by Anne Bennett
‘So no one knows where she is?’ Aggie asked in horrified tones.
‘That’s about the shape of it,’ the woman said. ‘What do you want with her anyroad? You in trouble? Up the duff, like?’
‘Up the duff?’
‘Lord give me strength,’ the woman cried in exasperation. ‘You got a babby in your belly,’ cos that’s the main reason people come seeking Gwen?’
Aggie nodded miserably.
‘Do you know of anyone else?’ the woman asked.
‘I don’t,’ Aggie said. ‘Not a soul.’
‘You poor sod,’ the woman said. ‘Then it will be the workhouse for you.’ She saw the shiver that ran through Aggie and cried, ‘OK, so it ain’t the Ritz, but it’s better than the streets. And talking of streets, I better get out there and earn my crust, though I doubt there will be many punters out in this filthy night.’
Aggie suddenly realised what line of work the woman was talking of. In case there should be any doubt, she went on, ‘I think I’ll go and hang around the gentlemen’s clubs in the town. They often take you to a nice warm room. Course, a lot of them want the kinky stuff, but I don’t mind that if they pay enough.’ The woman wrapped her shawl tighter around herself as she spoke. ‘Well, tar-rah a bit, duck, and if I was you I would get myself inside somewhere pronto. Even the workhouse is better than freezing to death.’
Aggie didn’t speak. She couldn’t, for despair and desperation were blocking her throat. Then, as she watched the woman tripping down the street, sudden nausea overcame her and she turned and vomited into the gutter.
Aggie had always been a practical child, an attitude fostered by her mother, but now she walked through the backstreets of Birmingham aimlessly and in despair. The rain continued to trickle from skies that now were almost black as the night began to close around her. She had never ever been so petrified with fear. She hadn’t a clue what was going to happen to her because she knew not one person in that teeming city.
She had money and could probably get lodgings, but that would only help for that one night, and there was still the problem of getting rid of the child she carried. She had little hope of finding this Gwen Halliday if she didn’t want to be found, and so her life was effectively over, though her whole body recoiled from knocking at the door of the workhouse.
She wasn’t sure afterwards how long she had walked, or why. She just felt she couldn’t stand still. She was light-headed with worry and lack of food. It had been hours since she had eaten. Hunger pangs began in her stomach so severe that she wrapped her arms tight around herself and groaned in pain.
As the night really took hold, the temperature dropped and Aggie began to shiver violently, for her sodden coat offered little protection against it. She felt suddenly weary too. She stumbled as she walked, and longed to lie down and rest somewhere, so that a little later, when she tripped over the kerb and fell to the ground, hitting her head on the cobbles, she made no effort to get up.
Lethargy so affected her that to move was too much effort. She suddenly had no pain, just a numbness affecting her whole body. A tiny part of her urged herself to get to her feet, to keep walking, but she ignored it. She lay as still as the death that would soon claim her, while the night deepened and settled around her and the rain continued to fall, and she was so tired that her eyes closed of their own volition.
SIX
Lily Henderson was making her way home. Usually she didn’t return until much later, but the rain had kept the punters away that night. In the end, she was so chilled she had gone into a public house for a few gins to chase the cold away. As she swayed her way home, she almost laid her length on the cobbles when she stumbled over Aggie. At first she thought it was just a pile of rags, and complained loudly at the stupidity of people throwing old clothes into the street to trip up innocent people going about their business.
Her strident voice semiroused Aggie, and she groaned. Immediately Lily stopped her complaining, not entirely sure if she had really heard a sound or not. But then it came again. Lily fell to her knees and whistled in astonishment when she felt Aggie’s saturated coat. She worked her way up her body until she reached the face, and assuming by the bonnet that the figure was a woman, she tapped her cheek lightly.
‘Come on, ducks,’ she said, and when there was no response, the smack was a little harder. This was followed by a shake, but the woman continued to lie so still and silent that Lily was alarmed. If they didn’t get her indoors soon, the girl or woman, whatever she was, would die. She set off for home to get help, hoping and praying that there was someone in who had also returned early.
