Across the Mersey. Annie Groves

your dad.’

      ‘I was going to tell you about it before tea … I wish that I had now,’ Grace admitted.

      ‘Well, then, in future you’ll know better, won’t you? Now dry your eyes and come downstairs and do the washing up for me, will you? I’ve got to go out.’

      Grace tried not to look surprised. Her mother never went out in the evening unless it was to pop round to see a neighbour.

      Jean stood watching Sam for a few seconds. He had his back to her, bending over his spade as he turned over the soil, his movements sure and steady.

      On the raspberry canes at the far end of the neat allotment the fruit was beginning to ripen. In front of the raspberries, cloches covered a neat line of cucumbers. In the small greenhouse were the tomatoes that were Sam’s pride and joy, and alongside the greenhouse the immaculately tended beds filled with lettuce, radish and the like.

      Nearly half the allotment was given over to Sam’s potatoes, and the green tufts of the carrots marked the place where the summer crop finished and the autumn veggies began.

      Sam had taken on a second allotment with three other men on which they were planning to keep chickens under the small orchard of fruit trees they had planted there.

      The evening air was full of the scent of the nightstock that had seeded itself in the small bed next to his rose-covered tool shed where Sam germinated the flowers that Jean loved.

      Jean opened the gate to the allotments and walked down the neat path that divided Sam’s. He must have heard her coming because he stopped work and turned round, shading his eyes from the evening sun.

      ‘I’ve brought you a ham sandwich,’ she told him. ‘You can’t go working like that without something to give you a bit of energy.’

      She sat down on the wooden bench he had built years ago when he had first got the allotment and she had been carrying Grace. She’d come down here many a sunny afternoon and evening then, bringing Luke in his pushchair so that she could sit and talk to Sam as he worked.

      His brusque, ‘How’s Grace?’ eased relief into Jean’s anxiety. She knew him so well and she could guess how he was feeling right now. Sam loved his children and she knew that Grace’s tears would have upset him, no matter how angry he was feeling.

      ‘She’s upset, just like you are. She got caught on the hop when Sister Harris said she wanted to put her up for proper nursing training. You know how she’s always wanted to be a nurse.’ She bent down to pull out a piece of chickweed that must have escape Sam’s normally keen eye for weeds, before admitting, ‘I blame meself really, Sam. I’m the one that’s always told her that money doesn’t grow on trees, and with the four of them to feed you can’t be expected to pay for expensive treats. She’s been a good girl, you know that, always bringing home little treats, as well as giving me a fair bit of her wages. Mind you, like I’ve told her, it was wrong of her going saying what she did without talking it over with us first.’

      ‘Wrong? Aye, it were that all right. I do me best, Jean. It’s bad enough having ruddy Edwin and that sister of yours looking down their noses at us, without me own daughter …’

      Sam turned back to his digging.

      So that was it! Jean had known that something more than Grace’s admission that she didn’t think her family could afford to pay for her training had got him all wrought-up.

      It was hard for a proud decent man like her Sam, who had grafted all his life, to see men like Edwin smirking and sneering, just because they’d done better for themselves.

      ‘Well, as to that, I wouldn’t swap my life for our Vi’s – not for anything, I wouldn’t. I reckon you’re in the right of it, love, when you say that Edwin hasn’t come by his money as honestly as he might have done.’

      Sam stopped digging and turned to look at her. ‘It gets my goat, it really does, having to listen to him boasting about what he’s done and what they’ve got,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘It makes me feel like I’ve let you and our kids down, Jean. I saw the look on our Luke’s face when young Charlie was talking about that car of his.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘All our Luke’s got is a bike.’

      ‘Sam Campion, I’m ashamed of you,’ Jean scolded him. ‘Luke’s never given that car of Charlie’s a second thought, I know that for a fact. It’s that Charlie’s joined the TA he minds. We’ve brought our four up to know better than that. Come and sit down here with me, love,’ she told him, patting the seat next to her and then reaching for his hand.

      ‘I’ll tell you straight that I couldn’t live like our Vi does – not for a minute, I couldn’t. I was only telling meself when we came back after visiting them how glad I was to get home. And I’ll tell you something else. I’m the one who’s got the better husband, and it isn’t just me that thinks so. Our Francine’s always said that. You’re a good man, Sam Campion, and I’ve never for a minute regretted saying yes when you asked me to marry you. A decent honest hard-working husband who loves his family.’

      Sam squeezed her hand and then wiped his free hand across his eyes.

      Jean gave him a minute to get himself back under control before continuing calmly, ‘I’ve bin thinking. I’ve got a bit put by out of the housekeeping you give me; especially with you giving me a bit more since you had that rise just after Christmas. I reckon we can afford for our Grace to do her training. She was only doing her best love, not wanting this Sister Harris to go making plans and then her having to say she couldn’t do it. She’s thoughtful like that, is Grace. She’s always wanted to be a nurse – you know that – but she’s settled herself down at Lewis’s and made the best of it. I’ve been ever so proud of the way she’s set to to do her bit for the war effort and I know you are too. It’s a real compliment to her and to us that she’s been recommended for proper training, but bless her, she’s never so much as said or boasted about it.’

      A couple of sparrows were fighting over a worm Sam’s digging had unearthed.

      ‘Well, you’re right about that, love,’ Sam admitted, ‘but I felt that ashamed when Captain Allen came in and said in front of everyone how it were a crying shame that she couldn’t do her training on account of me not being able to afford to pay for it.’

      Jean’s heart swelled with wifely indignation.

      ‘If you ask me it’s that captain who should be feeling ashamed, speaking out in public like that without him knowing the full story, about how our Grace had got it wrong and had not wanted to put her dad to any extra expense, not knowing that he’d already got something put aside just in case. Of course, not all parents are like us and try to bring up their children to respect money and to understand that it doesn’t grow on trees, and I shall say as much too when I see Elsie Norris tomorrow up at the shops.’

      ‘That old gossip?’

      Ignoring him, Jean continued determinedly, ‘In fact if I was you, Sam, I’d say the same to a couple of them as you work with, and them that’s in the ARP with you as well. No need to say too much, mind. Just a bit of a casual mention.’

      Sam shook his head, but he was smiling as well. ‘I can see you’ve got it all worked out. I’ve allus said that you’ve got a clever head on your shoulders, Jean.’

      ‘Well, I was clever enough to marry you,’ she agreed, ‘but any woman would want to do her best for her family. That’s only natural. Grace is ever so upset, love,’ she added quietly. ‘Cried her eyes out, she has. She thinks the world of you, you know that.’

      ‘Perhaps I was a bit hard on her, but she should have said summat to us first instead of going and doing what she did.’

      Jean knew when to let things rest. Sam had his sticking points and what man had ever liked admitting he was wrong?

      ‘She’s learned her lesson, love, and, like I said, she didn’t mean any harm. You know what I think?’

      Sam was