Winnie of the Waterfront (12 page)

For weeks Winnie suffered his taunts and jibes and practical jokes. Then the day he laughed at her because she hadn’t enough strength in her arms to propel her chair up the incline in the yard infuriated her so much that she swung the chair round and drove it straight at him.

For one moment he stood his ground, his mouth wide open in surprise, then as she hit him he dropped onto the floor right in front of her wheels and stayed there. Winnie screamed with fright.

‘I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him,’ she sobbed as she struggled to move the chair away from where he was lying prone on the floor after she’d collided with him.

A crowd gathered and Bob Flowers came rushing to help her. As he reached her side, Gerry Heal sprang up from the floor, waving his arms and screaming like a banshee.

The shock, combined with the relief at finding that Gerry Heal was unhurt, was too much for Winnie. She collapsed in a sobbing heap, and nothing Bob or Gladys or anyone else could say or do seemed to console her.

Chapter Twelve

BY THE TIME
Bob Flowers was approaching fourteen and ready to leave the Holy Cross Orphanage, Winnie Malloy had established herself and had no need to fear anyone.

Because Bob had watched over her and championed her, she had eventually become accepted by everyone there. No one attempted to play tricks on her any more because she was in a wheelchair. Instead there was always someone ready and willing to help her. Whether it was to carry her and her chair up and down stairs or steps, to give her a push up one of the steep slopes, or to manoeuvre her chair around some awkward corner, there was always someone prepared to give her a hand.

At mealtimes, more often than not she had to decline to move straight to the front of the queue.

‘No, thank you, I’ll take my turn like the rest of you have to do,’ she would say with a grateful smile.

With the exception of Sister Hortense, all the nuns had grown to love her and admired the stoical way she dealt with her affliction. She was bright and sharp at lessons and was often chosen to read out loud to the others because of her pleasant voice. She knew her Catechism from start
to
finish long before she was confirmed.

She was polite and eager to help in whatever way she could, and, as time passed, no one seemed to mind that her wheelchair took up space or that she needed help to get up and down stairs.

Only Sister Hortense found fault with everything she did. She hadn’t liked Winnie from the moment she had first met her. In fact, Winnie reflected, life would be perfect if it wasn’t for Sister Hortense. The nun had never forgotten having to push her all the way to the orphanage in the contraption that Winnie’s father had made. That, coupled with the unfortunate accident involving the commode, had sealed Winnie’s fate for ever in her eyes.

There was also the added irritation about Winnie’s hair. Even though she had originally shorn it so short that Winnie’s scalp looked and felt like a hedgehog’s back, in a matter of a few months her head had once more been covered with lustrous, tight black curls.

If anything, they had made her winsome little face look prettier than ever. The next time, when she had wanted to actually shave Winnie’s head, Sister Theresa had been the one who objected.

‘Leave the poor child alone,’ she had admonished. ‘If the good Lord had wanted her to be bald as a coot then he would have arranged it without any help from you.’

‘A head of curls like that is a distraction to the other children and not seemly,’ Sister Hortense argued.

‘As long as they don’t hang down lower than
her
ears she is keeping to the rules that have been laid down for us to follow,’ Sister Theresa insisted. ‘It is not for us to question the Holy Mother’s ruling,’ she added as she piously crossed herself.

Sister Hortense knew when she was beaten, but it rankled and she was constantly finding fault with Winnie and her behaviour. ‘She is far too friendly with the boys,’ she complained to the rest of the nuns assembled in the common room. ‘Especially with Bob Flowers. The moment she goes into the yard at midday he is there beside her.’

‘He is only carrying out his duties to see that no one interferes with the child’s chair.’

‘I can understand that might have been necessary when she first arrived here, but not now. Her wheelchair is no longer a novel sight. After the punishments doled out to those who teased her during her first few weeks, everyone else has learned their lesson.’

‘Bob Flowers prides himself on keeping order since he has been made Head Boy,’ Sister Theresa pointed out.

