A sound from the street caused her mind and her body to stop, but when there was no knock at the door Rosie resumed the pacing, but now all her energy and will was concentrated only on her sister and she was praying.
Some miles away Molly too was praying, but it was to her sister, not her Creator, that she was calling. Oh, Rosie, Rosie. She was walking blindly through the dark night and she had no idea where she was going. Rosie, tell me what to do, tell me what to do . . .
It had been all right at first when she had got to her grannie’s. Ronnie had been waiting for her like he always did when she managed to make it on a night he knew her grannie and the others would be out, and they had gone straight upstairs. She liked it better when they did it at her grannie’s, she always felt scared when he met her somewhere else and they went to the waste ground at the back of the chemical works or walked down past Ryhope to the sands or the fields. She didn’t mind what she did at her grannie’s so much, but some of the things he still wanted when they were out . . . You couldn’t, you couldn’t do things like that in the open. Well, she couldn’t.
Ronnie had said she was beautiful, that she was his own bonny lass and that he’d wed her as soon as she was old enough and take her away from these parts, but it had all been lies.
She rubbed her hand across her wet salty face as she called out to her sister again, but the vivid pictures on the screen of her mind wouldn’t go away. She had been sitting on the side of Ronnie’s grubby bed - she hated that about her grannie’s, the smell of the bed and the general filth and squalor - and she had just finished dressing when the door had opened. She had been frightened they had been found out by Fred or Gerry, the two men Ronnie shared the room with, because she knew they would tell her grannie and her grannie would tell Rosie, but she had never seen the three big men who were standing in the doorway looking at her. She had glanced at Ronnie, and he’d had a funny little half-smile on his face, his eyes bright, and then she had known - even as she hadn’t quite been able to believe it - and a terror so great as to be paralysing had gripped her.
He had watched. Ronnie had watched the whole time. Molly made a tortured little gasping sound but her footsteps didn’t falter. He had enjoyed seeing what those men did to her. And afterwards, when they had all put money on the bed and told her to buy herself something nice and that she was a good little lass, she had wanted to die. She had pulled on her flannel petticoat and her dress and coat, but she hadn’t been able to find her drawers or one of her socks, and after pushing her feet into her boots she had half fallen down the stairs in her desire to escape. And then she had started running.
‘You all right, hinny? You shouldn’t be out this time of night, where’s yer mam or yer da?’ The old man was bent and thin, and the wrinkled face was kind, but the sight of him was enough to send her running pell mell down the long narrow alley and further into the web of back streets and passageways surrounding the docks.
When Molly reached the docks themselves she stopped running. As always at eleven o’clock on a weekday night the waterfront was populated with a collection of ne’er-do-wells, and there were men who called out to the enchantingly beautiful girl as she passed, but Molly ignored them all. Indeed it was doubtful if she even heard them. It was the dark black water that was drawing her on to the edge of the quayside.
She couldn’t go home again, not after what had happened. The thought spun in her head as she looked down into the faintly swishing water. They would want to know where she had been and she couldn’t bear to tell them and see their faces. She shuddered violently. No, she couldn’t go home.
‘Bit close to the edge, ain’t you, lass.’ She froze at the sound of the deep male voice just behind her and then, as a pair of burly arms went round her waist lifting her off her feet, she began to struggle and scream. The sailor’s companions were offering increasingly ribald suggestions as to what he should do with her, and he had just clamped one big paw across her mouth stifling her cries, when another voice said, and quite quietly, ‘Let go of her.’
She was free in the next instant, and as the sailor was saying, ‘Aw, Charlie man, I was only lookin’ out for the lass, she was a sight too near the edge,’ one of the two women standing with the said Charlie reached out and drew Molly to her.
‘You’ve had yer fun so sling yer hook.’
Again the voice was very quiet but the sailor and his pals didn’t need to be told twice.
