Winnie of the Waterfront (8 page)

He shook his head. ‘One or two of my customers tried to pick her up and sort her out, but her head was bleeding rather badly and she was moaning, so someone went off to get a scuffer. I didn’t argue about it because I thought it was better to report it to them than leave it for them to find out there’d been an accident.’

‘So what did the policeman do when he got here?’ Sandy asked.

‘He took one look at her and felt her neck and wrist for her pulse, like they do, and then called an ambulance. That came in next to no time. Well, it would, seeing it was a policeman asking for it. Then they took her away.’

‘Where did they take her? Which hospital?’

The landlord shrugged. ‘The General, I suppose. I never asked. As far as I was concerned we’d done all we could. She wasn’t one of my regulars.’

‘So you haven’t enquired how she is?’ Sandy asked.

The man shook his head. ‘Why should I?’ He ran his hand over his head again. ‘Hope I never see her again. I’ve got enough to do without having the place full of troublemakers.’

Sandy swung Winnie’s chair round and without even stopping to thank the landlord he set off at a run, heading in the direction of Liverpool General Hospital.

It took Sandy and Winnie almost an hour to obtain any information about Grace Malloy at the hospital because no one had ever heard of her. When they finally established that she’d fallen over outside the Brewers Arms public house at about half past ten the previous evening and had hurt her head, and that she had been brought to the hospital in an ambulance, they finally managed to trace that she had been admitted.

Even then, no one seemed to be prepared to tell them how she was or which ward she was in. Time and again, Winnie assured people that Grace Malloy was her mother and watched as they took down details about where she lived.

Eventually, she and Sandy were asked to wait in a small side room and were told that a doctor would be along to see them shortly.

For Winnie, the waiting was intolerable. Sandy kept trying to reassure her by saying that any moment now a nurse would come and take her along to see her mother. Winnie kept shaking her head and pointing out that if that was the case
then
why couldn’t someone tell her how her mother was.

‘Because they’re busy. You’ll be able to find out for yourself how she is when they take you along to the ward to see her,’ he told her stubbornly. He didn’t like being in the hospital any more than she did. The smell of disinfectant and the general feel of his surroundings made him uncomfortable.

Eventually, a tall thin man, wearing a white coat, a stethoscope dangling around his neck and a worried look on his face, came bustling into the room.

‘I’m Doctor Bailey,’ he announced in clipped tones. ‘You are Mrs Malloy’s relatives?’

‘She’s my mam,’ Winnie told him. ‘This is my friend, Sandy, who’s brought me here. I can’t walk,’ she explained.

‘Quite!’

‘Can I see my mam? What’s happened to her? Was she very badly hurt when she fell over?’

‘Your mother, Grace Malloy, hit her head against a kerbstone on the pavement.’

‘Badly?’

‘Yes, very badly. By the time she reached hospital she was unconscious and it was too late for us to do anything for her. I’m afraid your mother died last night.’

‘Died! Died? My mam’s dead from falling over on the pavement?’ Winnie looked astounded. ‘I don’t believe you!’

‘I’m afraid it is true,’ Dr Bailey told her. ‘She was very inebriated, of course, and that didn’t
help
matters.’ He looked at Winnie’s white little face with concern. ‘I am very sorry. Have you someone who can get in touch with us here at the hospital? Your father, perhaps? We need someone to sign the relevant papers and to arrange a funeral.’

‘My dad was called up into the army a few months ago and he’s just been reported “Missing, presumed dead”,’ Winnie told him in a small, flat voice that was little more than a whisper.

‘I see! So who is looking after you?’

Winnie shook her head. ‘There’s no one else.’

‘No brothers or sisters?’

‘My mam was married before and has other children, but they have nothing to do with me,’ she said dully.

‘That is unfortunate, very unfortunate. I think you had better make contact with them, though, to make arrangements about her funeral. Her body can only stay here for a couple of days. If you don’t do that then your mother will have to be buried in a pauper’s grave.’

Winnie looked at him, bewildered. ‘You do know where to find them?’ he asked.

Winnie nodded, but she looked so uncertain that Dr Bailey turned to Sandy. ‘Can you help?’

‘I don’t know any of them. I suppose I could tell Father Patrick what has happened and he’ll probably be able to help. He’ll know all about the Malloys, he’s been their parish priest for years.’

