The Girl From Seaforth Sands (35 page)

‘Doctor McKay told us the history of the case when he booked Miss Morton in,’ a middle-aged sister, in a navy blue dress with white celluloid collar and cuffs, told them. ‘But even so Mr Rivers, the consultant, will want to make his own examination. A blow to the head can seem straightforward but it can also lead to complications.’

Left to themselves, Philip and Amy sat down on the long benches provided and looked anxiously at one another.

‘Complications? Could that mean damage to her skull? Or can a blow on the head affect the brain?’ Amy asked in a worried undertone.

‘I’m sure if there had been any question of brain damage, Doctor McKay would not have let her travel between the hotel and the hospital in a hansom cab,’ Philip said reassuringly. He took Amy’s hand between both of his own and looked earnestly into her round, worried eyes. ‘Your friend
is young and strong, and has had a blow on the head, which she might have got during a game of hockey. She was seen very quickly by an excellent doctor, but naturally, the surgeon in charge of this ward wishes to reassure himself as well as his staff that the damage is only superficial. So stop
worrying
, you little goose. In five or ten minutes we’ll know what Mr Rivers thinks and you can be easy.’

‘It’s only that Ella’s my best friend, Philip,’ Amy said apologetically. ‘We understand one another as though we were sisters – better than sisters, because I never have understood Mary. Although we are so different, Ella and I could scarcely have been closer. Ella is an only child and her parents were wealthy . . .’

Sitting there in the corridor, waiting to be allowed back on the ward, Amy related to Philip Ella’s sad story, emphasising how brave she had been in the face of such appalling adversity. ‘She had had so much, yet at the age of seventeen she found herself with nothing,’ she told him. ‘For the first time in her life she was forced to earn her own living, working in a miserable little clothing shop on the Scotland Road and sleeping at night on a mattress behind the counter. A lot of girls would have forgotten their ambitions, gone on struggling just to keep alive, but Ella has the courage of a lion, honest she has, Philip. She worked hard to learn what sort of staff the big departmental stores wanted and very quickly got her herself a job in one of them, and answered an advertisement for a room share. She was only a junior assistant, filling the shelves when stocks ran low, running up and down from the basement to the top floor, carrying heavy boxes of goods. But she soon rose to be a counter hand, then a sales assistant
and now, as you know, she works with me at the Adelphi. Only she’s more important than I am, because she translates French and German for the management and is already indispensable, although she has been with them less than six months.’

At this point the doors to the ward in which Ella lay opened, and the surgeon and his team came out. They walked up the corridor towards Amy and Philip, who both rose to their feet. Mr Rivers was a tall, skinny man, probably no more than forty years old, with a calm and confident manner, which instantly put both young people at their ease. ‘Your friend has an admirable constitution and an extremely strong skull,’ he informed them, smiling genially as he did so. ‘She has not yet regained consciousness – I fancy she may have a touch of concussion – but I am sure she will come to herself over the course of the next few hours. I would strongly advise you both to go home now, leaving Miss Morton in the capable hands of the nursing staff. You may return this afternoon with such small necessities as the patient needs – her own nightgown perhaps – and by then your friend will have regained consciousness.’

Amy’s relief was so great that she found she could only stare at the surgeon while her eyes filled with tears, but Philip said at once, ‘Thank you, sir, I know you have relieved both our minds and we will feel happier as a result.’ He turned to Amy as the surgeon and his team moved off down the corridor. ‘Well? Has that satisfied you? I think we ought to take Mr Rivers’s advice and go home now, and come back this afternoon.’

Paddy, Albert and Gus brought the boat up into the estuary alongside Seaforth Sands and lowered the brick-coloured sail, each one performing his task without a word spoken, so familiar were they with this daily routine. They had sailed at dawn, realising that the heat would become oppressive as the day progressed, and had filled their dragnet before the shrimps had sought shelter in deeper waters. Thus they were now heading for home after only a few hours’ fishing. This meant that the shrimps could be boiled and piled on the handcart in plenty of time to be sold straight to the public that same day. And fresh shrimps, especially at this time of year, always commanded top prices.

As soon as they were in shallow water Paddy and Albert jumped out and began to pull the boat ashore. In winter, when they performed this task, they would have been clad in great fishermen’s thigh waders but now, because of the heat, they were barefoot, with trousers rolled up as high as they would go and Paddy, splashing in first, thought the cool water against his hot and sunburned legs was a delightful experience.

