A Last Dance in Liverpool by Elizabeth Morton

Author:Elizabeth Morton [Morton, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473565999
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter 17

Stella was lingering on the stairs, coughing. It had started after the visit to the beach. Ludicrous, paddling in the sea in October, she had muttered to herself. No wonder I’m ill. She was beginning to cough harder these days, everyone had noticed. It was getting to her chest. Hearing the hacking sound, seeing her go purple and her eyes bulging, Matt was thankful when she caught her breath as Gram bustled in and offered stockings, no questions asked about where the money had come from to buy them. Rosie’s funeral was at twelve. It had taken weeks to organise. Death in this city had become a complicated affair. There were so many to bury, and identifying bodies was often a gruesome and long drawn-out task. More than 150 people had died three weeks after Rosie, in Durning Road in Edge Hill. The most cruel and horrific act of destruction that was hard to see how anyone would recover from.

The funeral procession coming up the hill was a tragic affair. The carriage, from Spall’s yard, that normally carried old rags, was done up with black drapes and a single balloon on a stick, as a gesture to Rosie’s father who was a rag-and-bone man in Everton. There were flashes of white handkerchiefs as the well-wishers came out of their houses to wave and wipe their eyes.

It turned into Caryl Street. When Stella came out onto the front step to pay her respects and follow the procession, walking behind it as they made their way to the church, it made her heart break just to look at it. Rosie, it said in flowers on the side of the coffin. It acted as a sombre reminder of how fleeting a life could be in this monstrous war and it was hard not to get swept up with the drama of the four top-hatted pallbearers walking behind, and the men’s voices singing, and the majestic Gallagher’s horses. Stella, staggering, grief-stricken, held up by the arm on one side by Matt and the other by Peg Leg, wearing black from head to toe, striking in ink black velvet and a hat with a black plume of feathers, only added to the drama.

‘Buck up, Mam,’ whispered Matt. ‘Funerals have always raised your spirits.’

She looked at him with tears swelling in her eyes and frowned.

‘What are you saying? This is Rosie.’

‘I mean, you’ve always loved a good send-off, that’s all,’ he said.

She turned away from him and shook her head sadly.

The crowd slowed to a halt outside the church. One of the big funeral horses, with its oversized fringed hooves, stopped, bucked its head, whinnied and snorted. When they went in, it was already packed full. There was a heady smell of incense and Rosie’s father, a small, hunched shell of a man, twisting his cap in his hands, looked alone and sad, as though the only thing in this life that he could wish for now was death. Prayers were said for Rosie over

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