Thomas gave a wry little smile. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘What Dad did has affected us all in different ways. I don’t sleep well and I’m riddled with guilt at the terrible things I said to my father; Susie throws herself heart and soul into building the business, so she can’t remember how it was, and Ronnie … !’ He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Poor old Ron is so mixed up, I wouldn’t know where
to start unravelling him!’
Leonard bade him goodnight. ‘Think about what I said,’ he pleaded. ‘Talk with the others. See if you can bring them, and yourself … some kind of peace.’
‘Goodnight, Leonard. I’ll get the ball rolling on that combiner,’ Tom sighed. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing for him to talk about with the others.
And so the two men parted company, firm friends, each
hurting in different ways, because of one man, and the bittersweet legacy he had left behind.
T
HOUGH SHE HAD
come up in the world and was now Bridget’s right-hand woman in business, Amy’s modest home on Penny Lane reflected her true personality.
Bright and cheerful, with the firegrate burning merrily on a winter’s night and filled with flowers in the summertime, the house was a cosy little place. There were pretty pictures hanging on the wall, chubby armchairs and flowery curtains,
and a rag rug all colours of the rainbow set in front of the hearth. A gleaming coal-scuttle sat next to a companion set of tongs, poker and a little brush to sweep the fireplace free of ash.
When on this drizzly February morning, Bridget rapped on the door and walked in, it was as if she had strayed into the most glorious summer’s day. The warm colours and smell of new-made bread filled her
senses. ‘Amy? Are you there?’ she called.
Following her nose through to the kitchen, she found Amy in her cosy old candlewick dressing-gown holding a toasting-fork to the range fire.
‘Would you like some toast?’ Amy asked, removing the slice and dropping it on a plate.
Bridget shook her head, then she licked her lips. ‘Oh, go on then. Just the one piece.’
Cutting another chunky slice off the
loaf, Amy placed that on the fork and held it up to the flames. ‘You can make a pot of tea while you’re waiting,’ she told Bridget. ‘And don’t make it too strong … remember, it’s two level spoons of tealeaves to the pot.’
Bridget pointed to the loaf. ‘The smell hit me as soon as I came in,’ she said happily. ‘That can’t be above a few hours old.’
Amy chuckled. ‘You’re right! Madge next door
used to be a baker. Since she gave up work a few weeks back, she bakes every day … scones, muffins, bread and cakes of all kinds. She gives the stuff away to anybody who wants it; the baker ran out on his rounds a few weeks back, so he bought half a dozen barm-cakes from Madge. Folks liked them so much, the baker and Madge came to an agreement, so now she’s baking, and earning as well.’
When
the tea was made and four slices of toast cooked to perfection, they sat down to enjoy it. ‘What do you want anyway?’ Spreading her butter over the toast, Amy licked her fingers when it leaked through the bread and melted all over her plate. She dug into the pot of Gale’s runny honey and drizzled it over the butter.
‘Well now!’ Bridget had taken a bite of her toast and little bits of bread flew
out of her mouth as she spoke. ‘Sure, that’s a nice way to welcome an old friend, I must say.’
Amy chided her. ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘I can’t believe it!’ she cried. ‘You’ve actually made a decent pot of tea.’
‘Of course, and why wouldn’t I?’
‘You still haven’t answered my question.’
Selecting a cheese triangle from the round cardboard box on the table,
Bridget spread it on her toast and with a sigh of satisfaction, took another huge bite of her bread. ‘Mmm – delicious. What question was that, then?’
Amy groaned. ‘You’re a mucky heathen, aren’t you? Just look at you … spitting bread all over the place and butter running down your chin. You’re worse than a bairn. I’m thinking I should have got you a bib!’
Bridget snorted. ‘Away with ye! I’m
really enjoying this. You tell Madge from me, she bakes the best bread I’ve ever tasted.’ She looked at Amy with a frown. ‘What’s the matter now?’
‘There’s nothing at all the matter with
me.
All I want to know is, why are you here? It’s Saturday, my day off, and you’re supposed to be going to the races with your precious Oliver. So, what’s gone wrong this time? Fallen out again, have you?’
Bridget rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Sure the man will never learn! I don’t mind having it off in the back of a cramped car, and I don’t even mind rolling about in the long grass with the ants biting my arse. But I told him, I draw the line at being fondled when there’s a thousand eyes all looking at us, instead of watching the horses.’