‘You all right, hinny?’ Molly had seen Charlie nod at the woman who had her arm round her, and when the woman - who was dressed very brightly and had lots of hair piled up high on her head - bent down and looked into her face her voice was soft as she continued. ‘You come with us, pet, me an’ Jessie’ll look after you.’
Molly blinked at her.
‘Jessie?’ The name registered through Molly’s shock. ‘Me mam’s called Jessie.’
‘There you are then, lass.’ And as Charlie gestured again the two women moved either side of Molly and began to walk her along the quay with the man bringing up the rear as he limped behind them.
It was only a minute or two before they entered a house near the docks and there were more women sitting in the room immediately off the street, but her new friends led her past them without speaking and into a smaller room. This room was warm, even cosy, with a big coal fire and thick rugs on the floor, and when the woman called Jessie pushed her down in an armchair in front of the roaring flames and said gently, ‘Come on, lass, you tell old Jessie what you’re doin’ here this time of night, ’cos I can tell you’re a nice little lass,’ the tears began to flow again.
‘I . . . I’m not nice.’
‘Oh aye, aye you are, hinny. Now you tell me what’s wrong an’ we’ll see what we can do about it. Won’t we, Lil?’
Lil nodded, her bleached hair looking as though it would crumple like dried-out grass if it was touched.
It was after Molly had related the events of the night that the man appeared again, as though he had been waiting behind the door, but he didn’t approach her, merely handing Jessie a tray on which reposed three glasses of what looked like wine. He touched one of the glasses with his finger as he said, ‘Get the bairn to drink that, it’ll do her good.’
The cherry wine was very sweet and Molly drank it with the two women sitting either side of her as they talked soothingly, and with the warmth from the fire and the feeling that she was safe again she suddenly began to feel very sleepy. So sleepy she just couldn’t keep her eyes open . . .
Every time Zachariah paid a visit to the East End he found himself reflecting that he wasn’t surprised Sunderland still had the highest infant mortality rates in the country.
How was it, he asked himself as he loped as fast as he could through the cobbled back lanes with their oozing lavatory hatches and heaps of rotting rubbish, how was it that the wealthy shipbuilders and mine owners - most of them patrons of the arts and architecture - could shut their eyes to the way whole communities were forced to live? But they did, oh aye, they did all right, and with over one-and-a-half million men unemployed nationwide, and it getting worse by the day, the outlook was bleak for Geordies.
It was all well and good for the Glasgow socialists to send MacDonald that congratulatory telegram on his election as Labour leader saying ‘Labour can have no truck with tranquillity’, but would they be living in filthy, stinking slums while they made their fine speeches on the Opposition front benches?
He doubted it, he thought grimly, although there might be a few who had experienced soup kitchens and the soul-destroying means test first hand. Certainly they were better than the other two - the Liberals and the Tories - although that weren’t saying over much.
By the time Zachariah turned into Fighting Cock Lane and continued through the labyrinth of alleys and narrow courts beyond he was panting hard, despite being a very fit man, and he was inwardly cursing Molly. She was nowt but trouble that one, he said to himself as his foot slipped on something unmentionable and he nearly
cannoned head first into the brick wall of a back yard, the stench from within giving him a pretty good idea of what he had just stepped in. And the mother, Jessie, wasn’t much better. By, Rosie had her work cut out all right and he wouldn’t blame her if she upped and walked out on the lot of them. But she wouldn’t. His eyes narrowed in the darkness as he felt his way along a cut between two streets that was as black as pitch. No, she wouldn’t, not his Rosie.
Whisht. He made a clicking sound with his tongue against his teeth. He couldn’t afford to think like that, even to himself. She wasn’t his Rosie, she’d never be his Rosie - he had her friendship and that was enough, it had to be enough. He’d had the privilege of watching her mature into a lovely young woman and had played a part in broadening her mind, and he was thankful for that. The word mocked him with the serenity it suggested. There was nothing calm or peaceful about the feeling that burned him up every night and ate into his days, and he couldn’t count the times he’d been near to taking up with Janie again simply to ease his body’s torment. But Janie deserved better than that. It had been for her sake - Janie’s - that he’d made the break in the first place, he thought too much of the lass to use her, and that’s what it had turned into in the end. And she was a bonny enough lass and good company too, she’d meet someone else soon enough. There would be plenty of men who’d consider themselves well blessed to have Janie’s favours.
