Sister's Trio Squad

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

'Oh, aye, but yer don't really notice it. Except when the tide's out an' then it's that steep I 'ave ter stop 'alf way up, ter get me breath. The whole Landin' Stage is floatin'. Being a native Liverpudlian and having a captive audience, she wasn't about to let them escape without pointing out some of the marvels of her city.

'All of it? Won't it sink with all these people on it?'

The woman laughed. 'Don't be daft! This owld tub is only little beside the liners an' they tie up 'ere. It's been 'ere as long as anyone can remember an' it 'asn't sunk yet. There's the Overhead Railway, too. The "Docker's Umbrella" we calls it.'

'Overhead?' Lisa echoed.

'Aye, up in the air it is, runs all the way along the docks an' the goods trains runs under it. Yer'll be able ter see it better soon, when we get closer, like. Comin' over ter work?' She repeated the question.

'Yes.' Margaret answered before Nancy could make any remarks about her intended aspirations.

'Got someone ter stay with?"

Yes. Our Aunt, who lives in Lancaster Street, Walton. Do you know it?'

Oh, it's quite posh round there. Not as posh as Aintree or West Derby, but nice. Meself, I live in Athol Street, near the docks. We 'aven't got much but we all muck in an' 'elp each other, if yer know what I mean.' She shifted the weight of her bundle to her other hip. 'I'll be glad ter gerr 'ome. I'm that tired me eyes is fightin' for the one corner!'

Nancy cast a supercilious glance at Bernie. 'We're not all going to Walton. She's going to Glasgow.'

The woman pulled a face. 'I 'ear it's a shockin' rough place that. People always fightin' an' murderin' each other, an' not only on Saturday nights, either!"

'I've heard that there's not much to choose between Liverpool and Glasgow!' Bernie retaliated. 'Didn't all the police go on strike a few years back and they had to bring in the Army? My Archie said there were tanks in the streets and soldiers to stop the lootin' and even a Navy gunboat!" she finished, triumphantly.

The woman glowered at her. 'Oh, she'll do well in Glasgow, she will! Right little 'ardclock, ain't she?' She had no wish to recall the riots or the fact that there had been tanks on the plateau in front of St George's Hall, or that the dreadnought Valient and two destroyers had stood out in the river, men and guns at the ready if needed. She turned to Nancy and smiled. "Take no notice of 'er, yer'll do well in Liverpool. I'm off now ter gerra place near where they put up the gangway. It's a shockin' crush ter gerrof. Good Luck an' tarrah, then!'

Margaret purposefully straightened her hat and turned down the collar of her coat. 'We'll go straight to this Exchange Station and tidy up, then we can get the tram. She said it would have Walton on the front, didn't she?"

'Is no one coming to meet you then?' Bernie put in.

'Why should they? Uncle Bart will have his work to go to and you can't expect people to get up at the c***k of dawn to come all the way down here, just so we can all go back again on the tram. You never did have any common sense, even when you were at school, which wasn't often!" Nancy's tone was cutting. If she never saw Bernie O'Hagan again it would be too soon.

Bernie gave Lisa a scrap of 'What's that?' Nancy demanded. paper.

'My address in Glasgow, not that it's got anything to do with you!'

Lisa thanked her and put it in her coat pocket. She had no intention of ever going to Glasgow and she wished she hadn't had the sherry Bernie had bought last night. At the time it had seemed harmless and as her fears had subsided they had laughed and giggled about childhood memories at the school of Saints Peter and Paul. Now she felt awful, but to admit it would only bring about another tirade from Nancy and she just couldn't stand that. Her head was thudding. She wished she hadn't been quite so friendly towards Bernie, after all they had only been in the same class. Even then her Ma had f*******n her to sit within three feet of Bernie, after having been up to see Mother Superior in a rare fit of anger, when she had come home with nits. She could almost feel the scraping of the fine-toothed metal comb over her scalp and smell the noxious odour of paraffin and lye soap, her Ma's remedy for head lice. No, they had never been close friends. The

O'Hagans just didn't have close friends, only relations. The bump as the side of the ferry came into contact with the Landing Stage threw Lisa off balance and she felt dizzy and sick. She glanced at her sisters. Margaret looked pale and tired but, strangely, Nancy didn't look tired at all. There was a gleam in her eye and the cor ners of her mouth were tilted in a smile. She'd caught the end of Nancy's conversation, but she felt too ill to even think about its implications. As the crowd surged forward en masse, carrying her with them, she thought she'd always remember the day she arrived in Liverpool. She swore then that she'd never touch another drink in her life.

Lancaster Street was not quite as 'posh' as they had been led to believe. True it was in a fairly quiet area and the houses in the street were all neat-looking. Their steps were donkey-stoned, knockers and letterboxes were pol ished and the curtains were clean and crisp. All except number eighteen that was. There was a dilapidated look about number eighteen. The paint on the door was dirty, the knocker dull and pitted, the lace curtains at the window. sagged untidily and were grey in comparison to those of the adjoining houses. Their discomfort was increased by all the curtains they had noticed twitching as they had walked down the street and stopped outside the house.

'Didn't I say she looked like a great, idle lump?' Lisa remarked glumly as Nancy rapped loudly on the door.

Aunt Maura greeted them warmly with loud excla mations as to how they'd grown and didn't they look grand and weren't they all so smartly turned out, as she ushered them into the dark, narrow hall. The smell that drifted from the kitchen at the back made Lisa feel ill again. It was a mixture of stale tobacco, wet washing and rancid fat. The kitchen, as they crowded in, seemed far smaller and more sparsely furnished than the one at home. There was linoleum on the floor, but it was cracked and so dirty that it was impossible to see what colour it had been. Margaret quickly took in the range, heaped with ashes, that obviously hadn't been cleaned out for weeks, and Aunt Maura's dirty, faded, cross-over pinafore that looked as though it had not seen soap and water for almost as long as the range had been without black-leading.

To their surprise, Uncle Bart was sitting in a battered chair close to the fire. He was a thin, weasel-faced man with wispy hair and a thin, tobacco-stained moustache. In his right hand, the lighted end towards his palm, he held a cigarette. Five Woodbines in their green paper packet with its tracery of yellow honeysuckle, rested with a box of matches on the arm of the chair. His collarless shirt was grubby and stained.

We thought you'd be at work, Uncle Bart,' Margaret said flatly, but with a note of disapproval in her voice. 'Oh, the poor man is a martyr to his back, he's been

on the "Panel" for months, haven't you, Bart?' He nodded before coughing, then spitting the phlegm

into the fire.

Nancy shuddered and curled her lip with distaste while

Lisa turned her head away, feeling nausea rising in

her throat.

Margaret stared at him hard until he looked away. 'You should see a doctor with that cough and you should use a handkerchief. That's a disgusting habit and it spreads disease!"

'Doesn't she sound just like her Ma, Bart? If I closed my eyes I would swear it was our Sarah speakin'!' Maura interrupted jokily. She had decided she didn't like Margaret; she was just like her Ma whom she had no time for - which was why she had been happy to leave Clonmel all those years ago.

Bart didn't answer.