Winnie of the Waterfront (7 page)

Grace didn’t answer for a moment, then said, ‘It’s Winnie, Father. She needs so many extra things because of her condition.’ She hid her face in her hands. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, Father.’

‘If you don’t want to talk to me about it then I will arrange for someone to visit you. Perhaps Sister Hortense.’

‘No! No, Father, I have my pride,’ Grace told him hurriedly. She knew from experience that Sister Hortense had a razor-sharp mind and could see through the most carefully thought-up ruse. ‘I don’t want you getting in touch with any of these army padres either and worrying my Trevor,’ she scowled.

‘Very well!’ Father Patrick patted her arm reassuringly. ‘Think carefully on what I’ve said and make sure you mend your ways. If you need help then come and let me know.’

Grace was furious. She kept going over and over in her mind who might have told Father Patrick about what she was doing. She’d known she was taking a risk begging at the market because most of her neighbours went there to look for bargains. She’d thought she was safe at the docks, though, as long as she kept her eyes peeled for scuffers. So who had been the tale-bearer, she asked herself over and over again.

It must have been one of the dockers, she reflected. She hadn’t been at the market for almost a week and she’d been down at the docks only yesterday.

Having to manage on her own, Grace soon found herself in real difficulties. She’d spent so much on drink and cigarettes that she already owed two months’ rent, so rather than try to find the money to pay it she did a midnight flit from Elias Street.

The only things she took with her, apart from their clothes and bedding, was the clock from the mantelpiece, the chair-commode Trevor had made for Winnie to use, and a sagging armchair. It took two trips and left her feeling exhausted.

The two rooms she moved into in Carswell Court were small and squalid and there was only one bed. It meant she and Winnie had to sleep together. They also had to share the use of the kitchen with two other families and the lavatory in the backyard that was used by the entire household.

For Winnie it was almost unbearable. Her invalid chair took up so much of their living room
that
there was no space left to move around. Her mother took one of the two wooden chairs that were in there up to the bedroom, which meant that Winnie had to sit in her invalid chair all the time.

There was no special handrail on the stairs like Trevor had installed at their old home, so Winnie found it was almost impossible to get up and down the stairs. In the end, because Grace wouldn’t help her or was too drunk most of the time to do so, Winnie ended up sleeping downstairs in her invalid carriage, even though it was too short for her to stretch out and get comfortable.

Worst of all was going to the lavatory. It was something she couldn’t do on her own and Grace hated having to help her. In the end, Winnie was forced to use the commode all the time.

‘Can’t you wait until you get to school and find someone there to help you?’ she’d grumble.

‘No, because there is no one there I can ask. I try not to go to the lav at all while I’m there.’

To cope with the discomfort of their living arrangements and the fact that half the time she didn’t have enough money to buy coal, Grace spent more and more time at the pub, leaving Winnie on her own.

When the shilling in the meter ran out and the gas began plopping, Winnie would put her book away knowing that she would be in darkness any minute. Before that happened she would settle down in her carriage, pull the grubby blankets up over her head and hope her mam wouldn’t wake her up when she came home.

Grace squandered most of the allotment she received from Trevor on gin or stout, and often arrived home completely fuddled and in a foul temper. Many times she was still hung over the next morning and Winnie usually left for school without saying a word to her.

Sandy said nothing about her moving, but he still collected her each morning and brought her back each night. When she didn’t bring her lunch tin he knew it was because there was nothing at home for her to put into it. Very often he sought her out at dinner break and gave her one of his sandwiches, or a piece of wet Nelly, or, once in a blue moon, an apple.

‘My mam always gives me too much,’ he’d tell her if she protested about his generosity. ‘You’d better help me eat it because she’ll scalp me if I take it back home again!’

Winnie and Grace had been in Carswell Court for almost four months when the news about Trevor arrived. Grace looked at the official envelope in dull despair and handed it to Winnie to read.

‘Here, me head’s killing me, you see what it says. Perhaps the bugger is coming home on leave.’

Winnie took it eagerly. The idea of her dad coming home, even if it was only for a week or ten days, was wonderful. Her hands were shaking as she opened it. Then the blood drained from her face and the words danced in front of her tear-filled eyes.