She tutted. ‘I might not be the world’s most dignified
person, but I have not made, and never will make, a spectacle of meself!’
Amy tried hard not to giggle but the laughter broke through and she was obliged to apologise. ‘Are you telling me he tried it on at the races, in front of everyone?’
‘Bold as ye like, so he was!’
‘And you walked out on him?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘And that’s why you’re here?’
‘It is.’
‘So, what do you expect
me
to do about
it?’
‘I expect you to finish your breakfast and we’ll go shopping.’ Bridget glanced at the mantelpiece clock. ‘You’ll have to be quick or the shops will be shut. It’s already half past twelve, and you just out of bed, you lazy article!’
They wolfed down their toast and tea, then Bridget put the guard round the fire, and washed the crockery in the sink while Amy went away upstairs to get ready.
An hour later, the two women got off the bus in the centre of Liverpool, with an appetite to shop and purses at the ready.
Two hours after that, weary and spent out, they made their way to Kenyon’s, a delightful café which served hot pies, toasted muffins, and lots of other tasty snacks.
‘Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!’ Dropping her shopping-bags to the floor, Bridget fell into a seat. ‘I’m that parched,
my tongue is stuck to the roof of me mouth.’
‘I don’t see how it can be stuck,’ Amy quipped. ‘It hasn’t stopped you from grumbling, has it? You moaned and groaned all the way through town, and you’re still at it now.’
Bridget wagged a finger. ‘Don’t you get clever with me, my girl,’ she chided. ‘Just be a darlin’, why don’t ye, and fetch that lazy idle waitress over here … Will ye look at what
she’s up to, the dirty wee devil!’
She drew Amy’s attention to the girl behind the counter. ‘Filing her nails, so she is … and all the food lying uncovered.’
While Bridget ranted on about health and hygiene and ‘bone-idle eejits who’ve forgotten what it’s like to do a day’s honest work’, Amy went to order. ‘A pot of tea for two, if you please, nice and hot?’ she said politely.
‘Do you want
anything to eat?’ The girl carried on doing her nails. ‘We’ve some teacakes just in, nice and fresh they are.’ Having filed her nail sharp enough, she then blew away the residue.
‘HEY!’ Bridget’s voice sailed across the room. ‘Don’t fetch me none of them iced buns!’ she told Amy. ‘Sure, the dirty little bugger’s just covered them with nail filings.’
The girl looked up, her face contorted in
a frown. ‘What’s she say?’
Preferring a peaceful life, Amy didn’t want to get involved, so she smiled sweetly and explained, ‘She said she’d love one of your nice fresh teacakes. Me too, if you don’t mind.’
The girl put her file in her pocket. ‘A pot of tea for two, two teacakes – with butter and jam?’
Amy had visions of the jam clotted with nail-filings. ‘No, thank you. Just plain teacakes,
and we’ll put our own butter on if that’s all right.’ She intended to examine the butter before it got spread over the teacakes, just in case the girl had been plucking her eyebrows in the kitchen.
When they arrived, the teacakes were fresh as the girl promised, the tea was piping hot, and the butter was clear right through. ‘Thank you, that all looks very nice,’ Amy told her.
Bridget glared
at her, and said nothing.
‘That one’s a miserable git,’ the waitress told her young assistant, scratching her bottom as she spoke. ‘What d’you reckon … she’s lost a pound and found a penny?’
The other girl shook her head. ‘Don’t know, I’m sure.’ Her eyes shifted to the iced buns, all covered in nail filings, and she made a mental note never to eat anything here that wasn’t covered or fresh in.
The café soon began to fill up. ‘There must be a train just in,’ Amy remarked as the customers entered carrying suitcases and bags, and rolled-up newspapers under their arms.
Two loud, painted dolls who couldn’t stop giggling placed their order. ‘Two teas and two o’ them iced buns, and be quick about it, ’cause we’ve a train to catch,’ said the taller of the two.
‘Pink icing or white?’ The waitress
had taken an instant dislike to this arrogant pair.
‘Pink … no, white. No, hang on!’ She called to her friend who had sat herself at the table. ‘Joyce, what’ll you have – pink or white icing?’
‘One of each, Sandra, and have you told ’em we’ve a train to catch?’
‘I’ve told ’em, but they don’t seem to be shifting themselves.’ Turning to the assistant who was making the tea, the girl snapped,
‘Are you deaf or what? I told you we were in a hurry. Get a move on, will you?’
