The Urchin's Song Part 10

Sitting in front of the long dressing-room mirror at the Palace Theatre as Gertie arranged her hair in elaborate curls and waves on top of her head, Josie could hardly believe the two of them were off to London the next day.

It didn't seem as though five weeks had pa.s.sed since she had promised Oliver Hogarth she would join him in the capital once her contracts here were finished. The time had just flown by.

Of course, there had been Frank's funeral. That had been harrowing for more than one reason. All the family had been there apart from Pearl, and when Josie had looked across and seen Barney standing all alone at the graveside, his face torn by grief, she'd remembered what he'd confided all those years ago during one of their long chats. His da had been disappointed in him, he'd said, adding that if there was any way he could have managed to work underground he would have done it - just for Frank's sake. 'Me da felt he lost face with some of the other blokes.' Barney's eyes had been fixed on the glowing coals in the range but the pain in his voice had told her what he was thinking. 'And he's never been the same with me since. He don't mean to be different, I know that, but somehow that makes it worse.'

She'd reached out and taken his hand at the time, giving it a comforting squeeze because words seemed inadequate, and at the funeral, when she'd watched him standing stiff and rigid as he had tried to hold on to his control, she'd walked across and done the same thing. In that moment she hadn't cared about what anyone else thought - if they had thought anything at all; she had just known Barney was hurting, and badly, and she hadn't been able to stand by and do nothing.

He had gripped her hand as though it was a lifeline but although his jaw had contracted he'd said nothing, continuing to stare straight ahead as the gravediggers had heaped dirt into the gaping hole in the ground into which the coffin had been lowered a minute or two earlier.

Later, at Betty's little home where family and friends had gathered, Josie saw Prudence walk across to Barney who was standing looking out of the window into the small back yard. The girl had put her hand on his sleeve and said something, her face earnest, and whatever it was, it had seemed to bring a measure of comfort to his face. Three months after Josie had left Newcastle, Betty had told her Prudence had eaten humble pie as far as her brother was concerned and asked his forgiveness for her part in the attack at the house; somewhat reluctantly on Barney's part apparently, the two had begun speaking again. Betty had commented that this had been a means to an end as far as Prudence was concerned; she reckoned her stepdaughter's prime concern had been to make things easier for her and Pearl to continue their friends.h.i.+p as before, but Josie wasn't so sure. If Prudence had genuine love and respect for anyone it was her brother, she felt, and the withdrawal of his companions.h.i.+p must have been a bitter blow to the girl. She didn't like Prudence - she would never be able to like her - but in her better moments she did feel sorry for Barney's sister, and she had no wish for a family feud to continue because of her.

Nevertheless, Josie had been well aware of the cold glances in her direction from that quarter at Betty's house, although as she had been busy helping Vera in the kitchen most of the time she hadn't let Prudence's antagonism trouble her. It had been late evening when folk were beginning to take their leave and Josie had just emerged from the children's bedroom after getting the little ones off to sleep, when Prudence cornered her at the top of the stairs. Josie knew immediately that the encounter was not going to be pleasant.

'You didn't have to come here today, you know - you're not family.' Prudence's voice had been low but her sallow cheeks had been flushed with the force of the emotion within.

Josie had raised her chin unconsciously, but her tone was non-confrontational when she said, 'I know I'm not family, but I'm Vera's friend and Betty's too. More to the point, I thought a lot of your da and I wanted to show my respects.'

Prudence looked into the beautiful face in front of her, at the creamy skin, the great dark eyes, now wary and guarded, and her eyes travelled to the rich golden-brown hair that was a crown to the beauty beneath. As she stared at Josie she realised for the first time that part of her dislike was because the other girl took her loveliness totally for granted, was unaware of it, even. And it wasn't only her physical appearance. Even Pearl, who had come to loathe Josie as much as Prudence did, had said that her voice was remarkable.

The thought of her friend who was not her friend, and who was making her brother wretchedly unhappy, caused the old guilt feelings to rise. Prudence knew she should have warned Barney before he was wed that Pearl was not all she'd seemed to him. Her feelings caused her to say, and bitingly, 'Your respects! Don't make me laugh. You're here to tell us all how well you're doing, little Miss High and Mighty! Nothing but an upstart you are, girl, and however much you get on and however much you earn you can't get away from your beginnings.'

