The Liverpool Rose (13 page)

‘I think you’d best come straight back,’ her aunt said after only a moment’s thought. ‘I want this fruit drink bottled and out o’ the way before your uncle gets in from work. You know how crabby he can be if he thinks I’m wastin’ money which he’d rather spend on drink – and I don’t mean fruit drink, either,’ she added with mordant humour.

So Lizzie hurried out of the court and down the road to the little corner shop where she purchased pearl barley and sugar and then turned for home, hoping that everyone had noticed her smart new dress. When she entered the kitchen again it smelt wonderfully of the cooking fruit, and Lizzie hoped that her aunt would let them all have a drink with their supper that evening. Then there was a perfunctory knock on the door and Sally came bouncing into the kitchen, sniffing appreciatively and exclaiming that she wished her mam was as good a cook as Aunt Annie. Lizzie felt really proud of her relative, and when Aunt Annie pointed wordlessly to the blue gingham and Sally exclaimed that her friend looked wonderful, Lizzie could only thank her aunt with a speaking look.

She and Sally then left the house and wandered along Burlington Street with linked arms, chatting of this and that. Sally knew all about Lizzie’s friendship with Geoff, having met him on several occasions, and was deeply interested in his plans to rise with meteor-like brilliance in the world as soon as he got clear of the orphan asylum. However, at the moment, both girls were more interested in Lizzie’s new dress and in the fact that Sally, the possessor of largesse both from Suzie’s sailor and from her own mother, intended to mug the pair of them to see the show at the Rotunda.

‘We’ll buy half a pound of broken biscuits to eat while we watch the screen, and then you can come back and have your tea wi’ us,’ Sally planned busily. ‘It’s a pity your Geoff can’t get out much, ’cept at weekends. Wharrabout that feller what’s on a canal barge? Clem, was it? You ha’n’t seen him for quite a while, have you?’

‘Now you come to mention it, I haven’t,’ Lizzie agreed, having given the matter some thought. ‘Cripes, it must have been June when we last met up. The thing is,
The Liverpool Rose
don’t always dock at weekends, when me and Geoff is free to come down to the Scaldy. I reckon we’ve only met up wi’ Clem four or five times since that first time. In June he were downright goshswoggled at how well Geoff swims now. No need for him to be afraid of a ducking any longer. He could beat most o’ the kids who swim in the Scaldy – not that he would, Geoff ain’t like that.’

‘He’s growed a lot, your Geoff,’ Sally said. ‘They feed ’em awful well in orphan asylums, even if the food is dull, like what he says. There ain’t many kids in Cranberry Court what are as broad and strong as your Geoff.’

‘I know what you mean, but he ain’t my Geoff exactly,’ Lizzie objected. ‘Oh, he’s my pal all right, but that’s because he likes visiting an ordinary home and being with ordinary people. I think I’m more like a sister to him really, and Aunt Annie’s more like an aunt.’

‘Well, that’s what I meant,’ Sally exclaimed. ‘Don’t I call Herbie and Denis and Henry your Herbie and Denis and Henry when I’m talkin’ about ’em?’

She sounded innocent, even aggrieved, but Lizzie shot her a suspicious look before neatly changing the subject. ‘I wonder what’s showing at the Rotunda?’ she asked. ‘And I wonder how many of our pals will be going there today? I’m that pleased with my new dress that I want everyone to see it. Oh, and did I tell you, Aunt Annie bought me another one for winter? It’s really lovely, even better’n this one. It’s navy-blue, wi’ a lawn collar . . .’

Chattering happily, the two girls continued along the road.

It was evening before the two girls returned from their cinema trip. They had seen Louise Dresser and Rudolp Valentino in
The Eagle,
and both fallen irrevocably in love with the latter. Crossing the court, still starry-eyed from their recent experience, it occurred to neither of them to so much as glance at number nine. They went straight into Sally’s home where Mrs Bradshaw had a grand tea ready. Mr Bradshaw came in from the back yard, already washed, and sat down expectantly at the table. ‘What have you got for us tonight, Mother?’ he asked jovially. ‘I see we’ve gorra visitor – and how’s young Miss Devlin on this bright summer’s day? I like your dress so I do.’

‘I’m fine, thanks, Mr Bradshaw,’ Lizzie said. ‘And Mrs Bradshaw’s got fried fish and chipped potatoes in, for a special treat. Oh, I do love fish and chips.’

‘I love ’em meself,’ Mr Bradshaw assured the girls. They all sat round the table, enjoying the meal, Lizzie thinking smugly that though Aunt Annie was a wonderful cook, no one could make fish and chips like they made them in the shop. Besides, she knew very well Aunt Annie had planned a gravy and potato pie; missing it would not be as hard as if she had managed to buy some meat.

