The Leaving of Liverpool

by Lyn Andrews

  ‘I called to see your mam first. She told me to wait on the corner. Are they that bad?’ he tried to sound jaunty.

  She laughed. ‘No. They are both lovely to work for. Oh, Miss Millicent can be a bit of a pain at times but Miss Nesta is a sweet old thing. It’s such a shame; she showed me the beautiful clothes she wore when she was young and she must have been a beauty. Her pa would never let her marry and when he died she was too old. Beautiful dresses they were, packed in tissue paper and she insisted on giving me a fan.’ She chattered on hoping to hide the awkwardness she felt. ‘I don’t think Miss Millicent would approve of you calling for me, though.’

  ‘What about you, Em? Would you approve?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Will we go for some tea? I’ve got something for you and I’d like to give it to you, well, somewhere sort of private.’

  Panic bubbled up. Oh, no! What if he was going to ask her to marry him? What if the ‘something’ was a ring? What would she do, what could she say to him?

  He sensed her fear. ‘I’m not going to spring any surprises on you, Em. Honestly.’

  She breathed deeply. She was going to have to overcome this feeling, for how could she hurt him? He had done nothing wrong. ‘All right then,’ she agreed.

  She chose a little café at the very top of Bold Street where it merged with Renshaw Street, and they ordered tea and scones. When the tea arrived, she poured and started to make idle conversation.

  He thrust the small package across the table. ‘I know it’s a bit of a useless thing, but I like it and I thought you would too.’

  She undid the wrapping and exclaimed in delight at the beadwork and declared she’d never seen anything so fine, then she rebuked him for buying it. ‘It must have been so expensive.’

  ‘Maybe one day you’ll find a use for it. We might have a night out at the theatre.’

  ‘Us, at the theatre?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We don’t go to places like that. I mean it’s people like Miss Olivia . . .’

  ‘We can always make it the Hippodrome then?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Maybe one day.’

  He wanted to reach out and take her hand but he controlled himself. ‘Can I take you out tonight; it is Saturday?’

  She looked into his eyes and fought down the panic she was feeling. ‘Where to?’ she asked. He’d never know how hard it had been to speak those words.

  A slow smile spread across his face, a smile tinged with relief. ‘Anywhere you like. You choose.’

  She knew Phoebe-Ann was going dancing but she didn’t want to join the throng on the dance floor of the Rialto or the Grafton. That would mean holding his hand, letting him encircle her waist with his arm. ‘Shall we go to the music hall?’ There she would be safe. He would sit beside her but in a separate seat.

  ‘Fine. Which one?’

  ‘The Trocadero?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll bring my evening bag.’

  Chapter Eleven

  EARLY IN THE NEW Year Albert had a letter from his cousin, Megan, asking could her son, Rhys, possibly stay with them while he looked for work and lodgings. Things were bad in the pits and he’d set his heart on coming to Liverpool to find work.

  ‘No need for him to look for lodgings, he can live here, it’s only right. He’s family,’ Lily said, seeing an opportunity to repay Albert for every act of love and kindness he’d shown them all since she’d married him. And she was worried about Phoebe-Ann. Ever since she’d been taken on at the B&A she’d become very forward in Lily’s opinion. Three nights a week Phoebe-Ann went out with her friends from work. She spent hours before the mirror on these nights and if Lily commented on it there was always some remark or retort that bordered on insolence. And she’d caught her with face powder on.

  ‘I just don’t want to see her going to the bad,’ she told Albert.

  ‘Lily, you’re being too hard on the girl. She’s young, she wants to enjoy herself, she’ll settle down in time, you see.’

  ‘All she thinks about is dolling herself up and going out.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘It’s the company she keeps. I’ve heard tales about that Alice Wainwright.’

  He sighed. He wasn’t very keen on the girls Phoebe-Ann chose as her friends but it wasn’t his place to say so and besides it would only worry Lily more. He’d also kept from her the fact that Jimmy had confided in him that he was thinking of emigrating.

  ‘I have to say this, Albert, she’s a flirt. I’ve watched her – even with Edwin Leeson. She’s courting trouble. You’d think she’d have learned after our Emily . . .’

