by Sheila Riley
Taking in a lungful of stifling air, Connie knew it was pointless thinking that way, knowing she was never likely to have one. Not anymore.
‘I’ll go for me dinner, then,’ Bobby said, loping off, hands in pockets. He kicked an empty cigarette packet, vaguely aware his big brother, Sergeant Danny Harris, impeccable in the uniform of the Kings Fusiliers, was being berated by Evie Kilgaren for interfering.
Serves him right.
‘Your nose is bleeding again.’ Danny said, holding out a handkerchief. Evie looked up through hair that now resembled rats’ tails and wiped her bloody nose with the back of her hand.
‘Well spotted. Ten out of ten for observation.’ Using the only weapon in her armoury, she attacked with her tongue as a form of defence. Her cutting retort hid a lifetime’s belief she was not worthy of a brave man’s handkerchief. Please walk away, a voice in her head pleaded as she dabbed the blood from her face, knowing she should thank him. But she couldn’t. Danny Harris could have his pick of any girl he wanted, while she looked like she’d just gone two rounds with a grizzly bear.
Averting her gaze, Evie ignored his outstretched hand, and fumbled in her pocket for the ripped remnant of a candy-striped bed sheet – her handkerchief. Trust Danny to be the one to come to her defence, she thought, blowing her nose.
‘Don’t do that, you’ll get two black eyes,’ Danny said, looking concerned.
‘So you’re a doctor as well as a hero?’ Evie said drily, in no mood for pleasantries. Our kind don’t mix with the likes of the Harrises, Evie. The pearl of her mother’s addled wisdom popped into her head. But, Evie thought, she might just be right on this one.
The Harris family went to early mass on Sundays. Evie had seen Ada singing her loudest in the front pew, knowing her own mother was sleeping off the night before. They paid their rent on time, and the rent man was always using them as an example of what good tenants should be. Not like her mother who used to hide behind the sofa on rent day.
Danny’s family didn’t have raucous Saturday hooleys when the tavern closed for the night. Nor did they sing ’til all hours, waking the rest of the row, or fight in the street after a Sunday afternoon drinking session… Tears of humiliation welled in Evie’s eyes, trickling down her cheeks and she rubbed them away with her knuckles.
‘Evie…? Please let me help you,’ Danny said, sounding genuine enough. But she didn’t want his help. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her, knowing this latest episode of the Kilgarens’ lowlife would be the talk of the place for days. Her teeth clenched tightly together when, to her utter shame, she realised the contents of the pillowcase were strewn all over the filthy road.
Her underclothes, nothing special to look at in the first place, looked like rags in the gutter and her one and only under-slip was dangling from the canal railings. Bending to pick up her discarded belongings from the gutter, Evie could hardly see for tears blurring her vision. But, keeping her head down, she made sure Danny and the other nosey buggers didn’t see them.
Returning her few bits of clothing to the dusty pillowcase gave her an opportunity to gather herself together. Then, without warning, her legs collapsed under her. She tried to stand. But, like a newborn foal, the effort took its toll on her legs, and in the end, she was forced to allow Danny to help her from the gutter.
Straightening, she held her head high, refusing defeat. But the gesture made her light-headed and she staggered, the canal undulating, the cobbles swimming before her eyes. She felt Danny’s arm around her waist, keeping her safe, and she was grateful for the security it gave her.
‘Here, let me help you.’ Danny’s concern was a sharp reminder of her dilemma and made her feel suddenly helpless. Swallowing hard, she lifted her head. Agonisingly mortified, Evie wished she didn’t like Danny as much as she did. And she wished he was anywhere but here, standing so close, trying to make things better – when nothing could ever do that.
‘You can mind your own business,’ she said, pushing his hand away. ‘I can look out for meself!’
‘I’m sure you can, under normal circumstances… I’ve got no doubt about that,’ Danny said in that deep soothing voice while nodding to Connie, who was now standing in the doorway of the Tavern. He knew the girl needed help but wouldn’t accept it from him. She needed a woman’s touch. A sympathetic ear.
