Voices of the Morning

by June Gadsby

  The time passed so quickly that he couldn’t believe it when Bridget informed him supper was ready and the appetising smell of potato and cabbage soup was titillating his nostrils. As they were downing the last spoonful the tramp of weary feet could be heard at the approach to the town.

  ‘Here they come!’ The shout went up among onlookers who had been assembling along the road for about an hour. ‘The Jarrow Crusaders are here!’

  As the first banner rounded the bend, a great cheer went up. Women appeared carrying food, ready to dole it out as the hungry marchers went by. Men pushed to the front, armed with jugs of beer. And children danced excitedly, offering apples and oranges and waving victory flags, faded and in tatters, that had seen service at the end of the Great War.

  ‘Just look at them,’ Billy called out to Bridget. ‘They’re more knackered than my old horse. Come on, lads, where’s your spunk? Have ye left it in Jarrow then?’

  Grim expressions were turned his way, grimy faces, damp with perspiration, eyes big with fatigue and wide with expectation.

  ‘Billy, don’t.’ Bridget tugged at his sleeve. ‘They’re tired.’

  ‘Tired? They’ve only come twelve miles! Where’s the local brass band? That would help wake them up. Come on, you lot. Think of the cause!’

  ‘It’s all right for ye, laddie,’ one sour-faced marcher called out and Billy recognized Harry Brown, a senior shipyard official, whose legs were so bowed he couldn’t stop a pig in a passage.

  ‘I wanted to come,’ Billy shouted back, acknowledging shouts and waves from others he knew. ‘They wouldn’t let me;’

  ‘I see you came anyway, Billy Big Boots! Ye bugger, ye! I nivvor seen a lad so anxious to be in the thick of things.’

  ‘Glutton for punishment is Billy!’

  ‘What are ye doing here anyway, Flynn? Ready to pick the bones of them among us what drops on the road to London, eh?’

  ‘Whatever he’s at, it looks like he’s got himself a cosy billet th’ night. Good on ye, Billy. I swear if ye fell in a pile of horse dung ye’d come up smelling of roses.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, Howie Majors,’ Billy responded, holding his temper at bay, ‘when you come to me pleading for new soles for yer boots.’

  ‘Gawd luv us, he’s a cobbler now!’

  A ripple of weary laughter rippled through the ranks as line after line of marchers filed past. In the middle, straggling a bit, were the group of men bearing paper and comb, but not a tune was forthcoming.

  ‘That’s what’s wrong,’ Billy said. ‘They need music to cheer them up.’

  He dug in his coat pocket and brought out his penny whistle, trilling a few jolly notes that soared bell-like in the air. Suddenly, the waiting crowd of townsfolk gathered around, clapping their hands in time to Billy’s music. One or two of the younger women grabbed the nearest marchers and danced a jig with them. Not to be outdone by a young whippersnapper like Billy Flynn, the paper and comb band took up their instruments once more and joined in. It was an old song, The More We Are Together, but everyone remembered it and it seemed right for the occasion.

  Like magic, the faces of the Crusaders lit up and the tiredness faded. Billy marched alongside them until they reached the spot in the town where they were expected to spend the night, and then he took his leave.

  ‘Thanks, Billy!’

  ‘Ye’re a good lad, Billy!’

  ‘See ye in the mornin’, Billy!’

  It was raining as he walked back to his little campsite, still playing on his penny whistle as if he didn’t know how to stop. His heart felt full and warm, despite the fine rain falling like sea fret on his shoulders. The night was bitterly cold and he felt sorry for those men who would not be lucky enough to sleep under cover, for they weren’t all guaranteed lodgings.

  As he turned the last corner and the cart with its makeshift tarpaulin roof came into sight, a bulky figure broke from the shadows and bowled into Billy, knocking the breath out of him as he bounced off a stone wall. He heard a deep-throated grunt, smelled the animal odour of the man, but before he could steady himself the fellow was off at a perilous speed, rocking and rolling over the greasy cobbles, his boot studs striking sparks like flints.

