RATING: VERY GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
I really enjoyed the book and I am going to miss these characters that I have loved in these four books.
This last book stretches over the war years, and there are ups and downs.
Eileen, who has been the main character in most of the books, experiences heartbreak once again. Nick, who spends the week in London, is in a bleak mood because of his disability. In London he drinks too much, and one night he and a girl working in the office, Daria, hook up, and from then on Nick keeps seeing her. That means that he goes home less and less. Eileen gets to hear about the affair when Daria's brother, Peter, goes to the cottage, intending to tell Eileen about her husband's unfaithfulness, but instead he becomes a friend and he even falls for Eileen. When she discovers who Peter is, he can't hide the truth any longer, and he tells her that Nick is living with his sister and Daria is expecting a child. Eileen is heartbroken and doesn't know what she can do about it. Nick comes home for the New Year, but she doesn't say anything. That is the last time Eileen sees him.
Eileen decides to go to London and talk to Nick, but she finds Daria instead. She discovers a very young woman in obvious distress, and Eileen, who is compassionate, tells her to go to her parents because the flat where they live leaves much to be desired. Daria's parents want her to have the baby adopted. So Eileen finds Daria on her doorstep, and she has no other option than take her in. Daria becomes a good friend of Phillys, the young woman who is a new neighbour in Pearl Street. Phillys doesn't know that Daria is single but her husband is fighting. A few weeks later Daria gives birth to a baby boy who she calls Theobald.
Phillys wants to join the army, and when she turns 18, she does so, and then she finds Daria in the recruitment office. Daria says that she is there to join up too and Eileen has agreed to look after Theo. That is a lie, and Daria steals away one night, leaving a note for Eileen, asking her to look after her son. Daria has the time of her life during her training, going dancing and dragging Phillys along. One night in London Daria gets together with an American GI, who is drunk, and she pulls Phillys to tag along. The man pulls them to the road and a bus comes and runs them over, and they are killed. That was so, so sad. I liked Phyllis so much!
At the end of the war Eileen receives a call from Nick, who has been in Norfolk, staying in a Bed and Breakfast, staying with a father and a daughter, Mary. Mary and Nick hook up, and Nick decides to return to Liverpool to ask Eileen for a divorce and marry Mary. On the train he gets drunk, and at some point the train starts moving and the door is still open when Nick falls from the train and is killed.
We discover in the Millennium party that Eileen married an Italian former soldier who started helping her in the garden, and she died quite young, when she was in her forties.
As for other characters, Kitty, who in the last book joined the merchant navy, had to leave because she was pregnant and had her baby in Southampton. When her money ran out, she returned to Pearl Street and asked Brenda for help. Kitty stayed with her, and then when she got reacquainted with George Ransome, he asked her to marry him. Apparently, he had a crutch on him when she was younger. The marriage is a happy one, and Kitty soon gets pregnant again. Cale, the American GI, who got her pregnant, turns up in Pearl Street asking after her, but Phyllis tells him that she has gone to Australia and is married and has two children.
Jess also returns to Pearl Street when her new husband is stationed in Belgium, and her affair with Jack restarts because she wants to get pregnant. And she eventually does.
At the end of the book Penny goes to the cottage and gets to meet several of the former neighbours in Pearl Street. Caitlin, Sheila's daughter, introduces her to her sister, Mollie. Mollie is the last child of Sheila and Callum, the tenth. Monica, Brenda's daughter, tells her that she and Dominic Reilly got married but they got divorced as Dominic, who became a famous footballer, was a womaniser. And Penny meets Theo, Daria and Nick's baby, who Eileen raised, and it seems that he and Penny hit it off.
This was a very emotional read, and I am sorry that this is the last book in the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment