Winifred glanced at him in surprise. ‘I didn’t know that, Dad?’
‘She said I hadn’t to tell you.’ John looked at both girls. ‘You can go in the back for a natter if you like. I’ll hold the fort.’
‘Can she not come out, Mr Duffy?’ Honora wrung her hands. ‘I need to show Win something.’
‘I don’t want her drawn into something that’s not right.’ He looked doubtfully at Honora.
‘No, no, I wouldn’t do that, Mr Duffy. Honest.’
‘Can I go, Dad?’ Winifred was already plucking at the buttons on her overall as she spoke. ‘It’s driving me mad, being stuck in here in this heat.’
Wiping his hands on the damp cloth kept for the purpose her father studied her and then the Irish girl. Taking a long breath, he pushed his lower lip out. ‘Go on then. But mind you’re back before six – she’ll be no later than that.’
Honora pulled open the shop door, looking back at them. Winifred’s father reached up to the coat hook on the wall behind him and handed her the blue blouson jacket and straw hat. ‘Stay away from trouble,’ he warned.
‘I will. I love you, Dad.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then hesitated. ‘Sure you’ll be all right?’
‘Ya’re a grand man, Mr Duffy,’ Honora called, already outside the shop door.
‘Go on. And be careful, the pair of you.’
Winifred couldn’t help feeling the pleasure of being out of the shop without her mother. Above the roofs of the houses on the other side of the road she could see Errox Hill; a dark silhouette against the glare of the sun. The air was warm on her face. She took in a long breath, wondering what her friend was going to get her involved in this time. ‘Now, what’s wrong?’ she asked again.
Linking her arm through Winifred’s Honora hurried them along Marshall Road. ‘I’ve been to your place every day, looking for ya.’ There were lines of tension around her eyes and mouth.
‘I didn’t know.’
‘No. I was hoping to see your da – get a message to ya, but I never. Your ma saw me off every time.’
She would. The frustration and anger that had boiled inside her recently reared up instantly in Winifred. ‘You’re upset. What is it?’
Honora didn’t answer. She chivvied Winifred around the corner of Cook Street and passed the row of low, stone cottages owned by a few of the shop’s customers and her mother’s friends. She hoped there were none peeping through the curtains; they’d have a field day gossiping about why the two of them were scurrying along like rabbits.
‘Ya have to see this, Win. If your ma has made ya promise not to join us, if you’ve changed your mind by being locked in your room, ya have to see this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Some of the women from the march in London are still in prison, Win. But we got one of our own back this week, so we did, and I want ya to meet her.’
‘But why are we running? It’s far too hot to run.’
‘You’ll see.’ Honora slowed her stride. Without looking at Winifred and in a flat tone, she said, ‘They force-feed them – when the women are in prison – when they refuse food. Do you know what that means? The bastards tie them to a table, force their mouths open with metal gags and shove a tube in their mouths or up their noses and push it until it reaches the women’s stomachs.’
‘Don’t.’ Winifred stumbled on the uneven pavement, the image her friend’s words conjured up made her stomach churn.
‘Sorry, but ya need to hear it.’ Honora caught hold of Winifred’s arm to stop her falling. ‘They pour food, not proper food, disgusting stuff they’ve mashed up, through the tube. It’s monstrous, so it is.’ She clenched her jaw. ‘I’ve heard that the screams can be heard from outside the prisons.’
She quickened her steps, dragging Winifred with her.
The familiar roads were left behind as Honora led them through side streets and narrow alleyways until, after twenty minutes, they were almost on the edge of the village. A faint disquiet filled Winifred. This was an area her mother had always told her to stay away from; ‘Filled with ruffians, ready to whisk you away to slavery,’ had been her declaration and, as a child, Winifred had worried that she would be unable to tell who was a ‘ruffian’ who would kidnap her. Although now she knew her mother’s words were rubbish, still the boarded up terraced houses, the silence of the shabby streets, the feeling that there was someone, a shadow, lurking around the corners and just inside the ginnels, prickled her skin with apprehension.
