by June Francis
‘Am I?’ He looked amused but made no move to obey her. Instead he went over to the sink and placed the basket on the draining board before turning on the cold water tap.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, startled.
‘Washing the fish.’ He lifted the cloth from the basket. ‘How will you be cooking them? They’re fine big ones. I remember my grandmother’s cook used to stuff herring with a mixture of oatmeal and herbs.’
His grandmother’s cook! Her mind seized on that bit of information. She cleared her throat. ‘I’ll be cooking them in the Scandinavian way which my father showed my mother.’
‘And how’d that be?’ He began to wash the fish.
‘I bake them with a little melted fat and mustard.’ It was a pleasure to her to talk about cooking. Michael and Jimmy had never shown any interest in how the food on their plates got there.
‘And to go with them?’ He glanced over his shoulder at her.
‘Boiled potatoes with a vinegar sauce and parsley.’ There was a quiver in her voice as she took her apron from its hook. ‘Do you want to know what’s for pudding?’
One of his eyebrows lifted interrogatively.
‘Baked jam roly-poly. Does that meet with your approval, Mr McLeod?’ Her eyes smiled up at him.
‘If it’s the food you’re offering me, aye.’
‘It was not. I was offering you lunch which is ham bone soup with lentils,’ she said with mock severity. ‘The herring are for my guests’ main course this evening. If there’s any left over you can share it with us in payment for work. That’s if you wouldn’t mind doing the odd job?’ She could not conceal her eagerness. ‘Since my brother-in-law left there’s some things that the boys just can’t do. I’d really appreciate it if you could help me.’
‘I might be interested as long as you don’t think I’m stopping.’ There was a warning note in his voice. ‘I’ll be hitting the road as soon as the weather improves.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of you stopping,’ she lied, adding in a persuasive voice. ‘There’s only a few little odd jobs. You remember Mr Potter mentioning a trunk?’
‘No, but go on.’
‘I need it moving.’ She busied herself peeling onions for the lentil soup. ‘My brother-in-law said it weighed a ton.’
‘Why did he leave?’ John slapped a fish down on the draining board.
Kitty turned her head. ‘A woman. I wouldn’t mind if she was any ordinary woman but—’
‘Are you sure about that?’
She remembered how Jimmy had kissed her and inexplicably blushed as if she had a guilty secret to hide. ‘Of course I’m sure,’ she snapped. ‘The woman involved is called Myrtle Drury, but you won’t have heard of her although she’s quite well known by some in Liverpool.’
‘But I have heard of her,’ he said softly.
She could not believe it and as she stared at him their eyes met, but his expression was hard to read. ‘She was dunning my god-daughter’s mother, who’s hopeless with money and fell behind with her rent. Charley, that’s Miss Drury’s bully boy if you didn’t know, got nasty. I had to scare him a little. I don’t think she was pleased with him. In fact I know she wasn’t because she offered me his job. I turned it down, of course, with me not wanting regular work.’
‘That wasn’t your only reason, surely,’ said Kitty. ‘You must have realised she was no lady.’ The kettle began to hiss and Kitty dropped the knife on the table to make the tea.
‘Naturally. Ladies don’t threaten to have you thrown in the Mersey.’
‘Is that what she did?’
‘Haven’t I just said so.’ His eyes teased her.
She found herself blushing. At my age, she thought, and said hurriedly, ‘I wish Jimmy’d had as much sense as you.’
‘Ach, you make her sound like the whole German army. I’d left home and seen death when I was twenty-one. I’m sure he can cope with one woman if he’s any kind of man.’
‘He’s over thirty but that doesn’t mean anything with some men,’ said Kitty, cutting the remains of a sponge cake into three before calling Annie.
Her cousin entered the kitchen. ‘That there doorknob’s worked loose again, Kit.’
Kitty pulled a face and resting an elbow on the table she looked at John with a question in her eyes. ‘Please?’
‘I’m no expert at doorknobs,’ he said woodenly. ‘But if it’s only a loose screw I’m sure I can manage.’
