The Seven Streets of Liverpool (5 page)

Chapter 4

The men who were fighting the war, often in horrendous conditions, would sometimes complain that the population at home, the ones they were fighting it for, seemed to have forgotten all about them. In the early days they only had to enter a pub in uniform to have drinks thrust at them from every direction. Now they weren’t even noticed. Instead they were met with complaints about having to live in such a state of extreme austerity. People were hungry (only the most basic foods were available in the shops); they were cold (there was a shortage of every single type of fuel). How were they supposed to cook without saucepans? Had anyone seen a saucepan or a kettle on sale in recent years? And with the house cold due to lack of fuel, it would have been nice to go to bed under an eiderdown, but eiderdowns (and blankets) had disappeared off the face of the earth, along with everything electric, every sort of make-up, hairclips, hairnets, hot-water bottles and most children’s toys. As for alarm clocks, there had never been more of a need for these, what with people working shifts that started at all different times of the day and night. Their unavailability could only be the fault of a government that had servants to wake them up when necessary and had no idea what an alarm clock was.

It was the shortage of so many ordinary things that made the garden party held this year on Easter Saturday in Eileen Stephens’s garden at first glance resemble a scrap yard rather than an ordinary village event. There was a reasonable amount of mouth-watering home-made cakes and jam, bottled fruit and jars of chutney. But the main focus of attention was the white elephant stall, for which people had raided their attics and sheds, discovering the odd stone hot-water bottle, pairs of rusty shears, bits and pieces of cutlery that urgently required a good polish, odds and ends of dishes, some cracked. There was even a battered old alarm clock that looked as if it had been thrown against a wall more than once.

Items that would once have been chucked away without a second thought had become valuable beyond belief. It no longer mattered if cutlery and crockery didn’t match. The rusty shears could always be sharpened; the hot-water bottle hopefully wouldn’t leak; the alarm clock could be mended, or at least used as an ornament to remind its new owner what alarm clocks used to look like in days gone by. Nearly everything was sold for a good price within the first few minutes.

The second-hand clothes stall received equal attention from women looking for garments that, even if they didn’t fit, could be remodelled into something else, or knitted items that could be undone, the wool washed and knitted again. Curtains that would normally have been torn up for dusters sold extremely well.

The raffle prizes were laid out on a pasting table: a single lemon, a bottle of Drene shampoo, a tin of Fry’s cocoa, a dartboard with Hitler’s backside the target, a fruit cake and, sitting proudly in the middle, Lena’s doll. Brenda Mahon was selling the tickets.

It was a reasonably nice day for April. A bit breezy, a bit cold, the sun in and out by the minute, but it was the first outdoor event of the year, a prelude to the summer that lay ahead. There was even a bee buzzing around to prove it. Music came from an open window – Eileen had been loaned some classical records, and a fine baritone voice sang ‘La donna è mobile’ and ‘Toréador’ and other well-known operatic airs. The atmosphere was uplifting, making everyone there feel convinced that the war could actually be won that very weekend.

In the small tent where tea was being served, people chatted gaily, unaware that any minute now the tea would run out and from then on there’d only be Camp coffee or lemonade made from the fizzy powder that cost tuppence an ounce in the sweet shop. In an even smaller tent, Madame Nirvana, who normally worked as a barmaid in the local pub, told fortunes at threepence a time, predicting the most hilarious futures.

Eileen and Sheila were in the kitchen making more sandwiches and discussing the doll, having ensured that Lena was safely outside manning the book stall.

‘Everybody’s making fun of it,’ Sheila said. ‘I mean, the poor thing is as ugly as sin and its face is all wrong. It squints.’

‘Oh dear.’ Eileen wanted to laugh, but it would have been cruel.

‘What shall we do? I was talking about it with Brenda. The prizes aren’t rated, like first or second. If you have a winning ticket you can pick anything you like. She’s worried the doll might be the last thing to be chosen and Lena will be really upset. She did go to an awful lot of trouble with it. I know that if I won, I’d prefer virtually everything else on offer before I’d choose that awful doll.’ She narrowed her eyes and her voice throbbed with passion. ‘I’d kill for the lemon,’ she said with a sigh.

