Christmas on the Mersey

‘I did not say those things!’ Outrage replaced Rita’s fear.

‘You threw yourself at me,’ Charlie spat accusingly, ‘just to get a husband …’

Rita remembered only too well what had happened between her and Charlie. It was seared indelibly on her mind. Even when his hands were all over her she knew it was wrong … The eau-de-Cologne scent of gin still made her retch even now. Charlie was right, she had tricked him. But not for the reasons he thought. Charlie never allowed her to forget she let him ‘have her’ before marriage. Once – just once – but it was enough and she had paid for it every day since. If Charlie ever found out why she’d allowed it … the thought of it alone made her feel sick.

‘I could have been out of this lousy street long before now.’ Charlie made a sudden movement with his hand, making her flinch. She could see her nervousness amused him by the way his lazy grin made his thin yard-brush moustache bristle. Any fond feelings she had had for him at the beginning of their marriage were now dead. He’d seen to that. Rita thought she could change him into a more caring person when they were married. She had been a fool.

‘I didn’t marry you because I loved you … I married you to stop you marrying Jack Callaghan.’ His callous words were snarled low, for her hearing alone. ‘The great Jack Callaghan, the pride of Merseyside. The love of your life.’ Charlie looked at her with something akin to hate now when he said, ‘Don’t think I didn’t see the way he looked at you, or the way you looked at him when you thought nobody could see. Well, I saw! I saw plenty. But I’ll tell you this for nowt – you’re mine now … remember that!’

With mention of Jack Callaghan, Rita had a sudden vision of him, his kind eyes and strong face looking into her own. I’ve always loved you, Rita. You know that, don’t you? If only Jack were here now. He’d never let Charlie treat her this way. But she had married Charlie instead of Jack. She had been a deceiver and this was the price she was paying. All the same, the thought of Jack and his words gave her strength.

‘I know you, Charlie Kennedy, you’re up to something.’ Even in her anxious state, something was niggling away at her.

Charlie was still managing to evade conscription but that wouldn’t last for ever. Men were being called up all over Liverpool and Charlie’s turn would come. Was leaving with the kids some way of avoiding his duty? He couldn’t look at the children most days, let alone show them affection. Were the children to be solely in his hands, she feared for their welfare. And what about his job? How could he look after Michael and Megan when he was working all day? Questions tumbled inside her head.

‘The appeal of marriage soon wore off when you got the gold ring on your finger … Prim and proper on the outside, but I know different,’ Charlie continued.

Rita bit back a retort, knowing it was wise not to antagonise him. What choice did she have? Her husband’s put-downs, while making her feel stupid, were a small reminder of the wrong she had done. To add to the misery, his mother expected her to carry the burden of running the corner shop and raising two children virtually alone. Was it any wonder she went back to nursing with her arms wide open as soon as the children were evacuated?

While accepting this was her lot in life, Rita adored her beloved children above all else.

You play with the hand you’re dealt, Rita. Her mind echoed Charlie’s sentiments now and Rita felt she was getting no more than she deserved. Like most women round here, she had made her bed and now she must lie in it. Being Catholic, she would never contemplate divorce – the idea was ludicrous in a place like Empire Street, where women married for life but not always for love. For women like her, happiness was a bonus, not an expectation.

‘I don’t understand why they can’t just go back to Freshfield,’ she said again.

‘Those people tried turning my children against me.’ Charlie went back to the suitcase and Rita wondered what excuse he would make next. ‘They hid behind the old woman’s skirts like I was the bogeyman.’

‘You hadn’t been to see them for months,’ Rita explained. ‘They thought they had done something wrong when you attacked the farmer!’

‘He tried to stop me taking them home.’

‘He’d never seen you before.’ Rita knew that Charlie was lucky he had not been threatened with a shotgun – ‘Uncle Seth’, as the children called the farmer, was very protective of Michael and Megan and a very good shot.

‘Michael took his time confirming I was, in fact, his father,’ Charlie straightened himself to his full six foot, ‘which just goes to show they were in need of a firm hand!’

Rita gasped at his delusions of civil paternity … Charlie had no patience with his children or, indeed, anyone else.

‘I can take them to the farm myself,’ Rita said. ‘Joan would be thrilled to have them back. I got a letter from her yesterday. She asked if …’

Charlie’s head was still bent as he raised his eyes. They cut her with a warning glare that told her to be quiet or else; to say no more. It told her that she was making things worse for herself.

‘Go down. You’re wasting precious time with your beloved children,’ he said. ‘You’ve shown where your priorities lie, even when it is obvious your own flesh and blood need you more.’

‘Charlie, there is a war on. People are dying and the hospitals need all the nurses they can get.’

‘Of course.’ His eyes were full of scorn. ‘That is why I am releasing you of the burden of your own children.’

‘They have never been a burden! You must tell me where you are taking them!’ Rita’s voice was rising, becoming shrill with anxiety. She must remain calm. Think straight. He would want her to dissolve into hysterics. That way he was in control. His lips parted into a disparaging grin as he mimicked her words in better times.

‘I love my children more than life itself!’ He threw his head back and gave a laugh that was far from humorous. ‘You should be on the stage at the Metropole, Rita.’

There was a cold gleam in his eyes and Charlie’s words were low when he said, ‘All in good time, Rita. You know, you can be very entertaining when you’re riled.’

