A Liverpool Girl

by Elizabeth Morton

  A minute later she jolted awake from the dream and found herself lying on the table with the cover on the floor. Panic tore through her. The woman was standing beside her with a bowl of steaming hot water and a greying towel draped over her forearm.

  ‘You haven’t done it?’ said Babby.

  ‘What’s the matter, chicken?’

  She began to plead. ‘Please … you haven’t …?’

  ‘Not yet. You drifted off. The pill. It does that, said the woman. She was rearranging the cover over her body. Babby sat up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Babby began to shake. ‘How could I have been so stupid?!’ she murmured to herself, pushing her fists into her eye sockets, swinging her legs over the table. She felt a terrible sense of sadness, as if part of her had been ripped from her body. Tears like giant pendants spilled on to her cheeks and dropped silently into her lap, forming a puddle in the scrunched mess of the cotton skirt. Her shoulders folded into herself and her head dropped into her chest.

  ‘You’ve changed your mind, then?’ asked the woman. ‘We can’t give you your money back … This has taken a lot to arrange.’

  ‘I can’t do this without Callum. He needs to be told what I’m going to do! Then, if … I need to go,’ gasped Babby. She leaped up, pushed her arms through the sleeves of her coat, and barged her way past the woman, stumbling, falling into the cold air, the sound of a cow mooing in a field behind her and the rattle of the trains on the nearby tracks.

  She got back in the evening, after two buses and a train ride, drained of all energy. As she stood for a moment under the creaking pub sign as it swung back and forth, her thoughts turned to Callum and Anglesey. She thought back to when they had lain on the hay bale together. The smell of him. How from the very first time she had met him, he had made her see things differently, the smell of newly mown grass, her love for Hannah and Pat – and even Violet. She sighed and went inside.

  Florrie could see straight away something was wrong from the way Babby sighed as she began to go about her chores, but she knew not to start questioning her now. The pub was quiet and when the customers suspected that Babby wasn’t going to be in any fit state to sing – they could tell from her face as she made her way behind the bar and poured herself a glass of water – they put on their coats and began to leave.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, barely looking up, as the door swung open, ‘we’re shutting up.’

  The man didn’t move. ‘Babby,’ he said.

  ‘Callum!’ she cried and felt her legs buckle beneath her as an electric shock jolted through her body.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Babby! I’ve found you, love!’

  ‘Cal! I’ve missed you!’ she yelped, steadying herself on the brass rail, her whole body shaking. How many times had she told herself that the minute she saw him again she would tell him everything about the baby, had gone over and over it in her head, but now panic gripped her. How could she possibly take even one single step from behind the bar? Other people might not have noticed, but surely Callum would see instantly she was having a baby. She reached out and grasped his hands over the countertop, kissed him full on the lips, all the time thinking: how do you tell someone you’re pregnant? What if he questioned her as to whether it was his? God, how she wanted to feel his bones against hers, his warm body pressing firmly against her chest, wanted to throw her arms around his waist, wanted to cling on to him like he was a raft. But she daren’t. The thought of what he might say made her physically ill. She could have cried. She did cry. And he, twisting his cap in his hands as if he were wringing it out, had tears spilling on to his cheeks.

  Florrie, looking in, shouted to the barman sweeping up in the back room, to get a whisky sour for Callum and a sweet sherry for Babby who had instinctively pushed her hands over her belly. She thought Callum seemed taller – could he really have grown two inches in such a short time? Or had she become smaller as well as fatter?

  She hoped the dim lighting might disguise the tiny bump below her belt, her full skirts cascading in waterfalls of folds, skilfully designed to cover any sign of her pregnancy. What was impossible to disguise however were her breasts. Full now, against her ruched neckline, the way as Violet used to arrange her cleavage when trying to show herself to her best advantage.

  ‘When are you going to come out from behind that flipping bar?’ Callum asked.

  She could feel herself panicking again, fear coming in waves. And there was a silence. Babby wanted to say something, but she still couldn’t. She just didn’t have it in her. She would like to blurt it all out, about Saint Jude’s, and the man in the Morris Oxford car, and the child growing inside her, but she just couldn’t. She shivered, because of the fear of where this might all lead. Please don’t cry again, she told herself. Please don’t cry.

  ‘Well, if you won’t I’ll just have to come back there myself.’ And with that, he vaulted right over the bar. ‘Hold me,’ he said, enfolding her with his arms and pulling her to him. ‘I’ve got you now.’

  Her bottom lip quivered, as she squirmed away from him.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  She felt herself blush. ‘God, Callum, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Forgive me, Callum … Will you hate me if I tell you what trouble I’m in?’

  He didn’t answer, but he pushed her against the bar, and grasped her tightly, let his hands move over the slight swell of her belly, up to her breasts. And then he kissed her. The feel of him, the smell of him, so familiar, so comforting, brought more tears to her eyes.

  He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry, love. I’m here. Because I love you. And I don’t care about the baby. Because I’m going to marry you – you see if I don’t.’

  Babby looked at him in shock. ‘Baby! How did you know?’ she asked.

