The Urchin's Song (9 page)

Josie and Gertie followed Vera into a kitchen which was as far removed from Vera’s bright shining room as it was possible to be, but which nevertheless exuded warmth from the huge fire blazing in the range. Besides the toddler who was now sitting on a thick clippy mat there were two more small children in the room, along with a baby in a rough wooden crib to one side of the tall cupboards that flanked the fireplace. The two children, a boy and a girl, were eating a slice of bread and jam, their faces smeared with a mixture of dirt and jam and their feet bare, but they looked plump and happy, as did Betty herself.

‘Here, lass, sit yourself down.’ Betty stretched out a hand and cleared the seat of a large wooden settle by the simple expedient of pushing all its contents on to the stone-flagged floor. ‘You too, hinnies. We’ll have a nice sup tea an’ I’ve some sly cake just cooked an’ coolin’. You like sly cake, hinny?’ she asked Gertie who was half hiding behind Josie, overcome with shyness.

An hour later, Betty having been fully acquainted with the reason for their hasty departure from Sunderland, and her visitors stuffed full of tea and sly cake, the atmosphere in the kitchen was relaxed and even merry. Betty’s children were sitting in a huddle in front of the fire finishing off the remains of the pastry crammed with currants, sugar and butter, which they were picking off the old, thick dinner plates it had been cooked on, and Betty’s youngest was at one of her enormous breasts, feeding lustily.

Josie had learned that besides these four younger children Betty had two more who were presently at school, along with five stepchildren from her husband’s first marriage, his wife having died in childbirth. Apparently only the two youngest of these - a boy and a girl - lived with Betty and Frank now, the others having married, and of these two the boy was due to be married within weeks.

‘Barney goin’ll make more room but there’s plenty anyway.’ Betty paused for a moment to bawl a warning at the three on the clippy mat who were arguing over a nice morsel, the baby at her breast continuing to feed serenely in spite of the sudden thunder above its downy head. ‘Me an’ Frank sleep yonder,’ she flapped her hand towards the front room, ‘an’ the lassies have one room upstairs an’ the lads t’other. We were thinkin’ about takin’ in a lodger once Barney goes an’ there’ll only be Frank an’ Prudence’s wages comin’ in, but it’d have meant the lads sleepin’ down here an’ gettin’ a desk-bed or summat. No, it’d work out fine you comin’, lass.’

She smiled at Josie who smiled back. There was something immensely comforting about Betty.

‘An’ Prudence might be able to get you in at the laundry off New Bridge Street where she works an’ all. I’ll put it to her, lass. But if not that, then you’ll pick up summat.’

‘Thanks, Bett.’ It was Vera who spoke. ‘It’ll put me mind at rest, knowin’ they’re with you. He’s a nasty bit of work, Bart Burns.’

‘Aye.’ Betty nodded. ‘I know the type all right. All wind an’ water but a big man with his fists when it comes to bit bairns an’ women. My Frank don’t hold with nowt like that; he’d knock him into next weekend an’ the week after, given half a chance. Mind, I’d have a go at him meself if it come to it. Aye, I would. I might look as if a breath of wind ’ud blow me away, but I can pack a wallop, lass.’

She roared with laughter at her little joke, and the others grinned. Betty had the sort of meaty forearms a ten-ton wrestler would be proud of. It would be a brave soul, be they male or female, who would dare to take her on.

It was gone four o’clock by the time Vera made a move to leave, and Betty’s two oldest children, twin boys, had been home from school for half an hour or more. By now Josie had the strangest feeling that she had been part of this family all her life, but nevertheless, she found she had a lump in her throat as she, along with Betty, stood on the doorstep and watched Vera pick her way carefully down the icy street. The recent fall of snow had coated the already lethal black ice covering the pavements with an innocent veil of white, and it was treacherous underfoot.

‘She should’ve gone earlier.’ Betty’s gaze lifted from the bulky figure of her sister to the swiftly darkening sky as she spoke. ‘There’s more snow comin’, you can smell it in the wind. By, it’s goin’ to be a bad winter, this one. Still, we won’t let it bother us, eh, me bairn? Snug as bugs in a rug, we’ll be.’