She was so upset that she could hardly speak.

‘Well, get on with it, what does it say?’ Grace demanded.

Winnie blinked hard and cleared her throat. ‘Missing, presumed dead,’ she croaked.

‘Oh my God!’ The shock sobered Grace Malloy like a douse of cold water. ‘Give it here!’ She snatched at the flimsy piece of paper and read it over and over again.

‘Where’s my bloody purse,’ she screeched. ‘Find me my purse. I need a sodding drink. Me nerves are shattered. Bloody fool. Trust him to get himself killed.’

‘It says “missing”, Mam, and “presumed dead”, so Dad could still be alive,’ Winnie pointed out hopefully.

‘Not him! He’ll be dead, you can bet on that. Awkward bugger. Landed me in it this time, hasn’t he!’

‘Dad wouldn’t get killed on purpose!’ Winnie screamed at her.

‘Shut your gob! What’re you yelling about? You’re not the one who has to make every penny do the work of two. If they stop his allotment we’ll know he’s dead all right, and what will we live on then? Think about that, Miss Clever Clogs.’

Winnie looked at her, wide-eyed with distress. The thought that she might never see her dad again made her feel hollow.

‘Out of me bloody way, then,’ Grace muttered as she pushed Winnie’s chair to one side to allow her to get to the door.

‘Don’t go to the pub, Mam, I don’t want to be on my own.’

‘Too bloody bad. You should have told your dad to be more sodding careful when you waved him off,’ Grace sneered.

Winnie didn’t know what to do once she was alone. Her mam had antagonised most of the other people living in Carswell Court and the adjoining houses, so she didn’t think anyone would come even if she called out. The hands on the clock moved so slowly that she wondered if it had stopped. Her eyes felt heavy but there were too many terrible thoughts going round and round in her head. She wanted her mam to come back. She only had her mam now, but that was better than nothing.

She couldn’t help being crippled. She did try to do things for herself and she’d probably be better at it if her mam would help her, she thought morosely. If only she would make a fuss of her or encourage her like her dad used to do. Her mam never even kissed her goodnight these days.

Ten o’clock came and went and Winnie became uneasy. The pubs would be out by now. Then the clock on the mantelpiece chimed for eleven o’clock. Everyone would have gone home by now – even the gas-lamps outside in the street had gone out – so where was her mam?

Midnight came and Winnie felt waves of panic. There was nothing she could do. She strained her ears but there were no steps approaching through the darkness and the rest of the house seemed to have settled for the night. Cold and concerned, she dozed in uneasy, neck-jerking snaps. The
moment
she felt her head drop onto her chest she forced herself upright and rubbed her eyes hard to try and stay awake.

How many times that happened she had no idea. The room grew colder and she pulled the blanket higher, but she couldn’t stop shivering. Gradually, as the grey light of morning came creeping into the room, she felt some of her tension ease momentarily. Daylight was followed by all the usual early morning noises as the rest of the people in the house got ready for work.

So where was her mam, Winnie thought anxiously. Fresh waves of panic made her tremble. She didn’t know what to do. When Sandy came to wheel her to school he found her shaking and frightened.

‘My mam never came home last night,’ she told him.

His eyebrows went up and he ran a hand through his shock of red hair. ‘She’s never stayed out all night before, has she?’

Winnie shook her head. ‘She went to the pub because she had some bad news,’ she explained.

He waited for her to go on.

‘There was this message,’ she snuffled. ‘It was about my dad. He’s missing, Sandy. It said “presumed dead”. I don’t think we’ll ever see him again,’ she choked.

Sandy looked uncomfortable. ‘About your mam – which pub did she go to?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Why? What does that matter?’

He shrugged. ‘I thought we could drop in there on the way to school. They might tell you what
time
she left. She might have gone home with someone,’ he added awkwardly.

‘What, and shacked up with them at their place all night?’ Winnie gasped.

‘Does happen,’ Sandy grinned.

Winnie shook her head. ‘Not when she’d just heard bad news about my dad.’

‘That’s why it might have happened. She might have been feeling a bit low and felt she needed someone.’

