Read Online The Seven Streets of Liverpool by Maureen Lee - Free Book Online

often on her own. In Birmingham, she’d had a friend, Enid, to go with. Enid’s husband was in the army.
    She went into the kitchen, where she washed her face, combed her hair and looked at her reflection in the mirror on the windowsill. How nice it would be to be pretty, or really talented like Brenda Mahon with her dressmaking. She had grown up used to being plain and not particularly clever at anything, though she was quite a fast typist and good at shorthand. As she continued to stare in the mirror, becoming more and more miserable, she was relieved to hear a knock on the door. At least it was someone to talk to, even if for only a few minutes.
    George Ransome was outside. He removed his hat when she opened the door. ‘I wondered if you were going to the Palace tonight?’ he said with a smile. The Palace was the picture house in Marsh Lane, only a short walk away.
    ‘Well, I was thinking about it,’ Lena conceded.
    ‘It’s that picture about American politics. It’s had wonderful reviews.’
    ‘I know, Mr Smith Goes to Washington , with James Stewart. I saw it in the Echo last night.’ She’d also read an article about it in the News of the World .
    ‘Jean Arthur’s in it too.’ He rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. ‘She’s my favourite actress. Claudette Colbert is a close second.’
    ‘I like them too. And James Stewart.’
    He shuffled his feet. ‘I just wondered,’ he said casually, ‘if it would be a good idea if we went to see it together. We’ve noticed each other coming out and walking home a few times now, and it seems silly, like, us living in the same street and going to the pics on our own. What harm would it be us doing it together?’
    ‘I’m married,’ Lena said simply.
    ‘Yes, but we’d only be going to the pics. There’d be no funny business.’
    ‘I should hope not!’
    ‘We’d be going as friends,’ he said cheerily. ‘Good friends.’
    Lena chewed her lip. ‘I’d have to pay for myself,’ she said eventually.
    ‘That’s no problem, Mrs Newton.’
    ‘And you must always call me Mrs Newton, not Lena.’
    ‘That’s all right by me, and I will always be Mr Ransome to you.’
    ‘Absolutely.’ Lena nodded fiercely. ‘If you’d like to wait outside a minute, I’ll just go and get my things together.’
    ‘I won’t move from the spot, Mrs Newton.’

    Lena went upstairs to fetch her best coat. She’d asked Brenda about George Ransome after the first time he’d spoken to her on the way home from the pictures.
    He was a bachelor, Brenda had explained. She supposed he was about fifty. ‘Before the war, every Sat’day night without fail, he’d have these dead rowdy parties lasting all night long. Christ knows what went on in there, but the noise had to be heard to be believed.’
    Lena felt herself flush. ‘Oh my goodness!’
    ‘When the war started, he was too old to be called up, but he was sent to work for the censorship department in Aintree, not far from here. He takes it very seriously,’ she said gravely, ‘and the parties stopped. He became an air-raid warden too. It was George who found Francis Costello and little Tony when the house they were in was hit by a bomb. Both of ’em were killed, poor sods. Poor Eileen, she was devastated, and George has never been the same since.’
    Brenda had folded her arms, crossed her legs and said thoughtfully, ‘Me, I lost interest in men when Xavier went and married another woman down in London – became a bigamist, would you believe – but if I should ever get interested in men again, I wouldn’t mind having a go at George Ransome. His moustache makes him look a bit like Clark Gable, only thinner. If he asked me out, I’d go like a shot.’

    Mr Smith Goes to Washington was really inspiring. After it was over, Lena wondered aloud that it was possible for women to go into politics.
    ‘Would you do it?’ George asked. ‘Go into politics, that is?’
    ‘For goodness’ sake don’t be so