LITMIR.BIZ

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chest is hot and tight. I grind my teeth until the feeling passes. If you’ve been booted out of Eden, moping like a snot-nosed toddlekins won’t bring it back. I will not think about things I can’t have. Fairy tales are for the cradle and I left that a long while ago.

      Living in a houseful of women has dragged me down to their simpering level. I must toughen up if I’m going to make my way in this wide world. I’m not a bad lad; not the type to tie cans to a cat’s tail, string them up by their paws, set them on fire or any one of the bloody things boys do. But there’s no point being soft. In this life, you’re either a ginger tom swaggering the streets or a cowering kitten that gets trampled underfoot. I’ll let tonight be a lesson. My fault for not standing my ground, for being caught unawares. God helps those who help themselves.

      I’m not lonely. Not by a long chalk. I just need to meet the right fellows, that’s all. The sort of pals who will stick by a chap through thick and thin. So what if I have to go to ground for a while? I’ve got tomorrow night, even if I have to steer clear of Shudehill. There’s always another night. There has to be. A man must have dreams.

       EDIE

       1900–1901

      I grow up with my ear to the floor, listening to Ma and Nana fight.

      They argue about the beer, the takings, the sawdust, the spittoons, the weather, the dirt on the doorstep. If they chose the kitchen, I’d be none the wiser. But they go at it hammer and tongs in the scullery, beneath my room. Maybe they think I’m asleep; maybe they think me too much of a mouse to eavesdrop; maybe they don’t care either way. It is such a habitual lullaby I learn to sleep through it, much in the way that folk who live next to the Liverpool line slumber through the rattle of trains.

      So things continue. The old century tips into the new, not that it makes a scrap of difference to my days. My height belies my age. At thirteen I overtop every sixteen-year-old hereabouts: a gangling beanpole of a girl as graceful as a donkey with three legs.

      Ma won’t let me hide upstairs and read my schoolbooks, so I help out in The Comet. The customers make jokes at their plain Jane barmaid and I never master Ma’s knack for laughing yet keeping them at arm’s length at the same time. That’s not to say they are wicked folk; they are our neighbours and a mild crew by and large. Night after night, month after month, I listen to the same conversations about dogs and wives; who’s drowned in the Bridgewater; who’s been flattened by a cart. I ache for something I cannot put my finger on. But there’s no point wishing on half a wishbone, or setting my heart on stars when the likes of me won’t climb higher than the chimney.

      So I nod, smile, serve beer and dread Thursdays. It is the day the ginger-moustached groper drops in, regular as the man from the Pearl come for his penny. I grow cleverer at avoiding him, although nothing stops his gaze following me around the room and singeing holes in my apron.

      One evening, as I’m drifting into the dark hole of sleep, I prick awake. At first I think it’s the cold, for an icier February I never knew, but it is only Ma and Nana at loggerheads. I pull the blanket over my head.

      My ears burn. There is an unaccountable magic wrought when one is the subject of conversation, some vibration of the ether that communicates itself directly to the person being talked about. I pick out my name, hissed over and over. They are arguing about me.

      I can’t hear precisely what they are saying. I need more. I creep out of bed, and, praying that the stairs do not squeak, tiptoe to the scullery door.

      ‘She’s starting to notice,’ says my grandmother.

      ‘Is she?’ snorts Ma. ‘She wouldn’t notice a loaded dray if it drove over her, horse and all. She’s as thick as a ditch.’

      ‘She is not.’

      ‘I can’t do a thing with her,’ says Ma. ‘I set her to a simple task and she falls asleep with the broom in her hand. Lazy good-for-nothing.’

      My throat tightens at the hurtful words.

      ‘Exhaustion. It’s not her fault. You know the cause as well as I.’

      ‘I most certainly do not,’ grunts Ma.

      ‘Cissy. It is time to call a halt to silence.’

      All hell breaks loose: the kettle clangs on to the range; pots bang and scrape and rattle.

      ‘I will not have this subject discussed under my roof!’ Ma roars, fit to burst the windows out of their frames. ‘It’s disgusting!’

      ‘She’s old enough to understand!’ shouts Nana over the racket. ‘If you won’t tell her, let me.’

      ‘What, so she can let it slip at school? In church? On the street?’

      ‘She won’t do that.’

      ‘Won’t she? She’s addled enough. We’d be driven out. Don’t you remember—’

      ‘I do,’ sighs Nana.

      ‘Want that all over again?’

      There’s a pause. I want to scratch my nose. It seems to contain a beetle with barbed claws.

      Nana lets out a heavy sigh. ‘Of course not.’

      ‘You see? We’d all be better off if she’d never been born.’

      ‘Cissy! What a terrible thing to say.’

      ‘Is it? Before she came along I had a fine man, so I did.’

      ‘Fine? He was a work-shy, good-for-nothing—’

      ‘How dare you speak ill of the dead!’

      ‘Away with your nonsense, Cissy. Everyone knows he ran off with that baggage from—’

      ‘Who can blame him?’ Ma cries. ‘I’d be away if I could, and all. No decent man would …’ The pandemonium subsides. Through the crack in the door I see Nana cup her hand around Ma’s cheek. ‘Don’t …’ Ma says. It is a perilous sound such as a child might make and shocks me far more than any bellow.

      ‘My kindness did you no harm, Cissy. Surely you can do the same for your own child.’

      ‘Don’t,’ she replies in the same strangled squeak. ‘Don’t make me talk about this. I can’t. We are shameful. We are cursed!’

      ‘We are not cursed. I don’t know why you insist on this idiocy. You know the truth, plain as your head and toes and everything that lies between.’

      The truth? I tremble. My questions are about to be answered.

      ‘Don’t you dare speak to me and – and—’

      Ma’s words stutter to a halt. I see an impossible thing: Nana wraps her arms around my mother. She bears it a moment only. Like a fly trapped by a spider, she flails until she breaks free and dashes into the back yard, slamming the door behind her. I return to my bed and bury my head under the pillow. Awful words fill my head: thick as a ditch, lazy, shameful, cursed. Papa didn’t die. He ran away.

      Next morning, I wake with knots in my hair and dirt beneath my fingernails as usual. I can’t go on like this. What’s more, I shall not. This morning will be different, I tell myself bravely. I am almost fourteen and I need answers. I will have them, if it’s the last thing I do. My hand trembles as I brush my hair. After tidying myself as best I can, I make my way downstairs.

      Ma is out, as is Nana, which leaves me somewhat deflated. Lacking anything better with which to fill the time until they return, I peel potatoes for dinner. A while later, Ma comes in, knocking ice off her boots.

      ‘It’s coming on to snow,’ she remarks, somewhat unnecessarily. She removes her hat and slaps away imaginary flakes, not that one would be so foolhardy

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