The Girl From Barefoot House

by Maureen Lee

  After a while she lifted her eyes, and noticed the lavatory. It didn’t just have a wooden seat, but a lid as well. She sat on the lid, feeling calmer. Mam would be dead ashamed if she knew the way she’d just behaved. She’d been determined to make a good impression on Aunt Ivy. ‘I’m not having her turning up her nose at us,’ she’d said.

  Josie slid off the lavatory, cleaned the sink and went around the house straightening the curtains, putting the cushions and pillows back in place. This time she noticed the lovely things that Mam had told her about. The ornaments and little items of fancy furniture, the pictures and mats that her very own grandad had brought back from foreign countries like Japan – elaborate brass candlesticks, mosaic bowls, statues, vases. She sat briefly on the puffy green settee in the parlour and admired the carved elephant with ivory horns with a table on its back. In the big main bedroom, two lamps with shades made from little bits of coloured glass glittered on each side of the double bed, which was covered with a mountainous maroon eiderdown.

  There were two bedrooms at the back, one full of cardboard boxes. The other must have been Mam’s and, she assumed, would be hers. A pretty white mat with raised flowers lay beside the single bed which had a dark blue embroidered coverlet. Another brightly coloured mat hung from a pole on the wall, which seemed a most peculiar thing to do with a mat, though perhaps it was a picture: a man, a shepherd because he had a crook, was standing at the foot of a mountain, a hand shading his eyes as he stared at a rainbow.

  Josie threw herself on the bed, exhausted, and stared at the ceiling. In its much smaller way, this house was as grand as the one in Huskisson Street when it had been owned by the importer of rare spices. Even so, she didn’t want to live there, not with Aunt Ivy.

  But where else could she go? Even if Maude was willing to have her, Josie knew that Mam, up in heaven, would strongly disapprove. And Mam would be as miserable as sin if she knew her Josie was in an orphanage. She supposed that she had no alternative but to stay with Aunt Ivy, pretend her name was Smith and that she’d once had a dad called John. Most of all, she resented having to say that she was five, because she was proud of being six.

  She closed her eyes. If only she could sleep and never wake up! Sleep, however, refused to come, and she remained stubbornly awake, reliving last Saturday, hearing the bomb, the explosion, over and over. She’d known Mam was dead, she’d just known.

  When someone knocked on the front door at first she considered taking no notice. But the knock came again. It was almost certainly the person to make her tea. If she didn’t answer, it would be reported back to Aunt Ivy, and she’d have another black mark against her.

  She trudged downstairs, wishing she’d had time to wash her face because it was probably all swollen, and her eyes felt as if they were glued together. She wished it even more when she opened the door and found a smiling Mrs Kavanagh and Lily on the doorstep, both looking extremely smart. Mrs Kavanagh wore a pink linen costume and matching hat, and Lily a grey pleated skirt and a white jersey. She had a leather satchel over her shoulder. Her long brown hair rippled, like a cloak, around her shoulders.

  ‘Hello, Josie, luv. We’ve met before, remember?’ Mrs Kavanagh said warmly.

  ‘Have you been crying?’ Lily demanded.

  ‘No,’ Josie said pugnaciously. ‘I never cry.’

  ‘Me, I’d cry buckets if me ma died.’ Lily tossed her head and looked superior.

  ‘Oh, do be quiet, Lily,’ her mother said crossly. ‘We all know you have to do the opposite of everyone else.’ She turned to Josie. ‘I promised Ivy I’d pop in and make your tea, but that seems a bit daft when you can have it with us. We’re only just down the street. I’m surprised Ivy didn’t take the afternoon off, ’stead of leaving you by yourself on your first day. Are you okay, luv? You look a bit rough.’

  ‘I’m fine, ta.’

  ‘Why is your frock too short?’ Lily asked rudely.

  ‘Because a bomb tore me old one,’ Josie explained, thinking this would make Lily sorry for her rudeness.

  Instead, Lily said smugly, ‘We’ve never been bombed.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Lily,’ her mother said. ‘Come on, Josie. All the kids are home, ’cept Stanley who’s at work. And I’ve made scouse, everyone’s favourite. There’s treacle pud for afters.’

  At the mention of scouse, Josie realised she was starving. She loved scouse – Mam made it all the time because there was a limit to the meals you could do on a hob over the fire.