  ‘Now, Lil. I think we agreed that that wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder, I really do.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. She’s just naive. She really doesn’t know that she’s . . .’

  ‘Courting trouble. I worry about her. I wonder where she’ll end up.’

  ‘She’s not that much of a fool. She has got a bit of sense.’

  Lily shook her head. ‘No she hasn’t. Our Emily has always been the sensible one. At least when they worked together, I knew Emily would keep an eye on her, but look what happened and I’m not at all certain that Phoebe-Ann was blameless.’

  ‘We could go round and round like this all night, Lily. Leave her be, she’ll be just fine. She’ll meet a nice lad and get wed and settle down, see if she doesn’t.’

  ‘I just hope she doesn’t start acting up when Rhys arrives, that’s all.’

  Albert pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. Maybe Rhys’s arrival would be timely. Maybe Phoebe-Ann and his young cousin would be attracted to each other. He pulled himself up. There he was seeing them down the aisle and they hadn’t even met each other yet!

  ‘He’ll be very welcome, Albert, you know that.’

  ‘Who will be welcome?’ Phoebe-Ann asked, coming into the room. A smart little purple cloche hat covering her short hair, the matching coat over her arm.

  ‘Albert’s cousin is coming to stay with us.’ Phoebe-Ann looked interested. ‘What’s he like? How old is he?’

  Lily shot a glance at her husband.

  ‘He’s as old as Jimmy and the last time I saw him he was in short britches. Strictly brought up if I know anything about his mam and dad.’

  Phoebe-Ann looked uninterested. Probably a strait-laced country yokel, no fun at all.

  ‘Come here to me,’ Lily demanded.

  Phoebe-Ann looked wary. ‘What for?’

  Lily got up. ‘What’s that you’ve got on your face?’

  ‘Nothing, Mam.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Phoebe-Ann Parkinson!’

  ‘It’s only a bit of rouge. Everyone wears it now. You’re so old-fashioned. Alice’s mam doesn’t carry on at her.’

  ‘That’s because she’s usually in the snug of the Grecian with her cronies, knocking back milk stout! I don’t like you mixing with her, she’s common.’

  ‘Mam! What a thing to say. You’re a snob, that’s what you are!’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that!’

  Phoebe-Ann knew she’d gone too far. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I should think so too.’

  ‘And where are you off to? Dancing, is it?’ Albert tried to make peace.

  ‘The Rialto, there’s an exhibition on. All the dances from America.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call all that dancing! Kicking your legs up and waving your hands!’

  ‘Oh, Mam, please don’t start again.’

  ‘Go on and enjoy yourself,’ Albert grinned, catching Lily’s arm and forcing her to sit down opposite him.

  When Phoebe-Ann had gone, Lily tutted but Albert smiled. ‘Perhaps Rhys’s coming might be the making of her. He just might be the right one.’

  ‘I should be so lucky! Oh, maybe you’re right. Perhaps I’m getting to be an old misery, it’s just that I keep thinking of poor Emily.’

 
‘They say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, Lil. Stop worrying, love.’

  Rhys Pritchard was a dark-haired, dark-eyed, well-built young man in his early twenties and as soon as Lily was introduced to him she liked him. As soon as Rhys was introduced to Phoebe-Ann he fell in love with her. He was quiet by nature and even a little shy in the company of girls. It stemmed, he supposed, from not having any sisters and mixing solely in the company of men. Phoebe-Ann was unlike any girl or woman he had ever met. She dazzled him with her hazel eyes, her short, shining hair, her lithe figure and her vivacity. She was like a bright star, he thought. His eyes followed her every movement and he wondered how soon he could ask her out. He’d been brought up strict chapel and was eager to observe the proprieties, especially as he was a guest in the house, a stranger to the family, except Albert.

  He broached the subject with Jimmy who was the same age as himself and the more garrulous of the two brothers. He was also the one who had offered to help him in his quest for work.

  They travelled together on the overhead railway on Monday morning. It was bitterly cold, with frost sparkling on roof tops and pavements, glittering like diamonds in the light from the street lamps, for it was not seven o’clock. The atmosphere in the carriage was heavy with tobacco smoke and the smells which had impregnated the working clothes of the men and boys crushed together on the wooden seats.

