The Iron Road

by Jane Jackson

  ‘I was told to ask for a ganger by the name of Maginn. Know him, do you?’

  An image of Paddy, bold and clear, flashed into her mind. He was top man in the shanty. He could have stopped them. But, hot-eyed, he had shouted with the rest, urging the gypsy on, avid-faced and sweating. The memory was a sharp prod in a still-raw wound and she shied away from it. ‘No.’

  Tom Reskilly simply nodded. ‘No matter. I’ll find him. Take in lodgers do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you must know someone who do.’

  Veryan thought of the shanty and the two empty bunks. ‘Ask at the works.’

  He looked at her, his gaze steady and speculative. ‘Chatty little soul, aren’t you? Well, I’d best get on. Can’t hang about here burning daylight.’ He raised a forefinger to the brim of his cap. Though the gesture contained a hint of mockery it held something else as well, something that shook her.

  ‘I’ll see you again.’ It was both threat and promise. His quick grin revealed strong teeth with only one gap near the back. Against skin weathered to the same golden brown as the inside of oak bark, his eyes were the colour of violets.

  While she stared at him, trying to identify a feeling she didn’t recognize, a feeling bound up with his salute, he winked then loped away, whistling.

  He thought her worthy of courtesy. Confused, disoriented, she trudged on with the buckets, deliberately keeping her gaze on the track. He certainly had a way with him. But the next time she saw him, if she ever did, there would be no smile, no casual teasing charm. She had killed a man.

  What did she care for his opinion? Handsome he might be. But there was more to him than a roguish grin and a silver tongue. She wasn’t sure how she knew, yet she would stake what little she owned that it was so. What did it matter? He was a navvy. That made him the last man in the world to interest her.

  As she arrived back at the shanty village the sound of a woman’s voice, shrill and pleading, made her stomach knot painfully. Setting the buckets down, she massaged her cramped fingers. Drawn closer, she was wary of joining the other women watching in sombre silence. For them what was happening probably recalled all-too-familiar personal experience. She was merely an observer, envied because of Queenie’s protection. If they only knew.

  ‘Just a few more days, Mr Timms. Denny promised. He said as soon as he found work he’d be sending for me and the kids.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Cora –’

  Stick-thin and aged beyond her years, the young woman drew herself up angrily.

  ‘That’s Missus Pearce to you. I aren’t a works woman. Denny and me was married proper in a church. He’s a decent honest man, and –’

  ‘That’s as maybe, Mrs Pearce,’ the timekeeper, a bluff stocky man, checked his ledger. ‘But he isn’t here now.’

  ‘There’s men coming in on the tramp all the time,’ she cried desperately. ‘One of them is bound to have seen him. I’ve been going down the works every day asking. Just give us a couple more days. Please, Mr Timms. I’m begging you.’

  A soft, barely audible sound rippled from the throats of the watching women. The timekeeper shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘You know the navvy law,’ he insisted, dogged and determined. ‘Only men working on the job, or their families, are allowed to live in the shanties. Your man’s been gone three weeks now. You got to get out.’

  ‘And go where? What am I supposed to do?’ The young woman’s anguished cry startled the baby in her arms who wailed in protest. Her other two children, both boys, one aged about five, the other a year or so younger, giggled as they pretended to fight, each clinging to her skirts with one hand, completely oblivious to their mother’s distress.

  The timekeeper’s shrug implied that wasn’t his concern. ‘Go on the parish.’

  Angry whispers rustled among the women.

  ‘Lose my children? Give up my freedom? Be forced to wear workhouse clothes so everyone knows? Be treated like I’m some kind of criminal when I haven’t done nothing wrong? Never! I’ll never go on the parish.’ Abruptly her voice changed again from defiance to entreaty. ‘Please, Mr Timms. Just one more day?’

  The timekeeper’s gaze flicked to the watching women who stared back in silent hostility. He shifted again, clearly uncomfortable and losing patience. ‘Look, one more day won’t make any difference. Your man could be dead for all you know.’

  Veryan knew Bernard Timms wasn ’t a cruel man. His brutal words were a simple statement of fact.

  ‘I got my job to do. No way can I let you stay another night in that hut. Not unless …’

  Veryan saw the women exchange glances. They knew what was coming.

