The Liverpool Rose (25 page)

‘I hope it’s something decent for once,’ he growled as she carried his well-filled plate across to the table. ‘None of that blind scouse muck you’re so fond of givin’ me.’ He snorted as his wife put the food in front of him, then picked up his spoon and fork and began to eat. Speaking through a full mouth – his sons had obviously learned their table manners from him, Lizzie thought – he went on grumbling about the meals his wife provided until Lizzie said sharply: ‘We’ve not had blind scouse more than a couple of times since I’ve been working, Uncle Perce. Now that Aunt gets money from the three of us, she’s able to buy meat of some sort four or five times a week, which is a lot more than most families get. And there’s the money she gets for cooking for other folk in the court, and for laundering all that table linen for the dining rooms on the Scottie . . . I tell you, we do better’n most.’

This was bold of Lizzie, who rarely said anything to Uncle Perce let alone anything critical, but although he gave her a long and thoughtful stare, he neither challenged the remark nor asked her why she had not mentioned his own contribution to the
household. Which was as well, Lizzie thought savagely, eating her mutton stew as slowly as possible to make it last, because, so far as she could make out, he contributed almost nothing. If he was unloading a shipment of sugar from the Indies or bananas from the Canaries, he might occasionally bring such items home, but this happened very rarely. Once, a year or so ago, he had brought home a length of black cloth and another of tartan wool for his wife to get made up into a dress or shawl, but that had only happened once. Uncle Perce, Lizzie concluded, took a good deal more than he gave and she wondered, not for the first time, why Aunt Annie continued not only to put up with him, but to feed him well, wash, iron and darn his clothing, and see that he got the lion’s share of any food going.

A moment later she thought she knew the answer to her unasked question. Aunt Annie took her place opposite her husband and said affectionately: ‘Did you have a good day on the docks, love? Was you workin’ in the hold or out on the quay? I hopes as it was the hold ’cos that’s warmer, ain’t it? And this ’ere’s brass monkey weather, no question.’ Lizzie, glancing at her aunt as she spoke, saw the expression in her bright little eyes and recognised it as love. It was an odd thing, she told herself, that her aunt could continue, obstinately and against all the odds, to love this unlovable pig of a man, but there could be no doubt that she genuinely did so.

Mentally shrugging, Lizzie continued to eat her stew. It was no use being sorry for Aunt Annie because from the way she acted Lizzie assumed she wasn’t sorry for herself. Lizzie remembered the affection between her own parents, the way her mother had felt after her father had died, and knew
that whether Uncle Perce returned her feelings or not, Aunt Annie could not stop loving him just because he clearly had no feelings left for her. It was dreadful but her aunt who was very dear to her was as trapped by her affection as though Uncle Perce had physically locked her into number nine.

Uncle Perce’s spoon clattered round his empty plate. Before he could say anything, Aunt Annie whisked it away and replaced it with an enamelled dish filled to the brim with suet pudding. Uncle Perce glanced around, but once more Aunt Annie was before him, holding out an almost full tin of conny-onny. ‘Tek as much as you like,’ she said eagerly. ‘I didn’t make custard ’cos I know you like this best.’

Uncle Perce grunted and poured the sticky condensed milk over his pudding with a prodigal hand. Lizzie, who also liked conny-onny, saw the tin passed next to her cousins and guessed that if she got any, it would be a thin scraping indeed. However, the suet pudding with apples in its centre, all soft and sweet, was delicious even without the addition of condensed milk and Lizzie ate eagerly, finishing as soon as the others despite having been served last.

Uncle Perce’s chair grated on the tiles as he pushed it away from the table, but before he could speak Aunt Annie jumped in once more. ‘I’ve gorra kettle over the fire and the teapot nicely warmed. You can have a nice cup of tea before the cat can clean her ear,’ she said anxiously, watching her husband with such a dog-like and devoted glance that Lizzie might have laughed had the circumstances been different. Uncle Perce, however, did not consider it amusing.

‘I’m goin’ to the pub,’ he said roughly. ‘I’m not curdlin’ me stomach wi’ bleedin’ tea when I could be enjoyin’ a pint of strong ale.’

‘But, Perce, your outdoor things is still wringin’ wet and the snow’s still fallin’ fast. If you go out again, you’ll likely catch your death,’ Aunt Annie pleaded. ‘Just for tonight, just for once, love, why not sit in your cosy chair by the fire ‘til it’s time for bed? We could have a game of cards or I could run and borrow a copy of the
Echo
from Mrs Leggatt at number thirteen. Her daughter usually brings one home after the shop closes.’

