A Liverpool Girl Read online

  Elizabeth Morton

  * * *

  A Liverpool Girl

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Ninteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Elizabeth Morton was born and raised in Liverpool, spending much of her formative years either at convent school, or playing her piano accordion in Northern working men’s clubs. When she was 18 she trained as an actress at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and went on to work in TV, film, and theatre. She is known for the Liverpool sitcom, Watching, playing Madeleine Bassett in the ITV series, Jeeves and Wooster, and performing in Willy Russell’s plays, including the role of Linda in the original cast of Blood Brothers in the West End.

  She began writing after winning The London Writers Competition and has written plays as well as episodes of Doctors, the Radio 4 drama series Brief Lives, and CBeebies.

  She was shortlisted for the Bath Short Story award in 2014, also shortlisted for the Dragon’s Pen competition, Fish Short Story Award, and in 2015 won prizes in the Exeter Short Story competition, and the Trisha Ashley Most Humorous Short Story. In 2016, she was one of six shortlisted in the CWA Marjorie Allingham award.

  She is married to All Creatures Great and Small and Doctor Who actor, Peter Davison.

  For my father

  Chapter One

  May 1953

  They had already started decorating the streets in Liverpool in preparation for the coronation. Union Jack tea towels were hung out of tenement windows, a flag was unfurled and hoisted up a pole outside the Cunard Building. Splashes of red, white, and blue had begun to brighten up the city, crepe paper wound around lamp posts, and streamers threaded through railings. A picture of a smiling, soon-to-be-crowned Queen Elizabeth, stuck amongst towers of treacle and condensed milk, cheered up a corner shop window. Packets of jelly and Spam took their places in bare larders, next to bottles of lemonade and ingredients for Victoria sponge cakes.

  Babby Delaney glanced up at the bunting, tied from lamp post to lamp post, already edged in soot and twitching in the breeze. Along the dock road, someone had daubed God Bless the Queen on the end-of-terrace wall. Babby was wearing her old communion dress. She was ten years old, and now it strained at the seams and rode up her thighs, exposing white flesh, but she didn’t care. Her mother, Violet, had nipped the dress in at the waist with a red sash, bought blue brocade for a shilling from the raggy shop, and stitched it around the hem.

  ‘Mam, what sarnies you made Da today?’ Babby asked.

  A milky sun rode high over the Mersey and Babby raised her face to it, feeling the warmth on her cheeks. This heat would bring out more of her freckles, stipple the slope of her nose with them. By instinct, she searched out for her mother’s hand and grasped it tightly as they walked together, falling into a steady rhythm.

  ‘Mam …?’

  ‘The usual,’ Violet answered. ‘Banana and sugar buttie. But Da won’t be eating them. You know what the cheeky beggars do?’

  Babby, her eyes bright with curiosity, waited for a moment, then shook her head.

  ‘They put all their carry-outs in a big pile and they choose another fella’s to eat. That way they get a different sarnie each day – might even get a bit of boiled beef, if he’s lucky.’

  ‘None’s as good as yours, Mam,’ said Babby, loyally.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ replied Violet, laughing.

  When they got to the Boot Inn, they found Jack, back early from the morning shift at Graving Dock, leaning against the stone wall outside, sunning himself, the gentle breeze blowing his straw-coloured hair upwards to a peak. He seemed older than his thirty-seven years, but despite the two deep grooves between his eyebrows and the hollow cheeks, he was still a good-looking man, broad-shouldered, calm-featured, with strong, graceful limbs, light-blue eyes, and a lopsided smile that revealed neat white teeth.

  ‘Da!’ yelled Babby. She ran towards him and he knelt and opened his arms wide, ready to scoop her up.

  ‘Don’t you flaming dare! Babby’s coronation dress!’ cried Violet.

  He looked cleaner than usual, there was no dirt wedged under his fingernails, no soot on his face from handling the carbon off the boats, but she was still relieved to see him wipe his hands on his trousers. He laughed, chucking his daughter under her chin. ‘You look a picture, sweetheart. Not often we see you in a dress, is it, love?’ he said. ‘Them hobnailed boots look a bit queer with it, though. We’ll have to get you some fancy shoes.’

  Babby laughed and twirled, the dress spinning out at the waist. She didn’t see her mother shoot a glance at Jack.

  ‘Brought your butties,’ said Babby.

  ‘Ta, love,’ he said, taking the newspaper-wrapped parcel.

  ‘We best be off,’ Violet said. ‘I’ve left our Hannah sleeping in the pram in the back yard. Pat’s minding her, but she’ll be waking any minute.’

  ‘Your dress is grand, Babby,’ Jack said, placing his palms flat against his daughter’s cheeks as he spoke into her face. Her eyes met his with a fixed, level gaze. Then he glanced down, took her hand, turned it over in his.

  ‘What’s this stuff all over your fingers?’

  She grinned. ‘Glue. Mam let me and Pat cut out a picture of Queen Elizabeth from the Echo. We got flour and water, mixed it all up in a bowl, and then we stuck the Queen on the back of the tea tray and we’ve put it up in the window of the front room so everyone can see it when they walk past. It was Mam’s idea.’

