The Sweeping Saga Collection: Poppy’s Dilemma, The Dressmaker’s Daughter, The Factory Girl. Nancy Carson

behind Dog Meat’s back while he’s at work?’

      ‘Why should I? He’d do the same on me. He very likely does, if he gets the chance.’

      Their conversation continued in the same vein until they reached The Three Crowns, where Minnie had arranged to meet Tom and Luke. The two lads were already waiting when the girls arrived. Poppy smiled bashfully at Luke and he smiled back, baring two front teeth that were black as coal.

      ‘It’s nice to see you again, Poppy,’ he said. ‘I didn’t really expect to, after the other Friday.’

      But her eyes were fixed on his gruesome black teeth and she could not avert them. Why hadn’t she noticed those teeth before? He must not have smiled. He must have been too self-conscious of them and kept his mouth shut every time she looked his way. And besides, it had been dark when they walked down Vicar Street that night. Thank God she hadn’t kissed him. The thought of kissing him with those tarred tombstones in his mouth was repulsive. So Poppy quickly lost interest in Luke.

      ‘I fancy a walk round the town,’ she said experimentally, trying to extricate herself from his company. ‘I got threepence and it’s burning a hole in me pocket.’

      ‘I’ll come with yer,’ Luke said. ‘Tom and Minnie won’t mind being on their own together.’

      She finished her drink, resigned to the idea that Luke was not going to be that easy to shake off. They walked around the town for a while until Poppy decided she really must go. Luke was uninteresting, he had little to say and, while she allowed him to walk with her as far as the gasworks, she pondered on the density of men in general and of this Luke in particular.

      As Poppy walked down Shaw Road, she saw Dog Meat walking almost parallel with her below in the cutting, having just finished his shift. It was inevitable that they would meet before either reached their huts.

      ‘Hello, Poppy.’ He greeted her with a friendly grin that concealed his fancy for her.

      ‘Hello, Dog Meat. How’s the work going?’ she asked, hoping to divert him from the inevitable question about Minnie’s whereabouts.

      ‘It’s good,’ he answered in his thick, gruff voice. ‘I’ve bin labouring for the bricklayers … Hey, I thought you was going out with Minnie this afternoon.’

      ‘I had to be back early,’ Poppy lied. ‘I just left her. She’ll be back in a bit.’

      The following Monday, a young navvy tramped into the encampment at Blowers Green looking for work. He was tall and lean and his broad shoulders gave no impression of the toil of carrying his wheelbarrow and tools over the miles. His very appearance was a monument to his strength and fitness. His eyes were a bluish grey with the glint of steel about them. He asked somebody to direct him to a foreman and found himself in an untidy office with Billygoat Bob, the ganger.

      ‘So what’s your name?’

      ‘They call me Jericho.’

      ‘Jericho what?’

      Jericho shrugged. ‘Just Jericho.’

      Billygoat tried to read the young man’s mind, thinking that he must be hiding his real identity for some reason, like so many of the navvies, but there was something about the lad that led him to believe he was not hiding anything. His hair was long, which meant he hadn’t been in prison recently. The name Jericho must be the only one the lad knew, but such a thing was not entirely unusual for somebody who was navvy-born.

      ‘I take it you’ve worked on the lines before?’ Billygoat asked.

      ‘Aye. I’ve been on the Leeds and Thirsk. But ’tis finished now. Afore that I worked on the Midland.’

      ‘What work have you been doing, lad?’

      ‘I done excavating, barrow-running, shaft-sinking …’

      Billygoat eyed the younger man assessingly. ‘I can find you work excavating, Jericho. Your pay will be fifteen shillings a week for shifting twenty cube yards a day. Anything more will get you a bonus. Can you manage that?’

      Jericho smiled. ‘I can manage twenty cube yards easy. I’ll take the job. Do you know of a hut where I can get lodgings?’

      ‘You’ll get a lodge over at Ma Catchpole’s.’ Billygoat pointed to a shanty that he could see from his office, and Jericho leaned forward to get a glimpse of where he should be heading. ‘They call it “Hawthorn Villa”.’ Billygoat smiled at the irony. ‘Tell the old harridan I sent you.’

      ‘Can you sub me a couple of bob till payday?’ Jericho asked.

      ‘I’ll see as you get a sub – as soon as you’ve finished your first day’s work.’

      So Jericho collected his things from where he had dropped them outside and made his way over to the hut that Billygoat had pointed out. He knocked on the door and a pretty young girl with dark hair and brown eyes answered it. Her hands were wet from the work she was doing and she wiped them quickly on her apron as she smiled at him with approval.

      ‘Yes, what do you want?’ the girl asked, and self-consciously tucked a stray wisp of hair under her cap.

      ‘Is this Hawthorn Villa?’

      The girl nodded. ‘That’s what everybody calls it.’

      ‘Good. I’m after a lodge. Billygoat told me that Ma Catchpole might have a spare bunk.’

      ‘Ma Catchpole is me mother,’ the girl replied. ‘I’m Minnie. Am you new here?’

      ‘I just got here.’ He smiled and his magnetic steel-blue eyes transfixed Minnie.

      ‘What’s your name?’

      ‘Folk call me Jericho.’

      ‘Jericho, eh? Well come in, Jericho.’ She stood back to allow him in and he towered above her. ‘I bet you’re thirsty after your walk. Fancy a glass of beer?’

      ‘I could murder a glass of beer, Minnie.’

      She went over to the barrel that was standing on a stillage beneath the only window on that side of the hut and took a pint tankard, which she filled. She handed it to Jericho with an appealing smile.

      ‘How much do I owe you?’

      ‘Nothing. You can have your first pint free.’

      He quaffed it eagerly and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Thanks. I don’t get a sub till I’ve finished me first shift.’

      ‘Then you’d better get a move on.’

      Jericho emptied his tankard and handed it back to Minnie. ‘Can you show me the bunk I’ll be sleeping in?’

      ‘Gladly.’ She glided over the floor to the dormitory the lodgers occupied and opened the door, which creaked on its hinges. ‘That one, I think,’ she said, pointing. ‘Fourpence a night. Have you got fourpence for your first night?’

      He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a few coppers. ‘Just about.’ He handed her fourpence. ‘Where do you sleep, Minnie?’

      She looked at him knowingly, then tilted her head towards the door. ‘In that bedroom there … with me mother and father and the kids …’

      During the afternoon on the same day, Poppy had to go to the tommy shop owned and operated by the contractor, to buy beef, bacon, tea, condensed milk and bread. Minnie had also gone to the shop and Poppy entered just as Minnie was being served.

      ‘I’m glad I’ve seen you,’ Poppy whispered. ‘I wondered what had happened after Saturday. Did Dog Meat tell you I saw him after I left you and Tom? It was just as he was finishing his shift. Did he ask you where you’d been?’

      Minnie grinned artfully. ‘There was no harm done, Poppy. He didn’t have any idea as I’d been with another chap. Even if he had, I would’ve denied it. He’s easy to fool, that Dog