The Liverpool Rose (48 page)

That Jake was very ill, Priddy did not bother to deny. Had it been possible for her to treat him herself, she would undoubtedly have done so, but she told Lizzie, during the course of the morning, that she knew very little about concussion save that it was dangerous. She said she would feel very much happier when she was able to get Jake into hospital where they understood such things.

‘How long will it take us to get to Blackburn?’ Lizzie asked when dusk was falling and Clem had come down into the cabin to say they would soon moor up because they were near stabling where Boxer might spend the night. ‘Do you think it might be wiser to try to get him a faster conveyance of some description? I know we’re a long way from the city still.’

Priddy, however, was doubtful of the wisdom of such an action. ‘I don’t think he ought to be rattled around,’ she said worriedly. ‘Even though I wants him seen by a doctor, I don’t think a journey on land could do anything but harm. He’s best off in the old
Liverpool Rose,
where he’s accustomed to the motion, like.’

And by evening she was proved right for when the corned beef hash was being served, with Lizzie sitting
up in her bunk and Clem and Priddy perched on the two stools, Jake suddenly stirred. His eyelashes fluttered, though his eyes did not open completely, but he said in a slurred voice: ‘Somethin’ smells good,’ before relapsing into seeming unconsciousness once more.

Priddy, delighted by this evidence that he was beginning to pull round, hastily heated a mug of beef tea and she and Clem supported the old man until he was more or less upright in his bunk. Then Priddy fed him the beef tea, spoonful by spoonful, and though the first attempts simply dribbled down his chin, he suddenly seemed to realise what was happening and his throat worked in regular swallows until half the mugful had disappeared. Only then did he give an inarticulate mumble and turn his head away, making it plain that he had taken enough nourishment for now at any rate.

Lizzie, Clem and Priddy were all immensely heartened by this, though Lizzie was worried that she was sleeping in Priddy’s bunk and tried to insist that she would be quite comfortable on the cabin floor overnight. Clem said she might have his little cabin on the butty boat and he would curl up in the storage cabin aboard
The Liverpool Rose
but Priddy pooh-poohed this as being quite unnecessary. ‘If you think I could sleep – aside from the odd cat-nap – with Jake so poorly, you must have a queer old opinion of me,’ she said roundly. ‘I’ll sit in me old chair wi’ a cushion behind me head and keep an eye on me invalids, so’s if one of ’em were to stir, I’d know all about it. Now if you’ve stabled that dratted old horse and seen us moored up safe and sound, young Clem, you’d best be off to your bed ’cos I reckon we’ll make an early start in the mornin’.

Despite his brave words to Sally that Clem would be looking after Lizzie, Geoff found himself worrying more and more as his trips to the canal resulted in no good news, either of
The Liverpool Rose
or of Lizzie herself. In his worst moments, he imagined that Lizzie’s Uncle Perce had somehow managed to get on her trail and was searching the canal vessels for her with murder in his heart, but at other times he was more sanguine. Canal folk stuck together, everyone said so, which surely meant they would protect Lizzie, who was Clem’s good friend, from any evil which threatened her. What was more, the ferocity of the blizzard and the depth of the snow now covering the land was so great that many villages and towns were cut off, and common sense told Geoff that no matter how much Lizzie might wish to come back to Liverpool, she and
The Liverpool Rose
would almost certainly be unable to do so until the weather cleared. He spent a good deal of time over the Christmas holiday with Sally and her parents, though he and Sally tended to leave the court as soon as they could so they might talk over their various worries.

The court, of course, was full of gossip about Annie Grey’s strange death and her husband’s subsequent disappearance, but Sally had spoken seriously to Mrs Bradshaw and impressed upon her the importance of keeping her knowledge of Uncle Perce’s liaison with Flossie to herself. Sally’s mother had pooh-poohed
this advice, reluctant to curb her desire to gossip, but fortunately Mr Bradshaw had backed Sally up and assured his wife that it was not only foolish but probably courting trouble to tell what she knew. ‘A cornered rat is always dangerous,’ he told her severely, ‘and Percy’s got a lot to lose if you go shootin’ your mouth off. Do you want him comin’ round here one dark night to shut your mouth for you, eh? If he’s found guilty of murder then it’s the noose for him, no question, so killin’ one more woman isn’t likely to worry him.’

