The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  Morning found them sitting side by side on the edge of the narrow bed. ‘What we need is something to be interested in,’ Rob declared. ‘I think I like digging things up.’

  ‘Tell the vicar in Egerton,’ snapped Philip. ‘He’ll take you on in the graveyard.’

  Rob drew himself to full seated height. ‘That’s not digging up,’ he said. ‘It’s planting. Soon, I’ll be setting spuds and carrots. Bertie has his pony and the rest of the horses, but what have you got?’

  ‘Paint,’ came the reply.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Don’t go deaf as well as daft. They said I have to get attached to Mr Collins. He does all the painting and mending, and he’s got something called sugar. That means he falls off ladders. I have to learn painting, mending, and picking him up off the floor. It’s an important position, being deputy handyman. Gardening, too.’ He sighed heavily. He had no experience of paint, mending, gardening or sugar. Unless the odd handful of stolen molasses counted as experience in sugar.

  Mel entered the room. ‘Breakfast is served,’ she announced. Fully aware of the previous evening’s charade, she asked about their sentence.

  ‘We’re suspended for two years,’ Philip replied dolefully. ‘Mr Greenhalgh is in charge of us. And we have a book each. We have to write in it every night about what we’ve done during the day.’ He shrugged. ‘I hope we get a place in that school, wherever it is. School’s going to be a rest.’

  Mel went downstairs to report to the chief magistrate. Miss Morrison had been a magistrate in real life, so she was the only kosher member of the previous evening’s shenanigans. ‘They’re terrified,’ Mel announced.

  ‘Good.’ The old woman attacked her coddled egg. She felt almost healthy, because life had become entertaining at last. There was a great deal to be said for distractions, as they took one’s mind away from one’s ailments. One’s ailments would be set aside for the foreseeable future, because Scotland Road had arrived on the cusp between Crosby and Blundellsands, and Scotland Road was interesting.

  ‘Do you need anything else, Miss Morrison?’

  The woman in the bed grinned. ‘Not immediately, dear. But make sure they visit me before they go. Did I tell you about the time when I was trapped in the cellar with a vulgar caretaker?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s been rather like that all over again. Did they really put someone’s undergarment up a flagpole?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And a carthorse in the yard?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘The stolen police dog?’

  ‘It was nearly a police dog; it was still in training. I don’t know whether it passed its test after being exposed to the company of my family.’

  Miss Morrison stared hard at Mel. ‘You know, my dear, you should write all of it in a journal. I have some nice hard-backed notebooks left over from my school. One day, this should be published. Like all good comedies, it sits against a background of great tragedy and deprivation.’

  Mel chuckled. ‘It was never a tragedy, Miss Morrison. It was loud, colourful and sometimes hungry, but there’s nothing tragic about the Scottie Roaders. Outside the undertaker’s, there’s a coffin with Hitler’s name on it. The barber’s thinking of changing the name of his shop to It’ll Be All Right When It’s Washed, because that’s what mothers say to their sons when they get a haircut. They’re clever. One day, they’ll be remembered for what they really are.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘People, Miss Morrison. Special, but just people.’

  PART TWO

  1940

  Eleven

  Keith was a hungry man. Tender though never timid, he appeared to be making up for two loveless decades, since he seldom left his wife’s side for weeks following the wedding. After promoting Jay Collins to deputy steward and land agent over the whole Willows estate, he docked his own wages and followed wherever Eileen led. Miss Frances Morrison now had a beautiful house, as he had painted every room. Her old first-floor bedroom belonged to Mr and Mrs Keith Greenhalgh, who took great care of their generous landlady.

  Eileen’s second husband was also very funny. Unlike Liverpudlians, he delivered few quick answers, preferring instead to simmer for a while before offering up a killer reply, usually after the subject under discussion had been long abandoned. Stony-faced and quiet-voiced, he could reduce a room to hysteria in seconds. He adored his Eileen, grew fond of Frances Morrison, and spent many hours in battle with Mel over a chessboard.