Vera having paused they both waved their goodbye, and then she had disappeared round the corner and Betty was saying, ‘Come away in, lass. It’s enough to cut you in two out here.’

The warm confines of the kitchen were redolent with the smell of the pot pie which had been steaming away for the last two hours, and as Josie and Gertie left the womb-like cavern a minute or two later, armed with a tallow candle and a bundle of bedding to make up the spare pallet in the lassies’ bedroom, the icy chill hit them like a physical blow. The bed was organised in double-quick time and they scuttled downstairs again. Two minutes later, Betty’s husband Frank arrived home. He’d stayed after his shift on union business, according to Betty, who now busied herself filling the tin bath in the tiny scullery off the kitchen with hot water for her husband’s stripdown wash to remove the black grime of the pit.

Frank’s greeting was cursory initially, but once he’d had his bath and was dressed in the clean clothes which Betty had taken through to the scullery before beating his pit clothes free of dust in the tiny back yard, he came and sat in the big, flock-stuffed leather armchair to one side of the range. He was as short and thickset as his dumpy wife, with a voice that could shatter a crate of milk, but by the way his three youngest children immediately clambered up on to his lap Josie assumed, rightly, that the gruff exterior harboured a heart of gold.

She looked into the heavily jowled face, topped by short grey hair that had a little tuft sticking straight out from his forehead like a compass pointer, as Frank said, his voice loud but kind, ‘So, lass, you an’ the little ’un are goin’ to lodge with us for the time bein’ then?’

‘If that’s all right, Mr Robson?’

‘Oh aye, lass, it is. It is that. An” - and now he leaned forward, almost dislodging the youngest of the three on his lap - ‘if you catch sight of hide or hair of your da, you tell me, eh? Aye, you tell me.’ He puffed ferociously at his clay pipe, tamping dark brown rough tobacco with the juice still in it, before he repeated, ‘Aye, you tell me an’ we’ll see what’s what, right enough.’

At a few minutes to six the kitchen table was set, the settle having been pulled close to it one side with six straight-backed chairs on the other. Barney and Prudence were due home any moment. Apparently Barney was employed at the concrete works in the centre of the town, a short walk from the laundry where Prudence worked, and the two normally walked home together.

‘He’s a good lad, is Barney.’ Betty was bustling about, lifting the sizzling dish of sliced potatoes, onions and turnips, the accompaniment to the pot pie, out of the cavernous oven as she spoke, and it wasn’t until much later that Josie registered that she hadn’t mentioned Prudence in the acclamation.

‘Not a miner mind, like his da an’ three brothers, but he’s followed his own road an’ that’s no bad thing. Couldn’t handle bein’ underground, you see. He was all right when he was doin’ the screens, the conveyor belts up top where the coal gets sorted, but once he went down . . .’ Betty shook her head, making her thick bun of coarse brown hair wobble. ‘It’s not for everyone, workin’ in the bowels of the earth, an’ I don’t hold with the idea you’re born to it meself.’

She cast a sidelong glance at her husband as she finished speaking, and Frank stared stolidly back at her as he puffed on his pipe. Although nothing had been said directly, Josie got the feeling this was something which had been discussed between husband and wife before, and moreover that they saw it quite differently.

Josie had ushered the children through to the scullery to wash their hands before the meal - a suggestion which had been greeted with some surprise when she had first voiced it - when Barney and Prudence arrived home. The twins, Martin and Kenneth, having sidled back into the kitchen as soon as they could, she and Gertie were occupied in dealing with the three youngest children, Robert who was four, Freda aged three and little Clara, and therefore they heard Betty’s two stepchildren before they saw them.

There had been a high voice and a deep one at first, then silence except for Betty as she had given the bare bones of an explanation, and then the high voice had said, ‘Here? Stay here, you mean?’ and it was expressing disapproval.

Josie hotched Clara further up in her arms as she glanced at Gertie over the child’s head, but there was no time to speak before a small, darkly clothed figure appeared in the doorway. It was the same female voice which said, but flatly now, ‘So you are Aunt Vera’s waifs and strays; Josie and Gertie, isn’t it? Which is which?’

