Orphan of Angel Street by Annie Murray Read Free Book Online Page B

yelled, her throat rasping.
    Mabel gave her a look which implied the question was almost too stupid to answer. ‘Factories. Brass works and that. Don’t you know anything?’
    ‘Is this still Birmingham?
    ‘No, it’s bloody Timbuctoo.’
    Mercy took this to mean yes. Birmingham really was a big place then. They turned off Bradford Street and there were more factories, and then houses too. Now they’d got out of the bustle of the market Mercy’s excitement was beginning to wear off. It was fast getting dark, the air felt damp and harsh and when they crossed the road the cobbles were slippery underfoot. She felt the throb of her chilblains in the pinching boots, her raw throat and empty belly, and her head was starting to hurt. She wondered again when she was going to see Dorothy, now she was in this strange, dark place. Her dream of a green paradise was dissolving fast.
    ‘I don’t like you,’ she said, still clinging to her parcel as the one thing she had left of the home. ‘I want you to take me back to Matron. She said you could.’
    ‘Oh no,’ Mabel Gaskin sniggered spitefully, ‘you won’t be seeing them again in a hurry. See, they think we’re in my old ’ouse in Winson Green – near enough to ’Andsworth. Me husband’s ’ouse, that is – when I had a husband. They ain’t going to find you again where we’re going, so yer’d better get used to the idea. Least I got that ten bob off of them while I had the chance, ’cos they won’t be seeing us no more. I’ve got plans for you, and you ain’t going anywhere without my say-so. Down ’ere—’
    She elbowed Mercy down another side street even darker than the last. Soon, pausing by a drunken-looking street lamp she said, ‘Up the entry,’ and pushed her into one of the pitch black alleys between the houses, which quickly opened up into a court of back houses. As they walked in, the gas lamp in the middle of the court flared into life and Mercy saw a man standing under it with a long pole.
    ‘Bit late, aren’t yer?’ Mabel said to him in passing.
    ‘And a very good evening to you too,’ he quipped.
    A gaggle of children was playing up at the far end. There were three houses parallel with the road, and what looked like two smaller cottages to one side of the yard, but Mercy had barely had a look when Mabel swept her at high speed through the door of the house on one side of the entry.
    Inside it was completely black.
    ‘Stand still or you’ll only go and break summat.’
    Mercy stood just inside the door clutching her parcel. Her head throbbed and she felt very small and frightened. There was just her and this nasty woman and she didn’t know where she was and it was so dark and smelly in this house. There was a nasty mouldy stench which she didn’t recognize as damp, a stale odour of cabbage and onions. And yet another smell which took her with a shudder right back to the dormitory at the home: urine. She really felt like crying again now.
    There came the scratch of a match and Mabel lit the gas mantle at one side of the room. She also lit a tiny stub of candle and abruptly disappeared upstairs. Mercy stared round her. The Joseph Hanley Home had been austere and unadorned, but never had she been in a place like this before.
    The feeble light from the gas lamp only just reached the walls even though the room was tiny, and all the surfaces gave off a weird yellowish tinge. The ceiling seemed very low and in one corner was a big hole with rough bits of wood sticking out of it and in other parts it sagged and bulged. The room had been distempered long ago but now the paint had flaked away in large bare patches and the dirty plaster showed underneath. With a shudder she saw something scuttle along the wall.
    The floor was of rough, uneven bricks, worn down in some parts where there had been the greatest passage over them, and holes where bricks were missing in others. In the middle of the room was a table and two rickety chairs, one with