Nancy Kerrigan was spitting with suppressed fury, with nobody to vent it on. ‘Hurry up and boil,’ she muttered at the tea urn, which Mrs Moyes had asked her to see to while she herself made sure everything was ready to open up in the WVS canteen in the city centre. The urn refused to do so, making what was already a bad morning even worse.
First, Georgie had started coughing again, leading her mother-in-law to be even more unpleasant than usual, implying Nancy was a bad mother, when anyone could see she was trying her best, and with precious little help from the miserable old woman. Nancy had debated leaving him at home in her care, he sounded so bad, but she decided that wrapping him up warmly and rushing him round to Dolly was the lesser of two evils. At least she’d know he was cosy and well fed with her. She wouldn’t put it past her mother-in-law to forget to keep an eye on the little boy, she was so mired in her own sense of the world doing her wrong.
Nancy hadn’t stayed long at her mother’s, as she was still full of rage at the slight of being overlooked in favour of Kitty as godmother to Ellen. Kitty Callaghan, for heaven’s sake! What did she know about bringing up babies? All right, she’d helped raise Tommy when their mother had died, but she hadn’t given birth to him, had she? She hadn’t gone through all that, and she knew nothing about a mother’s feelings for a baby. Despite all her frustrations, Nancy loved Georgie with a genuine and sometimes almost overwhelming love, and she simply could not believe that Kitty was capable of experiencing anything like it.
Also, Kitty had been away for over three years with hardly a visit home in between. That made her out of touch with everybody and what the family was like now. The war had changed everyone and all their relationships, and surely Kitty couldn’t begin to realise this. Fine, so Rita wrote to her, and Danny probably did as well, but it wasn’t the same as being here with them all. Kitty had hardly exchanged two words with Violet; she hadn’t been here for the Liverpool Blitz when so many had been killed or injured from their own small patch of Bootle, and she certainly didn’t know Ellen. You couldn’t just assume all babies were the same – even Nancy, living a few streets away, had picked up from her sisters’ and mother’s chatter that the little girl had her own sleep patterns, her preferences for how she liked to be carried, what made her comfortable and what didn’t. Kitty would be a useless godmother. She herself, Nancy, would be a far better one, and yet she’d been royally snubbed. She thought she would burst at the insult.
She glared at the urn and wondered if it was broken. She hoped not, as finding spare parts would be almost impossible. Maybe Mrs Moyes would know of someone. Nancy sighed and turned away from the hateful machine and decided to sort out the cutlery while she waited. She picked up the butter knife and all but stabbed it into the box where it belonged. It wasn’t as if there was much butter in the first place.
‘Are we ready, Mrs Kerrigan?’ Delia Moyes was much older than Nancy and had a motherly way about her, a sensible but immaculately well-pressed apron stretched across her neat peppermint-coloured twinset, an amber necklace at her throat. Matching tiny earrings twinkled behind her greying curls. She was the epitome of respectability, the embodiment of the WVS.
Nancy liked to think she herself represented the other side of the Women’s Voluntary Service, bringing a little much-needed glamour to the proceedings. However, she didn’t feel very glamorous this morning, with all the cares of the world on her shoulders. Gamely she painted on a smile, as there was no point in annoying her supervisor. ‘Almost there, Mrs Moyes,’ she replied, and just at that moment the reluctant urn finally began to boil. Nancy thought it was a lucky sign and that maybe this shift wouldn’t be so bad after all.
‘Excellent, Mrs Kerrigan, you know we don’t like to keep our brave boys waiting,’ said the older woman, smiling encouragingly. ‘They look to us for comfort now they are so far away from home, as you are well aware.’
‘Yes, Mrs Moyes, they count on us, don’t they?’ said Nancy loyally. She swiftly sorted the teaspoons while her supervisor went to open the main door. She could see through the window that a few servicemen were already gathered waiting for their tea, sandwiches and company. She told herself to snap out of her bad temper – she had a job to do.
