Virginia Henley (14 page)

“Hurry! I can’t wait much longer! Open your legs!”

Her fear turned to fury. She spat full in his face. Now he came on like an angry bull. His hamlike fist tore her drawers
off and he hoisted his nightshirt to facilitate his entrance. His pubic hair was sparse and bristled against her soft skin. He lunged against her, but she was so small, only the tip of his weapon entered. He raised himself up to make another plunge and Kitty was off the bed like a shot. With amazing swiftness he was at the door before her, barring her way. She ran to the window and panted, “I’ll scream the house down!”

“No one would dare come into my bedroom, screams or no screams.”

“I’ll shout ‘fire!’” she threatened.

“But there is no fire.”

She grabbed up the candlestick. “There is now!” She set the curtains ablaze and as he rushed forward with his water jug, she ran from the room and straight out into the night. She ran about four miles altogether until she stood outside Ada’s door, taking in great gulps of air before she finally found the courage to knock. Her grandfather answered the door. He had been talking to Terry.

“What’s the matter, Kitty?” Terry asked as he jumped up and ran to her.

“What happened, child?” asked her grandfather.

She shook wildly. She was so agitated, he didn’t press her for an answer, but led her to the sofa and wrapped his old overcoat about her.

“I’d better get back to the house and see what’s up,” said Terry.

Her grandad rocked her gently and smoothed back the tumbled hair from her face. Her body trembled uncontrollably, but as the realization of her close escape dawned on her, she calmed a little and laid down her head to rest. After about an hour Terry returned wild-eyed. Kitty sat up wearily as he came to the couch.

“Did you lose your job because of me, Terry?”

He shook his head. “He’s dead, Kitty!” Terry blurted.

She crossed herself. “Mother of God, how?”

“His bedroom caught on fire.”

“My God, he wasn’t burned to death, was he?” she asked, horrified.

He shook his head. “Oh, no, he soon had the fire out. It was after that in all the confusion, he must have had another stroke and dropped dead.”

“They’ll say I killed him!” she cried.

“Well, we never can go back, that’s for certain sure,” said Terry.

For the first week Kitty was afraid to go outside for fear she would be picked up by the police. Gradually, as time elapsed and nothing happened, she began to relax a little and returned to her usual good cheer. Her immediate needs were pressing. She had one dress, one shift, one pair of shoes and stockings, but no drawers. How was she to get the things she needed with no money and no job? The poverty in the Blakely household was unbelievable. She sat and thought for over an hour, then resolutely put on Ada’s shawl and went out the back door. She walked up the back streets until she came to a line of washing. Swiftly she unpegged two pairs of navy blue bloomers and a pair of black cotton stockings, and was back home in under ten minutes.

She tried everywhere to get a job, but there were signs posted at most places that read: NO IRISH NEED APPLY. She heard that Constantine’s, a modern drapers, was opening a new shop in the town center and needed girls. She had the sprigged muslin dress, which when washed and ironed would do very nicely, but she needed something warm to go over it. She went to a secondhand shop and looked through all the cloaks but they seemed too shabby; then she spotted a gray velvet pelisse that was just her size. She hunted among stacks of hats and feathers until she found a small gray bonnet. The pelisse and the bonnet took her last penny, but she left the shop feeling elated.

She needed ribbon to trim the bonnet and make it look half decent and she knew exactly where to find some. She walked home past Deane Churchyard. There, on a fresh grave, stood
the ugliest wreath Kitty had ever seen, but it had a marvelous mauve satin ribbon on it that lit up Kitty’s face with delight.

She got up very early the next morning, heated some water in the kettle and washed her hair. When it was dry, she put on her outfit, knew she looked pretty and hurried down to Constantine’s. A well-dressed young man, two very plain-faced young women and an older woman with a hooked nose that looked like it was trying to detect a bad odor stood behind the counter. Kitty approached the gentleman, but the older woman pushed forward and said, “Could I be of service?”

