The White Empress (3 page)

Cat dragged her eyes from the disappearing backs of her sister and brother. It had been her intention to take him to task
over his familiarity with her mother, not knowing it was the usual and polite address given by Liverpudlians to any woman
over the age of forty, but curiosity again got the better of her and she let him take her arm.

‘Where are we going now?’

‘You’ll see. Didn’t I tell you on board I’d show you a grand sight?’

‘I’ve seen the Liver Birds!’

‘I didn’t mean them.’

They walked along the landing stage to where crowds were gathering. Amongst them scarlet-capped porters could be seen struggling
from the Riverside Station with piles of baggage. She caught sight of dark-green uniforms frogged with gold braid and the
sounds of music drifted to her ears. Two burly policemen or ‘scuffers’ as Joe had called them, were supervising the crowds.
Their faces beneath the conical helmets, that bore a silver-crested Liver Bird, were red from the sun and the heat of their
high-buttoned tunics, but both were smiling broadly. The music played by the City Band grew louder and the atmosphere reminded
her of the St Patrick’s Day parade down O’Connell Street in Dublin.

She tugged at Joe’s sleeve. ‘What’s going on? Is it a parade?’

‘Something like that! Look, I promised you a sight and there she is!’

Cat stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widened and she gasped. In her entire life she had never seen anything to compare
with the vision that now confronted her. Tied up at the landing stage was the biggest, most majestic ship she had ever seen.
Bright sunlight reflected off the towering, white-painted hull and to Cat it looked like a snow-covered mountain, rising up
and up, reaching almost to the sky. She craned her neck and saw the three, dark yellow funnels, each bearing the emblem of
a red-and-white-chequered flag. Flags and pennants of all colours fluttered from the rigging and wisps of pale-grey smoke
spiralled upwards from the funnels into the clear blue heavens.

All around her people were laughing, shouting and cheering, while those high above on deck were shouting back and throwing
down brightly coloured paper streamers. She felt a bubble of excitement rise in her. A bubble that grew and grew until it
reached her throat and she found she was cheering too, caught up in the waves of emotion and ebullience that had engulfed
everyone.

‘Oh, Joe! Joe! Isn’t it grand! Isn’t it wonderful, isn’t it . . . huge! It’s like . . . a huge white mountain!’

He squeezed her arm. ‘It’s not an “it”, it’s a “she”, ships are always called “she”.’

‘Oh, what’s she called?’

‘Look up there, it’s painted on her bow!’

Her excited gaze followed the line of his outstretched hand. The bold black letters sprang out at her, contrasting
sharply against the white hull. She read them aloud. ‘
Empress of Japan
’.

‘An Empress is even grander than a Queen. She’s the flagship of the Canadian Pacific Line. The White Empress and this is her
maiden voyage!’ There was pride in his voice and his face was so animated that she hardly recognised him. She noticed, too,
that the corded muscles in his throat were working, but she understood how he felt for she felt it too. Pride, longing, a
core of exhilaration that made her whole body tremble. The White Empress evoked all these emotions in both of them.

‘Oh, Joe, I wish I was sailing with her!’

Again he squeezed her hand and laughed. ‘There’s an even bigger one being built at the John Brown yard on the Clyde.’

She gasped. ‘Bigger! Bigger than her?’

‘She’s 26,000 tons, but the
Empress of Britain
will be 42,000 tons!’

The figures meant nothing to her but she could not envisage anything bigger than this magnificent white liner. With a surge
of emotion she wished with all her heart that she could change places with one of those elegantly dressed women high above
her, laughing and shouting, about to take the trip of a lifetime.

‘Where’s she going, Joe?’

‘To Quebec in Canada.’

Even the very name ‘Quebec’ sounded exotic.

‘And after that she’ll sail the Pacific Ocean, to Japan and China, Australia and New Zealand and all the islands.’

Her estimation of him rose higher as he reeled off the names of places she had never heard of. ‘Oh, Joe! I’d give anything,
anything to sail on her!’

‘You’ll not see her in Liverpool again. After this voyage her home port will be Southampton.’

Her face fell. ‘Never?’

‘Cheer up, Cat, there will be other Empresses.’

‘But not like this one. Never like this one!’ Now she understood his hopes and dreams, for sights like this were the stuff
that dreams are made of. She remembered their conversation and one word rang in her head with the clarity of a bell. ‘Stewardess’.
The tide of excitement surged again. ‘Joe, they carry stewardesses, don’t they?’

‘Of course they do, who do you think looks after all those rich women and . . .’ He broke off, suddenly remembering that it
was he who had planted that word in her innocent mind. ‘I told you, Cat, forget it! It’s not for the likes of you, nor me
either if it comes to that! It’s a dream, nothing more! I wouldn’t have brought you to see her if I’d have realised that—’

‘It’s not a dream, Joe! It’s not! I won’t let it be just a dream!’

