Meet Me at the Pier Head Read online

  Meet Me at

  the Pier Head

  Ruth Hamilton

  PAN BOOKS

  I dedicate this work to all survivors of abuse in childhood and to organizations whose members and supporters give help to the young of today.

  Contents

  1958

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  1968

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  POST SCRIPTUM

  Christmas 1968, Kent, England

  1958

  One

  Theodore Quinn’s office currently held three points of view. He could look at Myrtle Street through one window, or turn his chair and study the playground through a second window, or he could carry on trying to be stern while telling off one Colin Duckworth. It wasn’t easy, yet he needed to keep his eyes pinned to this likeable nuisance of a child. A born comedian, Colin pretended to be stupid when he was, in effect, brighter than some of the teachers.

  I must not laugh, must not, will not – I’ll explode shortly. Look at the state of him. He puts me in mind of a bundle of soiled clothing ready for what people hereabouts call the bag-wash, but he’s a great kid and I like him. He knows I like him. Dear God, he’s doing that ploughed field thing with his forehead again.

  Theodore Quinn had dignity up to a point, two passports, a degree, a doctorate, a teaching qualification, headship of a school, and a sense of humour that threatened to be his downfall. He had taught for over eight years in the city of Liverpool, where the children had a terrible attachment to and affection for the ridiculous, and they made him laugh. For them, rules were rough guidelines at best, a call to arms at worst. He tried to pin a professional glare to his face. ‘Why, Colin? It’s almost time to go home, but you and I will stay here till we get to the bottom of this. I suppose you’re expecting to play football tonight. Am I right? You and the other lads down at the park having a kick-about?’ This place reminded him of the Bronx, his last home in America; the only difference lay in the accents.

  Colin Duckworth, reddish hair standing on end as usual, shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. ‘I never done nothing,’ he mumbled, his eyelids fluttering wildly. Blinking was Colin’s ‘tell’, the signal that accompanied his lies. Some kids wept or tugged at an earlobe, while others played with their hair or rearranged clothing, but this young chap was a blinker. At this moment, he was probably looking at life through the equivalent of very fast windscreen wipers, while his deepening blush clashed loudly with his disordered mop. ‘Colin?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Never did anything,’ Theo said in a vain attempt to correct the boy’s English. ‘You never did anything, not nothing.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Not quite.’ The head of Myrtle Street School knew better than to embark on a lecture relating to verbs, participles and double negatives at this particular juncture. Colin Duckworth didn’t care about grammar, as he intended to be an Olympic swimmer (speciality the butterfly stroke), the first man on the moon, and a player for Liverpool Football Club. In his spare time, the gutsy eight-year-old would work on the docks with his dad. ‘Well?’ Theo asked, arching an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, what, Sir?’

  ‘The roof, Colin. You were seen on the roof. You crossed the roof, picked up a ball, threw it down, then slid down a drainpipe which is now loose.’

  The child sighed heavily. ‘I must have slept-walked, cos I don’t remember nothing, Mr Quinn.’

  ‘Sleep-walked.’

  ‘That’s what I said. It was scary, waking up on a roof. I could have fell off, Sir, and broke me neck or me back and ended up down the ozzie for operations and all that if I had fell off.’ His voice faded during the delivery of this longer sentence. He was losing the battle, and both occupants of the head teacher’s office knew it. No one ever won when it came to a battle with Blackbird.

  ‘Fallen off,’ the headmaster said.

  ‘Yeah, that as well. Me whole life flashed in front of me eyes. Dad says that’s what happens just before you die. Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Colin?’

  ‘How does me dad know that? He’s never died, has he? I mean, if you’ve never died, how can you be sure . . .?’ The boy’s voice faded due to a complete lack of conviction. He’d tripped over his own tongue, hadn’t he? He’d dug his own grave again. Mam often fired such accusations when he wasn’t telling the truth. Oh no, Blackbird’s brain was clicking; Colin could almost hear it shifting up a gear.

