Laura Caldwell, at eight, had a surprisingly mature intelligence for her age despite living the sheltered, coddled life of an only child. She knew that what she was witnessing in Dawson Street on that New Year’s Day was evil and wrong.
When the big man grabbed the tiny baby in his rough hands and went off with it into the next room, a great fear came over Laura. Instinct immediately told her that something bad was about to happen. And she was the only person there who could stop it.
‘No, no!’ She bounded after him with terrified cries. ‘Don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him!’
The woman in the bed hardly had the strength to lift her head, but she was observing the little girl intently. Her face contorted as she, too, tried to cry out, but was too weak, all her strength, physical and mental, sapped from her.
Laura reached the bed and tugged at the grubby, stained bedcovers, wanting to rouse the woman into some sort of action, but it seemed an impossible task. Her fingers were too small and she wasn’t strong enough to shift the quilt, let alone the woman.
‘Mrs Flynn, stop him!’ Laura screamed at the top of her voice. ‘That man’s going to hurt Billy! We can’t let him, we can’t!’
Maggie Flynn raised herself on one elbow, and then sank back with a groan before she could get one leg out of the bed. She, too, was unable to push aside the top-heavy quilt that was pinning her down. She gave up the struggle with a grunt.
‘But the bairn’s dead already, pet,’ she said wearily.
‘No he isn’t, Mrs Flynn. He isn’t!’
‘He will be soon.’ The woman sank further into the bed then they both stiffened at the sound of a weak baby cry, no stronger than the mew of a kitten.
‘See? I told you he wasn’t dead, Mrs Flynn, but Mr Flynn’s going to hurt him...’ Laura gasped for breath. ‘He might kill him, Mrs Flynn. Poor Little Billy Big Boots. You can’t let him die. You can’t!’
Maggie Flynn lay for a few long seconds, staring up at the ceiling, and then her hands curled into fists as she beat the bed on either side of her, magically re-gaining some of her lost resilience.
‘Go for help, Laura,’ she said finally. ‘Get help, lass. Oh, for God’s sake, get help!’
Before Laura could move, Mr Flynn was back, casting about him for something he desperately needed. He grabbed a pillow from beneath his wife’s head and started with it back to the scullery from where there came more faint, mewing from the newborn infant.
Laura followed the man, not knowing why she should do so, but it seemed the only thing to do. Mrs Flynn had begged her to go for help, but she didn’t know anybody round here and the people spoke with such a thick accent she couldn’t understand them half the time.
Patrick Flynn was standing at the deep, stone sink, peering down at something that Laura couldn’t see. He slowly raised the pillow and started to bring it down, an expression of determination fixed on his grizzly face. A soft whimper made him hesitate and it was then that Laura summoned all her courage and made her presence felt.
The little girl attacked the man from behind, pulling at his clothes, screaming at him to leave the baby alone. The assault took Patrick by surprise and knocked him off balance. He tried to swat her away as he would swat a bothersome fly. The damned little busybody had seen what he was about to do. He couldn’t let her get away. She would tell on him and he’d land back in prison, where he’d already spent too much time.
Patrick threw the pillow to the floor and went for Laura, but he was a big, lumbering giant of a man and she was nimble enough to dodge his frantic lunges. She fled for the back door, which was the nearest exit to the street, but it was bolted and her child’s fingers couldn’t manipulate it quickly enough.
She felt his hands on her, gripping her, pulling her away and lifting her high off the ground. One of his forearms came around from behind as he struggled to keep the wriggling, kicking child still and quiet. Laura’s sharp little teeth found purchase on a piece of his flesh. She didn’t stop to think what she was doing or whether her mother or her grandmother would approve. She bit down hard, drawing blood, the taste of it like salty iron in her mouth. With a yowl of pain he dropped her on the hard, flagstone floor.
Someone was banging on the door, the thuds so frantic that the worn wooden timbers moved and shed dust and flakes of paint. Laura screamed, but she still couldn’t get the door open, so she was once more dodging the grasping hands of Patrick Flynn as she tried to get out of that nightmare house.
They both came to an abrupt halt at the pale apparition standing just inside the scullery door.
‘Let the bairn go, Patrick.’
