The Girl From Seaforth Sands (4 page)

The tram stopped once more and Suzie noticed that it was beginning to rain. Damn! She would have to put her shawl over her head and shoulders or folk would think it mighty odd. If only she had brought a shopping bag, but Mrs Hathaway would not let casual staff bring bags on to the premises. Too crafty, Suzie thought crossly. She was surprised that they let her bring the shawl – come to that, she wouldn’t put it past old Ma Hathaway to insist that the staff removed their drawers before starting work, in case they stashed away food in them.

The tram lurched forward again just as a man came up the aisle, giving Suzie a grin as he passed her. Suzie cast down her eyes and pretended not to notice. She often thought about marrying again, for Abe had been dead now for more than ten years, but somehow she couldn’t be bothered with all that courting business and she had no intention of taking a feller unless it was in marriage. Her ma-in-law was a tartar and wouldn’t put up with any funny business, to say nothing of Aunt Dolly, who was in church five days a week and always telling her what happened to bad girls.

Still, marriage would be a way out of her difficulties; after all, it had been marriage that had got her out of the court and away from her dreadful
family in the first place. Then death had robbed her of her pleasant life and had forced her to become a breadwinner once more. If she were to marry . . . but the trouble was she seemed to attract the wrong sort of man, or otherwise the right sort of men were married already. Take Bill Logan, for instance. He was twenty years or more older than she, but a reliable, strong sort of man and, she acknowledged to herself now, very attractive. If only he were not already wed. But he was and somehow the thought of marrying someone she did not know very well, only to discover that the new husband had feet of clay, was not one which appealed. Some day, Suzie told herself, Mr Right will come along and then I shan’t have to work for bad-tempered old women who sack me because they’re jealous of me looks. What’s more, I shan’t have to purrup with Gran and me Aunt Dolly bossing me around and telling me how I ought to behave. One day, one day . . .

The conductor rang the bell and people began to surge towards the rear of the vehicle. Suzie joined them and climbed down off the tram at the Seaforth Sands terminus, thankful that the rain had stopped once more, though the road and pavements were still puddled. She crossed the road and went under the Rimrose Bridge, just as a train passed overhead. The Caradoc Hotel looked most inviting on the corner opposite, but Suzie decided she must step out for home and pressed on down the Crosby Road. She passed the Royal Hotel, which at other times might have tempted her, and soon came abreast of the massive bulk of Seaforth Hall, set back from the road in enormous grounds. She crossed over the end of Shore Road and glanced to her left down to the beach. The sand was dark and the sea glimmered
whitely as the waves crashed on the shore, but there was nothing else to be seen and soon she reached Seafield Grove on the right, lined on either side with terraced houses fronting directly on to the pavement.

She passed the Logan house with its brightly lit windows and wondered, enviously, what the family were doing. Waiting for the head of the household, no doubt, though perhaps the younger ones were already abed. She hoped that by now Paddy was sleeping soundly and told herself for the hundredth time that she really must begin to look for work that paid rather better than cleaning for Mrs Hathaway. Only she was so tired. Tired of trying to make ends meet, tired of the endless round of work and managing the money, tired of her boring existence, in fact.

Shocked at her own thoughts, she turned into the jigger, telling herself all over again that at least she was going home to a meal and a warm room. And no man. The thought popped into her head, shocking her by its forthrightness. She reminded herself how the thought of remarriage frightened her – had she not just been thinking so on the tram? She knew she was still an attractive woman but she knew also that she was lazy. The sheer effort of beginning a relationship with some young feller who might turn out to be more trouble than he was worth daunted her. It must be because I was so deeply in love with my dear old Abe she told herself, conveniently forgetting the way she had leapt at his proposal as an escape from the court. Once again she thought of Bill Logan, his friendly, open face, his generosity in often passing on some of his catch to the Keagan family. He was a handsome man, despite his fifty-three years. Any woman would be . . .

But Bill Logan was, so to speak, spoken for and the other men she met tended to want a woman for almost anything but marriage. Suzie knew herself, despite appearances, to be less interested in the physical side of marriage than most women. In the ten years of her widowhood she had never been tempted to leave the straight and narrow for a bit on the side. She had had a difficult time giving birth to Paddy and had decided, quite coldly, that she would not have any more children. For the best part of a year she had kept Abe to his own side of the bed by pretending illness; then an old gypsy woman had sold her a little brown bottle, full of an evil-tasting draught . . .

