As Seamus followed Kitty into the kitchen, Kitty said, ‘This is a friend of mine an’ he’s stayin’ the night,’ without answering Pearl’s question.
As Seamus plonked a sack holding items of food on the table, Pearl’s eyes went to it and then the bottles of gin in her mother’s hands. She had seen this man before. He was one of her mother’s visitors. When he smiled at her, saying, ‘Hello there,’ in a friendly voice, she stared at him for a moment before again saying to her mother, ‘What happened?’
‘What do you think happened?’ Kitty began to unpack the groceries as Seamus sat down in the armchair that had been Seth’s since Thomas’s demise, ruffling James’s curls as the child looked up at him. ‘They’ve bin sent down.’
‘How – how long for?’
‘Eight years.’ Kitty reached for one of the bottles of gin and after pouring a good measure into a cup, she passed it to Seamus before doing the same for herself. Without looking at her daughter, she said, ‘Now go an’ light a fire in the front room. It’ll be as cold as the grave in there.’
‘The front room?’
Pearl’s voice had been high, and now in one swift movement Kitty took hold of her arm and pulled her out into the hall, shutting the kitchen door behind her. ‘Take that look off your face an’ do as you’re told,’ she hissed. ‘Seamus is a good pal of mine an’ he’s already set us up with enough grub for the week, so you mind your manners.’
Pearl jerked herself free. ‘How can you have him here and let him sit in Seth’s chair when the lads—’
A ringing slap across the side of her face cut off her words and then she felt her head bouncing on her shoulders as her mother shook her. ‘Don’t you come the madam with me. Who do you think is going to pay the rent an’ put food on the table now? Not your precious Seth, m’girl. We’re on our own now, an’ things are going to change. When I say do somethin’ you’ll do it, no questions asked. Now get in there an’ light the fire, an’ then see to putting a hot-water bottle in the bed. An’ you be polite to Seamus unless you want more of the same.’
Pearl could hear Patrick beginning to grizzle; the baby would be wanting his tea. That, more than her mother’s threats, made her do as she was told. Once the fire was blazing in the front room and the hot-water bottle was in the bed, Kitty picked up the half-full gin bottle and inclined her head at Seamus before glancing at Pearl who was feeding Patrick a bowl of thick rabbit broth. ‘You can dish up our dinner an’ put it to warm – we’ll have it later,’ she said, and left the room without waiting for a reply.
Pearl continued feeding Patrick whilst keeping an eye on James who was sitting in his highchair eating small chunks of bread soaked in the broth. Since he had begun to feed himself after recovering from the flu it had been a great help, although occasionally he stuffed too much in his mouth and ended up choking.
What would Seth and Fred and Walter be eating tonight in that terrible place? And Pearl knew it was a terrible place – she’d heard stories about what went on in gaols from Humphrey Fraser at school. Half of Humphrey’s family were in some gaol or other, and he was inordinately proud of it. And her mam, letting that man sit in Seth’s chair and then taking him into the front room! She wasn’t too clear about what went on in the front room, but she knew it was all to do with the big bed the lodgers had slept in, and her mother allowing liberties. That’s what she had heard Seth say to Kitty just after their father had died: ‘There’ll be no more liberties taken by the scum of the earth with you, in this house, not while I’ve breath in my body.’
But whatever it was that went on, her mother didn’t intend to do it secretly any more, not now Seth had gone.
To stop her tears falling, she applied herself to washing Patrick’s face – a procedure to which he heartily objected – and then got both of her brothers ready for bed.
She could hear her mother laughing in the front room and the deep sound of Seamus’s voice, along with the bedsprings twanging. It made her stomach twist and tighten. How could her mam laugh like that on the day Seth and Fred and Walter were locked away? Eight years. Eight years. She would be eighteen years old by the time they were free, and that was old.
