Liverpool Daisy (14 page)

Nellie lifted her arms. “Come ’ere.”

He bent over her, stark fear of her dying breaking through his churlishness. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled
him to her. She patted his back as if he was a child and kissed his cheek. “And you take care of yourself, Georgie, lad.” She held him to her tightly for a moment. “There’s nothing to be afraid of, do you hear.”

“Aye, Nell,” he whispered brokenly, as he returned her embrace, “I’m so scared. What have we come to, you and me?”

The January night felt dank, and the wind coming through the dampness seemed more chilling than usual. The few people about hurried along with coat collars turned up or with shawls held tightly across their chests. Even the Ball and Chain, with all its lights gleaming through steamed-up windows, seemed to huddle miserably against the blackened walls of the boarded up warehouse next to it.

And Daisy could not find a client. She hummed her favourite obscene song hopefully in the shadows, every time a male figure hastened by. Then she moved closer to the lights of the pub and flashed her bright white smile. “Like to make a trick, dearie?” she whispered.

Most shook her off impatiently. One who knew her muttered querulously, “In this cold?” and made a rude gesture.

The general dampness turned to light rain, and Daisy cursed the weather roundly under her breath. She told herself despairingly that even a black man would have been welcome on a night like this.

“You won’t do much tonight, duck,” remarked a feminine voice behind her, as she moved into a doorway of the warehouse to shelter. The voice was soft and carried a subdued giggle in it, as if the owner was permanently trying to suppress her laughter.

A figure nearly as plump as herself squeezed into the doorway of the warehouse at the same time as Daisy sought shelter there. She brought with her an overwhelming cloud of violet perfume; and Daisy felt her hackles slowly rise. She eased
herself round, to look at what she sensed was an intruding competitor.

Competition it certainly was.

Daisy’s lips tightened as she viewed the cheerfully over-painted face surveying her from under a cheeky-looking veiled hat. A mangy fox fur encircled the woman’s neck and she carried a large, light-coloured handbag in which she was now digging absently while she stared back at Daisy.

“Like a cigarette?” asked the intruder, bringing out a battered packet of Woodbines.

Daisy scowled.

“No.” The single word came out as sharply as a pebble from iddy Joey’s catapult. “And you get off my beat!”

“Aa, stow it!” responded the other woman, as she tore a match out of a folder and lit her cigarette. “I don’t trade in t’streets. I got me own apartment, I have. Got me regulars.” She blew out cigarette smoke which wreathed round Daisy’s head, much to her discomfort. “Once you got some regulars, they tell the other boys and you don’t have to go out that often.”

Daisy blinked her eyes against the tobacco smoke. Then she inquired loftily, “And what may I ask, are you doin’ here if you’ve got everything sewn up so bloody comfortable, like?”

The unwelcome intruder’s voice was gleeful, as she replied. “Been to the pictures. Proper nice film at the Forum.” She sighed blissfully. “Ronald Coleman is a bloody marvel. Have you seen it?” Without waiting for Daisy to reply, she went on, “Got pissed off with the whole bloody issue, so I took meself to the pictures.” She laughed richly. “And I got a man when I come out — proper funny, it was.” Her voice sobered suddenly. “But it isn’t safe in Lime Street if you ain’t got a pimp. You got a pimp?”

“None o’ your business,” snapped Daisy. She stuck out her hand to see if the rain had stopped. It had not.

“Well, I’m telling you, they got Lime Street so tightly laid out they’re on you in a second. Bloody great switchblades, they got.
One girl got proper beat up only a couple of weeks ago. I was sweatin’ they’d catch me tonight.”

“I never go there,” replied Daisy, shrugging her damp shawl more tightly round her shoulders.

It was quiet for a moment, while the smoke round Daisy increased rapidly, despite the encroaching rain. The uncrushable sharer of her shelter looked Daisy up and down, “How do yer ever make out in them clothes?” she asked.

“What’s the matter with me clothes? You mind your own bloody business and I’ll mind mine.”

The other woman laughed. “We’re both in the same business, luv. Seen you several times when I been going into the Ball for a quick one.”

Daisy snorted. She was so incensed that she considered plunging out into the icy rain and going home. Then she realised that as far as Nellie and George were concerned, she was at work — and could not go home until a reasonable work period had elapsed.

“Bugger everything!” she growled.

The constable on the beat came slowly down the deserted street. The rain dripped unhappily off his helmet and his waterproof cape. Occasionally, he stopped and flashed his torch while he tried a door lock or checked a window.