  The Kavanaghs’ house wasn’t remotely as posh as Aunt Ivy’s, but she much preferred its untidy clutter. A fire burned in the parlour, where the flowered three-piece was faded and well worn. Books and toys littered the floor, and the sideboard was piled high with more toys, a pair of football boots and some ravelled knitting. A doll squinted at her from the mantelpiece, reminding her of Irish Rose. In the square bay window, a treadle sewing machine was draped with yards of bright red tulle. A wireless was on, and a woman was singing very loudly, ‘Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.’

  Two very sunburnt boys with green eyes and hair the colour of butter wrestled each other on the floor. The biggest, who looked about twelve, was clearly winning, and a girl, a slightly older version of Lily, oblivious to the din, was reading a book, her legs draped over the arm of the chair. She looked up, said, ‘Hello,’ and returned to the book.

  ‘H-hello,’ Josie stammered. The change from the tomb-like atmosphere of her aunt’s house to the noisy chaos of the Kavanaghs’ was welcome, but slightly daunting. She stood in the middle of the room, not sure what to do. Should she sit down? Mrs Kavanagh and Lily had disappeared into the kitchen, and she wondered if she should follow, offer to help set the table or something.

  The boys had noticed she was there. They stopped wrestling. The older one held his brother down by the throat, and asked curiously, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Josie Flynn, I mean Smith.’

  The boy grinned. ‘Josie Flynn-I-mean-Smith. That’s a dead funny name.’

  Josie drew herself to her full height and said haughtily, ‘It’s Josie Smith.’

  ‘All right, you don’t need to bite me head off, Josie Smith. I’m Robert, and this is our Benjamin on the floor. We call him Ben. He’s only eight. Us boys are called after prime ministers, Conservative ones, natch.’ His green eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘The girls are only flowers. That’s our Daisy over there. She’s ten, and you won’t get a word out of her till she’s finished that book.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Robert,’ Daisy snapped. ‘I’m not likely to finish me book while there’s such a racket going on.’

  ‘So why don’t you read in the bedroom?’

  ‘Because our Marigold’s trying on frocks. She’s going to the pictures tonight with Gabrielle McGillivray.’

  ‘What to see?’

  Daisy sniffed. ‘I dunno, do I? I haven’t been invited.’

  Josie was doing her best to remember the names – Marigold, Daisy and Lily, Robert, Ben, and who was the boy at work? Stanley, she remembered. She wondered if Mr and Mrs Kavanagh ever got confused when their children were all there together.

  Throughout the noisy meal that followed, Mrs Kavanagh got confused all the time. ‘Pass us the bread, Mar—, Dais—, Lily,’ she would finish triumphantly when she got it right. Or, ‘Our Robert’s late. He should be home by now.’

  The children grinned at each other. ‘Robert’s here, Ma. It’s our Stanley who’s late.’

  The six Kavanaghs had been born neatly, a boy and a girl alternately, all two years apart. The girls were slightly plump like their mother, with the same dark brown eyes and the same brown hair which they wore long and parted in the middle. They looked like a set of Victorian dolls, with their pink, glowing faces, pert noses and tiny rosebud mouths.

  Lily might well be the youngest, but she had more to say than the others put together. She talked in a firm, opiniated voice, to be met with, ‘Oh, shut up, Lily,’ from various members of the family.


  At half past five, Stanley arrived home from his boring job in a bank, followed by Mr Kavanagh a few minutes later. He was very tall, very thin, very sunburnt, with pale, creamy hair like his sons. His dark suit was covered with threads, and Josie remembered Mam saying he owned a haberdasher’s in Penny Lane. He had the air of a man who was seriously moidered, but smiled benignly on his large family, who were still around the table where they’d been for almost an hour, because everyone was too busy talking to leave. Only eight-year-old Ben, next to Josie, hadn’t said a word.

  Mrs Kavanagh went into the kitchen and fetched a plate of scouse. ‘There’s treacle pud for afters, Eddie.’

  ‘Goodo,’ he said, winking at Josie, and she thought it mightn’t be so bad living in Machin Street, with the Kavanaghs only a few doors away.

