Voices of the Morning Read online

  Voices of the Morning

  By June Gadsby

  Digital ISBNs

  Kindle 978-1-77299-247-2

  EPUB 978-1-77299-490-2

  Print ISBN 978-1-77299-248-9

  Copyright 2016 June Gadsby

  Cover Art 2016 by Michelle Lee

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Chapter One

  The Herring gull flew upriver from South Shields, great wings beating silently over the deserted, frozen landscape. Then it turned, planing over the tidal mud flats, it’s grey and white plumage gleaming. Jarrow Slakes, as this long stretch of mud was known, looked almost beautiful, shining like pale gold in the morning light. The seabird soared then circled over rows of slate roofed houses that stood back to back with cobbled lanes in between. As it passed over the square tower of St Paul’s Church, it gave a raucous cry before turning back in the direction of the oily, blue-black waters of the River Tyne.

  Down below, Laura Caldwell was being dragged through the small northeast town of Jarrow at a breathtaking rate by her anxious mother. From time to time she raised her eyes to look at the moving silhouette of the seabird against the pale January sky. The raucous cry it gave echoed across the whole valley, the only voice to be heard heralding in the New Year. Nineteen-twenty was only a few hours old and showing no sign as yet of awakening. The child gave a shudder. She would have preferred to be tucked up in bed instead of hurrying through empty streets on a pilgrimage that she didn’t understand.

  ‘Where are we going, Mummy?’ she asked, not for the first time since her mother washed and dressed her before daylight spilled over the rooftops. And all the while her father remained asleep, snoring contentedly, alone in the room he had occupied since the accident that robbed him of the use of his legs.

  ‘I’ve told you, Laura,’ Elizabeth Caldwell’s voice was terse. Her jaws were clamped tightly shut against the cold wind blowing in from the North Sea. Her coat was stylish and had been expensive when bought before the war, but was totally inadequate for the season. Even the Caldwells had been forced to economise during the long years of war and, two years after the much longed for peace, things were still tight. ‘We’re going to find Mrs Flynn. She didn’t come to work this morning and...’

  Elizabeth Caldwell’s footsteps faltered. She skidded to a halt, catching her breath and tried to get her bearings. She was not at all familiar with this part of town, although it was a mere stone’s throw from the smarter district where she and her family had lived comfortably for generations.

  ‘Did she forget?’ Laura’s dark, nut brown head and large spaniel eyes rose up again to the sky, following the gull’s progress. It had changed direction yet again and was heading up towards the old Venerable Bede Allotments. These plots of apportioned land covered the site of an old, disused mine. Her granddad lived near there, right over the place where the shafts had collapsed and killed a lot of miners. Some of them had been Gramps’s friends. He always got a sad look in his eyes when he talked about it.

  Elizabeth Caldwell quickened her pace to such an extent the child felt as though she, too, were about to take off and fly like the gull. Her skinny little legs were going like pistons, tiny feet not even touching the ground.

  ‘Do hurry up, Laura,’ her mother said, not looking at the child, but glancing from side to side, with wary eyes that watered because of the icy bite in the frosted air.

  ‘I can’t go any faster, Mummy,’ the eight-year-old protested breathlessly.

  ‘You must. This is not a nice place and we don’t want to stay here too long.’

  Laura looked about her curiously, wondering what it was that made this place a bad place. And if it was bad, then why had her mother brought her here? The streets were unloved, scattered about with overflowing dustbins. An unpleasant odour hung in the air, causing her nose to wrinkle, but she couldn’t see anything that made it a bad place.

  ‘What place is it?’ she asked, struggling to regain her breath.

  ‘Never mind, Laura. Just don’t tell anybody where we’ve been this morning. Especially not your grandma, do you hear?’

  ‘But, Mummy...!’

  Laura tripped over a loose cobble as they dodged around a lamppost to avoid a mangy dog and they both nearly fell. She heard her mother’s impatient sigh and suddenly she was being scooped up and carried, clutched too tightly in Elizabeth’s arms. She was a thin child and didn’t weight much, but here was a certain amount of humiliation at being picked up and carried at her age. However, she sat there, mute and brooding, in her mother’s arms, hating being carried and hating her mother for embarrassing her in such a way.

