But then he had to run to catch up with the couple, cursing at the pain in his leg, relieved when they left the narrow cobbled streets.
Once or twice he saw how they moved closer, laughed sometimes; too bloody friendly altogether. The Irish bastard was even holding onto her elbow and then her hand as if he had the right to touch her. The unease merged into jealousy and hatred. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of this chap before, certainly hadn’t seen him with Winifred. Now here he was fawning all over her.
They were back to the road her father’s shop was on and they’d stopped. Bill glanced across to the Wagon and Horses to see if it was open; he certainly needed a drink after the afternoon he’d had, but the doors were closed. When he looked back at the couple he saw they were talking. Still too close. He was choked up with rage as he watched Winifred, his Winifred, holding the bloke’s hand and gazing up at him with a daft look on her face. By, he’d like to punch the sod.
In the distance Bill heard the hooter from the mine, saw the anxious way Winifred looked towards the noise. What was up with her? She seemed upset. The door of the pub was quickly opened and the landlord appeared on the doorstep, pipe clenched between his teeth. He looked up to the sky and then he peered along the road. At the same time Bill heard the thump of footsteps, lots of footsteps. The miners were out.
When he looked back to the two of them Bill saw Winifred walking along the road towards the shop.
The man stood for a few moments watching her. When he passed by he barely gave Bill a glance but Bill could have sworn there was a faint smell of Winifred’s perfume lingering between them.
The pulse in his temple throbbed; he thought his head would explode with the rage inside him. He glared at the tall figure until he turned the corner, going back in the direction they’d come from. Bill spat, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He wouldn’t forget that face. He’d be on the lookout for him in future.
One dark night, Bill promised himself, crossing over the road to the pub to get his pint before the miners. One dark night…
Chapter 19
Winifred glanced inside the shop as she passed the large window. Her mother, still with her coat on, stood behind the counter, arms crossed over her narrow chest. Winifred closed and bolted the door behind her, pausing for a moment, her hand on the lock before she turned. She could hear the sharp huffing and puffing. Straightening her shoulders she faced her mother.
‘Well?’ Her voice was shrill. ‘Well, madam? Just where do you think you’ve been? What lies are you going to tell us this time?’
‘Now, Mother.’ Winifred’s father was carrying the last of the empty wooden vegetable crates to stack on top of the others in front of the counter. With a stab of remorse Winifred noticed how weary he sounded. She glanced at the shop clock above the bread shelves and saw it was turned seven; he must have taken the brunt of her mother’s rage for at least an hour.
‘I’m sorry, Dad.’ Unpinning her hat, she took it off, unfastening the buttons of her coat with the other hand. Looking down she noticed a smear of dark blood on the cuff of her sleeve. Sophie’s blood. She closed her eyes, picturing the girl lying in the bed, trying to smile. She steadied her gaze on her mother. ‘I’ll not tell you any lies, Mother. I’ve been with Honora. I went with her to see a girl, a slip of a girl, younger than me, that the police and the wardens in the prison have beaten so savagely she’ll die—’
‘You! I told you…’ Ethel Duffy moved swiftly to the end of the counter and rushed towards Winifred, her arm held upwards.
Winifred caught hold of it before her mother could strike her. She was astonished at her own strength. Stiffening her arm, she forced the woman backwards.
‘No,’ she said. There was determination and a sense of calm inside her. ‘I can’t let you do that, Mother. I can’t let you hit me again. Ever.’
‘Win…’ Her father’s voice trembled. She saw him put the crate down, run his hands through his hair, take a step forward.
‘I’m sorry, Dad. I’m nineteen and I can’t, won’t, be treated like a child anymore.’ She let go of her mother’s arm and faced her, seeing the red-blotched anger on her skin. ‘I’ve seen and heard things today you can’t even begin to imagine, Mother.’ She carried on talking over the derisory laugh that the older woman spat out. ‘And I’ve decided I can’t stand by and do nothing.’
