A Liverpool Lass (5 page)

Art, without a word, was grubbing down at her feet, collecting the bones.

‘It were my fault, Matt.’ he said gruffly. ‘Teasin’ her I wuz. I’ll clear the mess, you get the gal a nice buttie – there’s tinned salmon, someone said.’

‘Thanks, Art,’ Matt said. He put a brotherly arm round Lilac’s shoulders and led her over to the table. ‘Here, a salmon sarny; now you come and sit with me and Fred and eat it all up like a good’un. Then you shall have lemonade.’ And, once she was settled: ‘Now queen, what was that all about? Art’s not an arguefier, not as a rule he ain’t.’

Lilac hesitated. She could scarcely say they had squabbled over Matt himself and she found that she did not want to admit she had been almost boasting of her intention to marry him.

‘Um ... I was rude and called him fat,’ she said at last. ‘And he was rude and called me a foundering. He said I had no mam or da. But,’ she added, impelled by honesty, ‘I started it.’

‘And will you be friends, now? You threw the ribs an’ Art picked ’em up, so you should be friends.’

‘I will if he will,’ Lilac said readily. ‘He isn’t fat. He was nice till we quarrelled.’

‘Course he ain’t fat and he’s a nice kid, too. And you do have a mam and da, you just don’t know where they
is, right now.’ Matt, who had sat himself and Lilac down on a long bench against someone’s windows, turned and shouted. Art came out of the house and smiled shamefacedly at them as he made his way across the crowded court. ‘Art, come and shake the littl’un’s hand and mek friends. Today’s special, don’t forget.’

Watched by the twins and several other wedding guests, Art and Lilac solemnly shook hands.

Davy Evans stood in the court eating a ham sandwich and guarding a pint of ale and thinking about that girl.

Nellie McDowell, his friend Hal’s sister. Wasn’t it odd now though that Hal had never mentioned a sister particularly, that he could remember? Brothers, yes, and the step-sisters, Hal’s Aunt Ada’s daughters, but never a sister of his own ... and so young, too. Jessie and Lou were both in their late twenties, Jessie married to a clerk, Lou engaged to a young blood who was on the New York haul and, according to Hal, probably had a fiancée in every port. But Davy was sure he’d never heard a Nellie McDowell mentioned.

He’d met Jessie and Lou before. They were nice girls, but no one in their right minds would find them pretty! Buxom, yes. Well set up, perhaps. But pretty? Not in his eyes, anyway.

But that little Nellie! He’d seldom felt more attracted to a girl on sight – just his luck she was clearly married, and with a child, and looking no more than a child herself. Mind, it might be as well, Davy reminded himself; he had responsibilities – but they had never stopped him admiring pretty girls and trying to get alongside. It didn’t do to mess with married women,
Davy knew that well, but he’d watched her in church, whilst the service was taking place, and there was no man with her. She sat with the child, they shared a hymn book, she clearly adored the little girl, making sure the child’s kneeler was in the right position, finding the place for her in the prayer book and generally attending to all her wants.

She had such a lovely little face! Her eyes were big and clear, opening wide when she had looked up at him, and the little white teeth of her, biting her full lower lip anxiously, wondering if she had a smut on her nose to make him stare so; he had read the thought in her eyes as they met his. She had not yet acknowledged her own beauty he knew, she thought nothing of the tiny waist, the swell of hips and breast, the budding femininity of her which was the more attractive because it was so unconscious of its power.

I could write a poem to her, Davy thought, taking an enormous bite out of his ham sandwich, then opening the bread up to smear more yellow mustard onto the pink meat. A poem about the colours which streak her shining hair, the soft fawn of hay and the clear gold of wheat, the brown of limpid river water under a summer sun, the glowing auburn of a burnished chestnut. And her skin, pale as milk with the flush of a dawn rosebud in the cheek, and her brows, tender arcs above those clear and brilliant eyes!

Was she married, though? No one had said so. Women did have babies out of wedlock but he didn’t think, somehow, that Nellie was the type. Indeed, I would have sworn she was as virgin as the child Lilac herself, he thought, surprised at his own persistent worrying at a point which should be academic, since he had responsibilities and lived far from here and besides, she had not looked at him once since their first
meeting. Now she was doing her duty as a daughter of the house, handing food, pouring ale, seeing that the children – and there were a good number of them – were fed and had lemonade in their cups. Presently, when everyone’s hunger was satisfied and the musicians arrived, they would begin the dancing, and then he would dance with her, married or single, because he guessed she would be as light on her feet as a feather, would lie in his arms like swan’s-down, like a cloud, like a dream.

