Molly nodded, startled by the question.
‘This is nothin’, lass, nothin’. I know one or two who have gone on to have their own gentleman in their own place, maids an’ everythin’. Does that appeal?’
Molly wasn’t quite sure what he was saying now and so she just continued staring at him as her teeth gnawed at her lower lip.
‘You think on, lass. You could do a darn sight worse.’
Molly drew in a short shuddering breath. ‘Are you goin’ to keep me here?’
‘For the time bein’, lass, for the time bein’. Like I said, you’re under me protection now, an’ I want you to think about what I’m sayin’. There’s hundreds, thousands, live an’ work an’ die in two rooms with a pack of brats about ’em an’ their stomachs always full with the next one. That’s what they call wedded bliss, lass. Is that what you want? To wed one of the nowts round here an’ live in muck an’ filth? You’re a long time dead, lass. Remember that.’
He waited a moment and when no rejoinder was forthcoming limped to the door and knocked twice. ‘I’ll be sendin’ Jessie in with a bite, lass, an’ I’m sure you’d be likin’ a wash an’ a pretty new dress, eh? I’ve a few you might fancy, an’ there’s a real bonny one of white lace an’ silk. How does that sound?’
And then as the door was opened from the outside Charlie Cullen smiled, in the warm fatherly way he could adopt with ‘his’ bairns when he chose, and nodded at her before leaving.
When Jessie came she fussed and soothed Molly, helping her to bathe and change into the new clothes and then sitting by her while she ate a meal of black pudding and bread and cheese. ‘There, hinny. That’s better, ain’t it? You have a bit of a sleep now, an’ I’ll see if I can sort you out some chocolates later if you’re a good lassie. It’s roast chicken for dinner, you like chicken, don’t you?’
Molly nodded. She had only tasted chicken a couple of times, at Christmas - the rest of the year it was scrag ends and rabbit and the like - but she liked it all right, and chocolates . . . Her eyes gleamed at the thought.
‘That’s right, ’course you do. You’re not goin’ to give old Jessie any trouble, are you. Now I’ll be back later an’ I won’t forget them chocolates.’
Once she was alone again Molly curled up in a little ball amongst the covers, but she wasn’t frightened any more. She stroked the silk of her new dress, her fingers caressing the softness as her eyelids grew heavy, and within minutes she was fast asleep.
‘Rosie? That man over there? He says he wants to speak to you, lass.’
‘What?’ Following her early morning visit to Annie, Rosie had been on her feet all day, added to which it had been deliveries, and with Beryl - the young woman who had taken her job when she replaced Agnes - off ill, and Mabel having gone home early due to an argument with the cheese slicer which had resulted in Mabel almost losing the tips of two fingers and fainting flat out on the floor in the process, it had meant she and Sally hadn’t had time to draw breath.
‘Rosie.’ The tone of Sally’s voice now checked her, and Rosie raised her eyes from the long list of orders she was inspecting and looked fully into the other girl’s face. ‘He said it was important, lass.’
‘Who said what was important?’
‘Him.’ Sally inclined her head towards the door of the shop where Nick Pace was standing just inside the threshold and to one side of a stack of large round cheeses that had recently been delivered. ‘It might be somethin’ to do with your Molly, mighten it?’
‘Carry on taking the orders through to the stock room.’ Rosie was already walking towards the tall thin man whose hawk-like gaze was narrowed on her face.
‘I’m a pal of Zac’s.’ Nick never wasted time on unnecessary niceties. ‘He came to see me this mornin’ about the bairn an’ I’ve heard a whisper, but he’s not home an’ I’ve gotta get back. Tell him to come an’ see Nick tonight, all right, lass?’
‘Oh please.’ Rosie found herself clutching hold of his jacket. ‘Can’t you tell me? She’s my sister.’
Aye, and that was exactly why he couldn’t tell her. ‘Just tell Zac, lass.’ Nick had to prise her fingers from the lapel of his coat - for a little ’un she’d got a grip like the rent man on a Friday night. ‘Tell him I’ll be in Oldman’s, he knows where it is.’
