A Liverpool Girl

by Elizabeth Morton

  ‘Brawling never ends well. A kid would have known better.’

  She was silent. Like her own dad? she thought. But this was too much to speak about right now. The daylight was disappearing, the air was growing colder and everywhere was beginning to be engulfed in a blanket of mist that made the big wheel of the fair and the pier look like they had been woven in mohair. She didn’t want to waste the rest of their time together talking about things that made her heart stop.

  They made their way through the Pleasure Gardens, holding hands, fingers entwined, occasionally stopping to kiss when no one was about. Years of perfecting the art of pushing distressing thoughts aside in an instant meant they smiled when they saw a boy standing at a fairground stall throwing a ping- pong ball into a jam jar, win a goldfish, and punch his fist in the air. The wind picked up. Piles of deckchairs covered in billowing tarpaulin looked as if they might take off at any moment and Chinese lanterns squeaked on unoiled hinges. As they walked over a bridge that crossed a lake, she noticed one of the love boats had escaped its moorings and was drifting forlornly on the choppy water. It had begun to drizzle. Seaside drizzle, thin and indecisive, and yet it would soak them through before they even noticed it was raining.

  ‘Everything will be fine,’ said Callum, as the fairy lights along the promenade swung away into nothing. ‘Come on, weather has turned.’

  ‘I’m not sure it will be fine,’ Babby said, squinting out to sea.

  Callum slowed his pace. ‘Why? What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked.

  She hesitated, wavered. ‘Well, because. Because …’ she replied. She wanted to say that she was worried he was keeping something from her. She wanted to say that if he thought he could charm her mother into coming around to the idea of them marrying, he clearly didn’t know her. But when he pinked around the ears and turned away again, with hard-to-read eyes and a troubling sigh, she knew she would have to wait.

  They got back an hour later and went up to Babby’s room. The sea air and the long walk along the promenade had exhausted them both and Callum fell asleep on the bed. After half an hour or so of listening to his breathing, she got up and crept out of the room. She would have stayed with him longer, but she had to get up and do the slops. For a short time, she felt a kind of peace, knowing that Callum was sleeping. Later, finally seeing him waking, his eyes blinking against the light and a huge yawn breaking into a smile, something tugged at her. Happiness. Was that what she was feeling? And yet – and yet …

  She had prepared boiled eggs and toast, laid it out on a tray for him.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said, putting a finger on his lips. ‘I’m fine. I’m going downstairs to let the coalmen in and then I have to sing.’

  He nodded, and smiling, let his head fall back on the pillow.

  ‘I love you, Babby,’ he said, grasping her skirts, and pulling her back towards the bed. ‘Told you I’d follow you to Liverpool.’

  ‘I love you, too,’ she replied, twisting to him. ‘But what’s the matter?’ she asked.

  Can you love someone and keep a secret from them? he wondered.

  ‘Nothing, love. Nothing at all …’ he replied.

  Two hours later, Callum had left to return to his lodgings and the pub was filling up. Christie had arrived and was lining up his ale and his whiskey chaser on the bar. He was ready for getting drunk – she knew that when he snaked his arm around her thickening waist. She brushed him off, darted away from him. She was glad that Callum had left, and though she had nothing to hide with Christie, she still felt anxious.

  The music on the jukebox was playing ‘Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing’. A couple bent over it, deciding on their next tune, moved aside when they saw Babby.

  ‘Hey, love, you going to sing for us? Save meself a bob on jukebox, don’t mind if I do,’ said the man. He turned to his girl. ‘You’re in for a treat. This one has the voice of a songbird and you wait until you hear her play that thing. Only she could make it sound like it’s the music of the angels.’

  Babby nodded a smile. She opened the bellows and began to play, gently at first, notes cascading, chords building up a heady accompaniment.

  ‘Told you,’ said the man when she started to sing ‘Ellan Vannin’ and the woman smiled and agreed she really had never heard anything as gorgeous as that sound in all her life.

