Goodbye Mersey View

by Lyn Andrews

Genres: World War II; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

In her nostalgic and heart-warming new saga, Sunday Times bestselling author Lyn Andrews evokes the ups and downs of life in the back streets of 1930s Liverpool

Liverpool, World War II. Monica Eustace and Joan McDonald met as next-door-neighbours living in Mersey View in Liverpool. Their friendship is a close as ever, though they're married now, and sharing Monica's grand house on the other side of the city. But war clouds are gathering, casting a shadow over the happy future they dream of with their young husbands . . . Meanwhile, in London, Joan's half-sister Bella is overwhelmed with the glitz and glamour of the city while she's training as a singer - but will she forget her friends back home?

As war descends on Merseyside, can the women make their back street dreams reality, or will the close-knit families be torn apart?

PRAISE FOR SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR LYN ANDREWS:

'An outstanding storyteller' Woman's Weekly

'Gutsy . . . A vivid picture of a hard-up, hard-working community . . . Will keep the pages turning' Daily Express

'A compelling read' Woman's Own

'She has a realism that is almost palpable' Liverpool Echo

'The Catherine Cookson of Liverpool' Northern Echo

(P) 2022 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: December 8, 2022

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 352

Sample

Claude had thought it a great idea to approach the senior management of Crawford’s Biscuits about opening a salon before he had to deal with all the relevant government departments. To his relief and satisfaction they agreed with him, and so he’d begun the tedious business of filling in all the paperwork and seeing it got to the right department. To his surprise, within six weeks he was organising the opening of his first ‘ladies’ hairdressing room’, a name Monica had suggested, reminding him gently that ‘salon’ was a bit too grand for what they were providing, which was a medium-sized room on the ground floor at the back of the Despatch Department, previously used as some sort of storeroom.

It had all been a bit frantic, Monica thought, as she finished cleaning the last mirror the day before they were due to open. Most of the fittings and fixtures had been removed from the salon off Bold Street, and items had been brought over from the New Brighton salon, too. Both were still open but with greatly reduced staff – and indeed customers, as more and more women were recruited for war work.

‘It all looks great now, Mon! Who would have thought a dingy storeroom could be transformed with a lick of paint, some nice lighting and a few plants,’ Joan remarked admiringly when she called in at the end of her shift.

Monica smiled and nodded. ‘It does. Mr Beddows himself has been to inspect it and said he knew it would be a great asset and well used by “his ladies”, as he calls his employees,’ she informed Joan, with satisfaction. Mr Beddows was the managing director no less, and his secretary had already booked a regular weekly appointment. ‘The diary is filling up fast so we’re going to be very busy, I just hope this apprentice – Stella – has some gumption. I won’t have time to be constantly telling her what to do.’

‘Didn’t Helen Marshall interview her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well then, stop worrying. She hasn’t been the manageress at La Belle Coiffure for the past eight years without learning a thing or two about people. She interviewed you, remember,’ Joan reminded her.

Monica looked thoughtful. ‘I just hope I’m going to be able to manage it all.’

‘Of course you are,’ Joan replied firmly.

Monica smiled at her friend. ‘You’re great for building my confidence.’

Joan grew serious. ‘It’s me who needs confidence. I’m beginning to wonder what kind of a mother I’ll be. I’m going to have to give up work at the end of this month.’

‘I know, but Mam says you should make the most of the rest, and try to enjoy the peace and quiet, because once you have the baby all that goes out of the window. You’ll be on your knees with exhaustion until it’s at least a year old.’

‘Oh, I won’t mind that. I just want to get the pregnancy over with, and get on with my life. Jim’s hoping he’ll get some Christmas leave and be here when his son or daughter arrives, but I’m not holding out much hope of that happening, not with the way things are going now.’

Monica frowned, knowing what Joan meant. In the south of England another battle was shaping up to be fought, one as big and as vitally important as the Battle of the Atlantic, except this time it was being fought not at sea, but in the air. Over the past weeks, wave after wave of Nazi aircraft had filled the skies above the Home Counties and even the Midlands. People had stood in the streets, roads, lanes and fields and watched the deadly conflict playing out in the skies above them, between the Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitts and the RAF’s Hurricanes and Spitfires. Being ground crew and stationed in Lincolnshire didn’t guarantee Jim McDonald’s safety, and he was never far from Joan’s thoughts. Monica hadn’t heard from Rick but she assumed he was all right and in the middle of his tank training with the army, although she didn’t know quite where. ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’ was an instruction that was becoming so familiar she was beginning to get fed up hearing it.

