 Whitechapel, London, 1898.
The wax effigy of the Christ Child flew past Ruby, narrowly missing her head, hitting
the brick wall of the railway arch and landing on the concrete floor of the workshop
with a squishing thud. Rescuing it
from the dust, Ruby cradled the tiny figure in her arms as if it were a flesh and
blood baby. Choking back tears, she
wiped away the dirt and grit. Just moments ago the angelic face had been a work
of art and devotion lovingly created by her father, Aldo Capretti, the best dollmaker
in the East End, if not the whole of
London. At least that was Ruby’s opinion,
and she guessed that there must be hundreds of little rich girls, proud owners of
a Capretti doll, who would agree with her.
Poppa didn’t usually make religious icons, but this order had been an exception,
a favour for Father Brennan, the fierce Catholic priest who had frightened the life
out of her as a child. Even though
she was almost twenty, he still had the power to put the fear of God into her. Ruby shuddered at the thought of Father
Brennan’s reaction when he was told that the crib at St Augustine’s Catholic Church
would be empty at Christmas, just days away.
Aldo, who was normally
so kind and gentle, let out an angry roar followed by a stream of invective; a strange
mixture of Italian and English swear words that were even more shocking to Ruby
than the distorted wax face of the baby Jesus.
Dancing up and down on the spot, Aldo shook his fist at her, his face purple
with rage, knotted veins standing out in his throat like coiled ropes.
‘You bleedin’ stupid, clumsy little bitch.’
‘Poppa, no.
It weren’t my fault.’ Ruby clutched baby Jesus to her bosom.
She had spent so many painstaking hours pricking each individual hair into
the tiny scalp, that to see such devastation was heartbreaking.
What was even worse, the hair was real; she had plucked each raven-black,
shimmering strand from her own head.
‘Don’t talk back to me. You got no respect for your poppa that’s
your trouble.’
A shadow fell across
the entrance to the arches. ‘Hey, what’s
all the shouting about old man? I bet
they can hear you clear down to Wapping.’
Ruby spun around, bristling
with indignation at the intrusion.
‘Mind your own business, Billy Noakes.’
‘Get out you no good chancer!’
Aldo made a move towards Billy, fisting his hands.
‘Calm down, guv,’ Billy said,
grinning. ‘If you don’t want me to
take them dollies to the wholesalers, it’s no skin off my nose.’
‘No, wait,’ Ruby called
out as he turned to go. ‘Poppa didn’t
mean it. He ain’t his self today.’ She laid baby Jesus gently on the railway
sleeper that served as a workbench and, scurrying to the dark recess at the back
of the arch, Ruby hefted a tea chest packed with finished dolls, complete with frilled
dresses made by her mother and tiny straw hats fashioned by her grandmother. She staggered beneath the weight and
Billy leapt forward, taking it from her hands.
‘Steady on, girl.
You should let the bad-tempered old bugger over there do the heavy work.’
Aldo lunged at him but Billy
held him off with the tea chest. ‘Just joking, Poppa.
Can’t you Eyeties take a joke?’
Aldo opened his mouth as if
to say something, staggered backwards and would have crumpled to the ground if Ruby
had not rushed forward to support him.
She turned on Billy in a fury. ‘Ain’t
you got no more sense than to tease a sick man?’
His cocky grin replaced by
a frown, Billy nodded. ‘You’re right. He don’t look too clever at that. Let
me get this chest on me cart and I’ll give you a hand to get him home.’
‘Ta, but you done enough
harm upsetting him like that. I can
manage.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Billy said,
with a casual shrug of his shoulders.
Struggling beneath her
father’s weight, Ruby regretted being so hasty as she watched Billy carrying the
tea chest out to his cart where a sorry-looking, sway-backed nag waited, placidly
munching the contents of its nosebag despite the sleety rain falling from a pewter
sky. Ruby hooked Aldo’s arm round her
shoulders in an attempt to get him onto his stool, but he seemed to have lost control
of his legs and they both skittered crabwise across the concrete floor.
Swallowing her pride, she called out to Billy and he came striding back into
the workshop.
‘Best leave the old feller
to me, Ruby.’ Taking Aldo by the arm, Billy hefted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s
lift. ‘I’ll drop you both back home. I got to go past
Tobacco
Court
; it’s on me way.’
