Winter on the Mersey: A Heartwarming Christmas Saga

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © Annie Groves 2017

Cover photograph of WRENS character © Henry Steadman; Mersey Skyline, spitfires©Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Henry Steadman © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Annie Groves asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007550869

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780007550876

Version: 2017-09-08

Dedication

This book would not have been possible without Kate Bradley, inspiring editor, and the support of the wonderful Teresa Chris

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Also by Annie Groves

About Annie Groves

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Early Spring 1944

Dolly Feeny tried to shut out the sound of her oldest daughter screaming.

The sound echoed around the small terraced house, seeming to go on and on. Probably the whole road could hear the noise – Empire Street wasn’t long, leading as it did down to the dock road in Bootle, with a corner shop at one end, a pub at the other and the Mersey beyond the dockyards. On a normal day Rita would be behind the counter in that shop, either before or after working her shift as a nursing sister at the nearby hospital. But today wasn’t a normal day. Besides, everyone would know the reason for the screaming and would be with Rita all the way. Dolly put the kettle on again for what felt like the hundredth time that morning. No, it wasn’t every day that she prepared to welcome a new grandchild into the world.

Pop, Dolly’s husband, came into the kitchen, his white hair bright in the gloom of the cloudy day. He’d been up half the night, thanks to his duties as an ARP warden. Even though the raids that had plagued Merseyside for the earlier years of the war had died down, there was still the threat of danger from the crumbling buildings, or streets that hadn’t yet been cleared, and last night there had been a fire in an abandoned warehouse. Try as he might, he couldn’t get the smell of burning out of his hair or from his skin. If it had been a normal day he would have had a bath, filling it right up to the four-inch regulation line they all had to adhere to nowadays, and staying in it for as long as the water retained any comforting warmth. Today, however, there were more important things on his mind.

‘Do you think she’s all right?’ he asked anxiously. He very rarely admitted to being worried about anything; he was the rock on whom the whole family depended. But the cries from upstairs were enough to shake anyone’s confidence. He dearly loved Rita, as he did all his children, and couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her.

‘Course she is.’ Dolly spoke warmly but firmly. ‘You weren’t in the house when I had any of our five. It sounds much worse than it is, and remember she’s had two already. She’ll be right as rain.’ She smiled reassuringly, hoping that what she said was true. Nine years had passed since Rita had last given birth and she’d lost weight since then, thanks to the wartime diet and her non-stop hard work. But she was fit and healthy and, even more importantly, was no longer married to that cowardly deserter Charlie Kennedy. Now she had finally married her childhood sweetheart Jack Callaghan, a pilot with the Fleet Air Arm, and as steady and loving a husband as any woman could ever hope for. Dolly knew that Rita wanted nothing more than to bear this baby safely so that Jack could come home on leave and meet the precious creature. This must be the most longed-for child in the whole of Merseyside. God knew both of its parents had been through hell and back before getting together.

Dolly’s ears pricked up. ‘Listen, Pop.’ She wiped her strong, reddened hands on her faded print apron. ‘That’s a different noise, that is. Won’t be long now.’ She lifted the boiling kettle across to where the teapot stood ready. ‘Best have a cup now, as who knows when we’ll get the next one.’

‘Are you sure? Sounds just the same to me.’ Pop looked doubtfully at his wife. He wanted to believe her but didn’t trust himself to do so. It seemed no time at all since Rita herself was a baby, a pale-skinned little beauty with deep red hair. Now here she was having her own third child. Where had all those years gone?

‘Mam! Have you got any more hot water down there?’ came a voice from the top of the stairs.

‘I’ll bring it right up, Sarah love.’ Dolly emptied the rest of the water from the kettle into a large enamel jug, and then set another lot to boil just in case. ‘Pop, why don’t you fill the biggest pan from the tap and put that on to heat up as well.’ She bustled to the door, all anxiety gone now that there was something useful to do.

Pop looked around uncertainly. They’d lived in this house for almost all of their married lives and yet he still wasn’t sure where all the utensils in the kitchen were kept. That was Dolly’s territory. Still, this was no time to complain. He opened every cupboard door until he found the pan he hoped she meant.

Meanwhile, Dolly raced up the stairs as quickly as she could, belying her fifty-something years, but careful not to spill a drop of water. ‘Here you are, love.’ She handed the battered jug to her youngest daughter, who swiftly turned back to the bedroom and the screams.

