The White Empress

by Lyn Andrews

  ‘It suits you, makes you look older!’

  ‘Not too old, I hope!’ she laughed.

  ‘You’re not worrying about wrinkles already are you?’

  She laughed again and leaned against him. He wore the grey flannel trousers and white shirt that were his Sunday Best, but the shirt was covered by a new tweed sports jacket and his cap was set at a jaunty angle over one eye. They made a handsome couple, she thought.

  ‘A penny for them?’

  She came back to reality and blushed. ‘I was just thinking that we . . . well, we look grand together!’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘I think so.’

  To her confusion he bent and kissed her. Not on the cheek this time, but full on the lips. At first she was so surprised that she made no protest, but then when she tried to pull away, his arm had moved from her waist to her shoulders and his embrace had become stronger. The mocking cry of the seagulls faded away overhead, as she closed her eyes and responded to his lips, feeling a warm glow spread through her while her heart fluttered in a strange way.

  At last he drew away from her and she felt a little dizzy and leaned her head against his broad chest.

  ‘Can’t we be more than friends, Cat? You’ve . . . you’ve never been out of my mind since the first time I saw you on the Leinster.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ she stammered, not knowing how to cope with the situation. She liked him, she more than liked him, but she didn’t want him to think of her as ‘fast’ or ‘bold’ as her Ma would have said.

  ‘I mean, can’t we . . . can’t I take you out?’

  She misunderstood him. ‘You are taking me out, to New Brighton.’

  ‘I think your Ma would call it “walking out”.’

  ‘Oh!’ No one had ever seriously asked her this before and so she had never seriously considered it. She became flustered. ‘You won’t . . . you won’t . . .?’

  ‘Take advantage of you? You know me better than that, Cat!’

  Her smile was shy and the blush crept back into her cheeks as he kissed the tip of her nose.

  ‘Can I kiss you again or would that be asking too much?’

  ‘Everyone is looking at us!’

  ‘So, let them look, I don’t care, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t—’ Her words were cut off as his lips sought hers again, and again that dizzy feeling crept over her, making her knees go weak and trembly. But she had never felt so happy in her whole life and when he drew away from her she noticed that his breathing seemed to be laboured. She straightened her hat and settled into the crook of his arm, leaning comfortably against his shoulder, feeling the muscles ripple beneath his jacket. She rubbed her cheek against the rough tweed of his jacket and for a few minutes they were both silent. She soon found the silence a little oppressive, not knowing what he was thinking. Not yet completely resigned or comfortable with this new situation, or these disturbing feelings.

  ‘Is that the Aquitania?’ she asked him, more to break the silence than out of real interest, pointing to where the Cunarder was standing out in the river while she took aboard the hawsers of the two tugs that had gone alongside her.

  ‘No, its the Scythia.’

  He sounded slightly annoyed and this disturbed her. She looked up at him and saw a look she had never seen before in his eyes. She wasn’t to know that he was trying to suppress an overwhelming feeling of longing that had risen when he had first kissed her and held her, feeling the firm young breasts pressing against his chest.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you about . . .’

  ‘About wanting to go back to sea? You’ve no need to apologise for that, the sea is in my blood, it always will be!’

  ‘Always?’

  He nodded emphatically.

  ‘So you still want to sail on one of those?’ She gestured with her head in the direction of the liner.

  ‘Of course I do! I don’t want to stay with Ma Travis forever. I want a job at sea!’

  She was hurt. He’d just asked her to walk out with him and now he was saying he wanted to leave her. She didn’t understand him. Her green eyes became mutinous. He wasn’t the only one who had a dream. Even though fortune had smiled so benevolently on her, she still lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling. The majestic outline of the White Empress was imprinted on her mind, still as vivid as the day she had first seen her.

  ‘Well, I haven’t given up my dream either! One day I’m going to sea, too!’

  He turned on her, his dark eyes flashing, his face thunderous. ‘Aren’t you satisfied with what you’ve got? Have you forgotten that not two months ago you were half-starved, homeless and penniless? I thought you were happy?’

