Liverpool Taffy (23 page)

But she found that instead of making her way to the police station she had climbed the stairs again so she went into her room, sat down on the bed, and began, very quietly, to weep. She could do nothing! The Tebbits had already made their complaint, what would any policeman think if she went along to the station now? They would think she was trying to cover up her own theft by reporting another … oh God, what should she do? She could not stay here and wait for the law to pounce though, she would have to leave.

‘I’ll change my name’, Biddy thought frantically, chucking things into her trusty carpet bag. She tied her blanket round her pillow, stuffed Dolly into the bedroll, and headed for the door. She looked around the bare little room and gave a big sniff, then wiped her eyes with her fingers and went back to pick up the tin of paraffin. It was half full – should she leave it? But she did not want the Tebbits to get anything else of hers. Where would she take it, though? She had no money and no hope of any until the end of the week, and it was Christmas in ten days.

She would probably get tips next day and could buy chips and a tin of conny onny to see her though until pay-day. But what then? She had spent enough hours tramping the streets earlier in the year to know that good lodgings, even poor lodgings, were rare as hen’s teeth in the city. Could she possibly go to the Bradleys and beg them to take her in, just until she found somewhere else? Mrs Bradley was ever so nice, a big, fat, friendly woman, tolerant of others, fond of all her sprawling brood. She had taken the erring Ellen back, surely she would let Biddy doss down on a floor somewhere for a couple of nights?

Biddy knew she would, and perhaps that was the trouble. Poor Mrs Bradley had worries of her own without Biddy adding to them. Ellen’s baby, Robert, was much loved, but naturally his presence added to the Bradleys’ difficulties, and if Biddy did beg the family to take her in then yet another person, in a house already bursting at the seams, might be the straw which broke the camel’s back.

Until now, indeed, Biddy, as Ellen’s best friend, had tried to pass on any bits and pieces which might make life easier for the new mother and her little son, but now … it’s all I can do to keep body and soul together for meself, Biddy thought mournfully. I can’t do a thing for Ellen or Bobby.

But it would only be for a few days, until I found somewhere else, Biddy reminded herself, closing her bedroom door slowly behind her and beginning to descend the stairs. I’ll find somewhere else in a day or so, somewhere I can afford. Somewhere which doesn’t want rent in advance … oh, I could kill that beastly Jane Tebbit, it took me years to save up that money and I might as well not have bothered, I would have done better to buy pretty clothes and nice shoes, or to give Ellen more of a hand, at least I’d have something to show for the money.

Half-way down the stairs, with her face set in hard, defiant lines, Biddy saw the kitchen door below her open a crack. She continued to descend the stairs, ignoring the door. It would be a small Tebbit, spying on her so that he or she could turn and shrill ‘She’s gone!’ to the others, so they would know themselves safe from her.

It was not a small Tebbit. It was Ray, the seaman son of whom Mrs Tebbit was so proud, looking very red-faced.

‘Ang on a mo, Miss O’Shaughnessy, where’s you off to?’ he said. ‘Don’t you let them scare you off … I’m ashamed of me Mam, that I am. She knows very well we ain’t lost no money, she’s just trying to shield the person what took your savin’s.’

‘I’m going,’ Biddy said with controlled violence. ‘There’s nothing for me here now, and nothing for a Tebbit to steal any more, so you might as well let me go without any fuss.’

‘Ere, ’ang on queen, you’ve paid till the week’s end, I’ll see me Mam don’t ask any rent off of you for a week or two. Where’ll you go if you march out now, eh? What’ll you do?’

‘I’ve got friends,’ Biddy said stiffly. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll survive. I always have.’ She jerked open the big old front door and almost tumbled onto the pavement. ‘It’s no use asking you to get my money back, Ray, because I daresay she’s spent it by now, so if you’ll just leave me alone to get on with my life …’

‘Let me carry your bag,’ Ray said, trying to tug it out of her grip. ‘Then I can see with me own eyes that you’re goin’ to friends. ’Ow would I feel if they found you dead in a gutter tomorrer, eh? How’d me Mam feel?’

‘Delighted, I should think,’ Biddy said sourly, retaining her hold on the carpet bag. ‘Just you let go of me, Ray Tebbit, or I’ll scream for a policeman no matter what your Jane has told them. Go on, bog off!’

‘I don’t suppose Jane telled ’em much,’ Ray said, but he stopped tugging at her bag. ‘She’s an awful little liar, our Jane. ‘Ang on, le’ me give you your tram fare, anyroad.’

