The Seven Streets of Liverpool

For Lord Alan and Lady Eileen Jordan

The Seven Streets of Liverpool

Maureen Lee

Prologue

Bootle, Liverpool
Millennium Eve

Penny was lost. Although the sign told her she was in Pearl Street, it was nothing like the Pearl Street she’d known more than half a century ago. Instead of two rows of terraced houses facing each other, now the street consisted of small semi-detached bungalows with tiny gardens front and back. There had either been massive redevelopment or she was in the wrong Pearl Street, the wrong Bootle. Had she come to the wrong city altogether? How many Liverpools were there on the planet?

A young woman was approaching with a stroller. The small child inside was snuggled inside too many clothes to tell if it was a boy or a girl.

‘Excuse me, but do you know how long these houses have been here?’ Penny enquired as she neared. ‘And what happened to the bar on the corner? The King’s Arms, I think it was called.’ Or it might have been the Queen’s Arms; she wasn’t sure.

‘I dunno, luv,’ the woman said vaguely. ‘I’ve only lived here a couple of years. You need to ask someone older.’

‘Oh yes, I should have. But thank you anyway.’

‘That’s all right, luv.’ The woman began to walk away, then turned. ‘Are you from America?’

‘Yes; New York.’

‘I thought so. I’d recognise an American accent anywhere.’ She walked a few more steps and turned again. ‘Is that coat mink?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jaysus.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I never thought I’d see a mink coat in Pearl Street.’ She laughed, and the child in the pushchair laughed with her. ‘Can’t stop or I’ll be late picking up me little girl from the party. Ta-ra, luv.’

Ta-ra! The word was familiar. Mom used to say it sometimes. ‘Ta-ra,’ Penny called, though the woman was already out of earshot. It sounded odd on her tongue.

What was she supposed to do now? It was a horrible day and the sky was already growing dark. Despite the coat, she felt cold. She had expected to find the street exactly as she remembered, and had thought that if she knocked on enough doors she would be bound to find someone she knew from old – or who knew her or someone who remembered her. When she’d lived there, it had seemed as if everyone in Bootle knew everyone else – was even related in some way. But the world is a very small place when you’re a child. She’d been a fool to come. Caitlin had told her to wait in the city centre hotel by Lime Street station, from where she would collect her.

‘We’re meeting for a party in the cottage in Melling later,’ she’d said on the telephone when Penny had rung from America a few days before. ‘You and I can have dinner first.’

Penny could vaguely remember the cottage. It seemed an appropriate place for a party on Millennium Eve. She imagined the new century dawning over the trees in the garden where she’d played with Eileen’s little boy, Nicky. Eileen had been Mom’s best friend in Bootle.

Her father had lived around here too, though not in Pearl Street. Mom had told her years ago, not long before she died, that Arthur Fleming, her husband at the time Penny was born, who had later been killed in the war, hadn’t been her father. Her real father had had other children, so she had half-sisters in the area, a half-brother, nieces and nephews.

Penny turned a corner and there
was
a bar – a public house, they called them in England. But it had been closed down and was a horrible sight, with lengths of wood nailed across the smashed windows and the broken door. Its name was no longer visible.

‘Are you the King’s Arms?’ Penny asked the building, but there was no answer. She would have died of shock if there had been. She wandered like a lost soul around another corner and found herself in a wide road full of neglected commercial buildings. This run-down place had played no part in her long-held memories of Bootle – until something familiar about the huge walls on the far side reminded her that it was the Dock Road, the ‘Docky’. It had once been the busiest road on earth, bursting with traffic, bustling with strangely dressed individuals from all five continents, and thick with the various aromas from exports and imports of every description that came and went in and out of the mighty docks.

And this was the Docky now, empty of everything; deserted. It was all very depressing.

Why had she come to Liverpool anyway? Penny asked herself. It was just that the girls, her daughters, had gone to welcome in the twenty-first century from the snowy slopes of Breckenridge, Colorado, taking with them husbands, kids and even a few in-laws. Penny and Steve had been invited, but had refused.

