Women of Courage, page 57
‘Yes!’ they both squeal.
‘OK then, get to it.’
They dive under the tree and pull out a present each, check the label and then jump up. Poppy delivers a present to Dave, while Rose delivers one to Luke.
‘That’s from me,’ says Rose handing it to Luke. She looks as pleased as punch.
‘Ooh, I can’t wait to open it,’ says Luke holding it to his chest.
The girls deliver all the presents to everyone and then we open them at the same time. I’m speechless at the thought and effort that has gone into my special presents, and I watch eagerly to see that everyone likes the presents that I made for them.
Shirley has made me an apron. It’s a proper old-fashioned bib and skirt, and she’s embroidered daisies along the edges.
‘Oh my goodness, I love it,’ I say, getting up and giving her a hug.
‘That’s so Luke can tie your apron strings to the kitchen table,’ laughs Pete.
‘Hey!’ pipes up Lisa, swiping at his arm.
‘Well you know the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,’ chuckles Dave.
‘Which, although it’s politically incorrect, is quite near the truth,’ laughs Shirley, ‘especially in your case!’ She throws a scrunched up piece of paper at him.
Luke has saved my present to open last, and I hold my breath as he undoes the wrapping. He looks at the key and turns to me with a smile. Then he opens the paper and reads the poem. I hope it’s not too pushy. It’s obvious from the last line and the present of a key that I am asking him to move in with me again, but what will he think.
His face is expressionless. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Oh my goodness, he doesn’t like it! I feel sick. It’s too pushy, too much. After all, he’s made it clear he wasn’t ready to get serious. Stupid silly woman, what have I done? He stands up. Gosh he’s going to go out of the room he’s so embarrassed. Oh no.
But instead of leaving the room, Luke drops to one knee in front of me.
‘I know our tradition is only £10 presents allowed, but I spoke with Mum and Dad and they agreed there could be an exception to the rule.’ Luke puts his hand in his dressing gown pocket and pulls out a small red box. He lifts the lid and presents to me the most beautiful diamond ring.
I gasp. The girls clap.
‘Charity, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?’
I can’t talk. My chin is wobbling like crazy. My eyes are spilling over with tears. Luke looks at me questioningly.
‘Yes,’ I manage to whisper. ‘Yes, and a hundred times yes.’
Everyone laughs and claps. Luke slips the ring onto my finger and then draws me to my feet. He gives me a soft kiss and then we’re hugging. Everyone is clamoring to hug and congratulate us.
‘Let’s see, let’s see,’ cry the girls.
I turn around and show them the ring. ‘Ooo,’ they say in unison.
After some home-baked croissants for breakfast, the ladies prepare the dinner, while the men play board games with the girls. All the time Christmas music is playing in the background.
At three o’clock we gather around the dining table for dinner. The table looks festive and merry. Pulling Christmas-crackers are on each plate; the centre-piece made from holly sits around a row of thick red candles which have been lit. The room diffuser is emitting the aroma of cinnamon and orange. Once all the food has been placed on the table and we’ve sat down, Dave holds out his hands. One by one we join hands and close our eyes.
‘Dear Lord above, how great Thou art. How merciful and loving. We thank you for the roof over our heads, for the clothes on our backs and this wonderful abundance of food on our table. Lord, 2020 has been a trying year. With floods, fires, shootings and Covid as well, it has sometimes felt like the end-times have come. Whether they have or they haven’t is not relevant to us, dear God. For your Son came down and spilled His blood for us. How truly grateful are we, that our sin has been wiped away by His sacrifice so that our forever home will be with You in Heaven. Thank you God, for the National Health Service, and for the wonderful people who go out of their way to help others.
‘As we move into 2021 Lord, help us to be better people. Help us to appreciate each and every moment of life we have. May our hearts be full of worship and thanksgiving. And may we never forget that You never leave nor forsake us, no matter how hard the times are.
‘With thanks we say...’
‘Amen,’ says everyone.
The day has been one of the most precious days of my life. Now that we’re engaged, Luke has decided we can sleep together. Sleep only mind, as we are in his parents’ house. We’re thinking of a spring wedding, something low key but special. Luke is snoring gently in my ear. His arm is wrapped tight around my waist. I feel loved and wanted. How exceptional is that? Besides my Mum and Nana, I have never felt love like this. He knows me inside and out and still wants me! My heart has become like a sponge, totally squishy and oozing joy. I promise to love this man always, God. I will do my very best to make him happy. Thank you God, thank you so much, for bringing me out of the mire and putting my feet on solid ground. Thank you for surrounding me with love and a new family. Thank you as well for Megan and Jack, and for all the ventures we have planned for next year, especially for the Wales project Lord, I just know that is going to bless so many people.
I don’t know for sure what 2021 will bring, but I do know I’m not alone. Whatever happens we will face it together and be strong.
