The Conviction of Cora Burns Read online

  Cora counted four half-crowns from the pile of silver and slipped them into the laundered flour-sack pocket. Then she pulled her shawl tightly about her head.

  ‘Thank you for your kindness today, Mr Thripp. But I have to tell you that I shall not be coming back here again.’

  doll

  A chill gust whipped Cora’s face as she turned into Bull Street but she let her shawl drop and hang loose about her arms. Inside she was boiling. It was her own stupid weakness that had forced her to wave goodbye to the prospect of so much easy money. All she’d have needed to do was let herself be helped on to a safety bicycle and then keep still. But she knew, if she ever went back to the photographer’s shop, that she’d never manage it.

  She’d be unable to resist Alfred Thripp for long. His mix of yearning and sheepishness would soon make her crack, as much from impatience as desire. Then she’d be the one egging him on to do things that were ever more unspeakable and delicious. With each increasingly shocking suggestion she’d relish his initial outrage. But then, like Mr Jerwood perhaps, she’d examine his reaction and perhaps even count the seconds that it would take for his shock to melt, as it inevitably would, into lust.

  With Jimmy, the count wouldn’t even have reached one second. His appetites were almost as urgent as Cora’s, although not so inventive. The only time Jimmy had ever looked shocked was when she’d waylaid him, that first time, on the tree-shaded path beside the boiler house. He’d probably never seen anything so brazen as her standing there, petticoats above her ankles, asking whether he wanted to do it with her or not.

  Cora, in her ignorance, had been unable to see how the urge could be wrong if she felt it so strongly. The words ‘ventilation tunnel’ were hardly out of her mouth before he’d pulled her inside the brick duct beneath the asylum. They were so well hidden in there that even though she’d never done it before, and guessed that he hadn’t either, both of them ended up entirely unclothed. Afterwards, for what seemed like hours, they’d remained naked, unable to take their eyes off each other’s secret parts.

  And if she went with Alfred Thripp, it would end up just as it had with Jimmy. She’d bleed in the same nasty snare as before. All for the sake of ten shillings every Sunday and the scratching of an itch between her legs. She may as well go and work on Bordesley Street.

  Past the Market Hall, the street began to widen out and the soot-caked spire of St Martin’s Church brooded behind the mist. In the middle of the roadway, stalls were scrubbed bare and piled up; a few empty handcarts chained to railings around the statue. A roast-chestnut man, with a covered tray slung around his neck, stood silent by the drinking fountain, his eyes scanning the High Street for constables. A one-handed woman sat on the plinth, her knees spread wide to display a row of used clay pipes on her stained apron.

  Cora felt a tug at her skirt and a shifty-looking boy in a flat cap opened his fist in front of her.

  ‘Ha’penny for the lot, missus.’

  Three grubby monkey nuts lay on the boy’s outstretched palm. Before any thought came into Cora’s head, the flat of her hand had sprung up towards his cheek. The satisfying sting of a slap would have him scuttling off like a skittle in an alley. But with her hand in the air, she clenched her fingers and stopped herself. He was a child, after all. Cora shivered and dropped a penny into the street-lad’s hand.

  ‘Keep the nuts.’

  The boy swiped the coin into his fist and sneered at Cora as he would a simpleton. Then he ran off.

  Cora pulled her shawl tighter. When the flower market was there, the Bull Ring had an air of liveliness and colour but on a Sunday nothing masked the grime. The roadway was ground down with hardened horse shit and slimy scraps. As she hurried on to the stone pavement by the church, a street-seller, apparently heedless of any nearby constables, was calling out her wares.

  ‘Kitty-cats! Bow-wows! Babbies!’

  Cora began to veer away from the girl with her home-made trinkets laid out on a sack, but she could not help looking. The figurines were roughly made from paper and paste, all painted in unlikely colours; yellow dogs, orange cats and a red-faced doll with black pinhead eyes.

  ‘Want a doggy, missus?’

  Then Cora saw the girl’s face and froze.

