reading

June Francis was brought up in the port of Liverpool, UK. Although she started her novel writing career by writing medieval romances, it seemed natural to also write family sagas set in her home city due to its fascinating historical background, especially as she has several mariners in her family tree and her mother was in service. She has written twenty sagas set in Merseyside, as well as in the beautiful city of Chester and Lancashire countryside.

Also by June Francis

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA

Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

June Francis has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

First published in the UK as Going Home to Liverpool in 1995 by Judy Piatkus Publishers Ltd
This edition published in 2017

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to Mary Mitchell, my Polish friend George, and Sister Borromeo of the Ursuline Convent in Brentwood, as well as my husband John, for their willingness to help me with my research.

I have tried to make the factual parts of the story as correct as I can – forgive me any mistakes. Having stressed that, I wish to emphasise that my characters are purely fictional.

Dedicated to my niece Linda Proud and my agent Judith Murdoch – for making my trips south always a pleasure

And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave
thee, or to return from following after thee;
for whither thou goest, I will go; and
where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy
people shall be my people, and thy God
my God’ – Holy Bible

Chapter One

Elizabeth Knight’s feet made hardly any sound as she crossed the polished wooden parquet floor, past the statue of the Madonna of the Sea, to Mother Clare’s room. Mother Ursula, the head, must be busy elsewhere. Her heart was beating fast. It was very seldom she was summoned into Mother Clare’s presence and she wished Mother Bernard who had come to fetch her, had given her some idea as to why. She hoped her father was not going to stop her riding lessons. Last time she had been summoned had been almost three years ago, early in spring 1944, when her mother had been killed somewhere between their London home and Radio House where she had worked. It had seemed ironic that Elizabeth’s father had been stationed on the Kentish coast at the time, trying to prevent the doodlebugs from getting through. He had been devastated by his wife’s loss, much more so than Elizabeth who had spent most of her childhood and the war years as a boarder here in Essex.

She knocked and was told to enter. Mother Clare was seated behind a desk, in front of which stood a woman who was a stranger to Elizabeth. She wore a belted russet coat and a headscarf which had slipped back to reveal shoulder-length wavy copper hair. Without any preamble the elderly nun who had come from London’s Forest Gate at the turn of the century to start the school, said, ‘Elizabeth, this woman tells me she is your stepmother.’

The woman’s smile faded. ‘Jimmy did say he would write and tell you.’ The accent was not southern and she sounded both embarrassed and annoyed. ‘I’m sorry I’ve come as a shock, but if it’s any comfort he rather sprang you on me as well.’

‘We were married two weeks ago – and if I’d known about you then you’d have been at the wedding.’

Visions of a bride in white, of her father in a lounge suit, of bridesmaids, of smiling guests throwing confetti, filled Elizabeth’s mind. ‘I can’t believe Daddy would do this to me,’ she whispered. ‘How could he leave me out?’

‘I wish I knew, love.’ There was sympathy in the woman’s tawny eyes. ‘But it was only a small affair. Nothing to get yourself worked up about. As it is when he told me about you, and that you’d a half term holiday due, I thought it only right you should come home despite the awful weather.’

Elizabeth stared at her, clenching her jaw and trying to assimilate the words. ‘Why isn’t he here? Why has he sent you?’

‘Not well!’ A sharp laugh escaped her. ‘He was well enough to marry you. He probably couldn’t face me with the news. He was just the same with Mummy if he was in the wrong.’

‘Control yourself, Elizabeth,’ said the elderly nun in a quiet voice. ‘I see Mrs Knight’s point in wanting to take you home and get to know you. I think it would be sensible if you packed your suitcase and went with her.’

‘But, Mother Clare …’ she turned a pleading face to the nun … ‘I don’t know her. How do we know she’s telling the truth? Daddy worshipped Mummy. He wouldn’t have married this – this woman!’ She grasped at the idea and felt better. ‘Yes, she’s lying. It’s a trick. She’s out to kidnap me!’

The visitor looked amused as she took a packet of Woodbines from her pocket. ‘Do me a favour, kid. Tell me what I’d get out of kidnapping you? Your dad’s got no money. It’s crippling him to pay the fees and all the extras at this place. It’s very nice but …’ She shrugged.

Mother Clare tapped a fountain pen on her desk. ‘I think we will terminate this conversation.’ Her tone was cool. ‘Elizabeth, you really must control your imagination. What you said to your stepmother was impolite.’

‘Don’t mind me, Sister,’ said the woman laconically. ‘I’ve got five younger brothers and sisters. I know what kids are like.’ She tapped the cigarette packet on the back of her hand.

The woman raised her eyebrows but remained silent. Nor did she light a cigarette.

The nun gazed levelly at Elizabeth, whose heart sank. ‘I will make a telephone call to your father. In the meantime both of you may go for a walk in the cloisters. I will send for you when I’m ready.’

