Twopence to Cross the Mersey Read online

  ‘One of yez come down in three hours’ time,’ commanded Mrs Hicks, poking up the fire with a large iron poker. ‘Ah reckon it’ll be done by then. You could wrap it in a blanket and it’ll keep a bit warm till tomorrer.’

  Joy gave strength to our weakened legs and we ran all the way up the stairs, to sink, half fainting, upon the floor when we got to the top.

  Nobody could bear to be put to bed, so we sat around in the dim light from the moon and the street, until the closing of the nearby public house told us it was ten o’clock. After that we took it in turns to count up to sixty, so as to make a rough estimate of thirty minutes more, at the end of which Alan and I bolted down to the basement.

  We knocked and entered the vast cavern which had been the kitchen when the house was built. Our bare feet pattered on the old brick tiles as we crossed to the fireplace in response to Mr Hicks’s invitation to come and get warm. He was just lifting the pudding saucepan from the hob. His wife took it from him and carried it across to the sandstone sink in the corner. With a skilful twist she got the pudding out without scalding herself, and set it on the bare wooden table, which I noticed with surprise was scrubbed almost pure white. She spread a newspaper on another corner and went to the oven to get the turkey.

  Immediately she unlatched the heavy door a heavenly aroma flooded the room, drowning out the usual odours of damp, pine disinfectant and unwashed winter clothes. Saliva ran from my mouth and I hastily brushed it away.

  ‘Ah think it’s cooked,’ she said, twisting one of the bird’s legs with expert fingers. ‘Are yer goin’ to carry it oop like it is?’

  We had few plates and none big enough to hold a turkey, so I said that we would carry it up in the meat-tin and bring the receptacle back in the morning, early enough for her to cook her own Christmas dinner in it. I did not tell her that I could not bear, in any case, to part with a single drop of the fat in the pan.

  She agreed to this cheerfully, wrapped up the baked potatoes in a newspaper, then told us to wait a moment, while she rummaged in the back of her dusty kitchen dresser.

  ‘Here yer are,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Here’s a bit o’ candle to light you up them stairs.’

  She lit the small candle stub she had found and presented it to Alan, gave me two crumpled sheets of newspaper so that I would not burn my hands while carrying the hot meat-tin, and sent us upstairs again.

  ‘Gosh, the pudding feels lovely and hot,’ exclaimed Alan, as he staggered up with the paper parcels of pudding and potatoes.

  The family, except for Mother, was gathered to greet us on the top landing, and a great oooh sounded at the sight of the turkey, as we mounted the last flight

  ‘I’ll wrap it in the newspaper I carried it with,’ I said firmly. ‘Perhaps it will keep it a little warm till tomorrow.’

  I could see Father’s Adam’s apple bob in the candlelight, as he swallowed; and hope died on the children’s faces.

  Avril kicked my shin to draw my attention to her.

  ‘I want to eat mine now,’ she said determinedly.

  Tony’s eyes looked enormous in his death’s head face.

  Again the saliva gathered in my mouth, but I said, ‘It’s not Christmas until tomorrow.’

  ‘To hell with Christmas,’ said Alan bitterly.

  An hour later, there was only a white skeleton left, scraped clean by small clawing hands and teeth. Even Mother came alive, after devouring nearly a whole leg with the gulping enthusiasm of an ex-prisoner of war. We ate the baked potatoes, skin and all, we ate the sweets and pudding, every scrap.

  We slept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Malnutrition, when much prolonged, causes a terrible apathy, an inability to concentrate or think constructively, and that winter was so grim that my mind was closed to the intense suffering of my parents. A child’s world is a small one and given a reasonable round of home and school, his life is fairly full. Our little ones suffered unbelievably, however, as they dragged themselves to and from school through snow and rain. Even brave Alan cried when the great chilblains on his heels burst and went septic, and it seemed as if the clothes of all of them were permanently wet; good fires are a necessity in a climate as rainy as Lancashire’s. In my parents’ case, however, they suffered not only all that we did but also from social deprivation; they starved mentally as well as physically.

