Liverpool Taffy (4 page)

‘No, not my real aunt. Just a friend of Mam’s,’ Biddy admitted. ‘When shall I fetch my stuff over, Mrs Kettle?’

‘Why, tomorrer, if not sooner! And just you call me Ma, same’s the boys does. Want a hand wi’ your gear?’

Since Biddy’s gear consisted of a spare skirt and blouse, a cloth-bodied doll called, rather unoriginally, Dolly, who was too shabby and dirty to be worth selling, the carpet bag and her mother’s wedding ring, Biddy told her benefactress that she could manage, thank you. She went back to the house in Virginia Street, said goodbye to everyone – the kids cried – and picked up her bag. Then she trudged slowly round to the shop, suddenly feeling as though the world had slid away from beneath her feet, leaving her spinning uneasily in space.

Three days ago, she thought wonderingly as she walked, three days ago I was Somebody. I was daughter to Kath O’Shaughnessy, lodger to Mrs Kilbride, shop assistant at Kettle’s Confectionery shop. And now what am I? I’m nobody’s daughter, nobody’s lodger even, certainly nobody’s shop assistant, because a shop assistant is paid a wage and Mrs Kettle had made it clear that she would not be paid. Now I’m just Biddy O’Shaughnessy, an orphan who Ma Kettle is about to befriend. Or take advantage of. We’ll see.

And she trudged on along the dusky pavements, heading for whatever fate had in store. As she passed the shop windows she saw her reflection, saw one small, skinny fourteen year old, with dark curls, blue eyes, and a pointed chin. Once someone said my chin was obstinate and when I wouldn’t eat my greens Da called me a fuss-pot, she recalled, thinking back to those long-ago, happy days. Once I would have looked very
carefully at Ma Kettle’s proposal and probably turned it down. But that was when I knew where I was going and what I wanted, Biddy told herself ruefully, changing the carpet bag from her left hand to her right, for though not particularly full, it soon began to feel extremely heavy. Yes, that was before Mam went and left me. Now I’ve got to fend for myself and I’d rather a roof over my head than a gutter and yesterday’s
Echo
.

Well, her thoughts continued, I’m down now, flat as a ha’penny on a tramline, but I’ll recover myself, given time. I’ll lie low for a bit and see what’s best, but for now, it’s Ma Kettle’s and like it. Otherwise they’ll slam me into an orphanage or the workhouse or something, and I wouldn’t like
that
at all.

Ma Kettle was waiting for her. The shop was closed but the door hung open and there she was, boiling toffee in the back room and keeping a weather eye open, she explained, for Biddy.

‘Normally, I’d tell you to finish this boilin’ off for me,’ she said, ushering the girl into the back room and through the doorway which, until this minute, had been forbidden territory for a mere Kettle employee. ‘But seein’ as you’re goin’ to live in, you’d best come up and meet the rest o’ the fambly.’

Carpet bag in hand, Biddy followed Ma Kettle up a flight of stairs and into a large, rather dismal living-room. It should not have been dismal, for there were dark red curtains pulled across the window, a deep, comfortable-looking sofa and number of saggy armchairs with faded, dark red upholstery – Biddy shuddered – the colour of dried blood, and the only light came from a dim little bulb with a red shade which robbed it of any brilliance it might once have possessed. It shone down on a large table covered with a maroon chenille cloth and on four upright wooden chairs with carved backs and tight leather seats. Even the walls were dark, the paper having lost any colour it might have possessed in favour of a uniform brown years ago. In fact, the only bright part of the room was the fire which roared up the chimney and the brass fire-irons which twinkled in the grate.

There were three young men disposed about the room in various poses and Ma Kettle introduced them to Biddy in an undertone, so as not to disturb them.

One was at the table directly beneath the red-shaded light. He was probably seventeen or eighteen and was poring over a book through a pair of small, wire-rimmed spectacles balanced on his oddly upturned nose. He was pudgy, with light brown hair, and took no notice whatsoever of either his mother or her companion. Biddy was informed in an awed whisper that this was Ma Kettle’s youngest, her beloved Kenny.

Jack came next. He sat by the fire, elbows on knees, a slice of bread on a toasting fork held out to the flames. He was in his early twenties, tall, well-built, dark-haired, and wearing a seaman’s brief white shirt and blue trousers. He looked round and grinned as his mother said his name, white teeth flashing in his tanned face. Jack, Biddy remembered, was a sailor and not home often. He was the one who had allowed the maid to prig her bread and jam though, so her answering smile was tepid.

