Liverpool Taffy Read Online Free Page B

envisage herself working for Ma Kettle and taking her money home to the Kilbrides, whilst also staying at home all day to look after the kids.
    ‘There’s a truckle bed you can use,’ Ma Kettle planned busily. ‘Being as ’ow I been a widder-woman these fifteen years, you can share my room. Of course I shan’t pay you a wage, like, seeing as ’ow I’ll be treatin’ you like me own flesh an’ blood, but I’ll see you right, no need to worry about that.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Biddy said dully. ‘Thanks very much, Mrs Kettle.’
    She was too shocked still to do more than think, fleetingly, that at least the food would probably be better than she and Mam had managed out of their small resources. Often there were quite appetising smells floating down from the flat above the shop; she had sat at the counter minding the shop and eating bread and jam and her mouth had downright watered at times.
    ‘You fetch your gear, then,’ Mrs Kettle said. ‘What about your Mam’s things? You’re welcome to bring any furniture, fittings, stuff like that. And if you want me to dispose of anything …’ she paused delicately, her bushy little caterpillar eyebrows twitching interrogatively,’… we might mek a few bob, between us,’ she finished.
    ‘It’s all right, thanks,’ Biddy said. ‘Aunt Edie was good to Mam because they were pals as girls, in Dublin. They were the same build, so she’s having Mam’s skirts and jumpers and that, and there wasn’t much in the way of furniture. The bed was ruined … so I’m lettin’ Aunt Edie have what’s good there, to make up.’
    ‘Aunt Edie?’ It seemed to Biddy that Ma Kettle drew back a little when she said the words. ‘I never knowed you’d got an aunt in the Pool. I daresay she’ll want you when you’re big enough to earn a decent wage. Perhaps I’m wrong to offer, and you with a relative actually on the spot.’
    ‘She’s got a lot of kids,’ Biddy said tiredly. ‘She can’t afford to keep me. But if you’ve changed your mind, Mrs Kettle …’
    ‘Me, change me mind? Bridget O’Shaughnessy – dear me, what a mouthful! – Bridget O’Shaughnessy, the day I withdraw a kindness may I be roast on a spit! She ain’t your real aunt, I daresay?’
    ‘No, not my real aunt. Just a friend of Mam’s,’ Biddy admitted. ‘When shall I fetch my stuff over, Mrs Kettle?’
    ‘Why, tomorrer, if not sooner! And just you call me Ma, same’s the boys does. Want a hand wi’ your gear?’
    Since Biddy’s gear consisted of a spare skirt and blouse, a cloth-bodied doll called, rather unoriginally, Dolly, who was too shabby and dirty to be worth selling, the carpet bag and her mother’s wedding ring, Biddy told her benefactress that she could manage, thank you. She went back to the house in Virginia Street, said goodbye to everyone – the kids cried – and picked up her bag. Then she trudged slowly round to the shop, suddenly feeling as though the world had slid away from beneath her feet, leaving her spinning uneasily in space.
    Three days ago, she thought wonderingly as she walked, three days ago I was Somebody. I was daughter to Kath O’Shaughnessy, lodger to Mrs Kilbride, shop assistant at Kettle’s Confectionery shop. And now what am I? I’m nobody’s daughter, nobody’s lodger even, certainly nobody’s shop assistant, because a shop assistant is paid a wage and Mrs Kettle had made it clear that she would not be paid. Now I’m just Biddy O’Shaughnessy, an orphan who Ma Kettle is about to befriend. Or take advantage of. We’ll see.
    And she trudged on along the dusky pavements, heading for whatever fate had in store. As she passed the shop windows she saw her reflection, saw one small, skinny fourteen year old, with dark curls, blue eyes, and a pointed chin. Once someone said my chin was obstinate and when I wouldn’t eat my greens Da called me a fuss-pot, she recalled, thinking back to those long-ago, happy days. Once I would have looked verycarefully at Ma