  To me, the suffering of Fiona and baby Edward was the more scarifying, because it was silent. Fiona never complained as the others did; she sat quiet and terrified in a kind of mental burrow like a fox that has been savaged by hounds and must be quiet lest they find him again; only when she was playing with Brian and Tony did a happier little girl emerge. And I loved her so much that it filled me with grief to be unable to comfort her – she was past comforting. Edward, who could now crawl rapidly and occasionally stood up, was making valiant efforts to speak. He seemed to have a natural serenity, but when he cried (which he rarely did), it was with terrible deep sobs that came slowly, not at all like Avril’s ferocious bellows when she was thwarted in any way.

  Until hunger made him fall into lethargy, my father tried to pick the brains of other men who stood with him in the endless queues. He tried to find out how they stayed alive and how they hoped to get a job. But, finally, it took all his strength to get to the labour exchange or to the offices of the public assistance committee and stand, without fainting, until he received a curt ‘nothing today’ from the former and forty-three shillings each Thursday from the latter.

  We always had colds. Old copies of the Liverpool Echo were collected from anywhere we could find them and torn up for use as handkerchiefs. The paper was then used to make a fire in the tiny bedroom fireplace in our living-room.

  The acid which I had spilled on my leg from the battery of the radio caused a burn which went septic, and the sore showed signs of spreading. Old Miss Sinford noticed the mark on my leg as I went upstairs one day and commanded that I come into her room to have it examined. She sat me down on a wooden chair placed on a piece of newspaper and, having put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, she took a good look at it.

  ‘I’ll poultice it for you,’ she decided. ‘You should have kept it cleaner.’

  The fact that I was seated in the middle of a newspaper indicated that she knew how dirty our family was, so I just smiled weakly.

  She found a clean piece of white cloth, put it in an old sugar basin and poured over it boiling water from the kettle on the hob. She then wrung it out and slapped it on to the sore, scalding the surrounding flesh until I clutched Edward too hard and he cried out. She hurled texts about Good Samaritans at me, as she worked with trembly ancient fingers, and then ordered me down to her room the next morning for a repeat performance.

  Her room was spotless, filled with crochet work which she had done herself. In the window on a wickerwork table stood a large aspidistra in a plum-coloured china pot, and I gathered that an aspidistra was a lot of work, as she felt the need to dust it daily. She cooked at the fireplace, which was larger than ours, her room having been the dining-room of the original home.

  It was from her that I learned that the house opposite, which was visited by so many seamen, was a House of Sin and that the women who lived in it were harlots. ‘Harlot’ was a word which occurred in the Bible, so I ventured to ask her what it meant.

  She blinked at me through her spectacles, as if realizing for the first time how young and innocent I was. Then she pointed a bony finger at me and said sharply, ‘Girls should not ask such questions.’ Her voice became shrill. ‘It is not a word I should have used. It is a word you must not use. Out! I must pray!’

  She seized me by the shoulder, turned me about and pushed me into the hall.

  Bewildered, I took myself back upstairs and left my leg to heal by itself, which it eventually did.

  Next time I went to the library, I looked up the offending word. It really sounded very wicked indeed, and I was most impressed.

  Fiona came home f
rom school one day, in tears. She said she had a pain in her back and chest. I felt her forehead. It was burning with heat. Helplessly, I looked at her and we were both terribly afraid.

  When Father came home from the library, I told him about Fiona. I had laid her on the bed and, to keep her warm, had covered her with what few odds and ends of blanket and garments I could find.

  We went to look at her and found that she had tossed aside her wrappings and was muttering feverishly, her mouselike hands clenching and unclenching.

  Father clamped his mouth tight. His breath came in small gasps and perspiration glistened on his forehead.

  Alan came softly up to us.

