The Girl From Seaforth Sands (48 page)

‘What a good thing you mentioned it,’ Amy said. ‘You’re right about the measles, we all had them when I was five or six, but none of us ever had whooping cough, not even the boys. Oh, dear, does this mean they won’t be able to go near Becky until she’s completely clear?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ the doctor confirmed. He patted her cheek, then began to pack his stethoscope away into his case. ‘Call me if you need me; send one of your brothers if they’re at home,’ he said over his shoulder, as he strode towards the door. ‘Remember, plenty of cool drinks, a light diet and quiet. If you can give them that they’ll be right as rain in no time.’
Despite the doctor’s cheerful words, Amy had a tough couple of weeks trying to nurse her two patients, for Becky did indeed develop measles as well as whooping cough and had a miserable time of it. Unable to ask for help from the boys because of the fear of infection, she judged it more sensible to move her brothers out into lodgings temporarily, which left only herself and Bill to run the house and see to the invalids. Oddly enough, although Suzie was very sick indeed for ten days, she began to perk up quicker than Becky, whose temperature remained high for far longer. Bill went to the market each day to sell the fish and slept downstairs on the sofa, for he resolutely refused to go into lodgings with his sons. ‘I had the measles when I were a young ’un and all us lads had whooping cough in our teens,’ he told Amy gruffly when she mentioned the fear of infection. ‘I know I’m an old feller and not much use in a sickroom, but at least I can do the messages, bring in wood and water, empty slop buckets and the like. You won’t want to leave the house while Becky and her mam are so ill, so you’d best make the most of me. The lads would help, I’m sure, but they’ve not had the whooping cough.’

Amy was grateful to her father, particularly since he slept lightly and often heard Suzie call out before she herself did. It was hard enough nursing the invalids all day and looking after Becky all night without having to go to Suzie whenever she needed someone.

Amy did her best to obey the doctor’s instructions but she reflected it was just her luck that her mam and sister should be ill during the hottest fortnight of the summer so far. When Bill came back from the fish market he carted with him a bucket of ice; Amy
used it to freshen the home-made lemonade which her patients enjoyed, but nothing, not even the horsehair mattress, could keep Becky cool. Two or three times every day Amy gave her little sister a blanket bath in cool water and changed her sweat-soaked nightdress, and though Becky was pathetically grateful for the attention and always thanked Amy and said she felt much better now, within an hour she would be hot again, tossing and turning on her pillow, giving the whooping cough which Amy grew to dread and often vomiting into the bucket placed beside the bed for that purpose.

Gradually, however, as the days went by, both Suzie and Becky began to improve. After two weeks Suzie started to get up for an hour or two each day, though Amy flatly refused to let her go into Becky’s room – Suzie had never had whooping cough. But if Amy peeled potatoes, gutted fish, or prepared vegetables for a stew, Suzie would put the pans over the flame and keep an eye on them until they were done. What was more, as she improved she began to do small tasks such as washing up, clearing away and laundering Becky’s nightdresses and bed linen, both of which had to be changed frequently.

For many days Becky ate nothing at all and a good deal of what she drank came back, including the doctor’s medicine, which she condemned roundly as being the nastiest stuff in the world. Then Bill came back with an egg custard, which the baker had made specially for Becky. It looked delicious; but Amy put a small helping into a dish and carried it up to her little sister without very much hope; Becky had turned down so many things with which they had tried to tempt her appetite. However, Amy told Becky how the baker had made it specially for her
and how Bill said he had been followed by a group of little dogs, eagerly sniffing the air as he had brought it home, which made Becky laugh and consent to try a spoonful.

With Amy telling her jokes and trying to take her mind off the job in hand, the bowl was scraped clean before Becky fully realised that she had eaten it, and when the custard had not put in a reappearance twenty minutes later Amy dared to hope that the worst of the sickness was over at last.

There followed a few days when Becky was languid but far more comfortable, then she became demanding, wanting Amy to play games with her, to read to her and also to provide any food which she fancied. Bill remarked one evening, when Becky was in bed and asleep, that his older daughter was looking worn out and would, if she did not take care, end up ill herself. Amy pooh-poohed this, but Bill must have said something to Becky, because next day when Amy went to her sister’s room with a bowl of warm bread and milk, Becky flung her arms round Amy’s neck, kissing her warmly and telling her that she was the best sister in the world and that she, Becky, was a wicked child who did not deserve such kindness.