Ruby hesitated, covering her
head with her shawl and shivering as the icy spikes of sleet pierced the thin cloth. She didn’t want to take any favours
from Billy Noakes, who had a bad reputation with women and whose business dealings
were on the grey side of shady, but on the other hand, there was no way she could
get Poppa home on her own. She watched
silently as Billy set her father down on the driver’s seat, covering him with a
tattered piece of sacking that smelt strongly of the stables.
‘You coming or staying?’ Billy
leapt up beside Aldo and picked up the reins.
‘I ain’t got all day.’
A bitter east wind, straight
off the
Essex
marshes, caught Ruby like an icy slap in the face, making up her mind for her. ‘Just a sec,’ she said, slamming the
wooden gate and turning the key in the lock.
Normally she wouldn’t have been seen dead riding on Billy’s cart, and Mum
would have forty fits if she found out, but today was the exception and she clambered
up beside her father just as Billy urged the horse into a shambling walk.
Cable
Streetwas packed with the everyday chaotic mix of horse-drawn drays, carts and wagons
loaded with cargo for the docks at Wapping and Shadwell. The air was punctuated
with puffs of steam from the engines that rumbled along the railway tracks into
Fenchurch
Street
station. Clouds of sweat from the flesh
of overworked horses mingled with smoke from clay pipes clenched between the drivers’
teeth in rictus grins. The smell of
hot cinders, horse dung and chemicals from the manufactories added to the harsh
stench of raw sewage floating in the coffee-coloured waters of the
Thames
. Huddled in her shawl, Ruby’s teeth
chattered so that she couldn’t speak even if she had had anything to say to Billy. She clutched Aldo’s hand as he slumped
against her, his breathing ragged and his face beaded with sweat even though his
fingers felt cold as a dead chicken’s claw.
As the cart entered
Spivey
Street
, the sleet turned into hailstones, frosting the rotting vegetable matter and excrement
that littered the cobblestones, creating a fleeting illusion of beauty until it
melted into a stinking morass. Barefoot and blue with cold, street urchins huddled
in doorways begging, or lingered in the shadows ready to dip the pocket of an unwary
passer-by. Billy urged his old
nag to go a bit faster holding his whip poised, ready for trouble, as they passed
the dark slits between the buildings, little slices of hell, where prostitutes,
pimps and hustlers hung out in a permanent twilight underworld.
As they neared
Tobacco
Court
, Ruby saw Billy’s grip on the whip handle relax and she heaved a sigh of relief. She had been born and bred here and
was streetwise, but only a fool would let their guard down in the slum area of
Spivey Street
. Despite the soot-blackened brickwork,
the peeling paint and a general air of dilapidation,
Tobacco
Court
was a respectable cul-de-sac lined with two-up, two-down working men’s cottages. The residents were mostly artisans and
manual workers, who just managed to keep their families above the breadline unless
overtaken by the disaster of unemployment or chronic sickness.
Ruby, who knew and was known by every family living in the Court, was thankful
that the bitter weather had kept the neighbours indoors.
The street was empty of the usual cluster of women standing in doorways passing
the time of day, and the rough and tumble of the Court kids who were too young to
work or attend the school in
Kinder
Street
. Ruby was thankful that no one would see her or Billy as they half lifted, half
dragged Poppa from the cart outside number sixteen.
‘Ta,’ she said, with her hand
on the latch. ‘I can manage now.’
Billy pushed the door open
with the toe of his boot. ‘Don’t be
daft.’ Ignoring Ruby’s protests, he carried Aldo into the living room and set him
down on a bentwood chair. Granny Mole,
who had been dozing by the fireside, opened her eyes and Sarah Capretti leapt to
her feet, pale with alarm.
‘Aldo!’ Sarah threw her arms
around him, giving him a shake as his head lolled against her shoulder.
‘Aldo, can you hear me?’
‘Poppa had one of his funny
turns,’ Ruby said hurriedly, knowing that Mum had a very poor opinion of Billy.
‘And Billy give us a lift home on his cart.’
Sarah turned her head to glare
at Billy. ‘A gentleman takes his cap
off in the presence of ladies and, anyway, you’re not welcome here, Billy Noakes.’
‘Ta, Billy,’ Ruby said, embarrassed
by her mother’s rudeness. ‘You was
good to help out.’
