Angel Meadow Read online

  She knelt by the bed, disregarding the doctor who was not at all sure his patient should be subjected to so many people at the same time. She took her father-in-law’s hand and held the back of it to her wet cheek.

  “Nay, lass, don’t waste your tears on me. I’ve had my time and bloody good it’s been. See, come closer.”

  Nancy leaned over him until his lips were almost against her ear and his feeble breath fanned her cheek.

  “That lad of mine . . . you’ve done him a power of good. He was beginning to shape but you’ve . . . made a man of him . . . made him what he is. I’m proud of him, and of you. You’re a lovely woman . . .”

  “Father-in-law . . .”

  “Watch out for . . . Milly. She’ll do you a . . . mischief . . . if she can.”

  “No, you’re wrong. In three years she’s—”

  “Biding her time, my lass, so think on.”

  Before she could reassure him or even barely stand up and get out of the way, the door opened and the subject of his words burst into the room, wide-eyed and dramatically tearful, seriously offending the doctor who liked his patients to die in peace. Nancy wondered where she had been.

  “Father,” Millicent cried, throwing herself across her father’s body before Josh could prevent her and over her shoulder Edmund Hayes’s eyes looked into Nancy’s and one of his eyebrows lifted wryly as though to ask did she see what he’d been getting at!

  He died as the doctor had wanted him to, peacefully and with his hand in that of his wife whose own was held firmly in Nancy’s. Emma’s doze had relaxed her, as had Nancy’s words and she was able to meet his passing with acceptance and quiet tears. She clung to Nancy as she was led from the room, totally disregarding her daughter who was ready bravely to receive her. As she was to cling to Nancy through the next painful days and during the funeral which was attended by many grand gentlemen of Manchester, including the mayor himself. Nancy stood beside her, always there just a hand away, which surprised the mourners since it seemed to them that her own daughter would have been the one the widow would naturally have turned to. Millicent Hayes was there, of course, tall in her black mourning gown and fine veil, her face beneath it quite expressionless, the look in her slate grey eyes hidden by her lowered eyelids. She stood beside her brothers at the graveside, making no move to comfort her mother, those who were there noticed, and it was left to Emma’s daughter-in-law, who wore no veil and whose face was soft with sadness, to put an arm about her. They were close, Emma’s sons and her daughter-in-law, ready to bind together in a circle of support which did not include Millicent, not because they withheld it but because she did not want it. At the house, where the mourners came to drink a glass of sherry and eat a slice of the rich fruit cake Mrs Cameron had made, she smiled icily at those who offered their condolences and took their gloved hands between reluctant fingers but again made no move to join the quiet groups who spoke kindly to Emma, to Josh and Arthur, and to Nancy who, despite her humble background and strange fixation with business, had proved her worth. They paid little attention to the strange situation in the nursery, if they thought of it at all, for by now it was accepted as some awkward eccentricity in the Hayes household, like a fancy to hobnob with one’s own servants, the whim some had to talk to a horse, or a favourite dog. The children were rarely seen, just now and again two small figures racing across a lawn with a couple of small dogs at their heels, or perhaps the high peal of childish laughter floating down from the nursery floor. It had all been handled very discreetly, in their opinion, though what was to happen as they grew was a matter of much speculation.

  That night Josh, in the comfort of his wife’s loving arms, wept silent tears, the first she had ever seen him shed. At first she had been surprised and alarmed, though it was no shame to cry for a loved one who has gone.

  “Darling, oh my darling, I know you were fond of your father . . .”

  “Dammit, Nancy, I’m ashamed to tell you my tears are more for myself than the old man.”

  “But why? Why should you . . . ?” She tried to look down into his anguished face but he hid it against her breast, straining her to him with desperate arms.

  “Oh, I know it will pass, but don’t you see I feel so bloody guilty.”

  “Guilty! Why should you?”

  “Because of what I said, and felt, that it was easier for me when he was confined to his bed. I complained that he wouldn’t stay out of the mill and now . . . now he bloody well will because he’s dead!”

  “Josh, sweetheart, that didn’t mean you wanted him dead.”

  “Didn’t it?”

  She was shocked. “Of course it didn’t. I won’t have this; it’s nonsense to talk like that. And not like you, for you are a man of common sense and rational thought.”

