Liverpool Taffy (2 page)

But Mam had not been best pleased when Biddy had first announced that she was going to work for Ma Kettle after school and on a Saturday.

‘She’s a mean old body,’ Mam had said, tying her abundant blue-black hair up in curl-papers before going to bed. ‘She’d cheat her own mother, that one. What’s she paying you?’

Informed that it was one and sixpence a week, she had snorted. ‘Well, it’s a start, chuck. But if she treats you bad you’re out – understand? We can manage on my money – we’ve done so ever since your Da died.’

But that had been six months ago and now that Biddy was full time she got three and sixpence, which was a lot better. Besides, so much had happened in those six months, most of it unpleasant. The cough, which was only a tiny little hacking cough, had got worse and worse. Mam went up to Brougham Terrace, to the Health Clinic there, but the doctor was in a bad mood and just gave her a linctus and told her to stop smoking – she had never smoked a cigarette in her life – and stay in nights. Mam had never gone out at night like some people’s mams did, she and Biddy sat over the fire, reading, writing, talking … laughing.

We were great laughers, Biddy thought wistfully now, pulling her old jersey down over her head and returning
as slowly as she dared to the shop. We could laugh over almost everything, Mam and me. I wonder when it stopped? When blood came with the cough and frightened the pair of us into fits, she supposed, standing with her head bent whilst Ma Kettle hung the brown paper packages up her arms as though she were some exotic sort of hatstand and then proceeded to pile the rest on top. It was enough to scare anyone, that blood – so bright, so scarlet! But it hadn’t got any worse and until her Mam had been sacked they had honestly thought that it would pass.

‘We’ll go to New Brighton for a weekend before the summer’s over,’ Mam had said. ‘That’ll set me up for the Christmas rush. I’m always grand over Christmas if I have a few days off in the summer.’

‘There you go, chuck,’ Ma Kettle said now, steering the laden Biddy out through the doorway. ‘Sister Eustacia will see you doesn’t go walkin’ under no trams or trolley-buses. And don’t linger comin’ back, you put your best foot foremost. Understand?’

‘Yes, Miz Kettle,’ Biddy said from behind the parcels. Her voice was humble but her expression, had Ma Kettle been able to see it, was not. Why couldn’t the old skinflint give her a penny for the tram, or a ha’penny for a bun to eat on the way back, then? But that wasn’t the Kettle way, Biddy thought, scowling dreadfully. Her employer would hand over extra sweets for the nuns but she’d get the money back by giving short weight to others. There was no way she could reclaim a penny for a tram from her young assistant, so no penny would be forthcoming.

‘Are you all right, love?’ That was Sister Eustacia, feeling guilty, Biddy hoped, for burdening a fellow-Christian like a poor little donkey. ‘Can you see your way?’

They were out of the shop now. Biddy felt pavement beneath her mother’s black shoes and the keen air, smelling of tripe, paraffin and motor cars, teased at her nostrils. This was Scotland Road, the hub of the universe, the place that Biddy loved best, with its bustle, its black, brown and yellow seamen, with the very curs who trotted along the pavement intent on their own business seeming more cosmopolitan and knowing than other Liverpool dogs.

Mam, however, had always thought the Scottie common; low.

‘Now there’s good and bad areas in the city, same as there are in all cities,’ she had told Biddy, when her daughter was just a snippet of three or so. ‘The Scottie’s rough, you can meet anyone down there, and it isn’t the King I’m meaning, either. It’s really good for shopping though, I’ll grant you that. There’s nowhere better than Paddy’s Market if you’re looking for a bargain.’

But in those far-off days, handsome Elias O’Shaughnessy had been very much alive, first mate on the
Fleetwood Chaser
, which crossed the Atlantic in one direction carrying cotton goods and came back with its holds full of raw cotton for the spinners and weavers in Lancashire. Mam had not had to work at all, but she went out, some mornings, to do fancy embroidery and special ironing for her former employer, who was a society hostess and relied, she said plaintively, on seeing her dear Kath at least three times a week. Then the O’Shaughnessys had lived in a small but comfortable house in Dombey Street in Toxteth, were pillars of the local church and well thought of by friends and neighbours. Biddy, their only child, had worn a matching coat and hat, and leggings and neat strap shoes, and fed the ducks in the park and played with other nice little children whose parents were in comfortable circumstances.