Elizabeth noted again that raising of the eyebrows from the woman who called herself her stepmother but she murmured acquiescence and they left the room together.

‘I won’t go with you,’ said Elizabeth as soon as the door was closed behind them.

‘I think you will,’ said the woman, placing a cigarette between her lips. ‘That old nun’ll make you as soon as she verifies the facts.’ She took a book of matches from her pocket and lit up.

‘You’re not supposed to smoke out here either!’ Elizabeth gazed at her with horrified fascination.

‘No?’ She exhaled and smiled. ‘I bet there’s lots of things you’re not supposed to do. Are you a good girl, Lizzie? Jimmy said you were but then dads don’t know everything about their daughters, do they? I know my dad thinks the sun shines out of me but I’ve done things he’d have pink fits over. As it is, he and the whole family were disappointed that I didn’t go up home to marry but Jimmy wanted it quick and quiet. We were married in a register office and there were no guests.’

‘You were married in a register office!’ exclaimed Elizabeth. ‘Then you’re not really married.’ And she smiled complacently.

‘Oh yes, we are,’ murmured the woman. ‘Neither your dad nor me is Catholic so you can forget that.’ She glanced about her as they left one corridor and walked up another. ‘God, it’s like a maze in here. How do you ever find your way about?’

‘Easy.’ Elizabeth’s tone was scornful, although she remembered feeling the same about the school on her arrival a year into the war. Her mother had been an old girl and the Mother Superior had accepted Elizabeth as a boarder when others were being sent home because her mother was doing important war work and her father was in the army. Despite Elizabeth’s tender years she remembered how exciting yet frightening it had been, hurrying through corridors to a basement cloakroom when a raid was on. The town was on a flight path for London and so had not completely escaped the blitz. The townsfolk had also taken shelter in the cellars beneath the convent hall, as had exhausted fire crews who were fighting the fires in East London and needed a rest.

They came to a long sunlit corridor where canaries trilled in hanging cages and plants in pots bravely put forth a few flowers. Elizabeth stopped. ‘This is the cloisters,’ she muttered.

‘Not like I imagined,’ said the woman, looking with interest at the birds. ‘There are nice cloisters in Chester. All old stone and grass.’

The woman’s tawny eyes scrutinised Elizabeth’s smooth rosy-skinned face. ‘You must have heard of it? It was the door to the country’s larder during the war, and in the old days Liverpool merchants grew rich on the slave trade.’ She stubbed out her cigarette in the soil of a potted hyacinth. ‘Funny ol’ mixture some of them were. One made money out of the suffering then used some of it to build the Bluecoat School for poor children.’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’ said Elizabeth impatiently. ‘I want to know how, if you lived all the way up there, you met Daddy?’

The woman did not speak for a moment then she said quietly, ‘Even up north people leave home. As it is I met Jimmy for the first time during the war. At a training camp in Pembrokeshire when I was in the ATS.’

‘Yep.’ The woman dug her hands in her pockets and smiled wryly. ‘He was forever talking about her. I’ve never known a man so struck with his wife after so many years of marriage.’

There was a silence and Elizabeth considered that ‘forever talking’. Her father could not have been in love with this woman then. She thought of her mother, who had been Daddy’s senior by eight years, and looking back remembered how he always deferred to her and how she had always seemed the strong one in the marriage. This woman looked strong too. Was that why …? She took a deep breath, needing an answer to another question. ‘But how did you meet again? It’s years since Daddy was in Pembrokeshire.’

The woman raised her eyebrows. ‘I came to London. Your dad was different to the other men who were generally only after one – but never mind that – and I never forgot him. He had a bit of culture about him and was interested in the theatre like me. He said that if ever I got to London I was to look him and his wife up.’

‘I was desperate, kid. I was trying to make it on the stage but not having much luck. I had a job of sorts, trying to make ends meet, but life was tough. I was lonely and in need of a friendly face.’

‘Daddy’s very good-looking and nice.’ ‘Too nice’ she’d heard her mother say once, but how could anyone be too nice?

‘Yes. He was nice to me and I fell for him heavily this time. No wife on the scene and he seemed really glad to see me.’ There was a silence which stretched.

Elizabeth felt like saying: ‘But I was on the scene,’ though that hadn’t strictly been true. After her mother’s death, Daddy had wrapped himself up in his grief, excluding his daughter.

Elizabeth glanced at her and the woman smiled but Elizabeth did not return the smile. How could Daddy marry this northerner without telling her! The woman’s smile faded and she turned away to gaze into a bird cage and whistle at its yellow inmate.

‘Did you make Daddy marry you?’ challenged Elizabeth, putting her arms behind her back.

The woman raised her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth lifted but she made no comment.

Elizabeth was irritated and a teeny bit scared. So might the wolf have smiled when he wanted to gobble up Red Riding Hood. ‘I won’t go with you,’ she repeated.