Maggie Flynn, looking like a ghostly wraith rather than a human being, spoke in a hoarse whisper that had more menace in it than all the raised voices in the world could instil. Whether it was just the shattered emotion of the moment, or whether it was a temporary thing, the frail, subservient wife had gone, replaced by one of remarkable courage.
Laura’s eyes were bright round marbles standing out on stalks as she watched the woman slowly raise her hand, and in it was a long, sharp, carving knife. Laura had seen such a knife only half an hour ago when she watched her granddad slice through the pork with it.
‘Aw, get away wi’ ye, woman!’ Patrick shouted in disbelief. ‘Put the bliddy gully down afore ye hurt somebody.’
Patrick started to laugh, but he looked uncertain and Laura took the opportunity to slip through the doorway into the main room. At the same time, someone was coming in through the front door. It was a woman with an explosion of bright red hair and dressed in a way Laura had never seen before. She looked almost as crazy as Mr Flynn, the child thought, making her mouth into a large ‘Oh!’ though no sound was emitted.
‘What’s goin’ on here?’ the woman shouted, looking beyond Laura to the scullery where there was some kind of scuffle taking place.
The woman teetered forward on shoes that weren’t made for walking, but made her look taller than her four foot ten inches. Laura got a whiff of perfume as she went past. It was kind of sour and flowery all at the same time. Not at all like the fresh-smelling eau de cologne her mother favoured.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Patrick Flynn demanded as the newcomer, followed closely by the petrified Laura, entered the scullery.
Maggie Flynn was lying on the floor, trying to crawl up the wall. Her hands and her nightdress were covered in blood and the knife lay a few feet away from her under the sink. Her foot had knocked over the slop bucket and there was brown, murky liquid flowing over the floor, giving off an unbelievable stench. Patrick Flynn once more had the baby in his hands, holding the child as if he were about to throw him at the wall.
‘No, Patrick,’ the red-haired woman said firmly. ‘Give the bairn here.’
He stared at her uncomprehendingly, as if turned to stone. None of them moved, none of them even dared to breathe.
‘He’s going to kill Billy Big Boots,’ Laura murmured, clinging like a limpet to the woman’s coat at the back, peering around her ample hips, and not believing her eyes. She wished with all her heart her mother were there to put things right. Better still, she wished she had never come, and how was she going to be able to tell them back home what happened without getting herself into a terrible lot of trouble?
‘Is he, indeed?’ The red-haired woman punched her fists into her sides and drew herself up another inch or two until her head came level with Patrick Flynn’s shoulders.
‘Divvint be daft,’ Patrick said, his voice shaking as his Adam’s apple moved up and down erratically. ‘You don’t want to believe what that little brat says. Who is she, anyway?’
‘He put the pillow over Billy’s face,’ Laura insisted. ‘Poor Billy couldn’t breathe.’
‘Did he now?’ The woman held out her arms and never let her eyes stray from Patrick’s face. ‘I’ll take that baby now, Patrick Flynn. We don’t want no more trouble with the police, now, do we? There’s been enough of that in this family because of you.’
Another long silence ensued and Laura could feel her own heart pumping away madly in her chest as she pressed even more firmly against this strange lady who seemed to be in charge of the situation.
Patrick threw back his head and gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Colleen, Colleen! You’re the last person in this street to get involved with the police.’
‘I tell you, if you don’t give me that bairn I’ll shop you good and proper and to hell with the consequences.’
Laura winced at the use of a word she knew would have been frowned on by her mother and would have shocked her grandmother white-faced. But she continued to cling to the woman’s skirts, not daring to move for fear that Mr Flynn would drop Billy and charge after her again.
‘Oh, Patrick!’ wailed Maggie Flynn from her slumped position on the floor, a stream of pee issuing from her and forming a steaming, frothy puddle as it mingled with the blood and the slops. ‘Oh, Patrick, don’t do this. I love you, Patrick. I’ll do anything you want. Just leave the bairn be.’
