The Whitechapel Girl Read online

  ‘Leave off, May.’

  ‘No, Ett, you leave off.’ It wasn’t like Maisie to sound so solemn. ‘Look, yer don’t really believe that this Protsky geezer’s going to give yer a proper job or nothing, do yer, Ett?’

  ‘I was right,’ said Ettie sadly. ‘You are jealous, May, ain’t yer? But I don’t blame yer. I’ve got a chance to get out and you ain’t.’ She paused. ‘Would you rather I didn’t go? That I stayed round here, with all this?’

  May looked round her, trying to see the place for what it really was. What she saw was barefoot kids from the gutter selling bits of stolen junk for money to buy a crust; passing hansoms with their customers out slumming, looking to pick up one of the whores who stood on every comer, and drunks arguing and fighting their way along the road. In fact, what she saw was what she always saw: filth and poverty. ‘Don’t suppose it is much to lose, really, is it?’ she said bleakly. ‘But you remember Ettie Wilkins, you’re a Whitechapel girl born and bred, no matter how much you try and forget it.’

  The girls continued their walk in silence, swerving neatly out of the way as a small boy darted out from one of the alleys that lead off the main road. He had dived out after his toy: a football made from a bundle of rags and paper, tied tightly with bits of many-times-knotted string.

  ‘Hurry up with that ball,’ shouted his tiny companion, me mum’ll be home from the pub soon, and I’ll cop it if I ain’t indoors looking after the young ’uns.’

  ‘They might not have much, but there’s a lot of good people round here, Ett,’ said Maisie, trying to find something, anything, to say that could convince Ettie that Whitechapel had something worth staying for. She scooped up the makeshift ball and tossed it to the hollow-eyed child who grabbed it and ran off back to his game. ‘Our Billy’s a nice bloke. Yer know he is. And he’s right stuck on you. Mum reckons he’ll make a few shillings for himself one day,’ she continued airily. ‘You just see if he don’t.’

  Ettie didn’t answer or even look at her friend, although she was actually listening to every word that Maisie Bury was saying. She bent forward, feigning interest in the ill-assorted mess of jumble on a handcart doubling as a market stall.

  ‘He really does think a lot of you, yer know,’ May went on, peering over Ettie’s shoulder to see what odds and ends were so absorbing her friend. ‘He’s said as much to me and all. Ever so many times. And yer could do worse than our Billy. A lot worse.’

  ‘I know, May, I know,’ she replied, examining a pair of torn lace mitts. ‘But I just don’t want to wind up like me mum. Stuck in one poxy room, with a rusty, broken bedstead and a buggy, straw-filled mattress. And gawd knows how many kids hanging on me skirts. All having to kip on the floor till they die or disappear one day.’ Ettie dropped the ragged gloves back on the heap she’d taken them from and, no longer pretending any interest in the heap of junk on the stall, she turned to face Maisie. ‘And having to share one lavvy and a tap with all the rest of the court. Piss-pots under the bed, stinking the rooms out till they’re emptied out of the window into the back yard. No firewood to burn cos someone else already had the idea to chop up the banisters before you could get to them. The whole place running alive with fleas, flies and rats. Never mind the drunks hanging round for what they might be able to get off the girls…’

  ‘All right, Ett, all right. For gawd’s sake.’ Maisie held up her hands to stop her going on any more. ‘I do know. We might have two rooms to ourselves, but I still live in the sodding courts, don’t I?’

  Ettie threw a sad, defeated look at her friend. ‘Yeah, May, course yer do. And even that rat-hole of a court’s better than winding up on the streets like a lot of them poor cows do.’

  But Maisie wasn’t content to leave it there. ‘This Jacob Protsky,’ she said carefully. ‘Or whatever he calls himself. Yer reckon yer going to stay with him, but he ain’t our type, Ett. Yer shouldn’t be getting mixed up with the likes of him.’

  They walked on, the uncomfortable, unaccustomed silence hanging over them once more. Even the allure of the street vendors couldn’t lift their spirits. So it was with real gratitude that they were forced out of their embarrassment by the coarse cries of a particularly loud stall holder.

  ‘Come on, girlies,’ he hollered. ‘Lovely saveloys, nice and hot. Look at the size of this one!’ The ruddy-faced man waved the hot orangey-brown sausage suggestively at the two friends. ‘Get yer laughing tackle round that, darling. Go on, treat yerselves!’

