The Urchin's Song Page 3

  The floor in front of her, like the one in the kitchen which was just visible through the interconnecting door - left open during the daytime - was covered in large flagstones Josie had scoured with soda that very day. Two raised wooden platforms which acted as settees during the day and beds at night - one housing her parents and the other her brothers - stood either side of the small iron grate in which a good fire was burning, a bright clippy mat in front of it and another lying lengthways in front of each of the platforms. In the far corner of the room next to the interconnecting door, a table and four hardbacked chairs were squeezed against the wall, an oilcloth covering the battered wood on which reposed Josie’s most recent gift to her mother and one which had aroused her father’s fury at such useless extravagance - a red earthenware pot of pure white hyacinths.

  Either side of the window, which again was clean and sporting bright yellow curtains of thin cotton, were two orange boxes covered with the same material as the curtains and housing one spare set of darned clean bedding, one folded white tablecloth and the few extra items of clothing the family owned between them.

  Above the grate on the thin flat piece of wood which didn’t deserve the grand name of a mantelshelf were two brass candlesticks complete with flickering candles, and in the centre of these stood an empty oil lamp. And it was to this item Josie now directed her gaze as she said, ‘I’ve got the oil, Mam, and the flour and everything. Mr McKenzie gave me the pig’s fat free an’ all.’

  ‘He did?’ Shirley Burns was lying on one of the wooden platforms, a faded patchwork quilt pulled up to her chest; so slight was her thin body she barely caused a rise in the covers. Numerous miscarriages and stillbirths - the last being two years ago at which point both the doctor and the parson had warned Bart that the next pregnancy would take his wife’s life - had stripped her of her health and her looks, and she appeared twenty years older than her forty years.

  Shirley’s voice was soft when she said, ‘That bag’s too heavy for you, lass. I’ve told you afore: you should get one of the lads to help you of a Monday night.’

  Josie smiled at her mother but said nothing as she lugged the bag through the doorway, shutting the door behind her before she walked through to the other room. They both knew the furore that would erupt should she ask for help from one of her brothers. She didn’t like to think what Jimmy and Hubert were about most nights, but knowing her father was at the bottom of it, it was bound to be sailing close to the wind, if not downright illegal.

  Like the first room, the kitchen was a different place from the filthy hole it had been five years before. The shining, blackleaded range had another clippy mat - larger than the ones in the living room - lying in front of it, and the brass-tailed fender reflected its colours in a rainbow haze. A large wooden table to one side of the range held a tin bath, a smaller tin bowl and assorted cooking utensils, along with plates, mugs and cutlery, all clean and scrubbed.

  Along one wall was the desk-bed where Josie and her sister slept. The bed was made from wooden lathes and they had to lift the chiffonier storing their meagre food supplies to get the bed out each night, whereupon the hard lumpy flock mattress was revealed in all its glory.

  Her mother had suggested the lads sleep on the desk bed when Josie had first purchased it some three years before, but Josie would have put up with far more than the stiff limbs and aching muscles the mattress caused, for the joy of sleeping in a separate room to the others with just Gertie snuggled beside her.

  A smaller and very battered table used for preparing food, with a wooden box slotted beneath which did as a seat, made up the sum total of furniture in the kitchen. Another door led out into the end of the hall. Beyond this, the back door of the house led into a communal yard shared by the inhabitants of seven houses. The privy - a square box with a wooden seat extending right across the breadth of the lavatory and filling half its depth - could be a stinking place both winter and summer, depending on the cleanliness of its last occupant. Josie had got into the habit of leaving a full bucket of fresh ashes, along with squares of trimmed newspaper, by the kitchen door at all times. Although there was a daily rota which accounted for each household taking its turn in cleaning the privy, there was rarely a day that one or two buckets from the kitchen didn’t find their way down the round hole in the middle of the seat.

  Along with the privy there was a communal washhouse and tap in the yard, with several lines of string hung up at one end for drying bedding and clothing, should the weather permit.

