The Leaving of Liverpool

 
 
 

 
The Leaving of Liverpool

 

 
LYN ANDREWS

 
 
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Copyright © 1992 Lyn Andrews

 

 
The right of Lyn Andrews to be identified as the Author of
the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

 

 
First published in 1992 by Corgi Books
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

 

 
First published in this paperback edition in 2008
by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

 

 
1

 

 
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law,
this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted,
in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing
of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production,
in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the
Copyright Licensing Agency.

 

 
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

 

 
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

 

eISBN : 978 0 7553 7643 8

 

 
This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

 

 
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Table of Contents

 

 

 

Lyn Andrews is one of the UK’s top one hundred bestselling authors, reaching No. 1 on the
Sunday Times
paperback bestseller list. Born and brought up in Liverpool, she is the daughter of a policeman who also married a policeman. After becoming the mother of triplets, she took some time off from her writing whilst she raised her children. Shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Award in 1993, she has now written twenty-seven hugely successful novels. Lyn Andrews divides her time between Merseyside and Ireland.

The author is indebted to John Maxtone-Grahame for use of material from his book
The Only Way to Cross
, published by Macmillan, New York, 1972, and to Humfrey Jordan for his book
Mauretania
, published by Hodder and Stoughton, 1936. For their kind assistance with factual accounts and experiences of working life and conditions on board the liners of the 1920s, I would like to thank Mr J. Longrigg, Mr Wilfred P. Johnson and Mr Charles Best. I would also like to thank Derek Whale of the
Liverpool Daily Post and Echo
, for his co-operation and enthusiasm. My thanks go to all those Liverpudlians who have written to me from all over the UK and places as far apart as Canada and Australia, expressing their enjoyment of my books which makes my work very gratifying. Also, last but not least, my thanks to Mrs Mabel Fisher of Fisher’s Books, Ormskirk, who has given me tremendous support and some very pleasant signing days.

 

Lyn Andrews
1991

‘
W
HY’S SHE GOING TO marry that old misery? She can’t love him! She just can’t!’

‘Of course she doesn’t!’ The door was slammed shut, throwing the tiny scullery into semi-gloom. Emily Parkinson glared at her younger sister. At eighteen years of age Phoebe-Ann had as much tact and understanding as a five year old. Phoebe-Ann had the beauty all right, with her fresh, clear skin, wide hazel eyes and the fine tresses of ash-blond hair that were her pride and joy, but she’d been a long way back in the queue when the brains were given out. Emily’s features softened. That was unfair. It wasn’t Phoebe-Ann’s fault if she was a bit slow on the uptake.

‘Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to shout.’ Emily lifted the heavy, soot-blackened kettle and poured the hot water into the small earthenware sink. ‘I’ll wash. You can dry.’

Mollified a little by the apology, Phoebe-Ann nodded and took the tea towel from its nail on the wall. She watched mutinously as Emily attacked the greasy dishes. Emily always understood things without having to have them explained in great detail. She supposed it was some kind of talent she had. Mam said it was to balance things out, for poor Emily certainly couldn’t be called a beauty. Not with that straight, mousy-brown hair and those pale blue eyes that always looked sort of washed out.

‘Well, are you going to tell me how you know that Mam doesn’t love him?’ she asked resentfully.

Emily sighed, scraping away with a knife at the remains of the potatoes stuck to the bottom of the pan. ‘I just know, that’s all!’

Phoebe-Ann banged the basin she’d been drying down hard on the wooden draining board. ‘Oh, you’re a fine help! What kind of an answer is that? Am I supposed to be a mind reader?’

‘For God’s sake, Fee, keep your voice down! Half the street can hear you. And stop banging stuff around, you’ll break something and it all costs money!’

Phoebe-Ann gritted her teeth. She hated being called by her childhood nickname. When they had all been very young, neither her brothers nor Emily had been able to pronounce ‘Phoebe-Ann’ without difficulty, so she’d been called Fifi, an approximation of Phoebe, which had then been shortened to Fee. But she was grown up now. Something Emily seemed to forget these days. Emily was a year older but you’d think she was twenty-nine instead of nineteen the way she acted sometimes.

Suddenly she saw her mother’s startling announcement in a bright flash of clarity. ‘It’s money, isn’t it?’

Emily wiped away a strand of hair from her forehead with her damp forearm. ‘Oh, the penny’s finally dropped!’