The woman sighed. ‘I’m getting fed up of this. I want to get back before dark so don’t give me any arguments. Think of your dad. He hasn’t been well and needs company right now. I was hoping you’d cheer him up but if you’re going to have a face like a wet Whit weekend, I could be wrong.’

Elizabeth thought, He can’t be that ill then. ‘Why didn’t he want me at the wedding?’ she said aloud. ‘Does he really want me now? I won’t come if he doesn’t really want me.’

A puzzled frown drew the woman’s pencilled eyebrows together. ‘Don’t you want to see him?’

‘Of course I do. But it won’t be the same, will it, if you’re going to be there!’ In her imagination she conjured up a picture of her father’s eager-to-please features as they had looked before her mother had died. Elizabeth always remembered him like that. She felt a pain round her heart, considering how her mother’s death had changed him. It was as if when she had died part of him had died too and Elizabeth had felt almost doubly bereaved. But before she could say any more to this woman her father had turned to instead of her, Mother Bernard appeared.

They went with her to be told by Mother Clare that she had been unable to get through to Mr Knight. ‘Perhaps last night’s snow brought the lines down?’

‘So what decision have you come to, Sister?’ asked the woman, looking her fully in the face. ‘I do hope it’s still the same as mine. Elizabeth really should see Jimmy.’ There was a touch of steel in her voice.

The nun continued to gaze at her for several seconds, then she repeated her order to Elizabeth to pack her things. So there was nothing for her but to do as she was told.

Whilst she was emptying out the wardrobe in her cubicle, several girls entered the dormitory, crowding round her and asking questions which she did not want to answer. She was mortified every time she thought about the wedding she had not known anything about, and her pride was such that instead of telling them the truth she said the marriage was about to take place and she was going home to be bridesmaid. It was an anxious and rebellious Elizabeth who met the woman claiming to be her stepmother in the entrance hall.

Anger welled up inside Elizabeth as she thought how this woman had caused her to lie to her friends. She brushed past, only to halt on the step. ‘Where’s the taxi?’

The woman’s eyebrows rose in that disconcerting fashion. ‘I’ve no money for taxis. Get walking, kid.’

Fury overwhelmed her and she said through her teeth, ‘But I’ve got my suitcase! It’s a long walk and the pavements are icy.’

‘You’ll survive,’ said the woman with a cheerfulness Elizabeth thought veered on the masochistic. ‘Console yourself with the thought that it’ll be easier going down than up, and that if you slip I’ll give you a hand up. Now move or you’ll have it dark.’

I don’t care, said Elizabeth inwardly. Nevertheless she moved. Strangely there was something in the woman’s voice which reminded her of the mother she had scarcely known, although this woman was much younger. Twenty years younger probably. The thought shocked her and she tried not to question her father’s motive for marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter.

Her temper was not improved as she slipped and slithered down Queen’s Road, between large houses with gardens which in summer were a treat to the eyes. Even before they reached the railway station, her suitcase felt as if it was dragging her arm out of its socket and by the time she seated herself on the train to Liverpool Street station she was definitely in no mood to respond to any kind of overture from the woman she still considered an interloper.

It was dusk when they reached Camden Town after travelling across London by tube. Lights were flickering on in windows and curtains were being drawn. Elizabeth was cold as well as weary, apprehensive and irritated. What would Daddy expect from her? That he had not told her about his marriage signalled that he did not expect her to welcome it. And she didn’t! As they splashed through dirty slush she could taste London’s gritty air in her throat and against her teeth, and imagined the sweep of untrodden snow on lawns and fields as viewed that morning from her dormitory window. She could almost smell the clean sweet country air. Why had Daddy had to marry this woman? He could have moved out of London when he’d been demobbed and found a little cottage and then there would have been no need for her to board. Duty was the school motto, and she could have looked after him like a daughter should in such circumstances.

‘You’ll be glad to get home,’ said the woman, pausing to take a turn with the suitcase.

Elizabeth made no reply. The house in London had never felt like home, perhaps because she had left it when she was six years old and never lived there for any long period of time since. With its high ceilings and the gas lamps that had existed then, she had often been frightened of shadows, imagining ghostly presences because the house was so old.

As they turned into the street where her father lived it suddenly felt darker despite the street lamps. It was as if candles had been snuffed out behind all the front windows. ‘Damn!’ muttered the woman, quickening her pace. ‘Power cut. I hope Jimmy has some candles handy.’

They came to the house and the woman dropped the suitcase and fumbled in her handbag. Elizabeth waited as she put the key in the latch and pushed open the door. The woman’s hand went to the light switch then she withdrew it. ‘Almost forgot,’ she murmured, and walked into the lobby in the darkness. Then she stopped abruptly causing Elizabeth to collide with her. ‘Can you smell it?’

The girl sniffed, forgetting her antipathy for the moment. ‘Gas.’ She sensed the woman frowning and suddenly a prickle of apprehension scraped down her spine. What if something had happened to her father? Instinctively she drew closer to the woman as hesitantly they sniffed their way towards the kitchen.

