Midnight on Lime Street

by Ruth Hamilton

  Belle blinked hard. No matter what, no matter how, her days as a working girl must end sooner rather than later. She had to get away from Meadowbank Farm. ‘I’m glad you like it, love. I’ll bring it out of the shed, because we don’t want it scratched. Then you can take it across the street and show Amelia. What are you going to call your new dolly?’

  ‘Louise or Lulu.’

  ‘They’re both nice names, sweetheart. Wait here.’

  Belle went to retrieve the item from her dad’s small brick shed. On shelves stood the tools of his trade; there wasn’t much Dad couldn’t do when it came to improving houses. He’d worked damned hard every year of his life, as had Mam. ‘I’m a disgrace,’ she told herself.

  She wondered what Smelly Nellie meant about finding her a job. What could Nellie know about jobs? If she knew about jobs, why had she never found one for herself? Whatever, Belle needed to find work somewhere not in Liverpool, and start all over again, because her Lisa deserved a decent mother. For the time being, a beautiful Silver Cross pram would have to suffice. And the kettle was whistling.

  *

  As is the way with most groups of women, differences were usually forgotten when it came to a true parting of ways. Another common factor was bawdiness, at which skill females are definitely as adept as (if not better than) males.

  The party was held at brunch time, since Eve closed her premises only at Christmas, New Year and Easter, so all the girls would be working in the evening. Two very excited part-timers were to take on the duties of Babs and Sal very soon, but they were not invited to the party. Belle, too, was absent, and Babs was sorry about that, because Belle had been her best friend until Sally had arrived.

  The love between Babs and Sally was celebrated, as it was not uncommon for girls on the game to turn to each other. All the women present discussed the opinion that some lesbian feelings are formed in childhood. Most agreed that fear or distrust of men could be a factor when a girl clung to someone of her own gender.

  When Kate wasn’t looking, Angela Whiplash poured vodka into the fruit punch. Kate, the eternal invigilator, worked quietly at her end of the kitchen while the girls occupied the comfortable side. Angela winked at Babs. ‘Hey, remember that bloke who made you wear a nappy?’

  Babs almost choked on her drink. ‘Don’t remind me, Ange. I was OK till he told me to pee in it. That was when I ordered him out. It was a brand new towel, too, and one of the nappy pins shot open and went through my hip. I was in a bad mood with the daft bugger, I remember that much.’

  Sally stepped in. ‘Did any of you get Weigh Anchor?’ she asked, her face as innocent as only she, at seventeen years of age, could manage. ‘Or was it just me? He usually shouted “Hoist the mainsail” when he was ready for the main event, then “Weigh anchor” when he was finishing. I think he used to be in the merchant navy or something. When he was getting dressed to go home, I thought about thanking him for leaving me lost at sea in the crow’s nest. Was it just me, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ the company chorused.

  ‘Belle had Mustard Man,’ Cynthia told them. ‘She has all these lovely perfumed oils, lavender, vanilla, geranium and all that jazz, and he wanted Dijon mustard, the soft sod.’

  ‘On his frankfurter?’ Angela asked.

  The whole room was filled by howls of raucous laughter.

  ‘Well, she did kind of drop some accidentally on purpose. I got the feeling that she didn’t like him. He had to sit in a big bowl of cold water till the pain stopped. She never saw him again.’

  ‘I wonder why?’ Kate shouted from the other side of the kitchen.

  ‘What was your daftest one, Angela?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Ye gods – that’s not an easy question, girl, because I specialize in domination. There was Nick the Vick – he doesn’t come any more. Actually, he never came at all, because I had to beat the wickedness out of him every time his body showed a flicker of interest. He was a vicar, read the Bible while I whipped him till I all but drew blood. Mad as a hatter, he was. I mean, he’s supposed to lead us all to heaven, but he’s too busy fighting his own hell.’

  ‘Any more?’ Cynthia asked.

  ‘Erm . . . oh yeah, there was U-Bend. He was a very funny shape, and he wanted me to straighten him out. So I tied his hands, strapped him to my bicycle pump, stripped, and let nature take its course. I bet they could hear his screams in Manchester. There was one who wanted me to cut him, but I got rid – no way was I having that. Then Snowflake. He got painted in watered-down glue before having a pillow fight with me. Too time-consuming, that one was, cos he needed a long bath to lose his feathers, and he could have blocked the drains. Oh yes, I get them all, everything from gentle flagellation to brutal punishment. Never mind – the exercise keeps me in shape. Though old age is catching up on me, but we carry on, don’t we?’