The third man sat opposite Kenny at the table eating a plate of what looked like scouse. Biddy knew this must be Luke, the eldest son, but Ma Kettle told her so anyway. Luke reminded Biddy sharply of Ma Kettle for he was stout and had little grey eyes which met her own shrewdly, calculatingly. He was twenty-five, she knew that much about him from idly listening to Ma Kettle boasting in the shop, and worked at Tate’s. He was, naturally, the source of the cheap sugar which Ma used in her home-made sweets.

‘And this is Biddy O’Shaughnessy,’ Ma Kettle said, once she had named each of her sons. ‘Biddy’s comin’ to live ’ere for a bit, boys. She’ll give an ’and in the shop, in the ’ouse.… You want anything doin’, just ’ave a word wi’ me and I’ll see she sets to and does it. You ’ad your dinner yet, Biddy?’

‘No, not yet,’ Biddy said, thinking again that the scouse smelled good. ‘I left Virginia Street before Aunt Edie got round to thinking about a meal.’

‘Right. Just for tonight you might as well eat in ’ere, wi’ us.’

She waddled out of the room and Biddy followed her into a tiny, dark little kitchen with a knee-high sink in one corner and a smelly, coke-burning stove in the other. There was a broken-down chair, a bare electric light bulb overhead and a large table. It was warm because of the stove, but cheerless, unfriendly. All the rooms are the same, they none of them want me, any more than Ma Kettle or her boys do, Biddy thought despairingly. Oh, how will I live in this horrible house with all these horrible people?

But it was not a question to which she could give an answer. Instead, she watched as Ma ladled a very small helping of scouse and a couple of boiled potatoes onto a plate and handed it, rather grudgingly, to her.

‘There y’are; same as us,’ she said, as though Biddy suspected that Kettles ate something far more glamorous than mere scouse. ‘You’ll be like a daughter to me, you shan’t go short.’

Sitting down at the table and devouring the scouse in a couple of minutes, Biddy looked up hopefully as she scraped the spoon round the now-empty plate. And how had Ma managed to ladle out the stew without getting a single piece of meat in her spoon? There had been meat in Luke’s portion, lots of meat, she had noted it specially.

‘Done? Well, then, we’ll go through together and see about the toffee,’ Ma Kettle said, whisking the plate from under Biddy’s nose. ‘I won’t get you to wash up yet, since Luke’s still eating.’

Biddy took a deep breath. It was now or never; she sensed it.

‘Mrs Kettle, I’ve not eaten since last night and I’m – I’m still hungry. Is there any scouse left?’

The boys had all been busy with their own affairs, but now Biddy was painfully aware of three pairs of eyes fixed on her, as well as of Ma Kettle’s incredulous, beady gaze.

‘You’re still
hungry
? After a plateful of me good stew, what’s full o’meat an’ luv’ly fresh veggies? Can I believe what I’m hearin’?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid you can,’ Biddy said clearly, using her very best ‘shop’ voice. ‘I’m
extremely
hungry and though I’m sure it was a mistake, there was no meat in my helping. However, if there’s none left, perhaps you could give me some money to get some chips? You did say you’d feed me instead of wages, and …’

She shot a quick glance at Luke, opposite. His little eyes were like marbles, hard and glassy, and his small mouth was tight. Beside her, Kenny continued to ignore her, apart from giving her one incredulous glance from behind his spectacles, though whether he approved or disapproved of the stand she was taking, Biddy had no idea. Over by the fire, Jack was grinning, taking his toasted bread carefully off the fork, though he said nothing.

‘Ah … well, if you’ve ’ad no brekfuss, nor nothin’ else all day … I know, you can fill up on bread ’n’ jam,’ Ma Kettle said triumphantly. ‘There’s enough o’ that stew left for the boys’ dinners tomorrer, if I does extry spuds. Or rather, you can do ’em,’ she added, quite unable to keep a trace of sheer malice out of her tone. ‘Seein’ as ’ow you’re goin’ to gi’ me an ’and about the place.’

‘I don’t work so well on bread and jam,’ Biddy said demurely. ‘I need a decent dinner, Ma.’

It was the first time she had omitted to call her employer Mrs Kettle and the shot went home. Ma looked uneasily at her boys, now all three of them studiously avoiding her glance, then heaved a great sigh. ‘Scouse it is, then,’ she said heavily. ‘Someone telled me girls couldn’t put away their food the way lads do, but I see ’twas just one of them tales folk tell. Come through to the kitchen, chuck.’

