The Soul Awakes

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, skin like silver, tom harper, two bronze pennies, Uncategorized1 Comment

Annabelle Harper. A successful woman, with the Victoria public house at the bottom of Roundhay Road and three bakeries, all of them making money. Respected all around Sheepscar, she’s become the empress on the corner, and happily married to Detective Inspector Tom Harper.

And then a political awakening. But simpler to let her tell you herself. Better yet, come down this Saturday and here her tell it to you. You can get tickets here.

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I’m going to tell you a story…

 

I still can’t quite believe it happened, although I know it did. We had a coalman who used to deliver to the pub. He retired and a new one showed up. Cocky little devil. Thought he could fob me off with stuff that wasn’t worth the money. When I told him I wasn’t standing for it, he told me that maybe my husband needed to give me a clout or two. I picked up a shovel and I swear I’d have gone for him if he hadn’t turned and run off. I needed to take a walk to try and calm myself down. I ended up by the outdoor market – couldn’t even remember getting there. I must have looked a sight because this woman came up, a little old dear, and asked if I was all right. “Looks like a man’s got to you,” she said. She put a pamphlet in my hand. Votes for Women. All I did was glance down at the title, couldn’t have been more than a second. Blow me down if she didn’t disappear. Like I’d dreamed her up. But I had the pamphlet. Took it home. A fortnight later and I had the parlour full of books. I wanted to know it all. Those words I read…it was like someone had looked into my head and put everything I’d thought down on paper. It made sense. Me, I’d hardly read a book in my life. Who had the time? Once I was done with school, I was too busy working. Now I was sitting there going through them like the pages were the most important thing in the world. And Tom, bless him, he took it all in his stride. Didn’t even blink when I started going to the suffragist meetings. I was worried what the police might think, an officer’s wife involved in all that. He told me to go ahead, to do what I felt was right. I did. I listened. I liked what they had to say. But most of them, they’d never needed to do a day’s graft. They’d never had to try and feed a family on a mill girl’s wages. Course, it wasn’t long before I was up on my hind legs, saying this or that. Putting me two pen’orth in. That was how I met Miss Ford. She was in charge of it all. She’d worked with the unions, helped with strikes. People respected her. Mind like a razor, sharp as you like, and a heart as big as Yorkshire. She sat me down. Told me I could make a good speaker for the Suffrage Society. I thought she was joking, that it was her way of gently telling me to shut my mouth. But she was serious. I didn’t know which way to look. And she made me think that I did have something to give. Something different. I said yes, then I wished I hadn’t. My mind was whipping backwards and forwards like nobody’s business: I was going to back out. I was going to do it. Then everything I tried to write sounded so false. Be yourself, Tom told me. Who was I? A jumped-up piece of muck from the Bank whose husband had left her a pub. What did I have to tell anyone?  It wasn’t as if I knew any answers. Even when I was up on that podium I wasn’t sure I could go through with it. My teeth were chattering so hard they must have heard it in London. Then someone was saying my name and people were looking at me and it was too late to run away.  

Well, now I know what it must be like to be on the halls. I feel like I should sing a song or something. You don’t know me. No reason you should, really. I run a public house in Sheepscar. Nothing grand but it pays the bills. And I grew up on the Bank, on Leather Street. I know what they say: you grow up on the Bank and you’ll never amount to anything. I’ve heard it all my life. I started out in the mills when I was nine. It’s a hard life, I can tell you that right now. Moved into service a few years later because it paid better and it wasn’t as dangerous. I’m still not above scrubbing a floor if it needs it, or giving something a cleaning. Most of the girls I played with ended up doing the same. Maids or mills. If I ever see them now, the ones who are married have five or six children and husbands who bring in next to nothing every week. They survive, and that’s all they do. It’s down to the pawnbroker with the good clothes of a Tuesday morning so they can last until their men are paid. Redeem everything Friday evening. Do you know what they wish for when they’re walking down the street holding everything of value that they own? That their little ones will have something better. But they won’t. Do you know why not? Because there’s no one to speak up for them. They live, they die. Probably half of the girls I played hopscotch with when I was in pinafores are in the ground now. I’m not saying having the vote would put everything right. I’m not a fool. Men will still run things, same as they always have. There’ll still be more poor people than you can shake a stick at. But at least we’ll have a say. All of us. That’s the women on Leather Street, where I grew up, as much as anyone here. Maybe they need it even more than us. I’ll tell you something else. Every day, every single day, I see women with all the hope gone from their faces. It’s been battered away long before they’re old enough to work. And we need hope. That’s why every woman needs the vote. Every man, too. The only way those men standing for Parliament will ever do anything is if they need our votes to win. Half their promises will still vanish into thin air. Of course they will, they always do. And they still won’t do anything more than they absolutely have to. (Pause) But for the first time they’ll have to listen to us.

And that was it. I couldn’t believe I’d said it all. Couldn’t believe I’d made that much sense. At least I wasn’t shaking anymore. And to see their faces and hear them clapping, well, it didn’t seem like that could be for me. But Miss Ford must have liked it – she wanted me to start speaking regularly. I had to take a deep breath before I said yes. As soon as I agreed to that, she started talking about having me on the committee. Give them an inch and they want a mile. I said no. All that travelling hither and yon. Not when I had the pub and the bakeries. And…