Mrs Bradshaw might be a gossip – well, she was – but she had a strong sense of self-preservation and obviously decided that her husband’s advice was worth following. At any rate, though she listened with interest to the tittle-tattle of her neighbours, she contributed nothing herself.

On the day following Boxing Day, which was a Saturday, Geoff returned to the bank though Sally’s factory did not open until the Monday. She had agreed that she would go up to the orphan asylum of Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart today. So, after her dinner, Sally set off, her muffler well up over her face and her hands wedged into the pockets of her coat, for though it was no longer actually snowing it was still bitterly cold, and even in the city the snow was still piled in great drifts across many of the pavements.

She was a little nervous when she reached the convent, wondering how she would be greeted there, but the nun who opened the door to her and asked her name smiled very sweetly and led her inside, saying that she was expected and that Evie Evans could be with her in five minutes.

She indicated a chair upon which Sally could sit while she waited then disappeared down a long,
flagstoned corridor, leaving the girl to glance, a trifle apprehensively, around her. The hall was oblong in shape and lit by a glass dome high above Sally’s head. A broad staircase led to the upper floors. There were a number of holy pictures on the staircase wall and four small statues in the niches between various doorways, but other than that the place was completely bare. It was also extremely cold, the air seeming very little warmer than that outside. But Sally scarcely had time to wish she had not removed her muffler and gloves before Evie was crossing the hall towards her, throwing open one of the fine oak doors and ushering her into the small room beyond.

‘I’ve got permish to use Sister Agatha’s room because the common room’s full of girls, all chattering away like magpies,’ she said. ‘Do sit down, Miss . . . er . . .’

‘I’m Sally – Sally Bradshaw,’ she said a trifle reproachfully. ‘Don’t you remember me from the old days, Chinky? Oh, I know I shouldn’t call you that, you’ve turned respectable like what I have. You’re Evie Evans now, but I thought you might remember me ’cos I remember you. At least,’ she added honestly, ‘I never would have known you, only Geoff told me that’s who you were.’

‘Yes, I do remember you, Sally,’ Evie admitted. ‘But you’re a working girl now and I’m still at school. It makes a difference, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, I suppose,’ Sally said. ‘But we’ve not met to discuss how much we’ve changed, queen. Geoff is desperate to know what happened to you after he and his pal left Sid’s flat, and I’m pretty curious meself. You seemed to disappear off the face of the earth and we were real worried Sid might have harmed you in some way.’

‘He did his best to,’ Evie admitted, and sighed. ‘It’s a long story and if you’re to make head or tail of it, I’d better start right at the beginning, when Sid first found out I was at the orphanage. It was like this . . .’

It was a long story, but one which Sally listened to with bated breath. She and Geoff had arranged to meet in Regan’s dining rooms on Islington as soon as the bank closed. So it was over tea and cakes there that she repeated Evie’s story with considerable relish.

She told Geoff how Evie had been picked up by the scuffer and accepted into the orphan asylum and how Sid had come across her as she made her way to a music lesson. At first, she had told Sally her meetings with him had been delightful interludes in her rather boring and restricted life, so when Sid had suggested that she might go out with him to concerts, films and so on, she had been both flattered and delighted. After all, she was a great deal younger than he and thought that he could have his pick of girls without having to work for their company the way he had to with Evie herself.

Sid had been very obliging, actually buying with his own money some black high-heeled shoes and a couple of cheeky, modern little hats, decorated with bunches of feathers and tiny half-veils. He had even invested in a long, straight skirt, so that she would not be picked out as the schoolgirl she was when they went around together, and the innocent Evie had taken this borrowed finery at face value. She had changed at Sid’s aunt’s house – or, at least, Sid had told Evie the woman was his aunt – and had felt very grown up and sophisticated at the cinema shows, theatre performances and concerts to which
he had squired her. In fact, until the night he had taken her back to his flat, it had never occurred to her that Sid could have any reason other than sheer kindness for taking her about and spending money on her.

