Liverpool Annie Page 4

  Also, she was flattered to be asked. The other girls in Ruby's gang were all in their second year. When she asked why they'd chosen her, the reply was astonishing. 'Because you're so pretty.'

  Pretty! That night, Annie studied herself in the misty, scarred wardrobe mirror. 'Do you think I'm good-looking?' she asked her sister.

  Marie was lying on the bed reading Silver Star. 'You're okay,' she shrugged. 'Your face is quite a nice shape, though I couldn't stand having red hair meself.' She tossed her own brown tresses. 'What are the boys like at Grenville Lucas.** Have you been asked out yet?'

  'Of course not!' Annie hooted. 'I'm not quite twelve.'

  'I've been going out with boys since I was five.'

  'If me dad knew, he'd kill you.'

  'He wouldn't give a shit!'

  'Don't swear!' The reproof was automatic. Marie swore like a trooper.

  'Dot swears,' countered Marie.

  Annie couldn't be bothered arguing. She continued examining her face. It was a nice shape, sort of oval, rather pale and slightly freckled between the eyes. Her

  hair was more copper than red, darker than the Gallaghers', and thicker, a mass of natural waves and curls.

  'You've got nice eyes.' Marie put down her magazine and regarded Annie speculatively. 'Sometimes they're blue and sometimes they're grey, and your lashes are a lovely gold. I'd advise you not to use mascara when you're older.'

  'Thanks!' Annie said sarcastically. 'Do you think we'll grow tall, like Dad and Auntie Dot?'

  Marie frowned at the ceiling, as if her height were something she often put her mind to. She was remarkably adult, though in a different way from her sister. Whilst Annie ran the house as confidently as a woman, Marie did nothing to help at home, but thought like a woman. She read adult magazines and spent hours in front of the mirror combing her hair and posing like a film star. The effect of the lecture Dad had given all those years ago had long since worn off. Annie knew her sister went to North Park with boys after school. When she tried to reason with her, Marie laughed in her face. Last term she'd been caught smoking, and the nuns had written to Dad, though nothing had been said. He was increasingly tired nowadays, as if everything were too much for him.

  'I reckon I'll be the same height as our mam,' Marie said after serious consideration. 'Dot always says I'm the spitting image of her. You'll probably end up tall. Fortunately, you've already got more curves than Dot, who's as skinny as a scarecrow, so I reckon you'll look okay.'

  Annie went to bed that night feeling unusually happy. It was nice to discover at such a late age that you were pretty!

  One good thing about Grenville Lucas was that,

  although Annie was asked to some girls' houses, they didn't automatically expect to come to hers. It was taken for granted that not all parents welcomed their daughters' friends. After school, Ruby Livesey and the gang went to the shops in Waterloo, where they hung around Woolworth's and Boots. A few girls shoplifted. When this happened, Annie edged into another aisle so she wouldn't appear to be with them if they were caught.

  Other days, they went to a cafe for a cup of tea, where they often met up with boys from Merchant Taylors, and Annie was amazed at the change which occurred in Ruby. Normally overbearing and bossy, she collapsed into simpering giggles and her gruff voice went up an octave. No-one else seemed to find this transformation in any way remarkable; indeed, they were too busy simpering themselves.

  It was at this time Annie realised she needed money of her own. It was embarrassing when someone else had to pay for her tea, and she was never able to buy anything from Woolworth's. When the girls went to the pictures on Saturdays, she had to refuse.

  'Ask your dad for some pocket money,' Dot urged when Annie explained her predicament. 'He can afford it.'

  'Can he."*' Annie felt bewildered, having assumed they were poor.

  'Of course he can. One thing our Ken's always been is a good insurance salesman. His wages aren't up to much, but he earns as much again in commission.'

  So Annie approached her dad for pocket money, and was surprised when he offered five shillings a week, much more than the other girls.

  The incident was a revelation. Since they'd moved to Orlando Street, nothing new of any description had been bought for the house. Their food was basic, almost

  meagre. The only expensive item on the weekly shopping list was fresh fruit for Mam, which Annie had never seen her eat, but she must have done some time, because the fruit had always gone by Saturday when she went shopping again. Even at Christmas nothing extra was bought, because they always went to Dot's on Christmas Day.

