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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780749083298 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Allison & Busby, Limited |
| Publication date: | 04/28/2007 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Step by Step
By June Francis
Canelo Digital Publishing
Copyright © 2003 June FrancisAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-911591-38-2
CHAPTER 1
1903
Hannah Kirk and Alice Moran lay on the lavatory roof with their hands clapped to their ears, but the screams from the bedroom of the house on the opposite side of the back entry still managed to get through.
'I can't stand it!' cried Alice through gritted teeth, emerald eyes wide and frightened in her blanched face.
'It'll be over soon. It's got to be,' said Hannah with a touch of desperation.
Screams from the Morans' household were nothing new. Last night, Hannah's dah had gone round there and dragged Mal Moran off his missus. Jock Kirk was one of the few men in Newtown, outside Chester's ancient city walls, who had a wife with the courage to send her husband to face the large Scotsman. Florrie Moran's baby shouldn't have come yet and it was possible that mother and baby might not survive. Hannah could not help worrying about what would happen to Alice, and Kenny, Florrie's stepson, if left alone with their pig of a father.
Suddenly, Hannah realised that the screams had stopped. She removed her hands and, at the same time, Alice's body sagged. Had the baby been born at last and was it alive? They both gazed up at the sash window open at the top.
Hannah raised herself carefully, ears straining for a baby's cry, but then came another scream that was so piercing it threatened to tear the sullen clouds apart. It definitely frightened the life out of her, as well as scaring the pigeons on the roof of the Angel Hotel on Brook Street, five minutes walk from Chester's General Station; the July evening was filled with the whirring of their wings.
'What's happening now?' Alice, her slender body in the neatly darned blouse and let-down but still-too-short skirt, shot to her feet, ready for flight. Her eyes filled with tears. 'I've got to go, whatever your mam said about keeping out of the way. I've got to know what's happening!' She scrambled to the edge of the roof and climbed down.
Hannah heard the click of the latch on the back door and then the click of the one across the narrow entry as it opened. She watched as Alice raced up the Morans' yard and the thin cry of a newly born infant came on the air. A smile created tiny dimples at the corners of Hannah's mouth. It seemed that her mother, Susannah, had been mistaken and the baby was alive. Whether it would live long was another thing altogether. Her mother was over there now with Granny Popo; both women were accustomed to helping the poor of the area give birth and lay out their dead.
Hannah knew that, fifteen years old, Alice would be praying the child would survive; so many of Florrie's pregnancies had ended in miscarriage. It was a miracle that Alice had been born safely considering her mother's curvature of the spine. Florrie had married Mal the year before the old queen's Golden Jubilee, and nine months later Alice had arrived. In those days, nobody had suspected Mal would turn into a wife-beater and terrify his two children out of their wits. Hannah had known Mal's son, Kenny's whole body to shake at the sound of his father's voice, mingling with those of the men coming home up Francis Street, from the lead works situated on the bank of the Shropshire Union Canal.
The girl swallowed a lump in her throat just thinking of Kenny's, and Alice's, fear of their father. She stood up, intending to go down and find out for herself if Florrie Moran was OK. A breeze caught hold of a strand of flaxen hair that had come loose from its scarlet ribbon and she tucked it absently behind her right ear.
Suddenly, her heart jerked beneath her breastbone as she caught sight of her mother's face at the Morans' window and quickly she crouched down again, and flattened herself on the roof of the lavatory, knowing she would get the sharp edge of her mother's tongue if she were spotted. After a moment, she raised her head cautiously and saw the curtains were closed but then the Morans' peeling brown painted kitchen door opened and Granny Popo appeared. The old woman was carrying a galvanised bucket and when she tipped it up, the water ran red, gushing down the grid.
The sight caused Hannah's stomach to heave and she felt a bitter taste in her mouth at the thought of what a woman had to go through to give birth. She decided she never wanted to marry and have babies. What she did want to be was a teacher. Her reverie about her future was suddenly shattered by a long drawn out wail that reminded her of tales of banshees. Guessing it could mean only one thing, tears filled her eyes. She waited for Granny to go back inside the house and then picked up the library book she had been reading before Alice had joined her on the roof, and tucked it in the waistband of her green and blue floral skirt with double flounces at the hem. Then she lowered herself over the edge of the lavatory roof, feeling with her boot for the middle wooden strut across the door.
A hand gripped her ankle and she felt a suffocating fear as a voice said, 'I've got you, Hanny. Let yourself down slowly. I'll make sure you don't fall.'
'I'd rather get down myself,' she gasped, her heart pounding as she clung by her fingertips to the top of the door. She felt her elder brother Bert's hand reach beneath her skirts and climb her left leg.
'Don't be silly! We don't want you to fall.' Bert looked up at her as she twisted her head to gaze wildly at him. How she hated his smiling handsome face, with its straight nose, cleft chin and light blue eyes, a genial mask that concealed a side unknown to most.
