Birmingham Rose (6 page)

The two girls soon left them behind. Rose was never comfortable when Diana came to her house and it didn’t happen very often. She couldn’t help feeling ashamed of the cramped, filthy conditions they lived in. Whenever Diana came the smells drifting from the toilets in the yard always came over stronger than usual.

Diana was always very polite. Rose had never seen her bat an eyelid at the newspaper instead of a cloth on the table or the cockroaches scuttling busily about on the floor and walls, their antennae twitching. She’d only once jumped and squeaked when one landed clumsily on a slice of bread she was eating. Dora had nearly turned herself inside out apologizing.

‘Don’t you hate coming to our house?’ Rose asked her. ‘Why would you want to, with us being so rough and ready?’ She felt humbled by Diana’s tolerance, whereas if her friend had been haughty or critical Rose would have leapt like a wildcat to defend her family and how they were forced to live.

‘Come on,’ Rose said as they scurried towards town. ‘It isn’t half a relief to get out, I can tell you. My mom’s been on at me all morning: “Rose – blacklead the grate; Rose – Violet’s gone and wet the floor, get down and wipe it up will you, Rose; Rose – go and get us some fish and chips for our lunch!” Anyone’d think there was no one else in the house ’cept me.’

It always took the two girls a while to get used to being together.

‘We could go on the tram,’ Diana suggested breathlessly as they rushed along.

‘You mad?’ Rose looked shocked. ‘What d’you want to go wasting money on that for? It’s not much of a walk.’

‘All right.’ Diana smiled. ‘I’ll treat you to a cup of tea then.’

‘You don’t know you’re born, you don’t.’ But Rose was delighted. It was a huge treat to go to Charlie Miles’ in the Market Hall or one of the places in the Bull Ring market and sit drinking tea like two grown-up ladies.

‘Eh, I haven’t told you,’ Rose said as they turned into Bradford Street. ‘Mrs Smith from number three – you know, Mrs Cut Above – they had to take her to the hospital a couple of days ago. They found her swigging back a bottle of bleach at her kitchen table. Her sons walked in and saved her, before she could take’ – Rose struggled to remember the right words – ‘the whole lethal dose. That’s what everyone said. She had to go and have her stomach pumped out. They put a great thick rubber tube in your mouth and pour water into it till you bring it all back. Mrs Pye told us ’cos it happened the once to her brother.’

‘Gosh, how horrible!’ Diana said. ‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s home now. She had a bit of a go at Geraldine’s mom this morning. Called her an Irish trollop, so I think she’s back to her usual.’

Diana stored up this information to tell her father, who waited for the latest instalment of life in Catherine Street with great interest and shook his head in a concerned sort of way whenever she told him anything.

The long street swept them downhill towards the bustling heart of Brum. On either side of them loomed the tall, soot-coated sides of factories from which came all kinds of sounds of hammering and drilling, and the churning of machinery and shouting filled the air round them.

‘Let’s see if we can spot Sam,’ Rose said.

They stopped by the grating over the basement factory where Sam had found his first job. The firm produced galvanized buckets and baths, and all day the sounds of banging and clanging went on as if they were fastening on manacles in hell.

‘It’s so noisy!’ Diana exclaimed.

‘Hell of a row, isn’t it?’ Rose peered down, trying to spot her brother’s brown hair and pale, stolid face, but she couldn’t see him.

‘C’mon Di,’ she said, straightening up again. ‘Let’s get to Jamaica Row for the cag-mag and then we can go over to the Market Hall.’

Bradford Street was crowded with horses and carts and motor vehicles, some stopping for pick-ups or deliveries outside the factories or moving to and from Smithfield, the main meat market at the lower end of the street. You could see the sides of meat hanging up there as you went past. In the road, piles of horse manure steamed in the cold.

Carrying the bag of cag-mag, the cheapest off-cuts of meat, the girls gradually pushed their way through the chaos of the Saturday afternoon crowds into Spiceal Street, past the slim spire of St Martin’s and into the Bull Ring.

Diana took hold of Rose’s sleeve. ‘Better not lose you,’ she said. ‘Go on – you lead the way.’

