Liverpool Taffy (8 page)

‘You want to go straight down Whitechapel, along Paradise Street and then turn left into Park Lane,’ Mrs Ruby had advised her when she asked the best way to Sparling Street. ‘Best tek care, though, chuck. It’s rough down by the docks.’

So now Biddy crossed over the road junction with its mass of tramlines and started off along Whitechapel. She felt light and airy, pleased with herself. She was not running away, nothing so daring, but she did feel she was paving the way for a change in her circumstances.

And a change was overdue. It isn’t that the work is so terribly hard, it’s just hot, monotonous and constant, Biddy thought now, wondering whether it would be all right to take off her blue coat and allow the sunshine to warm her arms, for the blouse had short sleeves. Wasn’t Ma Kettle ever young herself? Doesn’t she remember that finishing work, having a break, is what it’s all about? She does know, because look how she spoils the boys! Luke’s shirts must always be immaculate, his food always on the table, she doesn’t take money for his keep the way any other mother would, so he’s not thinking of marriage, he’s far too
comfortable. And then Jack, though he’s away most of the time, gets spoiled rotten when he does come home. Breakfast in bed, his favourite grub always on tap, friends home for tea, money for the cinema or the theatre slipped into his hand as he scans the pages of the
Echo
for entertainment. Even Kenny gets what he wants … which is why he can ask for time off for me and get it without an argument.

A tramp with his greatcoat over one arm passed her, grinning to himself in the sunshine. He had no teeth and he was filthy but he did look happy, Biddy reflected. Perhaps teeth and cleanliness weren’t everything, then. She turned to watch him for a moment; he was free in a way she could never imagine herself being. He went where he fancied, begged for food or stole it, slept under hedges in good weather and in barns in bad. She supposed, vaguely, that he must sleep in workhouses in the city since barns and hedges were both rare … and saw that the road had changed. She was now on Paradise Street and must start keeping her eyes peeled for Sparling Street.

‘Well, Ellen, you’re very comfortably settled here. It’s a lovely flat, it must cost you quite a bit, so you’ve done well for yourself.’

The two girls were seated on a comfortable blue plush sofa in Ellen’s living-room. She had already shown Biddy round the flat, which was on the first floor and consisted of the living-room in which they sat, a very fancy bedroom, all pink rugs and cream curtaining, with a very large crucifix on one wall and a rather improper picture on the other, and a tiny kitchen.

Ellen, in a pink silk dress with a dropped waist and with pink plush slippers on her small feet, was sitting on the sofa beside Biddy. She was smoking a cigarette rather inexpertly, and at her friend’s words she nodded and looked pleased.

‘Yes, it’s awright, this. It’s a pity there’s only the one bedroom, but I get by.’

‘I don’t see why anyone should want more than one bedroom,’ Biddy said frankly. ‘Ellen, what is your job? It must be an awfully good one for you to live here – you don’t even share!’

Ellen blushed. Biddy watched the pink creep up her friend’s neck and flood across her small, fair face.

‘I do share in a way, from time to time. And as for me job, I’m a saleslady in Gowns in a big department store. The feller that’s got all the power, my floor manager, is a Mr Bowker. He’s trainin’ me to do the buyin’ for Gowns so sometimes I go up to London with ’im. In fact ’e’s promised to take me to Paris next spring. Yes, it’s norra bad job.’

‘I wish I could get a job like that,’ Biddy said wistfully. ‘You are so lucky, Ellen! If I could just get a little job, perhaps even a live-in job, then I might be able to save up for a room somewhere. But I’d never run to anything like this.’

Ellen got up off the sofa and went over to the window. Without looking at Biddy she spoke slowly. ‘Biddy … what about if we shared this place, you an’ me? Only you’d ’ave to – to pay in other ways, per’aps.’

‘What ways?’ Biddy asked, immediately suspicious. ‘I’d do the housework and the cooking willingly, if that’s what you mean.’

‘No, though you’d ’ave to do your share. No … it’s – it’s me voice, me accent, like. They say you won’t get no further in Gowns unless you learn to talk proper, and you … you can do it awready, like. So would you teach me? Show me ’ow it’s done, like?’

‘And if I do, you’ll let me live here with you? What rent would you want as well? And where can I find a job, Ellen? Because you’d want rent, and anyhow, I’d have to eat.’

‘I don’t want no rent. To tell you the truth, Biddy, it ain’t me what pays the rent, norrin the way you mean. Me – me friend pays it.’

