Chapter 1: The Six O'Clock Siren
The shipyard siren always wakes me before my alarm. I don’t even know why we have one. It’s that old, round thing with the two bells on top that Dad bought at a market somewhere for fifty pence. It sits on my windowsill and has never, not once, managed to ring first. The siren always beats it to it. The siren beats everyone on our street, everyone in our neighbourhood, probably everyone in the whole of Liverpool who has someone working the docks.
It’s six in the morning. September. Outside the window, the sky is still grey.
I lie there and listen to the sound rolling over the rooftops: low, drawn-out, a bit like the city coughing in its sleep. Then a second time. And then silence. Right after, I can hear Dad downstairs: the scuff of his boots, the rattle of the kettle, and that short, dry cough he’s had every single morning for as long as I can remember.
I get up and walk over to the window.
Our street is called Fulton Street, and there’s nothing special about it. Just two rows of brick terraced houses with tiny front gardens, though ‘garden’ is stretching it. In our case, it’s just a patch of concrete with a pot where Mum plants things that never grow. The streetlamp on the corner has already gone out. Mr Kowalski from number fourteen. Yes, that really is his name, he came over from Poland before the war. Is just stepping out in his grey coat, his lunch tin tucked under his arm. A moment later, Dad follows him.
I watch him from above. His black donkey jacket, his flat cap, and that walk that belongs to him and him alone leaning slightly forward, as if he’s always walking into the wind. He has his bag in one hand, and in the other, the flask of tea Mum packs for him every evening. He doesn’t look back. Dad never looks back when he leaves for work. He says looking back just wastes time.
Other men from the street join him. In twos and threes, they emerge from doorways as if they’d all been wound up with the same key at the exact same time. They walk together towards the docks, their silhouettes shrinking in the mist until, before I can even count to ten, they disappear around the corner.
September means school is just around the corner, too.
I head downstairs in my pyjamas. Mum is already in the kitchen: hair tied back, apron on, the smell of toast and tea filling the air. Clare is sitting at the table, eating her porridge spoonful by spoonful with a look on her face as if it’s the most important job in the world. She’s eight, and she takes everything seriously. It makes Clare a bit strange, but only a bit. She can play by herself with her dolls in the backyard for three hours straight without saying a single word. But that's nobody else’s business.
‘Danny, get dressed before you sit down,’ Mum says, without turning away from the stove.
I don’t know how she does it. She can hear me through walls, through doors, probably from halfway down the street.
‘Just a minute.’
‘Not a minute. Now.’
I take a seat anyway. ‘Has Michael left?’ I ask.
‘Michael’s been gone half an hour already.’
Michael is my brother. He’s sixteen and finished school this year. Now Dad takes him along to the shipyard. Michael’s proud of it; I can tell by the way he walks. A bit like Dad, leaning forward into the wind. I’m twelve, so I’ve still got two years before I have to worry about things like that. Two years is a long time. Two years is an eternity.
I eat my toast and stare out the window at our concrete plant pot.
Mum sets a mug of tea down in front of me. Strong, with plenty of milk, just the way I like it. She sits down opposite me with her own mug, and for a moment, the two of us just sit in silence. Clare has finished her porridge and is staring at the ceiling with that solemn face of hers.
‘What time is your first lesson?’ Mum asks.
‘Eight-thirty.’
‘You’ve got time, then.’
I’ve got time. School is a ten-minute walk away, and I know the route by heart: Fulton Street, then through the park which is only a park by name, since the grass is more mud than lawn then past Mr Patel’s shop. He’s always standing in the doorway, saying, ‘Morning, lad,’ to everyone who passes. And then come the school gates, with their peeling paint and the sign that reads St. Anthony’s Secondary School, even though half the letters are barely hanging on.
I don’t like school. I mean, I don’t hate it like some of the lads in our class, who come up with new swear words just to describe how much they don’t want to go back after the holidays. It’s just that school is a place where you sit and wait for the sitting to end. Mr Higgins, the history teacher, has a ruler that he taps against the desk whenever someone isn’t paying attention. Mrs Morrison, who teaches English, talks to us as if we’re all deaf. Mr Davies, the PE teacher, is the only one who lets you breathe, because in PE you run, you kick a ball, you’re a human being instead of a desk.
Football. It’s the only thing on my mind for the rest of breakfast. We’ve got the match on Saturday: Liverpool versus Everton, the derby. Dad promised we’re all three going: him, Michael, and me. Dad gets this look on his face when he talks about the match, like he’s speaking about something sacred. Michael’s starting to get it, too. I’ve got it even worse, because I still believe that one day I’ll be the one walking out onto that pitch, wearing that red shirt, with the stands roaring my name.
’ Moran! Moran! Moran!’ Sounds good. Sounds like a footballer.
I leave the house with my school bag and pass Mum’s plant pot. Something is growing in it: small, green, and stubborn. I don’t know what it is, but it’s growing. I walk down Fulton Street towards the park. The mist is lifting. Somewhere far off, from the direction of the river, I hear another sound from the shipyard not the siren this time, but the dull thud of metal against metal, rhythmic and steady, like the heartbeat of the city pulsing underground.
That’s how the year begins.
