Authors: Katie Flynn
‘When you hear someone shout “Milko!” run down, chuck, and get ’im to fill the jug,’ Charlie said, carefully pouring tea into a pink cup. ‘Tuppence worth, tell ’im, there’s two pennies on the dresser, and say the baby’s come and it’s a boy, name of Henry Charles.’
‘Yes, all right. Shall I make Bessie some toast?’ Lilac asked, and Charlie said he was sure his wife would be very grateful, and would she like to make some for him at the same time and some for herself, too, if she’d a mind.
‘What about the baby ... I mean what about Henry?’ Lilac said, but Charlie thought Bessie would find up something for the baby; he went red and looked down at his bare feet when he said it and Lilac wondered why people didn’t talk much about babies and then remembered where the baby had emerged from and
stopped wondering. Only, had she dreamed it? Nell said babies came from God and were brought to earth by angels first and then by big white birds. It sounded unlikely – but not as unlikely as what had happened last night in Charlie’s big brass bedstead!
Still, it didn’t do to ask too many questions, people hated that, so Lilac sawed uneven chunks off the loaf with the bread-knife and then speared the slices on a fork and held them out to the open stove-front. The bread toasted and she pattered through to Bessie’s room with it.
Bessie was sitting up in bed with a shawl round her shoulders and the baby nestled close to her bare skin. When she saw Lilac she sort of snatched at the shawl and the baby was hidden, but then Bessie smiled and relented.
‘I’m feeding him,’ she said, half proud, half shy. ‘Want to see ’im suck?’
‘I’ll get the jam,’ Charlie said and left the room, and Lilac perched on the bed and watched the tiny baby against his mother’s breast and laughed when Bessie pulled him off with a pop like a cork coming out of a bottle and put him over her shoulder to bring up his wind.
But at the back of her mind lurked the thought that today, retribution must be at hand. She knew she could not stay here, she would have to go back to Rodney Street, and then what would happen? She asked Bessie, who stopped smiling down at the baby and looked seriously across at her.
‘Well, chuck, you never give a thought to our Nellie when you run off, did you? Didn’t you guess ’ow she’d worry?’
‘All I thought was ... that I wanted to run away. Look at my poor leg, Bessie.’
Bessie gave a cursory glance at the fading pink weals; it was clear that she thought a few blows from a cane a poor reason for running off and leaving Nellie in the lurch.
‘So what, chuck? Everyone gets whacked, sometime. No reason to forget your best friend, is it? No reason to send our Nellie half mad with worry.’
A pang of something very like remorse made Lilac give a small gulp.
‘Will she not love me any more?’ she enquired anxiously. ‘Will she leave the Culler?’
‘Oh, she’ll love you all right, but ’ow many times has she told you not to talk to strangers? And what did you do?’
‘Oh but Bessie, Joey wasn’t a stranger, he was nice, honest he was. Really nice, like Charlie and you are!’
Bessie smiled but she still looked serious.
‘Sometimes, chuck, a feller’s nice for to get you in ’is power. If Joey had been a different bloke you coulda been in deep trouble. So you must listen to our Nellie and think before you leave her.’
‘But if Joey had been nice just to get me in his power I wouldn’t have liked him. And I didn’t leave our Nellie, I left the Culler,’ Lilac argued. ‘I wouldn’t leave Nell, honest I wouldn’t.’
‘But you did, and there’s no arguefying with that,’ Bessie pointed out, shifting the baby from her shoulder to her breast once more. ‘You’re gettin’ to be a big gairl now, chuck, you must think of others and not just of yourself.’
That silenced Lilac, because she knew very well that Bessie had hit the nail on the head. She had not given Nellie – or anyone else – a thought. All she had thought about was herself, her humiliation, her pain, her rage.
In fact even now all she was really thinking about was how she would be treated back at the Culler. What the other children would say, whether they would praise or blame, how she would tell her exciting story in the dormitory, after lights out. Punishment, she realised, she was relying on Nellie to avert.
‘Well, Lilac? You goin’ to think of our Nellie, another time?’
Lilac hung her head.
‘I will, honest I will. I do love Nellie, honest I do!’
‘Actions speak louder than words,’ a dour voice behind her said. ‘So this is where you’ve run to!’
‘Nellie!’ squeaked Lilac. She turned and threw herself into Nellie’s waiting arms. ‘Oh Nell, I’m so sorry, I’m so
very
sorry! I hate them, all of them, but I love you more’n anything! And I won’t do it again – not if you don’t want me to.’