  Mo spoke of a client who was useless unless Beethoven’s Sixth was played on the Dansette, and another fascinating chap who ate bananas to keep his strength up. ‘We tried without, only he went as limp as washed lettuce. But listening to somebody chewing a banana right down your ear hole isn’t my idea of fun, so I told him to bog off. Eve soon replaced him with one who used the rhythm method.’

  ‘Isn’t that for Catholics?’ Babs asked.

  ‘Not with him, no. He liked traditional jazz, so he was a fast mover, thank goodness. By the time the saints had marched in, he was done and dusted.’

  When the laughter died of exhaustion, Judy, who took her job rather seriously, produced a diagram of a foot. ‘Every metatarsal takes its own path,’ she announced with the air of one delivering a lecture at the university. ‘Nine times out of ten, I go for the ball of the foot behind the middle toe.’

  Sally gaped. ‘What’s a meta-thingy?’

  ‘A row of bones,’ Judy snapped. ‘Small, circular strokes at the ball end of the foot just below the toe should travel the neural path and give the client strength to perform. With some, it’s the toe next to the little one.’

  Babs nodded sagely. ‘So if every doo-dah takes its own path, why does the foot walk in a straight line?’

  Judy rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘I might as well talk to the wall.’

  Cynthia, though pressed by the others, told no tales. As the busiest and best paid, she kept her clients’ secrets to herself. Unlike the rest, she accepted the truly unusual, and the men she entertained trusted her to keep their confidences. ‘Sorry,’ was all she said when urged on by her colleagues. ‘Let’s just say some of them have a lot to lose, and they trust me.’

  ‘Professionals?’ Angela sneered.

  ‘Some are, yes.’

  ‘Don’t you mean most?’

  Cynthia shrugged. ‘Leave it, Ange. Ask Kate or Eve why I keep quiet, because you’ll hear the same from them – nothing. I’ve signed papers. My lot don’t arrive in the van – they make their own separate ways here, and sometimes in disguise. And to be honest, I’ve no idea about what any of them does for a living. I’m not allowed to ask, and they keep the truth to themselves.’

  Kate studied the group at the sitting room end of the enormous area. Although Babs had a temper, her amusing side would be missed. Sally was a sweet little thing, so nobody wanted to see the back of her, but this was karma. Things happened, and life had to go on.

  Eve came in. ‘Kate,’ she snapped, ‘they’re pissed.’

  ‘It’s just fruit juice,’ Kate replied defensively.

  The large woman strode across the floor. ‘Vodka,’ she announced after dipping in a finger and tasting.

  Angela laughed. ‘How did Don Crawford take the news about Babs and Sally being in love?’

  ‘None of your business,’ Eve hissed. ‘Did you put vodka in the juice?’

  Angela nodded. As the establishment’s sole dominatrix, she felt secure.

  ‘Don’t kid yourself about being irreplaceable,’ Eve said as if reading Angela’s mind. ‘I know of at least three who’d be happy to take your place, and there’s new stuff out there,
stuff they’ve been bothered to learn about. You’re in a rut, Angela, so take this as a warning.’ The boss turned. ‘Kate, come and pour this rubbish away, please. Drunken clients we have to deal with, but the girls stay sober till business is over.’

  Angela’s jaw hung slack when Eve had left the scene and the vodka punch was being emptied down the drain. ‘Shit,’ she cursed after a few seconds. ‘You know what, girls? I am not being spoken to like that, not at my age.’

  ‘She’ll calm down,’ Babs said.

  But Angela was boiling mad. ‘I am out of here.’ She quick-marched her way through the room with Kate hot on her heels.

  ‘Oh, bugger,’ Babs exclaimed. ‘I’m no fan of Angela’s, as we all know, but I don’t want to worry about her being out on the streets. Cynthia, go and talk to her. There’s a loony wandering about killing working girls.’

