Ettie stood up, folded her arms and rocked back on her heels. Regarding his stern expression, she said, ‘You mean I’m working tonight, don’t you?’
‘Well, it was you who chose to speak out and give personal messages,’ he said, his face now uncomfortably close to hers as he loomed over her. ‘It was you who decided to stop being the Silent Beauty and take over the whole act.’
‘Well, I am the one with the talent,’ she said, determined to meet his gaze without flinching.
‘I don’t think I’m sure what you are implying, Ettie.’
They stood there, confronting each other, like boxers making ready to begin the first round.
Ettie felt uneasy. She dropped back down into the armchair, crossed her legs and jiggled her raised foot, making her petticoats – swish rhythmically.
‘It’s no good,’ she snapped. ‘I try to talk to you, and you don’t listen. I saw the most wonderful thing today, I wanted to tell you all about it, share it with you, and you had to go and spoil it. All you want to go on about is work.’
‘If we didn’t work, Ettie, you would have no money to spend on seeing whatever frippery you’re jabbering on about, now would you?’
‘Don’t you have so bloody much of it.’ She practically spat the words out. ‘Frippery?’ She concentrated for a moment on picking at an imaginary loose thread on her bodice, then she spoke. ‘You’ve changed,’ she said quietly.
‘So have you, thank God.’
She looked up at him standing over her. She thought that he looked so serious, so cold. ‘You don’t seem to like me very much any more, Jacob.’ She said the words sadly.
‘It’s time you were getting ready,’ he said, going over to his desk and opening one of his notebooks. He ran his fingers down the page of neatly entered appointments. ‘Celia Tressing is due here for a private reading in a little more than half an hour.’ He didn’t look up as he spoke. ‘Then we are expected at the Brownlows’.’
‘I said, I don’t think you like me any more.’ Ettie stood up and went over to him. Very gently she touched the back of his neck. She wouldn’t let him ignore her.
But he pulled away from her, making her feel that her touch might somehow taint him. He might as well have struck her.
‘Ettie, stop being so melodramatic.’ He stood up from the desk to confront her, but she turned her back on him. She couldn’t let him look at her. She was humiliated.
‘You know, I was wondering today about where I belonged,’ she said, biting back her tears. ‘I thought I knew. I thought I belonged here with you. But I’m not so sure any more.’
‘Ettie, don’t.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Now you really are being ridiculous. Do you want to go back to those slums I dragged you from?’
‘No. No I don’t,’ she said, sniffing back her tears. ‘But you just remember I can always earn my living if I want. I don’t need the likes of you.’
‘And I need you, do I?’ He was shouting now, something he rarely did. ‘Girls like you, Ettie, are ten a penny. I don’t need anyone. Do you understand? And, even if I did, I could find a replacement whenever I wanted.’
‘Good.’ Her voice shook with emotion. ‘And why don’t you just do that, eh? You go and find someone else. Cos I’m going to see me mum. I’m going to move her out of that bug-hole and find somewhere nice for the both of us. You might think I’m worth nothing, but at least I can afford to get us a decent place to live. I can afford that all right.’
‘I won’t dignify that remark by asking you how you can afford it.’ His face looked ugly and strained with temper. ‘I think you planned to argue with me this evening, Ettie. That you want an excuse to leave now you are a success.’
‘Don’t talk such rubbish.’ Her voice was sneering.
‘It seems lately that you think everything I say is…’
‘Shit?’
‘What?’
‘You heard, Professor Protsky.’ Her lips curled in contempt as she jabbed him sharply in the chest with her finger, emphasising each word as she spoke. ‘Shit. Want me to spell it out for you, do you?’
As she slammed the front door, Ettie, and all the tenants in the house, could hear Jacob yelling after her. ‘Go on, go back to the gutter where you belong. You were right when you said it: you’ll always be a Whitechapel girl; you’ll never get it out of you. Never. Get back to where you belong.’