She tried telling herself that this was no worse than where her grandmother lived but it felt different. She’d been going to Wellyhole Yard for years and no harm had come to her. She’d never been frightened of the people there, they were just poor. Here there were strangers and she was afraid.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Gilpin Street. We’re nearly there.’ Her friend’s fingers gripped her elbow harder, steering her towards another alley.
They stopped in front of a door in the middle of the terrace. The doorstep was crumbling and looked as though it had never had a donkey stone rubbed over it. There was hardly anything left of the brown paint on the door and the brass letterbox and handle were badly tarnished.
‘Here.’ Honora pushed it open. The worn floorboards held remnants of thin oilcloth, the pattern indistinguishable under the grime.
Winifred wrinkled her nose against the damp, greasy smell of the dark hallway. ‘This is terrible. Who lives here?’
‘I do.’ The Irish girl’s voice was brusque. ‘Up the stairs with ya then.’ She waved an arm past Winifred. ‘Go on.’
Careful not to let any part of her touch the wall, Winifred climbed the creaking treads. At the top she was faced with three doors.
‘That one.’ It was partly open. Trying to adjust her eyes after the gloom Winifred struggled to make out some figures sitting in the room beyond. She stopped; Conal and four other men. She sensed the pulse in her throat quiver and the heat rise to her face. It was the first time she’d seen any of them since the meeting in the park.
With a tut of impatience Honora reached round her and gave the door a shove, pressing against Winifred until she was forced to move.
The men barely glanced up. One of them had red, swollen eyes. Conal gave a slight nod to acknowledge her and then leaned towards the man, resting his hand on his shoulder.
Despite the warmth of the sun filtering through the grime of the curtainless windows, Winifred’s skin puckered. There was a small tatty rag rug on the wooden floor in front of the fireplace which held old grey ashes and half-burned branches. In the corner a stone sink was piled high with a mix of crockery and jars of paintbrushes. A rusty tap dripped water over everything. On the floor a dolly tub held clothes in water, a film of grey suds around the edges. How could anyone live like this, she thought.
‘How is she?’ Honora spoke directly to Conal.
‘I cleaned her up and put Iodine on the cuts.’ He gestured towards a small, ridged bottle with a dropper in the top. ‘For all the good it will do.’ He ignored Winifred’s sharp intake of breath and look of surprise. ‘I’ve given her some of the morphine I had from the hospital; it’s made her a comfortable as possible.’ He shrugged.
‘Grand. Ya did your best, surely, brother.’ Honora said, moving towards a door at the far side of the room. ‘This way.’ She glanced over her shoulder at Winifred who followed, unheeded by Conal and his friends.
The room was stuffy, unbearably hot. Unlike the room she’d first entered there was a fire roaring up the chimney. Yet still the figure, lying in the bed, huddled under blankets and coats, shook violently.
‘This is Sophie.’ Honora pulled Winifred closer.
The girl’s face was pallid, clammy with small beads of sweat across her face. Both eyes were almost closed, the lids swollen and purple. There was a patch of bare torn scalp at her temple; it looked as if her hair had been ripped out. Like the cuts to her face and neck it was surrounded by the yellow of the iodine
solution.
‘Hello.’ It was scarcely a whisper. When she tried to smile Winifred noticed her front teeth were broken, her lips cracked and caked with dried blood.
The three girls that Winifred had met before stood around the bed. Dorothy was holding a damp cloth to Sophie’s forehead. Anna and Mildred held her hands. Both glanced up at Honora. Mildred gave a small shake of her head.
‘This is what the pigs do.’ Honora touched Sophie’s cheek. ‘Lie still, a mhuirnín. Lie still, sweetheart,’ she murmured. ‘You’ll be fine.’ When she turned away from the bed tears were welling in her eyes.
Winifred caught her lower lip between her teeth, her eyes fixed on the pitiful figure. ‘I don’t understand—’
‘For god’s sake.’ Honora hissed the words. ‘Did ya not hear me? It’s them bastards in the jails done this. It took them less than a month to get her in this state. They force-fed her.’
