A Liverpool Lass (26 page)

It was a shame that she so often went scrumping and nicking by herself, of course, but sometimes Sukey went too and anyway, you got more when you were the only one burrowing into a floursack like a very large weevil, or spooning sticky margarine out of the wooden tub in the warehouse and into your nicking bag.

Now Ada and Lilac were sitting at the table, with a plateful of meatless scouse in front of them. But it was tasty, because Lilac had boned a bone off the butcher and it was filling because of the spuds. Lilac had gone out to a house she knew of last night, on Everton Heights, and dug secretly, like a little mole, in their big kitchen garden. First she’d had to scale a wall, then wriggle between the jagged glass cemented into the top of it – she’d caught her skirt and scratched the back of her thigh, careful though she had been – and then it was just a matter of sneaking on all fours between a long avenue of black, red and white currant bushes to reach the maincrop potatoes.

She’d filled her bag gleefully, thinking the owner paid back for the pain of the deep scratch, knowing that he would probably never realise someone had been into his garden. Why should he? The row was already half lifted, she’d done no more than shorten it by a foot or so. And now here was Aunt Ada, staring vacantly down at her plate, ignoring the big, floury potatoes which Lilac had worked so hard to obtain. And she
could not have had a drink for at least two days because the overseas money was late and the last lot had run out. And I won’t hand over a second time, Lilac thought crossly, remembering how she had nearly bust a gut carting heavy shopping bags to get money for a scrag-end stew, and how Aunt Ada had disappeared with her hard-earned sixpence – and returned without the scrag but with another wretched bottle.

‘Here, Auntie, let me give you some spuds,’ she said now, raising her voice a little. It was strange, she thought, how their roles had become reversed. Now it was she who managed their budget, she who fetched food home. Auntie was still ever such a good cook, but she hardly ever made the effort any more. She would rather put up with Lilac’s hit and miss culinary efforts than come out of her stupor of alcohol and misery to do a bit of work.

‘Oh ... no thanks, queen. I aren’t hungry. I feels downright queer.’

Oh, not again, Lilac moaned silently, inside her head. Not another bout of the madness that drink brought, when her aunt saw maggots the size of shire horses munching the bedroom wallpaper, or the axeman in the black mask and scarlet tights ... or had that been the devil? Aunt Ada had begun seeing things a month previously, and Lilac had honestly been thankful since it had stopped the drinking dead in its tracks – that plus the fact that the money was late again.

Still, Aunt could have drunk meths – people did – and she hadn’t, so perhaps the giant maggots really were a blessing in disguise. Only now that she thought about it, Aunt looked as queer as she said she felt. She was waxy pale except for two round scarlet patches on her cheeks and there was sweat shining on her brow
and her hands, lying in her lap, plucked and twisted and shook like sheets in a strong wind.

‘Have you ... well, have you seen anything nasty?’ Lilac said baldly, after a moment during which she examined her aunt’s small, rather bloodshot brown eyes closely. The madness usually showed first in the eyes, which rolled around the room a lot and stared and started from their sockets. Right now, Ada’s eyes were half-closed, the lids puffed and heavy.

‘Seen anything ... oh, that! No, queen, I told you that was the end of that, for me. I aren’t lettin’ meself go down that road,’ Ada said with more feeling than she had shown for some time. ‘Didn’t I tell you? No more drink; I’m on the water-wagon from now on.’

‘Sorry,’ Lilac mumbled. It was true that Ada had promised, and it was the first time such a promise had been made, too. Only Sukey, who was in on the secret of Aunt Ada’s bad habit, had been sceptical. She said people meant to stop, only they couldn’t, not always they couldn’t.

‘If I eat, I’ll chuck up,’ Aunt Ada said suddenly. ‘Oh, how the room’s turnin’ round!’

Lilac did not reply but dug into her own meal, and presently Aunt Ada staggered from her place across to the horsehair sofa and collapsed on its uninviting expanse. She sighed heavily, then sat up.

‘Queen, I’m goin’ to ... I’m going to ...’

She was. Lilac, clearing up with wrinkled nose and a stout square of flannelette sheet, decided it was no use reproaching her aunt. No doubt she had intended to keep her promise, but Lilac knew from personal experience that it was a lot easier to say you’d be good than to stick to it. A couple of weeks ago, when the barrow boy down Juvenal Street had chased and caught her, shaking half a pound of plums from their
stowage place in her knickers, she had vowed, as he walloped her, that she would never steal again.