After supper, Lizzie and Sally played a noisy game of cards, so that it was growing dusk when Lizzie finally dragged herself away from the Bradshaws’ cosy kitchen and began to cross the court towards her own home. She was within six feet of the door when it was opened violently from within and a missile flew out, travelling with the speed and velocity of a cannon ball. It whizzed over Lizzie’s head, still travelling upwards, and hit the brick wall of the house behind her, to be closely followed by another and another. These projectiles were accompanied by feminine shrieks and masculine curses so that Lizzie was not surprised to discover, when one of the missiles fell short and landed at her feet, that it was a lemon. Uncle Perce must have come home and discovered Aunt Annie still slaving over the production of her fruit drink. Why he should subsequently have begun to hurl lemons, however, was still a mystery unless he had taken it into his head, in the odd befuddled way that drunkards did, to assume that his wife was making lemonade instead of cooking his supper.

Lizzie edged closer to the open door and peered inside. She could see Uncle Perce, poised in the
kitchen doorway, one hand holding a lemon above his head while with the other he attempted to thump Aunt Annie, who was circling him very much as an angry wasp might circle a piece of rotten fruit. Even as she watched, wondering whether to interfere, her uncle flung the lemon, turned round and began hitting Aunt Annie across the head and shoulders with all his strength, hands bunched into vicious fists.

‘You’re a wicked old bitch, spendin’ me hard earned cash on filthy fruit for a lorra bleedin’ kids,’ Uncle Perce roared. ‘Actin’ the Lady Bountiful wi’ money that you’ve never earned, whiles I have to leave the pub early ’cos I ain’t got a penny-piece to bless meself with. And where’s me supper? A man needs a good hot meal when he’s been slavin’ at the docks all day, but what do I get? Bleedin’ lemonade, that’s what’s on offer, and it ain’t good enough, Annie Grey.’

As he spoke, he continued to thump any bit of Aunt Annie that he could reach and Lizzie, having begun to approach the doorway, hastily backed down the steps again and into the court. Her uncle’s face was bloated and scarlet with rage and she guessed that if she got near enough, he would simply start on her. She had best get some help or very likely her uncle would kill Aunt Annie stone dead, and then where would they be?

‘I telled you and telled you, only you’re too bleedin’ drunk to listen,’ Aunt Annie shrieked, as soon as her husband had stopped speaking. ‘There’s scouse and dumplings on the back of the stove and an apple pie in the oven and I swear, if you hit me once more, I’ll send our Lizzie for the scuffers and you’ll find yourself behind bars, which is where you bleedin’ belong.’

Uncle Perce gave a derisory bellow of laughter. ‘That little runt? You won’t find her hangin’ round our place when she can be with her smart friends. She’ll be wi’ them snooty Bradshaws, mekin’ up to that ginger-headed brat what she plays out with. And if she were here, I’d ring a chime round her ears an’ all.’

Incensed by this, Lizzie marched boldly up the three steps and stared directly into her uncle’s rolling, bloodshot eyes. ‘I
am
here, Uncle Perce,’ she said, keeping her voice as steady as possible. ‘And I’ll go for the scuffers like a shot if you raise a hand to my Aunt Annie once more.’

Uncle Perce roared with rage and took two enormous strides towards his niece who, despite her brave words, backed hastily away. In fact, it was a good job she did so since Uncle Perce’s second step took him out through the doorway. Apparently expecting to find solid ground beneath his feet, he stepped into thin air and fell heavily forward, crashing full length on to the flagstones, narrowly missing Lizzie, who leapt back still further, her heart bumping with fright. She wondered for a moment – almost hopefully – if her uncle were dead, but a deep groan and a good many mumbled curses told her that the devil looks after his own. She had heard that drunkards could have quite nasty falls without doing themselves any particular damage and this, it seemed, was such an example.

However, Lizzie supposed that she had best try to get her uncle back indoors and, glancing round her, saw that the commotion had not gone unnoticed; just about every door in the court was open and ringed with faces. Lizzie bent over her uncle and began to heave, rather ineffectually, at his beefy shoulders.
‘Give us a hand someone, would you?’ she asked plaintively. ‘He’s a big bloke and I’m not really up to his weight.’

A couple of neighbours, Jack and Dan from number three, came across and pushed Lizzie aside. Jack took Uncle Perce’s shoulders and Dan took his feet, and Lizzie saw, with some amusement, that her uncle was stiff as a board. The two young men carried him into the house and Lizzie followed, thanking them profusely for their help as she did so. Aunt Annie gestured them to carry Perce into the front room where he was dumped unceremoniously on the prickly horse-hair sofa.