“I’m applying for the position of shop assistant, ma’am,” Kitty said politely.

“May I see your references?” the woman said coldly.

“I’ve never worked in a shop before, ma’am. I was in service,” Kitty said and hesitated.

“Irish?” the woman inquired, her nose seeming to discover where the odor was coming from at last.

For a fleeting moment Kitty thought she would deny it, but she lifted her chin a little and said, “Yes, ma’am, I’m Irish.”

A hush fell. The others were listening intently. The woman gave her a pitying look and said, “I’m sorry, you wouldn’t be at all suitable, and besides everyone knows that all Irish girls are bags!”

Kitty felt a lump rise as her throat constricted and tears threatened to come to her eyes, but “No, by God, they won’t see me cry,” she swore. She looked them all up and down in turn and said, “Weil, in that case, you can all kiss my arse; the north side of it!” She flipped up her skirts at the back cheekily and sailed from the shop with her head in the air.

“It’ll have to be one of O’Reilly’s mills, I’m afraid.

They’re the only ones who will hire the Irish,” said Ada.

“Can I call myself Kitty Blakely when I go for a job? I don’t want the O’Reillys to know where I am.”

“’Course you can, lass,” Ada said.

Kitty went around to the Falcon and was hired in the knotting room. The first thing she had to do was trek to Uncle Joe’s once again and pawn her sprigged muslin, shoes and gray velvet pelisse. She picked navy and white striped pinafores and a pair of button-up boots.

She entered the knotting room with great trepidation. Counterpanes hung from long tables. She was shown how to pick up alternate fringes and twist them into knots, making sure the edges were uniform and even. This was an easy task; however, a lot of the goods were shoddy and manufactured from poor yarns. To give them a more substantial finish so they would sell, the cloth was soaked in a vat of sizing and then dried quickly between hot rollers. This process filled in the weak spots and holes, but it made the fringes stiff and sharp. Before the end of the day, Kitty’s finger ends were rubbed raw and spots of blood smeared on the counterpanes. These were immediately classed as “damaged” by the examiner and she received no payment for them. Thus Kitty embarked on that period of her life when she saw daylight only on the weekends. The knocker-up would tap on the bedroom windows with his long pole at five in the morning and she would clatter off to the mill with the wave of humanity that swept down the street and through the mill gates by five-thirty each day. Inside the mill, the hot-oil stench of the machines always made her nauseated at this hour and the incessant clatter of the big machines gave her a headache until she learned to block out the noise. The rooms were kept very hot and damp, as humidity was needed in the processing of cotton so that the threads wouldn’t break so easily and to keep the fibers floating in the air to a minimum. Kitty soon
was promoted to the weaving sheds to help a more experienced woman who ran four looms. Her job was “tenting.” The large room held hundreds of towel looms, which belted to and fro at top speed. Kitty was intimidated by the noise and frightened by the flying picking sticks and unguarded straps that whirled the machinery. Between the rows of machines the alleys were so narrow they were warned always to pass a machine with their backs to it; never their faces. It was an incredibly dirty atmosphere and after working her twelve-hour shift she went home to wash her overall and her hair every night. She was careful always to wash the machine oil from her black cotton stockings because she had seen some of the other girls’ legs and they were covered with masses of pimples. Her job as a tenter was to rethread the empty shuttles. She noticed that many girls did it with their mouth and sucked the thread through the shuttles. Although this was faster than using your fingers, Kitty could not bring herself to do it. For one thing, if there were different colors in the cloth, your mouth became daubed with different hues of dye, and for another thing, Kitty noticed that the girls who did this had rotten front teeth as a result. The first hour of the working day was spent in a dull, silent stupor, but then everyone would thaw and the fun began. The girls were a laughing, joking, happy group. They played jokes on each other and had a bit of fun. While the machines were going it was too noisy for a lot of talk, but they had worked out a system of winks, nods and gestures that conveyed a welter of meanings. The mill workers were vulgar and convulsed each other with rude stories. Kitty soon learned that birth, death and sex were spoken of openly and treated as normal, everyday occurrences, which, after all, they were. She learned to laugh at the coarse jokes and sometimes told them herself. They were protective of one another, and the first day she was warned never to go behind the tent frames with the overseer, no
matter how he tried to maneuver her back there. As Kitty stood by the loom watching for the first empty shuttle, the overseer came up to her with a note in his hand. “Kitty Blakely, you’re needed at home,” he announced with distaste and dropped the paper as if it were contaminated. Kitty realized he knew she had to go home because another baby was being born, and everybody knew the Irish produced too many babies. She found Ada huddled over on a chair, clutching her black shawl about her with one hand and the other doubled into a fist pressed into her side.

