Eve's Apples

by Lena Kennedy

Genres: Sagas

Synopsis

Even half a world apart, they are destined to be together . . . When 12-year-old Daisy Smith steals a carrot for Jackie Murphy, an Irish barrow-boy, a love affair begins which will last for both their lives. Even when Jackie's family leave for Australia, Daisy cannot forget her childhood sweetheart. She determines to follow her love to Australia - after all, she would follow him to the ends of the earth if she had to. Though Daisy and Jackie are destined never to marry, their love affair continues. In Australia they both make their fortunes - Jackie in the opal mines and Daisy through the outback bar she runs with her husband. And as time goes on, their various children start new lives thousands of miles away from their East-End roots . . . ****************** What readers are saying about EVE'S APPLES 'Could not put this book down' - 5 STARS 'Saga at its best' - 5 STARS 'A fantastic storyline' - 5 STARS 'I enjoyed it so much' - 5 STARS 'This really drew me in, I loved the whole story' - 5 STARS

Release date: April 25, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 396

Sample

1

The Streets of London

Little Daisy Smith skipped down the street with the wind blowing her stiffly starched pinafore. Her thick black stockings were baggy and fell in wrinkles around her legs, but Daisy did not care. She was quite careless of her looks for her main concern at that moment was the position of her skipping rope.

‘Salt, mustard and pepper,’ she said with a flat intonation to her voice. ‘Oh bovver!’ she cried as the rope twisted about her ankles. ‘I means vinegar, salt, mustard and pepper.’ She laughed and twirled the rope triumphantly as she got the timing precisely right at last.

If anyone asked Daisy who she was she would be very open. ‘I’m Daisy Smith,’ she would say, ‘I lives in Beffnal Green. This is our street, Willow Walk, and that’s me muvver’s shop, right over there on the corner.’ At twelve years old Daisy had quite a lot to say for herself.

Willow Walk was one of those long, winding slum streets in Bethnal Green running towards Gardener’s Corner in the Aldgate. These streets were made up of long lines of small houses, occasionally brightened by a few painted stalls and coster barrows. Even narrower lanes ran off the streets, each with several pubs and the inevitable corner shop selling everything from half a pound of cheese to a packet of hair pins. Almost anything could be purchased at the corner shop, and most of it ‘on tick’.

Into those small houses were crammed big families, for it was the custom for couples in those days to have ten or twelve children, or even more.

Life was hard during those years in the 1860s. One cold tap served several families, as did the privy, which was just a hole in the ground with a rough wooden seat built around it. London was a grim place for the poor to live in and there were numerous homeless people who would huddle in deep doorways at night, wrapped up in newspapers or sacks to protect themselves from the bitter, inhospitable cold.

But in spite of the poverty, the public houses did a roaring trade and were open all day. It seemed that there was always money to be found for an alcoholic beverage.

To little Daisy Smith, so engrossed in her skipping in the street, the plight of the people worse off than she was not a worry. She lived above the corner shop which was run by her big sister Harriet nowadays, since their mother had become so crippled by rheumatism and had to spend her days in an invalid chair.

Daisy’s black stockings did not get darned and her scuffed old boots were never laced up quite correctly but she was clean and free of vermin and, most important of all, she never went hungry. Yes, Daisy was a happy little girl.

Just as Daisy had completed another skipping routine she noticed a thin ragged boy walk slowly past the shop and swiftly pinch a carrot as he went. Watching him shove the carrot into the pocket of his pants, Daisy was incensed. ‘Hey, you!’ she yelled, dropping her skipping rope and advancing towards him. ‘Put that carrot back!’

The freckled-faced boy was startled by her shout and after a moment’s hesitation turned to run. But Daisy was having none of it. She grabbed his bony arm and yanked it. ‘Put that back at once!’ she ordered.

The boy winced. ‘Let me keep it,’ he whined. ‘I’m just so hungry.’

Daisy was taken aback. ‘Hungry?’ she said. ‘Ain’t yer had no breakfast?’