Like most of the lads in Seaforth he could swim like a fish, though the older men still insisted that it was bad luck for a fisherman to be able to swim. ‘Askin’ for trouble, thass worrit is,’ the old salts, sitting outside the Caradoc would tell each other. ‘A fisherman’s place is atop the water not innit. My da always telled me that fishes were the only ones what needed to swim and since I’m still here to tell the tale, I reckon he were right.’

But right now, with Gus joining them to pull the boat up the beach, Paddy thought longingly that a quick swim would be just what the doctor ordered. He was so hot and carrying the shrimps back to
Seafield Grove would be hot work as well, to say nothing of boiling them in the crowded little wash-house and then shovelling them, still hot, into the large, loose-weave sacks.

Of course, in the usual way his mam would take over at this point, setting off with the handcart to sell the shrimps round the houses and pubs, but because they had such a large quantity of shrimps he, Gus and Albert would probably take the remainder of the catch into St John’s fish market for Bill to sell on his stall. They had bought a second handcart a while back and though Bill had often talked of investing in a donkey to bring the fish from Seaforth to the city centre more rapidly, nothing so far had come of it.

Normally the two younger boys would have pushed the handcart into the market by themselves, but because of the strike, and the looting and rioting that had followed, they felt a good deal safer with Gus along to help, in the event of trouble. By and large, the rioters did not interfere with the poor, but attacked the city centre shops and stores, though on one occasion a group of rowdy, undisciplined youths had overturned the handcart, thinking it a great joke to see Albert and Paddy scrabbling on the cobbles to retrieve what shrimps they could.

The boat being satisfactorily beached, Albert and Paddy checked the sails, sheets and oars, and then began to fasten the necks of the sacks. Gus, meanwhile, had strode up the beach and was returning, dragging the handcart behind him. He did not come too far, because the sand was soft and the cart, when laden, could easily get bogged down, so presently he abandoned it and came and joined them. Each of them hefted a sack on to his back and began the hard slog up the beach. Paddy, with sweat trickling down
his brow and stinging his eyes, looked sideways at Gus. ‘Any chance of a swim, Gus?’ he asked plaintively. ‘I’m as hot as fire and we’ll be red as lobsters afore we’re much older, what wi’ boiling the shrimps and carting them to St John’s Market. And it won’t take nobbut a few minutes, just to set ourselves up, like, wi’ a dip in the briny.’

‘Tell you what,’ Gus said, as they reached the handcart and began to unload their sacks on to it, ‘I’ll take a couple of sacks along to the house, so that Suzie can get on wi’ cooking them, and you two can have your dip. I won’t bother with the handcart, you can bring that when you’ve had your swim.’

Paddy and Albert agreed with this suggestion and very soon, clad only in their working trousers, they were washing the sweat and the heat away in the cool waves. When they reached the house in Seafield Grove half an hour later Paddy announced breezily, as they hefted the remaining sacks of shrimps into the wash-house, that he felt a different feller. ‘If you want to go down to the shore now, Gus, and have your dip while we boil the remaining shrimps, I’m sure Albert and me are willin’,’ he said.

Gus, however, shook his head and said that he meant to go indoors and have a strip-down wash and put on clean kecks and shirt. ‘For when we’ve delivered the shrimps to Dad I’ve a mind to stroll round to the Crown and have a beer or two,’ he said with assumed casualness. ‘That is, if you think the two of you will be able to get the handcart back to Seaforth wi’out the aid of me bulgin’ muscles?’ he added with a grin.

Paddy and Albert exchanged meaningful looks, but said nothing. They were both well aware that Gus had taken a fancy to the little blonde barmaid
who worked at the Crown public house, and was plucking up his courage to ask her out. Rather to Paddy’s surprise, the girl was not unlike Peggy Higgins to look at, but there was no accounting for tastes. If I’d been dumped by a blonde, the way Peggy dumped our Gus, then I reckon I’d go for a brunette next time around, Paddy told himself, as they began to empty the sacks of uncooked shrimps into the boiling, salty water. But there you are, everyone’s different and no doubt Gus will take out several girls before he starts getting serious again.

