The lock gates hug the left bank, kissing the muddy mouth of the Mersey. They are low in the water, barely lifting their brows above the level of the canal. I thought they would tower, high as Babylon and higher, impossible to see over. Thought the chains would be forged of silver, the wheel-locks of gold.
This was to be my great escape. I expected crowds, waving their caps and cheering me on my way; thought I’d have the pick of ships rolling out the gangplank to beckon me on board. I dreamed of being transported to a rainbow land where grey is outlawed; where the sky stretches a hot tent, where I might lie on a beach of yellow sand with a mango in one hand, a coconut in the other. No Mam, no Grandmother, and especially no Edie.
Instead, I am gawping at the backside of an ocean-going liner heading west and leaving me behind. Its vast propellers churn, sending up starfish that flash at the surface only to sink back into the depths. I am of no more significance than these soft-bellied creatures. I flicker for a night and am gone. I’m at the jumping-off point for the world’s trade but as locked in as ever.
The dream shivers. I cling to it: I must be master of my fate. If this is a vision, I will make it my own. Bend it to my will and force it to obey. And yet …
What do dreams signify if I can’t escape? I can stow away to the other side of the world and not outrun her, not by so much as one inch. Even flying to the moon isn’t far enough. She is with me always and always will be. All my striving: none of it any use. I don’t know why I bother. I am tired of fighting to be Gnome. I am tired of fighting to be anyone at all.
If I can’t get what I want, I don’t want anything at all.
The water beckons, grim as lead. I could climb over the side of the boat. Nothing as wild as hurling myself in – just one little step and I’d be in and under. I think of the steel hug of night-water. I’d be choked in an instant. A moment of pain; then nothing. An end to all of this; a peace I did not know I wanted. I grip the gunwhale and lift my leg. My body won’t let me. My feet refuse to budge.
Don’t you dare, she says. That’s far enough.
Even in my dreams she is watching. The sea-gates shiver and dissolve into the phantasy they are. I am cold and trembling, back where I started on the towpath, not even as far as Pomona.
‘Can’t I have the privacy of my own thoughts?’
Someone’s got to watch over us.
‘Who ordained you watchman?’
She crumples my words and tosses them into the canal. You can’t be trusted. Look at you: about to drown yourself and drag me after.
‘I wasn’t going to. Not truly.’
How can I know that? You’ve always been impulsive.
‘This is despair. You have felt it.’
There’s a pause, less than the time between one breath and the next. A silence clearer than any denial.
Never.
‘Liar. You were all geared up to snuff us out in a snowdrift.’
I was a child! she whines. I thought I was going mad! I didn’t understand. I do now.
‘It was me that saved you, remember?’
It doesn’t matter! You don’t know how hard I’ve had to fight, every step of the way! Ma loves you. Not me.
‘How did we get so lost? Don’t you want to go back to how it was?’
I don’t know what you mean.
‘You do. Wasn’t it grand, Edie? Being in a harmony all of our own?’
All very well for babies.
‘You do remember.’
No more games. Enough of this malarkey. You’re lucky I let you out tonight. Make the most of it. Drink deep. It’s the last you’re going to taste.
‘You can’t. You wouldn’t dare.’
She laughs, the scrape of rust off a keel. Wouldn’t I? I can stop you. Her mind brandishes spikes. You don’t deserve this body.
‘It’s my body too. It’s not fair. Leave me the nights, Edie. Please.’
No. You’re too dangerous. She twists my shoulders, turns me in the direction of Hulme. Home. Now.
‘Never.’
I can make you.
‘Can’t!’ I cry, voice smaller by degrees.
I run from her, fast as I can. My feet are caught in treacle. The greater my exertion the slower I go, until I may as well be walking backwards. Sweat or tears – I know not which – stream down my face and off my chin. I wheeze like a broken-backed old man.
I close my eyes and when I open them I’m at the corner of Renshaw Street. I feel nothing. It is not home. I will have no home until I am free, until I am more than a dream of a boy who can be blown out like a candle flame.
The door is on the latch. I enter the silent building. No one to say goodbye, good riddance. I wonder if they’ll even notice that I’ve gone. I climb the stairs, curl on the cot in the corner of the room. Powerless to resist, I watch my fingers flourish the hat-pin.
