The Leaving of Liverpool (11 page)

He’d staggered to his feet cursing and trying to remember what day it was. On the sagging horsehair sofa against the far wall, Peader and Vincent sat with hands supporting heads. From the corner of the soot-blackened range that was devoid of blacklead, Franny, the youngest, slept on. It would be his turn to feel the business end of the broom next. Jake grunted as his Ma weighed into her youngest son, shrieking like a harpy and calling on the whole litany of saints to see how she was cursed with such a burden. He wished she’d shut up or at least lower her voice. He winced as he got to his feet and a memory stirred. There’d been a fight he remembered vaguely. Who was it who’d said that Franny Malone was as thick as pig shit? O’Rourke. Aye, one of the O’Rourkes and them bog Irish from Sligo. His da had come from Dublin and he wasn’t going to stand for any insults from a Sligo man.

He pushed aside Seamus who was clinging on to the wooden draining board in the scullery as though life depended on it. Turning on the tap he bent and put his head beneath the cold flow. He felt like death and wished that he had another day’s shore leave in which to recover. But he didn’t and if he complained about it she’d belt him all the way down to the Pierhead. He’d never met anyone with a temper like his ma. He shook the thick, dark hair from his eyes. Another bloody trip with not a drop of the hard stuff until they reached New York.

It was a silent and subdued band who’d made their way on the overhead railway to the Canada Dock. In turn they grunted as the Officer of the Watch checked them aboard. The ship was quiet, except for the tradesmen who were working against the clock to finish repairs. It was quieter than usual in the stokehold for the great turbines were silent. The only sound the clanking of the stokers’ shovels as they prepared the furnaces to start the process of getting up steam.

Without a word to anyone, Seamus ducked under the bulkhead and moved towards the bunker. As a trimmer he was at the bottom of the hierarchy that comprised a skilled and efficient ‘black squad’. He was glad the bunker was full. Nearing the end of a voyage when there was little coal left it meant bending and rising, bending and rising and his head couldn’t have stood that. His mouth felt dry but there would only be water to quench his thirst. He drove his shovel into the pile of glittering anthracite and the air became thick with dust that clung to his lips, clogged his nose and irritated his eyes. Shovel after shovel was tipped down the chute to the coalpasser’s barrow. His brother Peader’s barrow. A barrow that would be emptied at the feet of Jake who would feed it into the hungry maws of the four furnaces, for Jake was classed as a skilled man. Aye, they worked well as a team as did Vinny, Franny and Declan Murphy, he thought before he resumed his task which he would repeat over and over again until the end of the four-hour shift. Then they would all collapse exhausted on to their bunks in one of the many ‘glory holes’ that existed all over the ship.

The trouble started when they had crossed the Mersey Bar, though none of them knew their exact location. They seldom even saw daylight. They had turned to for the middle watch still feeling under par and with four stokers short. Two of them had been wheeled aboard in barrows, too drunk to stagger up the gangway. All four were still sleeping off their excesses and were poorer by a day’s pay for their breach of regulations. Their absence was something Jake fumed about for it meant he had two extra furnaces to contend with.

He thrust the ten-foot-long metal slice bar into the furnace. Stripped to the waist, his muscled torso glistened with sweat where coal dust and ashes had not adhered to it. His feet were shod in clogs to protect them from the red-hot debris. His face was seared by the heat from the open furnaces and his hands were scorched with the heat of the slice bar even though he wore canvas mitts. Ashes and clinkers showered down into the pit. He raked over the white-hot, fused impurities and spread the fire evenly. Teeth gritted, eyes narrowed to slits against the intense heat, he shovelled four heaps of coal into the furnace and slammed the door shut. His ears straining for the sound of the gong that timed all these operations and seven minutes were all that were allocated for each. Nor was it easy to hear the gong above the cacophony of furnace doors being banged shut, shovels ringing on steel and the roar of the drafts.

