The Angels of Lovely Lane (8 page)

And then opened and closed it again. A smile of satisfaction crossed her face as the door clicked shut. Her range had been damaged during the war and a month ago she had finally given up the struggle and surrendered to the new world, just as her New World cooker arrived. It was a treat to bake an apple pie without having to wedge the door on the range shut with the mop handle. Biddy loved her new oven, although she would never let on to anyone who asked. Not a great fan of change, she had tolerated her broken range for almost ten years and if truth be told she missed the warmth that filled the house whenever it was lit. But she was the only woman in the neighbourhood to own one of the new cookers and her nostalgic musing for her once hot range had been replaced by a sense of pride as her neighbours dropped in one by one, all curious to inspect Biddy’s New World.

Biddy had enjoyed the attention, until she opened the tea caddy and discovered that she had used her weekly quarter-pound packet of Lipton’s in two days.

‘Bring yer own tea,’ she shouted to anyone who asked if they could come and take a look at her oven as she trudged up the hill on her way home from work at the end of each day. The pride and novelty of a new cooker took second place to the injustice of having to re-mash the tea leaves thrice.

Taking her ciggies out of her apron pocket, Biddy sat down, slid the half-full ashtray towards her, lit up and awaited the arrival of her best friends, Elsie and Dessie.

Biddy lived in a row of terrace houses off the dock road and worked as housekeeper at the school of nursing at St Angelus. She loved her job, but she was tired and she knew it. Tired of the repetitive daily struggle. Of being alone and having no one to moan to about her lot. Biddy sometimes wondered whether life would ever again bring her a surprise. An event she hadn’t planned, expected or paid for. She often felt as though the future pointed downhill. Her hair greying, her varicose veins aching and worst of all her bladder leaking.

‘It’s last, getting old,’ she said to the cat as she pulled in a deep tug of her ciggie. ‘Bloody last.’

Elsie O’Brien lived in the adjacent row of terrace houses and also worked at St Angelus. Elsie was housekeeper in Matron’s private apartment on the first floor, and also looked after the rooms that had remained occupied in the accommodation block by the four oldest sisters, including Sister Antrobus from ward two. Some of the remaining rooms along the corridor had become offices as St Angelus expanded to cope with the post-war demands of Liverpool’s residents.

Biddy and Elsie were both members of the domestic elite of St Angelus. The A team. Not for them the drudgery of mopping mile upon mile of ward corridors. Each of them had carved out a niche for herself at the hospital, bagging the top domestic jobs, and as a result Elsie had managed to get her Martha a job as maid in the consultants’ day sitting room. St Angelus was cleaned by an army of war widows, and in the pecking order Biddy and Elsie were at the top. Dessie, a widower who had been demobbed in ’46 and arrived home dripping in medals, worked as the head porter at St Angelus and lived in the corner house at the bottom of the street. A house that had stood empty from the day his wife died until his return.

Every Sunday evening at seven o’clock, he and Elsie would arrive in Biddy’s kitchen to gossip about the week, eat, drink, talk about the war and listen to the Stargazers singing on the radio. Biddy and Elsie mothered Dessie from kindness. It was a kindness that had benefited them both over the years.

‘Not right that he should come home a war hero and his wife died while he was away,’ Biddy often said. That was when she was feeling generous. On her off days, her comments to Elsie were more cutting. ‘Shame Dessie’s wife was down the docks when the ship was hit. You have to ask, don’t you...’ she paused for effect as she exhaled a long plume of blue smoke, ‘what was she doing down there in the first place, eh?’ The comment was always followed by a questioning raised eyebrow.

‘Should we tell him?’ Elsie once enquired over the rim of her teacup. Biddy’s reply had been unequivocal and swift. ‘If there is one thing Dessie will die without knowing, it’s that his wife was carrying on while he was fighting the Nazis, and if anyone does fancy telling him, you make sure that everyone in the alehouse knows they’ll have me to answer to.’ Biddy never set foot in the pub, the place her husband had scarcely ever been out of. The only cause of tension between Biddy and Elsie was that Elsie spent every Friday and Saturday night in the bar.

‘I have the Guinness,’ said Elsie, as the back door flew open in the wind and almost catapulted her thin frame into the kitchen. ‘Jesus, the wind is so bad, it almost blew me curlers out. I didn’t have to go into the pub. They’ve opened the side door and put in a hatch for fill-ups and take aways. Very fancy it is too. Means the kids can buy for their mam and dad and not risk getting a clout in the bar.’

