‘You’ve passed! Oh, Grace love, I’m that proud of you.’ Jean dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. Grace had arrived just as Jean was finishing peeling the potatoes for dinner, and now her mother added, ‘I knew it must be good news the minute I set eyes on you, you looked that happy.’

‘I still can’t believe it.’ Grace shook her head.

Her mother was every bit as thrilled and pleased as Grace had known she would be, and it was lovely to be home. It was only now that she was here that she recognised just how much she had missed her family

‘Your dad’s gone down to the allotment and the twins with him. Him and a few of the others have decided to try keeping a couple of pigs. They’ll be back soon. He’ll be ever so pleased that you’ve passed, love.’

‘I don’t know how I ever got to pass. I keep thinking it’s a mistake. I’m having to pinch meself to make sure it’s real,’ Grace laughed. ‘I’m that happy that the Hospital is letting us all go home for Christmas, Mum. I was really upset thinking I wouldn’t be able to be here. Do you think that Luke might get home?’

‘I don’t know, love.’ Jean looked sad, her face crumpling slightly.

‘I do so wish that Luke and Dad would make up,’ Grace said. ‘I had a letter from Luke on Wednesday. I think he must be in France, although of course he can’t say.’

Jean tried to smile. Luke wrote regularly to them as well, but whilst she read his letters over and over again, Sam refused even to look at them.

‘Seeing as you’re back you can come down to St John’s market with me this afternoon. I want to go and order a goose for Christmas Day. With your dad getting extra pay for doing his bit, I’ve managed to put a decent bit away for some Christmas treats. Might as well buy them now ’cos your dad reckons we’ll have rationing before long. We can look round and perhaps order a nice tongue as well …’

‘I’m sorry, Mum, but I can’t go with you.’

‘You can’t? Why not?’

Grace looked self-conscious. ‘I’ve promised to go to a matinée this afternoon.’

‘With those girls you’ve made friends with?’ Jean guessed.

Grace went pink. ‘No, not them. It’s a lad I’ve met. A decent sort, he is,’ she told her mother hurriedly, seeing that she was beginning to look concerned. ‘I told you about him. He’s the one who gave me a lift back to the hospital after the wedding and that accident.’

Grace could see that her mother wasn’t looking convinced.

‘He lives in Wavertree,’ she told her, ‘with his mum and dad up on Oakhill Road. His dad’s got a greengrocer’s shop.’

Jean pursed her lips. ‘Oakhill Road? It’s all semidetached’s up there. Me and your dad looked at one. Nice big garden, it had, but only the three bedrooms, them not having any attic like we’ve got here.’

‘We’re closer to the shops as well,’ Grace pointed out. ‘Teddy says his mum is always complaining about how far she’s got to walk.’

‘Well …’ Grace could see that her mother wasn’t looking quite so concerned now that she had told her a bit about Teddy, but she still warned her with maternal concern, ‘Just you be careful, Grace. There’s a war on, after all, and some of these lads—’

‘Teddy isn’t like that,’ Grace assured her. ‘Bin just as he ought to be with me all along, he has. Anyway, it’s only a matinée.’

‘Well, I’m not sure what your dad will have to say.’

‘I’m nineteen, Mum, and a nurse – well, I will be,’ she amended before changing the subject. ‘I’ve brought the twins some chocolate. I thought I’d get them one of those records they’re so fond of for Christmas.’

‘Your dad won’t thank you for that. He threatens to get rid of that gramophone at least once a week. Mad about their music, they are. I caught the pair of them doing this daft dancing the other day. Jitterbugging, they called it.’ Jean shook her head. ‘They’ve learned it from that Eileen Jarvis in their class at school, whose sister teaches dancing. In my day we knew how to dance properly, a nice waltz or a foxtrot, not this silly stuff.’

