The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  Down more stairs and along a passage to the kitchen. You have to cross the kitchen to get to the scullery door, but even the kitchen door's locked. With a sigh that comes from the bottom of my toes I turn round and head back up the stairs.

  Second floor up I hear a noise, like a door clicking open, and I freeze, pressing myself back into the shadows. Footsteps draw near then go away again. Slowly I unfreeze. Bung probably, doing a last check. My ears strain for further sounds. Nothing, but I know I've got to get back to my room fast.

  I pull off my clothes and climb into bed, feeling the vastness of the room all around me. When I close my eyes I swear Annie's in the corner, not saying anything, just looking, and it comes to me then that I'm a prisoner, and I've not seen it before.

  13

  Woman

  The next day I do badly again at all my lessons. I get a long sermon from Miss C, and when Mr M tries to teach me something about algebra, I throw my pen on the floor and sit hunched, waiting for him to beat me. But all he says is, ‘Dear me,’ and looks at me thoughtfully, with that eyebrow of his.

  ‘Perhaps we should take some air,’ he says when I don't apologize, and out we go again, round Piccadilly Gardens.

  It's a quiet, murky night, not dark yet, but seeming so because of the murk. Gas lamps blink their bleary eyes in the wind. In the big square that's Piccadilly a huge infirmary stands, which doubles as a madhouse, and the howls and shrieks from the back of this building are fearful to hear. All along the side of it there's stalls and barrows. One man selling little circles of black pudding, another herring, and an old woman wheeling a barrowful of oranges very slowly. There's posters up on the hospital walls: 100 shirt hands wanted. Ninepence a dozen for men's shirts, fourpence a dozen for boys.

  We pass a woman who's walking with her head down and shawl wrapped round her. Light-brown curls fly out from it as we make a breeze going past, then suddenly, from behind, there's a deafening howl.

  ‘STOP!’

  It's the woman. She's let go of her shawl and the light-brown curls are whipping everywhere in the wind. She lifts up her finger and points.

  ‘Where are my babies?’ she howls. ‘What have you done with them?’ And next thing she's loping towards us while everyone stops and stares.

  Mr M bangs with his cane on the wall of the cab. ‘Drive on!’ he barks. ‘Drive!’

  And the driver pulls off at a cracking pace with the young woman still running behind.

  ‘YOU STOLE MY CHILDREN!’ she yells, still running after us and I crane my head out of the window just in time to see a man coming out from the doorway of a shop and catching her. She's pulling away from him, but he's holding her back, trying to talk to her. There's a sign above the shop he came out of: ABEL HEYWOOD PRINTERS. That's all I have time to see before Mr M raps sharply on my knees with the cane.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Sit back in!’ he says, more sharply than I've ever heard him speak before.

  I stare at him. ‘What were all that about?’

  Mr M's lips are pressed together so tightly they almost disappear. ‘I haven't the faintest idea.’

  He's lying.

  ‘What was she saying about her children?’ I ask him, and he purses his lips even tighter than before.

  Then he says, ‘The woman is obviously deranged.’

  We pull past the front of the big splendid building that's the infirmary and asylum. Dome and pillars – you'd never guess what it housed.

  ‘She's probably escaped from the asylum,’ he says more calmly as we leave the square.

  No, she's not, I'm thinking. She came out of the shirtmaker's. A bit later I say to him, ‘What's that shop, where the man came out of?’

  ‘What shop?’

  ‘Abel Heywood – printers,’ I say, and he looks crosser than ever.

  ‘That man,’ he says, ‘is a low-born criminal and thief.’ I look blank.

  ‘He is the purveyor of scurrilous material,’ he says, and when I look blank again, adds, ‘he trades in scandal and blasphemy. He's been imprisoned in the New Bailey before now and will be again. He is a dangerous criminal, and the so-called paper he distributes is wholly illegal.’ And he snaps his mouth shut and won't say another word.

  Well, I'm thinking as we pull up outside his house, what's rattled your cage?

  ‘Mil,’ I say, next time I see her. ‘You've got to help me.’

  She gives me a worried look. ‘Why?’

  I sit down on the bed. ‘Is there any way out of the house?’

