The Girl From Penny Lane (8 page)

After enjoying the beautiful mutton and the lovely apple pie, Nellie and Stuart insisted on walking Lilac as far as her tram stop because exercise was good for Nellie in her condition and Stuart said he had been working in the office all day and would be glad to stretch his legs.

‘I’m perfectly all right to walk up to Ullet Road on a sunny evening in July,’ Lilac said, touched by their kindness but not wanting to put them out. ‘Honest, our Nell, when you move I won’t be fussed over like this.’

‘When we move you’ll be living on Penny Lane and probably working nearby, and even if you aren’t you won’t be visiting much after dark,’ Nellie pointed out. ‘And you’ll have Polly and Liza and whoever else you get to share to keep you company. Besides, though this isn’t a rough area, you get strange people in the parks sometimes. They’re lonely for a girl to walk through as dusk is falling.’

‘I could catch the tram up on Smithdown, instead of coming to the Ullet-Croxteth circus,’ Lilac pointed out. ‘Then I needn’t go through the parks at all.’

They were walking three abreast, arms linked, with Lilac, feeling very loved, in the middle. Stuart unlinked himself for a moment in order to wag a reproving finger at the younger girl, whilst the dark eyes in his thin, brown face sparkled with amusement. Lilac had once fancied herself in love with Stuart and even now, knowing how he and Nellie felt about each other, she was perhaps fonder of him than she should have been. But if he knew it he never made her feel uncomfortable or guilty, and he treated her just right, with a mixture of affection and teasing, so she pushed to the back of her mind the knowledge that Stuart still meant more to her – a bit more – than a brother-in-law should, and behaved naturally towards him.

‘Will you be grateful, young woman!’ Stuart said now with mock severity. ‘We’re not going to admit twice in one evening that we need the exercise, nor how much we like walking in the park, so let’s just get on and enjoy our little excursion. And don’t forget, we shall expect a letter every other day and a postcard in between, just to reassure our Nell that you haven’t been sucked down the plughole whilst having a bath, or pecked to death by a parrot escaped from the Sefton Park aviary.’

‘Or got dragged down by an octopus on the lake,’ Nellie contributed. ‘Really, young people these days – you just don’t know what they’ll do next.’

They were walking down Greenbank Lane, Lilac trying to peer through the screening trees and bushes at the big houses on the left-hand side of the road, whilst Nellie gazed dreamily out over the fields and trees to the right.

‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever live anywhere nicer than this, not even if we do move into the country, and just think, if we’d still been here, living at 39 Penny Lane, our littl’un might have gone to that school,’ Nellie remarked as they drew level with Greenbank School in its beautiful wooded grounds. ‘Imagine a kid having all that wonderful space to wander in! Why, it’s as big as Sefton Park, very near.’

‘Might be bigger,’ Lilac said, peering through the hedge. ‘Well, when I marry my millionaire, Nell, I’ll pay for your tiddler to come back here and get his education – isn’t that a fair offer?’

‘By the time you marry a millionaire I’ll be one in my own right,’ Stuart said. ‘And by the time young Gallagher is thinking about school we’ll be back here anyway, I’m sure.’

‘Or cleaning out Buckingham Palace for your-selves,’ Lilac said. ‘Ouch, Nellie, don’t pinch!’

‘Stop gabbling you two and step out,’ Stuart advised. ‘Come on, Nellie love, you know what it said in the book about exercise, the more you take the easier the birth will be. Besides, we’ve got to prove to all those soft southerners that Liverpool lasses make the best little mothers in Britain. Left right, left right!’

He unlinked arms once more and began to walk with a ridiculous goose-step, lifting his knees to hip level with every step and swinging his arms so vigorously that Nellie and Lilac fell back to give him room.

‘Come
on
, girls!’ Stuart adjured them. ‘Follow my example and use your whole body when you walk. March like little soldiers – come on, show me what you’re made of!’

‘If we walked like that we’d show you our bloomers,’ Nellie grumbled. ‘And if you had young Gallagher kicking and squirming inside you, you’d take things a bit easy too. So stop fooling about, Stuart, and take my arm. Lilac’s coming to tea tomorrow, as well, so we’ll be able to discuss our plans for this house-sharing business then.’

‘Oh. Right. I’ll consider myself cut down to size,’ Stuart said. He put his arm round Nellie and gave her a squeeze. Nellie squeaked, then squeezed back and Lilac, watching, felt a curious little stab of something very like envy twisting in her breast.