  “I believed I was, Nancy, but this is hard.” He rolled away from her, shuddering, putting an arm across his eyes as though to hide his shame but she leaned over him, pushing it away, kissing his damp cheeks and tear-dewed eyes, murmuring endearments and small sounds of loving comfort until his body began to respond as she meant it to, as she mended him in the only way she could.

  “Dear God, should we, today of all days?” he murmured, lying back and arching his throat.

  “Your father would tell you to go ahead, my love. He was not a killjoy. I think it might even have amused him,” she whispered.

  “Sweet Jesus, I want you, Nancy.”

  “I know . . . hush . . .” and she slid down him, her body like silk against his, gathering him to her, giving herself and taking him, their bodies joining, fusing together as they had learned over the years so that no part of her, or of him, was entirely hers or his, no part of them where his body ended and hers began.

  Breathing heavily, she sank back into the pillows and he turned, laying his arm across her, his face between her breasts, as breathless as she but beginning to laugh weakly.

  “Good God above,” he said.

  “Yes,” she gasped, and with their arms tightly about one another they fell together into a vast and healing sleep.

  A week later it was as though the scene where Summers had burst into her shop to fetch her to Edmund Hayes’s deathbed was being played again, though this time it was not the coachman who flung himself through the shop doorway, but Annie Wilson.

  Again her customers were taken aback, for one did not expect to see a woman of the caller’s class enter a shop of the quality of Miss Brody’s. She was decently dressed, neat and clean, her boots as well polished as her rounded apple cheeks, her hair smoothly drawn back beneath her old-fashioned bonnet. They waited, eyes alive with curiosity, for what was to happen next, their avid expressions asked.

  Nancy was transfixed for the space of five seconds and again Jennet was there beside her, her hand steady on Nancy’s arm, but on her own face was a look of astonishment. She had left Annie no more than three hours ago, sitting placidly before her kitchen fire, a cup of the strong, sweet tea which she could not get enough of, having been denied it in earlier years, in her gnarled hand, murmuring that she was looking forward to Sunday and a sight of her little mite!

  Though Annie had appeared to be relaxed her old eyes were as sharp as needles as she watched the girl she had employed, with Jennet’s approval, to help her with the heavy work. A good girl of thirteen, strong and healthy, despite where she came from, silent and obedient and who did her best to please her mistress, which was how she thought of Mrs Wilson since she gave the orders. Mrs Wilson was a tartar who missed neither a speck of dust on the mantelshelf or a smear on a window, but the girl, whose name was Bridget, or Bridie, knew that as long as she did her best to live up to the standards Mrs Wilson expected of her, her life would be smooth, warm, well fed and vastly better than the cramped, terraced cottage in Old Mount Street where she had lived with thirteen other members of her family. She was the eldest girl and had been at the beck and call of her mam and, indeed, being simple and good-natured, every one of her brothers and sisters so that Grove P
lace was like heaven to her. Her pa, an evil-tempered old bugger, spent most of his time and his wages at the Bull on the corner of Angel Street, but it was not until he began to pay marked attention to her when she was eleven, slipping his hand up her tattered skirt and frightening her to death, that her mam sent her to Mrs Wilson who they all knew had bettered herself and might have an answer for her mam’s dilemma. Bridie had never gone home again and for two years had striven to please Mrs Wilson whom she looked on as her saviour.

  But Bridie was an uneducated, inarticulate girl and could not be trusted, though she would do her anguished best, to deliver a message, which was why Annie had come herself. In a hansom cab no less, for the urgency of the situation had seemed to warrant it, which still stood outside the shop as she had told the driver to do.

  “Yer’ve ter come at once, lass,” she said without preamble, paying no attention to the open-mouthed group who sat about the salon. “Cab’s waitin’ so best get yer ’at, an’ look sharp.”

  Nancy felt her mind freeze in shock and a great many fundamental things inside her became suspended from their usual function, like the power to draw breath, or even blink in surprise, for just as on the day when Summers came to fetch her to Riverside House, she knew this was to be bad. Annie did not panic. Annie was calm, resourceful, well able to deal with any small emergency at Grove Place, which seemed to tell Nancy that this did not concern Grove Place, where, in any case, there was only Annie and Bridie and Annie was here and in full health. She would not have come on Bridie’s behalf so what crisis had arisen that had dragged her across town in a hansom cab?