‘I hope you mean that,’ said Davy, appearing at Nellie’s shoulder and grinning wryly at Lilac. ‘Oh, what a deal of trouble you’ve caused, bach! You’ve had Nellie and me searching the streets, questioning people ... up all night, just about.’
‘I’m sorry, Davy – how did you know I was runned away, though? Did Nellie write? No, there wouldn’t have been time ... Davy, stop laughing and tell me!’
‘Never mind that now,’ Nellie said severely. ‘How many times have I told you not to talk to strangers? As for runnin’ off the way you did, goin’ off with young Joey Prescott, takin’ food from him ... well, you deserve every one of them stripes Miss Hicks handed out, queen.’
But even as she spoke Nellie was hugging her, smoothing the tangled hair back from her forehead, her eyes overflowing with tears and love.
‘I didn’t mean to be bad,’ Lilac sighed, hugging
Nellie as hard as she could. ‘I didn’t think ... and Joey was awful nice ... how d’you know about Joey, Nell?’
‘Met him; asked him if he’d seen you,’ Nellie said briefly. ‘Oh Lilac, I was that worried; thank God Joey found you and kept you safe for me. Don’t you ever do that to me again, queen. No more runnin’ off without a word, understand? Next time,
if
there’s a next time, which I hope and pray there won’t be, come to me first.’
They left Davy when their ways divided and Nellie and Lilac walked slowly through the streets in the morning sunshine, heading for what Lilac knew would be recriminations at best and real trouble at worst. She tried to tell Nellie how it had been, what had made her act the way she had, but somehow, with the weals beginning to fade and the memories of Miss Hicks’ assault fading too, it was difficult to tell Nellie just why she had flown out in such a rage that she had never even told her dear Nell what she intended.
What was more, she soon realised that Nellie was not quite herself. She was pale and abstracted. Several times Lilac got the feeling that Nellie was answering more or less at random and that she had not been attending too closely. And this was simply unbelievable, because in all her seven years, Nellie had paid closer attention to Lilac, to her desires and feelings, than anything else.
She’s still angry with me, and no wonder, Lilac thought dolefully as they walked. She can’t forgive me – I don’t deserve to be forgiven. But in her heart, of course, she neither believed this nor thought it. She had
done wrong and repented, all her previous experience of Nellie told her that she would be taken back into favour at once, if not sooner!
‘Will they be very angry with me, Nellie?’ she asked at last, after a longer-than-usual silence. ‘Will they beat me again? Will they lock me in the cellar and only give me bread and water?’
This roused Nellie from her abstraction in a most satisfactory way.
‘No they will not!’ Nellie said roundly, eyes flashing, cheeks turning pink at the mere suggestion. ‘Not if they want to keep me, that is! No, I shall tell them you’re sorry – and you must tell them so as well, mind you, Lilac – and then you may be forgiven. They’ll want you to promise never to do such a thing again of course,’ she added. ‘But you’ve guessed that, I daresay.’
‘I’ll say I’m sorry,’ Lilac murmured. ‘I’ll say I won’t do it again, too. Can I say that Miss Hicks may not cane me again, either?’
This seemed fair to her, and she saw Nellie’s mobile mouth twitch into a quick smile and then hastily firm itself up again.
‘I’ll speak to Miss Hicks,’ was all she said, however.’ They’ll insist on some sort of punishment, probably staying indoors for a week and doing extra tasks, but that won’t hurt you.’ She saw Lilac’s astonished and outraged expression and smiled grimly. ‘It’ll do you good. You’re growing spoilt and wilful, queen, and it’s partly my fault. You must learn your place.’
Lilac nodded glumly and they walked on, still hand in hand, but presently Lilac put her arm round Nellie and gave her a squeeze.
‘Do you love me, Nell?’
And Nellie, as Lilac had known she would, stopped
in her tracks and picked Lilac up, big girl though she was, and gave her a kiss and a loving hug.
‘Oh queen, you know I do!’
1914
It was the sound of footsteps outside the dormitory window which woke Lilac, and this was odd, because she was a sound sleeper as a rule. Perhaps it was because the footsteps were trying so hard not to be heard, stealing along with only the faintest patter, but whatever the reason, Lilac suddenly found herself awake and alert, her eyes straining towards the faint light from the window.
Who could it be, stealing so quietly past the Culler? There was a war on, suppose it was a German spy, come to get them? But a spy, Lilac reasoned, would scarcely waste time on an orphan asylum with the docks so near – no, it was unlikely to be a spy.
