The Baker's Sister, page 21
‘Sarah, come on there’s nothing you can do now,’ Mary said desperately pulling at her arm. ‘Come on you know what you’ve got to do now, to save your own skin. Come on gal, I promised him I’d look after you if this happened and I’m not going to let him down.’
‘I need to see him, I need to know if he’s still alive,’ Sarah wailed and got up on her feet and tried to fight through the men in her way.
‘Sarah, he’s dead. Dead as Prince Bloody Albert. He had no chance and he knew it. They’ll see to his burial. Now you come with me, while everybody’s still scrapping. Come and get your things and get away back home as he wanted you to. I promised him, please, before Stephos or the Odessians claim your house and you… and you end up like me.’ Mary knew if she was seen helping the loser’s woman she’d be up for as much punishment as Stephos felt like doling out. She tugged on Sarah’s arm. ‘Come, come now, else Lord knows what life you’ll have once these lot calm down and start claiming what they will think is theirs.’
‘I don’t want to, I want to see that they are doing right to Sam,’ Sarah cried and turned around and looked at Mary. She didn’t want him to be like the little baby she’d found all those weeks ago, just dumped on the side of the river.
‘You’ll do right by Sam if you come with me. You know you will, it’s what we both promised him,’ Mary gabbled at her. ‘Now move. Nothing more can be done for Sam. I’ll see his body gets a decent burial. Stephos Stefani owes him that, he knew your Sam didn’t stand a chance. I think he was just a pawn in the gang games. I’ve heard that both the Odessans and the Bessarabians are going to rule these streets together. That’s why Sam wanted you on your way back home. Now come on, run for it while you can.’
Mary saw the panic and grief rise on Sarah’s face as she suddenly realized there was nothing she could do for her Sam, and that yes, it was time for her to make good her escape and flee.
‘I’m coming, but I don’t want to leave him. I should stay, stay and see if I can help him, just in case they are lying and he’s still alive,’ Sarah cried as she followed Mary out of the hell pit of the Ten Bells Inn. But she knew Mary was right and she must go now else she’d never escape the claws of the London gangs and would be made to earn a living just like Mary or even worse.
She ran up Dorset Street for her life, as if the hounds of hell were following her. Ducking and diving through back alleyways, she and Mary reached their own street. Turning the key in the lock of the house she had first thought would be the perfect home, she made straight for the hidden cash box up the chimney. Its contents had grown since the last time she had seen it. Sam had got a good pay-out from Stephos for his first fight and he had stashed it away knowing that it would be needed by Sarah if anything befell him.
‘That’s it, gal, you put that in your bag and pick it up and run. Run for your life and catch the first train up north that you can.’
Mary stood guard by the open door and watched Sarah pick up the readily packed carpet bag with things that she thought she wanted to take with her. She’d not a lot but of late Sam had brought her home clothes from houses that his gang had plundered, so at least she was better dressed than she had been a few months ago. She glanced wildly around her home and thought of Sam and the life she had been living with him. It had been hard, she knew that sometimes the drink had got the better of him and it had taken her a long time to regain trust in him after the time he had hit her and abused her. But on the whole, he had been a good man and looked after her well, for little or no reward. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
‘Sarah, come on! I can hear them coming up the street. They will parade the bastard of a man that won against your Sam all round the area, and they are bound to knock your door down and make sure that everyone here knows there’s a new force on the street. Hurry, just save your life, you don’t need nothing else!’ Mary shouted.
Sarah glanced around the room and noticed the wedding invitation that had just arrived earlier that week and she ran over to grab it. She couldn’t have the gang following her to Leeds and knowing where her sister lived. She folded it and put it in her pocket and then grabbed her bag and swept past Mary.
‘You know where to go, don’t you, gal? You know your way to King’s Cross?’ Mary said.
‘Yes, I know, don’t worry. Take care of yourself Mary, thank you for your help,’ Sarah said and gave her a quick hug.
