‘Nowt really, Meg. I seed yer from across the square an’ I thought seein’ as ’ow you an’ me are friends I’d nip over an’ pass the time o’ day, like.’
‘Friends!’ she snorted derisively. ‘Since when were you an’ me friends, Fancy O’Neill?’
‘Now don’t be like that, Meggie.’ The youth took a step towards her and she moved back, going deeper into the trap he had set for her.
‘Like what? You’ve got no friends! Who’d want to be your “wacker”, I’d like to know and what d’you think you’re doing following me down this ginnel. You’re trespassing, that’s what you’re doing and if Mr Hemingway was to hear of it you’d be for it so clear off, d’you hear me.’
‘Now Meggie.’ He moved another step nearer, the size of him effectively blocking out the sultry sunshine which fell about the entry to the passage and as his shadow loomed over her he put out a hand and laid it tentatively on her upper arm, stroking it as though she was a restive mare.
She sprang back and her pale amber eyes flared to blazing gold.
‘Don’t you touch me, Fancy O’Neill. You put your hand on me again and I’ll hit you so hard with this flaming bucket I’ll bash your brains in.’ Her voice was scornful. ‘Not that it’d make much difference since you never use what few you’ve got. Now get out of me way. Go on, clear off!’
She hissed the last words through clenched teeth and the look of revulsion on her face was so strong it twisted her mouth into a grimace and she gave the appearance of having stepped into something unmentionable. She swung the empty bucket menacingly in her work-strong hand and the echo of its clangour as it hit the wall of the narrow passage rang hollowly upwards. A flock of house martins, disturbed by the noise plunged frantically low over the walls which split the yards at the back of the houses, diving and twisting up again and over the roof to the next street,
but
the sparrows which pecked fearlessly at the sour soil, used to human commotion, scarcely lifted their beaks.
The girl was clearly becoming angry and her free hand clenched into a fist.
‘Let me get by, you filthy beggar. Go on, shift yourself.’
‘Aah Meg, I’ll not hurt yer. I only want a little kiss. Only one, honest. Go on, yer’ll like it, really, just one little kiss. It’s not much to ask, is it, seein’ as ’ow you an’ me’s such good friends. What’s one little kiss? Yer’ll never even miss it!’
The enormous youth who blocked the passage smirked in what he imagined to be an engaging manner and began to move in a crab-like crawl along the wall of the house ready to leap aside should the swinging bucket come too near him. His smile widened to reveal teeth greened with the slime of decaying food. The dirty flesh of his face and the stubble of his unshaven chin was crusted with some inflammation and he scratched it vigorously, drawing nasty matter to the surface.
The girl shuddered and took another step backwards. The youth followed eagerly. ‘Come on, Meggie, be nice to Fancy. Give us a kiss.’ He plunged one hand into the baggy reaches of his trousers to fondle the bulge which grew there whilst the other continued to scratch the purulence on his jaw.
‘Get out of my way or I swear I’ll take your eye out with this bucket.’ The girl sketched another vicious circle in the air with the heavy iron utensil. Bobbing his matted head the youth only grinned. He had been watching and waiting for this moment for weeks now and the girl’s threat was taken lightly. He was big and strong and she was only a little bit of a thing and as soon as he found an opportunity to duck beneath that whirling bucket he would nip in and wrench it from her hand, taking it from her as easily as he would a sweetie from a baby. He might not have another chance like this and he promised himself he would make the most of it. It was not often she came out on her own for Mrs Whitley, the cook-housekeeper, kept her close and them two lads were always knocking about but he’d seen them himself setting off no more than an hour ago. They had been shepherding a large group of emigrants who were to sail on the ‘
Lacy Osborne
’ on the two o’clock tide, helping Mr Lloyd, the shipping agent to see the bravely marching assembly safely stowed away on the steamship, and would not be back for hours!
Fancy O’Neill bunched his muscular shoulders and his voice
dropped
to a wheedling whine. ‘Come on, Meggie, be a sport. Just a little kiss. You’ll enjoy it, honest. Fancy’s a good kisser. Ask anyone!’
He smirked ingratiatingly. ‘There’s no-one watching, Meggie,’ he continued, as though that was what held her back. He spoke with all the confidence of one who knows he is physically the stronger but there was still a wary cut to the way in which he scuttled along the wall keeping it to his back as though, despite this advantage he held in some respect the girl’s show of spirit. He pushed his face towards her and licked his lips and she recoiled in disgust, moving another step away from the safety of the sunlit square, from the community which lived in and around it and into the dim, empty danger of the back yard.