She smiled as she filled his cup almost to the brim and murmured, ‘A whole herring for you, Mr McLeod. But first that trunk. After you’ve drunk your tea of course.’
The trunk stood in a corner of the bedroom, large and imposing. John took a grip on a handle and lifted one side before lowering it carefully. ‘I’ll need help if it’s downstairs you want it.’
‘Along the passage will do,’ said Kitty, thinking he really was strong. She had tried to lift one end of it before and had been unable to shift it. ‘There’s a small room I never use unless we’re absolutely full, and we haven’t been that for ages, since the last Grand National.’ She rat-a-tatted on the trunk with her fist. ‘I wonder what’s really inside? Mr Potter had to be lying about props.’
‘Have a look.’ John leaned against the wall, his tongue in his cheek. ‘Perhaps there’s a body in it?’
‘You think so?’ She was half inclined to take him seriously as she slowly turned the key in the lock before lifting the lid. Her heart seemed to miss a beat as she gazed inside. ‘Ohhh!’ she exclaimed.
‘What is it?’ He moved hurriedly and lowered his head as she lifted hers. Their heads bumped and she winced. He took her arm and led her over to the bed. ‘You sit there. I’ll deal with this.’
She rubbed her head and watched him go back to the trunk, glad to leave it to him. As he looked inside she said, ‘My eyes didn’t deceive me, did they?’
‘What do you think you saw?’ he said carefully.
‘A body as you said.’ The words came out in a whisper.
He reached inside the trunk. ‘Don’t!’ she cried, jumping to her feet.
He surprised her by grinning and producing a ventriloquist’s dummy.
She laughed. ‘I’ve never liked those things.’
‘It was lying on what looks like a hundredweight of bricks,’ he murmured. ‘It’s crazy the lengths some people’ll go to con others.’ He dropped the dummy on the floor. ‘Where d’you want the bricks?’
‘The back yard. Perhaps we can build something with them?’ She was so relieved, so pleased with him that she added, ‘For the extra work you can have a bed for the night. A comfortable bed, better than you’d get at the Sally Army.’
There was a silence and their eyes met. ‘You’re taking a risk, aren’t you, Mrs Ryan?’ he drawled. ‘You don’t know me from Adam.’
‘I don’t know the majority of my guests from Adam,’ she countered.
‘Of course you don’t! Stupid me!’ He sounded vexed. ‘Thanks but no thanks. I could get too comfortable here and besides I’m not staying at the Sally Army but with friends.’
‘Those at the pet shop?’ she murmured and then could have bitten off her tongue.
He said seriously, ‘That would be the last thing I’d do. What do you want doing with this dummy?’
‘Sling it in the yard.’ She decided it was time for her to go. Time perhaps to stop being so friendly. She did not want him to feel hunted. She nodded regally and allowed her skirts to brush his leg as she left the bedroom.
By the time John had cleared the bricks, moved the trunk and fixed the doorknob, the soup was ready. Watching him eat, Kitty wondered why he had taken to the road. There was little of the vagrant about him. He was strong, quick-witted, well-mannered, clear-eyed and with no smell of drink on his breath. He fascinated her. She wanted to question him further about himself and the way he lived but she held back.
After their meal she showed him the chair with its back-to-front leg and when he had sorted that out and still appear
ed willing to be of help she handed him some newspapers and a bottle of vinegar and asked him to clean the front windows. He was still at work when she realised Ben would be coming out of school in five minutes and went to meet him.
She hurried up the Mount, thinking of the man she had left behind. He really could be useful to her but she was not sure how to handle him. He was different to anyone she had met before. She knew she would have to take things slowly, although if he planned on leaving Liverpool she did not see how she could do that.
By the time she reached the school gates there was only a trickle of children coming out. She waited a while but when there was still no sign of Ben she turned her footsteps homeward, thinking how once again she had fallen down on her responsibilities towards her youngest son and all because she had got too interested in a man who seemed to have no sense of responsibility at all.
Chapter Three
Ben had returned home by a different route to Kitty and arrived at the hotel to find John cleaning the basement window. ‘Who are you?’ demanded the boy, pausing at the top of the area steps.
