On Tuesday, Miriam, her expression a little puzzled, inquired again.
I apologised for forgetting to bring the machine in the rush of getting to work. On Thursday and Friday, I muttered the same apologies. She just nodded and looked curiously and unsmilingly at me. Undoubtedly, she had begun to worry about her prized possession.
I was saved from having to face her on Saturday morning. One Saturday each month was free, and I stayed at home and did the washing.
Dressed in an old cotton frock, I was carefully washing my work skirt in the kitchen sink, when there was a polite rap on the iron door knocker.
Mother was cutting bread and margarine for tea, so, with hands still dripping, I went into the empty front room and peeped through the piece of net curtaining we had pinned across the windows.
Standing on the pavement looking up at the decrepit brick house was Miriam.
I flitted back to the kitchen.
‘Mother!’ I whispered in a panic. ‘It’s Miriam! She must have come for the typewriter. What am I going to do?’
Mother looked up from her bread cutting, knife poised in mid-air.
‘Don’t answer the door,’ she said simply.
‘But she must have come all the way over from the north end of town specially.’
‘I said, “don’t answer”.’
I wrung my hands, as I hissed back, ‘But, Mummy …’
She was implacable. ‘Don’t answer.’
I was panting with fright and stared at her helplessly for a minute. Then I said angrily in a normal voice, ‘I will answer. I can’t bear it any more. I will tell her exactly what has happened.’ My voice rose in hysteria. ‘I just can’t endure it any longer.’
Fiona, the only other person at home, came in from the lavatory in the back yard. She stared at us in scared apprehension.
Miriam rapped again, louder. I started for the living room through which I would have to pass to reach the front passage.
‘Oh, no, my lady.’ Mother dropped her knife, swiftly slammed the door and put her foot against it. She glared at me. ‘How dare you?’
I stopped. I wanted to strike her to make her move, but it was so alien to me that I could not.
In a fever of fear, I shouted, ‘I will tell them in the office on Monday and then they will know you stole it.’
Mother went white. ‘You would not dare to tell such a lie,’ she retorted, as the knocker sounded once again.
But I did not care what happened, as long as the intolerable burden was removed from me, and I replied determinedly. ‘It is not a lie and I certainly would dare.’
‘All right. I will speak to Miriam. You remain here.’ She was bristling with anger.
She opened the living room door and marched through to the front of the house.
I clung to the kitchen table, hardly able to stand, while the sound of the front door opening and then Mother’s delicate voice echoed through the house.
Mother and Miriam had not met before, so Miriam first explained who she was and then asked politely if she could have the machine back, because she had some work to do on it. Mother said enthusiastically how delighted she was to meet her and how grateful she was for her kindness to me. I closed my eyes and prayed, wondering what she would say next.
The well-bred voice was explaining that she herself had ventured to use the machine yesterday. Unfortunately, one of the letters had fallen off and needed soldering on again, so she had taken it up to town to have it repaired.
‘Oh, dear,’ exclaimed Miriam. ‘Where did you take it?’
‘Um, you know that place on Dale Street? I took it there. They said it would be ready on Tuesday.’
Miriam sounded very relieved, as she replied, ‘Oh, that’s not too bad. I could pick it up myself.’
Mother’s voice chimed in with measured charm. ‘Oh, I won’t hear of it. I must pay for it. I will arrange for Helen to bring it into the office on Wednesday. I am so sorry that up to now she has been so delinquent about returning it. I will make sure that this time she does not forget.’
There was a mumble of polite, friendly argument, then good-byes were said, and the front door was softly closed.
I was so shaken that I wanted to vomit.
‘What was that about?’ asked Fiona, as she took her skipping rope off a hook on the back door.
I did not reply for a moment, and then I said wearily, ‘It’s so complicated, Fi, I can’t explain it. But everything is OK now.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mother had barely shut the front door, when the string on the latch was pulled and the door again swung open. Brian and Tony came bursting in from playing football in the street. They were excited because it had begun to snow heavily, and they thought that later on they might be able to make a snowman. They were followed almost immediately by Avril and Baby Edward, who had toddled down to Granby Street together, to buy a pint of milk; the milkman had refused to deliver any more until his bill was paid. Giggling together triumphantly, they handed me the bottle.
