A Liverpool Lass (11 page)

So what a day this was to be, then! No wonder she had woken at the patter of footsteps ... and this made her wonder anew who was outside the home at this early hour and what they were doing. Had someone dumped a baby, the way someone had dumped her, nine years ago to the very day? Well, if they have
I’m
not going down, Lilac thought smugly. Nor will Nellie, because she’s got me to look after, she wouldn’t want another baby. But she sat up on her elbow, nevertheless, and stared across at the nine narrow beds with the nine humped up shapes of nine sleeping nine-year-olds.
What a lot of nines, she thought. If I was to go to sleep again I’d spoil it, it would be ten sleeping nine-year-olds ... just let me take a quick look ...

She swung her legs out of bed and clutched her skimpy cotton nightdress around herself, then made for the window. Nellie always closed it in the winter-time since everyone knew that darkness was bad for the young and the cold air worst of all, but now, with infinite caution, Lilac moved the heavy sash upwards, then knelt on the floor and poked her head out. Below and to the left of her was the portico; was there a wild figure running off down the street, or a would-be burglar effecting an entrance to the lower windows? But so far as she could see there was nothing and nobody, only the dark sky with the stars twinkling frostily, a puddle in the road reflecting the sky and telling her of earlier rain and the salty breeze which blew from the Mersey bringing a tantalising breath of the tidal river and the great open spaces of ocean beyond.

She was still kneeling there, almost mesmerised by the sweetness of the pre-dawn wind and the brilliance of the stars, when she heard something outside the room, just a tiny thread of sound but still something. Her heart, which had been thudding quietly away down there, gave a sudden bound; burglars! She knew there was nothing much to steal at the Culler, but there was always her pink dress, let out and lace-trimmed and many-times washed, which Nellie kept in her own chest of drawers upstairs. And the little red cloth coat with the black velvet collar and cuffs which Nellie was cutting down for her to wear, come Christmas. Suppose someone had heard rumours of these riches? Suppose even now some old shawlie from the slums was making her way up the attic stairs, intent upon stealing that pink dress and red cloth coat to sell in Paddy’s Market on the morrow?

Lilac stood up and gently lowered the window into place. If she left it open ten to one Maudie, who suffered with her chest, would wake and start to wheeze and cry. Then Lilac would be in trouble twice over, once for daring to be awake when everyone else was sleeping and once for letting air in.

She padded barefoot over to the door and opened it a crack. Sure enough, there
was
someone stealing up – or down – the attic stairs, she could just hear the faint, well-remembered creak which the second stair from the bottom always gave when trodden on. The conviction that someone was after her clothes increased. She would have to raise the alarm or at least rouse Nellie!

Accordingly, she tiptoed out of the dormitory and across the corridor, then stared fearfully up the attic stairs. She thought she caught a glimpse of a slender figure just before it disappeared round the corner. It had not looked like an old shawlie, but mary ellens were fond of their personal finery, suppose one of them, and they were reputed to be bad girls, had heard rumours about Lilac’s dress and coat?

Her clothes, Lilac felt, raised her from the lowly position of a foundling to someone who mattered, someone who had relatives to be visited and friends who were not at the Culler. If she lost them ... Horrified by the mere thought, she set off up the attic stairs, carefully missing the creaking one, and arrived on the little square landing with freezing feet and an uncomfortably bumping heart.

Nellie’s door was slightly ajar. Still on tiptoe and dreading what she might see, Lilac approached it.

Through the crack between door and jamb, Lilac could see Nellie sitting on her bed. She was just sitting, with
her chin in her hand, gazing abstractedly at the wash-stand. It was a tiny slip of a room, not a room at all really but a partitioned-off piece of the attic, and it was easy to see that Nellie was alone. And easy to hear, Lilac suddenly realised, that Nellie was crying.

And she had been out; her shoes had clearly just been kicked off and were wet, had left wet marks across the boarded floor. And she was only just untying the strings of the brown capelike garment which the Culler provided for members of its staff.

So it had been Nellie whose footsteps had disturbed her sleep, Lilac realised rather resentfully. And just why was Nellie crying, when it was her little Lilac’s ninth birthday and she should have been full of excitement at the thought of the treats ahead of them?

