The first person Ben saw when he turned into the jigger at the back of Elmore Street was his sister Phyllis. She was crouching in the middle of the alley with a number of small objects spread out in front of her on a wooden orange box. Ben saw two pieces of broken china, some very weary-looking cabbage leaves, an apple core and several curled-up crusts of dried bread. On the other side of the orange box Phyllis’s friend Annie stood, head on one side, contemplating the display of goods on the make-believe counter, for Ben knew at once that the little girls were playing ‘shop’.
‘I’ve very sorry, Mrs Jones, but me prices aren’t to be argued over,’ Phyllis was saying stoutly. ‘Them cabbages is fresh as can be; look, they’ve still got the dew on them petals. So I’m afraid it’s pay up or clear out, Mrs Jones.’
‘But I’ve gorra make blind scouse for me whole fambly and I’ve got fourteen kids as well as me and me old man,’ Annie said plaintively. ‘I think your cabbages is too dear. I’ll have a pound of carrots instead.’
‘Well, Mrs Jones, you’re missin’ a real bargain,’ Phyllis warned her friend. She dug out a greasy brown paper bag from somewhere about her person – Ben suspected her knicker leg – and grudgingly put a couple of crusts inside it, then screwed the bag closed and held it out towards her friend. ‘That’ll be sixpence please, Mrs Jones.’
‘Sixpence! For two mouldy old carrots?’ Annie squeaked. ‘That’s scandalous, Mrs Bailey. In future, I’ll do me messages up on the Scottie, where a bargain’s a bargain.’
‘No you won’t, ’cos your mammy won’t let you go up the Scottie by yourself,’ Phyllis said triumphantly. ‘If you shops local, you pays local prices, I’ve heard me mammy say so many a time. Anyway, you can be shopkeeper now and I’ll be the customer – and don’t you try to cheat me or you ain’t the only one that’ll be shoppin’ elsewhere.’
‘No, I’m sick of this game,’ Annie said discontentedly, throwing the paper bag down on to the counter. ‘You’re a cheat, Phyllis Bailey! When you’re the shopkeeper, nothin’ I want is ever under sixpence, but when you’re the customer you nag and nag till I drops me price, so you always gets the best of it. I ain’t playin’ with you no more.’
Phyllis was nearly five and Annie a year older, but Ben knew that his sister usually got her own way and was not surprised to hear Phyllis say, as he walked past her: ‘Here’s me big brother Ben. If you won’t buy from me, I’ll tell him to give you a clack round the ear and that’ll learn you.’
Ben turned and grinned down at his small, grimy sister. She had buttercup yellow curls, big blue eyes and a rosy, dimpled face, but today you would scarcely have known it, so covered in grime was she. He guessed that her previous game had been mud pies, or digging up drains, or something equally filthy and said, chidingly, ‘If I give anybody a clack, it’ll be you, you mucky little tyke. Just you get into the yard and have a swill under the tap before our mam sets eyes on you, and play nicely with Annie here or she’ll leave you
to your own devices and you wouldn’t like that, would you?’
Phyllis, who was a sociable child and hated her own company, pulled a face at him, extending her tongue so far that Ben goggled at the length of it. ‘Take care the wind doesn’t change,’ he said warningly. ‘Come on, Philly, and I’ll give you a hand to get the muck off you before Mam calls us for our dinners.’ Phyllis hauled her tongue in board and followed her brother through the door in the wall into their own tiny yard, calling back over her shoulder to Annie, as though they had never disagreed, that she would see her in the afternoon.
Ben led his small sister across to the tap and filled the cracked china bowl which stood beneath it. Despite Phyllis’s objections, he washed her hands and face, then rinsed her hair and rubbed it dry on the towel which hung from a nail on the nearby wall. Needless to say, the operation was accompanied by wails and grumbles from Phyllis, but Ben reminded her that their mother would have employed soap and a scrub brush on someone so filthy, and presently brother and sister, both considerably cleaner and wetter, crossed the tiny, cobbled yard and entered the kitchen. Though it was May and a sunny day, the fire blazed up cheerfully, for it was the only means of cooking that Mrs Bailey had. Right now she was dishing up from a blackened pot into six enamel dishes whilst Ben’s older brothers, Dick and Ted, seated themselves at the wooden table, looking expectantly towards the food. Dick was twenty-three and a handsome young man. He had toffee-brown hair with a suspicion of a curl, golden-brown eyes and a long humorous mouth. He was a marine joiner at Cammell Laird’s, making beautiful furniture and
fittings for the ships which the yard built; the only member of the family bringing in good, regular money and though he had had several girlfriends, he had formed no permanent relationship. Ben thought this a rattling good thing, since his mother had once confided, as they searched for bargains in Paddy’s market, that she did not know what the family would do without Dick’s wages.
