The Tinker's Girl Page 7

'And me?' The question was asked quietly, and after a moment she answered it: 'You're a different kettle of fish.'

  He made a strange rasping sound in his throat before he said,' Yes, I thought I might be.' Then almost startling the wits out of Jinnie, he turned and yelled at her, 'What are you standing there gaping for?'

  As if she had been lifted bodily from the room, Jinnie found herself standing in the dark scullery, her back against the door, gasping as if she had actually been flung out of the kitchen.

  There must be a nasty streak in Bruce, too; look how he had gone for his father. She didn't like his father, yet she had felt sorry for him; but just in a way, because he wasn't a nice man. But why should Bruce bawl at her?

  She had done nothing and she wasn't gaping.

  Again she had a longing to hear Miss Caplin's voice or to look on Max. There had always been something soothing about Max. You always felt calm when you were with him; inside, that is. He seemed to know about things, and he straightened them out in his hesitant fashion. Oh, at this moment how she wished she was back in the workhouse.

  Then the thought of what that would mean took her from the door and up the steep steps, and once under the roof she lay on her pallet just as she was.

  At the end of every day she was so tired she would be asleep almost before her head touched the pillow, and tonight was no exception. Dressed as she was, she fell into a deep sleep.

  How long she had been asleep she didn't know, but she awoke, realising first, that she was fully dressed, and secondly, that there were people talking, and quite close by. She raised herself up on her elbow and looked towards the open hatch. Were they down there?

  But no - she swung round on to her knees now the voices were coming from just beyond her head, at least, one voice was, and immediately she realised that it wasn't Bruce's. This voice was thickly guttural, yet there was a touch of laughter in it. 'The old bugger meant me to be caught. If it hadn't been for Peter coming out of his way to tip me the wink and knowing he wouldn't lose by it, Sammy would likely have done for me by now. I can hold me own, you know, like the best of

  'em, but Sammy's Sammy. I have known some fathers but ours is a stinker all right and I wouldn't have realised he knew anything about Sammy's coming if the old boy hadn't remarked that he had seen me da earlier on. Well, you know, all day after that, Bruce lad, I kept waiting, but not a hair of him did I see. By God! one of these days!' The voice had risen and then again, 'By God!

  one of these days!' And now she recognized Bruce's voice saying, 'Quiet, man! Keep it down.'

  'Oh, they can't hear over this range, they never have.'

  'No, they never have, but there's a lass next door.'

  'Oh!' The voice came very low to her now. 'A lass?

  That's why this midden seemed to be different tonight.

  And I wondered about the new bread. What's she like?'

  'She's just a child.'

  'A child? Huh! Some child, I should imagine, to make an impression on this place.'

  'Be quiet! will you.'

  There was silence now and gradually she drew off her clothes and put on a cold nightgown. She was just about to lay her head down on the pillow again when the gruff voice said, 'How d'you stand it here, Bruce, day after day? Oh, I know there's Ma, but there's women in the village who'd be glad to take over and look after her.'

  The reply was a hiss: 'There are no women in the village who would be glad to take over looking after her.

  We tried three of them before the lass came.'

  'Well, well!' There was another pause; then, 'And she's from the workhouse?'

  'Yes, she's from the workhouse.'

  'Well, all I can say, lad, having been brought up in this hovel, there's many worse places than the workhouse.'

  'Ma can't help being sickly.'

  'No, she can't, but it's gone on for a long time, hasn't it, and even when she wasn't sickly she didn't like work.'

  'All right, all right. Get yourself off to sleep.'

  Jinnie lay staring into the blackness. That other one was suggesting that his mother wasn't all that sick, and had never been overclean. It was a funny house. She wished . . . oh, yes she wished . . . She didn't know what she wished . . . She was so tired. Once again she fell asleep . . .

  The next morning she was in the kitchen when Hal Shaleman made his appearance. He stood in the doorway scratching his head while looking at his brother, who was sitting at the table fully dressed for going out and finishing his breakfast. Then he looked towards the bed where the two figures lay. Lastly, at the girl with the porridge pan in her hand. They stared at each other for a moment, before he said, 'No skilly for me. Give us a mug of tea.'

