Two Penn'orth of Sky (38 page)

‘Twopence each,’ Charlie said, immediately. ‘Twopence each is fair, Mr Brown.’

Mr Brown was reluctant, or pretended to be, but gave way quite quickly when Charlie turned back towards the door. ‘All right, all right, twopence each,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll give you me little bags so you can sort ’em straight into ’em.’

For a long while, the children squatted round the packing case, counting nails into small brown bags.
It seemed to Diana as though the task would never end, and when they had finished she stood up carefully, glad to ease her cramped knees. She looked distastefully at her hands, which had come out clean and would go home grimy, pocketed the twopence which Mr Brown handed over, and left the shop at a trot, for she had lost the will to work and was secretly frightened that Mr Brown might come up with some other task.

Outside on the pavement, they grinned at one another. ‘Only another fourpence to go and we can all go to the flicks and have something over for a bag of sweets,’ Charlie said exultantly. ‘We’ve missed supper but I told Mam we were trying to earn money for the Commy, so she’ll keep some back for us. Now, what’ll we try?’

Diana was tired and would have liked to go home, eat her supper and make for her bed, but she did not wish Charlie to despise her, so she said stoutly: ‘Anything you like, Charlie. Only the shops are going to shut soon, and I don’t know if we’ll get much work now.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Charlie said reluctantly. ‘There’s always tomorrow evenin’, after school . . . oh, I’ve had an idea! There’s a good film on at the Burlington Cinema on Vauxhall Road, so there’s bound to be a queue. How are you on cartwheels and handstands?’

Diana snorted. She knew that some of the more agile kids – and the ones who didn’t suffer from stage fright – entertained cinema queues, but she did not intend to join
that
band. ‘I’m not showing off my knickers to half Liverpool, not for all the money in the world,’ she said loftily. ‘And don’t you go suggesting that we go round the pubs, either, because your
mam would kill us if she found out, and so would mine.’

‘We needn’t go round the pubs. We could just pop into one or two and see if anyone wanted anything doing. We could guide the drunken old wretches home, or – or hold their heads over the drain, whilst they was sick,’ Charlie said, ducking as Diana aimed a blow at him. ‘Only I do like to get the Penny Rush money sorted, and—’

‘And what?’ Diana asked, curiously, as Charlie stopped in mid-sentence. He promptly seized her by the arm and swung her round to face the nearest window. ‘Look at them – them roses,’ he said urgently. ‘Who’d have thought anyone would be selling roses in March, eh?’

Diana stared, unbelievingly, into the florist’s shop. Why on earth was Charlie suddenly interested in a display of glasshouse-reared roses? Then he made himself clear. ‘There’s bunches of flowers behind the roses, on the counter,’ he said. ‘And the shop’s still open. Let’s go in and see if they want deliverin’.’

Diana agreed but the shop assistant, though kind, was firm. She meant to deliver the flowers herself, on her way home, and needed no help from anyone.

The children emerged from the shop and walked straight into Lenny, who was whistling jauntily and listing heavily to starboard under the weight of a large marketing bag. Charlie seized his arm. ‘You goin’ home, Lenny?’ he asked breathlessly, and when Lenny nodded, added: ‘Can you take our Di home with you? Only there’s something important I gorra do.’

Diana opened her mouth to protest, but Charlie shook his head reprovingly, gave her cheek a condescending pat and disappeared into the crowd.
Lenny grinned at her. ‘Give us a hand with the basket then, queen,’ he said. ‘I dunno what Charlie’s up to, but we’d best do as he says. C’mon.’

Charlie wove his way among the crowds, his eyes intent upon two figures ahead. He kept telling himself that he must have been mistaken, could not have seen what he had imagined. But he knew he would get no peace until he had found out for sure. So he wriggled through the crowds and presently crossed the road, dodging trams, buses and other traffic. Once on the further pavement, he speeded up, running with his head down until he felt it was safe to cross over once again. Then he turned and began to walk back the way he had come. He shoved his hands in his pockets and ducked his head because he had no wish to be seen and recognised, and soon he spotted what he was looking for: two figures, arms entwined, heads close, coming towards him.

It was Carl Johansson and a young woman; she was as blonde as he, with a sharply pretty face and a curvaceous figure, and she was clinging to Mr Johansson’s arm and leaning towards him, whilst he looked down at her, laughing, his arm tight round her plump waist. Charlie knew his mother would have taken one look at the girl and pronounced her ‘no better than she should be’, and he thought she would have been right. Mr Johansson’s companion wore a low-cut, off-the-shoulder white blouse. It was a frilly, silly garment and was tucked into the waist of a very short, very tight purple skirt. Her legs were clad in silk stockings and her very high heeled, patent leather shoes were cracked and dusty.