Since the children were there, Mother said nothing to me, but, as she picked up the bread knife again, her contemptuous look spoke volumes. Feeling wretched, I returned to the sink full of washing.
As I was hanging the garments over a piece of string strung across the kitchen, Father and Alan came through the back door, laughing and shaking the snow off themselves.
I must tell Daddy, I thought. I simply have to. But not now, because of the children. Mother will turn on me, the minute I open my mouth. But three pounds is a huge sum to raise. How does Mother imagine she is going to do it?
Mother was very quiet during tea. By silent consent nothing was said about Miriam before the children.
I had to give a shorthand lesson that evening, so immediately after tea I prepared a protesting Edward for bed. I borrowed Fiona’s macintosh from her to put over my cotton dress, because my skirt was not dry and my own very light macintosh was neither windproof nor waterproof. I would have to talk to Daddy in the morning. With a quick glance at the clock, I snatched up my shorthand books and ran to catch a tram outside the Rialto Cinema. To reach my pupil’s home, it was necessary to take a tram to the Pier Head and another one out again to his district. There was no question of being able to walk the distance in a reasonable time.
The snow was coming down in great fleecy flakes and my feet were soaked before I reached the end of our street. The bright lights of the cinema seemed to be floating amid the flakes, and a drift was forming across its curved front steps. The clumsy trams looked like glittering ghosts as they churned their way slowly along Catherine Street. Few people were about, and for a second I considered turning back. But I needed money so badly that when my tram arrived, I swung on to it without hesitation.
‘Lousy night,’ remarked the conductor as I tendered the fare.
At the Pier Head, the wind was driving the snow in whirling sweeps across the stone sets, almost obliterating the Royal Liver Building and the squat Cunard Building. The Church of our Lady and St Nicholas was lost amid the white downpour. As if from nowhere, the sounds of the fog horns and the harsh bells to guide the ferry boats came floating round my head. One or two shadowy people scurried past me.
Surrounding the tram superintendent was a tight knot of drivers and conductors, red ears sticking out from navy-blue caps and glowing cigarettes drooping from their mouths. They were arguing about stopping the service. I was shivering, and clutched the macintosh collar round my neck to stop the snow trickling down inside, as I waited for their decision. The wind from the river seemed to penetrate my bones.
The superintendent vanished in search of the telephone.
I blew my nose on a square of newspaper, then shoved my bare hands into my mac pockets in an effort to keep them from freezing. The heavy flakes clung to my hair and I brushed a rosette of snow off my bun. The drivers and conductors climbed back into their respective trams to get out of the wind. I did not dare to follow one of them for fear I missed my ow
n tram, which had not yet arrived.
Long before I saw the tram I needed, I could hear the driver pinging its bell with one foot, as he edged the great vehicle slowly round the curve of Mann Island. Between the sharp pings of the bell came the sound of the slap of the river water around the floating dock behind me, the sound of the Mersey which lay between Grandma and me. For a moment, I felt like chancing my tram fares on a ferry fare instead and running away to her.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ I told myself sharply. ‘You haven’t got the fare for the bus on the other side – and an eight-mile walk in this storm is impossible.’
The supervisor, bustling with importance, came towards the newly arrived tram. The driver stepped down to meet him; he did not want to take the tram out again. The supervisor irately pointed out that on his return journey he normally picked up men coming off a night shift in an outlying factory. After some argument, the driver reluctantly climbed on to his platform, and I thankfully clambered into the back, shaking myself like a collie dog. I sat down on the wooden bench which ran the whole length of the car, bent over and lifted an almost solid crown of snow from the top of my head. It splashed all over the ridged floor as I dropped it. The interior of the vehicle was comfortingly warm, but I continued to shiver and my feet were bitterly cold. I was the only outgoing passenger and I stared glumly at the empty bench opposite, until the conductor came to collect my fare.
