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Authors: Audrey Howard

Angel Meadow (7 page)

BOOK: Angel Meadow
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They only wore their best frocks and boots on a Sunday, for on six days a week they laboured at Monarch Mill and on those days, except for their exceptional good looks, their well-fed appearance of health and cleanliness, they were no different to their fellow workers. Plain, short cotton skirts and sleeveless bodices, well-mended clogs, with woollen stockings and a warm shawl for winter. Their hair was neatly plaited, their only claim to singularity being the bright knot of ribbons each wore at the end of her plait.
They all three had a pair of mules of their own now and they were bringing home between them sometimes as much as two pounds a week. Though Annie still worked beside them she had aged and slowed down and all three had far outstripped her, spinning more yarn between them than any five other girls put together. They were quick, nimble-fingered, fleet of foot, clear-headed, their improved health giving them a head start on their contemporaries. They never stopped except when the engine did, walking the miles up and down the length of their machines, each with a piecer but sharing a scavenger to keep the spinning frames singing, if not exactly sweetly, then in a steady, rhythmic melody of outpouring yarn.
Mick O’Rourke leaned his broad shoulder against the door frame and watched her retreating back, quite pole-axed, it seemed, which was totally unlike his usual brash confidence when faced with a pretty girl. He had the wit, the cheek, the charm, the fluent tongue of his Irish forebears, and was never lost for a word. Put him beside a likely girl and within minutes she would be peeping up shyly, or boldly, whatever her nature, into his laughing face, convinced, as he meant her to be, that she was the very girl for him. Indeed that he had been swept off his feet by her loveliness and if she did not return his feelings he would be mortally wounded. He’d kissed the blarney stone, right enough, his mam was fond of saying, though he had been born right here in Angel Meadow and had never cast eyes on the green of Ireland nor indeed the stretch of water that had brought his grandparents to Liverpool many years ago.
Nancy turned her head to speak to her sister and in a shaft of sunlight which somehow found its way over the end cottage, he saw her long eyelashes fall and rise in a lovely slow, sensual movement, though if questioned he could not have admitted to knowing the word, or its meaning. Her profile moved in a smile, her lips curved and the skin of her clear jaw and throat was like the petals on a flower he had seen once in Philips Park when he was sparking a lass from over Holt Town way. They had a sort of house made from glass at the park, hot and moist and the girl – he couldn’t even remember her name – had been led inside quite unable to resist him and had even allowed him to put his hand up her skirt to the equally hot and moist centre of her before she took fright. The creamy blossom he had noticed there, despite his teeth gritting in frustration, had been exactly the colour and texture of Nancy Brody’s skin.
He came out of his trance and began to function, leaping to snatch his jacket and cap from a hook at the back of the door, shouting to his mam that he was off.
“Where yer goin’, darlin’?” she shrieked from the dark back regions of the cottage.
“I dunno. There’ll be plenty ter see in town, so there will, an’ I might ’ave a look at Whit Walks.”
“But it’s not until Friday, our Micky.”
“Them’s Catholic walks on Friday, Mam. I’ve a fancy ter ’ave a look at Proddys’.”
“Eeh, Mick O’Rourke, yer never!” As she came towards him she crossed herself apprehensively as though he had told her he was off to defile the sacred cross at St Luke’s Church in St George’s Road. She went to the door, following his progress down the narrow street, as did every man lolling against the wall having a peaceful smoke, every woman leaning in her doorway having an enjoyable gossip with next door and every child screaming and shrieking and throwing clumps of some unidentified filth at a cornered cat. They all stopped whatever they were doing to stare and the cat thankfully made its escape.
Eileen O’Rourke’s mouth thinned vengefully when she saw who it was her son was chasing after, then she turned away, shrugging, beginning to smile, for if her Mick, who was as randy as once his father had been, thought he’d a chance of getting into that one’s drawers he was sadly mistaken. His cock’d fall off before Nancy Brody gave in!
“Nancy . . . aay, Nancy, ’old on, will yer?” Mick shouted, throwing his cap to the back of his thick, chocolate-coloured curls and shrugging into his jacket. He straightened his red, spotted neckerchief against his brown throat and his lips curled up in a devastatingly white smile.
