Winnie of the Waterfront (22 page)

Sandy groaned. ‘If Winnie gets the stall then she won’t be able to work for you, and you rely on her so much these days, Peg. You make such a
good
team it wouldn’t be fair to take her away from you.’

‘Who says you’d have to? Once she’s got the stall she can employ you to run it for her,’ Peg told him triumphantly.

‘You’re a wily one and no mistake,’ Sandy laughed admiringly.

‘It means I’ll have to change my plans a bit, though, doesn’t it?’ he frowned. ‘Shall we explain to Winnie about the stall tonight and see what she says?’

At first Winnie thought it a brilliant idea. Then her face clouded. ‘Where will I get the money from to pay Reg Willard, though?’ she frowned. ‘You have to pay a whole month in advance, don’t you?’

‘I’ve been saving up to be able to do this for ages and I’ve got it all ready,’ Sandy told her.

‘Then of course I’ll do it,’ she agreed. ‘What about tomorrow?’

‘Not tomorrow, luv,’ Peg warned her. ‘Wait for another couple of weeks, until after your birthday. Don’t give Reg Willard the chance to say that you are too young to be a stallholder, which he might well do at the moment.’

‘I was going to take you out for the day on the Sunday before your birthday and to make it a double celebration by telling you I was a stallholder,’ Sandy told her.

‘Well, we could still do that, it wouldn’t really matter that you were celebrating being your own boss a few days in advance, would it?’ Winnie smiled.

Sandy looked enquiringly at Peg. ‘Do you think it would be all right to do that?’

The older woman smiled enthusiastically. Then she pursed her mouth and looked thoughtful. ‘Fine, as long as neither of you is superstitious,’ she confirmed. ‘You want to plan things very carefully before you speak to Reg Willard, mind, Winnie,’ she cautioned. ‘Don’t go rushing into things half-cock!’

‘We’ve got the money ready,’ Sandy reminded her.

‘You need more than that,’ Peg warned. ‘He’ll want to know what you are going to sell on your stall. You should be clear in your mind about that as well. He won’t want to upset any of the other stallholders so you’d better decide on something that is completely different from what all the others are dealing in.’

‘Peg’s right,’ Winnie agreed. ‘What were you planning on selling?’

Sandy looked uneasy, but he promised to let them both know later that evening.

‘You’d better pin him down, luv,’ Peg warned Winnie. ‘That Reg Willard is a stickler you know. You’ll have to convince him that whatever it is you’re going to sell on the stall will be good for the market and be likely to bring in more customers. All that Reg cares about is making sure turnover goes up all the time so that he gets his cut.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Winnie assured her.

‘Did you know that the stallholders all have to
pay
commission on their turnover and Reg Willard gets a percentage according to how much that amounts to?’ Winnie asked Sandy the next time she spoke to him.

He looked startled. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Peg did. She was quite sure about it.’

Sandy looked worried. ‘Then I don’t think he is going to think much of my idea, do you?’ he said worriedly.

‘You haven’t told any of us what it is,’ Winnie pointed out.

‘Well, since I won’t have much money left over after paying a whole month’s rental in advance, I was planning to invite people to bring anything they didn’t want along for me to sell on a fifty-fifty basis. They get half and I get half. That way my stock won’t cost me anything.’

‘And how many people do you think will have things they want to sell? Most of the people who come to the market are looking for bargains in the first place. They don’t waste their money on luxuries and they only ever buy the things they really need.’

‘Yes, but there are things they no longer have any need for, like high chairs and cots their kids have outgrown. Everyone buys something that after a time they want to get rid of because they no longer use it.’

‘But when that happens they usually pass it on to someone else in the family, or swap it with a friend for something else.’

‘Exactly! This way, though, by bringing it along to me and letting me sell it for them they’d get
money
in return, and we all know that is far more useful.’

Winnie frowned. ‘Won’t that be a bit like a pawn shop?’

‘Well, in a way I suppose it is,’ Sandy admitted.

‘But when people pawn something they can redeem it as soon as they have the money and then pawn it again the next time they are short.’

‘A lot of people would prefer to sell things outright. When it’s a cradle, or something like that which they’re never going to use again, then it is only taking up space,’ he argued.

