A Mersey Mile by Ruth Hamilton Page A

of landlord now.’
    Exhausted, Polly sat on the floor with her head in his lap. No words were required. In that split second, she gave herself to him as completely as if they had gone to bed together. He felt like
home, smelled of soap with a slight whiff of tobacco, and he stroked her hair, played with the curls as if she were his child. This would be a good husband and father; he would do right by Cal, who
remained at the forefront of her thoughts even now.
    ‘Will you learn to love me, Polly?’
    ‘No need.’ She yawned. ‘I’m already there. Been there for a while, but I didn’t listen to myself. Well, I never listen to anybody, come to think about it. And
Cal’s always my main focus.’
    Joy rendered him breathless for a few seconds. ‘You’re a good girl,’ he finally achieved.
    She chuckled quietly. ‘We’ll fight.’
    ‘Oh, I know that. But let me make myself plain. Cal comes with us.’
    ‘And your mam?’ she asked sleepily.
    ‘No bloody way.’
    She relaxed. He teased rogue strands of hair from her forehead, looked down and smiled because her eyelashes touched her cheeks. This was trust at its most poignant and beautiful. Polly was here
with him and for him. He could take on the Pope himself as long as she stayed by his side, and he would help her tackle Westminster if the Turnpike March happened.
    She worked too damned hard. He hated knowing that she did seven hours a day in the cafe, followed by two or three more upstairs in the evenings. On Saturdays, the cafe was open all day, serving
drinks and snacks, but no full meals, since Cal needed his rest. Sunday was her day off. On her day off, she cleaned the house from top to bottom, including Cal’s kitchen and the cafe. Frank
wanted to look after her, but he needed to bide his time until he could buy a place for all three of them.
    ‘Don’t stop,’ she mumbled. She loved having her hair played with.
    He remembered asking her why she’d called the proposed demonstration the Turnpike March, and she’d glared at him, a tray in one hand, an empty sugar bowl in the other. ‘Because
Scotty used to have a turnpike on it where people paid to get to northern Lancashire. Don’t you know anything? Then it became part of the road from London to Scotland. They changed horses
here. The road got widened in the early eighteen hundreds.’
    ‘I’ll make a princess of you, Polly,’ he said now. ‘Sleeping Beauty.’
    ‘Princesses don’t swear.’
    ‘Then you’ll have to stop bloody swearing, won’t you?’
    ‘Hmm.’ She dozed her way towards sleep.
    He wished he could stay like this forever, with her head on his knees, the cap of silky curls in his fingers, the soft sound of her breathing a blessing to his ears.
    But life would break in at any moment in the form of Constable Furness, a decent enough cop with a good nature and plenty of humour. That priest should be in jail. It wouldn’t happen. A
bishop would have a word with a cardinal, and Eugene Brennan’s disappearing act would follow. After a few months in a monastery or some such institution, the swine would be sent to a parish
far away from Liverpool. No one was allowed to pick the scabs off Catholic sores.
    ‘I could tell she’d just written the card.’ Christine Lewis polished off the last of her steak. ‘That was good, thank you,’ she said. ‘No
pudding for me, Elaine. Watching Mrs Charleson scoffing is a great appetite suppressant.’
    ‘How?’ Elaine asked.
    ‘The table manners are sadly absent. She eats like a pig at a trough.’
    ‘No, I mean how did you know she’d just written the card?’
    Christine smiled broadly. ‘I heard her jump up the minute I left the room; she can move when she needs to. And the moths were still circling when she called me back in.’
    ‘Moths?’
    ‘From her purse. It creaks when she opens it.’
    ‘Oh, Mother. Stop making me laugh, or I’ll choke. So she wants her son to marry me? I have seen him, and he’s handsome, but