The Mersey Girls (4 page)

He produced two liquorice sticks. They were shaped like tiny walking sticks and were liberally covered in fluff but Linnet accepted one graciously and bit off the curved end.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Where d’you nick ’em?’

Roddy grinned, not taking offence at the question though her mam, Linnet knew, would have been shocked at her rudeness. The trouble with Mammy is that she thinks Liverpool’s just like Cahersiveen, and it isn’t, Linnet thought defensively. In Cahersiveen, when Mammy was a little girl, you never stole anything, ’cos there wasn’t no need. But when you lived in rooms over a chandler’s shop three doors down from the Clock public house, you soon realised that a great many people had little choice but to take what they could when they could – and that included the kids.

I’m lucky, though, Linnet reminded herself, blissfully sucking liquorice. My mam’s got her lovely job in the theatre so she’s hardly ever out of work, she earns good money and doesn’t blue it on drink, so I get all the food I want and decent togs, not like some. Roddy’s thin grey jersey had huge holes all over and his shirt was torn as well so you could see his bare skin in places. As for his trousers – oh well, they cover most of him, Linnet thought charitably. And he had boots, though they were pretty ancient ones, with cracked uppers and almost certainly holes in the soles. Probably, Roddy was one of a big family, whereas Linnet, as her mam often told her, was a lucky only child.

‘Got it legal, like,’ Roddy said in reply to her question, speaking through a mouthful of his own liquorice stick. ‘Payment for takin’ a tray of iced cakes from Peely to Havey. Me mam made ’em for a party . . . made ’em in her own time, like. So she give me a penny for delivery an’ the old gal on Havey give me the licky sticks. So it’s all square, honest to God.’

‘Good,’ Linnet said politely. Not that she cared. Mammy would be horrified, but Linnet knew that it was a lot easier to be honest if you had a good job and no brothers and sisters. Mammy had told her to steer clear of street kids, but that didn’t mean don’t watch them. Linnet watched, and had seen with wonder tinged with envy, that the poor kids stuck by one another even in their thieving. One kid would hoist another over the wall and into the back of the market when the stallholders had gone home, then they would share whatever spoils came their way. Another would keep cavey when a friend was after a few toffees and the resultant booty would be religiously divided. What was more, she knew that some kids would never see an orange or a liquorice stick if they didn’t prig one now and then. No point in sticking your nose in the air and coming all Holy Joe about it; so far as Linnet could see, it was all right for her to be honest, because she ate well anyway. Others were not so fortunate.

‘When you play out, Linnet, where d’you play?’ Roddy asked presently, as they trudged through the filthy slush which, two days ago, had been great heaps of white snow. ‘I ain’t never seen you up our way.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. I’m not allowed to play in the street,’ Linnet said. ‘My mam’s an actress, though, so when it’s school holidays I go to the Playhouse with her, mostly.’

Roddy’s eyes rounded. ‘An actress! Is she famous?’

‘She’s Miss Evaline Murphy,’ Linnet said cautiously. She had been told to keep her mother’s identity a secret – but surely not from this friendly boy? ‘I dunno if she’s famous, but she does lovely acting, honest to God.’

‘Not the one wi’ the long yaller curls, the one they calls little Evie?’ Roddy said incredulously. ‘Cor, my mam saw her in a play last summer, she thought little Evie were a cracker! Blackledge’s took their workers to the theaytre instead of on a seaside trip. Ooh, she can’t be that Evie, can she?’

‘Yes, she’s that one,’ Linnet said proudly. ‘She’s ever so beautiful and a very good actress, too, your mam was right. She’s played all sorts . . . she’s in the panto now, you know . . . she’s the lady who gets sawed in half in the Giant’s castle.’

‘Cor,’ Roddy said again, suitably impressed. ‘My mam said little Evie come on the stage wi’ a white, floaty gown you could see right through, she said there weren’t nothing left to . . .’

‘Oh well, you have to do all sorts of things if you want to be a star,’ Linnet said. Her cheeks felt hot and she wished – not for the first time – that she hadn’t started boasting. Not everyone understood that Mammy, who was so strict at home, sometimes had to do things which weren’t quite . . . quite nice. ‘Mammy sings lovely, too. She sings to me when she puts me to bed.’

‘Puts you . . . how old are you, Linnie?’ Roddy said. ‘You looks about twelve, same’s me.’

‘I’m eleven,’ Linnet told him. ‘Eleven years and ten days, ’cos I was born on New Year’s Day. Why?’

