The Liverpool Rose (23 page)

Sister Maria laughed. ‘Evie Evans, you’re a big girl now, you must be almost fourteen! Why, I remember when you first came to us you were furious because you could no longer roam the streets at will. Surely you’ll be glad of an opportunity to go out alone? Anyway, I’m far too busy at the moment to accompany you and there is no other member of staff available to do so either. If you really feel you cannot find Prospect Street, then I suppose you will have to miss your lesson.’

‘Prospect Street?’ Evie said thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t that near Erskine Street, Sister? I know that area all right, but it’s a fair old walk from here.’

‘I’m to give you your tram fare,’ Sister Maria said briskly, producing a small purse from the folds of her habit and handing Evie two shiny pennies. ‘If you walk down to Lime Street, you can catch a tram which will take you up the Scotland Road as far as Tenterden Street – Miss Mather lives at number sixteen – and when you come home, you just do the same journey in reverse. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to talk to anyone in the street and to behave with decorum. You know, Evie, Mother Superior is placing great trust in you, letting you go out alone in this way. Mackie girls are never usually allowed to roam the city, but Miss Mather says you are the most promising piano pupil that she has taught in all of her
forty years. She thinks it possible that if you persevere with your studies, you might end up teaching music as she does. So naturally, Mother Superior is keen that you should continue with your lessons.’

‘But what about practising, Sister?’ Evie asked anxiously. The nuns, she knew, only possessed one piano, in the orphanage at any rate, though there was a harmonium in the chapel and might, for all she knew, be other instruments in the convent itself. ‘Will it take long to mend this one?’

The nun sighed and pulled a face. ‘Mr Benedict came in earlier and says he thinks the piano too old and too badly damaged to repair,’ she said mournfully. ‘As you know, child, we are a poor Order and have very little money coming in, so the price of a new piano will be beyond us for some time to come. But Miss Mather has very kindly said that, until we replace the instrument, you may go to her house for half an hour’s practice three or four times a week.’

‘It’s awfully good of her,’ Evie said rather doubtfully. She guessed that the practice would be taken out of the only time the children had to themselves, which was evenings, when they played games in the garden in summer or gathered in the playroom in the winter, to do jig-saws or crossword puzzles until bedtime. However, this was something which need not trouble her now, so she thanked Sister Maria, pocketed the tuppence and went to the cloakroom for her mauve jacket and the straw boater, with its silver and mauve ribbon, which the girls always affected to hate but which most of them secretly thought becoming.

So it was that Evie found herself walking down Brownlow Hill, heading for the bustle of Lime Street. It was a fine, sunny day and as she walked, a delicious
sense of freedom invaded her. She could not believe she had actually felt nervous of a solitary expedition – she who had spent the first ten years of her life roaming the Liverpool streets alone! She knew that she would relish every moment of this unexpected treat. She reached the tram stop and joined the short queue of people waiting. She saw that people recognised her uniform and several smiled at her in a friendly fashion; clearly they did not realise how unusual it was to see a Mackie girl out alone. And then a number twenty-three came roaring and rattling along the road, screeching to a halt alongside the queue, and everyone scrambled aboard.

Evie settled herself on the slatted wooden seat and looked curiously around at her fellow passengers. It would have been nice, she reflected, to see someone she knew, a neighbour perhaps or one of the stallholders on Byrom Street who had been kind to her, but there was not a single face she recognised among the tram passengers, so she settled down to look out of the window as the well-remembered streets passed by outside.

When they neared Tenterden Street and the conductor rang his bell, she got up with several other passengers and climbed down on to the busy pavement. As she walked towards her destination, she reflected how strange it was that nothing had altered; the very shops into whose windows she had peered as a hungry street urchin were still there, although they looked smaller and less splendid than they had once done. Their windows still looked appealing, however, with the apples and oranges in their boxes on the pavement gleaming in the morning sun. But I am very different, Evie told herself, studying her reflection in the polished panes of glass. I look very
grown up and well dressed; in fact, I look better than almost anyone in the street. Goodness, I’d quite forgotten what a poor area this is. You hardly ever see an old shawly in Brownlow Street because it’s a residential area, I suppose, but they’re still here, haggling with the shopkeepers and trying to sell passers-by bunches of flowers or a few fades from the fruit stalls in St John’s Market.