  Annie wasn't sure whether to be angry or pleased at the discovery they weren't poverty-stricken. Emboldened, she approached her dad for new clothes. In December, the gang were planning a day in town to go Christmas shopping, and she didn't fancy wearing her school uniform.

  Her dad's expression was one of sheer bewilderment when she asked for a coat, as if it had never crossed his mind his daughters might want anything other than the barest essentials. Annie stared at his drawn, white face. She hadn't noticed before, but his features seemed to be collapsing in on themselves as the years took their toll, smudging and blurring, and she felt scared that the day might come when he'd have no face at all. His light blue eyes were sinking back into his narrow skull, and there were little silvery channels glistening underneath where the eyes had watered. They looked like eternal tears.

  Annie felt a pang of guilt for having bothered him. She touched his sleeve. 'It doesn't matter, Dad, honest.'

  He glanced down at her hand with a look of faint surprise, as if he were unused to human contact. She could feel the sharp bones in his wrist. 'It doesn't matter. Dad,' she said again.

  To her astonishment, he smiled, and the change was so enormous it almost took her breath away. His thin, almost invisible mouth quivered upwards and his face took shape again. For a brief, magical moment, Annie glimpsed the ladykiller in him.

  'I suppose you want to look nice for the boys,' he said

  in a jokey voice which Annie had never heard before and would never hear again.

  'That's right, Dad.' She didn't disillusion him, but it wasn't the boys she wanted to look nice for, but herself.

  'Well, my girl must look as good as the others,' he said simply.

  Straight after work the following Saturday, he took her to Stanley Road in Bootle, and bought her an emerald green winter coat, two jumpers and a skirt, and a pair of black patent leather shoes.

  'Oh, Dad, it's lovely,' she breathed as she twirled in front of the mirror. The green was a perfect contrast to her bright copper curls.

  But Dad was no longer interested. He nodded briefly and paid the assistant. They walked home without saying a word, and so fast that Annie could scarcely keep up.

  Pupils who hadn't been at Grenville Lucas from year one, who appeared in class suddenly and without warning, were regarded with the deepest suspicion. The suspicion was even greater if they had a strange accent. It took Ian Robertson from Glasgow a whole term to make friends.

  So when Sylvia Delgado arrived during Annie's third year, she was looked upon with loathing - but only by the girls. When Mr Parrish, the headmaster, ushered the new girl into class halfway through a Geography lesson in November, several boys risked a cheeky wolfwhistle.

  Annie was in the process of colouring a map showing the wheat-growing areas of Canada. She looked up to see a tall, slender girl beaming at them with a heroic and

  slightly aggressive self-confidence, as if she expected everyone to like her on the spot.

  The wolfwhistles weren't surprising. The girl was the first genuinely beautiful person Annie had ever seen, with fine, delicately-formed features and ivory, almost translucent skin. Her long blonde hair was dead straight, cut in a jagged fringe on her forehead. Even from the back of the room, it was possible to see the startling azure blue of her eyes, the thick dark lashes under equally dark, perfectly shaped brows.

  'This is
Sylvia Delgado,' Mr Parrish said brusquely. 'She's from Italy, and I hope you'll m.ikc her very welcome.'

  Italy! There was an excited buzz. There'd never been a foreigner at school before. The girl nodded at the class and smiled again.

  'It is so very nice to be here,' she said, in p>erfect English with just the faintest suggestion of an accent.

  The headmaster exchanged a few words with the teacher, Mrs Wayne. After he'd gone, Mrs Wayne looked around for an empty seat. As usual, there were vacant desks near the front. She indicated to the girl where to sit and told the class sharply to settle down.

  The agricultural map of Canada forgotten, Annie glanced covertly at the new girl, who was on the next row to her, several desks in front. Her long slim legs, clad in honeycoloured stockings and crossed elegantly at the ankles, protruded into the aisle, as if the desk were too small, and the heel of one black suede ballerina shoe was dangling from her toes. She wore a uniform of sorts: a gymslip made from fine serge material, more like a pinafore frock, with a scooped neck instead of square. The folds of the full flared skirt fell in a half circle beneath the seat. Annie felt convinced that the white blouse underneath this remarkably fashionable garment was pure silk from the way it

  shimmered when the girl bent her elbow and began to write.

