Fancy Biddy going back to Ma Kettle, though. Her first letter from Kettle’s Confectionery had been so funny and sweet, the whole family had read it and laughed and agreed with Lizzie, who had announced that she was desperately homesick for Biddy, and couldn’t they ask her up for Christmas, please?
‘We’ll ask,’ Nellie had said doubtfully. ‘But judging from what Biddy says, Ma Kettle will want her there for the holiday.’
‘Oh, let the old horror want, for once,’ Elizabeth said impatiently ‘Bribe her, Mum – tell her Dai might come to Scotland for Christmas. She likes our Dai.’
Oh, wouldn’t it be nice, Nellie thought now, staring into a window full of scarlet and green, wouldn’t it be nice if Dai liked Biddy instead of my dear little daughter, and could be persuaded that it was Biddy he wanted to marry? All I want is their happiness, both of them – all three of them – she told anyone up above who happened to be listening. If only people fell in love sensibly, then there would be no such thing as the terrible ache that was unrequited love. She could scarcely forbid Elizabeth to ask Dai up for Christmas, but she did so hope something would come along to prevent his arrival – a more pressing invitation, anything!
But after a moment she shook herself and walked on. It was no use wishing, she would circumvent Elizabeth’s invitation if she possibly could; she would even write to Dai privately and tell him the truth – that Liz was no longer interested in him in that sort of way. But it was no use meeting trouble half-way, she had watched the post carefully ever since arriving here and Dai was playing fair; he had not written to Elizabeth once. It will all work out, she decided, moving along to look in the next window. She always worried far too much and usually for no reason that anyone else could understand.
Nellie peered through the glass and tried to show an interest in a window full of snow-boots. She had not yet decided what to buy her dear Stuart; she had best look at a few more shops before turning her footsteps homewards once more.
Elizabeth was in the kitchen with the dogs when the telephone rang. She was tempted not to answer it because it was always for her father, but conscience was stronger than an urge to go on sitting before the fire, stroking Mattie’s tangled fur and sipping at a cup of hot cocoa which the maid, Flora, had given her before going upstairs to tackle the bedrooms.
Flora hated the telephone, which she seemed to regard as an instrument of the devil, so Elizabeth got to her feet on the third ring, loped across the kitchen and into the hall. She sank down on the edge of the square hall table and snatched the receiver from its rest.
‘Hello – Elizabeth Gallagher speaking.’
Faint and far off, she heard pennies clattering and someone pushed Button A. Someone was ringing from a call-box, then. Elizabeth brightened. It might even be a friend of hers for a change.
‘Hello … you’re through, caller.’
Another slight clatter, and then a voice spoke, faint but clear. Elizabeth’s heart gave a great, happy bound. She would have known that voice anywhere!
‘Biddy, it is you, isn’t it? Oh, it’s grand to hear your voice, absolutely grand! Are you comin’ up for Christmas? Do, do come for Christmas. We’ll have such fun … Dai might come too, if he’s back home and has long enough between voyages. You’d like that, you two get on rather well, I’ve always thought. Biddy?’
The voice sounded fainter now, further off. But even so, Elizabeth could hear the desolation in it.
‘Dai’s ship is posted as missing, Liz. It’s almost two weeks overdue. So he – he may not come home for Christmas at all.’
All Elizabeth’s happiness drained away; Dai’s ship was missing? This was terrible, a dreadful tragedy, surely Biddy must be mistaken? She said as much, her own voice small and frightened now, but Biddy’s voice strengthened a little.
‘No, I’m not mistaken, I ring the Port Authority every day and there’s been no word for weeks,’ she said. ‘I – I don’t know what to do, Liz. I’m very fond of Dai.’
‘We all are,’ Elizabeth muttered. ‘Oh Biddy, I’ll tell Mam an’ Dad, see if they can think of anything. Ring me again tomorrow, whatever happens, won’t you?’
‘I’ll try … no more time now, Liz, me money’s running out …’
There was a very final sort of click and then the operator’s voice came across the line saying that the caller had disconnected. Elizabeth hung her own receiver back and turned blindly away from the telephone. Tears had filled her eyes and now she let them run down her cheeks, made no effort to stop their flow.
Poor Dai, out in all that terrible cold! And poor Biddy, who was so fond of him – she must have been fonder than we ever realised, Elizabeth thought, to ring the Port Authority every day like that. But what can we do to help, what can anyone do? All we can do is wait, and pray, and comfort each other as best we can.
