Liverpool Taffy (39 page)

Presently they went up to bed, but even in his arms she would only say, drowsily, that it was not important and that she was sure they would all be very happy living in Scotland.

‘What about Lizzie’s schooling, though?’ Stuart said equally drowsily at one point.

‘She’ll find her level,’ Nellie mumbled. ‘It’s for the best, truly, Stu. G’night, darling.’

Biddy was appalled by the news that the family were moving to Scotland, lock, stock and barrel, and within a month, too. She loved the family, trusted them totally, and was completely happy both in her work and her personal life. But going with them, tempting though it was, had to be out of the question, because of Dai.

‘But we want you to come with us, of course, dear Biddy,’ Mrs Gallagher said, smiling fondly at her. ‘You’ll be just as happy there as you are here, my dear, and you’ll soon make new friends.’

‘We shan’t be gone long, either,’ Elizabeth said threateningly. She had done her utmost to persuade her parents to change their minds, without one iota of success. Stuart merely said that the job was an important one and her mother knew best; Nellie tended to burst into tears, hug Elizabeth to her bosom and assure her that she would be grateful to her mother one of these days.

‘I shan’t be grateful at all,’ Elizabeth had stormed when she saw there was no moving either parent. ‘All my friends are here, how shall I
live
without Annie, Sheila and little Mimms? And there are others … what about Freddy Long? And Arthur? And nice, handsome Sullivan?’

‘They’ll all be here in a year or so, when we come back,’ Nellie said soothingly. ‘It will do you good, Elizabeth, not to have your own way for once in your life. Just settle down, there’s a dear, and help me to pack. Your father has taken a beautiful fully-furnished house – it’s a castle, really, out in the country with ponies and dogs and all sorts – but we’ll need to take linen and all our clothes and personal possessions.’

A castle! Ponies, dogs and other animals! They had taken it for granted that Biddy would go too, but she spoke to Mr Gallagher quietly one day, as he was trying to pack in his study, and explained that though she would miss them horribly and be unhappy without them, she could not bring herself to leave Liverpool.

‘I’ve felt like a member of the family, sir, but Mrs Gallagher doesn’t know about Dai, and I don’t think Lizzie knows, either,’ she said shyly. ‘It’s only you that does know, Mr Gallagher. You see, Dai’s coming back here at Christmas and – and we are to get engaged. I wouldn’t like to go off to Scotland so that I wasn’t here when he came home and I can’t let him know because I had a letter only a day or so ago … he was just about to
sail again. It might be four or five weeks before he docks.’

She did not tell Mr Gallagher, but the letter had been rather a strange one, quite upsetting in fact. Dai said he understood that she needed to meet other people, he wanted her to do so, was all in favour of it. But then he went off at a tangent and said there was no one else in the world for him but if things had panned out differently for her then he could only wish her every happiness and do the decent thing.

The decent thing? What on earth did that mean, Biddy asked herself, reading the letter for the twentieth time. But even after all the re-reading she still could make nothing of it.

And after his fine remark about doing the decent thing the letter just rambled. There were bits in which he said he was ashamed of the way he had behaved towards Mrs Gallagher, another bit in which he complained that the journey back had been a hell on earth, with his mind going round and round what had been said – what
had
been said, Biddy wondered, thoroughly bemused – and that he had gone straight back on board the
Bess
to write to her before she sailed, despite what he now knew.

But I want to hear it from your own lips
, the letter ended.
So I’m holding onto the ring until Christmas, when we shall meet again. All my love, darling, Dai
.

But fortunately Mr Gallagher did not want to see the letter; indeed, he seemed to understand perfectly why she felt she could not go to Edinburgh with them.

‘We’re letting the house to a gentleman from London and his family; he’s the gentleman who will be doing my present job whilst I’m away,’ Mr Gallagher explained. ‘The family are called the Maitlands and they will be delighted to keep you on, Biddy. Same wages and conditions of service, of course. How would that suit you? I believe it will only be for a year at the most with the way the world situation is going, but if you and Dai intend to marry next spring, for instance, then you are quite right, your place is here, where you and Dai can be together.’

‘I’ll miss you all terribly, sir, but I shall have to stay,’ Biddy said, feeling tears come to her eyes at the thought of losing the Gallagher family, who had been so good to her. ‘But a year isn’t so very long and I’ll write often. Elizabeth will write to me, she’s already promised.’