It was as though Ettie had never been away as she stood in the shadows of the archway leading into the court and watched the scene before her. It was dusk, but the light had an unnaturally vivid quality and the grubby evening air felt more than usually oppressive, made heavy by the threat of the storm which had been gathering since the afternoon. A pair of scrawny hens pecked idly round the broken flagstones at the dusty weeds, pausing occasionally to turn their heads to one side to regard, with their black, beady eyes, the half-naked children with whom they shared the little open space in the centre of the court. A tiny boy sat thoughtfully absorbed in his task of collecting drips in a rusty can from the communal stand-pipe. When his tin was half full he carried it carefully to the other children, who mixed it with dirt making a thick, sticky mud which they fashioned into crumbling pies. Every so often a sudden, vicious but short-lived squabble broke out over the ownership of the piles of discarded oyster shells with which they decorated their muddy creations.
Around the edges of the court, the women were gathered. They either sat on chairs brought out from their rooms, or perched themselves on the warm stone street-door steps. All fanned themselves with the hems of their pinafores, as they chatted and half-heartedly scolded their offspring. Now and then a child would be cuffed round the ear for overstepping the unspoken rules of life in the court, but more often than not the adults didn’t bother, having been made too sluggish by the heady mixture of sultry summer heat and gin.
Ettie stood there and watched. Her mother had claimed she couldn’t move away because she would miss the company of these women who she called her dearest friends. But she wasn’t out with them now, of course, because, as she and Ettie both knew, for the last year or so she had hardly bothered to leave her bed – except to buy her supply of gin or to get a jug of soup from the mission kitchen.
Ettie closed her eyes. She felt exhausted, as though everything had become too much effort. She felt as though she could sit herself down on one of the steps and let everything just wash over her. If only she didn’t care about her mother. But the trouble was, no matter how cruel and negligent Sarah had been, Ettie still did care what happened to her.
But it still took every bit of her strength to push herself away from the wall of the arch and step out into the court itself.
‘Come on girl,’ she said to herself. ‘Move your lazy self.’
It was hard coming back, but she knew she had to make a determined effort to try and persuade her mother to move before it was too late.
‘Hello everyone,’ Ettie said, trying a smile on the assembled women, hoping she sounded brighter than she felt. ‘How are you all doing? All right, are you?’
A woman sitting in the far comer looked up briefly in Ettie’s direction, then turned back to her lap and carried on with her poorly paid piece-work of shelling peas into newspaper. ‘He’s in there, yer know, love.’
‘What, Mum’s lodger, Nora?’
‘That’s the bloke. And he’s right pissed and all. I’d be careful if I was you, girl.’
‘Ta.’ Ettie didn’t move. She stood there and thought about what she should do next. ‘Maisie Bury about?’ she asked.
‘Down the Frying Pan with the others,’ Nora replied, still mechanically splitting the pods and extracting the tender peas from within.
‘Ta,’ said Ettie again. ‘See you.’ And turned to walk back out of the court. As she did so she heard the women’s voices behind her.
‘Fancy telling her that. Toffee-nosed cow like her. Yer should have left her. Let her go in and have him give her a seeing-to. She deserves it, leaving
her old mum while she goes off with her fancy. Poncing about in all fancy gear. That frock’d keep me for a year.’
‘Aw, shut up,’ said Nora wearily. ‘I wouldn’t wish that wicked bastard that Sarah’s got herself hiked up with on no one.’ She waved a pea-pod at her neighbour. ‘And nor would you if yer told the truth.’
‘Leave off, Nora. You saying it’s all right for him to do that to her mum, but not to her? What’s so special about that little madam, then?’
‘Yer just bleed’n jealous,’ said Nora, still getting on with her work.
‘Jealous? What, of that little tart? You are having a laugh, ain’t yer? At least the gels round here are honest whores. Not like that little hypocrite.’
Ettie couldn’t make out Nora’s reply because of the other woman’s hollow, spiteful laughter that echoed round the court. But she’d had heard more than enough anyway.
* * *
‘Ain’t seen yer round here for a while, girl,’ called the bride known as Mad Milly, as she waved extravagantly to Ettie from across the bar. ‘Come over here and see yer old mate.’
‘Thought yer’d had enough of these parts,’ said Florrie, hurriedly downing her drink before she joined them at the table in the hope of a free refill. ‘What yer doing back here, then?’