Nellie came into the house quickly, letting herself in through the front door and slinging her soaking coat at the hat-stand without even waiting to adjust it properly. She kicked off her short boots, massaged her icy toes with one hand for a moment, then pulled off the extra socks she had put on that morning; they were soggy, which meant she could do with some new boots. It was snowing outside and although she could have hailed a cab she had got the omnibus from the village and then walked, and now she wished she had had more sense.
I’ve probably caught my death, she was thinking as she went into the kitchen, positively wringing out her hair with one hand and watching a stream of water run out of it. I’m sure Scottish snow is colder than the Liverpool sort – certainly this house is colder than the one in Ducie Street, but it’s scarcely worth doing anything about it, because we won’t be here next winter, I’m sure of it.
Elizabeth was sitting by the fire, surrounded by dogs. She jumped to her feet as soon as her mother came into the room.
‘Oh Mam … the most awful thing! You know Dai’s ship, the
Greenland Bess
? It’s two weeks overdue and posted as missing!’
Nellie stood stock still for a moment, feeling all the colour draining out of her face, leaving it cold as the snow which was falling outside. Then she sat down heavily on the nearest chair. One of the dogs, she could not tell which one, came and nuzzled her, pushing its wet nose into the palm of her hand, rubbing its head on her knees.
‘Oh, dear God! Missing, you say?’
It was like some terrible nightmare, the sort where you ran in quicksand, unable to take a step, where the monster’s hot breath is on your neck, his teeth a hair’s breadth from your throat. Dai was missing, and she had been hoping, praying almost, that he would not be able to come up to Scotland and spend Christmas with them! She had brought this about herself, with her own selfishness, and now that her secret was safe she could see too clearly what a mean, pathetic little secret it was, how shallow and pitiful had been her attempts to keep the truth to herself.
‘Mam, you look terrible! I’m sorry, I know you were fond of him, but we didn’t know him all that well.… Mam, sit still, I’m going to telephone the office and get my father to come home.’
‘Don’t be silly, love.’ The words should have come out strong and steady, but they emerged as a tiny whisper. ‘I’ll be all right, leave your Da out of this.’
‘But – but Mam, I was going to ring Dad anyway, to ask him if there was anything we could do – anything the newspaper could do, really. Surely they could do something? Send out a – a rescue ship or something?’
Nellie suddenly ducked her head down into her lap. The room was starting to swim – she mustn’t faint, she must be strong and sensible! If Stuart came home and saw her like this … no point in telling anyone that Dai was her son now, because … because …
A hand, warm, on the back of her neck. A face, young and soft, against hers. Elizabeth, as worried, now, over her mother as she had been worried just now over Dai. ‘Mam? It’s all right, I’m sure he’ll be all right, ships do get lost at sea, don’t they, and then the crew turn up? I remember you telling me once …’
Her voice went on, telling a comforting story, but it had reminded Nellie. Davy had been posted as missing and mourned for dead during the war, but he had been safe. Picked up by an enemy ship, put into a prison camp … there was no war on now, but it could still happen, couldn’t it? Men were sometimes saved at sea … she tried to put out of her head all that Dai had told them about fishing the Arctic, about the conditions which meant that a man overboard was dead before his body touched the water. No use to bring the bad things to mind, think positively, she urged herself. And pray, Nellie Gallagher, pray for your boy!
After Biddy had made her phone call she felt much better, as though having told Elizabeth meant, at least, that there were two of them going to be thinking and praying for Dai and the
Bess
.
She returned to the shop and sold sweets until Ma Kettle returned, a fat and chuckling Santa Claus, from her shopping trip.
‘I done us proud,’ Ma Kettle crowed, rooting through her brown paper bags with much mystery in the boiling kitchen. ‘I’ve got more peppermint oil an’ more almond essence, but the rest of the stuff’s for upstairs. Wait on, chuck, I’ll be t’rough there any moment, then you can put another boilin’ o’ toffee on. You’ve done well this mornin’, but it’s near enough to the ’oliday for sales to keep up an’ it don’t do to run out o’ toffees.’
‘All right,’ Biddy said, but she was beginning to be aware, within herself, of a strange restlessness, a feeling that if she did not
do
something she would burst. What she was supposed to do she did not know, but there was something … should she go back to the Maitlands’ house and see if there was a message? Should she ring the Port Authority again? But she had been round to Ducie Street earlier in the week and she had rung the Port Authority before getting in touch with Elizabeth.