  ‘Was it, now?’ he said, exchanging a smile with Violet. Then he added, ‘Can’t wait to have a look at that. I’ll be back later.’

  ‘You singing in the pub when you’ve finished work? Can I come back and watch?’ Babby asked.

  ‘No, love,’ he said.

  ‘Please,’ she said. She was the exact likeness of her mother, with chestnut brown hair, and deep-brown eyes, Babby gave him a look reserved for daughters and their fathers, and for a moment he almost relented.

  ‘Your Da said no. Didn’t you hear him?’ said Violet.

  ‘Pubs are no places for kiddies,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Come on, Babby …’ said Violet.

  Babby watched her mother turn away impatiently. ‘I want to hear Da sing.’

  Her father pulled her to him, put his mouth against her ear. She could feel his breath, little puffs of air, as he began a simple song, one of her favourites. ‘’Twas a Liverpool girl who loved me,’ he murmured.

  She wriggled in
closer to him, luxuriating in the soothing sound of his voice, the flesh on her arms rising up in goose pimples at the sweetness of the tone.

  When he reached the end of the verse, Jack stood. ‘That’s your lot,’ he said. ‘Now off you go before our Hannah starts screaming blue murder when she finds out you’re not there. You know you’re the only one who she wants to see when she wakes up.’

  Babby nodded, waving back at her father as she set off back home, trailing a stick along the railings, enjoying the clattering sound, with Violet urging her to get a flipping move on.

  When they had disappeared around the corner, Jack opened the newspaper that Violet had wrapped the sarnies in. Banana and sugar again. He put the package away. God, the Boot Inn smelled welcoming! He tried to push the thought aside and looked the other way down the street, towards the River Mersey, just visible beyond the silhouettes of the huge ships docked there. In the sunshine, the river looked as if someone had scattered silver pieces over its surface. But then something tugged at him and he turned back to the pub again. Through the open door he could see old Sweaty Sock sitting at the bar. Sweaty Sock had earned that nickname because he was never out of the Boot. Just the one, Jack thought. And then he would come back that evening to play his accordion and sing. He didn’t want to end up like Sweaty Sock, so just the one. Then he would tell Violet what the foreman at the docks had said to him earlier that day, when he got home.

  ‘All right?’ said Sweaty Sock, raising his head, which was flopped in drunkenness, when Jack approached the bar.

  Jack gave a small nod in reply.

  ‘The Mouse passed you over again?’ pressed Sweaty Sock.

  Still smarting, Jack listened as Sweaty Sock continued, ‘There’ll always be fewer jobs than the men jostling and shoving to get noticed by the Mouse. The pen can be a cruel place – and the Mouse? Don’t be fooled by his name. He might speak in that soft voice because the bronchitis did for him, but he’s the toughest foreman these docks have seen. Hard as they come.’

  ‘Aye,’ answered Jack, as Elsie, the barmaid, pulled him a pint of brown ale. He lifted it to his lips, licked away the froth from the rim of the glass.

  ‘Stop me if I’m speaking out of turn, but it’s only right, Jack. No one is saying that you’re not a good and reliable docker. One of the best. But the Mouse has to be fair. There’s others that don’t have the luxury of earning an extra bob like you do with that squeezebox of yours,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t do it for money,’ replied Jack.

  ‘Why do you do it, then?’

  ‘Reckon I like it. I like singing and the craic.’

  ‘Word is, you’re earning a fortune,’ said Sweaty Sock, winking and shuffling up along the bar, beside him. ‘Folks flock to this pub to hear you singing. Like a lark, they say. I heard you was flush …’

  Jack bristled. He pinked to the tip of his ears and felt a rush of anger, his palms sweating.

  He took a swig of his pint. Flush? That was a joke. A man needed an honest day’s work to keep his family – singing at the pub would never replace the earnings from dock work and that was the end of it. Perhaps one more pint might take the edge off it. Or two. Or three …

  At first, he didn’t notice the four men come in through the doors. There was the scraping of chairs and the sound of boots on the floor. One of them, a big, bulky brute of a man with a muscular frame, broken veins like the map of the British Empire purpling over his forehead and cheeks, thumped his fist on the table. Then there was some muttering and snorting. Jack looked over to where they were sitting. Their expressions seemed to be forming into grins. Laughter followed. Was it him they were laughing at, he wondered.

  He stood up, felt the ground moving under him slightly. He recognised two of them as dockers who worked in Seaforth, whose jobs were to secure the guy ropes and guide the containers up to the wharf. The third was a younger, newer face, but he was definitely the one who had been chosen over him that morning, and the morning before that.

  And then the Mouse walked in, his large overcoat billowing out behind him.

  It took Jack a moment to register his presence, but when he did, he placed his pint on the bar. ‘Well, that’s a bit of luck!’ he said, striding over, chest puffed out, meeting him at the door. ‘We can have it out now, Mouse. You’ve not given me a day’s work for best part of a week.’

