The Mersey Girls

by Sheila Riley

  Alongside the quiet shops and sleeping terraced houses, the silent streets were lit by electric street lamps. Tranquillity reigned in the pre-dawn, and the only sound was the distant clip-clop of a horse’s hooves on cobbles and the clip, clip, clip of her own high heels that were blistering the backs of her feet. But pain was a small price to pay for the biggest mistake of her life.

  Grace needed the enveloping silence that the early hours offered, but she could not lie in bed awake, struggling to find a solution to her ever-growing problem. So when everybody had gone to bed and the house was quiet, she got dressed, snuck down the stairs and let herself out of the house at the bottom of Reckoner’s Row.

  The early morning was clear and calm and for the first time since she’d docked in Liverpool, she felt she was able to think straight. Mam was always fussing as usual, and she didn’t have the heart to tell her she was thinking of leaving Reckoner’s Row for good. And it would have to be soon. She would not be able to hide her shame much longer, and wearing two corsets was playing havoc with her breathing. Digging her hands deeper into the patch pockets of her duster coat, Grace was grateful the abundance of material disguised the result of her plight yet still looked modern.

  As the sun rose on the horizon, she turned right into Boundary Street, then onward into Blackstone Street opposite Bramley Moore Dock, where the working girls and old tails, as the dockside prostitutes were known locally, bid each other goodnight as they sloped off foreign ships with a handbag full of money and a weary wave. Returning to their hovels or hungry families to rest their aching bodies in readiness to repeat later on the oldest trade known to man in the knowledge that if they should fall, there was always someone like Connie Sharp, or Connie McCrae as she was now, to pick them up.

  Traipsing the dock road, Grace watched the sun rise higher in a clear blue sky, when the thought occurred to her: the landlady of the Tavern was a saviour to many a stricken girl or worn-out wife with too many mouths to feed and not enough coppers in her purse when they knocked on Connie’s door with a belly full of trouble. Connie was the go-to-woman of Reckoner’s Row.

  A nurse during the war, Connie came home when Italy fell, turning her back on nursing when she applied to the court for a licence to take over the running of the Tavern from her widowed mother, Mim. She was the one other women went to when they could not afford to pay a doctor or midwife. She would step in and do the business. Connie had delivered every baby born at home in the poor dockside community since the war.

  And because of her wartime duties, she also knew her way around a dead body. Often called on to lay out a cherished relative. Births, deaths and everything in between were a normal part of life in Reckoner’s Row, and Connie never shirked what she considered to be her duty to the neighbouring people of the dockside.

  It was a little after six a.m. when Grace passed Skinner’s yard, which was already showing signs of life by the light in the upstairs window of his adjoining house, as large and imposing as her own home in the next street. Crossing the debris, she heard the low moan of a ship’s horn on the river and felt the unmistakable pull of the sea.

  Turning into Reckoner’s Row, the morning sunshine cast sparkling dapples on the pewter-coloured canal to her right, but she could not appreciate what little beauty there was to be had round here as she hurried past her own house.

  The delicious aroma of freshly baked bread that wafted from the bakery at the top of the bridge and down the stone steps failed to waken her senses as worrying thoughts bounced round inside her head.

  Slipping down the entry, between Evie Kilgaren’s and the Tavern, Grace pressed the brass tradesman’s bell on the large gate, her heart beating her ribs like a jackhammer while waiting for Connie. Eventually, she opened the gate and peered out into the entry, blooming in a flowered hip length smock and straight black skirt, and Grace felt her heart sink.

  ‘Is everything all right, Grace?’ Connie asked, looking worried as she opened the high gate a little wider, ushering her into the Tavern’s yard, where a woman from Beamer Terrace was on her knees, scrubbing the back step with sandstone, disinfectant and hot water.

  The image and the smell reminded Grace of the days her mam brought her here as a child, gave her a small bucket of warm water laced with Aunt Sally disinfectant and a scrubbing brush, telling her it was never too early to learn how to be clean. Ada wore her trade like a medal of honour, taking pride in her cleanliness.