'What makes you think I want to get away from my beginnings, Prudence?' Josie answered her, purposely misunderstanding the context. 'My beginnings are linked with Gertie and my mam and Vera, so why would I want to get away from them?'

'You know what I mean.'

'If you mean I want to succeed in life, surely you're all for that?' Josie challenged swiftly. 'I can remember you saying years ago that things must change, that women have as much right as men to rise in the world and that they should be paid for the job they do, not a subsistence wage based on their gender. And you used to argue that the unions had to fight for each individual member regardless of their age or social standing or gender. Didn't you? Didn't you!'

It would be true to say here that if thoughts could kill, Josie would not have lived to see another dawn. Prudence stared at her, desperately searching for an answer that would put this thorn in her flesh in her place, but she was still speechless when Josie turned away from her and made her way downstairs to the others.

Shameless, she was, Josie Burns. Prudence continued looking after her after Josie had gone down the stairs. Her type always had an answer for everything. She'd smarmed her way in at home, Prudence thought bitterly, had her da and Barney eating out of her hand and even now she was still setting her cap at Barney. Thought no one had noticed, no doubt, but she'd seen Josie make up to him at the graveside. At the graveside, of all places! And then to go and talk about showing respect for her da. She was a baggage and an upstart, always had been and always would be, and all her fine talk wouldn't alter that! Prudence's thin lips twisted with rage, and then she stamped back downstairs. Not for a second did she allow any particle of her mind to suggest that Josie had been absolutely right in all that she had said.

Betty had moved back to Sunderland a week after the funeral, but it was Amos and one of the other brothers who had moved her, so Josie hadn't seen Barney again. Betty was now established in a small terraced property in Brougham Street; due to her windfall - for which she had thanked Josie over and over again - and the small amount of money paid out on Frank's death, she had been able to purchase it outright.

Brougham Street was not too far from the corn mill where Betty and Vera had both obtained part-time s.h.i.+fts - Vera working mornings and Betty afternoons - with the idea that whichever sister wasn't working would take care of Betty's little brood.

It had all worked out very well, and Betty was as happy as she could be, given the tragic circ.u.mstances.

'You're on next, Josie. After the chaser-out.' One of the troupe of Oriental dancers who had just come offstage spoke to Josie as she pa.s.sed, and Josie nodded in acknowledgement.

This new invention of moving pictures which the Palace had had for two or three years now provided a useful breathing s.p.a.ce halfway through the evening. The films shown were of short duration and usually of topical or local interest, but even though the movements were jerky and the projection machine broke down at some point every week, the patrons loved them.

Josie's eyes moved upwards to the framed page of the Sunderland Citizen hanging above the middle of the mirror. The article had appeared two years before in August, so amusing the Palace's manager that he'd cut it out and kept it for posterity. It read: The Cinematograph. This is a most extraordinary invention, but I think the inventor(s) will be almost regretting that he ever produced it, since instead of being used for the improvement and advancement of mankind, it has. .h.i.therto been used for exhibitions of a most degrading nature. The prize-fight was bad enough, but The Bride's First Night and suchlike exhibitions were outrageous. A friend of mine went to both. He went especially to see the effect upon the people. The effect was so vile that he a.s.sured me he doubted whether any decent working man would ever dare to admit to his children or womenfolk that he had been there. Is there really no way to stop these things? We prohibit prize-fighting by law, we also prohibit public indecency. Have we not the power to prohibit exhibitions which are life-size and amount to the same thing? Surely these are things for the Watch Committee to watch.

The manager had written underneath the article, in great black letters, A friend went to see The Bride's First Night? Who does he think he's kidding? But don't worry, my bairns - this is just a seven-day wonder, moving pictures, and no threat to the legitimate theatre.

Josie wasn't so sure. She remembered Vera's enthusiastic commendation of the Victoria Hall's picture-show in the first week of January. The hall had presented what were proclaimed to be 'The Most Beautiful Animated Pictures' ever seen in Sunderland, 'A Triumph of Animated Photography, 10,000 pictures of the Boer War and our Navy.' The hall had been packed every night and although Vera was not easily impressed, she had gone twice. And according to the Sunderland Echo in December, when the Olympia Exhibition Hall in Borough Road - a giant pleasure-drome with roundabouts, gondolas, a free menagerie and the best circus entertainment - held a special performance of Edison George's Special War Pictures, the large audience enjoyed themselves most heartily, joining in with the Olympian band as it played patriotic songs.

