Across the Mersey. Annie Groves

course I do. Bella was telling me all about it. It sounds lovely. She says she’s going to ask Auntie Vi to buy her a new dress. She’s seen the one she wants. It’s pale blue silk embroidered with white marguerites.’

      Some of the brightness faded from her face, and Jean knew exactly what she was thinking. Her heart ached for her daughter, who was never likely to own anything as expensive as a silk frock, never mind have a new one every time she felt like it.

      ‘Well, I dare say we can make up a new sash for your polished cotton, love. Suits you a treat, it does, and you’ve got the advantage over Bella, you being that bit taller and having such a lovely neat waist.’

      The little boy in front of them in the queue dropped his ice-cream cornet and started to cry bitterly, whilst his mother, who looked harassed and was clutching both their gas masks, tried to calm him. His noisy tears brought an end to any private conversation. Luke disappeared, only to reappear five minutes later carrying three cornets, one of which he gave to the delighted child and the other two to the twins.

      ‘You’re just as soft as your dad,’ Jean mock-scolded him, after the child’s mother had thanked him profusely for his generosity, and explained, ‘I thought I’d give him a bit of a treat, like, with a day at the seaside, what with me being told that he’d have to be evacuated if there’s a war, and his dad already away in the army, but it’s bin a long day for him and he’s got himself a bit overtired.’

      ‘It’s only an ice cream, and the poor little chap had only had a couple of licks of it,’ Luke answered his mother now, before turning to his father. ‘Dad, Charlie was saying that he’s joined the TA because he reckons that it means he won’t have to go away to do his six months’ training. He was showing me his uniform.’ There was a note of envy in his voice. ‘I reckon that if I were to join them—’

      ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Sam stopped him sharply. ‘The TA lot will be the first in if it does come to war.’

      ‘Charlie reckons they’ll be posted to home duties.’

      ‘Aye, well, he would reckon that, him and that father of his being the clever sods they are.’

      ‘Sam,’ Jean objected, ‘language!’

      ‘Sorry, love, but it gets my goat, it really does, the way that ruddy Edwin reckons to be such a know-it-all. I’m your father, Luke, and it’s me you listen to. We’ve been through all of this already. If there’s to be a war then you can do your bit just as well here at home with the Salvage Corps, aye, and you’ll have a decent job wi’ it if there isn’t a war. There’s no sense in rushing off joining summat like the TA.’

      Jean listened anxiously. This wasn’t the first time that father and son had clashed over the issue of Luke joining up for active service should there be a war. Like any mother she desperately wanted to keep her son safe.

      The Royal Daffodil was pulling away from the dock full of passengers and with any luck they would be on the next ferry to leave.

      Jean hoped so. It had been a long day, and now she was tired and ready for her own home, and a nice cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter.

       TWO

      Tuesday 22 August

      Grace hummed happily under her breath as she and the other girls working in Lewis’s exclusive À La Mode Gown Salon got their department ready for the store to open, the Tuesday after the family’s visit to Wallasey.

      The gowns were kept in the long row of floor-to-ceiling cupboards that filled one wall of that area of the store. The entrance to the Gown Salon was framed by silk curtains, and the carpet was thicker and a different pattern from that on the rest of the floor. All the girls working in the Gown Salon were expected to dress appropriately and were allowed to buy at a special discount the white silk blouses they all wore with their plain black skirts.

      On very special occasions and for very special would-be purchasers the curtains framing the entrance could be closed. Three velvet upholstered and extremely uncomfortable chaise-longues were provided for customers, in addition to two large cheval mirrors.

      It wasn’t unheard of for naughty schoolchildren with nothing better to do to try to peep round the curtaining to watch customers parading in front of the mirrors in the gowns they were trying on, although the head of the salon, Mrs James, was very swift to ensure that they were given stern warnings and shooed away.

      On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion, Grace had actually found her own twin sisters concealed behind the curtains, their presence given away by their familiar giggles as they tried to demonstrate to one another the ‘walk’ of a particularly demanding client who had been trying on gowns. Luckily Grace had spotted them before anyone else, and even more luckily she’d ensured that the lollipops they had been sucking did not end up stuck to the heavy curtains.

      Just thinking about that incident now made her smile and shake her head.

      ‘You’re in a good mood this morning,’ Susan Locke, another salesgirl, commented as she came hurrying in, looking over her shoulder to check that she couldn’t be overheard before she added, ‘Thank heavens Ma James isn’t here yet to dock me wages for being late.’

      ‘She said on Friday that she’d have to see a dentist. She’s been having really bad toothache,’ Grace told her.

      ‘That explains why she was in such a bad mood all day Saturday, when you was having your day off, you lucky thing.’ Susan pulled a face. ‘I hate having Monday for me day off like I had this week. Listen, do you fancy coming out for a bite of dinner wi’ me today?’

      ‘I’d love to but I can’t. I’ve got to go down to haberdashery and see if I can find a bit of something to make a sash to freshen up me polished-cotton frock, only I’ve been invited by my cousin to the Tennis Club dance in Wallasey at the weekend.’

      ‘You can’t wear a cotton frock to a posh tennis club dance,’ Susan told her knowledgeably. ‘I’ve served some of them wot’s come in here looking for frocks for that kind of thing and they allus go for summat fancy and silk. In fact, I know exactly what you should wear. That green silk you was modelling for that chap wot came in the other week. Suited you a treat, it did, and he certainly thought so as well.’ She gave Grace a meaningful look. ‘If you ask me, that tale he gave about wanting to see it on you on account of him wanting to buy it for his sweetheart and you looking like you was the same size as her was all so much malarkey. We used to get one chap coming in here that regular with that kind of tale, you could set your watch by him. Allus came in when the new stock arrived, he did, and wanted to have us try on them frocks what had the lowest necklines. Ma James used to have him out of the salon as quick as a flash if she was here when he came in. He had me trying on this red crepe one Christmas. Came up to me and patted me on the backside, he did, when no one was looking. Aye, and peered down me front as well. Dirty bugger.’

      Grace laughed.

      ‘Listen, I meant what I said earlier about you borrowing that green silk frock,’ Susan told Grace in a hushed voice later in the morning when they were in the small room at the back of the salon where the girls had their tea breaks and ironed the gowns. ‘You wouldn’t be the first to do it by a long chalk. Borrowed one meself the Christmas before last, I did, when the chap I was seeing then wanted to take me to his office do. There was one girl even borrowed her wedding frock and no one the wiser.’

      ‘I couldn’t do that,’ Grace protested, firmly refusing to be tempted by the memory of how perfectly the green silk had fitted her and how wonderful she had felt in it.

      Her parents would have been horrified and shocked by Susan’s suggestion, deeming it dishonest.

      ‘Why not? It’s not like it’s stealing or anything,’ insisted Susan. ‘You just take it wi’ you when you leave on Saturday after work and bring it back on Monday. Perk of the job, if you was to ask me, but if you don’t mind going to a posh do