Read Online Liverpool Daisy by Helen Forrester - Free Book Online Page A

Gallagher,” he said. “Sorry to hear from George about your mother.”
    Daisy smiled dimly through the comfortable mist in which she was floating.
    “Evenin’, Mr. O’Hara. Thank you.”
    “Remember your Mam when she was a little girl. We both went to Mrs. Docherty’s Sunday school to learn to read — afore the Board School was built.”
    “You did?” Daisy nodded her head.
    “Oh, aye,” He touched his forelock and with slow, clumping tread went towards the door. “Good night to yez.”
    Daisy wiped her nose with the back of her hand, finished her rum and, shortly after, followed Mr. O’Hara.
    The wind had risen, and the smoke from the rows of chimney pots on the roofs seemed to rest on its side. All the shops were closed, though lights in the windows above them showed that their owners were not yet in bed. The whole street seemed to berelaxing from the clangour of the day. Daisy put her shawl up over her head and held it firmly under her chin, as she bent towards the wind. Her boots clattered noisily over the stone flags.
    A woman in a red coat was standing under a lamp post. She was carrying a large handbag and was smoking a cigarette. Daisy recognized her, and pursed her lips.
    A proper painted judy, that Violet, picking men up in the streets. Regular trade she did, according to Mrs. Hanlon at the Ragged Bear. Then a slow flush suffused Daisy’s neck and crept up her face. What would Mrs. Hanlon say about Daisy’s evening?
    She’ll never find out about it, Daisy argued with herself. Anyway, it was different. Why it was different from what Violet did, she was unable to say. But it was.
    At last the brightly-lit doorway of the Ragged Bear came in sight.
    “I’ll have one more afore I go home,” Daisy decided and plunged thankfully into the steaming warmth of the Snug, as the parlour was called.
    The seat by the fire which she regarded as her own was occupied by Mrs. Donnelly, the grocer, sitting very correctly upright, black laced-up shoes exactly together, her large black hat straight on top of her piled up grey hair and her matching black coat neatly buttoned. She was delicately sipping a glass of port.
    Daisy regarded her sourly as she plumped herself down near the door, a seat which was always draughty. She pushed her shawl back from her hair and smiled and nodded at those people she knew, pointedly ignoring Mrs. Donnelly.
    “Half pint o’ bitter?” inquired Joe Hanlon, as he pressed past her.
    “No. I’ll have a hot rum. It’s proper cold outside. I’m clemmed.” Her voice sounded slightly slurred.
    Joe chuckled. “Doing yourself proud, aye?”
    Daisy was immediately defensive. Her mind was not yet tooclouded to know that even a hot rum mid-week could cause local gossips to wonder where she got the money for it.
    “I need it what with me Mam gone,” she said, and then added haughtily, “I don’t think she’d grudge it me out of her burial money.”
    “I’m sure she wouldn’t,” agreed Joe hastily. “I was sorry to hear about her. You gave her a lovely funeral, though. Me wife said she’d never seen a more respectful one.”
    Daisy’s haughtiness vanished. She beamed at the publican as he took the measured glass of rum from his wife’s hand and carried it over to the fireplace where the kettle bubbled gently on the hob. As the fragrance of the rum reached her nostrils, Mrs. Donnelly’s expression became one of righteous disapproval.
    Joe handed Daisy the steaming glass.
    Daisy smirked, sipped her rum and gracefully accepted the condolences of two acquaintances sitting nearby. Mrs. Donnelly watched her drink in frigid silence. Daisy Gallagher owed her four shillings and tenpence, had owed it for a month, and there she was drinking rum — at mid-week! Mrs. Donnelly determined that the four and tenpence should be collected tomorrow at the latest, bereavement notwithstanding.
    Greatly cheered by Joe’s praise of the funeral, Daisy began to hum the song the sailors had been