ill.”
“How did my mother know you worked at the Co-op?” asked Eddie, puzzled. “I’ve never told anyone where you were working or if I had I would have told them it was at the Saltbury’s store.”
“I don’t know how things get round, Eddie, but it was definitely your mother, though I thought she was rather rude.”
“No, it’s just her way, Irene. My Mum is a lovely person, but she can be like that with people she doesn’t know. One day you’ll grow to love her like I do, I’m sure.”
Mmm , thought Irene. His mother is all fur coat and no knickers as far as I’m concerned.
Eddie set off to travel to Aunt Miriam’s by walking along the roads to Woodside Terminus, as it was light enough to see in the middle of July. He wanted to have some time to think about his mother’s message. It must be his father’s ticker that was giving him trouble: too many fags, too much alcohol and not enough exercise. His father never walked anywhere, everywhere he went was by car. How would the old man receive him if he turned up just for a visit? Probably throw something at him for leaving him in the lurch.
Eddie had got himself a job at a scrap metal merchants. The boss, Gerry Fielden, put him in charge of the float money. Two other men went ahead of the scrap wagon knocking on doors to drum up trade. Then Eddie would appear and pay the housewife for her rags, or her old dolly tub, copper boiler or mangle, paying as much as five shillings for a mangle because in some of the better off areas they were very much in demand. At the end of the day, the scrap metal and rags were weighed in the yard and each man then received their pay. The work took Eddie around the posher areas of the Wirral and sometimes he went through the Mersey tunnel to Liverpool.
He missed the familiar tinkle of trowels, though, the sound he’d grown up with since he was a boy. Sometimes if he passed a building site, he would stop the wagon and watch the brickies at their work. Maybe he’d been hasty, should he give it another go, perhaps his father was sorry and he’d move back home again?
By the time he’d caught the Heswall bus, Eddie had made his mind up. He would move back into his parents’ home if they gave him permission to marry Irene. If not, they wouldn’t have a son and heir, because he wasn’t going to give up his girl.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eddie didn’t turn up to his parent’s house until Saturday afternoon, by which time his mother was beginning to think that the dratted girl hadn’t passed on her message, but Eddie had to be there for Irene and her mother. He had taken Friday off work after staying over at Aunt Miriam’s home, delivered Irene’s note to the Co-op, then made his apologies to Gerry Fielden saying he had to take time off for family reasons.
After checking on Irene, he then went to the Funeral Directors to make arrangements for Charlie’s burial. Neither of the two women felt up to doing that. Irene was heartbroken at losing her Papa and spent the day with her mother talking over old times.
Irene remembered how, as a little girl she would climb into one of the pear trees that they grew in the orchard. The sturdy branches had become a refuge from when her mother or sister wanted her to run a message up to the nearest shop, or worse still want to brush her long hair and twist it into ringlets. Papa always knew where she would be though and would creep stealthily under the trees, then catch her unawares. When she was a teenager he made her a bench to sit on, and on many a fine weekend in the late Spring she would do her sewing, watching the pear blossom blowing about as if it was snow.
She remembered how distressed her father had been when he was made redundant from Cammel Laird shipyard and he could no longer afford her school fees. It was if he had diminished in front of her eyes as man of the house and provider. His wife’s tone got sharper and she’d had to sell her garden produce from a stall on the dock
“How did my mother know you worked at the Co-op?” asked Eddie, puzzled. “I’ve never told anyone where you were working or if I had I would have told them it was at the Saltbury’s store.”
“I don’t know how things get round, Eddie, but it was definitely your mother, though I thought she was rather rude.”
“No, it’s just her way, Irene. My Mum is a lovely person, but she can be like that with people she doesn’t know. One day you’ll grow to love her like I do, I’m sure.”
Mmm , thought Irene. His mother is all fur coat and no knickers as far as I’m concerned.
Eddie set off to travel to Aunt Miriam’s by walking along the roads to Woodside Terminus, as it was light enough to see in the middle of July. He wanted to have some time to think about his mother’s message. It must be his father’s ticker that was giving him trouble: too many fags, too much alcohol and not enough exercise. His father never walked anywhere, everywhere he went was by car. How would the old man receive him if he turned up just for a visit? Probably throw something at him for leaving him in the lurch.
Eddie had got himself a job at a scrap metal merchants. The boss, Gerry Fielden, put him in charge of the float money. Two other men went ahead of the scrap wagon knocking on doors to drum up trade. Then Eddie would appear and pay the housewife for her rags, or her old dolly tub, copper boiler or mangle, paying as much as five shillings for a mangle because in some of the better off areas they were very much in demand. At the end of the day, the scrap metal and rags were weighed in the yard and each man then received their pay. The work took Eddie around the posher areas of the Wirral and sometimes he went through the Mersey tunnel to Liverpool.
He missed the familiar tinkle of trowels, though, the sound he’d grown up with since he was a boy. Sometimes if he passed a building site, he would stop the wagon and watch the brickies at their work. Maybe he’d been hasty, should he give it another go, perhaps his father was sorry and he’d move back home again?
By the time he’d caught the Heswall bus, Eddie had made his mind up. He would move back into his parents’ home if they gave him permission to marry Irene. If not, they wouldn’t have a son and heir, because he wasn’t going to give up his girl.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eddie didn’t turn up to his parent’s house until Saturday afternoon, by which time his mother was beginning to think that the dratted girl hadn’t passed on her message, but Eddie had to be there for Irene and her mother. He had taken Friday off work after staying over at Aunt Miriam’s home, delivered Irene’s note to the Co-op, then made his apologies to Gerry Fielden saying he had to take time off for family reasons.
After checking on Irene, he then went to the Funeral Directors to make arrangements for Charlie’s burial. Neither of the two women felt up to doing that. Irene was heartbroken at losing her Papa and spent the day with her mother talking over old times.
Irene remembered how, as a little girl she would climb into one of the pear trees that they grew in the orchard. The sturdy branches had become a refuge from when her mother or sister wanted her to run a message up to the nearest shop, or worse still want to brush her long hair and twist it into ringlets. Papa always knew where she would be though and would creep stealthily under the trees, then catch her unawares. When she was a teenager he made her a bench to sit on, and on many a fine weekend in the late Spring she would do her sewing, watching the pear blossom blowing about as if it was snow.
She remembered how distressed her father had been when he was made redundant from Cammel Laird shipyard and he could no longer afford her school fees. It was if he had diminished in front of her eyes as man of the house and provider. His wife’s tone got sharper and she’d had to sell her garden produce from a stall on the dock
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