  After placing the shopping bag on the smaller table Josie now picked up the big black kettle at the side of the range which, as normal, was empty. The lads were supposed to keep the kettle full, along with the bucket used for fetching water from the yard, but they were experts at remembering to forget this particular chore. Sighing, Josie went out into the cold again with the bucket and was relieved to find the tap hadn’t frozen up again, although the trickle of water was painfully slow.

  Once back in the warmth of the kitchen she stoked up the fire in the range and put the kettle on to boil. That done, she fetched the lamp from the other room, and once she had trimmed, filled and lit it, carried it in to her mother, bringing the candles back into the kitchen once she’d blown them out. The light from the living room along with the glow from the range was just adequate in the kitchen, and at fourpence a pound, candles couldn’t be wasted. Especially with the rent money gone again.

  After scooping the drips of tallow from the candlesticks Josie put them into the small iron pan containing other remnants, along with the small ends of used candles, to be melted down for further use when there was sufficient. The candles dealt with, she put the shopping away before making a pot of tea, and it was only whilst it was mashing that she finally slipped out of her coat and hat.

  She poured two cups of black tea and took them through to the living room, handing one to her mother who had been lying motionless with her eyes closed but who now pulled herself into a sitting position as Josie said softly, ‘Here, Mam. Have a sup tea.’

  ‘Thanks, lass.’ Shirley’s tired eyes looked at her precious bairn, and as always she found herself wondering, much as Mr McKenzie had earlier, how on earth she and Bart could have brought forth such a child. Twenty endless years she’d been married, and knocked from pillar to post for the first eighteen of them, until the dire outcome of the last pregnancy and the constant bleeding that had resulted since had caused her to become a semi-invalid. But it had all been worth it - aye, and she didn’t say it lightly - for the joy of having this one special bairn.

  Josie sat down by her mother, taking a sip of tea before she said, ‘Gertie should be back soon.’

  ‘Aye.’ Shirley’s voice was low when she continued, ‘I dunno how long it can go on, lass, without him findin’ out. He’s as cute as a cartload o’ monkeys, your da. Always has bin.’

  ‘Vera wouldn’t say anything.’

  ‘Oh aye, I know that, hinny. She’s a grand lass, Vera.’

  The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and when Josie rose jerkily and walked over to stand in front of the fire there was an aggressive quality to her words as she said, ‘There’s no way he’s sending her out to beg in this weather, Mam, whatever happens. She’s not strong like the lads, you know she’s not. It’d be the death of her. If he’s so desperate for the bit she brings in he can go out and get work himself.’

  Shirley didn’t reply to this and Josie didn’t expect her to. Her father had never done a real day’s work in his life and he’d see them all in the workhouse before he lifted a finger. Anything he came by as a result of his criminal activities never saw its way into the house. But he wasn’t going to kill Gertie with his laziness.

  ‘How much did you slip her to bring back this time?’ Shirley asked after a minute or two, with a sidelong glance at her daughter.

  ‘A few pennies, all in farthings and ha’pennies. He couldn’t expect more. And one thruppenny bit. I told her to tell him a tale about a toff c
oming out of the Villiers and giving her that. And Vera was going to leave Gertie’s coat out in her back yard for a bit before she sent her home. He noticed last time that she wasn’t very wet, and it was only Gertie thinking quick and saying she’d been standing under an awning most of the night on Mackie’s corner that saved us.’ Josie’s eyes met her mother’s.

  ‘Oh, lass, lass.’ Shirley knew what would happen if her husband discovered his youngest daughter was sitting in Vera’s kitchen on the nights he sent her out begging. There’d be hell to pay. From the very first night Vera and her husband had brought the two bairns home five years ago, Vera had made it plain exactly what she thought of Bart and he, in his turn, fully reciprocated the feeling. Not that it bothered Vera. By, she was a lass if ever there was one. Shirley allowed her mind to dwell on her garrulous old friend for a moment, and in spite of her anxiety, her spirits lifted fractionally. She thanked God most days that Vera had come back into her life again, and this bairn had been the means by which that had happened, along with everything else that was good.

  And as though to emphasise that thought she now became aware of a small brown-paper bag being thrust into her hands. ‘Here, Mam,’ Josie said. ‘Eat ’em now before he gets home.’

