The place consisted of one tiny cave-like room with a rough earthen floor. There was no fire in the open grate and no glass in the low window through which icy air flowed freely. Propped in the corner by the window a woman sat on a bed of straw. Beside her a baby lay sleeping. For a minute or two Augusta couldn’t speak. Never before in her life had she witnessed such deprivation. Not one article of comfort or convenience could be seen in the room. There wasn’t even a table or a chair. No candle gave a flicker of warmth or light. Nothing covered the rags the woman was wearing except another rag—it looked like a man’s coat which concealed her legs and half covered the baby. But it was the woman herself that horrified Augusta most. Once she might have been pretty. Now no flesh padded the fine bone-structure or kept the luminous eyes in proportion. White skin, scarlet-flushed and as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, stretched across the skeleton, one hand of which clutched a receptacle crimson-stained with blood.
The wasted body did not move but the eyes struggled to give the impression of polite deference.
‘Can I help you, mistress?’
The problem of having lost her way seemed so trivial in the presence of this woman’s tragedy that Augusta felt ashamed to mention it.
‘Why are you here like this?’ she said. ‘Have you no one to look after you or your baby?’
‘I’ve a good man. No better man ever came out of Ireland.’
‘How can you say that? He has not provided for you. This is a dreadful place. And he has left you and the child alone in it.’
‘He’s out looking for work. He keeps trying every day. There’s nothing left to sell. It is not his fault. Every day he tries. And every night he comes home and weeps because he thinks he’s failed me.’
Augusta said, ‘I would give you money but I have none.’
‘And every day I’m so afraid,’ the woman continued with obvious difficulty in finding enough breath.
‘Of being alone?’
‘In case he’ll steal bread. In case they’ll transport him or hang him. Like a common criminal. He’s such a good proud man.’ Suddenly terror splintered the woman’s gaze. ‘You haven’t come to tell me something’s happened to my man?’
‘No . . . no,’ Augusta hastily assured her. ‘I’ve lost my way, that’s all. I just wanted to know how to get back to the High Street.’
Tears of weakness spilled from the woman’s eyes and the blotches on her cheeks burned furnace bright.
‘My Patrick will show you the way.’
‘When do you think he’ll be back? When does he usually . . . . ‘
Augusta’s voice faltered. The woman’s eyes had closed and her breathing had become more laboured. Unheeded, the baby gave a thin wail. Augusta turned helplessly away but stopped at the door and turned back again fumbling with the buttons of her coat. Before she had divested herself of the warm quilted velvet, damp icy air had penetrated her dress. Leaning over she tucked the coat around both woman and baby. The child was blue with cold but once wrapped close to its mother in the luxurious coat it sucked its thumb in blissful contentment. The woman’s eyes opened and stared dumbly up at Augusta.
She retreated outside, her thoughts in a turmoil. The woman’s face haunted her. Her mind opened on to a maze far more bewildering than the confusion of streets around her. Oblivious now to the cold, hardly caring any more where she was going, she followed winding threads of lanes in nerve-stretching distress. It occurred to her that there might be countless others in as wretched a condition as the woman she’d just spoken to.
The truth of poverty stamped itself indelibly on the empty pages of her mind. The reality of it grew like a nightmare as she wandered in timeless abstraction through the streets. She did not even notice that dusk was creeping down.
Chapter Fifteen
The building beckoned to her, drew her like a moth to a flame. It was very large and made of stone. Row after row of windows stabbed out light and she was able to read the notice above the door which revealed the name of the cotton mill at which Tibs, Billy and Rose were employed.
Relief quickened her steps, and as she entered the building she felt eager for the sight of them. For the first time she felt that she and they were part of the same family. It was a comforting thought. Once she found Tibs’s unruly mop of hair and harassed face, and Billy’s bright intelligent eyes, and Rose with her pink cheeks and ringlets, she would be all right.
But no sooner had she entered the mill than noise scattered her wits. It rattled and crashed and screamed at such a pitch it seemed impossible for it to continue without exploding her eardrums or disintegrating her head.
The atmosphere was at once damp and hot. Fibrous dust and the rancid stench of machine oil choked the air, sickening her. She had an overpowering impression of iron pillars and iron wheels high and low, joined by enormous leather belts continuously, rapidly whirring. Giant bobbins jumped and clattered and clanged and flew about. Tiny children walked to and fro in front of the machinery, anxiously watching it and every now and again tying broken threads. Others crawled under the machinery like nervous dogs.
A man with a fat orange-peel face and bulbous lips stalked about brandishing a horse-whip.
Augusta caught sight of girls in a more advanced stage of pregnancy than herself struggling to lift and lay full bobbins. She was shocked at how strained and ill they looked, shocked at the mere idea of anyone with child being expected to do any kind of work. She remembered friends of her mother who had retired to bed or to their couch for the whole nine months and had never taken the risk of even lifting a handkerchief.
‘Why the hell aren’t you at your machine?’
The man with the whip suddenly appeared, bawling in front of her. The sour stink of his sweat filled her nostrils, nauseating her.
