Despite my stern chiding, I quake. Saturday. I wonder how I shall live until then.
The following Saturday morning crawls by. I look at the clock so often Guy remarks that I must have contracted some strange affliction of the neck and should be whisked to the Infirmary forthwith.
At last, it strikes one. I rush to the cloakroom, scoop up my hat without waiting for the mirror to become available, fling my coat over my arm and hasten to the door. The way is blocked by two of the newer operators, Charlotte and Vera, who are dawdling and chattering about something or other. I say a brief excuse me and step forward, expecting them to move. They do not and we bump together.
‘Excuse me!’ I say, louder. They look at me blankly, as though I am speaking Serbo-Croat.
‘Oh, Edie! We are in your way!’ titters Charlotte.
‘What a tearing hurry you seem to be in,’ adds Vera.
‘I am,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Sorry, girls! I must go. I absolutely must,’ I add brightly, intending not one iota of my cheeriness.
‘Oh! It’s our fault.’
‘Look at us, getting in your way.’
‘We are such naughty creatures. Guy will give us such a slap on the wrist when he hears of it.’
‘Such a rap on the knuckles!’
I cannot fathom whether they are sending up Guy’s turns of phrase or are simply keen students of his style. I have no desire to quiz them and find out. In my mind’s eye, Abigail paces up and down Market Street, scanning the crowds in vain. I hear her tutting at my lateness, striding away in a storm of indignation and never speaking to me again, let alone kissing me.
The pair wink at each other. Vera stands on tiptoe and grabs my hat. She throws it to Charlotte. Back and forth they go, tossing it like a shuttlecock, the two of them giggling as though this is the most fun they’ve had in their entire lives. I stare at them, wondering if they’ve smuggled in bottles of gin under their skirts. I smell nothing but talcum powder. I have a powerful urge to knock them down like ninepins. I am not the only one: behind me there is a rising tide of complaints as the other operators arrive.
‘That’s enough silliness,’ I say with forced jollity. ‘You’re holding everyone up. Give me my hat this instant.’
‘Oh, this is simply too much!’ gasps Charlotte, waving it like a flag of victory. ‘I can’t catch my breath!’
You shouldn’t do your stays up so tight, I think, but keep the sarcasm to myself. Charlotte flings my hat at Vera, who tries to hold it out of reach.
‘That’s not fair,’ she pouts as I retrieve it with ease. ‘I’d have to stand on a chair to be half as tall as you.’
‘Charming,’ I reply, shoving my hat on to my head and pinning it firmly.
‘How tiresome you are,’ says Charlotte, and blows a raspberry.
I dash down the stairs and, with hardly a care for trams and wagons, race across the crowded thoroughfare and up Market Street, so fast I get a stitch in my side. As I approach the clock I see that it is not yet ten past one. It must be slow: I am sure those idiotic women delayed me by at least half an hour. Abigail is waiting.
‘There you are. You look like you’ve run all the way from Oldham.’
‘There was some silliness on leaving work. Two of the girls were – Oh, never mind. It is far too complicated to explain.’
‘That sort of thing always seems to happen when one is in a tearing hurry, doesn’t it?’
‘You are not irked at my lateness?’
‘Of course not. What purpose would it serve?’
‘Thank you,’ I say.
We stride towards the Town Hall. I take the opportunity to have a good look at her. It is a pleasant way to pass a few moments. There is no further mention of Gnome. That moment of unpleasantness has passed. She is my friend, I remind myself. Not his.
We arrive at Albert Square just in time to see Mrs Gawthorpe take her place on the podium. She looks slowly from left to right, as though she is gathering the entire congregation into her safekeeping, and begins to speak.
I have never been so moved, so horrified. My hair stands on end at the tales: of forced feeding; of women stripped of all possessions and dignity, spied on day and night by a prurient eye in the door; being made to stand for an hour at a time with no reason given. Rancid air from a grate set high in the wall, angled so that only the smallest trickle of light may seep through. Repellent food laced with saliva and worse, far worse. The awful, unending cold.
