The Leaving Of Liverpool (6 page)

She mingled with the crowds on deck, waiting impatiently for what seemed like hours, her heart in her mouth, as the big ship eventually ground to a halt with a rumble and an enormous judder. Minutes later, the passengers began to pour off, Olive with them, her heart still in her mouth. She still wasn’t in the clear: she had to get through Customs with Mollie’s passport.

There was a queue at the barrier and she kept an eye out for Gertie, but there was no sign of her cabin mate. When it was her turn, the Customs officer looked at her closely, then back at the photo in the passport. Olive smiled at him brilliantly and said in a perfect imitation of Mollie’s accent, ‘It’s a horrible picture, is it not? I was coming down with the ’flu the day it was taken and I look as if I’m at death’s door.’

‘Well, you’re obviously much better now, Miss . . . ’ he looked at the passport again, ‘Miss Kenny. And what is your reason for visiting New York?’

‘I’m on holiday. I shall be staying with my aunt, Margaret Connelly, for a few weeks. She lives in Greenwich Village: eighty-eight Bleecker Street.’

‘I hope you like our city.’ He gave her the passport back. ‘Have a good time, miss.’

She’d done it! She went to the Bureau de Change and asked for the pounds to be changed into dollars. In return, she was given a dazzlingly thick wad of notes.

She’d actually done it!

 

Hours later, it had begun to go dark and she was still closeted in the room, stunned by the enormity of what she had achieved. She sat on the bed and counted the money for the fifth or sixth time: $164 and some coins. She tucked it all inside the bag: tomorrow, she’d buy a little purse for the coins. There were quite a few things she wanted to do tomorrow, apart from finding where the theatres were, buying a purse, and getting some mercury tablets for the itch that continued to plague her.

First, she intended to find a hairdresser and have her hair cut in a shingle - they were all the rage in London - and dyed back to its original dark-brown. The brassy frizz made her look like a tart. She’d like to bet she wouldn’t have been treated quite so respectfully at Customs or by the man on the desk downstairs had she not been wearing Mollie’s hat.

She wondered what Mollie was doing now, poor cow. She’d be worried sick for her sister and was probably planning to catch the next boat to New York, that’s if she had money for the ticket. If Olive hadn’t arranged for Annemarie to take her place in steerage, by now she would have been safely delivered to the aunt: Gertie would have made sure of that. The aunt could have sent Mollie enough money to buy a ticket and in a few weeks the sisters would be reunited in New York.

Olive had mucked up an awful lot of lives. ‘Good never comes out of bad,’ her old ma used to say. Well, Ma should know. All she’d ever known was bad, in the form of a husband who’d beat hell out of her and her kids. At thirteen, Olive had left home and had been living by her wits ever since. Even so, it was no excuse to take it out on the Kenny girls. Neither had done her any harm. Indeed, hadn’t Mollie been really nice to her, spoken to her as an equal, despite knowing she was a tart?

She thought about Annemarie stranded on Ellis Island. The girl probably didn’t know if she was coming or going. Did she still have the bundle with her passport inside? Anyone could have pinched it: she hadn’t thought to put a label on. She remembered Ashley saying young women weren’t allowed off the island unless someone came to collect them. He’d actually offered to arrange for a friend to come and vouch for her, but by then Olive had had a better plan in mind. As far as blokes went, Ashley had been quite decent and she’d probably repaid him with a dose of the itchy wriggles.

Her guilty thoughts were interrupted by gales of laughter from outside. She went over to the window. She could have been in any city in any country in the world. This part of New York was dark and barely lit, and there was no sign of the tall buildings seen from the ship. There was a rundown café across the road with a sign, ‘Joe’s Place’, that blinked on and off. A car had stopped and four young women were making their way inside, giggling so hard they could hardly stand up. Somewhere, a clock chimed six.

Olive chewed her lip. It was a habit she must get out of: one of these days she’d have no bottom lip left. There was nothing she could do about Mollie, but she could do something about Annemarie.

