by Lizzie Lane
‘Old Mrs Brown? She’s birthed every babe in the streets hereabouts and got rid of a few too. She tried to get rid of this one for Gertie, but it didn’t work. So she won’t be ’round just in case she gets reported. The doctor came though, once he was promised double his due. Help keep his mouth shut. Need it to be over with fast. Can’t ’ave our gentlemen faced with that racket. Too late for the hospital though. Silly cow should ’ave gone earlier. Still, won’t be long now.’
‘I’m sure the doctor will do his best,’ said Magda, disturbed at the thought of Mrs Brown being both a midwife and an abortionist.
She’d heard the girls speak of abortion before; of getting drunk and taking strong laxatives, and then sitting in a hot bath before Mrs Brown came round with her water pump, her yard-long piece of rubber piping, and a box of soap flakes.
Feeling sick inside, Magda almost ran across the road. Emily had been so offhand. She never used to be like that. But things had changed between them. For a start she was grown up, had left school and was working.
Once back inside the house, she leaned against the door. The door was thick but nothing could hold back the screams of the woman across the road.
‘Something should be done,’ she muttered.
‘What’s that?’
Bridget Brodie was slumped in an armchair, her increased weight forcing the stuffing out through the bottom.
Magda noticed her aunt’s flushed face, the flaccid jowls resting on the collar of her cardigan. She was drunk – again.
‘It’s Gertie. One of the girls over the road. She’s in labour. Sounds as though she’s having a hard time.’
‘Serves the slut right!’
Magda slammed the fistfuls of carrier bags onto the stained and rickety table.
‘No woman deserves to be in that much pain!’
Her aunt’s droopy eyelids sprang open.
‘She’s a slut. Sells her body for money so she deserves all she gets.’
‘No woman deserves to suffer. There are doctors and midwives and ways of alleviating the pain.’
‘Now there’s a big word! ’Eviating. Where did you get that from? Off your common mates in the market? Off that French rascal’s charming words? Mark my words, hussy, he’s not being kind to you out of the goodness of his heart. He’s after sliding his hand up yer leg. Men are all the same. Love you and leave you. That’s what they do. Love you and leave you.’
As she uttered the last words, her aunt seemed to deflate like a balloon grown soft and used up after Christmas.
‘That is not how it is! That is not how it is at all!’
Magda took herself and her purchases upstairs to her bedroom. She’d heard in the market that her aunt’s ‘fancy man’, Tom Hurdon at the Red Cow, had dropped dead of a heart attack. A new landlord was taking over. Rumour had it he had a wife, a hard-nosed type who wouldn’t tolerate her old man carrying on with another woman. Having her aunt at home more often was worse than having her down the pub.
There was little furniture in the bedroom, but what there was she’d made more attractive by painting things white and pasting on flowers cut out from old birthday and Christmas cards, salvaged from elsewhere.
Even the cards she now made for Venetia, Anna Marie and Mikey were recycled from old ones that she’d begged off people who’d received them. Some came from another of the market stalls. One or two had actually been given to her. This year, because she was now earning, she’d actually bought two cards – one for the twins, one for Mikey.
For the twins she’d chosen a lovely scene of snow and a deer, antlers stark against an evening sky. For Mikey she’d chosen a jolly-looking snowman complete with bowler hat, green scarf and a pipe.
Words were so important, she thought. I want to say how much I miss them, but don’t want them to know what I might have to do in order to see them again.
Using a new fountain pen she’d been given by Mr Skinner, to the twins she wrote,
Wishing you a Merry Christmas. There’s a baby being born across the way. Very much in the spirit of Christmas, don’t you think?
Aunt Bridget sends her regards. I hope you are both well. I myself have left school and am hoping to become a doctor. It seems like a dream. I dearly hope it comes true.
In the meantime I’m helping out some nice local people. They have a stall in Victoria Square. If you do ever get to London, Mr and Mrs Skinner will always know where to find me. And Aunt Bridget of course.
If you ever get to London? She covered her eyes with one hand. Who was she kidding? This card would never be posted. It would sit with the others in the shoebox until such time as she found them – if she found them. If only she really could remember the address Uncle Jim had written on the piece of paper her aunt had thrown on the fire.
It was some time before she could bear to write something in Mikey’s card, and even then she only got as far as wishing him a Merry Christmas.
Downstairs, her aunt was still sitting where she’d left her, eyes closed, mouth open. She woke up on smelling the meal Magda was cooking.
‘What’s for dinner?’
Since losing her fancy man, Bridget had been eating almost as much as she drank. Bottles were still coming home from the off licence but the interest she’d once had in lipstick and rouge had transferred to food.
‘Roast chicken with carrots, onions, potatoes and cabbage. I’ve made stuffed apples for afterwards with custard.’
Magda watched her aunt eat. She was being looked after and fed. The old bitch should be grateful.
‘Aunt Bridget. It’s Christmas and there’s no knowing where we might be next year. I want to find my sisters and my little brother. I want the addresses my father left in that Bible.’
Up until now her aunt had concentrated on shovelling food from plate to mouth. The moment Magda spoke, she glared across the table.
