Liverpool Taffy (18 page)

The deck hands cleared the deck; they were not wanted now, but as soon as the
Bess
stopped again the hands rushed out into the cold once more to do their appointed tasks and presently the Mate leaned over the rail and examined the trawl, now held in position, sunk to the right depth, and trawling everything which came within its maw.

‘All square, and level aft!’

Up on the bridge the Skipper nodded, spoke to the crew member on the bridge with him, and turned away from the window.

On the deck, Greasy and Dick nodded to each other and headed for the companionway. Below, they lit cigarettes with freezing, trembling hands and took deep, nerve-calming drags.

‘In three hours she’ll be bulgin’ an’ we’ll haul,’ Abe Brown said, squeezing past them. ‘Better get some rest as you aren’t on watch.’

They nodded, every muscle aching from the recent strain. Three hours and it would all happen again,
only this time the trawl, with luck, would be full … considerably heavier. But they had a vested interest in the catch … every man aboard would be watching eagerly, praying for a good haul. Bonuses were paid on fish caught.

‘C’mon, let’s see if anyone’s got a card game going; it’s scarcely worth going to bed for three hours.’

Greasy nodded. The two of them walked along to the mess deck.

‘I’m gonna write to me Mam,’ Greasy said, as they settled on the wooden bench. ‘I’ll post it soon’s we git ashore. You join the card school if you like, Taff.’

‘Can’t be bothered,’ Dai said lazily. ‘I’ll write to my sister.’

But they had both drifted into an uneasy sleep by the time the bell sounded for the haul to commence.

Spring came at last, a long, sweet spring to make up, Ellen said, for the worst winter for years and years.

‘I don’t think it was a particularly bad winter,’ Biddy protested, but Ellen said waspishly that she had thought it was pretty bad when she was trying to bicycle up Mount Pleasant in a blizzard and since that was true, Biddy stopped arguing.

The two girls were getting on as well as ever, but Biddy had noticed that Ellen was nervy, edgy. Her friend had made no attempt to bring anyone back to the flat since the awful day when Biddy had met Mr Bowker for the first time, but though they still went dancing and enjoyed young men’s company, it was gradually borne in upon Biddy that Ellen, who had so loved to flirt, seemed to have lost all interest in such frivolous pastimes.

Instead, she spent a great deal of time doing things to her hair, trying new cosmetics and buying pretty clothes. She even began to do a little dressmaking, and one day she came home with a pad of thick, interesting looking paper and a box of colours and announced that she wanted to go on the ferry over to Woodside and paint the scenery.

‘Can you paint?’ Biddy asked tactlessly.

Ellen narrowed her eyes at her friend. ‘Anyone can paint,’ she said firmly. ‘Are you comin’ or not?’

‘Well, what’ll I do while you paint?’ Biddy said. ‘What if it rains?’

‘If it rains we shan’t go,’ Ellen said firmly. ‘Don’t be stupid, Bid, no one paints in the rain.’

‘Well, I’ll see what it’s like next Sunday,’ Biddy said cautiously. ‘One day a week off isn’t much. I don’t want to waste it sittin’ on a river bank watching you dabble.’

‘Well, I’m sick o’ hangin’ round the flat all day Sunday, waitin’ for somethin’ to ’appen,’ Ellen said pettishly. ‘If only Mr Bowker wasn’t so scared of ’is wife ’e could take me trips on a Sunday. I’m goin’ to tell ’im if ’e don’t watch out I’ll get meself a seven-day-a-week feller.’

‘Then you’d lose your nice flat – and so would I,’ Biddy said, trying to jolly Ellen out of her glooms. ‘We’d neither of us like that much, would we?’

Ellen shrugged. ‘Oh, I dunno. Mebbe I wouldn’t an’ mebbe I would. I’m fed up wi’ t’ings the way they are an’ that’s the truth. Straight up!’

‘It’s the spring,’ Biddy said wisely. ‘Everything’s all new and flowery and that, but life goes on just the same, only duller. But things will brighten up; Mr Bowker will take you to Paris, like he said, and …’

‘Yeah, there’s that,’ Ellen said, brightening. ‘I’ll ask ’im when we’re goin’ tomorrer, first thing.’

Mr Bowker told Ellen that they would leave in a fortnight and stay in Paris five days, and though she pouted at him and said it wasn’t long enough and what was wrong with a week, she came home much more contented with her lot and drove Biddy mad for days and days by insisting that they talk nothing but French in the flat.