The wretched stuff had worked, though it had made her almost as ill as she had pretended, she remembered now, slopping along the pavement. She had been told to take a tablespoonful of the stuff whenever her monthlies were due and since she had not fallen pregnant in the six months before Abe had died, she supposed it must have been the gypsy’s concoction. But if she had had her way there would have been no need of medicine, for she could cheerfully have dispensed with having Abe all over her, especially when he’d had several pints of ale and was inclined to be rough with her. Odd how most women seemed to think that going to bed with a man was something special; Suzie simply considered it dangerous. Babies, after all, turned into children, into more mouths to feed. No, she did not think, somehow, that she would marry again. Of course, it would be different if she met someone really first-rate, someone who would support her, take care of her, keep the worry of Paddy and the old women off her mind. Someone like Bill . . .

But thinking like that never got anyone anywhere, Suzie told herself, as the back door opened under her hand. There was no point in coveting another woman’s man, quite apart from its being a sin, particularly a man who’s married to a plaster saint like Isobel Logan. She supposed, vaguely, that even if Isobel went and died on him, Bill Logan would look around for another prim, prissy-mouthed woman, who was prepared to work all hours and sell shrimps door to door without a word of complaint. And have ten kids, she reminded herself, wincing at the very thought. Oh, no, she did not mean to go through
that
again, she was better off a widow, much better off.

On this thought she emptied the contents of her hawl on to the kitchen table and grinned triumphantly across the room at Gran, who was dishing up stewed fish and potatoes into a cracked pottery plate. ‘I’m home, Gran,’ she said. ‘Got some currant buns for Aunt Dolly to soak in a nice saucer of tea, so’s she don’t have to chew, and a nice joint o’ ham for tomorrer’s dinner. Mr Logan pop by wi’ some plaice? Thought so. Honest to God, I’m wore out, but I’m still hungry as a horse after workin’ like a slave all day.’

Gran sniffed. ‘I suppose you’ll say that hard-faced Hathaway woman give you the meat and them buns?’ she said tauntingly. ‘Well, so long as you don’t expect me to believe you . . .’

‘Believe what you like.’ Suzie cast the shawl in the rough direction of the hook on the back of the door and sat down at the table before the plate of food. ‘I don’t suppose it’ll stop you eating them wherever they come from. That right?’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ her mother-in-law
admitted, coming over to the table with a mug of steaming hot tea and setting it down before her daughter-in-law. She picked up the joint of ham and looked at it critically. ‘There’s good eatin’ on this, I’ll say that for you. But how long will you last there, eh? A few currant buns is one thing, but a whole joint o’ ham . . . well, they’ll soon have your measure at that rate.’

‘I’m sick of it anyway,’ Suzie said, her mouth full of floury potato. Gran was a prime cook, she had to admit that. ‘I were going to move on soon enough.’

‘Oh aye? Before you’re pushed, you mean? Oh, go on, don’t bother to tell me no more lies. I’m tired, I want me bed. Wash up when you’re done, gal.’

She left the room and Suzie continued to eat the fish and potatoes, and to sip at the scalding hot tea. Gran wasn’t a bad old stick, a lot easier to get along with than Aunt Dolly with her religious mania and her spiteful tongue. Suzie finished her meal and stood up, the mug of tea in one hand. She would take it up to bed with her and drink it while she took off her outer clothing. She had no intention of doing the washing up and clearing away. Aunt Dolly, self-satisfied old fool, could do that. She might be eighty-two or three – Suzie was never quite sure of her aunt’s precise age – but she wasn’t helpless yet and she ate enough for two. She could do the washing up. Suzie doused the lamp and wandered across the kitchen and up the short flight of stairs to her room. Here, in her muddled and unmade bed, she settled down to sleep. Drowsily she considered Gran’s words. Perhaps the joint of ham had been a little unwise. She would go back to the canny house next day, and if she was accused of thieving then, naturally, she would hotly and indignantly deny it.
Meanwhile, she could go along to the Caradoc Hotel, or the Royal, or even the International Marine and see if they had a vacancy for an evening barmaid, just in case she got the push. The Caradoc had advertised just such a position on a board outside the pub; she had seen it a couple of days earlier. She supposed she could stand working there for a few days, just until she found something better.