‘Why?’ Bewildered, Winifred looked from one to the other. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘Because they can.’ Anna spoke quietly. ‘Then, when they know they’ve gone too far…’ She stopped on a sob. ‘They get a message out to the families to collect whichever woman they’ve done this to. We were outside the Leeds Borough Gaol, protesting, so, when they just dumped her outside the gates we brought her here for Conal to help her.’
Winifred still didn’t understand why it was Conal looking after the injured girl but before she could ask Sophie dragged her hand from under the covers and crooked her finger. Winifred bent low over her.
‘They hurt me.’
‘I know.’ Winifred’s voice wavered.
Sophie ran a dry tongue over her lips. ‘Honora says you’ve joined us?’ Her next words, lisped through the gaps in her teeth, chilled Winifred. ‘Will you take my place; fight for our cause for me? Please?’
‘I don’t…’ Winifred wasn’t sure she was brave enough to go through what this girl had endured. But, chiding herself for her cowardliness, she said, ‘Yes. Yes, I will.’ She stroked the girl’s hand. ‘Now rest.’
No-one else spoke, but acknowledging what she’d just said, they smiled at her. Winifred’s earlier fears of being in a part of the village she was fearful of disappeared; these women had far more to fear than anything she’d ever faced in her life. She was ashamed of her previous unwillingness to get involved. In the stillness there was only the murmur of low voices from the other room and the harsh intake of stuttered breath from Sophie.
And then, from outside, came the noise of metal wheels crunching over the cobbles.
Honora moved to the window, peered out. ‘They’re here.’
The bedroom door opened. ‘They’re here.’ Conal’s eyes swept the room before settling on Sophie. ‘I’ll carry her down.’
The three girls fussed around the bed, wrapping the girl into the covers like a cocoon while she squeezed her eyes tight and held her breath, tiny whimpers escaping now and then.
‘She’s ready.’ Honora brushed Sophie’s hair away from her face and bent to kiss her forehead. She whispered something and was rewarded with a slight smile.
One of the cracks on the girl’s upper lip opened and began to bleed. Pulling a handkerchief from her coat pocket Winifred bent over her and dabbed at the blood.
‘Thank you.’
Winifred could barely hear the word but when Conal gently lifted Sophie, she pushed the small white square into her hand.
‘Keep it,’ she said.
And then, as all but Winifred followed Conal out of the room, Honora began to sing.
Shout, shout, up with your song!
Cry with the wind, for the dawn is breaking…
Winifred listened in amazement as they went downstairs and then out of the house. Honora had a beautiful soprano voice.
She wasn’t sure what to do and stood staring at the slight damp imprint of the girl’s head on the pillow before turning towards the window and looking down on the street where Honora was still singing. The last phrases brought tears to Winifred’s eyes.
March, march, many as one,
Shoulder to shoulder and friend to friend.
A small woman was unfolding a grey blanket, letting it billow before settling over the layers of straw that covered the floor of the handcart. Two of the young men who’d been in the first room with Conal lifted the handles of the cart when he appeared on the pavement, holding Sophie in his arms. Unable to take her gaze from them, Winifred gripped the gritty windowsill, pressing her head against the cold pane. She watched as, helped by an older man, Conal lay Sophie on the straw. The youth who’d been crying crawled in and lay next to her cradling her head, his shoulders still shaking with his sobs. The two others straightened their arms to take the weight of the cart. Unable to watch anymore Winifred backed away from the window. She didn’t know if she should go down to them. Quick footsteps heralded Honora’s return.
‘I’ll need to go with them, Win,’ she said. ‘We all will.’
‘Where are you taking her? To hospital?’
‘It’s too late for that.’ Honora scowled. ‘Her ma and da are taking her home. Look, thank you for coming with me but best if ya go home as well now.’ She held up her hand stopping Winifred’s protest. ‘Ya can’t come; ya don’t belong—‘
‘I want to.’
‘I know but ya can’t,’ Honora stopped her next words. ‘Not yet. An’ I know you’ll not find your own way, so our Conal says he’ll take ya.’ She picked up a tartan shawl that was draped over the bedstead. ‘Her ma and da… they’ll need us with them over the next few days, so they will.’