‘But we can’t speak French, we weren’t taught,’ Biddy protested, only to have a penny primer shoved into her hand.

‘I bought us books, one each,’ Ellen said triumphantly. ‘Parlez-vous Français, mademoiselle? An’ now you say you can speak a little … it’s on the next page, I think.’

Biddy had interesting plans for her friend’s absence. She intended to spring-clean the flat, colour wash the walls in all three rooms and get some new curtains. Instead of dancing on a Saturday night she would go to the cinema – alone – which would be a rare treat and she would also look seriously in the
Echo
for another job. She was extremely fond of Ellen, loved her in fact, but more and more lately she got the feeling that, if it was possible, Ellen would like to move in with Mr Bowker on a full-time basis. I must be prepared, she told
herself desperately, I must try for a better paid job so that if we ever lose the flat I can support myself.

She had one other plan which she intended to put into practice during Ellen’s absence. She intended to make toffee.

Biddy hated waste and it had occurred to her some time before that all the knowledge that she had amassed of the sweet-making industry was being totally wasted. It wasn’t difficult to make really delicious sweets and people liked them – why should she not spend some of her savings on sugar, margarine and milk, on flavourings and cocoa powder, on peppermint essence and icing sugar, and see if she could sell what she made? Of course
she realised that to turn Ellen’s little flat into a sweet factory would be very unfair, but whilst Ellen was away she could see no harm in a little experiment. If the sweets did not sell, or if they came out wrong, then she would have lost some money and gained some knowledge – the knowledge that she was not cut out to run her own business. But if, on the other hand, the sweets were delicious and sold well … it was at the very least another string to her rather meagre bow.

On the day that Ellen and Mr Bowker departed, Biddy did her work as usual, but she took the opportunity of nipping into one of the cheap grocery shops on the Scottie and buying up a large quantity of loose sugar. Ellen had left on a Wednesday and would return quite early the following Monday morning, so on Thursday Biddy completed her purchasing and then waited, in an agony of impatience, for Friday. She had told her employer, firmly though with an inward quake, that she needed an afternoon off to decorate the flat whilst her friend was away. Christmas was over, Easter had not yet arrived, and Miss Whitney seemed to have got over her wintry temper; at any rate she said that it would be all right so Biddy hurried home at noon, parked her bicycle at the foot of the stairs, and went into the kitchen. She had actually decorated the flat already, working during the evenings until past midnight, and now she looked round with considerable satisfaction. She had the whole afternoon to make her sweets; she had better start right away!

Biddy’s experiment was successful. The sweets were delicous and she really enjoyed using her skills in this direction after so long away from sweet-making, and on the Saturday she got her delivery bicycle out and crammed the sweets, neatly packed in conical paper bags, inside the carrier. She arrived at Millie’s and picked
up her deliveries and then began her rounds. But at every house she visited she mentioned that she had made a few sweets … and at almost every door she sold at least one bag and usually more.

‘They’re real tasty,’ a gardener said, with a mint humbug in one cheek. He looked at her list and pointed to chocolate fudge. ‘That sounds good; give me a penny-worth, would you?’

Well, Biddy told herself that evening, sitting by the fire in the kitchen and sewing the last hem on the living-room curtains, if I am ever homeless, there is one thing I can do.

But happily, Ellen’s gloomy mood seemed to have left her in Paris, never, Biddy hoped, to return. She came home bubbling with enthusiasm for all things French and vowing undying love for Mr Bowker who, she said, had been a good ’un from start to finish.

‘We seen the Eiffel Tower, the Madeline or whatever it’s called, we took a cab out to that Versailles place … it were grand, Bid, grand! Oh, I’ll never moan at ’im again, even if ’e can’t come to the flat as often as I’d like ’im to. We never mentioned ’is wife once, oh Bid, we were so very ’appy!’

‘That’s wonderful,’ Biddy said. ‘What d’you think of the flat?’

Ellen glanced round her, then hugged her friend exuberantly. ‘It looks prime,’ she declared. ‘Ted will be so pleased, ’e likes to think we’re tekin’ good care o’ the place. Oh Biddy, you are good to spend time on our little ’ouse. I love you better’n I love any of me sisters!’

‘Ted! When did you decide to call him by his first name?’