She finished boiling the toffee mixture soon after noon and as soon as it was in its trays she found her hands going round to the back of her to untie her apron strings.
What’s got into you, Biddy O’Shaughnessy, she scolded herself, with the apron in her hands instead of round her person. You’ve finished the toffee but there’s no end still to do, you can’t go yet!
Oh can’t I, you try to stop me, a little inner voice replied defiantly. Just you tell old Kettle you’re off and you’ll be back as soon as you can and let her do some toffee-boiling for once. ’Twon’t hurt her.
Biddy went upstairs and packed a few necessities into her carpet bag. Then she got her money out of her pillow and hurried downstairs again. She went through to the boiling kitchen and checked that everything was clean and as it should be, then she gave Penny a shout but before the younger girl had arrived she was going into the shop.
Biddy entered the shop quietly and closed the door behind her. Ma Kettle was weighing an ounce of aniseed balls for a waiting child and including quite a bit of thumb on the scales. Normally Biddy would have dug her in the back and Ma Kettle would have taken her hand away from the pan sharpish, but today Biddy didn’t bother. She had her own affairs to attend to. ‘I’m going out, Ma,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour, but then I’ll be off again maybe for a day or two. I’m off now, to fetch help.’
‘Help? Back in a
day or two
? Biddy, I pays you good money …’ Ma Kettle began, but Biddy swept round the end of the counter and headed for the shop door.
‘You’ve already had most of this week free, because I won’t charge you,’ Biddy said recklessly over her shoulder. ‘I’ve got to go, Ma, I really have. Penny’s a good girl, she’ll stand by you, and Kenny can give a hand in here Saturday afternoon, when he’s not working. I won’t be any longer man I have to be.’
‘But you don’t ’ave to go, no one ’asn’t come after you,’ Ma Kettle called plaintively after her retreating back. ‘Think o’ me, Biddy … think o’ our livelihood … Christmas is our busiest time, if I got the toffees I can make a mint, Christmas, but without you to boil ’em …’
‘Can’t stop. You’ll be all right Ma, honest you will. Would I leave you in the lurch at this time o’ year? ‘Course I wouldn’t. But I can’t stop now, I’ve got a goodish distance to walk.’
And Biddy was on her way, hurrying down the Scotland Road towards her destination.
She reached Paul Street and hurried along it, then turned into Samson Court. Despite the cold, half a dozen small children were playing out on the paving before the Bradley house.
‘’Ello, Biddy,’ a small urchin squeaked cheerfully. ‘Our Ellen’s indoors. She’s been cryin’.’
‘She won’t cry soon,’ Biddy said recklessly, giving the door a bang and then opening it and entering the house. ‘Ellen? Where are you?’
Ellen came down the stairs. Her eyes were pink-rimmed, but she smiled as soon as she set eyes on her friend. ‘Oh Biddy, it’s good to see you! I were that down … I went along to the market this mornin’, bought Bobby a nice little coat ’cos it’s gerrin’ cold out, an’ it’s too bleedin’ small, it catches ’im under the arms! Oh, I were fit to be tied!’
‘Never mind that now,’ Biddy said. ‘Ellen, d’you remember in the flat, when you and I made sweets to sell, Christmas and Easter?’
‘’Course I do – we ’ad some fun in them days,’ Ellen said wistfully, looking as though she was about to burst into tears again. ‘Oh, poor Ted, if only …’
‘Could you do it again?’
‘Again? Do what again? If you mean live wi’ a feller, there ain’t no question …’
‘Ellen, I could shake you!’ Biddy said roundly. ‘I’m in a tearing hurry … just listen to me! Could you make sweets still or have you forgotten how?’
‘Course I could, even wi’out the recipes, what I’ve still got, anyroad,’ Ellen said quite sharply. ‘Small chance ’ere, though. No sugar, no butter, no …’
‘And would you like a room of your own, decent wages, a kind o’ uniform so’s your own clothes didn’t get mucky?’
‘Would I! Bit it ain’t no use, Bid … it’s Bobby, I can’t leave ’im ’ere wi’ me Mam and no one wouldn’t want me an’ the kid ’cos ’e’s too young to leave whiles I work.’
‘I know all those things. Look, Ellen, sit down whilst I explain. The thing is that I’ve – I’ve got to go away for a day or so, perhaps longer. And Christmas is coming and old Ma Kettle is making masses o’ sweets. She needs help, but I’m off, so I said I’d find someone. And Ell, dear, that someone can be you, if you’d like it and could cope.’