‘All right, if that’s what you want,’ Lizzie agreed. In truth, she was not reluctant to follow her friend’s advice. Now that she came to think about it, she herself had seen Uncle Perce in an ugly and violent mood too often to want that violence turned on herself. And of course he had a perfect right to be pals with a woman, she supposed, though it had not previously occurred to her that Uncle Perce was the sort of man to crave female company. In fact, she’d thought his only interests were to have money in his pocket, a full belly and as much ale as he could hold. As for his wife being all the female company he should want, she had to acknowledge that Aunt Annie would never even think of accompanying her husband to the pub. Her aunt very rarely left the house, being self-conscious about her size and saying that neither the cinema nor the theatre had seats into which she could comfortably fit, and to Lizzie’s knowledge Uncle Perce had never even suggested an outing of any sort. It was not that the two of them were enemies, precisely; rather, they were no longer either lovers or friends.
Lizzie had just reached this conclusion when the couple ahead of them paused outside the fried fish shop. Since the queue there was even longer than that in which Lizzie and Sally had waited, however, they walked on.
‘They’ve gone past Cranberry,’ Sally said huskily after a few minutes. Lizzie privately thanked her stars. She could not imagine that her uncle would take his fancy woman – if she
were
his fancy woman – back to number nine to meet his wife and sons, but with someone as wild and strange as Uncle Perce, you could never be sure. And presently, she began to have the uncomfortable feeling that she could guess where he and Flossie were bound.
‘Oh, Gawd, Sal, they’re heading for the bleedin’ canal,’ she said, her voice full of foreboding. ‘Aren’t I glad we didn’t get into the queue earlier? If we’d been sitting calmly on the wall with our papers of chips he might have walked straight into us . . . and then what would I have said?’
‘You’d have said, “Evenin’, Uncle Perce. Whatever are
you
doing here?” Sally said, in a fair imitation of her friend’s voice. ‘What else should you say, chuck? That’s what you’ll say tonight, I hope, if we happens to meet ’em. But it’s not too late, we can turn back right now and no one the wiser.’
For a moment, Lizzie was actually aware of a craven desire to do just that; to turn back, pretend she had seen nothing, and return to the Court and Aunt Annie’s undemanding presence. But she knew that if she did so she would never forgive herself. Whatever Uncle Perce was up to, she had been given the opportunity to find out and find out she must and would. So she frowned and shook her head at Sally, and continued to walk quietly in the wake of the two older people.
As they neared the Houghton Bridge, there were fewer and fewer people to be seen. Sally hissed that they should fall back a little further, but Lizzie disagreed. ‘They won’t expect to see us so they won’t assume that it
is
us,’ she stated. ‘If they look back – and I don’t see why they should – they’ll just assume we’re a couple of girls walking back home. They may even think we’re a courting couple because your hair’s almost as short as a boy’s and we’re both wearing long coats.’
Sally, who was proud of her newly bobbed hair, said smugly: ‘You’re just jealous, you, because you’re stuck wi’ that bleedin’ great plait when all us fashionable folk are gettin’ bobbed or shingled.’ But for once Lizzie did not rise to the bait.
‘I don’t happen to want to cut off me hair and look like a perishin’ feller,’ she said, imitating the voice of one of their bosses at work. ‘Look out, they’ve disappeared!’
‘Don’t try to foller,’ Sally advised. ‘They’ve gone down on to the towpath on the nearside of the bridge. We’ll creep up to the bridge and peep over.’
They did so only to be disappointed for there was no one in sight, though the dark waters of the canal reflected the great silvery moon overhead in a fashion just as romantic as Lizzie had imagined. ‘Where did they go?’ she whispered, putting her mouth close to Sally’s ear. ‘Keep your voice down, sound doesn’t half travel well over water.’
‘They’ll be under the bridge,’ Sally mumbled, having looked long and hard at the canal and its environs. ‘It’s the only place they could be, when you think about it. Well, now you know the worst, so let’s go home and forget we ever saw ’em.’
‘The worst? I don’t see . . .’
‘They’ll be kissin’ goodnight, probably,’ Sally said, trying to pull Lizzie away. ‘Do come home now, queen! I wouldn’t like to be caught spyin’ on your aunt’s old feller and that’s gospel. Come home!’
‘Tell you what, you put your arm round my waist and I’ll kind o’ lean my head on your shoulder and we’ll walk a little way along the towpath so they’ll think we’re just another courtin’ couple, like you said,’ Lizzie whispered. ‘I know you said they’d be kissing goodnight, but they might just be – be talking, like. And I’ve got to know what’s going on, Sal, for Aunt Annie’s sake.’