  She would love Sylvia Delgado to be her friend, Annie thought longingly, not just because she was beautiful and wore expensive clothes, but because there was something appealing about her demeanour. She felt sure that, if they got to know each other, they would have lots in common - though probably every other girl felt the same. New pupils weren't usually accepted for ages, but it was bound to be different with this girl. Everyone would be clamouring to be her friend.

  But Annie couldn't possibly have been more wrong.

  She had no idea where the new girl sat at dinner time, but when they emerged from the dining room, Annie saw her standing alone in the playground, looking rather deflated.

  'Who's that.^' demanded Ruby Livesey.

  'Her name's Sylvia Delgado, she's Italian,' Annie said importantly. 'She only started this morning,'

  'Italian!' Ruby expostulated rudely. 'Why's she blonde, then? I thought Italians were dark.'

  'I've no idea.' Annie had wondered the same. 'Shall we talk to her?'

  'Not bloody likely,' Ruby snorted. 'Being Italian's almost as bad as being German. We fought them bloody Eyeties during the war.'

  Even Sally Baker, Ruby's trusted first lieutenant, felt bound to remark, 'But the war ended ten years ago. Ruby.'

  'Yeah, but even so!' Ruby stared belligerently at the new girl. 'I've changed me mind. I will have a word with her, after all. Tell her what I think of bloody foreigners.'

  'No!' cried Annie, but she was ignored. As the girls,

  by at their head, marched across the playground, nie trailed miserably behind. She couldn't wait for

  summer term when Ruby Livesey, who was already een, would leave. She was sick of belonging to her ig, fed up going to the pictures and seeing only by's choice of film, and hanging around in cafes dng to stupid boys. She would have broken off ations long ago, but lacked the courage, having :nessed what Ruby did to those who got on her ong side. She didn't fancy being dragged into a back ry and beaten up on the way home from school. Fwo boys were already chatting to the new girl when y arrived. 'Sod off!' Ruby barked. The boys looked her in surprise. They laughed, but readily departed. ; plonked herself squarely in front of the girl and ;ered, 'So, you're a bloody Eyetie!' rhe girl's lovely dark blue eyes grew puzzled. She ew back her head. 'I am Italian, yes,' she said with ;nity.

  Me Uncle Bill was killed by your lot during the war.' rhis was a lie. Uncle Bill's ship had been sunk by a rman U-boat, but it was more than Annie's life was >rth to point this out.

  The girl replied with the same quiet dignity, 'I'm rry about your uncle. But my father is a communist lo hated Hitler and spent the war fighting the ;rmans in Yugoslavia.'

  Annie gasped. Although Russia had been an ally of itain during the war, for some reason she couldn't ite understand it was now her greatest enemy, ready

  atom bomb the country any minute. Russia was ide up entirely of communists. Fortunately, Ruby ;med ignorant of this fact and appeared momentarily nfused. She swiftly recovered her composure, 'What 2 hell are you doing in our country, anyroad?' she manded.

  'My father has bought a hotel in Waterloo. My mother is English, she was born in Formby. We have decided to make England our home.' The girl tossed her long blonde hair defiantly and Annie admired her spirit. Although clearly shaken, her manner was proud, almost queenly.

  'You got any brothers or sisters?' one of the girls asked curiously.

  'No. I am a lone child.'

  The gang tittered, and Ruby said threateningly, 'We don't like foreigners in this country, particularly Eyeties, so keep out of our way in future. Understand?'

  Sylvia Delgado nodded stiffly. 'I understand.' Her dark eyes swept slowly over the group, as if she were memorising them. Annie dropped her own eyes and wished she could crawl under a stone.

  To emphasise that her threat was real. Ruby gave the girl a vicious shove, grabbed her leather satchel and flung it across the concrete yard where it slithered to a halt in a cloud of dust.

  As if taking their cue from Ruby, not one of the girls spoke to Sylvia Delgado, apart from Ruby's own frequent verbal, and sometimes physical, assaults. Wherever Sylvia was, she would be tracked down and given the sharp edge of Ruby's tongue, along with a blow if her tormentor happened to be in a particularly foul mood. Sylvia became the sole topic of conversation, and Annie was shocked by the sheer spite of the comments.