Across the court from him, Nellie stood on tiptoe to kiss Charlie. Flushed, laughing, she turned from her brother to kiss the bride, having to duck her head to avoid the enormous brim of Bessie’s wonderful hat, decorated with what looked like a still-life of flowers and fruit. Nellie, kissing and laughing, was flesh and blood, not a cloud or a feather, Davy saw. But she still had such sweetness, such a shy yet easy way with her ... ah, the girl of his dreams was Nellie, the sort of girl he would be so proud to call his own, should he ever win her!

Not that he could think about marriage, as things stood. But nothing lasted for ever, one day his family responsibilities would surely end and allow him some life of his own?

But there was the child ... oh, dammit, there’s a mystery here, Davy said desperately to himself, and I shall find it out! I will not sit back and watch and envy as others take her hands, put their arms round her waist!

The musicians arrived: two fiddle players, a man with a mouth-organ, and a big woman whose mighty breasts trembled and shook as she sang
Bless this House
and
Mother of Mine
. Then the fiddlers tuned up, the man with the mouth-organ blew a few faint notes, and Charlie seized Bessie and began the dancing.

Davy went straight to Nellie.

‘Miss ... er ...’

‘McDowell, but you’ll call me Nellie,’ the girl said shyly. ‘You’re a friend of our Hal’s, ain’t you?’

‘I am indeed, Nellie. Will you do me the honour of letting me have this dance?’

‘Oh, yes ... just let me settle Lilac.’

They danced and danced as the warmth softened and the light with it. When it was too dark to see properly to dance they sat on the flags or on the benches or the doorsteps and sang all the old tunes to the fiddlers’ playing. Davy sang solo several times but Nellie, chuckling, said she had no voice to speak of and could not hold a note and listened to him with a softened look on her face and held the child Lilac, asleep, in her lap.

There was more food then, and Bessie and Charlie went up and changed out of their wedding finery, to walk round to their newly painted, newly furnished little house. It was only part of a house really, Ada told Davy and Nellie, but it would do right well till the babies came. And Nellie blushed and Davy whispered in her ear that he would want to walk her home himself, but he knew she was at home, so ...

‘We don’t live here, Davy,’ Nellie said. ‘We live in Rodney Street, me and Lilac.’ She took a deep breath and looked up at him, anxious once more and troubled, he could tell. ‘Did Hal never tell you? When Mam and Da died I was one too many for Aunt Ada so she sent me to the Culler Orphan Asylum. I work there now, to be near Lilac, but I come back when I can to see the boys and Aunt and Uncle.’

‘And ... and Lilac isn’t your sprog, then?’ Davy asked, too dumbfounded to be tactful. Nellie blushed deeper and laughed and shook her head.

‘Oh Davy, you couldn’t have thought Lilac was mine, she’s so golden-haired and beautiful! No, she’s a foundling; I’ve always taken care of her. We’re better’n sisters, I always say, and we’ll be together like sisters, I’ll never leave her. Well, fancy you thinkin’ me a married woman!’

‘Believe it I could not,’ Davy said earnestly. ‘Yet what else could I think, when Hal introduced you as his sister Nellie and her girl? Oh, Nell ... can I walk you home when the hooley’s over?’

‘I can’t ask you; it’ud be miles out of your way,’ Nellie said uncertainly. ‘What’s more, I’ll be in enough trouble, comin’ in so late, without someone seein’ I’ve a feller with me. But mebbe it won’t matter, since cook’s leavin’ the kitchen window a tiddy bit ajar for me.’

‘I’d walk a hundred miles to be with you,’ Davy whispered. He put his lips gently against the soft place between neck and shoulder and kissed the tender skin. ‘Nellie, from the moment I saw you ...’

‘Oh Davy, me too! But I’m just a skivvy at the Culler, you know, they don’t pay me much, and I’ve got Lilac to look after and ...’

‘What do I care, girl? I’ve got a family, too ... old parents, a brother who isn’t quite ... quite like other lads his age. But we can enjoy one another’s company. Let’s start walking now, if it’s a goodish way. I’ll carry Lilac and we’ll have a bit of time to talk.’