The boy shook his head pathetically. ‘None, and no dinner yesterday, either,’ he whispered.

Daisy scrutinized him for a few moments with her big brown eyes. ‘All right, then,’ she finally said, ‘yer can eat it. I won’t tell nobody.’

The boy pulled the carrot from his trouser pocket and started to gnaw on it with frantic bites. He was obviously starving. And as he walked away, Daisy picked up her skipping rope and began to skip along beside him. ‘Yer don’t go to our school,’ she stated.

‘No, oi don’t go to school at all,’ the boy muttered.

As she heard the lilt in his voice, Daisy raised her eyebrows suspiciously. ‘Are yer Irish?’ she demanded.

‘Oi am that,’ the boy replied quietly, glancing at her sideways.

Daisy sniffed. ‘I’m not supposed ter speak wiff the Irish,’ she said loftily.

‘Well now, you can plaise y’self about that,’ the boy replied. He had finished the carrot and was beginning to quicken his pace.

Daisy was not going to be brushed off so lightly. She quickened her own pace and crept up closer. ‘Wot’s yer name?’ she asked.

‘Oi’m Jackie Murphy,’ the boy said with a note of pride. ‘Oi came o’er from Oirland tree weeks since and oi lives in me ould Granny’s house down the road.’

Daisy’s eyes widened. ‘Coo!’ she cried. ‘Not at number nine? That dirty old ’ouse wiff all them kids innit?’

The boy suddenly looked deflated.

‘Sure, that’s the place,’ he replied, dropping his head. ‘We’ve just come o’er and we’re terrible poor. I’m going t’get me a job down the market, so I am. Well, at laist I’ll have a try,’ he added with some uncertainty.

‘Ow old are yer, then?’ asked Daisy.

‘Oi’m twelve, nearly tirteen,’ Jackie replied.

‘Same age as me,’ said Daisy, spinning around on her toes. ‘Let’s be pals, and I’ll pinch yer a carrot ev’ry day from my muvver’s shop.’

So on this promise began the life-long friendship between Daisy Smith and Jackie Murphy, a friendship that was to travel from the wretched back streets of London to a new land thousands of miles away and back again.

In those mid-Victorian days, the summer evenings seemed endless. The children played out in the street until well after the sun had gone down and the pavements had cooled after the heat of the day. These urchins never wore shoes or stockings. The girls were mostly clad in long ragged cotton dresses while the boys made do with just a pair of well-patched pants. But they did not care what they wore. They laughed and screamed at each other, played ball, skipped and swung round the lamp posts, or simply sat on the doorstep of each other’s houses chatting and arguing. In one street alone there were probably fifty children so it was not surprising that when the weather was fine almost everything went on outside in the street.

While the children played outside, the corner pub was usually packed with their parents, the beer-swilling residents who occasionally fought each other after time. When the pub closed, there were always a few belligerent characters who had had too much to drink and who would provide further entertainment for the youngsters with their swearing and fighting until the police arrived to break up the disturbance.

Overall, life was not so bad, and Daisy Smith certainly had no complaints, especially now that she had her special new pal, Jackie Murphy. He was her secret. Every day she filled her pockets with his favourite treat, brandy balls, and then, as she nipped outside the shop where the boxes of vegetables had been laid out by her sister Harriet, Daisy would steal a nice big juicy carrot. Then, a few minutes later, Jackie would appear sidling stealthily past the shop in the knowledge that Daisy was waiting just around the corner ready to present him with her booty.

The children would then sit on the wall and talk, during which time Jackie munched noisily on the carrot like an old donkey. He was very appreciative of the food. After he had eaten a few brandy balls, he carefully placed the remaining ones in his ragged pants pocket. ‘I won’t eat ’em all,’ he would say. ‘Oi’ll save a few for our kids – they never gets any sweets.’

‘Why is it you are so poor and don’t gerr’ enough to eat?’ Daisy demanded one day with avid interest.

