Sadie Was A Lady (40 page)

‘Oh, so I have your permission to show them to Tony, do I? ’Cos he’s not a strange man, I’ve known him for years. Mind you, come to think of it, I’ve always thought he was a bit strange.’ Mary Ann pushed Sadie’s shoulder. ‘On yer way, sunshine, and I’ll promise not to lift me skirt for anyone unless it’s Cary Grant.’

Jimmy spotted Sadie as soon as he came through the door, and he elbowed his way through the groups of boys in front of him. ‘I look out for yer every day, our Sadie.’ His joy at seeing her was written all over his face. ‘I’ve been dying to see yer.’

Sadie gave him a hug. ‘It’s good to see yer, Jimmy. I think of yer all the time and say a prayer for yer every
night.
And for our Ellen, Les and Sally. Look, I’ve brought yer a present.’ She handed him the parcel wrapped in newspaper. ‘They should keep yer nice and warm.’

Jimmy tore at the paper in his excitement. Nice surprises didn’t come his way very often. When he saw the boots his eyes were like saucers. ‘Boots! Ooh, our Sadie, I’ve never ’ad a pair of boots before, not like this anyway. Feel the weight of them, they’re not half strong.’

‘They’ll stand yer in good stead for the winter, Jimmy. The snow and rain won’t get through those thick soles.’

‘Thanks, our Sadie. I wasn’t expectin’ nothing like this. I’m glad me dad’s got bigger feet than me, otherwise he’d have them off me. He’s not half greedy, Sadie, even worse than when you were at home. He’s not like the other dads in the street – they take their sons to the match or fishin’, and they all get pocket money so they can go to the Saturday matinée if they want. But not our dad. He doesn’t even talk to us except to bawl his head off if we don’t get out of his way quick enough.’

‘Does he still drink as much?’

‘Every night he comes home paralytic, that’s what gets up my nose.’ Jimmy became emotional at the unfairness. ‘D’yer know what he did last night? This will just show yer how cruel he is. He sat at the table tuckin’ into bacon and two fried eggs, while all we had was bread and drippin’. And he was laughing at us, dipping his bread into the egg yolk and holding it out for us to see. Sally asked for some and he held a piece out to her, but when she went to take it he pulled it back and laughed his head off when she started cryin’. Honest, our Sadie, if I’d been older and bigger, I’d have landed him one last night for what he did to Sally. I mean, she’s only a baby, he had no right to do that to her.’

‘Just hang on in there, Jimmy, and remember what I’ve told yer about it not lasting for ever. Our Ellen will be fourteen in May and starting work, and there’s only ten months between yer. So if yer look at it that way, yer haven’t got long to wait.’

Jimmy hung his head. ‘I wish you could see our Ellen
and
have a talk to her, Sadie. She’s not like she used to be, gabbing all the time, she hardly says a word now. And when I ask her what’s wrong, she won’t tell me. But she’d tell you, I know she would, ’cos she told me she wished yer were at home.’

Sadie shivered at her thoughts. Surely to God their father wasn’t up to his old tricks? ‘Jimmy, am I too late to catch our Ellen now, before she gets near our street?’

Jimmy didn’t hesitate. He worried about his sister and wasn’t going to miss the chance of getting help for her. He had an idea what was making her the way she was, but he was too shy to ask her and too young to do anything about it. But their Sadie would help, he knew she would. He thrust the parcel into her arms and was sprinting away even as he spoke. ‘I can run faster than you. Just stay where yer are and I’ll bring ’er to yer.’

Sadie got a shock when she saw Ellen. Her shoulders were drooped, the lovely dark hair lank, her pretty face devoid of colour and her eyes listless. The girl was either sickening for something or worried to death. ‘Here, Jimmy, take the boots and get off home. Yer can tell me mam I was outside school again, but don’t mention that I’ve seen Ellen. Go on, there’s a good boy.’

However Jimmy wasn’t going without something to look forward to. ‘Yer will come again soon, won’t yer, our Sadie?’

Sadie nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll be here in a couple of weeks, but don’t let on to me mam or dad. And I’ll see yer again Christmas week ’cos I’ll have presents for all of you, with the exception of our Dot.’

Jimmy tucked the parcel under his arm and pulled a face. ‘I wouldn’t give our Dot a spot if I ’ad the measles. She’s horrible to us.’

Sadie gave him a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Go on now, love, I want to have a talk to our Ellen and it’s girl talk.’ She waited until he was out of earshot before facing her young sister. ‘You don’t look very happy, Ellen.’