The houses in Belgrave Road were large terraces. Lily shared one of these with other ‘ladies of the night’. Each had her own room, and there was a larger room downstairs that they used as a sort of sitting room. They got on well enough, for each had her patch and none impinged on the others.
Susie Wainwright, who was much younger than Lily, had just got in. She had changed out of her wet clothes and was drinking a cup of tea in the sitting room. Her feet were bare and she had a towel wrapped turban-style around her black curls. She had no intention of stepping out again that night and wasn’t a bit impressed with the tale that Lily was telling.
‘So,’ she said, ‘why are you telling me this?’
‘She’ll die if we don’t bring her in, like.’
‘Oh, Lily, for God’s sake!’ Susie exclaimed. ‘She’s probably just some old drunk and no loss if she does peg it.’
‘There weren’t no smell of booze off her.’
‘And just how could you be so sure of that?’ Susie said sarcastically. ‘Your breath is so gin-laden it is nearly knocking me back.’
‘All right, but this isn’t about me.’
‘All the same…’
‘For Christ’s sake, just come and look, will you?’ Lily cried. ‘It won’t take you a minute. It’s no distance from here.’
‘You’re a bloody nuisance, do you know that?’ Susie grumbled, getting up and shoving her feet into her still-damp boots. ‘Pass me my coat, you old nuisance, and if this is some wild-goose chase—’
‘It isn’t. I just know it isn’t.’
A few minutes later, Susie knew it wasn’t either. ‘She’s just a bit of a kid,’ she said, looking at Aggie in the light of the matches she had thought to bring with her. ‘Let’s get her inside quick. Your room would be best, as it’s on the ground floor.’
‘Yes, I suppose,’ Lily said. ‘She can have my bed as well for now at least.’
‘Can’t put her on the bed yet, though, Lil,’ Susie said, as between them they lifted Aggie’s inert body. ‘Her’s wringing wet.’
‘Can’t leave her on the bare boards either,’ Lily said. ‘Do her no bloody good at all, that.’
They manhandled her as gently as they could into the house and then into Lily’s fairly spartan bedroom.
‘Leave her down on the floor a minute while I get a blanket off the bed to lay her on,’ Lily said to Susie. Lily set light to the fire that she had laid before she left the house that evening.
‘I should take off her coat first,’ Susie advised. ‘It’s that wet, the blanket will be sodden in minutes.’
Lily saw the sense of that and it was as they eased Aggie’s coat off they realised that the moisture was not just water; some of it was blood running from her in a scarlet stream and covering her dress.
‘Almighty Christ!’
‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘God alone knows,’ Lily said grimly, ‘but we need to find out.’
‘Come on, then,’ Susie urged. ‘And quick. This young girl looks in a bad way to me.’
When they removed the last of Aggie’s soaked and bloodstained underclothes they realised the blood was pumping from inside her and the two women looked at one another.
‘God blimey, she’s miscarrying!’ Susie cried.
‘Aye, poor sod,’ Lily said sadly. ‘And if we’re not careful we’ll lose her as well as
her babby.’
‘You’re right there, Lil. I’ll get some towels.’
They used the towels to pack around Aggie and then Susie rubbed at her shivering body, trying to bring life to it. Aggie’s eyes never opened, though she stopped shivering, and Lily wrapped her in the second dry blanket she had ready and moved her nearer to the fire. ‘Now, we’ve made her as comfortable as we can,’ she said. ‘I reckon that babby will come away before long.’
The two women sat on into the night, talking quietly together, near the crackling fire. Aggie was hot now, very hot, and Lily knew she had a fever. She sponged her down constantly, listening to her laboured breathing and watching the grimaces of pain flit across her face.
