‘And less since she’s been scrubbed,’ Nellie said, walking to Janey’s bed and leaving the sister open-mouthed. The days when I was frightened of them sort are over, Nellie thought grimly.
Janey was propped up on high pillows wearing a calico nightdress.
Her breathing was shallow and her face flushed but she looked at Nellie and grinned. ‘What did you say to that one?’ she asked. ‘I seen the gob on her.’
Janey’s bed was against the wall and although the bed on the other side of her was almost touching hers the occupant of it seemed to be unconscious so Nellie quietly told Janey what had happened.
She grinned again and wheezed. ‘Yer getting hard-faced in yer old age, girl.’
‘What happened to you?’ Nellie asked. ‘You shouldn’t have gone out this morning with that chest.’
Janey drew her closer. ‘It wasn’t really me chest,’ she whispered. ‘I got set on. Woulda been knifed only for the copper on the beat. I just collapsed, like, and he had me fetched here.’
Nellie laughed. ‘You crafty old beggar,’ she whispered, ‘and they’ve put you on an urgent note.’
The patients in the ward seemed to have been settled for the night and Nellie said she would go.
‘Come and see me tomorrer,’ Janey begged and Nellie promised that she would.
‘I’ll bring you something to eat,’ she said and Janey asked for a pig’s trotter.
‘I just fancy a trotter,’ she said and Nellie promised to bring one.
The next day she seemed to be gasping for breath as Nellie approached the bed but she whispered that it was just an act. ‘Don’t want them taking the urgent note off me,’ she said. Nellie had brought the pig’s foot and some bread and butter and Janey devoured them.
When she had finished she looked searchingly at Nellie. ‘You look as if you need a good feed yourself, girl,’ she said and suddenly Nellie felt her eyes fill with tears.
‘You’re not crying over Sam Meadows, are you?’ Janey said. ‘Listen, girl, you’re well rid of him. There’s things I could tell. Bad blood. You know all them children died young. All what was born after Sam.’
‘I know. They was an unlucky family,’ Nellie said.
‘Unlucky me arse,’ Janey whispered. ‘It was because his da picked up some disease from some foreign woman and fetched it home to his poor wife. Lucky it was after Sam was born but none of the others lived and she died before she was thirty.’
Nellie’s eyes were wide with shock. ‘But Sam thought it was TB. He thought that was why the neighbours never took him in.’
‘No, it was on account of what they all died of,’ Janey said. ‘The first one took fits and the others – there was a little girl, she was an object, and then a lad and he died at six months. Looked a hundred.’
‘But Sam?’ Nellie whispered.
‘He was all right. Born when they was first married and his old fella was a steward on the liners – when they was well off. Never showed for years with the old fella but then his brain went funny and he turned against Sam and threw him out.’
‘And what about Sam’s mother?’ Nellie asked.
‘She died just after Sam got threw out,’ Janey said. ‘A terrible death and the old fella went like a bag of bones. Signed on a dirty old tramp and two days out of Liverpool he went over the side. Supposed to be an accident.’
Nellie felt stunned but the talking seemed to have exhausted Janey. She lay back with her eyes closed and although there were many things Nellie longed to ask her, she felt that the old woman was too tired.
When she stood up to go Janey gripped her wrist. ‘A fella might come for some stuff. Let him take it.’
‘Yes, all right,’ Nellie agreed. ‘I’ll come and see you again.’
‘Come tomorrow. I’ve gotta lot to tell you, girl,’ Janey wheezed.
Nellie felt dazed as she walked home. Could she believe old Janey? It all seemed so far-fetched. Was this what she had been hinting about when she said she knew things about Sam’s family?
Nellie reached home at five o’clock and found that Tommy had been in from school and had gone out again. She prepared their meal, her mind still full of Janey’s revelations, and before Tommy came back she opened the side door to the parlour with her key and pushed back the bolts on the door into the kitchen.
She looked round the parlour in disgust, at the pile of dirty blankets on the truckle bed in the corner and the general dirt of the room. She had forgotten to ask Janey what the man might come for and she could see nothing that seemed of use to anyone. She would have to see what the man asked for.