‘I only done what anyone
else would have done,’ Billy said, tugging his cap off his head.
‘He don’t look to clever to me, though.’
‘He looks half dead to
me,’ Granny Mole said, huffing on her specs and polishing them on a corner of her
skirt. ‘But he’s been acting odd for
weeks. Gone a bit barmy he has. That’s
what comes of marrying an Eyetie. I
always told you it would end in grief, Sal.’
‘Shut up, Mum,’ Sarah
said, chafing Aldo’s hand. ‘Aldo,
love, it’s me, Sarah.’
Aldo’s eyelids fluttered
and opened. His mouth worked but no sound came from his pale lips.
‘You’ve had one of your turns,
ducks,’ Sarah said gently. ‘You sit there quiet-like and I’ll make you a nice cup
of tea.’
Billy backed towards
the front door. ‘I’d best be going
then.’
Sarah snapped to attention. ‘Don’t think I ain’t grateful but I’d
be obliged if you didn’t come here again.
We got our reputation to think of.’
‘Mum!’ Ruby felt the blood
rush to her cheeks; everyone knew that Billy was an undesirable who ducked and dived
and only kept one step ahead of the coppers, but he had done them a good turn. ‘That ain’t fair.’
‘Don’t you cheek me, my girl,’
Sarah said bristling.
‘It’s all right Mrs Capretti,
I’m going.’ Billy put his cap back on his head and was about to open the door when
a girl, almost identical in appearance to Ruby, rushed into the room bringing with
her a gust of cold, smoke-laden air.
‘Well now,’ Billy said, eyeing
her appreciatively. ‘If it ain’t the
other half of the pair.’
‘Shut the door, Rosetta.’ Sarah
picked up the brown teapot from the trivet by the fire, pointing the spout at Billy. ‘He’s just going.’
‘Hello, Billy.’ Rosetta
shot him a sidelong glance beneath long, black lashes, her full red lips curved
in a provocative smile. ‘And goodbye.
Pity you can’t stay.’
Knowing that Rosetta
had a soft spot for Billy and that Mum didn’t approve one bit, Ruby caught her twin
by the arm and dragged her into the room.
‘G’bye, Billy. You was a great help.’
‘Glad to have been of service,
ladies!’ Angling his head towards Rosetta, Billy flashed her a wink and a smile. ‘See you later, Miss Rosetta.’
‘What did he say?’ demanded
Granny. ‘I hates people what mumble.’
Sarah glared at Rosetta over
Aldo’s head as she held a cup of tea to his lips.
‘He’d better not have said nothing.
I don’t want either of you two mixing with the likes of Noakes.
He’s bad news and we’re respectable folk in
Tobacco Court
.’
‘Not like them in
Spivey
Street
,’ Rosetta said, with a suggestive wiggle of her hips.
‘Don’t be crude, Rose. Your father is a craftsman, a master
dollmaker. We’re not like them in
Spivey
Street
. We may not be rich but we got standards and don’t you girls forget it.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing!’
Rosetta threw off her wet shawl and tossed her bonnet onto the table.
‘Any tea left in the pot, Mum?
I’m bloody freezing.’
Aldo raised his head, scowling. ‘Wash your mouth out.
I’ll not have no child of mine using foul language.’
Rosetta’s bottom lip trembled.
‘Sorry, Poppa. I love you, Poppa.’
Aldo smiled weakly.
‘You’re a minx, my little Rosa.’
‘You’re better, Poppa.’ Ruby
flung herself down on her knees by his chair. ‘You had us worried sick.’
Aldo patted her hand.
‘It’s nothing. Just a bit of
colic.’ He pushed his tea away. ‘Can’t drink no more, Momma.
Tastes a bit funny.’
Sarah bridled.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my tea.
It’s you, old man. If you ate proper
then you wouldn’t go falling down faint and scaring us all to death.’
Aldo’s expression darkened and
he struggled to his feet. ‘I don’t
have to listen to you nagging me. I’m
fine now. I go back to the arches.’
Sarah pushed him back onto
the chair, holding him down with her considerable weight. ‘You’re going nowhere,
Aldo Capretti, except up to bed.’
Aldo cast an agonised glance
at Ruby. ‘Father Brennan!’