‘Don’t you remember me, laddie?’ John tossed the used newspapers into a bucket and came up the steps. ‘I’ll have to be going. You tell your mother that Mr McLeod will be back for that meal she promised him.’
Ben nodded and trotted beside him as he went indoors. ‘Have you come in place of Jimmy and Horace?’
‘Who’s Horace?’ asked John, making for the kitchen.
‘Annie’s uncle and he was useless and had a fat tummy. Teddy said he liked his drink too much and he didn’t do the jobs properly so Ma got rid of him. Are you here for a trial p-pe-riod?’ Ben stumbled over the word.
‘Your mother might think so,’ said John dryly, washing his hands at the sink.
The boy stared at him and then crowed with laughter. ‘I know you! You’re the man with the monkey!’
John smiled faintly, ‘You’re spot on, laddie. Now I’ve got to be off to get changed and fetch my fiddle and Joey, or I won’t be catching the first-house queues.’ As he dried his hands Annie entered the kitchen. They nodded at each other as she took potatoes from a box.
Ben said earnestly, ‘Can I come with you? I won’t be any trouble. Just let me see the monkey.’
‘You’ll be Ben. How old are you?’ said John, hanging up the towel. ‘And tell me, what time do you have your evening meal?’
‘I’m seven. And after the guests. We have what’s left over.’ Ben sighed. ‘Generally Ma’s here now and I have a buttie.’ He followed him out of the kitchen and onto the pavement.
John halted and looked down at Ben. ‘This is as far as you go. Tell your mother to keep my food in the oven. I’ll be back about half nine.’
‘But I want to come with you and see the monkey,’ pleaded Ben. ‘Did you say his name’s Joey? I like that name. It sounds right for a monkey.’
‘I’m thinking it would be more than my life’s worth to take you with me. Maybe I’ll take you to see him in the morning.’
‘But I want to see him now.’
‘I said no, laddie.’ The tone of John’s voice brooked no argument.
Ben sighed and sat on the step, oblivious to its chill, and watched him go down the hill. After several minutes he rose and followed him. Teddy, whose school was only round the corner from the hotel, was playing marbles in the gutter with a couple of his mates but Ben did not speak to him and his brother did not look up as he passed.
The boy trotted in John’s wake across the centre of Liverpool, past St John’s Gardens, the free library and the technical school, and on up Byrom Street. Despite the cold Ben was beginning to get hot and his legs ached but he had no trouble keeping the man in sight because he was head and shoulders above anyone else. They were now in an area Ben had visited with Jimmy but knew only vaguely. He felt hurt when he thought of his uncle. The Scottie passed a couple of churches and Ben began to feel uneasy. Wasn’t the man ever going to stop? The lamplighters were out now and street lamps shed pools of light on pavements.
Ben was just starting to think of finding his way back home when John turned a corner. The boy hurried after him and to his relief the Scottie stopped outside a shop halfway up the street and went inside.
The boy paused outside to get his breath back and gaze in the window. Delight brightened his sweaty little face as he stared at a litter of puppies curled up in straw. Immediately one came over to the window and, rearing up on its hind legs, barked shrilly at him. There were not only puppies but rabbits, a cockatoo chained to a perch and a cage of canaries. There was no sign of the monkey so Ben decided to go inside.
A bell tinkled as he entered. There was a big girl behind the counter and a woman talking ten to the dozen to the Scottie in a shrill voice. Ben was delighted to see the man was in the act of clipping a lead to the monkey’s collar.
The girl looked in his direction before coming over to him. ‘What do you want, little boy?’ She smiled and he did not know what to say. It had suddenly struck him that the man might be angry with him for following him. ‘Cat got your tongue? I bet it’s a white mouse? All the boys want a white mouse.’
Ben nodded and followed her over to a large cage which stood against a wall in a far corner. Instantly he was captivated and gazed enraptured at the mice, wishing he had some money.
‘Well, do you want to buy one?’
‘Can I think about it?’ He had heard his mother say that when she wanted something but couldn’t afford to buy it.
