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 it Surely, my parents would realize that it was a wonderful opportunity for me. Surely, they would have my interests at heart. It must be a mistake – I could not have won.

      Yet if Alan’s headmaster said I had won, won I had. He would not forget that one of the few scholarships available at that time had been awarded to his school.

      ‘If I won,’ I said through clenched teeth, ‘I was never told about it.’

      ‘How queer,’ said Alan, and Fiona’s enormous eyes widened even farther as she, too, considered the matter. ‘You’d better ask Mummy or Daddy.’

      Such a rush of pain went through my skimpy body that I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned my head nearly down to my knees. In little gasps, I said, ‘I don’t think I want to ask them. I don’t think I can bear to.’

      ‘I’ll ask,’ said Alan stoutly. ‘I’m not afraid.’

      ‘Oh no, Alan,’ I said. ‘You will only be told that it’s none of your business – and the whole family will be upset.’

      He knew I was right and was silent.

      I was almost certain in my mind that my parents had just not told me because my attendance at school for a prolonged period would have compounded their difficulties; they would have lost their baby-sitter and housekeeper – and they would have had to pay a substitute.

      I rocked myself backwards and forwards, as my touching belief that my parents, even if they had not much love for me, would do their best for me, and that they had always done so, died. I was in agony. The research into the ruthless exploitation of the eldest child was still far in the future, and there was no explanation to console my childish despair.

      Two bony pairs of arms were quietly wrapped around me, and two young heads came close to mine.

      ‘Never mind, Helen. Please don’t cry. What’s a silly old scholarship, anyway? You got it. You’re clever. You’ll get another one some day.’

      I did not cry. I could not.

      Gently, I told Alan to go to bed.

      I pushed Fiona quietly towards our pile of newspapers laid on top of the old door; the papers had an irritating habit of spreading themselves on to the floor as well. I laid myself down on them, facing the wall, and pulled my knees up tight like a baby in the womb. If I took little breaths and lay perfectly still, perhaps the pain inside me would go away.

      I slept little, but felt calmer in the morning. The children were dispatched to school. Mother went out. Father hurriedly prepared to go down to the labour exchange. As he struggled to neaten himself, I asked him diffidently, ‘Did you ever hear anything about the art scholarship I sat for?’

      He looked at me abstractedly. ‘Art scholarship?’

      ‘Yes. You remember – the one I sat for while I was at school – just before my birthday.’

      He was quiet for a moment and sat staring at his shoelace which had broken.

      ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘We did hear something about it. It couldn’t be awarded to you.’

      ‘But did I win?’ I asked in a whisper.

      ‘You did. However, when we said that you were born in Cheshire, we were told that you were ineligible and should never have been entered for it. Cheshire comes under a different education committee.’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

      ‘There seemed no point – children get upset about these things.’

      I nodded. I could not speak because my teeth were chattering so much from the nervous effort I had made to ask about the scholarship.

      I hugged Edward to me, while he seized his battered trilby hat and departed. I could hear the loose sole on one of his shoes flipping on each step.

      All that morning, I thought about the scholarship. Pressed against the glass-topped biscuit tins in the tiny grocery store, the rancid smell of the bacon-cutting machine enveloping me, I had a long wait in the tiny shop while the grocery woman measured out single ounces of tea, sugar and margarine, climbed her ladder to reach down tins of condensed milk and had long arguments with several desperate women trying to extend their credit with her.

      By the time it was my turn to be served with the twopennyworth of rice I wanted, I had come to the conclusion that I must accept my father’s explanation, despite the fact that the school had known my place of birth.

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

      Dully, sulkily, I continued to look after the children through the winter, trying to dry their rags when they came in rain-soaked, trying to buy with pennies enough food for nine, living in a world where handkerchiefs, toilet-paper, hot water and soap ranked as unobtainable luxuries. Fortunately, the stomach can become accustomed to very little food, and the children did not now cry very often that they were hungry, as long as they had bread and potatoes.

      In an effort to make sales and increase their profits, even the more reputable local shopkeepers now cut margarine into quarter pounds, though it cost only fourpence to buy a whole pound, and opened pots of jam to sell at a penny a tablespoonful – bring your own cup. One tiny corner shop, presided over by a skinny harridan whose hands never seemed to have been washed, would make up a pennyworth of almost anything that could be divided up. This resulted in a very high price per pound – but if one has only a penny one has little choice in the matter.

      A learned professor published a detailed menu showing that a full-grown man could eat well on four shillings a week but it was of no help to me. Four shillings per week per head to spend on food would have represented to us an unattainable height of luxurious living.

      In the city council, a stout, outspoken Labour couple tore into the mayor, aldermen and councillors with bitter tongues on behalf of the unemployed, the homeless and the aged. Mr and Mrs Braddock – our Bessie, as Mrs Braddock was known to many – started a lifelong battle on behalf of the poor of Liverpool. On the docks, the Communists made inroads among the despised and ill-treated dock labourers, the results of which are still apparent in the labour unrest rampant in the docks of Liverpool forty years later.

      City health officials looked in despair at horrifying infant mortality rates and at a general death rate nearly the highest in the country. Nobody, of course, died of starvation – only of malnutrition.

      The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England continued to build themselves a cathedral apiece and solicited donations.

      My parents at about this time seemed to have given up all hope of any real future and struggled on from one day to the next, too dulled by hunger and privation to plan how they might get out of the morass they were in.

      My father tended to sit silently indoors now, only going to the labour exchange and the public assistance committee, because he was more ragged than the most poverty-stricken tramp I ever encountered. My mother still made valiant efforts to keep her appearance reasonable so that she could apply to shops and offices for work.

      One sunny Sunday in March, however, Father decided he could stand the rank atmosphere of the house no more СКАЧАТЬ