The Leaving Of Liverpool (7 page)

‘A dollar.’

She gave him a dollar and a few coins, feeling exceptionally generous. There’d been no need to pay now: Aunt Maggie could have done it when her niece arrived.

‘Thank you,’ the driver said courteously. In London, Olive hadn’t had much to do with taxi drivers, but she’d like to bet there weren’t many as distinguished-looking as this one. He was about fifty, respectably dressed in a tweed suit and cap and a collar and tie. ‘What is the young lady’s name?’ he enquired.

‘Annemarie.’ She gave Annemarie a warm hug. ‘I’m sorry, darlin’,’ she whispered, ‘I’ve messed you up something awful, haven’t I? But you’ll be with your Aunt Maggie in no time and everything will be just fine and dandy.’ She helped the girl into the back, the driver slid behind the wheel, and the taxi disappeared into the night. To her surprise, Olive felt two tears trickle slowly down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and began to run in the direction of the hotel.

 

The taxi had barely been gone a second when another drew up in its place and Gertrude Strauss almost fell out. ‘That Annemarie,’ she cried excitedly. ‘That Annemarie in cab in front. I know her from so far, know green coat, long hair. Oh, Bertha, she all right! Most probable on way to Miss Margaret Connelly.’

‘Are you sure it was her, Gert?’ Bertha called from the back of the cab.

‘Yes.’ Gertrude nodded vigorously. ‘It Annemarie.’

‘C’mon, then.’ Bertha patted the seat beside her. ‘Let’s go back. I’ll make more coffee and we can finish off that marzipan cake.’

‘I so happy, Bertha.’ Gertrude climbed back in the cab. ‘From now, I really endure New York.’

‘Enjoy, Gert, not endure.’ Bertha laughed and linked her arm while the cab took them back to Ridge Street.

 

‘Where are you from, Anne Murray?’ Levon Zarian asked his passenger. When she didn’t reply, he said gently. ‘I won’t eat you.’ She was little more than a child: thirteen possibly, fourteen at the most. ‘Have you only just arrived in New York?’ She still didn’t answer. He stopped the cab to wait for a break in the traffic when they reached West Side Highway and took the opportunity to turn and look at his young passenger. ‘Hello,’ he said, but the girl just stared at her hands and didn’t even raise her head.

He wondered if she were deaf. He honked the horn, her head jerked upwards, and he looked into her eyes, but they were dead and unseeing, albeit of the most beautiful colour: amethyst, clear and pure. Her white skin was like porcelain, with the same soft sheen, and her hair a wild tumble of little black waves and curls that reached her waist.

‘I once had a daughter very like you,’ he told her. ‘Her name was Larisa and she had brown eyes. But she died.’ His throat tightened at the memory of the way Larisa had been killed: raped by a dozen Turks who’d slit her white throat when they’d had enough. Within a week, he and Tamara had left Armenia, a place of old legends and bitter tears, before they too were slaughtered by the Turks, who seemed determined to annihilate the entire population of his benighted country.

Cars behind were honking their horns. Levon edged into the traffic. It was five years since they’d come to America, five years since Larisa had died, but Tamara had never stopped mourning her death. Her eyes were as dead and unseeing as those of Anne Murray.

He continued to talk to her, telling her about himself and Tamara, though he didn’t mention Larisa again. ‘I was a lawyer back in Armenia. Now I attend college to take the Bar exam so I can practise here. Tamara, my wife, was a singer, not professional, but she was often called upon to sing at weddings and at the homes of our friends, usually folk songs.’ Tamara hadn’t sung a note since they’d arrived in America. He thought about her sitting in their apartment in Grammercy Park, waiting for him to come home, her face so sad that it almost broke his heart.

Talking all the time, Levon drove through dark, empty, silent streets, and gaudily lit, noisy streets full of people, restaurants, and bars, some of which would stay open all night: New York was a city that never slept. Had circumstances been different, he suspected he would have grown to love the place by now. Each time the traffic caused him to stop, he glanced back at his silent passenger, but she could have been in another world for all the notice she took.

‘Nearly there,’ he remarked when he saw the sign for Washington Square. He wondered whom she was going to see in Bleecker Street. Where had she come from? Who was the young woman who’d put her in the cab? Very irresponsibly, he thought on reflection. Anne Murray wasn’t fit to be out on her own. What nationality was she? He had a feeling Murray was a Scottish name, but wasn’t sure.