  Theo stirred himself. ‘You didn’t die, but your life flashed in front of your eyes. Or are you making this up, I wonder?’ This terrible boy was very bright, advanced enough to have skipped a year. I must get Miss Cosgrove to send me his work. Looking at his work will be a darned sight easier than looking at him. And he has wonderful parents . . .

  ‘Me, Sir? Erm . . . it must happen when you nearly die or think you’re going to die. Or something.’

  The head of Myrtle Street School stood up and walked to the playground window. For some reason, he could no longer manage to look at Colin Duckworth. He stared at the flat-roofed buildings that were supposed to be temporary measures. Thirteen years had passed since the end of hostilities, and the makeshift replacements for classrooms had begun to look old, shabby and permanent.

  ‘The school got bombed before I was borned,’ Colin informed him as if reading his head teacher’s mind. ‘So I never seen it, Sir.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Caretaker was killed stone dead. He was an ’ero.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why we have the prefab classrooms, Sir.’

  Sir grinned and shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  ‘Them flat roofs is no good, Sir. Me dad said so, Sir.’

  ‘Quite. And you could have put your foot through the felt. We need a new roof, because the rain gets in. You might have stood on a weak spot and ended up inside the building with two broken legs and some broken furniture.’

  Colin bridled and folded his arms. ‘I’m not soft enough for that, Mr Quinn. I was dead careful.’

  ‘In your sleep?’ Theo spun on the spot and scowled at his companion. Keeping a straight face in the company of Colin and his ilk was never going to be easy. ‘You were careful in your sleep? Well, isn’t that a novelty?’ He mustn’t laugh. Don’t laugh, Theo continued to be his mantra as he glared at the boy.

  Colin swallowed hard. The thing about Blackbird was that he had his limits, and punishments were harsh. Not the cane, not a slipper, not even a ruler – oh, no, because that kind of stuff would have been too easy, too quick. Blackbird did detention. Detention meant pages of sums or something really horrible like geography or history or French. This headmaster felt that children should begin to learn a second language in junior school. ‘I was a bit awake. Not proper, just a bit not asleep. Like a dream, Sir.’

  ‘I wonder. You’re something of a miracle, then?’ Keep a straight face, Theo. You can laugh when he’s gone.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You can see in your sleep.’ He flapped his ‘wings’.

  The wings were part of the black cloak he wore so that people knew he was coming. Sir had a degree in something that sounded like cycle-ology, and he wore a gown. It flapped, so his nickname was Blackbird. ‘Sorry, Sir.’

  ‘There was a ball on the roof, Colin. Where is it now?’

  The child squirmed, and his eyelid
s shifted into neutral.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Our back kitchen, Sir. Under the sink with Mam’s cleaning stuff, like.’

  ‘And whose property is that football?’

  ‘The school’s, Mr Quinn.’

  Theo sat at his desk once more. ‘Bring it back Monday morning. Tell your father I want to see him when he can spare the time.’

  Colin’s face blanched. ‘Can I not just get detention, Sir? Me dad’ll go mad at me for pinching a ball.’ Even geography would be preferable to his father’s disappointment. Roy Duckworth didn’t beat his kids, but he was very good at doing disappointed. His mother, too, was great at looking hurt.

  ‘No, he won’t go mad, because I won’t tell him about the ball. I need to speak to him regarding another matter.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You may go now.’

  The child blinked warily. Was Sir going soft in the head? The ball was a real casey, leather, with a lace that tied it up. ‘So no punishment?’

  ‘We’ll store this up for next time, Colin. One more infringement, and you’ll get two detentions.’ He smiled at the bewildered child. ‘Go before I have a change of heart, son.’ And before I fall apart, because you look ridiculous. Gaps in your teeth, that silly hair – no, I mustn’t look at you.

  Alone in comparative silence, Theo sat chuckling quietly while listening to the low, almost inaudible hum of a working school. It was balm for his soul, because he loved children, especially the naughty ones. In his experience, the imaginative and difficult pupils often grew up to be the better achievers, the workers, the providers of the future.

