Polly's Pride

by Freda Lightfoot

  When Matthew did arrive home, exhausted after a day spent up and down the Rochdale canal on the narrow-boats, it was to find his wife and children standing forlornly in the street, herded together with his neighbours, ready to be carried off like refugees.

  ‘Hello, lad,’ Connie Green hailed him. ‘Here we go again, on us holidays.’

  ‘Aye, who wants to go to Blackpool when they can lie on t’floor of Ardwick Barracks?’ quipped Bet Sutcliffe, who owned the old clothes shop a few doors up the street.

  Matthew managed a smile but, distracted by problems of his own, didn’t come back with a joke as he would normally have done. He could see Davey Murphy ordering his wife about as usual while trying to disguise the fact that she sported another bruise. Matt nodded to him, acknowledging his presence, then turned away, not wishing to appear over-curious. Instead he put his arms about his own wife and drew her to his side, knowing how she hated this annual ritual.

  The smell of the gasworks, rubber works and chemical factory was strong in his nostrils, but to this would soon be added the stink of the fumigating gas. The men were already busily sealing fireplaces, windows and doors with sticky tape. Then they would set fire to tins of powder which would hiss and spit as they ran out, slamming the doors behind them, sealing each one with a sheet of rubber to keep the gas in. By the time the occupants were allowed back from their sojourn at the barracks, the houses should be blessedly free from their unwelcome visitors, for a while at least.

  Matt felt Polly shudder in his arms and, experiencing a rush of love for her, gave her a little squeeze. ‘Don’t fret, love. It’ll be over soon enough, and think what a blessed relief for us to be rid of the blackjacks for a while.’ He helped her climb aboard the truck which would take them to the barracks, where he knew they’d spend an uncomfortable, cold night sleeping on bare boards. Not that he minded. The way he was feeling right now, sleeping on a clothes line wouldn’t trouble him in the least, he was that tired.

  ‘I’ve told them my house is clean, but they’ll not listen.’

  ‘The bugs would still come, love, clean or not.’

  ‘I know,’ she admitted with a rueful smile, feeling better already just to have him there.

  He smiled back at her, a gentle giant of a man with fair hair and blue-grey eyes that did not quite meet her gaze as they usually did, so that he could hide his own insecurities and fears. He’d been doing reasonably well lately, getting three, or sometimes four days a week regular work, but the gaffer had warned of a slack period coming up with fewer shipments due. As a result, pay and hours would be cut and a restlessness was growing among the men, with renewed talk of unions which employers viewed as a threat to their power.

  Matthew did his best to avoid such talk and patiently hoped for the best. He’d no wish to involve himself in any political protest which he knew could degenerate with frightening swiftness into something violent and unpredictable. Besides, hadn’t he had a bellyful of fighting, enough to last him a lifetime? Let someone else take on this battle.

  He lifted up eight-year-old Benny and told him to be a good lad and sit still for once, then helped twelve-year-old Lucy climb aboard. She went at once to take hold of Polly’s hand.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mam. It’ll be over soon. They’ll be doing Jersey Street tomorrow, then Hood and Blossom Street. Row by row, everyone will have their turn.’

  ‘Stay close, mind. I want naught to happen to the pair of you.’ As she spoke, Polly glanced anxiously about for her young son, but he was happily nattering to his friends.

  Reaching up, Matthew planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘Nowt will happen to either of them. Stop your fretting. Its only the bug brigade, not the bloomin’ coppers.’

  ‘You daft bitch!’ A sudden shout rang out, making everyone in the truck lean over the sides and crane their necks to see what was going on. Dove Street was never short on entertainment.

  ‘What the ... ?’ The body of a woman thudded against Matt, knocking the wind out of him and jarring his shoulder against the truck. Poor Mrs Murphy, suffering yet another bruising blow from her husband.

  ‘You bloody whore!’ As Matthew bent to help the woman to her feet, she was whipped away from his hands and flung back with a loud crack as her head met the wall.

