She turned at the top of the hill and looked back. The factories along the river pumped black smoke from tall chimneys. The smoke caused a dim mist to settle over the town, making it grey and broody. The river wasn’t visible from here, but the bridge with its iron criss-crosses poked into the sky.
She took in a breath. She hadn’t expected it but being so close now was taking the wind from her lungs. She could feel her heart beating, pounding out a rhythm in her chest.
The back of the workhouse was overgrown. Black elderberry bushes curled out from the top of the wall, hanging down low, moving in the February breeze. Thin spikes of metal poked out from the top of the wall, a warning to anyone thinking of climbing it, and, further down around the back gate, render had been smeared along the ridge and broken glass set into it.
She made her way along the road, close to the wall, fingering the marks she had used to identify where she was going. Her fingers felt the familiar stones, tracing out the path she used to take. There was a flat stone, smooth as a baby’s bottom, and behind it a rough granite stone, set back a little in the wall. Beyond that was a jutting-out stone and then two more that formed bumps like handles to grip.
And then she came to it. The two stones that looked part of the wall but, when pushed, would fall back to reveal a small, round hole that a slender body could squash through.
The stones looked as though they hadn’t been moved in years. Lichen sat along the edges, solidifying them against the wall. Crouching low, looking around her to make sure no one was watching, she shoved the top stone with her hand. With a bit of effort, the stone dislodged and forged a white hole opening up into the back garden of the workhouse. She sat on the ground and kicked the bottom stone through the hole too.
Taking a last look behind her, she ducked her head and bent low. Wriggling her body, she squeezed herself through, noting how much she had filled out. The last time she’d been through the wall, the edges had barely touched her. Now, they dragged against her back and stomach, her frame filling every inch of the opening.
She pushed herself to her knees and then her feet. The back garden was empty. The grass was overgrown and matted from winter frosts. She looked towards the building, to the windows covered in black bars, counting, seven, eight, nine, ten and there was the window, number eleven, under which their beds had been.
She stood there, thinking of her.
Kitty.
She remembered how they reached on their beds, on tiptoes, looking out, at the sky, at the clouds, searching for birds, for anything to distract themselves at all.
She felt closer to her now. She could almost feel her, hear her small, high-pitched tones ringing, chattering.
Tearing her eyes from the stonework, she looked left and saw two mounds with short weedy grass jutting from the soil. She walked over to what she had come to see.
And there it was. A small iron cross, pushed into the ground.
Here is where she lay, underneath the earth, with all the others who had been put there. A few short prayers and a pauper’s grave.
She knelt and touched the iron cross, the only marker to identify what this patch of earth was.
From her pocket she took the ribbon, yellow, and tied it neatly in a bow around the centre meeting point of the bars.
“This is for you, Kitty,” she said out loud. “I’m sorry.”
She stood up and touched her face and found there were tears there. She hadn’t felt them leave her eyes, hadn’t noticed that they had fallen down her cheeks and rolled under her chin.
She wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, feeling the wet smudge against the skin, the cold air stinging.
When she was done, when the tears had stopped and she felt something inside shift from her, she turned and walked back to the wall, to her escape, to the hole that had allowed her to come and go from this place as she pleased. As she flattened herself against the earth to wriggle out again, she thought she saw a flash, a swirl, something behind her, a sound of laughter on the wind.
She looked around, but there was nothing, only a solitary blackbird hopping in the grass.
Coming back here had upset her, but it was something she had to do, something that had gnawed at her, underneath, for a long time.
She would write to Christy this evening. She would tell him that all was well and that things were going according to plan. All she needed now was a bit of time, to progress, to get what she had coming to her in this town of her birth.
It owed her that at least.
Chapter 8
Mrs. McHugh
“Could I ask you, Mr. Thomas – have you thought of a name yet? I was thinking we should be looking to have the baby baptised.”
They were standing in the nursery, looking down at the sleeping child. The Nanny had just taken her half-day and Mr. Thomas was finishing up his lunch hour.
Mrs. McHugh was feeling unsettled after the Nanny had been rude on the stairs. She’d a good mind to tell Mr. Thomas that she couldn’t cover Miss Murphy’s half-day off any more, to make up an excuse to get back at the woman.
Yet she savoured that half-day with the child. It was her one afternoon a week where she could swaddle and hold the baby close, breathing her in, taking care over her bottles and feeds. In those hours she felt reconnected to her mistress, a tension lifting, her nerves at ease. She wouldn’t give up that half-day for nothing.
“The truth is, Mrs. McHugh, I wanted her mother to name her. It was something she was so looking forward to.”
“Had she given you a name, mentioned anything she liked?” asked the housekeeper.
“She liked Genevieve for a girl. But it hasn’t been sitting right with me since ... well, since everything happened. I feel as though we should honour Mrs. Thomas.”
“And call her Anna?”
“Yes. But I worry then that every time I look at the child ...” His voice trailed off.
“I think it would be a great honour,” said Mrs. McHugh. “A beautiful name, for a beautiful baby.”
