The Liverpool Rose (19 page)

‘Roast rabbit wi’ onions and potatoes, all cooked in the same tin in the oven until they’s sort of blended together,’ he said with relish, after an approving sniff. ‘I’ll just give Priddy a shout . . .’

Upon hearing her name, Mrs Pridmore appeared, a wooden spoon in one hand, and Clem explained briefly that this was his friend Lizzie whose aunt was ill. Then, accompanied by Brutus, he set off briskly along the towpath, leaving Lizzie to explain her errand to Mrs Pridmore.

‘Come below. And you must call me Priddy as Clem does,’ the older woman said. ‘So you’re our Clem’s little pal, eh? I’m right glad to meet you, having heard the lad mention you from time to time. Now what can I do for you?’ She sat Lizzie down by the fire and began to stir the big black pot which was bubbling on the stove.

Lizzie glanced around her at the comfortable, crowded cabin; at Priddy’s neatly parted grey hair,
skewered into a tiny, hard bun at the back of her neck; at the brightly painted furniture and the dried herbs hooked to the ceiling. Paddy’s leathery brown face looked as old as the hills, as though the wisdom of Egypt could be hidden behind her seamed forehead, but there was kindness and humour in the glance which she bestowed on her guest. ‘Clem’s made hisself scarce so I guess it’s women’s problems and there’s no need for shyness twixt you and me ’cos we’s both women, though I’ve been around a tad longer ’n you.’

Lizzie began, haltingly, to tell Priddy about Aunt Annie’s loss and subsequent illness, if you could call it that. Very soon the fact that Priddy listened without comment but with deep, unspoken understanding made it easier to continue. In ten minutes, Priddy knew as much about Aunt Annie’s strange behaviour as Lizzie did herself. The old woman had nodded approvingly when Lizzie had related Mrs Buckingham’s words and now she turned away from the pot on the stove and sat down opposite Lizzie. ‘Your pal’s right, she do need something to take her mind off what’s happened,’ she said broodingly. ‘Now we can’t give her a babby, nor she wouldn’t want one what ain’t her own.’ She grinned across at Lizzie, her face suddenly mischievous. ‘You’ve seen our Clem wi’ that great soft dog? It’s better’n a brother to him, so for all it’s so huge we welcomed it, Jake and meself. Clem’s lost his mam and his da, you see, and though he didn’t know it, we wasn’t enough for him. He needed . . . I reckon he needed Brutus.’

‘I’m sure Aunt Annie would love a dog,’ Lizzie said, crossing her fingers behind her back and trying not to sound as horrified as she felt at the thought. A little puppy, she now realised, could turn into a
monster in no time at all if it chose to do so. ‘The trouble is, we live in a back-to-back so there’s no yard, nowhere a dog could go to do his business, and what’s more, Aunt Annie don’t gerrout much. I’m working all day now, so the poor animal would either roam the streets by hisself or be shut in all day wi’ me aunt, and that don’t seem right somehow.’

‘Wharrabout a cat?’ Priddy suggested, but Lizzie, though her eyes shone at the thought of a dear little kitten, shook her head.

‘Me Uncle Perce hates cats worse than poison,’ she said. ‘He’s scared of them, in a way – I think he’d kill one if it walked near him –
that
sort of scared. Then there are me cousins, Herbie and Denis. They hate cats an’ all. There’s ever such a pretty grey and white one what lives two doors from us and Aunt Annie lives in fear that one of them will wring its neck one dark night, if it rubs up agin them as they’re coming back from the pub.’

Priddy sighed. ‘A goldfish ain’t the same,’ she muttered. ‘It’s gorra be something young and sort o’ fluffy. Wharrabout a cage bird, queen?’

‘I dunno,’ Lizzie said. ‘We might run to a canary or a budgie, I suppose. It’d be nice if we got one what could talk to her. It’d be company, like.’

Priddy nodded approvingly and got to her feet. She reached up to a tiny cupboard, brightly ornamented with painted roses, and drew forth a medium-sized brown bottle, firmly corked. She handed this to Lizzie. It’s me cowslip wine, fortified,’ she explained mysteriously. ‘Just you tell her to take a nip or two of this whenever she’s feelin’ real down. It’ll help. And don’t worry, queen, a lot o’ women in your aunt’s position have to struggle for themselves before they get well again. At least your aunt’s got you on her side.’

Thanking her hostess profusely, Lizzie left the canal boat and was walking along the towpath in the direction in which Clem had disappeared when she saw him coming out of a range of sturdy wooden buildings ahead, accompanied by Brutus dancing joyfully along, clearly anticipating the meal ahead. ‘Going to come back wi’ me while I feed the old feller?’ Clem said hopefully. ‘Then, if you’re still at a loose end, we might take a walk round the shops.’

