The Mersey Girls

by Sheila Riley

  ‘All you’re short of is a red coat, and taking a rescuing-hero bow,’ Evie said, allowing Danny to help her towards the wagon.

  ‘Shall I carry you?’ he asked, ignoring her last remark.

  ‘Over my cold dead body,’ Evie exclaimed, remembering that hot summer day, three years ago, when Danny all but carried her over to Connie McCrea, the landlady of the Tram Tavern. She’d never felt so ashamed.

  ‘What about a hot cup of tea, for the shock?’ Danny asked, nodding towards the little cafe on the pier.

  ‘I’m late as it is. Lucy will be worrying where I’ve got to.’ Lucy had spent the war years in Ireland and although she was very independent, babysitting the son of the Tavern landlady after school, she had a fierce imagination. ‘She’ll have me dead and buried.’

  Evie would have liked to go for a cup of tea with Danny, who, at twenty-five, was four years older, but it wouldn’t be right, not when he was rumoured to be courting Susie Blackthorn. But Danny had always been a kind and friendly face to her. He had grown in strength and stature in the army, reaching the rank of sergeant after serving in the war. He was good-natured, good-looking, and good… simply good right through.

  But she had no right to think those things, especially when Danny was courting. Susie Blackthorn was a nasty piece of work and she couldn’t understand what a bloke like Danny would see in her. Susie had made her life a misery when they worked together at Beamers Electricals with her snide remarks and constant put-downs. Susie thought herself many rungs up the ladder from Evie when she was the office clerk and Evie was the office cleaner and made no secret of her intention to marry Danny Harris one day. However, that was a few years ago, and Evie still hadn’t seen a ring on her finger.

  ‘I think you’re making a habit of this rescuing lark.’ Evie remembered there was also that time when she slipped and fell during the big freeze, her arms windmilling in mid-air before landing in the deep snow.

  ‘Hardly a habit.’ A wide smile caused his eyes to twinkle and her heart to do daft jumping jerks.

  ‘Well, whatever it is, you can stop doing it now.’ Evie, soaked to the skin with her golden curls plastered to her head, tried to avoid his gaze. ‘Three rescues in one lifetime is enough for any girl, thank you very much.’

  Danny helped her into the cab and hopped in beside her. ‘What d’you say to a night at the pictures, to say sorry.’

  ‘No thank you,’ she said without hesitation. ‘I’m far too busy looking after my family. I can’t go galivanting.’ More’s the pity. ‘I’ve got to think of Jack and Lucy. There’s too much work and not enough day.’ Evie felt her heart was being run through a mangle. She would have enjoyed a night at the pictures. But with a ready-made family to care for and a pile of ironing waiting for her, she did not have time to waltz off to the pictures like any other girl of twenty-one. ‘And you should be ashamed of yourself for asking,’ she scolded, causing a look of confusion in the pleat of Danny’s brow. She had no intentions of stealing another girl’s fella, even if that girl was Susie Blackthorn.

  ‘Here we go again,’ Danny let out a sigh of irritation when the truck wouldn’t start, knowing Evie had to get home. ‘Sorry about this. Old Gladys plays up in the rain, she doesn’t like it at all.’ He opened the creaking cab door and jumped down onto the busy dock road before going to the front of the cab and lifting the right-hand side of the bonnet.

  Looking up at one of the four clocks under the Liver Birds, Evie saw it was almost seven and the sky was turning to cloudy dusk. Lucy would be starting to worry by now, she might even have Jack scouring the dock road looking for her. They all had a dread of their father being released and coming back to torment them.

  Taking a slow shuddering breath, she reached for the door handle and decided to walk, but as the pain shot through her ankle, Evie realised she would not get further than a few yards even before she opened the passenger door.

  Danny popped his head through the driver’s window. ‘If we’re going to get back to Reckoner’s Row before dark,’ he said matter-of-factly, ‘you’ll have to take your stockings off.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Evie’s jaw dropped and her eyes became as wide as side plates. She was sure she had heard properly, but if he said what she thought he’d said, she was going to land him a fourpenny one right between those optimistic blue eyes.

  ‘Your stockings,’ Danny said, nodding to her slim, bleeding legs.

