Micaela asked to see Mrs Biggs, and was politely asked into the big sombre hall. To Maria, it was rather frightening; she wondered where Mr Biggs kept the bodies.
Claire came out of a back room immediately, and sashayed down the hall towards them. She was wearing a black, knee-length frock with a small, white frilled collar, her plump legs encased in flesh-coloured silk stockings. Her very high-heeled, black patent shoes were held in place by three cross-straps, each with a glittering black button.
Maria stared at her in fascination. She had never seen an older woman in such short skirts. Her grandmother was garbed from chin to ankle; she had not changed her style in fifty years. Even her mother still wore gathered black skirts that reached her ankles.
‘Micaela!’
‘Claire!’ exclaimed Micaela, as Maria helped her up the steps, and led her into Claire’s open arms. They kissed each other on both cheeks, both genuinely glad to meet again. The visitors were led into the dining-room at the back of the house, because, Claire explained, Mr Biggs always had his Sunday nap in the sitting-room.
Claire’s last visit to Micaela had been after Juan’s death; she had sent a note of sympathy at Aunt Maria’s death, not sure how to cope with the fact that Maria had been buried by the City because, owing to her severe illness, she had been uninsurable. She now felt guilty that she had not visited her for a very long time. She felt worse when Micaela stumbled when seating herself, and Claire perceived that there must be something wrong with her sight; maybe that was why Micaela had not visited her lately.
As she rang the bell for the maid, she inquired in Basque, ‘Is everyone in the family all right?’
Micaela’s face crinkled up in a smile. ‘Nobody’s dead,’ she assured her jokingly in the same language, and Little Maria squirmed, and laughed up at their hostess.
Claire smiled back at the child. ‘God be thanked,’ she said virtuously, and then exclaimed, ‘She’s so like you, Micaela!’
Little Maria was hurt. Surely she didn’t look so wizened and untidy as Grandma did?
She was consoled by a large piece of fruit cake from a tray brought in by the maid. She sat quietly eating it, currant by currant, while the two ladies caught up with accounts of their lives since Aunt Maria had died.
Maria became anxious that her grandmother seemed to have forgotten the family’s dire need of a small loan; and that she made a joke about their running a boarding-house again. ‘It’s different from having emigrants go through – but it brings life into the house,’ Micaela finished up.
Maria noticed that her grandmother was cautiously feeling round for her cup of tea; she had managed to set it on the table, originally; but now, apparently, she could not judge where it was.
‘Allow me,’ said Claire quickly, and put the cup and saucer carefully into Micaela’s hand. ‘Are you having trouble with your sight?’
Grandma took a sip of tea and then laughed deprecatingly. ‘I can’t see at all, except light and shadow,’ she admitted baldly. ‘I can still knit, though.’ She turned towards Maria, who had stolidly returned to eating her cake. ‘Little Maria – and Frannie have to be my eyes.’
‘It must be very difficult for you,’ Claire sympathized.
‘Rosita’s good to me.’
Micaela’s cake on its flowered plate still lay on the table. Maria slipped down from her chair, and said, ‘Give me your empty cup, Granny, and I’ll give you your cake.’
‘Thank you, dumpling.’
When it was handed to her, Micaela felt across the plate to locate the cake and then broke it into two. She took one half and stuffed it into her mouth. Saliva gathered at the corners of her lips, as she swallowed it almost whole.
Claire watched her in dismay. Then she jumped up and pulled the bell for the maid. ‘How stupid of Mary Ellen,’ she exclaimed. ‘She forgot to put the scones on the tray.’
When the maid appeared, Claire instructed her to bring in a plate of buttered scones. She said to Micaela, ‘Mary Ellen makes the best scones you’ve ever tasted – you simply have to try them.’
Little Maria gave a small sigh of anticipation. Scones as well as cake?
Micaela felt that she should have told Claire not to go to so much trouble for her – but her hunger was intolerable – and Basques were very hospitable, anyway.
Three scones and another piece of cake later, Micaela remained seated for another ten minutes or so and then said that she should go home. ‘Come and visit me soon,’ she urged. ‘I would enjoy it so much.’