Aloud Paddy said, in answer to Gus’s question; ‘Oh aye, we’ll get the handcart home all right, don’t you worry about us, old feller. But seeing as we’re early today, I think I’ll go round to the dairy and have a word wi’ me old pals. It’s ages since Tommy and I met – we might make an evening of it.’

‘Well, if we’re going to make an evening of it, then we’d best all change our kecks and shirts,’ Albert said hopefully. ‘What’s on at the Palais de Luxe in Lime Street, Paddy? I wouldn’t mind seeing a film . . . Mind you, there’s dances and all sorts in the city centre. Anyway, we can decide what we want to do later. We’ll leave the handcart wi’ our dad and get him to pay a kid a few coppers to wheel it back to Seaforth.’

Accordingly, as soon as the shrimps were boiled, Paddy and Albert hurried into the kitchen. Suzie was sitting by the open window darning a pair of Bill’s socks, and Becky and her small friend Etty were playing at shop with a number of empty packets arrayed on top of a wooden box, which served both as counter and stall room. Paddy tugged one of Becky’s blonde pigtails as he passed and she turned to smile up at him. ‘Hello, Paddy! Me an’
Etty’s playin’ shop,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘Amy telled me, the last time she was home, that she an’ Mary played shop when they were small. So Mammy’s been savin’ empty packets and jars, an’ now I’m the shop lady and Etty’s me customer.’

‘That’s grand, queen,’ Paddy said absently, but the mention of Amy’s name made him remember when he and she had been forced to share a roof. How they had argued and even fought one another when there was no one about to keep them apart! He had called her nastier and nastier names but somehow she had always got back at him. Life was much quieter now she had moved out but, he reflected ruefully, it was much duller too. She had been – was – a sparky little thing, with plenty to say for herself, always full of tales of her work or her friends’ doings. Looking back, he knew that both he and his mother had been jealous of Bill’s affection for his younger daughter, so it was better for all of them to live separately, as they did now.

He skirted the chair in which Amy had sat and exchanged tart remarks with him the last time she had come home, and found himself remembering every detail of her appearance on that day. The small, pointy chinned face, with its large, greenish eyes, the pink lips which could fold so tightly in disapproval and the long auburn hair, piled on top of her small head and held in place by tortoiseshell combs. He had called her a looker, not intending to compliment her, but simply speaking the truth. And what had she done? Snubbed him as usual. So she was best forgotten, he decided, mounting the stairs at a run. Heaven knew, their paths did not cross often and when she came home he usually kept well clear. Last time they had met he had hoped to bury the hatchet, but Amy’s attitude clearly made this impossible, so he would think of her no more.

Having washed, slicked down their hair with brilliantine and donned clean shirts, kecks and shoes, the boys thundered down the stairs again and it was not long before the sacks of cooked shrimps were piled on the handcart and being pushed along Crosby Road by three neatly attired young gentlemen, eager for a bit of fun.

Neither Gus nor the younger boys had been into the city centre for several days and they were shocked to find the streets buzzing with policemen and with obvious signs, such as smashed shop windows and litter everywhere, that a crowd had recently rioted there. Now, however, apart from the obvious police presence, the streets were almost empty and the boys and their catch proceeded without interference right up to Bill’s stall in the fish market. There were few customers and even fewer stallholders, but Bill thanked them for the shrimps and sent Kenny, the little lad who helped him when he was busy, round to Roper’s for more ice.

‘We had a rare do here this morning,’ Bill told his sons as they unloaded the shrimps. ‘The strikers came in a body to hear some feller address them from St George’s Plateau. It seems things got out of hand, though, and there was no end of damage done. They called the troops in, I’ve heard, and someone was shot. We heard the burst of gunfire from here, but Jack Gibson, who were doin’ a delivery along Lime Street, said the troops fired over the heads of the crowd. Bullets go astray, though,’ he added wisely, ‘and sometimes it ain’t only the troops what get themselves armed – there’s fellers here what fought in the Boer War an’ never handed in their weapons, so I’ve heard.’

‘It’s quiet enough out there now,’ Gus observed. ‘The place is crawling wi’ scuffers, mind, so I suppose it would be. I were goin’ round to the Crown for a beer, but will they be open? I noticed several shops closed as we came along.’