A Liverpool Lass (44 page)

‘Nell? Are you cross?’

‘Oh queen, how can I be cross when I can see that you’re doing the right thing? I did want you to keep at school, but if you’ve got a good life and a happy one, then you stick to it! I’ll miss you, I won’t pretend otherwise, but I’ll settle down, pick up the threads.’

The two girls had been walking whilst they talked, and turned into Coronation Court on the words. Lilac hesitated, then walked steadily forward, but Nellie had noticed the hesitation and suddenly, for an instant, saw the court as Lilac must be seeing it, and not just seeing, but remembering.

The place smelt, even though it was not yet high summer; when summer came, it would stink. There
were only two dustbins for all the houses in the court – sixteen of them – and they weren’t emptied as often as they should have been, either. And the privy, shared by all, hummed now, but would be worse when the weather warmed up. Come summer, flies and bluebottles would be thick around the bins and the privy, and inside the houses the women would wage a constant war against fleas, bed-bugs, lice and worse.

The doors were all open today, and once more children played on the dirty flagstones. Dirty children, Nellie realised anew, with runny noses, cold sores round their mouths, greasy, tick-ridden hair. Oh, not all of them, some of them were kept as nicely as one could expect, but some were always neglected, dirty, hungry. She had thought that if she closed her door and polished away, spread the table with good things, kept the fire lit, then she was somehow apart from all this. In fact she could not hold herself aloof, any more than Lilac would be able to, if she returned.

They went across to number eleven and opened the door. Nellie put a log on the fire, then pulled the kettle over the heat.

‘Tea won’t be long,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Wash your hands, queen.’

Whilst she bustled about she realised that there was a draught cutting in under the door enough to take your feet off at the ankles. The houses were always draught-ridden, icy cold in winter yet hot and stuffy in summer. Who could blame Lilac for preferring the comforts of the house in Rodney Street?

‘Kettle’s boiling,’ Lilac said. ‘Can I mash the tea, Nell?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Nellie said. ‘The tea’s in the Bruno tin on the mantel. Aunt Ada’s nice red caddy seems to have disappeared.’

‘Walked with the Thompsons, I expect,’ Lilac said cheerfully. ‘It’s nice to be together again, isn’t it, Nell? I’ll come often, shall I? When Mrs Matteson will let me.’

Nellie opened her mouth to say come as often as you like and quite different words emerged, words which she had not known she meant, let alone meant to say.

‘You’re always welcome, queen, but I shan’t be here long, meself. I’ve been told I can go before a hospital board to start training as a properly qualified nursing sister. I might get a place in a Liverpool hospital but then again I might have to go away. Still, until I go you’re always welcome, as I said.’

‘Oh!’ Lilac said rather blankly. ‘Oh, I see. And what’ll happen to the house?’

‘Well, I don’t want it and you don’t want it, and from what I’ve heard the boys don’t want it, so the landlord can find another tenant,’ Nellie said cheerfully. ‘I couldn’t afford to live here by meself, chuck, not on the sort of money I’m likely to earn nursing. Besides, nurses live in, usually. I wrote to Matt and Charlie when we first decided to sub-let and they said I might do as I pleased. They’re all settled. Matt’s with Charlie in the Lake District and Bertie and Unity live across the water in Woodchurch; none of them are likely to want a home in the ’pool.’

‘I see,’ Lilac said again. ‘Will you come and visit in Rodney Street then, Nell?’

‘Yes, of course I will,’ Nellie said, giving Lilac a quick kiss on the cheek as she passed. ‘But we’re both big girls now. We’ll do very well.’

All evening they talked over old times, told each other stories, laughed and joked. At nine forty-five Nellie put on her cloak and walked Lilac to the tram,
got on with her, saw her to her door, then walked home. Alone.

Next day she went round to the Northern Hospital and spoke to one of the Administrators there, explaining that she wanted to take up full-time nursing training.

She had excellent references from her previous nursing posts and after a short interview, was accepted as a probationer. By the end of the week she had packed up all her things – they were not very numerous – and moved into the nurses’ home attached to the training hospital to which she had been assigned. A couple of days after that she sold all the furniture and bits and bobs which no one wanted from the house in the court and sent the money to Ada’s daughters, half each as arranged.

