Free The Leaving Of Liverpool by Maureen Lee

the grave. Agatha’s job in the chemist’s was also due to the manager having been a friend of her father’s.
    ‘I thought you worked there all by yourself?’ Mollie commented.
    ‘I do, but I’m not supposed to. Mr Gerard takes himself to the pub the minute it opens and doesn’t come back until it closes, so I’m there by meself most of the time.’
    Mrs Brophy was already in negotiation with another friend of her late husband to give thirteen-year-old Cathy a job in his restaurant in St John’s Street when she left school in the summer. Dora and Ellen wondered aloud what she had in mind for them.
    ‘We’ll just have to see, girls,’ their mother said enigmatically. ‘We’ll just have to see.’
    The lodger, Mr Wainscott, occupied the big bedroom at the front of the house. He sold Bibles door to door and read aloud a passage from his wares every night before he went to bed.
    ‘Don’t be scared, Mollie, if you hear a ghostly voice quoting Leviathan or Exodus at about eleven o’clock,’ Mrs Brophy warned her. ‘It’s just Mr Wainscott telling himself a bedtime story. He’s quite harmless, really. Always pays his rent on time, never complains about the food, and is mostly very quiet.’
    ‘He leaves a horrible smell in the lavatory, Mam,’ Dora complained, ‘and makes rude noises with his bottom.’
    ‘That’s because he has a problem with his bowels, love. Just ignore it; I do.’
    ‘You can’t just ignore a smell , Mam.’
    ‘Then hold your nose, Dora,’ her mother said sharply. ‘I do that as well.’
     
    All in all, despite her worries, Mollie quite enjoyed her stay with the Brophys, where the first thing she did was write to Aunt Maggie and Hazel. During the day, she helped with the housework and went on the occasional errand. Afternoons, she attached the buttons to gloves that Mrs Brophy had already painstakingly sewn together, a task for which she received sixpence for a dozen pairs.
    ‘It all helps, Mollie,’ she said serenely. ‘They come from an old friend of Robert’s. He always makes sure I receive the smallest sizes so there’s less sewing to do.’
    Since her husband had died, there’d been no chance of replacing the worn lino, the thinning carpets, curtains that were beginning to fray and wallpaper that had badly faded, so the house looked very shabby. Dinner consisted of the cheapest meat, which was minced in the big, cold kitchen and stewed with an enormous amount of vegetables, mostly potatoes. It tasted very watery and there was never a pudding. Yet Mollie admired Mrs Brophy for hanging on to her house. It would have been a simple matter to rent a smaller, cheaper one, but she had her standards and was determined to keep to them, even if it meant they ate like paupers and there was never a decent fire in the grate.
    On Wednesday, half-day closing, she met Agatha and they went to a matinée at the Palais de Luxe, a picture house in Lime Street where they saw Little Annie Rooney starring Mary Pickford. Seats down at the front only cost a penny. It was the first film Mollie had ever seen.
    ‘It was wonderful ,’ she breathed ecstatically when it was over and they were strolling back to the tram stop.
    Agatha linked her arm. ‘I won’t half miss you when you’ve gone. I’ve got used to you living in our house.’
    ‘I’ll miss you, too,’ Mollie said sincerely. ‘But we can write to each other and perhaps one day you can come and see us.’
    ‘I’d love to, but it’ll be a long while before I have the opportunity,’ Agatha sighed.

    It would take weeks for her letter to reach Aunt Maggie and for her to answer, but Hazel’s reply came within just a few days, a long letter written in big, bold writing, just like Hazel herself. ‘Is your head better?’ she asked. ‘Oh, I bet you’d like to kick yourself, but it couldn’t be helped. If I weren’t nearly eight months pregnant, I’d come and see you. Finn’s as mad as hell: with you, with me, but especially