The Conviction of Cora Burns

by Carolyn Kirby

  Two

  1874

  the Union

  She slipped in without Cora noticing. Only when Mr Bowyer rapped his cane on his desk did Cora look around from the blackboard, a nub of chalk between her fingers, and see a new face on the last row. The girl’s bonnet was tied loosely and had slipped back to reveal the just-shaved bristles on her scalp. Her cheeks had the red flush of skin unused to warm water.

  Mr Bowyer’s cane whacked again, nearer this time. Cora felt a sigh of air on her neck before the slap of birch against the blackboard.

  ‘Where is the date, Cora Burns?’

  Cora stiffened. But she did not flinch, especially as the new girl was watching. Her hand wrote Friday 3rd April and stayed steady through the chalk loops.

  ‘Now Cora,’ Mr Bowyer said, ‘continue with your problem.’

  Cora was always called to the front for problems. She had come to realise, quite recently, that Mr Bowyer, although he seemed like a man, was not very old, probably not much older than the biggest girls in the upper dormitories. And he was not very good at problems. Sums, he could more or less manage. But when it came to working out the number of threepenny herrings to be purchased for eight shillings and sixpence, or the weight of each fancy bun in a two-pound dozen, he had to call Cora up to the front. He never let on to her that he couldn’t work it out for himself and she kept his secret. There was unspoken payment for her silence. Once, he had given her a shop-bought biscuit. But she had never seen a fancy bun, or a herring.

  When the bell rang and they went to the yard, Cora pushed herself to the front of the crush and laid hands on the girl as she came out of the school room door. That was what she always did with new ones; she’d pull them by the ear and give their wrists a Chinese twist, just so they knew that Cora was the toughest, the cleverest, the one who’d been here the longest. But this girl was different. There was a strange familiarity about her that made Cora entwine her arm in a friendly link and walk her slowly around the tall metal pole of the giant stride. For once, Cora didn’t mind that Lottie Bolger had grabbed one of the chain swings before her.

  Chilly spring air made the new girl shiver in her workhouse calico. Cora pulled her closer.

  ‘Have you been in here before?’

  The girl looked at Cora then slowly shook her head.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  The new girl blinked. ‘Alice Salt.’

  Cora’s laugh had a cruel edge. ‘That’s a funny name. Alice Salt; all is salt.’

  Alice flushed. Despite the blotched skin, her face was a pretty oval with tiny cupid lips and almond-shaped eyes under thick brows. They seemed like the same shaped eyes, in fact, as Cora’s own. And Cora’s might also be the same shade of violety-grey but she had never looked in a glass clear enough to know.

  All of the Bolger girls were rattling the chains on the giant stride and staring at Cora. Normally, she’d have taken this as a challenge, called them pikeys and threatened to spit in their beds, but today she turned her back. She tightened her arm on Alice’s elbow.

  ‘I’m Cora Burns. I’ll look after you but you must do as I say. How old are you?’

  Alice licked her cracking lips. ‘Nine.’

  Cora’s eyes narrowed. Skinny little runt if she was nine.

  Tears began to pool at Alice’s eyelids. ‘Today’s my birthday.’

  Birthday? Cora had never heard such a lot of stuck-up swill. She put both hands on Alice’s wrist and forced the skin in opposite directions. A teardrop slipped through Alice’s dark eyelashes and spilled down her cheek. But she didn’t make a sound and her hand stayed on Cora’s sleeve. Perhaps she did have guts after all. Cora wiped the drip from Alice’s cheek and felt a twinge of remorse. She almost confessed that she was angry only because the date of her own birth was a blank. She might be nine as well, but couldn’t be sure.

  Then Cora looked down at Alice’s wrist and jerked back in panic. A wheal of red skin puckered up Alice’s arm into her sleeve. Alice saw Cora’s expression and smiled through her tears.

  ‘Don’t worry, you didn’t do that. It was from japanning.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  Cora grabbed hold of the scarred wrist, twisting it again to show that she was the one who’d ask the questions round here.