‘Go, then go! They are coming. I need to make myself scarce and you need to go.’ Mary watched as Sarah turned on her heels. ‘Take care, gal,’ Mary thought as Sarah ran down the streets, not wanting to draw any attention to her.
Sarah weaved her way through street after street, her heart beating fast and a pain that hurt so badly as she thought of Sam being carried out of the boxing ring unloved and uncared for. She was relieved when she came to the Gothic building of Saint Pancras, its architecture more in keeping with a cathedral than a railway station and next to it the more sedate building of King’s Cross station and her way back home.
Outside the station, carriages and people queued, passengers coming to and from London and all going about their own business. She caught her breath and mingled into the crowds. She slowly walked into the station. Neither of the gangs would follow her this far – they had no reason to know this was where she’d head for, and it was too far off their own patch. They’d as likely be attacked by one of the Cross gangs, and Sarah wasn’t worth that much to them.
Sarah caught her breath and sat down on the first empty bench that she came to. She needed to calm herself, get her breath and think through her options. The station was filled with the smell of soot and coal, and steam engines blew their whistles and carriage doors were slammed as people went on their way.
She sat back, trying to make sense of the death of Sam and her life since she had left the security of Meg’s love and Leeds – a place that she had once hated. The last time she had been in King’s Cross station she had been full of hope and joy at the thought of the job on the stage that Larry Hopkirk had promised her. That had come to nothing and had just worsened her lot.
If she was truthful with herself, nothing had gone right since she moved down to London. It was time to go home and beg forgiveness from Meg and hope that she still loved her, even after she told her all that had happened to her. She now knew that Frankie Pearson was a good man and that Meg had done well to find him. It was time to go home and to grow up, show her loyalty and love to her sister.
She knew she couldn’t make herself a target for thieves, so went down to the public conveniences, cleaned her face, and then, in private, took some money out of the box. She then made her way to the ticket office and bought a ticket for Leeds. She looked down at the hem of her skirts as she climbed into the train carriage and realized that they were stained with Sam’s blood from the Ten Bells yard. It wasn’t only her skirt that was stained with Sam’s blood, she thought. Her heart was as well.
A few tears ran down her cheeks as the train slowly made its way out of the station carrying her and her pain back home to Leeds.
* * *
In the middle of the night, three men flung the body of Sam Waites into the Thames from the edge of Old Swan Pier. Just another unwanted body to be embraced by the flowing waters of the mighty river. Nobody would miss him, nobody would cry over him. Nobody, that is, except Sarah with her broken heart.
Chapter 22
Sarah sat back in her seat and watched people join and leave the train, wondering if they had experienced anything like what she had in the few years she had been on Earth.
You couldn’t tell from the outside. Nobody knew what was going on in other people’s lives and what home or work they were returning to once they closed the train door behind them and made their way out of the station.
She herself felt dead inside and tried to stem the tears that she refused to show to the outside world and particularly the people in the carriage with her. She was conscious of the stained hem of her skirt and tried to hide it, wrapping it around her legs and tucking it behind her boots as she looked out of the windows of the train at the scenery outside changing from a smoky industrial town to open fields and hedgerows that were bursting with new spring greens and the white of blossom.
Pulling into Sheffield station she started to worry about what she was going to tell Meg about her life in London. Meg at least knew that she was no longer working for Larry Hopkirk and that she was now living in Spitalfields. But what her sister didn’t know was that she had been living on one of the worst streets in London and about the life she had lived there.
Did she need to? Perhaps it was time to be truthful with her sister. She’d had enough of living in a fantasy world when she wrote to Meg and pretended that everything was alright and that she was doing well. She’d never done well since she had left Leeds and now she knew that the other man’s grass was not always greener.
She shuffled back in her seat and held her bag close to her as her carriage filled up with new passengers and tried to keep her gaze to herself.
A lad her age came and sat across from her and to her surprise he spoke her name. ‘Sarah… Sarah Fairfax, is that you? It is, isn’t it? Well, who would have thought it?’