When, at last, she steps down I stare at the space as if the air itself is haunted by the spirit of her passionate speech. Abigail plucks my sleeve.
‘Oh!’ I cry. ‘Is the earth still turning?’
She laughs. ‘I told you she was captivating, did I not?’
As the crowd disperses, Abigail and I stand together, distributing leaflets. I notice how many of the women secrete them into apron pockets, hiding them from judgemental glances. There are also those who make a point of casting the papers into the dirt and trampling them before our eyes. I burn with a desire to roll up one of the pamphlets and swat their ears.
‘Don’t exercise yourself over such silliness,’ Abigail remarks with a shrug. ‘Some seed falls upon stony ground.’
She is correct, of course. There are far better things on which to expend my energies. When we are done, I fold up one of the banners while a brace of hefty chaps dismantle the platform. I am graced with sufficient musculature to aid them, but consider it wiser to dissemble my lack of femininity. At last, all is packed away and we join our comrades heading towards Princess Street, chattering about tea and sandwiches. At the edge of the square our forward motion is arrested by a line of policemen, standing motionless with arms linked at the elbow.
‘Well, well,’ I remark. ‘I suppose they must have their fun and make us turn around and walk down a different street.’
‘Perhaps,’ muses Abigail with a note of concern.
We head in the opposite direction only to be met by a second wall of uniformed bodies. Grumbled complaints grow louder and more expressive. We swing about. The south side is blocked also, as is the east.
‘I didn’t know Manchester boasted so many officers,’ I observe.
‘It doesn’t,’ replies Abigail.
An odd silence descends. A barked order rolls across our heads, echoing from the battlements and towers of the Town Hall. All four ranks of policemen take a slow pace forward, then another. Step by measured step they advance, pressing us into a smaller and smaller space at the centre of Albert Square.
‘This is ridiculous,’ I say in exasperation. ‘Where do they expect us to go? Do they think we can fly?’
‘No, they don’t,’ says Abigail grimly.
A young woman throws me a nervous glance. ‘I’ve seen this before,’ she says, voice quavering. ‘Bolton. Two weeks back. It was a right mess. A child got trampled.’
‘That can’t be right,’ I scoff, reflecting on the propensity of some folk to embellish. ‘This is the Manchester Constabulary.’
‘That’s as maybe,’ she glowers.
‘This was a peaceful meeting,’ I protest. ‘We have broken no laws. Not a one.’
She mutters something about me being a bigger idiot than I look. I choose not to grace such rudeness with a reply.
‘Link arms,’ says Abigail urgently. You too? I think, but say nothing. ‘Pass it down the line,’ she continues. ‘Don’t let them come between us.’
The lass nods and directs encouraging remarks to the chap to her side, a youth with barely the beginnings of a moustache. He swallows, Adam’s apple huge in his skinny throat. My ears ring with shouts of stand firm! and heads up, ladies! and I feel an odd sense of exhilaration. It is not to last. There is a surge from behind, my arm slips loose from the girl who spoke insultingly and she jerks away with a frightened yelp. Our line rocks. Abigail turns, her eyes wild.
‘Keep hold!’ she cries.
The chain breaks. My arm is torn from Abigail’s. I am thrown forwards and tumb
le face-first against a policeman, so close I can count the grease-spots on his jacket. The brim of his helmet is pulled low over his brow as if he wishes to conceal his eyes from mine.
‘Excuse me, officer,’ I say as politely as I can in the crush. ‘Don’t push, if you would be so kind. I’ll fall.’
By way of reply, he places both of his hands around my waist and squeezes me like a bellows. I stare, half in disbelief and half in discomfort.
‘I say!’ I wheeze. ‘That hurts!’
Abigail is nowhere to be seen. Panic stirs. I try to pull myself free, but am held fast. His eyes grow crafty.
‘You like that, don’t you?’ he leers.
‘Don’t talk rot!’
I endeavour to shove him away, but my arms are pinned to my sides. He shoves his nose to mine. Dark hairs bristle from the tip.
