With Love From Ma Maguire (59 page)

‘What a shame about that!’ She grabbed his tin. Jim was renowned not just for his music – he more than adequately provided for himself and his motherless daughter. ‘Look at that, Jim Higgins – a miracle! Leg of chicken and two tomatoes.’

He scratched his head. ‘Funny, that. It tasted just like tinned plum jam to me. I’ll swap you me leg for half a butty.’

‘No. I’ve had enough, you can have a butty for free if you let me run a loom this after.’

‘Can’t do that, love. We’re only one between the two of us as it is, what with your lack of experience and me with one eye.’

‘Give over – you’ve got two! See, I can count – one, two. So eat your butty and shut up.’

He took the proffered sandwich and bit into it hungrily. ‘Manna from heaven,’ he declared. ‘We miss your old granny – will she not be coming back?’

‘No. They’ve got the shops now. Jim?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Can’t you see proper?’

‘Depends.’

‘What on?’

‘Which way the wind’s blowing, how Bolton Wanderers are getting on – oh and the colour of me socks.’

She punched him on the arm. ‘Are you never serious? I can’t get a straight answer from you – ever! You’ve got to be Irish!’

‘Course I am. Me dad landed in 1880 with me mother, a bucket of spuds and a big fat smile. Trouble is – he’s always thought he was in America – only found out last year that the boat fetched him to Liverpool. Terrible thing for him to latch on to at the grand age of eighty, eh? He’s been wandering round for years looking for yon lady with the torch – you know – that big lass as France give to the Americans. Sad, isn’t it?’

‘Jim Higgins! I’ll clout you in a minute for all you’re me boss!’

‘Stop nagging, woman! You’re as bad as me daughter! “Have you got a clean hanky, Dad, where’s your good shoes, you’re never going out in that old hat.” I get enough of it at home. She’s always on about how I should pack it in.’

‘The weaving?’

‘Aye, she knows I’m blind some days.’ He paused and stared down at work-worn hands. ‘I started this lark over forty year ago, Janet. Come on at six, half an hour for breakfast at eight, worked right through to dinner then. Weeks about, we did, so we’d be on afternoons sometimes. I don’t know which was worse – school first or work first, but I do know there was never enough sleep. By thirteen, I was full-time and me no bigger than a nine-year-old today. Anyway, a shuttle flew off and hit me in the eye one day – I’d be about twenty at the time. Nowt happened at first, except it hurt like blazes. Only it troubles me now and again lately. Good job I know them pattern cards like the back of me hand, eh?’

‘Oh Jim! Does Mr Swainbank know?’

‘No! And you’ll not tell him, neither! I want a few more years in, get a bit put by for me and our Eileen. I never told a soul before, so keep it to yourself. Don’t be worrying, I can manage well enough most of the time.’

The rest of the workers began to arrive and Jim picked up his melodeon. Within minutes, everyone was singing ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, followed by ‘Pack up your Troubles’.

Janet wandered into the shed and leaned against a wall. What about poor Jim? He was one of the nicest, kindest men she had ever met, a man who never missed work, one who always lent a hand gladly when a weaver lost a pattern or hit a snag. Why couldn’t he have a pension, stop at home and play his music? Perhaps he wouldn’t like that. Perhaps his need for work was essential, an inbred part of him, nothing to do with shortage of money. But if his bad sight led to an accident . . .

The hooter wailed and everyone piled in at the door, some grinding cigarette ends into the cobbles before entering. Smoking was absolutely forbidden – it was still possible, in spite of union representation, to be sacked on the spot for being found with a lighted cigarette. Most recognized the sense in this rule, because the mills were a terrible fire-hazard with all the dry cotton, the piles of waste, the oil that kept machinery moving.

There was, of course, one exception to this regulation and that was Mr Swainbank himself. He frequently travelled about with a cigar, usually unlit, stuck between his teeth. These days, he often paused to speak to his workers, asked them about their families, lip-reading as well as any of them in the awful din. For the older generation, this behaviour came as a shock, because they had spent their lives being ignored, expecting at best a telling-off from a tackler for bad work – or the odd cursory nod from an owner after thirty or forty years at their looms.

Janet and Jim set to work on their six machines, he setting patterns, she keeping an eye on the flow of cloth as it poured out like a magic carpet. Then Jim dragged her to one side. ‘Right, I’m letting you loose. Tell anybody and I’ll smack your bum,’ he mouthed. He inserted a fresh cop into an idle loom that awaited servicing. ‘Warp’s done, card’s in – get on with it.’

