packed up for the day, relinquishing its meagre shelter to the lost and the homeless, and the street in general— always so full of energy by day—had now lost its passion, and seemed pallid and lethargic. She knew how it felt. Even in her younger days, when she worked all the hours God sent, she could never remember being quite this tired, and the faint but melancholy smell of Russian cigarettes which drifted out from the alleyways seemed to underline her sense of the pointlessness of her life. She looked up at the Peabody Buildings on the corner of White Lion Street, and it reminded her of her own tenement days in Drury Lane, where she had lived for twenty-four years with her husband; that building—which had also been part of the Peabody Trust—had the same crude angles as this one, its main triumph appearing to be the elimination of beauty which characterised all buildings for the poor. She had spent her life in such places—orphanages, hospitals like the one where she had first met Sach, tenement blocks—and it seemed to her that the benefactors behind all these institutions seemed hell-bent on keeping the poor bound in ugliness, as if their lives weren’t ugly enough already. Still, at least those rooms in Drury Lane had had a sense of community about them. Since her husband died, she had become just another of those shabby, transient women who moved from one narrow bed in London to another, changing their names as they went and leaving their debts behind them—so many names, so many hurried departures with the doors closed firmly on so many secrets. And for what? Perhaps it would have been kinder if someone had done for her all those years ago what she had done for the lifeless child in her arms.
Annie cut through Brushfield Street as the quickest route to the railway station. Across the way, a small girl stood in a doorway, dark-haired and pale in the light from the street-lamp, and staring out into nothing. The child must have been about five or six, Annie guessed, and she was beautiful, although it would only be a matter of time before stress and hunger would corrode her self-respect and banish the loveliness as if it had never been. Just for a moment, she understood what drove those childless women to Sach’s door—the impulse to seize this fragment of childhood and take it away before contact with the streets left its permanent mark—but the understanding wasn’t strong enough to block out the memory of those children who weren’t adopted, who were disposed of by other means. As the child across the street looked towards her, she seemed to represent the spirit of all the lives that had been taken away. Whether her stare was accusing or thankful, Annie couldn’t say.
It was heading towards rush hour at Liverpool Street, and hundreds of men and women were already pouring down the slope to the main-line and suburban trains. Annie stood for a moment on the footbridge which spanned the platforms and looked down on to the black-coated crowd. It was time now, she knew that, and, in any case, the strange kind of peace which she had sometimes found in the hours spent alone with a child was getting harder and harder to come by; in her heart, she knew it couldn’t last. The ladies’ waiting room was over near Platform One, and she took advantage of its privacy to remove anything from the baby’s body which might identify it later, then walked quickly through the arches and into the station yard. It was dark, and the air was thick with smoke and dirt, so she chose the mound of coal nearest to her. Looking back over her shoulder to make sure that no one had followed her, she placed the bundle gently on the ground, then took a nearby shovel and disturbed the bottom of the heap sufficiently to bring a stream of coal tumbling down, covering the tiny form.
She left the station without looking back, and walked around for a while with no purpose other than to put off the moment when she would have to return to Danbury Street without the child. Unable to face an evening alone in her room, she moved from public house to public house, determined to spend every penny of Sach’s money on the one comfort available to her. When the only thing left in her pocket was the price of a ticket home, she caught the bus back to Islington and got off by the canal. It had just started to rain, and she hurried down Noel Road, wanting now to get to sleep before the numbing effect of the alcohol wore off. The narrow passage that led to the back of the house was dark but she felt her way along the fence, counting the gates carefully to make sure she chose the right one. She found the yard without a problem, but the tiny space was crammed with clutter and she stumbled against a policeman’s bicycle, knocking it to the floor with a crash and scraping her shin badly on the pedal. She swore to herself and rubbed her leg, but she had already seen a light on downstairs and knew that there was no chance of returning home unnoticed. Reluctantly, she climbed the three stone steps to the back door, aware that she stank of gin but long past caring.