‘No, I don’t work here.’ Her shout was all but mangled in the racket of the machinery. ‘I was looking for the Gunnet family—Tibs, Rose and Billy.’
‘What a bloody liberty! In for a chat, are you?’
‘No, I—’
‘Just to while away your time and theirs?’
‘No, you see, I . . . .’ She strained to make herself heard above the din.
‘Well, Mrs, maybe you’ve time to waste but they haven’t. They’ve another hour or more to go, and it’ll be their last hour’s work if they’re not careful. I’ll have no idlers here. There’s plenty dying for the chance of a job.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Augusta called out hastily. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll wait for them outside.’ She hurried for the door, trembling in anxiety in case she had put the children’s job in danger.
The sudden change of temperature from the heat of the mill to the cold outside gripped her like a vice. Her instinct was to stay sheltered in the doorway but she was too afraid that the man would see her. Instead she pattered across a graveyard of tall wooden boxes and squat trucks and sought shelter in the shadows of a brick wall. She could hear water busily gurgling and splashing on the other side of the wall. She assumed it must be the River Clyde and, that being so, if she followed it she must surely come to the foot of Stockwell Street and the Briggait. But in which direction should she follow it? She decided it would be safer to wait for the children. Time dragged with excruciating slowness. She kept moving her weight from one leg to the other and back again. She leaned against the wall. Eventually, hunkering down, hugging her knees she used them to support her head. In wretched fatigue she nearly drifted off to sleep. Only the cold and her hunger pains kept her awake.
Then at long last she was stirred to her feet by the sound of the mill door opening and the sight of the mill hands spilling out. In her desperation to find the faces she knew, she was unaffected by the army of shivering, hollow-cheeked cripples. Her anxious eyes skimmed over ghostly faces completely lacking in the usual mobility or liveliness of youth. Her mind did not register the knees bent inwards and backwards, ankles deformed and thick, spinal columns bent forward or to one side. She did not even flinch at the maimed and mut
ilated, crushing past a little boy with a stump for a foot, nearly knocking him off balance.
‘Tibs!’ she called on catching a glimpse of the frizzy head.
It struck Augusta as odd how, on seeing her, Tibs avoided her eyes. There was an unmistakable aura of shame about the girl that had not been there before. It lay on her like a heavy cloud, dulling her gaze and dousing her usual animated agitation. Billy and Rose, although benumbed with fatigue, had none of the shame with which their older sister was obviously shrinking inside.
‘I got lost,’ Augusta explained as she joined them. ‘I didn’t know how to get home by myself.’
They made no reply and the journey to the Briggait was made in silence.
As soon as they entered the house Luther took Augusta completely by surprise by bawling at her:
‘What the hell do you think you’ve been playing at?’
‘Luther . . . .’ His mother seesawed the word, lurching it out like a warning.
‘Mother’s been distraught with worry. We’ve both been out searching the town for you.’
‘I got lost . . . .’
‘You got lost,’ Luther sneered. ‘You useless, stupid . . . .’
His mother closed her eyes. ‘Luther, please . . . .’
‘You were with Mother. Why didn’t you make sure you stayed with her instead of wandering off God knows where?’
‘Anyone would think I got lost on purpose.’ Augusta’s voice held much bitterness. ‘I’m very sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble.’
‘Trouble? You’ve been nothing but trouble right from the start. I’m bloody sick of you! You’ve had my mother in a terrible state.’
‘I’m sick of your mother!’ she said in a retaliation that was merely a defence against tears.
Mrs Gunnet’s face distorted and she clutched at her shoulder.
‘Mother, what’s wrong?’
‘Just a twinge of rheumatism.’ She gave another gasp of pain, her features twisting with the regret of it as she fumbled into a chair. ‘Your father will be in soon. Time to put the kettle on . . . . ’
Luther immediately swung round on Augusta.
‘You’re to blame for this. Tibs, make Mother a cup of tea. Maybe that’ll soothe her.’
‘I can do it,’ Augusta started towards the kettle simmering on the hob.
‘You can’t do anything. Get away through to the room.’
‘My place is here now. You said so yourself.’
‘He’s away to deliver the cloth,’ Mrs Gunnet’s voice turned prim with pride. ‘That was a grand order he had.’
Rose began to cry and Billy said wearily, ‘Stop your snivelling,’ and went over to his mother, put his arm around her and hid her head against his shoulder.
The child’s dirt-streaked face and thin body drooping with fatigue lit a spark of admiration in Augusta. How hungry he must be as well as tired and yet he could still show such tenderness and concern for his mother. Determined to do something for his sake if for no one else’s she lifted the stub of candle to go over to the sideboard to see what food she could get ready. Tibs had made the tea and was pouring out a cupful for her mother. Luther was jabbing a poker into the fire to try and give her some heat.
‘What do you think you’re doing with our only candle?’ he asked.
‘I was just taking it over to the sideboard to see what there is to eat.’
‘Oh, isn’t that typical,’ he gave a sarcastic laugh. ‘Even at a time like this all she can think of is herself.’
