by The Castlefield Collector (Watch for the Talleyman) (retail) (epub)
Dolly was on her feet, words spilling out of her mouth faster than she could think. ‘I don’t suppose you even know who my father is, do you? It could’ve been anyone, half the chaps in Castlefield. What our Aggie has always said about you is right, isn’t it?’
Maisie had sunk onto a chair one hand to her mouth as tears spilled and her nose ran. But even if she had been able to speak, Dolly was no longer listening. She turned on her heels and ran from the house. She didn’t look back, not even when she heard her mother cry out her name.
Chapter Twelve
Dolly soon learned that it was one thing to say that she could look after herself but quite another to actually go ahead and do it. The streets of Salford were not at all a safe place for a sixteen-year-old girl to be. Sleeping in doorways and living on charity might sound perfectly feasible, and although the prospect of being free and independent had seemed like an answer, the reality was entirely different.
She’d taken with her a heel of bread and a small chunk of cheese but that didn’t last her any time at all. In her purse she had one shilling and sixpence which she didn’t dare touch, resolving to save it for when she found a room. Dolly soon discovered, however, that a bed for the night cost five whole pennies, unless she shared it with a stranger, which halved the price. On that first night, it being well past midnight and being near exhausted, she’d shared one with a fat old woman who snored loudly and stank of gin.
There were five other beds in the room, set only inches apart along walls streaming with water, caked in grime and unidentifiable clumps of fungus, and no doubt infested with cockroaches. Dolly didn’t care to investigate too closely. Each iron bedstead held a stained, blue striped mattress and a single blanket. Nothing more, not even a pillow. One bed was occupied by a man who’d shaved off his hair, his bald head covered by strange, red scabs. Dolly kept well away from him. Another seemed to house an entire family: man, wife and five children all rolled up together in a tight, stinking ball. They carefully explained to Dolly how they’d fallen onto hard times when the husband had lost his job.
‘We borrowed off Nifty Jack,’ he explained. ‘Have you heard of him?’
She agreed that she had, without giving any more information.
‘Promised to allow us time to pay but his interest rates were exorbitant and we couldn’t keep it up, so he just turned up one day with his henchmen and chucked us out onto the street. And we’ve ended up like this, no better than beggars.’
The woman said, ‘Once these last few shillings are gone, it will be the workhouse for us, but for now at least we can spend these last few days, and nights, together.’ And they clung together weeping, so that Dolly had to turn away, unable to witness their misery.
As for the rest, there seemed to be a shifting movement of ever-changing occupants throughout that long, endless night. Dolly didn’t sleep a wink. The stench of the airless room made her gag, and the threat of a cockroach creeping into her bed kept her wide awake, let alone the unappetising grunts and snores and other unseemly noises that occur when people are trying to sleep. She lay staring up at bits of plaster hanging from a ceiling coated in soot, trying not to think about Nifty Jack.
It was then, during that long, dreadful night, that the fear came. What if he didn’t wake up with a thick head the next morning? What if she’d done for him? She was already indirectly responsible for one death, now it looked as if she might have caused another. What would happen to her? She’d be caught and hanged, that’s what. Dolly broke out into a cold sweat at the very thought and began to shake with terror. Oh, why did she have such a temper?
But what else could she have done? She had to save herself or he’d have ravished her.
And then she thought about her mam, and that brief, but so telling, exchange. Her silence had said everything. She’d lied again, hadn’t she? Said there was only one man, the love of her life, but that wasn’t true. And if there were two men, why not three, or four or… Dolly put her head in her hands and felt the tears spill between her fingers. It was all too awful to think about. What sort of a mother was she? If even Nifty Jack knew all of this, who else knew? Was her mam common gossip? Did everyone know that Dolly hadn’t the first idea who her father was, that perhaps even her mother didn’t know? ‘Oh God, how do I begin to live with that?’ Dolly squirmed with embarrassment, wishing she could die in this awful stinking bed here and now. ‘No, that’s wicked. I don’t mean it.’ And she buried her face into the fetid mattress and sobbed silent, heartbroken tears.