  Later that night, when all the hoo-ha had died down and there was only spluttering and coughing in the dormitory, Cora made herself stay awake until the snuffling started. It would always get going as soon as the new girl thought no one could hear. Cora pulled back her covers, about to slip along the facing rows of iron beds, but a shivering figure in a too-big nightdress was already there at her bedside. Alice’s face was washed in grey moonlight. She seemed almost to float on the cold air that slid through gaps in the floorboards.

  ‘Will you budge up for me, Cora? I can’t get to sleep on my own.’

  She stole between the sheets and Cora pulled the lumpy blanket over their heads pressing herself around Alice’s bird-like limbs. Alice wiped a hand across the burbling from her nose and whispered.

  ‘I don’t like that bed. Who was in it before?’

  ‘Betty Hines.’

  ‘What happened to her?’

  ‘Her mother came for her, but it won’t be long till she’s back, I’d say. The mother’s a widow and sickly so Betty’s in and out of here like a rat in a drain.’

  Alice turned in the bed and Cora could make out her eyes shining in the darkness.

  ‘I hope your mother doesn’t come for you, Cora.’

  An odd tightness gripped at Cora’s chest. She knew that she must have had one once but mother was just a word. She had never before imagined her own to be a living, breathing woman. Cora swallowed the tightness away and cut a hard note into her voice.

  ‘It’s best not to have a mother. Everyone who does can’t stop blubbing.’

  Alice put her hand on Cora’s. ‘I don’t have a mother either.’

  ‘Is she dead?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I thought Ma was my mother until she told me that I was boarded out to her from the Parish. And now I’m nine, the Guardians expect me to get the same to eat as a grown-up. So Ma can’t keep me any more.’

  It took Cora a minute to comprehend what Alice was telling her. ‘If she’s not your real Ma, who is?’

  But Alice could only shrug, her eyes glistening with tears.

  In the next bed, Hetty Skelling coughed in a way that made Cora suspect she was wide awake and listening. Cora rubbed her big toe on Alice’s icy foot and put her lips almost inside Alice’s ear. Her voice was quiet as breath.

  ‘We’re the same then, you and me. And that’s why, from now on, we’re going to be sisters.’

  Three

  October 1885

  a likeness

  By the time Cora got to Corporation Street the lights were coming on. An eggy whiff followed the lamp-lighter as he sparked each post into a fizzing yellow glow. Above the traffic, windows began to gleam, one on top of another, five sandstone storeys high. Shopfront mirrors glinted on to packed rows of tobacco pipes and toffee tins.

  Cora stepped aside for a butcher’s lad carrying half a pig on his shoulder. The coldness of the beast’s waxy skin breathed across her face. She shrank away from it into the dazzle of a window and winced. Nothing had shone that bright for a long time.

  It was a photographer’s shop with a display of framed portraits. The sitters were placed in artificial scenes; a tennis party in a blurry woodland glade, a father trying not to laugh as he rowed his daughter in a pretend boat across a painted lake. All of them stared into the same void just beyond Cora’s left shoulder.

  She found herself scanning the black-and-white faces for anyone who might be a grown-up version of Alice. It was far-fetched, she knew. But if Cora held her breath for long enough she
could still feel the beat of Alice’s heart inside her own. So somewhere in the town’s teeming streets and courts and terraces, Alice must live. Perhaps at this very moment she could be on Corporation Street, scouring these same unsmiling faces for one that looked like her Union house sister.

  Curling gold letters spelt out HJ Thripp & Son on the shop’s glass door. Cora pushed it open and a bell rang. Shelves and cabinets groaned with boxes of gelatine plates, fancy frames and viewing devices. The air reeked of camphor.

  ‘Yes?’

  The man’s elbows rested on a glass-topped counter, his long beard almost sweeping the top of it. He gave Cora a smile that wasn’t entirely pleasant and she tried not to look at him as she spoke.

  ‘I’m after a likeness.’

  ‘Very good. My son can do it presently.’

  ‘I want it done now.’

