Page 9 of The Irish Gypsy

For the first week Kitty was afraid to go outside for fear she would be picked up by the police. Gradually, as time elapsed and nothing happened, she began to relax a little and slowly returned to her usual good cheer. Her immediate needs were pressing. She had one dress, one shift, one pair of shoes and stockings, but no drawers. How was she to get the things she needed with no money and no job? The poverty in the Blakely household was unbelievable. She sat and thought for over an hour, then resolutely put on Ada's shawl and went out the back door. She walked up the back streets until she came to a line of washing. Swiftly she unpegged two pairs of navy blue bloomers and a pair of black cotton stockings, and was back home in under ten minutes.

She tried everywhere to get a job, but there were signs posted at most places that read: NO IRISH NEED APPLY. She heard that Constantine's, a modern drapers, was opening a new shop in the town center and needed girls. She had the sprigged muslin dress, which when washed and ironed would do very nicely, but she needed something warm to go over it. She went to a secondhand shop and looked through all the cloaks, but they seemed too shabby; then she spotted a gray velvet pelisse that was just her size. She hunted among stacks of hats and feathers until she found a small gray bonnet. The pelisse and the bonnet took her last penny, but she left the shop feeling elated.

She needed ribbon to trim the bonnet and make it look half decent, and she knew exactly where to find some. She walked home past Deane Churchyard. There, on a fresh grave, stood the ugliest wreath Kitty had ever seen, but it had a marvelous mauve satin ribbon on it that lit up Kitty's face with delight.

She got up very early the next morning, heated some water in the kettle and washed her hair. When it was dry, she put on her outfit, knew she looked pretty, and hurried down to Constantine's.

A well-dressed young man, two very plain-faced young women and an older woman with a hooked nose that looked like it was trying to detect a bad odor stood behind the counter. Kitty approached the gentleman, but the older woman pushed forward and said.

"Could I be of service?"

"I'm applying for the position of shop assistant, ma'am,"

Kitty said, and hesitated.

"Irish?"

the woman inquired, her nose seeming to discover where the odor was coming from at last.

For a fleeting moment Kitty thought she would deny it, but she lifted her chin a little and said.

"Yes, ma'am, I'm Irish."

A hush fell. The others were listening intently. The woman gave her a pitying look and said.

"I'm sorry, you wouldn't be at all suitable, and besides everyone knows that all Irish girls are bags!"

Kitty felt a lump rise as her throat constricted and tears threatened to come to her eyes. No by God, they won't see me cry, she silently swore. She looked them all up and down in turn and said.

"Well, in that case, you can all kiss my arse; the north side of it!"

She cheekily flipped up her skirts at the back and sailed from the shop with her head in the air.

"It'll have to be one of O'Reilly's mills, I'm afraid. They're the only ones who will hire the Irish," said Ada.

"Can I call myself Kitty Blakely when I go for a job? I don't want the O'Reillys to know where I am."

"'Course you can, lass," Ada said.

Kitty went around to the Falcon and was hired in the knotting room. The first thing she had to do was trek to Uncle Joe's once again and pawn her sprigged muslin, shoes and gray velvet pelisse. She picked navy and white striped pinafores and a pair of button-up boots.

She entered the knotting room with great trepidation. Counterpanes hung from long tables. She was shown how to pick up alternate fringes and twist them into knots, making sure the edges were uniform and even. This was an easy task; however, a lot of the goods were shoddy and manufactured from poor yarns. To give them a more substantial finish so they would sell, the cloth was soaked in a vat of sizing and then dried quickly between hot rollers. This process filled in the weak spots and holes, but it made the fringes stiff and sharp. Before the end of the day, Kitty's finger ends were rubbed raw and spots of blood smeared on the counterpanes. These were immediately classed as 'damaged' by the examiner and she received no payment for them.

Thus Kitty embarked on that period of her life when she saw daylight only on the weekends. The knocker-up would tap on the bedroom windows with his long pole at five in the morning and she would clatter off to the mill with the wave of humanity that swept down the street and through the mill gates by five-thirty each day.

Inside the mill, the hot-oil stench of the machines always made her nauseated at this hour and the incessant clatter of the big machines gave her a headache until she learned to block out the noise. The rooms were kept very hot and damp, as humidity was needed in the processing of cotton so that the threads wouldn't break so easily and to keep the fibers floating in the air to a minimum. Soon, Kitty was promoted to the weaving sheds to help a more experienced woman who ran four looms. Her job was 'tenting'. The large room held hundreds of towel looms, which belted to and fro at top speed. Kitty was intimidated by the noise and frightened by the flying 'picking sticks' and unguarded straps that whirled the machinery.

Between the rows of machines the alleys were so narrow, the workers had been warned to always pass a machine with their backs to it; never their faces. It was an incredibly dirty atmosphere and after working her twelve-hour shift, she went home to wash her overall and her hair every night. She was careful to always wash the machine oil from her black cotton stockings because she had seen some of the other girls' legs and they were covered with masses of pimples.

