The Mersey Girls

by Sheila Riley

  ‘Comfy?’ Danny asked and she nodded, unable to speak. He had every right to be angry with his father, and she could understand why he raised his fist to him. If she had been a man she would have done the very same thing. Bert Harris was a drunk and a gambler who dragged Ada down every chance he got. She could see that now. He must have given her a dog’s life.

  ‘At least we had the weather on our side,’ Evie said. Accustomed to the rough-and-ready attitude of the dockside, she tried to lighten the heavy atmosphere, wanting to tell Danny she thought he had done the right thing, but unable to find the words.

  ‘Every cloud, hey, Evie.’ Danny’s voice was laced with sadness when he gave her a playful nudge with his elbow. ‘At least Uncle Henry won’t be fleeced for money ever again.’

  ‘Oh Danny,’ Evie said, ‘I understand exactly what you’re going through. My old man was a wrong’un an’ all.’

  ‘Thanks for not judging,’ Danny said, as they drove out of Netherford and home.

  ‘Never,’ Evie answered.

  ‘Oi! What you got there?' Connie demanded the following day when Bobby Harris tried to sneak under the bar with a hessian sack slung across his shoulder. Bobby had been a pot lad since he was ten years old and even though he was nearly fourteen, he still came into the Tavern to help out, although Connie felt he came in not only for pocket money wages but also to get out from under his mother’s feet. ‘I hear your Grace has been swept away on a Mediterranean cruise?' Connie said, as she rinsed glasses and put them on the shelf above the counter.

  ‘To help her get over having her what’s-it’s out, Mam said…’ Bobby’s voice came from under the wooden counter flap. ‘…her appendages.’

  ‘Appendix,’ Connie corrected him, realising that Ada wanted the emergency kept under wraps, especially since Bert had done a moonlight flit yesterday.

  Bobby’s eyes rolled heavenwards. ‘I knew Ma said it wrong, but I didn’t know the proper word either, though I knew you would, Connie.’ The afternoon closing time had not come soon enough for Connie, who was feeling dead beat in this heat.

  Mim had taken herself off to the hairdressers earlier in the afternoon and hadn’t come back yet, so she put Fergus in his pushchair and kept him down here in the bar until Lucy came after school.

  Luckily, the heat had knocked him out and the child’s afternoon nap lasted a bit longer when she put him over by the window where it was nice and sunny. She didn’t like him being in the smoky bar, but could do little about it. Angus had gone to the coach station to order the charabanc for the street outing.

  ‘Come out here where I can see you,’ Connie demanded, hands on hips, ignoring Bobby’s cocky cheerfulness. ‘You’re like the artful dodger lately.’ If someone didn’t pay him a bit more attention, Bobby might be in danger of going astray, she thought. There had been so much going on, with Grace being in hospital, Danny working all hours and Bert off to who knows where. Bobby, much to his delight, had been allowed to do as he pleased.

  He was a good lad really, Connie knew, but he had a sense of adventure that may lead him up a blind alley if he wasn’t careful. Although Bobby, like his brother, had a strong work ethic. Danny had been a good example to the lad, unlike their glass-back father Bert, who was always on the cadge after losing money to illegal bookies.

  ‘What’s wrong with your face? And don’t say nothing.’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Bobby automatically and Connie raised a cynical eyebrow.

  ‘What’s in that sack?’ He might be as tall as she was, but Connie could still put him in his place. ‘Come on, spit it out before it chokes you.’ She glared at the sack, which was moving, and he placed it on top of the bar. the Tavern was closed for the afternoon and they were the only people here except for sleeping Fergus.

  ‘Chicks.’ Bobby’s innocent expression did not fool her for a minute, he looked so proud he might have hatched them himself.

  ‘Chicks?’ Connie wondered if she was really in the mood for this. She was hot, uncomfortable, and she longed to soak her swollen feet in a nice bowl of soapy water.

  ‘You know, baby chickens!’

  ‘I know what chicks are, soft lad. I didn’t come over on the last boat.’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ His voice was almost breathless with excitement.

