Meg had told her to, then lit a cigarette, glad that Doll’s girl was back, if only for a little time.
‘Tell me, Meg, before you start, do they know who you are? Did you tell them you was born there?’
‘No, and I won’t till I’m good and ready, though the old lady remembered Ma. Said they’d once had a housemaid called Dorothy Blundell, but I told her it was a common enough name around Liverpool and she hasn’t mentioned it since. But let me tell you …’
And the words tumbled breathlessly out, about the old part of the house, and the newer brick