‘Your father and I will do something together,’ she had told them. Like throw a dinner party, go out with friends; something.

Except that Steve, her husband of thirty-two years, eight months and three weeks, had decided to treat himself to a new wife now that there was about to be a new century and hadn’t bothered to tell his current wife until the week before. Penny was aware that their marriage had gone stale a long time ago but hadn’t thought they were the sort of couple who got divorced.

Well, she wasn’t going to spoil the girls’ holiday by informing them that their father had decided to make a fool of himself with a girl younger than themselves. Nor did she fancy spending Millennium Eve alone in New York. No, she’d go to Bootle instead. Also, there was the vaguest memory of a promise made at a party the day the war had ended nearly fifty-five years ago.

‘Let’s all meet on the eve of the next century,’ someone had said. Penny had been very young and couldn’t remember who, only that it had been a man’s voice. He might be dead by now, or at least very old. There were others, like her, too young to make the promise, but maybe, like her, they remembered the words.

In Pearl Street, the woman with the stroller was returning, holding the hand of a little girl of about five who was carrying a giant red balloon. Another woman was accompanied by two boys who were somehow managing to have a balloon fight.

When she saw Penny, the first woman said in a loud voice, ‘I told everyone at the party I’d just met an American woman in Pearl Street wearing a mink coat. I don’t think they believed me.’

Penny smiled and pretended to pinch herself. ‘I’m quite real,’ she said.

Someone else had appeared in the street, a woman of about Penny’s own age, formally dressed in a grey suit, walking quickly, grinning widely. To Penny’s astonishment, she was also waving furiously, as well as shouting at the top of her voice.

‘Penny Fleming! I just knew it was you. “An American woman wearing a mink coat.” Who else could it be? Why didn’t you stay at the hotel? I would have come and collected you. You were bound to get lost around here. All that’s left of the old Pearl Street is the name.’

The woman stopped in front of Penny and she was seized in a strong pair of arms and almost hugged to death.

‘Are you Caitlin?’ Penny asked. They’d started writing to each other about five years ago. ‘Your snapshot doesn’t do you justice.’ She was a rosy, jolly woman with a glorious smile.

‘We must get computers, start emailing each other,’ Caitlin said. ‘Did you know you can send photos by email? Only if you’re very clever, mind, but we can always learn.’

‘I’d like that,’ Penny said with enthusiasm.

‘And you’re not the only one who remembered what was said at that party the day the war ended, about meeting up on Millennium Eve. It was Uncle Sean’s idea; he’s seventy-six but still going strong. We’re expected at Nicky’s house in Melling at seven o’clock. It’s where we went to shelter in the worst of the Blitz. Do you remember? Nicky’s me Auntie Eileen’s lad, still living in the same house, like.’

‘I do remember, yes. But what are you doing around here anyway?’

‘I thought I told you, I’m head of St James’s School in Marsh Lane. We’ve just had a kids’ party in the church hall.’ She hugged Penny again. ‘Oh, isn’t this the absolute gear!’

Chapter 1

Pearl Street, Bootle
Christmas Morning 1942

It was still dark, though the misty half-moon provided a little illumination and the shape of the apparently lifeless street was just about visible, the damp slates gleaming slightly. A stranger cut off from humankind for the last three and a half years would have found something odd about the windows – every single one dead black and decorated with some sort of tape stuck to the glass in a diamond pattern. The tape was to protect the glass, to keep it in one piece even if shattered by a bomb exploding in the vicinity. In fact, a bomb had landed where numbers 19, 21 and 23 used to be, making a neat gap and providing extra space for children to play. Someone had planted a tree right in the middle, and people were waiting anxiously for it to grow.

Muffled sounds were coming from the docks by the nearby river. Bangs and bumps, voices, as if activity of some sort was being carried out in the darkness, most likely a ship being loaded or unloaded. An occasional seagull squawked.

