The Mersey Girls

by Sheila Riley

  Loved him? Who said anything about love?

  ‘Don’t take it personal,’ a voice behind her said and Evie swung round, her face hot and clammy. ‘He told me he is not the marrying kind.’

  ‘It’s just as well,’ Evie retaliated, ‘because neither am I!’ Susie Blackthorn had a bloody cheek.

  ‘Well, well, well?’ Ada’s smile didn’t reach the fury in her eyes when she found Meggie sitting at a table in the beer tent. ‘Look who’s here. Let Henry off the leash for a while, hey?’ she asked. The drinks she’d had earlier, combined with the heat of the afternoon sun, went some way to loosen her usually tightly guarded tongue where her family were concerned.

  ‘I think you might need a cup of tea, or a glass of water might be better,’ Meggie said.

  Ada could not ignore the red mist that enveloped her and all she wanted to do was hurt Meggie, a common kitchen maid who not only walked into the family business and took over without so much as a how-do-you-do, fooling her aunt, but took up residence and had a life of luxury, while Ada had to scrimp and scrape by. And not content with all of that, Meggie had Danny eating out of her hand.

  ‘Danny’s not going to look twice at you,’ Susie goaded Evie during the next parade. Her arrogance was obvious in the way she stood tall, her chin up, her head high, but she was no threat to Evie. Not any more. Her elderly parents’ only offspring, Susie expected and had been given everything she wanted.

  ‘You can’t stomach the fact you were fired, can you Susie?’

  ‘Your nothing but an upstart, with ideas above your station,’ Susie replied, obviously scrabbling for the most hurtful words. ‘Danny will take me back on, and he will give you your marching orders too.’ Susie’s face was turning a livid red. ‘He pities you. It’s me he wants. And I will make sure it is me he gets.’

  ‘You didn’t say you loved him,’ Evie answered, ‘nor that you cared for him.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. I expect him to care for me,’ Susie scoffed. ‘He’s the one with the business. He’ll be rolling in money.’ She stood with her hands on the hips of her pale blue peddle pusher slacks, which she had copied from a pair Grace had worn. ‘I’ve waited three years for Danny to show me the kind of attention he gives you.’ Susie’s voice lowered and for a moment Evie felt sorry for her. ‘But I am not prepared to wait any longer.’

  ‘I always knew you were the impatient type, if you don’t get what you want straight away, you usually lose interest.’

  ‘Well, not this time, if you think I’m going to give up without a fight, you can think again.’

  ‘I’d hate to jump into your shoes,’ Evie said, ‘I would be bored rigid.’

  ‘If he’s going to marry anybody it is going to be me.’ Susie countered like a five-year-old having a tit-for-tat in the playground.

  ‘He’s not ready to marry anybody.’ Evie’s eyes flashed, and she leaned forward. ‘But I do intend to be alongside him, supporting him, boosting his business, with every ounce of energy I possess.’ Evie could see by the horrified look on Susie’s face that her words had hit home.

  ‘I know things that would change your mind about being so loyal.’

  ‘Nothing you say would make me change my mind about Danny,’ Evie said in a low, determined voice.

  ‘Even if I told you that Ada is not his mother?’ Susie’s face was wreathed in an expression of satisfaction and Evie felt her heart miss a beat while trying to conceal a sharp intake of breath with a small cough. What was Susie talking about? ‘Would he still be so loving towards Meggie if he knew she had given him away when he was just a baby?’

  ‘If I hear any more poison from you, Susie Blackthorn, I will not hold back. You will be the one who has to scrub floors to earn money.’ Evie would not allow her to continue, but Susie would not be silenced.

  ‘You can’t…’ Susie countered, but Evie cut her off mid-sentence.

  ‘I can.’ Evie leaned forward, determined. ‘And I will. So do not test me. You have had your chance, and you blew it. Now step aside and let the big girls take over.’ Evie’s heart thundered against her ribs and she drew deep calming gasps of air into her lungs when Susie stormed off across the field. She could hardly take it in. Meggie was Danny’s mother? But why…? What could possibly have happened to…? Evie could not imagine Meggie would, could ever deny her own flesh and blood. Susie was just trying to cause trouble. As usual.

