Authors: Rosie Harris
‘I’m not so sure,’ Sam grumbled. ‘They’re in such a rush as they come off the boat that they’re probably afraid to stop in case they get pushed over and trampled on.’
‘Perhaps you should change your pitch, then. Move further away from the actual Pier Head so that the crowds have had a chance to thin out before they reach you. Pick somewhere halfway up Water Street or one of the other roads leading towards the Exchange and all the offices around there.’
‘Yes,’ Sam nodded in agreement, ‘I suppose I could find a better spot.’
‘If you found somewhere under the Goree Piazza, then you’d have shelter when it rains. They don’t call it the Docker’s Umbrella for nothing, you know,’ she added with a smile.
By the start of the summer Sam was doing a steady trade and sometimes earning as much as eight shillings in a week. Even after he had replenished his stock of polishes and occasionally replaced one or other of his brushes because the bristles were so worn down, he was still making good money.
Each week when he handed most of it over to Lucy, she set aside at least half of it because they were both determined to move away from Hans Court as soon as they could save up enough to do so.
Living there in the winter had been bad enough but now, in the heat of summer, it was almost unbearable. They found their two rooms were smelly and stuffy and when they opened the window the air was foul because of all the rubbish piled up in the court outside.
As well as mice and cockroaches to contend with there were countless bluebottles and other flies everywhere. Lucy made sure that every morsel of food was kept covered over, otherwise, within minutes, it was swarming with flies.
‘It’s only the end of June and it will be even hotter and smellier in July and all through August,’ Lucy sighed as she mopped at her face. ‘Perhaps it is time we took the plunge and moved to somewhere else.’
Things really came to a head when a family with two boys aged about ten and thirteen moved into the other two rooms on the same landing. They were not only extremely noisy but the boys also seemed to be up to every kind of prank imaginable.
Lucy and Sam tried to ignore their carryings on but when they started taunting Sam because of the way he walked, they both decided that they’d had enough and that it had to stop – especially when the boys started following him down the street, calling out names and imitating his limping gait.
When Lucy appealed to their mother to ask them to stop mocking Sam, instead of being apologetic or even sympathetic, she was extremely abusive.
‘You think yourself too good to be living in Hans Court, don’t you?’ she sneered. ‘I’ve heard what the others have to say about you. They all think that you’re a stuck-up bitch who walks around with her nose in the air and has no time for anybody else.’
Lucy looked bewildered. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. I’m out at work most of the day, I haven’t got time to stand on the doorstep gossiping.’
‘You’ve got time to bad-mouth my two lads, though.’
‘I simply asked you to tell them to stop calling out names after my brother,’ Lucy said stiffly. ‘If you won’t do it, then I’ll have a word with Mrs Sparks.’
‘A fat lot of good that will do you, luv,’ the woman responded with a grating laugh.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Mrs Sparks always maintains that she keeps a very respectable house,’ Lucy told her spiritedly.
‘Maybe she does, but my two lads are her bloody grandsons and she thinks the sun shines out of their arses, so you certainly won’t find her telling them off or listening to your griping on about what’s only a bit of fun on their part.’
‘It really is time we started looking for somewhere else to live,’ Lucy told Sam wearily when she told him about her exchange with the woman later that night.
They counted out their savings and although they still didn’t have as much as they’d planned, Lucy felt sure that, providing they budgeted very carefully, it was going to be possible.
Lucy and Sam spent as much time as they could trying to find new accommodation which they could afford, but it wasn’t easy. Some days Lucy felt so despondent that she wondered if they were ever going to manage to get away from Hans Court.
The rooms to let which were advertised in the
Liverpool Echo
were all far too expensive for them. They spent their evenings walking around those streets in the Scotland Road area which looked slightly better than where they were living to see if there were any cards in the windows or in the nearby shops advertising rooms to let.
A couple of times they thought they were in luck only to find that when they went to the house, someone had already pipped them at the post and rented the rooms.
