One feature of working on the railway was that you worked alongside folk from all over Manchester. It was something that Dot treasured, but it had its darker side an’ all. Like now. Coming from Withington, she knew which roads had been bombed these past couple of weeks, and even if she hadn’t ever met the casualties personally, she queued up at the shops with women who had, and so she had learned their names.
That night when Mabel had driven the motor belonging to the first-aid man who had been killed, Mr Abbott and the Harrisons and Marjorie Wattleworth had all copped it in Moorfield Street, and the Brodericks had been injured, and that was just one road. There had been other dead and injured in Brown Street, Morris Street, Davenport Avenue and Allen Road. And that was just her own bit of Withington. Yew Tree Avenue and Laurel Avenue in Moss Side had been clobbered an’ all. Three houses in a row had been hit in Laurel Avenue; please God let their residents survive their injuries – which was more than the Burleys of 28 Yew Tree Avenue, and their neighbours at number 26, had done.
All that in one evening. God, it had been hard this past couple of weeks, with air raids practically every night. Even when you got a night off from them, you didn’t sleep soundly. Well, Dot didn’t. Was that because of working on the railways? Hearing details of air raids further away was part and parcel of working in a place where people flocked in from all over to go about their daily duties.
‘I’d know about the raids over in other places if I didn’t work here, of course,’ she confided to Mr Thirkle, ‘but I wouldn’t know so many details. I’d just know it was Old Trafford and Urmston and Northenden.’
‘And Greenheys and Heaton Mersey,’ Mr Thirkle added.
‘But from talking to folk here, it isn’t just the places, it’s the actual roads and the people’s names.’ Dot shivered. ‘Two families in next-door houses in Lincoln Street in Hulme; the Sands family and the Taylors. It doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s the only time I’ve ever felt any reservations about working here – well, aside from when I’m running round like a scalded hen, trying to fit the shopping in alongside my shifts.’
‘That’s your kind heart speaking, if I may say so, Mrs Green. It does you credit that you care so much about other folks’ suffering.’
‘It scares me, it really does, and that’s the truth, Mr Thirkle. Every time I hear of another family …’ She made a helpless gesture, not wanting to say the terrible words being killed. ‘… I think of my own lot. Our daughters-in-law and the grandchildren. I worry that the little ’uns should have stayed evacuated.’
‘It’s hard for everyone,’ said Mr Thirkle. ‘After the last war, how can it have been allowed to happen?’
‘That’s a question for cleverer people than us,’ said Dot. ‘We’re just the ordinary folk who have to put up with it.’
‘You do sound down in the dumps, and that’s not like you, Mrs Green.’
Dot instantly plastered a smile on her face. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘No, you’re not.’ Mr Thirkle’s voice was gentle. ‘That is, of course you’re tired. We all are after this spell of air raids.’
‘That’s what my husband said.’ Or, to be accurate, what Reg had said was, ‘Everyone’s flaming tired after all the air raids we’ve had since the end of the summer, you daft bat.’ Then, later, he had said to the girls, ‘Your ma thinks she’s the only one what’s been affected.’
Mr Thirkle shifted slightly. Did he take a small step away from her? ‘You’ve discussed it with your husband, of course you have. Pardon me for sticking my nose in.’
‘You’d never do that, Mr Thirkle.’ Dot almost took a step to follow him. ‘I appreciate your kind consideration.’ Not least because it was summat she hadn’t had from Reg in donkey’s years. ‘My husband …’ She mustn’t criticise Reg. That would be disloyal. ‘You have a way of understanding folk, Mr Thirkle.’ Did that make it sound as if Reg didn’t? ‘And you’re right. I’m not just tired. I’m feeling a bit down at the moment. You remember little Lizzie?’
‘The young girl from your group that all started on the same day?’ Mr Thirkle sighed. ‘Such a tragedy.’
‘It’s her birthday next weekend – or it would have been.’
‘Ah.’ Mr Thirkle pursed his lips in a thoughtful way. ‘And you’re putting yourself in her poor mother’s shoes, I expect, knowing you, Mrs Green. No wonder you’re feeling low.’
Such compassion. What a good man he was. Dot told him about the notebook and how they had all written in it, filling it with their memories, some trivial, some amusing, some touching. Joan had got her sister and her grandmother to write summat, and that nice Bob had added a few lines about what a nifty dancer Lizzie had been. Even Colette, who you might have thought would have had hardly anything to say, had written a whole page about Lizzie’s sunny smile and cheerful nature and how she must have brightened the day of all those passengers she helped.