  At half past six, Mrs Kavanagh suggested she go home. ‘Only because Ivy should be back by now and she’ll be worried where you are. Tell her it’s my fault you’re late. Oh, and luv.’ Josie was led into the hall, where it wasn’t exactly quiet but at least they were alone. Mrs Kavanagh sat on the stairs and pulled her down beside her. ‘That time we met in Blackler’s basement, luv, I guessed straight away that Mabel was your mam – you’re too alike to pretend otherwise. Anyroad, I never told your auntie that I’d seen you. Poor Ivy, she’s not a bad woman, but she’s a stickler for appearances. It means I know darn well you didn’t have a dad who died in the Battle of Britain – Mabel would have been bound to mention she was married the day we met. And I remember you telling me then you were nearly four, so you can’t be only five like Ivy ses. I didn’t argue when she told me all that rubbish the other night. Even so, her secret’s safe with me. And, Josie, whatever happens, remember you’re always welcome in this house. Mabel was one of the nicest girls I’ve ever known, as well as the prettiest. I don’t give a damn what she got up to, and she’d have wanted me to be your friend.’

  ‘Ta.’ It was a relief to know that another person knew the truth.

  ‘Oh, and another thing, luv. You won’t have met your Uncle Vince yet, but you’ll find he’s a real Prince Charming.’

  ‘Will I?’ Josie felt even more relieved. Mam hadn’t talked much about Uncle Vince, but she’d had the feeling he’d done something bad. If Mrs Kavanagh thought so highly of him, then she must have got the wrong end of the stick. Who, she wondered was ‘His Lordship’, the person who had to be given his marching before Mam moved back in?

  Lily offered to come with her when she realised she was leaving. ‘In case you’ve forgotten your house, like.’

  ‘’Course I haven’t forgotten,’ Josie said scornfully. ‘It’s seventy-six.’

  ‘Still, I’ll come with you all the same.’

  To her surprise, when they were outside Lily linked arms, and Josie didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed. Since she’d got to know her, she wasn’t sure if she liked Lily all that much. She was far too bossy and sure of herself.

  ‘Ma said you’re starting St Joseph’s on Monday. Our Marigold left last term – she’s gone to commercial college – but there’s still four of us Kavanaghs left. I’ll call for you, shall I?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Pity we won’t be in the same class, else I’d have told Tommy Atherton to shove off and you could have sat beside me.’

  Josie wriggled her shoulders and didn’t answer. Aunt Ivy had been in touch with the school and would have told them she was five, which meant she’d have to go through the whole first year again, learn to read and write and do sums when she could already do them. She was wondering how this could be avoided when Lily said, ‘I think our Ben’s stuck on you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Our Ben, he’s got a crush on you. He didn’t say a word during tea, just kept looking at you sideways, sort’a thing. Mind you, he’s a soppy lad, our Ben. I wouldn’t be all that flattered if I were you.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not,’ Josie snapped.

  They had arrived at Aunt Ivy’s, who opened the door to Josie’s knock, her face like thunder. ‘And where the hell d’you think you’ve been, miss? I’ve …’ Her voice became a simper and she gave a sickly smile when she saw Lily. ‘Oh, hello, luv. I should have known she’d be in your house. Your mam, she’s all heart.’

  ‘She’s a living saint, Mrs Adams,’ Lily said in sepulchral tones. Josie realised she was making fun of her aunt, and warmed to her new friend. ‘And she said Josie can come to ours for tea every night. “Another mouth at the table won’t make much difference,” as she said to me da’.’

  Josie couldn’t remember Mrs Kavanagh saying any such thing, but didn’t argue. Aunt Ivy began to mutter something about if she was being fed regularly she’d have to take along some rations, and Lily said, ‘God bless you, Mrs Adams.’ She nudged Josie playfully in the ribs, and went home.

  It was hard not to think of the Kavanaghs’ happy, noisy house when the door closed and she was left alone with Aunt Ivy, who remarked spitefully, ‘If you hadn’t been at the Kavanaghs’, miss, you’d have gone to bed early. I was dead worried when I got in and you weren’t here.’

  ‘I’d like to go to bed early, please.’

  Her aunt shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. You’ll find a nightie on the bed. I got it in Lewis’s on me way home from work.’

  ‘Ta.’ She was halfway upstairs, already feeling tearful, longing to be alone so she could think about Mam which she’d hardly done at all over the last few hours, when Aunt Ivy called, ‘Don’t forget to draw the blackout curtains.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Josie turned, taken aback by this unexpected expression of concern. ‘I’m okay, ta.’ Her aunt was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. Her face was odd, all screwed up, as if she were about to cry.