The girl shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘I’ve nothin’ to be happy about, Sadie, but I am glad to see yer.’

‘Same here, Ellen, I’m made up about it. But yer don’t look well and I’m worried about yer. I know yer’ve not got much to be happy about, but is there something making you unhappy? Something at home, perhaps?’

Ellen lowered her eyes. ‘No more than usual. Yer know what it was like in our house when you were there – well, it’s ten times worse now.’ Her voice stronger, she met Sadie’s gaze. ‘Couldn’t yer come home again, Sadie? You looked after us when yer were there, stopped me dad and our Dot from hitting us and made sure we got something to eat. You were like a mother to us; now we’ve got no one.’

‘I’m sorry, Ellen, but I had to run away, I couldn’t take any more. You were too young to understand, but I’d been a skivvy in that house since I was about four years old. I got out to make a life for meself, meet nice people and make friends. And I’ve done it, Ellen, I’ve got meself a job that I love and I live with wonderful people. And the time will come when you and Jimmy can do the same. You’ll be better off than I was, because I had to do it on me own while you’ll have me to help yer.’

Interest flickered in the brown eyes. ‘Yer mean if I run away I can come and live with you in yer friend’s house?’

‘I’m not making any rash promises over that, Ellen, it wouldn’t be fair to yer. The people I live with might not want another lodger. But I will make one promise that I swear I’ll keep. The week you leave school I’ll help yer find a job and somewhere to live. And when our Jimmy leaves school and starts work, we should be earning enough between us to rent a house of our own.’

‘I wish it could happen tomorrow, Sadie, ’cos I hate living in that house and I hate me mam and dad.’

Sadie was thoughtful for a while, seeking words that wouldn’t upset her sister. ‘Me dad’s a dirty man, isn’t he, Ellen?’

Her eyes on the ground, Ellen nodded. ‘I hate him.’

‘Shall I tell yer how to stop him pestering yer?’

‘I’ve told him to stop, our Sadie, but he just laughs at me.’

‘Well, next time he comes within a yard of yer, just tell him that I’ll be keeping in touch with yer and if he doesn’t leave yer alone I’m going to the police. And if he gets mad with yer and goes to hit yer, tell him I said yer had to scream the place down. And don’t be frightened of him when yer say it, Ellen, let him know that yer mean it. Me dad’s a bully in the house but a coward outside. He’d be terrified of his cronies finding out he’s a dirty old man ’cos they’d kill him.’

A smile crossed the pale face. ‘I’ll do it, our Sadie, I really will.’

‘I know yer will, Ellen, because that’s what I did to stop him.’

Ellen’s jaw dropped. ‘Yer mean he used to … used to …?’

‘Yes, he did, Ellen, but I put a stop to it, and that’s what you’ve got to do. I’ll be down to see yer in a week or two and I want to see a smile on yer face when yer telling me how yer told our dad to go jump in a lake. Okay?’

‘Oh, I’m glad you came today, our Sadie, I feel so much better. I will stick up for meself, I promise. Now I know it won’t go on for ever, I won’t mind so much. At least I’ll have something to look forward to.’

‘Yer’ve got a whole lifetime to look forward to, Ellen – a lifetime of happiness. Yer’ll soon put the old life behind yer, and that’s another promise I’m making yer.’

Florrie Young left her warm speck by the fire to close the gap in the curtains where she would swear there was a draught coming through. As she was pulling the curtain across, a figure passed the window and she grunted in disgust. ‘There he goes again, same time every night, Mr Moneybags himself. The house is a dump, inside and out, the mother goes around like a gypsy wearing dirty clothes and the kids look half-starved.’ She took her seat and picked up the shirt of Harry’s she was sewing a button on. ‘Doesn’t stop him from goin’ out boozing every night though; come hell or high water he’s in that pub knocking the pints back. Beats me how she lets him get away with it. If he was a husband of mine I’d have taken the rolling pin to him years ago.’

Jack lowered the paper he was reading. ‘It’s a good job yer married a soft touch like me, then, isn’t it?’ He glanced over to the table where Harry was sitting with his head bent over the inside pages of the newspaper, but it was obvious he was listening rather than reading. It was to be hoped his wife didn’t carry on about their neighbours because it only ended up with mother and son arguing. Perhaps if he gave her something to take her mind off the subject. ‘Put the kettle on, love, and let’s have a cuppa.’

