The Pride of Polly Perkins Read online

  Once again Ada pulled a face. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  Mary tutted impatiently. ‘If yer were that desperate, Ada, sure yer’d soon find the place to start, and that’s a fact.’ She made to walk away, aware that if she didn’t put a move on, the flower market would be closed. But her conscience brought her to a halt. The Perkinses were a good family and always the first to offer help if it was needed. ‘D’yer know that overall factory, the one just around the corner from Northumberland Street? Well, as it so happens, me darlin’, I know someone who works there as a cleaner. I see her most nights when I go to the pub for me glass of stout, an’ she’s a pleasant enough woman, so she is. Would it please yer if I asked her whether there’s any jobs going?’

  ‘Oh yes, please, Mary. I’d be that grateful.’ Another unwanted tear fell and she quickly flicked it away. ‘I’ve either got a bit of dirt in me eye or I’m in for a cold.’

  Mary wisely kept her thoughts to herself. She’d known Ada for about twelve years and wasn’t fooled by the lame excuse for the tears. But she wasn’t going to pry. ‘I’ll be on me way, me darlin’, but if I see me friend tonight when I go for me nightcap, I’ll let yer know tomorrow what she has to say.’

  ‘Thanks, Mary.’ As Ada watched the Irishwoman walk away she wondered why, after being neighbours for so many years, she still knew so little about her. Mary was alone when she first rented the house on the opposite side of the street, and she’d been alone since. No man in her life, no family and very few visitors. And although she was always polite and friendly with everyone in the street, she gave very little away about her personal life. They knew as much about her now as they had twelve years ago. Even her age was a mystery, although Ada would put it at a guess at about forty, or even younger. There were no strands of grey in her dark hair, her eyes were a clear blue, her cheeks a rosy red, and when she smiled she showed a set of strong white teeth. She had a slim figure and walked with an ease and grace that most women would envy. A striking woman like her, it was hard to believe that some man hadn’t come along before now to claim her affections.

  Ada shook her head to clear her mind. She’d better get moving or Dolly Mitchell would think she’d left home. Giving her eyes a last wipe, she crossed the cobbled street and knocked on her neighbour’s door.

  ‘Well, the wanderer returns!’ Dolly held the door wide. ‘I was beginnin’ to think yer’d run off with the coalman.’

  ‘It was a wasted journey, too!’ Ada lowered her eyes as she told the lie. ‘The socks are cheaper at the market.’

  ‘Well, come in an’ I’ll make yer a cuppa.’ Dolly closed the door and followed Ada down the hall. ‘It’ll be weak, ’cos I’m low on tea, but at least it’ll be wet an’ warm.’ She pulled a chair from under the table and motioned for Ada to sit herself down.

  ‘Where’s Joey?’ Ada asked, her eyes turned to the kitchen. ‘He’s not out playin’, is he? It’s bitterly cold.’

  ‘He’s just run down to the lavvy for a tinkle, he won’t be long.’ Dolly bent to stare into Ada’s face. ‘Yer eyes an’ cheeks are all streaked as though yer’ve been cryin’.’ Without waiting for an answer, Dolly put her two palms flat on her tummy and let out a roar of laughter. ‘Ah, aye, girl! A pair of ruddy socks are not worth cryin’ over! Tell yer what, I’ll knit yer a pair while yer havin’ yer cup of tea, eh? Mind you, they’ll have no heels in ’cos I never learned how to turn a heel.’ Her hearty laughter filled the room. ‘An’ as I’ve only got bits of old wool in, they’ll have to be sky blue pink with a finny-haddy border! Still, if Tommy wears them for work for a few weeks no one will know the difference ’cos they’ll be as black as the Ace of Spades.’

  Even though laughter was the last thing on her mind, Ada couldn’t help grinning. She was a caution was Dolly Mitchell, always good for a laugh. And she had a heart of gold. As poor as a church mouse, like the rest of them, she’d share her last loaf with you, and there’d be a smile on her face and a joke on her lips while she did it.

  Just then the kitchen door opened and Joey dashed in, his pale face pinched with the cold. ‘Yer back, Mam!’

  ‘Yes, son, I’m back.’ Ada held her arms wide. ‘Come here while I warm yer up.’ She held him close and kissed the top of his head. ‘Have yer been a good boy for Auntie Dolly?’

  ‘She said I’m a very good boy an’ a credit to yer.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Dolly was pouring water from the soot-covered iron kettle on the fire hob into the brown earthen teapot. ‘It’s a good job I wasn’t pullin’ yer to pieces, isn’t it? He’d have told yer that as well.’