Rose felt the usual excitement that welled up once she was inside the market. There was so much to look at. She could hear a band playing, and the delicious smell of roasting meat wafted from the eating houses across from the stalls. Their windows were lit and the glass all steamed up, so you could only see hazy figures moving about inside or sitting at the tables. Outside one a sign said, ‘Beef & 2 veg. 11d.’

The market was packed with people swarming around the stalls, which were heaped with fruit, vegetables and flowers. The vendors were competing to see who could shout the loudest to sell their wares.

‘Only a penny the cabbage!’

‘Get your oranges here – fresh juicy oranges!’

They got tangled up in a knot of people all standing round some attraction. It was the strong man. He had been tied up tightly in his chains and a sack dropped over his head. They could see him struggling inside like an animal in a snare.

‘He always gets out, you know,’ some know-it-all in the crowd was saying.

‘There’s got to be a trick in it somewhere. I don’t believe in all this rigmarole,’ another voice said.

But mostly people stood gasping with admiration watching the man emerge, panting and red in the face as he tore the sack off his head, his face and bare arms shining with sweat.

When Rose looked at Diana she saw that her friend’s cheeks had turned quite white and she was taking in fast, shallow breaths.

‘I could never do that, never. I can’t bear anything over my head. It makes me want to scream and kick.’

‘Come on. Forget it,’ Rose said, pulling her away. ‘Let’s go and find something a bit more cheerful for you.’

Round the statue of Nelson in the middle of the market was the place where people always arranged to meet. Probably because they knew this, the Sally Army had set up with their brass band and tambourines. In the background somewhere a man’s voice was shouting, ‘He who is without sin – he, and only he – shall cast the first stone!’

From the other side of the statue Rose heard the music which she always enjoyed most in the market.

‘Come on.’ She took Diana’s arm. ‘If this don’t cheer you up then nothing will.’

It was the accordion players. There were two of them, trying hard to compete with the Sally Army, and by the look of things succeeding. The men had a certain snappiness of style even in their old black trousers and jackets, and their black hair shone with oil even in the grey winter light. One of them had a moustache. As they played they both tapped their feet and the one with the moustache sang to some of the numbers.

‘Can you hear what he’s saying?’ Rose shouted in Diana’s ear.

‘No,’ she shouted back. ‘It’s Italian. They’re from Italy.’

‘You know bloomin’ everything, don’t you?’ Rose bawled back at her with a grin.

The two girls stood for quite a time watching the players. Rose thought nothing could ever make her feel so happy as the sound of those dancing tunes. They stood there so long that in the end the one with the moustache danced over to them, inclining first one shoulder and then the other as his fingers carried on playing with astonishing ease and speed. Rose saw the hairs of his moustache, and his shining brown eyes. He sang a long note on some word that sounded like ‘maree’. Rose and Diana put their hands up to their mouths and moved away giggling.

They were carried along by the crowd, smelling potatoes baking on a cart and crushed cabbage leaves under their feet and cigarette smoke which seemed stronger on the cold air. There were hundreds of stalls in the Market Hall, selling everything under the sun. They liked to go and see the great crabs and lobsters, bright and astonishing in their shells, and all the piles of toffee and peanut brittle.

‘Oh look,’ Diana said. She pointed to a big banner. ‘It’s a hundred this week!’

‘Market Hall Centenary Celebrations’, the sign read. ‘February 11–18’, and on each side in bigger print, ‘1835–1935’.

But it was Diana’s turn to see her friend turn pale and serious. At the foot of the steps, leaning against the brick banister, was a man. His face was dark with several days of stubble, and round his neck, hanging from a length of cord, hung a cut-out tray made of cardboard. On it lay a few boxes of Swan Vesta matches. Rose stared at his face, tears stinging her eyes at the despair she saw written in every sag of his rough cheeks. His clothes hung limply, one sleeve of his greatcoat pinned away at the back. Many a night that coat had provided an extra cover on Rose and Grace’s bed. The rough, familiar crutch stood against the wall beside him.

Rose stood watching her father, the tears running slowly down her cheeks. Bruises from the beating round the head that he had given her were only just fading. But now, seeing him here away from home, she pitied him for what he so obviously was – a wreck of a man. Her pity was partly for the squalor, the monotony of his life, but mostly it was for the way he had been broken by things too terrible to tell of, that only spoke themselves night after night in his dreams.

‘Rose, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ Rose turned away quickly, realizing he might see them.