If anyone had told Dolly at the beginning of the war that just a few years later young Sarah would be supervising the birth of Rita’s child, she would have laughed them to the other side of the Mersey. But now she could think of no better person. Sarah might be only nineteen, but she’d started her nurse’s training with the Red Cross as soon as she could and had been thrown in at the deep end, tending injuries during the bombings, coping with all manner of indescribable horrors, as well as delivering babies in the most unlikely places – ruined buildings, air-raid shelters, and once in the middle of a deserted street. Overseeing a birth in the comfort of her own bedroom, with her patient an experienced mother who just happened to be a senior nurse, with the support of their own experienced mother, and endless supplies of hot water and all the necessities, was a comparative luxury.

Rita could have chosen to give birth in her own bedroom, above the shop just across the road from her childhood home. But Sarah had persuaded her to cross the narrow alleyway that separated the two buildings and have the baby here. That way the shop could stay open and their sister-in-law Violet could look after it, along with Ruby. Ruby was a strange young woman who scared easily and was, they all agreed, unlikely to cope with the grim reality of childbirth at such close range. She was better than she had been back when Rita had first brought her there to live, but her neglectful childhood had ill-prepared her for the world at large, let alone a world at war. She was wonderful with children, though, adoring Rita’s first two – Michael and Megan – and also little George, the toddler son of Dolly and Pop’s middle daughter, Nancy.

Dolly and Sarah looked at Rita now, as she lay whey-faced on the old off-white bed linen, her usually lustrous red hair dark with sweat, her face screwed up with effort. But her eyes were bright. ‘It’s coming,’ she gasped. ‘I remember this bit. Mam, hold my hand, will you? Help me through these last few pushes.’ Dolly immediately knelt down beside her and took her damp hand, just as another wave of contraction and pain broke and Rita’s face contorted as she let out a loud scream.

Sarah stood at the bottom of the bed, her eyes never leaving her patient. ‘Come on, Rita, that’s right, you’re almost there. One more push could do it.’

Rita lay back exhausted, drawing in air in painful gulps. ‘It’s taking ages, though. Is everything all right? You’d tell me if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you, Sarah?’

‘Everything is just right.’ Sarah spoke with authority, for all her young age. ‘It’s been pretty quick actually, Rita. It just feels like a long time but it really isn’t.’ Her eyes narrowed a little as they assessed her big sister, registering that she was tired but not dangerously so, and that the next contraction seemed to be building. ‘Right, here we go, give me a big, big push and …’

Rita let out a piercing cry and then fell back against the pillow, but it had done the trick. As her own cry faded away it was replaced by a higher, more penetrating one, the unmistakable sound of a new-born child. ‘Rita! She’s here, she’s here! It’s a girl!’ Sarah struggled to remain professional as she picked up her niece and wrapped her carefully in a towel, automatically checking her as she did so, while Dolly stood to admire her latest granddaughter.

‘Oh, Rita, she’s beautiful.’ She gazed at the little face, red and puckered and screaming, but a miracle all the same. ‘Are you ready to hold her? Can you sit up?’

Rita raised herself against the pillow and Dolly stepped across to slip another one in behind it so that her daughter could prop herself semi-upright. ‘Are you all right like that? Come on then, Sarah.’

Gently Sarah handed the little bundle to her sister. ‘You did all right there. Anyone would think you’d done it before,’ she smiled. ‘Made it look easy.’

Rita reached for her new daughter and gasped with joy at the sight of her. ‘Look at her hair. It’s dark like Jack’s.’ She bent in to give the baby a kiss. ‘If you turn out as good as your daddy you’ll never have to worry. He’s going to be so delighted to meet you. You’re perfect, you are. Look at your little hands.’ The baby’s tiny fingers curled around her mother’s thumb, gripping on tightly, as if her life depended on it.

‘We’ll send Pop to get a message to him,’ Dolly announced, standing up straight, easing her aching back. ‘He’ll be made up, so he will. Now, Rita, did you have a name or is it too soon?’

Rita paused and then looked her mother in the eye. ‘It’s all right, we decided on Jack’s last leave. If it was a girl she’d be Ellen, after his mother. So this is Ellen.’ She turned her adoring gaze back to the baby.

Dolly found herself for once unable to speak for the lump in her throat. Ellen Callaghan had been her best friend in the whole world. They’d laughed together, done their housework together, raised their children together on Empire Street. But Ellen had died in childbirth when not so very much older than Rita was now. Dolly had looked out for the Callaghan children ever since – even though all but one were grown-up, and indeed the eldest was married to Rita. She could think of no more fitting tribute to her beloved friend.