Yes, there was a place being carved out for moving pictures all right, Josie thought. It might be a novelty according to most folk, but it was a novelty that the public was taking to its heart, although she agreed with the manager that the music hall would continue. Anything else was unthinkable.

'So, our last night here then.' Gertie was looking at her sister's reflection in the mirror, and Josie nodded to the face behind her shoulder. 'Oliver must think a bit of you, la.s.s, to insist he come up here tomorrow and escort us down to London himself.'

Josie shrugged. 'He probably does that for anyone new he signs up, Gertie. And he knows we haven't been to London before so likely he thought we'd get lost. But aye, it is nice of him.'

'Do you like him then? As a person I mean, not an agent,' Gertie asked nonchalantly.

Josie understood her sister too well to be fooled by the casual tone, but a sudden crash and thud at the far end of the dressing room announced that Sybil - a serio-comedienne who indulged strongly in doubles entendres in her patter and often downright vulgarity - had fallen off her stool again, after partaking too well of the whisky flask she kept hidden from the management's eagle eye in her bag.

Josie and several of the other girls rushed to help her up, and once they had hauled her none too light bulk back on to the seat, Josie asked Gertie to make a pot of strong black coffee. This was the third time the ageing veteran - who had married her first husband at the tender age of fifteen and was now on her fourth, and again unhappy, marriage - had been the worse for wear due to the drink. Sybil tried to mask her unhappiness in a round of gay living, and was in fact holding one of her famous parties that very night to which all of the players had been invited.

Amid a few feathers from Sybil's shocking-pink boa that were floating in the air, the girls poured coffee down her throat until it was time for Josie to go onstage, and so further conversation regarding Oliver was forgotten.

It was hard to believe now, Josie thought soberly, as she walked into the glare of the footlights a few minutes later, that the wreck of a woman in the dressing room had once been the toast of London.

It was common knowledge that Sybil had drunk champagne with princes in palaces but also eaten winkles with her old friends round street stalls, and because of that she was a favourite with everyone. In her hey-day, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, had asked for a private performance because Sybil was one of his favourite artistes, and she had been more than half an hour late at his apartments, due to keeping a promise she'd made to visit an old impoverished fellow performer in hospital. Everyone loved Sybil - except, perhaps, the lady herself.

The incident in the dressing room had been depressing, but like every music-hall artiste, Josie became someone else once she was onstage. She sang a somewhat flirtatious song first, dimpling at the audience as she heard appreciative chuckles from parts of the building. It was the late session, and here and there a cigar hung lazily from a smiling mouth as patrons considered each song or dance or other performance with an air of languid contentment; a hazy sense of smoke and drink and general enjoyment pervaded the theatre.

After two songs of a faintly suggestive nature, sung with wide-open eyes and a small pout, Josie knew the audience were with her. Now she moved into the very centre of the stage, a slim, graceful figure leaning forward to accentuate the refrain of the sentimental ballad she began to sing. She felt the spontaneous movement of sympathy and attention her voice and demeanour evoked, and now the patrons' sombre, intent faces threw into more brilliant relief her beseeching gestures, bathed as she was in rays of rosy-pink lights from the centre of the roof and from below in the glow of the footlights. Part of her was sorry to be leaving the place of her birth for the capital, and something of this feeling must have come across in the pathos of the song, because there was a collective sigh from the audience when she finished the last note before they broke out into tumultuous applause.

And it was only then, as she curtsied and smiled before agreeing to sing another song - more to give the girls in the dressing room extra time to sober Sybil up than anything else - that she noticed the big handsome man in one of the boxes to the left of the auditorium. Oliver. But she'd thought he was arriving tomorrow? And then he smiled at her, blowing her a silent kiss of approval, and she found herself blus.h.i.+ng scarlet as she wrenched her eyes away from the magnetic blue gaze. This would never do. A man like Oliver Hogarth was used to elegant, sophisticated creatures who were conversant with the ways of the world. She had discovered a great deal about the man since her fellow artistes had realised who her new agent was. Sybil in particular had been very blunt.

