Violet hugged the envelope to her chest and hummed to herself, standing stock still in the middle of the empty shop. She knew she had to open up so the dock workers could come flooding in and buy their morning papers and tobacco, but she wanted to savour the moment. It was so rare to have any time to herself, any space to think, and she just had to relish the good news, let it sink in, before the hectic rush began.
Eddy had written to say his ship was on its way back to Liverpool and he would be home before embarking on the next trip. He’d be back for a whole week. Seven whole days. Violet hadn’t seen him for that amount of time since they’d first met and married. She couldn’t quite believe it. Of course she had to keep calm and not jinx his return voyage; there was still danger in the Atlantic, but there was nothing like the risks of earlier in the war when the U-boats had sunk so many vessels. Eddy had survived all of that. Now the worst thing he’d have to contend with was the weather. Even that was improving, though – they were out of the season of winter storms and spring was finally here. He’d be home for Easter if all went to plan. She could collect eggs and decorate them, maybe hide them for Georgie and make a big game of it. Eddy would love to join in with that. Then they could all have a proper Easter dinner …
‘You opening up today, love, or have you won the pools and decided you’re too grand for us?’ called a voice from outside.
Violet snapped out of her dream and pushed up the sleeves of her moth-eaten cardigan. ‘One moment, hold your horses,’ she shouted, snapping up the blinds and unlocking the door. Several men had gathered, huddled in their jackets, scarves wound tight against the biting wind. Spring hadn’t managed to warm up this particular corner of Merseyside this morning, and the familiar smell of the river combined with that of the docks drifted into the shop.
‘You’re looking cheerful this morning,’ said one of the men, a regular customer who Violet had known since she began helping out behind the counter. ‘Maybe you have gone and won the pools an’ all.’
‘Better than that,’ grinned Violet, picking up the paper that she knew he liked, ‘much better. You can keep your old pools. My Eddy’s coming home on leave for Easter and he’ll be here all week. How about that?’
‘Blimey, love, that is good news,’ the man said, fishing in his pocket for his change. ‘Did you hear that?’ He turned to his workmates. ‘Eddy Feeny’s coming home on leave. You make sure to tell him we’ll buy him a pint down the Sailor’s Rest. He’s a good man, your Eddy.’
‘He is,’ said Violet, beaming widely. ‘He’s the best there is. Don’t you go keeping him out late down the pub – his place is home with me.’
‘Oh aye, you’ll be giving him a warm welcome all right,’ said another man at the back of the group, nudging his friend, but the others weren’t inclined to make a smutty joke with him. Eddy was well known and admired, and if anyone deserved a spot of leave with his young wife then it was him.
‘You leave her alone, Arthur,’ said the first man, ‘or you won’t find your favourite baccy ready for you like you expect. You make sure you tell your Eddy we said hello, Mrs Feeny. If it wasn’t for the likes of him, we wouldn’t have our jobs. Him and his lot, they defended our docks when Jerry wanted to destroy them. They took on Hitler’s submarines and won. We wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the Eddy Feenys of this world, and that’s a fact.’
The men nodded sagely, knowing he was right. The docks were vital to the war effort – supplies of food, raw materials, and service personnel all arrived in Britain via the ports, and nowhere more vital than those of Merseyside. Hitler had done his best to disrupt the shipping in the Atlantic and destroy the docks themselves, but despite feeling the full force of the enemy power, the ships had kept sailing and the docks kept receiving them and their cargoes. The men of the Merchant Navy had run huge risks, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse on the high seas, and many had lost their lives. No wonder Eddy and his comrades were so well regarded. Violet could feel herself getting tearful at the very thought of it, but forced herself not to give way to the emotion threatening to overpower her. Instead she smiled again and made sure everyone had what they’d come in for.
In a matter of minutes the morning rush was over, and she could settle into the calmer routine of sorting out the remaining newspapers, stocking the shelves and checking the change in the till before the housewives started to arrive for their daily shopping. She made sure she knew where the stamp was for the ration books, gave the counter a quick wipe down and then settled back on the wobbly wooden stool that wasn’t quite the right height, as she was too tall for it. With a little thrill of anticipation she opened the envelope again. She’d just read the letter one more time before anyone else came in. Sighing with delight, she gazed at the familiar handwriting, giving her the news she’d waited for so long.
