The Girl From Seaforth Sands (2 page)

So the two old ladies did the housework and cooked for the family, and Suzie worked, somewhat desultorily, at any job she could find, seldom keeping the same employment for very long. The money Paddy picked up through running messages and selling firewood and, Amy suspected, nicking from the stallholders on Scotland Road, was a very real help in keeping their little boat afloat. And Amy knew that her father did his best to keep the Keagans supplied with odds and ends of fish whenever his catch was good, despite what his wife thought of their neighbours.

Bill was prejudiced in favour of the Keagans because Abe Keagan, Suzie’s dead husband, had been a fisherman like himself and had been lost at sea during a violent storm, which had sunk his boat
and drowned every man aboard. Bill thought Suzie was more sinned against than sinning, Amy knew, but her father would never have dreamed of saying so in front of his wife. Bill had once told her that, until Abe’s death, Suzie had been a good wife and mother, working hard to sell the fish her husband’s family caught. If things had been different, if only Abe had not died, Suzie, Bill seemed to think, would have been every bit as sensible and reliable a housewife and mother as his own wife. Isobel was a good woman, but narrow-minded and strict. She had made up her mind to disapprove of the Keagans and that included Paddy. Nothing would change that, even though Albert and Paddy, both aged twelve and pupils at the same school, were bezzies and, during the school holidays, seldom apart.

Now, peering out into the rain, Amy saw a small figure sloshing through the puddles. It was a boy, coming up the street towards her, and even at this distance she recognised Paddy Keagan. Thinking about him had sort of conjured him up, she told herself crossly. Why on earth had she wasted a single thought on the Keagan family when they were far from her favourite people? In fact, she disliked Paddy intensely for several reasons. The most obvious one being that he disliked her and never lost an opportunity to tease, taunt, or even to bully her. He had divined that his family were disapproved of by the Logans, although clearly not by Albert, and because of this he was all too ready to find something wrong with her in his turn.

Another reason for disliking him was that he had a crush on Mary. Mary was lovely, Amy was very fond of her, but she thought that Paddy had a cheek to hang around their house hoping to catch sight of
the older girl. Not that Mary encouraged him – she thought him Albert’s friend and no more than a kid anyway – but Amy still resented his liking Mary, particularly as it went hand in hand with disliking her. Of course, Mary was a blue-eyed blonde and very pretty, whereas Amy had red hair and greenish-hazel eyes and was not, she acknowledged ruefully, pretty at all. But her mam was always saying it was character that counted, not looks, so Paddy had no right to like Mary because she was pretty and dislike Amy because she wasn’t.

However, Paddy was getting nearer by the minute and although Amy shrank into the back of her doorway she had little hope of eluding his eyes. Paddy would spot her, and would probably guess why she was there and what she was avoiding, and would make it his business to tell Mary and Albert, even if he would not dare to tale-clat to her mam. Accordingly, Amy turned her back on the roadway and shrank into the corner, knowing that Paddy was less likely to see her if the pallor of her face was hidden.

For a moment she thought she was safe but then, while she was still considering turning round to see where Paddy had gone, someone screamed ‘Yah boo, Shrimpy!’ right into her ear, at the same time gripping her shoulders and twisting her round to face him. ‘Don’t know why you were hidin’ your face – I could tell it were you by the smell o’ fish.’ It was Paddy, of course, his grimy face split by a broad grin. Amy gave him a shove and then, when he continued to hold her skinny shoulders, turned her head sideways and, with some disgust, bit his filthy fingers as hard as she could.

Paddy let go of her as though she had been red
hot. ‘You bleedin’ little cat,’ he said on a gasp. ‘Oh, you wicked little slut, you’ve near on chewed me finger off! Oh, if you wasn’t a girl I’d give you such a clack around the ear your head’d ring for a week. If you wasn’t a girl I’d swing for you, so I would!’

‘Well, me being a girl never stopped you from screeching in my ear and nigh on giving me a heart attack, let alone grabbing me hard enough to bruise,’ Amy said crossly, rubbing her sore shoulders. ‘What are you doing here anyway? It’s perishin’ wet and cold, and you’ve got no coat.’

‘Huh! And you’ll notice I aren’t askin’ what you’s doin’ out in the rain,’ Paddy observed, giving her a malevolent glare. ‘Your dad’s barrowed in his catch and you’re skivin’ off as usual, leavin’ the dirty work to someone like your Mary, who does more’n her share anyroad.’

