Between Friends (5 page)

Their Meggie was just a kid. A teasing girl fresh from school with a ribbon on the end of her plait, a youngster in an apron who drove them mad at times with her constant chatter, her wayward determination to be in on everything they did in their masculine world, her ruthless and spirited certainty that she should know their every thought! She was a bloody nuisance at times, as younger sisters are. She worked with them, shared their table and many of their jaunts into town but more and more, as Martin went down to the boys’ gymnasium where he was part of the boxing fraternity, as Tom pursued his interest in football and his idols at Everton, Meg had been left behind in the female world, which was only right! She was, after all, only a kid and were they not now young men?

Fancy O’Neill altered all that in half an hour and they did not know, in their youthful innocence how to address this woman who had come among them!

Meg remained in the kitchen for several days, still in a state of shock, trembling about the place and recoiling at any sudden
noise
, under the sympathetic guidance of the other women, avoiding Tom and Martin as assiduously as they avoided her. She had noticed their quickly averted eyes and the asperity with which they fled the kitchen claiming that they must be about their duties or the house might fall down around their very ears and at first she had been relieved. She had been led away from the shadowed passage, sick and in pain, shivering again violently once she had been certain that the danger to Martin and Tom was over and that Fancy was gone, and Mrs Whitley had kept them away as she bathed Meg in the hip bath before the kitchen fire. Cook had seemed to understand Meg’s need to feel clean again and even her thick curly hair and her white scalp had been scrubbed vigorously in her effort to erase every last contact with Fancy O’Neill. Mrs Whitley had soothed her back with ointment and Meg had cried a little in the consoling comfort of the kind arms for it had been a nasty experience and for a day or so she had enjoyed being fragile and pampered, scarcely noticing that the boys excluded themselves from it.

When she did she began to wonder why? They had been so brave and
manly, so fierce
in her defence as she had been in theirs when it seemed they would kill the youth who had attacked her. But why did they not now come and ask her how she did? And why were they so busy all the time even when the floods went down and the usual evening companionship round the kitchen table was able to be resumed? Why did they go up to their bed so early, or take themselves off for a walk and why did they appear, so blatantly, not to want to be with her any more? It was not because of what Fancy O’Neill had done to her, surely. It had not been her fault! She had not asked for it! Were they going to avoid her forever, not speaking, not looking at her, acting as if she wasn’t there for the most part? She was too upset to bring up the subject herself but surely, if they loved her, and she knew they did, should they not now be … be … enquiring after her … her health? Always in the past they had stood together, protecting one another. Was she now to be ignored because of something for which she could not be blamed?

Sulkily she watched them go out early that evening, saying they felt like a walk and declaring their intention of strolling down to Sefton Street and along to Dingle Point. The storm had cleared the air and the early September evening was soft, the pale perse blue of the sky turning to oyster and peach over the silvered
waters
of the river. The sun was setting, dipping towards the western horizon, silhouetting the cranes, the black funnels of the great ships at berth and stitching like lacework against the sky the rigging of sailing ships which could still be seen, delicate as fireflies amongst the elephantine steamships. The rain had laid the hot dust of August and the parched grasses had recovered and everywhere a bit of green grew, it thrived, and late geraniums and begonias bloomed in the garden in the Square.

It was pleasant on Sefton Street. The air was sharp as it came off the river, smelling of all the aromas with which she had grown up. Salt, tar, the fumes from ships’ funnels and the tantalising fragrance which drifted from the holds of ships just berthed. Gulls floated serenely on the currents of air above her, scattering as a train clattered on the overhead railway which ran to Toxteth Dock goods station. There were couples about, courting she supposed, walking sedately side by side, eyes shyly cast down, not speaking some of them and she wondered idly why they did it for it seemed so unexciting!