‘Never mind, we’ll go on saving until we have enough to move to somewhere really nice,’ Lucy told Sam each time he became downhearted about it. ‘At least we can do that as long as we’re both earning money. You’re doing better all the time with your shoe-cleaning job and I have my charring one, and occasionally they still ask me to do a stint at the hotel at midday.’
The summer heat was overpowering and made both of them irritable. Little things which normally wouldn’t have worried Lucy made her snappy. The noise from outside in the court where children were shouting and screaming every evening until long after it was dark made her head ache. The smells of cooking that wafted through the house made her feel nauseous.
A lot of the women gathered outside in small groups in the evenings, smoking and gossiping and exchanging confidences. Although Lucy longed for a breath of fresh air she didn’t dare join them because she knew that she would not be made welcome.
She and Sam had not made friends with any of the other occupants of the house since they’d been living in Hans Court. Lucy remembered what Maggie, Mrs Sparks’s daughter-in-law, had told her when she’d complained about her two boys and knew that they regarded her as stand-offish. Apart from Mrs Sparks, few of them ever passed the time of day with her, not even when they passed on the stairs.
Lucy tried not to think about all the friends and neighbours she’d known as she’d been growing up in Priory Terrace. Things had been so very different then. Her family had often sat out in the pleasant little back garden, especially on hot summer evenings, waiting for the sun to go down and the air to be cooler before they went to bed.
Another thing which irritated Lucy was that now that it was summer the people living in Hans Court strung their washing out on lines that stretched across from one side of the court to the other.
Often they didn’t take the trouble to put their sheets and clothes through the wooden mangle that stood in one corner of the court and was available for all to use. The weather was so hot they knew that whatever they put on the line would be dry in next to no time but, several times when she’d been going out, Lucy had found herself soaked because someone had just hung washing on the line which was still dripping wet.
The other thing which Lucy found almost intolerable was the smell from the lavatories which seemed to permeate through the entire court. The one in their own backyard was bad enough and attracted hordes of flies which meant that it was impossible to have the windows open, but mingled with all the others in Hans Court the smell was quite overpowering.
During the first week of September the weather changed; it was so wet that Sam found his usual customers hurried up Water Street from the ferry to their offices and didn’t stop for a shoe-shine so his takings were pitifully low and this depressed him even more. Added to this, he found that the damp weather made his leg ache and this only served to remind him what a burden he was on Lucy.
He knew how much she hated having to live in Hans Court and how disappointed she was because they couldn’t seem to be able to find somewhere better. Perhaps he shouldn’t be relying on her to keep looking but do something himself.
The next day, as soon as the morning rush was over, he packed up his things and took them back to Hans Court, then set off on his own to see if he could locate a place to rent.
Previously, they had looked in the myriad of streets between Hans Court and Scotland Road but today he made his way to the other side of Scotland Road. He decided to start at the top where Scotland Road and Cazneau Street met and to check out all the streets on the right-hand side as he walked down.
The houses were pretty much the same, long rows of grim terraced houses, but it was an area they hadn’t looked at before.
He had no idea where to start so he went into a newsagent’s shop on the corner of Lawrence Street, intending to buy a packet of cigarettes and then ask whoever served him if they knew if there was anything up for rental.
Inside the shop was a large noticeboard with all sorts of things pinned on to it, ranging from notices of local dances, to items for sale and, in one corner, rooms to let.
He was studying them hopefully when a small, dumpy woman with grey hair and bright blue eyes in a round, pleasant face tapped him on the shoulder.
‘You looking for somewhere to live, chooks?’ she asked.
‘Right first guess,’ he said, turning and smiling at her.
‘I suppose you want somewhere with no steps or stairs,’ she commented, nodding her head in the direction of his walking stick.
‘I carry this for protection more than anything else. I can manage stairs as long as there’re not too many of them,’ he said, grinning.
‘What about steps, steep stone steps?’
