by Anna Jacobs
“Alice is her real name, Alice Turner. She’s been callin’ herself Marie, because it’s better for business, an’ she’s been dyein’ her hair blond. I don’t think folk would recognise her so easy if she changed it back to brown, though, an’ stopped curling it.”
When Sally brought her friend round the next day, Annie recognised her at once. It was the woman who had set her free from Fred Coxton. She saw by the woman’s face that she, too, had been recognised.
When Annie shook hands, she kept hold of Alice’s for a moment or two longer. “I never thanked you properly for helping me last January. If you can sew, the job’s yours.” Sally looked puzzled, but Annie didn’t explain just then.
Alice shrugged. “I was glad to help. That Fred Coxton was a pig. I heard tell that he died in a fight, over Liverpool way. I hope he did!”
Annie shuddered. She still had nightmares about that evening. Or about Fred returning to Bilsden. “What about your sewing?”
“Well, I made this dress I’m wearing,” Alice pirouetted in front of them. “It’s not bad, is it? I call it my go-to-church dress, because it’s dark and respectable.” She grinned at them. “I made it from some flawed pieces I got at the market.”
Annie examined the stitching, then looked at the fit and style. The stitches were neat and even, and the only fault she could find was that there was too much trimming.
“If I take you on, you must give up the other,” she warned. “I run a respectable business.”
“Just give me the chance! I hate it! Most men are bastards!”
“Why did you start, then?”
“I was workin’ for an old bitch in Manchester. She treated us like slaves. Didn’t even feed us properly. Then I met this fellow. He said he’d marry me. I wouldn’t have gone off with him else. Only he didn’t marry me. Turned out he was already wed. We made me work for him instead. What could I do? She wouldn’t have taken me back, an’ I’ve no family left that I know of! An’ anyway, George treated me all right at first. We had a bit of fun together.” She looked at them defiantly. “I’d never had much fun. My parents were old and strict with me.”
“So what went wrong?” asked Annie.
“I fell for a kid. He didn’t like it when I wouldn’t get rid of it an’ he turned me out of my room when I got too big to work. Things was never so good after that. I went from one place to another. In the end I wound up with Fred Coxton. Dunno how. A right bastard, he turned out to be! I were glad when he left, but I had to go on workin’ or I’d have starved.”
Sally nodded. “That’s how a lot of the girls get started, Annie, love. They’ll believe anything a man tells ’em, young girls will. You’re just lucky you haven’t got no kids, Alice.”
“I had two,” Alice blinked her eyes rapidly, “but they died. Fever, it was, with Billy, an’ Jane just never thrived. Only two months old, she was, when she went. Fred said good riddance, but I were upset. They were nice babies. I tried to look after ’em, but you know what it’s like. You have to give ’em Godfrey’s Cordial to keep ’em quiet. An’ then they’re not so hungry. An’ so things go from bad to worse.”
Annie’s eyes turned to her own baby, who lay in his cradle waving his chubby arms about. How lucky she was that Charlie had married her! Who knows what she might have been driven to do otherwise? She’d heard Jeremy Lewis’s views on Godfrey’s Cordial, which he called ‘an iniquitous brew’, for it contained laudanum and babies given a lot of it were often slow to learn and mature.
She patted Alice’s arm. “All right. I’ll take you on. I’ll pay you eight shillings a week, your clothes found and two meals a day. That’s to start. If business goes all right and you work well, I’ll pay you more later, but I can’t afford it yet. You’ll start here at seven in the morning till seven at night. Saturdays we’ll finish a bit earlier. You’ll sew mostly, but you’ll have to help with the baby or do the cooking or whatever else needs doing.” She cut short Alice’s stammered thanks, embarrassed by the tears in the older woman’s eyes and the warm expression on Sally’s face. “Where do you live? Still down in Claters End?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can’t stay there. It’s not respectable. An’ it’s dirty. You’ll have to find a lodging nearer. And Sally said you could maybe change your hair, stop dyeing it, wear it differently. We don’t want anyone recognising you.”
“Yes, I’ll do that. Be a relief not to have to keep bleachin’ an’ curlin’ it, to tell you the truth.”