The shift was almost over and Nancy was on her last legs. For ages she had secretly mocked her sisters, both nurses, for their frequent complaints about sore feet and tiredness from running around all day at work, sure they were exaggerating to get some sympathy. Now she understood better. Her calves ached and her toes were pressed up against the blunt ends of her shoes, chosen for their stylish effect rather than their practicality. Now she knew why her sisters always wore flat heels. But she’d been so desperate to cheer herself up this morning that she’d gone against her better judgement and dug out her old two-tone stacked heels with their jaunty red bows.
‘Do sit down, Mrs Kerrigan, you haven’t stopped all day,’ advised Mrs Moyes. She’d often had her doubts about her youngest recruit, but today she had to admit the girl had done her share and more, nipping between the tables to collect used crockery, dispensing tea with a wide smile that never wavered, staying just on the right side of friendliness before it tipped over into flirtation. ‘Why don’t you have some soup? We ought to get rid of it anyway before we have a fresh batch for tomorrow, so you’d be doing us all a favour.’
‘Oh …’ Nancy could barely get out a sentence as she sank heavily on to a wooden chair, the cushion for which had long since vanished. She knew full well that the soup could equally well be heated up again, but she wasn’t going to turn down the offer. ‘I’d love some, Mrs M. That will put me right back on my feet in no time.’
‘Then I’ll fetch you some,’ said Mrs Moyes, thinking how wan the girl looked today once she let the cheerful mask slip. Perhaps she was worried about something – maybe her little boy was sick again. Children picked up everything at that age, she remembered from her own brood.
Nancy threw a quick glance over her shoulder towards the rest of the room, and then raised her legs to rest her feet on another chair, almost groaning as the pain in her stubbed toes eased a little. That would teach her. She’d be back in her low brogues tomorrow. In some ways she hated them, they were such a dull brown and screamed ‘sensible’, but her feet couldn’t take another shift like this. She’d have to bathe them in warm water when she got back. She took her mind back to her pre-war, pre-Sid days, working at the big George Henry Lee department store, and the fabulous lotions for sale there – what she wouldn’t give for a bottle of one of those to ease her throbbing feet.
‘Miss Kerrigan? It is you, isn’t it?’ A voice came from behind her.
Swiftly she threw herself round, feet back on the ground, and looked up. For a moment, with the light streaming in the open door and window behind him, she didn’t recognise the figure. He was tall and well set, in the uniform of the US Army, and had an easy, relaxed bearing. Then the penny dropped.
‘Mr Trenton, or Staff Sergeant Trenton, I should say.’ She took a swift glance at his chevrons and counted them to check she was right – she’d become an expert at reading the different insignia by now. She stood up, her weariness gone. ‘Well, fancy seeing you here.’
‘I might say the same, Miss Kerrigan – Nancy, wasn’t it?’ He took a chair and sat down, and so she sank back on to the old wooden one she’d collapsed on beforehand.
‘That’s right. Fancy you remembering,’ she laughed, conscious of how different he appeared in the daylight. Although she’d tried to take a good look at him as he walked her to the bus stop after the recent ill-fated dance, she hadn’t really been able to get a proper impression of him. Now the broad light of day confirmed he was every bit as good-looking as she recalled, and his face was even more friendly. ‘What would you like – we’ve still got some soup, or there are Spam sandwiches, and there’s always tea.’
‘Of course. This is England. There’s always tea,’ he echoed, but not in a teasing way, and he smiled to show he meant nothing by it. ‘There’s no rush, Miss Kerrigan. Look, here comes your friend with something for you.’
Mrs Moyes placed a deep bowl of soup in front of Nancy, along with what these days passed for a bread roll. Nancy thanked her gratefully, even though she knew the roll would taste like sawdust. You just couldn’t get proper flour any more, just the low-grade type that everyone had to put up with but which made the bread tasteless and grey. She didn’t care. She was used to it – they all were – and it would fill her up until she could get back to her mother-in-law’s house. ‘It’s my break,’ she explained, wondering if she should postpone it; whether Gary Trenton would think the worse of her for not being on her feet, serving behind the counter.
