A Liverpool Legacy (4 page)

When she got home, Ryan’s mother was waiting there for her. She was distraught. ‘Have you seen our Ryan? He went to work yesterday and he hasn’t been home since.’

Millie burst into tears. Mum was grey-faced and anxious and hardly able to pull herself up the bed. This would be another major worry for her. It took Millie a long time to get the facts out but there was no avoiding it now. Mrs McCarthy was furious and said a lot of hurtful things. Millie sat on the bed and her mother wept with her.

When at last they were alone, she said, ‘Millie, you’ve made the same . . . stupid mistake . . . that I made . . . I wanted you to have a better life . . . than I’ve had.’ There was agony on her face and she couldn’t get her breath. ‘But now look at the mess you’re in.’

It had never occurred to Millie that her mother wasn’t married. She called herself Mrs Hathaway and had always worn a wedding ring. Millie’s eyes went to the photograph in the silver frame beside the bed. ‘I believed you when you said my father died in the trenches,’ she choked.

‘He did. He was posted to France . . . That was the trouble.’

Millie mopped at her eyes and blew her nose. ‘At least you knew that if he could, he would have come back to marry you.’ She understood only too well that to have no husband and be with child was the worst sin any girl could commit. Society looked down on women who did that.

Ryan had no reason to leave, except that he didn’t love her enough to stay and help her. It was cold, heartless rejection and if he’d slashed her with a knife it couldn’t have been more hurtful. Millie was too upset to cook supper, she felt sick, and neither of them wanted to eat. She went to her bed in the alcove off her mother’s room but hardly slept all night.

When her alarm went the next morning Millie got up as usual and made breakfast for her mum though she felt terrible. Her mother was listless and red-eyed, she hadn’t slept much either.

In the cloakroom, before she reached the perfume department, Millie heard the rumours that were flying round. Ryan had disappeared and his account books had been examined; the sales he said he’d made did not add up. Somebody told her they’d heard he’d signed on as crew on a ship going deep sea. He wouldn’t return to England for two years.

Millie climbed the stairs to the perfume laboratory in a state of despair, put on her white coat and tried to follow her usual morning routine. Within five minutes, she’d dropped and broken one of the glass flasks she was cleaning.

‘What’s the matter, Millie?’ Mr Knowles asked. She didn’t want to tell him. She was too ashamed, it was all too raw and painful and she was afraid she’d be thrown out of her job. She couldn’t risk that. She needed to go on working for as long as she possibly could.

When she didn’t answer he went on in his slow, gentle drawl, ‘You’ve been crying and you don’t look well. In fact you look positively ill.’

She couldn’t explain. She couldn’t even raise her eyes to look at him.

‘Something’s happened to upset you, but not here. All is well here, so it must be at home. How is your mother?’

Some time ago she’d told him Mum was ill, but he didn’t know how much worse she was now. The memory of the anguish she’d caused her mother brought tears coursing down Millie’s cheeks again and she broke down and began to tell him. Once started, it all came flooding out, even the name of her baby’s father.

‘Ryan McCarthy?’ He was shaking his head. ‘Well, that explains one thing that was puzzling us. You’re better off without him, lass, I doubt he’d be much good to you. It seems your Mr McCarthy has been stealing and selling the company’s soap for his own benefit. The books show he’s been altering the figures over the last year.’ He thought for a moment and then said, ‘I’m going to tell Peter Maynard.’

Millie started to protest but he held his hand up. ‘You aren’t well enough to work and he’ll have to know why.’

‘I’m all right,’ she insisted and made to go back to the sink where she’d been working, but suddenly she felt dizzy, the shelves with their many bottles were swirling round her. She would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her and backed her into the chair.

‘When will your baby be born?’

‘I don’t know,’ she had to admit. ‘I haven’t told the doctor, he’d have said something to Mum, you see.’

‘Oh my goodness!’

At that moment Peter Maynard walked in. ‘Is something the matter, Millie?’

She could feel her cheeks burning but Mr Knowles said, ‘Millie’s in a bit of bother,’ and went on to explain while her toes curled up with embarrassment.

‘Why haven’t you been to see a doctor?’ her boss asked. ‘You must know you need to.’