‘Because of the famine that’s been going on since before I was born,’ Jackie informed her.

‘But what’s a famine?’ Daisy’s sharp little face studied his quizzically.

‘The potatoes won’t grow,’ replied Jackie.

‘Well, then, why don’t you all eat somefink else?’ suggested Daisy.

Jackie looked sad. ‘We can’t live as we want,’ he said. ‘’Tis not our land any more.’

Daisy was losing interest. She was sucking on a big sweet and now she took it from her mouth to have a look at it. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and play wiff the ovver kids. They’re playing pork and beans.’

Jackie smiled. ‘It’s called what?’ he asked.

‘Pork and beans,’ repeated Daisy.

‘It goes like this.’ She began to chant in a very loud voice: ‘There was an old man from Botany Bay, What’d ’e ’ave for dinner today? Then you reply, “Pork and beans.” ’

The expression on Jackie’s face became gloomier and his freckles seemed to stand out against his pale skin. ‘I’ll never play that,’ he said, shaking his head. There was a strange defiance in his voice. ‘I don’t think you know anythin’,’ he shouted at Daisy. ‘You’re a very silly gel.’

‘No, I’m not!’ Daisy stamped her foot in temper. She was quite alarmed by Jackie’s outburst.

‘Don’t you know where Botany Bay is? That’s the place they sent me father.’

‘Whatever for?’ Daisy asked, lowering her voice and looking at him seriously.

‘It’s a penal colony in Australia,’ said Jackie, climbing down from his perch. ‘And one day I’m goin’ to find him. But now I must go. I haven’t the time to play with you anymore because tomorrow I start work.’ He looked around as he told her. ‘I’m goin’ to be a barrow boy and save up me money to go and see me father.’

At this announcement Daisy’s lip quivered and dropped but she wasn’t going to let Jackie see how she felt. ‘Right then,’ she said as cheerfully as she could. ‘I won’t have ter pinch yer any more carrots then.’

Jackie shrugged. ‘I’ll see you around, Daisy,’ he said lightly and sauntered off down the street.

After that day, Daisy often saw Jackie working the streets and pushing a coster barrow loaded with goods. It was clearly an effort and his thin legs seemed to bend under him as he went. She would see him in the early morning and sometimes very late in the evening but generally Jackie ceased to feature in Daisy’s world of skipping and street games, and she quickly forgot how close they had been in those early days.

 

While Daisy played, Jackie slaved to help feed his large family. Living in his grandmother’s house in addition to the horde of brothers and sisters, there were also two little cousins called Julie and Abbey. Their mother, Aunt Jane Kennedy, was in a mental institution. She had been sent there after she had tried to kill her last baby, when her husband had been tried, convicted and hanged in Ireland. So it was that these two flaxen-haired girls were now the responsibility of Jackie’s mother, Rita.

Rita Murphy was made of tough stuff. Years of hardship and poverty had never once weakened her extraordinary capacity for loving and protecting her family. When Rita’s own husband had recently been imprisoned and deported, she had fled to London with her family, determined to survive the famine. She was tall and dark and, while no raging beauty, she had fine dark eyes and walked those bleak streets of London with her head held high as a queen. A black shawl was pulled tightly around her thin shoulders and she took little notice of the indigenous residents of Willow Walk. They were all very suspicious of the Irish since they had been condemned as troublemakers by the illustrious young Queen Victoria.

And how Rita worked hard! Every day she would walk for miles to the big houses to scrub floors, peel potatoes and do any menial tasks that might bring in a little money to feed her own five children and her nieces. Now at last Jackie was earning some money, with Mick not far behind him, so there was a little bit more to survive on and perhaps life would brighten up a little after this terrible period of gloom.

2

Barrow Boy

In London’s East End stood Spitalfields Market, an imposing place in the dock area which had served Londoners since medieval times. Early in the morning, before the city was awake, huge wagons rolled in having made their way up from the countryside loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables grown in the fertile fields and orchards of rural Kent. From Essex, in the other direction, lumbered the big hay wagons and carts loaded with sacks of potatoes or grain, all of which was deposited at the huge market at Spitalfields.

