That Liverpool Girl by Ruth Hamilton Page A

negotiate terms of peace. ‘Clean up, shut up, put up, and leave the bloody mail alone,’ she barked.
    She was the full quid, then. ‘And stop being nasty to people and about people. Some teeth of your own might be a good idea, and all. Those you took from poor Bill are fit to frighten horses.’
    Outside once more, Keith tried to contain his excitement. The writing wasn’t Hilda Pickavance’s. Miss Pickavance used as near as damn it to copperplate. He couldn’t imagine Nellie sitting down to write a shopping list, let alone a letter. It had to be from her . But he left it on the dresser while he brewed tea and lit the fire. Sometimes, a treat tasted sweeter if you had to wait for it. Her lettering on the envelope was clear, though this was not the hand of a formally educated person. Well, he wasn’t educated. Anything he knew had been picked up long after his escape from the confines of school.
    He opened the envelope carefully with the help of some obscure item attached to a penknife of many parts, including a tool that had never in its life managed to remove a stone from an equine hoof.
    Dear Mr Greenhalgh,
    I am writing to let you know that I shall be staying in Liverpool with my daughter, as she is too young to be left for any length of time. It must seem terrible, because my mother will be forced to cope with Philip (11), Robin (9) and Bertie, really Albert (7 if I let him live till Friday).
    Please try to put these boys of mine to some sort of work. They are quick learners, but easily led astray, and they were in trouble with the police again very recently. The farms should be ideal, because work in the fields will use up their energy. I hope you aren’t annoyed at my boldness in assuming too much in view of our brief acquaintance . . .
     
    He put down the page and smiled. She might talk oddly, but she was well-read, by gum. That paragraph might have been penned by Austen herself. He hadn’t been wrong; there was something special about Eileen Watson. But she wasn’t coming. Sighing, he picked up the letter again.
    our brief acquaintance, but will you please keep an eye on them, on my mother and on Hilda? Goodness, how many eyes does one man have? Also, I beg you to come or send someone whenever possible to bring me and my daughter over to Willows at weekends. I know that cannot happen every Friday, but I should like to spend time with my family. We hope to visit at half-term and at Christmas as long as we can overcome travelling difficulties and find someone to care for Miss Morrison, the lady with whom we shall be lodging.
     
    Travelling difficulties? If he had to steal an armoured vehicle from an army base, he would do it and be damned. And she had written ‘should’ like to spend time with family. So this was the source of Mel’s good brain, then. Like many born in the early years of the twentieth century, Eileen had experienced only a brief and unedifying brush with scholarship, but she had remedied that.
    I walked down to the river earlier on. It is very busy. There is urgency in the movement of every man, and no one stops for a crafty smoke like they do when life is normal. Beyond trains and cranes and ships, I saw the sun and wondered why God was allowing it to shine at such a time.
    The warehouses are said to be bulging with imports, though we cannot know exactly what, and they are under heavy guard. As well as police, soldiers and sailors are standing watch and many are armed.
    As the sun went down, the river was bright red and that made me shiver. I am sure you can guess the reason for my discomfort.
    I enclose on another sheet the address of Miss Frances Morrison. She has a telephone and I have included the number in case you need to reach me in a hurry after we have all finished playing musical chairs. Thank you for your kindness. Please keep in touch if you have time, because I shall enjoy reading about my fine, healthy, country bumpkin boys.
    Yours sincerely,
    Eileen Watson.
     
    Oh, God.