‘Your boyfriend? Does he live here with you, then? What’ll he think if I move in? You’d have to ask him first, Ellen.’

‘Well, that’s the other side to it, chuck. If you’d just clear off out when ’e comes over, ’e need never know. ’E don’t come over all that often, per’aps twice a week, an’ ’e never stays the night, ’cos … well, ’e never does, I swear it.’

Biddy frowned. There was something funny going on here! Now that she thought about it, girls of sixteen just didn’t get to be buyers for big department stores, let alone live in the style to which Ellen had obviously become accustomed. Mam and I lived comfortably enough, but we didn’t have silk dresses, Biddy remembered. Mam often said that she didn’t allow her soft Irish brogue to be heard by customers, but even without a scouse accent she had never risen to be a buyer! And a boyfriend who paid the rent but didn’t live in the flat and never stayed over, a job which paid Ellen, at sixteen years old, well enough to wear pink silk dresses and to have a wardrobe stuffed with expensive garments … what
was
going on?

‘Look, Ellen, what you do is your business, but I must know what’s up if I’m going to share with you,’ she said as firmly as she could. ‘Who is this boyfriend who’s so generous … is he – is he
married
?’

‘Oh ’eck, I knew you wouldn’t jest …’ Ellen turned away from the window, crossed the room and sat down on the sofa beside her friend. Then she turned her head and looked Biddy straight in the eye. ‘Awright, the whole truth, eh? ’Ere goes, then.’

The sad little story was soon told. A child of a large family, Ellen had desperately wanted what she called ‘a nice life’. She got a job as a waitress in a big café not far from the pierhead and, following the example set by the prettiest, cheekiest member of staff, she began to flirt with any male customer who seemed interested.

A great many seamen were not only interested, they wanted to get on even closer terms with pretty little Ellen Bradley, who made eyes at them and agreed to meet anyone after work who would spend a few bob on her.

Then Ellen discovered that Mr Bowker, who was middle-aged, with false teeth and a thickening waistline, was watching her as he ate his chops. He was important, he rarely came into the café, and now, when he came, he liked to be served by Ellen.

‘So young, so fresh,’ he murmured to one of the other waitresses. ‘She’s wasted in this place … I’d like to see her in Gowns.’

‘He meant out of gowns,’ Mabel told her, giggling. ‘A rare one for the girls is Mr Bowker, though he does his pinching in private, like.’

Ellen hadn’t known what Mabel meant, not at first, but after her very first outing with Mr Bowker she understood. She could have nice things, if she would let her elderly admirer have certain privileges.

‘Mr Bowker was ever so nice, ’e took me to the flicks, bought me a box o’ chocolates, drove me ’ome in ’is big motor car …’

She made light of the clammy caresses, the persistent hand at her stocking top, though Biddy could tell from her expression that she had been shocked by his behaviour at first. The thing was, she told Biddy, that a boy’s hand could be – and often was – slapped away, but she had hesitated to give a man old enough to be her father so much as a quick shove. Not exactly a shy or retiring girl, nevertheless by the time she had finished her story her face was crimson.

The upshot of those first tentative meetings had been that Mr B was very quickly enthralled by her, and terribly jealous of the fact that in her present job other men could look at her, flirt with her – might even have the success with her so far denied him. He tried hard to get her alone, to take advantage of her, but Ellen said proudly that she’d more sense than to let him carry on the way he wanted without any strings. And the depth and degree of his jealousy, when you realised that he was not himself free to marry her, carried a price.

‘A good job at the store and a place of me own, that was what I wanted in exchange for – for not lookin’ at other fellers no more,’ she said. ‘’E was all for givin’ me a job in Gowns – all women customers, you see – and I said if ’e coughed up a flat an’ all, ’e could come round whenever ’e wanted, but ’is ole woman, she won’t stand for ’im pissin’ off when ’e should be at ’ome, so it’s daytimes only, thank Gawd.’

‘And you let him do – do
that
to you?’ Biddy asked incredulously. Ill-informed as she was, she could still see that doing ‘that’ with a rich old man could not be to everyone’s taste.

‘Oh aye, whiles ’e pays me price. Now, chuck; are you on?’

‘Wait a moment. Ellen, it isn’t just so’s I can teach you to speak properly, is it? You’re lonely, aren’t you? Why don’t you ask one of your sisters to share?’

