Twopence to Cross the Mersey Page 8

  Mother had given me three shillings, which I handed to the pawnbroker with his receipt for the coat. He gave it to his gangling young assistant, who disappeared up a ladder into the loft. A bundle wrapped in a piece of cloth was tossed down and neatly caught by the pawnbroker.

  ‘There you are. When you bring it back, wrap it in the cloth again,’ he said kindly. ‘Everything has to be wrapped up in a bundle.’ He pushed the tightly wrapped package over the counter to me. ‘You should undo it and check it.’

  I did this and my hopelessly crushed coat was revealed.

  ‘Would threepence buy an iron?’ I asked, emboldened by his amiable manner.

  His black eyebrows shot up and his sharp brown eyes looked at me shrewdly, when he heard me speak. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘Not from me,’ he replied. ‘You might get one from the junk-yard at the back.’

  He turned, and shouted up the shute to the store-room above, ‘George! Mind shop! I’m going out back a minute.’

  George came tumbling down the ladder, and I lifted Avril off the counter, where she had been contentedly kicking her heels and watching the proceedings.

  We went out through the back door, and through the pawnbroker’s yard. The yard was paved with brick, and neat flower-beds filled with daffodils lined the high walls. A hut next to the back gate presumably held a lavatory. He opened the gate and we crossed the narrow alley separating the two lines of business properties, and went into a yard piled high with rusting iron – all the domestic debris of the neighbourhood, from old bedsteads to hip baths.

  ‘Hey, Joe! Where are ye? Got any old flat irons?’

  An aged, hunch-backed gnome emerged from under a lean-to. He peered at us from under a greasy, black cap, with the bright perky look of a blackbird. I had often heard him calling through the streets as he pushed his hand-cart along, ‘Any rags, bottles or bones? Any old rags today?’ His cry would bring the children rushing to him, armed with jamjars or rags to trade for a windmill or some other small toy.

  ‘Humph,’ he grunted. ‘Ah might ’ave.’

  He rooted through a collection of old kitchen pails, washboards and dollies lying under an ancient wooden mangle, and finally came up with a small, rusty iron, which he agreed to part with for threepence.

  Back in the pawnbroker’s shop, I was made to wait while George was instructed to find a piece of sandpaper and rub the iron clean for me.

  Gold teeth flashing amid tobacco-stained white ones, the pawnbroker finally presented me with quite a respectable-looking iron.

  ‘There ye are, luv,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you very, very much,’ I said, and swept out, iron in hand, my coat with its attendant bit of cloth over my arm, and a protesting Avril held firmly by the other hand.

  ‘I want to stay here,’ she yelled. ‘I like it here.’

  I had not forgotten the awful scarecrow I had seen in the Bold Street shop window, however, and I took Edward and her straight home, because I was determined to make a fire with some of the coal the regimental grant had enabled us to buy, heat water and wash myself.

  This I did, though I had no soap. I hoped Mother would buy plenty of washing soap, so that I could wash my clothes too. I knew that our family looked far more neglected than many children did.

  I had pressed my coat reasonably well by the time Mother came home. She was laden with socks, vests, a real towel, a wash bowl, some cups, saucers and plates, knives and forks, a saucepan, some Aspirin, some cigarettes, and, best of all, some toilet soap and soap powder.

  It was Friday, and, when the children came home, I stripped their clothes off them, put on their overcoats, which they considered a great joke, and washed everything. Soon the room was festooned with steaming garments.

  Then I washed the children thoroughly, one by one. They were all emaciated, bug-bitten and shaky on their feet in spite of their two fish-and-chip dinners. Only years later, when I saw pictures of the prisoners released from Belsen, did I fully realize how close we were to dying of starvation, and also what an ordeal it must have been for those children at school to drag themselves there and back and try to pay attention while their bodies gradually wasted.

  Nobody in the school seemed to notice the children’s suffering. The school nurse found that their hair was verminous, and sent a note to say that we should buy a certain kind of ointment and rub it into their scalps. We had no money for ointment, however, so nothing was done.