‘I don’t need a tram fare, I’ve got me delivery bicycle,’ Biddy said, walking round the front of the house to the entry which led to the back yard. ‘Unless some member of your family’s swiped that as well, of course.’

‘It’s only Jane, the rest of us wouldn’t,’ Ray muttered uneasily. ‘Look, ’ere’s a bob, it’s all I’ve got on me. Go on, take it, you never know when you may need it. What about your dinner tonight, eh?’

For the first time, Biddy remembered her plans for the evening; the two eggs, the ginger-beer bottle full of milk, the half loaf of bread. She had brought the food in her carpet bag because she was determined to leave the Tebbits nothing, but where could she cook it, what would she do with it? It was far too late to cast herself upon the Bradleys tonight, she would have to find somewhere to lay her head in the next couple of hours or she would be taken up as a vagrant and thrown either into gaol or the workhouse, she did not know which she dreaded more.

They had reached the back yard and Biddy unlocked her bicycle with trembling hands and then took the shilling Ray was offering.

‘I shouldn’t thank you, because your bloody family owe it me – but thanks,’ she said rather unsteadily, putting the carpet bag into the carrier and beginning to push the bicycle out of the yard. ‘You’re all right, Ray. Goodbye.’

Ray might have followed her as he had threatened had she gone on foot, but on the bicycle she was far too fast for him. She leaned hard on the pedals and fairly tore up the Court and into the Scotland Road, and then she turned left and pedalled equally fast for the city centre, because though she still had no idea where she was going she felt she wanted to be on well-lit streets, with people about.

There were hotels, lodging houses, surely she could get a bed somewhere just for one night? But with a bob? And if she spent her bob on a bed then she wouldn’t have any money to buy herself chips.

She cycled along the gaslit streets until she reached Ranelagh Place, then she turned into Ranelagh Street, her eyes seeking out Millicent’s Modes. Was there somewhere here where she could doss down for the night? Some little nook or cranny where the scuffers wouldn’t come poking around looking for drunks and tramps?

But apart from the shop doorway, which seemed suddenly extremely exposed, there was nowhere.

What about a station, though? Stations were busy places, she remembered trying to dispose of Mr Bowker in Wapping Goods station and being unable to do so for people, noise and traffic. So if she went up to Lime Street and pretended she was waiting for a train, then she might be able to snooze undisturbed and safe on a seat until morning. If I can just get through this night, she told herself, if I can survive until morning, then I can go to the shop, explain what’s happened, see if Miss Whitney or Miss Harborough can tell me what to do or help me in some way. Come to that, I can go round to Ellen’s once its daylight. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. All I want is somewhere to stay safe until day comes again.

The
Greenland Bess
was homeward bound with her fish-pounds heaving with cod, codling, sea bass and the smooth-bodied halibut. When the men were not hauling the trawl, shooting it, conning the ship, breaking ice, they were gutting the fish. Greasy, who seemed to take to the life of a fisherman with considerable verve, didn’t like the gutting.

‘A feller could lose a leg,’ he remarked to Dai when a huge, eel-like fish, apparently dead as a dodo, suddenly came to life in the pound and attacked his sea-boot, ripping the strong rubber as if it were paper with its hundreds of exceedingly sharp teeth. ‘No one ever telled me a bleedin’ fish would turn round an’ try to gut
me
, for a change!’

‘Happens all the time,’ Dai said laconically, making a private vow to watch the big fish in future and to keep all his most precious parts well out of the reach of those needle-sharp teeth. ‘Still, can’t be too careful, mun. Don’t turn your back on ’em.’

But that was all a thing of the past now; going-home time was clean-up time, the time you scrubbed every inch of deck, polished all the brasswork on the bridge, mopped down seating, tables, floors.

‘I feel like a bleedin’ ’ousewife,’ Greasy grumbled as he and Dai scrubbed endlessly across the deck, removing the last traces of fish. ‘I’m surprised the Skipper ’asn’t give us a duster to tie round us ’air, like one o’ them black mammies you see in Yankee fillums.’

‘You would look good in blue and white check,’ Dai nodded. ‘I’m more for pink gingham, me. Come on, get scrubbing, mun, there’s beer on the mess deck and Bandy’s makin’ chips.’

‘Not fish, for Gawd’s sake? Tell me we’re not eatin’ fish again?’

Dai laughed. Contrary to popular belief trawlermen going to distant waters do not live on fish, but they do eat an awful lot of it, especially towards the end of a voyage.

