by Maureen Lee
Martha Quinlan was no longer prepared to let an increasingly pregnant Ruby clean her bar and insisted she leave. ‘You make me feel terrible, luv. But promise you’ll still come for a cuppa regularly. I’ll miss you something awful and so will our Agnes.’
‘I’ll miss you too.’ Martha and Agnes/Fay had become her friends. She was sorry to lose her job, but was earning enough to manage without it, particularly now that Jacob was working, earning twenty-one and sixpence a week.
At long last, Jacob had found a job where his past experience was relevant – he knew about horses. For the past month he had driven a horse and cart around Edge Hill delivering coal. He hated it with all his heart. The black, pungent dust got up his nose and on his chest, making him cough and wheeze. At six o’clock, he came home covered in the stuff, his clothes stiff with it, his face and neck filthy. Ruby had to boil pans of water for him to wash in, though he never seemed able to get the dirt out of his hair. But she couldn’t wash the clothes and the room stank of coal. Jacob could smell it even when he was asleep. One of the worst times of the day – and there were many – was getting out of bed and putting on the moleskin pants and the shirt that felt like a suit of armour they were so hard. And, finally, the leather waistcoat to protect his back and shoulders when he humped the heavy sacks down narrow entries into someone’s back yard or emptied them down a manhole into the cellar.
Even the horse had no personality, not like Waterloo, the horse who’d been his companion on Humble’s Farm. It was a dull, tired creature, as miserable as himself, showing no interest when he tried to talk to it.
Unlike Ruby, Jacob could see no end to this wretched existence. While she talked about leaving Foster Court and how their life would improve, he couldn’t envisage a brighter future.
Winter was coming to an end, the nights were getting lighter, the days warmer. It was March and the baby was due in six weeks’ time. A woman was coming to deliver it at Jacob’s command, no matter what the hour. She charged ten shillings, but was very reliable and experienced.
Jacob came home one Friday, his spirits at their lowest. Charlie Murphy, their landlord, was sitting on the step, sunning himself in the evening sunshine. ‘Nice day,’ he remarked.
‘Is it?’ Jacob grunted. He hadn’t noticed anything nice about it.
Charlie regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Pay days are always a bit special, lad.’
‘I suppose.’ He always gave his entire wages to Ruby who handled the family’s finances.
‘While you’re flush, d’you fancy putting a tanner on a horse running tomorrer? Twenty to one, a sure-fire winner.’
‘How much would I get if it won?’
‘It’s bound to win, mate, and you’d get ten bob plus your place money which isn’t a bad return in my book.’
‘And if I put on a shilling I’d get twice as much?’
‘You would so.’ Charlie nodded emphatically.
‘Then I’ll risk a shilling,’ Jacob said recklessly.
Ruby called him the biggest fool under the sun when he told her. He had to tell her because she counted the wages carefully, pointing out he was a shilling short. She still claimed he was a fool when the horse won and he gave her a pound, keeping the place money for himself. On Sunday night, he celebrated his win with a couple of pints of ale, the first he’d had since coming to Foster Court. In the pub he got chatting to a group of young men who called him ‘Jake’, and made him feel one of the crowd, a proper man, unlike at home where he felt worthless.
All the following week he felt better about himself. On Friday, Charlie Murphy was waiting on the step when he came home and Jacob put another shilling on a sure-fire winner running next day. The horse lost and Ruby flatly refused to give him a few coppers so he could drown his sorrows in drink.
‘I still want things for the baby, a shawl, and where’s the little mite to sleep I’d like to know?’ she said crossly. ‘We need a cot. You’re being very irresponsible, Jacob.’
The next time he was paid, Jacob, feeling daring, deducted half a crown before giving Ruby his wages, a shilling for a bet, the rest for ale. He’d go to the pub, the Shaftesbury, tonight. She could rant and rave all she liked, but he’d put in a hard week’s work and was entitled to a bit of relaxation over a pint. Other men did it. Why not him?
Ruby didn’t rant and rave. ‘I’ve worked hard, too, Jacob,’ she said quietly. ‘But if that’s how you feel...’ She shrugged.
It was how he felt. In the pub he could forget about Foster Court, Ruby, and the coming baby. She made him boil his own water to wash in and silently perused the little notebook in which she kept a record of her pawnshop dealings while he changed into his newly cleaned suit. She didn’t look up when he said ‘Tara’.
