Lime Street Blues Read Free Page A

joined the Women’sVoluntary Service and held coffee mornings and garden parties to raise funds. Rose was required to make gallons of coffee and tea, and carry it round to the guests. Mrs Denning had to bake mountains of sausage rolls and fairy cakes, yet was still expected to have the meals ready on time.
    ‘Does she think I’m a miracle worker or something?’ she asked Rose in an injured voice.
    It came as an unpleasant shock when, after Christmas, Mrs Denning announced she was leaving to work in a munitions factory in Kirkby at four times her present wage. A special bus came through Ailsham to pick the workers up. Mrs Corbett would just have to find another cook.
    ‘But I don’t like leaving you behind, love,’ Mrs Denning said. ‘There’ll be no one for you to talk to once I’m gone. Look, why don’t you leave, get another job? There’s loads of work going, what with all the men being called up. You could earn more money and mix with young people for a change.’
    ‘Yes, but where would I live?’ Rose wanted to know.
    ‘You’d have to find digs. It shouldn’t be too difficult.’
    ‘I’ll think about it.’ She was too scared. She felt safe in The Limes, just as she’d done in the orphanage. There was a saying, something about sticking with the devil you know. Mrs Corbett was the devil, and Rose would stick with her, for the foreseeable future at least.
    Mrs Corbett had found it impossible to hire another cook. She wasn’t alone. Her friends were having the same problem. Not only cooks, but housemaids, nursemaids, parlourmaids, even charwomen, were abandoning their employers to take up war work. Mrs Conway’s maid had become a WREN. Some women regarded it asunpatriotic. How could they be expected to run their own households without servants?
    ‘Of course it’s not unpatriotic,’ Mrs Corbett said sternly. ‘We’ve all got to do our bit.’ But she hadn’t been near the kitchen except to give orders since her own cook had left. A stunned Rose had discovered she was expected to do the cooking in Mrs Denning’s place.
    ‘But I can’t,’ she gasped when the additional duties were explained to her. ‘Can’t cook, that is.’
    ‘Did you learn nothing from Mrs Denning in all the time you’ve been here?’ Mrs Corbett asked cuttingly.
    ‘No, madam.’ There’d been too many other things to do to watch the meals being made. She could fry things, boil things, but when it came to roasting meat, baking bread, making cakes, she was lost. The Aga had four ovens that each did different things, she had no idea what.
    She coped for a week. Mrs Corbett was invited out to dine several times, but when she ate at home, the complaints increased with every meal. The chops were burnt, the potatoes soggy, the jelly hadn’t properly set. She was a foolish girl for not realising it should have been made the day before.
    On Sunday, two old school friends arrived to stay, the Misses Dolly and Daisy Clayburn, who lived in Poplar and were convinced Hitler was about to bomb the place out of existence. On their first morning, Rose found the laundry basket in the bathroom overflowing with dirty clothes they’d brought with them. She took them downstairs and was putting them to soak in the sink in the laundry room, when Luke Denning arrived on his bike bringing a huge piece of meat. It was a horrible morning, very stormy, and the rain ran in rivulets fromthe brim of his sou’wester and the hem of his oilskin cape.
    ‘We’re lucky, living in the country while there’s a war on,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Town folk’d give their eye teeth for a leg of lamb that size.’
    ‘Lucky!’ Rose said weakly.
    ‘Well, I’ll be off.’ Luke got back on his bike. ‘Oh, by the way. You’ll have to collect your own meat as from next week. I’m leaving Friday. Ma’s got me a job in her factory. ’Bye, Rose.’
    ‘’Bye.’
    Rose carried the meat inside and put it on the draining board. It looked much too big to be part