  ‘What?’ Cora Pearce demanded, hope battling with anxiety, itself tinged with suspicion and dread. ‘Not unless what?’

  Bernard Timms tapped his ledger. ‘Beany Flynn says he’s willing to pay your rent if you’ll take him as your man.’

  Cora Pearce’s thin face turned chalk-white. ‘But – I’m a married woman. What if my Denny comes back?’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’ The timekeeper was brusque. ‘Come on. I haven’t got all day. What’s it to be? Yes or no?’

  Veryan saw agonized indecision on Cora’s pinched features as she automatically rocked the crying baby then looked down at her other two children.

  When she raised her head her face was etched with shame and grief. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  As Bernard Timms made a note in his ledger, the women turned quietly away to their shanties. But inside Veryan the guilt and fear and rage that had been draining her of purpose suddenly coalesced into a resolve as cold and clear as frosted starlight.

  Newspapers constantly railed against the evils of slavery, condemning the southern states of America for inhuman behaviour. Yet what of the slaves in England? For navvy women were little better. Moving from line to line, they quickly lost touch with their families. All they had was their man and their children. But if he lost his job, or grew bored with the responsibilities of family life, he went on the tramp looking for new work, leaving her to follow when or if he sent for her. Thus, in order to survive, women like Cora Pearce could start the day as the legally married wife of one man, and end it, for her children’s sake, living as the kept woman of another.

  Not me, Veryan vowed. I won’t give up. Somehow I’ll get away.

  Chapter Four

  Veryan felt every muscle tighten as she heard the men arrive back that evening. Before she had been wary, watchful. Now she felt vulnerable and afraid, and hated the feeling. She tried hard to shrug it off. But everything was different now. They said she had killed a man.

  Grumbles and curses overlaid the squelch and suck of boots in the mud as the men tramped into the village and dispersed to the crude and sparsely furnished huts.

  Veryan kept her back to the door and with shaking fingers dropped suet dumplings into the thick bubbling stew. The shanty was suddenly full of voices and thuds. Boots were kicked off, mud-soaked shirts and trousers thrown into a corner for her to collect later. Then, hauling on dry clothes over grubby and felted woollen combinations, the men crowded around Queenie who had tapped a new beer barrel.

  ‘Who’s this then?’ Queenie demanded, her voice rising above the rest. ‘You’re some fine-looking feller. What’s your name?’

  ‘Tom Reskilly, ma’am.’

  Though she’d expected it – he’d asked for Paddy after all – the sound of his voice caused a strange contraction deep inside her.

  Confused and angry at her own reaction, she kept her head bent, refusing to look round.

  ‘Listen to ’im. Ma’am is it? I know your sort, my lad: a silver tongue and itchy feet. I bet you’ve broken a few hearts. Where’re you from?’ Curiosity and amusement had replaced Queenie’s habitual cynicism.

  ‘Born at Treskillet. Just come from a branch line down west.’ Hearing him establish his Cornish origins as well as the fact that he had not open out of work for very long, Veryan recognized Tom Reskilly was a l
ot more astute than his brash cheerful manner suggested. Had Paddy forewarned him? Suggested the best way to approach Queenie? Not that it would have made any difference. Queenie was a law unto herself when it came to lodgers. She had turned away a chirpy little man from Bristol. Yet she had accepted the dour Mac who grumbled incessantly, and Gypsy Ned.

  Veryan’s head swam and the sweat bathing her was suddenly icy. Dropping in the last of the dumplings she replaced the heavy lid. It clattered loudly and she flinched.

  ‘So what are you doing up here then?’

  ‘C’mon, Queen,’ Paddy Maginn groaned. ‘How about our beer? Chacking, we are. I said Tom could have Cider Joe’s bunk.’

  ‘Oh you did? Well you had no business to. Not till I’ve seen the colour of his money.’

  Paddy might run the gang, but the shanty was Queenie ’s. Foul-mouthed and temperamental, she still provided better food and conditions than most of the other shanties.

  ‘If you want to bunk here, my handsome, it’ll cost you seven shillings week, in advance. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘What do I get for my money?’

  Turning to set out bowls on the narrow folding table she used for preparing food, Veryan stole a glance. He was still smiling, but his tone made it clear that whether he stayed or not was his decision. The men caught it too, for the noise level fell as they stopped to listen.

