Hettie of Hope Street. Annie Groves
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comes your admirer.’ Sukey nudged her when the owner’s young son suddenly appeared at their table.
He was still at school, and only just beginning to shave, but he had still Brilliantined his hair and he blushed bright red as he looked at Hettie. ‘’Ave the steak pie,’ he advised her in a mutter. ‘Me Da has ’ad the chops in for so long they’re about to get up and walk out of their own accord.’
‘Yes, we’ll all have a bit o’ it, young Max, and make sure we gets plenty of gravy and ’taters wi’ it,’ Lizzie told him firmly. ‘And yer can stop gawking at our ’Ettie as well, otherwise yer ears will be getting a rare boxing. Cheek of it!’
They all laughed, including Hettie, but the truth was that she was grateful to her new friends for their protection of her, not from Max, of course, but from everything that was so new and alien to her. She didn’t know what she would have done without them.
‘I’ll be right glad when that red-headed lad is gone,’ Jim told John grimly as they stood watching the group of young men sauntering across the airstrip in the direction of their accommodation. ‘You can’t tell him anything. He thinks he knows it all, and he’s beginning to get the others thinking the same way. It’s not even as though he’s going to make a good flyer. Too much of a risk-taker by half, he is. I caught him trying to get into the hangar this morning when his lesson wasn’t until after dinner.’
John frowned. ‘Did he say what he was doing there?’
‘Aye, sommat about having left his helmet in there, but I’d been in there working meself and there was no helmet there.’
‘Would you prefer me to take him up for the rest of his lessons?’ John offered. Normally they split the students into two and then kept them in those groups so that they could monitor their progress individually.
‘Nah. I’ve made sure he knows I’m on to him, and I gave him a bit of dressing down in front of the others this afternoon, told him that the only way he’d ever be good enough to loop the loop would be with a toy flying machine. By the way, did you manage to get the photographs you wanted?’
John had spent most of the day photographing the North West coastline for a government department whilst one of his previous students had come over for the day to fly the machine for him. The Ministry paid well and promptly, and he certainly needed the money.
He had read in the papers that a certain type of wealthy young rip was now making flying lessons extremely fashionable, and that flying clubs were springing up all over the country to cater for their new passion. These wealthy young socialites apparently liked nothing better than to drive up to their flying club in their expensive motors, and then take to the skies to show off their skills to their admiring friends and ‘popsies’, as the article had referred to their lady friends. He suppose he shouldn’t have been surprised after what Alfie had said about his new venture when they had met up at the Adelphi, the same weekend as his quarrel with Hettie. He may not have seen Hettie since, John admitted, but that did not mean he hadn’t been thinking about her – and worrying about her, too.
Them as who had written that article ought to come up to Lancashire and see how real people lived. But of course the likes of the young toffs the article had referred to did not have to concern themselves with the problem of the country’s two million unemployed, John acknowledged bitterly. He had never thought of himself as an activist of any kind, but he had seen at first hand what poverty did to people. As a lad growing up under the roof of a father who was a butcher, his belly had always been full; but after their mother’s death, with the four of them – Ellie, Connie, baby Philip and himself – shared out amongst his mother’s sisters to be brought up by them, he had come to discover what hardship was.
You only had to go to Liverpool’s once proud docks and look into the pinched bitter faces of its working men to know the true state of the country, John reflected. The country was in a sorry way and his business with it. Tomorrow, instead of dressing himself up in the cast-off suit of Gideon’s that Ellie had sent up for him and sitting watching Hettie sing, he should by rights have been working on his figures and thinking of ways to bring in some much needed extra money. His flying machines were sound enough but getting old. He thought enviously of the new machines Alfred had told him he was ordering for his own club. The science of building flying machines was changing almost by the day. Only weeks ago the Americans had stunned the world by announcing that they had used flying machines to drop bombs on a captured German boat.
If the unthinkable happened and there should be another war, would his beloved flying machines be used to rain death down out of the skies? If so, John prayed he would not be there to witness it.
Having refused Connie’s suggestion that she come to her house to prepare for her debut, and that Connie and Harry escort her to the Adelphi, Hettie was now wishing she had agreed and was longing for the support of those closest to her as she stood in her shift and gazed anxiously at her red gown.
‘’Ee tha looks that pale, ’Ettie. Not getting nervous, are yer?’ one of the girls asked her sympathetically.
‘Only a little,’ Hettie fibbed.
‘Everyone gets stage-fright, Hettie,’ Babs comforted her. ‘But yer family are going to be there, didn’t yer say?’
‘Yes. Mam and Da, and Aunt Connie, and Mam’s cousin Cecily. And John has promised to be there as well,’ Hettie added.
‘John? So ’oo’s this John, then?’ Babs teased.
‘He’s Mam’s younger brother,’ Hettie explained.
‘So ’e’s yer uncle, then?’
Hettie shook her head. ‘No, because Mam is my step-mother – I’m adopted, you see. John and I are the best of friends, thick as thieves – or we used to be anyway,’ Hettie trailed off.
‘Oh ho, I see now, and yer sweet on this ’ere John, are yer?’
‘No,’ Hettie denied, but she still couldn’t help blushing as Babs laughed at her.
‘Oh yes you are, I can tell. Tell us all about him then, ’Ettie. Good-looking, is he?’ Mary demanded.
‘Yes,’ Hettie admitted honestly. ‘But it isn’t like that, Mary.’
‘No, of course it ain’t, and I’m a monkey’s uncle.’ She laughed and winked. ‘I wish we wasn’t doing a matinée and then we could come along and get a look at this ’ere John of yours.’
Hettie bit her lip, uncomfortably aware that she was actually relieved the girls would not be there. She loved them dearly and they were terrific fun, but somehow she suspected Ellie would not see them in the same light as she did.
‘Who are you kidding, Mary?’ Lizzie challenged her. ‘No way would they let the likes of us in the Adelphi for afternoon tea.’
‘Why not? My money’s as good as the next person’s, I’ll thank you to know,’ Mary responded pertly in a mock posh voice, tossing her hair as she did so.
‘Come on, let’s get Hettie into her frock and get a bit of rouge on her face to liven her up a bit,’ Babs broke in.
Hettie held her breath as Babs took control.
‘Ooh. Yer look a real treat,’ Babs breathed approvingly. ‘Doesn’t she, girls?’
‘Aye, a real treat for some masher, who will want ter gobble her up whilst his wife’s sipping her tea,’ one wit chirped up, making the others laugh and Hettie blush nervously. She felt uncomfortable at the constant talk of men leering at women and especially at her. Maybe at the Royal Court but she couldn’t imagine such a thing happening at the Adelphi.
‘You watch out for them posh chaps,