Free Liverpool Taffy by Katie Flynn Page B

– all women customers, you see – and I said if ’e coughed up a flat an’ all, ’e could come round whenever ’e wanted, but ’is ole woman, she won’t stand for ’im pissin’ off when ’e should be at ’ome, so it’s daytimes only, thank Gawd.’
    ‘And you let him do – do that to you?’ Biddy asked incredulously. Ill-informed as she was, she could still see that doing ‘that’ with a rich old man could not be to everyone’s taste.
    ‘Oh aye, whiles ’e pays me price. Now, chuck; are you on?’
    ‘Wait a moment. Ellen, it isn’t just so’s I can teach you to speak properly, is it? You’re lonely, aren’t you? Why don’t you ask one of your sisters to share?’
    ‘Honest to God, Biddy, you want your ’ead lookin’ at! If me Mam found out I were livin’ tally wi’ a feller old enough to be me Da she’d tear me ’air out be the roots an’ t’row me body in the Mersey!’
    ‘Yes, I suppose … but you are lonely, aren’t you, Nell?’
    Surprisingly, the use of her old baby-name brought tears to Ellen’s big blue eyes, though she snatched out a hanky and wiped them away as quickly and unobtrusively as she could.
    ‘Well, aye, in a way. All the wimmin at work’s years older’n me, an’ the folk round ’ere turns up their snitchesat me. They think I tek sailors, but I don’t, I wouldn’t, that’s a sin … it’s just Mr Bowker.’
    ‘Do you call him Mr Bowker still?’ Biddy asked, amused. ‘After all, you’re living tally with him … or that’s what you said.’
    ‘I call him Bunny Big Bum when we’re in bed,’ Ellen said, giving a snuffle of laughter. ‘’E’s a funny feller, but ’e means well. Now will you share or won’t you?’
    ‘I’d love to share,’ Biddy said recklessly. ‘What’ll I tell old Kettle, though? And Kenny, I suppose.’
    ‘Tell ’em lies, real good ones,’ Ellen said at once. ‘After what old Ma Kettle’s took from you you don’t owe ’em nothin’. Say you met your Mam’s sister an’ she’s goin’ to tek you in. And ’ear the old devil wail’, she added gleefully, ‘when she realises she’s gonna have to pay someone to skivvy for ’er in future!’

Chapter Three
    Biddy walked home in a very thoughtful mood after her visit to Ellen Bradley. She had been offered an escape route though she was quite shrewd enough to realise that it was not, perhaps, going to be an ideal arrangement. She would have to keep out of Mr Bowker’s way, which would mean that any personal possessions she might amass – she had few things to take with her – would have to be kept hidden away at all times, and because Ellen did not want anyone to get to know anything about the way she lived, she would almost certainly involve Biddy in her web of deceit.
    But how else was she to escape from the Kettles, without becoming a vagrant in the process? Jobs in service were possible, she supposed, but when could she apply for such a job? Scarcely in what little free time she managed to scrape. And in this venture, she realised that Kenny would not stand her friend. He was always after her to better her lot, told her constantly to stand up for herself, fight back, but he would not want her to move out. He must know that if she did so, his chances of a quick kiss and a cuddle would be cut down dramatically – cut out, in fact, Biddy told herself darkly. She liked Kenny all right, but not like that.
    Ellen had invited her to dinner, so she had helped to cook a meal, helped to eat it, helped to clear away afterwards. She was glad to find that Ellen was a good cook and clearly managed her little love-nest well. She commented on this and Ellen said tartly that anyone broughtup as a third child in a family of a dozen had to be handy, else they’d go under.
    So along Sparling Street, up Paradise Street and into Whitechapel Biddy pondered her next move. Tell a big, beautiful whopper and claim she’d met a long-lost relative who needed Biddy’s help about her own