Queen of the Mersey (42 page)

Before long, she had a nice room to herself in Theberton Street, quite close to the Leather Bottle. All she had to do was bring the customers round the corner.

After she’d paid the rent, she spent most of her earnings on clothes, make-up, and loads of fags. It was then she’d bought the leopard skin coat, thinking it was real, if the truth be known.

As Derek had predicted – it was the only thing he’d promised that came true –

there were rich pickings during the war, particularly when America joined in and London seemed to be full of Yanks. They weren’t short of money and, afterwards, often gave her a quid or two for herself that she didn’t mention to Derek, who still gave her her share next morning.

She and Derek were quite chummy and enjoyed sharing a joke. She didn’t mind when he took on another girl, Bessie, then a third one called Olive. They’d all sit together in the Leather Bottle and have a good laugh, though none of them laughed when Derek was killed, stabbed in the chest by a member of some gang who ran a whole string of girls and wanted Agnes, Bessie and Olive for themselves, on their books, as it were. Derek, with his own little stable of girls, was regarded as competition and eliminated.

Suddenly, everything changed. By then, the war was over, and Agnes found herself working in the West End, though not in the way she’d always imagined, but standing outside a seedy little flat in Soho with her skirt almost up to her arse, not exactly on for a woman approaching fifty who didn’t feel well most of the time. She was expected to service at least a dozen customers a day and they had to be out in half an hour. The men were a different breed altogether to the ones in the Leather Bottle; perverts, most of them, who expected her to do all sorts of horrible things, some of which she’d never even heard of. She was beaten up on more than one occasion, sometimes by Barry, her ponce, who believed in roughing up his girls from time to time. It kept them in line, he claimed.

Agnes had never thought of Derek as a ponce, but supposed the description applied as much to him as it did to Barry, though he’d never found the need to lay a finger on his girls. Despite working ten times harder, she earned hardly more than she had done before.

Agnes had stuck it out for a year before running away to Wapping. Once again she’d thought of getting a different sort of job, but she’d been selling her body for so long it didn’t bother her any more, and it still paid better than any other work she could think of.

As the years passed, the customers grew fewer as she grew older. She was forced to hang around in the darkest places where her worn, lined face wouldn’t be seen. Twice, she went into hospital with pneumonia. A few months ago, she’d collapsed, struck down by a mixture of exhaustion, disillusionment and self-loathing. She was weary of life, of what she’d become. She didn’t want to go on living any more.

Some geezer, one of those do-gooder types, had taken her to a convent where the nuns had cleaned her up, fed her, knelt beside her bed and prayed for her wicked soul.

‘Do you have a relative who will take you in, care for you?’ one of the nuns had asked gently.

‘There’s not a bugger in the world I can turn to,’ Agnes said pathetically. ‘Oh, I’ve got a daughter.’ She’d forgotten about Queenie. It was a wonder she could remember her name. It was years since Queenie had crossed her mind.

‘Perhaps it’s time you threw yourself on your daughter’s mercy,’ the nun suggested.

‘Oh, yeah!’ Queenie had been less than useless since the day she was born. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother,’ Agnes said to the nun.

She’d left the convent, gone back on the game, sick to her bones with every damn thing. It was then she’d caught the clap and had to go in hospital again.

‘If you don’t stop smoking, stop drinking, and stop fucking, you won’t last another year,’ the young doctor had said brutally. ‘You’re a complete physical wreck.’

‘But how will I live?’ Agnes cried.

‘I’ve just said, you won’t live, if you continue with what you’re doing.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s up to you.’

It was then Agnes decided to return to Liverpool and try to find Queenie, starting at Glover Street. It wouldn’t hurt. Queenie might be married, though it could only be to a no-hoper like herself. She might have a room to spare in which she could put up her old mam who’d sacrificed much of her own life looking after her as a kid.

She’d reached the Pier Head, limping badly because her shoes were killing her.

The small suitcase containing all her worldly possessions had seemed quite light when she started out, but now felt as if half a dozen bricks had been added on the way. One of the waiting trams had Bootle on the front. She limped towards it. When the conductor came round for the fare, it virtually cleaned her out. If Queenie no longer lived in Glover Street – and it would be amazing if she did –

Agnes didn’t know what she’d do.

Twenty minutes later, she was hammering on the door of the house to which she’d moved when she’d married George Tate. Looking back, the time she’d spent there hadn’t been too bad, especially when compared to the last few years.