  No priest of any denomination ever came to see us, though the school was a Church school and a Church of England minister came once or twice to visit Miss Sinford. We knew that we were too dirty and shabby to be welcome in a church, and, except for any religious instruction the children might have received in school, God, like Santa Claus, went out of our lives.

  For some time, our only entertainment was to walk the streets and look in shop windows, but gradually the younger ones found ways of amusing themselves. Better weather brought little urchins out to play cricket, with a piece of wood for a bat and a couple of beer bottles for wickets, and my brothers were tolerated in these games. Fiona and Avril learned from Fiona’s school friends how to skip and play hopscotch on the pavement in front of the house. They all quickly learned to scream and swear with an unlovely Liverpool accent, though they did not do so in their own home.

  I read all the books in the small bookcase in our room. I often read while washing the dishes or feeding the baby and it was then that I discovered that a book laid on the cover of the Chariot could be read while pushing it along the street. I waded through a curious collection of reading matter, including Hadji Baba of Isphahan, Ideal Marriage, most of Walter Scott’s works, a hand-book for midwives and several copies of Moore’s Almanac.

  With the last few pennies from the grant from the regiment, Father enrolled himself and Mother in the local branch of the public library, and immediately life seemed filled with untold riches, because I, too, could obtain books on their tickets. The modest little building had a certain elegance – and it was warm. I could not sit in it for hours, as Father did, because I had Edward and Avril always with me and they could not keep quiet for long, but I eagerly snatched books from the shelves and read avidly and haphazardly.

  In her shopping list, Mother had included a packet of needles and darning wool and black and white cotton. I now spent most of my evenings darning socks, since nylon socks were not yet on the market, and doing other mending, until the cotton and wool ran out.

  The good effect of the regimental grant remained with us, in some degree, for several weeks, though we were still verminous, still had no change of clothing, and were desperate over the need for shoe repairs and, indeed, for new shoes, particularly in the spring rain. We searched the second-hand shops for old running-shoes, anything to cover our feet. Even a few pence spent on such things, however, meant that we could not, at times, have even enough starches to eat. Mother and I found it ever more difficult to drag ourselves up and down the endless stairs; and Father looked like a scarecrow.

  Would it ever end, I wondered; and then was seized with childish terror that it might end in death.

  Then, in April Mother got a job. She had tried recently for domestic work, but well-to-do housewives did not want a refined woman to scrub their floors; it made them feel uncomfortable. She had also tried all the city shops. But many of them employed, as far as possible, girls under sixteen years of age, and dismissed them on their sixteenth birthday, because at that age they had to pay to the government heavier National Health and unemployment insurance contributions for them. The number of women seeking work was so great that some stores demanded and got girls of matriculation standard to run their lifts and clean their lavatories. Almost all of those who survived their sixteenth birthday in employment, lost their jobs when they were eighteen because at that age, again, the employers’ contributions to their insurance went up. Perhaps it was as well that my parents did not know that in Liverpool unemployment was rapidly reaching a peak of 31.
5 per cent, one of the highest in the country; they were close enough to suicide as it was.

  Mother’s employer was a slippery eel of a man who lived near-by. In his kitchen, he mixed that old-fashioned spring remedy, brimstone and treacle, filled ice-cream cartons with it, and sold it door-to-door for threepence and sixpence a pot, according to size. He had done so well that he decided to employ Mother on a commission basis. She would receive a halfpenny on a small pot and a penny on any larger pot she sold.

  Unaware of the need for a pedlar’s licence, Mother set out hopefully to knock on the front doors of the better class districts, her supply of brimstone and treacle carried in a paper bag.

  Since she had a very dignified presence, not many doors were slammed in her face, and at the end of a six-day week she found she had made seven shillings and sixpence and her tram fares. The weather had mercifully been fine and the steady walking had strengthened her muscles. Moreover, a number of kindly housewives had helped her along with cups of tea and biscuits.

