‘I hate this weather because it gyps up my chilblains something cruel,’ Lizzie said, as they made their way along the crowded pavement. ‘It isn’t too bad while you’re out in the cold, because you’re so numb you can’t feel anything anyway, but when you get back in the warm and the blood starts flowing, ooh, isn’t it agony?’
‘Do you get ’em on your hands?’ Dolly enquired. ‘I get ’em on me wrists something awful. But it ain’t long to Christmas and me mam’s promised me a fur muff for me Christmas gift. I’ll wear me old woollen gloves underneath it, of course, but we’re hopin’ to get rid of the worst chilblains wi’ that. What are you gettin’ for Christmas, queen, or is it to be a surprise?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie said rather guardedly. Usually, she and Aunt Annie discussed Christmas presents in great detail, but this year her aunt had not been so forthcoming. Knowing she had a little more money to spare, Lizzie was quite hopeful that her aunt might buy her something to wear. A new dance dress was too much to expect, she supposed, but perhaps a length of material might be forthcoming. She was quite looking forward to Christmas since she had decided that, at a time of goodwill to all men, she might expect a softening in their attitude from Geoff and Clem. Several times she had been sorely tempted to go round to the YMCA or to hang about under Houghton Bridge. She missed Geoff a lot but rather to
her surprise it was Clem who was most constantly in her thoughts. She desperately wanted to heal the breach between them but was at a loss how to do it while he remained aboard
The Liverpool Rose
since it would be only luck which would take her to the canal when the boat was berthed there.
Christmas, however, was the ideal time for him to approach her to try to end their quarrel. Geoff, too, must surely consider the festive season a good enough reason for visiting number nine once more? So she was looking forward to Christmas on several different counts. Only the previous evening, Aunt Annie, who was a lot shrewder than most people gave her credit for, had suggested a Christmas party for those friends who did not have proper homes of their own – and anyone else who liked to come along. Lizzie had interpreted this, rightly she was sure, as a tactful suggestion that she should get in touch with Geoff and possibly with Clem also. The trouble was, she had gone down to the canal a couple of days previously only to find it completely iced over, save for a narrow channel kept clear by the constant passage of boats. She also noticed that there were fewer boats than usual moored alongside the bank, and those that were there were icing in even as she watched. She imagined that trade on the canals must slow down considerably in such weather and realised, with a stab of dismay, that finding Clem, let alone making it up with him, was not going to be easy.
‘Lizzie! Don’t go off in a dream, gal, I were askin’ you whether you’d seen that feller you goes around with lately? He’s at the YMCA, ain’t he? Only my pal Andy works in the bank, same as your friend, and he says he’s been awful down – your friend I mean.’
Lizzie jerked herself back to the present with difficulty. ‘No, I’ve not seen Geoff for a couple of months,’ she said briefly. ‘We quarrelled. It was daft, a really stupid quarrel, but I’ve not seen him since.’
‘But you still like him, don’t you?’ Dolly said shrewdly. ‘Why not go round to his place, queen? Christmas is a time for makin’ up differences.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ve quarrelled with me two best friends and the honest truth is, both quarrels were my fault, not theirs. So I’ll be doing a deal of apologising in the next few days.’ She smiled at Dolly, her heart lifting as she put the decision into words. What a fool she had been! But soon her lonely time would be over, and she would be back on good terms with Geoff and Clem once more. Taking both hands to the heavy canvas bag of groceries, she began to sing, carolling out the words at the top of her voice: ‘ “Ain’t she sweet, See her walkin’ down the street, And I ask you very confidentially, Ain’t she sweet”.’
‘Well, I never!’ Aunt Annie, sitting before the fire in her favourite chair, with the
Echo
spread out on her lap, stabbed with one fat finger at the paragraph she was reading. ‘You know old Arnold Sharpe, the ironmonger on Heyworth Street, the one who married a gal half his age? He’s been and gone and turned his toes up! Now that sly little trollop is a rich widow woman, and much good may it do her.’