‘You’re no looker,’ he growls. ‘I’ll bet a hideous bird like you has never had a proper man take hold of her. You should be grateful.’
‘Get off,’ I squeak.
‘I love them when they fight a bit,’ he chuckles and kicks me in the shins.
My legs buckle; I find myself falling when an elderly woman comes to my aid.
‘You! Alfred Booth!’ she shrieks, jabbing a finger at the policeman. ‘I never did! I shall tell your mother, so I will!’
His expression transforms from snarling demon into whipped boy. Heads turn. His hands loosen their grip around my middle, not enough to escape but sufficient to gulp breath.
‘Disgusting,’ she cries. ‘Call yourself an officer of the law? You should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Get away from me, you old bag,’ he mutters.
As I look more closely I realise she is not old at all. She is probably of an age with Ma, but her shrunken cheeks suggest she has no teeth, or sensibly decided to leave them at home.
‘Old bag?’ she snarls. ‘How dare you! I’ll show you, you little tyke. You’re not too old for me to—’ With these words she raises her handbag and swings it mightily, smacking him on the side of the head.
Everything shifts.
He releases me, grabs her and lifts her off the ground. There is a strange, slow moment as he hoists her above his head. It does not last. With a roar, he hurls her aside. She sails through the air in a writhing mess of skirts and strikes the cobbles with a crack of bone against stone.
For an instant his eyes flicker with something that might be fear, might be remorse. It is wiped away in a trice. He balls his fists like a boxer and takes a step towards us, treading on the prone body as he does so.
‘Right, you bunch of bastard whores. Who’s next?’
A lass barely out of girlhood stoops to the felled woman’s body, crying, ‘Maud, Maud, talk to me!’ The policeman bawls at her to clear off and when she does not, deals her a hefty kick that sends her sprawling. A fellow pushes to the front, a gentleman by the cut of his jacket, gleaming collar and top hat.
‘To treat a young lady so!’ he cries with the gravitas of a patriarch. ‘Witness the perfidy of the governing powers!’
Men begin to flex their shoulders.
‘Blackguard!’
‘Poor show!’
‘A woman!’
‘You dare to call yourself a police officer?’ continues the gent. ‘We have heard your name. I shall take it upon myself to report you to the Chief Constable!’
The assembled folk look from the gent to the policeman, keen interest writ on every face.
‘I’m murdered!’ wails the old lady. ‘God help me, I’m murdered!’
‘Maud! Maud!’ screams the girl.
‘Stand back!’ shouts the officer. ‘Stand back, you dogs!’ He brandishes his truncheon, a rod the size of a tree trunk.
‘That’s what they think of us!’ comes a female voice from the heart of the melee. ‘See how they treat us!’
One burly chap ignores the policeman’s threats and kneels to help the spread-eagled crone, who is still yowling about being killed, and dead, and murdered, though the racket belies the facts.
‘I said, stand away!’ squeals the policeman and whacks her saviour with his baton.
It is a glancing blow. The man inspects his arm as though a very small bed-louse has nipped him. With slow deliberation he draws himself upright and it is only then I see the size of him, broad as a beerhouse wall and as tall. He could have dug the Big Ditch single-handed. He stares down his nose at his assailant.
‘Get him,’ someone mutters.
‘Smack that smile right off his chops,’ growls another.
‘You show him.’
A look of panic spreads across the policeman’s face as the circle of angry faces closes in. He fumbles a whistle from his pocket and blows three shrill blasts.
‘He’s getting reinforcements!’
At this, he gives a fourth blast, longer and louder than the first.
‘Not just that – he’s calling the ruddy horses down on us!’
A cry rings out, off to the right. All heads turn. Trotting up Lloyd Street towards us is an army of mounted officers. The horses toss their heads, the brass on their reins catching the sun. They pull up at the edge of the square. One of the riders raises a gloved hand. All is silent. I wish it were not, for we hear the words he shouts as clear as day.
‘Charge them! Mow them down!’