But Patrick wasn’t in the mood to listen to his wife’s pleading. She could have promised him the moon and it would have made no difference. Not with Colleen Maguire standing there threatening to snitch on him. And knowing her the way he did, she wouldn’t hesitate to carry out the threat, even if it did land her in a whole load of trouble. He wasn’t going to take the chance that the police might not believe a common prostitute. If the truth be known, half the Force could claim to be on intimate terms with the damned whore. She was curiously popular on all levels with her reputation of being an honest, caring soul, which was more than could be said for the majority of her fellow streetwalkers.
‘Here!’ he said, thrusting the infant at her. She took it and quickly cradled it to her bosom, rocking with it and pulling the loose edges of her coat around it to keep it warm in the unheated house. ‘But don’t think I haven’t finished with you...or that little bugger either.’
He had addressed the last part of his sentence to Laura and she quivered with fright when she saw his great thick sausage of a finger jabbing the air in her direction. Her head was telling her to get away from that place as fast as she could. Her legs refused to move.
With one last disdainful glance at his prostrate wife, Patrick Flynn grabbed his coat and strode out of the room, anger stiffening his spine. Almost wrenching it from its hinges, he let the front door bang against the wall. The cold January wind immediately rushed in to fill the space that he had vacated.
‘Shut the door for us, pet,’ the woman said, giving Laura a little push, but it wasn’t an unfriendly gesture. ‘Ye’re a good girl. What’s your name, eh?’
‘Laura Caldwell.’
Laura stood on tiptoe to push the bolt firmly into place after closing the door as instructed. Her heart was still beating fast and she was fearful of Mr Flynn returning before she could get away to the comfortable safety of her own home.
‘That’s a pretty name,’ the woman said as Laura came back and stood before her. ‘Now then, Laura Caldwell, can ye help us a bit more and take hold of this babbie till I deal with his poor ma?’
Laura’s eyes widened. All she wanted to do right then was to leave Dawson Street and never come back. Not even to see Billy. She wasn’t supposed to wander off. She knew that very well. Her mummy would be angry and worried and there would be trouble. And her daddy would go quiet and tight-faced, the way he often did. He would just wheel himself off to his room without saying anything. He did that a lot. And her mother would cry herself to sleep, which also happened a lot, whether it was Laura’s fault or not.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked demurely.
She was looking in awe at the confusion of red corkscrew tendrils framing a face that was heavily painted with black and red and pink. Just like a clown, Laura thought to herself. She supposed this was what her grandma meant when she talked of women being “all dolled up” and “common as muck”. Her mummy only ever wore a little pale pink lipstick when she went out. Even then, Grandma Robinson criticized, but then she was old-fashioned. Grandpa Robinson called her “straight-laced”, but did it behind her back rather than to her face and risk being told off.
‘Just sit down in the chair in the next room and take the babbie on your knee. Think ye can do that, me darlin’?’
Laura nodded uncertainly, for she had never so much as touched a baby before, and climbed onto the nearest chair. Baby Billy was placed on her lap and she tried not to hold him too tightly in case he broke. He looked so fragile and smaller even than Peggy, her favourite rag doll, though he was a good bit heavier.
‘Like this?’ she asked.
‘Aye, hinny, like that,’ said Colleen Maguire, and she touched a forefinger to Laura’s flushed cheek. ‘Your Mummy must be very proud of you. I wish I had a daughter, but then, mebbe, in a few months’ time I will have.’ Colleen patted her swollen stomach and grinned. ‘If it’s a girl, what do you think I should call her, eh?’
Laura’s eyes stretched some more as she stared at the woman’s stomach, then at the painted face, thinking how pretty it was, despite the make-up. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘My favourite name’s Bridget, but Mummy says that’s an Irish name.’
‘Well, now, there’s nothing wrong with bein’ Irish,’ said Colleen Maguire, herself born and bred in the shadow of the Ballyhoura Hills and proud of it. Though her life had taken a turn for the worse when her no-good husband had dragged her all the way to the north-east of England to find work in the mines or the shipyards.
So much for a man with foresight and ambition, she thought. With no jobs forthcoming, he had put his innocent young wife to work on the streets of Jarrow in order to pay their way. It was either that, he had told her, or starve. He had died without a penny to his name, six months later, struck down by the consumption he had brought with him. ‘Bridget’s a lovely name. How would you like it if I call my bairn Bridget, eh?’
