By the Waters of Liverpool (15 page)

I sat bolt upright in the hairdresser’s shabby, white, wooden chair, while Betty, a plump and gloriously brassy blonde, first removed the too small, black-rimmed glasses and then pulled out the hairpins which held my bun in place. She ran her fingers through the tumbling locks and spread them on my shoulders.

‘Goodness, you’ve got lovely hair, Miss. So thick. I’ll put a brightener in the rinse.’

I had given Betty carte blanche as to how she did my hair, so I smiled and said, ‘Thank you.’

She took her scissors out of her pink overall pocket and snipped and shaped. Rolls of nut-brown hair joined the piles from earlier customers, drifting about the floor. She leaned me over a grey sink, which smelled of old soap and hair, and
scrubbed my head with light experienced fingers, and then towelled it half-dry. Strand after strand was rolled on metal curlers, which hung round my head like so many small clock pendulums. Cotton wool was then poked between them to protect the skull. I gasped as the curlers were doused with a chemical that smelled like ammonia, and I snatched the towel from the sink edge, to protect my smarting eyes.

Betty laughed, and threaded the curlers into plugs dangling from electric wires attached to a kind of chandelier hanging from the ceiling. She turned on a wall switch and after a second or two a strong smell of burning hair was added to that of the ammonia-like lotion. I peeped over the towel. Wisps of smoke were rising from the curlers. ‘Good heavens!’ I exclaimed in alarm, and instinctively tried to jerk my head away, but I was firmly suspended from the ceiling.

‘Be careful,’ warned Betty, ‘or you’ll bring the whole thing down on your head.’

Quite undisturbed by the smoke, Betty had seized a broom and was shoving the mass of cut hair into a corner, while she sang under her breath. I froze in my seat and was relieved to find that the curlers ceased to smoke.

I began to relax, and Betty went to gossip with
her apprentice, who was setting another customer’s hair. The apprentice looked most fashionable to my untutored eyes. She wore her hair parted down the left side, smoothed back from her face and caught in a hair slide. A loose wave nearly covered her right eye. At the shoulder the hair was turned under in what was called a page-boy. Her eyebrows had been plucked to a pencil-thin line, the expressionless face powdered to a smooth whiteness and the lips painted with a purplish lipstick to a full pout. I sighed.

My mind was dull and lethargic, sodden with weeping, which from time to time tended to burst forth without warning. I felt I never wanted to face another whining client, no matter how pitiable her state, never open another book to study, never do an iota more of housekeeping or child-caring, never ever have to face another fight.

But life does not stand still. It has to be faced, somehow dealt with. I was shamefacedly silent before the family.

On the Monday evening after my collapse, Mother had announced that she was going to the pawnbroker, and had enrolled a protesting Fiona to act as parcel carrier. ‘Somebody I know might see me,’ she wailed ineffectually. Now a pile of crumpled garments awaited washing and ironing
or sponging and pressing, to get the smell of the pawnbroker’s loft out of them. I was grateful but still leadenly depressed.

That same evening, Father had gently suggested that we might go for a walk together, and I had thankfully accepted. Numbly, I had walked beside him down the hill towards the town. We strolled along Bold Street, looking in the shop windows. It was still light enough to see their contents. Because of the blackout, no illumination had been turned on, and, since rationing had not yet begun, the windows were still filled with goods. It did not seem to have occurred to shopowners that, if we were bombed, the glass would be blown out and their careful displays ruined or looted. Wholesale looting by fellow townsmen was as yet an unbelievable idea.

Father began to play his favourite game of If I Had a Million I Would…With this million, he would build and furnish a huge house. I slowly began to join in. We chose furniture and curtains and rugs out of Waring and Gillows’. We filled the larder with peaches in brandy and caviare from Cooper’s in Church Street, and the butler’s pantry with silver knives and forks and serving dishes from Russell’s. Russell’s clock struck as we walked, its little figures coming out and performing as the
strokes went on, and I felt a poignant need for Baby Edward, who loved this clock, and was now trying to be a model small boy for his aunts.

We went up Lord Street and filled our imaginary wardrobes with clothes from Frisby Dykes and the many gentlemen’s shops; passed the statue of Queen Victoria standing firmly above Liverpool’s most popular public lavatory, and down James Street. Here we were amongst the offices of the great shipping and food companies which had their businesses in Liverpool. Each door had a pile of sandbags round the entrance.