‘He’s over zealous when it comes to protecting Winnie Malloy. I think they both need careful watching,’ Sister Hortense added darkly.

Sister Theresa bristled. It was her responsibility to ensure that a high moral standard was maintained at the orphanage, and she regarded Sister Hortense’s comments as a slur on her ability to do so.

‘Winnie Malloy is never alone with him,’ she retorted sharply. ‘Gladys Wells, Maisie West or
Babs
Wilson are always close at hand.’

Sister Hortense fingered her rosary. ‘I hope you never live to regret the trust you place in all three of those girls,’ she muttered ominously. ‘I think it is high time they were separated. I also think Bob Flowers should be told not to talk to them.’

‘Another few months and he won’t be able to talk to them,’ Sister Theresa pointed out. ‘He will be fourteen in August and he will have to leave the orphanage whether he wants to do so or not. Surely we can let him enjoy the company of those he likes during his final weeks with us!’

Winnie felt there was a desolate void in her life after Bob Flowers’ last day at the orphanage.

Although she had never wanted to come to Holy Cross, and for the first few months had hated every moment and cried herself to sleep most nights because she was so unhappy, she had gradually accepted her fate. Much of this had been due to Bob Flowers. His intervention when she had been teased or bullied because of her disability had kept her safe. She was deeply grateful and as time passed they talked to each other more and more. In some ways it helped to overcome the loneliness she felt at losing Sandy Coulson’s friendship. He told her about his own background and how he came to be in Holy Cross, and he listened to her story with quiet understanding.

His story was more heartbreaking than her own. He had no idea who his father was and his mother had abandoned him when he was only a few weeks old.

‘She left me on the stone steps outside here, with a note pinned onto my shawl. It said that she couldn’t look after me because she’d been turned out by her parents and had no money.’

‘And you’ve been here ever since?’

Bob shook his head. ‘No, they found some foster parents to look after me because I was too young for the nuns to take into care.’

‘So why didn’t you stay with them?’

Bob sighed. ‘They fell out with each other, and when I was about six my foster dad bunked off. My foster mam tried to look after me, but when her money got short she went on the game. One night there was a fight and someone was knifed. The police looked into what was going on and said I needed to be taken back into care. Since I’d been farmed out from the Holy Cross Orphanage they brought me back here.’

‘So where will you go when you get out?’

‘I don’t know. They arrange for you to go into a hostel and find you a job, and you’ve got to stay in both for the first six months.’

‘After that?’

He looked thoughtful. ‘Depends on how much I like the job, I suppose,’ he grinned.

‘What do you really want to do?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It will take a while to get used to living in the world again. We’re so shut away here that none of us have any idea what is going on outside.’

‘There was a war on when I came here,’ Winnie said reflectively. ‘My dad was a soldier and he was reported “Missing, presumed dead” after the Battle
of
the Somme in 1917, but I’ve never believed that he really is dead.’

‘Perhaps he will come for you one day. The war’s been over for ages,’ Bob told her.

Winnie shook her head, her dark curls dancing round her serious face. ‘I think they were probably right; he must be dead or he would have been here for me by now.’

‘He might still be in the army. Would you like me to see if I can find out?’

Her eyes widened. ‘How would you do that?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps start by going to the house where you used to live and ask the people there if they know anything.’

‘We only had two rooms in Carswell Court. We moved there after my dad was called up into the army because Mam couldn’t pay the rent where we were living in Elias Street.’

‘Well, it would be a start. I could try both places. Where did he work before he went into the army?’

‘He was a timekeeper down on the docks.’

‘So they may know what has happened to him. If he has returned home then he’d go there to get his old job back, wouldn’t he?’

‘He’d come and get me if he was back,’ Winnie said stubbornly

‘He mightn’t know where to look for you.’

‘He’d ask Father Patrick at St Francis’s. He knows I’m here.’

‘Let’s make sure we don’t lose touch with each other,’ Bob told her. ‘I like you a lot, Winnie. I’d like to help you when you get out of here.’