‘Rosie?’ Sally was at her elbow as the shop door closed behind Nick and the bell stopped tinkling. ‘Trouble, lass?’ And then, when Rosie just stared at her as her mind drew forth and considered one horror after another, Sally said, her tone bracing, ‘Come on, canny lass. When life skelps you on the lug, you don’t offer the scab your backside an’ all, as me old gran used to say. Mind you, me gran was full of sayin’s like that, an’ no one could ever understand a word she said.’
‘Oh, Sally.’ Rosie leant limply against this tall, thin, ugly girl she had come to like so much and smiled shakily. ‘You really are one on your own.’ From the day Rosie had started work at the Co-op Sally had made the days full of fun and amusement with her own wicked brand of humour, and when Rosie had introduced her to Flora, and the two of them had hit it off like a house on fire, Rosie couldn’t have been more pleased.
‘Aye, that’s what Mick says.’ Mick was Sally’s intended, a big, rough Irish lad of nineteen who had a brogue so thick you could cut it with a knife and a heart of gold. Having horses in his blood, he worked in the Co-op stables, which had been built to house the many horses that were used in the delivery service. Sally often said that the only reason Mick had started courting her in the first place was because she resembled one of his beloved horses. ‘Well, was it about Molly he called?’
Rosie swallowed deeply, and after she had told Sally what Nick had said there was a moment’s silence. ‘I’m not happy about Zachariah going alone, Sally, not if there might be any trouble. I think I’ll call on Annie on my way home and see if the lads are available tonight.’
Sally nodded. ‘Aye, lass, good idea, an’ my Mick’ll go along of him an’ all, you know that, an’ he’s got a couple of brothers who could bend iron bars with their teeth.’
‘Really?’ Rosie wasn’t surprised. Mick’s family was vast and all the men seemed to be great bruisers.
‘Aye, ugly great so-an’-sos they are, an’ they like nothin’ better than a good punch-up. I’ve seen ’em break a man’s nose without turnin’ a hair. Zachariah’ll be all right with them.’
Rosie smiled wryly, but she agreed with the general principle and so it transpired later that evening that while Zachariah, Mick, his brothers and the McLinnies made their way to Oldman’s - a well-known bar and ginshop close to the foul-smelling chemical works - Sally and Flora came round to sit with Rosie, Jessie and Hannah and keep them company. And with Sally and Flora in residence the hours, in spite of the dire circumstances, were not without their moments of humour.
The women heard the men return at just after ten, and it seemed as though a giant hand kept each one pressed in her seat as the footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Jessie hadn’t touched a drop of beer all night although everything in her was calling out for its numbing power to obliterate the consuming guilt and fear she had felt since awakening that morning, with her usual thick head and furry tongue, and finding Molly gone. This with Molly was her fault, oh aye it was, right enough, and that’s what the lot of them were thinking behind their comforting words. She knew, she wasn’t stupid. But it was easy for them, wasn’t it, they hadn’t lost a husband and two bairns who had been flesh of her flesh. What did they know, what did any of them know? They were young, they’d got youth on their side, but she . . . She’d lost her man. Her life was over. It was all very well for Annie McLinnie to say she wasn’t playing fair by Rosie and that she should get up off her backside and do something. Oh, she wouldn’t forgive Annie for that, by, she wouldn’t. And there Annie was, sitting pretty with her Arthur and five great hulking sons to look after her, well, four not counting her Shane. Annie didn’t know she was born and she’d told her so in th
e minutes before the constable had knocked at the door. And the shame of that. It’d be with her to her dying day, and she hoped that was soon. Aye, she did. She hadn’t been a wicked woman, all her life she’d tried to do her best, and now all this had come upon her while some of them got away with near murder and still the sun shone down on them. And their Molly, aw, Molly. What had happened to her?
Rosie was asking exactly the same question and she had been trying to prepare herself all night for the possible answer. One thing was for sure, there was something dark and nasty at the bottom of all this. She had told the police all she knew, but according to the constable who had called round earlier that evening Ronnie Tiller had flatly denied giving Molly anything but the odd penny or two to spend on sweets. She didn’t intend to leave the matter there, though. Oh no.