  Shirley again said, ‘Oh, lass,’ but this time with a little catch in her voice as she gazed at the quarter of marzipan tea cakes. Every week her lass bought her something, like the pot of hyacinths that had lit up the room with their beauty the last few days. She hadn’t been a good mother; God Himself knew how weak and wicked - aye, wicked she’d been in never standing up to Bart, not even when he’d made Ada and then Dora . . . She shut her eyes tight and then opened them again as Josie, now in the kitchen, called, ‘I’m just going to soak the oats and them stale crusts for a boiley tomorrow, Mam, and then I’ll get you another sup. All right?’

  ‘Aye, all reet, pet.’

  Josie was humming to herself as she mixed equal parts of milk and water with the oats and bread, ready for the currants and sugar to be added the next morning before the whole was browned off in the oven. It was lovely being able to give her mam the odd little present; no one had ever really been kind to her mam. According to Vera, her mam’s da - who had died along with his wife of the fever the year Ada was born - had been as bad as her own da for using his fists on his family. Mind, Vera had said, Josie’s grandfather had been respectable. Josie wrinkled her nose against this. Vera had said it as though it excused her mother’s da somehow, but a good hiding hurt as much either way, didn’t it?

  The sound of the living-room door opening cut off her thoughts and brought Josie’s head turning, but instead of the small figure of Gertie she’d hoped to see, her father walked in followed by Hubert, her youngest brother who was seven years old. Josie’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t unusual for the lads to return home any time up to midnight or even later, depending on what they had been about and whether they’d spent the evening in their father’s company, but Bart never got home before the pubs closed at the earliest. And the types of pub her father frequented took no account of normal hours.

  Josie found she had to swallow deeply before she could say, her glance directed at her brother, ‘Where’s Jimmy?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ It was her father who answered.

  Bart Burns was a big man, tall and thickset with dark bushy brows over cold, strikingly blue eyes and a full head of springy brown hair. His ruddy complexion and permanently red, bulbous nose spoke of his addiction to the drink, but it was his weakness for the dogs and horses that was his main obsession. The fact that his dead cert had run like the ragman’s old nag and finished last, thereby proving Josie right, was galling. His eyes focused on the young girl; his temper all the more bitter for not having release.

  Josie was aware of his ill-humour and she guessed immediately what had caused it. She also knew that her father would seize on the faintest excuse to vent his spleen, but that - although his anger was directed mainly at her - it would be one of the others that he punished. Therefore she kept her voice quiet and flat when she said, ‘I only wondered, that’s all. The two of them are always together.’ She didn’t look at him as she spoke.

  ‘Aye. Well, Jimmy’s doin’ a little job for me. All reet? A little job that should’ve bin done a while back if I’d had me wits about me.’

  There was a definite threat in his tone, and out of the corner of her eye Josie saw her mother squirm anxiously. Immediately she wanted to say, ‘Don’t worry, Mam, and don’t say anything. That’s what he wants. Don’t you see?’ But as that was impossible what she did say was, and coolly despite her churning stomach, ‘There’s some tea in the pot, and a bit of brawn and cold pease pudding but I’ve no bread to go with it until I bake tomorrow.’

  ‘I want nowt.’

  ‘Can I have some bra--’ Hubert’s voice was silenced by a vicious cuff round the ear which sent the small boy reeling against the table in the corner of the room, but still Josie didn’t respond. This was a lead-up to something, she recognised the signs, and she had a horrible feeling her father had somehow been made aware of the subterfuge concerning Gertie.

  Into the silence broken only by Hubert’s whimpering they all heard the front door open, and now Josie was praying soundlessly whilst pretending to concentrate on the task in hand. She placed the jug containing the remainder of the milk for morning on the tiled kitchen windowsill where it would stay cool, and turned back just as Gertie stepped into the living room.

  It was obvious the small girl, who looked much younger than her ten years, sensed the charged atmosphere, for her brown eyes darted from one face to another as she remained frozen just inside the door. And then, as her father said very softly, ‘You got anythin’ for me, lass?’ Gertie fumbled in the pocket of her thin coat and brought out a handful of coins, which she held out to the big man in front of her.