  ‘Don’t get too upset if you aren’t taken on, like. It’s just a matter of either “first come, first served” or “if your face fits”; depends which blockerman it is.’ Seeing the puzzled expression on Rhys’s face he added, ‘The foremen; they wear bowler hats.’

  ‘I’m used to that sort of system. If the gaffer likes you, you get steady work.’

  ‘What’s it like down the pits?’

  ‘Terrible. You’ve got to have worked down them to really understand.’

  ‘At least here you can see the sky and breathe fresh air, though it’s not so bloody fresh. Full of soot and muck an’ God knows what else.’

  ‘Jim, do you think your mam and Albert would mind if I asked Phoebe-Ann to come out with me?’

  Jimmy raised one eyebrow. ‘You don’t believe in hanging around, do you? She’ll lead you a dance, I’m warnin’ you.’

  ‘Will they mind though? They won’t think I’m being forward, like?’

  ‘Mam won’t mind and I shouldn’t think Albert will either. Good bloke your cousin. Best thing that ever happened to our mam, marryin’ him. ’Ere, tell the driver it’s not the end of his bloody shift so what’s the ’urry?’ he yelled to no-one in particular as they were all thrown forward when the driver applied the brakes a bit too harshly. There were other such comments as men thrown together disentangled themselves and their metal lunch boxes and billy cans.

  ‘Bloody maniac! Look at the state of me “carry out”!’ the man next to them grumbled, looking morosely at a large ‘doorstep’ of bread that had been wrapped in old greaseproof paper and stuffed in his coat pocket.

  ‘What about Phoebe-Ann?’ Rhys persisted.

  ‘I’m tellin’ you she’ll lead you a dance.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Like a lamb to the slaughter. Well, ask her if you’re so set on her. She likes dancin’ and goin’ to the cinema. Thinks she looks like Mary Pickford – some ’ope she’s got!’ He laughed at his own joke but seeing Rhys hadn’t joined in he stopped. ‘You know, the one who’s just married Douglas Fairbanks.’

  ‘I know who she is. Now you mention it, Phoebe-Ann does look a bit like her.’

  ‘Oh, God! There’s no doin’ any good with you!’ Jimmy rolled his eyes in mock despair.

  ‘I can’t ask her until I get a job.’

  ‘Don’t suppose you can. You can’t take that one out on fresh air. Come on, it’s our stop – Gladstone Graving – pneumonia corner!’

  It was nearing the end of the week before Rhys was taken on and he’d begun to despair of ever getting work or asking Phoebe-Ann out. Day after day he’d joined the crowds of men looking for work on the docks and he began to wonder if he had been rash in his optimism that a city the size of Liverpool could offer work.

  Saturday came; he had two days’ pay and, after Lily had flatly refused to take a penny for his keep, he plucked up courage.

  The lads were out helping Albert, who had a rush job on, and Lily was down the street with a neighbour who had been taken ill. Emily had not come in, which left him alone with Phoebe-Ann who was pressing a skirt with the flat iron.

  ‘That’s nice. Is it new?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’ He was at a loss. Should he pay her more compliments or . . . Oh, in for a penny in for a pound, he thought. ‘Phoebe-Ann, would you, will you . . . There’s a new film on at the cinema in Clayton Square; will you let me take you?’

  She stopped ironing and stared at him. ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’ His heart was racing.

  She hadn’t really paid him much notice. Oh, she’d scrutinized him closely at first. He was handsome but so quiet and sort of gawky. It was the first time she’d ever heard him utter so long a sentence. She was in a quandary. She’d planned to go to the Locarno with Alice and Ginny, but she hadn’t been to the cinema for ages.

  ‘Mary Pickford’s in it. You look like her, Phoebe-Ann,’ he ventured.

  She smiled and fluttered her long lashes. ‘You’re only saying that to flatter me!’

  ‘I’m not! I mean it! You do!’

  ‘All right then but I’ll have to tell Alice I’ve had a change of mind.’

  He was elated. ‘Yes, yes of course. Shall I go and tell her?’

