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clothes reverentially.
    A man had stayed well-dressed but for his dropped trousers. A pair of glasses balanced on the end of his nose. Constance turned a face that wished the whole thing was over with in Carmel’s direction. And saw her watching eyes and high colour to her cheeks.
    â€˜Show’s over, Johnny.’
    Jonathan Lawton, voice coach to stars and feather producer to would-be’s without the money to pay for his services, was busy pulling on his clothes, leaving the premises in seconds, not forgetting his feathers.
    â€˜I’m sorry, Constance,’ Carmel said.
    â€˜No need. He’ll be back and I’ll have to start charging him. But you should have bloody well knocked and saved us all a red face.’
    â€˜You told me not to.’
    â€˜I know what I told you. I didn’t tell you to sneak up on me. Who pays for the lion’s share of this palace? Who?’
    Constance did not finish. Carmel had slid into a pile as neat as that of Constance’s clothes.
    *   *   *
    The fire in her belly was what woke her. She let out a scream that brought Constance into the bedroom.
    â€˜I have work you know, Carmel, I’m late as it is.’
    Carmel folded up and clutched at the cramping pain.
    â€˜I’m burning!’ she screamed. ‘I’m burning inside!’
    Constance pulled back the bedclothes to find what she expected – the sheets bloodstained.
    â€˜Look at the cut of you! Well at least you didn’t have to pay for it.’
    Hours later a slither of deadness was delivered without a doctor into Constance Trapwell’s hands. It had been a boy. Constance blessed it with water from the kitchen tap.
    â€˜God forgive a heathen like me doing this,’ said Constance, and flushed it into the London sewer.
    When the doctor finally came he advised bed rest for a fortnight. Once he had left, Constance set the terms, ‘If you’re not up in a fortnight you’re out. I’ve nowhere else to bring them as yet, but here.’
    Carmel got up four days later. Constance helped her to find work cleaning, in the early hours of each day while the world still slept. She knelt and with each circle of the wire brush rubbed out the face of the dead child staring at her. She begged those inside her not to talk so loudly in case others overheard talk of her badness. Those that did encountered only a strange woman on her knees, a stream of talking and scrubbing.
    During the day she cleaned whatever mess Constance and her men had made.
    When Constance learned Carmel could barely read or write she said, ‘You ought to write home. I’ll write a letter for you and you tell me what to say.’
    Carmel sent a letter to Noreen Moriarty, care of the post office, requesting it not be delivered to the house.
    Mammy.
    All’s well here. I am in London and settled. Here is my address. The baby is gone.
    Carmel.
    She did not write one to Eddie. How could she when she had lost their child through her badness?

5 ∼ Meeting with the End
    C ONSTANCE T RAPWELL had advanced in the world, though not in her chosen profession.
    Carmel, hidden now entirely under the beat of Constance’s wing, had moved with Constance to a small but tastefully appointed place of residence in Shepherd Market, W1, a stone’s throw and a far cry from Soho. It was a place where the more select women paid court to the more select gentlemen.
    â€˜It’s an honour to be here,’ Constance reminded Carmel. ‘Two girls from the bog, one posh accent between them. Strap me up.’
    Constance would write letters for Carmel, which went unanswered. Still Carmel would ask her to write and she would watch as her words were put on to the page, as if a miracle was happening.
    Once or twice the mistress had to take Carmel to task for answering the door to the men barefoot.
    â€˜Giving them the wrong impression altogether, Carmel, with those big feet of yours. Keep your