A Liverpool Girl

by Elizabeth Morton

  ‘Shall I cut the cake?’ asked Babby, and a cry went up. She put the knife into the sponge and cream and jam oozed from its middle.

  ‘Wait! I haven’t finished yet,’ said Mrs Reilly. ‘So, like I said, Babby, when you came here, you had only one thing on your mind – and that was getting out of this place. But gradually you got to like us, and gradually we decided that perhaps you weren’t so bad after all. So, we stopped bolting the doors.’ Everyone laughed, though some found it funnier than others.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Reilly. I know I gave you a headache or two.’

  ‘Headache! It were more than that, love,’ she said smiling. ‘Only joking. We’ll miss you when you go back to Liverpool in the autumn. You’ve worked hard for us. You’ve been like a second mother to some of these kiddies.’

  It was only Sister Scholastica, whose face remained a blank canvas, who was the dissenter. I won’t miss her, trouble still runs through that girl like the word Blackpool in a stick of rock, her expression said. She had often complained to Sister Benedict and Mrs Reilly that Babby had long outstayed her welcome. She would be the first to grudgingly admit that the few older teenagers that stayed on to work after they had finished their education provided a useful pair of hands, but if it hadn’t been for Violet Delaney finding one excuse after another as to why she couldn’t take Babby back home – the younger daughter, her nerves, the house rotting away – she would have sent her back years ago. And she didn’t really believe Mrs Reilly thought any different.

  ‘Anyone want food?’ said Albie, offering round a plate of curling sandwiches. ‘They taste flipping delicious,’ he said, through a mouthful of bread and raspberry jam. Mrs Reilly had produced a strawberry tart that she had made, and one of the twins hadn’t been able to resist sticking a finger in and scooping out the fruit. When everyone gasped to see the hole in the middle, she tried to hide her red-stained fingers.

  ‘Come on, birthday girl,’ said Mrs Reilly, ‘let’s go and get the rest of the goodies.’

  ‘Can I come?’ asked one of the twins, as they all dove upon the cake, the children’s eyes desperately searching this way and that, hoping not to be the one who got a smaller piece than the other. The feeling of what it was like to be hungry would never leave them.

  ‘No, this is a birthday treat.’

  ‘Not fair,’ came the response.

  ‘Life’s not fair,’ said Sister Scholastica, but no one in this room needed to be told that. They just didn’t want to be reminded of it.

  ‘Will you bring back some Golden Syrup?’ said one of the boys.

  ‘And cans of Carnation evaporated milk and conny-onny and demerara sugar?’ asked another.

  ‘Not sure if demerara sugar is off the rations yet,’ laughed Mrs Reilly. Rationing had finished years ago, but it was her favourite joke. ‘We’ll see. It’s Babby’s choice, anyway. When it’s your birthday you can make the provisions list.’

  ‘Put some cinder toffee on the list,’ whined the girl twin.

  ‘If they have some, I’ll get some,’ replied Babby.

  ‘Sherbet dib dabs! Flying saucers! What about you make us a wet Nelly and knickerbocker glories, Mrs Reilly?’ chorused the boys.

  ‘Get me that stuff that grows on trees. All pink and fluffy, like a bird’s nest. Candyfloss, in’t it?’ said one of the twins.

  And Sister Benedict, who had just arrived to see what the commotion was, tutted, and cuffed him about the head. ‘Now then, did you fall out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down, Colin?’ she asked.

  Half an hour later, as the sun burst through the clouds, Babby looked out at the glittering Irish sea. Feet planted apart, one fist on a hip, a hand shielding her eyes, she sighed a sigh of relief seeing the grocery store in the distance, a small square stone building, stuck out on a limb at the end of a gentle slope by the beach.

  ‘Nearly there, Mrs Reilly,’ cried Babby. Her mouth was watering, not for the staples of flour and salt and cooking lard, but for the treats on the birthday list.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go before the store shuts for dinner time,’ said Mrs Reilly.

  Babby’s right shoe had begun to leak and she could feel a blister on her left foot, so she was relieved to see the store.

  The sea stretched away from them for miles, seabirds wheeling above. ‘Isn’t that beautiful! God’s work!’ Mrs Reilly cried And it was beautiful, especially when the day was clear like this and they had views all the way across to the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland. On the way, Mrs Reilly chatted animatedly about the feast they would have when they got back. Babby’s mouth watered at the thought of the taste of home-made strawberry jam that they would make together later.

