Polly's Pride (4 page)

Joshua leaned across his mother to whisper to Polly in sonorous tones, ‘You could attend chapel with your husband, like a good wife should.’

‘Aye,’ Big Flo agreed, nodding. ‘Have you done that yet? Have you hecky-thump!’

‘Matthew hasn’t asked me to, nor will he.’

Joshua snorted his disapproval. ‘Which only shows his own lack of faith. You would not be so neglected were you my wife. He places your soul in jeopardy by pandering to your fancies.’

Polly could barely suppress a shudder as she looked into her brother-in-law’s set face. Thin lips screwed into an unforgiving line, he was a living example of all she hated most: a bigot and a hypocrite. There were some who said Joshua Pride wasn’t quite the good Methodist he claimed to be, that he had a few sins of his own which he kept carefully concealed, including a married woman in Chatham Street whom he visited after chapel. It almost made Polly giggle, the thought of this sour-faced man embarking upon an illicit affair. She knew it was quite impossible to win an argument with him, yet his bigotry irritated her so much she could never keep silent in the face of his jibes.

‘I am what I am. Each to their own, that’s what Matt and I agreed when we married. It’s a pity everyone else can’t take the same view.’ And having made her point she lifted her hymn book and began to sing, aware of the blistering glances Joshua sent in her direction but paying them no heed.

Lucy had every intention of telling her mother about the occurrence at the barracks. She’d never thought of herself as either sensitive or soft; you couldn’t survive in Dove Street if you were either of those things. But the words she had heard still rang in her head, even now, days later. There’d been the breath of evil in them somehow, the stench of something corrupt clinging to every syllable, as if each utterance brought the speaker intense satisfaction.

The voice had come out of the darkness, after the last candle had been quenched and she’d been making her way back to her parents, stumbling over prone bodies as she recalled with growing trepidation her mother’s warning about getting lost amongst them.

‘
Whore! Harlot!
’

She hadn’t recognised the voice, hissing so low against her ear, but as she’d tried to hurry away and escape it, a hand had gripped her arm, holding her fast while the words were repeated like a litany of vilification in her head.

She had felt violated, as if in some way they had penetrated the sweet innocence of her childish flirtation. Lucy would never have thought Tom Shackleton capable of such horrible, hurtful words, and the thought that he had directed them at her had at first made her feel used and degraded, upset her so much that she’d quietly sobbed herself to sleep that night.

Now she was filled with anger. How could he have behaved so dreadfully? She’d only been having fun, fluttering her lashes and teasing him.

Lucy had liked and admired Tom Shackleton, who was two years older than herself, for weeks, and had hoped he’d notice her. He had lovely warm brown eyes and gentle hands, and didn’t have that sickening stink of poverty about him, or not as badly as some. Nor did he have anything to do with the scuttlers who enjoyed causing mayhem in the streets of Ancoats, whether it be pulling girls’ hair, pinching goods off the back of carts or riding the rails at the goods yard.

Yet what Tom had done to her by using such words was, in some ways, worse. She’d never known such bitter disappointment.

Upon reflection, however, Lucy had decided against mentioning the matter to her mother. Wouldn’t she only make too much of it? She’d want to know if he’d touched her where he shouldn’t, maybe accuse her of encouraging his advances, of being no better than she should be, and remind her she was still a child for all she was well on the way to thirteen. Didn’t mothers always take that line? Lucy knew her mam was perfectly capable of going round and tearing a strip off him, or even complaining to his own mother. She went hot with embarrassment at the very thought, and misery sank deeper into her stomach, making her feel sick. No, best to put it out of her head, dismiss it as the kind of nastiness that lads found amusing.

But she would tell Sal, her best friend, what she thought of her precious brother’s behaviour! Lucy tackled her the very next day in a comer of the playground.

