The Urchin's Song Part 3

Reaction was beginning to set in by the time they reached the pitch-dark back street where Vera lived, and although the cold was enough to take your breath away it didn't quite manage to neutralise the stench coming from one or two of the privies at the end of the small yards. It was obviously time for the scavengers to call with their long shovels.

Would Vera mind them turning up like this? For a moment after she had knocked on the door Josie experienced the sickening churning of self-doubt. Her da was a nasty customer at the best of times; perhaps it wasn't fair to involve Vera and Horace in their problems. But where else could they go?

And then Vera opened the door, and as Gertie burst into noisy tears and Josie said quietly, 'I'm sorry, Vera, but we had to come. I couldn't think of anywhere else,' the older woman was drawing them into the warmth of the bright, cheerful little house that was representative of its occupants, and Josie knew they were safe.

For the moment.

Chapter Three.

'You'll have to get right away come mornin'. This is the first place he'll have watched, la.s.s.'

It was now past midnight and Gertie was fast asleep on a shake-down at the end of Vera and Horace's enormous double bra.s.s bed. Josie, Vera and Horace were sitting at the kitchen table in front of the glowing range, and Josie was full to bursting, having recently shared Vera and Horace's supper of panackelty. Vera's answer to any problem was food and she was a wonderful cook. The panackelty had been just as Josie liked it; slowly cooked for hours in the old coal oven so that the potatoes had absorbed all the flavour of the corned beef and stock, the onions almost caramelised and the whole lot deliciously crusty at the edges. In spite of the direness of their situation it didn't seem so bad with a plateful of Vera's panackelty inside her.

'But where to, Vera? You know how Gertie is; she's not strong enough to put up with living rough even for a night or two until I find work.'

'Oh aye, I know that, hinny. No, our Bett'll put you up as long as you don't mind bein' a bit cramped like. It's a cryin' shame when me an' Horace have got all this room, but your da's not daft. We've got to go to work an' you'll be on your own then. I wouldn't put anythin' past Bart Burns.'

Neither would she, but like Vera had said, it was a shame. She would have loved to live in this little house for a while. It had an upstairs and a downstairs, and apart from the second bedroom which was rented out to one of Vera's fellow workers at the corn mill, the couple had it all to themselves. It seemed like unimaginable luxury to Josie. Vera had kitted out the front room just grand, with a stiff horsehair suite, a little gla.s.s-fronted cabinet with nice bits of china and knick-knacks inside, and a highly polished piano and upholstered stool. It even had a square of carpet and a rug - not a clippy mat but a proper, shop-bought rug - standing in front of the small ornate fireplace.

Josie had stood in awe when Vera had opened the front-room door and shown her the room, but she hadn't dared venture inside for fear of spoiling such perfection. As far as she knew, Vera and Horace never went inside either, and the slightly musty, cold air which wafted out into the hall suggested the grate - hidden behind an embroidered fire-screen of neat uniformed roses enclosing a verse of scripture promising severe retribution for the unholy in the hereafter - rarely saw a fire.

The kitchen - the other room downstairs in the two-up, two-down dwelling - was a lovely, warm place, however, with the biggest clippy mat Josie had ever seen covering a good part of the stone-flagged floor. Horace had built cupboards from floor to ceiling all down one side, and in front of the table and four chairs were two lovely big rocking chairs with fitted feather cus.h.i.+ons, positioned so they got most of the warmth emanating from the blackleaded range. A large hardwood settle with several plump flock-stuffed cus.h.i.+ons completed the rest of the furniture, and Vera had already made it up into a bed for Josie with several thick blankets.

'Thank you for letting us stay tonight.' Josie put her hand on the older woman's arm. 'I didn't know where else to go.'