But on the evening in question, he had shown his hand for the first time. He had suggested, quite seriously, that Evie should leave the convent and go to work in one of the big stores. Had explained that with her unusual looks and slender figure, she could not only sell gowns but could model them for her customers and, consequently, be very much better paid than an ordinary shop girl. ‘What’s more, you’d meet the right kind of people, rich people – fellers as well as women – in a posh shop like that,’ he had assured her. ‘Then, of course, because you weren’t stuck in that bleedin’ convent of yours, I could take you to the races wi’ me, introduce you to the fellers wi’
real
money, fellers who are longin’ to meet a nice girl and give her a good time. Honest to God, Evie, you could have a grand life and make yourself a deal o’ money, simply escortin’ me rich clients to dances and so on. You could have a little flat in a smart part of town, a maid to keep things nice . . . I’m tellin’ you, a girl like you could go anywhere,’ he had said.

Sid clearly thought that Evie would leap at his offer but instead she had been unable to prevent herself from showing not only dismay but a good deal of annoyance. She had never pretended that she wanted a career as either a shopgirl or a ‘friend’ to rich race goers, and thought Sid was taking advantage of their friendship by making such suggestions. She was about to storm back to the orphanage when she and Sid bumped into Geoff and his pal.

The rest of the evening she genuinely enjoyed but
tried to leave the flat when the two lads did. Sid had prevented her from doing so and she had not demurred, believing he intended to take her home in style in a taxi. Once he had her alone, however, he had changed completely, and when she tried to leave, had beaten her into submission, actually saying he meant to keep her in the flat overnight so that even if she tried to return to the convent, the nuns would not take her back in.

Sally had been horrified by this dreadful story but soon realised that Evie was not the pushover Sid had taken her for. Beneath the veneer of a quiet and cultivated convent school girl lurked tough and self-reliant little Chinky who had fought her own battles for years. She had waited until Sid had gone into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, believing her to be too battered and bruised to resist, and then she had hidden behind the door, poker upraised. As Sid returned with two brimming cups, she had hit him behind his left ear and watched with considerable satisfaction as he fell senseless to the floor. ‘I helped meself to the money out of his pockets so’s I could get a taxi and went back to the convent,’ she told Sally. ‘I knew that the time for deceit was over if I wanted to continue with my musical career, so I went straight to the Mother Superior and told her everything. I told her that Sid’s aunt was just a blind and I’d been a complete fool – and wicked as well – but that I’d learned my lesson and simply wanted to forget what had happened and remain a pupil here.’

‘And she
forgave
you?’ Sally had asked incredulously. ‘Well, obviously she did, or you wouldn’t be here today. I bet they punished you, didn’t they?’

Evie chuckled. ‘Not really,’ she had assured the
other girl. ‘Oh, I had to keep an eye on the little ones, and of course there were no more outings, but somehow it didn’t seem like a punishment. I’m trying for a musical scholarship to the Royal College when I’m old enough, and in the meantime I’ll do anything to help the nuns that I can because they’ve been so good to me.’

Sally had asked Evie whether the fact that she had left Sid lying unconscious on the floor of his flat, had worried her. ‘After all, you might have killed him,’ she had observed. But Evie, laughing, merely shook her head.

‘I knew he weren’t dead,’ she had said breezily. ‘He were beginning to stir as I let myself out. And anyway, he only got what he deserved. What’s more, bad pennies like Sid don’t die of a crack on the head. I reckon he’ll be around, making life miserable for someone, for a good few years yet.’

Then Sally had told Evie about Geoff’s meeting with him on Lime Street Station, and although Evie pretended to be indifferent she saw the younger girl’s face brighten. ‘So he’s left the ‘Pool?’ she had said. ‘Well, if he ever shows his face here again and tries anything on wi’ me, I’ll make sure he regrets it. Thanks for tellin’ me though, Sally.’

By the time Sally had recounted Evie’s story, she and Geoff had drunk a large pot of tea and eaten a plate of cakes, and he found himself suddenly smiling broadly and feeling . . . oh, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He had liked Evie, had felt sorry for her, worried about her, but he realised now that he had never really known the girl and had been attracted to her simply because she was both beautiful and strange. He had also felt guilty for not
making sure that she was all right, that Sid had not preyed upon her in some way.