She did not add that Elizabeth had stormed at her and pleaded with her not to ‘rat on us’, as she elegantly put it, but to go up to Edinburgh as well, and Mrs Gallagher had wept and said that if Biddy should ever change her mind …

Biddy smiled and said again how she would miss everyone, but she was as firm, in her way, as Mrs Gallagher. She dreaded their going, knew she would miss them badly, but she could not let Dai down. She would not change her mind and go to Edinburgh, she would stay in Liverpool.

‘I don’t understand you. No, don’t glare, Taffy, I ain’t never knowed you sullen afore, but you’re sullen now. Whass up, eh? You ain’t been yourself not since you come back from the ‘Pool afore this trip. C’mon, give!’

‘There’s nothing to tell, mun,’ Dai said gruffly, trying not to look directly at Greasy’s concerned face. ‘I didn’t see Biddy, I told you that – disappointed, I was.’

‘Yeah, you telled me, but I din’t believe you,’ Greasy said frankly. ‘To go ’alf crost the country an’ norra word or a look between you – well, that ain’t like you, Taff. Any fool can see you’re mad for that lickle judy.’

‘Only a kid she is, that’s the trouble,’ Dai admitted. They were four days out of port and sitting on the mess deck eating ham sandwiches and playing cards whilst they waited for their watch. ‘Everyone said so, Nellie, Stuart … everyone.’

‘On’y a kid? C’mon, wack, where’s your common sense? She’s seventeen, ain’t she? Me Mam ’ad
two kids at that age … an’ she were married, an’ all. Your Biddy’s a woman, norra kid, an’ it’s time they all come to terms wi’ the fac’s of life … Biddy, too. She oughter be glad there’s a feller pantin’ to get ’er.… You go ’ome, Chrismuss, an’ grab ’er by the ‘air an’ do your caveman act! Drag ’er to your lair, Taff – she’ll love it, they all does.’

Dai grinned, he couldn’t help it. He’d felt downright suicidal when he had stormed out of the Gallagher house and all the way back to Grimsby the black dog of depression had sat on his shoulder. She didn’t love him, he should have known she wouldn’t, what woman would love a feller like him? Nellie was right, he should make himself scarce, keep out of her way, let her fall in love with some landlubber, not a seaman who would worry her sick by his absences and perhaps, one day, not come home at all.

He had signed on again and told himself that he must forget her – but he could not! Biddy, Biddy! She had been the centre of his life and thoughts for almost a year, which was little enough time, but now he could not imagine continuing without her. Going home, not with her small hand tucked in his, but alone. Talking to his father, but not about what mattered, just about … the house, Menna, the boat. Seeing Sîan and her Gareth, congratulating her on the birth of her baby son, dandling the child on his knee, trying not to think that, had things been different, Biddy and he might …

But as the familiar work on board the trawler began to take up more and more of his time he became, insensibly, more optimistic. Nellie had said there was someone else, but not that Biddy was in love with the fellow. She had said that, given time, Biddy might be in love with him, but now that he thought about it, he knew his Biddy better. She was in love with him, she was probably just being polite to the other bloke. He would not give up, no matter that Nellie clearly thought he ought. I’ll go back at Christmas, give her the ring, and tell here we’re getting married at Easter, take it or leave it, he decided, and gave Greasy a real smile, a great big one, and felt a lot better.

‘There, you see? Course she’ll come runnin’, soon’s she sees you mean business. The pair of you’ll be billin’ an’ cooin’ in no time, once you mek ’er see reason. Wanna take an ’and o’ cards? Gin rummy? No, I suppose you’ll be wantin’ to write one o’ them great fat letters what tek you a whole trip to git down on paper.’ Greasy sighed gustily. ‘Oh well, on me own ’ead be it! I’d rather ’ave you cheerful an’ writin’ letters than downright bloody miserable an’ playing gin. Chuck us the pack, Taff, an’ I’ll play a bit o’ Patience.’

The new people moved in on the Saturday. The Maitlands were a couple in their early forties with four children, two boys and two girls. Mrs Maitland made up heavily and had a stiff, rather unnatural-looking permanent wave. She wore fashionable Russian boots, skirts which brushed her boot-tops, slashed sleeves and low necks in the modern imitation of Shakespearian fashion. Closer scrutiny showed her to be sharp-featured, but she seemed pleasant enough. Indeed the whole family would probably prove all right, though nowhere near as nice as the Gallaghers, but Biddy was determined to fit in and do a good job for them and worked like a young Trojan to get them settled.