A little later the traders arrived to inspect and buy the produce, which they would then sell in the small streets all around the town. The air was filled with noise from the carts rolling down the cobbled streets, the shouts of the buyers and the young barrow boys as they sped swiftly to and fro, pushing their overloaded coster barrows out of the market to their various places of business.

A feudal system still existed in this busy fruit and vegetable market. The barrows were owned by various wholesalers who employed the barrow boys. These boys were all under age and on a bonus system paid only for the amount of work done and each barrow-load brought its own reward depending on its weight and the time it took to deliver.

These ragged and mostly homeless little boys often slept under the stalls at night in order to get an early start in the morning. For there was as much competition between the boys as there was between the barrow owners themselves. Rushing frantically here and there, the boys swore and fought each other all day long and everywhere in the market coster barrows whizzed dangerously by as one lad or other determined to beat a colleague.

To this cut-throat and busy life came poor undernourished Jackie Murphy, not yet thirteen. Big Ed Sullivan looked down over his vast protruding belly at little Jackie who had come timidly asking for a job. Ed scrutinized the pale, freckled face under the shock of dark curls, flattened by a brown felt cap. ‘You don’t look strong enough, laddie,’ he said, shaking his head and walking away.

As Ed walked off, Jackie ran up to him and pulled at his jacket. ‘Please, sir,’ he begged. ‘Oi’m strong, so I am, just look at me muscles.’ He held out his thin arms, clenching his fists.

At the sight of Jackie flexing his little biceps, big Ed roared with laughter. Turning around, he looked at Jackie with a little more interest and bent down towards him. ‘Just come over, ’ave yer, boyo?’

Tears filled Jackie’s eyes as he looked reproachfully back at big Ed. ‘Six weeks ago,’ he whispered.

Big Ed glanced around and then held out his arm. ‘Come lad,’ he said. ‘I bet you could murder a meat pie.’ He led Jackie into a nearby tavern which was filled with men, noise and smoke. Edging their way through the crowd, Ed ordered a meat pie and two pints of ale.

‘There, lad,’ he said, banging down the glasses and pie on to a nearby table. ‘Just get that inside yer, then we’ll have a chat.’

Jackie munched the pie and gulped the ale thirstily, taking just enough time to draw his breath.

‘Don’t go away,’ said Ed, downing his beer in one go and then joining a crowd of men with whom he drank pint after pint. Between drinks his loud voice bellowed out across the tavern to all and sundry.

Jackie sat at the table waiting patiently until the bar was almost empty. The pie had filled his empty belly and the alé had gone to his head, giving him a most pleasant sensation. At last Ed came back. He was very drunk and patted Jackie roughly on the head. ‘Now, son, tell me ’ow’s tings are in the ould countree?’

‘’Tis pretty bad,’ replied Jackie and smiled. ‘I didn’t know that ye were Irish, Mr Sullivan,’ he whispered.

‘Ah well, laddie, we don’t advertise it since the last trouble but, me boyo, ’tis where me ould heart is. Oi’ve been in this stinkin’ town twenty years or more now.’

The two left the tavern and walked along together, big drunken Ed and thin little Jackie who related the story of his family’s flight from Ireland after his father had been sent to Botany Bay and his uncle had died in a military prison.

‘Ah, ’tis sad times,’ sighed Ed, shaking his big tousled head like a shaggy dog. ‘Now, ’tis to me own house you will come where we’ll have a dish of tay. We starts early in the morn’ down the market, and I’ve taken one too many and must get some rest.’

Jackie followed Ed through a maze of alleys until they reached a tumble-down place which looked no better than a shack. The yard outside was littered with parts of old barrows and piles of smelly socks. Inside the house it was dark and musty.

‘Oi’ll take me rest now,’ said Ed. ‘You can wet me a pot o’ tay when oi wakes up.’ He lay down on a rickety old bed of dark mouldy blankets and he was asleep and snoring within seconds.