‘Now love, you’re only making things worse for yourself.’ Through the dark shadow of his whiskers Winifred saw a set of pale pink fingerprints across her father’s cheek. Her mother had obviously vented her vindictiveness on him earlier. Despite the guilt, she spoke again, though she knew this would only make things worse for him.
‘There are a lot of things wrong with this country, Dad. And, even worse, things that half the people have no say in. The Government refuses to even listen. Dreadful things are being done to women just because they ask to be heard. Because they see that it’s unfair that only men have the say in what happens to us – to women.’ She breathed in deeply. The shop smelled unfamiliar to her tonight, as though she’d never been in the place before. The thought struck her that somehow, there was a change inside her, a strange sense of freedom, of being separate from the home she’d known all her life. Of being aware that the last look Conal had given her wasn’t only because she was his sister’s friend and therefore should be his friend as well. And not because he thought she should stand alongside them and fight for justice. But because he’d seen her as an equal.
The two people in front of her seemed frozen. Waiting.
Into the silence she said, ‘I’m going to join the Suffragettes.’
Chapter 20
‘I don’t know, love.’ John Duffy leaned back on the wooden chair next to Winifred’s, his hands on his thighs. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
They were sitting, enjoying the last rays of the sun before it dropped down below the roof of the house and disappeared off the back yard. The gramophone was playing in the kitchen and he was absently tapping his fingers to the tune of ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’.
Her mother was in the shop counting the day’s takings, but still they kept their voices low.
‘If I don’t get what that lot in Parliament are going on about, how can women?’
‘Granny understands. She thinks we should try to make things better for us, for women.’
Her father smiled. ‘Aye, well, she’s always been feisty, my mother. She ran rings around my father for years.’
‘For all the right reasons from what she told me about Granddad?’
‘She told you?’
‘About how he lost all their money? Yes. Why have you never talked about it? Why didn’t you tell me about where you lived as a child?’
He raised his shoulders.
Winifred thought she saw something in his eyes. Shame? Embarrassment? ‘It isn’t anything to be ashamed of, Dad.’ She leaned forward to touch his hand. He covered her fingers with his.
‘I hate that your granny lives in that place.’
‘Then ask her to come here, to live with us.’
‘It wouldn’t work.’ He slumped in his chair, rubbed his palms over the rough cloth of his trousers on his thighs. ‘Between the two of them my – our – lives would be made a misery.’
And then Winifred understood. Underneath, her father was a man who could only deal with so much trouble in his life. She knew he was a kind man, she knew he loved her, that he often defended her and came between her and her mother. He’d had the stuffing knocked out of him years ago, she thought. Marriage to her mother would do that to any man. And to ask him to also stand between his mother and his wife was something he couldn’t face.
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘But I hate the idea of her getting older and still living there.’
‘She’s a strong woman.’
Winifred didn’t agree but she decided to revert back to their earlier conversation. ‘Anyway, she thinks I’m right to join the movement.’
He coc
ked his head and closed his eyes. ‘But you know she doesn’t get out much these days. She really has no idea about what’s going on in the world.’
‘She knows more than you think. And her neighbours read the papers to her.’
‘Hmmm.’ He looked at her, bit his lip. ‘But like I say, if I don’t get what that lot in Parliament are going on about, how can any woman?’
‘Oh, Dad!’ Winifred stifled the irritation. ‘Don’t you and her…’ she gestured towards the house, keeping her voice low. ‘Don’t you and Mother ever talk about things like that?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Give over. She’s no interest in anything like that. She says she’s enough to do running this place and keeping us in order without worrying what’s going on with the country.’
Winifred pursed her lips. She remembered the things her mother had said about women being ruled by men, about women having no say in their lives But she’d also said what she thought about the Suffragettes, about her new friends, about Ireland. And she’d heard her mother laying down the law in the shop often enough; telling folk what the Government should do about this, that and the other. Her father didn’t know the half of it. ‘Don’t you believe it, Dad. She grouses over everything. What she wouldn’t do if she ran the country isn’t worth talking about.’
