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‘You know he won’t give me Lainie’s job. She was on the ales and I’m too young. He gave me my job because I can’t start in the brewery proper until I’m eighteen. It’s his policy and he won’t change it for me.’
‘His policy is it?’ She sneered at me, an ugly expression on her face. ‘What fancy talk is that? Don’t you put on your posh airs with me, miss! You tell him what I said. If he won’t pay you at least four shillings a week you can go scrubbin’ floors.’
I didn’t want to work on the ales or scrub floors, but knew better than to answer my mother back when she was in this mood.
‘Get your brother ready first,’ she said. ‘I’m off down the market before the best stuff is gone.’ The front door slammed as she went out.
‘What do you want to take for your dinner at school, darlin’?’
‘Nothing. I ain’t hungry.’ Tommy coughed, a harsh sound that made me look at him anxiously
‘You must eat something,’ I urged. He was so thin, a puff of wind might blow him away! ‘Bread and jam do, love?’ He nodded unhappily. ‘Take it with you and promise me you’ll eat it and I’ll get you an egg for your tea.’
‘A whole egg just for me?’ Tommy brightened a little. ‘With bread and butter and not dripping?’
‘I get my wages today. Mr Dawson promised me a rise. I’ll keep a few pence back for us. Mam won’t know any different. Just eat your dinner in the playground like a good boy. Then I promise I’ll get that egg for your tea.’
‘Mam will hit you if she finds out you didn’t give her all your wages.’
‘If she can catch me.’ I was relieved to see a smile poke through at last. I loved this brother of mine more than anything or anyone in the whole world, and sometimes I was desperately afraid I was going to lose him. ‘You and me won’t tell her, will we? I’ll let on Fred Pearce gave me the eggs.’
‘Mam says he’s a dirty old man.’
Fred lived at the end of the lane in a house that looked as if the windows hadn’t been washed since he’d been there, and people often avoided him when he was trundling his little cart up the street, but I liked him and we often stopped for a chat when we met.
‘He doesn’t wash much, but I don’t suppose he can afford the soap,’ I said, deliberately ignoring what I knew was implied by Mam’s harsh words.
‘I don’t think that’s what Mam meant. She pulled a funny face the way she does, and said he’d have your knickers off you, if you don’t watch it.’
‘Mam says a lot of daft things – but don’t tell her I said so. Fred Pearce isn’t like that. He’s kind and he just likes to talk to me, that’s all. He’s never tried to touch me – not like some of the blokes round here.’
Tommy stared at me. ‘Does Mr Phillips try to touch you, our Bridget?’
‘No, o’ course not! I never heard the like. He’s a decent bloke. I like him. I just hope he doesn’t leave us. Mam would lose her rag. What made you ask me that, Tommy?’
‘Nothing. I just wondered if he was one of them what tried it on with you.’
‘No, he isn’t. Mr Ryan from next door tries it on when he’s drunk – pinchin’ my bum that’s all. He’d better not let Maggie see or she’ll go for him with the rolling pin. Do you remember in the summer when she chased him all the way down the lane?’
Tommy nodded. He had lost interest in the conversation and said he was going out the back to the lawy. I reminded him to wash his hands before he went to school. He nodded and promptly forgot my instructions as he shot through the kitchen without so much as a good morning to the lodger.
Mr Phillips was just preparing to leave for the day. I thought how smart he looked in his dark overcoat and bowler hat. He worked as an accountant in a big import firm on the docks and earned more in a week than I could in months. I knew how important it was that he continued to live with us and pay his rent of ten shillings a week.
‘Was your breakfast satisfactory, Mr Phillips?
‘The bacon you cooked was very nice.’
‘Have a good day at work, sir.’
‘I shall have a busy day,’ he replied. ‘I’m afraid no days are particularly good ones for me. Good morning, Bridget.’
I stared after him as he went out. I hadn’t thought of him as being a miserable sort of man, though he was a bit odd sometimes.
