Liverpool Daisy (17 page)

It was fluttery Agnes’s turn to watch Nellie. She spent hour after hour of the dark winter evening sitting nervously by the sick woman’s bed, gnawing her nails and muttering, “What’ll I do if she dies while Daisy is out?” Every time Nellie, beset by fever, burst into incoherent speech, Agnes would half rise from her seat in panic and mutter, “Holy Mother, save us!” while she patted Nellie’s shoulder to comfort her.

She was further unnerved when a strange man came to the door and asked for Daisy.

“Daisy’s at work at the bottle factory,” she said timidly, holding the door open only a crack.

The man sniggered unpleasantly. “Tell her Pat from the Hercy Dock came.”

She nodded, and quickly shut the door.

When Daisy came home about three in the morning, she told her about the Irishman. Relief at Daisy’s return overwhelmed her initial curiosity, and she failed to notice how white Daisy went at the news.

Good God and the angels! she thought frantically, I must tell those I know not to come to the house any more. She continued to worry as she and Agnes lay down together on one of the landing-room beds, since Agnes was much too scared to go home in the dark.

Both women awoke to the violent coughing of Nellie, from the front bedroom.

“Jaysus!” Daisy muttered as she stumbled out of bed and ran
to help her friend.

Agnes leaned out of bed and felt frantically for the candle and matches. Not even for Nellie could she persuade herself to get out of bed without a light.

In Nellie’s room the candle had gutted and only a faint glimmer from the fire gave any light. It bathed the suffering woman in a dim, unearthly glow as, half raised on her elbow, she struggled for breath.

“Bring a basin, Aggie, and a towel,” shouted Daisy, “and be quick about it.” She put her arm around Nellie and eased her to a more upright position. “It’s all right, luv, you’ll be all right in a minute,” she assured Nellie, as she stroked back the straggling hair from the woman’s face.

Agnes fumbled with the matches and finally got a light. She tumbled out of bed and, shielding the precious candle flame with one hand, she fled to the kitchen for the towel and basin. The spasm of coughing seemed to get worse and she could hear Nellie’s mourning sobs of pain in between the coughs. Tears burst from her eyes.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” she prayed, as she ran into the bedroom, the candle flame lying flat and threatening to go out. “Dear St. Jude, hear me.”

But Nellie did not die that night. The two women struggled to ease her as she haemorrhaged, then cleaned her tenderly and propped her up as comfortably as they could. The kitchen fire was stoked up, the hot water bottle was filled and salt bags heated to ease her pain.

As she emptied the basin, Agnes vomited uncontrollably into the kitchen sink. She turned on the tap, and, while she waited for the water to cleanse the sink, she cried bitterly, partly from fear of death and partly because her bare feet were icy on the stone floor.

She had left the candle with Daisy, but the faint light of early dawn gave some small illumination. Shakily she crept back upstairs in order to be close to Daisy.

She stood shivering by the fire in her petticoats while Daisy made soft crooning sounds to Nellie and stroked her forehead.

Daisy said irritably, “Go and get your clothes on and see if you can find a boy in t’ street to go up to the doctor. Tell him to come soon.”

A boy on his way to fetch milk from the dairy promised to get the doctor as soon as he had finished his message. Agnes pressed twopence in his hand and told him to hurry because somebody might die if he did not. Suitably impressed, he broke into a fast jog trot, his milk can jiggling madly on its handle.

The doctor again pressed Nellie to enter hospital.

Nellie clutched at Daisy’s hand with what poor strength she had and kept nodding her head negatively throughout the discussion, and Daisy said flatly, “Our Nell’s not going if she don’t want to. I’ll get our Meg to help me, too.”

Resignedly, the doctor wrote another prescription and said he would come again the next morning.

Since neither woman wanted to be left alone with Nellie, they deferred taking the prescription to the chemist, in the hope that they could find a messenger to take it in the course of the morning. Agnes made some breakfast for them all. Nellie refused everything but tea. For the most part she lay quiet, but at times her mind seemed to wander and she would make some inconsequential remark as if she was talking to George during their courtship. This set Agnes fluttering like an autumn leaf in the wind and, with almost hysterical relief, she pounced on Joey when he arrived near lunch time.

“Take this to Mr. Williamson and wait while he makes it up,” she said, thrusting the prescription into his hand. Then she shouted up to Daisy, “Can you give me some money for the medicine?”

“Aye,” said Daisy and came down to get her purse, to which she had transferred her earnings of the previous night.