Fancy O’Neill’s hand left the infection on his chin and went out to her, again in the placatory way of a man attempting to soothe a nervous animal but she jerked away from it and the bucket slashed out and he stumbled hastily backwards. On his face began to grow an expression of peevishness but the girl was still not afraid. She was too outraged to feel fear. Her clear eyes blazed like freshly minted golden sovereigns and the firm flesh of her throat and bare arms became flushed. Her hair appeared to take on a life of its own. It sprang upwards and outwards, blazing in as furious an anger as its owner. A ribbon which had held a thick plait of hair to the back of her head, broke loose and the plait which fell almost to her buttocks began to unravel itself, the bottom half escaping immediately into a mass of springing curl. A soft, twisting strand fell across her face and she blew it upwards impatiently. She took a stance like that of a boxer and the bucket swayed dangerously.
‘A kiss, is it?’ she shrieked, her dander really up now. ‘Kiss
you
? You could stick a knife in me and throw me in the Mersey before I’d kiss a pig like you! You great daft tub of lard! Dear God, have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror, have you, because if you have you’ll see why the very idea makes me want to puke! Now get out of me way before I brain you!’
The youth, through whose small mind most of the insults, and even the words themselves had sped by without the smallest understanding, merely grinned and edged a little closer, putting out both hands as though he was about to encircle her waist. They were huge, splay-fingered and the wrists which supported them were thick and hairy. The girl watched with fascinated loathing,
balancing
the handle of the bucket on the palm of her right hand. It was heavy, used to carry coal from the cellar beneath the house to the kitchen. Coal dust clung to its inside, floating in a shifting black mist as she moved it. It brushed against her smooth white apron and drifted upwards to her nostrils and before she could suppress it or even take another step backwards away from the growing threat of the youth, she sneezed. For a moment, a fraction of a moment as the sneeze shook her she was defenceless. Her eyes closed and in an involuntary gesture she raised her free hand to cover her mouth and nose.
He had her then! Dim-witted he might be, illiterate and slow to understand, or carry out an order, Fancy O’Neill knew an opportunity when it rose up and bit him. In an instant he had the handle of the bucket in his massive grip and the vessel was hurled backwards up the passage before Meg had her hand from her face. Thick arms held her and a face as big and round as the full moon loomed over her and those thick, slimy lips seized upon hers, sucking them into his mouth. She felt his teeth against hers, and his tongue and her stomach rose and churned like the waters of the Mersey in a winter storm.
Holding her easily with one arm, now he had her secure, his other hand was at the open neckline of her bodice, pulling it away from her so that the buttons were torn from it right down to her waist. Only her white, pin-tucked chemise stood between him and the small, ripening mounds of her new young breasts and the sight of her soft flesh so tantalisingly half revealed shattered Fancy O’Neill’s control completely. The beast in him surged and his filthy hand fumbled at her whilst his mouth gorged on hers. To do him justice he had meant to do no more than steal a kiss from the lively, haughty young girl whose gaze had always passed over him with as much interest it might a pile of rubbish in the gutter. Had Meg giggled, or acquiesced, or even made light of the matter and treated the incident in the manner in which it was intended it would no doubt have ended there for he was ignorant, harmless and easily managed and though he had taunted her with cat-calls of ‘princess’ and ‘your majesty’ as she had gone by him, he had intended no real offence, but the feel and the smell and the taste of the girl whose surging, struggling body moved so maddeningly against his own was more than he could resist. He grunted with pleasure as small pink nipples erupted into his hand and renewed his efforts to keep her wildly avoiding lips beneath his.
Still she fought him! Like an infuriated kitten she was, trapped and roughly handled by some large, playful child. She was not afraid. Fancy O’Neill was an object of ridicule amongst the other servants who worked in Great George Square. Half-witted and clumsy, performing the most menial of tasks, his shambling walk and slow-paced thinking had always allowed Meg and the other maidservants to keep well out of his way ever since he had come to work there. He was employed in the yard of the house of a rival shipping company and his leering, foolish expression, his winks and suggestive lip-smacking effrontery had been treated with disdain, or a cutting remark which left him scratching his head in bewilderment and never once had he been considered a threat to the safety of the young maids who worked in the houses about the square.