Totally dismayed, Little Maria thought that her grandmother had forgotten the money they so badly needed. She did not dare to mention it herself, and felt quite frantic when Micaela told her to go ahead into the hall and put on her coat like a good girl.
The two friends embraced again, both happy to have been reunited by the visit. Micaela drew back a little in Claire’s arms, and asked diffidently, ‘Claire, could you lend me two shillings, until I can get up to the post office to draw some money tomorrow afternoon?’
Claire replied without hesitation, thankful to assuage her sense that she had neglected Micaela. ‘Of course,’ she agreed. She loosed her hold on the old woman, and went to the sideboard, opened a drawer and took out a change purse. She pressed a florin into Micaela’s hand.
Later, her husband came sleepily out of the sitting-room, trailing sheets of newspaper after him. ‘Who came?’ he inquired.
‘Micaela Barinèta – Juan’s wife. You remember them?’
‘Oh, aye.’
‘She’s blind now. They seem in a pretty bad way – do you know, she was wearing a shawl – not a coat – she never did that when Juan was alive – at least, not on Sundays. Poor Rosita’s husband was lost in the Esperanza Larrinaga, you may remember – it was in the paper, the time when I had Spanish flu. It took me such a long time to get better that I never went to see her.’
Henry Biggs took his pipe and tobacco pouch out of his jacket pocket and sat down on a dining-chair, while his wife stood by him, staring into the blue flames of the gas fire and remembering Rosita’s handsome husband. She roused herself to say, ‘Young Manuel’s finishing school next week. He was in St Francis Xavier’s. Must’ve been a struggle to keep him there – because they haven’t got a wage-earner now. Nobody.’
‘The lad can go to sea. That’ll help them.’ Henry lit his pipe. He then let his hand run up the backs of his wife’s silk-clad legs, and tickled her gently.
‘Oh, Henry!’ she exclaimed. ‘You really are naughty!’
‘It’s Sunday afternoon,’ he reminded her, as she gave a delighted, though muffled shriek at his further advances.
Chapter Thirty-seven
That Sunday evening, Manuel saw his mother on to the Seacombe ferry, which would take her across the river to Roy Fleet’s house. In her clutch purse she carried a pound in small change, and, separately in her pocket, fourpence to cover her fares, which she would pay on the other side of the river.
As the ferry backed away from the landing stage with much splashing and shuddering, he waved to her, and then stood idly for a few minutes looking at the ships anchored in the river. They ranged from small, grubby tramp steamers, with the crew’s washing flapping merrily over the forecastle, to a huge Chinese freighter, so rusty that Manuel wondered how it had made the voyage from Shanghai, which, in chipped, white paint, was indicated as its port of registration. Tugs were moving a stately White Star transatlantic liner up river, perhaps to the Gladstone Graving Dock. In the distance was a single, tiny yacht, also going up river.
He was hailed by Domingo Saitua, who worked for the ferries and was waiting for the next New Brighton boat to come in. He wandered over to him, and, as the landing stage began to heave up and down under the pressure of the incoming tide, he asked Domingo what chance there was of a job on the ferries.
Stocky, beer-bellied Domingo looked him over. ‘How old are you, now?’
‘Fourteen,’ lied Manuel. ‘I’m leaving school next week.’
Manuel replied stoutly, ‘My dad and my granddad went to sea.’
Anxious to comfort a boy who was his neighbour, Domingo said, ‘Oh, aye, they did. You’re a likely-looking youngster. Try getting in with a ship’s steward, who’d look out for a job for you – find you a job as pantry boy, like. Better than being a deck boy.’
Manuel agreed. He could not, however, recall anyone in the Basque community who was a steward; if there had been one, he would not have hesitated to ask for help.
Domingo saw that the New Brighton ferry was coming in, so he prepared to catch a rope from it. ‘Good luck, Mannie,’ he said.
Manuel went home to do some prep for school. When ten o’clock came, he was worried that his mother had not returned, so he told Micaela that he would go down to the Pier Head again, to meet her.