In the Shaftesbury he was made welcome with shouts of, ‘Hello, there, Jake, ould mate. We didn’t think we’d be seeing you again. What are you drinking?’
There were eight of them altogether, including Jacob. He felt obliged to buy a round and by closing time he’d consumed eight pints of ale, more than he’d ever had before. He was pickled to the gills when he got home, to find Ruby sitting up in bed with a sleeping baby in her arms. A strange woman was folding blood-stained sheets. She looked at him with contempt.
‘You’ve got a daughter, Mr O’Hagan,’ she said in a voice full of loathing. ‘Fortunately, your poor wife was fit enough to send one of the downstairs’ kids to fetch me. Christ knows what she’d have done if I hadn’t been here.’
‘She’d have managed.’ Sober, Jacob would have felt ashamed, but brimming with ale, he didn’t care. Left alone, Ruby could have delivered the child on her own, cut the cord, done whatever else was necessary, saved herself ten bob. And he resented being called ‘O’Hagan’. There was good reason for not admitting to Veering which would be on the police files, but having to use Ruby’s name instead of his own only added to his feeling of inferiority.
‘I’m off now, Mrs O’Hagan. Are you comfortable, luv?’ Ruby nodded. She looked flushed and happy. ‘I’ll pop in tomorrow, see how you are like. You can pay me then.’
‘Thank you.’
The woman left. Overcome with curiosity, Jacob swayed drunkenly towards the bed. ‘It’s a girl?’
‘Yes, she’s only little,’ Ruby said distantly. ‘Mrs Mickelwhite reckons about four pounds. It’s because she came early. She wasn’t due till next month. She needs fattening up.’
‘What are you going to call her?’ He took for granted he would have no say in the naming of his daughter and he was right.
‘Greta, after Greta Garbo.’
He nodded, though he thought it a daft name. ‘Look, Ruby, I’m sorry I wasn’t around.’ He felt it necessary to make amends. ‘I wouldn’t have dreamt of going out if I’d known the baby would come tonight.’
‘It would have been nice if you’d been here to hold my hand,’ she said reproachfully.
‘Say if she had come when I was at work,’ he reasoned.
‘That’s different. Work’s necessary, not like ale.’
Jacob felt tempted to disagree, but held his tongue. ‘Did it hurt bad, Ruby?’ He suppressed a hiccup.
‘No, it was very quick and hardly hurt at all. Mrs Mickelwhite said it was one of the easiest births she’d ever known. Would you like to hold her?’ She must have decided to forgive him and carefully laid the tiny baby in his arms. It was muffled in clothes: a long, flannelette gown, knitted cardigan, bonnet, bootees, all well worn. Ruby had got them from a secondhand market stall. Only the shawl was new, a present from the woman in the Malt House.
The child felt as light as a feather in his arms, but to Jacob she weighed heavier than the sacks of coal he humped around Edge Hill. He stared at the perfect little face, the long lashes trembling on white, waxen cheeks, the prim, pale mouth, and wanted to run away and never come back. Some men might regard their first child as a blessing, but he saw it as a cross he would have to bear for the rest of his life. There would be no end to the years of dirty
, back-breaking work, earning a measly few bob. He put his daughter back in Ruby’s arms. ‘She’s lovely,’ he said briefly.
‘Isn’t she?’ She stared at the child adoringly. ‘I love her more than life itself, Jacob.’
‘Do you, now!’ He felt jealous.
Within a week, Ruby had returned to work, the baby wrapped up warmly and tucked inside her shawl, acknowledging the congratulations from various passers-by with a queenly gesture of her hand, and moving the shawl a fraction to expose Greta’s pretty, pale face to be admired.
Mrs Hart gave the baby a tiny silver bangle. ‘My godmother bought that when I was born,’ she said to Ruby. ‘I’d like Greta to have it, otherwise it will end up in Reilly’s along with everything else of value from this house.’
The christening took place the following Sunday, the day after Ruby’s seventeenth birthday. It was a quiet affair: just Ruby, Jacob, and their daughter, who was turning out to be an ideal baby, sleeping all night, sucking contentedly at her mother’s breast, burping on cue. Though she wasn’t gaining weight, Ruby reckoned, balancing Greta in her arms. ‘She’s hardly any different from the day she was born,’ she said worriedly.
