Lights Out Liverpool (32 page)

‘See, Mrs Costello, I told you!’ Gladys shook Eileen’s arm gleefully.

‘You mean to say you go along with this, Gladys?’ Eileen said, gaping.

Gladys frowned. All she could think of was the money. One hundred pounds! She hadn’t understood about signing a paper. She’d take the money, then get Mrs Costello to write another letter and demand Freda back. ‘I don’t see what harm it would do,’ she muttered. The expression on her neighbour’s face made her feel slightly uneasy.

‘Then I don’t know why you bothered asking me in,’ Eileen Costello said coldly. She felt as if she was taking part in a bizarre sort of pantomime.

‘I have the paper here.’ Clive Waterton drew a folded sheet out of the breast pocket of his black overcoat.

‘Have you got the money?’ Gladys asked eagerly.

He nodded. ‘I went to the bank on the way.’

Gladys imagined a bag bursting with threepenny bits and sixpences and shillings, and hoped he hadn’t left it in his car, where someone might pinch it.

‘I take it your wife approves?’ Eileen remembered the funny little woman who seemed to think the world of Freda.

Clive Waterton didn’t answer immediately. ‘She does,’ he said eventually in clipped tones. Sensing the neighbour’s disapproval, he was somewhat relieved when she shrugged and turned as if to leave.

Eileen was glad for Freda, glad she was going to where she wanted to be, but she found the idea of buying and selling a child totally repugnant.

‘I don’t suppose,’ a voice said cuttingly, ‘anybody thought of asking me what
I
want?’

Freda came into the room, still in her velvet coat, though looking creased and dishevelled. ‘I don’t want to go to Southport, not with Vivien dead,’ she said, eyes blazing.

Eileen Costello looked at her sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You heard. Vivien’s dead.’

For once, Clive Waterton found himself disconcerted. He’d never dreamt the girl would refuse. ‘It’s what Vivien would have wanted,’ he stammered.

Freda tossed her head proudly, ‘Vivien would have wanted what was best for me. I want to stay and look after Dicky.’

‘But, Freda …’ Eileen began helplessly, it was getting beyond her, but Freda silenced her with a sharp, ‘Shurrup!’

Now that Vivien had gone, the only person left to love was Dicky, Freda had concluded earlier. She’d no intention of slipping back into the old ways, of getting dirtier and dirtier, until she returned to being an object of contempt. Vivien had shown her she was pretty and clever, and Freda intended staying that way. She owed Vivien that much. Somehow, in some way, she vowed, she’d stay clean and go to school and make sure Dicky did, too. Now Clive had turned up, and she knew how it could be done.

‘I want you to give me the money,’ she said flatly to Clive.

Clive hadn’t thought it possible, so soon after Vivien’s death, but he almost laughed. The nerve of the girl!

‘What for?’

With a disdainful glance around the room, Freda said, ‘To clean this place up. To buy curtains and furniture and proper dishes and clothes for Dicky. To feed us, because it’s no use expecting me mam to do it.’ She glared at Gladys, then turned the glare on Clive, daring him to refuse.

He was looking at her, slightly puzzled. Eleven years
old
, but she was tougher than old boots, he thought admiringly. He’d never noticed before, but she had more character in her little finger than most people had in their entire bodies.

‘It’s what Vivien would have wanted,’ Freda added slyly.

Of course, she was right. ‘Will it be safe? The money, I mean?’

‘Of course it will,’ Gladys said heartily. Gladys had been watching the proceedings, trying to fathom what was going on. One minute, it seemed Freda was leaving and a hundred pounds was within her grasp, next, Freda was staying and the money had slipped out of her fingers. Now it seemed as if she was going to get it after all.

Freda turned reluctantly to Eileen Costello. She hated asking for a favour. ‘Will you look after the money for me?’ She couldn’t take it to school with her, and her mam would tear the house apart looking for it whilst she was gone.

‘Of course I will, luv, for the time being, but you’d better start a Post Office account.’