It was two in the morning before Aggie expelled the tiny foetus from her body and by that time both Lily and Susie were very tired. Lily washed Aggie down with warmed water she had ready and then put one of her own nightdresses on her. With Susie’s help she lifted her onto the bed. She packed her with fresh towels and then raised the bottom of the bed with bricks that Susie had found in the yard to try to prevent her haemorrhaging. Aggie didn’t regain consciousness.
By the morning the sweating had eased and Aggie’s face had returned to a more normal colour. The fever had broken and Lily breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Come on,’ Susie said. ‘I’m fair jiggered, but I will give you a hand hauling down one of the mattresses from the attic because you will never manage it alone.’
Lily was glad of Susie’s offer, for she had thought to just curl up on a rug. It wouldn’t really matter where she lay, she thought, as they struggled to bring the mattress down the stairs, because she was so tired she could have gone to sleep on a clothesline.
‘Where d’you want it?’ Susie asked as they pulled it into the room.
‘Right beside the bed,’ Lily said, ‘so I will be on hand if I am needed. And you best seek your bed before you fall to the floor in sheer weariness.’
Susie went thankfully. Lily turned to the girl on the bed. She noted her face was as white as the sheets Lily had pulled up to her chin, and her dark brown hair, released from her plaits, was fanned out on the pillow.
‘Who are you, bab?’ Lily murmured almost to herself. ‘And what man did the dirty on you, eh? Susie is right, you are very young.’
She didn’t expect an answer – the girl was still unconscious – and with another sigh she got to her feet, made up the mattress and undressed before slipping between the covers and falling into a deep sleep.
In a small cottage in Ireland the previous morning Tom rose to help with the milking with a heavy heart. He had been in his bed just about an hour and a half and he had no enthusiasm to face the day, for concern for Aggie was like a large knot of worry inside him. Added to this, he had to pretend he knew nothing about her disappearance in the night.
Biddy was annoyed that Aggie had not done her jobs that morning. Thinking that she had overslept, she told Joe, pounding through the house to join his brother and father in the cowshed, to rouse Aggie.
‘I can’t. Aggie isn’t there, Mammy,’ Joe said.
‘Not there?’ Biddy echoed, going in to see for herself. Aggie’s bed was empty. Biddy could only presume that she had risen early and gone off on pursuits of her own. She herself had to complete the jobs Aggie usually did and she remarked to Thomas John that the girl would get the rough edge of her tongue when she did return. Thomas John, however, remembered his daughter’s strange behaviour the previous day and warned her not to be too harsh on the girl.
‘Maybe she wasn’t feeling too well this morning and needed to walk in the fresh air a wee while,’ Thomas John went on. ‘Generally, you must admit she has never given you any bother.’
‘No,’ Biddy conceded. ‘In the main, she is a good girl.’
‘Well, then,’ Thomas John said, ‘let her have a few minutes to herself and I’m sure she will be full of apology and explanation when she does come home.’
She didn’t come home, though, that was the problem, and with the milking over Tom and Joe were sent to scour the farm lest Aggie had fallen and hurt herself. By the time they returned, Biddy had checked her room, found her things missing and knew she had run away.
‘But where would she run to and why?’ Thomas John asked.
‘The why we can go into when she is brought back,’ Biddy commented grimly. ‘As for where, well sure there is nowhere but Buncrana, for the girl knows no one beyond, and has no money.
Tom, as soon as dinner is eaten I want you to go into Buncrana and ask around her friends and all. Be discreet. I don’t want the Garda alerted yet. I am sure she will be found in no time at all.’
Tom knew she wouldn’t be. If all had gone to plan she would now be on her way to Birmingham. Hatred for McAllister, who had forced this course of action on his sister, deepened still further. Though he knew it was fruitless Tom played the part and asked around. When he returned Thomas John insisted on informing the Garda and two officers came to the cottage that evening.
They were grim-faced but reassuring. ‘You’d not be up on what the young are at at all, at all,’ the older man said, ‘but as she has no money and no place to go, we’ll soon pick her up, never fear.’