‘Honest to God, Biddy, you want your ’ead lookin’ at! If me Mam found out I were livin’ tally wi’ a feller old enough to be me Da she’d tear me ’air out be the roots an’ t’row me body in the Mersey!’

‘Yes, I suppose … but you are lonely, aren’t you, Nell?’

Surprisingly, the use of her old baby-name brought tears to Ellen’s big blue eyes, though she snatched out a hanky and wiped them away as quickly and unobtrusively as she could.

‘Well, aye, in a way. All the wimmin at work’s years older’n me, an’ the folk round ’ere turns up their snitches
at me. They think I tek sailors, but I don’t, I wouldn’t, that’s a sin … it’s just Mr Bowker.’

‘Do you call him Mr Bowker still?’ Biddy asked, amused. ‘After all, you’re living tally with him … or that’s what you said.’

‘I call him Bunny Big Bum when we’re in bed,’ Ellen said, giving a snuffle of laughter. ‘’E’s a funny feller, but ’e means well. Now will you share or won’t you?’

‘I’d love to share,’ Biddy said recklessly. ‘What’ll I tell old Kettle, though? And Kenny, I suppose.’

‘Tell ’em lies, real good ones,’ Ellen said at once. ‘After what old Ma Kettle’s took from you you don’t owe ’em nothin’. Say you met your Mam’s sister an’ she’s goin’ to tek you in. And ’ear the old devil wail’, she added gleefully, ‘when she realises she’s gonna have to pay someone to skivvy for ’er in future!’

Biddy walked home in a very thoughtful mood after her visit to Ellen Bradley. She had been offered an escape route though she was quite shrewd enough to realise that it was not, perhaps, going to be an ideal arrangement. She would have to keep out of Mr Bowker’s way, which would mean that any personal possessions she might amass – she had few things to take with her – would have to be kept hidden away at all times, and because Ellen did not want anyone to get to know anything about the way she lived, she would almost certainly involve Biddy in her web of deceit.

But how else was she to escape from the Kettles, without becoming a vagrant in the process? Jobs in service were possible, she supposed, but when could she apply for such a job? Scarcely in what little free time she managed to scrape. And in this venture, she realised that Kenny would not stand her friend. He was always after her to better her lot, told her constantly to stand up for herself, fight back, but he would not want her to move out. He must know that if she did so, his chances of a quick kiss and a cuddle would be cut down dramatically – cut out, in fact, Biddy told herself darkly. She liked Kenny all right, but not like that.

Ellen had invited her to dinner, so she had helped to cook a meal, helped to eat it, helped to clear away afterwards. She was glad to find that Ellen was a good cook and clearly managed her little love-nest well. She commented on this and Ellen said tartly that anyone brought
up as a third child in a family of a dozen had to be handy, else they’d go under.

So along Sparling Street, up Paradise Street and into Whitechapel Biddy pondered her next move. Tell a big, beautiful whopper and claim she’d met a long-lost relative who needed Biddy’s help about her own home and was willing to take her in? Or tell the truth and put up with the calumny of being ungrateful and selfish – or just walk out, leaving a note behind, and spend the rest of her life hiding from vengeful Kettles?

She was still pondering when she reached the Scottie, still wondering what to do for the best. Because of something Kenny had let drop she had realised a couple of days earlier that before she moved in, Ma Kettle had not only employed Maisie, she had had another girl in on Sundays and Wednesdays to do the laundering and ironing, to mend anything that needed mending and to do any marketing which Maisie and she herself had not done.

So when I moved in a couple of girls lost their jobs, not just Maisie, Biddy told herself. The money I’ve saved the old skinflint! But it’ll really go against the grain to have to pay out money for three girls.… Lord, whatever shall I do? Perhaps it really might be better to say nothing and wait my opportunity – something must turn up.

Keeping her visit to Ellen entirely dark would not be possible, she realised, because Kenny had said he would meet her out of church after Mass. But she didn’t think he would split on her because he was still her friend, though less so with every time she repulsed his advances. She wished she did not have to do so, wished she found him attractive and wanted his kisses, but the truth was he was too much his mother’s son. Every time she saw his bunchy face near her own she was sharply reminded of Ma Kettle – and the last person whose kisses she would welcome would have been that lady’s.

Still, she had enjoyed a day out and now she had hope. The spectre of being stuck as Ma Kettle’s slave until the day one of them died had actually receded … and it was a stupid fear anyway, Biddy told
herself. She would have got out sooner or later, now it seemed it was to be sooner.