  Theodore Quinn had made his own future, and he had been an angry, recalcitrant child. No, he didn’t want to think about all that mess just now. The summer break was about to begin, and he was one teacher short for the coming school year. There was a general shortage of teachers, and just one applicant had emerged for September’s reception class. She was from the south. Theo sighed. Would she need an interpreter? He remembered his own difficulties when, at the age of twenty-nine, he had arrived with a bundle of qualifications and a teaching certificate. Liverpool’s accent and vernacular had confused him, while the children had been in awe of him, because he was a Yank.

  He still had his little blue book, a hard-backed item containing a list of words like tomahto and Tyousday instead of Toosday. Then there were the Germanic-type elements like either and neither. The English clung to the original rule that the second vowel took charge . . . Then sidewalk was pavement, faucet was tap, a car hood a bonnet, a car trunk a boot. That same car rolled along on tyres rather than tires, while vehicles in the sky were aeroplanes, never airplanes. English English was more elegant than American English, though this tiny island owned dozens of accents, and each ruined the language in its own special way. It was all good, clean fun.

  Theo grinned as he remembered his early experiences as a teacher. ‘Are you a cowboy, Sir?’ they had asked on his first day in a classroom. ‘Or a film star? Can you ride a horse? Did you have a gun?’ Yes, he had been an object of interest for a short time. But, like anybody else from overseas, he had been absorbed by Liverpool, accepted, even loved. Of one thing he was certain: he was an excellent teacher. His father, an Irish Liverpudlian who had emigrated to America decades ago, had a saying. ‘Do it right or stay in bed. No half-measures, lad.’ That had been good advice from a hard drinker.

  Dad had remarried after Mom’s death, and Theo had met his now adult half-siblings on several occasions, but he had no intention of returning permanently to America. This was home.

  Somebody tapped at the door.

  ‘Come,’ he called.

  It was Colin Duckworth again. With his gap-toothed smile, unruly hair and bright pink blush, he looked like something from a circus. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes, Colin?’

  The boy hovered in the doorway. ‘Was you in the war, Sir?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Was you in it before the rest of the Yanks, Sir?’

  ‘I was.’ Theo repeated. ‘It’s were you, by the way.’

  ‘Me, Sir? No, Sir, I weren’t in it, cos I weren’t borned. Was you with the RAF?’

  ‘Rear gunner, yes.’ Once again, he had lost the battle with Colin’s English.

  ‘Did you shoot Germans down, Mr Quinn?’

  ‘I did. It was my job, you see.’

  Colin punched the air with both fists. ‘Yesssss. I’ve won a go on Bernie Allinson’s new bike. Thank you, Sir.’ The boy withdrew and closed the door.

  Theo found himself doubled over his desk laughing. ‘Seek and ye shall find’ had always been his maxim as a teacher. Children should never be afraid to ask questions, but some of their queries required delicacy. ‘Do babies come out of the woman’s belly button?’ and ‘What does bugger mean, Sir?’ were not unusual. He’d been forced to explain why fish didn’t drown, why America didn’t have a king or a queen, how aeroplanes managed not to fall out of the sky, and why the Nazis had murdered Jews.

  He dried his weeping eyes. ‘They’ll be the death of me,’ he mumbled. ‘And what about Miss Bellamy? How will she cope?’ He picked up her application. She had taught for five years in a private college for girls in Kent. Her address was Bartle Hall, Chaddington Green, and she was unlikely to have encountered the colourful language known as Scouse. The letter was interesting.

  During teacher training, I practised for four weeks in an East End of London school. The experience enlivened me and I wish to work in the state sector for that reason. My main subject is English; my supporting subjects are drama and mathematics. My notice at the college has been served and I shall be available from September.

