Angel Meadow (48 page)

But Bridie was an uneducated, inarticulate girl and could not be trusted, though she would do her anguished best, to deliver a message, which was why Annie had come herself. In a hansom cab no less, for the urgency of the situation had seemed to warrant it, which still stood outside the shop as she had told the driver to do.

“Yer’ve ter come at once, lass,” she said without preamble, paying no attention to the open-mouthed group who sat about the salon. “Cab’s waitin’ so best get yer ’at, an’ look sharp.”

Nancy felt her mind freeze in shock and a great many fundamental things inside her became suspended from their usual function, like the power to draw breath, or even blink in surprise, for just as on the day when Summers came to fetch her to Riverside House, she knew this was to be bad. Annie did not panic. Annie was calm, resourceful, well able to deal with any small emergency at Grove Place, which seemed to tell Nancy that this did not concern Grove Place, where, in any case, there was only Annie and Bridie and Annie was here and in full health. She would not have come on Bridie’s behalf so what crisis had arisen that had dragged her across town in a hansom cab?

“Annie,” she pleaded, longing for Annie to say there was nothing to be worried about.

“Come on, lass, don’t ’ang about. I’ll tell yer in’t cab, an’ fer God’s sake ’urry up or it’ll be too late.”

“Oh, Jesus, Annie.” The ladies gasped, shocked to the core. “Please, you’re frightening me: too late for what?”

Pushing Jennet to one side and doing the same with the offended person of Mrs Agnes Lambert who had come to try on her new bonnet which was being created for her, she gripped Annie’s arm, twisting it cruelly, since her instincts told her this was something that would hurt her, that she might not be able to withstand.

“Listen, chuck, yer don’t want these ladies ter know all yer business, do yer?” Annie cast a disparaging glance about the circle of ladies, all of whom, in her opinion, did not know the meaning of a day’s work and filled their idle days drinking tea, gossiping and spending their husbands’ money.

“Annie, you must . . .”

Annie turned in exasperation to Jennet who, having no immediate family of her own over whom she might panic, could be counted on to be steady.

“Get ’er ’at, will yer, love. Not that she needs a bloody ’at where she’s goin’, an’ I’ll put ’er in’t cab.”

“Annie . . .”

“Give over, our Nancy. Just come wi’ me.”

“Where are we going? Annie, I swear I’ll hit you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. Is it Josh?”

Her clients could hear her voice through the open shop doorway, beseeching Annie, whoever she was, to tell her again and again what had happened and where they were going, and it was not until the cab drew away into the traffic, driving off at a speed that threatened to kill the poor, broken-winded hack that pulled it, that the ladies let out their breath which they had been unaware that they were holding. Miss Williams returned from the pavement where she had been watching Miss Brody’s departure, smiling falsely. She snapped her fingers at the flustered milliner who had been about to place Mrs Lambert’s new bonnet on her head.

“Now then, Mrs Lambert, shall we see how your bonnet looks? I’m sure you’re going to love it.”

The cabbie refused to enter, never mind wait for them in Angel Meadow, saying it would be more than his life or the safety of his horse and cab were worth. Didn’t the ladies know that the only person who did not live in the area who could safely enter was the midwife, or the police and then in twos or threes. There were some very shady characters hanging about, he warned them, all of them eyeing the two women with astonishment, as he had done himself when he saw where they intended to go. The eastern side of Manchester was well known for having the poorest housing and the worse slums to the square mile and Angel Meadow was the worst of the lot. The largest police force and the highest crime rate to go with it, so he’d be obliged if the ladies would give him his fare and let him get off. When they were ready to return he was sure they would find a cab on St George’s Road.

It looked exactly as it had done when she had left it almost five years ago, even to the women who leaned idly against their sagging door frames or sprawled, legs apart, on their unscrubbed, broken-down doorsteps. Rotting brickwork, crumbling woodwork, broken windows, festering garbage against every wall, and children, unwashed, unshod, barely clothed, splashing in the foetid stream that eddied in the gutter running down the middle of the street and in which things unrecognisable, unmentionable, but known to be stinking, floated.

The mouths of the women fell open, for it was a long time since someone like her – in fact it
was
her – had walked their slimy, cobbled setts, and for several seconds, though they recognised her, they were speechless. But not for long!

“Well, will yer look ’oo’s come ter call, ladies? If it ain’t Miss bloody Brody ’erself payin’ us a visit an’ me in me old frock. Go an’ put kettle on, Teresa, an’ we’ll ’ave us a nice chat over a cup o’ tea.” It was Kate Murphy who spoke, or rather cackled toothlessly, looking nearer fifty than the thirty-two she actually was.

