A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin (28 page)

The child promptly turned and bolted down the
steps, evaded an annoyed official on the dock and vanished into the gloom.

The bosun laughed. Then he said more soberly, his Liverpool accent broader than usual, ‘Something wrong at home?'

It seemed to Daniel that this was a kindly question put to a fellow Scouser, not Authority talking to the bottom of the pile.

‘Yes, sir,' he replied, and poured out, as briefly as he could, while watching the gangway, the loss of his immediate family.

At this, the bosun blew like a surfacing whale.

‘Phew! That's quite a story,' he said, as he glanced over the rail to check on the pandemonium below.

He cleared his throat. It was not his job to be father confessor to an ordinary seaman, he thought. On the other hand, he was only a lad – a kid from Liverpool on his own. He rubbed his hand over his face, and suggested, ‘Have you thought of telling Dale Street about your sisters being missing? The police keep a list of missing persons – and, what's more, they can demand answers where you can't. They may even have picked them up, and, if they did not know their surname, shoved them into temporary care, some place.'

His stance suddenly changed, as trolleys began to
move on the dock. He blew his whistle and began to shout orders.

As the loading progressed, Daniel decided that not only had the bosun been very decent, he had been brilliant. None of the family had thought of asking for police help – largely because they were scared of them, he supposed.

Sick tired as he was at the end of his watch, he went down to eat and, while he was eating, scribbled a letter to the Chief Constable of Liverpool, enthroned in Dale Street. He gave Auntie Ellen's name and address, as his nearest relative in Liverpool.

The Chief Constable was bedevilled by looters, traffic blocked by ruins, and a huge influx of strangers into Liverpool. The latter had brought not only further crime, but an increase in prostitution, drug-trafficking and general lawlessness.

Nevertheless, because it was unusual to receive a letter from New Orleans, and, further, because children were vulnerable to abduction, his secretary laid the letter on his desk, separately from the main pile.

The usual comforting remark from the police, regarding missing children, was often, ‘They're just runaways: they'll turn up when they're hungry.'

So it was a couple of days before a surprised Desi
was asked by the local constable if his nieces were still missing.

Startled by the unexpected inquiry, he replied that they were, had been since September 1939.

On hearing the date the police seemed more worried about the girls than Desi was. Desi was nervous that he might be accused of not doing enough to trace the children, so he hastened to add that his wife, who was their aunt, had continued to make inquiries without success until she was hurt in a recent air raid.

He informed them that their father, who was at sea, had been notified through his ship's owners that the children were missing, and Desi presumed that he was actively pursuing the search as best he could while at sea, though they had not heard from him.

Fearing the worst, the police immediately put the youngsters on the Missing List, while inquiries were made of billeting officers and police in Shropshire where the girls had been evacuated.

March to May 1941

All through that fierce winter and later air raids, though Martha swore that times were worse than they had ever been, the family was, in fact, living better. As food became rationed, they bought and ate the rations, and then, thanks to Patrick's steady work, added to them by arduous queuing for unrationed delights, like sausages or offal.

The spongey pre-war white bread gave way to a weird but nourishing standard loaf, the contents of which varied according to what grains or potatoes the Authorities could obtain. Martha's jaws ached as, without teeth, she learned to chew the heavy, solid slices. During time spent in endless queues for the right-sized boots for her children, she complained bitterly of ‘pain on either side of me face'.

Her happy Saturday evenings at the Coburg or other local pubs, her one consolation in a hard life, almost came to an end, as the supply of beer was sharply reduced by demands from the Forces or for lack of ingredients.

Instead, she spent many a sixpence at the cinema, a real cinema, she boasted, not a chapel one like Central Hall. Sometimes she went with Tara and delicate Auntie Ellen, and sometimes with Kathleen and Bridie. Both her girls would have preferred to go dancing, but they could not yet afford the necessary dress and high-heeled shoes, even if they could find them in the shops.

Martha was glad to have at least two of her children – in her opinion, the two more vulnerable ones – corralled with her in the cinema. Girls that went dancing often became pregnant – and the last thing Martha wanted was any more mouths to feed. A lifetime's observation of errant young seamen, who haunted the area of the docks and who could become the likely fathers of such offspring, had taught her, she said.

She made Tara laugh by telling her, ‘At the hint of a baby, they take off, like rats into the river.'

As the snow melted and a slow spring crept in, clothing Princes Park in faintest green, Martha decided that it was time to go house-hunting. She
had not yet been able to pin Patrick down as to the amount of rent he would pay. But she guessed that, now he was experienced, he was earning more.

Strangely, in a time of general shortages, there were quite a number of houses with the To Let sign in their windows. When men were called up and, as a result, incomes shrank, young wives gave up their homes and went back to live with their mothers ‘for the duration', as they put it.

She put on a decent flowered pinafore, wrapped her black shawl around her, and went to see the agent whose address was on most of the signs.

He was not particularly keen to show her any of the houses available until she mentioned that her husband was a city fireman. Then he immediately produced keys to two of them, for which she signed with a cross.

After living in a court, the streets of Toxteth seemed almost frighteningly wide. Some had shade trees in bud, and each house had a well-swept front step abutting the pavement. The street to which the agent had directed her was empty, except for one or two passers-by and three little girls playing hopscotch.

She found the house she was seeking, and hesitantly unlocked the door. She stepped into a narrow hall, and was faced with a steep staircase to the
upper floor. To her right was a closed door.

She cautiously opened it and peeped into a room fairly well lit by a bow window. It had a fireplace littered with ashes; the bare wooden floor looked as if it had not been swept for months. She tiptoed through to a further door, as if she might disturb someone. Behind it, she found a living room with a large kitchen range and a kitchen sink, equally littered with the debris of months.

