We were almost at the top of Hanbury Street now and about to turn on to Commercial Street where presumably she’d go her way and I’d go mine. I smiled at her. ‘Well, it was nice meeting you, Cora,’ I said, starting to stroll away and thinking that I was clearly never going to see my pendant again and that, more pressingly, I needed to thieve something quick smart so that I’d have enough money for food and somewhere to sleep.
‘Wait,’ Cora said, surprising me and probably herself as well as she’d gone a bit pink again. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ She waggled the paper bag at me then opened it to reveal a stack of shiny bagels inside. ‘My Pa sent me out for them but he won’t mind if we have a couple.’
I laughed. ‘Bagels?’ I said, doubtfully taking in her red hair and the dusting of freckles across her nose. ‘You Jewish then?’
Cora laughed and shook her head. ‘No, not Jewish,’ she said as we turned and walked up towards Christ Church to find a spot to sit and eat. ‘My Pa loves their food though. He’s always buying bagels from the bakeries on Brick Lane and Middlesex Street and you should smell our rooms when he’s bought some of that pickled fish they have as well.’ We went past the Ten Bells and she paused as I exchanged the usual pleasantries with a couple of tarts sitting on the pavement outside. ‘It’s silly really but I used to think we weren’t allowed into their shops but they’re nice, the Jews around here. Really friendly.’
We went through the gates of Christ Church then walked up the white stone steps to the entrance, skirting around the homeless people who spent their days sitting there waiting for the shelters to open. ‘What would your Pa say if you brought a Jew boy home with you?’ I said, putting my hand into the bag and pulling out a bagel before sitting down on a step and taking a tentative bite. It was deliciously chewy and not at all oily as I thought it would be. ‘Would he be alright about that?’
Cora sat down beside me and considered this for a moment, thoughtfully chewing on her bagel. ‘I don’t think he’d mind,’ she said at last. ‘He’s kind my Pa and likes almost everyone. I don’t think it’d happen though. I don’t think they’re allowed to go with us in that way and, well, we all stick to our own, don’t we?’ She sounded a bit wistful and I glanced at her curiously, wondering what secrets she was hiding.
‘It won’t always be like that,’ I said after a moment, gesturing down crowded, dusty Commercial Street with my bagel. ‘There’s all sorts here in Whitechapel - Jews, Yanks, Chinese, Poles, Russians, Irish, you name it, all mixed up together. That’s why I like it so much.’ I took another bite from my bagel and swallowed. ‘It feels like you can be whoever you want to be.’
She gave me an amused look and I felt a little crestfallen as I suddenly realised what she saw when she looked at me - a scrawny little runt of a girl with her roots showing through her dyed blonde hair and a lot of big ambitions that were going precisely nowhere. But if I expected her to poke fun at me, I was very wrong for instead she put her arm around my thin shoulders and hugged me close. ‘I know just what you mean,’ she whispered.
I finished my bagel and she immediately offered me another one. ‘My Pa won’t mind,’ she encouraged me with a shy smile as I plunged my hand into the bag. ‘They’re good, aren’t they?’
I grinned. ‘To be honest, pretty much anything would be delicious to me right now,’ I said, chewing on the bagel. ‘This takes a lot of beating though.’
Her forehead creased with concern. ‘Are you often hungry?’ she asked.
I shot her a look. ‘Pretty much all the time,’ I said. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me though, copper’s girl. It’s my choice to be here.’
She sighed and turned her face away. ‘Why don’t you go home?’ she said hesitantly. ‘If things are so bad here?’
I laughed and shoved the last bit of bagel into my mouth. ‘You’re the second person to say that to me today,’ I said, licking my fingers then wiping my hands on my skirt. ‘The simple answer is that I don’t think they’d want me there any more, not after the life that I’ve led.’
‘You could just not tell them what you’ve been doing,’ Cora said, hugging her knees and gazing over at Spitalfields Market which lay directly opposite the church.
I shrugged. ‘I think they’ve probably already guessed,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I haven’t been home for two years, not since I was fifteen. If a girl’s been gone that long then it’s because she’s either dead or up to no good.’
‘So where are you from then?’ she asked, turning her attention back to me.