‘Is she… Will she?’ Winifred couldn’t get the image of the girl out of her head.
Honora’s face tightened. ‘To be sure, she’ll die. Them pigs made sure of that. They battered her where the bruises couldn’t be seen.’ She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders. ‘Her insides are all mashed up.’ At the top of the stairs she turned. ‘Conal’s waiting for ya downstairs.’
The high-pitched screams started when the cart moved away. Winifred could still hear them long after the footsteps and the scrape of the wheels on the cobbles faded.
Drawing in a long breath she tried to steady herself before leaving the room. But her legs still shook when she went down the stairs.
Chapter 17
Conal was sitting on the doorstep, smoking. He looked up at her, his head on a tilt. ‘Are ya ready?’
‘I am.’ She settled her hat firmer on her head. ‘Yes.’ She needed to leave as quickly as she could. She had something to do. And she had to do it before she lost the courage.
‘Right-oh. Ya’ll need to tell me where to go when we get out of this warren.’
They walked in silence for as few minutes. Winifred was conscious of the stares of curiosity, aware of the way Conal quickened his strides when someone spoke to him; so fast sometimes that she struggled to keep up with him.
Once, a man, slouching against a wall outside one of the shabby terraced houses, grabbed Conal’s arm as they passed. ‘Are you not going to introduce us to your fine lady friend, Conal?’
But Conal shook him off, his hand under her elbow.
Searching around for something to say, Winifred ventured, ‘You were very gentle carrying Sophie.’
‘There wasn’t much else I was after doing for her.’ He sounded resigned. ‘Sophie’s for a wooden overcoat anyhow.’
She didn’t know what to say except, ‘What did you expect to be able to do?’
‘I’m training to be a doctor. There should have been something…’ He looked away, waiting for a horse and carriage to pass before he guided her down a short ginnel. A line of scruffy young boys were perched on the top of the wall, swinging their legs. They catcalled and jeered. Winifred kept her head lowered and didn’t speak until they’d passed.
‘I didn’t know that.’ She hadn’t even wondered what Conal did for a living.
‘There’s a lot ya don’t know.’ Though the words were abrupt, when she glanced at h
im he was smiling down at her. He shrugged. ‘It costs money to train, so it does. I’ll take any odd job to keep the roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food in our bellies. And Honora does well with selling her paintings.’ There was some pride in his expression but, she thought, some shame as well. ‘I’ll do anything that comes along. And when some of our friends are kicked out from their rooms and come to stay with us, they help out as well.’
It was a whole different world than the one she lived in. It had never occurred to Winifred how fortunate she was; how lucky that they still had the grocery shop her grandfather had founded all those years ago. She knew, however much she sometimes hated the tedium and long hours behind the counter under her mother’s eye, she wasn’t trained for anything else. Hadn’t had the chance to see what else she could do. But at least she didn’t have to worry about money.
She touched Conal’s hand, still holding her elbow. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know,’ she said again.
‘Bejaysus, why should ya?’
He was right; she knew nothing about him. But it didn’t stop the strange feelings she had when she was near him.
‘Me and Honora came over here two years ago. She was only sixteen then so I brought her with me to keep an eye on her.’ He grinned. ‘Ya’ve noticed she can be a bit wild?’
Winifred laughed. ‘A little, perhaps.’
‘To be sure, a lot.’ He joined in with her laughter before becoming sombre again. ‘Our ma died when we were little, and Da died three years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He lifted his shoulders. ‘He was a good man, so he was. A good doctor.’
‘So you’re following in his footsteps. How wonderful!’
Conal smiled a wry smile. ‘Not quite. I could have trained in Dublin, had a practice in the villages surrounding the hamlet where we lived like our da. But things were, are, getting bad in Ireland. You’re either with the Nationalists wanting Home Rule or you’re against them. At least that’s how they look at it…’
‘Did you mind having to leave?’
‘No, like I said, I thought it best we got away. Nationalist politicians think Home Rule will make Ireland into the Promised Land; old wrongs put right and old scores settled. Course it wouldn’t be like that.’ Conal shook his head.
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