The woman opened the door and the smell of gas overwhelmed them. They drew back hastily as it caught them by the throat. ‘God!’ gasped the woman. ‘You get up by the front door and open it wide.’

‘What about Daddy?’ croaked Elizabeth. ‘Do you think he’s in there?’ By now her eyes were accustomed to the darkness and she could faintly make out the woman’s face. She watched her drag a scarf from her head and, bundling it up, cover her nose and mouth before plunging into the room.

Elizabeth hesitated then rushed up the lobby and flung open the front door. She took a deep breath of the London air she had scorned earlier before heading back up the lobby with a handkerchief pressed over her own mouth and nose.

The woman was bending over a huddled shape on the floor in front of the cooker. Without turning her head she said huskily, ‘There’s no gas coming from here now, mightn’t have been for a while, but open that window.’

Elizabeth did as she was told, conscious of the blood pulsing sluggishly through her veins. The lock on the sash window refused to budge and she broke a fingernail. Losing patience and almost breath she took off a shoe and smashed one of the panes. She inhaled gratefully before making her way across the floor.

The woman was slumped across her father’s body. She lifted her head. ‘Sorry, kid.’ Her voice was slurred. ‘But I think he’s been dead for some time.’

Elizabeth thought: But he can’t be dead. I’ve come to see him. I want to know why he needed this woman more than me! She’s mistaken! Fresh air’s what he needs.

Frantically she shoved the interloper away from her father’s body and noticed that the oven door was open. She slipped her hands beneath his armpits and heaved him away from the cooker, dragging him across the cold tiled floor and out to the front door. Then she looked into his face and was filled with a worse dread as her fingers sought for a pulse but could find none. Her mind struggled with the truth as tears welled up inside her. Then she became aware of the cold air chilling the back of her neck and remembered the woman who had tried to save him. Slowly she stood and went back up the lobby, aware that the smell of gas had dispersed a little.

The woman was still huddled on the floor and the fear which churned Elizabeth’s stomach intensified. Please, please, don’t you be dead, she thought, and shook her roughly. ‘Wake up!’ she yelled. ‘Wake up!’

The woman’s head lolled like a rag doll’s on her shoulders but her eyelids lifted a little. ‘Wh-what are … you … doing?’ Her voice was a whisper.

‘Holy Mary, thank God you’re not dead,’ gasped Elizabeth, relief mixing with her fear so potently that she felt dizzy.

The woman forced back her eyelids and pushed herself up from the floor into a sitting position. She looked about her slowly before her eyes returned to Elizabeth’s face. ‘Where’s Jimmy?’

Elizabeth eased her throat but even so her voice came out like a frog’s mating croak. ‘I dragged him to the front door. I think he’s dead, like you said. What are we going to do?’

There was a short silence and she wondered if the woman had taken in what she had said. Then the woman held out both hands and muttered, ‘Help me up, love. Me legs don’t feel like they quite belong to me.’

Elizabeth gripped her fingers and hoisted her to her feet. For a moment she thought the woman was going to collapse but she steadied herself and, leaning on Elizabeth’s shoulder, walked slowly into the lobby. They went over to where her father lay, and as she looked down at him the tears came into Elizabeth’s eyes and she wanted to howl.

‘Stop that now,’ said the woman, her own voice sounding raw. ‘Save your crying ’til later. We’ve got to get him inside and decide what we’re going to do.’

Elizabeth’s sobs shuddered to a halt and she wiped her eyes with the back of a hand and stared at her. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Deal with Jimmy as I said – hope the fire’s still in, make a cup of tea. And wait until the lights come on before we call the police.’

‘The police! Why should we call them?’ Her voice was stark. ‘We need a priest.’ It was what the nuns would have advocated. ‘Although it’s too late for Daddy.’ She felt the tears start again.

‘Don’t start crying.’ The woman sounded weary as she put an arm round her. ‘The police always have to be called when something like this happens. It was an accident. Get that firmly into your head.’

‘Of course it was an accident,’ said Elizabeth, wiping her eyes and leaning against the woman’s shoulder. ‘What else could it be?’

‘Exactly. The gas ran out. He put a couple of coppers in the meter and forgot to switch the oven off. Now let’s get you inside then I’ll see to him. You’ve had a terrible shock.’

Elizabeth did not argue but leaned against her as they carefully felt their way into the living room.

The oven, thought Elizabeth. ‘Why should Daddy have the oven on?’ she said aloud, shivering as she lowered herself on to the sofa in front of a fire that was only a heap of cinders.

The woman did not answer but sat with her head in her hands for a moment before rising and going into the lobby. Elizabeth hesitated, then decided it was not fair to leave it to her and followed her out. Without a word she helped her drag her father further up the lobby so they could close the door and shut out the cold. ‘What now?’ she asked, her teeth chattering.