  Elizabeth Caldwell had never before found herself in the environs of the shipyard workers of Jarrow. She had been forbidden, as a child, to go near the place. Evil men and loose women resided here. She did not allow herself to think about it. It was sufficient for her that her own mother told her they were wicked, folk and would undoubtedly go to Hell when death finally overtook them. Heaven, surely, had no place for the likes of them.

  Her thoughts were erratic today, swinging from the pathetic state of her marriage, her own miserable inadequacies, and the frustration of employing a woman who was unreliable. Unfortunately, Mrs Flynn was too good at her job to let her go. It was really inconsiderate of the woman, Elizabeth thought, not to turn up for work like this. Elizabeth could not possibly cope single-handed with the preparations for the family luncheon. Especially on New Year’s Day.

  Mrs Flynn claimed she was sick, that her pregnancy was not going well. And that was a whole lot of lies, too, as Elizabeth well knew. That woman gave birth to children as easily as shedding peas. This was her ninth child, even though she wasn’t much older than Elizabeth herself. She buried four infants before their first birthday, and still she foolishly went on getting pregnant.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ Elizabeth heaved a heartfelt sigh as they plodded on through dirty streets that were becoming narrow and gloomy, leaning in on themselves, cutting out the light. The cobbles beneath her feet seemed more treacherous with every step. ‘How can people live in such squalor?’

  Quite by chance she found herself in Dawson Street where the Flynn family lived. The sickly sweet stench of cabbage water was even more prevalent here, but there were other odours far more noxious that attacked her senses and sent her head reeling. She tried not to think about them and searched for number ninety-two.

  A dark figure loomed out of the shadows as a man, shapeless and lumpy in worn out workman’s clothes, climbed the hill towards her. His head and shoulders appeared first, then the barrel chest and short, bowed legs that were the product of malnutrition and prevalent in the poorer working classes. Elizabeth kept a wary eye on the man as he approached. From a few feet away, he stopped staring at the ground and raised his head. He gave her a cross-eyed gaze and she caught sight of a dewdrop of mucous on the end of a thin, hooked nose before he sniffed it back loudly and wiped the offending nose on his coat sleeve.

  ‘Mornin’ missus,’ he said, whipping off his grimy cap. ‘Happy New Year to ye.’

  He sniffed again, slurped at a globule of saliva that found itself on his bristly chin, then hawked and spat out a globule of mucous with apparent great pride and satisfaction. Elizabeth shuddered with revulsion and made to pass him, but he was in a convivial mood, it being the first day of the year and her being the only one about.

  ‘Lost, are ye? Not from round her
e, I’ll bet?’

  ‘No...no..!’ Elizabeth stuttered and thought how horrified her mother would be if she knew where her only daughter was at that moment in time. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Flynn. Number ninety-two, I believe.’

  He frowned then scratched his baldpate that was mottled with moles, scaly blotches and grime.

  ‘Would that be Maggie Flynn ye’re on about?’ he asked and she detected the faint Irish accent that was more and more common in the area these days. The place was full of Irish navvies that drained the public houses dry of beer and spirits, and increased the population to satisfy the Catholic priests and the Pope in Rome.

  ‘I think her name is Margaret...yes, so that would be right, then...Maggie Flynn.’

  The man sucked at the inside of his mouth and pulled at his bottom lip with grimy fingers that shook with the amount of alcohol he had drunk in the past few hours. It always amazed Elizabeth how well the poor could celebrate, even when they hadn’t enough money to feed their children.

  ‘Aye, well, just go down the hill a wee bit,’ the man said, jerking his head over his shoulder. ‘It’s on yer left.’

  Elizabeth thanked him and, lowering a relieved Laura to the ground, descended the hill, with tentative, slithering steps, counting the numbers on the doors with their crumbling wood and flaking paint.

  Before the war, even these working class people had been able to afford a lick of paint, but the aftermath was still making itself felt. There was hardly a house that wasn’t occupied by a widow and her children, or a grieving mother. They had little or no money coming in, the men having gone, leaving nothing more than a name inscribed on a monument to the ‘glorious dead’. Families, however, could not live on glory. It did not put food in their bellies or pay the rent.