  ‘Hold on, what the blazes . . .’ But Matthew got no further as a fist connected with his nose; the kind of punch that left his teeth rattling and his head spinning. He could hear Polly screaming, and fought to keep consciousness even as he lunged for Murphy yet again. But he lost his balance and punched nothing but air.

  Then from the door of number five emerged one of the railway guards, who really oughtn’t to have been there at all, and would almost certainly have remained hidden had the fumigation squad not unexpectedly flushed him out, and Davey Murphy had not been deprived of his usual pint or two at the pub that evening. Murphy shook off Matthew as if he were no more than an irritating gnat.

  ‘So this is what you get up to woman while I’m out looking for work, day after bleedin’ day. You entertain your fancy man in me own bloomin’ house.’

  ‘I weren’t, he only called . . . But whatever it was he’d supposedly called for, they were never to discover. A scuffle broke out as the two men flung punches at each other, Davey Murphy connecting more than the guard who was getting the worst of it, being less practised in fisticuffs than the big Irishman.

  Then before anyone could guess what he was about to do, Davey swung round, letting fly at his wife with one balled fist. There was a terrible sound of crunching bones, a piercing scream, followed by a sickening thud as she fell to the ground,

  ‘Dear God, he’s done for her.’

  Even as blood spurted and her arms stopped flailing to defend herself, the rain of blows and clamour of shouting and swearing did not let up until Matthew and the fumigation men finally managed, with great difficulty, to drag Davey off her. The winner and the loser of this terrible contest were by now patently obvious. Moments later it was the sound of police whistles that broke the awed silence which had descended on Dove Street.

  Davey Murphy was led away, no doubt to Strangeways, with his hands in cuffs and not a trace of remorse on his face. The children would be found places in an orphanage somewhere while his poor wife’s troubles were over at last, at least in this world.

  ‘Why do we live here?’ Polly said in a hoarse whisper, wanting to retch as she held her children protectively close, for all they had seen similar occurrences time and again. But for once there were no soft words of comfort from her husband, and his voice was uncharacteristically harsh as he answered her.

  ‘Because we’ve no choice.’

  Filled instantly with remorse and guilt over her fussing, which now seemed ridiculous in comparison to the horrific fate which had befallen poor Mrs Murphy and her children, Polly slid an arm about her husband’s neck the minute he came and sat beside her in the truck, leaning against his shoulder as if she could will the strength of him to flow into her own body. With his fair hair, blunt chin and hatred of embarrassing emotional scenes he was a typical Englishman, yet she loved him for it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Matt, for making such a blather about everything today. At least we’re happy, are we not, and don’t have the problems the poor Murphys had, you being in such a fine good job an’ all. Is that not so?’

  ‘Aye, ‘course it is,’ he agreed in his bluff way, thinking how lovely she was, and how silky her skin as he kissed her cheek; holding her protectively close as the truck jerked into motion. But his eyes were glazed over the dark sheen of her hair as she lay against his shoulder; the unseeing inward vision of a man with more troubles on his mind than he cares to admit.

  Chapter Two

  The night in the barracks was every bit as cold and uncomfortable as Polly had feared. Stripped of their clothes while they were deloused, the whole process seemed to her thoroughly humiliating.

  The young students from the Roundhouse Mission, operating under the auspices of the University
Settlement, offered fresh second-hand clothes to those who wanted them. Few took up the offer. Ancoats folk hated charity above all things. And there were some who’d rather do a bit of light-fingered fending for themselves, which at least necessitated taking a risk, than accept a hand-out; a perverse philosophy with which Polly sympathised though she did not subscribe to it herself. She frequently made a point of drumming into both her children the possible outcome of any such misguided outlook; how they might be clapped in the reformatory for seven years, just for looking as if they’d stolen something.

  Polly herself gladly accepted the offer of clothes, thanking the young man in his tweed suit and striped tie as he stood guard behind his table, making him gaze with startled wonder upon this raggedly dressed woman who had such a bewitching smile and skin as fine as porcelain.

