Flo glanced at Martha, who was talking to her daughter, Norman Cameron a dark shadow by her side. They weren’t exactly a happy family group, but the mother and daughter relationship was there for all to see. Then she looked at Hugh, waiting, hands in pockets, for his “friend”
Flo, and she felt a sense of loss as vivid and painful as the morning she’d woken up and discovered her son had been taken away. Martha hadn’t just stolen her son, she’d stolen her life.
Very gently, she removed her sister’s hand. “Anything but that, Sal,” she said.
“I’ll miss Ian,” Hugh said, when they were in the car. He smiled shyly. “I’ll miss Kate, too. She was often there when I went to see him. It was the only place she went without Norman Cameron in tow.”
“D’you fancy her, luv?” They would make a perfect couple, Flo thought excitedly. The Catholic Church forbade relationships between cousins, though marriage might be possible with a dispensation. But as neither Hugh nor Kate were aware that they were related, there would be no need for the Church to become involved.
His pale cheeks went pink. “She’s okay.” He’d had several girlfriends, all of whom Nancy had disliked on sight. “You’d think I was royalty or something,” he’d grumbled to Flo. “She doesn’t think any girl I bring home is good enough for me.”
Flo was inclined to agree, though where Nancy was concerned she always kept her opinions to herself.
Hugh dropped her off in Lime Street. “See you soon, Flo, perhaps tomorrer.”
It was too nice a day to sit on a bus and Flo decided to walk home. She was in no hurry. Although she’d told Hugh she should be at work, her shift didn’t start until two. A few years ago, when launderettes had sprung up all over the place and White’s Laundry saw their work trickle away to almost nothing, Mr Fritz had closed the place down. Then he had opened a chain of launderettes, six in all, and put Flo in charge of the biggest, an ex-chandler’s shop in Smithdown Road, less than a mile from William Square.
“Hello, gorgeous!” A man, quite good-looking, was standing in front, blocking her way.
“Hello . . . ”
She stared at him, frowning, before realising that he was a stranger trying to pick her up. “I thought I knew you,” she said, exasperated.
“You could, very easily. I’d certainly like to know you.”
“Get lost,” she said, but smiled as she dodged past. It was flattering to think that at forty-two she could still attract men. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the windows as she walked up Mount Pleasant. She never wore black, apart from skirts, and Bel had loaned her a frock for the funeral; very fine cotton with short sleeves and a sunray-pleated skirt. The wide belt made her already slim waist look tiny. She hadn’t put on an ounce of weight with age. When they went on their regular visits to the Isle of Man, Mr Fritz complained that she looked no more than thirty. People would think he was spending a dirty weekend with his secretary.
“We’re not married, so it is a dirty weekend.” Flo giggled.
He looked horrified. “Flo! Our weekends together have been the most beautiful times of my life. Nevertheless,” he grumbled, “all the other guests probably think they’re dirty.”
Flo offered to dye her hair grey and draw wrinkles on her face, but he said that wouldn’t do either. “I rather enjoy getting envious glances from other men.” There was no pleasing him, she said.
She passed the women’s hospital where Nancy O’Mara had recently had a hysterectomy. Hugh, the dutiful son, had gone to see her after work every night.
On the way home, he sometimes called in at the launderette.
He usually popped in at least once a week.
“How’s Mrs O’Mara?” she asked. It sounded silly, but she could never bring herself to refer to Nancy as his mam.
“Progressing normally, according to the doctor.”
During the time he’d been at secondary modern school, she’d thought she’d lost him. Until then, he’d got into the habit of sticking his head round the door of the laundry on his way home from St Theresa’s, just to say hello. When he changed schools, she had the good sense not to wait for him outside when she went to the bank on Fridays, reckoning an eleven-goingontwelveyear-old in long trousers wouldn’t be seen dead playing ball in the Mystery with a woman almost twenty years his senior.
“Where’s your little friend?” Mr Fritz asked, after Hugh hadn’t shown his face in months.
“He’s at a different school and comes home a different way,” Flo explained, doing her best not to appear as cut up as she felt about it.
“That’s a shame. I’d grown quite fond of him.” He gave Flo a look full of sympathy and understanding, as if he’d guessed the truth a long time ago.