Oh, she knew he had won Gertie over; her sister was transparent in that regard, much as she would have protested the issue. But Oliver Hogarth was something of a libertine and a rake according to everyone else, and after she had thought the matter over, Josie realised it was true. He had charmed Lily to get to her that night in Hartlepool, and without any conscience whatsoever. 'A bit of a ladies' man but nice with it.' That's what Lily had said. Of course, it could have all been innocent, but it had been three or four in the morning when Lily had returned . . . If Hogarth thought Josie was that sort of girl, he had another think coming. By, he did.

'Keep your knickers on and the elastic tight, and you'll be all right, dear.' That's what Sybil had said to her when Josie had first mentioned Oliver Hogarth. 'He's not a bad man, not like some - oh, the stories I could tell you, dearie, they'd make your hair curl - but he is partial to a well-turned ankle, and there's many a young gal woke up in the morning regretting the night before when Oliver's been around, if you get my meaning.'

Josie had got her meaning, and once got, was not going to forget it. So now she sang her last song, arousing nostalgic memories for more than one or two in the audience with her rendition of 'Bobbing Up and Down Like This', along with much laughter, and left the stage on a wave of cheering and clapping.

She heard the chairman, who was sitting at a table in front of the orchestra, begin his flowery speech to announce Sybil, who was waiting in the wings, and she spoke softly to the other woman as she moved past her. 'Are you all right, Sybil? Are you up to going on?'

Heavy stage make-up couldn't hide the wrinkles in the face looking back at her, but Sybil smiled widely as she whispered, 'It'll take more than a dram or two to stop me, dear, but bless you for asking. My main worry now is wetting me drawers after all that coffee.'

The young woman and the older one leaned against each other briefly, both shaking with laughter, and then as the chairman resumed his seat with melancholy dignity and banged his little auctioneer's hammer, the orchestra broke into Sybil's signature tune and she flitted lightly on to the stage, losing twenty years as she did so.

Dear Sybil. She had a heart of gold and such a warm, generous nature, and yet everyone knew her present husband had indulged his roving eye ever since they had been married. Why was it that some women seemed to have a penchant for philanderers and rotters? Josie asked herself as she hurried back to the dressing room. And then an image of Oliver's attractive face came into her mind and she bit her lip hard, just before she opened the dressing-room door and was enfolded in a wave of chatter and cheap scent and colour. And then Gertie was at her side.

'Oliver's here! He's sent you this.' Gertie handed her an exquisite corsage as she spoke, her voice bubbling. 'An' he's asked us out to dinner after the show. Look, he got me one an' all.'

She pointed to a smaller corsage that was nevertheless just as pretty, and which she had already pinned to the lapel of her serge dress.

Josie glanced down at the delicate arrangement of pale peach orchids threaded through with cream lace, and she couldn't quell the flutter of pleasure and excitement that speeded her pulse. However, her voice was quiet and steady when she said, 'I presume Billy brought these along?' Billy was the young lad who ran errands, a.s.sisted Oswald - the stagehand - and was general dogsbody and jack-of-all-trades. 'And no doubt you accepted the invitation to dinner on behalf of us both?'

Gertie turned her head and stared at her sister for a moment before saying in a slightly defensive tone, 'He's come all the way from London, la.s.s, an' he is your agent, isn't he?'

Josie nodded, seating herself on the stool Gertie had kept clear for her amidst all the mayhem. 'Aye, he's my agent,' she said very softly, 'but that's all he is, Gertie. You understand? I . . . I don't want him to get any ideas.' That went for Gertie too, so it was better to nip any misunderstanding in the bud right now. 'We don't know how things are going to turn out down south and I'm going to have more than enough on my plate as it is. My work is the only thing which interests me. All right, Gertie? Is that clear?'

My work is the only thing that interests me. What stupid things we say sometimes. As the thought took form, along with another - different - man's image in her mind's eye, Josie lowered her head and fiddled with the b.u.t.tons of her dress. She had had a difficult time keeping the picture of Barney all alone at the graveside out of her mind, and even now it still crept in at odd moments when she wasn't on her guard. And she could do nothing at all about her dreams.

She was glad she was going down south, she told herself savagely, whipping the hairpins out of her hair and ma.s.saging her head with the tips of her fingers, ignoring Gertie's protests at the cavalier treatment of her painstakingly arranged curls and waves. It was the best thing all round, it was. And she was grateful, so, so grateful, that no one could read anyone else's mind.

