Winter on the Mersey: A Heartwarming Christmas Saga. Annie Groves

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      Dolly sighed. She’d tried for ages to get Nancy involved with the local branch of the Women’s Voluntary Services, of which she was a mainstay. Then Nancy had outmanoeuvred her by announcing she was indeed joining the WVS, but the branch in the city centre. Nancy assured her mother it was because they were most in need of help – and as it was just after the dreadful days of the Liverpool Blitz, this was true – but it also had the advantage of being away from her mother’s eagle eye, and mixing with the influx of American servicemen, a trickle which grew to a flood after Pearl Harbor. Nancy was fooling nobody – and the fact that she was never without a new pair of nylons spoke volumes. Dolly had a pretty shrewd idea what Nancy got up to in order to get them, but she had no proof. She wasn’t going to stand for her middle daughter letting the family down, and had warned her often enough. Now she had another reason to object.

      ‘That’s all very well, Nancy, but I said I’d have little Ellen that evening,’ Dolly told her. ‘Rita’s worn out with her, and I promised to give her a few hours when she can grab some unbroken sleep. And no, before you ask, Sarah’s working, Ruby’s apparently going out with a friend and Violet is keeping the shop open late. I can’t risk having Georgie if he’s got a bad chest; he might pass it on to Ellen and she’s far too tiny to cope with that.’

      Nancy all but stamped her foot in frustration. ‘But, Mam—’

      ‘Don’t you give me any of your soft soap, my girl,’ said Dolly sternly. ‘I love Georgie to pieces, and well you know it, but there’s someone else smaller than him to consider now. You might as well get used to it. You’ve got his other grandmother who could help out, after all.’

      Nancy huffed in indignation. ‘I’d sooner let him play in the dock road. She’s useless, Mam, all she goes on about is how she’s suffering ’cos Sid’s a POW, as if she’s the only one who’s got anything to complain about. I wouldn’t trust her to notice when Georgie was hungry or if he needed anything. She’s not like you and Violet, you know.’ She turned on her dazzling smile, but it was wasted on Dolly.

      ‘Well, has she got him now?’ she demanded.

      ‘You have got to be joking!’ Nancy pouted. ‘No, she hasn’t.’

      ‘Where is he, then?’ Dolly wanted to know.

      ‘With Maggie Parker, as was. You know, Betty Parker’s big sister. Her house got bombed out and she’s moved back in with her family here and she’s got a kiddie just a bit younger than Georgie,’ Nancy explained. ‘I thought it would be nice for him to have a playmate the same age. Particularly if everything here is going to revolve around a new-born baby,’ she added crossly.

      ‘Nancy, you can’t be jealous of your own little niece,’ Dolly sighed in exasperation. ‘Betty Parker, now there’s a name from the past. She was Sarah’s best friend all the way through school, then she went and joined the Land Girls, didn’t she? They’re a nice family, so they are. Why don’t you ask them to mind Georgie on Saturday? It’s not as if you’ll be out late, is it?’ She gave her daughter a straight look.

      Nancy squirmed, but couldn’t exactly say what she’d had in mind for Saturday. It certainly didn’t involve coming home directly after the dance. Common sense told her to quit while the going was good, though. ‘That’s an idea, I’ll ask,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and do that right away – it’s time I was picking Georgie up anyway.’

      ‘That’s right, love, you do that.’ Dolly approved of the Parkers, and felt she could rest easy that Nancy couldn’t get up to anything now. She picked up her knitting again, Pop coming though the back door just as Nancy went out.

      Pop shrugged off the heavy donkey jacket that he wore for his salvage work, and turned to wash his hands at the kitchen sink. ‘Did I miss anything?’ he asked, coming through the narrow doorframe between the back kitchen and the kitchen proper. He bent to kiss Dolly on the cheek. ‘What did Nancy want? The usual?’

      Dolly laughed up at him. ‘Of course. She can’t have her own way this time, though.’ She recounted their conversation.

      Pop raised his eyebrows. ‘She’ll have to get used to the new way of doing things,’ he declared, running his hand through his shock of white hair. ‘We’ve helped her a lot and we’ll do so again, but she has to realise little Ellen needs us too. I don’t want our Rita took bad because she’s tried to do much too soon. You know what she’s like.’

      ‘You’re right, she’ll be angling to get back to work any day now,’ said Dolly, untangling a length of wool that had tied itself in a knot. ‘She’s not to rush it. We’ll have to keep an eye on her, see that she takes her time.’

      ‘She never thinks of herself, that one,’ Pop said. ‘What’s that you’re making there, Dolly? That looks familiar.’

      ‘So it should.’ Dolly held her work at arm’s length and inspected it critically. ‘It’s the wool from the cardigan Violet’s been wearing these past three years, which was more hole than cardie by the time I came to use it. I don’t know, it’s been washed so often it’s gone all scratchy and uneven. I reckoned I could make it into a bolero for her so she could still get the warmth, but we’ll have to see.’

      ‘If anyone can do it, you can,’ said Pop proudly. He never ceased to be amazed at his wife’s skill, even though they had been married thirty-odd years. She could sew, knit and cook, she was the street’s auxiliary fire-watcher, she ran make-do-and-mend classes as well as working for the WVS. She had raised five children, helped with three grandchildren so far and was hoping for more, though she never said anything in case Violet got upset. There was no doubt where most of their children got their work ethic from. He returned to the subject of the one child who hadn’t.

      ‘Our Nancy all right, was she?’

      ‘She’s got some do on, and says she’s been asked to volunteer. I don’t doubt she has, but it’s what she gets up to while she’s there that worries me.’ Dolly clacked her needles together. Both she and Pop were very strict about the sanctity of marriage and had brought their family up to hold the same view. That was why it had been so hard to stand by when Rita was married to that manipulative bully Charlie Kennedy, but Rita had never given them any cause to worry, even when he treated her so badly. The same could not be said for Nancy, who’d been caught out with Stan Hathaway, a local boy now in the RAF, in a bus shelter a couple of years back. Nancy had sworn nothing had really happened and she wouldn’t go so far again, but Dolly knew only too well what she was like.

      ‘Don’t see trouble where there isn’t any,’ Pop warned. ‘She’s a good girl at heart, our Nancy. You can’t blame her for hankering after a bit of excitement. Sid’s been gone a long time and she’s still young. It’ll all be harmless fun, you see if I’m not right.’

      ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s all it is really,’ said Dolly, not wanting to worry Pop. ‘Anyway, she’s found someone else to babysit occasionally, so all’s well.’

      ‘There you are then.’ Pop rubbed his hands in front of the little fire. ‘Now tell me something really important. What’s for tea?’

      Dolly brightened up. ‘Funny you should ask. I found a recipe from the government that uses parsnips in a pudding, and we’ve just dug up the last ones from the victory garden. It’s perfect. You mix them with cocoa and milk and it says it’ll be just like a chocolate pudding.’

      Pop’s eyes widened. Even with Dolly’s talent in the kitchen he couldn’t see how this idea would СКАЧАТЬ