Liverpool Taffy (3 page)

‘It’s coconut toffee,’ Mrs Kettle said, appearing in the doorway. ‘Ah, you ate the bread an’ jam first, I see. Well, no matter … pour careful, girl, I don’t want toffee all over me decent scrubbed table-top.’

‘I didn’t … eat … it,’ Biddy panted, muscles cracking as she strove to tip the pan gently into the first of the half-dozen tin cooling trays. ‘It’s still there, missus, on the wall-table. It’s just rather little.’

‘Steady, steady!’ Mrs Kettle said anxiously as the flow began and the sweet brown stuff began to run steadily into the tray. ‘That’s right, that’s right … not too full now, or you’ll never ’ammer it up into small enough bits. My lor, that stuff cost enough … steady I say!’

‘The pan’s so heavy,’ Biddy wheezed, shifting it along to the second tray. ‘I’m not Samson you know, Mrs Kettle.’

‘You eat like ’im,’ Mrs Kettle said, not nastily but just as one stating a fact. ‘All that bread an’ jam gone in a coupla o’ minutes! Ah no, I see you’ve left a tat.’

Biddy finished pouring toffee and stood the pan back on the stove top, sweat running down the sides of her face. She glanced across at the disputed piece of bread and jam.

‘I haven’t had time to eat anything, Mrs Kettle,’ she pointed out. ‘I got the toffee straight off the stove – isn’t that what you left me, then?’

‘No it is not,’ Mrs Kettle said, sounding injured. ‘You’d run an errand for me, Bid … is it likely I’d cut you down to that? Bread’s a price, I grant you, but I declare no one’s ever called me stingy.’

Not to your face, Biddy’s mind said, whilst her mouth, much the more tactful member, agreed that she had never heard anyone be so rude.

‘No, nor you should,’ Ma Kettle said huffily. ‘I left you the best part of ’alf a loaf … well, three decent slices,’ she added. ‘Now where … ah!’

She had opened the door leading to her own private quarters as she spoke and there, on the back of the door, hung a navy donkey jacket and a navy cap. Mrs Kettle leaned through the doorway. ‘Ja-ack! Come down ’ere this minute, you bleedin’ rascal! Wha’ did you go an’ tek the bread ‘n’ jam for, eh? Don’t I feed you? That was for me assistant!’

A muffled roar came from beyond the doorway. It sounded like a denial, interspersed with some laughter, and an explanation, but with the doorway filled by Ma Kettle and Jack being in the flat upstairs, Biddy could not hear what he said.

‘Jack says it were Maisie, then, greedy great gannet,’ Ma Kettle muttered, having obviously interpreted the roar without any difficulty. ‘That girl! I pays ’er to keep me place clean and she sneaks orf into me boilin’ kitchen an prigs bread an’ jam what’s meant for me bleedin’ shop assistant! I’ll clack ’er bleedin’ lug for er!’

Biddy, who had seen a stout, cross-looking girl poke her head round the door occasionally with a message for Ma Kettle, grinned to herself. She knew nothing about Maisie save for her appearance, but it occurred to her that anyone who worked for Ma would have to learn to look after themselves. Obviously it applied whether you cleaned her flat or sold her sweets, because Maisie must have been hungry to have taken the bread and jam.

Ma Kettle withdrew from the doorway and slammed the door. Crossly. Then she waddled across to the small cupboard to the left of the stove. Bending down she withdrew a loaf and a pot of jam, three-quarters used. ‘Jack’s sorry, ’e’d ’ave stopped ’er, only ’e didn’t know it were yourn,’ she explained, beginning to hack another slice off the loaf. ‘None of me lads would tek what waren’t theirs … poor but honest, that’s us Kettles; well known fact.’

It was very late and very dark before the toffee was all made and cooled, hammered into sufficiently small pieces to please Ma Kettle, clattered into the big sweet jars and placed high on the shelves. And it was not as though the toffee was her only job. There was cleaning the sweet-making pans, which could take a couple of hours if Ma Kettle had forgotten to leave them in hot water, and scrubbing the worn lino in the back room and the boards in the little shop. The big window had to be cleaned, the display dusted and any flies which hovered must be pursued with the fly-swat, this being a much more acceptable method of fly-slaying – to the customers, at least – than hanging fly-papers or setting wasp-traps. When you were not serving customers you were always busy, so that by eight o’clock, when Kettle’s Confectionery closed at last, Biddy was always so tired that she walked home in a daze, often arriving so weary that it was all she could do to cut herself and her mother bread and cheese for their supper.

