A Liverpool Girl

by Elizabeth Morton

  ‘You need to get ready now.’

  Liverpool. Back home. She felt happiness slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.

  ‘You’ll be here when I get back?’ she asked Callum.

  She watched him fiddling with a button on the cuff of his shirt. ‘Of course I will. Funerals don’t take more than a few days and there’s plenty more work to be done here to keep me busy,’ he said, taking her hands and looking into her frightened pale face. ‘I’ll wait for you Babby … Write to me?’ he said.

  She nodded, then he added, ‘And if you don’t come back to Anglesey, I’ll follow you.’

  ‘I will, don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘One more thing: me dad’s accordion. It’s under my bed. Look after it will you, Cal?’

  ‘Yes, love, I’ll do that. I promise,’ he said, and he kissed her fingertips.

  She smiled anxiously, reassured by his words, but fearful of what was to happen next.

  Chapter Sixteen

  An hour later, from the deck of the small steamer, she watched the Three Graces of the Liver Building grow in size, with the Liver Bird, that at first looked like a tiny bird that might take flight, becoming a huge bronze statue perched on the dome, held there by steel cables. Babby felt a pang of longing. She remembered taking the trip from the Pier Head to New Brighton Fair with her father. ‘See the Liver Bird looking out to sea, Babby? She’s waiting for the sailors to come home. See the other one? He’s looking the other way to see if the pubs are open!’

  Would the Kapler Gang have forgotten her? Hannah, most likely, would barely recognise her. Patrick, nineteen now, had a job with Cunard Steamship company in Water Street and had taken lodgings in Seaforth. There was even talk of he and his girl, Doris, saving up to get married.

  Babby turned her attention away from thoughts of her brother and sister and Joseph Street, the hollas and her beloved father. The boat slid into its moorings and a woman with open-toed sandals, a camel coat, overalls, and wearing a paisley cotton turban on her head, was standing on the landing stage gesticulating wildly and grinning and thanking God for Babby’s safe arrival. ‘Yoo hoo!’ she called. Babby recognised her voice, the Liverpool accent, the shrill tones. It was her Aunty Kathleen. Had Violet not even bothered to come and meet her?

  But then, from behind the small crowd waiting to board the boat after the passengers alighted, Violet appeared, pushing people out of the way. Babby was shocked when she saw her. She was waving as if she was pleased to see her, but she looked detached, unsteady on her feet, her dress bagged around her waist, as if it had lost a belt somewhere and her hair, held up by a diamante clasp, looked unkempt and unwashed. Babby made her way down the gangplank to her mother who had barged her way through to the front.

  ‘Babby!’ cried Violet, arms outstretched. ‘Darlin’ You’re home!’

  Babby noticed that her nails were bitten to the quick as she grasped her daughter’s arms and spoke close into her face. She smelled of cigarettes and stout.

  ‘Just for the funeral,’ said Babby. ‘Then I’m going back.’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later. Oh, how I’ve missed you, love,’ said Violet. ‘Seventeen! Can’t believe it, sweetheart.’

  Babby reeled. Over the past five years she had returned to Liverpool maybe four, five times – for Hannah’s First Holy Communion and birthdays, a party for Patrick’s eighteenth, and a couple of Christmas’s but she had always been sent back to Anglesey the next day and everyone had agreed that it was all for the best. She was a different girl since Anglesey, they said. Good-tempered, responsible, sweet natured, her Liverpool nasal vowels softened to more country tones, but they were always glad to see her return to the island. What had changed now?

  ‘What do you mean? Talk later?’ she asked.

  Violet stopped, opened her handbag, rummaged inside, and plucked a cigarette from a packet of Players. After making a show of stuffing the cigarette into a long gold holder, she found a box of matches, lit one and held it to the cigarette. Taking a drag and grimacing with the huge effort of it all, a plume of smoke crawled from her lips.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later, that’s what I mean. Happy to be home, love?’ she asked.

  Babby shrugged.

  Why had Pauline gone and died just as she had met the boy? she was thinking. Callum. Strong, wild, sinewy and handsome – and waiting for her in Anglesey. Why did this lot have to ruin it all?

  When they got back to Joseph Street, Babby gasped as they entered the house. Violet had gone downstairs to bring up coal for the fire in the back room.

