by Annie Murray
‘Don’t you go losing your temper,’ Susan pleaded. ‘I don’t mind ’em looking. It does no harm.’
Elsie hesitated, even more nervous herself now. ‘Wait ’ere. I’ll try and get you sorted out.’
After what felt an age she appeared with a flustered young teacher, austerely dressed in a grey skirt to the floor and a high-necked white blouse. She had a round, plain face.
‘Well, that one’s all right,’ she said sharply, pointing at Mercy. ‘But we can’t possibly take the other one. This is a school for normal children. We can’t have the likes of her here. There are special schools for that sort.’
Susan cringed, visibly flayed by the cruelty of the words.
Mercy gripped the bar of the chair, head held up defiantly. She felt as if someone had their hands tight round her throat.
‘I’m not coming in if Susan can’t come too,’ she managed to say, huskily.
‘Well!’ The teacher’s cheeks flushed a mottled pink. ‘What a rude and unpleasant child. You can go somewhere else if that’s your attitude. This is not a school for cripples – we couldn’t even get that—’ – she pointed to the unorthodox-looking chair – ‘up the steps. Take it away!’
Although she meant the chair, her whole manner implied that ‘it’ meant Susan.
Elsie was usually full of respect for authority, but now it was her turn to speak out.
‘What kind of a thing’s that to say to the poor girl? Call yourself a teacher? You’re s’posed to be ’ere to get some learning into their ’eads, not chase ’em away when they come begging for it!’
The teacher spoke in a low, icy voice. ‘The fact remains, this is not a school for cripples. Now is this other child going to come in, before you waste my time any further?’
‘No,’ Mercy said. ‘Not without Susan.’
‘You don’t make decisions at your age!’ The teacher seemed set to hoik Mercy bodily up the steps. ‘You’re supposed to attend school. It doesn’t matter about her!’
‘You go, Mercy,’ Susan said, trying to hide her terrible feelings of hurt. ‘You can come ’ome and tell me all about it.’
Elsie Pepper found a lump aching in her throat at this brave show, at the care these kids had found for each other.
‘Come on, Susan – we’ll go ’ome.’ To Mercy she said, ‘Go on, bab. She can stop with me in the daytime. We’ll be all right.’
‘No!’ Mercy stood helpless, fists clenched tightly as Susan and Elsie disappeared down the road, Susan craning round, trying to smile.
‘Right then,’ the teacher prodded her shoulder. ‘Hurry up and get in.’
When Mercy and the boys arrived back in Angel Street that afternoon, Mercy was still seething with rage on Susan’s behalf. She found her at the table in Elsie’s house, chopping onions and carrots. Jack and Johnny grabbed chunks of carrot and ran off outside, and Tom sat down next to Susan.
‘’Ow d’yer get on then?’ she asked Mercy in a bright voice.
‘Awright,’ Mercy spoke glumly, for she was tired, hungry and emotional. Although she was glad to be at school it had been a miserable day. It was a harsh environment, the rows of little sloping desks, the teacher’s cane always there in the corner to remind you of her authority. But it was certainly no worse than life with Mabel, and at least she’d learn a thing or two instead of just being a drudge all day long.
‘What’ve you been doing?’ she asked Susan.
‘Oh, giving Mrs Pepper a hand. She’s been ever so good to me.’
‘She patched my other skirt and she’s done it beautiful, and now she’s ’elping cook our dinner. She’s a good pair of extra ’ands round the place.’
Neither of them was going to tell Mercy how Susan had sobbed her heart out when they got back to Angel Street, for so long that Elsie began to wonder how she’d ever console her.
‘Now I can see why Mom never wants me to go out,’ Susan gulped, cheeks soaked with tears. ‘People’re that cruel. I can’t help how I am, can I?’
Elsie had had to concede that Mabel, while keeping her hidden too much from the world, had at least protected her from the kind of verbal abuse that had so shocked her this morning.
‘There’s still a lot you can do without school,’ she tried to comfort her. ‘In any case, it’s a bit late to be starting at your age. But you can sew a bit, can’t you, and ’ow about I teach you a bit of cooking?’
‘Oh Mrs Pepper, you’re so kind to us,’ Susan sobbed.