  Milly looks more worried than ever. ‘I can't say.’ She gives the pillow a shake and makes to leave.

  ‘Milly,’ I say. ‘I need to get out.’

  ‘What for?’

  I can't tell her, can I? That I want to go to that printer's shop, and ask about that woman, and Mr M.

  ‘I just… I just want to meet someone.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Doors are locked.’

  ‘Who has the keys?’

  ‘Mrs Quivel.’

  ‘Can you get them?’

  She looks really frightened now. ‘I dursn't!’

  ‘Just for one night.’

  She shakes her head and picks up the jug and bowl.

  ‘Milly,’ I say, desperate now. ‘You know how you feel, about not being able to see your father?’

  Her eyes brighten with tears. I take a deep breath. ‘Well… the person I need to see is looking for her children. And… well, since the workhouse, I've been looking for my mother.’

  She draws in her breath sharply. It's not really a lie. As I say it, suddenly I believe it. I realize that it might, it just might, be true. Suppose she is my mother – in Manchester, making shirts, looking for her children? But the thought's too much for me, banging upwards from my chest to my throat, and my knees feel weak, so I'm glad I'm sitting. I tell Milly about the woman who ran after the cab. I try to picture her face, to see if it looks like mine, or Annie's.

  It's funny how you think you don't want a thing, then suddenly you know you do, more than anything.

  Milly's eyes are open wide. I tell her a bit of my story and she sits on the bed next to me. I don't know how much she knows already – news travels through servants like a dose of salts, but she listens anyway and sits down on the bed next to me as she takes it in.

  ‘So you see,’ I say to her, ‘I have to go.’

  Milly nods slowly.

  From downstairs we hear Quivel's voice. ‘Milly?’ Milly doesn't move.

  ‘If I could just get out one time,’ I say. ‘I'd be back before anyone'd know it.’ Or not, I'm thinking, but I can't say that to her.

  ‘Mil-ly!’ says Quivel's voice again, and Milly starts to get up.

  ‘Milly – please!’

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ she says slowly. ‘After supper, I put the slops out at the scullery door.’

  I let all my breath out at once. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘At eight,’ she says, ‘but you mustn't be long.’

  ‘I won't be,’ I tell her.

  Then Quivel's voice comes again. ‘Milly! Where've you got to, girl?’ and Milly turns as we hear footsteps on the stairs.

  Just in time I remember. I can't wear this posh gear on the streets. ‘Milly?’ I say, and she turns again. ‘Suppose it's raining?’

  It's been raining every night, and she takes the point. I can't get these clothes wringing wet. They'd never dry by the morning. Her eyes flicker up and down me once, then she nods. ‘I'll sort it,’ she says, and slips out of the room.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper at her back.

  All that night and all the next day, I'm on hot bricks. I get another sermon and a rap across the knuckles from Miss C, and fortunately Mr M's out so I eat tea in my room and don't have to do any maths. In the long hours after tea I pace up and down and stare out of the window, trying to remember the face of the woman on the street, trying to imagine that she looked like me or Annie, though I know how daft that is. But if she did, and she was our mum, then there'
d be somewhere to take Annie. I'd go back to the travelling fair and say, ‘Sorry I've kept you waiting, Annie, but there's someone I'd like you to meet.’ And her face'd go all shiny with joy.

  Soon as the little clock's striking eight I sneak downstairs, past the study, where I can hear Mr M moving about, down again, and down once more till I'm standing near the kitchen. And I can hear Bung and Quivel inside.

  ‘Put your feet up, Mr Bung,’ Quivel's saying, in quite a different tone from the one she uses for Milly. ‘Try some of this. If you don't want it, work'ouse'll have it.’ Then Bung says something and they laugh.

  The only way to the scullery that I know of is through the kitchen.

  Just as I'm thinking I'm trapped, a door I hadn't noticed before opens and Milly's face appears, white as a ghost. She beckons and I follow, down another short flight of stairs to a narrow, cluttered passage with a door at the end.

  Milly puts her hand on the latch and turns to me. ‘You won't be long, will you?’

  ‘I'll be back before you know it.’