I was up the duff. Couldn’t be. That’s what I thought at first. After all, I hadn’t caught before. I thought the miscarriage meant I couldn’t. So I wasn’t about to say anything till I was sure. Not tempting fate. And I was older, not one of the young lasses popping them out. Tom, he was over the moon. (Smiles) Once he picked his jaw off the floor, any road. From the way he tried to look after me you’d think no one had ever had a bairn before. You have thought I was the best family china. How do you think you got here, I asked him finally? And your ma, and all those before her. It’s nature. That shut him up and he let me get on with things. There was work to do. I tell you what, nature decided to make hard work of me in the end. It had the last laugh. The best part of twenty-four hours in labour. Sweating and cursing and screaming. I was holding the midwife’s hand so hard I’m surprised I didn’t break her fingers. But it was worth it. Called her Mary, after Mary McLaughlin I grew up with on Leather Street. That’s right, I’m talking about you. Bit over a year now and into everything when she’s awake. Daren’t take your eyes off her for a moment. Talk to her da and you’d think butter wouldn’t melt. He’d learn quick enough if he spent all day with her. She won’t want for anything, I’ve already made sure of that. She’s lucky. I have the brass. Not like most round here, where the hunger never leaves the eyes. But I’m going to make sure she knows what the world is really like outside the door. She needs that. I owe her that. I’ve not forgotten all those years when I was muck. Scratch me hard enough and it’s still under there. I want my Mary to have the things I never did. The vote. Rights. A life that doesn’t have to depend on a fella. The things that matter. Might as well wish for the moon, eh? It’s like having a tiny hammer and chipping away at a big block of stone. You keep doing it and nothing seems to happen. But you keep believing that one day the stone will just fall apart. Maybe I can get in a few blows. Do my bit. Yes, I speak at meetings. Maybe it helps, I don’t know. I sold the bakeries. Miss Ford asked me to be secretary of the Suffrage Society. No going out of Leeds, she promised. Aye, I thought, I can do that. But there weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything, not with this one scampering around. The shops gave me what I needed. But maybe I didn’t need that any more. I’ll never get rid of this place, though. The Victoria, it’s home. Don’t want anywhere else. They’ll have to carry me out of here in a box. Won’t be for a long time yet, not if I have anything to do with it. Too much to do. And here I am, barely started. Up from the muck and still a long way to go. What I’ve learned: you do what you have to do. You get on with it.

When You’re Muck – From Mill To Maid

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, tom harper, UncategorizedLeave a comment

For working-class girls in Victorian Leeds, there were two options, mills or maids. It wasn’t an easy life, there were no luxuries.

For Annabelle Harper, the mill was purgatory. Maybe becoming a maid might be better. Her experience was that of so many girls. This is a fragment of her story. To know more, come and see The Empress on the Corner.

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When you’re muck, you’re muck. Soon as they see you, everyone knows it and they don’t forget it. Not them upstairs, the ones who pay for it all. I mean down in the servants’ hall. Got a pecking order so strict you’d think Moses had handed it down himself. And right at the bottom was muggins here. Scullery maid. Up before anyone to lay a fire, put the kettle on the range and make tea, and God help you if you’re late. Scrub the pans after every meal. But not the good china, because I can’t be trusted with it. Can’t even eat with the other servants. Dish the food out to them, clear it away when they’re done, then skulk away in a cubbyhole with whatever’s left. Mills or maids? When you’re muck it doesn’t seem to make much difference. I found that out soon enough. Kitchen maid, downstairs maid, it’s like climbing a ladder. You go up rung by rung. But very slowly. The lass who replaced me in the scullery lasted a fortnight. Can’t say I blame her. If I’d an ounce of sense I’d have done exactly the same thing. But I was bloody-minded. I wasn’t going home with me tail between me legs. I wasn’t going to give me da the satisfaction. They could have set me to shovelling the sewers and I wouldn’t have left. Sixteen and I’m finally an upstairs maid. Polish the glass on the windows, look out and there’s the whole world in front of you. Out towards Otley, that big valley just spread there, all green. I used to gaze out at that every minute I could get. Didn’t matter the season. Because that looked like freedom. The little farmhouses with the smoke curling up to the sky. I used to think if I could just live in one of those places I could be happy for the rest of me life. My brain must have been addled. As if a life in the back of beyond with mud and pigs and cows would ever be anything for me. Then the housekeeper would come along, all silent because the rugs were so thick. She’d give me a clout and tell me to get back to work.

I turned seventeen and I was used to the job. I should have been by then, five years there. That house had become my world. Half day off every other week. Walk into Leeds to see me da and me family. An hour sitting in silence, then the walk back.  Maybe visit a lass or two I knew who worked at Black Dog. Didn’t tell them I was still sharing a bed with one of the other maids up in the attic. Or that the second son of the house had started noticing me. Some things you’re better off keeping to yourself. He had hands everywhere. Didn’t think he had to take no for an answer. Wasn’t too bad at first. I threatened to tell his ma and he left me alone for a few weeks. But all I had was empty words. I knew that and he realised it soon enough. After that he didn’t care. Why would he? I couldn’t do anything. Pinched my bum until it was black and blue. His family owned mills. They had the money, they had the power. I was just muck. I knew what was going to happen. Might as well have been written right there on the wall. I knew, but that didn’t mean he was going to get it easy. I’d make damn sure he’d never want to come for me again. I fought him. I made him pay. I bit, scratched, shouted. Went for his eyes. Hurt him. For all the good it did. He was always going to win. His kind always does. Once he started it wasn’t even a minute and he was done. I’ll never forget the sneer on his face as he buttoned himself up. I told him that if he ever came back and tried that again I’d slide a knife across his throat and let him bleed like a pig at slaughter. I spat in his face. I wasn’t going to let the tears start while he was there. I wasn’t going to let him see me weak. He might have got what he wanted but I wasn’t going to give him any bloody satisfaction. Then he was gone and I was lying there, crying my eyes out, pushing my face into the pillow. Did anyone come? Course they didn’t. I hurt right enough. Not just in my body. Here. And here. And when I was cried out I wiped my eyes and I had to make the bed where he’d had me, as if nothing had happened. Had to make it the next day, too, and all the ones after, and pretend nothing had happened there. But I’ll tell you what, he never tried it on with me again. I kept a knife in my pocket, just in case. I’d have hung for him, I’d have done it without thinking. I thought I’d hated people before that, but it didn’t even compare. I wasn’t about to leave, though. That would be running. Instead he was going to have to see me every day, to have his guilt staring him in the face. I was going to be there to remind him of what he’d done. He didn’t come sniffing round me and he didn’t bother any of the other girls. That was something. It wasn’t ever going to be over, of course. As long as I saw him, as long as I had to clean that room, it was like ripping the wound open again every day. But I’d do that, I’d grit me teeth and change the sheets and put on a smile for as long as it took to throw it all back at him. When you’re muck, though, nothing goes right. Six week later and I hadn’t come on yet. I knew what that meant. Up the spout, bun in the oven, whatever you want to call it. Not that I was going to say a word. Soon as the mistress heard she’d be throwing her hands up in horror, telling me how wicked I was. They’d have me out on me ear before you could say Jack Robinson, and not a word of a reference. Problem is, you can only go so long before people can tell. A question or two from the housekeeper and that was that. Didn’t even get the pleasure of telling the mistress it was her precious boy who’d caused it. Not that she’d have believed me or done owt about it. If you had money you were untouchable. I was on my way, wages paid, everything I had wrapped up in a shawl. God, it were like something from one of them penny novelettes. Should have seen my da’s face when I turned up on the doorstep. “Got the sack, have you? Don’t be thinking you can loll around here all day.” Aye, that’s the sort of welcome a daughter needs. He was always on at me. Put money in for me keep. Cook for him. Wash the pots and the clothes. I did me bit. He was down the pub when it happened. Where else would he be of a night? I’d just finished all the jobs and I was going to put me feet up. All of a sudden I had a pain like someone was trying to tear my insides out. Couldn’t hardly stand. I looked down and I saw blood. I didn’t know one body could have that much of it inside and it was all coming out. I knew what was happening but it didn’t matter. All I could think was ‘I’m going to die.’ I must have started screaming blue murder. I don’t know, I don’t remember. The next thing I knew old Mrs. Riley from next door was there. Sixteen stone if she was an ounce and a voice that could strip paint. But she looked after me. Got a pair of women in to help, then bullied a doctor into coming to Leather Street. That might have been a first. Stayed with me until me da rolled back and told him to take care of me or else. I’d lost the babby, of course. For the best, that’s what I reckoned. Didn’t stop me crying like a little lass, though. It kept coming back, that empty feeling like something had been stolen from me. And all the time me da was saying I had to get myself well and find some work. That let me know how welcome I was. And soon as I could, I started looking. Anything that got me away from him. Then I ran into Mary McLaughlin when I went for a quarter of tea to the shop. She told me they were looking for someone to work at the Victoria in Sheepscar.