‘We’re all going to take the notebook round to Mrs Cooper’s on Lizzie’s birthday afternoon.’
‘I think that’s a splendid thing to do. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was your idea.’
‘Since you mention it … but I didn’t do it to put myself forward—’
‘I never meant to suggest you did.’ Mr Thirkle looked quite flustered. ‘You did it out of the warmth of your heart, Mrs Green, and the lass’s mother will bless the day her girl was taken under your wing.’
‘Thank you.’ Not that she wanted to be big-headed, and she certainly hadn’t come up with the notebook idea in order to garner compliments, but how good it felt to receive a bit of appreciation. The most appreciation she got from Reg was when she added chopped onions to the gravy. She felt … well, was ‘uplifted’ a silly word? ‘You’ve made me feel better, Mr Thirkle, and I’m sorry for saying what I said about having to put up with the war.’
‘We all feel that way sometimes.’
‘But there’s so much more to it than just putting up with it, isn’t there? Yes, there are all the inconvenient things that you have to tolerate – the blackout, the rationing, the telling-off from the ARP warden if you let the tiniest sliver of light show.’
‘I think I know what you’re getting at,’ said Mr Thirkle. ‘Yes, there’s all the day-to-day things, but there’s something bigger behind it all, and that’s what matters: the sense of shared determination, the knowledge that everybody has a part to play.’
‘Exactly.’ Oh, how wonderful that he understood. ‘Yes, we have to put up with all kinds of things, but I never doubt for one moment that, in our own way, us so-called ordinary folk are essential to the war effort.’
‘We are indeed,’ agreed Mr Thirkle.
Dot felt a warm glow of companionship, of closeness to this dear, kind man. Hey, steady on a minute. She was a married woman. But there was no harm in this friendship between her and Mr Thirkle. Yes, friendship. Real, true friendship, a meeting of minds. She had heard that expression somewhere, probably on the wireless. A meeting of minds. There was nowt wrong with that, was there? It wasn’t as though they were all over one another like rampant bindweed. It was friendship, pure and simple – pure being the operative word. A meeting of minds. And in these dark days, it felt like a precious gift.
Dot made sure she was the first to arrive at Mrs Cooper’s. She didn’t want one of the young girls getting here first and ending up all tongue-tied in the presence of the bereaved mother, who would undoubtedly be struggling to cope on her daughter’s birthday. And she didn’t want Cordelia arriving first either. No offence to Cordelia, but the last thing poor Mrs Cooper needed was to have to mind her Ps and Qs in the presence of a well-spoken, middle-class lady in her own parlour.
Changing her cloth shopping bag from one hand to the other, she knocked on the door, touching her felt hat to make sure it was on straight. She had considered sewing a decorative button onto the brim, just to smarten it up, but when she had mentioned it to the girls, Pammy had flinched.
‘Don’t you think that’s a bit mutton dressed as lambish, Mother?’
And Sheila hadn’t argued. Thank heaven the conversation hadn’t been held in Reg’s presence.
She was wearing her best costume in honour of the occasion. Did the square neckline and the skirt’s box-pleats look dated? She had never felt anything but her Sunday best in the costume before, but these days she was more aware than was good for her of Cordelia’s elegant appearance. Lord, she wasn’t jealous of Cordelia, was she? No. At least, she didn’t think so. But they were the only two members of their group who were of a certain age and so perhaps comparisons were inevitable. Mind you, Cordelia, as the mother of a schoolgirl, was presumably a few years younger than Dot, but her gravity made her seem older than she was. Dot huffed out a small sigh. There were times when she wished she had never uttered those words on their first day, about her being on a par with Cordelia’s charwoman.
The door opened and she threw concerns about her own appearance to the winds. Crikey, but Mrs Cooper looked a wreck. That is to say, she had obviously made the effort to dress in her best and the tightness of her waves said that her hair hadn’t long been out of rollers, but she still looked a wreck. Her eyes were reddened, and no wonder, given what today was, and there wasn’t a peck of flesh on her. She looked like there was nowt but good manners and knicker elastic holding her up.
‘Been crying, have you, love?’ Dot said without preamble. ‘I don’t blame you. It’s a hard day for you and there’ll be more tears before it’s over, I don’t doubt, but me and the others will be here to help you through the afternoon.’ She stepped over the threshold. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve brought along some extra cups and saucers in case you don’t have enough.’