  Well, thought Grace as she sidled apologetically past the charlady, there’s some dirt could never be scrubbed away, no matter how hard you tried.

  ‘You mustn’t think like that,’ Connie said. ‘Every child is a blessing, no matter how it was conceived. It is not the child’s fault.’ Grace was sitting at Connie’s kitchen table while the other woman busied herself making porridge for breakfast.

  ‘I know that, Connie,’ Grace said in a low voice, ‘and believe me, I have walked all night trying to make sense of it all. I can’t have this baby.’

  ‘But it's too late to do anything about it now,’ Connie said, and Grace swallowed hard as she watched her cup of tea grow cold. ‘It will be far too dangerous for you at this stage.’ Her words, like shards of glass piercing her heart, were more terrifying than telling her mam. ‘Will the father not help you?’ Connie asked and Grace looked up to see her caring eyes were not at all condemning like some would be, and for the first time, Grace wanted to share her tale with this wonderful, feisty, compassionate woman.

  But she knew the story was often told by naïve girls who thought they were The One. The favoured son, heir to a fortune, takes a shine to the maid – the governess – the singer – who think they are different from every other girl who has been spun a lie.

  Her mind suddenly conjured up Clifford who promised to marry her, and even gave her the ring she wore. She imagined that every liar and smooth-talking womaniser looked like Clifford. But none of them were like Bruce.

  ‘Bruce was in a different league.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Connie said, ‘but that’s…’

  ‘… What they all say,’ Grace nodded. She had been on board ships long enough to know that fairy tales rarely came true. Bruce had gone. He had sounded so happy to meet up with her, pleased they would be together. But actions spoke louder than words. And when he did not turn up, his rejection screamed in her face. He doesn’t want you. He paid you lip service and you believed him. She felt her insides shrink with shame.

  ‘Bruce is just like the rest of them after all.’ Grace dragged the words from the depths of her heart, finding it hard to believe they came from her own lips. ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘Only you know that,’ Connie answered and trying to get Grace to open up a little she nodded to the huge stone glittering in the sunlight and let out a low, unladylike whistle. ‘Is it real?’

  ‘Never in a million years. The man who gave it to me couldn’t afford a ring like this if it were real,’ Grace answered and then took a deep breath. ‘But he isn’t the father.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ She wouldn’t pry, Connie told herself, but if Grace wanted to tell her, she was all ears. A paradox of a woman, who loved children and family and was the heartbeat of the community, she was already a loving mother to three-year-old Fergus and cherished each new life she brought into the world. However, for some poor girls, she was just as adept at ending it.

  ‘No, the father of this child is…’ Saying the words out loud were more difficult than Grace thought they would be. ‘It’s the old, old story. I’m carrying the child of the man I worked for.’ There, she’d said it. Now her predicament was out in the open.

  ‘More vulnerable girls are caught out by the unscrupulous power of some men than you would ever dream,’ Connie said, clenching her fist, her eyes darkening. Then, as if talking to herself, she added, ‘The poor starry-eyed mare thinks she has found her one true love. She feels like Cinderella and she has found her prince. She can’t believe her luck: this powerful man is giving her everything she ever d
reamed of. But luck and love are rarely on her side.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that,’ Grace cried hot salty tears that streamed down her cheeks, and Connie hurried over and hugged her.

  ‘That’s what they say too, love.’ Connie held her until her sobs subsided and she dabbed her red swollen eyes with the handkerchief.

  Sitting in silence for a few moments, Grace had never cried so much in her whole life. She was exhausted and felt as if she had been wrung dry. She couldn’t have this baby. She just couldn’t.

  ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ Connie said, pushing a cup and saucer in front of Grace, ‘but half the bloody time nobody finds out what that reason is.’

  ‘Mam will go spare,’ Grace said. ‘I can see it now; she’ll go off like an ack-ack gun.’ And for the first time that day, the two women smiled.

  ‘Today’s big scandal is tomorrow’s chip paper.’ Her words calmed Grace, who knew Connie would never turn away one of those poor women who had more kids than common sense, or a young girl, like the ones she had seen coming off the ships earlier.

