Goodnight Lady (2 page)

After a few minutes Kerry started to sing softly to herself. Bernadette sat beside Rosalee; taking her hand, she smiled into the vacant eyes. Molly watched, and as she saw Rosalee smile back, felt a pain in her chest. Why the hell had God sent her Rosalee? Hadn’t she enough on her plate as it was without an idiot? Then, seeing her chance, Bernadette leant over Rosalee and pinched Briony hard on the inside of her leg. She leapt up in the air. Pushing Rosalee out of the way, she grabbed at Bernadette’s hair, dragging the now screaming child across the dirt floor, shaking her as Bernadette grabbed hopelessly at the fingers tugging her hair.

Kerry sat up again in the bed. ‘That’s it, our Briony. Scratch the skin from her hands... The dirty bitch!’

Molly dragged her cumbersome body up. With one deft movement she slapped Kerry’s face. A howl went up. Then she dragged herself from the bed and set about Briony and Bernadette. Her work-worn hands found legs and arms and she slapped them hard. Rosalee watched it all in the dying firelight and her expression never changed. Three shrieking voices rang in Molly’s ears. She held on to the mantelpiece for support as a pain tore through her. Bent double, she gasped and tried to steady her breathing.

‘I’m giving you all one last warning,’ she told them, ‘I mean it. One sound and you’re all out in the backyard until the birth’s over. If you don’t think I’d send you out in the cold, then you just try me ... You just bloody try me!’

She staggered back to her bed. Briony tried to help her, sorry now for all the trouble, and Molly slapped her hands away.

‘You, Briony, should know better. You’re eight years old. You should be helping me, child.’

She dropped her eyes and her thick red hair hung over her face like a tangled curtain.

‘I’m sorry, Ma.’

Molly climbed into bed once more. The bugs in it ran amok, this way and that, trying to get into the torn mattress before they were squashed by the bulk above them.

‘“I’m sorry, Ma”. If I had a penny for every time I heard that, I’d be living the life of Riley! One more word out of any of you and I’ll let your father find you work. I mean it.’

Briony was scared now. Her father would farm them out in the morning; it was only her mother who’d stopped him until now. She took Bernadette’s hand and led her to the fireside. Rosalee smiled at them both and Briony hugged her close. Molly resumed her wait. Kerry crooned softly to herself again.

‘Sing us a song, Kerry.’ Briony’s voice broke the gloom. ‘Send our Rosalee off to sleep.’

Kerry lay beside her mother, her little face screwed up in consternation as she tried to think of an appropriate song.

Her haunting little voice came slowly at first but Molly relaxed against the dirty pillows and sighed. Kerry’s voice was like a draught of fresh air.

The mood in the room was once more homely. Briony smiled at Bernadette over Rosalee’s short cropped hair, their earlier fight forgotten. Molly watched her children and thanked God for the peace that had descended. It wouldn’t last long, she was aware of that, but while it lasted she would enjoy it.

 

Eileen’s bare feet were frozen. The cobbles had a thin sheet of ice on them and as she walked with the bucket of coal it banged against her shins, breaking the skin. She put the bucket down and rubbed them with one hand. She could hear the singing and almost feel the foetid warmth of The Bull as she stood outside. The street lamps had been lit and they cast a pink glow around her. She straightened and pushed her thick curly hair back off her face. As she bent down to pick up the bucket once more, a man stood in front of her. Eileen looked up into a large red face.

‘What’s your name, little girl?’ Eileen knew from his voice that he was class.

‘Eileen Cavanagh, sir.’

The man was looking her over from head to foot and she squirmed beneath his gaze. He pushed her hair back from her face, and studied her in the light of the street lamp.

‘You’re quite a pretty little thing, Eileen Cavanagh.’

She wasn’t sure how to answer the man who seemed to be dressed all in black, from his highly polished boots to his heavy cape and big black hat. He was well armoured against the weather and she wondered if it had occurred to him that she was freezing.

‘Thank you kindly, sir. I ... I have to be getting along, me ma’s waiting on the coal.’

The man put heavy gloved hands on her shoulders and kneaded them, as if seeing how much meat she had on her. Then the doors of The Bull opened and a man stumbled out into the street.

Eileen recognised her da at once and called to him. ‘Da ... Da! It’s me, Eileen.’