'La.s.s, if you hadn't come here I'd have wanted to know why.' Vera's voice was uncharacteristically tender as she stared into the lovely face in front of her. Until she had met Josie that night in the Mariners' Arms just over five years ago, Vera had always prided herself on being a sensible, unemotional woman who had a reputation as being something of a tartar. The eldest in a family of eight children, she had virtually brought up her six brothers and one sister when her mother had died giving birth to the last child when Vera was just thirteen. By the time she met Horace at the age of twenty-five, she had resigned herself to spinsterhood, something - in view of the dribble-nosed toddlers, endless was.h.i.+ng and ironing and constant rounds of meals over the last twelve years - that wasn't altogether unwelcome. When Horace had shyly confessed in their third month of courting that he was unable to father children due to an unfortunate accident in his youth, he'd been surprised and pleased at Vera's response, and they had married before the year was out.

She had never regretted the decision, not once. Her quiet, orderly house, with Horace for companions.h.i.+p and her job at the corn mill during the day had met all her needs, but then a thin little waif with velvet-brown eyes and the voice of an angel had come into her life, and all her hitherto non-existent maternal feelings had flooded in with a vengeance. She had had no real interest in renewing her acquaintance with s.h.i.+rley beyond the fact that her old friend was Josie's mother, but in the event she had found the two of them had got on as well as ever. She always made sure her visits coincided with a time she knew Bart would be out, which wasn't difficult as he was rarely in.

Josie had brought a dimension to her life that Vera would have found impossible to put into words, but which, having once experienced it, she couldn't do without. s.h.i.+rley's child was the daughter she would never have and had never desired, and Vera loved her with a deep, compelling love that was as pure and sacrificial as that of the n.o.blest of natural mothers.

'Ee, you're dead on your feet, la.s.s.' Vera stood up, her voice brisk now. 'You get yourself to bed an' in the mornin' I'll ask Ruby to tell 'em at the mill I'm middlin'. She's a good la.s.s, she won't let on. The sooner you're both away to our Bett's, the sooner me mind'll be at peace. Even if your da gets wind of where you've gone it'll be like lookin' for a needle in a haystack in Newcastle.'

'Newcastle?' Stupid, but she'd forgotten Vera's sister had married one of the miners from Gallowgate Pit. 'But we can't go to Newcastle, Vera.'

'Why not?'

Josie didn't answer for a moment but swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. Newcastle was a place she'd heard talk of but which was miles and miles away, another world. She'd never even pa.s.sed over Wearmouth Bridge into Monkwearmouth; how on earth could she take Gertie as far away as Newcastle? What about their mam? 'There's Gertie,' she said slowly. 'She's always ailing, and Mam. When would we be able to see Mam?'

'Our Bett'd look after Gertie when you were workin'.' Vera hesitated, and then said frankly, 'Look, you've got to get used to the idea you won't be seein' your mam for a time, hinny, not if you want to watch over that little la.s.sie upstairs. Your mam'd be the first to understand that.'

Suddenly, and with a speed that was making Josie's head spin, everything had changed.

'It's for the best, la.s.s.' Vera patted the girl's arm awkwardly. 'An' Newcastle isn't so far away - just twelve miles or thereabouts, with a few stops on the way. When me an' Horace go to see our Bett we get the early train at five to five an' we're in Newcastle Central by quarter to six. Course, any one of me brothers'd have the pair of you if I asked 'em, but they're all local an' you don't want that. No, Bett's is safer. Mind, we won't catch the four fifty-five. Bit early for man an' beast that, eh?' She made a little moue with her mouth.

Josie gave no answering smile in return. 'How much will it cost on the train?' she asked quietly.

'Ee, now don't you go worryin' your head about that.'

'How much, Vera?'

'Just a bob, la.s.s, that's all, third cla.s.s, unless you fancy goin' first cla.s.s an' sw.a.n.kin' a bit?'

Josie looked into the rough plump face in front of her, and her voice was soft when she said, 'That's two s.h.i.+llings with me and Gertie, and I'll pay you back, Vera, I promise. And I'll pay Betty if she can put us up for a bit. Make sure she understands that, won't you? I intend to pay our way.'

'Now look you here, la.s.s.' All the laughter gone from her face, Vera reached out and gripped Josie's hands across the table. 'Me an' Horace do all right with just ourselves to look after, an' with rentin' the room out upstairs an' all. We don't want for nothin', thank G.o.d, but if we was down to our last penny it'd still be a privilege to give it to you. I don't want no more talk about payin' us back. Am I right, Horace?'