From nowhere, tears sprang to Mrs. McHugh’s eyes. She felt a pang in her chest, a pain that struck her, as an image of her mistress flashed before her eyes. She took in a breath to stifle her sob.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I miss her so. It’s such a terrible loss. Such a tragedy.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Thomas. He offered no comfort, no words, his body stiff, looking down at the sleeping child.
“Anna Genevieve,” he said. “That will be her name. And I’ll talk to the vicar soon.”
“Lovely,” said Mrs. McHugh. “That’s a lovely name.”
The baby made a little sound, as though in agreement with her new name and they both laughed slightly, easing the build-up of grief in the room.
“I must get back,” said Mr. Thomas, walking to the nursery door.
He paused, his fingers on the doorknob and turned back to Mrs. McHugh.
“Are you happy with Miss Murphy and her care?”
He’d caught her off guard. She hadn’t expected such a question. If she’d been prepared, she might have found a way to express the concerns that had been building ever since the Nanny had arrived.
“I ... well … I suppose ... yes.”
How could she tell him that things just didn’t feel right? That she was suspicious of the Nanny and the way she had settled the child? That she didn’t like how the child continuously slept and a lot of the time seemed listless, even floppy?
Mr. Thomas looked at her carefully before nodding and opening the door.
The moment was gone.
Mrs. McHugh looked at the baby and folded her arms. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she had, somehow, let Anna Genevieve down.
That evening, Mr. Thomas spoke to her as she served dessert at the dining-room table.
“You can head off early, Mrs. McHugh. Thank you, for everything.”
She smiled. The sincerity in his acknowledgment made the long hours she’d been putting in over the past few wee
ks worthwhile.
“You’re welcome, Mr. Thomas,” she said.
She took her hat and cloak from the back hall and buttoned them as she left through the front door. She’d been leaving early most evenings now. Perhaps it was Mr. Thomas’s way of making up for all the extra hours she’d put in since January, but it didn’t feel like that. Somehow it felt as if she were being ushered out the door.
When she was a part way down the street she turned and looked back at Number 43.
The Nanny was at the window, holding the curtain, staring at her as though in a trance.
They locked eyes before she turned and continued down onto West Street.
What in God’s name was the woman looking at?
Maybe she should take the child to a doctor herself, have her checked over, get a medical opinion on her niggly worries that wouldn’t go away. Maybe next Friday, when the Nanny was on her half-day and she could do it without Mr. Thomas or anyone else knowing?
She watched a group of children run along the street, kicking a can and yelling at each other. The can slipped from the rocky footpath, onto the smoother road, making a din and clank as it rolled. She looked at the children’s bare feet as they scarpered after it, white in the February chill.
Anna Genevieve would never know a shoeless moment. Pampered and coddled, she would have everything a child ever needed, all the love and cherishing in the world.
And Mrs. McHugh would have a significant part to play in that. She would be there to tell the child of her mother, to teach her all about her, to keep her memory alive.
It wasn’t really possible that somebody could hurt a child, was it?
“Don’t you think she’s sleepy? Very sleepy?”
“Babies sleep, Mrs. McHugh.”
“But I haven’t seen her awake in ... well, it’s hours now.”
“You’re not with her all the hours like I am. She was awake and alert only a short while ago, when you weren’t here.”
She always had a reason, the Nanny, always a word as to why her care was better than Mrs. McHugh’s. But Mrs. McHugh had a feeling, in her chest, a tightness that she trusted, that had never, to this day, let her down.
She was on to the Nanny. And the Nanny knew it.
The doctor would know. He would confirm that there was something amiss.
It was just a pity she’d have to wait until next Friday to see him. She hoped to God nothing happened before that.
“How were things today, love?”
Mick was seated in his favourite chair in the kitchen, pipe in yellow stained fingers, puffing away on it.
His wife removed her hat, untying the ribbon from under her chin. “Not too bad,” she answered, frowning a little. “Things are easing up, I suppose.”
“That’s good news, love.” He leaned back in his chair and sucked on his pipe.
“Yes, I suppose it is,” she said.
Their kitchen in the cottage on the North Road was small and warm. The sitting room to the front of the house was now rarely used, the kitchen being cosier and more inviting, but in its previous years, with Mrs. McHugh’s parents and their eight children living in the cottage, it had overflowed with bodies sprawling about the armchair and couch, covering the floor, standing at the mantlepiece by the fire.
Every part of the house held a memory.
“What’ll you have for tea? The usual?” she asked Mick, after she’d hung up her cloak.
Mick nodded familiarly. Every day, when he used to work on the docks, she’d made mustard and cheese sandwiches for his lunchbox. With Mick’s retirement, he had taken to cooking up spuds and corned beef at lunchtime while Mrs McHugh ate a good midday meal at Number 43. Now, when she came in from work, she made his old favourite lunch for his tea and they sat by the stove, eating their sandwiches, chatting.
She was quiet tonight, thinking.
“Have you noticed me being forgetful?” she asked, looking over her corned-beef sandwich – no mustard for her – she hated the stuff. “You don’t think I’m acting a bit strange, do you?”