‘After I’ve finished sewing this button on.’ Florrie, wearing a brass thimble on her forefinger, pressed the needle through the hole in the button and pulled it out the other side. ‘It’s a mystery about that daughter of theirs, the blonde one. It must be nearly six months since she
just
disappeared without trace. Neither sight nor sound of her since. It seems fishy to me.’

Harry raised his head. ‘Mam, I’ve told you that the girl you call “the blonde one”, had a name. Her name was Sadie, she was a nice girl and I liked her.’

Jack lowered the paper to his knees. He’d never mentioned it to anyone because he knew his wife would throw a fit if she found out, but twice on his way home from working overtime, he’d been sitting on the top deck of a tram and seen Harry standing at the gates to Sefton Park. And the first time, when he’d turned his head to make sure it was his son, he’d seen Sadie walk up to Harry, saw them join hands and stroll into the park. On the second occasion his son had been alone, but within seconds the tram had passed Sadie on her way to meet him. And Jack had to admit he could understand his son falling for her; she was as pretty a girl as you were ever likely to see.

Florrie broke the cotton with her teeth before answering. ‘Then I’m glad she’s gone, Harry, ’cos I wouldn’t want no son of mine mixing with the likes of them.’

Harry’s face was flushed and his eyes blazing. ‘I wasn’t mixing with “the likes of them”. I was friendly with a nice girl, that’s all. And considering you never even passed the time of day with her, I don’t see that yer in a position to know what she was like.’

‘I know the family, and that’s enough for me. I want no truck with them.’ Florrie was angry now. ‘Have yer seen that sister of hers? Only just left school and she’s actin’ like a twenty-year-old. Out every night, she is, tottering along on high heels and made up like a tart. If she was my daughter I’d have her across me knee and tan her backside for her.’ She took a deep breath, her nostrils flared in anger. ‘I’m stuck with them as neighbours, more’s the pity, but don’t expect me to offer them the hand of friendship because I’d just as soon give them a dose of arsenic.’

Harry pushed his chair back. ‘I’m going out for a walk to get some fresh air in me lungs. The atmosphere in this room is stifling me.’

Jack groaned inwardly as he heard the door slam. He loved his wife dearly but once she got a bee in her bonnet there was no shifting her. Stubborn as a mule she was. What he couldn’t understand was why she hadn’t noticed the change in her son since the girl next door disappeared. Florrie adored the two boys and was usually quick to sense the slightest hint of unrest. But she seemed not to have noticed the change in Harry. She had commented on the fact that he didn’t go out as often, but readily accepted his excuse that he didn’t feel like it.

‘You were out of order there, Florrie,’ Jack said. ‘There was no need for some of the things yer said. And Harry was right when he said yer weren’t in a position to know what the girl was like when yer’d never even spoken to her.’

‘Oh, I get it – it was all my fault, was it? I’ve got it all wrong, have I? Well, I’ll tell yer what, I’ll invite all the Wilson family to dinner on Sunday, shall I? Make them a big roast dinner and be all “hail fellow well met”, is that what yer want?’

Jack shook his head. It probably would have been better to let the matter rest, but now they’d gone this far he might as well say what was on his mind. ‘Florrie, do you trust Harry?’

Florrie gaped in surprise. ‘That’s a daft question, isn’t it? He’s me son, I love the bones of him and would trust him with me life.’

‘Do you trust him enough to believe he knows right from wrong, good from bad?’

‘What’s got into you, Jack Young? Of course our Harry knows right from wrong and good from bad. That’s the way we’ve brought up him and our Paul.’

‘Then why don’t you believe him when he says young Sadie was a nice girl?’

‘How can she be?’ Florrie blustered. ‘Coming from a family like that.’

‘So, what yer telling me is that every one of the kids next door are no good – is that it, Florrie? When they go around with clothes hanging off their backs and no shoes
on,
it’s their fault, is that what yer think? If it is, then I’m on Harry’s side. If he says Sadie was a nice girl, then I believe him.’

Florrie was flabbergasted. Never in all their married life had Jack taken sides against her. She regretted what she’d said to Harry about the girl, had regretted it even as the words were coming out of her mouth because she knew that for some unknown reason it would upset him. But she wasn’t going to take anything back that she’d said about the father and mother, or that the house was a dump and they were lousy neighbours. So if Jack wanted to get a cob on over it, then let him get on with it. ‘Suit yerself, Jack Young. What you think is no skin off my nose.’

‘Well, unless yer’ve fallen out with me, can I have that cuppa now?’