“You could stay with me most of the time, Alice,” Sally volunteered. “Except on the nights when my Harry comes.” She winked. “He likes us to be private then.”
“You could sleep here in the kitchen on those nights, if you don’t mind a mattress on the floor,” offered Annie. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought to herself. Besides, she owed this woman a lot.
Tears were running down Alice’s face. “You won’t be sorry,” she promised huskily.
When she’d gone to get her things, Sally looked at Annie. “I must be goin’ soft in me old age. I don’t know what my Harry will say.”
“If you’re getting soft, so am I,” answered Annie.
“You’d no need to do all that. Why did you, love?”
“She’s the one who helped me to get away from Fred Coxton that time. I owe her the same chance.”
“Eh, she’s never said anythin’ about it, an’ I’ve known her for years. She’s a nice lass. Reminds me of meself a few years ago. But I were lucky. I met my Harry.”
Years later, when Annie looked back on those early days, she felt that she must have had a guardian angel watching over her, because she had a few pieces of luck. Alice Turner was the first. Alice worked enthusiastically right from the start, taking as much interest and trouble as if the business were her own. Her face soon lost its pallor, her body filled out and she became a plump vivacious woman with a bounce to her step. The blond hair was dyed a dirty brown before she ever joined Annie, and gradually grew into her own soft brown, which suited her complexion, to Annie’s mind, much more than blond.
It was Alice who took charge of selling the clothes at the market. The first time they tried it, Annie was almost too nervous to think straight. She paid the market fees and then she and Alice stood behind Charlie’s handcart, loaded with remade or mended second-hand clothes. It was Alice who called out their wares, and Alice who bantered with the customers and passers-by. By the end of the day, they’d sold nearly half of the things they took along, especially the dark, serviceable garments. They couldn’t make enough clothes to fill the cart every week, but from then onwards they went to market about once a month. Or at least, Alice did. Annie soon left the selling to her.
On the second visit to the market, they had a bit of trouble from some bullies, who tried to make Annie pay protection money. When she mentioned their threats indignantly to Tom, he grinned. “Leave it to me, Sis.”
She was troubled no more.
“How did you do it?” Annie was worried at his familiarity with the rougher element in the town. “Won’t they come back next time, if they see Alice there on her own?”
“No. I know their boss. He won’t trouble my sister, or anyone doin’ business for her. He owes me a favour.”
“You know some funny people, Tom. I don’t like it.”
“It’s useful. Why do you think no one’s bothered your Charlie lately? Did you know he used to have to pay the bullies twopence every time he came back home?”
“No! But still, Tom …”
He shook her arm. “Leave it be, our Annie. That’s how things are done in the Rows, whether you like it or not.”
“I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it!”
“Well, you’ve got no choice, have you? You’re stuck here now yourself. Like the rest of us.”
She watched him go. Yes, she was stuck here – but not for ever!
Annie’s first Christmas back in the street passed almost unnoticed so busy were they. The mills had bee
n on full time for the past few weeks and people had a little money to spare, so she’d sold a lot of her clothes. She did make the effort to put on a specially nice meal after chapel on Christmas Day, to which her family, Sally and Alice were invited. John had squashed Emily’s protests about Sally’s presence and made sure she was not left out of things on the day.
Annie gave everyone a present, little things she had sewed herself. She watched her little stepsister, Becky, playing with a rag doll, loving it in her arms and staring around her wide-eyed and protective. Poor child! She looked half-starved and that dress was a disgrace. Emily was a rotten mother.
Her eyes caught her father’s and he shrugged, taking Becky and her dolly on his knee. Annie smiled as she watched them. Just so had John bounced her when she was little. He was as good a father as life allowed. And he was looking pretty tired himself lately. Seeing how poorly dressed her stepbrothers and sisters were made her resolve even more fiercely that William should do better than that, that she would get the two of them out of Salem Street one day, if she had to work her fingers to the bone to do it.
