If the inhabitants of Church Court were amazed it was nothing to the sheer, jaw-dropping consternation that afflicted every minder at Monarch as the fleet foot of the girl they recognised as Rosie Brody flew down the narrow aisle between the spinning frames. The gatekeeper, against his better judgement, even though he remembered her, had opened the gates in answer to her frantic cries, calling after her as she sped across the yard and up the steps to the floor where Annie Wilson worked. His shout lifted every head in the yard but it was too late, for Rosie had already gone.
“Wha’ . . . wha’?” Annie gawped, breaking at least half a dozen threads as Rosie’s hands pulled at her. “’Ere, what the ’ell are yer doin’?” she managed to gasp, then, before she could even turn round to stare at her co-workers, Rosie had switched off her machine and was tugging at her to go with her.
“Give over, yer daft cow.” She slapped at Rosie’s hands, convinced the girl had lost her senses, but all the while Rosie was drawing her towards the door at the end of the spinning-room, her feet and Annie’s slipping in the grease and oil that slicked the floor. The overseer was beginning to stride towards them, his face like thunder and all over the room women were staring, open-mouthed, more threads breaking and the place in an uproar; all the while Annie struggled and all the while Rosie, being younger and stronger, drew her forward. She was shouting, her face like a flame, for she had run all the way, her hair standing out from her head in a cloud of tangled curls.
“You’ve got to come, Annie. Please, you’ve got to come. There’s no one else . . . and Jennet can’t manage and Nancy’s going to die.”
“Will yer let go o’ me arm, yer little madam,” Annie panted.
“I can’t. We have to run.”
“I’m runnin’ nowhere. Bloody ’ell, at my age . . .”
“Please hurry, Annie. Our Nancy’s dying.”
“What yer talkin’ about? Dyin’? Will yer let go o’ . . .”
Suddenly Rosie stopped, turning to face the distressed figure of the older woman. They were out in the yard by now and a dozen men watched with considerable interest. Annie gasped and floundered, her hand to her breast, her face as red as Rosie’s, her own hair all over the place. They were nose to nose and it was plain that Rosie Brody had no intention of allowing Annie Wilson any choice in the matter of where she went in the next moment.
Her words were bald. “Our Nancy’s having a bairn.”
“A bairn?” Annie put her hand to her mouth. “Dear God in ’is ’eaven. Bu’ why?”
“It won’t come, Annie. It’s stuck. Thirty-six hours and it won’t come.”
“Bloody ’ell, lass. But is there no other woman ’oo can ’elp?”
“She won’t have them, Annie. She wants you. Besides, they wouldn’t come.”
It had been April before Kate Murphy, who had eyes like a hawk, even if her Joe did black them regularly, noticed the curious fullness of stuck-up Nancy Brody’s body, and even though she narrowed her eyes, squinting in the pale sunshine, she could not quite believe what she saw. She
knew
what she saw, all right. Bloody hell, she’d had enough of her own and there wasn’t a moment went by in Church Court when some woman or other wasn’t up the spout, but just the same . . .
Nancy Brody
? Lady High Mucky Muck who hadn’t the time of day for anyone, who considered herself so far above any of them it was a wonder she condescended to walk on the same rotten flags that they did. There was a rumour she was to leave Church Court taking her lah-di-dah friend and sisters with her and good riddance to the lot of them; but the fascinating evidence of her own eyes as Nancy’s shawl slipped for a moment could scarcely be believed. Was it real? Was it a bairn in that slightly distended belly and if so who was the chap? Not Mick O’Rourke who had been hanging about her last year, for he’d taken up with Marie Finnigan and there had been no one else about or someone would have noticed. Happen someone where she worked in that sweat shop in Brown Street or . . . or . . . Well, it was no good standing here gawping.