  ‘Pat! What on earth …? This place is a tip,’ she said to her brother who had arrived, opening the curtains, trying to bring light into the shadow-filled room. The tone of her voice showed how shocked she was. The house was filthy dirty – piles of crumpled clothes in chairs, dishes in the sink, overflowing ashtrays, a half-eaten Eccles cake poking out from under the battered chaise longue, and a mug of something unrecognisable, Cocoa maybe, with furring green mould covering its surface.

  ‘Mam is not in any kind of a state to be left alone with Hannah,’ he said, scooping up the Eccles cake from the floor. The cake crumbled in his hand.

  ‘Is that what everyone thinks?’ asked Babby quickly. She spoke in a low voice. She didn’t want Violet to hear and she could see her now, moving about behind the blurred stippled glass of the pantry. ‘We’ll just have to give this place a good scrub. That’s all. It will be fine,’ she said. Her thoughts leapt back to Callum, to a picture of him, in the pigsty, laughing and winking at her. She would die if she had to stay here a moment longer than she needed.

  ‘Kathleen has had enough. But Mam is not good. Things have taken a turn for the worse lately. As you can see …’

  Good God! How did it get so bad? Babby wanted to cry. Pat used Cunards as an excuse to stay away, but she knew from Violet’s complaining that it was his sweetheart, Doris, that kept him from Joseph Street. Doris worked on the make-up counter at George Henry Lees and demanded new stockings and nights out at the Majestic in Birkenhead, dancing to groups like Bill Haley and the Comets, and lemonade shandies at the Philharmonic pub, and Pat had no room in his life for Violet.

  At first, they didn’t see little Hannah standing at the door.

  ‘Hannah! she cried.

  Hannah ran over to Babby, hugged her, and wheeled around in excited circles.

  ‘You’re enormous!’ cried Babby, lifting her off the ground and kissing her full on the lips. ‘A giant!’ She couldn’t help noticing that Hannah looked grubby. Her hair had been cut into a bob but was a tangled clump. Her socks bagged around her ankles and her shoes were scuffed, their seams spilt at the back.

  ‘I’m the smallest in my class.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes! And the skinniest. They call me Beetle and Squit.’

  Babby looked at Hannah for a moment too long without saying anything and touched her hair, pushed a piece of it behind her ear.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Not much …’ Then she paused. ‘Babby, have you seen Aunty Pauline?’ she asked, gravely.

  ‘What d’you mean, have I seen Aunty Pauline?’ replied Babby.

  Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘They brought her here last night. She’s in the front room. Dead as a doornail. She’s wearing Mam’s old best hat and pink lipstick from Blacklers and she’s holding a lily and she’s even got sandals on. Silver ones. And Mam has painted her toenails. Lift up the sheet. You’ll see.’

  Babby gasped. So that was why the mirror in the hall had been turned around to face the wall. Because Pauline was in her coffin in the front room. And yes, Violet was superstitious, one of those who believed that when someone died their spirit, if it saw its reflection, would either remain trapped on earth, or if still lurking around the house, its image would be reflected permanently. Such nonsense! Violet’s renewed friendship with Father O’Casey and the nuns probably had something to do with it. The mirror by the hearth was covered with one of Violet’s old m
oth-eaten silk gowns – Babby had noticed that on the way in – and the second mirror in the hall had been taken off the wall and propped up against the cellar door. She had swept past the front room with the shut door, but the mirrors should have been a clue as to what lay behind.

  ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Oh yes. The priest is coming tonight to see her, Aunty Pauline, I mean. They’re holding a vigil. You have to sit with the dead body until she goes to the church. We all have to take turns. Father O’Casey. Pat. And the girl from the raggy shop. And Johnny Gallagher’s parents.’ Hannah lowered her voice even more. ‘Kathleen is worried Mam might start getting upset about Dad.’

  ‘Dad? I mean, what happened at the Boot Inn?’ she hissed.

  Hannah sighed. ‘Mam keeps talking about it all the time. Again.’

  ‘Still blaming the Mouse. Saying he got off scot-free and he should be in prison for what he did. Only no one wants to hear,’ said Pat, lounging against the doorjamb, folding his arms and sighing. ‘Now, about Hannah … Are you going to stay here for a few more weeks, Babby?’

