The White Empress

by Lyn Andrews

  They shared the rooms in the small house in Eldon Street with the O’Dwyers, who were already overcrowded. But at least it was better than sharing just one room and there was cold running water and an outside privy, all of which were improvements. Mrs O’Dwyer had taken one look at the dejected group who had landed on her doorstep and had instantly taken them in. Shooing out a brood of small, grubby children, she had instructed Cat to put their things in the back yard ‘just fer now’, drawn her tired mother into the cluttered kitchen and pushed her gently down on to the old, battered chair and had fixed Mr O’Dwyer with a piercing stare and told him sharply to ‘Ger ’im out an’ sober ’im up!’

  Their arrival had generated a certain amount of friendly curiosity on the part of the neighbours who had all called, one after the other, to inspect the new arrivals and ask about the ‘Old Country’, for many still had relatives there. Cat had soon found that doors were never locked or bolted. Hard times were endured with grim fortitude, interspersed with outbreaks of witty humour; and good times, too, were shared, as was good fortune.

  Her new neighbours and friends had helped to dispel some of the depression that had settled over her when she had gazed for the last time on the White Empress and had fled back to where her family was waiting for her.

  The good weather had evaporated and now she sat on the doorstep of number eight Eldon Street with the O’Dwyer baby on her knee, watching leaden clouds, that threatened rain, roll in from the river. Both her father and sister had set off early that morning to look for work. At least Pa has stayed sober, she thought, but this she put down to the two obvious facts: that they were broke and that he was undisguisedly afraid of Maisey O’Dwyer’s sharp tongue. But he was trying to find work and she supposed that this was a small point in his favour. Her mother was being well cared for as Maisey insisted they all share her rations, until such time as Pa was bringing in some money, and so they hadn’t gone hungry.

  It had been Maisey who had prodded Shelagh into tidying herself up and going down to Tate and Lyle’s factory at the bottom of the street to see if there was any work to be had. In fact that redoubtable lady’s sharp tongue had prodded her husband and Cat’s Pa out every morning at six o’clock to look for work, telling them not to ‘cum back ’ere before tea time, either, if yer ain’t found none!’

  Cat sighed and jiggled the baby on her lap, wondering what today would bring. It would be her turn next. It wasn’t that she was averse to work, she had always done more than her share in the home, but since the day she had landed she had refused to let go of her dream. She blocked out the memory of Joe Calligan’s warning. One day . . . one day . . . but meantime she wasn’t going to work in a factory, of that she was determined. There must be other kinds of work – in a shop maybe.

  Two large, heavy drops of rain splashed on to her face and she rose to her feet. Now she would have to go back into the kitchen that smelled of boiled cabbage, wet washing and stale sweat. As she turned she heard the sound of running feet and looked up. Shelagh was tottering up the street in a pair of high-heeled shoes, lent her by Bessie Abbot, one of the girls next door.

  ‘Cat! Cat! Hold on a minute! I’ve got a job! I’ve got a job!’

  Shelagh fell against the peeling lintel, trying to catch her breath and wincing. Then she bent down and pulled off the shoes. ‘I’m fair crippled, that I am! I know it was good of Bessie to lend them to me, but they pinch like ’ell!’

  ‘Come inside, you’re getting soaked. What sort of a job? When do you start? How much will you get?’

  Shelagh closed the door behind her and they stood in the gloomy, miniscule lobby. ‘Sewing sugar sacks, I start tomorrow and I was lucky to get it! Five shillings a week, Monday to Saturday! Five whole shillings, I’ve never had so much money before!’

  ‘You haven’t got it yet and don’t forget you’ll have to give some to Ma and some to Maisey, we must owe her a small fortune by now!’

  ‘I thought Ma pawned her wedding ring and gave Maisey the money? Anyway, I’ll still have a lot over. Now I’ll be able to buy some decent clothes and go out on the town!’

  ‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’

  Shelagh looked at her scornfully. ‘What else is there to think about? You’ve hardly been over the doorstep and we’ve been here a week and more. Miss Scaredy Cat!’

