That Liverpool Girl by Ruth Hamilton Page B

He was almost in love. The paper was thin and cheap, so he reused the envelope as protective custodian. ‘She wrote to me, not to Jay. She knew him better, because he did the driving, but she chose me.’ There had been a connection, a mutual attraction. More important, her humour was on show in the letter, and where there was humour, there was intellect. ‘Eileen.’ He tried the name for size and shape, rolled it from his tongue into the empty room. It seemed lonely out there by itself, so he paired it off with his own forename. ‘They’ll have me locked up,’ he advised the crackling fire. ‘I’ll get put away for talking to the fireback. But there’s no cure for this one.’
    He stepped out of the kitchen into his back garden, fed his half-dozen friendly and inquisitive hens, picked some rhubarb for a crumble to be shared with the Dysons, and dead-headed a few flowers. A good enough housewife, Keith always helped his neighbours, since cooking for one was uneconomical and no fun. Jean baked his bread, so this tit-for-tat arrangement had been born long before Hitler decided to take over the world.
    There was no treatment for this. It had been the same with little Annie Metcalfe of Bromley Cross. Little Annie had retained her full title, even after death, as there had been several Annes born that year, and the need to differentiate between them had birthed extended names. Even now, he could smell the sweet breath of an angel who had died in the sort of agony from which an animal would have been released within hours.
    There was no mercy for gentle human souls, was there? He had never been unfaithful to his Annie. What happened between him and Cora Appleyard was mechanical, automatic, almost akin to breathing. He was grateful to her, as was she to him, but there was little or no pillow talk, because their joinings imitated the behaviour of animals. They had a need, and they indulged it. Until now, his heart had been the property of a dead girl.
    The letter to Miss Pickavance could wait until morning, but the scribe in him itched to reply to one Mrs Eileen Watson. She had word-painted a picture of blood on the Mersey; he would return the favour by describing the gentle beauty of rural Lancashire, though he would not go over the top. What had she said? Something about not assuming too much after so brief an acquaintance. ‘And I’m sitting here with a daft grin on my face,’ he said. ‘But by heck, I’ll drag that one up the Willows, even if she has to come kicking and screaming.’ God, he was stupid.
    Still laughing about the child who would be seven if Eileen allowed him to live until Friday, he toasted bread and scrambled a couple of eggs. A man who lived the country life had to keep his strength up. A cup of tea and a bit of music on the wireless, and he was set for the night. Keith Greenhalgh might be as mad as a frog in a box, but that was normal, since real love made a man crazy. He knew that. Because he’d been here before.
    A flabbergasted Jean Dyson closed her mouth with a snap. She didn’t believe what she had just heard, yet she must believe it. Neil had a chance. There was a possibility – even a probability – that his occupation might be judged essential and reserved, because somebody had to show the Land Army what was what, so many of England’s farmers would be kept at home. ‘Why?’ she asked softly. ‘Why volunteer? If you sit it out, you’ll be too old to get called up.’ There was no point in screaming at him. If she shouted, he would go and sit with his cows in the shippon.
    ‘We got talking, me and Jay, and we decided it’s what we want. There’s no saying we’ll be picked anyway, so don’t start worrying yet. There’s every chance we’ll be psychologically unsuitable, or we won’t get through training for one reason or another. Then, as you said, there’s my age. If I volunteer, I’ll be considered.’
    She cleared the table and began to clatter supper pots on the