The Dressmaker - Beryl Bainbridge [30]
‘I suppose you’re off out in the evening,’ said Margo.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘With Cissie Baines, I expect,’ said Margo sarcastically, but the child only nodded her head passively and went on turning the pages of a book.
They took the midday ferry from the Pier Head, leaving Margo at home to do the shopping. She didn’t argue. She dreaded lest she should upset Nellie and be forced to spend another few days washing the pots and cooking the meagre scraps of food.
Rita went upstairs on deck while Nellie made herself comfortable in the saloon, sinking into the dimpling black leather of the seats that lined the wall, following the curve of the boat. She wriggled herself backwards into position, as if she sat in a dentist’s chair, her feet not quite touching the floor, with a clear view of the Pier Head and the gulls gliding outside the glass. She liked the throb of the engines beneath her, the low whine of agony as the boat shuddered and chaffed the rope buffers of the landing stage, the gush of tumbled water as it moved backwards and swung in a wide circle to face the opposite side of the river. There were brave souls marching the deck: a student from the university with his scarf blowing in the air behind him like a woolly streamer, a man clamping his hands to his head as the wind tore at his trilby hat.
It reminded her of the time Jack had sent them to Ireland for a holiday. He’d paid for it. He knew some hotel outside Dublin that he’d been to years ago at the time of the Black and Tans, but he couldn’t afford for them to have a cabin and she’d sat up all night on deck under a tarpaulin, with little Rita asleep on her lap – everyone moaning as the ship rolled, for all the world as if they were immigrants on their way to America. They went on a train along the coast and at the station there were some taxis and a funny old-fashioned carriage drawn by horses. And there was Marge, the daft beggar, bustling past the ordinary vehicles and bundling them into the buggy cart, driving through the streets to the hotel, swaying and bouncing, making a right show of themselves. It was a lovely holiday. It was nice to watch Rita running in and out of the waves with her little dress tucked into her knickers. Of course, Marge made a fool of herself, getting off with a commercial traveller from Birmingham, saying she was going off on the bus to Bray, and her and Rita walking past a café in the afternoon and seeing Marge and him sitting in the the window eating egg-and-cress sandwiches: caught redhanded in a yellow straw hat with red roses on the brim and a piece of watercress stuck to her lip. Rita searched for Nellie as the bell clanged for the passengers to disembark. Through the window of the saloon she saw her aunt’s corpse-like face etched on the darkness of the interior. She was smiling with her eyes closed, as if she was happy, the clasped hands on her lap threaded through the strings of her shopping bag. Rita tapped on the glass. Nellie opened her eyes immediately, stared uncertainly, then came in a little unsteady run to the swing doors, clasping the brass rail for support.
‘My word, it’s rough,’ she said. ‘You look like the Wreck of the Hesperus.’
She hadn’t been to Birkenhead for two years and was appalled at the change: the air of decay and obliteration. The municipal gardens were laid to waste. Gone were the roses and the shrubs, the drinking fountain with its marble basin – nothing now but two slopes of sparse grass; the railings carted away; dogs doing their business where once the tulips had swayed in scarlet ranks.
Rita wanted black worsted for a dress. She didn’t care what else, but she wanted the black.
‘It’s a bit old,’ said Nellie.
‘I want pleats in the skirt and a white collar