  'Me dad said columnists are a load of shit. He reckons Sylvia's dad should be shot.'

  'He's a communist, not a columnist,' Annie said hotly. 'When I told me Auntie Dot, she said he was a hero.' But no-one was willing to listen to a word in Sylvia Delgado's favour.

  'Have you seen where she Hves? It's that big hotel opposite the Odeon. S'not fair, a foreigner living in a dead posh place like that.'

  'What gets me is she don't half fancy herself. She walks around as if she owns the place. You'd think she was Marilyn Monroe or something.'

  'Not Marilyn Monroe, she's nice. I wouldn't mind being her meself. No, Grace Kelly. She always looks as if there's a bad smell under her nose, and she's living in a palace with that French prince, isn't she?'

  'It's that cruddy gymslip that gets me,' complained Sally Baker. 'If any of us wore one like that, Mr Parrish'd have a fit.'

  'We should rip it off her back and tear it to pieces,' Ruby said balefully. 'Tell her to get one the same as ours.'

  The girls glanced at each other nervously. 'Perhaps that's going a bit far. Ruby.'

  'Y'reckon!' Ruby sneered. 'Well, something's got to be done to take the bitch down a peg or two.'

  'But she hasn't done anything,' Annie protested. She felt angry. Although Sylvia Delgado still walked with her head held high, she looked slightly desperate, as if she were gradually being worn down. Annie wished she were brave enough to ignore Ruby, because she liked Sylvia Delgado more than ever and longed to be her friend. She didn't care if she came from Italy or Timbuctoo.

  Ruby turned on her and began to list all the terrible, imaginary things Sylvia had done to justify her treatment. Intimidated, Annie didn't say another word.

  As the autumn term drew to a close, the subject of Sylvia Delgado was put aside temporarily as plans were made for Christmas. The gang were going to the pictures on Christmas Eve, but Ruby hadn't yet made up her mind what to see. On the Saturday after school

  finished, a shopping trip to Liverpool was planned. Several girls were having parties.

  Annie had asked for more housekeeping and had been buying extra groceries for weeks: a tin of assorted biscuits, a plum pudding and a fruit cake she intended icing herself, several tins of fruit. She was determined the Harrisons would enjoy the occasion for once, and had even bought decorations and a little imitatio
n tree.

  The sisters put the decorations up one day after school. Throughout the entire operation, their mam sat in her usual chair, her head turned away, her long dark hair falling like a curtain over her incredibly girlish face. She seemed oblivious to everything, even when Marie climbed on the table and banged a nail directly above her head. The girls would have been astonished if she'd acted any differently.

  'What do you think, Mam?' Annie nevertheless asked when the decorations were up and the room actually looked quite cheerful. She saw Mam's hands were clasped tensely on her lap, the knuckles white and strained. 'Perhaps she's frightened,' Annie thought with compunction.

  Mam didn't answer, and Marie said contemptuously, 'It's no use asking her, is it? You'd only drop dead if she answered.'

  'Shush!' Marie frequently made horrible, insensitive comments in Mam's hearing - at least, Annie assumed she could hear.

  'Why should I?' Marie demanded. 'She's way out of it, drugged to high heaven.'

  'What on earth are you talking about?'

  Marie looked at her sister impatiently. 'Honestly, Annie, you're not half thick. You haven't a clue what's going on. Mam's got all sorts of tablets in the cupboard. She takes pills all day long.'

  'You mean aspirin?' Aspirin were the only pills Annie knew of.

  'I've no idea what they're called, but they're different shapes and colours. They deaden your brain so you don't have to think. I pinched one once when she went to the lavvy. It was a nice feeling, nothing seemed to matter, but I fell asleep in the pictures and it was Singin' in the Rain.' She pouted. 'I missed most of it.'

  With that, Marie flounced upstairs to get ready for a date. She spent all her pocket money on clothes and cosmetics. In a while, she'd come down dressed to the nines, her face plastered with Max Factor pancake, burgundy lipstick, and far too much shadow and mascara on her lovely grey eyes, looking as glamorous and pretty as a film star, and more like eighteen than thirteen.