‘Wicked? Well, I dare say you might have been a little naughty in your time,’ Amy said, laughing. ‘But I doubt very much if you’ve ever been wicked in your life.’ She sat down on the bed and picked up the book she had been reading to Becky the previous day. ‘Now you eat up your bread and milk, and I’ll continue to tell you about Alice’s adventures in Wonderland – won’t that be nice?’

‘Why, ye-es, only I can’t talk and eat at the same time,’ Becky objected. Nevertheless she began to
spoon the sweetened bread and milk into her mouth with more enthusiasm than she had previously shown for a dish which she considered to be baby food. ‘Only I
were
wicked once, Amy.’ She looked up at Amy, her large blue eyes pleading. ‘It were ages and ages ago – last Christmas, in fact. I did something naughty, something what I shouldn’t have done, and then . . . and then I were afraid to tell you. Oh, Amy, it were me what took your necklace.’

Amy stared at her rosy, innocent face. ‘You took my necklace?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘Oh, queen, whatever for?’

‘To show me pals,’ Becky said dolefully. ‘I did try to tell you, Amy, but you said you was tired and I could tell you in the morning. Only you went off early next morning and I thought you’d took it, but when you came back for New Year you said it was still lost . . .’

‘Hey, hang on a minute,’ Amy said. She was still smiling but the smile was mostly to reassure her little sister. ‘When you took it, did you lose it? I mean, did it fall off your neck while you were out in the road, queen? I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

Becky heaved a deep sigh, as though Amy were the stupidest person in the world and cast her eyes up to the ceiling, but replied patiently, ‘I
telled
you, Amy! I took the necklace on Boxing Day to show me pals – that were why I made you take me off the beach so’s I could visit Etty – and then I brought it home with me and forgot all about it because we were playing such jolly games, weren’t we? And I knew you’d take me up to bed and help me undress – then you’d have seen the necklace. So I wrapped it in paper and purrit on the mantelpiece.’

‘But it wasn’t on the mantelpiece; I turned the
whole house upside down,’ Amy began, then remembered the haste with which she had left the house. ‘No, no, I’m getting it wrong, aren’t I? I left the house in such a hurry the day after Boxing Day that I didn’t even remember I’d lost it. So go on, there it was on the mantelpiece . . .?’

‘I don’t know what happened to it after that,’ Becky confessed, looking unhappy for the first time. ‘I thought you’d taken it, which would have been all right. If you’d been there, Amy, I’d have give it you – I meant to tell you I’d found it on the floor, near where you’d been sitting when we was playing Consequences, only you went early, like you said. And when I came down for breakfast it were gone, honest to God it were.’

There was a pregnant pause while Amy’s mind raced. She knew that no member of the family had taken it, but she supposed that wrapped in a piece of paper it might easily have been taken for rubbish and thrown into the fire. She was about to assume that this had happened when she suddenly remembered Paddy’s abrupt departure. Was it possible that he had found it? But if so, why had he not simply returned it to her?

Because he thought you’d chucked it away, you blithering idiot, which is what anyone would have thought
, a small voice said inside Amy’s head.
Remember, you didn’t tell him you’d mislaid it and were hunting for it, which any normal human being would have done. But you were too proud and you’d been pretty nasty about the necklace to start with, so you didn’t want Paddy to know that you’d been careless enough to lose it. Oh, if he found it he will have been so hurt! And I can’t get in touch with him, can’t tell him what Becky’s just told me. Whatever am I going to do?
She must have spoken the last sentence out loud for Becky, looking puzzled, said, ‘Do? Well, you said you’d read me from
Alice in Wonderland
, so you could do that.’

Amy laughed but picked up the book and began to read. Children are so single-minded, she thought. Becky had told her the story of the necklace and by doing so had cleared her own conscience of any suspicion of wickedness. It would not occur to the child that her action might have had repercussions. Once confessed, it could be forgotten, and Becky had done just that.

When Amy had finished her chapter and Becky her bread and milk, Amy put the book down on the side table and stood up. Casually, as though it were of no importance, she asked, ‘Why didn’t you put the necklace back on the washstand, queen? Why put it downstairs on the mantelpiece? If you had wanted me to find it, you might have known I’d look in the bedroom first.’