  ‘Do you indeed?’

  ‘I’ve no need for a print. I just want you to take the likeness.’

  ‘Well, I’m busy. I’ve no time to change the scenery or lend out fancy attire.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  The man, Mr Thripp she supposed, looked her up and down. ‘A tradeswoman’s portrait is it? In your working clothes, with some tools of your trade?’

  ‘No. A plain likeness, done as I am. How much?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Two shillings.’

  ‘How much if you keep it, to go in your window?’

  ‘In the display? I hardly think…’

  ‘I’ll pay two and six.’

  Mr Thripp straightened and came around the counter putting both thumbs into the little pockets of his discoloured waistcoat. He was a big man and seemed to fill the shop.

  ‘Let’s see how well you take before I decide.’

  He pulled back a curtain and beckoned Cora through, pointing her to a padded chair beside a small table. Thin twilight fell from a wide glass panel in the ceiling. Mr Thripp went to the battered wooden camera already set up on its tripod and he slotted a flat box into the top.

  ‘Now then, put your elbow on the table, lean your cheek upon your palm and look up at my birdie in yon corner.’

  He pointed at a stuffed bird fixed above the doorway, its red and blue plumage deadened by dust.

  She turned to face him, putting her hands in her lap. ‘No. I’ll look straight.’

  He shrugged. ‘That will not flatter. But it’s your half-crown.’

  After unscrewing the camera’s lens cap, he flicked a switch on a tall lamp topped by a shiny disc. Light exploded. Cora told herself not to blink as black spots floated across her vision. The light faded slowly and Mr Thripp replaced the camera’s cap. Then he took the plate-holder out of the camera box and disappeared into what seemed to be a cupboard. A line of orange light glowed along the bottom of the door. Glass clinked.

  Cora looked up at the skylight and tried to blink away the silvery blotches swimming across her eyes. The chances of finding Alice like this must be slight. Perhaps she should run off now and save her shillings. She couldn’t imagine how she’d get any more.

  But then the cupboard door opened and Mr Thripp was back in the room. He was holding a sheet of white blotting paper behind a dripping glass plate. Vinegary fumes needled through the shreds of smoke.

  ‘Not bad, as a matter of fact. Quite a singular face. Fetching in a way. It might make some stop and look.’

  ‘So will you put it in the window?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘And should anyone ask for me, you’ll make a note of their name and directions?’

  ‘Now, now. I’m not some kind of registry. I’ll display the portrait for a period but that’s all. Of course, if you want them, prints may be had. At sixpence each.’

  Cora turned away from him to reach into her sugar-sack pocket. As she pulled her hand out of her skirt, she felt his eyes on her.

  His voice thickened. ‘And when the throngs begin to clamour for you, to where should I direct them?’

  She shrugged and swallowed an urge to smash a nearby jar of purple liquid into his beard.

  ‘I’m seeking a situation. So I’ll return here to enquire.’

  ‘What’s your trade?’

  ‘Laundress.’

  His gaze slid over her, a smirk on his lips. ‘You could try Mrs Small’s on Bordesley Street. A common lodging house. She usually has something for young laundresses.’

  ‘Are you having me on?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Am I to wash her “smalls”?’

  His face jolted as he grasped the joke. Then he smiled. ‘Sharp one, aren’t you?’

  He slipped the glass plate into a china tray of liquid on the shelf. Cora watched her own unsmiling monochrome eyes ripple under the water. Mr Thripp wiped his hand on a rag and stretched an upturned palm towards her.

  ‘Let’s call it two shillings then.’

  Cora took care, as she dropped the coins, not to touch his skin. ‘You’ll put the likeness in the window tonight?’

  He gave a mocking incline of his head. ‘Anything else, miss?’

  ‘Yes. Which way to Bordesley Street?’

  common lodging

  ‘Mrs Small’s lodging house. Is it down here?’

  The man grinned orange in the light from a tobacco-stained window. ‘Why you going there, love?’

  ‘For work.’

