Midnight on Lime Street

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Other side of them trees. What do you mean, He didn’t?’

  ‘We got free will and some of us choose to do bad things.’

  ‘But He could have stopped it,’ John said.

  Ian threw the socks in a bag – has task was hopeless in the dark. ‘Look, everything bad in the world is done by us, by people. He gave us a beautiful planet, a set of rules and free will. Some people are crap. Healey, Ellis and Moorhead are bad, but they could stop being bad if they wanted to. Even diseases are our fault, because we don’t live right. Now, pick these bags up – remember, we need some proper sleep.’

  Phil shook his head. ‘How do you know all this stuff, then?’

  ‘Books. You know, them things in the library with pages of writing in ’em. We don’t all stick to the Beano and the Dandy, you know. Come on, shift your arses.’

  They dragged sore feet across the last few hundred yards. The door of the hut wasn’t locked, and the three boys literally fell in, hit the floor and slept. This was night one of freedom. There was a great deal to be done before they got caught, and they needed a long rest. Tomorrow, their scribe would begin letting the world know about the Brothers Pastoral.

  *

  Helen Carrington pushed her Silver Cross pram into its resting place. She closed the door of the Anderson shelter and applied the padlock before turning towards the house. Ignoring front and rear entrances, she descended cellar steps and reached her own domain. Everything she needed was to hand in her basement flat. When her filthy clothes were locked in a seafarer’s trunk, she ran a bath and immersed herself in tepid water; it had been one purgatory of a day.

  There was no further news about Jean Davenport, a young mother whose corpse had been found near the river. Quick Mick had died in hospital; even the two young constables had shed tears. Thirty-nine years of age and the product of battling parents who had died when he was in junior school, Mick had managed to murder his own liver. Constables Earnshaw and Barnes, currently on night duty in the Lime Street area, had both expressed the intention to attend Mick’s funeral even at the expense of much-needed sleep.

  ‘They’ll be on days soon,’ Nellie mumbled to herself, ‘or they could be sent to patrol the riverside in case Jean is a serial killer’s first.’ She scrubbed her flesh with a loofah. For how many years had she led this strange life? Five, six? She climbed out, dried herself and donned a clean, white nightdress.

  When she returned to the large living, sleeping and kitchen area, one of her sisters was there with food. ‘If you don’t empty this plate – and I don’t mean in the bin – I’ll be displeased.’

  Helen stuck out her tongue.

  ‘Infantile,’ Beatrice said. ‘I’m off to bed.’

  Alone, Helen ate the ham salad. Eating was hard work on a hot evening.

  She thought about Quick Mick, who had gone from quick to slow, from slow to death. ‘The quick and the dead,’ she muttered through a mouthful of lettuce. ‘Am I doing any good at all out there?’ She was. She should pull herself together and thank goodness that Mick was no longer in pain. Runaways had been saved and taken home or to places of safety. Three alcoholics had gone for treatment, and one of those had turned his life round. Mick and another were dead, but a third man was very much alive, working and happy.

  Oh well. Another day tomorrow, stinking clothes and that silly pram. ‘God help me,’ she begged. ‘I’m not as young as I was.’ As soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell asleep.

  ‘Look, it’s a goer, I’m telling you. Only do you think you could take your foot away from my face? It stinks like fish gone bad. How many days have you had them bleeding socks on? Go back to sleep, you’re getting on my wick.’ Roy Foley pushed Billy Tyler’s leg away.

  ‘I can’t help it,’ Billy moaned. ‘We’re like a full tin of sardines in this bed. How am I supposed to get clean clothes when I can’t go home? We’ve been stuck here for weeks now, babysitting weed. And it’s roasting when them bright lights are on.’ He sat up. ‘And we’ll go to prison if we’re found out. Or when they start pulling the houses down. We’ll have to shift all this stuff somewhere else, and—’

  ‘Shut your face.’ Roy rolled off the bed. ‘Listen, we’ll get thousands off the resin. Like I said, it’s a goer, and I know how to make it. We can cut it with anything brown, even dog shit. Holy Mary and Dopey Ginger can arrange to sell it, because nobody’ll suspect them two daft buggers. We’ll be millionaires.’