‘He’s out of his head with fever,’
said Granny, wagging her finger. ‘Thinks
he needs a priest to give him the last rites.’
Ruby knew instantly what was
worrying her father. Poor little baby
Jesus with the squashed face was not going to go down well with Father Brennan. She chewed the inside of her lip, wondering
if she could fix the damage on her own.
Although it wasn’t her choice, she had become quite competent at some of the aspects
of doll making. Poppa made the bodies
from linen stuffed with sawdust, the heads and limbs from papier mache, but he kept
to himself the secrets of mixing the wax with red and white lead in order to achieve
perfect skin pigmentation. Ruby had
learned a little about how to mould the wax but she was by no means an expert. Mainly
she did the finishing off, tinting the lips and cheeks, as well as pricking in the
eyelashes and the hair.
‘Priest indeed!’ Sarah
folded her arms across her ample bosom.
‘I dunno how a good Church of England girl like me got herself hitched to a blooming
papist.’ When no one ventured an explanation, she threw her hands up, rolling her
eyes to heaven. ‘What has Father Brennan
got to do with the price of fish, anyway?’
Giving Aldo’s clammy
hand a squeeze, Ruby said nothing; it was almost impossible to pull the wool over
her mother’s eyes but she knew there would be big trouble if Mum found out what
had happened at the arches.
They were relying on the money from Father Brennan; without it,
there would be no food on the table or coal for the fire.
‘Well?’ Sarah said, arms akimbo. ‘I’m waiting.
What have you two been up to?’
When Aldo did not offer
an explanation, Ruby was forced to reply. ‘Nothing, Mum.
Honest! It’s just that Father
Brennan’s coming to collect baby Jesus.’
‘And?’
‘And he won’t be best pleased
if he finds the door locked and no one there.
I’d better get back to the arches.’
‘No, I got to go myself.’ Aldo
got to his feet but doubled up, holding his belly.
His face twisted with pain and beads of sweat broke out on his brow. ‘Maybe I go later.’
‘Maybe you go bed,’ Sarah said,
and hitching his arm over her shoulder she guided him towards the staircase. Pausing
to catch her breath, she turned on Rosetta who was sitting at the table sipping
a cup of tea. ‘Ain’t you going back
to Bronski’s?’
‘No,’ Rosetta said, with a
defiant lift of her chin. ‘I ain’t
never going back to that place, not for nothing.
I done me last seam and snipped me last thread.’
Her knees bending beneath
Aldo’s weight, Sarah took a deep breath, her face flushing to the colour of a boiled
beetroot and her blue eyes popping from their sockets.
‘That’s what you think! I’ll
have a few words to say to you, my girl, once I’ve got your dad to his bed.’
‘I can manage on me own,’ Aldo
protested.
‘Save your breath, old man,
you’re weak as a baby.’ Half-lifting Aldo and half-dragging him, Sarah stomped up
the stairs, which creaked and groaned beneath their combined weight.
Rosetta grinned at Ruby. ‘I’m in for it now.’
‘Oh, Rose!
What you been and gone and done?’
‘You know I hate this place,’
Rosetta said, twisting a strand of her glossy black hair around her finger
‘I always told you I’d get out one day and now I got a chance
and I’m taking it.’
Glancing anxiously at
Granny Mole, who had nodded off now that the excitement was over, Ruby lowered her
voice. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Got me a job in the
chorus at the
Falstaff Music
Hall
in
Old Street
. Don’t tell Mum.’
‘You never!’
‘I blooming well did. I weren’t never going to meet a rich
bloke stuck in that filthy basement, choking on cotton fluff all day and ruining
me eyes.’
‘Mum will kill you when
she finds out.’
‘Well, she won’t, will
she? Not unless you tells her. I got Aunt Lottie on my side. She’s
the one what suggested I have a go.’
‘Shhh!’ Ruby put her
finger to her lips. ‘You know what Mum and Granny think of Aunt Lottie.’
‘I don’t care.
Lottie started in the chorus and she had rich admirers begging for her favours. Even the Prince of Wales, so she said.’
‘She drinks and she’s
gambled all her money away. Joe told
me so.’
‘Our big brother likes
a flutter too, but I bet he never told you that. He thinks Lottie’s a good sport
and so do I. Anyway, she says I got
talent.’ Rosetta jumped to her feet,
picking up her shawl and pulling a face.