Grace hid a small smile. The other girls had been saying only the other day that they ought to be thinking of getting tickets for some dances over Christmas, and especially for New Year’s Eve, and they had mentioned the new jitterbug craze, which was so popular in America.

Her head hurt so much she could hardly lift it off the pillow, and when Bella tried to move the pain in her stomach and her ribs took her breath.

The chair was still where she had put it last night under the door handle to keep Alan out of the bedroom, though. She could see it in the dim light coming in through the blackout blinds her mother had made for her, and which were press-studded to the window frame. She looked at the alarm clock. Eleven o’clock! She had vague memories of dragging herself upstairs and then being violently sick in the bathroom before shutting herself in the bedroom and propping the chair under the handle so that Alan wouldn’t be able to get in.

Alan. He’d be at work now. He was always moaning about the fact that his father insisted he work on Saturday mornings. She got out of bed cautiously, tensing in anticipation against the pain that movement would bring.

Bruises were already forming on her stomach and her ribs, her flesh too sore to bear the pressure of her own explorative touch. Bitterness calcified the angry contempt she already felt for Alan, overlaying last night’s fear. He needn’t think she was going to let him get away with what he had done, because she wasn’t. She lifted her hand to the back of her head. She could feel a lump where he had banged her head on the floor, and her hair was sticky. She removed her had and looked in horror at the dried blood on her fingers.

Tears burned her eyes as she moved too quickly and pain savaged her back into immobility. Just let him wait until she told her parents what he had done. Mummy would have her back home with them before Alan could say a word.

Bella frowned, ignoring the thudding pain that struck right through her head. Was that what she wanted? Being a married woman was far better than being an unmarried daughter living at home. A married woman was to be envied by those girls not lucky enough to be looking forward to their own marriage. She could just imagine how some of those cats at the Tennis Club would gossip about her behind her back if it got out that she had let Alan treat her so badly that she had had to go running home to her mother.

No, she had a better idea. Another way of punishing him. A better way; a way that would scare him, and give her the upper hand, she decided triumphantly.

‘Oh, it’s you, Bella.’

Alan’s mother certainly didn’t look very pleased to see her, Bella acknowledged, but that didn’t bother her. Mrs Parker wore her greying hair scraped back into a tight bun. She was a tall woman, taller than her husband and very well built, with an uncompromising no-nonsense manner.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Mother-in-law, but I feel ever so poorly, I really do.’

Bella might be having to fake her exaggerated politeness but she didn’t have to fake the pain that had her lifting her hand to her head, or the dark shadows bruising the skin beneath her eyes. ‘I would have gone home to Mummy, but, well, I wasn’t sure I could …’ She closed her eyes and leaned heavily against the open front door.

‘You’d better come in,’ Alan’s mother told her, curtly taking hold of her arm, and urging her, ‘Hurry up. I don’t want the neighbours talking.’

Once she had closed the front door behind Bella, she released her, eyeing her with hostility.

‘Now what exactly is it that’s wrong with you?’

White-faced, her voice faltering, Bella told her truthfully, ‘I’ve been ever so sick … and … and fainting. I wouldn’t have come round bothering you but I just didn’t know what to do. Alan will be back for his lunch any minute, but I’ve left him a note saying that I’m here. I thought that perhaps the fresh air …’

Bella could see that Alan’s mother had looked more displeased and grim with every word she had uttered. Well, it would serve her right to be led up the garden path a little bit after the mean way she’d been with her, and think that she was pregnant, especially with her going on about goody-goody Trixie all the time, even if the truth was that Bella wanted herself to be pregnant with Alan’s baby even less than she knew her mother-in-law did.

‘Well, I still don’t know what you’ve come round here for. It seems to me that it’s a doctor you want to be seeing, not me,’ she told Bella forthrightly.

‘A doctor! Oh, no. I mean …’ Bella allowed her eyes to fill with tears and her bottom lip to tremble. ‘I know it was only an accident – Alan wasn’t even there – but … well, it sounds so silly saying that I knocked myself out walking into a door, and then went and cut my head as well.’