  But his favourite pastime seemed to be kissing. When questioned about the frequency of the attacks, his stock reply was that every man needed a hobby, and it was her fault anyway, since she was far too beautiful for her own good. On one occasion, he wore a sticking plaster over his mouth, though it didn’t last, because Eileen’s giggling became contagious, and he laughed the plaster free. He submitted a written complaint to management, and her reply, delivered on the banks of her beloved river, was verbal. ‘Does all this kissing not make you want the rest of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So?’ Eyebrows raised and hands on hips, she waited for his answer.

  ‘I’m good at procrastination.’

  ‘And I’m not.’

  ‘I know that.’ He gazed out over the river. ‘Ever had a bank account?’ he enquired.

  ‘No. The few times I’ve been in a bank, it’s been for Miss Morrison.’

  ‘The kissing is my deposit. I collect my interest at bedtime.’

  A few beats of time slipped by while Eileen contained her laughter and made her face stern. ‘You are one devious and cruel swine, Keith Greenhalgh.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘True. Delicious though, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m like a bloody pan left on a low light. Or a slow rice pudding in a lukewarm oven, do not disturb till Christmas.’

  Keith awarded her his full attention. ‘You’re no pudding. You’re a diamond-studded rainbow with a pot of gold at each end.’

  She wagged a finger. ‘Don’t be coming over all poetry, Keith. I can’t be poetical in the fresh air. Not here. Please don’t start kissing in public places.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ He looked at a beach donated to Crosby and Blundellsands by the Irish Sea, aided and abetted by the Mersey. This was a place where children played each summer, where families sat and watched ships lazing their way towards busy little tugs. ‘I see no ships today,’ he said. Hospital vessels were a too-familiar sight these days, sad, grey things marked with a red cross. ‘Hell will be packed with Germans, so we’d better put our names down for the other place,’ he quipped.

  ‘It won’t be packed with Germans at all. Just Nazis, and some of them are English.’ She pointed at the mix of sand and mud below. ‘Used to come here with Mam and some of my friends when I was a kid. Stripped down to our knickers, we were all the same. Rich, poor, or in the middle, we all played together. Look at it, Keith. What a bloody mess. They won’t land here. There’s been nobody invading Liverpool since the Vikings, because they’ve all learned the hard way that the natives are fierce.’

  Five barrage balloons loitered idly in still air, while on the beach rolls of barbed wire kept company with dragons’ teeth: pyramids of concrete dug in to prevent any vessel from coming ashore. This was Liverpool, and Liverpool was Hitler’s second target, so it had to be guarded. The BBC Home Service mentioned from time to time a raid on a ‘northern port’, and everyone knew that all weaponry and ammunition passed through these docks, that citizens were living in mortal danger, that they would endure till the last brick had fallen and the last man was dead. But for the sake of security, Liverpool was given no identity in bulletins. According to statements from the War Office, spies were everywhere. A person could become paranoid with very little effort.

  ‘Keith?’

  ‘What?’

  She swallowed. ‘We have to go home.’

  He looked at his father’s watch, a battered piece that lived in a jacket pocket. ‘She
’ll be all right for a few more minutes. Eh? What’s up with you?’

  ‘Home, Keith. Your home, so my home, too. Willows Edge, my love.’

  ‘Erm … why?’

  ‘Don’t kiss me.’

  ‘I won’t kiss you.’ ‘Promise you won’t kiss me.’ ‘I promise I won’t kiss you.’ ‘You’re going to be a daddy.’ He kissed her.

  Hilda Pickavance, owner and mistress of the Willows estate, was a political animal with an inquisitive mind and a tendency to be inwardly critical of all who walked the corridors of power. Far from evangelical and allied to no party, she watched and made written comment on the performances of representatives local and national. In quieter moments, which were relatively few, she looked at her older writings while adding what she could manage about events of the day. Most of her recent essays were on the subject of Eileen’s boys, all three of whom had improved considerably during their year in the wilds.

  Everything had changed, and not just because of the war. Down the road, amid the dark, satanic mills, poverty ruled. But the south had basked in glorious affluence until last year; it had hardly been fair.

