Liverpool Miss (8 page)

Edward and I went for our afternoon walk. It was raining slightly, so he rode in the Chariot and I put the ancient pram’s hood up to protect him from the wet. Though the frame protruded through the rents in the cover, it still sheltered him fairly well. The rain slowly soaked my cardigan. I was used to it and did not care.

Our street was a straight line of terrace houses, once respectable working-class homes. Now the inhabitants were very mixed; and my father and a fireman who lived further down the street were the only two men in regular employment. Many of the homes had more than one family in them and were dirty and neglected. A few were very well kept; mended curtains arranged neatly on either side of the front window, with an aspidistra in a pottery
bowl filling up the middle space, the window sill highly polished and the front step whitened.

Our beige curtains, as yet unpaid for, looked tidy behind windowpanes which I had washed with hot water and newspaper pads. Our front step, however, was littered with dried orange peel and cigarette ends flung there by our next door neighbours, whose front door abutted ours. They also spat on our step, as they sat on their own doorstep and smoked and read comic books. We never spoke to the man and wife and toddler who lived there. They would stare at us when we passed them, as if we were beings from another planet, and I suspect that they made ribald jokes at our stuffiness.

We walked the length of the long street, crossed Kingsley Road, which still had some shabby gentility about it, and continued on to Lodge Lane, where we spent a little while shop gazing, and I taught Edward the names of some of the household utensils exhibited in a chandlery shop.

The April clouds rolled away and the sun came out to make the rain-washed streets glitter with sudden cleanliness. When we neared home again, Edward said he wanted to walk. The pavement was no longer very wet, so I set him down on it and he ran ahead of me. I had made him a pair of bootees out of an old felt hat. They were stitched with wool
from an unravelled sweater, and between two felt soles I had put a double layer of cardboard. I hoped the damp would not penetrate to his tiny feet.

Alice Davis was leaning against the doorjamb of her home as we came near, and she called to the small boy. He stopped and gave her one of his winning smiles. She stepped into the street and squatted down in front of him to talk baby talk to him. Then she ran back into the house and returned with a plain biscuit for him, which he snatched gladly out of her hand.

Though Alice was only about twenty-five years old, her face was lined and her smile practically toothless. She wore her black hair screwed into an unbecoming bun at the back of her head. Her blue-grey eyes were merry as she gently teased Edward.

I stopped to thank her for the biscuit and made Edward say, ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s nothing,’ she replied. Then she went on, ‘That Mrs Ferguson come to see me about Edward. I said I’d take him. Did you get the job?’ Her voice had the thick nasal accent of the born Liverpudlian.

‘Yes,’ I responded dully. ‘I’m supposed to start on Monday.’

‘Well, aren’t you?’ She looked me over disparagingly, and burst out, ‘You’re lucky, you are, to get a job.’

I nodded agreement. ‘I know I am.’ Then I thought suddenly that there is nothing like a
fait accompli
, so I said boldly, ‘If you will look after Edward, I can start.’

‘Oh, aye. I said I would. He’s a little dear, he is.’

‘I could pay you the ten shillings every Saturday afternoon when I come home from work. I think I would be paid on Fridays, but I am not certain. So I’ll promise to bring it every Saturday.’

‘Isn’t that your Mam’s business?’

I hesitated. I could not say that I doubted if Mother would pay regularly, so I said, ‘We’ll settle it between us. I’ll bring Edward down every morning before I go to work, and Fiona can collect him when she gets back from school.’

Alice threw back her head and laughed. ‘First few days you could bring him. After that he’ll run up and down by himself, won’t you, luv?’ She bent down and chucked Edward under the chin. He swallowed the last of the biscuit and giggled and twisted away from her. ‘’Tis only a few doors away,’ she added.

‘If you think he’ll be all right,’ I said anxiously.

‘Sure, he will. I’ll see our door is open for him. And he can have a bit to eat with us at dinner time.’

‘Thank you, Alice. I’m very grateful to you. See you on Monday morning – about eight o’clock.’

Alice bent down again and picked up Edward and nuzzled her face into his, laughing all the time. ‘Yes. We’ll have a proper nice time together.’

And with great relief I felt that she was right.

Clean out the grate, make the fire, lay clean newspaper on the table, cut the bread, make the tea, all with a stomach tight with apprehension. Would I ever know what it was like not to be frightened?

It was worse than I had expected.

Firstly, I had opened the parcel. Did I not realise that letters and parcels were opened by parents, regardless of how they were addressed? Furthermore, I had ironed the garments, thus accepting them without parental permission.

I had no right to speak to Alice. I had no right to say that I would begin work on Monday. Parents decided such a thing and they had decided that I should stay at home. It seemed to me that I had no rights at all, only a formidable list of obligations.