  But Susie’s revelation unsettled Evie who had taken many years to find the courage to say her piece and today she made it clear to Susie, who had always looked down on her, that she had the right to stand tall. She proved she was as good as any of them. Not better, that was not her way, but at least she was no longer bottom of the pile.

  Taking another calming deep breath, her heartbeat slowed, and Evie was about to go and find Meggie when she heard a noise. It was a cross between a growl and a groan, and she wondered if it was a wounded animal. Would it attack? She had heard that injured creatures could strike when cornered.

  Edging forward, Evie reached the gap between two tents, feeling more than a little apprehensive when she pulled back the flap, she was horrified to see her good friend doubled up gasping for breath.

  ‘Connie! What’s happened? Did you fall?’ Moving quicker than she had ever done before, Evie hurried to help, dropping down to her knees and trying to prise Connie’s fingers from the guy ropes.

  ‘My waters have gone!’ Connie gasped when the first wave of contractions subsided. Panting slightly, she said, ‘I threw a ball at the cocoanut shy and, whoosh, all over my shoes. I’d have died on the spot if anybody saw me, but the old fella was serving somebody else.’

  Evie noticed the wet stain on Connie’s white leather peep-toe sandals and knew there wasn’t much time. ‘Where’s Angus?’ she asked quickly, and Connie’s beautiful face contorted when another contraction gripped her. The pains were coming quicker than either of them expected.

  Connie motioned to the beer tent, unable to speak.

  ‘Stay there, I’ll go and get him!’ Evie said, getting up, and realised what she had just said. Of course, Connie was going nowhere. She couldn’t. ‘There’s a ’phone box by the post office, I’ll ring an ambulance.’

  Evie didn’t wait for Connie to respond and tore off to the beer tent which, thankfully, wasn’t far. Nevertheless, getting through the burgeoning merrymakers was another matter altogether.

  Elbowing her way towards the bar, Evie realised she was wasting precious time. Angus was at the front of the crowd and, due to the singing from the Tram Tavern crowd, it would be impossible to hear her calling. Grabbing a chair, Evie climbed aboard and put her hands either side of her mouth and through sheer force and determination she opened her mouth and shouted louder than she had ever shouted in her life. ‘Anguuuus! Connie’s having her baby!’

  Her voice reverberated round the tent and a sudden hush descended when all faces moved from her to Angus like spectators in a game of tennis.

  ‘She’s over there,’ Evie stabbed her forefinger to the coconut shy and the rush of excitement was palpable when the crowd parted like the Red Sea. Angus dropped his pint and was gone in the blink of an eye when Evie noticed Susie talking to Danny. And by the look of it, even though she could not hear Susie’s words, Danny was not pleased.

  26

  ‘At least I know who my mam and dad are,’ Susie’s lip curled into a sneer, ‘but you, Danny boy, you are a nobody. A foundling. Nobody’s child.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You scatty mare.’ Danny didn’t trust a word Susie said any more.

  ‘Scatty am I?’ She goaded. ‘You go and ask Ada what I’m talking about. She’ll put you straight.’ Susie said, before storming off across the field.

  By the time Danny got back to the fete after a long walk to mull things over, the ambulance had been, and Connie was taken off to the cottage hospital on the outskirts of the village.

  His head was swimming, trying to come to terms with what Susie had told him bef
ore he sent her packing. Her words seared into his brain, he tried to dismiss them knowing that Susie was a born troublemaker.

  If Ada wasn’t his mother, then who was? The only glimmer was the knowledge that if Ada wasn’t his mother, then that snake-in-the-grass, Bert was not his father either. That, at least, would be some consolation.

  He went into the beer tent and ordered a neat Scotch that burned the back of his throat as he downed it in one. In no mood to socialise he was sickened when Susie had the gall to sidle up to him and ask if he was going to buy her a drink.

  Her obvious sense of entitlement repulsed him and turning to face her, his eyes blazing, he viewed her with a loathing that matched the feeling he had for Bert Harris.

  ‘Buy you a drink?’ Danny replied. ‘Certainly.’ He ordered a pint and a half of beer and as Evie watched from only feet away, standing with Meggie, she saw Danny pick up the half pint glass full of beer.

