Read Online A Liverpool Lass by Katie Flynn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Katie Flynn
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wielding a determined knife and fork over a plate of the best fried fish and potatoes she had ever dreamed of devouring.
‘You’re right; best fish in the ’pool’, her new friend said, eating almost as vigorously as she. ‘What do you have for your dinners at that place, then, Culler’s?’
‘Bread and rhubarb jam,’ Lilac said thickly through a mouthful. ‘Pass the vinegar, Joey!’
Nellie was worn out and terribly worried by the time dusk had fallen and she had still seen no sign of Lilac, but at least she knew, now, that she was heading in the right direction. She had followed the trail like a blood-hound, asking everyone she passed, ‘Have you seen a kid of about seven, with red-gold hair, wearing the Culler uniform?’
It was astonishing the number of people who did not know the Culler uniform, though less astonishing when you remembered, as Nellie did, how rarely the children went far from the vicinity of Rodney Street, and because it was a street largely used by the medical profession the children did not see shoppers or, indeed, shops. There was Philip Stern the pawnbroker, of course: a fascinating window for small noses to press against, and Mrs Rhoda Broughal’s hats, but other than that it was a dreary procession of brass medical plates on most doors as surgeons, laryngologists and dentists vied discreetly for customers.
Even the twice daily church attendance on a Sunday did not mean a long walk, since Mrs Ransom, with a fine disregard for firmly held convictions, saw the entire orphanage off to Catholic Mass at the cathedral on the corner of Warren Street in the morning and to evensong at St Luke’s on Bold Street in the evening. As both churches were a very short walk from Rodney Street, the long crocodile of brown-clad children making their way to church was not a common sight to the majority of Liverpudlians.
But even so, a good many people had noticed the child with the red-gold hair, and Nellie was able to chart Lilac’s progress down as far as the docks. Then she simply lost the trail. She went up and down the road which ran alongside the docks asking, asking, but had no luck until she had gone right along to the pierhead. Here she met a fat woman with three small children who said she recalled seeing just such a child in a fried fish shop on South Castle Street. She was with a seaman, they looked like father and child to the fat woman.
‘Father and child?’ quavered Nellie. ‘Oh, ma’am, I had better hurry!’
Thoughts of the white slave trade made her feet patter along at top speed, but when she reached the fried fish shop and enquired for Lilac of the weary, red-headed man behind the counter, sweating and swearing as he dipped fish in batter and threw it into the hot fat, she was once again too late.
‘They’ve gone, chuck,’ he said, wiping beads of sweat off his brow with the back of a freckly hand. ‘The feller asked me de way to Rodney Street, but de lickle lass said as ’ow thev’d go to the Scottie instead and visit her auntie.’
‘And did they go towards Rodney Street or the Scottie?’ Nellie asked, hope stirring. It did sound asthough Lilac had met a young man who meant her no harm, not if he was trying to get her back to Culler’s. ‘Did you notice?’
But the red-headed man had not even seen them leave and an appeal to the assorted customers waiting to be served or eating their food brought no more information forth. No one had noticed the little girl with the red-golden curls once she and her companion had got up from the table.
Nellie had eaten nothing since her dinner at noon and it was now nearly ten o’clock. She was footsore and thirsty and beginning to be healthily cross with Lilac. If Nellie had told the child once not to talk to strangers she’d told her a dozen times, and yet look at her! First moment she got away she got herself picked up by a young man and when he tried to take her home as he ought she confused the issue by talking about the
‘You’re right; best fish in the ’pool’, her new friend said, eating almost as vigorously as she. ‘What do you have for your dinners at that place, then, Culler’s?’
‘Bread and rhubarb jam,’ Lilac said thickly through a mouthful. ‘Pass the vinegar, Joey!’
Nellie was worn out and terribly worried by the time dusk had fallen and she had still seen no sign of Lilac, but at least she knew, now, that she was heading in the right direction. She had followed the trail like a blood-hound, asking everyone she passed, ‘Have you seen a kid of about seven, with red-gold hair, wearing the Culler uniform?’
It was astonishing the number of people who did not know the Culler uniform, though less astonishing when you remembered, as Nellie did, how rarely the children went far from the vicinity of Rodney Street, and because it was a street largely used by the medical profession the children did not see shoppers or, indeed, shops. There was Philip Stern the pawnbroker, of course: a fascinating window for small noses to press against, and Mrs Rhoda Broughal’s hats, but other than that it was a dreary procession of brass medical plates on most doors as surgeons, laryngologists and dentists vied discreetly for customers.
Even the twice daily church attendance on a Sunday did not mean a long walk, since Mrs Ransom, with a fine disregard for firmly held convictions, saw the entire orphanage off to Catholic Mass at the cathedral on the corner of Warren Street in the morning and to evensong at St Luke’s on Bold Street in the evening. As both churches were a very short walk from Rodney Street, the long crocodile of brown-clad children making their way to church was not a common sight to the majority of Liverpudlians.
But even so, a good many people had noticed the child with the red-gold hair, and Nellie was able to chart Lilac’s progress down as far as the docks. Then she simply lost the trail. She went up and down the road which ran alongside the docks asking, asking, but had no luck until she had gone right along to the pierhead. Here she met a fat woman with three small children who said she recalled seeing just such a child in a fried fish shop on South Castle Street. She was with a seaman, they looked like father and child to the fat woman.
‘Father and child?’ quavered Nellie. ‘Oh, ma’am, I had better hurry!’
Thoughts of the white slave trade made her feet patter along at top speed, but when she reached the fried fish shop and enquired for Lilac of the weary, red-headed man behind the counter, sweating and swearing as he dipped fish in batter and threw it into the hot fat, she was once again too late.
‘They’ve gone, chuck,’ he said, wiping beads of sweat off his brow with the back of a freckly hand. ‘The feller asked me de way to Rodney Street, but de lickle lass said as ’ow thev’d go to the Scottie instead and visit her auntie.’
‘And did they go towards Rodney Street or the Scottie?’ Nellie asked, hope stirring. It did sound asthough Lilac had met a young man who meant her no harm, not if he was trying to get her back to Culler’s. ‘Did you notice?’
But the red-headed man had not even seen them leave and an appeal to the assorted customers waiting to be served or eating their food brought no more information forth. No one had noticed the little girl with the red-golden curls once she and her companion had got up from the table.
Nellie had eaten nothing since her dinner at noon and it was now nearly ten o’clock. She was footsore and thirsty and beginning to be healthily cross with Lilac. If Nellie had told the child once not to talk to strangers she’d told her a dozen times, and yet look at her! First moment she got away she got herself picked up by a young man and when he tried to take her home as he ought she confused the issue by talking about the
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