She could have gone in and comforted Nellie, but that would have meant letting Nellie know she had been seen and besides, Lilac really did not want to know why Nellie walked around at night and cried. Perhaps she has a belly-ache, Lilac decided. If she’s got a belly-ache she won’t want my cold feet in her bed. So I’ll go back to my dorm, I think, and try to go to sleep to make morning come quicker.

With that thought, Lilac swung round and pattered off down the stairs, making so little noise that she could scarcely mark her own progress. Back in her room she got into bed and curled herself into a small ball, wrapped her freezing feet in her nightdress and pulled her blanket well up round her ears. And presently she fell asleep and slept soundly until the rising bell sounded.

‘Did you sleep well, Nellie?’

Lilac’s blue eyes fixed themselves ingenuously on
Nellie’s grey ones. It was the nearest she meant to get to asking about what had happened in the night and it was immediately obvious that Nellie did not intend to come clean.

‘Yes thanks, queen. Well, if me eyes are a bit reddish it’s because ...’ She had come into the playroom with her hands behind her back and now she brought them forward. Before Lilac’s delighted gaze she saw the red cloth coat – completed down to the last stitch. And it looked ... oh, marvellous, beautiful, just what Lilac most wanted!

‘Oh Nellie, you are kind! I do love you ... can I wear it to the pantomime? You won’t make me wait till Christmas, will you? I might easily
die
if I had to wait till Christmas!’

‘It’s for your birthday, I got you something else for Christmas,’ Nellie said. She held the coat out enticingly. ‘Want to try it on?’

‘Yes please, Nell dearest.’ Lilac struggled into the sleeves, then stood docilely whilst Nellie straightened, buttoned and finally turned her towards the window. ‘It looks good doesn’t it, Nell?’

‘Yes, I think so, but look in the window-glass, you’ll see your reflection in that,’ Nellie said. ‘And we’ll find a mirror somewhere on the way to Seaforth so’s you can see better what it’s like. Come to think there’s a mirror in the milliner’s down the road, you can see it through the window. We’ll go that way, then you can see yourself properly.’

‘It looks lovely,’ Lilac said, having scrutinised her reflection narrowly. ‘What’ll you wear to the theatre, Nell? It should be something special.’

‘Well, I’ve my brown cloak, that’ll do,’ Nellie said at once. ‘We can’t have two new coats, queen!’

‘No, I suppose not. And it is my birthday,’ Lilac said.
‘I’d better not wear my new coat for the docker’s umbrella though, Nell. Don’t want to get it all covered in smuts.’

Nellie laughed.

‘I was going to say that; you’re a thoughtful kid,’ she said. ‘Best get your cloak, then. We’ll be off in half an hour.’

The tram ride was fun, though they sat inside because it was very cold now, the wind bringing tears to Lilac’s eyes when she faced into it.

‘No weather to be at sea,’ someone said, and Lilac saw Nellie’s glance shoot apprehensively over towards the docks. Lilac knew vaguely that Nellie worried about the war and about Davy, but she never said very much and so far as Lilac could see, if you were in a ship it didn’t much matter whether it was a little coaster chugging up and down the west coast of Scotland selling Welsh coal or a frigate with guns dodging enemy shipping, you could still get drowned if the weather was wrong.

She loved the trip on the overhead railway, though. The train rattled along, signals clanked, and they were able to look down on the busy dockyards and see the great liners and the little coasters and all the other bustling marine life which filled the port in wartime.

There were a lot of uniforms about. Nellie looked wistfully at the sailors in their blues but she didn’t say much. She never did, Lilac supposed. She stood up once or twice, when the train slowed, and tried to see whether she could spot HMS
Milligan
, which was Davy’s new ship, but there was so much shipping that it was impossible to pick one vessel out, particularly since they did not know it by sight.

‘Davy said she had a taller funnel than some,’ Nellie said distractedly as they peered into the Canning dock with its closely packed vessels looking as though one could have crossed the dock, jumping from ship to ship, and remained dry-shod. ‘But they all look alike to me.’

‘Never mind, Nell, we’ll see him tonight,’ Lilac said placidly. Nellie had bought her a bag of pink and white humbugs and she was sucking them slowly, to make them last. Her cheek would have a pattern on it, she decided, where the latest sweet had clung to the soft flesh of her inner cheek.

‘Yes. Course we shall.’ The train swung inland and stopped and Nellie stood up. ‘Come on, chuck, that’s our ride over, this is the pier’ead. Want a dish of cockles, or bangers and mash? It’s your birthday!’