  She watched him undo the loose string round the neck of the sack and she stepped forward, craning her neck to get a view inside the bag.

  ‘I’m sure you will.’ Connie peered inside to see six cheeping baby birds that would one day grow big enough to make someone a nice Sunday dinner. ‘Where did you get those from? And I want none of your stories!’ Ada would have these sold if they were any bigger, for sure.

  ‘Our Danny bought them back from Netherford, he has made a chicken run in Skinner’s yard and…’ He stopped to take a breath. ‘Meggie Skinner said they had plenty, so would you and Angus like these?’ Then he added, ‘They’re only sixpence each.’

  ‘A proper little entrepreneur, I must say.’ Connie was amazed.

  ‘I don’t know what one o’ them is, but a bloke’s got to make a living.’ Bobby nodded proudly.

  ‘So, why were you sneaking them under the bar?’ she asked, thinking he might have got them by some nefarious means to make a few bob for himself.

  ‘Angus said you don’t like birds, they might scare you in your condition,’ Bobby said with his customary uncomplicated air. ‘Seeing as you’re not used to the countryside and that…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Well, I’ll have you know I am not scared of birds,’ Connie said. ’I’m not scared of anything.’

  ‘Shall I tell Mrs Skinner you’ll have them, then?’ Bobby asked and Connie nodded.

  ‘Sixpence you say?’ She smiled, amused at his audacity. She knew Meggie Skinner had never asked a soul for money in her life. In fact, apart from Evie Kilgaren, she had never met a woman more independent.

  ‘What about threepence each, then? One shilling, six pence? That’s fair, and I’ll come over and feed them, every day if you like.’ Bobby breathed a sigh of relief when she nodded. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Connie. Angus was going to give me a tanner each and you get eggs.’

  ‘You’d better put them out in our back yard,’ Connie said, putting three silver shillings on the bar, giving Bobby the amount of money he wanted in the first place, and was rewarded when he graced her with one of his charming smiles.

  ‘You’ll break a few hearts you will Bobby Harris.’

  ‘See, I knew you’d understand, Connie,’ Bobby said, tying up the sack to take out to the yard before pocketing the money.

  The Skinners’ front room, although more spacious than most houses round about, was reduced to standing room only. Henry wanted everybody gathered together so there would be no confusion when word got out that Danny now owned the business.

  Mr Swann, the solicitor who had looked after Skinner’s family business for the past forty years, took his seat behind the lace-covered table in the bay, so the sunlight from the windows could warm his rheumatic neck and shoulders.

  Evie had meticulously prepared the accounts and was standing beside Danny near the parlour door behind the workers, while Ada sat on a straight-backed chair near the glass-fronted cabinet.

  Ada scowled, her mind on her troubled family and she wondered where that waste of space of a husband had traipsed off to. Not that he was much use when he was at home. But he went off a couple of weeks ago, leaving a note to say he would be in touch and nobody had heard a word from him since.

  ‘How is Grace?’ Evie whispered and Ada’s buxom shoulders visibly shivered.

  ‘Her new chap, Bruce, has taken her away to rest and reciprocate.’ Ada answered knowing Evie had done her a kindness the night Grace had ‘taken bad’, and she must be civil. But there was no time to say more when Henry came into the room.

  ‘I’m sure you are wondering why I have asked you all here today,’ Henry said in that deep baritone voice that filled the room and, looking round, he saw
his prim cousins, Ada, and Bea who lived across the canal, nod and shift in their seats. To his satisfaction, they looked extremely uncomfortable.

  Ada was sitting upright, her legs, thick as newel posts, were folded at the ankle, a bone china cup and saucer in one hand, while gripping black gloves in the other.

  ‘It’s bloody summer and she’s got her gloves with her,’ he’d told Meggie when Ada had arrived, knowing he and his cousin had not been this close for years, even though they lived within walking distance of each other.

  Bea, by contrast, was shrivelled under a coat that was two sizes too big. A hungry-looking woman, she owned the lodging house on the other side of the canal and ran it on a shoestring. Nobody lodged at Bea’s house if they could find somewhere else. She regarded Henry with suspicion, although that was nothing new, she always looked like she had just sucked a lemon. Henry held himself in check and could not wait to see the contortions that face was going to go through when he broke the news.

