A Liverpool Girl

by Elizabeth Morton

  ‘I’m going,’ said Babby. She grabbed her coat and left, slamming the door behind her so that it made the windows rattle. She ran all the way to Canning Street, hurtling along with a westerly wind blowing in from the Mersey filling the air with a sweet smell. Hartley’s Jam Factory, most likely, she thought. It cheered her spirits and felt like a good omen. If Callum’s boat was sailing at six, she didn’t care about Violet’s disapproval: she was going to spend every precious last minute of the day and night with him.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The door of the boarding house was shuttered. She looked up at the building. Twenty-one Canning Street, Callum had said, she was sure of it. Finally, a face appeared at the window. It was a woman with a hairnet covering her head, wearing an old housecoat. No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs, said the cardboard notice, propped up on the windowsill downstairs.

  The woman pushed up the sash window, asked Babby what she wanted at this time of night.

  ‘I’m looking for Callum, my friend,’ called Babby, up at the window.

  ‘No Callum here,’ replied the woman, irritated that Babby had dragged her out of bed.

  ‘But this was the address he gave me,’ said Babby.

  ‘No one by the name of Callum here,’ the woman repeated.

  Had he given a false name? wondered Babby. She hesitated.

  ‘Git,’ said the woman, before closing the window with a bang.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Babby, shouting up at the window. Her voice echoed around the streets. Perhaps she should wait.

  She sat on the step, her back to the railings. The stone soon became like ice and numbed her bottom. Her coat, threadbare and old, did nothing to keep the bitter cold from seeping up through her bones.

  Suddenly there was a vicious flash of lightning. She waited for the growl of thunder to pass. But then the growl exploded into a volley of crackling gunfire. She turned up her collar. It was summer, but this was Liverpool; the rain began lashing down, and with it a cold wind rushed about her that sounded like the wailing of banshees. She would go home, meet Callum at the Tivvy the next day as they had planned, and hope all would be explained.

  The following day, at half past twelve, she walked up to the pub. She saw Gladys through the stippled glass window, with a feather duster. Taking a deep breath, she went in.

  ‘Babby? Are you all right? You look a bit queer …’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Come and help me with the sweeping,’ said Rex, wiping his hands on a cloth. ‘If you do a good job, you’ll find a shilling under some of the table legs – I’ve hidden them for you.’

  Sure enough, after ten minutes, she found a silver coin. It did nothing to raise her spirits, but she appreciated Rex’s kind gesture and apologised for feeling so glum.

  She made herself a brew, changed into her gingham frock, with the full tulle underskirt that she had soaked in sugar and water to make it stick out stiffly, and when the punters began to drift in, she took her place on the tiny dais. She tried to lose herself in the music. It normally worked, but this afternoon she was finding it difficult to think of anything apart from Callum and where he had gone.

  ‘I’ll gather lilacs in the morning,’ she sang, with the sounds of the accordion accompanying her with a doleful melody and lingering on the minor chords. Halfway into the second verse, Gladys slid up behind Babby, grabbed her by the elbow, and whispered, ‘Eyes and teeth, love. You’re going to put them off. What’s the matter? You look like a wet weekend in New Brighton.’

  Rex saw her brows knit together in a frown. ‘Is there something wrong, love?’ he asked.

  She shook her head, then whispered, ‘If anyone comes here looking for me, a boy by the name of Callum, and I’m in the back, tell him to wait for me …’

  She had been waiting all morning, hoping he might come by the house after all. She had sat staring out of the window, supposedly sewing one of Violet’s linings for the glove man, but desperately hoping Callum might appear. That’s not what they had arranged. But she thought he might have changed his mind. Only he hadn’t. The boarding house, when she had headed there again on her way to the Tivoli, had been locked up.

  Babby took heart from Rex promising that he would keep an eye on who was coming through the door. As long as she did what she had come here to do and put on a good show for the punters, Gladys had said.

