Liverpool Taffy (32 page)

She looked across the table, straight into a pair of dark, intense eyes which were fixed on hers. Black, curly hair, a broad brow, a quirky, amused mouth … it was her rescuer, her hero!

She nearly dropped the plates. God knew, she thought afterwards, how she had managed to hold onto them, but she did. And not only that, she proceeded to hand them round as she had been taught, with a murmur of apology if someone had to move to accommodate her.

The seaman who had saved her was wearing the same clothes, probably, but he had a tie under his blue shirt collar. He was looking at her … well, it made her blush, the way he was looking. Someone would notice, say something … but everyone’s attention was on Mrs Gallagher, ladling soup, telling everyone that Biddy had made it, that she was bidding fair to become a good little cook …

‘Biddy.’ The seaman said it under his breath, still watching her, making her name sound like a love-word, almost a caress. ‘Biddy.’

‘She’s settling in very nicely, aren’t you, love?’

With a start, Biddy realised that Mrs Gallagher was talking to her. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she whispered. ‘Very nicely.’

The seaman nodded, then glanced round the table and opened his mouth. He was about to speak, to tell everyone where he had seen her before and in what circumstances! Biddy shook her head at him, her eyes pleading for his understanding, his silence. If he said – if he told how he’d found her in the street, fighting over a carpet bag with an old tramp … If he told Mrs Gallagher how she had run away afterwards without a word of thanks … she would lose her lovely job, they would think her a street urchin, perhaps even a thief!

But he had read the message. He smiled, a slow, lazy, somehow very loving smile, and casually put a finger against his lips for a second, then held out his hand to take the bowl of soup Mrs Gallagher was offering.

‘Thank you, Nellie,’ he said. ‘Good it looks, my favourite is leek and potato.’

He had such a lovely voice! She could not place his accent but his soft cadences warmed her heart. And he was not going to give her away, he would tell no one that he knew her! Relief made Biddy feel quite light-headed. Oh he was so kind! She did so love her job, she would do almost anything to keep it.

‘Thank you, Biddy.’ Everyone had been served and Mrs Gallagher was handing back the half-empty tureen.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Biddy said solemnly. She put the tureen back on the trolley and almost danced out of the room. Suddenly it struck her that he was the young man who was
staying in the house over Christmas – Dai something-or-other, that was his name. She had longed to see him again but had not believed it to be possible. Seamen from all over the world come into port at Liverpool a couple of times a year, then perhaps they don’t dock here again for years. And now she had not only set eyes on him but they were actually going to be living, over Christmas, under the same roof!

But she must not moon about thinking of her hero; there was too much to do. She gave them five minutes by the kitchen clock, then she began to unload the hot tureens from the oven onto the trolley. The beef was in a roasting tin; she transferred that, with the help of a couple of forks, onto its dish, rushed back to the gas cooker and picked up the pan with the gravy in it, tipped the contents into the shallow gravy boat, checked the trolley over … tiptoed out of the room to listen outside the dining-room door.

She was still hovering when the door opened; Elizabeth stood there, with a pile of soup plates in her hands.

‘Serve up, Bid,’ she hissed like a stage-conspirator. ‘I want a glass of lemonade, they’re all drinking wine and beer and stuff.’

‘Oh … right!’ Biddy scuttled back to the kitchen, seized the trolley, then slowed down as she had been told.

‘Don’t ever try to rush,’ Mrs Gallagher had advised. ‘If you take your time you won’t trip or spill or have any other disasters of a similar nature. We shan’t mind waiting, we’ve got so much to talk about.’

So Biddy pushed slowly and arrived safely. But this time she dared not glance across at her seaman; she kept her eyes down even whilst she was transferring the contents of her trolley to the table. She knew he was watching her, though. She could feel his eyes on her, it was almost like being stroked.

‘Beef … potatoes, roast and boiled … sprouts, tinned peas … carrot sticks … that’s lovely, Biddy. We can manage now.’

Biddy left the room, pushing the trolley ahead of her. Elizabeth, with a very large glass of lemonade in one hand, smiled and went to go past her as she entered the kitchen.

‘All serene? Jolly good. I wonder if me Da will let me have the first slice of the beef? But they’re all guests, and I’m family, so I’ll have to take what I’m given … oh do have the soup, Biddy, it really is good.’

