Laceys of Liverpool

by Maureen Lee

Genres: Coming of Age; Siblings; Sagas; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

A compelling Liverpool story of deep emotion and tangled family relationships which hide a dreadful secret. Alice Lacey couldn't be more different from her sister-in-law, Cora. Alice is married to John, Cora to his hapless younger brother Billie. Both women give birth to sons on one chaotic night in 1940. It is Cora's jealousy and resentment that prompts her to swap her puny baby for Alice's beautiful son. With Alice's marriage in tatters, she borrows money from Cora in order to purchase the lease of the tiny hairdresser where she works. Alice is talented; the business thrives and a chain of salons becomes Laceys of Liverpool. The relationships between the cousins Cormac and Maurice, their parents, Alice's three girls and their eventual husbands and children, combine to give a unique picture of Liverpool in the last sixty years of the twentieth century.

Release date: September 9, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 437

Sample

STEPPING STONES

Lizzie O’Brien escapes her dark Liverpool childhood when she runs away to London – towards freedom and a new life. But the past is catching up with her, threatening to destroy her dreams . . .



LIGHTS OUT LIVERPOOL

There’s a party on Pearl Street, but a shadow hangs over the festivities: Britain is on the brink of war. The community must face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour.



 

PUT OUT THE FIRES

1940 – the cruellest year of war for Britain’s civilians. In Pearl Street, near Liverpool’s docks, families struggle to cope the best they can.



THROUGH THE STORM

War has taken a terrible toll on Pearl Street, and changed the lives of all who live there. The German bombers have left rubble in their wake and everyone pulls together to come to terms with the loss of loved ones.



LIVERPOOL ANNIE

Just as Annie Harrison settles down to marriage and motherhood, fate deals an unexpected blow. As she struggles to cope, a chance meeting leads to events she has no control over. Could this be Annie’s shot at happiness?



 

DANCING IN THE DARK

When Millie Cameron is asked to sort through her late aunt’s possessions, she finds buried among the photographs, letters and newspaper clippings, a shocking secret . . .



THE GIRL FROM BAREFOOT HOUSE

War tears Josie Flynn from all she knows. Life takes her to Barefoot House as the companion of an elderly woman, and to New York with a new love. But she’s soon back in Liverpool, and embarks upon an unlikely career . . .



LACEYS OF LIVERPOOL

Sisters-in-law Alice and Cora Lacey both give birth to boys on one chaotic night in 1940. But Cora’s jealousy and resentment prompt her to commit a terrible act with devastating consequences . . .



 

THE HOUSE BY PRINCES PARK

Ruby O’Hagan’s life is transformed when she’s asked to look after a large house. It becomes a refuge – not just for Ruby and her family, but for many others, as loves, triumphs, sorrows and friendships are played out.



LIME STREET BLUES

1960s’ Liverpool, and three families are linked by music. The girls form a successful group, only to split up soon after: Rita to find success as a singer; Marcia to become a mother; and Jeannie to deceive her husband, with far-reaching consequences . . .



QUEEN OF THE MERSEY

Queenie Todd is evacuated to a small town on the Welsh coast with two others when the war begins. At first, the girls have a wonderful time until something happens, so terrifying, that it will haunt them for the rest of their lives . . .



 

THE OLD HOUSE ON THE CORNER

Victoria lives in the old house on the corner. When the land is sold, she finds herself surrounded by new properties. Soon Victoria is drawn into the lives of her neighbours – their loves, lies and secrets.



THE SEPTEMBER GIRLS

Cara and Sybil are both born in the same house on one rainy September night. Years later, at the outbreak of war, they are thrown together when they enlist and are stationed in Malta. It’s a time of live-changing repercussions for them both . . .



KITTY AND HER SISTERS

Kitty McCarthy wants a life less ordinary – she doesn’t want to get married and raise children in Liverpool like her sisters. An impetuous decision and a chance meeting twenty years later are to have momentous repercussions that will stay with her for ever . . .



 

THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL

Escaping their abusive home in Ireland, sisters Mollie and Annemarie head to Liverpool – and a ship bound for New York. But fate deals a cruel blow and they are separated. Soon, World War II looms – with surprising consequences for the sisters.



MOTHER OF PEARL

Amy Curran was sent to prison for killing her husband. Twenty years later, she’s released and reunited with her daughter, Pearl. But Amy is hiding a terrible secret – a tragedy that could tear the family apart . . .



