Now there was this awful thing with Joe; hesitating outside the front door of number sixteen, Ruby’s hand trembled as she put the key in the lock. Mum and Granny Mole would want to know how it had gone at Bronski’s and she would have to explain why she had not brought home any money. She prayed that Joe had not run home; he had always been a poor liar and
Mum could see through him like a sheet of glass. It would be bad enough seeing the expression on Poppa’s face when she had to tell them that she had worked twelve hours for nothing, without having to admit that Joe had done such a dreadful wrong. Bracing her shoulders, Ruby went inside and was hit by a gust of warm air and the unmistakeable aroma of hot meat pie.
‘Shut the door,’ Granny Mole called out from her chair by a roaring fire. ‘You’re letting the cold air in.’
‘Sit down, love,’ Sarah said, bustling in from the scullery, placing a steaming pie on the table with a triumphant smile. ‘We’ve waited for you special, though Granny wanted hers as soon as I brung it in from the pie shop, but I said we’d not cut into it until you come home.’
Ruby looked at Poppa, who sat in his chair, wrapped in a blanket. He managed a smile but he looked pale and unwell. Ruby went to him, kneeling down and taking his cold hand in hers. ‘How are you, Poppa?’
‘Not so good, cara. Not so good today.’
‘Well if you won’t eat you’ll never get better,’ Sarah said, cutting into the pie and putting a small slice on a plate. ‘I want to see this plate clean, Aldo. Eat it while it’s hot.’
Aldo shook his head. ‘Maybe later.’
Frowning, Sarah wafted the plate under his nose. ‘It’s good. Try a bit.’
Aldo clutched his stomach, beads of sweat standing out on his brow.
‘Don’t, Mum,’ Ruby said, pushing the plate away. ‘Can’t you see that Poppa’s sick? He should be in the hospital.’
‘Don’t talk daft. We ain’t got that kind of money. I couldn’t have paid for the doctor to visit if Billy Noakes hadn’t turned up earlier with the money for the dolls.’
‘Money for the dolls? But he said …’ Ruby stopped short, biting her lip.
‘He said that the wholesalers was begging for them,’ Sarah said with a pleased smile, ‘and, credit where credit’s due, Billy come right round with the money. He said the wholesalers was always pleased to get their hands on a Capretti doll.’
‘That’s what he said, Ruby.’ Aldo smiled proudly, patting Ruby’s hand. ‘They love Capretti dolls. Maybe I misjudged Billy. He ain’t such a bad bloke at heart.’
‘I’ll eat his pie if he don’t want it, Sal,’ Granny Mole said, eyeing the plate. ‘Can’t waste good grub.’
Sarah waved the plate under Aldo’s nose. ‘Just a mouthful, to please me.’
‘I’m sorry, Sal.’ Aldo seemed to shrink into the blanket, drawing his head in like a tired old tortoise.
‘Oh, well! Suit yourself, you stubborn old
bugger,’ Sarah said, scraping the piece of pie onto Granny’s plate. ‘Leave him be. He’ll eat when he’s a mind to.’
Quick to recognise the note of anxiety in her mother’s voice, Ruby got to her feet, dropping a kiss on her father’s forehead. ‘I’ll make you some bread and milk later, Poppa.’
Sarah lowered herself onto her chair at the table. ‘Come and get your tea while it’s still hot, Ruby.’
‘What did the doctor say, Mum?’ Ruby asked in a low voice as she took her seat.
‘He said he reckoned that your dad’s poisoned hisself with all that lead what he mixes with the wax,’ Sarah whispered. ‘The doctor said he’d seen it often enough with painters and the like.’
Ruby stared at the food, her appetite gone. ‘Poisoned?’
Sarah shot an anxious glance at Aldo. ‘Shhhh! Don’t say nothing to your pa. He’s got to be kept quiet. The doctor told me to give him a dose of laudanum if the pain got too much for him.’
‘But there must be something else that he could do for him?’
‘The doctor said that nature must take its course. Anyway, Ruby, your dad’s a tough old bugger; after a few days’ rest I’m sure he’ll be right as rain. Now eat your tea or you’ll be the next one took sick.’
Ruby took a mouthful of pie and forced herself
to swallow it. Normally this would have been a real treat but tonight the food stuck in her throat. Doctors were clever, well-educated men who had studied for years; she couldn’t believe that there was nothing they could do for Poppa and, even if Mum didn’t realise it, Ruby knew that lead poisoning was often fatal.
‘Is that last piece of pie going begging?’ Granny Mole rattled her fork on her empty plate. ‘D’you want to see me fade away for want of food?’
‘Billy Noakes’s horse eats less than you do, Ma,’ Sarah said, with a flash of her old humour, winking at Ruby as she cut the last slice of the pie in half. ‘Pass that to your gran and mind she don’t bite your finger off an’ all.’
