Across the Mersey - Annie Groves [98]
Bella began to shrug but the daughter spoke up again, saying proudly, ‘I am Bettina Polanski and my mother is Mrs Maria Polanski.’
‘I didn’t realise there were two of them,’ Bella told her mother. ‘And by the looks of her the older one isn’t going to be much good at doing my cleaning.’
‘Well, let’s get them bathed first, darling. It’s a pity there isn’t one of those old-fashioned tin baths, like the poor have.’ Raising her voice, she looked at the refugees.
‘You will both have to have baths and wash your hair, and your clothes will have to be washed before you can wear them again. I’ve brought them some things to wear in the meantime. Luckily Mrs Forrest had left some things with me for the Red Cross.’
‘Come along, the bathroom is this way.’
‘My mother is hungry. She needs food before anything else. We were told we would be given a meal and a comfortable bed. Your government has told us this and said that it will pay for us to have these things; they did not say that we would be treated like this.’
Bella looked at her mother.
‘You can’t expect my daughter to make you a meal at this time of night.’
The older woman turned to her daughter and said something in Polish. Her voice was quiet and as tired as her expression. The daughter looked bitterly at Bella before very gently taking her mother’s arm and guiding her through the kitchen and into the hallway as they followed Bella’s mother.
‘But are you sure that they didn’t have any … anything?’ Bella asked her mother anxiously for the umpteenth time. ‘It’s all very well saying that they’ve both had a bath and that you’ll get their clothes laundered, but …’ Bella shuddered theatrically. ‘I can’t bear to think of having to have them here in my lovely house. It just isn’t fair.’
‘At least it’s only two women, Bella,’ Vi tried to comfort her. ‘No children, thank heavens.’
Bella certainly wasn’t prepared to give up two bedrooms to them, and had told them that they would have to share. Heavens, for all she knew they probably slept in a cowshed or something wherever it was they had come from, she thought.
‘I do hope they aren’t going to make a nuisance of themselves, Mummy,’ she told her mother now. ‘The cheek of it, actually asking for food.’
‘Well, yes, darling, but the Government has said that they must be given their meals, but that doesn’t mean that you should have to put yourself out for them. The girl looks healthy and strong. I dare say between them she and her mother can do all the cleaning and the cooking. It’s the least they can do for you, after all the trouble they’re putting you to. I should suggest it to them in the morning, if I were you.’
Bella’s face brightened a little. She hated cooking, and the thought of having someone to take over her domestic responsibilities was certainly appealing.
FIFTEEN
‘Seeing that ambulance driver of yours tomorrow, are you, Campion, seeing as it’s your day off? Mind you, I have to say that it’s a bit of a rum do, you and him, with you saying that he’s not said anything to you about you being his steady. You’d never catch me allowing a lad to monopolise me like that if I didn’t have a bit of a promise from him that he was serious. You don’t want to let him go messing you around, you know.’
Grace knew that Doreen meant well but that didn’t stop her from feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable. Not that she was going to show it. Instead she smiled brightly and said firmly, ‘Oh, me and Teddy are happy as we are, just as friends.’
‘Has he really not said anything to you about you and him being an item, Grace, or are you just keeping quiet about it because we’ve got to stay single?’ Hannah asked her later on, when they were on their own. ‘Only with you being such a good-looking girl I’d have thought he’d at least have tried a bit of something on, if you know what I mean.’
Grace did, but she wasn’t going to say so. She was beginning to feel increasingly uncomfortable when the other girls asked her about her relationship with Teddy.
Should she say something to him or should she just leave things as they were? She