Angel of Liverpool by Elizabeth Morton

Author:Elizabeth Morton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Twenty-Nine

It was getting dark. There was a smell of smoke in the air, and Evie was glad that soon she would be home after nipping out to the butcher’s to buy a scrag-end of mutton. Stepping aside, she made way for two boys smashing a football against a wall, but the ball curved towards her and by instinct she caught it.

‘Ay, missus, give us back our ball!’ one of them cried.

She chucked it back in their direction. Two young girls came along the street pushing a battered old pram. She thought about Nelly and Sylvie playing real live dolls with Terry, as though it was perfectly normal for their sister to have a baby out of wedlock, but a baby they weren’t supposed to talk about with their friends.

The kiddies round here, she thought. Look at them. Shorts with no arses in them. Frayed, unravelling jumpers. Who would want to stay here? Despite what Mr Bevan was saying, there were still plenty of kids going to school in bare feet round here, filthy dirty. No wonder they didn’t want to turn up for classes and instead spent their whole time skiving. Who would want to be seen like that? How could you walk to school in snow with no shoes or socks? Would she want the same for Terry? Was this the life she would save him from if she were to give him up? The thought made her sad but resigned.

Evie arrived at home to find the door on the latch and the curtains open. She hesitated on the front step. Moving a foot to her right, she looked in the window. It was the electric light burning that she saw first. Since when could they afford that? And then she saw that sitting at the table was Holy Joan, with Vic beside her. They were hunched over the table. She saw Vic beam as he opened his arms out wide and unfolded a chain of cut-out paper men holding hands, made from the Liverpool Echo.

But then she saw something far worse than this: peering in through the side pane of glass, she saw that Joan had Terry sitting on her knee, nursing him in the crook of her arm.

Evie rushed into the house and dumped the mutton wrapped in newspaper on the table. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Where’s Da? He said he would look after the baby . . .’

‘Pub. Linda came. But I sent her home,’ said Joan. ‘Gave her a tanner. She was happy to get off early.’

Evie’s cheeks flamed. A moth fluttered against the light bulb, which was unusual for this time of the year and, as far as Evie was concerned, a bad sign. She could see Victor’s eyes dart back and forth worriedly, from her to Joan to the baby.

‘Look what we made!’ he said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Paper men chains. We’re going to pin them over the window so everyone can see them.’ Evie’s heart lurched.

‘You shouldn’t have sent Linda home.

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