As soon as he had passed them, Charlie turned round again and fell in behind. He knew Mr Johansson
had said he wanted to marry Aunt Emmy and pretended she was the only woman he had ever loved. If this was so, what was he doing cuddling a painted tart in the street? He must have known that Emmy was in Llandudno and thought himself, on this one occasion, safe to behave as he probably behaved when his ship docked in New York.

Charlie trotted along for some way, intent upon his quarry, but then a large, fat woman with an enormous marketing bag barged in front of him. He ran into her with such force that he was momentarily winded, and by the time he had recovered there was no sign of the young officer, or his companion.

Charlie made his way back to Nightingale Court in a pensive mood. He was not quite sure why he had decided to hide Mr Johansson’s behaviour from Diana. After all, it was far more her business than his, when you came right down to it. But Diana was prejudiced already, regarding Mr Johansson with deep, and Charlie thought undeserved, dislike. If she knew about his yellow-headed companion, she would undoubtedly use such knowledge to make trouble between her mother and the officer and Charlie was not at all sure that this would be a good thing. His mother liked Mr Johansson and thought he would make Emmy an excellent husband. ‘Emmy’s always had an easy life, and she’s always been fussed over and made much of,’ Charlie had heard her say, more than once. ‘She’s not strong. She’s gorra weak chest, so she needs someone who can take care of her, and give her all the things she needs. She had a grand life with young Peter; Carl Johansson is going places and he’ll take our Em with him. If she marries him, he’ll buy her a beautiful house somewhere and she’ll never have to work
again. Johnny Frost is a nice chap, but he weren’t right for our Em years ago – not enough spunk – and to my way of thinking, he ain’t right for her now. If she were to wed him and go to that guest house, likely the aunt would move on and Emmy would find herself managing the place, ’cos Johnny could never say boo to a goose. No, if I had the choosing, I’d see her married to a feller who’d take responsibilities off her shoulders, not pile more on.’

Charlie had never known Johnny Frost except as a visitor, and thought him a pleasant, friendly fellow, but he was shrewd enough to realise that his mam and dad, who had known Johnny for many years, were probably right. So, the less Diana knew about Carl’s blonde companion, the better.

But Charlie felt that he would have to tell someone. After all, if Emmy decided to marry Carl and he ran out on her, Charlie knew he would blame himself bitterly for having kept his mouth shut. He wondered whether to confide in his mother and would probably have done so had he not, the very next evening, walked slap bang into his father as he returned from school.

Wally greeted his son cheerfully and would have walked on by – he was doing a late shift at the brewery – but on impulse Charlie turned and accompanied him, saying as he did so: ‘Dad, I’ve gorra problem, an’ I’d like to know what you think I should do. Can I walk along with you and have a bit of a talk, like?’

Wally smiled at Charlie, looking immensely pleased. ‘Of course you can,’ he said gruffly. ‘Only don’t you young fellers usually get your mam’s advice? I’ll do wharr I can but I don’t know as I’m as sensible as your mam, when it comes down to it.’

To say that Charlie was astonished by this somewhat humble attitude was putting it mildly. A member of the superior sex actually admitting that a woman might give better advice than a man was something Charlie had never expected to hear. But he took the plunge anyway, explaining what had happened the previous evening and how he had lost track of the couple after a foolish old woman had impeded his progress with her bulk and her huge marketing bag.

Wally laughed. ‘I dare say you walked into her, not lookin’ where you were goin’, an’ never even apologised,’ he said reprovingly. ‘Still an’ all, that ain’t the question, is it? You’re goin’ to ask me whether you should tell your Aunty Em that you see’d her feller with another woman, ain’t that right?’

Charlie frowned up at his father, sudden doubts plaguing him. He had thought Mr Johansson was doing the wrong thing; could he have been mistaken? Then he remembered the way Mr Johansson had looked down at the blonde and decided that if he ever saw his father looking at a woman other than his mother in that fashion, he would be disgusted and angry. He said as much and Wally cuffed him good-naturedly on the shoulder. ‘Have you axed yourself just what Emmy is doin’ in Llandudno?’ he asked, with apparent irrelevance. ‘Why, you young puddin’ head, she’s gone there to see Johnny Frost, what were her intended years ago. Then she’ll come back to Liverpool and very likely take up wi’ Carl – wi’ Mr Johansson, I mean. Have you ever heared the expression that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, young feller?’