‘That’s lovely,’ she managed to say. ‘We’ll tell the priest as well. You just lie there and get your strength back. Here, it looks as if the little one is hungry already.’

Rita shifted herself so she could feed little Ellen, and it was all Dolly could do not to cry – with relief for the safe birth, with the unexpected emotion of hearing her friend’s name spoken aloud after so many years and also with wonder at this miracle of new life. Somehow, despite the terrible hardships they had all endured since war broke out, and the atrocities that were going on still, she felt blessed to be in this world at such a marvellous moment.

‘So you’re sure you’ve got everything on your list, Mrs Mawdsley?’ Violet Feeny pushed her horn-rimmed spectacles back up the bridge of her nose from where they kept slipping. ‘Can you fit it all into your basket?’

The older woman pulled on her gloves, ready to face the bitter wind outside the small corner shop. ‘Everything that is available, anyway. Such a treat to find some Oxo. Thank you, dear. I know you do your best. I expect it’s even more difficult with your Rita so near her time, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, we manage all right, don’t we, Ruby?’ Violet turned to the shy figure behind her. ‘I put out the stock and serve the customers and Ruby does the books – she’s clever like that.’

Ruby raised her head, shaking her cloud of pale blonde hair which made her look so much younger than she was. ‘That’s right, Mrs Mawdsley.’ That was enough polite conversation for Ruby – she found it excruciatingly hard, so she turned back to the long columns of accounts spread out before her.

Violet kept her cheerful smile in place as Mrs Mawdsley left, banging the squeaky shop door behind her, and then she slumped down on to the hard wooden stool by the counter. She knew her customer meant well – she was one of Dolly’s best friends and had nothing but goodwill for the Feeny family. Violet herself had long since been accepted as one of them, as she’d married Eddy Feeny and come to live with her in-laws while Eddy was away serving with the Merchant Navy. She loved living with them and she enjoyed helping out in the shop, but her feelings about Rita’s new baby were plaguing her.

Violet longed more than anything for children of her own. Yet she and Eddy had been married for over three years and there was no sign of anything happening in that department. It wasn’t for lack of trying – Violet’s long face broke into a smile at the thought of that – but they hardly ever saw each other. His spells of leave were so rare, and so short when they did come, and then by the time he’d seen everyone he wanted to see and who wanted to see him, they had precious few moments on their own. Eddy was a quiet fellow – certainly compared to his more extrovert big brother Frank and middle sister Nancy – but he was very popular, and now he’d been doing his duty in the dangerous Western Approaches he was hailed as a hero every time he came home. Violet couldn’t argue with that – he was her hero, no doubt about it, and he’d already been a serving seaman when she’d met him, so it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known what their life together would be like. But it was so hard.

Violet knew her unofficial role was to keep everyone’s spirits up, and usually that suited her down to the ground, but today, knowing that Rita had gone into labour, she felt absolutely rotten. It wasn’t as if she didn’t get on with Rita – the two of them were thick as thieves and had worked together for years in the shop, helping the customers and putting on a brave face so that nobody around Empire Street went without. Violet didn’t like to admit it even to herself but she was filled with envy of her sister-in-law. Rita and Jack had had precious little time together either since their marriage just over two years ago, and yet here she was, about to give birth. It wasn’t fair. On top of that she had two children already. Violet knew full well that Rita had had to make an agonising decision as to whether to have Michael and Megan evacuated, and she missed them still even though they were relatively close out on a farm in Freshfield in Lancashire. Once the blitz had stopped, there had been talk about bringing them home, which Rita was desperate to do, and yet she had to acknowledge that farm life suited them both and they were flourishing in the fresh air, eating plentiful good food that they could never hope to get in war-ravaged Bootle.

Reluctantly Rita had agreed – with Jack’s backing – that the two children should stay away, at least for the time being, much to the delight of the farming couple, who had no children of their own and therefore spoilt them terribly. Michael and Megan had been promised that they could come back for a visit as soon as their new sister or brother was born. So Violet was steeling herself for the big family reunion, and while she knew it would make Rita’s joy complete, she dreaded the thought of it.

‘Violet, can you come and look at this?’ Ruby asked from behind her, and Violet jumped. How long had Ruby been speaking to her when she was lost in her agonising thoughts? She had to snap out of it, pull herself together, and not begrudge the generous Feenys their pleasure in the new arrival.