“No more than normal,” he chuckled.
“I feel like I’m forgetting things. Making mistakes.”
“I’ve not noticed anything, love,” he said kindly.
“I’ve lost my best scarf,” she said. “I’m so annoyed over it – it’s not like me to be careless.”
It was a fringed violet-silk scarf that Mick had bought her when they’d travelled to Liverpool a few years ago. She could have sworn it was in her shopping basket only yesterday, but now it was gone.
“I’ll get you a new scarf,” said Mick.
“You’ll have to go all the way back to Liverpool to replace it,” she said.
But that wasn’t the point. She was annoyed at herself for losing it in the first place.
Maybe she was getting a bit old now for working like this. Maybe, as Mick had been hinting at more and more, it was time she cut back on her working hours, or even, like him, looked to retire.
But what would she do at home in the cottage all day? She’d hadn’t worked all those years as an efficient housekeeper to give up now and go home and sit on her backside. There was life in her yet.
“Don’t worry, love, a good rest is all you need,” said Mick. “Will you be freed up more now, do you think?”
“Oh, probably not,” she said, waving her hand at him. “There’s still so much to be done, the laundry, the shopping, Mr. Thomas. I’m worried about him. I think he’s still in shock, I don’t think it’s hit him at all.”
“Well, of course he’s in shock,” said Mick. “But you know, love, I’m worried about you too – you’re carrying a lot at the moment.”
“I know,” she said. “But it’s my duty. And when I see that little bairn’s face ...”
“Yes, it’s your duty. But at the end of the day, that’s not your baby, Winnie.”
She looked at Mick, and felt her eyes flicker, an involuntary squint.
“I know,” she said, her voice going up. “I know that.”
Mick rose from his chair and stubbed out his pipe. He pulled her to her feet, wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She held in the tears that threatened to spill down her cheeks, feeling his strong shoulder against her chin, and his large stomach pressing into her.
Chapter 9
Betty
I was always a chatterbox. My mother said if there was a short way of saying something I’d take the long way round. I loved words me, loved to exaggerate. I didn’t have much education. After the age of twelve I had to stay home when my mother got sick, but I loved scribbling, writing, practising. Even when I was older, sometimes in the shop I’d take out an old copybook and write out bits of books that I read, that I liked. I suppose you could say I educated myself, because no one thought much of educating a girl in them days, not a girl like me anyway.
Do you know how much better you feel after you’ve shared a joke and a laugh with someone else? As though the world has been lifted off your shoulders, that’s how. Well, didn’t it suit me grand to marry a man with a shop and a pub, a place where I met people all day long and every night? People said Jimmy knew what he was doing when he married me, that he’d married himself a good businesswoman, someone who would keep the customers talking, so that they’d stay in the shop and pub and spend every farthing they had. Ah sure, what good is money if you can’t enjoy it?
We built up the business, Jimmy and me. It wasn’t always as good. When we first married and his ma and da were alive, they had the shop like a shed, full of sawdust and straw, everything dirty – sure you could barely see the shelves for the dust. There were sacks everywhere. And mice ran out along the counter in front of customers. Little bastards.
“They have to go,” I told Jimmy.
“What have to go?”
“The bloody mice, Jimmy! You can’t have them scurrying about under customers’ noses!”
“Ah sure, who minds a little old mouse?” he said. He was like his parents,
happy to do everything the old way, not seeing why things had to change.
“They’re dirty,” I said. “They bring disease, and no one wants to see them, especially not when they’re buying food.”
The next week I saw traps laid down and a week later, after we’d caught twenty-one mice, all grey and different sizes, the little tails twitching on them, it seemed as though Jimmy was paying heed to me.
“Now,” I said, “the floor. It needs to be swept. Take out that straw. I don’t mind a bit of sawdust, but it’s like a bloomin’ stable out there, Jimmy, so it is. People want to come in and buy their groceries in comfort. It’ll be cleaner. Get rid of the straw, you’ll get rid of the mice.”
So, the straw was gone and fresh sawdust laid down to catch the rain and the muck that the customers walked in. He was listening to me, was Jimmy. That’s when I knew I got a good one. That I would be spending the rest of my life happy with this man.
I still talk to him, you know. Every day. As though he’s sitting right here, in his armchair that has the dip of his head like a high moon in the leather. I look around this room where I am now. At the bed we shared with its patchwork quilt. At the fireplace that glows, where we sat when the work was done and things closed up. At the cupboards where the girl prepares the food, where I once prepared our meals, when it used to be just the two of us.
Sometimes I think he is here, that I can feel him, even smell him. Who am I to say he isn’t? Who am I to claim that his soul doesn’t come back to visit me every day, that maybe it never left?
Jimmy would never scare me. The vision of him couldn’t frighten me.
It’s more that I frighten myself. Sometimes I don’t know what’s real or what’s in my mind any more.
I’d say the best thing about this town is the port. Not all would agree, mind. But I see the beauty in it all. The life. The beating heart that brings business and people in and the sailors that swarm the streets.
The Nanny At Number 43 Page 5