Mill Town Girl Read online

  ‘He did get what he deserved!’

  ‘But if the court had known you were a loose woman . . . If they knew that you were expecting his child . . .’ He broke off, his face distorted with bitterness.

  ‘And just what did you think I’d do Danny? Did you think for a minute I’d go around in sackcloth and ashes?’ she said in as calm a tone as she could manage. ‘Did you think I’d take myself and Jane off to the workhouse? Go on the parish? Ask for charity? Me? Me that’s never asked anything from anyone in my life? You underestimated me, you and Patrick.’

  Danny was running out of steam. When he spoke again his expression was changed; it was as if he despaired of making her understand. ‘He wants to come back,’ he said. ‘He has a right to see his child.’

  Carrie fought down the temper that was near to surfacing again. She always wanted to strike out when she was angry, it was something she’d always done. To calm herself she took off her glasses and began to clean the thick lenses with a corner of her apron. She put them on slowly and returned her gaze to her brother-in-law. ‘He’ll never have sight of the child. I want nothing to do with him,’ she said.

  She saw a look cross Danny’s face. Was it disappointment? Or relief? She neither knew nor cared. ‘Go to Manchester. Meet him out and take him to Dublin. When you’re there you can go to the Irish Linen Bank. I’ll have two hundred pounds transferred to an account there, dependent on a signed pledge that Patrick Kennedy will never set foot in England again. There’ll be no money without the pledge. He’ll make no protest. He’ll take the money and sign if I know Patrick Kennedy. It will set him up in business. Him and Bridget. We’ll be shot of him for ever.’

  There was a moment’s silence whilst he considered it. ‘Oh, but you’re a hard woman,’ he said at last but the fight had gone out of him. His eyes were no longer challenging. He loved Rose as if she were his own; he didn’t want to lose her. Danny was glad she was taking the initiative. He’d been unable to stand up to his brother.

  ‘I have to be a hard woman, Danny,’ she said slowly. ‘If we were all as soft as you and Jane we’d have mud thrown in our faces. The whole world would know. It’s me who keeps everybody right.’ She got up from the table and gave him a cold look. ‘And it’s me that’s telling you to send your brother back where he belongs.’

  ‘You’ll tell me nothing. Don’t think for a minute that I’m backing down. You’ve shown your hand. I’ve taken note,’ he said, ‘but if it comes to a clash of wills and I don’t have to consider anyone else, you’ll have met your match.’

  She took it to be a fine show of bravado. She walked past him and reached for her hat, which she’d placed on top of the alcove cupboard, and pulled it down firmly over her ears, not bothering to check in the mirror how it looked. At this moment she didn’t care about her looks.

  ‘Now I’ll go and see Douglas McGregor. I’ll tell him to cancel that room at the Swan,’ she said as she left the room.

  Jane was pacing the hall, the baby clutched to her. ‘It’s all right, Jane. I’m not changing anything,’ Carrie said as she pushed her arms into the sleeves of her cloth coat. ‘Danny’s going to give his brother money to set up in Ireland. We’ll carry on as before.’

  The rain hadn’t let up. Her glasses made it look as if there were haloes round the gas lamps. The clock on the new factory in Chester Road said nine o’clock. Douglas McGregor would be behind the bar of the Swan. She’d never been into a bar. Drunkenness was the devil and all his works made manifest. But she’d seen plenty of drunken men. She wasn’t afraid. Tomorrow wouldn’t do.

  Some of the shops were lit up but Carrie didn’t stop to look. As far as she was concerned, those who left the lights on at night were putting it on their prices. Her footsteps made a hollow ringing sound on the flagstones as she hastened to the Swan. She had to know if Patrick had told Douglas McGregor that he was Rose’s father. Douglas McGregor had visited him in prison. Why waste time and sympathy on a criminal? ‘They’re all Roman Catholics,’ she told herself. ‘They can forgive anything: lying, stealing and that horrible sin adultery.’

  The greengrocer’s had had electric light put in she noticed as she passed the shop. Lights blazing away and nothing to look at; just a few empty baskets and some ‘everlasting’ flowers.