  She hesitates then passes me a bundle. ‘This was in the laundry,’ she says. It's an old coat, big and brown and stained. I slip it on and it falls to the floor, just covering my boots. I roll the sleeves back.

  ‘It's Bung's,’ she whispers. ‘He uses it for the dirty jobs. But I thought it'd cover you if it rains.’

  I touch her hand. ‘Thanks, Mil,’ I say. With this and the hat I'm near perfectly covered, and disguised.

  She puts her other hand on my arm. ‘You will come back, won't you?’

  ‘Course I will,’ I say.

  ‘I'll get into terrible trouble –’ she says.

  I don't want to come back but I can't leave Milly in trouble. I put my hand over hers. ‘Don't worry, no one'll notice I've gone.’

  She brushes away tears. ‘I'll leave the door – but I have to lock it last thing. Oh, don't be late!’

  I try to comfort her the best I can, then slip out into the street.

  Soon as I'm in all the bustle and scurry I feel better. My lungs swell up, taking in all the dirty air. I'm on my way through the back streets to Piccadilly Gardens, and the shop on Oldham Street.

  Just behind Piccadilly, which is as posh as can be, there's a maze of courts and alleys, like a rabbit warren. Each yard's a funnier shape than the last. And over all of them hangs a stinking smoke – a stink my nose recognizes right away, though having been out of it for so long it seems overpowering. It's the stink of rotting things turfed out of houses, and burst sewers and fatty meat broiling. And it's dark here, because the houses are piled closely to. Yet there's no one in the first court except for two drunks, man and woman, lying senseless, and one old dame behind a broken window, stirring a filthy brew and adding to the general stink.

  Next courtyard's empty too, except for some pigs and hens. A cow sticks its matted, knobbly head out of a window and blinks the flies away. Its eyes look terrible, reddish, sore. Haunted by the memory of grass.

  Where've all the people gone? I'm thinking. They can't all be in the gin shops. Then I hear it – the sounds of a crowd – some yelling and broken cheers as I plough through the alley.

  A clog fight. Two women circling each other, shouting out names. From time to time one of them strikes out with the clogs on her feet, and the crowd roars them on. Time was I'd've hung around to watch, but now I've got a job to do. Into the next yard where people are passing through and a little girl on a step is clasping a baby in her arms and asking everyone who passes, ‘Have you seen my ma?’

  She looks no more than six or seven, very thin, with sores on her face and blank eyes. Makes me feel queasy somehow, like I've never seen it before. Living at Mr M's has made me soft, I think, and I shrug my coat back on, because it keeps slipping off my shoulders, and plough on.

  I tramp through the mire of the courts on to Oldham Street, and there, sure enough, is the shop. There are boards across the window and it looks shut. I glance round, then nip into the nearest alleyway, looking for the back of the shop.

  The backyard gate's open a chink, though boxes are propped against it. I put my shoulder to it and push. The yard's full of crates and boxes, and the boxes are stuffed full of papers. I pick one up and hold it towards the light, that's fading fast. T-H-E P-O-O-R M-A-N-S G-U it says, and I can't read the rest of it. But there's lots more, closer print I can't read, either. I can hear the noise of machinery inside, so I go right up to the door, which is painted a dull red, and give it a shove, and to my surprise it creaks open. There's no one here, either. The noise of some kind of machinery's coming from below, somehow. There must be a cellar somewhere beneath my feet.

  But in this room there's stacks and stacks of newspaper.

  I'm peering so closely at the print I don't hear anyone come up behind me so I all but drop dead with fright when I'm grabbed and thrust further into the shop and the door slams shut and I can hear the sound of bolts drawing. Then a voice speaks right in my ear.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  14

  Caught

  I say nowt, for it seems like the safest bet.

  ‘Speak up – what's your name?’

  Still I say nothing, and there's the sound of a match, then a lamp flares, lighting a long, bony face with a dark, raggedy beard and black, glittering eyes.

  Dangerous criminal, I'm thinking.

  ‘I'll not ask again,’ he says roughly. ‘State your name, and your business.’

  He sets the lamp down on the table. His fingers are covered in ink and he's wearing a printer's apron that's also stained with ink.