I hate Edie. Hate is the only thing I have left to call my own. I cling to it, as if it might save me. With torturous grace, my hand swings in a wide arc and the shock of the stabbing resonates through my being. I sink into darkness, a drowning man fighting for his very existence. I flicker. I go out. She has won.
PART TWO
MANCHESTER
1909–1910
EDIE
MARCH 1909
The food is ghastly, as it is every morning.
I crack the top of my egg and prise away the shell to reveal a blob of gelatinous matter cradling a yolk that is tough and grey. Mrs Reddish has performed the seemingly impossible feat of producing a boiled egg that is uncooked without and India rubber within.
‘Our landlady has excelled herself this morning,’ grumbles Gertrude, shoving her spoon around and around a bowl full of sludge. ‘I assert this to be stewed gravel. I dare you to prove me wrong.’
‘It’s porridge,’ snaps Edna. ‘I’d face it a hundred times over one of her boiled eggs.’
Gertrude takes a reluctant mouthful and pulls a face. ‘It tastes worse than it looks, if that were possible. There must be more salt than oatmeal.’
‘You’ll hurt her feelings,’ hisses Edna.
Heralded by the smell of burned toast, the lady in question enters the dining room. She slams down a plate stacked with slices of bread in various stages of incineration and sails away with an air of one much put upon at being forced to serve young females who by rights should have been waiting upon her. This would indeed have been the case but for the death of Mr Reddish, carried off by an illness so heroic it was able to topple a man who’d survived Omdurman with barely a scratch.
Gertrude once said that Mrs Reddish preserved his best suit in her wardrobe, but the girl is prone to exaggeration. Besides, a woman of Mrs Reddish’s straitened circumstances is far more likely to have taken every saleable shirt and shirt-collar to Uncle and refrained from redeeming the pledge. Reduced to taking in lodgers, her only recourse is to make our stay as disagreeable as possible.
‘I wish she would serve it in a rack,’ sighs Edna. ‘A plate is so unrefined.’
I take the topmost piece and smear it carefully with marmalade. The table is so small that we are required to engage in a strange ballet whereby we take it in turns to lift spoon to mouth, or else knock elbows and risk spilling food on to our skirts.
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ growls Gertrude, grabbing a slice and waving it at me. ‘You behave as if it were edible.’ She neglects to apply the jam as carefully as I do and the toast flies into pieces at the press of the knife. ‘Oh, bother it all,’ she gasps, glaring at me.
They watch with something perilously close to amazement as I polish off porridge, egg and toast. I do not care what they think of me. Nor do I care about the parlous state of Mrs Reddish’s cooking. Each gristly lump of boiled mutton represents a delicious step away from my family, from Gnome, from the awful bondage of that time. I would not trade a single mouthful.
My lodgings, cheap by any standards, are all that any of us can afford and we know it. On the occasional evening, having no one b
etter with whom to share it, we take ourselves to the nearest Hall of Varieties. Gertrude grumbles at the acts in much the same way as she does our meals. I daresay Miss Langtry herself could do a turn and Gertrude would find fault with her diamonds. Not that I claim to be sparkling company. I stretch my face into a simulacrum of a smile, forever aware of a barrier between myself and the amusements. It does not matter. I am resigned to wariness in the company of others.
I shrug and crunch my toast, reminding myself that charcoal is good for the digestion. Mrs Reddish returns, spiriting away the plate before I have the chance to gobble the last slice. Gertrude and Edna shove back their chairs. They primp before the glass hanging over the sideboard, shouldering each other out of the way as they affix their hats.
‘Some of us have work to go to,’ sniffs Gertrude, pulling on her gloves.
I take a slurp of bitter tea. Mrs Reddish snatches the cup from my hand and bangs it on to the tray. Fortunately, it is made of sturdy stuff and remains in one piece.
‘Thank you for breakfast, Mrs Reddish,’ I say, dusting crumbs from my lap.
She ignores me and stomps into the kitchen. I draw on my own gloves and pin my hat in place, stooping slightly to see my face in a mirror positioned at a height suitable for women of regular height. Over my shoulder I see a reflection of scuffed wallpaper: a room unloved and undecorated over the long years since her husband’s death. If she were a little less disagreeable, I might feel more compassion for her situation.