‘We’ve only got you, and you’re going to have everything we can afford to give you, because we want you to have a good life,’ Daddy had said, hugging her. She had been sitting on his knee, reading to him from her primer, and she could remember it so clearly, because that had been the last time she saw him. After that had come the dreadful letter telling them he had been drowned. Then came her mother’s tears, the change from their pretty house to a couple of bare rooms in a tenement block, and then the gradual slide into illness and despair which was partly alleviated by Biddy’s job until the awful day when Mam was sacked.

‘Biddy, take a moment’s rest here, dear child.’

Sister Eustacia’s voice brought Biddy abruptly back to the present, to Scotland Road and its crowded pavements, the smell of tripe changing to shoe-leather as they passed Dick’s the Bootmakers, then being overtaken by the sweet smell of warm bread flooding out of Cottle’s.

Biddy was still trying to get her breath and to stand steady so that the parcels didn’t tumble, when Sister Eustacia seemed to make up her mind. A thin, bony hand began to take parcels from the piles in front of Biddy’s eyes and when they could see each other, she gave Biddy quite a pleasant smile.

‘Bridget, child, I’ve got a little bit of money left over from my shopping; Mother Superior won’t grudge me since I go down to the markets for her goods instead of buying them nearer to the convent. There’s a tram stop here, we’ll ride home in comfort. You won’t mind walking back?’

‘Walking back without the parcels will be a piece o’ cake, Sister,’ Biddy said from behind her tottering grocery bags. ‘Is the stop near?’

Even with the parcels removed from before her nose she still felt she must put some things down before they fell out of her increasingly weary arms.

‘It’s right here. Can you stand some of those packages on the paving stones, now? It’ll give your arms a rest till the tram comes by.’

Oh happiness, Biddy thought as she began to stand her burdens down and rub her aching arms. It was good to be out in the bright, crisp morning suddenly, good to be about to ride on a tram, even if the company of a nun did rather damp down the excitement of the occasion. We used to ride trams all the time and I never thought twice about it, Biddy told herself, standing guard over the parcels and gazing dreamily up the road towards the Gaiety Cinema, with its pictures of the stars and the posters proclaiming what was on unfortunately not clearly visible from this distance. We used to go to the cinema and eat a meal at a restaurant … we had our days out, to the seaside, picnics in the country … but they’ll come again, the good times. Mam says she’s resting well now, with no job. She’ll probably be fit as a flea by Christmas.

‘Ah, this looks like our tram. No dear, don’t try to pick up all the parcels, it’s a quiet time of day, the conductor will carry them aboard for us.’

A nun, Biddy knew, was unlikely to have to carry anything much for herself in a city like Liverpool, where a religious order got the respect it deserved from the largely Catholic inhabitants, but Sister Eustacia’s order being less well known than some, she occasionally had to draw attention to herself with a discreet downward jerk of the head to her flowing black habit and the beads which hung at her waist.

‘All right, Sister, but there’s a powerful number of parcels; I’d best give him a hand.’

Biddy began to load herself up and as the tram stopped beside her, its bell giving one last clang as it did so, she hopped aboard, leaving the conductor to get out,
pick up the rest of the parcels, and give Sister Eustacia his hand.

‘Mornin’, Sister,’ he said affably. ‘Where’s you goin’ dis fine mornin’?’

‘To the Wellington Rooms on Mount Pleasant, please,’ Sister Eustacia said with all her customary politeness. ‘Me and me little helper, here.’ The long, chilly fingers touched Biddy’s cheek. ‘How much would you be wantin’ from us?’

‘I’ll not charge for a parcel-carrier,’ the conductor said, grinning at Biddy. ‘Sure an’ she’s doin’ you one favour, I’ll do you another. If an inspector comes on board I’ll run up and give her a ticket at once, mind.’

‘That’s uncommon good of you – bless you, my son,’ Sister Eustacia said, making a small sign of the cross with her two fingers. ‘Sit by me, Bridget, but keep an eye on me parcels.’

Isn’t it an odd world, now, Biddy mused, sitting beside the nun on the wooden slatted seat and dragging the biggest parcel to rest against her skinny calves. Here’s nuns at school telling us not to lie or cheat, yet Ma Kettle tells everyone who’ll listen that she’s poor but honest when she’s neither, and Sister Eustacia lets the tram conductor give me a free ride, when if I hopped on board and then off again without paying, like the bad boys do, she’d go all po-faced and talk about sin, and the bible, and how hot the flames of hell burn.