Uncle Perce did not reply but went over to where his son’s coat hung from the pulley and jerked it down. He tried to struggle into it while Denis, who was considerably narrower across the shoulders than his father, stood by, a half grin twisting the corners of his mouth. ‘Don’t you go splittin’ the seams of me only coat, our Da,’ he said warningly. ‘Because I ain’t goin’ to go to work in rags. I’m always up before you in the mornings so I suppose I’d have to use yours, which is a deal thicker’n mine anyhow.’

Uncle Perce gave a snort but tossed his son’s coat down across the table and headed for the back door. ‘It’s nobbut a step to the pub from here, I won’t bother wi’ a coat,’ he growled, snatching a big muffler and a ragged old cap from the hooks on the kitchen door. ‘As for stayin’ in, this place ain’t no home to me. Why, I’m not even welcome in me wife’s bed no more. I’m chucked into me front room to sleep on the sofy like an old dog, and it’s mortal cold in there come the early hours.’

Aunt Annie’s large face flushed with distress. ‘Oh, Perce, me love, you’re as welcome as flowers in spring to sleep along o’ me in the big bed,’ she said eagerly. ‘Why, it’s only because you can’t always manage the stairs when you’re a bit befuddled like that we’ve took to leavin’ beddin’ on the sofy in the
front room. Many’s the time I’ve come down and tried to heave you up the stairs, only you’d get so fightin’ mad when your elbows caught in the banisters, I was scared you’d break your bones afore ever we reached the top landin’. Why, if you’ve a mind to sleep in your own bed tonight, there’s no one would be happier than meself.’

She gave him a flirtatious glance and put a tentative hand on his arm, but Uncle Perce shook it off and headed for the kitchen door. ‘I know when I’m not wanted,’ he growled. ‘Why, you think more of them bleedin’ hens than you do of me,’ and before Aunt Annie could say another word, he had wrenched open the kitchen door and was crossing the hallway.

Lizzie, unable to control her wrath, shouted after him: ‘At least the hens lay bleedin’ eggs, and don’t just guzzle down their dinners and walk out on us,’ but she was speaking to thin air. Uncle Perce had gone, coatless, into the storm, slamming the front door viciously behind him and leaving Lizzie to mutter beneath her breath that she hoped the cold would kill him and then they’d all be better off.

Aunt Annie had turned away, her lip quivering, and the boys seemed so embarrassed by their father’s behaviour that they could only sit in their places, staring at the empty pudding bowls before them. Lizzie jumped to her feet and went and shut the kitchen door, through which a mean and biting draught was coming. Then she went over to her aunt and, putting both arms around the older woman, gave her a comforting squeeze. Aunt Annie hugged her back, then broke away to go over to the fire where she began to make the tea, saying in a small voice: ‘He don’t mean half he says, it’s just . . . well, I ain’t the girl
he married and that’s the truth. I wish I weren’t so fat, but somehow, when you’re alone in the house and your husband’s down the pub each night, eatin’s about the only comfort you have left. I gets so low in me mind, queen, that I wonder how I’m goin’ to go on. If the baby had lived . . . or if I could have another . . . well, things would have been different. There would have been . . . oh, I dunno. Something to – to look forward to, I s’pose.’

‘You’ve gorrus, Mam,’ Denis said bracingly. Crossing the room, he gave his mother a quick hug and Lizzie reflected that though they said little, the boys must realise their mother had a pretty hard life. ‘Our Dad don’t mean half what he says, you know. He’s fond of you. It’s – it’s the drink. It puts words into his mouth what he don’t mean and makes him hit out without thinkin’.’

Aunt Annie gave a huge sniff, then fished in the bosom of her dress and withdrew a large square of cotton waste upon which she blew her nose resoundingly before grinning, a trifle wanly, at her son. ‘He ain’t drunk now, chuck, norreven on tea,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Still, I knows what you mean. I reckon he’s more or less pickled in the stuff. Mebbe you’re right and he don’t mean half of what he says. At least he didn’t have a go at Sausage and Mash, because I hates it when he shouts at me hens.’