She did cheer up and began to enjoy herself with Elsie. She kept little Rosalie occupied while Elsie struggled with yet another load of washing. It was good to be in a proper family, Elsie was in and out, chatting to her, and her married son Frank popped in for a cuppa and a moan about his wife. He was brown-haired like Tom, handsome in his copper’s uniform, and he cracked jokes with her. Susan liked him.
‘We’ve been keeping our eye on the neighbours too, ’ain’t we, Mrs Pepper?’ Susan laughed.
Mr Jones, with his greased back hair and little moustache, had been out in the yard that afternoon in his grubby trousers and singlet, muscles on parade, peering in a not especially subtle manner through the window of number two. He’d sidled back and forth several times, until they heard Mary Jones shouting out of number three amid the bawling of children, in a shrill, end-of-her-tether voice, ‘Stan? What’re you doing?’ And he’d nipped back into his house right quick.
‘And Mrs Jones and Mrs White had a fight over the mangle,’ Susan chattered on. ‘Mercy’re you listening?’
‘It’s not fair!’ Mercy exploded, the pent-up emotion of her day gushing out. She burst into tears. ‘It’s evil and wicked to say those things about Susan. And now she can’t even go to school!’
‘You know, Mercy,’ Elsie consoled her, ‘Susan could make a living sewing, she could, she’s that nimble at it.’
But another problem was gnawing at Mercy too, now the excitement of getting out was wearing off.
‘But ’ow’m I ever going to get anything done when I’m out all day?’
This was a real problem. However was she going to fit all the day’s chores into a couple of hours so that Mabel wouldn’t notice the difference?
‘We’ll do it.’ Tom spoke up suddenly from where he was sharpening a knife against a whetting stone.
Elsie gaped. ‘What – you and Johnny?’
‘’S’not fair is it?’ Tom said. ‘Why should she ’ave to do it all?’
He called Johnny and Jack in and after a moment of baffled reluctance they agreed.
Mercy stared from one to the other of them, overcome by such kindness, and started crying all over again.
It worked a treat for a while. Mercy, now easier in her mind about Susan, set off in the mornings with the Pepper boys, laughing and joking on their way. She adored their company.
‘More than time that one got to be’ave like a youngster,’ Elsie remarked to Mary Jones as the four left the yard one day, with their usual split-second timing, moments after Mabel. ‘Only that one’ – she jerked her thumb towards Mabel’s house – ‘ain’t s’posed to know, so don’t go letting on, will yer?’
‘Oh no,’ Mary replied meekly. She was a pale, skinny woman, completely intimidated by the energetic competence with which Elsie greeted every task when she could barely keep her head above water with her own family. ‘’Course I won’t.’
Mercy came home tired, but ready to make up for all the housework. With the boys mucking in, it became a laugh as well as a chore as Tom, Johnny and Mercy darted about with brooms, rags and buckets of water, Jack rubbed ochre on the front step as if in a frenzy and Susan began cooking.
‘They’ll all make nice little wives for someone by the time you’ve finished!’ Elsie teased Mercy. But in truth she was warmed to see such generous spirits in her sons.
Usually, by a huge effort, they’d completed most jobs before Mabel got in and the boys melted away as if they’d never been near the place. She always found something to criticize though: the
floor wasn’t dry or the dinner not ready.
‘No use to no one, you ain’t!’ she’d rant at Mercy. ‘Can’t you get anything right?’
On these warm nights she’d insist on locking the door and Mercy bringing her water so she could half strip off and wash. Mercy felt horribly overfamiliar with Mabel’s body, the fleshy upper arms and heavy breasts, the ripe smell of her filling the room. She always tried to look the other way.
*
One evening, Stan Jones, who seemed to be in and out of jobs as fast as a rabbit its burrow, was standing out on Angel Street by the entry to Nine Court, smoking, leaning against the wall in the balmy summer air. Idly, he watched the slow progress of a water cart as it dripped its way along the street.
In fact Stan Jones, who had the body of a bantamweight wrestler and the face of a petty thief, was not loafing about completely without purpose. He had two objectives: one was keeping out of the way of his missis so that she had to deal with the stormiest part of the day with four kids – four too many in his view. The other was running into Mabel.