She turned and looked over her shoulder at her husband, who nodded, before winking at Josie as he said, 'Be more than me life's worth to disagree, eh, Josie la.s.s? It takes a brave man to disagree with Vera.'

'Oh you.' Vera leaned back in her chair, flapping her hand but smiling. 'Daft as a brush without its bristles, as me old da used to say.'

The lighter mood continued until Vera and Horace went to bed, but after Josie had settled herself - fully dressed apart from her stockings and garters - on the settle, she lay thinking about what she was going to do as the banked-down fire in the range cast a soft comforting glow into the darkness.

She could see the sense in going to Newcastle, oh aye, she could, and if she thought about it now she'd always known, deep inside herself but barely acknowledged, that one day it would come to this, her leaving home and probably taking Gertie with her. The lads would be all right; Jimmy was so like their da already she knew he'd always land on his feet, and it was as if Hubert was connected to Jimmy by a piece of string, so close were they. And if there was one person Jimmy was fond of it was his brother; it'd always been that way. No, it was just her mam she was worried about, but with things as they were she had to put Gertie first.

She twisted on the hard flock cus.h.i.+ons but her discomfort was from within rather than without, and despite the late hour she was wide awake. She sat up eventually, clasping her knees over the coa.r.s.e thick blankets and staring into the faintly flickering shadows.

And now she found herself feeling a slight thread of excitement. She shouldn't be looking forward to tomorrow and she wasn't, not really, at least not about leaving her mam, but - and here she put her hand to her heart as it began to thump in her chest - this was her chance to make something happen for herself. Perhaps her only chance.

Twice she'd been approached in the last year, and a couple of times before that too, by touts who'd a.s.sured her they could get her a slot in one of the local music halls. One had been really persistent, coming back night after night and claiming he knew the proprietor of the Wear Music Hall and saying that she was just the sort of new act he was looking for. But Josie knew that to get anywhere in the halls you had to be prepared to travel and move around. You needed nice clothes and fancy costumes too, and all her money went the minute she had it in her hand, what with paying the rent and feeding and clothing them all. And she couldn't have left Gertie at the mercy of their father, not the way he knocked her about. That had always been at the back of her mind too. But now . . .

She hugged her knees hard. She'd find some work in the day; she didn't care what it was. A laundry, a factory, a shop, anything, and then at night she'd sing. She could ask around a bit, find out the best places for someone to notice her. Perhaps Vera's sister would know? She slid down under the blankets again, willing her mind to stop its racing. She had to go to sleep; tomorrow was going to be a full day.

She must have fallen asleep eventually because early in the morning she awoke to the double chime of a tugboat sounding on the still frozen air outside. The sound was a familiar one; many a time in the kitchen at home she and Gertie had fallen asleep listening to the tugboats on the river and, on a very quiet night, the rhythmic churning of the big paddles.

For a moment she remained still, the events of the previous day crowding into her mind, and then she roused herself, throwing back the blankets and reaching for her stockings and garters. Once her boots were on she busied herself stoking up the fire in the range and putting some more coal on, after which she lifted the kettle - already full with water - on to boil. The kettle, like everything else in Vera's kitchen, was beautifully clean, and unlike their range at home which had one oven with a circular door, this one had two ovens, one for baking and one for roasting. It was a canny kitchen. She glanced round the room which was still in deep shadows, the small patch of sky outside the narrow window charcoal grey with only the hint of daybreak.

She would have a kitchen like this one day, and her own house with an upstairs and a downstairs that she shared with no one but her family. And a garden. Not a back yard, not even one like Vera's that boasted its own privy and washhouse, but a real garden with gra.s.s and trees and high walls so no one could see inside. One of the girls she had gone to school with had got set on as a kitchen maid at one of the big houses near Mowbray Park, and she'd been full of what she had seen when she'd had her interview with the housekeeper. But of all Miriam had said - and she had said plenty - it was her description of the Havelocks' garden that had captured Josie's imagination. She would have a garden like that one day. Somewhere where the air was filled with the soft scent of flowers and where she could hear the birds sing. She loved birds. One of the best compliments she'd ever been given was when a woman in one of the pubs had said she thought she sang as sweetly as a bird.