“Why isn’t there any fire?” asked Kitty.

“There’s no wood.”

Kitty went into the back kitchen and brought back the ax. She picked up a chair but put it down again because they had only two. Then she remembered the back panel of the dresser was hanging loose, so she used it to light the fire. Then she ran for the midwife. She didn’t have to go far, as midwives were almost as plentiful as pubs in that neighborhood.

Mother Byrum was a little, round woman. She always had her bag ready by the door and came along with Kitty without delay.

“Why isn’t there a bed set up down here?” Mother Byrum demanded.

Kitty said, “They were all born on the kitchen door, Ada says.”

“Oh, yes, I remember now. Well, give me a hand, girl. Don’t stand there like a dressmaker’s dummy.”

They unhinged the door and set it up with a fairly clean sheet over it.

“Now I want hot water, girl. Put the kettle on the hob. The first thing I want is a cup of tea!” She hung up her shawl and pulled a chair up to the fire. “Who’s got your other kids?”

“Big Florrie across the street is keeping them until tomorrow,” Ada answered weakly from the makeshift bed.

“Not Mrs. Piece-out-of-her-nose?” asked Mother Byrum, scandalized.

“Why does she have a piece out of her nose?” asked Kitty.

The midwife shot a significant look at the woman in labor.

“The bad disorder! Mind you, it’s not her fault. Her husband’s the doorman at the Music Hall and he knocks about with the chorus girls.”

Ada could hold back no longer, but Mother Byrum finished her tea before she proceeded.

“I won’t need any help with the delivery, so stay clear, but you’ll have to clean up afterward. That’s not my job.”

Kitty nodded her understanding and sat gazing into the fire. She blocked out the screams of hard labor by concentrating on the crickets chirping behind the fireplace. She could imagine it was a pet bird and the fireguard was its cage. A voice cut into her reflections, “I think there’s more than one —yes, it’s twins!” “Oh, my God, no!” protested a weak voice. In a remarkably short time the midwife was saying, “There now, it’s all over. There’s one of each. Which do you want to keep?”

“The boy every time,” answered Ada.

“What about
her?”
whispered Mrs. Byrum, gesturing toward Kitty.

“She won’t say nothing,” came the low answer.

Kitty wondered wildly if they meant what she thought they meant. There was a sharp slap and a frail cry and the midwife placed the boy child with its mother. “Here, wash this,” She handed Kitty the dead baby, and she took the pitiful bundle into the kitchen. She saw it and felt it, but her mind was numbed, and she automatically carried out the task of cleansing it. She dressed it in a nightie she had made the week before, and not really knowing what to do with the lifeless creature, laid it on the kitchen shelf. She went back into the other room and the midwife pushed an enamel bowl
into her hands. “Empty this and wash these blood-soaked things. I’m off now. By the way, remind himself I haven’t been paid for the last one yet!”

To Kitty’s relief the older children came in from school and she kept busy feeding them, and then to make sure they wouldn’t wander into the kitchen, she shooed them out to play in the front street. She made Ada a cup of tea and then timidly crept into the kitchen to see if there really was a baby on the shelf. Its face looked waxen and she decided it looked like a doll.