‘How are you going to store all this stuff when you shut the stall down at night?’ Winnie challenged.

‘I’ll cover it all over with a tarpaulin the same as other traders do, of course.’

‘Won’t things get pinched?’

Sandy ran a hand through his hair. ‘Are you trying to pick holes in my idea?’ he muttered.

‘No, of course I’m not!’ Winnie grinned. ‘I’m just making sure that I know all the answers when Reg Willard starts cross-questioning me about how I’m going to run my stall!’

‘I see! Well, the bigger items will stay covered over and the smaller items will have to be taken home.’

Winnie frowned. ‘What sort of small items?’

‘I don’t know until they start bringing them in.’

‘Reg is bound to ask me,’ she persisted.

‘Well, things like teapots, vases, pictures, bits of jewellery, ornaments, watches, toys, and stuff like that. Anything that would fit into a shopping bag or a man’s pocket.’

Winnie nodded. ‘It all makes sense to me,’ she told him. ‘Let’s hope that Reg Willard will think the same.’

Chapter Twenty-three

PEG AND SANDY
didn’t need to ask Winnie how she had got on when she came back to Peg’s kitchen from her interview with Reg Willard. Her face said it all. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her expressive mouth was a tight line and there was an angry flush on her cheeks.

‘No luck?’ Sandy asked tersely.

Winnie shook her head, too choked to speak.

‘What you need is a cuppa, luv,’ Peg fussed. ‘I’ll make one for you. We’ll all three of us have one if it comes to that, and then you can tell Sandy and me all about it.’

Winnie nodded. She wheeled her chair closer to the table. Sandy pulled up a chair alongside her and took her hand.

‘That bad, was it?’

‘Worse!’ She shuddered. ‘That man’s so unfeeling he must be made of wood!’

‘So he didn’t like the idea of what would be on sale?’

‘We never got that far! He took one look at me and laughed. He said how could a cripple think she could run a stall in Paddy’s Market. The best thing I could do was stay where I was, helping Peg and keeping out of sight. He made me think I was a freak.’

‘Ssh! Take no notice!’ Sandy pulled out his handkerchief and passed it over to her. ‘Dry your eyes, I’ll have a word with him.’

Winnie shook her head. ‘You’d be wasting your time. He guessed you were behind the application.’

Sandy’s eyebrows shot up. ‘How could he know that?’

‘He said he’s been watching us ever since I first came to work here. He’s noticed you pushing my chair and how friendly we are.’

‘Surely that doesn’t stop him from renting you a stall.’

‘Oh, it does! He guessed that it was really for you.’

‘Then in that case I may as well have another go at him myself.’

‘It won’t do you any good. He said the only way he’d consider letting you have a stall was if you paid a year’s rental in advance.’

‘A year’s rental! That would be almost five hundred pounds! It’s taken me nearly three years to save forty pounds so that I can pay a month’s rental in advance.’

‘He’s well aware of that,’ Peg declared. ‘He knows you’ll never be able to afford it because he knows damn well how much he pays you each week, doesn’t he!’

Sandy held his head in his hands and groaned.

‘What do I do now, Peg?’

‘Will you take any notice of what I say, even if I tell you?’

‘I might as well, you did warn me that I was
wasting
my time. You said Willard wouldn’t let me have a stall. Go on, what do I do now?’

Peg stirred her cup of tea. ‘You take some of that money you’ve got saved up and you spend it on taking Winnie out for the night. Use it to have a good time. You’ll have to think of some other way of making your fortune, lad. It won’t be here in this market. As I said to you a couple of weeks ago when you first mentioned getting a stall here, Reg Willard won’t agree because he knows he would be losing his right-hand man.’

‘Did you hear all that, Winnie?’ Sandy grinned.

‘I did, but you are hardly likely to want to take me for a night out when I’ve messed everything up!’

Sandy shook his head. ‘Perhaps Peg is right. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall so a night out sounds a great idea to me. What about you? Are you game?’

Winnie smiled weakly, trying to go along with his light-hearted attitude even though she knew that, like her, he was bitterly disappointed about the way things had turned out.

‘Depends where you’re going to take me?’ she teased.

‘Well, the sun is shining outside so what about the pair of you taking the ferryboat over to New Brighton?’ Peg suggested.

