‘They got very above themselves, the Dohertys, taking off to Ireland and opening up a business like that. I suppose Tommy Doherty thought if he drank in a pub every day, that gave him all the knowledge he would need to run one. A windfall my arse. Does anyone believe that story? Relatives in America turn up from nowhere with a baby in tow and give them enough money to keep them in clover? Not flaming likely! Well, you know what they say, don’t you?’ Eric didn’t answer. He never did. ‘A fool and his money are easy parted. My money, which no one will part me from, by the way, is on them both turning back up here with their brood of brats and tails between their legs before the year is out.’
‘What makes you think they’ll be back?’ he had asked with a furrowed brow.
Gladys snorted as she placed a dish of bread-and-butter pudding next to his plate. To her credit, Gladys always served up a good evening meal, even though she did her best to ruin it with the venom that dripped from her thin pursed lips. Wiping a splash of hot custard from her hands onto her apron, she replied, ‘Everyone knows, everyone thinks it, except you, soft lad. It was the talk of the butcher’s when I called in this morning. Not one person around here thinks they’ll last five minutes.’
‘It’s been a fair few months already, though,’ said Eric. He shook his head in disbelief at having broken his own rule of silence at mealtimes, knowing it would certainly not end well.
‘What would you know? All you do is collect milk, bottle it, deliver it and clean up horseshit. No one’s interested in your opinion.’
It didn’t matter what he did to prepare himself, Eric could never stop Gladys’s words from stinging.
‘And that story about their Kitty, going to look after a relative in Ireland and just happening to drown by accident when she was there? What nonsense. What child around here can swim? Why would she even be near a river? One day, someone will get to the bottom of that story and when that day comes, we will all be the wiser for it.’
‘God rest her soul,’ said Eric and felt a genuine pain at Kitty’s name being mentioned in such a way in his home. Kitty had been the sweetest child, her da’s shadow, her mam’s little helper and to have died at the age of sixteen, at the foothills of all there was to enjoy in this life, was nothing short of a tragedy.
‘And then, to bring her body over here? Who paid for that, I ask you?’ Eric didn’t answer; Gladys wasn’t asking him at all and had never, since the day they married, shown any interest in his opinion. ‘In a carriage and a coffin and with all those flowers. None of that came cheap, I can tell you. Flown from Shannon into Speke airport like she was the queen. Well, Kitty Doherty is the only person from around here to have ever been on an aeroplane, I’ll give her that. Kitty Doherty and the Beatles, who would have thought that, eh? Shame she had to die first and can’t tell any of us about it.’
Eric had risen from the table feeling physically sick, the toxic atmosphere choking him. ‘I’m just going to check on Daisy Bell,’ he’d said as he made for the back door. ‘I thought she looked a bit lame at the end of the round today.’
‘What about your pudding?’ she said to his back.
‘I’ll have it in a minute.’ He’d closed the door behind him and gulped in the damp evening air, knowing he wouldn’t be able to swallow another thing until he could erase the memory of her heartless words from his mind.
Now, on this fine morning, he raised his hand in greeting to Kathleen, who for a woman of her age walked with a youthful stride. Plump, with her white hair concealed in curlers beneath her hairnet, she looked over to Eric with a cheerful smile and, as she raised her hand in response, Eric felt washed over with shame at Gladys’s words and disappointment that he had married a woman who could think such things about a hard-working, clean-living family like the Dohertys.
Mrs Trott was Eric’s first stop on Nelson Street and she was at the door, waiting. He had no need to pull on the reins; Daisy Bell drew to a halt of her own accord.
‘Morning, Eric. Not a moment too soon, I’m spitting feathers waiting for me tea – I used the last of what I had on yours.’
Eric slipped from the seat and, dropping the reins, walked over to collect his steaming hot cup. This had been their routine since he had returned from the war. Mrs Trott took the few steps from her doorway to Daisy Bell, holding the palm of her hand out flat with a sugar lump for the mare. She patted her on the neck and ran her fingers through the long, well-combed mane.
‘There you go, good girl,’ she said and moved back into the doorway, pulling her cardigan across her chest to protect her against the breeze lifting up from the Mersey. ‘She’ll have my hand one day,’ she went on as she took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the sticky sugar residue from her palm. Her wire curlers protruded from the front of her headscarf and there was not a scrap of powder or paint on her face but it occurred to Eric