‘All these years I’ve looked after you. I’m not long for this world, and I would have hoped you’d look after me the same as I’ve looked after you,’ she bleated as though she were weak as water when a better description of strong as the brown brew from a stout bottle was more the order of the day.
Magda felt a furious rage boiling up inside. This woman who had treated her so badly now wanted looking after in her old age?
‘I can’t believe …’ Magda began, her teeth aching with the effort of controlling her anger.
‘Your no-good father has sent me next to nothing for your keep. He always was one for fine promises that were never likely to come true. Glad I didn’t marry him myself. That’s all I can say,’ cried Aunt Bridget with a flapping of hands that made her look like a disgruntled chicken.
‘Well, he didn’t marry you!’ Magda yelled. ‘He asked my mother to marry him and she said yes.’
‘So did I,’ shouted her aunt, banging the table so hard it rattled the cutlery and crockery and sent gravy slopping off the plates. ‘So did I,’ she repeated, her eyes showing severe disappointment, swiftly replaced with a look that Magda could only interpret as hatred.
A sudden realisation flashed through Magda’s mind.
‘You mean it, don’t you?’ Magda said, hardly able to breathe as she said it.
‘Of course I mean it. That was the way of that father of yours. Joseph Brodie promised me, but didn’t keep his promise. Married his Italian fancy piece and left me behind with my bottom drawer filled ready to become a bride. His brother James was second best. Jim was always second best,’ she murmured, more to herself than to Magda.
‘And besides,’ she shouted as Magda headed for the door and out into the street. ‘What makes you so sure those brats will still be where he left them? What makes you so sure of that, eh?’
Chapter Nineteen
Magda
Magda ran from the house barely holding back the tears but also determined that she would not spend her life looking after her aunt.
All these years she’d borne the brunt of that woman’s vindictiveness. All these years she’d w
aited for a father who never came. In her heart of hearts she knew he was as much to blame for the deprivation she’d endured as Aunt Bridget.
What are you running away from?
The thought popped into her head from nowhere; unless you have a guardian angel, she thought. What am I running away from? Aunt Bridget? The past? Or am I running away from the thought of failure; that Winnie might not be true to her word, or might die before my dream is fulfilled?
Carrying negative thoughts in her head slowed her speed, as though they were too heavy to bear.
She came to a bend in the river where houses gave way to a view of a black mud bank, except that the mud wasn’t just mud but a stew of stinks and substances. The smell was mostly of sulphur from the gasworks and rotting bones from the fertiliser plant. When the wind dropped it wasn’t so bad.
From a stone-lined parapet, she watched barges making their way up and down the river. Some were carrying goods offloaded from Canada Wharf, the East India Docks. Others were en route to St Katharine Dock further up river.
The Thames was crowded with ships, but all she wanted was one particular ship, one particular merchant seaman and he went by the name of Joseph Brodie. Everything began and ended with him.
‘Magdalena!’
Bradley Fitts was standing with his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. The brim of his trilby hat cast a shadow over one half of his face. The features of the other half were sharply defined by a gaslight hanging from the wall of a brick warehouse behind them.
‘Magdalena,’ he said, closer now. ‘You and I ’ave got things to talk about.’
He smelled worryingly masculine, mixed with tobacco and sweet cologne.
She stood with her back to the parapet, fingers clawing at the cold stone on either side of her. Although fear had made her mouth dry, she held her head high. Never show a bully that you’re scared of him.
‘Out and about on your father’s business?’ she said tartly.
He ignored her question, if indeed it was a question, and kept her as his centre of attention.
‘You got goose pimples,’ he said running his eyes over her body as intimately as he might his hands. ‘Fancy coming out without a coat. Must ’ave ’ad somethin’ on your mind. Bit serious was it?’
His voice was as smooth as treacle. He was right about the goose pimples and at mention of them she shivered.
‘I had my reasons,’ she said, folding her arms. She held his gaze unblinking for the most part.
‘This’ll keep you warm.’
He pulled his hands out of his pockets then his arms out of his sleeves and swung the coat around her. The warmth of his body was still in the lining and although her first instinct was to fling it back at him, she suddenly realised just how cold she was.
‘Thank you.’ She shrugged herself deeper into it and hung her head. His action in lending her his coat had taken her by surprise.
‘Something’s troubling you. Care to tell me what your beef is?’
No. She did not want to tell him anything. Not Bradley Fitts of all people, but somehow it came out. Not all of it. Just the bits that really mattered.
‘I want to find my family, but I don’t know where they are, and even if I did, I don’t have the money to go looking for them. I know where the addresses are written, but my aunt keeps it under lock and key.’
‘I could get it for you. She wouldn’t dare stand up to me. And then, you could show me how grateful you are. You promised to come out with me. Remember?’
The lending of the coat had all been part of his strategy and she’d fallen for it. Now he was offering her more and wanted more, but she didn’t dare; the price for his help would be too high.
She tensed when his arm crept around her shoulders, pulling her ever so slightly closer to him.
‘You’re right. That takes money. P’raps I can help you there, us bein’ old school mates an’ all that.’
‘We weren’t school mates. You were much older than me.’