‘Now, love.’ He moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘What you don’t understand about your mother is she doesn’t like change; a place for everything and everything in its place, that’s her. And that goes for how these women are behaving. It frightens her.’
‘Oh Dad, nothing frightens Mother.’ Winifred scowled.
‘Winifred, that’s enough. I know her better than you. I’ve known her a long time.’ He paused. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you something about Mother, shall I? She feels safe here; she feels this is her place, values her position in this village.’
He didn’t know his wife at all, Winifred thought. He hasn’t a clue how trapped she feels. But all she said was, ‘Dad, we’re shopkeepers.’
‘We’re respectable.’ He spoke tersely. ‘We don’t talk much about it – except for the other night with you. But I know she thinks that those women are trying to change what she sees as natural; the place where women should be.’ He waved his hand in the air. ‘I know I’m not explaining it well but, you know…’
Winifred clamped her lips together to stop the angry, frustrated words bursting out.
John reached over and patted her hand. ‘It’s what she calls the natural order of things, Winifred.’
‘You’re so wrong. She’s wrong!’
‘She’s frightened.’
That was something Winifred definitely didn’t believe. Except that her mother was scared other women would escape the lives set out for them, when it was too late for her. ‘Well, whatever the reason she doesn’t want me to join them, she won’t stop me.’
‘I know.’ He sighed. ‘Just try not to talk about it when she’d around, eh, love? For me?’
‘I won’t.’ Winifred stood up. ‘I’ll see if she wants me to finish clearing away in the shop.’ She looked down at him and smiled, her hand resting briefly on his shoulder, feeling guilty that she’d probably upset him. ‘You stop here and have a rest; you look tired.’
‘I am a bit. But I’m off to see your granny soon.’
‘Give her my love. Tell her I’ll be round to see her in a couple of days.’
Pausing on the back doorstep, Winifred glanced at him. He’d leaned back again in the chair, face up to the sky as though trying to get the last of the day’s warmth. He looked old, had he lost weight? It worried her. The crash of the shop’s till drawer and her mother’s rapid footsteps through the parlour and across the flagged kitchen floor stopped her thoughts.
The two women stood face to face without speaking. Winifred knew she’d been right. What ate away inside her mother was the feeling of being trapped in her life. And she certainly didn’t want other women to have more freedom than she had.
And, even more than that, she didn’t want Winifred to have the power to go out and fight for that freedom. To have that freedom.
Chapter 21
August 1911
‘We’ll have to keep an eye out for that lot.’ Bertie pointed with the long knife he was using to gut the cod on the wooden slab towards the street. The crowds had been building steadily all morning and now streamed past in large numbers. Most of them were women but there were quite a few blokes as well, Bill noticed.
‘There’ll be trouble, mark my words. Votes for men under twenty-one,’ Bertie Butterworth scoffed, reading one of the posters held aloft. ‘What do kids know about ’ow to vote?’ He slapped another cod onto the slab and brought the knife down with a loud thud. The decapitated head fell into the large bucket underneath, already full to the brim with the slime of bloodied fish guts.
They could learn, Bill thought. If somebody took the trouble to show them what’s what. He knew nowt about voting because he’d had no-one to explain stuff to him but he knew what was fair and what wasn’t. And it wasn’t fair that only toffs had a say in running the country. He sniffed. And it wasn’t fair his mam had died when he was only a kid. She would have told him what’s what, he was sure.
‘There’ll be trouble I’ve no doubt.’ Bertie shook his head. ‘Here, empty this bucket, lad. And then clean the trays.’
‘Okay.’