She walked the length of Sefton Street beyond Harrington Dock and the red house which had once been the Dockmaster’s until she came to Dingle Point, and as she did so the curve of the red orb of the sun fell beyond the horizon and a star or two pricked the softly darkening sky. Among the strolling couples, and the rather more than she would have liked
gentlemen
on their own there was no sign of Martin and Tom! Damn them, they must have lied about where they were going! They were most likely at this very minute in some pub propping up the bar pretending to be young men about town, quaffing ale, no doubt and getting ‘bevvied’ and thinking themselves to be great fellows indeed! In the ‘Fiddlers’, she’d be bound and yet, would they go there where they were known for the landlord, who was acquainted with Mrs Whitley would be bound to tell her. So where the dickens had they got to, the beggars! Just wait until she found them, she’d give them what for, trailing her all the way out here, and she’d be certain to get the rough side of Mrs Whitley’s tongue for leaving home without permission! But still, it was worth it just to get out of the house. She drew the salty air deeply into her lungs, throwing back her head to stare into the darkening sky. It was the first time she had been out since … since Fancy, and the small diversion had restored her own confidence in herself and her ability to go about on her own again. She sighed contentedly.

She was turning back, idling along the dock side, admiring the way the sky had turned to an exquisite shade of pink at its far edge as the last of the sun’s glow draped itself behind the roof of the Custom House, which stood out above the other buildings near the Pier Head when she saw them coming towards her and she began to smile a welcome since she admitted, only to herself, mind, that she had not cared too much for the idea of walking past those ruffians outside the ‘Fiddlers’. They didn’t frighten her, not really, for it was but a step to home but their often little understood remarks made her uneasy.

For an incredible moment she was convinced they were both going to hit her as they drew near and she cowered instinctively, bewildered by their white, straining faces, raising her arm as though to fend off a blow. Martin’s hand gripped it with vicious fingers just above the elbow and she winced. Even in the dusk she could see the flare of his hot brown eyes.

‘Where the bloody hell d’you think you’re going?’ he hissed, putting his face so close to hers their noses actually touched. His breath washed against hers smelling of beer and she reared away, affronted by the words he spoke, but triumphant just the same. They
had
been for a ‘bevvy’ and just let Mrs Whitley find out and she’d skin them alive. They were only fourteen and though tall as grown men, far too young to be drinking and if they thought she was going to be intimidated by their strange aggression they were mistaken!

But her self-satisfied smugness was shattered in amazement as Tom took her other arm and the pair of them, scarcely able to speak so strung up with some deep emotion were they, began to shake her, one on each arm and her head tumbled backwards and forwards and her boater fell foolishly over her face and a man who was passing by with a young lady hesitated.

‘Where the hell d’you think you’re off to?’ Martin repeated, his voice snarling in his throat and his fingers bit deep into her arm. He towered over her threateningly and again she shrank away from him. She had never seen him in such a rage. He could lose his temper if goaded beyond a certain point, as she could. They were alike in this and she could understand it in him but he was savage now, in a passion so great his face was flushed with it, red and furious.

‘And at this time of night, an’ all!’ Tom shouted, his voice
overlapping
Martin’s. ‘Don’t you realise what sort of men there are about?’

‘You daft beggar! Have you no bloody sense at all?’

‘You’re just asking for trouble.’

‘… and if we hadn’t gone home early and found Mrs Whitley having bloody hysterics …’

She tried to pull away but it seemed they were incapable of letting go of her, now she was safely in their grasp and each word they spoke was accompanied by a shake and a violent drag on her arm and her hat fell off completely and the man who had stopped to stare began to walk slowly, warily towards them. After all, his expression seemed to say, there
were
two of
them
and only himself to see to them, should it be needed.

Her eyes were wide, a deep tawny amber in her white face. Her mouth opened in a round grimace of protest and she began to dig her heels in an attempt to back away from them.

‘What the heck d’you think you two are doing? Have you gone mad or something?’ she gasped.

‘It’s you who are mad, lady, and if I had my way I’d take a stick to you.’