A letter from Tracy
Ecclesiastes 1:9 (New International Version)
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Dear Readers
Throughout this sadness that is Coronavirus I have wept in fear that I might not see my sons again. After nine months, I am still instantly brought to tears at just the hint that I might never see them again. One lives in Australia, another in the USA. Whilst two other sons live in the UK, one has an ‘at risk’ girlfriend and therefore to protect her, he remains at home and I haven’t seen him in almost a year. My other son I am so grateful to say, lives not too far away and I see him when lockdown rules permit. It is hard sometimes to stop fear from stifling all my joy. I strive to look for the good going on around me. I wish I was stronger.
It gives me small comfort to look at the past. The Spanish Flu naturally ran its course in two years, simply fading away.
This pandemic too, shall pass.
Let us pray and hope that the things we have learned about caring for our neighbors and the world in which we live may bear fruit and remain long into the future.
My love and prayers are sent to all of you, especially if like me you have felt the sadness of isolation, or worse, like Charity, you have lost someone close to you, I send you much love and heart-felt condolences.
God bless, now and always.
Tracy
Captain Tom Moore
In unprecedented times...
Captain Tom became a symbol of all that is good in humanity.
Born 30 Apr 1920
100 years old when he walked for the NHS
Knighted on 17 July 2020
What a man! What a marvelous veteran
So inspiring, his task of walking
Put me to shame, my sofa adoring
Stalwart, his spirit in century old frame
Hearing fading, determination blazing
Could I so selfless be? Let’s see.
Thank you, Captain Tom
For raising thirty-two mill-i-on!
Unprecedented times,
But... we are in this together!
From the Spanish Flu in 1918, to Coronavirus 2020
Then and now... thank you to our wonderful nurses and doctors
Here’s to 2021! May God abundantly bless you and your household.
Hope
My heartfelt thanks go to Nigel who tirelessly helps to check my books over for the many errors I produce, you are the best second opinion any author could ask for, and I appreciate you very much. I also want to thank my BETA readers Isobel & Martha – your help in producing this book was invaluable.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Hope in Liverpool Copyright © T N Traynor 2021 – All rights reserved
The rights of T N Traynor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988
Book cover by Maria Pagtalunan mariachristinepagtalunan@gmail.com
Hope
Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future - Dr. Robert H. Schuller
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my mum, Heather. This isn’t her life-story, but she has helped me to make the book authentic by sharing her experience of being a young woman in Liverpool in the late 1950s and by giving me tiny details such as meeting a beau at the cinema etc.
Mum, thanks for being you, and helping me be me. I love you buckets full!
At the end of the book are a few photographs of my mum, I just wanted to share them with you.
Prologue
Sunday, the 7th September 1958
The gnarled branches of the yew creaked in the early autumn breeze. He wished for the umpteenth time his bench didn’t fall under the mammoth tree’s shadow. His navy, double-breasted jacket was buttoned, his trilby hat pushed down, hands shoved in pockets, shoulders hunched. He really should go. His legs were stiff, his posterior complaining. Yet he remained. Eyes firmly fixed on the polished granite headstone displaying his wife’s name in weathered gold lettering. It did her no justice, he thought. The inscription was simple, her name, the years measuring her too short life, and the true, but totally inadequate memorial of Dearly Loved and Never Forgotten.
Whether from his army days or his compulsive patterns, he was a creature of habit. Monday through Friday was a robotic repeat of absolute discipline. Switch the alarm off at six-thirty. Wash, do warm up exercises in the bathroom (a habit from his army days) dress, eat a bowl of cornflakes, and when the Times newspaper fell on the hallway floor at seven-ten precisely, he would tuck it under his arm and stride to the train station. The paper would be read on the train to Manchester, where he worked as a civil servant. He would work dutifully and diligently, and then when the wheels of industry had sucked him dry with endless red-tape and pointless bureaucracy, he would return home. Cook something plain and eat it. Wash, put on his striped pyjamas, do the newspaper crossword, and then head to bed with a book.
It had been a desire to escape the aftermath of war that had first driven him to the printed word. He had taken to it slowly; his first book taking six months to complete, because he’d kept falling asleep. But then... it had been Titus Groan, and a labyrinthine castle, madmen locked in the dungeon and a whopping 496 pages had turned out to be an epic just a tad too fantastical for him. And then, a few months after his beloved left him, the petite librarian at the local library had fluttered her eyelashes at him and pushed The Catcher in the Rye into his hands. Caught up in the young New Yorker’s problems, his difficulty in remaining awake dispersed, and now against his better judgment, he found putting books down at night a trifle difficult. Still, when the alarm calls at six-thirty a lack of sleep is undeniably punishing.
On Fridays the routine changed only when he stopped off at the Tail and Hound on the way home, his tipple being two pints of bitter. Saturday he laundered his clothes, which included a fresh white shirt for each day of the week. Sometimes, when the sunlight beckoned him into the garden, he would drop off his dirty clothes with Mrs. Francis, who took in washing to top up the coffers. She always did the sheets for him twice monthly, so it was far too easy to drop off his clothes as well. He thought her mangle was impressive as she seemed to dry the clothes in no time. Plus, he was rather partial to the extra starch she put on his collars. There was no getting around the fact that a woman could do these things better than him, yet... one must push forward and strive to increase one’s expertise in all matters. Continuing with his duties (which quite frankly dulled his senses) he would clean the house, do a spot of gardening – weather permitting, and lastly down his steak with a satisfactory measure of whiskey.