She pulled on the pink hat and picked up her cape - she wouldn’t put it on until she was outside so the man on the desk wouldn’t see how tatty it was; she put a coat on the mental list of things to buy tomorrow - and went downstairs. The man emerged from a cubbyhole behind when she rang the bell.

‘What can I do for you, miss?’ He smiled at her kindly. An elderly man with a thatch of snow-white hair, he spoke English well with an accent similar to Gertie’s.

‘I met someone on the boat, a young girl from Ireland same as me, but she was in steerage. She was expecting her aunt to come and meet her, but worried she hadn’t received her letter in time. I’d like to make sure she’s been collected. If not, I’ll take her to her aunt’s house. Is Greenwich Village very far?’ Christ, she was good at this! Her voice literally throbbed with sincerity.

‘Not all that far in a cab. Cabs don’t cost much,’ he added when Olive’s face fell at the idea of using some of the precious dollars. ‘Is the girl on the island? The Isle of Tears, people call it.’ Olive nodded. ‘Then you’ll have to catch the ferry. They run quite often, but you be careful, miss. This isn’t a good area for a young girl to be out in on her own.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ Olive promised.

She left the hotel and walked swiftly in the direction of the docks, practising what she would say when she reached the island: ‘I’m Mollie Kenny. I’ve come for my cousin, Olive Raines. Our aunt in Greenwich Village is expecting her.’ If asked, she’d produce Mollie’s passport. It was a risky thing to do, but she’d got a kick out of the risks she’d taken today: the racing heart, the sweaty palms and, best of all, the glowing knowledge that she’d fooled everyone: Ashley, Gertie, the Customs’ officer. She could hardly include Annemarie, poor kid but, pretty soon, she could add Ellis Island to the list.

But this would be the last risk she would take. As from tomorrow, her conscience would be clear and she wouldn’t give a damn what happened to the Kenny sisters.

 

Bertha had prepared bratwurst with hot sauerkraut and potato salad for dinner, followed by schluender marzipan cake and Bavarian coffee. Gertrude sipped the coffee with a sigh. ‘That very nice, Bertha. A long time since I have such meal. Thank you.’ The sisters had decided to speak English together, so that Gertrude would improve quickly.

‘There’s a German butcher’s on the corner,’ Bertha said, ‘the best in New York. Would you like more cake?’

‘No, thank you, Bertha,’ Gertrude replied with another sigh.

‘Are you still thinking about that girl, Rosemarie?’

‘
Anne
marie. I worry what happen to her. Where she disappear from?’

‘Disappear
to
,’ Bertha corrected, ‘not from.’

Like her sister, Bertha was comfortably stout and had the same iron-grey hair. Her basement apartment, situated on Ridge Street on the Lower East Side, was dark but cosy, and filled with knick-knacks collected over a lifetime. A sepia photograph of the sisters, taken when Gertrude was fourteen and Bertha two years older, stood on the dresser beside one of Bertha and Hermann’s wedding. A fire burned in the grate and the curtains had been closed on what was turning out to be a misty and not very pleasant night.

Had circumstances been different, Gertrude would have been feeling sluggishly content - her stomach full, her stays unlaced, slippers on her feet - and relieved to have left Germany for a new and better life with her sister in New York. Yet she felt on edge, unable to get Annemarie out of her mind. Where had the girl gone? She’d contacted one of the officers, told him Annemarie was missing. ‘But person come to meet her, Margaret Connelly. You find, please. Make sure she got Annemarie. ’ But Margaret Connelly was nowhere to be found among the crowd waiting on quayside to welcome the passengers off the
Queen Maia
.

Gertrude couldn’t stand it any longer. She struggled to her feet. ‘I go back to ship, Bertha. Never sleep until know what happen to Annemarie.’

‘I’ll come with you, Gert. I’ll go find a cab while you lace up your stays and put your shoes on.’ Bertha regarded her sister affectionately. ‘You were a worrier when you were young and it seems you haven’t changed a bit in all these years.’