‘We-ell, remember, she’s a married woman, so wharrever they’re gettin’ up to, it won’t be too bad ’cos she won’t want her old feller findin’ out,’ Sally whispered back. ‘AH right, all right, don’t pull me coat off me back, I’m comin’ as fast as I can.’
The two girls descended cautiously on to the towpath, arms round each other’s waist, Lizzie’s head leaning, very uncomfortably, for the two girls were much of a height, on Sally’s shoulder. They ignored the bridge completely, walked along the path for perhaps five minutes, and then turned back. They covered the return journey much more quickly, and presently bolted up the side of the bank and back on to Burlington Street, both rather breathless from climbing its steep side at speed.
‘Well, I never!’ Sally said as they regained the road. ‘Well, the shameless baggage! I call that disgraceful, Liz, considerin’ the pair of ’em’s married – to other people, I mean. What’ll she say if she falls for a baby, that’s wharr I want to know? The rotten tart – I knew me mam didn’t approve of her, but I didn’t know she were
that
bad!’
Lizzie, agreeing, thought this was proof positive
that Sally was a good deal more experienced and worldly wise than she. To be sure she had seen the two dark figures under the even darker arch of the bridge, but left to herself she would probably have assumed that they were merely standing very close and probably talking intimately. Indeed, had she not been able to see the bright yellow of Flossie’s hair, she might even have assumed that the tall, heavy figure of Uncle Perce was simply leaning against the stonework of the bridge and looking down at his own feet. Sally, however, made no such innocent assumptions.
‘What’ll you do, queen?’ she said presently as they walked back along Burlington Street. ‘Surely you aren’t going to say anything to your Aunt Annie? I know what your uncle’s doing is wrong, but when it comes down to it, I reckon telling your aunt would only make things worse. My old gran often says, “What the eye don’t see, the heart don’t grieve over”, and I reckon your poor aunt has had enough grief without us adding to it.’
‘I wouldn’t
dream
of telling Aunt Annie. It would hurt her most dreadfully because I know she’s still fond of the beast,’ Lizzie assured her friend. ‘But think on, Sally. If Uncle Perce’s seeing a lot of this Flossie then sooner or later everyone will know. Why, you and your mam guessed what was going on ages ago, didn’t you? And you know what the courts are like for gossip. It only takes one person to see them making for the canal, and the next thing you know, tongues are wagging the whole length of the Burlie, and folks will be giving Aunt Annie funny looks, and when she turns away she’ll hear the whispering start.’
‘Folk are real fond of your aunt,’ Sally said rather reproachfully. ‘They wouldn’t want to hurt her, not deliberate. She’s respected as well as liked.’
‘Oh, aye, I know that. But folk can’t help talking and sooner or later Aunt Annie will find out. What I’ve gorra do, Sally, is find a way of stopping it before it goes any further.’
‘The gossip, you mean?’
Lizzie snorted. ‘No, idiot, the carryings-on. I don’t know quite how I’ll do it yet, but there has to be a way. If I tell Uncle Perce I know and will tell the boys if he doesn’t stop, that might work, mightn’t it?’
By now they had reached the court and paused outside Sally’s door, lowering their voices instinctively as they did so. ‘It might,’ Sally said cautiously. ‘The trouble is, queen, once you’ve told him you know, you’ve shown your hand, like. Wharrabout tackling Flossie first? She’s the one wi’ more to lose, when you think about it. Her old feller’s rich as the Lord Mayor of Liverpool so she won’t want to be chucked out of that there lovely house they’ve got.’
This advice struck Lizzie as being profoundly sensible and she said as much before the two girls went their separate ways. Number nine was in darkness, for their nocturnal adventuring had taken longer than Lizzie had realised, so apart from a sleepy cluck from either Sausage or Mash when Lizzie hung up her coat on the back of the kitchen door, no one greeted her arrival at the house. The kitchen was still warm from the day’s activities, the fire in the range damped down so that it would smoulder quietly until morning. Lizzie made herself a hot drink, for the kettle on the hob still steamed gently, and then cut herself a hefty slice of bread off the long loaf. She spread it with jam and began to eat, reflecting that however you looked at it, Sally’s advice to go for Flossie rather than Uncle Perce was sound. For a start, she had never met Lizzie, would not know her from
Adam, which meant she was unlikely to tell Uncle Perce that his wretched niece was on their track. Indeed, if Flossie had any sense, she would say nothing at all to him but would solve the dilemma by ending their relationship.