‘There were gypsies camping not that far away for a few days,’ the younger garda said.
‘I hope you are not suggesting that my daughter has run away to gypsies?’ Biddy asked, affronted.
‘I’m not saying she has, missus,’ the garda went on, though he knew she wouldn’t be the first one to do that. ‘It’s just that gypsies get about and hear things.’
But the gypsy camp had been disbanded and there was not a sign of them when the garda investigated. The news that Aggie had run away with the gypsies spread like wildfire, as such things do. Tom could see that the garda believed that as well.
That first Sunday, after Mass, many came to talk to Biddy and she knew that while some offered support, others were there to gloat a little that their daughters hadn’t done such a thing. Tom, though, could not believe his ears when he heard McAllister commiserate with his father as he shook him by the hand.
He said that he had known Aggie well through the dancing and she was the last person he thought would disappear from her home and worry her parents so. ‘All goes to show that no one person knows the heart of another,’ he went on. ‘But this is one heart anyway you can be sure of, and if you need anything you only have to ask.’
‘Thank you, Bernie,’ Thomas John said. ‘You are very good. Tell you the truth, this has knocked me for six. I would never have said that Aggie was a bold girl, but this is as bold as it gets.’
McAllister nodded sagely in agreement and heat flowed through Tom at the unfairness of it all. One person noted Tom’s discomfort and his cheeks flushed crimson, and that was McAllister’s wife, Philomena. She remembered that the night that Aggie was reputed to have gone missing was the night that Bernie hadn’t sought his bed until the early hours. The following day she had found a large amount of money missing from the till.
It didn’t take much to put two and two together and her heart ached for she knew she was partly to blame. If she had left Bernie to his just deserts in Birmingham that time and come to Buncrana alone, she could bet that Aggie Sullivan would not have felt the need to flee the way she did, and her heart went out to the boy who so obviously missed his sister.
All morning, Tom festered over what McAllister had done and what he had said to his father. And then at dinner his mother referred to Aggie as ‘a viper in the nest’, and said that she was no longer a child of hers and no one was to mention her name in the house ever again.
‘Mammy, what are you saying?’ Tom gasped.
‘Is there a problem with your ears, Tom?’
‘No, but Mammy—’
‘It’s the only thing to do, caddie. This is the only way that I can cope with it.’
Tom noted the deep lines on his mother’s face, her eyes puzzled and confused, while his father’s was jus
t a mask of sadness. He felt for both of them. ‘I know, Mammy,’ he nodded. ‘I am not blaming you, but it will be hard for me to forget Aggie ever existed.’
‘Well, you must try, lad,’ Biddy said sharply. ‘And that goes for all of you,’ she added, glaring at her family as they sat staring at her. ‘She has run away from this family to God knows where, so therefore she no longer deserves to be part of it. Her name is never to be mentioned again and it’s no good looking over our shoulders all the days of our lives expecting her to come in at the door.’
Tom knew she would never do that, but he could hardly bear it. The sister he had known all his life was gone forever. He knew if he allowed himself to dwell on that thought, the tears would start in his eyes and that would never do. No one said a word, not even his father. They sat in stunned silence, even little Finn, who had picked up the charged atmosphere. But then, in God’s truth, knowing as little as they did, what was there to say?
Suddenly, the Sunday dinner that Tom looked forward to all week tasted like sawdust, and he pushed his plate away, leaving the food half eaten. His mother hated waste and, normally, would have given out to him, but that day she took his plate away without a word.
‘Daddy, would you mind if I took a wee walk out?’
It was an unusual request. Tom had scant free time and even on Sunday there were jobs aplenty for him to do. However, Thomas John knew that the knot of worry he had for his daughter was shared by Tom and so he said gently, ‘Aye, Tom. See if the fresh air can help you any.’
Outside, the day was overcast and there was a hint of moisture in the air. Tom saw not another soul out and about like himself, though he went nearly as far as the town.