‘Could we?’ Winnie’s face was suddenly suffused with smiles.

‘Of course you can! Go and enjoy yourselves. You’ve a lifetime in front of you in which to make your fortune, Sandy, so make the most of what
you’ve
got at this moment. You never know what the future holds in store for you! Many’s the time I wish me and my Joe had gone out and had a good time instead of scrimping and saving for the future. We didn’t get a future, did we?’

It was the first time Winnie had been on a ferryboat in her wheelchair so she wasn’t at all sure how she would manage.

As it was she encountered no problems at all. It was early evening, but most of the office workers who came over from the Wirral to work in the shops and offices in Liverpool had already gone home.

Sandy wheeled her down Water Street and as they reached the Pier Head landing stage they found that the
Royal Daffodil
was already docked, so he was able to push the chair straight down the floating roadway and onto it. He found a place on the outside deck near the rails at the prow of the boat so that Winnie could enjoy the river scene on both sides once they started to move downstream.

It was a perfect evening for their trip. There was still plenty of heat left in the sun; white clouds scudded overhead, gulls swooped, and as she looked over the side of the boat the water sparkled as though it was covered with slivers of silver.

They hardly spoke during the crossing. Winnie was absorbed by all that was happening. The
Manxman
was getting up steam ready for its evening crossing to the Isle of Man and two liners and a cargo ship were at their moorings. A ferryboat from Seacombe was heading across to
Liverpool
and one from Liverpool crossing to Birkenhead.

Further up the Mersey, tug boats were guiding a stately steamer out as far as The Bar in readiness for the next tide when it would set off on the first leg of its journey to America.

As the
Royal Daffodil
started its crossing, Sandy pointed out Seacombe, Wallasey Town Hall, Egremont Pier and Vale Park as they sailed past them. Then New Brighton came into sight, with The Tower dominating the fairground and the amusement arcade nearby.

Within minutes they were pulling into the landing stage alongside the pier. As the gangplanks were being lowered Sandy grabbed hold of the wheelchair, and seconds later they were off the boat and he was pushing Winnie along the promenade.

‘Now, where do you want to go first?’ he asked eagerly.

‘I don’t mind, it’s all new to me,’ she laughed.

‘Right! Then let’s walk along the promenade towards Perch Rock, and when we reach the swimming pool on the far side of that we can have a rest and decide what we want to do next.’

As they walked along the Ham and Egg Parade the savoury smells that wafted out reminded Sandy that one of the reasons for coming over to New Brighton was so that he could take Winnie for a celebratory meal.

He weighed up each café and restaurant as they passed them, trying to decide which would be the best one. He wanted it to be somewhere special,
yet
not so grand that they would feel out of place. Winnie was wearing a pretty turquoise blouse and, as usual, a long black skirt. He had on grey flannels and a brown check jacket. He was wearing a tie with his plain white shirt so he looked respectable, he told himself firmly.

A few yards from the swimming pool he spotted a café that stood out from all the others. It had attractive lace curtains at the bay window and the paintwork was gleaming white. Without even consulting Winnie he wheeled her chair in through the entrance.

The proprietor came hurrying forward, frowning and shaking his head at the wheelchair. Sandy suspected he was going to turn him away so he said quickly, ‘Perhaps you could find us a spot near the window where we’ll be out of the way.’

The proprietor hesitated. ‘Will the lady have to sit in her chair at the table?’ he enquired dubiously.

‘No, not if it’s inconvenient. We can leave her wheelchair out here in the passage if you would prefer us to do that,’ Sandy suggested. ‘We’d still like a seat near the window so that we can look out on to the prom, though,’ he added.

‘Of course, of course. I’ll take the wheelchair through to the back of the premises rather than leave it in the entrance,’ he offered.

Sandy made sure that Winnie was seated so that she could look out of the window while they ate, then he studied the menu nervously. This sort of meal was going to be a first for him as well as for
Winnie.
He was more used to Harry Petty’s bar in Water Street. There you queued up for your plate of nosh and then found yourself a space on a wooden bench at one of the long oilcloth-covered tables lined up in rows in the long room. Or else he went to a milk bar where you were lucky if there was elbow room when they were busy.