Dr Bailey looked relieved. ‘Yes, do that,’ he affirmed. ‘Tell their priest what has happened. Ask
him
to tell them to contact the hospital as soon as possible to make the necessary arrangements.’

Winnie didn’t utter a word as they left the hospital and headed back home. The mist had now turned to rain and everywhere looked grey and dismal. Sandy didn’t know what to say to her so he didn’t speak either. He saved his breath, kept his head down and walked as fast as he could.

Winnie couldn’t believe what either the landlord at the Brewers Arms or Dr Bailey at the hospital had told her. She knew her mother drank. Some mornings she had a hangover, but she was never completely incapable, only irritable or bad-tempered.

If only her dad was here, he’d sort everything out, she thought sadly. Up until now she’d convinced herself that he was still alive. Now, though, she felt a void inside her, a loneliness greater than anything she’d ever known in her life before. It was a gigantic ache, a pain worse than anything she’d felt when she’d been in hospital and they’d pulled and messed about with her legs.

The thought of having to make contact with her stepbrothers and stepsister only added to her inner torment. They’d never liked her; they’d resented her, scorned her, looked at her as if she was some sort of freak.

She knew they probably wouldn’t be interested in the fact that her dad was missing and probably dead. They’d never liked him. Her mother was their mother, though, so her death would matter to them as well. Since her dad
wouldn’t
be able to do so, they would be the ones who would have to come to the hospital and arrange the funeral.

And then what? How would she manage afterwards? Who would pay the rent on their rooms in Carswell Court? Her mam mightn’t have done very much to help her but she had always been there. She had done the shopping, when she remembered, and washed out their clothes from time to time.

Winnie held back her growing terror. None of her mother’s grown-up children would want to take her in and have her living with them. She wouldn’t want to live with them anyway. She felt frightened of them and even scared of their children because they teased her about her legs.

As they reached Carswell Court, she twisted her head round so that she could speak to Sandy. ‘Why are you bringing me back here? Shouldn’t we be going to school? I’ll tell Miss Phillips what happened, and that I asked you to help me to look for my mam. I’m sure she’ll understand.’

‘The doctor at the hospital said I was to go and see Father Patrick and tell him about the accident and everything,’ Sandy reminded her. ‘We’d better do that first, hadn’t we?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Well, I thought you might want to wipe your face and dry your hair before we go to see him.’

‘I don’t see what Father Patrick can do. Saying a Mass or lighting candles isn’t going to bring my mam back, or my dad, now, is it.’

‘I know that,’ Sandy muttered. ‘I think Doctor
Bailey
was thinking about you, and that you need someone to look after you. You can hardly live on your own now, can you!’ he added, his face red with embarrassment.

For a moment Winnie didn’t answer. His remarks cut like a knife because he had put into words all the things she’d been mulling over in her mind since they’d left the hospital. Bringing them out into the open had made them real. It was now a problem that had to be faced; one that wouldn’t go away.

Chapter Eight

BY SIX O’CLOCK
that evening Winnie Malloy’s stepbrothers Mick and Paddy, and her stepsister Kathleen Flynn, were at Carswell Court, all crammed into the tiny, run-down living room. Oblivious of Winnie in her invalid carriage they were arguing like banshees about the details of their mother’s funeral and who was to have what of her meagre possessions.

‘I’ll take her thick black shawl,’ Kathleen told them. ‘Not that I’m ever likely to wear such a thing, you understand, but I’d like to have it as a permanent memory of her. Whenever I think of her I see her wearing it,’ she sniffed, wiping away her tears.

‘If you take that then I’ll have nothing to put over me at nights,’ Winnie told her. ‘Mam always used it as an extra covering when it was a cold night.’

‘Shut your gob and stop bleating, you selfish little bint,’ Kathleen told her dismissively.

‘I’ll take the old armchair then,’ Mick stated. ‘The only bloody comfortable chair in the place. Probably the only piece of furniture here that belonged to the old girl.’

‘So what do I get as a keepsake then?’ Paddy asked.

‘Didn’t think you’d want anything. You were always the black sheep of the family. When Dad wasn’t thrashing you then Mam was tearing you a strip off for something you’d done wrong,’ Kathleen reminded him.