The girl nodded and moved away. Ben stared at the mice, desperate to hold one. He glanced around and saw he wasn’t being watched and opened the cage. The mice’s reactions were swifter than his and several of them escaped. ‘The mice! The mice are out!’ he shrilled, and dropping on his hands and knees he scrabbled about the floor.
The others spun round and the woman shrieked, ‘Shut the cage, Celia, and be quick!’
The girl shot across the floor and closed the cage. John slammed the shop door. The woman approached Ben with her hand raised. ‘You pest! You nuisance!’
Having managed to catch one of the mice, Ben rose to his feet and held it out beaming up at her. ‘Here’s one. Isn’t he lovely? Or is it a she?’
The woman stared at him seemingly lost for words as he stroked the teeny creature’s back. ‘What about the rest?’ she said.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think they’d be so fast.’
‘I bet he didn’t think at all, Ma,’ said Celia.
John’s expression was exasperated as he gazed down at Ben. ‘What were you thinking of following me all the way here? Your mother’s going to be worried sick.’
‘I wanted to see the monkey.’ He held the mouse out to the girl and smiled up at John who did not return his smile.
‘Mrs McDonald is right. You’re a pest and a nuisance. What am I going to do with you?’
‘Take me with you,’ said Ben eagerly, wiping his hands on the sides of his trousers. ‘I’ll be good. I’ll look after your monkey for you.’
‘Ach, I can’t do that. Your mother wouldn’t like it and it would take you past your bedtime.’
‘You know this boy?’ said Mrs McDonald, pursing her lips.
‘Barely at all,’ said John, taking up his fiddle. ‘And I’ve no urge to become better acquainted. Ben, you’re trouble!’
‘I’d take him with you,’ said Celia with a grin on her freckled face. ‘With that smile, Little John, he’ll win hearts for you.’
John stared at Ben who was holding out a tentative hand to the monkey. ‘I’ll take him so far then he can go the rest of the way on his own.’ His tone was decisive. ‘Come on, Ben. If we don’t get going I’ll be late catching the crowds.’ He nodded in the woman’s direction. ‘I’ll be back with the monkey. You’ll know it’s me by my knock.’ He pulled the girl’s plait gently and then pushed the boy before him and out of the shop.
John’s eyes searched doorways as he strode along the darkened street with the monkey scampering be
hind him and Ben trotting at his side. Even this early in the evening one could never be too careful and he had made a dangerous enemy. He was also pretty sure that spunky little widow Mrs Ryan would have his life if anything happened to her son. He thought back over what had happened since he had met her and it was only gradually he became aware that Ben was panting in such a way that it was impossible for him to ignore. John halted and gazed down at him. ‘Are your legs tired?’
Ben nodded wordlessly.
‘Up with you then.’ John almost doubled himself. Without any more encouragement Ben scrambled on his back and clung tightly as any monkey. The man hurried on faster than before, across St John’s Gardens and on up Lime Street until they came to the Futurist where a queue was shuffling slowly along in the direction of the cinema entrance. For a moment he hesitated, wondering whether to skip playing that evening and take the lad home to his mother, but then he thought how he needed new boots. He lowered the boy to the ground and told him his mother would be worrying about him and to skedaddle.
Ben walked slowly away but only went a few yards before stopping in a doorway. He watched John take his fiddle from its case and begin to play. The monkey reared up on its hind legs and performed a kind of dance so that Ben was entranced by the creature all over again. He forgot about food and his mother worrying, and a few moments later came out of hiding and joined the monkey, jigging along and following John along the queue as he played tune after tune.
Kitty was in a panic. She had seen no sign of Ben on the return journey and when she arrived home he was not there. Annie was not around for her to ask about him and Teddy and Mick were not in yet. She searched high and low, looking in the most unlikely places, such as the pantry, because Ben liked hiding. She even checked the Smoking Room, although it was forbidden to her youngest son when guests were around. In the end she went back down to the basement where she found that her two elder sons had arrived home and were listening to the Brown’s wireless which Mick had put together with his father’s help in 1929 before the Crash.
‘Ben’s missing,’ she said loudly. ‘You’re going to have to look for him. I’ve got fish to cook.’