The landing stage was deserted, except for Domingo, and he said that he had not seen Mrs Echaniz land. Manuel began to wonder if, possibly, she had lost the twopence for her return journey. His aching lack of food and his increasing apprehension made him feel dizzy. He wondered what he should do if she were not on the last ferry.
As the night took over, the silence on the landing stage became oppressive. Domingo went off to attend to his work, and only the slow rhythmic plop of a tug tied up at the end of the dock or the distant sounds of voices from ships anchored in the river broke the quietness.
To his intense relief, Rosita dragged herself off the eleven o’clock ferry. He hastened forward to take her arm and ask, ‘Whatever happened?’
Under the brim of her out-of-date black straw hat, her eyes glittered in the rays of a lamp. ‘I had to walk much further than I expected to their house. They were nice to me – Roy and his missus, though. Kept me talking a bit.’
As they ambled slowly up the gangway which led to the Pier Head itself, she described her visit.
‘Roy was still at church, when I got there, but he had told his missus that I might come, so she stayed home. She’s a nice lady, like you don’t see very often, and she’s got a lovely sitting-room, all in green. We had a nice cup of tea together.’
Rosita paused, as they crossed the street. On the other side, a few prostitutes loitered in the shadows, their faces occasionally dimly lit up, as they struck matches to light their cigarettes. When they had passed them, she continued, ‘I told her what happened to your dad – she was horrified, especially when I explained how I’m a widow but not a widow. She asked if I had a job, and I told her about the cutlery boxes, and how I had applied to Cripps’ and was hoping they’d find me some sewing, because I used to work for them. And I told her I’d one or two lodgers living with me – but I didn’t tell her how many! I said how they’d steal from me if I didn’t work at home. She was so sympathetic, I felt like crying.’
They reached Wapping, where even the lights of the Baltic Fleet had been turned off. Manuel squeezed his mother’s arm comfortingly, and asked what Mr Fleet had said about the rent.
‘He said he thinks it’ll be all right, if I don’t get further behind – and pay a shilling a week off the arrears. He’s going to talk to the landlord himself.’
As they stood on their own doorstep, Rosita lifted her eyes to her hungry son, put her hands on his shoulders and laid her head against his chest. She burst into tears.
‘Oh, Mam! Don’t cry. Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see.’
She looked up and smiled through her tears. ‘Yes, lovey, we’ll manage, I expect. I’m crying with relief, and because she was so kind. It was such a relief to tell somebody. I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Bridget – she’s got enough worries of her own at present, what with her hubbie being out of work – though she must have guessed how hard things are with us.’
Though Mrs Fleet knew that her husband had to be tough with some of the tenants for whom he was responsible, she was genuinely moved by Rosita’s story of her woes, and she did not forget her.
Every Thursday afternoon, she went to Liverpool to shop and meet some of her friends over a cup of tea in Lyons’ tea shop. On the Monday following Rosita’s visit, she scribbled a short note to a friend she had not seen for a number of weeks; Muriel was a cutter, who had worked for Sloan, Dressmaker, ever since Mrs Ada Sloan, dressmaker, had set herself up in 82. Bold Street, in 1915. Dorothy Fleet invited her to lunch at Fuller’s on the following Thursday, and when they met, she asked her elegant friend for outwork for Rosita.
As Muriel nibbled a sandwich and considered this, Dorothy said anxiously, ‘I wouldn’t ask anyone else but you – we’ve known each other so long. And you did tell me, once, that you have been awfully busy for the last few seasons altering the dresses your clients bought in previous years.’
Muriel’s neatly pencilled eyebrows rose a little. ‘Yes, we still are.’
‘Mrs Echaniz was trained by Cripps’. By the sound of it, she’s done every kind of sewing in her time …’ Dorothy urged. ‘They don’t have any work for her at the moment.’
‘Cripps’ don’t do as many alterations as we do – they take up a lot of time. But the client returns to us when she wants something new! So it’s worth it.’ Muriel laughed delicately, and her jet earrings swung. She tucked a curl absently back under her small cloche hat, and then looked pensively down at her coffee. Finally, she asked, ‘What’s the woman like to look at?’
