Walking Back to Happiness Read online

  ‘I’d enjoy that,’ said Lucia, surprised by the invitation and able to guess what Maggie and Josh would say if she told them of it. Although Tim appeared to be a good few years older than her, she was not going to allow that to bother her. He was an interesting man and she was looking forward to going out with him.

  But first she had to see if Michael and Theresa would stay in on Friday evening and look after the younger ones.

  ‘Why?’ responded Michael when she asked him. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to the Cavern. Mr Murphy asked me to keep him company. Not that it’s any of your business,’ she replied.

  ‘It’s probably his way of saying thank you for putting up with Jerry so much,’ said Theresa.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Lucia. ‘Anyway, I could do with a night out.’

  Neither her brother nor her sister disputed that, so she took that as a yes and considered what she should wear for her first night out in ages. She hadn’t bought any new clothes for a while, so everything in her wardrobe was fifties-style. Would Tim care that much about how she looked? Hopefully he would understand why her clothes were dated. She took out a straight, dark green skirt with kick pleats, and a pale pink blouse with short sleeves, then rooted in the top drawer of the chest of drawers and found a Waspy belt and an unopened packet of American Tan nylon stockings and a suspender belt. In a Wedgwood powder bowl, which her aunt Babs had bought her last time she was in England, she found a necklace of white plastic pop-it beads and decided they would do for jewellery.

  With her outfit settled, Lucia decided there was nothing for her to worry about, but to look forward to her date with Tim. The days passed slowly, but at last Friday dawned. At the coffee bar, Lucia was counting the hours. As soon as her shift finished she was off, praying that everything would be all right at home so she would be able to go out. She need not have worried. Both Theresa and Michael seemed in a good mood, happy to stay in and mind the younger ones, who were happy too, as it was Friday, which meant no school in the morning. They also thought that entitled them to be allowed to stay up an hour later, but Michael wasn’t having any of it and insisted they went to bed, although he did say he would let them have their lights on for longer so they could read or play quietly.

  Tim called for Lucia at seven thirty and they caught a bus into town. As they left the bus in the centre of Liverpool, she was aware of a bubbling excitement. It seemed an age since she had been in town of an evening and she had forgotten about that air of expectancy in the crowds of people out for a good time after working hard all week.

  She was also aware of the extra excitement when it was obvious there were several ships in from foreign parts, proof of which was the number of sailors in unfamiliar uniforms and the buzz of voices speaking broken English or in foreign languages. Lucia hugged Tim’s arm, not wanting to get separated from him amongst the bustling crowds. Some were in town to see a play, show or a film, or simply for a drink in one of the many pubs or a meal in a restaurant. At last they managed to break free from the mass of people, and Tim took her, via a short cut, to Mathew Street, where the Cavern was situated in a narrow thoroughfare of tall buildings that had once been warehouses.

  There was a queue outside which Tim and Lucia joined. It was not until they were inside and listening to the first act that she noticed her step-cousin, Tony, was there with Nick Walker, whom she had first met in her aunt Nellie’s house when Nick had auditioned to replace Jimmy Miller, a sailor who had decided to go back to sea. Lucia had once had a crush on Jimmy and it had almost broken her heart when he had married a friend of his sister, Irene. Lucia told Tim about her step-cousin, Tony, having signed a recording contract a few years ago as a solo artist, and that she hoped he was going to get up on the Cavern’s minuscule stage and sing. When he did so the applause was deafening, and Tim commented on the pureness and the range of his voice.

  ‘I must write him up for the Mersey Beat,’ he said.

  Lucia looked at him in surprise. ‘That only came out earlier this year – how is it you think they’ll accept an article from you?’

  ‘I know a bloke from the Jacaranda Club, who’s a photographer now and works for the newspaper. He said he’d put a word in for me as I’ve always been interested in music and used to write about it years ago.’

  ‘Have you ever sung or played an instrument?’

  ‘No, I was never encouraged to when I was a kid. To be honest my father positively discouraged me. I’d have probably been rubbish anyway.’

