Twenty

Lizzie came into work as usual the next day, looking wrung out, her gentle face seeming unable to raise any expression.

‘You all right, wench?’ someone called to her in a motherly way as they all poured into the workroom. Lizzie nodded faintly.

‘Lizzie?’ Annie said as they took their places at their presses. ‘Have you eaten anything today?’

Lizzie turned and nodded faintly. ‘Mom’s a bit better. ’Er made me some tea. I don’t feel like anything much.’

Annie wondered if this was just Lizzie making a virtue of necessity. She worried about the girl all day, glancing at her often as they raced through their work, pouring torrents of the shiny, sharp-edged blanks into the boxes below the press. She felt protective towards sweet little Lizzie as though she was her younger sister. To her surprise, she realized that she had not once thought of talking to Lizzie about faith, or asked if she ever read the Bible. She just felt sorry for her and wanted to help.

Lizzie kept her head down and worked. When the bell rang at dinner time, guessing that the girl would have no food and no one bringing her any, Annie said, ‘Look, Lizzie, come out with me. You can meet my sister and we’ll have a bite together.’

‘I’m not really hungry,’ Lizzie tried to resist.

‘Come on.’ Annie took her arm. ‘If you’re not still being sick, you’ll feel better for something inside you.’

Margaret was waiting outside as usual, with a pudding basin filled with last night’s stew. Annie felt happy and proud at the sight of her graceful-looking sister in her grey coat, and her lovely, reassuring face under her hat.

‘This is Lizzie,’ she said. ‘Lizzie, this is my sister Margaret.’

Annie saw Margaret take Lizzie in and manage to quell her shock at how young the girl looked, how thin and ill. Lizzie nodded shyly at her, not seeming to have the energy to do anything else.

‘Nice to meet you, Lizzie,’ Margaret said, and Lizzie suddenly managed a smile, hearing the kindness in her voice. ‘Here, look –’ Margaret said to Annie. ‘Mrs S has put plenty more potatoes in for you.’

‘Good,’ Annie said. ‘We’re going to share it, aren’t we, Lizzie? I can’t eat all this.’ It was untrue but it seemed to make Lizzie feel a bit better.

They said goodbye to Margaret and went to the room in the factory where they were allowed to eat, sitting at old, deal tables. The room was full of chatter. Annie saw Doris and some of the others eyeing them as they came in but for once Doris kept her observations to herself.

‘Go on,’ Annie encouraged Lizzie. She held out the spoon to her. ‘Have some. It’s still nice and warm and the gravy’s lovely.’

She saw Lizzie steel herself, as if she wasn’t certain eating was a good idea. She shaved off a little piece of gravy-dipped potato and put it in her mouth. A look of pleasure came over her.

‘That’s nice.’

‘Go on,’ Annie said. ‘Have all you like. I had some last night – your need is greater than mine.’

Annie took another mouthful and held out the spoon to Lizzie and so they alternated, Annie holding back from taking very much while trying to look as if she was really tucking in. Once she got going, Lizzie ate with relish.

‘Does your sister come every day?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I’ve told her she needn’t,’ Annie said. ‘But she likes getting out and about. It gets her out of the office.’

Lizzie took another mouthful. Now that she was eating she seemed unable to stop.

‘She works in the office with our auntie, you see.’

‘Have you always lived with your auntie?’ Lizzie asked, frowning.

‘Oh – no. We’re just . . .’ How could she explain this? Annie thought. ‘We’re just staying for a while. Getting to know them . . .’ She wanted to get off the subject. ‘And the others in the building. There’s a gem setter upstairs – and an enameller called Jack Sidwell.’ She rolled her eyes comically. ‘I think he’s sweet on me. Every time I’m in the house he keeps lurking about on the stairs. I avoid him like the plague.’

Lizzie’s eyes widened and she put her hand over her mouth, bursting into giggles like a little girl.

Annie felt a bit guilty, joking about Jack Sidwell, but his keenness on her was so unsubtle and obvious that the whole household was aware of it. And it was fun chattering with a girl like Lizzie. It was so different from her childhood home where everyone was so earnestly purposeful and tried not to gossip, which was virtuous but dull. She had always had devilish thoughts about people and now she could let some of them out!

‘Every time I go past he just flattens himself against the wall and stands there with his mouth open!’

Lizzie was giggling all the more and a couple of the others glanced over at them.

‘What’re you tittering about, Lizzie?’ one of them called.

‘Nothing,’ Lizzie said, still grinning.

‘I’ll come and see your mother after,’ Annie said as they got up to go.

‘There’s no need,’ Lizzie assured her, looking anxious. It was as if a distance had opened between them again.

But as Lizzie was finding out, there was no arguing with Annie.

‘Mom,’ Lizzie said as they walked into the house. ‘I’m back – and I’ve got the lady . . . Annie, with me again.’

Mrs Poole was at the table, in front of the scattering of cards Annie had seen the night before and a pile of tiny white buttons which she was bent over, squinting and sewing on to the cards. She also seemed to have a second task of glueing boxes together, but they looked rough and unsatisfactory and there was a horrible, rancid smell of glue in the room.