‘Yes, and you’d take me down the knacker’s yard as soon as look at me,’ grumbled Granny, grabbing the plate. ‘You wait till you’re old and feeble, Sal. Let’s hope your girls treats you like what you deserve.’
Sarah shot Ruby one of her rare smiles. ‘I dunno about Rosetta, she’s a flighty piece and her head’s stuffed full of nonsense. I just hope she finds a decent job and that she’ll get fed up staying with Lottie and come home.’
‘That Carlottie’s a tart,’ observed Granny Mole through a mouthful of pie.
‘Lottie’s too old for that sort of nonsense now, Ma.’ Shrugging her shoulders, Sarah turned to
Ruby, smiling. ‘At least I know I can rely on my Ruby. How many girls would take their sister’s place in that stinking sweatshop just to help their family? How did your day go, love?’
Ruby pushed her plate away. ‘Mum, I got something to tell you.’
The news that Ruby had not been paid paled into nothing compared to the shocking knowledge that one of the street gangs was working so close to home. Granny Mole insisted that Sarah stuck a chair under the door handle, just in case the lock was not strong enough to keep intruders out. Aldo sat with tears running down his sunken cheeks, bemoaning the fact that he was too weak to protect his family; only Sarah remained calm, demanding to hear every last detail of the attack. However, Ruby was quick to notice that, after Granny Mole and Aldo had been put to bed, Mum wedged a chair under the door handle.
‘I’m only doing it to keep your gran happy,’ she said, meeting Ruby’s eyes with a careless shrug.
‘Yes, Mum.’ Ruby was about to make the fire safe for the night, but Sarah pushed her out of the way.
‘You get yourself to bed, ducks. You’ve had a time of it today.’
Any form of sympathy from her mother was so rare that Ruby was touched almost to the point of
tears. She had grown up knowing that Rosetta with her rebellious, high-spirited ways was her mother’s favourite, and Joe was Mum’s pride and joy in spite of his weaknesses. Between them, Ruby thought, swallowing a lump in her throat, Joe and Rosetta would break Mum’s heart. It would be bad enough when Mum discovered that Rosetta was about to join the chorus, but she must never find out what had really happened tonight in Bronski’s sweatshop.
Having banked the fire with damp cinders, Sarah scrambled to her feet. ‘At least we’ll have a good blaze to see us through Christmas Day. I never thought as how I’d say it, but thank God for Billy Noakes. He may be a bit of a villain but he come through with enough money to keep us going until you get paid again, Ruby.’
‘Mum, I can’t go back to Bronski’s,’ Rosetta said, staring at her in horror. ‘They’ll find out I ain’t Rosetta and I’ll get moved from the machines because I’m not skilled at it like she was. If I can’t work the machines I won’t earn hardly nothing.’
‘Well, something is better than nothing at all. You only got to do it until Aldo gets well again, then you can go back to the arches. We’re all relying on you, Ruby.’ Sarah took a saucepan off the trivet and lowered it into a haybox by the side of the fireplace, giving the porridge a final stir before clamping on the lid. ‘There, that’ll be
ready for breakfast and, with a bit of luck, Joe will be here to share it with us. He’s bound to come and visit his family on Christmas Day. My Joe never lets me down.’
Upstairs, in the tiny back bedroom, Granny Mole lay on her back in her narrow iron bed, her chin sagging onto her flat chest and her mouth open wide. Through blackened stumps of teeth, like a row of tumbledown cottages, Granny Mole’s snoring rattled and wheezed, echoing off the whitewashed walls. Ruby huddled beneath a blanket on the mattress that she had always shared with Rosetta. In the flickering light of a candle stub, she slid her hand between the mattress and the bare floorboards and pulled out two medical books. Straining her eyes to read and missing the familiar warmth of Rosetta’s body, Ruby absorbed everything she could find on the symptoms and treatment of lead poisoning. After a while, the words began to wriggle around in front of her eyes like dozens of tiny tadpoles and her eyelids were too heavy to keep them open. She blew out the candle and curled up in a ball, falling asleep to the rhythm of Granny Mole’s pig-squealing snores.
Next morning, Ruby came downstairs to find Mum and Granny Mole seated at the table with steaming bowls of porridge in front of them. The room was warm and, after smouldering all night,
the fire had been coaxed back to life, sending blue-tipped, orange flames licking up the chimney. Helping herself to some porridge, Ruby went to sit at the table.
Granny Mole scraped her plate clean and licked her spoon. ‘That were a breakfast fit for a queen, Sal. I could manage a bit more.’
‘What about Poppa?’ Ruby demanded, glancing anxiously at Sarah.