The door was opened by a young woman with a huge, swollen stomach, obviously about to drop a baby any minute. She looked extremely annoyed when she saw Agnes. ‘It’s only half past seven,’ she snapped. ‘What the hell do you want at this time of morning? I was in bed, and if I hadn’t thought you might be the postman, I wouldn’t have answered the door.’

‘I’m looking for Queenie Tate. She used to live here. I’m sorry I knocked you up, but it’s urgent,’ Agnes added. She had completely forgotten the time.

‘Never heard of her,’ the woman said shortly. She was about to close the door, but Agnes put her hand against it.

‘Do you live upstairs or down?’

‘Down, but what difference does that make?’

‘Who lives upstairs?’ If Queenie had married, she’d have a different name.

‘The Monaghans; Iris and Dick and their kids.’ The woman scowled. ‘They make a helluva lot of noise.’

Vera Monaghan had lived somewhere in Glover Street. Dick must be her son, Iris his wife. There was just a chance they might know where Queenie had gone. ‘Can I go up and ask them?’ Agnes pleaded.

The woman looked her up and down and must have decided she didn’t want her in the house. ‘I’ll ask them for you,’ she said shortly, slamming the door.

A few minutes later, it opened again. ‘She’s at Freddy’s in town.’

‘Freddy’s?’ Agnes had never heard of the place.

‘Frederick & Hughes. It’s a shop in Hanover Street, far too posh for the likes of you and me. I’ve never been inside.’

‘Is she a cleaner?’

‘How the hell would I know? Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to go back to bed. The baby’s due at the end of the week and I feel like a bloody elephant.’

‘I don’t suppose,’ Agnes said in a wheedling voice, ‘that you could lend me a few coppers for me fare back into town? I’ll pay you back.’

‘You must be joking.’ The door slammed shut for the second time.

Agnes looked down at her feet. The heels of her stockings were soaked with blood, the flesh having been rubbed red raw. She daren’t remove the shoes to see the state of her toes, as she’d never get them on again. She sighed and hobbled towards the Dock Road. It seemed the quickest way back to town.

The walk was sheer torture. It didn’t help that it was so cold, the wind lashing against her, making her ears turn numb. She had no feeling in her hands. Every now and again, she’d stop for a breather and to rest her feet. A foreign seaman approached when she was standing in a doorway. He winked and said something in a foreign language and a suggestive voice. Agnes told him to sod off, though if there’d been somewhere to take him, she wouldn’t have hesitated. At least she’d earn a few quid and could catch a taxi straight to Frederick & Hughes’ front door. At the rate she was going, the bloody place would be closed by the time she got there.

Eventually, she did get there, so tired that her body felt as if every ounce of strength had been drained out of it – it was almost twenty-four hours since she’d had anything to eat or drink. At times, she’d felt tempted to abandon the suitcase, but everything she possessed was inside.

She dragged herself inside the shop, where the warmth took her so much by surprise she could hardly breathe and the smell of scent threatened to make her puke up her guts. She gasped and grabbed a counter, but her freezing hands slid off the glass and Agnes dropped the suitcase and collapsed in an untidy heap on the floor.

When she came to, she was lying on a bed in what looked like a doctor’s surgery, and a nurse was bending over her. Her shoes and stockings had been removed. ‘Am I in the ozzie?’ she asked.

‘No, dear,’ the nurse said briskly. ‘You’re in Freddy’s First Aid room. But you’ll be in hospital soon. I’ve rung for an ambulance. It should be here any minute. In the meantime, someone’s making you a cup of tea.’

‘But I don’t want to go to hospital. I came to see Queenie, Queenie Tate. That’s the only reason I’m here.’

‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. She’s busy.’

‘But I’ve got to see her!’ She’d travelled all the way from London in a smelly lavatory, walked through Arctic winds for what felt like a hundred miles, all to see Queenie. Her feet were bleeding, her ears felt like two blobs of ice and ached so much she could hardly hear. Seeing the daughter she’d once so despised, and would probably still despise when they met again, had become something of a mission for Agnes.

‘I told you, Miss Tate is very busy,’ the nurse insisted.

‘Does she know I’m here?’

‘Of course not. Why should she?’

‘Because I’m her mam, that’s why. Tell Queenie her mam’s here to see her. She’ll come then.’