  ‘I’ll not wear it,’ young Benny complained as Polly popped a ‘new’ cap with a smart blue peak upon his head.

  ‘Sure an’ you will if I say so.’

  ‘They’ll laugh at me.’ She’d already kitted him out with an equally ‘new’ cotton shirt that only had one darn in it, and a pair of grey trousers which hung from his braces to well past his knees so would last him quite a time. He still wore his own clogs, for which he was thankful.

  ‘And won’t they just wish their mams had been so clever as to take up this fine young man’s offer?’ She smiled at the student again, causing him to gulp.

  Benny sulked. He loved his mother dearly, but she didn’t always understand the ways of the world, not Dove Street ways anyroad. It didn’t pay to be different. He had no wish to stand out in a crowd, yet his mam did it all the time. Grown-ups could be very confusing. She’d sometimes quite happily let him play out on a Sunday when all his friends had been marched off to church but then in the evenings, when he and the lads were just starting to enjoy themselves, she’d be the first to fetch him home.

  ‘You’ll not learn your lessons without a good night’s sleep,’ she’d say. ‘Work hard and one day you’ll be the best reader in the class, Benjamin Pride, so you will.’

  Benny had no wish to be the best reader in the class. Reading was for cissies. Everyone knew that. But would she listen? She’d even gone so far as to have Mr Reckitt, the Dolly Varden man who lived two doors away, look out for books among the rubbish at the better-off houses. She’d been given The Old Curiosity Shop that way, and after weeping over it herself, gave it to Benny to read. A more boring book he had yet to find.

  Worst of all, the Dolly Varden men, so called because they wore a wide-brimmed hat like the famous Dolly Varden, a music hall singer of the naughty 90’s, emptied the rubbish bins, so the book stank.

  And what Georgie Eastwood would say when he saw the blue peaked cap, Benny dreaded to think. Georgie wouldn’t be seen dead in a cap like this. He wore a union shirt, open at the neck to reveal a blue muffler, waistcoat, jacket, and long trousers held up with a wide buckled belt. On his feet were a pair of clogs with the fiercest metal toe caps Benny had ever set eyes on.

  Georgie and his gang waited for him night after night when school had finished for the day, or would prowl around the Recreation ground where Benny and his mates went to play football. Why they picked on him he couldn’t quite work out, but Georgie would poke him in the ribs with a stick, or threaten to clout him with the buckle of his belt if he didn’t agree to pinch a few sweets from Vera Murray’s toffee shop.

  So far Benny had always managed to escape, thanks to the intervention of his friends. They sometimes talked of setting up a gang of their own, here in Dove Street, but Benny worried about how they could ever hope to stand up to the Eastwood Gang. Didn’t Georgie claim that his dad had once been leader of one of the legendary Napoo Gangs? And he meant to be equally famous. But even if they did get one going in Dove Street, it was perfectly clear to Benny that a leader of a gang would never wear a blue peaked cap.

  Now he pulled the offending article off his head and pursed his lips till his jaws ached with the effort.

  ‘I’ll not wear it, I tell you. I won’t,’ he insisted one more time. But because his mam had that determined, warning light in her eyes, fists stuck into her waist in that fierce way she had, further protests quickly died and he surrendered to the inevitable. Then Benny obediently lay down on the cold floor, closed his eyes and feigned sleep. Inside his head he prayed that Georgie Eastwood’s mother would also have got him some ‘new’ clothes, but didn’t hold out much hope. The Eastwoods had their own way of getting what they needed, and didn’t depend on others to provide it.

  Polly settled herself beside her son, and called for Lucy to join them.

  ‘Aw, I’m having a natter with Sal,’ Lucy protested. ‘I wont be more’n a minute or two.’

  ‘See you’re not then,’ Polly scolded. ‘It’ll be black as pitch in here when all the candles are put out. You’d never find us in the crush.’