‘You don’t have to apologise to me,’ he said at once. ‘I tell my men, make sure you take your breaks while you can. You’re not much use to me if you’re too darn tired to put one foot in front of the other. Reckon it can get pretty busy in here, with all my fellow countrymen arriving.’
Nancy swallowed a mouthful of the soup. It was mixed vegetable, as it often was, and it didn’t always do to ask which vegetables were in it, but she was past bothering about that. Then she nodded. ‘It can. It sure can.’ She attempted an American accent.
‘Not bad.’ Trenton grinned in appreciation.
‘More and more of them every day,’ Nancy went on, then left the sentence hanging. She’d noticed the increase in numbers, they all had, and the rumours were spreading about something big in the offing. She wondered if her new friend could be persuaded to talk, but quickly realised he hadn’t got to staff sergeant by gossiping.
‘If you say so,’ he replied amiably. ‘Pretty crowded city, ain’t it? Pity about the hollowed-out church up the road.’
Nancy nodded as she nibbled at the dry roll. ‘You should have seen it before the blitz. St Luke’s was lovely.’ She paused ruefully. ‘We lost so many buildings in just a few days. Most of the rubble has been cleared away now, but you could hardly walk around because of the bricks and stones and glass, and the smell, oh boy, you don’t ever want to come across such a thing again. Burning and all that.’ She sighed at the memory of that terrible, frightening time, and then grew quiet, figuring that if Trenton and his men were over here, then they would most likely be called to take part in equally grim scenes, or possibly worse. She had better shut up – the men came to the canteen to take their minds off such things, not to be reminded of what they were about to face.
‘Everyone says it was a great city,’ Trenton said.
‘Still is,’ Nancy replied robustly. ‘There’s nowhere better, and you’d better believe it. We might not have that church or our cathedral, we haven’t even got a proper John Lewis any more – that’s a store, a lovely big department store – but you won’t find our spirit’s been broken.’
Trenton smiled even more broadly and nodded in approval. Nancy couldn’t help notice he had very fine hands, with tapering fingers and clean, square-cut nails. She wondered how strong his grip was, or how delicate his touch could be. Maybe if he were to touch her … She shook the thought from her mind. ‘You said it, Miss Kerrigan,’ he agreed. ‘That’s what everyone tells me. The people of Merseyside won’t be beat.’
‘No, sir.’ Nancy swiftly wiped the last of her roll around the dregs of the soup and popped it into her mouth. She was too hungry to leave any food, good-looking staff sergeant or not, but then she shook the crumbs from her fingers and swiftly pushed back her hair. She flashed him her best Rita Hayworth smile.
‘So how does a person get to see the real Liverpool?’ Trenton asked now. ‘I can’t say how long I’m around for, but I kinda think I should get to know the city while I’m stationed here.’
Nancy pushed her bowl away and sat up straighter. ‘Well, the WVS has been known to run tours. Just short ones, as a way of helping our visiting servicemen find their way about the place.’
‘Ah.’ Trenton nodded. ‘See, that’s sort of what I had in mind, but as I already know my way about, I was looking for something more … customised. Something special. The Liverpool most visitors don’t get to see, that kind of thing.’
Nancy nodded, enjoying the way this was going. ‘I think I get your drift, soldier.’ She looked him right in the eye. ‘A personal guided tour, you mean? Was that what you were after?’
‘Depends on the personal guide,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
‘One might be available in about an hour when she finishes her shift,’ Nancy informed him. ‘She knows the place like the back of her hand, she was born and bred here, and could probably tell you a thing or two you couldn’t begin to imagine.’
‘Sounds just the ticket,’ he said, eyes alight with humour.
Nancy rose to her feet, not wincing as her swollen toes hit the ends of her shoes once more. She wouldn’t think about them. This was too good an opportunity to miss. It would most definitely take her mind off the trials of the morning, and if it meant her mother or sisters ended up looking after Georgie for a bit longer, well, serve them right, since they were so keen on babies and childcare. ‘In that case, why don’t you have a cup of tea or something, and wait here? Your own very special personal guide will be with you in no time at all.’