He drove into Bleecker Street and stopped outside number eighty-eight. ‘We’re here,’ he announced. When she showed no sign of having understood, he got out and approached the building. The music shop on the first floor was closed and in darkness, and there were three bells on the door at the side. He pressed the bottom one, but no one came, so he pressed the second, then the third. Still no one came. He pressed all three at the same time and could hear them buzzing inside, but the door remained stubbornly closed. No one was in.

What was he supposed to do now? Drag Anne Murray out of the cab, sit her on the step, and hope someone came for her soon? He felt angry that such a pretty, vulnerable young girl was being treated so negligently: shoved in a cab to be taken to a place where there was no one to meet her. Two men emerged from a diner across the road embroiled in a fight. A woman tapped his shoulder: ‘Are you looking for a good time, honey?’

Levon ignored her, got back into the cab, and drove away with Anne Murray still in the back.

 

Maggie arrived in Bleecker Street seething with fury. Her journey had been a complete waste of time. She hadn’t been allowed on the
Queen Maia
. Most of the crew, she suspected, were out on the town. Nobody could give her any information. An important-looking individual in uniform had a list of passengers expected tomorrow, but not of the ones who’d arrived that day. ‘Ask at the shipping office,’ she was told but, by the time she’d found the shipping office, the damn place was closed. There was no sign of her nieces.

She was tramping up the stairs to her apartment when the doorbell rang. There was no one else in the building: Jim Goldberg worked nights on a newspaper and the ballerina who lived on the top floor, whose name she could never remember, was on tour. Maggie tramped down, opened the door, and scowled at the caller, a woman of about her own age wearing an old-fashioned mackintosh and a woollen hat.

‘Miss Connelly, hi,’ the woman gushed. ‘I’m Eileen Tutty, I only live around the corner, and my daughter, Imelda, is in your class at Saint Mary’s. I thought I’d better come and tell you when I saw your name on the envelopes, case it’s important.’

‘What envelopes?’ For some reason Maggie went cold.

‘Well, you know I work on Ellis Island?’ Maggie didn’t know, but nodded all the same. ‘I’m a clerk there and tonight, just before I came home, a parcel of clothes was brought in that had been left unclaimed. There was a passport inside and some letters: they had your name and address written on the back. I would’ve brought them, but they wouldn’t let me. They’d been sent to a Mollie Kenny in County Kildare.’

Maggie went even colder. ‘Whose name was on the passport? Did you look?’

‘Yes, it belonged to Annemarie Kenny. Mr Scarlatti, the supervisor, will be writing to you tomorrow. Is she a relative of yours, Miss Connelly?’

‘She’s my niece. Please excuse me, Mrs Tutty. It’s really nice of you to have called, but I need to go upstairs and think about this.’ She closed the door and stood with her back to it, breathing deeply, resisting the urge to scream at the top of her voice. First thing in the morning she’d send Francis Kenny a telegram demanding to know what was going on. In the meantime, she knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink that night.

 

Levon Zarian opened the door of the apartment in Grammercy Park. ‘Tamara,’ he called softly. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

‘What is it, Lev?’ She came out of the bedroom, her face streaked with tears. It must have been one of the bad days for she was wearing the cream lace gown she’d had on when they’d found Larisa lying in a pool of her own blood. Tamara had screamed and knelt beside the body of her daughter and her skirt still bore the stains. She refused to throw the gown away.

Levon pushed Anne Murray forward - she’d come quite willingly when he’d held out his hand. ‘Tamara, my love, I have brought you another daughter.’

Chapter 3

It hadn’t only been the sight of the
Queen Maia
sailing away with Annemarie on board that had made Mollie faint on that fateful afternoon. She’d been taken by ambulance to the Royal Hospital in Pembroke Place where it was discovered she was suffering from mild concussion as a result of the injury to her head.

‘I’d like to keep you in for a few days so I can keep an eye on you,’ the doctor said after he’d asked how many fingers he was holding up and she’d said two when there’d only been one. ‘Do your relatives know you’re here?’

‘I haven’t got any relatives in Liverpool,’ she told him.