  Lucy only laughed, too used to her mother’s anxieties to pay them much heed. Besides, Sal had a brother Tom, who she knew had a shine for her, though he’d not admitted as much. She might not be old enough yet at twelve to go out on the monkey-walk on Eccles New Road, which was what they called the stretch of road where the girls and lads normally got together, but she could surely seize on this opportunity to bring him to the point of asking her to be his girl.

  It made her go all fizzy and warm inside just to look at him, as if she’d eaten a lemon sherbet. Even if he didn’t say anything, it would certainly be more fun to tease Tom Shackleton than talk to her parents. Dad was engrossed in an argument with Uncle Joshua as usual, Mam acting as referee, while Grandma Flo was enjoying herself sitting with all the other matriarchs of Dove Street, having a good old chin-wag.

  Matthew was, as Lucy suspected, deeply embroiled in a discussion that encompassed hopes for the revival of the cotton industry, the iniquities of the benefit system for the unemployed, and endless grumbles about miserly bosses who objected to any hint of a union amongst their workers. His brother Joshua, long limbs coiled uncomfortably on the wooden floor, lean face looking almost cadaverous in the candlelight, seemed to pulsate with cold fury. He spoke with that measured, assured calm which drove Matthew to the limits of his patience.

  ‘If we sit back and let them, they’ll continue to abuse us. It’s up to us to fight. We’re all working men - in this together.’

  ‘How can we stand up to those who hold the purse strings?’ Matthew wanted to know.’ Them bosses would turn us off without a second thought if we put one foot wrong. Out on our ear, we’d be. It’s all right for you, Josh, a single man. Some of us have a wife and childer to consider.’

  Joshua glared at his brother with the kind of intense gaze which made lesser men shiver. He’d heard this argument too many times to be persuaded by it. In his opinion Matthew made his wife and children the excuse for every decision or action he ever made, or rather those he failed to make. He put the Irish woman before everything, even his own family - which in one instance, as they both well knew, had proved disastrous.

  Polly, ever wary of these confrontations between the two brothers, attempted to mediate. ‘You’re both right, in a way. But standing up to the bosses would need every working man to be in agreement and on one side, and you’d never achieve that.’

  ‘And how would you know? You’re only a woman.’ For all the fury in his ascetic features, Joshua’s voice remained cold and expressionless, commanding respect and deference from his listeners.

  Polly could only look into his nasty pale eyes and think how different he was from her gentle Matthew. There’d never been any love lost between the pair of them, for her dislike of him dated right back to the war and the way he’d blamed Matt for the death of their younger brother, Cecil. A scandalous and cruel accusation for which she’d never forgiven him. In her opinion, Joshua Pride hadn’t one morsel of compassion in his entire being; so if he talked of his concern for the working man, she saw only his own need for power and influence.

  He was still
talking, addressing the men gathered about with the kind of authority they appeared to respect. Since many of them attended Zion Methodist Chapel, where he acted as lay preacher, they were used to heeding his words. ‘There are unions everywhere now, so why not here in Dove Street? The bosses will continue to put the squeeze on, keep reducing our hourly rate and putting us on shorter time, if we don’t band together and stop them.’

  ‘Happen that’s what Band of Hope should be doing, instead of trying to make us all go teetotal. They’ve about as much chance of success,’ said Percy Williams, well known for his droll sense of humour. But he soon wished he’d kept his mouth shut when it was his turn to bear the heat of Joshua’s scorching glare. ‘Aye, well, it were only a thought like,’ he mumbled.

  Matthew, who liked to approach life with more caution than his brother, gave a scornful laugh. ‘How can we make the employers, union or no union, agree to any changes if the work isn’t there in the first place? The major industries have been on the slide for years. Now we’ve sold looms to India, the competition is beating us at our own game.’

  ‘My argument entirely,’ his brother insisted. ‘We should think ahead, think of our own future, stick up for the working man.’ There were murmurs of assent, while others began to call out obscenities about their own particular employers. The gathering in the stinking, overcrowded room quickly grew as heated as a political rally.

  ‘How many folk work in these bloomin’ mills?’ one man asked, trying to illustrate how dependent the district still was on cotton, even if not as completely as it once had been.