However, I certainly hadn’t got time to puzzle over it now. I’d better scrub the stairs and get off to the brewery or I would be late for work.
As I crossed the cobbled yard to the brewery office. I heard a shrill wolf whistle. Men were loading heavy barrels on to the wagons ready to deliver the beer to pubs all over the East End, and the smell of the horses mixed with the sharp odour from the brewery sheds. I didn’t bother to turn my head at the whistle because I knew who was responsible. It was that Ernie Cole. The cheeky devil! He drove a wagon and two lovely great shire horses for Mr Dawson – and thought he owned the world.
Well, he might be a tall strong lad with a fine pair of shoulders, but I wasn’t about to encourage his cheek. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of showing I’d heard, so I stuck my head in the air and walked on by.
I supposed I liked him in a way, but I never gave him the chance to get too close. I rather enjoyed putting him down and seeing his face fall. He was too sure of himself for his own good!
He was after walking out with me, I knew, but I wasn’t interested in anything like that. Not yet anyway. I was seventeen and a few months – too young for courting. Besides, I wanted to get on a bit in my job if I could and Mr Dawson thought a lot of me.
Mrs Dawson had told me that only the previous day: ‘My husband thinks you might take my place as his secretary one day, Bridget. He would like me to take things a little easier, stay at home and meet my friends.’
‘Take your place?’ I had stared at her in surprise. ‘But I could never do all the things you do, Mrs Dawson.’ I had never dreamed of such a thing until she put the idea into my head, but I had liked it at once.
‘Why not? You’re bright, careful and industrious. I think it entirely possible that you could learn to do everything I do.’
‘But how?’
‘Well, I can teach you a lot of it,’ Edith Dawson replied. ‘But my husband feels it might be worth paying for you to have special tuition. There are places where you can learn in the evenings after work. You might even learn to use one of those machines – typewriters I think they are called.’
I hadn’t known how to keep my joy to myself as I’d hurried home the previous evening. I had hoped to tell Lainie my good news when she came to bed, but the row had put it out of my head.
Stephen Dawson was waiting for me as I entered the office. He grinned at me. ‘Pop the kettle on, Miss O’Rourke,’ he said. He called me that sometimes just to tease me. ‘We’ll have a cuppa before we start, shall we?’
‘Oh, yes, please,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get one this morning and I’m proper parched, so I am.’ I glanced round the small office. ‘Mrs Dawson not in the mornin’?’
‘No – she had some shopping up town,’ he said. ‘Wants to buy herself some fripperies I dare say. Our daughter is getting wed after Christmas. We heard the news last night.’
‘That’s grand news,’ I said. ‘Give Miss Jane my love and tell her I hope she will be very happy. Lainie might be getting wed soon. She told me last night that her feller had asked her.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Though I’ll be sorry to lose your sister when she leaves. She’s been a good worker.’
‘She might have to leave before the wedding,’ I said as I remembered she’d told me she was going to Mrs Macpherson’s. ‘You haven’t heard from her the mornin’?’
‘No – not yet, though she may have spoken to the foreman.’ He glanced through the window, which had rivulets of water trickling down the glass because of the cold outside. ‘Ah, I just need to speak to Ernie before he leaves.’
‘You’ll catch him if you hurry.’
I went through to the little kitchen at the back of the office. I filled a kettle from the tap over a deep stone sink, then lit the gas stove and put the water on to boil. I set the cups out on a tray – blue and white china they were and not one of them chipped – then poured milk from the can into a matching jug so that I wouldn’t spill it as I served the tea. Mrs Dawson was most particular. She liked things nice and hated the smell of stale milk on her pretty tray cloths.
I picked up a thickly padded holder as the kettle began to whistle. The copper handle got hot and I didn’t want to burn my fingers. I had a lot of copying to do that morning.
‘Bridget …’ I turned as Mr Dawson called to me from the doorway. ‘Leave that for a moment. I want to talk to you.’