‘Amy, I
telled
you,’ Becky exclaimed. ‘I slipped it off me neck while you were in the pantry helping Mam to get us suppers. I didn’t think to take it upstairs, I just wanted to hide it so’s no one could see. I had me paper from the game of Consequences, so I wrapped it in that and stood on the fender, so’s it looked as if I were checking the clock to see how late it was. And I put the crumpled-up ball of paper with the necklace inside by the clock. I meant to come down early next morning, throw the paper in the fire, and put the necklace down by the chair you’d sat in to eat your supper. But when I got down the necklace was gone.
Now
do you understand?’

‘Yes, I understand queen,’ Amy told her gently. ‘Paddy came down before you, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, ’cos I slept in,’ Becky said readily, ‘but I don’t
see . . . oh, Amy! Could that be why he were in such a mood? I mean, would it make him cross to find the necklace wrapped up in a bit of old paper? Why couldn’t he have just give it back to you?’

Becky was bright, Amy thought, telling her sister soothingly that it didn’t matter because if Paddy had picked it up no doubt he would keep it safe until he saw Amy again. But in her heart she thought that Paddy, if he really had found it, might well have chucked it into the fire and made up his mind to forget her and find a decent girl who would treat him with respect and cherish any gift he gave her.

But no matter what had been, it had happened over six long months ago and was best forgotten. So Amy picked up Becky’s slop bucket and carried it and the dirty dish down to the kitchen, and began her day’s work.

The SS
Frederica
came into the Crosby Channel and Paddy, leaning on the rail, could see even through the shimmer of the hot July air the Crosby lighthouse to his left and the Rock lighthouse on the New Brighton point to his right. He had told himself that he would not be affected by his first sight of the city of his birth; it had not occurred to him that passing along beside his old fishing ground would be so full of memories. Every inch of these waters he and the Logan boys had known like the backs of their hands and they had had good times out here, too. Clear, cool autumn days, when the nets had been so heavy that it had taken all three of them to heave the catch aboard; days in winter when they had fished in vain and had had to
come home, frozen-fingered and depressed, with nothing to show for their hard work. Other people might not feel that they had come home until they saw the ‘Liver Birds’ looming out of the heat haze and though Paddy guessed that this would affect him too, it was these waters which had been his workplace for so long, and which he remembered now with a mixture of pride and nostalgia.

When the Liver Birds came in sight, however, half the ship’s crew were beside him on the deck, already planning how they would spend their first day ashore. The
Frederica
would be in port for ten days, perhaps a fortnight, while her master sold the cargo he had carried across the wide Atlantic and cast around among those import/export companies who might give him an outgoing cargo for his next trip.

Many of the men, Paddy knew, had no longer got families or close friends living in the ‘Pool, and would go straight to the sailors’ home on Paradise Street and book in there for the duration of their time ashore. They would spend the first couple of days getting gloriously drunk and throwing around the money they had made on the voyage, picking up Liverpool judies, fighting with anyone who wanted a scrap and buying trifles for anyone who took their fancy. Several of the men, Paddy knew, had bought objects which they would sell on as soon as the city was reached. If they could find a curio shop, similar to the one on Upper Parliament Street where he had bought the necklace, they would find a ready sale for curiosities purchased from South America. And such deals would give them yet more cash to spend ashore.

The thought of the necklace immediately brought a picture of Amy’s face into Paddy’s mind. He could see her large, green-grey eyes fringed with dark lashes, and the glorious red-gold hair, which
he had once rudely called ‘carroty’, piled on top of her small head. But it did not do to think about Amy, because it brought the whole business back. He had already made up his mind that he would neither visit her in Huskisson Street, nor try to get in touch with her during his time ashore. For over six months he had concentrated on his job as a seaman while they were on board ship. When ashore, he had always chosen girls who were as different from Amy as they could possibly be. This had not been difficult, since South American beauties tended to black hair, glittering dark eyes and, rather too often for Paddy’s taste, a dagger slipped into a stocking top. Being spirited was all very well, but Paddy had no desire to find himself on the wrong end of a stiletto and treated such ladies with considerable caution.