Try a Little Tenderness (13 page)

‘Why’s that, girl? There’s no need to worry about me, I’m having the time of me life.’

‘I know yer too well, Amy Hanley, and I think ye’re up to something.’

‘Me? Up to something? I’m sitting here minding me own business, girl, and I’ve got nothing to get up to.’

‘Ye’re too quiet for my liking. It’s never been known for you to refuse to sing, so unless ye’re sickening for something, I smell dirty work at the crossroads.’

‘Nah, I’m not sickening for anything, girl, I’ll give a turn when I’ve had a few more bottles of stout. Yer’ll
soon see there’s nowt wrong with me.’

Two bottles of stout later, Amy said she’d give them a turn. ‘But I’m going to do it proper, like they do at the Metropole. Seamus can introduce me and I’ll make my grand entrance from the kitchen.’ With her hips swaying, she tapped a finger on Seamus’s chin as she passed him, fluttered her eyelashes and in her best Mae West voice, drawled, ‘I’ll give a shout when I’m ready, big boy, and make it good.’

Seamus thought it was hilarious, and when Amy called, he threw an arm out towards the kitchen door. ‘Put your hands together for Kirkdale’s own, the one and only –
Amy Hanley
!’

The applause was loud as the door opened slowly. Then, apart from gasps, everything went quiet as a chubby bare leg, with a fancy blue satin garter above the knee, began to kick in and out. Ben closed his eyes and groaned. ‘What’s that flippin’ wife of mine up to now?’

‘I knew it!’ Mary said. ‘I knew she had something up her sleeve.’

Then a chubby hand appeared and moved seductively up and down the door. There wasn’t a sound in the room, apart from Ben’s, ‘So help me, I’ll kill her.’

‘I hope ye’re all ready for this.’ Amy’s voice preceded her entrance, which knocked everyone for six. She’d cut an old dress up, hacking the sleeves out, making a high neck into a low round one, and cut the hem-line to mid-thigh. And around the bottom she’d sewn a blue silk fringe which danced as she began to Charleston. And every ounce of her fat danced with the fringe. She didn’t know the words to the song, so as she kicked her heels backwards and swung her arms, she kept repeating, ‘Do the Charleston … doh-doh-dee-oh-doh.’

Within a split second, the tune changed and so did Amy’s movements. With her arms outstretched she began to shake her shoulders and hips, and to whistles and cheers, she
made her way across the room to stand in front of Ben, who looked as though he’d been struck by lightning. ‘If I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate’ she warbled … and as she sang, Amy put her all into the dance that had been the craze when she was younger. And as everyone was to say later, they’d never seen a better shimmy.

Ben looked up into eyes that were dancing with devilment, and he grinned. ‘Yer could always shimmy better than yer sister Kate.’

The dancing stopped and Amy put her hands on her hips. ‘I haven’t got no bleedin’ sister called Kate.’

‘I know yer haven’t, love, that’s why yer’ve got to be better than her. Stands to sense, that, doesn’t it?’

Amy cut such a comical figure in a dress that showed her figure in all its glory, that everyone was in stitches. Mary and Molly cried tears of laughter into each other’s shoulders, Mick and John were doubled up, and Jenny’s pretty face was alive. She’d been embarrassed at first at Auntie Amy showing off so much of her body, but oh dear, she was really so funny you couldn’t help but laugh.

Seamus bent down to whisper in Stan’s ear, and grinning like two schoolboys, they stole up behind Amy. Before she realised what was happening, they’d each put a hand under her armpits, then their other hand went behind her knees and they scooped her up. They lifted her as high as they could, with Seamus saying, ‘Here she is, folks, the lovely and very talented, Amy Hanley.’

‘Sod off, Seamus Moynihan, yer silly bugger,’ Amy called from her great height. ‘Yer nearly knocked me bleedin’ head off on the gas-light.’

John looked at his mother, and laughing so much he could hardly get his words out, he said, ‘Ay, Mam, I don’t think the flappers used to wear blue fleecy-lined bloomers.’

‘More fool them, son.’ Amy looked down to see she wasn’t showing anything she shouldn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t half get it off Ben when they got home. ‘Now we
know why they were always shimmying and shaking – it was to keep themselves warm. Fancy using all that energy when all they needed was a pair of fleecy-lined bloomers.’

‘Ye’re right there, Mrs Hanley.’ Mick’s dimples deepened. ‘A pair of those would have kept them warm up to their chins.’