On the Sunday, which should have been her day off, she cooked them a roast luncheon, took the children to a rather smart Proddy church and then went on to Mass at the far humbler place of worship she herself favoured. Then she came back and served the luncheon, cleared and put away, got a very fancy afternoon tea (cucumber sandwiches, sponge cakes no bigger than your thumb and some stuff called Gentleman’s Relish spread on tiny squares of hot toast) for the adults and something more substantial for the children, and then prepared a cold supper.

She went to bed that night and slept soundly, though she was disturbed by dreams in which the Maitlands decided to buy a dog-cart and also decided that they could not afford a pony so Biddy must pull it. She awoke from a furious confrontation with Mr Maitland over what sort of harness was best for her and whether she should be shod, to find the alarm bouncing on the bedside table and another day’s work waiting.

Although the family was bigger and more demanding, Biddy would still have coped, and coped well, what was more. She stated calmly on Monday morning that she usually took Sundays off and would do so in future, and Mrs Maitland was very nice about it.

‘Of course, dear. I’m so sorry, what with moving in on the Saturday we were in such a state I never thought … and you have Thursday afternoons off as a rule, don’t you? Well, this week take all day Thursday, and we’ll sort Sundays out on our own.’

Biddy said that this would be fine and continued to work hard for the Maitlands. Until Wednesday.

Wednesday was Mrs Maitland’s bridge evening. She was, it transpired, a fanatical bridge player and as soon as she arrived in Liverpool she had made herself known to other players. On both Monday and Tuesday afternoons Mrs Maitland rang for a taxi and disappeared for several hours, and on Wednesday evening, dressed up to the nines and with her handbag full of change, she set off again.

‘I make all my pin-money playing bridge,’ she told Biddy chummily as she stood in the kitchen giving her last-minute instructions about the dinner she was to serve Mr Maitland and the hour at which the young Maitlands were to go to bed. ‘I daresay I shall come home with some fairly substantial winnings tonight – we from the metropolis dp have our standards and people from the provinces aren’t perhaps
quite
as up to the minute as ourselves.’

‘I thought you came from London,’ Biddy said before she had thought, and saw Mrs Maitland give a knowing smirk. Biddy continued to make the apple pie she intended for Mr Maitland’s dinner, but she found herself hoping, with quite uncharacteristic spite, that Mrs Maitland might be taken to the cleaners by the good bridge players of Liverpool, which would show her who was a provincial and who was not.

The evening proceeded smoothly after Mrs Maitland had left. The children, whose ages ranged from a snooty, self-satisfied ten year old to a delightful little moppet of three, had their high tea, played some quiet games and then went to bed. Biddy oversaw this, making a game of it, and thought, as she tucked the two youngest into bed, that they weren’t bad kids and would be quite good company in time. The eldest, Master Samuel, could do with taking down a peg, but the others were nice enough and would improve once their new schools had knocked the conceit out of them and some sense in.

Back in the kitchen she served soup, roast pork and the apple pie with some rich yellow cream to Mr Maitland, who ate everything, scarcely exchanged a word with her, and then got up from the table, carrying the bottle of port, and shut himself in the study. How different from Mr Gallagher, Biddy thought wistfully, whizzing through the washing up whilst she listened to Mr Chamberlain, promising ‘Peace in our Time’, on the wireless. When the News was over she switched to a light music channel, beginning to tap her foot to the catchy rhythm of a jazz band. She wondered whether she ought to go through and offer Mr Maitland coffee, but decided against it for the time being. He seemed a very odd sort of man, but the rest of the family would probably be all right, once they settled in and grew accustomed.

Having only fed one man and herself there wasn’t a lot of washing up, so Biddy got through it in no time. Having cleared up she went to the study to ask Mr Maitland if there was anything else he wanted, and when he had said no, he was quite all right thank you, she told him that she was off to bed but would leave the hall light burning for Mrs Maitland.

‘Oh … yes, thank you, Biddy,’ Mr Maitland said. ‘She is usually very late; you need not wait up.’

Oh, aren’t I relieved, Biddy said sarcastically to herself as she headed for the stairs. Because the last thing I intend to do is wait up for silly old biddies who go out gambling and don’t come home till the early hours. I can just see Mrs Gallagher’s face if I said I’d wait up for Mr Gallagher when he was out late putting the paper to bed. The idea!