She smiled, feeling a glow of happiness at his
words.
‘It will be ages yet, you’ll have forgotten all about me by then.’

‘No I won’t! In fact, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. As soon as I am able to change my job for a better one then I’ll find somewhere for us both to live when you come out. How’s that?’

‘You’d do that for me?’ The warm glow returned and this time it felt as if her whole body was blushing as well as her face.

He held out his hand. ‘It’s a promise. How long is it before you leave here?’

‘Ages yet! I’m not fourteen until May 1922!’ She felt the pressure of his broad, firm hand as he grasped hold of hers and solemnly shook it.

‘Good. We’re agreed about that, then,’ he said enthusiastically, his brown eyes shining. ‘I’ll write to let you know when I find somewhere for us to live. I’ll keep in touch by sending you a letter at Christmas, and on your birthday as well if you tell me the date of it.’

‘May third.’

‘And next May you’ll be twelve?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You’ll have to stay in a hostel that they send you to for six months,’ Bob frowned, ‘so that means I’ve got until November 1922 to find us somewhere to live. It sounds an awful long time away, doesn’t it?’

‘Long enough for you to have forgotten all about me,’ Winnie sighed. ‘By then you will have left Liverpool and be sailing round the world, or have gone off to Australia to make your fortune.’ She tried to smile as she said it, but her
voice
was husky and there were tears prickling her eyes.

Holy Cross Orphanage no longer felt like home to Winnie after Bob Flowers left. She was restless, longing for the day when she too would be able to leave there. She was looking forward so much to having a life that was not confined within the ugly, forbidding building where everything was timed by the clock and revolved around lessons and prayers.

Gladys was older than Winnie and she would be leaving within a few months. Maisie was already dreaming about her own future and making plans to find her family, if they were still in Liverpool. Babs was the youngest of them all and she wouldn’t be leaving until after Winnie did, but she seemed content that things were like that.

‘I’d like to stay on here for ever,’ she told them dreamily.

‘You mean become a nun?’

‘I don’t think they’d let me do that.’

‘Why ever not? You never do anything wrong; you were confirmed when you were eight and you’ve probably never committed a sin since then.’

‘I might live a pure life but my dad was a murderer. He knifed a man in a pub brawl and the man died. That’s why I was taken away from home and put in here.’

‘You’ve never breathed a word about this all the time I’ve known you!’ Winnie said in amazement.

‘I try to forget about it. In fact, I have, more or
less.
Me mam went off with some fella right after the fight and no one knew where they’d gone.’

‘And what happened to your dad?’

‘Slung him in the Waldorf Astoria, didn’t they.’

‘Where?’

‘Walton Jail! Haven’t you ever heard it called that before?’

Winnie shook her head. ‘Is he still in there?’

‘Should be. They gave him life. They’d have hung him if they could, but some of the evidence didn’t tie up or something.’

‘Couldn’t that mean he was innocent?’

‘I doubt it! He was too quick with his fists. Even when I could hardly walk he’d knock me over if I got in his way. Me mam was black and blue most of the time, that’s why she cleared off with another fella.’

‘Why didn’t she take you with her?’

‘Don’t suppose he wanted to be saddled with another man’s kid. I don’t blame him, especially when he knew the kid’s father was a murderer.’

Chapter Thirteen

FOR THE FIRST
couple of weeks after Bob Flowers left the orphanage, Winnie waited expectantly for a letter from him. She knew he had moved into a hostel and that he was working in a factory, but apart from the fact that she was sure he must still be in Liverpool she had no real idea where he was.

When he had promised to keep in touch she thought he’d meant that he would write to her and let her know where he was living and working, and how he was adjusting to life outside the orphanage.

At least she’d had some experience about what it was like out in the real world, but for him it would be very strange. Apart from the few years when he’d been fostered, Bob had been in the orphanage since he was a baby. He had no experience of shops or handling money, or of traffic or any of the things most people were used to in their everyday lives and simply took in their stride. Perhaps he was so overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all that he hadn’t managed to find the time to write a letter.