Nancy Carson - The Railway Girl

‘Not that I’m aware of. I’ve not seen her in here before. Not that I’m stuck in here every night of the week, you understand.’

The girl returned and handed a towel to Enoch Billingham, apologising again for his being drenched. Then she turned to Arthur …

‘You wanted a towel as well, sir?’

‘Thank you …’

‘Shall I hold your beer while you wipe your trousers?’ she asked pleasantly.

‘Thank you …’ He began swabbing the spreading wet patch on his trouser leg, feeling suddenly hot. Just as suddenly he felt his bowels turn to water again and knew that he must make another rapid exit. With intense agony he held himself, noticing at the same time that at least the girl was not wearing a wedding ring.

‘What’s your name?’ he managed to ask. ‘I ain’t seen you in here before.’

‘Lucy,’ she said.

‘You live local?’

‘Bull Street.’

‘Funny I’ve never seen you before.’ Arthur was trying manfully to maintain a look of normality.

‘Why, where do you live?’ Lucy asked pleasantly.

‘The Delph.’

‘Fancy. Just up the road.’

Arthur was effecting some severe internal abdominal contortions coupled with heroic buttock clenching, in an effort to maintain not only his composure, but his self respect and his eternal reputation. He was desperate to keep the girl talking as long as he could, to try and find out more about her, but he was even more desperate to win the battle against his wayward bowels. It was a battle he was losing ignominiously, however, for without doubt he had to go.

‘Yes, just up the road … You’ll have to excuse me, Lucy …’ He turned and fled.

‘What’s up with him?’ Lucy enquired of James.

‘Something he ate, I think,’ James replied, being as discreet as he knew how. ‘He’s had a problem all day, I believe.’

Lucy chuckled. ‘Poor chap. Well, he’ll find nowhere to relieve himself that way.’

Sunday was another lovely September day, a day when women kept open their front doors and sat on their front steps, gossiping with like-minded neighbours. They peeled potatoes and shelled peas which they would have with a morsel of meat for their dinners when their menfolk staggered back from the beer houses. Lucy strolled to the water pump carrying a pail. Bobby the sheepdog ambled wearily but proprietorially beside her, ignoring other animals that pointed their snouts at him and sniffed. Lucy tarried a minute or two with most of the women, pleased to comment on what beautiful weather they were blessed with, but said nothing of the dismal slag heaps and factory yards that rendered the immediate landscape squalid and colourless.

‘It’s a pity there ain’t no fine houses with well-tended gardens in this part of Silver End,’ she commented to one woman known as Mother Cope, who was smoking a clay pipe as she tearfully skinned onions in her lap. ‘’Cause the flowers, specially the roses, would still be in full bloom, and a sight to behold on a day like this.’

‘If you want to see flowers, my wench,’ Mother Cope replied, withdrawing her pipe from between her toothless gums, ‘I daresay as there’s a bunch or two in the churchyard you could gaze at, on the graves o’ the well-to-do.’

Lucy returned to the house with her pail full of water and poured some into a bowl to give to Bobby, before using more to boil vegetables. At about three o’ clock her father returned hungry from the Whimsey and the three sat down to their dinner.

‘I reckon Ben Elwell could’ve done with your help again this morning, wench,’ Haden remarked to his daughter.

‘I’ve got too much to do here helping Mother of a Sunday,’ Lucy answered. ‘But he’s asked me to work tonight.’

‘Ar, well, there’ll be some beer shifted tonight an’ all, if the weather stops like this. Folk like to tek their beer into the fresh air and watch the world go by.’

‘I only wish they’d bring back their beer mugs when they’ve done, instead of leaving them lying around for me to collect.’

‘I reckon you’ve took to this public house working a treat, our Lucy,’ Haden said with a fatherly grin. ‘Her’s took to this public house working, you know, Hannah. Who’d have thought it, eh?’

‘Just as long as she keeps away from all them rough toe rags,’ Hannah replied.

‘Oh, they ain’t all rough, Mother. There’s a lot of decent, respectable men that come in for a drink. One or two even buy me a drink now and again.’

‘As long as nobody expects any favours in return.’

She felt like saying that if there was somebody she liked the look of she might be tempted, but kept it to herself. ‘D’you know anybody who lives down the Delph, Father?’

‘The Delph? Why?’

‘I just wondered. Somebody came in last night who I’d never seen before in me life, and he said he only lived down the Delph. You’d think you’d know everybody who lived close by. That’s all. This chap was with a crowd that played cricket for the church, so Mrs Elwell said.’

‘Lord knows who that might be. Fancy him, do yer?’ Haden winked at Hannah.

‘Not particularly,’ Lucy protested. ‘I only said it ’cause I think it’s weird not ever knowing somebody, even by sight, who lives so close to us.’

As Sunday progressed Arthur Goodrich’s self-willed bowels seemed to settle down. He attended matins at St Michael’s during the morning with his mother, and they circumspectly sat in a pew at the back, lest he should have to dart out during the service. Mercifully, he was untroubled by any such need.

His brother Talbot came for tea with Magnolia and their small son Albert. The extended family, Jeremiah included, once more crossed the threshold of St Michael’s for evensong. It was dark but warm when they finally emerged into the open air, and bats flitted in whispers between the tree tops overhead. Dinah and Jeremiah stopped to chat with some of the other parishioners by the light of a solitary gas lamp that hung over the main door, while the vicar, the Reverend Ephraim Wheeler, bid everybody a good evening with a shake of the hand and a benign smile, and looked forward to seeing them again next Sunday.

‘I’m going for a drink afore we go home,’ Talbot declared to Magnolia who was holding young Albert’s hand as the lad stood beside her. ‘I’ll see you back at Mother’s. Are you coming with me, our Arthur?’

‘I think I got the piles,’ Arthur answered ruefully. ‘Me backside’s that sore.’

Talbot rolled his eyes. ‘It’s because of the squits, Arthur. What ailments shall you be sporting tomorrow, I wonder?’

‘It’s your liver,’ Magnolia stated sagely to her brother-in-law. ‘It’s what comes of eating kickshaws and other such muck. See as your mother gives you a dose of dandelion tea or summat. Or soda and nitre’s good for you every now and again. That’ll sort yer. It’ll help to keep your system cool.’

‘Me system’s already cool,’ Arthur replied morosely. ‘That’s the trouble. It’s working in draughty graveyards what does it. How can you keep in good humours if you’m always cutting and blacking letters in draughty graveyards, sitting on cold graves? I wonder I don’t get pneumonia in me backside.’

‘You can’t get pneumonia in your backside,’ Magnolia asserted.

‘I can in mine. I’m forever catching a chill.’

‘Is that what I can hear wheezing sometimes?’ Talbot said with a grin.

‘Oh, it’s all right for you to mock, Talbot, stuck in a warm workshop.’

‘Somebody has to do the work in graveyards, amending and adding inscriptions and what not,’ Talbot replied. ‘Anyway, it’s skilled work.’

‘You wouldn’t know it from the wages. Anyway, I don’t see you doing it very often. You’re always in the workshop.’