Huh! And how would she exist without stealing, anyway? Aunt Ada could exist without drinking, or at least without drinking booze, but she’d be in queer street pretty damn’ fast without nicking.

She picked up the bucket of dirty water and went and emptied it down the privy which all the families in the court shared. Then she went and cleaned out the bucket at the communal tap and rinsed out her square of flannelette sheet, wringing it vigorously and then hanging it across one of the many rope lines which criss-crossed the court.

It was a lovely day. Hot sunshine poured down on her head, making her feel at peace with the world. She decided to forgive her aunt for getting at the booze and went back indoors to suggest a walk down to the river.

‘I dussen’t move an inch, queen, or my head’ll likely come off an’ roll across the bleedin’ floor,’ Aunt Ada mumbled bitterly. ‘Oh, what’ve I done, dear lord, to feel like this when I ’aven’t ’ad a drop for t’ree weeks, four days an’ seven hours? What’ve I done?’

‘Plenty, I daresay,’ Lilac said pertly, hoping to win a response, if not a smile, but Aunt Ada only groaned and made rumbling noises in the back of her throat which sent Lilac running for the bucket again. She got back in time, but Ada had lain down again, whey-faced. Her eyes were closed and she kept them so, determinedly.

‘Gawd, I’m bad; I need ’elp,’ she said presently. ‘Oh, I feel like death, queen, like death.’

‘Yes. Well, I’ll mek you a cup of tea,’ Lilac said. Long experience had taught her that the women of Coronation Court believed tea would cure most feminine ailments. ‘There’s water in the kettle, you can be sippin’ a hot cuppa in two ticks.’

She had actually made the tea and was letting it brew, a hand tapping experimentally now and then on the teapot’s worn brown side, when the knock came at the door. She shouted something indefinable – at the mere sound of a voice a neighbour would enter – and the door creaked open.

‘Ello, our Lilac; want to come out, down to the river?’

It was Art, scruffy as ever, smiling uncertainly at her.

Lilac smiled back, equally uncertainly. Of late Art had not been his usual self at all. His insistence that because he was almost a year older, he must therefore be a superior being had begun to annoy her, and his unwillingness to let her ‘tag along’ seemed a rare insult when you considered that at one time she had been his preferred playmate.

Everyone, even Sukey, had tried to explain that boys usually felt this way about girls as they got older, but Lilac thought it was no excuse. He was so rude, now, accusing her of following him around when she was doing no such thing, telling her she was ‘just a daft mare’, making nasty cracks at her expense, denigrating her abilities as a cook-housekeeper, telling vulgar jokes which she didn’t understand. He even said she was no swimmer, though he knew very well she could keep up with him – even do better – in the water.

What was more, he jeered at her in his new, raucous voice which kept wobbling from temporary bass to cracked soprano, and whenever he thought himself unobserved he rubbed grease on his bony chest, to encourage hair to grow he told Lilac.

‘I don’t see why you bother,’ Lilac said, sniffing. ‘What good does hair on your chest do?’

Art looked taken aback; clearly he had not
anticipated that particular question. Then he recovered himself and smirked, giving her a knowing look and shooting out his chest, thumping himself meaningly above the heart.

‘Taint
just
the ‘airs, it’s other things,’ he growled. ‘Trust you not to know, though – you’re only a kid!’

So when he came to the door and actually proposed that she might like to accompany him on a stroll down to the Mersey, Lilac was secretly gratified. She glanced doubtfully back at Aunt Ada, however. Auntie would not bother to forbid her – but should she be left? She looked ill and was definitely unhappy. But whilst making up her mind to refuse the treat despite it being, apparently, a sign of Art softening towards her again, Lilac had poured the tea and carried it over to the sofa. She bent down, intending to remind her aunt that the tea was made, when a sound gladdened her heart. Small, bubbling snores were emanating from between Aunt Ada’s pallid lips. She was definitely asleep! And everyone knew that the best thing for any sort of illness was sleep, so her duty was clear. Get out of the house, leave Auntie warm and quiet with a cup of tea to hand should she awake, and go down to the river with Art.

‘All right, I’ll come,’ she said therefore. ‘Why the river though, Art?’

‘Tide’s out; thought we’d go rakin’,’ Art said briefly.

