Thomas was disappointed. ‘Will you telephone me if she comes here, or if you see or hear anything about her? Don’t let on you’ve seen me, it might send her running again. I’ll come immediately.’
They had another cup of tea while Thomas got warm again. Mrs Wyatt gave him a dry pair of her husband’s socks to wear home. Apparently, he worked as a guard on the railways. They chatted for a while, about rationing, the holidaymakers she had as guests here in the summer, and Thomas told her about his childhood in Shaftesbury, which she knew well.
‘I hoped the rain might have stopped by the time you wanted to go,’ she said, as she opened the front door for him. ‘But it looks like it’s here to stay.’
‘As is my sadness,’ Thomas said. ‘At least, until I find Mabel. But thank you for your kindness, Mrs Wyatt. It was much appreciated.’
26
At ten a.m., Mabel regretted taking the barmaid’s position at the Red Griffin from the moment she walked through the saloon door.
‘About bloody time too!’ Mr Murphy called out to her from behind the bar. ‘I said first thing. That means seven o’clock.’
Mabel was startled by both his appearance and his aggression. He was wearing a grubby vest and no shirt, and he had a glass of what looked like whisky in his hand.
‘When you said a seven o’clock start, I assumed you meant once I’d settled in,’ she said in her defence. ‘I’ve never heard of any new live-in employee being expected to be on duty at the crack of dawn before she has even had time to put her clothes away.’
‘Don’t you speak to me in that hoity-toity manner,’ he shouted back at her. ‘Now put that bag out the back and come in here so I can show you what needs doing.’
Mr Seamus Murphy, known as Paddy to customers, was a big man, six foot tall, with shoulders like a barn door. His hair had been red, but there was little of it left, just a few strands that reached his vest. His face was red too, and his teeth were bad, but then Mabel had noticed at her interview that his regulars were all an unattractive, grubby bunch. Many of them, like him, had come to Exeter from Ireland with road-building jobs and stayed.
She assumed he was going to show her that the floor behind the bar needed scrubbing, or that most of the glasses on the shelves were smeared. The shelves themselves didn’t look as if they’d ever been cleaned, and the lights above the bar had strings of dusty cobwebs hanging from them. As for the customers’ side of the bar, the wooden floor was ankle deep in cigarette butts, globules of spit and other assorted rubbish, including bus tickets and peanut shells.
Mabel had noted all this when she came for her interview; it was only desperation for a job that had made her agree to work here.
As she took her bag to the area he called ‘out the back’, she was horrified to see that his living room was even filthier than the bar. But beyond that was the kitchen, and one quick glance into it made her retch.
It was beyond filthy – it was a hellhole with mountains of dirty crockery and saucepans, much of which still had food in or on them that was going mouldy. There was an overflowing kitchen bin, a cooker so dirty it was a miracle that gas even came out of the jets, and piles of old fish and chip wrappings – presumably from Murphy’s staple diet, as there wasn’t anything clean to cook in or put food on.
After seeing this, she wondered what the lavatories were like.
She wanted to run away, recognizing her acceptance of the job here as a moment of pure madness. She could go straight back to Byways, and she knew Mrs Wyatt would be pleased to see her.
‘Come on, I’m waiting for you!’ Murphy said from behind her.
She hadn’t heard him come into the living room. She wheeled round, unable to contain her disgust.
‘How do you expect anyone to work or live in such terrible filth?’ she shouted at him. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. Even animals wouldn’t want to go into these rooms. And have your customers no standards? How can they drink in that midden of a bar?’
‘Why do you think I took you on?’ he said. He even grinned, as if he found her disgust amusing.
‘You really thought for six shillings a week I’d clean this sewer?’ she asked incredulously. ‘And serve your customers too?’
‘I told you I’d let things slide since my wife died,’ he said, his voice taking on a touch of a self-pitying whine. ‘I can’t do everything myself.’
Mabel thought for a moment. ‘You make my wages a pound a week, and give me a couple of days to sort this room and the kitchen out, and then I might stay. If not, I’m off.’
‘But I need a barmaid now,’ he retorted.