  ‘I am! I am! And I’m grateful to both you and Mrs Travis!’

  ‘Then why don’t you stop dreaming about that damned ship! You haven’t got a hope of ever getting a job like that and you know it!’

  ‘But you can go sailing off whenever it suits you!’

  ‘That’s different!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . because men can and do! Women don’t, not girls like you anyway!’

  His argument only increased her stubbornness and perversity. ‘Well, I’m going to prove you wrong, Joe Calligan!’

  He turned away and pushed through the crowd of laughing people all pointing out the Ferris wheel and the tower, now clearly visible. He left her to stare after him, the tears pricking her eyes. The day was ruined and she only had herself to blame. Why had she ever mentioned that damned Cunarder!

  Chapter Five

  THE DAY HADN’T BEEN totally ruined by their first quarrel for she had put her pride in her pocket and had gone looking for him, just before they tied up. Looking back, it hadn’t really been a bad day after all. His good humour had returned as he had watched her hitch up the skirt of her dress, slip off her shoes then run down the beach to paddle her feet in the cold water.

  He had watched her splashing about among children and young people who were braving the chilly sea. She was just like a child herself, he had thought, as she had run back to him her eyes sparkling, her feet caked in sand and the skirt of her dress soaking wet. She’d never been to the seaside before she confided. The first time she had even seen sand was when they had entered the mouth of the Mersey on the Leinster and that had only been at a distance.

  He had given her his handkerchief to wipe off the sand before she replaced her shoes and then, arm in arm, they had toured the fairground. They had indulged in one daring ride on the ferris wheel which had her in paroxysms of laughter one minute and screams the next, when she had clung to him like a limpet. Then they had sat on the promenade while he pointed out the sights of local interest and explained the history of the Tuscan-style fort on Perch Rock that had once had a battery of six cannons to protect the entrance to the river, but which was now the site of the lighthouse.

  They had had their fish supper and had boarded the Royal Daffodil tired, broke, but happy and she had snuggled against his shoulder and fallen asleep as the ferry headed for home. It had been then that he had felt the longing rise up again and with it a fiercely protective instinct. She was so young and naive, yet at the same time she had experienced the harshness of life. She was intelligent and she had guts. She also had a temper and a stubborn streak, he admitted ruefully to himself. But as he looked down at her he knew she was the girl he wanted for the rest of his life.

  There had been other trips after that first one. To Southport on the electric railway, although she said she hadn’t enjoyed Southport as much as New Brighton. It was much bigger and far more sedate and affluent with its grand hotels, esplanade, botanical gardens, golf courses and the expensive and exclusive shops along Lord Street and down the Cambridge and Wayfarer’s arcades.

  On the last day of the summer season they had taken a trip to the north Wales seaside town of Llandudno, three hours sail from the Pierhead. Cat had said it reminded her of Southport except that the people spoke with
what she called ‘funny’ accents.

  ‘No more funny than yours or mine, come to that!’ He had laughed.

  ‘But you can’t read the names, they’re all foreign.’ She had exclaimed.

  ‘So is your language.’

  ‘My language?’

  ‘The Irish Language, Gaelic, or haven’t you heard of that either?’

  ‘Oh, that. Only the people in the far West, in the sad lands, speak it now. Everyone else speaks English.’

  ‘Aye, but not the King’s English!’

  She had poked him in the ribs, knowing he was trying to rile her – or have a go at her, as he would say.

  His restlessness came to the fore again after that trip, mainfesting itself in long, brooding silences. She knew he was bored with his work and as winter approached she noticed he found more excuses to go into Liverpool. She asked him directly where he’d been and what for, one evening when he returned late and soaked to the skin by the rain that had poured from gunmetal skies since noon.

  ‘Ask no questions and you’ll get no lies!’