  ‘No. You could take a note to her though.’ He looked so eager to please her she thought. He would be like putty in her hands. ‘I’ll just finish this; I’ll wear it tonight seeing as you like it,’ she smiled.

  He was ready long before she was. He’d taken the note to Alice who had looked him up and down and then smiled condescendingly and he decided he didn’t like her. He smiled good humouredly when Jack, Jimmy and Albert made jokes about being a ‘fast worker’. Lily had given him a genuine smile and had said, ‘Don’t you let her play you up. She’s a flighty little madam at times.’

  When Emily had arrived home he’d smiled at her while Lily explained he was waiting for Phoebe-Ann and if she didn’t hurry up it would be no use in going at all. The film would be half over. He liked Emily. She was a quiet, self-effacing girl but he suspected that she was holding something back.

  Phoebe-Ann made his heart sing when she slipped her arm through his on the way to the tram stop. She made him feel proud and important. Yes, that was it. Important. Something he’d never felt before. He bought her a quarter of lemon drops and a quarter of Everton Mints because she couldn’t make up her mind.

  ‘Oh, Rhys, you’re so generous,’ she said, gazing up at him.

  ‘You can have anything you want, Phoebe-Ann,’ he’d replied, wishing he could afford chocolates and even jewellery. But perhaps one day, he mused.

  She had enjoyed herself, she thought with some amazement. She hadn’t expected to.

  ‘If you were old enough I’d take you for a drink. Somewhere really posh, not just a pub,’ he said when they were on their way home.

  ‘Would you – really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She slipped her hand in his. She knew she was being very bold but she didn’t care. There was no harm in him. He wouldn’t get what her mam called ‘ideas’. ‘What about afternoon tea? The Imperial Hotel is very nice. By Lime Street Station.’

  ‘Fine.’ It sounded expensive but he felt reckless.

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘It’s Sunday.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t you go to chapel or church? It’s the Lord’s Day.’

  ‘Of course we do! We go in the morning to St Nathaniel’s. I’m talking about the afternoon.’

  ‘Won’t they be closed?’

  ‘No! It’s an hotel
!’

  ‘I don’t know. What would your mam say?’ He’d never heard of anyone going out to a place of entertainment on a Sunday.

  ‘She won’t say anything. We’re not going to an alehouse or somewhere common like that!’

  He was reticent. At home they went to chapel at least twice, sometimes three times and, in between, it was considered proper to either read or walk in the hills beyond the valley. His mam had never done anything like what Phoebe-Ann was suggesting. ‘Couldn’t we go next Saturday afternoon?’

  Phoebe-Ann was annoyed. What was the matter with him? He’d seemed so nice. A bit quiet but nice and now he was all pious and disapproving, as though she’d suggested they do something really shocking. ‘I’ve made arrangements for next Saturday.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you but I have my principles. I can’t help the way I am but I do . . . I am . . . fond of you.’

  She looked at him from under her lashes, wondering how far she could push him. ‘You could take me to the Imperial one night. We could have a drink.’

  He was relieved that she was willing to compromise. ‘Yes, that’s what we’ll do. Do they serve tea in the evening?’

  ‘No. A glass of sherry wouldn’t hurt and I’ve often been told I look older than I am.’

  ‘You mean?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a killjoy!’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘You are! Oh, I suppose I’ll have a glass of lemonade if you’re going to make such a fuss!’ At least it would be a night out, she thought, and the Imperial was a very smart and snobby place. Wait until she told Alice and Ginny about this. She smiled up at him, good humour restored.

  When Lily heard of the proposed outing she shook her head. ‘Do you honestly think they’ll let you in?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they? There’s nothing wrong with our money – Rhys’s money.’

  ‘Have a bit of sense, girl. Even in your best clobber you still look what you are – working class!’ Jack said dourly.

  ‘Nothing wrong with that, is there?’ Rhys asked.

  ‘No. Unless you want to get into the Adelphi or the Imperial. Only the toffs go there and I don’t want you to look a bloody fool being turned away!’ Jimmy answered. ‘You’re not going to make a fool of him, our Phoebe-Ann! ’