The woman lay listening to the rain as it beat against the hospital windows. She and Alice hadn’t picked a good night to have their babies. As had become the custom in Bootle over the last few months, there’d been an air raid, a bad one, and they’d all been moved down to the cellar. Alice’s lad had been born only minutes after the All Clear, at a quarter past eleven. Her own son had arrived almost three hours later, so they’d have different birthdays. Later, there’d been an emergency. Some woman had been found in the rubble of her house about to drop her baby. Since then, things had quietened down.

In a bed opposite, her sister-in-law was fast asleep, dead to the world, like the other six women in the ward. ‘Why can’t I sleep like that?’ the woman murmured fretfully. ‘I can never sleep.’ Her mind was always too full of plans for the future, schemes: how to get this, how to do that. How to make twenty-five bob last the whole week, including paying the rent and buying the food. Oh, how she’d love new curtains for the parlour! But new curtains, new anything, were an impossible dream.

Unless she stole something, pawned it, bought curtains with the money. She’d stolen before, her heart in her mouth, sweat trickling down the insides of her arms. The first time it was only a string of beads that looked like pearls. The price ticket said a guinea. The pawnbroker had offered a florin, which she’d accepted gratefully and bought four nice cups and saucers in Paddy’s Market.

One day she’d walked all the way into town and nicked a cut-glass vase from George Henry Lee’s, which she kept on the mantelpiece, though she was the only one who knew it was cut glass. Billy thought it was just a cheap old thing. The silver candlestick she’d robbed from Henderson’s had paid for a nice mat in front of the parlour fireplace. Some things she kept, some she pawned. She’d become quite skilled at shoplifting. The trick was to stay calm, not rush, smile, make your way slowly to the door. Stepping outside was the worst part. If spotted, it was the time you’d be nabbed. But she’d got away with it so far.

The woman didn’t care how she looked as long as it was respectable, or what she ate, but she liked pretty things for the house: curtains, crockery, cutlery, furniture. Furniture most of all. She’d give anything for a new three-piece: velveteen, dark green or plum-coloured. She licked her lips and thought about brocade cushions with fringes, one at each end of the settee, on each of the chairs.

Most of all, she’d like a nice big house to put the lovely things in. She was sick to death of living in a two-up, two-down in O’Connell Street. But if curtains were an impossible dream, then a big house was – well, out of the question. Being married to a no-hoper like Billy Lacey, she was just as likely to fly to the moon.

She shoved herself to a sitting position. The red light on the ceiling cast a sinister glow over the ward, over the prone bodies beneath the faded cotton counterpanes. ‘It looks like a morgue,’ she thought. Paper chains crisscrossed the room and she remembered it was Christmas Eve. ‘Everyone’s dead except me and that fat bitch in the corner snoring her head off.’

The clock over the door showed a quarter past four. A cup of tea should arrive soon. Alice, who already had three kids, all girls, and knew about such things, said the tea trolley came early, around five o’clock, which seemed an unearthly time to wake anyone up. In the meantime she’d go for a walk. If she lay in bed till kingdom come, she’d never go asleep.

The rain was lashing down, making the windows rattle in their frames. It drummed on the roof and she hoped Billy would keep an eye on the loose slates over the lavatory. She’d been at him to fix them for ages, but would probably end up fixing them herself. She fixed most things around the house. Her lips twisted bitterly when she thought about Billy. His brother, John, had stayed in the ozzie with Alice until an hour before their lad was born. He’d only left because the girls were being looked after by a neighbour who was scared of the raids. But Billy had left her on the steps outside the ozzie when she was about to have their first-born child. Off to the pub, as usual. He didn’t know yet if she’d had a boy or a girl.

There was a nurse in the glass cubicle at the end of the ward where a sprig of mistletoe hung over the door. She was at a desk, head bent, writing. The new mothers were expected to remain confined to their beds for seven whole days, not even allowed to go to the lavatory, but the woman slid from under the bedclothes and crept past, opening one half of the swing doors just enough to allow her through. The nurse didn’t look up.

The dimly lit corridor was empty, silent. Her bare feet made no sound on the cold floor. She crept round corners, through more doors, dodged into the lavatories when she heard footsteps coming towards her. The footsteps passed, faded, and she looked both ways before coming out, hoping it wasn’t someone on their way to her ward who’d notice the empty bed, though it was unlikely. The hospital was understaffed. Some nurses had joined the Forces, or gone into better-paid jobs. There were a lot of part-timers and older nurses who’d retired and come back to do their bit.