'Ee, la.s.s! You're up bright an' early, an' I see you've got the kettle on for a brew. I could do with keepin' you on; always fancied meself with a parlour maid.'

Vera's voice was overbright and Josie knew why. Vera was worried her da was going to arrive on the doorstep before they could get away, or that he'd got the lads watching the house. And he might, he might. But something strange had happened when she had brought that poker down on the arm of the man she had hated and feared all her life. It hadn't just broken the bones in his arm; it had broken something in her, something that had been afraid and cowed under the threat of the physical pain he inflicted with so little conscience. She meant what she had said to Jimmy the night before: she would use the poker again if she had to. Not on her brother, not that, but if her da tried to stop Gertie leaving . . . The poker was going to accompany them to Newcastle anyway. She glanced at it, propped against the range. It was better than a big burly docker for protection, her poker.

'What?' She must have smiled because Vera's voice was surprised and curious, and when she told the older woman the nature of her thoughts, Vera laughed out loud. 'Well, it don't eat so much, that's for sure, an' I dare say it's cleaner in its habits an' all, la.s.s.'

Once Horace and Ruby had departed for work, Josie and Vera took stock. The fact that the two girls had escaped the house the night before with just the clothes they stood up in presented an immediate problem, and one which Vera was determined to a.s.sist with, despite Josie's protestations that they would manage until she could get work and buy more. It was only when Vera put her hand on Josie's arm and said, her voice soft, 'Please, la.s.s. Please let me help you in this,' that the girl became silent. 'We'll call in the Old Market an' pick up a few things. Stamp's stall is a good one, he don't have so much rubbish as some, an' once you've washed 'em through at our Bett's they'll come up as good as new.'

Josie glanced at Gertie, whose eyes were bright with antic.i.p.ation at the thought of new clothes. Never mind they were second- even probably third-hand; they weren't her big sister's outgrown things and were therefore possessed of their own magic. 'Thank you, Vera.' She spoke with deep grat.i.tude as she pressed the hand on her arm, knowing she would miss Vera's solid presence in her life more than any other apart from her mam.

Josie always thought the Old Market had a smell unlike anything else. It came from the second-hand clothes stalls, the bacon and meat stalls, the fruit, confectionery, fish, tripe, grocery, and numerous other stalls jostling together under the high roof. There was no one particular odour which was predominant, but as she stepped through the entrance in Coronation Street the smell a.s.sailed her nostrils - neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just the unmistakable aura of the market.

The building was a beacon to many folk looking to make a subsistence income stretch a little further, and it wasn't unusual to see hara.s.sed pitmen's wives wheeling pillow cases or sacks containing two or three stones of flour from the market, along with bundles of second-hand clothes and all manner of goods. These would be transported to the station, or to a horse and cart waiting in a side street, and taken back to the pit villages. It was safe to say that there was nothing you couldn't buy from some stall or other within the Aladdin's cave that was the Old Market.

Vera now made her way to Stamp's stall down the aisle left clear in the middle of the stone-flagged floor, nodding to Joe the Bacon Man - as he was generally known - who had the reputation of being something of a character among folk who were all characters in their own way. Stamp was another one. ''Tis the fair Vera.' Cyril Stamp was a little roly-poly figure of a man, his shape made the more incongruous by the ancient swallow-tail coat and pork-pie hat he wore on all occasions. 'Never mind the bitter chill of an unkind winter outside, it is summer in me heart now I've set eyes on the fair Vera.'

'Oh, stop your blatherin'.' Vera sniffed loudly, but Josie knew her friend was trying to keep a straight face. 'I'm lookin' for a few things for these two.' She indicated Josie and a wide-eyed Gertie. 'An' none of your rubbish mind, I want decent stuff.'

'Vera, Vera, Vera.' The little man put his hand to his heart, his expression pained. 'You cut me to the quick, la.s.s. Aye, you do. Have you ever known me sell rubbish in me life?'

'Aye, I have, to them as are daft enough,' Vera returned smartly as she began to rootle amongst the heaped clothing after motioning with her hand for Josie to do the same.

