Winnie of the Waterfront (27 page)

When he did he felt as taken aback as Winnie and Peg. The three of them stopped dead in their tracks, eyes wide with astonishment. The eye-catching sign stretched prominently right across the front of their building. On a brilliant white background the words WINNIE’S WATERFRONT CAFÉ stood out in bold black letters.

‘Do you think your suppliers are going to be able to find us now, Peg?’ he asked nonchalantly.

‘They’d have to be blind not to do so,’ she agreed, smiling. ‘Folks coming over on the ferries should be able to see it from the middle of the Mersey!’

It seemed to set the tone of their enterprise. The inside was as clean and uncluttered as their sign. The tables were well-spaced to enable Winnie to move easily between them in her wheelchair, so that whenever necessary she could act as a waitress.

Knowing that a lot of their customers would be dockers, who mightn’t have time to sit down, but might wish to take drinks and food away with them, there was a good-size counter where they could be served speedily. For those who wanted to eat or drink in the café, but didn’t want the formality of sitting down at a table that had a tablecloth on it, there was a wide counter down one wall with backless stools.

The carpenter who had installed all the partitioning made a special tray with deep sides to fit across Winnie’s chair for when she was working as a waitress. It ensured that she had her hands
free
to propel the chair, and yet at the same time would be able to carry drinks and food to the tables or collect dirty crockery and take it back to the kitchen.

‘We seem to have catered for all tastes, and thought of everything,’ Sandy said confidently when they finally opened.

For the first couple of days trade was slow. Winnie was anxious and Peg fretted at the wasted food because she had prepared a mound of sandwiches and cakes in advance.

‘People will flock in once they know we’re here,’ Sandy assured them both.

‘That’s the problem,’ Peg muttered. ‘It seems to be only the dockers who know we’re here.’

‘If people coming off the boats can’t read that sign over the front then they must be blind! You said yourself they should be able to see it when they’re in mid-stream!’

‘Yes, but they don’t know what we have to offer. They might even think it is simply for workmen.’

‘Not much we can do about that,’ Sandy shrugged. ‘The dockers who are coming in must be telling their mates about us, since we are getting more and more of them each day.’

‘True, but we want the general public to come in here as well. The trippers waiting for a boat to New Brighton, or waiting for a tram when they get back. People who’ve come from Manchester or Birmingham and places like that, and are waiting for the Isle of Man boat and gasping for a cuppa. Those are the people we want to get in here,’ Winnie pointed out.

‘So how are we going to do that – drag them in by the scruff of their necks?’ Peg asked.

‘Not exactly, but I do have an idea,’ Winnie said thoughtfully. ‘At the moment we’ve got sandwiches and cakes left over. We don’t want to start selling stale food to our customers, do we, so what about loading them up on the tray that goes on my wheelchair and I’ll mingle with the crowd out there and offer them free samples?’

‘It’s a good idea,’ Sandy agreed, ‘but perhaps we should also get some leaflets printed, so that they know what we are offering and what our prices are. Something like a menu.’

‘That’s going to cost money,’ Winnie protested.

‘Not as much as chucking food away every night. We’re not here to feed the seagulls you know!’

It only took a few days of distributing leaflets and free samples to alert people to what was available at Winnie’s Waterfront Café. After that, the problem was cramming in all the work that had to be done each day.

‘We can’t go on slaving away from seven in the morning until half past ten each night,’ Peg warned them. ‘We’ll kill ourselves if we do that. We’ve got to take on some help.’

‘It won’t hurt us for a month or so,’ Sandy protested.

‘It will if one of us goes sick. We ought to take a couple of people on now so that we can train them up. We need someone in the kitchen doing my job, and at least one waitress out in the café serving the meals.’

‘Winnie is managing splendidly.’

‘I know she is, but she would be better behind the counter when we are really busy. I realise you’ve positioned the tables so that she can wheel herself between them quite easily. Even so, a lot of the women have a habit of putting their shopping bags down beside their chairs and it’s difficult for her to get past sometimes.’