The city was very quiet, as we continued on. Its peace and the pleasant conversation, my Father walking by me as he had done when I was a child, had its effect. I began to feel more cheerful.

‘Let’s go right down to the Pier Head,’ I suggested, quite unaware that this small decision was to make a big change in my life.

The sharp wind, clean and bracing, blew up from the river, sending little eddies of abandoned wrapping papers scurrying across the sets of Mann Island.

Father held his trilby firmly on his head and I took my hat off, as the playful breeze struck us while we walked along Georges Landing Stage and watched the busy river glinting in the sunshine.
A transatlantic liner was moored by the Prince’s Landing Stage, and, by common consent, we went to peep at it through the open gates. A good-humoured guard warned us that we must not go through the gateway, unless we had business with the ship. I looked with awe at the great Cunarder, a queen of the Atlantic.

‘Nice old girl, isn’t she?’ remarked the guard, nodding his grey head towards the ship. He laughed ruefully, ‘Not that I’d recommend a trip on her at present. It’s much too lively out there for comfort.’

My hairpins were falling out in the wind, and I held on to my loosened bun while I smiled at the guard and nodded, though the thought of the German submarines lurking in Liverpool Bay was no laughing matter. Some men standing near looked as if they might be crew from the ship; they were laughing and talking as if they did not have a care in the world.

Suddenly, as Father chatted with the guard, my hair rolled down my back and was lifted up by a particularly strong gust of wind. I snatched at it and knocked off my glasses. The same gust blew up my skirts, and to the amusement of the men talking, I tried to grab at the falling glasses, the flying hair and the revealing skirts.

One man, standing with feet giving to the rise and fall of the floating dock as if used to it, laughed at me and came forward and rescued my glasses, fortunately unbroken. He was a burly young man, heavy shouldered, and with a big fair moustache, unusual for those days. As he handed me the spectacles, he looked so jolly that, unhesitatingly, I laughed back when the errant wind flicked the ash off his cigarette on to his suit. Struggling with my flying locks, I thanked him, and with Father turned towards the protection of a shed on Georges Stage. I screwed up my bun again, and we took the tram home.

It was a happy walk and I suddenly felt much better. I forgot the young man. But he did not forget me.

Betty undid a roller and tush-tushed over it, rolled it up and slipped it back into its electric outlet. ‘Won’t be long now,’ she remarked, as she leaned against the sink and lit a cigarette. Through the cigarette smoke, she looked me over in a casual, friendly way. ‘Yer sister says you never go anywhere. But, yer know, yer could do quite well for yourself – if yer wanted.’ She turned to her assistant who was standing turning the pages of a magazine, while she waited for her customer’s hair to dry under a noisy machine. ‘Couldn’t she, Dawn?’

Dawn flicked her cigarette ash into the sink and strolled over to look me over, as if I was a pony up for sale. She nodded, and smiled at me. ‘You got lovely legs.’

‘Wait till I’ve finished her hair. You won’t know her,’ promised Betty. ‘If you like, luv, I’ll make your face up, too. Just so you can see what a difference it can make.’

‘OK.’

Underneath still surged a fearful depression hard to control, despite Mother and Father being so helpful, an emptiness of spirit, a lack of hope.

I was unable to talk truthfully and naturally to my parents, was certain in my mind that as soon as I seemed better, their interest would wane again. I missed the children and the letters from Friedrich and Ursel, all of whom had at least diverted my mind from our grim surroundings. I had not seen Sylvia for some days and determined that some of my new pocket money would be spent in order to see more of her. But even with her, there was a holding back, a reserve, a sense that I would never make her understand what the years had done to me. That trust was to come later on, but its time had not yet arrived.

I was thrust under a spray and Betty’s scarlet-tipped fingers scrubbed away the ghastly smelling
solution. In apprehension I watched her brush out the tiny tight curls until I looked like a South Sea Islander. ‘Goodness, Betty. What are you doing?’

Betty laughed, and sloshed highly scented setting lotion over my head. Cold trickles ran down my neck. ‘Haven’t you ever had a perm before, luv?’

‘No,’ I admitted shyly. ‘I’ve not been to a hairdresser before.’

‘Well, I never. You wait. Proper pretty it will be.’

