She was a tall heavy girl and not the sort, Lottie and Merle realised, to sympathise with their plight. Lottie, however, tried to explain. ‘We’re searching for our gran and we need to make some money before we can move on . . .’ she began, but she got no further. The tall heavy girl swung her arm and her fist connected with Lottie’s head, knocking her to the ground. Lottie got groggily to her feet just as another girl began to batter Merle, and all might have gone very badly for them had not Merle’s face gone suddenly white as a sheet before she slumped to the ground.
‘You wicked, horrible creatures!’ Lottie shouted, bending over her friend’s inanimate form. ‘She’s expecting a baby and if you’ve killed either one of them, I swear I’ll see you hang!’
Several of the girls looked shamefaced, but the ones who had lost their jobs were made of sterner stuff. ‘We won’t touch either of you if you’ll go,’ the big heavy girl said. ‘We don’t want the likes of you stealing our jobs an’ takin’ the bread from our mouths.’
Merle was beginning to come round; she sat up, stared, then seemed to remember where she was and what had happened. ‘We’re moving on all the time,’ she said wearily. ‘We’ll go, won’t we, Lottie?’
‘And gladly,’ Lottie said through clenched teeth. She wished she could hand out a few clacks herself but knew she was not nearly strong enough, for weeks of poor food and worry had already taken their toll.
They moved on the next morning but went first to the café to explain why they were having to relinquish their jobs and to ask if they might have the money they had earned for their two days’ work. ‘I didn’t oughta pay you a penny ’cos you’re lettin’ me down,’ the proprietor grumbled. ‘But the rest of the staff say you worked well while you were with us so I’ve put a bit extry into the envelope.’
Both girls thanked him profusely and set off for the railway station. ‘I still reckon it’s time to put our search aside for a while, get ourselves work of some sort, and begin to put money aside for when your baby’s born,’ Lottie said, when they reached the station and began to scan the timetables in a glass-fronted case. ‘It ought to arrive in four or five weeks, shouldn’t it? We don’t want to find ourselves in some tiny hamlet with no doctor for miles, ’cos I’ve never delivered a baby and I don’t mean to start now.’
‘I’m losin’ track of time,’ Merle admitted. ‘But I think I’m due in May. What’s the date now?’
‘It’s the end of March, I think,’ Lottie said. ‘Won’t it be grand when the warmer weather comes, Merle?’ She turned her friend so that they could both look out through the station entrance at the rain which was driving along the pavement. ‘What we need right now is a big city where there’s still some work around, even if it’s not very well paid.’
Merle agreed, and after some further discussion they bought two single tickets to Leeds. As they settled into their seats, having already deposited their holdalls on the rack above their heads, Lottie thought that for the first time in their wanderings they were heading towards home. Oh, Leeds might be a long way from Liverpool, with a good deal of wild and hilly country in between, but it was the first time they had turned their faces westward since they had left Rhyl, and Lottie thought wistfully of the warm kitchen in Victoria Court, the enthusiastic applause of the audiences at the Gaiety and her weekly wage packet, taken for granted once but never again.
Merle’s mind must have been running on the same lines for presently she spoke thoughtfully. ‘When all this is over, Lottie, when I’ve had my baby and you’ve found your gran, I’d go back and work for Louella for nothing, so I would. I never realised how lucky we were to have proper jobs and a proper home. I know Louella didn’t like me much at first, and she was awful cross when she found out I was in the family way, but me own mother would probably have reacted similar. The trouble was, I knew I’d been a fool but I should have known I’d done wrong and deserved all the things Louella said of me.’
‘But you didn’t . . . deserve what Louella said, I mean, because she said you were a bad girl, and bad girls go with more than one feller and aren’t a bit sorry except when they’re caught out,’ Lottie said. There was a short pause and when she spoke again it was almost grudgingly. ‘I suppose you’ll say it was the same for me, that my mother lied for my own good. I dare say living in a little old caravan and going round fairs and circuses and such was Louella’s idea of hell. She’s always loved the stage and wanted me to love it too, wanted me to have a proper home, nice clothes, good food. So she told lies, and when I found out I never gave her a chance to put things right herself. Maybe if I’d stayed, she would have helped me to find Gran.’
