So that was Mrs Metyard’s secret. Not just cruelty but all-out madness. Overnight the misery I’d suffered at Naomi’s birth and Pa’s death became raindrops in an ocean. My flashes were barbed, now. They were more than just blood.
I don’t want to talk about that. But what I will say is that, after my experience, I began to understand the place a bit better. I realised why everyone was so heartless and strange. The captain wouldn’t rest.
That was why Ivy staged her spiteful ‘accidents’. That was why Nell kept her head down and her mouth shut. He was always hungering, prowling for a victim: every girl had to make sure that it wouldn’t be her.
Three days later I was still sunk deep within myself: my body patched with bruises, my mind full of sand. I felt nothing, not even a flicker, when Kate’s voice came up the speaking pipe and ordered me downstairs.
I hadn’t been near the showroom since that first day when I stood on the threshold, peeking in. Leaving my shoes outside, I opened the door and entered in my stockinged feet. Everything was just as I remembered: the duck-egg blue; the chandeliers; a warm, powdery aroma of satin. Great sheets of light fell through the bow windows and set the glass counters sparkling. Beautiful.
‘There she is!’ Billy Rooker leant against the wall, beside the rolls of material, an incongruous figure amidst all that femininity. He’d taken his hat off, revealing a tumble of ungreased hair. The sight of his smile was the only thing in the world that could make me feel a fraction better.
‘Whittling,’ said Kate. ‘You haven’t forgotten, Ruth?’
‘No.’
‘Grand,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve brought everything with me. Wait until you see these knives.’
Kate flinched. She disguised it quickly, brushing down her dress in a no-nonsense manner. ‘Go on, then. Follow Billy.’
Awkwardly, I went behind the counter and trailed Billy to a recess on the left-hand side of the showroom, covered by an aubergine curtain with gold tassels. Pushing the thick, piled velvet aside, we entered a small chamber.
‘Bang-up job, isn’t it, Ruth?’
True enough, it was a pleasant room, papered in white and gold. A mirror hung on the wall and more cream carpet covered the floor, only it had been overlaid with a sheet of black oilskin. One of the showroom’s round tables sat upon it, spread with gleaming knives and a pile of yellow-white bones. There were two chairs.
I sat down heavily, too weary to stand.
Billy was much slower to take his seat. His brows were not arched and expressive now, but bunched together, straight, like two stitches on a seam. ‘What ails you?’
His voice was low and soft. I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to make it better, but I didn’t have the words to describe my ordeal. ‘Mrs Metyard …’ I whimpered.
He just nodded.
We sat in silence for a time. Not an uncomfortable silence. It had a nap to it, like a fine coat. Gentle. As if I could feel the texture of Billy’s sympathy through his lack of words.
I was reminded of another time and place. I saw myself sitting in the comfy chair at my old home in Ford Street, hiding my injuries under a cloak. How Ma had fussed around, bleating out cheerful, meaningless reassurance. Billy didn’t do that, and it was better. Better to sit and just be, letting the despair gust around me until it ran out of breath.
‘Have you heard from your mother at all?’ he asked at last.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to her. She couldn’t even see properly. What if …’ I trailed off. Could Ma’s circumstances be any worse than mine were?
Billy didn’t look at me but kept his blue eyes focused on the knives upon the table. ‘I doubt you’ll ever know, Ruth. And that’s hard on you. But you have to keep thinking, she didn’t just abandon you. She gave you up for what she hoped was a better life. Not her fault that it wasn’t.’
It surprised me he’d thought so much about my ma. A feeling began to trickle through my sorrow; something warm and sweet. ‘Of course it’s not her fault. But that makes it worse. It means all her sacrifice was for nothing.’
Billy’s jaw set. ‘That’s why you owe it to her. To survive.’ There was a beat, and then the cloud seemed to pass from his face. He sat straighter in his chair, crossed one leg over the other. ‘Come on, let’s teach you how to do some whittling. I think you’ll like this, Ruth.’
He was right. The tips of the knives sparkled. They had sturdy, thick handles and the thought of gripping one steadied me, as the thought of Pa’s gun had done a thousand lifetimes ago. As for the whalebone, it was enchanting: translucent plates, strips like horn. Something natural and raw that I could shape.
‘Mrs Metyard has already taken the measurements we’ll need for this one,’ he said, drawing out a scrap of paper. ‘But Kate will show you how to do them yourself.’ He grinned. ‘Not really something it would be proper for me to demonstrate.’
I swallowed and felt my cheeks warm. Unbidden came the image of Billy measuring under my bust, passing his cloth tape around my waist. ‘But … how is it you know how to do this? A draper doesn’t usually make corsets.’
