Liza (6 page)

Liza swallowed her anger and pride because she believed she had to.
‘Yes, Miss.’ She stood back and held the door wide.

Una entered, shrugged out of her coat and held it out. As Liza went to take it, she let it drop to the floor.
‘That was careless of you. Pick it up and brush it off. I’ll look it over when I leave to see it’s been done properly. I’ll announce meself.’ She passed through into the parlour.

Liza heard Mrs Fanshaw cry,
‘Una, my pet!’

And the reply,
‘Hello, Auntie Nelly. That new lass of yours dropped my good coat ...’ The door closed.

Liza served them with morning tea in the parlour, lunch in the dining room at noon and high tea at six. All the time Una ingratiated herself with her aunt, meek and solicitous. And all the time Liza was aware of her mocking gaze. It was a long day and when Una left at the end of it her parting words were:
‘I come to see Auntie nearly every Sunday, just missed the last one because I was away. Me and my mam are her only relations, so one of these days you’ll take orders from us.’ She pulled on her coat and ground her heel on Liza’s foot. ‘I’ll see you next week,’ she called. That was ostensibly addressed to Mrs Fanshaw, coming to bid her farewell, but Liza, tears of pain in her eyes, knew it was meant for her.

That threat rode on her back every day and, true to her word, Una returned on the following Sunday. For Liza it was another day of niggling torture and humiliation. Una kicked the dustpan when she came upon Liza sweeping the hall carpet, elbowed her into a spindle-legged table that toppled over to shed its photographs, tripped her as she brought in a loaded tray, which Liza only saved by a miracle of dexterity and luck. And again at the end there was the warning,
‘I’ll see you next Sunday.’

Liza was due for her first full day off during the following week, but her anticipation was marred because she worried as to what might be in store for her. She was expecting Una to arrive at her usual time of nine, and this was on her mind when she washed the front steps shortly after seven. She whitened them with the stepstone and sat back on her heels to look them over with satisfaction. Then the voice behind her said,
‘Now then, lass, make room for your betters.’ Liza turned her head and saw Luke Cooper — Piggy — taller and heavy, though not so fat as he had been. He smirked at her, a giggling Una at his shoulder.

Piggy stood in the mud of the gutter, shifting from one foot to the other.
‘We came early ‘cause we thought we’d make a day of it.’ He stepped out of the gutter and shoved past the kneeling Liza to stamp up the steps, down and then up again, shedding mud with every bang of his boots. He stopped at the top. ‘You want to get these steps cleaned. They’re thick o’ clarts.’

Liza choked, eyes filling with tears but this time they were tears of outrage. This was too much to bear. She still held the cloth she had used on the steps and she plunged it into
the bucket. Piggy laughed. ‘That’s right. Get on wi’ it. Ye should ha’ had it done by—’ Then he choked as the cloth was rammed into his face.

Una had been tittering but now she was standing with her mouth open.
‘Here—’ The contents of the bucket drenched her. She gasped, then screamed. Piggy clawed the cloth from his face but Liza swung the bucket backhanded into his midriff and he doubled over it. She tried to push him aside off the steps but he slipped and fell forward into the mud, so she seized the back of his head and ground his face into it.

Una
’s screams had brought Mrs Fanshaw to the front door: ‘What’s going on?’

Una pointed at Liza.
‘Look at what she’s done to me — and poor Luke.’

He lifted his filthy face to add:
‘Aye! See!’

‘
Disgraceful! I never saw owt like it!’ Mrs Fanshaw squeaked.

‘
I’d just finished the steps when he came and walked all over them, on purpose and laughing at me!’ Liza, her blood still hot, defended herself.

And Mrs Garbutt, her head out of the window of the cellar kitchen, confirmed this:
‘Aye! I saw him, and heard him!’

Mrs Fanshaw rounded on her, indignant and red-faced — there were neighbours watching now:
‘It’s none of your business.’

‘
Don’t tell me to shut up!’ Mrs Garbutt bawled. ‘I’m trying to talk a bit o’ sense into you!’ And she slammed the window.