  But then everything stopped. It was the voice at first. That voice that struck fear in Babby’s soul, the sound that made her halt dead in her tracks. She looked up and saw her mother, cupping her hand around her mouth and shouting ‘Babby, will you get down off that stage there, you stupid, stupid girl!’ Rage was the overwhelming emotion that ran through Violet’s veins and, in a fury, she marched over and pulled Babby by the hair. ‘I’m walking blind into an early grave. Have you any idea what you’re doing? You! Get down now! You’re coming home with me.’

  The accordion, which she had dropped one end of in shock, let out a discordant, crashing moan, flumping open on an appropriate minor chord. Babby just stood there. Christie, with his finger hooked into the collar of his jacket which was slung over one shoulder, just smiled, flashing his eyes and tossing back his head. He remained at the bar, standing there, grinning.

  Florrie came rushing out from the back room. ‘You’re taking her nowhere, Violet Delaney!’

  ‘Oh, really? And are you going to look after her, then?’ Violet’s voice, sharper than glass as she hissed the question, caused the pub to become silent, as though a blanket of hush had been thrown over everyone’s heads. Violet’s face. Babby had never seen a face like it.

  ‘Leave the wee girl alone,’ Florrie said. ‘She knows what she’s doing.’

  Babby stared at the floor.

  ‘The wee girl? Thinks she knows what she’s doing? That’s a laugh,’ said Violet.

  Babby could feel her knees trembling. Tears welled up in her eyes and the mass of expectant faces in the pub was intimidating. She had nowhere to hide.

  Florrie said once again, ‘Leave her alone, Violet.’

  ‘She’s coming home with me,’ she replied. And she began to shout at the onlookers, the two-shilling Johnny sailors and the dockers, ‘You lot. I know your type. You and your mates peltin’ our boys with stones, taking work from them that wait in line in the pens …’ She scoured the room, looked at all of them, her chin jutting out, as if challenging them to tell her to stop, her eyes resting on Christie.

  ‘Go away, old woman,’ he said. Which only made it worse.

  ‘And who are you to tell me what I should do?’ she said.

  Christie came over, put an arm around Babby’s shoulders.

  ‘Get your hands off my daughter!’ said Violet.

  And someone in the pub, one of the Orange lads, started singing, ‘Billy Boys, Billy Boys, make some noise, for the Billy Boys! We’ll wash our hands with your Fenian blood! Sing, Billy Boys, Billy Boys!’

  Any excuse for a bust up; the Catholics in the pub, leapt to their feet and started roaring, the Protestants, raised their glasses and cheered. Meanwhile Violet started shouting. She was taking on the whole pub now, with Babby looking on, appalled. She wished the ground would swallow her whole. Christie barely knew what Violet was on about. Something to do with what happened to her husband. But it was clear to everyone, that she hated him. Hated them all. Their ways.

  ‘Come on, Babby. Come on home now. Hannah is missing you something dreadful and you should have told me you had run away from the home,’ she yelled at Babby.

  Babby trembled. ‘How could I have told you? How could I? You would think it was such an awful thing to turn my back on the sisters.’

  ‘And it is. Such a stupid, idiotic thing,’ said Violet.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Babby replied. ‘Tell me why?’ she asked, challenging and obdurate.

  She listened as Violet, quieter now, told her with humphs and sighs and frantic hand gestures that this pub was no place for her daughter, and what did she think she was going to do now? Had she any idea of the sha
me that she would bring on the Delaney family? Her father would be weeping tears in his grave, she hissed, at the thought of a young lady behaving the way she had.

  ‘But I’m not a lady!’ Babby yelled.

  ‘That’s one thing we know for sure. In the club at seventeen. The shame, Babby. How can you have let this happen to us?’

  A grin spread across Christie’s face. ‘Well, this is a rum turnout,’ he said, then his eyes grew cold and powerful. ‘Come with me,’ he said, gripping Babby’s arm. ‘Come outside, love …’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she replied.

  ‘I can help you,’ he said, under his breath.

  ‘Help me? How?’

  ‘Well, you can back come to my house wi’ me for a start …’

  ‘No, I’m fine here,’ she answered.

  He moved in closer to her. She could smell cigarettes on his breath and his arm snaked across her shoulders. She could feel his hand circling her neck, feel his grip tighten.

  ‘I’m offering to help you.’