‘I think you are more than capable of looking after that bar alone for two days,’ she snapped at him. ‘Now have we got a deal, or not? And I’ll have my wages in advance, or I don’t lift a finger.’
‘You’re a shrew and no mistake,’ he said, but she sensed he quite admired her spirit. ‘Okay. You win. A pound a week, up front, but after two days you are in the bar during opening hours.’
After seeing the appalling rooms downstairs, her room at the top of the house didn’t seem quite as bad as she remembered. It was gloomy and smelled of damp, but then it was an old building. She hung her dresses on the hooks on the back of the door, took off her good black clothes and changed into her old grey dress to start the cleaning. After tying her hair back, she went down to begin on the kitchen.
It took two hours just to get rid of the rubbish and scrape the plates and pots, ready for washing. Surprisingly, she found wire wool and soda crystals under the sink, and there was a constant supply of hot water from the geyser.
Mabel had never worked so hard. Yet in some strange way she quite enjoyed it. There was something mindless yet satisfying about transforming a room as disgusting as this one into a clean and tidy place. She had to boil the saucepans on the stove, with soda in them, to get rid of burned-on food. But as the pile of clean dishes and plates grew higher, the cutlery gleamed and the saucepans returned to a useable condition, she felt good, and it stopped her thinking about Thomas.
The insides of the cupboards had to be cleaned next, to put everything away. She threw out chipped and cracked cups, and ancient food packets, and scrubbed the shelves clean.
It was four in the afternoon when she finally put all the crockery, pans and still-edible food stuffs away, and then she had to tackle the floor.
That was a hands-and-knees, hot-soapy-water-and-a-scrubbing-brush job, but beneath the grime she found handsome, dark red tiles. Several buckets of water later, she stood up, stretched her aching back and smiled at the result.
The room was a far cry from Clara’s pretty kitchen or Joan Hardy’s highly organized scullery. Its battered cupboards and the gloomy aspect, looking out on to a small yard filled with beer barrels, would never delight anyone. But it was clean now and could be cooked in.
Murphy came to see how she was getting on.
‘That’s a fine job you’ve done there,’ he said, looking surprised – as if he imagined a genie had visited them to transform it. ‘I was going to get meself some fish and chips when they open. Do you want some?’
Mabel was suddenly aware she was starving. ‘Yes, please. But if I find you’ve dumped the paper in here later, instead of putting it in the dustbin, I’ll swing for you.’
He laughed. ‘Fair enough.’
In the days that followed, Mabel spring-cleaned the living room, tackled the filthy bar before opening hours, and scrubbed the lavatory and bathroom in the living quarters. They were shocking, but nowhere near as bad as the outside lavatory for the customers. For that she had to wait until closing time, at night. By the light of a candle, she put spirit of salts down the lavatory, while holding her nose. Then she stood well back as the chemical fizzed dramatically. It was quite a revelation to look at it the next morning and find the porcelain was white again. At least then she felt brave enough to go in and scrub the walls and floor. Murphy asked her to do his bedroom next, but she refused.
�
�Get some other drudge to do it,’ she said. ‘I’ve done enough.’
It was perfectly obvious to her that she was never going to like Murphy; he was lazy, ignorant and uncouth. She didn’t like his customers, either. They were all cut from the same cloth as Murphy, ignorant and brutish, and with no conversation. Each day, before starting her morning shift behind the bar, she studied the local newspaper for more suitable work. But every situation that looked hopeful had ‘character required’ at the bottom of it.
In the afternoons she made a meal for the evening. Beef stew was Murphy’s favourite, which he would cheerfully eat every day. But the way he ate, chewing with his mouth open, belching and shovelling food in, as if he was afraid someone would snatch it away from him, forced her to go out of the room till he was finished.
She didn’t even attempt to get to know him. She didn’t care to know where he came from in Ireland, or anything about his wife, or his family. She just took his pound a week and in return kept the place clean, served in the bar and did his laundry. But she never sparkled.
At night in her dreary, damp, cold room she thought of Thomas, wishing his arms were round her, hoping that by some miracle he’d come and find her and whisk her away to get married.
