She continued to make her way homeward. Then suddenly she remembered her secret room. The rent was due today. What should she do about it?
She stopped in the middle of the pavement, as if transfixed. Women in shawls, old men in cloth caps, girls carrying grubby babies, pushed past her like grey waves down either side of a battleship, a tattered battered crew carrying with them the stench of poverty.
Mike was home. Could she get away with what she was doing, with him around?
He might sail again in a week, or he might be under her feet for months, unemployed like George. Two unemployed men and iddy Joey to feed, not to speak of herself, on unemployment pay or public assistance; hunger would be laying desolation between them all.
Forced to make way for a woman wheeling a pram load of coal, she moved slowly along the edge of the pavement. Good St. Margaret, help me.
Cyclists zipping along in the gutter tinged their bells. The rumble of drays and the steady clump of horses’ hooves belaboured her ears. She hardly heard the noise, as she fought with her fear of Mike and struggled to come to a decision.
If a scuffer caught me, I suppose I could say I was a poor widow woman. There must be thousands of Margaret Gallaghers in Liverpool. Who would care which one I was? And the ould fella on the bench ought to have pity on a widow. That way they wouldn’t find Mike, to charge him with living off the avails of prostitution.
The open window of a butcher’s shop caught her eye and mechanically she moved across the pavement, to look at the chops and liver, roasts and kidneys, all neatly laid out with bits of parsley between them. Behind the display huge links of pale pink sausages hung from a bar, like delicate flower wreaths. She leaned over the meat to take a close look at them. Mike loved a bit of sausage with a black pudding, and she really fancied some herself.
Unworried by the cost, she went in and demanded two pounds of the best beef sausages and four black puddings. She watched with a satisfied smile, as the butcher dexterously whipped them into a neat, brown paper parcel. Afterwards, she teetered uncertainly on the sawdust-strewn step.
Keeping that room meant having sausages for tea, like the old song said. It meant having twopence left for a glass of beer at the Ragged Bear on a Saturday evening — or for a matinee at the cinema; when she thought of the latter, she realised that there was no Nellie to accompany her any more, and a great lump rose in her throat. She rubbed her hand across her eyes. She mustn’t think of Nellie for a while — it hurt too much.
But if she worked, iddy Joey could have socks to wear and a blazing fire to come home to, and something better to eat than conney-onney butties. She could be a real mother to the poor little lad.
And what if Mike finds out? First thing is, she argued, he’s not likely to find out. Nobody we know ever goes past Park Road — I would never have gone meself, if it hadn’t have been for me teeth. And if he did by a fluke find out, he’d say everything but his prayers, till I was fed up with him. And he’d use his belt till me back was sore. And then he’d ask what I’d done with the money. And I’d tell him he’d eaten it! She laughed at the thought.
There’s no reason for him to connect me with Liverpool Daisy, even if other men talk. If he ever came in search of her himself, I’d have him nailed better’n on the cross. But I’ll take care of him. I’ve learned a lot while he’s been away in that bloody boat. I’ll keep him in such a state he won’t have the strength to so much as look at anybody else. She stepped out into the street, laughing so hard, that a passing chimney sweep, pushing his barrow of brushes, laughed back at her.
She ran out into the street, almost under the nose of the leader of a team pulling a wagon loaded with bales of raw cotton. Nimbly she jumped on to a tram temporarily halted by a police constable on point duty. The conductor caught her arm and heaved her up the second step.
She grinned at him. “Ta, lad.” As she sat down on the bench by the back entrance, she produced two pennies from her placket pocket, and handed them to him. “Lime Street, lad. Nearest stop to the Legs o’ Man.”
The conductor laughed, and punched a ticket for her. “Goin’ down to Lime Street to find yourself a boy friend, Ma?” he teased.
She looked up at him quite cheerfully. “Go on with yez, you cheeky bugger. I’m goin’ down to pay me rent.”
By the Same Author
Alien There is None
Most Precious Employee
Twopence to Cross the Mersey
Liverpool Miss (Minerva’s Stepchild)
By the Waters of Liverpool
Three Women of Liverpool
The Latchkey Kid
Copyright
© Helen Forrester 1992
First published in Great Britain 1992
This edition 2012
ISBN 978 0 7198 0765 7 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0766 4 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0767 1 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7091 7731 9 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Helen Forrester to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Liverpool Daisy Page 22