With a delighted cackle she let herself out of her front door and ran like a ferret to spread the news, starting with Eileen O’Rourke. They turned the corner into Church Court, Nancy and Jennet in front and Rosie and Mary behind them, and before she had taken a step or two she became aware that they all knew. She had been expecting it, of course, but because of the cold winter and spring had contrived, with the help of a capacious shawl she had bought from Mrs Beasley, to hide her changing shape. She was tall and had an upright carriage and though she had got to six months she had managed to carry on undetected, at least in Church Court, though Mr Earnshaw had had a thing or two to say about it when he found out, inferring in his sneering way that if he’d known she was a girl like that he’d have had a go himself. Oh, aye, he’d keep her on for she was a bloody good worker but the minute she showed signs of falling off in her work she was out on her ear, so think on. She didn’t tell him that they were to be “out” the minute this baby was born. She and Jennet had discussed it endlessly after the girls had gone to bed, realising sadly that they must postpone their plans, for she could in no way get over to Oldham, inspect and order the sewing-machines, find a workroom and, hopefully, a new home, not to mention the stall in the market which she herself must set up and she couldn’t do it with her belly sticking out to here, she said, making Jennet wince.
The girls had been remarkably good about the baby, though they seemed to find it hard to understand what had happened to her.
“But who was it? And what were you doing in Style Street?”
What indeed?
“The man dragged me there and . . .”
Mary had cried. “Oh, Nancy . . .”
“There’s no use crying, our Mary, it’s done now and, like everything else that has happened to us, we just have to get on with it.” Even though her very soul cringed at the thought of carrying Mick O’Rourke’s child, of bearing Mick O’Rourke’s child, she could not let it get in the way of her firm belief that even now, she and her family and her dearest friend would get to that magical place she had dreamed of, an insubstantial, ephemeral place but real nevertheless to her, ever since her mam went. It was Mam who had started it, which sounded odd, but if it had not been for her disappearance she and Rose and Mary would have drifted into a life not much different from the women in Church Court. The mill first probably, their wages handed over to Mam to pour down her throat, some neighbourhood lad picked, for want of anything better, for a husband and the father of the dozen children she would bear. She had escaped it only because Mam had left them and Nancy had no choice – and a growing and burning desire to do better than Mam, let’s face it – but to get up off her arse and fight for what she had discovered she wanted.
Her sisters, being the daughters of Kitty Brody, knew exactly what had been done to her. They had been devastated when she told them about the events in the churchyard, wanting her to go to the police and report it, thinking it to be a stranger who had done this to her and she had let them continue to think so. But that was the very reason why there was no use in reporting it, she said. Did they remember how the sergeant had been over Mam’s disappearance? she asked them. Had he given a tinker’s toss? No, he bloody well hadn’t, and he’d be the same over this. He’d probably think no decent girl would be out and about at that time of night on her own and besides, were there any decent girls in Angel Meadow? He wouldn’t think so and looking for such a man would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Now Church Court was to get its revenge. “Well, if it ain’t ’Er Majesty ’erself, come ter see ’ow the riff-raff live,” Eileen O’Rourke shrieked gleefully from her doorstep where she stood with her arms akimbo. “But what’s that under yer pinny, Yer Majesty? It can’t be a babby, fer Queen Nancy wouldn’t let any chap put his dick in ’er, not wi’ ’er ’avin’ her legs fastened tergether at top. Or is it a cork yer keep there, Yer Queenship? Gawd, I never thought ter live ter see the day when Kitty Brody’s lass would go the same way as ’er, but I might’ve known better. Like mother like daughter, they do say, an’ it’s damn well true. Are yer ter set up a ’ore ’ouse then, ’cos if ya are I can send yer round a few likely chaps ’oo’d like a go at yer.”
“Now then, Mrs O’Rourke, don’t be so ’ard on’t girl. I reckon she didn’t know which end of a chap was which she’s that refined and when he offered ter stick it in ’er she’d no idea what it was.”
“Nay, ’tis a virgin birth, Mrs Murphy. Any man what touched that frozen bitch would get ’is thingy turned ter bloody ice.”
The men watched with the women, sorry in the way that men often are, not being as spiteful as their women, that Nancy Brody was suffering such insults. True, she had no truck with any of them, which was why they resented her, and then on top of that she had committed the sin of being successful. She had started with no more than they had but she had worked her fingers to the bone and achieved bloody miracles, so it was said, with her home, her family and the work she did. But she was a lovely-looking lass and had done no one a bad turn, but some lad had done her one and there were more than a few of them who turned their gaze in Mick O’Rourke’s direction. He was standing next to his mother, his own arms folded across his brawny chest. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth thin-lipped, his jaw jutting ominously as though he would like nothing better than to cross the road after Nancy Brody and give her a bloody good hiding, though God knows why. Perhaps because some chap had got what he had chased after for months! When he felt their gaze on him he pulled his mouth into a wide smile, then went indoors as though the spectacle of Nancy Brody’s humiliation were of no particular interest to him.