  As they neared number ninety-two, where she could already see the door was wide open, despite the winter’s cold, a piercing scream sallied forth. Elizabeth felt the grip of her daughter’s hand tighten.

  ‘What was that, Mummy?’ Laura spoke in an urgent whisper.

  ‘Nothing, sweetheart,’ Elizabeth said uncertainly, licking dry lips. ‘Just somebody being silly. They’re probably still drunk after last night.’

  Taking a deep breath, she forged ahead, and by the time she had reached the door, other people had emerged onto the street, or were hanging from their windows, wondering what the racket was.

  ‘Aw, gawd in heaven, what a terrible noise,’ said one woman, who stood on her doorstep, wrapped in a crocheted shawl, which she clutched about her with red, misshapen hands.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Elizabeth said nervously. ‘I’m looking for Mrs Flynn...Maggie Flynn?’

  The woman stared at her critically, taking in every detail as her enquiring eyes made a thorough inspection of the stranger. She might, Elizabeth thought, be aged anything from forty to sixty, but she was big and muscular, pretty much like the fishwives on the quay at Shields. One thing was certain. It was highly unlikely that she would suffer fools gladly.

  ‘Who might you be, then? We don’t often get your sort down here.’

  ‘I’m Mrs Flynn’s employer,’ Elizabeth informed the woman stiffly and saw one ragged eyebrow rise as she became the object of close scrutiny once again. ‘She hasn’t turned in for work and she knows we’re expecting twelve for lunch. I really can’t manage without her and she’s well aware of it.’

  ‘I’m sure she is, hinny. Maggie isn’t one to let people down.’

  ‘Well, she has this time.’

  Another scream assaulted their eardrums, exploding out of the Flynn household, and with it the same unsavoury smell that pervaded the air around the riverbank street.

  ‘Hear that?’ The woman pushed Elizabeth aside and stepped over the threshold of her neighbour’s house. ‘That’s Maggie. She must be in trouble. There’s been trouble ever since the start of this bairn.’

  ‘She’s in labour, do you mean?’ Elizabeth asked, incredulous. ‘But that’s not possible. She can’t be much more than six months....’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to argue that point, but that’s a labour cry if ever I heard one. Thought I heard the eldest daughter go off running hell for leather down the lane a few minutes ago.’

  ‘For the midwife?’

  The old woman gave a gruff chuckle. ‘Eeh, lass, we can’t afford no midwives here. No, that big lass of Maggie’s can’t stand pain or the sight of blood. She’s no doubt done a runner. How about you?’

  ‘Me?’ Elizabeth drew herself up, thinking it best to leave these people to their own devices, but before she could move, her arm was taken in a vice-like grip and she was being dragged, like it or not, into the dark interior of Maggie Flynn’s house.

  ‘Come on. She’ll need all the help she can get. I don’t see nobody else offering to lend a hand.’

  ‘I really can’t...’ Elizabeth’s frantic mind was on the luncheon party still to be arranged, but then her mouth snapped shut with such force that she felt her jaw almost break as she took in the scene before her.

  The light in the small living room glowed a dull, mustard yellow. Someone had knocked the gas mantle so that it swung over the bed of the woman who had just given birth. Elongated shadows cast themselves onto the browning wallpaper, and then shrank to dark blobs with every movement of the dusty fitment.

  An older version of Maggie Flynn, probably her mother, had gathered together Maggie’s children in a dark corner. She gave no sign of wanting to help. A young priest shuffled his feet at the foot of the bed, his expression a mixture of embarrassment and concern.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Turnbull, thank goodness!’ His face relaxed when he turned and saw the woman from next door, her sleeves already rolled up, ready for action.

  ‘Out of the way, if you please, Father O’Rourke,’ she said, pushing the priest to one side and pulling a reluctant Elizabeth Caldwell with her to the bed. ‘This is women’s business.’

  Elizabeth gagged as the smell of warm, stale blood and perspiration wafted up from Maggie Flynn. At that moment in time, it was impossible to think of this woman cooking food in Elizabeth’s pristine kitchen, six days a week, every week of the year.