Charlie, sitting in state at the head of the table, never stopped beaming all day and the good food and small presents kept even Lizzie and May on their best behaviour. William gurgled his way through the day with his usual sunny nature. A better baby, Annie thought that evening, looking at him lying kicking in the cradle, was never born. Almost worth the trouble he’d caused her, she realised with a shock. He beamed up at her and caught her finger in his little pink hand and she amended that. “You’re well worth the trouble, my lad,” she said aloud. It was strange how her feelings had changed towards him.
One day in February Annie was walking back from the shops when a small body catapulted into her just before the turn into Salem Street. The child cried out and went sprawling in the half-frozen mud. Annie bent to pull her up, recognising that it was one of the Dykes children. She exclaimed in horror at a fresh burn mark on the bony arm. Just at that moment, Polly Dykes came puffing round the corner, a smoking poker in her hand.
“There y’are, y’little bastard!” she screeched, brandishing the poker. “I’ll give it you! Run away from me, will you!”
Annie put the trembling child behind her and confronted Polly, now a draggled, blowsy woman, ageing rapidly. Polly spent as much of her time as she could afford drunk, and the rest beating her children and quarrelling with her husband. It was a minor miracle that George Dykes was still in employment, because he was as fond of the drink as his wife. It was a wonder, too, that any of the Dykes children had survived infancy, so irregularly were they fed. Neighbours slipped them a crust, when they had a bit to spare, but they were a sickly, undersized bunch and two of the younger ones had died in the last outbreak of fever.
“What’s the matter, Polly?” Annie asked quietly.
“What’s the matter?” Polly mimicked Annie’s accent and flounced her hips. “What the ’ell’s it got to do with you? Ain’t you got enough on yore plate with yore barmy ’usband?”
“You watch what you say about my Charlie, or I’ll make you sorry.”
Polly shrieked with laughter and brandished the poker, but Annie easily avoided her wild swings and pushed her over, wrenching the poker contemptuously out of her hand as she fell.
She thumped the poker on the ground, making Polly whimper and jerk backwards. “If I ever hear you calling my Charlie barmy again, I’ll pay someone to fix you, Polly Dykes.” She tossed the poker aside and bent to pick up the basket she had dropped, becoming aware that the little girl was still clinging to her skirt and shivering uncontrollably, though whether from cold or fear it was hard to tell.
“What’s the matter, love – Kathy, isn’t it?” she asked gently.
The child shuddered and said nothing, but her eyes flickered towards her mother in a tell-tale way.
Annie sighed. She shouldn’t really get involved. What a parent did to a child was nobody else’s business. But since she’d had William, she was looking at the children around her differently.
“What’s your Kathy done wrong?” she asked Polly, who was struggling to her feet.
“Her! Lazy bleedin’ sod, she is! They won’t set her on at t’mill, because she looks too weak. She will be weak, I told ’em, if she don’t get a job soon! Albert Thomas tried her on rag-pickin’ an’ she couldn’t keep up with the others. It’s more than time she were bringin’ summat in, more’n time! I’ll learn her to do as she’s told! Couldn’t keep up, indeed! We’ll see ’oo can’t keep up!” She waved a threatening fist at the child, who shivered and pressed closer to Annie.
“I didn’t know you were wanting her set on,” Annie said casually. “Why didn’t you come to me, instead of insulting my Charlie?”
“Huh?” Polly stood there, swaying a little, already reeking of gin, though it wasn’t yet noon.
“I’ve been thinking of taking a girl on,” went on Annie, “an apprentice, to learn the trade.”
Polly hooted with laughter. “Well, we’ve got sod all to pay for her to go as a bleedin’ apprentice, so y’wastin’ y’time talkin’ to me.”
“I know you couldn’t pay, but I could give you special terms for old times’ sake, because you knew my mother.”
“Ah, Lucy was a fine woman,” said Polly, with a sudden switch of mood. A maudlin tear wound its way down her grey, dirt-encrusted cheek. “Many’s the cup of tea we supped together, y’poor mother an’ me.” She seemed to have completely forgotten her animosity. “I often think of Lucy, that I do.”