“Bugger me if yer not right,” chortled Teresa Finnigan, slapping her thigh with huge delight. “An’ ter what do we owe the ’onour o’ this visit, Miss Brody? Come ter see that there sister o’ yours, ’ave yer? The one what’s got ’erself in’t same pickle as yerself an’ wi’t same chap, so I ’eard. Another bastard in’t family. I dunno, you Brody girls’ll lift yer skirts fer owt in trousers.”

Ignoring them all, if she was conscious of them which seemed unlikely, and though still deep in the shock into which Annie’s news had thrust her, she still had the presence of mind to hold up her skirt and the white frills of her petticoats to avoid contact with the filth underfoot. Her fine kid boots, black to match her gown, for she was in mourning for Edmund Hayes, had no such attention and in the recesses of her mind Nancy told herself absently that they’d need to be discarded.

As they approached the door to what had once been the O’Rourke home, and still was apparently, it was flung violently open and on the step which bore the same filth it had known when Nancy was a girl stood Eileen O’Rourke. She was still the same slattern, the same foul-mouthed virago she had always been but this time her venom was directed at her neighbours.

“You shurrup, Teresa Finnigan. Yer know nowt about owt an’ if yer was ter cast yer mind back to when yer got that poor sod of a ’usband o’ thine ter wed yer ’appen yer’ll remember yer were eight months gone at ’t time. ’E only took yer because yer old man medd ’im.”

Before Nancy or Annie could recover from this acrimony, Eileen had grabbed them both by the arm and dragged them inside, banging the door to behind them with such force the frame moved at least an inch. The parlour, if it could be given such a grand name, was dim, the accumulated dirt of years that coated the window effectively blocking out the light, and it stank of urine, unwashed bodies and cats, or so Nancy thought dazedly, almost overcome by it. The furniture, what there was of it, was stained, broken, ready to disintegrate at a touch, but held together by an assortment of what looked like string and cardboard. In the middle of the room was an ancient deal table on which the cluttered remains of a meal stood. Two cats, presumably one of the causes of the appalling, eye-watering stench, sat in the centre of it daintily licking their paws after, Nancy supposed with a shudder, cleaning the chipped and greasy plates. Sharing the table space was a cardboard box into which one of the animals peered with feline interest and was about to jump into, prevented only by Eileen O’Rourke’s shriek and lunging backhand. It fled with a howl.

Eileen crossed grimy arms over her sagging bosom. “Right, Nancy Brody,” she said truculently. “I sent our Angelina ter fetch yer – one o’t women at mill knew where Annie Wilson’d flitted to – ter tekk away this ’ere,” pointing at the box, “’cos it’s no use ter me. I reckon I done me bit so I’d be obliged if yer’d remove it. An’ ’er upstairs an’ all. I done me best but it were no use. She . . . well, she . . .”

For a brief moment Eileen O’Rourke’s face lost the grim look of endurance which forty years of hardship, hunger, struggle and adversity had put there and she looked as once she might have done as a girl who had believed, with the optimism of youth, that her life would be different from that of her parents. There was a relaxing of her thin lips and what might have been pity in her eyes.

“It’s your Rose.”

“Angelina told Annie . . .”

“Aye, but yer too late,” Eileen said briskly, the moment of sympathy gone. She’d no time for it. Life had taught her it got you nowhere so, along with all the other finer emotions which, after all, were only so much baggage to drag you down, she had jettisoned them many years ago. “I couldn’t afford midwife so me an’ Angelina did us best. She lives in your old ’ouse wi’ ’er six kids an’ we neither of us can manage no more. Anyroad we done what we could fer ’er but she were skinny as a bloody bootlace wi’ no fight in ’er so yer can see why . . .”

“Rosie is dead?” Nancy’s voice was so calm she might have been enquiring about the weather, though inside her a storm of such proportions raged she felt she might just get lifted up and blown away with it.

“Aye, that’s wharr I’m sayin’, an’ bairn’s none too clever.”

Beside her Annie made a small sound in the back of her throat, somewhere between a sigh and a moan, for who could forget the bonny, spirited lass who had been Nancy Brody’s little sister. Healthy and bright-eyed with the rounded cheeks and firm limbs of the well-fed. A head of curly hair that seemed to take life from the sun or any stray beam from a candle, crackling and shining as she tossed it defiantly at her sisters. Not plump, but strong-shouldered, deep-bosomed, like Nancy. The Brody girls, known for their teeth-gritting endurance and their determination to take life by the throat and twist it to their own liking and now one of them was gone. What the devil had Eileen O’Rourke’s son done to her in the five years since they had fled the city? Where had she been, and where was the bugger who had reduced her to “a bloody bootlace”?