‘We’ll put him in the parlour, have a drink – I think I’m in need of something stronger than tea. There’s some sherry we bought when we got married. I know you’re too young but it’ll put a bit of heart into us. Oh, and we’ll get a sheet and couple of blankets off the beds and wrap them round us. By the time we’ve done that I hope to God the gas’ll have all gone, the lights’ll have come on and we can have a fire and a cuppa.’ A sigh escaped her. ‘Now, lift.’

Elizabeth lifted, trying to block out all thoughts that would distract her from doing what she had to.

After the woman had covered her father with the sheet, the pair of them sat in the living room on the sofa with a blanket apiece, sipping sherry in the dark. There was a sense of unreality about the situation. Perhaps it was unreal? thought Elizabeth. A dream? But the woman was here and she couldn’t have imagined her. Besides, surely one couldn’t taste and feel in a dream? Dear sweet Jesus! she was getting all muddled. She cleared her throat. ‘The oven? Daddy couldn’t cook.’

The woman continued, ‘We didn’t have much coal, what with the rationing and him not having found a job since leaving the army. That was another thing I didn’t know about until we were married. I was a bit of a dafty. I believed everything he told me.’ Her voice was filled with self-mockery. ‘He’s been living on your mam’s money but it’s all gone now. He didn’t have any himself. He told me she married him for his charm and good looks when he came to work on the family farm, but he loved her all right. He could have married better if it had just been for money. He didn’t pay last week’s rent by the way. I did with me last wages. That’s why I thought you should come home. You’re his daughter and he should have told you the way things were instead of pretending.’ She paused. ‘How old are you? Thirteen? Fourteen?’

‘Fourteen a month ago.’ Elizabeth’s voice was low and uneven. She was conscious of a hollowness inside her, a mixture of hunger and loss. Her head felt light and the woman’s words seemed to echo inside her brain. Was it true what this woman was saying? She had never known how her parents had met. As for what she had said about money, it sounded as if things couldn’t be worse.

‘And a young fourteen, I bet,’ murmured the woman. ‘He talked of your staying on at school, thought it was important that you got a good education so you could support yourself. I wonder – is that where I came in? He must have been mad …’ Her tone was thoughtful.

The woman did not answer but uncurled herself and got to her feet. ‘I’m going to put a penny in the meter and chance making a cuppa.’

Elizabeth rose hurriedly and followed her from the room, still clutching the blanket around her shoulders. She did not want to be alone. ‘There might be some gas still around.’

‘We’ll open the back door wide. I suppose we could try getting a fire going but it would mean traipsing down the cellar in the dark.’

Elizabeth considered. ‘What about Mrs Slater next-door? She’d give us a cup of tea.’

‘I’d rather not bother the neighbours about this, kid. She might come poking her nose in and we don’t want that.’

‘And what about your dad? She’ll ask questions. I want to deal with this in my way. God willing, it’ll work out best in the long run.’

Elizabeth said no more but was relieved when the woman changed her mind about lighting the gas ring on the cooker because the smell of gas still hung in the air. She went down into the cellar and Elizabeth felt a faint stirring of admiration. It was eerie enough where she was, without plunging into a place she remembered as cobwebby and spooky.

It took some time to get a fire going and a kettle to boil but there was a hypnotic quality about waiting for both and her thoughts were partially distracted from the body in the parlour. Once the woman went and clicked on the light switch but there was still no power. It was not until they were warming their hands round cups of tea that the bulb overhead flooded light into the room.

Immediately the woman went over to the mantelshelf but Elizabeth could not see what she was doing because she had her back towards her and her body blocked Elizabeth’s view. After a few seconds she left the room. When she returned she dropped a crumpled ball of paper on to the fire and stood watching it burn. Then she went into the lobby, lifted the telephone receiver and dialled.

The woman gazed gravely at him. ‘We were married only two weeks ago.’ Her voice was unsteady and she dabbed at her eyes with a dainty embroidered handkerchief.

Her answer took Elizabeth by surprise and she thought, You’re a liar, Phyllis Mary Knight.

‘Note?’ Somehow the woman managed to infuse overwhelming astonishment into the single word as her eyes slowly filled with tears. ‘You can’t be suggesting –’

‘Please don’t cry, Mrs Knight,’ said the policeman hastily. ‘In cases like these we always have to ask. Perhaps we could just run over your statement again? And then, if we could talk to your stepdaughter …’

‘D’you have to?’ There was a tremor in her voice. ‘This has all been a terrible shock to her. She hadn’t seen her daddy since Christmas.’

I’m not that young, thought Elizabeth indignantly. And you’re not so old yourself!

Elizabeth listened keenly and realised there were a couple of things the woman had wrong. Elizabeth had not been by her side when she had found Jimmy’s body near the cooker, and neither had they carried him outside together. But why should Phyllis lie?