‘You never miss a chance to have a dig at me, do you?’

‘That’s not true and you know it! Don’t I always stand up for you when there’s an argument?’

‘So, it is money?’ Phoebe-Ann persisted.

‘That and security and you can’t blame her. She’s had precious little of either for years.’

‘She might have told us before she told our Jack and Jimmy.’

Emily was exasperated. ‘They had to go to work, remember, and I think she wanted to get it off her chest.’

‘She could have done that last night when we were all here.’

‘Oh, shut up, Fee! He only asked her last night.’

‘So
she
said but she must have known for ages that he was going to. She must have had some idea, she’s been going around with a face as long as a fortnight for days! If you ask me it’s not right and it’s not fair!’

Emily threw the wet dish mop into the greasy water. It made a dull plop and then sank. ‘Why isn’t it right? He’s not divorced or anything, she’s a widow, and as for it not being fair, who isn’t it fair to? Mam or you?’

Phoebe-Ann glared at her. What with one thing and another life was far from satisfactory at the moment. ‘It’s not just me I’m thinking about. It’s going to affect us all. Where’s he going to live? Here? You can’t swing a cat in this house as it is. Our Jimmy and Jack are in the back bedroom. Mam, you and me have the other one, so that leaves the sofa.’ Seeing the warning flash of anger in Emily’s eyes and the sharp jut of her sister’s chin she hastily added, ‘I’m only being practical!’

Emily knew she was right. There was barely room for the five of them in the tiny terraced house. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and a tiny front room was all it consisted of and a minuscule yard at the back that led on to the entry, or jigger as it was called.

When Lonsdale Street had been built not much thought had been given to the size of the houses or the comfort of their occupants. It had been worse when Harry and Rob had also had to share the back bedroom but the war had taken its toll on number twenty-four, as it had on every house in the street. Except that of Albert Davies. The man her Mam had just announced she was going to marry.

Her thoughts automatically turned to her dead brothers. Harry, the oldest, with his shock of unruly brown hair and a grin that seemed to split his face in two. Her big brother but always referred to as ‘our kid’. He’d looked so smart in his uniform. Much smarter than he’d ever looked before and she’d always remember him like that. Tall and straight and proud. And Rob. She glanced at Phoebe-Ann from under her lashes, remembering how she’d rocked her in her arms all that terrible night. Trying to comfort her and assuage her own grief. Mam had been too devastated to utter a single word for two days.

Rob and Phoebe-Ann were twins and she knew her sister felt the loss of her brother more deeply than any of them. They’d been inseparable when young, although they’d often fought and squabbled. Phoebe-Ann always tagged along behind the small gang of boys who made the narrow streets their playground. And when his mates got tired of her or teased or tormented her, Rob had always defended her. Poor Phoebe-Ann. Even now she sometimes heard her stifled sobs in the night. Bedrooms brought her back to the present with a jolt and she realized her sister had been speaking to her. ‘What?’

‘I said he could sleep in the parlour.’

‘She’d never let him do that. You know how she cherishes that room. And they’ll want to be together.’

‘It’s like a shrine in there. A shrine for me Da.’

Emily nodded her agreement. The tiny room was Mam’s pride and joy. The few pieces of furniture, the oilcloth on the floor and the two photographs of Da were all lovingly polished every day and no-one was ever allowed in there. No, she couldn’t see the sombre Mr Davies sleeping there with the smiling face of his predecessor looking down at him. She wrung out the dish mop and hung it on its peg next to the window that was so small it was little better than useless. ‘I suppose she’ll tell us the arrangements in her own good time.’

Phoebe-Ann raised her eyes to the ceiling and pursed her lips. Life was getting complicated and she hated complications. She liked things to be clear and simple. Black and white. She still couldn’t take it in. Mam! Her Mam and old Mr Davies, the neighbourhood skinflint. She’d never once seen him smile let alone laugh. ‘That fella’s gorra face that’d stop de Liver clock!’ she’d heard Mrs Harper next door say about him. And Mam was going to marry him, live with him and share the same bed. She shuddered at the latter realization. How could she? With him! It was too awful to think about and too complicated. You fell in love when you were young, then got married and had children. Mam had done all that. But she supposed that the older you got you just didn’t do ‘that’ any more. She shuddered again. It was hard enough to imagine Mam and Dad doing ‘it’, but Mam and Albert Davies!