  ‘Look at you, Babby.’ His gaze moved down over her body.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘It was obvious the minute I walked in here,’ he said, brushing the tangled web of hair from her eyes. ‘Look at the clothes you’re wearing. The way you were hiding behind that bar and wouldn’t let me near you.’

  ‘Oh God, Callum. I’m sorry …’

  ‘Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Stop blubbing like this …’

  ‘What a mess I must be. Do I look awful?’

  ‘No, you look beautiful. Completely beautiful.’

  ‘And you don’t hate me for – for it?’

  ‘Why would I? You couldn’t make a baby on your own, could you?’

  Her heart felt as if it would burst. It was like a tremendous weight lifting off her shoulders. Gently, she placed his hand on her stomach. Gently he kissed her, excited with the possibility of what this new life might bring. To hell with what the world might think. He had lost so many people in his family, he wasn’t going to pass over the chance to make one of his own. He loved this Liverpool girl.

  ‘I’m never ever going to let you out of my sight again. If you knew the trouble I’ve had finding you, Babby! You really are happy to see me?’

  ‘Oh Cal. Of course I am. Say that all again, Cal,’ she said, thinking he looked a little more tired, a little older, but still so handsome. ‘And tell me everything. But start with the part about never letting me out of your sight again. Will you?’

  ‘I never will, that’s for sure. And I can tell you that my heart has been breaking. Tell you that I’ve been looking for you for weeks. Tell you that your family has been stopping me at every turn. And Babby, I know that I did wrong when I didn’t go back and find you the next day. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to find out for myself about … about …’

  The sentence petered to silence. He couldn’t say it, the truth of why he’d left, and he stumbled on. ‘I had to go back and help Mrs Reilly with the pigs.’

  ‘The pigs?’ she said, bewildered.

  He was ashen. ‘She was short-handed and I knew she woul
d find out if I wasn’t there to help. You mean you didn’t get my note?’ he added quickly.

  ‘What note?’

  ‘The note where I said I would be back to find you once I had … had …’ His words tailed off again

  ‘The only note I received was the one saying you were going to Italy.’

  ‘Italy? I’ve been trying to find you for weeks now. I even took a job at Liverpool Assurance in the sorting offices and I’ve got digs in Upper Parly Street. A boarding house. Clean and warm and the grub’s all right. But every time I turned up at Joseph Street I was told by your Mam and your Pat to forget you, give up all hope, that you weren’t interested in me. Pat seemed as though he felt sorry for me, he was kind, but firm. Your Mam was spitting nails. But I couldn’t rest until I found you, Babby. I had to hear it from you. But they said that you didn’t want to see me. Over and over.’

  She reeled, clutched on to the back of a chair for support. ‘I never said any such thing! Why on earth would anyone do something like that?’ Callum frowned. ‘Oh God, someone’s been lying! Someone’s been lying to both of us and I’m sure I know who it is.’

  At first it was just a rush of words that she couldn’t make sense of. Why would her mother not want them to marry? The shame, not to be made an honest woman of, would be awful. But wasn’t Callum offering to make her his wife? They could do it easily, late in the evening, no one would need know. Surely it was better than giving the baby to those vile nuns? Why would Violet want her to do that instead of marry him? She had heard they had been sending some of the babies to Australia. That’s what Collette had told her. Would Violet have wanted that if she knew he was offering to make her his wife?

  ‘I knew something was up when a fella came in, asking for me at the office,’ said Callum, ‘asking about you. Mrs Reilly knew where I was working so she must have told him where I was.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Tall. Ruddy face. Shock of silvery black hair.’

  ‘Rex?’ she said, as an image came into her head of the man that once sat on her mother’s bed, with grey creeping into his coarse black hair, and a pair of braces looping around his thighs. ‘It sounds like Rex. I’m sure something is going on between Mam and Rex. Makes it all the more galling that Mam is on her high horse about you and me, Cal.’

  ‘I put two and two together and I knew something was wrong from what he said about you being too far gone to be helped. Violet knows nothing about this pub, does she?’

  ‘She sent me to the awful Saint Jude’s. One of those homes … you know?’ She could barely bring herself to say it. ‘But I couldn’t stand it. And the one thing I had was my singing to give me time to get out of this mess. At least until I found you. Florrie has been so kind.’

  ‘Jesus. An unmarried mother’s home?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Shame burned her cheeks.

  ‘What if …?’

  She put out a hand to reassure him.

  ‘Never. I would have walked over hot coals to keep this baby,’ she said.

  ‘Our baby.’

  ‘Our baby,’ she said, and smiled a quivering smile.

  ‘Everything will be fine, so dry your eyes. I’ll deal with your mother. And hey, Babby. A baby! We’re having a baby! There’s no one going to let me feel bad about this.’

  Florrie, entering the room, could see that this was no ordinary visitor for Babby. She could tell by the way they looked into each other’s eyes, their whole bodies oscillating in the candlelight. What was that? Was it love? It looked like they might be made out of gossamer. So young, so inexperienced, but with such desire, a love that was so intense it might burn if you were to reach out and touch either of them.

