Читать книгу The Complete Helen Forrester 4-Book Memoir: Twopence to Cross the Mersey, Liverpool Miss, By the Waters of Liverpool, Lime Street at Two - Helen Forrester - Страница 21

With the exception of a weekly visit from an officer of the public assistance committee, which consisted of a quick counting of heads and a few questions snapped at my parents, we had no visitors. I was, therefore, surprised when I arrived home from one of my visits to the Pier Head to find a well-dressed gentleman standing at the door, asking Miss Sinford where he could find my father.

I waved at Alan, who was shepherding the other children along the road, and went up the steps backwards pulling the Chariot up with me. The gentleman retreated a couple of feet from me.

Miss Sinford noted the movement and said promptly, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not. Child, take this gentleman to your father,’ and did her usual vanishing trick into her room next to the front door.

The gentleman regarded me with obvious repulsion, but insisted on helping me up the stairs with the Chariot, which meant that Edward sailed up still sleeping and Avril had a wonderful ride.

Father was at home, reading one of the books from the small battered bookcase which formed part of the furniture of the apartment. He immediately offered his chair to the strange gentleman, who sat down reluctantly as he surveyed the smelly room. His rubicund face, plump figure and well-tailored clothes suggested a successful businessman of some kind.

He cleared his throat, rubbed his well-shaven chin, and said hesitantly, ‘I – er – we served in the same regiment – you wrote to our commanding officer. I was asked to call on you.’

Hope lit up my father’s face.

The gentleman again cleared his throat, as we stood, tense and silent round him.

‘I am authorized to make you a grant of five pounds from our regimental fund, if conditions seem to warrant it.’

He looked round again at the empty fireplace and the ragged, gaunt children watching him breathlessly, and sighed heavily.

Father nodded.

‘Could you show me your discharge papers?’

‘Yes, indeed I can.’

He took an old business envelope from the top of the bookcase and, from among a pile of birth certificates, finally extracted the precious papers, and handed them to our visitor.

The gentleman examined them.

‘You were a private?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought you were a lieutenant.’

‘I was. I got tired of guarding the East Coast, so I resigned my commission and remustered as a private – and was sent to Russia.’

The gentleman looked very impressed. ‘Were you? That was no picnic.’

They went on to discuss the Russian campaign for a few minutes, while the children continued to watch in rapt attention. Alan’s hands were clenched together as if in supplication.

Five whole pounds! Would he give it?

He smiled and drew out his wallet, and the sound of a tremendous sigh of relief went through the children. Brian shouted ‘Hooray’ and went bounding round the room, his little monkey face alight as it had not been for weeks. We all laughed hysterically and escorted our bountiful visitor affectionately down the stairs.

Mother came home and was told the good news and it was wonderful to me to see her expression relax and some of the tenseness go out of her.

Alan and I were immediately despatched to buy a vast quantity of fish and chips and peas and milk, and we spent a blissful ten minutes of anticipation, standing in the steam of the fish-and-chip shop among a shabby, hungry crowd, while the fish sizzled in a great vat of boiling fat.

A fat, sharp-eyed little man, who kept a newspaper and tobacco shop near by, heard me give a big order to the shopkeeper.

‘Ain’t you the kids from No. 12?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ replied Alan.

‘Got a lot of money to throw around tonight, ain’t yer?’

‘A man from Daddy’s regiment gave us five pounds,’ said Alan frankly.

The man’s eyes gleamed malevolently.

‘Eeee! ’e did, did ’e. Well, yer can tell yer Dad fra’ me that I’ll be coming over ternight. Yea, ternight!’

The last word came out like a small explosion and was obviously a threat.

Alan whitened visibly, though he answered quite steadily, ‘I’ll tell Daddy.’

We picked up the two big newspaper parcels handed us by the fish-and-chip merchant, paid for them with a pound note, grabbed our change, and ran down the steps and through the gloomy, gas-lit streets as if pursued by ghosts. We knew instinctively what the newspaper-shop man was. He was a Creditor! Creditors had crowded round Daddy before and caused all our troubles.

‘Do you think he’ll take our five pounds?’ I panted to Alan.

‘Not all of it,’ said Alan defiantly. ‘We’ll have finished the fish and chips before he gets to our house. Let’s get the milk quickly.’

Not even the colossal row which immediately broke out between my parents when we told them about the Creditor, could dim the pleasure of eating, really eating, once more. My fish and chips and peas were cold by the time I had fed Edward and got the children settled at their meal, but they still tasted like a meal fit for a king.

‘Well, where did you think I got the cigarettes from?’ asked Father, his teeth deep in fish.

‘I never considered the matter,’ said Mother haughtily.

I had been so used to seeing my parents smoke, that it had never struck me to question the source of the supply of cigarettes which I had sometimes seen them consume lately.

‘How did you imagine you would pay for them?’ she inquired.

‘I didn’t know. I had to have a smoke. You smoked them, too!’

Mother began to cry, while Father phlegmatically started to gnaw at another piece of fish.

‘I don’t know how you persuaded him to trust you,’ she sniffed unhappily.

I knew how he had obtained credit. I had already discovered that a good Oxford accent was a much respected asset. A man who spoke as Father did would be trusted by working-class people; they would be sure in their minds that a man who was so well spoken and refined would have the means to pay, no matter how shabby he was.

At that moment there was a knock on the door of the room, and a fearful silence fell upon us all.

Trying not to tremble, I opened the door to reveal an irate member of the working class, our Creditor.

‘I want me money,’ he said grimly.

‘How much?’ asked Father, licking his fingers as he got up.

‘You know! Thirty-seven and sixpence – and I want it all. Pack o’ bloody liars, the lot o’ ye,’ and he glared around the room.

‘Here,’ said Father, counting out the money, ‘and get out before I throw you out for swearing in front of a lady.’

Quite undaunted, the little man carefully pocketed the money before he moved.

‘Lady!’ he sneered. ‘Ha.’

Father was very neatly made, though by no means tall. His face went red, and he charged straight at the offender, who shot down the first flight of stairs with a nimbleness which would have done credit to a ballet dancer, from which comparatively safe refuge he shook his fist, and then continued downward.

Mother had sat silently through the exchange. Alan and I looked at each other. I could see his visions of plenty to eat for days mixed up with hopes of a new pair of socks slowly fading away. Thirty-seven and sixpence was more than a quarter of the regiment’s grant My own dreams of a broom to sweep with and piles and piles of soap lay shattered.

Fiona, who had not understood anything except the threat of a fight, whimpered and ran to me, and made me take a further step towards growing up.

I put my arms around her and said, with reassuring cheerfulness, ‘Daddy still has lots of money left, haven’t you, Daddy? We’ll be able to have fish and chips again tomorrow, won’t we?’

Father had come back into the room and was standing looking worn out in front of the fireplace, but he caught his cue.

‘Of course, Fiona, of course we will. Don’t worry, little girl. Fish and chips tomorrow.’

Brian suddenly vomited. It seemed to me the worst possible waste of good fish and chips.