A Liverpool Lass (9 page)

‘I can’t take the child to the pub,’ Joey objected. ‘Can she wait here, with you, whilst I have a word with Charlie? She’ll be no trouble.’

Lilac would have preferred to go with Joey to the boozer, but the truth was she was horribly tired after
her exhausting day and wanted nothing so much, right now, as a rest. So she squatted down in a corner of the kitchen and tried to become invisible. The tall woman sighed, then nodded reluctantly.

‘Right y’are. Stay there quiet, chuck.’

She left the room. Other women, chattering, curious, came and went. Lilac’s eyelids began to droop but presently she saw that she had been forgotten and, when another shriek from the direction of the bedroom made her skin prickle, she decided she simply must discover what was going on. After all, if Bessie was ill she might be glad of Lilac to stay the night and get Charlie’s breakfast on the morrow.

So she walked nonchalantly across the room and slid unobtrusively into the bedroom.

The room was brightly lit with an array of candles on the washstand and mantelpiece. Bessie lay, naked but for a thin shift, with her dark hair curling damply across her sweaty brow, in the middle of the bed. A woman crouched on the bed in front of her, pushing at her knees, which were bent up and open in a manner which Lilac thought both strange and somehow obscene. There was something very odd about Bessie’s stomach, too. She had always been a buxom girl but now her stomach looked enormous. It was pointed and sweaty and seemed to have a life of its own, a life which the woman pushing against Bessie’s knees seemed to acknowledge, for now she bent her head, braced herself against Bessie’s white knees and shouted, ‘The ’ead’s showing; you’ve gorra give a rare old push now, queen!’

Bessie’s face was gleaming with sweat and red with effort. As Lilac stared, half fascinated and half repelled, Bessie gritted her teeth, tucked her chin into her chest, and pushed until veins stood out on her forehead and
there was blood on her lip where her teeth had driven in. She had hold of a piece of knotted sheet and was pulling on it as though she was playing tug-of-war with the woman holding the other end. Lilac recognised Bessie’s mother, Mrs Melville, and saw that she was crying. Lilac found that she was crying too, just a little, because it was hurting Bessie, you could tell, and even as she thought it the great, heaving tug and push ended in a grunt and a little shriek. And as Bessie began to relax the woman took her hands off Bessie’s knees and dived between her legs and Lilac saw that something lay on the sheet, something which looked uncommonly like a dark ball.

The woman seized the ball-like object and turned it gently and Lilac saw that it was the baby’s head; now she could make out the small, pursed face, streaked with blood and wet, and as the woman gently and smoothly pulled the rest of the baby appeared, not too fast but not too slow either, and Bessie gathered herself and pushed again, grunting, panting, and the baby was born!

There was a little murmur from the women round the bed; gladness for the young mother, her travail at an end, pleasure in the sight of the babe, pink and alive, beginning to cry as the midwife slapped it to make it take that first, crucial breath.

‘What is it?’ Bessie asked weakly, raising her head. ‘Where’s my Charlie?’

‘It’s a lickle lad; your old man’s in the kitchen; I’ll fetch ’im,’ someone volunteered, but the midwife, seeing Lilac’s round-eyed face in the doorway, said, ‘No, I’ll need you here; send the kid.’

Lilac needed no encouragement. She turned and rushed along the narrow corridor and back to the kitchen. The door was open and she bolted into the room.

‘It’s come, the baby’s here!’ she shouted. ‘Where’s Charlie? Where’s our Charlie?’

Charlie and Joey must have been on the balcony for Charlie came at a run through the kitchen, tousling Lilac’s hair in passing.

‘Joey ’splained,’ he said briefly. ‘You can kip down on the couch in the front room, just for tonight.’

Joey, coming in behind Charlie, caught Lilac’s shoulder when she would have followed, and pulled her to a halt.

‘No you don’t, leave the gel alone,’ he said severely. ‘That’s no place for the likes of you. Nah then, you awright wi’ Charlie?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Lilac said thankfully. ‘You’re
very
kind, Joey, but Charlie will take care of me now.’

‘He’s a good bloke,’ Joey agreed. ‘My, but you’re a little liar, aren’t you? Bruvver, indeed!’

‘He’s almost my brother,’ Lilac said, aggrieved. When she thought of the lies she could have told – she could have invented a whole family and told the gullible Joey that she was on her way home from some posh boarding school instead of admitting to the orphan asylum – she felt he was being unduly fussy to carp over a tiny lie about relationships. ‘And anyway, it would have taken me ages to explain, it’s such a long story!’