  ‘I’ll knock your bloody block off, Danny Harris!’ Her voice sounded like a strangled mouse, and as her face grew hotter, the lion in her refused to be silenced. ‘You take one step towards my stockings and you will be walking with a limp.’

  ‘The fan belt’s snapped.’ Danny was obviously unaware of the unsettling effect his innocent remark had created. Nodding to her legs, he explained, ‘I need your stockings to use as a fan belt – so we can get back home.’

  ‘Oh.’ Evie felt her flash of indignity putter and die, and to cover her confusion, she said, ‘Very inventive, I must say, but I’ve got no intentions of stripping off at the Pier Head.’ She shuffled indignantly in her seat. ‘If you think I’m going to part with my undergarments in front of half of Liverpool, you are sadly mistaken.’ A defiant nod of her head ended her diatribe.

  ‘Come on, Evie, be a sport,’ Danny said, realising he must try to persuade her. ‘After all, your stockings are already ruined. Otherwise we’ll be here all night.’

  ‘I’m not having you hanging through the window gawping at me.’ Just saying the words caused her face to burn.

  ‘Sorry, Evie, I’ll wait out here. While you… erm… You know… Sort of…’ He nodded to her legs, while Evie nodded to the windscreen, her eyes thunderous.

  ‘What do you propose to do with that? It’s glass. See-through glass.’

  ‘Oh, yes, right.’ Danny quickly removed his jacket and stretched it under the windscreen wipers. ‘How’s that?’ he called.

  But Evie didn’t hear him over the drumming rain on the roof of the broken-down wagon. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she muttered. ‘Taking part in this unrespectable act, in a public place an’ all.’ She had never felt so mortified in her whole life.

  Unclipping the aspirin that was holding her stocking to the suspender belt, then, rolling her stocking down her leg, she straightened her black skirt firmly over her cut knees before winding down the window. Her face glowed and she looked both ways before discreetly sloping the warm laddered stocking into Danny’s hand. What a day this had turned out to be.

  A few minutes later, Danny slipped behind the steering wheel looking like someone had thrown a bucket of water over him, soaked right through. However, he didn’t seem in the least bit troubled by it when he banged the steering wheel with delight as the engine purred into life like a newborn kitten.

  Given that cheeky grin on his gob, Evie knew a man like Sergeant Danny Harris, who had spent the war years in the service of his country, would know all about fixing engines with a woman’s nylons. Not that she was in any way concerned what he got up to when he was not driving busy girls home in his clapped-out wagon.

  She had seen first-hand what ignorance and desperation could do to a woman. It turned them into slaves at best. And, at worst, it killed them. That same ignorance and desperation was sometimes mistaken for love… Evie knew what her mother’s life had been like and vowed to make her own way independently in the world, that was why she had scrimped and saved. She wanted more for herself and Jack and Lucy.

  So-called love turned some men, like her father, into monsters. What he felt had been twisted into a jealous obsession that ultimately turned to hate so strong it had the power to kill the only woman he supposedly adored. Evie had no intention of getting mixed-up in that caper called love. Not now. Not ever.

  ‘Comfy?’ Danny asked and Evie jumped a little at the sound of his voice that still held that hint of army discipline.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Her words were clipped, and winding down the window, a stiff b
reeze blew in from the River Mersey and cooled her flaming cheeks.

  ‘I suppose Jack’s told you about the Mayday Parade?’ Danny said, breaking the oppressive silence, ‘we won’t be entering this year.’

  Evie nodded. The Mayday Parade was a symbol of the coming of spring but was also combined with International Labour Day when workers withheld a day’s labour in protest of better working conditions.

  ‘Uncle Henry is concentrating on the big one. The Netherford Cup.’ The August fete, which was held in the small village of Netherford, ten miles outside Liverpool in the Lancashire countryside, hosted the prestigious Heavy Horse Competition. ‘Uncle Henry got second place for best Shire horse and Clydesdale last year, but it was a bitter disappointment to him. He has no intention of repeating the result this year.’

  Evie knew, through Jack, that horses came from all over the country, although she had never joined the annual beano to see Carters showing off their finest working horses.