‘Soaking! Lend us yours, Ruby, there’s
a love.’
‘You’re going back to
work?’
‘Not on your life! I’m
not hanging around here just to get it in the neck.
I’m going to Shoreditch to stay with Lottie.
It’s nearer the theatre and she won’t give me earache going on and on
all the time. Give us your shawl, please.’
‘No, sorry,’ Ruby said,
snatching her shawl from the stool by the fire.
‘I got to go back to the arches, right now.’
Rosetta pulled her mouth down
at the corners, pouting. ‘Aw, go on,
Ruby. You’ll be there in two ticks. I got to walk all the way to Shoreditch
and you wouldn’t want me to catch me death, now would you?’
Ruby hesitated; Rosetta
had always been the one to fall sick with chest complaints ever since they were
nippers and it was a long walk from Whitechapel to Shoreditch, especially on a bitter
cold and wet day like today. Reluctantly,
she swapped her almost dry grey shawl for Rosetta’s scarlet shawl that was damp
and studded with melting hailstones.
‘What’ll I tell Mum?’
‘You’ll think of something. You was always the clever one.’
Wrapping the shawl around her head, Rosetta did a triumphant little dance,
lifting her skirts to show a shapely leg even if it was clad in a thick and much-darned
woollen stocking.
‘I ain’t going to lie,’ Ruby
said, trying not to laugh at Rosetta’s antics.
Her smile fading, Rosetta
clutched Ruby’s hand. ‘You will look after Poppa, won’t you?
You’ll let me know if he gets any worse?’
‘Course I will, silly billy. And you won’t do nothing stupid, will
you, Rose?’
‘As if I would!’ Rosetta’s
irrepressible sense of fun bubbled into a wicked grin, banishing her fleeting look
of concern. ‘You know me, Ruby.’
‘Only too well.’ Flinging her
arms around Rosetta, Ruby hugged her. ‘Take care of yourself, Rose.’
The thump of the bedroom
door closing and the heavy thud of Sarah’s feet on the stairs put a stop to their
conversation and Rosetta was first out of the door, with Ruby hard on her heels. The sleet had turned into feathery
flakes of snow, swirling down from the sky as if a giant feather pillow had burst
above their heads. Rosetta was out
of sight almost before Ruby had closed the door behind her.
Putting her head down, she hurried back towards the arches, her feet slipping
and sliding on the slushy cobblestones.
As she left the relative security
of
Tobacco Court
for
Spivey
Street
, a gust of warm air, laced with the stench of stale beer and tobacco smoke, oozed
in a steamy cloud from the open door of the Nag’s Head.
A man lurched out of the pub, staggered and slid on the snow, colliding with
a lamp post and clinging to it for dear life as his feet shot from under him like
a puppet with its strings cut. He looked
so comical that Ruby had to cover her face with her shawl so that he wouldn’t see
her laughing but, all the same, she hoped he hadn’t hurt himself too badly. She crossed the street to avoid walking
past the disreputable row of boarded-up, four-storey houses that hadn’t seen a lick
of paint since the day they were built some seventy years ago.
Ragged, barefoot children hurled snowballs at each other, their
thin faces wizened and pinched making them look like small gnomes, their screams
and shrieks sounding more like feral animal snarls than human laughter.
Ruby knew better than to interfere when they fell upon each other,
snapping and snarling like wolf cubs.
She quickened her pace, pulling her shawl down over her brow to shield her eyes
from the snow. The east wind
brought with it the stomach-churning stink of boiling bones from the glue factory,
cancelling out the aroma of freshly baked bread from the bakehouse on the corner
of
Spivey
Street
. Ruby quickened her step and made
her way down
Cable
Street
to the arches. She half expected to
find Father Brennan standing outside, dusted with snow and fuming with righteous
anger having found the workshop closed, but mercifully there was no one waiting. Inside was barely warmer than outside
and Ruby’s fingers were numbed and stiff with cold.
The fire had gone out in the small brazier where Poppa melted the wax and
kept it malleable enough to mould.
She poked the cinders, hoping to resurrect enough heat to work with, but it was
no use. Her hands were cold, the wax
was even colder and, examining the damage to the once perfect face, Ruby realised
that it was beyond repair.