Paddy Cavanagh was drunk. Very drunk. And to add to his misery he had lost every penny of his wages on a bet. His fuddled brain tried to take in what was happening as he lumbered over to his daughter.

‘Is that you, our Eileen?’

The big man smiled at her father and Eileen, for some reason she could not fathom, began to feel more frightened.

‘You have a beautiful daughter, Mr Cavanagh. I believe you work for me, don’t you?’

Paddy screwed up his eyes and recognised Mr Dumas, the owner of the blacking factory. Straightening up he tipped his cap to the man.

‘How old is the girl?’

Paddy wasn’t sure how old she was. That was women’s knowledge. Women remembered everything and passed it on to other women. How the Mary Magdalene was he to know something like that?

‘Tell the gentleman your age, Eileen.’

She bit her lip. Her large blue eyes were filling with unshed tears, and Mr Henry Dumas felt a stirring in him.

Patrick cuffed her ear. ‘Answer the man, you eejit. You’ve a tongue in your head long enough to talk the legs off a donkey any other time.’

‘I’m eleven, sir.’

‘Old enough to be working, then. Where do you work, child?’

‘She doesn’t work, sir.’ This was said bitterly. Paddy had wanted them all out working, but Molly had been adamant. Schooling for them all, even if it meant no food on the table.

‘You don’t go to work, a big strapping girl like you?’

Eileen looked down at the shiny ground, afraid to look into the big red face with the large moustaches.

‘I need a strong girl myself, Cavanagh. A strong young girl. I’ll pay you a pound a week for her.’

Patrick’s jaw dropped in shock. ‘A pound a week, sir? What for?’

He looked into Dumas’ face and it was written there, in his eyes and on the fat moist lips, and for a few seconds Paddy felt the bile rise in him.

Seeing the look on Cavanagh’s face, Dumas added: ‘Two pounds a week then.’

Paddy shook his head, not in denial but in wonderment. He looked at Eileen: at her shoeless feet, blue with the cold, at her scrawny legs and lice-ridden hair and suddenly he felt an overpowering sense of futility. Two pounds a week was a lot of money and Mr Dumas was a very wealthy man. He could make sure that Paddy stayed employed, no matter what. As for Eileen, she would be broken soon enough, the boys around about would see to that, and then there would be more mouths to feed. Dumas was offering her warmth and comfort, and she could be the means of helping her family.

Dumas watched the man battling it out with himself. Then opening his leather purse, he took out two sovereigns and laid them in the palm of his hand. The streetlight played over them, the gold glittering in Paddy’s eyes.

‘I’ll take her with me now then.’

‘As you like, sir.’

‘What about the coal, Da? I have to take the coal home to me ma. She’s waiting on it, the baby’s coming...’

‘Now shut your mouth, our Eileen, and go with Mr Dumas. You’re to do whatever he tells you, do you hear me? Anything he tells you at all.’

‘Yes, Da.’

The big man took her hand and pulled her away from her father. Paddy watched her go, his heart wretched. He squeezed his hand over the two sovereigns and felt a tear force its way from his eye. He tried to justify his actions all the way home. But even drunk and befuddled, he couldn’t quite convince himself.

 

Eileen sat in the cab and listened to the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves as it trotted through a residential area. She gaped at the big town houses in wonderment, her fear of the man gone a little now since he had wrapped her in his cloak. It smelt lovely.

Dumas studied her profile as she watched the houses. She was going to be stunning in a few years, but until then he would have her. He liked them young, very young.

Five minutes later they stopped at a small detached house. Eileen noticed the garden especially. Even in the cold it smelt of lavender. Mr Dumas lifted her from the coach and carried her up the pathway. The door was opened by a girl in her late-teens who ushered them inside. Eileen was placed on the floor in the hallway. It had carpet and she dug her toes into the unfamiliar softness.

‘Get Mrs Horlock, would you, Cissy?’

‘Yes, sir.’ She gave a little bob and walked through a green baize door to the side of her.

‘You’re going to have a nice hot bath soon. Then we can have something to eat.’

Eileen didn’t answer. This man was talking to her as if they had been friends for years. There was something not right here. But the thought of food cheered her.

Then someone came bursting through the green baize door. Eileen jumped with shock. Rushing towards her was a small silver-haired woman. Her teeth had long gone and her mouth seemed to have caved in around the gums. Her face was a mass of wrinkles that all seemed to criss-cross one another. Thick white hair was scraped back off her face into a tight white cap. Bright hazel eyes surveyed Eileen from head to foot.