So, About That Play…

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, gods of gold, leeds, skin like silver, two bronze pennies, UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Some of you (hopefully all of you) know that I have a play on soon. It’s called The Empress on the Corner, and it’s Annabelle Harper’s story. Yes, that Annabelle from Gods of Gold, Two Bronze Pennies, and Skin Like Silver. If you don’t know about the play, you can find out here – it’s on June 4 as part of Leeds Big Bookend festival, with Carolyn Eden as Annabelle.

We’re presenting part of it: a couple of scenes live, script-in-hand (you won’t even notice the script), one as an audio play, and one on video. It allows the audience to see the possibilities of the production. Each scene will be put in context, and you’ll come away feeling you know Annabelle.

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On Friday we recorded the audio section. Then, on Saturday, thanks to the people at Abbey House Museum and Bob Jordan of Obverse Films, we recorded the video.

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Magical? Absolutely. In costume, with the hair and makeup just so, it was Annabelle speaking. Once the video is edited it’ll be on YouTube, of course, as a teaser for the play or for the many things it might become in time.

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Every Saturday Night It Was The Old Tunes

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, leeds, Uncategorized1 Comment

When you have nothing, you make your pleasures out of the air and memories…life for the Irish on the Bank in Victorian times. Annabelle Harper knows…

When I was a lass, every Saturday night was the old tunes, the ones Sean Doughty had learned when he was a lad and brought over from Ireland with him. Half of Leather Street would get together. We all went, from tiny babbies to the old women with no teeth who could only sit in their chairs and drool and smile. Folk would bring something, if they had owt. There’d be a bucket or two of beer, maybe summat to eat, then Sean would tighten up his bow, tuck the fiddle under his chin and put it in tune. He didn’t play well and time hadn’t made him any better. But it didn’t matter. Everybody loved it. He had his fast pieces for dancing, and it felt like all the heavy boots and clogs crashing down would go right through the floor. Then he had slower ones for singing. I can still hear the way all the voices used to grow more and more drunk as the night went on.
I must have gone there when I was still in my mam, but the first time I remember was when I was three. Martin O’Leary pulled my braid so hard that I cried. I was so proud of my hair back then, a right little madam. I’d get me ma to brush it every night and watched meself in that little scrap of mirror we had.
He tugged it; I thought it had come off in his hand and I started to scream. The music stopped and everything went quiet as death. “What’s got into you?’ me mam said, but I was crying so hard that I couldn’t tell her. When it all came out, she gave me a clout for interrupting things, and there was a harder one for Martin.
Like it or not, we were dragged there every week. Probably the same on streets all over the Bank. Happen it was just a chance for everyone to forget that none of them had a pair of ha’pennies to rub together. Maybe for one night in the week they deserved a good time. Even us young ‘uns had fun when we weren’t chafing to be somewhere else. The grown-ups used to talk about Ireland. Not that half of them had ever seen it, or ever would. Most of them had grown up over here. But that was how it was. From the moment we were born it was drilled into us: Ireland was paradise itself. It was the promise of heaven. Erin. Green, beautiful fields. Waters. Mountains. All those legends of the past: Finn MacCool and Brian Borru. We took it in with our mammy’s milk. Wise men and great warriors, and Ireland done down and brought low by the English. Me, I didn’t care. Leeds was my home. It was all I knew. All that mattered. Who needed the Rock of Cashel when I had York Road, the Headrow, and Hunslet? This was my world, the only one I was ever likely to know.  As far as I was concerned, I’d be lucky enough if I ever made it off the Bank, never mind some other town or country. I knew exactly where I was headed: Black Dog Mills. Same as every other lass at school. Didn’t even need to be told. Mills or maids – that was how life was. Mills or maids.

A Very Short Story

On By chrisnickson2In leeds, Uncategorized3 Comments

He could hear the tinny noise drifting down from upstairs. The theme music for that pop shown on the Light Programme. Easy Beat. Groups and noise. He’d told his son that was could listen to it, as long as he stayed in his bedroom and kept the sound low on the transistor radio.

It was a sunny morning, late spring. He’d been up since seven, his wife -always his wife, never the wife – cooking breakfast, then off to Roundhay Park to let the dog run off the lead. Up at the small lake, the model boat people were sailing their craft. All remote control and God only knew what, like a bunch of big, eager boys.

He’d read his way through the Sunday Express, not that was much in it these days. No news, just scandal and rubbish, anything to sell papers. The sun came through the window, falling over his shoulder as he read.

Twenty years since the war ended, long enough for a bald patch to appear on the top of his head. He could feel it now, warmed, making him feel old.