'Do good to them as despitefully use you, as the Good Book says.' Cyril wasn't about to let Vera have the last word, winking at Gertie as he spoke and making the child giggle. 'Here, cast your lovely eyes, eyes that would make a man leave hearth an' home for sure, on this little lot.' From beneath the stall he drew out an orange box. 'Come from a nice place near West Park, an' if I remember rightly, the bonny wife had a couple of bairns about these ones' ages.'

He did remember rightly, and Josie had to stifle a gasp of delight as numerous items of underwear - all seemingly as new - and several plain but good frocks were revealed, along with a thick coat in a dove-grey tweedy material that looked to be her size and was just beautiful.

'Hmm.' Vera flicked at the items with a critical finger. 'Not bad, but a bit shabby round the edges.' She was playing the game, and Josie, Cyril and Vera were all aware of it, but protocol had to be maintained before serious haggling commenced. 'Is that the best you can do, then?'

'The best?' Cyril raised his eyes heavenwards, apparently wounded beyond words, and then he smiled as Gertie, shyly stroking one of the dresses with the tip of her finger, said, 'I think they're bonny.'

'A lady after me own heart. Here, hinny' - he drew a small slab of hard toffee out of his pocket - 'I was just wonderin' what to do with this stickjaw afore you come.'

Ten minutes later Josie and Gertie were the possessors of vests, drawers, petticoats and two dresses each, along with the grey coat for Josie and a smart hat to match it. The whole lot had come to twelve s.h.i.+llings, which seemed an inordinate amount to Josie, but which meant - Cyril had mournfully a.s.sured them - he wouldn't be eating all week, the great loss he'd had to incur.

'They're good stuff, really good stuff, la.s.s,' Vera had murmured once they were making their way into High Street East, for the walk to Central Station further along in High Street West. 'An' kept real nice. You want to give the right idea when you're lookin' for work, now then, an' these are a cut above.'

Josie nodded, her arms tight round the brown-paper package containing the clothes. She would pay Vera back every penny but she knew better than to mention it now.

Although the beautiful clock-tower and brick facade of the station on the High Street side was familiar to Josie, she had never ventured inside, and now, as she accompanied Vera and Gertie into the building, her first impression was of the height of the arched ceiling. It seemed to rise up and up, and it was when she was turning round in a circle to admire it fully that she became aware of a small figure darting out of view outside.

Jimmy. She glanced at Vera who was pointing out the weighing machine to an entranced Gertie, and the other machine which apparently enabled the user to punch out their name and other details on to a tin strip. She had been keeping an eye open from the moment they had left Northumberland Place, but he must have been trailing them all along. Was her da with him?

'Here.' She handed the parcel of clothes to a taken-aback Vera, securing the poker from her friend who had been holding the instrument of protection since the market. 'If you want to get the tickets I'll be back in a minute. I'm just going to have a word with Jimmy.'

'He's here?'

'Outside.' Josie flicked her head towards the entrance.

'Alone, la.s.s?'

There was a grim warning in Vera's tone, but although Josie knew what she meant, she said quietly, 'Stay with Gertie, Vera. Nothing can happen, even if he's not alone.'

Jimmy wasn't alone. When she emerged from the entrance to the station she saw them immediately, the small boy and the big man standing on the pavement opposite. Her father had his arm in a sling but the sight aroused no emotion in Josie except to make her grip the poker more firmly. Nevertheless her stomach was trembling as she approached them, their faces reflecting a surliness which made them even more alike. Her father spoke before she reached them. 'What the h.e.l.l do y'think you're doin' gallivantin' about?' he growled. 'Get your backside home where it belongs.'

She did not answer him for a moment, and then she said in a voice even she recognised did not sound like her own, 'We're not coming back.' And then, more loudly, 'We're not coming back ever.'

'My belt says different.'

Again she didn't answer immediately, but as her hand instinctively flexed on the handle of the poker she saw his eyes flicker to it. 'You won't ever use your belt on me again, nor your fists either. And you're not coming within six feet of Gertie. I meant what I said last night; if I have to I'll go to the police and tell them everything.'

