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Anna begged Edith to accompany her on the trip to Warth Mills. “But the bus is for Italian
families of men from Liverpool,” argued Edith. “Surely you’ll know people on it.”
“Maybe not,” said Anna. “And Isobel can’t go in her condition.”
“But
I’m not a relative,” Edith reasoned.
“If anyone asks, you can say you’re Carlo’s
wife,” countered Anna.
* * *
“Easy, love,” said the white-haired conductor as he grasped
Edith’s elbow to guide her safely from the bus she and Anna took on the first leg of their journey. Edith was sometimes
bemused when people were deferential to her; it took her a second or two to realize that her pregnant state was the reason
for their thoughtfulness. As she thanked him, she noted the conductor seemed a bit old to be offering a helping hand —
it seemed that every day there were fewer young men in evidence.
The tide was out when they reached the Mersey ferry
dock. As a result, the boat floated considerably lower than the concrete rim of the riverbank quay and Edith and Anna manoeuvred
the steep incline of the wide gangplank carefully. The low water level revealed thick mud on rocks at the water’s edge.
To Edith, recently frustrated by unfulfilled food cravings, they appeared to be coated in molten milk chocolate. But the odour,
rancid seaweed with a hint of decaying fish, wasn’t the least bit appetizing. It was a sultry, sunny day, so Anna and
Edith hoisted themselves up a short flight of stairs to the slatted wooden benches on an open-air upper deck rather than travel
in the airless indoor saloon.
Edith looked across the River Mersey toward Liverpool, less than a
mile away. The limestone of the palatial Dock Office, where Edith used to work, gleamed in the sunlight. Edith could see the
huge clock faces on the darker Royal Liver Building. I wonder why we pronounce it like alive and not like Liverpool, mused
Edith to herself. She supposed it sounded better than pronouncing it like the organ, which they’d been eating a bit
too often since the war started — even if it was smothered in fried onions, which Edith adored. She admired the winged
statues of two mythical Liver birds, one atop each gothic tower of the building. They hovered even higher than the lofty copper
dome on the massive Dock Office. Between these two imposing edifices sat the Cunard Building, elegant and substantial but
a plain cousin compared to the grace of its neighbours. Barrage balloons wallowed in the sky above both banks of the river.
Despite their size — sixty-two feet long, almost as big as the ferry boat — the balloons were tethered so high
that they looked more like New Year’s Eve party balloons trapped in invisible baskets hung from the sky blue ceiling
of a ballroom in anticipation of a midnight release. They appeared so festive it was hard for Edith to believe they and the
wires that trailed below them were there to deter enemy airplanes.
Edith was so intent on taking in
the sights that she was startled when the ferry abruptly sounded its foghorn to announce their departure. Tugboats and dredgers
plied up and down the river, and a couple of large cargo ships were being skilfully manoeuvred between dock gates. A sleek
grey battleship, with its multiple gun turrets, was moored at the opposite bank.
As soon as Edith
and Anna reached the top of the gangway from the ferry and stepped onto dry land, Edith noticed a marked contrast to the listless
Liverpool landscape of the Bore War winter months. Some of the disparity was the result of summer sunlight, the assertiveness
of sharp-edged shadows against sunlit walls, but the greatest difference lay in the amount of human activity she observed
all around her.
Groups of soldiers hefting cylindrical kit bags on their shoulders strode past, talking
loudly in regional accents that were unfamiliar to her. She’d never seen so many cars and vans in one place as on the
wide expanse of road in front of the Liver Building. Edith watched as a black car stopped in front of the Port of Liverpool
building to disgorge two men in suits who were carrying briefcases. A khaki-coloured jeep driven by an efficient-looking woman
in military uniform immediately followed the car. But most people still travelled by bus or electric tram, whose overhead
cables stretched like cobwebs above the main thoroughfares.
As Edith and Anna’s tram ground
its way past both the James Street and Central stations toward Lime Street, where they were to board the bus for Warth Mills,
Edith could see large signs directing people to use underground railway platforms as air raid shelters. Almost all the windows
on every building along their route were criss-crossed with tape like latticework pastry on a pie, a pattern designed to minimize
flying glass in the event of a bomb blast. Some shop windows were boarded over, and a few were protected by walls of sandbags.
Edith had heard that Middlesbrough and parts of southern England had suffered bombing in the last month or so. That fact,
coupled with the impressive scale of precautionary measures all around her, made it impossible for Edith to summon up her
old scepticism that the German Luftwaffe would ever reach this far. She was left with the uneasy impression that bombers could
arrive momentarily.
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