‘What’s wrong?’ Violet asked, bending her tall, willowy frame over the account books. She didn’t understand the figures; she knew Ruby was more than capable of sorting out any problem with them and was probably just asking her to make her feel wanted. That was a kind thing to do. But it didn’t come close to easing the longing that was eating away at her. ‘Oh, Eddy,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Come home soon, and let’s hope we can have the family we so badly want at last.’ But she didn’t breathe a word of this to Ruby. Instead Violet pitched up the sleeves of her moth-eaten cardigan and got back to the grind of keeping the little shop in business.

CHAPTER TWO

Kitty Callaghan pushed a dark curl out of her eyes as she squinted at the keyhole in the fading evening light. There was just enough brightness left in the sky to find it. Of course there would be no street lamps coming on as they hadn’t been permitted since the outbreak of war. In a big city Kitty would have felt happy to stay out longer, knowing that there would be other people about, even if it meant navigating the potholed pavements with a shielded torch. Yet here, in this small town on the south coast, she felt reluctant to come back after dark. She wasn’t a country girl and there was something about her billet’s isolation that made her uneasy. Not that she would admit that to anybody.

Pushing open the door with its flaking paint, she listened for any signs of the other occupants, but the place was quiet. She shared this small house with two other Wrens and their landlady, who had been only too happy to let out her spare rooms after her husband had been called up. The rooms were small but clean, with comfortable if slightly battered furnishings, and Kitty couldn’t complain. She’d had much worse. When she’d first joined up, she had had to share a big dormitory with the other trainee Wrens, sleeping on a bottom bunk and with absolutely no privacy. Then there had been the filthy fleapit she’d been allocated when she’d been transferred to Portsmouth, which she’d managed to leave by claiming it was too far from her place of work. It wasn’t as if she came from anywhere grand either. Her terraced home on Empire Street was no bigger than this and certainly hadn’t been as comfortable, although she’d done her best. But having to run the household pretty much single-handed after her mother had died so young had been a struggle. Her big brothers had tried to help but their father drank away all the money that should have gone towards the housekeeping, and so it had been a matter of survival, with nothing left over for little extras. If it hadn’t been for their kindly neighbour, Dolly Feeny, they’d never have got through.

From Portsmouth Kitty had been transferred again to this small town hugging the coast. It was an ideal place from which to pick up signals from the continent, and in her capacity as a telephone operator she was much in demand. She had proved herself to be calm in the face of crises – when messages were arriving at an impossible pace, she was efficient in recognising which to prioritise, and unflappable when the callers were panicking or aggressive. Fortunately that didn’t happen often. But you never knew what or who you would be dealing with down the line and it was important to respond appropriately. Lives might be lost otherwise. Her exemplary work had led to her rising to the rank of Leading Wren, and everyone could see that this was well deserved.

The door to what had once been the sitting room opened and a young woman poked her face out into the corridor. ‘Oh, it’s you, Kitty. I thought I heard something. Fancy a game of cards?’

‘Sorry, did I disturb you, Lizzie?’ Kitty smiled at the young Wren who now used the ground-floor front room as her bedroom.

‘No, I was just writing a letter home … You don’t fancy playing cards for a bit, do you?’ Lizzie looked wistful, and Kitty remembered how homesick the girl had been when she’d first arrived. Maybe she should make the effort and play cards with her to try to cheer her up. But the truth was she really didn’t feel like it.

‘Maybe just one round, and then I think I’ll go up, if you don’t mind,’ Kitty said apologetically. ‘It’s been a long day.’

Lizzie nodded. ‘That would be nice; I need to finish my letter afterwards anyway. Mum and Dad are always going on at me for not telling them enough of my news.’ She opened the door to her room a touch wider and Kitty went in, sat at the little wooden table in the small bay window, and prepared to play. But her mind wasn’t on it and Lizzie beat her easily.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t much competition there, was I?’

‘It’s all practice,’ said Lizzie, not hiding her delight at beating her housemate, who was usually a sharp player. ‘Better luck next time.’

Kitty pulled a rueful face and stood, going through into the empty kitchen. Carefully she drew the blackout curtain before putting on the light and reaching for the tea leaves. She took a small scoop, mindful that there was only ever just enough to go round. She wondered whether to turn on the Bakelite wireless but decided against it.

