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 up and down as he sought to reply to me.

      Finally, he answered me briefly and then set the class the task of drawing a picture of mountains and roads.

      He came and sat on the bench beside me and examined my work. He looked carefully at the little picture and suggested a technical method of improving the texture of the shading in it, while I sat in frozen silence beside him afraid that I would smell abominable to him.

      ‘I should like you to draw me one or two more, as homework,’ he said at last ‘You can sketch anything which takes your fancy. I want to see what you can do.’

      Breathless with excitement, I said I would like to do the drawings but I had neither paper nor pencils.

      He smiled and said calmly, ‘I can provide you with them.’

      I sat on the steps for several evenings, Edward crawling at my feet, while I sketched the life of the street and a picture of Avril, who was hugely flattered at having a drawing made of her.

      A week or two later, the drawing-master expressed his approval of my work and produced a small examination paper for me to work my way through. The paper, with my drawings, vanished into officialdom.

      ‘There is a scholarship available at the City School of Art,’ he explained kindly to me, ‘and I have put you in for it’

      I was happy. For the first time in two years I played with other girls, and I was being taught, though in a rough-and-ready manner. Nobody wanted to sit by me because I was so disgustingly dirty, even by the low standards prevalent in the neighbourhood, but in the open school yard I played tag and skipped until my limited strength gave out.

      My fourteenth birthday passed, and my parents put an end to my little holiday. I wept and raged, but to no purpose. I was wanted at home, and Father thankfully turned over Avril and Edward to me again.

      Although I had played with other girls at school, I had found nothing in common with them. They had a hearty vulgarity of speech and manner which made me recoil from them and, to them, a girl who spoke as if she had ollies in her mouth was very suspect A small group of girls who were better behaved and came from better homes regarded me with undisguised horror.

      I was back where I had started from, pushing Edward’s Chariot to and from the shops or the park, and without any hope of bettering myself.

      During the summer holidays, I took all the children to the parks to play, and sat wistfully amongst stout mothers in black shawls, watching my little charges play just as they did. The children accepted me as just another ‘Mum’ and I was too shy to ask if I could play too.

      September saw the children back at school again. I watched them go with envy. Now I was over fourteen I could not hope for further education.

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      Alan and I sat huddled together on the front step. The October evening was cold and clammy; yet we were reluctant to go into the stuffy house. The gaslamps’ light gleamed softly on the damp pavement and women hurried by, their black shawls held tightly round them, their children whining at their heels. Three young men lolled against the iron railings of the corner house; their noisy laughter mingled with that from the public house on the corner opposite to them. Maurrie, the second-hand clothes man, shuffled by with a sack on his back.

      An Irish woman plodded stolidly up the street. Near us, she stepped out into the middle of the street and turned, to take up a belligerent stance facing the front steps of the house opposite.

      She was a scarifying-looking person, hugely fat with legs like wool-clad pillars. Her hair was parted across her head from ear to ear and the back part had been plaited and made into a neat bun; the front hair had been parted again down the middle and plaited forwards, the resulting braids being draped down either side of her face and under her ears, to be fastened at the back. The result was outlandishly fierce-looking to anyone unaccustomed to the Victorian hair-styles of some Liverpool Irish women. She smoothed down her white apron over her black skirt, wrapped her black, crocheted shawl around her and folded her enormous arms. Then, gathering her breath until her purple cheeks stood out like balloons, she opened her mouth and screamed.

      ‘Yer pack o’ bloody whores!’ she yelled at the house Miss Sinford called The House of Sin. ‘I’ll show yer! Taking a decent woman’s hoosband.’

      A crowd materialized from nowhere.

      ‘Go it, Ma!’ shouted one of the young men from the corner.

      There was a flutter of sniggering laughter from the crowd and a murmur of encouragement.

      A frail-looking, middle-aged woman, her bare legs thick with varicose veins and her feet shoved into ancient carpet slippers, was unwise enough to open the door and appear on the steps before her.

      ‘You’d better stop that,’ she shouted, ‘or I’ll call a copper.’

      This produced such a description of the moral habits of the local constabulary that even the young men in the crowd were impressed. The Irish have a vivid way of expressing themselves, and the shawl woman was no exception. She lifted a fist as stout as a leg of mutton and shook it at the prostitute.

      ‘Yer harlot, yer!’ She finished up, and spat accurately at the feet of the Lady of Sin.

      Alan giggled behind his hand and whispered, ‘Has the lady on the steps taken the other lady’s husband from her?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said under my breath.

      ‘I’m not surprised. I imagine he ran away from her – she looks as fierce as a tiger.’

      I looked at the woman on the steps. She was quite old, her face haggard under its paint. Her hair was dyed a startling red, and diamanté earrings hung from each ear. I was mystified as to where her charm lay. I had read most of Emile Zola’s works and now understood the occupation of the ladies opposite. But Zola’s heroines were beautiful, and I had always gathered from the conversation of grown-ups that, unless one was beautiful, one did not stand a chance of even a husband, never mind a queue of men such as these ladies commanded.

      The woman on the steps drew back towards her front door. She glanced uneasily up and down the street. Several possible clients, hands in pockets, were wandering a trifle unsteadily towards the crowd.

      She became anxious to placate, and whined, ‘Ah dawn’t know who yer hoosband is. Ah dawn’t even knaw who yer mean. Na go home,’ she wheedled, ‘and stop making an exhibition of yerself.’

      This infuriated the Irish woman so much that she went up the steps like a tank and punched the small woman in the face.

      In a moment, clutched together, they were rolling down the steps and on to the pavement, clawing at each other’s eyes, using teeth and knees to inflict as much damage as possible.

      The crowd surged forward, roaring approval, and shouting encouragement to whichever participant they favoured.

      Three very large dock labourers, who had been standing uneasily watching the exchange, raised their voices against the general hubbub.

      ‘Na, Ma, come on,’ they cajoled the Irish woman. ‘This is too much. СКАЧАТЬ