‘She’s come back to earn a few bob, ain’t yer, Ett?’ Milly gave Ettie a big, friendly wink and shoved her matily in the ribs.
Ettie returned her smile easily; she felt comfortable back with these women and their uncomplicated ways. ‘It’s good to see you, girls,’ she said. ‘Now, first things first. Who’s having what?’
The three women were soon laughing and joking, sitting there as though it was the most natural thing in the world for Ettie to be dressed up to the nines while she chatted away with her old mates. Florrie and Milly filled her in on what had happened to everyone since Ettie had last been in Whitechapel, and had her almost collapsed with laughter as they told Ettie about Ada’s latest escapades with the local constabulary: the story concluded with Ada blacking a young constable’s eye and getting locked up in the local nick for her trouble. But the women also talked about their more serious concerns about life in Whitechapel – the growing unemployment, the general, worsening, lack of money, the hated Charrington’s campaign to drive the girls off the streets, and even their fear of anarchists, riots and Fenian bombs. But, for all their breathless chat, not once did either of them mention Sarah Wilkins. The two women knew that the increasingly downhill path Ettie’s mother was taking was not a topic for light bar-room conversation – there were some things that were too painful to discuss in public when you were sober. That could wait for a more suitable time.
As Ettie sat down and began dishing out yet another round of drinks, Milly jumped up and waved at someone coming in the door. ‘Look,’ she called out. ‘It’s Maisie. Over here, girl. Over with us.’
Ettie left the table and went over to greet her friend. She held out her arms and hugged her.
‘I saw yer walking past in the court,’ May said coldly, holding her cheek away from Ettie’s proffered kiss, and looking pointedly at Ettie’s fine clothes. ‘So long since we’ve seen yer round here, I was surprised I recognised yer. Thought yer’d forgotten all about us lot.’
‘Course I haven’t forgotten you, May.’ Ettie pulled up a seat for Maisie from the next table.
‘Could have fooled me,’ said May, settling herself down. ‘And yer mum.’
‘Shut up moaning, Maisie,’ said Florrie, flashing a warning with her eyes.
‘No, Florrie,’ said Ettie. ‘Yer don’t have to defend me. She’s right. It has been a long time – too long – since I’ve been back.’
‘Be a bleed’n sight longer if it was me,’ said Milly, belching loudly. ‘Yer wouldn’t catch me hanging round here if I had any choice.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘Wouldn’t see me for sodding dust, yer wouldn’t.’
‘How about some more drinks?’ asked Florrie, cheerily. The conversation was all getting a little too close to the bone for her liking: she didn’t want Ettie getting herself all upset and doing a daft thing like leaving the pub before she’d spent all her money on them.
‘Yer on, Florrie,’ said Ettie, smiling as she looked knowingly at her own suddenly empty glass which she’d only just had refilled. ‘Let’s have ourselves a little party, shall we?’ She looked anxiously at Maisie as she spoke.
‘Go on then,’ said May, and sat down, only a little grudgingly, next to Milly.
Ettie squeezed through the crowded bar to the counter. While she was waiting to be served she called to her friends over her shoulder, not caring who heard her. ‘I’ve missed you lot, you know. All of you. And everything else round here.’ She paid the landlord, soaking her sleeve in the puddles of beer on the counter. ‘Well, maybe not everything, eh Patrick?’ she said, shaking the drips from her arm and laughing as she made her way back to the table, balancing the glasses on a tin tray.
‘There you are ladies,’ she said, with a mock genteel curtsey. ‘Get that down you.’
‘I was just trying to think what exactly it was yer could have missed round here,’ said Milly, frowning and shaking her head. ‘I’m buggered if I can think of anything.’
‘Well, apart from you mob, of course,’ Ettie said, then she thought for a moment. ‘And I’ve missed the laughs and when we used to go down the market together.’
May stared pointedly at Ettie’s dress, with her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. ‘Don’t look like yer need no market to me,’ she said.
‘It’s having a good old rake round the barrows that I miss,’ she said, her face as bright from the happy memories as from all the gin she’d drunk. ‘You remember, May, when we used to see what we could get for a farthing? Buying a bit of trim to go round our bonnets. Wondering for ages what colour ribbon to buy. And remember that peacock feather I got once?’