She felt petulant. ‘It costs three shillings and sixpence to see him in his surgery, and he’d have told my mum. I didn’t want her to know.’

‘Oh dear, dear, dear,’ he sighed. Then he said gently, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell her. You can’t go on hiding this for ever.’

‘She knows,’ Millie said. ‘Ryan’s mother came round to see us last night, and it all came out.’

Peter Maynard picked up the phone on Mr Knowles’s desk and asked the operator for Dr Fellows. ‘Right, young lady,’ he told her, ‘you can see the company doctor right away. You know Dr Fellows, he gave you a medical before you started work with us. His surgery is on the corner of the street just down there.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ Millie really needed to know how much longer she had before the baby would be born. She’d have to get things ready.

‘You’re all right to go that far?’ Mr Knowles asked.

‘Yes, I’m fine now.’

‘Come back here afterwards and tell us what he says. When you can’t work we’ll have to find someone else to take your place.’

‘Poor kid,’ she heard him say as she closed the door behind her. So they felt sorry for her. Millie wanted to die with humiliation. Telling them had been awful, but it was a relief that they knew and were offering to help.

The doctor gave Millie a date for the birth that was only eight weeks off and confirmed that her baby was developing normally. He prescribed iron tablets and vitamins and told her she must eat more if the baby was to continue to grow, recommending milk, eggs and cheese. ‘You’ll need to book a hospital bed for the delivery.’ He explained how to go about that but not how she’d be able to pay for it.

She returned to the laboratory feeling reassured in one sense but overawed at the short time that was left before she had to take care of a baby as well.

She told Mr Knowles and was reaching for her white coat to return to work when he said, ‘Go along to the boss’s office, he wants a word. Go on, he told me to send you.’

Millie was swamped with the fear that he’d sack her. If he did she’d be without money for food or medicines for her mum. Since she’d given up work at Bunnies, she knew her mother had worried about having nowhere to turn but the workhouse. Millie had heard fearsome tales about the place from her neighbours, and she knew it would finish Mum if she had to apply. She tapped nervously on the boss’s door, dreading what might be coming.

‘Come in,’ he called and looked up as she did so. ‘Come and sit down, Millie. Did you get a date for when you can expect this baby?’

‘Yes, the doctor says November the tenth.’

He frowned. ‘That’s not long.’

She was suffused with panic. ‘Eight weeks but I feel fine. I can carry on working for another month or six weeks.’ She had to struggle to get her breath.

‘Millie, you can’t. I’ll have to advertise for another school leaver to help Mr Knowles.’

She was going to lose her job! ‘I have to earn . . .’ she was saying but everything was going black, the room was spinning and she was sliding off the chair.

She knew he’d stood up and was coming round his desk towards her. ‘Be careful,’ he called but he seemed a long way away.

She came round to find she was lying flat on the floor and Mr Maynard was standing over her. ‘You fainted,’ he told her. ‘It proves my point, you can’t go on working now. You’re not eating enough, are you? Lie there for a minute until you feel better and I’ll run you home in my car.’

‘I’m all right, really I am.’ She insisted on getting to her feet by herself although he offered her a hand to help her up. ‘I can’t trouble you to drive me home.’

‘It’s no trouble. How d’you get here, by bus?’

‘No, I walk, it isn’t far. I feel much better now, I’ll be fine.’

‘I’d be afraid you’ll faint again and fall under a bus. Come on, let’s go. Where is Wilbraham Street? Is that the Scotland Road area?’

‘Yes.’ Millie had never ridden in a car before and would have enjoyed it if she hadn’t been so worried about the future. He drew up outside the house where she and her mother had rooms and she got out.

A flight of five steps rose to the peeling front door, and the stout figure of Mrs Croft, her landlady, came bustling down to greet her. ‘About your rent,’ she said in ringing tones so half the street could hear.

Millie cringed. ‘I’m sorry . . .’

‘Sorry isn’t enough. I’m tired of having to ask for it. You owe five weeks now. You said you’d pay something on account but you’re making no effort. I know your mother’s sick but I have to live too. I’m sorry, but it’s now a question of pay up or get out.’

Millie was struggling not to burst into tears, she couldn’t take any more humiliation. She felt searing indignity that her landlady had said that in front of her boss, and had to hold on to the railings that fenced off the steps to the basement.