Mrs Fanshaw gave a moan of frustration and rage.
‘You’re dismissed,’ she snapped at Liza.

Liza threw down the bucket, and Piggy shied away. She declared,
‘I was leaving anyway.’ And, with a jerk of her head at Una, she added to Mrs Fanshaw, ‘She said when you’d gone I’d be taking orders from her and I couldn’t stomach that.’ And she ran up to her room.

It only took minutes for her to pack her few belongings into her box and dress for the street. As she came out on to the landing she heard Mrs Fanshaw railing below:
‘... so if it was my money you were after you can have another think! You’ll get damn all! I’ll leave it to charity!’

Liza looked over the banister just in time to see Una and Piggy leave dejectedly through the front door. Mrs Fanshaw slammed it behind them and stumped into the parlour.

Liza dragged her box down the stairs into the hall. She left it there while she ran down the stairs to the gloomy cavern of the cellar kitchen. ‘I’m off, but thank you for sticking up for me,’ she told Mrs Garbutt.

‘
You’re welcome, hinny,’ said the cook. ‘The cheek of her! Telling me off! Any more o’ that and I’ll be away an’ all. Here, I’ve done you a bite to take with you.’ She handed Liza a brown-paper bag. ‘A bit o’ bread and cheese.’

‘
Oh, thanks.’ Liza accepted it gratefully.

‘
Now, how are you going to get to the bus wi’ that box?’ ‘I’ll have to carry it, a few yards at a time,’ Liza said ruefully. It would be a long, hard haul.

Mrs Garbutt winked.
‘Harry Sims will be round the back door afore long.’ He was the milkman. ‘He’ll give you a lift.’

Liza hugged her, then went to see her employer. Mrs Fanshaw dug into her purse and counted out ten shillings. She handed them over with a baleful glare.
‘More than you deserve after the trouble you’ve caused. You’ll come to a bad end. And don’t ask for a reference because you won’t get one.’

Liza took the money.
‘Thank you.’ She tried to look as if she did not care about the lack of a reference. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Fanshaw.’ The woman turned her back and Liza went on her way.

Harry Sims, round of face and body, took her and her box
on to his float and slapped his horse’s rump. As he carried them along he shouted, ‘Milk-oh!’ He dipped into his churn to fill the jugs as they were brought out to him. Liza shared her bread and cheese with him and he gave her a cup of milk.

The open bus took her into Newcastle and its conductor hauled the box down for her:
‘There y’are, bonny lass.’

‘
Thank you.’ Liza looked around her, more cheerful now she was nearer home. She did not relish telling her mother that she had been dismissed but knew that Kitty would not blame her.

Another bus drew in beside her. Its passengers climbed down and one of them was a girl two or three years older than herself. She, too, had a box that the conductor lifted down for her. Liza smiled at her.
‘Changing your job, like me?’

The other girl grimaced.
‘Oh, aye. The job was all reet and the hoose was all reet but there was nowt for miles! Not a music-hall or owt, nowt! So I walked oot this mornin’. They said, "What aboot working your notice, Bridie?", but Ah said, “Ah cannae stand another day here,” and Ah came away.’

Liza hesitated. She was nearly home, but suppose
... ‘They’ll be looking for somebody, then.’

‘
Aye, they will.’

‘
Where is it?’

‘
The Grange.’ Then Bridie stared at her. ‘Are ye thinking o’ gannin’ up there?’

‘
Aye.’ If they needed a girl urgently they might overlook one or two things.

‘
You’re a bit young and on the small side,’ Bridie said doubtfully.

‘
How do I get there?’ Liza said firmly. Five minutes later she and her box were on another bus.

‘
I’m going to the Grange,’ she told the conductor, and repeated the directions Bridie had given her.

‘
Right y’are, lass,’ and he told the driver. Five minutes later the first drops of rain splashed on to the windows. This bus was not open but by the time they set her down at the gates of the house the spots had become a downpour. Liza, heart sinking, climbed down reluctantly. ‘Run up and get in where it’s dry!’ the conductor called.