And if her happiness had a hollow ring, if there was anxiety in the pale face, then Lilac ignored it. After all, it
was
her birthday and should not be spoiled because Nellie had a belly-ache.

‘Well, but why hasn’t he come, Nell? He said he’d come ... why didn’t he meet us outside the Culler, like he said?’

The two girls stood outside the Royal Court Theatre, watching the early evening crowds surge around, good-humoured, loud-mouthed. Someone was playing a mouth-organ to amuse the people waiting to go in, a pretty girl smiled at them over her basket of apples and oranges, a man held a fistful of coloured balloons, another sold paper bags of hot roast chestnuts, yet another had hazel-nuts dipped in toffee and coloured cocoanut candy threads which he thrust into paper cones and sold at two for a ha’penny.

‘I suppose he’s needed on board ship,’ Nellie said anxiously. ‘Oh Lilac, love, you aren’t the only one who wishes he’d come! I’m right worried, really I am.’

‘So am I, because we’ll miss the beginning if we don’t go in soon,’ Lilac pointed out. ‘And it
is
my birthday treat. Why didn’t Davy give you the tickets in case he had to be late?’

‘He did,’ Nellie said slowly. ‘He posted ’em, I’ve got ’em in me purse. But this was Davy’s present, queen. I’d feel guilty to go in without him, wouldn’t you?’

‘No I wouldn’t,’ Lilac said decidedly. ‘I’ve never been to a pantomime, I want to see all of it! Oh come
on
, Nellie, do let’s go in. Davy will find us – you haven’t got his ticket as well, have you?’

‘No, he kept his own. But Lilac, love ...’

‘Oh please, Nell! Please, please let’s go in! Davy will come soon, but we’ll miss the beginning.’

‘All right,’ Nellie said. Her voice was flat. She took Lilac’s hand in her own cold one. ‘I suppose it’s only sensible.’

‘Yes, it is. Davy would say go in,’ Lilac said, trotting eagerly ahead and pulling Nellie after her. ‘Why, he may be in already for all we know.’

He was not in the theatre, but the two girls settled down in their seats and Lilac got out her bag of humbugs, sadly depleted but still worth investigating, and stared around her.

There were a lot of smartly dressed people, many of them children no older than herself, and the seats on which they sat were covered in red velvet whilst an exciting smell filled the air, though Lilac could not entirely identify it. Perhaps it owed something to ladies’ perfume and something to the rich smell of cigar smoke, perhaps there was a hint of heat from the big gaslights which illuminated the place and another
sort of smell from the folds of the red velvet curtain which hid the stage, but whatever it was it was strange and exciting and made Lilac’s heart beat faster and her breathing come in little jerks.

Then the curtain rose on fairyland and Lilac forgot Davy and Nellie, she forgot the Culler and Coronation Court and lost herself in the bright life of the people on the stage and the wonderful jokes and music, the colours and the voices, the breathtaking beauty of it all.

Nellie had bought them oranges for the interval and that was another smell to add to the others, a sharp, exciting sort of smell which went with the delicious, tangy taste. Oranges had never before come Lilac’s way, but she enjoyed every mouthful. And then the curtain went up again and once more she was spellbound.

It was the longest evening of Nellie’s life, easily the longest. She did not know how she sat through the pantomime, though like Lilac, she had never seen such a thing before and in different circumstances would have loved every minute of it.

But she had gone out to meet Davy last night and he had not come, and he had never failed her before. Something must have happened ... how could she bear it, if something had happened to the
Milligan
and thus to Davy? And she was disappointed in Lilac, too. For the first time, it occurred to Nellie that her darling was spoilt and selfish – and whose fault was that? Why Nellie’s own fault, of course, because no one else had spoiled Lilac, no one else had given her everything she could manage to give her, had seen she had little treats, trips out, even a share in Nellie’s own family.

Of course it wasn’t fair to judge Lilac for wanting
desperately to see the pantomime, nor in not wishing to wait for Davy outside. Indeed, it was as well they had not waited, since they would probably have forfeited their seats and missed the entire performance. But Lilac had not been in the least interested in Nellie’s worries after the pantomime had ended and had even demanded, during the eating of their fish supper, that Nellie should listen to her and not keep staring at the doorway.