There was an air of permanence about the way every door in the street was firmly closed, as if they would never open again.

But one did, and a small child, a boy, appeared, wearing striped pyjamas and carrying a scooter. His feet were bare. With an air of quiet determination he put one foot on the toy and began to scoot up and down the pavement like a tiny ghost, until a woman in a nightdress came rushing out of the still open door and shouted something in an outraged voice. She grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck with one hand and the scooter with the other and pushed them both inside, then closed the door gently, without a sound, not wishing to disturb the neighbours any further.

And so the street remained, showing no sign of the people who lived there, until fires were lit inside, the first flames turning into narrow ribbons of smoke that puffed out of the chimneys. Children opened their presents while the grown-ups got dressed. Seeing as it was Christmas Day, most were in excellent spirits.

At number 16, Sheila Reilly was watching her house gradually being turned into a rubbish tip as her six children unwrapped their presents and let the paper and boxes drop to the floor. Fortunately, being wartime, there was little wrapping paper to be had, or the tip would have been even bigger. Sheila was nursing eighteen-month-old Oona, currently the baby but about to be overtaken by a little brother or sister who was expected to arrive very soon.

Old paper chains decorated the walls and a home-made Christmas tree stood on the sideboard. These, like everything else in the house, had previously belonged to Sheila’s sister Eileen, who now lived in Melling, a village on the outskirts of Liverpool. Sheila and her ever-increasing family had once lived at number 19, where the tree now grew, or attempted to. Fortunately, no one had been at home when the bomb had dropped.

The kids’ pressies weren’t up to much. It wasn’t only wrapping paper there was a shortage of, but just about anything else you could think of, unnecessary things like children’s toys being top of the list.

Sheila’s dad had made the lads a truck out of orange boxes – Lord knows where he’d got the wheels from. He’d rubbed it down and painted it bright red. Ten-year-old Dominic, the eldest child, had decided it was a fire engine, and was now pushing it in and out of the kitchen, through the living room and into the parlour while his younger brother Niall provided the sound effects and four-year-old Ryan tried to climb inside it.

‘Honestly, Sheil, I don’t know how you stand it.’ Brenda Mahon lived a few doors away. She and Sheila had been friends since school. Brenda had a nice face, though she knew she was no oil painting. Sheila, on the other hand, was as pretty as she had always been, though rather plumper – and it wasn’t just because of the forthcoming baby. Despite her normally placid nature, the current noise was setting Brenda’s teeth on edge.

‘You can go home if you like,’ Sheila said. ‘Me, I’m used to it.’ In fact, she loved it. The only thing that was stopping Christmas Day from being perfect was the fact that her darling husband wasn’t there to celebrate with them. Calum Reilly, a merchant seaman, risked his life on a daily basis on foreign seas where thousands of men had already lost their lives in the freezing waters.

‘I only came to make sure you’re all right, Sheil,’ Brenda said, hurt. She had brought her girls, Monica and Muriel, who wore identical frocks made out of a man’s green velvet dressing gown that Brenda, an expert dressmaker, had bought from a jumble sale. The frocks had cream crocheted collars and cuffs. The girls cowered behind their mother, unused to such close contact with boys.

The boys had so far ignored the ribbed scarves and matching hats that Brenda had knitted for them. She’d made dolls for Sheila’s girls, Caitlin and Mary, who were playing house underneath the table, where the dolls had already been fed and put to bed twice.

Turning to her friend, Sheila said, ‘I was only joking, Bren. You know I love having you here.’

‘I worry the baby’ll come in the middle of the night or something.’

‘It doesn’t matter if it does. Our Dominic knows to wake up Aggie Donovan and she’ll fetch Susan Lane from Coral Street. They’ve brought all of me kids so far into the world without a hitch.’

‘I think I’ll make a move then.’ Brenda longed to go home. ‘Are you sure you can manage, luv?’

‘Sure I’m sure. You be off and start on your dinner. I can cope here.’ Sheila got clumsily to her feet. ‘I’ll just put this one in her high chair.’ Sometimes she forgot the children’s names.