  She told Jane and Danny not to waste electricity. ‘Leave it off if you’re not doing anything. You can talk just as well in the dark,’ she always said. In Churchwall Street they only had gas and that only in the kitchens.

  Had she been rash in saying she’d give Patrick Kennedy two hundred pounds? Would he have gone for fifty pounds? No. He wouldn’t. And she would not be surprised if Danny Kennedy stayed in Dublin with him for he’d never have a chance of that much money again.

  They would think it was all she had. They would think it was all she’d made from the sale of the houses. For there wasn’t a soul who knew just how well she’d done, getting the houses finished off cheaply and selling them at a good price. When the court awarded her the property, she’d gone, cap in hand, to Douglas McGregor and asked him to arrange a loan for her. It had proved impossible to borrow money on her own account as a woman with no real assets. She had needed to borrow to finish the houses. And Douglas had done it. He had taken a risk for her and gone guarantor.

  Perhaps he had felt guilty for sending them to her in the first place. Perhaps it was because they were all Roman Catholics – they looked after their own. But she had sold the two houses in Lincoln Drive; Douglas and the other tenant had bought theirs. She’d finished building the others in Wells Road, sold four of them and paid the loan back in less than twelve months. And she still had the rent money coming in from the other houses in Wells Road.

  Two hundred pounds was a lot of money but it wasn’t a quarter of what she’d made. Carrie smiled grimly to herself as she turned into the market square.

  There were a lot of men about, loafing around the door of the Swan and leaning against the pillars of the town hall opposite. One or two were drunk already. A tall fellow, about twenty years old, one of the Baker lads, was in her way.

  Carrie stopped in front of him and lifted her umbrella. ‘Get off the step!’ she ordered in her loudest voice. She knew he’d obey, if only from surprise. He moved aside quickly.

  Douglas saw Carrie Shrigley pushing her way through the crowded bar, elbowing old men aside without apology. She had a determined look about her. The men fell back as she advanced, such was her battling air.

  ‘Miss Shrigley? What will you be wanting?’ A smile broke on his face as she stood facing him over the wet counter. ‘You’ll no be after a dram, I take it?’

  ‘Don’t try to make a fool of me, Douglas McGregor,’ she answered sharply. ‘I want to talk to you. In the back. Where it’s private.’

  A few of the men sniggered. ‘All right,’ Douglas said quickly, before she could start an argument. ‘I didn’t mean to make fun of you, Miss Shrigley. Follow me.’ He lifted the flap to allow her through and went ahead into the back parlour. The young barman could manage without his help.

  ‘Well now,’ he said when the door was closed behind them and she stood facing him; a formidable woman. Her coat reached to just above her surprisingly fine ankles, flaming red hair escaped from under the close-fitting bat of brown felt, her hands clutched a large shopping bag and an umbrella, and she peered at him through distorting, thick lenses in a steel spectacle frame.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re giving a room to Patrick Kennedy?’

  ‘Aye. I’ve had a letter . . .’

  ‘From prison? From Strangeways?’ Her speaking voice was high-pitched, irate and nothing like the pure, clear soprano of her singing voice. This edginess grated on Douglas but he tried not to let her see that it rattled him. ‘He’ll be a free man, Miss Shrigley. He’s done his punishment,’ he told her in a reasonable tone.

  She was pink-faced now and evidently very angry. ‘And you’ll let him come back? A man that�
�s thieved and robbed in the town? A gaolbird?’

  Douglas saw that she would not listen to reason. ‘As I recall he was sentenced for fraud and false pretences. Not theft,’ he said.

  ‘What’s fraud? What’s false pretences if it’s not robbing? He talked me out of my house. He robbed me of my good name; promised anything to get his hands on my money.’ She gripped her bag, white-knuckled with anger.

  Douglas interrupted her swiftly. ‘He’s been tried. He’s paid his penalty and now he must be forgiven. And helped,’ he told her. ‘I know you’re still bitter but you’ve suffered nae worse than wounded pride,’ he said. He was starting to lose patience with her. ‘Och! Men have been known to behave worse than Patrick Kennedy has,’ he added.