She glanced sideways at her companion, but Sister Eustacia was examining the big brown paper bag of peppermints. She was not counting them exactly – more gloating, Biddy thought suddenly. Eh, there’s not much fun for a load of holy women shut up in a convent all day; this shopping trip once a month is the poor soul’s payment for an awful lot of kneeling on hard floors and saying prayers for people who can’t be bothered to pray
for themselves. And not a peppermint would she touch until she was given leave, even though there was a free bag in there, a little extra, handed out by Ma Kettle probably in much the same spirit as that of the bus conductor when he had refused to accept a fare for Biddy. There’s a lot of good in people, Biddy concluded, wriggling round so that she could look out of the window as the tram joggled along down Byrom Street and swerved left around the Technical College. What’s a free ride for me and a few parcels, after all?

If the journey to Mount Pleasant was completed in record time, the journey back to the Scottie was not. To say that Biddy loitered would not have been fair, but she certainly did not hurry. It was a clean, crisp sort of day, especially welcome after so much rain and cold, and for some reason Biddy felt happy, as though the free ride was just the beginning of the good times which she was so sure would soon come back.

What was more, as the tiny little door in the great big gate creaked open to Sister Eustacia’s knock, the nun turned to Biddy and pressed something into her hand.

‘Here, Bridget … you’re a good girl. Buy yourself a bun, or a ride home in another tram.’ She turned unhurriedly back to the little door and to the squat, bespectacled nun peering out. ‘Ah, Sister, can you send for someone to help me with my shopping?’

Biddy had thought about another tram ride, but the truth was, it would only get her back to Kettle’s Confectionery sooner and when she got there it would undoubtedly be time for toffee-making, which would be enjoyable enough on a cold day but which did not appeal when the sun was out – and Biddy was on borrowed time thanks to Sister Eustacia.

If we had walked we wouldn’t have reached here for
another forty or fifty minutes; perhaps not for a whole hour, Biddy reminded herself, wandering slowly along the sunny pavement. So there’s no way I could be back in work yet. And I’m not wasting money on a tram fare. I’ll buy myself a big currant bun and an apple; I just fancy an apple.

She had her currant bun and her apple, ambling along as she ate, and then decided to have a sit-down for ten minutes in St John’s gardens. But there, belatedly, conscience pricked. She was being paid, this really was Ma Kettle’s time, and though she had a cast-iron reason for not getting back exactly early, she did not feel it would do to turn up late. Sure as a clock ticks I’ll be seen by some interfering old busybody who’ll tell Ma Kettle I was spotted on the tram, she thought bitterly. And then I’ll lose the job and Mam and me’ll never get out from under.

From under precisely what she did not explain, even to herself. She just chucked her applecore into a bed of roses, still blooming as gaily as though the month was June and not September, and set off at a smart pace for the Scotland Road and Kettle’s Confectionery.

‘Ah, ’ere she is! I’ve got the toffee boilin’, chuck, but it’ll be ready for pourin’ in ten minutes. I couldn’t save you but a morsel o’ bread an’ jam, but there’s tea in the pot. Get there awright? Sister pleased wi’ you?’

Biddy sidled round the counter and headed for the back room. She felt as though there was a sign on her forehead with
big currant bun and an apple ate in your time
emblazoned upon it, but when she saw the size of the piece of bread and the thin smear of jam she was quite glad she had been deceitful. It was just about enough to fill a tooth cavity, and she’d been slogging all that way on foot with enough weight in her arms to break ’em … or at least, that was what old Ma Kettle thought.

‘Sister was pleased,’ she called back, however. Remember how hard you had to search to find this job, she commanded herself. When you’re a bit older, a bit more ladyfied, when you talk in a ‘shop voice’ all the time an’ not just sometimes, Mam says you’ll get decent work in Blacklers or George Henry Lee’s, but until then take what you can get and be grateful.

‘Good, good. You won’t let that toffee overboil, chuck?’

‘I’m taking it off the stove now,’ Biddy said, adding beneath her breath, ‘If I’ve got the strength to lift the pan after having nothing to eat since tea last night.’

‘What? What was that? Leave the bread ‘n’ jam till the toffee’s coolin’, there’s a good girl.’

‘Right,’ Biddy said, thinking that in the time it would have taken her to swallow the bread and jam she would have lost less than half a second. She heaved at the blackened pan, staggering as it left the stove-top with a decided squelsh and she felt its full weight. ‘Got it, Mrs Kettle. … Cor, it’s no light weight this lot.’