Three Women of Liverpool Read Online Free Page B

satchel carried neatly on her back, to cover her long black plait so that boys could not pull it.
v
    Emmie descended from the tram and walked briskly down a side street towards her brother’s house. The wind sent bits of paper skittering before her, and a red-faced baby, which seemed to have got dust in its eyes, was wailing unhappily in a pram set outside one of the front doors. In a gutter, two small boys in brown woollen jerseys were quarrelling loudly over their coloured glass marbles.
    “Evenin’, Miss Thomas.”
    At the sound of the deep Irish voice, Emmie’s lips clamped together. She half turned towards the lanky man in blue air raid warden’s overalls, who had fallen into step with her. His battered old retriever, Sarge, nosed between them as if anxious not to be ignored, and she bent to stroke his dusty muzzle. “Evening, Mr Donnelly,” she replied a little stiffly, uncertain how to treat him.
    Patrick’s father, with his shrieking wife and bevy of unwashed children, had been, according to Gwen, a no-good out-of-work until he had been made a warden. “Keeps fighting cocks, if you please. Says a bad shoulder keeps him out of the army, ha! For ever shouting at you to ‘put that light out’. Never seems to miss the slightest chink in your blackout curtains. Thinks you’re signalling to the Jerries if you so much as carry a candle down the yard when you got to go to the lawie. Work? He lives the life of Riley.”
    For his part, Conor Donnelly regarded Gwen and David Thomas as worse than a packet of starch, with their highly polished and scrubbed house front, their ritual of Sunday clothes and chapel-going, their disapproval of little boys who sometimes got caught short and piddled on the pavement, and ate conny-onny butties while sitting on their adjacent front doorstep. Ellen Donnelly had expressed the opinion that,“Them holier-than-thou types is the worst. That Mari’ll be in trouble with the boys in no time at all, at all.”
    Conor Donnelly could not imagine how anybody could endure such a regimented life, without even an occasional bout of drinking or fighting to break the monotony. Of course, since he had become an air raid warden he had had to mind himself a bit. He had to stay sober while on duty and be a bit careful when he was carrying stolen goods for a small group of friends who preyed on lorries serving the docks.
    When he and his family had been bombed out in the previous autumn, the city had rehoused him in the empty row house next door to Mr High and Mighty David Thomas, plumber. That bombing had been a basketful, that had. Poor little Ruby, his eldest daughter, and old Sarge had been buried for nearly four hours. A bloody miracle that the rest of them had been at the pictures at the time.
    Miss Thomas, now she was different. She was polite to his wife and sometimes she made jokes with the kids. On Easter morning she had filled Ruby’s hands with toffees – must have given her most of her ration – to share with the other kids. She was a very quiet woman, he mused, but with a bit of encouragement from the right fella she might be more lively than she appeared. His face crinkled up in a grin, as she glanced up at him. He ventured a mild joke and was rewarded by a shy laugh.
    Emmie forced herself to attend to what he was saying. With his face a polished mahogany from years of inadequate washing and his long, yellow teeth, he was an oddity to her; yet his sheer bouncing gaiety was infectious and she could understand why he had been chosen as an air raid warden – he would be a real tonic if you were in trouble.
    They turned towards their adjoining front doorsteps. Conor pushed open his unlocked door, while she inserted her key into her brother’s carefully burnished Yale lock. Before he entered, Conor turned to point up to the sky, where a few clouds werebuilding and a slight haze was dulling the sunshine.
    “Bit o’ luck and them clouds’ll form a nice cover afore midnight. Should