With a huge smile of pleasure, Janet got on with it, watching the shuttle fly as she made her very first length of cloth. When the spool was emptied, Jim lifted the small piece off and presented it to her with a flourish. ‘Hide it – take it home. In years to come, you can tell your grandchildren that this was your first.’

‘Thank you!’ She folded the cloth and stuffed it into her pocket. In old Swainbank’s time, she’d have been thrown out for this – even for stealing a handful of waste she would have been dismissed.

They continued to work the looms, backs and faces wet with sweat, ears deafened by the constant clatter of heavy machinery. The boss came through at about three o’clock, the usual cigar protruding from his mouth. Janet frowned when she noticed this, because the whisper of blue smoke above his head told that the cigar was actually alight. But knots and breaks seemed to abound this day, so she and Jim were too busy to pay attention to visitors and onlookers. Swainbank walked across and had a word with Jim, no doubt asking about her progress and she prayed fervently that the boss wasn’t going to put her back on the study project; all that standing around and watching, nothing to show at the end except for a load of writing. She sighed her relief as Swainbank walked away, then caught a further glimpse when the large man left by the corner door. Something about him made her uneasy, but she was too embroiled with some difficult ends to let anything take her mind completely from the work.

The fire broke out at about three-thirty, spreading in seconds across oily floorboards, licking the edges of looms and swallowing everything in its path. Someone slid open the great door to the yard, thereby feeding the flames with the oxygen they craved. Within minutes the air was thick with greasy black smoke and Janet felt herself being dragged across the shed and into the yard. It was eerie. The few faces she saw were wide with screams, yet nothing could be heard above the noise of looms which clattered on in spite of the consuming fire.

Jim threw her on to the cobbles and went back inside.

She jumped to her feet. ‘Jim! Come back . . . Jim!’ But he had disappeared into that terrible blackness, a blackness punctuated now by areas of high red flame.

Several others staggered out, coughing and choking, fighting to heave breath into lungs scalded by hot smoke. Jim appeared again, a length of cotton sheeting wrapped around his mouth and this time carrying Lizzie, Janet’s friend from school. ‘Look after her, lass.’

Janet grabbed Jim’s arm. ‘Don’t go back – please! Think of Eileen with no mother and her wedding coming soon. Who’ll give her away then? And what about your old dad?’

Jim hesitated. ‘Swainbank’s still in. I’ve got to get him out, lass, else there’ll be jobs for none of us! He’s running about in there like somebody demented—’

‘Leave him! Let him find his own way out! Look – it’s too bad now. No-one could live in that, Jim! If he’s still inside, then it’s likely too late for him already.’ The man gave in to reason and they stood together comforting Lizzie while she fought for good air.

Charles Swainbank appeared at a run from the opposite direction – he had obviously escaped through the side door. His eyes met Janet’s and he slumped against the wall, a hand to his chest.

The fire brigade arrived and cleared everyone away to the other side of the yard where they all remained, some silent, some choking as they watched their weaving shed going up in flames. Those worst affected, including Lizzie, were herded into ambulances and mill lorries, but most stayed with eyes glued to their disappearing livelihood. By this time, the whole of number one had been evacuated and people arrived in droves to stare at the fire.

‘Is everybody out?’ asked a man by Janet’s side. ‘There’s not much alive in there now, I can tell thee that for nowt.’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know how many were in and some have gone to the infirmary.’

Jim laid an arm across her shoulders. ‘That’s me decision made for me, then.’

‘No! You can still work if you want to! There’s other sheds, other mills . . .’

He shook his head sadly. ‘Nay, lass. Man and boy I’ve worked in this shed. I know where I am here – I was even looking forward to getting me automatics – I’d like to have tried one of them new-fangled battery looms. But it’s not to be, Janet. You can start afresh, but not me.’

A quiet crowd had gathered on the road outside, not out of curiosity, but because this was the way when disaster struck. A fire, a collapsed pit, a road accident—all these melded people together, brought them to stand shoulder to shoulder like a human wall of support for unfortunate victims and their kin. Then a great sigh went up as a brave fireman carried out a charred body, laying it with reverence on the cobbles in the centre of the mill yard. Janet burst into tears and threw herself against Jim. There was little to recognize about the blackened remains, but she knew those clogs. Nobody in the world had feet as big as Ronnie’s.