The driver slammed open the intervening door, letting in a great gust of snow-laden air. He shouted down the length of the car to the conductor that they would be lucky if they saw their beds that night. He was not going to be responsible if the bloody tram got stuck; he’d told the bastard back there that they would never make it up the hill. These remarks did not cheer me up. The tram was already far behind schedule and I would be very late for the lesson.
At Pembroke Place the points of the track were solid with ice and did not yield to the driver’s poking at them with a metal bar. The conductor climbed down and a committee of two was held over them. Then, shaking themselves free of snow, they climbed back in again. The driver eased the brake off and let the tram roll slowly backwards down the hill for a few yards. Then he took the line up London Road. We were off the proper route, but not so far that I would not be able to run to my pupil’s house.
As we crawled along, the thin, underclad conductor came into the body of the tram and closed the back door. He sat in the far corner from me, silently smoking cigarette after cigarette.
I was heavy with the cold which I had caught nearly three weeks earlier and had failed to shake off. As the chill from my waiting at the Pier Head wore off, I gradually began to feel stiflingly hot, and I almost envied the driver out in the wind. My head ached abominably and I laid it against the cold windowpane and closed my eyes. I suffered greatly from headaches, partly, I think, from eye strain, so another one was nothing to worry about.
After what seemed an interminable time of grinding noise as the tram laboured onwards, I was jerked awake. The tram had stopped. The lights were still on and the motor was throbbing.
The driver pushed open his door and came in, puffing and blowing, his face nearly purple between his peaked cap and great muffler. The conductor looked up.
The driver addressed me.
‘Can’t go no further, Miss,’ he announced.
‘God spare us,’ exclaimed the conductor, and threw his cigarette butt angrily on to the floor. ‘Where are we?’ he asked.
I picked up my wet shorthand books from beside me, as the driver replied, ‘West Derby Road, near Green Lane. I thought I could work my way round, like, to me proper route. But I couldn’t turn at Shiel Road like I hoped. Had no luck at all. And now there’s two abandoned trams on the track ahead of us. I can’t see no sign of drivers or conductors.’
West Derby Road! I was miles from where I should have been and at least three miles from home. I looked in alarm at the two men discussing what they should do. They seemed to be fuzzy round the edges. I got up from the seat. My legs wobbled, and I sat down again quickly. I was suddenly afraid of the bitter cold outside.
The driver said, ‘We’d better all get home as best we can. If I can find a phone box on the way, I’ll phone the boss to say where the tram is.’ He took off his big scarf, as he spoke, and shook a shining cascade of snow off it. ‘Could try taking the bloody thing in in the morning, when I’ll be able to see better.’
Trams can be driven from either end. They do not have to be turned, so I asked, ‘Couldn’t you drive it back again to the Pier Head?’
‘What for, luv? There’s nothing there but wind and water.’
The conductor peered ineffectually through a bit of window he had rubbed clear of steam. ‘Snow’s so deep, we’d probably stick anyway. Best get home, like you say.’
I nodded and the pain jabbed through my head. How was I to find my way through a maze of narrow streets, snow-choked and deserted? Yet there seemed nothing else to do. Once the driver turned off the power, the tram would quickly become very cold indeed.
‘Do you know how I can get to the Rialto Cinema?’ I asked.
They looked at me appalled. ‘Eee, you do have a way to go,’ exclaimed the driver.
Again, a committee of two was formed. The driver lived in Holt Road, the conductor in Old Swan, which in normal circumstances was no great walk from where we were stranded. The conductor decided to leave us. He turned up his overcoat collar, said ‘Ta-ra, well,’ very dolefully, cautiously stepped down into the street and plodded away into the night.
The driver, sighing heavily, decided to drive the tram back along the route he had come to the nearest point to his home street or until the vehicle stalled. This would help me, too, and he said he could direct me home from where he lived. He floundered outside again and succeeded with difficulty in reversing the trolley on the overhead wires, and then heaved himself into the rear of the tram to drive it.