I laughed and sat back against the hard stone step behind. ‘One of the first rules of Whitechapel is that you never ever ask anyone where they came from,’ I said reprovingly. ‘Surely you know that by now, copper’s girl?’ She looked so mortified that I instantly relented. ‘I’m from a village near Colchester in Essex.’
’So not hard to get back home then?’ she said with a smile. ‘If you were to decide to leave.’
I sighed and shrugged, pretending to brush a crumb off my skirt so that she wouldn’t see my face and the tears that welled up suddenly, hot and shameful, in my eyes. ‘Not hard at all,’ I said, angrily brushing the tears away. ‘If I were to decide to leave.’ The market across the way was buzzing with activity and I still had work to do if I was going to be able to pay for a bed for the night. ‘Anyway, I’d better push off now,’ I said, standing up and looking down at her as she stayed sitting on the step.
Cora nodded a little sadly. ‘What was she like?’ she said suddenly after a pause, looking up at me and squinting in the sunlight. ‘Your friend, the one that got killed. What was she like?’
I stared down at her and considered my words carefully. ‘She was poor,’ I said at last. ‘Poor and trying her best to survive, same as all of us. She thought she’d done the right thing, getting married and having children with some man but then life got in the way just like life always does and then the next thing she knew, she was here in Whitechapel, sucking sailors off for a couple of pence, starving hungry and scared for her life most days.’
Cora looked horrified. ‘That’s so sad,’ she said. ‘Pa says…’
‘Never mind what your Pa says,’ I interrupted her fiercely, burning all over with a sudden anger. ‘I could show you a thousand like her in Whitechapel. A hundred thousand.’
‘I know.’ Cora stood up and put her arm around me again, pulling me tight against her. ‘I’ve seen them too.’
I let her hold me for a moment then gently pushed her away. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, rubbing my hand across my damp face. I hated crying, it made me feel so weak and pathetic. ‘I’ve got to make a living otherwise I’ll end up like poor old Poll.’
Cora sighed. ‘Do you need money?’ she asked, feeling in her apron pocket. ‘All I’ve got is sixpence but that’s enough to buy you somewhere to stay isn’t it?’
She put the coin in my hand and I stared at it for a moment before closing my fingers around it. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, astounded by her generosity. After all she’d only just met me and for all she knew, I’d just go straight off and spend it on gin or worse. Then again, if she’d gone off with the pendant and sold it herself then this was basically my money anyway so what difference did it make?
She smiled and nodded. ‘Course I am.’ At least she didn’t insult me as some might have done by pointing out that it was only a sixpence and not worth making a fuss about. In my world, even tuppence was worth a fuss. ‘Anyway, I have to go too. My Pa will be wondering where his bagels are.’ She gave me a shy look. ‘Mind how you go, Em.’
‘You take care too,’ I said as she started back down the steps. ‘And if you come across that envelope, make sure you tell me about it.’ I hated myself for asking, for mentioning it again, especially after she had been so kind to me, but I had to do it. ‘Keep an eye out for it in the station. Maybe someone there’s got it?’
Cora went red. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said before darting away down the steps and back on to Commercial Stree
t, where she was soon lost in the crowd.
Chapter Eleven
I saw Cora just once over the following week, strolling a few yards ahead of me through the crowds on Brushfield Street. She was walking with a girl a few years older than her who had the same bright red hair that gleamed like polished copper in the mellow autumn evening sunshine. I smiled to myself when I saw passing men actually stop and stare at them both in the street, knowing that Cora probably didn’t notice them at all and would be mortified if anyone pointed out the attention she was unwittingly getting.
They soon vanished from sight and, still smiling, I turned on to Commercial Street and headed straight to the Britannia on the corner of Dorset Street. I’d had a good day picking pockets at the heaving Middlesex Street market and could easily spare some pennies for a few beers before I headed back to my lodgings on Thrawl Street.
‘Alright, Em?’ Marie was sitting at a beer slicked table by the door and hailed me cheerfully as soon as I stepped inside and was assailed as usual by the hot beery, fetid aroma of the pub. Her cheeks were a rosy pink thanks to the heat and probably one too many gins. ‘How’s your day been, my pretty little darlin’?’ Definitely one too many gins then.
