Angel Meadow (3 page)

“We can get us a bite ter eat now, d’yer see, an’ when Mam comes ’ome she’ll be ’ungry so there’ll be a bit o’ summat fer ’er an’ all.”

“Eeh, our Nancy, yer that clever,” Rose murmured, sighing in deep satisfaction at the thought that they were soon to have something to eat. Probably only bread and lard, or, if there was enough money, perhaps bread and dripping which was much more tasty. Mrs O’Leary at the corner shop made her own from scraps of meat, which came from God knows where, and they didn’t ask, but it was a good standby when you were famished.

It was dry out so they didn’t bother with their clogs. The less they were worn the less they needed mending. Besides, the soles of their feet were protected by a thick layer of horn which had grown up over the years of going barefoot. They wore woollen skirts and tops, no undergarments, naturally, since they did not, and never had done, possess such things but, with the ragged shawls that Nancy had bought on the second- or even third-hand stall on the market which they draped across their heads and wrapped securely about their narrow shoulders, they were warm enough.

Bearing in mind that Mam might have been unsuccessful in getting her money off the brawny chap, or earned any more, for it had been late when she ran out, Nancy bought the least she could for a decent meal. Decent to them, that is. They didn’t go to Mrs O’Leary’s but to the market on Miller Street where food was cheaper and there was more to choose from. She spent a long time in choosing. Well, you had to when there was not much to go round.

A piece of scrag end, fatty and gristly and just about on the turn and therefore cheap, a bag of vegetables way past their best but still edible and five pounds of potatoes, rotten but again still edible. It would make a decent meal, in fact two if they were careful, and it would give Mam something to stick to her insides when she got home. She’d gone without her shawl and was bound to be perished.

The battered old stewpan simmered gently over the fire and though they all hung over it, mouths watering, they waited and waited for Mam; and when she hadn’t turned up by early afternoon they could wait no longer.

Bloody hell, it was good, they kept telling one another as they shovelled it into their mouths, keeping some back for Mam, even though they could have eaten hers as well as their own. They were children with children’s healthy appetites and they’d had nothing since yesterday, but that was Mam’s and must be saved for her. She had not returned by the time night fell.

The next day was a repeat of the one before. A fumble in the secret hoard, a trip to the market, a plate of tripe and onions this time, which Mam always said was good for them, and the wait, anxiously watching out of the filthy window for the sight of her familiar shapeless figure.

At the end of a week they began to face the harrowing fact that their mam, whom they had loved without reservation, was not coming back.

2

The sergeant looked over the top of his desk at the three little girls who stood before it, a surprised expression on his florid face. It was not often the police station was visited by children, unless they were street urchins caught thieving who had not been fast enough to evade the arm of the law, which didn’t happen often, he might add. Like bloody eels they were, real slippery customers, darting and diving with their catch in their hands, probably no more than a loaf of bread or a tanner out of a customer’s change pinched from the counter of the beer house when the customer’s back was turned, escaping up the warren of alleyways that cobwebbed Angel Meadow.

But these three had come in to the station of their own accord, scared stiff, poor little buggers, you could see that, creeping over the threshold clinging to one another, peeping round them as though they expected a copper to grab them and stuff them in a cell. They had sidled over to the desk, their eyes on the floor, then the tallest one had screwed up the courage to look up at him and he’d been quite stunned by the beauty of her eyes. He was not a fanciful man, ask his wife, and he’d seven children of his own but this one, beneath the layers of filth that coated her skin, was going to be a real looker. Aye, dirty she was, like most who lived round about but dirt couldn’t hide the soft, golden brown depths of her eyes, nor the long silken lashes that surrounded them. It was like looking into a glass of whisky, which he didn’t do very often since he couldn’t afford it, but that was the colour of this kid’s eyes; and when the other two peeped warily from beneath their long curling lashes he could see theirs were exactly the same.

He leaned on the desk and without realising it softened his voice.

“Yes, chuck, what can we do for yer? Lost yer pussy cat, ’ave yer?” He turned to wink at the constable who sat at a desk behind him and the constable was considerably startled, for the sergeant was not known for his joviality.