  ‘Babby, come back!’ cried Mrs Reilly, as Babby ran on ahead. This is my favourite part, Babby said to herself, picking her way through the stony path, then running through the fields and leaping alongside the grazing sheep and goats, imagining she was Heidi. She was racing through the lush green grass, running and running, until the field suddenly sloped, and the gathering speed meant she couldn’t stop, and her knees gave way and she landed with a thump on her bottom. She could see the beach through a tangled copse with a root-latticed path and she stood up, ducking her head and racing through the pine trees, pushing branches away, until she came out on the other side, and then on to the sea where the tide shrank bank to expose fresh, unspoiled sand studded with pink and white shells. Mrs Reilly, out of breath, was jogging towards her, a doughnut of flesh wobbling around her neck.

  ‘Babby!’ she called. ‘Come back here!’

  Babby hoiked up her skirts, took off her shoes and socks, and paddled out into the water, yelping as the cold water swirled around her ankles.

  ‘Come on now. Let’s collect the provisions! We haven’t time for this. We want to be back in time for lunch.’

  Babby cantered back over the gently breaking waves to Mrs Reilly, picked up a shell shaped like the end of an ice-cream cone and wrote her name in the sand, stood back and looked at it.

  Mrs Reilly placed a hand on the small of her back and led her away, back towards the slope that led up towards the headland and the store.

  The bell tinkled as they entered.

  ‘Well, happy birthday!’ said Daffyd, smiling, hands shoved deep into his apron. He took down one of the sweet jars and unscrewed the lid. ‘Have a couple of these.’

  Babby thrust her hand deep into the jar of pear drops and soon the sweet bulged in her mouth and she felt it prickle against her tongue.

  Plonking down bags of flour, sugar, tins of pineapple slices and pears in syrup, he licked the end of a pencil and totalled up the messages. Meanwhile, Babby helped Mrs Reilly load the lighter items into string bags that she had produced from her pocket.

  ‘Leave the heavy stuff for Callum,’ said Mrs Reilly. ‘He’ll pick them up in the motor car.’

  ‘Who’s Callum?’ asked Babby, putting a second pear drop in her mouth.

  ‘A boy from the mainland. Aintree. His father has sent him over for the summer. We agreed to let him work for a few weeks. Driving the Morris Thou, doing the hay wagon, all this lifting. Fresh air for his lungs.’

  Babby was intrigued. She wanted to ask Mrs Reilly again about Callum, but she decided to wait and see for herself.

  When they arrived at Pentraeth Farm after the bracing walk back, they went into the small stone outhouse in the corner of the grounds where they unloaded the groceries: buttermilk, that would be made into slabs of cheese by the nuns, bacon that would be fried and cooked with omelettes, tea that would be drunk by the gallon.

  They went down to the pantry and, whilst Mrs Reilly wasn’t looking, Babby screwed off the top of the malt extract and took a huge, delicious-tasting spoonful of it. Just one more and it would get her through the Mass that was being held that evening in the small chapel at the bottom of the back garden.

  ‘Babby! Put that away!’ cried Mrs Reilly when she came back in and discovered Babby licking the spoon.

  ‘
Sorry, Mrs Reilly,’ she replied. And with equal relish, sucked a finger that was smeared in the stuff.

  ‘You only needed to have asked,’ said Mrs Reilly.

  They sat at the table with the other waifs and strays. How many other children had passed through these doors? As many as the deep grooves on the table, as many as there were coffee rings on the surface, or scuffs on the wooden floors? Mrs Reilly widened her eyes and darted an expression, which reminded everyone they hadn’t said grace yet. They all joined their hands and bowed their heads, Babby eyeing the jar of Lyle’s golden syrup greedily. Out of the strong came forth sweetness, she read on the label, fascinated by the picture of the bees surrounding the dead lion.

  ‘It’s from the Bible,’ said Mrs Reilly when they finished saying grace. ‘Samson and the bees.’ But when a curious Babby reached out to have a closer look, the tin fell off the table as she lurched forward. As it tumbled to the floor, Babby jumped up and pushed her chair out from underneath her to catch it, but as she did so, someone barged into her from behind.