  ‘Big ugly bugger!’ Billy called out after him. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’

  He brushed himself down, wincing slightly as he touched his elbow, grazed sore even through his clothing. The man who had run into him was now a mere, lumbering shadow, picked out fleetingly by the light of the street lamps as he ran towards the town centre.

  Billy stared after him and a small niggling fingernail scratched at his insides. There was something vaguely familiar about the silhouette that was growing more and more distant. When the man finally reached the end of the road and disappeared from view, Billy put the whole incident to the back of his mind and headed for the cart, where he could see a flickering light. Bridget had lit the oil lamp and was waiting for him. He quickened his step as a cold shiver went through him. It would be good to get back to the welcoming warmth of Bridget. Somehow, wherever Bridget was, it always felt like home, be it cramped terraced house or, as was the case right now, a tatty old cart.

  ‘It’s me,’ he called out softly as he climbed in the back of the cart and carefully pulled down and fastened the rope ties to stop the tarpaulin from being lifted by the wind.

  ‘Oh, Billy!’

  It was such a weak, hoarse whisper, that he whipped around and peered at her through the dull, yellow light. She was slumped in the far corner, her hair a tangle over a face that looked odd. As she lifted a hand and pushed back the curtain of curly tresses that had come undone, he saw blood on her arm. She leaned forward, reaching for a blanket and pulled it up to her chin. She was shaking like a leaf in a storm and her usually rosy cheeks were pale and puffy and bruised.

  ‘Bridget?’ Not wanting to believe his eyes, Billy picked up the lamp and held it so that he could see her more clearly. There was no mistaking the state of her. ‘Who was it, Bridget? Who did that to you?’

  She was having difficulty speaking and as she shook her head at him in despair, tears flew from her terrified eyes.

  ‘Which one of them buggers hurt you?’ Billy persisted, reaching out and gently taking her hand in his. ‘Tell me his name if you know it. We’ll report him to the police.’

  Again she shook her head. ‘No, Billy, it...it wasn’t one of the marchers. It was...’

  ‘My God, did he...you know...?’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the words or the thoughts that were screaming in his head. As Bridget nodded and wept bitterly into her blanket he felt himself fill with a red fury.

  ‘Yes, he did. He...he raped me, Billy!’

  He crawled over to her and took her gently in his arms. Bridget leaned all her weight against him. He could feel her heart beating, hear the sob-wracked breathing that was almost choking her. Billy didn’t know what to do. This was something new, something terrible that had come into his life.

  ‘Did you recognize him, Bridget?’ he asked, not daring to tighten his hold in case he hurt her.

  Bridget drew in a deep, rattling breath and curled her fingers into the lapels of his coat, holding on so tightly that he couldn’t move.

  ‘Billy...it was him! It was your father...Patrick Flynn....’

  The red fury turned into white rage and then Billy realized the man who ran into him had, indeed, been his father. It had been Patrick’s size and shape. It had been Patrick’s odious smell. For a fleeting moment, Billy had known it, but rejected the fact out of hand. Patrick, he had thought, would be miles away, probably on the other side of the world. He was too wily a bird to come back to the north east of England where he could be so easily recognized.

  ‘Are you sure, Bridget?’ he asked through gritted teeth and a fresh bout of tears burst from her, soaking his shirt, but still she clung to him and wouldn’t let go.

  ‘It was him, Billy,’ she said, her mouth muffled as she buried her face into his
neck and he found it strangely moving, even through his anger. ‘How could I ever forget the man that murdered my mother?’

  ‘Dear God, Bridget, he might have done for you too!’

  ‘I think he would have, if he hadn’t heard that penny whistle of yours.’

  ‘But what about Patches? Didn’t he make a fuss?’ Billy looked around frantically, suddenly aware that there had been no welcoming bark or warm, friendly lick to greet him on his return.

  Bridget lifted her head and he followed her gaze to what he had thought, from the corner of his eye, to be a bundle of rags. Patches lay, the victim of a brutal assault judging by the wounds over his back and skull, but he was feeling no pain now. Billy’s old friend was no more.