Lizzie longed to agree, but she had no desire to spend any more time in the company of Brutus, and besides, she knew that at home Aunt Annie would be waiting for her. On the other hand, if she were to walk just a little way with Clem, they might discuss the problem of a pet for her aunt. Clem struck her as an inventive sort of person – perhaps he could think of a pet which would not cost too much money. Lizzie herself handed over the lion’s share of her wages each week to Aunt Annie and had already spent the little that was left on a piece of blue ribbon for her hair and some sweets. She did not think that cage birds would be cheap, and she would have to purchase a cage, too, since the Grays did not own such a thing. There were wild birds, of course, and rabbits in the fields, but she did not imagine that even the ingenious Clem would be able to produce one of those at a moment’s notice, but perhaps, if they walked around the shops . . .

A couple of hours later, Lizzie returned to the court with the cowslip wine under her left arm and a rustling paper bag in her hand. The bag was rustling because it contained a present for Aunt Annie – the only one Lizzie had been able to afford. She had bought, for the sum of one ha’penny, two day-old chicks and a measure of the meal which the pet shop
man had assured her was the best possible food for such tiny mites.

Much to her relief, Clem had agreed at once that a trip to choose a pet from one of the many pet-shops in the area meant that Brutus would be happier at home. ‘Or the fluffy kittens and little canaries would be happier, at any rate,’ he assured her. ‘He’s a grand feller, none better, but he’d put the fear o’ God into pet-shop owners, never mind the pets.’

So the two of them had gone off on their search without Brutus, who had taken up his favourite position in the cabin between Priddy and Jake and had only looked a little mournful when Clem had told him to ‘Stay’ and had departed with Lizzie.

She and the chicks had parted from Clem on Houghton Bridge and had watched wistfully as, with a wave of the hand, he had disappeared into
The Liverpool Rose’s
cabin. Lizzie imagined the welcome that her pal would receive from his dog, and guessed that even now Clem would be eating delicious roast rabbit and no doubt telling Priddy and Jake all about Lizzie’s purchase. He had told her that when he had lived with his parents in the little mining village they had kept poultry and had enjoyed a better standard of living as a result. ‘The feller in the pet-shop assured me we got a cock and a hen,’ he said instructively, ‘because, unless you have one of each, you won’t get no more chicks.’

‘Why not?’ Lizzie had asked, wide-eyed. ‘I thought hens just laid eggs without needing anything except a good diet?’

‘So they do,’ Clem admitted. ‘But the eggs don’t turn into chicks unless there’s a cockerel around, and a hen has to be a year old anyway before she lays any eggs. It’s – it’s kind o’ like what happens wi’ people, I
suppose. Girls and fellers have to . . . to grow up before they get wed and that.’

Lizzie began to say that surely hens were nothing like people, but she was watching Clem’s face as she spoke and saw a tide of pink spread across it, though he simply said, shortly, that she would soon realise he was right and that one day her aunt could easily find herself in possession of several good laying hens. ‘Then she’ll be able to sell ’em on, which can’t be bad,’ he concluded.

So now Lizzie crossed the court with a buoyant step and burst into the kitchen of number nine. Aunt Annie was sitting in her favourite chair, staring at the fire as though she could see pictures in the glowing coals. From the look on her face, they were not pleasant pictures. Lizzie banged the cowslip wine down on the table and placed the paper bag with great care next to it. Then she looked disapprovingly around the kitchen.

It was filthy. Dirty pots were piled up all around the washing-up bowl, the buckets which should have been brimming with water were empty, and the big kettle had been taken off the fire, which was burning low, and stood on the floor beside it. It was the first time that Lizzie had seen the fire without the kettle steaming gently over the flames and somehow this distressed her even more than the piled up dishes and the floor which, now that she looked at it, had not been brushed for a week. Fragments of vegetable matter, crumbs of stale bread and dirty linen lay on it in a way which the old Aunt Annie would never have allowed. However, this was clearly not the moment to berate her aunt for slovenliness.

‘Sorry I’m late, Aunt Annie,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I guess Sally told you I was seeing my pal, Clem, the
one who lives on a canal boat? Mrs Pridmore, who owns the boat, has sent you a little present. She says to have a nip whenever you’re feeling down, and it looks to me as if you could do wi’ one right now.’ She reached a chipped cup down from the sideboard, uncorked the bottle, and poured a little of the amber liquid into it. The smell wafted up to her nostrils, reminding her of grass bleached by the sun and of the flowers which spangled the meadows in June. Aunt Annie, who had glanced incuriously across at her as she entered, seemed to smell the drink as well for her eyes brightened and she lurched to her feet and sank down into a wooden chair by the table, holding out a plump hand and taking the cup from her niece’s grasp.

