Orphan of Angel Street by Annie Murray Page A

right.’ The woman seemed a fraction mellower now she was home and fed. Mercy looked up into her blunt-featured face and felt herself shudder.
    ‘You my mom now then?’ she asked doubtfully. She had a beautiful fantasy in her mind about what real moms should be like and Mabel didn’t fit the bill at all.
    Mabel stared across the room and her mouth twisted suddenly, her face taking on an odd, melancholy expression. ‘You don’t want me as yer mom. You’d better call me Mabel. Can’t stand you calling me Mrs Gaskin.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Come on – up yer go.’
    She picked up Mercy’s bag and led the way up the creaking stairs.
    ‘Watch that one!’ Half of one of the treads was missing, broken and splintered. ‘Proper ’ell ’ole this is,’ Mabel muttered to herself.
    ‘I sleep in there,’ she nodded to the left when they reached the tiny divide at the top of the stairs. It was a two-up house, with no attic. Two bedrooms upstairs and only the living room and scullery downstairs. ‘You’ll ’ave to bunk up in there.’
    As the door opened, there was already an unsteady circle of candlelight in the room but for a moment Mercy couldn’t make out anything. The smell of urine though, was almost overpowering and made her stomach lurch. She saw that most of the space in the tiny room was taken up with a double bed and its dark, heavy bedstead, the footboard so high that from where she was standing she couldn’t see over it.
    Mabel marched over to the bed and said, ‘Finished then, ’ave yer?’
    There was no reply that Mercy could hear. Very slowly, even more full of dread, she moved round the end of the bed. For a moment as she looked in the poor light she could see nothing but a jumble of ragged bedding. But as Mabel moved with the candle nearer the head of the bed she saw the light reflect in two dark eyes, and heard herself give a gasp. Could there really be someone under there, in all that mess, making this awful smell?
    The head turned and Mercy saw dark hair, and the eyes, set in a small, delicate face, were now fixed on her.
    ‘This is Susan,’ Mabel said harshly. ‘My daughter. One of my daughters, I should say. This one’s the only one I got left and she’s a cripple. That’s my luck with mother’ood. You’ll be sleeping in ’ere with ’er. ’Er’s got no feeling in ’er legs so if she needs to go—’ – Mabel’s gaze rested on the chamber pot down on the floor by the bed – ‘you’ll have to give ’er a hand. Anyroad, there’s ample room for the both of you.’
    She picked up the plate from which Susan had evidently managed to eat her tea and went out.
    Mercy found her legs were trembling. She went round and sat numbly on the other side of the bed, elbows resting on her knees and hands cupping her cheeks. I won’t start blarting in front of her, she thought, I won’t! I should have run, when we were in the Bull Ring, while I had the chance! Mrs Gaskin would never have caught up with me . . .
    ‘’Ello.’ She heard the girl’s soft voice.
    Mercy didn’t answer. She didn’t turn round. For a time she just sat there, but she could feel the girl watching her as if her eyes were burning into her back. Eventually she stood up and started to unbutton her frock which she left hanging over the foot of the bed. The room was perishing cold. She knew, despairingly, that she was going to have to get into that foul, stinking bed. The thought made her want to heave but what choice did she have?
    The bedclothes, such as they had, were a mixture of old scraps of torn blanket and a couple of old coats. As she pulled them back the smell got worse.
    ‘Oh my God.’
    ‘Sorry – only she’s hardly been ’ere for days to help me. Only first thing. I can’t move, see.’
    The bed was in a terrible state. Where Susan was lying, helpless, it was drenched. Mercy’s side was not so absolutely soaked, but definitely damp. There were tears in Susan’s eyes and Mercy saw they were