‘Come on. You were grinning like a Cheshire cat just a minute ago. What’s up?’

‘I’m not going to turn round again in case he sees,’ Rose said sniffing. ‘But look, by the steps. It’s my dad.’

Diana turned her head and saw Sid’s desolate figure. Then she took Rose’s hand, and her friend felt a coin being pressed into it.

‘Let’s go and get the poor old sod a cup of tea.’ The two girls smiled at each other, Rose more in surprise at Diana’s unaccustomed language than because she thought it was a particularly good idea.

She approached him with the tea, feeling nervous and awkward, and handed it to him saying, ‘Here y’are, Dad. You must be cold.’

Sid roused himself, looked at her without any apparent surprise and said, ‘Aar. Thanks Gracie.’

‘I’m ROSE,’ she yelled at him. ‘You silly old sod.’ And she pulled Diana away, the moment of pity swept away by her anger.

Diana followed her as she stamped her way across the Bull Ring in her worn-out boots. ‘Hey, Rose,’ she said, running behind to catch up. ‘You didn’t have to go and tell him what I said about him to his face!’

Rose turned, for a moment still annoyed, and then burst out laughing. The two of them linked arms and moments later Rose was crying with laughter instead of vexation.

‘Well, that’s the last time I try and do anything for him,’ she said defiantly. ‘Now, how about that cup of tea we was going to have ourselves?’

Dora’s labour pains began in the middle of a cold night in March.

She called up the stairs, ‘Sam, Sam! Go and fetch Old Joan – the babby’s coming!’ Sam shot out of bed and down to the outside door.

Rose scurried around. Her heart seemed more awake than her head and it was beating noisily. As she threw slack on the fire, which had almost gone out, Grace and the other children trooped in and Grace started to get them all organized.

‘You come and sit here George, and Vi can sit on my lap. You can see all my pictures. Now, this one’s Queen Mary in the royal box at Ascot . . .’

‘Oh, not again,’ George groaned.

Sid was still asleep and Dora said she couldn’t see much use in waking him. She and Rose prepared Rose and Grace’s bed in the attic together. They stripped off the bedclothes so the sheets wouldn’t spoil, tucked the crackly newspaper round the mattress and spread sheets of it out on the floor.

‘This one’s a boy,’ Dora said as she finally pulled herself up on to the bed. She looked exhausted already.

‘How d’you know?’

‘I just do,’ she said, leaning her head back against the wall so the tendons stood out in her scrawny neck. ‘I always know, by the end.’

Rose suddenly felt shy, helping her mother with something so intimate. Before, she’d always been whisked off out of the way like the younger ones, and Old Lady Gooch or Gladys Pye called in to help.

Dora watched her daughter’s brisk, practical movements and her serious face as she tucked the paper in neatly round the mattress. She knew Rose had recently started to come on of a month and had therefore become a woman.

‘D’you want to stay and help with this one?’ she asked. ‘I think you’re old enough. And Mrs Freeman’ll need someone to give her a hand.’

Rose nodded. ‘All right then.’

The labour progressed swiftly. Old Joan, who was not in fact very old but enormously fat, puffed and panted around almost as much as Dora. She pushed Sam off downstairs saying, ‘This ain’t no place for a lad. Go and make us all a cuppa tea, eh?’

‘Just help yourself, won’t you?’ Dora said sarcastically. She knew she needed this woman, and she didn’t want to fork out for the doctor as well. But the midwife was notorious for being lazy and sponging off people. She also laid out the dead on occasion and it was rumoured that things had gone missing from the rooms where the bodies were lying.

Rose at first found the sound of her mother’s cries frightening. She started to sweat and she felt sick. She had only heard this from at least one floor away before. But between each bout of grunting and moaning Dora got back to normal and said, ‘It’s all right Rose. The babby’ll not be long now.’

Rose ran up and down with water and cloths and alternated between her horrified fascination with the shadowy glimpses she kept getting of her mother’s private parts and with the great coils of fat embedded round Joan Freeman’s neck and arms and waist. Every inch of her looked as if she was padded with lard.

Joan seemed completely unmoved by what Dora was going through. She sat down on the edge of the boys’ bed, her huge lap spreading across much of it. She drew her knitting out of her bag and sat in the candlelight with her head resting on her chins, pulling the brown wool round her stubby fingers.