  ‘As you all know, I inherited Skinner and Son when my father died, although Ma had the run of the lodging house until she, too, passed on and we inherited that too.’ Henry looked over to Meggie, who was standing at the back and he held out his hand, beckoning her over. ‘Then, when I had that little heart scare,’ he said, retaining the news that he would be fine in the care of his loving wife and giving up his favourite pipe tobacco, ‘I knew it was time to put my affairs in order.’

  Ada nudged Bea with her elbow, causing a ghost of a smile to flicker across both their faces. Henry went on to talk about the years he and Meggie had worked all the hours God sent to build up the thriving business and it was obvious by the look of boredom on their faces that both cousins thought he should get on with it.

  ‘But sometimes,’ he said, savouring every tedious moment, ‘you have to stop and take stock, realise that you are not as young as you once were, and enjoy a bit of life, instead of giving most of your brass away.’ He saw no sign of life in the eyes of either cousin. ‘So, with that in mind, I have decided to let the business go.’ There was a small gasp from everybody in the room while Ada and Bea’s eyes swiftly showed some interest. ‘I will keep the house,’ Henry said, ‘as I have to rest my head somewhere, and Meggie’s only just wallpapered the back room.’

  ‘Is there a point to all this?’ Ada asked impatiently.

  ‘Well, that’s the thing, you see,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked you here because I don’t want any confusion about the circumstances. When you hear this from me, be under no illusion of what I want to do with my property.’ Henry was alluding to the fact that, when his mother died, Ada and Bea were vociferous in their indignation at being left out of her will.

  ‘I have sold the yard to Danny.’ Another small gasp went round the room, and the stable hands turned to congratulate the man they admired so much. ‘I am sure you will want to join Meg and me in wishing the lad the absolute best of luck in his new venture.’

  A ripple of applause filled the room, but there were two faces that looked like they were cast in stone.

  ‘You mean our Danny’s bought your yard?’ Ada’s eyes were as wide as the saucer on her lap. ‘But where did he get the money to buy you out?’

  ‘I know you were expecting a good share of my fortune when I popped my clogs,’ Henry said, putting his unlit pipe into his mouth, ‘but this yard needs a young man at the helm, a man who has the drive and determination I once had when I married my Meg.’

  ‘Bloody hell you don’t half go on when you’ve got a captive audience, Skinner,’ Bea moaned while Ada was most indignant at her cousin’s forthright manner and shuffled in her seat.

  ‘The business was started by our grandfather. You only got it because your father was the only male, then the same thing happened with the next generation. You were the only male, so as the oldest cousin and by dint of birth, being female, I’m denied what’s rightfully mine.’

  ‘That is precisely why I have sold it before I go,’ Henry said. ‘I didn’t want you in any doubt about who gets what – oh, but don’t worry, I haven’t left you out.’ He saw the two women’s stiff shoulders relax a little.

  ‘I just meant… well, I didn’t mean…’ Ada relented. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think I’m being greedy. I just want what I deserve.’

  ‘You got the lodging house in Reckoner’s Row rent-free,’ Henry reminded Ada. ‘However, there is one more thing I know my mother would have wanted you to have.’ He took two square boxes out of his pocket and handed one to Ada, who got up out of the chair and gave him a hug. And he gave an identical one to Bea, who all but snatched it from his hand and returned to her seat.

  The two women opened their boxes, and their faces were consumed by a look of disgust when they realised they had been given the top and bottom set of his mother’s false teeth.

  ‘Ma always said you two were so busy chewing the fat, you’d wear down your own teeth, so I thought these may come in useful. After all, these were her best set.’

  Ada rose from her chair. ‘I suppose you think you are clever, making a show of us in front of the workers.’

  24

  ‘Evie we’ve got a visitor,’ Lucy called from the hallway a couple of weeks later, and Evie’s eyes swept the room. Everything was in its place when the door opened, and Lucy went to get some fresh home-made lemonade out in the back kitchen.

