Jack Doyle was nearly ejected from the hospital when the sound of shouting reached the nurses who were having a quiet cup of tea and a ciggie in the kitchen.
‘He said Stalin’s a monster!’ Jack was standing at the
foot
of Glyn Thomas’s bed, on the verge of apoplexy, when half a dozen scared young women reached the ward.
‘Now, now, sir,’ one said in an attempt to pacify him.
‘Bugger off! A monster! Stalin’s a hero. He’s converted his country from stultifying serfdom into an efficient industrial economy within a generation!’
‘And personally ordered the murder of millions of peasants in the process!’ Glyn shouted from his bed. His face was red with anger and he was clutching his scalded chest painfully.
‘That’s a lie!’ yelled Jack.
‘I’ve seen the bodies.’
‘Stalin’s the saviour of his country!’
‘That’s what they said about Hitler!’
Jack turned to the ward, where the men and a few other visitors were listening open-mouthed to the argument. ‘Did any of you ever think you’d see the day when Stalin was compared to Hitler?’
Half shook their heads and the other half nodded.
A nurse nervously took Jack’s arm. ‘I think you’d better go, sir.’
‘I don’t want him to go!’ Glyn yelled. ‘Let him stay and listen to the truth. What about the labour camps?’ he sneered at Jack. ‘I suppose you’re going to say they don’t exist?’
‘What labour camps?’
‘See!’ Glyn glanced around the ward for support. Unsure what was expected of them, everyone again responded with a shake of the head or a nod. ‘The labour camps in Siberia, where the dissidents are dumped to die; the writers who dare criticise, the politicians unwise enough to ask an awkward question, the ordinary people who for no reason at all find themselves dragged out of their houses in the middle of the night by the Russian equivalent of the Gestapo and are never seen again by their families.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jack said, disgusted.
‘Have you lived there?’ challenged Glyn.
‘No, but …’
‘Well I have,’ Glyn said triumphantly. ‘I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They’re fine people, the Russians, it’s their leaders that let them down.’ He shrugged. ‘But then, that’s the case everywhere. It’s the scum that rises to the top, and only occasionally the cream.’
‘That’s something I can agree with.’ Jack returned to sit beside the bed. ‘Have you been to America?’ When Glyn nodded, he asked with genuine interest, ‘What’s it like there?’
When the bell went to signal it was time for visitors to leave, Jack growled, ‘D’you want me to come again?’
‘How about tomorrow?’ said Glyn.
Two weeks later, Glyn Thomas was well enough to leave hospital, but still in constant pain and certainly not fit enough to return to his ship. He was put on sick leave, and as he had no family and no home to go to, it was suggested he stay in a convalescent home for a few weeks until his health improved.
When Jack Doyle heard this, he said casually, ‘You can stay with me if you like. I’ve got a spare room as me son’s married and left home. You’ll have plenty of peace and quiet there.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t mind,’ Glyn said equally casually. ‘I suppose you get lonely stuck on your own.’
‘One thing I never am is lonely. I was just doing you a favour.’
‘I don’t need favours, thanks all the same.’
‘In that case, don’t come.’
‘Don’t worry, I wouldn’t come if they paid me.’
It was snowing hard the following Saturday when an ambulance took Glyn to Jack’s house in Garnet Street.
From
then on, when he wasn’t involved in a fearsome argument with Jack, Glyn began to court Kitty Quigley with a fervour that left her breathless.
Kitty was on the late shift. On the first Saturday when she arrived home at half-past ten, she found him sitting on her doorstep in the freezing snow, slightly inebriated, and singing ‘Men of Harlech’ at the top of his voice. He was wearing civvies; a pair of thick corduroy trousers, a polo-necked jumper topped by a duffel coat. He had no hat, and his dark wavy hair was flecked with ice.
‘You’re supposed to be convalescing!’ she said, aghast. ‘You should be in bed by now – and where’s Jack Doyle? He promised to look after you.’
‘He’s gone somewhere. We had a few drinks in the pub, then he took me home, but I came out again to look for you – someone told me where you live.’ He did a little jig on the pavement. ‘I came to arrange for that date you promised.’
Kitty pursed her lips angrily. ‘Oh, this is disgraceful, it really is. I’ll wipe the floor with Jack Doyle when I see him. Come in and I’ll make you a nice hot drink, then I’ll take you home again – but this time you’re going to bed and staying there.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Glyn grinned and saluted as she unlocked the front door. ‘Has anyone ever told you, you look even more beautiful when you’re angry?’