Carrying Patrick in her arms, she stood behind James each step as the toddler clambered up the stairs on his hands and knees. Once in the bedroom she lifted both little boys into the cot and then sat on her mother’s bed as they snuggled deeper under their blankets. There was ice on the inside of the window and her breath was a white cloud in front of her when she breathed out, but although James and Patrick were already half asleep she continued to sit and watch the mound of their bodies by the light of the streetlamp directly outside their window.
Her mam was doing bad things in the front room with the sailorman. She had been doing the same for years, but this was different somehow. Pearl didn’t put the word ‘brazen’ to it, just ‘different’.
She rocked herself back and forth with her arms crossed over her stomach, making no sound so as not to disturb her brothers, in spite of the tears coursing down her face. And she didn’t know what to do. She was frightened, so frightened, and she didn’t know what to do. And then Seth’s words came back to her. ‘I need you to look after James and Pat for me. Till I’m home.’
Slowly she took control of herself. She had promised Seth, and a promise was a promise. Drying her eyes on her pinny, she brushed a few damp tendrils of hair from her cheeks. James and Patrick were now her responsibility, and she would do all she could to keep them safe and warm and fed. School didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except her promise to Seth.
She slid off the bed, a thin little figure in the shadowed room, and made her way downstairs to get the dinner ready for her mother and the sailorman.
PART TWO
The Romanies
July 1901
Chapter 5
The pavements and buildings were radiating heat, and the evening sun was still hot as Pearl pushed the creaking perambulator through the dusty streets in the direction of home. The country was in the grip of a heatwave, and when Pearl had risen very early that morning, it had promised to be another baking July day. Her mother and a woman named Cissy Hartley, a new and seemingly bosom pal of Kitty’s, had been ‘entertaining’ in the front room for most of the night, and when the men and Cissy had left just before dawn, her mother had come upstairs to tell her she expected the boys to be kept quiet all day so she could sleep. James and Patrick had been irritable and tetchy with the heat for the last week, and so Pearl had determined to take them out for the day, Tunstall Hills way.
After packing a basket with some food and a bottle of water, she’d lifted three-year-old James and two-year-old Patrick into the rusty old perambulator they’d bought from a neighbour for a shilling or two the year before, and off they had set.
They’d had a wonderful day. Pearl smiled to herself as she looked at the two little boys, rosy cheeked and fast asleep in the depths of the pram. The long walk to the outskirts of Bishopwearmouth had been worth it. Once they had left the noise and dirt of the town behind, the essence of summer had been everywhere. The still air had been heavy on the hills with the perfume of eglantine, the wild briar; the bright sunshine warming the foxgloves and brightening the dog roses and daisies, clover and forget-me-nots which had painted the banks and meadows. The boys had rolled and tumbled and frolicked like two excited puppies when she had found a spot to settle at, loving the freedom and softness of their surroundings after the grim streets and stinking back lanes.
When they had worn themselves out she had let them sleep before lunch under the shade of an oak tree in the scented grass; sitting with her arms wrapped round her knees, she’d gazed into a shimmering heat-haze before falling asleep herself.
They had picked armfuls of wild flowers in the afternoon to take home, sweetly scented in both leaf and bloom and glowing with colour. These were now lying at one end of the perambulator by the boys’ heads, and although they were beginning to wilt, they were still lovely.
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She would do this again. Pearl mentally nodded to the thought as the smells and squalor of the East End began to make themselves felt. She rarely went to school now. Most days she took care of the boys and saw to the house and meals, sometimes while her mother slept and sometimes because Kitty hadn’t come home the night before. On those occasions her mother would return at some time during the morning smelling of drink and smoke and demanding a hot meal before falling into bed after drinking more gin. Pearl had learned to take the money for rent and food out of her mother’s purse while she slept, because once she was awake there were always arguments. Funnily enough though, her mother never challenged her on this practice.
The nearer they got to Low Street, the more the stink of festering privies and brooding decay impinged on the lingering beauty the day had produced in her mind. The smell of the docks hung in the air, a composite of stale fish, filth and polluted water, and for a moment Pearl was seized with the wild notion of turning the perambulator round and wheeling it as fast as she could away from the East End, away from her mother, for ever. But there was nowhere she could go. And so she walked on.
