Twopence to Cross the Mersey. Helen Forrester
widow’s carriage was followed by five other carriages, each filled with black-clad mourners.
‘Smith always does ’is funerals very nice,’ said a voice behind me, rich with approval.
I glanced back quickly.
Two fat women, garbed in grubby, flowered cotton frocks, their arms tucked into their equally grubby pinafores to keep them a little warm, had come out to see the procession.
‘’E does. Better’n old Johnson. ’E did her daughter’s wedding, too.’
There was a faint chuckle from the first woman. ‘She’s got more money to spend on ’er ’usband’s funeral than she ’ad on the wedding, what with ’is insurance and all.’ There was silence for a moment, then the voice continued, ‘Ah wonder if ’er Joe will keep on the rag-and-bone business?’
Her companion murmured some reply, but I was too intrigued at the idea of a rag-and-bone man having such a large funeral procession to be interested in them further. Everybody I had seen that morning had looked so poor, and yet one of their number was being laid to rest like a prince. Surely the money such a thing would cost was needed for food.
The sun went in and my spirits drooped as the cortège turned round the corner grocery store and disappeared. Like most children, I was afraid of death and the funeral seemed an ill omen to me.
I turned, and went indoors.
Alan came home at lunch-time with a black eye. A boy had asked him if he carried a marble in his mouth, because he spoke so queerly. Alan had replied that he spoke properly, not like a half-baked savage. The half-baked savage had then blacked his eye for him.
‘He’s got a black eye, too,’ said Alan with some satisfaction as I put a wet piece of cloth over the injured part. ‘You’re lucky not to have to go to this school – even the girls fight.’
‘I’d like to go, just to get out of this horrid house,’ I said vehemently. ‘And, oh, Alan, I’m so afraid Father won’t bother about sending me. You know he has always said that all a woman needed was to be able to read and write, and I can do that.’
‘He’ll have to send you. Isn’t there a law about it?’
‘Yes there is.’
‘Well, the school inspector will tell him he must.’
I removed the wet cloth from his eye and cooled it again under the tap. ‘If he knew I existed, I expect he would,’ I agreed. ‘But, Alan, I was thinking about it all night and if Father never tells them about me they will never know I am here.’
He looked at me uneasily before closing his eyes again so that I could replace the cloth over the blackened one. After wincing at my ministrations, he said doubtfully, ‘Probably when we get a proper house, he’ll arrange for you to go.’
‘I hope so,’ I responded earnestly; but I remembered the funeral and my stomach muscles were clenched with apprehension.
Father returned at lunch-time with food vouchers to last us for two days, while ‘The Parish’ made inquiries as to the rates of relief paid in the small town from which we came. Apparently, this town would have to reimburse the Liverpool public assistance committee for any relief given to us. It was expected that we would be granted forty-three shillings per week. This sum must cover everything for nine people – rent, food, clothing, heating, lighting, washing, doctor, medicines, haircuts and the thousand and one needs of a growing family.
Mother looked at him disbelievingly.
‘It’s impossible,’ she said, her unpainted face puckered up with surprise. She was used to spending more than that on a hat.
‘I can’t help it,’ Father said helplessly. ‘That is what they told me.’
He sat, rubbing his cold hands gently together to restore the circulation, anxiety apparent in every line of him.
‘I must obtain a position. But I don’t even know anybody whom I could ask about a post. I have never lived in Liverpool long enough to make close friends, as you know.’
I remembered that when Mother wanted a servant she used sometimes to advertise in the newspaper, and I suggested that perhaps other posts were advertised also.
This idea was a revelation to Father and he hailed it with delight.
‘By Jove, the girl is right. Look in the newspapers.’
We succeeded in borrowing the landlady’s newspaper, after promising faithfully to return it intact.
And so began an endless writing of replies to advertisements on pennyworths of notepaper. Father did not know that firms frequently got seventy to eighty replies to an advertisement for a clerk, and that they just picked a few envelopes at random from the mighty pile, knowing that almost every applicant would be qualified for the post advertised.
That afternoon, Father undertook another long, cold walk, this time to the south end of the city, to look for accommodation. He had no success and returned hungry and dispirited.
Two days later ‘The Parish’ presented him with thirty-eight shillings, which represented forty-three shillings less five shillings for the food vouchers already supplied.
Only two more days were left of our tenancy of the rooms and our landlady had already reminded us, quite civilly, that she would require the rooms at the end of the week. Mother said, therefore, that she would take the money from ‘The Parish’ and, with the aid of a taxi, go to the south end of the town to see if she could find us a home.
Father protested that she was not fit for the journey, but she insisted coldly that she could manage and, after instructing me to look after baby Edward and Avril, she sent him to arrange for a taxi.
I was truly relieved to see Mother beginning to take an interest in what was to become of us, but I did not dare to tell her that my throat was ominously sore and I feared that I was getting tonsilitis again, a disease which had always plagued me.
On the advice of the taxi-driver, she alighted in an area of tall, narrow, Victorian houses surrounding a series of squares. In the middle of each square was a communal garden which seemed to be permanently locked.
From house to house, up and down the imposing front steps, she dragged herself, knocking on doors which were cautiously opened by black, white, brown and yellow hands. Nobody would consider a family of seven children.
When she had come almost to the point of giving up, she came to a house where the door-bell actually worked. She could hear the old-fashioned clapper bell pealing in the basement. The door was answered by a tiny old lady in a long black-and-white-striped dress and a black apron. Her white hair was brushed up in Edwardian poufs and she looked very clean.
In reply to Mother’s query regarding accommodation, she lifted a finger heavenward and announced piously, ‘The Lord will provide!’
Mother blinked and prepared to turn away.
‘Wait!’ exclaimed the old lady imperiously. ‘I will call Mrs Foster. Please step into the hall.’
Mother stepped in, as requested. The house was not nearly as clean as the old lady, and the lofty hall, with its peeling, olive-green wallpaper, its threadbare, dusty rug and strong smell of cooking, did not inspire confidence. An old-fashioned hatrack and an umbrella-stand made from an elephant’s foot stood near the door, and behind them, set rigidly against the wall, were three Edwardian dining chairs, their woodwork lustreless and their upholstery torn.
The old lady toddled to the back of the hall and shrieked up the stairs in a strong, Liverpool accent, ‘Bissis Fostaire!’
A door upstairs squeaked open and a deeper shriek replied, followed by a heavy tread on the stairs.
‘God