by June Gadsby
‘Is Bridget all right?’
‘Aye, she’s being looked after at the orphanage, according to the newspapers.’
‘Is that good?’
‘It’s better than your dad getting her hands on her, aye.’
‘I’d never let anybody hurt Bridget. Especially not me da. Never!’
‘Ye’re a good lad, Billy. When did you last have something to eat, eh?’
‘Dunno. Me belly’s as hollow as one of them holes in the quarry.’
‘In that case, come and share me bait. I’ve got half a roast chicken here and some apples that need eatin’. You gonna help me?’
‘Aye, thanks, Mr Robinson. I will, an’ all.’
Chapter Seven
Billy missed having Bridget around. It was like a part of him died. Her absence opened up a deep hole inside him that he couldn’t explain. Not to anybody. All he knew was that on those rare occasions when he caught sight of her when he hung around the church on Sundays, it gave him a nice, warm sensation that crept up from his toes to his ears.
Sometimes she would smile and wave and break away from the tangle of orphanage girls in their cheap orphanage clothes. The dreary-faced woman who accompanied them always called Bridget back to lecture her on obedience, but Bridget wasn’t one to let a sharp telling off get in the way of their friendship.
One day, the first Sunday after Billy’s thirteenth birthday, Bridget proved herself to be particularly disobedient. It was a cold January day and the ground was covered in glistening frost. Even the air seemed to be frozen and there were flurries of soft white snowflakes, despite the blue sky and a sun that was golden, but sadly without heat.
Billy was hovering, as usual, waiting to see if Laura Caldwell might pass his way, for he hadn’t seen her in a long time. She was all grown up now and working as a teacher at the local school. Any other girl might have been too full of self-importance to stop and speak to the likes of Billy Flynn, but not Laura. She wasn’t nearly the snob people made her out to be.
‘Billy!’ Bridget hailed him just as he spotted Laura and her family coming out of the church and his mind was going haywire, wishing he could turn to both girls at the same time, but he wasn’t that clever.
‘Bridget Maguire, you get back in line this minute!’ The stern voice of Bridget’s “keeper” rasped through the space between them.
Bridget, as usual, ignored the poker-faced woman in charge of the girls from the orphanage and charged up to Billy. There wasn’t much difference in their heights. Bridget, a few months younger than Billy, won by an inch. Her cheeks were rosy from the wind, and her eyes were like shining emeralds. And her hair, which had started out that morning in the regulation tight braid down her back, was flying about her face in curling tendrils. Nobody was ever going to tame that flaming bonnet.
Billy loved Bridget’s hair. It was as fiery as her temper and as warm as her heart. He had touched it once on a day when a bee had got tangled there. Maybe one day he might get to touch it again, because it was a pleasant experience. Very pleasant. And very different from the satiny smooth helmet of dark hair on Laura’s head, which Billy hadn’t felt, but had dreamed of running his fingers through her tresses more times than he could remember.
‘She doesn’t look very friendly,’ Billy said now as Bridget skidded to a halt on the other side of the white-painted fence that separated the tiny graveyard from the road.
‘Who?’ Bridget struggled vainly to push most of her hair beneath her crocheted beret. The hat was a rather vivid puce colour and clashed horribly with her colouring, but orphanage children had to take what they could get. Bridget no longer had a loving mother to look after her.
‘That old hag that shouted at you.’ Billy swiped his sleeve under his dribbling nose and then felt ashamed when Bridget handed him her hankie. It was probably the only one she had and she would get into trouble for giving it to him, but he kept it anyway. It smelled nice and clean, a bit like Laura Caldwell often smelled. Sort of soapy and lavenderish.
‘Oh, that’s Miss Simpson.’ Bridget grimaced over her shoulder at the woman standing fifty yards away, hands on her hips and, no doubt, her flat bosom rising and falling with the frustration of having to shepherd a bunch of unwanted, wayward girls back to the cold, prison-like walls of Peel House, which had once been grand, but was now a charity orphanage for parentless children and those in a state of absolute poverty.
