Lights Out Liverpool (2 page)

And, to complete this picture of wretchedness and poverty, there was Gladys. Gladys, in the clothes she wore every day which Eileen had never once seen washed and hanging on the line to dry; a jersey thick with foodstains, fuzzy with sweat underneath the arms, and a long black cotton skirt. Gladys was the only woman in the street who still wore a black shawl when she went out. Her little
peaked
face, grey, with the texture of rotting rubber, wore a look of utter hopelessness, as if the heart had gone out of her a long time ago.

‘I got nothing to give,’ she mumbled in her low expressionless voice.

‘You don’t have to, luv,’ Eileen said cheerfully. ‘It’s all free and there’s places already set for Freda and Dicky.’ She was uncomfortably conscious of her smart best dress with its puffed sleeves and heartshaped neckline and her sparkling white sandals; of the happy healthy baby on her arm who was cooing as he tried to get his mouth around her pearl stud earring. Eileen felt a world away from this poor little drab woman in the doorway. She stepped back, in the hope of avoiding the stink of decay and unwashed clothes which seemed doubly strong on such a hot day, and turned to look at the women in the street, the children eating, as if to make sure her own world was still there, waiting for her quick return.

Two barefoot scraggy urchins emerged hand in hand from the back of the house and stood behind their mother: Freda and Dicky, their mean narrow faces scabbed and bruised. Freda’s cotton frock, which might once have been pink, was now a grimy grey. Eileen knew that beneath the dress the ten-year-old girl wore no underclothes of any description. Dicky, three years younger, had on a pair of thick flannel shorts and a grubby vest.

Freda muttered, ‘Wanna go to the party.’

Eileen sensed desperation in the girl’s hoarse voice. ‘In that case,’ she said brightly, ‘go and wash your face and hands and find your shoes, and I’ll get a plate of butties ready for you.’

The door closed without a word and Eileen thankfully returned to the party, where the tables were rapidly being emptied. The jelly and custard stage had been reached,
though
plenty of sandwiches still remained. Her eyes searched for Tony. To her relief, he seemed to have forgotten his inhibitions and was devouring food with as much enthusiasm as the other children. She noticed two chairs standing vacant, close together, separated from the others by several feet. Kids could be very cruel, she thought. She stood Ryan on one of the chairs and gave him a fairy cake, then, holding him by the waist, one-handedly heaped two paper plates with food.

‘They’re coming, then?’ Annie came across to help. Annie looked particularly smart today, in a flowered silk two piece that fitted her slight, delicate figure perfectly. Eileen was the only one who knew the suit had cost just seven and sixpence in Paddy’s Market. Annie’s equally delicate oval face was etched with rather more lines than one would expect to see on a woman of thirty-eight. That, and her rough red chapped hands, which no amount of Nivea cream could return to their original white, were the only indication of the hard life Annie had led since her husband had been killed on the railways a month before her twin lads were born. In the long process of bringing up her sons without assistance from anybody, Annie had gone out and scrubbed more floors and washed more clothes than the rest of the women in the street put together.

Eileen nodded. ‘I told ’em to get washed. They both looked as if they’d been up the chimney.’

Annie gave a rueful smile. ‘I don’t envy the family that gets Freda and Dicky evacuated on them.’

Two women began to bustle around removing the empty pudding dishes, followed by another who placed a clean paper plate in front of each child.

Freda and Dicky Tutty came out, each wearing a pair of tattered Wellington boots. Neither looked as if they’d
been
within a mile of soap and water. Eileen plucked Ryan out of the way and showed them where to sit. Then she glanced around, searching for her sister. Sheila was sitting on the doorstep, keeping an eye on her four older children, making sure they behaved properly at the table. She looked exhausted but happy, her hands resting on her vastly swollen belly. Eileen went over.

‘You’d better take Ryan for a while, Sheil, while I help with the washing up. Shall I put his reins on and hook him on the gate?’

Sheila’s husband, Calum, had built a slide-in gate which fitted in the doorway to keep the younger children safe inside.

‘Do y’mind, Sis? I haven’t got the energy to hold him and he’ll scream blue murder if he’s stuck inside.’

The reins were hanging over the gate and Eileen buckled them on to the reluctant baby and sat him on the pavement. He immediately began to crawl away, straining against the leather straps. Both women laughed.