‘We’ll just have to cheat,’ Eileen announced.

‘How?’ Sheila looked at her sister in amazement. ‘I’m not nearly as nice or as honest as you, sis, but I’ve no idea how to cheat in a raffle.’

‘Make sure someone we know buys a ticket – they can’t all be sold yet – then put a safety pin in the half that goes in the box with the counterfoils.
I’ll
pick the winner, seeing as it’s my garden party. I’ll just have to root around till I find the one with the pin in. We can’t get me dad to win it, he’s far too honest, and Brenda’s selling the tickets so it’ll look as if something funny’s going on if she wins the first time. Ask the vicar to come in, and I’ll sort it out with him.’

‘You’re a bloody crook at heart, Eileen Stephens,’ Sheila said admiringly. ‘And you’ve corrupted the vicar an’ all. You’d never have managed that with a Catholic priest.’

Most people went home at tea time, but Eileen’s family and friends stayed to tidy up the garden, then sat and chatted about the day. Tea had become available again, and the remains of the food was eaten.

As soon as the local pub was open, Jack Doyle went and bought a jug of cider. A rather nice young man, very handsome, with thick fair hair, who’d been one of the first to arrive at the event, was still there and went with Jack for a supply of proper lemonade for the kids. His clothes were well cut and obviously expensive: a hairy green sports jacket, flannels and an open-necked shirt. His heavy brogue shoes looked hand-made.

‘What’s your name and what are you doing here?’ Sheila asked when the two men returned. She had three children, including the baby, asleep on her knee, and another lying on her feet. Dominic and Niall had gone on some adventure of their own and Caitlin had disappeared too. Brenda seized the lemonade and took it into the kitchen to pour it out.

‘I’m Peter Wood,’ the young man said. ‘I came up from London to see my old uncle Jimmy, who I’d been told was at death’s door, only to find he’s gone to North Wales for the weekend with his bowls club.’

‘And where does your uncle live?’

Peter Wood waved vaguely somewhere behind him. ‘Not far from the post office. The last train to London doesn’t leave Lime Street until five past ten, so I thought I’d spend a few hours in the countryside for a change.’ He treated them to a winning smile. ‘I’m glad I did, otherwise I would have missed your party.’ He turned to Eileen. ‘Is it a party or is it a fete?’ he enquired.

‘It’s a garden party.’

‘It was very enjoyable – and I think I might have acquired a working alarm clock. It was worthwhile coming just for that.’ He patted his bulging pocket. ‘I also won a bottle of shampoo that my sister will appreciate.’

‘Lucky old you,’ Sheila said. ‘You must pop in and see our Eileen if you come back to visit your uncle. If you come on a Sunday, I’ll probably be here.’ She might be madly in love with Calum, but it didn’t stop her from appreciating other attractive men who happened to be around.

Peter Mallory (years ago he’d gone to school with a Peter Wood) agreed that he might well visit Eileen again. He’d been planning to pretend to miss the connection from Kirkby to Lime Street, spend the night in a pub somewhere and turn up tomorrow, Sunday, but had overheard Eileen tell her father that Nick was expected home in the afternoon.

‘He’s overwhelmed with work,’ she had said, which Peter knew was a lie, not, he felt sure, on Eileen’s part, but on the part of her lousy unfaithful husband. Nick Stephens and Doria had gone to Brighton for the day. Peter hoped it had rained and they’d had a perfectly horrid time. He hadn’t realised the pair didn’t intend to spend the entire Easter weekend together. Perhaps Stephens had a conscience after all, and realised he should spare a little time for his wife and son.

Peter was enjoying his visit. It wasn’t often he mixed with the working classes, and this Liverpudlian crowd had really charmed him. They were called Scousers, he recalled, because they ate so much scouse stew, though he himself had never tried it. Jack Doyle, the paterfamilias, as it were, was the salt of the earth. A docker, he was an expert on the war and all the nuances that surrounded it, though they’d had quite a heated argument about Joseph Stalin. Jack seemed to think the chap a great liberating hero, whereas Peter considered him little better than Hitler, just fortunately on the side of the Allies.