Lizzie, who had been quietly clearing the table and piling the dishes into the washing-up bowl, began to pour boiling water over them, not wanting to seem to be watching Aunt Annie’s distress nor the boys’ efforts to comfort her. But presently, as she had guessed they would, Denis and Herbie got their outdoor things and made for the kitchen door. ‘We’ll just stroll down to the Black Dog on the corner of
Vauxhall Road and get ourselves a bevvy afore bedtime,’ Denis said, half apologetically. ‘You go off to bed, Mam. By morning, none of this will matter.’

‘Aye, you know what they say,’ Herbie chimed in. ‘It’ll all be the same in a hundred years, our Mam. D’you want us to pop back wi’ a jug o’ porter so’s you can drown your sorrows afore bed?’

But Aunt Annie, though she laughed, shook her head. She seemed to have recovered her equilibrium without having to resort to strong drink, Lizzie saw thankfully. And indeed, once her sons had gone, Aunt Annie sat in her favourite chair before the fire with her beloved hens nestling in her lap, and she and Lizzie talked of other things until it was time for bed.

The blizzard of February had ended in torrential rain and Geoff had got soaked to the skin coming home from work but he did not repine. The YMCA had a drying room in which the lads could hang out their clothing, secure in the knowledge that the next time they needed to go out, they would once more be warmly and dryly clad.

It had been Geoff’s turn to clear away after supper and since he and Reggie intended to go to the cinema once this was done, his friend had helped him. Now, Geoff peered out through the rain-smeared window, trying to judge whether it was still pelting or had begun to ease off a little. Truth to tell, he was not particularly keen to get another soaking just in order to see
Win that Girl,
which sounded suspiciously like a romance to him. He and Reggie preferred westerns or gangster films – Reggie would go miles to see any film with Victor Varconi starring in it. The only reason, in fact, that either of them had considered seeing
Win that Girl
was because it was showing at the
Popular Picture House on Netherfield Road which would mean a short walk in the rain rather than a long one. The other acknowledged reason was that girls usually preferred a romantic film, and Reggie was searching for a girlfriend.

Geoff, although he secretly admitted to himself that he was very fond of Lizzie, also knew that she was too young, as yet, to take anyone seriously. He and Reggie had had long discussions about girls, work and life in general, and had both come to the conclusion that before settling down with anyone, no matter how delightful, they should get some experience under their belts.

‘Not tarts,’ Reggie had said hastily, seeing Geoff’s rather shocked expression. ‘I didn’t mean tarts, you fool. I mean decent girls what’ll take us serious – but not too serious – and let us kind of – of – practise on them. There must be girls like that about, else no feller would ever get his leg over.’

‘I don’t know as I’d want to go all the way,’ Geoff said cautiously. ‘I can’t see a nice girl lettin’ us for starters, and the other sort might give us something nasty.’

Reggie laughed. ‘Look, we go to dances and to the flicks to meet gels, right? I reckon we ought to agree that if one of us gets lucky, he’ll tell the other all about it. What d’you say?’

Geoff, having thought the matter over, decided that Reggie’s suggestion was sensible, and agreed. But so far, though they had assiduously attended dance halls and picture houses, they had never met what Geoff called ‘a nice girl’ willing to do more than allow them to walk her home and give her a peck on the cheek.

‘Well? You’ve been staring out of that window as
though a procession were going past. I daresay you’ve got mesmerised by the rain, eh? Still pelting, is it?’

Geoff dragged himself away both from the window and his thoughts, and turned to grin at his friend. ‘If you look in the puddles, you can see it’s still raining cats and dogs,’ he said. ‘What a winter it’s been, Reggie. First there was the blizzard and now it looks as though the Lord wants us to build an ark. I’m damned if I want to go and shiver in the cinema in a wet coat only to come out and get wet all over again. What’s more, I could do wi’ an hour or two of extra study. I know the exams aren’t until June, but I’ve heard tell that when Mr Babacombe leaves, they aren’t going to bring anyone in from outside, they’re going to shuffle all the senior staff up one grade. Now that’s all right for the seniors, it’s all cut and dried, but there’ll be plenty of us clerks . . . tellers . . . call us what you will, who’ll be fighting for a better job, and in my view it’ll be the chap who comes top in the exams what gets it.’

‘And that chap’s going to be you,’ Reggie said, nodding. ‘Well, old feller, you work so bleedin’ hard that you deserve promotion, and I know you’re probably right to stay in tonight and do some extra study. But what if I nips down to the Jug and Bottle for some porter? Then when you’ve swotted for long enough, we can have a jar or two and a hand o’ cards perhaps.’