  The prostitutes who worked hostile hours to put food on the table, or shoes on their kids’ feet were a common sight along the dock road when the ships were in port. She knew Connie felt an obligation to keep them safe from the backstreet abortionists who were not as fastidious or as clean. The dichotomy was not lost on Grace.

  ‘I would have felt safe in your hands if I ever decided to... you know.’ Grace could not bring herself to voice the enormity of what she had considered asking Connie to do. ‘If I can’t even say the word, I’m sure as hell not going to have one.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ Connie said, knowing Grace was luckier than most, with a close family – her bar-hopping father excepted – and a loving if somewhat feisty mother, nor was she destitute, ‘it’s not worth putting your life at risk.’

  The welfare state was two years old and even though hospitals presented free medical care at the point of need, they did not offer the kind of treatment required by a pregnant mother, desperate because she could not feed the hungry children she already had, let alone another mouth to add to her troubles.

  ‘I shouldn’t have disturbed you, Connie.’ Grace said, and Connie could detect a hint of desperation in this girl’s voice and worried that Grace would do anything.

  ‘If I can help in any other way Grace, I will.’ Connie said without malice. ‘Some men promise you the earth because they can provide it.’

  ‘But their words are hollow and meaningless? A shortcut to getting what they want?’ Grace never dreamt Bruce would do that to her. ‘Bruce wasn’t like that, he was kind,’ she told Connie, ‘and loving. Nothing was too much trouble. What a bloody fool.’ Grace stood up and swayed a little. The emotional deluge had left her depleted.

  ‘I’m sorry, love.’ Connie put her arm round her once again and hugged her. This poor girl who had the world at her feet was as naive as any other. ‘I wouldn’t… proceed, even if you were not so far gone.’ Connie placed two protective hands on her own abdomen, ‘not in my condition.’

  ‘I shouldn’t have come, laying my problem at your door. I’m not a bad woman, Connie. I just got myself into a spot of bother.’

  ‘I know that, love, but these things have a way of sorting themselves out, trust me.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Grace said. It would be nice to look forward to the day when she would be like Connie. Married. Content. Waiting for the birth of her baby with a loving husband beside her, she said simply, ‘This just isn’t the right time for me.’

  ‘For some women it is never the right time, but they have no choice.’ The two women headed towards the door. ‘I fervently hope I’ll see the day when women will be independent, like they were during the war. They will have a choice, with nobody telling them what to do or how to behave.’

  ‘Like you?’ Grace asked, descending the stairs to the side door and stretching over the step which the charlady had finished cleaning. ‘Would you give up the life you have now and go back to being independent?’ Grace asked and Connie thought for a moment.

  ‘Would I hell as like,’ she laughed as she opened the side gate. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  ‘I will,’ Grace answered, ‘but before I do anything, I’m going to Saint Patrick’s to pray me mam won’t skull-drag me when I tell her.’

  ‘If she lays one hand on you, come and tell me,’ Connie said with the hint of a smile, ‘I’ll set Mim on her.’ With a small wave, taking in the warmth of the morning sun, Connie turned and went back inside.

  Dipping her fingers into the marble font, Grace dabbed her forehead, chest and each shoulder, making the sign of the cross with holy water. She had not been inside a church since she was on board the cruise liner, but now she felt the urgent need of this sacred place, which never closed its doors, giving sanctuary to the lost and needy. And if anybody needed a safe haven right now, Grace thought, it was most certainly her. And she also needed time to contemplate what she was going to do next.

  Grace took the scarf Bruce had given her and slipped the exquisite fine-silk square over her head. Immediately, she felt the light touch of his gentle caress on her hair and, turning, she expected to see him behind her, and her heart dipped with disappointment when he wasn’t there. Confused, she had come here to ask forgiveness. Yet Bruce was uppermost in her mind.

  Her footsteps echoed in the cold, empty church of Saint Patrick and, compelled by the serenity of this holy place, Grace stepped lightly into the nearest pew, not daring to go as far as the alter just yet. Grace knew she must pray for her terrible sins.

