She's Leaving Home (31 page)

Soon the waitresses entered and began to clear up. Like the band they were paid till ten; their darting presence hinted strongly that the evening must draw to its close. In one corner small children ran round with ragged energy. Barry was smoochily doing a slow dance with his leggy partner. Jerry and Shlomo had drunk most of another bottle and made friends once more; football had proved a more amenable topic of discussion. Sylvia and Vera had bopped with each other, their handbags on the floor between them, as had numbers of the keener women. On one young mother’s lap a fat baby lay contentedly asleep. In an armchair an elderly man, head back, was in the same peaceful state, his aggrieved wife seated next to him, wide awake and lips pursed.

Maurice Feinstein staggered out of the card room followed by the other players. Several had astonishment writ large on their faces and the remains of much-chewed cigars clamped between their teeth. Behind them, last, came Gertie with a triumphant gleam in her eye, her handbag firmly folded under her arm.

Annie was surrounded by guests saying their farewells. Her cheeks were still flushed and she radiated a pleasure which made her sweetly pretty. As Maurice passed he muttered hoarsely to her and jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘Your Gertie. Amazing woman.’

‘What’s she done?’

‘Only cleaned us all out, that’s what. Cleared the tables and broke the bank. Took fifty quid off me.’

Annie’s mouth dropped in horror. Gertie approached looking immensely pleased with herself, picked up a half-empty glass and downed it.

‘Great party. Great! Nearly paid for my passage. An’ they think they can play poker. We goin’ home now?’

Then the American pulled her sister-in-law’s face towards her own and roughly planted a wet kiss on the cheek. ‘I adore ya. Adore ya all.’

Annie could not reply; she seemed overcome. She fished out a linen handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘You’re right. It’s been wonderful. What a pity that it has to end.’ 

March 1938. The wind blew fitfully off the Pier Head. Below the parapet near the floating
landing-stage
, rubbish welled and disappeared – empty bottles, bits of wood, half a child’s pram. The air was a smoky blur from the newly equipped diesel engines of the motor vessels
Royal Daffodil
and the
Royal Iris
as they wallowed at the dockside, waiting for passengers. Yet the wintry sun glinted on the windows of the Cunard building in a hint of spring while the Sunday afternoon crowd, though warmly wrapped in overcoats and scarves, milled around cheerfully.

At spaces of four or five feet apart, sufficient to avoid physical conflict between the occupants, several soapboxes had been erected. On these makeshift platforms with their backs to the river were ranged half a dozen men speakers and one woman. Leaflets in hand (the woman had a bible), lungs expanded, they punched the air, pounded the shaky lecterns and harangued onlookers. Bolder characters yelled rudely back. A couple of the orators kept up a running dialogue with their audience while others were ignored. This was Liverpool’s version of Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park, and every bit as popular.

The Bible-toting lady came from the Catholic Light League. A fat woman squeezed into a tightly buttoned brown coat, with a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles jammed on her nose and a small black hat perched on grey curls, she shouted hoarsely in a County Cork accent with barely a pause for breath. On her lapels were tin badges from many pilgrimages, at her throat a prominent crucifix, in her free hand a rosary which was waved vigorously at her critics.

Next to her the Anglican clergyman was also a regular, his tall lanky figure with its grubby dog collar and black fedora hat a familiar sight. His adam’s apple bobbed up and down like the
ball-cock
in a cistern, to the fascination of small boys looking on. He affected a public school manner to which, as his hearers well knew, he was not entitled. His objective (seldom achieved) was to fill the nearby church for Evensong and so replenish the coffers left bare by his Depression-hit flock. The Bishop, as he was dubbed, was noted for his tendency to quote scripture which did not quite fit his point. The throng before him was good-natured and noisy.

‘How can you prove the existence of God?’ demanded a man in the front  row.

The clergyman sighed theatrically. ‘When I see people like you, my good fellow, I am convinced of the existence of Lucifer. And somebody must have created
him
. Ergo, God exists. Romans ten, eleven: for the scripture says, “Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.” Next question.’

‘It is blasphemous to suggest that God Almighty does not exist!’ yelled the stout woman. She jabbed a finger at the questioner. ‘May St Michael and all his angels strike ye dead on the spot for saying such a thing!’

‘I didn’t!’ the heckler riposted. ‘But it’s not a sin to –’

‘On yer knees!’ The woman had a voice like a foghorn and a commanding presence which would have done justice to Joan of Arc.

The Bishop raised a pseudo-aristocratic eyebrow as if too fastidious to interfere. The woman leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the lectern, eyes boring into the hapless sinner. ‘You’ll rot in hell, that’s what.’ She bared her teeth in anticipation then swept her finger round the audience which recoiled in mock awe. ‘All of you. Return to God! Be washed in the blood of Christ Jesus! Oh Holy Mother –’ She crossed herself, clasped her hands together, rolled her eyes to the clouds which scudded overhead and began a Hail Mary.