  ‘Aw, no! No!’ Billy slithered over to the dog and gathered him up in his arms. Letting his own emotions take over, the tousled coat of the dog was soon wet from his tears. ‘I’ll kill you one day, bliddy Patrick Flynn! I’ll kill ye!’

  Bridget’s hand found his shoulder and her fingers squeezed hard, digging into his flesh.

  ‘No you won’t, Billy,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s not worth going to prison for. Let the authorities deal with him.’

  But the authorities showed little interest in the fact that known murderer Patrick Flynn was at large in their town. They did not seem to care that a young woman had been raped by the man. In fact, they treated poor Bridget abominably, indicating that she had probably led her attacker on, and where was the proof that it was, indeed, Patrick Flynn, since there were so many men in the town that night and what was a girl like Bridget Maguire, looking the way she looked, doing sleeping rough and attracting attention. She probably deserved all she got, they intimated. They had enough on their hands keeping the peace, what with the men of the Jarrow Crusade and the strike breakers and a whole host of other strikers and workers intent on making their presence felt.

  ‘So you’re not going to do anything about it?’ Billy could not keep the disgust from his voice.

  ‘Proof, laddie,’ the desk sergeant said, snapping his report book shut and popping his pen back in its holder. ‘Can’t do nuthin’ without proof. How are we to know that the lass hasn’t just been earning a bob or two on the side and one of her customers got a bit rough. Go on, the pair of you. Stop wastin’ police time.’

  They walked back to the wagon, dragging their feet but hand in hand. Billy was tempted to rush off and find that bastard Patrick and give him the punishment he deserved. And he would have done it, had it not been for the fact that he didn’t want to leave Bridget on her own. In fact, he felt as if he would never again want to leave go of her soft warm hand. He wanted to be with her, as close as he could get, feel her body pressed against him, her head on his shoulder. It was a strange new feeling, sort of bittersweet, bringing him pleasure and pain at the same time.

  ‘You won’t do anything silly, will you, Billy?’ she asked as he tucked her up once they got back to the cart and prepared to watch over her the whole night long. ‘I don’t want to lose you too.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Bridget,’ he said, feeling slightly uncomfortable and wishing he were more of a man of the world. ‘You’ll not get rid of me. You’ll never get rid of me.’

  ‘I’m glad of that.’ Bridget’s eyelids were drooping and she slid down into the folds of the blanket and went to sleep.

  As she slept, like an exhausted child, Billy tried to analyse his feelings. There was a great knot of something he couldn’t figure out beneath his breastbone. It was sending out disturbing vibrations left, right and centre and his head was in turmoil over it. He tried to distract himself by thinking of Laura, wondering how she was faring back home on her own, whether she was still depressed, still regretting the past. But the image of Laura was constantly being pushed away, replaced by one of Bridget.

  Bridget with the sun shining in her hair. Bridget with raindrops glistening on the end of her long eyelashes. And those sea-green eyes that he felt he could drown in like a deep, deep ocean. Finally, he could see her mouth, all full and rosy and inviting and he didn’t know why he should, but he wanted, oh so badly, to kiss it. And he did kiss it, the touch of his lips on hers as light as the brush of a butterfly wing.

  Bridget murmured in her sleep, her body stirring and dislodging the blanket. Billy swallowed dryly, feeling an odd pang of guilt, for his own body was betraying him the way it never had before. He pulled the blanket back up to her chin, took the lamp and went out in the pouring rain on that icy November night and buried his dog. Then he cried over the grave for Patches, cried for Laura and his mother and his Aunty Colleen, his brother Desmond, and the father he had never known. But most of all he cried for Bridget and the feelings he had kept hidden for her all these years without ever knowing that she occupied such a special place in his heart, and always would.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Can you not get him to go a bit faster, Billy?’

  Billy gave Bridget a pained look. She had been urging him on impatiently ever since they had arrived on the outskirts of the capital. Now that they could see the high , impressive skyline of London she could hardly contain her excitement and shuffled her behind next to him on the wooden slat seat.