Brenda stood too. ‘I’ll be round later to help you peel the taters.’

Sheila laughed. ‘Just because I’m up the stick, Bren, it doesn’t mean I can’t peel me own taters. And me dad’ll be round soon. He can give me a hand.’

‘Your dad’s not likely to peel the taters, is he? Him being a man, like.’

‘I suppose not. But he’ll keep the kids in line while I peel them meself.’

By now, a few children had come into the street to play with their new toys. The little lad with the scooter was riding it legitimately, properly dressed. The toy was obviously second-hand, made to look newish with a bit of spit and polish. A girl with plaits and a skipping rope was charging up and down the pavement, rather dangerously, Brenda thought, and a boy was playing with a diabolo, obviously for the first time. She herself had been asked to make the clothes for a baby-sized doll being pushed along in a pram that had been spruced up with a coat of brown paint. A couple of women had come outside for a jangle. They waved at Brenda.

‘Morning, Bren. Merry Christmas,’ they called.

‘Merry Christmas.’

Brenda didn’t go home after leaving Sheila’s, but knocked at the house next door. With most houses you just pulled out the key on a string through the letter box and let yourself in, but with the Tuttys you were expected to knock.

Thirteen-year-old Freda Tutty opened the door. Her thin cheeks were red and there were tears of what looked like rage in her eyes. ‘What?’ she snapped.

‘I’ve brought you and Dicky a pressie each,’ Brenda explained, feeling as if she’d done something wrong. ‘It’s only a Juliet cap for you, luv, and a nice long scarf for Dicky. The wool’s not new, like, it’s from something I undid.’

‘We don’t want them, thanks.’ The girl was about to close the door, but Brenda put out her hand to stop her.

‘What’s wrong, luv?’ Freda wasn’t inclined to accept anything that might be regarded as charity, but she’d never been this rude before. Brenda wasn’t surprised when she burst into tears.

‘Me mam’s only come home with a fella,’ she sobbed. ‘She hasn’t done that in ages.’

‘Oh dear!’ Until three years ago, Freda’s mother Gladys had been a hopeless drunk, selling herself on the streets night after night; anything to get her hands on a bottle of gin, her favourite tipple. Her house was a pigsty, while her children, Freda and six-year-old Dicky, were mainly left to be fed and clothed by the neighbours.

When the war started, the children were evacuated to Southport, where Freda had learnt there was a different way of living. It was much better to be clean than dirty, for example, and wearing nice clothes was a pleasure. It was a miracle how lovely her hair looked after it had been shampooed and combed. She hadn’t known it was such a nice colour. She returned from Southport with Dicky determined to change their lives.

And by sheer willpower she had done it. Her mother had more or less been forced to get a job – she worked in the Co-op grocer’s on the vegetable counter – Dicky went regularly to school for a change, and Freda had done so well there that she had passed the scholarship for grammar school and had been at Seafield Convent since she was eleven.

But now it seemed Gladys had returned to her old ways.

‘Where did she go last night, luv?’ asked Brenda. Freda usually kept a close eye on her mother’s activities.

She was surprised at the girl’s reply.

‘Midnight Mass,’ Freda said sullenly.

‘She can’t have picked up a fella at Midnight Mass, surely!’

‘Well he’s upstairs in the box room. I heard him coughing.’

‘And where’s your mam?’

‘She sleeps in the room with me. She’s still there.’

‘Would you like me to come in and sort things out, Freda?’

‘No, ta. I’ll do it meself.’ Freda reached out and took the parcels containing the Juliet cap and Dicky’s scarf out of Brenda’s hands. ‘Thanks for the presents,’ she said, closing the door.

‘Merry Christmas,’ Brenda wished the empty air. But she had forgotten that she still had her daughters with her.

‘Merry Christmas, Mam,’ they said together.