‘He telled me to use it,’ Ellen said almost shyly. ‘Oh Biddy, I’ve always liked ’im, but after those five days I love ’im, I really do. I – I want to please ’im, not just because of the things ’e gives me, I want to please ’im all through, if you know what I mean.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Biddy said, but she was secretly surprised. She had liked Mr Bowker, thought him pleasant – but for pretty, frivolous Ellen to say she loved him like that – well, it was a surprise.

‘You don’t know, not really,’ Ellen sighed. ‘I didn’t know meself … but I do now. I don’t mind any more that ’e can’t be with me all the time; if ’e could, ’e would. I’ll be ’appy wi’ what I can get.’

This was so unlike Ellen that she reduced Biddy to staring dumbly, but then Ellen started to unpack and
to show Biddy all the wonderful things she had bought in Paris and Biddy exclaimed and admired and went and made a supper for them both and finally the two girls went to bed, only to chatter half the night as Biddy told Ellen about the sweets and Ellen told Biddy all the things she had forgotten to tell her already about Paris.

They were about to haul and Greasy and Dai had been roused from their berths, to tumble out of them, half-asleep still, and struggle into their foul-weather gear.

If this catch was good they would head for home, so everyone wanted to see the trawl bulging with fish, even though that meant more work as the fish were gutted and packed into the holds and ice, cut from the deck each day, was thrown down to keep them fresh.

Dai glanced around him as he took up his position. The familiar sight of the other crew members was reassuring, though it had been a devil of a voyage this far. They’d found three times at the start of the fishing, only to haul an empty trawl aboard. Then they’d snagged the trawl, the winch had stuck, and Bobby had fallen on the ice and broken his wrist.

But now all seemed well. Dai was gently swinging the enormous hammer with which he would strike the pin out of the towing block to release the trawl. He waited, poised, ready. He heard the Skipper faintly from the bridge, giving the order which would bring the
Bess
broadside to the wind. They all felt the engines slow, shudder and the Skipper shouted out through the window, ‘Let her go, Taff!’

Immediately Dai swung the hammer and smote the towing block. The warps left the block, the bridge telegraph rang for stop … and the winch began to heave in the trawl.

Dai’s hands were frozen, his jaw ached with the cold, but he moved forward to take up his position as the winch continued to turn and the doors came up, then the trawl, the floats breaking surface first.

The men leaned over to the side to heave the net aboard and suddenly everyone was dodging out of the way, as the Cod End was jerked aloft. If something went wrong now a man could be killed by the weight of fish in the net, for it was bulging, heaving, wriggling with the size of their catch.

The Mate gripped the knot of the Cod End with both hands and tore it undone. The fish crashed onto the deck and slithered and slipped and slid into the pounds. A huge haul, the faces looking down on the fish beamed. A couple of tons? Dai couldn’t judge, wasn’t sufficiently experienced, but beside him Col was grinning, the Mate smiled, up on the bridge he could see the Skipper’s satisfied face.

That was it, then; the last haul had been worth all the sweat. They were homeward bound!

It was a bright April day with a sweet breeze blowing off the Mersey and the spring flowers in the gardens and squares in full bloom. Biddy worked hard all morning, delivering summer dresses all over the city and now she was cycling slowly back to Ranelagh Street, hoping that Miss Whitney and Miss Harborough would have some more deliveries for her, or at least some alterations which she could take round to Mrs Bland. During the winter she was quite pleased when she was asked to work in the shop but on a day like today she wanted to be outside.

Turning into Ranelagh Street, she got down off her bike and wheeled it across the pavement down the entry. Because the weather was fine she left it outside the back door and popped into the shop. She had cheese and beetroot sarnies today, her mouth watered at the thought of them. And if Miss Whitney would let her, she would take her food down to the pierhead and sit on the wooden seat along with all the old sailors and watch the shipping and think about the coming weekend, when she and Ellen had quite made up their minds to catch the ferry over to Woodside and have a picnic and paint and mess about all Sunday.

We’ll go to Mass first, both of us, she was thinking, for Ellen was not by any means a regular churchgoer. Then we’ll go off on the spree … it’ll be fun to have a day out for a change. Ellen was right, the winter was a long one, now spring’s here we should make the most of it.

She was in the shop, waiting for Miss Whitney to finish serving a customer, when the door burst open and a figure flew in. Miss Whitney glared, the customer swung round and stared, and Biddy was about to step forward and say, in the approved fashion, ‘Can I help you, modom?’ when she recognised the intruder.