As Zachariah emerged into Stone Street where Rosie’s grannie lived he took a minute to lean back against a house wall and get his breath. He hoped he’d find Molly here with the old lady. His eyes narrowed as he realized he was worried about the bairn herself as well as how all this would affect Rosie. Half the time he wanted to wring Molly’s neck, and the lass had got a tongue on her as sharp as a knife, by, she had, but there was another side to the bairn too.
She’d spent hours tending that baby spuggy she’d found fluttering about in the street, and against all odds the house sparrow had made it. He’d wondered if she would let it go - she’d had it nigh on four weeks and got right fond of it into the bargain - but came the day she’d opened the lid of the little cage he’d knocked together, and he’d never forget what she’d said as they had watched it flit straight up into the sky. ‘He was made to fly. He doesn’t want to stay around these parts an’ be caged, he wants better than that.’ Funny, but he’d got the idea then she wasn’t talking wholly about the bird, and the look on her face as she had spoken had bothered him for days.
He straightened abruptly, irritated with his thoughts, and moved away from the wall with a shake of his fair head. Aye, well the same road that led upwards could lead downwards depending on which direction you were facing, and there were choices to be made all through life, even for a lass as young as Molly. Molly didn’t have something that was inherent in Rosie’s character - strength of purpose, self-dignity, fortitude, call it what you will, it wasn’t there. There were people who made things happen and others who let things happen to them, and he knew which side of the coin he placed Molly.
He looked down the narrow dark street where the houses seemed to lean over the greasy cobbles and felt a sense of foreboding. But he was running ahead of himself here, likely as not she’d stayed too late with her grannie and had been frightened to come home in the dark. There was many a grown woman who would think twice about walking these streets once the sun went down.
Molly wasn’t at her grandmother’s, but by the time Zachariah’s banging on the front door had woken the old woman the whole house had been raised, the result of which being he met Ronnie Tiller for the first time.
The lodgers, all six of them, had gathered in the kitchen along with Rosie’s grandmother, and after Zachariah had finished speaking they all shook their heads soberly. The old woman said nothing at all, she had imbibed a sight too freely at the Archer’s Arms earlier that evening and it was doubtful if she was aware of anything that was being said as she sat slumped in a hard-backed chair, her eyes half closed and her mouth slack.
Ronnie Tiller was standing at the back of the others and just inside the doorway, and now Zachariah spoke directly to him as he said, ‘An’ you, Tiller. You’re sayin’ Molly wasn’t here the night? Is that so?’
‘Aye.’
‘An’ you’ll be tellin’ me next you haven’t been givin’ the bairn presents, money an’ such, eh?’
‘Presents?’ Ronnie’s eyes flickered and as Zachariah’s gaze didn’t falter he mumbled, ‘Aye, I might have given her the odd penny or two to spend on bullets, I feel sorry for the lass with her da dying and all. That’s not a crime is it?’
‘No, that’s not a crime.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘You know exactly what it means so don’t mess about with me, lad. You’ve bin leadin’ the little lass on . . . or worse.’
For a full ten seconds no one in the room moved or spoke a word. The other five men were digesting the significance of what had been declared and the two combatants - because it was clear to everyone now that that was what they were - continued to stare at each other.
‘Look, man,’ one of the lodgers, a middle-aged man with a heavy growth of beard spoke, rubbing his face uncomfortably, ‘I dunno what’s bin goin’ on but you want to watch what you say unless you can prove it.’