‘I know he wouldn’t lerrus go short if he could possibly help it,’ she had told Ben. ‘But when a young fellow weds, he needs every penny he earns for a home of his own and the upkeep of his family. Of course I know he’ll marry some day,’ she added hastily, ‘and I hope he finds a real good girl to wed, honest to God I do. But until it happens, I’m that grateful for our Dick’s help. And then Teddy’s not doing badly. I know an apprentice doesn’t get paid much, but he’s well thought of is our Teddy. By the time Dick finds himself a wife, I dare say Teddy will be earning a real wage.’
‘When our Millie was first married, she used to give me pocket money,’ Ben said wistfully. ‘But that were before the twins were born. I guess things get harder when you have kids, eh, Mam?’
His mother had agreed, with a sigh, that once you had children things did indeed become more difficult, but then a friend had hailed her and the conversation had moved on to other things. It had made Ben aware, however, of how dependent his parents were on their children’s earnings, and from that time on he had been anxious to help in any way he could.
Now, Mrs Bailey looked up and smiled as her two youngest children came across the room towards her. She was a tiny, skinny woman with frizzy light-brown hair rapidly turning grey, rather protruding
teeth and short-sighted eyes which gazed at the world through cracked and constantly mended spectacles. She was, as usual, clad in cast-off clothing far too big for her, for she had an elder sister who had married a plumber and was therefore in comfortable circumstances and able to pass on to her younger and less fortunate sister a good many of her outworn garments.
Ben admired his mother for she was a hard worker, having to bring up her family with very little assistance from her husband. Bob Bailey was suffering from lung disease and spent most of the day lying on a makeshift couch in the front room, trying to stuff and address envelopes or do accounts for small local businesses. Despite the money which the older boys brought in, Ben knew that his mother took on any job which would add to the family’s income, cleaning offices and shops, taking in washing and earning whatever she could. Ben knew she was putting money away each week against the time when his father’s illness grew worse and the doctor’s bills became more frequent.
Phyllis, of course, was too young to help much anyway, and Ben did the best he could by doing the messages for his mother, fetching coal and water into the house, preparing vegetables and performing similar household tasks. He also delivered his father’s work when it was completed, but so far he had not managed to obtain a paying job of his own. Now, with the comfortable assurance that he would soon be able to contribute something to the household expenses, thanks to Mr Madison, he took his place at the table and awaited the opportunity to reveal his wonderful news.
When they were all settled with steaming plates
before them – it was blind scouse, Ben noted without surprise – Mrs Bailey asked Ben how the kittens were doing. ‘I were that sorry I couldn’t offer ’em a home,’ she said remorsefully, digging a spoon into her stew, ‘but you know how it is, our Ben, it’s a struggle for your dad and meself to make ends meet wi’out addin’ another half dozen mouths to feed.’
‘They’s doin’ fine,’ Ben said, through a mouthful of scouse. ‘The man in the pet shop took ’em – well, I telled you that last night – and he’s already sold the littl’un. In fact, you could say
I
sold the kitten, ’cos there were this girl, lookin’ in the window …’
Ben told the whole story, right from the beginning, though he omitted the offer of a job, saving that for a triumphant surprise later. The family listened with deep interest, even Phyllis refraining from interrupting, until his tale was told and then his father, from his place by the fire, remarked: ‘India, d’you say, our Ben? I’ve always had a hankering to visit that country. And you say
both
them girls had lived in India all their lives? Well, blow me down. They’ll have seen tigers, elephants, snake charmers – all sorts of wonders.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I wish they was living near enough to come a-visiting for I’d dearly love to chat with them, hear their adventures. Did they tell you anything, our Ben?’
