Winnie of the Waterfront

by Rosie Harris

  Who was this Bob Flowers? How well did they know each other? Even more important, how close were they? Winnie had obviously met up with him since they’d left the orphanage. He seemed to be a couple of years older than her. About the same age as Sandy himself was, he’d judge. So why hadn’t Winnie mentioned him? Was she carrying a torch for him, her head full of romantic notions because he was a sailor? What sort of life was that, away from home six months of the year!

  Was Bob Flowers the reason she hadn’t given him a direct answer earlier that evening when he’d asked her if she would marry him?

  Then he remembered the way she’d returned his kiss. There had been more than warmth in her kiss; there had been passion, he was sure of that.

  Was she simply teasing him, stringing him along because he was useful to her and they worked together, and he was always ready to push her wheelchair?

  He kicked angrily at the stones and tins and bottles that littered the road as he turned into his own street. Bob Flowers had looked good in his smart uniform. Far more appealing than he himself did. Sandy turned up the collar of his check jacket and thrust his hands deep into his grey flannels despondently. He knew a lot of girls went for a uniform, but he would never have thought that Winnie was shallow enough to have her head turned by something like that.

  He couldn’t sleep for thinking about Winnie and trying to decide what action to take. He couldn’t stand the suspense; he wanted to know where he stood with her. He’d make her tell him the truth; first thing the next morning he’d have it out with her, make her put her cards on the table and tell him whether she wanted him or Bob Flowers. Even if it hurt.

  Winnie couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t sure whether it was the rich food she’d eaten, the excitement of the night out, seeing Bob Flowers again, or Sandy’s proposal.

  Everything was all so jumbled up in her head that she kept going over the details time and time again, trying to sort them out.

  It was strange, she thought, how life could be as flat as a pancake one minute, the same old routine week in, week out for months, and then suddenly it was full of excitement, like being on a roller-coaster.

  Going over to New Brighton and being taken for a meal at a posh restaurant had sent her into a spin. And then Sandy had said all the things he had about them getting married, and then kissed her. That was no brotherly kiss, nor was it the normal kiss between friends. That had been a very special kiss, full of warmth and feeling. It was the sort of kiss she would expect if she had taken up his offer and agreed to marry him sometime in the future.

  There was no one she’d rather spend the rest of her life with than Sandy. She loved him so much that it hurt, an aching pain deep inside her, and it broke her heart that she was afraid to accept his proposal.

  Meeting up with Bob Flowers again after all this time had been very strange. He’d looked very smart in his uniform. He seemed to have put on a good few inches since she’d last seen him, and he acted so much older.

  Sandy hadn’t appeared to like him very much, but then she supposed that was perfectly natural after what they’d been discussing.

  Winnie resolved to tell Sandy all about her friendship with Bob Flowers the very first thing next day. If only the three of them could have found somewhere to have a cup of coffee and sat down and chatted for a few minutes. If Sandy and Bob could have got to know each other better she was sure they would have ended up good friends.

  She drifted off to sleep, wondering how many other people had felt so frustrated because they couldn’t find somewhere on the dockside to sit and have a coffee and talk.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  SANDY LOOKED APPREHENSIVE when Winnie told him she wanted a word with him as soon as he could find the time to come along to the market canteen kitchen.

  It was mid-morning before he managed to do so. Three hours during which he went over in his mind every possible scenario as to why she was so anxious to talk to him.

  She’d been smiling, looked happy, almost excited. Surely she wouldn’t look like that if she was going to tell him that she’d thought over what he had asked her last night and was turning him down?

  Perhaps she would if she was rejecting him in favour of Bob Flowers, he thought gloomily. Then he remembered that the two of them hadn’t really had any opportunity to talk to each other, certainly not to make any plans for the future.

  His mind wasn’t on his work and a couple of times Reg Willard ticked him off for not carrying out his instructions properly. Reg even told him that he’d had complaints about him from a couple of the other stallholders.