  ‘I’m not scared! I just don’t see any point in traipsing round the shops looking at things you can’t buy!’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to Paddy’s Market to buy any more clothes either! I’m having new ones, not flea-bitten old cast-offs!’

  She disappeared into the kitchen to be greeted with cries of delight at her good fortune, while Cat remained in the lobby. She’d always had cast-offs, usually Shelagh’s old hand-me-downs. In fact, now that for the first time she really gave it some serious thought she realised that she’d never had a single new garment in her entire life. The thought made her disgruntled, something she’d never felt before. She’d always accepted the fact that there was never enough money for new clothes for everyone. But it would have made her feel better if she had had something, anything!

  She had accompanied her mother and their benefactress to St Martin’s Market – known to all as Paddy’s Market. Here great piles of old clothes, linen and blankets were sold for a couple of pence. The market did sell other things as well, but it was the clothes that drew the crowds, among them sailors from all the foreign ships. They had all been ‘rigged out’ as Maisey put it, for a couple of shillings. But everything was second-hand. She pulled herself out of her reverie. If she wanted new clothes then she would have to get out and work for them, like Shelagh.

  Evening brought more good news: when her Pa and Mr O’Dwyer returned home it was to tell everyone, and that included most of Eldon Street too, that they had both been taken on as navvies, working on the Mersey Tunnel. They were both covered in dust, their faces streaked where sweat had run down in rivulets, for they had started work at noon that very day, but no one commented on the fact that their Sunday shirts were filthy.

  Maisey produced some coins from her battered purse, stuffed down the back of the sagging sofa, and gave them to Shelagh with the instructions to ‘nip down ter the “Glass ’Ouse” an’ gerra bottle of somethin’ ter celebrate’ while she went up to Rooney’s corner shop for some boiled ham for a ‘nice’ tea for the ‘workers’. Whereupon Mr O’Dwyer, with a rare show of spirit, informed her ‘We don’t want no boiled ’am, luv, its norra wake! We’ll ’ave steak an’ kidney pie, so gerrup ter the chippy!’

  ‘Don’t you swear at me, Hughie O’Dwyer, or yer’ll get no pie!’ his wife rejoined, beaming, as donning her shawl, she departed.

  Cat crouched on the floor beside her mother while her father went into the scullery to wash. ‘Things are looking better, Ma. You’ll be able to get your wedding ring back from Stanley’s now. And if Pa and Shelagh get kept on, we might be able to get a house of our own soon. Wouldn’t that be grand, Ma?’

  ‘Aye, it would that. I’ve never had a place of me own. Not in all the years I’ve been married.’

  ‘And if I get a job, too . . .’

  Her mother’s hand closed over hers. ‘I’ll need you, Cat, to help me in the house. I’m not as strong as I should be and you need eyes in the back of your head to watch Eamon!’

  ‘I’ll get something, Ma, just to help at first and don’t worry about our Eamon, I’ll sort him out! He can go to school! I’ll go round to see the Priest at Our Lady’s, they have a school. He can go to that even if I have to drag him there kicking and screaming every day! He’s run wild for long enough!’

  At first it looked as though their luck had really changed. Every morning both Shelagh and Pa went cheerfully to work while she dragged a sullen, resentful Eamon round the corner to the primary school supported by the Catholic Church of Our Lady, and handed him over to the parish priest, of whom he was mortally afraid, though he would sooner have died than admit this fact. Her days were spent clean
ing, washing, ironing, shopping and cooking – chores that seemed to have no end and left precious little time for dreaming. Whenever Shelagh complained about her not getting out and finding a job, both her mother and Maisey would rush to her defence, saying they just didn’t know how they would ever manage without Cat. But for Cat life became a round of endless drudgery, her world confined to the immediate neighbourhood, while every Saturday night her sister would dress herself up in her new finery and go out with the girls she worked with. Her ‘pals’ as she called them.