  He winked and held up his beer glass, pointing it down the half-lit street. ‘That way. Sheep Court.’

  The rattling of an unseen train across the overhead viaduct relieved Cora of any need to thank him.

  She turned her back to the ale-house and walked from one smoky circle of lamplight to the next as quickly as the raw blisters on her heel would allow. In a beam from an alley lamp, a chalk sheep was drawn roughly on to damp bricks. The same beam lit up a skinny dog laid flat on the pavement. Cora wondered if the dog was dead but as she stepped over it the mangy tail twitched.

  Squeals funnelled along the entry. The din got worse as the passage widened to a space between tall dilapidated houses. The court was heaving with kids and not a clean face on any of them. The loudest yelps came from three boys hurling themselves around on ropes hung from the lamp post topped by a leaping yellow flame. The air reeked of privies.

  At Cora’s feet, a small girl seemed deaf to the wails of the baby trying to pull itself upright on her dirty pinny. Cora shouted over the bawling.

  ‘Which is Mrs Small’s?’

  The girl’s wizened face looked up at her. ‘Got anything to eat?’

  The baby stopped crying and looked up too, wobbling on fat little toes that squelched into the mud. There was no telling if it was a girl or a boy but it wasn’t as big as Cora’s own child should be by now. He’d be walking properly. Running, even. Cora shivered. For a second, she sensed the exact pressure of a child that size on her hip, although she had never, as far as she could remember, held one. She blinked the thought away.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  The little girl shrugged. ‘Don’t know then.’

  ‘Grasping little blighters round here, aren’t you?’

  Cora felt inside her skirt and into the pocket for a farthing but could find nothing less than a penny. She held it out to the girl who snatched the coin and scooped up the baby. Cora followed them across the court. The boys, sensing something happening, left their scuffling around the rope swings and ran after them squawking like seagulls behind a night-soil wagon.

  ‘Oi Missus! Missus where y’going?’

  The girl with the baby was pushing against a door. Wood scraped and paint flaked. The baby started to yowl. Cora placed herself in the doorway to keep the other kids out.

  A throaty voice came from the darkness of a passageway. ‘Who is it?’

  Then a woman’s head appeared from an inside doorway; meta
l curlers flopped on to her shoulders and swung around her ears.

  ‘I’ve come about the situation.’

  ‘What situation? Who sent you?’

  ‘Mr Thripp. The photographer.’

  ‘Oh, him. Come in then if you like. But tell them kids to go to hell.’

  The children seemed already to have melted away.

  Cora followed the woman into a dingy parlour but stayed by the doorway and tried to ease the weight off the throbbing on her heel. The woman sat at a round table covered with a threadbare Turkey carpet. On an upright chair, a girl about Cora’s age stared into the empty grate. The women’s frocks, now faded and frayed, must once have dazzled. Neither of them seemed to be wearing stays. The older woman with the curlers, Mrs Small presumably, let her gaze drift over Cora.

  ‘Done it before, have you?’

  ‘Laundry, do you mean?’

  ‘Is that what you think the situation is for?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, there’s always washing to do. And we don’t seem to get round to it very often.’

  The girl at the fireplace tittered but Mrs Small’s face stayed straight.

  ‘Where have you worked before?’

  ‘In a big laundry.’

  ‘Which one?’

  Cora hesitated, but couldn’t see much reason to lie. ‘At the Borough Asylum.’

  ‘Was you an inmate there?’

  ‘No!’

  The woman smirked. ‘All right. Keep your hairpiece on. Why’d you leave?’

  ‘I… I couldn’t work any more.’

  ‘Was you ill?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right.’

  ‘Did they give you a character?’

  ‘Yes, but I seem to have lost it.’

  ‘Oh well. We don’t care about characters here. Just the opposite in fact.’

  She exchanged a glance with the girl at the fireplace who giggled louder and Mrs Small joined in with a strange gurgling noise. It was the indecency of their laughter more than anything else that suddenly made Cora realise what sort of work really went on at Mrs Small’s. She winced at the pain inside her boot.