‘Isn’t she married, then?’ Billy wanted to know, for the woman seemed far too old not to have a husband and children of her own.
‘No. That’s why she’s so miserable. Anyway, she doesn’t like children, so what’s the point of her getting married?’
Billy’s eyes and mind had wandered, because Laura, the last of her family to leave the church, was having a few words with the vicar.
‘Hmm?’
‘Billy Flynn, don’t ask questions if you’re not going to listen to the answers. It’s bliddy rude.’
That got Billy’s attention back. He stared at Bridget hard then grinned cheekily. ‘Does your Miss Simpson let you use language like that, Bridget?’
Bridget frowned at him then she too was grinning. ‘What she doesn’t hear won’t bother her,’ she said. ‘Are you going fishing next Friday?’
‘Aye, o’ course. You comin’?’
‘If I can slip out without being noticed I will, but let’s go somewhere different next time. The last place was stinking and those fish you caught looked like they’d been dead before they took your bent nail in their mouths.’
Billy gave an amused snicker, but refrained from mentioning that the supper he had provided for his family last Friday night had rendered them all so ill they thought they were dying. He was the only one that the food poisoning hadn’t attacked, because Billy didn’t much care for fish. Not, that was, when he saw where they came from and how his hands had stunk for hours after handling them.
They had fetched up at a part of the Tyne where the sewage went into the fast flowing river. The water was a muddy brown with oily swirls and greyish foam. It smelled a bit like the mop he used to clean the kitchen floor after it had been sitting dirty in a bucket for a week.
‘Mr Robinson’s going to show me where to catch the best fish,’ he said, looking back in the direction of the Caldwell’s and Mr Robinson as the family walked sedately towards the lichgate a few feet away from where he and Bridget stood chatting.
‘Are you still working for him?’ Bridget wrinkled her snub nose and closed her eyes to slits as the sun blinded her.
‘Aye.’ Billy nodded proudly.
Mr Robinson had more or less taken Billy under his protective wing ever since the day he had taken refuge in the allotment shed. The old man was Billy’s unspoken hero. If Albert Robinson asked him to walk to Hell and back for a penny-farthing, Billy would do it. But the wages Laura’s granddad paid him were a lot more than a penny-farthing, and the work wasn’t work at all. It was a pleasure to be out in the allotments, digging and planting, never mind the weather, for as long as he pleased. And it pleased him a lot, especially when the lads from the shipyard band gathered to blow their horns and beat on their drums.
Billy begged them to let him join, but he couldn’t play any of the instruments to save his life, so Mr Robinson gave him a penny whistle and showed him how to play that. And he wasn’t half bad at it. Just for the fun of it, the band would let him join in, though they made it clear he didn’t qualify to play with them officially, him not being a shipyard worker.
‘Why have you gone all red in the face?’ Bridget squeaked in surprise suddenly, then pointed at him and laughed loudly. ‘Billy Flynn, you’re blushing!’
‘No I’m not.’ Billy’s eyes flickered from the approaching Laura Caldwell to Bridget and back again. He could, indeed, feel the heat mount in his cheeks and his mouth had gone dry. He cleared his throat and spoke out clearly, not wanting the opportunity to be missed. ‘Hello Laura!’
Billy had waited until the family had walked o
n. Laura, for some reason, seemed to be lingering behind. When she heard Billy’s voice she looked startled, so he guessed her lingering was nothing to do with him, though he tried to pretend that it was.
‘Oh, hello, Billy.’ But Laura then stopped and turned her back on him as if searching the departing parishioners for someone in particular.
‘Silly sod, Billy Flynn.’ Billy heard Bridget’s criticism through a haze, for he now saw what was taking Laura’s attention.
A tall young man had broken away from a group of people milling around the vicar and ran, on long legs, down the hill to where Laura greeted him with open arms and a smile Billy would have killed for. The couple embraced, right there in front of him, arms and lips, everything touching.
The pleasurable heat in Billy’s cheeks turned to a burning humiliation. He turned away, trying not to listen to the soppy, romantic words the young man was uttering. Words Billy wouldn’t dream of saying to anybody, though he wished he were the one saying them.