The next night Dolly wrapped herself in her shawl and slept in the Co-op doorway but was moved on at dawn by a police constable when he came on duty. Summer was drawing to a close and the nights already bore the cool bite of autumn. How she would endure a winter on the streets if she didn’t find a place to stay, she didn’t dare to think.
By the third day with no bread and cheese left, hunger drove her to use one penny to buy a tin of soup, which she asked the shopkeeper to open for her, and drank cold from the tin.
That left her with one shilling. At this rate, she’d survive only two more days. Then what? And would anyone care if she didn’t?
* * *
How long she’d been on the streets, living from hand to mouth, raiding dustbins and the leftovers from market stalls, Dolly couldn’t rightly remember. She knew only that she’d been wandering in a part of the city she didn’t know for weeks but then she’d spent her entire sixteen years moving only between the mill and her home, and around the canal basin. She found herself now in a veritable maze of streets with courts leading off; dark cobbled ginnels and back-to-back houses each with a short row of three or four privies, which by the stink of them must serve the entire street and were never emptied.
Desperate to relieve herself she pushed open the door of one and found the floor flooded with urine and other ordure. She couldn’t even consider going inside so lifted her skirts and used the corner of a back alley instead. At least the decaying vegetable matter and excrement that lay about here, had stood outdoors which had muted the smell somewhat. She’d thought Tully Court was bad, but this was ten times worse.
She must be in the heart of Salford somewhere, though where exactly, she couldn’t make out. Occasionally her glazed eyes would focus on a street name: Calhoun Street, Cook Street, Market Street. Each and every corner thick with its quota of layabouts and drunkards, and often the scene of fisticuffs or a brawl of some sort. Dolly would hurry on, not daring to so much as glance their way. Dazed with hunger and weak with tiredness she could scarcely find the energy to place one foot in front of the other and deep inside was the dawning realisation that the longer she stayed out on these streets, the less likely she was to be able to find work. What respectable employer would take her on after this? She would look what she had become: a beggar.
Yet she daren’t go back home and face being charged with murder, sent to prison and hear the judge declare that she would be hanged by the neck until dead. Every time she saw a policeman, she’d hide in a doorway or behind a dustbin, heart beating with fear, quite certain he must be looking for her.
On one corner she saw two girls fighting, sprawling on the cold, hard pavement, which brought back the memory of her own fight with Betty Deurden: the one that had led to her discovering all these unsavoury facts about herself; the horrors of her own birth. But how far would she have to run in order to escape?
‘What else could I have done? I had to protect myself and not just let him have his wicked way. Why did he have to spoil everything?’
‘Because isn’t that the way of the world, love? Certainly the way of men.’
Dolly hadn’t realised she’d spoken these words out loud, for all it was a common fault of hers. She spun about to find an old woman, thin as a linnet, with a face as wrinkled as an old prune. A scrag of hair was wound up into a knot on top of her tiny head, with trails of greasy locks escaping all around, and her dark, boot button eyes were piercing, seeming to read Dolly’s past, present and
future in one swift, assessing glance. She was dressed in an unfashionably long black skirt and a green coat that buttoned up to her chin. She wore no shawl but a large straw hat with a cluster of imitation fruit that might be berries since they were certainly red and shiny; almost good enough to eat so far as Dolly was concerned. Around her neck was tied a filthy scarf, although Dolly noticed that it was made of silk, not cotton. The woman had very few teeth and seemed to be missing one eye since one appeared white and glassy. Dolly couldn’t restrain a shudder as a kindly hand reached out to touch her arm.
‘Poor love, you look fair starved with cold, and hungry too, I shouldn’t wonder. Come with me, lass, I’ll give you a good hot meal that’ll set you up grand. Lily Martin is the name, though most folk round here call me Cabbage Lil, ’cause that’s where I were born, on a pile of cabbages in Smithfield Market. It was a handy place to live for a while, but I’ve moved on and doing nicely now, as you can see.
Dolly didn’t see at all. The woman looked like a pauper, albeit one without that pinched, starved look all too familiar in these parts. But for this reason alone the offer was too tempting to resist. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’
‘Tis only Christian! And you can meet the rest of my little family. My girls.’
