Child of the North. Piers Dudgeon

doors to smile appreciatively at Maisie, with her rag-a-bone wagon and her little following army. Queenie muscled her way in, pushing and shoving with such deliberation that the deep barrier of small bodies reluctantly gave way to let her through. Not graciously though, judging by the angry snorts, sly sharp kicks, and loud abuse.

       ‘Give over snotrag! Wait yer turn!’

       ‘Hey! Who do you think you are?’

       ‘Cor! Them bloody boots don’t ‘arf stink!’

       Stink they may have done but Queenie didn’t care! Not if that was why they’d all moved aside to let her in, she thought.

       Her strong grey eyes widened in amazement as they lit on the appearance of Maisie’s wagon!

       The spill of bright colour and treasure fair blinded her. The low sides of the wagon were painted in Catherine wheels of gaudy reds, yellows, and blacks; the big wooden-spoked wheels made a body dizzy as the zig-zag lines which wound about them screamed first in gold, then green and ended up in a delightful mingling of black and yellow blobs. The whole wonderful marvellous ensemble was entrancing. The inside of the wagon was filled to bursting and, at the shaft end, where the scabby little donkey tucked noisily into his oversized hay-bag, the piles of old rags and varying artefacts were stacked sky-high.

       The remainder of the wagon was loaded down with penny-whistles; bundles of clothespegs; goldfish swimming about in little fat plastic bags; big blocks of white stepstone, and small tidy bundles of wood-stick for the fire. Around the rim of the wagon hung more cherry-red yo-yos than Queenie had ever seen in her life. Handmade they were, as Maisie was quick to point out; and polished as shiny as a still pond. They clattered against the clusters of metal-tipped spinning-tops, which also hung in groups of twenty or more from the crowded rim. Then all along the shaft arms dangled hundreds of coloured soft balls, gleaming and winking as the daylight caught the glinting lashing colours within. Finally, every spare inch of space was taken up by the myriads of brightly coloured balloons; so many that Queenie wondered why the donkey, wagon and all, hadn’t been clear lifted off the ground to be swept away forever.

       ‘Right then little Queenie! You’ve shoved your way affront o’ these other brats, so what’s it to be, eh?’ demanded Maisie.

      Although Jo’s fictional characters are not always based on real people – ‘sometimes I put two or three people together to produce a character’ – names are often a guide to particular characteristics. If the name ‘Molly’ is used, we can be fairly certain of the sort of woman to expect. Besides Molly Davidson in Cradle of Thorns, who is Jo’s mum, there are a number of Mollies in the novels, and in a particular Dedication, Jo refers to a Molly who had known her as an urchin and had watched her grow up and get married. ‘Molly was every woman who looked after the children in the street we were in,’ she explained. ‘She was the epitome of the granny if you like. She’d be in her sixties and she’d be small and round and she’d have a kind face and grey hair and tin curlers…’

      My personal favourites amongst the old-world characters that Jo fingers in the novels are two fine ladies of mature years, Tilly and Fancy Carruthers. ‘They were always in bed,’ Jo laughs, as she brings them to mind. ‘They would have been deemed lesbians today. They lived right up the top in Montague Street. I knew them because I had a friend who lived next door, Sheila Bullen. Poor Sheila, she married a man called King…It was in all the papers – I heard it on the radio – her husband shot her! He shot her while she was holding the baby and the bullet went right through and killed them both. My sister-in-law, Pat, claimed she had gone to see Sheila in her coffin, and she said it broke her heart because the baby was right there, lying at her mother’s feet. Sheila was a beautiful girl, long, black, wavy hair, very dark eyes. She was my friend, I went to school with her. We used to run errands for these two old ladies. So many characters…’

      Here are Aunt Biddy and little Queenie returning the ladies’ laundry in a well-plotted trip that takes in a number of characters in the vicinity of their home, before finally arriving at the Misses Carruthers:

       The front door was open into the passage. It was always open. Miss Tilly and Fancy Carruthers loved nothing more than to have visitors. They were always welcome, any time of the day or evening. ‘Go and tap on the parlour door, Queenie. Tell ‘em we’ve fetched their washing.’

       Queenie skipped along the passage, making the very same bet with herself that she had made on every single occasion: that the two old ladies would both be abed and wearing frilly green caps.

      Sure enough, on command of the thin piping voice which urged them to ‘come in’, the same peculiar scene awaited. The tiny parlour reeked of snuff and something suspiciously like George Kenney [Queenie’s dad] when he’d been boozing. The big bed which reached right up to Queenie’s shoulders nigh filled the room. The top and bottom of it were like the bars of a jail, and each tall corner was conspicuously marked by huge shiny brass balls, which distorted Queenie’s face whenever she looked into them. It would stretch wide and misshapen, then it would squeeze into itself like a concertina, shaping Queenie’s mouth into a long narrow ‘O’, which quickly vanished into her sucked-in cheeks.

       There was real carpet on the floor, and big soft flowery armchairs which could swallow a body whole. Plants reached out from everywhere – from the tiny sideboard, the whatnot, the slipper-box, and even from the shelves on the wall.