She arrived at the place that had been her destination all along: the nursery. Five rows of babies, tightly wrapped in sheets, like little mummies in their wooden cots. Most were asleep, a few grizzled, some had their eyes wide open. Like her, they couldn’t sleep.

Her own baby had been whisked away because of the emergency and she’d barely seen him. Now she did, she saw he was a pale little thing. He looked sickly, she thought. There was yellow stuff in his eyes. As she stared at her sleeping child, she felt nothing. She was twenty-seven, older than Alice, and had been married longer. But she hadn’t wanted a baby. The sponge soaked in vinegar she’d inserted every night, which Billy knew nothing about, hadn’t worked for once.

The child couldn’t possibly have come at a worse time. Just when she’d worn Billy down, ranted at him mercilessly for month after month, until he’d conceded that letting his missus get a job wasn’t a sore reflection on his masculine pride. Not with a war on and women all over the country working in ways they’d never done before. Why, there were women in the Army, on the trams, delivering the post, in factories doing men’s jobs.

It was a job in a factory on which the woman had set her eye, making munitions. You could earn as much as four quid a week, three times as much as Billy. And as she said to him, ‘Any minute now, you’ll be called up. What am I supposed to do then? Sit at home, twiddling me thumbs, living on the pittance I’ll get from the Army?’

His face had paled. He was a coward, not like his brother John, who’d volunteered when war broke out, but had been turned down because he was in a reserved occupation. John was a centre lathe turner, Billy a labourer. There was nothing essential about his menial job. John, anxious to make a contribution towards the war, had become a fire-watcher. Billy carried on as usual and haunted the pubs waiting for his call-up papers from the Army to land on the mat.

She’d only been in the munitions factory a fortnight, packing shells. It was hard work, but she liked it. If she felt tired, she thought about the pay packet she’d get on Friday, about the things she’d buy, and soon perked up. Then she discovered she was up the stick, pregnant and, stupid idiot that she was, she told the woman who worked beside her and next minute everyone knew, including the foreman, and she’d got the push.

‘This is not the sort of job suitable for a woman in the family way,’ the foreman said.

The woman glared through the glass at her baby. She hadn’t thought what to call him. She wasn’t interested. Billy wanted Maurice for some reason if they had a boy, but she had no idea if Maurice was a saint’s name. Catholics were expected to call their kids after saints. Alice’s girls had funny Irish names and she didn’t know if they were saints either. The new kid would be called Cormac. ‘No “k” at the end,’John had said, smiling. He humoured his silly, dreamy wife something rotten.

Where was Cormac? There were cards pinned to the foot of each cot with drawing pins. ‘LACEY (I)’ it said on the cot directly in front of her. Her own baby was ‘LACEY (2)’. Alice had yet to see her little son. It had been a difficult birth and she’d been in agony the whole way through. John had been close to tears when he’d had to go home. Afterwards, with seven stitches and blind with pain, Alice had been given something to make her sleep.

Her own confinement had been painless – she wouldn’t have dreamt of making a fuss had it been otherwise. She hadn’t needed a single stitch. Her belly still felt slightly swollen and she hurt a bit between the legs, that was all.

Even though she didn’t give a damn about babies, the woman had to admit Cormac was a bonny lad. He had dark curly hair like his dad, and he wasn’t all red and shrivelled like the other babies. His big brown eyes were wide open and she could have sworn he was looking straight at her. She pressed her palms against the glass and something dead peculiar happened in her belly, a slow, curling shiver of anger. It wasn’t fair: Alice had the best Lacey, now she had the best son.

From deep within the bowels of the hospital, she heard the rattle of dishes. Tea was being made, the trolley was being set. Any minute now, someone would come.

The woman opened the door of the nursery and went in.

Alice Lacey sang to herself as she swept a cloud of Florrie Piper’s hair into the corner of the salon. ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed . . .’ She brushed the hair on to a shovel and took it into the yard to empty in the dustbin.

‘They say you can sell hair like that for a small fortune in the West End of London,’ Mrs Piper yelled from under the dryer when Alice came back.

‘Who to?’

‘Wig makers. They’re always on the lookout for a good head of hair.’

‘Really,’ Alice said doubtfully. The hair she’d just thrown away was more suitable for a bird’s nest: dry as dust, over-permed, full of split ends and dyed the colour of soot.

‘You can comb Mrs Piper out now, Alice,’ Myrtle said in a slurred voice.

‘About time too,’ Florrie Piper said, tight-lipped. ‘These curlers are giving me gyp.’