  ‘No, don’t,’ Evie said, hurrying to his side, suspecting Danny was about to do something out of character, which he would remember and regret for the rest of his life. ‘Don’t let yourself down.’ For a moment, there was a look of confusion in Danny’s usually peaceful eyes. And taking the glass from his hand, she turned.

  ‘Let me,’ Evie said pouring the glass of beer over Susie Blackthorns platinum bouffant, which gave Evie the biggest surge of satisfaction she had felt in a long time.

  ‘You were warned,’ Evie told Susie, who stood by the bar, hands outstretched, dripping.

  ‘It’s a girl!’ someone called in the tent. ‘Princess Elizabeth has had a little girl.’ A loud cheer went up inside the beer tent and somebody began to sing Land of Hope and Glory.

  ‘We may have our very own royal baby in Reckoner’s Row by the end of the day,’ Ada’s voice could be heard over everybody else’s at the next table, as Evie brought a pot of tea and some delicious light-as-air scones slathered in jam and fresh clotted cream for her, Meggie and Danny. A rare treat indeed in the days when there was still rationing in force. ‘I remember when I had mine,’ Ada told anyone who’d listen, ‘I was in labour for two full days.’

  ‘Come and sit down, Lad,’ Meggie whispered when Danny brought a tray of drinks and put it on the yellow gingham cloth covering the trestle table and took the seat next to Meggie, who gave a subdued smile at Ada’s words cutting through the low murmur of chatter.

  ‘I’ll let Henry know we are here,’ Evie said, rising from her seat knowing Meggie had something especially important to tell her son.

  ‘I couldn’t help meself, Meg,’ Danny said, ‘I would have poured the whole lot over her scheming head if Evie hadn’t done it for me,’ If the truth be told, Susie brought out feelings he was ashamed of. Dark feelings he had never addressed. And he realised they were the same feelings he had for the man he had called ‘father’ for as long as he could remember.

  ‘Keep your powder dry, Lad,’ Meggie’s words were as soft as swan down. She had seen the troubled expression on Danny’s face and realised it was time he knew the truth.

  Evie stayed out of the way, talking to Mr Skinner by the bar knowing Meggie needed the time to tell Danny she was his mother and knowing Meggie would not have given him up easily. She was a natural mother. All the stable lads and carters’ lads called her, ‘Ma’, because she looked after them, even when the business was in dire straits she made sure the lads had a steady job to do. Evie recalled how, when Meggie showed her the blackmailer’s letter, her eyes had glistened as she took Evie into her confidence, telling her about her beloved baby, and why she had to give him up.

  Talking to Danny now, she told him in a low voice: ‘I paid most of my wages every week of my working life for your upbringing.’ ‘I lived in fear of you finding out before I could explain.’ Meggie reached for her son’s hand and was relieved when he did not pull away. ‘I prayed you would not hate me for giving you up, knowing you have every right not to forgive me.’

  ‘I could never do that.’ Danny reassured her. ‘But the decision was yours to make. Not Susie Blackthorn’s’

  ‘I never meant for Ada to keep you,’ Meggie said. ‘The arrangement was only ever meant to be temporary until Henry’s mother died, but even the grim reaper got fed up waiting.’ She gave a little half-laugh. ‘By then the war came and I felt you would not want to get that kind of news when you’re fighting the enemy.’

  ‘I understand.’ Danny said knowing it could not have been easy for this wonderful woman, who had never said a wrong word to him, and supported him in everything he did, to watch another woman bring him up in a way she saw fit, having no say in the matter because her family’s livelihood depended on her keeping quiet.

  ‘Do you really?’ Meggie lifted her head, craving reassurance, and Danny nodded.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Danny said, when he saw Ada getting up from the table and followed her outside the tent.

  ‘Enjoying the fete, Danny?’ Ada asked, her face pink through spending time out in the sunshine and a few sly gins in the beer tent.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Danny answered, ‘I’ve learned a lot.’

  ‘Always learning, hey. A right little ray of knowledge. You’ve come a long way, Lad.’

  ‘Aye,’ Danny, appearing relaxed, was seething inside. ‘I’ve always been quick on the uptake.’

  ‘Like meself. And why not.’

  ‘Why not?’ Danny said, wondering if Ada had an inkling about where her husband got his money from, while Meggie had to dip into her life savings to keep their business afloat, trying to survive astronomical demands.