‘I dunno as I have, but I get your meanin’,’ Charlie said, after a thoughtful pause. ‘You’re sayin’ that if
Aunty Em can go around wi’ Mr Frost one day and this Mr Johansson the next, then why shouldn’t Mr Johansson do the same? Is that it?’

‘Aye, that’s it. You’re not such a fool as you look,’ Wally said genially. ‘So you just keep your gob shut, Charlie, me lad, and let your Aunty Em work out her own salvation. OK?’

‘Ye-es, I’ll keep me gob shut, then,’ Charlie said. ‘Only – only I don’t think she were a very nice lady, Dad. Not – not respectable, Mam would say.’

Wally sighed. ‘No, I didn’t think for one moment she’d be respectable,’ he admitted. ‘But fellers, particularly sailors, sometimes get lonely, and there’s girls what’ll spend an evening with them, wi’out – oh, hang it, Charlie, leave it up to me. I won’t let Emmy get mixed up with a wrong ’un because it’d be us Fishers what’d pick up the pieces when the whole thing went to blazes. Awright?’

Charlie, with a sigh of real relief, said that it was all right indeed, and for the rest of the walk the two conversed happily on such subjects as school, football, and a projected trip into the country to rid a farmer’s barn of rats by encouraging Bones to earn his keep, for once.

Wally was relieved that his son was prepared to back off from any sort of confrontation over Mr Johansson’s behaviour but he did wish, devoutly, that his son had never set eyes on the officer’s little tart. It was all very well to reassure the lad and promise to deal with the affair himself, but despite his words to Charlie, Wally Fisher was a man with a strong sense of right and wrong and he thought, now, that the last thing he wanted was to see young Emmy betrayed. He was also honest enough to admit
that he was looking forward to the day when Emmy moved out of Nightingale Court. She was a nice enough girl and Diana, he knew, was a real help to Beryl, but the house was full enough without them and he knew that Beryl worried over her friend and wanted, desperately, to see the younger woman established in a place of her own, with a husband who truly cared for her. He supposed it was perfectly possible that marriage to Emmy would mean that Carl Johansson would never so much as look at another woman again, but in his heart he doubted it. He believed that highly sexed young seamen, who were away from home for long periods, often sought the company of young women and he supposed that there was little their wives could do about it.

Frowning heavily, he contemplated confiding in Beryl, then dismissed the thought. I’ll have a word with young Johansson the next time he comes calling, he promised himself. It ain’t fair to put any more on Beryl. Yes, I’ll have a word wi’ the lad. After all, the whole thing is probably completely innocent; she was mebbe the sister of a shipmate, or – or an old friend from before he met Emmy.

Aware that he was deliberately playing the incident down, Wally turned into the brewery.

Carl Johansson came whistling along Waterloo Road, his ditty-bag slung on one shoulder, heading for the great ship which towered above him. The dock was busy since the
Cleopatra
would be sailing next day and was taking on stores, and he had to shoulder his way amongst the dockers, sailors and others making for the gangway.

He had reached the foot of it when someone gripped his shoulder. ‘Hang on a minute, young
feller,’ a rough, masculine voice said in his ear. ‘I tried to catch you earlier – I saw you on Burlington Street – but you walk awful fast. Can I have a word?’

Carl swung round, feeling a considerable degree of irritation, which increased when he realised he did not know the person who had accosted him. He was clearly a working man, clad in faded dungarees and large boots, and Carl was about to brush him aside when he remembered having seen his face before, though he did not know where and could certainly not put a name to it. As always when he was vexed or anxious, his accent became stronger, so he was annoyed to hear his own voice saying crossly: ‘Vhat do you vant? I do not zink I know you and I am about to board the
Cleo
. I have no time . . .’ He had expected the man to step back, perhaps to apologise, but instead the stranger tightened his grip on Carl’s shoulder. Carl realised the chap was very strong, and, though he seemed peaceable enough, no First Officer of a transatlantic liner wants to be caught up in a brawl within sight of his ship, especially if it is a brawl he is unlikely to win. Accordingly, Carl turned away from the
Cleopatra
and walked to where a tower of packing cases gave them a little privacy. As soon as the man released his shoulder, Carl said impatiently: ‘Well? As I told you, I’m needed aboard. Who are you?’