Annie Feldman sucked a boiled sweet and watched, mesmerised. The dramatic exaggeration of the woman, her fierce faith, were strange and exotic. The disdain induced in her listeners was,
Annie felt, unfair. It was a brave act to speak up like that – she, Annie, five foot nothing in her stockinged feet and not yet twenty, could never do it in a million years.

It was only recently that Annie had made a habit of joining the anonymous strollers on the Pier Head. Not that there was much else to do on Sundays, and it was free. Something drove her, engrossed but repelled, towards the religious speakers. She would never be tempted to convert, of course; her own religion was quite sufficient without the complications of any other.

After the rants of the pious her attention was drawn to the politicians. Their competing cries and the derisive catcalls of their audiences made the place chaotic, almost like a funfair. It was an education to listen to them for an hour or more in the hazy sunshine. What she heard and but dimly grasped helped her understand remarks in the canteen at work or over the counter. It stopped her feeling a complete nincompoop. It did not, however, compel her to believe, nor to join in.

She stopped before the first, a supporter of the eclipsed George Lansbury faction of the Labour Party. He was in his thirties, probably unemployed, an off-white muffler at his throat, no hat, no overcoat. He had been moved a few yards downwind of the Blackshirt, a Mosleyite, for on previous occasions they had come to blows: but free speech meant just that, so both were permitted to continue. A police officer, baton in hand, patrolled warily nearby.

The Mosleyites had something to celebrate. Armfuls of party newspapers were being handed around by acolytes. On the front page were pictures of Hitler’s victorious entry into Vienna the week before when his birthplace was incorporated into Germany, the day after a plebiscite had been due on Austrian independence. As he drove through the cheering masses, Hitler looked extremely pleased with life. A new word,
Anschluss
, had entered the English language. In front of the podium three scowling bodyguards in black uniforms with Sam Browne belts and very short haircuts stood with legs planted wide apart, fists clasped behind their backs when not giving the Hitler salute. Their eyes flitted over the crowd. Above them their man did his best to emulate his hero Sir Oswald Mosley but succeeded merely in looking faintly risible. The bodyguards were a different matter: their menace made Annie shiver. It was rumoured they’d follow anyone who disagreed and teach him a lesson. Two already had criminal records.

‘The bomber will always get through,’ Lansbury’s supporter mourned dolefully. ‘The League of Nations is our only defence. Collective security – sanctions. Britain should not waste money on armaments. Beware the war machine. Churchill is a war-monger, a killer. He would put the working man back in the trenches –’

‘The Jews are traitors! All war is the result of conflict caused by Jews and moneylenders. What Herr Hitler wants is peace! If our government wasn’t so infiltrated by Jews and Americans they’d see that. A treaty with Germany would give England peace for a generation!’

The two shouted virtually simultaneously, but each had an ear open for the other. Both orators used the slogan ‘No more war!’ repeatedly, as if its incantation like a magic spell would alone bring harmony. The promise, or hope, was batted back and forth between pacifist and Blackshirt. In the throng, men of conscriptable age shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

Annie knew she ought to be sympathetic to the Labour speaker. It stood to reason, given her background. Even Mosley had called himself a socialist not long before. He’d been tipped as a future Labour Prime Minister, but ambition and haste had driven him first to found his own party – ‘New Labour’, it was called – then rapidly to shift towards the more intolerant and aggressive movements in Europe. A general sense that the adulation of jack-booted foreign leaders was distinctly un-British, plus a degree of refined revulsion among his erstwhile apologists, had caused his star to wane.

The third political speaker was relatively new. Annie had seen him once before. He was younger than the others, about twenty-five. He did not seem to have much control of his tall gawky body which jerked as he spoke as if it operated independently from his brain. His lectern carried no identification stickers so perhaps he did not represent an official party. Nor did he have any leaflets to
hand out.

‘You should listen to Churchill,’ he was urging a woman as Annie approached. ‘What he writes in the
Daily Express
is right. There will be war. Hitler and Mussolini are busy carving up Africa and Europe between them. Today Abyssinia and Austria, next it’ll be Czechoslovakia, then us. They’ve already forced Eden out of office. Watch.’

The bare-headed young man was thin and earnest. His lack of any official link was not unusual. Aspiring politicians of every sort came here, for the spot was famous throughout the north west. Perhaps he had designs on office in his trade union. It’d do him no harm to be known as a forthright debater who had honed his skills at the Pier Head.