She took the six bottles of Guinness out of her wicker basket and set them down on the kitchen table. ‘’Tis raining cats and dogs out there,’ she said as she shook out her coat, and patted her wire curlers to check they were still in place. ‘But not your cat, mind. Did you know he was on the draining board helping himself to the pie?’

Biddy shrieked as she ran to retrieve the plate and seized the mop to chase the cat out of the back door. ‘That fecking cat,’ she muttered as she hugged the pie protectively to her and laid it down on the kitchen table next to the Guinness. ‘Is your Martha coming up later?’ she asked as she took three glasses down from the press.

‘No she isn’t, not tonight. I left her in with Josie Jackson tying each other’s hair in rags. They are going to do each other’s nails too. She thinks I don’t know, but Jake Berry is beginning to make his mark, you know. They’ve been out on three Sunday afternoons on the run, those two. Came back all smiles and blushes today she did. Won’t tell me a thing, mind. You get nothing out of our Martha. I’ve told her, she would have made a better spy than Mata Hari. I could hear the two of them giggling like mad as soon as I closed the back door. The problem with Josie is she’s a gob on her, that one, and before I was down the path I heard her yell “Has he kissed you yet?” and then Martha told her to shush so loud, you could have heard her down on the docks.’

‘Well, you can’t deny her that, Elsie. She is nineteen now, and Jake himself, he’s twenty – almost a man. He’ll have the key to the door on his next birthday.’

The kitchen filled with the sound of hissing as Biddy took the bottle opener that was tied to a piece of string hanging from a nail in the wooden draining board over to the Guinness and flipped off the lids.

‘Oh, I know that. Me and my Charlie, we were married when I was just sixteen meself, and our little Charlie was born nine months later, just a week before me seventeenth. Our honeymoon baby he was. But what am I telling you that for? You delivered him, didn’t you. Do you remember how big he was, Biddy, and how he never cried, not a sound? Always good, wasn’t he? That’s the only time I ever saw my big Charlie cry, when you put our little Charlie in his arms. The babby just stared up at his da with his big eyes. You would have thought he had been here before; they knew everything, them eyes, Biddy, and I always think to meself that the reason why he didn’t cry when he was born was because he knew what was up ahead.’

Biddy turned her head sharply to look at Elsie. She knew what was coming next. A long moment of silence, a loud sniff, and then Elsie would shed tears as she removed her hankie from up the sleeve of her cardigan. Her little Charlie had died in 1944, two days before his father, big Charlie. They served in the same regiment and the only thing that sustained Elsie was the knowledge that little Charlie went first and wasn’t left without his da. Nine years had passed and yet just the mention of either of their names was enough to bring a bout of weeping from Elsie. Not that Biddy minded that. She had indeed delivered little Charlie and witnessed the happiest moment of Elsie’s life. Biddy was good at delivering babies and had been called in the middle of the night to many a house around and about, and often arrived before the midwife. Now she laid her hand on Elsie’s shoulder, just as she had been doing for the past nine years. Biddy knew the drill.

She waited the three minutes it took for Elsie’s fresh outpouring of tears to calm before she said in a soft voice, ‘Here, take your drink, Elsie. It always helps.’ She had known big Charlie well and could more than understand what it was that Elsie was missing.

The Kennedys and the O’Briens had moved into the neighbourhood in 1924. The streets were the last ones off the dock road and the closest to the hospital. Most of the residents in the area worked in one capacity or another at St Angelus. Dessie had been big Charlie’s best friend, and it was this friendship which had helped catapult Elsie and Biddy into the most comfortable and secure domestic roles at the hospital. Dessie was a respected war hero. He was liked by Matron, a miracle in itself, and most important, he had influence. Influence and a fund of gossip worth nurturing with a home-made apple pie once a week.

Biddy had lost her own husband, but given that she only ever described him as a fist-happy drunk the event had come as a secret relief. Not one she had ever voiced to another living soul. Unlike Elsie’s boy, Biddy’s three sons had returned from the war alive and well. They had just never bothered to come home, remaining in London where the first leg of their homeward journey had set them down. Biddy never spoke of the past. Of the children who had deserted and forgotten her. The babies who had died in infancy or the husband who had buggered off and left her. Last spotted on Lime Street station, drunk, telling anyone who would listen he was off to visit his son. She was alone: she had to survive and survival left no room for sentiment.