Her job as a tenter, was to rethread the shuttles. She noticed that many girls did it with their mouth and sucked the thread through the shuttles. Although this was faster than using your fingers, Kitty could not bring herself to do it. For one thing, if there were different colors in the cloth, your mouth became daubed with different hues of dye, and for another thing, Kitty noticed that the girls who did this had rotten front teeth as a result.

The first hour of the working day was spent in a dull, silent stupor, but then everyone would thaw and the fun began. The girls were a laughing, joking, happy group. They played jokes on each other and had a bit of fun. While the machines were going, it was too noisy for a lot of talk, but they had worked out a system of winks, nods and gestures that conveyed a welter of meanings. The mill workers were vulgar and convulsed each other with rude stories. Kitty soon learned that birth, death and sex were spoken of openly and treated as normal, everyday occurrences, which, after all, they were. She learned to laugh at the coarse jokes and sometimes told them herself. They were protective of one another, and the first day she was warned never to go behind the tent frames with the overseer, no matter how he tried to maneuver her back there.

As Kitty stood by the loom watching for the first empty shuttle, the overseer came up to her with a note in his hand.

"Kitty Blakely, you're needed at home,"

he announced with distaste and dropped the paper as if it were contaminated. Kitty realized he knew she had to go home because another baby was being born, and everybody knew the Irish produced too many babies.

She found Ada huddled over on a chair, clutching her black shawl about her with one hand and the other doubled into a fist and pressed into her side.

"Why isn't there any fire?"

Kitty asked.

"There's no wood."

Kitty went into the back kitchen and brought back the ax. She picked up a chair, but put it down again because they had only two. Then she remembered the back panel of the dresser was hanging loose, so she used it to light the fire. Then she ran for the midwife. She didn't have to go far, as midwives were almost as plentiful as pubs in that neighborhood.

Mother Byrum was a little, round woman. She always had her bag ready by the door and came along with Kitty without delay.

"Why isn't there a bed set up down here?"

Mother Byrum demanded.

Kitty said.

"They were all born on the kitchen door, Ada says."

"Oh, yes, I remember now. Well, give me a hand, girl. Don't stand there like a dressmaker's dummy."

They unhinged the door and set it up with a fairly clean sheet over it.

"Now I want hot water, girl. Put the kettle on the hob. The first thing I want is a cup of tea!"

She hung up her shawl and pulled a chair up to the fire.

"Who's got your other kids?"

"Big Florrie across the street is keeping them until tomorrow,"

Ada answered weakly from the makeshift bed.

"Not Mrs. Piece-out-of-her-nose?"

asked Mother Byrum, scandalized.

"Why does she have a piece out of her nose?"

Kitty asked.

The midwife shot a significant look at the woman in labor.

"The bad disorder! Mind you, it's not her fault. Her husband's the doorman at the Music Hall and he knocks about with the chorus girls."

Ada could hold back no longer, but Mother Byrum finished her tea before she proceeded.

"I won't need any help with the delivery, so stay clear, but you'll have to clean up afterward. That's not my job."

Kitty nodded her understanding and sat gazing into the fire. She blocked out the screams of hard labor by concentrating on the crickets chirping behind the fireplace. She could imagine it was a pet bird and the fireguard was its cage. A voice cut into her reflections.

"I think there's more than one--yes, it's twins!"

"Oh, my God,"

protested a weak voice.

In a remarkably short time the midwife was saying.

"There now, it's all over. There's one of each. Which do you want to keep?"

"The lad, every time,"

answered Ada.

"What about her?”

whispered Mother Byrum, gesturing toward Kitty.

"She won't say nothing,"

came the low answer.

Kitty wondered wildly if they meant what she thought they meant. There was a sharp slap and a frail cry, and the midwife placed the boy child with its mother.

"Here, wash this."

She handed Kitty the dead baby, and she took the pitiful bundle into the kitchen. She saw it and felt it, but her mind was numbed, and she automatically carried out the task of cleansing it. She dressed it in a nightie she had made the week before, and not really knowing what to do with the lifeless little creature, laid it on the kitchen shelf. She went back into the other room and the midwife pushed an enamel bowl into her hands.

"Empty this and wash these blood-soaked things. I'm off now. By the way, remind himself I haven't been paid for the last one yet!"

To Kitty's relief the older children came in from school and she kept busy feeding them, and then to make sure they wouldn't wander into the kitchen, she shooed them out to play in the front street. She made Ada a cup of tea and then timidly crept into the kitchen to see if there really was a baby on the shelf. Its face looked waxen and she decided it looked like a doll.

"It's only a wax doll,"

she whispered.

After she washed the blood-stained linen and cleaned up, the kids came in from their play.

"You're staying at Big Florrie's tonight,"

Kitty told them, so they trooped across the street.

"Kitty, will you go over and give Big Florrie some help? Jack will move me upstairs when he comes in from work."

Kitty not only put Ada's kids to bed, but also looked after Big Florrie's brood. When it began to go dark, Kitty said.

"I'd better go back now. It's getting late and Jack will be home."

She walked slowly back across the street. Jack Blakely met her at the door and handed her a parcel done up with newspaper and string.

