Free The Devil's Acre by Matthew Plampin Page B

walls in huge chalky sheets. Caroline could never look upon the parliament of Crocodile Court without imagining these ancient piles suddenly overbalancing due to the great weight on their sills, and toppling forward into the lane with an almighty, screaming crash.
    She was a visitor to the Devil’s Acre, marked out by her clean face, neat straw bonnet and new boots, and had been pursued by a throng of ragged children from the momentshe’d crossed Peter Street. Fending them off, picking her way through the darkness, past the stinking puddles, mounds of rotten vegetables and decaying house-fronts, she’d cursed Martin Rea for bringing her Amy to this godforsaken place. It nearly broke her heart to think that this was where Katie, her little niece, was taking her first steps.
    As she started along the Court, very glad to be nearing her destination, a great scornful shout went up. Heart thumping, she looked around, thinking for an instant that she must have provoked this somehow; but no, a drunken, filthy husband had staggered in behind her, returning home after a debauch. The women showered him with hoots and bitter catcalls. He waved a dismissive arm in their direction before vanishing through a sagging brick archway.
    About half of Crocodile Court’s paving stones had been prised up and stolen, creating an irregular chequered pattern and making it impassable for all but the lightest of carts. Caroline hopped from slab to slab, past the rusting water-pump and the rag-and-bone shop, heading resolutely for Amy’s building. A game of rummy was underway on the steps, with much swearing and spitting. She took a breath and pushed straight through its middle, slipping quickly through the door.
    The stairwell was heavy with snoring, belching, coughing bodies. People were everywhere, overflowing from the rooms onto corridors and landings. Of all ages, they sprawled semi-clothed across the floorboards, lost to liquor; perched upon the stairs, taking their meagre suppers; or huddled quietly in corners, trying to sleep. This was the result of the Victoria Street clearances, which had begun again in earnest, leaving many hundreds without homes. Caroline could not help but kick a few of them as she passed, clutching at the rickety banister. Most did not even have the energy to curse her.
    The numbers had thinned a little by the time she reached the third floor. She went to a door at the end of the corridor and knocked three times. Someone came to the other side. Caroline said her name, a bolt slid back and she walked forward into a dell of flowers. Crocuses, lilies, tulips and carnationswere gathered into loose bunches, and laid out in baskets and bowls. Their colours were all but lost in the dimness of the room, and there was no perfume beside those of the dyes and inks; but these clean, chemical odours were a definite improvement on those mingling in the musty corridor outside. Caroline shut the door behind her.
    Amy was already back in her seat by the fire, a large silk rose in her hands. She was stitching wire-trimmed petals to its cardboard stem by the meagre light of the few coals that smouldered in the grate. The lines on her face deepened as she squinted down at the flower, pushing dark strands of hair behind her ears, searching for the right place to poke in her needle. She looked thin and desperately old for a woman of only four-and-twenty. It seemed to Caroline that her sister, once so strong and clever, was being worn away before her very sight; that life in the Devil’s Acre was killing her by degrees.
    On the rug between them, rolling around in the weak firelight, lay Katie. The child was trying to rise onto her knees, plump legs wobbling as they took her weight. Hearing the door close, she looked up, mouth open; and seeing her aunt standing there, she cried out with pure delight, lost her balance and tumbled back down onto her side. Caroline felt a sudden rush of love; a tear, a bloody tear for Christ’s sake, pricked at