A week later, the attic room was ready to receive Merle O’Mara – or Merle Lacey as she would now be known. She was coming by train and would be arriving at Lime Street soon after three that afternoon, and Baz had agreed to meet her, though only in order to introduce her to Lottie, who would then accompany her back to Victoria Court. Baz was now working as a porter on Lime Street station so he would not have to leave his workplace to point Merle out to Lottie. In fact he meant to offer to carry her case – legitimate work for a porter – and that meant he could go with them out of the station and even walk them as far as the tram stop, for no doubt Merle’s suitcase would be heavy and she would scarcely relish having to carry it all the way to Victoria Court.
Lottie had thought that her mother should meet Merle since she knew her from times past, but Louella and Max had been engaged by a rich businessman living out at Fazakerley to entertain at a children’s party he was giving. Max had said that the money was too good to turn down and that Merle would understand. ‘We’ll be back in Liverpool in time for the evening performance,’ he had said. ‘But Merle’s a real trouper; she’ll know all too well that a performer can’t turn down work. So what we want you to do, Lottie, is to meet her, take her back to the court and give her a meal. Louella is going to make a plateful of ham sandwiches and there’ll be a bowl of salad and some hard-boiled eggs as well. By the time you’ve eaten you will have to leave for the theatre. Merle may come with you or she might prefer to go to her room and unpack, get settled in.’ He had smiled affectionately at Lottie. ‘I know you think it’s a pity that Louella and I won’t be around when Merle arrives, but it will give you girls an opportunity to get to know one another. All right? Any questions?’
Lottie had grinned and said that everything was fine. She was determined to like Merle and had actually gone out that morning and bought, with her own money, a large bunch of yellow daffodils. She had taken her mother’s favourite vase – it was a pale green glass, shaped like a woman, and Lottie considered it very beautiful – arranged the daffodils with care and carried it up the two flights of stairs to the newly furnished bedroom.
Now she looked around the room appreciatively and was sure it would delight any girl, for she and Louella had chosen with care, and the new furniture looked as though it had always been in place there. The piece of carpet was cream, scattered with pink rosebuds, and Louella had managed to match up Lottie’s pink bedspread so that Merle’s bedcover, too, was the same pink as the curtains which graced the large window. The white walls – Baz had spent a whole weekend redecorating the little room – were hung, not only with Lottie’s much-loved pictures of rural scenes, but with a couple of theatrical ones which Baz had said his cousin would much admire. The new wooden chair and chest of drawers had been painted white to match the ones already in place and Louella, who considered herself artistic, had stencilled garlands of flowers round the drawer handles, and had made a floral cushion to enhance the plain wooden chair.
Standing the daffodils carefully on the white-painted windowsill, Lottie took one last look round the room, then headed for the stairs. She had better get a move on; it would be dreadful if she arrived after the train because Baz would think her thoroughly unreliable, might even suspect her of not wanting to make Merle welcome, and she was truly determined that Merle and she should be friends. After all, why should they not like one another? It will be all right, Lottie told herself for the hundredth time. We’ll be pals because theatre people are always nice. And now I’d better get moving or I’ll be late, and that would never do.
She pushed open the kitchen door, checked the time, then reached her jacket down from its hook. She had been out earlier getting messages for her mother and hoped that the weather was still fine, but it was always difficult to tell in the courts for the houses were tall and hid all but a strip of sky from the court dwellers.
Lottie slipped into her jacket, hurried down the hall, and let herself out into the court. She locked the door with the key on its string, then popped it back through the letterbox. She ran down the three steps, waved to a couple of girls who were sitting on an orange box, gossiping, and set off towards the main road. She liked her classmates, would have enjoyed joining them, but was rarely able to do so. She was a year older than the rest of her class, still trying to make up for her time in hospital and the matinée performances, and because she had respectable clothes for school and worked hard whilst she was there, she knew some girls thought her stuck-up. It did not help that Louella had always discouraged her from playing out.