It was not until the policeman started to question Elizabeth that his earlier mention of a note flashed into her mind. She remembered the paper that Phyllis had thrown on to the fire, the open oven door, and how the woman had tried to save Daddy’s life. Putting these facts together, she reckoned she knew why Phyllis was lying to the police, so she followed suit.

The policeman seemed satisfied with her answers and put his notebook away. ‘There’ll have to be an inquest, Mrs Knight,’ he said. ‘You just speak up like you have to me and I can’t see you having any problems.’

‘Thank you, officer.’ Phyllis smiled her gratitude. ‘Let me see you out.’

Elizabeth watched them leave the room. Picking up a blanket from a chair, she wrapped it tightly about her and curled up on the sofa. Her father’s body had been taken away and she was still trying to come to terms with that.

Phyllis reappeared and went to stand by the fireplace. She gazed down at Elizabeth with a faint smile on her heart-shaped face. ‘Jimmy said you weren’t soft.’

‘What did the note say?’ Elizabeth’s voice was stiff with the effort of controlling her emotions.

There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘It said he had cancer. There was going to be a lot of pain and he didn’t want you to see him suffering.’

‘Me? But I hardly ever saw him, and I wanted to! I feel like I hardly knew him. It wasn’t me he killed himself for.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, I don’t want to believe he killed himself! He’ll never be allowed into Heaven.’

‘Don’t believe it then. Carry on pretending it was an accident,’ the woman said lightly. ‘As for me, I’ve got to accept, from what he said about going to your mother in the note, that he certainly didn’t marry me for love but because he knew you were going to need someone. God only knows why he picked me.’ Her hands were unsteady as she lit a cigarette.

‘I have an aunt.’ Elizabeth’s voice was tight and she plucked the edge of the blanket. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen her. She was Mummy’s sister. They fell out when Mummy got married.’

Elizabeth shook her head, realising afresh how little she knew about her parents’ lives before she was born. The full significance of her father’s death suddenly hit her. ‘You said he had no money? No money at all.’

‘That’s right. Hopefully there’ll be some insurance but I can’t see there being enough over after the funeral to keep you in knickers, never mind that convent school in the country.’

Elizabeth stared wide-eyed and her spirits plummeted even further. ‘Then what’s going to happen to me?’ she stammered. ‘Will I live here w-with you?’

‘No.’ Her stepmother inhaled and then blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘I wouldn’t stay in this house now for a gold clock. I came to London hoping to see my name up in lights.’ For an instant her expression showed deep disappointment, then she shrugged. ‘Another dream down the swanny. I’m skint and I’d like to see my family.’

‘But what about me?’ repeated Elizabeth, feeling utterly lost. ‘You’re my – you’re my – stepmother!’ She managed to make the word sound like an accusation.

Phyllis stared at her and slowly smiled. ‘So I am. In that case, I suppose you’d best come with me. But I warn you now, I don’t like moaners. So if you have any complaints, keep your mouth shut. Now let’s get to bed. I’ve a feeling the next few days are going to be rough.’

Elizabeth did not argue. She had a strong conviction this was an understatement but saw no other option open to her at that moment but to stay close to this woman who was her stepmother and now her father’s widow.

Chapter Two

Elizabeth was still sticking close to her stepmother as they came out of a side exit of Lime Street station in Liverpool. She narrowly missed being knocked over by a porter with a trolley because she was gazing about her and not liking what she saw. Grime-encrusted snow was heaped like molehills along the edge of the pavement and the light from the street lamps shone on cleared but wet cobbled streets. The buildings looked drab and the fact that her stepmother was humming a tune beneath her breath caused Elizabeth to wonder what there was to be so cheerful about.

She kept quiet, conscious of her dependency on the woman who had told her she didn’t like moaners. Not that Elizabeth didn’t have plenty to moan about. The journey had been terrible. The train had been stuck in snowdrifts just north of Rugby and they’d had to wait hours before the army, with German prisoners-of-war, had come to dig them out. All this on top of a fortnight during which there had been moments when she had sunk into a mire of despondency from which she felt unable to lift herself. Her stepmother had alternately cosseted and chivvied her, and during the inquest and funeral had held her hand tightly as if she really was her mother and shared the grief Elizabeth was feeling. Yet she had told the girl to call her Phyl, saying it was impossible for either of them to feel comfortable with the term ‘Mother’.

The coroner had pronounced a verdict of accidental death although he had touched on the possibility of suicide. Why hadn’t James Knight switched off the gas as soon as he had become aware of its strong smell? According to the deceased’s doctor, he had known he had a disease which was life-destroying. Suicide could have been on his mind. But in the absence of a note the coroner considered it wrong to bring in such a verdict which could only intensify the suffering of his wife and daughter. The verdict had been such a relief that neither of them referred to the piece of paper Phyl had burnt. Afterwards there had been the funeral to get through but Elizabeth did not want to think about that now.