  As Jinnie went to lift the teapot from the side hob there was movement in the bed, and she turned swiftly and saw the mister clambering over his wife, and at this, she put the teapot quickly back on the hob and hurried from the room.

  'Look!' Hal was shouting after her, 'I want . . .'

  'Pour it out yourself,' Bruce said harshly.

  'What the hell!'

  'She always disappears when he gets out of bed: he's no pretty sight for anybody to watch.'

  'Oh, dear! dear! Aren't we getting finicky now! You say she's only a child, but child or no child, she's paid to work, isn't she?'

  'Yes; and she earns her pay, but that doesn't include waiting on you. The teapot's there; your mug's on the table; all you've got to do is to introduce one to the other.'

  'Oh, now we're coming out with our fancy phrases, aren't we? But I'll do it, brother, I'll do it.'

  Jinnie would always busy herself in the scullery until she heard the mister go out of the house and towards the midden; then she would return to the kitchen. However, this morning she did not follow this pattern. Instead, after sorting the dirty clothes, she half-filled the poss tub with water and was putting the sheets in to soak when the door opened and Hal, in a high-falutin' tone, said, 'Will it be in order, miss, that I come in and wash my face at your sink?'

  She made no reply; but when she went to pass him and he put his hand out towards her back, she leaped forward, then turned on him, yelling, 'Don't you touch me, mister!'

  'God in heaven! What have we here? I wasn't going to touch you.'

  'Oh yes you were. Like your father, you were going to nip me. Oh yes, you were.' She stood glaring at him as, leaning back against the trough, he rocked with laughter.

  Then this suddenly ceasing, and his voice normal sounding, he cried at her, 'They should've put you in a bloody nunnery, not sent you out to skivvy. Get out!'

  He was further amazed when she did not instantly move at his bidding, but defiantly walked back to the poss tub, picked up the poss stick, then pounced it three times until the clothes were under the water. After finishing the job she had started, she passed him again, this time keeping her eyes fixed on him, only to be greeted, as she entered the kitchen, with a burst of laughter.

  Different laughter this. Bruce was looking towards her and shaking his head; then, taking his cap from the back of the door, he thrust it on his head and, still grinning, nodded towards her and said, 'You'll do.'

  She didn't know exactly what that meant, but on looking towards his mother, it was to find the missis staring straight ahead. Whether she too had been laughing, she didn't know, but the woman was giving nothing away.

  Jinnie went to the stove, picked up the pan and scraped the remainder of the porridge into a bowl.

  There wasn't a great deal left, but that was her fault: she knew she should have put more oats in, but last night, as usual, she had measured out just enough for three; the mister never ate porridge but the new addition had helped himself apparently.

  The missis did not speak to her elder son until he was about to leave the house, when she called to him,

  'Should we expect to see you the night?'

  He stepped back from the doorway and answered,

  'You should, Ma, you should, but I may not be as sober as I was last night.
That was an exception, don't you think?' And then he, too, was gone.

  And so the day had begun, and it ended in much the same way as the day before! Hal came home sober but although Jinnie tried to keep awake and listen, she did not hear him talk to his brother in the bed beyond her head.

  Only once during the following week did she hear, through the wall, an exchange between them, and then the voices were muffled and she couldn't make out what either of them was saying on that particular night . . .

  In later years she was to wonder if the warning voice she seemed to be aware of in the night was that of her father talking to her, or of Miss Caplin, or of Max, but since Hal had taken to coming home every night she had taken the precaution of extracting the dinner knife from her father's pouch.

  On this particular night Hal had not returned home before she went to bed, and when eleven o'clock came Bruce had said, 'The boat must have sailed,' and his mother had added, 'Aye; so get yourself to bed. You can leave the door on the latch; he still may come staggering in if he's had a skinful, and in that case he won't make the ladder, he'll sleep on the mat.'

  So they settled down for the night.