It was almost seven o’clock when Maggie Connelly arrived home. School had finished almost three hours ago and she’d gone for a meal with her friend and fellow teacher, Connie McGrath. She unlocked the door that led to her apartment, one of three above Ziggie’s, a shop that sold sheet music. The shop was still open and Ziggie was singing a song she’d never heard before in his rusty and rather appealing voice, ‘My Heart Cries, My Soul Weeps’, accompanying himself on the piano. It sounded like a dirge and she suspected it was one of his own compositions.

There was mail on the little table in the hall: a letter with an Irish stamp and another posted in New York. She ran upstairs to her apartment on the first floor - Americans called it the second and counted the ground floor as the first - threw herself into a chair and opened the letter from Ireland. It was from her niece, Mollie, and contained only a single page that she read with mounting dismay.

It would appear that Mollie and Annemarie were on their way to New York with the intention of
living
with her in the tiny apartment that was hardly big enough for one person, let alone three.

Maggie loved the girls with all her heart, but she led an enjoyable and extremely busy life in New York, having made loads of friends with whom she regularly went to the theatre and the opera. She’d joined a choir, the Legion of Mary, and a bridge club. Much of this would have to stop when the girls arrived, she thought. She wouldn’t be able to leave them on their own night after night.

She read the letter again, this time more worried than dismayed. Her first thoughts had been for herself, how
she
would be inconvenienced, but now she couldn’t help but wonder what on earth had made Mollie, usually such a sensible girl, decide to up sticks and come all the way to New York with her sister. Did their father know? If so, why hadn’t he written first to ask if it was all right for his girls to come? She’d never liked Francis Kenny and had been upset when her sister, Orla, had announced she was going to marry him. He was too arrogant, too sure of himself, though people claimed he was a good doctor. She’d felt concern for the children when dear Orla had unexpectedly passed away, but Mollie’s letters made it appear as if she was coping.

She should have gone back to Ireland and made sure the children were all right. It was what Orla would have expected of her - what she would have expected of Orla had their positions been reversed - but she was having too good a time in New York even to think about it. There were some women, much nicer than her, who would have returned for good and become a mother to her sister’s children. Now it would appear as if something desperately bad had happened and Mollie had turned to the only person she felt she could count on: her Aunt Maggie.

The letter was dated a fortnight ago. It said the girls would be leaving Liverpool on the
Queen Maia
in another four days and the voyage would take a further ten. She did a quick calculation and blanched: they were arriving
today
!

Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! At least it wasn’t her fault that she hadn’t been there to meet them. What time had the boat docked?
Had
it docked? She’s better get to the landing stage straight away. She prayed the girls hadn’t been waiting too long.

Everything had gone as planned. It was truly amazing the things you could do if you had the nerve, Olive thought, when she and Annemarie were on the ferry. Behind them, the lights of Ellis Island faded into the mist and the lights of New York grew ever brighter and brighter as they approached. She’d asked for her cousin, Olive Raines, been told to wait, and about twenty minutes later a grim woman in a brown overall had arrived with Annemarie.

‘If she had any luggage, it can’t be found,’ the woman snapped. ‘If you come back in a few days it might’ve turned up by then.’

‘Thank you.’ She threw her arms around Annemarie - the woman would expect some sort of greeting. ‘Hello, darlin’, Aunt Maggie’s waiting for you at home. It’s lovely to see you again. Come on, there’s a nice tea waiting.’ She took the small, cold hand. The girl would have gone off with Dr Crippen had he offered to take her.

 

The ferry docked close to the
Queen Maia
. The quayside was as intensely lit and as full of activity as it had been in Liverpool now the ship was getting ready for its next voyage, but there was no sign of the taxis that had been there earlier in the day. She was wondering how long they would have to wait, when a black taxi drew up and deposited a man and woman only yards from the ship. The driver got out and began to unload luggage from the boot. Olive approached, holding tightly to Annemarie, just in case the girl took flight when she was about to get her off her hands and out of her mind. ‘Will you take this young lady to eighty-eight Bleecker Street, please? How much will the fare be?’