  Availability would have to suffice, but would she stay? The current reception class teacher had spent her whole working life at Myrtle Street and was due to retire. Miss Ellis was part of the building, and she would certainly be missed. But a new eye might be a good thing, so he would keep his mind open until the interview. He shook his head. One applicant. Oh, well. God was good, according to Dad. There again, Dad was an alcoholic, though he refused to acknowledge the fact. ‘I’m a drunk,’ he always said. ‘Only the rich can afford big words like alcoholic.’

  Theo rose to his feet and walked across the room, reaching to push a button above a filing cabinet. The end-of-school bell rang throughout the building, prefabs included. It was Friday, and two empty days lay ahead. Soon, there would be six lifeless weeks, but he would cope, no doubt, by concentrating on his main source of income, one that paid so much better than teaching.

  He removed his Blackbird wings and hung the gown on the door. There were relatives in Liverpool, decent people from his dad’s family, but he didn’t like to impose on them too frequently, so a different occupation would keep him busy for yet another weekend – and for the summer break. Perhaps he might have a few days in London or Paris, but travelling alone was seldom fun.

  Standing at the outer double doors of the main school, he watched the children as they jumped and whooped their way towards two days of freedom, a freedom he had never experienced at their age. Don’t go there, Theo. You know it only drives you wild; you can do nothing to change it, and little to improve the future. Except here, of course. You might make a difference for the pupils at Myrtle Street School, but . . .

  ‘Mr Quinn?’

  He turned to his left and looked into a pair of impossibly violet eyes in a face that was truly lovely. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m Tia Bellamy. I chopped the P, the O and the R off my name, but I applied under the full terrible title.’

  ‘Miss Portia Bellamy?’ he asked, feeling rather stupid. She was tall, elegant and striking. Her hair was either dark blonde or light brown, and she was beautifully dressed in garments far too precious for Myrtle Street. ‘Your interview’s next week,’ he reminded her. ‘You’ve arrived a little early.’

  Undaunted, she smiled broadly and displayed perfect teeth. ‘I don’t do late. I’m here to explore Liverpool,’ she said. ‘Af
ter all, should I be fortunate enough to be offered the position, this city would become my new home, so I need to look at it.’

  He closed his slightly gaping mouth. The woman spoke in perfect, BBC-here-is-the-news-style English. ‘Would you like to look round inside the school?’ he asked after a sizeable pause. She wore the air of a woman in charge, and he felt somewhat daunted by her obvious self-certainty.

  ‘Thank you, yes.’ She continued to smile. ‘You’re American,’ she added.

  He nodded. Miss Tia Bellamy seemed to be a forthright, outspoken and relatively fearless person, so perhaps she was fit for Liverpool after all.

  ‘Am I right?’ she asked.

  ‘You are indeed, though I’m also a British citizen, so it’s a two-passport job. I guess I’m a hybrid. When I’m in the US, they think I’m English, so I’m a foreigner both sides of the Atlantic. You’ll be something of a stranger here, too. The children may well understand you, though you might need someone to translate when they start chattering. They talk almost incessantly and very rapidly. We have a strong accent in these parts.’

  She cocked her head to one side. ‘Yer what? I done dialect and all that kinda stuff at college, like, Mr Quinn.’ The K in the word like emerged guttural, right from the back of her mouth. Pleased with herself, she nodded at him. ‘See? I can manage, Sir.’

  Stunned, he gasped again. This time, instead of closing his mouth, he laughed. ‘Drama?’

  She nodded and giggled simultaneously. ‘I do two kinds of Irish, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, inner Lancashire, Cockney, Somerset and Birmingham. The North-East defeated me completely, I’m afraid.’

  She reminded him of someone . . . someone famous. It was the eyes, he decided. ‘Are you by any chance related to Isadora Bellamy?’ he asked.

  Tia grimaced. ‘I am, but I’d rather people didn’t know just yet. Yes, I’m the product of Isadora and Richard Bellamy. The dynasties probably date all the way back to Shakespeare’s days. I have a feeling that some scruffy little ancestor of ours made tea and ran the box office at the Globe or some such dreadful hole. These days, we train for different occupations as fallbacks during resting times, but we were all expected to join our parents as actors.’