‘Street games are for street kids, and street kids are common,’ she had remarked in the past. ‘I don’t mind you playing with Kenny; Mrs B is a good friend and often kept an eye on you when you were small and I was busy. But some of the children – and their parents for that matter – don’t know the meaning of the words soap and water. The kids are forever sagging off school, cheeking their elders and playing tricks on folk who don’t appreciate their behaviour. And their language! If I ever heard you talking like the Willis kids, for example, I’d die of shame. So play with Kenny, or that nice little girl from Number Ten, but keep a decent distance from the others; do you understand?’
Since the ‘nice little girl’ was four years younger than Lottie and was seldom allowed to play out, Louella’s commands had cut her daughter off from most of her contemporaries. As she turned into Scotland Road, Lottie thought again that it really would be nice if she and Merle got along. Even though Merle was a couple of years older, they would be sharing the same house and the same stage. Surely they might be friends?
Chapter Five
Lottie arrived at the station in good time and soon spotted Baz. She thought he looked nice in his porter’s uniform, with his peaked cap, and felt proud when he came over and spoke to her, particularly when he tugged his cap and grinned. Just as though I were a real lady, Lottie told herself, returning his smile.
‘Train’s on time,’ Baz said as he approached her. ‘She’ll be arriving . . .’ he hooked a large gunmetal watch out of the pocket of his waistcoat and frowned down at its face, ‘in eight minutes precisely. It’ll be the good old
Lancashire Belle
and Mr Tomkins – he’s the driver – is a stickler for timing. Some of the fellers on the footplate will nip out at a station and fetch back a mug of tea but you won’t find Mr Tomkins having a drink unless he’s arrived early and can spare five minutes. When I’m a driver I reckon I’ll be the same.’
‘I didn’t know you were going to be a train driver, Baz,’ Lottie said, awed. ‘I wish girls could drive trains, but they can’t even be porters, can they? Will it be long before you start driving one?’
Baz laughed a trifle self-consciously. ‘First you’ve got to be a fireman and there’s stiff competition for driving jobs,’ he told her. ‘There’s all sorts of railway jobs I could do, though, even if I never get to drive an express. There’s signalman, stationmaster, guard . . . oh, all sorts.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The thing is, if I can’t see my way to advancement I’ll mebbe do something different altogether, something not connected with railways, I mean. I wouldn’t want to work in the ticket office as a booking clerk. I’ve got me sights set on an outdoor job and you never know, if I applied for a country station . . .’
‘Porter! Over here! Oh, it’s you, young O’Mara. I didn’t recognise you from the back. Gi’ us a hand with this bleedin’ cabin trunk; I dunno what the feller’s gorrin it but I think it must be house bricks, it’s that heavy.’
‘Right away, Mr Collins, sir,’ Baz said to the grizzled individual, also in porter’s uniform, who had addressed him. Under his breath he spoke to Lottie. ‘That’s Mr Collins. He’s been a porter here for thirty years and manages the rest of us. He’s a nice old feller but . . .’ The rest of the sentence was lost as he turned and left her, shouting as he went: ‘I’ll fetch a trolley, Mr Collins. You don’t want to go tryin’ to lift a weight like that, norreven atwixt the pair of us.’
Lottie watched as Baz hurried off, returning presently with one of the sturdy two-wheeled trolleys which stood nearby. She saw Mr Collins and Baz manoeuvre the heavy trunk into position and then her attention was distracted by the arrival of a train which entered the station in a cloud of steam, its brakes screeching as it drew to a halt. Hastily, Lottie looked round for Baz but he and his companion, and their burden, had disappeared. The engine was near enough, however, for her to read the name
Lancashire Belle
emblazoned upon it and her heart gave an uneasy thump. Oh dear, she had arrived on time and so had the train, but where oh where was Baz? She guessed, from what Louella had said, that Merle was fair and would be unaccompanied, but apart from that Lottie would not know her from any other female on the train. Desperately, she scanned the carriages, walking slowly along the platform, but she was pushed and jostled by the people getting off and by others trying to board, and was on the verge of tears when she saw before her a tall slender girl with a merry face. She was wearing a pale blue cloche hat which matched her coat, and beneath the hat Lottie glimpsed curls of an angelic fairness. Eagerly, she hurried forward, one hand stretched out. ‘Merle O’Mara? I’m Lottie Lacey. Baz is here somewhere, but . . .’