He took her by the shoulders and shook her hard. ‘Stop it! Stop it! It’s a dream beyond your reach! Settle for what you have!’

She had learnt early in life that tears seldom solved anything so none stung her eyes, but they scalded her heart for he had
forced her to face the truth. ‘What have I got, Joe? I’ve got nothing! My Pa’s a drunk, Ma’s ill, we’ve got no money, no home,
nothing! You can’t settle for nothing, Joe Calligan! I won’t! I won’t let it be just a
dream, I’ll make it happen! I’ll find a way! One day I’m going to sail on a White Empress and not just as a stewardess, I’m
going to be a chief stewardess!’

He cursed himself aloud. This was all his fault. He’d filled her head with dreams, dreams of a life she would never know.
Places she would never see. A position in life that was totally unattainable for a poor, ignorant Irish slummy. He looked
steadily into the green eyes fringed with dark lashes. A hard light shone in them. A light he recognised with a deadly clarity.
It was raw, unquenchable, inexorable ambition and determination. Her face was implacable, her features as though carved from
granite, and he shivered. The light in her eyes frightened him. He’d seen it in the eyes of ruthless men. Hard, embittered
men who pitted their existence daily against the elements. But he had never seen it in the eyes of a woman, let alone this
slip of a girl who barely came up to his shoulder. He shivered again. Her name suited her. It was very apt, she reminded him
of a cat. Those feral eyes, the feline grace with which she moved, the thick mane of tangled curls.

‘Then God help you, Cat Cleary, and I mean that!’

E
LDON STREET RESEMBLED THE
streets that ran off O’Connell Street in Dublin. Rows of small, narrow houses the back yards of which contained the privy
and the midden, only separated from the back yards of the houses that backed on to them by a narrow alley. An alley filled
with decaying rubbish through which mangy dogs and cats rooted for anything edible.

When they had been built they had been of red brick but a thick, continuous rain of soot, emitted from the three tall chimneys
of the Clarence Dock Power Station – known as the Ugly Sisters – had long since turned them black. The belching smoke, like
filthy tresses of hair blowing in the wind, showered deposits of soot on every windowsill, doorstep, roof and chimney for
miles around. The lines of washing that were hung out every Monday morning in the back yards were permanently grey with it,
despite the valiant efforts of the women in the public washhouse or in small, dark sculleries where the wash boilers steamed.

The whole area was depressing: factories, their small, grimy windows staring like dull eyes over the river, lined the south
side of Vauxhall Road. Along Great Howard Street and Waterloo Road – commonly known as the Dock Road – bonded warehouses towered
above houses, and pubs crowded in their shadows. All day long and late into the night, too, the carts, wagons, vans and trams
rumbled over the cobbles.

Cat had stood and watched the dockers. Watched them waiting, often fighting, just to be taken on for a day’s work to provide
a few shillings to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. She had watched the teams of carthorses that were
kept in reserve to help pull the heavily laden carts up the floating roadway. When the tide was at the ebb, the road was an
almost vertical slope up which the horses sweated and strained, their owners cursing, swearing and sweating, too. She had
soon become accustomed to the quick, cutting, humorous Liverpool wit and the ‘scouse’ dialect, full of colloquialisms and
malapropisms. It was a city where everyone was addressed as ‘luv’. Where every female from the age of five to forty was addressed
as ‘girl’, the older women being afforded the more respectful ‘Ma’. Where boys and men were called ‘lad’ or its diminutive
‘la’. A city that boasted great architectural beauty and wealth, beside poverty and squalid slums. A city in which one man
in four was out of work. Where children ran barefoot in the streets and old women, clad in the voluminous black skirts and
shawls and known as ‘shawlies’, stood gossiping on their doorsteps or in small corner shops. Where men
congregated on street corners and alleys, playing an illegal game known as Pitch and Toss. The object of this was to guess
which side two pennies or halfpennies would land after being tossed in the air. It was a place where on almost every street
corner there was a public house. A city that boasted a fine library and museum, yet was so desperate to find work for its
populace that the project of the tunnel under the Mersey had been conceived in part to ease this situation. No, Liverpool
had not proved to be the Promised Land. Not for Cat Cleary. It was not much better than Dublin.

They shared the rooms in the small house in Eldon Street with the O’Dwyers, who were already overcrowded. But at least it
was better than sharing just one room and there was cold running water and an outside privy, all of which were improvements.
Mrs O’Dwyer had taken one look at the dejected group who had landed on her doorstep and had instantly taken them in. Shooing
out a brood of small, grubby children, she had instructed Cat to put their things in the back yard ‘just fer now’, drawn her
tired mother into the cluttered kitchen and pushed her gently down on to the old, battered chair and had fixed Mr O’Dwyer
with a piercing stare and told him sharply to ‘Ger ’im out an’ sober ’im up!’