  ‘Three meals a day. It’s good food too. Well, the best we can get from that cut-throat, Pascoe. You get your own bunk and locker, and your washing done.’

  A spoon slipped with a metallic rattle from Veryan’s clumsy fingers and her face flamed.

  Tom Reskilly said, ‘What more could a man ask?’ And Veryan heard the clink of coins.

  ‘Right then,’ Queenie was brisk. ‘Who’s first for beer?’

  ‘Bleddy mad you are, man,’ Nipper jeered. But he was careful to keep his voice low. ‘How didn’t you go to Elsie Bray’s? You’d have got more than food there. She’d have warmed your bed all right.’ His voice grew louder as discretion was overpowered by jealousy and grudging admiration. He turned to the other men. ‘She wasn’t the only one neither. Did you see they women standing in their doorways? Near enough throwing theirselves at him they were. Not just the young girls neither. Tidn’ fair. How don’t I get women chasing after me?’

  ‘Cos you ain’t as pretty as him,’ Fen retorted.

  ‘And you stink,’ Yorky grimaced, his weathered face resembling crumpled brown paper.

  ‘Veryan!’ Queenie shouted above the roars of agreement and laughter, ‘put some more dumplings in that stew. I got a new lodger. You hear me, girl?’

  As Veryan looked over her shoulder and gave a brief nod, Tom Reskilly caught her eye. He touched his cap, a deliberate repeat of his gesture on the path. One of the men nudged him. ‘You don’t want nothing to do with ‘er. She’s trouble, she is.’

  Turning away, her face burning as she struggled against the quicksand of shame and defiance, Veryan tried to block out the whispers and mutterings. It had just been a bit of fun. All right, so Ned had had a drop too much. But there was no need to take a knife to the poor bugger, for Crissakes. She thinks she’s too good for the likes of us. Saving herself she was. She needn’t bleddy bother now. Who’d want her after what she’ve done?

  Let them mock. Let him think what he liked. She had been attacked by two men, both had been drinking, and both were bigger and stronger than her. Yet they were saying it was her fault: she was to blame. She bent her head over the new batch of dough, hot tears of anger and helplessness sliding down her cheeks. She dashed them away with a floury hand.

  The men moved with their beer to benches around the big table.

  ‘What did ye do tae get yersel’ sacked?’ Mac demanded of Tom.

  ‘The contractor wouldn’t pay us what we were due. Said we’d have to wait. I told him there was no food and kiddies were starving. He said that wasn’t his problem. So I broke the bastard’s jaw. I had to get away quick then. So I thought I’d try my luck up this way.’

  ‘I bet you’ve left half-a-dozen women weeping and wailing,’ Queenie shouted over in dry accusation.

  ‘I gave no promises,’ Tom shrugged.

  ‘Crafty bugger,’ Nipper said gloomily.

  The door flew open and Cora Pearce burst in, She looked wildly round, spotted the newcomer and rushed towards him.

  ‘Mister? Have you seen my man? Denny Pearce?’

  Veryan saw Tom Reskilly’s gaze flick over Cora. He probably looked at a horse with the same practiced objectivity.

  ‘On the tramp is he?’ Cora nodded quickly: anxious, hopeful.

  Tom shook his head. ‘Sorry, my bird. I reckon your man will be long gone from Cornwall. There’s nothing down here for him. The Trewirgie line’s in trouble. They’re laying men off. And the gangs laying extra rails on the West Cornwall line aren’t taking no one on. ‘’Tis a short contract, see, and they want to keep the work for themselves.’

  Cora’s thin shoulders drooped. As hope finally died she aged ten years in as many seconds.

  ‘Cora Pearce,’ Queenie snapped, ‘it’s time you stopped all this. Thanks to Beany Flynn you got a roof over your head and food on your table. It’s not every man who’ll take on someone else’s kids. You’re bleddy lucky, and don’t you forget it.’ She turned to the men, waspish and irritable.

  ‘What’s up with you lot. Something wrong with the beer?’

  Cora was elbowed aside as the men crowded around Queenie and the barrels. Covering her mouth with a red-knuckled hand, she stumbled out.