The three girls stopped and turned and when she saw who it was Nancy smiled too, which she wouldn’t have done for any other lad, for if he had forgotten the bucket, she hadn’t. Mick had only been ten or eleven at the time and she a skinny girl three years younger but his careless kindness to her mam had impressed her immeasurably. She had often wondered what they would have done in the early days without that bucket. It was all very well having a tap at the corner of Church Court with the good water the Manchester Municipal Council provided pouring from it, but if you’d got nothing to put it in what was the use of it? It had been a life-saver that bucket and was still in daily use despite their improved situation in life.
“Mornin’, Mick,” she said politely. “Lovely day.”
“I dunno about the day bein’ lovely, Nancy Brody, but to be sure I never saw a lovelier sight than the three o’ yer. I’ve lived in this ’ere street all me life an’ there’s many a bonny Irish lass workin’ on the market, but I swear by the Holy Mother I’ve never seen such a bevy o’ beauties as the Brody girls.”
He beamed at them with great good humour, at his best beneath their admiring gaze. He’d no idea how old they were, but they were pretty and smiling, all three of them and that was enough for Mick. She, the one he had his eye on, was tall with a fine slender figure but with a pair of full tits on her, high and round and perky, just as he liked them, and the sooner he charmed their owner the sooner they’d be in his hands. He meant to begin at once.
“Get away wi’ you, Mick,” Nancy said, but as easy and friendly as anything, just as though they had been talking together only the day before, which Mick took to be a good sign. The other two said nothing, both shy, he thought, which was not how he liked his women. Nancy wasn’t, thank the Holy Mother. She regarded him steadily, candidly and his heart leap-frogged in his chest. She really was a looker. Her saucy hat clung to her mass of hair which rioted in lovely profusion about her head. She’d fastened the tight curls back with a knot of scarlet ribbon and from the nape of her neck it hung, or rather cascaded, down her back to her waist. He had an urgent desire to put his hands in it, for it was a warm, shining brown with streaks of gold and honey threaded through it, a colour that matched her eyes. He’d never seen anything like it before, so accustomed was he to the lank and often verminous locks of the girls with whom he consorted.
He swallowed convulsively, for in that fraction of a moment he was overcome by the strange emotion she had so suddenly aroused in him. There was trust in her eyes and a soft liking, with none of the coquettish posturing he had found in other lasses and for an incredible moment he felt the need to be gentle with her, to treat her as he would a decent Catholic girl towards whom he had honourable intentions, then he shook himself and grinned impudently.
“An’ where are the three o’ yer off to, then, an’ lookin’ so smart about it? To be sure I swear the good Queen up in London isn’t half so fine as the Brody sisters.”
Both Mary and Rosie preened and smiled at him, their eyes wide and wondering, then glanced at each other, smoothing down the fullness of their grey cotton skirts, but Nancy continued to regard him steadily, her eyes clear and without guile.
“We’re off ter see the Whit Walks, Mick.” She stretched her neck to look up at the patch of blue sky above, blue today because it was Whit Monday and the mills were closed. Smoke did not pour from the chimneys and the sunlight seemed the more golden for it, and the sky a more serene blue, like forget-me-nots. “It starts from St Ann’s Square so me an’ our Mary an’ Rose thought we’d walk over, it bein’ such a lovely day. They say there’ll be over five thousand children taking part. Then there’s teachers an’ all the bigwigs in their top hats an’ finery, an’ their wives. We want to have a look at the fashions, don’t we?” turning to smile at her sisters, speaking in the careful way she was cultivating and which so incensed Eileen O’Rourke.
“I were wonderin’ why yer not walking yerselves. Me mam tells me the three of yer go ter Sunday school in Ashley Road. Is that right?” Not that he’d taken any notice of his mam’s ramblings. Went in one ear and out the other but this bit of information seemed to have lodged in his brain and the words came out of it.
“Yes, we went for five years. We can all read an’ write.” Her pride in their achievement was immense and so it should be, for they were the only people in Church Court, indeed probably in Angel Meadow, who could. “Mrs Edwards – she was our teacher – wanted us ter become Sunday school teachers ourselves but . . . well, we didn’t go fer . . . well,
God
or anything like that. He’s not done much fer us nor me mam so why should we do anything for Him? What we’ve got we’ve got fer ourselves so we’ve stopped going now.”
