Trapped In She Town : A Romantic Novella (The Jute Mills Series) by Serena MacKay Read Free Book Online Page B

go?
    She knew she could not
go back home to Aberdeenshire in her condition. The shame would be too much and
she could not bear to see the happy faces of George and Beth. Where else could
she go?
    The woman was now
giving her directions up the hill towards Stobswell, but Mary carried on
towards the centre of Dundee and soon came upon a noisy market. She bought
herself some bread. She needed to keep her strength up she thought, for her
baby. “It’s just you and me now, my darling little boy.” she whispered.  Mary
seemed to know that it was a boy growing day by day inside her, and although
she thought with disgust about the start of the baby’s life, she loved the
growing baby in her belly with all her heart.
    In the afternoon, she
decided she may as well wander in the direction of Stobswell, although there
was no way she was going to the poorhouse, she thought.
    As she walked up the
Hilltown in the growing darkness, she heard a shrill whistle, and then from a
large gate up ahead, hundreds of women and children with a few men interspersed
here and there, started pouring out into the streets. They were all gabbing
away to each other, and Mary pressed herself back against the wall as they
streamed past in all directions. As quickly as they came out, they had all
disappeared up the hill and into the tenement closes, or into the public
houses. Some of the children remained in the street playing with each other.
    There was a public
house at the end of the road, and Mary went inside where it was warm. She sat
at a table near the door, hoping the burly barman would not spot her, and
wondered where to go next?
    The woman at the next
table started talking to her. She was dressed quite gaudily in bright clothes.
    “Not seen you round ‘ere
before. Ye new?” she asked Mary.
    Mary nodded and
replied “I need somewhere to stay the night. Do you know of any place?”
    The woman, whose name
was Aggie, told her there was a rooming house around the corner.
    “D’ye have the money
to pay the rent?” Aggie asked, and Mary nodded her head in reply.
    “Then go ask fir Rab.
The beds are clean enough. It’s whaur I stay and entertain” she smiled a
toothless smile before heading over to a group of men at the bar. Mary finished
her drink and as she left, she saw the woman heading towards the back door of
the public house with one of the men following closely behind.
    The room Mary got was
clean as Aggie had promised, however it cost Mary a fifth of the money she had
left, so she knew she would have to get a job soon. In the morning she spoke
with some of her neighbours, from the other rooms of the house, and soon
discovered that most of them were prostitutes.
    “Ye’d make a lot o’
money Mary, wi that bonny chestnut hair o’ yours” they told her. “How else ye
gonna support yersel and the bairn?”
    “Coorse ye’d hae tae
wait til the bairn wiz oot. No many wud want ye while yer in the puddin’ club”
one of them cackled.
    Mary knew she could
never earn money that way; however she found that when she went to the jute
mills to ask for a job, they told her to come back after her baby was born.
    So, later that week,
Mary found herself huddled in a doorway to sleep, when she had finally run out
of money. She had watched until the shopkeeper of the little bakery had shut up
for the night, and then crouched down in the corner clutching her suitcase to
her. She was absolutely terrified, but finally managed to drift off into sleep
around midnight, as the noise from the street started to die down.
    Suddenly, she was
awake again. A dirty tramp was fondling her and she bit his hand and jumped up
as quickly as she could, and ran away with him shouting curses after her.
    Mary kept running and
running until she could run no more, with her baby inside complaining and
kicking. A painful stitch was hurting in her side, and she sat below a tree
until she got her breath back. She was in a country lane on the outskirts of
Dundee. She suddenly