‘Look, Mam, the sun’s come out,’ observed Monica. ‘On Christmas morning an’ all.’ They couldn’t remember it having happened before.

They held on to her skirt as they walked back to their own house. Inside, they took turns looking at themselves in their new frocks in the mirror in the parlour where their mother made clothes on her Singer sewing machine for people from all over Liverpool. They stood on their toes and fluttered their arms – they’d recently started having ballet lessons.

Brenda sang happily as she began to peel her own potatoes ready for dinner. This was what she liked best, order and a quiet atmosphere. And unlike most women in the street, she didn’t have to wait until after three o’clock when the pubs emptied before sitting down to eat. Xavier, her louse of a husband, had left home and would hopefully never return.

After an early dinner, seeing as the sun was out, she’d take the girls for a walk along the Docky, and when they got back they’d play snakes and ladders or ludo – she’d bought them a fairly decent set of games from a second-hand shop.

Who should she wake up first – her mam or her fancy man? Freda bit her lip. And had Mam actually gone to Midnight Mass, or had she passed some pub that had stayed open after it should have closed and been unable to resist nipping inside for a quick gin that turned into several gins, giving Mass a miss, as it were?

Halfway up the stairs, she stopped and thought. She could hear Dicky moving around in his bedroom – probably looking at his pressies. She’d managed to get him a few nice things: a little boat with a sail that he could take to the pool in the park in the summer, a bow and arrow, and a
Dandy
annual – he wouldn’t mind that it was a few years old and more than a bit well thumbed. It was a pity that Brenda woman hadn’t brought the scarf earlier; she could have put that by the bed with the other things.

Whoever was in the box room coughed again. Freda wanted to throw open the door and order him to leave, but was worried what state he might be in. She didn’t want to end up seeing things she’d sooner not. After some urgent consideration, she decided to hammer on the door and shout at him to sod off, but before she could move, the door opened and he came out.

‘Good morning,’ he said politely when he saw her hovering on the stairs.

‘Good morning,’ Freda stammered. He was nothing like the seedy individuals her mother used to bring home. He was young – about twenty-five – and wore thick working trousers, a shirt without a collar, and only socks on his feet; clearly he was not yet fully dressed. But unlike those other men, he didn’t smell of alcohol or anything else disgusting.

‘If I could just have some warm water for a shave, then I’ll be on my way,’ he said, smiling.

‘Do you want to do it in the kitchen?’ Freda asked, surprising herself. She wasn’t usually so courteous or helpful. But his smile was really nice – charming was the word.

‘Well, I’d make less mess than in here. Thank you. I’ll just get my stuff.

She returned downstairs and he followed a minute later. ‘Would you like some tea?’ she enquired, surprising herself again.

‘Thank you. You’re being very kind.’ Another smile.

She pulled out a chair and indicated for him to sit at the table, thankful that nowadays the room had curtains at the windows and the furniture wasn’t falling to bits. Then she fetched the teapot along with two cups and saucers. The crockery was cheap, but there wasn’t a single crack in anything. There’d been a time when the Tuttys had drunk out of tins.

‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here,’ he said. ‘Or has your mother told you?’

‘She’s still asleep.’ He had an accent, something northern, though she couldn’t tell from exactly where.

‘We met at Midnight Mass. I was expecting to stay with a friend who lives by the church, but he wasn’t home. I should’ve gone straight into town, there’s a seamen’s hostel there, but I wasn’t feeling so good, if the truth be known. I just had to get in out of the cold. By the time Mass was over, the trams had stopped running. Your mother asked if I was all right and offered me a bed for the night when I told her how I felt. She’s very kind, your mother.’ The smile again. ‘My name’s Tom Chance, by the way.’

‘I’m Freda Tutty.’ Gosh, this was civilised, just like people behaved in books. ‘So you’ll be off to the hostel once you’ve had a shave, then?’

‘Straight away,’ he promised.

Freda had no idea what came over her. ‘Would you like to stay for your Christmas dinner?’ she offered. ‘We’ve got chicken.’