The Complete Helen Forrester 4-Book Memoir: Twopence to Cross the Mersey, Liverpool Miss, By the Waters of Liverpool, Lime Street at Two. Helen Forrester

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СКАЧАТЬ than ours, her room having been the dining-room of the original home.

      It was from her that I learned that the house opposite, which was visited by so many seamen, was a House of Sin and that the women who lived in it were harlots. ‘Harlot’ was a word which occurred in the Bible, so I ventured to ask her what it meant.

      She blinked at me through her spectacles, as if realizing for the first time how young and innocent I was. Then she pointed a bony finger at me and said sharply, ‘Girls should not ask such questions.’ Her voice became shrill. ‘It is not a word I should have used. It is a word you must not use. Out! I must pray!’

      She seized me by the shoulder, turned me about and pushed me into the hall.

      Bewildered, I took myself back upstairs and left my leg to heal by itself, which it eventually did.

      Next time I went to the library, I looked up the offending word. It really sounded very wicked indeed, and I was most impressed.

      Fiona came home from school one day, in tears. She said she had a pain in her back and chest. I felt her forehead. It was burning with heat. Helplessly, I looked at her and we were both terribly afraid.

      When Father came home from the library, I told him about Fiona. I had laid her on the bed and, to keep her warm, had covered her with what few odds and ends of blanket and garments I could find.

      We went to look at her and found that she had tossed aside her wrappings and was muttering feverishly, her mouselike hands clenching and unclenching.

      Father clamped his mouth tight. His breath came in small gasps and perspiration glistened on his forehead.

      Alan came softly up to us.

      ‘Don’t you think we had better send for the doctor, Daddy?’ he asked.

      ‘I haven’t any money to pay him,’ was the despairing response.

      ‘We could tell him that.’ Alan’s lips trembled. Like all of us, he loved Fiona. ‘He might come anyway.’

      I said, ‘We have nothing to lose by asking. Is Fiona very ill, Daddy?’

      ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I can see that she is very ill indeed – I am not sure what it is, though.’

      I leaned over Fiona and whispered that we would get a doctor for her and she would soon be better.

      ‘I’ll go and ask,’ said Alan in his bravest voice, sticking his chest out and trying to look strong.

      ‘Yes, do so. I think Helen and I had better stay here. I haven’t any paper on which to write a letter. You will have to explain to him yourself. Tell him about the pain and the temperature.’

      Tony, Brian and Avril tiptoed into the room and went silently out again.

      Alan plunged out into the February wind once more. Terrified of facing whoever would answer the doctor’s door but even more terrified about Fiona’s illness, he seized the doctor’s brass knocker and banged it.

      The door was answered by a neatly dressed older woman.

      ‘The doctor’s out,’ she said before Alan could open his mouth.

      ‘It’s my sister,’ said Alan. ‘She’s awfully ill and we haven’t any money to pay the doctor. But, please, will he come?’

      The boy’s evident fear made the woman soften her tone.

      ‘Well,’ she said, ‘step in, lad. I am not sure that the doctor can come. He’s very busy.’

      Alan, shivering, stepped into the linoleumed hall. Under the faint light of a very low wattage electric light bulb, the lady surveyed him.

      She sighed at what she saw, and took down a notebook from beside a telephone on the hall wall. ‘Tell me your name and address and I’ll ask him. Now then.’

      Alan told her, and explained the symptoms of the illness as best he could.

      ‘Now mind,’ said his questioner as she shut the notebook. ‘I don’t know whether the doctor can come. I’ll have to ask him. If he does come, it will be after surgery, about half past nine.’

      The hours dragged by. We took it in turns to sit by Fiona. She would not take the tea we offered her. I wetted our only towel which was, as usual, very dirty, and wiped her face and hands with cold water. This seemed to console her a little. Occasionally, she was racked by coughing.

      Mother came home and stared dumbly at her second daughter. It was as if she could not let any more troubles in upon herself; she seemed numbed, unable to accept any more. Her unkempt hair had escaped from her hat and hung in straggling oily tails down to her shoulders. Her hands were swollen with chilblains, in spite of Mrs Hicks’s gloves, and she stood awkwardly, because the heels of her shoes were worn down so badly that she walked almost as if she was bandy-legged.

      ‘We must keep her covered,’ she said at last

      It was difficult to see in the reflected light from the street lamp, and Father said worriedly, ‘I don’t know how the doctor is going to be able to see to examine her – if he comes.’

      ‘Couldn’t we borrow a shilling to put in the electric meter?’ I asked.

      ‘Brian went down and tried the couple below; they didn’t have one. I can’t ask Mrs Foster – we still owe her a week’s rent – and I can’t ask Mrs Hicks because I haven’t yet paid her back the last shilling I borrowed.’

      This was the first intimation I had had of his borrowing from the other tenants; it accounted for a general coldness towards us recently.

      Without a watch it was difficult to tell the time, but both house and street were quiet when the front door bell rang. Hopefully, Brian pounded down the stairs to open the door.

      A firm voice said, ‘We can’t afford to fall down this black pit – I’ll put my flashlight on.’

      Brian laughed shrilly and called, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Helen! The doctor has come!’

      The bedroom door opened and the light of a torch blinded me momentarily. The doctor must have had long experience of the straits of poverty to carry such a powerful torch.

      ‘Come in, come in,’ said Father, his voice filled with relief.

      I stood up respectfully as the doctor put down his bag.

      ‘Now, what have we here?’ he asked as he got out his stethoscope, and then took Fiona’s wrist in long, capable fingers.

      Father explained the symptoms and I nearly stopped breathing as the doctor listened to his patient’s labouring lungs and frequent coughing.

      ‘Pleurisy, I think,’ he said. ‘She must have hospital treatment immediately. I will go and telephone the Children’s Sanatorium, and arrange for an ambulance.’

      Father whispered, ‘It isn’t tuberculosis, is it?’ In those days, tuberculosis was still a major killer.

      ‘I doubt it. The hospital will take X-rays.’ He СКАЧАТЬ