‘Why not? I’d work hard at it.’
Violet harrumphed. ‘You’re a girl! You shouldn’t be lugging bags of coal. Why can’t you work at Blacklers on the hosiery counter? Or do secretarial? Liverpool Assurance are taking on girls. Or what about I get you a job as a seamstress? Doesn’t take more than two weeks to train you up on the machines.’
‘Pub is grand. Anyway, I only need short term. I can’t do any of those jobs if I’m only here a few weeks, can I?’
‘Pub is no place for you.’
Babby sucked in air.
‘You only ever want to do what you want, Babby. You have to think of the rest of us,’ said Violet.
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ Babby muttered under her breath.
Violet either didn’t hear, or didn’t have the energy to challenge her, and continued with, ‘You could sew gloves like I do. You can do that at home. Any time you like, as long as you have them ready for the fella who comes to collect them on the weekend,’ said Violet.
Babby grimaced.
‘I need you around the house, Babby. Not running off all the time. You can do the ironing. Setting the table and washing after tea. Cleaning the grate …’ Violet added.
‘Stop going on, Mam, I can do that an’ all, but the coal and glasses is good.’
‘If you had stayed at Saint Hilda’s you could have been a nurse. Or a teacher even. Waste of a good brain …’ said Violet, wistfully.
‘But I want something more, Mam. I have a talent. I can sing. I want to be like, like—’
‘Do not say your dad!’ said Violet.
Chapter Twenty
The Reccy was a small square of barren land overlooking a tyre factory. There was the smell of rubber and the sound of bulldozers on the nearby building site. In one corner there was a slide, in another, a squeaky see-saw with rotting wooden seats with splinters that scratched your bare legs, and a pair of swings – one that you would put a toddler in that resembled a small, square-shaped basket, and another, with a flat plastic seat. Babby, was watching Hannah on the latter.
‘A few more pushes and I can see over the roof of the sweet shop and across the hollas and towards the river … I can see the Infirmary, Babby. I can see the clock! I can see the big warehouses at the docks! I can see those new high-rise flats they’re building!’ Hannah cried.
‘You’ll be late for school. Violet will kill us if she finds out we’ve stopped here.’ Hannah shrugged her shoulders in an ‘as if I care’ gesture, as she swung herself higher, and higher. Then, without warning, she pushed herself off, leapt forward as far as she could, back arching, yelling ‘Geronimo!’ and flumping feet first into the sandpit. An alarmed Babby ran over to her and scooped her up.
‘Don’t leave us,’ said Hannah when she had caught her breath, clutching her big sister. ‘I need you to play French Elastic. I’m sick of doing it with a chair instead of a person. The chairs keep falling in on themselves whenever I land on the elastic and it takes the fun out of it, not having you there. Will you stay at Joseph Street? We could all be together again.’
Babby looked into Hannah’s clear blue eyes, bluer than blue. ‘Well, we are together for now … Come on, you’re going to be late for school.’
‘But I don’t want you to go. Mam won’t play with me. Please, please say you won’t go back to that farm place. Will you say stay here?’ She started scraping her muddy heels against the kerb, her mouth turned down at the corners.
‘Fancy coming with me to the sweet shop?’ said Babby, sidestepping the question. ‘Come on,’ she said, kneeling so that she spoke directly into Hannah’s face.
In the shop, the display of the chocolate bars, the Fry’s Chocolate Cream, the Milky Bars, and the sweets, all lined up on the shelves in jars, the rustle of the paper bags, the metal scoops dusted with sugar, and the twist of the lid and rattling of pear drops and orange bonbons, made Hannah shiver with excitement.
‘You got money?’ she asked.
Babby pulled the shilling that Gladys had given her out of her pocket.
‘Can we buy some of those Swizzells? Or liquorice shoelaces? Or Refreshers?’
‘Whatever you want, Hannah.’
Hannah sighed. ‘Babby, when you say my name it sounds right in your mouth, not like Mam.’