Because it was getting near Christmas the children got up, now, whilst it was still dark, dressing by candlelight, shivering in the unheated dormitories and the long, cold corridors, quite eager to get downstairs to the dining hall even when the breakfast porridge was burnt or their morning drink more water than milk. But there was something in the hush from the house which told Lilac that it was still early, that the bell would not be rung for a while yet.
So why was she awake? To be sure the footsteps had woken her, but that was no reason not to return to sleep once she had convinced herself there was no danger, so why did she not just snuggle down again and go back to sleep until morning? Was there something special about today, apart from being
awake when everyone else still slumbered?
And then she remembered. No one could be certain when Lilac’s real birthday was, but Nellie had decided that since to all intents and purposes Lilac’s life had started on the day she arrived at the Culler, her official birthday would be the second of December.
And today was the second, Lilac remembered, and felt excitement course through her. Not that the Culler made anything of birthdays, not with sixty inmates all of whom had got themselves born at some time or other, but Nellie never let the date go by without a gift, however small, and a treat of some sort. They had been twice to Lewis’s, a favourite outing, so that Lilac could gaze enviously at the beautiful toys and clothes. Once they had taken themselves off to Bold Street to drink coffee and eat a squishy, delicious cake in Fuller’s, served by real waitresses in frilly aprons. Another time Nellie had taken Lilac to the Royal Studio, where either Mr Brown, Mr Barnes or Mr Bell, they could not tell which, had sat her before a country scene with a bunch of artificial roses in her hand and taken her photograph. Nellie had a copy of the photograph on her wash-stand and Aunt Ada had one on her sideboard. Lilac liked to look at the photograph and imagine that one day her rich relatives would see it and demand to be told the name of that beautiful child who was so like the baby stolen from them years ago, but other than that she felt slightly cheated by the photograph. The main gainers had been others and not Lilac Larkin!
But today Lilac was nine years old and despite the fact that the country was at war with Germany, Nellie had promised it would be a specially good birthday. Davy would be in the ‘Pool, on leave from his frigate, for he had joined the Navy on the outbreak of war, and there was to be a special Christmas pantomime staged
at the Royal Court theatre opposite Queen’s Square so that troops who would not be in Blighty at Christmas should still have something seasonal before they were sent abroad. It was Davy’s excellent suggestion that he should treat Lilac and Nellie to a seat in the stalls as his own particular birthday present.
And Nellie, not to be outdone, had said that on the Saturday afternoon, when she was off, just the two of them would do something nice. Not Davy, since he would be working aboard his ship all day, though he would join them in the evening for the theatre trip, just Nellie and Lilac. Like old times, Lilac thought to herself; she was not jealous of Davy, that would have been silly because she knew she was the most important person in Nellie’s life, but she did like to have Nellie to herself on her birthday.
‘Tell you what, we’ve talked about it often enough,’ Nellie had said the previous evening, when she was supervising Room nine’s undressing. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go for a trip on the overhead railway! We’ll tek the tram up to Seaforth and come back by rail, then we’ll have a fish supper at the pier’ead, make a day of it.’
‘Oh, Nell,’ Lilac gasped. ‘Oh, I can’t wait! You are so lovely to me!’
‘I’ve always wanted to do it meself,’ Nellie confessed. ‘All the big ships ... you can see ’em best of all from the railway – better than from the top deck of a leckie, even.’
Electric trams were no longer quite the novelty they had been for Lilac, since Nellie and she now caught the tram quite often when they went home to Coronation Court. Nellie had found a way to supplement her small income, and the extra money made it possible for them to ride on the trams from time to time. She had always been a good knitter and now she was being paid to knit
for the troops by a rich lady who was on the board of governors of the Culler, so in the evenings, whilst she supervised baths and bed, Nellie stood with the wool tucked under one arm and the needles clicking away like mad whilst her work gradually grew.
‘There isn’t much money in it,’ she told Lilac. ‘But every little helps.’
Nellie never said so, but Lilac knew that a good deal of the money went on Lilac herself, and she guessed that Nellie put the rest away towards her marriage. Davy was so nice, so handsome, and so extremely attentive! And he was beginning to talk about taking a couple of rooms somewhere off the Scotland Road, so that Nellie could be near her brothers whilst he was at sea. Even Lilac could see how much he liked Nellie; he bought her little presents, spent all his spare time with her when he came to the city, and was quite willing to send Lilac off to the cinema or to take her to Coronation Court so that he and Nellie could spend some time alone. In fact Lilac thought it might only be a matter of time before the three of them had a nice little house somewhere ... and goodbye to the horrible Culler, she told herself now, warm in her bed, cuddling her arms round herself ecstatically at the thought.