Kitty stared straight ahead of her at the slightly faded olive green wall, with its dog-eared posters and lists of instructions. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard down the telephone line. It had been in every way a routine call. It was just that she could have sworn she’d recognised the voice.
The caller hadn’t identified himself but merely said, ‘May I speak to Captain Squires, please? It’s rather urgent.’
All she’d had to say was, ‘Certainly, sir. Putting you through now,’ and no further interaction was needed.
There was a slight hesitation, almost as if the caller was about to say something other than the ‘thank you,’ that followed. The voice was troubling in its familiarity. Did the tone of it betray that he had known it was her, too?
She told herself to calm down. It was important that nobody saw her brief lapse of concentration. She was the most experienced operator in this unit and it was her duty to lead by example as well as coaching the newcomers. She couldn’t allow them to notice she was flustered. Besides, all she’d actually said were the very same phrases that she used scores of times every day.
Forcing herself to focus on the job in hand, she took the next call, but she was on autopilot. Try as she might to avoid admitting it, all her nerves were fizzing. Logically the speaker could have been any young man with a Scouse accent, and heaven knew there were plenty of them in the service. He’d spoken only those few words. But they were enough. She knew deep in her bones that it had been Frank Feeny. Although her mind could come up with umpteen excuses why she shouldn’t jump to that conclusion, her body betrayed her and reacted in the way it always did when she heard someone mention his name or read about him in a letter from home.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Lizzie, her co-billettee who also formed part of the same unit. ‘You look as if someone just walked over your grave.’
Kitty snapped back into her role. ‘Yes, quite all right, thanks,’ she said shortly. She saw Lizzie’s face fall – the junior Wren probably thought she’d made a faux pas – and quickly made an excuse. ‘Something in my eye, that’s all. It’s gone now.’
Really, she told herself as she connected the next call, this wouldn’t do. She couldn’t allow herself to be thrown like that. She was meant to be showing the younger ones how to conduct themselves, and getting into a flap would only lead to mistakes. So what if it had been Frank Feeny? He was entitled to call any naval establishment. He most likely did so all the time, and so in some ways it was actually strange that their paths hadn’t crossed before now. It was irrelevant to her work, and he was nothing to her other than as a former neighbour and big brother of her great friend Rita. Yet her heartbeat told her differently, as it took ages to settle down to its regular pace. She made herself breathe in and out slowly, fighting against the knowledge that somehow, deep down, that profound and familiar pull was very much still there.
‘You were keen enough a moment ago. What’s changed?’ The young GI was slurring his words a little as he planted his arm against the rough alley wall right by Nancy’s shoulder, blocking her way. The dance was over, night had fallen, and people were making their way home, or at least back to their billets. Nancy looked into the man’s face, which had been pleasant enough early in the evening, and saw an unwelcome gleam in his eye. He was having trouble focusing and his breath smelt unpleasantly of sour beer.
‘You’ve made a mistake,’ she said as lightly as she could. ‘I’m a married woman. It was just a dance, nothing else.’
‘No, it’s you who’s made the mistake.’ He brought his face closer to hers and the stench of alcohol grew even stronger. ‘We got a word for girls like you and it ain’t pretty. You come along, all dolled up and making eyes at us, and then you try to run off when we take you up on what you’ve been offering all evening. You’re just a tease, aren’t you?’ He tried to touch her face but missed, and she twisted away.
‘I promised you nothing,’ she said, keeping her voice even, knowing she couldn’t let him see any fear. She reminded herself she’d dealt with worse than this. Some of Sid’s friends used to get out of control when they got drunk, and any time he turned his back for a moment she’d had to be on her guard for leering comments or wandering hands, even though they knew she and Sid were an item. She could usually talk her way out of anything. The trouble was that this young man seemed too far gone to take in what she was saying.
‘Yes, you did. That’s what you come to these places for,’ he insisted, making a lunge for her hair with his other hand. ‘Cm’ere. Let me show you what you’ve been missing. Show you what we Yanks can do that your Limey boys can’t.’
‘Get your hands off me,’ Nancy snapped, angry now.
‘Don’t know what you mean,’ the GI said, his smile menacing. ‘You want my hands all over you, don’t you, you know you do.’
‘I most certainly do not,’ she half shouted, glancing around to see if anyone was nearby. There must still be some people around. They were only a stone’s throw from the hall where the dance had been held. All she had to do was make enough noise, or distract him, then she could run for it. She had hardly had anything to drink and had no doubt she could outpace the staggering GI, but first she had to make a break. Was that a figure out on the main road, lit by the bright moon? She raised her voice still further. ‘You take your hands off me right now. Go home … What do you think you’re doing?’
