The Cobbler's Kids (30 page)

‘Would you let me know when Eddy’s home on leave in case he decides not to come round. I’d like to see him again and catch up on what’s been happening with him since he left Wallasey.’

‘You’re sure to see him because he always calls in to have a chat with our Vee.’

‘Well, I’d like you to let me know all the same. He might come after the shop is closed and I’d hate to miss him.’

If Eddy was going back to sea again there would not be a lot he would be able to do to help, but he thought Vera had told him that Eddy was going to make this his last trip because he was planning on getting married.

He knew that it was really none of his business, but he hated to see Vera looking so tired and worried. He felt it was time that someone else in the family took some of the responsibility for looking after Michael Quinn off her shoulders.

Since Eddy was now the eldest son then he felt that it was up to him to show a lot more consideration. He didn’t approve of him simply leaving Vera to get on with things the best she could.

Perhaps if he had a quiet chat with Eddy he could make him understand how extremely ill his father was. He would also try and tactfully explain how dangerous it was for Vera to be the one looking after him.

In his opinion, Michael Quinn needed professional care. He was well aware, though, that unless they were able to afford to put him in a private nursing home, it probably meant he would have to go into a mental institution.

He suspected that Vera knew this only too well and that this was the reason why she refused to call in a doctor to see her father.

Edmund Quinn leaned his elbows on the rails of the top deck, and watched as the fussy little tug boats guided the
SS Victoria
up the River Mersey. As usual when he returned from a long trip he didn’t feel that he was home until he caught a glimpse of the magnificent birds perched high above the Liver Building, like sentinels guarding Liverpool.

He’d been standing on deck since the first moment they’d entered the estuary, completely oblivious to the sharp early morning nip in the air.

As the misty outlines of the Welsh mountains gave way to the coastlines of the Wirral peninsular on one side, and Lancashire on the other, he looked from one to the other, intent on taking in every detail.

As they sailed past Hoylake and Leasowe, Eddy felt a sudden pang of nostalgia. When New Brighton came into view, memories of his childhood days in Wallasey flashed through his mind. The memories of those happy times, full of sunshine and laughter, quickly slipped away, though, as he compared them with life after they moved to Scotland Road in Liverpool.

There had been such a change in his father when he’d come home from the army. All the love and kindness had gone and it was as if he was still a sergeant in command of his troops. His attitude towards all of them had changed for good.

Remembering his father’s behaviour before he left home, Eddy considered how the same changes had taken place in hundreds of other families since the war. He hadn’t realised before he left that others were suffering in the same way. He knew that now, though, because he’d met so many other chaps in the navy who’d talked openly to him about such matters.

Many of them also had to face seeing their fathers suffering from the effects of shell shock, or severe physical injuries that left them bad tempered and irritable. Many had been so incapacitated that they’d been unable to hold down proper jobs since they’d returned to Civvy Street.

He learned that many of his shipmates found the differences in their fathers’ personalities quite unbearable. For some it had been a turning point in their own lives.

Like him, when they’d been young they’d looked up to their dads, wanted to be like them when they grew up and to follow in their footsteps when they left school and were old enough to work.

For Eddy that would have meant learning to repair boots and shoes, but when his dad had been demobbed he’d altered so much that the thought of working alongside him was out of the question. He knew he couldn’t, they simply didn’t get on.

There was no chance of them ever becoming reconciled. He’d been so scared when his dad flew into a temper. He could hear his voice even now. His standard threat, ‘I’ll thump your bloody skull’ followed by the impact of the knuckles of his dad’s screwed up fist on the top of his head and the excruciating pain that followed, had stayed with him ever since.

The night his dad had pushed their mum down the stairs still haunted him and was something he could never forget or forgive.

Vera had done her best, tried to take their mam’s place, but she hadn’t been able to keep his dad off his back, or make his dad like him any better.