  ‘What’s the matter? Not like you to bring a hangover to work, but from the mistakes you’re making I’m beginning to think you must have done.’

  ‘Sorry, something on my mind,’ Sandy mumbled. ‘I’ll be all right once I’ve had my mid-morning break.’

  ‘Need a smile from that young Winnie, do you?’ Reg smirked. ‘Then you’d better clear off and see if she’ll give you one along with a cuppa, so that you can sort yourself out and be of some use.’

  Sandy took his advice, but as he neared the canteen his nerve almost failed. He was about to walk away, postpone his meeting with Winnie, when one of the stallholders came up alongside him.

  ‘What’s wrong with you today then, Sandy. Never known you to make so many cock-ups!’

  ‘Nothing! Thinking about something else, that’s all.’

  ‘Must be a woman then for you to be so scatterbrained,’ the man chortled.

  Sandy grinned self-consciously, but didn’t try to explain.

  The moment Winnie spotted him she whispered something in Peg’s ear, then filled two mugs from the tea urn and put them on the counter in front of Sandy.

  ‘Can you take them over there,’ she asked, indicating the far corner of the room.

  She wheeled herself across to join him, pausing once or twice to speak to people sitting at the tables she passed.

  Sandy waited impatiently. He wanted to hear why she needed to talk to him so urgently, but he was nervous in case it was bad news.

  ‘I’ve been bursting to talk to you all morning,’ she said excitedly as she sat down next to him.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Us! The future.’

  Sandy’s heart thudded. Had his premonition been right? He took a gulp of his tea. It was so hot that he almost spluttered with pain as the scalding liquid flooded his mouth.

  ‘Remember when we met Bob Flowers on the dockside last night?’

  Sandy nodded. He couldn’t speak, the lump in his throat was too big for that. Here it was coming. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what Winnie was going to say next.

  ‘Well,’ she looked deeply into his eyes, ‘I’ve been thinking about the fact that we couldn’t find anywhere to get a hot drink, or even a cold one come to that.’

  Sandy looked at her, mystified. She wasn’t making sense. This wasn’t about Bob Flowers, as he’d expected. So what was she trying to say?

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, there must be a lot of other people travelling on the ferries, or coming ashore from the boats from the Isle of Man and Ireland, who fancy having a drink and can’t get one. What do you think of the idea of a waterfront café?’

  Sandy stared at her in disbelief. ‘Is this what you wanted to talk to me about so urgently?’ he asked, bewildered.

  Winnie nodded. ‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea?’

  He nodded slowly. It was so unlike what he had been expecting her to say that he was having a job to even comprehend what she was telling him.

  ‘I thought it might be better than a stall in the market,’ Winnie rushed on. ‘We could run it together. If I can manage to serve teas and lunches here then I’d be able to do the same on the dockside if we teamed up. You’d have to do all the heavy stuff and move things around, of course, like Peg does here. If it was a real success then perhaps Peg could come and work with us. It has all sorts of possibilities,’ she gabbled on.<
br />
  Sandy shook his head in confusion, struggling to take in what she was talking about.

  ‘Think of all the people who use the ferries,’ Winnie went on enthusiastically. ‘We’d get plenty of customers who want a quick cup of tea or a milkshake while they are waiting for a boat. And then there’ll be the people coming back from New Brighton late at night like we did. They might fancy a drink if they have to wait for a tram, or before going to catch a train from Lime Street or Exchange Station.’

  ‘Hold it, hold it,’ Sandy begged. ‘It’s a brilliant idea, but give me time to think it through. We’d need to look into it, find out if we could get a licence, that’s if the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board would let us do it. We’d have to price out what sort of equipment we would have to buy. We’d need help as well. If it is going to work then it needs to be open from first thing in the morning until really late at night so you would need people working at least two shifts. Even if we persuaded Peg to join us we’d still need at least one other person, so we’d have wages to pay.’