  Jinnie had been dreaming: She was sitting in the workhouse cart, with Miss Caplin on one side of her and Max on the other and they were jogging along a country road; but there was no sign of a horse pulling the cart, and they all knew this and were laughing about it; then a strange thing happened. They were in an old shed and Max picked her up by the collar of her dress and hung her from the bough of a tree, and said to her, 'You are the apple of my eye,' and they all laughed again. Then her hair began to fall out and her two plaits dropped on to Max's shoulders. Next, two hands came from behind the tree and gripped her neck before moving down to her legs and the gripping pain brought her awake, wide awake.

  A real hand now was gripping her thigh and another was groping at her face, aiming to smother her screaming.

  At the same time as, with one hand, she endeavoured to free her mouth, the other grabbed her dada's knife from under the pillow, and as she blindly drove it home her whole body was lifted from the bed by the scream that rang through the rooftop, followed by a yelling and curses as someone tumbled down the stone steps.

  She lay gasping, one hand on her throat, the other still clutching the knife. She was aware of a commotion in the roof-space behind her, then curses and the yelling voice of the missis.

  There was a nicker of candlelight coming through the hatch, and she leaned forward and looked down to where Hal was lying in a huddle at the foot of the steps. He was gripping his wrist, and there was blood pouring over his hands.

  'In the name of God! what is it?' It was the missis's voice coming from the other room; and when no answer was forthcoming, she yelled, 'What's happened? Is it the girl?'

  Then Bruce was answering her: 'No, it's not the girl, but the result of her handiwork on your son; to my mind, getting what he asked for.'

  'You shut your bloody mouth and get me up! I've twisted me foot; and look, I'll bleed to death.'

  As Bruce helped his brother to his feet, he imagined his words might indeed come true, for there was so much blood spilling from the joined hands. He now helped him into the kitchen and lowered him on to a chair placed so that he could put his hands on the table.

  'Light the lamp.'

  'I haven't got two pairs of hands, Ma; I've got to try to stop this,' and he indicated the blood that was spreading on to the table.

  Rose Shaleman's voice now almost rocked the house as she screamed, 'You! girl. You! girl. Come down here!'

  The sound seemed to release the stiffness of Jinnie's body as, gasping, she bent over and dragged her coat across the floorboards towards her and after pushing her arms into it and buttoning the neck, she pulled her boots on to her bare feet and descended the steps.

  At the kitchen door, she stiffened again, but the missis simply yelled at her: 'Light the lamp, girl, and get the fire going.'

  Like a bewildered rat, she scurried to the table and lit the lamp after first having almost upset it. Then, her mind in a whirl, she blew the embers of the fire into a blaze and thrust the kettle on.

  'Get that piece of calico from the top drawer and tear it up,' the missis was ordering now.

  Meanwhile Bruce was trying to ascertain exactly from where the blood was coming, all the time having a job to keep his brother's hands apart, the while shouting at him, 'Look! if you want me to try to stop this bleeding, then let me get at it.' And he wiped the wrist almost clean with the quick swipe of a wet rag over the hand; then he exclaimed, 'Well, there it is! Now we can do something.' And on this he pressed his thumb on the half-inch cut; and presently the bleeding slowed, and in a much quieter voice he said, 'It's all right. I've got it; I can hang on to it;' and then added by way of consolation,

  'It hasn't gone through anything big because it's easing off.'

  'What did she do it with?'

  Before Bruce had time to answer his mother, his brother answered, 'With a knife, a bloody knife, of course.'

  'Well, you weren't at the bottom of the steps when she did it, were you?' Bruce's tone was no longer conciliatory.

  'You were trying your hand, weren't you? Well, she had warned you.'

  'Shut your bloody mouth and get on with it. But I'll make her bloody well pay for this, you'll see if I don't.'

  'Oh no, you won't.'

  'Who's gonna stop me?'

  'We'll see. You got what you deserved; and she's only a bairn, anyway.'

  'A bairn! She's a bloody bitch and a knowing bloody bitch at that; one who carries a knife.'

  'Yes. Yes. But where did she get the knife?' It was the mother speaking again. 'I shouldn't think it can be one of ours, they're too big to hide.'

