At My Mother's Knee (31 page)

I loved
Vision On
. Tony Hart, the presenter, had that
indefinable quality called IT. Inspired by the way he'd made
art look so easy and uncomplicated, at the age of eight I dashed
off a painting of Polperro Harbour, copied from a print bought
in Boots that hung behind my dad's chair, and sent it in.
To make doubly sure that my work ended up as one of those chosen to hang on the holy of holies, the Gallery Wall, I wrote
a pitiful little letter explaining that I was deaf and dumb. At the
time
Vision On
was aimed primarily at children with hearing
difficulties and I thought my note might tip the balance in my
favour. My picture was chosen, my name was flashed up on
screen and I nearly wet myself on the frontroom carpet as I
saw my painting proudly displayed on that Sistine Chapel of
children's entertainment, the Gallery Wall. I told my mother.

'I thought that you had to be deaf to get your picture
accepted?'

'No, anyone can send a picture in.'

'Did you tell them you were deaf? Well, did you?'

'Yeah.'

'Oh, you wicked little boy, get down to confession and tell
Father Lennon what you've done.'

When I did confess I could hear the priest sniggering behind
the grill. 'Shocking,' he said, coughing. 'Say ten Hail Marys.'

For once, though, my parents were relieved that I hadn't
stuck at something. They didn't want an artist in the family; it
was an unreliable profession. They wanted me in a good steady
job, such as a trade, with two weeks' paid holiday, sick benefits,
sports and social clubs, a good chance for career
advancement and a nice little pension waiting at the end of it.
Safe for life. The thought secretly horrified me, but I was keen
to start work in a proper job and looked forward to becoming
a wage-earner.

I toyed with the idea of being a chemist's assistant and wrote
off to various companies who were advertising in the back of
the paper for just that. I fancied messing around with
chemicals, making potions and maybe even discovering a cure
for a terminal disease, eventually going on to win the Nobel
Prize for Medicine.

One company said that they would take me on depending on
my O level results. Maths and at least one science subject were essential for the job. I knew there and then that I didn't stand
a hope in hell of getting it. I hadn't even bothered to sit maths
O level; I had a go at CSE arithmetic, something that Cheetah
the Chimp would be able to get through with very little effort,
but the answers to even the simplest of questions evaded me
and I was marked ungraded. I ended up with four O levels, in
English lit and lang, art and biology, and a handful of CSEs.

'Not bad, lad,' Aunty Chris said from the top of a ladder,
'but I take it you won't be going to Oxford.' She was hanging
wallpaper in the front room and had a length of woodchip
pasted and draped professionally over one arm, ready to go.

'A restricting garment, six letters,' Aunty Anne said absently,
her head buried in a crossword book as she ambled into the
room. The floor and furniture had old sheets draped across
them, and the windows were covered, in the absence of the net
curtains, in a thick pink coating of Windolene, as a safeguard
against any passing 'nosey bastards' who might dare to glance
in and catch Aunty Chris in her rollers.

'Look where you're going,' Aunty Chris roared from the top
of the ladder. 'Don't kick that bucket of paste over, you dozy
mare.'

Aunty Anne briefly looked up from her book to make sure
that there weren't hazards in her path and, ignoring her sister,
repeated the question.

'Two down, restricting garment, six letters.'

'Straitjacket,' Aunty Chris said, concentrating as she lined up
the paper, letting the first loop of the roll stick to the wall.
Brushing it down, she deftly repeated the process until she'd
reached the skirting board, finishing it off with a series of hard
sweeps with her brush. 'Look at that,' she said proudly, standing
back to inspect her handiwork. 'Not a bubble in sight.'

'Too many letters, straitjacket.' Aunty Anne gave the freshly
papered wall a cursory glance, absorbed in the pressing
problem of her crossword.

'Corset then.'

'No, cos that would mean three across is wrong.'

'Well, I don't know,' Aunty Chris snapped irritably. 'Get out
of my bloody way, can't you see I'm busy? I'll end up in a
straitjacket myself trying to paperhang with you two under my
feet.' She pulled a tab-end out of her overall pocket and lit it.
'Why don't you get yourself down to the Labour Exchange,
Paul,' she said, coughing. 'They're looking for people for the
Ministry of Defence. That's who James Bond worked for, isn't
it, Annie?'