  Cat was usually asleep when she finally stumbled into the bed they shared with two of the O’Dwyer girls. Shelagh would wake late and bad-tempered on Sunday mornings, complaining that she had a throbbing headache or felt too ill to go to Mass. Excuses which fooled no one and drew vitriolic condemnation from their landlady, for they were now paying rent and board. The O’Dwyers, like all their neighbours, were devout Catholics and even her Pa always managed to get up for Mass, no matter what state he had been in the previous night. She had noticed that his predilection for the bottle had returned now that he had money in his pocket. She had heard one of the neighbours telling another that Mick Cleary was to be seen in the alehouse at dinner time these days and, in fact, seemed to spend more time in there than at work.

  ‘An’ yer know wot that means?’

  ‘Aye, ’e’ll gerris card marked soon,’ the other had added.

  Her stomach had turned over as she had quietly closed the door. Just when they all seemed to be getting on!

  The following day had seen the first real blazing row when Shelagh had arrived home and announced that she couldn’t pay more than a shilling towards the rent because she owed one of her ‘pals’ most of her wages. It was the first time for years that Cat had seen her mother’s cheeks burn with anger. Good food and a steady wage, less grinding drudgery and a security of sorts had all served to strengthen Ellen Cleary and bring back some of her old spirit. She had demanded to know why Shelagh had owed money and what she had spent all her wages on. Her sister had replied coolly that she’d borrowed some money from Maggie Abbot for the new dress she’d bought at C & A Modes last week, and with what they’d spent in Ma Boyle’s Oyster Saloon, a shilling was all she had to last her until next pay day. Cat had jumped physically at the sound of the slap and Shelagh’s startled yell, for her mother had actually slapped Shelagh’s face! Shelagh had thrown the shilling down on the table and had stormed out of the house, pushing past her, thrusting her face close and mouthing insults. And she hadn’t come home all night. Cat resolved to go and meet her from work next pay day, for that incident had upset her mother so much that she had taken to her bed.

  The following Saturday, late in the afternoon, Mick Cleary staggered up Eldon Street, weaving his way from lamppost to lamppost. It was Cat who first saw him as she raised her head after just finishing the task of whitening the front step with donkey-stone. It was the last chore of the day and she was hot and tired. She sat back on her heels and pressed her hands into the small of her aching back, admiring her handiwork but thinking that by Monday morning it would be as dirty as the cobbles in the road. Then she looked down the street and saw him.

  From the condition he was in she knew what had happened. It was all too obvious. He’d been sent packing. Sacked. And he’d already spent what money he’d been paid off with, for in the first flush of merriment he was always over-generous. He’d probably bought drinks for the entire crowd in the pub. Now there would be all hell let loose. Now the only money would be whatever Shelagh had left over when she came home – if any! She got to her feet and stood, hands on hips, as she watched him stagger on and when he was within reach, she grabbed him by his shirt front and shoved him inside the house. A drunken father was nothing new in the neighbourhood and no one would mock or pity her, but that fact didn’t help much.

  She slammed the door and rounded on him. ‘Why, Pa? Why did you keep on drinking? You knew you’d lose your job and you know you won’t get another one! There’s a hundred more waiting in line!’

  He muttered something unintelligible and she turned her head away as the smell of whisky and tobacco assailed her nostrils. The voices in the kitchen grew louder. Well, she wasn’t going to stand and watch her mother’s face cloud with worry and despair, or listen to the tart remarks of Maisey O’Dwyer. She squared her shoulders. This was one night when Shelagh was going to come straight home from work with her week’s wage intact!

  She ran down the street, the faded blue cotton skirt flapping round her bare legs, the grubby plimsoles she wore on her feet making no sound on the cobbles. Already she could see the workers streaming out through the gates of the sugar refinery and the air was rent with the ‘knocking-off’ whistles of all the factories. Vauxhall Road was crowded with workers finished for the week, their wages in their pockets.