‘Come on, I’ve finished here now. I’ll run you home,’ Monica offered. ‘It’s still too warm to be standing waiting at the tram stop after a day on your feet, and you look tired, Joan.’ These days, she drove more often, although she was careful not to use too much of her precious petrol allowance.

‘Oh, thanks, Mon. I have to admit I do feel exhausted by the end of the day.’

Monica gathered up her handbag and her light summer jacket and, after glancing around to make sure everything was in order, ushered Joan towards the door. She locked it carefully after them, put the key into her handbag and extracted the car keys.

Joan smiled at her. ‘I hope tomorrow goes really well.’

‘Thanks, we’re starting at seven thirty, so it’s going to be a busy day. Now, let’s get going. I hope your mam will have the kettle on, I’m dying for a cup of tea, and Frederick may have heard some news – more than we have, anyway.’

‘Do you really think so?’ Joan enquired as she followed Monica out of the building.

‘Well, he heard about the Nazis invading the Channel Islands before we did, remember – he deals with so many people that he gets to know things quickly.’

‘Sometimes they’re only rumours, but I know what you mean,’ Joan answered.

Joan knew there was something wrong as soon as she walked into the kitchen of the house in Mersey View. No preparations for the evening meal were in progress, and her mother was sitting at the scrubbed deal table with her head in her hands while young Charlie was standing beside her, looking afraid and helpless. Her stepfather was obviously still down at the yard and offices; she remembered vaguely that it was Charlie’s night to attend the Mechanics’ Institute, where he was learning the theoretical side of heating and plumbing, but she pushed it from her mind.

‘What’s the matter? What’s happened, Mam? Are you ill?’ When Olive didn’t reply, she stared hard at her brother. ‘Charlie, what is it? Should you go and fetch Frederick? Will someone tell me what’s wrong, for God’s sake?’ she cried out as a cold little dart of icy fear seemed to prick her heart and she reached instinctively for Monica’s hand.

Olive raised her head and Joan saw that her mother had been crying, something she’d seldom seen her do. Olive had shed a few tears, mainly of shock and anger, when Bella had arrived out of the blue and when Billy had deserted them, but now her eyes were swollen and red. She was clearly deeply upset about something.

Monica, too, was shocked by Olive’s eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. Olive Garswood was one of the strongest women she knew. She gently pushed Joan towards her mother, praying silently that nothing had happened to Joan’s stepfather; she knew his work had its dangers, and sometimes there were explosions with heating boilers or gas pipes.

Joan went and put her arms around her mother’s shoulders, and it was then that she saw the telegram lying on the table beside her mam’s hand. It was open.

‘I . . . I opened it, Joan. I . . . I . . . just had to. It’s addressed to you, but I couldn’t let you . . . not in your condition.’

Fear was beginning to paralyse Joan now. She felt cold and she realised she was beginning to shake as Olive pushed the buff-coloured envelope towards her. ‘Me! It . . . it’s for me? Jim! Oh, Mam, no! It . . . it’s not Jim!’

Olive pulled herself together and stood up, gathering Joan in her arms, while Monica took the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and scanned the words none of them had ever wanted to read. Jim McDonald had been killed in an air raid on the RAF base at Skellingthorpe. Joan would receive further information from his commanding officer in due course. She couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. And why were they so bloody formal about it? ‘In due course’ indeed! Poor Joan was distraught, shocked and – oh, dear Lord – pregnant, too! Her eyes swimming with tears, she glanced at Olive – she couldn’t begin to imagine how she would feel if it had been Rick.

Olive bit her lip as she eased Joan into a chair. ‘Monica, luv, put the kettle on. She needs hot sweet tea – we all do – in fact, we could do with something stronger, but I’m afraid of giving her spirits in her condition.’

Monica nodded her agreement and, like an automaton, reached for the kettle.

Olive was beginning to gather herself, now her daughter was there, needing all the support she could give her. She’d known trouble, hardship and loss in her life, and now she had to be strong for Joan and for the rest of the family. ‘Charlie, go down to the yard and tell Frederick to come home,’ she instructed her son.

‘What will I tell him, Mam? He was waiting for someone to come to give him an estimate for some repairs that need doing to the office. That’s why he sent me home.’

‘Well, that will have to wait! Tell him . . . tell him what’s happened. He’ll understand and know what to do.’