Laura didn’t say anything, but she smiled, and then turned her attention to the tiny baby moving feebly in her arms. She liked it fine that the lady would call her baby Bridget and she hoped she would get to see her one day. Maybe they could become friends, though if this Bridget were Irish, Laura’s mummy and her grandma wouldn’t like her to have anything to do with her. Well, she just wouldn’t tell them, that’s all.
‘Come on, Maggie, darlin’,’ Colleen was saying, the words coming out on puffs of wind as she struggled to get Billy’s mother to her feet. ‘Back to bed wi’ ye. I’ll make ye a nice cup of tea to warm ye, then I’ll take young Laura home.’
‘Is she hurt?’ Laura wanted to know, remembering the knife and the blood.’
‘No, pet. Just a cut or two on her hands where that bliddy husband of hers pulled the knife from her. It’s to be hoped ye got him good, Maggie, and that it wasn’t all your blood on his shirt.’
‘I think I cut him bad, Colleen,’ the woman whispered tearfully.
‘Good! He deserved it.’
‘Don’t leave me....please don’t go...’ Maggie gripped Colleen’s wrists as Colleen deposited her as best she could on the big double bed in the front room that complained with a loud jangle of springs. ‘I know what....who you are, but I beg of you, don’t leave me. He’ll kill the bairn.’
‘He’ll not kill the bairn. Trust me.’ Colleen bustled about the place as if she was at home, boiling water in a big brass kettle on the stove and spooning tea into the brown earthenware teapot. ‘He’s killed once before and he knows I’ll keep my word if he does it again.’
‘Wh-what do you mean? Who did he kill?’
‘Never you mind, but ye’er better wi’out the likes of Patrick Flynn. All of us are.’ She turned her back on the woman in the bed and remained silent until the tea was massed and poured. ‘There ye are. Come on, Laura. Let’s give Mrs Flynn back her babbie and I’ll see ye home.’
Laura was appalled. ‘But what if Mr Flynn comes back?’
‘He won’t. Believe me. If I know that sod, he’ll be long gone, and good riddance.’
She lifted the baby from the child’s arms with unexpected gentleness and her eyes became moist as she gazed down on the tiny scrap of humanity before returning him to his mother.
‘Don’t worry, Maggie,’ she said, gently massaging the thin shoulder of the sick woman. ‘I’ll call on yer mam and tell her to come round right away. She’ll take care of you and the new bairn.’
And then, taking Laura’s clammy hand tightly in hers, she hurried the little girl out into the gathering dusk of the January afternoon. Once again, Laura found herself being transported at speed, through the darkening back streets of Jarrow to the more sedate terraces where she lived. And where her mother was no doubt frantic with worry, not knowing where she was.
* * *
It was already dark when Laura’s distraught family answered the door to Colleen Maguire’s knocking. Elizabeth Caldwell took one look at her daughter and was overtaken with a great bout of weeping. Harriet Robinson, not one to show much emotion, sniffled into her hankie. Their eyes were already swollen and red-rimmed. It was Laura’s grandfather who took control of the situation in his own inimitably calm way.
‘Come in,’ he said to Colleen Maguire, who hesitated, but he beckoned to her in a kindly manner, so she stepped over the threshold, appreciating the blissful warmth of a house heated with real coal and with no smell or feel of damp. ‘Now then, young woman. Tell us what happened.’
‘Albert!’ His wife cried out, taken aback at seeing the likes of Colleen Maguire in her living room. ‘What are you doing, asking this...this person into our daughter’s home?’
She looked at Colleen Maguire as if she were the lowest of the low. Colleen was used to such reactions from the so-called “better” people of the town. She didn’t flinch under the hateful scrutiny, but placed a hand on her hip and stuck out her chin defiantly
‘This person, as you put it,’ Albert said to his wife, ‘has brought Laura back to us in one piece. I don’t know about anybody else, but I need to know what has been going on since the little one left this house two hours ago.’