‘Your dad’s sleeping so sound I didn’t want to wake him,’ Sarah said, heaving herself off her chair and picking up Granny’s empty plate. ‘I’ll make him some bread and milk when he wakes.’
Ruby reached for the sugar bowl but Granny Mole grabbed it first and clung to it, glaring at her.
‘Ma, let Ruby have the sugar,’ Sarah said, holding the bowl of porridge just out of Granny’s reach.
‘She don’t need it. I’m a feeble old woman; I needs me nourishment.’
A loud banging on the front door startled them all into silence. The handle rattled and the chair moved an inch or two but held firm.
‘It’s the gang,’ muttered Granny, snatching the plate of porridge from Sarah.
‘Mum, let me in.’
‘Joe!’ Sarah ran to the door, pulled the chair away and turned the key in the lock.
Joe burst into the room and flung his arms
around his mother, lifting her clean off her feet. ‘Merry Christmas.’
Ruby leapt to her feet. ‘Joe!’
Setting Sarah down with a smacking kiss on her cheek, Joe strode past Granny, dropping a kiss on the top of her grizzled head and wrapped his arms around Ruby in a bear hug. ‘Merry Christmas, Ruby.’ He brushed her cheek with his lips, whispering in her ear, ‘You ain’t said nothing?’
‘No, of course I didn’t,’ Ruby hissed. ‘What d’you take me for?’
‘It’s rude to whisper,’ Sarah said, taking the plate of porridge from Granny before she had time to start eating and pressing it into Joe’s hands. ‘Sit down, son. Have some breakfast and I’ll make a fresh brew of tea.’
‘Here,’ cried Granny, glaring at Joe. ‘That’s mine, you cheeky young bugger.’
Joe gave it back to her. ‘Don’t worry, Gran. I ain’t hungry.’
‘I’ll make the tea, Mum,’ Ruby said, picking up the teapot. ‘You sit down and take it easy. Joe can give us a hand.’
Sarah sat down, smiling happily. ‘Well, now I know it’s Christmas.’
Dragging Joe into the scullery, Ruby shut the door. ‘Don’t you go upsetting Mum.’
‘You worry too much, Ruby,’ Joe said, giving her hair a playful tug. ‘It’s Christmas and I’ve
brought presents.’ Shoving his hand deep in his coat pocket, he brought out several packages wrapped in brown paper and handed one to Ruby. ‘Ta, for what you done last night. You saved me bacon.’
Staring down at the small parcel lying in the palm of her hand, Ruby shook her head. ‘I don’t want nothing bought with stolen money.’
‘It ain’t what you think.’
‘You was with the gang. You stole that money.’
‘No, I swear I didn’t get none of it.’ Joe seized her hand, closing her fingers over the present. ‘You got to believe me. I was there, yes, but I had no choice.’
‘Of course you had a choice.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Joe’s voice broke in a hoarse whisper. ‘I got into bad company, Ruby. I lost money at the gaming tables.’
Ruby stared at him aghast. ‘Gambling! Joe, you never.’
‘Once you get started on that route you can’t stop. You wins a bit and then you loses and you think you can win it back easy. Just one more time and you’ll stop – but it don’t work like that. Afore I knew it I was in too deep to get out. Aunt Lottie lent me a stake …’
‘Aunt Lottie! Oh, Joe! You should have knowed better. Gambling’s done for her good and proper.’
‘She tried to straighten me out. But I’d lost a
pile of money in Jonas Crowe’s place. I couldn’t honour me debt and it was only then I found out he was running a street gang. He said I’d have to do a job with them or get me legs busted.’
Before Ruby could answer, Sarah opened the scullery door. ‘What’s going on? What are you two nattering about?’
‘Just catching up, Mum,’ Ruby said, filling the kettle from the tap. ‘Won’t be a tick.’
‘Oh, you two!’ Sarah said, smiling. ‘You was always thick as thieves. We just need Rosetta to turn up and it’ll make my day. Give us the kettle and I’ll stick it on the hob.’ Taking the kettle, she bustled back into the living room.
‘How could you be so blooming stupid, Joe?’ Ruby demanded through clenched teeth. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve got yourself into?’
‘Don’t fuss, sis. I can sort it. I ain’t a kid.
‘No, you’re an idiot. I’m furious with you, Joe, for being so – so pathetic.’
Slipping his arm round her shoulders, Joe gave Ruby a hug. ‘Come on, it’s Christmas. Don’t be mad at me, Ruby.’
Dashing angry tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, Ruby shook her head. ‘The women at Bronski’s lost their wages in that robbery, Joe. There’s families that won’t have anything to eat because of it.’
‘I really am sorry for them and I know I was a mug, but I swear I’ll make it right somehow.
Can’t we forget it for just one day, Ruby? After all, it is Christmas.’