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‘You can’t alter facts. We are what we are,’ says Nana, over and over. ‘We are what we are.’
I smell home in all its familiarity: a stew of spilt beer, pipe smoke and damp sawdust. And something else: my hair, reeking of gunpowder. I crawl out of bed. Underneath is a pair of britches, ghostly with warmth from the body that wore them. Beside them are my boots, mud clumped under the heel. I press my finger to it: fresh, damp. Ma says I was lying. Nana says I was dreaming. If I didn’t go out, I must be imagining this as well.
I tiptoe to the window. I can’t be sure if I opened it or not. I peer through the glass. I would never be brave enough to climb down the drainpipe, not in a hundred years. My thoughts stumble, stop in their tracks.
‘Where are you, Gnome?’ I sob. ‘I need you.’
However many times Ma’s told me off, I’ve always been able to find his hand in the dark and hang on. He’s always been there. But tonight, there’s no answer. Something emptier than silence.
I try to make sense of the senseless. Ma says Gnome is all in my head – a nightmare. Nana says he isn’t my brother, that he is imaginary. They would not lie to me. Grown-ups are always right. I am the one who is wrong. I am a naughty girl. I tell lies. I make things up.
I must have been asleep. I must have dreamed the whole thing. I will be a good girl. I will scrape his name from the slate of my memory. If I say what Ma wants then it will be the truth and she will be happy. She won’t be cross any more.
I double over in agony, as though I have been split in half and my heart torn out. I squeeze my nightdress, expecting to find it soaked with blood. All is dry. In the faint light I examine my chest, searching for wounds. My skin is whole, undamaged. I am just a girl, on my own.
I throw the marbles out of the window; hear them click as they roll down the privy roof, and the fainter thud as they fall into the dirt. There is no such thing as luck.
‘Gnome?’ I say his name for the last time.
The sound echoes off the ceiling. I have lost him. I do not know how to get him back. If he was ever here. For the first time in my life, I am alone.
PART ONE (#u888039a4-2cb4-5c07-bf4b-ea851005cb8a)
MANCHESTER 1897–1904 (#u888039a4-2cb4-5c07-bf4b-ea851005cb8a)
EDIE (#ulink_5184d766-7b80-5680-9b76-504d35ef9c2d)
1897–1899 (#ulink_5184d766-7b80-5680-9b76-504d35ef9c2d)
Stroll through Hulme of an evening and you will be forgiven for imagining it a den of drunkards. Brave the labyrinth of streets, row upon row of brick-built dwellings black as burned toast, and there, upon each and every corner, you will find it: haven for the weary traveller, fountain for the thirsty man – the beerhouse.
Hulme boasts a hundred of them; a hundred more besides. There’s the Dolphin, famed for its operatic landlord; the Duke of Brunswick with a ship’s bell clanged at closing time; the Hussar and its sword swiped at Peterloo. If you can ignore their glittering siren song and press on, only then will you find us, breasting the tip of Renshaw Street like a light-ship.
The Comet.
Sparkling Ales is etched upon one frosted window, Fine Stouts and Porter upon the other. A board stretches the width of our wall, announcing Empress Mild and Bitter Beer. Above the door and brightest of all, the gilt scroll of my mother’s name: Cecily Margaret Latchford, Licensed to sell Beers and Stouts. Come, it beckons. Enter, and be refreshed.
That is the full extent of our finery and flash. We are no glaring gin-palace for we boast neither piano room, spirit licence, nor free-and-easy on a Saturday night; we field no darts team, no skittle alley, no billiard table. You’d be forgiven for thinking us a temperance hall on account of the sober principles Ma polishes into the long oaken bar. We are so plain I scarcely understand why The Comet is full each evening; lunchtime too.
They said we’d not make a farthing, but Ma is forged of steely stuff and has proved them wrong. She gives neither short measure nor employs the long pull. A pint is a pint to the very drop. She never raises her voice, nor needs to. At closing time she glares at the clock. That’s all it takes for every glass in the room to be raised, every mouthful drained. By ten past the hour she slides the door-bolts into place and turns down the gas, with not so much as the shadow of a dog remaining under the tables.
For all that Ma will have no truck with nonsense, the walls of The Comet bulge with mysteries. Some are simple to plumb. Ma refuses to speak about Papa, a moustachioed fellow who hangs above the bar in a picture frame, only pointing to the black riband looped around the corner. That, I understand. Some things are less easy to explain: why Ma takes to her bed three days in every month; why my beloved Uncle Arthur only drops by when she’s laid up.
Then there are my nightmares. I can’t understand why people talk of sleep as a welcome undoing of strife and woe. They must mean something else entirely. I am hag-ridden. I tell no one of the night-voice that shrieks so piercingly the whole street ought to hear. I dare not. I tell no one how I wake with fingernails grimed as black as soot, knots in my hair and scraps of bacon rind wedged in my teeth. I dare not.