In the kitchen he filled the kettle, then poured the boiling water into the metal bucket, topping it with cold and a sachet of proper car shampoo. The other stuff ruined the paint, everyone knew that. Sponge, chamois leather.

The Wolseley was parked in the drive. Seven hundred pounds it had cost him, a year old, but worth every penny. Leather seats, walnut dashboard, it felt like driving a Jaguar and it purred along the Great North Road.

His wife had complained, of course, the same way she had when he came home with the Tudor watch. They couldn’t afford it, she insisted, never mind that he told he that business was good. He never stinted her on the housekeeping, she didn’t have to worry about a thing. Neither did their son, he’d taken him out and bought him a Scalextric set yesterday, for God’s sake. They had money.

He was a manufacturer’s rep. Knitwear from Hong Kong. Cheap but well-made. That was what it said on the business cards, and he was gone four days a week through the north east. Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle. Sometimes all the way over the other side to Carlisle. The Wolseley had a big boot for samples and made all the hours of driving a joy. It was an investment, like buying good tools. That was how he explained it.

On Sunday he washed the car. Presentation was part of selling. He always looked good, wearing a suit and tie, well turned-out. The army had drilled that into him. His kit laid out exactly, everything, perfect, clean, Blancoed to high heaven. He’d enjoyed soldiering, it made sense to him. But he’d learned so much during the war. In the Commandos he’d picked up the skill of killing quietly, moving stealthily, never letting death bother him.

He soaped up the coachwork and the windows, seeing them sparkle in the light, bubbles forming and popping. He paid attention to the arches and the wheels, sponge and brush. Then bucket after bucket of cold water before using the leather to dry it all off and leaving it clean and shiny.

Ready to head up north again tomorrow.

But first he’d be out this evening. A small job. He’d started doing them just after he was demobbed. It began as a favour for a friend who was pressed, then word spread discreetly. Now, two or three times a year the telephone would ring. He went all over the North and the Midlands. It kept him sharp, used the skills he’d been given. And it paid well. It bought the car, the watch, the transistor radio he could hear blaring upstairs.

After all, the money had to come from somewhere.

It’s Annabelle’s World…

On By chrisnickson2In annabelle harper, gods of gold, leeds, skin like silver, tom harper, two bronze pennies, UncategorizedLeave a comment

…but she’d like you to come and visit.

A few years ago (Four? Five?) I was looking at one of my favourite paintings, Reflections On The Aire: On Strike, 1879, by Leeds artist Atkinson Grimshaw and a story came to me, fully formed, out of the ether.

That was my introduction to Annabelle. Annabelle Atkinson, she was then, sitting and looking at the picture with me, telling me how it came about that she was in it, looking back a decade to that days she stood on the banks of the river to be sketched.

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We met again when I settled down to write Gods of Gold, set during the Leeds Gas Strike of 1890. She was Annabelle Harper then, freshly married, flushed with happiness but with her feet firmly planted on the ground. With a flourish of her silk gown as she sat, she pushed me over on the chair.

‘I was there, luv,’ she told me. ‘I saw it all happen. Come on, I’ll tell you about it.’

Since then, we’ve spent quite a lot of time together. She’s in three of my published novels – Gods of Gold, Two Bronze Pennies, and Skin Like Silver. The fourth, The Iron Water, comes out in July, and I’m working on the fifth. I’ve shared the way Annabelle has blossomed. She’s the emotional centre of the novels in so many ways. She’s become a canny, successful businesswoman and a member of the Leeds Women’s Suffrage Society – and one of its speakers.

It was one of her Suffragist speeches, brought to breathing, passionate life by Carolyn Eden at the launch of Skin Like Silver, that was the catalyst for the play The Empress on the Corner.

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‘That’s her,’ Annabelle told me the day after the launch. ‘She’s the one to be me. Now, you, you’d better start telling my story. Are you listening? I’ll begin.’

I didn’t have a choice – when you have someone like Annabelle, she dictates what will happen. And so I wrote her story. Or perhaps I simply wrote down what she dictated.

The presentation is still a work in progress, and it will be sections of the complete play, not the entire thing. But it’s the story of growing up in a poor Irish family on the Bank in Leeds in the mid 1800s. Of having two choices in life, mills or maids. Of luck, of taking the chance to use her good mind. Of understanding that there’s more, that she can raise her voice for others.

It’s a Leeds story. It’s a political story. It’s a love story. But above everything, it’s Annabelle’s story.

And she reckons you need to come and see it. Believe me, I’ve learnt, you don’t argue with Annabelle, she’ll win in the end.

So you’d better go here to buy your ticket and we’ll see you on June 4, 2.30 pm at Leeds Central Library. It’s part of the wonderful Leeds Big Bookend festival.

Annabelle has her ticket. She’ll be on the side of the front row, with a big grin on her face, pleased as punch. Say hello to her after they play.

Down At The Black Dog

On By chrisnickson2In leeds, Uncategorized3 Comments

Most of the Irish who made their lives in 19th century Leeds lived on the Bank. It was one of the poorest areas of the town, a hill of land that looked down towards the canal and the river from the north. They lived in the worst quality housing – a report following a cholera outbreak there in the 1830s started the entire idea of public health in Leeds.

It wasn’t a place for ambition. It wasn’t much of a place for hope/ The chance of getting off the Bank was small. It was probably better for girls if they went to become maids. And mills or maids was as far as opportunity extended when they left school aged nine. Mill generally meant Black Dog, located on the Bank, most of whose workers were first or second-generation Irish.

 

On Monday morning when she comes in/ She hangs her coat on the highest pin/ Turns around for to view her frames/ Shouting, “Damn you, doffers, tie up your ends.”

Nine years old, me first day at the mill and I was shivering like I might die. I swear, I’d never known cold like having me bare feet on that floor. I can still feel it now. Doffing girls, that’s what we were. When a thread on the loom ran out we had to duck under the machine, quick like. No shoes or stockings allowed, to make sure we didn’t slip. Take off the old bobbin and put on a new one. And all the while the mistress is yelling at you to go faster, and you’re nipping in and out of machines that feel like they’re alive. You’re that terrified you can hardly hold the bobbin, let alone do owt with it.