‘That’s all in the past,’ Paddy laughed. ‘You forget about these things in time.’

‘I have the perfect souvenir for you, then, brother,’ Mick guffawed. ‘Take the bloody clock! Every time it chimes you can think of one or the other of them.’

‘If you take the clock then how will I know the time? How will I manage to get to school on time, or to Mass on Sunday?’ Winnie butted in.

‘What’re you blabbing on about?’ Mick snapped. ‘You won’t be able to stay here, not on your own, now, will you? You can’t take care of yourself, not with them stupid legs.’

‘I thought I could try,’ Winnie told him defiantly. ‘My friend Sandy will push me to school and back and to Mass on a Sunday …’

‘… And carry you up to bed every night and plonk you on that bloody commode thing when you want to go to the lav?’ Kathleen asked in shocked tones.

‘You won’t be living here and you won’t be living with any of us either. We haven’t the room for you, kiddo,’ Paddy interrupted his sister. ‘Sorry, luv! We’ve already got two kids of our own and my Sandra says they’re more than she can cope with as it is.’

Trying to be optimistic about her future seemed impossible, Winnie realised. She’d always known
they
didn’t like her, didn’t want her, and this was their chance to wipe her out of their lives for good. She was pretty sure that they were going to stick her away in a home of some sort and forget her.

If they did that then she’d forget them, she resolved. She studied each of them in turn, memorising every detail she could because she knew she’d never set eyes on them again once the funeral was over. Never think of them ever again either, she thought defiantly.

She looked at Mick, taking in his greasy, thin brown hair, his dark, shifty eyes and loose-lipped mouth. At Paddy, fat and idle, over-long brown hair and small brown eyes like raisins in his podgy face. Finally, at Kathleen, who was fat and blowsy, exactly like her mother. She already had a double chin and a voice like a corncrake, especially when she was nagging her puny little husband Frank, or her two children Francis and Pansy.

Suddenly, having to go into a home didn’t seem so terrible after all. It was better than living with any of them, however bad it was. Father Patrick had said it would be with nuns, the Sisters of Mary, so they’d be full of compassion and be kind and understanding.

‘You’ll have to manage on your own for the next couple of days, until after the funeral,’ Kathleen told her. ‘Sandra and Mavis will take it in turns with me to come over and bring you some food and sort you out. If we pop in sometime during the evening and wash you and all that, you can see to yourself in the morning, can’t you? That Sandy says he will push you to school.’

‘How about me using the commode?’

Kathleen looked uncomfortable. ‘That’s difficult, but we thought that if we empty the pot for you when we come to see to you then you’ll manage all right. It’s only for a couple of days. If you put the lid thing down over it after you’ve used it then the smell shouldn’t bother you.’

‘Would you like to have something like that in your house?’

‘If one of us was ill and couldn’t get outside to the lav then we’d probably have to!’ Kathleen defended.

‘We use a bloody potty for young Mickey, don’t we,’ Mick told Winnie.

‘Mickey is two years old, I’ll be ten next birthday!’

‘Two, ten, twenty or forty, we all piss and shit,’ Mick told her coarsely. ‘What’s it matter where you do it?’

Winnie looked at him with disgust and loathing. If only her dad was here he wouldn’t let Mick O’Mara speak to her like that. He’d tell him to wash his mouth out and to treat her with respect or else he’d sort him out. Her dad hated anyone talking filthy so he probably wouldn’t even allow him into the house at all.

He wasn’t there, she reminded herself, and he might never be again. He’d been the only person in the world who’d ever taken her part, who loved her so much that he wanted only the very best for her, and he was probably gone for ever.

In two days it would be her mam’s funeral, and after that she’d be entirely on her own. Wherever
she
ended up it would be amongst strangers. A completely new life from what she’d known up to now.

However, the next two days were still part of her old life and she still had to get through them. She was going to be left there on her own all night in Carswell Court. None of the neighbours had spoken to her; she wasn’t sure that they even knew her mam was dead.

It didn’t matter, she told herself. She didn’t need them and their help any more than she needed Paddy and Mick O’Mara or Kathleen Flynn. Being on her own wasn’t the end of the world, it was the start of a new one for her. Two more days of her old way of living and then she could wipe the slate clean of all the O’Mara family.