Copper Kingdom (32 page)

There was no point in wallowing in bitterness, she told herself briskly, she must go downstairs, cook Dad his breakfast. He was sure to be hungry as he inevitably was after a Saturday night spent drinking.

She bit her lip. Davie had not been the same to her since she'd returned home with her blouse torn and confessed to him that she had been with a man. Her back still ached with the bruises inflicted by the strong leather belt her father had used on her. Worse than the beating was the fact that her father had condemned her without a fair hearing. But then how could she ever justify what she had done? She, like many a woman before her, had fallen in love with a man who was merely trifling with her.

She had been a gullible fool and should have heeded Katie's warning, for hadn't the Irish girl told her that men like Sterling wanted only one thing from a working girl and that was to bed her. She must have appeared naive, even stupid, believing that he really cared for her. Well, she had learned her lesson now and would not be caught again.

She hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen and took her apron from the line, tying it firmly around her waist. There was the fire to light and the ashes to riddle and sticks to fetch in from the yard all before she could boil up the kettle for a cup of tea.

She stood for a moment in the silence of the sunwashed room. Since her mother had died, there had been nothing but change and Mali knew she could never go back to being the girl she once was.

She longed for her mother in that instant, ached to be comforted, held in warm caring arms. She needed a kind voice to tell her that she had not been a bad girl, simply a foolish one.

But there was no point in wanting what she could not have. She must be strong, stand on her own two feet, for she was alone now.

She set to work and soon had the fire glowing behind the blackleaded bars of the grate. She carried the kettle to the back yard and filled it to the brim for Dad liked endless cups of tea when he had salt fish for breakfast. At the other side of the hob, she put the fish on to boil and wiping her hands in her apron, she went outside and strolled along Copperman's Row.

She looked at the familiar cobbled road as though she had never seen it before. Dai End House was sitting in his doorway, his hair slicked down, his collar shiny white, and he played his accordion as though he was in love with the instrument.

The children had vanished from the streets now for soon they would be scrubbed and dressed in Sunday-best clothes and sent off to church or chapel with Bibles under their arms, each one of them eager to earn for their goodness a small picture of the Lord suffering little children to come unto Him.

Mali told herself she was growing vinegary and bitter but for all that, the chapel at Pentre Estyll would not see her today, or any other Sunday for that matter.

A policeman came into sight wheeling his bicycle, his face red, for the day was growing warmer. Her heart dipped as she realised that the man walking beside him was Sterling Richardson. He was hatless and was wearing a light jacket and he looked so handsome that pain exploded within her like a thousand fragments of shattered glass.

Hurriedly, she returned to the cottage, slamming the door behind her. It took her a few moments to regain her breath for her heart was pumping as though she had been running.

She heard sounds of movement from upstairs and knew that Dad was rousing himself. She hurried to the hob and stirred the salt fish but her mind was not on her task.

‘Sterling.' She whispered the name softly, reliving the way he had held her in his arms, taken possession of her so tenderly that she could have pledged her very life that he loved her. Suddenly tears were brimming over and running down her cheeks.

The stinging cold of the water she dashed on her reddened eyes seemed to bring her to her senses. What use was crying? What was done was done. She set out the plates for breakfast, determined to act as if nothing was wrong.

Davie came into the room and stood staring at her uncomfortably. He moved to the fire and peered down into the pot.

‘Ah, there's lovely that smells, Mali.' His tone was conciliatory, for they had not spoken to each other in days. Mali turned to him, smiling tremulously, and he rubbed at the roughness of the bristles on his chin, his green eyes not meeting hers.

‘There's something I've got to say to you.' He stood stiffly now, hands thrust into trouser pockets. Mali shook her head pleadingly.

‘Don't go on at me about how bad I am, Dad,' she whispered. ‘I can't bear it if you scold me any more.'

‘No, it's not that.' He coughed in embarrassment. ‘And I'm sorry I took my belt to you, Mali, first time in my life I ever hit you.' He shook his head to and fro, his brow furrowed, and Mali went to him, her arm around his big neck, silent in her anguish, longing for comfort from him.