  Babby smiled at Callum, the big wide grin that, lately, Florrie had begun to worry had gone forever. ‘I knew you would come back for me – I knew it. Just to think I might have—’

  The words left her mouth and her hand flew up to her face as if to push them back in.

  ‘Might have what?’ he asked.

  But she didn’t give him an answer. She just folded the ugly experience neatly away. And decided she would never speak of it again.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The following morning, which was a Saturday, so no Liverpool Assurance, Callum had said he would take Babby out for the day. They had so much to talk about: the child, where they would live, what to say to Violet and when. Babby had tossed and turned, going over how Callum told her it was Rex who had heard Babby had been playing at the King’s Arms, that Violet didn’t have a clue and it was best to keep it that way for now. ‘You probably wonder why I’m telling you?’ Rex had asked Callum. ‘Well I’m a man who’s not done much of anything in my life apart from an awful lot of running, but this is my chance to do something right.’ He would deal with Violet later.

  Now, after taking the ferry out of the city across the Mersey, they arrived in New Brighton where they sat cross-legged on the harbour wall. The sea was crystal blue. Green feathery weeds under the surface swayed in concert, and small silver flecks of fish darted about between them. You could see right down to the bottom of the seabed. Babby said, ‘Drop this crust in …’ and produced the corner of the heel of a loaf. ‘If we’re lucky, fish will begin to circle when they get a whiff of it, so look out for the rings on the surface. There’s one! Did you see it?’

  He kissed her cheek, they got up, and he put his arm under her elbow and steered her towards the promenade and the Tower Ballroom. ‘One day I’ll take you dancing there,’ he said, breaking loose and skipping along the high wall in leaps and bounds, as if he was Fred Astaire, with Babby shrieking and urging him to come down before he killed himself.

  New Brighton might have seen better days, with its peeling pink and lime-green plastered walls and its shuttered graffitied arcades, but there were still a few slot machines on the promenade, the big wheel, the caterpillar ride, and stalls with candyfloss bobbing in plastic bags, selling sticks of rock and periwinkles. Callum and Babby were an arresting sight, their heads thrown back, their feet in rhythm, revelling in the secret of each new curve and abundance of her body. People smiled when they saw them, but didn’t know why; perhaps something about the girl’s dewy complexion, and the boy’s expression of sheer joy?

  Callum took her into the Milk Bar café where a bell tinkled as the door opened and a waitress, wearing a white starched apron, winked at him as he led Babby to a table. The fringes on the orange lampshades hung low over each table, and the banquette seats were red plastic, the splits in them prickling the backs of Babby’s knees. Callum took his cap off and laid it on the table amongst the cheap paper napkins and cutlery. He slipped a sugar cube from the porcelain floral bowl in the middle of the table into Babby’s mouth whilst they waited to order. She smiled at the sweetness of it, and of him, taking the melting sugar cube out of her mouth, looking at it, then popping it back in.

  They made swift work of banana splits sprinkled with almonds and then, running a finger under his collar, he undid the top button, leaned back in the seat, licked the spoon and let it tinkle into the glass dish smeared with ice cream.

  Babby propped her elbows on the table, twirled her spoon, and sighed.

  ‘So what happens next?’ she said. ‘And what about your da?’

  Callum shrugged. Now was the time for him to tell her. Tell her that the Mouse was his father, the one who had been in the fight that led to her father’s death – and the real reason he had left her that night after the hollas and stayed away for so long, too long, was because he was in such shock, such panic and turmoil, that he couldn’t face her. How do you say it? My father was responsible for your father’s death?

  He couldn’t, he just couldn’t. Not then – and not now when she looked so happy.

  They went outside. A screeching seagull wheeled overhead in circles. Babby blinked against the brightness and screwed her gaze to the horizon that wobbled and shimmied where the sun met the sea.

  He took a deep breath, tried
again. ‘Babby,’ he said, gravely, putting a hand on her arm.

  She turned to meet his eyes. And she looked so hopeful.

  ‘What? What is it?

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied. Whose secret was worse? he wondered. Babby having a baby, or his? Which was the bigger crime? No, he refused to see this child as something to be ashamed of, so there was the answer.

  She laughed. ‘Then what? What’s the matter? You’ve not changed your mind about marrying me?’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then what’s wrong? You look as if someone has just walked over your grave.’

  ‘Babby, I haven’t told you the whole story.’ There, I’ve said it, he thought.

  She stopped in her tracks. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Me mam’s dead. Scarlet Fever. She were twenty and I never knew her. But me dad … He’s, well, he’s still alive. Just good as dead.’

  ‘Oh Cal, I’m sorry. Did he cut you off?’

  He paused, allowed the version of the story in Babby’s head to take shape. ‘Got into trouble … Too much drink, as usual … Same old story. You don’t hate me for it?’

  Go on, he thought. Say it, tell her now. But again, he faltered.

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘I’m ashamed of him. Of what he did. Supposed I wanted to impress you, that’s the truth of it.’

  ‘I don’t hate you for it. Of course not. I love you.’