The Liverpool Rose (21 page)

Companionably, the two of them moved along the autumn-bright hedge, filling their string bags. They reached a mossy gate leading to a field which contained a pond. Standing next to it, they saw a water-vole scudding quietly along, only its nose showing above the water. Bulrushes grew in thick clumps along the further bank and as they approached a kingfisher took off in a blur of turquoise and blue. Lizzie gasped and sat down on the bank. ‘It is so beautiful,’ she said, her voice almost reverent. ‘I wish Aunt Annie could see it. Oh, Geoff, what’s that?’

As Lizzie had sat down, she had kicked out a wedge of the dark, water-softened earth which surrounded the pond and revealed a number of tiny,
blood-red worms, wriggling in the rich soil. ‘They’re worms, the sort that fishermen use as bait,’ Geoff said. ‘Gosh, there must be hundreds. Tell you what, Lizzie, didn’t you once tell me that Clem dug worms for Mrs Pridmore’s hens? What say we collect some of these for Sausage and Mash? Why, what with all this lovely green stuff and lots of wriggling worms, they’ll think it’s their birthday!’

Lizzie agreed. ‘Because neither Sausage nor Mash will eat corn yet, and I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that chickens love worms,’ she said. ‘What a treat it will be for them – sort of meat and two veg, wouldn’t you say?’

Geoff laughed and began the task of extricating the worms from the rich and peaty soil, dropping them into a sort of nest of greaseproof paper which Lizzie made in the bottom of the canvas bag. Then, as the sun sank behind the distant hills, they turned their faces towards the road and their bus home.

That evening, Sausage and Mash were given their first taste of real greenery, chopped up small and mixed in with the breadcrumbs and fine meal which they usually ate. They seemed to enjoy the change and gobbled it up with great enthusiasm, so Lizzie tipped about half the wriggling mass of worms into their bowl and stood back to watch.

The leggy young chicks, looking odd now that their fluff was being replaced by tiny, brown feathers, stared anxiously at this strange phenomenon, jumping back every time the worms seemed about to attack them. Aunt Annie made chirruping noises and picked a worm out between thumb and forefinger, dangling it in front of the chicks’ eyes. Neither Sausage nor Mash made any move to grab the
tantalising titbit; in fact they both drew back, looking as outraged as though Aunt Annie was offering them cyanide. ‘Come on, fellers,’ she said coaxingly. ‘This ’ere’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted, and there’s a whole heap more of ’em, what’s more. If one of you don’t make a move soon, your Aunt Annie will have to eat ’em all herself.’

Lizzie gave a protesting squeak and smothered a gasp as Aunt Annie pretended to eat a worm, smacking her lips and telling the chicks how delicious it was, before dangling it front of their eyes once more. And presently, to Lizzie’s relief, for she guessed that Aunt Annie would insist on keeping the worms until Sausage and Mash decided to try them, Sausage leaned forward and grabbed one end of the worm. In the blink of an eye it was gone and soon both chicks were tucking into their lively supper, crooning and cheeping and clearly enjoying the unusual meal.

‘I reckon wherever there’s soil, there’ll be worms,’ Aunt Annie said later, as the two of them made their way up the stairs to bed. ‘I know we ain’t got a backyard, but there’s earth all over the place. Wharrabout the canal bank? Could you dig there if you had a little spade, or a spoon, or something?’

‘I suppose you could,’ Lizzie said doubtfully. ‘Only I don’t think it would be a good idea. Tell you what, Aunt Annie, there’s allotments out at Seaforth and some of the fellers who own them are really old and might be glad of a hand in exchange for a few worms. Next time I’ve got a day free, I’ll take a tram out there and see if I can do a swap. Come to that, when it’s low tide, you see chaps down on the sand, digging for bait. Bait’s only worms, isn’t it? The shore doesn’t belong to anyone, so I guess Geoff and I could dig
there and bring the worms back for Sausage and Mash.’

‘I’m going to ask round St John’s Market whether they can spare me old cabbage leaves and that,’ Aunt Annie said dreamily. ‘They’re only little now, but one day they’ll be needin’ a good deal of food, ’specially when they start layin’. Folks are pretty good on the whole when you explain you’ve gorra couple of young hens. I’ll see what I can do.’

And Lizzie, continuing up the attic stairs, thought that Aunt Annie would probably do very well. Everyone liked her and would be keen to do anything they could to help her, especially if the food they gave for the hens would otherwise have been thrown away.