  The Mouse sighed. ‘Jack, bide your time. There’s others in the pen that need it more than you.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘I say,’ said a voice from the group at the table.

  Jack spun on his heel.

  ‘What’s it to do with you?’

  The young man stood, squared up to him, smiled a cocky grin, hands thrust deep into his pockets, jangling change.

  ‘Keep out of it,’ said Jack, angrily.

  The Mouse put out an arm, placed it between the man and Jack. ‘Steady on, Jack.’

  The young man thrust out his chin, started to sing, ‘’Twas a Liverpool girl, who loved me …’

  ‘Shut up!’ said Jack.

  ‘One of yours, in’t it? You’re the fella with the squeezebox? You singing here tonight?’

  ‘I said keep out of it!’ said Jack.

  Who threw the first punch, who was to blame for the fight, no one would ever know. The police made enquiries, scratched their heads and went away – and came back none the wiser. The only thing anyone could be certain of was that there was a scuffle, cursing, and fists flailing in the air, a broken bottle, and a good kicking, and then poor Jack crashing to the sawdust, his face distorting into a grimace, blood pooling from the back of his head, spreading to the size of a saucer, then to a dinner plate, before dribbling between the gaps in the floorboards, Elsie screaming like a wild animal and racing around from behind the bar, terrified and panicked, and the Mouse fainting dead away, the dockers looking on with horror at the realisation that what had been a lively joshing had, in a few brief moments, changed all of their lives forever.

  ‘What we going to tell Violet?’ said Elsie, tears gathering in her eyes. ‘What’s going to happen to her and Pat and Babby and little Hannah now?’ she wailed.

  But the question remained unanswered, left hanging in the air as the sound of bells clanging, screeching whistles, and the squealing of tyres became the bigger distraction to poor Violet’s fate.

  Chapter Two

  1955

  ‘Sod this for a ride on the Bobby Horses,’ Violet muttered under her breath. The long queue snaked around the front of the Liver building, stretching almost all the way down to the Pier Head. She took Babby’s hand and dragged her off in the direction of Water Street, calling back to her son, who was jigging Hannah up and down in her pushchair, to follow. Surely there had to be better ways to find a job than stand in line with the other poor wretches, waiting for the meagre handout that was the three half days a week secretarial work from the man from Liverpool Assurance? How the gossip got around in this place. One mention of a job in the pub and, before you knew it, there were five hundred sharp elbows pushing and shoving you out of the way.

  ‘Mam? Mam!’ complained Babby.

  Violet sighed, admonished her with a look, then turned away, rubbing her temples tiredly. The last thing she wanted was to get into an argument with her wilful child, so she counted in her head: one elephant, two elephant, three elephant … She breathed deeply, then stopped to help Patrick with the pushchair. The wheel was coming off and it had stuck in a groove between the pavement slabs. Patrick, typical of a fourteen-year-old boy, thought a good kick would solve the problem.

  ‘Don’t do that. You’ll destroy the thing,’ cried Violet.

  ‘Where we goin’, Mam?’ he asked.

  ‘Never you mind,’ said Violet. ‘Here … let me sort out the pushchair. You go and get your sister. And no running along top of the walls. I’ll crown you two if you start playin’ silly beggars. I’m not in the mood.’

  Babby glanced over her shoulder, saw her mother shoving her han
d in her pocket, took advantage of the pause, and ran on. Violet felt the crumpled envelope containing the letter that she had received that morning, reminding her that the rent was going up by two shillings for the house they lived in at Joseph Street. Three pounds and two shillings! It seemed an absurd amount of money for the end-of-terrace that had somehow lost its neighbours when the street had been bombed out in 1942. How could rent be so expensive? Violet had needed this job, needed it more than she needed the love of a good man, or a decent night’s sleep, or food in her belly.

  ‘Where we going, Mam?’ whinged her eldest daughter after Patrick had brought her back.

  ‘Oh, do be quiet, Babby!’

  Violet marched on ahead, instructing Patrick to push the rusting pushchair and to be careful with the wobbly wheel, whilst she searched in her purse for a scrap of paper. Babby watched her mother squinting up at street signs, and reached into the pushchair for the paper bag of broken biscuits.

  ‘Don’t think I can’t see you, Babby. Share the brokies with your brother,’ said Violet. ‘And don’t eat them all in one go! I waited an hour outside Jacob’s for those.’

  Babby didn’t reply; instead, she hugged the stale, broken biscuits towards her and wheeled around in a circle, laughing at her brother.

  ‘Little pickers get big knickers,’ said Violet.

  Patrick laughed back. ‘Little pickers get big knickers,’ he chanted, his voice rising to a crescendo as he raced after Babby and whooped.

  What Violet wouldn’t do for her kids to have big knickers; big, huge, gigantic knickers. They were skinny, scrawny things, their thin arms and legs poking through their threadbare jumpers and frayed shorts. On the other hand, Hannah – now a toddler – was chubby, with delicious fat arms and fat legs. Violet loved to blow raspberries on her tummy, but Hannah would go the same way as her brother and sister in time, especially if she inherited the same lively bones.