Tommy came in and bolted his meal then darted out again.
‘Don’t you be late,’ she shouted after him but she thought he had already gone out of earshot.
It was dark when she heard a banging on the side door which she had relocked and then a loud knock on her own door.
The man who stood there looked at her aggressively. ‘Where’s old Janey?’ he snapped.
‘If you mean my aunt she’s in hospital,’ Nellie said coolly.
‘Yer aunt. I thought she was yer lodger,’ he said.
‘I don’t let lodgers live rent free,’ Nellie said. She felt that she needed to assert herself with the man before she allowed him into the house.
‘I’ve got some stuff here and I want it,’ he blustered.
‘So me aunt said,’ Nellie answered. ‘You can come in.’ She led the way into the parlour and lit the gas, her eyes never leaving the young man.
He went directly to an old shawl which was thrown on a corner cupboard and lifted it, taking out a red bandana handkerchief tied at the corners and opening it to show a pile of jewellery. Nellie’s mouth fell open in amazement but by the time the man had checked the jewels and turned back to her she had recovered.
‘Don’t you say nothing about this to anyone,’ he growled.
‘Don’t worry. I don’t know nothing about it and I don’t want to know,’ Nellie said. ‘Don’t you come back no more either.’
‘Will she be coming back?’ he asked, less aggressively.
‘Of course, but things will be different,’ Nellie said. She unlocked the side door and let him out, then shot home the bolts before going out of the side door, locking it and going round to her own front door. I don’t want no one walking through here into the parlour when I’m out, she thought. Her own door was never locked.
So that was what Janey had been up to. Them’s stolen jewels or I’m a Dutchman. Good job I never knew or I’d’ve been worried to death, she thought.
She slept little now and that night while she lay awake she thought over Janey’s revelations about Sam’s family. I’ll make sure I never tell Sam about them, she thought, but immediately she realised that she would never tell Sam anything ever again.
Suddenly the thought struck her that history might be repeating itself. Perhaps Sam had picked up a disease from a foreign woman and that was why he had been in hospital. Why he had behaved so strangely when he came home.
But Sam never went with those women, she thought, but then she gave a grim smile. What a fool she had been, believing all he had told her. That he never picked women up abroad and then he had picked up that tart right here on his own doorstep. I’ll never trust anyone again, she vowed, and never cry over him no more either.
She was impatient to see Janey again to learn more from her but the old woman was dozing when she arrived and seemed disinclined to answer any questions. She roused herself when Nellie produced sandwiches and told her about the man who came for the jewels.
‘I never knew that was what you was up to in there, Janey,’ Nellie said.
‘No harm, girl. Just doing a favour.’
Nellie began to ask questions about Sam’s family but Janey’s replies were vague and sometimes contradicted what she had said the previous day. Nellie began to wonder whether she could believe Janey. She knew the old woman was a liar and Sam was convinced that his family had been wiped out with TB, yet
why would Janey tell such lies?
‘Why didn’t you tell me before about Sam’s dad?’ Nellie said. ‘You’ve kept it quiet all these years.’
‘You’ve been good to me, girl,’ Janey mumbled. ‘You don’t want to be crying over the quare fella. Maybe he’s the same as his old fella.’
Nellie felt even more confused. Could Janey have told this tale to stop her grieving for Sam? Her mind was so twisted that it was possible, Nellie thought.
She stood up to go but Janey gripped her wrist.
‘Don’t go, girl,’ she said urgently. ‘I wanna tell you this in case I go.’
‘You’ve got plenty of time yet,’ Nellie said, ‘you can tell me tomorrow,’ but the old woman seemed agitated and Nellie was curious so she sat down again.
‘It’s about yourself,’ Janey whispered. ‘Harriet wasn’t your ma. That’s why she hated you.’
‘Not me ma?’ Nellie gasped. ‘Who was?’ For a wild moment she thought that Janey might claim her but the old woman leaned closer.
