Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [156]
‘Yes,’ Vi agreed, for once unwilling to boast of Edwin’s position and their connection to the Parkers.
She hadn’t been able to believe it when Edwin had told her that the Parkers’ house had been hit by a bomb and that the Parkers had been inside it at the time. No one would ever know why they hadn’t been in their Anderson shelter now, of course.
Bella had behaved very oddly when they’d told her, laughing so wildly that Edwin had said she was hysterical. It was the shock, of course. But like Edwin had said, there’d be things to do, seeing as Alan’s parents had been killed as well, and Bella was bound to come into a tidy sum of money, Alan being their only son and Bella his wife, or rather his widow.
‘Fran!’ Jean exclaimed in surprise when she opened the door to her younger sister later in the morning.
‘Jack’s dead,’ Francine said bleakly. ‘Killed by a bomb dropped on the farmhouse where Vi had sent him because it was safer than being here.’
‘Oh, Fran, no! Oh, my poor girl.’
Jean could hear the twins coming clattering down the stairs, exclaiming, ‘Auntie Fran, you’re back!’ their voices changing when they saw that she was crying.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Sasha asked uncertainly.
‘Go back up to your bedroom, you two,’ Jean instructed them. There’d be time enough to tell them what had happened later.
‘I never even got to say goodbye to him properly, or hold him or anything They couldn’t find anything, you see. Not anything at all. The bomb was a direct hit and …’
Very gently Jean guided her sister into the kitchen and then closed the door.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘I can’t go, Jean. I’m sorry but I just can’t.’
Francine’s face was thin and pale from the amount of weight she had lost in the three weeks since Jack had been killed, but her expression was resolute and Jean knew that she was not going to change her mind.
In a way Jean wasn’t surprised that Francine was refusing to go to the memorial service that was being held at Vi’s parish church after the normal Sunday morning service for those who had been killed in the recent bomb attacks on Wallasey, and which was to include Jack’s name. Francine had already told her that she would never be able to forgive herself for not insisting to Vi that Jack should stay in Liverpool, and even though Jean had told her that she should not feel like that, she could understand why she did.
‘There’s something else I’ve come to tell you as well,’ Francine added. ‘I don’t want to stay here now. I don’t think I can, so I’ve asked ENSA to see if they can find me a place in an overseas tour. If they can’t then I’ll go back to America. In the meantime I’m going to London to see if ENSA can come up with anything, and I’m leaving tonight. It’s for the best. I just couldn’t stay here.’
There was nothing that Jean could say, no comfort she could offer her, other than a swift hug and a mental prayer that somehow her troubled younger sister might find peace.
‘I still can’t believe that Alan’s father could have kept something like that hidden. It must have been a terrible shock to Bella to discover that, as well as losing her husband and his parents, Alan’s father’s business was so much in debt, and that Alan himself had borrowed so much money,’ said Grace.
‘It was a shock all round,’ Seb agreed. ‘I must admit that I never really took to the Parkers, but it didn’t occur to me that Alan’s father might actually be cheating the Government by submitting false invoices to them for work his company had been doing for the war effort.’
They were standing together outside the nurses’ home where Seb had met up with Grace a few minutes earlier, and they were waiting for the bus that would take them to Grace’s parents. From there the whole family, including Seb, were to go to Wallasey for the memorial service for those who had lost their lives in the recent bombing of Wallasey, including, of course, the Parkers.
‘Mum says