  ‘You do think it’s a good idea though?’

  ‘Oh it’s that all right! It has great possibilities. We must keep it to ourselves, mind. If someone else gets wind of it they might pinch the idea.’

  ‘Could we tell Peg?’

  Sandy frowned. ‘Have you said anything to her about it?’

  Winnie shook her head.

  ‘Then don’t, not for the moment. Give me time to work out exactly what is involved. She’ll be the very first person we confide in, I promise you that.’

  ‘Right,’ Winnie agreed, ‘I’ll tell her when you’ve worked everything out.’

  ‘You can help me to do that,’ he grinned. ‘I’m not going to do all the work! This is a partnership, remember.’

  From then on they spent every spare minute they could going round their own market and then visiting chandlers and other large wholesalers in Liverpool, pricing up the equipment they thought they would need to get started.

  It was both bewildering and frightening. They compared the difference in price between buying a dozen or so of an item and buying a gross, and either way the outlay seemed to be prohibitive.

  ‘If we spend all our money on equipment and stock we won’t be able to afford the rent when we do find a place,’ Sandy pointed out.

  ‘You mean we should find a place that is suitable first and then budget for all the things we need to run the business?’

  ‘Or perhaps we should just get married and forget about the whole thing!’ Sandy suggested.

  ‘Maybe we are trying to do too much all at the same time,’ Winnie sighed. ‘Perhaps we should talk it over with Peg and see what she has to say.’

  Peg didn’t show any surprise when they told her that they wanted to get married. ‘Anyone can see that the pair of you are head over heels in love and made for each other,’ she told them.

  ‘Well, do you think we should get married first and think about starting our own business afterwards?’

  Peg looked at them quizzically. ‘You can’t get married until Winnie is seventeen, now can you, and that’s not yet awhile. Anyway, where are you going to live?’

  They looked at each other blankly.

  ‘We haven’t got as far as even thinking about that,’ Sandy told her.

  ‘Well, perhaps you should. Neither of you are earning all that much so one room is probably all you’re going to be able to afford.’

  The conversation with Peg kept coming into Winnie’s mind every time she went over the figures they’d compiled.

  In the end, as her seventeenth birthday came ever nearer, she asked Sandy outright, ‘How would you feel about us moving in with Peg after we get married?’

  ‘Do you think she would let us?’

  ‘Well, you spend most of your time in her house as it is,’ she grinned. ‘You only go home to sleep!’

  ‘I know, but it would be different somehow to be actually living there.’

  Once the idea had been aired they returned to it time and time again.

  ‘Are we going to mention it to her or not?’ Winnie asked a week before her birthday.

  ‘You mean you want me to do it?’ Sandy asked uneasily.

  ‘Perhaps we should do it together!’

  Sandy thought about this for as minute and then shook his head. ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘it would be better if I did it, then if she turned the idea down at least you wouldn’t have to find somewhere else to live.’

  ‘You mean you think she would kick me out if she didn’t want us both there? No, Peg wouldn’t do something like that!’

  ‘I tell you what, why don’t we offer to take her out for a meal, as a way of celebrating your birthday and thanking her for all she’s done for us?’

  Peg was delighted when they issued the invitation. ‘I haven’t been out for a meal for years. Wasting your money, though, isn’t it? I thought you two were supposed to be saving up to get married and then starting your own business?’

  ‘Yes, we are, but at the moment we can’t afford to do either of those things,’ Sandy told her.

  ‘Well, stop trying to do them both together. Do one and then the other. Which do you want to do first?’

  As their eyes locked there was no question in either of their minds about which was the most important to them.

  ‘Getting married, is it?’ Peg laughed. ‘No, you don’t have to say anything, I can see from the looks on your faces.’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Then in that case why not leave going out for that meal until the day you decide to get married and then the three of us can go and celebrate afterwards.’