And then just for a moment that last thought was brought into question when Gertie's hand lightly touched her shoulder and patted it twice, and her sister's voice said quietly, 'Aye, it's clear, la.s.s, it's clear.'

Josie looked at her sister's small elfin face in the mirror and Gertie stared back at her for a moment without speaking. And then she said, with a lilt in her voice, 'So, what's it to be then? Bread and cheese all by ourselves with water to wash it down, or a slap-up meal with Oliver where you'll be feted and adored? Difficult choice, I know.'

Oh, Gertie. In spite of herself Josie grinned back at her sister. 'I don't think bread and cheese was on the cards for tonight,' she said drily, 'but I get your point. And as you so rightly said, Oliver has come all the way from London.'

'Exactly.' Gertie beamed at her. 'And I wouldn't expect you to do any other than follow Sybil's advice about the elastic on your drawers, by the way.'

'Gertie!'

At that moment the dressing-room door was thrown open and Sybil herself entered on a gust of plumage and perfume. The painted face was smiling, and on catching sight of Josie, Sybil called, and loudly, 'Josie, darling, there's someone out here waiting to make your acquaintance! Come and put him out of his misery, and do feel free to bring him to my party tonight, dear. Such a nice young man and so polite. I do like politeness in a man, don't you?'

Oliver. He hadn't had the good grace to wait until she left the theatre, but had come to the very door of the dressing room. What would people think? Her mouth smiling but her eyes cold, Josie ignored the last part of Sybil's ringing proclamation which had had all the girls' heads turning interestedly towards her, and said quietly, 'Someone, Sybil? Can't you give me a clue?'

Sybil had almost reached her now but as was her wont when she had had a few, her voice was still strident when she exclaimed, 'A handsome young fellow m'lad, dearie. The sort who makes me wish I was a few years younger, I tell you. He said his name was . . .' she paused, more wrinkles joining the others as she screwed up her eyes. 'What was it? Harry . . . Horace . . . No, I have it!' She beamed at Josie triumphantly. 'Hubert. He said his name was Hubert and that you would want to speak to him when you knew he was here.'

'Hubert?' She and Gertie had spoken together, and now, as Josie's eyes met those of her sister in the mirror, she said dazedly, 'That's my brother, Sybil.'

'Darling child, aren't they all?' Sybil gave one last leer before she tottered over to her stool and crashed down on its long-suffering legs.

'Josie.' Gertie was clutching her so hard on the shoulders Josie knew she would have bruises in the morning. 'Oh, Josie.'

'It's all right. It's all right, la.s.s.' Josie was speaking mechanically, her head whirling. She suddenly had the most inordinate desire to laugh, but she knew it was the kind of laughter that would finish up with her weeping. Hubert, here? Then Jimmy . . . And her da. All this time with no news. Her mam had been right. They had been here. Oh, Mam . . .

Josie was on her feet now, and she took Gertie's arm as she said in a low, soft hiss, 'Be careful what you say if it is Hubert out there. Remember how things were the last time we saw Da and the lads. It's not so much Jimmy and Hubert, but I wouldn't trust Da an inch.' This wasn't quite true. She didn't trust Jimmy any more than she did her father, but now was not the time to go into that.

'Josie, I've felt . . .' Gertie paused, giving a small embarra.s.sed laugh. 'I've felt someone was watching us since we've been back. It started at Mam's funeral so it could be them, couldn't it?'

'If it is, I shall want to know why the lads didn't go and see Mam at least once, to put her mind at rest that they were all right,' Josie said grimly. 'And that's just the start of it. Where have they been all this time?' She had been pulling her hair into a ponytail as she spoke, and she now twisted it into a low chignon at the back of her head and secured it with a few pins. 'Come on.' She took Gertie's arm and they walked towards the dressing-room door. 'Let me do the talking, la.s.s,' Josie warned, 'especially if Da and our Jimmy are anywhere near.' She hadn't forgotten the fate her father had intended for his youngest daughter, nor his brutality that night in Newcastle. Whatever this meeting was meant to accomplish, it would be for her father's benefit, that was for sure.