The weather had been more or less decent, and it also wasn’t often that he sat outside and experienced the end of the day. With British Double Summer Time in place, darkness was late in coming. By midsummer it could still be light at midnight.

The most important thing was that Peter was in love, had been from the first moment he had set eyes on Eileen Stephens and Nicky, her little son. Okay, so she was married and the child wasn’t his, but he felt convinced that fate had ordained them to be together for always. What Nick Stephens saw in Peter’s empty-headed little sister compared to his own beautiful wife, Peter had no idea.

He could never, ever hurt Eileen by telling her about her husband’s reprehensible behaviour, though he hoped that she would find out one day. When that time came, he would ensure that he was on hand to comfort her – and Nicky.

Chapter 5

Lena had left the garden party at the same time as most of the other guests, even though Brenda had suggested she stay behind and have a cup of tea.

‘That way we can all go home together,’ she’d said.

‘Sorry, but I’m meeting someone later,’ Lena had replied. She hoped she hadn’t sounded as miserable as she felt. It had been impossible not to notice the hilarity that her lovely doll had been met with. People had pointed it out to each other and burst out laughing. She had expected when the raffle took place for not a single person to choose it, for it to be left there, ugly and unwanted.

It had been a big relief when the vicar had been the first raffle winner and had picked Lena’s doll. He had actually given it a hug and kissed it, and everyone had cheered.

Once home, Lena made tea and wondered what she would do with herself tonight; she hadn’t expected to be home so early. With Sheila and Brenda still in Melling, there was no one else that she could call on.

The furniture in the flat felt strangely oppressive, as if it was about to fall down on top of her. She supposed the only thing to do was go to the pictures. Although she loved the pictures, it seemed a bit pathetic to go so often on her own. In Birmingham, she’d had a friend, Enid, to go with. Enid’s husband was in the army.

She went into the kitchen, where she washed her face, combed her hair and looked at her reflection in the mirror on the windowsill. How nice it would be to be pretty, or really talented like Brenda Mahon with her dressmaking. She had grown up used to being plain and not particularly clever at anything, though she was quite a fast typist and good at shorthand. As she continued to stare in the mirror, becoming more and more miserable, she was relieved to hear a knock on the door. At least it was someone to talk to, even if for only a few minutes.

George Ransome was outside. He removed his hat when she opened the door. ‘I wondered if you were going to the Palace tonight?’ he said with a smile. The Palace was the picture house in Marsh Lane, only a short walk away.

‘Well, I was thinking about it,’ Lena conceded.

‘It’s that picture about American politics. It’s had wonderful reviews.’

‘I know,
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
, with James Stewart. I saw it in the
Echo
last night.’ She’d also read an article about it in the
News of the World
.

‘Jean Arthur’s in it too.’ He rubbed his hands together with enthusiasm. ‘She’s my favourite actress. Claudette Colbert is a close second.’

‘I like them too. And James Stewart.’

He shuffled his feet. ‘I just wondered,’ he said casually, ‘if it would be a good idea if we went to see it together. We’ve noticed each other coming out and walking home a few times now, and it seems silly, like, us living in the same street and going to the pics on our own. What harm would it be us doing it together?’

‘I’m married,’ Lena said simply.

‘Yes, but we’d only be going to the pics. There’d be no funny business.’

‘I should hope not!’

‘We’d be going as friends,’ he said cheerily. ‘Good friends.’

Lena chewed her lip. ‘I’d have to pay for myself,’ she said eventually.

‘That’s no problem, Mrs Newton.’

‘And you must always call me Mrs Newton, not Lena.’

‘That’s all right by me, and I will always be Mr Ransome to you.’

‘Absolutely.’ Lena nodded fiercely. ‘If you’d like to wait outside a minute, I’ll just go and get my things together.’

‘I won’t move from the spot, Mrs Newton.’

Lena went upstairs to fetch her best coat. She’d asked Brenda about George Ransome after the first time he’d spoken to her on the way home from the pictures.

He was a bachelor, Brenda had explained. She supposed he was about fifty. ‘Before the war, every Sat’day night without fail, he’d have these dead rowdy parties lasting all night long. Christ knows what went on in there, but the noise had to be heard to be believed.’