But Biddy was too keyed up to eat. She got the pudding dishes out of the dresser and put them on the trolley, fetched the wonderful citrus syllabub in its huge glass bowl and put that on the trolley too, and was about to bring the cream out of the vegetable scullery, where it had been put to keep cool, when like a flash of lightning she remembered.

The Yorkshire pudding! It was still in the little top oven, cooking away!

She threw open the oven door and snatched at the tin. It was far too hot for such treatment and tipped, spilling hot fat onto the floor before she managed to shove it back into the oven. She raced across the room for a cloth, rushed back and slid in the fat and landed on all fours, got up again, limping, and grabbed the cloth and went back, this time getting the pudding out successfully. She looked round for a dish, found a big brown pottery one, and turned the pudding out onto it, grabbed it and raced back across the kitchen. She burst into the dining-room, still limping, and held the pudding aloft.

‘Oh, Mrs Gallagher, I forgot the Yorkshire! I gorrit out all right but I tipped some fat and slid in it, that’s why I were a minute or two longer than I should’ve been. It’s done to a turn, though … who’s going to serve it?’

Everyone laughed. She had no idea why, but they did. Even her seaman was smiling, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

Mr Gallagher stood up. He had dark hair with a touch of white at the temples, a thin, dark face and a long line which creased his right cheek when he smiled. ‘Over here, Biddy,’ he said. ‘Nice to know you’re not
too
perfect, chuck. But I can hear a genuine scouser under that nice little voice. How are you likin’ your first dinner party, eh?’

‘It’s hard work, but it’s exciting,’ Biddy said. At that moment she loved them all. They had noticed her, had been hoping she would get on all right … oh, she was a lucky girl to work here, she really was!

Dai woke early and lay there, lazily smiling to himself. She was here, in this very house, his little blue-eyed girl! Her name was Biddy and she was Nellie’s maidservant, she was new to the job but they were very pleased with her … she would stay here, he need never worry about losing touch with her again!

Not that they had exchanged so much as a word all evening. She had served the entire meal, including coffee and little chocolate biscuits – he had drunk three cups of coffee and eaten six biscuits, all absently, whilst watching the door, waiting for her to reappear.

Only she had not. In fact he, Stuart and Joey had remained in the dining-room, drinking port, whilst the women went and, he suspected, helped Biddy with the washing up. At any rate when they rejoined the ladies in the sitting-room presently, Stuart looked across at his wife, one eyebrow raised and she said at once, as though he had asked her a silent but perfectly understood question, ‘I’ve sent her to bed, poor scrap. Didn’t she do well? She’s a lovely girl, Stu, she’ll suit us admirably.’

‘Clever girl to find her,’ Stuart said, with such a wealth of love and understanding in his voice that, unaccountably, Dai felt tears sting behind his eyes.

Oh, he could remember times when his Mam and Da had been like that; had spoken across a room without either of them opening their mouths! How could Davy have done it to
her, slept with Menna whilst she was dying, in pain? How could he have brought Menna blatantly to live in the house, called her his housekeeper, when she was just a brassy little barmaid who was only at home behind a counter with the beer-pull in her hand?

But … was it really as bad as that? Rumour, in a small village, can be vicious. He did not know whether his father had gone courting Menna whilst Bethan was still alive, though he had suspected it. But surely all those long absences …

Give your Da a chance, Dai, love
, his mother’s gentle, amused voice said inside his head.
Give him a chance to explain for himself, to tell you where he went and why, when I lay dying. He won’t lie to you about that, I promise you
.

But around him conversations buzzed; the young girl, Elizabeth, came and perched on the arm of his chair. He smiled lazily up at her. A pretty child, probably not much younger than Biddy, but life had dealt with them very differently, had conspired to keep Elizabeth young whilst Biddy had matured because she had no choice.

‘Dai, tell me about your home. Tell me about when you were a little boy. Do you live in a city, like Liverpool? I’ve never been to the Isle of Anglesey you know.’

Joey was talking to Stuart and Nellie was listening. But Lilac, the girl whom Nellie called her adopted sister, was staring at the two of them. She looked both slightly puzzled and extremely thoughtful. Dai found that he was uneasy over her scrutiny and did not much want to talk about his childhood with those very large, violet-blue eyes fixed on his.