Being in the top class, the two girls took no part in the younger girls’ games, but sat on their coats to talk or dream of the day they would be free of the tyranny of spelling tests and Miss Clarke’s sharp-edged ruler, which could come down so heavily on those, like Lucy, who were prone to daydreaming. They’d talk of their hopes to get a job in Paulden’s maybe, where they could serve high-class ladies with frocks and furbelows. Or, more realistically, at the railway cafe where there would at least be no shortage of food.

But there was no such girlish chatter this morning.

‘I wasn’t suggesting anything improper. I was just being friendly,’ Lucy insisted to an open-mouthed Sally. ‘So what right did he have to say such nasty things?’

‘He wouldn’t, not our Tom,’ Sally protested, her voice weak with shock.

‘Didn’t I hear him with me own ears? What sort of a girl does he take me for?’

‘He might be as daft as most lads his age but he isn’t cruel, and he wouldn’t know such words anyroad. He’d use “totty” or “pro”.’

‘Not if he wanted to upset and frighten me, which he did, I don’t mind admitting,’ Lucy insisted, finding her eyes once again filling with tears, to her great mortification.

But Sally’s reaction was not what she had expected or hoped for. Instead of taking sides with Lucy, all girls together as it were and agreeing to make her brother apologise, she took offence on his behalf. Snatching up her coat she flounced off in high dudgeon. Lucy was left with the bitter taste of not only having been vilified for no apparent reason by the boy she liked most in all the world, but had now lost her best friend.

Chapter Three

It was a Saturday afternoon and although Joshua felt bone weary after a hard week in the mill and would much rather have spent the afternoon reading or resting, he kept on walking. He was working his way along Great Ancoats Street, taking detours round side streets, handing out leaflets along the way, stuffing them in letter-boxes, sticking them on shop counters or lampposts, wherever he could think of.

You need power. You need a union. You need Joshua Pride to run it-
the poster boldly stated.

Controversial, daring, radical, but necessary. Underneath were details of a meeting he’d called, which he hoped dozens if not a hundred or so working men would attend. He’d paid out a fair sum of money to have the leaflet printed, but Joshua liked to think that not a penny of it would be wasted. He was perfectly certain that the meeting would go ahead, a union of mill-workers would be formed, and he would be elected president of it.

He’d just finished Pollard Street, including Vulcan Works, Victoria Mills and others as far as the row of shops at the bottom. He’d even ventured into a few pubs, one at the corner of Norton Street, another in Long Street, where he’d been met with a mixture of jeering laughter and cautious interest.

Now he crossed the canal, meaning to visit every house around the wharf as far as Little Italy. He was concentrating his efforts on the part of Ancoats that was saturated with mills, factories and canal workings. He’d even spent an hour outside the dark red brick gothic edifice of Ancoats Hospital, handing out leaflets to folk as they queued up for their medicines.

Joshua Pride meant to leave no stone unturned in his quest to win support. He would launch a union if it was the last thing he did, and he would somehow persuade his brother to join. Matthew owed him that much at least. From the first moment he’d set eyes on that Irish woman, only seventeen at the time, he’d been besotted by her. Within weeks he’d cast aside a lifetime of worship and worthy endeavours in the chapel and married her, a Roman Catholic. He’d claimed that there was no time to waste with war having broken out, and that he couldn’t live without her. He’d refused to listen to his family, caring nothing for their opinions. He thought only of love and raising a family, and other such sentimental nonsense.

Flo had been devastated by the shame of her son’s behaviour, but wisely left it to Joshua, as the elder brother, to put forward arguments on the pitfalls of a mixed marriage and to attempt to pressurise him into calling off the wedding. Even at the last moment on the day itself Joshua had attempted to make him see sense by refusing even to attend the register office where the ceremony was to be held. But it had done no good, the marriage had gone ahead with no more than a couple of witnesses present. And look where Matthew’s obstinacy had led.

He’d promised to watch out for Cecil, the youngest of the three brothers, but only Matthew had come back from war. If he’d not been so obsessed with saving his own skin, for the sake of the wife he’d left back home, Joshua was certain his youngest brother would still be alive today.