* * *
One glance at the ‘girls’ in question revealed, even to Dolly’s unpractised eye, that they were not family or related in any way to Cabbage Lil, except by profession. She saw at once what she had got herself into. A harlot’s nest in a house of ill repute, a brothel no less.
Their ages varied from around fourteen to forty, perhaps older. Several lounged on a sofa, others on one of the numerous chairs that cluttered the dingy room, looking rather as if they were waiting to be called into the dentist’s surgery, except they seemed perfectly happy about it, some of them actually laughing and playing a game of cards while they passed the time, hoping for clients. On the table stood a large bottle of dark liquid, spirits of some sort, she guessed, from which the girls would refill their glasses from time to time. Two were seated on the lap of one huge fat man in a big chair in the corner and Dolly had to quickly avert her eyes from whatever activity he was engaged in. Nifty Jack’s fumblings seemed tame by comparison.
Cabbage Lil proceeded to introduce them, as if they were all at a party. ‘This ’ere is Gladys, she comes from Deansgate, or Devil’s Gate as we like to call it.’ Chuckling softly. ‘And here’s our lovely Joan who’s very popular with the swells from the country, being so young and pure like.’
Dolly didn’t think she had ever set eyes on a girl less fitting that description. Joan looked not a day under thirty-five, old by Dolly’s standards. She had brightly rouged cheeks, black eyes and resembled a scarecrow brassily attired in bright colours, feathers and probably every piece of trashy jewellery she possessed. Her face looked as if someone had walked on it and flattened it into a pancake.
Dolly caught up with what Cabbage Lil was saying. ‘Them two in the corner are Sylvie and Fran, each seduced by the overlooker at Ordsall, though not at the same time you understand. But they both ended up here, where at least they get paid for it, and their shared experience has given them a bond.’ She went on in this fashion for some time, introducing more girls but Dolly stopped listening, having quite lost track. In fact, the oppressive heat in the over-crowded room that reeked of human sweat and something Dolly couldn’t put a name to, was beginning to make her come over all queer.
‘Hey up, what am I thinking of? Gladys, fetch this child some nosh. Don’t you fret, my lovely! Food is all I’m offering today and no payment required. So make yourself comfortable lass, and sup up.’
Dolly was quickly seated at a table, a heaped plate set before her and she did just that, tucking into a plump steak and kidney pudding that ran with hot gravy the minute she slid her knife into the crust. Oh, and it was so delicious she didn’t once lift her eyes from her plate, not till she’d eaten every morsel and it was quite empty.
‘Why don’t you lick it clean, love?’
Dolly laughed shyly, feeling a flush of embarrassment join the heated glow produced by the excellent food. But then she glanced about her again. The chair in the corner was empty now, and only Gladys remained on the old couch, scowling and looking cross, perhaps at being left behind. At that moment a young man staggered in. Waving a bottle about he grabbed one of the girls and the pair of them went off upstairs, giggling, with their arms wrapped about each other. It was all somewhat sobering, reminding Dolly that this was a place of business, not homely charity. ‘I can’t pay you,’ she said.
Cabbage Lil, rocking in her chair whilst keeping one beady eye on events, gave a hearty chuckle. ‘You’re not big on trust then, little un? I thought we’d agreed that no payment was required. Not at present, anyroad.’ A girl came up to her, handed over a few coins, which Lil swiftly pocketed, slipping one back into the girl’s outstretched hand. ‘Should things change, or you find yourself in a position to pay later, that’s different. We can always talk terms.’ She fixed Dolly with a steely glare. ‘I can promise you that you’d earn a good income and be quite safe and taken proper care of here. Ask any of my girls. They’ve no complaints.’
Dolly stared at her, fully understanding the implications of the carefully worded offer but not quite knowing how to respond. Yet she was in no position to quibble about the methods these girls had chosen to earn a living. Hadn’t she come to see over these last weeks how very difficult life was when you couldn’t find honest employment, and how quickly you could reach starvation point and death’s door, of which she’d once spoken so lightly.