‘You’re a bit young to be living here all on your own, aren’t you?’ His name was Dr Packer and he was a rotund, cheerful-looking individual with a bright-red face and mutton-chop whiskers.

‘I don’t live here.’ She ended up telling him the whole story, only missing out the reason she and her sister had left Ireland.

He clucked sympathetically. ‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Find somewhere to stay in Liverpool, then write to my aunt and ask her to send the money for another ticket.’ She’d find a cheap hotel, hoping they wouldn’t expect to be paid straight away and she could settle the bill when the money arrived.

Three days later, she was discharged from the hospital. Her head still ached, and she knew the terrible mistake she’d made by allowing the
Queen Maia
to leave without her would haunt her for the rest of her days. She worried constantly about Annemarie, though comforted herself with the thought that Gertrude Strauss would look after her and make sure she had her drops. Dr Packer had said the ship’s doctor would have had digitalis, which only made Mollie feel stupid on top of everything else. Miss Strauss, or someone on the ship, would make sure her sister was safely delivered to Aunt Maggie, that’s if Aunt Maggie wasn’t there to meet her.

According to Dr Packer, there were loads of small hotels close to the centre of the city and she’d find one easily. ‘Just go down London Road until you come to Lime Street, then ask someone, preferably a policeman.’

London Road was packed with pedestrians; tramcars clanked their way along, cars hooted at the slow-moving horses and carts. Mollie felt disembodied, as if her spirit were elsewhere, and the heavy traffic sounded muted in her ears. She forced herself to stop and stare into the windows of the dozens of little shops she passed, to concentrate on the fashionable clothes, the shoes with high heels that she’d always wanted, a train set that Thaddy would have loved, the jack-in-the-box that would have amused Aidan. Oh, and earrings shaped like teardrops which were similar to ones Mammy had used to wear. Her eyes pricked with teardrops of her own: since Mammy died life had become too depressing for words. Yet even though being in Liverpool on her own made her feel as miserable as sin, it was better than living in Duneathly with the Doctor. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. If everything went well, in a few weeks she would be in New York with Annemarie and Aunt Maggie and feeling herself again.

She arrived at Lime Street but, instead of asking the whereabouts of a small hotel, she stopped a woman pushing a baby in a giant pram and asked the way to Crosshall Street. She was badly in need of a friend right now.

 

Agatha’s jaw dropped several inches when Mollie entered the chemist’s. She was in the middle of serving a male customer who couldn’t decide which ointment to buy. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she gasped when the man had gone. ‘I thought you’d be halfway across the Atlantic by now.’

‘So did I,’ Mollie answered, rolling her eyes. ‘At least, I did when I last saw you, but then didn’t I go and miss the boat?’

‘Flippin’ heck,’ Agatha snorted. ‘I thought you left in plenty of time.’

‘So did I, but it appears I got the time wrong.’

Agatha looked even more stunned. ‘Where’s your sister?’ she enquired.

‘
She’s
halfway across the Atlantic.’ Mollie managed to raise the glimmer of a smile.

‘Jaysus! Where’ve you been for the last few days?’

‘In hospital. I’ve only just been let out. It seems I had concussion.’

‘Didn’t I say you should go to hospital with that bump on your head?’ She looked faintly smug at having been proven right.

‘You did indeed,’ Mollie agreed. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming to see you.’ She and Agatha had hardly spoken to each other for more than half an hour and it seemed a bit of a cheek to seek her out as if she were a long-lost friend.

‘Mind!’ Agatha snorted again. ‘Of course I don’t mind. If you’d let me know before, I’d have visited you in the hospital.’ She came to the front of the counter. ‘Sit down so I can see what the bump’s like now.’ Mollie sat down and Agatha gently parted her hair so she could have a good look. ‘It’s shrunk,’ she announced. ‘The bump that is, not your head.’ She sat on the other chair. Behind her wire-rimmed glasses, her brown eyes shone with sympathy. ‘I suppose you’re feeling pretty fed up about things.’

‘More than fed up,’ Mollie said fervently. ‘I’m devastated.’

‘What are you going to do now?’

‘Look for a cheap hotel where I can stay until I hear back from my aunt in New York.’

‘You can stay with us,’ Agatha said instantly, ‘as long as you don’t mind sleeping on the sofa in the parlour. It mightn’t be as comfortable as a hotel, but it won’t cost you a penny.’