  Like the marchers, they had been travelling for twenty-five days. Nearly three hundred miles had been covered, bearing the petition of 11,000 names, carefully guarded in an oak box with gold lettering. Each time they approached a town they held the box proudly aloft. Their aching limbs were forgotten when the thousands of sympathisers they encountered en route cheered them on, supporting them with food and drink and clothing as necessary.

  Billy made himself popular by mending boots and shoes and, on occasion, giving out free footwear when he found that none of the men could afford to pay anything. He couldn’t see his fellow workers go barefoot when he had inherited a whole cobbler’s shop full of boots and leather. Bridget tried to get him to at least put something on the slate so that the men could pay him back when they got their longed for employment, but he wouldn’t have it.

  ‘We could all be dead and buried before that happens,’ he said with a sad shake of his head. ‘I don’t think it’ll happen.’

  ‘So what’s everybody marching for?’ Bridget wanted to know. ‘They might as well give up now and save their energy.’

  ‘It’s the Geordie pride, Bridget,’ Billy told her seriously. ‘They’ve got to prove something, even if they’re beaten at the end of the day. That petition they’re so pleased about isn’t enough to change their lives, but it’s their moment of glory, this crusade. What kind of person would want to rob them of that? As long as a person tries, he cannot be thought of as a failure.’

  ‘Hey, Billy, you’re a lot wiser than you look, aren’t you,’ Bridget smiled, trying to lighten the conversation with a little of her characteristic humour. ‘I’d like to write those words of yours down and shove it up Mr Bloody Baldwin’s arse. And the rest of them politicians who keep telling us that everything they do is for the good of the people.’

  ‘I thought you’d stopped using that kind of language, Bridget Maguire,’ Billy returned her smile.

  ‘There are times when I don’t know enough words to replace them,’ Bridget said, pulling a face and pointing a finger at the horse’s rump. ‘Look at that, will you. He’s getting slower and slower. At this rate the marchers will be on their way back home before we get to the House of Commons.

  ‘Bridget,’ he said, feigning irritation, but too pleased at having her returned to her normal exuberance to mean it, ‘if I ask him, Neddy here will roll over and die for me, but I have too much respect and gratitude for the old fella. Besides, we need him to get us back once the petition is signed. Mind you, I suppose I could always put you between the shafts.’

  Bridget stared at him, her eyes wide, then she grinned and gave him a hefty slap that nearly knocked him from his perch.

  ‘I just want to be there when they hand it in to the Prime Minister,’ she said, leaning forward in her seat as if it migh
t help push the cart into going just that bit faster. ‘We will see Mr Baldwin, won’t we? I mean, he can’t possibly not be there after all the men have done to make him believe in them.’

  ‘I don’t know, Bridget,’ Billy said, shaking his head reflectively. ‘Prime Ministers are busy men, I imagine.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. Anyway, I’d rather see the king and queen, but I’ll settle for having a look at Buckingham Palace. Do you think they really have lots of gold and jewels and thick red carpets about the place, Billy? I’d love a red carpet. You know the kind. Those that are so thick the pile comes up between your toes.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think the queen ever goes around the Palace barefoot.’ Billy threw his head back and laughed, then gave Neddy an encouraging click of his tongue, but the horse turned an uncharacteristic deaf ear and plodded on, his great grey haunches swinging lethargically from side to side.

  ‘Maybe you could make King George a pair of shoes or some slippers for the queen, like mine.’ Bridget was high on the adrenalin created by the end of the long journey. ‘I can just see you going home to Jarrow with a brand new sign – Billy Flynn, Cobbler to His Majesty the King.’

  They exchanged glances then burst out laughing. Bridget leaned towards Billy and planted an affectionate kiss on his cheek. It wasn’t the first time she had kissed him, but recently there seemed to be more meaning in the gesture. Or was is that he was just beginning to notice Bridget as something more than a friend? Billy suddenly grew hot with embarrassment and quickly looked away.

  ‘I bet Laura’s missing us,’ he said and immediately wished he hadn’t because he felt Bridget draw away from him.