  ‘I don’t want your help!’ she replied.

  ‘What d’you mean, you don’t want my help? You’d rather stay here? Or go wi’ the old woman? Your ma? She going to bring it up?’

  ‘She’s not old. Just had an awful lot of sadness in her life. Makes you tired.’

  ‘I’m offerin’ to save you, Babby. And the child, if that’s what you want. Come. With. Me!’ It was frightening the way he said it. There was cruelty in the way his face twisted into a knot of anger and his beer breath made her gag.

  ‘Christie, I don’t look at a man and think: tell me what I should do now. I can figure it out myself,’ she blurted out in a rush of words.

  Anger flashed in his eyes.

  ‘Oh, aren’t you the clever one? In the club and think you know it all!’

  ‘Get over yourself,’ she shouted. And as he reached forward, causing her to spin on her heel and spring away from him, she found her mother standing there, incandescent with fury.

  At a loss as to what she should do next, Babby could think of nothing but to give in. Florrie watched helplessly as Violet gripped Babby’s arm, and steered her off.

  ‘Don’t even dare think of following us!’ Violet shouted over her shoulder. ‘Any of you!’

  They walked back to the house in silence, Babby’s face streaming with tears.

  A shiny wet Hillman Imp car, parked under a street lamp, reflected macabre, distorted images of them on the bonnet. Fitting, thought Babby, in the light of what had just happened. Violet opened the door when they got home and Babby pushed past her and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Where d’you think you’re going, young lady?’ Violet called after her.

  ‘Up to my room.’

  With that, Violet whipped around her, putting her arm out, blocking her way through. She said nothing, just raised an eyebrow. Babby stood for a moment, looking at her mother, waiting to see what would happen next.

  ‘Let me past,’ she said, her hand coming away sticky from the bannister, the same way as her feet came away sticky on the linoleum as she shifted from foot to foot. She stomped into the parlour and went and sat, not at the table, but in the shabby armchair pushed against one of the damp walls, folding her arms in a gesture of defiance.

  ‘What the hell do you think you are doing, Babby?’ said Violet. Babby shrugged and Violet thumped her fist on the dresser. ‘You’d better start explaining herself.’

  ‘Not now. I said I’m going upstairs,’ she retorted, standing.

  ‘Like heck you are. Come back here,’ said Violet, following her around the table.

  Babby stopped and turned. ‘What?’

  Violet jabbed her chest and said, ‘What about me? Did you give me a single thought in all this?’

  ‘You? Is that what you’re angry about? How you feel?’

  Violet’s face clouded with ferocious indignation. ‘Don’t give me that cheek. You’re not too old to feel the back of my hand!’ She was furious at the way Babby was curling her lip at her, enraged about this baby, the shame, Jack dying on her, and this boy, Callum, ruining her daughter’s life. But most of all, enraged that she hadn’t had the courage to tell Babby the truth of it all from the beginning. She was so enraged that, when Babby said she didn’t care what she thought – Violet could whack her about the head with an iron crowbar for all she liked – it wouldn’t make her change her mind about Callum and keeping the baby, Violet spun around and snatched up a kitchen knife from the drawer. Babby looked on with horror.

  ‘Mam!’ cried Babby, as Violet tore away from her. ‘Where are you going?’

  Violet disappeared upstairs, then moments later reappeared on the landing with Jack’s accordion, gasping and breathless.

  ‘What the hell?’ cried Babby.

  ‘Thought you’d left this bloody thing in Anglesey – someone bring it to you, did they?’

  And she stood there, shaking with fury, and stabbed the knife, one, two, three, into the bellows of Babby’s accordion.

  ‘Mam, no!’ cried Babby, running up the stairs

  Violet waved the knife, stuck it out in her daughter’s direction. The blade flashed and when Violet lurched and stumbled forward, Babby thought she was about to plunge it right into her.

  Instead, Violet stabbed the accordion again and ripped into the pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, hacking at the metal casing, slicing and chopping out all the goodness and joy and love Babby had in her heart, until it felt as if she was dead inside, as if Violet had cut her body and soul into a thousand tiny pieces with the knife.