Lena felt herself flush. ‘Oh my goodness!’

‘When the war started, he was too old to be called up, but he was sent to work for the censorship department in Aintree, not far from here. He takes it very seriously,’ she said gravely, ‘and the parties stopped. He became an air-raid warden too. It was George who found Francis Costello and little Tony when the house they were in was hit by a bomb. Both of ’em were killed, poor sods. Poor Eileen, she was devastated, and George has never been the same since.’

Brenda had folded her arms, crossed her legs and said thoughtfully, ‘Me, I lost interest in men when Xavier went and married another woman down in London – became a bigamist, would you believe – but if I should ever get interested in men again, I wouldn’t mind having a go at George Ransome. His moustache makes him look a bit like Clark Gable, only thinner. If he asked me out, I’d go like a shot.’

Mr Smith Goes to Washington
was really inspiring. After it was over, Lena wondered aloud that it was possible for women to go into politics.

‘Would you do it?’ George asked. ‘Go into politics, that is?’

‘For goodness’ sake don’t be so ridiculous.’ Lena laughed.

‘There’s a few women in the British Parliament,’ he informed her. ‘There’s Ellen Wilkinson, Jennie Lee and Lady Astor – that’s three. There’s probably more, but I can’t remember their names.’

‘Really?’ He appeared very knowledgeable. She liked men who regularly read newspapers, not just the sport like Maurice, who was mad on football.

‘Do you fancy a drink, Mrs Newton?’

‘Well …’ Lena fancied a drink if only so they could go on talking, but she rarely touched alcohol. ‘I wouldn’t mind an orange cordial or a cup of tea.’ She felt so uplifted and moved by the picture that she didn’t care if they were seen together. As George had said, they were friends, that was all.

‘I’m afraid, Mrs Newton,’ he said regretfully, ‘there are no cafés round here open this late. I wouldn’t dream of inviting you into one of the local pubs, but there’s a nice place on Stanley Road called the Crown. It’s a hotel as well as a public house, and the clientele are entirely respectable. Would you care to go there?’

They’d been standing outside the Palace all this time, in everybody’s way as they left. He held out his arm for her to link, and she felt it would be awfully rude not to take it, so she did.

Although Tom Chance’s job as a barman kept him busy of a night, most mornings he caught the tram into town, where he stayed for hours, sometimes not coming home until it was time for tea.

Freda was unable to hide her curiosity for long, and one day just after Easter, when she was still on holiday from school, she couldn’t resist asking him what he did there.

‘Have you got another job in town?’ she enquired. He was about to leave the house with a khaki bag like a satchel on his shoulder. Having seen him unpack it from time to time, she knew it contained a collection of pencils, some of them coloured, and a notebook.

‘No.’ He smiled. Freda loved his smiles. She reckoned he kept his best ones for her. The ones he gave her mother and Dicky she was convinced weren’t quite so broad, and didn’t always reach his eyes. ‘I was thinking of writing a history of Liverpool. All I do is walk around and around making notes and drawings.’

‘A history of Liverpool!’ She was impressed. She’d never thought of the city having a history. It was just
there
and she couldn’t imagine it ever having been different – which, now she thought about it, was rather foolish.

‘Liverpool is one of the most important cities in the world and has been the first to do so many things,’ Tom went on. ‘For instance, it was the first to have a lending library, a lifeboat station, municipal trams and electric trains – which reminds me, the first railway tunnels in the world were built underneath you-know-where.’

‘Liverpool,’ Freda breathed.

‘Where else?’ Tom laughed. ‘Why don’t you get your coat and come with me? You’ll be back at school soon. I’m sure your mother won’t mind.’

Freda didn’t give a toss whether her mother minded or not. She collected her coat, wishing it was much smarter and a nicer colour than navy blue, and they set off. They caught a tram from Stanley Road into town. Tom paid her penny fare when she realised she hadn’t thought to bring money.

On the way, he told her that the Queensway Tunnel under the Mersey, linking Liverpool to Birkenhead, was sometimes described as the Eighth Wonder of the World. ‘Oh, and the first British person to win the Nobel Prize was called Ronald Ross, and he worked at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine – which, incidentally, was the first school of its kind …’ He paused and looked at Freda, eyebrows raised.