‘I’m too angry to listen to that sort of nonsense! Get indoors this minute and sit yourself by the fire.’
She pulled out the flue on the grate and coaxed the glowing coals into flames, then she took his coat and laid it on the hearth to dry. ‘Now, get warm!’ she commanded. ‘I’ve a good mind to report this to Nurse Bellamy on Monday. She’d have you in a convalescent home before you could say “Jack Robinson” if she knew what was going on.’
Glyn looked oblivious to the threat. When she
fetched
the water to make cocoa, he began to sing, ‘Yours till the stars lose their glory, yours …’
‘I love that song!’ said Kitty.
‘Dance with me.’ He took her in his arms and began to whirl her around the room.
‘Glyn!’ It was difficult to stay angry with him for long. Laughing, she tried to push him away. ‘You’re not up to this. You’ve only just come out of hospital. You should be resting.’
‘I’ve never felt better. Ouch!’
‘What’s the matter?’ she cried.
‘Just a twinge across my chest,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s nothing.’
He stopped dancing, but remained holding her. Suddenly, the room seemed very quiet. He wasn’t tall, and his dark eyes were level with her own. Kitty’s arms were resting on his shoulders and his were linked around her waist. His dark dancing eyes glistened as he leaned towards her and kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I love you, Kitty.’
‘No, Glyn.’ She tried to push him away, but he kissed her harder. Kitty waited for something to happen inside her, some sort of magical awakening, rising passion, a faster beating heart, but nothing did. It was nice, but that was all.
She was too engrossed in her first real kiss to hear the door open, and Jimmy Quigley came in just as Glyn had embarked on a second. He was wearing his new overcoat, a chunky herringbone tweed with the collar turned up in the manner of American film stars.
‘Oh, hallo, Dad,’ she said, breaking away from Glyn’s arms and feeling more than a little embarrassed.
‘Hallo,’ he said acidly.
Kitty introduced Glyn to her father, then made them all a cup of cocoa. Despite Glyn’s best efforts to be friendly, Jimmy positively refused to be friendly back. In fact, he was almost rude, grunting scarcely audible
replies
when asked a question and adopting an expression of studied indifference to anything Glyn had to say.
At half past eleven, Kitty took the invalid home to Garnet Street, where Jack Doyle was about to go firewatching and was startled to discover his visitor wasn’t in bed and fast asleep. When she got back, Jimmy was still up, waiting for the midnight bulletin on the wireless.
‘Well, I didn’t think much of
him
,’ he said dismissively.
‘I doubt if he thought much of
you
!’ Kitty said crossly. ‘You were dead rude, Dad. I felt ashamed.
‘He was too mouthy for my liking. Had too high an opinion of himself. I’m not bound by law to like the men me daughter goes out with.’
‘No, but you’re bound by good manners to treat them with civility when they’re guests in your house. I’m always nice to Theresa.’ Theresa Beamish and her children had been round to the house on several more occasions since they first came to tea.
Jimmy bristled. ‘Does that mean you don’t like her?’
‘I never said that, did I, Dad? I meant I’d still be nice even if I didn’t.’ In fact, Kitty couldn’t take to her dad’s fiancée. No matter how friendly she tried to be, Theresa always shrugged her away, as if she were incapable of any warm feelings. Even towards Jimmy, her soon-to-be husband, she appeared cold and unaffectionate, and wasn’t much different with her children.
‘Dad?’ she said quietly.
‘What?’ He was pulling apart some cigarette stubs which he’d collected in his pocket, and placing the shreds of tobacco onto a paper to make a whole one.
‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?’
He turned on her, ready to tear her off a strip, to say of course he was, and what business was it of hers, anyroad, when he saw her wide hazel eyes were anxious. She was
anxious
for him, her dad. ‘I’m sure, kiddo. Don’t worry about me,’ he replied kindly.