‘Are you OK, Lizzie?’ Phyl’s concerned tawny eyes scanned her pale face. ‘You’re not going to faint on me?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said brightly. ‘It-it’s different to Essex.’ It still hurt when she thought of all that she had left behind.

Phyl smiled. ‘We do have country round about here, and we have the Mersey and beaches and seaside resorts with all the fun of the fair. You’ll see it won’t be as bad as you think.’ She waved a hand towards the back of a building. ‘That’s the Empire theatre. It’s where I won a talent competition, singing and dancing. It does have a more distinguished frontage, just as good as any theatre in London. And wait ’til you see St George’s Hall. It’s all pillars and marble and Victorian grandeur. But not today. We haven’t got time, and besides we’ll have to walk home and it’s a couple of miles.’

Elizabeth tried to conceal her dismay. ‘You should have said you had no money left. I wouldn’t have asked for tea and a bun.’

‘It doesn’t matter now. It’ll be good to stretch our legs. Although, like you, I’d prefer to be without the suitcases.’

Two miles! thought Elizabeth. It would have been nothing to her without the suitcase and in the countryside – but two miles on icy pavements! Even so she fell into step beside her stepmother and tried not to make comparisons as they came to a road with dimly lit shops. After all, shops were shops wherever you went, only the names were different. Here the snow had turned to slush but had started to freeze again so that it was crunchy underfoot.

‘This is London Road,’ said Phyl. ‘Every Easter, Whit and Christmas we used to come here to buy material for dresses at TJ’s. That was before Billy and the tiddlers arrived. There were me two sisters and Mam and me. Mam loved pink. She’s a great believer in pink for a girl, blue for a boy. I got real sick of it. I remember yelling at her one day that it was sickly and sweet, just like coconut ice. My sister Lois, who can be a right smarm, said I should count my blessings. Mam agreed and Lois got a sweet while I was smacked.’

Phyl pulled a face. ‘That’s me, though. I say what I think. Even so, you can tell you’ve never been driven mad by brothers and sisters.’

‘That’s not my fault. But girls at school were enough to make me tear my hair out at times,’ said Elizabeth, changing her suitcase to her other hand.

‘Jealousy and bitchiness, I suppose,’ murmured Phyl. ‘It’s different with boys. They like to be top dog and expect you to wait on them, whatever their age. Although I reckon our boys being a bit like that is down to Mam having four daughters.’ She was silent a moment. ‘You’re going to find it quite different.’

Elizabeth did not doubt it. She looked forward to meeting Phyl’s family with a mixture of curiosity and dread. Brentwood Boys’ School was only five minutes away from the Ursuline convent school but it might as well have been on the moon. The male sex was a mystery to Elizabeth. Her only contacts of any importance had been her father, and Father Doyle who had taken care of the convent school’s spiritual needs. Both he and Mother Clare had written expressing their sympathy over her father’s death and regret that she’d had to leave. They wished her success and happiness in her new life and said she would remain in their prayers. Those prayers were a comforting thought; like having an umbrella in case it rained. At that moment she felt a snowflake, feather-light, land on her nose, which brought her back to the present.

‘I reckon we could be in for it,’ said Phyl, taking hold of her sleeve. ‘We’ll cross here. This is Monument Place. See that statue of a man on a horse? He’s George III. Money was raised by public subscription to put it up. He went mad, didn’t he?’

‘So they say.’ Elizabeth turned up her collar as more snowflakes drifted down.

‘I wish I still had my army boots and thick socks. These old shoes let in,’ said Phyl, lengthening her stride.

Elizabeth said nothing. Her lace ups were six months old and comfortable, and her black mackintosh was new. Phyl wore the black astrakhan coat and black fur hat she had bought for the funeral. As they forged on their suitcases felt heavier with each step. By the time they had trudged the length of a road called Moss Street, those first few snowflakes had turned into a blizzard which slowed them down and froze them to the marrow. The noise of the traffic was muted and even the sound of the wheels of a handcart crossing into Shaw Street would have been deadened if they had not squeaked.

From beneath the brim of her school hat, Elizabeth glanced in its direction, having noticed that Phyl’s expression had brightened as she looked at the man pushing the cart. The collar of his ragged jacket was turned up and the cloth cap he wore was pulled forward so that Elizabeth could not see his face properly, but it was obvious that Phyl had recognised him.

‘Alex Payne, as I live and breathe!’ she cried. ‘Give us a lend of a bit of your handcart.’ She did not wait for a response but heaved her suitcase on to the cart among bric-a-brac, jam jars and rags. She reached for Elizabeth’s too but she hung on to it. She did not know this man but he was a totter and she didn’t trust the breed.

He was staring back at Phyl in obvious amazement, blinking snowflakes from his dark eyelashes. His weather-beaten face was flushed with the cold and he looked grim. When he spoke, his voice was harsh. ‘What are you doing here, slumming it? I thought you were living it up in the posh south?’

Elizabeth watched Phyl’s smile fade and wanted to hit him. What did he mean, posh south? Hadn’t he ever heard of the poverty in London and the hovels of some farmworkers?