When he reached the two sheltering women, he stopped and flashed a torch over both of them. The light rested only cursorily on Daisy, noting the unpainted face, the pursed up mouth and belligerent chin stuck up in the air as if daring him to ask her a question. The torchlight, however, ran thoroughly up and down her companion and came to rest on the heavily rouged face and the merry mascara-rimmed eyes.

“Na, ladies,” he said, not unkindly, “Loiterin’ ain’t allowed. Move along, please.”

“Come on, Officer,” wheedled the painted female. “I’m only sheltering.”

Daisy murmured agreement. This was the first time to her
knowledge that the constable on the beat had seen her and she was desperately anxious that he should not remember her in any way. Her well rounded throat quivered, as she tried to keep calm and look like a respectable Irish woman on her way home from St. John’s Market.

The constable inclined his head towards the public house. “What about going to have a drink until it gives over?” he suggested.

The bright-faced female gurgled, “You going to stand us, Officer?”

The constable’s voice hardened at this impudence. “Now you get moving, Missus Woman!” His eyes flashed in the shadow of his helmet. He gestured with his torch. “Out!” he ordered.

Daisy did not wait for any more. Like Moggie on the prowl, she slunk silently past the constable while his light was still on the other prostitute, and started up the street.

The other woman prepared to move also. She arranged her fox fur tighter round her chin.

“Bad cess to you,” she muttered angrily at the irate constable.

“Want me to take you in?” he asked fiercely.

Her answer was lost, as she tottered out on very high heels, which were so worn down that she looked bow-legged as she wobbled up the street after Daisy.

The rain was hissing down now, penetrating Daisy’s thick shawl and running down her back. What a night!

She paused at the corner, wondering what she should do. Nellie certainly made life complicated. Not for one moment did she regret taking in her dear friend — somehow Nellie was going to be fed and nursed back to health. But money had to be found to do it.

“Wait for me,” shouted the gurgly voice again from further down the street. Daisy half turned and watched the woman totter up to her on her uncomfortable heels.

“Like to come and have a cuppa tea with me? You can’t do
nothing in this weather.” A wicked grin was flashed at her from behind the wilted veil. “Don’t often have a woman to talk to now me sister’s dead. It’s all fellas around the place.” The rich laugh came again and she cupped Daisy’s elbow with her hand to guide her across the street.

“There’s a couple of other women in our house, up on the second floor. Proper bitches, they are. Take the bread out of your mouth, they would.”

Daisy glanced up and down the cross street. Cars swished behind them as they made their way over, and her skirt was splashed with mud from them. There was not a pedestrian in sight. And she could not go home yet.

“O.K.,” she agreed — any port in a storm, she thought ruefully. “What’s your name?”

“Ivy. What’s yours?”

“Daisy.”

“Daisy? I heard tell from a fella not long back about a woman called Liverpool Daisy.” She scrutinized Daisy with new interest as she propelled her towards the side door of a small tobacconist’s shop. “See, I wasn’t far from home — Liverpool Daisy, now?”

“Some of the boys calls me that.”

Ivy paused, her key extended towards the door lock, and glanced up again at Daisy. “You’re bloody lucky. That young fella was proper nice about you. You’re getting yourself a good reputation!” And again a surge of laughter rocked her, as she unlocked the door.

They entered a dingy hall lit by a single low watt bulb without a shade. A door, which Daisy assumed led into the tobacco shop, occupied one side wall, and straight ahead of her was a flight of stairs covered with shabby linoleum.

“Come on up,” invited Ivy.

At the head of the stairs was a small landing with two doors facing them, while on Daisy’s left the staircase continued upwards into darkness.

One of the doors had a grubby card pinned to it on which the name “Ivy Le Fleur” had been crudely printed in red pencil. Ivy unlocked this door and kicked her shoes off into the room which lay before her. She took off her hat and examined the sopping ruin regretfully.

She saw Daisy glance at the card on the door and her eyes twinkled, as she said, “Me real name’s Ivy Brown — that’s me name from when I was a dancer — it’s Frenchy — good for me business.”

Daisy was impressed by this display of business acumen and allowed herself to be led into the apartment which seemed to her to be very luxurious. It consisted of a single room stuffed with furniture. A large rumpled bed with numerous pillows and a bright green eiderdown dominated the room. On the other side of it a cage on a stand held a disconsolate looking canary. Behind the bird, the window was covered by shiny green curtains. An easy chair, faded to near grey, faced a large gas fire which Ivy immediately lit. The pop it made as the gas flamed, made Daisy jump, and Ivy chuckled.

