Nancy Carson - Poppy’s Dilemma

‘What’s goin’ on, Poppy?’

‘Minnie! Where did you spring from?’

‘From that alleyway.’ She pointed over her shoulder. ‘I was with that Tom. So what’s up?’

Poppy told her, then asked what she was doing out so late.

‘That Tom,’ Minnie whispered behind her hand, rolling her eyes self-consciously. ‘He’s a bit of a buck. We was having it against the wall in that alley when we heard this commotion and saw all the navvies marching towards the town. I knew Dog Meat would be among ’em, so I thought it was a good time to leave Tom and get back in bed afore Dog Meat got back. Anyway, at that, Tom says, “Hey, I ain’t finished yet,” so we settled back to doin’ it again. It took longer than I thought …’ Minnie giggled unashamedly. ‘So if Dog Meat ever asks, I was with you on the way up to the gaol, as well as on the way back. I’ve bin with you all night. All right?’

Poppy chuckled. ‘You’re a crafty one, Min, and no two ways. Are you seein’ him again, this Tom?’

‘Who knows? I might. He’s worthy.’

Sheba, who had waited up anxiously for news of Lightning Jack, was overjoyed when he returned to Rose Cottage. She took his arm with concern and drew him to her proprietorially as he entered the hut.

‘Are you hurt, Jack?’ she asked, with sympathy in her eyes. ‘Did the police hurt you?’

‘I copped a clout across the shoulder, but I daresay it’s only bruised. Nothing to fret about.’

‘Oh, Jack, I was that worried. Thank God you’m all right.’

‘Aye, I’m all right, my wench. But I’m famished. Get me summat t’ate.’

‘There’s some bread and cheese.’

‘That’ll do.’

Two loaves of bread stood on the table in the communal living room. Sheba cut a hunk off one and handed it to Lightning with an ample lump of cheese. She poured him a glass of beer from the barrel, and treated herself to a smaller one.

While her father ate his supper, Poppy returned to the bed she shared. As she slid between the sheets, her sisters and brother roused but did not wake. Before long, her father and mother came in, carrying an oil lamp. Lightning Jack had sobered up following his experience in the gaol and was conducting a whispered conversation with Sheba. Then he blew out the flame and clambered into the adjacent bed, followed by Sheba. Poppy heard their stifled grunts and the squeaks of the iron bedstead as they performed their inevitable horizontal exercise. In the adjoining dormitory, the navvies who lodged with them clumped about as they stumbled over each other and swore profusely before they settled down. Poppy pulled the pillow over her head to shut out the various violations of her peace and tried to drift off to sleep, to the accompaniment of her own imaginings. It had been an eventful night.

Morning came. Sheba and Lightning were up and dressed by the time Poppy awoke. Lightning was tying his clothes up in a bundle and Sheba was regarding him fretfully.

‘I’ll be back as soon as it’s safe,’ Poppy heard him say.

Alarmed, she sat up in bed and called, ‘Where you goin’, Dad?’

‘I’m goin’ on tramp, my wench. The police’ll be swarmin’ round this place like flies round shit, afore you can catch your breath. If they find me they’ll arrest me again. I’m gunna mek meself scarce. In the meantime, I’ll find work on another railway. The bobbies won’t know where I’ve gone and they won’t send men everywhere just to look for me. I’ll either send for yer all or, if the job’s no good, I’ll come back when the dust has settled.’

‘Will Dover Joe go with you, Dad?’

‘He’ll leave here if he’s got any sense, I reckon. But it’ll be best if we don’t go together.’

‘Oh, Dad, I shall miss you,’ Poppy declared with a flush of tenderness for this man, who protected her from the perils and coarseness of living among so many uncultured men. ‘Come back as soon as you can.’

He smiled, but sadness showed in his eyes as he ruffled her wayward fair hair. ‘I’ll be back for you, my flower. I’ll be back for you all. Have no doubt.’

‘You’d best be back soon an’ all, Jack,’ Sheba said. ‘Else we shall be turned out o’ this shant as sure as night follows day. Don’t forget as it’s owned by the contractors. Don’t forget we’re only tenant landlords, and that if you ain’t workin’ for the contractor we’ve got no rights being here.’

‘Ask Dandy Punch to cover for us,’ Lightning said. ‘He might ask a favour in return, but that’s fair enough.’ He arched an eyebrow, giving Sheba a knowing look.

Dandy Punch was the timekeeper. Poppy did not like Dandy Punch.

‘Tell him I’ll repay him handsomely as well for his trouble when I get back. Do whatever you think’s necessary, Sheba.’

Lightning kissed each of his children, gave Poppy a squeeze and clung to Sheba for a few seconds in a parting embrace. Then Poppy watched him turn around and walk out of the hut. Outside, he fastened a length of rope to various points on his wheelbarrow, creating a harness by which he could carry the thing on his back. He picked up his shovel, his pickaxe and his long drills, and tied them together and carried them on his shoulder like a soldier would a rifle. He threw his bundle of clothes over his other shoulder; a stone jar full of beer hung from that. Sheba handed him his straw bag, called a pantry, which held food to sustain him for a day or two. Then, heavily laden, he walked away from them, kicking up the dust as he went.

Poppy imagined that he had not turned around to wave lest they should see tears in his eyes. More likely, he would have seen theirs and, seeing them, might have been tempted to stay. But he could not stay. To stay might mean transportation. Transportation meant she would never see him again.

Through a haze of tears, Poppy watched him go. Lightning was a big man, tall and muscular. He was thirty-six years old, or so he believed, but because arduous work had taken its toll he looked nearer fifty. As a child, he had been a farm labourer in Cheshire. He had started work on the railways as a nipper, as a fat-boy greasing axles. Then, at twelve years old, on the construction of the Bolton and Leigh Railway, he’d been promoted to tipper boy, working with a horse and tip-truck, tipping the spoil from cuttings into wagons to be used subsequently as infill on embankments. After that, he worked on the Liverpool and Manchester till its completion. Lightning went back to farm labouring, but it could never offer enough, either in monetary terms or in excitement. So, when he heard about the starting of the London and Birmingham Railway, he tramped to the capital and worked the whole length of that line, starting as a bucket-steerer, but ending up as an excavator. Poppy recalled him telling her once how, at a place called the Kilsby Tunnel, he had witnessed three men, the worse for drink, fall to their deaths down a shaft as they tried to jump across its mouth, playing a game of follow-my-leader. When the London and Birmingham was finished, Lightning eventually joined the construction of Brunel’s Great Western Railway from London to Bristol with its controversial broad-gauge track.

Poppy turned to her mother, who was holding the youngest in her arms. ‘I wonder just how long it’ll be before we see him again.’ She had heard so many tales of men jacking up and going on tramp, leaving wives and families behind, never to be heard of again.

‘Within a month,’ Sheba replied with confidence. ‘Barring accidents. I know your father. He’s a man of his word.’

‘Tell me about how you came to be his woman, Mother.’

‘I was fourteen,’ Sheba said. ‘Two years younger than you are now. My own father was working on the London and Birmingham, but he’d gone off on tramp and left us. Lightning asked my mother if he could take me off her hands. She said yes, and he gave her a guinea for her trouble. She was glad of it as well.’ Sheba laughed as she recalled it. ‘That day we jumped the broomstick and the shovel together – the nearest a navvy ever gets to being proper wed – and that night I slept in his bed.’