Liverpool Annie (40 page)

Sara and Daniel's eyes glowed as the woman tucked the frock in her bag. 'We're in business,' whispered Sara.

Another two frocks and a blouse went before there seemed to be a lull, during which the early customers went home and more arrived, many with children, obviously come for a day out. She got angry when some women carelessly yanked her precious things off the rack. Some made offers which she firmly refused. After this had happened several times, Ivor said, 'You should mark your prices up a bit, luv, allow for bargaining. Some customers won't buy if they don't get a reduction.'

'But that's not fair on those who don't make offers!'

Ivor shrugged. 'It's the way of the world, luv. A market's not a market if you're not prepared to barter.'

From then on, Annie took offers if they seemed reasonable. She'd get Sara to price the tickets up for next week.

She'd sold a few more things when Cecy arrived with a plastic carrier bag, a pleased expression on her prematurely wizened face. 'See what I found in a rummage sale.' With an air of triumph, she pulled a

ong blue dress out of the bag and held it up by the ihoulders. It was sleeveless, with a heavily jewelled )odice and a floating gauzy skirt lined with taffeta. Look at that label! It must have cost the earth.'

The label meant nothing to Annie. She was about to ;ay she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to buy such a )osh frock in a market, when a well-dressed woman ipproached. 'Is that dress for sale?'

'It certainly is.' Cecy winked at Annie. 'Five quid and t's yours!'

'I'll take it.'

'Cecy!' gasped Annie when the woman had gone, obviously delighted with her purchase. 'You missed /^our vocation. You should have been a market trader. '. would never have dared to ask so much.'

'I'm enjoying the whole experience.' Cecy looked ^leased, as if she'd been paid a great compliment. She 3egan to go through the clothes. Despite Annie's protestations, she insisted on paying for the Marks & spencer's silk blouse. 'It will go with all my suits,' she :laimed.

She took Sara and Daniel for a drink and a bun, and \nnie was left to herself. There being no customers to <:eep an eye on, she surveyed the nearby stalls. On her 3ther side, an elderly woman was selling odds and ends Df pretty china. The woman smiled and remarked she tioped the rain would keep off. Opposite, a bookstall was safe from the threatening rain beneath a striped awning. 'I wouldn't mind something like that,' Annie thought. 'And a van would be useful. If I make enough money . . .' There were watches and jewellery on one side of the bookstall, and secondhand radios and televisions on the other.

The things on Ivor Hughes' stall looked more like rubbish than fine antiques. Even so, he was doing brisk business. To her amazement, she recognised the bronze

lion she'd found in her loft. 'How much is that?' she enquired.

'Eight quid,' Ivor said promptly. 'Very rare piece of work, that is. Got it off one of the landed gentry.'

'Really! I'll think about it.'

'Here's Grandma back with the kids,' Ivor remarked.

'He thinks you're my mother,' Annie said when Cecy came up, Sara and Daniel skipping happily beside her.

Cecy's blue eyes grew wistful. 'I sometimes wish that were so, dear. You're a far nicer person than my own daughter.'

Two women had begun to sort through the clothes. 'You've got a good assortment here, luv,' one said. 'Will you be here next week? There's lots of things me daughter might like.'

'I'll be here every week from now on,' Annie promised.

After the women had bought a blouse each, Cecy suggested Annie have a break. 'It's almost noon. I expect you've been up since dawn.'

She hadn't realised the market had an indoor section, and supposed you had to have been there for years to become entitled to such a choice pitch. The goods were a repetition of those outside. She waved at the Barclays when she saw them behind their fruit and veg stall.

Sid made the thumbs up sign. 'How are you doing, luv?' he called.

'Not bad.' They looked too busy to stop and talk.

She came to a clothes stall where everything was piled on top of each other on two old tables, like jumble. The stuff didn't look very clean. Annie was about to walk past, when a gruff voice from behind the tables drawled, 'Well, if it isn't Annie Harrison!'

Annie tried to place the tall woman, almost six foot, with a hard, lined face and small eyes. Her brown hair

was cut short like a man's, and she wore a shabby leather bomber jacket and jeans.

'Don't recognise me, do you?' she chortled. 'It's Ruby, Ruby Livesey, though it's Crowther now, I'm married with five kids. We knew each other at school.'

'Ruby!' Annie swallowed. She'd always dreaded coming across Ruby Livesey one day. 'What are you doing here?'