And proper pretty it was. Soft curls finally haloed my thin face, a deep wave disguising the high forehead.

Betty stepped back and looked at me, head on one side. ‘Now, when it grows, I’ll set it for you with a bush of curls at the back – you could put a big slide in to hold them. T’ perm’ll last a few months, if you vary the style a bit.’ She leaned over me, and picked up a pair of tweezers from the shelf in front of us. ‘Now hold still.’ She put a heavy hand on my forehead, and gave a quick series of painful tweaks with her tweezers. ‘See, I took a few hairs out between your brows – makes a difference, doesn’t it?’ It did.

She took her own make-up out of her handbag and swiftly rubbed vanishing cream into my face, touched the cheeks very lightly with rouge, carefully
crayoned the lips with a slightly mauve lipstick, added a little length to the heavy black eyebrows with a dark pencil, and stood back. ‘Come and see, Dawn. What she needs is very soft make-up, looking so young, like.’

Dawn, her customer combed out and sent on her way, strolled languidly over. ‘Very nice,’ she opined. ‘Boy friends won’t know you.’

I blushed under the rouge. ‘I don’t go in for boy friends.’ Then at their startled looks, I added, ‘Never had time.’

‘For crying out loud!’ Betty exclaimed. ‘You’ve missed your vocation – you could do real well for yourself. You look as nice as the next girl – and you walk a lot nicer. Why Nick was only saying the other day, you got style – only needs bringing out.’

Astonished, I asked, ‘Who’s Nick?’

‘Oh, you know him. Everybody does. He knows you. He was in this morning, fiddling with everything as usual. Saw your name in the Appointments Book. He knows every girl in the place – it’s his business.’ She giggled.

‘But I don’t know him,’ I insisted, preparing to get up from the chair.

‘Oh, yeah, yer must do. He’s often around the Rialto – wears a light-coloured mac most of the time – proper smart.’

Enlightment dawned. ‘Oh, yes. He says good night sometimes.’ I paused, and looked at her distrustfully. ‘But he’s a pimp.’

The girls grinned knowingly at each other. ‘Sure. He’s set up a lot of girls in his time. Buys ‘em clothes. Finds them flats. He’s fair. Trades under a lamppost, he does. Yer should get to know him better – you’d do fine with him. He moves his best girls into real good districts.’

I was shocked. ‘Oh, Betty. I’m not that kind.’

Betty’s face lost its smile, and hardened. ‘We’re all that kind, luv, when times are like they are. Better’n slaving in service or standing on your feet in a factory all day – or being so clemmed like you are.’

I looked at her steadily. There were lines under the heavy make-up. I got slowly up from the chair. Did she find it better than being a hairdresser who had to cut prices to the bone? ‘Thank you, Betty,’ I said very gently, and I took out from my otherwise empty handbag the three and sixpence which Mother had given me, and handed it to her, while Dawn drifted back to her magazines.

Betty smiled very sweetly at me, as she put the money into the drawer of a chipped white counter. She replied a little sadly. ‘There, luv. Don’t be offended. You take care of yourself – and keep
that innocent face of yours. Some nice lad’ll know a good thing when he sees it – and take proper care of you.’

‘You’re too flattering, Betty,’ I teased her. ‘I’m not cross.’ She meant to be kind and I did not want to leave her with the feeling that I condemned her way of life. I knew from my work that, too often, it carried with it its own tragic punishments.

I went back to work on the Tuesday after my collapse, and did my best to cope with the mob besieging our waiting room. It was a week later, however, when I walked into the office with hair permed, face made up, dressed in a good blue tweed suit and a plain white blouse, and caused a modest sensation.

‘My goodness,’ exclaimed my patient colleague, her pale face turned upwards from a mass of untidy files lying on her desk. ‘I can see you won’t be with us long, if you go on looking like that,’ she added archly. ‘You look very pretty.’

The inference that I might be whisked off to the altar at any moment made me smile weakly, as I teetered on my second-hand high-heeled shoes towards the door, and hung one of Mother’s old
hats on the back of it. The hat was navy blue and Fiona had donated a bunch of artificial sweet peas to retrim it. Both Mother and Fiona had been unexpectedly kind in helping to renovate a crushed young woman. But the inner woman remained squashed.