The only person with whom I share my stories is Papa, behind his glass. Sometimes I wish he’d speak one word, give one nod of encouragement, but his face is stiff. He keeps my secrets well.
At school, I hunger for mathematics and its security of two-times-two-equals-four; prefer geography and the massive consistency of mountains. Even the most determined friend despairs of my inability to engage in games of make-believe and I am left to the click of my abacus. What they cannot know is that I cling to logic with the dogged desperation of one drowning. I strive to make Ma smile.
Every night she stares as I undress, as though searching for something she does not want to find. I wonder if the removal of my petticoat will reveal me to be a bat, ready to squeak and burst out of the window.
‘Don’t you stir,’ she says.
‘No, Ma.’
‘You stay right there.’
‘Yes, Ma.’
She sits on the bed, stands up, sits again. It makes me dizzier than physick. At last, she leans close and I thrill that tonight she may kiss me.
‘I know you,’ she whispers, the words crawling into my ear. ‘You’re waiting for me to look away for one minute, aren’t you?’
‘No, Ma,’ I say.
‘Liar,’ she replies, exhaling heat upon my face. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Everything. Before you think it. I know you better than you know yourself.’
‘Ma?’ I don’t understand. I never do.
‘You can’t fool me. Don’t try,’ she hisses.
‘I won’t,’ I promise desperately. I close my eyes. Green lights dance behind my eyelids. The next time she speaks it is from further away.
‘I am watching. Always.’
‘Yes, Ma. Goodnight, Ma,’ I mumble as drowsily as I can manage.
The door clicks shut. I shake my head from side to side, but her words stick fast and refuse to tumble out on to the pillow. I climb out of bed, kneel under the picture of Jesus and Mary and press my palms together. I beg them to send me to sleep and not wander in wild dreams. They look down at me with sad expressions, pointing at their fiery hearts, eyes reproachful. Their insides are burning too, but they don’t complain. Not like me.
From below come the sounds of The Comet: clink of glass, rumble of voices, the percussion of Ma’s footsteps drumming back and forth. I stare at the ceiling until my eyes grow used to the dark. Tonight, perhaps, I will be spared.
It begins small, as always, like a dray rumbling over cobbles three streets distant. Street by street the thunder draws closer, gathering speed and vigour. I clap my hands over my ears to stave off the din, but the commotion is from inside, not out. The shadows thicken and in their depths I spy the glint of monstrous eyes, the flash of leviathan teeth, ready to devour me.
Edie. I’m here, roars the fiend. Let’s go out to play.
‘No!’ I howl, but the wail is trapped within the confines of my head. ‘I can’t hear you! I won’t!’
I strain to get away. If I can stir so much as my little finger, I will win and the beast will be vanquished. But all that is Edie has shrunk into a marble, tiny and lost.
You used to be so much more fun. Don’t you remember the fireworks?
‘No.’ It is a lie and I weep with the wickedness of telling it.
I can’t waste time chatting. Time presses.Let me in.
I fight to stay awake. The creature surges forwards, opens its jaws. Claws drag me into darkness and I do not rise again.
The next morning I wake with a fog of unknowing between my ears. My first thought is: Where am I? The second: Who am I? Gradually, the room resumes its familiar shape. This is home and I am in it. I lie abed, half-breathless from last night’s dream of bruised knees, slammed doors, thumped door-knockers and racing away. The curtain sways. The window stands half-open. Last night Ma closed it tight.
My hair is sticky with spiders’ web and I’m wearing muddy boots and britches. I daren’t let Ma see me like this. Before I go downstairs, I clean the boots and take the scrubbing brush to my hands. I stand before the mirror at the top of the stairs and rehearse my smile in preparation for breakfast. My face looks back, pallid and starved of sleep.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Ma asks as I pull my chair to the kitchen table.
‘Yes, Ma,’ I lisp and stretch my deceitful grin to the tips of my ears.
I am shepherding the last bit of porridge from bowl to mouth when Nana lays her hand on my forehead.
‘You look a bit peaky,’ she says.
I butt into the broad warmth of her palm. Half the porridge slips from the spoon back into the bowl. Her tenderness is my undoing.
‘Yes, Nana.’ I yawn. ‘It was that dream again: where I jump out of the window and get into all sorts of naughtiness.’
Her hand makes peaceful circles across my brow. My eyelids droop.
‘Dreams,’ she murmurs, half-statement, half-question.
I am more than halfway back to sleep. ‘I never know why I wake up with dirty hands and feet.’ The delicious massage ceases abruptly. ‘Nana?’ I mumble.
I winch open my eyelids to see Ma shooting my grandmother a look of such blazing fury I am surprised she does not incinerate on the spot.
‘Cissy,’ says my grandmother in a soothing tone. ‘It’s only right. Let me tell—’
‘Not a word,’ rasps Ma, shaking her head. ‘Unless you wish to look for alternate lodgings.’