She felt her bodice tear away and her bare back scraped against the stained roughness of the bricks and she winced as the skin broke open. Fancy’s knee was between her legs forcing them apart but she resisted fiercely, trying to free her arms in order to claw at his face. She gagged and her head jerked from side to side for more than anything else it seemed important to avoid that gaping, foetid mouth, the thick, gummy lips and the foul breath of her attacker. Outraged dignity made her strong but though she was brave and fought fearlessly he was relentless in his lust and he began to walk her backwards along the last few yards of shadowed passage to the enclosed yard at the back of the house. As he did so she felt the first knife of terror stab at her. It moved in the pit of her stomach, ripping up into her chest, taking away her breath, moving upwards to her mind, dizzying her and she felt her senses begin to slip away.
Fancy O’Neill was well beyond the stage of knowing who he was or what he did to the young girl who battled so valiantly in his arms nor of considering the punishment which would be his when he was done. The supercilious housemaid from who he had desired at best a kiss, perhaps a smile, had the loveliest feel to her, rounded here and here, soft and pliant and her resistance only made the having of her in his arms the more enjoyable.
They had reached the corner where the passage turned into the yard when she had her mouth free for one last gasping moment. Her throat arched in a long and lovely line as she screamed despairingly.
‘
Martin! Tom
!’
The birds, only just recently settled from their initial upset flew off again in a long blurring arc and the air was filled with the sound of their frantically beating wings. As her voice echoed about the high chasm of the passage Fancy was brought back momentarily from the delightfully clutching, soft and sensual world into which her white flesh had spun him and he lifted his head from where his lips had fastened once more on hers. She had gone still now, limp and boneless in his arms and he muttered fretfully for he had been pleased with the fierce movement of her body against his but as she slipped to the hard-baked ground, her white flesh shimmering in the dark shadowed quiet of the yard he smiled for she was easier to manage like this.
Her lifeless face was hidden as he bent over her.
They were larking about as boys will when they are unsupervised, jostling one another, whistling, their caps set at a jaunty angle on their heads, their hands deep in their trouser pockets. They shouted to one another, their voices still not yet certain of their newly acquired manhood, and their smooth young faces were slicked with the sweat of their exertions in the afternoon heat. They had found an old tin can and in the fashion of lads everywhere they had become the idols of their own youthful fantasies and were kicking it backwards and forwards between them, urging one another to ‘kick it over here, Tom’ and ‘to me, mate, to me!’
They had been told to get off home by Mr Lloyd and to look sharp about it. He could manage this unusually small group of emigrants on his own, he told them, now that they were safely assembled on the dock and there was no need for them two to hang around and to tell Mrs Whitley he’d see her about five. They had sauntered at first, the fierce heat sapping even their high spirits, but were they not Liverpool born and bred with the Merseysiders’ love of football, and were not Scott and Young, the goal scorers in Everton’s glorious winning of the Footballs Association Cup the previous season, their football gods, and the tin can they had found in the gutter became a football and the length of Upper Pitt Street was Goodison Park and in no time at all they turned into Great George Square, flushed and breathless, elbowing each other aside in their attempts to ‘score’ a last ‘goal’ through the area gate.
The first boy was tall with the light springing step and grace of a natural athlete. He had a hard fighter’s body, well-muscled and
wide-shouldered
and looked as though he was not unaccustomed to using his fists. His face was strong, and would be handsome with deep brown eyes set in a thick frame of black lashes. His hair was straight and abundant, falling over his broad forehead in a dark mahogany sweep. His mouth was humorous and though he was well-used to life’s hardship it appeared he was also well-used to smiling at it! Now it grinned widely showing his slightly crooked white teeth. His skin was an amber brown and glowed with good health. His jaw was stubborn, even now at the age of fourteen, thrusting aggressively as he wrestled to take the ‘football’ from his companion. The second boy was as tall as the first but slender, rangy, still growing in to his young manhood, all arms and legs and sharp shoulders. His face was cheerful, boyish, uncomplicated as if nothing had ever come to trouble him in his young life, which was not so! His hair was thick and naturally curly, as yellow as the sun and his eyes were a bright and incredible blue, clear and steady and shining at this moment with enormous satisfaction. His mobile lips formed in a silent whistle as his nimble foot hooked the tin can away from his friend and as it flew, true and straight, clattering down the area steps to the ‘goal’ at the open basement door, the despairing scream, coming from somewhere behind them froze them both to a shocked silence, cutting off his own shout of triumph. They did not recognise what the voice which prickled the backs of their necks and lifted the hair on their scalps, actually shrieked, but they were immediately aware of the stark and absolute terror which echoed in it. They stood, both of them, still in the postures of Scott and Young, ‘footballers of the season’, but their eyes widened and their heads snapped wildly as they looked first at one another then in the direction from which the cry had come.