Even as she wished and hoped, she knew she was fooling herself, for hadn’t she been the one who had left? She’d got on her high horse, claiming she was saving Thomas from disgrace, but now, here in this nasty, mucky public house, her noble ideals didn’t seem noble any longer, only misguided.
She got a bad cold, and it wouldn’t seem to go; at night she coughed so much her chest hurt.
Just before seven on the morning of November the 2nd, when Agnes was due to be hanged, Mabel stood at the bedroom window thinking about her, and sending up a prayer that she would remain brave to the last and meet Martin in heaven.
The view over the rooftops was blurred by fog, and it reminded her of the days after Carsten was killed, when she had felt she was in a grey fog. Somehow that memory seemed to reinforce the belief that she was still being punished for running out on Martin. She had no future, just work like this job, where she would always be clearing up the mess other people made. Today she could understand why Agnes wanted to die. From where she was standing, full of cold, with a sore throat and aching limbs, death looked attractive. No more striving, no covering up, no hurt or shame.
‘Goodbye, Agnes,’ she said aloud as the church clock struck seven. ‘I have forgiven you, and I hope God has too.’
As ill as she felt, she got dressed and went downstairs to start work. Her first job was always to clear the bar, as Murphy inevitably let his friends stay on to drink after closing time. He never washed the glasses or emptied the ashtrays, and sometimes these men he called friends vomited on the floor, even pissed in the corner, and he expected her to deal with it.
It was harder than usual today, because she was feverish; one moment she was hot, the next shivering, and all she really wanted to do was go back to bed and stay there. Thankfully, today there weren’t any unpleasant messes in the corners. She cleaned and polished all the tables, swept the floor, then mopped it. Afterwards, she went to make Murphy’s breakfast.
He came down at eight thirty, as always, without a shirt, just a dirty vest, and he stank of sweat. Without speaking, Mabel got his plate of eggs, bacon, sausages and fried bread from the oven and put it on the table in front of him, poured his tea into his pint mug, then went back into the kitchen.
‘It would be nice to have some conversation!’ he yelled out. ‘Sometimes it’s like I’ve taken on one of those shop window dummies to work here.’
Normally she ignored Murphy’s sarcasm, or what he claimed was humour, but feeling as she did – and knowing it was going to be another long, gruelling day – she snapped.
‘What do you imagine I’d want to talk to you about?’ she asked, coming back into the living room, her hands on her hips. ‘How much spit there was on the bar floor, or how the ashtrays were overflowing? Yes, once again, I’ve had to clear up after your friends, and I tell you I’m sick of it.’
‘Well, fuck off, then,’ he said. ‘I managed before you came, I can do it again, and save myself cash.’
‘You managed before I came?’ she exclaimed, her voice rising in anger. ‘This place was like a cesspit. The only people who drank in here were drunks, derelicts and their tarts – filthy, stupid people like you.’
As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. Not because they weren’t true, but because she knew he would retaliate. He jumped to his feet, his vast belly quivering beneath his grubby vest, his face contorted with anger.
‘Who are you to criticize me or my friends?’ he yelled at her. ‘Fat lot of good it’s done you, trying to speak like a toff. Why’d you come here, anyway? Just out of prison, or got the clap so you can’t flog your fanny any more?’
Mabel rushed to the door and up the stairs before he could hit her. But her chest hurt, she struggled to climb the stairs, and as she got to the landing outside her room, all at once his hand was on her shoulder.
He spun her round and slapped her face hard, first to the right, then to the left, so she staggered back and fell to the floor. ‘You bitch,’ he yelled at her, standing over her. ‘I’ll show you how Murphy deals with whores like you!’
He kicked her in the side, snatched her up by her shoulders, then punched her in the face so that she fell again, cracking her head on the door frame behind her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to get out. ‘I was feeling ill, I didn’t mean it.’
‘Oh, but you did, you bitch,’ he said. ‘I’ve watched you ever since you arrived, seen how much you despise me. I bet you were biding your time to rob me. Was that it? You thought that’s what I deserved?’
