The Complete Helen Forrester 4-Book Memoir: Twopence to Cross the Mersey, Liverpool Miss, By the Waters of Liverpool, Lime Street at Two. Helen Forrester
a paper shopping-bag on the floor in front of her, and one by one she brought out a little package for each child and for Father. Lastly, she brought one out for Mother.
‘Here yer are, luv. Happy Christmas to yez.’
Mother just stared.
‘Come on, luv. It won’t always be like this. Maybe the New Year’ll bring some luck to yez.’
I could see my mother fighting to make a tremendous effort, and, at last, in a little, panting voice, she said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Hicks. You are very kind. I heartily reciprocate your good wishes.’ She took the parcel and laid it in her lap.
Mrs Hicks was obviously nonplussed by the word ‘reciprocate’ but she beamed at Mother in a maternally approving way, and said, ‘Na, that’s better. You’ll soon be well, luv.’
‘Helen, can we open them? Please!’ Fiona had forgotten her earlier fright and was entranced at having a present
I looked at Father and he said, ‘Yes, of course.’
We all tore at the crumpled, old tissue paper of our parcels.
Mrs Hicks had knitted each of us a pair of gloves and each pair had a distinguishing Fair Isle pattern in a contrasting colour worked into it.
‘So as you will know whose is which,’ she explained. ‘Ah made ’em outta a couple of old pullovers ah bought at Maurrie’s.’
I looked at her with wonderment Such an enterprising idea had never occurred to me. The idea was better than the Christmas present itself, for I could knit Grandma had taught me. Mrs Hicks was brilliant! Bits of old hand-knitted sweaters and cardigans, too holey to be sold as complete garments, could be bought from old Maurrie at the second-hand clothing store for as little as two for a penny. I could buy some, unravel them and knit, just as old Mrs Hicks had done. Edward could have a warm sweater. I forgot my earlier tears in the splendour of this new idea.
Mrs Hicks meantime had grown accustomed to the darkness and spotted the turkey on the table.
‘Got a Christmas parcel, have yer? Proper nice, ain’t it?’
Father agreed that it was proper nice. Mother stared emptily at the naked bird.
‘There is one difficulty,’ said Father.
Mrs Hicks looked puzzled.
‘We haven’t got an oven to cook it in,’ and he added rather apologetically, ‘or a knife to cut it up small enough to stew on our fireplace.’
‘We haven’t even got a fire,’ said Alan.
‘Oh aye,’ responded Mrs Hicks. ‘Now that’s a bit of a difficulty, aint it?’ She ran her red hands up and down her ample thighs while she considered the matter.
‘Tell yer what Ah’ll be cooking me own turkey on the morning, but there’s a good fire going downstairs now. If I turn it to the oven you could cook yours now. It would be cooked afore midnight, when we goes to bed.’
‘Oh, Mrs Hicks!’ I burst out. ‘That would be marvellous.’
Father looked dimly hopeful.
‘Would you mind?’ he asked.
She laughed at him. ‘Not a bit. You could put some potatoes round it, to bake, and you’d have a reet good meal.’ She looked at our dead fireplace, and added, ‘You can put the pudding at the back o’ me fire at the same time. Most o’ the heat’s only going up t’ chimney right now.’
Mother said suddenly, ‘Thank you, Mrs Hicks.’ I thought for a horrid minute that she was going to follow it with ‘But we do not require your assistance’. She controlled herself, however, when the whole family, sensing this, turned on her in frozen, silent rage.
While the children sucked the oranges, Father and I took the bird, the pudding and the potatoes downstairs.
Mrs Hicks put it into a baking-tin which was thick with the encrustations of twenty-five years of cooking, and larded it with a bit of bacon fat. Then, guided by her instructions, Father laid it in the ancient oven to the side of the kitchen fire. Some potatoes followed and the heavy, iron door was swung shut, Mrs Hicks having carefully checked that the cat, who apparently slept there normally, was not inside behind the turkey. Mr Hicks grinned all over his little, ferrety face and promised to sit and watch that it did not burn and to add water as needed to the blackened saucepan into which the pudding was subsequently lowered.
‘One of yez come down in three hours’ time,’ commanded Mrs Hicks, poking up the fire with a large iron poker. ‘Ah reckon it’ll be done by then. You could wrap it in a blanket and it’ll keep a bit warm till tomorrer.’
Joy gave strength to our weakened legs and we ran all the way up the stairs, to sink, half fainting, upon the floor when we got to the top.
Nobody could bear to be put to bed, so we sat around in the dim light from the moon and the street, until the closing of the nearby public house told us it was ten o’clock. After that we took it in turns to count up to sixty, so as to make a rough estimate of thirty minutes more, at the end of which Alan and I bolted down to the basement.
We knocked and entered the vast cavern which had been the kitchen when the house was built. Our bare feet pattered on the old brick tiles as we crossed to the fireplace in response to Mr Hicks’s invitation to come and get warm. He was just lifting the pudding saucepan from the hob. His wife took it from him and carried it across to the sandstone sink in the corner. With a skilful twist she got the pudding out without scalding herself, and set it on the bare wooden table, which I noticed with surprise was scrubbed almost pure white. She spread a newspaper on another corner and went to the oven to get the turkey.
Immediately she unlatched the heavy door a heavenly aroma flooded the room, drowning out the usual odours of damp, pine disinfectant and unwashed winter clothes. Saliva ran from my mouth and I hastily brushed it away.
‘Ah think it’s cooked,’ she said, twisting one of the bird’s legs with expert fingers. ‘Are yer goin’ to carry it oop like it is?’
We had few plates and none big enough to hold a turkey, so I said that we would carry it up in the meat-tin and bring the receptacle back in the morning, early enough for her to cook her own Christmas dinner in it. I did not tell her that I could not bear, in any case, to part with a single drop of the fat in the pan.
She agreed to this cheerfully, wrapped up the baked potatoes in a newspaper, then told us to wait a moment, while she rummaged in the back of her dusty kitchen dresser.
‘Here yer are,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Here’s a bit o’ candle to light you up them stairs.’
She lit the small candle stub she had found and presented it to Alan, gave me two crumpled sheets of newspaper so that I would not burn my hands while carrying the hot meat-tin, and sent us upstairs again.
‘Gosh, the pudding feels lovely and hot,’ exclaimed Alan, as he staggered up with the paper parcels of pudding and potatoes.
The family, except for Mother, was gathered to greet us on the top landing, and a great oooh sounded at the sight of the turkey, as we mounted the last flight
‘I’ll wrap it in the newspaper I carried it with,’ I said firmly. ‘Perhaps it will keep it a little warm till tomorrow.’
I could see Father’s Adam’s apple bob in the candlelight, as he swallowed; and hope died on the children’s faces.
Avril kicked my shin to draw my attention to her.
‘I want to eat mine now,’ she said determinedly.
Tony’s eyes looked enormous in his death’s head face.
Again the saliva gathered in my mouth, but I said, ‘It’s not Christmas until tomorrow.’
‘To hell with Christmas,’ said Alan bitterly.
An hour later, there was only a white skeleton