He left the communicating door slightly ajar, so that he could talk to me and I moved up to the end of the bench closest to it. We sailed slowly down the same side of the street up which we had travelled. I hoped we would not hit another vehicle which might be coming towards us. There seemed, however, to be no other thing moving in the city, and our tram finally refused to go any further after reaching Shiel Road.
The driver slammed the vehicle’s doors shut, and took my arm. Together we struggled on foot along Shiel Road, while the wind blew the snow into our faces, down our necks and up our coat sleeves. The driver had boots, an overcoat, a cap, a scarf and gloves. I had on a cotton dress, a macintosh and a second-hand pair of walking shoes which I had bought from the pawnbroker for two shillings. My head and hands were bare, and rayon stockings did not offer much protection. I was also very thin, with no proper layer of fat to help ward off the cold. I regretted bitterly ever having set out.
By the time we found the driver’s brick, terrace house, with his wife peeping anxiously through the tiny bay window, the wind had eased and the snow was thinning.
His wife invited me in to rest and shelter for a while, but my mind seemed to be fogged up and all I could think about was the desperate need to get home and into bed. Stupidly, I said that the snow was easing and I could manage to walk home.
She nodded doubtfully at me, as her husband stamped about behind her in the narrow hallway, and she closed the door slowly as I moved away.
Durning Road to Tunnel Road, from dim gas lamp to dim gas lamp, alternately freezing and perspiring, I struggled on, through totally deserted streets. This was not a district of private cars, but here and there a van or truck had been abandoned and snowdrifts were rising round them. Each window sill I passed had a neat traycloth of snow on it, each doorstep its unbroken drift.
I was beginning to think that I would have to knock at the nearest door and ask for shelter, when I suddenly found myself at the junction of Upper Parliament Street and Smithdown Road. And through the unearthly silence, came unexpectedly the distant rumble of a tram. I l
ooked quickly down Smithdown Road from where the sound seemed to come. I saw the electricity spit and its reflection flash across the snow as its trolley crossed a wire. I half stumbled, half ran towards it.
The driver – there was no conductor – was astonished to have a passenger suddenly emerge from the storm. He stopped, and let me on through the front of the tram.
‘Eh, Miss. You must be frozen. Where you tryin’ to get to?’
‘The Rialto,’ I gasped, as I felt down my chest and eased out my little money bag, to get a penny from it. A pain like a knife wound was shooting through my back and my throat was swelling in its old threatening manner.
‘Eh, you don’t have to pay t’ fare,’ he said, through the slightly ajar front door, near which I had thankfully taken a seat. ‘I’m trying to get that far for me own sake. I got a flat in Catherine. But I reckon points will be frozen, so I won’t be able to turn.’ He jerked his head to indicate the way he had come, and added, ‘It was bloody awful back there. I let me conductor off by his house.’
I nodded dumbly. In the warmth of the tram, my head was whirling as the snowflakes had been, and all I could think about was home.
The snow had stopped when, about fifteen minutes later, I pulled the string on our door latch and stumbled in, into my father’s arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I have a dim remembrance of Father rolling off my stockings in front of the fire and putting my feet into a basin of luke-warm water, to restore the circulation; of Mother holding a cup of scalding hot tea to my lips, and of being surprised at the anxiety in her pale blue eyes. Then I was in bed with Edward’s hot water bottle pressed to my back and Father was cursing as he tried to make a fire in the bedroom fireplace.
Faces came and went in the candlelight. Or was it sunlight? Medicine was forced down my throat, a poultice applied to my back. Fiona helped to hold me on a chamberpot placed on the bed. Once it seemed to me that Edith was there and I called out to her, but she faded away. I dreamed that Minerva came down from her seat on the top of the town hall and shook her spear at me for being so foolish. Then there was a great nightmare during which I was arguing with the pawnbroker about the return of the typewriter. I kept shouting at him that he must give it to me because it was stolen property. I had long spasms of coughing, when all of me seemed wracked with aches and pains. I was dreadfully hot and kept throwing off the bedclothes, but they were always tucked round me again.
Liverpool Miss Page 16