‘
Thank you!’ Liza realised he thought she had a job at the house. The bus drove on and she and her box were left alone on an empty road under the rain. On one side, beyond a quarter-mile of meadow, lay the North Sea. On the other, distantly vague in the rain, rose the Cheviot Hills. Liza stared at the desolate landscape that was Northumberland on a dismal wet day. She was a town girl. For most of her life the only grass she had seen had been in a churchyard. This was a foreign land to her.

The house and its grounds were surrounded by a stone wall. Wrought-iron gates opened on to a long drive that led up to the Grange, standing grey and grim. There was no gatekeeper
’s lodge and the gates looked not to have been closed for months, if ever. Grass grew tall around them. Liza quailed, then told herself she had not come all this way to give up now. She wiped water from her eyes to peer at the house. She knew she could not carry her box all that way so she dragged it inside the gate and into some bushes where it could not be seen from the road. She hesitated over leaving it, but did so because she had to. There was nothing of value in it, but it held all she had.

She walked up through the puddles to the Grange. She was wearing her best shoes — in fact, the only ones she had — but they leaked, and an old felt hat that had been her mother
’s, which sat soddenly on her damp hair. The house was a dozen times the size of Mrs Fanshaw’s, but there were still only three steps up to the front door. Liza found that cheering — not much to wash — but the house itself less so: it looked in need of a coat of paint and the curtains were drab. But if there was a position to be had she would not care about that. She climbed the steps and tapped at the massive oak door. Then she saw the handle set into the stone at one side and pulled it. She heard nothing for a minute or so, then the door opened silently on oiled hinges.

The man who stood there was tall and spare, in black jacket and trousers with a knife-edge crease. His sandy hair was neatly brushed, his long face forbidding. He looked Liza over, from the soggy, shapeless hat to the down-at-heel shoes.
‘Aye?’

‘
I’ve come about the job, sir, in your house.’

‘
It is not my house. This is the residence of Mr Gresham. I am Mr Gillespie, the butler. And what job are you talking about?’ He spoke with a Scottish accent and did not put Liza at her ease. But her mother had warned her: ‘In a big house the butler is next to God Almighty.’

She brushed wet hair from her face with the back of her hand.
‘I met this lass in Newcastle and she said—’

‘
Oh, aye.’ Gillespie nodded. ‘That would be Bridie.’

‘
Yes, sir.’

‘
Well, a lass like you has no business coming to the front door.’ He frowned down at her. ‘Go round to the back.’ And he shut the door.

Liza retraced her steps. As she looked back down the drive she saw a ship far out at sea, a rough sea under the rain. The steamer trailed a long plume of smoke and Liza was reminded of her father. The thought of him and his love for her, then of her mother, put heart into her. She walked determinedly round the house to the rear. There were two doors, one large by a window that looked into a kitchen — Liza glimpsed women moving behind the steamed-up glass. The
other was narrow and open, and Gillespie stood just inside. He said grudgingly, ‘Ye’d better come in,’ and Liza followed him into a small office. There was a table and an upright chair, a shelf with a number of ledgers and a fireplace with a glowing coal fire. This was known as the butler’s pantry.

Gillespie sat on the chair and took a notebook, pen and ink from a drawer in the table. He hooked steel spectacles on to his ears and began:
‘Name? Age? Nearly fourteen?’ He peered over the spectacles. ‘You’re not very big.’

‘
I’m strong,’ Liza protested.

‘
Are ye now?’ He sniffed and went back to his book. ‘What work have you been doing?’

‘
I want to be a lady’s maid.’

‘
Oh, aye! You and a lot more! You’ll have to wait a few years for that.’

‘
That’s what I meant: one day,’ Liza said meekly. ‘Now I’ll do anything.’

‘
So you say. Previous experience? References?’

Liza tried to evade the latter:
‘I worked for Mrs Fanshaw.’ She gave the address in Tynemouth.