  The smell was irresistible.

  ‘No ta,’ chirped Maisie, her lips tight. ‘Everyone knows your grub’s all full of sawdust.’

  ‘Cheeky mare, there’s nothing wrong with my savs. Here.’ The stall holder cut a single tantalising mouthful of the piping hot sausage and held it out to her at arm’s length, making sure that all the potential customers, who had gathered round to witness the hoped-for row, could see. ‘You just try that. Sawdust, my Aunt Fanny!’

  He’d fallen for it. Maisie snatched the tidbit from the end of his knife and popped it gleefully into her mouth. ‘Bleed’n handsome,’ she said, wiping a dribble of grease from her beaming chops. ‘Got any more for us, mate?’

  ‘Yer ain’t got no money have yer, yer saucy cow?’ The sudden realisation that he’d been had infuriated the man. If it hadn’t been for the presence of possible customers in the laughing crowd, he would have given Maisie what-for, all right. As it was she was able to stroll casually on, much to the delight of the applauding lads who had witnessed her triumph.

  ‘No matter what yer say, Ett,’ said Maisie, pausing only to turn and give the saveloy seller a broad wink and to blow him a kiss, ‘this is where we belong. This is our life here. And the court’s our home.’

  Ettie laughed sardonically, ‘Aw yeah, lovely, I don’t think. I mean, the whole neighbourhood is so wonderful, ain’t it?’

  They stepped over a steaming pile of horse muck which added to the overall stink of rotting vegetables and open drains.

  ‘And that bloody stand-pipe ain’t been running for ten days now. Why should we have to walk two streets away just to get a bucket of water to drink and wash ourselves in. Eh? Tell me that if yer can. Yer can’t, can yer?’

  ‘Well, how about yer job?’ asked Maisie, somewhat unconvincingly.

  ‘D’yer know what, May, I’d forgotten all about that. Fancy! How could I forget how much I look forward to scraping fur off them poxy skins day after day? And how I love getting the fluff down me throat and in me lungs so’s I can hardly breathe by the time I goes to bed. And, do yer know something else? I’d forgotten how I’d looked forward to spending me old age in the chest hospital cos I can’t breathe at all no more. And whatever will all them posh old tarts up West do when they can’t get their bit of fur for their new cloaks and hats?’

  ‘Yer don’t have to be so bloody nasty, Ett.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Maisie, I don’t mean nothing, it’s just I don’t want to wind up like me mum. Or like them over there.’

  Ettie nodded towards two women standing at the entrance to an especially fetid alley. It was difficult to judge their age under the roughly applied layers of powder and rouge: they could have been anything from fifteen to fifty. Their clothes were a strange series of layers made up of petticoats, bustles, skirts, blouses and jackets, topped off with what had once been brightly coloured adornments, but were now greasy feathers, holey shawls and tatty bonnets – all a sad imitation of their previous glory. In between calling out their raucous invitations to any man who passed by, the women sang and danced, laughed and joked as much as their drunken state allowed.

  ‘At least they look like they’re having a good time,’ said May stubbornly.

  ‘Don’t be daft, May. Look at them. Look at them properly.’

  ‘Yer getting a bit toffee-nosed, ain’t yer, Ettie Wilkins? Most girls round here have been on the game at one time or another.’ She paused, then added quickly, ‘And, let’s face it, you ain’t exactly no lily-white virgin yerself, now are yer
?’

  ‘Yer know that ain’t what I mean, Maisie. I’m in no position to judge no one. I just want something nice for once.’

  Suitably chastened, Maisie tried another approach. ‘Yer do know he’s a Jew, don’t yer, Ett?’ she said, glancing at Ettie to catch her reaction. ‘That Lou at the gaff, she told me.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, haven’t you heard all them things they say about them?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Yer know.’

  ‘No, you tell me.’

  ‘Yer just being awkward, Ett, like yer always are when yer ain’t getting yer own way.’

