Free The Urchin's Song by Rita Bradshaw Page A

there’s no need for you to be walkin’ about with that thing neither.’ He nodded at the poker. ‘What’ll people think?’
    ‘That I’ll use it if I have to.’ It was flat, but something in her manner must have conveyed he wasn’t going to manage to sweettalk her.
    His attitude changing, he snarled, ‘You’re a bit bairn an’ you’ll do what you’re told if I have to skin you alive.’
    ‘I’m not a bairn.’ Her voice was low and very bitter. ‘I’ve never been a bairn, none of us have, you’ve made sure of that, but I tell you one thing - me and Gertie are going and you can’t do anything about it.’ As she saw his hand rise as of old, hers holding the poker jerked aloft, and for a moment they stared at each other through the snowflakes which were now whirling more thickly. Whatever he read in her face made her father’s hand fall limply to his side, but now their mutual hate snaked between them like a live thing, and it was only a man who had been passing by, saying, ‘Here, what’s goin’ on? You all right, lass?’ as he paused at the side of them, that broke the contact.
    Josie didn’t answer. Her legs felt funny, weak, but she turned and walked quickly across the road and into the station without looking back. This was the end, really the end, but when would she ever see her mam again now? But she couldn’t think like that; she’d sort out something, she would. She had to see her mam. Oh, Mam, Mam. And then Gertie and Vera were there in front of her and it was all she could do to stop herself bursting into tears.
    Vera stared into the drawn little white face in front of her. Bart had been out there sure enough, it was written all over the lass’s face, but she wasn’t going to waste time asking her about it now. Once they were on the train to Newcastle she’d breathe a mite easier.
    The iron-framed glass roof covering the platforms gave a spacious, airy feeling in summer, but with thick snow blanketing out the light, the station was gloomy and grey. The 9.54 a.m. was steaming away and ready to leave as they boarded, but although Gertie was vocal in her excitement the final confrontation with her father had knocked all the stuffing out of Josie. It wasn’t until after they had stopped at Monkwearmouth, East Boldon and the following two stations that the colour came back to Josie’s cheeks, and Vera felt she could ask her what had happened.
    Josie briefly explained, finishing with a shrug of her shoulders and a glance at Gertie, who was oblivious to them both, her nose pressed up against the window and her eyes popping out of her head at the changing scene outside the train, which was occasionally shrouded in deep billows of smoke from the engine.
    ‘I’ll look out for your mam, hinny, you know that. There’ll always be room for her with us, young Hubert an’ all, if need be.’
    Josie smiled and nodded but said no more. She couldn’t explain to Vera that she felt the weight of her mother - and Hubert, to a lesser extent, and even their Jimmy, bad as he was - like a lead brick crushing down on her heart. Vera would brush such sentiment aside, saying Josie was doing the only thing she could in getting Gertie out of harm’s way. And Vera was right, she knew she was right, but . . . It didn’t make it any easier.
    The train chugged its way into Felling Station, and then Gateshead East, and by the time it stopped at Newcastle Central in a great exhalation of steam and puffs, it was exactly ten thirty-two.
    Nothing had prepared Josie for the size of the Newcastle station or, as they left by the main entrance in Neville Street, the different smell and feel of the town. The smell was due, in part, to the sheep- and pig-market and beyond that the huge cattle-market to the left of the station, which had the Royal Infirmary squeezed between them, but as they crossed over the road, Josie clutching the parcel containing their clothes and Gertie now in charge of the poker, everything seemed so