Sarah looked up at him and recognized him as Harry the lad that had for years been her next-door neighbour and whom she would have run away with if he had only asked her properly.
‘Harry, I never thought that I’d see you on this train. Are you going home? What have you been doing in Sheffield?’ Sarah felt herself panic. She knew she looked a mess and there was Harry sitting across from her in a good tweed suit and matching cap with polished brogue shoes on his feet, a gentleman in the making. He had changed. Three years on, he was now a handsome young man. He smiled and leaned forward.
‘Well, I never, fancy me and you being on the same train. I’m in Sheffield because I missed my connection from Hull, so I had to come this way round to get home. I was late leaving the office so it was my own fault, I could have cursed when I missed the direct Leeds train by seconds.’ Harry looked at Sarah and saw that she looked pale and thin underneath her clothes.
‘You’ve come on a long way from jumping about on loads in the tom puds on the cut.’ Sarah smiled and remembered the good and the bad times with Harry. Sam had been a lot like him, she thought as she saw him look at the bottom of her skirts, noticing the stain of blood and quickly trying to hide it. ‘Don’t look at my skirt, I was walking through the market when a barrow boy spilled a pig’s carcass and its offal right at my feet. I could have lost my temper with him and I really should have changed my skirt but I hadn’t time, I’d to catch this train too,’ Sarah lied.
‘I couldn’t help but notice, but it’s only because I’m eyeing you over because it is so good to see you,’ Harry admitted. ‘Meg told me that you had gone to London, but I didn’t know where you were, else I would have hunted you out. I’ve been down there a lot of late. I work in an office now. I’m not a labourer anymore,’ he said proudly. ‘I was lucky enough to be listened to with a new idea for Hull docks and then they that were in charge placed me into the planning office. I’ve been going back and forward to the new docks being added on down at Tilbury at the mouth of the Thames.’ Harry smiled. ‘We always said that we’d run away to London, but we did it on our own in the end.’
‘That seems like a lifetime ago, Harry, so much has happened since then.’ Sarah summoned up a small grin. ‘Have you a beau or even a wife nowadays?’
‘No, nobody has managed to catch me yet. Still single and that’s how I like it. And you? Have you got a fella?’ Harry asked as the train pulled into Wakefield station and they both watched the passengers alight and embark. The train let off steam, wisps of it curling around the window that Sarah looked out of to try to hide the tears that threatened to overwhelm her.
‘I’ve just lost him, consumption, that’s why I’m coming home. I’ve nobody down there now. Besides, it is our Meg’s wedding and I decided to return home for it now I’m on my own.’ Sarah hung her head. She’d vowed that she would tell the truth to anybody who asked her, but she found herself so embarrassed at what she had been part of.
‘I’m sorry, my condolences. Were you married? He must only have been young?’ Harry asked with concern as the train pulled out of the station to the guard’s shriek of his whistle and the carriage doors slammed.
‘No, we weren’t married, but we were about to be. It was the thick London smog, it didn’t agree with his lungs.’ Sarah lied and hoped that Harry would ask no more of her life. ‘Where’s your mam and the rest of the family?’
‘I’m going back to see my mam, she’s got a new fella in her life. My father buggered off and left her. We think he’s in America, living under another name. Wherever he is, good riddance to him, he wasn’t good with my mam and we never had any money. She’s living with a butcher from Middleton, happy as Larry. Thankfully I’ve no more brothers and sisters and I hope none on the way. We are a big enough family.’
Harry looked at Sarah. The flush of her younger years had left her cheeks and he couldn’t help but think that she had been living a hard life down in London. ‘I bet Meg will be glad to see you coming home for her wedding. She’s asked all of us. I don’t know about the fancy wedding breakfast at Langroyd Hall, though, it is not up my lot’s street. Although I know my mam will tell them all to fill their boots and not hold back to eating anything that’s on the offing. Old habits die hard.’ Harry laughed.
