it’s cold enough to even freeze a penguin’s chuff, as my old man would say.’
It was cold, and the sight of the huge, relentless waves crashing in cascades of foam against the sides of the rolling boat did little to stop the churning of Aggie’s stomach, so she gave a brief nod and followed the woman as she led the way into one of the saloons. The smell of cigarette smoke and Guinness was mixed with slight body odour and vomit from those who hadn’t made it outside. Aggie only managed a minute or so of breathing it in before she was making for the deck again.
And that was where she stayed until the boat docked in Liverpool. Even when the sleety rain began she stayed put, so by the time she was ready to disembark, she was wet to the skin. The women tutted over the state of her and said she would catch a chill if she wasn’t careful. Aggie hid her wry smile. Dear God, if that was all she had to worry about.
She continued to feel sick even when she had left the boat far behind and was in the train travelling down to Birmingham. She hadn’t thought to bring anything to eat, but didn’t feel like anything either, and when her companions offered to share their food with her she shook her head.
‘Thank you, but my stomach isn’t right yet.’
‘Might feel better with something in it.’
‘I don’t think so yet,’ Aggie said. ‘Maybe when we get to that place called Crewe. You say that we have to change trains there?’
‘Aye,’ one of the women told her. ‘It’s a regular stopping place. Nearly everyone has to change at Crewe and it has got a café on the station. And you’re right, you may well feel like something there.’
The only thing that Aggie really felt like, though, when she sat in the slightly smoky café at Crewe Station was a cup of hot sweet tea. She gulped at that gratefully as she gazed out on to the platform through grimy windows that were slightly misted over because of the teeming rain outside, and waited for the train to take her on the last leg of her journey.
She knew in her heart of hearts that the nausea and weakness she felt was more a sickness of the soul. With this behind her she would soon be fine and healthy once more. Then all she would have to cope with was the fact that she was alone in the world, and she’d not be the only one. They had foundlings enough at their own workhouse who had never known the love of a family and growing up among brothers and sisters. She imagined in a large city like Birmingham there would be plenty more and so she told herself firmly to stop feeling sorry for herself.
When she arrived at New Street Station, however, the sheer size and noise of the place unnerved her totally. The train pulled to a stop with a squeal of brakes and hiss of steam, and people spilled from the carriages onto the platform.
Everyone seemed to know where they were going, Aggie thought, sniffing at the damp and sooty air, surrounded by more people than she had ever seen in the whole of her life. The place was full of sound. Apart from the clatter of the trains and the ear-splitting screech of the hooter, there was the tramp of feet and the noise of raucous voices raised in laughter or greeting.
Porters’ voices warning everyone to ‘Mind your backs, please’ rose above it all as they pushed laden trolleys through the milling crowds. Through this cacophony, a news vendor with a strident, though slightly nasal-sounding voice, shouted out in an attempt, Aggie supposed, to sell the newspapers spread before him, but she had to guess this because she couldn’t understand a single word that he said.
‘So where is your brother, dear?’ said one of her travelling companions. ‘We’ll stay with you till we see that you are all right.’
Aggie was filled with panic. They intended to wait with her till the brother she had invented should put in an appearance, and she looked around anxiously. There were still plenty of people around and, knowing that there was nothing else for it, she picked up her bag and said, ‘There he is, over by the steps. Thank you so much for looking after me.’ She was away before they could think to detain her, to insist they meet the fictitious brother and ascertain that Aggie was all right.
Aggie was soon hidden from their view by the crowds of people and she secreted herself behind a pillar and watched her travelling companions who were scrutinising the crowds going up the stairs closely. Then one gave a shrug and they turned their attention to their luggage scattered around them on the platform. Aggie didn’t breathe easy, however, till they had left the platform altogether. Even then, she stayed where she was a little longer and the crowds had thinned out considerably when she slid out of her hiding place and made her way towards the exit as resolutely as she could.
If the station had unnerved Aggie slightly that was nothing to the way she felt when she stepped into the street outside. Rain was falling so heavily it was like a wall of water and turned the late afternoon to dusk. Lights were lit on many of the vehicles, which gleamed onto streets glistening with water.
Aggie stared, for she had never seen so many vehicles all packed together on the roads, even some of the new petrol-driven motor cars that she had heard tell of, but never seen. There were horse-drawn vans and carts thronging the streets, and hackney cabs were ringing the station, waiting for customers. The smell was incredible: acrid, sour and sooty. It lodged in the back of Aggie’s throat and made her cough. The noise was relentless: a constant drone mixed with the chattering and shouts of the people, the sound of boots and the clopping of horses’ hoofs on the cobbled streets.
And then Aggie saw a clattering, swaying monster coming towards her. It both repelled and fascinated her. She drew nearer for a better look and saw that it ran on rails laid all along the road, while steam puffed from its funnel in front. It tore along at a furious rate, using its hooter constantly to warn people to get out of the way.
Aggie had drawn closer to the hackney cab drivers too, and one of the drivers, from the shelter of his seat, had watched her with slight amusement, noting that she seemed not to notice her soaking hair plastered to her head or her sodden clothes. Eventually he leaped from his seat and said to her, ‘You seem very interested in the trams, miss.’
‘Trams. Is that what they are?’
‘They are, miss,’ the cab driver said. ‘Run by steam and, if you believe what people say, they can travel at fifteen miles an hour.’ Here he gave a rueful smile. ‘People always seem to be in a hurry these days. Those blessed trams could easily put me out of business. I mean, Bessie is a good horse and no slouch either, but going full out on a flat stretch of road she can only manage half that speed. Maybe I will have to invest in one of those petrol engines for my next cab, but tell you the truth they scare the life out of me.’
‘And me,’ Aggie agreed. ‘And as for those trams, I don’t think I will ever have the courage to get on one. I have never seen anything like them before. There were none where I came from.’ She thought for a moment and went on, ‘When I was at school there was a girl come up to live in Buncrana from a place just outside Dublin and she said something about steam trams and the electric ones around Dublin. We weren’t at all sure that she was telling the truth, to be honest, and anyway, it was hard to visualise. They may have something similar in Derry or Belfast, I suppose, but it was too dark to see much.’
‘You have just come over on the boat then?’
‘Aye.’
‘May I say, miss, that you have chosen a fine time to come visiting?’
Aggie looked at him and in the lights from his lamps he was moved by the sadness in her eyes as she said, ‘It wasn’t by choice that I came now.’
The cab driver longed to ask why she was here then and whose choice it was, but he stopped himself. His wife was always telling him not to get so involved in the lives of the people he carried in his cab. His job, she said, was to get people from A to B, and if he didn’t spend so long talking to each one then he would probably earn a damned sight more than he did.
She was probably right, but he was interested in people. He couldn’t help it and he reckoned he couldn’t do the job as effectively if he didn’t like people.
As for the young Irish girl, she looked so vulnerable