‘Not bad.’ I grinned at her then swaggered off to the bar to buy my beer. As was usual for a Friday night, the Britannia was packed that evening and I had to shove my way through to get to the counter where the landlady Mrs Ringer and a couple of harassed looking barmaids were doing their best to serve everyone as quickly as possible. By the time I got back to the table, Marie had been joined by Annie, who was staring sourly into her pint glass and had a faded black eye and Joe who smiled at me as I approached while Marie pulled a face and gave a tiny warning shake of her head, which I took to mean that he still didn’t know about her extra source of income so I wasn’t to say anything about it.
‘You should try and get a job here,’ she said cheerfully as I sat down and took my first sip of beer. ‘Mrs Ringer’s been on about getting a new barmaid again.’
‘Why don’t you do it?’ I asked, remembering too late that Mrs Ringer was very strict about not employing tarts to work behind her bar.
Annie sniggered into her drink. ‘Why do you think?’ she muttered, rolling her eyes over at poor hoodwinked Joe as Marie glared at me.
‘I expect you’re too busy,’ I said, trying to recover what was rapidly descending into a very awkward situation. ‘Looking after Joe and all that.’
Marie smiled and tapped me on the arm to show that I was forgiven. ‘That’s right,’ she said, nestling her head against his shoulder as he looked down at her fondly. ‘I’ve got a man to look after, haven’t I? You haven’t though, Em.’
Annie gave a nasty laugh and slammed her pint glass down on the table. ‘She don’t want one neither,’ she said, swivelling her small blue eyes over to me. ‘Nothing but trouble they are.’ We all knew that Annie had been married once upon a time but had been forced to leave her husband and six children when her drinking got out of hand. Her husband had paid her a decent allowance for a couple of years before dying and now she was like the rest of us, piss poor and struggling to survive.
‘Oh knock it off you eejit,’ Marie said, reaching up to kiss Joe’s cheek. ‘They’re not all bad, just look at my Joe here. Soft as shite so he is.’ I loved how her accent became more floridly Irish the more drunk she got.
‘What happened to you, Annie?’ I asked, pointing to her fading black eye and a particularly livid bruise on her forehead. I wasn’t really interested but thought it might be best to change the subject. ‘Got in a fight with a lamp post again?’
She heaved a great sigh. ‘Got into a fight in here with that stinking bitch Eliza, more like,’ she said with a dark scowl that could have curdled milk. ‘Caught the thieving cow nicking tuppence from a friend of mine so she smacked me in the face.’
Marie pulled a face. ‘She’s a nasty one, that Eliza,’ she said, throwing her head back as she polished off the dregs of her gin then straight away getting up to buy another, shaking off the restraining hand that Joe gently placed on her wrist. ‘Oh, feck off and leave me alone will you? I’ve had a hard day and need a drink.’
She staggered off to the bar and Joe looked at me almost apologetically. ‘I don’t like it when she gets like this,’ he said miserably. ‘It’s not her fault though. My Ma was the same. It’s just life, innit? It’s hard for some.’
‘I’ll drink to that!’ Annie squawked, raising her glass.
In fact we drank to it several times over that night while the sun set across the rooftops and darkness fell on the dingy streets of Whitechapel. Someone sat down at the out of tune piano at the back of the pub and played a few jaunty tunes while some tarts drunkenly sang along, their cheeks flushed and eyes closed as they crooned the well worn melodies then danced together around the tables. A bit later on one of the local prize fighters, a short bully boy with cauliflower ears, an eye that had been punched shut and a nose that had been broken several times over, came in and bought a round for everyone in the pub with his winnings then asked the men back to a fight being held in a warehouse on Buck’s Row later that night. I shivered a little when I heard the name, remembering Poll and the sad spot where her body had been found. I hadn’t been back since and fully intended never to go there again.
Marie, Joe and I stood up to leave at midnight to carry on drinking at their place while Annie stayed sitting at the beer soaked table, holding her head and complaining that she’d drunk her doss money and would have to go out to earn it all over again. ‘I’d lend it you if I had it,’ Joe said, putting his hand on her shoulder as Marie gently slapped him and told him to shush and come along with us. ‘But I haven’t got tuppence to scratch myself with right now.’