  As she hefted the heavy cauldron onto the small table Veryan saw Paddy, beer in hand, take Tom to the double row of lockers on the back wall and point out the one that had been Cider Joe’s. After stowing his few possessions Tom came towards her, carrying two bowls.

  ‘Told you I’d see you again, didn’t I?’ he said softly.

  Head bent as she dished up the stew, Veryan didn’t reply.

  ‘You’re not spoken for then?’

  The full ladle tipped dangerously as her head jerked up. ‘Didn’t you hear what they said?’

  ‘I heard.’ His violet gaze was level. Then he grinned.

  ‘Here, girl, keep your flirting for later,’ Queenie shouted, raising hoots and laughter. ‘These men been working all day. They want their food while it’s still hot.’

  Flushing scarlet, Veryan bent her head again. ‘Go away,’ she said with quiet force. ‘Find your fun somewhere else.’

  The men had collected their bowls of stew and were seated at the table when once again the door crashed open. A man lurched in, drunk and angry.

  ‘All right, where is he?’ he shouted, glaring blearily around.

  ‘By all the saints,’ Paddy grumbled. ‘Can’t a man have his tea in peace? All this coming and going and shouting, it’s like Dublin market so it is.’

  ‘I told you before, William Thomas,’ Queenie snapped. ‘You’re not welcome in here. Now get out.’

  ‘I’ll go when I’ve spoken to her.’ He stabbed a grimy finger at Veryan.

  Flinching as vivid memories assailed her, Veryan ignored him and lifted two boiled suet puddings out of the copper.

  ‘All right,’ he snarled, coming towards her, shoulders hunched, head thrust forward. ‘Where is he? Where’s Davy?’

  Losing interest, the men turned back to their food. A good fight was one thing, but no one with a lick of sense got involved in a family row. Hunched over their bowls they shovelled up the stew, slurping and chewing noisily.

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was the truth. She hadn’t seen him all day. She tugged at the knots, scalding her fingers. Fear shafted through her but she fought it. William Thomas had never been able to frighten her before. She would not let him frighten her now.

  ‘Don’t you give me that rubbish,’ he bellowed. ‘The boy follows you round like a bleddy shadow. Well, I won’t have it. You and your bleddy books, filling his head with nonsense. You’re turning him against us.’
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br />   Veryan’s head flew up. ‘You don’t need my help for that. You’re doing very successfully all by yourself.’

  ‘You stay away from him, do you hear me?’ Leaning over the flimsy table he stabbed his finger at her again. ‘I’m warning you.’

  Sickened by his drunken belligerence, remembering Bessie’s bruised and swollen face, and her own terror, Veryan’s fear was swept aside by angry contempt. ‘Or what? Why does a man your size need to beat a small boy?’

  ‘To teach him obedience and respect,’ he snarled. ‘I reckon you could do with a lesson.’ Grabbing the table he dragged it sideways. Startled, Veryan reared back. But before he could grab her, Tom Reskilly had sprung from his seat, seized a fistful of collar and, twisting it tight, hauled William towards the door. Crimson, choking, his eyes bulging, Davy’s father thrashed his arms wildly.

  ‘You don’t raise your hand to a lady,’ Tom said. A few of the men sniggered. But as he glanced round they quickly fell silent. Shoving the man out, Tom closed the door and wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers. Resuming their meal the men murmured among themselves.

  Veryan watched Tom come towards her, her head bursting. He was a navvy. The first man since her father to think her worth respect. He was a navvy. She was determined to escape from the works.

  ‘Listen –’ he started quietly, but she didn’t let him finish.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she whispered, half plea, half dismissal. ‘I’m not – I can’t – If there’s any mercy in you, just let me be.’ She turned away and, with shaking hands began cutting the puddings and spooning them into bowls. She could hear him breathing but he didn’t speak. Then he loped back to his place at the table. He was met by noisy approval for having got rid of William, and further warnings about her.

  After several moments, calmer now, driven by curiosity, she risked a glance. He was talking to Paddy, and watching her. As their eyes locked briefly she tensed, steeling herself for his grin of triumph. All she saw was a slight frown. She reached for the pan of watered-down syrup, trying to shut out the insistent echo, ‘You don’t raise your hand to a lady.’