  The decade of duality was finally over. The 1930s, ten years during which Britain had prospered in the south and decayed in the north, had survived Wall Street because of one man, and that man was Neville Chamberlain. Swept aside to make room for Churchill, he was now a creature people remembered as naive. In the minds of the populace, he carried in his hand a crumpled paper signed by a liar, a monster, a nutcase. ‘There was more to Chamberlain than that,’ Hilda muttered to herself. ‘Perhaps he ignored the north, but he saved the Exchequer.’ He had built a wall around the islands, had traded carefully and wisely, had kept the country away from the brink of total perdition. ‘The good is oft interred with their bones,’ she quoted. Shakespeare was usually acutely and painfully correct, even in this day and age.

  Jarrow had been horrible, but the fact remained that Victorian factories were already in decline, and manufactured goods were purchasable at lower prices from worldwide sources. A swathe of dire and infected deprivation had spread itself across northern counties, and life had been hell on earth. So they had marched and shown themselves, down at heel, clothes torn and tattered, heads high. ‘We are the same as you,’ that march had screamed. ‘And you are taking not just the cream, but the whole pie. While you eat, our children perish.’ Had anyone listened? Did anyone ever listen?

  In the south, arterial roads were laid, houses with front and rear gardens were bought via mortgage by members of the middle class and, more recently, by ordinary working men. For less than a thousand pounds, such a house would have a garage. Factories that looked like exhibition buildings cropped up, and while many northern towns had unemployment of up to 60 per cent of the available workforce, the south was fully utilized except for 3 or 4 per cent who were too ill for work. Commuter rail systems were installed, and the south was very well, thank you.

  And here came war. Ill-nourished and exhausted Jarrow marchers fought alongside healthy southerners, and the divide would still be there when the war ended. ‘We need a women’s party. We need to occupy the lobbies and the benches to show these silly little boys how to live creatively.’

  The produce of another scribe lay alongside Hilda’s in a drawer of the bureau. Mel Watson had the eyes of an eagle and the ears of an alley cat, and she pulled no punches. The list was enough. Although Mel collected and recorded detail, it was safer to look just at the headings. In July, Altcar searchlight post was eradicated, but they missed Fort Crosby. August saw the battering of Birkenhead on the Wirral, and the first outright fatality was a female domestic servant. Wallasey came next, followed by Liverpool’s dock road and overhead railway.

  West Derby received a shower of incendiaries, one of which hit a nursing home. Towards the end of August, just before the wedding of Eileen and Keith at St Anthony’s on Scotland Road, West Derby was pounded by high explosives. From early September to its end, there were sixteen raids on the city, eleven on Birkenhead, nine on Wallasey and four on Crosby. Walton Jail was hit, resulting in the deaths of wardens and prisoners, and, days later, the Argyle Theatre in Birkenhead was demolished and cremated.

  There was humour, too. A crazed German fighter pilot fixed his sights on a Liverpool bus. Flying perilously low, he peppered the vehicle with bullets while passengers squeezed under seats. The driver was not amused. He leaned on his horn and ploughed on like a dodgem at the fair until the German got fed up and beggared off. No one was hurt except for a few bruises resulting from the driver’s actions, and the only victim of the airborne lunatic was a fireman’s hat, which got blown off and dented during the episode.

  Smiling grimly, Hilda put away the writings and sat on her bed. Several good things had happened, and the best was the marriage between Eileen and Keith. Even an old maid could not fail to be aware of the chemistry between them. Better still, they were the greatest of friends and happy companions, while all four children had begun to respect their stepfather, so the future seemed bright. Except, that was, for the small matter named war.

  Someone tapped on the door. ‘Come in,’ she called.

  It was Bertie. He was as black as an old pot, a creased forehead betraying him as a thinker, and there was straw in his hair, but that was all par for the course. ‘Hello, Bertie.’

  He announced that he now knew what a fetlock was before parking his less than clean person next to Miss Pickavance. ‘Miss?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know like a half-brother what we’re getting?’

  ‘Or sister. Yes.’