  ‘You shouldn’t put yourself down,’ said Lucia. ‘Anyway, would you like me to introduce you to Tony? He’s my aunt Nellie’s stepson and he has quite a story to tell. He’s part-Italian, so you can ask him about his childhood and how he came to Liverpool and got into music.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re great.’ Tim kissed her cheek and, taking her hand, added, ‘Lead the way.’

  She drew him through the throng to where Tony and Nick were standing to one side of the stage with a young man and a girl she had never seen before. Lucia introduced Tim to her cousin and his friend and looked questioningly at the latter, who introduced the two strangers to her and Tim as brother and sister, Chris and Grace. ‘I stayed with their family after Kenneth, my adoptive father, was murdered,’ added Nick. ‘Chris and I were at the Liverpool Institute, and now he’s a reporter on the Echo and Grace and I are going steady.’

  Tim surprised Lucia by saying, ‘I have a reporter from the Echo helping me write my book. In fact it was Isabella who suggested I write about my life.’

  ‘I imagine she wants a warts-and-all story from you,’ said Chris. ‘She’s a tough cookie and has a way of worming any well-kept secrets out of people, especially men – but then she is a looker, and knows how to employ her charms to the best effect.’

  ‘I’ve no interest in her in that way,’ said Tim. ‘I discovered some time ago that looks aren’t everything. Kindness and having interests in common are more important in a relationship.’

  Lucia could not help noticing Tony and Nick glancing down at hers and Tim’s interlocked hands. No doubt that information would go back to her aunt Nellie. Tony asked what she was doing on Christmas Eve. She told him that she would be staying home and watching telly after the kids had hung up their stockings and gone to sleep. ‘Not that there’ll be much in the stockings this year,’ she sighed. ‘For that reason, I didn’t encourage them to send notes to Santa or take the younger ones to the grotto in town.’ She smiled at her cousin in a ‘what can you do?’ kind of way, and Tony looked thoughtful but remained silent.

  Shortly after, Lucia asked Tim if they could leave, as she didn’t want to be too late getting home. He agreed immediately; it was just as well that they left when they did because once outside they could hear foghorns on the river. Although the fog in the city streets wasn’t too dense, there was no knowing if it might turn into a peasouper in the next hour and the buses stop running.

  It was only later, as she was getting ready for bed, that she wondered whether it had been a mistake to introduce Tim to Nick. Nick was a policeman, having followed his father, Sam Walker, into the force. Sam had now risen through the ranks and was a detective inspector in Liverpool but, given Tim’s past, there was little doubt that he would be known to him.

  Two

  A few days before Christmas, Lucia called in at her aunt Nellie’s on the way home from work. Delighted to see her, Nellie led her upstairs and showed her several parcels. ‘These are for you and the kids. Amazing the post got them to us in time, bearing in mind the ships have had terrible trouble docking due to those awful dense fogs in the Irish Sea.’

  Lucia looked at the stamps on the parcels and saw that they were American. They must have been sent by her mother’s younger sister, Babs, who had married a GI and moved to the States shortly after the war. Her mother had often said that Babs was the flighty one in the family. Lucia had only met her once and had wished her own mother had possessed a small part of Babs’s glamour, vivaci
ousness and generosity of spirit.

  Babs had written shortly after Lottie and David’s deaths, regretting being unable to fly over for the funeral. Babs was a widow with two sons, her in-laws’ only grandchildren, and so the ties between them were strong. After her husband’s death, she had decided to stay in America, rather than return to Liverpool to be nearer her sisters and brother, but she wrote regularly to her siblings.

  ‘Do you want to leave them here and open them Christmas Day? You can all come for dinner …’ said Nellie.

  ‘Could Uncle Michelangelo bring them to ours on Christmas Eve after eight o’clock instead? We’ll be staying home on Christmas Day. Mam and Dad always invited Mrs Hudson to have dinner with us, so I’m planning on keeping up the custom.’

  ‘OK, come on Boxing Day instead. But I hope you’re not expecting your uncle to dress up as Santa and come on a sleigh?’ joked Nellie.