  The last few weeks had been a nightmare of sleepless nights and indecision. She had even given serious thought to contacting Bruce again, but when it came to write the letter, she could not find the right words. Her pride would not allow her to ask for his help. Begging did not come easy to a headstrong girl who looked and acted like a woman of the world, but who was as lost and afraid as a child alone in a strange and crowded place.

  Grace could not bear it if Bruce ignored her again. Or worse. What if he denied he was the father of her child? She couldn’t face that. If Bruce wanted nothing to do with her, she would have proof she was a blinkered fool. A rich man’s plaything. She lost her heart to Bruce. Grace knew that now. But she was not the kind of girl he considered taking as a wife.

  A backstreet girl she might be, but she had standards. She didn’t fall into bed with every man she fancied. In fact, he was the only man she had ever slept with and she knew for certain this baby was his.

  Clifford could not bear that she was saving herself for their wedding night, and had cast his net into other waters. Yet, when it came to Bruce, the thought of saving herself could not have been further from her mind. And it had nothing to do with his money. He could have been the glass collector for all she cared.

  Grace knew she had not only lost her heart, but lost her head too. She allowed herself to believe that Bruce really did love her in the way he said he did. She allowed her enjoyment of his company and his lovemaking to cloud her judgement. What girl wouldn’t?

  Grace stared straight ahead at the altar with its marble steps and golden alter rails. In her heart of hearts, she believed Bruce did love her. But she didn’t want him thinking she was trying to trap him.

  You’ve made your bed, my girl, her mother’s voice was as clear as if she were sitting beside her, now you must lie in it. Her intentions became clearer. Grace knew what she had to do. And staying in Reckoner’s Row was not an option. The scandal would end her singing career, and the shame would follow her round for the rest of her days.

  Alone and penniless, she would be forced to bring up a child she could not look after properly and might even grow to resent. If she must have this child, it deserved a better mother than she would be in that situation.

  Lowering her head, Grace rested her forehead on clenched hands and begged forgiveness. ‘Bless me Lord, for I have sinned…’

  After lighting a candle
at the feet of the statue of Mary Magdalene, Grace hurried down the side aisle and out of the church.

  Dazed through lack of sleep and a little unsteady on her feet, she walked to the market, taking deep breaths of hazy air that smelled of chimney smoke and the khaki coloured canal. Horse and carts vied with cars and wagons for space along the busy main road, and women in headscarves held wicker baskets across their arms like shields as they queued for their day’s shopping.

  Grace couldn’t go back to sea, but nor could she stay here, knowing she would start showing soon and tongues would certainly wag. There was nothing like the fizz of another’s misfortune to get the women of Reckoner’s Row excited. Her mother would be in church night and day, chewing the altar rails and begging forgiveness for giving birth to such a worthless, wicked daughter, and Susie’s mother would nod her turbaned head and say, ‘I told you so.’

  No, she could not stay round here. She would take off for London first thing tomorrow. She knew people there. They would help her out.

  18

  Curling blue smoke rose from the long cigarette and Grace watched it with concentrated fascination, ignoring the cylinder of ash hovering over the tin ashtray, she tried to force down the rising nausea as the greasy smell of fried bacon vied with the cigarette smoke.

  The market cafeteria was bursting at the seams with shoppers who appeared like hunting packs, searching the stalls for tasty morsels to liven their ration-jaded palettes and Grace parted the net curtain covering the lower half of the window, wiping the condensation from the steamed-up glass.

  Where was Susie? She should have been here by now. Grace should have known better. Susie would be late for her own funeral.

  Grinding the unsmoked cigarette into the ashtray, Grace pushed it to the other side of the table, sickened by the charred remnants of blackened tobacco, watching shoppers elbow their way through a large throng, while a man in a demob raincoat was selling second-hand shoes from a dilapidated pram. Housewives in headscarves rooted through, examining the merchandise, while others hovered by the next vendor, giving battered utility furniture the once-over, and haggling a price. But there was still no sign of Susie. People who were waiting to sit down gave her the evil eye for hogging a table.