‘How can you tell?’ Jacob wanted to know. He was fed up with Greta commanding her entire attention.
‘I just can.’
The night of the christening he went to the pub, saying he wanted to wet the baby’s head. The horse he’d backed the day before, which Ruby knew nothing about, had come in third and the odds had been good. He wasn’t sure which was more important, the drink or the horses. It certainly wasn’t Ruby, or their baby.
By the time Greta was three months old, Jacob was handing over barely half his pay. Every Friday he put a couple of bob on the horses. The occasional wins made his heart sing so sweetly they were worth the more frequent losses. The weeks passed more quickly, each day bringing Friday closer. There would be a feeling in his gut that this week he’d make a killing.
The hours flew by too, knowing the evening ahead would be spent in the Shaftesbury with his mates. Ruby could scowl all she liked; he was a man and he’d do as he pleased. The men in the pub boasted of how they gave their wives a clout if they stepped out of line. If Ruby didn’t buck up her ideas, show him some respect, one of these days he’d box her bloody ears.
Charlie Murphy had been badgered into repairing the window in their room and Ruby had made curtains, bright red. There was a patchwork cover on the bed, a rag rug on the floor, and a lace cloth hid the scratches on the chest of drawers. Everywhere was spotless, the room a little, bright oasis in the otherwise cheerless house.
When Jacob came home one hot evening in August, covered with coal dust as usual, the evening sun was pouring through the open window giving the place an extra sparkle. Greta was lying on the bed wearing only a ragged nappy, cooing and lazily examining her toes. She wasn’t an active child. She caught colds easily and was still underweight according to Ruby, who worried about her constantly.
The table was set. A large dish in the middle emitted a thin spiral of smoke through a hole in the lid indicating there was the inevitable stew for tea. Ruby acknowledged Jacob’s presence with a brief nod. ‘Tea’s ready when you’ve had a wash.’
‘Is there water boiled?’
‘I’m not boiling water so you can get tarted up and go drinking in the pub. I’ve told you that before. You can boil your own water.’ She sat down and opened a newspaper she must have found, an action that always particularly irked Jacob. He could hardly read and felt she was showing him up. ‘I’ll have a cup of tea while I wait,’ she said.
‘I’d sooner you boiled the water.’ There was a threat in his voice and she looked at him in surprise.
‘You’d sooner what?’
‘I’d sooner you got off your backside and boiled some bloody water.’ He took a step towards her.
Ruby laughed. ‘This is the first time all day I’ve sat down and I’ve no intention of moving.’
It was the laugh that did it. He wanted her cowed. He was fed up with her being so superior, always on top, him in the wrong, making him feel like a naughty lad. Jacob raised his hand and slapped her across the face, hard enough to make her cry, beg his forgiveness.
Except it did no such thing. Ruby screamed, jumped to her feet, grabbed the saucepan that had held the stew, and swung it against his head. There was a cracking sound as metal hit bone and Jacob collapsed back on to the bed.
Ruby screamed again and grabbed Greta out of the way. She stood over him, saucepan in one hand and the baby in the other, her cheek as red as a flame. ‘If you ever hit me again, Jacob Veering,’ she said in a grating voice, ‘So help me, I’ll kill you stone dead.’
Jacob didn’t doubt it.
‘I tripped,’ he explained later in the pub. ‘Banged me head against the wall.’
‘Sure it wasn’t your missus that did it,’ joked one of his mates. ‘If so, I hope you gave her what for.’
‘Me missus wouldn’t dare!’ He seethed all night at the unfairness of it all. The feeling grew the drunker he got. Other men got away with knocking their wives about, why not him? But then you couldn’t compare Ruby with normal women. There was something unnatural about her. The harder things got, the greater she thrived, as if life was a battle she was determined to win. Something inside Jacob melted. This extraordinary woman belonged to him! A memory surfaced in his sozzled brain, of Ruby, the way she used to poke her head around the cowshed. ‘Hello, Jacob,’ she would say shyly.
She’d loved him then, but not now. He’d spoiled things. Jacob began to feel sorry for himself. As soon as he got home, he’d show Ruby how much he loved her, make everything better.