‘I don’t know how you stand it to be honest.’ Alice switched off the dryer, and Mrs Piper heaved her large body out of the chair and went to sit in front of a pink-tinted mirror.

‘We can’t all have naturally wavy hair, Alice Lacey, not like you.’ Florrie Piper chose to take offence. She sniffed audibly. ‘You shouldn’t work in a hairdresser’s if you can’t take what’s done to the customers.’

Alice removed the net and yelped when her fingers touched a red-hot metal curler. It must be torture, sitting for half an hour with bits of burning metal pressed against your scalp. ‘I’ll take them out in a minute,’ she muttered. ‘Would you like a mince pie?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say no,’ Mrs Piper said graciously. She’d already had three. Food wasn’t usually provided in Myrtle’s Hairdressing Salon, but it was Christmas Eve. Some rather tired decorations festooned the walls and a bent tinsel star hung in the steam-covered window. There’d been sherry earlier, but the proprietor had finished off the lot by dinner time. Myrtle was as tipsy as a lord and had made a terrible mess of Mrs Fowler with the curling tongues. The waves were dead uneven. Fortunately, Mrs Fowler’s sight wasn’t all it should be and she refused to wear glasses. Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice.

Mrs Piper had recovered her good humour. ‘What are you doing for Christmas, luv?’ she enquired when Alice began to remove the curlers. Her ears were a startling crimson.

‘Nothing much.’ Alice wrinkled her nose. ‘John’s mam’s coming to Christmas dinner, along with his brother Billy and his wife. They’ve got a little boy, Maurice, exactly the same age as our Cormac. Me dad usually comes, but he’s off to Ireland tonight to spend Christmas with his sister. She’s not been well.’

‘Your Cormac will be starting school soon, I expect.’

‘In January. He was five only yesterday.’

‘And how are your girls? You know, I can never remember their names.’

‘Fionnuala, Orla and Maeve,’ Alice said for the thousandth time in her life. ‘They’re at a party this avvy in St James’s church hall. Something to do with Sunday School. I made them a cake to take. I managed to get some dates.’

Mrs Piper eyed the remainder of the mince pies. ‘Would you like another?’ Alice enquired.

‘I wouldn’t say no,’ Mrs Piper repeated. ‘It would be a shame if they went to waste. You’re closing early today, aren’t you? I must be one of your last customers.’

‘We’ve got a couple of trims, that’s all. Here’s one of ’em now.’ The bell on the door gave its rather muted ring – it probably needed oiling – and Bernadette Moynihan came in. She was a vivacious young woman with an unusually voluptuous figure for someone so small. Alice smiled warmly at her best friend. ‘Help yourself to a mince pie, Bernie.’

‘I thought we were having sherry an’ all,’ Bernadette cried. ‘I’ve been looking forward to it all day.’

‘I’m afraid it’s gone.’ Alice glanced at Myrtle who seemed to have given up altogether on hairdressing and was staring drunkenly at her reflection in the pink mirror.

Bernadette grinned. ‘She looks like a ghoul,’ she whispered.

Myrtle was a tad too old for so much lipstick, eyeshadow, mascara and rouge. Now, everything was smudged and she looked like a sad, elderly clown. Her grey roots were showing and the rest of her hair had been peroxided to a yellow frizz. She made a poor advertisement for a hairdressing salon.

‘Don’t comb it out too much, luv,’ Mrs Piper said when the curlers were removed. ‘I like it left tight. It lasts longer.’

Alice loosened the curls slightly with her fingers and Mrs Piper said, ‘How much is that, luv?’

‘Half a crown.’

‘And worth every penny!’ She left, tipping Alice threepence, with her head resembling the inside of an Eccles cake.

The door closed and Alice looked from Bernadette to Myrtle who was slowly falling asleep, then back again. ‘I’m not supposed to give trims, not official, like.’ She usually went to Bernadette’s to trim her hair, or Bernadette came to hers.

‘Well, if you don’t cut me hair, it doesn’t look like anyone else will.’ Bernadette seized a gown and tied it around her neck. ‘I just want an inch off. Anyroad, Al, you’ve got the knack. You couldn’t do it better if you were properly trained. I only came ’cos it’s Christmas and I was expecting mince pies and a glass of sherry. To be sadly disappointed,’ she added in a loud voice in Myrtle’s direction, ‘in regard to the sherry.’

Alice giggled. ‘Sit down, luv. An inch you said?’

‘One inch. A fraction shorter, a fraction longer, and I’ll complain to the management.’