Jim patted her back. ‘Aye, it’s your mate, lass. I always said his feet would give him away come the day. But not like this, dear God . . .’ And Jim began to cry, his weeping interrupted by a dry, smokey cough.

‘The price, Jim! Gran always said about the price of cotton.’ She took from her pinny pocket the length that had been her first, the length that would also be her last. ‘It costs too much,’ she said to herself.

‘I’ve had enough, love. I’m fair sickened now.’ He dried his eyes. ‘They can do without me from this day. When I think of the sights I’ve seen in me time – but young Ron? Not a bad bone in him – and there were only him and his mam at home . . .’

Ronnie was wrapped in a large sheet and carried out through the gates, the crowd drawing aside to allow this sad procession through.

Janet raised her eyes and stared directly at Charles Swainbank. He stood at the top of some steps across the yard, face and clothes made filthy by smoke, hands resting for support on the cast-iron rail. Yes. That was what had bothered her before in the shed. He came in with a cigar and left without one!

She walked unsteadily across the yard and stood at the bottom of the flight. Jim followed. ‘Whatever are you doing, Janet? Come away – you mustn’t go near the buildings. Fire spreads, you know.’

Janet threw back her head and stared up at the boss. ‘Swainbank?’ Her voice was high and clear. ‘Where’s your cigar?’

The crowd studied this insolent young girl, eyes and mouths widening in amazement. They were not used to such direct confrontation – if the lass had anything to say, then it should rightly go through a steward.

‘You came in our shed at three o’clock smoking. There’s a sign in there as says you can’t smoke, but you’re above all that, aren’t you? Or can’t you read?’

The man flattened himself against a door.

‘You dropped a cigar end, didn’t you? Happen you thought you’d put it out, but it seems you hadn’t. My friend has died today, somebody I’ve known from nursery. You killed him.’

A murmuring broke out among the crowd as Janet pointed an accusing finger. ‘We all have to sneak out for a smoke, them that need a cigarette. We could get sacked for smoking – even the unions agree about that. But who sacks you now, eh?’

A group of angry men approached Charles. ‘Well?’ asked one. ‘Can’t you answer her? She’s nobbut a slip of a lass – she’ll not bite thee. Are you feared?’

The crowd began to roar its demands for a reply. ‘Answer her!’ ‘Get on with it!’ ‘Come on, Swainbank!’

‘I can’t.’ His voice arrived strangled. ‘I don’t . . . don’t remember.’

A spinner joined Janet on the bottom step. ‘You’d best remember, Boss, ’cos we want to know. Were you lit up in that weaving shed? Well, were you?’

‘Yes!’

The spinner turned to his colleagues. ‘We’ve all seen him smoking, haven’t we? Do we smoke at our mules?’

‘No!’ shouted a hundred voices.

‘What would happen if we did? Sack on the spot, thrown out for behaviour likely to threaten lives. Yet he smokes, Mr Charles bloody Swainbank with his airs and graces.’ He looked at his employer. ‘You didn’t just threaten lives – you bloody took at least one! So you can stop here till you tell us where you put that fag-end!’

The crowd was no longer quiet. Someone picked up a stone and threw it at Charles, missing his head by no more than an inch. Jim ran up the steps, his arms outstretched as he covered Charles Swainbank’s body with his own. ‘Listen to me!’ he cried. ‘Do we want to sink to that level? Don’t forget, any of you, that we are human beings and not blinking animals.’

‘He’s an animal!’ screamed a hysterical woman. ‘Ronnie were from our street . . .’

‘Charlie’s dad were an even worse animal,’ shouted a man from the back.

‘Aye,’ came an anonymous cry. ‘And his grandad were a flaming dinosaur!’

Jim held up a hand. ‘Look lads – and lasses too. We all make mistakes. I’ve been for a crafty smoke in the lav before now and so have most of you. He’s done wrong, has this feller. Aye, I know how you all feel, ’cos I’d scalp him meself given half a chance and a dark enough night. But where would it get me? Would I want to go dangling and dancing at the end of a rope for his likes? No, he’s not worth it. Let him suffer knowing what he’s done. Now go home, all of you.’

‘Why should we?’ asked the spinner at the bottom of the stone steps. ‘He should be done for murder, he should!’