‘Might ’ave been then, but the gap’s not so wide now is it? Only about four years between us. Ain’t that right?’
She couldn’t disagree with him, and anyway what did it matter?
‘Now I can loan you some money if you like. I don’t need you to pay it back right away. Take yer time. We can step out one night and talk about it.’
Even the warmth of his overcoat couldn’t stop her from shivering at his suggestion. She knew how it would work; the girls at Winnie’s place had told her that much. She’d owe him money and at some point when she couldn’t repay, she’d end up beholden to him and she knew damned well what that meant!
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he said to her.
‘No.’ She slid his coat from her shoulders. ‘I’m nice and warm now. I’ll be fine. A brisk walk and I’ll be home in no time.’
‘Suit yourself.’
He shrugged his shoulders into the coat but left the arms dangling.
She walked swiftly away without looking back. Bradley Fitts was another reason for getting away from here. There were so many reasons to leave and few to keep her here, except for family ties. Not to Aunt Bridget, but to her link with the past and the family she’d known.
In the absence of a reply to any of her letters seeking information about her sisters and brother, it always came back to her mother’s Bible, which was still locked away in the most obstinate cupboard ever made.
She’d tried everything she could to open it whilst her aunt was out. Nothing had worked. The only thing left was to take an axe to it but she doubted that would work either. Still, it was worth making the effort just to see her aunt’s face.
‘Cow,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘You bloody, crazy cow!’
Aunt Bridget was standing swaying in the doorway when she got home.
Magda barged past her heading for the coal house out back.
‘You pushed me. You strumpet, you, you pushed me!’
Bridget Brodie barely kept herself upright and didn’t like it that her niece had ignored her.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she shouted when Magda did not respond but shot out into the scullery, flung the back door wide and headed for the coal house.
Bridget Brodie leaned on the wall for support. Befuddled by drink, she looked totally confused.
‘What in the Lord’s name are you doing out there? Answer me, ungrateful whelp that you are.’
Magda came back in holding the axe handle with both hands, the head of it resting on her shoulders.
‘Jesus!’ Fearing she was about to be sliced in two, Bridget covered her head with both hands and crumpled at the knees.
Magda stomped upstairs to Bridget’s bedroom, a gloomy place of dirty sheets and empty bottles.
She stepped over to the cabinet, lifted the axe high above her head and prepared to swing.
She heard her aunt’s footsteps charging up the stairs.
‘No! No! That’s Jim’s cabinet. He made it himself.’
Having second thoughts because she’d been fond of her uncle, Magda held the axe aloft and looked at her aunt.
‘Uncle Jim made this cabinet?’
Her aunt nodded. ‘He wanted to be a joiner. Liked working with wood, but he wanted to get away from home even more so. Your grandfather was never the easiest person in the world to get on with.’
‘My grandfather?’
Resting the heavy head of the axe on the floor, Magda leaned both hands on the handle.
‘Your grandfather.’
‘You told me that my grandparents were dead.’
‘That they are.’
‘Sometimes you speak as though they’re still alive.’
‘My head aches so much nowadays … I’m ill. At death’s door in fact.’
‘You’re not ill. It’s the booze.’
Magda looked at the cabinet. ‘I don’t care if Uncle James made this. He’s dead and won’t care if I bash it open. I want my mother’s Bible.’
Aunt Br
idget chewed at her lips. ‘It’s not in there. I sold it.’
‘Is that true?’
‘I swear by Our Lady, that I did!’
Magda regarded her aunt through narrowed eyes, scrutinising a figure that was going to fat. A blush of broken veins over her face made her nose look like a Victoria plum.
‘Who did you sell it to?’
‘The pawnbroker. I put it in with some other stuff that I took to the pawnbrokers. I was a bit short, what with your father not sending money on a regular basis.’
‘I want it back,’ said Magda.
‘I promise I’ll go along to the pawnbroker tomorrow and find out where it is. How would that be for you?’
‘Don’t bother. I’ll go myself.’
‘No need. I swear on the Holy Mother herself. You’ll have to give me the money seeing as I don’t have enough to redeem it myself.’
‘I would if I didn’t suspect that you might wander into the Red Cow and spend the money there. Though I suppose seeing as your fancy man is no longer running the place …’
A thunderous expression came over her aunt’s face before she shrugged.
‘You’re right, there’s no point me promising because I didn’t take it to the pawnbrokers. I burned it. Burned it on the fire where it belongs. Just like your mother is now burning in hell. Just like you will burn for your friendliness to the fallen women across the road. Whores and sluts, all of you!’
Magda exploded with anger.
‘That is it! I am leaving this place, Aunt Bridget. You can feed yourself or drink yourself to death for all I care.’
She swung out of the room, went into her own and threw everything that was of any value to her into a few brown paper carrier bags and the string bag Danny had given her. On handling that string bag, she paused, regret clutching at her throat. She so wished Danny was here now.
Once everything she owned was in those bags, she rushed down the stairs.
Aunt Bridget followed, shouting abuse and telling her she was on the road to hell and it was no more than she deserved.
She was still shouting when Magda was outside in the street, looking around her, wondering which way to go.
Across the road she saw Winnie come to the door, seeing a client off the premises.