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Black Dog Mill in the background

The first morning, all the girls from my class were on our way there. Me and Mary McLaughlin from across the road, holding hands as we walked. We were too scared to speak, although we’d always known it was coming.  Mary Dawson, Kathleen Cook, Eileen O’Toole, Jane Clark. They lined us up like they’d always been expecting us and took us inside. Off with the shoes, off the stockings. We knew what would happen. Lasses who’d done it the year before had loved every minute of telling us. But words…it’s never the same as when it’s real, is it? They marched us to where we’d work, a few in this room, a few in that. I was shaking.

But no one had said anything about the noise. It was all around, it seemed to fill you until you felt it in your chest and in your head and you were part of it. The doffing mistress told us what to do, she was tapping a quirt against her leg. One of the older girls showed us the job, darting in and out like it was nothing. Work a child could manage, that’s what they said. Happen that’s why it paid next to nowt. That was how you started. As long as you were small and nimble, and you didn’t get killed or maimed by the machine you could end up running the loom one day.

The mistress would beat us if we were too slow, the overseer would take his belt to us if we didn’t obey. All that for a few coppers a day. That’s how it was. Who were we to think it could be any different? We had to stand there, wait for the word then run. Two weeks on the job and I was looking after ten machines, slipping here and there, like I’d been doing it all me life. Then I’d stand again until my legs were aching and my knees hurt. Never a chance to sit. And in the air were all the little bits of this and that. They caught in your throat and made it dry, they made you cough, but there wasn’t any water for us to drink. No nowt. Why bother? We were muck.

Me mam had been at Black Dog. Her and all the other women around. Started there when she were nine, same as me. But they let her go a few months before I began. All those little things in the air…she’d taken in so many that she could hardly breathe any more, let alone do a day’s work. They couldn’t get their moneysworth out of her anymore, so they sacked her. Like I said, muck. Two a penny. If we became a problem they could throw us away and get another. There were always more.

Never had a doctor out to her. We didn’t have the brass. What could he have done, anyway? Nigh on twenty year of being there six days a week, breathing in all that dust, those little bits… it were too late. Wasn’t like she was the first; too many of them had been taken that way over the years. You saw them on the streets, wheezing as they tried to move. Couldn’t even walk to the shop and back without stopping every ten yards. That was my mam. Look at her and you’d think she was sixty. But she wun’t even forty. That’s what the mill done to her. Six month after they got rid, she was dead, and she’d not had one single day of joy.

It was Sunday morning. Me da was downstairs, just sitting, not saying a word. Me, I was by the bed, holding her hand and watching her drown from everything in her lungs. And I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. I could hear the bells ringing for Communion at Mount St. Mary’s. I had me hand behind her back to help her sit up, so she might last a few minutes longer. But she didn’t couldn’t even find the breath to speak. Just this look in her eyes, like she was pleading. Then she couldn’t breathe at all. The funeral were Tuesday. I had to beg for an afternoon off to go. Beg to go to me own mother’s funeral.

Some Days The Gods Give You Pearls

On By chrisnickson2In dark briggate blues, leeds, Uncategorized3 Comments

‘This is a strange question, but do you still have an air raid shelter at the bottom on your garden?’

As openings go, it’s quite an ice breaker, and the woman’s eyes did widen. But I’m getting a tiny bit ahead of myself…

This morning I decided to take a long walk, out by the house where I spent my childhood (we moved in when I was one and out when I was 11). I’d driven past it several times but never stopped. Knocking on the door and telling the people living there that I’d grown up the in the place…well, it seemed a good way to receive a suspicious look.

Today, though, I was on foot and just thought why the hell not. I was there and I had nothing to lose.

The woman, it turned out, had lived in the house since 1970, five years after we left. Thankfully, she believed me, invited me in and showed me the place as well as the garden, understandably her pride and joy.

I mentioned that the house and street featured in a couple of my novels.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked. I told her and her eyes widened again. Because she’d read (and thankfully, enjoyed) Dark Briggate Blues and been astonished to see Carr Manor Parade in there. I mentioned that her actually house was going to be the 1940s home for Lottie Armstrong, the main character of The Year of the Gun, which comes out in 2017.

We talked, and finally I set off again. I felt blessed by the sort of welcome I had never dared to imagine, and an invitation to return anytime. Thank you, I truly appreciate it. Some days the gods really do give you pearls.

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And the house? In many regards it was much the same – a big old cupboard in the kitchen, the drying rack on a rope, the stairs – but inevitably smaller than in my memory.

Oh, the air raid shelter? It’s still there, just blocked off these days.

A Different Kind Of Story…Or Maybe Not

On By chrisnickson2In Uncategorized1 Comment

Yes, it’s crime. But most of you are familiar with my work know it from Leeds – in various eras – or medieval Chesterfield.

This is far from that. About 5,500 miles distant, in fact. It’s 1939, and it’s Seattle. I lived in the city for 20 years, and it’s history fascinates me. The first white people only arrived in 1851, and not even 90 years later it was a metropolis. How could that happen?

Add to that the fact that I love noir novels and well, this opening just came to me. Given that it’s different, I have no idea if any of you will enjoy it. But I’d appreciate you letting me know…

 

Prologue

 

Dave Stone chewed on the meatloaf special, washed it down with a sip of coffee, then looked at the other man again.

‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You want me to give you city money for information I could maybe get for free by leaning on someone else. That it?’

Chapman had a weasel’s face, sharp and pointed, unattractive when he smiled and showed his set of stained, uneven teeth.

‘Well yeah, but you get it faster and with cleaner from me.’

They were sitting in the Dog House restaurant, on the short block of Denny between Aurora and Dexter. From his seat, Stone could look down the hill toward the bay and see the shipping heading in to Seattle or going down Puget Sound to dock in Tacoma. The sky was blue, the late May sun was bright and warm through the window. He felt happy with the world.

‘I could take you downtown and sweat it out of you for nothing.’

Chapman glanced at him nervously. He was sweating under a cheap seersucker suit and a gaudy tie, a straw boater casually pushed to the back of his head. He tried to look as if he didn’t care; instead he seemed desperate.

‘C’mon Dave, I’m trying to make a buck. It’s solid news.’

‘I’m already spending a nickel on a cup of coffee for you.’ He took out a pack of Luckies and lit one, sitting back as Harriet the waitress came over and took the empty plate.