She was fast asleep, the window open, the curtains drifting to and fro in little puffy waves. His working clothes were hanging over the sill, though the room still smelled of coal dust. Greta was in her cot at the foot of the bed.
Jacob quickly undressed, trembling with desire not felt since he’d left Brambles. He wanted Ruby as he’d never wanted her before. She’d been little more than a child when they last made love, but now she was a woman, a desirable woman, famous throughout the neighbourhood.
He slid naked into bed, put his arm around her waist, and pulled her towards him.
She woke immediately. ‘What are you doing?’ she said warily, pushing him away.
‘I love you, Ruby,’ he whispered hoarsely. By now, there was a fire in his gut that had to be extinguished or he would go mad. The slippery, struggling, protesting body only added to his passion, egging him on, making the fire get hotter and hotter, until it was scarcely bearable.
‘Jacob!’ she spat. ‘You’re drunk, I can smell it. Let go of me. You’ll wake Greta.’
He didn’t care if he woke the world. The petticoat she slept in tore as he pulled it waist high, dragging her underneath him, positioning himself between the thin legs. He plunged inside her and shuddered with relief. She felt looser than he remembered, but then she’d had a baby since. It did nothing to dampen his enjoyment or inhibit his tumultuous, tumbling climax. He rolled off her, sated, satisfied, ready for sleep.
He never went to the Shaftesbury again, but to a pub where he was a stranger. He felt ashamed of what he’d done and all the things he hadn’t done. They never spoke of the night when he’d taken Ruby against her will. Next morning, there were angry marks on her arms and a bruise on her face where he’d hit her earlier on.
By now, he needed the drink, not just to escape from the frigid atmosphere of Foster Court. In the pub he kept to himself, not wanting to make friends.
His shame increased when, a few months later, Ruby announced she was pregnant, her face accusing. It was his fault. Everything was his fault.
Their second daughter was born the following year, 1937, April again. Ruby called her Heather, after some actress, Heather Angel, who’d been in one of her favourite films of all time, Berkeley Square.
Unlike Greta, Heather was an active, boisterous baby, hardly sleeping
, always crying, demanding her mother’s breast, scarlet with incomprehensible anger. Ruby, the pawnshop runner, acquired a giant pram, pushing it along the streets of the Dingle, a baby at each end: quiet Greta, sitting up, and Heather, bawling her bad-tempered little head off.
The girl approached him first. Jacob wouldn’t have dreamt of talking to a woman on his own initiative. It was Saturday night, the pub was crowded, a pianist was thumping out tunes he vaguely remembered from the time he’d spent in Brambles listening to the gramophone with Ruby.
‘When they begin, the beguine,’ the clientele roared lustily.
‘You look lonely, luv,’ the girl said, slipping on to the bench beside him. She was neither white nor black, but an attractive pale brown, with dark gingery hair a mass of curls and ringlets.
‘I’m all right, thanks,’ Jacob said stiffly, assuming she was on the game and looking for a customer. If so, she was out of luck. He had ninepence in his pocket, not enough to pay for the cheapest prostitute in all of Liverpool. Which was a shame, because she was very pretty. Her small, pointed breasts showed prominently through her red jumper, and she had smooth, satiny skin. He was a normal, virile man, with a normal man’s desires – desires that went unfulfilled. He and Ruby slept in the same bed, but he was too scared to touch her.
‘What’s your name, luv?’ the girl enquired.
‘Jake Veering.’
‘I’m Elizabeth Georgeson, but everyone calls me Beth. D’you come from round here?’
‘No, Kirkby.’
‘What are you doing in these parts, Jake?’
Jacob wasn’t sure what he was doing there. Ruby had brought him and he’d meekly followed, but he couldn’t tell the girl that.
‘Lost me job,’ he said, ‘came looking for another.’
‘Did you find one?’
‘I’m a coalman, Edge Hill way.’
‘Me Gran lives in Edge Hill,’ she cried, smiling delightedly. ‘I’ll tell her to look out for you in future. I live in Toxteth meself.’ She worked on the tool counter in Woollies in Lord Street. ‘But I’m hoping to be transferred to cosmetics any minute.’ Her brown, velvety eyes glowed. ‘I can’t wait.’