‘That’s mortal good of Mrs Pridmore,’ she said appreciatively, curling both hands around the cup as though to warm them. ‘Wharris it, chuck? Don’t it just smell good! I don’t mind takin’ a sip if it tastes like it smells.’

‘I’m sure it does,’ Lizzie said eagerly. ‘Have a swig, Aunt Annie, it’ll do you good. Mrs Pridmore is a wonderful cook and she makes wonderful medicines, too. Everyone on the canal knows it.’

Aunt Annie raised the cup to her nose and inhaled deeply; then she took a tentative sip. Lizzie watched as she rolled the liquid around her palate, finally swallowing it all in one gulp. ‘My, I’d best keep this out of sight, where neither Perce nor the boys can find it,’ Aunt Annie remarked, taking another sip. ‘It goes down mild and gentle but when it hits your belly, there’s a lovely hot, burning feeling . . . I guess a mouthful of this would bring a corpus back to life!’

A couple more sips and the cup was empty. Aunt Annie stood it back on the table and gave a squeak.
The paper bag had begun to move across the table towards her. ‘Wharris it?’ she whispered, never removing her eyes from the paper bag. ‘Oh, our Lizzie, wharrever were in that drink? You’ve poisoned me, so you have – I’ll be seein’ pink elephants next! The bloody bag’s dancin’ a jig!’

Lizzie bit back a laugh and tipped the paper bag – or rather its contents – out on to the table. Two round balls of yellow fluff tumbled out and stared at Aunt Annie as curiously as she was staring at them with their round, boot-button eyes.

‘Chicks! Day-old chicks!’ Aunt Annie exclaimed, and Lizzie saw interest in her eyes for the first time since returning from hospital. ‘Oh, Lizzie, ain’t they just the sweetest little buggers? Are they your friend’s?’ Her hand reached out as though of its own accord and she gently picked up one of the chicks and held it against her face. ‘So soft,’ she said. ‘I’ve always wanted to keep chickens, you know, queen. But we ain’t gorra back yard nor nothin’, and I daresay your uncle would take agin ’em.’

‘He’d better not,’ Lizzie said with real belligerence. ‘Just think, Aunt Annie, one day those little scraps will be able to lay eggs and have chicks of their own. That’s why me pal, the young feller off the canal boat, got one baby cockerel and one baby hen. And of course there’ll be the eggs.’

Aunt Annie looked at Lizzie as though she had suddenly discovered that her niece was a genius. ‘You’ve gorra point, chuck,’ she said slowly. ‘And what’s more, it’s a good point. Your uncle’s always short of a bob or two, always complainin’ that I’m idlin’ here at home just because I’m not strong enough to take in washing, not yet I’m not. But if he knows these little fellers are goin’ to grow up useful, proper
little money-spinners, then I don’t see him treadin’ ’em underfoot nor slingin’ ’em out to seek their fortunes, do you?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Lizzie said. The thought of the tiny chicks, with a stick over each shoulder upon which dangled a bundle tied up with a red and white spotted handkerchief,
à la
Dick Whittington, was a delightful one, but she suppressed her smiles and stared solemnly back at her aunt. ‘In fact, once Uncle Perce realises that they’ll help out the housekeeping, I daresay he’ll grow as fond of ’em as you or me.’

‘But what’ll we keep ’em in?’ Aunt Annie asked plaintively. ‘We ain’t got no crate, nor even an old parrot cage. Besides they’d slip out through the bars of a parrot cage while they’re so tiny.’

‘The feller in the shop said to get ’em an old shoe box, lined with cotton wool for sleeping in night-times. In the day, I reckon they can scrat around the kitchen, provided you keep the door closed and watch where you’re treading,’ Lizzie said. ‘The only alternative is the front room, and you want them with you really, don’t you? They can pick at crumbs and that which fall on the floor – they’ll be as good as a couple of housemaids, Aunt Annie!’

‘Well, we’ll give it a try and see how it goes,’ her aunt decided. She looked around her. ‘We don’t have no shoe boxes, but I guess one of me saucepans will do the trick if I line it with a good, thick piece of blanket. Well, fancy you buyin’ me these two little fellers – I can see I’ll have me work cut out just watchin’ that they don’t come to harm.’