Liverpool Taffy (6 page)

Mrs Kettle didn’t grumble, because they only worked after the shop was closed, and with Christmas over there wasn’t the call for the extra slabs of toffee, bags of fudge, candy walking sticks and sugar mice which sold so readily over the holiday season.

‘Now’s the lean months,’ Ma Kettle had said as February came in with a cold wind and snow in bursts. ‘We should tighten our belts, eat less, not more. We won’t ’ave to work so ’ard because we don’t sell so much. Think on, young Biddy.’

Biddy, however, decided that the cold made her hungrier than ever and several times sharp words were exchanged over her ability to look such a skinny little thing but to eat like Jack, Luke and Kenny.

‘Stick to your guns; you eat wharrever you need,’ Kenny urged whenever his mother was out of hearing. ‘Remind the old gal that at least you doesn’t nick ’er perishin’ toffee. Even Mais nicked ’er toffee.’

Spring came, but despite the milder weather and longer days it was difficult to rejoice over much, since the shop kitchen was mostly too hot anyway and of course with the approach of Easter the Kettle
establishment started on Easter treats – chocolate eggs, marzipan fruit and flowers – which meant that Biddy was busy from morning till night, and often too tired to sleep soundly either, what with the stuffiness of the small room and Ma Kettle’s reverberating snores.

‘I’ll have to get out of it by the time summer comes,’ Biddy told herself desperately, as she fell into her truckle bed each night. ‘I remember last summer – swatting flies, chasing bees, sweating till I was hollow and dried out – I don’t know as I can stand that again.’

The trouble was that Ma Kettle was determined to have her money’s worth out of Biddy. I’m sure she jots down all food costs, my share of the fire – not that I ever see it – wear and tear of chairs, tables, knives and forks, and then thinks she ought to work me harder, Biddy thought desperately, as she mixed icing sugar, almond flavouring and egg yolk in a huge bowl. Other people get Sundays off, I know they do, but Sundays is housework day and all I seem to do is scrub floors, make beds, wash the linen, peg it on the line, run out and get it in if rain threatens, put it out again, fetch it back and iron it, fold huge sheets and then carry them up to make the beds up again, starch Luke’s shirts, mend his frayed collars … the list went on and on.

‘Tell the old gal you’re ’titled to a day off, same as the rest of the world,’ Kenny advised. ‘You could come wi’ me on the ferry over to Birkenhead, and then by bus out into the country. Go on, tell Ma you need a bit of a rest. She goes off to see Aunt Olliphant, we fellers go off to see a bit o’ life, why shouldn’t you?’

‘I will,’ Biddy decided. ‘She can only sack me, after all.’

And in a way it worked.

‘A day off? Lor, chuck, what next, I asks meself? I treat you like me own daughter an’ you want a day off?’

‘If you had a daughter, Ma, and made her work seven days a week, the priest would be after you,’ Biddy pointed out. ‘You aren’t too keen on me goin’ along to mass either, are you?’

‘May you be forgiven,’ Ma said piously, going through the shirts that Biddy has just ironed to make sure there wasn’t a crease on any of them. ‘As if I’d let a member of the Kettle ’ousehold miss mass! It’s only that you will loiter goin’ and comin’, when there’s a hot dinner to prepare, that’s the only reason I just occasionally asks if you wouldn’t rather stay at ’ome.’

‘I’d rather stay at home and rest, but you wouldn’t want me to do that,’ Biddy said, as near to tears as she had ever come whilst under Ma’s roof. ‘I’m that weary, Miz Kettle, that I hardly know how to go on. It’s just work, work, work, from mornin’ till night, and never an hour to myself.’

‘Then you go to mass, dearie,’ Ma Kettle said expansively. ‘Don’t you worry about me, stuck ’ere at ’ome wi’ a thousand and one things to do. Just you go off and enjoy yourself.’

‘I will, then. Thanks very much, Ma. Kenny’s going to take me on the ferry to Birkenhead, and then into the country! We’ll be home for tea, though.’

‘Now wait on,’ Ma Kettle said anxiously, putting down the last shirt. ‘I didn’t say … what I said was you might go to mass, I didn’t say …’

‘Kenny said you weren’t mean enough to try to stop all my fun,’ Biddy continued as though she hadn’t heard. ‘I’ll work all the better for the break, I’m sure of it.’

She told Kenny later and the two of them giggled over Mrs Kettle’s protestations, and Biddy waited to be hauled from her bed on Sunday morning and informed that her mentor had changed her mind. But although Ma Kettle was quieter than usual, Biddy went downstairs, got breakfast, washed up and cleared away and then announced that she would see everyone later that evening.