“Your Mam isn’t too well, at all,” she said to Joey. “Hurry.”

Joey looked fearfully up at his aunt. Without a word he took
the slip of paper and ran out of the house. He was back in five minutes. “He’s makin’ the stuff, but he wants another half-a-crown.” He was white and panting.

Daisy looked at him with compassion. “You stay with your Anty Aggie and go up to see your Ma. I’ll go for the meddie.” She sighed. “Then maybe Antie Aggie’ll make you summat to eat.”

It took her a few minutes to walk up the sloping street to the chemist. Her boot heels dragged along the pavement and her shoulders slumped under her shawl. What a night! Still, street-walking was better than working in the laundry or the sack factory, she told herself. You can have a good laugh with t’ men — and they’re proper grateful when you give ’em a good time.

After leaving the chemist’s, she went next door to the bakery and bought some fancy cakes in the hope of tempting Nellie to eat something.

Iddy Joey, looking a little less scared, was ensconced in her easy chair, a piece of bread and jam in his hand. “Cousin Winnie come to see if her Mam was still here. She says me Dad’s just gone in to the Ragged Bear,” he informed her. Over his hunk of bread, he glanced quickly round the room. “Where’s Moggie?”

Nellie saw the gleam of the cat’s eyes peeping down at the boy from the back of the mantelpiece. “Dunno,” she said to him.

Blast George! She had forgotten that this was the day on which he drew his public assistance; he’d probably be too drunk to watch Nellie tonight. She pondered on the wisdom of asking Great Aunt Devlin to do a turn. But if, after her last spasm, Nellie saw her Great Aunt leaning over her, she might think she was near to death. “I’ll have to ask Meg to help me tonight,” she remarked dismally to Agnes, “George may be bevvied.”

Agnes made a rude face. “You could send Joey up to ask her,” she suggested.

Iddy Joey was surreptitiously opening the white paper bag of
cakes to see what was in it. Daisy leaned over and gave his wrist a sharp slap. “Have you been up to see your Ma?”

“No,” he said sulkily, as he rubbed his sore wrist.

“Well, I’ll go and give her her medicine and you can come with me.”

Nellie was awake and staring silently into the fire. She smiled weakly at her son, as he reluctantly sidled round the bed. “You all right, luv?” she asked tenderly.

He nodded dumbly, while he stared wide-eyed at her and rubbed the back of his leg with one boot-shod foot.

“You should be in school,” she reproved him.

“No — it’s some old saint’s day.”

She nodded. When she put out a thin hand to touch him, he retreated from her. The hurt look on her face, however, shamed him, and he came up close again and put his arm clumsily round her head, as it rested on the pillow.

Her smile was beatific. “That’s my lad. Now you be a good boy and do whatever your Auntie Daise tells you.”

Back downstairs with Agnes, he crammed a mass of bacon and potatoes into his mouth, prior to going up to ask his Auntie Meg to come.

“You can have a cake, when you’ve finished your bacon, luv. And another one after you been to Aunt Meg’s.”

Joey sighed blissfully at the thought of the cakes. Then said, “I don’t want to go. I’d rather stay with you.”

“Nay, you go. She’ll come if you ask. She’d not refuse you.”

On the morning of desperate Daisy’s capitulation to Meg, the m.v.
Heart of Salford
slid slowly over the bar. Salt-caked and rusted, it chugged up-river and docked at the north end. It was, however, late afternoon before Mike Gallagher was finally paid off and came sauntering down the gangplant, followed closely by his friend, Peter O’Shea, trimmer. Opposite the dock entrance, the lights of a pub shone out across the damp sets of the street, as a barman flicked them on, ready for the evening trade.

“Let’s have a quick one,” said Mike, reluctant to leave his friend and face the re-adjustment to his bleak home and formidable wife. The blast of warm air and the bright glitter of mirrors and well polished brass welcomed them, as they entered, and there they remained until closing time.

Meg was delighted to receive a token of surrender from Daisy, in the shape of iddy Joey begging for help. She patted the child’s head and assured him she would come as soon as she had given her family their tea. She ran upstairs and ordered her whining, protesting, sister-in-law, Emily, to get the children and Mr. Fogarty to bed before ten o’clock. She moved through the house like light; and slow John had to hold her against the scullery wall, while he fondled her hopefully through her skirts.

“For the love of Christ, let me be, Johnnie boy,” she cried fretfully. “I got enough to do, without you botherin’ me.”