‘Whatever do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, turning the conversation back to lemon bonbons and cinder toffee and pear drops, halfpenny chews, and sugar mice, and the sound of the school handbell clanging in the distance.
As she arrived home after taking Hannah to school, Babby imagined her mother meeting her at the door and saying, ‘A letter has come for you from Anglesey’, but when she got there, she found the curtains were drawn and, disappointingly, there was still no envelope on the mat, and no word from Callum. She had written to him three times now in the past two weeks, and nothing.
Her heart lurched. ‘Mam?’ she called. She had never quite got over the time when she had come home and found Violet with her ‘fancy man’. There had been no mention of him since, and there had been no sign of him, either, but she still dreaded the prospect of revisiting that awful moment, finding someone making love to her mother, or rather, ‘getting his leg over’ – which would be a better way of describing it.
When she went into the parlour, Violet was sitting alone in the dimly lit kitchen, in a wheelback chair, her hair looking greyer, her skin more papery and sallow.
‘You frightened me,’ said Babby. ‘Just sitting there with the curtains drawn in the middle of the morning …’
Violet smoothed her hands over the piece of material she was hemming. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve got something to ask me,’ she said, with intended precision, making Babby feel anxious about what was coming next.
Babby shifted from foot to foot. ‘Has a letter arrived for me?’
‘For you?’ asked Violet. ‘Why would a letter come for you? Are you expecting something?’
‘N-no,’ stuttered Babby.
‘So why mention it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Who is it from?’
‘No one. Please stop asking.’
‘I’m your mother. You shouldn’t have secrets from me, love.’
Why can’t you just leave me alone?! Babby wanted to cry.
‘Did you get Hannah to school on time?’ asked Violet.
‘Yes,’ lied Babby. ‘Sorry. I’m tired …’ She pretended to yawn, but she lost heart halfway through. Turning to go, she intended to leave quietly and without fuss, but she’d only taken two steps towards the door when Violet’s words held her back.
‘Hannah says she likes her new school. Much better than the one at Kathleen’s. Sister Immaculata helped me find it,’ said Violet, as she bent to shut her sewing basket. Babby knew that her words weren’t so much of a passing comment, more of a statement designed for some kind of a reaction. ‘Now Babby, you’ve hardly done any of the chores that I asked you to. Yesterday you promised you would do the dusting and you’ve given this place no more than a cat’s lick, love.’ She stood, ran her finger over the sideboard, showed her the black smudge on the tip, and sighed.
‘Do we have to go into this now?’ Babby said, sulkily. She wanted to ask her mother what had brought this sudden change, since they had been living in near squalor for months now, according to Patrick – dust turning to grime, fingerprints on every surface and wall – and Violet hadn’t seemed to care, or indeed notice.
‘Why not? Now is a good as time as any.’ Taking off the beautiful carved casing with the wire mesh from the wireless and heaving it on to the floor, she started complaining about how the battery had run out, and how they needed to exchange the wet battery for a fresh one.
‘I asked you to take this radio battery to O’Connor’s three days ago, Babby. Now it’s conked.’
‘What about the accumulator man? Couldn’t he come and top it up? I thought they usually come around.’
‘I can’t aff
ord the accy man. I want you to do it. Just don’t spill the acid out of the battery like last time.’
That had been a disaster, Babby spilling the burning acid on to her shoe when the shopping bag handles broke and Violet calling her stupid, when it was clear it had been far too heavy for her to carry in the first place.
‘Get Pat to do it, Mam.’
‘No, you can do it. You’ll just have to be more careful this time …’
Babby sighed. She knew this was more about Violet venting her frustration over bigger things than her missing tomorrow’s episode of Mrs Dale’s Diary or the one Babby hated, stupid Educating Archie, where a ventriloquist performed on the wireless. She looked at her, and was about to argue back, but in an instant, Violet had suddenly just drifted off. What was it that she was thinking?
‘Mam,’ said Babby, bringing Violet back to life with a jolt, dragging her back to the present.