  ‘Hiya, Evie,’ Connie came through the door like a ship in full sail, her hand in its usual position supporting her back. ‘You don’t mind me popping in, do you? I can’t take another minute of my mother and Ada dissecting who said what to whom when Grace’s fiancé was nabbed for being an international diamond smuggler,’ Connie said, waddling into the kitchen.

  ‘Come and sit down, Connie, you look done in.’ The news was stale, but she knew in a small street like Reckoner’s Row, it would be examined in forensic detail by the residents for many months to come.

  ‘A diamond smuggler,’ Evie said, ‘who’d have thought it? And he had two wives, greedy sod – and they say my family was crooked. To be fair, though,’ Evie added, ‘Clifford Brack didn’t murder his wife.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Connie answered. ‘And Bert’s done a bunk, nobody knows where he is, so now Ada knows what it feels like to be the centre of attention.’

  ‘I bet your takings have gone down a bit,’ Evie said, recalling the day she and Danny went out to Netherford and Danny had a set-to with Bert. But she would keep the information to herself. ‘You look worn out, Con.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Evie, it’s this heat, I swear it’s getting hotter.’ Connie pulled a ladder-backed chair from under the table. ‘I’ll sit here if it’s all right with you. I’ll never get up again if I sit on the sofa – I’m sure there’s two in here.’ She pointed to her large bump that seemed to be straining to break out of her pale blue smock.

  ‘How much longer have you got to go?’ Evie asked while Lucy was filling the tray in the back kitchen.

  ‘Another four weeks, so Angus, Fergus and I are going to the Netherford Fete and Mim will stay here and look after the bar.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Evie was genuinely pleased. The whole street was going on the charabanc the following day for the yearly trip to the horse show and Evie was looking forward to another trip out to the countryside.

  ‘When Auld Henry took bad, everybody thought the outing would be cancelled.’

  ‘I know, but isn’t it a good thing Meggie wouldn’t hear of it,’ Evie answered. ‘They both said the show must go on, so Meggie organised it instead.’

  ‘I think Skinner’s secretly glad she took over this year,’ Connie replied. ‘It did her the world of good to step into his shoes and get out among the neighbours again.’

  ‘Here we go,’ Lucy said, bringing in a tray holding glasses of home-made lemonade, ‘and our Jack said Danny’s going to enter Mr Skinner’s favourite horse in the Netherford show this year. And we made all the flowers and silk ribbons, didn’t we, Evie?’ Lucy added, not wanting to
be left out of the conversation. ‘The horse will look grand, so he will.’

  ‘I feel exhausted just thinking about it all.’ Connie sighed as she, Lucy and Evie sat at the table wafting home-made fans, fashioned from the Evening Echo, and even though the sash window was pushed right up, there was little breeze entering the kitchen.

  ‘It might be hot, but look at those clouds.’ The three females could see the dark clouds looming. ‘It looks like a storm is brewing.’

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t rain before the parade,’ Evie said.

  ‘Oh I don’t know, it’ll be more comfortable if the weather’s a bit cooler,’ Connie said, ‘and not just for the horses either.’

  The following morning, Connie brought in a picnic basket to lend Evie, who was packing parcels of ox tongue sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and home-made sausage rolls into her wicker shopping basket, when there was a gentle tap on the door and Danny popped his head in the kitchen.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he asked. ‘I did call up the lobby, but nobody heard me,’ he explained, looking a bit sheepish in his new dark brown suit. He had been a regular visitor of late, calling in most days on some excuse or other. Usually to have a word with their Jack. As if they didn’t share enough words at the yard. But everybody, except Evie, knew why he liked coming here.

  ‘Come and have some lemonade, Danny!’ Lucy said, her eyes shining, loving the fact that Danny or Connie would pop in for a natter at any time of the day or night. This house wasn’t just a house any more, she thought, it was a home. Heart-warming, safe, welcoming and all thanks to her wonderful big sister, Evie.

  ‘You’re looking very smart, Danny,’ Evie said. ‘Is that a new suit?’