‘Well, me mam puts the baby an’ Freddy to bed, an’ me brother Matt gives little Bert an ‘and, but the rest of us gets ourselves there, some’ow,’ Roddy said. ‘Can’t you git to your buttons, eh?’

‘I only meant that I get into bed and then Mam comes along an’ tucks me in,’ Linnet explained hastily. ‘Then she sits on the side of my bed and sings a song or tells me stories about the old days in Ireland. That’s what I meant, I didn’t mean she undressed me or put my nightgown on – I do that for myself, of course.’

‘You’re a right ’un. A nightgown!’ Roddy said. ‘What’s wrong wi’ your shirt, or knickers or whatever gals wear?’

‘Well, you see . . . but let’s not talk about it, it’s just Mammy’s ways are different,’ Linnet said. She could just imagine how involved the conversation would become if they started talking about the dangers of catching fleas or lice if you wore the same garments day and night for a week. ‘You’ve got quite a lot of brothers and sisters, haven’t you? There’s only me and Mam in our rooms.’

‘What about your da?’ Roddy said. Linnet tried not to glower at him. She was already realising that Roddy would always pick on the difficult subjects, ask the awkward questions, unless he was carefully guided away from them.

‘My da’s back in Ireland,’ Linnet told him, mentally crossing her fingers though not doing so in fact, since he would undoubtedly notice. ‘Mam left him there. He – he wasn’t the sort of man she wanted to live with, you see.’

Roddy nodded knowingly. ‘Aye, I know what you mean. Me mam’s sister, Auntie Prue, she lives not far from Peely. She’s got two brats, Simmy an’ Sukey. She din’t like either one o’ the fellers she went with, she told me mam so.’

‘Well, there you are then,’ Linnet said bracingly, thanking God for Prue and her brats. ‘Tell you what, Roddy, it’ll be dark quite soon. If you come home wi’ me, Mammy’ll give us buttered toast an’ fruit cake. We could play Snap, or Beggar your Neighbour if you’d like to.’

‘But she don’t know me,’ Roddy said doubtfully. ‘She won’t want a kid she don’t know in her place.’

‘Yes she will, she likes me to have friends,’ Linnet said.

The remark was not strictly truthful but Linnet had noticed lately that Mammy, who at one time had frequently told her to steer clear of what she called ‘street kids’ and had made it plain that she did not want Linnet to bring school friends home, was beginning to change her tune. A year ago, when Linnet was nine, she had decided that her daughter was now old enough to have friends back to their rooms or to visit their homes, when she was invited. And on Linnet’s tenth birthday, when Mammy had come, pale-faced and heavy-eyed, into the living room, complaining bitterly that she had a champagne headache, she had reminded Linnet that she still had not brought any friends home, nor visited her classmates.

‘You’re old enough to find your own friends now,’ she had said, accepting the cup of tea her daughter had poured her and using both hands to lift it to her mouth. ‘Dear God, my head’s about to take off and float round the room! You’re to bring a couple of girls home to tea when you start school next week; do you hear me, now?’

But after holding aloof from them for so long, it was strangely difficult to infiltrate the little groups of girls, all in similar circumstances, who went to the small private school in Rodney Street. They had fathers as well as mothers and they lived in the smart houses surrounding the school, whereas Linnet caught the tram morning and evening and seldom talked about her home circumstances. Mammy had impressed upon her that she should not mention that her parent was little Evie, the actress, not to her schoolmates nor to the nuns who taught them. And Linnet had speedily seen that not talking about one’s mother also made friendships difficult.

But today Linnet knew at once that this boy, this Roddy Sullivan, was different. He was from their own neighbourhood and despite her mother’s dismissive remarks about ‘street kids’ Linnet felt sure that he would be a friend worth having, if friendship were on offer. And if she had someone tough enough to take care of her and befriend her, someone who could take her round to Peel Square occasionally, then Mammy would be able to go off with her gentleman friend without a qualm.

Because that, of course, was what it was all about. Linnet loved her mother dearly but she was quite shrewd enough to realise that there were times when she was a drag on her mother’s career. And Evie’s career was tremendously important to her. Linnet knew that it was her fault that her mother had not already reached stardom, and always felt guilty when she found Mammy in tears, staring at her face in the mirror, lamenting an imaginary line or a tiny wrinkle, reminding herself that she was not getting any younger, that the years were passing.