Amy patted the two men on the head. ‘Yer can let me down now, boys, and I’ll make meself presentable. And as it’s eleven o’clock I think it’s time the guests were offered something to eat. We can start the party again when the clock strikes midnight.’

It was a quarter past eleven when a knock came on the door and Mick put his plate down on the sideboard. ‘I’ll go, Mam.’

The chattering stopped when Laura walked into the room. She didn’t look as sure of herself as usual, and her laugh was nervous. ‘I thought I’d see how yer were getting on. Is that all right, Mrs Moynihan?’

‘Of course it is, child. Get the girl a plate, Mick, and she can help herself to whatever she wants to eat.’

‘What got into you?’ Stan asked. ‘I thought yer wanted to be with yer friend.’

‘Cynthia’s mam wasn’t feeling well and went to bed early.’ That was true, but the real reason for Laura’s early departure was that the two boys hadn’t turned up and she had no intention of sitting listening to her mate’s dad prattling on about his work. Not when she knew there was a party going on just up the street. And that there’d be two boys there. ‘It wasn’t worth staying because we couldn’t have celebrated the New Year, not with her in bed and us frightened to make a noise.’

There’d been very few words exchanged between Mary and her daughter since the night Stan had put his foot down and said Laura must turn up five shillings towards the housekeeping and pay her own tramfares to work out of the remaining half-a-crown. The girl seemed to put the
blame on her mother and had sulked ever since. But she looked so ill at ease with all eyes on her, Mary’s motherly instinct came to the fore. ‘Get yerself something to eat, sunshine, then come and sit on the floor next to Jenny.’

Seamus Moynihan hadn’t stinted on the drinks, and his wife certainly hadn’t stinted on the food. Molly had refused help from her neighbours, saying that she had more money coming into the house, and fewer mouths to feed. So it was a heavily laden table that Laura stood in front of. ‘Ooh, I don’t know where to start, there’s so much,’ she told Mick, who was being very gentlemanly and holding the plate for her to fill.

‘Pick what takes yer fancy, then yer can always come back for more.’

His attention put Laura in a very happy frame of mind, and when she squatted on the floor beside her sister there was a genuine smile on her face. ‘What’s been going on, kid? Have I missed anything?’

While Jenny was telling her sister that she had missed a real treat, Mick was back standing next to John who was pulling his leg. ‘Got yer eye on Laura, have yer, Mick? Be careful there, mate, she’d eat yer for breakfast.’

‘I was only doing what me mam told me to do, looking after the guests.’ Mick glanced over to where the two sisters sat. ‘I’m waiting for Jenny to grow up.’

‘Yer’ll have a long wait, mate, she’s not thirteen yet.’

‘I’m only sixteen meself, so I’ve plenty of time. I know a lot of water will flow under the bridge before she’s old enough, and I also know I might meet someone else before then, or that she might not fancy me anyway. But I’ve been drawn to her since I first saw her. She was only about three, but I remember thinking the colour of her hair reminded me of a wheatfield back home in Ireland.’

‘Blimey, you’ve got it bad, haven’t yer?’ John’s face gave nothing away as he leaned towards Mick and said softly, ‘Yer can get in the queue, mate. I’m before you.’

Mick chuckled. ‘We’ll continue this conversation in three years’ time, when we’ll probably both be courting strong and Jenny will be going out with a feller in the next street.’

‘Yer could be right,’ John said, nodding his head. ‘But if not, remember all’s fair in love and war.’

So it was, that when the tugs on the Mersey sounded their hooters at the stroke of midnight to herald the arrival of 1934, and all the grown-ups were hugging and kissing each other, Mick and John, armed with a piece of mistletoe, made their way to the sisters. Jenny, not thirteen for another four months, blushed to the roots of her hair and twisted her neck so the kisses landed on her cheek. While Laura puckered her lips, eager and willing.

‘Just look at the time, Stan – ten minutes to eleven and that little faggot still isn’t in.’ Mary paced the floor, her mood half anger, half worry. ‘She knows she’s to be in by half ten, and that we’ll be waiting up for her.’

‘You go to bed, love, I’ll wait for her.’ Stan rapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. ‘And she’ll get a piece of my mind.’

‘D’yer really think that will make any difference to Laura? She won’t take a ha’porth of notice of yer. She treats this place like a hotel, just comes and goes as she pleases, and to hell with anyone else.’ Mary glanced at the clock. ‘Eleven o’clock. Doesn’t it enter her head that we might be worried about her? She’s not sixteen yet, and if something awful were to happen to her, we’re the ones that would get the blame for letting her stay out till this time of night.’