My heart caught with fright. ‘Have I done something wrong, sir?’
He shook his head but looked displeased. ‘You’ve done nothing, Bridget … but your brother, Jamie, is in trouble yet again.’
‘What has he done?’
‘Apparently he was in a fight last night. The police want someone to go down to the station and sign for him. He’s in a bit of a state and they won’t let him go unless a member of his family takes him home.’
‘What do you mean in a state – is he hurt?’
‘I think he may have been hurt during the arrest. The police couldn’t find Mrs O’Rourke so they sent a young constable here. I really can’t have this sort of thing, Bridget. This is a respectable business.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said as I reached for my shawl. ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can, sir – and I’ll make up the time later.’
Mr Dawson nodded, but he was still frowning. This was the second time in as many months that the police had sent for someone to fetch Jamie, and he wasn’t pleased that his brewery should be associated with a known troublemaker.
I was anxious as I left the brewery office and hurried across the yard, ignoring Ernie Cole as he called out to me. He’d asked if I wanted a lift, which meant he knew where I was going. Everyone would know! I felt humiliated as I left the yard and set off in the direction of the police station, some ten minutes’ walk away.
Jamie was such a fool to himself when the drink was in him. Most of the time he was a good-natured, cheerful and generous man. There was violence in Jamie; it simmered beneath the surface, erupting every now and then in uncontrollable anger. Instead of thinking, he went in with his fists just the way Da had.
Hearing the rattle of a wagon on cobbles behind me, I glanced back and saw that Ernie had almost caught me up. He slowed the horses as he drew level.
‘Jump up, Bridget. You’ll get there all the quicker and it’s on my way, lass.’
‘Thank you, but I would rather walk.’
‘You’re a stubborn girl, Bridget O’Rourke. You’ll be quicker if you ride.’
‘No, I shan’t. I’m going to take the short cut by the river.’
‘It’s a rough area down there. Let me take you.’ He gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘Ah, Bridget, don’t be daft, lass …’
Ignoring him, I ran down a side alley towards the river. It was one of the worst areas in this part of the docks and I would normally have avoided it, but I had to get away from Ernie’s pestering. After the incident of the previous night, when Harry Wright had attacked me, I was less trusting than ever of men who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The river looked dirty and oily where the waste from the ships lay floating in the shallows, and it was cold enough to freeze over. There were vagrants by the dilapidated warehouses on the banks, some of them hunched by a fire burning in an old metal pot, others drinking and lying on sacks.
I felt their eyes on me as I hurried by and a couple of them called out to me, but they were harmless enough, too beaten down by life to bother. It was the cocky ones like Harry Wright you had to be careful of – and Ernie Cole.
As I turned the corner towards the police station, I saw a young woman loitering on the pavement and recognized her at once. Her name was Rosie Brown and she was what Mam would call a whore. I’d heard that she had been seen hanging around the pubs with Jamie a few times.
As soon as she saw me she came to meet me and said, ‘Have you come for Jamie?’ She was a pretty girl, though her fair hair looked as if it needed a good wash and her clothes weren’t as clean as they might be. ‘They won’t let me in to see him, the rotten buggers.’
‘How is he, Rosie? What happened last night?’
‘Jamie got paid three shillin’s,’ she said and grinned wryly. ‘It was the first work he’d had in days and he spent all the money on drink. There was an argument with some bloke he knows … turned into a bleedin’ riot! They were smashin’ the furniture when the bleedin’ coppers arrived.’
‘Was Jamie hurt?’
‘Someone hit ’im from behind. I think it were a copper or it might ’ave bin one of the sailors he were fightin’. Your Jamie’s a proper bruiser, Bridget. ’E ought ter do it fer a livin’. Layin’ ’em out left and right he were, then someone cracked a bottle over his head, and the next thing the bleedin’ coppers were all over the place and one of ’em knocked Jamie down, even though he were already dazed. They carted ’im orf and I ain’t seen ’im since.’
