The Mersey Girls (33 page)

‘I’ve got five days ashore so I come wi’ me bezzie up the river to tek a look around,’ the young man said. ‘How come you’re here, missus?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Maeve said, with no intention of telling it. ‘What’s a “bezzie”? That’s a new one on me!’

‘Best pal,’ the seaman said. They reached the play area and Maeve unfastened her son from his prison and lifted him onto the ground, then sank down on the nearest seat. The seaman sat down too and held out a square, capable hand. ‘Me name’s Roddy Sullivan; nice to meet you . . . ?’

‘I’m married to an American, I’m Mrs Caleb Zowkoughski,’ Maeve said, shaking the hand vigorously.

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Zowkoughski,’ the young man said. ‘And what’s the young feller-me-lad called?’

‘Padraig, after me father back home in County Kerry, but we call him Paddy, usually. And when will you be back in Liverpool, Mr Sullivan?’

‘In two weeks, if we’re lucky,’ the seaman said rather gloomily. ‘We’re runnin’ timber from Canada to Liverpool this trip, wi’ a two-day turnaround, but next time we’ll be away very much longer – weeks an’ weeks, because we’ll be coastin’ up and down America an’ the West Indies, movin’ timber. On our nex’ trip we shan’t make our ’ome port for a while, worst luck.’

‘Why’s that?’ Maeve asked. ‘I thought all young men wanted to see the world.’

‘Oh aye, but I’ve ’ad a row wi’ me young lady. It were all a mistake, she took wharr I said wrong, I never meant . . .’ Mr Sullivan said, going a little red around the gills, Maeve noticed. ‘You know ’ow women can be, Mrs Zowkoughski – bleedin’ unreasonable, if you ask . . . oh, sorry, I meaned very unreasonable, o’ course.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Maeve said tactfully, since it was all too clear that he had every intention of doing just that. ‘Perhaps just telling someone will help.’

Roddy liked his companion; she seemed sensible and practical. Perhaps, he thought, hope rising, she really could advise him. She was a woman, after all, and would surely understand another woman’s strange behaviour. So he outlined what had happened to cause the quarrel.

‘She ’ad a good job in an insurance office, she were ’appy there. And when me back’s turned for three lousy weeks, what does she do? She moves in wi’ a rich old bloke from work, that’s what.’

‘Married him, do you mean?’ Mrs Zowkoughski asked. ‘In three weeks? That seems rather . . .’

‘No, she din’t marry ’im ’cos ’e’s married already,’ Roddy said unhappily. ‘She just moved in, or that’s wharr I were told.’

‘Just moved . . . and he’s already
married
? Oh, I suppose he’s a widower, is he? But even so . . .’

‘The old b . . . gent’s very rich,’ Roddy explained. ‘He’s gorra ruck o’ servants, a motor, a big ’ouse . . .’

‘Is she a gold-digger?’ Mrs Zowkoughski asked. ‘Well, I suppose she must be, if she was prepared to – to do that just because he was rich.’

Irrationally, Roddy immediately thought Mrs Zowkoughski prejudiced; it was not Linnet’s fault, it was all down to the bleedin’ millionaire she’d met up with, he’d taken advantage of her, that was clear once you’d thought about it.

He said so and Mrs Zowkoughski said judiciously that though it was wrong of the man to have offered a young girl everything but marriage at least she then had a straight choice, to behave well or badly. His young lady had chosen to behave badly in Mrs Zowkoughski’s opinion, and Mr Sullivan had every right to be seriously annoyed with her.

‘I advise you never to speak to her again, but to find yourself another young lady. After all, there are plenty about,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I’m sure you can do better for yourself than yearning after a rich man’s leavings, for that is what she’ll become, unless he decides to offer her marriage after all, that is.’

‘But she’s only a kid, she’s not seen much o’ the world,’ Roddy said rather wildly. He had thought he wanted the very advice he was being given but now he realised that what he truly wanted was someone to tell him to try again. ‘She’s got no mam to advise ’er, nor nothin’. She must ha’ thought she were doin’ the best for ’erself. It ain’t as if I’ve ever asked ’er to marry me . . .’

Mrs Zowkoughski leaned across the bit of bench which separated them and took his hand. ‘Go back home and tell her you love her,’ she said warmly. ‘Because it’s plain that you do. Give her a chance to be sensible and she’ll probably be happy to abandon her old man and his money for the chance of true love.’

‘I will, then,’ Roddy said, getting to his feet and giving Mrs Zowkoughski his most charming smile. ‘I’ll do just as you say, missus, an’ thanks for listenin’. I’d best be on me way now, I’m meetin’ some pals in a fish restaurant on 52nd Street an’ that’s a good walk from ’ere.’ He waved to the little boy playing on the grass and strode away, his step lighter than it had been for a while. She was right! He would definitely give Linnet another chance, after all she didn’t deserve to lose him because of one little mistake!