The tea arrived. The nurse cranked up the bed so she could sit up and lean against the back. Agnes was gratefully sipping the tea, conscious of a tingling sensation in her extremities as the feeling gradually returned, when the door opened and a girl came in. The first thing she noticed was the girl’s hair; pale and blonde and as smooth as silk, surrounding her pretty heart-shaped face like a cap. Where on earth had she got such a lovely tan at this time of year? She wore a smart black frock with a white lace collar and cuffs that had obviously cost a bomb, fitting her trim body perfectly. Her shoes were black suede with cut-away sides and had the highest, thinnest heels Agnes had ever seen, hardly wider than a pencil. She was quite stunning, the sort of girl who could have made a mint on the game; twenty, thirty, possibly as much as fifty quid a night, operating from one of the top London hotels; the Ritz, or the Savoy. She didn’t close the door, but held it open, smiling at the nurse. ‘Do you mind, Hilda?’

The nurse hurried out. It was obvious the girl was a boss of some sort.

‘I’m waiting for Queenie Tate,’ Agnes explained, in case the girl wanted to know what she was doing there.

‘I’m Queenie Tate, and you, apparently, are my mother.’ The girl folded her arms and looked at her with contempt. ‘Why are you back, Mam? The best thing you ever did for me was go away.’

‘What on earth am I going to do with her?’ Queenie demanded of Theo some time later.

‘Where is she now?’

‘In hospital. She looked on the verge of kicking the bucket, if the truth be known. I hope she kicks it soon.’

‘You don’t mean that!’ Theo sounded shocked.

‘I do.’ Queenie’s usually soft voice was hard. ‘She’s not your mother. You don’t know what she was like, the way she treated me when I was little, the things she made me do, the things she used to say. You never saw the place where I used to sleep. When I was four, she broke my arm and didn’t bother to have it set. I only remembered that when I was in hospital in Caerdovey, after it was broken again. I hate her, Theo.’ She began to weep. ‘I hate her so much.’

‘Then you shall have nothing to do with her, my darling,’ Theo said. ‘But nevertheless, she is your mother. Leave everything to me. I’ll make sure she’s looked after.’

When Agnes woke next morning, she was no longer in the ward in which she’d fallen asleep, but a little room on her own. ‘What happened?’ she asked the nurse who brought her a cup of tea.

‘You’ve been transferred to a private room. And some things arrived for you last night. They’re in that bag over there.’ There was an expensive tan leather travelling bag on a chair by the window. She noticed her old suitcase on the floor.

‘What’s in it?’

‘I’ve no idea. Do you want to have a look yourself?’

‘Yes, please.’

The nurse put the bag on the bed. ‘Don’t let your tea get cold,’ she said as she left the room.

Agnes unzipped the bag and took the contents out one by one, examining them with increasing wonder.

Nighties, three of them, warm but glamorous, the sort a duchess would wear; a dark green velvet dressing gown, slippers to match – Queenie must have got the size from her shoes, which had been left in the First Aid room. She didn’t doubt that all these lovely things had been sent by her daughter. There were towels, two of them, blue, with an embroidered band at each end, a face flannel the same; a big quilted toilet bag containing soap that smelt of roses, a bottle of lavender water, shampoo, talcum powder, face cream, and a hairbrush. A smaller bag held cosmetics; a lovely enamelled compact, rouge, an eyebrow pencil, mascara and a lipstick. Agnes looked at the make – she usually used Rimmell –

and gasped when she saw it was Helena Rubinstein.

‘Well, Christmas has come early for someone,’ the nurse said when she returned to take the patient’s temperature. ‘That lot looks expensive. You’ve obviously got some very rich friends.’

‘They’re from me daughter,’ Agnes said proudly. ‘She’s got some dead posh job at Freddy’s.’

‘Me daughter!’ She whispered the words under her breath. ‘Me daughter.’ Queenie hadn’t exactly looked pleased to see her but, secretly, she must be glad her mam was back to send all this lovely stuff. She imagined her, walking round Freddy’s, picking things out. ‘Mam’d love that, oh, and she’s sure to like that.’

She wondered why Queenie wasn’t married? That nurse had known who she meant when she’d asked for Queenie Tate. She was pretty enough to nab a millionaire, just like Rita Hayworth had captured that Aly Khan geezer.