Like an alert, faithful terrier, Jackie sat beside the open fire warming his bare feet and watching the large iron kettle come to the boil. He looked around him with interest. Books and papers littered the table and floor. There were two rickety old armchairs, a wooden shelf with a few crocks on it, and some fruit and a loaf of bread on the table. For a man in his position, Ed lived very poorly, and not cleanly either, decided Jackie, noting the grime on the table, but he stuck loyally to his post by the fire and felt strangely contented.

When the evening time came and Ed finally awoke, Jackie was there with a steaming mug of hot tea.

‘Well, oi’ll be damned!’ exclaimed Ed. ‘Tis the best mug o’ tay oi’ve had in years.’ He swung his huge feet to the floor and appreciatively sipped at the hot brew. ‘Take one yerself, laddie, there’s plenty tay and sugar,’ he said invitingly.

‘Well,’ Ed said later as he lit up his smelly old clay pipe, ‘it seems ye are a lad after me own heart and from Cork, did ye say? Well now, come tomorrer and oi’ll give ye a start. ’Tis hard work and them devils will plague ye, being Irish, but chin up, me lad, no one treads the shamrock in the sod.’

So Jackie had his first real job in England. As far as Ed was concerned, Jackie was the blue-eyed boy. He got the pick of the work and often the lightest of loads.

The other lads raced him and yelled, ‘Go home, Irish bastard!’ as they rushed past, but at the end of the first week he got ten shillings in tips. Jackie Murphy felt like a millionaire.

It was extremely hard work from early morning to late at night but the more he worked the stronger Jackie became. He could now afford to buy a meat pie and a pint. He also gave eight shillings to his mother to help to feed the family for he was the grown-up man of the house. He saved to buy secondhand boots to wear to Mass on Sundays though bare feet served the best purpose when he was running swiftly through the streets with a loaded barrow.

Come Sunday, with his trousers well pressed, a clean shirt on and wearing his newly acquired boots, Jackie was lord of all he surveyed. He liked Ed and he loved working in the market. But most of all, he was proud to be able to look after his family, as was expected of him.

 

One day when Jackie was almost sixteen, he swaggered into Mrs Smith’s corner shop to buy two ounces of brandy balls as a little treat for the other kids.

Behind the counter in that dimly lighted shop was Daisy. Her hair was piled up neatly on top of her head and she was wearing a neat shirt blouse with a high neck. At first she did not seem to know him. She demanded what he would like and began to put the brandy balls in the paper bag without a word. Then she looked and squinted at him. ‘Ain’t you that Irish boy, Jackie Murphy, from down the road?’ she said.

Jackie grinned cheekily. ‘The same fella,’ he replied with a laugh.

‘Blimey, you’ve come up in the world!’ Daisy remarked casually. ‘I remembers when yer used to pinch our carrots.’

Jackie frowned and looked offended. ‘That was years ago,’ he said rather defensively. ‘I work now. Oi’ve a good position down the market.’

‘Good for you,’ said Daisy with a cheeky grin, putting extra brandy balls into the bag. ‘And I’ve got this shop now since our Harriet got married.’

Jackie was interested and lingered a while. ‘I always come by this way on Friday nights,’ he said, hoping that Daisy would pick up the hint.

She did. ‘Come in, then,’ she said with her wide cheerful smile. Jackie noticed that where her mouth curved up, two dimples appeared. Her wide brown eyes were full of humour.

‘So I will,’ he said, and he always kept his word.

During the next six months Jackie went regularly to chat to Daisy on his way home on Friday nights. With his wages in his pocket, he always felt rather full of himself and he was always pleased to see Daisy and impress her.

Sometimes when the shop closed the two of them stood chatting outside under the lamplight. Jackie could not help noticing how Daisy’s nice shirt blouse grew tighter as she matured and grew more shapely. His blue eyes glowed as he looked at the little high bosoms which stuck out so provocatively. One night he gave her a swift kiss on the lips.

