Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [50]
‘Dad’s gone down to the shelter,’ Lou announced.
‘He goes there sometimes to think about things,’ Sasha supplied. ‘That’s what he told us, wasn’t it, Lou?’
Jean stared at the twins. Were they right? She hadn’t known that Sam did that. How had they known? Not that she really cared. Right now all her pain and all her love were for Luke, her firstborn. Who but a mother could ever know what it felt like when that new life was placed in your arms for the first time and that well of almost unbearable emotion took hold of you; that need to protect that life from all harm? That love, that feeling, never went away.
Charlie was drunk. In fact he was very drunk indeed. It took him several minutes to climb out of his car. He staggered towards the front door, leaning against it whilst he searched for his key.
When, before he found it, his father opened the door for him he half fell into the hall. He could see his mother standing behind his father. They were both in their nightclothes, and his mother had rag curlers in her hair.
His father’s face was red with temper. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded.
‘The bloody bastards have called up the TA. Given us all Part One and Part Two orders,’ Charlie told them. ‘Bastards … bastards …’ His voice slurred over the words as he collapsed onto the floor, and then dragged himself up to lean against the wall, swaying slightly. ‘You’ve got to help me, Dad. You’ve got to get me out … I only joined because they said they’d never call up the TA Reserves …’
‘You’re a bloody fool, you know that, don’t you? I warned you that you were taking a risk, but you wouldn’t listen, and now look at the mess you’ve got yourself into. None of this would have happened if you’d listened to me and kept quiet.’
‘Yes, well, I didn’t, did I? But you can sort it out, can’t you?’
When her husband made no reply, Vi put her hand on his arm, saying sharply, ‘Edwin, you’ve got to do something; speak to someone. The Ministry.’
His face grew even redder as he shook her off. ‘I told you not to go getting yourself into the TA in the first place,’ he reminded Charlie again. ‘If you’d left well alone I could have wangled it that you’d be on the reserved occupation list, but it’s too bloody late for that now.’
Charlie’s stomach heaved and he was violently sick on the hall floor and his father’s slippers.
SEVEN
Grace could hardly believe that it was finally happening and that she was about to begin her nursing training, but overlying her excitement as she walked towards the hospital’s nurses’ home where she had been told to present herself, was her anxiety for her brother, and her awareness of her mother’s anguish.
Luke was in an army camp somewhere now, undergoing his training. There was an unfamiliar and very strained atmosphere at home, and as excited as she was at the thought of beginning her own training, Grace also felt guilty for leaving her mother when she was so very upset.
And yet at the same time as she shared her mother’s anxiety, Grace could also understand how Luke felt and why he had joined up.
In the battered leather suitcase she was carrying, and which she and Jean had bargained for in a pawnbroker’s dusty shop, were all the items on the list she had been given when she had received the letter informing her that she had been accepted for her training: three pairs of black stockings, one pair of flat black serviceable shoes, a selection of safety pins and studs, a packet of white Kirbigrips, two plain silver tiepins, one pocket watch with a second hand, one pair of regulation nurse’s scissors, money for textbooks, six exercise books, pens and pencils and two drawstring laundry bags clearly marked with her name. Although the cost of her uniform and the textbooks would exceed her first year’s earnings, her board and food, and her laundry would be provided free of charge.
Since Sister Harris had recommended her there had been no need for her to attend an interview, and it had also been Sister Harris who had measured her for her probationary