The months became years. She saw Hugh once when he was fourteen. He was on his way home with a crowd of lads who were kicking a tin can to each other on the other side of the road. She was glad his collar was undone, his tie crooked, that he looked an untidy mess. She was even glad about the tin can. Nancy might not like it, but he’d found his place, he’d made friends, he was one of the lads. She felt a tug at her heart as she melted into a shop doorway out of sight. If only he was coming home to me!
Although Flo had a great time in the launderette—the customers came in with so many funny stories that her sides still hurt with laughter when she went home—she could never get her son out of her mind. She heard through Sally that he’d left school and begun an apprenticeship as an electrician. It wasn’t what she would have chosen for him: she would have liked him to become something grander, perhaps even go to university.
It wasn’t until almost five years ago, Christmas 1957, that she had seen Hugh again. The launderette was festooned with decorations, drooping in the damp. All afternoon she’d been pressing homemade mince pies and sherry on her “ladies”, as she called them—a few had even returned with more washing they’d scraped together because they’d had such a good time. The bench was full of women waiting for the machines to finish, and Flo was slightly tipsy, having drunk too many people’s health when she wished them merry Christmas. Mr Fritz usually toured his six establishments daily to ensure that the automatic machines were working properly and not in need of his expert attention, but always ended up at Flo’s because it had the nicest atmosphere. His brown eyes twinkled as he accused her of being in charge of a launderette while under the influence of alcohol. Just then the door opened for the hundredth time that day and he said, “Why, look who’s here!”
Hugh! A shy, smiling Hugh, in an old army jacket with a small khaki haversack thrown over his shoulder.
My son has grown up! She wanted to weep for all the years she’d missed. She wanted to hug and kiss him, to ask why he’d deserted his mam for so long, but merely smiled back and said, “Hello, luv.”
“You’ve grown some,” Mr Fritz said enviously. “You must be six foot at least.”
“Six foot one,” Hugh said modestly.
He never explained why he hadn’t come before, why he’d come now, and Flo never asked. She guessed it was something to do with age, that between eleven and seventeen, he hadn’t felt it proper for her to be his friend, but as he’d grown older something had drawn him back.
She didn’t care what it was. It was enough that he’d come, and continued to come, to tell her about his job, his girlfriends, how he was saving up to buy a car. Once, a few months ago, he had said, “I wish me mam was a bit more like you, Flo. She thinks I’m crackers to want a car, but you wouldn’t mind, would you?”
“I should have caught the bus,” she muttered, halfway home, when the straps of her high-heeled sandals began to dig into her feet. It would be a relief to reach William Square, where she’d have a nice cool bath before she went to work.
Stella Fritz would have a fit if she could see the square now. There was scarcely a house left that hadn’t been turned into flats or bedsits and they all looked run down, uncared-for. Even worse, one or two women Flo refused to believe they were prostitutes—had begun to hang around at night, apparently waiting for men to pick them up. Twice, Flo had been propositioned on her way home in the dark, and Bel had threatened that if anyone else asked how much she charged, she’d thump them. There were frequent fights, which led to the police arriving. Mr Fritz moaned that the place was becoming dead rowdy, and Flo, who loved the square and never wanted to live anywhere else, had to concede that it had deteriorated.
She felt better after the bath and when she had changed into a pale blue cotton frock and canvas shoes. All afternoon, she couldn’t get Sally out of her mind. On numerous occasions her ladies wanted to know what was wrong. “You look as if you’ve swallowed a quid and shat a sixpence. What’s up, Flo?”
If she told them about Ian, she knew what would happen: their great, generous hearts would overflow with sympathy, which would be expressed in flowery, dramatic language a poet would envy. She would only cry, she might possibly howl. She told them she was feeling out of sorts, that the heat was getting her down Flo loved her ladies. They were coarse, often dirt poor, but they struggled through life with a cheerfulness of spirit that never ceased to amaze her. Through the door they would burst in their shabby clothes, which were usually too big or too small, too long or too short, carrying immense bags of washing. There were black ladies and white ladies, quite often grossly overweight because they existed on a diet of chip butties, but always with a smile on their careworn, prematurely old faces, making a great joke of their bunions and varicose veins, the swollen joints that plagued them, the mysterious lumps that had suddenly appeared on their bodies that they intended to ignore. “I couldn’t go in the ozzie and let them take it away, could I? Not with five kids to look after, and me ould feller propped up in the boozer all day long.”
