Polly's Pride Read Free Page A

and unpredictable. Besides, hadn’t he had a bellyful of fighting, enough to last him a lifetime? Let someone else take on this battle.
    He lifted up eight-year-old Benny and told him to be a good lad and sit still for once, then helped twelve-year-old Lucy climb aboard. She went at once to take hold of Polly’s hand.
    ‘Don’t worry, Mam. It’ll be over soon. They’ll be doing Jersey Street tomorrow, then Hood and Blossom Street. Row by row, everyone will have their turn.’
    ‘Stay close, mind. I want naught to happen to the pair of you.’ As she spoke, Polly glanced anxiously about for her young son, but he was happily nattering to his friends.
    Reaching up, Matthew planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘Nowt will happen to either of them. Stop your fretting. Its only the bug brigade, not the bloomin’ coppers.’
    ‘You daft bitch!’ A sudden shout rang out, making everyone in the truck lean over the sides and crane their necks to see what was going on. Dove Street was never short on entertainment.  
    ‘What the ... ?’ The body of a woman thudded against Matt, knocking the wind out of him and jarring his shoulder against the truck. Poor Mrs Murphy, suffering yet another bruising blow from her husband.
    ‘ You bloody whore !’ As Matthew bent to help the woman to her feet, she was whipped away from his hands and flung back with a loud crack as her head met the wall.
    ‘Hold on, what the blazes . . .’ But Matthew got no further as a fist connected with his nose; the kind of punch that left his teeth rattling and his head spinning. He could hear Polly screaming, and fought to keep consciousness even as he lunged for Murphy yet again. But he lost his balance and punched nothing but air.
    Then from the door of number five emerged one of the railway guards, who really oughtn’t to have been there at all, and would almost certainly have remained hidden had the fumigation squad not unexpectedly flushed him out, and Davey Murphy had not been deprived of his usual pint or two at the pub that evening. Murphy shook off Matthew as if he were no more than an irritating gnat.
    ‘So this is what you get up to woman while I’m out looking for work, day after bleedin’ day. You entertain your fancy man in me own bloomin’ house.’
    ‘I weren’t, he only called . . . But whatever it was he’d supposedly called for, they were never to discover. A scuffle broke out as the two men flung punches at each other, Davey Murphy connecting more than the guard who was getting the worst of it, being less practised in fisticuffs than the big Irishman.
    Then before anyone could guess what he was about to do, Davey swung round, letting fly at his wife with one balled fist. There was a terrible sound of crunching bones, a piercing scream, followed by a sickening thud as she fell to the ground,  
    ‘Dear God, he’s done for her.’
    Even as blood spurted and her arms stopped flailing to defend herself, the rain of blows and clamour of shouting and swearing did not let up until Matthew and the fumigation men finally managed, with great difficulty, to drag Davey off her. The winner and the loser of this terrible contest were by now patently obvious. Moments later it was the sound of police whistles that broke the awed silence which had descended on Dove Street.
    Davey Murphy was led away, no doubt to Strangeways, with his hands in cuffs and not a trace of remorse on his face. The children would be found places in an orphanage somewhere while his poor wife’s troubles were over at last, at least in this world.
    ‘Why do we live here?’ Polly said in a hoarse whisper, wanting to retch as she held her children protectively close, for all they had seen similar occurrences time and again. But for once there were no soft words of comfort from her husband, and his voice was uncharacteristically harsh as he answered her.
    ‘Because we’ve no choice.’
    Filled instantly with remorse and guilt over her fussing, which now seemed ridiculous