‘We’re going as fast as we can!’ The waitress was losing her temper now.
‘Pair of bloody slowcoaches, that’s what you are.’ Turning to her friend, the one called Sandra sniffed, ‘I could bake the cakes and a tray of loaves as well, in the time it’s taking this lot to serve us!’
When the assistant saw how her boss
was ready to explode, she stepped forward and, placing a large teapot and two cups on a tray on the counter, she reached into the cake section and took out one pink and one white iced bun. ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘That’ll be ninepence for the two teas. The iced buns are on the house.’
The girl thought she’d won the day. ‘That’s more like it,’ she declared, fishing ninepence out of her purse
and dropping it onto the counter. ‘Took your time though, didn’t you?’
Taking a huge bite out of the pink iced bun, she put it back on the tray, and carried the whole lot over to where her friend Joyce was sitting. ‘You have to put them in their place straight off,’ she told her loudly. ‘Else the buggers’ll walk all over you.’
Behind the counter, the waitress was threatening to take the cost
of the buns out of her assistant’s wages. ‘What on earth did you go and do a thing like that for?’ she asked crossly. ‘I was just about ready to throw that pair out onto the street.’
‘Ah, you don’t want to go doing that,’ came the sly answer. ‘Look how much they’re enjoying their buns.’ She watched them licking the icing off the buns before greedily wolfing them down. It did her heart good to
see it; especially when she had chosen the ones that were positively littered with nail filings.
A few minutes later, the two girls left after swigging down their tea. As they rushed out, a tall, well-built man in his forties stepped aside to let them by.
It was Barney’s younger son, Ronnie, looking well and more confident than he had done in a very long time.
He didn’t speak. Instead he merely
nodded to the girls as they looked him up and down; a good-looking man was always an attraction to these two, never mind if he was older than themselves.
Having arrived in Liverpool a few weeks back, Ronnie had trudged the streets daily, hoping he might see his mother walking about, or in a shop, or even getting on a bus. So far, he had seen neither hide nor hair of her. But he wasn’t about to
give up just yet. He had come here with the intention of finding her, and find her he would. And it didn’t matter to him how long it took, or whether she would not be too pleased at him coming all this way. None of that mattered. He just needed to know that she was all right. He felt he had treated her badly, but he still believed his father had done wrong in not letting them take care of him in
his final illness.
He went straight to the counter. ‘I’ll have a coffee, please, black and strong,’ he said. ‘Oh, and could I get a doughnut?’
The waitress served him quickly and when he sauntered over to a table, she ran to the back of the shop where the assistant waitress was washing up. ‘There’s a Yank come in,’ she said, all big-eyed and wondrous. ‘Well, he sounded like one of them GIs,
but now I come to think, it was a funny kind of accent.’
‘Maybe he’s Canadian,’ the other girl ventured. ‘They do sound a lot like each other.’
Having witnessed his entrance and heard him speak, Amy and Bridget had also noticed his accent. ‘It doesn’t sound like he was born in America,’ Amy said, ‘but he must have lived there a long time.’
Like the others, she couldn’t take her eyes off him,
and just then, as though he could sense her looking at him, he turned and smiled pleasantly at her and her heart flipped over. ‘Oh dear!’ She felt flustered. ‘He saw me looking.’
Bridget had never seen Amy blush as bright red as she did now and she said so. ‘Fancy him, do you?’ she teased. ‘Well now, I can’t say I blame you. He’s a fine-looking fella, so he is. D’you know, darlin’, if he wasn’t
from overseas, I’d say I’d seen him somewhere before. Oh well – I’m getting daft in me old age. Look, why don’t you go and ask him to sit over here with us?’ There was a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. ‘I’m sure he’d jump at the chance.’
In terror of what the Irishwoman would do next, Amy collected her shopping together. ‘It’s time we left,’ she said firmly. ‘We’ve been out too long already.’
‘Hey now! Hold your horses.’ Bridget picked up her cup and took a sip of her tea, which by now was stone cold. ‘Sure I haven’t finished my tea yet.’
Taking off his overcoat, Ronnie draped it over the back of the chair. Drinking his coffee in one go, he went up for another. He was in no hurry to leave. He needed to think, to decide what to do. He had borrowed money in Boston and sold what few
possessions he had, in order to pay his passage out here, and now there were only a few pounds left. So what he had must be made to last.