They had found a frozen pond easily enough and spent a glorious day taking turns on the skates which, despite being home-made, proved to be both sturdy and reliable. Neither Lizzie nor Sally had ever skated before, but Geoff and Reggie were patient and long-suffering since at first both girls fell over frequently, dragging their instructors down with them. By the end of the day, however, they had got the knack and were able to circle the pond with a degree of skill. In fact, at one point they formed a human chain across the ice with the girls, in their shoes, forming a centre pivot while the boys, using the skates, whizzed round the perimeter faster and faster, until Reggie lost his grip on Geoff’s hand, allowing him to career off by himself, ending up in a tangled heap amongst the bulrushes which grew against the bank. By then, it had been growing dusk, and when they had rescued Geoff and made sure he was unhurt they had judged it time to make for the city once more, and went home in great good fellowship, almost falling asleep on the back seat of the bus.
Right now Lizzie and Sally turned into Burlington Street. With Christmas only a couple of days away the dances grew livelier and more festive, and because the girls were popular with their fellow workers neither had lacked for a partner all evening. None of
them, Sally assured her friend, were as nice or amusing as Geoff and Reggie, though.
‘I’m surprised you didn’t click, Lizzie,’ she remarked as they entered the court. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether you even
try
to gerra feller, and it ain’t as if you’re serious wi’ that Geoff because you telled me weeks ago you weren’t. Wharrabout the feller who wore that little knitted cap? He were keen, I could tell.’
‘I’m not really interested in anyone right now,’ Lizzie said evasively. ‘Night, Sal. See you tomorrow.’ She headed for the front door of number nine and was actually beginning to ascend the steps when she stopped short. ‘Damn and damn and damn!’ She had promised Aunt Annie that she would nip along to Paddy’s Market before the stalls closed and pick up a chamber pot from the man who sold such things, Aunt Annie having mysteriously broken her own utensil the previous day. Lizzie had done just that, but had left the pot at the home of a friend who lived above a bicycle shop on the Scottie, meaning to get off the tram a few stops early to reclaim her property. The trouble was, the dance had been such a success and such fun that her errand had clean gone from her mind. She now hesitated on the step, wondering whether to go back and collect the Jeremiah or whether to leave it for tonight and fetch it in the morning, before she went to work.
It was very dark and quiet in the court, the paving stones gleaming silver with frost and not a soul about to help her solve her dilemma. Undecided, she began to walk slowly towards the arch and was just about to re-enter Burlington Street when she heard a door open very softly behind her. Glancing back, she saw a large male figure – undoubtedly Uncle Perce –
emerging from number nine. He went carefully down the steps and set off in the direction of the two lavatories which stood at the end of the court, with the drinking water tap between them. Feeling horribly guilty, for she knew her uncle would not normally have visited the lavatory in the middle of the night but would have made use of his chamber pot, Lizzie shrank back into the deep shadow of the arch. To her surprise, however, her uncle did not go into either lavatory, but merely bent over the tap for a moment. She heard the slow trickle of water and then he was walking back towards her, half crouching, in a very peculiar way.
He must have got awful stomach ache – but why didn’t he go into the lavvy? Lizzie asked herself. Then her uncle turned abruptly about, almost running to the nearest lavatory, going inside and shutting the door softly. Lizzie frowned. This was very odd. Moving as noiselessly as she could, she tiptoed towards the privies, taking a diagonal line rather than following the path, so that she might dodge into the shadow of the nearest house should her uncle suddenly emerge. She was wearing her thick, dark winter coat, with her golden head swathed in a navy blue headscarf. If she kept the pale oval of her face turned away from him, she should be invisible amongst the deep shadows.
She had almost reached the door of the privy into which her uncle had dived when she heard the soft and breathy mumble of a voice. For a moment she thought that Uncle Perce must be singing to himself, then realised there were two voices, one deeper than the other. She frowned, listening hard, but could not make out so much as a word and finally concluded that someone else had occupied the left-hand privy
and the two of them were conversing, as they did . . . well, whatever they had gone into the privy to do.
She was about to turn away when a horrid thought occurred to her. Suppose it was Flossie in the left-hand privy? The cold was biting into her face now, making her aware that though her boots were stout enough, her feet would soon be thoroughly chilled and there was nothing worse than having cold feet in bed. But having begun to suspect who her uncle’s companion was, she knew she could not go quietly off indoors. She would have to wait and see who emerged – and where they went furthermore.
