The Girl From Seaforth Sands (18 page)

‘He can’t do it! Living in the same house with
her
and having Paddy here all the time, would be hell on earth,’ Amy stated vehemently. ‘Do married people always live in the same house? Couldn’t they be married and still stay the way they are right now?’

Albert sighed at her ignorance but shook his head decisively. ‘Course not. Married folk don’t just live in the same house, they sleep in the same bed. Remember what it says in the Bible about the pro . . . procreation of children? You’ve gorra sleep in the same bed to do the procreatin’ bit,’ he ended.

On the other side of the kitchen the kettle began to hop and sizzle. Amy crossed the room automatically and made a pot of tea, set out three mugs and went to the milk jug in the scullery. When she had made three cups of tea, she carried one over to the sofa and, sitting down, began gingerly to sip. Albert followed suit and for a long while the kitchen was
silent as the two youngsters were lost in thought. Then Amy got to her feet, picked up the third cup of tea and tipped it into the slop bucket. When she spoke at last it was with little or none of the shock and bitterness she had shown earlier. ‘Dad won’t be wanting that,’ she said heavily. ‘This is going to change everything and not for the better, either. Oh, Albert, why couldn’t things have stayed the same?’

Amy came out of the small house in Seafield Grove and gasped as the wind blew large cold flakes of snow against her warm face. She wrapped her scarf more tightly round her neck, then turned and headed along Crosby Road towards the tram terminus where she would presently catch the tram into the city centre. She was seldom unhappy to leave her home now, not since Bill’s marriage, about three years previously, had given her a stepmother. It would not be fair to say that Suzie disliked Amy – but she certainly made use of her. Indeed, starting work had been, in a way, a relief.

Baby Becky had to rely on either Suzie herself or old Granny Keagan for her upbringing, because Amy was now out of the house from eight in the morning until seven in the evening. By that time, of course, Becky was safely tucked up in bed and, though Suzie left as much of the housework as she could for Amy to tackle, she had long ago realised that she must treat the younger girl reasonably, or Amy, who had a very strong will of her own, would manage to ignore any tasks set her.

But right now, hurrying towards the Rimrose Bridge with her head bent against the blizzard, Amy almost regretted leaving her home. The kitchen had been warm and cosy, the fire burning up brightly and Bill sitting before it, with a round of bread on a toasting fork held out to the flames. In weather such
as this there was no point in even going down to the beach, let alone taking the boat out, so Bill would occupy himself with domestic tasks which needed doing and would then mend nets in the comfort of the kitchen.

Amy was almost at the tram stop, could actually see a tram about to depart, when a voice hailed her, shrieking above the wind: ‘Hey, Amy! It
is
you, ain’t it? My word, I’ve not clapped eyes on you for ages. How’re you doin’, queen?’

‘Ruth!’ Amy squeaked. She had not seen her old friend since Ruth had gone into service with a family in Southport. Somehow, when Ruth had been home Amy had always been at work, but she had heard rumours that her pal was sick of service and wanted a job where she could live at home. She had thought it would be grand to have Ruth back once more and now it looked as though the rumours had been true, for here she was, muffled in coat and scarf, heading for the tram terminus, as she was herself.

Trams, however, wait for no man. ‘I’ve got to get on this tram, Ruthie,’ Amy said breathlessly, raising her voice above the sound of the wind. ‘It’s a number 24 so it takes me all the way to Lime Street. Where are you going?’

‘A number 24 will do me fine,’ Ruth said, as the two of them scrambled aboard the waiting tram.

The conductor, blowing on his hands in their fingerless mittens, grinned at them. ‘Hon you gets, young ladies,’ he called cheerfully. ‘Me driver’s raring to go because, what with the slippery roads and the bleedin’ snow blowin’ in his face, we’s almost bound to be late and the inspectors fair haunt this route in bad weather, hopin’ to catch us out.’ Another shrouded and bent figure, in the
all-enveloping shawl and draggly skirts of a street trader, came slogging towards the tram. She was struggling with a huge basket covered by a checked cloth and the conductor shouted to his driver, ‘Wait onna moment, George, ole pal. This ’ere passenger needs a hand by the looks. Once the lady’s aboard, you can go fast as you like.’

Amy smiled at the old woman as she was heaved on to the step and collapsed into the nearest seat. She recognised her as one of the women who sold flowers outside Lime Street Station, but could not imagine there would be much sale for such wares, even if she had managed to acquire flowers in this dreadful weather. Probably she was now selling oranges, apples and the like.