  Billy sniffed. ‘Can’t we be millionaires with two beds instead of one?’

  ‘Not yet. If we get found out for using electricity from the street lights, we’ll be buggered and we’ll have to scarper, and we’ll lose every leaf of this crop. So shut up, put up and get your sunglasses on, because I’m doing a burst.’ A burst meant light too fierce for human eyes.

  Billy was fed up, and he said so.

  Roy offered no answer; he was fed up with Billy’s fed up-ness.

  Every part of the upper floor, including the boys’ bedroom, was crammed with plants. Roy, who had suffered all his life from sudden enthusiasms, was building a career in drugs. With all the upper windows blacked out, he was able to give the plants the unbearably fierce light they needed. He fled downstairs with Billy Tyler hot on his heels. Hot was the right word, because the house was stifling. Demolition had begun in streets nearby, though their borrowed premises were reasonably safe for now.

  They ate jam butties and drank tepid lemonade.

  ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Billy asked.

  Roy nodded. He’d had lessons in Halewood. ‘Buds are worth a lot. They can be smoked in a pipe. Leaves can be brewed to make tea, and the resin goes in ciggies. Them who don’t smoke can put it in cakes and bake it. I could sell the lot to Halewood and Speke, but we’ll get more if Holy Mary and Dopey Ginge find somebody to flog it for us.’

  ‘We could go to jail.’ Billy bit into his second butty.

  ‘Don’t talk soft.’

  Billy was far from comfortable. They were stealing electricity, money and food, and living with a load of smelly weeds in a house due to be flattened at any time. ‘I seen that film,’ he muttered.

  ‘What film?’ Roy glared at his inferior assistant in crime.

  ‘They all went blind except them that were asleep or had bandages on their eyes. Plants done that.’

  Roy Foley shook his head. ‘Day of the Triffids? That’s science fiction, you clown. No wonder you were in the bottom stream at school. These plants don’t walk, and they’ll make us a fortune. Sneak out, cross the main road and pinch some milk off doorsteps. You’ve got to pull yourself together, lad.’

  ‘No. You go for a change.’

  The senior executive blinked. He’d picked Billy because he always did as he was told. He suddenly realized that Billy Tyler was intending to run. ‘We’ll both go for milk,’ he said. ‘And if you’re thinking of backing out or dashing off home, I’ll find you, soft girl, so forget it.’

  ‘I’m not running.’

  ‘You’d better not.’

  Billy was beyond confused. He’d already stolen dishes, ladies’ stockings, small sieves and rubber gloves for the making of super-hash, as Roy termed the best of the crop. They’d eaten no proper food for days, and Billy was becoming light-headed. There was enough foliage in the house to merit the hiring of a workforce, yet he and Roy were the workforce, so how would they manage? It would take a month to sift the top of the crop through nylons . . .

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘What? And I want to be Bill, not Billy.’

  ‘Right, Bill. Where’ve you gone in your head?’

  ‘It’s too much for two people, Roy.’

  ‘Dopey Ginger will help.’

  ‘What about Holy Mary?’

  ‘Too busy doing charity work and going to church. It’s her cover. She’ll be great at the selling side of the job.’

  ‘So who’s going to turn that drum all day? And the thing that makes compressed hash?’

  ‘W
e’ll work it out. I always think of something, don’t I?’

  Bill pondered. Roy hadn’t thought of much when they’d nearly been caught shoplifting and when they’d burgled a house on Picton Road; Bill had been dreaming about being locked in a cell, the same dream for three nights, then he’d had a nightmare about magistrates. Roy Foley was good at ideas, but no good at keeping himself and others out of trouble.

  ‘Come on,’ Roy ordered again. ‘We need milk.’

  They went to steal milk.

  Belle Horrocks was in a state of excitement that spread the full length of the farmhouse kitchen’s table. She was going home for a week. She was going home in a grey suit with a white blouse and black shoes and carrying a smart black handbag. Her mother and father believed that she was part of a peripatetic team used by companies preparing for audit, and Belle had to look the part.

  Home was new, as her parents had moved to Wavertree; that was also the place where her three-year-old daughter Lisa lived. Belle’s duties at Meadowbank would be undertaken by one of the part-timers who filled in when necessary. ‘Lisa’s growing so fast,’ Belle told the girls. ‘She can write her name and count to twenty.’