Liar! thought Annie, but she didn’t say so aloud. “Well,” she said, in the tones of one making a huge concession, “just for you, just because you knew my mother, Polly, I’ll set Kathy on without charging you the usual apprenticeship fees. Just for old times’ sake. And – because I know you’ve a hard time feeding them all – I’ll give Kathy all her meals. Now, how about that?”
Polly’s brow creased in laborious thought. “That won’t help us,” she said at last. “She won’t be bringin’ no money in.”
“She’s not bringing anything in now, and you still have to feed her. I can’t do any better than that, Polly. I’m only just starting up in business. I haven’t got any money to spare. I’m only doing this as a favour to you.”
The older woman wavered.
“She’ll be able to make you a new dress when she’s been with me for a few months,” added Annie persuasively, wondering why she was even bothering. “Just think of it, a nice new dress.”
There was a moment’s pause, then, “A new one?” Polly fingered the filthy grey skirt she was wearing and her eyes were briefly young again. “I haven’t had a new dress for years.”
“Well?”
“All right, then.”
Annie became her usual brisk business self. “I’ll bring round the papers for you to sign tomorrow.”
“Papers! Sign!”
Annie feigned surprise. “Well, of course! You’ve got to do these things legally. One day your Kathy will be earning a good wage, if she sticks with me for the five years. But you and George have to sign. You’re the parents.”
“George’ll not sign no papers. How will we know what’s writ in ’em?”
“I’ll tell you what’s in them.”
“Yes, but we won’t know if it’s true or not.”
“Well, if you don’t trust me, that’s that, then.” Annie shrugged her shoulders and turned away. The child gasped in dismay.
Polly grabbed Annie’s sleeve. “No, wait … What do these soddin’ papers say?”
“They say that you agree to leave Kathy with me for five years.” Inspiration struck. “And that you agree to pay me twenty pounds if you try to take Kathy away from me.”
“Twenty pound! Twenty pound! We’ve not got no twenty pound! Never will ’ave, neither!”
“That’s only if you try to take her away.” Annie’s patience was wearing thin. “Make up your mind! I can’t stand around here talking all day. I have a baby to fe
ed and a business to run.”
“Well, I dunno. I’ll ’ave to ask my George.”
Annie smiled. George Dykes was an amiable bear of a man, who would do anything to keep the peace. “Your George won’t say no to me. He’s known me since I was a child. Look, I’ll take your Kathy with me now and start her off, eh?”
“Well – Oh, all right.”
Annie strode away, followed by a patter of footsteps. She stopped and the child was so close behind, she trod on Annie’s skirt, then flinched back, as if expecting a slap.
When they went into Number Eight, Kathy remained gaping by the door. Neighbours were not encouraged to run in and out of Number Eight, and most of the people in the street had not been inside the house. To Kathy, the place seemed a palace. There were coloured rag rugs on the floor, soft to the feet, and beautiful curtains at the windows, none of whose panes were broken, and as for the furniture, well, she’d never seen anything like it in her life, with its polished wood and bright-coloured cushions. The Dykes children sat and slept on sacks on the floor, and their parents had rickety stools. Kathy had heard people say that the Ashworths were rich and now she knew that all the stories were true.
Annie explained to Alice in an undertone how she’d acquired Kathy’s services and they both looked at the child, who was still standing patiently by the door, waiting to be disposed of.
“Poor little devil!” said Alice softly. “How old did you say she was?”
“Twelve, I think.”
“Some people shouldn’t have kids,” said Alice scornfully. “Why, she’s nothin’ but skin and bone! And she’ll be lousy, you know. She’ll have to be washed and combed clean. An’ what about her goin’ back at nights? She’ll pick things up again if she does.”
“Ugh! I never thought of that,” said Annie. “I just felt sorry for her. You know what that Polly’s like.”
They both looked at Kathy again. She was standing as patiently as ever by the front door, waiting for her rescuer to tell her what to do.
Annie sighed. “I can’t send her back, Alice, I just can’t! Look at the burn on her arm. Polly had just hit her with a red-hot poker. On purpose! She’ll have to live in, that’s all. She can sleep down here. I’m not sharing my bedroom with anyone. You won’t mind having her around on Mondays and Thursdays, will you?”