‘Clean and very neat. Shabby, though. She’s still quite pretty.’
‘You’re really quite taken with her, aren’t you?’
Dorothy smiled faintly. ‘I suppose I am. I hate to see a bright, intelligent woman ground down. She needs work very badly, Muriel,’ she pleaded.
Muriel sighed. ‘Well, I’ll try – though I’m not sure what I can do. We’ve more than enough outworkers, as it is. What’s her house like – is it clean?’
‘I asked Roy that – because of the fine materials she might be sewing. He said it always was when he was actually collecting their rent – before he got promoted to run the whole agency.’
‘I’d need a reference from Cripps’. Could you give her a personal reference?’
‘Certainly.’ Dorothy pushed a glass dish of dainty sandwiches towards her guest.
Muriel refused another sandwich. ‘With these new short dresses, I have to watch my figure – flatness is the fashion now!’ She slipped on her gloves, smoothing the soft leather over her long fingers, and picked up her clutch handbag. ‘Get me the references. Perhaps I can get her a little finishing, to see how good she is.’
The following day, an astonished Rosita received a letter from Dorothy Fleet, telling her to get a reference from Cripps’ and, on any weekday morning, to take it, with the enclosed reference from Dorothy herself, to the back door of Sloan’s, Bold Street, so that she could be interviewed by Miss Muriel Hamilton, with a view to being given some outwork to do.
Wildly excited, she read the missive to Micaela.
‘Jesus Mary!’ exclaimed Micaela, pushing herself upright on the sofa. Then she said in Basque, ‘Make yourself as smart as you can; Sloan’s are fine dressmakers, as you well know.’
Manuel heard the news immediately he came home from school. He threw down his satchel, and hugged her. ‘It’s a new beginning, Mam.’
Over the weekend, Rosita’s grey-streaked red curls, which normally hung untidily over her shoulders, were shampooed with Sunlight soap and combed up into a neat chignon. Then she cut a black skirt into a narrower, shorter fashion to give her a more modern appearance, and, for the sake of speed, machined it on Bridget’s treadle sewing machine. Bridget lent her a plain black coat to go over it, both for her visit to Cripps’ and to Sloan’s.
‘Aye, luv, I hope it leads to something decent for yez,’ she said to Rosita, as she kisse
d her and wished her well.
At first the work given to her was routine hemming or unpicking, but soon she began to receive more complicated work. She sat long hours at her kitchen table, which was covered with a white sheet to protect the delicate materials she stitched so carefully. At the beginning, she earned little more than she would have done lining cutlery boxes; but it was clean work for which she had been very well trained.
When he was not looking for work or writing letters of application, Manuel lined cutlery boxes for her. He was helped by Francesca. Both girls were free, now that the summer holidays had begun, and, to give their mother time for her sewing, they did many of the household tasks.
The tenants, as they passed through the kitchen-living-room, were very interested in the pretty materials of Rosita’s new work; she had to reprove them sharply when they wanted to touch the delicate georgettes and fine wools.
If I can get enough work, I’ll stop renting the front room, Rosita promised herself savagely, and make it into a workroom.
Dorothy Fleet and Muriel Hamilton often went on a Saturday afternoon to a matinée at the Empire Theatre; and, occasionally during these outings, Dorothy would inquire if Rosita continued to do satisfactory work. Her gentle reminder of Rosita’s existence at the bottom of the dressmaking world eventually bore fruit. When a cuff hand was required, Rosita was asked to work two full days a week in the workrooms.
For the first time since she had lost Pedro, Rosita had a glimmering of hope that life would improve. She jumped at the offer, and hoped that a noisy bolt which Manuel managed to put on the cellar door would prove sufficient deterrent to light-fingered tenants – Micaela would certainly hear if the squeaky bolt was drawn.
Chapter Thirty-eight
On the Monday morning after Rosita’s trip across the Mersey to pay the rent, Manuel left home ostensibly to go to school. He had eaten a breakfast of a slice of bread with milkless tea, Effie having boiled a kettle for them on her fire. He had no lunch in his satchel.
The Liverpool Basque Page 26