‘He’ll do there until the boys come home,’ Aunt Annie told them. ‘Of course it’s only Herbie and Denis who live at home now, but they’ll gerrim upstairs if he’s wantin’ a bed.’ She glanced across at Lizzie as the two young men left the house and blew out her cheeks in a long whistle. ‘Phew! When he’s had one too many, your uncle’s a rare handful – I’ve gorra pain like a knife in me head and me arms feel as though someone’s tried to pull ’em out of their sockets. I’m for me bed, queen, and I’ll lock the bleedin’ door and put a chair under the handle. If the boys want to bring him upstairs, he can sleep in their room ’cos he ain’t likely to try to damage a couple o’ husky lads like Denis and Herbie. What’s more, on second thoughts, I reckon you’d best sleep wi’ me tonight, chuck. The door of your room’s awful frail, and I wouldn’t put it past him . . .’ Aunt Annie gave Lizzie a shifty look, then concluded: ‘Yes, you’d best share my bed tonight.’

Lizzie looked searchingly at her aunt. The older woman’s thinning grey hair had been yanked from its bun and hung in witch-locks around her pale, bruised
face. Her aunt’s lower lip was split open and a thin trickle of blood had dried across her chin. She had a black eye and there were what looked like blue finger marks around her fat, white throat. If any man treated me like that, I wouldn’t just threaten to get the scuffers in, I’d do it, Lizzie told herself as the two of them re-entered the kitchen. Aloud, she said: ‘I’ll make you a hot cup of tea, Aunt Annie, and it wouldn’t hurt you to have a bit of that apple pie. I don’t reckon you’ve touched that scouse yourself.’

The kettle was already simmering on the side of the fire and Aunt Annie agreed that she would be all the better for a drink of tea, but shook her head at the suggestion that she might try to eat. ‘Me gob’s too bleedin’ sore for anything solid,’ she said frankly. ‘Wharr I really need is a good long sleep. Then tomorrow I’ll be able to take on the world.’

‘You’re really brave, Aunt Annie,’ Lizzie said admiringly, handing her aunt an enamel mug of tea with a generous amount of conny-onny to sweeten it. ‘If someone treated me the way Uncle Perce treats you, I’d have him up before a magistrate if it were the last thing I did. You’re ever such a good wife to him. You’re the best cook in Cranberry Court, you make and mend, and lerrim gerraway wi’ using you like a punch ball. It won’t do, Aunt Annie. If you let this go on, one of these days you’re going to wake up dead.’

Lizzie half expected her aunt to deny this, but instead Aunt Annie nodded gloomily. ‘I know you’re right, queen,’ she admitted, ‘but the plain fact is, I’m mortal fond o’ your uncle – when he ain’t drunk, that is. When we was first wed, I were the envy of all me pals, honest to God I was. Percy were the best-looking lad in the whole of Liverpool; he were polite and thoughtful, he spent a mort o’ money on me, when the
kids came along he were that proud . . . then the drink took hold of him and he began to change. Only – only I can’t ever quite forget the feller I married, see? That’s why I haven’t ever said a word to the scuffers, ’cos I think of the old Perce what’s underneath this braggin’, bullyin’ feller, and – and I can’t bring meself to hand him over.’

Lizzie nodded sadly and presently accompanied her aunt up the stairs and into her room, where the two of them removed their outer garments, bolted and wedged the door and climbed into bed. Lying there in the half dark, Lizzie looked sadly at her beautiful new dress, neatly folded over the back of Aunt Annie’s wooden kitchen chair. She could not really understand her aunt’s attitude to Uncle Perce, yet she had sense enough to see that the older woman’s feelings were genuine. Nevertheless, if Uncle Perce continued to beat up his wife whenever the boys were out of the house, she could foresee both trouble and tragedy ahead.

Sighing, she pulled the blankets up round her ears and was soon asleep.

Clem had visited Liverpool many times over the past year, but it had been only rarely that they’d docked on a Saturday, so he had not seen very much of either Lizzie or Geoff. Recently, indeed, he had been far too busy when they tied up alongside Tate’s to do more than have a hasty look round and then go up to the shops for any messages which Jake or Priddy might find for him.

Right now,
The Liverpool Rose
was making her way back to Leeds and Clem was looking forward to the moment when they would be in the country once more, far from the hot and dusty streets and the many
troubles which were apt to beset the boats and their crews, as they passed the long series of locks in the industrialised area of Wigan. They had already gone by Wigan Pier, which had once been the butt of many northern comics but which was now in a sorry state of dilapidation, and also the large coal wharves alongside the canal and were fast approaching the long series of locks and bridges which started at Britannia Bridge and ended, nearly three miles later, at Withington Lane. Now, as the golden afternoon slid into evening, they entered the first lock on the stretch of the canal which Clem particularly disliked because of the young toughs who patrolled the towpaths, trying either to thieve from the boats or simply to make trouble as they ascended the locks. He had fallen foul of these gangs on several occasions and knew that they kept a look-out for him, hoping to be able to pay him back in his own coin for the times he had foiled their attempts at theft and disruption.