‘No, not fish, honest. Corned-beef fritters.’

‘Oh.’ There was a short pause whilst Greasy stared into space and thought about his next meal, then he sighed and nodded his head. ‘Corned-beef fritters, eh? Do I like ’em?’

‘You love ’em,’ Dai said solemnly. ‘We all love ’em. But unless we get this deck clean as a new pin – cleaner – we won’t be havin’ ’em. We’ll still be scrubbing.’

‘Aye; that’s what the Mate said, I seem to remember. Taff?’

‘What’s up now?’ Dai said resignedly, attacking a new stretch of deck. ‘Do you scrub as you talk, Greasy, or we’ll still be cleaning this deck come midnight.’

‘You meant it, didn’t you? You will come ’ome wi’ me after this trip, to Liverpool?’

‘Why not? The Mate says we’ve two weeks this time, because of the damage to the trawl and the lifting gear, so we’ve plenty of time to get there an’ back by the next trip. If we sign on, that is.’

‘I’m signin’ off after this trip,’ Mal said, behind them. He was polishing the rail. ‘Money’s good, but by ’eck, the work’s not. Reckon there’s easier ways to earn a livin’.’

‘Come up to Liverpool with us, sign on a coaster,’ Dai suggested, very tongue in cheek. Trawlermen were a breed apart, they rarely went back to ordinary merchant shipping once the fishing had got them. ‘Have yourself a rest, Mal bach.’

‘Mebbe I will Taff, one day, but for now I’ll save me wages and me bonus instead of spendin’ it all in the pubs on Freeman Street. I may sign on again in a few weeks though. Not on a distant-water ship, but on a drifter, or somethin’ trawlin’ the North Sea. Somethin’ a bit easier, not quite so … aw hell, you know.’

‘That’s done, then.’ Dai and Greasy rose simultaneously. ‘Let’s go to the mess deck, see if the chips are cooked.’

As they passed Mal, still diligently polishing, another deck-hand overtook them and paused to speak.

‘I heard Mal just now; says it every trip ’e does. Always signs off … then signs on again when we sail. It’s in the bloomin’ blood, this lark is. You can’t just walk away.’

‘Try me!’ Greasy said. ‘Once I’m ’ome in the ‘Pool – jest try me!’

Biddy slept jerkily on a bench in Lime Street station and woke, stiff and aching. She went to work, did her best to do all that she should, and asked Miss Whitney and Miss Harborough if they could suggest anything. Miss Whitney rolled her eyes.

‘Christmas only nine days away and you’re wanting time off to search for a room?’ she said coldly. ‘It won’t do, Bridget. Look in the
Echo
, ask your friends, but don’t keep taking time off.’

Biddy did her best to get somewhere, but with Christmas rapidly approaching and with her penniless state, she could find no one willing to take her on without even a week’s rent in advance.

On Biddy’s second night of sleeping rough the really bad cold weather suddenly set in. She reached Lime Street station late, too late to secure a bench, so cycled off again, this time to the cathedral. She found a shelter for the workmen and crawled inside, but had a disturbed night, largely due to her own nightmares, which woke her at hourly intervals, convinced she was about to be discovered and charged with trespass by some very large, very unfriendly police constable.

On the third night she left work on time and went straight to the railway station, staking her claim to a good bench which was against a wall and therefore warmer than those in the middle of the forecourt. She had just fallen asleep, or so it seemed, when she was rudely awoken by a hand on her shoulder and a voice in her ear, both appearing more dreadful to her sleep-fuddled mind than they proved to be once she was properly awake. A very dirty old tramp was shouting at her, telling her that he always slept here and who did she think she was, stealing an old man’s favourite kip? If she was catching a train, he told her querulously, she should use the waiting room, not his bench, and if she was not catching a train then she should leg it before he told the scuffers on her.

Biddy dared not leave her bicycle on the station; even with the chain on the back wheel and the padlock securing it, anyone could lift the machine onto a train and then tackle her security system at their leisure, so she did not take the old man’s advice about the waiting room, nor did she try to argue with him over his right to the seat, though she did mutter something about possession being nine-tenths of the law. But he gaped uncomprehendingly and gave her a shove, so she and her bicycle left the station in the coldest and most depressing hour of the day, just before dawn, and she began to cycle slowly down Lime Street, wondering drearily whether she could continue to keep on the move until the shop opened, or whether she would presently fall asleep, bicycle or no bicycle, and be killed in a spectacular crash.