  ‘Were you ever going to tell me, Ada?’ Danny’s tone was steel tipped and he saw the colour drain from her face.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Ada said, her eyes wide at being addressed by name.

  ‘You heard right.’ Danny’s expressionless face sent a shard of apprehension through Ada’s body. ‘Were you ever going to tell me that Meggie is my mother – who paid you every penny she possessed to make sure I was cared for? Were you ever going to tell me you raised me, not because you loved me or felt a maternal obligation – but because you were being paid to do so? While your husband, that no-good scheming drunk bleeds you and everybody else dry?’

  Ada’s mouth opened, but no sound came. Then she closed it, but it opened again, reminding Danny of the goldfish Bobby had won earlier and Danny realised he had gone too far. Ada was not to blame for any of this.

  ‘I haven’t seen that snake in the grass for weeks, and if he did have money I never saw it,’ Ada replied. ‘If it weren’t for me and you, we would never have had enough money to live on. Bert was out of work more than he was in it…’

  ‘He could have got a job in a bed factory testing mattresses.’ Danny could not help himself. He wanted Ada to know how torn he felt. ‘After all, Bert had plenty of practice, and not only that, he has been blackmailing Uncle Henry, nearly killing him and for what? So he could drink himself silly and spend money on illegal street bookies.’

  ‘We had nothing.’ Ada’s plaintive tone was like a sword in his heart. ‘The Skinners had the house. The business. The money. The lot. But I knew nothing about Bert’s devious shenanigans.’ Ada’s voice trembled and Danny, confused, wanted to put his arms round her and tell her everything would be fine. But he could not be sure of that.

  ‘You mean to tell me when Bert came home with pockets full of money, you didn’t ask him where he got it from?’ Danny was in bits and he needed to understand.

  ‘Bert Harris? Have money in his pocket?’ Ada scoffed. ‘If he had money I didn’t see any of it,’ Ada said again. ‘That was my penance for having a loving heart, and a hasty marriage to a man who loved his ale more than he loved his family.’

  ‘Bert was a crook and you should have slung him out years ago.’ He watched Ada’s shoulders slump and she looked beaten and said in a small voice.

  ‘I didn’t live round here when Henry came to me that night with a bundle in his arms. I was already pregnant with Grace a
nd my husband was out of work. We were penniless and badly needed the money Henry offered for taking care of the child. And then my aunt died, I was left the house in Reckoner’s Row and after we moved in it paid for gas and food for us all.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know if I see it quite the same way.’ Danny answered knowing he had spent his life supporting his moth… Ada. He did not regret bolstering the woman who he now knew was his aunt, but at what price?

  ‘I gave you away for your own sake,’ Meggie told Danny as they sat at the table, their tea had grown cold, ‘not because I didn’t want you or love you. Nothing could be further from the truth.’ Tears burned her eyes, but Meggie held fast, not letting them fall until Danny reached for her hand and it was all too much. Twenty-five years of heartache welled up inside her and overflowed down her cheeks.

  ‘I used to watch you playing in the street.’ Meggie had a catch in her voice. ‘I never tired of watching you play football or cricket, always determined to win, urging your team to do well.’

  ‘I’m not a good loser,’ Danny smiled.

  ‘Did you have a happy childhood, Danny?’ Meggie asked and he nodded, watching Meggie pour the dark red tea, just the way he liked it, not too strong you could stand a spoon in, or so weak it crawled out of the pot, exhausted.

  ‘You don’t have sugar?’ she said recalling every little thing about him.

  ‘No thanks,’ Danny answered with a slight shake of his head, ‘Ma never allowed us to have sugar.’

  ‘Wise,’ Meggie said, the quiet smile did not quite reach her tear-stained eyes.

  ‘She did her best, I suppose,’ Danny said, feeling awkward calling Ada ‘Ma’ in front of Meggie. ‘I never went without if she could manage it. I always had good leather shoes and warm clothes, and I never went hungry.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Meggie said, knowing every Friday since Danny was born she had put her wages into a small envelope and passed it over to Ada, so her child would be well cared for. Even when he joined the army at seventeen, she continued to provide for him and was glad to do so.