‘They ought to be ashamed of themselves.’
‘I was worried about ’im,’ Rosie said looking at me oddly. ‘But I shan’t hang around now that you’re ’ere. Jamie will be all right wiv you, Bridget.’
‘I’m not too sure about that,’ I said ruefully. ‘Mam will go wild if there’s no money for her and if she finds out he spent his money on drink and spent the night in the cells, she’ll likely throw him out.’
‘She’s a hard woman, your ma.’ Rosie pulled a face. ‘Jamie knows he can come to me if he’s looking for a place to stay. You tell him that, Bridget.’
‘That’s kind of you,’ I said, ‘but you can’t keep him, Rosie. He needs to work – he ought to work. There’s nothing wrong with him, he’s strong as a bull.’
‘It ain’t easy to find work round ’ere. You don’t know what it’s like for ’im, Bridget, the men standin’ in line, waitin’ to be set on. If you’ve been in trouble you get the worse jobs. Jamie was unloading bones for the soap factory – dirty, stinking and crawling with maggots, ’e said they was. Had to wash the taste out of ’is mouth. You can’t blame ’im, Bridget.’
‘No, I don’t suppose so, but he’s his own worst enemy, Rosie.’
‘Jamie’s Jamie,’ she said and smiled, her eyes warm with affection. ‘Don’t nag ’im, luv. He’s down enough as it is.’
I watched her walk away. I was well aware that it was hard for my brother having to wait in line to be given a job. Until a year previously he’d been in regular work, but some trouble on the docks had led to his being dismissed and since then he’d had to take whatever he could get.
As I entered the station the sergeant behind the desk gave me a sour look. ‘Come for that brother of yours, I suppose?’
‘Yes, please, Sergeant Jones. I am sorry he caused you some bother.’
‘Not your fault,’ Bill Jones replied, his frown lifting at the tone of my voice. ‘He’s a fool to himself. He’s got a good brain, he should make some use of it.’
‘It’s only when the drink is in him, Sergeant Jones.’
‘I know that. If I didn’t I would have had him on a charge before this. As it is, the landlord didn’t want to push charges. He’s used to his customers causing trouble, and it wasn’t him that called us in. Take Jamie home and see if you can make him see sense, will you, Miss O’Rourke? He’s getting a bad name for himself. Tell him that it’s only a matter of time before he’ll be in serious trouble if he goes on this way. He might listen to you.’
‘Yes, perhaps,’ I said and smiled at him. ‘And thank you for not sending him up before the magistrate.’
‘One of these days he’ll go too far … He’s got a sore head and feels a bit sorry for himself. You’d best take him home and give him a cup of tea, miss.’
One of the younger policemen had been sent to fetch Jamie from the cells. He came in through a side door, his jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder and an air of defiance about him, but his expression changed as he saw me.
‘So they sent for you,’ he said, and just for a moment a flicker of shame showed in his eyes. ‘There was no need. I’m sober now.’
‘You were injured last night,’ Sergeant Jones said and glared at him. ‘Go home with your sister and think about your life, lad. You’re wasting your time with all this drinking and brawling.’
Jamie scowled but made no answer, merely jerking his head at me as he left the station.
‘Goodbye, Sergeant Jones,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘Why did you thank the bastard?’ Jamie growled as we walked along the street. ‘It was probably him that hit me.’
‘You know it wasn’t, Jamie. Rosie Brown said you were hit by one of them varmints you were fighting with, then one of the coppers knocked you down, but you were half out anyway.’ I looked at him anxiously. ‘Does your head still hurt bad?’ My own was feeling sore after the incident the previous night, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He was in enough trouble already.
‘It aches a bit. The police surgeon patched me up earlier, said I should go to bed for a couple of days when I got home. But I’m off down the docks to see if I can get a few hours’ work.’
‘Surely it doesn’t matter for one day? Have a rest, Jamie.’
‘I can’t afford to, Bridget. I’ve no money for Mam …’
