Liverpool Daisy

by Helen Forrester

  Daisy smiled dimly through the comfortable mist in which she was floating.

  “Evenin’, Mr. O’Hara. Thank you.”

  “Remember your Mam when she was a little girl. We both went to Mrs. Docherty’s Sunday school to learn to read — afore the Board School was built.”

  “You did?” Daisy nodded her head.

  “Oh, aye,” He touched his forelock and with slow, clumping tread went towards the door. “Good night to yez.”

  Daisy wiped her nose with the back of her hand, finished her rum and, shortly after, followed Mr. O’Hara.

  The wind had risen, and the smoke from the rows of chimney pots on the roofs seemed to rest on its side. All the shops were closed, though lights in the windows above them showed that their owners were not yet in bed. The whole street seemed to be relaxing from the clangour of the day. Daisy put her shawl up over her head and held it firmly under her chin, as she bent towards the wind. Her boots clattered noisily over the stone flags.

  A woman in a red coat was standing under a lamp post. She was carrying a large handbag and was smoking a cigarette. Daisy recognized her, and pursed her lips.

  A proper painted judy, that Violet, picking men up in the streets. Regular trade she did, according to Mrs. Hanlon at the Ragged Bear. Then a slow flush suffused Daisy’s neck and crept up her face. What would Mrs. Hanlon say about Daisy’s evening?

  She’ll never find out about it, Daisy argued with herself. Anyway, it was different. Why it was different from what Violet did, she was unable to say. But it was.

  At last the brightly-lit doorway of the Ragged Bear came in sight.

  “I’ll have one more afore I go home,” Daisy decided and plunged thankfully into the steaming warmth of the Snug, as the parlour was called.

  The seat by the fire which she regarded as her own was occupied by Mrs. Donnelly, the grocer, sitting very correctly upright, black laced-up shoes exactly together, her large black hat straight on top of her piled up grey hair and her matching black coat neatly buttoned. She was delicately sipping a glass of port.

  Daisy regarded her sourly as she plumped herself down near the door, a seat which was always draughty. She pushed her shawl back from her hair and smiled and nodded at those people she knew, pointedly ignoring Mrs. Donnelly.

  “Half pint o’ bitter?” inquired Joe Hanlon, as he pressed past her.

  “No. I’ll have a hot rum. It’s proper cold outside. I’m clemmed.” Her voice sounded slightly slurred.

  Joe chuckled. “Doing yourself proud, aye?”

  Daisy was immediately defensive. Her mind was not yet too clouded to know that even a hot rum mid-week could cause local gossips to wonder where she got the money for it.

  “I need it what with me Mam gone,” she said, and then added haughtily, “I don’t think she’d grudge it me out of her burial money.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t,” agreed Joe hastily. “I was sorry to hear about her. You gave her a lovely funeral, though. Me wife said she’d never seen a more respectful one.”

  Daisy’s haughtiness vanished. She beamed at the publican as he took the measured glass of rum from his wife’s hand and carried it over to the fireplace where the kettle bubbled gently on the hob. As the fragrance of the rum reached her nostrils, Mrs. Donnelly’s expression became one of righteous disapproval.

  Joe handed Daisy the steaming glass.

  Daisy smirked, sipped her rum and gracefully accepted the condolences of two acquaintances sitting nearby. Mrs. Donnelly watched her drink in frigid silence. Daisy Gallagher owed her four shillings and tenpence, had owed it for a month, and there she was drinking rum — at mid-week! Mrs. Donnelly determined that the four and tenpence should be collected tomorrow at the latest, bereavement notwithstanding.

  Greatly cheered by Joe’s praise of the funeral, Daisy began to hum the song the sailors had been singing. She signalled to Joe Hanlon.

  “I’ll have another.” She beamed beatifically round at her neighbours who, between polite gossiping, regarded her pityingly. Our Daisy was taking her sad loss very hard, they muttered.

  “I think you’d better go home, Mrs. Gallagher,” Joe said firmly. “Have you finished your drink?”

  She stood swaying like a tall jelly pudding. “Yesh,” she said. “But I want another. I don’t want to go home. Nobody there. Why the hell should I go home?”