Daisy yelped and aimed a quick blow at him. ‘You stop that, Jackie Murphy!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t be so cheeky!’

Jackie glanced at her sideways and smiled. ‘Come for a walk on Saturday night?’

Daisy nodded gleefully, her outrage forgotten. ‘Yeh! I’ll meet you round the corner.’

And so their young love affair began. Every Saturday night Daisy quietly shut up the shop and called out to her mother: ‘Won’t be long, Muvver, just goin’ for a walk.’

Her poor mother, confined to a wheelchair, could only fuss and bluster about not staying out late. Then Jackie and Daisy would walk hand in hand down to the quiet area where the factories were all closed and silent for the weekend. It was here they learned and shared the secrets of life as Jackie fondled her high bosoms and pressed her close to him, while Daisy’s lips parted in passion. It was a long hot summer and their love was young and very sweet. Neither could have wanted anything or anyone else, Daisy was Jackie’s girl, and the one he would love for almost all of his life.

Daisy’s mother was not pleased and she grumbled at Daisy. ‘Now you stay away from that Irish lad,’ she would warn. ‘Bloomin’ trouble, they is. An’ wot time did yer get in last night? Slept in me chair, I did. Didn’t have nobody ter ’help me inter me bed.’

‘Sorry, Muvver,’ mumbled Daisy. She felt uncomfortable because she was already full of guilt because of the sex complications between her and Jackie. It wasn’t as heavenly as she had hoped, but no one was ever going to turn her against him.

When sister Harriet came visiting one day with her new Sunday School teacher husband, she was concerned to hear what was going on. ‘Daisy,’ she said, ‘that boy Jackie is a Roman Catholic and they are the worst. They says prayers to idols, they does.’

‘Oh, shut yer big mouff!’ sniffed Daisy. ‘I’m old ’nuff to know me own mind.’

‘You’ll get in the family way and then whose goin’ to mind the shop and take care of Muvver?’ demanded Harriet.

‘That’s your worry,’ replied Daisy. ‘Anyway, I’m getting married as soon as I’m eighteen.’

‘Yer can’t,’ jeered Harriet. ‘Got to wait till yer twenty-one.’

‘Well, I won’t see,’ said Daisy. ‘I’ll run away.’

This familiar squabble began every time the two sisters saw each other but Jackie and Daisy ignored Harriet and continued to grow very close.

Daisy was now a head taller than Jackie and her body big and muscular. Her skin was white and her hair a deep shining auburn. At seventeen she was a real beauty and many men looked in her direction. But Daisy Smith had eyes for no one but her successful barrow boy, lively little Jackie Murphy.

Jackie was now Ed’s right-hand man. He had taken charge of the barrows, checked the loads and paid out the wages. Ed had become obese in the past few years; he sat outside the tavern, his beer jug beside him, his old nose quite red and bulbous. He wore a greasy leather waistcoat and a hard square-topped hat. Around his fat neck he always wore a bright green kerchief.

By the end of each day, chock-full of ale, Ed would start to sing rebel Irish songs such as ‘The Fenian Boys’ or ‘Foggy Foggy Dew’ which then resulted in him being pelted with bad oranges by rival barrow boys. Whenever this happened, Jackie would be there to defend his mentor, indulging in fisticuffs and delivering black eyes left, right and centre.

‘Jackie, me boyo, yer me champion,’ Big Ed would say as the boy escorted him home. ‘And anything I got is yours when I leave this rotten world.’

That winter Ed was confined to his bed. Jackie’s mother, Rita Murphy, went down to care for him and clean his house. As Ed sat up in his bed gasping for his breath, he would watch Rita’s tall graceful shape doing the chores.

‘’Tis a foine woman, ye are,’ he said. ‘And a real good laddie is Jackie. There’s money hid in the chimney stack. Use it to send me home to the auld country to be buried and the rest is yours. I already told Jackie that the business will be his.’ Ed wheezed as he struggled to hold on to life.