But Sundays... oh Lord, Sundays.
This one day a week, he permitted himself the indulgence of giving in to pain and self-pity, to daydreams and regrets. But mostly he gave in to his memories and his crushing guilt.
He always sat on the back pew in church. As soon as the service was over, he would slip out the door before the ushers were even out of their seats. He wasn’t one for talking these days. He liked his privacy, and went all out to safeguard his peace and quiet. People knew him as a man of few words, and well since his wife died he’d practically become a hermit. Still, there was no need to be rude, they’d whisper behind their half-hearted smiles and understanding nods.
He closed his eyes. Instantly, her alluring face was before him. The corners of his lips rose slightly as the memory bloomed. This was his favorite one. Their delayed honeymoon had been celebrated in Bournemouth. The war finally over, he had rejoiced not in the silencing of guns, but in the curve of her waist and in the joyous sound of her laugh. They’d drunk Champagne, danced and tried their hardest to make a baby. Oh indeed, it was his favorite memory! Her soft lips, her warm embrace...
‘Wind’s picking up.’
Sometimes seconds can stand still in time. Seconds in which, one may ponder several outcomes of one’s current situation, and all swinging on the choice of words one will finally commit to utter.
‘It is indeed,’ were the words that eventually came from his mouth, while his mind bantered around ‘bugger off, leave me alone.’
‘It’s the anniversary next week, isn’t it? The fifteenth?’
He lifted his heavy head and glanced at the intruder of his peace. The young man before him was a decent man. He knew that, besides who else would remember that next week would be the fifth anniversary of his wife leaving him?
‘I hope you’re not going to say something like, where does time go?’
The young man smiled, and sat himself down on the bench. ‘You keep it neat,’ he said, nodding towards the grave. ‘She was lucky to have you. There aren’t many who come every week to remember their loved ones.’
‘I was the lucky one.’
‘Have you not thought about finding someone to share life with? I’m sure your wife, ‘God bless her soul,’ wouldn’t want you to be alone.’ The young man had taken off his checkered work cap and was idly twirling it in his hands. Workman’s hands, rough and scarred, mud buried deep under his fingernails.
He wanted to snap ‘of course not,’ but in truth the loneliness of the last five years, (not in passing years you understand, but in untenable long evenings) had become unbearable. ‘To be honest, I’ve thought about putting an advertisement in the paper, miserable old git seeks companion, affable women with no baggage may apply.’
The young man tilted his head back and roared. When he’d finished wiping the laughter tears aside with the back of him arm, he turned a little to better regard his weather-beaten friend. ‘Think you’ll get many takers, then?’
He had to smile. ‘No, but then I don’t honestly want to make the effort to be nice to anyone. I don’t want to explain the emptiness in my chest or why I don’t eat pickles. It’s only sometimes I get to thinking, perhaps life would be more tolerable if someone quiet was sitting on the opposite side of the table during meal times.’
‘My mum always says my dad is her best friend, and what more could she ask for. I’d like that, to be married to my best friend.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Oh, I’ve not met her yet.’
‘Really?’ He examined the young man. He was a tall, muscular man with sun-kissed skin that highlighted his chestnut eyes. Brown curly locks framed his angular face. He wasn’t into studying men per se, but if he had to pass a comment or two, he would say the boy was personable and fine-looking, surely dapper enough to attract the fairer sex. He certainly had a heart of gold.
‘Once they find out what I do for a living, they normally skedaddle swifter than a dog with a bone.’ The young man’s right eyebrow lifted high, revealing a certain ‘that’s life’ expression.
‘My advice to you then young man is not to tell them what you do until they’re asking you to come home and meet the parents. By which time, they will be so desiring of your affection they won’t give two hoots what you do to bring home the bacon.’
‘And I would urge you, good sir, to go find that companion. Come out of your secluded safe-place long enough to let someone in, you never know you might get lucky and fall in love a second time.’
Chapter 1
Friday, 4th July 1958 – 17:30
Money jangled in her pocket. Today was a grand day! Hope had been working at Vernons for six months now and her promotion, which included a percentage of bonuses, had catapulted her pay packet from £2 10s to £4 12s. She literally bounced as she walked home. Surely ma would allow her to keep a portion, and she could buy herself something for once?
As she turned the corner into their street someone called out ‘yoo-hoo.’ She glanced up to see who had hailed her. A man on a bike approached with a grin. Just before he reached her he opened his overcoat to reveal his nakedness! Hope had a quick look then screamed and raced the last few steps along the sidewalk and charged into their tiny two-up, two-down in Dingle.