She almost screamed as he brought his hand clumsily down on her mouth, trying to shut her up. She wondered if she should bite his thumb. That might distract him enough so she could run off.
‘Gonna show you what you been asking for,’ he half crooned, eyes bright but glassy, stumbling a little as he said it. ‘Show me some of that …’ he hiccupped. ‘… British hospitality. That’s what you all reckon you’re famous for, isn’t it? British hospitality …’ He dragged his hand over her cheek and this time she screamed properly as his hand wandered down her neck, threatening to go lower still.
‘What do you think you’re doing, soldier?’ The half-glimpsed figure from the road turned and ran towards them, and in the dim light Nancy could see he was also an American serviceman but quite a bit older than her unwelcome companion. ‘You leave the lady alone. She said she wanted you to take your hands off, so just you get away from her.’ He grabbed the younger man’s outstretched arm from behind and the GI almost fell now that his prop had gone. He glared woozily at the older man and evidently saw at once that this was no contest – he didn’t stand a chance.
‘She said she wanted it,’ he protested feebly.
‘Get out of here and be thankful I’m not putting you on a charge,’ hissed the older man. ‘I’m going to remember your number and I’m going to get your unit to issue you a warning. You don’t go round attacking young ladies in dark alleys. You go back to your base and sleep off the booze. If you can’t take it, you shouldn’t drink it.’
‘She’s no lady,’ slurred the GI, but he did as he was told, walking unevenly back to the road, one hand against the wall so he didn’t fall.
Nancy sighed out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. She blinked hard. That had been a close one. One minute she had been making what she’d thought was polite conversation with the young GI with whom she’d danced earlier on in the proceedings, the next he’d taken her arm and thrust her into the mouth of the grim little alleyway. She’d obviously misread him. She had been stupid. It wasn’t a risk she could afford to take. Now she was calmer, she took a better look at her rescuer. He must be in his early thirties, with laughter lines around his dark eyes, and high cheekbones. He had a friendly and very good-looking face. ‘You all right?’ he asked with concern. ‘I do apologise for my fellow soldier. I’m sorry, some of these young guys have never been away from home before and don’t know how to behave.’
Nancy gave her hair a shake. ‘No, I’m all right, really,’ she said. ‘Thank you for taking the trouble to get rid of him. He was quite drunk; he didn’t really know what he was doing.’ She hoped that was true.
‘No trouble, ma’am.’ He looked at her steadily. ‘You take care, now. Tell you what, I’ll walk you back along the road. Have you got any friends waiting for you?’
Nancy wondered what had become of the man she had been intending to meet. It hadn’t been a date exactly, but he’d promised to be there at the dance and had suggested they might go on somewhere afterwards. He’d been very persuasive and insistent a few days ago, and she’d been flattered and intrigued. Then again, she’d only seen him around a few times at the WVS canteen and didn’t really know if he was the type to keep his promise. He hadn’t shown up tonight. He might have said the same thing to a dozen young women across the city. Or he might have been shipped out at the last minute – you never knew. More fool her to be mooning around wondering if he’d turn up, and making herself seem vulnerable. She was getting careless.
‘I’m going back to the friends who are looking after my son,’ she said, as that made her seem respectable, and not the sort of woman who let herself be picked up by random strangers outside a dance hall. Besides, it was true. She needed to go to the Parkers’ and they wouldn’t wait up all night.
‘May I walk you to the bus stop then, ma’am?’
Nancy decided that was a harmless enough request, and they would be back on the busy street so he was hardly likely to try anything. He didn’t look the type anyway. He seemed a real gentleman. He had the look of a man who’d trained hard and carried himself easily, a very attractive combination.
‘Well, thank you very much,’ she breathed. ‘Please don’t feel obliged, if it’s taking you out of your way …’
‘Nothing of the kind,’ he said. ‘It will be my pleasure. Staff Sergeant Gary Trenton at your service, ma’am.’ His eyes twinkled at her in the moonlight.
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Trenton, and I’m very grateful,’ said Nancy, wondering at the change of luck in her evening as she counted the chevrons on his jacket. ‘Nancy Kerrigan.’ She held out her hand, they shook, and he gently took her arm as he shepherded her towards the bus stop.