‘You want dessert, honey? There’s apple pie. Made fresh this morning. It’s good a la mode.’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Once she’d gone he turned back to Chapman. ‘Okay, if it’s good I’ll give you five.’ Before the other man could object, he held up a finger to stop him, ‘And I pay you after. You’ve given me too many bum tips in the past, Tony. I’m don’t trust you these days.’

Everyone had something to sell. Information, the name of a bum who’d was looking to lie low, the winner in the last race at Longacres. That was the Depression. It had left everybody hustling. It was history now, that’s what the politicians said. But the remains of the Hooverville down on the tideflats or the people crowding the nickel lodging houses on Skid Road told a different story. There was still plenty of poverty in Seattle. Too many suspicious eyes and hungry bellies.

Chapman tugged a sack of Bull Durham tobacco from his suit coat, and took his time rolling a smoke.

‘Okay,’ he agreed finally and slid a folded piece of paper across the table. Stone raised an eyebrow as he took it. ‘You’re gonna owe me big for this, Dave.’ He slid out of the booth and left. Stone left two quarters and walked out to his Buick Special. The parking lot was almost empty. On the passenger seat the block headline in the P-I proclaimed Europe On Verge Of War. Let them fight, he thought. He had more important things on his mind, things much closer to home.

Very carefully, he unfolded Chapman’s note. Spider writing, bad spelling, but the meaning was clear. There was going to be an attempt on the life of Wilton Davis, the head of railroad workers’ union. Olympic Hotel, Friday night.

As he drove along Seventh Avenue, Stone rolled down the window and tossed out the cigarette butt. If he stopped that happening, maybe the Seattle Police Department would have a new lieutenant.

1-city-hall-park-w-smith-tower-a-curtis-1930s-web11

 

 

One

 

‘Goddammit, Stone, what were you doing?’ Captain McReady tossed the newspaper down on the desk. The room was almost empty. He was the only one there, sipping a cup of coffee he’d picked up at the Greek diner on the corner.

Saturday morning and the story was all over the front pages of the Seattle Times. ‘The chief called me this morning to congratulate me and I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.’ He rested a hip against the corner of the desk, anger still flaring in his eyes, his mouth twisted, breath sour. ‘I realize you’re a big star of the press now, but maybe you’d been willing to tell me what happened.’

It had been easy enough. He’d checked Chapman’s story; it was copacetic. Davis was a bagman for the mob out of Chicago that was trying to get a foothold on the coast. But he’d been keeping back some of the money and they’d found out.

Stone had talked to the union man. Friday nights he met his girlfriend for a few hours at the Olympic when his wife thought he was out at the American Legion. A few quiet facts of life and everything was easily arranged. Davis and his friend had gone to a motor court at the top of University Way. Stone was in the room at the Olympic, gun drawn, ready as the killer picked the lock and entered silently. There wasn’t even a fight.

While he sat, passing time until the assassin showed up, he’d called the crime desk at the Seattle Times.

‘Pat, it’s Dave Stone.’

‘Dave, hey buddy, long time.’ He could almost hear the man sweating for a story. ‘You got something for me?’

You might want to be outside the Olympic a bit later. Bring a photographer with you.’

‘Wait a-’

But he’d already hung up.

 

‘I had a tip, Cap’n,’ Stone said. ‘Just enough time to get down there before it all happened.’ He could see that McReady didn’t believe a word, but it didn’t matter. There was no one to contradict the story. He’d given Chapman ten bucks and a warning to keep his mouth shut.

‘Is that right?’ the captain asked. ‘And you want to tell me how come the Times just happened to be there with a snapper?’

Stone shrugged.

‘Maybe a bellhop tipped him off.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

Pat Drake had laid it on thick in his article. Hero detective, the story read, taking on a murderer single-handedly. And there was his favorite sentence:

Detective Stone, 34, showed that, in spite of stories about corruption on the force, some Seattle policemen put the public first and show extreme bravery.

The photograph had caught his good side, too, as he led out the handcuffed prisoner. A pretty good evening’s work. And he was still home in West Seattle by eleven.

‘The chief promoted you to the empty lieutenant slot,’ MacReady said grudgingly. ‘Congratulations.’

 

 

Two

 

He had to wait while the drawbridge went up and a boat passed along the Duwamish and into Elliott Bay. Then he was hitting the gas and the Buick leaped along the road, up by Longfellow Creek and toward home.

The house was a 1920s Sears catalog bungalow on a lot that still needed grass and plants. He’d picked it up at auction four years before. After the previous owner hadn’t been able to afford the taxes. Stone bumped the car over the dirt and parked by the steps to the back door.

It was a small place, but that was all he needed; he was the only one living there. It wasn’t too heavily settled out here yet; the nearest neighbor was a hundred yards away. But that was changing. It seemed like every month a new house was going up and a fresh family moving in. Right now, though, West Seattle felt like a different place, open and free.

Saturday night, still sunny and warm, but work wasn’t quite over yet. In the bedroom he tuned the radio to KVI as he changed into an old pair of pants and a faded shirt, with a jacket on top to hide his gun.

 

Alki Beach was busy. Families had arrived in their cars, kids too young to drive had ridden the trolley bus. The stretch of beach was packed, the water full of people. Out in the bay the ferries from the mosquito fleet plowed over to the islands and the peninsula.

This was the Seattle he loved. His father had brought him out here when Luna Park still existed. Stone was just five years old. Given him a fortune, fifty cents, to go on all the rides while he sat at the longest bar in Seattle and drank beer.

About the only time the old man was happy was when he had a full glass on the table and two or three drinks inside him. He’d been a old-time Seattle cop, knocking the heads of the drunks and the grifters south of Yesler until the Alaska gold rush. Just married, he’d left his wife and headed north, returning empty-handed a year later and begging to have his job on the force back. He’d settled down after that, no more running away. Instead, he’d drowned his sorrows and disappointments in the bars.

Stone had learned his lesson early. He enjoyed a drink, but in moderation. The picture of his father stayed at the back of his mind.

He strolled along as far as the lighthouse, watching the pretty women sitting in on the sand and enjoying the evening sun. One or two gazed back, but no one he was interested in knowing. Finally he leaned against a wall, seeing the waves sparkle out in the Sound.

‘Nobody followed you, Loot. I hung back enough to tell.’ Stone didn’t turn toward the man, just nodded and said,

‘Good job. Thanks.’

For the last week Jenkins had been tailing him. Just a year out of uniform and already the best shadow man in the department.