No matter what he did his old man found fault with him. Right old bastard he’d turned into. Boozed up to the eyebrows most of the time. He’d never forget the night they had a party to celebrate the completion of his apprenticeship and his old man had tried to force himself on Rita. Nor had she, he thought wryly. It wasn’t surprising really that she’d never let him forget about it for one moment.

Looking back he sometimes wished he’d finished with Rita right there and then. He should have known that she’d never be able to put his dad’s attack out of her mind. It was something she brought up whenever they had the slightest difference of opinion.

Even so, he hadn’t expected Rita to take up with someone else while he was away at sea. That ranked with the ‘Dear John’ letters that so many badly injured soldiers had received from their wives and girlfriends during the war.

He’d been away a lot, he knew that, but he’d done long trips so that he could earn enough money for them to get a place of their own once they were married. He wasn’t a great letter writer so she’d probably been lonely and fed up, he told himself.

He hadn’t told Vee yet that he and Rita were no longer together. He didn’t know if they saw each other at all these days, but thought probably not or she would have mentioned it when she wrote to him. If Vera knew nothing about it then she would be incensed when she heard that Rita had got tired of waiting and had thrown him over for someone else.

Vee thought that this really was to be his last trip. In fact, he’d promised her that it would be. He kept telling her that he intended coming home to take a shore job and that as soon as he and Rita were married she and Benny could come and live with them.

He also had to face up to breaking the news to her that far from coming back to Liverpool he was intending to marry a Maltese girl and settle down in her home town. He knew it would be hard for Vee to take all this in, but he hoped she would understand.

As the Liver Building came into view he wondered why he had bothered to come back. He certainly didn’t want to see Rita, or his dad or Di. It would have been so much easier to simply write and tell them what he was planning to do. He wanted to see Vera though, and to see for himself how Benny was doing.

A new day was dawning, the rising sun casting golden stripes on the murky waters of the Mersey as they came alongside the landing stage. He saw the tugs being detached from the
SS Victoria
and watched as they chugged away towards Birkenhead. He stayed where he was on deck as they tied up and the gangplank was lowered. Only then did he go down into the bowels of the ship to collect his kitbag.

As he walked up the floating roadway to the Pier Head where half a dozen trams were waiting, he considered which one he should take. He couldn’t decide whether to travel direct to Scotland Road and walk in through the shop, or to take one that went along Great Homer Street so that he could sneak home down the jigger. He favoured the latter route; it was still early morning so he could surprise Vera at home before she had time to leave for work at Elbrown’s.

Once aboard the
Green Goddess
he began rehearsing in his head how he was going to break all his news to Vera. It was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

He felt guilty about leaving her to continue holding the fort, shouldering all the responsibility for bringing up Benny and looking after their unstable father, but what else could he do?

Benny would be leaving school any day now, finding work and making a life of his own. There was still plenty of time for Vera to make a life for herself, too. She was only in her twenties, after all.

As he nipped through the jigger and headed for the back door, Eddy felt like a kid again. He realised that this would probably be the last time he visited the place. He’d only stay for a few days, just long enough to explain to Vera about what was happening. He’d tell his dad, of course, but he didn’t suppose that he would care one way or the other.

As he turned the door handle and stepped into the kitchen he paused to listen. He could hear movement in the living room and judged it would be Vera either tidying up or getting ready for work.

Very quietly, he put his kitbag down on the floor and crept over to the living-room door. He paused, took a deep breath, then flung it open, at the same time as he called out, ‘You’ll never guess who this is!’

The room was in complete darkness. Eddy didn’t see where the blow came from, but something hit him hard on the side of his head, sending him crashing to the ground. The next minute someone was on him, pinning him down, breathing heavily and hissing obscene threats into his ear.

He struggled wildly, trying to push his opponent away, and fight off the blows from the flailing arms. He had no idea who his attacker was, but reasoned that it must be a burglar, someone who had broken in and had been taken unawares by his surprise entry.

A fear that Vera might have been attacked and might be lying hurt flashed through his head and gave him added strength as he twisted and turned and grappled with his assailant.