As he walked, though, he remembered that he had not told Mrs Zowkoughski Linnet’s name – nor, indeed, nearly all the story; would her advice have been the same had she heard that the quarrel had not just been a quarrel but a fight as well? Because when he’d gone happily along to Exchange Flags to meet Linnet out of work and been told that she was living with some rich feller on a posh little street backing onto Prince’s Park he’d seen red at once, and was still seeing it when he arrived outside the house and met Linnet, humming a tune beneath her breath, heading for the post box at the end of the drive to post a letter.

‘Hello, Roddy!’ she said, giving him a great big smile as though she expected to be greeted with equal enthusiasm. ‘I didn’t know you were ashore, how . . .’

She got no further. ‘Don’t flannel me, an’ you’d best go back in there an’ pack your bleedin’ bags, queen,’ he had hissed at her, grabbing her arm. ‘Why, what a way to be’ave, an’ you supposed to be such a little lady!’

She had got cross – how she dared, when you thought what she’d done! But she had, nevertheless.

‘Let go my arm, Roddy,’ she said, pulling against him. ‘I’m not packing any bags, what on earth’s got into you? I’m not just staying over, you know. I live here now, permanent.’

‘With a feller old enough to be your father; I know,’ he jeered. He had seen a middle-aged man edge a long-bonneted motor car cautiously out of the drive moments before Linnet had come singing into view. ‘Well, I’m back now, and I won’t stand for it, d’you hear? I won’t let you lower yourself . . . many a man wouldn’t want to ’ave nothin’ to do wi’ a girl what be’aved like you ’ave, but anyone can make a mistake and . . .’

‘Roddy Sullivan, how dare you? I’ve not made a mistake, it’s the best move I ever made! I get more money, I’ll be able to save easier, and Mr Cowan’s kind and generous. He’ll take good care of me, he’s already promised that as soon as I’ve settled in . . .’

‘Not marriage? Don’t say the old lecher’s promised marriage, flower?’ Roddy had gasped, suddenly truly afraid. It was hateful that his little Linnet – his, his! – had been tricked into moving in with an ugly old man, but suddenly he realised that her living with the feller, though it hurt like a knife through the heart, wasn’t the end. But marriage! If she married him then that was it, he might as well leave right away. ‘You wouldn’t marry ’im, chuck? Marrying’s for life, you know. You’ve made one bad mistake so don’t make another what you can’t alter.’

Linnet wrenched herself free of him and walked past him, nose in the air, cheeks scarlet with what he hoped was shame but suspected was rage.

‘Bugger off, Roddy,’ she hissed over her shoulder. ‘I hate you! I thought you’d be pleased that I’d done well for meself. You call yourself me friend but instead you’re just nasty, as usual. Well, if you think I’ve done the wrong thing then just bugger off, d’you hear me?’

He heard and was stunned. Linnet never swore, he didn’t know where she had learned such language! Probably from her precious Mr Cowan, he thought bitterly, totally forgetting the many times he had sworn far more colourfully in front of her when they were kids. He tried to catch her arm again but she turned on him with such fury that he desisted, trailing behind her to the post box and back to the drive, telling her that she was going to regret what she’d done, but that he, Roddy, was prepared to be magnanimous about it. If she left right now he would see there was no talk, they could be married in a jiffy just in case . . . he paused delicately . . . in case her loaf had already been cut and there was a bun in the oven.

Afterwards, he was inclined to think that even such tortuous frankness had been a mistake. She turned and stared, a frownline appearing between her soft brows.

‘Wha-at?’ she said slowly. ‘Why can’t you say what you mean instead of talking in ri . . . oh! Oh, how
dare
you, Roddy Sullivan, how dare you even
think
such a . . . go on, I told you to bugger off, now bloody do it!’

And when poor Roddy tried to lay a hand on her arm and explain again that she had been taken in by an older man, that he, for one, did not blame her, she hacked him in the shins with a small but sturdy boot, at the same time swinging that wicked left hook – which, as a member of the weaker sex, she should never have possessed – and catching him right on the bridge of the nose. He staggered back – anyone would have – and cracked his head on the gatepost. And then, believe it or not, the wretched, unfeeling girl laughed. Laughed, as he clutched first his bleeding nose and then the great lump on his scalp and tried to see if his leg was broken!

‘That’s right, have a good cry,’ she said tauntingly. ‘And then go home to your mam and I hope I never see you again as long as I live.’

