The Girl From Penny Lane by Katie Flynn

Lilac said. ‘But I’ve got to stand on me own two feet, Stuart’s right about that, at least, and as you say, all my friends are here. I’ll visit you, though . . . come to think of it, if I get a job in a shop or a factory I’ll get set holidays, won’t I? Domestics get half a day here and a day there, and though the Mattesons were very good they still expected me to take a holiday when they did, even if it wasn’t very convenient. So I’ll start looking in the next few days. All right?’
    ‘I suppose so. When will the Mattesons be moving out to Southport, then?’
    ‘Within a month,’ Lilac said rather guardedly. ‘When are you going to London, Nell – the truth, now!’
    ‘We-ell, Stuart’s going in a fortnight,’ Nellie admitted, pink-cheeked. ‘I said I wouldn’t go until you were settled, love, but it does go against the grain to stay here when he leaves, so if you really can manage, I’ll go when Stu does.’
    ‘Of course I can manage,’ Lilac said stoutly, though her heart sank a little. ‘But that means you won’t have the baby before you go!’
    ‘No. My little lad or lass will be born in London, though he or she will be Lancashire through and through, ’cos Stu and me are both Liverpool born and bred.’
    ‘I shan’t see it until I can get down to London to stay with you, then,’ Lilac observed rather sadly. ‘Still, these things happen and must be faced. I’ll get on a train and come down as soon as I possibly can, just to take a peep. After all, he’s me only nephew.’
    ‘Or niece,’ Nellie observed, heaving herself out of the chair. ‘You’re as bad as Stu, he always talks as if I’m bound to have a boy. But for my part, I think a girl is likelier. Boys lie high, this one . . .’
    ‘Oh? Who says?’
    ‘Everyone says,’ Nellie insisted. She walked over to the pantry and began to lay the table for the main meal of the day, always taken in the evening when Stuart was home. ‘Girls lie low, like this one, and boys lie high. Wait and see if I’m not right, anyway.’
    ‘I don’t have much choice,’ Lilac pointed out. ‘Shall I put the kettle on now, our Nellie? That steak and kidney pudding isn’t for tea tonight, is it? Because meat puds take hours to cook and I’ve got to get back before Mrs Matteson’s bedtime.’
    ‘No, it’s for tomorrow. Tonight it’s casseroled mutton – can’t you smell it, cooking away with thyme and rosemary and nice little new potatoes – with apple pie and custard for afters. You feeling hungry already, then?’
    ‘I am. But I do love steak and kidney pudding,’ Lilac confessed. ‘Can I come back to tea tomorrow, our Nell?’
    Nellie pretended to consider, head tilted, whilst her eyes twinkled at the thought of Lilac actually asking for an invitation to tea instead of just announcing that she would be attending the meal.
    ‘We-ell, the mayor will be poppin’ in, and Stu said he’d asked Lord Liverpool, being as how steak and kidney’s his favourite pudding too, but I daresay there’ll be room at the table for a littl’un. Yes, our Li, you come along. When you pull the kettle over the flame, just stand the pot to warm, would you?’
    Lilac complied and the two girls began the final preparations for the meal, bustling round Nellie’s neat, modern kitchen. Lilac, even as she bustled, found herself looking wistfully round her. She had known some very happy moments in this room – indeed, in this house. It didn’t belong to Stuart and Nellie, of course, only the rich owned their homes, everyone else rented, but they had rented it when they married two years earlier, and Lilac had helped to hang the dark red damask curtains in the sitting room, had gone with Nellie to choose the square of pink carpet, had picked the wallpaper for the little front bedroom where she slept when she stayed over, and had varnished the chest of drawers and the small wardrobe which Stuart had bought at Paddy’s Market and carted home on a coal