‘I will,’ Freda said in a hard, determined voice. ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

On Saturday morning, Eileen Costello and Annie Poulson descended on Number 14 with buckets of hot water, scrubbing brushes, scouring powder and several pints of disinfectant. Freda would have liked to refuse their help, but she recognised the job would be done much quicker with a few extra pairs of hands. When Aggie Donovan saw what they were up to, she came too, if only because she liked to see the inside of other people’s houses, particularly the Tuttys’, where she clucked with disapproval at everything – though she was a good,
thorough
worker, and by midday, the walls and the ceilings had been cleaned, the skirtings, the floors and the stairs scrubbed, and the windows sparkled. The furniture had been piled in the yard for the rag and bone man to take, except for the double brass bedstead, which Aggie Donovan said would be a shame to throw away and could be brought up to look like new with a bit of Brasso.

At one o’clock, a van arrived with several rolls of patterned lino which Freda had bought the day before, and the women got to work laying it, to be joined by Dai Evans and Jack Doyle. Dicky was despatched for a box of tacks to keep the lino down in the corners.

‘This won’t last five minutes,’ whispered Annie, cutting out a piece for round the fireplace. ‘It’s no better than cardboard. It must be the cheapest you can buy.’

‘Shush!’ Eileen pressed her arm. ‘It’s what Freda wants.’

‘I’ll never get the smell of disinfectant off before I meet Barney tonight,’ Annie grumbled. ‘He’ll think he’s out with a lavatory brush.’

‘Are you going out with him again? I thought you were playing hard to get?’

‘It’ll only be the third time. I’m not exactly throwing meself at him, am I?’ Annie said tartly.

It was just gone three when another van came with the furniture, all secondhand; a kitchen table and a set of wooden chairs, a couple of armchairs, a leatherette three-piece, an elaborately carved sideboard, a bedroom suite and a single bed. Freda had driven a hard bargain in the shop and bought the lot for almost half the asking price.

‘Where are these to go, luv?’ the delivery man asked, and Freda instructed him in which rooms to put the furniture.

Freda was in her element, though no-one would have guessed from her stern, unsmiling little face. She doubted if the Queen got more pleasure out of furnishing Buckingham Palace than she got that day. She just wished all these people would finish and go away. Once they’d gone, she’d light a fire in the living room, where the chimney had been swept early that morning, and sit in one of the new chairs and, later on, eat a proper meal off the table.

Poor Gladys hovered in the background, ignored whilst all this was going on. The neighbours who invaded her house that Saturday deferred only to Freda.

‘Where d’you want this, luv?’

‘Freda, which curtains do you fancy in the parlour over the blackout?’

The curtains, the dishes, the ornaments, had begun to arrive in the afternoon. Once the people in Pearl Street realised what was going on, that Number 14 was going through a transformation, they cleared out their box-rooms and their cupboards and came over with odds and ends of cutlery and crockery and faded, threadbare curtains, put away ‘just in case’. Someone even bought a full size tin bath and a painting of reindeer standing gloomily in a forest.

Freda resented being the object of such charity; in fact, she hated it. She let Mrs Costello answer the door, take the stuff and say ‘thank you’. On the other hand, she conceded privately, the more she was given, the less she’d need to spend and the longer she and Dicky would be able to live on Clive Waterton’s hundred pounds. She never included her mam in her calculations.

The only person she vaguely liked was a new woman, Mrs Fleming, who’d come to live over the road, only because she reminded her a bit of Vivien. She was much
taller
and fatter, but she wore a pretty dress and her nails were painted red and she smelt of perfume, the way Vivien had always done. Mrs Fleming brought over a pair of beautiful curtains that even Freda had to admire. They were gold in one light and green in another. She also bought a little cherry-coloured rug for in front of the fire. Even so, Freda disappeared into the yard when she came so she wouldn’t have to thank her.

By six o’clock, everyone had gone. Freda drew the faded cotton curtains across the black cardboard sheet pinned to the window, lit the fire in the range and moved the kettle on its hob over the flames. The gas mantle behind its cracked glass shade gave off a bright orange glow. It was the first time she could remember it being lit, only because it was the first time there was money in the meter. Gladys had used candles for illumination in the past.

‘I’ll make something to eat in a minute,’ she said to Dicky. The pair sat stiff and upright in the armchairs. Dicky’s legs scarcely touched the red rug on the floor.

‘You can’t cook,’ exclaimed Dicky, then, frowning, ‘Can you?’

Thinking of the miracles wrought by his sister over the last few days, if she’d announced she could fly he would have believed her.

‘Of course, I can. I used to help Vivien make the meals at the weekend when Mrs Critchley wasn’t there.’