I hold her back, Linnet told herself sorrowfully now, as Roddy considered her invitation. If it hadn’t been for me she’d have been a star by now, but having a big daughter of eleven puts a lot of people off. So if this latest gentleman friend means what he says and helps Mammy’s career, I must keep out of the way a bit more, learn to amuse myself. And with Roddy as my friend that will be very much easier.

‘Finished the licky? Well, if you means it, if you’re really a-going to take me back to meet your mam, we’d best clean ourselves up a bit,’ Roddy said as they crossed Homer Street and waited on the pavement’s edge at Juvenal whilst a huge dray dragged by two immense carthorses thundered past. ‘There’s a tap in Peely – want to go there first?’

‘There’s taps in our rooms,’ Linnet said, puzzled. ‘We can wash there.’

‘Ye-es, but your mam . . .’

‘Oh, yes, we’re a bit lickyish round the mouths,’ Linnet said, light dawning. Truth to tell, both their faces were now dirty and sticky, she guessed. Roddy’s certainly was and she knew it would be best if her new friend was at least clean. ‘But won’t your mam mind us going in?’

‘Where was you born?’ Roddy exclaimed. ‘The tap’s at one end of the bleedin’ square, gal! We can clean up wi’out anyone being any the wiser. Well, ’cept for the kids,’ he amended. ‘They’re everywhere, but they won’t care what we does, they’ll be playing some game or other.’

‘All right, we’ll go to your place first, then,’ Linnet said. ‘I – I don’t know where Peel Square is, though. It’s not far, is it?’

‘No, nobbut a step,’ Roddy said reassuringly. ‘It’s right instead of left, though – you get to Peely down Cazneau.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Linnet said, following close behind Roddy. Trams thundered along Cazneau Street with the horsedrawn traffic keeping well clear of them, and despite the snow and the cold there was considerable bustle as shoppers made their way along the pavements, trying to get back home before darkness fell. ‘We don’t often come down this way, me and Mam.’

‘No need, I don’t ’spect,’ Roddy said cheerfully. ‘Here we are . . . come on in.’

He dived under a shabby brick archway and abruptly, as though it was the transformation scene in a pantomime, the street noises were muted, even the light seemed dimmer, softer. It was as though, in walking under the archway, the two children had entered a different world.

It did not seem, Linnet thought rather apprehensively, a very nice world. The oblong which was Peel Square was completely surrounded by sooty houses, each one attached to the next so that the only glimmer of daylight came from the sky above and from the archway under which they had just passed. The square was paved with large, uneven flagstones, each narrow house had a set of three steep steps which ended on the flags, and there was one gas lamp, as yet unlit, though in the enclosed space it seemed as though dusk had already fallen.

But the space was not quiet, because it was crowded with children. Small girls played hopscotch on the paving stones, shouting out to one another, small boys kicked a ball about or squatted on the ground, playing fives. Bigger girls and boys were moving purposefully about, filling enamel jugs and buckets at the tap or coming and going on messages, Linnet supposed, since they mostly carried bags or bundles of some description.

‘Roddy!’ A small, tow-headed boy carrying a blue-and-white enamel bucket with a lid came bounding down the step of the nearest house and caught Linnet’s companion by the sleeve. ‘We’re havin’ a treat – our mam was goin’ to make blind scouse but Aunty Prue got some scrag-end cheap off o’ Mr Perkins in the Scottie so we’ll have a good supper tonight. Where you been?’

‘Deliverin’ for Mam,’ Roddy said briefly. ‘All you ever think about is grub, our Freddy! Now gi’s the bucket a mo, we’ll have a splash an’ then bring it over for you. That’s me little brother,’ he added in a quiet aside to Linnet as the small boy nodded his agreement and went back into the house from which he had just emerged. ‘He ain’t a bad kid.’ He jangled the lidded enamel bucket at her. ‘Let’s stand in line for the tap, then.’

Most of the people queueing for the tap were children, but one or two were much older women. Linnet eyed them curiously. Seldom had she seen such weary, defeated looking faces, and why were they waiting here? She whispered the query to Roddy, who answered equally quietly.

‘Their kids is all working, so there’s no one to get water in but them. Most of the old gals will pay a kid a farthing or so to fetch ’em water and that, but some just ain’t got the gelt. Ah, us is next.’

They reached the tap, ran it until their bucket was full, then Roddy, disdaining Linnet’s offered help, carried it across the yard once more and stood it down near the stained doorstep of No 16.