Going into her own attic room, Lizzie thought what a lovely day she had had and was grateful to Geoff, both for his companionship and his kindness in giving her another day out. Most young men of his age – for at sixteen he really was a young man and not a boy – would not have wanted to spend a whole day with a kid of fourteen. Still, Geoff had been her pal for a long while now, and never mentioned their age difference, so perhaps it did not matter after all.

Entering her attic, she checked with a quick glance that Herbie’s peephole was still firmly puttied over and that there was nothing untoward in the room. Then she undressed quickly and slid between the blankets. She intended to relive her lovely trip to the country in that delicious time when she was not quite asleep nor fully awake, but it had been a long and exciting day in the fresh air. Very soon Lizzie slept, revisiting the country only in her dreams.

It was a sunny day and Chinky was sitting on the grass feeling placid and even a little sleepy. It was too much to say that she was happy because she had come to Toxteth Park Cemetery to visit the grave of one of the few people who had been kind to her. Old Mrs Muggeridge, who had lived three doors further along from Chinky’s foster mother and had always been good to the small unwanted child, had for the past year or so been asking her in and often the two of them would share a simple meal. It had seemed like heaven to Chinky to have a friend who not only fed her but seemed to like her as well. Mrs Muggeridge had even given her clothing from time to time – a faded blue skirt, several sizes too large, a much-patched white blouse, even clogs on one occasion. The clothes had once belonged to Mrs Muggeridge’s daughter, Evie, but she had died in the influenza epidemic of 1919 so Mrs Muggeridge had been happy for Chinky to have them.

She had been glad to have Chinky’s companionship as well. It was lonely for an old lady whose daughter had died and whose only other child, a son named Cuthbert, had married a Scottish fishergirl and now lived in Aberdeen. He wrote quite often, describing the beauties of the granite city, Mrs Muggeridge was apt to tell Chinky wistfully, but letters weren’t the same as a nice chat. She seemed fond of her daughter-in-law, Kirsty, and of her two
grandchildren, but assured Chinky that she would never consider leaving Liverpool to go and live in Aberdeen. ‘It doesn’t do to change your whole way of life when you’re nudgin’ seventy,’ she told her young friend. ‘What’s more, it’s hard on the young folk to have an old ’un thrust upon them, especially since I wouldn’t know a soul up there apart from me own family. No, no, I’m better livin’ in the house my dear husband brought me to when we was wed, surrounded by neighbours who’ve known me fifty years, and with me little friend Chinky to keep me company now and then.’

But a week ago, when Chinky had gone round to the house with a present for Mrs Muggeridge – three pretty good cooking apples which she had acquired from a stall in Great Homer Street – a strange person had answered the door. She was a tall, raw-boned woman in her fifties, her reddish hair streaked with grey, wearing a black dress and shawl. She stared down at Chinky without saying a word and the girl stared back, completely bemused. Who could this be? The woman was not young enough to be Kirsty, and besides Mrs Muggeridge would surely have told Chinky had she been expecting a visit from her daughter-in-law.

‘Who’s you after?’ the woman said suddenly, peering through sandy lashes at Chinky. ‘If it’s Mrs Muggeridge, she’s no’ here. She’s in the hospital.’

Her accent was so strongly Scottish that Chinky had to listen hard to understand a word but as soon as she did so, her heart jumped into her mouth. Her friend was in trouble – this must be a nurse, or perhaps a relative of the landlord, come to take possession of the house. Chinky’s hands flew to her mouth and the bag of apples dropped to the paving.
‘H-h-hospital?’ she quavered. ‘Is she ill? What’s happened? Has someone sent for her son? And who – who are you?’

Seeing Chinky’s obvious distress, the woman unbent a little and actually smiled. ‘You’ll be the wee girl that m’son-in-law says his mammy talked about in her letters,’ she said, enlightenment dawning. ‘I’m Kirsty’s mother, Mrs McTavish. You’d best come away in, lass, and meet Cuthbert. My daughter’s back home wi’ the wee ones, so I came doon wi’ the laddie to do what I could.’ As she ushered Chinky into the well-remembered little parlour, she added: ‘Your pal’s had a stroke. She’s very ill and does nae even know her ain wee son. They doot she’ll last the day oot.’

Chinky couldn’t help herself and began to cry, big shuddering sobs that shook her small frame. Mrs Muggeridge had been more than just a friend to her, she had been a refuge, a port in a storm, the only person upon whom Chinky could rely. If she died . . . but the thought was too terrible to contemplate. She turned tear-drowned eyes to Mrs McTavish. ‘I dunno what I’ll do if anything happens to her,’ she gulped. ‘She’s me only real friend in the whole world. She often gives me food and bits o’ clothing, but it ain’t just that. She – she
likes
me, Mrs McTavish, which is more’n me foster mother does. I’m just a nuisance to
her,
she’d lambast the hide off of me if I didn’t keep out of her way. Surely Mrs Muggeridge might get better?’