But I don’t want to marry and settle down, she reminded herself as they began to cross the park. I want some fun before I start letting some young man order me about. Time enough for all that, and certainly there’s nothing I’d like less than to have my figure ruined by some wretched baby!

But later, when she was aboard her tram and turning to wave, she watched the two figures strolling slowly back the way they had come, Nellie’s head very close to Stuart’s strong shoulder, his arm comfortingly round her thickening waist, and the curious little stab of envy pricked her once more.

They were going far away, and they were going together. But she, Lilac, would stay here growing older, all by herself, with only her friends for company, with no lover to warm her.

The conductor shouted to someone to hurry up please, the bell ting-tinged and the tram lurched into motion. Lilac noticed someone who had been standing some yards from the stop suddenly decide to jump aboard; she saw him leap, heard the conductor shout, and then a tall figure was pushing its way between the seats and slumping into the one beside her.

‘Art! What on earth are you doing here?’

‘Doin’? Catchin’ the tram, our Lilac, same’s you.’

Art grinned affectionately down at her. He was tall and husky, with bright brown hair which fell in a cowlick across his forehead, a broad, almost simple grin and a pair of shrewd brown eyes. He would probably have been the first to say that his face was undistinguished and his figure too chunky, but even if she didn’t want to marry him Lilac still had a soft spot for her old playmate and smiled back at him whilst shaking her head sorrowfully.

‘Catching the tram indeed! Well I know that, puddin’-head! But I’ve been to supper with the Gallaghers; what are you doing in Penny Lane?’

Art chuckled and put an arm along the back of the seat. Lilac edged forward a bit; she did not want to be cuddled in a public service vehicle!

‘This isn’t Penny Lane, Miss know-it-all, this is Ullet Road. Do you remember Tippy Huggett?’

‘No. Should I?’

‘Oh, queen, you must remember Tippy! He was the feller who got turned out of the Rotunda for making spit-balls. Don’t you remember, we were all kicked out by the commissionaire – you said . . .’

‘Oh
him
,’ Lilac said hastily. The tram was crowded, she did not want the other passengers to hear all about her misspent youth. ‘What about him?’

‘He’s lodging on Ullet Road; he’s working for William Griffiths & Son, the tailors in South John Street. Doing well for himself is Tippy.’

‘I can just imagine him sitting cross-legged on the floor, but I can’t imagine him using a needle and thread,’ Lilac observed. ‘He was a right devil was Tippy.’

‘So was I,’ Art said regretfully. ‘So was you, queen! Fact is, we all have to change as we grow up or we’d starve. But Tippy doesn’t sit cross-legged – whatever give you that idea? – he’s in the showroom. He shows patterns and takes measurements; he was always kind o’ neat, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Ye-es,’ Lilac agreed. She remembered Tippy as a small, aggressive boy with sores round his mouth and hair which looked as though mice had nibbled it. ‘Smartened himself up a bit, has he?’

‘Haven’t we all?’ Art said reproachfully. ‘I call to mind the day you fell on your face in Mersey-mud an’ Stuart chucked you in the bath . . .’

‘Don’t keep getting so
personal
,’ Lilac snapped, ‘or you can move to another seat! Kids are always mucky. So anyway, Tippy lodges in Ullet Road and you were visiting him and just happened . . .’

‘Don’t get swelled-headed,’ Art advised kindly. ‘I just happened to walk down to the tram stop and saw you get aboard, I nearly didn’t bother to come on as well, I meant to walk, only . . .’

‘You thought you might as well ride,’ Lilac said sarcastically. ‘Oh well, if you’re getting off at my stop you can walk me up to Rodney Street if you like.’

‘And give you a kiss and a cuddle on the doorstep?’

‘No!’ snapped Lilac, all too conscious of listening ears. She moved pointedly further along the slatted wooden seat. ‘I’ve got my good name to consider, Art O’Brien.’

‘Aw, c’mon, Lilac love, don’t get all starched up wi’ me, you knew I were only joking!’

But Lilac settled primly back in her seat and gazed out at the summer dusk and the hissing gas lamps on a level with the top deck. I won’t marry till I’m good and ready, she told herself crossly. And when I do it won’t be a bank clerk with a worn suit and cracked black shoes. That smart young ship’s officer, he’s more my style! I could see he liked me, and he came of a rich family, that house was full of good stuff.