It would be nice to be able to say that we lived in amity ever after. Far from it. Mother continued to nag at Father and rage at me, between short bouts of better humour. Father still drank more than he could afford, still lost his temper over small details. Mother and Fiona, rushing to get ready for work, still purloined any clean clothes I had. But the total of garments between us was greater.

The amount of expense money and pocket money seemed wonderful. It bought a meagre lunch, stockings, and make-up from Woolworth’s. I bought some much needed panties and a petticoat, all as yet unrationed. I was close to having the comforts of the working-class girls who sat facing me on the long benches of the trams, as I went to work. I was servilely grateful to my parents.

I was so afraid of offending people, particularly Father and Mother, that I was finding it increasingly difficult to show any originality, to use my own judgment. For years, I had continued a deadly routine of night school, of being an exact and
obedient employee, an inoffensive helper at home – except when human nature had its say and I burst into a temper.

Now at aged twenty I wanted to strike out, find a new life for myself. To learn to act, not just react. I had been brainwashed too long into the idea that I lived by courtesy of other people. Touched as yet lightly by the first ripples of tremendous social change which was to affect all women, I determined to change myself not only in appearance but in character, to assert myself, to be a whole woman in my own right.

‘I am me,’ I cried inside. ‘And I want to be me.’

Mother agreed to Sylvia’s coming to tea. I wanted to learn from this most faithful friend’s outlook on life. She was so balanced, so sensible.

Sylvia came. Her hair was, as usual, carefully blonded, swept upwards from the back to form a crown of curls on top of her head. The fairness complemented speedwell-blue eyes and a dimpled, merry face. She talked with Mother and made her laugh. They got on splendidly.

Sylvia had always taken a course or two at night school, and because all schools were closed she was wondering, like me, what to do with her spare time. Now, as she sat like a neutral zone between Mother and me, I made a great effort to advance
an idea made possible by the advent of some pocket money.

‘You know, Sylvia, how clumsy I am – I’m always dropping things or falling over something. And I was wondering if I learned to dance – that would help me. After all, you learn to be precise in your movements when you dance.’ I paused doubtfully. I did not dare to say in front of Mother that the detective had left with me this idea of dancing, having fun. I feared her scornful laughter, in spite of her recent efforts on my behalf. ‘I wondered if we could go together?’

Sylvia drew in a deep breath. She was a nonconformist by religious persuasion, and with a sinking heart I remembered suddenly that nonconformists do not dance. Perhaps I’ve shocked her, I thought miserably.

Fiona interjected, ‘I never had to
learn
to dance – I just picked it up.’

I ignored Fiona. I hoped that dancing was all her devoted retinue had tried to teach her, but in my jealous heart I always knew that, though Fiona seemed so pliable, her escorts would not be allowed to step out of line. She had a firm fastidiousness bordering on the prudish – she enjoyed the turmoil she created, but she would laugh and slip away from any man who presumed too far.

I concentrated on Sylvia. She was happily ladling jam on to a thin wafer of bread and butter. A quarter of a pound of butter had been bought specially for her, and the bread had been cut as it used to be cut in our long-ago world of cooks and housemaids.

‘Everything is shut,’ she said ruefully.

‘There are two or three dance studios tucked into old houses round here,’ I reminded her. ‘One of them says on its noticeboard that it charges only a shilling for a group lesson.’ What was Sylvia thinking? Was she feeling wicked at the idea of dancing?

‘I used to go to ballet school when I was little,’ I went on, ‘until a wardrobe fell on top of me and injured my foot – and it was great fun. After that I dragged the foot a bit, but I should be all right for ballroom dancing.’ I could not mention that such a corrupt person as Nick said that I walked well – and had style.

She made a little moue with her mouth. ‘That must have hurt. Of course, I’ll come if you would like to go.’ She giggled as if she thought it might be fun.

‘You can dance already,’ Mother protested. ‘Why waste money? We sent you to learn ballroom dancing, when you made such a fuss about not going
to ballet school any more.’ She looked at me accusingly, as if I should now emerge, twelve years later, a perfect dancer – like a moth crawling out of a chrysalis and taking flight.

I did not say anything. I sensed the beginning of a fight which I had not the strength to undertake.

‘Oh, she’ll have forgotten,’ Sylvia assured Mother briskly, as if she understood my need to be rescued before I fled back down my mental burrow. She turned to me, and added firmly, ‘See what day they take beginners, and give me a phone call at the office. I’ll come.’