  Joe put his arm confidentially round her shoulder. “Because I don’t want you to become ill, Mrs. Gallagher. I would rather you came in again tomorrow and had another enjoyable evening.” He eased her round till she faced the door. “Come on, luv.” He pushed her firmly through the door, which his wife had opened, and she stumbled clumsily down the steps, staggered across the pavement and leaned against the gas lamp at the corner. She continued to sniff for a moment and lifted the corner of her apron to wipe her eyes. The clink of money in her apron pocket reminded her of the three sailors. She began to giggle a little ruefully, as she started unsteadily down the slope towards her home. She began to hum to herself, at first sadly and then a little more cheerfully.

  Ahead, she could see the river glitter, as a brightly lit liner moved slowly downstream. She stumbled down towards it. Dear, friendly river — it was always there, sometimes scowling, sometimes smiling. Lovely river. She began to sing again.

  “Three German officers crossed the line,” she shrieked joyfully at the glittering water, as she leaned over the brick wall which separated her from the dock below in which lay a single ship, dark except for the watchman’s lantern rising and dipping with the small movement of the water.

  She waved drunkenly towards the river. “Hooray to yez, hooray to the bloody Mersey!”

  EIGHT

  Daisy stood for a long time leaning against the wall and looking out over the river, until she felt steady enough to cross the road again back to her own home. Moggie was complaining loudly on the doorstep and leaped ahead of her, as she stumbled into the dead dark front room.

  The fire was out, and she felt around for the box of matches which she kept on the windowsill close to the entrance. The damp breeze from across the river was cold and she hastily closed the door behind her.

  “Jaysus!” she exclaimed irritably. Then her fingers closed over the errant box and she fumbled to strike a match to light the lamp. She had not cleaned the lamp that morning and its wick was untrimmed. She took off its funnel awkwardly with one hand. The match sputtered out.

  She put down the funnel on the table and got out another match. She paused as she was about to strike it and held her breath. She could distinctly hear heavy breathing behind her.

  She had been cold. Now perspiration burst from her in sheer terror. Ghosts come back to haunt you, she knew that. Was her poor mother there? Unable to rest in her grave, unable to go to Purgatory because of what Daisy had done that evening?

  She stood, match poised above the box, paralysed with fear. And the rhythmical breathing continued.

  She screamed. Moggie brushed against her skirts. She shrieked again and crossed herself. “Holy Mother, help me!”

  The breathing stopped with a snort.

  “That you, Daisy?” asked a woman’s voice from the direction of the old easy chair. “What’s up?”

  Daisy did not answer as the fright ebbed out of her and relief flooded in. But her heart was still pounding like a labourer’s pickaxe against asphalt, when she answered cautiously, “That you, Nellie?”

  “Course it’s me. Where you been all this time?”

  “My! Did you ever give me a fright.” Daisy struck the match, shielded the wick while it caught, put back the funnel and turned, lamp in hand, to survey her visitor with drunken suspicion. “What you come for? You said you wasn’t well.”

  “I wasn’t. I was proper bad last night. But when I felt a bit better I come to see if you was all right. Did Mrs. Foley go with you to the Dental?”

  “No. I went by myself.”

  Nellie got up stiffly from the chair and stretched herself sl
owly. She was a small woman with no flesh on her. Roughly curling grey hair haloed her hollow-cheeked, deeply lined face. Her mouth was tight, the lips hardly showing, partly from her lack of teeth and partly from being clenched when in pain. Daisy noticed that one steel-blue eye was still rimmed with yellow, where George had hit her a couple of weeks earlier.

  George had always had the temper of Ould Nick, Daisy ruminated, as she gestured to her friend to be seated again and draw the chair closer to the fire. He and Meg were a right pair when it came to tempers.

  She puttered over to the fireplace as steadily as she was able and picked up the poker. In response to vigorous poking the fireplace yielded a few hot cinders and she added a little coal by hand from a small pile on a piece of newspaper in the hearth — the coal scuttle was still in pawn.

  She smiled at Nellie over her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said, as she fanned the reluctant coals with another piece of the Liverpool Echo. Soon a little warmth began to creep into the room.