But he would not let her go, and swung her out of the back door and into the absolute blackness of a corner of the tiny back
yard, the only private place they had ever known.

She responded to him, despite her hurry, and clung to him, loving him dumbly, unable to communicate with him very well except sexually.

She entered her sister’s house like a gust of wind, just as Daisy was wrapping a shawl round herself, preparatory to going to work.

Daisy had on a clean apron, which she had ironed with a huge flat iron now standing on the mantelpiece, next to one of the precious china dogs. The iron was a recent purchase from Hannigan’s Second Hand Furniture Emporium. Her hair was neatly combed and plaited and her face scrubbed in cold water until it was rosy. Her gold keeper earrings which her grandfather had bought her, gleamed in her ears, having been reseued after a long sojourn in the pawnbroker’s shop; Meg could not remember when she had last seen them. Her black stockings were for once neatly pulled up and secured by elastic garters below her knees; on her feet were her best patent leather shoes, bought originally for little Tommy’s funeral. She wiggled her feet uncomfortably, because the shoes had become tight after the soaking they had received on the night that she had met Ivy.

“Well, isn’t that the gear,” remarked Meg, as she swept off her shawl and circled slowly round her sister.

Daisy flushed with embarrassment, and her teeth flashed as she muttered defensively, “Well, I got to look nice for work, somehow. Proper fussy, they are.” By this time she had managed to build up in her mind a world in a bottle factory, for the benefit of Nellie who was naturally interested in her friend’s occupation, so this statement came out without a moment’s hesitation in response to Meg’s sneer.

Meg shrugged and sniffed, then went to the fire to warm her hands. “How’s our Nellie tonight?”

“She isn’t well at all.” There was a break in Daisy’s voice. “Aye, I hate to leave her.” She paused, and then went on heavily, “I need the money, though — her meddie this morning cost
the earth — and the doctor an’ all. And she gets pain, Meg — give her two spoonsful of meddie if it’s real bad — and there’s some salt bags in the oven to put by her side if she needs them.”

Meg bit her lower lip and her voice was gentle as she replied, “Never you mind. I’ll take care of her. It’ll be a pleasure after old Fogarty. Is she eating?”

“A bit. Make her some tea.”

“Where’s Joey?”

“Upstairs, asleep.”

Meg sat down in a straight chair and began to unlace her boots. “It wouldn’t hurt your Maureen Mary to come down and give you a hand.”

Daisy’s face flushed. That was Meg all over. First, all kindness and light, and the next minute hitting you on a real sore spot. She controlled the retort that rose to her lips. She said carefully, “She hasn’t anyone to leave Bridie with.”

“Humph,” grunted Meg, and dropped her boots into the hearth as if Maureen Mary was under them.

Daisy made haste to the door, lest she be provoked into saying something she would afterwards regret “Be back about one, all being well.”

“Christ!” exclaimed Meg, her round eyes wide, “That’s late! How’ll I get home?”

“Och, go in the morning when it’s light. If they want overtime, I’ll do it.”

“You
are
after the money.”

“And do you think as I would be going out in the middle of the night, if I didn’t need it?” Daisy flipped the latch open impatiently.

“Is George up with Nellie?”

“No. He’s bevvied. Joey says he’s asleep in their old room.” She clicked her tongue. “He gets his Public Assistance of a Thursday.”

At least on the subject of George the two sisters were united in their disapproval, so Meg said, “What else would you be expecting
him to do?” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

Daisy sighed gustily. “Ta-ra,” she said in farewell and slammed the door after her, remembering a fraction too late poor Nellie in the room above.

Meg ran lightly up the stairs in her stockinged feet.

The bed was rumpled by the sick woman’s tossing and turning. She was muttering to herself as if she had fever.

When Meg laid her hand on her brow to check her temperature, Nellie opened her eyes and stared at her without recognition for a moment. Then she said with a faint smile, “It’s our Meg. Aye, Meg, the pain is bad and I’m so hot.” Her mind seemed to wander, and after a pause, she asked, “Has the baby come yet?”

The inconsequential question made Meg jump. Poor Nellie must be unhinged. She peered closely at her patient.

“Pain’s real bad this time,” Nellie whimpered. Her lips drew back over her gums, and she gasped. “How long do you think it’ll be?” Her back arched suddenly as if she was indeed in childbirth. “Give me summat to hold.”