  ‘I think I’m going to faint,’ she whispered and Mrs Turnbull gave her a withering look. ‘You’ll do no such thing. Anyway, the hard work is done for us. Would ye look at that now!’

  Elizabeth kept her head averted, but couldn’t stop her eyes swivelling in the direction of the bed. She had given birth to her own child in a clean house, in hygienic surroundings, with a doctor and a midwife present, and her mother to hold her hand. It had not prepared her for this kind of thing.

  ‘Is it a boy, Mummy?’

  Laura had been momentarily forgotten in the heat of the drama. The little girl was on tiptoe, peering curiously around Elizabeth at the gory mess that would haunt Elizabeth’s dreams for a long time to come.

  ‘Laura, don’t look,’ she hissed through clenched teeth and gave a pleading look at Mrs Turnbull. ‘Please...you don’t need me now, do you? I really must go.’

  ‘Fetch me some hot water from the scullery,’ the neighbour ordered, ignoring Elizabeth’s feeble plea. ‘Now, then, Maggie, lass. Ye can stop yer moanin’. Ye’ve a wee laddie here, though I doubt he’ll see the day through.’

  Elizabeth gulped and hurried off to the scullery, where she found a pan of water already simmering on the gas ring.

  ‘Is he alive?’ She heard Maggie ask, her voice void of hope.

  ‘Just, but I’d say that it’s a good job the priest is already here, for we’d have to send for him anyway.’ She snipped at the umbilical cord, her hands working swiftly, then she began bathing the child and the mother with the water Elizabeth brought her.

  ‘So, what are you going to call this one, Maggie?’ Her voice was rough, but kindly.

  The priest’s voice, by comparison, was low and guarded. ‘Can we please move on,’ he said, staring at his Bible rather than look at Maggie Flynn’s weary face, or at the impossibly tiny bundle they placed in her
arms.

  But the mother was not looking at her newborn infant. She was looking, glassy-eyed, at the big man who had just entered the room, his square-jawed face flushed with fury.

  ‘What does it matter what it’s called, if it’s not bliddy well going to survive?’ he demanded and heads turned to look at him, bodies parted to let him through.

  Elizabeth recognized the fellow as Mrs Flynn’s husband. She had seen him only once before and hadn’t liked him, even at a distance. According to her father, Flynn was a brutish rogue, in and out of prison. He found work where he could get it, but there weren’t many places that would take him on, for he was incapable of holding onto his temper and settled arguments with his fists and anything else that came to hand.

  Right now, he looked anything but happy and his voice was like sandpaper as he rasped out the words that were completely void of feeling. So, Elizabeth thought, this was the brute who constantly left his mark on her mild-mannered housekeeper. Mrs Flynn often bore the signs of his violence on her frail body, though if questioned she always claimed that she had fallen or walked into something.

  ‘You’ve got to give the wee mite a name, Patrick,’ Mrs Turnbull spoke up. ‘They’ve got to have a name to bury him with.’

  Patrick Flynn curled his lip and snarled like a rabid dog, then he spotted Elizabeth Caldwell and shoved his face up to hers in such a manner she would have run from the place had she not been hemmed in by the neighbours arriving en masse to witness the spectacle. They crowded into the small space, using up the last vestiges of breathable air. This was as good an entertainment as they were likely to get for a while. It would keep their tongues wagging for months to come.

  ‘What brings you here, Mrs Caldwell?’ Elizabeth blanched at the fact he knew who she was.

  ‘I...I...’ Her throat tightened and she gagged nervously.

  ‘Come to gloat over the likes of us, eh? Us what hasn’t two pennies to rub together.’ He drew in his breath and expanded his barrel chest. ‘I daresay you don’t have to worry, what with all the money that’s coming out of that bliddy family of yours. It must be nice having a da with his own business. And that husband of yours did all right, didn’t he? You go back and ask him about his war, eh? Ask him what kind of hero he was and see what kind of lyin’ answer he gives. There’s plenty wot know the truth. Bliddy coward, he is, that’s wot.’