At eighteen, he was two years older than her and an apprentice engineer following in his father's footsteps in a company that specialised in hydraulic-powered hoists used for coaling steamships.
Like Hannah, he, too, had inherited their father's flaxen hair and he liked to give everyone the impression that they were close. This was so far from the truth that she wanted to scream out to people to stop letting him fool you, but no one would believe Bert could be such a two-faced snide.
Bert was his mother's blue eye! When it came to her firstborn son, Susannah spared no expense. Wearing his cricket whites, which had cost the family money they could ill-afford, Hannah wondered how he'd known where she was? She could only think he had gone straight up to his bedroom on the second floor, after coming in from playing cricket after work, and spotted her through the window.
All this flashed through Hannah's mind as she struggled to free herself from her brother's exploring hand. She wanted to scream but the sound seemed to have got stuck in a throat that felt swollen with outrage and fear. Her arms were aching and she longed to release her hold on the door but he had his other hand pressed against the small of her back, so that she was squashed against the door. She gasped as his fingers tugged at her drawers and this time she let go, knowing she had to do something to stop him going any further.
He dragged her down with his hand inside her drawers and a flounce of her skirt caught on a nail and tore. Her mother would go mad about that! She lashed out at him and found her voice. 'Let go, you filth!' Her fingernails found the back of his hand and raked it. He swore, overbalanced and fell heavily to the ground. Hannah landed on top of him and she struggled desperately to get away.
Somehow she managed to wrench herself free and made for the back gate; lifting the latch, she dragged the door open and fled across to the Morans' yard, which was situated at the junction of two entries. The houses had been built to accommodate the workers who had flooded into the area with the arrival of the railway almost sixty years before. The Morans' two-up, two-down was very different to the Kirks' three storeyed home, which had once been a lodging house.
Knowing she could never tell her mother what had just taken place, nevertheless Hannah wanted to be close to her. The girl peered through the kitchen window; the austerity of the Morans' house always made her feel uncomfortable. Unlike the Kirks' house there were no ornaments, spare cushions or antimacassars; only a small rag rug covered the bare floor in front of the fireplace.
Alice was seated on a straight-backed chair, lank strands of auburn hair dangled either side of her small thin face, flushed and tear-stained. Hannah's mother was in the act of dropping a bloodied rag on the fire.
Hannah knocked on the window and both looked up. Susannah Kirk was a plain woman, of Welsh descent, with greying dark hair and almost black eyes. She looked weary to the bone; her lined face dragged down with grief. The spotless white apron she had donned that morning was stained with blood. As for Alice, great sobs wracked her slender body.
'What is it you're wanting, Hanny?' Susannah's voice was filled with a powerful music and sometimes the girl marvelled that such a sound could come from her diminutive frame. Yet there was strength in her tiny mother that the girl admired and envied. She controlled her six-footer husband, Jock, who handed his wage packet to her unopened just as Hannah did, with the power of that voice and a will of iron. Yet even her strong mother had her Achilles' heel.
Hannah took several deep breaths to calm her nerves and putting aside her own troubles she entered the house. 'I came to see how things were and if I could help? Is ... is Mrs Moran OK?'
Her mother shook her head and a deep sigh escaped her. 'I've known Florrie all my life. She grew up in a lodging house similar to ours and only came to live here after the money her aunt left was all gone. Everything she had, Mal spent. She was a fool to marry him ... but then even your dah and I were taken in by him those early days when he first came from Scotland, newly widowed, poor mute Kenny was only an infant ...' Her voice drifted away at the memory.
Hannah moved over to the armchair where Alice sat and rested her hands on her shoulders, sharing her grief, wondering how she would fare if she were to lose her mother. Her friend glanced up at her from red swollen eyes and her throat moved but no words came out. Hannah rested her cheek against her hair. 'I'm so sorry, Alice.' They stayed like that a moment and then Hannah looked at her mother. 'Where is Mr Moran?'
Susannah poked the fire. 'Took himself off, didn't he! As soon as Granny and I walked through the door first thing this morning, after Kenny came running for me. With a bit of luck he might never return but I've little hope of that.' Her lips pressed together a moment and then she looked at Alice. 'Do you know what Kenny did with that scruffy mongrel he brought here last night? I could tell he was really affected by its death.'
'He went off with it wrapped in sacking when he went out to work, Mrs Kirk, after you went up to Mam. Probably he'll bury it when he gets a chance. I thought he might have been home by now. I just hope to God he ... he comes back. I couldn't bear to be alone here w ... with Father.' Her voice sounded thin as stretched elastic, as if all the strength had been sucked out of her.
Hannah felt tears spring to her eyes, remembering last evening when she had followed her dah round here. If the sight of Mrs Moran's bruised and battered, crooked body had not been enough to make her weep, then Alice cowering in a corner and Kenny huddled against the kitchen wall, nursing the dead dog, would have done so. The young man was such a gentle soul that her heart had gone out to him.