  ‘There . . . there’s a thruppence, Da.’ Her voice was trembling.

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘One of the toffs in a top hat comin’ out of the Villiers give me it.’

  Just then, the front door opened again, a gust of icy wind blew into the room through the open dining-room door, and when Josie saw the expression on Jimmy’s face she knew it was all over, even before her brother said, ‘I waited, Da, an’ she come out of that old bitch’s house sure enough. Smilin’ an’ wavin’ halfway down the street, she was.’ She had never fully realised it before but their Jimmy was the spitting image of how their da must have been at nine years old, in nature as well as looks. Josie cast Jimmy a glance of deep loathing and nerved herself for her father’s reaction.

  In the same moment that her father’s hand came down and swiped the coins out of Gertie’s outstretched hand, Josie took several rapid steps forward, crying, ‘You leave her be, Da! I mean it! If she’s called in to see Vera for a bit warm-up before she came home, that’s no crime.’

  ‘A bit warm-up afore she came home?’ Her father’s big bulk swung back from the cowering Gertie to fully face her, and he swore, obscenely, before he hissed, ‘You think I’m half sharp, lass - is that it? I’ll flay the pair o’ you, you see if I don’t.’

  ‘She hasn’t done anything!’

  ‘Jimmy, what time did you start watchin’ the house?’

  ‘When you left me there, Da.’ Jimmy could neither read nor write, and telling the time would have been beyond him even if there had been a clock handy in Northumberland Place where Vera lived.

  ‘Which was early on, reet?’ his father ground out slowly.

  ‘Aye, Da. She must’ve bin there afore I got outside.’

  ‘So how come this bit warm-up was all night, eh? An’ where did this lot come from? Or are you after tellin’ me it was Vera who gave her the night’s takin’s out of the goodness of her heart?’

  ‘Bart--’

  ‘Not a word, not a word from you, mind. I’ll get round to you later.’ Bart swung to face his wife for a moment, his expression murderous, and Shirley sank back into the quilt,
her hand plucking at her scrawny throat.

  ‘You touch her or me, or any of us, and I’m out of here, I mean it. There’s plenty’d take me in and you know it. I’ve had offers from them touts who’re on the lookout for talent to play the halls. I’d do just fine.’ Josie’s voice was low and quivering with hate, and the fact that she was speaking the absolute truth lent a weight to her words that was undeniable. It wasn’t the voice or manner of a twelve-year-old child, but there were many in Sunderland’s East End who knew that age was relative. Childhood was short in Long Bank.

  Bart was dumbfounded but he recovered almost immediately, and as the meaty hands went to the belt of his trousers, Josie knew a moment of searing panic before she warned herself not to lose control. ‘If you want me money then think on,’ she said in a voice that was not shrill and high as might have been expected, but almost guttural. ‘You do all right now but if I go you’d soon feel the pinch.’

  ‘You wouldn’t leave her.’ He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder at his wife without taking his eyes off Josie’s white face. ‘Soft as clarts, the pair o’ you.’

  Josie stiffened, her spirit rising up against the arrogant self-assurance that he had them all where he wanted them. ‘You would be surprised at what I am capable of, Father.’

  Quite unconsciously she had spoken in what she termed her ‘night’ voice, a voice she had purposely cultivated to enable her to deal with any difficult or over-familiar individuals in the pubs. The words of the songs she needed for her nocturnal activities came easy to her - she only had to hear something once and it was locked in her memory - but the way they were pronounced, the right way of speaking so that the song wasn’t distorted by her broad northern accent, had taken some time to learn. However, once she had mastered the knack for her singing, she’d found that if she used what Vera called her ‘iron knickers’ voice, adopting the confident, cool manner which seemed naturally to accompany it, even the worst drunk or ruffian was put in his place. ‘Twelve goin’ on thirty’ was another of Vera’s maxims, but always said with an approving wink or nod. Josie didn’t tell Vera she didn’t feel thirty inside, that half the time she was scared out of her wits when she pretended to be this other person, this other Josie Burns. And that had never been so true as right at this minute.