He glanced around the court. Several people were asleep in the soft summer night, lulled by the music and by the comfort of full bellies. The bride and groom had long since gone, the twins were snoozing in the doorway of their home, Ada and Billy, Jessie and Lou, had all disappeared. Bertie and his Unity were cuddled up, singing softly, Bertie keeping time to the music
with one hand tapping his knee. Hal had borrowed the mouth organ and was experimenting with it, one moment capturing the air, the next making it squeak and groan comically.

‘You’ll really walk with me? You are good,’ Nellie sighed. So Davy took the sleeping child from the girl’s lap and held her comfortably in one arm and put the other gently round Nellie’s slender shoulders and the three of them set off, out of the lamplit court and into Scotland Road, where even at this time of night there were people wandering about because of the oppressive heat in the small houses and also, Davy guessed, because they had taken too much ale to sleep easy in their beds.

‘You’ll have to tell me which way to go,’ Davy said presently, as Nellie turned a corner without warning and very nearly left him behind. ‘The moon’s bright; it makes the gas lamps look silly, but I don’t know the city that well, save for the dock area.’

‘I only know the bit between Rodney Street and the Scottie,’ Nellie murmured. ‘But even by night I don’t think I could lose meself.’

And she was true to her word, leading them without hesitation through the city streets until Davy saw Lime Street Station looming and got his bearings.

‘Do you know your way back to the docks from here?’ Nellie whispered when at last they stood against the side wall of the Culler, with the kitchen window happily unlatched and now standing open. ‘Which dock is the coaster lying in, anyway?’

‘She’s in Wapping Basin, we’ve loaded coal,’ Davy whispered back. ‘I go to the end of the road, then where?’

‘I ought to go with you, send you,’ Nellie said softly, giggling. ‘First you see me home, then I see you home!
No, go to the end of the street and you’ll see the cathedral, the bit they’ve built, dead in front of you. Go down St James Road – it’s all mucky from the building – and then cross it and take Nile Street until it fetches up on St James Street. When you reach the goods station go down beside it and you’ll see the docker’s umbrella. Just turn right and follow that and you’ll be at the basin in no time.’

‘The docker’s umbrella?’

She laughed softly at his puzzlement.

‘It’s what Charlie calls the overhead railway. It goes right along, from Seaforth to the pierhead. I’m going to tek Lilac on it one of these days, for an outing.’ She patted his arm. ‘Got that? St. James Road, the cathedral, Nile Street, the station. And then the overhead railway right along to Wapping Basin. Goo’night, Davy, and thanks.’

She began to gently rouse the child, taking her from Davy and standing her down on the gravel path. Lilac yawned, knuckled her eyes, stared around her and then, on Nellie’s murmured instructions, held her arms up to be helped through the window, but when Nellie went to lift her Davy touched her arm, detaining her.

‘That’s a cold way to part, Nellie McDowell,’ he whispered. ‘Won’t you give me a kiss, girl?’

She blushed rosily, he could see it even in the cold moonlight, then held up her cheek. He put his arms round her, the child leaning drowsily first on one and then on the other, and pulled her close, then began to kiss her. First her cheek, then her chin, nose, eyelids, brow ... mouth. He felt the softness of her lips tremble at his touch, felt her body swoon towards him, then gently put her away from him. Time enough for that, time enough.

‘Goodnight, Nellie. When shall I see you again?’

She looked up at him, dark-eyed in the moonlight.

‘I don’t know; when Hal gets married?’

He laughed softly, and, unable to resist, kissed her mouth again, a quick moth’s touch.

‘No, I don’t think I can wait that long, girl! I’ll write to you, tell you when I dock in the ’pool next. Can I come here, to the Culler?’

She drew back, shaking her head.

‘Oh no, they wouldn’t like that at all! Write to me and I’ll write back, we’ll arrange something. Goodnight, Davy.’

She turned from him, lifting the child through the window and preparing to follow. Davy took her small waist in his two hands and lifted her high, chest-height, then sat her gently on the sill. Dimpling at him, she swung her legs decorously over the sill and dropped onto the floor. Davy saw that she had beautiful legs, slim and strong, with pretty ankles. He leaned on the sill and blew her a kiss but she shook her head at him, gesturing him back, then lowered the window soundlessly and snibbed the catch across.

The last Davy saw of her before he began his own walk home was the gleam of her smile, the flutter of a waving hand. Then she was gone and he was alone once more.

‘Take off that ridiculous ribbon, Miss! No, don’t dare to scowl at me like that ... come up here!’