  ‘I suppose, well, as that woman said this morning, you’ve had a shock. It’ll take a while to get over that business with your mam. I was dead upset when me own mam died, but I got over it eventually. You’ll find the same.’

  ‘Ta,’ Josie said again. Perhaps Aunt Ivy was sorry about the way she’d behaved earlier and would be nicer in future, but this turned out not to be the case.

  2

  It wasn’t until Saturday, at breakfast, that Josie met Uncle Vince. When she went into the dining room he was tucking into a plate of bacon and fried bread, a small, slight figure wearing a shirt without a collar and a hand-knitted Fair Isle waistcoat. Aunt Ivy, her back to Josie, was pouring tea. She glanced at her niece and didn’t speak.

  ‘Hello there, luv.’ Uncle Vince turned round and chucked her under the chin. He smiled. ‘You’re a lovely big girl for six.’

  ‘Five,’ Aunt Ivy snapped.

  ‘Oh, yes, five.’ He winked at Josie from behind his wife’s back, and she risked a little smile back.

  As Mrs Kavanagh had said, he was a genuine Prince Charming, with thick, straight hair a lovely golden colour, blue eyes as pale as a misty sky at dawn, and a dead straight nose. Had his chin been firmer, he would have been perfect, but it sloped away under his mouth, making him look weak. He must have been weak, Josie thought, the way he let Aunt Ivy boss him around. Yet the funny thing was, she was mad about him.

  She had still been awake last night at half ten when Uncle Vince came home from his job as a quality control inspector at the Royal Ordnance factory in Fazakerley. As he ate his tea, she could hear Aunt Ivy telling him to sit up straight, not put his elbows on the table and eat up quickly before the food got cold, but all said in a fond, dopey voice, as if Vince were a little boy, not her husband.

  ‘My Vince’ was how her aunt referred to him when she spoke to the neighbours who’d called to see ‘Mabel’s little girl’ for themselves, and remark in amazement at how incredibly tall she was for five.

  ‘My Vince is on afternoons this week,’ Aunt Ivy would say in the same dopey voice, and with an equally dopey smile, or, ‘My Vince can’t stand that awful dried milk.’ ‘My Vince would have joined the army like a shot
if it hadn’t been for his dicky heart.’

  When Lily called, Josie was not long home from a shopping trip to Penny Lane where Aunt Ivy had sourly bought her a grey pleated skirt, two white blouses, a navy blue cardigan, shoes, socks, underwear and a drab brown frock with long sleeves that was dead cheap but would do for church and to wear around the house until Mrs Kavanagh ran up something nicer.

  ‘You can chuck that rag away when we get home.’ Aunt Ivy nodded at the red gingham frock. ‘I’d have thought Mabel would have decked up her kid a bit smarter. I made sure she was dressed nice when she was your age.’

  Josie thought about the blue velvet frock from Paddy’s market. A picture flashed through her mind, of Mam ironing the frock. It seemed like an eternity ago. ‘There, that’s everything done,’ she’d said. Later, they’d waltzed around the room.

  ‘Come on.’ Her reverie was rudely interrupted by Aunt Ivy pinching her arm. ‘It’s time we made tracks. My Vince will be dying for a cuppa.’

  They hadn’t been in five minutes when Lily knocked. ‘Me ma thought Josie would like to see the fairy glen in Sefton Park,’ she said sweetly to Aunt Ivy.

  Josie was upstairs, changing into the brown frock. ‘I’m sure she would, luv,’ Aunt Ivy said in a grovelling voice.

  When she came down, Lily was in the parlour chattering away to Uncle Vince about football. He had a pools coupon on his knee, the wireless was on and he was waiting for the results.

  ‘You won’t win much,’ Lily warned. ‘Even if you get eight draws, you’ll only get about fifteen hundred pounds, least so me da’ says. Since the war, people have stopped doing the pools.’

  ‘Fifteen hundred quid would do me fine, luv,’ Uncle Vince replied.

  Aunt Ivy ruffled his golden hair. ‘I thought I told you to put your collar on, Vince,’ she said fondly. ‘It looks bad when people come.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, luv. I forgot. I’ll do it in a minute.’

  ‘You better had.’