‘Hardly, Alex,’ said Phyl. ‘I’m on me uppers. I’ve a hole as big as the mouth of the Mersey tunnel in my shoe and not a bean to my name.’

His expression changed to one of puzzlement. ‘But I heard you’d wed. I thought things were going well for you?’

‘I wed all right but now I’m a widow. What brought you back here? I thought you’d run away for good.’

‘Me and the sea didn’t suit.’ He breathed deeply as he heaved on the handles of the cart. ‘And when I got back you’d gone to do your bit for King and country. It wasn’t long before I followed suit.’

Phyl wrinkled her nose. ‘But why come back here after being demobbed? What about Canada, lumberjacks, and mounties who always get their man?’

‘Don’t keep reminding me of what I said when I was a kid,’ Alex said roughly. ‘Things change, Phyl.’ He glanced at Elizabeth who stared back at him, coldly enough to freeze a snowball in the tropics. ‘Who’s the girl?’

‘This is Lizzie, my stepdaughter. And don’t make any wisecracks about wicked stepmothers.’ Phyl smiled up at him and gripped one of the cart handles. ‘Remember the shows we used to put on in your dad’s yard when Nan worked there? Cinderella and all that.’

He grinned and Elizabeth was taken aback. There was something heart-twistingly attractive about him when he smiled. Margaretta McDonald would have called him a heart throb. She had been a day girl whose mother worked at the Selo film factory in Brentwood, an avid picturegoer who took Margaretta regularly to the Electric Palace in the High Street. Tyrone Power was her favourite film star. Margaretta had smuggled a photograph of him into school and several of the girls had drooled over him. Elizabeth stared at Alex Payne intently. Had he once been Phyl’s heart throb?

‘I got a whacking from Pa for letting you use the stock,’ he said, seemingly unaware of Elizabeth’s intense stare. ‘Some were good quality clothes from those houses round the park.’

‘I never thought you’d come back and work for your father again,’ said Phyl, shaking her head. ‘How is he? And where’s your horse?’ She looked around her as if expecting to see the animal.

Elizabeth’s ears pricked up at the word ‘horse’. It had been really upsetting for her having to give up riding lessons.

‘He’s thrown a shoe. As for Dad, he’s dead. Suddenly keeled over two days after I got back from Palestine.’ His expression was bleak once more, as if the blizzard had got in behind his eyes.

‘So you’ve taken over? You surprise me. You said you’d never work in the business again.’

‘Things don’t always work out the way you want them to,’ he said bitterly. ‘So stop harping on the past, Phyl.’ He heaved on the cart, pulling it out of her grasp as he turned at the end of some gardens into Eastbourne Street.

His words and actions took Elizabeth, as well as Phyl, by surprise but it was only Phyl who slipped and landed flat on her back. ‘Alex, wait!’ she cried. ‘I didn’t mean – and I haven’t asked –’ But he didn’t stop. Instead he carried on at a cracking pace, putting more and more distance between them.

Elizabeth gazed after him. He had a horse! The heart throb had a horse! She hoped he and Phyl hadn’t fallen out for good. Then she remembered he had her stepmother’s suitcase and started after him.

‘He’ll drop it off at our house and likely tell them we’re on our way. Which I’m not sure whether I’m glad about or not,’ she said. ‘Sometimes surprise is best.’

Phyl grimaced and rubbed her backside. ‘Never mind. Let’s get walking. Just follow the tracks.’

They did just that with Phyl giving a running commentary, pointing out the local Orange Lodge meeting hall. Elizabeth did not like asking what the Orange stood for. She was more interested in the Dolls’ Hospital in Whitefield Road. ‘Our Lois broke me doll’s muggin head one Christmas,’ said Phyl. ‘It was brand new. I’m sure she did it on purpose ’cos hers wasn’t as good. It took me ages to forgive her.’

Elizabeth thought, Lois sounds like a girl I knew at school, and tried not to be apprehensive. She peered through the whirling snowflakes which were somehow hypnotic. She was weary and felt herself drifting. What was she doing here? The buildings and landscape were so unfamiliar that she could have been in the Antarctic. She thought of Scott and of the man who had walked out into the snow to die.

‘Not far now,’ said Phyl, and there was pleasure in her voice. ‘See, there’s the chandler’s where I used to get block salt and candles for Mam.’

Elizabeth blinked and stared but could see no cause to celebrate. It was just another shop on a corner, except it was opposite a school. ‘Prince Rupert’s School,’ Phyl informed her. ‘He was a cousin of Charles II, so naturally on the side of the cavaliers during the Civil War. Liverpool had a castle in those days down by the river and it was besieged.’

‘Has the castle gone now?’ She tried to show interest, but her feet were freezing. She slithered over a grating outside a pub, sending snow down into the cellar.

Contents

About the Author

Also by June Francis

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two