‘I’m home, Mam!’ Meg yelled as soon as she opened the front door. ‘Are you both all right?’
She was relieved to see her mother sitting in the chair next to the fire with a cup of tea in her hand.
‘I am, lass, but I don’t know about Betsy next door,’ her mother said wearily. ‘They wakened me as soon as you walked out the door, before light this morning. Shouting and yelling and carrying on, you’ve heard nothing like it. Now that no-good husband of hers has just slammed the door and she’s up the backyard bawling her eyes out and her mother’s taken most of the children with her when she turned up an hour ago.’ Agnes shook her head. ‘It’s a rum do, all those folk in that house and they still can’t afford to keep their children fed and shod. He just drinks it all and she’s useless. Can’t cook, doesn’t clean, just keeps on having babies - and they can’t all be her husband’s, they all look to have a different father.’ Agnes sighed. ‘When I first came to this square it was so respectable, run-down but we all had our values and kept our noses clean.’
‘Well, it sounds as if I needn’t have worried about you this morning,’ Meg said. ‘Betsy and her clan have been entertaining you, and there was I worrying that Sarah might not even have managed to get you out of bed.’ She went and put the kettle on to make herself a drink and smiled at her mother who always had liked a good gossip.
‘Aye, she managed, but she soon got fed up with showing her caring side. It didn’t last long, especially when young Harry next door knocked on the door and led her astray with the idea of going around the market together. Neither of them is back yet; I hope that they are not up to no good, he’s a young bugger-who is that’en.’
‘I hope she comes back with some broken crates or something for the fire, else she’ll answer to me. She might be only nearly eleven but she could help a bit more than she does,’ Meg sighed.
‘Now, Meg, don’t be so hard on her. She’s only young, she knows no different. Anyway, how did you go on with old Ted this morning? I bet he’s a bugger to work for but at least you’ll be warm and doing something you enjoy doing. Better than taking in washing especially on dreary days like today.’ Agnes looked at her daughter as she stared out of the window that looked out over the terraces’ backyards.
‘He’s all right, he’s a mucky old devil. I’d like to give everywhere a good clean and sort out but I’ll hold my tongue. After all, I’m just his lackey.’
Meg looked out at her next-door neighbour, Betsy, who was sobbing her eyes out and rocking herself with grief at what had happened in her house. ‘Mam, I’ll tell you more in a minute. Just let me go and see if I can do owt for Betsy, she looks besides herself with grief.’
‘Aye, go and see what they’ve been up to – it’s a wonder the peelers didn’t turn up with the noise that they were making.’ Agnes’s curiosity meant her daughter’s account of her morning could wait.
‘Betsy, are you all right? I couldn’t help but see that you are upset when I saw you from out of our kitchen window.’ Meg stood and looked at her neighbour from over the red-bricked wall that separated the houses. She stood head in hands still sobbing, her blonde hair unkempt and her skeletal body shaking.
‘Aye, I’m all right. I doubt my Jim will be coming back to me though. I don’t know how I’m going to feed my children now, but it is all of my own doing.’ Betsy sobbed and then raised her head to reveal her battered face. Her eye was bruised and her nose looked to Meg as if it was broken, with dried blood running from it.
‘Has Jim done that to you? No matter what you’ve done, he shouldn’t treat you like that!’ Meg looked at the woman who was only five years older than herself but looked nearly as old as her mother. ‘Can I do anything for you – have you some comfrey to help with the swelling?’ Meg looked at Betsy with pity.
‘Jim came back home and he caught me in bed with Henry, one of our lodgers. I thought he was going to kill him and kill me come to that. Henry’s flown but he left me to face the music. I suppose I deserve every mark on my face but Jim never shows me any love… he’d rather seek solace in his beer. What’s a woman supposed to do when she’s no money from off her husband and no love shown to her either? I was just in need of both and Henry was there to give me ’em.’ Betsy sobbed.
‘Aye, Betsy, you’d have been better to keep your legs together, that’s what my mother always tells me to do,’ Meg said, reckoning her mam had got the right idea about Betsy. ‘But I suppose it’s a bit late to give you that advice and I know that urges can sometimes get the better of good judgement.’ Meg hung her head thinking of the band of ragged urchins that were her next-door neighbours.
‘Aye, my mother’s lectured to me that and all, but what’s done is done. Jim will come back to me once he’s calmed down – he’s nowhere else to go and nobody in their right minds will want him.’ Betsy sniffed and wiped her nose. ‘I’d better go. I can hear the baby crying. My mother’s taken four of them and the older ones have gone roaming the streets until things have calmed down. I hope our Harry doesn’t get himself into trouble, he’s taken to pick-pocketing. I found a fancy hanky in his pocket the other day, that he denied all knowledge of, the thieving little devil, but he’s only trying to help out bless his soul.’
Betsy tried to smile as she made her way down the yard and back into her home with Meg watching her and hoping that she would never be in such dire straits.
‘If I can help, you’ve just to ask,’ Meg shouted after her as she went back to her mother, worrying as she did so that Harry might be leading her younger sister astray with his pick-pocketing exploits.
‘So, what’s been going on then?’ Agnes asked as soon as Meg entered the house.
‘Jim’s caught her in bed with a lodger, he’s given her a good hiding, and she’s in a right mess,’ Meg said and sighed.
‘It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other,’ Agnes retorted. ‘So, how was working for Ted today? You were about to tell me.’