‘I needed someone too, and she left me all on my own all night,’ Winnie wept.

‘Yeah, I know. Well, come on, let’s go and check it out. The sooner we know where she is the better you’ll feel.’

Chapter Seven

WINNIE AND SANDY
skipped school, but it took them until midday to find out what had happened to Winnie’s mother. They went from one pub to the next, and although most of them knew who Grace Malloy was they couldn’t offer them any help.

At most of the pubs the landlord admitted that she had been in there at some stage the night before, drinking heavily and causing a scene. Most times they also told them where she would probably have gone next. As they followed the trail, Winnie’s heart grew heavier and her fears about what could have happened to her mother increased.

By mid-morning she was ready to give up. The day was grey and damp with a thick mist creeping up from the Mersey, but Sandy was insistent that they should go on.

‘We’re in hot water anyway for skipping school so we might as well go on looking,’ he told her as he manoeuvred her cumbersome invalid carriage along the narrow pavement towards the next pub they’d been directed to.

‘Heavens! I’d forgotten all about school,’ Winnie exclaimed guiltily. ‘I’m sorry if it means you’re in trouble! Do you think if we explain why we skipped off it will do any good?’

Sandy shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Probably not, but don’t worry about it. I’m not, I’m enjoying myself.’

‘It’s not fair that you should be in disgrace because of me, though, is it,’ Winnie said worriedly.

‘I’m in hot water so often that I’m used to it,’ he guffawed. ‘Anyway, I’d sooner be doing this than sitting in class and listening to dull old lessons. Come on, what’s the next pub we’ve got to look for?’

‘I think he said the Brewers Arms, and that’s at the top of Scotland Road on the corner of Comus Street. I never knew my mam went there,’ she added, shaking her head.

‘I bet you never knew she went to half of the others we’ve visited this morning either. She must have had a terrific thirst on her, the way she seemed to put it away,’ he laughed.

Winnie felt uneasy. Sandy was right. If her mother had taken a drink at each of the pubs they’d already visited this morning then she must have been well and truly drunk by the time she reached the Brewers Arms.

The landlord there was a short, stout man with a round florid face and watery blue eyes. He looked very uneasy when they asked him if he knew anyone by the name of Grace Malloy and whether she had been in his pub drinking the previous night.

‘Why’re you asking?’ he prevaricated.

‘She’s my mam,’ Winnie told him. ‘She went out for a bit of a bevvy last night and she didn’t come home.’

‘You mean she left you at home on your own?’ he said in disbelief, staring at Winnie’s twisted legs.

Winnie nodded.

‘Who’s this, then, your brother?’ he asked, nodding in Sandy’s direction.

‘No, he’s a friend. He pushes me to school every day.’

‘You mean you can’t walk at all?’

‘Not properly. I can get around indoors by using the furniture.’

‘And your mam went out and left you on your own!’ he repeated, running a thick, podgy hand over his dark greasy hair.

‘Was she in here drinking or not?’ Sandy demanded. ‘It would be pretty late on because we know she’d been drinking all evening and she’d been in about six other pubs before coming here.’

‘Yeah, she was in. Plastered, she was. Picked a fight so I ordered her out.’

‘Do you know where she went after that?’

The landlord stared down at Winnie. ‘You telling me that you can’t walk at all? You have to have someone push you around in that contraption if you want to go anywhere?’

‘I’ve already told you so,’ Winnie frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with it anyway? I want to know what happened to my mam after she left here.’

He rubbed his hand over his chin and looked uncomfortable. ‘Like I told you, she was plastered. She started making a nuisance of herself so I ordered her out. I can’t risk a disturbance in case
it
brings the scuffers nosing around. If that happens I could lose my licence and that’d be my livelihood down the drain.’

‘We know all that,’ Sandy said impatiently, ‘but what happened to Mrs Malloy when she left here last night?’

‘Well, as I told you, I had to tell her to leave because she was making a scene. When she got outside she seemed to stagger a bit and then she fell over and bashed her head on the side of the pavement.’

Winnie looked at him wide-eyed, her face pinched with fear. ‘So what happened after that? What did you do about it?’