However, it was Ruthie’s presence on the tram which interested her right now. She waited until they were seated and the tram had jerked into noisy motion, then turned to her old friend, who was removing her dark-blue headscarf and brushing snow off her shoulders. ‘Ruthie! So you
are
home! Well, that’s a piece of luck for me, I tell you straight. What with working at the fish market and doing all my stepmother’s housework, keeping an eye on the kid and trying to see the boys don’t go short, I’ve not made a friend of my own age since you left. It’ll be grand to have you home again. But what are you doing on the workers’ special? Don’t say you’ve got a job already!’

Ruthie replaced her headscarf, tying it firmly under her chin, and smiled at Amy. She had not changed much in the years since she and Amy had been to school together, though her pale-brown hair was coiled into a low bun on the back of her neck and Amy suspected that a dusting of powder
covered her friend’s small, straight nose. ‘Yes, I’m home for good. Two years of service is enough for anyone – not that they wasn’t good to me in their way, but it weren’t our way, Amy. It was all right while I had a young feller interested in marriage, but when he took up with the second parlour maid – oh, I dunno, I just wanted to come home and do a job of work which finished at a proper time, so’s I wasn’t always on call, like. And I have got another job, though it may only be temporary. But what’s been happenin’ to you, Amy? And the rest of the family, of course? Have you gorra feller?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ Amy said ruefully. ‘As for the family, the boys and my dad are fine, and Becky’s fine, and Mary seems to like service more than home life; at least she never comes back for more than a couple of days and even then she’s raring to go back to Manchester just as soon as she can. She’s got a feller, I believe, though she doesn’t talk about him. As for me, I used to go to the dances at the Daulby Hall, but it wasn’t much fun without a pal. Of course, I’ve been out with fellers from time to time – remember that Tommy Chee, Ruthie, the boy Paddy was friendly with? Him and me went to the theatre once or twice and last summer we went over the water a couple of times, but to tell you the truth, my dad didn’t approve. It was stupid because we’re just good pals, there’s nothing in it really. Still he’s a deal nicer than most of the fellers Paddy hangs out with. But I’m sorry about your feller, queen. Were you much upset?’

Ruth snorted. ‘Upset? Over a two-timing bugger who thought if he played his cards right he could have the pair of us? No, chuck, I weren’t upset so much as furious. In fact, now I’ve got over the shock
I pity Flo Williams – that’s the gal’s name – because it won’t be long before he’s seein’ someone else on the sly. That’s men all over for you. But you can put it down to experience I suppose.’

‘It’s experience I’m short of,’ Amy said ruefully, glancing enviously at her friend’s smooth prettiness. She could well imagine the sort of effect Ruth’s cherubic countenance had had among the young men of Southport. ‘Still, with you to go around with me, Ruthie, perhaps I’ll begin to have some fun as well as working every hour God sends. Where did you say you had a job?’

‘You know Dorothy’s Dining Rooms on the corner of Rose and Elliot Streets? Well, I’m workin’ in the kitchens there and doin’ some waitin’ on because they’s several people away with influenza. This’ll be me first day. Mrs Owen said I was to start this morning and work for at least three weeks, mebbe longer. She said it depends on me work and on whether everyone who’s off ill comes back.’

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ Amy exclaimed, turning to beam at her friend. ‘Those dining rooms are ever so popular, chuck. They’re always crowded with folk from the offices, fellers poppin’ in from the station when they want a quick bite before their train and, of course, with actors from the theatre – as well as one or two from the market, when they’ve a few pence to spare. Oh, Ruthie, it will be grand to have you so close! We’ll be able to catch the same tram to and from work, and tell each other how our day has gone – so long as you don’t mind the smell of fish,’ she ended, sighing regretfully.

‘You don’t smell of fish,’ Ruth said mildly. ‘You never did, Amy, even when you were running the fish stall in the school holidays. But you
always thought you did, I seem to recall,’ she added with a reminiscent smile.