  ‘It’s a point of honour,’ Danny explained. ‘A chance for Skinner to show off his impeccable equine husbandry. He saw last year’s second place as failure, “nobody remembers an also-ran, Lad,”’ Danny did a perfect imitation of his uncle and Evie was impressed.

  ‘He’s determined to lift the prestigious Netherford Cup this year,’ he added. ‘The winner doesn’t only win a thousand pounds. First place brings in big money in stud fees and other lucrative work. And Uncle Henry’s business needs all the help it can get,’ Danny did not elaborate. And the lengthening silence was broken when Evie realised he was going to say no more on the subject of his uncle’s firm.

  ‘Jack and Lucy spend most nights at the table polishing the horse brasses.’ She said proudly.

  ‘Jack’s a natural with the horses,’ Danny said, ‘and a good worker, Uncle Henry has high hopes for him.’

  ‘He tips his money onto the table come Friday night, which was more than Da ever did.’ Evie had no idea why she had just told Danny that bit of private family information. But it was out now so she couldn’t take it back. ‘How’s your empire-building going?’ Evie asked, quickly changing the subject back to Danny before realising that what he did was none of her business. He probably couldn’t even recall the conversation they had, when he told her he was going to have a business of his own one day.

  ‘I’m saving hard,’ Danny didn’t seem in the least perturbed when he answered, pulling into the busy traffic of wagons and horses and carts and cars, ‘but you know what it’s like… taking over the world takes a bit of time.’

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ Evie replied, she had ambitions of her own and knew that it took more than determination to get what you want in life, ‘but it must be hard trying to save when you’ve got a wedding to plan for too?’

  ‘Whoa! Who mentioned a wedding?’ Danny felt the road tilt.

  ‘Your Bobby told our Lucy that Susie told him you two are getting engaged.’

  Danny shook his head as if trying to figure it all out. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said emphatically. ‘Susie’s a nice girl, well… sometimes… but I’ve got no intentions of marrying her now, next week, or in this lifetime. She is just a friend of my sister’s and we are certainly not courting.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’ Evie was secretly thrilled to hear Danny was not dating Susie. Her brother, Jack, told her Danny was highly thought of in the haulage yard where they both worked for Mister Skinner, and she had no doubt whatsoever that he would achieve everything he set out to do. Then, aware of the lengthening silence, she said, ‘I hear your Grace is doing well.’

  ‘She’s having a fine old time, according to her letters,’ Danny answered. Grace was his younger sister by ten months. And, though his father, Bert, had not done a tap of work since he was attacked in a warehouse robbery on the docks three years ago, he must have been a fast worker at one time. But he and Bert had never got on, and the least he thought about him the better. No woman deserved a husband like Bert Harris, Danny thought.

  ‘Grace likes going away to sea, then?’ Evie asked, recalling their Lucy telling her Grace sang on board one of America’s finest passenger cruisers after the ship had been demobilised.

  ‘It certainly looks that way,’ Danny said, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘The ship’s director is Clifford Brack, ever heard of him?’ Danny, obviously proud of his sister, didn’t wait for Evie’s reply. ‘Apparently he’s a big noise at the BBC. Well, in with all the top executives. He’s going to get her a contract to make a record. There’s even talk of a show on television.’

  ‘Fancy’ Evie said with a non-committal shrug, not knowing what a big deal it was to have a show on television. They, along with every other family round the dock road, did not own a television set, so there wasn’t much chance of seeing Grace sing. The pragmatic women of Reckoner’s Row weren’t easily impressed by maybe’s and going to’s. ‘That’s a bit of all right, Guv,’ she said, tugging an imaginary forelock and he laughed.

  She was all right, was Evie, Danny thought. No sides to her, straight as they come, what you see is what you get. He liked that. ‘Did I tell you she’s engaged? We got a letter. She’s coming home early May and we’re going to meet him. Ma will be outside Costigan’s before the doors are even opened, demanding their best boiled ham.’

  Evie was quiet for a moment, wondering what it must be like for Grace to sail the oceans to far-off lands with no family around her, and she sighed. Danny might be right. Ada, his mother, could be overbearing when she had a mind.