  ‘You should go home more often,’ Babs opined. ‘You get a few days off every month like the rest of us.’

  But everyone knew that Belle was careful with money. She saved assiduously, keeping a close eye on the balance in her bank book. Eve supplied working clothes, massage oils and food, so Belle was steadily accumulating funds in order to acquire living quarters for herself and her daughter. Nothing on earth meant as much as Lisa did: Lisa would have a decent life and a good education with a career at the end of it; she’d be a teacher or a nurse, something respectable, anyway.

  ‘Where will you take her?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Oh, parks, libraries, Crosby beach, maybe Formby.’

  ‘Anywhere and everywhere free,’ Angela sneered. ‘You won’t even find the bus fare to go home more often.’

  Babs was a bit fed up with Angela Whiplash Dyson. ‘Oh, shut your mouth, or wear one of your gags. Belle’s saving for little Lisa. And she’s travelling free today, too, because Eve will drop her off before we go to Southport. So try and make something out of that, you bad-minded bitch. Look in a mirror at your mean mouth, Ange. You might have good bones, but you’ve the gob of a bloody snake, thin and nasty.’

  Three women leapt from chairs. Kate jumped up and pressed the panic button, which would sound in Eve’s office, while Babs and Angela indulged in hair-pulling, scratching, biting and kicking. Angela was the taller of the two, but Babs was the product of meaner streets, and she knew a few tricks when it came to caring for herself. She threw Angela at a wall and followed through by seizing the woman by the throat. ‘You are an evil tart. I hope one day a client will lose it with you and break your effing neck. Get your hands out of my hair, bitch. And Belle would make a dozen of you, you useless article.’

  Belle dragged Babs away. ‘She’s not worth it, babe. Let her take it out on her victims tonight.’

  Angela strode purposefully towards Babs. ‘I’ll kill you next time,’ she promised.

  ‘You and whose army, Whiplash? Do you know where I come from?’

  ‘From a bad egg,’ was Angela’s swift reply.

  ‘From Scotty Road, actually. I don’t need whips or canes or handcuffs, because I’m street-smart, see? When you shuffle off the face of the earth, it will look like an accident. I have friends in low places.’

  Eve, responding to the panic buzzer, entered the room. ‘Babs?’

  Everyone froze.

  ‘That fourth attic is sound-proofed now and full of rubbish. Would you like to spend a few hours calming down among boxes of crap? Angela, behave yourself, or you’ll go up with her, and you can ruin each other’s looks for life. Get out of here, the lot of you. Belle, I’ll drop you at home. Babs, you start negotiations with Don Crawford this afternoon. I’ll do a bit of shopping on Lord Street.’

  Babs stood her ground. ‘I want to take Sally with me, give her a few hours off in a place where her stepfather can’t find her. She never goes to Liverpool, because she might bump into him, but Southport’s safe, so I’m taking her.’

  ‘No,’ Eve snapped.

  ‘Then I’m going nowhere.’ Babs sat down and wrapped her arms round her upper body.

  The others left, though Sally lingered where she was.

  ‘OK.’ Eve’s face wore an angry expression. ‘But you’ll have to be back in time for work, both of you, so I’ll pick you up at about five.’ Was she losing her grip? Babs had bested her on at least two occasions lately. ‘Go and get ready. We’re leaving in ten minutes.’ Eve turned and plodded down the corridor. ‘Up to your rooms, now,’ the two remaining in the kitchen heard. It was clear that the rest had been listening on the stairs.

  Sally grabbed Babs’s face and deposited a sloppy kiss on her forehead. ‘Are you up to something?’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh yes. And you’ll soon see what, Baby Sal.’

  The younger girl swallowed audibly. ‘Why are you helping me?’

  Babs shrugged. ‘You remind me of somebody.’

  ‘Oh? Who?’

  ‘Me. You remind me of me, Sally. I still remember being young and frightened, you see. We might have a couple of wrinkles, but we don’t lose our memories at thirty.’

  ‘Are you working on a plan?’ Sally asked.