Without another word, the lad turned and left, closing the door behind him as quietly as he could. Joan looked terrible; Monica feared she was going to faint any minute.

While Olive made the tea, and spooned as much of their precious sugar ration as she could spare into Joan’s cup, Monica sat beside her friend holding both Joan’s icy hands in her own and trying, without much success, to stop crying. It frightened her that Joan so far hadn’t shed a single tear. She hadn’t collapsed in hysterics or begun wailing in grief, and Monica didn’t think this strange quietness was normal.

‘Joan, luv. I’m so, so sorry. Please, let it all out and have a cry! Don’t feel as if you have to hold it all in. I’m your oldest and dearest friend, and I’ll always be here for you. I just wish to God there was something I could do to help you now!’

‘It’s the shock,’ Olive said. ‘Here, Joan, drink this, luv, and then I think I’ll get you to bed. It . . . it’s all just too much for you, what with the . . . it’s all too much for all of us,’ Olive finished, trying not to think of the months ahead before Joan’s baby was born and what the poor girl’s life would be like after it. Oh, why Jim McDonald? Why? Why? Why? He’d been such a good, quiet, caring lad, he’d had no family, and she loved him as a son. She might have been more prepared, better able to accept it, if he’d been a pilot or air crew, for they were losing so many of those young men every day. They were the ones who faced death each time they took off, but Jim had been ground crew, a mechanic. Oh, how could she have been so naive as to think he’d be safe? Clearly, no one was safe in this blasted war!

Joan sipped her tea obediently but it didn’t help, nothing would help, she knew that. She still couldn’t take it in that he’d gone. That she’d never see him or hear his voice or have him play music for her ever again. He was dead. The pain in her heart seemed to be enveloping her totally. She couldn’t think about the future, couldn’t even think about the next few minutes, she could see nothing ahead of her except darkness, the total blackness of despair, loss and grief.

‘Monica, will you help me get her to bed, please, luv?’ Olive asked quietly when it was obvious that Joan wasn’t going to finish the tea. She could barely hold the cup, her hands were trembling so much.

‘Of course, then should I go and tell Mam, or should I stay with her? I really don’t want to leave her like this.’

‘I think she’d like you to stay, Monica, I know I would,’ Olive sighed heavily and rubbed her swollen eyes. ‘Oh, I hoped I’d never have to see the day when such tragedy would fall on this house.’

‘I know. You always hope it won’t be you.’

Between them, the two women managed to get Joan upstairs to her bedroom, where they gently coaxed her on to the bed.

It was like undressing a doll, Monica thought, as she and Olive got Joan out of her day clothes and into her nightdress, before tucking her into the bed she would never again share with her husband. That thought tore at Monica’s heart more strongly than anything else. When they’d settled Joan, Olive went downstairs to wait for the return of her son and her husband whilst Monica sat beside the bed, clasping Joan’s cold hand but saying nothing. For what on earth could she say now? Joan’s eyes were closed, but Monica knew she wasn’t asleep, indeed she wondered when Joan would ever sleep again. Suddenly, her friend turned her head and opened her eyes.

‘Joan! What is it, luv? Can I get you anything?’

‘No, Mon, but thanks. I feel strange, as if this isn’t happening to me, as if I’m looking down at myself and thinking, why am I in bed? I’m not ill, so why do I feel nothing when I know I should? What’s the matter with me, Mon, that I don’t . . . can’t seem to understand that he . . . he’s . . . dead! I’ll never see him again, Mon. I . . . I thought he’d be safe. He patched the planes up, he . . . he didn’t fly them. Oh, why him? Why wasn’t he in a shelter? Why did he not hear them coming, hear the sirens and run to safety? What happened, Mon?’ And then the tears came, racking her body, and as Monica gathered her in her arms and made sympathetic noises, tears slid slowly down her cheeks, too. She had no answer to Joan’s questions. They’d both assumed Jim would be safe and now, now he . . . he was . . . gone. So what chance did her Rick have when he was sent out in his tank to fight?

A few minutes later, when Olive came back into the room, she found them both with their arms around each other, sobbing. Thinking it for the best, and thankful that Joan was now giving way to her feelings, she left them and went back downstairs. She’d heard the front door open and close, and she thanked God that Frederick was now home to help her with her grief.