'Running this stall, obviously. Me and me sister inherited it from our mam. And what are you doing, slumming it?'

Annie bridled. 'I happen to have a stall meself,' she said shortly.

'Come down in the world, have we?'

'I never thought of meself as up. I only lived in Orlando Street and me dad collected insurance on his bike.'

'Maybe so,' Ruby sneered, 'but you always looked like you had a bad smell under your nose at school, as if you thought us all beneath you.'

'Well, it's been nice meeting you again, Ruby.' Annie made no attempt to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. 'I'd best be getting back.' She vowed never to enter the indoor section again.

When she returned. Dot had arrived and was talking stiffly to Cecy. Her face shone with relief when her niece turned up. 'I was just saying, I'll always lend a hand, luv, if you're stuck.'

'She won't ever be stuck whilst I'm around,' Cecy said pointedly. 'I took another couple of pounds whilst you were gone, Annie. I'll just go and see if I can buy one of those apron things you keep the money in. All the other traders seem to have one.'

The minute Cecy had gone. Dot pounced on a cream jacket. 'I didn't want her ladyship to see me buying secondhand. How much is this, luv?'

'For you, Auntie Dot, nothing.'

But Dot also insisted on paying. Annie didn't mention the jacket was Cecy's and hoped the women would never meet whilst Dot was wearing it.

Auntie Dot left. She was taking two of her grandchildren to the pictures. A few minutes later, Annie could have sworn she felt rain. 'Get that tarpaulin out,' she said to Daniel. A huge black cloud loomed menacingly overhead.

'So, this is where you are!' Ruby Livesey looked even bigger and more unpleasant close up. She was accompanied by a plain girl of about twelve. 'And you're selling clothes, too. Is this stuff new?' Ruby fingered Annie's polka-dotted dress.

'No, it's all secondhand.'

Ruby's small eyes glinted in disbelief. 'It looks new.'

'Well, it isn't.'

'Can I have this jersey, Mam?' The girl pulled a fluffy white sweater off the rack.

'How much is it?' Ruby growled.

'Fifty pee or ten bob, I'm not sure,' the girl said.

'Ten bob for an ould jersey, not fucking likely. C'mon,' Ruby jerked her head at her daughter. 'Let's sod off.'

As everyone had been predicting since early morning, the heavens opened and the rain came thundering down. Annie shoved the racks together and, with the help of the children, managed to get everything safely beneath the tarpaulin. They huddled in the car, listening to the rain beating on the roof. Sara and Daniel counted the money. 'Sixteen pounds, seventy-five pence, Mummy,' Sara cried triumphantly. 'We should be able to live on that for weeks.'

Annie shook her head. 'Not really, sweetheart. We need to make rather more.'

The rain didn't last long. The skies quickly lightened

and a pale sun had appeared by the time they emerged from the car. A great pool of water had gathered in the middle of the tarpaulin. Annie gently lifted it by two :orners so the rain would pour away without touching the clothes, but the weight was too much for the clumsily made racks. There was a crack as one rail snapped and collapsed, taking the clothes with it.

'Oh, no!' she cried. Half the things had fallen outwards, onto the dirty wet concrete. The others were precariously suspended on the broken pole, the end of which was caught in the sleeve of a coat.

Sara and Daniel seized the pole whilst Annie removed the clothes before they could join those on the ground -they'd all have to be washed and ironed again. She cursed herself for her lack of carpentry skills. Lauri could have made a couple of stout rails with perfect ease, but then, if Lauri were around, there would be no need for a market stall to keep a roof over their heads. If Lauri were around, they'd be at home, and he'd be pottering in the garden, or the garage if it was raining. But Lauri wasn't around, and she did have a market stall to run. Annie sighed and threw the dirty clothes into the boot. She managed to squeeze the rest onto the remaining rack. She'd just have to buy proper equipment for next week.

The rain seemed to have washed most of the customers away. It was a quarter to three, and a few traders began to pack up ready to leave.

'Will you be going soon?' she asked Ivor. He was puffing contentedly on a cheroot and didn't seem to care that his fine antiques were wet.

'No, luv. I always stay till the end. I often do good business at the last minute. If folks arrive late, they'll buy almost anything. No-one likes to leave a market empty-handed.'

'In that case, I'll stay, too.'