‘In the world,’ Freda said triumphantly.

‘Right! Oh, we’re going to have a fine old time, you and me.’

They got off the tram outside St George’s Hall. ‘The finest neoclassical building in all of Europe,’ Tom said.

‘Not in the world?’ queried Freda.

‘No, there must be some just as fine elsewhere, just not in Europe.’

Freda had seen it before but it hadn’t made any impression on her until now. As she watched Tom, hands on hips, regarding it with a mixture of wonder and admiration, a ray of light seemed to shine on her brain and she saw the building, with its long row of marble pillars, as a thing of incredible beauty, almost making her want to cry.

‘Now I’m going to take you around the Seven Streets of Liverpool – these were the first important streets of the city. They’re many centuries old. Some of the names have changed, but they were originally called Castle Street, Bank Street, Juggler Street, Dale Street, Chapel Street, Moor Street and Whiteacre Street.’

Freda felt quite tired by the time they’d walked all seven streets, Tom stopping from time to time to point out a particularly spectacular building. When he put his hand on her shoulder it felt lovely and warm and heavy and she wished he would leave it there for ever. He did leave it for a little while, leading her towards a café in Whitechapel where they had dinner, though Tom called it lunch. They both had fish and chips and peas, followed by jam tart with custard and a big mug of tea.

‘That was the gear,’ Freda said when she had finished. ‘Thank you,’ she added shyly. It was rare that she thanked anyone, but this time she did it with total sincerity.

‘And thank you, Freda, for accompanying me on my trip today. In a way, you’ve made me see things through different eyes and I am more impressed with Liverpool than ever.’

He leant across the table and squeezed her hand. If she had been older, Freda was convinced he would have kissed her. She just knew, could sense, that she and Tom Chance were made for each other and they would get married one day.

That night she designed her wedding dress.

A few days later, the holiday ended and Freda returned to her convent school. Her class, Form 4, had their first English lesson of the term that same morning. The girls were asked to write an essay on any event that had occurred during the week-long break.

‘Any small incident, a friend or relative’s visit, for instance, or your visit to them,’ suggested Sister Bernadette, the English teacher. ‘I would like to have the work in before the end of the week.’

That night Freda went into the parlour, where it was quieter, to write the essay, taking her dictionary with her. One of the neighbours – it might have been Eileen Costello when she used to live next door – had given her the dictionary when she had passed the scholarship and gone to Seafield Convent.

Although she didn’t mention Tom, she described her trip to Liverpool and the sights she had seen, using the information he had provided her with to emphasise what an important city Liverpool was, how innovative and alive, how it was famous throughout the world. She listed the seven streets and said she had walked along every single one, and that it was her intention to do it again. Dicky might like to go one of these days; even Mam might enjoy it.

The essay was returned in class marked 9½ out of 10. Sister Bernadette called Freda to her desk. She was a young nun, good-humoured and friendly. Everybody liked her.

‘This is an admirable piece of work, Freda,’ she said. ‘Where did you get the idea from?’

‘Our lodger,’ Freda admitted reluctantly, unable to think of a way of claiming it was all her own idea.

‘It’s so good that I would like to enter it for a prize. Liverpool Corporation have asked schools to submit essays from their sixth-form pupils, the subject being the city in which they live; in other words, Liverpool.’

‘But I’m not in the sixth form yet,’ Freda pointed out – as if Sister Bernadette didn’t already know.

The nun shrugged. ‘That might not matter. No one in our sixth form has come up with this notion of the Seven Streets. I really like that. Oh, and Freda, your essay would have earned ten out of ten had you pointed out that Liverpool isn’t exactly the exemplary city you describe.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Freda was astonished to hear it.

‘No, dear. It was one of the first cities to have something called a wet dock. That means it was prominent in the slave trade. Many thousands of black people were taken via Liverpool to the United States to become slaves. The conditions on the ships were deplorable, and once the slaves arrived, they were treated with appalling cruelty. Liverpool became rich through this awful business, and it’s something the city should be greatly ashamed of.’

‘I see,’ said Freda.

She returned to her desk feeling both proud and as if she had been taken down a peg or two.