Josie found herself staring, and it was a moment or two before she responded, saying in as flat a tone as the young woman had used, ‘I’m Josie, and this is Gertie.’ Clara was wriggling in her arms, and in reaching for the rough piece of towelling to one side of the tin bowl, Josie broke the hold of the green eyes looking at her with such hostility, occupying herself with drying the infant’s small, dimpled hands.

It would be kind to say Prudence Robson was plain; the truth of the matter was that she was ugly, and no one was more aware of this than Prudence herself. Her face was long and thin, her nose and mouth equally so, which made her small squat body all the more incongruous, but it was the overall colourless quality of her eyes, skin and hair which emphasised her severe features. Her eyes were green but a muddy, indistinct shade, and this same dingy, turbid trait was reflected in her skin and the mousey brown of her hair. In comparison, her four brothers had all taken after their mother who had been a good-looking woman, and there was barely a day that went by that Prudence didn’t reflect on the unfairness of this.

She knew she was an impassioned person, the feelings which racked her made all the more intense because they could have no outlet. Pretty girls were allowed to be frivolous and bright and sparkling, even catty or inconstant on occasion, but an ugly one had to be quiet and self-effacing, never putting herself forward or assuming anything, and it was a pose Prudence Robson had adopted from infancy when she was outside the home, even though she knew she was ten times more intelligent than those about her.

There were only two people she liked in all the world - her youngest brother, Barney, and the girl he was soon to marry. Pearl had been her friend since childhood - her only friend - and Prudence rarely allowed herself to dwell on what she secretly knew to be true, that the other girl’s friendship had been motivated by the fact that Prudence had four handsome older brothers, and that Pearl was well aware she appeared all the more comely and appealing beside the ugly duckling. Prudence needed the support and security of Pearl’s friendship too much to delve into things better left buried.

By the time Josie raised her head there was a tall man standing just behind the unfriendly young woman. His shock of dark brown hair, liberally coated with a dusting of white powder, first drew her eyes, and then, as she lowered them to the smiling face, also smeared with concrete dust, she met a pair of the most startlingly green eyes she had ever seen.

‘You’ve got your work cut out trying to clean up this crew.’ His smile widened and Josie smiled back shyly, even as she was thinking, So this is Barney, Betty’s youngest stepson. But I never expected him to be so . . . so . . . But she couldn’t find words to describe the way she was feeling because she had never felt like it in her life before.

As November turned into December, the severe snow storms sweeping the North of England were making life harder than ever for poor families like the Robsons. Despite the recent development of an electricity supply on Tyneside, the powers that be had not yet converted the horse-drawn tramway system to electric traction and, in any case, half of the workers in Newcastle’s mines and factories often walked miles in freezing conditions to save the cost of the fare. Despite the steadily increasing prosperity of the area as world demand grew for its products - ships, engineering, coal, chemicals - workers like Frank did not feel the benefit.

There was many a heated discussion in Betty’s kitchen between Frank on the one hand, and Barney and Prudence on the other, as to how far the unions - who were just tentatively beginning to flex their muscles - should go.

‘Aa’ve said it afore an’ Aa’ll say it agen - you have to tread careful, man. There’s always some so-an’-so ready to step into your boots given half a chance.’ Frank was a great one for eying his two irate children over the top of his pipe as he delivered such statements.

‘It’s just that sort of sentiment that the owners and managers promote.’ Barney and Prudence would always be beside themselves by the end of the discussion whereas their father would still be sitting puffing away contentedly. ‘Don’t you realise the wealth of industry that exists here,
has
existed here for the last century? Look what Richard Heslop wrote fifty years ago, and nothing’s changed, Da:

This last quote and others like it would invariably come from Prudence, who spent any spare money she had on books and was always popping into the free library near the laundry.

‘What’re you sayin’, lass?’

Josie suspected Frank’s manner with his daughter was distinctly tongue in cheek most of the time, but with the mental and physical torture Prudence put her through at the laundry, Josie couldn’t help deriving a certain measure of satisfaction as she watched the older girl being wound up by her father until she was ready to explode.