Much later that night, when she was curled up in the tiny truckle bed with Dolly clasped to her bosom and Ma Kettle snoring like an elephant in the big brass bedstead not more than a foot away, Biddy went over her day. It had been painful beyond measure to watch her mother’s coffin being slowly lowered into the impersonal earth at Toxteth Park cemetery. Then it had hurt to say goodbye to Mrs Kilbride and the kids. She had never been particularly happy in the scruffy, down-at-heel little house on Virginia Street, but at least Mam had been there and they had enjoyed some pleasant times, especially when Mam felt well and they had talked about her starting work again, moving to a better
neighbourhood, training Biddy up so she could be a saleslady in one of the big clothing shops.

Still, girls do leave home at fourteen and go into service, Biddy told herself. Probably, if Mam hadn’t met my Da and fallen in love with him and fled over here to Liverpool, I’d have gone into service in Dublin round about now. And I’d have felt pretty lonely and lost in someone else’s house, too.

But in service you had other servants. In service you were paid a wage, got time off, could go home sometimes, perhaps as often as once a week. You could save up, buy yourself the occasional treat, have a best friend to giggle with. Since her mother’s illness and her own employment by Ma Kettle, even friends from school had called less often, busy with their own lives and unable to spend their time waiting for Biddy either to finish work or finish nursing her Mam.

If things were different I could get back with Kezzie and Maude and Ellen, Biddy thought hopelessly. But things aren’t different, and I’ll just have to put up with what I have got, for the time being. And besides, I did all right today, didn’t I? Old Ma Kettle was rocked back on her heels by me asking for more scouse, just like Oliver Twist in that book me and Mam read last year, but she gave me some, she shelled out. Perhaps, if I can keep it up, she won’t use me too badly, and I’ll like living here. Perhaps even the boys might not be too horrible, once I get to know them.

One thing, you’ve got to stand up for yourself in the Kettle household, because if you don’t no one will, she thought, just before she went to sleep. I’ve got to be tough, like them, or they’ll flatten me.

And presently she slept, to dream of putting a ha’penny on the tramlines so that it might be squashed penny-sized, only to find that the ha’penny had turned into Sister Eustacia, who had reproached her for doubling her income in so sneaky a fashion. And she had stood up to Sister Eustacia and told her about Ma weighing her thumbs and doing the kids out of the odd sweetie, and Ma had come surging out of the back room, saying, ‘No scouse for you, amn’t I goin’ to treat you like me own daughter, you serpent’s tooth?’

After that, the dreams got odder and odder. Ma made her wear a pair of boy’s trousers and a boy’s shirt because she said clothes were always handed down in good, close, Catholic families and the trousers tripped her up when she was serving people and the shirt sleeves dangled in the toffee and got disgustingly sticky. And at intervals throughout the night the dream-Ma would shout, ‘No scouse for you, madam – amn’t I goin’ to treat you like me own daughter, you serpent’s tooth?’ and poor Biddy would think up clever arguments to get herself fed properly but they never worked. Either the table would turn into an elephant, trumpeting loudly, or it would tip over and run out of the room, or the food would simply disappear whilst Ma, with a big smile on her face, advised Biddy to fill up with bread ’n’ jam and whisked the bread into the fire and the jam into her apron pocket.

When Biddy woke it was still dark, and the trumpeting elephant table was standing by her truckle bed. She gave a little squeak of fright and the table turned into Ma Kettle, huge in a white petticoat, man’s socks and a long grey shawl.

‘Come on, child,’ Ma Kettle said, not unkindly. ‘Jack’s off back to sea this mornin’ so you must be down early to mash the tea. Then you can start off the brekfuss … the boys ’ave bacon, a couple of eggs each, a pile of bread wi’ margarine on … but us wimmin, we’ll mek do wi’ bread ’n’ scrape an’ a nice pot of tea, shall us?’

Biddy was tired after a restless night and confused to find herself in Ma Kettle’s frowsty little bedroom, but one thought came clear to the front of her mind as she climbed stiffly out of bed and reached for her clothes. Don’t let her push you around, the thought said. Stand up for yourself!

‘Bacon and egg,’ she said therefore, with all the firmness she could muster. ‘I work best after bacon and egg.’

‘Ah,’ Ma Kettle said, after a pause so long that Biddy began to wonder whether the older woman had gone back to sleep. ‘Oh ah. Bacon an’ egg, eh?’

‘Bacon an’ egg at breakfast,’ Biddy said hastily. It was years since she’d tasted bacon and egg, but she did see that if Ma Kettle chose to take her literally she might well find the rest of the family eating roast chicken whilst she dined – lightly – on a tiny piece of bacon and a pullet’s egg. ‘Girls need something more for dinner, of course.’