Cornered, terrified rats turn and attack. Some human beings, however, have less courage, and I was ready to give in, when help came suddenly from an unexpected quarter.

Fiona said in a quivering voice, ‘I can make the
tea and take care of Edward and Avril till you come home, Mummy. And I can help to put them to bed. I could even do the shopping if you gave me a list.’

It must have cost her dearly to speak up on my behalf. It came as a surprise to me that she should love me enough to do so. I gave love but I did not expect anything in return. I had always protected her as much as I could from hunger and cold and jeering local boys and girls, helped her with her homework because she had great difficulty in learning, and frankly admired her because she had such a sweet temperament. And now, on my behalf, the gentle creature was laying herself open to our parents’ bitter censure. I was moved beyond words and was still gaping at her, when Alan put down his toast and said, ‘I don’t mind giving a hand as well.’

Alan and I had always got along very well, once I had recovered from the infant jealousy which his birth had engendered; and I was grateful for his intercession. Mother loved her sons and would listen to him.

Alan was saying stoutly that all girls went to work now. A lady from the employment exchange had come to the school to counsel them about work, and she had interviewed the girls as well as the boys. So it must be so.

Though Father was still trembling with rage, I could see he was listening to Alan’s remarks. Mother started to cry and say that she could not manage, and I felt dreadful, because the ultimate responsibility for all of us rested on her shoulders. She was not idle after returning from work; she would rest for a little while and then spend some time with Edward and Avril. While I was at night school, she would check the children’s clothes after they had gone to bed and sometimes did part of the washing and ironing. She was not in the best of health, and her tears racked me.

Fiona and Alan were, however, arguing in a soothing way that the family was big enough and each of them old enough to make it possible for me to be spared.

Father got up suddenly and swung out of the room. I saw him take his trilby hat off the hall peg and clap it down on his head. Without a word, he lifted the latch of the front door and went out into the ill-lit street. I knew from experience that when he came back he would smell of beer and would be amiably jocular with all of us.

As he went, Mother blew her nose quickly, and then shouted after him, ‘You can’t face anything, can you? Must you always waste money on drink?’

He did not reply. Shell-shocked, war weary, he had been ill enough himself to draw a full army pension for several years after serving in Russia. Probably his nerves screamed for sedation, and his comfortless home and unruly family made the pain unbearable.

Fiona got up and put her arms round Mother’s neck. ‘Don’t cry, Mummy. If Helen goes to work, she’s so clever she’ll soon earn lots and lots. And then you will be able to stay at home and not have to work any more.’

Fiona’s and Alan’s advocacy gave me a little courage again. I was so terribly unhappy myself that I felt I could not go on as I had been doing; something had to give. Unlike Fiona, I was quite sure that the last thing Mother wanted was to be at home with her family all day; yet my needs deserved consideration, too.

‘Let us try, Mummy,’ I begged. ‘I should get more money after a little while and it would help.’

But Mother was still flaming with wrath. She pushed Fiona away, bounced out of her chair and shook her finger at me. ‘You are talking rubbish. You are disobedient and ungrateful. You haven’t even matriculated. You are unskilled in anything.’

I fired up immediately, ‘And whose fault is that?’

Mother nearly choked. She slapped me across
the face. ‘I never heard such impudence,’ she screamed.

I backed away from her, snatched up my night school books from the mantelpiece, and tried not to scream back, as I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m going to work on Monday. Otherwise, I am going to Granny’s – so you won’t have my help anyway.’

Mother had been a very beautiful woman. Convulsed with rage, she looked like an infuriated witch, and I was terrified.

‘Go!’ she yelled at me. ‘All right. Go to work! You will soon discover that the world is a very cruel place and you will long to be at home again. Get out of my sight.’

By this time all the children were bellowing like frightened cows. Fiona and Avril clung to Mother, crying, ‘Don’t, Mummy, don’t.’ Brian, Tony and Edward were all in noisy tears. Only Alan sat tearless; he yelled, ‘I don’t know why everybody had to make such a row!’

I backed through the door. Then turned and followed Father into the night.

Mother did not need to tell me that the world outside was a cruel place. I knew that already. But faintly, faintly on the horizon it had its rays of hope.

‘Mr Ellis,’ I whispered shyly, ‘I am the new telephone girl.’

Four other girls in the room paused in their work to stare at me, while Mr Ellis put down his pen carefully on his desk and looked up at me. He frowned at what he saw.

‘Humph. You are?’ He took out his handkerchief and held it to his nose. I heard a girl giggle.

I lowered my eyes. I knew I looked awful. Joan’s skirt and blouse hung on me. My rough-cut hair could have served as a mop. Both feet throbbed with the pain of blisters rubbed on tender chilblains, and I was biting my lips as I endured the misery of it. Over me lay the smell of poverty, of a body poorly washed, clothes unaired, foul breath and fatigue.

