by Iris Gower
‘Mr Waddington leaves it mostly to me to see to the office these days. He’s not so well, chest is bad you see and he trusts me to carry on while he’s away.’
‘Good girl,’ Davie said, ‘I’m proud of you.’
He thought of telling her his own news about the new job but then perhaps Rosa should be the first to know. His daughter was an independent woman now; he burned with pride.
‘I’d best get back cariad,’ Davie said, ‘I’ll eat the pie on my next break but for now I’d best work or the other boyos on the gang will be calling me a shirker.’ He waved to Mali and watched her walking away. Her steps were slow, without spring, and he wondered if she could be sickening for some illness or other.
He was soon back into the swing of his work again, dipping his ladle into the burning, molten copper that swirled like a blood-red river, shimmering with a heat that almost scorched his face as he carried his burden, straining, to the mould.
But he felt lighter in spirit than he’d done for some time, for Mali was softening, perhaps even beginning to accept Rosa as part of the household. He looked forward to going home after his shift and telling them both that tomorrow he was to be moved into the foundry.
What happened then was never clear to him, for one minute he was walking along, keeping his place in the circle of men and the next there was a warning cry from Will Owens behind him.
It was as though a mule had kicked him in the back, sending him sprawling onto the wetness of the floor, his arms spreadeagled, his face in the dirt.
Then came the pain, searing, agonising; he heard a hoarse voice cry out and knew it was his own. There was the awful stench of burning flesh and the cloth of his trousers was suddenly aflame.
His voice rose to a scream as the pain flared through his crotch but his throat was thick with the shock and he could scarcely breathe. He prayed he might lose consciousness but he was acutely aware of the hard floor beneath his chest and the sea of boots that were suddenly standing round him and the appalled, unbelieving silence of his fellow workers.
‘Jesus, get a doctor someone,’ a voice above him said. Davie’s eyes glazed over as sweat from his brow ran into them. He seemed to be enveloped in fire from head to foot, he was afraid to move, terrified of what he would see. One of the men held a bottle to his lips and it smelled of gin and he drank from it deeply, praying for the pain to lessen.
But the agony did not go away and after a while, he reached out and his fingers did not encounter flesh but fastly cooling metal that was settling into his body, swiftly becoming part of it.
He felt his eyes roll back in his head. ‘Help me, for God’s sake help me.’ He thought he shouted the words but they came from his lips in a series of small moans that sounded unintelligible even to his own ears. Yet someone heard and understood for the next moment, a large fist crashed down upon his head and Davie fell into deep, merciful blackness.
He did not know how much later it was when he opened his eyes, perhaps hours, perhaps days, but he did know he was in the infirmary. He was lying on his stomach on a crisp clean bed and outside, he could hear the rush of the tide upon the beach.
Voices were speaking at a great distance. Dimly, he saw shadowy white figures, he heard a word spoken crisply and firmly and tried to understand it.
‘Amputation.’ The voice died away as he moved his head. It sounded again, much quieter but still clear enough for him to hear it.
‘Not much else to be done, the poor fellow’s scarcely a man any more.’
With a terrible dread, Davie remembered the pain in his back and running through his groin as the metal bit deep into his flesh. Panic flared within him and suddenly he was vomiting uncontrollably.
He felt someone place a cool hand upon his forehead; his mind cleared and he felt again the searing agony of the molten copper running over him. He tried to get up but gentle hands pushed him back against the pillow.
‘What’s happening to me?’ He stared at the nurse whose long veil hung over her cheeks, concealing her expression. She held a small cup containing medication and put it carefully against his lips.
‘Just take this, Mr Llewelyn,’ she said softly. ‘It will ease the pain and help you to sleep.’ She seemed to be smiling at him encouragingly but he turned his head away and looked through the window.
‘But I don’t want to sleep, it’s still daylight.’ His voice was scarcely more than a croak and the nurse shook her head at him.
‘Don’t try to talk, you’ve had a very bad shock, you need to rest so that you’ll recover all the more quickly. Now, take this medicine for me, there’s a good man.’