‘Sorry, what?’ she said, in a flat distracted voice.
‘You drifted off. What were you thinking?’
‘About you, Babby. About this letter you are expecting.’
The sentence hung in the air, laden with suspicion.
If it wasn’t for Pat appearing at the door, wearing a Mackintosh, belted at the waist, and his blue and white football scarf, a full-blown argument would have erupted.
‘Raining dick docks out there,’ he said, shaking out the raindrops from an umbrella. ‘Blues won three nil. Tremendous game. Jimmy Harris smashed it into the onion bag. One, two, three,’ he said, miming kicking a football.
‘Where were you last night?’ Violet asked him, lifting her eyes to the window and seeing that the pavements were slopping with puddles.
‘Dancing. At the Locarno. With Doris.’
Violet got up and poured herself a sweet sherry. She held the glass in one hand and an Embassy cigarette in the other.
Pat looked away, busied himself with the fire.
‘Isn’t it a bit early for sherry?’ said Babby, shocked.
‘Not at all. Just a quick one before I leave for church,’ she said. ‘Mass.’
‘Church?’ said Babby.
‘Why not? You should come with me. Stop you getting crazy ideas.’
‘I don’t have crazy ideas.’
‘Yes, you do. All teenagers do. Mooning about with your head in the clouds. These teenage boys prowling about in motorcycle jackets and slicked-back hair, they’re the ruination of good girls like you.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Mam!’
‘Pop music. You shouldn’t be listening to it. I’ve heard you singing around the house. ‘That’s Amore’. Ridiculous. It does strange things to people your age. Makes them … No, I’m not going to say it, Babby.’
‘Say what?’
‘Do I have to spell it out?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘And jeans … Blue jeans. Saturday morning at the picture house … I’ve heard all about what goes on in the back seats … youngsters getting carried away in the heat of the moment. One minute they’re heavy petting in the back row, the next they’re washing other folks’ mucky drawers and bed linen at Saint Jude’s. Father O’Casey says it’s disgusting. Teenagers!’ Violet swirled the word around in her mouth, enjoying the sound of it.
Babby snorted. Was this her mother speaking?! Since when had she thought like this? Wasn’t this all a little late? What had happened to her? They had never been regular churchgoers. What a hypocrite. Had she forgotten about the incident with the ‘man’? The one that had led to Violet sending Babby packing to Anglesey in the first place.
‘Your story ends before it begins, Babby. We’ll make a beautiful young woman out of you yet … I’ve only got your best interests at heart, you know.’ Violet reached out to grasp Babby’s hand. ‘I’m so glad you’re back, love. Are you happy to be home?’ she said.
Babby winced. This close, Violet smelled of damp socks and something sweet and sickly, the same smell as when she passed the brewery in Cable Street – hops, maybe.
Was she already drunk?
Chapter Twenty-one
She read what she’d written – Dear Callum, this will be my last letter, for now – and crossed it out. Why would it be her last letter? Maybe her letters hadn’t arrived at all. Perhaps Callum had been so busy he hadn’t time to reply. Perhaps the last two she had written had sounded too desperate, too needy, and he had decided that writing back was not a good idea for now. Or ever?
She began again.
Dear Callum,
I hope you are all right and you are enjoying the farm.
I’m missing you and I do wish I was with you, as now my mum really has gone bananas! The first sign that things were not normal was when she started going to church again, which is strange because she has always hated the nuns and priests. She’s called them names and says how would a priest know what it’s like to bring up a family, why should Father so and so or Sister whatever think they can tell a mother how to behave? Before they criticise they should walk a mile in her shoes, she used to say. She got especially cross after the incident when she was told she couldn’t take communion because Sister Immaculata had seen her eating a meat pie on a Friday outside the Locarno. But Mam didn’t have any money and the meat pies were cheaper than fish and chips, special offer as they were on the turn, so what else was she supposed to do? She was only trying to do the best for us.