Before Mrs McTavish could answer, another voice spoke. ‘You’ll be young Chinky,’ it said, in a familiar Liverpool accent. ‘Me mam’s often writ about you in her letters, so I feels I know you. I’m Cuthbert Muggeridge, but I daresay you’ve guessed that much.’

Chinky turned. In the doorway stood a tall young man, smiling down at her with a good deal of sympathy in his dark eyes. He was wearing seamen’s clothing – a dark-blue jersey and trousers, with a blue and white spotted handkerchief knotted round his neck. But instead of sea boots he wore a pair of cracked black shoes. He had a square chin and a dimple in one cheek, yet he was so like Mrs Muggeridge that Chinky thought she would have guessed who he was even if she had met him in the street and not in this house. ‘Hello, Mr Muggeridge,’ she said shyly. She scrubbed the tears away from her eyes with the back of both hands, then wiped her nose on the sleeve of her ragged jersey. ‘Are you going to the hospital? Can I come? I’s real fond of your mam. Mebbe if she saw me . . .’

‘Of course you can come, we’ll all go together,’ he said heartily. ‘What’s in the bag?’

Tears welled up in Chinky’s eyes afresh. ‘I – I brung your mam a few cooking apples,’ she said brokenly. ‘She’s a grand cook, your mam. She used to say if I’d bring her fruit, she’d make a pie and then we could share it. She were awful good to me, were your mam.’

‘Tell you what, lassie,’ Mrs McTavish said, her tone gentle, ‘yon puir widow woman will nae know me from Adam, so why don’t I stay here and bake a pie ready for when the two of you come back from the hospital?’

Cuthbert agreed that this seemed like a good idea and he and Chinky set off for their visit.

They were too late. When they reached the ward, Sister came bustling towards them, a brown paper parcel in one hand. She told them that Mrs Muggeridge had died only a few minutes before,
without regaining consciousness, and handed over the bag containing the dead woman’s possessions, saying briskly that the body would be released for burial the following day.

Cuthbert and Chinky trailed home, both so miserable that they scarcely exchanged a word until they reached the court once more. Then Cuthbert told Chinky that she must come to the funeral, and to the wake afterwards, because he knew she had been one of his mother’s dearest friends. ‘I’ll kit you out respectable,’ he assured her. ‘Kirsty’s mam is a grand needlewoman and, God knows, there’s enough black gear in me mam’s wardrobe to clothe half Liverpool. After our Evie died, mam didn’t wear colours for a long while. She used to say black were easier, didn’t need washin’ so often, but in her heart, she were always in mournin’ for my little sister. From what she said to me, you kind o’ took the place of our Evie for me mam, and I’m grateful to you for that, so when the wake’s over, you must take a memento for yourself – something to remember her by, like.’

He had been as good as his word and Chinky had attended the funeral decently dressed in black, from the bow which held her hair away from her face to the scuffed boots on her feet. And afterwards she had not only helped to serve the funeral tea – ham, egg and cheese sandwiches, sausage rolls and a quantity of iced cakes – she had also eaten a good deal of it. Her memento was an ornament she had always greatly admired: a ship in a bottle which Mrs Muggeridge’s sea-faring husband had made when he retired from the sea. In addition, Cuthbert had given her a great many odds and ends which she had put into a coarsely woven hemp sack, so that she might carry them away easily. She left the sack in the cupboard
under the stairs at the Muggeridge house until Cuthbert and his mother-in-law, having sold or otherwise disposed of all his mother’s goods and effects, set out for Aberdeen once more. Only then had Chinky dragged the sack back to her foster mother’s, choosing to do so late at night in the hope that she might hide it somewhere safe until she had decided what to do with the contents. She meant to keep the ship in the bottle, but knew she would have to sell or pawn the rest of the stuff, or lose it to her foster mother’s greedy and unprincipled children.

That first night she had covered the sack with her thin blanket, but because she had come in so late she had overslept, a most unusual occurrence, and when she awoke, the sack was gone. She had searched the whole house desperately, without success, and when she told her foster mother, the woman merely said that it would be one of the older boys and advised her not to make a fuss. ‘I never axed your mam to leave you with me,’ she reminded Chinky for the hundredth time. ‘So you’ve lost a few bits and pieces? Well, you’ll lose more than that before you’re growed. Now get along wi’ you, I’ve work to do even if no one else has.’