Davie drank the bitter liquid and lay his cheek against the pillow, exhausted with the effort. The pain in his back was intense, it was as though flames were licking over him.
‘I’m going to die,’ he said in a whisper and the nurse took his fingers in hers, smoothing the back of his head with infinite gentleness.
‘You will be all right, so there’s no need to go feeling morbid, I won’t have that sort of talk in my ward, do you understand me?’ She rose to her feet and smiled down at him, smoothing the creases out of her stiff apron.
‘You’ll soon be asleep and that’s the best cure we know for healing the body. It will take a bit of time, but we’ll have you sitting up and feeling sprightly before long, don’t you worry.’
When she had gone, Davie turned his head and looked along the row of beds stretching away down the ward. It was deathly quiet, a place where only the very sick were housed.
‘Sweet Jesus, what’s to become of me?’ He sighed wearily and lay his head on the softness of the pillow. Almost of their own accord, his hands began to fumble beneath the bedclothes and his searching fingers encountered heavy bandaging on the lower part of his body. He remembered then, the half-whispered word ‘amputation’.
‘Oh, God, not that,’ he said and like a baby, he began to cry.
Chapter Twenty-four
The sun was pale and weak, peering intermittently through the grey, scudding clouds. High winds swept the branches of the trees as if trying to shake free the last few remaining leaves. From within the warmth and comfort of the Canal Street Laundry office, Mali sat staring through the small window into the yard.
She sighed heavily. Ink ran from the nib of the pen in her hand, blotting the clean page before her, but she did not notice.
Her mind turned again and again to the first time she’d seen her father after his terrible accident. When one of the coppermen had come to fetch her, telling her that Dad had been taken to the infirmary down on the beach, she could not believe it. Only a few minutes before, or so it had seemed, she had been giving him his grub pack.
She had known at once that Davie’s wounds must be serious for it was rare for any copperman to be taken to the infirmary, the workers preferring to treat their burns with a mixture of beets soaked in vinegar.
Mali had almost swooned clean away when she’d walked trembling into the long ward. Her father was lying flat on his stomach and the face turned towards her seemed shrunken, chin and nose jutting forth in a cruel caricature of himself.
She had felt tears hot and bitter pour down her cheeks but it didn’t matter for Davie couldn’t see her, couldn’t see anyone, he was in some limbo of his own, the edges of his mind blurred with constant medication.
Afterwards, the doctor had told her gently that Davie would never walk again for one of his legs had been so badly damaged that it was beyond medical skill to repair. But worse, the copper had burned and eroded so badly that although Davie would live, it would be as a eunuch.
Some of Davie’s tew gang had been waiting outside the hospital and one of them, Mali thought it might have been Will Owens, though she could not be sure, had blamed the accident on Sterling Richardson. Apparently, there had been some angry words spoken between the two men, leaving Davie upset. He had seemingly lost his concentration which was a dangerous thing when working molten metal, and had stumbled backwards.
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br /> The story was jumbled now in Mali’s mind. She sighed, all she really knew was that Davie still lay in the hospital almost a week after the accident, not speaking or moving, just existing, kept alive by dedicated nursing.
Rosa visited Davie day and night, talking to him softly, holding his hand, trying to coax some response from him, but she did not know, and Mali could not tell her, that she would never be a wife now, at least not Davie’s.
The door of the office opened and a gust of cold wind scattered leaves into the room. Mali glanced up to see Mr Waddington, smiling down at her.
He looked cold, his silk scarf exchanged for a fine woollen one that covered his throat and clung to the bottom half of his face so that he looked like an egg in a cup, Mali thought with a glimmer of amusement.
‘Holding the fort, my dear?’ He closed the door and moved towards the fireplace. ‘I’m sure you are doing extremely well on your own but I do feel that at a time like this, I must at least try to pull my weight, for you’ve enough on your plate as it is.’
‘You shouldn’t be out of bed, Mr Waddington,’ Mali chided him. ‘Your chest won’t be cured if you insist on going out in all weathers.’