She wrote to Maggie and her other nursing friends, explaining what she had done and giving them her new address. She wrote to Stuart, too, of course, telling him what she had done and where she was to be found. She was desperate for news of him because he had not written lately and though the war was over, accidents did happen. But she managed to make her letter cheerful and informative, hiding, to the best of her ability, the pain that Lilac’s defection had caused. She loved Stuart so much, she thought painfully, that marrying anyone else was simply out of the question, she would rather never marry than settle for second best.

Then she settled down to gain her qualifications as quickly as possible, because when she had returned to number eleven that night, after seeing Lilac home, she had also seen the sort of future which might lie in wait for her if Stuart changed his mind, and it had frightened her.

So even the life of a grim, tight-mouthed Nursing Sister, living in cramped accommodation in various nurses’ homes, was better than degenerating into a lonely, underfed spinster ekeing out a miserable existence in a tiny house in Coronation Court. Perpetually hungry and increasingly lonely, that spinster would work at some menial job until she could toil no more, then she would let rooms until her tenants realised she could not force them to pay the rent. Then she would starve to death and be found in her filthy, rat-ridden kitchen, just a little heap of bones and grey, greasy hair.

The depressing picture scared Nellie. If she was nursing, at least she would be amongst people, earning her living in a job she enjoyed and at which she could excel.

She went twice to the Matteson house, but found it difficult to talk easily to Lilac under someone else’s roof.

Stuart did not reply to her letter.

Lilac was sorry that Nellie had felt she must move out of Coronation Court, and sorry, too, that Nellie was not able to visit her often, but as spring turned into summer and summer into autumn, her Quest began to assume gigantic proportions in her mind.

There was no doubt about it, she was close ... getting warmer, getting warmer, as kids shouted when they played hide- and-seek and the seeker drew nearer and nearer to the apprehensive hider. And now with the coming of autumn, the opportunity to see for herself was suddenly within her grasp.

Lilac was in the kitchen, ironing Mrs Matteson’s blue dress with the lace collar. It was a difficult task but one she enjoyed. Using the iron with great care, she steered it round and over the intricacies of the lace and saw the material become beautiful under her hand. On the hearth-rug Petal lay, toying with a bone. Perched on a kitchen stool drawn up to the table, fingers stained, eyes dreamy, Polly dipped the cutlery into the pink polishing powder and rubbed until the stains were gone, then handed each piece to Madge, who polished the powder off again. Then the cutlery was passed to Emily, who washed it in hot soapy water, dried it on one of the best glass cloths and returned it to its baize-lined drawer.

It was a peaceful domestic scene into which Polly, all unknowing, dropped a bombshell.

‘Hey up, gels,’ she said suddenly, wiping her brow
with the back of her hand. ‘Anyone want some extra spondulicks? ‘Oo could do with some spare cash, eh? Cos there’s a big party being give on Abercromby Square an’ they want extra maids to serve the grub around.’

‘Oo said?’

That was Madge, who had come to replace Lilac after she had been moved upstairs. She was fat and giggly, with a round, childish face, small, bright blue eyes, dark curls and rather a lot of spots. She and Polly got on well, but the friendship between Polly and Lilac had survived even Lilac’s swift rise to the status of personal maid. The two girls had so much in common, Lilac sometimes thought, that no one could come between them. Polly knew all Lilac’s secrets; she knew about George, and even about Lilac’s Quest, to say nothing of the Mystery of her Birth, and Lilac knew she would never breathe a word.

‘Oh, ’oo said,’ mimicked Polly now. ‘I said, tatty-’ead! Me young man told me, if you must know.’

Polly had a young man at last. He was a very young man but that scarcely mattered when you considered that Polly only looked about twelve. And he was nice – chauffeur to a family who lived halfway down Blackburne Place. His name was Tom Hedges and because he drove the family everywhere they wanted to go he was a fount of knowledge and gossip. Polly adored him and had great hopes of becoming Mrs Hedges some time in the next two or three years.

‘Which house, Poll?’ Lilac said idly, finishing the lace collar and starting on the cuffs. ‘What’s the name of the people, did he say?’

‘Course ’e did, ’ow else could I apply? It’s Mr and Mrs Allan and I’m applying since we’re savin’ up, Tom an’ me.’