  ‘Now that would be something, but my dreams don’t reach that far,’ said Lucia. ‘Still, seeing these parcels has made my day.’

  On her way home, along Bridge Road, Lucia wondered if she had been daft not to open the parcels to see what was inside. It would have been more sensible knowing what her aunt had sent them. She thought how some relatives would have just sent money, as her great-aunt on her father’s side had done before she died. It meant a lot to Lucia that Babs had gone to the trouble of shopping for individual gifts for them, knowing that it would cost her a fair amount to send them to England.

  But the surprises for Lucia were not yet over, because the next time Nick came into the coffee bar, he took her aside and said, ‘I reminded Dad about your mam and dad having been killed and how tough it was going to be for you and the kids this Christmas, so he said that he would give your particulars to the Police Benevolent Fund; so you’ll probably get something from them to help you out and make your Christmas a better one.’

  She was thrilled, not only at the thought of getting help from the PBF but also that Nick and his father had taken the trouble to help them; she thanked him fervently.

  After Nick left, Maggie came over to Lucia and said, ‘What did Nick have to say? If you played your cards right and had nothing to do with that ex-jailbird, he might ask you out.’

  ‘Nick is just a good friend.’

  ‘He told me last time he dropped by that he’d seen you at the Cavern with Tim.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘You know what. Take heed of what I’ve told you, Lucia, and have nothing to do with Tim.’

  ‘Asking me out was just his way of saying thanks for having his son round at ours so he can write in peace,’ said Lucia, annoyed at herself for making up an excuse. ‘Besides Nick is dating his friend Chris’ sister, so he’s not going to ask me out. Chris works at the Echo and knows the woman who is helping Tim write his book.’ She wondered what that might entail, recalling what Tim had said to Chris about not considering good looks as important as kindness, but could he remain immune to Isabella’s charms when they would be working in close proximity for months? So far, Lucia had not caught sight of any attractive female visitors to her neighbour’s house, but maybe Isabella visited Tim to assist with his writing while Lucia was at work. She thought she might casually ask Mrs Hudson whether any ‘family or friends’ had been to visit her lodger.

  Her neighbour’s response was immediate and her expression disapproving. ‘If you mean that woman reporter, she’s been here a few times and had the nerve to tell me that they didn’t want to be disturbed by my offering cups of tea or coffee. She made me feel as if she thought I’d make that an excuse to see what they were up to.’

  Lucia nodded thoughtfully, curious as to whether theirs was more than just a working relationship. She would like to get a look at Isabella, especially since hearing what Chris had had to say about her. But she was to see someone much closer to Tim before she caught sight of the elusive Isabella. Tim’s sister, Peggy, who lived in Bootle with her husband Pete and toddler daughter in his mother’s house, paid her a visit.

  ‘I was just after visiting our Tommy and Jerry, so I thought I’d pop by and see how you are getting on,’ Peggy said. ‘Christmas must be a difficult time for you.’

  ‘It is, but things could be worse,’ said Lucia, thinking it seemed strange hearing Tim referred to as Tommy, even though that was the name by which he had been christened. She put on the kettle before shooing the children out to play. ‘I’ve never forgotten Mam being told by Aunt Nellie always to remember that kids have big ears, so don’t go talking secrets in front of them,’ she said to Peggy before adding, ‘Aunt Babs in America has sent presents for us via Aunt Nellie. Tony’s dad is going to deliver them here on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘How lovely!’ said Peggy. ‘That’ll make the big day better for you. I suppose you’ll be going to Nellie’s for your dinner?’

  ‘No,’ Lucia explained, ‘I plan on inviting Mrs Hudson to Christmas dinner. It’s something Mam and Dad always did and I thought I should continue with it. I’m presuming Tim and Jerry will be spending Christmas Day with your family.’

  ‘As it happens, Mam wants us all to have dinner at her house, seeing as how it’s years since we’ve spent it together, what with Tommy having been in prison and before that London and before that Australia. Not that we knew about his being in Australia until a few years ago.’ Peggy stared at Lucia. ‘Has he told you anything about those years since he moved in next door? I heard on the grapevine that you’ve been seeing quite a bit of each other.’