Merle nodded slowly. ‘We acted hasty,’ she agreed. ‘But if we hadn’t we’d never have known what a hard old world it is. I reckon leaving Liverpool was the best thing in the long run. And going back . . . oh, it will be wonderful! They’ll be pleased to see us so they’ll give us a grand welcome and I reckon everyone will appreciate us more too, because we were good, Lottie: slick an’ professional. I bet the girls who’ve took our places get the rough side of your mam’s tongue five nights out of six, and that don’t make for a good act.’
‘And what about Baz? Will he welcome you with open arms?’ Lottie asked. ‘Do you want him to, for that matter?’
Merle frowned down at her hands lying in her lap. ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘There’s lots of pretty girls in Liverpool. By the time we get back he could be – involved – with one of them. And d’you know what, Lottie, we ain’t the same two girls what left Victoria Court. So Baz and I will have to play it by ear, I reckon.’
‘Fair enough,’ Lottie said. ‘Then we must simply do our best to stay independent, because it would never do to have to crawl home with our tails between our legs, or write asking for money.’
Merle agreed fervently. ‘So we must find work, no matter how hard, and it would be nice to get decent lodgings for a change.’
‘I say, I’ve just thought! There are bound to be theatres in Leeds. You might get a job backstage and I might fill in if one of the chorus is ill . . . something like that, anyway.’
‘Wish you were right, but I doubt it,’ Merle said. ‘Oh, Lottie, if only!’
They reached Leeds and saw that it was indeed an enormous place, but even so there was a queue for every job going and the wages paid were very little better than they had been in smaller towns. There were theatres, but none were looking for employees and Lottie realised, ruefully, that their appearance was against them. Down-at-heel shoes, worn clothing and untidy, overlong hair was unlikely to make any management keen to employ them.
However, they managed to get work in a large bakery, though their lodgings were some distance from their place of employment and bakery employees started work at three o’clock in the morning and worked right through to three or even four o’clock in the afternoon. The money was good, however, and both girls speedily realised why. Working in the Earlham Bakery was sheer hell. At first they had revelled in the warmth after the icy cold of the night, but very soon they were not warm but horribly hot, with sweat pouring down their faces and their clothing damp with it. The bakers were all men. Merle and Lottie were little better than slaves, for they had to pick up the heavy trays of loaves and take them through to where they stood in the warm to prove, and then over to immense ovens which stood against the rear wall. The trays were slid on to the oven shelves, the timer was set and the cooked loaves were carried to the tiny rear scullery, where they were placed on cooling trays before being taken through into dispatch, who were responsible for delivering the bread to the chain of Earlham shops throughout the city.
However, there were some perks to the job. Misshapen loaves and pastries and cakes which were slightly burned, or in some other way less than perfect, were occasionally given to the girls, who took them back to their lodgings and handed them to their landlady, who would then serve them with their evening meal.
The big disadvantage of the job was the distance the girls had to walk through the icy night to reach their place of employment, for there were no trams or buses running at two o’clock in the morning. They always tried to get to bed no later than six o’clock, which gave them a good eight hours’ sleep before they had to stumble out and begin the long walk to work. But Lottie noted how pale and weary Merle was growing and determined to try to search for easier work as soon as she could do so. Neither girl wanted to change their lodgings for Mrs Piggott’s house in Duncombe Street was clean and comfortable, and she was a good cook, providing them with a hot meal at night and a pan of porridge, kept hot in a hay box, to line their stomachs before they set off for the bakery.
They had lodged with Mrs Piggott for nearly three weeks and spring was making itself felt when they emerged from the house in Duncombe Street one morning to find a thick and blanketing fog enveloping everything. Leeds was an industrial town and the fog made both girls gasp and cough as they stepped on to the pavement. ‘This is hateful,’ Lottie said, dismayed. ‘It was bad enough in Liverpool when the fog came down, but at least it rolled in from the Mersey and smelt of the sea rather than of factory chimneys, brickworks and the tannery. What’s more, we don’t know this place well enough to risk getting lost. D’you think we ought to go back home until it clears?’
Merle, however, shook her head decidedly. ‘Can’t risk it; we need the money,’ she pointed out. She smoothed a hand across the curve of her stomach. ‘I know I don’t show very much but I feel the size of an elephant, and the kid is forever kicking hell out of me so I reckon it might arrive any day. I shan’t be able to work for a week or two then, so we must earn while we can. C’mon, best foot forward!’