'MI5, same thing,' Aunty Anne replied, sucking on her pen,
still pondering the solution to the elusive restrictive garment.
'And what were you doing in the Labour Exchange?'

'Oh, I just threw my head around the door to see if they had
anything on the books I might fancy in the way of a change.
Good job for our Paul, that, though – Ministry of Defence.
Now sling your hook and let me get on,' she said, rolling out
another length of paper on the rickety pasting table.

So it was actually possible to get into this mythological ministry
after all? The same ministry that 007 and, more
importantly, Steed and Tara worked for? That was it then. I
was going to be a secret agent.

'Basque!' Aunty Anne suddenly screamed out. 'Restricting
garment – a basque!' She was delighted with herself as she
scribbled the answer into the book.

'She amazes me at times, she really does,' Aunty Chris
sighed, slapping a mixture of Polycell and fag ash on the back
of the paper. 'The things she comes out with. You want to take
her down with you to the Ministry of Defence, she'd be
another Odette with her command of French.'

I was interviewed in the Liver Building by an immaculate
civil servant
who could have stepped out of an Ealing comedy.
I was in Avenger land, I told myself, and indeed I could've been
– there was something surreal about the situation, sitting in a musty old office at the top of the Liver Building convincing a
Richard Wattis clone that I was just what the ministry needed,
and being brought a cup of tea and a digestive by a lady I
could've sworn was Pat Coombes.

Knock me down with a feather and call me Gladys – he took
me on, offering me a job as a clerical
assistant
, eight pounds a
week plus luncheon vouchers and one day off a week for day
release at
Birkenhead Technical College
, starting at the end of
September. That gave me nearly six weeks off and in the
interim I was offered the chance to elevate myself from senior
paper boy at Prescott's to working behind that most hallowed
of all hallows – the counter.

The shop had a steady stream of customers all day, but come
hospital visiting time the place was mobbed, so that
Mary, the full-time assistant
, had to vacate the room at the back where
she spent most of her time, drinking tea and dragging on a
Regal, and reluctantly slop out in her Dr Scholls to serve the
baying horde with boiled sweets, Lucozade, comics and fags to
take to their loved ones in St Cath's just across the road. If you
can imagine Maureen Lipman with a black beehive and flyaway
specs, in a striped overall with a cardigan draped in a
casual manner over her bony shoulders, chewing nonchalantly
on a wad of gum and staring myopically into your face, then
you have Mary.

She'd tell outrageous tales about the customers: 'You know
that woman who comes in with the blind one hanging off her
arm?' she'd say confidentially, stacking Milky Ways on the
counter. 'Well, the blind one is really a prostitute . . . you have
to hand it to her.' She'd cackle at her joke and roll her chewing
gum round in her mouth, delighted with herself.

Or 'You know the old feller who comes in, gets a quarter of
barley sugar for his wife? You wouldn't credit it in a hundred
years but he's a secret millionaire, owns half of Oxton, worth
a fortune but a terrible miser. Well, he fancies me rotten, and the other day' – at this point she'd lower her voice – 'he shoved
something down the front of my blouse and said, "Have a little
drink on me, Mary." I hoped it was a couple of quid, well you
would, but when I shoved me hand down me bra and pulled it
out, it was a tea bag.' Hairy old gags, I know, but new to me
at the time and very funny. I enjoyed my summer in Prescott's,
drinking tea and laughing at Mary's non-stop cabaret, and was
sorry when the call to arms came from the civil service.

'There's been a mistake,' I was saying on the phone to the
recruiting officer, 'I've been put in the wrong department. I
applied to join the Ministry of Defence, or failing that the
diplomatic service, but the letter I've got here says that I'm to
report for duty at the
DHSS
, Canning Place.'

He explained that you were placed where you were needed,
and right now there were very few openings with the MOD or
the diplomatic service in Liverpool. However, there were
several within the DHSS, so tough titty. In other words, take it
or leave it.

My mother was in her element. She didn't care if it was the
DHSS or the SS as long as it sounded official.

