PART 1ROSIE RYAN
1929
chapterONE
MAY
Ask me anything about theFortitudeand my family’s journey across the Atlantic from Cork, a place I’ve never been. Not me nor my mother nor my granny nor even her mam. But I know every word of the story. Nobody should have to know as much about that journey as I do.
“How they survived, I’ve no idea,” Granny likes to tell, wearing that faraway gaze, though she was nowhere near that ship, ever. “Your great-great-grandmother, my own granny, you see, she told me the story so often it runs deep in my veins. Thicker than blood, it is. God rest her beautiful soul, she got the ship fever, she did, wit’ the reelin’ in her head, then her brain was like to burst, all wit’out the peppermint oil or nothin’. The devil was in the poor woman’s bones, no question of it. Her feet swelled, and her skin was covered in spots that went putrid, and ’twere nothin’ to be done.” She will sigh heavily. “Nothin’ at all.”
“So you’ve said, Granny,” I say every time. I’m nice about it, but really, how many times must I listen to this old story? To show I’ve been listening,I tell her the end of it. “And the women screamed so in childbirth that no one could hear a word anyone said. And the men heaved their guts out until they could scarce move.”
“That’s right,” she says, smug for having told the story so well before.
“Do you know what, Granny, you’ve told me all that more times than I can count, and it’s running deep in my veins now, too. There’s no need to tell me again.”
That last part I only said one time, because she slapped me silly when I did. She might give the impression that she’s fragile, but I’ll tell you, she still packs a wallop in that bent-up old hand of hers.
“You must be proud of your family,” she commands, her voice quaking like a priest in the heat of a sermon. “In your life, ’tis important you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the foresight to know where you are going, and the insight to know when you have gone. The Lord, in His infinite Mercy, guided our ancestors across the sea, God bless ’em, so’s we could live in this paradise. Don’t you ever forget it, girl.”
At this point in the conversation, she squints, daring me to ask my question. She knows what it is, just like she knows everything else.What exactly about this place is paradise?But see, I’m smarter than that. I only need to get slapped once, thank you. Truthfully, in my head, I’ve already stopped listening. ’Tis a grand story, but I’m an honest girl. I’ll tell you the truth right now about the boat and the sea and all their courage: I wish they hadn’t bothered. I’ve seen no evidence of paradise, not here in the broken-down misery of The Ward.
The old folk living here love to wax on about the good old days, living free in the emerald hills of Ireland, even though it sounds like they was all living hand to mouth on the leftovers of their English masters, crunching on what was left of the potatoes, then starving when they was all done. Sounds romantic and tragic, I’ll grant you, but me, I like to think of what’s ahead rather than what’s past. This grand city of Toronto, ’tis growing day by day, and in it I see myself. The old piles of bricks—barring the crumbling ones here in The Ward—they’re giving way to bold new buildings, and wealth is everywhere. That’s the very thing I want in my future.
My mother, God bless her soul, was like me. She liked to talk about what might be around the next corner.Out wit’ the old, she’d say. When she died, she was only twenty-three, six years more than I have. Thinking of that, I suppose I should change what I just said: She’s not like me. I’ve plans. I’m the kind of girl who watches the sunrise, never the sunset. I’ve no time for dying.
My two rotten brothers, Martin and Owen, care nothing for the past, nor the future, only now. They and their dirty group of troublemakers have quick fingers to find other men’s pocketbooks. The two of them are near identical and dress the same, so most of their marks can’t tell if they’re coming or going. They learned their craft from Mr. Simmons, the best thief around, when they were small and Da was working two jobs. My brothers can smell coins, I swear it. If I don’t wrap them carefully, all the corners of the kerchief tucked in tight, they’ll sniff them out. But they can’t pull one over on me. I caught them once, trying to find my stash—which they never did—and I gave them what they had coming, I did. They leave me alone now, since they know what I’d do if they tried any of that nonsense on me again. The two of them don’t come home all that often these days anyhow. It’s mostly me and Granny and sometimes Da.
If they’d dug a little deeper, they’d have found my hidey-hole. It’s simple enough: under my bed and under a loose floorboard, in a small wooden box. That’s where I keep my coins. There’s not many, but there’s more every week. Someday, I’ve promised myself, I’ll need a bigger hiding place.
Two years ago, I worked in the laundry at the Queen’s Hotel in that old dame’s final year. People claimed she’d gotten a bit shabby, but I never saw it in her. Compared to the room I share with my family, I’d be happy enough living in a cupboard in one of them rooms. The thing about the Queen’s is that, like I said earlier, the city’s getting richer. They want new and better, and more while you’re at it, so they knocked the old girl over and took away the bricks.
The new hotel—the Dominion, they’re calling it—will have a thousand rooms when it’s done.A thousand rooms.Think of that, would you? Andtwenty-eight floors. I can’t picture that, but I have been watching closely, ever since they cleared out the space where the Queen’s used to be. Been watching the construction, starting with the foundations, far below the ground.
I will be seeing those twenty-eight floors from the inside soon enough, when they hire me on. That I can promise. The Dominion will have some of those electric washing machines, I bet. Those would have been nice to have at the old Queen’s. But it don’t matter much to me now, does it? I’m not interested in even one more day in the laundry. I’ve got more ambition than that. My plan is to be a chambermaid there.
“Rosie!”
That’s Bianca. I peer down through the broken pane of our bedroom’s only window.
“Evening, Bianca!”
“You coming out?”
I don’t answer because we both know I’m already on my way. She and I, we know all there is to know about one another. As Granny says, I’ve known her since her boots cost fourpence. I only stopped in here first because I had to hide the pennies I got paid for running laundry up to Mrs. Pritchard’s house. These days I do what I can to make some money, since the Queen’s is gone.
I hop down the stairs, shove my shoulder against the front door, and step into the street. There’s a crash down the alley, then the yowling of a cat. Sure, and I’ve heard that blessed cat almost every night of late. Must be a tom, and he’s found a lady friend in heat. Every night he yowls, then a woman shouts at him, and the cat screams back. It’s happening right now. It could go on this way for a good long time, but then I hear a dog bark, and the story heads farther away.
“Such a beautiful night,” I sigh, holding out my hand.
Bianca tucks a cigarette between my fingers and sticks another between her lips. I pull out my matches.
“How was it today?” she asks, and we both lean into the little flame.
She’s talking about my daily visits to the construction site.
“The outside’s practically done. They’ll be hiring soon.”