‘A girl what lodged with us where we lived before. A nursery maid in a big house, she’d been. Walked out with your da when he was home from sea. She fell for you after he sailed.’
‘So me da really was me da?’ Nellie said.
Janey nodded. ‘She had to leave her place. Kept herself be sewing. Harriet took her as lodger. She was expecting herself to a Norwegian but he scarpered.’
She lay back, breathless, and Nellie gave her a drink of water. She was determined to hear the end of the story from Janey. ‘What happened to me mother?’ she asked.
‘They was going to get married but she was in labour when he come ashore. She died the next day. He was out of his mind.’
‘And Harriet?’ Nellie prompted her.
‘She’d just had hers. Born dead. She was mad about Tom, that’s your da, mad about him. That’s why she took Helen’s baby in, so she’d see Tom.’ The old woman’s face twisted in a sneer. ‘Harriet. Soft cow. Tom never looked the side of the street she was on.’
Nellie looked bewildered. ‘But how did I—?’ she began but Janey flapped her hand, gasping for breath.
‘Wait wait,’ she panted. ‘She wanted Tom. Any road. Any road at all. Said she’d take the kid and rear it. He’d have to marry her. Give the kid a name.’
‘The kid? That was me?’ Nellie said.
‘Yes. We shifted to Johnson Street,’ Janey said.
Her voice was faint and she seemed to be falling asleep or unconscious but Nellie leaned over her.
‘Janey, just tell me this. Did me da marry me mother before she died?’
‘No. Told yer,’ she said fretfully, ‘in labour. Died next day.’
It was clear she could say no more and Nellie left, planning to go again the following day.
Her thoughts were chaotic but she never doubted the truth of this tale. It made sense of much that had always puzzled her. She felt enormous relief that Harriet, who had always hated and ill-treated her, was not her mother, yet it meant that she was illegitimate.
The part that was hard to believe was that Harriet was in love with her da. That that big rough bully, who terrified Janey’s clients and everyone else in the neigbourhood, could feel such an emotion was incredible yet Nellie believed that it was true.
The transformation in Harriet when Da came home, her new clothes and her meekness and efforts to please him, although he slipped away from her like quicksilver. Even the different treatment of Nellie and her new clothes while her father was home were explained.
I must find out more about my real mother, Nellie thought, but then another thought struck her. Bobby. What about Bobby? Who was his mother?
She could think of nothing but Janey’s story as she lay awake during the night and fresh questions constantly rose in her mind.
She was so impatient to see Janey that she went to see her in the morning, braving the sister’s disapproval.
‘I thought I could see me aunt any time on an urgent note,’ she said. ‘She thought she wouldn’t last through the night.’
I’m getting as good a liar as Janey, she thought as she went to the bed.
The old woman was breathless and exhausted but she seized Nellie’s hand.
‘I’m glad you’ve come, girl. The nights are the worst. I’ll be all right in a minute.’
‘I can’t get over what you told me, Janey,’ Nellie said. ‘I keep thinking of things to ask you. What about our Bob? Who’s his mother?’
‘Harriet,’ Janey said with a wheezy chuckle, ‘and your da’s his da.’
‘But I thought—?’ Nellie said.
‘He couldn’t stand her? Wasn’t as bad as that. She just wasn’t Helen and then she frightened him off throwing herself at him.’ She panted for breath, closing her eyes but still gripping Nellie’s hand.
‘She got her way. You know what they say, girl? All cats are grey in the dark.’ She chuckled again wheezily. ‘So there was Bobby.’
Janey had asked for rum on Nellie’s first visit but she had thought it might harm the old woman. Now, however, she gave Janey the parcel of sandwiches then slipped the medicine bottle of rum and water from beneath her shawl.
‘I hope it doesn’t do you no harm,’ she whispered, but in one swift action Janey pulled the cork from the bottle and drained it.
‘Harm, girl?’ she said. ‘Rum never harmed me, only the want of it.’
It seemed to give her a new lease of life and she settled down to tell Nellie scandals about the neighbours. Her knowledge had been held over them like the sword of Damocles for many years but now she poured it out to Nellie.