  Cynthia shrugged. ‘It’s all right, because she has a plan. Her sister runs a wool shop down Knotty Ash way – it’s a lock-up with a flat upstairs. The tenant’s gone, and Ange was already thinking of setting up her own business. She’s turned forty, love, so she’s old enough to know what she’s doing.’

  ‘But does her sister know what Angela does for a living?’ Sally asked.

  Cynthia shrugged; she had no idea.

  Upstairs, war had broken out. ‘I don’t need to work notice,’ Angela screamed at Eve. ‘I’m going. If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll blow you sky-high to the cops.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll take you down with me,’ was Eve’s quiet response.

  Kate nodded in agreement. ‘One down, all down,’ she mumbled.

  Eve took a step in Angela’s direction.

  ‘Stalemate,’ Angela snapped in the boss’s face. ‘It’s all falling apart, isn’t it, Eve? You’ve two rookies taking over from Babs and Sal, and you need to persuade an educated dom to come and live happily ever after in the middle of nowhere.’

  Eve stood her ground. ‘You have to stay till I choose somebody.’

  ‘I was planning on leaving anyway, and I’ll be paying rent on a flat, five quid a week. It should be a lot more, but I know the owner.’

  ‘I’ll pay that,’ Eve said, realizing that this was an admission of defeat. Between Babs and this one, she’d been well and truly cornered.

  ‘Spit on it,’ Angela suggested after a pause.

  Each spat on her right palm before shaking the other’s hand.

  Back in the office with Kate, Eve said. ‘I feel as if everything’s coming apart.’

  ‘We’ve weathered storms worse than this, Eve.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re not getting any younger. Sooner or later, we’ll have to let the girls go, clear the place of all evidence and sell it, or make it into a B and B.’

  ‘Not yet, Evie.’

  ‘No, Kate. Not just yet. But there’s too many changes for my liking.’

  ‘I understand that better than most. We have to keep going because it’s what we know. Safety first, Evie. This bit of trouble will pass, and we’ll be up and running as per usual.’

  When Kate had gone, Eve sat with her elbows on the desk, head in her hands. Where the hell was she going to find another dominatrix? For all her clever talk, she was in a pit dug by Angela Whiplash. ‘I’m a fool,’ she told herself. ‘When will I learn to keep me gob shut? And oh, blood and bullets, when will I learn that nothing lasts for ever?’

  *

  That very sentiment was being expressed in an old scout hut beyond Meadowbank’s trees and bushes. ‘We can’t stay here f-for ever,’ John said, ‘and we’re sitting on a pile of d-drugs worth a fortune.’

  ‘We don’t know anything about that,’ Ian snapped. ‘We don’t know the drugs are here.’

  ‘And I’m nearly past caring,’ Phil added. ‘If the coppers find us, we might be put somewhere decent away from the Pastorals. And John – the drugs were here before we came, so they’re nothing to do with us. Can we see them? No, we can’t, because the dealers hid the lot under the scout stuff.’ He sighed heavily. ‘It’s the boredom that’s killing me.’

  John nodded his agreement.

  Life was easier, but duller. The baron from the southern end of Liverpool kept his word. Every Thursday night, he or one of his cronies arrived with fish and chips, a crate of pop, tinned food, bread, butter, jam, cheese, ciggies and five pounds. The message was always the same once Boss admitted that drugs were in the hut – ‘Don’t touch them. We don’t want you lads smoking filth, because you’ve been through enough trouble already.’ It was almost like having a few uncles, as if somebody cared at last.

  ‘We could ask for some games like Monopoly and cards,’ Ian suggested.

  ‘It’s fresh air we need,’ John answered. ‘Going out once every b-blue moon to spend the fiver isn’t enough. Anyway, I hate bloody Monopoly. They g-got the name wrong; it should have been Monotonous. I wouldn’t mind p-playing dominoes or learning chess.’

  They were still discussing their plight when someone knocked at the door. It wasn’t the big fellow or any of his attendants, because their knock went bang, bang, bang, pause, bang, bang, bang, pause, then four quick, quiet taps. Anyway, it wasn’t a Thursday. The boys were safe in theory, because three huge bolts had been fixed to the inside of the door and, in case they all went out together, there was a massive padlock for use on the outside.

  ‘Sh-shit,’ John whispered. ‘Th-they’ll have heard us.’

  Ian crept to the door and placed his ear against it. The other two lay down beneath the window.