  Hannah stared at Babby, round-eyed and hopeful.

  Babby’s heart lurched. Is this what Violet wanted to talk to her about?

  ‘Will you? Please?’ asked Hannah. Babby didn’t have the heart to say no.

  Pauline’s funeral was at Saint Patrick’s. Would you like an extra Mass for her? The choir? A special blessing? a letter from the priest had said. That sounds lovely, was Violet’s reply. Until she found out she would have to pay for the pleasure, so she politely declined as she wanted to save the money for the wake. The Gallaghers were coming. And Doris. And Kathleen. And Phyllis O’Neill. For a moment, Babby wondered if she should ask her mother if Callum could come.

  ‘Mam, do I really have to stay here another three weeks?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, love. The world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.’

  ‘Mam, if … if … I was wondering if one of my friends from the farm could come and stay …’

  ‘Friends? You have friends?’ her mother said, looking down her aquiline nose.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Babby. And in the end, the sour expression on her mother’s face meant she was glad she hadn’t told her about Callum.

  It was a funeral without much fuss. The coffin sat on the carriage drawn by a carthorse and the four Delaneys followed on foot behind, walking steadily and in rhythm, down the hill in a sombre procession, with people peering out from behind their curtains and some standing on their steps making the sign of the cross as they passed.

  ‘Why they doing that, Mam?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘Showing their respects. And now you show yours and be quiet,’ replied Violet.

  There was a cheap coffin from Coyne Undertakers, a bunch of flowers from Geraghty’s florists, white lilies and carnations. When they got to the church it was draughty and cold and they barely filled two pews; a woman that Babby recognised as the one who’d came to collect the Mission box from Pauline, and one other person, made the mourners up to no more than a dozen. The burial, in the church ground, on a bleak hill overlooking the city, was a sad, sorry affair with dirt chucked on the coffin turning to mud in the peltering rain, and the priest rattling through prayers that were lost on the wind. A halting ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’, and a lisping ‘Eternal Rest, Grant unto Them O Lord’ and it was all over and done with in the time it took to get out handkerchiefs and dab their eyes. ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer’ was sung as they walked back through the cemetery – it was Pauline’s favourite and everyone knew the words – and it was announced there would be drink afterwards and grub, in the front room of Joseph Street. ‘Back home for boiled beef sarnies and beer,’ said Violet, and Hannah yelped with delight, clapped her hands excitedly and asked if there would be piccalilli with the sarnies, and they all told her to shush, anyone would think they were happy Pauline was dead.

  ‘It’s a funeral, not a flamin’ knees up,’ said Pat. Though when Violet started on the sherry, that’s exactly what it turned out to be.

  ‘You’re a long time looking at the lid,’ she announced, woozily. ‘Let’s have a good time whilst we can.’ And she hiccuped and tried to swallow down a burp but it escaped from her lips and everyone giggled when she said, ‘Oops! Pardon me for being rude, it was not me, it was booze and food. It just popped up to say hello, and now it’s gone back down below …’

  After that Hannah led them in a conga up the stairs with Doris and Kathleen and the Gallaghers laughing and jostling up against one another, then a sing-song in the parlour and finally the room falling silent with Violet’s rendition of ‘I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen’. Exhausted, they all fell asleep in chairs, on sofas, and on the stairs.

  Half an hour later, Babby, taking her chance of escape, left the house with a handful of Butterkist, and a notion that getting the hell out of there was probably very wise.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Johnny Gallagher trailed a stick along the railings and the clattering pierced the night.

  ‘Babby! Is that you?’ he called.

  She turned, a mouthful of the Butterkist bulging her cheek. He came up to her, put his arm around her waist. ‘How’s my little firecracker?’ Babby slapped his hand away. He rammed his shirt into his waistband, ran a finger up and down his nose. Then he threw back his head and laughed. ‘Look at you!’

  ‘Johnny Gallagher, you haven’t changed! Your mum and dad were at our house.’

  ‘I saw you with the funeral carriage – you looked corking in your black frock, them gloves, and with that lacy thing on your head. ’

  She smiled. ‘It’s called a mantilla. You still smashing a football around the hollas?’ she asked. ‘Still pretending you’re Stanley Matthews, or Billy Wright? Or the Busby Babes? What a bloody laugh!’