It could be seven kids, ten kids, twelve. Most of the husbands were unemployed, and more than a few of Flo’s ladies went out cleaning early in the morning or late at night. It was their money that paid the rent and put food on the table, but that didn’t stop some husbands taking out their frustration with the government and society in general on their wives. Flo often found herself bathing bruises or bandaging cuts, cursing the perpetrators to high heaven.
But the women refused to listen to a word of criticism of their men—“He couldn’t help it, luv. He was stewed rotten. He wouldn’t dream of hitting me when he’s sober,” which Flo found an unsatisfactory explanation for her ladies’ sometimes appalling injuries. She cosseted them, made them tea, laughed at their jokes, admired them. The only thing she refused was to let them do their washing on tick, which Mr Fritz had strictly forbidden.
“Before you can say Jack Robinson, they’ll have run up a huge bill and we’ll never get paid. No, Flo. They put their own coins in the machine and that’s final. And if I find you’ve been loaning your own money, I’ll be very cross indeed. They’re a canny lot, and pretty soon you’ll be subsidising washing for the whole of Toxteth.”
The thought of Mr Fritz being cross wouldn’t have caused a tremor in a rabbit, but Flo was careful to take heed of his advice.
At seven o’clock on the day of Ian’s funeral, it was a relief when she could turn the Open sign to Closed. Mr Fritz came and went, promising to have some iced tea ready for when she came home—he was obsessed with his new refrigerator. It would be another hour before all the machines were finished and she could tidy up and leave. The place felt like an oven. Perhaps that was why she had remained so slim: since she was thirteen, she’d spent a high proportion of her waking hours in the equivalent of a Turkish bath.
Bel had been promoted to manageress of ladies’ outerwear in Owen Owens: long coats, short coats, raincoats, furs. She was frequently wined and dined by representatives of clothing firms who wanted her to stock their products. Occasionally, when Flo had nothing better to do, she would go to Owen Owens and listen while Bel dealt with a customer.
“Modom, that coat looks simply divine on you. Of course, Modom has a perfect figure, and red is definitely your colour.” The accent, Bel’s idea of “posh”, and the voice, haughty yet obsequious, was stomach-churning.
When the customer wasn’t looking, Bel would make a hideous face at Flo, and mouth, “Sod off!”
On her way home from the launderette, Flo let herself into her friend’s flat in Upper Parliament Street, where Bel was lying on her luridly patterned settee wearing black satin lounging pyjamas and reading She. She looked up and grinned widely, the deeply etched laughter lines around her eyes and mouth adding yet more character to her already animated face. “You look as if you’ve just been for a turn in one of your machines,” she said.
“I feel as if I have.” Flo threw herself into an armchair with a sigh. Bel’s flat wasn’t relaxing, more like a fairground with its bright walls and ceilings, and curtains that could do serious damage to the eyes. Still, it was nice to sit in a comfortable chair at last. “I want you to promise me something, Bel,” she said.
“What, luv?”
“If I die before you, make sure I’m buried, not cremated.
I want a few bits of me left to rise to heaven when the Day of Judgement comes.”
“Rightio, Flo,” Bel said laconically. “I don’t give a stuff what they do with me. Once I’m dead, they can throw me in the Mersey for all I care, or feed me to the lions at Chester Zoo.”
“Another thing, Bel. I’ve taken out an insurance policy to cover the cost of me funeral. It’s in the first-aid box in the cupboard by the fireplace, the right-hand side. I’d put it in the bureau with all me papers, but you’d never find it. I can never find anything meself.”
“That’s because you keep every single bit of paper that drops through your letterbox,” Bel snorted.
“It’s a legacy from Stella Fritz. I always kept me bills in case she accused me of not paying the ‘leccy, or something.
Now I can’t get out of the habit. Anyroad, when I’m looking for something, it’s nice reading through me old letters. I’ve still got the ones you sent during the war.
You can have them back if you like.” She didn’t say, because Bel would have been disgusted, that it was quite interesting to look at old bills, see how much prices had gone up.