It was Nelly, not Frederick, Olive had heard downstairs. She’d seen Monica’s car stop outside Olive’s house and watched both girls go inside, but she’d become a bit anxious when Monica didn’t seem to be making any effort to call on her own family. Then young Charlie Copperfield had left hurriedly, looking pale and shocked. All her instincts told her something was wrong. She’d been Olive’s closest friend ever since the family had moved here years ago, and now she was worried.

‘Eileen, keep your eye on that pan of potatoes and don’t let them burn – if you can tear yourself away from that magazine!’ she’d instructed her younger daughter, taking off her apron and shaking her head, wishing the girl was not so taken up with her appearance and this young naval rating, Harold Stevens.

To her surprise Olive’s kitchen was deserted. But when, barely a minute later, her friend hurried down the stairs, she was shocked by her appearance. ‘Dear God! Olive, luv, what’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Nell! It . . . it’s the worst tragedy that could fall on us all, but especially our poor Joan. I’ve sent Charlie for Frederick.’

Nelly’s hand instinctively went to her throat. ‘Oh, no! Oh, luv. She . . . she’s not lost . . .’

Olive shook her head quickly as she sat down heavily opposite her friend and neighbour. ‘No, the baby is all right, I hope. It’s Jim.’ She covered her eyes with her hands.

Nelly was instantly on her feet. ‘What’s happened to him?’

‘He’s been killed, Nell. There was an air strike on his base, we don’t know exactly what happened. How, when or why . . . we don’t know, but . . . but he’s gone.’ Olive wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘Charlie went to tell Frederick. He should be home any minute.’

Nelly hesitated. She could see Olive needed support and comforting, but surely that was Frederick’s role as her husband? She didn’t want to push in. ‘I’ll stay with you, luv, just until he gets here,’ she offered. It was the least she could do for her friend. ‘Is our Monica with her?’

Olive nodded. ‘At first she was in such a state of shock – well, we all were – that our Joan couldn’t cry. She didn’t break down, Nelly, although Monica did.’

‘Definitely shock, Olive.’

‘We got her to bed, and then I left them together. I thought Monica might be able to help. Better than I could, anyway.’

‘And?’ Nelly prompted quietly.

‘When I looked in last they were both sobbing. So, I left them to it. Thanks, Nell, for . . . for . . .’

‘I’ve been with you through nearly every crisis in your life, Olive Garswood, and we’ll get through this – somehow, and together.’ She stood up as Frederick Garswood, accompanied by his stepson, came into the room.

‘Send our Monica down to me, Olive. It’s her family Joan needs now, and you’ve enough on your plate without having her under your feet as well. I’ll try and talk her into going in to work tomorrow. They are opening that first factory hairdresser’s at Crawford’s, and it will be best if she keeps busy. I’m beginning to think this “phoney” war is over and that we’ve got dark days ahead to face. But we’ll manage, we always have, Olive. You and me together against anything fate can throw at us.’

Olive nodded slowly, feeling Nelly was right to be fearful of what the future might hold, but wishing she wasn’t. ‘I . . . I’ll have to write to our Lily later on. In the meantime, I’ll try to get everyone to eat something at least. I’ve got the lodgers to think of, after all.’

That reminded Nelly of her pan of potatoes. She squared her shoulders; she’d better get back, there was little she could do here now, and food was becoming too scarce to waste. They’d have to eat the spuds, even if Eileen had let them burn black. And she’d insist that Monica stay tonight, she was in no fit state to drive back to that empty house in Allerton. ‘If you don’t feel up to it today, luv, leave the letter until tomorrow, your Lily will understand,’ Nelly advised as she left.

It was much later when Olive finally cleared the table and took a pen and the writing pad from the drawer in the dresser. It seemed as if the very air in the house was pressing down on her like a great ominous thundercloud, but she knew she’d have to write to her sister eventually, so she might as well get it over with. Her gentlemen lodgers had been very distressed and full of sympathy. Charlie hadn’t wanted to go to his evening class, and had become quite adamant about it, but between them, she and Frederick had gently and tactfully persuaded him to go. They’d pointed out that it would at least be a little thing Charlie could do in memory of Jim McDonald whom he’d admired so much, and Frederick had promised to walk down with the lad.

Her husband had been as shocked and upset as herself, for Frederick Garswood cared deeply for his stepchildren and hated to see them upset. As he’d walked back home from the Mechanics’ Institute, he’d reflected on how much poor Joan had already suffered in her short life. She didn’t deserve such grief and loss. Her father had let her down terribly, not once but three times, yet she’d somehow managed to put it all behind her and been so happy with young Jim McDonald. He’d wondered sadly if this would be the last death in action they’d have to face, but he was realistic enough to know it probably wouldn’t be.