Cecy was shocked to find half of the stall had disappeared when she returned with a canvas apron. Annie explained she'd have proper racks by next week -Ivor had told her where they could be acquired secondhand. Cecy patted her arm affectionately. 'You're a brave girl, dear. Indomitable, that's what Bruno calls you.'

No-one bought a thing for the next hour. Even Ivor was gazing at his fine antiques as if wondering whether to pack them away, when a crowd of at least twenty coloured men appeared, chatting excitably amongst themselves in a foreign language.

'Lascar seamen,' Cecy hissed. 'You saw hundreds of them on the Dock Road before the war. I doubt if they'll be wanting women's clothes.'

But she couldn't possibly have been more wrong. Half a dozen of the men descended on the stall and began to pull the garments out. They showed them to each other, dark eyes flashing.

It didn't take long for them to make up their minds. Within the space of ten minutes, Annie was presented with a huge bundle. She carefully added up the total. 'Eighteen pounds, ten shillings,' she said weakly. 'But eighteen pounds will do.'

One of the men carefully counted the money out. 'Eighteen pound, ten shilling,' he said, grinning widely.

She tried to give the ten shillings back, but he refused. 'No, nice clothes for ladies back home. You take all.'

'Thank you.'

'Thank you, nice lady. Like her.' He tapped his head and winked.

'Like who?'

'He likes your hair,' Cecy whispered.

The men departed as quickly as they'd come. 'I told you it was worth while staying,' said Ivor. 'One of them

ought that bloody brass Hon. I thought I'd never get d of the damned thing.'

'I gave you a brass Uon Hke that when you first got larried,' Cecy said. 'You said you needed a doorstop etween the kitchen and breakfast room. Have you ever sed it?'

Annie's exhausted brain searched in desperation for 1 answer; in other words, a He. Assistance came from m unexpected quarter. 'We kept stubbing our toes on ,' Sara said sweetly.

'So it got put in the loft,' Daniel added.

fou should never normally tell lies,' Annie said jriously on the way home, 'but a white one doesn't latter occasionally if it saves hurting people's feelings, hanks. You got me out of a hole. Cecy would be dead pset if she'd known I'd sold her lion.' She glanced at leir bright faces through the rear mirror. 'Did you njoy yourselves?'

'It was smashing, Mummy,' Sara enthused. 'You'll ave to go to lots more jumble sales next week.'

'I hope I can find some on weekdays. How about you, )aniel?'

'It was okay,' Daniel said grudgingly.

As Daniel was not usually given to exaggeration, mnie assumed he'd had a good time. On the way ome, she stopped at a fish and chip shop and bought iiree cod and chips for their tea. 'I'll open some fruit for fters, that's if I've got the strength to use the tin pener. I don't know about you two, but I could sleep or a week.'

She had never felt so weary. Her legs, her arms, her ntire body throbbed with tiredness. It had been the ongest day of her life, physically and emotionally Iraining. The children needed no persuading to go to >ed. When Annie looked in a few minutes later, both

were sound asleep. Despite her exhaustion, she made herself unpack the clothes before they got creased, then assembled the rail and hung them up. She carried the muddied garments into the kitchen and loaded the washables into the machine. The heavier things would have to be brushed when the dirt dried. It wasn't financially viable to have them dry-cleaned.

Financially viable! Annie grinned. Lauri would have been amused at the phrase. She sat down and began to count the takings, but her brain felt hght-headed and refused to work. She put the money away, the children would enjoy counting it tomorrow.

Her mind slowly travelled through the day. It had been worse than starting a new job, but she'd get used to it. It was a pity about Ruby Livesey. Hopefully, she'd keep out of her way in future. Annie frowned. Where was the white sweater Ruby's daughter had tried to persuade her to buy? It wasn't in the garage or the washing machine, and it definitely hadn't been sold. Someone must have pinched it! She recalled Ruby had been the ringleader when the gang used to shoplift from Woolworth's.

'Bitch! I bet she took it. I'll appoint Daniel stall detective and he can keep an eye on things from now on.'

The phone went. It was Sylvia, full of apologies for not turning up on Annie's first day as a businesswoman. They were in the middle of making arrangements to see The Godfather next week, because Chris Andrews said it was the best film ever made, when Annie fell fast asleep, still clutching the receiver. Sylvia thought she'd died and nearly rang for an ambulance.