"Take this to old Tommy Ferguson, the night watchman at the mill down the street. For two shillings he'll pop this in the furnace. Tell him it's a dead dog."

Kitty took the package and started off down the street. She saw the string and felt the newspaper, but her thoughts would not penetrate the wrapping. She turned her mind instead to Christmas, which was only a week away. Old Tommy was just inside the mill yard. She looked up at him, held out the bundle in one hand and the money in the other, but no words would come.

Old Tommy relieved her of her burdens.

"Another dead dog, eh?"

he said with a broad wink and ambled off inside.

The week passed quickly and great excitement filled the children's hearts on December 25. Kitty and Doris washed eight grubby hands and four little faces. Kitty ran a dinner fork through the girls' hair and they were off to the Queen Street Mission for the charity Christmas dinner. Each child was given a meat pie, a toasted raisin cake and a mug of tea. Then Mr. Poppawell, the revered benefactor, came in to hand out the presents.

"Did everyone get a meat pie?"

he asked, beaming.

"Yes, Mr. Poppawell."

"Did everyone fill a brown paper bag under the table to take home?"

"Yes, Mr. Poppawell,"

they chorused innocently.

"Well, you can all empty them out, that's not what you're here for!"

All the children lined up and Mr. Poppawell and his helpers started to hand out the presents.

"Do you see that pretty girl over there?"

he asked his assistant and indicated Kitty.

"She's spent all morning looking after five of them. Save that big box for her. She looks like a good girl, and I bet she never gets much."

Kitty was handed the large box. With shining eyes she lifted the lid and looked into the face of a wax doll. Her throat constricted, and a bluish tinge appeared around her mouth. She shook her head woodenly and tried to hand it back, but they pressed it upon her with fond insistence.

After she had taken the kids home, she walked three miles until she came to a field. She scratched out a shallow grave with a stone and buried the baby in its cardboard coffin. There were no flowers to gather, so she broke off two low branches and placed them in the form of a cross on top of the little mound.

By spring, Kitty drooped and yearned incessantly for a bit of green Ireland. The long, hard winter had made her frail. The roses were gone from her cheeks, leaving a ghostly pale shadow of herself behind. Her grandad was worried.

"Terry, on Sunday I want you to take your sister up on the moors. Get you both out in the fresh air and sunshine to blow the cobwebs off you."

So they took some bread and cheese and a bottle of water and went up on Belmont Moors.

"What do you want to do?"

asked Terry, eyeing a pretty stretch of water known as the Blue Lagoon.

"I want to run along the top of the stone walls,"

said Kitty eagerly.

"Well, that's pretty daft. Dangerous, too!"

said Terry, laughing.

"I know, but these stone walls remind me of Ireland. If it gives me pleasure, why should I not do it?"

He lifted her atop a stone wall and she ran like the wind, never missing a step where the stones had tumbled and left treacherous gaps. She came to a hawthorn tree in blossom and stood inhaling the heady fragrance as if she never would have enough. She looked down from the tree and was surprised to see a young couple lying in the tall grass. When she realized they were making love with passionate abandon, she ran back to terry as fast as she could.

"We'd better go back that way. There's a couple in the grass up there."

"Oh, what were they doing?"

Terry asked.

"What do you think they were doing?"

she asked flatly.

"Oh, that?"

"It's disgusting! She actually looked like she was enjoying it, too."

"Well, you know Kitty, there's not much privacy in these little houses. What is a young couple to do when they're in love and have nowhere to go?"

Her eyes slid sideways to him.

"Have you ever forced a girl to do that?"

"Most of 'em don't need forcing. There's a lot of girls like it, you know. In fact, they say there's something wrong with the ones who don't."

This was a novel idea to Kitty, and she turned it over and over in her mind.

Perhaps the girl had been doing it for money, but she quickly rejected that idea.

When a man offered a woman money he wanted it then and there; only lovers would have taken the time to find a beautiful setting for their mating.

As summer wore on, Kitty was given some more machines to mind in the spinning room.

At first she thought she would never be able to keep up with the voracious machines, but she was bright and quick, and soon it seemed she'd been doing it for a lifetime

Kitty's life was not pleasant, but she was determinedly cheerful, looking forward to her Sundays as a chance to rest and play, doggedly getting through the rest of the week, doing her job as best she could.

By the time her seventeenth birthday had passed she realized that the notion of the mating of men and women had become less traumatic for her.

For nearly two years she had lived in an atmosphere where sexual relations were open and natural and accepted by all.

It was hard to even think of such a thing as romance.

Another winter passed, but not without taking its toll.

Kitty was far too thin, with eyes almost too large for her face.

Her figure, which at one time had been very nicely rounded, almost disappeared.

Her breasts became so small she considered padding her bodice, and her bottom became narrow and flat.

The long hours and poor diet not only had taken the glow from her skin and the sheen from her hair, but also had robbed her of that sparkling vitality she always had in abundance.

Her wit was honed and her tongue sharpened, but she became so physically weakened that often she was dizzy.