Before he managed to overcome him, the connecting door between the shop and the living room opened. A figure stepped into the room, whether he was someone who was going to help him, or an accomplice of the man he was fighting with, Eddy had no idea.

Light flooded into the room through the open door and Eddy gasped as he saw the state of his surroundings. It resembled a battlefield. Upturned chairs were everywhere, some of them piled up as though to form a barricade around the table. Underneath the table was a stash of food as though someone was camping there.

Eddy had now quelled his attacker and was sitting astride him. Slowly, feeling unutterably stupid when he saw that it was his father he was pinning to the ground, he released him.

‘What the hell is going on?’

Eddy looked up at the figure standing in the doorway, but because the light was behind him he couldn’t see the man’s face. Before he could answer, he heard Vera coming in through the back door and heard her give a sharp cry as she caught her leg against the kitbag he’d left just inside the doorway.

Eddy felt completely nonplussed. Who was this stranger, and why was the whole place in a shambles? What on earth was going on?

‘Hello, Vee!’ He pulled himself to his feet, leaving his father still lying on the ground trying to get his breath back.

‘Eddy! What are you doing here? Oh it’s so wonderful to see you!’ She flung her arms around him, kissing his cheek, almost crying with sheer happiness because he was there.

Hugging her, he said, ‘I came in through the back way, meaning to surprise you, but I think I was the one who got the surprise.’ He waved an arm around indicating the state of the room and his father lying on the floor. ‘What on earth is going on here? Dad almost knocked me out!’

‘Ssh!’ She put a finger to her lips. ‘He’s having one of his attacks,’ she told him quietly. ‘He thinks he is back in the war and he builds himself a hideout so that the enemy won’t find him. He obviously thought you were coming to attack him.’

‘How long has this been going on?’

She frowned. ‘Quite some time. They’re an extension of the rages he used to go into before you went away to sea.’

‘So he’s worse? How often does he have these persecution attacks then?’

She looked across at the figure still standing in the doorway. ‘A couple of times a week, I would say, wouldn’t you, Jack?’

Jack Winter shrugged. ‘At least! Sometimes it is even more often than that.’ He smiled at Eddy. ‘You’ve forgotten me, haven’t you, Eddy! Mind, it’s a long time since we last saw each other.’

Eddy looked at him, frowning as if trying to remember his face. ‘Jack Winter!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘I work here, whacker. Your Vera hired me!’ He grinned. ‘I do the repairs for your dad.’

‘You mean you’re a snob?’ Eddy shook his head in disbelief. ‘And to be working here of all places! I can’t credit it.’

‘I’ve been working here for quite a while. It was all getting to be too much for your dad. You mean that Vera didn’t tell you?’

Eddy shook his head. ‘Not that it was you! In her last letter she did say that an old chap was helping out. I think she said his name was Sam Dowty. What happened to him?’

‘Poor old Sam’s eyesight wasn’t too good and he kept making mistakes. He used to be my boss. In fact, he trained me and we’ve always kept in touch. He was the one who recommended me to Vera. It was a surprise to her, too, when I turned up.’

‘Can you two stop gabbing and help me get Dad up to bed?’ Vera asked worriedly. ‘He looks absolutely all in.’ She looked up at Eddy and smiled. ‘I think this is the first time he’s actually had to face the enemy since he came back from the war.’

Between them, Eddy and Jack helped Michael Quinn upstairs and onto his bed. He made no resistance, the fight had gone out of him. Instead, he lay there unmoving, ignoring all of them.

‘Leave him as he is, don’t bother about undressing him,’ Vera told them quietly. ‘I’ll take his boots off and then cover him over with a quilt and let him have a sleep.’

‘I’ll leave you two to see to him, then, I’d better get back to the shop,’ Jack stated.

‘Come on, we’ll go downstairs, Eddy, and I’ll make a pot of tea. Whilst we’re drinking it you can tell me all your news,’ Vera murmured, taking her brother’s arm after they’d made their dad comfortable.