His right eyebrow lifted as he reached for a piece of bone. ‘Well, I wasn’t always a draper, was I?’
‘Weren’t you? I thought … Doesn’t your father own the business?’
‘Aye. But Mr Rooker wasn’t always my father.’
What could he mean? Was it his mother’s second marriage? But no, it would be unusual for a child not to keep their real father’s surname, especially a boy.
He saw my puzzled face. ‘Can you guess?’
‘You were … adopted?’
‘That’s it. Eventually. I was a foundling at first, just like the others.’
Suddenly I understood: the way he spoke of my ma, the look on Nell’s face as she called him a lucky bastard. He had been lost, like me. We shared a connection.
I pictured a blue-eyed baby, lying swaddled on the steps of Oakgate Foundling Hospital. God above, what woman could bear to give him up?
With a small knife, he began to peel slithers from a strip of bone. ‘It was here in this shop that Mr Rooker first saw me, spreading lengths for the customers. He used to watch me do it. One day I was cutting a particular bolt – champagne brocade it was, I’ll never forget – and he says, “Always so neat with his cuts. That’s a likely lad, that’s the sort of lad I could use around my place.” The next thing I know, there’s Mrs Rooker coming in to take a look at me. God bless her, I loved her from the moment I set eyes upon her. And after a few months, and all that toing and froing and haggling with Mrs Metyard, they did it. They took me away.’
‘What?’ The word flew from my mouth with such force that I nearly slipped off my chair. I hadn’t heard right, I couldn’t have done. Billy, the shining, cheerful Billy – here? ‘No. You couldn’t have … ’
‘Couldn’t I?’
‘You really worked here?’
‘Aye.’
‘But then how can you …?’ I stopped, afraid of saying too much. After all, Kate was in the showroom. But then the bell tinkled and I heard customers, voices beyond the curtain. I glanced at it.
Billy dropped his voice. He looked a bit graver, now. ‘Ah, I see. You’re wondering how I can marry into the family, after …’
Our eyes snagged. Something passed between us, some unspoken understanding that made his irises burn fiercely blue.
Kate’s nasal tones drifted towards us, recommending a midnight satin.
‘Kate never beat me,’ he said, very gently. ‘Skinny little whip she was, even then. We were all of us about the same age, and we were friends for a time: Kate, Nell and me.’
‘Nell?’ I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. This was all too much to take in.
‘Aye, we both came from the Foundling together. The twins and Miriam are a fair bit younger than me. I was long gone by the time they arrived here.’
My greatest wonder was that Nell could stand the sight of him, after all that had passed. By rights she should be eaten alive with jealousy. Fancy being friends with a boy – and a boy like Billy, for that matter – only to see him lifted to a better life, away from you. And then, to engage himself to your tormentor! She must be kinder and more forgiving than I had given her credit for. Lucky bastard was a mild term for her to use.
Selecting a knife and a plate of bone, I began to copy Billy’s actions. The movement came naturally to my hands. Gently, gently. Little white spirals fell from the bone. Curls of butter.
‘That’s good. But that one’s going to be for the shoulder blade so – come here. Let me help. Like this.’
The warmth of his hand guiding mine. His touch was tender and skilled, so why did it hurt to have it upon me?
‘I still can’t believe you worked here making corsets,’ I said wonderingly. ‘If I managed to get out of Metyard’s, I’d never come back.’
He continued scraping the bone, our fingers a fraction of an inch apart. ‘Goodness will triumph, little Ruth. I believe that. I was treated badly here, I won’t pretend otherwise, but it all came right. You see … if I’d given up, if I’d been sullen and resentful, Mr Rooker would never have taken to me. Kate would have been my enemy. But I won against them all.’
‘You haven’t won,’ I protested. ‘You still earn your money from Mrs Metyard, you still have to see her.’
‘But who will inherit her property? All she’s worked for?’
‘And who will own Kate’s possessions?’
‘You,’ I admitted.
‘And who does Mrs Metyard love more than anyone else in the world?’
‘Kate?’ It was a guess. I couldn’t say I’d witnessed a great deal of affection between mother and daughter.
‘But who will have all of Kate’s love?’
My hand twitched away from his. ‘Her husband.’
‘So Mrs Metyard might think herself better than me, but she’s not. I’ll walk away with the love of her only child and, one day, her shop. I’ll beat her, Ruth, I’ll have my revenge. And I won’t even need to raise a fist.’
That wasn’t the kind of revenge I wanted. I wanted to crucify Mrs Metyard.
I wanted to see her suffer.