Meg glanced quickly round the room in search of some object that Nellie might clutch to help her bear the pain. There was nothing suitable. She leaned over Nellie to straighten the bedclothes. “There, there, Nellie, luv. There’s no baby; you’re sick, that’s all. But you lie still a mo’ and I’ll get the rolling-pin for yez.”

Nellie seemed to understand, and Meg sped down to the scullery, where a candle burned in generous waste. Aided by its flickering light, Meg searched hastily along the cluttered shelves. Daise had more stuff on one long kitchen shelf than Meg had on half a dozen. For the love of Christ, where was the rollingpin?

She found it between a meat tin with a good inch of fat in it and a large Quaker Oats box, and snatched it up thankfully. Then she went to the kitchen oven, hauled Moggie out and found, behind the spitting cat’s resting place, a fresh, hot salt bag.

Nellie had tossed the bedding off again.

“Here, Nellie, dear, you hold this,” and she thrust the rolling-pin into Nellie’s hands. Then she tucked the hot bag close to Nellie’s side.

Nellie clasped the pin and seemed comforted by it. It was the same pin that Daisy had held through all the births and miscarriages she had endured. She lay still, while Meg straightened the bottom sheet and smoothed the edges under the mattress. When she tucked in the side furthest from where Nellie was lying, her fingers touched something between slats and mattress. She pulled it out. It was an old wallet, and she laid it on the floor while she finished her bedmaking.

When Nellie was well wrapped up again and had swallowed a dose of medicine, she seemed more herself, and Meg asked, “Shall I put your wallet under your pillow, luv? You might forget it under the mattress.”

“Eh?”

“Your wallet. Where do you want to keep it?”

Nellie smiled dimly. “I don’t have no wallet. I got a little purse at home. I didn’t bring it ’cos there’s nothin’ in it.” She gave a little laugh which hurt her, and she winced and closed her eyes.

“Must be one o’ Mike’s old ones or one o’ Daisy’s,” Meg said. She took it close to the candle on the mantelpiece and idly opened it. She ran her fingers round its compartments. There was no money in it. There was, however, a card in it — a kind of identity card. She held it up to the candle flame so that she could read it. It was a seaman’s card, made out in the name of a Liberian shipping company; and it carried the photograph of a middle-aged man. A signature identified him as Thomas Ward. She turned the card over in her hand. She was mystified.

Nellie’s eyes were closed. The medicine and the warmth seemed to have soothed her, so Meg tiptoed from the room. In the landing bedroom Joey snuffled and turned over. Meg threw an old coat lying on the floor over his shoulders.

Downstairs, she pulled the easy chair up to the fireplace and sat down. Very thoughtfully, she opened the wallet again. Further exploration yielded three receipts, which she glanced at without much interest, and two photographs. One photo was of a fat woman sitting in a deck chair on a beach; the other was of a group of black people in long, flapping costumes. She examined both pictures intently in the light of the paraffin lamp. She decided that she had never seen the woman in the picture; the picture of the black people had palm trees in the background and she presumed that it had been taken in Liberia.

While the wind whined around the house, sometimes sending a gust down the chimney to blow puffs of smoke into the room, she toasted her toes in the hearth and thought about her find.

Had Mike or Daisy found it in the street, say? She pondered this idea and dismissed it. Who was going to push a found wallet under a mattress? It would be left lying around in the living-room.

Had Mike stolen it from another crew member? Meg nodded her head negatively at this idea. Mike would not risk a beating up from an enraged victim, who would almost certainly be bigger than Mike’s miserable five foot two inches. Besides, he had not been home since Nan’s death; and, as she had observed when she went to tend Nellie, the room had been done up since then, and the bed would have been stripped.

While the soot-encrusted kettle sang over the fire, she thoughtfully ran her fingers over the worn design of camels and palm trees on the outside of the wallet. She smiled grimly to herself.

Mike had been away a long time, far longer than he ever had before; and, though in Meg’s opinion, he was a miserable runt of a man compared to her own John, Daisy probably missed him. She might have found herself a boy friend. Daisy had never been short of admirers when she was young, and why she had chosen to marry Mike was a mystery to Meg. Now, of course, she was old and as plump as a cottage loaf. Just that bit older
than Meg that she did not have to worry about being pregnant, thought her sister savagely. Not too old to enjoy a bit of slap and tickle, though.

Meg caressed the wallet in her hand. She began to glow all over. “God give me a good vengeance,” she said out loud.