Raking! It was a favourite pastime in summer, ever since Art had found the old cockle-rake abandoned above the tideline. You didn’t find cockles in the Mersey mud – if you found some and tried to eat them, Lilac thought, they’d probably kill you stone-dead – but you found other things. She’d had a right pretty brooch out of the mud only last year, and there were lengths of timber, sometimes hardly rotted at all, bits of rope, the odd copper ... it was always fun, seeing
what you could find in the mud. ‘Right, I’ll come,’ she said with alacrity therefore. ‘Bags I first go with the rake.’

‘Second; you’re a girl, an’ only a kid,’ Art said automatically, but Lilac did not start a row. It was a lovely hot day and besides, Art did own the rake, so it was only fair that he should have first go.

Side by side, therefore, they strolled out of the court and into the Scottie. There were few people about despite the lovely weather and the two children wandered along until they came to Mrs Brister’s canny-house, where you could get a bowl of soup and a hunk of bread for a penny.

‘I’ll buy us dinners,’ Art said. He fished in his pocket and produced some coppers. He had a job from time to time now, helping at the smithy, for with every fit man fighting in France and a great many women either nursing or doing war work, a strong young chap like Art could usually find himself some sort of employment, especially when the schools were out.

‘Thanks, Art,’ Lilac said, receiving her bowl. She should have told him about the scouse, perhaps, but she’d hardly eaten anything after Ada had been sick and anyway, it would have damaged Art’s masculine pride to be refused when he offered a meal. Besides, it smelled good; golden lentils and grated carrot thickened the soup, made, Lilac knew, from the bone broth always simmering on the back of Mrs Brister’s fire. She spooned it in until it got cooler, than tipped the bowl up and drank, wiping it round afterwards with a heel of brownish, homemade bread.

‘A wright for you?’ Art asked, still half-condescendingly. But Lilac, determined not to take offence, just nodded. He was mugging, after all, and it wasn’t often someone treated her to a meal.

And presently they reached the river and saw the smoothness of the black mud and the little snake which was the deep channel, way out.

‘Tek your shoes off,’ Art ordered. ‘Leave ’em up here, no one ain’t gonna steal ’em.’

That was almost certainly true, Lilac thought ruefully, tugging off her cracked old boots. Nellie would have had a fit if she could have seen Lilac now, with her too-small, faded clothes and worn, patched boots. But one day I’ll have lovely clothes and nice food, Lilac reminded herself, tucking her droopy skirt into the top of her knickers so that she wouldn’t get her clothing mucky. If I find anything worth selling today there’s no way I’ll hand the money over to Aunt Ada, either. This time, I’ll get me something to wear when school’s back in.

‘Comin’? Gerra move on then, gel!’

‘All right, all right,’ Lilac said crossly. She leaned against the big, cast-iron bollard nearest her, pulled off her boots and shuffled them into its shade. Art grabbed at a chain and began to swing out over the mud, then plopped off, sinking to his ankles. He looked back at her, grinning.

‘Skeered, are ya? Frightened to git all mucky, eh?’

Lilac ran across the short stretch of planking which separated her from the edge and hurled herself onto the chains. Hand over hand, her body squiggling with effort, she, too, swung out over the mud and plopped down. Art stood back, hefting the rake.

‘Good gairl,’ he said. ‘You can have a go in a minute.’

He began to rake and Lilac dug her toes into the squirmy mud, feeling for anything more solid. Something moved and she bit back a shriek, ploughing her foot forward. A rake was best, but sometimes, if you were lucky ...

It was a hot Sunday afternoon. People strolled across the floating bridge and alongside the docks but they took no notice of two muddy kids, playing by the river. And slowly, as the afternoon wore on, Art and Lilac forgot that one of them was almost a year younger than the other. They became friends once more, with no competitiveness to drive them, no new maturity to get between them. They dug in turns, squabbling amicably over their finds, and got further and further from the shore, nearer and nearer to the gleam of widening water. Art was collecting beer bottle tops to flatten on the tramlines so he could get Nestlé’s chocolate out of the vending machines down at the pierhead. He had a good haul, besides some ha’pennies and pennies he had found, in addition to various bits of wood, a flat-iron and half an old tyre. He was dreamy and talkative; his old self, in fact.

Lilac, taking her turn with the rake, had found her share of treasures. Bottletops, which she would try to flatten into penny-sized pieces as Art did. Coppers, with the old Queen’s head on one side. Two little green crabs, still alive, which scuttled round and round the bully-beef tin in which she had placed them. They would be freed when the tide came in, but until then they were booty, just as the bottle tops and the coins were.