  ‘Don’t you think we had better send for the doctor, Daddy?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t any money to pay him,’ was the despairing response.

  ‘We could tell him that.’ Alan’s lips trembled. Like all of us, he loved Fiona. ‘He might come anyway.’

  I said, ‘We have nothing to lose by asking. Is Fiona very ill, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I can see that she is very ill indeed – I am not sure what it is, though.’

  I leaned over Fiona and whispered that we would get a doctor for her and she would soon be better.

  ‘I’ll go and ask,’ said Alan in his bravest voice, sticking his chest out and trying to look strong.

  ‘Yes, do so. I think Helen and I had better stay here. I haven’t any paper on which to write a letter. You will have to explain to him yourself. Tell him about the pain and the temperature.’

  Tony, Brian and Avril tiptoed into the room and went silently out again.

  Alan plunged out into the February wind once more. Terrified of facing whoever would answer the doctor’s door but even more terrified about Fiona’s illness, he seized the doctor’s brass knocker and banged it.

  The door was answered by a neatly dressed older woman.

  ‘The doctor’s out,’ she said before Alan could open his mouth.

  ‘It’s my sister,’ said Alan. ‘She’s awfully ill and we haven’t any money to pay the doctor. But, please, will he come?’

  The boy’s evident fear made the woman soften her tone.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘step in, lad. I am not sure that the doctor can come. He’s very busy.’

  Alan, shivering, stepped into the linoleumed hall. Under the faint light of a very low wattage electric light bulb, the lady surveyed him.

  She sighed at what she saw, and took down a notebook from beside a telephone on the hall wall. ‘Tell me your name and address and I’ll ask him. Now then.’

  Alan told her, and explained the symptoms of the illness as best he could.

  ‘Now mind,’ said his questioner as she shut the notebook. ‘I don’t know whether the doctor can come. I’ll have to ask him. If he does come, it will be after surgery, about half past nine.’

  The hours dragged by. We took it in turns to sit by Fiona. She would not take the tea we offered her. I wetted our only towel which was, as usual, very dirty, and wiped her face and hands with cold water. This seemed to console her a little. Occasionally, she was racked by coughing.

  Mother came home and stared dumbly at her second daughter. It was as if she could not let any more troubles in upon herself; she seemed numbed, unable to accept any more. Her unkempt hair had escaped from her hat and hung in straggling oily tails down to her shoulders. Her hands were swollen with chilblains, in spite of Mrs Hicks’s gloves, and she stood awkwardly, because the heels of her shoes were worn down so badly that she walked almost as if she was bandy-legged.

  ‘We must keep her covered,’ she said at last

  It was difficult to see in the reflected light from the street lamp, and Father said worriedly, ‘I don’t know how the doctor is going to be able to see to examine her – if he comes.’

  ‘Couldn’t we borrow a shilling to put in the electric meter?’ I asked.

  ‘Brian went down and tried the couple below; they didn’t have one. I can’t ask Mrs Foster – we still owe her a week’s rent – and I can’t ask Mrs Hicks because I haven’t yet paid her back the last shilling I borrowed.’

  This was the first intimation I had had of his borrowing from the other tenants; it accounted for a general coldness towards us recently.

  Without a watch it was difficult to tell the time, but both house and street were quiet when the front door bell rang. Hopefully, Brian pounded down the stairs to open the door.

  A firm voice said, ‘We can’t afford to fall down this black pit – I’ll put my flashlight on.’

  Brian laughed shrilly and called, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Helen! The doctor has come!’

  The bedroom door opened and the light of a torch blinded me momentarily. The doctor must have had long experience of the straits of poverty to carry such a powerful torch.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ said Father, his voice filled with relief.

  I stood up respectfully as the doctor put down his bag.

  ‘Now, what have we here?’ he asked as he got out his stethoscope, and then took Fiona’s wrist in long, capable fingers.