  Lucia smiled at the fact that the local grapevine was alive and well. ‘No, he hasn’t spoken about those times, but he is writing a book.’

  ‘So he just told me. Mind you, he’s always been secretive – probably with good reason given all the trouble he’s got himself into over the years. Wait until I tell Mam and our Lil. I’ll mention it to our Marty, too. Although he might already know; he might have kept quiet about it because Tommy wanted to tell us himself as a surprise at Christmas.’

  ‘What does he think of the idea of spending Christmas with the family?’ asked Lucia.

  ‘He’s not keen. He and our Lil have never got on. She thoroughly disapproves of him and so does her husband, and they live with Mam, of course.’

  ‘So isn’t he going to go?’

  ‘He said he’ll drop by early morning but not stay to eat. He’s decided to call in on his dead wife’s family afterwards and then go home. I think he’s making a mistake going there because he never got on with his mother-in-law or her youngest son, but he feels he owes it to Jerry that they should visit them. The family live not far from Mam’s. He said he’s got somewhere else to go in the evening.’

  Lucia wondered if he was seeing Isabella later in the day but kept quiet. Perhaps Mrs Hudson had considered inviting Tim and Jerry to share a Christmas meal with her. Lucia decided not to delay speaking to her elderly neighbour about her plans for Christmas. Maybe she should invite all of next door’s residents to lunch, so that is what she did.

  But the following morning Mrs Hudson told Lucia she had just received a letter from her younger brother down south saying that his wife was seriously ill in hospital and could she possibly come down and stay and help with the children over Christmas.

  ‘Of course, you must go,’ said Lucia.

  ‘I knew you’d say that,’ said Mrs Hudson. ‘He’s family so I told him I’d love to see the children. Especially at this time of year.’

  ‘Have you told Tim?’

  ‘Yes, and he says I must go, that I’ll regret it if I don’t.’

  ‘Then there’s your answer,’ Lucia responded. ‘Tim and Jerry can still come here for dinner.’ Even as she spoke, Lucia wondered what Maggie would have to say if she was to hear that Tim and Jerry would be sharing the Brookes’ Christmas dinner without Mrs Hudson being present. No doubt Lucia would be warned afresh about falling for his charm. She decided to keep quiet about her plan and not tell anyone.

  Three days before Christmas, Jerry told Lucia that his
father had said she was not to worry about a bird for Christmas dinner as he would arrange for a turkey to be delivered to her on Christmas Eve. This convinced her that she had done the right thing in inviting Tim and Jerry to share their Christmas meal. She decided that evening to bring the Christmas decorations down from the attic so she and the children could decorate the rooms downstairs, an activity that they all enjoyed and which also involved making their own paper chains. The preparations were not without their sad moments as they remembered their father having always involved himself with the cutting and pasting alongside them at the table. Tears were forced back, and all forbore to mention their last Christmas, when he’d brought home a tree and the lights had blown but he had managed to fix them.

  The following evening Tim was gazing up at the lowering sky which had a yellowish tinge to it, hoping it wouldn’t snow. Despite knowing that Jerry would be delighted if it did, Tim could only think it would make travelling more difficult. He should never have promised his mother that he and Jerry would visit her on Christmas morning. Public transport was Sunday service and could not always be relied on to turn up on time and, although they could probably cadge a lift from his brother, Marty, who lived a couple of miles away, it would mean it would be a tight squeeze as Irene and their two children would be in the car as well. Besides, he and Jerry would have to make their own way home as they weren’t staying for dinner. Perhaps it would be more sensible if he took Jerry to visit his mother on Christmas Eve. Maybe he would even suggest taking her into town, and them having turkey and all the trimmings in a restaurant. He felt certain that would make her happy.

  Tim was right. His mother was delighted with the idea and suggested one of her own. ‘Let’s take Jerry to Lewis’s grotto to see Father Christmas as well. They’ve got a nice restaurant there, too. I know it’ll be crowded in town but the atmosphere will be good.’