He moved on to the next furnace, ready to repeat the procedure. The weather had become choppy and it was no mean feat to keep a steady footing. As the bow plunged down, with arms working like pistons, he shovelled in the coal and slammed the door shut before the ship rose again. Failure to do so resulted in the coals spewing out.

He had just slammed shut the door of the last furnace and was preparing to move back along the row when a shower of red-hot coals fell around his feet. ‘Jesus Christ Almighty! You nearly scorched the balls off me!’ He glared at the stoker who was tending the next row. It was ‘Shorty’ O’Rourke. ‘You missed the gong! Are yer bleedin’ deaf as well as daft!’

‘Shove the bloody gong up yer arse, Malone!’ O’Rourke yelled.

‘It’s me slice bar that’ll be shoved up your arse if yer can’t keep time, yer ignorant thicko! You ask your Billy about what happens to them that are eejit enough to mouth off to a Malone.’

There was no interchange for three minutes while they shovelled and then it happened again, the coals burning through his moleskin trousers. He bellowed with pain and rage. ‘Yer bastard! Yer did that on purpose!’ he roared.

Heedless of the pitching and of the untended furnaces, he lunged forward with his slice bar and caught O’Rourke across the shoulder. The blow flinging the man back against the wall of the furnace.

His face twisted with pain and fury. ‘I’ll brain yer for that!’ he screamed, raising his shovel and lurching forward with the roll of the ship.

The work carried on around them as they grappled and swung wildly at each other with slice bar and shovel. Peader Malone leaned on his barrow and shouted encouragement to his brother, ready to step in should Jake be felled. At the end of the row in the cavernous gloom he knew that Billy O’Rourke was doing the same.

As he watched the steam pressure gauge fall, the mate knew exactly what was happening and frowned. ‘Bloody animals!’ he muttered, looking at his watch and wondering how long it would go on. He had no intention of intervening for there was a standing order when the black squad fought. Close the hatches and stay clear. He’d heard a tale of one engineering officer who hadn’t. He had never been seen again. It was rumoured that he had been brained with a shovel and his corpse tossed into a furnace. They could beat each others’ brains out for all he cared. Just as long as they didn’t take all night about it.

T
HE STRIKE HAD BEEN short-lived but it had taken the presence of both the army and the navy to quell it. Damage to property had been heavy and the law-abiding citizens of the city had been shocked and scandalized. All the police officers who had gone on strike were dismissed and a new force recruited.

In the Mercer household Olivia’s and Phoebe-Ann’s peccadilloes had been forgotten as the evening of the soirée drew nearer and preparations reached fever pitch.

To her mounting chagrin Olivia found that more and more demands were being made upon her time and she raged about it to Phoebe-Ann whenever the occasion arose. As time progressed, Phoebe-Ann had found it the best policy to remain as quiet as possible. She had made the mistake of asking how the short hair was to be kept short.

‘You really are a fool at times, Phoebe-Ann Parkinson! You either let it grow out or keep having it cut. Now I don’t want to hear another word about hair, long or short. Damn Mrs Webster to hell and back! Why can’t she use her own initiative instead of coming and annoying me with every little detail? I told her she had
carte blanche
but, no, she still annoys me with her stupid questions. Oh, I wish this whole thing was over and done with so I can have some time to myself without worrying about canapés, wines, flowers and musicians.’

Phoebe-Ann had tried to pour oil on troubled waters. ‘Your new gown is beautiful; everyone will admire you and say how wonderfully well you’ve managed things.’

‘Everyone will say how haggard I look. That’s what everyone will say. And, what am I going to do about James? He’s so morose he will put the dampers on the whole evening.’

‘I don’t think he wants to get involved, like.’

Olivia had paused and stared hard at her maid. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I talk to him, miss.’

‘And he answers you?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s more than he does when I speak to him, or Papa either for that matter. So, he doesn’t want to join us?’

‘I don’t think so. In fact I think he would prefer to just stay in his room.’

