The Complete Helen Forrester 4-Book Memoir: Twopence to Cross the Mersey, Liverpool Miss, By the Waters of Liverpool, Lime Street at Two

The man’s eyes gleamed malevolently.

‘Eeee! ’e did, did ’e. Well, yer can tell yer Dad fra’ me that I’ll be coming over ternight. Yea, ternight!’

The last word came out like a small explosion and was obviously a threat.

Alan whitened visibly, though he answered quite steadily, ‘I’ll tell Daddy.’

We picked up the two big newspaper parcels handed us by the fish-and-chip merchant, paid for them with a pound note, grabbed our change, and ran down the steps and through the gloomy, gas-lit streets as if pursued by ghosts. We knew instinctively what the newspaper-shop man was. He was a Creditor! Creditors had crowded round Daddy before and caused all our troubles.

‘Do you think he’ll take our five pounds?’ I panted to Alan.

‘Not all of it,’ said Alan defiantly. ‘We’ll have finished the fish and chips before he gets to our house. Let’s get the milk quickly.’

Not even the colossal row which immediately broke out between my parents when we told them about the Creditor, could dim the pleasure of eating, really eating, once more. My fish and chips and peas were cold by the time I had fed Edward and got the children settled at their meal, but they still tasted like a meal fit for a king.

‘Well, where did you think I got the cigarettes from?’ asked Father, his teeth deep in fish.

‘I never considered the matter,’ said Mother haughtily.

I had been so used to seeing my parents smoke, that it had never struck me to question the source of the supply of cigarettes which I had sometimes seen them consume lately.

‘How did you imagine you would pay for them?’ she inquired.

‘I didn’t know. I had to have a smoke. You smoked them, too!’

Mother began to cry, while Father phlegmatically started to gnaw at another piece of fish.

‘I don’t know how you persuaded him to trust you,’ she sniffed unhappily.

I knew how he had obtained credit. I had already discovered that a good Oxford accent was a much respected asset. A man who spoke as Father did would be trusted by working-class people; they would be sure in their minds that a man who was so well spoken and refined would have the means to pay, no matter how shabby he was.

At that moment there was a knock on the door of the room, and a fearful silence fell upon us all.

Trying not to tremble, I opened the door to reveal an irate member of the working class, our Creditor.

‘I want me money,’ he said grimly.

‘How much?’ asked Father, licking his fingers as he got up.

‘You know! Thirty-seven and sixpence – and I want it all. Pack o’ bloody liars, the lot o’ ye,’ and he glared around the room.

‘Here,’ said Father, counting out the money, ‘and get out before I throw you out for swearing in front of a lady.’

Quite undaunted, the little man carefully pocketed the money before he moved.

‘Lady!’ he sneered. ‘Ha.’

Father was very neatly made, though by no means tall. His face went red, and he charged straight at the offender, who shot down the first flight of stairs with a nimbleness which would have done credit to a ballet dancer, from which comparatively safe refuge he shook his fist, and then continued downward.

Mother had sat silently through the exchange. Alan and I looked at each other. I could see his visions of plenty to eat for days mixed up with hopes of a new pair of socks slowly fading away. Thirty-seven and sixpence was more than a quarter of the regiment’s grant My own dreams of a broom to sweep with and piles and piles of soap lay shattered.

Fiona, who had not understood anything except the threat of a fight, whimpered and ran to me, and made me take a further step towards growing up.

I put my arms around her and said, with reassuring cheerfulness, ‘Daddy still has lots of money left, haven’t you, Daddy? We’ll be able to have fish and chips again tomorrow, won’t we?’

Father had come back into the room and was standing looking worn out in front of the fireplace, but he caught his cue.

‘Of course, Fiona, of course we will. Don’t worry, little girl. Fish and chips tomorrow.’

Brian suddenly vomited. It seemed to me the worst possible waste of good fish and chips.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#ulink_fb7f6f42-8b83-5d21-8638-17ea87d21b57)

Mother went to town on a shopping expedition the following morning, while Edward, Avril and I went to the pawnbroker’s to redeem my overcoat.

The pawnbroker hailed his blue-eyed duck with pleasure, when, trembling with apprehension at my unaccustomed task, I entered the dark, back part of his shop, pawn-ticket in hand.

He smiled at us both, his dark face gleaming in the poor light like a portrait by Frans Hals.

‘Sit the little girl up on the counter, while I deal with these ladies,’ he told me cheerfully.

I lifted Avril on to the high counter.

The counter was divided up into three by means of partitions, so as to give people a little privacy in their transactions, and in the next cubicle were a couple of Irish women in black shawls and white aprons. They had each brought their husband’s best suit to pawn, since both men had got ships and gone to sea.

The pawnbroker pulled down his waistcoat over his bursting waistline.

‘Now, ladies?’

‘Himself sailed last night, and a bloody good riddance to him, I say.’

A bundled-up suit was pushed over the counter.

‘Will you get an allotment?’ asked the pawnbroker, as he inspected the seams of the jacket for wear.

‘Och, for sure. Not much though – himself will see to that’

‘I won’t be seeing you for a while then, once that starts to come in.’

‘And will it be breaking your heart?’ She dug a stout elbow into her friend’s ribs, and they both chortled.

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to live without you.’

And so on, bickering about how much the suits were worth – worth more than shiftless husbands, I gathered – until finally they swayed out of the shop, their layers of black skirts giving out an unbelievable stench as they moved.

Mother had given me three shillings, which I handed to the pawnbroker with his receipt for the coat. He gave it to his gangling young assistant, who disappeared up a ladder into the loft. A bundle wrapped in a piece of cloth was tossed down and neatly caught by the pawnbroker.

‘There you are. When you bring it back, wrap it in the cloth again,’ he said kindly. ‘Everything has to be wrapped up in a bundle.’ He pushed the tightly wrapped package over the counter to me. ‘You should undo it and check it.’