Kitty was slumped at the kitchen table when Pearl entered the house with the boys after leaving the perambulator by the back door. She looked dirty and unkempt, and her features had coarsened over the last couple of years. She was fanning herself with one of the penny magazines she loved to read, her blouse half undone and her breasts hanging slack.
‘Where the hell’ve you bin?’ She reached for the glass of gin at the side of her, knocking it back in one gulp. ‘There’s the dinner to see to.’
‘You said you wanted the bairns out of the way so I took them out.’ Both boys were holding a bunch of flowers, and as they offered them to their mother, Pearl said, ‘Look – they picked them for you.’
‘What do I want with flowers?’ Kitty flapped her hand at the children. ‘Put ’em on the table.’
‘I’m taking them straight up, they’re tired out. I’ll see to the dinner when I come down. It’s cold meat and potatoes. I didn’t think you’d want anything warm with the weather being like this.’
When her mother made no reply to this but poured herself another tot of gin, Pearl took her brothers upstairs. She and the boys shared their older brothers’ room now, all sleeping together in the double bed the room held. James and Patrick were barely awake when she undressed them, and fell asleep as soon as their heads touched the pillow. She stood looking down at them for a moment before kissing each small brow. They were growing so fast, they wouldn’t be babies much longer, she thought with a pang. She wished they could remain babies for ever, ignorant of anything outside their small world of eating, sleeping and playing.
Turning abruptly, she made her way downstairs and brought out the smoked bacon and potatoes which had been left over in the pantry on the cold slab from the previous day’s dinner, adding a loaf of bread and pat of butter to the table.
It was as they were finishing their meal that Kitty said nonchalantly, ‘Mr F is comin’ by shortly, so make sure the front room’s clean an’ tidy. He likes things proper, Mr F.’
Pearl put down her knife and fork; she suddenly had no appetite for the remainder of the food on her plate. Her mother always referred to her regulars by the first letter of their surnames – Mr T, Mr W, Mr A – but of the several or so men who called at the house on certain nights, it was only this one individual, Mr F, she was frightened of. If any of the others caught sight of her, they would often smile and say hello, and even toss her a coin or two and tell her to buy some sweets, but Mr F wasn’t like that. She shivered deep inside. He just stared at her with that funny look on his face, his eyes going all over her and making her feel she had to wash wherever they’d touched, as though they’d left a trail of slime like the slugs did.
‘I don’t like him,’ she said flatly.
‘Don’t start that again. You don’t know when you’re well off, that’s your trouble, madam.’ Kitty glared at her daughter, taking in the sunflushed cheeks and luminous eyes with their thick lashes. It seemed as though with every month that passed, Pearl got lovelier, and the dislike she had always felt for this flesh of her flesh verged on something stronger these days. ‘Get your backside off that chair,’ she went on, ‘an’ earn your keep – an’ you can change the sheets on the bed while you’re about it. Mr F likes clean sheets.’
As Pearl looked at Kitty, there came to her a strange thought. Her mother would have done what she did in the front room sooner but for marrying at sixteen, and she would have been happier. It was only her father, and then Seth, who had prevented her from going down this road years ago. There had been talk in the wash-house among their neighbours for months now – she’d heard them whispering when they thought she wasn’t listening or didn’t understand. But her understanding had been broadened considerably since Seth had gone. The neighbours thought her mother was a trollop, and Mrs Cook next door had said she’d got more time for the dockside dollies because at least they had the decency to keep their bairns out of it.
Slowly Pearl turned and went into the front room. The old three-quarter size iron bed the lodgers had used stood against one wall, the covers in a heap, and the horsehair sofa took up most of the remaining space. The floor was littered with empty gin and beer bottles and cigarette stubs, and it was stifling, the stale smell which was a composite of many things making her swallow hard. She hated this room.