Mr Waddington sat down at his desk with his scarf still around his shoulders. He seemed much thinner and his face was colourless, almost parchment-like.
‘Let’s have a good hot cup of tea, shall we dear, and afterwards we shall look at the books together for I fear we are still losing money. Ring the bell, there’s a good girl.’ He stared at her intently.
‘You are not looking hale and hearty yourself, Mali,’ Mr Waddington said gently. ‘I know what’s happened to your father is terrible indeed but if the will is strong then the flesh will heal.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Mali replied, for how could she place her own burden of knowledge on Mr Waddington’s frail shoulders?
Sally Benson brought in the tea, carrying with her the distinctive scent of the packing room of hot well-ironed linen and suddenly Mali felt nostalgic, wishing herself back in time to when she had never lain with Sterling Richardson, never tortured her mind with regrets and reproaches and more, before Davie had been scarred by the copper. But could she have changed anything, anything at all? She doubted it.
Sally put the cups on the desk with a sniff and a baleful look in Mali’s direction. She still held a grudge and doubtless always would but she was too wary, now, to give voice to her thoughts.
‘Ah, that’s lovely.’ Mr Waddington drank deeply. ‘Just what the doctor ordered. Close the door carefully behind you, there’s a good girl,’ he said as Sally Benson left the room.
‘I’ve been looking over the books very carefully,’ Mali said gently, ‘and I’m afraid the laundry is still not making a profit.’
Mr Waddington looked even more tired as he stared down at the figures in the big red ledger. After a moment, he shrugged his shoulders.
‘I know what the trouble is,’ he said tersely. ‘I need new equipment, the old boilers are worn out, take too long to boil the water, so using up costly fuel. I need an infusion of cash. A hundred pounds or so would do it,’ he mused. ‘Perhaps I could raise it in the bank by mortgaging my house but I’m getting old Mali, and fearful of taking risks. I expect I shall simply have to sell out in the end.’
Mali’s heart sank, she needed the wages Mr Waddington paid her for she was now the sole breadwinner and a great deal of her wages were spent on Dad. It was true that sometimes Rosa came home with a few shillings and it wasn’t difficult to guess how she’d earned them and Mali couldn’t blame her. But the girl never offered any money for her keep and even if she had, Mali would have been too proud to accept it.
Mr Waddington put down his cup. ‘But I’ve not come here to talk about my problems. No, I thought you might be able to make use of an afternoon off. Get your coat and nip away sharply and I’ll keep an eye on things here.’ He glanced round him. ‘Though you have everything so well organised that there’s nothing very much for me to do. I expect you’ve made up the wages as usual?’
‘Yes, I’ve seen the incoming bills as well, they’re all filed away.’ Mali rose and drew on her coat though she did not relish going home to the cold empty house in Copperman’s Row one little bit.
The wind blew loudly along the street and furrowed the waters of the canal. A small boy noisily chased his cap along the pavement so that at first, Mali did not hear anyone behind her.
‘Hey you, wait a minute.’ Sally Benson was tugging at Mali’s arm. She still wore her laundry apron and the wind whipped her hair untidily over her face.
‘You’re very thick with the copper boss, aren’t you?’ She did not wait for an answer but spoke again at once, an unpleasant sneer on her face. ‘At any rate when we had that fight he was quick enough to take you away in that fancy automobile just in case I pasted you one.’
Mali felt so beaten down by the events of the past week that she had no spirit to match Sally’s spitefulness. She pulled her arm away impatiently.
‘Just leave me alone will you?’ she said tiredly.
‘Leave you alone, is it?’ Sally put her hands on her thick hips. ‘No my fine madam, I’ll not leave you alone. Pay you back I will for hittin’ me and for getting Aggie the boot.’
Mali sighed and began to walk away but Sally’s next words stopped her.
‘Mr Richardson likes his oats, so I hear.’ She laughed harshly. ‘Had ’em with you I dare say. One thing’s for sure, he don’t clean up the little messes he leaves behind him, no, my Mam has to do that. She’s a midwife, didn’t you know? Did a little bit of work on a lady by the name of Miss Bea Cardigan, she’s from one of them big houses up on the hill.’