After a moment, he put her away from him. ‘I got to tell you, Mali.' He swallowed hard. ‘Rosa is coming to live with us. It's only fair, mind, for I've made her promise to stay off the streets, see.'

‘What?' Mali could hardly believe her ears. ‘That no-good flossy living under my roof, oh Dad, how could you?' Mali sank down into the kitchen chair as Davie put his fingers warningly to his lips.

‘Hush, she's upstairs now, getting dressed.' Davie had the grace to look sheepish. He moved over to the window and stared outside though it was clear he was seeing nothing.

‘A man gets lonely, Mali,' he said. ‘Not only for bedding a woman but for a lot of other things besides. Try to understand, will you, girl?'

‘It's “girl” again now is it?' Mali felt her anger grow and rise within her so that she could hardly contain it. ‘And don't talk to me about understanding because I'll never understand how you could put a flossy in my mother's place.'

She swallowed hard. ‘What else is Rosa going to give you but bedding, tell me that? Is she going to cook and clean for you and wash your clothes? Well I'll say this for you, Dad, you don't waste no time in comforting yourself with whatever is going, a woman any man could buy for a few shillings. Is that what you are going to bring into this house as your wife?'

‘That's enough.' Davie's voice was harsh. ‘It's my choice and I'll stick to it and if you don't like it, there's the door.' He turned swiftly as she gasped in horror. ‘I don't want it to be like that, Mali, but if you make me choose then it's got to be her. Look,' he spoke pleadingly, ‘you'll be gone soon anyway, married to some respectable boy, if you don't spoil your chances that is. I'll be alone then or haven't you thought of that? Your husband won't want me hanging around that's for sure.'

Mali picked up her shawl and draped it over her shoulders. ‘Right then, get that whore out of bed and let her cook the breakfast and bring in the coal and sweep the floor.' She could hardly see, so blinded with anger and pain was she. ‘I'm going out to think things over.' She paused in the doorway. ‘And don't worry, I'll find somewhere else to live for it's certain I won't share my kitchen with that – that prostitute!'

Once outside, she hurried away towards the canal and so did not see Sterling go to the door of the cottage and knock loudly. She was blind to everything but her own outrage and pain and it was as though the whole world had turned against her.

She sat for a long time watching the sunlight dancing on the turgid waters of the canal and so absorbed was she in her own thoughts that she failed to see Katie come up alongside her and settle on the grass, legs straight out in front of her.

‘What's wrong, Mali?' Katie's soft voice startled her and Mali looked up quickly, unable to conceal the tears in her eyes.

‘Ah, love, what is it?' Katie's voice was low. ‘I've never seen you cry before, not even when your ma died.'

Mali swallowed hard. ‘I don't know, Katie, perhaps it's all my fault but there's so much gone wrong I don't know if I can explain.'

‘Well take your time, there's no one hurrying you and that's for sure.' Katie pushed the shawl from her head and her red hair gleamed rich and bright in the sunlight.

‘Dad's brought Rosa to live in our cottage,' Mali said at last. ‘Going to stay with us for as long as she keeps off the streets, isn't that just fine? A whore for a mother, a flossy who has known nothing but men since she was twelve years of age.'

Katie was silent, plaiting the fringes of her shawl together, her hands busy, her eyes staring downwards.

‘Well don't you think that's awful?' Mali demanded, amazed that her friend wasn't lifting her eyes to heaven in horror.

Katie shrugged. ‘There's worse things than that, Mali, and sure I tink Rosa only put the tin hat on things. There's something that hurts you much more than that now isn't there, do you want to tell me all or are you goin' to let it fester like a sore inside your guts?'

Mali's shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, there's more,' she said. ‘Much more, but I don't know how to say it.'

‘I don't think you need to, I can read it in your eyes, you've lain in Top Meadow, or somewhere like it and with that boss man Sterling Richardson.'