  ‘You’ve got your best overcoat on and it’s soaked! Here, give it to me while I put it over the rack to dry!’ She helped him shrug out of the black melton coat, then undid the cords that held a clothes rack suspended across the ceiling. She draped the coat over it and then hoisted it up again, securing the ends round a nail in the wall. ‘It’s dripping all over the floor. You’re saturated! Here, dry your hair and get those wet boots off!’ She handed him a towel with which he vigorously rubbed his thick, dark hair until it was tousled. He looked like an older version of Eamon, she thought as she watched him.

  He bent and began to unlace his boots.

  ‘You’ve been down to the shipping offices again, haven’t you? You wouldn’t go all that way in weather like this in your good clothes, just to get some things for the Missus! You wouldn’t be so late coming back either!’

  ‘What if I have?’

  She sighed. Obviously he had had no luck or he wouldn’t be so bad-tempered, but she had to ask. ‘No luck?’

  ‘Not at the moment. They said to keep coming in each week, that I haven’t had much experience.’

  ‘How many did you go to?’

  ‘About a dozen.’ He flung the boots down on the hearth.

  She knew what it was like to go cap in hand, begging, and it hurt her to think of him going from one place to another and having the door slammed in his face. ‘What about The Pool?’ she asked quietly, referring to the office at the Pierhead, at Mann Island, where crews were taken on and signed off. It was a collective marketplace where men offered their services. A pool of labour, which was how it got its name.

  ‘You know I go down there every week.’

  ‘I’ll get you something to eat.’

  She clattered the dishes as he sat staring darkly into the leaping flames. She hated to see him like this, yet she knew she couldn’t hold him ashore forever but she didn’t want him to leave her.

  ‘Wouldn’t the Missus know someone? Someone important I mean. Mr Travis was a captain, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Aye, on the old tea clippers, he’s been dead for years and so have his cronies, probably. Besides, I can’t go asking her she’ll show me the door and then I’ll have no job at all!’

  She passed him a cup of steaming hot tea. ‘I could hint to her that although you like working here, you’re not really settled, having the sea in your blood, wasn’t that what you said? She’d understand that.’

  ‘Don’t you say a word to her, Cat! Do you hear me! Mind your own business!’

  ‘I thought it was my business.’

  She crossed the kitchen and knelt beside him, resting her head on his knee. ‘I won’t lie and say I want you to go, but I hate to see you like this, Joe. You’re changing, right before my eyes and there’s nothing I can do about it!’

  He stroked her hair. ‘I’m sorry, Cat. I didn’t mean to yell at you. But I can’t stay here for much longer. It’s not bad in summer but in winter, I feel like I’m in prison, cooped up . . .’

  She thought of the cramped quarters all crews of merchant ships shared and his words took on an obtuse meaning, but she kept her thoughts to herself. ‘I’ll miss you when you do get a ship.’

  He bent down and gathered her into his arms. ‘Oh, Cat, don’t you think I’ll miss you too! You won’t find someone else will you, like Johnny Todd’s girl?’

  She nuzzled his ear and began to sing softly:

  ‘Johnny Todd came home from sailing,

  sailing on the ocean wide,

  And he found his fair and false one

  was another sailor’s bride.’

  ‘Now how will I find anyone else cooped up here and with the Missus watching me like a hawk?’ she chided.

  He continued his search in the weeks that followed and as the weather grew worse so did his moods. There were times when he refused to utter more than a few words to her and times when he would shout at her, taking out his increasing frustration and restlessness on her. And then she, too, would lose her temper and shout back, flinging her own hopes and ambitions in his face, telling him he didn’t own her and that she’d live her own life.

  In the middle of November on a dark night when the screaming wind stripped the few remaining leaves from the trees in the convent garden, and howled around the chimney and rattled the loose window sills, Cat opened the front door in response to the hammering that had echoed through the house. Ready to give the caller the sharp side of her tongue. On the step, huddled in a dirty, threadbare old jacket, stood Eamon.

  ‘What do you want? It’s nearly nine o’clock! You’ve hammered on that door loud enough to wake the dead in Anfield Cemetery!’

  ‘Maisey sent me, our Shelagh wouldn’t come!’