She had a long wait, or at least it seemed a long wait to Lizzie for she had no watch on which to check the time passing. She guessed it was a good ten or fifteen minutes before her uncle came out, closing the privy door quickly behind him and, to Lizzie’s horror, not taking the normal path away from the privies but doing as she had done, walking close to the houses on the left-hand side and then cutting across to his own front door. Lizzie had held her breath as her uncle passed within six inches of her, but he was clearly concentrating on making as little noise as possible and had not so much as glanced in her direction. Lizzie waited for a moment, wondering whether to go over to the privies and see whether one, or both were locked, but finally decided against it. She was terribly cold and reasoned that if her uncle was so mad about Flossie Sharpe that he was prepared to meet her in a privy, of all places, then there was little she could do.
Lizzie waited until she was sure that her uncle would be back in bed and then set off across the court and slid her key into the lock of number nine. But to her surprise it would not turn and then she realised that Uncle Perce had not bothered to lock the door
behind him. I believe that second voice was just a sort of echo, Lizzie concluded, opening the door noiselessly and slipping inside. I’ve wronged the old devil, that’s what I’ve done. It’s clear as daylight: he’s got a bad stomach upset so he left the door unlocked for his next trip out to the privy. Oh, if only I’d remembered that chamber pot!
As she climbed the stairs, a clock began to strike the half-hour and she was glad she had not returned to her friend’s house to pick up the chamber pot. She had not realised how late it had grown and even if Mrs Batchelor had not already gone to bed, she would not have welcomed a visitor at past midnight. Lizzie sat down on her bed and began to tug off her boots, then stopped short as she became aware that there were sounds coming from the room beneath hers. She could hear Aunt Annie’s voice, peevish and complaining, and Uncle Perce’s too, apparently telling her aunt to stop moaning and go back to sleep. Which is all the sympathy she’ll get from him, Lizzie thought crossly. Oh, hell and damnation! I suppose they’ve both ate something bad and Aunt Annie’s got a stomach ache as well and their chamber pot’s bust so they’re having to go down to the lav in the court. Lord, shan’t I be in trouble tomorrow!
Presently, her guess was proved right; she heard Aunt Annie’s feet thump on to the floor of the bedroom, heard her aunt stumbling down the stairs and struggling with the front door. Uncle Perce had left it unlocked but poor Aunt Annie did not know this and was trying to undo an already unlocked door before she could reach her objective.
Guiltily, Lizzie tiptoed over to the window. She knelt by the sill, looking out at the scene below her, dimly illumined by the court’s one gas lamp. She
noticed, with some surprise, that someone had put what appeared to be a pile of bricks, close by the route to the lavatories, and wondered why she had not noticed it earlier. Then her attention was caught by her aunt emerging from the house, descending the steps and setting off at a stumbling run across the paving stones. She was level with the pile of bricks when her feet suddenly seemed to go from under her. She made desperate attempts to keep her balance, arms flailing, and then went down heavily, her head striking the pile of bricks with a thud which Lizzie could hear even through the glass of the window pane.
She gave a stifled shriek and leapt to her feet. She ran across to her bedroom door when something stopped her. She stood for a moment, one hand to her hammering heart, and listened. Uncle Perce was descending the stairs, wheezing and muttering. He too must have been watching her aunt’s progress through his bedroom window on the floor below her own.
For one awful moment, Lizzie wished herself anywhere but here. But her body, it seemed, had already made up its mind to go and do what it could for her aunt. She found herself wrenching open the door and running down the stairs, only moments after her uncle had crashed out through the front door. He went straight across to where his wife lay and bent over her. Lizzie heard another thump and before she could stop herself had run across the court and was grabbing Uncle Perce by the arm. He turned and stared up at her, his congested face looking almost black in the gas light. He still had a hand on either side of her aunt’s head and Lizzie, dropping to her knees beside him and grabbing her uncle’s arm, put a
hand out towards the still figure, saying in a hissing whisper: ‘What have you done, Uncle Perce? Oh, what have you done to me poor aunt?’
Uncle Perce stared at her as though he could not believe his eyes. ‘What do you mean, what have I done?’ he said truculently. ‘I ain’t done nothin’ . . . Don’t you have no eyes in your head? She slipped on the ice and crashed into them bleedin’ bricks what some idiot’s left right agin the pathway to the lavvies. I were in me room when it happened but I heard the crash and come runnin’ to see what were up.’