  It was agreed that her wages must be spent on new shoes for her, so that she could continue to work. I tucked my bare feet under the rickety table. Mother looked really animated for the first time since we had arrived in Liverpool, and took a penny tram-ride to town at our urging, to buy the precious shoes.

  Mother’s modest success at her first job dimmed considerably any hope I had of ever being able to go to school again; it was as if a jailer had clanged shut yet another prison door between me and freedom. I realized abruptly how deeply I had hoped she would prove a failure at work, so that she would be forced to stay at home and take over from me her normal duties as a mother. I felt wretched and could comfort myself only with the thought that when Father got work I might stand a chance of going to school, since possibly Mother would then feel there was no necessity for her to work.

  After she had left for town, I bumped the Chariot slowly down the stairs. Edward who, by now, was trying to sit up, hit his head when I went over a stair more clumsily than usual and started to cry. Avril, who was hungry and tired, joined in.

  At the bottom of the stairs, an infuriated Mr Ferris awaited me. His droopy yellow moustache was fluffed out as he blew through it with rage and his eyes bulged like a Pekinese dog’s.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, making such a noise?’ he shouted.

  I stared blankly at him, not knowing how to reply.

  ‘I can’t practise with such a racket. I won’t stand for it! You’ll have to go. Mrs Foster will have to put you out!’

  Miss Sinford came through her door, like the old lady on a weather vane.

  ‘Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord in vain,’ she said primly to Mr Ferris. ‘I am preparing to go to Communion. Kindly be quiet.’

  ‘I have not taken Him in vain,’ roared Mr Ferris, his false teeth threatening to come out, as he nearly spat at her.

  Miss Sinford shook a blue-veined fist at him.

  ‘Go back to your piano, sir,’ she squeaked. ‘And pray for forgiveness for your bad temper.’

  I stood between them as they ranted at each other, so filled with fear that I could not move.

  He had said: ‘You’ll have to go! Mrs Foster will have to put you out!’

  ‘Oh no, O Lord,’ I prayed. ‘Nobody else will ever take us in. We’ll have to go to the workhouse. Don’t, please don’t, let Mrs Foster turn us out.’

  Miss Sinford had dived past the Chariot and struck Mr Ferris a sharp blow on the nose, and, like a terrified rabbit, I was suddenly galvanized into trying to escape.

  Hastily, I manoeuvred the Chariot past the contestants, through the front door and down the worn steps to the street. Fear beat at me, and I ran as fast as the Chariot and its two wailing passengers would allow me to.

  I ran blindly through the grey streets and did not stop until my stick-like legs began to fail me and I found myself on Princes Avenue.

  The workhouse or Institution, as it had recently been renamed, loomed like a scarifying black shadow over all the destitute of England; even I knew that. And I was ready to die of fear.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Very slowly, I trundled the Chariot down the Avenue. The trees which lined it were in leaf, and each leaf of the privet hedges in the small town gardens in front of the houses looked as if it had been specially polished. On the stone-flagged pavement the puddles from recent rain were drying up under a mild sun. It was mid-afternoon and very quiet. My teeth gradually stopped chattering, and Avril ceased her lament and demanded to be lifted out so that she could walk.

  When I picked her up out of the pram she felt remarkably light, even in my wasted arms, and my teeth again began to chatter like castanets, as I looked down at her. She began to toddle along contentedly, however, singing in a rasping little voice ‘Little Bo Peep’ which we had been practising together.

  The warmth of the sun and the peace had its effect. Perhaps, I argued to myself, ‘Mr Parish’ or even Daddy’s regiment would protect us from the ire of Mr Ferris. I stopped in the middle of the pavement and smiled to myself, as I visualized Father’s regiment marching down the street, their putteed legs moving in purposeful unison, to rescue us from Mr Ferris.

  ‘Frog’s eyes! Frog’s eyes!’ shouted a rough voice in my ear, and a couple of big boys made playful snatches at my spectacles.

  Avril screamed. I instinctively clutched at the precious spectacles. They laughed, and quickly kicked my shins with their heavy boots. Screaming wildly, they ran on down the Avenue, leaving me quivering with pain and mortification.