Their arrival had generated a certain amount of friendly curiosity on the part of the neighbours who had all called, one after
the other, to inspect the new arrivals and ask about the ‘Old Country’, for many still had relatives there. Cat had soon found
that doors were never locked or bolted. Hard times were endured with
grim fortitude, interspersed with outbreaks of witty humour; and good times, too, were shared, as was good fortune.

Her new neighbours and friends had helped to dispel some of the depression that had settled over her when she had gazed for
the last time on the White Empress and had fled back to where her family was waiting for her.

The good weather had evaporated and now she sat on the doorstep of number eight Eldon Street with the O’Dwyer baby on her
knee, watching leaden clouds, that threatened rain, roll in from the river. Both her father and sister had set off early that
morning to look for work. At least Pa has stayed sober, she thought, but this she put down to the two obvious facts: that
they were broke and that he was undisguisedly afraid of Maisey O’Dwyer’s sharp tongue. But he was trying to find work and
she supposed that this was a small point in his favour. Her mother was being well cared for as Maisey insisted they all share
her rations, until such time as Pa was bringing in some money, and so they hadn’t gone hungry.

It had been Maisey who had prodded Shelagh into tidying herself up and going down to Tate and Lyle’s factory at the bottom
of the street to see if there was any work to be had. In fact that redoubtable lady’s sharp tongue had prodded her husband
and Cat’s Pa out every morning at six o’clock to look for work, telling them not to ‘cum back ’ere before tea time, either,
if yer ain’t found none!’

Cat sighed and jiggled the baby on her lap, wondering what today would bring. It would be her turn next.
It wasn’t that she was averse to work, she had always done more than her share in the home, but since the day she had landed
she had refused to let go of her dream. She blocked out the memory of Joe Calligan’s warning. One day . . . one day . . .
but meantime she wasn’t going to work in a factory, of that she was determined. There must be other kinds of work – in a shop
maybe.

Two large, heavy drops of rain splashed on to her face and she rose to her feet. Now she would have to go back into the kitchen
that smelled of boiled cabbage, wet washing and stale sweat. As she turned she heard the sound of running feet and looked
up. Shelagh was tottering up the street in a pair of high-heeled shoes, lent her by Bessie Abbot, one of the girls next door.

‘Cat! Cat! Hold on a minute! I’ve got a job! I’ve got a job!’

Shelagh fell against the peeling lintel, trying to catch her breath and wincing. Then she bent down and pulled off the shoes.
‘I’m fair crippled, that I am! I know it was good of Bessie to lend them to me, but they pinch like ’ell!’

‘Come inside, you’re getting soaked. What sort of a job? When do you start? How much will you get?’

Shelagh closed the door behind her and they stood in the gloomy, miniscule lobby. ‘Sewing sugar sacks, I start tomorrow and
I was lucky to get it! Five shillings a week, Monday to Saturday! Five whole shillings, I’ve never had so much money before!’

‘You haven’t got it yet and don’t forget you’ll have to
give some to Ma and some to Maisey, we must owe her a small fortune by now!’

‘I thought Ma pawned her wedding ring and gave Maisey the money? Anyway, I’ll still have a lot over. Now I’ll be able to buy
some decent clothes and go out on the town!’

‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’

Shelagh looked at her scornfully. ‘What else is there to think about? You’ve hardly been over the doorstep and we’ve been
here a week and more. Miss Scaredy Cat!’

‘I’m not scared! I just don’t see any point in traipsing round the shops looking at things you can’t buy!’

‘Well, I’m not going to Paddy’s Market to buy any more clothes either! I’m having new ones, not flea-bitten old cast-offs!’

She disappeared into the kitchen to be greeted with cries of delight at her good fortune, while Cat remained in the lobby.
She’d always had cast-offs, usually Shelagh’s old hand-me-downs. In fact, now that for the first time she really gave it some
serious thought she realised that she’d never had a single new garment in her entire life. The thought made her disgruntled,
something she’d never felt before. She’d always accepted the fact that there was never enough money for new clothes for everyone.
But it would have made her feel better if she had had something, anything!

She had accompanied her mother and their benefactress to St Martin’s Market – known to all as Paddy’s Market. Here great piles
of old clothes, linen and blankets were sold for a couple of pence. The market did
sell other things as well, but it was the clothes that drew the crowds, among them sailors from all the foreign ships. They
had all been ‘rigged out’ as Maisey put it, for a couple of shillings. But everything was second-hand. She pulled herself
out of her reverie. If she wanted new clothes then she would have to get out and work for them, like Shelagh.