‘If I had any money of my own I’d bring you home a bit of a present, but since I’ve not had a penny since my Mam died you’ll have to forgive me if I come home empty-handed,’ she said to Mrs Kettle as she and Kenny stood by the back door. ‘Tara, then.’

Ma Kettle sniffed and when they were half-way down the road she called them back. ‘There,’ she said,
pressing a few small coins into Biddy’s hand. ‘Enjoy your holiday and don’t bother wi’ presents; them shirts was ironed a treat.’

Wide-eyed, Biddy rejoined Kenny and opened her palm, to show him a whole sixpenny piece and six farthings.

‘Mean ole bag; but at least she give you summat to spend.’

‘So long as she doesn’t sack me when we get home,’ Biddy said, though not as though it was something she feared. She gave a little skip. ‘Wish I had a best dress.… Oh Kenny, it’s good to be outside without an errand to run!’

‘You want to say “no”, more often,’ Kenny grumbled. ‘She can’t be led, the old woman, but she can be pushed. We all found that out years ago, or we’d be nothin’ but slaves, like you.’

‘It’s different for you,’ Biddy reminded him, slowing to a saunter and sticking the money in the pocket of her tatty skirt, for even with weekly washing one skirt will not last for ever and Ma Kettle had showed no inclination to buy her a new one, or even a new-second-hand one, which would have done admirably. ‘You are her own son; how you look reflects on her. And she’s fond of the three of you, you know that. Besides, you’re earning good money. If she chucked you out you could afford lodgings. What would I do, Kenny? Someone of my age can’t earn enough for digs, I’d be chucked in the workhouse and I really am scared of that.’

‘Yeah, it’s ’ard for you,’ Kenny agreed. They were on the sloping road which led down to the landing stage now and Biddy sighed ecstatically and felt the little coins in her pocket with something approaching bliss. A whole day off, the sun shining, and money to spend! If only today could last for ever. But it couldn’t, of course. Tomorrow was Monday; she would be busy in the shop from eight in the morning until eight at night, so she must make the most of today.

It was a wonderful day out, there was no doubt about it. After serious consideration, Kenny advised Biddy to put her money away somewhere safe and forget about it. ‘Keep it for emergencies, a rainy day,’ he urged her. ‘Today’s my treat. How’d you like a bus ride? That way we can get into real country.’

They rode the bus into green fields, got off and climbed over a mossy gate. The grass in the meadow beyond was tall and starred with wild flowers, to none of which Biddy could put a name.

‘Ain’t it just lovely?’ Kenny said. ‘I brung a picnic – me Mam said I could but she were too lazy to cut it for me, so I done it big enough for two of us. I know how you can eat, young Biddy, so there’s all sorts … fruit, too. Even a chunk of stickjaw.’

‘She never gave you her toffee?’ Biddy gasped. ‘I’m sure she’d cut my hands off at the wrist if I so much as licked me finger after hammering a slab in bits. Oh Kenny, you didn’t prig it, did you?’

‘She moaned and groaned, but she said I could ’ave some if I ’ammered it small,’ Kenny said cheerfully. ‘Stop worryin’, young Bid, an’ enjoy the day. There’s a stream over there, under them trees – ever dammed a stream, ’ave you?’

When they had cleared up a slight misunderstanding over the word ’dam’, they went over to the stream. It chuckled along over its pebbly bed, with trees hanging over it and little fish playing in the brown pools. It was the most beautiful thing Biddy had ever seen and she knelt on the bank, dabbling her fingers in the clear water for ages, before the serious work of damming began.

It was such fun! She had made sandcastles at New Brighton years ago, laboriously filling her bucket and then carefully upending it so that the contents stayed firm and formed the castle’s battlements. She had walked down country lanes between her parents and seen the patchwork cows, the pink pigs, the rosy apples on the trees. But this – this was even better! She and Kenny scooped clay and pebbles, formed a deep ridge, shouted to one another … you would never have known that Kenny was a young man of seventeen, gainfully employed at the offices of Burke, Burke & Titchworth, or that Biddy was an orphan with no real home to call her own. For the whole of that sunny day they were just
a couple of kids, playing a wonderful, messy game and enjoying every minute.

‘Look at me skirt,’ Biddy gasped, when they had made the dam, watched a huge pool gradually form, and then broken down the dam to let the water swirl back into the main stream once again. ‘The earth here is yellowy, I’m sure it’s stained this skirt for ever.’

‘It’s clay and a good job, too,’ Kenny said roundly. ‘You was beginnin’ to look a right mess, our Biddy. Time Mam bought you some gear, if only from Paddy’s Market. One of these days you’ll be a young lady, you’re quite pretty already when you laugh and aren’t tired out. Now shall we ’ave our picnic?’