  ‘Beasts!’ shouted Avril after them, with considerable spirit.

  Crying quietly with pain, I walked on into Princes Park and into the rose garden which, though as yet bare of roses, was a pretty place, with a little lake much favoured by ducks and other small water birds.

  My legs felt like jelly and I thought I was going to faint, so I sat down on the first bench we could find. At the other end of the seat was an old gentleman. He was shabbily, though respectably, dressed, with a stiff winged collar encircling a thin, turtle-like neck. A heavily moustached, sallow face was framed by a trilby hat set a little to the back of his head. His expression was benign and he had an air of quiet dignity. He was persuing a small, leather-bound book.

  Avril came to sit on my knee, and I began to teach her the names of the various kinds of ducks swimming on the lake. The faintness receded and I forgot my bruised shins.

  Our peace was soon broken.

  ‘Hey, you there with the pram! Get out o’ here! No children allowed in tins here garden without an adult.’ A uniformed park attendant was waving a stick at us from the rose-garden gate.

  Because I did not immediately respond – I was still unaccustomed to my reduction to the ranks of the under-privileged – he started down the path towards us, his stick raised menacingly.

  Without warning, a quiet commanding voice beside me said, ‘The children are with me. I am responsible for them.’

  The old gentleman had closed his book, and was staring coldly at the attendant.

  The parkkeeper lowered his stick and looked disbelievingly at the old gentleman, who gazed back calmly at him, until finally the parkkeeper, his lips curled in a sneer, grunted, ‘Humph!’ and turned away, to continue his promenade through the park.

  In a quiet voice, with an accent that might have been French, the old gentleman asked me, ‘And where did you learn to speak English like that, child?’

  I blushed guiltily. He must have been listening to Avril and me.

  What was wrong with my English? And how does one learn one’s own language? I asked myself. I was nonplussed.

  Sharp brown eyes, with yellowed whites, appraised my bare feet, greasy gym slip, worn without a blouse, which I had had to lend to Fiona, and knitted cardigan with holes through which my elbows stuck.

  Ashamed, I bowed my head so that my face was shielded by a mass of untended hair.

  ‘I … er … I learned it at home,’ I muttered.

 
‘You speak it beautifully,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘I have not heard better speech during my many years in Liverpool.’ The intonation was definitely foreign.

  The bent head shot up. This was the first compliment anyone had ever paid me.

  ‘Do you really think so?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘I do.’

  I said impulsively, ‘Mummy and Nanny thought it was important to speak well. Neither of them seemed to think that I spoke very well.’

  ‘Nanny?’

  I nodded confusedly.

  ‘We don’t have a nurse now.’

  A watery sniff muffled the much admired accent.

  He said dryly, ‘I imagine not.’

  Avril clambered down off my knee and went on one of her small perambulations. Edward slept. My acquaintance opened his book, as if to continue his reading. Instead, he sat tapping the page with a swollen, chilblained finger.

  My eyes were carried to the page by the pointing finger, and I was astonished to see that the print in the book consisted of curly dashes with occasional dots.

  He noticed my interest, and smiled at me.

  ‘It is Arabic,’ he said.

  I was impressed.

  ‘Can you speak it, sir?’

  ‘Of course. My mother was an Arab.’

  That accounted for the darker skin, I thought, and I wondered if I dare ask him what brought him to England. How romantic to have a real Arab for a mother! I wondered if she wore a yashmak and transparent trousers, like the princesses in my fairy-tale books.

  His eyes were twinkling. Perhaps he was lonely, too, for he said suddenly, ‘I speak seven languages and can read four more.’

  ‘How wonderful!’ I exclaimed in genuine admiration, remembering my own struggles with the French language.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘How is it that – that—’ and he waved his hand in a comprehensive gesture, which took in the Chariot with its half-starved baby and Avril’s and my deplorable condition.

  Hesitating and seeking for words at first, I explained as best I could about bankruptcy and unemployment. Gradually I gained courage and confided in him my despair at not being able to continue at school and my fear of what would become of us.