The Girl From Seaforth Sands (3 page)

However, his gran wanted the small potatoes now and Mr Evans would not be too pleased if he went off without sorting his spuds. Paddy was still mulling over the point when a figure darkened the doorway and, turning, Paddy saw his friend Albert, cap on the side of his head, both hands shoved into the pockets of his grimy kecks. Rescue, Paddy thought thankfully. Albert was a bezzie worth having. When he had done his own messages, whatever they might be, he would be happy to deliver the bag of spuds to the Keagan household.

‘Wotcher, Paddy,’ Albert said cheerfully. ‘How you doin’, Mr Evans? Me mam sent me along for a couple a pounds o’ carrots, a turnip – a nice big ’un – and some onions.’ He smacked his lips. ‘She’s gorra neck o’ lamb so she’s makin’ Irish stew – me favourite.’ He turned to Paddy. ‘What’s you here for, Paddy? Don’t say you’s havin’ Irish stew an’ all?’ He glanced down at the large bag of spuds by Paddy’s feet. ‘Blind Scouse?’ he ventured.

‘No, I think it’s fish,’ Paddy said rather gloomily. ‘But I say, Bertie, could you run a message for me? I’d do the same for you if I wasn’t so pressed for time. Gran needs the spuds, you see, but Mr Evans here could do wi’ some spuds sorting, so . . .’

‘That’s all right by me,’ Albert said breezily. Mr Evans had been weighing up Albert’s purchases and putting them into the string bag which he had slung on to the counter. Now he totted up the prices on one of his brown paper bags and named a sum. Albert paid, picked up Paddy’s spuds and his own string bag, bulging with vegetables. ‘Will you come round to our place when you’ve done sorting spuds?’ he asked hopefully. ‘Me mam might give us a jam buttie, tell us to play out ’till supper’s ready,’ he ended.

‘Sure I will,’ Paddy said gratefully. He heaved one of the enormous sacks round into the back room behind the counter and began, methodically, to form the potatoes into three piles, large, medium and small. Albert was a good pal, he reflected. Two penn’orth of tiny spuds were heavy, but Albert hadn’t hesitated. Odd, really, when you thought about it, how different the Logans were, one from another. Bill was a nice old bloke who would do anything for anybody, but Isobel was sharp as they came, while Mary was an angel – there was no other way to describe her – and Albert as good a bloke as ever breathed. And then there was the detestable Amy. She had ginger hair when the rest of the family were all blonde, and she was sharp and spiteful when the others – Mary, Albert and Bill at any rate – were all good-hearted and generous. Paddy knew full well that, had he asked Amy to carry spuds for him, or to do him any other favour for that matter, he would have received a dusty answer, probably laced with invective. Like mother like daughter, I suppose, he told himself, diligently sorting spuds with hands that were very soon as earthy as any potato. In a way, you could say us Keagans were
all different, too. Mam’s easygoing and soft as marshmallow, while me gran is sharp as a needle, like what I am. Oh, well, Gran always says there’s nowt so queer as folk. And with that philosophical thought, Paddy gave all his attention to sorting the spuds as quickly and neatly as he could.

Much later that evening Suzie came out of the canny house on Scotland Road, where she had worked for the past eight weeks, and looked, a trifle apprehensively, up at the sky overhead. It was full of scudding grey clouds but, although the road and pavements were still generously puddled, the rain seemed to have ceased, for the moment at any rate. Suzie only had a light shawl cast over her arm but she didn’t bother to put it on, for it was warm despite the recent rain. Besides, she usually caught a tram home and on such an evening a shawl was not needed; the tram, though draughty, was a good deal warmer than the street. Added to which, the shawl was hiding something she would far rather her employer did not see in her possession. Mrs Hathaway, mean old cat, would not be best pleased to discover that her cleaning woman had managed to possess herself of a number of currant buns and the best part of a nice bit of ham. It wouldn’t hurt her to give me some leftovers, the way she makes me slave, Suzie thought righteously, tucking the shawl securely round the purloined food. Anyhow, it ain’t often us Keagans see meat; this’ll be a rare treat for everyone, so it will.

There was a tram stop opposite the canny house where Suzie worked, so she crossed the road and joined the short queue of people waiting for the next vehicle. Other people might walk the five
miles home, but Suzie did not believe in overexerting herself. The tram ride was only tuppence and she had some tips jangling in her apron pocket. The staff were supposed to share out their tips at the end of the day but Suzie, neither cooking nor serving but merely skivvying, rarely got tips. Instead, however, as she cleared tables and cleaned floors, walls and chairs, she whisked any pennies or halfpennies she might find into her apron pocket and outfaced anyone who suspected that she was feathering her nest instead of passing on the largesse to those who had earned it.