  ‘Now, I can wait all night,’ he says in soft, dangerous tones. ‘But I'd just as soon not. So let's get this over and done with, shall we? Are you spying?’

  ‘S-spying?’ I say. I've got my stammer back.

  ‘Who sent you here?’

  ‘N-n-no one,’ I say, cursing myself. ‘P-please, sir, I s-saw you last night.’

  ‘Last night?’ he says, frowning fiercely.

  ‘Yes, sir – with a woman. She was running after a cab and crying out something – about her children.’

  I think it best at this point not to mention that I was in the cab. I can see from his face that he knows what I'm talking about, but he gives no other sign.

  ‘Well? What of it?’

  ‘I thought… I thought I might have… some information.’

  Don't know what makes me say that. Must be crazy. I'm staring down at my shoes now, wishing I hadn't spoken, wishing I was anywhere but here.

  ‘Information? You?’ he says, then when I say nothing he leans forward and says very softly, ‘What kind of information?’

  ‘Sir,’ I say, looking up at him, then up again, for he's a tall, rangy kind of a fellow. ‘How many children has she lost? Were there…’ and I pause and lick my lips, hardly willing to go on, ‘two of them?’

  I can see by his face that I'm right, and he nods slowly. ‘Boy and girl?’ I say and my heart starts thudding like a piston, and I look away, feared that he'll read all my hopes and fears on my face.

  ‘How did you know that, boy?’ he says, more gently now.

  Seems like there's no choice but to tell him the foolishness of the thought that flared in my mind and has kept me awake ever since.

  ‘Sir…’ I say, and I can hardly get the words out. I stare down at my feet and try again. ‘She lost her children and I – we – lost a mother.’

  ‘But there's only one of you.’

  I shake my head. ‘I have a sister – but I've lost her as well.’

  I look up at him defiantly, half expecting him to laugh. Bit careless, aren't you? he could say but he doesn't, and he's not laughing.

  ‘Older or younger?’

  ‘Younger,’ I say, and he nods slowly and sits back on the edge of the table.

  ‘What's your name, boy?’

  I take a deep breath. ‘Joe,’ I say. ‘Joe – Sowerby.’ It's so long since I've said that name it sounds strange
in my ears.

  But he's shaking his head. ‘That's not the name she told me,’ he says.

  My stomach turns over and for a moment I feel the floor rushing towards me. He grabs my shoulder and sits me on a crate. ‘Steady on, lad,’ he says, not unkindly. ‘Have you eaten?’

  I nod, speechless.

  ‘Drink then,’ he says, looking round.

  I wait while he finds a glass and fills it with water from a jug. For a moment I think of all the names I've ever given, and maybe she's not given her true name either, but I brush that thought away as daft. Not if she's looking for her children, I'm thinking.

  I gulp the water down, and the shock of it clears my head. ‘What's her name?’ I ask.

  He's watching me with a thoughtful look on his face, like he doesn't know whether to tell me or not. Finally he says, ‘Nell,’ and my heartbeat quickens again. Ellen – Nell, I'm thinking. One of the women in the workhouse was called Ellen, but everyone called her Nelly.

  ‘Sir?’ I say.

  ‘Abel,’ he says.

  ‘Abel,’ I say. ‘The woman I saw – Nell – she was running after a cab – and shouting. She said that the man inside had stolen her children.’

  Abel's face darkens. ‘It's a long story, lad.’

  ‘Can I meet her?’ I say.

  The silence between us grows in the dark. I'm thinking, No, he'll not let me. Daft idea anyhow.

  Then he picks up one of his own papers. ‘Do you know what this is?’ he says holding the paper up.

  ‘The Poor Man's…’

  ‘Guardian,’ he says, and he carries on from where I left off. ‘“A Weekly Paper for the People, Published in Defiance of Law to Try the Power of Right against Might.” Do you know what that means?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘It means that by the law of this country, this paper is illegal. Do you know why?’

  More head shaking.

  ‘Because the law of this country says a printed paper has to have a tax on it of fourpence or it can't be sold. Fourpence a copy! Then it has to be licensed and printed on a certain kind of paper. And you know what that means?’