  ‘Mind out!’ Babby cried. ‘You flippin’ eejit!’ she yelled, before she had time to turn and see who her temper had been directed at. But then, as she got down and bent to mop up the liquid seeping on to the stone tiles and between the cracks with a napkin, on lifting her head, she found herself nose to nose with a boy. The first thing she noticed about him was his black hair, which was so glossy it looked almost as if it was navy-blue, and startling dark-brown eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the boy, grinning, mopping up the sticky goo with his handkerchief. He was not much older than Babby, broad-shouldered and lithe. One of those silly Teddy Boy types, Violet would have described him as, even though it was only his jeans and lick of hair falling into his eyes that made him so. Mrs Reilly appeared with a broom and a cloth.

  ‘Let me do that, Callum,’ she said. She looked at Babby. And seeing the way Callum was just standing staring at Babby, it occurred to her that Babby was no longer a skinny thing: she had developed a figure. She was a young woman now, taller, with curves where they should be, long flowing hair, deep-brown eyes and skin that had the benefit of fresh air. A real head-turner.

  ‘This is Callum, Babby. Did you settle into your room all right, Cal?’

  ‘Aye, thank you Mrs Reilly,’ he said. His voice had Liverpool vowels, but was sweet and low; Babby felt the hairs on her neck stand up stiffly.

  ‘We’ll be happy to have you here, Cal,’ said Mrs Reilly. Callum nodded. ‘Won’t we, Babby?’

  ‘Babby?’ He swilled her name around his mouth. ‘That’s an unusual name,’ he said, rolling the sticky handkerchief into a ball and placing it on a saucer.

  Babby felt herself blushing to the tips of her ears. The boy stood with his hands deep in the pockets of his trousers which were slung low across his hips and his black hair was greased into a quiff that rose from his strong forehead like Eddie Fisher’s. His eyes really were like coals. With his rolled-up shirt sleeves, you could see that his arms were strong and muscular. To Babby he looked as if he had been sculpted, not born.

  ‘I’m about to drive the van to the village to do the errands. Anybody want anything bringing back? So Babby – is that what I call you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, and when she tried to explain her real name was Jeanie, that Babby was short for baby, her mouth just shaped itself into a small o, and nothing at all came out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An hour later, she sat on the windowsill of her room, nursing a cup of tea against her glowing cheek.

  ‘Callum …’ she murmured to herself, as if she was tasting his name in her mouth, chewing it over. That morning she had promised to go fruit picking with some of the younger children, to pluck the gooseberries from the hedgerows, and later boil them up and mix in the sugar to make delicious jam. She heard Mrs Reilly calling up the stairs to her, but burrowing her head under the greying lace curtains, she pressed her face up to the window. With a hand shading her eyes she squinted into the sunlight and watched Sister Benedict fussing across the street, her nun’s wimple making it look as if a huge pelican, with flapping wings outstretched, had landed on her head.

  ‘Get a move on, slowcoaches,’ the sister said, shooing the twins along the lane.

  Babby’s warm breath blotted the pane of glass. She pulled the cuff of her shirt over the heel of her hand and wiped the window clean. She was hoping she might catch Callum on his way back before she left.

  She opened the latch to the small window, and perched her bottom on the sill. And then she heard what she had been listening out for. The coughing and spluttering of the Morris Thou, rattling along as though there was something loose inside the engine, signalling the arrival of Callum. It came down the cobbled road and pulled up outside the shed opposite. A door opened downstairs and one of the nuns appeared at the side of the van. Callum got out, slammed the door, flicked back his black hair, then leant back on the bonnet. For a moment, he squinted back across the cornfield and then he turned his head and stared directly up at Babby, right up at the window. He waved at her, gave her the thumbs-up sign, crossed one leg over the other. Babby waved back, smiled nervously. In his tight drainpipe jeans, he looked as though he was from another world, a world of cowboys and American milkshakes, jangling guitars and Elvis singing ‘Love Me Tender’. He could have been moulded to perfection and poured into his leather boots. Those boots, she thought, with their fashionable shaped heels and pointed toes. Impossibly glamorous.

  Finger hooked into the collar of his jacket slung over one shoulder, he just smiled, flashed his eyes again. He remained there, grinning. And he called, ‘That all right, Mrs Reilly? If I take Babby with me?’

  Babby saw Mrs Reilly come out into the street. ‘Babby!’ she shouted up to the window. ‘Do you want to go with Callum? You can show him where the store is. I’ll take the kids down the lanes for the fruit picking.’