“I got coal fires — more healthy ’n gas,” said Daisy defensively.

“Too much work,” replied Ivy, as she got up off her knees. “Make yourself at home while I fill up the kettle.” She took off her coat, shook it out and hung it over the back of a chair, then laid the dripping fox fur over a line strung across the corner above an ancient gas cooker. She picked up a tin kettle from the stove and hurried out of the room. The gas stove had two shelves above it and these were crammed with a dusty assortment of dishes, small saucepans, packets of salt and sugar, all mixed up with a full ash tray, several boxes of matches, a tin of talcum powder and some greasy bottles.

Daisy strolled round the tiny space not committed to furniture. Behind an old hospital screen with faded cretonne curtains was a wash-hand stand, complete with jug and basin and a slop bucket underneath. The stand was also tightly packed, with
odds and ends, tooth brushes, a soap dish, a sticky pot of vaseline, aspirins and liver pills.

A small dressing-table, with a mirror suffering from smallpox, was equally littered with powder boxes, a hair tidy, pin cushions, broken combs, hairpins, pots of cream, and a gadget which Daisy did not recognise. She picked it up and was examining it when Ivy came back into the room.

“That’s me eyelash curler,” she explained in answer to Daisy’s query.

“Curl your eyelashes?” exclaimed Daisy in disbelief. She stared incredulously at the tiny contrivance and then burst into sudden laughter.

Ivy lit the gas jet under the kettle. “Aye,” she said, looking up from her task, “That’s better. You look real pretty when you laugh. Reminds me of me mother — she wore a shawl, too. Take your shawl off and put it on the fender in front of the gas fire. You’re dripping.” She bustled round, clearing a table and laying two cups and saucers on it. Then she quickly slipped off her damp dress, hung it on a hanger and put on a crumpled wrapper over her bright pink underslip. She snatched up a towel from behind the hospital screen and handed it to Daisy.

“Here. Here’s a towel for your hair.”

Daisy thankfully accepted this kind hospitality. The room was rapidly becoming deliciously warm and, as the chill went out of her, she began to relax.

She took off her shawl and laid it on the fender. Her thin cotton blouse was also sodden, as was the shift under it. The garments clung to her large breasts and Ivy eyed them enviously.

“You got a fine pair o’ bristols,” she remarked.

“Suckled all me kids,” Daisy informed her. She sat down on the easy chair, and ran her hand round the neck of her blouse to loosen it from her skin.

Ivy sloshed hot water into a small brown teapot.

“Surprisin’ how many men like fat women,” she remarked, “Seein’ as how the fashion is always for thin ones.”

“Oh, aye,” agreed Ivy.

Daisy took the pins out of her hair and began to rub it with the towel. She felt around for a piece of comb in the pocket of her wet apron and after she had found it she took the apron off and set it to steam beside the shawl.

Ivy sat down on a small straight bedroom chair and poured out the tea, ladling in spoonsful of sugar with a generous hand, while Daisy patted the front of her blouse with the towel.

Ivy handed her a cup of tea and she laid the towel across her knee while she took it gratefully.

“Ta,” she said.

Ivy drew her chair closer to the fire.

“You don’t wear no makeup?”

Daisy was shocked. “Never!” she spluttered into her teacup.

Ivy laughed at the strong denial. Her own makeup had run in the rain and she had grey rivulets of mascara down each cheek, giving her a clownlike appearance. Daisy eyed her resentfully over the steaming teacup. In her small world, only real whores like Ivy wore makeup. Of course, girls put lipstick on nowadays like their mothers would never have dared.

“Aaa, you should paint your face. It’d do a lot for you.”

“Humph,” grunted Daisy. She stirred uneasily in her chair. She wasn’t a whore like this woman and she didn’t want to look like one. She was unable to think why what she was doing for a living was different from what Ivy was engaged in; but to her it was not the same thing at all, at all, it wasn’t. Further, she had realized instinctively that the normality of her dress was an advantage to her. If she was seen with a man he could pass her off as an acquaintance, a neighbour, a relation.

“You really should buy some makeup.”

“I dunno. I dunno as it is a good idea. T’ scuffer looked at you tonight — he hardly noticed me.”