Mrs Hathaway was a marvellous cook, though, which was why Suzie had stayed in the job for so long, despite the pay being on the mingy side. She was employed to clean the room where the customers ate and the kitchen, of course; to do rough work such as scrubbing potatoes, cleaning vegetables and scouring pans, but when the main midday rush was over she sat down to a good meal with all the other employees. Work officially finished, for Suzie, at six in the evening, but she usually stayed later, despite not being paid to do so. There was the big dinner which Mrs Hathaway served to her workers when the place began to empty of regular customers, and there were what Suzie thought of as the ‘leftovers’. Some people were given leftovers, but they were staff who had been with Mrs Hathaway a long time, not here-today-gone-tomorrow cleaners, who might well turn out to be no better than they should be. So Suzie nicked anything she could get away with, ate heartily at mealtimes and wondered how long she could stand such extremely hard work, for hard it most definitely was. Mrs Hathaway
would not have kept her on for eight days, let alone eight weeks, if she had skimped her work.

However, all good things come to an end. Suzie had noticed, this very evening, that Jimmy, who did some of the cooking and a good deal of the waiting, had begun to look at her with a sort of wary closeness. She had no way of telling whether he had realised she took tips left for the serving staff, or whether he had counted the remaining currant buns that remained on the big dishes behind the counter, but she thought it possible that her job could finish abruptly. Hence the prigging of the bit of ham. It might be her last chance and, since it was summer and therefore not always easy to hide her ‘leftovers’, she might as well take what she could when the weather made a shawl a necessity and before Mrs Hathaway told her not to come in again.

The tram rumbled round the corner and came to a splashy halt, deluging the waiting people with water. Suzie sprang back and cursed with the rest, then climbed wearily aboard. She sat down on one of the hard wooden seats and reflected that it felt soft as goosefeathers to one who had been slaving for Mrs Hathaway all day. Still, she had a lot to be thankful for. The joint of ham and the currant buns would make more than one meal, and she reminded herself that a lot of widowed women in her position went home to a cold and empty house, and had to start lighting a fire and cooking a meal for their family. Suzie knew that Gran would have a warm room and a good meal ready to welcome her, that Great-Aunt Dolly would wash up and clear away after that meal, and that Paddy would have spent his day as usefully as he knew how. Yes, she told herself
gazing out at the greying streaks, there were many worse off than herself.

The tram pulled up at another stop and several men climbed aboard. Suzie glanced incuriously towards them, then brightened. ‘Mr Logan! Where’ve you been, then? I thought the Caradoc was your local?’

Bill sat down on the seat beside her and gave her a friendly smile. ‘Who’s to say I’ve been boozin’?’ he asked cordially. ‘I might’ve been to a Bible meeting for all you know.’

‘You can’t fool me, Mr Logan,’ Suzie said, grinning. ‘If you’d been to a Bible meeting you’d have had Mrs Logan with you. Besides, you wouldn’t come into the city centre for no Bible meeting when there’s St Thomas’s church just around the corner. Anyroad, you aren’t usually on this tram. Come to think, you don’t catch trams much, do you?’

‘Norra lot,’ Bill agreed, shifting on the hard seat. ‘No, I’ve not been to a Bible meeting nor yet to the boozer. Well, I did have a bevvy after seeing Arthur Stokes, but don’t you go telling my wife. She doesn’t understand a feller can like a drink without being wedded to the stuff.’

‘Your wife’s Temperance, isn’t she?’ Suzie enquired. ‘Well, I ain’t, but I might just as well be. There’s no money for drink in our house. Not that I miss it,’ she added. ‘Never did take to it meself. And I’m hopin’ young Paddy will steer clear as well. Me old father and me brother Tim could be violent when they’d had a skinful, and nothing breaks up a family quicker than a feller who abuses the drink and his own strength.’

‘Aye, that’s right enough,’ Bill agreed. ‘Your Paddy’s a good lad, though. He and Albert are
bezzies, and there’s no one I’d rather me laddo went about with. Mrs Logan agrees with me, I know, even though she don’t say much.’