  ‘We know you’re in there.’ The owner of the voice was female. ‘We only want to help, that’s all.’

  Ian turned and shrugged at his mates.

  The woman spoke again. ‘Look, we won’t get you charged with trespass or whatever, because the cops aren’t exactly friends of ours, either. Open the bloody door – we mean you no harm.’

  Sal and Babs stared at each other. They’d been up in the spare attic looking for bits of Sal’s stuff to pack, when they’d seen a boy walking into a hut in the distance. The place had belonged to one scout group that had merged with another, and it was supposed to be empty. ‘Open up,’ Babs said again. ‘You’ll be fine, I promise you, cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Ian asked at last.

  ‘To make sure you’re all right, that’s all. We’ll be back with our boss if you don’t open this door. Believe me, you don’t want to tangle with our boss, because she’s built like the Titanic, and it’d take a bigger iceberg than you to put a hole in her.’

  ‘How did you find us?’ Ian asked.

  ‘We were up in the roof and some of the conifers have been trimmed – they grow fast. You can’t be seen from the rest of the house. It’s just that one attic, and it doesn’t get used except for storage. Open the door.’

  Slowly, reluctantly, Ian drew back the bolts and opened the door. ‘Come in before you get noticed.’

  The two girls entered the shed. ‘God, it stinks in here – you’ve no ventilation. What are those two daft sods doing on the floor?’ Babs asked.

  Phil was annoyed. He wasn’t a daft sod, and he said so. He and John stood up awkwardly.

  ‘Matter of opinion,’ Babs snapped. ‘Right. What are you hiding from?’

  ‘From nosy parkers like you,’ Phil hissed.

  ‘We’re serious,’ Sally said, her tone gentler than Babs’s.

  Ian the leader came to the fore. He didn’t care any more, wasn’t afraid of language, of the words he needed to use, because he was tired, and so were both his companions. ‘We ran away from a boarding school because we were all interfered with by monks. I was bleeding from my backside, and it was a mess. Took ages to heal.’

  Babs sat down suddenly, depositing her behind on a rough wooden box. ‘Bloody hell, lads. You’ve been in all the papers. The cops are spending a fortune trying to find you. But me and Sal are moving away in a few days—’

  ‘Belle,’ Sally said, interrupting her girlfriend. ‘Belle
will help.’

  ‘We don’t need help,’ Ian insisted. ‘We’ve got . . . mates who look after us. Don’t tell anybody else.’

  Babs took a pen from her pocket. ‘If things get bad, phone this number. It’s in Southport.’ She wrote the number on the wall, low down near the floor. ‘Get to a phone box and ring me. Ask for Babs or Sally. This is Sally, and I’m Babs. And you could all do with a bath, but I can’t do anything about that just now.’

  ‘We could sneak them in during the night,’ Sally suggested.

  ‘No thanks,’ Ian said.

  Babs took the bull by the horns. ‘Do you know what a whorehouse is?’ she asked, pausing to see the boys’ reactions. All three blushed. ‘Well, that’s where we live until Saturday. Nobody will get the police, because we’re all prozzies, and we could end up in big trouble. Understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ they chorused.

  ‘Where are the bastards that raped you?’ Babs demanded to know.

  ‘Disappeared,’ Phil answered. ‘On retreat and waving white flags, I reckon. Some bishop will be looking after them.’

  ‘Let me tell you this much, lads. There isn’t one woman in that farmhouse who wouldn’t kill the buggers for what they did to you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that prostitutes don’t care, because that’s not true. In our job, we prozzies save young girls from the sort of thing that happened to you, and we all hate rapists. Trust us. Belle will look after you.’

  John found his courage. ‘C-can you get us some playing cards and d-dominoes?’

  ‘Course we can,’ Sal said.

  Babs sniffed back some confused emotion. ‘Listen, boys. Sally and I were both raped when we were kids, so we know what you’ve been through. My uncle’s dead, but Sally’s stepfather is still out there. You’re not alone. If the monks get caught, there’d be thousands of us on your side, boys and girls alike. According to the Echo, you’ve sent loads of letters with no return address on them. Now I know why. Sally and I won’t betray you.’

  Ian shuffled, his cheeks pink. ‘So . . . er . . . you two get paid for doing it now?’