Horrified, she watched Charlie stop packing the little suitcase. His eyes were now taking in every inch of her body, pausing on the parts he would claim without consent, given the chance. Rita froze, aware now what he had in mind. He was going to put her in her place. This was the real reason he had agreed to bringing the children back from evacuation. His violent attentions – she could never call it lovemaking – were so painful they reduced her to tears. She prayed for him to stop, unable to cry out for fear the children would hear. It was her duty to preserve her children’s innocence.

Her eyes never left him as he edged towards her. Bitter bile was searing her throat. How far was she from the closed bedroom door? She would never get past him from this distance.

Rita felt the blood run like cold water through her veins. It was broad daylight. Her children were downstairs having breakfast. She could hear them chatting away. He wouldn’t … Not now …

Charlie moved inch … by inch … enjoying her torment.

Please Lord, don’t let him do this to me again …

CHAPTER TWO (#u373bd5f6-51f8-57fa-96af-4974433170d2)

‘Mrs Kerrigan, have you seen the rest of my Lady Jane’s?’ Nancy Kerrigan, twenty-year-old wife of Corporal Sid Kerrigan, POW, of the Cheshire Regi­ment, had wound half of her shoulder-length, Titian-coloured hair into little Catherine-wheel twists before securing them with silver clips. If she’s given them to the salvage men, Nancy thought, she’ll get the sharp edge of my tongue!

‘You left them in the parlour,’ Mrs Kerrigan said, bringing a paper bag into the back kitchen, where Nancy was standing on the tips of her toes looking into the oval mirror hanging from the nail above the deep stone sink. Nancy let out an impatient sigh; her mother-in-law was always snooping in her private things. She didn’t know what the old woman expected to find but she was going to be disappointed.

‘What did you want in the parlour?’ Nancy asked, her suspicions aroused when Mrs Kerrigan put the paper bag containing the rest of her clips onto the wet draining board, so that the paper became all soggy. ‘You had no right going into my private sitting room.’ She paid Sid’s mother good rent out of Sid’s army allowance money every week. ‘There’s no privacy in this house.’

Through the looking-glass, she could see the older woman’s glare of disapproval, looking down her pointed nose and flaring her thin nostrils, though she did not answer.

‘Off out again, are we?’ Mrs Kerrigan asked instead, in that pained voice that grated on Nancy’s nerves. Nancy knew if her husband were here the old bag would not speak to her like that. She would make sure she told him next time she wrote. He would soon put his mother straight on a few things, including how to treat his wife and mother of his son.

‘Yes, with my friend Gloria – you know Gloria, don’t you?’ Nancy said innocently, winding a section of hair around her index finger, placing it in a way she had done hundreds of times before against her scalp and pinning it in place with another clip. Nancy was pleased with the way she looked. Eyeing herself in the glass she wondered if she was a bit thinner these last few months. Everyone was going without and there was seemingly nothing that wasn’t either rationed or in short supply. Her Sid preferred her with a few curves, but Nancy quite liked the new sharpness to her cheekbones.

‘Oh, yes, I know Gloria, a good-time girl if ever there was one.’ There was no mistaking the contempt in Mrs Kerrigan’s voice. ‘Half the foreign fleet know Gloria.’

Nancy could feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. She yearned to tell the po-faced woman what she thought of her pious ways; spending as much time polishing the altar rails with her prayers as she did calling her neighbours fit to burn in hell. How could Sid’s mam be so religious when she was so nasty?

‘Only half of them?’ Nancy could not contain herself. ‘My word, she is slipping!’ She took a sideways glance at the older woman, who banged a cast-iron pan on the stove to show how angry she was. Nancy returned to the mirror, now applying her new bright red lipstick. When she and Gloria had last been to the Adelphi, one of the RAF servicemen had complimented her, telling her that she looked a bit like Rita Hayworth, which she’d always secretly thought herself. Nancy almost smiled at the recollection but the presence of her harping mother-in-law was enough to sour the memory. She’d had enough of her sniping, but she’d been brought up not to cheek her elders, no matter how much she was provoked. Also, she had Sid to think about.

‘It’s not like this is a regular thing.’ She had to be careful now, knowing Mrs Kerrigan kept nothing from Sid. ‘I went out twice last week. I treated Mam to a George Formby film, because she looked after little Georgie while I went to Mass.’ Because you would never dream of offering.

‘Which film was it?’ Mrs Kerrigan was also very suspicious. ‘I’ve seen all of George Formby’s.’

‘Let George Do It. Mam loves him playing his ukulele.’ She breathed a sigh of relief when Mrs Kerrigan seemed satisfied. Nancy had overheard two women in the corner shop regaling the merits of the film yesterday, and if Mrs Kerrigan found out Nancy had been drinking in the parlour of the Sailor’s Rest with Gloria, she knew she would never hear the end of it.

‘What about Sunday?’

‘Me and Gloria went to see that Margaret Lockwood film about a girl who went to a concentration camp and befriended a man who turns out to be a Nazi spy. We don’t go out as often as we used to, you know.’

‘I should think not! My Sid would be ever so upset. What woman wants to see her brave son’s wife behaving like a tuppenny trollop? I can’t turn a blind eye. People will talk.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Nancy could not believe her ears. ‘Are you saying I’m up to no good?’ She put her hands on her hips. Mrs Kerrigan was the limit! Nancy certainly got lots of attention from men when they were out. Gloria was something of a local celebrity and they were never short of company, but Nancy was well aware that she was a married woman and didn’t need reminding by busybodies like Mrs Kerrigan.

‘Well, you must admit, there aren’t many other girls gallivanting around like you are while their husbands are off fighting.’