‘Don’t take no more old buck from that Maud Jenkins. If she opens her mouth tell her you’ll shut it for her. She daresn’t go out to work and leave that fella of hers with his own children or he’s into their beds like a ferret down a rabbit hole.’
‘Mr Jenkins?’ Nellie said thunderstruck.
‘The very same and he’s not the only one. That Norton woman on the other side. She’s supposed to be rearing twins. Not a bit of it. Her husband had her and the eldest girl in the club at the same time. The girl went to her grandmother’s and when Dolly Norton was due she went an’ all and that’s how they worked it.’
The nurses were at the other end of the long ward and no one disturbed Nellie and Janey as details of long-buried scandals poured from the old woman.
She told Nellie of a neighbour who had been a prostitute, of another who had been in gaol for theft and another who was a compulsive gambler, whose husband bought in the food and doled out pennies to her for necessities.
‘He takes a bagful of clothes to work with him or she’d have them pawned for a bet,’ she said. ‘And that old one that lodges with Jessie. She seen off her first four babies for the insurance. Supposed to have overlaid them accidental, like, but I know the truth and she knows I know. Because of the likes of her they brought it in a few years ago that you could only insure a baby for a penny a week.’
‘Four of them, Janey,’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘How did she get away with it?’
‘Easy. Some people have got away with more than that. Bob Coleridge. He done his first wife in because she was carrying on with another fella. Stabbed her. His sister was there and she run out screeching Daisy had cut herself. Two fellas put her on a handcart and run to Stanley Hospital with her while me bold lad slid out to his mam’s.’
‘But I heard about Daisy Coleridge,’ Nellie said. ‘Bella told me to be careful with knives. Said Daisy had an accident with one and died.’
‘Aye, they covered it up well. His mam got rid of his clothes and he put his brother’s work clothes on and sloped into the foundry in place of his brother. They said they’d changed shifts.’
‘But how do you know all this?’ Nellie asked.
‘I know a lot more,’ Janey said. ‘A so-called widder that’s lived over the brush for years. A schoolteacher married years and kept it dark to keep her job. Lots more, I’m telling you, girl, because it’l
l give you a hold over them. Power!’ she said triumphantly. ‘They think if I go they’re safe, but you tell them, girl.’
She suddenly seemed exhausted and Nellie bent over her. ‘I’d sooner hear about me mam, me real mam and me da, Janey,’ she said urgently, but the old woman turned her head away.
‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘Ask that Dr Wilson. Bring me more rum tomorrow.’
Nellie promised to do so and left.
Janey seems to think she’s done me a good turn telling me them things about the neighbours, Nellie thought, but they won’t go no further. God know’s I’ve got enough trouble in me own life without stirring it up for other people.
That night she was visited by two burly men who said they ‘looked after’ Janey and wanted to know when she would be home. Nellie faced them calmly.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But it’ll be a while before she can go out with her fish,’ and they went away.
I’d have been terrified of them not long ago, she thought, but now she seemed to have grown a hard skin. She had recognised them as the bullies that Janey used to collect bad debts and wondered again that they were needed to replace Harriet. And yet Harriet, bully though she was, had her weak spot. I’ll have to ask Janey about them two tomorrow, she thought.
As she lay sleepless in bed Nellie decided that she would refuse to listen to any more tales about neighbours and insist that Janey talked about her mother and father. I don’t care what other people have done, she thought. I don’t know how much is true anyway but I believe all this about my real mother. It explained so much that had always puzzled her.
The tale of the babies being killed for the insurance money stayed in her mind and she shivered as she thought of it. Maybe because it was true, she thought. She remembered when the insurance man came for the sixpence a week she paid for Sam and herself and said to her, ‘Are you going to insure your baby, love? You can only put him in for a penny a week because people have been tempted, like, when they’ve had too much insurance on a child.’
At the time she had only thought of getting rid of the man quickly in case Sam was told about him but now she could remember the whole conversation. Picture the man standing there and even smell the wet woollen mitts he wore on his red chapped hands.
A Wise Child Page 35