The outer door crashes as Gertrude and Edna make their exit. I hurry after them, closing the door quietly, glad that we are not in the same employ. Sharing a table is sufficient companionship. Besides, I relish my daily constitutional to the Telegraph Office
I feel especially uplifted this morning. This is no red-letter day yet my steps have a particular bounce to them. I put it down to the clemency of spring sunshine, and that I am celebrating six months in my new post at the finest telegraph exchange in the north of England. I proceed swiftly, taking breath after bracing breath.
Though barely a mile from Hulme, I may as well inhabit a different continent. I revel in each grimy brick, each carved pediment, each Gothic furbelow. I care not one jot that my innards are tarnished as black as the walls that rise around me. These streets are mine and I love them with a jealous passion.
Manchester music rings in my ears: the squeal of trams and shouts of wagon-drivers; the slamming of doors and clash of plates from the cafés; the roar of newspaper-sellers; the percussion of clogs sparking stars from the pavement; the halloas and hail-fellows of a thousand folk at the beginning of the day’s labour, still brand spanking new.
I consider my life and how I hold its reins since I kicked the dust of The Comet from my heels. I miss my grandmother, Arthur, even my mother, although I’d cut out my tongue before admitting it. Keeping Gnome down has become a fine art. So long as I keep a pin beside me at all times and engage in the prophylactic measure of piercing my thigh before permitting myself to sleep, all is well. The scars heal by morning, generally speaking. I’m hardly likely to remove my drawers in anyone’s presence, so there is no reason to concern myself over the constellation of wounds that sprinkle the lower half of my body.
I am independent. I have an income of my own. I have my life anew, gifted me when I thought I had lost all. I roll the words in my mouth, sweet as a caramel, and laugh out loud with the keen, sharp joy of it. I don’t care who hears me. Let them look. Let them stare. I wear pride and happiness as unashamedly as the collars on my shirts. I’ve never had so much as a whiff of champagne, but imagine this is what it must be like: the bubbling exhilaration, the heady bliss. I’m so skittish I leap the puddles from last night’s rain. No more counting the cracks between the flagstones, eyes downcast.
I dash up the steps of the Manchester Telegraph Company, hang my hat and jacket in the ladies’ cloakroom and bid Mr Pryor the supervisor a hearty good morning. He peers over his spectacles and replies in a cursory fashion. I sail past without the slightest dent in my good humour and take my position.
‘You’ll have to put up with me today,’ chirps Mr Heywood as soon as I am seated. ‘Miss Reynolds has been brought down by a fearful head cold. We have been thrust into each other’s company.’
I grunt a swift greeting and busy myself, arranging the cables in readiness for the first calls. I hope Miss Reynolds hasn’t passed her infernal germs on to me. Gnome is more restive whenever I take ill. I touch the brooch at my throat, for luck. Mr Heywood drapes himself over the arm of his chair in a decorative fashion.
‘Not even a good morning for your comrade-in-arms, Miss Latchford?’ he trills. ‘To think how long I have waited to be at the side of such a sublime conversationalist. Yes, I have been in a veritable passion.’
I ignore the sarcasm. I will not permit him to vex me. I am well used to Mr Heywood’s silliness; we all are. The girls at the exchange make a pet of him, treating him like a helpless child rather than a full-grown man. I tolerate none of it. Women get precious little coddling from the moment we leave the womb and I see no reason why he should not pull his weight like the rest of us. My silence does not put him off: rather, it serves to increase his overtures.
‘Never has a being suffered as I do.’ He wipes his hand across his brow and exhales in an overstated fashion. ‘Your handkerchief, dipped in lavender water and pressed to my burning brow, hmm?’
‘I have no idea to what you are referring,’ I respond tartly, rearranging the already perfectly arranged cables.
‘I have the worst headache in the history of the world,’ he moans. ‘Have pity on me, dear heart. Succour me.’
‘I shall do no such thing. And certainly not while you insist on calling me silly names.’
‘I knew I could rely on your good nature,’ he continues, ignoring my rebuff.
‘Mr Heywood,’ I say in a tone frigid enough to form icicles on a pot of tea. ‘You’re not one-quarter as sick as you make out.’