The tram, which despite the conductor’s fears had done the journey in good time, swung into the terminus by the station and the girls, lifting their scarves to cover their mouths, climbed reluctantly down into the teeth of the blizzard. Amy looked across at St George’s Plateau, where the snow was already lying in a thick white blanket, criss-crossed with footmarks. She was amused to see the lions wearing neat white snow caps and smiled to herself as she accompanied her friend into Elliot Street and saw her into the dining rooms, before heading towards Great Charlotte Street and St John’s fish market. Normally she would have walked the other way down Roe Street because this would enable her to have a good nose at the theatre as she passed it, but in weather such as this the quickest way was best. The familiar smell surged out to meet her as she approached the enormous green-painted wooden doors. There were clouds of steam coming from the direction of Mrs O’Leary’s stall, so Amy knew her employer had arrived before her, despite the fact that she herself was at least ten minutes earlier than usual. She went over to the stall to hang her shopping bag on a hook beneath the counter and greet Mrs O’Leary cheerfully. ‘Morning, Mrs O! Isn’t it a cold, horrible day? It’s enough to freeze the wotsits off a brass monkey, as my dad says.’

‘Mornin’, queen,’ Mrs O’Leary answered. She was cleaning down her concrete stand, red in the face from the effort. Amy promptly took the long brush, the big bar of red soap and the bucket of boiling water from her employer’s hands. ‘You sit yourself down, Mrs O,’ she said gently. ‘It’s my job to clean
down and yours to sort out a float for the till. It won’t take me but a minute to get this done and then I’ll be off to Harry Roper’s for the ice. Though if you ask me, we might as well get it free in weather like this by scraping it off the pavements.’

Mrs O’Leary chuckled wheezily and sank thankfully into the creaking old basket chair in which she now spent most of her working day. ‘You’re a good gal, Amy.’ She mopped her brow with a large checked handkerchief. ‘I dunno how I ever managed wi’out you and that’s God’s truth. As for ice, I dunno as we’re goin’ to need much wi’ that bleedin’ blizzard a-blowin’,’ she added ruefully.

Amy smiled. ‘Yes, it’s the sort of weather to keep customers at home,’ she agreed. ‘What’s more, the boats won’t be going out while it’s so bad, you can be sure of that. My dad and the boys will be mending nets, knocking up new fish crates, checking ropes and sails and doing anything else ashore that comes to mind, but they won’t venture out in a blizzard, not for all the fish in the sea.’

‘And the shrimps all lie low while the weather’s bad,’ Mrs O’Leary remarked. ‘But it’s a grand time selling potted shrimps, smoked and salt fish, so it is. And praise be to heaven, we don’t need ice for such as them. Still an’ all, we’re not out of fresh fish stocks yet nor likely to be, so when you’ve finished scrubbin’ down the floor, you’d best get off to Harry’s for the ice.’

Amy sluiced the last few inches of hot and now filthy water into the channel which ran along the front of the stalls and hurried the little river along faster with her broom. Then she turned back to her employer. ‘Right, I’ll do that. I say Mrs O, what a piece of luck I had this morning! I was getting
on the tram out at Seaforth when someone called my name. It was my best pal, Ruthie Durrant, who was in school with me. She’s been in service away from home but she’s back now and working in Dorothy’s Dining Rooms. What about that, eh? It’ll be grand to have a pal to chat with on the tram going home after work. I’m that pleased, even the weather doesn’t get me down.’

Mrs O’Leary surged to her feet and took broom and bucket from Amy, to stand them against the back of the stall. ‘I’m real glad, queen,’ she said sincerely, ‘there’s no one your age workin’ in the fish market, or no one ’cept young lads what’s too ignorant to pass the time of day, it bein’ mortal hard to get young ’uns to work here on account o’ the smell and the cold. Why, if you’ve gorra pal you might even rent a room in the neighbourhood here, so’s you could do wi’out the journey to and from.’

Oddly enough, this thought had not occurred to Amy, though she had been longing to leave home ever since her father had remarried. Suzie took advantage of her, she knew that and thought that if she were not around the older woman would have no alternative but to do her own work or be shown up before Bill and the boys. What was more, it would get her away from Paddy, whose dislike became more difficult to deal with every day. He had bitterly resented her friendship with his pal Tommy and at one point had actually accused her of deliberately stealing his bezzie away from him. ‘It’s norreven as though Tommy could possibly be interested in a scrawny little red-headed beast what smells o’ shrimps, like you,’ he had shouted at her when he had first spotted the two of them sitting on the grass in the Bowersdale Park one day the
previous summer. ‘You’re not even the same colour – it’s all wrong – you want to leave Tommy Chee alone!’