My world descends into chaos. All of us turn to run, but there is nowhere to run to save into each other. The smart gentleman shouts that we must save the injured woman; the giant bends to assist him but is shoved out of the way by a shrieking tide of people. I am dragged helplessly into its current, the toes of my boots barely scraping the ground.
‘It’s Peterloo!’ screams a terror-stricken voice – man or woman, I can’t tell. ‘Peterloo come back to us!’
More and more voices take up the chant: Peterloo! Peterloo! Peterloo!
The horses press close, bits and bridles flecked with foam, breath steaming. They rock their heads up and down, maddened by the din, by the screaming people and by the laying on of the whip as their riders drive them whinnying into the crowd.
I fight to stay on my feet. I am buffeted first one way and then the other. I notice the same building once, twice, three times as the police herd us around and around. It dawns upon me that they are not driving us away from the square but forcing us into a tighter and tighter mass, until the only way to go is down.
I half trip, half tread upon a soft obstruction and with a sick realisation know it to be a fallen body. So thick is the press that it is impossible to see the ground, let alone offer assistance. I swirl around and am thrust into the path of one of the horses. It rolls its eyes, ears flattened in terror. The flesh packed between its front legs bulges. My crazed mind supplies the notion that it looks remarkably like my breasts: tough and unfeminine. I thought I would have a more profound realisation on the point of death; I’d imagined visions of light and seraph choirs. Wedged in my brain and circling my mind is the phrase horse-breasts, horse-breasts, maddening and pointless.
This is the end, Gnome, I say to myself. All our contention, and for what?
If he answers, it is lost in the thunder between my ears. I can hold myself up no longer.
Peace. Is it too late, even now? I wish—
A strange calm suffuses my being as I surrender to the crush. I gaze upwards, towards the shrinking window of light. Another policeman, more faceless than the last, raises his stick. My luck has run out.
As I swoon, I dream that an Amazon appears, muffler pulled across her face so that only her eyes are visible. I must be halfway on the road to heaven, to find it populated by such angels.
She shifts her weight on to one leg, raises the other in a snowstorm of linen petticoats, kicks out her heel and strikes the policeman beneath the chin with a crack that rings clear above the din of shrieks and moans. With a look of pained astonishment, the policeman’s head snaps back. He staggers one step, two; loses his balance and collapses on to the cobbles like a drunkard. T
he woman sweeps away her scarf and grasps my hand.
‘We must go,’ hisses Abigail.
‘But …’
Her eyes blaze. ‘Move yourself. When he gets back on his feet, which he will, there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘How did you—’
‘Edie. Hold your tongue. Now.’
She drags me away. The suck of bodies holds me back; my fingers slip. Her grip tightens. My arm is being wrenched from the shoulder.
‘It’s no good, let me go!’ I scream.
With strength that borders on the uncanny, she pulls and I follow like a doll dragged through a hedge. My hat tears away, pins and all, a hank of hair with it. Still she holds firm and does not stop until we reach the wall of a building. I collapse, breath rattling. She shields me against the brickwork.
‘I am sorry,’ I hiccup.
‘No time,’ she snaps, frowning. ‘We’re not out of this yet.’
She places her hand on the crown of my head, shoves me into a crouch and motions me to crawl on my hands and knees. The paving stones are slippery and I do not want to know how they’ve become so wet on a day without rain. Inch by inch we make our way out of Albert Square, deafened by such an ear-splitting clamour you would think all damnation had been unleashed.
‘Doctor!’
‘Here! Is there no doctor?’
‘For the love of God, help!’
Far worse to my ears are the ghastly cries of the militia, crying: Down on them, bring them down, I say! Bring down every one of them! and laughing as they do. It makes no sense. In the space of an hour the men appointed our guardians have become merciless assassins, as senseless with power as any berserker.
This square, through which I’ve strolled, admiring the statues and the Gothic finery of the old Queen’s consort, is now one of the lower circles of the Inferno. My mind reels. If women and children can be beaten to the ground, what is the world coming to? This is the modern age, a new century. Surely we have transcended such barbarity?
The Night Brother Page 28