  Nellie nodded her head. “How do you feel with teeth in?” she asked.

  “Not bad. It’s hard to talk.”

  “Oh, aye. Let’s see them.”

  Daisy obligingly put down the paper fan and took the teeth out. They were duly admired and then Daisy set them on the mantelshelf.

  “Looks just like a skull grinning at you,” remarked Nellie looking up at them.

  Daisy shuddered. “Don’t say that. Here, I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll have a cup of tea. I still got a bit of cake from the funeral.”

  She took the blackened kettle into the scullery to fill it from the house’s single tap.

  Nellie held her hands over the struggling fire and rubbed them to get the circulation going again. She pulled the chair even closer, so that her feet were inside the fender, and then wrapped her shawl round herself. “Tea’d be nice. God, it’s cold tonight. It’s the damp, I suppose?” She started to clear her throat at first slowly and then more rapidly.

  “Aye, the damp’s got into the house. I forgot to bank up the fire afore I went out.” Daisy leaned over her friend, and plonked the kettle on to the hob and pushed it round over the fire. “You should’ve put some coal on.”

  “I didn’t know if you could spare enough to keep the fire going when you wasn’t cooking. And I thought you’d probably be back soon. Where have you been all this time?”

  Daisy did not answer. She took up a pair of white, earthenware mugs from the table and, after a quick search, found the sticky tin of condensed milk on the chest of drawers, buried beneath an old copy of the Liverpool Echo.

  “I’m out of sugar,” she apologised as she opened a rusty tin box to display the remains of the funeral cake.

  “Well, tell me. Did you go anywhere interesting all this time?” asked Nellie doggedly. She cleared her throat and spat accurately into the fire without hitting the kettle. The fire gave a sharp hiss.

  “You know where I been. I went to the Dental to get me teeth. Then I had fish and chips.” She reached up and took her new teeth from the shelf. With some difficulty she put them in again and grimaced at the discomfort.

  Nellie looked up sharply from her contemplation of the fire, her own toothless mouth open in wonder. “Yes,” she agreed. “But you was such a long time I thought something terrible had happened to yez. Anyway, lemme see them in.”

  Daisy obligingly grinned.

  “My, you look nice! Like I remember you at my wedding!” Nellie’s admiration was genuine. She sucked in her lips and then laughed as she teased, “Michael’ll have to watch out now.”

  “What do you mean?” Daisy snapped out the question belligerently. The euphoria of the alcohol was wearing off.

  “You know — you look so young, like. I was only joking.” Nellie looked Daisy up and down. “You bin drinking?”

  “Humph. Had a rum in the Snug on me way home,” responded Daisy sulkily. A rum can take any amount of time to drink, so that should satisfy Nellie’s nosiness. She poked the fire again, making it flare up, and Nellie nodded understandingly, her shadow on the wall bobbing in unison.

  “Rum? Still got a bit of burial money, have yer?”

  “I needed a rum after all I been through.”

  “To be sure,” soothed Nellie. “You did so much for your Mam.”

  Daisy smiled, and swayed unsteadily. She reached down the tea caddy from the mantelpiece, took the lid off the teapot which was standing as always on the top of the oven, and discovered it still had the dregs of earlier brews in it. Muttering imprecations, she went out as steadily as she could to the scullery and opened the back door. The yard was absolutely dark but she emptied the tea leaves accurately on to what had once been a flower bed, which after generations of such treatment consisted largely of decaying tea leaves in which only weeds grew.

  She measured out the tea, and, while she waited for the kettle to come to a rolling boil, she gazed reflectively down into the fire which was now burning quite cheerfully.

  “If our Meg had been the new Nan, none of us would have got so much as a glass o’ beer out of her,” she remarked. “What’s yours is hers and what’s hers is her own.”

  “Don’t be so hard, Daise. She’s had a rough life.”

  “Oh, aye. I wouldn’t want to be her. Going to a motherless home to look after a crabby old devil like Fogarty and two brothers-in-law as well as her husband.” Daisy sucked at her new teeth. “And now she’s got six kids — and might manage another afore the change strikes her.”

  “At least they’re living,” Nellie responded in reference to the children. She sighed sadly.