The girl turned a pair of laughing blue eyes upon her. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘But I’m not Merle what’s-her-name, I’m afraid. Ah, I can see my young man . . . he said he was going to meet me, but the crowd is so dense that he must have . . .’ Her voice rose to a squeak. ‘Alfred, darling, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten . . .’
The young man who had approached them seized the beautiful girl in his arms and kissed her, then picked up the suitcase which she had stood down as she descended from the train and the two of them hurried away, leaving Lottie scarlet with mortification. How could she have been so silly? She knew very well that Merle was seventeen, and the young woman in the blue cloche hat was probably quite twenty, and now she had lost her chance of spotting Merle when she left the train for already it was almost empty. In fact, there was only one other person getting down from the very last carriage. Lottie cast a desperate glance around her, longing to catch sight of Baz’s familiar face, but she supposed he had been given another job to do by Mr Collins and could not escape. She made her way towards the last passenger and hesitated, not wanting to make a second mistake. She cleared her throat and looked enquiringly at the other girl. ‘Excuse me, but I’m supposed to be meeting someone . . . her name’s Merle O’Mara . . . I don’t suppose . . . ?’
The girl had been gathering a large quantity of luggage into a heap but at Lottie’s words she looked up. ‘I’m Merle,’ she said. ‘But Uncle Max told my pa that Baz would be meeting me. What’s happened to him? Only you and meself can’t possibly carry all my traps.’
‘He’s somewhere about,’ Lottie admitted, looking hopefully around her. ‘He had to carry a great big cabin trunk for an old gent, but I’m sure he’ll be back as soon as possible.’ She looked curiously at the older girl. Merle was not at all what she had expected from the chance remarks Louella had let fall. She was very pretty, with a heart-shaped face framed by a great deal of curly light brown hair. Her nose was small and retroussé, her mouth a rosebud, and her teeth, when she smiled, were very white. She was sturdily built and of medium height, and she stood as dancers tend to do, with her feet planted solidly upon the platform and her legs braced. The only unattractive thing about her, in fact, were her eyes, which were small, very dark brown and shiny, though Lottie guessed that with stage makeup these orbs would appear large and lustrous so that Merle would pass as a very pretty girl indeed.
‘Well? Know me again?’
The remark might have been meant as a joke, but there was a spiteful gleam in Merle’s small eyes which made Lottie blush. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said humbly. ‘Only – only from something Louella said I got the idea you were a blonde, and . . . and . . .’
‘I’m as much a blonde as you are,’ Merle said, staring very hard at Lottie. ‘And if your ma thinks I mean to start bleachin’ me lovely locks she’s got another think comin’. It ruins your hair, you know. Yours will probably fall out after another two or three years. And what’s wrong wit’ me hair, anyway? Audiences love it when I swirl round and me hair flies out like a silken cloak. I wash it twice a week, and brush it two hundred times, night and mornin’. That’s what makes it shine and look so good.’
‘Oh,’ Lottie said inadequately. ‘I wish you’d tell Louella that; I hate having my hair bleached and last time I went to the hairdresser she said, more or less, what you’ve just told me. She said I could wear a wig but I haven’t dared say anything to my mam because she’d get cross. She thinks – she thinks audiences like blondes better than brunettes.’
‘I might mention it if the subject comes up,’ Merle conceded. ‘As for liking blondes, they just like us to look good, that’s all.’ Her eyes swept over Lottie, who immediately felt small, skinny and extremely plain. ‘Of course I’ve not seen your act, but I’m blessed if I know what the three of us will look like – I mean, meself and your mam are women, but you’re only – what? – fifteen, is it?’
‘Yes, nearly fifteen, but the audiences seem to like me,’ Lottie said stoutly, but with a sinking heart. ‘They – they think I’m sweet, and . . .’
Merle laughed scornfully. ‘Oh, when you were younger, I can believe that. But you ain’t a child star any more, and you’ll be dancin’ and singin’ wit’ meself and your mam, two glamorous women. I don’t see . . .’