Lizzie, standing at the table rolling out pastry for a pie, stiffened, though her hands continued steadily with their work. So Dolly and the doctor had been right. Mr Sharpe was dead and Flossie was indeed a widow, though judging from what Dolly had told Lizzie, most certainly not a rich one. Well, it served her right for cheating on the old boy, Lizzie told
herself, carefully lifting the round of pastry in both hands and tenderly placing it over the apples in the dish. She trimmed it to fit, thumbed it up round the edges, stabbed the middle a couple of times to let the steam escape and carried the apple pie over to the oven. With her back towards Aunt Annie, she said carefully: ‘Poor old feller. Dolly Stewart told me he were poorly and not expected to live – he’s a relative of hers, did you know? – but I didn’t think it would be this soon.’ She did not bother to correct Aunt Annie’s assumption that Flossie was now a rich widow since that part of her friend’s story might have been wishful thinking. After all, Dolly had not seen the will, had only heard tell of it through her second cousin, once removed, who stood to gain substantially if the story were true.
‘Oh, well, I shouldn’t grudge her. I had a deal of pleasure from me own little inheritance after me old aunt died. In fact, though I said it were a little inheritance because I didn’t want no one gettin’ ideas, it weren’t that little, queen. It’ll keep us comfortable for a year or two yet.’ Aunt Annie grinned across at Lizzie as her niece straightened up and closed the oven door. ‘Now suppose we have a little chat about Christmas presents, eh?’
A week later the news was out. Not that it appeared in the
Echo,
but the gossips were as good as a newspaper any time, Lizzie told herself, listening to the mutters and stifled giggles as she waited her turn to be served in the corner shop. Behind the counter, old Mrs Chadwick dispensed gossip – and received it – with almost as much speed as she sold sweets and newspapers. Now, she was leaning towards a skinny old woman with a seamed face and bedraggled grey
hair and speaking in what was no doubt meant to be a confidential tone which, in fact, could clearly be heard by every customer in the shop. ‘Mrs Grant in Heyworth Street were tellin’ me all about the will reading. It seemed old Arnold Sharpe was as sharp as his name, ’cos he put one of these here new-fangled ‘tectives on her trail and the feller caught her red-handed a-carryin’ on wi’ a seaman, most probably a black ’un, in the jigger right at the back of their house. Would you credit it? Talk about shameless, and her with her skirt over her head . . .’
‘What did Flossie say when they telled her?’ the old crone said, gnashing her toothless gums with pleasurable excitement. ‘Oh, I never did like that little tart – the times she’s ordered me out of her shop, you wouldn’t believe, sayin’ I were dirty! There’s nowt dirtier than an ironmongery, I used to tell her, but she’d bundle me out all the same. Whiles I were tellin’ her my money was as good as anyone’s.’
‘So who’s got the money then?’ the woman behind the old crone put in eagerly. ‘And wharrabout the law, eh? I thought a feller had to leave his money to his wife.’
‘Ah, that’s a common mistake folks make,’ Mrs Chadwick said wisely. ‘The money’s gone to his daughter Millie, as it happens, and she telled me that her father had pinned the detective’s report to his will, just so there wouldn’t be no argy-bargy like. Yes?’
Finding herself suddenly addressed, Lizzie fished a piece of paper out of her pocket and consulted it. ‘Quarter of tea, quarter of sugar, and a half of rich tea biscuits, please, Mrs Chadwick,’ she said glibly. ‘So what’ll happen now, Mrs C? Doesn’t Mrs Sharpe get
anything
?’
‘Norra penny,’ the older woman said. She did not say it unpleasantly but as a simple statement of fact. ‘I feel quite sorry for her in a way except you could say she got her comeuppance, like. Anything else, chuck?’
‘No, that’s the lot,’ Lizzie said. Mrs Chadwick took her money and handed over her purchases. Lizzie made her way out of the shop and back towards the court. Her mind was seething with questions. Would this mean the end of the affair between her uncle and Flossie Sharpe? Surely it would! For a start, shame would make Flossie move as far away from Heyworth Street as she possibly could, and she would have to get work of some sort just to keep body and soul together. The knowledge that it was her own behaviour which had brought her low was no comfort, either. Come to that, the knowledge that it was also Percy Grey’s fault would surely make her bitter towards him. Considerably heartened by this thought, Lizzie went under the arch and into the court, thinking thankfully that she would enjoy Christmas even more, knowing that her uncle was no longer sneaking out of the house to go to Flossie.
As she approached the door of number nine, however, a voice hailed her. It was Sally, wrapped up against the cold as thoroughly as Lizzie was herself. Clouds of steam surrounded her open mouth as she called her friend’s name. ‘Lizzie! Come here a mo, I want to talk to you.’