‘Is that you, Mrs Walters?’ called a voice from the kitchen, and Annie knew she had no choice but to brazen it out. Her landlady was sitting at the table with Mrs Spencer, one of the lodgers from the first floor. The women were drinking tea, and Annie didn’t have to try very hard to work out what the main topic of conversation had been. ‘The baby not with you, then?’ Mrs Seal added, as if reading her thoughts.
‘No. I’ve taken it to its new home—I told you I was going to.’ Without thinking, she took the clothes that she had removed from the baby’s body and threw them across the table, enjoying the shock on the women’s faces. ‘Here you are—you can have these for your little one. Mine won’t need ’em any more.’
Mrs Seal picked up one of the knitted booties and looked at Annie. ‘Poor little thing, carted round from pillar to post,’ she said. ‘What sort of a start in life is that?’
‘Huh,’ Annie scoffed dismissively. ‘There’s no need to feel sorry for the child. She’s gone to a titled lady in Piccadilly who paid a hundred pounds for her, and she’s going to be an heiress.’
‘I thought you said the baby was a boy?’ Mrs Spencer said, glancing across at Mrs Seal.
Annie was thrown for a moment; she had completely forgotten that she had lied about the baby’s sex when she first brought it back to the house, although why she had ever thought that would protect her, God only knew. ‘I didn’t say anything of the sort, Minnie,’ she said defiantly. ‘You must have misheard.’
‘I must have done,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘My mistake—sorry, I’m sure.’
Annie muttered a gruff goodnight and went through to her room in the back parlour. She could tell instantly that someone had been through her things while she was out: the baby’s clothes on the bed were not as she had left them, and she was sure that she had closed the drawer in which she kept the feeding bottle and the Chlorodyne. There was nothing else for it—she would have to move on soon, although judging by the look of the girl at Sach’s, it wouldn’t be long before she was needed again and she doubted she’d be able to find another room in time. It was dangerous, but she would have to bring one more child here and risk the consequences. If Sach knew how close they were to being discovered, she’d be horrified—but Annie had to admit to a certain pleasure in the thought of taking Sach down with her. Edwards, too, if she had the chance: she knew that Sach and that girl were up to something, that Edwards’s duties were more than just cooking and cleaning. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to cut her out altogether, but she’d be damned if she’d let them—not now, not after everything she’d done. There were plenty of other women who wanted her services.
She picked up the rest of the milk which she had bought the day before and poured it into a mug, then added a couple of drops of Chlorodyne to help her sleep. But as she lay down, she knew it would take much more to blot out the noises in her head, the roar and clamour of a train about to depart, and the sound of a child choking in the night.
Chapter Five
Marjorie took a roll of narrow purple ribbon and carefully cut it to the right length, enjoying the peace and solitude of the workroom in the early evening. Everyone else had gone home an hour ago—most of the other women had families to look after—but she had gladly offered to stay behind and work a little longer: there was a long list of minor alterations and finishing-off touches to attend to after the various fittings that had taken place that afternoon, and she was in no rush to get back to Campbell Road to face another confrontation with her father. In any case, she had her own reasons for wanting time alone.
She shifted her chair round slightly to get more light, then selected a strong wire hairpin from one of the boxes in the centre of the table and bent it into the shape of a horseshoe, with the prongs about an inch apart. These decorative additions to the main evening gowns were often more time-consuming than the dresses themselves, but they were not difficult and, as she set about creating the fabric violets which would complete Mary Size’s outfit, she found that the calm, methodical nature of the work helped to eclipse the tensions of the day. Why had the argument with her father upset her so much? she wondered, placing the ribbon over one side of the hairpin, then drawing the long end over and under the other prong, giving it a half turn to make sure that the satin stayed on the outside. It wasn’t as if it was unusual—not a day went by without a row over something, and there had never been any love lost between them. Holding the ribbon taut, she repeated the process until she had made