‘Yes, them as well, as long as I take my time,’ he said solemnly. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I do take in lodgers but there are half a dozen steps up to my front door. You won’t find anything about them on that noticeboard because the couple only moved out this morning and all my other rooms are taken. Do you want to come and take a gander when you’ve bought your ciggies?’
‘I’ll come with you right away. I only came in here to see if they knew if there were any rooms to let round about. Here, let me carry that for you,’ he said reaching out and taking her shopping bag.
‘Sure you can manage it with your gammy leg?’
‘Quite sure. My name’s Sam Collins, by the way. What do I call you?’
‘Most folks call me Berky on account of the fact that I come from Birkenhead. My full name is Mrs Brenda Mason but there’s not many around here who use it so you’d better call me Berky or they won’t know who you’re talking about.’
‘Right then, Berky, shall we get going?’ Sam smiled. ‘Is your place very far from here?’
‘No, it’s the next road up, Horatio Street.’
It took them only a few minutes to walk there and as they reached number twenty, Berky held out her hand for the shopping bag. ‘I’d better carry that now since you’re going to need all your wits about you to get up these steps.’
‘I can manage.’
Sam’s voice was much terser than he had intended and he bit his lip, wondering if he’d blotted his copybook, but to his immense relief Berky laughed merrily.
‘That’s what I like, a man with guts. Get up those steps, then, and let’s see how you get on and don’t go falling backwards or you might squash me as flat as a pancake.’
As Sam stood on the top step waiting for her, Berky puffed, ‘Push the door open, then, lad; it’s not locked.’
He did as she asked then waited for her to join him and precede him into the house.
‘Got manners as well, have you?’ she said, her voice laced with satisfaction. ‘Come on through here to the kitchen, then, and sit yourself down. The kettle is on so we’ll have a brew-up before I show you the rooms.’
The kitchen, although not very large, was spotlessly clean and welcoming. Sam sat down in the armchair by the fireside while Berky made a pot of tea and then bustled about unpacking her shopping and putting it away as she waited for the tea to brew.
‘Here we are, then,’ she exclaimed as she poured out two cups and held one out to him. ‘I’ve put sugar in and stirred it, so all you have to do is drink it,’ she commented as she moved back to the table and pulled out one of the two wooden chairs.
‘Thanks.’ Sam stood up and then, putting his cup of tea on the table, pulled out the other chair. ‘You come and sit in the armchair,’ he told her.
‘I’d sooner sit here with you,’ Berky told him as she stirred her tea. ‘If I make myself too comfortable, I won’t want to walk up all those stairs to show you the rooms.’
They drank their tea in companionable silence for a minute or two. Then Berky drained her cup and stood up. ‘Come on, then, lad, I haven’t got all day to sit around swilling tea. Come up and see the rooms.’
The two rooms were such a vast improvement on the ones he and Lucy had in Hans Court, that Sam’s mind was made up the moment he saw them. The bedroom was about the same size but it had a single bed which left room for a wardrobe and a chest of drawers which had a cheval mirror on it. Everything was spotlessly clean and all the furniture, although far from new, was well polished.
The larger room had a large curtained off alcove at one end with a scrubbed table with a gas ring on it and a row of three shelves up over it. There was a chintz curtain around the bottom of the table to screen the slop pail and wash bowl that was underneath it.
Apart from that it was pretty much the same as they had now, except that there was a colourful rag rug in front of the grate, two comfortable armchairs and a round table covered with a red chenille cloth.
‘Well, what do you think?’
‘Seems all right,’ Sam said cautiously. ‘Depends on how much rent per week you’re asking.’
‘Five shillings.’
Sam pursed his lips in a long silent whistle. It was a shilling a week more than they were paying now but the rooms were so much better that he was confident Lucy would agree they were well worth it. They wouldn’t have to go on saving money each week so he was sure they would be able to afford it.
‘I’ll have to ask my sister because it’s more than we’re paying at present,’ he said cautiously.
‘Your sister?’ Berky looked taken aback. ‘You never said you were sharing with your sister.’
‘I’m sure she’ll approve,’ Sam said quickly.