‘So what?’ Amy said belligerently, stepping towards him, hands on hips, and then retreating hastily into the shelter of the doorway once more as the rain caught her. She might occasionally do bad things, she told herself now, but she was not a liar and did not intend to become one, even to spite Paddy. The way to hell began on the slippery slope of telling lies, Isobel often remarked, and since the Logan children knew their mother and father to be both truthful and honest, they tended to follow the parental example, even when it did not much suit them to do so. Of course, swearing around the house was inadvisable, to put it no stronger, so the young Logans watched their language within doors. But a child who did not occasionally use a bad word when in company with their friends would soon be picked out as different and Amy had no desire for such a doubtful honour. Therefore she said, ‘Bugger off,
Keagan!’ before setting off at a smart and splashy run in the direction of her home. Doing the shrimps might not be much fun, but when you compared it with being taunted and terrorised by Paddy Keagan, while at the same time getting soaked to the skin, it did not seem so terrible after all.

‘What’s the marrer, Shrimpy?’ Paddy taunted, easily keeping pace beside her and making sure that everyone of his footfalls splashed her as well as himself. ‘Changed your mind, eh? Goin’ to do your share after all, tatty-’ead?’

‘Mind your own bleedin’ business,’ Amy said breathlessly, then tightened her lips and put a spurt on. Small and skinny she might be – well, she was – but she knew from past experience that she could outrun most boys. Paddy’s constant attacks had indeed proved this more than once, so now she speeded up and fairly flew along the wet road, swerving into the jigger several lengths ahead of him. She ran up the jigger, bounded through the backyard and was in the kitchen and across to the table very probably before Paddy had turned off the road. Breathlessly, with her heart still thumping from her run, she grinned at Mary, then slid on to the bench next to her sister and, without a word, began to attack the shrimps.

Paddy, foiled of his prey, slowed to a walk and sauntered passed the Logans’ front door, casting a wistful glance at the house as he did so. He could never understand why he was not truly welcomed by Mrs Logan when he came calling. He acknowledged that she was a good woman and kind to him in her way, for during school time she quite often gave Albert a double carry-out. She must know that
Paddy’s mam, who seemed to find it difficult to hold down a job for more than a few days together, was often hard pressed to find food for them all, let alone the time to prepare him butties. Yet though Mrs Logan might feed him without even being asked, she never encouraged him with so much as a friendly word or look and seldom allowed him to cross her threshold.

Therefore Paddy, aware of this, did not linger by the Logans’ dwelling but continued to the tiny house on the end of the row where the Keagans lived. He went down the back jigger and in through the door, not remembering until he entered the room that he had been sent on a message and that Gran, stirring a large black pot over the fire, would be expecting him to return with a sack of the tiny potatoes which the greengrocer on Elm Road sold off cheap at the end of each day’s trading. But Paddy had no scruples about wrapping up the truth when necessary and said breezily, before his Gran could open her mouth, ‘They ain’t got enough yet to sell off; what’s there is mainly earth and stones, to tell the truth. I’s to go back in an hour or so. He reckons he’ll have more stock in then.’

Gran gave a loud sniff and moved briskly across the kitchen, catching Paddy quite a painful blow around the ear with the long wooden spoon in her hand. ‘You’re a tarrible liar, Patrick James Keagan,’ she said resignedly. ‘Why, you ain’t been gone long enough for the cat to lick her ear. You can’t have reached the end of the road, you lazy little bugger. Comin’ back, full of lies, ’spectin’ me to believe some old tale . . .’

‘Sorry, Gran,’ Paddy said humbly. He might have known it didn’t pay to try to pull the wool over
Gran’s sharp old eyes. ‘But it’s mortal chilly out and wet as well; I’ve come back for me coat.’

‘I t’ought as much,’ Gran said, turning back to her cauldron. With her thin, greying hair made lank by the steam of her cooking, she looked more like a witch than a respectable householder. ‘What was you really doin’, young Paddy?’

Paddy took a deep breath; Gran was remarkably astute and probably had a fair idea of his ‘goings on’. ‘I were on me way to the shops when I spotted young Amy, hidin’ in a doorway. I knew her dad had just brought in his catch – heard his barrow turnin’ into the jigger as I passed it – so I guessed young Amy were bunking off, leavin’ Mary to do all the work as usual. So . . . so I kind of walked her home, saw her indoors. Well, you know what you’ve always said, Gran, it pays us to be nice to the Logans even if they ain’t nice back. Then we’s in the right and they’s in the wrong, you said.’