  He went on, ‘He could have played you false, tried to seduce you. He might even have pretended he wanted to marry you.’ It was a cruel thing to say to a woman, especially a woman with whom, Douglas believed, no man would ever want to dally. Most men, like himself he believed, preferred soft little clinging women. He went on, to make her see the truth, ‘If yon fellow had been a villain, he’d have gone to any lengths without a thought.’ He hoped it would make her think a little harder about showing a spot of charity to one who had only wronged her over money.

  He saw a look pass over Carrie Shrigley’s face at his words, almost a look of relief, though he hadn’t thought his preaching tolerance and forgiveness was having effect. It made him go on. ‘But the truth of the matter, Miss Shrigley, is that the Swan is a tavern and taverns have legal obligations. I’d be breaking the law myself if I refused lodging to a traveller. So there you have it.’

  ‘Yes,’ she countered, ‘and your faith would make you take him if the law didn’t, wouldn’t it? You’d not turn away a Catholic who’d had absolution.’

  Douglas would not put up with her any longer though he’d never been a man to gossip or take sides. ‘If you want my opinion, I’ll give it you,’ he said coldly. ‘Patrick Kennedy need never have gone to prison if you’d shown a mite o’ compassion. He swore to repay you if you’d give him a chance.’

  ‘I can’t afford to give chances.’ She turned her back on him and was going towards the door when she stopped, her hand on the doorknob. ‘I’m grateful to you, Douglas, for guaranteeing the loan, for arranging the mortgages,’ she said quietly. ‘But I’ve paid it back. It was the only time in my life that I was beholden to anyone and it’s not in my nature to eat humble pie.’

  ‘Och,’ Douglas began, ‘you need never mention that again.’

  ‘I’ll see that he cancels his booking,’ she said. ‘I’ll go to Strangeways myself and tell him so. People have forgotten it now. It’s five years since. I’m looked up to. Everyone at chapel thinks he got what he deserved. Patrick Kennedy will not set foot in this town even if you and all your priests beg him to come.’

  It was raining again, the steady, drenching rain that would not let up all day. The tops of the tall buildings in Manchester’s Piccadilly seemed to merge in greyness with the low sky. The pavements outside the London Road station were black and slippery under Carrie’s shoes.

  She’d have to take a taxi. She wasn’t going to ask anyone for directions to Strangeways. If she noted the way the taxi went she could return to the station by tram. She did not have long to wait and soon was leaning back against the leather upholstery.

  ‘Strangeways Prison,’ she said sharply to the driver. ‘And don’t take the long road round.’ He could think what he liked. She peered through the side window that was all but opaque. ‘How d’you get this down?’ she called out to the driver.

  ‘Wind the handle, missus. The one in the middle,’ the man answered through the glass window.

  Carrie lowered the window and tried to memorise the names of the roads as the driver slowed down at each turn, signalling through his open window with his right hand. But her eyes weren’t up to it – her sight must be getting worse. It was a long way too. She would have to ask him to meet her out.

  ‘You can see the prison from ’ere,’ the driver said over his shoulder.

  She could just make it out, though it was big enough. Dominating it was a windowless column of a tower that appeared to be topped with a galleried lookout. ‘Will you come for me?’ she asked after she’d wound the window back up. ‘I’ll be no more than an hour.’

  Carrie’s mouth tightened at the prospect of the coming meeting. It was nearly ten to three. ‘Come for me at four o’clock,’ she said.

  The sprawling red-brick prison looked menacing. It had a high wall that went right up to the top floor of the buildings. There was open space all around the gaol and it was set on a slight rise. She could see almost the whole extent of it. High above, over the unbroken wall that surrounded it, yet close to it, were the tiny, barred windows of the cells.

  Carrie shivered and looked straight ahead at the lodge entrance with bow-fronted turrets from whose windows the guards would be able to scan the city for miles around. Between these conical-roofed turrets to the height of the second storey was a massive arched sandstone gateway with heavy wooden doors, the right one having a smaller, inset door with a square peep-hole, for opening to visitors.

  There were several women outside, standing under a notice board, waiting. Carrie stood at the end of the silent, bedraggled line.