One glance at her friend’s bright eyes and pink cheeks was enough to tell her that Sally, too, had heard the news. ‘It’s all right, Sal,’ she said quickly, casting an anxious glance at number nine; the last thing she wanted was for Aunt Annie to share her own recent knowledge. ‘I heard, at Chadwick’s. Old man Sharpe’s slipped off his perch and there’s nowt but bad words
for Flossie in the will. Isn’t that what you were going to tell me? Only no one knows who the other man was – is – so least said, soonest mended.’
‘No! Is that a fact?’ Sally tucked her arm through Lizzie’s and led her towards her own door. ‘Well, my mam said Flossie were on the game before she caught old Sharpe, so perhaps she’ll go back to that. There’s plenty of customers down by the docks for a bottle-blonde with a sockin’ great bust like Flossie’s.’ She giggled. ‘No, I was going to show you the dress me mam bought me this morning. Ooh, Liz, it’s ever so lovely! It’s what they call a Princess dress – you know, with a layered skirt and lots of soft, unpressed pleats, and the back hem’s longer than the front. It’s georgette, with a square neck and no sleeves, but there’s a lovely gauzy scarf to wrap around your shoulders if you feel cold. It’s the new colour – dusky pink – with a bunch of deep purple violets pinned to one shoulder. Oh, Liz, wait till you see it!’
Lizzie followed her friend into her parlour and was soon admiring the new dress, though as she pointed out, it was so striking it would be hard to make it look different for future occasions.
‘Oh, what does that matter? It’s so pretty I wouldn’t mind wearin’ it a dozen times over the next few weeks,’ Sally said exultantly, while her mother came bustling in with a tray of tea and a plate of smoking hot buttered crumpets. ‘Are you comin’ to the Grafton this evenin’, Liz, or should we go to the Rialto? I know I shouldn’t really wear it before Christmas, only Mam won’t mind, will you, our mam? What’ll you wear, Lizzie?’
The discussion over what she would wear and which ballroom they should frequent absorbed both girls to the extent that Lizzie almost forgot that Aunt
Annie would be waiting patiently for the packet of tea to arrive so that she might have a cup. She was reminded when her hostess offered her a refill and flew out of her chair, a hand going to her mouth. ‘Lord above, me aunt’s waiting for me to bring her back the messages so we can have a cuppa ourselves,’ she gasped. ‘Thanks for the tea, Mrs Bradshaw, but I’d best be getting back.’
As she hurried across the court once more, she reflected that though the interlude with her friends had not been planned, it was probably a blessing. She had managed to push Uncle Perce’s behaviour to the back of her mind and now she would not be thinking about Flossie and her fate as she and her aunt enjoyed a cup of tea and some rich tea biscuits together. It was far better, she told herself, pushing open the door and calling out to her aunt she was back, that she simply stopped thinking about Flossie altogether. She would no longer be interested in a married man who could not possibly support her in the manner to which she had become accustomed during her marriage with old man Sharpe. In fact, Lizzie told herself as she entered the kitchen, this was an excellent excuse for going round to the YMCA and telling Geoff that her troubles in that direction were over . . . and asking him to forgive her for all the nasty things she’d said. Why, I’ll go round there the first chance I get, she vowed, arranging the biscuits on a plate.
Warmed by her decision and by the fact that she need no longer worry in case her aunt discovered Uncle Perce’s perfidy, she made the tea then cut two thick slices off the new loaf and sat down before the fire to toast them, telling her aunt gaily that they would soon be as fat as Sausage and Mash, what with hot buttered toast, tea and biscuits.
Aunt Annie, flushed from the warmth of the fire and by hot tea, said that she was a good deal fatter than either Sausage or Mash without the help of buttered toast, and the two women settled down in perfect amity to enjoy the unaccustomed treat.
‘Geoff! There’s a lady to see you.’
He looked up from his work. He and Reggie were in the shed, attached to the back of the YMCA. They were making skates from off-cuts of wood which Geoff had obtained from a friend at a local timber merchant’s and hurrying to complete them before the frost relaxed its iron grip on the land. Geoff was in the act of attaching the blade to the base of the second skate, but when he saw who his visitor was, he stopped work, smiled rather stiffly and beckoned her in. ‘Lizzie! Long time, no see, as they say. How have you been keeping?’ He walked towards her, knowing that he sounded stiff and aware, as one always is, that his face would wear a guarded look. After all, the last time they’d met they had quarrelled and since then Lizzie had not made the slightest attempt to get in touch with him. ‘What’s up?’