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 down to the old school tie!’

      The underwear, trousers, jacket and a shirt arrived in a brown paper parcel, addressed to Father and left on our landing. When I asked our incorrigible old lookout, Miss Sinford, who had delivered the parcel, she insisted that nobody had called at the house that day. I can only imagine that someone like the milkman, who still brought Edward his pint of milk, must have been asked to bring them in, so as to avoid a police car being yet again stationed outside the house. Miss Sinford would not have counted the milkman as being a person; like the postman, the public assistance visitor and the poor, he was always with us.

      Armed with five shillings given him for the purpose, Father went to the public baths and found that, indeed, a spotlessly clean bath, towels and soap, not to speak of hot water, were all his for the sum of sixpence. Apparently, he spent so much time in the bath that the attendant threatened to charge him another sixpence or empty the bath if Father did not come out

      He dressed himself in his clean clothes, rolled up his rags into a bundle, except for his broken-down shoes, which he had, perforce, to retain, dumped the bundle into a litter-bin outside the baths, and went for a shave and a haircut.

      When he came home, I hardly knew him. Although the jacket and pants were too large for him and his shoes were a mess, he had an aura of respectability about him that did more for our spirits than anything heretofore.

      There was still some money left from the five shillings, and Father sent Alan and Fiona to buy fish and chips and peas and a packet of cigarettes. I hoped that All Saints School did not learn, by some extraordinary means, that we had spent two and sixpence of their money on food instead of on outfitting Father, and, even worse, sixpence on cigarettes.

      The detective picked Father up two days later, and they went together to buy a good ready-made suit, another shirt, a raincoat and a pair of shoes.

      It seemed to Alan and me that we had got our Father back from the dead, because he now looked to us as he had done before we came to Liverpool, except that he had shrunk considerably.

      Without any difficulty, Father got the clerical post for which he was interviewed – the detective was apparently sufficient reference. He was infinitely better educated and more widely experienced in the business world than the type of clerk the City was normally able to command, and, except when it came to running his own affairs, had a clear and analytical mind.

      Though the post was a temporary one, he soon discovered that many of his colleagues had been ‘temporary’ for ten years or more – it saved the impoverished City from having to provide pensions for them.

      He served the city of his birth faithfully and well. Later, he became part of its permanent staff, and, when his department was taken over by the Government as part of the new National Health scheme, he became a civil servant and gradually worked his way upwards. He was never very well-to-do again; on the other hand, he was never again reduced to penury, and he managed to enjoy the latter part of his life in a modest way.

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

      It seemed reasonable to assume that Father’s going to work would make a considerable difference to our standard of living and, consequently, to my own life. The hope that had sustained me through all our bad times had been pinned on dais one point. Now, at last, perhaps I would be allowed to go to evening school or take some kind of work and Mother would take her rightful place at home. Life, however, went on exactly as before as far as Edward and I were concerned.

      There was no more money to spend on food than there had been before. Wages were so low in Liverpool that Father did not earn much more than he had received when unemployed; the difference was swallowed up in tram fares, lunches and cigarettes – and, of course, the need to keep himself clean and tidy.

      Childish hopes waxed again when Mother began to get more regular employment; she was proving to be an excellent saleswoman and was recommended by one employer to another for moving specially difficult merchandise. If she must work, I argued, she might soon earn enough to employ a girl to look after Edward and so release me. In her case also, however, she had first to meet her expenses and then extend her wardrobe so that she looked decent enough to continue work.

      Father’s being employed sparked a desire in my parents to find a better place in which to live. It had been hopeless even to consider this while he was unemployed – no landlord was prepared to rent a house to an unemployed man with seven children. A city clerk was a different matter, and they finally obtained a neat-looking terrace house with three bedrooms, a sitting-room and a living-room. It had no bathroom, and the water-closet was at the far end of a soot-begrimed back yard. Cooking was done on an old-fashioned coal range in the living-room. It was unfurnished and the rent was seventeen shillings a week. It was a great improvement upon our present accommodation, though not to be compared with the home we had abandoned to our creditors. The relief from climbing stairs was tremendous and, of course, we would save ten shillings a week in rent

      Moving was not difficult as we had almost nothing to move, and suddenly it seemed as if we needed everything much more than we had done before – I suppose it was because we had a whole house to ourselves.

      There are always sharks willing to oblige the foolish. In their eagerness to become once more established, my parents bought a set of drawing-room furniture and curtains for the whole house on hire purchase. A hint that we needed beds met with a sharp rebuke. An iniquitous system of ‘cheques’ enabled them to purchase bedding, crockery and kitchen tools, all of which we badly needed. The cheques, however, were peddled by finance companies and consisted of a permit to buy a given amount of goods from a limited list of stores at greatly inflated prices. Repayment and interest were collected in weekly instalments by the companies’ agents. The goods rarely lasted until they were paid for and the rate of interest was high. This type of indebtedness was very prevalent in Liverpool.

      This plunge into debt meant that Mother had to work, whether she wished to or not, and I had to care for the children. My little faint hope which had lighted my way through so much was doused, and dark clouds of melancholy gathered round me and were made worse by indifferent health. I watched as the heavy weekly payments drained away money urgently needed for clothing and food. Sufficient did trickle down to buy new running-shoes for the older children; but Edward and Avril had the Chariot to ride in and I did not have to go anywhere except to the shops.

      Avril started school in September and Alan would be leaving it at Christmas, a poignant reminder that everybody was making a little progress except me. Would Edward and I always be chained together? Would our needs always be at the bottom of the family’s list? Would I always be hungry?

      My despair was abysmal. I felt I had no one to turn to for comfort or help. Even hours of weeping as I went about my household tasks failed to relieve the depression which engulfed me.

      My father had spent some time talking with Alan about what he would do when he finished school, and it had been agreed that he would try for a job as office boy in a firm where there was a certain amount of training given and where he might sit professionally set examinations. Amongst other openings, this gave him a choice of estate agencies, banking and shipping firms. A bright fourteen-year-old could do better than his forty-year-old father, as far as choice of jobs was concerned.

      Nobody asked me what I would like to do. My role in life had been silently decided for me. It was obvious that my parents had no intention of allowing me to be anything but an unpaid, unrespected housekeeper. With all the passion of a fifteen-year-old, I decided that such a life was not worth living.

      A foggy September day saw СКАЧАТЬ