  She nodded back at him as he gave her the thumbs up. After a faltering start, she became aware that the people in the pub were now really listening. There were a couple of Danish sailors, a group of dockers who had come straight from the pen – fellas who had been given the knock back by the new foreman and were drowning their sorrows – a couple of West Indian dockers who’d been talking about unloading crates of rubber, gesturing expansively as they described one of the crates splitting open as it came off the boat and the rubber wriggling like snakes all over the deck. One of the West Indians, without warning, when she finished the last chorus of ‘Liverpool Lullaby’, leapt on to the stage. ‘Any requests?’ he shouted.

  His friend started singing, ‘Day-o! Day-O! Daylight come and me wan’ go home!’

  The dockers chorused, ‘Oh Danny boy! The pipes, the pipes are calling …’

  A drunken fella raised his glass and shouted, ‘The Fields of Athenry!’ They began banging their glasses on the table, thumping their feet. This is what she was supposed to be good at. You hum it. I’ll play it. Years of watching her dad working out songs.

  But today she was finding it impossible. One of the men called out to her, gestured at the side of his head. ‘Love, it’s up there for thinking, down there for dancing. Give us a tune.’ And he jumped up, pushed a table back and started to whirl a woman around the pub.

  Babby started haltingly. ‘Now gather round you sailor boys and listen to my plea …’

  The words stuck in her throat, lodged there like a plum stone but a roar of approval went up around the pub and people started to clap in rhythm.

  She continued to sing. ‘And when you’ve heard my tale, you’ll pity me …’

  When she played a chord of b-flat by mistake, nobody appeared to notice. Whether it was because no one was listening, or they were all too drunk to notice, was difficult to tell.

  Then, after a few more songs, she took her bow and left the stage.

  ‘What’s all this about?’ said Pat, when Babby came out of her dressing room in her jacket. He was leaning against the bar.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ asked a shocked Babby, packing away the accordion.

  ‘Word gets around. Breaking our mam’s heart, you are,’ he asked, glugging back a glass of beer. ‘Come on home. Mam is waiting for you,’ he said, moodily. He removed the cigarette from his mouth, ground it into the ashtray. He and Doris would have already set off for the Majestic dance club, looking forward to kicking up a storm with Johnny and the Rockets on the jukebox, if Violet hadn’t asked him to find Babby. He was irritated that he had had to change his plans.

  ‘I shan’t come,’ protested Babby.

  ‘You’ll do what I say!’

  ‘No, I won’t!’

  ‘Balls and bloody brick dust, you won’t! We’ll see about that!’ And with that he strode over and lifted Babby up in his arms. He carried her her outside, kicking and shouting, and plonked her on the pavement.

  ‘Gerroff! I don’t need you interfering! Why would I need that?’ she said, kicking and thumping his back with her fist. ‘I don’t want to go with you.’ Her eyes grew large and round and he took her hand. She could feel his grip tighten. ‘Gerroff me,’ she said, wriggling away from him.

  Then, springing back, she took a run at him. ‘I’ll decide when I’m leaving. Doing the dirty work for Mam. Always thought you were on my side of the argument, Pat!’

  ‘I am! But you’re my little sister, Babby. And I worry about you. You’re out of your depth here. Look around you. You should be at home. This is a right dive,’ he said.

  Gladys, who had come out to wat
ch the show, snorted. ‘I’ll have you know, me and Rex are very proud of the Tivoli. I’m not best pleased to hear you shouting your mouth off in my bar. The only time when this place was in the mire was when your bloody father dragged us into it.’

  Pat momentarily faltered. But then he let the thought go. He knew where that would lead.

  ‘Babby, get your things. We’re off. This ends now,’ he said. It was upsetting the way he said it. She wasn’t used to Pat talking to her like this. Short, sharp angry words.

  ‘There’s someone I was waiting for … I can’t leave now!’

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘A boy …’

  Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Wait a minute. You’re not waiting for this Callum character? Right Jack the Lad, Mam says. He’s not in Liverpool? He the type to make you do something you don’t want to, love? Has he been hanging around this pub? Because if – if—’

  ‘Everything I have done with him, I wanted to! Everything! I love him, Pat!’ she snarled, then, the minute she had said them, wished she could take the words back. She flushed red.