Sifting through a wooden
crate of dolls’ heads, Ruby came across one that had been made for a baby doll but
had been discarded by Poppa when it failed to meet his rigid standards.
Father Brennan would be here at any moment and Ruby was desperate.
Gritting her teeth, she prayed forgiveness for desecrating a holy object
as she cut off the original head and stuck on the new one, securing it with a thin
collar of wax that she had softened by slipping it down the front of her blouse. The daylight was fading fast
and Ruby lit a stub of a candle. She
could hear the unmistakeable brisk tread of Father Brennan’s leather-soled boots
slapping down on the pavement outside.
The gate screamed on its rusty hinges and he stood in the doorway, his black outline
absorbing the sliver of remaining light.
‘Well now, Ruby, my child. Have you something for me?’
Ruby’s hands were clammy with
cold sweat; she swallowed hard and held the tiny figure out towards the priest. ‘Yes, Father.’
‘You know that this should
have been ready a week ago. It’s really
not good enough.’
‘No, Father.’
‘And where is Aldo?’
‘He’s sick, Father.’
‘You don’t mean he been
on the drink, do you, my child?’
‘Oh no, Father.
Poppa doesn’t take a drop. He
couldn’t afford it even if he wanted to.’
Father Brennan tucked
baby Jesus under his arm and reached beneath his robe, pulling out a leather purse. ‘You’ll want payment, although I daresay
you would take it badly if I were to deduct money for late delivery.’
‘Yes, Father.
I mean, no, Father. I’m sorry,
Father.’
As he tugged at the purse
strings with fat, mottled fingers that reminded Ruby of raw beef sausages, the purse
flew from his grasp. With surprising agility, he swooped and caught it, but the
sudden movement dislodged the improvised head of baby Jesus and sent it flying across
the workshop floor. There was
a moment of complete silence; even the rumbling of cartwheels and the clip-clop
of horses’ hooves in the street outside seemed to stop, as Ruby and Father Brennan
watched the severed head rolling in the dust.
Father Brennan recovered
first with an almighty roar. ‘Sacrilege!’
Ruby scuttled across the floor
the retrieve the head. ‘It was an accident,
Father.’
Snatching it from her hand,
Father Brennan held the head up to the light.
‘You wicked girl! This is a
doll’s head. A shameful waxen travesty
of a human infant!’
‘Please, Father, let me explain.’
Father Brennan strode towards
the doorway. ‘I’ll be having words with your father.’
Ruby ran into the street after
him. ‘No, please don’t. Poppa is very
poorly. It was all my fault.’
Turning on her in a fury,
Father Brennan seized her hand, folding her icy fingers around the doll’s head. ‘Dwell on your sins, Ruby and when you
have had time to contemplate your wicked deeds, you will come to confession.’
‘But, Father!’
‘And don’t expect to receive
payment!’ Father Brennan strode off,
disappearing into a flurry of snow.
Ruby stared after him with a
sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that had nothing to do with the fact that
she had forgotten to eat her slice of bread and dripping at dinnertime.
She was not afraid of the penance that Father Brennan would hand
out in the confessional, but she was afraid of telling Mum that one of Poppa’s strange
outbursts of temper had been the cause of them losing money.
Ruby shivered as the snowflakes settling on her thin cotton blouse began
to melt, sending cold trickles down her neck.
She hurried back inside the workshop, blew out the candle and wrapped Rosetta’s
wet shawl around her head and shoulders, barely aware of the chill striking through
her bones. She would have to think
of some way to break the news so that it didn’t sound quite so bad; at least there
was the money due from the wholesalers for the dolls.
After all, they must sell well, it being so close to Christmas.
There must still be plenty of well-off folks prepared to spend good money
on their little daughters’ presents.
Ruby locked the gates and started
for home. Hopefully her concern for Poppa would mellow Mum’s attitude to the unfortunate
accident; after all, she wasn’t going to be upset that Father Brennan was put out. Mum had little or no time for popery
in general and Father Brennan in particular, neither had Granny Mole, who never
passed up an opportunity to have a go at Catholics, Eyeties, Russians and Jews and
in fact anybody whom she considered was a foreigner.
Ruby sighed and wrapped her shawl more tightly around her head.
