but all I wanted to do was get away. My head hurt and I felt sick and dizzy and worst of all I thought that he must be thinking the worst of me – a common tart who’d fallen out with one of her clients.
‘No, thanks all the same. I’ll be all right in a moment. Mam will kill me for sure if she sees me with a feller. You can watch me until I get to me door, if you like?’
‘All right,’ he said and grinned as I dared to look at him again. He had a friendly smile, though he wasn’t a real looker; his hair was short and wiry and a sandy colour in the light of the gas lamp from Farthing Lane, but he had a nice manner and I knew I was lucky that he’d happened along when he did. ‘Cut along home then, lass. You’d best not keep your Mam waiting too long.’
‘Thank you for helping me. I’m Bridget O’Rourke. I don’t know your name …?’
‘I’m Joe Robinson,’ he said. ‘Take care of yourself. I’ll wait here and see as no one tries anything until you get home.’
I sent him an awkward smile and started to run, my heart pounding as my feelings rose up to overcome me. Inside, I was shaking, my mouth dry and my stomach riled. My head was sore where I’d banged it, but it was the feeling of shame that was so unbearable.
I had been attacked and almost raped! Things like that didn’t happen to decent girls, and I was certain Mam would go for me when I got in. She was already in a bad mood and when she saw the state I was in, she would lose her temper.
When I got to my house I turned and waved at Joe Robinson. He was still standing beneath the gaslight and nodded to me as I pointed to the door of my house, but he didn’t make a move. He was going to make sure I got inside safely.
Most of the houses in the area were just two-up two-down with a lean-to scullery at the back and a privy of sorts in the back yard. Ours was an end of terrace and luckily we had an extra small room built on over the back washhouse. It was this extra room that had made it easier for Mam to take in a paying lodger after Sam O’Rourke disappeared. Had it not been for the lodger and the little bit of money the rest of us brought in, she would have had to go out scrubbing floors at one of the factories, like most of the women in the lane, which, knowing Mam, would have made her temper even worse.
As I reached the bottom of the stairs, the front door opened and our lodger looked at me. He was a small, thin man with a pale face and sad eyes, and was just coming back home after visiting a friend. He often stayed out late in the evenings, but Mam never objected. She needed his rent too much to risk losing him. I put a finger to my lips, warning him not to give me away.
‘Don’t let on I’m here, Mr Phillips. I want to get upstairs before Mam sees me.’
‘What happened?’ he asked, looking at me in concern. ‘You’ve got mud on your dress – there’s blood in your hair …’
‘I’ll wash it out when I—’
The door from the kitchen opened and I heard my mother shout, ‘If that’s you, Bridget, you’d better get in here before I lay me hand round your ears. I hope you’re not after bringing that slut of a sister back with you …’
Mam came out into the hallway. She was a big-boned woman with a mottled complexion and dark hair streaked with grey dragged back into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her mouth was set in a grim line, her eyes cold with anger as she stared at me.
‘Bridget has had an accident,’ John Phillips said, standing in front of me as though prepared to defend me from her temper. He gave me a warning look and I took my cue from him.
‘I slipped and fell in the mud in the lane, Mam – must have banged my head. Leastwise, it’s bleeding.’
‘Perhaps I should take a look at it,’ Mr Phillips offered. ‘Come into the kitchen, Bridget.’
I followed as he went through the parlour to the back kitchen. The parlour itself was furnished better than most in the lane, with a half-decent sofa and two chairs, a table with ends that folded down, four chairs to match it, an oak dresser with a mirror and shelves for a few bits and pieces of china and glass fairings.
Mam lunged at me as we passed, giving me a slap on the ear that nearly sent me flying. I gave a yelp of pain and the lodger turned to look at her reprovingly.
‘Mrs O’Rourke! Surely such violence isn’t necessary? The girl has already had a nasty accident.’
‘You keep your nose out of it,’ Mam retorted, forgetting to be polite to him in her temper. ‘She’s a slut and needs to be taught a lesson or she’ll bring shame on us for sure. You ought to watch out, my girl. If your father were here he’d take his belt to you.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong, Mam. I had to go after Lainie, you know I did. I tried to get her to come home, but she wouldn’t.’
Mam hit me again, making my head rock.
‘That’s enough, Mrs O’Rourke. I’ve told you before the girls will leave home if you continue to hit them like that. If you are trying to drive her on to the streets you are making an excellent job of it.’
‘He’s right, Mam. Lainie’s gone and she says she won’t come back – and if it weren’t for our Tommy I’d go with her.’
‘And where will you be going? No decent woman will take you into her home at this hour of the night. It’s after pickin’ up a man you’ll be. You’ll bide here and do as I tell you or you’ll feel the back of my hand and harder than you’ve felt it before, my girl.’
‘Bridie Macpherson will have me,’ I said, my voice rising with anger now. ‘She’s always looking for girls to help out in that hotel of hers. That’s where Lainie’s gone and if you hit me again I’ll go with her!’
My threat was not an idle one. Bridie Macpherson’s small but scrupulously clean hotel was only three streets away from Farthing Lane. It was patronized by the captains and first officers who preferred somewhere better to stay than the Seamen’s Mission, or the special hostel for foreign sailors. Jamie had told us the mission had been set up some forty years earlier, to protect the Lascars from being preyed on by river thieves. Before the hostels were built, they had often ended up penniless after being cheated or robbed of their pay by the rogues who lived in the dirty alleyways close to the docks.
Until now, both Lainie and I had worked in the brewery, which was just across the river from St Katherine’s.
St Katherine’s Dock was originally built on twenty-three acres between the Tower of London and the London Docks, making it conveniently near the city. The site had been home to more than a thousand families, a brewery and at one time St Katherine’s hospital, which had always been owned by royalty. Its land had been cleared though, despite the hardship it caused, and the docks given a grand opening in 1828. Commodities such as tallow, rubber, sugar and tea had all been stored in the sturdy yellow-brick warehouses some six storeys high, but for some reason the docks were not a financial success and had become part of the London Docks in 1864. However, to the people of the lanes, especially those that worked there, they would always be known as St Katherine’s.
There had been breweries near the river since the time of Queen Elizabeth when they supplied beer to the soldiers in the Low Countries, but Dawson’s, where Lainie and I worked, had only been built in the last five years, and produced ginger beer as well as three kinds of ale.
Lainie worked in the brewing side, but I had recently been taken on in the office. Before that, I’d had occasional work down the market, helping Maisie Collins with her flower stall, and giving Mam a hand with work in the house. Being in the office at the brewery was much better. At the moment I made the tea, tidied up and ran errands for three shillings a week, but I was learning to help keep the ledgers because I could copy letters in a neat hand and I was quick at figures. Mr Dawson had promised me another two shillings a week soon.
I brought my thoughts back to the present as Mam started on at me again. ‘Walk out of this house and you don’t come back! I’ll not have a slut livin’ under my