  When the small door opened they were shown in by a warder who ordered them to follow him. As if they were criminals too, Carrie thought. Through a paved courtyard they went, under a clock and into the building; doors were closed and locked behind them. She felt cheap, degraded, like those other women must feel. She could hear the prisoners now, men with rough voices, a growling background to the echoing noise of heavy feet.

  Her heart was racing. The smell was awful, even in the corridor. She’d be dead within a month, in a place like this.

  A warder showed her into the place where they’d bring him. It was cold and oppressive. A bench ran round the wall on her side but there was no seating beyond the room-dividing wooden counter that had an iron grille on top. They’d have to stand. There was a foul stench, even in here.

  She heard footsteps approaching, hollow and distant, then louder as they reached the door and she jumped when the key turned in the lock on the other side of the room and he came in, behind a warder.

  She nearly fainted with the smell and the unbearable horror of it all. She would have to force herself to look into his face; force herself to ignore the palpitations, the violent heartbeat that came in his presence.

  How could it be? After all he’d done? After five years? When she had made herself forget everything but his treachery, how could her body be telling her that her outward appearance of calm was assumed? But it had always been so. They had never communicated on a normal level, never talked lightly. They used to raise violent feelings in one another. Their contact was always instant and emotional. Now she would have to be other than she was.

  She set her face and looked at him, the man she had once loved to distraction. He was wearing prison clothes. He was thinner but clean-shaven. She’d expected to see him bearded and broken-looking. The confident air had gone.

  She made a tremendous effort. She ignored the banging in her chest, put from herself all but her determination to see it through. She must prevent him from ever coming back into her life.

  ‘Well, Carrie. This is a pleasure,’ he said. His voice was weaker.

  Carrie turned to the warder; a different one from the one she’d seen earlier. ‘Do you have to stand there, listening?’ she demanded sharply.

  The warder seemed startled by the suddenness of her attack. ‘I am required to be present,’ he told her.

  ‘You can say what you like, Carrie.’ Patrick was smiling but she saw the strain behind his eyes.

  She wouldn’t weaken. ‘You’re not coming back to Macclesfield,’ she began, avoiding his eyes, looking at the grille. ‘You’d have to have work to go to. I’ve read all the laws about it and I’m going to see you keep them.�
�

  ‘I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you. I’ve been thinking a lot,’ Patrick was whispering the words, trying not to let the warder hear. ‘I want to come back to you, Carrie.’

  ‘You are coming out under licence,’ she went on, ignoring his plea. ‘It’s called ticket of leave. You have to have a job to go to or you’ll be sent back inside.’

  ‘I’ll get work. Douglas McGregor is going to take me on,’ he said. ‘Believe me, Carrie. Douglas feels he is partly responsible. He says it should never have happened. He says if he’d sent us to lodge somewhere else . . .’

  ‘You’ll go home to your wife. Your wife!’ Carrie’s voice was shrill now and tears were springing to her eyes. ‘That’s where you belong!’

  ‘Me marriage is over. I wanted to tell you.’

  ‘You can’t get out of it though, can you?’ She flung the taunt at him, violently.

  ‘Bridget doesn’t want me. It was a mistake in the first place,’ he said.

  ‘You are married to her! Married! Married!’ she heard herself shout as the tears ran down her face.

  He put his face right up to the grille, as if he didn’t care now, what the warder thought. ‘You had no alternative, Carrie. I know that,’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘But now you have a choice. Come with me. Follow your instincts. You’re a woman made for love. We had something beautiful. It isn’t given to everyone, Carrie.’

  She saw gleaming hope and desire in his eyes and felt every nerve in her body stretching out to him. She must not let him see that his words were a physical pain in her. She forced her voice down, choked it into its normal pitch and said with the greatest effort she had ever made, ‘You are married, Patrick Kennedy. Your wife is waiting for you, in Dublin.’

  ‘She doesn’t want me,’ he said.

  ‘And I wouldn’t look at you again if your church canonised you,’ she made herself say, ‘so you’ll have to go back to her. Won’t you?’

  ‘And there’s the matter of me child.’ Patrick spoke with quiet desperation.

  All at once the heat of passion left her. Carrie felt a cold anger against him, at his daring to talk about ‘his’ child; she saw the warder look sharply at him.