A good cry! His bleedin’ eyes were waterin’ from the unladylike punch and she accused him, Roddy Sullivan, of crying! All his love and concern for her vanished on the words.

‘Bugger off yourself, you nasty little bitch,’ he shouted. ‘And you never will see me again, don’t you fret – not as long as either of us shall live!’

And with that he had turned and left her, limping back to the tram stop and wishing Mr Cowan joy of her. Just let him cross her once, he told himself, and he’ll feel that boot somewhere soft and see a fist atravellin’ towards him, and serve him soddin’ well right. A tram stopped alongside him and Roddy swung himself aboard. Oh, aye, Linnet’s boot in his essentials would put a stop to his ’orrible ways, the dirty old man. But later, lying in his bed at home having refused to tell anyone why he had a swollen nose and a great lump on his head, to say nothing of a limp which Long John Silver might have envied, he did just what Linnet had accused him of.

He cried.

After the interlude in New York Roddy was desperate to get back and the moment his ship tied up in Canning Dock he set out for home. He wanted his mother’s advice.

‘It’s Linnet,’ he told Mrs Sullivan once the preliminaries of greeting were over. ‘She’s not workin’ in Exchange Flags any more, she’s – oh, she’s – she’s –’

‘She’s nannyin’,’ Mrs Sullivan said placidly. ‘She’s gerrin’ good money, our Roddy. An’ Mollie, that’s the feller’s little girl, she’s a good, pretty little kid. I reckon our Linnet’s failed on ’er feet this time.’

Afterwards, Mrs Sullivan told her son that his jaw had dropped so low she feared he’d broke his foot but at the time she just went on ironing as though she had not shocked him into total, dazed silence. She finished a shirt and reached for another, got halfway through it and changed irons, since hers was cooling, for the one which was heating up beside the fire.

‘Well, our Roddy? Goin’ to see her, are you? She didn’t say much when she come round – well, not about you, anyroad – but I suppose you ’ad another bleedin’ quarrel?’

‘I th-thought . . . I thought . . . I told ’er . . . oh, my Gawd!’ Roddy slumped down onto the hard kitchen chair and buried his head in his hands. ‘She’ll kill me, she’ll kill me stone dead our Linnet will! Oh, Mam, the things I said, the things I
thought
! She’ll never look at me again, she’ll . . .’

‘I dunno why it didn’t cross what passes for your mind that gels don’t usually wear a uniform to live a life of sin,’ his irrepressible mother said, ironing steadily. ‘Or are you used to seein’ our Linnie in a navy skirt an’ jacket an’ a white blouse wi’ navy pipin’?’

‘Oh, Holy Mother of God, I just thought she were lookin’ even lovelier than usual,’ the hapless Roddy groaned between his fingers. ‘What’ll I do, Mam? Will she see me, d’you think?’

‘I dunno. You could try apologisin’, I suppose, if you can bring yourself to admit you were wrong,’ his mother said rather tartly. ‘How you could ha’ thought, for one minute, that our Linnie ’ud sell ’erself for a big ’ouse an’ a motor . . .’

‘But what was I to think?’ Roddy groaned. He emerged from his hands and stared hopefully at his mother. ‘They telled me she were livin’ wi’ a rich man on Sunnyside, no one said nothin’ about bein’ a nanny . . .’

‘Take ’er a few flowers, a present,’ his mother suggested, when he ran out of words and slumped back in his chair once more. ‘Tell you what, son, drop ’er a line. Only this time
say sorry
, don’t jig all round the point tryin’ to justify what you’ve done.’

‘I will,’ Roddy said eagerly. ‘I’ll do it now.’ He got up and was dragging his ditty bag across the floor when he turned back. ‘You don’t think ’e’ll try it on wi’ our Linnie, then? Or ask ’er to marry ’im?’

Mrs Sullivan shook her head sadly at him and carried a neatly ironed shirt over to the table to fold it. ‘Don’t you ever learn, son? Wharrever our Linnie does next depends on
you
. On
you
, you great lummock, understand? Now git an’ write that note.’

In the room he shared with his brothers, Roddy got out pen and ink and the last sheet of his paper. He wrote the most abject of letters, apologising unreservedly for everything he had said and thought, assuring Linnet that he would always be her devoted friend, would do anything in his power to help her should she ever need it, would go to the ends of the earth and back to please her. Then he got out his savings and set off for Church Street. Once, when he and Linnet had been walking up Church Street, they had seen, in the window of one of the jewellers there, a slender gold bracelet with semi-precious jewels set between the links. Linnet had spent a long time with her nose pressed against the glass, admiring the bracelet. Well, now she should have it for her own and he prayed that it would melt the ice around her heart so that she would forgive him.