The other Wrens in the house were lively and meant well, but Kitty found it hard to be anything other than superficially friendly with them. It wasn’t just because of the age difference; although she was older, it wasn’t by much. She just didn’t have a lot in common with them. Technically she was their superior in rank, which set her a little apart, but it was more than that. They were keen to go out, have fun, make the most of what little entertainment this place could offer. She wasn’t.

Once she had been, but that was before Elliott had died. It had been over two years now, but Kitty knew she would never again be that young Wren eager for adventure. Dr Elliott Fitzgerald had shown her a side of life that she had never thought would be open to her when she’d first met him. He’d been working in the hospital where two of her brothers were being treated, and she had found it hard to believe that he’d preferred her company to that of all the many pretty nurses he saw day and night. Yet he had, and their courtship had stood the test of separation, with him remaining in Liverpool while she began her training in north London. He’d given her confidence, stability, faith in herself and hope for a shared future – until he’d been killed in one of the final raids of the blitz over Bootle. After that she had hardened her heart and directed all her time and energy into her work. There seemed little point in going to nights out at the local hall or nearest air base. Elliott had been a wonderful dancer – even a champion when at medical school – and once she’d had him as a partner and tutor, there was little chance anyone else would come close. She didn’t begrudge her co-billettees their evenings with the airmen, but had no wish to join them.

Slowly she made her way upstairs, carrying the tea, relishing its welcome warmth in her hands. Her bedroom faced the back garden and she stood at the sash window, looking at the vegetable beds in the last of the daylight. Her landlady had dug over her lawn and taken to supplementing the rations with home-grown produce. Soon it would be time to start spring planting, and Kitty had offered to help. Whenever she was home on leave she would be roped in to help in Dolly Feeny’s victory garden, so she knew a little of what she was meant to do. She’d never begrudged helping Dolly on her precious few weekends back home, as it was largely thanks to the Feenys that the young Callaghans had survived their childhoods. It had made the two families particularly close. At one point Kitty had fancied herself falling for the oldest Feeny son, Frank; but now she knew better. He saw her as another little sister, and there had been no more to it, no matter how fast her heart had pounded at the sight of him. These days he was walking out with one of the young women based at his place of work and that was much more suitable all round. She forced her mind away from the image of them together.

Turning back to her room, she sat on the narrow bed with its rather worn candlewick spread, setting down the tea on a little wooden table that the landlady’s husband had made. Kitty sighed. The other reason she wasn’t keen on spending the evening playing cards with Lizzie was that she couldn’t help contrasting her with the two friends she’d made when they had all been trainee Wrens together. Both of them had known and liked Elliott and had helped her through the bleak time after he’d died. Then they’d all gone their separate ways, but had resolutely stayed in contact, mostly by letter, meeting up if their work allowed.

That was what Kitty had been doing today. Marjorie was someone she would never have met if it hadn’t been for the war: a teacher, who had moved in very different circles to those of Empire Street. Kitty had been overawed by her cleverness to begin with, but then again Marjorie had been shy, ill at ease with the opposite sex, unsure of herself in social situations. Kitty had grown up with three brothers and had then managed their local NAAFI canteen, and so was completely at home with young men and their teasing banter. Gradually she had realised her humble beginnings didn’t matter now they were all throwing themselves into the war effort, and Marjorie had relaxed enough to enjoy dancing with the young men from the Forces they’d met in the clubs Elliott introduced them to whenever he’d managed to visit London. She’d always been deadly serious about her work, though. She had been picked out for her brains and aptitude with languages, and was now stationed not far from her own home in Sussex, where she’d been working in signals. That was the official version, anyway.

When they’d met for lunch today, Marjorie hadn’t exactly contradicted that idea. However, she’d insisted on taking the corner table in a quiet little café, far from where anyone could overhear them, staring at the chequered cloth as if trying to decide what to say. Finally she had looked at Kitty and given her a small smile. ‘Look, you know how it is,’ she said. ‘I’ve been given a new posting and thought we should meet up before I left. I can’t say when I’ll be going, but it’ll be sooner rather than later.’

Kitty had raised an eyebrow, desperate to know more but only too aware that you didn’t ask questions.

Marjorie shifted in her seat. She was still birdlike, seemingly tiny enough to be blown over by the first hint of a strong wind. But Kitty knew inside she was made of sterner stuff. ‘So, I realise I can’t tell you what I’ll be doing but – well, this one I really, really can’t tell you.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You’ll just have to put two and two together, Kitty, like I know you’re good at doing. Who knows, one day you’ll be putting through a call that’s a result of what I’ve been up to. That’s as much as I can give away.’