Alan’s mother’s face was a picture as she struggled between immediate relief and the sudden horrified dawning that what she might be facing could be a lot worse than an unwanted grandchild.

‘You’ve had an accident?’ she demanded.

‘Could I have a cup of tea?’ Bella begged her. ‘And p’haps sit down? Only I feel ever so weak.’

‘You’d better come into the kitchen.’

Delighted that her plan was going so well, Bella followed her mother-in-law down the cold drab hallway. The Parkers’ house was nowhere as nicely done out as her parents’. The skirtings and doors were painted dull dark brown, lincrusta wallpaper painted dark green stretched up from the skirting to dado rail height above, while the rest of the wall was papered in maroon and green striped wallpaper. The whole effect was overpowering and gloomy.

The kitchen was no better, its walls painted in shiny green paint, the oilcloth on the floor the same dark brown as the skirtings.

The smell of cooking tripe filled the kitchen. Bella’s stomach heaved. She hated tripe and her own mother knew better than to cook it ever.

‘So what exactly happened then?’

Bella sank down into the chair she was offered and tried to blot out the smell of the cooking tripe.

‘It was just after Alan had come in from …’ Bella bit down on her bottom lip and let her voice falter. She was enjoying this. ‘Please don’t say anything to Mr Parker, will you, only poor Alan is working so hard and if he does stop off on the way home for a bit of a drink, well, he doesn’t mean any harm. Afterwards, he feels really bad about the way it makes him. He always says so.’

Alan’s mother looked as though she was about to explode. Her face had gone a deep beetroot red and her eyes were bulging in their sockets. She didn’t dress anything like as nicely as her own mother, Bella thought critically, and she certainly hoped she never got so stout.

‘Alan was there with you then, was he?’

Bella opened her mouth and then closed it again, the picture of uncertainty and guilt, the picture of a young wife desperate to protect her husband.

‘I …’

She was saved from having to reply by the sound of someone hammering on the back door, and she wasn’t at all surprised when Alan’s mother opened it to admit Alan himself, looking very different from the dapper full-of-himself young man who had first caught Bella’s eye. Unshaven, his suit creased and his shirt cuffs grubby, he looked wildly from Bella to his mother.

‘What’s she been telling you?’ he demanded.

‘I was just explaining to your mother about my accident, Alan, and how I walked into the door, and then fell over and banged my head.’ Bella gave him a reproachful limpid-eyed look, and had the pleasure of seeing the confusion darken his eyes.

‘Your mother was saying that I ought to see a doctor.’

‘No.’

Mother and son both spoke at once.

‘No, you did right to come round here, dear,’ Mrs Parker assured Bella, baring her teeth in what Bella assumed must be an attempt at a compassionate smile. ‘A bit of arnica on your bruises and you’ll be as good as new in a few days. And no going worrying your own parents, mind. I know how busy your mother is with all her charity work, and we wouldn’t want her to get herself into an upset state, would we, not now that she’s my deputy?’

‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to worry Mummy,’ Bella agreed.

She turned to Alan. ‘I’m really sorry that I made you cross because I got all muddled up and told Mummy that we could go to her on Christmas Day, darling. Please say you’ll forgive me.’

‘Well, of course he does,’ Mrs Parker told her firmly. ‘Everyone has these silly little fall-outs when they first get married. And I dare say it was you being so upset about Alan being a little bit cross with you that caused you to be forgetful and have your accident in the first place, wasn’t it, Bella?’

Bella got up and went to Alan’s side, reaching for his hand and smiling up at him.

‘Yes … that’s exactly what happened,’ she agreed.

Alan was looking at her as though he couldn’t believe his luck, tears of gratitude sheening his eyes.

‘Perhaps you could say something to Mr Parker about how hard Alan’s having to work, Mother-in-law. He’s coming home at all hours.’