  She pulled him inside and forced the door shut against the gale. ‘What’s the matter? Quick, tell me?’

  Mrs Travis appeared from the parlour, a shawl of fine cashmere over her merino dress, a piece of embroidery still in her hands.

  ‘It’s my brother. Mrs O’Dwyer has sent him,’ she explained. ‘What’s wrong, Eamon?’

  ‘It’s me Mam!’ he stammered, his astonished gaze taking in all the pictures, ornaments and carpet.

  ‘What’s the matter with your mother, boy? Is she ill?’

  Eamon could only nod as he viewed Mrs Travis from the comparative safety of his sister’s sheltering arm.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Cat shook him. Her mother hadn’t been well for a long time, but she had seemed well enough on the previous Sunday.

  ‘He’s frozen. Take him in the kitchen and give him something to warm him up! Then perhaps we’ll get some sense out of him.’

  Cat propelled the boy into the kitchen where he stood as close to the fire in the range as he could, without setting himself alight, while Cat boiled some milk.

  Mrs Travis sat down in the old rocker in front of the boy. ‘I’m not going to eat you. Now, tell me what is the matter with your mother?’

  ‘She’s got a cough. It weren’t very bad an’ Mais . . . Mrs O’Dwyer was rubbin’ her chest with grease or somethin’, but this mornin’ she weren’t no better an’ this afternoon she could ’ardly breathe an’ had cum over all ’ot. Fever, Mrs O’Dwyer said it were. Can she cum ’ome with me, Missus?’

  Cat handed him a mug of hot milk, her eyes fixed on her mistress, the fear for her mother plain in their pleading eloquence.

  ‘Get your coat and hat, Catherine, while he finishes his drink. I’ll give you some medicine and flannel binding and if you think she’s really bad, then you must call the doctor in. Where’s Joe? I can’t let you both go back there at this time of night alone.’

  ‘He went up to The Valley for a bottle of Green Ginger Wine. He said it was good for keeping out the cold.’

  ‘It is, as long as that’s all he’s gone for!’

  ‘You know he hardly touches a drop, except the odd pint of beer. He’ll be back any minute now, I’m sure.’


  As if to reinforce her statement they heard the backyard door slam shut.

  ‘Go and get your coat on, girl!’

  When she returned to the kitchen Mrs Travis was handing Joe a small black leather Gladstone bag and a piece of writing paper folded in half. ‘He’s got the flannel and the medicine. Wrap the flannel in a hot brick first to warm it, and I’ve given him a note for a doctor I know who lives not too far away, in case you should need him.’

  Cat could only stammer her thanks as Joe shepherded them towards the door.

  All the way on the tram she plied Eamon with questions, the answers to which were mostly very vague.

  ‘It may only be a cold that has gone to her chest, or influenza. With care she’ll probably be fine, Cat,’ Joe tried to calm her fears.

  ‘She’s never been strong! What if . . . Oh, Holy Mary, Mother of God! What if she’s . . .’

  ‘If she was that bad, Maisey would have come herself or sent your Pa! Stop working yourself into such a state, Cat!’

  Eamon was not paying any attention to the conversation. It was not often he got to ride on a tram and he was enjoying it. Like most of the lads in their neighbourhood, he usually only managed to hitch a ride for a few yards by running and clinging on to the back, until the conductor caught him.

  They all crowded into the clammy bedroom with its faded wallpaper where the figure of Ellen Cleary lay huddled beneath a pile of coats. Cat sank down on the bare floor beside the bed and groped for the thin hand. It was burning hot. Her mother’s face was thin and drawn, her sunken eyes too bright, her face flushed and a veil of perspiration covered her skin.

  ‘Maisey, how long has she been like this?’

  ‘Since about four o’clock. She weren’t too bad until then. Just the cough.’

  ‘It’s not the cough wot carries ’em off, it’s the coffin they carry ’em off in!’ Eamon chanted, trying to ward off his own fears by attempting to joke about the situation. The street rhyme fell flat.

  ‘Get that ’eartless little sod out of ’ere!’ Maisey yelled.