  Babs nodded. ‘I want you out of here. Say nothing. Just get dressed in something girlish and come with me to Southport. I’ve no idea what his place is like, but it’s in grounds and there’s a cottage. Sometimes there’s a horse, too. I know he’ll take both of us. He’ll compensate Eve, and we can have the run of his house. For a kick-off, we might lose his cleaner, because we can do her job. And we’ll get time off, so we can go out and meet people. Decent people, not johns. Go on – get ready.’

  Sally gulped. ‘So Eve will lose two of us.’

  ‘She has a queue of part-timers. Look, stop worrying about other people and think about yourself for a change. When were you raped for the first time?’

  Sally blanched. ‘I was nine, going on ten.’

  ‘So that’s how you think of yourself, as just a toy for men. I am going all out on this one, sweetheart. Don Crawford’s not a bad man – he’s sick, like your stepfather, but I’m sure he never raped a child. Look at it this way, Sal: there’ll be three in the bed. We can keep him happy, and we’ll have each other.’

  ‘And if he says no?’

  ‘He won’t. I’m the love of his life, and if I want you there, you’ll be there. When he dies, I’ll get the lot.’

  Sally frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes, especially if I can manage to marry him. Don’t say anything, because he doesn’t know yet, and neither does Eve. You can be my bridesmaid.’ Babs grinned. ‘I think your jaw just hit the floor, Sal. You’d best shut it – there’s a bus from town due.’

  Sally laughed before pressing her lips together. ‘I’d feel safe with you, Babs.’

  Babs shook her head sadly. ‘Women are never safe, kiddo. Men have the upper hand out there in the real world, which is why we have to make a life without them. You know what your dad is, and mine’s no better, always beating my mam, me and anything else that moved. So we have to go all out for a better life for ourselves. I was reading about it.’

  They went to get ready, both dressing young, both with pony tails, ribbons, short skirts, white socks and flat shoes. Babs drew the line at freckles, because she was going out today, so this was different. Wotsername Sefton-Hope in the magazine reckoned that there was more to emancipation than a cross on a little piece of paper. It was about raising women to the top of the pile, about decision-making and the enhancement of life. ‘Me and Sal are going to be enhanced,’ she told her reflection, ‘so watch this space.’

  Three

  ‘If I’d known you were going to act so daft, I’d have brought buckets and spades and little paper flags for sandcastles,�
� Eve grumbled. The two girls were counting green doors along the route and getting on her wick. Most exterior woodwork had been painted a dark shade of green in wartime, and Babies Babs and Sal were calculating how many folk hadn’t bothered to redecorate since 1945. Eve had dropped Belle at her parents’ new address; Belle had been happy to sit in the body of the vehicle, while Eve’s two other passengers had travelled from bad through worse and all the way to bloody ridiculous in the best seats at the front with the driver.

  The pair of giggling idiots sat beside her cracking stupid jokes. The back, a separate compartment, was where clients were contained while being transferred to and from Meadowbank Farm. It was dark and dingy, and it smelled of men – hair cream, tobacco, sweat and semen. ‘You’re like a couple of kids,’ the driver complained. ‘Behave yourselves.’

  She should have forced them to sit in the rear of the van with Belle, but Babs remained in an almost unbearably uppity frame of mind. ‘It stinks like our bedrooms,’ Baby Schofield had pronounced. ‘We’ll ride in the front with you.’ And Eve had felt like kicking herself, because she’d allowed Babs her own way yet again. Who was the real madam here? Who owned the business? Who had sunk every last cent into a safe place where girls didn’t need to fret about being worried by pimps, beaten up by punters or arrested by coppers for working the streets?

  Babs grinned broadly at her companion, who was clearly enjoying the childhood of which she’d been robbed by her mother’s second husband. Sal hadn’t been out for months, as she dared not return home, and was too afraid to spend a day in the city centre, where her stepfather pretended to sweep the streets between taking furtive sips from a small bottle kept in a pocket. The younger girl exclaimed over posh houses in Ainsdale, and even got excited by the sight of desert-like sand dunes along the coastal road into Southport. ‘We came here years back, before Mam married him,’ she said. ‘We went somewhere called Peter Pan’s Playground. It was dead boring. Somebody sold tea, and it was always stewed. And there was usually sand in our butties, so we called them sandwiches.’