Alan stiffened.

‘I’m sure Alan won’t want me to worry his father when he’s got so much on his plate with all this extra war work that the council is needing to get done.’

The familiar frostiness was back in her mother-in-law’s voice, but Bella didn’t care. She had made her point and satisfied herself that neither Alan nor his mother wanted Alan’s behaviour to get back to his father’s, or her parents’, ears.

When Teddy had asked Grace what film she would like to see she had told him Wuthering Heights with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. She had seen it once already with her mother, but she knew she would enjoy seeing it again, because it was so deliciously spine-tingling and sad. A real girl’s film, Luke had scoffed, which it was. Not that she was testing Teddy or anything by choosing it, of course. No, not for one minute. But she had been pleased by the way he had smiled at her and immediately agreed that he’d like to see it as well, even though she was pretty sure he had only said so to please her. And then soft-heartedly she had told him that really she’d just as soon see JamaicaInn, and his eyes had lit up like a kiddie’s at the thought of pirates and fighting, his relief making her laugh.

They’d arranged to meet outside the Odeon on London Road in the city centre, and although she was on time, Grace was pleased to see that Teddy was there ahead of her, smiling broadly at her when he saw her.

‘I wasn’t sure I’d recognise you out of uniform,’ he teased her, giving her an openly appreciative look, which was nevertheless still respectful.

He was wearing a smart navy-blue suit and an equally smart shirt and tie. Beneath the hat he’d removed when he came over to her and was now replacing, his hair was flattened into obedience with Brylcreem. Grace felt proud to be with him as he guided her towards the Odeon.

She’d taken care with her own appearance, brushing the hair she had washed the previous night until her curls gleamed, her toilette critically overseen by the twins, who had shaken their heads over her first choice of last year’s sensible heavy tweed skirt, insisting instead that she wore her ‘best’ woollen dress, also from last year, and giving their approval to her silk stockings and smart court shoes.

Grace had banished them before carefully applying the new dark pink Max Factor lipstick she’d been experimenting with in the privacy of her room all week, worrying that it might be just a bit too racy. But not even her mother had said anything when she had finally gone downstairs, the pretty scarf that had been a Christmas present from Luke last year tucked into the neck of the raincoat she had decided to wear ‘just in case’.

Because they were early there wasn’t a queue. Teddy headed straight for the shining chrome box office set between the two pairs of doors.

Grace’s eyes widened when she heard him asking for front circle seats. She hadn’t expected that!

‘Seeing as we’re a bit early we could go up and have a bit of something in the restaurant before the film starts, if you fancy it?’ Teddy suggested once he had paid.

Grace shook her head. He’d spent enough already. But as though he guessed why she was holding back he told her, ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit o’ summat meself.’

‘Oh, well, yes, then that would be lovely,’ Grace agreed.

‘It’s you who is that,’ Teddy told her boldly as he guided her through the foyer and up the stairs to the lounge.

Grace could remember only one previous occasion when she’d sat in the front circle and that had been as a treat for her sixteenth birthday.

The carpet beneath her feet was so thick that she could feel herself sinking into it, and although she was trying hard not to look impressed, she couldn’t help studying the elegant décor.

A smartly dressed waitress showed them to a table in the restaurant.

‘Just tea for me, please,’ Grace told her, not daring to think what the prices were here.

‘Tea for two and cakes,’ Teddy told the waitress firmly, winking at Grace.

As other smartly dressed cinemagoers filled the restaurant, Grace was glad that she had allowed the twins to persuade her into wearing her frock. Its soft mid-blue suited her and emphasised the colour of her hair and eyes, as well as emphasising her small waist.

She felt a bit self-conscious pouring the tea for them both, but Teddy was so relaxed and such fun to be with that she soon forgot her discomfort at being out on her first proper date, as she laughed at his jokes and enjoyed his company.