They were all weeping when they reached the safety and privacy of their cottage, all except Nancy who kept her head high and her chin firm, passing every doorway and every jeering woman as though they did not exist, even managing a smile of pure contempt which rather took the wind out of their sails, for they had been convinced that at last they would see Nancy Brody get her comeuppance. Rose and Mary huddled together behind the door as it was shut and Jennet collapsed, white-faced and shivering, on to the settle but Nancy turned on them like a cat who has faced and outfought a pack of howling wolves. Her face was stiff and savage. Her voice trembled but it was with rage, not fear and they recoiled from her as they had done from the crowd beyond the closed door.
“Never let me see you cry again, d’you hear me?” she snarled. “Never give them the satisfaction of knowing that they are hurting you. That’s what they want, to hurt you because you have something they could never have and that’s hope. They won’t let up, believe me, so you’d best get used to it.”
“But, Nancy, why? Why?” Jennet quavered. “What have you ever done?”
“You can see what I’ve done, Jennet Williams, and so can they and they resent it. If, when my mam went I’d gone snivelling to them for help they would have been only too glad to give it. Only too glad to see me in the same bloody pickle they’re always in and always will be in for the rest of their lives. But I didn’t. Now then, let’s have a cup of tea. See, Mary, put a match to the fire and stop that grizzling; and you, Rosie Brody, put the kettle on.”
She relented then and took her sisters in her arms, leaning her head against theirs. “It won’t be for ever, my lasses. Just as soon as this soddin’ baby comes we’ll go, so cheer up. We’re in this together. We – Jennet and I – will always be with you in the street and I don’t think I need to tell you never to go out alone. Oh, I don’t think they’d physically hurt you but . . . well, you know what I mean.”
They never gave up on her: they never tired of it, taunting not only her but her sisters and Jennet.
But now that “sodding” baby was about to be born and within a few weeks they’d be away from it all in a decent neighbourhood.
For thirty-six hours they had believed this to be true but it seemed they were wrong, for Nancy Brody, brave and courageous Nancy Brody, was slipping away with her child fast inside her and unless Annie Wilson could perform some magical thing their grand future, not to mention Nancy’s life – bugger the baby – would slip away as Kitty Brody had slipped away.
“Let t’ dog see t’ rabbit,” Annie gasped as she stumbled into the room, “and open them bloody windows. The stink in ’ere’s enough ter choke t’ cat,” and at once it was as though a heavy pall had been lifted from the devastated room. Annie’s cheerful instructions, even though Nancy still lay like one dead on the bed, put new life in them and they hurried to obey her, even though Nancy had told them to keep the windows closed just in case she screamed out loud!
Whisking off the sheet that Jennet had discreetly placed across Nancy’s flaccid body, Annie pried open her legs and poked her nose almost up into Nancy’s insides.
“Fetch me some water an’ carbolic soap, I want ter wash me ’ands.”
This was done, the three girls falling over themselves to fulfil her every wish. With no more ado than if Nancy had been a piece of meat on a butcher’s counter, Annie thrust her hand high inside her and though Nancy twitched and moaned feebly it didn’t faze Annie.
“It’s arse about face, that’s what’s up wi’ ’er,” she announced firmly, turning to smile confidently at the three hovering figures.
“Pardon?” Jennet asked politely.
“Bum first.”
“Bum first?”
“Aye. I’ve seen a few in me time an’ it’ll not be easy but I reckon us can turn it.” And again, as though Nancy were not a person, which at the moment she wasn’t, Annie thrust one hand deep inside her body, the other placed on the enormous dome of her belly, feeling, listening, kneading, massaging and all the while Nancy whimpered feebly though she was too weak to protest.
“Pepper, fetch me’t pepper pot,” Annie barked.
“Pepper pot?” Jennet whispered.
“Listen, lass, if all yer can do is repeat what I say ter yer you an’ me’s gonner ’ave words. Just do as yer told.”