the small hours going to do you? Drink your tea, why don’t you, then I’ll run you over to the hostel and we’ll tell them that Glebe Farm said it was all right for you to have time off. We’ll be on our way good and early in the morning. You’ll be in Liverpool by midday – bet you anything you like! And before you say what about my petrol, I can spare it – honest.’
‘But what about the letters and papers?’
‘The round won’t take five minutes! The GPO van from York delivers letters at the post office by six in the morning. The papers come early, too. I can have the lot done by seven if I shift myself.’ She laid an arm round the drooping shoulders. ‘I promise it’s going to be all right. Tomorrow at this time, you’ll be with your folks and wondering what you were worrying about.’
‘But what if the call comes while we’re out, Lorna?’
‘We’ll ask Mrs B if there’s been one when we get back, then try again.’ They could not, Lorna considered, spend all evening waiting for a call that might not come.
‘You’re a good sort.’ Ness lifted her cup in salute, a small uncertain smile tilting the corners of her mouth. ‘There’s more to you than a pretty face, isn’t there?’
And Lorna smiled, and lifted her own cup and said,
‘Come to think of it, I can be quite a bossy boots when I set my mind to it! And Ness – it will be all right. I promise!’
It was half past two when the train reached Lime Street station more than an hour late, yet Ness was never so relieved to see the place. Unswept, littered and crowded as most stations were these days, it was still good to hear the familiar Liverpool accent, know that just across the road she could get a tram that would take her to Ruth Street.
The ticket collector clipped her green travel warrant without saying a word or raising his head. Probably worried sick, just as she was, Ness thought.
The breeze that blew in from the Mersey brought with it not the usual river smell but a stink that was acrid and strange; the smell of bombing, was it? Of dust and debris and burning – and of death?
She cleared her mind of such thoughts. The tram was coming; green and brassy with a get-out-of-my-way air about it. Aggressive, sort of. The conductor clanged the bell, the driver swung his handle and they sailed past the soot-stained, sand-bagged bulk of St George’s Hall. Home soon.
Nothing changed, Ness thought. All right – so Liverpool had been bombed, but this brash and bawdy place was benevolent, too, and looked after its own as surely no other city on earth did. She was back, and soon she would know why there had been no answer to last night’s call; why her mother had not walked down the street to the telephone kiosk.
It struck her, all at once, that there might be no one at home, that Mam and Da and Nan might have upped sticks and gone over the water to Perce and Tizzy’s. On the other hand, they might all be lying unrescued beneath a pile of rubble.
She swallowed hard, recalling newspaper pictures of London’s blitz and men tearing at rubble with bare hands to rescue people entombed – oh, God! What a world!
She jumped off the tram, calling her thanks to the conductor, running towards Ruth Street and the Sefton Arms. And it had not been reduced to rubble. It stood there the same as ever. No broken windows, no damaged roofs. Lorna had been right. The docks had been the target. Ruth Street’s name had not been on any of those German bombs – not this time, at least.
‘Mam!’ she called. Her mother was there, putting out a milk bottle. ‘Oh, Mam, you’re all right!’
They ran towards each other, arms wide, and hugged and kissed and did a little jig on the pavement.
‘Well, it’s our Ness and don’t you look well, girl? Why didn’t you think to tell us you were coming?’
‘Oh, it’s a long story. It’ll keep. Put the kettle on, eh?’
Tomorrow at this time you’ll be wondering what you were worrying about, Lorna had said, and oh, my word, there was more to Lorna Hatherwood these days than met the eye. That haircut had done her the world of good!
‘Funny, innit, the way things work out,’ Ness said that night as they sat round the kitchen fire. ‘Yesterday they gave it out on the wireless that Liverpool had been bombed and today – here I am, and you’re all fine.’
‘You weren’t worried, girl?’
‘Mam, I was worried sick! And what’s to do with the Sefton Arms? We put a call in and the exchange told us that the line was dead – well, what would you have thought? And then I wondered why you hadn’t gone to the phone box to ring me. I tell you, if there’d been an overnight train, I’d have been on it! Were the phone lines damaged, or something?’
‘Nah!’ Nan put down her knitting. ‘That landlord should pay his phone bill a bit more reg’lar. Always gettin’ cut off, he is!’
‘Your nan’s right. More off than on, that phone at the Sefton Arms. Not to be relied on, Ness.’
‘But if there are any more raids, Mam, could you let me know you’re all right – nip down to the phone box? Oh, I know you might have to hang around a bit, but you just might get through straight away. Lorna would take a message if I was at work. Will you do that?’
‘Well of course I will – and did! Said to your Da that I’d give you a ring, just in case you’d heard we’d been bombed and were worried. No use, for all that. The coin box was jammed full of money. Couldn’t get any more in. I told the girl on the exchange that someone ought to shift themselves and empty it before some scallywag made off with the lot. Get the phone mended, too! And she said it was shortage of manpower, and she would do what she could. I tell you, this war has become the excuse for any old thing that goes wrong! “There’s a war on,” people say, as if it pardons everything!’
‘Ar,’ Nan nodded, taking up her needles again. ‘And if your Da’s goin’ to the Sefton, he can queue at the chippy on the way back. My treat.’ She nodded to where her son-in-law snored gently, newspaper over his face. ‘Give him a shove, Ness, there’s a good girl.’
So Ness told her father they had decided on fish and chips for supper and to remember to get them salted and vinegared before they were wrapped up, because it was never the same if you put salt and vinegar on when you got them home.
There wasn’t a chippy in Nun Ainsty, Ness had to admit, nor in Meltonby, either. Those two beautiful, hidden away, safe little villages didn’t know what they were missing, she sighed. But then, you couldn’t have everything, could you?
Relaxed now, she gazed into the fire, wondering what Lorna was doing. She would be all alone in Ladybower – until William came home on leave tomorrow, that was. And wouldn’t Himself be pleased to find the land girl had gone on leave? And why on earth had a lovely lady like Lorna married the likes of him? Why hadn’t she looked around a bit, tested the water a time or two instead of jumping in at the deep end, head first.
‘Hope your Da gets himself home from the chippy before the siren goes,’ Nan said, wriggling in her chair.
‘There won’t be a siren tonight. Not when I’m home,’ Ness sighed. ‘Oh, it’s absolutely beautiful at Nun Ainsty but it’s so good to be home, bombing or not. Didn’t think I could miss Liverpool so.’