  “Annie,” she pleaded, longing for Annie to say there was nothing to be worried about.

  “Come on, lass, don’t ’ang about. I’ll tell yer in’t cab, an’ fer God’s sake ’urry up or it’ll be too late.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Annie.” The ladies gasped, shocked to the core. “Please, you’re frightening me: too late for what?”

  Pushing Jennet to one side and doing the same with the offended person of Mrs Agnes Lambert who had come to try on her new bonnet which was being created for her, she gripped Annie’s arm, twisting it cruelly, since her instincts told her this was something that would hurt her, that she might not be able to withstand.

  “Listen, chuck, yer don’t want these ladies ter know all yer business, do yer?” Annie cast a disparaging glance about the circle of ladies, all of whom, in her opinion, did not know the meaning of a day’s work and filled their idle days drinking tea, gossiping and spending their husbands’ money.

  “Annie, you must . . .”

  Annie turned in exasperation to Jennet who, having no immediate family of her own over whom she might panic, could be counted on to be steady.

  “Get ’er ’at, will yer, love. Not that she needs a bloody ’at where she’s goin’, an’ I’ll put ’er in’t cab.”

  “Annie . . .”

  “Give over, our Nancy. Just come wi’ me.”

  “Where are we going? Annie, I swear I’ll hit you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. Is it Josh?”

  Her clients could hear her voice through the open shop doorway, beseeching Annie, whoever she was, to tell her again and again what had happened and where they were going, and it was not until the cab drew away into the traffic, driving off at a speed that threatened to kill the poor, broken-winded hack that pulled it, that the ladies let out their breath which they had been unaware that they were holding. Miss Williams returned from the pavement where she had been watching Miss Brody’s departure, smiling falsely. She snapped her fingers at the flustered milliner who had been about to place Mrs Lambert’s new bonnet on her head.

  “Now then, Mrs Lambert, shall we see how your bonnet looks? I’m sure you’re going to love it.”

  The cabbie refused to enter, never mind wait for them in Angel Meadow, saying it would be more than his life or the safety of his horse and cab were worth. Didn’t the ladies know that the only person who did not live in the area who could safely enter was the midwife, or the police and then in twos or threes. There were some very shady characters hanging about, he warned them, all of them eyeing the two women with astonishment, as he had done himself when he saw where they intended to go. The eastern side of Manchester was well known for having the poorest housing and the worse slums to the square mile and Angel Meadow was the worst of the lot. The largest police force and the highest crime rate to go with it, so he’d be obliged if the ladies would give him his fare and let him get off. When they were ready to return he was sure they would find a cab on St George’s Road.

  It looked exactly as it had done when she had left it almost five years ago, even to the women who leaned idly against their sagging door frames or sprawled, legs apart, on their unscrubbed, broken-down doorsteps. Rotting brickwork, crumbling woodwork, broken windows, festering garbage against every wall, and children, unwashed, unshod, barely clothed, splashing in the foetid stream that eddied in the gutter running down the middle of the street and in which things unrecognisable, unmentionable, but known to be stinking, floated.

  The mouths of the women fell open, for it was a long time since someone like her – in fact it was her – had walked their slimy, cobbled setts, and for several seconds, though they recognised her, they were speechless. But not for long!

  “Well, will yer look ’oo’s come ter call, ladies? If it ain’t Miss bloody Brody ’erself payin’ us a visit an’ me in me old frock. Go an’ put kettle on, Teresa, an’ we’ll ’ave us a nice chat over a cup o’ tea.” It was Kate Murphy who spoke, or rather cackled toothlessly, looking nearer fifty than the thirty-two she actually was.

  “Bugger me if yer not right,” chortled Teresa Finnigan, slapping her thigh with huge delight. “An’ ter what do we owe the ’onour o’ this visit, Miss Brody? Come ter see that there sister o’ yours, ’ave yer? The one what’s got ’erself in’t same pickle as yerself an’ wi’t same chap, so I ’eard. Another bastard in’t family. I dunno, you Brody girls’ll lift yer skirts fer owt in trousers.”

