Liverpool Annie Read Online Free PDF Page B

grey moquette armchair, Annie began to weep the tears she'd longed to weep all day. 'When I woke up this morning, the bed and me nightdress were covered in blood . . .'
    'Oh, you poor love!' Dot dropped on her knees and stroked Annie's face with her chapped hand. 'And you weren't expecting it?'
    Annie shook her head dolefully. 'That bloody Rose, I could strangle her!' Dot raged. 'I should have told you, shouldn't I? It's just that having boys, it didn't cross me mind.' She began to cry, her emotions seeming to swing
    wildly from sympathy for Annie, anger with Rose, and recriminations against herself. After a while, she wiped her face with her pinny. 'Tell you what, let's have a treat! A little drop of whisky each, eh? Do your tummy good and calm your nerves.'
    She opened the sideboard, took out a half full bottle, and poured an inch of liquid into two glasses. 'I often have a tot meself,' she said, cheerful again. 'But only one, mind; more, and I'm not responsible for me actions. Bert'll kill me when he finds it half gone.'
    Annie choked on the whisky at first, but it seemed to warm her insides and she began to relax.
    One of the boys suddenly yelled, 'Mam, where's me blue shirt?'
    'Jaysus!' gasped Dot. 'I'm sure that's what our Tommy went out wearing. It's in the wash!' she screamed.
    'Oh, Mam!' the voice said mournfully.
    Dot grinned. 'Do you feel better now, luv?'
    Annie nodded. She felt pleasantly light headed.
    'I'll fit you up with something before you go,' Dot promised, 'and tell you what to buy each month.'
    'You mean it's not for ever? It stops sometimes?'
    'It's just a few days once a month, that's all. You'll soon get used to it,' Dot said comfortably. 'Some women look forward to the curse.'
    'The curse!' Annie smiled for the first time that day. 'You won't tell me dad, will you?'
    'No, luv, but what about your mam? Are you going to tell her?'
    Annie avoided Dot's eyes and shook her head.
    Dot gave a disgusted, 'Humph! You've been having me on, haven't you, Annie? Rose playing Snakes and Ladders! You must think I was born yesterday. I never said anything, because Bert told me to mind me own business. He said as long as you and Marie seemed all
    right, I shouldn't interfere.' She absent-mindedly poured herself another glass of whisky.
    Annie fidgeted with a loose thread of grey moquette on the arm of the chair. She noticed faint smudges of crayon in the rough loops of the material. It must be from the kitchen, where she and Marie used to draw.
    'Will me mam ever get better?' she asked Dot directly. It was something she'd wanted to know for a long time.
    As if it had provoked a chain of thought, instead of answering. Dot said, 'Oh, your dad! He was a real ladykiller in his day, just like our Tommy. He'd got more girls in tow than a sheikh with a harem.'
    Annie resisted the urge to laugh. Dad, her stooped, weary father with his peaked face, the man who brought meat home in his saddlebag and spent the weekends doing housework - a ladykiller!
    Dot noticed her incredulous expression. 'He was, Annie,' she said indignantly. 'He attracted women like a flypaper attracts flies. Out with a different girl every night he was, until he met your mam. Then, wham, bang! It was love at first sight.'
    Annie recalled the wedding photograph in the sideboard drawer, the couple sharing a great secret.
    'I'm glad I didn't fall in love like that!' Dot said primly. 'I love Bert with all me heart, but with our Ken and Rose, it was too hungry, too . . .' she searched for another word, 'too overwhelming,' she finished.
    'Dot,' Annie said cautiously, knowing her aunt was slightly drunk and might reveal things that ordinarily she wouldn't, 'what was me dad up to the night Johnny was killed? You said something about it once . . .'
    'I remember,' Dot said darkly. She leaned back in the chair and finished off the whisky. Suddenly, the wireless was switched off and Mike and Alan came stamping down the stairs like a pair of elephants.
    'Tara, Mam,'