  ‘Violet?’

  The girl’s expression fell into a scowl.

  Cora took a step closer. ‘Violet? Is that you? What are you doing?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re on about.’

  The girl’s voice was laced through with the drawling vowels of the town’s rookeries. Her coppery hair was loose about her shoulders but the face, the dark brows and rounded cheeks, was Violet’s. Blood rushed to Cora’s brain. This girl could not be Violet and yet she was.

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘What’s it to you, missus?’

  The girl stuck out her chin, and in that moment the misty light must have reflected across her eyes, because Cora saw that although one was blue, the other was almost entirely black. A thought flashed through her mind like a spill in a gas jet.

  ‘That was you at The Larches last week, wasn’t it? I saw you there.’

  The look of sudden recognition and panic that flooded the girl’s face was enough to let Cora know that she was right.

  Cora took a quick breath and told herself to walk away. She should ignore the unsavoury goings-on in the Jerwood household just as Cook and the other servants with wit enough to notice must have already decided to do. If Cora gave in to curiosity, the consequences were unlikely to do her any good. Yet, she might learn something that would give her some sway over the master and perhaps oblige him to point her towards Alice. And a bitter taste came into Cora’s mouth as she imagined the master in some way taking advantage of Violet.

  Cora cast an eye at the girl, then bent down beside the sacking and put out a finger, lightly stroking a lopsided yellow terrier.

  ‘This is a dear little thing. Did you make it?

  The girl’s face was still fixed in a scowl but her fingers were twisting into her filthy cotton apron that had probably never been white.

  She shook her head. ‘Florrie made that one.’

  ‘Which did you make then?’

  The girl pointed at the paste-head doll with pin eyes. A few black lines had been painted on for hair; the body was no more than a stuffed bag made from a calico sack.

  ‘Oh, that’s the best one of all! But I suppose it costs the most. How much do you want for it?’

  ‘A shilling?’

  The girl probably didn’t expect more than sixpence. Her eyes followed Cora’s hand as it came out of her pocket with a big silver coin pinched between thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Here. She’s so pretty I’ll give you half a crown for her…’ Cora held the coin over the girl’s cupped hand and looked into her darkened eye. ‘… if you tell me your name.’

  The girl hesitated and licked her lips. ‘Letty. Letty Flynn.’

  ‘And where do you live, Letty?’

  The girl shook her head but Cora dropped the coin in her hand anyway.

  ‘All right. But tell me a bit more. Is Florrie your sister?’

  Letty nodded.

  ‘Do you have any other sisters?

  ‘Aye. Plenty.’

  Cora gave a laugh. ‘Any close to you in age?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘A sister who looks just like you.’

  With a shrug Letty raised herself up on to her tiptoes and held herself there for a moment, a look of concentration on her face. Hairs prickled at the back of Cora’s neck because, apart from the tattered shawl and the flapping boots, it might have been Violet, raising herself on to the toes of her indoor shoes to consider stealing an envelope.

  Letty lowered her heels back to the ground. ‘There was one but she died.’

  The tingle slipped into Cor
a’s spine. ‘Oh, that’s sad. Do you remember her?’

  Again Letty shrugged then scratched the back of her head. Cora took a quick breath.

  ‘I know it was you at The Larches last week. I don’t mean to pry but I’m shook to see you here, like this. Will you let me see where you live?’

  Letty shook her head fiercely. ‘It’s all to be kept a secret. Ma says it would cost us dear if anyone finds out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I’ve found out now. Why should I keep it a secret if I don’t know what for? Your Ma can explain it to me. I just mean to be sure that you’re safe.’

  Letty’s brows furrowed as if the words were foreign. Cora reached into her pocket and felt through the coins. Why hadn’t she, damn it, taken that single shilling that made up the guinea? All she had left to offer was another half-crown. Letty’s eyes widened as Cora held it out to her.

  Both of the silver coins went inside Letty’s sack along with the tatty paste toys. Cora felt her shoulders tense as she imagined where Letty might take her and what might be said. But the trepidation was warming her up. She was ready for a fight.