Eileen looked down at her sister wonderingly. Sheila never ceased to amaze her. They’d never been close as children, having little in common. Whilst Eileen stayed in, her head buried in a book or listening to plays on the wireless, her flighty, featherbrained younger sister was out having a good time with a never-ending stream of boys. Until seven years ago, that is, when she’d met Calum Reilly and fallen deeply and madly in love. To Eileen’s surprise, Sheila had settled down to married life with Calum as if it were the role she’d been waiting to play since she was born. Her sunny contented nature seemed to expand and grow in order to encompass her ever-increasing family within its loving sphere. It was only the last few weeks of each pregnancy that wore her down, the baby pushing and kicking inside her womb, heavy and debilitating.

‘I wish our Cal was here,’ Sheila said wistfully. ‘He’s coming home next Thursday, and y’know how much he loves a party.’

That was another thing, thought Eileen. It wasn’t as if Sheila had her husband there for most of the time. Calum Reilly was in the Merchant Navy and away at least ten months of the year.

‘Never mind, luv.’ Eileen briefly stroked her sister’s untidy brown curls. ‘I’d better set to and help with the washing up, else I’ll have people calling me names behind me back.’

She walked down the street to Mary Flaherty’s and found half a dozen women crowded in the tiny, steaming back kitchen washing and drying dishes, and twice as many in the living room having a quick ciggie before starting work again.

‘You lazy buggers,’ she cried. ‘And here was us thinking I was slacking off having a chat with our Sheila.’

‘Did y’see the way them Tutty children ate at the table, Eileen?’ demanded Agnes Donovan from Number 27. Aggie was a terrible gossip. No-one was safe from her vicious tongue and Eileen avoided the woman whenever she could. When Eileen shook her head, Aggie went on breathlessly, ‘Like little animals they were, stuffing food in their mouths with both hands like they’d never eaten in their lives before. Greedy little buggers! I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she finished in an aggrieved voice.

‘I don’t suppose they know any better, poor mites,’ Eileen said reasonably, but Aggie persisted. If it wasn’t the kids’ fault, then it was their mam’s.

‘I’m surprised Gladys had the gall to let them out,’ she complained. ‘Mrs Crean wouldn’t let her two mongol lads come because she doesn’t trust their table manners.’

Eileen reckoned Phoebe Crean was probably keeping
Harry
and Owen out of sight of gawpers like Agnes Donovan, who seemed to get enjoyment from other people’s misfortunes. She ignored the woman and asked Mary Flaherty if there was anything she could do, ‘Seeing as how all the available help seems to have gone on strike.’

‘Once the kids have finished, you can clear the tables, Eileen,’ Mary told her, smiling. ‘Then give the cloths a shake and turn them over so they’re fresh for us when we sit down to our grub in about half an hour, like. Our Joey’s going to organise some games in the meantime.’ As Eileen was leaving, Mary followed her into the hall. ‘And oh, is your feller back yet with the ale?’

‘Not yet,’ Eileen replied. ‘He doesn’t finish work till two o’clock, then someone’s giving him a lift back in a car and they’re collecting it on the way.’

Mary squeezed her hand. ‘He’s a dead good sport, your Francis, Joey’s really made up. We could never have afforded so much ale if Francis hadn’t been able to get it half price.’

Outside, the children had become restless. Seemingly unaffected by the almost suffocating heat and satiated with food, they were hurling paper plates and streamers at each other. Some had already left their seats and were playing tick round and round the table.

Eileen yelled, ‘Behave yourselves!’ and ducked to dodge a plate meant for the child beside her. She noticed Sheila grinning at her from the doorstep and made a face back. The Tuttys, isolated from the others on their separate chairs, were still gorging themselves. ‘And you two have had enough. You’ll be sick if you eat any more.’ They stared at her resentfully, their open mouths full of half-chewed bunloaf, as she began to clear the table. Joey Flaherty came up groaning, ‘This is the bit I’ve been dreading. Come on, youse lot, fetch your seats down this
end
and put ’em in a circle, and we’ll play musical chairs.’

‘Best of luck, Joey,’ Eileen smiled, shooing away a couple of cats who were about to jump on the table in search of scraps.

In Number 3, Mr Singerman shoved his parlour window up as far as it would go and began to play a brisk march on the piano. A minute or so later, the music stopped abruptly and Eileen noticed her Tony, hanging back as ever, was the first to be out. A good job Francis wasn’t around to see him lose. Tony came up, looking tearful. ‘I didn’t like pushing anybody, Mam.’