‘Cissy, take the cloak and leave it in the outhouse until we can disinfect it, then come down to the scullery and help me scrub this one.’ She jerked her head at Eileen as she spoke and then pulled the cloak from her. Cissy grabbed at it and disappeared once more through the door.

Mrs Horlock sucked her gums and then felt Eileen’s limbs, finally grabbing at her tiny breasts.

‘Sturdy, Mr Dumas, sir. Not a bad choice, if I might say so. Got good teeth. A few good meals and she’ll put some flesh on her bones.’

‘My sentiments entirely, Mrs Horlock. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll be in the morning room enjoying a brandy. Send Cissy along with her when she’s ready.’

He smiled at Eileen as he spoke and she felt terror grip her heart.

Paddy Cavanagh stood in the centre of the foetid basement room and stared around him. Rosalee awakened and began to cry. Briony immediately began to rock her gently, soothing her back to sleep. Molly stared dull-eyed from the bed, Bernadette and Kerry dozing beside her.

‘The child’s well on then, Moll?’

She nodded, then frowned as she saw him making up the fire. ‘Where’s our Eileen, Pat? I sent her out to get the coal a couple of hours since.’

He stared into the fire. Briony’s eyes seemed to be boring into his.

‘I met her on me way home. I’d got her a job and she went there tonight.’

Molly sat up in the bed.

‘You what?’ Her voice was low.

Paddy turned to face his wife, working himself up into a temper.

‘You heard me, woman! I got her a job. Jesus himself knows we need the bloody money! She’ll be well looked after, she’ll get decent clothes and food ...’

‘Where’s this job, Pat? Come on, tell me, where is this job?’

He could hear the doubt in his wife’s voice and felt a wave of anger. She did not trust him at all. Not with anything to do with the girls.

‘It’s working for Mr Dumas, the man who owns the blacking factory. She’ll be working in the house, Moll.’

‘Go and get her this minute, Paddy Cavanagh. I don’t want her working sixteen hours a day, running round like a blue-arsed fly for a few pennies a week.’

Paddy stormed to the bed and slapped his wife across the face. ‘I’ve said what she’s going to do, and now it’s done. I want to hear no more about it.’

Kerry and Bernadette both inhaled loudly at the slap their father gave to their mother. Kerry’s mouth was open in a large ‘O’ and Paddy raised his hand to her before the shriek came out.

She snapped her mouth shut immediately.

‘I’ll scalp the bloody face of the first one to whinge in this house tonight. I mean it.’

As he turned to the fireplace, the two sovereigns slipped from his hand and landed with a gentle chink on the dirt floor.

Molly pulled herself up on the bed and stared at them in amazement. Then, as her eyes flew up to meet her husband’s, realisation dawned.

‘You filthy bastard, you sold her to him, didn’t you? You sold my lovely Eileen to that man ...’ She put her hands to her head and began to cry, a low deep moaning that wrenched Paddy Cavanagh’s heart from his body.

He tried to take her in his arms.

‘Molly, Moll ... Listen to me, she’ll be living like a queen up there. Look, we’ll get two pounds every week ...’

Molly pushed him from her in disgust. ‘So it’s come to this? You’d pimp out your own child, you dirty blackguard!

‘We had to eat, woman, can’t you see that?’

‘Why couldn’t we eat with your wages then? Because they all went in The Bull, didn’t they? Didn’t they? By Christ, I hope the priest’s waiting when you go to Confession. I hope he chokes the bloody life out of you. As soon as this child’s born I’m going to get Eileen, and if she’s busted, Paddy Cavanagh, I’ll have the Salvation Army after you, I swear it. I’ll scream what you’ve done from the bloody rooftops!’

Molly looked like a mad woman. Her hair was tangled and in disarray, her huge swollen breasts heaving with the effort of making herself heard. Suddenly she saw her life with stunning clarity. She saw the dirt floor, strewn with debris. Saw the only chair in the room with its broken back, the small amount of tea wrapped up carefully on the mantelpiece to keep the rats and roaches from it. The smell of the sewers was in her nose continually. They ran alongside the basement, and when it rained human excrement was forced through the iron grid in the wall. It was as if something burst inside her head.