Annie was spotted on the edge of the sparse group and beckoned forward. ‘Good afternoon, young lady. Come and listen. This concerns you.’ The courtesy sat oddly with his local accent and awkward manner. She took a couple of steps, shyly. Close to, he was quite pleasant to look at, with a respectable suit, a shock of brown hair and a moustache, but thin-faced as if he had been ill.

Annie tossed her head and laughed. ‘How can it concern me?’

The youth frowned impatiently. ‘If there’s war it’ll affect everyone. Our friend there –’ he gestured at the pacifist ‘– may be correct about the bombers. Liverpool will be a target. You will be a target.’

She laughed prettily and dimpled. ‘Me? Why should anybody want to make a target of me?’

‘Don’t be complacent. If Hitler invades, no one will escape. We should demand that our government arms itself before it’s too late. Mr Churchill should join the Cabinet – he should be Minister for War –’

‘Preposterous idea!’ roared the fascist. ‘Nothing is more likely to lead to disaster! With Churchill in Whitehall instead of on the backbenches where he belongs there would never be peace! A million men will die! Two million! It has happened before and will happen again –’

Annie covered her ears against the tirade and turned back to the young man. ‘So: what on earth can I do about it?’

‘Write to your MP – tell him what you know. And when the time comes, vote for candidates who hate war as much as anyone but are realistic –’

‘I’m too young to vote,’ Annie countered with a flourish. Several of those nearby hooted and clapped her as the boy flushed and closed his mouth wordlessly, as if she had won a game. With as good a flounce as she could muster she walked off. Yet she felt obscurely ashamed of herself.

As the afternoon grew more chill the audience drifted away. Speakers collected bags and papers, folded away their lecterns and moved them flush against the railings ready for the following week. Nobody would steal them, for what good were the ramshackle contraptions other than to provide repeat entertainment? Cloth-capped boys made snowballs of abandoned posters and pelted each other and passers-by. A stall selling tea and buns had done a lively trade during daylight and now its owner lit a paraffin lamp which swayed in the breeze. Customers gathered and rolled sparse cigarettes whose red nubs glowed dimly. Litter blew around, tracts from the testaments, leaflets advertising lectures and rallies, pages from the
News of the World
and the
News Chronicle
.

Annie was reluctant to leave and bought herself a cup of tea. Once she was home, that was the end of her free day, with Monday morning and an early start for work that much closer.

‘You’ll be able to vote soon. You can’t be that young.’

He was suddenly at her side, his hands around a chipped mug, a Woodbine between his fingers. He was more than a head taller. He looked cold.

Annie Feldman sipped her tea and shrugged. ‘I’m twenty. Nearly. And I’m not stupid. What would I vote for? I probably won’t bother.’

The young man groaned. ‘You should. People died to give you the vote. People are dying now, in Germany and other places, because they didn’t use the vote when they had it.’ 

‘Just Jews?’ she inquired mischievously up at him. He looked Jewish. Her own origins were unmistakable.

‘Mostly, but not just us. People who object to the regime – Communists, trade unionists, churchmen. Democratic politicians. Anybody.’ He nodded in the direction of the clergyman’s receding back. ‘I may not agree with what they say but like Voltaire I’d defend to the death their right to say it and be heard. And not get beaten up by bully boys or spirited away and shot.’

‘You’ve no evidence that happens,’ Annie countered. She had heard such sentiments both forcibly expressed and countered in the canteen. ‘You talk like a Communist.’

‘Now you are being stupid,’ the youth answered brusquely.

She should go. The young man’s intensity disturbed her. His narrow shoulders writhed as he spoke and his eyes burned, but with sadness and passion, not hatred.

A moment’s silence. ‘Sorry,’ Annie offered. The boy was looking unhappy. Then, ‘You’re a bit young to be on a soapbox on the Pier Head, aren’t you? What’s your name?’

He warmed his hands around the mug and bent his head to drink. The steam curled up around his nose and wetted the straggly ends of his moustache. Annie suppressed an urge to take out her handkerchief and wipe it for him.

‘I’m Daniel Majinsky.’

The name rang a bell. ‘Have you got a cousin Eva?’

‘Yes. Do you know her?’

‘Not very well. She worked in Blackler’s hair salon for a while, didn’t she? She’s a bit older than me. I think she did my hair once.’

The boy did not reply but lifted up his jacket collar against the salty wind. It was apparent that, still wrapped up in his hour-long performance, he did not seek a social chat. He finished his tea and handed back the mug, then took a long drag on his cigarette, sucking the smoke into his lungs and expelling it in a blue stream through his nostrils. He turned as she did towards Water Street and kept pace with her. Annie tried again.

‘Were you speaking for a political party? You didn’t tell us how to vote, only that we should.’

He sighed. ‘Well, there won’t be an opportunity for a while. The government has a majority of almost three hundred with the National Liberals. Not likely to put that at risk for ages with a General Election.’