  Ignoring them all, if she was conscious of them which seemed unlikely, and though still deep in the shock into which Annie’s news had thrust her, she still had the presence of mind to hold up her skirt and the white frills of her petticoats to avoid contact with the filth underfoot. Her fine kid boots, black to match her gown, for she was in mourning for Edmund Hayes, had no such attention and in the recesses of her mind Nancy told herself absently that they’d need to be discarded.

  As they approached the door to what had once been the O’Rourke home, and still was apparently, it was flung violently open and on the step which bore the same filth it had known when Nancy was a girl stood Eileen O’Rourke. She was still the same slattern, the same foul-mouthed virago she had always been but this time her venom was directed at her neighbours.

  “You shurrup, Teresa Finnigan. Yer know nowt about owt an’ if yer was ter cast yer mind back to when yer got that poor sod of a ’usband o’ thine ter wed yer ’appen yer’ll remember yer were eight months gone at ’t time. ’E only took yer because yer old man medd ’im.”

  Before Nancy or Annie could recover from this acrimony, Eileen had grabbed them both by the arm and dragged them inside, banging the door to behind them with such force the frame moved at least an inch. The parlour, if it could be given such a grand name, was dim, the accumulated dirt of years that coated the window effectively blocking out the light, and it stank of urine, unwashed bodies and cats, or so Nancy thought dazedly, almost overcome by it. The furniture, what there was of it, was stained, broken, ready to disintegrate at a touch, but held together by an assortment of what looked like string and cardboard. In the middle of the room was an ancient deal table on which the cluttered remains of a meal stood. Two cats, presumably one of the causes of the appalling, eye-watering stench, sat in the centre of it daintily licking their paws after, Nancy supposed with a shudder, cleaning the chipped and greasy plates. Sharing the table space was a cardboard box into which one of the animal
s peered with feline interest and was about to jump into, prevented only by Eileen O’Rourke’s shriek and lunging backhand. It fled with a howl.

  Eileen crossed grimy arms over her sagging bosom. “Right, Nancy Brody,” she said truculently. “I sent our Angelina ter fetch yer – one o’t women at mill knew where Annie Wilson’d flitted to – ter tekk away this ’ere,” pointing at the box, “’cos it’s no use ter me. I reckon I done me bit so I’d be obliged if yer’d remove it. An’ ’er upstairs an’ all. I done me best but it were no use. She . . . well, she . . .”

  For a brief moment Eileen O’Rourke’s face lost the grim look of endurance which forty years of hardship, hunger, struggle and adversity had put there and she looked as once she might have done as a girl who had believed, with the optimism of youth, that her life would be different from that of her parents. There was a relaxing of her thin lips and what might have been pity in her eyes.

  “It’s your Rose.”

  “Angelina told Annie . . .”

  “Aye, but yer too late,” Eileen said briskly, the moment of sympathy gone. She’d no time for it. Life had taught her it got you nowhere so, along with all the other finer emotions which, after all, were only so much baggage to drag you down, she had jettisoned them many years ago. “I couldn’t afford midwife so me an’ Angelina did us best. She lives in your old ’ouse wi’ ’er six kids an’ we neither of us can manage no more. Anyroad we done what we could fer ’er but she were skinny as a bloody bootlace wi’ no fight in ’er so yer can see why . . .”

  “Rosie is dead?” Nancy’s voice was so calm she might have been enquiring about the weather, though inside her a storm of such proportions raged she felt she might just get lifted up and blown away with it.

  “Aye, that’s wharr I’m sayin’, an’ bairn’s none too clever.”

  Beside her Annie made a small sound in the back of her throat, somewhere between a sigh and a moan, for who could forget the bonny, spirited lass who had been Nancy Brody’s little sister. Healthy and bright-eyed with the rounded cheeks and firm limbs of the well-fed. A head of curly hair that seemed to take life from the sun or any stray beam from a candle, crackling and shining as she tossed it defiantly at her sisters. Not plump, but strong-shouldered, deep-bosomed, like Nancy. The Brody girls, known for their teeth-gritting endurance and their determination to take life by the throat and twist it to their own liking and now one of them was gone. What the devil had Eileen O’Rourke’s son done to her in the five years since they had fled the city? Where had she been, and where was the bugger who had reduced her to “a bloody bootlace”?