Stan had had his eye on Mabel Gaskin for some time now. There she was, a woman on her own, with an earthy look and a body that Stan, at least in his mind, couldn’t keep his hands off. And there was Mary his wife, scrawnier with each babby she suckled and always scared stiff of catching for another. And Stan had caught a peek of Mabel a week back, stripped to the waist downstairs. Oh, the thought of it! Breasts with enough stuffing in to hang heavy, not like Mary’s little pinheads. Stan had worked himself up into a great state of anticipation about the ‘widow woman’ (Mabel’s public version of why she was alone).
Mabel soon turned into the street, scowling to herself, lost in thought, carrying a bag. She’d called into the factory on the way home to fetch a new set of pins for carding.
‘Evenin’!’ Stan called.
It wasn’t the first time Mabel had found him hanging around when she got home. She looked appreciatively at the bulging muscles on his arms. She knew a fine specimen of a man when she saw one. His lean face was smiling appealingly at her and in his eyes – there was no mistaking what she saw in those eyes. For the first time in a very long while, Mabel’s mouth curved up in a smile.
‘Shall I carry that for yer?’ Stan indicated the bag, taking it from her with exaggerated effort as if it contained gold ingots.
‘Ta very much,’ Mabel tittered.
But then Stan said, ‘See you’ve ’ad your little team on the go again – be awright when my lot’re old enough for that!’
Mabel frowned. ‘Team?’
‘Oh, they’ll’ve finished now.’ Stan scratched under one hairy armpit with long, lazy strokes, the bag swinging to and fro. ‘You’ve got ’em well trained doing that, soon as school’s out.’
‘Mine don’t go to school,’ Mabel said dismissively, looking full into Stan’s eyes. It wasn’t kids she wanted to be talking about. She was reluctant to move, was basking in the almost forgotten sensation of being lusted after.
‘They do,’ Stan corrected her. ‘That yeller-haired chit any’ow – gone all day with them, she is.’
Mabel stared at him, the smile wiped from her face, and strode off to her house, slamming the door, leaving Stan holding a huge bag of loose safety pins.
Within minutes Mabel was giving Mercy her most violent beating yet.
She caught them so much by surprise, whipping out with, ‘What’s this about you going to school?’ that they hadn’t been prepared for brazening it out.
‘So you’d deceive me, would you, you cunning little bitch?’ Mercy tried to dodge the slaps that were raining down on her. Mabel caught her hard across the eye and she yelped in pain. ‘You’d better not be taking Susan anywhere she shouldn’t be or I’ll be taking a match to that dustcart of a chair, that I will!’
‘No—’ Mercy lied feverishly, trying to put the table between herself and Mabel. She had a hand clasped to her watering eye. ‘I haven’t – honest!’
Mabel strode round and caught hold of the back of Mercy’s old cotton frock. They both heard it rip. She yanked the girl round and started punching her, hard, on the chest and face.
‘No – no, Mom, no!’ Susan was shrieking hysterically, and for the first time ever, Mabel turned and slapped her hard round the head.
‘Shut up, you useless little cow. You’re just as bloody bad as she is.’
‘Don’t hit her!’ Mercy screamed.
Both Mercy and Susan were crying with pain as Elsie appeared at the door, horrified by the sight in front of her. Mercy’s face was bleeding and she was crumpled, weeping in pain, but Mabel was still hammering into her.
Mabel let go of Mercy and shoved Elsie out with the force of her weight and slammed the door so hard that the house rattled.
‘Interfering, stuck up bitch!’ she yelled, shooting the bolt across. Elsie, along with Stan Jones and the twins, moved to the window. Stan, impervious to Mercy’s suffering gazed at Mabel’s plump arms and her wide, love-handled hips.
‘Bugger off!’ Mabel bawled towards the window.
‘You—’ – she grabbed Mercy again as Susan sat whimpering and sobbing – ‘can get down ’ere—’ She opened the entrance to the coal-hole and shoved Mercy down on to the filthy slack-covered floor underneath the kitchen. Bolting it shut she shouted, ‘Yer can come up when I’m ready and not before!’ Mercy sank down on the gritty coal dust, beginning to sob with pain.
‘And you lot—’ – she heard Mabel shouting out of the window – ‘can all mind yer own cowing business.’