Despite her determination to go straight to Miss Mather’s house, she found herself lingering, gazing at children playing on the pavement in the hope that she would recognise one of them, so when someone coming towards her seemed vaguely familiar, she smiled delightedly, before realising with a sinking heart that he had looked through her as though she were a total stranger. ‘Sid?’ she said tentatively. ‘You
are
Sid Ryder, aren’t you?’

The young man stopped short and stared incredulously, taking her in from the top of her head to the tip of her brown lace-up shoes. ‘I’m sorry, Miss,’ he began, ‘but I think you must be mistaken. I’m Sid Ryder, all right, but who the hell are you?’

She opened her mouth to tell him that she was Evie Evans and realised, just in time, that the name would mean nothing to him. Feeling the heat rush to her face and knowing that she was as red as any rose, she said rather crossly: ‘Oh, Sid, I can’t have changed that much! Around here they used to call me Chinky Evans because my dad was Chinese. But my real name’s Evie.
Now
do you remember me?’

Sid stared for a moment, then a broad grin spread across his face and he seized Evie’s hands in a firm, delighted grip. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he said. ‘I thought you was dead, queen, ’cos you disappeared one day and weren’t ever seen in this area again. I felt
real guilty ’cos I’d not done more for you and now here you are, walking up to me, bold as brass and lookin’ . . . like a Queen.’ He beamed down at her. ‘Come along o’ me and I’ll mug you to a cup of tea and a bun whiles you tell me what’s been happening to you this past couple o’ years.’

Evie laughed but gently detached his fingers from her wrist. ‘I’m sorry, Sid, but I’m on my way to see a teacher who lives in Prospect Street,’ she said. ‘If I’m late, there’ll be an awful row because I’m on my honour to go straight there and back and not to talk to anyone on the way. I’m at the orphan asylum attached to the Convent of the Immaculate Heart – the Mackie they call it – and we’re never allowed out alone as a rule, so I don’t want to be in trouble on my very first trip. Sorry, but . . .’

‘Prospect Street? Then I’ll walk along o’ you and you can tell me what happened as we walk,’ Sid said cheerfully. He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm, smiling benignly down at her. ‘I’m a feller as don’t desert his pals, and you were always me pal, though you were one of the filthiest kids I’d ever clapped eyes on. Now come on, give us the low down.’

Among the many things the convent had taught her was the ability to collect her thoughts and tell a simple, straightforward story. Remembering Sister Bernadette’s oft repeated injunction in English lessons to begin at the beginning of every tale, she started her story with Mrs Muggeridge’s death and her subsequent capture in the cemetery. It was soon told and by the time they reached Prospect Street, Sid was in possession of Evie’s life story over the past two years.

He pulled her to a halt on the pavement and once
more his eyes raked her from top to toe, the expression in them now undoubtedly admiring. ‘Well, you’ve turned into a right little cracker and I’m proud to know you,’ he told her. ‘I’m not going to lose touch with you a second time either. As for me, I’m in a good way of business in me own right, making money hand over fist and savin’ for the future. You’re a real good-lookin’ gal now, and I reckon we could help each other. How long do they mean to keep you in that orphan asylum?’ His eyes raked her again. ‘Why, you must be all of fifteen or sixteen, old enough to gerra job, and a good one too.’

Evie laughed. She was excited both by his obvious admiration and by his worldly and knowing attitude. She knew that she must be more like fourteen, but guessed that good living and the self-confidence that the convent had given her made her look older than her years. ‘I’m probably around fifteen,’ she said, crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘The nuns want me to teach music, which I quite like, but that won’t be for a good few years yet.’

‘What, stay in that place for years, shut in like another nun? You can’t
want
that,’ Sid said incredulously. ‘Why, you’ve gorra smashin’ figure, kiddo, as well as the prettiest face I’ve seen in ages. Don’t you want to earn some money?’

Evie looked at him doubtfully. She did not think that the sort of money a girl of her age could earn would be enough to keep her in lollipops; certainly it would not be enough for her to live on. She said as much, but Sid wagged his head reprovingly at her. ‘Ah, you’ll be thinkin’ of work as a shopgirl or in a factory somewhere,’ he said knowingly. ‘Still, perhaps you’re right, perhaps you’ll be better with a year or two more under your belt. Then, what say you and
I go into partnership, like? I’d see you right, Evie, you can trust me for that.’