They ate their food, then lay down on the mossy bank, though Kenny refused to let Biddy lie in the sun as she would have liked to do.

‘You’ll get sunburned an’ you won’t be able to work tomorrer, you’ll be in pain, too,’ he told her. ‘Best lie in the shade, chuck.’

Biddy agreed, meaning to move out into the sun for a little, but as soon as she closed her eyes she slept.

Kenny’s mouth descending on hers woke her in a complete state of panic so that she was struggling already as consciousness returned and began at once to try to speak, to push at his shoulders. She had been dreaming pleasantly that they were still eating their picnic, but just at the moment when he started kissing her she assumed, the dream had changed; she was a sandwich and Kenny was about to eat her, was actually sinking his teeth into her bread and lettuce! When she woke to find it was really happening, he really did seem about to devour her, panic gripped her. He was no longer Kenny Kettle but a dangerous stranger who could mean her harm. She brought her knees up and felt them sink into his stomach and as he moved back a little she screamed and hit out. He gave a pained grunt and sat back, looking guiltily down at her, one hand going defensively to his middle, the other stroking his scratched chin. ‘What d’you want to do that for? Shovin’ me off like that? I wouldn’t ’urt you, you know that!’

‘It was the shock,’ Biddy said, scrambling into a kneeling position and glaring at him. ‘I was asleep … it’s horrible to be woken up by someone suffocating you.’

‘Suffocatin’ you?’ Kenny laughed. ‘By God, no wonder you ’it out! That, you silly kid, were a kiss … ’cos you looked so pretty, lyin’ there.’

‘You should kiss cheeks, not mouths,’ Biddy said definitely. ‘My Mam always kissed me cheek. Mouths are for eating with … oh Kenny, I dreamed I was a sandwich and you were eating me!’

He had been frowning down at her, clearly both perplexed and annoyed, but at her words his face cleared and he laughed out loud, throwing his head back to do so. He no longer looked threatening or different, he just looked like Kenny, who had been kind to her, who had brought her out for a picnic despite his mother’s disapproval.

‘There, ain’t you jest like the silly kid I called you? You kiss kids on the cheek and young ladies on the mouth, you ’alf-wit.’

‘If I’m a silly kid, then treat me like one,’ Biddy said with some sharpness. ‘Don’t you go doin’ that again, I didn’t like it, Kenny.’

‘You screamed so sudden an’ whacked me so ’ard you didn’t get it,’ Kenny said in a grumbling tone. ‘Just when I was about to do me Valentino on you, up comes you bleedin’ knee an’ ’its me right in the essentials …’

‘All right, I’m sorry,’ Biddy allowed. ‘But no more of that sort of nonsense, eh, Kenny?’

‘But I liked it,’ Kenny pointed out, scrabbling their things together. ‘Biddy, you never give it a chanst, honest. You’ll like it awright when you put your mind to it.’

‘No I shan’t,’ Biddy insisted. ‘But you’re packing up – is it time for the bus?’

‘Very near,’ Kenny said. ‘Umm … Biddy?’

‘Yes, Kenny?’

‘Per’aps you’re right, per’aps you’re a bit young for that kissin’ lark. What say we forgit it, for now?’

‘Good idea,’ said Biddy, considerably relieved. She liked Kenny and enjoyed his company but
something told her, in no uncertain terms, that if she started all that kissing business it wouldn’t be long before Kenny wanted other favours. Mam had said, before she died, that Biddy didn’t ought to go getting involved with lads until she’d sorted out her future and that suited Biddy just fine. Besides, she had a very strong feeling that if Ma Kettle ever found out that Kenny had taken to kissing her little skivvy, she would be out on her ear without a character, regardless of who was at fault.

The bus arrived and they climbed aboard. Kenny kept shooting little sideways glances at her; he reminded Biddy strongly of a puppy who is hovering outside a butcher’s shop with intent. Every time you catch the puppy’s eye he thinks you can read his mind and acts ashamed.

So because she was a kind-hearted girl she reached over and gave his hand a squeeze. ‘It’s all right you know, Kenny,’ she said hearteningly. ‘We’ve had a really lovely day and everything’s been fine. Perhaps we’ll do it again one day, eh? Come over here and dam a stream and have a picnic and that. Perhaps next time we could bring your Ma, if you’d like that.’

Kenny laughed, but he squeezed her hand back and the naughty puppy look disappeared from his eyes. ‘Eh, you’re a nice kid, our Biddy! I wonder what Ma’s got us for us teas?’