Lizzie finished the bread and jam and drained her cup, then set off up the stairs to her room. She had no desire still to be in the kitchen when Uncle Perce came back from his clandestine meeting, though she knew he usually went straight into the front room and made himself comfortable upon the sofa there. Once in bed, she lay listening for his footsteps outside in the yard, but she was so tired that sleep overtook her before her uncle returned to the court.
Despite Lizzie’s hopes, it did not turn out to be as simple to approach Flossie Sharpe as she had expected. For one thing, she had not realised that Flossie worked in the ironmonger’s shop, nor that her husband worked with her. Her first couple of attempts at speaking to the woman were foiled when Mr Sharpe came forward, smiling ingratiatingly, and sold her a small milk saucepan and a dozen six-inch nails, neither of which she wanted. In the end, she decided to consult Geoff so popped into the bank where he worked. They arranged to meet on a Saturday morning when both of them were free since he said that he too had a problem which he would be glad to share.
Accordingly, Lizzie helped Aunt Annie with some of the chores and then said that she and Geoff were off for a day out together. Aunt Annie, who was hard at work baking gingerbread for a neighbour who then sold the cake, cut into squares, to the stallholders in St John’s Market, passed a hand over her flushed forehead and gave Lizzie a gap-toothed grin. ‘That’s all right, chuck, ’cos I thought I might take a bit of an outing meself, seein’ as it’s such a nice sunny day,’ she said. ‘Myrtle’s asked me if I’ll go with her and the kids to Bootle, to visit her sister Amy what I were in school with. But there’ll be a beef stew and dumplings ready for supper at the usual time so if you want to bring Geoff back, he’ll be welcome. I like young Geoff. He’s what you might call a solid citizen.’
Lizzie laughed and slung the light jacket which she had recently bought from a stall on Paddy’s Market over one shoulder and set off across the kitchen. ‘Thanks, Aunt Annie, Geoff loves to have a meal with us so you can expect us back at the usual time. Have a nice day.’
She left the house at a run for she and Geoff had agreed to meet at the clock tower on Great Homer Street and she would be hard pressed to arrive on time, having slept late that morning. Despite this, however, she reached the clock tower moments before Geoff arrived and naturally pretended she had been waiting for hours.
Geoff grinned. ‘I saw you coming round the corner of Cazneau Street,’ he said triumphantly, ‘so don’t you tell me no stories, young Lizzie.’ He took her arm. ‘Where do you want to go for this here talk? We could have a cup of tea and a bun on Homer, unless you want to go somewhere a bit more exciting? It’s the first really sunny day we’ve had, we might as well take advantage.’
After a short discussion, Lizzie decided that she wanted to have her cake and eat it, so they went to the nearest tea-room and settled themselves into a window table, ordered a pot of tea and two iced buns and waited in silence until their order had been delivered. Geoff’s story must be as sensitive as her own, Lizzie decided, pouring tea for them both into dainty china cups.
The tea-room was crowded but since there was only room in the bay window for one table, the one at which they sat, Lizzie concluded that this was about as private as they could get and, resting her elbows on the table, leaned towards Geoff. ‘Well? Who’s going to start? I never imagine you as having problems,
Geoff, unless you count all those dreadful exams you have to take, that is.’
‘It isn’t exactly my own problem,’ he confessed. ‘It’s – it’s to do with Sid. Do you remember him, Lizzie? He’s the feller who tried to drown me in the canal that time.’
‘Oh, Geoff, you haven’t got mixed up with that awful Sid again, have you?’ Lizzie said, much shocked. ‘He’s a
horrible
feller. I wonder you even speak to him in the street as you pass. I wouldn’t, I’m sure.’
Geoff laughed. ‘Sid’s a reformed character,’ he assured her. ‘Why, he’s gorra decent job and a right cosy little flat above a fishmonger’s shop on Cazneau Street . . .’ And he proceeded to tell Lizzie the story of how he and Reg had met Sid and Evie and about their evening together. ‘But it sounded fishy, the story of her being his cousin,’ he concluded, ‘so I did as Reggie suggested and kept my eyes open every time I was anywhere near Lewis’s. And the fact is, Lizzie, that wherever she may work, it isn’t there. I’ve tried the other big stores, even some of the smart dress shops in that area, but there’s not a sign of her. What’s more, I’ve not seen hide nor hair of Sid and I just can’t make out what he’s playing at. What do
you
think?’