  She dodged between bicycles, carts and trams. Pushing and shoving her way through the crowds, trying to see the familiar face beneath the white cotton turban all the girls wore covering their hair. She spotted Bessie Abbot and called out to her. Bessie waved cheerfully.

  ‘Where’s our Shelagh? Bessie, have you seen her?’

  ‘Last time I saw her she was off with our Maggie and the others.’

  ‘Off where?’

  ‘Ma Boyle’s, I think they said. She’d brought her clothes with her, said she wasn’t goin’ home to get bawled out for spending her own money. Said she was going to enjoy it.’

  ‘Oh, did she now! Where’s Ma Boyle’s?’

  ‘Old Hall Street, next to The Albany. Ask anyone, you can’t miss it!’

  It took her nearly fifteen minutes to reach the junction of Vauxhall Road and Tithebarn Street, so congested was the traffic. By the time the imposing façade of Exchange Station came into sight she was breathless. She leaned against the corner of the building that flanked Bixteth Street, her heart hammering against her ribs. She didn’t care how much of a scene she made, Shelagh was coming home with her! She walked on and turned up Old Hall Street. There were plenty of pubs and all of them full. The bowler-hatted, stiff-collared brigade of office workers only frequented these pubs and saloons at lunchtimes Monday to Friday and most of them finished at noon on Saturday, so the clientèle on Saturday nights was not of the usual, more refined sort.

  She’d never been inside a public house before and with some trepidation she pushed open the door of the first one she came to. Its name ‘The Coffee House’ was emblazoned above the door though she suspected that that beverage was seldom drunk on the premises. The heat, the smoke and the smell of beer hit her full in the face and she began to cough.

  ‘That’s it, girl, ger it off yer chest!’ Someone slapped her hard on the back. A group of men and girls were leaning against the wall, glasses in their hands.

  ‘Where’s Ma Boyle’s Oyster Saloon?’

  ‘Gerroff, luv, yer too young to go there!’ came the good-natured reply.

  ‘I’m looking for my sister, where is it, please?’

  A girl with very brassy blonde hair and a bright redand-green-flowered dress smiled at her. ‘A bit further up, luv, you can’t miss it.’

  Nodding her thanks she pushed her way out into the street again. The air was fresh and clean and she could smell the river on the breeze. How anyone could choose to be stuck in places like that, choked with tobacco and beer fumes and packed like sardines in a tin, was beyond her understanding.

  The girl had been right. The Oyster Saloon was unmistakable. It was very old and unique. Its door stood open giving a glimpse of low ceilings and plush upholstery. Like the Coffee House it was packed but gritting her teeth she elbowed her way in, blinking in the dim light. She knew she looked out of place. A skinny girl with untidy hair and smudges on her face. Bare legs and old plimsoles. The grubby, faded skirt and the old calico blouse that was split under the arms and damp with sweat. But she wasn’t going to let all that deter her.

  She ignored the amused and scornful glances, the heads jerked in her direction, the
smirks on the faces of the women and girls in their crisp print dresses and high-heeled sandals.

  ‘Can I help you, luv?’

  She looked up to find a middle-aged man beside her. ‘I’m looking for my sister. I think she’s here. Shelagh Cleary.’ Her voice shook a little.

  ‘Is there anyone called Shelagh Cleary ’ere?’ he bawled over the din.

  ‘Who wants ’er?’ a man’s voice replied.

  ‘Over there, in that corner by the window. Go on and then get off home with you or we’ll get our licence taken off us!’

  Cat pushed her way through and saw her sister with Maggie and two other girls sitting at a table near the small window. They were surrounded by a group of young men who already seemed to have had enough to drink. The smile instantly vanished from Shelagh’s face as she caught sight of Cat.

  ‘What the ’ell do you want? You’ve come spying on me, haven’t you, you little sneak!’ She stood up and grabbing Cat’s arm, shoved her into the corner, placing herself between Cat and her friends. ‘Just look at the cut of you, you dirty little slut! You followed me, just to show me up in front of them, didn’t you?’