As soon as they solved one problem another one seemed to pop up. By Christmas they had split their day into two shifts. They now had two women in the kitchen helping to prepare food and four women worked on a shift system as waitresses in the café. There was also a woman who came in each day to clean the premises and wash up all the utensils used in the preparation of the food.

‘We’re doing plenty of business, but employing all these people means we’re not making much money,’ Sandy confided in Winnie worriedly. ‘We still haven’t paid Peg back what she spent out on equipment to get us started. After Christmas there’s going to be the rent to pay as well.’

‘Perhaps we should try and think of extra things we can sell that would increase our profit without giving us any more work,’ Winnie suggested.

‘We certainly don’t want to take on any more responsibility,’ Sandy warned.

‘I was thinking more of something like cigarettes that we could stock for resale. Apart from the book-keeping and finding somewhere to stack them within easy reach of whoever happens to be serving on the counter, there wouldn’t be much
extra
work involved. We could also handle newspapers. At least the Liverpool ones.’

‘Both of those sound feasible so we could certainly make some enquiries,’ Sandy agreed. ‘I’m not sure about the papers because there is already a news-seller at the top of the floating roadway and he might think we are encroaching on his territory.’

‘Let’s start with the cigarettes then and see how they go,’ Winnie insisted.

‘We won’t need to take on anyone extra to do that, but I think we will have to go carefully or the staff may start protesting that they are being overworked.’

‘Peg is the one who looks worn out,’ Winnie sighed.

‘We never seem to have any time to ourselves either. We’ve worked non-stop without a break from the week we got married,’ Sandy reminded her.

‘You’re happy, though?’ Winnie asked anxiously.

‘Of course I am! Are you?’

Her answer was to hold out her arms.

‘We’ll have a Saturday night out in New Brighton, even if we have to close down for the night!’ Sandy promised as he lifted her from her chair in a bear hug that left her breathless.

‘On a Saturday! Our busiest night,’ Winnie exclaimed in mock horror. ‘I’m ashamed of you!’

‘Yes, boss, I suppose you are right about that,’ he groaned. ‘What about tonight then? Let’s be spontaneous. Thursday night is the night before payday so everyone is broke. We are not likely to
be
very busy so why don’t you cut along home, get dressed up and we’ll shoot off as soon as the early evening workers have gone home. Go on, I’ll explain to Peg. You can bring my other jacket and a clean shirt back with you and I’ll get changed here.’

Winnie felt as excited as if she was going out on her first date as she made her way up Water Street from the Pier Head. There was a stiff wind blowing and it was uphill so it was hard-going. The pavements were busy with people who had just left work and were hurrying down to the Pier Head to catch a boat back to Wallasey or somewhere on the Wirral. As she reached the junction of Water Street and Dale Street, Winnie found herself being pushed off the pavement and out into the roadway.

Although the roads were well lit they were greasy from recent rain, and before she knew what was happening she was sliding backwards. In her effort to stop herself she swerved sideways and felt a sickening lurch as one of her wheels became trapped in a tramline.

She had a moment of panic because there was absolutely nothing she could do and she could already see a Green Goddess heading towards her. Her only hope was that the driver would see her in time. She felt frightened out of her wits as he clanged his warning bell and seemed to be coming straight for her, but she still couldn’t move out of his way. Desperately she waved her arms in the air, hoping he would manage to stop in time.

The tram seemed to be coming nearer and
nearer,
the ground shaking under its weight. When, with a grinding of metal that almost shattered her eardrums, it finally came to rest, it was so close that it was towering over her like some enormous green monster. So close that she could almost reach out and touch it. She was so terrified by her near escape that tears rolled down her cheeks and she found it difficult to breathe.

People suddenly began rushing towards her to try and help free her wheels. In the end, two burly men lifted her and the chair bodily from the tram track back onto the pavement. She was shaking so much that she could barely thank them. For several minutes she stayed right where they had positioned her, trying to regain her nerve and enough strength to make her way to Skirving Court.

When she started to propel herself along she found her wheelchair was wobbling and tilting in a frightening manner. She stopped, leaning over the side, trying to see what was causing it, and then realised that the wheel that had been caught up in the tramline was very badly buckled.