Not only was she going to have to tell Mum that they weren’t going to be
paid for the Christ Child, but also she would have to break the news that Rosetta
had gone to stay with Aunt Lottie.
Perhaps the bit about dancing in the chorus at the Falstaff could wait a while.
It was dark by the time Ruby
reached
Spivey
Street
, passing the lamplighter as he lit the last lamp, filling the dark canyon with
oily pools of yellow light reflecting off the snow.
Halfway down the road, a large snowball caught Ruby smack between
her shoulder blades and another hit her square in the face, half blinding her. Surrounded by a crowd of jeering boys,
no more than six or seven years of age, Ruby blinked the snow out of her eyes, holding
her arm in front of her face as she was bombarded by a further hail of snowballs. One of the urchins tugged at her shawl,
tweaking it from her shoulders, and was about to make off with it when someone lifted
him clear off his feet, holding him by the scruff of his neck and shaking him so
that his skinny legs swung, kicking in mid-air.
‘No you don’t, sonny!’
Blurrily, Ruby saw her tormentors
scatter in all directions as Billy dropped the culprit onto a pile of slush.
‘Let’s get you home afore you
catches your death of cold,’ Billy said, retrieving her shawl from the wet ground.
He handed it to her, staring hard.
‘Red shawl. I was hoping I might bump
into Rosetta, but it’s Ruby, ain’t it?’
‘Same difference,’ Ruby
said, wiping the snow from her face and drawing herself up to her full height. ‘Anyway, it’s okay, ta.
I can get meself home. They
caught me unawares but they won’t get away with it a second time.’
‘You’re the stubborn
one, you are, Ruby,’ Billy said, clicking his tongue, to bring his old horse ambling
forward with the cart and, without a by your leave, he hoisted Ruby onto the driver’s
seat. ‘Wrap that around you.’ Billy
tossed her a hessian sack from beneath a pile of tea chests.
It smelt awful but at least
it was dry and Ruby huddled beneath it as Billy led the horse down
Spivey
Street
towards
Tobacco
Court
. Normally she would have leapt
back down again, thanked him politely and gone on her way, but Ruby was wet, cold
and too worried about what she was going to say to Mum to act proud and independent.
Thankfully, Billy didn’t seem to want to chat or to ask questions and, when they
neared
Tobacco
Court
, she called out to him to stop. ‘I
can walk the rest, ta.’
‘Whoa, there, Billy grinned
at her beneath his peaked cap. ‘Afraid
the neighbours might talk, ducks?’
‘No, I was just saving
you the trouble, that’s all.’
‘Don’t worry
They all know as how you wouldn’t give the likes of me the time of day. Now your sister Rosetta, well she’s
different.’
‘And what do you mean
by that?’
‘She’s a bobby-dazzler. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’
‘You keep your eyes off
me sister. You keep away from her.’’
Billy said, pulling gently on the reins until the horse clopped to a halt outside
number sixteen. ‘Strikes me that your
sister has a mind of her own.’
‘Rosetta is a good girl. You got a bad reputation, Billy.
Leave her alone.’
‘That’s right,’ Billy
said, grinning. ‘I’m a bad lot.’
Ruby jumped off the
cart. ‘I ain’t joking.
You steer clear of Rosetta.’
‘Maybe I will and maybe
I won’t.’ Billy leapt down from the driver’s seat and patted the horse’s neck. ‘You
done well, old boy. We’ll be home soon.’
He went to the back of the cart and hoisted a familiar-looking tea chest
onto his shoulder, dumping it on the pavement.
‘Couldn’t sell your dolls, ducks.
Hope you wasn’t relying on the bees and honey.’
Ruby’s heart sank into
her high-button boots but she held her head proudly erect; she wasn’t going to give
Billy the satisfaction of knowing just how much it mattered.
‘How do I know you took them to the wholesalers?’
‘I don’t cheat on friends,
Ruby. I took them all right, but they
didn’t want ’em. Said it was too late,
the shops had bought their Christmas stock and didn’t want no more.
Hard luck, girl.’
‘Hard luck?’ Ruby stared at
him aghast. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Eh?’ Pushing his cap to the
back of his head, Billy stared at her.
‘What’s up?’
‘Take them away, please, Billy.
I can’t explain now, but just keep them for us until I can think of a way out of
this mess.’
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