Suddenly Augusta’s tears would not be held back. In a helpless rage she flung the candle at Luther, plunging the cave of a room into blackness except for the fuzz of yellow round the fire.
‘Here’s your candle,’ she shouted. ‘You can eat that for all I care!’
Stumbling, fumbling in the dark she found her way into the room but before she could shut the door Luther had reached her with surprising speed. His hand grabbed out at her and in the second that she felt its iron hardness she knew she was in immediate danger of physical violence, perhaps death. Animal instinct propelled her without hesitation into action. Instead of struggling to be free of him she hurled her body against his, clung round his neck, lips searching and opening.
‘Luther, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
He gripped her by the back of the neck, making her whimper in pain but press and squirm herself all the more urgently against him.
‘You fuckin’ little whore,’ he said close to her ear.
The shock of hearing such language was almost as violent to her person as a blow. Yet it brought a frightening thrill that intensified to hysterical passion as he kissed her. Then suddenly he tore her arms down from his neck and pushed her aside.
‘You care about nobody but yourself and your own self-gratification.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Oh? Prove it.’
‘What can I do?’
‘What I’ve already told you to do. Look after my mother instead of having her look after you.’
‘What happened today was an accident. It wasn’t my fault.’
He gave one of his bitter laughs. ‘I notice you didn’t immediately assure me that, yes, you would look after my mother. But one thing you can be sure of, Augusta. If anything happens to her I’ll hold you responsible.’
‘That’s unfair. I’ve tried my best.’
‘Your best’s not good enough. Stop your useless whining and come through and have your supper.’
The candle had been lit again and everyone was sitting round the table with plates of steaming porridge in front of them. They were obviously waiting for Luther to say Grace. Mrs Gunnet looked perfectly normal. Luther drew in a chair and sat down. Augusta went over to the fire where the porridge pot still simmered. Very carefully she dished a plateful then carried it over and placed it in front of her husband. Despite being harrowed and hurt, she experienced a little flutter of pleasure in performing the task and bustled back to the hob to ladle out her own.
‘Thank you, God, for what we are about to receive,’ Luther intoned.
‘You used to say a much nicer longer Grace,’ his mother reminded him.
‘We used to have more to be thankful for.’
Augusta ate greedily, and soon the porridge had filled her belly with warmth and comfort. The children spooned wearily, lethargically. Looking at them and realising that they would have to be up and away to work at half-past five in the morning, she pitied them. At least she could stay in bed and have a decent rest. Tibs rose eventually and began clearing the dishes, and impulsively Augusta rose too.
‘You’ve the mill to face tomorrow, Tibs, I’ll see to the dishes.’
To her surprise Tibs immediately collapsed over the table in heartbroken sobs.
‘Making a fuss won’t change anything, my girl,’ Mrs Gunnet said stiffly. ‘You’ve got to work and there’s an end to it. Just think yourself lucky you’ve found a job.’
‘I don’t mind working,’ Tibs wiped at her streaming face. ‘It’s not the work.’
‘What is it then?’
Helplessly the girl shook her head. Augusta began gathering up the plates.
‘It’s a terrible place. I don’t blame you for being upset. And that horrible man . . . .’
Another welter of sobbing overcame the girl. ‘He’s the over-looker. I hate him.’
‘I don’t blame you.’
‘Will you stop saying that?’ Luther burst out. ‘You’re only making her worse.’
‘I was trying to be sympathetic.’
‘Well, your sympathy’s no use. Just go through to the room out of the way.’
She was so hurt she burst into tears and sobbed in unison with Tibs.
‘Oh, God!’ Luther groaned.
‘Don’t worry, I’m going,’ she managed.
In the room, she had to grope and stumble against the furniture to reach the candle on the chest of drawers. As she did so her tears dried and her heart hardened.
What was the use of crying here, she thought bitterly? A river of tears wouldn’t wash this terrible place away.
Chapter Sixteen
‘I’m desperate, Sid,’ Luther told the coachman. ‘It tears at my gut to see my family go hungry.’
They were sitting together at the bar of a low-roofed tavern. Sid Cruickshanks had bought Luther a tankard of ale and he took a swig at it before speaking again.
‘Surely there’s some way you can help.’
‘Coaching’s out,’ the old man replied eventually. ‘Cameron has seen to that.’
‘I know. But can’t you think of anything else?’
Slowly Sid lit a pipe, then through teeth clamped on the stem he said, ‘There’s more than you can’t get work. It seems to me half the town’s unemployed.’ The tobacco glowed comfortingly as he sucked. ‘Men especially. There’s Paddies at every other street corner trying to sell the shirt off their backs for a few potatoes.’
Luther tugged his fingers through his wiry hair. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
‘There’s a rat match tonight,’ Sid said after a while. ‘If I’m not mistaken a few shillings could be made there.’
‘Upstairs?’
Sid nodded.
‘A dog’s needed for that.’
‘There’s a dog at the stables. A good catcher is old Drum. That place used to be hotching with rats.’
The Dark Side of Pleasure Page 11