‘Why would I mind? That’s a neighbourly thing to do and I’m the last person to take it amiss. A bit of kindness here, a bit of thoughtfulness there, that’s all it takes.’
‘Very true. That’s what you taught your Lizzie, wasn’t it?’ Good: she had wanted to get the first mention of Lizzie in at the earliest opportunity. That was what this afternoon was all about. ‘It rubbed off on her an’ all. I never met a cheerier, kinder lass, and that’s the truth.’
‘Aye.’ Mrs Cooper’s eyes misted. ‘She were a little love, weren’t she?’
‘She was.’ Dot bustled along the hallway. ‘Kitchen this way, is it? I gave my crocks a wash before I came, but it’d be nice to rinse them again after being wrapped up. Eh, just look at your tea set. Isn’t it pretty? Are those bluebells?’
‘Harebells. I … I were saving it for my Lizzie to have one day.’
Dot slipped an arm around Mrs Cooper’s shoulders. ‘D’you know what my old dad would have said? He’d have said, “It’s a reet bugger,” and that’s swearing, and I apologise, but even so, it is, isn’t it?’
‘Aye, it is that.’ Mrs Cooper moved away, not rejecting the hug, Dot could tell, but so as to hang on to her self-control. ‘Let’s have a look at your tea set, then.’
Dot picked the pieces out of her bag and Mrs Cooper unwrapped them.
‘Yours is pretty an’ all,’ said Mrs Cooper. ‘We do like our nice things, don’t we? Our keep-for-best things. My set were a wedding present from my mam and dad. Years later, my mam told me that she’d had a big falling-out with her sister, and this sister, my Aunt Leonie, had had a special cup and saucer with harebells painted on. Not a full tea set, mind, just the one cup and saucer. And then my mam saw this set in the pawnbroker’s window and she bought it for me. After that, I were never sure whether she got it because she knew I’d like it or to spite my auntie.’
‘I hope you didn’t let that spoil it for you,’ said Dot.
‘Nay, she were a funny creature, my mother, full of moods, and she knew how to bear a grudge.’
‘Not like your Lizzie, then.’
A smile crept across Mrs Cooper’s thin features. ‘She was her dad all over again, was my Lizzie, good-natured to a fault. Let’s get your things rinsed, shall we? I’m glad you brought them or some people would have had to have mugs.’
‘And we couldn’t have that.’ Dot fished a couple of twists of paper out of her bag. ‘I’ve told everyone they must bring tea and sugar with them.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘Nonsense. There’s every need.’ Aye, and not just to help out in these days of rationing. After losing her breadwinner last autumn and her wage-earning daughter a few weeks ago, just how was Mrs Cooper managing?
A knock at the door heralded the next arrival. Dot busied herself with the tea-towel while Mrs Cooper let in Joan. Persephone arrived almost immediately afterwards, armed with a sponge cake.
‘Just to add to the table,’ she whispered to Mrs Cooper. Dot blessed her as Persephone added softly, ‘We can pretend you made it, if you like. I promise not to tell tales.’
‘Get along with you, miss.’ Mrs Cooper flapped a hand at her.
And having enjoyed the joke, it was too late for Mrs Cooper to feel awkward about accepting the cake. Dot shook her head wonderingly. That Persephone was nothing if not charming. There was warmth beneath the charm and that was what counted.
Cordelia and Mabel arrived. Colette was dropped off by that handsome husband of hers.
‘I hope you don’t think you’re coming in,’ Dot teased Mr Naylor as she opened the front door. ‘It’s ladies only this afternoon.’
‘I’ll pick you up later,’ he said to Colette.
‘He looks after you summat beautiful,’ said Dot as she and Colette watched him walk away. ‘Now come in and take your coat off. Oh, is that the dress you made? Goodness me, it was ages ago that you showed me the material. Such a pretty blue.’
Colette swiped a hand down the front of the dress. ‘It isn’t really my colour.’
‘Nay, love, it looks fine on you.’
Colette smiled, but Dot could see she was just being polite. What a shame, because she really did look lovely. With her fair colouring and blue eyes, the bluebell hue of the fabric was perfect. It was tempting to say so in the parlour, just so the others could agree and boost Colette’s confidence, but Colette was such a quiet little thing. The last thing Dot wanted was to embarrass her.
Contenting herself with ‘Well, I bet your husband likes it, anyroad,’ she led Colette into the crowded front room. As another knock sounded, she pressed Mrs Cooper into her chair. ‘You stop there, love. Let me be the butler.’