Who better than Connie Sharp, an ex-nurse who was always on hand when a baby was being born or a body needed laying out – not to mention the bits of life in between.
‘Connie will help you,’ he said, relieved when Evie allowed him to help her to the door of the Tavern without much fuss. ‘Will you see to her, please, Connie?’
‘Aye, lad,’ Connie said, putting her arm around Evie’s waist and taking her weight from Danny. ‘Come on, Evie, love. Come inside away from prying eyes.’ Helping the girl into the cooler confines of the bar, Connie was aware of the blazing anger in Danny’s eyes as he grabbed a chair when her legs could no longer hold her up. He headed towards the door.
Unaware of Danny’s impotent fury, Evie gave a gentle whimper. She hadn’t had much experience socialising with neighbours on account of her mother building an invisible but effective ‘them-and-us’ wall around her all her life.
Handing Evie a glass of cold lemonade and a clean handkerchief to wipe the blood from her tearstained face, Connie’s heart ached for the poor girl who didn’t deserve the life she led.
‘I suppose we’re the talk of the street – again.’ Evie, chancing a smile, winced through a swollen lip.
‘You won’t be the last,’ Connie said putting her own glass of lemonade on the table. ‘The things I hear behind that bar would make your hair curl.’ She pulled out a chair and sat opposite Evie. ‘I have to pretend I’ve got me deaf ones on. The customers forget I’m only a few feet away.’
‘Thanks, Connie…’ Evie said taking a tentative sip of her cold drink. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘Give over,’ Connie said, feeling sorry for the kid who’d never had it easy. ‘My halo’s slipped more than once.’ There was a moment’s silence and then Connie asked, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I know of some lodgings, there’s a room going spare on the other side of the canal.’
‘You can stay with me and Mim, you know,’ Connie said watching Evie nod her gratitude. ‘We’d love to have you!’
‘Thanks for the offer, Connie…’ She shook her head. ‘But I’ve got to get away from Darnel, he’s bloody evil.’
‘Are you sure?’ Connie asked, and Evie nodded. ‘You know your situation better than anybody, but the offer of a room at the Tavern will always be there if you change your mind.’
‘I know, Connie, and don’t think I’m not grateful, because I am—’ Evie squeezed the older woman’s hand ‘—but I’m getting away from Reckoner’s Row. And, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever come back again.
3
January 1947
‘Jaysus, room! You’re colder than a whore’s heart!’ Evie gasped. She had left Reckoner’s Row six months ago and had not heard a peep from her mother since moving into the attic room of this Victorian redbrick lodging house on the other side of the canal.
With its leaking roof and neighbours who liked to keep themselves to themselves, Evie still preferred living here to sharing the same house as Darnel, even when the weather took an arctic turn and her windows were cloudy with ice on the inside as well as out.
Grabbing her coat that was spread over her bed, Evie put it on and shivered as iciness seeped into her bones. Little puffs of opaque air left her lips and hung in the freezing atmosphere. She instantly regretted the vulgar swearword she had used. They were Darnel’s words.
She did not want to think of the crooked spiv who had robbed her of her mother and forced her to find lodgings in this dilapidated, bomb-damaged house where nobody gave her the time of day. But it was the best she could get.
Air raids had devastated Bootle, Kirkd
ale and Liverpool because of the proximity to the docks – so the area didn’t have much in the way of decent accommodation since enemy raids had blitzed most of it. She was lucky to find lodgings at all, especially near her workplace.
But, for the first time since her mother had taken up with Leo Darnel, Evie could sleep without fear of him skulking along the landing in the dead of night and lurking outside her bedroom. She didn’t fear this dark, austere room. Even though the three-storey house stank of damp and the landlady was as cold as poverty, her lonely attic room was preferable to living with fear and dread. Her solitude was a small price to pay for peace of mind.
Shivering, Evie pushed back the grey net curtains that, no matter how many times she washed them, never looked clean, and winced as the cold damp air wrapped around her like a hoarfrost shroud. She would have to leave soon for her shift at Beamers. She quickly found her shoes before rummaging around the bedside table for the box of matches. Glad of the money she had managed to save, Evie considered the bitter weather that had closed more businesses than the Luftwaffe did during the war. She was determined to bring Jack and Lucy back from Ireland, and when she did they were going to need all the help they could get.