Anyway, this seems to have all been forgotten. But I’m worried because she seems to have brought Hannah back home permanently. I’m dreading that she is going to say I have to stay here even longer. Everything hints at this. Pat, my brother, is trying to make me feel bad about not offering to help with Hannah. But what am I to do? Mam sent me away. Now she wants me back. She keeps asking questions. She also seems to be obsessed with teenagers. Talked the other day about me getting ‘carried away in the heat of the moment’ which rather made me think the heat of the moment sounds like something I’d like to find out about myself.
I’ve told Gladys I will do another night at the Tivoli. It lifts my spirits – but Violet is sure to find out any day soon. I miss you. Write soon.
Reading it back she decided that Callum should really hear none of this. It would only alarm him. Instead, she wrote.
Dear Callum,
Have you been receiving my letters?
Love Babby.
Then she sealed it, put a stamp on it, and posted it on the way to the Tivvy.
Gladys Worrall was standing outside the pub, having a cigarette. She had been arguing with her brother, Rex, and needed some air. Customers were beginning to arrive from the docks and their shifts with Tate and Lyle. A tugboat on the Mersey had run aground, pulling a floating crane, and there was constant chatter about it from the men who were turning up for their pints of bitter on their way home.
‘Babby, come and say hello to my friend,’ said Gladys, meeting her at the door.
She took her inside. One of the sailors was sitting at the back of the pub. His legs were splayed, white bell-bottomed trousers tenting at his crotch. He was Danish or Swedish, with tattoos of fish and a woman with a garter rippling up his forearms. Gladys beckoned him over. He cocked his sailor hat, grinned, then got up and walked to Babby and Gladys.
‘Olaf watched you playing the other night. He wanted to meet you.’
‘Did he?’ replied Babby, shrinking away.
‘You want me to leave you two alone?’ asked Gladys.
Babby flinched. ‘Why would I want you to do that?’ she asked.
‘Just thought you two might like a bit of privacy? Olaf could buy you a drink. You could have a chat?’
‘Chat? With this lump of herring? He can’t speak a word of English. Can you, dopey?’ The sailor, stood there grinning, a smile stretching around the back of his head. ‘You like that? You big soft Olly?’ she said, and poked him in the ribs, flipping his sailor hat so that it tipped to the back of his head. He laughed, and so did she. ‘You great pudding …’ she said.
‘Just have a drink with him after you’ve sung,’ said Gladys. ‘What harm will it do?’
‘I will not!’ said Babby.
The barman watched what Gladys was doing. It’s not right, he thought. Babby was only a lassie.
‘Why? He’s a good customer. Big ship, The Norwegian Viking. I want to keep my customers happy …’ said Gladys.
Babby laughed. She stared at the sailor, who was smiling at her, plonked herself down in front of him and ruffled his hair. ‘Look at you, sitting there like the Dumb Man of Manchester!’ she said. Seeing the sailor’s floppy blonde fringe bouncing as he smiled wider and nodded and tapped his feet in time to the song being played on the Wurlitzer jukebox, a jangling version of ‘Que Sera Sera’, she said, ‘Sorry, chucky, I’m already going steady with someone …’
She jumped up and walked down the corridor. She knew what Gladys was up to, all right, wanting her to flirt with the customers, pretend that she was interested in them for the craic, and then snare them for a few more bob to put behind the bar. ‘As if I bloody would,’ she murmured to herself out loud.
Ten minutes later she took her place on the dais and the pub went quiet; all talk of grain machines and cargo and cranes sinking to the river bed, diminished to a hush as she began to sing.
‘Perfect order … She brings perfect order to this place,’ murmured Gladys. ‘I’ll be sad to see her go.’
Chapter Twenty-two
A young man approached the green cabmen’s shelter on the corner of Joseph Street as the woman inside took the kettle off the stove, put away the plate of bread and butter squashed into triangles, and began locking up for the night. The young man was no more than eighteen, with clear skin, and clean clothes. He wore polished brogue shoes and he had an accordion slung over his shoulder.
A Liverpool Girl Page 13