‘But Father, she’s...well, she’s...’ Elizabeth’s voice quivered in her throat as she gathered Laura up into her arms and glowered darkly at the red-haired woman who had delivered her. ‘I’ll take Laura to the doctor’s in the morning and have him check her over. He’ll know if she’s been...’ She gagged, unable to say the words that were going round and round in her head.
‘It doesn’t matter what I am, missus,’ Colleen said with a proud tilt of her head. ‘The bairn saved the life of the Flynn baby today and I made sure she got home safely. That’s all.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘Though you might want to wash her mouth out, for she bit Patrick Flynn as well as any dog could. He’ll certainly not forget her in a hurry.’
The group in the hall separated as there was the distinct squeak of a wheelchair and John Caldwell propelled himself forward. He and Colleen stared blankly at one another, and then John’s expression froze.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, his voice so tight he might have had a hand strangling him as he spoke.
‘Sure and I found the bairn at the Flynn house and himself ranting crazy-like, threatening to kill the newborn babbie. ‘Twas Laura here that stopped him. She’s a real heroine, this daughter of yours, John Caldwell. Any man would be proud of her. I know I would be, if I had one.’
Suddenly embarrassed by her own outburst, Colleen Maguire dropped her chin on her chest and stared at her feet that were ill clad for the time of year.
‘Mrs Maguire’s going to call her little girl Bridget,’ Laura announced. ‘It’s my favourite name and she says it doesn’t matter that it’s Irish.’
‘You’re going to have a child?’ Everyone stared curiously at John Caldwell, but he ignored them and continued to give all his attention to the red-haired prostitute.
‘Aye, I am that.’
‘John, you don’t...you can’t possibly know this woman.’ Elizabeth muttered, lowering Laura to the ground and turning to face her husband, hands clutched to her chest.
‘Well...I....er...’ It was John’s turn to be embarrassed, but Colleen caught his frantic gaze and gave a raucous laugh that brought back all the attention to herself.
‘Sure and there ain’t nobody what doesn’t know Colleen Maguire!’ She gave them all an especially bright smile. ‘I get mesel’ talked about all the way to the mouth of the River Tyne. Aye, and beyond, if I’m not mistaken.’
‘Christ almighty, she’s a whore!’ Oliver exclaimed and moved closer to have a better look, reaching out a finger to flick at a gingery tendril of hair that curled over one of Colleen’s flashing green eyes. ‘Fancy that!’
The women gasped and Colleen slapped his hand away. ‘As if ye didn’t know, mister!’
‘Dear God,’ breathed Elizabeth as if struck forcefully from above. ‘What in the world is a common prostitute doing with my daughter?’
‘As I said, I’ve brought her back safely to you,’ Colleen said, her eyes narrowing and passing from one to the other of the group of people that had gathered. ‘Tis all I’m doin’. Bringin’ her back. Nothing more and nothing less.’
‘You’d better ask the lass in, Elizabeth,’ Laura’s grandfather said and there were more shocked exclamations from the women present.
‘I’ll do no such thing, Father,’ Elizabeth said, avoiding looking at the woman who had dared touch her precious daughter.
‘Just give her some money and send her on her way,’ Oliver pronounced, drawing deeply on a strong smelling cigar and blowing out a cloud of blue-grey smoke that acted as a screen between them. ‘That’s what she’s after. You can bet your life on it. These women will do anything for money.’
‘I divvint want yer money,’ Colleen told them, pulling her coat more tightly about her and shivering convulsively. ‘I just wanted to be sure the bairn was home and safe. She’s not been interfered with. Rest assured on that score. On the contrary. Tis her teeth marks that were left in that murderin’ bastard’s arm and I hope to God it turns septic.’
Elizabeth and her mother both looked as if they were about to faint.
‘Go and clean your teeth, Laura,’ Elizabeth instructed, but Laura held her ground firmly, not wanting to miss any of the fun. ‘Do as I say. Quickly now, and rinse your mouth out well while you’re at it.’
Colleen smiled at her, then turned and started to walk away, down the frosted garden path to the gate that hadn’t been repainted since before the war and creaked agonizingly on its hinges.
‘Just a minute!’ John Caldwell called out after her, digging his fingers deep into his waistcoat pocket and drawing out a few pound notes. ‘Take this...for your trouble...and your baby.’