  Bertie delivered a loud, damp raspberry. ‘We’ve got Mel, and she’s enough. We don’t want no more girls. Now, I’m not daft. I’m eight now, so I’m not a little ’un any more.’

  ‘Of course you’re not daft.’

  ‘I know a half-brother doesn’t mean one arm, one leg, one eye, one ear, one—’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re aware of all that.’

  ‘So what does it mean, then?’

  Hilda opened her mouth, closed it again. She was a good teacher. She had been offered a place on a twelvemonth course created to bring more educators into the profession during and after wartime. ‘Well, your father was Lazzer. Lawrence was his real name, though. Splendid man.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘And Eileen’s your mother.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Bertie, say yes.’

  ‘Yup. All right. I mean yes.’

  ‘So your half-brother or sister will be from the same mother, but a different father, and that will be Keith, who is now your stepfather.’

  Bertie took a deep breath. ‘But dads don’t do nothing about a baby. It’s the mam what screams and swears and pushes the new one out of her bum. I know, cos I’ve heard it in our street. And what does “tell him to tie a knot in it” mean? That was what Mrs Pilkington yelled after she throwed him out in the street. He had to sit on the doorstep while she shouted swear words and that. Nearly crying, he was. I sat with him and he said I was a grand lad. Held me hand, he did. I felt sorry for him. Mams can be very fierce people.’

  Hilda sighed heavily. Teaching was often a rocky road. ‘Hens lay eggs,’ she said, wondering immediately why she’d said it. What on God’s good earth had she been thinking of?

  ‘And mams lay eggs?’ the child asked. ‘Do they? I never seen one.’

  ‘Er … in a way, yes, they do lay eggs.’

  ‘But you don’t boil ’em or fry ’em.’

  She smothered a grin. ‘No. Without a strong microscope, you wouldn’t even see them, because they’re very tiny.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She wished she’d never allowed this to start. She was standing on a slippery roof, no ladder, no rope to tie to a chimney, no idea of what to do to save herself … ‘Ask your grandmother. She should know more than I do, because she’s been a mother.’

  ‘I did ask her. She sent me to you. She said you’d know all about it, on account of y
ou’re the teacher, like.’

  Oh, God. Nellie’s devilment was on the loose again. Biology. Hilda jumped headlong into a chaos of which she had never before been a victim. ‘The cockerel has to cover the hen and make the other half of the chick. If the hen’s been covered, the egg’s not for boiling, but for hatching.’

  ‘Cover? What with? A blanket?’

  She swallowed. ‘With himself.’

  Bertie pulled a piece of straw from his hair and chewed on it thoughtfully. A penny dropped. ‘Is it to do with all that kissing and chasing about and stuff? With people, I mean. Cos I can tell you now my mam’s fedded up with it. She’s happy about the baby, but she keeps hitting Keith with towels and all sorts. Only it’s a game, see? She’s laughing, and you can tell she’s happy. Does that end up with him being a cover like the cockerel? And was my dad my cover?’

  She wouldn’t laugh. ‘Broadly speaking, yes, that’s the truth of it.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Bertie studied his soggy straw. Then, with that seamlessness known only to the young and precious, he moved on. ‘Why doesn’t it hurt when Pedro gets his shoes nailed on? I wouldn’t want nothing hammered onto my feet.’

  Hilda, unaware until this point that she had been holding her breath, allowed her chest to relax. She loved these terrible boys. Bertie was as bright as his sister, though academia was not for him. Robin read hungrily, pouncing on anything connected to the art of arable farming. As for Philip – oh, what a victory. ‘Bertie, get a bath, please. We’ll talk about horseshoes and farriers tomorrow. You smell very horsey.’

  ‘Better than our Rob,’ the child replied. ‘He stinks of ferti … ferti … of all kinds of muck, says he’s going into Brussels sprouts next year. Can you imagine anything as daft as that?’ He stalked off, dignity diminished by mud, straw, and a large hole in the seat of his trousers.

  A sheepish Nellie put in an appearance. ‘Did you tell him, then?’