She held a lit match to the mesh gas mantle and the eking gas gave a feeble plop, lighting only the immediate area of the sparse room and failing to reach the far corners. Peering through the gloom, she could barely see the narrow iron bed she had just left, or the straight-backed chair that supported a rickety table and counted herself lucky to have a single gas ring attached to a rubber hose, so she could make herself a cup of tea and bring scant warmth to the icy room.
Looking in the coal scuttle, she saw it was half-full and decided she would save it until she came home, later. Miss Blythe the landlady, allowed her tenants one bucket of coal a day and Evie knew it didn’t go far in this weather. But still, she was glad of the roof over her head.
She scraped a web of lace-patterned ice from the inside of the window’s glass with a chipped thumb nail and could clearly see her old home across the grey meandering spine of the canal that split the narrow streets of back-to-back terraced houses.
On the far side was her past. The place she once called home. Things hadn’t always been so bad in Reckoner’s Row. When her father was alive things had been different. Da took care of everything. He would never have allowed Mam to enter a public house, let alone work in one.
The news that was being relayed from a wireless on the floor below brought a welcome voice. Mrs Travers who lived downstairs was stone deaf, and her wireless was always turned up to full blast. Other boarders complained about the din, but Evie loved listening to the BBC Light Programme, finding the cost of a wireless of her own prohibitive. She liked listening to the presenter’s chatter.
Though she was lonely here, the sound of another voice, even in another room, meant she was not alone. The thought gave her comfort and stopped her thinking of the mother who abandoned her just as easily as she abandoned her siblings.
‘Here is the five-o’clock news…’ Evie stood still. ‘Worsening weather has closed many businesses across the country…’
‘Don’t I know it,’ she said out loud. There were rumours going around Beamers that the whole staff could be laid off before the end of the week through lack of fuel caused by the severe weather.
Along with her wages, Evie knew she would also lose the chance to practise her typing skills before the office staff arrived every morning, and she had worked so hard on the home study course she had seen advertised in the Picture Post.
‘… major roads and country byways are impassable. Trains are disrupted or stranded in heavy snow and people are advised not to make unnecessary journeys…’
‘It’s best you stay indoors, Tom,’ she said, opening the door and letting in her landlady’s ginger cat who had been scratching at her door for a saucer of milk. He stank the house out, but at least he gave her a chance to hear her own voice. Smearing her hands with green soap, Evie rubbed vigorously to get rid of the disinfectant smell still lingering from her last shift at Beamers, but when she turned on the single copper tap, the knocking and banging loudly told her the pipe was frozen. Looking longingly at her empty cup on the wooden drainboard, Evie couldn’t even make a hot cup of tea to warm her.
‘You could have saved me from all this, Mam,’ she said aloud, pulling up the collar of the coat, ‘but you didn’t…’
More than once she had stayed behind to help Susie with her filing and had even typed up a few letters when Miss Hawkins, the office manager, was busy elsewhere. It gave her much needed practice of office work and she found the work enjoyable and so easy.
Evie needed a better-paid job to bring her brother and sister home. A cleaner’s job was never going to allow her to do that. Also, if Susie Blackthorn could become an office clerk, Evie thought with a flourish of determination, she could too.
Her heart thundering in her chest, Evie neatly folded the letter in the same way she had seen the other clerks doing it, reverently placing it inside a business envelope before licking and sealing it. Evie knew she would never be so deceitful if there was any other way. But she was desperate to bring Jack and Lucy back from Ireland and she needed more money to do so.
A hubbub of growing voices told her the office staff would be here any minute. Quickly, she scribbled the name and address of head office in perfect copperplate handwriting. Then, rising from the desk, Evie pushed the résumé into the outgoing post tray, dragging the cover over the typewriter while her eyes swept the office, taking in her earlier work. Everything was as it should be.
