Across the Mersey. Annie Groves

to her, like, that Grace had got it wrong, and told her how proud you are to have Grace being offered such a chance.’

      The last rays of sunshine were warming the greenhouse roof.

      ‘That way you’d be able to ask her a few questions as well, and find out exactly what’s going to be involved. Grace said something about her having to live in, and if that’s the case then we’ll have a spare room to let out.’

      Sam was grinning now. ‘You think of everything,’ he told her admiringly.

      ‘Well,’ Jean told him practically, ‘it would be daft to have a room standing empty when it could be being used. I’ve said as much to Grace and told her as well that if she’d come to us first, we could have discussed everything properly and without all this upset.’

      It would help to soothe Sam’s sore pride if he thought that she held Grace more to blame than him. Poor Sam. Jean could well understand how having to listen to Edwin’s boasting had upset him.

      Luke aimed a morose kick at the pebble in the middle of the pavement. It was just so ruddy unfair. Why couldn’t he make his dad understand how he felt? All the lads he knew, the ones he’d gone through Scouts and then the Boys’ Brigade Band with, were in uniform now, all grinning broadly as they talked excitedly about doing their bit, whilst everyone clustered round them, especially the girls, especially Pam Harrison. Luke’s scowl deepened. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and slouched along the road.

      He’d seen the looks they were giving him, looks that said he hadn’t got the guts to join up. Even ruddy Charlie was in uniform, although from what he said, he’d no intention of doing any fighting.

      ‘Fool’s game, that is, mate,’ he’d told Luke cheerfully.

      There was no point in talking to his mum either. Normally he could rely on her to intercede for him with his dad, but everyone knew how mums were about this war. He’d already heard more tales than he wanted to remember from those who had joined up, talking about their mothers’ tears and protests.

      ‘Like I told me mam,’ Pete Riley, one of the other apprentices, had boasted only yesterday, after announcing he was joining the RAF, ‘I’m a man now, leastways that’s what the Government says. Mind you, I’m not saying there aren’t some advantages …’ He had grinned and winked before continuing, ‘That little redhead I’ve been running around after for the last six months is all over me like a rash now. Course, if me mam knew that she’d be making even more of a fuss.’

      It was all very well for his father to talk about the importance of him getting into the Salvage Corps and saying that even if there was a war it wouldn’t last for ever, and he didn’t want to be in the same position as them what had come back from the last time with no job to go to.

      ‘You’ll be doing your bit, don’t you worry about that, son,’ he had told Luke. But to Luke the thought of working on dull salvage operations when all his friends were going to be heroes in smart uniforms, was one that only made him feel more desperate to join them.

      He was beginning to suspect that even his boss thought he was a coward. There, he’d said it, the word that no one was saying but that he knew everyone was thinking. He could see it in their eyes when they refused to look at him properly and the way conversation stopped whenever he walked in on the lads he had grown up with.

      ‘You want me to what?’

      Bella looked at her brother. They were sitting in his car outside their parents’ house, Charlie having brought Bella back from the Tennis Club.

      ‘You heard me, Charlie.’

      He shook his head. ‘If you want to try and force Alan’s hand then you go ahead, but don’t involve me in it.’

      Bella looked at her brother with irritation. Did he really think that she’d have bothered involving him if she didn’t have to?

      She had been furious when Alan had refused to come in with her after bringing her home, and even more furious when he had told her casually that he couldn’t stay because his parents were entertaining Trixie’s mother and father and that he was expected to be there.

      She had every right to expect him to marry her, and somehow she’d find a way of making sure that he did.

      It hadn’t taken her long to come up with a plan, but in order for it to work she needed Charlie’s help and now he was being difficult. Well, she had the answer to that.

      ‘Of course I’ve got to involve you in it; otherwise it isn’t going to work, is it? How can you make a big fuss about Alan having to do the decent thing by me ’cos you’ve caught him out doing what he shouldn’t with me, if you aren’t involved?’

      ‘I still say it won’t work.’

      A familiar stubborn look had tensed Charlie’s face and an equally familiar truculent note had entered his voice, but Bella was determined to get her own way.

      ‘Yes it will,’ she overruled him. ‘Look, all you have to do is come outside and find us, like I’ve just told you. And don’t forget, make sure you bring someone with you, like Mr Baxter.’

      Charlie forgot about being stubborn, and twisted uncomfortably in his seat instead. ‘He’s the President of the Tennis Club,’ he protested.

      ‘I know that. And he’s a neighbour of Alan’s parents, as well,’ said Bella smugly, before returning to her plan. ‘I’ll be there crying, telling Alan to stop, and you can make a big fuss,’ she informed her brother. ‘Then I’ll say that Alan and I are engaged, and that he forgot himself a bit in the excitement of me saying yes.’

      ‘I’m not doing it.’ Charlie was determined and adamant but he was no match for Bella.

      ‘Yes, you are, Charlie,’ she told him sweetly, ‘because if you don’t then I’ll tell Dad about that little bit of business you’ve been doing without him knowing anything about it, and you pocketing the money.’

      ‘How do you know about that?’ Charlie cursed as he saw the look of triumph on her face.

      Bella had always been a sly cat, and never more so than when she wanted something. He pitied Alan Parker if he did end up married to her. Bella had got him well and truly trapped now and no mistake. He’d have to go along with her stupid plan because if he didn’t he knew she would make good her threat.

      Sisters! He’d just as soon not have had one.

       FOUR

      ‘Phew, I was beginning to think we were never going to get finished,’ Grace sighed in relief as she and Susan hurried down the staff staircase of Lewis’s and out into the early evening sunshine.

      A last-minute message from Bella had meant that instead of getting changed at her Auntie Vi’s, Grace had had to change into her cotton frock in the cloakroom at Lewis’s, whilst Susan eyed her critically and gave her advice on her hair and makeup.

      ‘Are you sure I’m not wearing too much lipstick,’ she asked her uncertainly, ‘only—’

      ‘Of course you aren’t. You wait until some chap starts trying to kiss you, you’ll be glad you’ve put a bit extra on then,’ Susan assured her without explaining the logic of her statement.

      ‘Real mean of that cousin of yours, it was, to say you had to go ready-dressed, especially when she’d said first off you was to change at her place. I wouldn’t stand for it meself.’

      ‘I am beginning to wish that I hadn’t said I’d go,’ Grace admitted. All she could really think of at the moment was the excitement of knowing that she was going to train to be a proper nurse.

      ‘Well, you are going,’ Susan told her, ‘and what’s more you’re going to put that cousin of yours well and truly in her place when she sees you in this.’

      Grace’s