“No,” the girl said gravely. “Me mam.”

They had debated for hours, days, on what they should do. Every morning as soon as it was light they had draped themselves in their shawls and searched the alleys and courts around Church Court until dark fell, asking every woman they met had she seen their mam.

“’Oo’s yer mam, chuck?” they were asked sympathetically but it was very evident that when they spoke her name, Kitty Brody was reckoned nowt a pound in these quarters and if she’d disappeared, well, good riddance to bad rubbish was their opinion.

After Mam had turned the corner out of Church Court they had no idea in which direction she had gone, running off after the cheating customer. She could have turned right along Ashley Lane under the railway bridge towards Newtown, which like Angel Meadow was a teeming refuge for the Irish; left towards the bridge over the River Irk or sharp left into Angel Street and St George’s Road and the centre of the city. It could have been any of them and so, patiently, day after day they walked the streets, searching any bit of spare ground they came across, going further from Angel Meadow than they had ever been in their entire life but with no success. They had even gone along the banks of the river, precariously clinging to the edge, for the water was foul with sewage, dead animals, the waste from the mills along its bank, its surface a floating, stinking slick of oil. They wandered round Strangeways Park brick field, climbing piles of broken bricks and debris, turning over heaps of rubbish until some chap shouted to them to get off out of it, chasing them off the site.

“It’s no good, we’ve got ter go ter’t police.” Nancy’s voice did its best to be positive, as though it were nothing out of the ordinary for a resident of Angel Meadow to hobnob with the law. It wasn’t, in fact, but on the wrong side of it. For one of them to go voluntarily into a police station was unheard of and a measure of the desperation of their situation.

“Oh, our Nancy,” Mary quavered and on Rose’s pointed little face came a look of dread.

“I know . . . I know, but what else can we do? Mam’s been gone fer a week now and . . . and God knows what’s happened to ’er.” Her voice broke, obviously fearing the worst. If she’d caught up with that chap he might have done anything in his fury. Beaten her senseless and left her for dead in an alley. Chucked her in the river or . . . or, well, whatever it was, they had a right to know and that was what the bloody police were for, after all, wasn’t it, to keep the peace, to uphold the law and if anything had happened to their mam and that bugger was the cause of it then he should be found and put in prison. Surely, where they had failed, the bobbies could find him, and Mam.

“Mam didn’t like the police, our Nancy,” Mary persisted fearfully. “She used ter say they were for important folk, not the likes of us.”

“I know she did but . . . well, what else can we do? There’s only a tanner left in . . . upstairs, and us’ll have ter find work soon. Unless yer fancy the workhouse, our Mary?”

The workhouse! It was the place that even the worst afflicted did their best to keep out of and though the Brody girls were not sure why, for they had seen no more of it than the big wrought-iron gates that guarded it, Mam said she’d rather spend the rest of her life on her back than go in there. They’d be separated for a start which was enough to frighten the wits out of the three little girls, for they had never been separated in their lives, from each other or from their mam. Now and again Mam did not come home for twenty-four hours which was why they hadn’t worried unduly at first, staying out overnight with God knows who and God knows where – she never said – but she
always
came home. Until now.

“Yer mam?” the sergeant asked now. “Yer’ve lost yer mam?” He scratched his head and the constable at the table turned round to stare, for never in all the years he had been a policeman had anyone ever reported a missing mam. The station on St George’s Road was the largest in Manchester, since it was needed to keep order in Angel Meadow where vice was prolific and even now the cells were full of drunks and layabouts who had been fighting, men and women caught thieving or fornicating in the gutters, wrong ’uns of all sorts and all waiting to be taken to the assizes. But this was a real poser and no mistake. Even the sergeant didn’t seem to know how to proceed.

“Well, where did yer last see ’er, lass?”

“Last week. Seven days an’ nights she’s bin gone an’ we’d like yer ter find her, please.”

“Would yer now? Well, ’appen she don’t want ter be found, ’ave yer thought o’ that, chuck? ’As yer pa bin batterin’ ’er about or owt like that?”

“We ’aven’t got no pa.”