  ‘I should forget him, Babby. Besides, there’s always Johnny Gallagher. He’s a nice boy and he would make a good husband. His dad has the dairy which will come to him. I can put in a word with his Ma …’

  Babby, her face full of freckles, glared at him and narrowed her eyes. At times, she had a look that knew no boundaries.

  ‘Dairy? Bloody cows! No, Pat! I’m in love with Callum.’

  ‘Love? Now look, you’re not thinking right. You have no bloody choice. Who do you think you are?’

  The two years difference in age that had always made Pat seem so wise, now incensed her. How dare he!

  ‘I don’t love Johnny Gallagher. I don’t love him at all. He is my friend. We play kick the can in the hollas and he grabs me like a boy. He’s not like Callum …’

  She felt herself swaying backwards.

  ‘What’s wrong with Johnny?’ asked Pat. He looked genuinely bewildered. ‘He’s a good boy and his dad has the business. And he is fond of you Babby.’

  Babby’s nostrils flared. ‘Fond of me? I want more than “fond of me”.’

  They walked home in silence, Babby dragging her feet and Pat pulling her along, prodding and shoving her to get a move on.

  When they got back, she paused momentarily before she put the key into the lock. The house felt colder inside than out. The damp always seeped through the walls with the vaguest hint of rain. She shivered and pulled her jacket around herself for warmth.

  ‘Go and sleep, Babby. I won’t tell Mam what you’ve been up to at the Tivvy, if you go and sleep …’

  She nodded, ragged with exhaustion and disappointment, too tired to argue, too tired to sleep. Maybe tomorrow Callum would arrive …

  But though she waited, and waited, Callum did not arrive. Not at the Tivoli. Not at Joseph Street.

  Not that day. Or the day after. Or the day after that.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The empty promenade near Seaforth docks had been built out of the headland in a half-hearted attempt to attract weekenders and holidaymakers. It hadn’t worked. The stretch of coast was a barren place, no ice-cream vans, or winkle stalls, or slot machines. There was just strangely undulating tarmac, a couple of shrimping carts and a man with a bucket, sticking a rod into the marshy sand and into the crevices of the mudflats, looking for worms. None of this was of any concern to Babby. She had come here to be alone, to think about the letter she had received that morning from Callum, delivered to Gladys at the pub and handed to her when she had gone to tell her that she wouldn’t be coming back to sing, at least for now. When she had read it, it was as if all life had been breathed out of her, the blood whooshed out of her body.

  Clouds were bulking the sky, the greyness relieved here and there with blue patches, and seagulls were screeching. She made her way to a neglected Victorian bus shelter. Sitting down, she took the letter out of her pocket, turned it over in her hands. She opened it on her knee, and smoothed out the creases.

  ‘Oh Callum.’ She said his name out loud and when she did the picture of him in her head sharpened into focus. She could conjure up his smile, the way his hair fell over his eyes in a tangled web, and exactly what he was wearing when he turned up at the Tivvy. There he was, in her head, standing outside the hollas, under the street lamp, promising her he would be back the next day, winking and waving and blowing a kiss at her as he walked backwards around the corner, she running back to hug him again, he lifting her in his arms and swinging her around and around. And then he was gone, as though he had just spun away into air.

  With tremulous fingers, she took the letter from the envelope. She stared at it, ran a finger around the edges.

  And then another memory came, of the back field at Pentraeth Farm, a place where time could not be hurried, Callum crouched behind the leafy branches of the sweet-smelling elderflower tree at the bottom of the field, smiling or squinting, she couldn’t be sure, but holding his arms out to her, his large, black wide-apart eyes full of longing and love. She remembered how he had bent down and moved a piece of hair out of her face, plucked a single strand of it and tied it to a nail on the cowshed and said it was to stay there to remind her how much he loved her. How only he would see it, and only he would know, it would be invisible, but in time the world would know all right. He would shout it from the roof of the barn, and it would sail all across the river Mersey to Liverpool.

  Turning up her collar to the wind, she could feel the sand blowing off the beach stinging her eyes. She moved to the corner of the bus shelter, out of the wind, and continued to read. She noticed the letter was becoming blotted, going damp around the edges from the fine drizzle there was no escape from, the thin, indecisive kind of rain that soaks you through without you noticing. The ink was blurring in some parts. But she had read it so many times today she knew it by memory now.