Annie gave a grunt of thanks and supped the last of her beer before standing up as well. ‘I’ll go back anyway,’ she said gruffly. ‘Maybe I’ll find someone to bed down with tonight.’ This was always an option for the truly destitute who didn’t have enough money to pay for a doss - find someone else who had eight pence for a double and screw them in exchange for a bed for the night. I’d done it myself more than once and pitied whatever poor chump got persuaded into being Annie’s bed partner for the night.
The four of us fell out on to Commercial Street just as the clock on Christ Church over the road struck midnight, it’s tall white tower looking oddly eerie that night as it stretched up towards the navy blue sky, where a few dark clouds scudded ominously overhead. ‘More rain tomorrow,’ Joe said with a knowing nod to the sky as Marie linked arms with him and impatiently dragged him off down Dorset Street while Annie and I followed more sedately behind.
‘You’ll be alright, won’t you?’ I said to her as we edged carefully around a drunk heaving his dinner out all over the street as a crowd of small ragged children watched and shouted encouragement.
She shrugged, pulling her skirts closer as the vomit splattered all over the pavement behind us. ‘Course I will,’ she said smugly. ‘I always am.’
We reached the archway for Miller’s Court and said an awkward goodbye before I followed Marie and Joe’s retreating figures past Stephen, who was slumped asleep and snoring in the shop doorway and down the narrow alleyway that led to their room while Annie staggered further up the street to Crossingham’s Lodging House, where she was staying.
‘Ssh, I’ve got a bottle of gin,’ Marie said as she let me in. ‘I’ve had to hide it under my bed so that no one will nick it. There’s some right thieving bastards around here so there is.’
I looked at the table where Joe was taking a swig from the bottle. ‘Still no glasses then?’ I said with a grin as she shut the door behind me.
Marie shrugged. ‘We’ve got mouths, haven’t we?’ I found it hard to believe that Joe was apparently so completely lacking in curiosity about where the apparently unemployed Marie was getting the money for treats like bottles of gin but if he was at all suspicious about what she was getting up to while he was looking f
or work, he gave no sign.
I stayed there for most of the night, always intending to leave after the next swig from the bottle but then always staying for another half hour more. Grumpy and short tempered though she undoubtedly was, Marie could also be great company and she was on top form that night, telling funny stories about her childhood in Ireland, singing songs she’d picked up from rare trips to the local music halls and resolutely putting the world to rights until she finally passed out in the early hours with her head on the table amidst a mess of gin spills and pork scratchings.
Joe yawned as he got up from his chair to carry her to the bed. ‘She’ll be regretting this in the morning,’ he said with a grin. ‘She needed cheering up though, Em. She’s been right down lately.’
I nodded, getting up from my chair and standing awkwardly by the door as he rolled Marie carefully onto the bed then eased a blanket over her. ‘You really love her, don’t you?’ I said as I watched how gently he touched her.
He smiled and nodded. ‘With all my heart,’ he said simply. ‘She’s a good girl really and if I only had the money, I’d marry her in a trice.’ He cast an anxious look back at her to check that she was still asleep then lowered his voice. ‘I worry sometimes that if I don’t then she’ll start whoring again, especially now that I’m out of work and we need the money.’
If there was a question hidden in his statement I chose to ignore it. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t do that to you, Joe,’ I said softly, feeling wretched as the lies spewed from my mouth. ‘She knows how it would break your heart.’
He smiled then, the worry clearing from his face. ‘I hope so,’ he said as I lifted the latch to go. ‘I don’t think I could bear it if she went back to that life again, especially if it was all my fault.’
I said goodbye and staggered back up the passageway to Dorset Street. The pubs were all shut now but the streets were still busy with whores strolling up and down plying their trade and the usual suspects hanging about the street corners looking for trouble. I pulled my shawl close around my shoulders as I hurried along, trying my best not to catch anyone’s eye and tightening my grip on the sliver of cut glass that I kept in my pocket as a rudimentary weapon just in case. I knew those streets well enough after over a year living on them but even so the shadowy courts and alleyways of Dorset Street were enough to strike fear into any heart on a night like that.
From Whitechapel Page 12