  Letty hauled the bulging sack over her shoulder and nodded her head towards Digbeth. One of the paste toys, the ugly doll, was still in her hand. She held it out to Cora.

  ‘Here, missus. Don’t forget your babby.’

  court

  Boot soles gaped and flapped like hungry fish but didn’t seem to slow Letty down. She weaved over cobbles and kerbs, steering Cora against a wall at the tight corner of Meriden Street as a horse tram clipped by. Cora sensed that the girl was more at home amongst the carts and costermongers and dingy corner shops than she would ever be.

  They turned into Coventry Street and even though it was Sunday, a sour breeze blew up from the vinegar brewery. Deftly, Letty pushed Cora aside saving her foot from a steaming pile of dog mess. The girl laughed and looked so like Violet that bumps rose through Cora’s flesh.

  ‘Is it far?’

  Letty shook her head and smiled. The blackness in her right eye seemed darker.

  ‘What happened to your eye?’

  Letty shrugged.

  ‘Has it always been like that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Does it trouble you?’

  ‘Oh no. Ma says it’s a blessing because it helps her see that it’s me.’

  ‘What does she mean?’

  Again the girl shrugged. Then she began to skip and pointed.

  ‘That’s our entry.’

  From the street, the houses didn’t look too bad; a three-storey brick terrace with solid chimney stacks and tall sash windows. But once through the whitewashed passage to the back of the row, their true condition was clear. Other rows of almost identical houses had been built at tight right angles to the street and the high featureless wall of a factory or warehouse formed the back of the enclosed court. The yard looked worse even than the one Cora had seen on Bordesley Street. Perhaps there, the thin glare of gaslight hadn’t revealed the squalid detail, but here, there was enough bleak light to expose every pane of broken glass and gutter stain.

  At the back of the yard, a boy smaller than Letty was sitting at the edge of an overflowing ash heap beside the privy hut. He saw them and rushed over, his fists caked with ashes.

  ‘What you got, Letty?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  Letty was heading towards a door that was piled about with huge sacks, as high as Cora’s shoulder, brimming with rags. The whiff of rotten clothes blotted out the reek of the privy. Cora’s grip on the paste-head doll tightened.

  They went inside and up a narrow wooden staircase. As the boy squeezed past Cora, his hand left an ashy smear on her skirt. At the landing, Letty pushed open a door and went in. Warily, Cora followed over the threshold then caught her breath. The room was not much bigger than the scullery at The Larches. In one corner, a bed was piled high with dirty rags and, below the window, two grubby-faced little girls were tearing paper into a wooden tub. In a poor effort to cheer the place up, yellowed pages from illustrated newspapers were stuck haphazardly around the walls.

  At the small iron stove, a woman was on her hands and knees, her head almost inside the open door, rattling the grate with a poker.

  ‘Is that Robbie?’ Her voice was breathy with Irishness. ‘Did y’get any?’

  The boy dipped past Letty and went to the stove. ‘Here, Ma.’

  Delicately, the boy opened his fists and laid a few nuggets of charcoal on to the chipped tiles of the hearth.

  ‘Good boy.’

  ‘Letty’s back an’all. With a woman.’

  Mrs Flynn’s head jerked round. As she registered Cora standing at the half-open door, her expression hardened to a blank mask. She stood up, hands on her waist.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  Letty delved a hand into the bulging sack. ‘She’s from The Larches, Ma. She saw me at the Bull Ring. Look.’

  Her hand thrust the silver half-crowns towards her mother. The woman’s eyes went from the coins to Cora. Her face was hollowed with shadows; a thin line of soot cut across her forehead.

  ‘What d’y want?’

  The woman was just about old enough, Cora reckoned, to be her own mother. And if Cora ever met her, she imagined that this was how Mary Burns would likely look. A bitter little flame leapt through Cora’s stomach.

  ‘I’ve come to give you Mr Jerwood’s compliments.’