‘I hope there isn’t going to be too much soppy stuff in this film,’ Teddy joked as they left the restaurant, his hand protectively under her elbow. ‘Mind you, me mum gave me a clean hanky before I left, so you needn’t worry.’

He was carrying his overcoat, and just in front of the doors to the circle he paused and rummaged in his pocket, producing a box of chocolates for her.

Grace blushed and smiled, and thought she had never been so happy.

They were back in their own kitchen, Alan looking at her as though he couldn’t believe his luck in getting away with what he had.

‘I’ll have to go round and see Mummy now, Alan, seeing as we’re supposed to be going shopping together this afternoon. It’s a pity we haven’t got a telephone. I’m surprised your father doesn’t have one installed for us, seeing as you’re working for him. Perhaps I should say something about it to your mother.’

‘There’s no need for that. I’ll have a word with him. Look, Bella, what happened last night – well, it won’t happen again.’

She liked his hangdog look and the humble note in his voice, Bella decided.

‘No it won’t,’ she agreed coldly, ‘’cos if it does I shall tell your mother.’

‘It wasn’t all my fault.’ Alan was getting angry again now. ‘If you hadn’t said what you did—’

‘You’ll have to drive me round to Mummy’s, Alan,’ Bella told him, ignoring his accusation. ‘Oh, and if you want something to eat I’m sure your mother will have some tripe left.’

The film had kept Grace on the edge of her seat with fear for poor Maureen O’Hara, apart, that was, from those few brief occasions when Teddy had reached for her hand and held it comfortingly, drawing her closer to him.

Even her mother would have completely approved of the way he had behaved towards her, Grace acknowledged as they left the cinema.

‘That Maureen O’Hara is so beautiful,’ she said to Teddy as they emerged into the gloom of the late December afternoon.

‘She’s not a patch on you,’ Teddy told her stoutly, before asking, ‘What number bus do we want?’

‘We?’

‘Well, you don’t think I’m going to let you make your own way home, do you? I should have brought the ambulance, then we wouldn’t need a bus.’

‘There’s no need to see me home, Teddy.’

It was typical of him that he should offer, though, and Grace was pleased that he had done, even if by doing so he had inadvertently reminded her of another, very different, man, who had also wanted to see her home safely.

‘I suppose you and the other girls will already have made plans for New Year’s Eve?’

‘We have talked about it,’ Grace admitted.

‘You’ll be wanting to go dancing, I expect, somewhere like the Grafton,’ he guessed.

‘Lillian says it’s got the best dance floor in Liverpool, properly sprung and everything, and she’s going to get tickets for us all for New Year’s Eve.’

‘Happen I might get a ticket for meself, especially if a certain very special girl is going to agree to stand up and dance with me.’

‘I’m sure any girl would be happy to dance with you, Teddy,’ Grace told him, and meant it.

‘I’m not talking about any girl, just one girl … Promise you’ll save the last dance for me?’

Somehow or other he had taken hold of her hand without her realising it and now he was lacing his fingers between her own and she could feel a warm glow of happiness.

‘I … yes, I will,’ she told him breathlessly.

It had gone cold, and suddenly Teddy started to cough.

‘That sounds nasty,’ Grace sympathised when he had stopped.

Teddy shook his head. ‘It’s nothing, just got a bit of cold air on me lungs, that’s all. Fancy going to the pictures again tomorrow?’

‘I’d love to, Teddy, but Mum will be expecting me to help her at home,’ Grace told him regretfully. ‘Here’s my bus,’ she added. ‘I’d better go …’

He caught her off guard when he suddenly put his arm around her and drew her to him, then kissed her on the cheek.

‘It’s all right, I’m not going to take liberties with you,’ he told her gruffly as he released her. ‘Not that I’m saying that I wouldn’t like to kiss you properly, mind,’ cos I would.’

There wasn’t time for her to say anything; all she could do was let him walk her to join the queue already boarding her bus.