Mali did not attempt to deny it. She shook her head dumbly and it was some moments before she could speak.

‘I believed he loved me.' Her voice seemed to come from a great distance. ‘When he took me in his arms it was all so . . .' she shook her head helplessly. ‘Well, I thought he meant to marry me. I should have had more sense.' She threw a piece of twig in the water and watched it spinning aimlessly in the slowly flowing water.

‘If sense came with love there'd be no one making fools of themselves,' Katie sighed. ‘This happens all the time, Mali, you're not the first and sure won't be the last to be taken in by a handsome face.'

The two girls stared at each other for a long moment and then Katie put her arm round Mali's shoulder, hugging her close.

‘I should have put a stop to it when I saw Mr Richardson driving you away in that fine automobile of his. I might have guessed he wouldn't take you straight home, not him. But why did he run out on you so quick then?'

Mali closed her eyes. ‘He said he was going to get me a blouse, this was after . . . after we'd been together.' She lifted her head and looked desperately at her friend.

‘But Katie, while he was with me, he was so wonderful, I can't tell you what it was like.'

‘They can put on a fine enough act when they want something.' Katie spoke sadly. ‘Offer you the sun, moon and stars if it gets them what they want.'

‘I expect you're right,' Mali said softly. ‘At any rate he didn't come back even though I waited till well past midnight.'

‘Just a minute,' Katie said thoughtfully, ‘wasn't that the night of the blow-up in the works? For sure you couldn't expect him to turn a blind eye to something bad like that. He had to leave you, don't you see?'

‘I've thought about it a hundred times or more,' Mali said, ‘and he had plenty of time to come back, hours and hours. If he'd wanted to explain to me that night he could have, the Mackworth Arms is not the end of the earth.'

‘But Mali,' Katie's hand was upon her shoulder, ‘when men have a cause to fight for they forget their women, we are only part of their life, though to us they are everything. I'm not excusing him, for didn't I warn you away from the man myself? But I think you are being too harsh. Listen to him, wait for his story to be told and for sure you'll feel different about him then.'

A small glimmer of hope came alive in Mali's heart. It was after all only two days since the explosion in the works, there had been a great deal of coming and going behind the company gates. Why, even Davie had been laid off shift for a time while the sheds were put to rights. She sighed heavily and then suddenly smiled.

‘At least telling you about it has made me feel better.' She lay back on the grass, her hands behind her head, the warm sun beating down upon her face.

‘I can't say I'm happy exactly but I feel more content now to wait and see if he comes for me.'

Katie was silent and Mali turned to look at her, for the first time really seeing her. The Irish girl was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes.

‘What about you?' she asked softly. ‘How are things between you and Will?' She saw Katie shake her head.

‘I'm a worse fool than ever you'll be, Mali for I know the man is using me, coming sniffing round when he wants his oats and leaving me alone when he's had enough. Treats me like a puppy dog so he does, a pet to be put in a kennel when he grows tired of it.'

‘I'm thoughtless and selfish, so wrapped up in my own problems that I've not considered yours,' Mali said regretfully.

Katie shrugged. ‘I think soon it'll come to a head, either I'll tell him to go to hell and back and see if I care or
he'll
give
me
the boot.'

She pushed back her hair. ‘I think he's caught in some mischief, he's been so ill-tempered lately that he's been bitin' my head off whenever I open my mouth and I'm the bigger fool for worryin' about him.'

Mali laughed suddenly though there was little humour in her eyes. ‘It seems we're both barking up the wrong tree, Katie,' she said. ‘I think it would be better if we were to forget the pair of them, put them right out of our minds. How's about if we go for a walk somewhere, have our tea in that little shop near the beach, it's open on Sundays isn't it?'

‘Hey listen to the rich girl, got that much pay out of old Mr Waddington did you? Well I bet you're blessing the day you started on at the laundry, you've risen to office girl from boiler stoker and put Sally Benson in her place in just a few months.'