Liverpool Miss. Helen Forrester

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       Four

      Mother worked on short contracts in the bigger city department stores. She demonstrated new products, like kitchen gadgets, or was engaged especially to sell slow-moving goods that might deteriorate if kept in stock too long. She slowly gained a good reputation, and stores would pass her from one to another, to get rid of piles of baby baths in unpopular colours, baby clothes that threatened to harbour moths, cameras and photographic supplies left over from the summer season, and the newest wringer washers and gas stoves.

      She became an excellent saleswoman, and it used to amuse me to carry Edward into a shop and watch her demonstrate the use of a gadget. It fascinated me to observe how she could beguile housewives into impulsive purchases.

      One day, Avril and I stood at a discreet distance behind her in a baby-wear department. I held Edward in my arms and, though he must have known he was watching his mother, he placidly sucked his thumb and did not call out. She was selling violently pink rubber baths.

      She tenderly picked up a rubber doll and plunged it into imaginary water, talking all the time, first to the doll as if it were a baby and then to her audience, who, quite amused, slowly gathered round her. She dried the doll and dusted it with baby powder and put on its nappy. Young mothers and obviously expectant mothers were her targets, and they soon found themselves hooked into friendly conversation. Mother seemed to be able to make them feel that their baby was her only interest in life; and if they already had a baby bath, she would skilfully pass them to one of the shop assistants, whose battle for a sale of baby clothes was, of course, already half won.

      Before Father went bankrupt, she had for years been a member of Operatic and Dramatic Societies, and she knew enough of stagecraft to use her voice and manner to the best effect. She was never paid enough for her ability.

      She looked very attractive, despite her thinness, in a black dress and black shoes purchased from a second-hand shop. I used to cut her hair for her with Father’s cut-throat razor and then curl it each morning with a pair of curling tongs, bought for a penny from the pawnbroker’s oddments table set up outside his shop.

      Of course, I never approached her while she was working; and Avril understood that she must be quiet and tiptoe away at an appropriate moment. I doubt if she noticed that we were there, because she never mentioned seeing us.

      Avril’s and my great enemies were the shopwalkers. Sometimes when we were cold, we would go into a big shop and skulk around the different departments until we became warm again. And then the shopwalker would pounce.

      Shopwalkers always looked very imposing. They were usually elderly gentlemen dressed in stiff, white, Victorian wing collars and black suits. They perambulated stiffly up and down the aisles of the shops, hands clasped behind their backs. They glared ferociously at the young girls and boys who served behind the counters. Then, with a slight bow, they would lend a courteous ear to customer inquiries, the whispered remarks almost drowned by the loud rings of the containers, holding payments or change, shooting along wires above their heads on their way from the counter to the cash office.

      I never argued with shopwalkers.

      ‘What do you want?’ they would snarl.

      ‘I’m just looking,’ I would say loftily, exactly as I had heard people round me say.

      The usual reply was, ‘You can look in the windows.’

      Then they would stride crossly to the nearest door and fling it open, and Edward, Avril and I would slink out like lost puppies.

      One October day, we went into a shop in which Mother was working, to get warm. Mother was selling photograph albums. Her voice penetrated clearly through the murmur of shoppers as she extolled the advantages of having an album for each particular type of photograph. Avril, Edward and I settled down to watch.

      I had not been feeling well for two days. My back ached, as did my head. I had got very wet in a rain storm earlier in the week, and I shrugged off the low level discomfort as being due to this. As I watched, however, the pain in my back began to feel as if an iron belt had been suddenly clasped round my waist. Pains shot down the sides of my stomach.

      I gasped to Avril that we had to go home quickly, and dragged her back to the pram, parked in the shop doorway. She protested in a loud whine as I plunked her into the pram with Edward. Panting with pain, I began the long ascent up Renshaw Street, Hardman Street and Leece Street.

      The pain came in ever increasing waves. Sweat beaded my forehead and I leaned on the pram handle for support, as I almost ran for home.

      In St Catherine’s Street, opposite the Women’s Hospital, I stopped to lean against a brick wall as a particularly agonising pain ripped down the side of my stomach. Though I stared at the hospital with glazed eyes, it did not occur to me to seek succour there. To a child, in those days, hospitals were usually where old people went to die. Fiona had once gone to hospital and her lurid tales of her experiences had been enough to frighten all of the children. So the hospital was just another impersonal red brick building to stumble past on my way home.

      Avril was whining and snatching at the twig with which Edward was playing. Mercifully, they both seemed unaware that anything was wrong.

      I ran the pram up to the front step of our house, and tugged at the string sticking through the letterbox. The string pulled back the lock, the door swung open and I almost threw first Edward and then Avril into the narrow hall.

      The pain was again surging in my stomach.

      Frightened to death, I slammed the front door, snatched up Edward and carried him through to our back yard, leaving an angry Avril howling in the hall. Perhaps if I went to the lavatory I would feel better.

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