Evening brought more good news: when her Pa and Mr O’Dwyer returned home it was to tell everyone, and that included most of
Eldon Street too, that they had both been taken on as navvies, working on the Mersey Tunnel. They were both covered in dust,
their faces streaked where sweat had run down in rivulets, for they had started work at noon that very day, but no one commented
on the fact that their Sunday shirts were filthy.

Maisey produced some coins from her battered purse, stuffed down the back of the sagging sofa, and gave them to Shelagh with
the instructions to ‘nip down ter the “Glass ’Ouse” an’ gerra bottle of somethin’ ter celebrate’ while she went up to Rooney’s
corner shop for some boiled ham for a ‘nice’ tea for the ‘workers’. Whereupon Mr O’Dwyer, with a rare show of spirit, informed
her ‘We don’t want no boiled ’am, luv, its norra wake! We’ll ’ave steak an’ kidney pie, so gerrup ter the chippy!’

‘Don’t you swear at me, Hughie O’Dwyer, or yer’ll get no pie!’ his wife rejoined, beaming, as donning her shawl, she departed.

Cat crouched on the floor beside her mother while her father went into the scullery to wash. ‘Things are
looking better, Ma. You’ll be able to get your wedding ring back from Stanley’s now. And if Pa and Shelagh get kept on, we
might be able to get a house of our own soon. Wouldn’t that be grand, Ma?’

‘Aye, it would that. I’ve never had a place of me own. Not in all the years I’ve been married.’

‘And if I get a job, too . . .’

Her mother’s hand closed over hers. ‘I’ll need you, Cat, to help me in the house. I’m not as strong as I should be and you
need eyes in the back of your head to watch Eamon!’

‘I’ll get something, Ma, just to help at first and don’t worry about our Eamon, I’ll sort him out! He can go to school! I’ll
go round to see the Priest at Our Lady’s, they have a school. He can go to that even if I have to drag him there kicking and
screaming every day! He’s run wild for long enough!’

At first it looked as though their luck had really changed. Every morning both Shelagh and Pa went cheerfully to work while
she dragged a sullen, resentful Eamon round the corner to the primary school supported by the Catholic Church of Our Lady,
and handed him over to the parish priest, of whom he was mortally afraid, though he would sooner have died than admit this
fact. Her days were spent cleaning, washing, ironing, shopping and cooking – chores that seemed to have no end and left precious
little time for dreaming. Whenever Shelagh complained about her not getting out and finding a job, both her mother and Maisey
would rush to her defence, saying they just didn’t know how they
would ever manage without Cat. But for Cat life became a round of endless drudgery, her world confined to the immediate neighbourhood,
while every Saturday night her sister would dress herself up in her new finery and go out with the girls she worked with.
Her ‘pals’ as she called them.

Cat was usually asleep when she finally stumbled into the bed they shared with two of the O’Dwyer girls. Shelagh would wake
late and bad-tempered on Sunday mornings, complaining that she had a throbbing headache or felt too ill to go to Mass. Excuses
which fooled no one and drew vitriolic condemnation from their landlady, for they were now paying rent and board. The O’Dwyers,
like all their neighbours, were devout Catholics and even her Pa always managed to get up for Mass, no matter what state he
had been in the previous night. She had noticed that his predilection for the bottle had returned now that he had money in
his pocket. She had heard one of the neighbours telling another that Mick Cleary was to be seen in the alehouse at dinner
time these days and, in fact, seemed to spend more time in there than at work.

‘An’ yer know wot that means?’

‘Aye, ’e’ll gerris card marked soon,’ the other had added.

Her stomach had turned over as she had quietly closed the door. Just when they all seemed to be getting on!

The following day had seen the first real blazing row when Shelagh had arrived home and announced that she couldn’t pay more
than a shilling towards the rent
because she owed one of her ‘pals’ most of her wages. It was the first time for years that Cat had seen her mother’s cheeks
burn with anger. Good food and a steady wage, less grinding drudgery and a security of sorts had all served to strengthen
Ellen Cleary and bring back some of her old spirit. She had demanded to know why Shelagh had owed money and what she had spent
all her wages on. Her sister had replied coolly that she’d borrowed some money from Maggie Abbot for the new dress she’d bought
at C & A Modes last week, and with what they’d spent in Ma Boyle’s Oyster Saloon, a shilling was all she had to last her until
next pay day. Cat had jumped physically at the sound of the slap and Shelagh’s startled yell, for her mother had actually
slapped Shelagh’s face! Shelagh had thrown the shilling down on the table and had stormed out of the house, pushing past her,
thrusting her face close and mouthing insults. And she hadn’t come home all night. Cat resolved to go and meet her from work
next pay day, for that incident had upset her mother so much that she had taken to her bed.