Through the window of this room, she could see a small yard enclosed by a high brick wall. At the end of the yard was a little shed. She wondered if the shed was a lavatory.

She stood in the doorway, her fingers on the brass knob, ready to retreat. It was so silent, so empty.

She reckoned that upstairs there must be the same space. She took in a big breath – it was silly to be so nervous.

She immediately became aware of an all-too-familiar smell.

Jaspers!

She stepped hastily back into the hall, lest a bug drop on her from the lintel. Bugs go to bed in the daytime, she knew that, but they did not take their odour with them. Her room in the court had been permanently bug-ridden and she was very keen that
she might get rid of the pests by obtaining a decent house: most of her family had been bitten by them so often that they were practically immune to the great red welts they produced, but the children would be glad enough not to have to endure any more.

She turned and scuttled out of the house with such speed that she forgot to lock the front door.

She walked over to the second house and found the same problem.

Indignantly, she marched back to the agent, slammed the keys onto the counter, and said sharply, ‘They both got jaspers.'

The agent sighed. He had taken for granted that a woman in a black shawl would be bug-ridden already and would not be bothered by the presence of vermin.

‘And what rent would you be asking for a house – with bugs?'

‘The rent's controlled – seven shillings a week.'

‘Holy Mother! All that!'

‘That's a low rent for a through house. We can get the house fumigated for you.'

Martha was shocked at the rent, and ignored the offer of fumigation. ‘Haven't you got nothing smaller – with no bugs?'

‘Not in this district. We do usually get the houses
stoved before each tenant goes in; then keeping them vermin-free depends on the tenant.'

That would get rid of the vermin, thought Martha – but not the rent.

‘Ta,' she responded, and walked out. She joined a nearby queue in front of a grocer's, and was cheered by finding that it was for sausages.

At teatime, so tired that she hardly knew how to stand, she shoved a plate of sausage and potatoes under Patrick's nose, and then sat down. He was late and the children were out at play, despite the blackout. She told him crossly about the houses.

‘Try down by the Dingle – it's real nice down there, by the petrol installation.'

‘What about you doing something about it?'

‘What with learning the city, I'm finished,' he grumbled. ‘I been driving all over the place so I can find anywhere in the dark.'

‘What about me? I'm never off me feet. How do you think I got them sausages? And then I been to see the houses and I come home and cooked and fed the kids.'

‘Ach! Stop it. You don't know you're born. All you got to do is find a place not too far from where any of us works – and let them stove it.'

‘And pay seven bob a week in rent?' she retorted. ‘It's only one and sixpence here.'

‘Get yourself a regular job like everybody else is doing, and we'll manage it.'

She swallowed. She felt like murdering him, but she was too tired.

He finished his tea, belched and got up. He slowly put on his uniform jacket again and buttoned it up.

‘Going down to the Coburg?' she sneered.

He ignored the gibe, opened the door of the room and swung out, only to collide with old Joseph, the pickpocket from the second floor. He was about to ascend the stairs to his room.

For a moment, they were so close that old Joseph had to restrain himself from neatly taking the change out of his neighbour's pocket. Never a good idea to rob the neighbours, however; he had always held to this precept and never had stolen anything in the house; the result was that, despite his occupation, he was regarded as reasonably trustworthy.

Patrick grinned at him, and continued down the front steps.

To old Joseph, the blackout was a godsend. In the dead dark, quietly and unhurriedly shuffling the length of a cinema queue, making the most of the dim outline of his aged bentness, he could pick several pockets or open a handbag, before
vanishing, unsuspected, into the blackness of the street itself.

Unbeknown to Martha or Patrick, he was enjoying himself teaching young Joe, their son, the techniques of his craft. Joe regarded this as a great game; he had enlisted his younger sister, Ellie, into aiding him by begging from a woman to distract her attention, while he neatly took change from her pocket or, preferably, something edible out of her shopping bag.

A few days later, it was Brendan, the seaman son of Kitty Callaghan, his neighbour on the second floor, who, while on leave, alerted Patrick to what was happening.

Young Joe had made the worst of mistakes by trying to take Brendan's wallet out of his back pocket.

He caught the child by the wrist, held him down against his thigh, pulled down his shorts and gave him a thorough spanking. Then, holding him by his guernsey, he shook him hard.

‘You ever try that again,' he hissed, ‘and I'll belt you till you bleed.' He flung the howling boy away from him and ran down the stairs to meet his girlfriend outside the court.

Martha came to the bottom of the stairs to see what the noise was about, and Brendan smiled at
her as he passed her: he had no doubt that Martha would sort out her son in short order.

She met Joe hitching up his trousers, as he descended. He was still crying.

Faced with the need for an immediate explanation, he reduced his wails to a whimper, and said, ‘Brendan pulled me pants down and tried to do something to me.'

Number Nine was sorting his precious cigarette card collection on the floor. He now glanced up nervously at his brother; his mother had warned him not to let anybody touch him or pull his shorts down.

Pat was reading the football news. He looked up, as Martha dragged the boy into their room.

‘Tell your dad,' she ordered, only half believing the accusation, because Brendan had smiled at her.

The paper was put down. Gimlet eyes glared at the boy. Faltering, Joe repeated the accusation.

There was silence in the room. Patrick knew he must be careful. Someone upstairs would have heard the rumpus and news of the accusation might flow through the court. Honour would demand that he face Brendan with it, and, likely, he would have to fight him. But he had known the lad since he was a kid; he was a nice enough lad, despite his
rogue of a father, and he had more girls floating round him than most young men.

He again looked hard at the squirming ten-year-old, still held in his mother's firm grip.

He took a chance, and ordered, ‘Now tell me what really happened.'

‘Like I said.' Joe was scared, and he wriggled harder in hope of escape.

His father stood up, and said, ‘I don't believe it. Brendan isn't like that.'