Soon Suzie slept, her conscience untroubled by thoughts of the day to come.

Bill Logan said goodnight to his aunt and set off on the walk home, glad that the rain had not restarted. He had had a good day and had concluded a nice little business deal with Arthur Stokes. He and Arthur had been at school together and though they had gone their separate ways – he to the fishing and Arthur into the retail grocery business – they had remained good friends. So when he and the other man had met up at the St John’s fish market it had been natural for Arthur to suggest that he might come round one evening for a drink and have a chat. Bill had agreed, though he had guessed that there was more in Arthur’s invitation than met the eye and so it proved. Arthur was keen to find a supplier of potted shrimps and had immediately suggested that he and Bill might work out a deal which would satisfy them both, and such indeed had been the case. The Stokeses were prepared to pay the Logans a very fair price since Arthur’s shop, being well out of the centre of Liverpool, catered for customers who rarely got into the city and would be prepared to pay an extra penny or so for the convenience of buying potted shrimps from their own corner shop. Arthur, for his part, knew that the potted shrimps would bring the
customers in, so was happy to cut his profit to a minimum for the sake of the extra business.

It had been a bonus, meeting Mrs Keagan on the tram, Bill thought now. She was a beautiful young woman, hard-working and good-hearted, if a little sloppy, and he often felt ashamed of the way Isobel regarded her. The girl had done nothing to deserve his wife’s constant criticism – unless being younger and beautiful was a sin, which Bill sometimes thought Isobel must believe. His wife said that Suzie nicked stuff from her various employers, that she changed her jobs a good deal more regularly than she changed her underwear, that she put all the work of the house on the two old ladies, using her various jobs as an excuse for sluttishness. Yet when he thought about it, it did not seem likely that Isobel disliked Suzie merely because she was pretty, because such a view scarcely agreed with Isobel’s feelings for Mary. Mary, her favourite daughter, was blonde and extremely pretty, very like Isobel had been when they had first married. Was that the reason for Isobel’s partiality? Would this also account for the fact that his wife did not greatly care for plain little Amy and was as constantly critical of her small daughter, as, indeed, she was of Suzie Keagan? Bill reached the back door of his home and pushed it open, stepping thankfully into the warmth of his kitchen. It didn’t do to start thinking too hard, he reminded himself. All parents have a favourite child – he was very fond of Amy – and there was nothing obvious to account for such feelings, it was simply the way one felt.

‘Still raining?’ Isobel asked, from her seat by the fire. ‘Call itself summer? Well, I should think the
poor King is downright grateful for his appendix blowing up the way it did, for this is no weather for a coronation. They would probably have had to swim up the Mall, getting all those lovely robes soaked. I’ve saved you some tea if you’re still hungry, or did you eat with the Stokeses?’

Bill walked round the table and dropped a kiss on his wife’s thick, greying hair. ‘Aye, it’s grand weather for ducks, not dukes,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Still an’ all, the coronation’s only postponed, not purroff for ever. Likely it’ll be fine for the real thing when the King’s better.’

Isobel ignored the caress but smiled up at him, shaking her head. ‘Oh, you, Bill Logan! There’s been a lot of disappointment over the King’s illness, you know it as well as me. Now what about some food, or have you already eaten? It’s Irish stew if you’d care for some. What did Mr Stokes want?’

‘I did eat with the Stokeses,’ Bill admitted, reaching into his jacket pocket for his pipe and then, with a sigh, putting it back once more. Isobel did not approve of tobacco any more than alcohol, and would grow tight-lipped and silent if he tried to smoke in the house. ‘But that was a good while ago. I could just do with a plate of your Irish stew.’

‘Right,’ Isobel said, leaving her chair and crossing the room to the stove. With her back to him she added conversationally, ‘You know our Amy lit out when the shrimps came in? Well, she came back after no more’n ten or fifteen minutes. I think maybe that young lady is learning at last that everyone’s got to do their share in this world. She worked well, I’ll say that for her. She helped with the potting as well.’