Lizzie took her hand from her uncle’s arm and looked uncertainly at him. ‘Is – is she dead?’ she quavered. She knew what she had seen – and heard – but suddenly realised that she was in a horribly dangerous position. Uncle Perce was a big, strong man, and could easily wring her neck with one twist of his huge docker’s hands. She must pretend to accept his explanation until she could get away from him and tell someone in authority what had really happened.
‘I dunno if she’s dead or not, I’m not a bleedin’ doctor . . .’ Uncle Perce was beginning, when another voice broke across his. A woman had approached them so quietly that neither Uncle Perce, nor Lizzie noticed her until she spoke, and Lizzie realised that she was hidden from the newcomer by her uncle’s bulk.
‘It worked like a dream, me love,’ Flossie Sharpe said exultantly. ‘If she ain’t dead yet she’ll freeze to death afore mornin’, so we might as well . . .’
‘Shut your bleedin’ gob, Floss,’ Uncle Perce said urgently, but it was too late. Lizzie was already turning away, prepared to run, when her uncle grabbed at her leg. ‘If you say a word to a livin’ soul
about tonight’s work, your life ain’t worth a groat,’ he hissed, the words more frightening for the calm and matter of fact way in which he spoke. ‘Since you know so much, you’ll have to go,’ he chuckled ominously. ‘I’ll tell folk you ran down the stairs too fast when you heard me shout for help ’cos your aunt were hurt, shot through the front door and broke your neck on the paving. Yes, that’ll do nicely. Or you could be found floatin’ in the Mersey . . .’
He shifted his grip on Lizzie’s ankle, clearly intending to bring her down with a crash on the paving stones, but she was too quick for him. She wrenched herself out of his grasp and ran towards the arch of the court with no other thought in her mind than to escape. Where she would go and how she would behave, she had not the foggiest notion; all she wanted to do was to put as much distance between herself and Uncle Perce as possible. She felt terribly guilty that she had not remained to make sure Aunt Annie really was dead, but she had little choice. Percy and his paramour would think nothing of killing both her aunt and herself if their own lives were at stake, as indeed they must be while Lizzie lived to tell what she knew.
As she darted into Burlington Street, instinctively turning left and seeing, out of the corner of her eye, that both Flossie and Uncle Perce were hot on her heels, she thanked God she had had no time to undress and was still warmly and darkly clad in winter coat, headscarf and boots, to say nothing of her black woollen gloves. If she could find a bolthole and stay very still, she would be invisible to her pursuers. Fear and exertion were warming her now, but how long could this last? If she did not find help soon, or if her pursuers caught her, then she was in an unhappy situation indeed.
She had passed the entrances to two courts as she ran, glancing sideways into both but not daring to enter them. There might be a light on, someone might still be awake, but there was no guarantee she would not simply find herself trapped with Uncle Perce and Flossie barring the exit and she herself perhaps knocked unconscious before she could even scream. The courts were no use then. She reached Vauxhall Road and hesitated for a second . . . which way, which way . . . then glanced back. Flossie was twenty yards behind her, though Uncle Perce had dropped well back, one hand to his side. Lizzie prayed that he had a stitch like a spear stabbing him and ran on, heading like an arrow now for the Houghton Bridge and the canal.
She could see the bulk of the sugar refinery against the clear, star-spangled sky and ran on, feeling the first surge of real hope. Out in the street, with the gas lamp’s glow revealing her every movement, Flossie did not have to tackle her but merely to follow. If she could reach the unlit towpath beside the canal, however, she might well find either help or a hiding place. She knew enough about the canal barges from talking to Clem to know that, should an intruder step aboard a boat, the crew would be instantly awake. Explanations would be difficult but by no means impossible. In fact, once she roused people who would listen to her story, she imagined Flossie and Uncle Perce would make themselves scarce. In the light of day, they could put forward lies about Aunt Annie’s death, say that Lizzie had been dreaming, was over-imaginative and disliked her uncle, but in the pitch dark, with Lizzie so clearly distressed, no one was likely to hand her over to a man claiming to be her uncle. Flossie would simply disappear because
it would not do for her presence at the scene of Aunt Annie’s ‘accident’ to be made public.