The Long Walk Home Read Online Free PDF

the lash of his belt.
    The seamen had plied her with drink, urging her to have another and then another. She accepted two and then offered to go up to the bar counter to collect a further jug of ale. 'I know 'landlord,' she'd said with a wink. 'He knows me.'
    There was much ribald comment on this remark and as she'd leaned over to collect the jug from the table she'd felt a rough hand up her skirt. She'd opened her palm for money for the ale and smiled sweetly at the bleary-eyed seamen who dropped in the coins. She bought the ale and asked the landlord to top up her gin glass with water, slipping the change into her skirt pocket.
    She poured them all a glass of ale, then tossed back her gin and water and, with a little hiccup, swayed towards the door. 'Shan't be long,' she slurred. 'Must just go outside.' She blew them a kiss. 'Don't go away.'
    She had run to the next street and into another hostelry, where she had again met up with a group of seamen. 'Just looking for a friend,' she said, leaning provocatively over them. 'Have you seen her? Fair hair, pretty, dressed in a blue shawl?'
    'No, darling, but come and join us until she turns up,' they'd insisted. 'You shouldn't be on your own. It's not safe.' And once again she had felt their wandering hands and escaped with their loose change, but by then she had partaken of a generous accumulation of gin, which this morning was causing her headache.
    She stretched and considered having a lie-down on her parents' bed. It was more comfortable than her own pallet, which at night-time she unrolled in front of the fire. Her brothers too had either a pallet or a blanket, whilst their two youngest sisters slept at the bottom of their parents' bed.
    Her father hadn't come home last night and she surmised that he was either under a table in one of the inns or bedded down in some woman's room. 'I'll risk it,' she murmured. 'I'll just have ten minutes.'
    She dropped off to sleep in minutes and an hour later was rudely awakened when her father crashed in through the door. He didn't notice her, and perched on the edge of the bed to take off his boots, which he threw across the room. He tore off his trousers and fell back on the mattress clad in only his grey shirt. Then he saw her.
    'What you doing?' He glared at her. 'Is it Bridget?'
    'Yes, Da.' She pulled the blanket up to her chest. 'I didn't feel well so I came to lie down.'
    He grabbed hold of her arm. 'Where's your ma?'
    'Gone to look for work.' She bit nervously on her lip. Please God, don't let him be violent.
    He gave her a smack across the face. 'That's where you should be instead of your ma.' He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. 'Go and look for her. Tell her I want her back here.'
    'What if she's in work, Da?' Bridget rose hastily from the bed.
    Her father gazed narrowly at her. 'Then you come back; and bring me a jug of ale.'
    'Yes, Da.' She had no intention of doing so, or of searching for her mother. Too often had she listened to her cries when she had been forced into the marital bed by a drink-sodden, abusive husband. No, she would wander the streets until she was sure that her father had had time to drop off to sleep, and then she might or might not return home, depending on what else was on offer.
    I'll not lead a life like my mother's, she pondered as she went out of the narrow Todd's Entry and headed towards Silver Street, where bankers and silversmiths and their well-to-do customers didn't even notice the poor who lived amongst them. She passed the White Harte Tavern and on impulse turned back and went inside. The landlord eyed her keenly. He didn't like lone women in his inn.
    'Give me a neat gin and a slice o' bread and beef.' Bridget handed him some coins. 'Don't worry. I'm not stopping.'
    She drank the gin in one gulp and waited whilst he carved the beef and put it on a slice of bread. Then she took it without a word and went outside. She slid round the corner of the building and sat on the step to the side door,