‘My dearest, darling Laura!’ the young man said, lifting Laura off her feet and swinging her around. ‘There, it’s done at last. Bans read and everyone happy. And in a short few weeks you’ll make me the happiest man alive when you become my wife.’
‘I can’t wait!’ Laura said breathlessly, clinging on to her hat and apparently not caring she was showing a good length of calf before her fiancé put her back onto terra firma.
Billy watched, stricken, as Laura inspected a sparkling diamond on the third finger of her left hand, the prisms glinting expensively in the sun. He didn’t even notice when the skinny, wretched Miss Simpson came and dragged Bridget away with surprising vigour. Nor did he hear Bridget call out to him, ridiculing him for having a fancy for a girl so much older and taller than he was, and Billy still only thirteen with no prospects to offer.
Something inside him, a feeling like a stone sinking in murky water, seemed to drag him down. He felt all dull and heavy inside, like the day his Aunty Colleen died. His head wasn’t quite on straight and his stomach churned. How could Laura marry that man? How could she do that to him, Billy, who loved her to distraction?
Aye, yes, that’s what it was. He had never really been able to put a word to what he felt about Laura Caldwell, but it was, without a doubt, the deepest love any boy could have for the first girl who touched his heart. All the time this love was growing inside him, it never occurred to him Laura’s life would go forward. He honestly and truly believed that when he was old enough she would be there, waiting for him. And those lovely, nut-brown eyes, the full pink lips like velvet cushions, would belong to him. He had dreamed of what it would be like, snuggling up to her, touching her, running his fingers through that long, thick, dark curtain of hair that was the colour of the old mahogany dresser his mam polished with so much vigour when she wasn’t lying comatose with the drink inside her.
Billy turned and leaned heavily against the fence for a few minutes, staring blindly into the distance. He didn’t regain his senses until a mangy dog came and sniffed around his ankles. Without thinking, Billy kicked out at the mutt and the dog leapt away with a surprised yelp. Billy felt a lump rise in his throat and he swallowed it back with difficulty, scrubbing desperately at his damp eyes. Silly sod, he told himself. Boys his age didn’t cry. Only girls cried. In fact, Billy couldn’t remember ever crying and didn’t know why he should do so now, except it wasn’t like him to hurt a poor defenceless animal. Billy loved animals, and especially dogs, and this one had just been trying to make friends.
Full of remorse, he sank to his knees and held out his hand in the direction of the dog. The animal hadn’t gone too far and was still taking an interest in this soppy lad with tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘Here boy,’ Billy said, his voice a low croak. ‘I’m sorry, lad. I didn’t mean to hurt ye.’
The scrawny mongrel hunkered down fearfully for a moment then crept tentatively forward. Billy saw how the dog’s ribs were showing and that the soft black muzzle was sucked in with starvation. Billy knew that look well, for hadn’t his whole family looked like that many a time. He delved into his pocket and found a crust of stale bread he was saving for the pigeons that roosted in one of the sheds up at the allotments. They could do without their treat for one day, he decided, as the crust was ravenously grabbed from between his finger and thumb.
‘Gawd, ye must be hungry, fella. Yer belly touching yer backbone, is it? Come on, let’s see if we can find you something else to eat.
The dog looked at him suspiciously, so he ignored it and headed off up the hill to the vast field that was used by the local populace as gardens. They grew vegetables, mainly, but there was always the odd old lady up there tending flowerbeds. And where you had old ladies you usually had biscuits, scones and jam sandwiches, which they liked to have with their cold tea in between weeding, planting and gossiping together like clucking hens.
But it was Sunday and all the old ladies were at home cooking the Sunday roast for the family. Not much chance that Billy would find his mother basting a bit of beef or pork or even a chicken. Food wasn’t only scarce in Maggie Flynn’s household, it wasn’t considered a priority. As long as Maggie had enough drink to keep her in a mindless blur she was happy, though she never stopped whining.