The little one was on the floor beside her, lying asleep on a coat, but there was no sign of Den or the twins. The woman, who Annie saw was younger than she had thought, looked up at her in a hunted way. Her face was very thin and sickly-looking and her fair hair hung in wisps. She did look a little better than she had the day before.

In the dim light through the one window facing the yard, Annie saw anew the poor state of the place, this cramped little room leading to a small scullery at the back. There was only a brick floor, pale green walls and a rough wooden staircase to one side curving up to the floor above. There was the range, the table and two chairs, the one armchair and a rickety-looking cupboard. Apart from a worn peg-run by the range there was little else. From outside in the yard came the sharp bangs – interspersed with curses – of the man chopping up lumps of wood, who they had passed on the way in.

‘Good afternoon, Mrs Poole,’ Annie said politely. ‘I’m glad to see you looking better.’

‘Was you the lady helping us last night?’ As she raised her pinched face, Annie glimpsed, past the careworn and sickly look, a sweet girl who must once have looked much as Lizzie did now. ‘I was feeling that bad I never even said thank you.’

‘It’s all right,’ Annie said, wondering about the water supply again. She knew from her reading that diarrhoea was often a killer in these big city neighbourhoods, brought about by contaminated water. But not everyone in the family was ill, so perhaps this was not the cause. ‘You did look very poorly.’

‘We weren’t the only ones in the yard,’ Mrs Poole said. ‘This one’s not right yet, neither.’

Her face full of worry, she looked down at the sleeping child.

‘’Er’s hardly keeping anything down. ’Er keeps crying and I can’t get a thing done – it does for my nerves. At least ’er’s quiet for the moment. I don’t want . . .’ Her voice trembled. ‘I’ve lost a few, see, with the fever and that.’

Annie looked at her, horrified realization of what she meant dawning on her. How many children had Mrs Poole had altogether? she wondered. The woman seemed so helpless.

‘You’re giving her boiled water?’ Annie said, kneeling to look at the baby, trying not to wince as the floor hurt her knees.

‘Yes,’ Mrs Poole said. ‘’Er’s had a bit.’

‘Perhaps she should see a doctor?’

‘No-o . . .’ It was a moan. ‘I ain’t got money for food, let alone . . .’ Mrs Poole’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, lady – I don’t know what to do. My little boy went – just at the age this one is.’

Annie gently touched Nellie’s forehead. The child seemed lifeless and for a terrible moment her heart picked up speed, thinking that she had faded away. Then she heard the little body let out a breath. Sleep was probably the best thing for her, she decided. She glanced up and saw Lizzie watching, a stricken look on her face.

‘Is there any heat in the fire?’ Annie asked. ‘To make tea – and water for the baby?’ Some of the little ration of tea she had bought yesterday must be left, she reasoned.

‘Denny’ll be back soon,’ Mrs Poole said. ‘’E’s taken the girls with him to . . .’ She cut herself off abruptly, as if aware of saying something she shouldn’t, and kept her head bent over the scattered items of outwork.

More horrified realization came to Annie. Those three little children were out on the streets, and doing what? Begging for food or fuel? She held on tight to her temper at the sight of this household where some feckless, selfish man had left them in this dire poverty . . .

‘Look,’ Annie said, ‘let me sit with you for a bit and help.’

The work Mrs Poole was doing seemed such a desperate attempt – unskilled and fiddly, taking ages in a way that provoked Annie’s impatient temperament. And she guessed it would be very poorly paid. But she could stay at least until the baby woke and see how she was faring after a drink of water. She knew from experience that small infants could go up or downhill very fast. If Nellie was seriously ailing she would flaming well pay for a doctor herself.

‘There’s no point me sitting here and watching you work, is there? Every little helps. And Lizzie, it’s getting dark – how about putting one of those mantles in so it’s not such a strain on the eyes?’

Mrs Poole looked back at her wonderingly, seeming not to have the strength to protest at them using gas she had no money to pay for. Annie quietly slipped Lizzie a couple of pennies for the gas meter and put some water on to boil. They sat round the table, Mrs Poole and Annie carding the buttons and Lizzie glueing boxes. She seemed to fare better at it than her mother. When Annie introduced herself properly, Mrs Poole told her that her name was Mary. Annie wondered whether Mary Poole was always so limp and hopeless looking. Her eyes were like two pools of resigned sorrow.

‘I’m sorry to hear from Lizzie that you are in such difficulties,’ Annie said. ‘And I’ll help you as I can.’

Mary Poole stopped her sewing for a moment and peered at her in the gloom. She looked as if she had a list of questions on her mind to ask, all competing. But in the end she said suspiciously, ‘You ain’t from the parish, are yer?’

‘No, Mom! I told you – Annie works at Masters and Hogg with me,’ Lizzie said. ‘Her uncle’s Mr Watts – the goldsmith in Chain Street.’

Mary looked even more perplexed. ‘But – you’re not from round ’ere?’

‘No,’ Annie said. ‘My sister and I are just staying for a bit.’ She did not want any more questions.

‘But – why would you want to help us?’