Stone hadn’t wanted it. He didn’t believe the threats that arrived after he arrested the killer at the Olympic Hotel. But Captain McReady was taking no chances. It would look bad if his new lieutenant ended up dead.

Stone didn’t complain, even though he liked the freedom to operate the way he wanted. A couple of times he’d manage to escape, but he couldn’t let it happen too often.

This time he didn’t even try. He strode along the sidewalk and past the screen door into Lou’s Tavern. A few steps and he was hidden in the cool shadows, away from the crowds and the noise. Jenkins would stay outside, eyes alert for trouble.

Stone bought a Rainier and carried it to the last booth at the back of the bar. John Winchester was waiting there, smoking, a half-empty glass in front of him.

‘You’re late, Mr. Stone.’ His voice was tight and he kept looking around.

‘Yeah?’ He checked his watch. ‘Five minutes. Loosen up, Johnny. What you got for me?’

They met once a month, always a Saturday evening, always at Lou’s. It was out of the way, there was a back door, and Lou kept a Colt Police under the bar in case of trouble.

‘Nothing,’ Winchester said. ‘I got nothing this time.’

He was a snappy dresser, wearing a gabardine suit from Frederick’s and a silk tie, trilby resting on the table. When the mood took him, he could be a persuasive talker, when he was getting the people in the jazz clubs of Jackson Street to spend their money on his reefer and cocaine. Stone had a tobacco tin of marijuana in his desk at work, Winchester’s prints all over the metal. That was the reason the man was here now. Good information once a month or jail. Straight choice.

‘Johnny,’ Stone said wearily, ‘I never liked liars. And you don’t do it well.’

Winchester glance darted around again, then he lowered his head as if he was speaking to the table and his voice became little more than a whisper.

‘There’s something big brewing, okay? Last night I saw Duke Swenson talking to Big Ricky Gibson in the Cotton Club, and you know those two don’t even speak.’

‘Could you get close?’ Stone asked.

Winchester shook his head.

‘Bodyguards all around.’

It was bad news. Swenson and Gibson were two of the biggest operators in Seattle. Swenson looked after everything north of the Ship Canal, while Gibson controlled the territory from Chinatown south. The only person missing from the meeting was Chuck Bowden. Downtown and Capitol Hill were his. And the fact that he hadn’t been invited was the worrying part.

‘I need you to find out what you can,’ Stone told him.

Winchester stubbed out his cigarette, lit another and took a drink of his beer.

‘Not a chance, Dave. The word’s out Talk and you’re dead. I shouldn’t even be here with you. You see why I’m scared?’

Swenson and Gibson were ruthless. And they were men of their word.

‘Okay. Keep your ears open. And if you hear anything, let me know. Anything at all.’

 

At home, he sat in his chair, blinds down, thinking about Winchester’s words. In the background Leo Lassen’s play-by-play on the Rainiers game came out of the radio. Suddenly it was into extra innings, the commentator yelling ‘hang on to those rocking chairs’ and he was hooked until they edged it in the twelfth, five to four, and he turned off the set. Maybe tomorrow he’d go over to Sick’s Stadium, catch the first part of the double-header. Sit with a beer and a hot dog and forget about the world.

Stone smiled as someone tapped on the door. Three short knocks, a pause, then two, another pause, three more, and one. The smile widened into a grin.

‘Hello, angel,’ he said. She came in and wrapped herself around him like she needed the affection. Five feet three, blonde hair, and a smile that could melt ice at a hundred paces. There first time she’d been here in a week.

‘Hello, Johnny. I’ve missed you.’

Stone took a couple beers from the icebox. She leaned back in her chair and sighed. Helga Lindstrom waitressed at the Rainier Club, where the city’s elite gathered to do their business and drinking away from prying eyes. She was a Ballard girl born and bred, Scandihoovian all the way back to the old country, and looked it. But he knew that someone very tough lurked under the delicacy. He’d watched her take down the thief who tried to steal her purse one lunchtime. Two blows and he was out cold on Fourth Avenue. After that, Stone knew he had to ask her on a date.

He lit a pair of Luckies and handed her one.

‘I saw something interesting tonight,’ she told him as she blew out smoke. ‘Chuck Bowden was having dinner with Joe Robinson. Then they went off to the billiard room together after.’ Helga raised an eyebrow.

‘Is that right?’ He tried to sound casual but his mind was racing. Robinson was the city attorney. His job was to put criminals in jail, not eat with them. ‘I don’t suppose you heard any of the conversation?’

‘They had a corner table and a couple of guys with them. Big lummoxes, both carrying. And they shut up while they were being served.’

Winchester was right. Something big was brewing.

 

 

The First Tale from the Sardan Cafe

On By chrisnickson2In story, Uncategorized1 Comment

Last week I wrote a story in four parts on Facebook. A serial, perhaps, of a kind of Scheherazade tale. I’ve no idea where it came from, the image arrived as I walked. But like any story, it demanded to be told, so I had no choice.

It was only later, when I’d finished, that I could see a few elements of traditional storytelling in it, and the sense that it would be the first tale from this place. Is there magic at the Sardan Cafe? I don’t know. Perhaps time will tell. And Barsan, he might have things of his own to say, his own wonders to unfurl. There will probably be more.

In the meantime, for those who don’t follow my Facebook Writer page (it’s here if you feel inclined, everybody welcome), the first tale from the Sardan Cafe, subtly edited from its original version. Like life, it’s bittersweet. There aren’t always happy endings.

Best enjoyed with strong, sweet coffee and baklava…

 

 

He’d lost track of her half an hour before. But even then, he couldn’t be certain the woman he’d seen was her; so much time had passed since he’d glimpsed her face.

Now he was drifting through the streets, hoping she might reappear. It was winter, a chilly dusk, the cramped houses and small shops closing in around him as tongues of mist swirl and vanished.

The light caught his eye, then the sign – Sardan Café, hand-painted and awkward. He was tired, he was thirsty. Inside it would be warm, at least. A tiny bell tinkled as he entered. Only six tables, each covered by an oilcloth. The air was heavy, damp. A scent of roasting meat and spices he couldn’t even begin to recognise.

With a sigh he sat. Within second a man appeared. He was about thirty, a full head of hair shining with oil, a heavy black moustache, and a long white tunic that clung to his paunch. Without speaking, he placed a small cup of coffee on the table, gave a brief smile and bow before disappearing into the back room.