She wondered which was the best thing to do, push on towards Skirving Court or turn round and go back down to the waterfront.

If she continued on home, she told herself, it would be uphill for a greater part of the way and she might find it impossible to manage without help. However, if she turned round and went back to the Pier Head then Water Street was all downhill. She’d have to be extremely careful, though, because the wheelchair was no longer safe. Her main problem would be to make sure she didn’t
go
very fast in case the wheelchair toppled over.

There would certainly be no outing to New Brighton, she thought glumly. Their first priority now was to get her wheelchair sorted out because she couldn’t manage without it. She only hoped that Sandy knew someone who could repair it fairly quickly.

Chapter Twenty-nine

SANDY WAS TERRIBLY
concerned about Winnie’s misadventure. He couldn’t believe how lucky she was not to have been seriously injured.

‘You are inclined to be reckless when you’re in your chair,’ he told her. ‘I’ve seen you whizzing down Water Street going far faster than is safe.’

‘And who was it that taught me to do that?’ she grinned.

‘It’s a different matter when I’m there holding on to the handle of the chair. I could stop it in a second if there was any danger or anything in the way.’

Winnie knew he was right and that she often went too fast. Usually it was to get across the busy roads. There was so much traffic in the centre of the city, as well as in the dock area, that crossing from one side of the road to the other was often quite dangerous. The road junctions and the crisscross of tramlines were also terrible hazards. Even people crossing over them on foot sometimes had accidents. Women in particular could catch their heels in the tramlines or even get them trapped there.

‘With the road so slippery after all the rain we’ve had, that Green Goddess might not have been able to stop,’ Sandy groaned as he hugged her close. ‘You must have been petrified!’

‘Yes, I was scared stiff,’ Winnie admitted. ‘I’m still shivering,’ she added as she clung on to him and nestled closer in his arms, seeking comfort and reassurance from the warmth of his body. Now that she was safe, the full realisation of how much danger she’d been in hit her anew and filled her with horror.

‘I don’t think we should tell Peg about this,’ Sandy warned. ‘She worries enough about what you get up to in your wheelchair as it is.’

‘We’ll have to tell her something! She’s bound to notice that the wheel is buckled. It rattles and wobbles so much you can hear me coming a mile off.’

‘Yes, we’ll have to tell her that your chair is damaged, but there’s no need to explain all the details about how it happened. Tell her you got the wheel stuck in a tramline and leave it at that.’

Winnie nodded in agreement although she didn’t for one moment think that Peg would be content with such a sketchy account of what had happened. The most important thing at that moment, as far as she was concerned, was to get her wheelchair repaired as quickly as possible.

‘Do you know anyone who can straighten out the wheel?’ she asked anxiously.

‘It depends on how badly it’s damaged,’ Sandy told her. He hunkered down and examined it more carefully. ‘It’s very badly buckled so it may not be possible to straighten it out. It might mean replacing the wheel.’

‘Can you do it?’

Sandy shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. It
needs
to be done properly so that we know it’s safe. We’ll have to get someone to take a look at it.’

‘So where will you take it?’

‘To one of the cycle dealers in Scotland Road, I suppose.’

‘Will you take it in first thing in the morning?’

‘Yes, of course I will. You may as well leave it here at the café tonight.’

‘If I do that then how am I going to get back to Skirving Court? And how will I get back here tomorrow?’

‘We’ll manage! You have your sticks and we can get the tram part of the way.’

‘Ride on a Green Goddess!’ Winnie shuddered. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever trust one of those ever again after what happened tonight,’ she shivered. ‘It was like some great monster coming closer and closer.’

Sandy wrapped his arms around her protectively. ‘Come on, it stopped in time, it didn’t hurt you, you’re quite safe now.’ He kissed her gently. ‘Are we going to have a night out, like we planned?’

Winnie shook her head. ‘Not tonight. I don’t feel like it after what has happened!’

Sandy frowned. ‘Come on!’ he urged. ‘It will do you good.’