Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [73]
‘Your dad’s gone down to the allotment and the twins with him. Him and a few of the others have decided to try keeping a couple of pigs. They’ll be back soon. He’ll be ever so pleased that you’ve passed, love.’
‘I don’t know how I ever got to pass. I keep thinking it’s a mistake. I’m having to pinch meself to make sure it’s real,’ Grace laughed. ‘I’m that happy that the Hospital is letting us all go home for Christmas, Mum. I was really upset thinking I wouldn’t be able to be here. Do you think that Luke might get home?’
‘I don’t know, love.’ Jean looked sad, her face crumpling slightly.
‘I do so wish that Luke and Dad would make up,’ Grace said. ‘I had a letter from Luke on Wednesday. I think he must be in France, although of course he can’t say.’
Jean tried to smile. Luke wrote regularly to them as well, but whilst she read his letters over and over again, Sam refused even to look at them.
‘Seeing as you’re back you can come down to St John’s market with me this afternoon. I want to go and order a goose for Christmas Day. With your dad getting extra pay for doing his bit, I’ve managed to put a decent bit away for some Christmas treats. Might as well buy them now ’cos your dad reckons we’ll have rationing before long. We can look round and perhaps order a nice tongue as well …’
‘I’m sorry, Mum, but I can’t go with you.’
‘You can’t? Why not?’
Grace looked self-conscious. ‘I’ve promised to go to a matinée this afternoon.’
‘With those girls you’ve made friends with?’ Jean guessed.
Grace went pink. ‘No, not them. It’s a lad I’ve met. A decent sort, he is,’ she told her mother hurriedly, seeing that she was beginning to look concerned. ‘I told you about him. He’s the one who gave me a lift back to the hospital after the wedding and that accident.’
Grace could see that her mother wasn’t looking convinced.
‘He lives in Wavertree,’ she told her, ‘with his mum and dad up on Oakhill Road. His dad’s got a greengrocer’s shop.’
Jean pursed her lips. ‘Oakhill Road? It’s all semidetached’s up there. Me and your dad looked at one. Nice big garden, it had, but only the three bedrooms, them not having any attic like we’ve got here.’
‘We’re closer to the shops as well,’ Grace pointed out. ‘Teddy says his mum is always complaining about how far she’s got to walk.’
‘Well …’ Grace could see that her mother wasn’t looking quite so concerned now that she had told her a bit about Teddy, but she still warned her with maternal concern, ‘Just you be careful, Grace. There’s a war on, after all, and some of these lads—’
‘Teddy isn’t like that,’ Grace assured her. ‘Bin just as he ought to be with me all along, he has. Anyway, it’s only a matinée.’
‘Well, I’m not sure what your dad will have to say.’
‘I’m nineteen, Mum, and a nurse – well, I will be,’ she amended before changing the subject. ‘I’ve brought the twins some chocolate. I thought I’d get them one of those records they’re so fond of for Christmas.’
‘Your dad won’t thank you for that. He threatens to get rid of that gramophone at least once a week. Mad about their music, they are. I caught the pair of them doing this daft dancing the other day. Jitterbugging, they called it.’ Jean shook her head. ‘They’ve learned it from that Eileen Jarvis in their class at school, whose sister teaches dancing. In my day we knew how to dance properly, a nice waltz or a foxtrot, not this silly stuff.’
Grace hid a small smile. The other girls had been saying only the other day that they ought to be thinking of getting tickets for some dances over Christmas, and especially for New Year’s Eve, and they had mentioned the new jitterbug craze, which was so popular in America.
Her head hurt so much she could hardly lift it off the pillow, and when Bella tried to move the pain in her stomach and her ribs took her breath.
The chair was still where she had put it last night under the door handle to keep Alan out of the bedroom, though. She could see it in the dim light coming in through the blackout blinds her mother