And then the door swung wide.
‘Oh, Zachariah! You’ve found her.’
‘Bloomin’ hell, Mick. You look like you’ve done a few rounds with Jack Dempsey.’ This was from Sally.
‘Molly. Molly, lass. Aw, me bairn.’
The sudden babble of voices that greeted the two men entering the room was deafening. Rosie moved forward, motioning for Mick who was holding Molly in his arms wrapped in a thickly padded silk embroidered eiderdown to place her sister on the saddle in front of the fire, and then she took her into her arms, holding her tight before she drew back a little to look into the small white face. The huge green eyes stared back at her, a mute appeal in their shadowed depths, and it was in answer to that that Rosie said, as she straightened and made way for her mother and Hannah to hug Molly, ‘She’s back, and we can go into the whys and wherefores later. Why don’t you put Molly to bed, Mam, in a minute, and you and Hannah stay with her while I have a word with Zachariah downstairs.’
She glanced meaningfully at Jessie, who was now sitting on the side of the saddle with Molly in her lap, and her mother - after opening her mouth to argue and then catching Rosie’s eye - said, ‘Aye, lass, aye. I’ll do that,’ as she continued to hold Molly close.
Mick had walked back to the open door after depositing his cocoon on the saddle and was clearly anxious to be gone, and as Zachariah said, ‘I’ll be downstairs when you’re ready, lass,’ Flora and Sally hugged her in turn, without speaking, and joined him.
‘I can never thank all of you enough for tonight, you know that, don’t you?’ As Rosie spoke her thanks she noticed Mick was sporting a cut lip and a rapidly swelling black eye, and that Zachariah also bore evidence of some kind of violent altercation, and it caused her to add, ‘The others? The McLinnies and Mick’s brothers? Are they all right?’
‘Aye, lass, don’t worry about them.’ She had spoken to Zachariah but it was Mick who answered, and he continued, ‘You get the bairn to bed an’ I’ll make sure these two’ - the sweep of his hand included Flora and Sally - ‘get home all right.’
Once she was alone with her mother and sisters Rosie chivvied them into the bedroom. She asked no questions and Molly proffered no explanations, but once Molly and Hannah were tucked up in bed and her mother was undressing, Rosie sat and stroked the children’s faces for a moment before she rose. Under the eiderdown Molly had been clothed in a white lace dress that was now lying on top of the covers, and it was only when Jessie climbed into the bed the three of them were sharing, and Rosie, as she made to leave the room, reached for the dress and the eiderdown, that Molly seemed to come to life.
‘No, leave them, I want them.’ She clutched at the flamboyant material of the eiderdown as she spoke. ‘I want them on me bed.’
‘All right, lass, all right. You shall have ’em, don’t fret.’ Her mother indicated for Rosie to leave and after a moment she complied, but not without a feeling of reluctance. The eiderdown was undoubtedly expensive but it was garish, even vulgar, and it filled her with dread. And the dress, where had the dress come from? She had wanted to grab them off the bed and out of Molly’s grasp and rush down to the yard and burn them, that was how she felt about them, she told herself as she shut the bedroom door. But she would deal with them in the morning, there had been enough emotion for one night.
She stood for a moment in the silent sitting room which had been filled to capacity just minutes before and looked about her. Everything appeared the same. From the open fireplace the fire was glowing a deep red, its flickering flames sending dancing shadows over the dimly lit room and mellowing the age of the furniture. It gave a certain grace to the hard wood saddle and a regalness to her mother’s oak dresser at the other end of the room it could never aspire to in the harsh light of day; now the plates and dishes glinted and glowed like expensive china and everything in the room looked soft and inviting.
But things were different. Something had shifted in the last twenty-four hours and it was all to do with Molly’s disappearing. She had to deal with this truth about Molly that was staring her in the face, and, of necessity, try to make her mother see. But first, first she had to find out what was what from Zachariah. Her heart thudded and raced. And then tomorrow, no matter what, she was going to see Ronnie Tiller.
For his part Zachariah didn’t know how he was going to tell Rosie the circumstances in which he had found Molly.