‘Oh, sure. And the way to ’ell is paved wiv good intentions,’ Joey pointed out somewhat obscurely. But he put a warm hand round the back of her neck and then bent and dropped a kiss on her upturned face. ‘Little blighter – I wouldn’t mind if you was my sister!’

He turned on the words and made for the balcony door. Lilac rushed after him.

‘Oh Joey, won’t you stay here as well? Where are you going? I do like you so much – I wouldn’t mind if you was my brother, too!’

Joey laughed but shook his head.

‘I can’t stay ’ere, sweet’eart, I’m booked into the Sailors’ for the night. The
Ocean Queen
sails on the tide tomorrer and you’ll have to go back to your asylum, you knows that, don’t you? But be a good gel and one of these days, when I’m in the ’pool, I’ll come a-visitin’, in me best, and tek you on the ferry to New Brighton. You can tell ’em you’re courtin’ a young feller from the Isle of Dogs named Joey Prescott and they’ll give you leave like a shot!’

‘Oh, but Joey, when? When will you be in the ’pool again? Don’t go, don’t ...’

But he had gone with a wave of the hand, striding along the balcony, stepping over small groups of children, clattering down the iron stairs. She could see him in her mind wending his way through the still-busy streets, whistling, grinning at passers-by. Kind Joey Prescott. She would never forget him.

‘Oh, Davy, whatever are we to do? I could’ve sworn she’d be at Aunt Ada’s but they’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her. I’m that worried ... d’you think I’d best go back to the Culler again?’

‘No; if she’s back, she’s safe, if she isn’t you’ll want to go on searching,’ Davy said.

They were standing in the entrance to the court as they had stood, Nellie remembered, on that long-ago wedding day – was it really little more than a year? – when they had first met. Perhaps it was thinking about the wedding that made Nellie suddenly say, ‘What about our Charlie, though, Davy? Got his own place he has, not too far from here. Him and Bessie asked me and Lilac round for our tea a few weeks ago. Lilac thought the new house was the most beautiful home in the world; she was made up to be invited. Do you suppose ...?’

‘Well, it’s awful late, but we might as well try,’ Davy agreed. ‘Do you know it’s past midnight, Nell? Will anyone be awake?’

‘We’ll rouse them, though our Bessie isn’t sleeping so good now she’s got so big with the baby,’ Nellie said. ‘Oh, I pray we find her there!’

But in fact they did not have to intrude on the young McDowells to discover Lilac’s whereabouts. The streets were thinning of people, the market stalls were closing and the shops were closed by the time they reached Victoria Square.

‘It’s that block; number five, and all the lights are on! I wonder ... ‘Nellie was beginning, when a seaman came lightly down the stairs from the second-floor flats. Nellie put a detaining hand on his arm when he would have passed them.

‘Oh, excuse me, have you come from number five? I wonder if you’ve seen a little girl ...’

The young man’s face, which had seemed ordinary enough, split into an enormous grin and promptly became beautiful.

‘Don’t tell me – you’ll be Nellie, and you’re searching for a golden ’aired little angel by the name of Lilac Larkin! She’s safe and well and snoozin’ on Charlie’s sofa right this minute. I met her dahn by the docks earlier this evening and when she got tired of gaddin’ rahnd she tole me about Charlie and Bessie and I brung ’er ’ere.’

‘You found her? Oh, how can I ever thank you?’ Nellie gasped. ‘She’s as dear to me as my own child ... well, I’ve had her in my care ever since she was tiny and a prettier, brighter kid you’d go a long way to find! Oh, what’s your name – there must be something we can do to thank you!’

The young man coloured and grinned sheepishly first at Nellie and then at Davy.

‘I’m Joey Prescott, and it was nothin’, she’s a nice kid, but she could’ve been in trouble if she’d met the wrong feller; you want to try to make her see that.’

‘Oh, she won’t do it again,’ Davy said easily. ‘She’ll do as she’s told now, specially for Nell here.’

Joey nodded, but still looked doubtful.

‘Mebbe so, but I doubt it, and I know what I’m talkin’ abaht. I was a foundling, left on a doorstep, and I ran off to sea when I was twelve. Now Lilac, she’s got you, Miss Nellie, from what she said, but she’s already had a taste of freedom; can’t guarantee she won’t take to it, like.’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, thank you kindly,’ Davy said. He spoke rather formally and Nellie gave him a sharp glance. Could it be that Davy was jealous? But that was just absurd! And it was rude, too, when you considered what Joey had done for Lilac.