But tonight, perhaps because of her little trip out and the two meals she had enjoyed, Biddy found the walk home less tiring than usual. She and her mother now had a room in a house in Virginia Street, just behind St Paul’s church which, in its turn, was behind Exchange Station. It was quite near the docks, which Biddy liked, and handy for work, though you couldn’t say it was the healthiest spot in the city. All day and for quite a bit of the night the racket of the trains – and the filth from their engines – befouled the air and though their landlady constantly reminded them how fortunate they were, Biddy sometimes had her doubts.

When Mam’s cough got worse she had tried to move, but it wasn’t easy. Mrs Edith Kilbride’s rent was possible because Mam kept an eye on their landlady’s four small children whilst she went off to work at the nearby station as a cleaner. Kath O’Shaughnessy and Edith had lived on the same street in Dublin, years ago, and had remained good friends, which would have made leaving difficult. Besides which, paying a normal rent, until Kath was back in work once more, was next to impossible.

Despite the lateness of the hour there were plenty of people around in the streets and quite a crowd were coming out of Exchange Station. Biddy dodged round them and dived down the subway which came out in St Paul’s Square. From there it was a short walk along Earle Street and into the narrow house in Virginia Street.

Biddy was humming a tune as she ran up the stairs, for their room was on the first floor. She hoped her mother had managed to get something for their tea – for some reason she thought it might be fish – and was already anticipating a nice bit of cod with a pile of boiled potatoes and maybe even a bit of cake for a pudding. The tiny widow’s pension which the O’Shaughnessys drew had been due this morning, which usually meant something substantial for tea. Biddy’s own wage, though useful, was too small to provide anything hot and the savings which Kath O’Shaughnessy was carefully husbanding were used to pay the rent.

Biddy stopped outside their room to get her breath, then tapped on the door and opened it. She always tapped as though it was a real front door, though of course it was only one room, and her mother usually called out cheerfully, then came across to give her daughter a kiss. But today, as Biddy entered the room, everything was different. For one thing her mother was in bed, not up, and for another, she was not alone. A tall, worried-looking man was sitting on the edge of the bed writing something in a book and Edie Kilbride was standing by the mantel, her face very pale. She turned as Biddy entered the room, looking stricken.

‘Oh, Biddy, dear … oh Biddy, I don’t know how to tell you … sure an’ ’tis the last t’ing either of us expected … oh Biddy, this is Dr Godber, who has somet’ing to say to ye.’

The man on the bed turned towards her. His face was solemn but as he turned he had glanced down at his watch and Biddy could tell that he was longing to be on his way.

‘Ah, Bridget! I’m afraid I have sad news for you, my child. Very sad news.’

‘She’s been took bad, hasn’t she?’ Biddy quavered, moving towards the bed. ‘Poor Mam, she’s been getting better slowly, but now she’s been took bad. What must I do, sir?’

As she spoke she glanced towards the pillows – and stopped short, a hand flying to her mouth. There lay her mother’s shape, but it was covered completely by a sheet, pulled up to hide her face.

The doctor followed her glance.

‘She’s … she’s gone to her reward,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’m afraid, Bridget, that your mother haemorrhaged about an hour ago. She lost a great deal of blood and died soon afterwards.’

‘Died?’ Biddy could see the man’s mouth moving, she could hear his words, but somehow they had no meaning. A great sheet of glass had been interposed between them and she felt as though someone had stuffed her mouth with cotton wool and her ears, too. Was that why the doctor’s voice was so small, so insignificant? And what had they done to Mam, why had they pulled the sheet right over her face? She would have difficulty breathing, he really ought to be more careful of a patient, even if she was neither rich nor important.

She leaned forward and twitched the sheet down before anyone had divined her intention or could stop her.

There lay the mortal remains of Kathleen O’Shaughnessy, her face glassily pale, her eyes closed. The pillow on which her head lay was dark with blood, her hair, loose for once, matted with it. And horrifyingly, even as Biddy watched, her mother’s jaw dropped slowly open and her head rolled a little on the blotched and bloodstained pillow.

Biddy screamed, as shrill as one of the trains drawing out of Exchange Station, and jumped back, then as swiftly moved forward, to fall on her knees by the bed.

‘Mam, are you all right? You aren’t dead, you aren’t, you aren’t! Oh, Mam, say something!’

A pair of hands caught her shoulders, pulling her upright, then turning her so that she faced away from the carnage on the sheets.