The man before me was thin and dark-visaged,
with the same air of nervous tension as Father had. He called to a girl sitting in front of the telephone switchboard.

‘Miss Finch, show t’ girl what to do.’

He gestured towards the switchboard with his pen, as he picked it up, so I silently went over to Miss Finch. While I stood awkwardly beside her, I could see out of the corner of my eye, two other girls sniggering behind their hands as they watched.

Miss Finch answered the telephone in a thick Liverpool accent. In between calls, without preamble, she explained to me that people wishing to apply to the Charity for help entered through the basement, where there was a waiting room. A girl took their names and telephoned them up to the room we were in. The switchboard operator wrote them down and handed the slips of paper to the filing clerks. The applicant’s file, if any, was then sent down to the Interviewing Floor directly below us, where there was another waiting room.

The applicant was then sent upstairs, past the Tea Blending Company on the main floor, to be united with his file. At this point, a senior staff member inquired what he had come about, and he was then seated in the second waiting room. He was finally interviewed in a side room. It was a long, slow process for the applicants.

Miss Finch was a black-haired, rosy-cheeked girl, who seemed to resent me very much. She told me she was the office girl and was filling in on the switchboard until I could take over. I presumed that she had not won promotion to the job of telephonist because of her bad accent.

‘Names beginning A to J go to Dorothy Evans; K to Z to Phyllis over there.’ She got up and handed me the phone. ‘You take the next call from the basement.’

Gingerly, I lifted the receiver to my ear, while Miss Finch moved the appropriate switches. A garbled rattle came through the receiver. I could not interpret it. In a panic, I handed the instrument back to Miss Finch, who hastily jotted down a name on her pad.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked impatiently, as she handed me the slip. ‘Give this to Phyllis Barker.’ When I hesitated uncertainly, she hissed, ‘Over there. Be quick.’

Phyllis snatched the slip out of my hand, quickly jumped up and vanished down her aisle of files. Her high-heeled patent leather shoes flashed, as she moved.

‘How do you answer the phone and deliver the names to the filing clerks at the same time?’ I whispered to Miss Finch.

Miss Finch made a wry face. ‘You run,’ she whispered back. ‘Everybody runs.’

She was right. The filing clerks, the telephonists, the disembodied voice in the basement, the whimpering nervous girl who served in the Cash Department next door, Miss Finch herself as she made tea and delivered letters, all ran. Like convicts, at the double, they scuttled upstairs and downstairs, scurrying in and out of offices to look for files or deliver messages, running, running, running. Sometimes, I almost expected them to take wing, like one does in nightmares. They were not allowed to use the lift, because the charity was short of money and it was necessary to keep the electricity bill to a minimum.

Miss Finch left me to manage the telephone alone for a few minutes. She had to sort some letters into a round for hand delivery and did this at another table. In seconds, the awesome Presence who had interviewed me and had given me the job, shuffled out of her room, to inquire of Miss Danson, her secretary, why she had found herself speaking to her own basement when she wanted to speak to the Public Assistance Committee two miles away.

Miss Danson murmured about the new girl just starting and eased her back into her room, while Mr Ellis barked at both Miss Finch and me to be more careful.

It was a dreadful morning, during which I managed to create telephonic chaos. I could hardly hear what was said. I had no idea of the names of the other staff or where they were to be found. I had no list of commonly required outside numbers and had to look each of them up in the telephone book. And, quickly enough, I realised from Miss Finch’s manner that she did not feel it was in her interest to help me to make a success of the job.

I was left alone, while Miss Finch went to make the office’s morning tea, and I called almost tearfully to Phyllis to come to help me sort the switchboard out.

‘Not Phyllis, Miss Forrester,’ roared Mr Ellis, behind me, ‘Miss Barker, if you please.’ He paused, while I sat paralysed with fright, and then said, ‘Can’t you speak quieter? I can’t stand that la-dee-da accent.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I whispered, as Phyllis Barker kindly came to my aid.

I realised suddenly that, except for Mr Ellis, everyone in the room whispered. And nobody laughed. Not one girl, except Miss Barker, had even smiled at me yet. The constant tattoo of the typewriter of the Presence’s secretary, the buzz of the telephone switchboard, the flutter of paper and the steady hiss of whispers made up the noises in the room.

Miss Finch told me my lunch hour would be from one-thirty to two-thirty, and the morning seemed endless. She dumped a cup of tea in front of me with a biscuit tucked in the saucer, and I ate and drank eagerly. In a quiet moment Miss Barker found me a list of commonly-used telephone numbers and I tried to master it. The names and figures danced in front of me. I needed badly a list of the names of the staff and their numbers on the switchboard, so that I could connect incoming calls to the correct extension; and when Miss Finch returned to assist me, I asked her for this.