Elsie had Martha at home. A perfect if somewhat timid daughter and a living reminder of who and what Elsie had lost. Biddy lived with a cat, and a nuisance of a cat at that.

‘Come on, Dessie will be here in a moment. Dry your eyes and get that Guinness down you. We both prayed for your men at mass this morning, as we always do, and one day, Elsie, you will stop crying, sure, you will.’

‘I’m so sorry, Biddy,’ sobbed Elsie as she removed her glasses and wiped them on her now damp handkerchief. ‘I shouldn’t cry, I know. We all have to get on with it, don’t we? You never moan and you with the incontinence problem you have to put up with too. You’re a martyr to your bladder and you never complain.’

‘God the father, I have no bladder problem,’ Biddy lied as she banged their Guinness bottles on to the table before she flopped into her chair.

‘Well, no of course you don’t. It’s just that you have a lot more to put up with than I do, that’s all. I’m in full working order down there.’ Elsie raised her eyebrows. ‘I imagine it must be awful for you, Biddy.’

Biddy was about to protest when the back door opened and Dessie came in.

‘Evening, ladies, I have the pies. Biddy, get that radio on, or we’ll miss the Stargazers. I heard the clock strike seven when I was halfway up the street.’ Dessie’s job on a Sunday night was to call at the hot van on the dock road.

‘Pies, Guinness and a slice of our Biddy’s apple pie. We live the life, don’t we, ladies?’ Dessie threw his coat on to the nail on the back of the door and, leaving his cap in situ, began to remove the newspaper wrapping from around the food. ‘Do you want this for the fire, Biddy?’

‘I do not. Did you not remember, I have me New World?’ Biddy took the plates out of the bottom of the oven as she spoke.

Dessie smiled. ‘Oh, aye. I’d forgotten about that.’

He winked at Elsie and noted the wet eyes and the handkerchief being pushed back up the sleeve of her cardie. He hadn’t forgotten at all. Every Sunday for the past month, a part of their evening had been spent discussing the new oven.

‘The new prefab and tin roof houses are up in Litherland,’ he said. ‘Just bumped into Sid’s lads from next door, carrying a pile of tea chests up the dock steps. Moving into theirs tomorrow, they are.’

‘Sure, we’ll be the only people left in these houses soon,’ said Biddy.

‘Not at all. Don’t be worrying about that,’ said Dessie, pulling out a chair, eyes fixed on the steaming pie before him. ‘Most people round here either work at the hospital or on the docks, so why would they want to be travelling? I bet you anything you like the dock board won’t shut Sid’s house up: houses are in too short supply. It’ll be another ten years before there’s enough built for everyone after the war damage.’

‘In that case, Dessie, you’ll have a new neighbour before the week is out,’ said Elsie. ‘The Irish are pouring in at the docks to work on the roads.’

‘Wouldn’t it be grand if it was someone from Cork with a bit of news from home,’ said Biddy, setting the knives and forks on the table.

‘Well, I know this: if our Martha does get wed one day, she would like her own house and I would like her nearby. It would be smashing, Dessie, if she got one of the houses round here.’

Dessie couldn’t reply as his mouth was already full.

‘You have a word with Jake, Dessie. You’re his boss. Tell him not to drag his feet. She’s a pretty girl, our Martha, and someone will snap her up soon if he doesn’t.’

Dessie wiped a dribble of gravy away with the back of his hand. ‘Jake Berry needs no encouragement from me, Elsie. I’ll tell you a secret, but as God is my judge, don’t tell no one else.’

Biddy and Elsie shuffled their chairs closer to the table and bent their heads in. ‘Go on,’ said Biddy, ‘what is it?’

‘I have to have your word, and especially yours, Elsie, because you’ll be the one who finds it hardest to keep mum.’

‘God in heaven,’ blurted Biddy, ‘leave that to me. I’ll make sure she keeps her mouth shut, I will. What is it?’

Dessie grinned and looked from one to the other. ‘It’s Jake who has Sid’s house. Being a docker’s son gave him the right to apply and he’s got it.’

Elsie and Biddy were speechless. ‘How can he afford it, Dessie?’ asked Elsie, when she had regained her breath. ‘Jesus, his mother put up a new set of nets in forty-five to celebrate VE day and they haven’t been changed since. They don’t have two halfpennies to rub together in that house.’