Evie thought of the ha’pennies which he had handed to her when she had been desperate, the ends of loaf and the bits of cheese he had occasionally saved her from his carry-out, and wavered. But she also remembered he had been quite an accomplished thief and though the young Chinky had admired this very much, the older and wiser Evie knew that such behaviour did not pay in the end. If Sid was still on the shady side of the law, then the less she had to do with him, the better.

‘Thanks, Sid, I’ll think about it,’ she said. ‘But I’ve got to go now or Miss Mather will be reporting back to the convent that I must have been chattering to folk because I was late for my lesson. ‘Bye!’

‘Oh, but . . . when will I see you again?’ Sid called after her disappearing back. ‘You can’t just walk out on me when we were such pals once. I want to see you again.’

Evie turned. ‘Well, you can scarcely call at the convent,’ she remarked cheerfully. ‘We’ll meet up sometime, Sid. And now I really must go.’ And with that she hurried along the street, found Miss Mather’s front door, and was soon being ushered into her teacher’s small front parlour

Evie expected that this would end the matter but an hour later, when she emerged on to Scotland Road, Sid was waiting for her. He had bought her a bar of Nestle’s chocolate and said, as he boarded the tram beside her, that he had meant to buy her flowers but realised that she could scarcely take them back to the orphan asylum without a good many questions being asked. He then demanded to be told when she was
having her next music lesson and, despite the uneasy conviction that she should not tell him, Evie found herself admitting that, for the rest of the month, she would be spending an hour in Prospect Street at around this time every weekday. She also told him that this was only possible while the piano at the convent remained unplayable, but Sid said now that she had a leg loose, surely she would not want to be incarcerated once more, and Evie knew he was right.

‘We’ll invent an old aunt what you met while walking up the Scottie,’ he said breezily. ‘I know orphans are allowed out once a week or so to see relatives, if they’ve gorrany, so I daresay the sisters will be glad enough to release you every now and then. I’ve gorra real respectable aunt – Auntie Madge, that is – who’ll write a note for me, tellin’ the nuns she’s your mam’s sister and asking permission for you to visit in Cazneau Street, a couple of times a month. How does that suit you?’

Evie thought that, had Aunt Madge really been respectable, she would not have gone along with her nephew’s lies, but was not bold enough to say so. She merely nodded and murmured agreement and reminded him that for a while at least, she would be coming and going to Prospect Street on a lawful errand and would not need anyone to lie for her. At this Sid took her hand and squeezed it, eyeing her reproachfully. ‘It’s all right, I’m not aiming to get you into trouble,’ he said reassuringly. ‘But that bleedin’ piano might get mended tomorrer, and then where would we be? Best plan ahead, that’s my motto, but we’ll leave Auntie Madge for a while, if you like.’

At this point, they reached Lime Street and Evie got down. Though Sid accompanied her on to the pavement, she refused to allow him to go a step
further with her. ‘If I’m seen with a feller, I’d be in the most awful trouble,’ she said earnestly. ‘They’d shut me in a prison cell for a hundred years, I should think. So just you buzz off back on the next tram, Sid. ‘Bye for now.’

She turned resolutely away, and was relieved when he made no attempt to follow her.

Lizzie and Sally emerged from the factory to find themselves in a different world. Even within doors they had known that it was snowing, glancing up from their workbenches from time to time to see the flakes descending outside, grey against the white sky. But now, looking around them, they realised that this was a blizzard, no less.

‘Glory!’ Lizzie said. ‘I hope Aunt Annie’s done her messages before this lot came down – she’s never been completely well since she lost the baby, and being so big, a bad fall could do her a lot of harm. Still, she’s got me to pick up anything she’s forgot at the shops.’

Sally bent down and picked up a handful of snow, beginning to form it into a ball. ‘You’re too old to . . .’ Lizzie began, but it was too late; Sally took aim and the snowball cut the sentence in half. Spluttering, Lizzie wiped snow off her face and, with a vengeful gleam in her eye, began to make a snowball of her own. She hurled it at Sally, but half-heartedly, and saw without much interest that her friend had dodged so the snowball whizzed over her shoulder and broke in the roadway.