  Stroking her son’s fine blond hair, Ada smiled at her neighbour. ‘Why, Dolly, you don’t gossip about people behind their backs, do yer?’

  ‘Of course I don’t!’ Dolly plonked the teapot on the table before giving a mischievous smile. ‘Unless I don’t like yer, then to me yer fair game. Like that cow in number four, I can’t stand her at any cost. I’ve only got to see her an’ me hair stands on end. Now I could gossip about her until the cows come home … or until Donnelly docks, an’ he hasn’t even got a ruddy ship yet!’

  ‘Who’s Donnelly, Auntie Dolly?’ Joey’s eyes were full of interest. ‘Did he have a ship an’ lose it?’

  ‘D’yer know, Joey, that’s one of the big mysteries of life.’ Dolly gave Ada a broad wink before folding her arms and hitching up her mountainous bosom. ‘No one knows what happened to Donnelly’s ship.’

  The young boy’s brow furrowed. ‘Doesn’t he know ’imself ? Have yer ever asked ’im?’

  ‘Just hang on a tick while I get a cup for yer mam before she starts spittin’ feathers.’ Dolly disappeared for a few seconds and came back carrying two cups and a chipped enamel mug. ‘The cups ’ave got no handle on, Ada, so yer’ll have to excuse me.’

  Ada smiled. ‘I’m not surprised, Dolly, ’cos yer very heavy-handed. It’s a wonder yer’ve got a cup in the house.’

  ‘Ay, I’m not takin’ any lip off me guests, Ada Perkins! Cheeky sod, that’s what yer are!’ Dolly poured the tea out so quickly it splashed on to the oilcloth covering the table. ‘Get it down yer an’ think yerself lucky. Yer don’t drink out of the ruddy handle, anyway!’

  ‘Have yer got a drop of milk?’ Ada asked. ‘I can’t drink black tea.’

  ‘Huh! There’s no flies on you, is there, girl?’ Dolly huffed as she opened one of the sideboard cupboards. ‘I’ve only got conny-onny, so yer can like it or lump it.’ She put the tin on the table, but when she tried to let go of it she found her fingers stuck in the rivulets of the condensed milk which had trickled down the sides and set into a gel. ‘Damn and blast the bloody stuff!’

  ‘Patience!’ Ada said, placing her fingers around the bottom of the tin which was clear of the sticky substance. ‘Yer can take yer hand away now, I’ve got hold of it.’

  Dolly licked each of her fingers in turn. ‘I hate the flamin’ stuff, but yer can’t waste, can yer?’

  Joey was getting impatient. ‘Me mam’s got ’er cup now, Auntie Dolly, so tell me about the man what lost ’is ship.’

  ‘Well, I’ll ’ave to put me thinkin’ cap on for that, son.’ Dolly ran her hands down the front of her wrap-around pinny, then pulled a chair out and sat down. How was she going to talk her way out of this? There was no such person as Donnelly, it was just an old Liverpool saying which meant it was a waste of time waiting for something because it was never going to happen. But how did you explain that to a four-year-old boy whose eyes were wide with interest? ‘It’s like this, yer see, Joey. Nobody knows the truth because Donnelly won’t tell anyone about his ship. He sits down at the Pier Head every day, looking out to sea, and when anyone asks what he’s doin’, he says he’s waitin’ for his ship to come in.’

  ‘Well, he must know where it is!’

  ‘That’s the mystery, son, yer see. No one ’as ever seen Donnelly’s ship except him!’

  Joey was disappointed. He’d been expecting to hear an exciting story and felt let d
own. ‘That Donnelly, he’s daft.’

  The two women exchanged smiles. ‘He’s not only daft,’ Dolly said, ‘he’s ruddy careless! I mean, anyone who can lose a flamin’ big ship doesn’t deserve to ’ave one, does he?’

  ‘Well, if I ’ad a ship, I wouldn’t lose it,’ Joey said, nodding his head knowingly. ‘I’d keep it tied up with a big piece of rope so no one could pinch it.’

  ‘That’s ’cos you’re a clever boy,’ Ada said, draining her cup. ‘Now, you an’ me are goin’ to have to scarper so I can get some housework done.’

  Dolly lifted her hand. ‘Not so fast, Ada Perkins. Yer were talkin’ about me gossipin’ before, weren’t yer? Well, yer a fine one to talk, I must say. Who was it I saw when I happened to glance out of the window a little while ago? Only yerself an’ Irish Mary standin’ on the corner havin’ a right good gossip.’

  ‘We were just talkin’, Dolly, we were not gossiping!’

  ‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ Dolly huffed. ‘When two women get together for a jangle, they’re not goin’ to talk about the ruddy weather, are they? Not bloody likely they’re not! Some poor bugger’s gettin’ pulled to pieces!’

  ‘Mary doesn’t gossip, yer should know that by now,’ Ada said. ‘In all the years we’ve known her, have yer ever heard her sayin’ a wrong word about anyone? No yer haven’t, ’cos she never has.’

  Dolly laid her arms flat on the table. ‘Tell me what yer were talkin’ about then. Go on, don’t be a meany. Yer know I’d rather ’ave a bit of juicy gossip than a hot dinner.’

  Shaking her head, and knowing she wouldn’t be able to leave until she’d told her neighbour enough to whet her appetite, Ada said, ‘She was telling me she’d had a busy mornin’, sold all her flowers in a couple of hours. When I saw her she was off to the market for more stock.’

  ‘An’ that’s all?’ Dolly looked disappointed. ‘It took ’er ten minutes to tell yer that?’

  Ada smiled. ‘Watchin’ the clock, were yer, Dolly? Timing me?’

  There was no insulting Dolly when she had a bee in her bonnet. Resting her chin on a curled fist, she said, ‘I might be cabbage-lookin’, girl, but I ain’t flaming well green! If she was supposed to have done all the talkin’, how come your lips were movin’ so much? An’ don’t tell me she’s a ventriloquist an’ had her hand up yer back, ’cos I’m not fallin’ for that!’

  For the first time in days, Ada chuckled. ‘Yer a case, you are, Dolly Mitchell! I bet there’s not a thing happens in this street that yer don’t know about. In fact, I’d go as far as to say in the whole neighbourhood! Yer should get a job as the town crier, then we wouldn’t have to buy the Echo to find out what’s going on.’

  Dolly slapped an open palm on her forehead. ‘D’yer know, girl, yer’ve just reminded me. I knew there was somethin’ I had to do, but it slipped me mind. I’m supposed to be cuttin’ last night’s Echo into squares to hang on the nail in the lavvy, as there’s nothin’ out there to wipe our backsides on. My feller had a right cob on this mornin’, didn’t half give me the length of ’is tongue.’

  ‘I can do that, Auntie Dolly,’ Joey piped in. ‘I do it for me mam, don’t I, Mam?’

  Dolly shot up from the chair and lifted a cushion on the couch. Taking out a newspaper, she handed it to Joey. ‘Are yer sure yer can do it, son?’

  ‘Yeah, I just fold it over an’ over until I get the right size, then I slit down the folds with a knife.’

  Once the boy was seated on the floor with the bluntest knife she could find, Dolly sat down and faced Ada. ‘Now, what were we talkin’ about? Oh, I remember, yer were goin’ to finish tellin’ me what yer had to say to Irish Mary.’

  Ada lowered her eyes and drummed her fingers on the table. ‘Well, if yer must know, I was askin’ her if she knew of any cleaning jobs. I could do with earnin’ a few bob to help out. Tommy had a day off this week because he wasn’t well, an’ it’ll be docked from his wages. That means missing me club woman again an’ cutting right down to the bone on coal and food. I’m fed up bein’ skint all the time, robbing Peter to pay Paul.’

  ‘It’s a bad cough your Tommy’s got,’ Dolly said. ‘With these walls bein’ so thin, we can hear him coughin’ his heart out every night. He should get himself seen to – yer know that, don’t yer, girl?’

  ‘Easier said than done, Dolly.’ Ada put a finger to her lips and nodded to where Joey was busy cutting the paper into squares. ‘We’ll talk about it again, eh? But now yer know why I’m desperate to get a job of some description.’ Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, ‘I’m out of me mind with worry.’

  ‘I understand, girl.’ Dolly stretched across to pat her hand. ‘I wish I could help yer out, but it takes my feller all his time to bring in enough to keep us goin’. Twice this week he’s been knocked back at the docks an’ he’s had to take the cart out. He doesn’t make much on the rags and scrap he collects, but it helps keep the wolf from the door.’

  ‘He’s a grafter, your Les,’ Ada said, ‘an’ I admire him for it. It’s hard goin’, pulling a cart around, particularly in this cold weather.’

  ‘He covers some miles, too,’ Dolly said proudly. ‘As he says, it’s no good goin’ around streets where the people have no money; it’s the big houses where he gets the best stuff.’ Once again she slapped her forehead with an open palm. ‘Honest to God, girl, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on! I was supposed to tell yer he’d picked up a good quality coat yesterday. He got it from a house in Allerton an’ he says the material’s pure wool an’ it’s in good nick, except it’s very faded. But with you bein’ handy with a needle and thread, he said yer could unpick it an’ turn the material so the faded part was on the inside. He reckons yer’d get a coat for Polly out of it, and trousers for the little feller.’