For a moment, after they had opened the door and stepped into the pa.s.sageway outside, Josie knew a feeling of relief mixed with disappointment. The youth standing with his back to them was far too tall for little Hubert. Her youngest brother had always been undersized and skinny, and although the last five years were bound to have wrought some change, he would now still only be twelve.

And then the lad turned, and a voice in her head said, It is him. And in spite of all she had said to Gertie just moments before, Josie found herself springing forward and taking him in her arms. 'Hubert!' she cried. 'Hubert, I can't believe it!' And then Gertie joined them and the three of them were hugging and laughing and crying all at the same time.

It was Hubert who pulled away first, wiping his wet face with the back of his hand as he said, 'I had to come but I've got to be quick. You must listen to me, both of you, but you can't let on I've been here. He'll kill me if he finds out.'

'Da?'

'Da? No, not Da.'

He was as tall as she was, Josie was thinking. And good-looking. 'Who then?' she asked, baffled.

'Patrick Duffy. You remember him? He took me an' Jimmy in when Da cleared off. He said there'd been some trouble, that you'd put the polis on to Da, an' on to me an' Jimmy an' all, 'cos of the thievin', you know? So he took us in, looked after us, like.'

She just bet he had. Josie stared at her brother, and when Gertie said, 'That's not true! Hubert, it isn't true,' she didn't say anything for a moment.

'Is it, Josie?' Hubert's voice was tremulous. 'Patrick said you made Da skedaddle, that he signed on a s.h.i.+p leavin' for Norway or somewhere foreign. He said Mam was part of it, too; that the pair of you had shopped us.'

'Patrick Duffy and Da came to Vera's sister Betty's house in Newcastle and attacked me a couple of weeks after we'd left home.' The words were slow and painful, and Josie looked hard into her brother's blue eyes as she spoke. Hubert's eyes weren't the cold icy blue of her father's eyes and Jimmy's, but warmer, with an almost violet tinge. 'They wanted to put Gertie on the game, probably me too, but Barney - Betty's stepson - came home and there was a fight. I only told the police about that, Hubert, I didn't mention you or Jimmy, and Mam had no part in anything.'

'Do you swear that, Josie? On Mam's grave?' Suddenly the small lad was very evident inside the lanky youth.

'Aye, I do, but you must have thought Duffy was lying, else you wouldn't be here now,' Josie said very quietly.

Hubert nodded, and then grinned. 'Still the same old Josie, sharp as a knife. But you're right. Mind, Jimmy thinks the sun s.h.i.+nes out of Patrick's backside, an' I have to say he don't knock us about like Da did, an' he always gives us our fair whack. He's bin good to us, la.s.s. Credit where credit's due.'

Josie made no comment. Whatever Patrick Duffy had done he would have done it for his own gain, she had no doubt about that, and she didn't like to think what the tall, fresh-faced young lad in front of her was involved in. Duffy would taint everything and everyone he came into contact with, he was that type of man. 'Mam's last words were about you and Jimmy,' she said suddenly, reaching out and grasping her brother's arm. 'She loved you, Hubert, she did, and she wanted us all to be together again. Look, I'm going to London the morrow with Gertie - you and Jimmy could come with us.'

'What?'

'I mean it. You could make a fresh start - I'd help you. You don't have to stay here with Duffy. He's rotten, Hubert, through and through. You must see that?'

She watched her brother's face straighten, and his jaws champed for a moment or two before he said, 'I told you, Patrick's bin good to us. In his own way he's bin right good when no one else cared a penny farthin'. Da cleared off and Mam - well, she might not have shopped us but she wasn't o'er bothered about me an' Jimmy, about any of us.'

'That's not true, lad. That's Jimmy talking.'

'An' you an' Gertie were in clover an' out of it all. Patrick took us in 'cos he was Da's friend an' there was no one else. Anyway,' he paused, rubbing his hand hard across his mouth, 'him an' Jimmy are as thick as thieves like I said, an' Jimmy wouldn't go anywhere.'

And what Jimmy said and did, Hubert lived by. By making sure of the elder brother, Patrick Duffy had known he had the younger too. Oh, she hated that man. She really hated him. Josie looked into Hubert's troubled face and tried one more time. 'Won't you at least talk to Jimmy about it and see what he thinks? He might like the chance to leave here and try his hand in London. Please, Hubert?'