She heard him say, ‘How much is owed?’ but couldn’t listen to any more of that. ‘Millie, have you got your rent book?’

He had to ask twice before she took in that he meant to pay off her debt. ‘I can’t let you—’

‘I don’t think you have much choice,’ he said.

He was right, she hadn’t. She crashed down the steps to the basement, pushed her key into the door and called, ‘It’s only me, Mum,’ so she wouldn’t be scared. She rummaged in the sideboard drawer for her rent book and was back up on the pavement with it in moments.

‘It’s twelve shillings a week,’ Mrs Croft demanded, ‘and five weeks is owed.’

Millie was mortified to see Mr Maynard getting out his wallet. He handed over three pound notes and Mrs Croft scribbled in the rent book.

‘I don’t know how to thank you.’ Millie wanted the pavement to swallow her up. She went down to the basement door which she’d left open.

He followed her. ‘I can’t believe you’re battling against all this,’ he said. ‘You’re so full of smiles and bubbling high spirits in the lab. It never occurred to me you were in a situation like this.’

They were in the dark living room, the door to the bedroom was open and her mother was lying on the bed. Millie went to see her as she always did when she came home. ‘Hello, Mum, how are you feeling?’

Her eyes opened, she was sweating and listless, her skin was a greyish yellow, but she tried to smile. ‘A little better, I’ve dozed all day.’

‘Good.’ It wasn’t yet lunchtime, Mum had no idea what the time was, she’d lost track. ‘This is Mr Maynard my boss, Mum. He brought me home.’

Miriam Hathaway tried to lift her head from the pillow but it required too great an effort. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ The bedclothes moved and it seemed she was about to put out her hand but that also needed more strength than she could find.

‘I’m sorry to see you so poorly, Mrs Hathaway,’ he said but her eyes were closing again. ‘Who looks after you?’

It was Millie who answered. ‘I do.’

He took her by the arm and steered her back to the living room, closing the door softly behind them. ‘Do you have anyone to help you?’

‘The neighbours do and Ryan McCarthy did. He was very good to us.’

‘He got you into this mess. If you weren’t having this baby, you might have managed.’

‘Yes, but it’s no good blaming him, is it?’

He smiled and gave her a look that spoke of affection. ‘That’s the only way to look at it now. Your mother needs proper nursing, she’s really ill. You can’t possibly cope with an invalid as well as a job and everything else.’

‘I still have a job?’ Millie sniffed into her damp handkerchief. ‘I thought you’d said you were going to replace me.’

‘I am. Millie, I’m going to find a nursing home for your mother where she’ll be more comfortable. You’re not well enough to cope with all this.’

‘Mum will be fine here with me now, really she will. You’ve done such a lot for me, paid out so much money.’

‘You’ve managed marvellously well until now. You’re very brave and tougher than you look, but neither Arthur Knowles nor I saw you struggling, and we should have done. You must be worn out.’ He was taking out his wallet again and put two more pound notes on the table. ‘Buy some food, you both need to eat. And get some rest. I’ll see what I can fix up for your mother and come back to let you know.’ He patted her on the shoulder and walked briskly out.

Looking round her unchanged living room, Millie found it hard to believe. Mr Maynard had come in like a fairy godfather, waved his wand and made everything seem almost rosy. She was not battling this alone any more. She went back to tell her mother, but she wasn’t sure whether she understood. She sat by her bed for an hour holding her hand.

Pete Maynard went back to his car and sat in the driving seat for a few minutes to think. He’d rarely seen such raw poverty yet all was orderly and neat and clean. Her mother seemed close to death, but she was loved and cared for. He couldn’t help but admire the girl being able to cope with all that as well as an unwanted pregnancy and a boyfriend who had deserted her in her hour of need.

He would have anticipated that from Ryan McCarthy. He’d had his fingers in the till for a long time. He should have had the guts to sack him when Sam West first voiced his misgivings about him. He hadn’t deserved the second chance he’d been given. Yet it had not soured Millie, she hadn’t blamed him for her predicament. She might be only seventeen but she had a real inner strength that he had to admire. She was only a couple of years older than his eldest daughter Valerie and to think of her in a similar position was heartbreaking. And Valerie would never have coped in the way Millie had.