Joan was finally sleeping. Olive had struggled through some dire crises in her life – including the loss of a man she had loved – so she’d help her daughter through this in every way she could. She wasn’t going to let anything bring harm to this unborn child; it was even more precious now and would have the very best that she and Frederick and Joan could provide. She couldn’t bear to contemplate what the days, months and years ahead held for her daughter and grandchild. It would be such a blessing if this damn war would be over quickly and life could return to some semblance of normality, but there didn’t seem to be much hope of that.

She took the top off the pen, pushed her thick dark hair back from her forehead and began to write.

6th September 1940

My Dear Lily, David and Bella,

It is with such a heavy heart that I am writing to tell you that today we received the terrible news that . . .

Lily already had the beginnings of a headache when she sat down wearily at the table beside the window, with Olive’s letter in her hand. It had arrived in the lunchtime post and it was now early evening, but beams of bright sunlight still penetrated into the sitting room of the small, first-floor flat in Great George’s Street, just off Marylebone High Street. It was plainly furnished, as it was rented accommodation, but she’d added a few ornaments, cushions and rugs of her own to brighten the place up, and it suited them all. David, her husband, was working late at the Royal College of Music where he was a voice coach, and seventeen-year-old Bella – the girl she now looked on as a daughter, although she was actually no blood relation at all – was with him. Both would be home shortly, so she’d read her sister’s letter while she had some peace and quiet. The flat was so small that sometimes it felt like living in a sardine tin, she mused irritably.

She herself had enjoyed a day off from the theatre – which, despite the desperate times, was still open – although she seemed to have spent most of it standing in queues for the pitiful amounts of food that could be had. She sighed, thinking back to the days when she’d been able to walk into a shop and buy all manner of food and – just as importantly, in her view – clothes, hats, shoes, stockings and make-up. She’d always taken a great deal of care with her appearance and was rewarded by knowing that she was considered to be a very elegant and fashionable woman, even though now fast approaching middle age.

She had married late, after devoting herself to her career in the theatre. In recent years, she’d been wardrobe mistress at the Empire in Liverpool, before finding a position down in London once they’d decided to relocate there so that Bella could have the best training possible to enable her to hopefully have a successful career in the world of grand opera. For Annabella Ferreira Silva had the finest mezzo-soprano voice Lily had ever heard.

She smoothed out the pages of Olive’s letter but as she began to read it, the words became blurred by tears. Oh, hadn’t both her poor sister and niece suffered enough in life already? She brushed away her tears with the back of her hand and gazed out of the window, but saw nothing. Joan had loved that Scottish lad so much, and Lily had been so delighted at her niece’s happiness. After all, it had been she who had introduced them when Jim had joined the orchestra at the Empire and had asked for her help in finding lodgings. Joan hadn’t wanted the big, grand wedding her best friend Monica Savage had enjoyed. She’d been happy with just a simple ceremony in the Registry Office, but she’d looked as radiant in her elegant navy and fuchsia outfit as Monica had looked in white lace. And when she’d heard that Joan was pregnant . . . well, David had insisted they open the very last bottle of sparkling white wine they had, to celebrate the good news – even Bella had had a glass.

Lily closed her eyes and dropped her head in her hands, unable to continue reading. Poor, poor Joan. How would she cope? How would she bear it? She’d had a lot to deal with in her twenty years, but this . . . Oh, this! And with a baby on the way – due in three months’ time. She thanked God that Joan lived with Olive and Frederick, they would look after her.

At the sound of voices on the stairs Lily raised her head and folded the letter, tucking it back into the envelope. She knew that both David and Bella would be terribly upset by the news, but Bella in particular, as she had been very close to Joan. When Bella had first arrived in Liverpool as a twelve-year-old stowaway on a cargo ship from Lisbon, it had been Joan who had taken her under her wing, and the girl loved Joan as a full sister. A dawning realisation that had been niggling away at Lily these past weeks began to resurface – this war had arrived on her doorstep and was starting to take its toll. She didn’t like it one bit.

She’d managed to wipe away her tears and tidy her fashionably styled blonde hair before her husband and Bella came into the room, good-naturedly arguing about why it was that so many famous operatic sopranos were in fact very large women . . .