‘You’ll be lucky.’ Alice attacked Bernadette’s smooth fair hair, draped over one eye like Veronica Lake, with the scissors. ‘Are you looking forward to tonight?’

Bernadette grinned. ‘Ever so much. I’ve always liked Roy McBride. He works in Accounts. I was thrilled to pieces when he asked me out – and to a dinner dance on Christmas Eve!’

‘I hope you have a lovely time.’ Alice placed her hands on her friend’s shoulders and they stared at each other in the mirror. ‘Don’t be too disappointed if he turns out like some of the others, will you, luv?’

‘Like most of the others, you mean. All I want is company, all they want is . . . well, I can’t think of a polite word for it. Men seem to think a young widow is game for anything.’ Her usually cheerful face grew sober. ‘Oh, Al, I don’t half wish Bob hadn’t been killed. I feel guilty going out with other men. I get so lonely, but not lonely enough to jump into bed with every man I meet. If only we’d had kids. At least they’d make me feel wanted.’

‘I know, luv,’ Alice said gently.

‘We kept putting them off, kids, until we got a house. We didn’t want to start a family while we were still in rooms. Then the war started, Bob was killed, and it’s been horrible ever since. And I’m still living in the same rooms.’

Alice squeezed her shoulders. ‘Don’t forget, you’re welcome round ours tomorrer if you feel like a jangle. Don’t be put off ’cos it’s Christmas Day.’

‘I’m going to me mam’s, Al, but thanks all the same.’ Bernadette reached up and touched Alice’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, luv, for being such a moan. You’ve got enough problems of your own these days, what with John the way he is. It’s just that you’re the only person I’ve got to talk to.’

‘Don’t you dare apologise, Bernadette Moynihan. You’re the only person I’ve told about John. Today was your turn for a moan. Next time it’ll be mine.’

The final customer of the day arrived; Mrs O’Leary, with her ten-year-old daughter, Daisy, who was in Maeve’s class at school and whose long, auburn ringlets were in need of a good trim. By now, Myrtle was fast asleep and snoring.

‘Would you like me to do it?’ an embarrassed Alice offered. ‘I won’t be long with Bernie.’

‘Well, I haven’t got much choice, have I?’ Mrs O’Leary laughed. ‘At least you’ll probably cut it level both sides. Myrtle’s usually well out. I sometimes wonder why we come. I suppose it’s because it’s so convenient, right at the end of the street, but I think I’ll give that place in Marsh Lane a try. Each time we come Myrtle’s worse than the time before. And it’s not just the drink. She’s every bit as useless if she’s sober. If it weren’t for you, Alice, this place would have closed down years ago.’

‘Hear, hear,’ cried Bernadette. ‘It’s Al who keeps it going.’

Alice blushed, but she had a feeling of dread. If Myrtle’s closed, what would she do? She’d started four years ago, just giving a hand: sweeping up, wiping down, putting women under the dryers, taking them out again, washing hair, fetching towels, putting on gowns. Lately, with Myrtle going seriously downhill in more ways than one, she’d been taking on more and more responsibility. It was impossible to work in a hairdresser’s for so long without learning how it was done. Alice was quite capable of giving a shampoo and set, a Marcel or Eugene wave, a perm – the new method was so much simpler than having to plug in every curler separately, a procedure that took all of four hours – and she seemed to have a knack with scissors. It was just a question of holding them right.

She only lived in the next street. It was easy to pop home when business was slack to make the girls their tea, keep an eye on them during the holidays. She usually brought Cormac with her. An angel of a child, he’d been quite happy to lie in his pram in the kitchen, play on the pavement outside when he got older, or sit in the corner, drawing, on the days it rained. But it wasn’t just the convenience, or the extra money, useful though it was. Nowadays the hairdresser’s provided an escape from the tragedy her life had become since last May. For most people the end of the worst war the world had ever known was a joyful occasion, a reason to celebrate. For the Laceys it had been a nightmare.

Myrtle’s was an entirely different world: a bright, cosy, highly dramatic little world behind thick lace curtains and steamed-up windows, quite separate from the one outside. There was always something to laugh about, always a choice piece of gossip doing the rounds. The women had sorted out the war between them – it would probably have ended sooner had Winston Churchill been privy to the sound advice of Myrtle Rimmer’s customers.

Most women were willing, even anxious, to open up their hearts to their hairdresser. There were some very respectable men in Bootle who’d have a fit if they knew the things Alice had been told about them. She never repeated anything, not even to Bernie.