‘Oh I’ll prove it all right,’ said Zachariah evenly, ‘but for the moment the main thing is to find the lass. So you’re all sayin’ she wasn’t here the night?’ he asked again, his gaze sweeping over the troubled faces of the other men now.
‘There was a special do at the Archers, we all went along ’cept . . .’ It was the middle-aged man who had spoken, and as his eyes turned to Ronnie all the others looked the same way.
‘I was out an’ all. You know that, I wasn’t here when you all got back, was I?’ There was a pugnaciousness in Ronnie’s voice that sounded forced. ‘Me an’ some pals went for a drink, you can ask them if you don’t believe me. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the bairn for days, not since she was last here with her mam and the other ’un.’
Zachariah’s eyes were as hard as blue diamonds but he recognized that there was little else he could do right at this moment beyond search the house and netty which, as he had expected, produced nothing. However, he turned to the middle-aged man as he was leaving and said, ‘You’ll keep your eyes an’ ears open?’
‘Oh aye, man, aye. An’ we’ll have a scout round the morrer an’ ask a few questions. The old biddy across the road could tell you the colour of what comes out of your backside the way her curtains twitch.’ The man’s voice was weighty with meaning and Zachariah nodded to it. It seemed Ronnie Tiller’s co-habitants trusted the man as little as he did.
He left quickly after that, and he didn’t glance Ronnie Tiller’s way again, but he found his fingers were itching for his club all the way back to Hendon.
Chapter Eight
‘But where do you think she could be, Mrs McLinnie?’
‘Eee, I dinna know, hinny, but I’ll get the lads enquirin’, they know a few sorts atween ’em. With our Patrick an’ John laid off, an’ Mr McLinnie an’ Michael on short time it’ll give ’em somethin’ to do, instead of gettin’ under me feet half the day.’
When Annie McLinnie had heard the knock on her back door just after she had come downstairs at her normal rising time of half past five, the last person she had expected to see standing in the yard was Rosie Ferry. And the lass had looked bad, as white as a sheet, which wasn’t surprising when she’d had no sleep for twenty-four hours. She still looked bad. This last thought prompted Annie to push Rosie down into one of the hard-backed kitchen chairs as she said, ‘Look, lass, you’re havin’ a sup afore you go, an’ a bite of somethin’.’
‘I really thought she might be here.’ Rosie’s voice had a cracked sound. When Zachariah had arrived home at gone two in the morning without Molly, Rosie had been filled with a dread that had increased hour by hour, and the only ray of hope had been the possibility that Molly might have
gone to Mrs McLinnie’s. Since Shane’s departure goodness knows where just after they had moved to Benton Street, Rosie and her mother and the two girls had acquired the habit of visiting the McLinnie household for an hour every Sunday afternoon once the cleaning at home was finished, and she knew Molly liked all the attention the McLinnie brothers gave her.
‘Lass, you know what bairns are. The gliff our John an’ Patrick gave us when they were brought back by the constable after bein’ missin’ for two days, an’ them not a day over ten years old. An’ all ’cos Mr McLinnie had said he was gonna bray ’em for breakin’ me vase. He brayed ’em all right, the pair of ’em couldn’t sit down for a week.’
‘But this is different.’
Aye it was, it was different. Annie busied herself mashing the tea but her mind was racing. She had always said Jessie would have trouble with that one, her Molly, now hadn’t she. And this little lass here couldn’t be in two places at once, bless her. Rosie worked all the hours under the sun as it was. By, old James would turn in his grave if he knew the state of things, he would that.
‘Here, lass, get this down you while it’s hot.’ Annie pushed a steaming cup of tea under Rosie’s nose. ‘An’ help yourself to sugar, I’ve just picked up me rations for the week so there’s plenty. An’ you’re havin’ a shive of stotty cake to keep you goin’, you won’t be no good to any of ’em if you’re bad, now then, lass.’
Once seated at the big wooden table opposite Rosie, Annie said, ‘What about that pal of yours, Flora? Might the bairn have gone round her house? You never know with bairns.’
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