Cautiously, the man took a sip. This wasn’t espresso, bitter and strong. This was real Turkish coffee, thick, with a taste as sweet as a dreaming woman.

He didn’t recall ordering food, but it came anyway. Flatbread, still warm from the oven, beef sliced thin in a sauce that clung to the meat then fell slowly in dark brown drops. The food seemed to dissolve in his mouth. He hardly needed to chew, the texture just rough enough against his tongue. Vegetables so crisp and full of taste they could have been picked in the moment moment before they were cooked. Flavours mingled and overwhelmed him, carrying him along. He wiped the plate with the last of the bread, then the waiter appeared with a small cut-glass dish.

‘Eat,’ he said quietly. ‘Eat and enjoy.’ His voice was heavily accented and his belly wobbled slightly as he spoke. Somehow, it made him seem harmless, jolly.

The man stared for a long time before he picked up the spoon. He was sated. But just a little, he told himself. A taste to show his gratitude, although he had no idea how much the meal could cost in the end.

The ice cream was cold on his tongue. He held it there and the flavours blossomed through his palate. Lavender, as warm as a July afternoon, the velvet scent of rose petals, other things that hovered on the edge of his senses, just beyond grasp. Another spoonful and another, then it was gone, and slowly the tastes faded from his mouth, like the memories of childhood or that last beautiful dream before waking. He closed his eyes for a moment when he opened them again, the waiter was sitting across the table from him.

‘In my country we say that food is friendship.’ He smiled, showing very white teeth, one with a small, glittering gold star set in the middle. He picked up a small, battered coffee pot, the metal dull and stained from use, and poured more coffee, one for the man, one for himself. ‘You’ve eaten my food, so now you are my friend.’ He raised his cup in a toast. ‘To the future.’

‘The future.’ This time the drink tasted of deep winter nights in front of a log fire and the glance of the lover you could never forget.

‘Welcome to the Sardan Café.’

‘How much do I owe you?’ he asked. ‘For the meal, the coffee, everything.’

The waiter waved it away.

‘The food was already made. Who else was in here to eat it? It would have only gone to waste otherwise.’

‘That’s very generous, Mr-’

‘Call me Barsan.’ He smiled again, displaying that gold tooth. ‘I don’t have too many customers these days. With takeaways and ready meals, people don’t seem to bother about places like this. Either it’s too exotic or not exotic enough.’ Barsan shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter to him.

‘It feels very welcoming.’ That was exactly it, he decided. The pale walls, rugs tacked up for decoration. Like a pair of arms that wrapped comfortingly around you.

‘Thank you.’ He dipped his head. ‘My father opened the café after he came here. Forty-three years ago. It was popular then. Maybe we had more dreamers in those days.’

‘You don’t think there are now?’

‘Maybe they’ve gone elsewhere. Found places that suit them better. I seem to attract more of the lost souls.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Like you. People who thought they had something and lost it.’

He thought of the woman. The argument years before, the way she’d stormed out and he knew she wouldn’t be back in his life. Of the other women since, the jobs, the hopes that had all fallen by the wayside.

‘Maybe I have.’

Barsan poured more coffee from the pot.

‘Let us talk, my friend. There’s nothing else you need to do tonight, is there?’

It was funny, he thought. It seemed as if Barsan said a great deal, but really he just listened. He was the one who spoke. Bit and pieces, things that connected to each other in a way that made no sense to anyone else.

They drank coffee; the pot was tiny but somehow it was never empty. Barsan smoked his cigarettes, the tobacco with the aroma of wild thyme crushed underfoot. He smiled a lot, showing the gold tooth.

Finally he seemed to wind down, feeling as if he’d exhausted all the words that had been waiting inside him for the time to tumble out. No other customers had come in the café. How does it stay in business, he wondered at one point? How can it make money? Then the thought rose and drifted away.

He shook his head and glanced up. It had been night when he began to talk. Now he could see the first light of dawn on the horizon, rising in the sky. That wasn’t possible. It couldn’t have been more than an hour. Two at the very most. He started to panic, pushing himself upright.

‘Time passes quickly in good company,’ Barsan told him with an impish grin. Then, more seriously, ‘You miss her, don’t you?’

He nodded, not trusting himself to say more about that. He’d mentioned her briefly, then skirted the subject. Not the one he imagined he’d glimpsed. She’d made her decision and it was probably the right one; she was better off without his madness. The one he’d barely spoken about was their daughter, dead for eight years now. Playing in the garden when a car ploughed through the fence. The driver had suffered a heart attack. Instant. But it had taken three days for Jane to go. And after that his life could never be the same.

‘Here,’ Barsan said. Had he been into the kitchen? The man hadn’t seen him go. How could he have missed that? But he was holding a plate with a small piece of pastry on it. ‘Eat it, my friend. It’s baklava, sweet with honey. A good end to a meal.’ His eyes twinkled kindly. ‘Or a start to a day.’

He took one bite, then a second. It seemed to dissolve on his tongue, the taste filling his mouth. He need to close his eyes to absorb, to relish it. And as he did, he images came.

Jane at seven, laughing, at ten running in the sprint at school. Fifteen and the dark arguments with her parents, weighing every word before speaking. Eighteen: exam results and the joy of a university place. Taller, happier, more confident. With her degree, a job she didn’t enjoy but a life that brought her pleasure, helping at a charity. Serious boyfriend, marriage. Her first child, a daughter named Helen after her mother. A miscarriage, then a second girl.

Each picture seemed alive. He could smell, touch, feel, just as surely as if he was in it. And with every one, he was fading a little, Growing older. Until the last. Jane, the girls at her side, the pair of them almost grown. She was waving and blowing a kiss.

Very slowly, he opened his eyes.

‘Good, yes?’ Barsan asked.

‘Very.’ He had no idea what else to say. The man had given him the life that had been taken away. Glimpses of what might have happened. No more what if. He knew. ‘Thank you. Thank you.’

Barsan stood and stretched.

‘My friend, it is my pleasure. And now, perhaps, we should both find some sleep, eh? You know where Sardan Café is now. You must come again.’

Walking down the street he glanced over his shoulder. The city was coming to life around him, the mundane sound of buses and traffic. No light burned in the café’s window.