  Evie, beginning to relax, could well believe it. Danny seemed unimpressed by his mother’s constant fussing and everybody knew Ada believed she was a cut above the rest of the street, having the biggest house.

  3

  ‘That’s never your Evie being helped out of his wagon by Danny Harris!’ There was a giggle in Connie McRae’s voice and Lucy put the brake on the pushchair with her foot while little Fergus was sleeping inside. She went over to one of the bay windows in the living room above the Tram Tavern, overlooking Reckoner’s Row.

  ‘It is, you know.’ Lucy had returned from the park where after school she took three-year-old Fergus now the warmer weather was here. The little treat gave Connie, who was having her second baby in the summer, a bit of a rest. ‘Evie looks mortified, and I bet every curtain in the row is twitching.’

  ‘Oh, I hope Susie Blackthorn sees this,’ Connie could not contain the glee in her voice, ‘she’ll have a fit of conniptions.’ There was no love lost between Evie and Susie Blackthorn, a haughty piece who thought she was better than everybody else in Reckoner’s Row.

  ‘Why?’ Lucy asked, opening the starched nets to get a better view. ‘Are Susie and Danny courting?’

  ‘No,’ Connie answered, ‘but it’s not for the want of trying on Susie’s part. She’s been trying to get Danny to take her out for the last three years, but he’s having none of it. Although if he’s not careful, Susie will have him.’

  ‘I don’t think our Evie’s that bothered about courting either,’ Lucy said. ‘She always says she’s too busy for romance. All she does is work and keep the house clean. When Danny asked her last time, her cheeks went bright red, and she said she didn’t have time to go gallivanting.’

  ‘It might do her the world of good to have a night out with someone like Danny,’ Connie said, and Lucy agreed. ‘He’s got a good head on his shoulders and he’s got ambitions, which is more than I can say about that idle father of his. Bert Harris will neither work nor want, propping up the bar every night, and poor Ada has to find the money to pay for it.’

  ‘She hasn’t had it easy, that’s for sure.’ Lucy, fourteen in September, liked the fact that Connie treated her more grown up than their Evie did. But she had to admit, Evie had a lot more to put up with than Connie. She worried every day that their father would come out of the institution and return to Reckoner’s Row, and no amount of reassurance from their brother Jack could persuade her otherwise.

  ‘You don’t mind looking after the
nipper for a while, Lucy? He’s a bit of a handful for Mim.’

  ‘No, I don’t mind at all.’ Lucy was being paid five bob a week to look after young Fergus while Connie and Angus, her husband, worked behind the bar, and the arrangement suited her fine.

  ‘Since Angus has taken over the pub full-time and given up the police work, Mim goes gallivanting all over the place, she goes out more than the gas!’

  Lucy knew Connie’s mother, Mim, and Danny’s mother, Ada, had been best friends for donkey’s years, and neither had a good word to say about each other, especially when Ada dropped their Grace’s name every chance she got, telling everybody her daughter would be famous one day.

  ‘I’d better see what’s happened, our Evie’s limping,’ Lucy said, dropping the net curtain when she heard the door close downstairs. ‘That must be why she is late; I was beginning to worry.’

  ‘Is that young Evie Kilgaren I’ve just seen with no stockings on and a wet behind?’ Mim called as she climbed the stairs to the living room. ‘I wonder what she’s been up to. Oh, hello Lucy, I forgot you’d be here.’

  ‘So I gathered,’ Lucy said under her breath.

  ‘But I suppose you gathered that already,’ Mim smiled; she had heard every word.

  But Lucy didn’t have time to stop and apologise for unwittingly cheeking Connie’s mam as she took the stairs two at a time, hurrying home next door. She was closely followed by Connie who left her sleeping son with her mother. A trained nurse Connie worked abroad during the war and was always on hand if needed.

  Picking up the unmistakable aroma of engine oil and the woodbine cigarette wedged behind his ear, Evie hung her head, ‘I'll be the laughing stock of the Row.’

  Instead of lowering her to the pavement, this eejit held her in his arms like a newborn lamb, kicking open their wooden gate and carrying her up the narrow path to the ever-open front door, followed by Skinner’s dog, Max, who made himself at home in anybody’s house.