When the knock came on the door, Mary flew into the tiny hall. ‘Where the hell d’yer think you’ve been, you little madam?’ She closed the door and followed her daughter into the room. ‘Yer do realise we’ve been waiting up for yer?’

Stan was standing, his feet astride, his hands locked in front of him. ‘Where’ve yer been until this time of night?’

‘If yer let me have me own key, yer wouldn’t have to wait up for me.’

‘Don’t you ever use that tone of voice to me, Laura, I’m warning yer. Push me too far and yer’ll find out ye’re not too old to get a good hiding. And as for having yer own key,
yer can forget that ’cos yer can’t be trusted.’ Stan unlocked his hands and pointed a finger. ‘Now, tell us where yer’ve been, and I want the truth.’

Laura tossed her head. ‘If yer must know, I’ve been to me grandad’s.’

Mary gasped. ‘Never! Me dad wouldn’t let yer stay until this time, he’d know we’d be worried about yer.’

‘Well, that’s where I’ve been.’ Out of the three people in the room, Laura was the coolest. She looked bored stiff, as though she just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. ‘Me grandad went to bed early and I stayed talking to Celia. That’s all we’ve been doing, talking. And I can’t see any harm in that.’

‘She should have more sense than to keep a girl of your age out until this time, knowing that yer’d be walking home alone, in the dark. And
you
should have had more sense, as well. Yer’ve got eyes in yer head, yer could see the time, and yer knew yer were told to be in by half ten. In future, yer do as ye’re told, understand?’

‘Dad, I was only keeping Celia company. She said she gets lonely because me grandad goes to bed early every night and she was glad to have someone young to talk to for a change.’

Mary was blazing. How dare that woman talk about her father like that! She was the one who talked him into marriage. If she’d wanted someone younger to talk to, she should have married someone younger. ‘She is a married woman and has no right to talk about her husband to a fifteen-year-old girl, who just happens to be his granddaughter, and who is supposed to think the world of him.’

‘I’m nearly sixteen, not a baby.’

‘Then don’t act like one,’ Stan said. ‘I’m not finished with yer, Laura, not by a long chalk. But we’ll leave it for now because it’s late and I’m tired. Get to bed now, but be careful yer don’t wake Jenny, she’s got to get up early for work, too.’
‘Yer don’t call what she does work, do yer? Sitting on her bottom all day in an office is not my idea of hard work.’ Relations between the two sisters had worsened since Jenny left school two months ago, and with excellent references from the headmistress had got herself a job as a clerk in the office of a small toolmaking firm. Laura was so envious she gave her sister a hard time. ‘A right stuck-up little snob, she is.’

‘It’s taking me all me time to keep me hands off yer, Laura.’ Mary ground the words out through clenched teeth. ‘If yer know what’s good for yer, yer’ll get up those stairs and out of my sight.’

After Laura flounced out of the room, Mary and Stan looked at each other with sadness and frustration in their eyes. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with her,’ Mary sighed. ‘If she keeps on like this she’ll send me to an early grave.’

‘It’s my fault for not listening to yer.’ Stan ran fingers through his thick mop of dark hair. ‘They say there’s none so blind as they who will not see.’ He walked to his wife and took her in his arms, pressing her head against his shoulder. ‘Nothing we say has any effect on her, it’s in one ear and out the other. We may as well talk to the wall.’

‘We’d be better off talking to the wall – at least it wouldn’t answer us back.’

Stan held her away from him and kissed her forehead. ‘We’re both too tired to talk about it now. Let’s leave it until tomorrow when we can think straight.’ He put an arm across her shoulders and led her to the door. ‘I’m absolutely whacked, me brain won’t think straight.’

They were cuddled up in bed when Mary said, ‘I do love her, yer know, Stan. And I worry about her, wondering what’s going to happen to her.’

‘I know, love, I feel the same way. But she might surprise us all in a year or two, yer never know. Perhaps she’ll meet a nice bloke who’ll tame her down.’

‘I hope so.’ Mary kissed his cheek. ‘Good night and God bless.’ Then she turned on her side and began to pray for her wayward daughter.

‘Don’t say anything to her,’ Mary said next morning as she put her husband’s breakfast in front of him. ‘I don’t want to start the day being upset. Wait until we’ve had our meal tonight and we’ll just sit down and have a quiet word with her.’

‘Whatever you say, love.’ Stan cut the top off his boiled egg and grinned at her. ‘Nice and runny, just the way I like it.’