‘Tom!’ Her heart began to thud in her chest and she was not really certain whether it was with fear or anger. They were both incensed about something. She had never seen them so wild, particularly Tom who was ordinarily as mild and easy going as an early day in summer, but now his face had become suffused with perilous blood and his vivid blue eyes were narrowed and quite dangerous.

‘Don’t Tom me, you silly cow. If we hadn’t got here when we did God knows who might have got at you! Have you so soon forgotten that sod …’ He glared about him, quite beside himself in his outrage and she turned too, sweeping the broad promenade with bewildered eyes as though expecting to see, as he apparently did, hordes of dangerous madmen encircling them.

‘What’s got into you, Tom? I was only …’

‘Excuse me, miss, but can I … er … are you in any …?’

They all three turned to stare at the intruder. The young man teetered bravely on the balls of his feet, ready to dart away should either of the two bully boys who were still dragging at the pretty girl take some action which he might find alarming and at his back his companion grasped her parasol, fiercely determined to protect him if he should need it and the three youngsters glared
madly
, as though to say who did he think
he
was, butting in on a private quarrel.

‘And what’s it to you, mate?’ Martin’s voice was loudly aggressive.

The young man, to his credit, stood his ground.

‘This young lady is …’

‘Nothing to do with you, so push off!’ Martin, unable to contain the harsh, frightening dread which had gripped him since Mrs Whitley, half out of her mind over the disappearance of their Meggie had screamed at them to ‘… run, run lads and find her ’cos if that Fancy’s got her again …’ turned now on this new provocation and was as ready to beat the living daylights out of him as any of the bastards who he had been convinced had taken their Meg. Brown eyes glowered, and so did gold and the blue of Tom’s paled to an icy azure and the valiant young man stepped hastily back from them.

‘But you and this … this lad have no rights to be molesting this lass and if you don’t give over I shall fetch a policeman.’

Meg stood in the midst of the mad medley of angry voices and hot-blooded, threatening gestures and her young mind began at last to make some sense of the situation. She recalled other times, times at the orphanage when these two had bristled up to others in her defence. They had been boys then and not as strong as they now were. Less menacing but just as willing to knock senseless anyone who made a move they did not care for and now they were the same. She became still, standing passively, her arm still gripped in Tom’s savage grasp. He was no longer glaring at her but had turned, like Martin, his demented attention on the poor uncertain chap who had done no more than attempt to halt what he had seen as two young lads interfering with a defenceless girl. The young man had taken a chance and brave he was too, standing up like that to the strange and yet understood – now – animosity of Martin and Tom.

‘It’s alright,’ she said quietly to him, ‘these are friends of mine.’ She smiled gratefully and he was mesmerised by her sudden sweet beauty and the soft golden light which had come to take the place of the anger in her eyes. The young lady who accompanied him became snappish as she saw it.

‘Well, we weren’t to know, were we?’ she said huffily, taking her young man’s arm possessively. ‘Funny friends if you ask me. Come on, Arthur, let’s get on and leave them to it!’

‘Thank you!’ Meg said again and Arthur could not resist a last peep over his shoulder as his companion marched him away.

When they had gone Meg gently eased her arm from Tom’s slackening grip. She bent down and picked up her boater, spending a moment or two arranging it on the crown of her springing curls, replacing the hat pin which had come loose, giving them all time to gather their reeling, embarrassed senses. Giving Martin and Tom time to return from the fear-ridden, treacherous unpredictability into which their concern for her had flung them. They watched her moodily, shuffling about with an awkward, uncoordinated lack of grace, their usually lounging bodies tensed, even now, to coiled springs, their hands clenched at their sides, longing still it seemed to lash out at somebody, anybody, allowing the pent up fury of their young, scarcely understood emotion to drain away. Their eyes still gleamed and their glowering expressions had not yet dissipated but she could see that they had lost that mindless need to shout and bluster and hit out at her.