  ‘It’s a great idea,’ Sandy told her, ‘but first we’ve got to find somewhere to live.’

  ‘Well, you can’t afford anything grand, can you, so why not move in here? If I swap bedrooms with Winnie you’d have plenty of room and you more or less live here as it is, Sandy.’

  ‘You mean you’d let us live with you?’

  ‘It would be better than going back to being on my own,’ she told him wryly.

  ‘You don’t need to give up your bedroom, though,’ Winnie told her quickly.

  ‘The room you’re in now is only half the size of mine,’ Peg reminded her. ‘You’d find it a squash for the two of you, and you’d never get a double bed in there whereas there’s already one in my room. So the matter is settled! Now, shall we have a cup of tea to seal the deal?’

  As they drank their tea, Sandy and Winnie told Peg about their idea for a canteen-style café on the dockside.

  ‘Beats me why no one has ever done it before,’ she said. ‘Have you made enquiries to find out if there is any place available where you could set it up?’

  ‘No, we wanted to make sure we had enough money to buy all the equipment and the stock that we’d require to set ourselves up. We’ve been doing a lot of work on that and we have a list of what we will probably need.’

  ‘You want to watch you don’t get ripped off when you come to buy those,’ she warned. ‘You need someone with the right connections to put you in touch with the proper wholesalers.’

  ‘You mean someone like you?’ Winnie asked.

  ‘Well, yes! There are firms that I’ve been getting my supplies from for the last ten years and they’d do you a reasonable deal.’

  ‘Would you help us to meet them?’ Winnie asked.

  Peg looked thoughtful. ‘I could, but if you get this dockside venture up and running does that mean you are both going to chuck in your jobs at Paddy’s Market?’

  ‘Well, we couldn’t work at both places,’ Sandy laughed.

  ‘No! I don’t suppose you could. So that would mean I’d be left high and dry, not to mention Reg Willard losing his right-hand man. Although I’m not so much worried about him as I am about myself,’ she admitted. ‘I couldn’t manage without Winnie to help me.’

  ‘We wouldn’t just walk off and leave you,’ Winnie assured her. ‘We’d make sure you found someone else to
take my place.’

  Peg shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t be the same working with anyone else. I’m too set in my ways.’

  Sandy and Winnie exchanged looks. They had both seen the smirk on Peg’s face and guessed she was up to something.

  ‘So what do you suggest we do then?’ Winnie asked mischievously, her eyes twinkling.

  ‘You could let me join you!’ Peg prompted. ‘I know the ropes, I’ve got all the contacts, I know all the right people! Even more important, I’ve got a tidy bit of money tucked away and that would help get things started without you two having to put yourself in debt over your heads.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  SANDY’S HEAD WAS spinning so much when he left Skirving Court that night that he knew he would never sleep, so he walked down Water Street to the Pier Head to try and sort his thoughts out.

  It was almost midnight. The ferryboats had stopped running, and so too had the Green Goddesses. The usual din and clamour of the busy port was silenced. The moon, a giant balloon in a star-studded May sky, was reflected in the dark water of the Mersey like a huge golden orb.

  It was almost three years since Winnie had come to work at Paddy’s Market and now so much was happening all at once that he could hardly take it in. Why hadn’t they spoken to Peg earlier about their plans? If they had done so then they might already have had their waterfront café set up and running.

  Still, he told himself, that really didn’t matter. The important thing was that they soon would have it off the ground. Peg putting up money to help cover some of the costs, as well as making use of her many contacts in the catering trade, would be a godsend.

  He walked down the floating roadway onto the riverside and looked around at the various buildings in the vicinity, wondering if any of them were vacant or likely to become so in the near future.

  Tomorrow, he told himself, he’d get down there and make some enquiries from the harbour master, or whoever was in charge.

  He walked along the dockside once more, past where the Isle of Man boat usually docked, trying to decide which spot would be the most suitable, if there was any choice.