the honours; Bob and Nellie will be going out separately as is their ritual, so Eaton Street will be free to serve as this week’s salon.
I slyly note their plans. I’m happy: it gives me a place to go on a Saturday night, plus I might get lucky on the settee instead of making do with a knee-trembler up against the wall of a back entry. These days are good days, hot and long, played out to the music of America, hormones ready to offload by the bucketful.
Myra leaves with a smile – ‘See ya, Dave’ – and Maureen arrives about an hour later: a much slimmer version of Myra, with panda eyes and the trademark cigarette in hand. She always enters with a flourish, full of life, posing, pretending not to notice me, giggling with a few friends while I sit faking a mood. Eventually she comes across and we spend the afternoon together in Siv’s, drinking espresso and feeding the jukebox until it’s time to go.
We walk down Taylor Street, my right arm slung around Maureen’s shoulder and her left arm about my waist, gripping my studded leather belt. When we arrive at Eaton Street, her parents are out. The house is a carbon copy of every other in the neighbourhood: a poky back-to-back with a loo in the yard. I go for a piss in the damp little brick outhouse. Yesterday’s
Daily Mirror
has been ripped into squares and pinned to a nail on the wooden door. The only luxuries are a well-used toilet brush and a rubber plunger.
Back indoors, Myra still hasn’t turned up, so I busy myself choosing records from Maureen’s music collection. There’s a good coal fire going, but the chimney needs sweeping – smoke burps throatily into the living room. Old dinner smells filter through the house: Maureen’s meal of boiled cabbage, meat and gravy sits on a pan of simmering water, kept warm with a lid that rattles every so often. I get up and open the front door to draw the fire. Smoke wafts out onto the street as I sit down to listen to Elvis warbling from the red-and-cream Dansette.
Suddenly Myra appears in the doorway, flustered. ‘Sorry I’m late, got behind with my job, you’re not going out tonight are you, Mobee?’ She pulls a face and wheedles, ‘Say you’re not going out, oh please, please, my hair is a mess, be a little angel and do it for me . . .’
She sets down two large bottles of Bulmers cider and throws Maureen a packet of Park Drives. Sound, I think to myself: a drop of cider, ciggies, the chance of a promise – this is what I call a Saturday night. Maureen brings in three coffee mugs. No posh glasses in this house, just mugs and a pint pot belonging to Bob. The set-up among the Hindleys is much the same as any other family in these streets: Bob’s a fighter, Nellie’s a bawler, and the two girls accept that being female is a hardship.
That’s just how it goes.
The Hindleys are no better or worse than the rest of us; we’ve all got our problems and most of them are pretty similar. Take the girls’ parents: Bob and Nellie both drink in the same pub, the Steelworks Tavern, but Bob drinks in the men-only vault and Nellie sits in the lounge with the women. Every Sunday night, Bob joins his wife in the lounge bar. Those nights are ‘safe’, but Fridays and Saturdays, when they drink in the same pub but in separate rooms, are unpredictable and often deadly.
But, like I said, that’s just how it goes.
We sit with our cider and ciggies, listening to Brenda Lee and the Big Bopper. The girls are as close as sisters can be and both share the same priority: Nellie. Myra is the big sister not only to Mobee, but to her mother as well; she’s the mannish female with nice legs, great tits and the punch of a heavyweight boxer. She can flash a smile one minute and cut you to ribbons with a glare the next. That’s the Myra I know.
The girls natter about Granny Maybury and gossip about the neighbours – who’s going with whom and who’s finished with whom – but Maureen’s evading Myra’s most pressing
I slyly note their plans. I’m happy: it gives me a place to go on a Saturday night, plus I might get lucky on the settee instead of making do with a knee-trembler up against the wall of a back entry. These days are good days, hot and long, played out to the music of America, hormones ready to offload by the bucketful.
Myra leaves with a smile – ‘See ya, Dave’ – and Maureen arrives about an hour later: a much slimmer version of Myra, with panda eyes and the trademark cigarette in hand. She always enters with a flourish, full of life, posing, pretending not to notice me, giggling with a few friends while I sit faking a mood. Eventually she comes across and we spend the afternoon together in Siv’s, drinking espresso and feeding the jukebox until it’s time to go.
We walk down Taylor Street, my right arm slung around Maureen’s shoulder and her left arm about my waist, gripping my studded leather belt. When we arrive at Eaton Street, her parents are out. The house is a carbon copy of every other in the neighbourhood: a poky back-to-back with a loo in the yard. I go for a piss in the damp little brick outhouse. Yesterday’s
Daily Mirror
has been ripped into squares and pinned to a nail on the wooden door. The only luxuries are a well-used toilet brush and a rubber plunger.
Back indoors, Myra still hasn’t turned up, so I busy myself choosing records from Maureen’s music collection. There’s a good coal fire going, but the chimney needs sweeping – smoke burps throatily into the living room. Old dinner smells filter through the house: Maureen’s meal of boiled cabbage, meat and gravy sits on a pan of simmering water, kept warm with a lid that rattles every so often. I get up and open the front door to draw the fire. Smoke wafts out onto the street as I sit down to listen to Elvis warbling from the red-and-cream Dansette.
Suddenly Myra appears in the doorway, flustered. ‘Sorry I’m late, got behind with my job, you’re not going out tonight are you, Mobee?’ She pulls a face and wheedles, ‘Say you’re not going out, oh please, please, my hair is a mess, be a little angel and do it for me . . .’
She sets down two large bottles of Bulmers cider and throws Maureen a packet of Park Drives. Sound, I think to myself: a drop of cider, ciggies, the chance of a promise – this is what I call a Saturday night. Maureen brings in three coffee mugs. No posh glasses in this house, just mugs and a pint pot belonging to Bob. The set-up among the Hindleys is much the same as any other family in these streets: Bob’s a fighter, Nellie’s a bawler, and the two girls accept that being female is a hardship.
That’s just how it goes.
The Hindleys are no better or worse than the rest of us; we’ve all got our problems and most of them are pretty similar. Take the girls’ parents: Bob and Nellie both drink in the same pub, the Steelworks Tavern, but Bob drinks in the men-only vault and Nellie sits in the lounge with the women. Every Sunday night, Bob joins his wife in the lounge bar. Those nights are ‘safe’, but Fridays and Saturdays, when they drink in the same pub but in separate rooms, are unpredictable and often deadly.
But, like I said, that’s just how it goes.
We sit with our cider and ciggies, listening to Brenda Lee and the Big Bopper. The girls are as close as sisters can be and both share the same priority: Nellie. Myra is the big sister not only to Mobee, but to her mother as well; she’s the mannish female with nice legs, great tits and the punch of a heavyweight boxer. She can flash a smile one minute and cut you to ribbons with a glare the next. That’s the Myra I know.
The girls natter about Granny Maybury and gossip about the neighbours – who’s going with whom and who’s finished with whom – but Maureen’s evading Myra’s most pressing
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