Dicky sighed, reckoning he was going to hear about Vivien non-stop for the rest of his life. ‘Couldn’t we have chips from the chippy?’ he asked longingly. He was starving, as usual, and chips were his favourite meal.

‘Well,’ Freda began reluctantly. ‘Oh, I suppose so, just for once. Get a piece of cod as well, and we’ll have half each.’ She was worn out and, anyroad, there hadn’t been
time
to get in much in the way of food.

‘Shall I get some for me mam?’

‘Where is she?’ Freda glanced around the room, as if Gladys might be hiding in a corner or under the new table.

‘I dunno. She went out ages ago.’

‘There’s not much point, then, is there?’ Freda said disdainfully. ‘She’ll be in the pub by now. Here’s a shilling for the fish and chips, and bring every penny of the change back safe, now.’

Dicky wouldn’t have dared not to. As he was about to leave, Freda called him back. ‘Where’s the overcoat I bought the other day?’ She’d got the tweed overcoat from the pawnshop. It was at least two sizes too big, but thick and warm. ‘You’re not to go out without your overcoat again,’ she ‘warned him sternly.

‘No, Freda,’ Dicky said meekly.

After Dicky had gone, Freda curled her legs underneath her and sat on them, the way Vivien used to do. She was pleased with what she’d achieved over the last few days. She’d created a home out of nothing. She forgot entirely that other people had helped. It was her achievement, no-one else’s. From now on, Freda decided, smiling grimly, mam would be kept in line. If she thought she could hit Dicky again, she had another think coming, and she’d be made to use the toilet, not pee in the grid the way she usually did. Freda would buy a boiler and a mangle and show her how to do the washing. And another thing, mam could chuck away that smelly old shawl and wear a coat like the rest of the women in Pearl Street, if only because she let Freda down by looking so scruffy.

On Monday, she’d go back to school and study hard. She could read now, and do sums, and she’d
teach
Dicky to do the same.

The kettle began to boil. Freda reached out with her foot and pushed the hob away. She’d make the tea in a minute when Dicky came back. Next door, Mrs Costello switched her wireless on, and an orchestra began to play,
When they begin the beguine
… It was one of Vivien’s favourites. In fact, she used to dance to it, swirling around the room like a little ballerina in one of her floating dresses. Freda had scarcely cried since she’d learnt Vivien was dead, only a few terrible minutes in the phone box. She cried now, sobbed her heart out, for the person who’d loved her so dearly. She cried quietly, though, for fear someone would hear. She wanted pity from nobody.

But when Dicky came home with the fish and chips, Freda was dry-eyed. That was the last time she’d cry for anybody, even Vivien.

With the new year the battle at sea continued, with ships sunk and terrible losses on both sides. On land, though, the conflict seemed to have reached stalemate. Nothing was happening and Jack Doyle remarked caustically, ‘We’ll win when the Fuhrer dies of old age,’ but his eldest daughter felt there was something sinister in Hitler’s apparent inactivity. ‘He’s plotting something,’ she thought. ‘He’s too arrogant a man to start a war and then do nothing.’ But at least the unexpected respite gave Britain the opportunity to arm herself.

Winston Churchill’s speech, urging, ‘
Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-Boats, sweep the mines, plough the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succour the wounded, uplift the downcast, and honour the brave
…’ fell on deaf ears as far as the Government were concerned, though not amid the people who longed
to
have a crack at the tyrant. Chamberlain was universally loathed for his procrastination and ineptitude.

The country was sharply reminded they were at war when rationing came into force during the second week of January. Many people had already given up sugar in their tea, as it had been hard to get for months. Now, they were allowed twelve ounces a week, but at least it was available, along with four ounces each of bacon and butter. As margarine remained unrationed, the people of Pearl Street were not particularly bothered over the butter, which they used either not at all or only on Sundays. What bothered them more was the disappearance of onions from the shops. How could you make a decent stew without onions? Many were the curses heaped on Hitler’s head when a man sat down to his tea of tripe and cabbage or cauliflower, instead of the much preferred traditional onions.

Eileen Costello offered most of her butter ration to Nick, who lived on sandwiches at home and declared he couldn’t exist without it. ‘You baby!’ she declared fondly as they sat in the pub opposite Dunnings during the dinner hour. It seemed a waste of time hiding their friendship from the girls after New Year’s Eve, though she winced at the suggestive remarks and coarse jokes flung to and fro across the workshop.