She gave him a strange look, meeting his gaze, but not looking at the money he held out in his shaking hand.
‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘That and a clear conscience.’
‘What on earth did she mean by that?’ Elizabeth asked her husband as they closed the door behind her and her parents returned to the lounge.
‘How should I know?’
John was back to being broody. The money he had tried to give to Colleen lay crumpled in his lap.
‘You knew her, didn’t you?’ Elizabeth was finding it difficult to get her words out. ‘John, where does my father take you on Saturday nights?’
‘Just down to the Swan for a pint.’
‘I’ve smelled more than beer on you when you’ve come back, long after the pubs have closed.’ Elizabeth reached out and held onto the wall as she stared down at her lame husband. ‘Oh, God, he hasn’t been taking you to one of those disgusting places, has he?’
‘Albert?’ Elizabeth’s mother was regarding her husband with revulsion, hardly able to voice her fears. ‘Is it true? You’ve been going down to the Slakes? Paying for your pleasures, like common ship-workers?’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, woman.’
Albert Robinson spoke to his wife more brusquely than she was used to. He pushed his way past the two women and headed back to the living room, where he threw more coal on the dwindling fire and stood silently watching the flames and the sparks shoot up the narrow chimney.
‘Father...?’ Elizabeth was beside herself as she burst into the room after him. ‘Say it’s not true! It can’t be. You wouldn’t...John wouldn’t...’
‘This isn’t something to be discussed in front of the bairn,’ Albert said to the flames, having seen that Laura was also standing by his side, full of curiosity to know what the grown-ups were talking about.
‘Laura, go to your room,’ Elizabeth ordered, giving her daughter a persuasive push.
‘But I haven’t done anything wrong, Mummy!’ was Laura’s plaintive cry in her own defense.
‘Yes you have! I told you not to go away and you did. You disobeyed me. We were so worried we actually called the police who are out there looking for you and they won’t be pleased with you either. No more argument now. Go to your room at once.’
‘I’ll take her,’ Beatrice said, her eyes shooting daggers at her husband’s back.
When the elderly woman and the child were out of hearing, Elizabeth placed herself between her husband and her father and resumed her questioning.
‘Well?’ she said, holding on to her composure with difficulty.
John glanced up at her fleetingly, licked his lips then looked away, letting his eyes wander about the room, fixing on anything but his wife’s unforgiving face. Eventually, he spoke.
‘All right, I admit that your father did take me to the Slakes from time to time,’ he said sulkily. ‘What do you care for this pathetic body of mine these days? A man takes his pleasure where he can find it, Elizabeth.’
‘Oh, John, how could you!’
Elizabeth’s stern expression gave way to guilt and remorse. A river of tears flowed down her cheeks. She gave a choking gulp and ran off, almost bowling over her daughter, who had crept back, unseen, into the room. Laura’s soft brown eyes rested enquiringly on her father’s face.
‘Grandma’s crying too,’ she said, confusion softening her voice to a whisper. ‘Did I do something terrible, Daddy?’
John beckoned to Laura and drew her onto his lap. ‘Of course you didn’t. Don’t look so scared, sweetheart. Mummy’s just a bit tired because she’s had everything to do. And your grandma...well, she’s just your grandma and you’re too young to understand.’
‘Will I understand when I’m a big girl?’ That’s what they usually told her when she asked questions they weren’t prepared to answer.
John laughed and nuzzled his face into her neck. ‘I’m all grown up, Laura, and I still don’t understand, but you’ll grow up to be a woman, so you’ll have an advantage over me.’
Laura listened to her father’s words and frowned deeply.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
He kissed her cheek and hugged her. ‘Take no notice of me. I’m just being silly.’ He raised her small hand to his lips and kissed the chubby fingers. ‘Well, now, pretty princess, what’s this adventure you’ve just had, eh? Are you going to tell Daddy what you’ve been up to?’
But Laura, for once, was bereft of words. Suddenly she was gripped by an unknown fear that seemed to squeeze the life out of her as she recalled the big, evil-looking Irishman and his hands reaching for that poor little baby. And in the instant before he ran out of the house, the raw menace in his face - and his finger pointing threateningly at her.