  They were talking as if she weren't there, yet all the while she had been standing in the dim corner of the room tearing a piece of calico into strips as she had been bidden, and the muted scream of the linen as it was being torn apart should have made them aware of her existence; but apparently it hadn't, until her voice did when she yelled, 'It's me own knife. It was me dada's from his pouch - he ate with it - and I'll use it again. I will! I will! I'm not sorry and I'm going back the day down to the workhouse. It's better than here.

  Yes, it is, 'cos I won't be handled. I told you so, and I'll tell them I stabbed him; and I wasn't lying on the floor in a cupboard this time but up in the loft, and there was steps to be climbed. Yes, there were. And I'll tell them. They'll believe me. Yes they will. And I'll have Miss Caplin up, and Max. Max'll sort him out. Yes, he will; he'll sort him out. And I hope the knife has gone right through, I do.'

  When her tirade had ceased, the only sound in the kitchen came from yon side of the bed. It could have been the mister was snoring gently or it could have been he was coughing in his throat, or it could have been he was chuckling. And it wasn't until the sound stopped that Bruce said, 'It'll have to be seen to, sewn up, or burned.'

  'No! by God, you're not gonna put any poker on me!'

  Hal tugged his hand away from his brother's only to see the blood starting to run again, and as he gripped his wrist his mother, speaking to Jinnie now, demanded,

  'Was your knife clean, girl?'

  'It's . . . it's in a case, missis, leather. It's hard now.'

  'Is it rusty? Is the blade rusty?'

  Jinnie had to think before she said, 'Where it joins the bone handle, it is a bit.'

  'That's it then.' Rose Shaleman was speaking to her son again. 'You heard, didn't you; part of it is rusty. If it was rusty at the top it's likely rusty at the end, and if you don't want blood poisoning and to be left with one hand, then you've got to let Bruce do something.'

  A silence followed and it was Hal who broke it, saying,

  'I can't stand it without a drink.'

  'Well, that's what we haven't got here. The next best thing is one of my pills, they'll kill the pain. Take a couple now and wait a few minutes,' and turning to Jinnie she shouted, 'Get the box, girl
, out of the top drawer, and take two out and put them on the table.'

  Scurrying again, Jinnie got the pills and gave them to Bruce, who said quietly to her,' Stick the poker into the centre of the fire. Go on; do as you're bid.'

  About five minutes later, when everything was apparently ready, Bruce said grimly, 'Da, get out of that bed where you've had your ears cocked all the time and come and hold his wrist. I can't do it all meself and it's unlikely that he'll remain still.'

  When there was no movement from the bed, Rose Shaleman's voice growled, 'Get yourself up!'

  A few minutes later Pug, small, a grotesque figure in linings and vest, stood to one side of the table gripping his son's wrist, while Bruce sponged the blood away from around the oozing wound. Then without turning to Jinnie, Bruce said, 'Bring me the poker and a wet dishcloth.'

  Jinnie looked dazedly about her before dashing to the scullery to bring back the wet dish-cloth. Then she pulled out the poker from the fire, and dashed to the table, almost thrusting it at Bruce, and the action brought from Hal the exclamation, 'By God! I know where I'd like to stick that iron at this moment.'

  'Shut up! Shut your dirty mouth or I know where I'll put this iron instead of on to your hand. Now, I'm warning you!' Then lowering his tone, Bruce said quietly, 'This should take only a minute if you keep still. As Ma said, the pills will dull the pain. It's either this, mind, or losing your hand for, whether the knife was rusty or not, the cut's gone deep, and it's near the thumb. Hold it still, Da!'

  Jinnie could see the red hot point slipping over the raw flesh and as a groaning screech from Hal split her head open she fell into a huddle on the floor . . .

  'Come on. Come on; you're all right.'

  She gasped. She was swallowing water; she must be drowning. 'Come on! Come on, sit up.'

  There was an arm around her shoulder pulling her upwards, and slowly she opened her eyes and, looking at Bruce, whimpered, 'I ... I want to go home.'

  'You are home.'

  'No, no.'

  'All right. All right. You'll feel better tomorrow. It wasn't your fault, so don't worry. Ma isn't vexed with you; and, strangely enough, neither is Da.'