As luck would have it, the big long shed the band used for their practice sessions, had a window with a faulty catch. Billy learned long ago that with a bit of poking and twiddling he could get it open and climb inside. Once in, he waited till his eyes became accustomed to the dark, then he mooched about until he came up with a treasure that would seem like gold to any starving dog.
Billy opened the door and wasn’t too surprised to see the poor creature outside, shivering convulsively and giving tiny, pathetic whimpers. When he clapped eyes on Billy one paw rose and wavered a second or two, then the sad, hound-like eyes looked from side to side, watching for danger, but also drooling over what Billy had in his hand.
‘Look what I got for ye, fella,’ Billy said, proffering the half sausage that somebody left behind. It smelled all right and Billy remembered his own hunger as he gave it generously to the dog, which sniffed at it warily before devouring it at speed, scared it might be stolen from him before he could swallow it.
‘You got yourself a dog, then, Billy?’
It was Mr Robinson who came strolling round the corner of the building. Man and dog eyed one another. The dog licked grease from its mouth and as Mr Robinson came closer, the top lip quivered, then rose up, showing a set of strong canine teeth. A low growl issued forth.
‘It’s all right, lad,’ Mr Robinson said easily. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. Where’d you get him, Billy? He looks like he’s been through the mill, poor old boy.’
Billy shrugged. ‘He just turned up outside the church when I was...’ His words tailed off. The dog had effectively helped him forget his anguish over losing Laura to another man. Maybe it was a lucky omen or something, like a gift from God. Colleen Maguire had told him about these gifts that came when you least expected them but most needed them. He still missed Aunty Colleen, and no doubt always would.
‘It looks like he’s been badly treated by the amount of scarring on his sides and on his head.’ Mr Robinson scrutinized the dog more closely and shook his head. ‘Aye. Looks like somebody’s been beating the living daylights out of him for a while.’
‘Do you think I could keep him, Mr Robinson?’
‘Oh, well, now. I don’t know about that. He might have a vicious streak in him.’
‘Nah,’ Billy smiled and then grinned broadly as the dog came and licked his fingers and nuzzled against his thigh. ‘He’s just scared and hurting, is all.’
Seeing how well dog and boy were bonding, Mr Robinson gave a short sharp nod of his head and headed off to his allotment.
‘You’d better bring him to my shed, Billy. I’ve got some iodine in there. We can clean him up too. He’s probably running in fleas, so the minute you get him back home with you, give him a
bath with carbolic soap. That should do the trick.’
‘Thanks, Mr Robinson. Come on, fella.’ The dog trotted obediently after Billy as he followed Mr Robinson.
After a minute or two, man and boy drew abreast as Mr Robinson’s old legs tired. He rested a hand on Billy’s shoulder for support.
‘Ye make a good walking stick, lad,’ the old man said, his chest wheezing from the exertion of going uphill too fast when he was of an age when most men put their feet up, or curled up their toes. ‘How old are you now, then? Eleven?’
‘I’m thirteen, Mr Robinson, as of today.’
‘Thirteen is it? Quite a young man. You’ll be going off to work in the mines soon, I’ll wager, eh?’
‘No! Never! I’ll not go down no mine, not even if they pay me.’
Mr Robinson’s brows furrowed deeply.
‘It seems to me, Billy lad, that you’ve been improving yourself lately?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You’re losing that thick Geordie accent of yours. Did that happen by accident? Or by design?’
Billy stared at the toes of his boots as they continued to march up the hill together. He hoped he hadn’t blushed again like a silly girl, but his face did feel awfully hot.
‘Dunno,’ he muttered into his chest.
‘I hear you’re often up at my daughter’s house,’ Mr Robinson said, puffing and panting as the climb became steeper. ‘But then your sister, Maureen, works there. She quite takes after your mother for her cooking. Mind you, if she marries that lad she’s going round with I daresay the family will soon be looking for another cook.’
But Billy’s mind was on the wander and his brain was getting confused. It was with a vague, pained expression that he asked ‘Will she really get married to that man?’
‘Best ask your sister that? I have enough trouble keeping track of my own family.’
‘Not our Maureen. Laura...I mean...your granddaughter, Mr Robinson.’