  ‘I couldn’t afford to buy it off him, Dolly. I’m stony broke.’

  ‘He only gave coppers for it!’ Dolly didn’t know how much Les had paid the woman, but a little white lie wouldn’t go amiss. ‘The woman gave him a few things an’ he only gave her a tanner for the lot. He said she was one of those posh people who look down their nose at yer, keep their distance in case yer’ve got fleas and speak as though they’ve got a mouthful of plums. He had me in stitches when he told me how she’d wrinkled her nose when she took the money off him. He said he’d bet a pound to a pinch of snuff that the money would be under the tap being scrubbed before he was at the end of the road.’

  ‘What it is to be rich, eh?’ Ada said. ‘I’m not usually envious, but right now I wish we had enough money to get Tommy the treatment he needs. It’s not a lot to ask for, is it, Dolly?’

  ‘Don’t let yerself get downhearted, girl, otherwise yer’ll upset Tommy an’ that’s the last thing yer want. Keep yer chin up, say a prayer an’ hope for the best. Somethin’ will turn up, I know it will. In the meantime, when Les goes to the coalyard where he keeps his cart, I’ll tell him to bring the coat an’ yer can pay him a penny a week. Yer could manage that, couldn’t yer?’

  ‘I think yer’d better ask him first,’ Ada said. ‘He might not like you bein’ so generous with his money.’

  Her neighbour laughed. ‘Me an’ my feller have an agreement that suits us fine. Seein’ as I’m bigger than him, I get to win every argument.’

  Ada glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Look at the time – an’ I haven’t even made the beds. I’ll have to go, Dolly, but thanks for the tea an’ the sympathy. I’m lucky to ’ave you for a neighbour.’

  ‘Come on, Polly, how many times do I have to tell yer? It’s nine o’clock an’ yer should have been in bed ages ago.’

  ‘Ah ray, Mam, can’t I just finish this comic?’ Polly pleaded. ‘I’ve got to give it back to Doreen tomorrow ’cos she only borrowed it from a girl in our class.’

  ‘Then get up a bit earlier in the mornin’ and read it.’ Ada plumped a cushion on the couch. If her daughter didn’t go to bed soon, Tommy would beat her to it; he’d been going up ear
ly every night to get as much rest as possible. But she wanted to have a good talk to him tonight – tell him about her trip to the doctor’s. He wouldn’t be very happy with what she’d done, but the sooner it was out in the open the better. And she couldn’t talk to him while Polly was there. ‘Come on, no arguing an’ no messing about.’

  Pulling a face, Polly folded the comic. ‘Will yer wake me a bit earlier in the mornin’, then, Mam? An’ if I don’t make a move, pull me out of bed by me ankles?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I’ll do that all right! Listen to me, young lady, if yer so desperate to read the flaming comic, then it’s up to you to get out of bed when I call yer.’

  Polly pushed the chair back under the table then laid the comic carefully on the sideboard. ‘I’ll leave it there, where I can see it as soon as I come down.’ She blew a kiss to Tommy. ‘Good night and God bless, Dad – sleep well. I’ll see yer in the mornin’, Mam – good night an’ God bless.’

  Tommy waited until the door was closed before saying, ‘Yer could have let her stay up another fifteen minutes so she could finish reading the comic.’

  ‘I would ’ave done any other night, but I want to have a good talk to yer an’ I couldn’t do it in front of her.’ Ada seated herself on top of the lidded coal scuttle next to Tommy’s chair. Then she took one of his hands in hers and held it tight. ‘Yer know I love yer, don’t yer, Tommy?’

  ‘I should hope so, after bein’ married to me for fourteen years.’ A look of puzzlement crossed his face. ‘What’s brought this on all of a sudden, love?’

  ‘So yer’ll understand why I did what I did.’ Quickly, before she lost her nerve, Ada told him of her visit to the doctor and what had been said.

  Tommy snatched his hand away. ‘What did yer do that for? Yer had no right!’

  ‘I had every right, Tommy, because I love yer an’ don’t want to lose yer.’ Ada reached for his hand again and kept it in a tight grip. ‘Not talking about it won’t make it go away, sweetheart. You are ill an’ yer need to take time off work to get yerself better. There’s nothin’ to be ashamed of in that! And because what happens to you affects me an’ the kids, it’s only right that we should all get stuck in and do something to help.’