‘No, I didn’t, I wouldn’t,’ she yelled back.
To her further horror, he was unbuttoning his trousers, and she knew he was going to rape her. She wriggled back on her bottom, towards her room, but he had his cock in his hand and he was rubbing at it, trying to get it hard. She had only ever seen Martin’s, and Murphy’s was twice the size, even if it was flaccid. He leaned over and shoved his hand up the skirt of her dress, bringing back the memory of the man in the alley in Bristol.
‘No! ’ she yelled at the top of her voice, simultaneously leaping up.
He was taken by surprise, and he staggered back.
She knew if he got hold of her, she wouldn’t get away, he was far too big and strong, but big men weren’t always steady on their feet, so she kicked out at him, catching him on the knee. He lifted the knee she’d kicked, to rub it. Quick as a flash, with every ounce of strength she had left, she kicked his other knee, and he went down on his back like an upturned turtle, banging his head on the bannister as he fell.
There was no time to gather up her belongings. He would kill her now if he caught her. She fled down the stairs and out through the open back door. The door led into the small yard where the empty beer barrels were stored, with a gate on to an alley. She had the gate opened in a trice and ran like the wind down the alley to where it emerged on the high street.
It was icy cold, and she had no coat. She was wearing only the old grey dress she kept for dirty jobs. Her face was burning from Murphy’s slaps, and the pain in her side told her she had a broken rib or two. Her money, and everything else she owned, was up in that room.
Instinctively, she was heading towards the river, perhaps because the only kindness she’d been shown since arriving in Exeter was from Mrs Wyatt at Byways.
By the time she reached the boarding house, it hurt to breathe, and she was staggering like a drunk. As she rang the doorbell she had to lean on the wall so she didn’t fall over.
‘Mrs Brook?’ Mrs Wyatt exclaimed when she opened the door. She looked horrified. ‘What on earth has happened to you? You’ve been attacked?’
She took Mabel’s two hands and led her down the hall into her kitchen, where she sat her down at the kitchen table.
‘You are like a block of ice, that’s a black eye you’ve got coming, and your lip is cut and swollen.’ She put her hand of Mabel’s forehead and gasped. ‘Oh, my dear Lord, you’ve got a fever.’
Mabel tried to explain that she’d felt ill when she woke up that morning, and that Murphy had attacked and attempted to rape her.
‘I had to run from there, or he’d have killed me,’ she said, beginning to cry. ‘And I’m sorry I came here, but my money and everything is back there. I didn’t know anyone else to go to.’
‘You did right to come to me, and I’m going to take you upstairs and put you to bed.’ Mrs Wyatt stroked Mabel’s forehead to comfort her. ‘We’ll think what we are going to do about that beast later. For now you need a hot toddy, and bed.’
‘I think my ribs are broken too,’ Mabel sobbed out. ‘It was the most awful place, Mrs Wyatt. I shouldn’t have taken the job, but I was afraid I wouldn’t find another one and my money would run out.’
Later, tucked up in bed and wearing one of Mrs Wyatt’s flannel nightgowns, a hot-water bottle by her feet and a strong hot toddy inside her, Mabel felt woozy and comforted. If she stayed on her back, her broken ribs didn’t hurt too badly.
Mrs Wyatt checked on Mabel half an hour after she’d helped her into bed, and noted that she’d fallen asleep, but her breathing had a nasty rasping sound, as if she had a chest infection. Although she hadn’t got a thermometer, she knew Mabel’s temperature was extremely high and, coupled with her injuries and the shock of the attempted rape, she could end up with pneumonia. She thought she would run along to the public telephone box at the end of the road and call her doctor.
‘Yes, Mrs Wyatt, you were right to call me,’ Dr Grant said gravely. He had examined Mabel and then asked the landlady to come out of the room so he could talk to her. ‘Apart from the injuries she received – a couple of broken ribs and severe bruising – your friend’s chest is infected. I am afraid it will turn to pneumonia. I would send her to the hospital, but I think she has a better chance of survival staying here. That is, of course, if you feel able to nurse her?’
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