‘It’s awright, Bridget, it’s awright, she’s gone luv, she’s gone where no one can’t ’urt her no more. Come on, come on, you don’t want to stay ’ere, because your Mam ain’t ’ere no more, she’s left, that ain’t your Mam, that’s just an empty shell, a body what she don’t want no more. She were a good soul, your Mam, a good friend and a good little fighter, but she’s gone from ’ere, now, and you must be gone too. Come down wi’ me an’ the kids, we’ll get a meal, talk about what’s to be done. Come on, come downstairs wi’ your Aunt Edie.’

Biddy had never called Mrs Kilbride anything but Mrs Kilbride, but now she sobbed in the woman’s arms, clutching her desperately, hanging onto the only solid thing in the suddenly tippling world, Edith Kilbride’s plump, motherly arms.

‘Is … is she really dead?’ she asked fearfully. ‘Really gone for good? Won’t there be no more laughs, no more good times?’

Mrs Kilbride did not answer at once but Biddy heard her swallow convulsively and felt the plump little hand pat her back.

‘Sure there’ll be laughs an’ good times, chuck, but it’ll be up to you to make ’em, now. Your Mam can’t help you there. Ah, she were a good Mam to you an’ a good pal to me.… Come on, come downstairs, I’ll ’ave the kettle on and we’ll wet our t’rottles an’ ’ave a bit of a chat, like. Come on, leave the doctor to see to things here.’

Biddy heaved a deep, tremulous sigh and glanced once more towards the bed. Dimly, she realised that there was truth in what Mrs Kilbride had said. That thing lying on the pillow wasn’t really her mother, it was just a cast-off shell which had been left behind when her mother’s soul had fled.

Slowly, but without a backward glance, she allowed herself to be led from the room.

‘It’s ever so good of you, Mrs Kilbride, to suggest that I stay wi’ you and keep an eye on the kids, like my Mam used to do,’ Biddy said wearily, when the funeral was over and she was packing her pathetically few possessions into the old carpet bag her mother had once used for her heavy shopping. ‘I’m not ungrateful, honest, but it wouldn’t be fair on you, not in the long run. Mrs Kettle’s said I can move in wi’ them, she doesn’t have a daughter, only sons, so I’ll be useful. And it’ll be a roof over my head and a job, for a while at least.’

She had been very surprised when Mrs Kettle had not only come to the funeral but had made the offer.

‘You come along o’ me and live over the shop, same as all us Kettles do,’ she had urged. ‘I’ll feed you, dress you, see you right. What d’you say?’

She had to say she would, of course. Mrs Kilbride couldn’t afford to feed another mouth unless that other mouth could bring in a wage, and since Biddy couldn’t be in two places at once she could not envisage herself working for Ma Kettle and taking her money home to the Kilbrides, whilst also staying at home all day to look after the kids.

‘There’s a truckle bed you can use,’ Ma Kettle planned busily. ‘Being as ’ow I been a widder-woman these fifteen years, you can share my room. Of course I shan’t pay you a wage, like, seeing as ’ow I’ll be treatin’ you like me own flesh an’ blood, but I’ll see you right, no need to worry about that.’

‘Thanks,’ Biddy said dully. ‘Thanks very much, Mrs Kettle.’

She was too shocked still to do more than think, fleetingly, that at least the food would probably be better than she and Mam had managed out of their small resources. Often there were quite appetising smells floating down from the flat above the shop; she had sat at the counter minding the shop and eating bread and jam and her mouth had downright watered at times.

‘You fetch your gear, then,’ Mrs Kettle said. ‘What about your Mam’s things? You’re welcome to bring any furniture, fittings, stuff like that. And if you want me to dispose of anything …’ she paused delicately, her bushy little caterpillar eyebrows twitching interrogatively,’… we might mek a few bob, between us,’ she finished.

‘It’s all right, thanks,’ Biddy said. ‘Aunt Edie was good to Mam because they were pals as girls, in Dublin. They were the same build, so she’s having Mam’s skirts and jumpers and that, and there wasn’t much in the way of furniture. The bed was ruined … so I’m lettin’ Aunt Edie have what’s good there, to make up.’

‘Aunt Edie?’ It seemed to Biddy that Ma Kettle drew back a little when she said the words. ‘I never knowed you’d got an aunt in the Pool. I daresay she’ll want you when you’re big enough to earn a decent wage. Perhaps I’m wrong to offer, and you with a relative actually on the spot.’

‘She’s got a lot of kids,’ Biddy said tiredly. ‘She can’t afford to keep me. But if you’ve changed your mind, Mrs Kettle …’

‘Me, change me mind? Bridget O’Shaughnessy – dear me, what a mouthful! – Bridget O’Shaughnessy, the day I withdraw a kindness may I be roast on a spit! She ain’t your real aunt, I daresay?’