More warmly than she might otherwise have done, therefore, she turned to Joey and spoke.

‘You may be right; Lilac certainly didn’t give me a thought when she ran off this afternoon and she could easily have fallen into the wrong company. I’ll keep my eye on her, don’t you fret, and many thanks again, Joey.’

‘And now I’ll walk you home,’ Davy said, when the young man had disappeared into the darkness. ‘Not that you’ll want to wake everyone at the Culler, I don’t suppose. Look, I know a lodging house not far from here; I’ve had a room there a couple of times, we can stay there for what remains of the night and pick Lilac up first thing in the morning. But do you want to pop up to number five now and make sure they keep her with them until then?’

‘I’d better,’ Nellie said rather reluctantly. She felt
foolish, barging into her brother’s home at this hour, but as it turned out she was made very welcome by the new father.

‘Nellie, give us a hug!’ Charlie said exuberantly as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. ‘See this little feller? He’s Henry Charles McDowell, after me and our Hal; want to have a hold of him?’

So Nellie held her little nephew and they had a cup of tea and then, since it was getting on for two in the morning, she and Davy left.

‘I can’t face going back to the Culler right now, I’ll tell them I spent the night at my aunt’s,’ she said as the two of them crossed the square. ‘Where’s this lodging house, Davy? You’re sure it’s respectable?’

‘Would I take you anywhere else? Here, down this alley and across the road at the end. We’ll be there in two shakes, then you can have a nice hot wash and sleep until breakfast time.’

Very early next morning, Lilac awoke in her borrowed bed and stared round her, quite unable to imagine where she could be. Every morning of her entire life so far she had awoken in the Culler; first in the nursery at the very top of the house with Nellie in her tiny slip of an attic room nearby, then in the long dormitory for the seven- to nine-year-olds. Never, in all that time, had she spent a night away from the orphan asylum – until now.

And now there were sounds coming from Bessie’s kitchen and somewhere a kitten was mewing dolefully. Lilac looked over at the window; there were lovely curtains drawn close, but she could see round the edges of them that day had definitely dawned. In fact it might be quite late, but what did it matter? No Mrs
Ransom to scold, no Lizzie Brandreth to tip her out of bed and shout at her for being late, no Miss Hicks to glower across the long breakfast table, her fingers no doubt itching to pull Lilac’s long hair.

No Nellie, either, though. Nellie, who loved her, would be worried by her non-appearance, probably she would have gone round to the police station and asked if they had a missing child called Lilac Larkin anywhere on the premises.

Nellie loved her. Nellie would cry.

On the thought, Lilac scrambled out of bed. It was all very well to think of herself as a runaway, but she had always known, in her heart, that she would have to go back. Back to bread and scrape and watered milk, back to brown hair ribbon and scratchy underclothing. Back to bossy girls, boring girls, spiteful girls. But also back to Nellie, whose skin smelt sweetly of soap and water and whose hair shone from brushing. Back to Nellie, who had surrounded and encompassed her with love and caring all the days of her life.

She had not undressed last night so did not have to dress now, which was fun after seven years of constantly undressing each night and dressing again each morning. Her hair was a shocking tangle, though. She poked ineffectually at it, then decided to borrow a brush from either Bessie or Charlie, whoever was up and about – and someone was, she could hear a subdued clatter coming from the kitchen.

She opened the front room door and let herself out, with a quick, valedictory glance at her ‘bedroom’. It was rather a stiff room, with a new second-hand sideboard, a new second-hand carpet and several new second-hand chairs. But the sofa on which she had slept so peacefully was one which had belonged to Bessie’s Gran and the blanket Charlie had thrown over
her had been crocheted by Aunt Ada especially for Charlie’s new home. Lilac stole back and folded the blanket neatly, then went and drew back the curtains. It was still very early, a milky mist hung over the houses opposite and wreathed around the patchy grass between them. But there was a warmth behind the mist which she could almost feel – it was going to be another sunny day.

She made her way to the kitchen and it was Charlie clattering softly, Charlie taking the milk jug out of the bowl of water where it had been left to keep cool overnight, pouring some into a cup, getting the kettle off the fire and wetting the pot, making Bessie a nice cuppa, he said. He bustled round the kitchen in his trousers with his top half bare and his beard beginning to darken his chin. He was not going down to the docks today, he explained, though it would be business as usual tomorrow. He had drawn back the curtains and put a brush over the oilcloth and he had finished off yesterday’s milk and the white jug stood ready for when the milkman called in the square below.