It was Alison at the door, her dark hair falling in a shining roll onto her shoulders.
‘Was that Colette’s husband I saw walking away?’
‘Aye, love. He dropped her off a minute since.’
‘My Paul would have escorted me, of course, but he’s busy this afternoon.’
‘Take your coat off. Have you brought your tea and sugar?’
‘Yes – and a tin of shortbread that my mother has been hoarding.’
‘Good girl. You go into the parlour and I’ll put the kettle on now we’re all here.’
But Dot’s intention of spoiling her hostess was scuppered when Mrs Cooper came into the kitchen. She made it clear she wouldn’t go back and be waited on.
‘You’re my guests. It wouldn’t be right not to look after you.’ She threw Dot a smile. ‘But you can stay and help.’
Joan and Mabel came to help too, but Dot shooed them away. ‘We’ll have everyone out here if we’re not careful.’
Before long, Mrs Cooper was pouring tea in the parlour. Her harebell tea set was admired, as was Dot’s pink-rose china. The sponge cake was cut and passed round on the matching tea plates while everyone chatted.
‘Tell me some good news,’ said Mrs Cooper. ‘I want summat to smile at. It doesn’t have to be brand-new good news. It just has to be cheerful, the kind of thing my Lizzie would have come home and told me.’
‘I don’t have anything brand new,’ said Joan, ‘but I’m happy going out with Bob.’
Mrs Cooper nodded. ‘Lizzie said you’d found yourself a good ’un, though his foxtrot could do with improving.’
Joan laughed. ‘He’s got a lovely family. They’ve taken to me ever so well.’
‘I’m pleased for you, love,’ said Mrs Cooper. ‘Who’s next?’
‘Me,’ said Mabel, ‘and this probably does count as brand new.’
‘That’s what we want,’ said Dot, ‘a spot of gossip.’
Mabel drew in a breath and seemed to hold it for a moment before she plunged in. ‘I’ve got a new chap. His name’s Harry Knatchbull.’ Encouraged by the others, she made an amusing tale out of what a cheeky blighter this Harry Knatchbull was.
‘To think he was there when I visited you in hospital,’ mused Dot. ‘I’d have paid more attention if I’d known.’
Mabel laughed. ‘You’d have had to be a fortune-teller, Dot, because I didn’t know myself at that point.’
‘Is it serious?’ asked Alison.
Mabel shrugged and blushed. ‘Let’s wait and see.’
‘Well, don’t wait too long,’ said Mrs Cooper. ‘You never know what’s round the corner.’
‘That’s true.’ Cordelia looked at Dot. ‘Do you think now is the moment …?’
Dot reached over the side of her chair for her shopping bag. ‘We’ve got a special present for you, Mrs Cooper.’
‘You shouldn’t have …’ Mrs Cooper began.
‘Yes, we should,’ said Persephone. ‘It’s in honour of Lizzie’s birthday.’
Dot brought it out of her bag and handed it across. Mrs Cooper didn’t move, so Mabel took it and placed it in her lap. Dot hadn’t wrapped it. After a moment, Mrs Cooper, without lifting it up, opened the notebook.
‘It’s the book we kept under the counter in the buffet,’ Cordelia explained. ‘It’s how we made our arrangements to meet up.’
‘Yes, Lizzie told me.’
‘It isn’t just a stream of old messages,’ Mabel said quietly. ‘We’ve all written our memories of Lizzie.’
Mrs Cooper uttered a short, breathy cry and wiped a knuckle across her face.
‘We wanted you to know how much she means to us,’ said Colette.
Cordelia leaned across and closed the book beneath Mrs Cooper’s trembling hands. ‘Save it for later.’
With a sniff, Mrs Cooper nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, my poor Lizzie. I miss her so much.’ She sat up straight, pushing back her shoulders. ‘But that’s war for you, and I’m not the only one.’
The names of some of the dead and injured from recent weeks – the Andrews family of 47 Peel Street, the Prices of 30 Yew Tree Avenue, and various folk from Whalley Avenue, not far from Mrs Cooper’s house – flashed through Dot’s mind.
‘All we can do is carry on,’ she said. ‘Me, I work full-time and then I go home and fettle for my family. It might not sound much, but with all of us doing the same, it’ll add up to a worthwhile amount. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why we do it – for King and country, for home and family.’
‘And for Lizzie,’ said Joan.
‘Aye, lass,’ said Dot. ‘And for our Lizzie.’