Free By the Waters of Liverpool by Helen Forrester

enough to cover my pair of rayon stockings every other week and the bits and pieces of clothing from the pawnbroker’s bargain table.
    Fiona laughed, looking suddenly like Mother when she was young and full of vivacity. ‘I’m so excited.’
    ‘It’s lovely,’ I agreed heartily. ‘Lift up your feet, people.’ They all automatically raised their feet off the floor, while I swept neatly in and out of the chair legs. Like an army, they put their feetdown on the floor again in perfect unison when I reached the hearth and picked up the pile of dust between my hands. I threw it into the fire and there was an immediate outcry from the others at the horrid odour of burning hair, as it hit the hot coals.
    Father had been sitting silently on a wooden chair at the opposite end of the table from Mother, while he drank a cup of tea left over from our meal. He rested his head on his hand and, except for the red acne rash across his nose and cheeks, his face was pale. Now he said, ‘I’m very glad about the job, Fiona. What happened this morning about the furniture?’
    All the joy was immediately wiped off Fiona’s face. She said sadly, ‘They came and took it – like they did before, Daddy. They just pushed past me and walked in when I opened the door.’
    ‘Pack of bullies,’ said Father angrily. ‘And to think that we’ve already paid two-thirds of it. They might have waited.’
    Personally, I thought the furniture company had shown the patience of Job waiting for their money at different times. But I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. I put the broom away and went upstairs to get my account books, so that I could do my book-keeping homework.
    When I returned, Mother was saying, ‘We could let that room. Nobody is going to let us have more furniture on the never-never plan for a while.’ I smiled at her use of Liverpool’s name for the hire purchase system, which never, never seemed to get paid off.
    ‘Well, it might help to pay the furniture instalments,’ said Father wearily. ‘Some business girl who has her own furniture, perhaps?’
    I sat down by him and opened my ledgers. ‘She’d have to pass through this room and the kitchen every time she wanted to get water or go to the lavatory,’ I pointed out.
    ‘Oh, you always look on the black side of things,’ Mother grumbled. ‘I don’t suppose such a girl would be home very much.’ She folded up her letter and put it into the envelope. ‘I’ll advertise it in the newsagent’s window. I wonder what rent I could get?’
    ‘A small room rents for about seven shillings a week,’ I told her, as I carefully made entries in my collection of books.
    ‘How do you know?’ Mother was cross. She licked the envelope and rubbed her hand impatiently across the back of it to seal it.
    ‘Well, Mummy, I see details of dozens of people’s incomes and expenses at the office. The first thingan interviewer does is to fill out a form about the client with all kinds of details.’
    ‘I think that’s about right,’ Father agreed. ‘I see plenty of them, too. With no bathroom in the house, we can’t charge much.’
    ‘I’ll try for ten shillings,’ Mother said firmly. ‘After all, this is a very respectable house.’
    She wrote an advertisement on the back of an envelope and immediately went out to see the newsagent, who would, for twopence, exhibit it for a week in a glass case hung on his door.
    Fiona had had an early tea before going for her interview and now announced that she was going to see a girl friend. Alan drifted off to play cricket with the other boys in the street. I should have gone to call Avril and Edward to come in because it was their bedtime, but for the moment I was alone with Father. He had picked up his library book and was looking for his place in it. I laid down my pen.
    ‘Daddy, could I ask you something?’
    ‘Yes, dear.’ He closed his book again and peered at me through his spectacles. I noticed that the gold frame was bent, so that