She shrugged and said I did not need a list. I would soon learn the names. In the meantime, outraged voices on every extension phone sibilantly rebuked me. It was a nightmare.

At twelve o’clock, the basement waiting room closed and there were no more names to write down and deliver to the filing clerks. This gave me more time to deal with other calls and contemplate more quietly the hateful, buzzing board.

Just before lunch time, a thin waif of a girl wearing large horn-rimmed glasses came out of a door on the other side of the room.

With an apprehensive glance at Mr Ellis, she crept over to me and said in an almost inaudible voice, ‘The Cashier would like to see you during
your lunch hour.’ She sniffed, and I saw that she had been crying. Her nose was red and her eyes heavy with tears. It looked as if she had been in even more trouble than I had.

‘The Cash Department is over there,’ she added, pointing to the room from which she had come.

I smiled up at her. ‘Thanks. I’ll come.’

She managed a glimmer of a smile back and then fled across the room and through the door she had pointed out to me.

Fear of what lay in wait in the Cash Department was added to my fear of the telephone.

I knocked at the Cash Department door and a female voice snapped, ‘Come in.’

I entered. The room was partly divided by a frosted-glass screen and at first appeared to be empty. I paused.

‘Well?’ snapped the same voice again, from behind the glass screen.

I approached cautiously.

Behind the screen, at a littered desk, sat a small, grey-haired woman. She looked at me almost belligerently. ‘What do you want?’

‘You sent for me, Madam. I am Helen Forrester.’

‘Hmm.’ She looked me up and down, and her nose wrinkled in distaste.

She turned round and took two folded blue garments from a shelf behind her. These she almost threw into my arms.

‘Your overalls. You will wear them at all times in the office and will keep them clean.’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘You will be paid on Friday afternoons. Such a nuisance to have to pay a single member of the staff on a weekly basis. What is your full name and address? And age?’

I told her.

‘Very well. You can go.’ She turned back to her desk, and I tiptoed out, past two empty desks where presumably the weepy girl and another person worked.

The general office was empty, except for an elderly lady in a pretty grey dress who was manning the telephone. She nodded to me as I went out.

I went up to the cloakroom on the top floor of the building. This had been shown to me when I arrived, by a hurrying lady in a green overall whom I had met on the stairs. I laid the two blue overalls on the floor under the hook where I had hung my coat, and wondered what to do. There was nobody about and the silence seemed unearthly. I began to cry, my head pressed against my coat.

I had no money to buy lunch, and there had
been no bread left after breakfast to bring with me. Both parents had left me severely alone, to get myself ready for work and Edward ready to go to Alice’s. Feeling like a pariah, I had taken the cheerful little boy to his new friend’s and he had stayed with her without a murmur, and then I had walked to work.

There was no doubt in my mind that my parents were united in their attitude that I should find going to work so difficult that I would eventually be thankful to return to housekeeping.

At the memory of their stony faces, I felt suddenly weak. I moved to the wash basin and clung to it, as my legs began to give under me. Wild colours flashed before my eyes and I felt myself sinking into oblivion. I knew from experience that I rarely passed out completely, so I clung to the wash basin until the world stopped swimming about.

I cupped my hand under the cold tap and drank some water, slurping it up and splashing my face. Greatly daring, I decided to have a wash. My face was soaped as it had never been soaped in the past three years. I rinsed and rinsed in gorgeous hot water, then dried myself on the spotlessly clean roller towel.

The light was poor, but in the mirror I could see green eyes with black rings round them, peering
out of a face dead white, except where it was blotched with acne. Short eyelashes hardly showed on the reddened eyelids. Smooth eyebrows looked very black below a rough fringe of brown hair. I grinned ruefully at myself. The teeth thus exposed looked good – the cavities at the back did not show.

The wash had done me good and, as nobody disturbed me, I washed my glasses, dried them on the towel and put them on. The face in the mirror came into sharper focus, and I could see again how defeatingly plain I was. How I longed for a perfectly straight nose, like Fiona’s, instead of the high-bridged, haughty-looking Forrester nose.

Without a watch I did not know the time. Meanwhile, I needed to sit down, and there was no chair in the cloakroom.

Hesitantly, I looked along the line of blue overalls hung neatly on their owners’ hooks, and saw beyond them a door leading off the cloakroom.

Very quietly, I approached the door and opened it.

I was in a small passage. To my left, an open door revealed a neat kitchenette. It had a big window and was bright with light. Another closed door faced me. When I turned its handle, it gave a sharp click.

‘Hello. Come in,’ said a soft feminine voice very cheerfully.