When he had finished talking to Nick earlier and discovered who was holding the bairn he had felt sick to his stomach, and then the other side of human nature - the good side - had warmed him briefly when Nick had refused the handful of notes he had pushed at him with, ‘Nay, not this time, man, not for this. I canna abide yon scum meself, an’ I’ve heard he uses the tawse on the young ’uns, aye, an’ worse, to keep ’em dancin’ to his tune. But you need to move fast, man. The word is he’s for movin’ her, he always does that with new ones he gets at first in case any interested parties come lookin’. He’ll skedaddle her to one of his other houses an’ that’ll be the last you see of the bairn, especially if he knows the family have bin lodging with you. He’ll look at it as gettin’ one over on you for the business with Tommy Bailey’s sister.’
Zachariah had recognized it was good advice, and once he and Mick and his brothers, along with the McLinnie lads, were standing outside Oldman’s in the filthy narrow cobbled street that stank of rubbish and human excrement, he had decided to act immediately and go straight to the docks. And the others had been with him, to the last man.
They had posed as customers at first, but once the fighting had started it had been nasty and vicious and what with the squawking from the women and the shouts and cursing from the men it had been bedlam. But once they’d bulldozed their way through the establishment below, it had just been a matter of searching the bedrooms above until they found her. There had been more than one bairn of Molly’s age and under in the fancy rooms, however, and he would never forget some of what he’d seen. By, he just wished Charlie had been around - or maybe it was better he hadn’t been. They’d all agreed they could have seen themselves swinging for the filthy rotten scum.
The knock at his door was so soft he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it at first, but when he opened it Rosie was standing in the hall, her eyes as black as midnight and her body straight and stiff. And Zachariah found himself beginning to babble.
‘Come in, lass, come in.’ He gestured into the room where the fire was blazing a greeting as he continued, with a nod at the newspaper lying on the sofa, ‘Old Stanley Baldwin’s cut sixpence off income tax, I see, an’ a penny off a pint of beer, in the budget. Fat lot of good that’ll do for the fourteen thousand men unemployed round these parts, mind you. I can’t understand--’
His over-hearty voice was cut off as Rosie, her face and manner gentle, put a hand on his arm and said, ‘I know you mean well, Zachariah, but . . . but I want you to tell me. Where did you find her?’
‘Oh, lass, lass.’ The words were seemingly wrung out of him.
‘Please, Zachariah, I have to know, you see that, don’t you? And don’t keep anything back. I want to hear it all.’
Rosie was white-faced and her counte
nance was stiff by the time he had finished. She was sitting next to Zachariah on the sofa, her hands clasped in his, and her flesh was as cold as ice despite the heat radiating from the glowing coal. ‘I’ll get you a cup of tea, lass. It’s bin a shock.’
‘Thank you.’ It was a mere whisper, and Rosie was still sitting in exactly the same position when Zachariah returned with the tea some minutes later, but after several sips her colour became more normal and she relaxed back against the flock-stuffed cushions with a deep sigh. ‘Did she say anything?’
‘Not much.’ He was relieved the look of intense strain had lifted; for a minute he had thought she was going to pass out on him.
‘Did she cry?’
‘No.’
He didn’t add that Molly’s whole attitude had bothered him, the more so since he had had time to think about it. Of course the bairn had been in shock, he could understand that after being incarcerated in one of Cullen’s brothels, and when she’d refused to say what had happened the night before or how she’d been picked up, that could be down to shock too. But . . . when they had burst into the room and seen her lying in that great damn bed, a half-empty box of chocolates at the side of her and the remains of a meal on the tray, she hadn’t appeared over-pleased to see them. But he could be imagining things here. Everyone reacted differently to stress, and the bairn was only just thirteen, when all was said and done.
‘Where would we be without you, Zachariah?’
Her voice had been very soft with a little throb at its centre, and Zachariah rose swiftly, moving to stand with his back to her for a moment or two before he turned and said, after forcing a quick smile, ‘You’d be just where you are now, lass, copin’ with what life doles out an’ doin’ all right at it.’
‘I can never repay you for what you’ve done tonight, you know that, don’t you?’
Reach for Tomorrow Page 15