The men and women in the crowd looked around his age, Bill thought, turning to watch them pass while automatically wiping the white trays in the shop window. He envied them. He wouldn’t tell Bertie, but he really wished he could be with them. He knew nowt about what them in Government did, but he didn’t see why all men shouldn’t get to vote. If men under twenty-one did get the vote, he’d be one of them; he’d get to say who gets to be in charge of the country. He didn’t believe women should have a say, though. He thought back to his stepmother and sister; thick as two short planks, them two. There’s too many of their sort around and not enough of… He let his thoughts trail away before he said her name to himself… Of Winifred’s kind; well brought up and knowing what’s right – knowing how to listen to what their men had to say.
By dinnertime the street had become even more crowded; a sea of white, purple and green.
And then Bill caught a glimpse of his Winifred in the middle of a line of people. She was pale, her mouth set. The others were laughing and talking but she wasn’t joining in. And next to her was that bloke.
He closed his eyes against the sudden flash of temper. His hands trembled. He leant forward into the shop window, trying to see her again, but she was lost amongst the masses.
Soon the crowds dwindled until there was no-one walking past. When Bill finished sluicing down the floor he swept the water out of the shop and across the pavement, into the gutter. He stood in the doorway listening to the chants and singing in the distance. It was as though the air vibrated with the sound. The loneliness that filled every part of him was a shock; he didn’t think he’d ever been a part of anything as much as that lot obviously were. No, he corrected himself, being down the mines were near enough; he’d been in a team there, where most blokes looked out for one another.
He crossed his arms, tucked his hands under his armpits, overwhelmed by the sudden sense of loss.
And then there was something else; a low growl. He looked upwards. Iron-grey clouds slid sluggish high in the sky, the air heavy and claggy. He shivered, the feeling of foreboding starting deep inside. It was an old habitual sensation, one he used to get down the mines when there was trouble; a sudden shift in the props, a faint hiss of methane telling them all to get out. And the last time he was below, that instant of deadly silence just before the explosion. Trouble.
Chapter 22
At first there was a hush over the lines of people crushed together in the High Street in Morrisfield. The only sounds were the shuffling of feet on the cobbles, the rustling of clothes, the crack of the material of the banner, waved high by the line of women in
front of Winifred.
Winifred’s head was too hot under her black, wide-brimmed hat. In the distance there was a low growl of thunder. The air was heavy. Damp tendrils of her hair stuck to her neck, sweat trickled down her back. Over the roofs of the buildings at the end of the street she saw steel-grey clouds slowly rolling towards them, covering the pale blue of the sky.
‘I think it’s going to rain.’ She brushed the green and purple ribbons away from her face, looking anxiously at Honora, wishing she hadn’t had to wear her new best hat; now her only one since the ribbon incident when her other was scorched.
‘Don’t be getting worried about that.’ Her friend’s dark eyes were narrowed when she turned towards her. ‘We’ve more to worry about than the rain.’ She gestured with her hand. ‘The eejit bobbies have arrived.’
Policemen on horseback filed out of a side street at the front of the crowd, stopping the forward movement. Winifred could see the straight line break up, a banner drop momentarily before being raised again. Around her there were angry voices, murmurs at first and then, in seconds, shouts.
‘Shame. Shame. Let us through.’
‘No support for women from King George, no support for King George.’
She could see the tall square building of the town hall, the long porch fronted by columns, which was the object of the protest; where the local Liberal councillor was holding a meeting to organise a celebration for the coronation of the new king, George.
‘Hold tight.’ Conal moved between the two women and put his arms around them. The press of bodies increased, and the momentary thrill of feeling his body on Winifred’s dissipated in an instant, as panic took over.
‘We’ll be crushed. We should go.’
‘No.’ Honora’s tone was sharp. ‘We need to show our support to the WSPU.’
‘Honora – please.’
‘No. They tried to show the Suffragettes’ patriotism and support for the King when they publicly celebrated his procession in London.’ She glared at Winifred. ‘The WSPU had been told he’d support the Conciliation Bill. He won’t. So we won’t let there be any celebrations. He’s the same as the rest of them in Parliament.’
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