I’ve dusted the wooden filing cabinet. Desks are polished. Floor is mopped…
She didn’t mind doing the office jobs the others loathed. It broke the monotony of cleaning, brewing tea for the office staff and running errands. The chores meant she was useful and gave her a good excuse to hang back when her working day was over, instead of going home to a cold room.
Keeping busy was as natural as breathing and helped smother unhappy memories. The panstick-smeared mirror over the fireplace. Spilled nail varnish on the tablecloth. A knocked-off brandy glass cradled in the palm of her mother’s hand while ruby-red lips pulled smoke from ever-present cigarettes.
Evie tried to ignore disturbing memories of GI uncles who brought precious gifts of nylon stockings and candy. But her mother’s looks had eventually faded, leaving her to the loathsome attention of the notorious spiv.
‘We would have been happy when the kids came home, Mam,’ she whispered, ‘but you chose him…’ She jumped when the office manager entered the office, followed by a breathless Susie Blackthorn, who was obviously late – again.
‘Talking to yourself, Evie?’ Susie rolled her mascaraed eyes. ‘You can get locked up in the mad house for that.’
Evie! You’re just plain Evie Kilgaren. Don’t get above yourself with any fancy ideas. Her mother’s words echoed in her head and that familiar wave of uncertainty washed over her.
The solitary, buff-coloured envelope was conspicuous in the outgoing mail tray, but she could not retrieve it. Then the never-ending doubt crept in. Was she good enough to call herself an office clerk?
‘Have you been here all night, Miss Kilgaren?’ Miss Hawkins quipped, causing Evie to smile nervously.
‘I finished ages ago, I was waiting to see if you had any news of office vacancies.’
‘I wish I could bring you good news…’ Miss Hawkins put the files on her desk and Evie automatically tidied them away.
‘Grovelling won’t get you anywhere.’ Susie said. ‘Cleaners don’t get promoted to office clerks.’
The notion of becoming somebody who could be as professional as Miss Hawkins seemed ridiculous now. The home study course a pipedream, to distract her from her constant companion, crippling loneliness. But something forbade her to pick up the letter she had placed in the out-going mail tray. She didn’t want to be plain Evie. She wanted to be somebody.
‘I won’t
do any more than I get paid for. I’m nobody’s fool.’ Susie said.
‘It keeps me going, and there’s less chance of hypothermia.’
‘Get you, with your hypo-thingy!’ Susie scoffed. ‘You should have kept your new coat on.’ Susie eyed the woollen monstrosity hanging in humiliating solitude behind the office door, away from Miss Hawkins smart camel coat and Susie’s showy beaver lamb draped over the wooden coat stand. ‘It’s big enough to keep us all warm.’
‘It’s decent quality,’ Evie never allowed Susie to see how deeply her snide remarks hurt.
‘It looks older than God’s sister,’ Susie replied. ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in it.’
Evie picked up her mop bucket.
‘Stay for a moment longer, Evie.’ Miss Hawkins’ voice was grim.
‘What have you been up to Evie?’ Susie’s sly eyes gleamed. ‘Been caught pinching Aunt Sally’s disinfectant? Is it put-your-coat-on-time for you?’
Evie’s heart skipped a beat when she remembered her letter in the outgoing post tray. Stealing was a sackable offence. She had used company paper and an envelope. Oh, Lord! Evie gasped.
‘Enough of that, Miss Blackthorn!’ Miss Hawkins face was set in a frown. ‘We must all put our coat on. We are being laid off. Beamers must close. Fuel shortages.’
Evie felt her heart slump. No work meant no pay.
‘This latest snap of arctic weather is having a devastating effect on the whole country.’ Evie repeated the news she heard on the wireless.
‘Proper little ray of glad tidings, aren’t you, Evie.’ Susie’s usually pouty red lips were even more so. ‘It’s like the war never ended… how are we supposed to manage, money-wise, without a job?’
Miss Hawkins handed out small brown wage packets. Evie knew if she wasn’t earning, she would have to dip into her hard-earned savings to pay the rent on her lodgings.