‘Whisht now,’ snapped Rita. ‘Don’t ye be talking nonsense. Ye’ll be foine when the spring comes round.’

Ed seemed to know that his time had come and would not hear otherwise. Then one morning, Rita arrived to find Ed’s pipe cold in his stiff mouth.

Jackie wept for his old pal and benefactor. He was heart-broken to lose Big Ed but now also excited to be his own boss.

Rita pulled down a brown paper parcel from the chimney breast. Opening it up she found three hundred pounds. ‘Dear God!’ she exclaimed, as she finished counting. ‘What shall we do with it?’

‘’Tis yours, if Ed said so,’ said Jackie. ‘He had no kin. He just wanted us to send him home to be buried in Ireland.’

Rita looked at that sooty bundle of notes. ‘We’ll arrange that for him,’ she said quietly. She paused in thought. ‘And then we will all go to find Da in Australia, for now we can really afford it.’

Jackie’s freckled brow crossed in worried lines as he heard his mother’s decision. His own thoughts were on his lovely happy-go-lucky Daisy. He was not at all sure that he could leave her behind. She was as yet too young to be married. But he did not say a thing to his mother whose eyes were shining brightly at the thought that she might be reunited with her beloved husband.

That night on the park bench Jackie and Daisy huddled close. Daisy held out her hand to admire the small diamond engagement ring which Jackie had just bought her.

‘We will save up to get married,’ she said, ‘and move out of this nasty district to someplace a bit posher.’

Jackie stroked her fair arm and looked sad. ‘Me ma is bent on goin’ to Australia to find me Da. I don’t think she will go without me.’

‘She’s goin’ ter Australia?’ cried Daisy, suddenly very disturbed. ‘You can’t go and leave me, Jackie, I’ll die if you do.’

‘It’s not easy to die,’ said Jackie, rather defensively. ‘Anyway, you can follow on once I’ve established meself out there.’

‘Oh, but Jackie!’ Daisy threw her strong arms around him. ‘You can’t go, I won’t let you go,’ she cried.

‘Now, now,’ Jackie soothed her. ‘Don’t be upsetting yerself, nothing’s settled yet.’

They went to lie down in the tall green grass out of sight of the road. Daisy’s long curvy body pressed close to him. ‘Do it proper this time, Jackie,’ she whispered. ‘Then I’ll get a baby and you won’t ever leave me.’

‘No, no, sweetheart,’ cried Jackie as he shivered with passion. ‘We must still be careful, I don’t want to leave you with a child and I must go with my mother because I promised years ago that I would.’

Daisy’s hips quivered as tears pricked her eyes. How cruel fate was to do this to her just when the course of her life had seemed so sure and clear! She turned her head towards Jackie and sobbed quietly into his chest.

3

Refugees

It was a cold and dreary evening in the dockside town of Bremerhaven. A deep cold biting wind swept and howled over the harbour. It seemed an uninviting place yet it was a true haven for the Jewish families huddled together in those wretched wooden huts, perched high up on the windy hill facing the cold grey North Sea. For here were gathered the refugees at the end of their flight from Russian persecution. After the long trek through the deep snows to Poland, camping out in primitive lodgings, and the dark nights of terrible fear, they came over the border to Germany to this safe harbour. There, one could, if there were sufficient funds, get on a ship to America, the land of milk and honey, where a Jew had the freedom to live, work and practise his religious beliefs without persecution and where it was said that all men were equal.

Such had been the fate of the Feldamanski family. Now on this cold December night they all huddled around a small wood fire, coughing as the acrid smoke filled the room because there was no proper outlet for it, and the door and window were stuffed with old papers and sacks to keep out the frost.

In one large room with beds in every corner and a central stove, Rebecca Feldamanski sat nursing her youngest child, a babe of just two years, born on that long hazardous flight from Russia. Rebecca’s face was grey and haggard as she thought of that terrible night when she had seen her own friends butchered by the mounted Cossacks who were trampling the small children into t