‘It was all right. He likes his own way and he doesn’t believe in himself doing hard work. I had to wait half an hour for him to appear this morning before he opened up. Then when we closed shop because he said we had been open long enough, he thought so much of my help he forgot my name and called me Myra!’ Meg walked over to the near-empty cupboard and took out some oatcakes and cheese from within it and placed them on the table for her and her mother’s dinner. She looked across at her mother as she caught her breath sharply as if in pain.
‘Are you all right? Was that a bad spasm?’ Meg looked with concern at her mother.
‘No, it was Ted calling you Myra. He must have been thinking about his young lass that he lost. He’s never been the same since she and her mother died. It was a tragedy and I know their deaths marked him badly. It was his wife Eleanor that ran the bakery like clockwork. There were fancy cakes and pastries in the window every morning and the bread would be fresh and scrumptious,’ Agnes said with a sad look in her eye. ‘It’ll be over twenty years since they both drowned at sea. I know it was a good while before you were born.’
‘I never knew that he’d been married and had a daughter. The poor man. Where were they going and how did they drown at sea?’ Meg asked as she and her mother ate their meagre dinner.
‘Eleanor was from Ireland and she and Myra were going to see her parents,’ Agnes explained. ‘They’d sailed from Liverpool but it was a really stormy winter’s day when they had boarded. In fact, I think Ted had told them not to sail but she wanted to visit her mother after hearing that she’d been ill. Anyway, the ship was lost mid-channel as it crossed the Irish Sea. Nearly fifty folks were lost; some bodies were never found, Myra and Eleanor two of them. It was a tragedy, a tragedy that Ted has never got over. It left him heartbroken and bitter. I suppose he blamed himself for letting them go.’ Agnes looked into the fire as she remembered Ted and his family in happier times.
‘The poor man, I didn’t realize, no wonder he’s like he is,’ Meg said, feeling pity for her miserable employer.
‘Ted’s a good baker if he puts his heart into it and he had customers from all over Leeds coming for his baking,’ Agnes recalled. ‘He can make much more than just bread – not that the bread he makes is anything like what he used to make. You wouldn’t get me buying it, if I wasn’t desperate some days. Besides you make ours and you can’t get much better.’ Agnes sighed.
‘No, we will not be buying it in the future, not now I know what he does to it,’ Meg said quietly. ‘He’s told me not to say anything, but Mam, he adds sawdust into his mix, I couldn’t believe it when I watched him adding it to the flour.’
‘He’ll not be the first, and he’ll not be the last,’ Agnes replied. ‘He’ll be watching the money, and he always was a tight old devil. It’s not helping him in the long run – there are no queues like there used to be when his baking was good. Eleanor must be turning in her grave.’
‘I didn’t know bakers did that, I couldn’t believe my eyes.’ Meg tidied what oatcakes were left away from the table.
‘Oh, aye, it’s common practice. It’s time the government put something into place to check folk like Ted, it is a recipe for disaster, these bakers that add all sorts into their mixes. It’s always best to make your own, that’s what my mother used to tell me.’
Agnes closed her eyes. She was ready for a nap now she had Meg back home and knew that she’d be there if needed.
‘If I owned that bakery, I wouldn’t do anything like that,’ Meg told her. ‘Folk are not daft: if it doesn’t taste good you don’t go back. Most of his bread is sold early in the morning to the mill workers and some of it is days old and not fit to eat. I promised one lass that I’d put her a fresh loaf to one side for her when she came into the shop this morning. It’s only right that folk gets good food for their hard-earned brass.’
‘Well, when his wife was alive, the bakery used to be open until the evening whistle at the mills blew, and then he’d have another wave of buyers. Eleanor knew how to make money and what folk wanted, but that is all gone now. Ted’s heart is not in it.’ Agnes yawned. ‘Now, leave me be for a while lass, and let these old bones have forty winks in this chair. I’m not feeling too bad today but I soon get tired.’
Meg placed a blanket around her and smiled, then went up to their shared bedroom and sat on the edge of her bed. She thought about Ted Lund and the bakehouse. He must be still mourning for his lost wife and daughter; with them gone he had no purpose to live, it would seem. The poor man, she thought, as she got up and walked towards her mother’s bed. Seeing blood on the pillow from her coughing, she quickly changed the pillow sham. The sickness must have reached her lungs she realized as she plumped the pillow and pulled the covers straight. She too would soon be broken-hearted and without a mother.
With the beds made and all tidy she stood and looked out of her bedroom window thinking about her new job at the bakery. The place could make a good profit if it was looked after properly, just like it had done in the past. If it was hers she would sell good fresh bread and pastries, scones and buns – all the things that the good people of Leeds needed every day. It was in a good position and would be a welcoming shop if looked after properly, with love and care shown it.
However, she knew her daydreaming would come to nothing. It was Ted’s bakery and she was just his servant lass. Perhaps if she ever had her way, she could improve on his bread because despite what he had said to her, the bread she made was far superior to his.
Meg looked down into the square. Standing outside number 8 was Jim, who was hesitating as he looked up at his house. Meg smiled as she saw Betsy run out to him and fling her arms around his neck, and he responded by kissing her in full view of everyone in the square. Well, at least they were back to normal for the time being, although Meg knew it wouldn’t last long. It would only last as long as Jim kept off the drink and Betsy kept herself to herself, neither of which would ever happen.
Life was what you made it, but Meg was sure of one thing: she would never marry a Jim of the world. She would plough her own furrow in life if she had the chance.