Now that Dolly was fed and sipping a mug of hot, sweet tea, the whole world had taken on a rosier glow. She felt half inclined to stay and join them, as Lil was suggesting.
Is this where I really belong?
Surely, going with a sailor or some fancy swell from the country, couldn’t be any worse than being beaten by Calvin, or interfered with by Nifty Jack. She’d no idea who her real father was, and what’s more, she no longer wanted to know. Much as she hated what her mother had apparently done, happen no better than these girls here, she was still her lovely mam and Dolly still felt responsible for her. She regretted walking out so abruptly. It was the shock of her not denying Nifty’s accusation. But once she’d had time to get used to the idea and was settled some place, she’d write to her. Maybe she’d be able to understand and forgive her one day, but not just yet. It was all a bit too much to take in.
Oh Mam, what am I doing here? And who am I?
All the women looked well and almost happy. They weren’t finely attired, most of them being barely more than half-dressed, but then they were working girls, ladies of the night. Perhaps they were indeed properly cared for by Cabbage Lil, their madam. Could it be so bad to eat like this every day, as rich as a queen! It might even be fun. And think of the money she’d earn? She could pay Nifty off in no time and be free of him for life, Mam too. But had she been a bit hasty, condemning her mother in that way?
Even Cabbage Lil looked different somehow. Removing the musty, green coat had revealed that the black gown was crusted in lace, if slightly tired looking, and with tiny teardrop pearls all around the high collar and forming a vee down the front of the bodice to a tiny, fitted waist. For that reason alone, and despite the lacy shawl she draped over her shoulders, the style seemed dated, probably pre-war, but clearly expensive. And having taken off the tatty hat, her hair turned out to be a burnished copper, glowing in the light from the fire. Yet her profession told in every line of her bony face. She was not beautiful, even had she been in full possession of both eyes. Dolly wondered how she’d come to lose it and if it was painful to wear a glass one.
Perhaps Lil noticed her scrutiny because as if reading her mind, or needing to deal with a question she was often asked from the start, she gave a wry smile and commented, ‘A client got a bit too handy with his knife, love, but don’t worry, it takes more than a drunken sailor to finish off Cabb
age Lil. Nay, don’t take on. Eeh, I shouldn’t have spoke so carelessly. Gladys, come quick, this child has turned ash white and she’s going to… eeh, catch her quick, she’s keeling over.’
* * *
When she came round, Dolly was full of apologies. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually so soft.’ Mortified by her ill manners, she offered to clean up the kitchen now that the ‘girls’ had all finally retired or gone about their business. ‘I want to help pay my whack,’ Dolly said. ‘I don’t want to be no burden.’
‘Not tonight, lovey, you look done in, but happen if you offer again, I’ll take you up on it. I’m not a natural housekeeper, nor is anyone else round here.’
From that day on, Dolly made it her business to keep the place looking neat and tidy, exactly as she’d done for Nifty, only with a greater show of gratitude.
‘Smart as a new pin, we are these days,’ Cabbage Lil would gloat. ‘We’ll have to be putting up our prices if we get much posher.’
Dolly would giggle but then took over the cooking as well. She made the girls hotpot and steak and kidney pie, tasty stews and heart-warming puddings. She loved to see them cleaning up their plates and asking for more. She enjoyed going round the market with her basket and a purse full of money, which Cabbage Lil had given her to buy whatever food took her fancy. She’d buy fillets of plaice, or a whole box of mackerel; the leanest meat she could find instead of the fatty leftovers at the end of the day, and any amount of fresh fruit.
‘Only the best for my girls! Chaps like a nice bit of flesh.’
Even Joan began to put on weight and was soon showing off her ‘good figure’, and pushing her breasts high in the trashy dresses she wore, to display her new cleavage.
And if one of the girls had a torn blouse or a loose hem, Dolly would mend it for them. She would sew on buttons, replace tatty ribbons with new ones she’d found on the market, add pieces of lace or braid to liven up a tired outfit, and let out seams, should this prove to be necessary on occasion. It became accepted practise that if one of the girls had a problem with an article of clothing, Dolly was the one to fix it.