Suzie, who had been staring straight ahead of her, turned to gaze at him, her eyebrows arching in surprise. ‘Mrs Logan approves of our Paddy?’ she asked incredulously. She put up a hand, stroking the rich, golden-brown hair back off her forehead and giving Bill the benefit of a teasing, provocative glance. She remembered Abe telling her once that it had been a teasing glance from her big blue eyes that had first caught his attention and his interest. ‘I thought all Keagans were bad through and through in your wife’s book,’ she added.

Bill took off his cap and began to turn it round and round in his hands. There was a flush on his weather-beaten cheeks, but presently he looked up and grinned sheepishly at her. ‘You mustn’t mind Mrs Logan,’ he said softly. ‘It’s just her way. Me wife’s a good woman you know, Mrs Keagan, none better, even if her mind is a trifle set. Her old mam made all her children take the pledge when they were six or seven and taught them that pleasure of any sort was sinful. Mrs Logan knows better than that now, of course, but it’s coloured the way she looks at life.’ He sighed, giving Suzie a straight look out of his round, golden-brown eyes. ‘Many’s the time I’ve told her to be more tolerant and I know she does her best, but it’s uphill work when you’ve had narrowness and self-righteousness preached at you since you was a kid.’

‘Aye and I know she’s been good to our Paddy often enough,’ Suzie agreed, remembering the times her son had been fed by Isobel Logan. ‘As for yourself, Mr Logan, you know how grateful we are
for the fish. I won’t deny if it wasn’t for that we wouldn’t always make ends meet. I does me best, but I find it hard to hold on to a good job even when I manage to get one. It’s ’cos I mainly goes for cleaning or domestic work of some sort, where there’s women in charge. Me old ma-in-law says I should tie back me hair and tek good care not to look too pretty, but . . . well, I say self-respect’s worth a bob or two.’

It was an invitation to Bill Logan to tell her that she was a good-looking woman, that other women would obviously be jealous of her, not want to employ her, but Bill did not respond in the way Suzie had hoped he would. Instead, he just nodded briefly as the tram drew to a shuddering halt and got to his feet. ‘Don’t you go worrying over such things,’ he said. ‘No point. As for the bits o’ fish an’ that, what’s that to a feller in my trade?’ He began to make his way down the tram, speaking to her over his shoulder as he did so. ‘I’m gerrin’ off here so’s I can go to me aunt’s house for half an hour, to see that she’s all right and have a jangle. Goodnight, Mrs Keagan.’

Suzie smiled to herself as Bill Logan disembarked and the tram began to move once more. She guessed he would go to his aunt’s house and chat and drink tea until not even the most suspicious would smell beer on his breath. Bill Logan was far too canny a man to make bullets for his wife to fire at him. Far too nice a man, Suzie’s thoughts continued, for such a straight-backed, tight-mouthed wife. But he and Isobel must have been married for thirty years and a woman could change a good deal in that time; as, indeed, could a man. The girl that Bill Logan had fallen in love with could have been gay and
amusing, but thirty years of bringing up kids and making every penny do the work of two could change anyone. Suzie knew it was changing her. There had been a time when her main aim in life had been to have fun and to get herself a decent man who would take her away from the miserable court off the Scotland Road where she had been born and brought up. Then she had met Abe and he had taken her back to the neat house in Seaforth and introduced her to his family, told her all about their boat, their trade. She had seen at once that marriage to Abe was bettering herself, especially when they had moved into a terraced house of their own and begun to furnish it nicely, to plan their future lives together.

They had wanted children and, although Suzie had been no fonder of housework then than she was now, at least she had found it bearable in a new little house, surrounded by nice things. She had cast off her family – had been glad to do so – and had entered wholeheartedly into the life of a small fishing community where the name Keagan was respected and where she herself had been totally accepted.

When Paddy had been born she had agreed with Abe that their boy should better himself, get an education, work at his books. In those days, selfish though she had been, she had not wanted Paddy to be forced into working as soon as he was able to hold down a job. She had dreamed of seeing her son the owner of a fishing vessel, as his father had been. But somehow the harsh reality of living in poverty in a big city had whittled away at her resolution until she found herself glad of every penny the boy could bring in and was no longer concerned when he sagged off school, so long as he was not caught.
Thinking it over now, she remembered also that she had been honest enough when Abe had been alive. Or was it just because there had been no need to prig joints of ham, to take tips left for others, to let her mam and her aunt do all the housework? She remembered life in the court, where she had had to fight for every mouthful of bread, every penny. Yes, in the old days, before she had met Abe, she had been as sly and on the make as anyone else.