Elizabeth Elgin - The Willow Pool

And until it happened she must wait, because couldn’t she next month, next week, tomorrow even, turn a corner and see him there and know he was the one? She thought again of Kip, and sadness took her.

‘I’m sorry, Kip, that it can’t be you …’

At Preston station she was able to buy a return ticket to Liverpool, which meant that at least the trains were back on the lines. But Liverpool, when she arrived there, seemed still to be reeling from the vicious bombing. The stink of blitzkrieg still hung on the air, a dusty, musty smell mingling with the acrid odour of burned timber and the stench of escaped sewage.

Yet she saw no danger signs as the bus made towards Scotland Road; at least ruptured gas and water mains seemed to have been taken care of, and bombs that had lain there unexploded and dangerous. Gangs still shifted rubble, though, and shovelled and heaved the heart of what had once been a proud seaport onto the backs of lorries.

Where would they take all the debris? Would it be dumped in bomb craters or tipped into the Mersey? Did anyone give a damn? Meg thought dully, because inside her she had the grace to care; not because it was Liverpool and people’s homes and jobs and way of life, but because there were places, not so very far away, that knew nothing of destruction and death; places surrounded by fields and trees and flowers, and where old, old stones stood untouched by time or destruction, would go on for six hundred years more. Could she ever, during those terror-filled nights, have thought such peace existed? And wasn’t she the lucky one to have left the nightmare behind her?

She gazed fixedly at her hands because she did not want to look out on the destruction either side of her and because she felt guilty it was no longer her concern. She lived in the country now; must learn to forget Scotland Road and Lyra Street and Tippet’s Yard!

Yet despite her resolve, the feeling of unease was still with her when she walked beneath the low alleyway and stood to gaze into the airless little court, taking in the wash house, the lavatories and three little houses packed together as if clinging for support. Nor did the feeling leave her when her eyes lit on her neighbour, sitting on a wooden chair, arms folded, eyes closed, outside number 2.

‘Hi there, Nell!’

The head jerked up and, all at once wide-eyed, Nell Shaw straightened her shoulders and ran her tongue round her lips.

‘Well, if it isn’t Meg Blundell, come home from the wilds and the kettle not on! Come here, girl, and let’s be lookin’ at you. My, but you look as if you’ve been on yer ’olidays!’

Her cheeks had filled out and pinked, Nell thought; her eyes shone, her hair too. Real bonny, she looked. No, by the heck, two weeks in the country had turned her into a little beauty.

‘I have been – leastways, it seems like it. Compared to this place, it’s another world. You wouldn’t believe it!’

‘So come inside and try tellin’ me whilst I’m brewing up.’

‘These are for you.’ Meg laid the carefully carried sheaf of flowers on the kitchen table.

‘Lord help us, you shouldn’t have! What did they cost you, and how many vases do you think I’ve got, girl?’

‘They cost nuthink. I got them from the garden of the brick house. But you’ll never guess what I’ve got in me bag. Eggs! Fresh, an’ all. Two each for you and Tommy. Polly sent them and, oh, there’s so much to tell you, Nell!’

‘So first things first. Are you stoppin’?’

‘At Tippet’s? No. I’m going back on Saturday. Just came to see you both and sort out a few things, then I’m off back. Mrs John wants me to stop and I want to, Nell. ’Fraid I haven’t brought any food with me, but I’ll nip out and buy a loaf, and there’s jam in the cupboard. And tonight I’ll go to the chippy and treat us all to a fish supper.’

‘Then you’ll have to be in the queue good and early, girl – half an hour before they open. But let’s have your news, though I’m sorry you are off back there. Me an’ Tommy have missed you. Met a young man, have you?’

‘Heck, no! There’s only Mr Potter, who’s the gardener, and Mr Armitage at Home Farm, and they’re old. Polly is engaged, though – to Davie, who’s in the Service Corps – lorries and transports and things – and Polly’s brother is in the same regiment. And, would you believe it, Polly is adopted and it doesn’t bother her one bit! But I’ll tell you all about it right from the start, eh?’ She plopped a saccharin tablet into her cup and watched it rise fizzing to the top of her tea.

‘By the way, you didn’t stop your milk, so I took it. That all right, Meg? I paid for it.’

‘Then don’t cancel it. No need for the milkie to know I’m away. They’ve got their own cow at Candlefold, so they don’t need my milk coupons. You’re welcome to my ration, Nell. An’ I hope you took my coal, an’ all – get a bit stocked up for the winter.’

And Nell said of course she had, since Meg had told her to, then lit a cigarette, glad that Doll’s girl was back, if only for a little time.

‘Tell me, Meg, before you start, do they know who you are? Did you tell them you was born there?’

‘No, and I won’t till I’m good and ready, though the old lady remembered Ma. Said they’d once had a housemaid called Dorothy Blundell, but I told her it was a common enough name around Liverpool and she hasn’t mentioned it since. But let me tell you …’

And the words tumbled breathlessly out, about the old part of the house, and the newer brick part that They had taken over, though no one quite knew why. And how the garden had got overgrown so you wouldn’t recognize it from Ma’s photo, and how she had nipped through the hedge and gathered the flowers she had brought with her; told how Polly was a love and treated her like an equal; how they all did, except batty old Nanny who lived in another world, when it suited her. And about sunrises and sunsets and that it hadn’t rained one day since she had been there, and feeding hens and running up and down the stone stairs and Mrs John being grateful for another pair of hands to help out with the old ladies.

‘Polly works almost every day in the kitchen garden. They send vegetables an’ things to the local shops. And next time I come, there’ll be strawberries ripe, I shouldn’t wonder, and I’ll be able to bring you some. And there’ll be raspberries and plums and apples, and Mr Armitage told me that if I let him know next time I’m over, he’ll make sure I have a rabbit to bring with me.’

She talked on, eyes shining, about how right Ma had been about Candlefold, and how it was a place hidden from the war; a place where there was milk to spare and vegetables so fresh you wouldn’t believe it; talked on and on till Nell took a hand.

‘Written to Kip, have you, since you’ve been away?’ she interrupted, eyes narrowed.

‘Kip? Well – no, Nell. But I’ve been so busy there didn’t seem time. I’ve brought a postcard with me, though, of the village. I’ll send him that.’

‘There’s a letter with a New Zealand stamp on it behind your clock, and a parcel I put in the pantry. Arrived yesterday, so mind you write and thank him for it.’ She fixed Meg with a no-nonsense stare. ‘What kind of a way is that to treat your young man!’

‘He isn’t my young man, Nell; not my steady. We don’t have an understandin’. You know we don’t!’

‘Then more’s the pity. Kip Lewis is as good a lad as you’re likely to meet, and think on that I’ve told you so!’

‘I know he’s decent and I’m not leading him on, honest I’m not. I’m fond of him, though, and grateful for what he sends – and I’ll not need to go to the chippy now. I’ll open the parcel and we’ll all have a slap-up meal tonight!’