‘So?’ Mali felt her throat constrict. ‘What’s all that got to do with me?’
‘Just letting you know that servants gossip to my Mam and by all accounts, your rich boyfriend is a right villain. Father of the poor lady’s babba he was and left her in the lurch once he knew of her trouble. Come to my Mam to rid her of the unwanted bundle.’ Sally laughed cruelly. ‘And he don’t want you for anything except to get up your skirt so you needn’t go puttin’ on any airs and graces to me.’
Mali forced herself to walk away and made her way unseeingly past the Mexico Fountain. She hurried along Green Hill, clasping her arms around her stomach feeling sick, wanting only to get indoors and shut herself away from the world.
By the time she let herself into the house, she was trembling and as the smell of rancid fat drifted towards her, she retched and was forced to go outside to the privy. She leaned weakly against the whitewashed walls, trying to regain her breath.
When she was feeling slightly better, she changed from her good clothes into an old skirt and blouse and set to work on the house. Lifelong habits came to her aid and soon she had a cheerful fire burning in a shining grate. When the water was boiled Mali washed the soiled floor, scrubbing hard so that the accumulated grime disappeared. But it was only after an hour’s intensive work that the kitchen looked more like its old self.
Mali sat down with a cup between her hands and enjoyed the blaze of the coals, watching as the flames danced and quivered, and she sighed with weariness.
In spite of everything, Mali could not find it in her heart to blame Rosa for leaving the greasy dishes in the sink or for the thick dust that had lain undisturbed for days on the furniture, for the girl devoted her time to visiting Davie at the infirmary. She sat with him for hours on end, trying to talk to him and awake some response.
Thoughts of Davie were too painful for Mali to dwell on and so she turned her mind to the problems of the laundry. If only she had the money needed to help Mr Waddington, then she might be able to save the business for him. She had seen ways of economising on small things like soda and soap and new scrubbing boards to replace the old worn ones that tore at the sheets instead of cleaning them. But most of all, savings could be made on the organisation of the delivery of the linen.
At the moment, it was q
uite a random affair. The errand boy took out the horse-drawn van, moving from one end of Sweyn’s Eye to the other haphazardly. This wasted valuable time and Mali had worked out a more sensible rota which she had not yet shown to Mr Waddington.
Her idea was to call on a given area on the same day and at the same time every week, both collecting and delivering the laundry. This would do away with the necessity of making several journeys to the same place and folks would soon become used to the new method. She sighed, what was the point of thinking about it? All her small ideas put together were not enough to save the laundry from closing.
She was startled by a loud knocking on the door and when she opened it Dai End House was standing on the step, cap twisted in his hand. He smiled at her in embarrassment as Mali stepped back to allow him indoors.
‘Saw you come home early, I did, merchi,’ he said, ‘thought I’d just tell you about the collection.’
Mali pushed the kettle back onto the flames. ‘Collection, what do you mean, Dai?’ She stared at him in bewilderment as he stood at the table and emptied his pockets. He spilled coins everywhere, they fell onto the floor and Dai grinned apologetically.
‘All us from the Mex have been puttin’ together for Davie, a whipround just to show we’re thinking of him. There’s money from the crowd at Maggie Dicks too, goodhearted lot they are even though none of them are coppermen.’
Mali felt tears burn her eyes. ‘There’s kind of everyone,’ she said quickly. ‘Tell them thank you from me and from Dad. Will you have some tea, Dai?’ She moved the kettle so that the water hissed through the blackened spout but Dai End House shook his head.
‘No tea for me, merchi, you know I likes my ale too much to spoil my gullet with tea. Now if there’s anything you want doing, man’s jobs round the house or anything, just let me know and I’ll get a gang over here so quick you won’t see my feet move.’
He left her and she heard him whistling plaintively as he walked away down the street, and she bit her lip as she looked down at the hard-earned money he had brought her.