‘I wouldn’t mind myself,’ Lilac said, doing her best to appear nonchalant. What a bit of luck! As soon as Polly mentioned Abercromby Square she had thought of the Allans, but had not dared hope they were actually the party-givers. She often walked up to Abercromby Square and looked at the big houses, but George could not go with her. Too risky, he said, since he had actually met Mrs Allan – was related to her. But by herself she had had no luck. The big houses had remained infuriatingly closed, their windows blandly, blindly shining. ‘What are they paying, Poll?’

‘Three bob for five hours,’ Polly said. ‘It ain’t bad, cos the work won’t be hard, an’ it’ll be interestin’. Goin’ to come?’

‘Might as well,’ Lilac said. ‘When is it?’

‘Oh ... Sat’day night. It’s a masked ball, Tom says. It’ll be ever so posh with lots of food an’ champagne, and the women will dress in their best and everyone will ’ave these little black masks on. There’s a Dixieland band, very modern, an’ they’ve done the ballroom floor with chalky stuff so’s their feet slide nice, Tom says. Anyway, it’s seven till midnight, only Tom says it’ll be more like two a.m. before all that washin’ up an’ clearin’s over, so we might make five bob if we’re lucky.’

‘I’m on,’ Lilac said. ‘What about you, Emily? You, Madge?’

‘I’m game,’ Emily said. She had been the kitchen maid but was now the cook, a quiet girl with nice manners who might, the girls thought, step into the job of housekeeper when Mrs Jenkins retired. ‘Do we have to apply in person?’

‘Yeah, go to the kitchen door an’ give in your name. It’s black and white acourse, wear your own, an’ Tom says to put your name down quick, afore word gets round.’

‘Tom says, Tom says,’ mimicked Madge, getting her own back. ‘I’ll go along an’ all, Polly. Cor, five bob for ’avin’ a lark – can’t be bad!’

Lilac finished the dress and stood the cooling flat iron down on the stove top. She reached into the big wicker linen basket and pulled out Mrs Matteson’s long, full, white cotton nightdress with the embroidery round the neck and wrists. She laid it down, sprinkled water from a jug by her elbow, and picked up the flat nearest the heat, then tested it by spitting onto its shining surface. The spitball disappeared; Lilac waited a moment, to let the flat cool a bit, then commenced work. When the embroidery round the neck had been dealt with she started on the sleeves, glancing casually across to where Polly sat as she did so.

‘Are we all on, then? What’s the woman’s name again, Poll?’

‘She’s a Mrs Herbert Allan,’ Polly said. She finished the last knife and threw her filthy piece of rag into the pink-stained saucer of knife powder. ‘Cor, what I’d give for a cuppa!’

‘So I’ve put my name down to work there on Saturday night, for at least five hours,’ Lilac finished triumphantly. ‘Mrs Matteson laughed when we told her and said we should go, it was about time we saw some life. She and the doctor don’t have parties, just an At Home a couple of times a month. Well? What do you think of that, Georgie?’

‘You’re splendid, Lilac,’ George said admiringly. ‘You might not be able to find out much whilst you’re working, but at least you’ll see Mrs Allan. I wish she’d ask me to her party,’ he added wistfully. ‘I could do the real Sherlock Holmes stuff – go through her desk,
question people and so on. But even if she asked us, Mother would say no. She doesn’t like her cousin very much ... she’s jealous, I’m sure.’

‘Why don’t you just turn up?’ Lilac suggested. ‘Polly’s Tom says everyone will be wearing little black masks so you might not even be recognised. Go on, why don’t you?’

‘I might,’ George said. His pale blue eyes sparkled and for a moment Lilac thought not only that she would like to marry him but that she might almost fall for him when he looked like that. Unfortunately, however, he then started to cough and she felt the old familiar impatience rise up in her chest. If only he were more like Stuart – decisive, capable, full of humour and good sense! Even knowing that George’s cough was because of a weakness left over from his war-wound did not soften her attitude. She thought that, had he been a proper man, he would not have let her keep him at arm’s length for so long ... then she remembered how she hated babies and pain and decided she would rather have him as he was.

‘Oh well, see what you can do.’

They were walking down by the Salthouse dock, with the strong wind from the Mersey snatching strands of Lilac’s hair and turning her carefully coiled bun into a parody of its former self. That was the trouble with Liverpool, Lilac thought resentfully. The bloody wind never stopped!

‘Lilac ... would you like me to come to the party?’

‘Of course I would,’ Lilac said at once. She wished George was not so easily cast down. ‘It would make it much more fun ... but I do understand that it’s difficult for you, being a relative and all. And George ...’