A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin. Helen Forrester

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       ONE

       ‘He Were an ’Ero That Day, He Were.’

       April 1937

      Mrs Martha Connolly, wife of Patrick and purveyor of clean rags in the city market, sometimes remarked that she did have one lucky strike in her life, although she was not too sure even about that – in the end, she felt, it just seemed to mean more worry and more work for herself. The lucky strike was that her husband Patrick, though only a casual dock labourer at the time, was a good swimmer.

      ‘Anyways, he were an ’ero that day,’ she would boast proudly to her friends.

      In explanation to less well-informed friends, she would say reflectively, ‘He were a lively lad. He swum in the canal ever since he were a kid, and won a few races in his time. It isn’t his fault that he never had a trade. He had to start earning a living the day he were twelve – or he’d have starved. So he took what there was – he went down to the docks with his dad and he’s been there ever since, poor lad.’

      After she married him, she ruminated, he had kept up his skill by swimming in the nearby Wapping dock, if there were no ships tied up in it.

      Both of them knew that such trespassing was illegal, but she never said a word to anyone about it, because it was such a welcome relief to him after working in claustrophobic warehouses or ships’ holds, or from the fetid confinement of their overcrowded, noisy court dwelling: from her point of view, it was much better than his getting drunk with his pals in the Baltic or the Coburg.

      The dock master and the other men working the dock knew his face. They never attempted to stop him unless there was a boat coming in to berth, in which case, they would warn him for his own safety. But in the depth of the Depression of the 1930s boats were few and far between.

      One fine Tuesday morning in April, however, instead of trying for work or swimming in the dock, he was hanging around the Pier Head for another reason, while at the same time watching the ferries come and go across the river. On Sundays, during good weather, watching the river traffic was a popular after-church occupation for Liverpool people.

      On this weekday, however, there was an unusually large crowd, because HMS Ark Royal was being launched from the other side of the river: the Pier Head was a perfect place from which to view it. Chances of getting any work, he had decided, were remote, and his Sundays off would never offer such a good spectacle as the launch of a big ship. Better, by far, to be present at this historic occasion.

      He made the excuse to himself that his back hurt abominably from a particularly heavy job he had done the previous day: working today would only make the pain worse. He hoped that Martha would never find out that he had failed to go to the stand, as usual, in hope of getting work.

      On Sundays, if he did not go down to the Pier Head, he preferred to lie on the old mattress on the floor of the family’s single room. There, he rested and enjoyed the rare quiet, while Martha herded six of their nine children to the nearby church. As a live-in servant, Lizzie usually attended the church closest to her employer’s home; Colleen, aged ten, lay fighting tuberculosis of the hip in Leasowe Children’s Hospital, far away on the other side of the River Mersey; and James, little Number Nine, was babysat by their neighbour, Mary Margaret, who lived in the back room upstairs.

      Nowadays, Mary Margaret always said she coughed too much to be welcome at Mass – the noise disturbed the praying. But, in truth, though she loved the glittering little church with its theatrical service, she no longer had the energy to walk that far.

      This particular Tuesday, amongst the many others strolling up and down or waiting for the launch, Patrick recognised a well-known city councillor. Most Merseysiders had seen his ruddy, moustached visage more than once in either the Evening Express or the Liverpool Echo. He was a man much given to noisy controversy on any subject which might give him publicity and convince Liverpudlians of his care of their city.

      Outstanding in a crowd of mostly thin people, the councillor’s well-padded frame, encased in a three-piece suit, with a bowler hat rammed firmly on his head and a walking stick beneath his arm, suggested a successful man well content with himself.

      His dirty macintosh flapping in the wind, Patrick watched him with the lazy indifference of the unemployed and hungry, as the floating landing stage heaved gently beneath their feet.

      He was standing near the end of the stage, where a small private yacht with a broken mast had been temporarily moored: he had wandered over to look at the little craft. The councillor reached the end of his stroll at the same point, but, before turning back, paused beside him to peer down at the stricken boat.

      ‘Must’ve got caught in last night’s storm,’ he remarked to Patrick, as he turned to view him with friendly condescension.

      ‘Oh, aye,’ replied Patrick. ‘Real bad, it was.’ He was not interested enough to continue the conversation, or to warn the stupid man when he unwisely stepped over the guarding chain to look more closely at the little yacht.

      While docking, a ferry bumped into the floating stage. The stage gave an unexpectedly big heave. The councillor staggered, failed to regain his balance, stumbled over a mooring rope and with a mighty plop fell into the river.

      Patrick stared dumbly as the СКАЧАТЬ