Three Women of Liverpool (22 page)

“It feels proper queer – to be married at last,” remarked Emmie. “I thought we’d never make it.”

“You mean when you was buried?”

They were wandering along Hoylake Promenade, idly pausing from time to time to watch children digging in the sand, while their elders snoozed beneath copies of the Sunday newspapers, and dogs ran yapping after balls tossed by strolling owners. It was hard to believe that, not too far from them, out to sea, men stalked each other mercilessly and that, in Europe, the art of murder was reaching new heights, while in England itself cities burned.

“Not so much being buried,” Emmie replied uneasily, “Though that were bad enough. But you havin’ to go back to sea afore I were out of hospital – and bein’ so long in the hospital, with me nerves, and lookin’ like a piece of red raddle when they took the bandages off me face; I were fit to die when I saw meself in the mirror. I thought you wouldn’t want me no more.”

“Tush, luv. I’d always want you. There’s more to a woman than a face. Anyways, there’s nothin’ that time and a spot o’ warpaint won’t cover.” He bent and kissed the top of her newly permed hair. No need to tell her that he had been nearly shocked out of his kecks when he had first seen her. But the
doctors had been right, She was healing and they’d done some neat stitching on her, which they swore would fade, and the bruises on her poor body were going, too. The doctors had said it was a pure miracle that she had no broken bones and she wasn’t blinded.

He tightened his arm around her waist and he saw her wince and immediately loosened it again. Bugger the Nazis. Just wait till he got a chance at one, he promised himself bitterly. He’d never felt such boiling hatred in his life before. It bubbled in him, awaiting only the opportunity to explode.

She turned her face towards him. “I love you so,” she said unexpectedly, and he was diverted immediately by a fresh surge of longing.

“Look, duck. Let’s nip ’ome. Me mam and dad allus goes over to see me brother on Sunday afternoon. Let’s go ’ome and have a little matinee. What say?”

She bit her lip and then grinned quite cheerfully. Why say that so much of you still ached that you could hardly bear to be touched. He’d be gone on the eight o’clock train, back to his boat and the god-damned Atlantic. She’d have weeks of nothing before he returned – always supposing he got back safe. Time enough to get herself well again – and try for a job in munitions, so she could send a bit back to the Jerries with her best compliments.

When the air raid siren sounded on 1st May 1941, Gwen Thomas, her family and her neighbour, Ellen Donnelly, with whom she waged an intermittent private war, had no idea what it presaged for them. Ellen and her large family had already been bombed out; they felt they were unlikely to suffer a second time. Gwen’s mind was filled with the petty irritations of keeping house for her plumber husband, her schoolgirl daughter and her sister-in-law, Emmie; she had no time to think about the war itself. Emmie had just become engaged to a merchant seaman and dread of what might happen to him in the Battle of the Atlantic outweighed any other consideration. The three women, each in her own way, tried to deal bravely with the holocaust when it hit them, small people caught in a ruthless tide of destruction.

Alien There is None

Most Precious Employee

Twopence to Cross the Mersey

Liverpool Miss (Minerva’s Stepchild)

By the Waters of Liverpool

The Latchkey Kid

Liverpool Daisy