She made no bones of the fact that they had attended Sunday school for one reason only and now that that was achieved and the school was of no further use to her she was finished with it. She had better things to do with her life than waste it on other folk.
“She was always sayin’ – Mrs Edwards – we’d to broaden our horizons and I reckon we’ve broadened them enough. Time to move on now,” she ended briskly.
“An’ what might that mean, Nancy Brody, broaden yer ’orizons?” Mick grinned amiably, for what did he care? His come day-go day life suited him down to the ground and his lack of education mattered to him not at all. He did a bit of bare-knuckle prize fighting, earning a purse or two, since he was young, strong and healthy and there were more than enough young women in the world who were delighted with his smooth tongue and rough lovemaking. He liked nothing better than a night drinking and betting on the cock fights that took place in the area. The life of a man, a
real
man and that was Mick O’Rourke and he saw no reason to change it, or, as Nancy had, to better himself. In his opinion he was good enough!
For a moment Nancy looked downcast. That this handsome young man who was studying her with a warmth she found somewhat disconcerting should be so poorly educated – could he not read? she wondered, saddened by the thought – that he did not know the meaning of broadening your horizons, quite horrified her. Education was more and more readily available to everyone now, through Sunday schools and the Mechanics Institute, one of which had opened in Miles Platting quite recently, just off Oldham Road, no more than a brisk walk from Angel Meadow. And mill owners were now compelled to supply two hours’ education each day to all children employed in their mills, but it seemed Mick O’Rourke could see no advantage in it. She tried to explain.
“Well, it means to make use of everything that comes your way. Not to waste it. To notice things, to read about things and to learn from them. That’s what we mean to do, isn’t it, girls? You must see what’s beyond the boundaries of your life, of what yer mam an’ dad did,” she went on seriously, quite spellbound by the incredible blue of his merry, twinkling eyes. “Perhaps yer didn’t know but there’s ter be an Arts Treasures Exhibition opened in Old Trafford this month an’ we mean ter go and see it. I read that there’ll be paintings by all the famous painters. Constable and Turner and Millais, which I’ve seen in books at the library, are going to be displayed there so this is our chance ter see them. That’s broadening your horizons.” Her eyes shone and her face had become pink with excitement and Mick O’Rourke was mesmerised by her.
“Yer don’t say! Well I never, but what about fun, Nancy Brody? Where does that come in?”
“Fun?” Nancy looked mystified.
“Aye, a good laugh.”
“A good laugh?”
“Aw, come on, lass, yer know what a good laugh is, though it don’t seem ter me you do much of it.” He’d plainly had enough of this stuff about paintings and such, his manner said, and if they stuck with him he’d show them what a good time was. “What yer gonner do when yer’ve seen the walks, eeh?” His grin was infectious and Mary and Rose turned to look at their Nancy in hopeful anticipation. By the standards of the day, though they were unaware of it, all three were relatively well educated. They had learned well, since they were bright and intelligent. A plain education, to be sure, with no French or music or art but for the past four years, ever since they had understood the written word, they had been reading whatever the gentleman at the free library recommended to them. Some of the books were dull, hard to get through, educational instead of entertaining, but enlightening to the three girls, revealing another world beyond Angel Meadow. Others were light, hugely enjoyable like
David Copperfield
and
Martin Chuzzlewit
, making their labours over the past five years worth every struggle.
But it was their Nancy who kept them at it. They did not join the other children in street games. They did not move across their own doorstep when they got home from the mill at night, so fun was a mystery to them. They were well nourished, warmly clad, well shod, and upstairs, hidden behind the loose brick, was a growing hoard of farthings, halfpennies, pennies, sixpences, even whole shillings, and when the time was right they knew their sister had plans for it. They did not know what. They, and she, were satisfied with what they had at the moment. It was enough for now. Nancy had only to say, “We don’t want to end up like Mam, do we?” at the first hint of rebellion and it was suppressed before it had hardly begun.
“What about Belle Vue?” he asked them seductively.
BOOK: Angel Meadow
9.69Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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