‘Yeah, yer mum went flaming potty, didn’t she?’ said May sourly. ‘Made yer throw it out in case it brought yer’s all bad luck.’
‘You know I never did throw it out. I kept it hidden under me bedding. It’s probably still there.’
‘Well, it ain’t done yer no harm so far, Ett,’ said Florrie, draining yet another glass. ‘If what yer’ve got is bad luck, than let’s all have a bit, eh girls?’
‘Ain’t done yer mum much good, has it?’ said May spitefully. She fiddled unnecessarily with her hair, pushing pins back into place that hadn’t even moved. ‘Now my mum’s a different matter. With our Billy doing so nicely for himself, she’s doing very nicely out of it and all. Doing her right proud he is. She wants for nothing. No wonder he’s got so many girls after him. Lining up for him they are.’
Ettie nodded silently and gulped at her drink.
‘Why don’t you shut up, May?’ said Milly. ‘Yer right getting on me tits. There’s hardly any comparison, is there now, between how Myrt’s treated you lot and how Sarah’s treated Ettie.’
Florrie was looking worried: if a fight broke, it would spoil what promised to be a long night of free drinks, so it was with real relief that when the door opened she saw a big strapping lad with red hair come in through the wreaths of blue tobacco smoke. With him was a tall, skinny chap of about the same age.
‘Look, May,’ she said, nudging the stem-faced Maisie. ‘Here comes your Billy boy. And he’s got that dozy Cecil with him from the wood-yard.’ Florrie leapt to her feet and shouted: ‘Play us a song, Cec.’
‘Yeah, go on, Cec,’ Patrick called from behind the bar. ‘Get this lot dancing and make ’em good and thirsty for plenty more of my beer.’
With much cheering and back patting, Cecil and Billy pushed their way over to the girls. Billy stood behind Milly, facing Ettie. Cecil stood next to him.
‘If you girls’ll do us a dance, I’ll play,’ said Cecil, holding up his battered concertina and grinning his great gormless grin.
‘Well, if that’s all yer want off us,’ beamed Milly. ‘We’ll have to see if we
can oblige.’
‘Righto!’ Cecil pulled the little handles of the mother-of-pearl-inlaid squeeze-box and stretched it to its wheezy full width. Then, with a flash of his hands, the music started.
Florrie was first up, sending her chair crashing to the ground as she leapt forward and began skipping around the circle of drinkers who had stood back to watch the show. Soon even Maisie had joined in with the others as they laughed and whooped, jigged and leapt to the wild playing and clapping of the drinkers. They held hands and pulled out in a ring, their skirts flying, their feet whisking up ever bigger flurries of sawdust from the floor as Cecil urged the squeeze-box into ever more complicated tunes and rhythms.
When he stopped for a brief swig of his beer, Ettie took the opportunity to grab his arm. ‘Cecil, is it?’ she gasped.
‘That’s right,’ he said, grinning with pleasure at being spoken to by such a pretty girl. ‘I’m a mate of Bill’s, from work.
‘Well, I’m puffed out, Cecil,’ Ettie told the still-beaming young man. ‘I haven’t been dancing for months, see, and I’m that tired. Here, I’ve got a few bob left, get in a couple of quart pitchers of beer between us.’
‘Patrick,’ called Milly to the barman, her booming voice unaffected by the dancing, ‘sing us one of them sad songs, while we all have a blow. Go on.’
Urged on by his customers, Patrick leaned on the counter and began to sing, in his sweet, mournful tenor, songs from his childhood of the hills and green of the home he had left behind across the sea.
A barmaid helped Cecil carry the big glass jugs of foaming beer over to the girls and Billy, who had sat himself next to Ettie. They plonked the pitchers down on the stained and ringed wooden table top that was already awash with spilled ale.
Tears filled Ettie’s eyes as Patrick’s songs, combined with the drink, took their effect. She turned round as she felt something brush her arm.
‘Yer still wear it then, do yer?’ Billy asked quietly.
Ettie touched the locket at her throat. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I never take it off.’
The Whitechapel Girl Page 26