Jimmy had managed to convince himself that his entire life had been a tragedy, particularly the last ten years, when he’d been tied to a chair, unable to walk, living on a pittance of a pension. He wasn’t quite sure whose fault it was, but it certainly wasn’t his. Now he was about to marry a woman over twenty years his junior and his mates in the King’s Arms were green with envy because Jimmy Quigley was about to achieve the happiness he so richly deserved and which had been unfairly denied him up to now. Theresa made him feel young again, rejuvenated, as if he was making up for lost time. He admired the way she kept her two lads firmly in line. She might be a bit low on imagination and short on conversation, but sometimes she took him into the parlour of her parents’ house in Flint Street and allowed his hands to stray underneath her jumper and caress her breasts and Jimmy would feel re-born, as if he’d been allowed another chance to have a go at life. He couldn’t wait to get her into bed. It was a bit disconcerting to have a father-in-law scarcely older than himself and a mother-in-law a year younger, but once Theresa and her lads were ensconced in Pearl Street, Jimmy wouldn’t have to make the comparison so often.
Glyn took Kitty for a drink next day to the Adelphi, the poshest hotel in Liverpool. Although badly bombed the year before, the place continued to function. Kitty had a Pimms No 1 which made her head spin. Afterwards, they went to see
Citizen Kane
with Orson Welles, though it was Joseph Cotton whom Kitty found the most attractive. When they came out, she insisted they went home immediately so Glyn could go to bed early.
‘I’d be failing in my duty if I let you stay up late,’ she said virtuously when they were on the train.
‘I wish you weren’t a nurse.’ He looked aggrieved. ‘I’m fed up being bossed about.’
‘If I wasn’t a nurse, we’d never have met.’
Glyn smote his brow dramatically. ‘Of course! I was forgetting. And the course of my life would never have changed.’
‘Please, Glyn!’ It frightened her that he seemed to have made the assumption they’d get married.
He raised his dark eyebrows. ‘Am I rushing you?’
‘Yes.’ She scarcely knew him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said penitently, but even so, he put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. ‘Let’s see, what can I do within the next few weeks to persuade Kitty Quigley I’m the man for her? I’ve got savings, you know, quite a bit in fact. I’d come with a dowry.’
She dug him in the ribs with her elbows. ‘Shurrup, you!’
‘We could live in the Welsh valleys as I’ve already suggested, or we could go to Australia and farm sheep. We’ll stay in Bootle if you prefer. Alternatively, how about the States?’
‘I don’t know, Glyn, I need time.’
A telegraph boy called at the house at ten o’clock the next morning. Mystified, Kitty tore open the bright orange envelope.
I love you, Kitty Quigley
, the message inside read. There was no signature, but Kitty had no doubts who it was from.
‘Who was it?’ Jimmy asked when she returned inside.
‘It was a telegram from Glyn,’ she replied, smiling.
‘Daft git,’ Jimmy said sourly.
Another telegram with the same message arrived an hour later, and a further one at midday. Kitty went round to Jack Doyle’s house. Jack was at work and Glyn was in the kitchen. There was a delicious smell of cooking.
‘There won’t be any dowry left if you carry on with
this
nonsense,’ she admonished, waving the telegrams. ‘If you send one to the hospital this avvy, I’ll kill you. I’d never be able to live it down.’
‘I was wondering how many I’d have to send before you came,’ he said, his face gleeful. ‘Look, I’ve got some wine.’ He pointed to the table, which she was surprised to see was nicely set with a vase of paper flowers in the middle, a bottle of red wine and two glasses. ‘And I’ve made moussaka.’
‘Wine, at this time of the day!’ Kitty said weakly. ‘And what on earth’s moussaka?’
‘Greek scouse. I managed to buy some herbs. I did enough for Jack, but I doubt if he’ll appreciate it.’
‘You should be in bed, resting.’
‘Stop being a nurse, for God’s sake. Take your coat off and sit down.’
‘But I’m in the middle of making dinner for me dad!’
‘He’ll just have to wait till you’ve had yours.’
The meal was delicious, though it was only mince and potatoes with a few chopped vegetables. It tasted like no scouse Kitty had ever eaten before. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said when she’d finished every mouthful.
‘See, it’s not just a husband you’d be getting, but a cook as well.’
Kitty went off to work that afternoon, heady with wine and flushed with Glyn’s kisses, though the first had had more effect than the second. She wished she could respond with more vigour, but the fact was he left her cold, which was a pity, because he would make an exciting husband. Life would never be boring or dull married to Glyn Thomas.
When she entered the ward where he’d been, each man solemnly handed her a note.
Glyn Thomas Loves Kitty Quigley
, each one said.
‘Oh! I bet he put you up to this!’ she cried.