The lad turned his gaze from her and stared at the floor, and his voice was very low as he said, 'You don't understand, la.s.s. Jimmy believes every word Patrick says, an' he thinks you were the cause of Da leavin' us an' all the trouble. He don't know I've come to see you, but I had to. They're plannin' to . . .' He stopped, raising his head but still not looking Josie directly in the face as he said, 'Patrick knows people, people who'd do anythin' for a few bob. He's got a finger in every pie there is; nowt happens here without him knowin' about it. He knows you're goin' tomorrow.'

Josie merely stared at him, but it was Gertie who said shakily, 'What are you saying, lad?'

'It'll be tonight, later, when you go back to Vera's. He's already got blokes watchin' an' he's told 'em however long it takes they wait till the time's right. If you're walkin', all to the good; if you're in a carriage or with someone they see to them an' all if they have to - whatever's necessary, Patrick said. But he wants you an' Gertie alive an' kickin'.'

'And you're saying Jimmy knows about this?' Josie blinked her eyes as her vision blurred with shock. 'He's part of it?'

'He's goin' to be the one who steps out an' stops you afore you open the door. He'll make out he's friendly like, that he wants to talk to you about Mam dyin', that he's only just heard.'

'But . . . but you can't just kidnap people,' Gertie stammered. 'Duffy must know he wouldn't get away with it. When me an' Josie didn't come home Vera'd contact the authorities an' there'd be a stink.'

Hubert looked at her, and for all his tender years his gaze was pitying. 'He'd get away with it. I've seen--' And then he stopped abruptly. He wasn't here to shop anyone or to frighten his sisters any more than he had to. But they were his sisters, his own flesh and blood. He just couldn't understand their Jimmy over Josie. Jimmy hated her every bit as much as Patrick did, perhaps even more so, and in this - as in more than one or two things lately - his brother gave him the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. He remembered how Jimmy's face had changed when he'd pointed out they only had Patrick's word that she'd blown the whistle on them all. By, fair mental Jimmy'd gone. He'd agreed with Jimmy and Patrick before, that no contact with their mam and Josie was best, but once they'd started talking about all this . . . The thieving and such was part of life and he was good at it, he knew he was, but lately there'd been things that had fair turned his stomach.

He forced his mind away from the mental picture of Jimmy's boot driving again and again into a man's face until it was an unrecognisable b.l.o.o.d.y pulp, and all the while his brother and Patrick and Patrick's henchmen laughing like a bunch of loonies, and now he repeated, 'He'd get away with it. He's got away with a lot worse.' And he felt the twitch in the side of his jaw that worked his eye and made his mouth rise up at the corner flare into life for a moment before he scrubbed at his face with his hand.

Josie closed her eyes for a moment. There was something in the back of her mind nagging at her. 'Have you heard from Da at all in the last few years? Has he been in touch with Duffy?'

'No. No, I told you. Da told Patrick he was signin' on a s.h.i.+p. That's one of the reasons Jimmy feels like he does. He thought a bit of Da. Don't ask me why, 'cos as far as I remember all Da did was knock the h.e.l.l out of us, but anyway,' Hubert shrugged, 'there it is.'

'Don't go back tonight, Hubert.' Josie put out her hands and gripped those of her brother. Her da had been scared of the water. She remembered that now. Why hadn't she remembered before? But then she'd only been a wee bairn of five or six that warm summer's night down at the dockside when she'd been begging outside one of the waterfront pubs as usual. Her da and one of his cronies had pa.s.sed quite close by but she'd melted into the shadows before he'd seen her; his usual greeting on such occasions being a skelp of the lug along with a command to get her backside home, as though he hadn't ordered her out begging just hours before. The other man had been trying to persuade her da to do something, she couldn't recall his words or what it had all been about now, but she did remember her da saying, 'Never. Never, man, an' I don't care if it's easy pickin's. You'll not get me on a boat, even one in dock, for love or money. I like me feet on solid ground an' there's an end to it.' Her da had said that.

'I'll be all right. No one knows I'm here.' Hubert had let his hands remain in hers but his voice was determined.

'Hubert, Da would never have gone off without a word to anyone, and I don't believe boarding a s.h.i.+p would enter his mind. He didn't like the water, he was frightened of it.'