Читать книгу Lime Street at Two - Helen Forrester - Страница 13

It was October, and nearly five months since I had bid Harry a hasty goodbye, when he embarked on his last voyage. I still felt very forlorn and terribly alone, despite a large family. I had spent this Saturday afternoon walking over to see the pawnbroker, to retrieve a cotton-wrapped bundle containing two of my dresses, a skirt and cardigan, which Mother had pawned. My return journey took me past the house in which we had rented two freezing attic rooms, when we first came to Liverpool.

Seated on the stone steps which led down from the pavement to her basement home was Mrs Hicks. Bundled up in a series of woollen cardigans, she was enjoying the late October sunshine.

She was an old friend, and when she saw me, she got up from the steps and dusted her black skirt with her hands.

‘’Allo, luv,’ she greeted me in surprise. ‘’Ow are yer? Come in. Haven’t seen you in ages.’ She pulled open the cast-iron gate which protected the steps.

I smiled at her and carefully eased myself past the gate and on to the narrow steps, to follow her down and through the heavy door under the sweep of steps that led up to the main entrance of the house.

The basement rooms in which she lived had originally been the kitchens of the house. Thick, vertical iron bars still guarded the windows, and the interior still smelled of damp and much scrubbing with pine disinfectant.

The sun did not penetrate her home, and in the gloom, she beamed at me, every wrinkle and crease of her face suggesting battles won or lost, patience learned. She had been very kind to all of us in the bitter days when, up in the attic, we had nearly starved.

Brian had been her particular friend, and she asked after him, as she shut the outer door. I told her he was well and had work.

‘Sit down, now. We’ll have a cuppa tea. See, the kettle’s on the boil,’ and she pointed to an iron kettle on the hob, belching steam like a railway train. ‘And how’ve you bin, me duck?’

While I sat down by the fire and put my bundle on the floor, she moved swiftly round the room on tiny booted feet, while she collected the tea things and put them on a table beside me.

‘I’m all right,’ I lied. ‘And how are you? It’s lovely to see you again.’

‘Och, me? Never nuthin’ the matter with me. And me hubbie’s a lot better, now he’s workin’.’

Mr Hicks, I learned, had become a timekeeper at a new factory in Speke, and Mrs Hicks said that, after so many years of unemployment, it felt strangely nice to have regular wages coming in, although it meant a long bicycle ride for him each day.

I congratulated her. Provided they were not bombed out, people like Mr and Mrs Hicks benefited greatly by the war.

Mrs Hicks finally came to rest in the easy chair opposite me, and, as we sat knee to knee, she stirred her mug of tea vigorously, and remarked, ‘You don’t look at all well, luv. Has your throat bin botherin’ you again?’

‘No, Mrs Hicks.’ My throat was husky, but not with the tonsillitis which plagued me from time to time. I put my mug down on the little table, put my head down on my knee and burst into tears.

In a second I was pressed to Mrs Hicks’ pillowy chest. ‘Now, now, dear.’ She stroked my hair, which I was again growing because I had no money for hairdressers. Then she turned my face up to her. ‘What’s to do? Has your Mam been at you agen?’

No love had been lost between Mother and Mrs Hicks; she must have heard Mother raging at me many a time.

‘No, Mrs Hicks. It’s not that.’

Gradually she wormed out of me my loss of Harry, and I said tearfully, ‘I don’t know what to do, Mrs Hicks. I just don’t.’

‘You’re not expecting, are you, luv?’

Mrs Hicks was a most practical woman, and I had to smile at her through my tears.

‘No, I’m not. We – we agreed we would wait. But I wish I was. I’d have something to live for, then.’

‘Nay. It’s better as it is – you’ll see that later on. And him bein’ an older fella, he sowed his wild oats years ago, I’ll be bound. He knew what he was about – he must’ve really loved you.’

‘He was awfully good. He didn’t want me to be left single, with a child, like so many.’ Fresh tears burst from me.

She let me cry, and it did me good. The tea went cold, but when I gently loosed myself from her arms and leaned back in my chair, full of apologies for being such a badly behaved guest, she wiped my face with a corner of her apron, and then made me sit quietly while she made a fresh, black brew.

‘I don’t blame you for not telling your Mam; hard case, she is, if you’ll forgive me for sayin’ so. Will you tell her now?’

‘I don’t think so, Mrs Hicks. It’s past now.’ I sipped my new cup of tea gratefully. ‘You know, she’d dissect the whole thing and be so disparaging – mostly about his being a seaman. You know her.’

‘Humph. What’s wrong with goin’ to sea?’

The question was rhetorical; I did not have to explain my mother’s snobbery to Mrs Hicks; she had suffered from it herself often enough.

‘Have you bin to see his mother?’

I had already told her how I had met Mrs O’Dwyer when the lady came to my office to consult the Society for which I worked about claiming a pension. Now I added, ‘She seemed so hard and bitter, Mrs Hicks. Harry said she never forgave him for leaving the priesthood; and yet, there she was, trying to benefit from his death. Frankly, it made me feel sick.’

The tears welled again.

‘Aye, dear, dear. What you need is a body and a good wake. Gives you a chance to cry yer head off.’ She sighed. ‘There’s lots like you, luv, and all they can do is light a candle.’

I agreed wanly, and often, in later years, when I saw forests of candles twinkling before bejewelled Madonnas, I thought of all of us who did not have the privilege of burying our dead.

I said, depressedly, that I must go home, and she rose and put her arm round me as I walked across the room. ‘Now, you come and see me again – anytime you like. And I won’t say a word, if I see your Mam. I won’t say nuthin’ to nobody, if it comes to that.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Hicks.’ I put my arms round her and kissed her.

I went to see her two or three times. Then I lost touch with her when, on the sudden death of her landlady, the house was sold, and she had to move. Nobody seemed to know or care where she had gone. The new owner of the house simply shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Half the world’s on the move.’ When I stopped the postman on his round, to inquire if he had a forwarding address, he remembered the old lady, but he nodded his head negatively. ‘They didn’t have no letters to speak of. She couldn’t read, you know. Nice old girl, she was; let me shelter in her hall, once, when it were raining.’