'Everythin'?' Her father gave a hic of a laugh, his eyes fixed hard on her pale face. It had started to snow again in the last minute or two, small light flakes that were without substance. 'An' what's that - that me eldest two trollops took themselves off whorin'? "So what?" they'll say. "Plenty do." An' you'll report that I wanted to take me bairn for a walk one night, eh? They'll think you're doolally, la.s.s. Ripe for the asylum.'

'I'll take my chance on that.' Her head was up and her shoulders were back, and then as Jimmy chimed in with, 'Da's done nowt,' she snapped back fiercely, 'Oh, he's done nothing, all right. He never does anything except sponge on the rest of us. He's never done a day's work in his life. No, he's done nothing - but what he's made Ada and Dora do is not going to happen to Gertie. No matter what - you hear me, our Jimmy?'

'You've got it all wrong, la.s.s.' There was a faint wheedling note in Bart's voice now; he could see his living slipping away from him in front of his eyes. And Patrick - he'd given the little Irishman his word and taken money on the deal. He felt fear tighten his stomach; he'd seen what Patrick arranged for folk who double-crossed him. He never dirtied his own hands, oh no, he was too wily a customer for that. Patrick always had a crowd of alibis when the deed was done. He'd already be more than a bit put out that Bart hadn't shown last night with the bairn. 'Look, I swear to you, on me own life, right?' he said persuasively. 'I had nowt to do with Ada an' Dora goin' down that road.'

'You can swear all you like but it won't make any difference.'

'You're upset, you're not thinkin' straight, la.s.s, an' that's understandable after last night. But I don't hold you no grudge for me arm. It was a misunderstandin', that's all.'

She stared at him, wondering if he knew how much she hated him. She hated him so much it had swallowed all the fear and panic.

'An' there's no need for you to be walkin' about with that thing neither.' He nodded at the poker. 'What'll people think?'

'That I'll use it if I have to.' It was flat, but something in her manner must have conveyed he wasn't going to manage to sweettalk her.

His att.i.tude changing, he snarled, 'You're a bit bairn an' you'll do what you're told if I have to skin you alive.'

'I'm not a bairn.' Her voice was low and very bitter. 'I've never been a bairn, none of us have, you've made sure of that, but I tell you one thing - me and Gertie are going and you can't do anything about it.' As she saw his hand rise as of old, hers holding the poker jerked aloft, and for a moment they stared at each other through the snowflakes which were now whirling more thickly. Whatever he read in her face made her father's hand fall limply to his side, but now their mutual hate snaked between them like a live thing, and it was only a man who had been pa.s.sing by, saying, 'Here, what's goin' on? You all right, la.s.s?' as he paused at the side of them, that broke the contact.

Josie didn't answer. Her legs felt funny, weak, but she turned and walked quickly across the road and into the station without looking back. This was the end, really the end, but when would she ever see her mam again now? But she couldn't think like that; she'd sort out something, she would. She had to see her mam. Oh, Mam, Mam. And then Gertie and Vera were there in front of her and it was all she could do to stop herself bursting into tears.

Vera stared into the drawn little white face in front of her. Bart had been out there sure enough, it was written all over the la.s.s's face, but she wasn't going to waste time asking her about it now. Once they were on the train to Newcastle she'd breathe a mite easier.

The iron-framed gla.s.s roof covering the platforms gave a s.p.a.cious, airy feeling in summer, but with thick snow blanketing out the light, the station was gloomy and grey. The 9.54 a.m. was steaming away and ready to leave as they boarded, but although Gertie was vocal in her excitement the final confrontation with her father had knocked all the stuffing out of Josie. It wasn't until after they had stopped at Monkwearmouth, East Boldon and the following two stations that the colour came back to Josie's cheeks, and Vera felt she could ask her what had happened.

Josie briefly explained, finis.h.i.+ng with a shrug of her shoulders and a glance at Gertie, who was oblivious to them both, her nose pressed up against the window and her eyes popping out of her head at the changing scene outside the train, which was occasionally shrouded in deep billows of smoke from the engine.

'I'll look out for your mam, hinny, you know that. There'll always be room for her with us, young Hubert an' all, if need be.'