‘Well, if you’re sure,’ Lottie said doubtfully. ‘Is this the main road? Gosh, the fog’s made the paving stones awful slippery. Be careful, Merle!’
‘I’m always careful, because I don’t want to flatten the kid,’ Merle said cheerfully. ‘Where’s this, d’you reckon? Oh well, we’re bound to see a building we recognise sooner or later. Or perhaps the fog will lift.’
They walked on for a while in silence. Lottie listened to the drip, drip, drip of water descending from the eaves of houses they passed, and the muffled sound of their own footsteps. They were used to meeting almost no one at this hour of the night and saw few lighted windows, but somehow tonight was even worse than usual. Not a cat or a dog was abroad; no vehicle passed them, and presently Lottie sat down on a low brick wall and Merle followed suit. ‘We’re lost, Merle,’ Lottie said. She tried to make her voice calm and despised herself for the tremble which she could not control. ‘We were daft to keep going – we should have turned back. D’you remember our last night in Victoria Court, when we got lost in the fog? Well, at least there was one person still up, whereas here . . .’
Merle sighed. ‘It were my fault, Lottie. I should have listened to you. But there’s no point in us sittin’ here freezin’, an’ we can’t turn back because we don’t know which way is back, if you foller me.’ She shivered suddenly and got slowly to her feet, holding out a hand to her companion. ‘I’ve got to keep movin’, else they’ll find me dead body lyin’ on the pavement when the fog lifts,’ she said. ‘You never know, we might see a lighted window . . . oh my Gawd!’
‘What is it? Have you seen . . .’ Lottie was beginning when she realised what had caught her friend’s attention. It was the gleam of water. She turned to Merle with a feeling that was almost relief. ‘It’s the perishin’ canal! Well, at least we know where we are,’ she said. ‘How far is the canal from Duncombe Street? If we were to turn right and follow it, keeping to the towpath, wouldn’t we end up quite near Mrs Piggott’s place?’
‘I don’t know,’ Merle admitted. ‘When we first came here and were job hunting, I remember seeing the canal but not taking much notice, though I’m sure there were factories and warehouses all along its banks. Tell you what, whichever way we walk we’ll find barges moored, and we may even find someone still awake who might be able to tell us the way back to Duncombe Street. In fact, it ’ud be worth wakin’ someone up, even if they were angry, to find out where we are.’
Accordingly, the girls set off along the towpath, and as they walked they talked about that other fog and the woman who had come to their rescue. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, that she had spent all her working life on the canals and here we are, close by one and just as lost as we were that other time,’ Lottie said presently. ‘It’s almost as though we were guided to the canal.’
Merle snorted. ‘And I suppose, if we do find someone still awake, she’ll turn out to be an enthusiastic theatregoer,’ she said scoffingly. ‘Still, if all bargees are as kind and helpful as her . . .’
‘She might have been especially nice because she remembered us at the Gaiety,’ Lottie said dreamily. ‘She remembered me when I was quite a little thing.’
‘How d’you make that out?’ Merle asked curiously. ‘I don’t remember her saying she knew you when you were very young.’
Lottie frowned. Where had she got the idea that Mrs Donovan – yes, that was her name – had known her as a very young child? She struggled with the thought for a moment, then the old woman’s exact words popped into her head:
When I first saw you your hair were dark. But that really were a long time ago
.
Merle was talking but Lottie clapped both hands over her ears, closed her eyes and concentrated fiercely. When Mrs Donovan had first seen her, she had had dark hair, but Louella had insisted that her hair be bleached as soon as she arrived at the Gaiety. Therefore it must mean that Mrs Donovan had known her when she had been living with Gran, and this in turn meant that she had been searching in all the wrong places because she had assumed that Gran had always been with circuses and fairs. Feverishly, she cast her mind back over the dreams and saw again Champ’s big rump, heard the sound of water and saw the woods and meadows through which they had travelled, often in high summer, autumn or spring. At such times of year, fairs and circuses would have been travelling the country and had Gran been with them there would have been a great many people about. She remembered the campfires and the lovely stews which Gran had cooked over them. Everyone knew that caravan dwellers cooked their meals outside over open fires when the weather permitted, but so of course did the bargees who travelled the length and breadth of the country aboard their painted craft. She remembered the tiny living room in her dream, which she had assumed to be a caravan, but now she believed to have been the cabin of a canal barge. She should have guessed when she had seen the bucket with flowers painted on its side!