‘Cissy! I am your mother!’
‘And as long as it is my name upon the licence, you will abide by my rules. Remember who does everything around here. Everything!’
My spoon hovers between dish and lips. What species of imp prompts the next words I do not know.
‘Uncle Arthur,’ I pipe.
‘What?’ growls Ma, her eyes wide as saucers.
‘He helps.’
She lets loose a cry that could split firewood. ‘He does nothing, do you hear?’ she screams. ‘I work my fingers to the bone and he swans in once a month!’
I bow my head and let the storm rage. I think her ungrateful, but I’ll never be the one to say so. Uncle Arthur is a pearl of a man. Without him, who knows how we’d manage when Ma takes to her bed, regular and reliable as the full moon.
Life continues on its confusing path.
I grow into a swallowed voice of a girl. I speak when I am spoken to and often not even then. Ma says sufficient for the two of us, sharp as thistles and as bitter. I gulp down my words before they are born and they wedge in my throat like stones. If I lay my hand on my chest I feel them grinding together, locked up tight.
As soon as I’m old enough to stand without hanging on to the furniture Ma has me collecting glasses and washing them too, for she scorns the idea of squandering cash on a servant. I learn quick not to break one, having no desire to increase the number of times she takes out her wrath on my backside.
Year follows year until I reach my twelfth birthday. It is a proud day indeed, for I carry a jug of beer from the cellar without spilling a drop. It makes Ma happy. And when Ma is happy, well, so is everybody else.
Our customers have their little ways. There’s the temperance man who disappears for a fortnight at a time, only to reappear with a famished look, ready to spring to the defence of his porter at closing time. There’s Old Tom, who takes the same seat by the fire and woe betide anyone who tries to purloin it. There are the pipe-smokers, teeth stained brown as the benches they sit upon. There’s the bearded fellow, white stripes running from the corners of his mouth and lending him the appearance of a badger.
And there’s the charming man.
The hair on his head is black, but his eyebrows and moustache are copper-red, adding a streak of spice to his features. I find it difficult to like a man whose head disagrees with his face. Whenever I pass through the bar on one errand or another, he grabs me around the waist and pulls me close, squeezing out what little breath I have to spare. Every time he does so Ma ticks me off.
‘Stop annoying the customers,’ she growls.
‘She’s not bothering me,’ he replies.
One evening, after a particularly onerous spell of cuddles and pinches, I retreat to the privy. The night-soil collectors emptied the bucket the previous evening but it retains the fruity stink of human ordure. I consider the smell preferable to his unwanted attentions. There is no point in wasting a visit, so I hitch my skirt around my middle.
I hear a light cough, more of an apology.
The ginger-faced man slides into the doorway and hovers there. I stretch out my hand to pull the door shut, but he braces his foot against it.
‘I’ll make sure no ill befalls you,’ he says in his soft, polite way.
I want to tell him to turn around and leave, but something in the way he speaks smothers my protestations. I have the sensation of a pillow stuffed with goose down being held tenderly over my face.
I tug my skirt over my knees. It is tricky to keep my balance at the same time as preventing the hem from trailing in muck. My insides shrivel. I cannot go while he is watching. I pull up my drawers as modestly as I am able.
‘I didn’t hear you tinkle,’ he says, the loveliest of smiles lighting up his face.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I whisper. ‘I don’t need to.’
‘Oh, but you do,’ he purrs. He doesn’t shift aside to let me pass, nor does he lift his protective gaze from me for one instant.
‘I can’t.’
‘But you must.’ His voice is as sticky as barley malt. ‘Ah!’ he breathes. ‘You’re afraid someone will barge in, aren’t you? I’ll tell you what. Let your old friend help you. I’ll fight off any rough fellows who come this way.’
I can neither move nor speak.
He waggles his fingers, fanning the sickly air. ‘I’ll be your lookout. Carry on.’
A cry for help twists my innards. ‘No.’ It is less than a squeak. Barely an exhalation.
‘Do it,’ he says, a fraction sharper. ‘Now.’
I sit down so quickly I crack my tailbone on the seat. I watch him turn very slowly until he takes position with arms folded, gazing towards the beerhouse door. I raise my petticoats, lower my bloomers. My body clenches. I tuck my chin into my chest and stare at the ground between my knees in the hope that I can block him out. I know he’ll not release me until he is satisfied.
Whether it is my prayer or merely an urgent need to pass water, but liquid splashes into the bucket. I didn’t know it is possible to feel such relief. It gushes on and on as though it’ll never stop. I tear a scrap of paper from the string, wipe myself and rearrange my clothing. When I raise my head, he is staring right at me, beatific grin in place.
‘That’s better, isn’t it? I took care of you, didn’t I?’
I do not reply.
He stretches out a hand. ‘Here, little miss. Ups-a-daisy. Don’t want you falling in, do we now?’ he says sweetly.