She moved slowly towards the table, leaning over to peer sadly into the unnatural silence of the cardboard box and Nancy was surprised to see her eyes come to life and glow warmly, even in the dimness.

She herself was rooted to the spot on Eileen O’Rourke’s mucky, broken floorboards where she had come to rest as the door thundered to behind her. She had been told that Rosie was in labour, was in great trouble and she was to go at once to Mrs O’Rourke’s, but nothing had prepared her for this. She had been busy in her mind as the cab flew along High Street and Shude Hill on its flight to Church Court with thoughts of removing Rose and the child, finding them decent lodgings, a woman to look after them until more permanent arrangements were made, but now, within the space of five minutes, life had twisted her about again, shattering her, leaving her, she was well aware, with no decision at all to make really. This was Rosie’s child, and presumably her own . . . what? niece, nephew; half-brother or -sister to her daughter. Dear God in heaven . . . but whatever its sex or relationship to herself and Kitty she could not abandon it to the life Eileen O’Rourke would give it, that’s if Eileen wanted it, which it appeared she didn’t, having enough children and grandchildren to last her a lifetime.

Annie picked up what looked like a bundle of old rags which apparently contained Rosie’s child, none of them as clean as the ones with which Bridie wiped over the back yard step and Nancy’s face whitened even further, for she must have the answer from Eileen’s own lips to the question she dreaded asking.

Painfully she cleared her throat. “The father . . . ?”

Eileen looked surprised. “Our Mick, ’oo else? She’d bin wi’ ’im all this time, the bastard. She lost two others, she told me, but when ’e scarpered an’ she come knockin’ on my door I took ’er in. But that’s an end to it, Nancy Brody. I can’t keep no bairn.”

“No, thank you, Mrs O’Rourke, and you will be suitably recompensed, believe me, for your kindness. Now, if I may see my sister.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a mess up there.”

“Nevertheless . . .”

Eileen sighed. “Right, lass, up ’ere. Oh, an’t by’t way,” turning back to Nancy for a moment, “she wants it calling Ciara. Don’t ask me why.”

27

Rose Brody was laid to rest in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist Church where Nancy and Josh were married and where, only two weeks ago, Edmund Hayes had been interred. There was no one there but Nancy and Josh, Mary, Jennet and Annie and, surprisingly, Arthur. The parson, who had reverently conducted the same office for Josh’s father, rattled through the service as though he had a train to catch, Annie was to say later, but they were all in too much of a shocked muddle to complain, which you couldn’t anyway, could you? Poor Rosie, that lovely, lively young woman who Annie had prophesied would come to a bad end, not meaning it, of course, or at least not this. To be shovelled away like some shameful reminder of the past, though Nancy had done her best. Flowers, you never saw so many flowers, white roses and lily of the valley heaped on the coffin which lay behind the polished glass and silver of the hearse, drawn by four magnificent black horses with silver accoutrements and black plumes on their nodding heads. In very poor taste, those of the Hayes circle who saw it go by were inclined to think, since the girl was a nobody, the criticism led by Millicent Hayes who had been not only at home but passing through the hallway when the hansom cab which brought Nancy, Josh and Rose Brody’s daughter arrived at Riverside House.

It was nearly five o’clock on an overcast spring day when they drew up at the front door, for it had taken Nancy the best part of the day to complete the arrangements. She was forced to walk from Eileen O’Rourke’s house to the nearest funeral undertaker’s, which happened to be in Bridge Street, handily placed for the workhouse, she noticed, and arrange for a coffin, plain and unvarnished, at least for now, and a suitable vehicle, since she’d not have her sister carried on a handcart, she insisted. It was to come to Church Court . . . No, she did not care to be told that since the street was too narrow it would be impossible, nor that they did not do business in Angel Meadow, they were to do it, and at once. Did they understand? She was Mrs Joshua Hayes. They had heard of her husband, had they not, and just in case they were in any doubt he owned the largest mill and warehouse in the city. She herself would walk back to Church Court and she expected them to be no more than half an hour behind her and they were to bring clean . . . well, did they call them shrouds, or was it winding sheets? She was not sure, she told them, but she wanted her sister wrapped decently after she had been laid out and prepared for burial. Did they understand?