'Civil service,' she shouted over the counter to Eileen
Henshaw, in a voice that could be heard on the Isle of Man.
'I'm taking him over to Liverpool now on the ferry to sign the
Official Secrets Act
– he can't start work until he signs it.
Government secrets, you know – you can't go blabbing about
what you've seen. It wouldn't do for you, Eileen, would it?' I
was shrivelling up beside her with the speed of a salt-covered
slug, desperate to get out. She gently opened the shop door to
leave, still smiling radiantly. I wondered if she'd had a turn.
'Let's be honest, I don't know why we bother buying papers
when you can stand at that counter for five minutes and learn
everyone's business.'

'The local shop is the hub of the community,' Eileen rallied, quoting something she'd read in the
Grocer
. 'I can't help it if
customers discuss certain—'

'Gossip I think you'll find it's called, idle gossip. Thank you
. . . bye-bye,' Ma called out merrily, letting us out of the shop,
pausing on the pavement and smiling up into the late summer
sun. 'I love getting one over on her.' She chuckled malevolently
under her breath. 'C'mon, son, we can't be late for the Official
Secrets Act. If we get a move on we'll just catch that 60.'

The Official Secrets Act turned out to be a disappointingly
ordinary form, on which I dutifully wrote my name (in triplicate,
of course) in my best handwriting using the Good Pen
that my mother had brought along especially for the occasion.
In the lift on the way down, she turned into Rose Kennedy.

'You can never reveal government secrets to anyone now,
under pain of death,' she said dramatically, and I believed her,
not that I imagined there would be much call for the personal
details of other claimants on the part of any Soviet agents who
happened to find themselves signing on at
Steers House
.

I didn't have any idea where Canning Place was, but my
mother did. She knew Liverpool like the back of her hand and
would probably have made a good cabbie if she'd ever
bothered to learn to drive. But driving wasn't for the likes of
us. Nope, we travelled by public transport or on foot, something
my mother loved to do and frequently did. She adored a
good mooch or a bus ride on an unknown route that led to
previously unexplored territory.

Canning Place was part of the fast-diminishing Old
Liverpool, a row of boarded-up Georgian houses and a pub
called the Custom House that was straight out of
Treasure
Island
. Even in its present state of disrepair and neglect
Canning Place was impressive. It had charm, a piece of the
city's heritage and character that had survived the bombing in
the war but was no match for the inner city redevelopment
of the late sixties and was now awaiting demolition.

The modernity of Steers House, a concrete and glass cube,
was bleak in comparison with the faded gentility of Canning
Place. In the middle of the block was Dolphin Square, a rainswept,
miserable arena that had a solitary sweet kiosk
standing incongruously in the middle, as if it had just landed
from Kansas, and a soulless pub that was predictably called the
Dolphin. The square was as bleak as anything East Germany
had to offer, the icy winds off the Mersey permanently howling
around the grey concrete pillars as if trying to find an
escape route. I looked at it with mixed feelings. My stomach
was turning and I had that tingling in the groin that for some
reason is called butterflies, when it actually feels like mini-volts
of electricity. No doubt the word was coined long before Mr
Edison was a spark in his daddy's eye.

'Come Monday morning you'll be up there,' my mother
announced proudly, looking admiringly at Steers House. 'Ooh,
it's lovely and modern. Aren't you looking forward to it? You
should be, it's your first day of a new life.' She'd been reading
too many Angélique books, but her optimism was infectious
and we were in a fine mood as to Blackler's 'we repaired for
some liquid refreshment and a teacake', as Noël Coward might
have said had he been living on Merseyside and about to start
work for the Social Security.

Blackler's Store
on Charlotte Street was a Liverpool
institution. It was the home of the Christmas grotto which
featured every year the famous 'Dancing Waters', bursts of
illuminated, coloured water that would appear to dance to
music. Blackler's sold everything and anything at bargain
prices, from a mousetrap to half a yard of turquoise feather
trim, and for the weary shopper there was a café on the first
floor in which you could drink tea and eat cheese on toast
while observing the punters below. 'She could do with losing a
bit of weight . . . that's a nice coat, bet that cost a pretty
penny . . . wouldn't you think she'd wipe that kid's nose, poor little bugger . . .' My mother provided a running commentary
as the hordes passed by.