  Pained, Maisie sniffed and looked away. She was clearly hurt, and Ettie knew why: her best friend was leaving because she couldn’t stand living in Tyvern Court any more, so what did it say about Maisie that she was content to stay? But Ettie really didn’t want to fall out with her. ‘So, what’s your Alfie doing with himself?’ she asked, changing the subject to the ever-fruitful topic of the goings-on of Maisie’s eldest brother. ‘I ain’t seen him around for a couple of days.’

  ‘He’s been lying low. Frightened he’ll get done by the coppers again,’ said Maisie, sighing loudly.

  ‘What’s he done this time?’

  ‘Drunk in charge of his bleed’n donkey barrow, if yer don’t mind.’

  Ettie let out a splutter of laughter. ‘Do what?’

  Maisie warmed to her role of story-teller. ‘He was driving down to Sclater Street – meant to be delivering a load of songbirds to one of the dealers, see. And he hit a stone or something. The cart went over and all the bleeding birds got out. Well, the donkey took off towards Shoreditch dragging the barrow behind. Right turn out by the sound of it. Anyway, Alfie catches hold of the donkey, grabs it round the neck and kind of wrestles it to the ground. All the fellahs in the market was cheye-eyeking him and taking the right piss. That was too much for him – well, yer know what he’s like – went bonkers, he did, and wound up hitting three blokes for laughing at him. By the time the rozzers got there he’d had it away on his toes. The donkey walked home to the yard by itself.’

  The two girls burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter at the idea of Maisie’s always dapper, yet quick-tempered brother being unable to control the little brown donkey.

  ‘I blame our red hair, Ett. It’d be different if we had dark hair like yours,’ said May, trying to recover from her giggles.

  ‘Yer’ll have to get yerselves some wigs.’ Ettie spluttered the words as she imagined the pale and freckled Bury family resplendent with thick, deep brown hair.

  But Ettie’s laughter stopped dead as she spotted a big, burly man with steel-grey cropped hair coming round the corner. She wasn’t sure if it was him at first, but then he moved into the bluish light cast by a lamp on one of the fruit stalls, and she knew immediately.

  ‘May,’ she whispered, ‘it’s him.’

  ‘Who?’

  Ettie grabbed Maisie and pulled her back into the shadows. ‘Ssshhh! Keep yer voice down. It’s him, me mum’s latest.’

  ‘Aw yeah, ugly bastard. Just look at him.’

  They watched as the man disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘Come on, May, I want to get home and see my mum while he’s out.’

  * * *

  ‘Mum. Mum.’ Ettie shook her mother by the shoulder, but it was no good, she couldn’t rouse her. She knew from experience that when she was like this she wouldn’t come round for hours.

  She peered through the grimy broken windowpane down into Tyvern Court below. There was no sign of him coming back yet. She’d wait for a while longer, she decided. She didn’t like the idea of going without seeing her mum. If he came back she could always slip out the back way, into the yard and over the fence, before he even knew she’d been there.

  It had been such a very long day. Ettie settled herself down on her bed – a damp, squashed mattress on the floor under the window – and waited. From her ragged place on the bare boards, she could make out the bare dimensions of the filthy room: the narrow cot on which her mother sprawled, the rough, lop-sided wooden table with the quarter loaf of stale, fly-blown bread, the one chair with its rickety legs and, almost as visible, the stink of the piss-pot, the cloying heat and the dirt, the sounds of rowing and fighting from the warren of slums surrounding her, and over it all her mother’s snores, swirling, all of them, into one blur of hideous torment.

  ‘Aw no!’ Ettie’s hand flew to her mouth in horror. It was the sound she dreaded: the heavy hob-nailed boots smashing into the splintered wooden steps which led up to the tiny, cramped hole that was their home.

  She couldn’t believe it, she must have dropped off to sleep.

  She screwed her body into the smallest possible shape, pushing herself tight against the wall. As though that could save her.

  At least she’d put out the lamp to save her mum’s oil, she told herself. Maybe he wouldn’t see her in the dark…

  The door crashed back on its single rusted hinge, and hung almost comically at a crazy, drunken angle from the frame.

  ‘Can’t yer come in a bit quieter, yer bleed’n nuisance?’ echoed from somewhere deep outside in the courts. ‘Some of us is sleeping, yer know.’

  ‘Or sodding trying to,’ shouted someone else.