‘All right, luv, it’s only a game,’ she soothed. ‘C’mon, take these into Mary’s, then you can help us turn the cloths over.’ In a while, there’d be more children out and he’d have someone to play with. She noticed Freda Tutty, Wellington boots flapping against her skinny legs, was dragging Dicky around the circle of chairs by the hand, an almost fanatical expression on her little pinched face. When the music stopped, Freda swung Dicky onto a chair and bagged the next one for herself by the simple expedient of removing the boy already on it with a vicious shove of her bony hip. The boy – it was Sheila’s eldest, Dominic – caught his head on the neighbouring chair before landing on the ground. He stood up, blood pouring from a cut on his forehead, and began to yell. Sheila struggled wearily up from the step where she was sitting. Angry at his precious day being spoilt, Joey Flaherty gave Freda a sharp slap on the wrist. The girl stared at him mutinously, eyes full of hate, then dragged her brother down the entry beside the coalyard at the end of the street to go indoors by the back way.

There was a general sigh of relief. Eileen’s own relief was mixed with a sense of guilt. Always, she felt as if she should do something about the Tuttys, but never knew
what
. When she and Francis had taken Number 16 after they got married, the sound of poor Gladys being used as a punchbag by Eddie, her now long-departed husband, had upset her terribly. But Francis had refused to let her tell the Bobbies. ‘It’s none of our business, Eileen. Anyway, the Bobbies won’t do nowt. He’s not breaking any laws.’ Now it was Freda and Dicky’s turn to take the beatings. Gladys had learnt a thing or two from Eddie.

Eileen assuaged her conscience a little by resolving to take a plate of butties and a glass of ale along to Number 14 later on, though Gladys’d far prefer a bottle of gin. Everyone knew the lengths Gladys would go to for a bottle of gin when her Public Assistance money ran out.

Suddenly a cheer went up from the men on the corner, and she glanced across. A black car had stopped at the end of the street. The driver was Rodney Smith, a young man with a cherubic face who worked as a rent collector for Bootle Council. As Eileen watched, a tall figure got out of the passenger seat, a handsome man with a fine head of black wavy hair who beamed at everyone in sight. Francis! He pulled down the boot and began to struggle with something inside. The waiting men went eagerly to help, and a few minutes later a large barrel was rolled down Pearl Street. The ale had arrived.

The day wore on. The vivid sun grew larger, turned from bright yellow to musky gold, as it made its slow and inevitable journey across the gently changing sky, and a line of shadow began to creep across the cobbles of Pearl Street, sharply separating the light from the dark, though the air grew no cooler. Indeed, by late afternoon it seemed more suffocating than ever. The grown-ups had long finished their meal, the tables had been cleared and the cloths removed so they wouldn’t get drink spilt on them,
though
most of the men sat on the pavement with their backs against the walls of the houses. The younger children began to grow tired and tetchy. Many of the older ones had disappeared, having gone to other streets to find their friends. Brenda Mahon’s little girls were pushing round the home-made dolls’ pram that they were usually only allowed to bring outside on Sundays. Sheila had put Ryan to bed, leaving the window open in case he woke and began to cry. Her next youngest, Caitlin, had fallen asleep in her arms.

The King’s Arms pub on the corner of the street opened its doors, and some customers brought their drink outside to join the party.

At six o’clock, Miss Brazier came wearily around the corner, home from her job in the Co-Op Haberdashery Department, where she sat all day in a glass cage at the receiving end of little metal cannisters containing cash which whizzed across the shop on wires stretching in every direction. Miss Brazier would unscrew the cannister, remove the money, and send it back with the change.

‘We’ve plenty of butties left, Miss Brazier,’ Mary Flaherty said generously. ‘Would you like us to make you a cup of tea, like?’

‘No, thank you,’ Miss Brazier said stiffly, scarcely glancing in their direction. Head bent, she made her way to Number 12 and disappeared inside.

‘Poor ould soul,’ said Mary sympathetically. ‘I bet she’d love to join us, y’know, but she can’t bring herself to unbend.’

‘She’s not so old,’ Eileen said. ‘No more than thirty-five, I reckon.’

Like Miss Brazier, not everyone in Pearl Street had condescended to join in the festivities. The Harrisons,
who
owned the coalyard at the end of the street and lived in the house next door, hadn’t deigned to come – Edna Harrison told someone she thought street parties were ‘common’. Nor Alfie Robinson from 22, a solid Orangeman, who’d never spoken to Joey Flaherty since he’d discovered one of Joey’s brothers was in the IRA. The Kellys weren’t there, either, May and her brothers, Fin and Failey, who were Eileen’s other neighbours. The Kellys went into town shoplifting on Saturdays and stayed till late doing a tour of the city pubs to sell the loot – if they hadn’t been nicked first. The Kellys stole to order; give them the size and the colour and they’d pinch the goods from Marks & Spencer or C & A for half the ticket price.