‘Well, he can’t. Not all evening anyway. How would it look? He’ll have to show his face when people arrive, then he can do whatever he likes.’

Phoebe-Ann had sighed. He had been most emphatic, more animated than she’d ever seen him, when he’d said he wasn’t going to be exhibited like a freak or be whispered about and he didn’t care what anyone said, he was staying in his room. She’d agreed with him and had promised to plead for him. She’d thought how pitiful it was the way in which he hung on her every word, his eyes following her as she moved. Yes, pitiful. Often she wondered had he indeed lost his senses. Someone like him, educated, rich and handsome yet following her like a lapdog, as though she were the one who possessed those attributes.

When the evening of the soirée at last arrived, the staff were exhausted both physically and mentally. In her ignorance of domestic procedures, Olivia had plagued them incessantly all afternoon.

Cook was still fuming from her last visit to the kitchen. ‘The cheek of it! The brass-faced cheek of it! “There’s not a lot of colour in them. Don’t you think they look a little bit anaemic?” she says. My canapés are the finest in this city, though I say it myself, and her ma, God rest her, kept out of my kitchen and was always well satisfied, aye, even proud of my skills!’

‘Oh, take no notice of her. She’s like a cat on hot bricks. She doesn’t know what to be at next.’ Mrs Webster, whose own patience had been stretched to the limit, was for once openly critical of her employer.

Emily and Edwin exchanged glances as Phoebe-Ann burst into the kitchen, her cheeks flushed.

‘I’ll strangle her! I will! I’ll strangle her!’

‘Now what’s the matter?’ Emily demanded, wearily.

‘Everything.’ Phoebe-Ann sat down and blew a sigh through pursed lips. ‘She’s gone and changed her mind about what she’s going to wear. After I’d gone to all the trouble of laying everything out and you know how long it took me to press that damned dress. That’s not too bad, but she’s hounding the life out of Master James. He doesn’t want to have to stand in the hall and receive. He doesn’t want to have anything to do with the entire thing, but she’s gone on and on at him. It’s a damned shame. It’s a disgrace and the Master should know about it.’

Mrs Webster had regained her composure. ‘Don’t you think you’re getting above yourself, Phoebe-Ann?’ she queried in the rather cold voice she used when reprimanding those beneath her.

‘He talks to me.’

‘We know. I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about being so familiar.’

Phoebe-Ann opened her mouth to protest but closed it again as she caught sight of the warning look Emily shot at her.

‘It may well do him good to meet people and if the Master is agreeable to it, and he would have instructed otherwise had he been of that opinion, then Miss Olivia has every right to cajole him. It is none of our business and it is definitely not your place to take sides!’

‘Well, I for one will be glad when it’s all over and done with,’ Edwin put in, feeling a little sorry for Phoebe-Ann and for James Mercer. God help him, he was in no fit state to stand and make idle conversation with the old bores who were the Master’s friends and the brainless idiots that were Miss Olivia’s.

‘She’ll finish the night with a blinding headache and then I’ll get no peace until I’ve calmed her down enough so she’ll sleep. I can’t see me getting to bed until about two o’clock tomorrow morning,’ Phoebe-Ann said grimly.

Silence fell as the sound of voices raised in argument drifted from the hall. Phoebe-Ann pulled herself reluctantly to her feet. ‘Oh, Lord! She’s off again. I’d better go and see what I can do.’

Mrs Webster also rose. ‘I’ll come with you.’ She was determined to see that Phoebe-Ann kept her place and did not speak out of turn.

It was Olivia and her father who were in the middle of a heated argument when the two women reached the hall. On seeing them Richard Mercer fixed his daughter with a piercing glare. He was not about to have himself talked about in the servants hall.

‘That will do Olivia! I want to hear no more about it. If James is not well enough . . .’

Olivia had no reservations about interrupting him. ‘Of course he’s well enough, Papa. He is just using his illness as an excuse. How will it look?’