‘Norra lot,’ Ben said regretfully. ‘But I knows where they live and I’m going to keep my eye on that kitten, same as I will with the others when they’re sold, so I’ll mebbe get friendly with ’em. If I do, I’ll try and bring one or other round some time, so you can have a yarn.’
‘I doubt they’d come round here …’ Mr Bailey was beginning doubtfully, when his wife cut in.
‘Posh folks don’t mix wi’ the likes of us,’ she said
briskly. ‘But kids is kids. If that little gal doesn’t have pals, then she’ll be grateful for a decent lad to take her around, like.’ She turned in her chair to smile fondly at her husband. ‘So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if young missy whatsername was to turn up here, bright as a button, to fetch our Ben one fine day.’
‘She don’t know where I live,’ Ben pointed out. He felt the conversation was getting out of hand. After all, Miss Elliott and young Lonnie were simply the buyers of one of his kittens. Mr Madison, on the other hand, was his future employer, and as such would be of considerable interest to the entire Bailey family. It just showed, Ben thought triumphantly, that the kittens had been a blessing. Their acquisition had led to his first job, and that had to be good.
‘Indians wear turbans and keep daggers in their belts,’ Dick said dreamily. He shovelled a potato into his mouth and spoke thickly through it. ‘Does that girl wear a turban, our Ben? I should think a kitten would be a pretty tame pet after tigers and monkeys and that.’
Ben decided it was time to announce his own important news. ‘Hold on,’ he said, with as much authority as he could muster, ‘I haven’t telled you all of it yet. Because Mr Madison saw that I’d helped to sell the kitten, he’s offered me a job. I’m to go in each day after school – probably more during the holidays – and clean cages, feed the animals, and deliver ones what have been sold.’ He beamed proudly around the table. ‘What about that, eh?
And
he paid me one and threepence for the kittens, so here’s me first wage, Mam.’
Ben fished in his pocket and drew out the money, tossing it lightly on to the table in front of his
mother’s plate and scarcely regretting at all the lost sweets, fruit and cinema shows which it had represented.
‘Well I’m blessed,’ Mrs Bailey said. ‘Aren’t I a lucky woman, to have all three of me sons earnin’ a bit of money!’ She swept the coins into the palm of her hand, then extracted sixpence and handed it back to Ben. ‘Now you know me, young Ben; d’you think I’d take
all
of your wages, eh? You earned this money fair an’ square, lookin’ after them kittens as well as their own mother, so you’ll take a share in the profits. Right?’
‘Thanks, Mam,’ Ben said gratefully, pocketing the sixpence. ‘Still an’ all, it’s nice to know there’ll be more where this came from. I were lucky to take Mr Madison’s fancy but the kittens were such good ’uns that I guess he realised I like looking after animals.’ He looked around the table. Phyllis was shovelling food into her mouth and seemed unaffected by his wonderful news, but Dick was smiling encouragingly at him and Ted leaned across the table and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Well done, young ’un,’ Ted said bracingly. ‘Next time you chop kindling for our mam, you might do some extra bundles and sell ’em door to door along Landseer Road. I heard some feller on the wireless saying he’d started out selling kindling and doin’ messages for neighbours and ended up a millionaire with a huge house in Crosby and a dozen servants at his beck and call. Mind, I doubt he were as young as ten when he started, so you’ve an even better chance of making a heap of money one of these days.’
Everyone laughed but the laughter was affectionate, admiring, and Ben glowed with pride in his achievement. He might never become a millionaire
but if he could keep his job and help his mam, then that would satisfy him.
Lonnie crossed the nursery, pulling off her outer garments as she did so and dropping them on the floor. She should have known from past experience that Hester would not countenance such behaviour, but at long last the weather had turned really summery and even Lonnie had found the heat in the streets oppressive. She had been clad in her coat, hat, gloves and boots, despite Hester’s advising her to choose something lighter, and her pride had not allowed her to admit her winter clothing was a mistake, but as soon as she reached the nursery she had begun casting off the hot and heavy garments.
‘Leonora Victoria Hetherington-Smith, what
do
you think you’re doing?’ Hester said reprovingly, entering the room hot on her charge’s heels. ‘Pick that clothing up at once and put it away tidily. Where’s Kitty?’