He pushed these memories from his mind, feeling the familiar rage and bitterness eating away at him as they had done for years.
 

It was as he reached Meadow Street that he remembered a certain young widow he’d met at chapel one Sunday. He called to mind her comely figure and pleasing ways; not brash or loudmouthed like some. She’d made a point of asking for his help, since she was at her wit’s end as to how to cope following the death of her young husband. He’d told her that he could do nothing for her, but perhaps he might try after all. The visit might serve to lift his spirits. Joshua liked to make himself useful, particularly to vulnerable young women.

As he neared her house, instead of stuffing the leaflet through the letter-box he glanced quickly about him, noted only a
few
children playing with cigarette cards against the wall, and tapped sharply on the door.

It was opened by a child. Dressed in a filthy jersey and patched trousers, the small boy considered the stranger with lacklustre interest, shuffling his bare feet and wiping a none-too-clean nose on his arm as he did so.

‘Is your mother in, lad?

The boy said nothing, not even a shake or nod of his ragamuffin head, and Joshua felt a stirring of irritation. He must be seven or eight, surely old enough to understand plain English? Then he heard a rattle of clogs on the wooden stairs and the woman herself emerged from the dimness of the house. She wore a grey skirt and a blouse that might once have been white. Joshua made a mental note to fetch her a bar of carbolic soap next time he called. He preferred his women clean but for now would overlook the ragged state of the garment in view of the way it fell open at her throat, and the thrust of her young breasts as they rose and fell with enticing breathlessness beneath the thin fabric.

‘Oh, Mr Pride, I didn’t hear you knock. Come in, won’t you? I’ll put t’kettle on. Kevin, you go out and play with your sisters, there’s a good lad. I’ll call you when supper’s ready.’

Over a cup of weak tea, Joshua lent a sympathetic ear to the young widow’s plight. Kate Hughes was clearly still in deep shock after the loss of her young husband from consumption and, as she said herself, sorely in need of advice. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the workhouse, with her three children taken into care.

‘Only too happy
to
help, Mrs Hughes. I’m sure I can put you in the way of suitable employment. I shall make enquiries for you as I go about my work.’

She was filled with gratitude, thanking him profusely. Even so it took a minute or two before he persuaded her to remove the offending blouse.

‘Perhaps you have money to pay for my assistance, instead?’ he queried, when she hesitated. ‘Or I could always call the Poor Law Guardians.’ He got up as if to go, noting with satisfaction the way fear glinted in her eyes.

‘No, no.’ Kate Hughes knew when she was bested.

But then women rarely put up any sort of resistance once they saw he was not a man to be trifled with. Joshua did not believe in asking for anything to which he was not entitled, and the body of a woman was a pleasure sent by God to satisfy a man’s natural needs. He did not suggest they venture upstairs, for who knew what horrors may lurk in the dark recesses of her bedroom? The rag rug in front of the mean fire served just as well and her breasts were every bit as soft and yielding as he had hoped. Nor did he trouble to remove the grey skirt, simply lifted it, checked she was wearing no drawers, was reasonably clean, and got on with it. She cried out only once when he entered her.

After that, he promised to let her know the moment he heard of anything suitable.

‘I expect I shall see you at chapel on Sunday?’

Kate, seeming too stunned by his attentions to speak, managed only a nod as she stared at him, wild-eyed.

He dusted down his jacket. ‘I shall call again, when I have news.’ And satisfied with his afternoon’s efforts, he departed, not forgetting to leave one of his leaflets on her kitchen table. As a mere woman she would have no vote or say in union matters, but he suggested she may care to pass it on to someone who had. Every little helped.

Polly was worn out but happy. She’d spent days cleaning what had already been cleaned by the fumigation men, as if determined to reclaim her own home.

The stink had been everywhere. Even when she laid her weary head on her pillow at night, she felt as if she too were being gassed. ‘I can’t breathe, Mam,’ Benny had complained, and Lucy’s lovely face had run with tears from the fumes.