  ‘Mam, don’t! I can’t stand it! Why are you doing this?! Please, please stop! If you don’t stop, I’ll … I’ll …’

  ‘You’ll what?’

  And Babby just shook her head defeatedly and watched Violet staggering around, in danger of slipping and falling down the stairs if she made one wrong-footed move.

  ‘P-pl-please stop! Stop it, Mam!’ stammered Babby.

  But Violet didn’t stop. It was as if a blind rage had swept through her like a fire, and she continued to saw at the accordion, rip right into it.

  Babby just watched, inconsolable, a tsunami of tears brimming up, then rolling down her face. The knife swished, made sounds in the air, and Babby’s body jerked and twitched. She felt as if her mother had stuck the knife not only into the bellows of the accordion, but deep into her daughter’s stomach and twisted.

  She was shaking. And then a tearful Hannah appeared around the bedroom door, begging Violet, who barely noticed her terrified little face and quivering lip, to stop, but still she continued to cut and slice, and poke and prod and stab at the accordion with the knife, rearing up and lunging at it, over and over again, yelling at Hannah to get back in her room, until, finally exhausted with rage and the sheer effort of it all, she wiped her brow and dropped it.

  ‘Bringing shame on the family! Go, leave right now, and take this bloody thing with you,’ she said, jutting out her chin and waving an arm with a flourish.

  What’s the point? thought Babby; it was useless now. Yelping, trying to stuff the sound she made back into her mouth with her hand as Violet finally pushed it down the stairs, she just watched as it tossed and tumbled, one stair after another, until it honked and fell to the ground in a mangled heap and she walked sadly down to it.

  Meanwhile, a sobbing Hannah had come out of her room again. She sank to her knees on the landing, clutched the bannisters so tightly her knuckles were white, and begged Violet to stop. Pat, who had just come into the house with Doris, looked on in horror.

  ‘Good God, Mother, what have you done?’ he cried. He saw the accordion lying on the floor just as the bellows let out a final sigh, as though it was taking its dying breath.

  Babby turned to him. ‘It’s OK, Pat,’ she said, as Violet slumped to her knees. She saw her future, the future she had imagined with Callum, in one of those tiny houses by the seaside in New Brighton, or a farm on Holy Island, or even a small terrace like Pauline�
��s in Waterloo, becoming a meaningless nothing. She saw her past also – the first time she remembered hearing her father play, the first time she remembered being truly happy, when music and colour and light first filled her heart, when she danced around the kitchen to the sound of his singing, when the beautiful, beautiful accordion was the only way into a world where she had hope and dreams of what life could be without having to work in mindless dead-end jobs.

  And then Violet struggled to her feet, tossed back her head and marched down the stairs. ‘Enough of the theatricals,’ she said without a hint of irony. ‘Get over yourself, love. Turn off the bloody waterworks. Now.’ And then she announced she had something to say. Something that would change everything.

  ‘Babby,’ she said. ‘I’m going to tell you something. I’m going to tell you why you must never ever see that boy again!’

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Hannah, in a small voice.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ snapped Violet.

  ‘Go to your room,’ said Babby.

  Hannah gave a round-eyed doleful look and left.

  Babby shook her head. ‘You know nothing,’ she muttered.

  ‘That’s a funny thing to say to your mother,’ said Violet. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re mad,’ she riposted. She looked mad, Babby thought. A bottle sitting empty on the table caught the light. Was it any wonder, after so many gins and bottles of stout, she was crazy?

  Violet’s eyes widened. ‘What did you say?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re mad, Ma!’ said Babby, loudly.

  And then Violet slapped Babby hard across the face. Babby raised her hand to the red mark and then Hannah was downstairs, yelling, ‘Mammy, don’t!’

  ‘Get back to bed!’ Violet shouted, spinning around on her heel and glaring fiercely at Hannah.

  Babby’s cheek hurt. She pressed her palm against her reddening face, willing the pain to stop. Hannah, still loitering, started to whimper when she saw white fingerprints across Babby’s cheeks when she removed her hand.

  ‘Go, Hannah!’ Violet cried, and stuck out a wavering finger, pointing. ‘Go to your room and don’t come out until I say so!’