  ‘Come on, love!’ he shouted.

  Forgetting to breathe, Babby raced downstairs, her heart thumping at her chest, and she flushed red to the tips of her ears. She went outside.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. She hoped she was not a disappointment. She fiddled with the button on the woollen cardigan, embroidered with roses, that she was wearing.

  ‘Hello, love.’

  She could have sworn he winked at her. It was as if he couldn’t smile without winking.

  Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, with her left hip jutted out to one side, she asked, ‘is that OK? If I come with you to the store?’

  ‘Be glad of the company, love,’ he said. He seemed older than his seventeen years.

  She noticed his eyes take an inventory of her, the shape of her, her high-waisted skirt that hugged her hips, her sweet blouse with Scottie dog motifs, under the cardigan. She knew she was prettier now than five years ago, that she had changed. She had always been the one with the upturned nose – ski slope, was one of the names she was called at Saint Hilda’s, but now her nose was retroussé, like Doris Day from the movies, and she had proper curves. That’s what Mrs Reilly said, and she hoped Callum would think the same.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat, started up the engine. Babby got into the seat on the passenger side and tucked her hands under her thighs as they got ready to drive off.

  She could feel herself sweating. What if he did something? He looked the type. Any minute he could start holding her hand, slip his arm around her waist, or even start kissing her full on the lips! An image of him sticking his tongue into her mouth, pushing it between her neat teeth, flashed into her head. Would she bite it off? Or kiss him back? The thought of it made her feel dizzy with excitement. But no. She wasn’t going to be like Violet. She was a good girl. She was going to be a lady. And a lady didn’t start imagining things like kissing, and snogging – necking, Johnny Gallagher called it, or tonsil tennis – with virtual strangers.

  She fiddled with the seatbelt. But she was only doing it so she didn’t have to look at him i
n case he saw that she was blushing, such was the effect of his tight jeans and the boots, the leather jacket with silver zip and studs sloping over the shoulders. Glancing up at him, mesmerised by his olive skin, which was as smooth as treacle, and his teeth, perfectly formed and white, she thought she was going to faint. Then Callum pulled the van over with a swerve and they roared down the winding country lanes.

  ‘So, what d’you like, Miss Babby?’ he said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the engine.

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘What is it you like? I like pop music, and Manchester United, and the picture house, and lemonade powder, and staying up later than I ought to, and newly cut grass, and cold beer, and chocolate milkshakes, and Makintosh Golden Cup bars.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I like singing,’ she said. ‘And playing the accordion.’

  ‘The accordion?’ he said and laughed. ‘That’s pretty unusual. Do you have one?’

  ‘I do. Well, it’s my da’s …’

  ‘Let’s hear you sing?’

  ‘No,’ she answered.

  ‘Shy?’ he asked, and she blushed deeper. ‘D’you like it here? At the farm?’

  Babby shrugged. ‘It’s all right. We get treats like rice pudding with nutmeg toffee on the top, egg custard, peeled oranges dipped in sugar on a saucer.’

  ‘Tell me what you’re not so keen on.’

  ‘Well, I’m here as a sister’s help. Which is a kind of job, except you don’t get paid. So, I have to milk the cows that are kept in the shippen – which don’t half pong – and then wait for the man to collect the cans to take to the dairy. I have to take delivery of the ice blocks which freezes my hands so much that I get blisters.’

  ‘Let’s see,’ he said.

  She upturned her palms to him and he took one hand off the steering wheel and ran a finger over the hard ridges of flesh.

  ‘Watch out!’ she cried, as the car swerved again. Grinning, he steadied the car. Embarrassed, she drew her hand away. ‘I also have to count the coal sacks to make sure the coalmen aren’t diddling them out of bags and my least favourite chore is to kill and pluck the chickens, but I’ve got used to it. Anything is better than the classroom and Sister Scholastica reminding me daily that God is watching me, that a pure soul is a precious soul and the grace that is in my heart is not infinite – and woe betide I do anything bad as I would never get to heaven. I hate lessons, always have. Oh, apart from the music and reading. I’ve read tons of books, now – Shakespeare, Jane Austen, some in Latin even – and I can name you any musical instrument in an orchestra. Sousaphone, trombone, tuba, trumpet – tell me when to stop,’ she said, laughing.