“I see.” He scratched his head again, for the effect of those three pairs of incredible eyes looking at him with every faith that he would find their mam for them was quite doing him in.

He turned to the constable. “What d’yer think, Constable Perkins?”

“Well, we could keep an eye out for ’er, Sarge, but a week’s a long time to—”

“Yer mean yer think she’s dead?” the tall one said flatly, her face expressionless. “An’ if she is then it’s ’im what did it.”

“’Im? ’Oo?”

“Chap she ran after. He never paid her so she . . .”

The sergeant’s face became visibly less concerned.

“Never paid ’er? What for?”

Nancy knew she had made a mistake and really, had she expected anything else. Mam was a whore and as soon as the bobby realised it he had turned scornful. A mam who was missing, a mam who stayed at home and looked after her children, or went out and did a decent day’s work, was worth at least a bit of interest, but once the bobbies understood what Mam did to earn her living they had washed their hands of her. A whore who got herself into trouble was nothing to do with them. In fact she probably deserved whatever fate had befallen her and they certainly weren’t going to waste their time looking for her. There was no use in relating the story to this man who was already turning away, for in his mind this was the old story of a whore being diddled out of her money and there was nothing they could do about it. She’d probably gone off with the very fellow who had diddled her!

“I should get yerself ’ome, lass. Yer mam’ll turn up, you see. Now, off yer go. We’re busy ’ere so get off ’ome.”

“But . . .”

“Now then, there’s a good lass, get off ’ome an’ I bet yer mam’s there wonderin’ where the ’ell you’ve got to.”

He turned away, as much to remove those disconcerting eyes from boring into his, as to get back to what he had been doing when the three little girls had come in.

“Come on, our Mary, our Rose. I can see we’re gonner get no ’elp ’ere,” Nancy Brody said, lifting her lice-infested head as though she were a duchess who was dismissing an impertinent footman. She turned on her heel, her thin back straight, her narrow shoulders squared and her sisters followed her, not quite so haughty since they hadn’t the nerve of their Nancy.

When they got outside it all fell away and they were just three little girls who had lost the only person in the whole world who had given a damn about them. She wouldn’t come back, they knew that. They had nobody, only each other and that would have to suffice.

“Where we goin’, our Nancy?” they asked her anxiously as she took their hands in hers and began to walk up St George’s Road towards Angel Street.

“Home fer a cuppa tea then ter’t market ter get some grub. Then, when we’ve ’ad us a bite ter eat an’ a good night’s sleep, tomorrer we’re goin’ ter find us a job.”

It was a fine day, for which Nancy thanked whoever was looking out for them, mild for November with a bit of sunshine easing its way between the tall chimneys of the mill. The chimneys cast long thin shadows across the busy mill yard and beyond the gate, but Nancy made sure she and her sisters were not standing in one since she wanted to be noticed. They were as close to the mill gates as they could get, for it was rumoured that they were taking operatives on this morning.

They were standing among dozens of others outside the splendid entrance to the Monarch Cotton Manufacturing Mill in Victoria Parade. She knew that for every job going in the mill there were more than enough folk to fill them. Women who could spin the yarn and men who could weave the cloth and children who worked as piecers and scavengers and it was one of these latter jobs that she hoped to get for herself and her sisters. She had never worked in a mill and had no knowledge of the system that was usual in such a place. The spinning-rooms in the Monarch Mill were divided into many identical cells, each one consisting of three people who were concerned solely with the operation of one particular pair of mules. The spinner was the senior member, who had absolute authority over her two assistants, one a piecer, the other a scavenger. She had no idea even of what they earned. So all she hoped for was that she and Mary might get put on as piecers and Rosie as a scavenger. Just a few shillings would see them through and would be riches to them after living for the past week on the scraps a tanner had bought. They must stay together, of course, for Mam would have insisted upon it. At least in the same mill. Monarch was a large mill belonging to Edmund Hayes who had started up in business with his father many years ago. There were departments for all the processes from cleaning the raw cotton to spinning and weaving, and, surely, she had said to her sisters as they folded themselves in their shawls and set off to make their way in the world, there would be something in that huge place for them.