‘I’ll report you,’ Elsie shouted. ‘Yer not fit to be near children!’
‘Oh yes. Report me? Who to?’ Mabel bawled. ‘Even if there was anyone, who’d listen to you – slummy trollop, breeding like a bloody rabbit!’
Late one afternoon a couple of weeks later a woman appeared, wearing a smart dark uniform, a coat and felt hat with a narrow brim and low-heeled, well polished shoes.
She walked uncertainly across the yard, looking at the house numbers.
Elsie came out of the brewhouse immediately, pointing.
‘Who the ’eck’s that then?’ Mabel peered out of the window. ‘Eh – you . . .’ Mercy heard the panic in her voice. ‘Get upstairs, quick!’
‘Why? I’m doing . . .’
‘Don’t argue with me – get up there, now!’
As she ran upstairs Mercy heard knocking at the front door. She waited, listening, at the top.
The woman was well-spoken, her voice smooth as cream.
‘Mrs Gaskell?’
‘Gaskin.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m from the NSPCC.’ Rather uncomfortably she explained the meaning of the initials to Mabel. ‘I wonder if I might see your little girl? I’ve had a complaint through one of our welfare officers.’
‘She’s ’ere, as yer can see,’ Mabel said unctuously.
‘Hello,’ Mercy heard the woman say to Susan. ‘And how are you, my dear?’
‘She’s lying.’ Elsie was standing at the door. ‘There’s another girl, she’s the one. ‘I s’pect she’s locked down the coal ’ole or summat. That’s one of ’er favourite tricks. She can take ’em off of you, yer know,’ she sneered at Mabel.
Hearing this, Mercy’s hand went to her mouth. She was so frightened she felt as if her muscles had tied themselves in knots. Who was this woman? Was she from the home, come to take her away again?
‘There is another child lodging with me,’ Mabel admitted. ‘But she ain’t ’ere just now.’
‘Oh yes she is,’ Elsie raised her voice. ‘She’s ’ere awright.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to leave us now, thank you?’ The NSPCC woman said. Mercy heard the door closing, then the woman’s voice, sharper in tone. ‘How old is the child in question?’
‘Er – twelve,’ Mabel said.
‘Oh – I was given to believe she was a lot younger. Still, I’m afraid I’ve come rather a long way, and if you can’t present the girl to me I shall be obliged to se
arch the house to make sure she’s really not here.’
Mercy shrank, trembling, into the bedroom. What if this woman saw the bruises, her swollen lip, the half healed graze on her forehead where Mabel had knocked her into the wall? Would they take her to a home, or worse still, the workhouse? She might never see Susan or Elsie again!
‘Mercy!’ Mabel called up to her in a silken voice. ‘Can you come down ’ere a minute, Mercy love?’
She wiped her face frantically on her skirt and walked down on unsteady legs, trying to pull her hair forward to hide her face. Immediately she saw the woman’s shrewd eyes appraising her.
‘Hello, my dear,’ she said again. ‘So your name’s Mercy?’
Mercy nodded, mute with fear. Susan was at the table, watching her with desperate pleading in her eyes.
‘So you live with Mrs Gaskin?’
‘Yes.’ Mercy turned wide eyes towards Mabel. ‘She’s my auntie.’
‘My sister’s child,’ Mabel added quickly. ‘It were tragic really – she died when Mercy was only a titty-babby so I took ’er in. She’s been like me own ever since.’
The NSPCC woman looked sceptically at Mercy’s skinny frame, her filthy, threadbare dress, her bare feet, the marks on her face.
‘And how are you, Mercy?’
Mabel was looking daggers at her.
‘I’m awright, ta – er, thank you.’ Her voice was hardly more than a whisper.
‘There’s no need to be afraid. Are you getting enough to eat?’
‘Yes.’ This at least was almost true. One thing Mabel was good at was managing with food.
‘Come over to the light, child.’
By the window she put her fingers under Mercy’s chin and tilted her head back. ‘How did you hurt your face like that?’
‘I fell over and grazed me ’ead. And there was this girl at school hit me like. We got into a fight.’
The woman released her face. ‘And does Mrs Gaskin ever hit you?’
Mercy shook her head. ‘No – least, not much. Only, you know, like a mom. She’s bin very good to me, taking me in and that.’