He pouts. ‘Dash it all. I feel as rotten as I say, honestly I do.’
I sniff and turn away, awaiting the arrival of Miss Edwards. She might defuse some of Mr Heywood’s inanity. She enters, four minutes late as is her habit, and strolls across the floor with considered elegance, taking no notice of Mr Pryor’s pointed examination of his pocket watch.
She seats herself to my left and lifts her hand to unplug one of the higher pegs on her station with a relaxed grace that borders but does not quite stray into the languid. The curls over her forehead have been set in place by an artful hand and I am pretty sure that no strand will dare work its way loose during the course of the day. Her skin is so smooth and lacking in blotches that I wonder whether she removes it at night to press, steam and starch it. I chide myself for the unkind thought. She tosses her head and releases an aroma of rose petals, bestowing a smile that disarms me completely.
‘Good morning, Miss Latchford,’ she breathes.
I understand why foolish songs talk about hearts stopping. Her face seems entirely composed of cream. Mr Heywood sprawls across my board.
‘Ollie,’ he drawls. ‘Miss Edie is being such a frightful bore. Be a dear and—’
‘My name is Miss Edwards,’ she replies sweetly. ‘Olivia Edwards, if you would be so kind.’
‘My dearest Ollie-vee-ar Ed-waards,’ he says, dragging out the syllables. ‘Would you be so kind – Oh, fiddlesticks. I’ve clean forgot what I was about to ask.’
I give the plug sockets my entire attention and pray for a call to come through, to no avail.
‘Edie!’ he shrills. ‘What was I going to ask our precious companion?’
‘I have not a glimmer of a notion,’ I say, glaring at the board. ‘And my name is Miss Latchford.’
‘But, Edie—’
At that moment my prayer is answered and a call comes through. I take inspiration from Miss Edwards and move my hands slowly, hoping to delay Mr Heywood talking to me. I find the movement rather pleasing and accomplish my task just
as quickly with less agitation. Perhaps Miss Edwards is cleverer than I thought.
‘You two are the dullest creatures to walk this earth,’ sulks Mr Heywood. ‘You realise that I shall now be forced to do some work. It is too tiresome.’
His fingers fly across the board, connecting and disconnecting calls, answering queries politely and efficiently. However giddy in private, in his tasks he is beyond reproach, and I know this to be the prime reason he has not been served with his notice before now.
Mr Pryor strides up and down the carpet behind us, scanning the rows of operators for imperfection of posture or slackening-off of labour. I sense every spine straighten, each word enunciated with great care. After a few parade inspections, he takes up his customary posture at the desk, which stands like a pulpit in the centre of the room. There’s the crackle of a lucifer as he lights a cigar.
‘Miss Strutt?’ he enquires of the floorwalker, puffing away.
‘Mr Pryor, sir?’
‘All running smoothly?’
‘Smoothly, sir.’
I concentrate on my board. Much as I prefer the aroma of cigar smoke to that of cigarettes, it is overwhelming at times. Today is one of those occasions.
‘Tip top,’ says Mr Pryor, shuffling his feet.
‘There is a rustle of paper: sheets of foolscap being arranged in a neat pile. Mr Heywood tilts his head and eyes the clock on the gable wall. He glances at me and raises his eyebrows daringly. Forty-three minutes past eight. As if on cue, Mr Pryor’s watch-chain tinkles as he draws it from his waistcoat pocket. He snaps open the case and taps it with his fingernail.
‘Goodness,’ he blusters. ‘Is that the time?’ He clears his throat when no response is forthcoming from Miss Strutt. ‘Dash it all, so it is. I have important business to attend to, Miss Strutt.’
‘Important, Mr Pryor,’ she replies, with the skill of one used to making her questions sound like statements.
There is a clumping of boots, the opening and swift closure of the door. Though he takes the greater part of his cigar staleness with him, the remnant hangs on the air like a fusty shawl. Wafting her hand before her nose, Miss Strutt grasps the window-cord, gives it a brisk tug and the shutter slaps open. A few drops of rain fall, but they are from a previous shower that collected on the pane. The outdoors gusts in, scented with horse manure and soot.
The Night Brother Page 16