‘Well you know that Anglesey’s an island, luv, quite a small island off the coast of Wales. There’s no city on the island. But isn’t it time you went to bed? You’ve had a long day – we all have – and you’ll want to be up early tomorrow, to see what Santa’s brought.’

Nellie must have been listening despite looking as though she was concentrating entirely upon her husband and Joey. Without turning round she said, ‘Yes, Dai’s right, Liz darling. Go up now … and you might pop in on the twins, just make sure they’re sleeping soundly.’

‘If they weren’t we’d all know,’ Lilac said ruefully. ‘They’d be shouting and yelling, or charging downstairs naked as the day they were born …’

‘But they’ve got dear little sleeping suits on,’ Elizabeth protested. ‘I saw you put them on, Auntie Li!’

‘And the first thing they do when they wake up is to take those dear little sleeping suits off,’ Lilac assured her. ‘Why we’ve produced two would-be nudists I’ve no idea, but we have.’ She smiled wickedly at her husband. ‘I suppose it’s you, Joey. I suppose when you were a little boy you kept taking your clothes off and now your sons do it.’

‘Me! When you were a child, my girl, you were the naughtiest, most self-willed …’

‘Well, maybe, but I didn’t take my clothes …’

‘We’ve only your word for that, young Lilac!’ Stuart said. ‘When I think of the things Nellie told me about you … running away, leapin’ about in Mersey-mud wi’ your pals, nickin’ fades from the market …’

‘There!’ Joey declared triumphantly. ‘If there’s bad blood in these lads we all know where it came from!’

Lilac jumped on Joey and a royal battle ensued, with Elizabeth taking now one side, now the other and Nellie and Stuart laughing and applauding. But again, Dai had got the feeling that, if Nell had not interrupted the conversation, someone might have said something …

You’re being daft, he told himself now, lying on his back and looking across lazily at the window curtains. I wonder if it’s snowing out there? I wonder if I’ll get a chance of a word with Biddy at breakfast? I could offer to wash up … Nellie’s awful kind, if I were to explain …

But Biddy didn’t want him to explain, he’d known at once, and you could understand why. This was a happy household and Biddy did not want to put anyone off, to make her position here difficult. Well, nor do I want such a thing, Dai reminded himself hastily, because I like to know where she is. And this way I can get to know her properly, really get to know her. There are bound to be opportunities – there’s her day off, for a start. She must have a day off, everyone does, and from what Nellie said at dinner last night she doesn’t have parents to go home to. Only friends.

Yes, that’s right, I’ll see her on her day off. And I’ll give a hand in the kitchen; it’s the sort of house where people wander in and out of the kitchen. I’ll offer to make a cup of tea, I’ll peel the potatoes, I’ll …

Bless me, it’s Christmas Day! A present – that’s it, I’ll give her a present! He had explained to Nellie that he only had little things for everyone, and he knew that the Prescotts, for instance, had not known he was going to be here and so had not dreamed of buying anything. But he had a tiny bone carving of a dog for Elizabeth, a large cigar for Stuart, a small box of very good chocolates for Nellie … he racked his brain, trying to think what he might give Biddy, then remembered the chunk of amber.

It was a curiosity more than a present, really, except that it could probably be made into a piece of jewellery, he supposed. He had found it on a beach in Norfolk when the
Jenny Bowdler
had docked at a little place called Wells-next-the-Sea. He and Greasy had walked along the beach at low tide and he’d found it, just lying on the tide-line, gleaming with a red-gold gleam through the detritus the surf had left behind.

Thinking about it made him sit up and glance towards his ditty bag. It was within reach if he made a long arm …

He towed the ditty bag in and opened it, delving down the side of it until his fingers touched the hard, smooth sides of the amber. It was large, the size of a bantam’s egg and would, he supposed vaguely, cut down into several pieces which could be worn. He brought it out and held it up to the light; you had to do that, otherwise it didn’t look all that remarkable. He might never have bothered with it at all had he not been curious about its shape and, having dipped it in the sea, held it up against the pale wintry sun and realised it was translucent. A local gentleman exercising his spaniel on the beach and seeing Dai examining his find, had told him he was a lucky man.