  Daisy leaned down and put a compassionate hand on Nellie’s wool-wrapped shoulders. “There, there, luv. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, as Mrs. Temperance Thomas is always saying. And she’s right.”

  Nellie’s pinched-in lips trembled. “To take four of ours with the diphtheria — and then to take our Freddie when he fell into the hold of the Fair Rita on top of the coal she was unloading.” She almost sobbed the last words. “It’s no wonder our George gets into a rage at times, with only our iddy-diddy Joey left.”

  “I know, luv, I know.” Daisy turned to rescue the kettle and pour the boiling water over the tea-leaves. Then she put the teapot on the hob to let the fire mash it to a formidable blackness. “Have a cuppa tea, luv. Make you feel better.”

  With the comforting heat of the mug of tea warming her hands and Daisy’s gentleness, Nellie began to feel better. Daisy again filled the kettle with water and set it on the fire.

  “What you boiling more water for? You made plenty of tea.”

  Daisy sat down on a wooden chair which creaked uneasily as it received her weight. She viewed her friend’s face cautiously out of the corner of her eye. You couldn’t breathe in without somebody noticing, she thought tartly. How could you tell a woman as clean-living and plain good as Nellie that you felt sore underneath because you’d had three sailors?

  “Well, I thought as how I had the fire I’d maybe have a wash afore going to bed,” she replied carefully. “Bring the bowl in here where it’s warm.”

  Nellie stirred her tea with the single tin spoon which they had been sharing. “Mind you don’t get chill,” she warned. “Too much washing and you’ll feel the cold like anything.”

  Daisy nodded agreement.

  “You finished with blood a couple of years ago, didn’t you?”

  Daisy again nodded. She understood the import of her friend’s inquiry. After a period one washed, but not much otherwise.

  Nellie changed the subject

  “When’s Bill Donohue coming to do out your Mam’s room?”

  “Tomorrow.” The tea was helping Daisy back to normality. Eagerly she pursued the fresh subject of conversation. “Thought I’d get him to whitewash the ceiling as well.”

  “It’ll cost you another shilling.”

  Daisy opened her mouth to say she had the money and then quickly clicked her teeth together again. Blast,
she cursed silently. Aloud she said, “You’re right. Maybe I can get him to throw it in, anyway. A bit of whitewash can’t cost anything like a shilling.”

  The exchange reminded her forcibly that she must be extremely circumspect about the way in which she spent the eight shillings and sixpence which she had so unexpectedly acquired, or people would begin to surmise about her unaccountable prosperity. Still, it was good to feel the weight of the coins deep in her apron pocket. The money gave her an unexpected feeling of power as if she was now more in command of her life. It would help her over the first week without her mother’s pension. She was going to miss that pension nearly as much as her mother. At the thought of her mother the dull pain of loss returned to her.

  Nellie slurped comfortably at her mug of tea. “You must be missing Nan,” she remarked as if she had read Daisy’s thoughts. “What was the cause of her, er…?”

  “Doctor said it was the stroke again. Charged me two and sixpence just to say that and write out a certificate to say she’d passed on. I knew she was gone without him telling me!”

  Nellie wagged her grizzled head knowingly. “Aye, but them bleeders down at the Prue wouldn’t have believed you without a Death Certificate — and without their money how would you have buried her?”

  They gossiped a little longer and then Nellie took her departure. The wind hit her as she went through the front door. She began to cough and leaned against the door jamb while she fought to control the spasm.

  “Aye, Nellie, luv, you should ask Mr. Williamson up at the chemist’s for summat for that cough.” Daisy tried to keep the panic she felt out of her voice. “You must take care, Nell.”

  “Och, it’s just me usual winter cough,” responded her friend with a confidence which was far from genuine. “It’s nothing — it’ll pass,” she added, as she hitched her heavy shawl over her head. She managed to hold back her cough long enough to kiss Daisy on the cheek. “Tara-well.”

  Daisy sighed. “Ta-ra, luv.”

  Holding her shawl across her mouth Nellie hurried up the street. Daisy shut the door and leaned against it, listening to the diminishing sound of her friend’s steady coughing. Dear Virgin Mother, what a cough!