Josie smiled and nodded but said no more. She couldn't explain to Vera that she felt the weight of her mother - and Hubert, to a lesser extent, and even their Jimmy, bad as he was - like a lead brick crus.h.i.+ng down on her heart. Vera would brush such sentiment aside, saying Josie was doing the only thing she could in getting Gertie out of harm's way. And Vera was right, she knew she was right, but . . . It didn't make it any easier.

The train chugged its way into Felling Station, and then Gateshead East, and by the time it stopped at Newcastle Central in a great exhalation of steam and puffs, it was exactly ten thirty-two.

Nothing had prepared Josie for the size of the Newcastle station or, as they left by the main entrance in Neville Street, the different smell and feel of the town. The smell was due, in part, to the sheep- and pig-market and beyond that the huge cattle-market to the left of the station, which had the Royal Infirmary squeezed between them, but as they crossed over the road, Josie clutching the parcel containing their clothes and Gertie now in charge of the poker, everything seemed so much bigger and noisier than in Sunderland.

Still a little dazed by the train journey and the fact that it had taken such a short time to be transported into this strange world, the girls followed Vera past a cathedral on their left and into a wider street which seemed full of inns and hotels. After crossing what seemed like hundreds of different streets but in reality was only three or four, Vera said, 'This is the bottom of Bath Lane. Remember that if you get lost any time. An' you keep followin' it until you turn left into Seaham Street an' then Spring Garden Lane off Pitt Street. There's a fine big park, Leazes Park, in Castle Leazes just over the way from our Bett's, an' it's right bonny, with a bandstand an' fountain an' all sorts. You'll like that, won't you, hinny?'

This last was directed at Gertie, who was looking petrified at the mere thought of going astray in this ma.s.sive, confusing labyrinth that was to be their new home.

'Bett says the old castle's down by the waterfront still,' Vera went on, undeterred by Gertie's silence. 'Fancy that, eh? A castle in the middle of town. Mind, accordin' to Prudence, our Bett's stepdaughter who reads a bit, Newcastle has grown up around the castle. A wooden one, first of all apparently, an' built by the son of William the Conqueror. An' then, when it'd become an important port an' trading centre, they built a wall right round the town an' kept it all squashed up. It's only been in the last hundred years or so that folk have moved outside the original walls, an' Prudence would tell you that's a good thing. Great one for change, is Prudence.'

Vera gave a loud sniff at this point and Josie shot a quick glance at the older woman. She got the impression Vera wasn't too keen on her sister's stepdaughter.

' 'Course, all the new houses an' such meant more jobs,' Vera continued as, having turned into Seaham Street, she had to raise her voice above the noise from the colliery to their left. 'You ask Frank, Bett's husband, to tell you about the time his old grandda helped build Grey Street. Two hundred an' fifty thousand cartloads of dirt it took to fill in the burn that ran through the town, an' Frank's grandda always maintained it was a cryin' shame. Sweet as a nut, that water was, an' now some streets don't have no more than a couple of taps atween 'em. Now, where's the sense in that, I ask you?'

Josie and Gertie didn't know where the sense was; they were both feeling they had little enough left of their own. But at least the gridwork of mean streets they were now walking in bore some resemblance to home and the familiarity was comforting.

It was half a mile from the station to Spring Garden Lane, and it was beginning to snow heavily by the time the trio reached Vera's sister's two-up, two-down terraced house. It was identical to hundreds in the tight network of streets stretching west from the Gallowgate colliery, but vastly superior to the grotesque squalor of the slums down by the waterfront. In Sandhill, and Pipewellgate - situated on the other side of the gorge - it was not unusual for as many as ten families to live in one house, Vera informed the girls with a shake of her head, and the proximity of the slaughterhouses meant folk died like flies in hot weather.

Betty's house was towards the middle of the street, and on seeing it, Josie knew immediately Vera's sister was not out of the same mould as her friend. The outside of the windows was filthy, the paintwork was flaking and dirty, and the step hadn't seen a bath brick for years. She and Gertie glanced at each other but Vera had already opened the door, calling, 'Yoo-hoo, Bett! It's me, Vera,' as she entered, gesturing for the girls to follow her into the house.