  Father explained the symptoms and I nearly stopped breathing as the doctor listened to his patient’s labouring lungs and frequent coughing.

  ‘Pleurisy, I think,’ he said. ‘She must have hospital treatment immediately. I will go and telephone the Children’s Sanatorium, and arrange for an ambulance.’

  Father whispered, ‘It isn’t tuberculosis, is it?’ In those days, tuberculosis was still a major killer.

  ‘I doubt it. The hospital will take X-rays.’ He stood looking down at Fiona’s face by the light of the torch. ‘Does she have a mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ Father replied. ‘You kindly took some stitches out for her after an abdominal operation some time ago.’

  ‘Oh, did I,’ he said absently, and then rather more alertly, ‘Yes, I remember. How is she?’

  Father looked uneasily at me, and then plunged in. ‘Her physical health has improved – as far as it can in our circumstances.’ He paused, and then added, ‘She isn’t herself, though.’

  The doctor nodded understandingly. He did not offer any more help. He would deal with our emergency; he could not do more. He had to treat first those patients who could pay. In the torchlight I could see the frayed cuffs of his overcoat and I guessed that he had very little himself.

  The doctor asked to see Mother, who had been up in the attic room dealing with Tony. Tony had had a nightmare and had woken up screaming.

  When she came, he instructed her to get Fiona ready for hospital.

  Mother said in a flat tone of voice, ‘There is nothing to do. She must go as she is. She has no other garments than those she has on – and I cannot wash her in cold water in her present state.’

  So Fiona went to a huge hospital on the farther outskirts of the city, without benefit of bath, tooth-brush or nightgown, and my poor, crushed mother suffered the indignity of seeing her almost unconscious child stripped of her clothes and plunged into a disinfecting bath, her head rolling on her neck as the probationers washed her crawling hair. The tattered clothes were rolled into a bundle and handed to Mother, with the curt information that she could wait.

  Mother was used to waiting – she spent her days in office and shop waiting-rooms as she applied for job after job with hordes of other applicants. Finally, about three in the morning a night nurse remembered that she was still there and told her she could go.

  ‘I want to know what is the matter with the child and I want to see her, now she is in bed.’

  ‘You will have to come on visiting days. Your doctor will be informed regarding her illness, and he will tell you.’

  My mother lifted her hand to slap this inhuman automaton, but she was afraid of what might happen to Fiona if she made a fuss of any kind, so she turned slowly into the long, brown corridor to the front door.

  She had come to the hospital with Fiona in the ambulance. Nobody had considered how she was to get home again. Outside was the dar
k and bitter cold of a February night.

  She paused on the step, shaken by the knowledge that the only way to get home was to walk the seven miles to our part of the city. She was not even sure of the route.

  The city was completely quiet and, emboldened by this, she set out, following the tram lines which glimmered in the gaslight. The freezing wind cut into her and, after a couple of miles, she was so cold that she was staggering in a ragged line along the pavement.

  A dim light at a corner attracted her attention. It was a telephone box, and she quickened her step and sought refuge inside it.

  Paralysed with cold, she stood there looking dully at the receiver on its hook, the telephone book hanging below it, and at two buttons marked ‘A’ and ‘B’. Idly, she read the instructions for making a call.

  ‘Insert two pennies. When the telephone is answered press Button A If no reply, press button B for the return of the twopence.’

  Return of the twopence!

  She hopefully pressed Button B.

  Nothing happened, so, after a few minutes, she started again on her long hike homewards. An early tram rumbled past her, its lights flashing as it pitched and tossed its way along the lines.

  When she reached the next public telephone box, she entered it and, without much hope, pressed Button B, and was immediately rewarded by the happy rattle of two falling pennies. She snatched them up and took the next tram home.

  Father and I had waited up for her and were frantic with anxiety. Our anxiety turned to fury when we heard of the discourteous treatment she had received, and we did our best to comfort her before managing to get her to go to bed.