Bernadette waited until Alice had cut Daisy O’Leary’s ringlets so they were level both sides and Mrs O’Leary pronounced herself satisfied. She wished them Merry Christmas and departed.

Alice locked the door, turned the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ and between them the two women half carried, half dragged the proprietor to her flat upstairs and laid her on the bed.

‘Jaysus,’ Bernadette gasped. ‘It don’t half pong in here. She’s not fit to live on her own, Al, let alone run a hairdresser’s.’

The bed was unmade, the curtains still drawn. Alice covered her employer with several dirty blankets and regarded her worriedly. ‘I’ll pop round tomorrer after dinner, like. See if she’s all right. She said something about going to a friend’s for tea.’

‘Has she got any relatives?’ Bernadette asked.

‘There’s a daughter somewhere. Southampton, I think. Myrtle’s husband died ages ago.’ She heard someone try the salon door, but ignored it. There was a notice announcing they closed at four.

They returned downstairs. After Bernadette had gone, Alice brushed the floor again, gave it a cursory going over with a wet mop, wiped surfaces, polished mirrors, straightened chairs, arranged the three dryers at the same angle and tied the dirty towels in a bundle ready to go to the laundry when the salon reopened after Christmas. She glanced around to see if there was anything she’d missed. Well, the lace curtain could do with mending, not to mention a good wash, the walls were badly in need of a lick of paint, and the oilcloth should be replaced before a customer caught her heel in one of the numerous frayed holes and went flying. Otherwise, everywhere looked OK. She could go home.

Instead, Alice switched off the light and sat under a dryer. Go home for what? she asked herself. The girls weren’t due till five. Her dad had taken Cormac to the grotto in Stanley Road. John was finishing work at three. He’d be home by now. Alice shuddered. She didn’t want to be alone with her husband.

John Lacey regarded what was left of his face in the chrome mirror over the mantelpiece. It had been a handsome face once. He wasn’t a conceited man, but he’d always known that he and his brother Billy weren’t at the back of the queue when the Lord handed out good looks. Both were tall, going on six feet. John’s dark-brown hair was curly, Billy’s straight. They had the same rich-brown eyes, the same straight nose, the same wide brow. His mam, never one to consider anyone’s feelings, used to say John was the handsomer of the two. He had a firmer mouth, there was something determined about his chin. Billy’s chin was weak.

Mam didn’t say that now, not since her elder son had turned into a monster. John stroked the melted skin on his right cheek, touched the corner of the unnaturally angled slit of an eye. If only he hadn’t gone to the aid of the seaman trapped in the hold when the boiler had exploded on that merchant ship. The hold had become a furnace, the man was screaming, his overalls on fire. He emerged from the flames, a blazing phantom, hair burning, screaming for help.

The irony was he hadn’t managed to save the chap. He had died within minutes, writhing in agony on the deck, everyone too terrified to touch him. Everyone except that dickhead, John Lacey, who’d dragged him out, burnt his own hands, burnt his face. The hands had mended, but not the face.

A further irony was that the war was virtually over and the accident had had nothing to do with the conflict. The firefighters were on duty at Gladstone Dock, as they had been every night over the past five years, when the boiler had gone up. They’d come through the war unscathed, all his family, his brother’s family, his mam, his father-in-law. Amber Street itself hadn’t been touched, not even a broken window, while numerous other streets in Bootle had been reduced to rubble. Then, in the very last week, John had lost half his face.

He stared at the grotesque reflection in the mirror. ‘Fool!’ he spat through crooked lips.

Where were his children – his three girls, his little son? More important, where was his wife? He remembered the girls had gone to a party. His father-in-law had Cormac. But there was no explanation for why Alice wasn’t home.

‘She don’t fancy you no more,’ he told his reflection. ‘She’s with another fella. He’s giving her one right now, sticking it up her in the place that used to be yours.’

John groaned and turned away from the mirror. He’d never used to think like that, so coarsely, lewdly. Making love to Alice used to be the sweetest thing on earth, but now he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, imagining her shrinking inside, hating it.

The back door opened and his wife came in. Until last May, until a few days before the war ended, until his accident, he would have lifted her up, kissed her rosy face, stared into her misty blue eyes, told her how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her. They might have taken the opportunity, the kids being out, of going upstairs for a blissful half-hour in bed. Instead, John scowled and said gruffly, ‘I tried Myrtle’s door on the way home, but it were locked. That was more than half an hour ago. Where have you been, eh? With your fancy man?’

She looked at him reproachfully. ‘I haven’t got a fancy man, John.’

Oh