  Mrs Flynn snorted. ‘And?’

  ‘And to ask Letty to visit The Larches again next week.’

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘Next week?’

  Letty gave out a throaty wail and dropped her sack to the floor. Then she jumped at her mother, both hands gripping on to the woman’s fraying sleeve.

  ‘I’m not going back any more. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Shish! Hold your tongue, child.’

  Mrs Flynn’s hand glanced across the top of Letty’s head. Then she folded her arms and stared at Cora.

  ‘Why’s he sent you?’

  ‘Mr Jerwood is busy.’

  ‘But I don’t see him anyways. Haven’t seen him for years.’

  Cora took a breath and steeled herself. ‘Not since you sold your daughter to him, do you mean?’

  Mrs Flynn lunged. Cora put up her hands ready to make a grab at the lank hair but the woman stopped herself before they touched and her mouth hovered by Cora’s cheek. The breath was rancid as month-old pork dripping.

  ‘You’ll say not another word.’

  In the far corner of the room, a wail had started up. Until then Cora hadn’t noticed a red-cheeked baby sitting on a rolled-out mattress. Its arms were thrown wide as it hiccupped and sobbed, a thick sheen of slobber across its chin. Mrs Flynn reached for a knitted shawl hanging on the door knob and flung it around her head and shoulders.

  ‘Letty, see to Peg. Robbie, make some knots for the fire.’

  She held the door wide for Cora to leave and pressed her thin lips together. Cora glanced at Letty whose face was suddenly pale as she heaved the baby on to her hip.

  Cora followed Mrs Flynn down to the yard, through the passageway and out on to Coventry Street. Dusk was blowing a grimy mist down from the chimneys. With a sudden grip on Cora’s elbow Mrs Flynn pulled her into the boarded doorway of a grocer’s shop.

  ‘What is it you want from us?’

  ‘Only to know about Violet. He gave you money for her, didn’t he?’

  ‘He still does, Missus whatever-your-name-is. So that’s why you have to keep your trap shut. Because if that money stops, all them kids you see in there will be in the workhouse.’

  ‘But why did he want her, Mrs Flynn? Have you not asked yourself what he might
be doing to her? And to Letty?’

  ‘Well, it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘How do you know what he’s up to?’

  ‘If there was any funny business Letty would tell me. She’s going up there a few times a year.’

  ‘And Violet? How could she tell you what he does to her? She doesn’t even know you exist.’

  ‘Now missus, you hold your dirty tongue. It’s nothing sordid that’s going on but ’tis all for science. To measure them both and see the difference fresh air makes to a child.’

  ‘That’s why you sold your little one to a stranger?’

  ‘And how does she look then, missus know-it-all? Is she better fed than her sister? Better clothed?’

  Cora faltered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So I did right then, didn’t I?’

  ‘But Violet feels very alone, Mrs Flynn.’

  ‘Well, so do many of us. But the pain is not so great when your belly is full.’

  ‘Where is Mr Flynn?’

  Her look was shifty. ‘He’s away. Him and my eldest lads. Navigators.’

  Cora took a breath. ‘Listen, Mrs Flynn. Violet carries inside her the ache of losing a family, of losing a sister who was like a second self. You may not understand.’

  ‘And you do, do you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mrs Flynn’s face, framed by the black shawl, was drained of colour. The woman’s mouth twisted with contempt and her sour breath blew into Cora’s face.

  ‘A housemaid like you can’t have any idea of what it means to bring a child into the world knowing that you have sentenced her to a life of misery.’

  Cora felt herself sway forward, fist clenched. She could strike away the woman’s easy assumptions with one hard punch. But instead she twisted her heels and blindly marched away.

  Thomas Jerwood must have gone looking for a pair of twins and found them easily in the Digbeth rookeries where every family, Irish or not, had too many kids. Perhaps he’d left this same place, or a dirty street just like it, carrying little Violet not long after Cora and Alice had carried the little boy across the Union house schoolyard.