She stripped the worn sheets from the bed, wrinkling her nose in distaste as her hand brushed against one of the patches of dried matter staining the bottom sheet in several places, and then gathered up the bottles and other large items of debris. That done, and the soiled sheets in soak, she began to clear the cigarette stubs and other bits and pieces with a dustpan and brush.
Quite when she became aware that she wasn’t alone she didn’t know, but a sixth sense had her flesh creeping even before she turned and saw the fat, greasy-looking figure of Mr F standing in the doorway. Quickly she straightened, her voice a stammer as she said, ‘I – I’m clear – clearing up.’
He nodded, his small dark eyes never leaving her face, and then for the first time in the twelve months or so since he had been visiting the house, Pearl heard him speak. ‘There’s a good little lassie,’ he said softly.
Pearl glanced at the unmade bed. The clean sheets she had fetched from the cupboard in her mother’s room were neatly folded on top of the mattress. Her mother would expect her to see to it before she left, but the thought of making the bed while this man watched her was mortifying. ‘I – I’ll see to the rest of it in – in a minute.’
He nodded again but continued to stand in the doorway. Pearl wondered where her mother was and why she hadn’t come to join him. Every sense in her body heightened and her face scarlet, she put the dustpan and brush to one side and approached the bed. This man was Kitty’s best payer, her mother had told her so before when she’d voiced her unease about him, clipping her across the ear for good measure. She had to be polite to him. Clearing her throat, she said, ‘My mother’s in the kitchen.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
Not knowing what to do, Pearl unfolded the bottom sheet. It had been dried outdoors and for a moment the elusive scent of fresh air reached her nostrils.
‘Let me help you with that.’ He shut the door as he spoke.
‘No, no – it’s all right.’ Panic uppermost, Pearl wondered if her mother knew he was here. Should she call her, or would she get into trouble? He was so near now she could smell the acrid odour of his sweat, but she didn’t dare look at him. Her hands trembling, she shook the sheet over the bed.
‘You’re a bonny little lassie but then you know that, don’t you?’ His voice had changed. It had become thick, excited. ‘Oh aye, you know it all right.’
Her terror increasing, Pearl mumbled, ‘My mam – she – she wants me to get the room sorted.’
‘Your mam wants you to please me. That’s what your mam wants.’
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bsp; She opened her mouth to scream but his hand came hard over her lips. He was a big man, in stature as well as girth, and Pearl was slender for her years, her child’s body as yet showing no signs of puberty. When his free hand came out and grabbed her dress, heaving her onto the bed, she fell into the middle of it like a rag doll, her limbs sprawling. She tried to roll away but he slapped her so hard across the side of her head she saw stars, and then he was on top of her, tearing at her clothes as he stripped her, one hand again over her mouth.
She fought him but her wild flailing had no effect as he crouched on top of her, muttering obscenities. When he released the hand over her mouth in order to unbutton his trousers she wriggled backwards, falling off the bed and hitting the floor. The pain that shot from her coccyx was so acute she passed out for a few moments, regaining consciousness to find she was again on the bed and his full weight was on top of her. Then her body was rent in two, pain that was all-consuming causing her to scream and choke as she struggled to escape the thing ripping her apart. His hand came across her nose as well as her mouth, cutting off her air supply, and as she tried to bite at it he slapped her again.
She knew she was dying. The pain was so terrible she couldn’t bear it. And then he began groaning and shuddering, and the mad pounding lessened as he became still before rolling off her. She lay limp and helpless, the agony between her legs and in her belly causing her to shake uncontrollably.
‘You shouldn’t have fought me.’ The soft thick voice came to her but she didn’t open her eyes or speak, wanting only for him to be gone. ‘You made me hurt you by fighting me.’
When she felt the touch of his fingers on her inner thigh she jerked, her eyes opening involuntarily. He raised his hand to his mouth, sucking his fingers which were covered in red.
Born to Trouble Page 5