Gran sniffed again. Despite the fact that she hardly ever left the house, she kept her ear to the ground and rarely missed a trick, Paddy knew. Still, the story was as near the truth as damn it. So now he took his ragged jacket off the back of the door and struggled into it. ‘Sorry I forgot meself, Gran,’ he said humbly, pulling open the back door. ‘I’ll get down to Evans’s and be back with the spuds before you’ve missed me.’

‘Who says I’ll miss you?’ Gran said pertly. ‘Oh, you ain’t a bad boy, Paddy. I’ve known worse.’

Out in the rain once more, Paddy hunched his shoulders and prepared for the dash round to Elm Road. He was grinning to himself as he jogged along. His gran was a good old girl so she was. She was seventy-six years old and had come to Liverpool from
Connemara as a bride over fifty years ago. Michael Keagan and his family had been one of the many Irish smallholders who had lost their livings when the second potato famine had struck. Despite the hardships the young couple had encountered in Liverpool, they were both hard workers determined to make a success of their new life. They had worked their way up from doing any odd jobs they could get, until Michael owned first a handcart and then a stall, selling for a few pennies more, anything he could buy cheap. Their business enterprise had thrived until he was able to take a share in a longshore fishing boat, while his wife sold their catches to anyone eager to buy.

The time came when Michael and his brothers were all working on the boat, which by now belonged to the Keagan family. They had enjoyed several successful years, often taking good hauls of fish when other boats could not find. And then, when Paddy was eighteen months old, disaster had struck. A storm at sea had taken not only the lives but also the livelihood from the Keagan family. In one blow Paddy’s mother, grandmother and great-aunt had been widowed, and had moved from their respective homes into the tiny end-of-terrace house in Seafield Grove. With no catch of their own to sell the women had taken what work they could get. Great-Aunt Dolly, even then in her seventies, had undertaken the household duties. Paddy could not remember those early days but he gathered, from the way Suzie talked, that they had been hard indeed. She had worked for the odd day or so in the market when Christmas came around and she cleaned for anyone who would employ her, usually small shopkeepers or one of the many pubs which
abounded in the area. Gran cleaned too and was famous for her scrubbing, but once Paddy was able to earn a little by his own efforts she was not sorry to take over the running of the house from Dolly who burned, Gran said, more potatoes and fish than ever she cooked. Aunt Dolly was childless and had never been much of a housewife.

As Paddy gained Elm Road the rain, which had seemed to fall unceasingly, began to ease. Paddy turned thankfully into the shop and dug a hand into his pocket for the pennies Gran had given him. Mr Evans, standing behind the counter in his stained brown overall and surreptitiously smoking a dog end, hastily pinched it out and shoved it behind his ear as he came forward across the empty shop. ‘Afternoon, Paddy,’ he said jovially, ‘I dare say you’ll be after spending a few bob, ain’t that right?’ He chuckled wheezily. ‘Oh aye, did you back the winner of the Grand National, our Paddy? What’ll it be, then? A couple o’ dozen oranges and a nice pineapple? Or how’s about some of them black grapes, eh?’

Paddy chuckled as well, although the joke was an old one. ‘I wish,’ he said. ‘Two-penn’orth of small spuds please, Mr Evans.’ He looked hopefully at the older man. ‘Gorrany messages or little jobs for me today? The rain’s easin’ off and me gran’s stewin’ fish. I wouldn’t mind bein’ out o’ doors for a bit.’

Mr Evans pulled a doubtful face. ‘Well, I dunno as I’ve much in the way of messages,’ he said slowly, ‘unless you’d like to sort sacks o’ spuds for a penny?’

Paddy sighed. Sorting spuds was tiring, dirty work but you could do a lot with a penny. There was the magic lantern show at the village hall, for
instance. A boy could see the whole show, sitting on a wooden bench with his pals on Saturday mornings, and buy himself some sweets to suck during the performance, for a penny. But Paddy was not a bad boy and he knew what he would do with the money really. He would take it home to Gran, who needed a penny even more than he did. That way, the next time he earned himself some money he would probably be told to keep it, or at least the majority of it.