'Kenny'll be back,' said Susannah with a sigh. 'He should have known better than to bring an animal into this house but I can understand why he wanted to help the beast.'
So did Hannah, but how she wished he could stand up to his father. Yet, who was she to talk about courage? She felt a chill just thinking about Bert, scared of what he might do next if he caught her alone. At least Florrie had loved the mute, motherless boy that Mal had brought to the marriage. He would be deeply affected by her death, but then, so would Alice.
Hannah felt despair. It was all wrong men having such power over women and children. Great Britain was supposed to be a civilized country, exerting influence all over the world. Only earlier that year Edward VII had been declared Emperor of India – yet of what use was that to those struggling to survive in these British Isles? Her spirits lifted a little, because at least two promising events had taken place that year. First, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst had founded the Women's Socialist and Political Union and a Labour man called Henderson had won a by-election in Barnard Castle, a town up in the North East of England. Both were dedicated to fight the cause of the suppressed.
'What about the baby?' she asked, suddenly remembering the child.
'Out of Mal's reach,' said Susannah, smiling faintly, and keeping to herself what Granny Popo (who had been born in Liverpool) had said about letting the baby die. The tiny girl had been scarcely breathing when she was born. 'Be berra off. What kind of life is it going to have living in this dump?' Part of her understood the old woman's reasoning to put a hand over its tiny mouth but Susannah had decided the child had to be given a fighting chance.
'You mean ... it's dead?' Hannah glanced down at her friend.
'No!' Alice's face looked almost beautiful as she spoke and gazed at Susannah. 'Granny Popo's taken her to safety.'
'Florrie gave her life for the child,' said Susannah, her expression grim.
'So where is the baby?' asked Hannah, smiling.
Her mother said, 'I wrapped her in flannel and Granny's taken her home to her granddaughter. Dolly gave birth just a few days ago and lost the child, but her milk has come in, so pray God that she might be able to save Alice and Kenny's sister. She's only a tiny scrap but the fact that she came out alive must say something about her fighting spirit.' She paused a moment. 'And heed me now, you girls,' she said, her dark eyes fierce. 'Not a word about the baby being born alive to anyone. Especially Mal.'
'Not a word, Mother,' said Hannah swiftly, praying the child would survive but not really holding out much hope.
'If only Mam hadn't defied Father and taken us to listen to Pastor Wise in Liverpool the other night.' Alice sighed heavily.
'You're right, girlie,' said Susannah with a shake of her head. 'But Florrie was in such a fatalistic mood lately that I could see trouble coming.'
'She never had much going for her, did she?' murmured Hannah.
Susannah could only agree. Florrie's curvature of the spine had meant she could not walk upright and had scurried along like a crab. Her widowed mother had owned a lodging house but then died when her daughter was only ten. Her spinster aunt, a schoolteacher, had raised her, frightening off any boy who might have showed an interest because her niece had a pretty face, a trusting nature and would come into her nest egg. Florrie had always looked for the good in people and somehow had seen something in Mal. But then Susannah and her husband had taken Mal at face value when he had turned up at their lodging house. He was a charmer, didn't seem short of money and was willing to work hard. Many had said Florrie was lucky to catch him. But as the years went by, with only Alice being born alive, he had changed and the family had seen little of his wages. What had he spent the money on? God only knew. Mal was no drinker, smoker or gambler. Why he felt such a need to beat the living daylights out of his wife and terrify his son and daughter, Susannah had never understood. As a tiny lad, Kenny had lost control of his bladder whenever his father was in one of his black moods, such a shaming thing. He was eighteen now, the same age as her Bert, but the two were very different. Her son was strong, handsome, smart, admired and had nerves of steel. Kenny was a loner, sensitive, his spirit cowed by his father's violence. God only knew what was going to happen to him and Alice, now. A girl needed a mother at her age.
Hannah looked at Florrie's daughter and wished she could do more for her but the law wouldn't let her take her away from her father, even if Mal would have allowed it. Well, she could help her at least right now by giving her a break and suggested she come back to their house and have a cup of tea. Hopefully Hannah had brought some leftover cakes from Bannister's bakery where she worked; they could have those with it.
Subdued and grief-stricken, Alice agreed to accompany her neighbours. When they entered the kitchen it was to find Bert sitting in an armchair. He had changed into a blue shirt and grey trousers with a knife-sharp crease in them, and had a bandage tied round the hand holding the Bible he was reading. Only for a second did he allow his eyes to fix on his eldest sister's face. Due to her mother's presence she could meet his gaze squarely and show no fear but she could read in his expression that the last thing he intended was that she would escape punishment for that scratch.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Step by Step by June Francis. Copyright © 2003 June Francis. Excerpted by permission of Canelo Digital Publishing.
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