  Dear Babby,

  I’m sorry I had to leave so suddenly. I got word from Mrs Reilly that I had to go to Italy. Rome. I hear you have been trying to get in touch with me. I am afraid I will be away for a while. God knows when I’ll be back. Please don’t wait for me. You will always remain in my heart, but I would suggest the only thing for it is for you to move on with your life. It’s hard, but there you are. That’s just the way it is. I would keep away from the Tivoli. I’d say Violet was right. It wasn’t the place for a lady. I wish you good luck for the future, and happiness.

  Yours Sincerely

  Callum.

  Her heart kicked at her ribs. There was something peculiar about this letter. It just didn’t sound like him. And why didn’t it have a Roman stamp on it? It should have confirmed all her fears, but it did the opposite. Was this Violet’s work? Or Patrick’s? There was something more going on. She had begun to think he had had only one reason for coming to find her in Liverpool, but now she wondered if there was more to it. How could he have changed from being so completely in love with her, to this? It didn’t make sense. And if Violet had lied once, maybe she could lie again? Or Pat? If only Violet hadn’t thrown the letters from Callum on the fire she could have compared the handwriting. There was something familiar about it, but how could she be sure it was his? He would probably have written with a meandering scrawl at best, not this graceful sloping script. No, this letter was not from Callum. He would never have said these things. Callum loved her. And that was the end of it.

  Still smarting, she put the letter away. She would tell no one.

  She fixed her eyes on the pale-green peeling wrought-iron work that curved up the sides of the shelter as she squirrelled the letter away. It was so disconcerting, this matter of Italy. Good God, what if I never see him again? What then? How could I go on? she asked herself. But then she stopped, determined to bring this sorry matter to a different conclusion to the obvious one. The tears began to pool in her eyes.

  The sun, she noticed, was trying its best to break through the dead mist. Tiring of
it all, of the whole sorry business, her gaze lifted towards the sea, then up to the grey sludge of sky. Fortune favours the brave, she murmured under her breath.

  You’ll come back, Callum. I don’t believe you don’t want me. You’ll come back and find me. You will …

  When she got further down the hill, the fresh air, laced with hops from the nearby brewery, made her dizzy. Walking the length of the anonymous slab of concrete wall with broken bottles cemented into the top of it, she finally reached Joseph Street. Thoughts still raged through her head. The last thing she was going to do was look backwards instead of forward, run into the arms of some Johnny Gallagher, instead of marching on to happiness with Callum.

  ‘Still no word? So where is he, then, this boy who loves you and wants to be with you forever?’ called Violet as Babby put the key into the latch.

  ‘Mam, stop!’

  ‘He only wanted one thing. Teenage boys only want one thing – go and ask those poor, miserable girls at Saint Jude’s,’ Violet said. And she snorted, unbuttoned her cardigan, buttoned it again, and muttered something about making sure the door was on the latch, and went upstairs.

  Babby watched her disappear. She felt rage seeping from every pore of her body. She could feel it now, igniting a spark, blood rushing savagely to her brain and bursting into flames, a conductor of resentment and bitterness, and she called after her mother, ‘Why d’you have to ruin everything?’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Two months later

  Perhaps her mother and Pat had been right, she thought. Weeks had passed and she had stayed away from the Tivvy and got a job at Linacre’s Haberdashers store around the corner from TJ Hughes, but still she had had no word from Callum. And every night she would go to sleep and wake with dark shadows under her eyes, pale and drawn, a fist kneading her stomach, sadness gnawing at her, trying so hard to build a shell around herself – and failing. Mrs Reilly had confirmed to her mother that Callum was in Italy, yet she still didn’t believe it. And it wasn’t even the despair. She could cope with the despair. It was the hope that she couldn’t cope with. That was so much worse. The hope that she still might find him and he would tell her it had all been a terrible mistake and he had come back to marry her and that they would live together forever. And it was this hope, this desperate hope, that was more important than ever. Because time was running out.