Page 38 of The Show Woman

37

Stars

Rosie cannot breathe. It is as though a great stone has been lowered on to her chest, compressing her, squeezing her insides. She lies on the bed in her wagon, their wagon, and thinks that she will never be able to breathe right again.

Her mind drifts to that night in the stable, the night she fell for Violet, the way her hand rested over her heart, how she had promised to breathe for her, until her raggedy gasps slowed.

She does not, cannot, believe that Violet would leave her. Not even when Lena explained about the hospital: that Violet would have been shut away, institutionalised, left to wither by her unfeeling mother.

‘I could have cared for her,’ Rosie exclaimed, red-faced and snotty, her cheeks still wet.

But Lena shook her head, stroked her hair. ‘You know you couldn’t have, not long-term, not on the pennies you were making.’

Rosie hates that Lena is right. Worry about money has nagged at her for weeks, snapping at her ankles like an angry little dog. The factory pays a pittance. She is a woman, an unskilled one at that, and she will only ever get the minimum. They had been living, largely, off Mary Weaver’s watery cooking, whatever Mary could spare, and there were times when she could not afford the doctor, let Violet suffer because she could not pay for his draughts of medicine. Could it have gone on? She did not know. And now, she never will.

A great, bleak calm washes over her as she feels her breathing slow, her heart quieten. She thinks of Violet, her small, damaged body, that last effortful show of power as she hurled herself over the side. She had screamed her name, and Lena had pulled her back from going over the side too, following her in, saving her. Violet. Her love. All gone.

Outside, night is already dropping across the city like a cloak. It is barely five o’clock and for once the showground is quiet. The carnival has finished, its rides silenced, Vinegarhill’s occupants taking a well-earned break from the short Christmas season.

With enormous effort she pulls herself out of bed. She has not eaten in days and Mary has not thought to feed her. She has not been to the factory since that terrible day either, has likely been struck off the shift. She scarcely cares. Only Carmen’s absence, the disappearance of her tall, beautiful friend, penetrates her grief. She wonders why she has not come, reminds herself that she surely does not know, because otherwise she would not have left Rosie alone.

But Rosie still has one soul who depends on her. And so she pulls on her coat and her boots, and walks over to the stables to see Tommy. The little horse gives a whinny of pleasure when he sees her. It has been days, and although the stable boys have fed him – more money for her to find – he looks thin. She can see ribs sticking out of his side, although he nuzzles into her neck with all his usual devoted affection. She presses her cold forehead to his white star. At least, she thinks, I have him.