  The man didn’t answer, he didn’t care about anyone. He bent forward, took hold of Ettie by her shoulder and dragged her up from the floor. He said nothing. The stench of the slaughterman was all about him: a sickening mix of blood and excrement, the nightmare reminder of the terrified creatures whose throats he slit for his living. The feel of his calloused hands against her made Ettie’s skin crawl; the taste of his sour, putrid breath as he forced his tongue into her mouth was more than she could bear.

  * * *

  ‘Hello, May, what you doing sitting out here this time of night? It must be nearly one o’clock. Bugs got too much for yer indoors?’

  ‘Alfie!’ At the sound of her brother’s voice, Maisie jumped up from where she’d been sitting on the street-door step. ‘I’m glad yer back home, I could do with some company. I nearly dozed off, and I promised Bill I’d keep watch for…’ But before she could finish explaining who or what she was waiting for, Maisie barged past her brother and began hissing in a loud whisper to someone else. ‘And where do yer think you’re going?’ she demanded. ‘I thought yer was at least staying the night.’

  Alfie turned round to see who Maisie was having a go at. ‘Hello, Ett,’ he said, confused. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ve had enough. I’m off,’ sobbed Ettie, shaking Maisie’s hand from her arm.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Alfie.

  ‘Ettie’s going off with some Professor bloke,’ said May, as though that accounted for everything.

  ‘Blimey, I’ve only been away for a couple of days and yer’ve all took leave of yer senses,’ said Alfie, taking off his cheese-cutter cap and scratching his head. ‘And what’s our Billy got to say about all this?’

  ‘Leave me alone, the pair of you,’ gasped Ettie through her tears and ran off sobbing towards the arch that was the way out of Tyvern Court. ‘Never again, May,’ she wailed over her shoulder. ‘He ain’t getting another chance to touch me.’

  ‘Shit!’ exclaimed Maisie. ‘That bastard must have slipped by me. I’ve sat out here all this time keeping a look-out and I never even saw him. That’s you talking to me, putting me off,’ she accused Alf. ‘Billy ain’t going to be very happy, I can tell yer that.’

  ‘Yer going to have to explain, May,’ said Alf.

  ‘I told Billy I’d keep a watch out in the court while he went to bed. He’s got to get up for work, ain’t he?’

  ‘Keep a watch out for who?’

  ‘I ain’t got time,’ said his sister. ‘I’ll tell yer later.’ With that she lifted her skirts and ran off after her friend, but Ettie already had quite a lead on her and May wasn’t nearly as lithe as she was. Soon May was panting and puffing like a steam engine, and huggi
ng her aching sides from the effort of it all. She stood and tried to get her breath back, yelling between gasps, ‘Wait a mo, Ett, hold on.’

  Ettie stopped at the corner and stood in the pool of yellow fight shining from the single street-lamp, her face drained of colour.

  ‘This is it, May,’ she called. ‘I ain’t putting up with it no more. I’m changing me life. I mean it. I’m going on the stage. With Jacob Protsky.’

  ‘But, Ett…’

  ‘I’ll see yer later,’ she said, and ran off into the night.

  Maisie turned and walked slowly back towards Tyvern Court, wondering what on earth she was going to say to Billy.

  Chapter 4

  No matter how bad it was being forced to help with her father’s revolting dissections and experiments, what he did to her afterwards was always worse. Much worse. Sometimes he wouldn’t even wait until they were out of that terrible place.

  Those times he would moan, ‘Save me from the whores, Celia,’ as he forced her down on to the hard, unyielding floor of the operating theatre, pleading, ‘Don’t let me be infected by them,’ as he unbuttoned himself. Then, ‘Save me with your purity, Celia. Save me.’

  The stench of blood and putrefying flesh mingled in her nostrils with the stench of his sweat, his disgusting moans filling her ears – she couldn’t escape the sound or the stink of him, the weight of him upon her.

  When he had finished with her he would act as though nothing had happened. Some days she almost doubted herself that anything had happened between them, doubted, in fact, her very sanity. But then he would do it all over again. And again.

  If she didn’t feel so disgusted and dirty she would have prayed for help, but how could she speak those words, even in silent prayer? And to whom, if not God, could she turn? All she could hope for was that he would do it quickly, that he would not hurt her too badly, and that Smithson would not be outside, pressed against the door, hoping to hear her groans of pain and anguish.