‘I bet that’s Frankie’s choice, he always did think himself a bit better than anyone else,’ Sarah said. ‘I still don’t know what he sees in our Meg, she’s not in the same league as him with his posh ways.’
Sarah looked at the first wild boy that had captured her heart even though she had been too young to know it back then. But all she could see and think of was Sam and wondered what had become of his body.
‘You can tell you haven’t seen much of your Meg of late and you must not have heard much from her,’ Harry said. ‘Mam says the bakery that old Lund had is making money hand over fist and that now she’s running one for Frankie in Headingley. Between them they must be worth a bob or two.’ He stood up as the train slowed down. ‘We are nearly in Leeds. I need to get out quick and catch my connection on the Middleton line to get me back to my mam’s. I’ll no doubt see you at your Meg’s wedding and we can have a good catch up then. Perhaps we could share a tea sometime if you are back in Leeds to stay and I’m not travelling about?’
‘That would be good, I’d like that.’ Sarah looked up and smiled at Harry. She was in no mind to flirt but she still felt something for her first love.
‘Meg has my mam’s address and here, I’m swanky, I’ve even got my own business card now.’ Harry pulled out a small white card from his inside pocket and gave it to Sarah and winked. ‘That’s me Harry Hedges, planner and surveyor. Gone up in the world, I have, lass. You can’t hold good stuff down. Now, I’ve got to rush, but keep in touch.’
Sarah looked at the card and watched Harry make his way quickly down the carriage. She put the card into her bag before standing up and collecting her things as she joined the passengers alighting at Leeds station. She held onto the carriage sides as the train jerked as the brakes were put on.
Her legs felt like jelly and her stomach churned. She was back in her home city of Leeds. Back home with a broken heart, down on her luck, and with a past that she really could tell nobody respectable about.
Even Harry Hedges had made more of his life than her, Harry whose bum always hung out of his trousers and swore like a trooper. She had ruined her life and it was time to turn it around and grow up – ironically, just as Harry had told her to do all those years ago.
She stepped down from the train and looked around her. The last time she had stood on that platform she was leaving for what she thought was a better life down in London. How wrong she had been, and now she was returning home like the prodigal son.
Would Meg be glad to see her or would she disown her once she found out the real truth about her young sister’s life? She would soon find out, she thought as she handed in her ticket and walked out onto Aire Street and headed in the direction of Meg’s bakery on York Street.
She knew these streets like the back of her hand. It was good to be home and recognize the shops and the market that she and Meg had scrounged for food around in years past. She passed the opening of the lane to the Music Hall and shook her head. She should never have been so vulnerable. How stupid she had been believing every word that Larry Hopkirk had said to her. You got nothing without having to pay for it, and that was a lesson she had learned from being headstrong and stupid.
Her a music-hall star? How gullible had she been! She couldn’t dance, she couldn’t sing and at the moment she certainly didn’t have the looks. It was time to eat humble pie, face Meg and tell her, if nobody else, about everything that had happened in her life and hope that she would forgive her.
* * *
Sarah stood outside the bakery on York Street and peered in through the window.
She couldn’t see anybody behind the counter but she noticed how much the shop had changed. It was no longer a dirty looking bakery that sold bad-quality bread and looked unloved. The glass shelves were piled high with tasty savouries and scrumptious cakes and scones, just asking to be bought and eaten. Above the showy window was a brightly painted sign with Meg’s name upon it. Her sister had done what she had always wanted to do and now hopefully she was happy in her life.
Sarah peered in through the window again and felt apprehensive about walking into the bakery and taking her sister by surprise. It was late afternoon. She heard her stomach rumble and found her mouth dribbling as she looked at the baking and suddenly realized how hungry she was. She’d not eaten since before the fight first thing that morning and now her legs started to feel faint beneath her, partly with hunger and partly with the relief of reaching home and the safety that it would bring.