‘It’s just what a Christian person should do,’ Annie said firmly.

Mary looked taken aback. ‘’Ow old are you, then?’ she said, bewildered. ‘Tiny little slip of a thing.’

‘I’m seventeen,’ Annie said, growing impatient at all these questions. ‘Mrs Poole – what has happened? Lizzie tells me that your husband has not come home for . . . for some time?’

At this, Mary Poole dropped the card she was sewing onto the table. She put her head in her hands and her shoulders started to shake.

‘I don’t know what to do for the best,’ she wept. ‘I don’t know where ’e is – and I can’t go on like this . . .’

Annie glanced at Lizzie, whose eyes were also full of tears. ‘Don’t, Mom,’ she said, but she could not help crying as well.

Annie waited a moment, wondering what to say next. She was steeling herself to hear about the feckless Mr Poole’s desertion of them. She was surprised that Mary and Lizzie showed no sign of anger with the vanished head of the family.

‘Have you been to the police?’ she asked eventually.

Mary sat up as if someone had knocked on her spine. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.

‘No. Not the coppers! I dunno where he’s gone and I’m worried sick but I . . . I don’t know what they might do to ’im.’

‘Has he committed a crime?’ Annie asked, looking from one woman to the other. Lizzie was watching her mother with wide, upset eyes.

‘My Wilf? No – course he ain’t. He just . . .’ More tears ran down her cheeks. ‘’E ain’t right. See, he couldn’t keep a job even before he went off. ’E was all right before – before the accident, I mean. Worked for years, Wilf did, and we got by. But ’e was working at Coopers, on the lathes, like, making saucepans. One of the belts caught ’im – threw ’im up against the ceiling. And then . . .’ Weeping, she went on. ‘When ’is sleeve tore off, it dropped ’im down and he hit his head again. ’E come ’ome all rags, blood all down him. Well, ’e healed up all right – on the outside. But ’e was never the same after – ’e just weren’t my Wilf any more.’ She shook her head despairingly.

‘He tried to get back to work but he couldn’t seem to do anything. Wouldn’t go near the machines. He couldn’t sleep – he wasn’t right. And then one day, he just went . . .’

‘How long ago did the accident happen?’ Annie asked, appalled.

‘Back last winter.’ Mary Poole tilted her head, her eyes still wet. ‘He tried to keep going, I gotta give ’im that. But ’e couldn’t . . . ’E kept . . . They kept sacking ’im. I was at my wits’ end because we wasn’t gettin’ his pay . . . So we started this.’ She nodded down at the buttons and cards. ‘I mean, we dain’t ’ave much before, but we managed . . . And those people, at the parish – cruel, that’s what they are.’

Again she put her head in her hands and wept weakly.

‘Oh, Mom, don’t,’ Lizzie said again. Annie could see the pain in her eyes at the sight of her mother.

‘I don’t know where ’e’s gone. He’s like me – he ain’t got no one else, no family. But I don’t want the coppers on to ’im,’ Mary said. ‘They’d frighten ’im. He’s like a lost little child. He ain’t no good as a husband now, I’ve got to say. But I don’t want them hurting him.’

She turned to Annie with desperate intensity.

‘If we go on like this we’ll end up in the workhouse. I can’t go in there – I’ll do anything to see that my children don’t neither. My mother died in there when I was born. But I don’t know what to do. Help me – please, miss, can you help me? What can I do?’

Annie was about to promise that she would help, that they would somehow find a way, when the door burst open and Den and the twins came running in as if the devil was after them. Den, something clutched in his arms, turned and slammed the door shut with his foot. The girls stood panting.

‘Denny?’ Mary Poole half got to her feet, looking frightened.

‘S’all right.’ For the first time, Annie saw a smile cross Den Poole’s face – a brief glimpse of youthful mischief. ‘We gorrit!’

He went to the hearth and opened the grey, woolly bundle he held in his arms. A little cascade of coal fell into the fire bucket. Annie could hear what sounded like the fall of small, gritty bits and dusty slack.

‘Ada – Ivy – show ’em what you got,’ Den instructed.

The twins solemnly each reached into the little pockets of their dresses and brought out small lumps of coal, holding them out like offerings.

‘I got a couple too.’ Den emptied his own pockets.

‘Where did you get it from?’ Annie asked, puzzled.

‘Down the wharf,’ Den said. ‘And we got a piece at Lucas’s!’

This information was lost on Annie.

‘What – between yer?’ Lizzie asked.

‘No – one each!’

‘It’s the Lucas factory,’ Lizzie explained, getting up to tend the fire. ‘Sometimes the men have the odd bit of bread to spare from their dinner. No wonder you look so cheerful,’ she added to Den.

‘I brung a bit back for Nellie.’ Den fished in his pocket, and in his coal-blackened hand held out a corner of bread that by now had almost the look of a piece of charcoal.

Annie was about to remark that it was not likely to do Nellie any good, but Mary Poole said softly, ‘Yer a good lad, Denny. Here – put it on the table ’til ’er wakes up.’

The sight of the coal and the merest scrap of food seemed to have cheered them all up no end.