  ‘Not a bloody laugh! Mind your mouth.’

  ‘Nearest you’d get to those fellas is ogling them at the Regal picture house every Saturday, or the footie ground.’

  Johnny laughed. ‘Regal has gone. Like the overhead railway. Anyway, we was kids, then. We’ve got jobs now. Mickey has joined the bizzies.’

  ‘He never has! He’s a copper? He could send himself to the court house he’s nicked that many prams. He led me mam a dance when she was working there.’

  ‘How is your mam?’

  ‘Round the bloody bend. Me mam has gone mad. And I think she’s got a fella but she won’t say who.’

  Johnny raised his eyes.

  ‘Worse thing is though, she won’t let me go back to Anglesey for another three weeks. She wants me to stay in the Pool but I’m biding my time – and as soon as I can, soon as Hannah gets back to Kathleen’s, I’m going back.’

  ‘Why d’you want to go back there? Thought them places were terrible. Up to your knees in pig shit all day. Like prisons, I heard.’

  ‘I like it. Like the fresh air and farm work.’ She tailed off. She wasn’t going to tell him that Callum was the reason she wanted to return.

  ‘How do you know Violet won’t change her mind? How do you know she won’t say you can’t go back at all? Seems you’re more good to her here now.’

  ‘Dunno. I’ll just have to figure it out myself, find my own way of doing what I want, not what she decides for me.’

  ‘You still singing? Gladys is asking after you, every time I walk in the Boot – still can’t get used to calling it the Tivoli. She’s given it a fresh lick of paint, new tables and chairs and there’s fancy drinks like Cinzano and snowballs. Trying for a fresh start.’

  Babby cocked her head. ‘Is she really?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye. And if she could see you now! You still got your dad’s old accordion? She’d pay you double. Much better than what she pays for washing the glasses and doing the slops.’

  ‘Would she?’ Babby said, brightening. ‘Me mam’d kill me, though. Pub’s bad enough. Any old pub, never mind the Boot, even with its new name. But playing me dad’s accordion? I could never do that.’


  ‘Why?’

  ‘Mam hates it. She hates it that I love singing. And the music. But it’s in my blood, Johnny. Like me dad …’

  ‘She’s worried, I suppose.’

  ‘Aye. Even though she doesn’t know much about anything at the moment, she still doesn’t want me anywhere near the Boot Inn, and in any case, I left the accordion in Anglesey because I’m going back there.’

  ‘Right enough. But every pub’s got an old squeezebox.’

  ‘No, pub’s not the place for a girl,’ she said.

  ‘But you’re not much of a girl, are you? Always been more like one of the lads.’

  Babby wavered. A smile played across her lips.

  ‘Ah, Babby. Come on, say you’ll play at the Tiv. Your mam don’t need to know.’

  ‘Well …’

  He grinned, his eyes widened. ‘Say yes, Babby.’

  ‘Suppose it won’t do any harm …’ she answered.

  ‘Course not. It’d be grand.’

  ‘I’m a bloody fool to let you talk me around, that’s what I am …’ She paused. ‘But what does me mam expect? She wants me to stay here for another three weeks? Well, I can’t sit round doing nowt. To hell with her – I’ll be going back soon. Tell Gladys I’ll play just the once, just for the craic.’

  ‘Still the same old Babby,’ he said and laughed, thinking she might have curled her hair and be wearing stockings, not ragged jeans, but she was still wilful and headstrong, ready to grasp life by the hands and shake it. Thankfully, some things would never change.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Babby opened the latch. Quietly, she padded through to the front room. Pat was fast asleep in a chair. Doris was dozing in another. Hannah and Kathleen were top and tailing on the old chaise longue. Violet would be upstairs sleeping off the bottles of stout and sherry that she had drunk, probably until mid-morning. Deciding that it was too late to tell anyone she was back, Babby stood for a moment in the doorway and watched them snoring, bodies tangled up in eiderdowns, blankets, and old coats. And as she did so, it occurred to her that these were the people that she loved – and these were the people relying on her to help with Hannah. With that thought, she went into the back room, took out a pen and notepaper from the drawer, and began to write.