Love Me Tender. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ from the beams to hold up the roof. High arched windows lined the sides of the hall, with lower ones at the ends, and stalls of every description lay before them. The noise was incredible.

      They hadn’t gone very far when the clock began to strike. Until that moment, neither Pete nor Nuala had noticed the clock, but now they watched it spellbound. Lizzie noticed that most people did, even grown-ups, and the hubbub around them died down as the figures of three knights and a lady struck the bell twelve times. ‘Is that the clock you said about?’ Pete asked when it was all over.

      ‘That’s it,’ Lizzie said, ‘and if you keep being a good boy, I’ll take you to see the animals.’

      Pete beamed. ‘There’s animals?’ he cried disbelievingly.

      Maura laughed at the little boy’s amazed face. ‘You wait and see,’ she said. ‘My mammy used to bring me here for a treat when I was about your age.’

      There were stalls for everything in the Market Hall, and although the smell of fish lingered, it didn’t seem to matter and even added a little to the atmosphere of the place. There were flower stalls, clothes stalls and material stalls, and the junk stalls sold a wide array of interesting objects. There were stalls selling fruit and vegetables, fresh fish and meat and cheese. There were people setting pots and pans and other kitchen utensils, and there were stalls piled with sweets, toys, haberdashery and knick-knacks.

      Pimm’s pet shop drew the children like a magnet, for none of them owned pets of their own. The canaries twittered around them in their cages as the children stared, and even Nuala clamoured to be let down. There were mewing kittens and boisterous puppies that nipped their fingers playfully as they tumbled about the large box that held them. They saw fish swimming endlessly around their bowls, and baby rabbits and guinea pigs in their cages, and they stopped by the budgies to try and teach them to talk. Pete didn’t believe they could, and although Maura and Lizzie repeated over and over, ‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ none of the birds co-operated and copied them. In the end they gave up and Pete said triumphantly, ‘See, told you they couldn’t talk. You must think I’m stupid.’

      Lizzie laughed and cuffed Pete lightly around the head, and he yelled, ‘Gerroff!’ but any further protests were stopped by the clock striking again.

      ‘Two o’clock,’ Maura exclaimed in disbelief. We’d better get going. I’m starving, aren’t you?’

      ‘Not half,’ Lizzie agreed, bouncing the pram back to the Market Hall entrance.

      Willing customers carried the pram down the steps for them, and once on the cobbles Maura said, ‘Sniff that.’

      Lizzie didn’t have to; she could already smell the joints of meat roasting in Mountford’s shop window, and it made her mouth water. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘my stomach thinks my throat’s cut.’

      They couldn’t afford a meat sandwich because it cost sixpence, and anyway it was Friday, so instead they bought a cone of baked potatoes for a penny each, with a slice of bread dipped in gravy for Nuala. ‘Are you sure she should be eating that?’ Maura asked.

      Lizzie wasn’t really certain, but she shrugged and said, ‘Surely eating meat doesn’t count when you’re only a baby?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Maura said. ‘But then, sure, she has to eat something.’

      Nuala certainly seemed to enjoy her slice of dipped bread. She ate every bit and all told didn’t make much mess at all. Pete finished his cone of potatoes and licked his fingers and said, ‘I’m thirsty now,’ and Lizzie realised she was too.

      ‘Have we enough for drinks?’ Maura asked.

      ‘Not if we want sweets,’ Lizzie said. ‘But we can get threepence worth of over-ripe fruit that might cure the thirst, and still have money for some sweets too.’

      Everyone agreed with that suggestion and they wandered down to the bottom where the cheaper barrows were and got some bruised apples, soft oranges and bananas going brown. They demolished them in quick order, sitting on a bench by the horse trough near St Martin’s, where Pete was entertained by the trams that came rattling up Moor Street.

      Then they made their way to the sweet stall, where they pored over the goodly selection on sale. Gobstoppers lasted forever, but pear drops tasted better, and toffee was nice but would make them thirsty again. Eventually they bought a stick of liquorice at a halfpenny each, and two penn’orth of pear drops. Nuala had fallen asleep in the pram with her thumb in her mouth, so she didn’t have to be considered as they shared the sweets out among themselves.

      ‘We’ll have to be off soon,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s a tidy step home and time must be getting on.’

      ‘Aye, I’ll have to get Mammy’s fish,’ Maura said. ‘If it’s gone down enough in price.’

      Before that, though, Pete was enchanted by the day-old chicks a man had for sale by Nelson’s Square. They did look sweet, like little yellow fluff balls, and Pete was all for taking one home. Lizzie and Maura had a hard job to convince him that the chick would grow to a hen, and hens couldn’t be kept in a back-to-back house with no garden.

      Pete had reached the mutinous stage when Maura spotted the man walking round with the tray of mechanical toys and successfully distracted his attention. He watched the toys jumping around the tray in open-mouthed astonishment, and Lizzie stayed with him while Maura got a huge parcel of kippers for her mother for one and six. She stored it at the bottom of the pram and they set off home. Pete’s legs were tired, and Lizzie tucked him in beside the fish, and even though the hill up to High Street was steep and she was puffed at the top of it, she left Pete where he was. It was a long way home, she thought, for legs as short as his.

      All the way back, while Nuala slumbered, the two girls told Peter tales about the Bull Ring on a Saturday. ‘It’s better then,’ Maura said. ‘Late afternoon and evening’s the best time, and the food is nearly given away, my mammy says.’

      ‘Aye, but that’s not all,’ Lizzie said. ‘They have stilt walkers and a man in chains – all tied up, he is, and you wouldn’t think how he’d get out of it, but he always does.’

      ‘Aye, when the money in the hat is a pound or more,’ Maura reminded her. ‘And there’s a fire-eater and a man that lies on a bed of nails and lets other people walk on him.’

      ‘And others play music and sing,’ Lizzie said. ‘And a feller called Jimmy Jesus preaches from the Bible. He’s got long white hair and a beard and that’s why he’s called Jesus.’

      Pete’s mouth dropped open in astonishment as he drank in all the two girls told him, scarcely able to believe it was true. ‘We’ll take you one day, Pete,’ Lizzie promised. ‘If your mammy says it’s all right, you can come with me and Maura. We’ll stay till the Sally Army brass band comes marching down Corporation Street. Later they give all the tramps soup at the Citadel. Jimmy Jesus too, so my daddy said anyway.’

      ‘Oh, they do,’ Maura said. ‘It’s great down the Bull Ring, isn’t it?’

      ‘Nowhere like it,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘And it was worth it today, even if I’m never allowed out again for a whole year.’

      ‘Och, course you will be,’ Maura said confidently. ‘They’ll just shout a bit, that’s all.’

      Lizzie didn’t answer, for Maura didn’t СКАЧАТЬ