Then she thought about Nellie and her Stuart, who would be happy, she was sure, on a desert island sharing their last coconut between them. But she was different, she did so like her creature comforts, pretty dresses, money in her pocket, warm fires in winter and iced drinks in summer! She would find it very hard to settle for anything less than the sort of life she had grown to enjoy with the Mattesons. She doubted that she could be happy with anyone who didn’t have money and some sort of position, and Art really wasn’t cut out even for clerking in a bank. He’s rough, she told herself virtuously, and I’m not. Not now. And I won’t end up like Mrs O’Brien or the other women in Coronation Court – overworked, always hungry, fighting a losing battle against the filth, the vermin, their menfolk.

Yet Nellie, whose life had been considerably harder than Lilac’s, would have followed Stuart to hell and back, barefoot. Lilac knew it as surely as she knew she drew breath.

I’m made of weaker stuff, she thought sadly as the tram rumbled on. Even if I thought I loved . . . someone . . . which I don’t, I couldn’t marry just for love. I’m not strong, like Nellie.

It was a curiously humbling thought.

Kitty woke when the sun came up the next day. She had found a patch of long grass by the canal and since the night seemed fine and likely to remain so, she had curled up amongst the soft blades, not bothering with the dubious shelter of the bridge.

Now she sat up, knuckled her eyes, and looked about her. A horse the size of an elephant was coming along the path towards her, towing a canal boat. It was a brightly painted boat with elaborate pictures all over it, and it towed in its turn another boat, the second one heavily laden with timber. There was a scruffy lad of about Kitty’s age balanced on the timber, steering with a long pole-like rudder, a little girl in a blue cotton dress was watering the big earthenware pots of tomatoes set out on the roof of the first boat, and a good smell of bacon cooking came wafting over the water to Kitty’s suddenly interested nose.

The boy spotted her and raised a hand.

‘Marnin,’ lass, an’ a gradely one at that,’ he observed, in what Kitty considered a thick country accent. ‘Sleepin’ rough, art tha? I see thee in thy nest, earlier.’

‘Oh, I only come ’ere till me mam cools off,’ Kitty said hastily. ‘I’ll go ’ome to get me butties.’ But she fell into step beside the first boat, her nose pointing towards the bacon as though given the chance it would have leaped the gap and helped itself, if only to the rich and delicious smell.

‘We’m ’avin’ bacon,’ the little girl chimed in. She picked up a thick sandwich from the cabin roof and waved it in a friendly sort of way towards Kitty. She was a pretty child of six or seven, with curly fair hair and blue eyes. ’Tis only t’best for us, eh, Cally?’

‘That’s right,’ the boy agreed. ‘On a Sat’day, anyroad.’

‘I’ll likely get bacon too, when I goes ’ome,’ Kitty lied manfully. She swallowed. ‘Yours smells a treat,’ she added.

The little girl looked back at the boat containing her brother. He obviously interpreted her glance for he said, ‘Go on, ’en.’ He turned to Kitty. ‘Wanna bite?’

‘I can’t tek your grub,’ Kitty began, but the little girl carefully put her watering can down on the roof of the boat, picked up her sandwich and held it out.

‘Oh, I can’t . . .’ Kitty began, then the smell reached her and she was lost. Her hand stretched out of its own volition, her grubby fingers sank deep into fresh-baked bread, and the sandwich was in her mouth, her teeth feeling first the softness of the loaf, then the delicious, greasy crispness of well-fried streaky bacon.

‘S’orlright, innit?’ said the little girl. ‘I’ll git another from me mother, don’t fret yoursel’.’

‘Thanks,’ Kitty gasped. The bread and the bacon had already disappeared, were already nothing but a happy memory. ‘Thanks a lot.’

She slowed her pace, wistfully watching as the small group moved further along the canal and entered the patch of shadow under Houghton Bridge. The horse’s huge round hindquarters gleamed with grooming, its head was up, its step long and comfortable. The first boat was clean and homelike, the second sensible and properly packed so that the horse might not have to drag an uneven load. How enviable were the lives of those two children! Bacon sarnies, a horse to ride, a boat to steer – and a warm and comfortable Mam, who not only handed out bacon sarnies to small daughters, but would hand out a second, it appeared, and no awkward questions asked!

She stood and watched until the boats had disappeared behind the bulk of the Tate & Lyle warehouses, then walked along to Houghton Bridge, swung herself back on to the road, and considered the morning.